Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Maria Semple: Tips From Maria II
Maria Semple is our prospect research contributor, The Prospect Finder, and has a new book: “Magnify Your Business.” She shares more wisdom for your nonprofit, continuing our conversation from December 18th.
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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 bear the pain of sphincter al gia if you kicked my butt with the idea that you missed today’s show tips from maria too re a simple is our prospect research contributor the prospect find her and she has a new book magnify your business. She shares her wisdom again for your non-profit continuing our conversation from december eighteenth on tony’s take two thank you, responsive by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com so glad maria simple in the studio again she’s the prospect find her she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com, and her new book is magnify your business tips, tools and strategies for growing your business or your non-profit she’s, our doi and of their cheap and free you’ll find her on twitter at maria simple maria so glad you in the studio again. I am so glad to be here again. Thank you. Oh my pleasure um, we’re continuing our conversation from that december eighteen show about your book, we weii wrapped up that last conversation with in person networking conversation. So let’s, go back online now and talk some about email, email not dead, right email is not dead, not dead. Absolutely it actually has a ah hyre r o i return on investment than ah then social media does it’s it’s the highest r o i and part of the reason for that, tony, is that social media, as wonderful as it is and i love social media, it requires the user right to actually be sitting in front of their computer or in front of their that requires for them tio or even their mobile phone to go to those social sites right to get your interesting information. So so even about your show, right? So you get information out about your show through email and through through ah facebook and social soder you’re right, but if i’m not in front of, if i haven’t checked into to facebook or twitter and that was the only way i was relying on getting news about your show than i might miss something important information you have. The app open right? Exactly, so but email we’re all checking email throughout the day, and, you know, as much email is we all get it’s still the best way, because now you’re you’re pushing your information directly into somebody’s in box, they may or may not read it, but at least you’re still showing up there consistently, and people are not going to opt out, you know, even if if they’re if they’re not going to be around for a week and not be able to hear your show or something, they may not open the e mail to get the details aboutthe show, but nevertheless that doesn’t mean they’re going to opt out because they still want to get info about the show. What the same thing about for non-profits right? So you want to have that that ability to stay engaged with people, um and it’s a great way to tell your stories and then to become a better story teller and i know you’ve had a number of guests on that talk about storytelling in the importance, and that is just such a fantastic way throughout the year to stay engaged with people so many times. Donorsearch eh, you know, the only time we ever hear from that organization is when they’re asking for money, you know? Well, why not take those stories and start giving them a story a month about what has happened or a success in the organization? People will you know what they want to continue funding something that’s successful people want t see yu stay successful, nobody wants to fund a sinking ship, right? So, um, so great great way to use it, it’s tio, to use e mail to do that, okay? And people are ah, as long as you’re respecting what they’ve given you permission to send there’s another reason they’re not going to opt out is because they did give you that e mail and we talked in december about having ah box, where people making it very accessible for people to give you their email address once have given it to you as long as you’re respecting their permissions, right? That they gave you write the likely to them opting out is very, very smart, and i think if you’re not overly communicating to people, one thing sometimes i see non-profits do, unfortunately is they want to. Cram all this information and i have so much to say, and so the email ends up becoming super super long. So does anybody really read a very long abila probably not know, right? So you have to be able to take and maybe maybe you need to send out two a month, you know, one more focused on events that have been happening, another one focused on a success story, you know? So you have to think about that communications strategy, um and, you know, be really clear about it, but yeah, it’s about permission based marketing. This is about people who have explicitly opted into your list because they’ve given you their email address in some way, shape or form. Or maybe they’ve attended a gn event that you’ve done or a volunteer training or something like that. So because you’ve had that we’ll call it business exchange, you are able to then add their name to your database. Oh, you think you think it’s okay to do without explicitly asking if if they’re attending? Yeah. So if they’re if they’re attending an event, um, one of your events? Yeah, if you’re okay, right? Right. So if you have a bunch of people attending one of the year non-profit events on then? Certainly. You know they can. They can be put into the database. Okay, okay. Yeah, i have. Ah, i have a friend is a guy i know. Personally, he does two things. He imports olive oil from italy, and he also is ah, singer and i opted into his olive oil list because i had bought. And i bought olive oil for myself and friends and my family around christmas time. And then he got to the point where he was in some music competition, you know, online competition, vote for the winner. You know, vote get the most number of votes and he’s going to get i forget what the prize was. Um, but he got he got carried away with using the olive oil list to promote the vote online. And it was coming down too. Every four hours, i think. Wow, because you could vote that often. Well, he had these auto emails coming to the olive oil list for the for the songs for the music competition, and people told me that they that they opted out of a unsubscribes themselves and some of them were clients, two of them were clients. Why given the olive oil to as a gift around the holidays? And they signed up for his list because they had his olive oil, and they unsubscribes when he crossed over from olive oil, the music that they didn’t give him permission, right email about music now it’s perfectly fine for him to have one email service provider company, but segment those lives, of course, just segment them that’s it, i mean, and that’s the beauty of using a service that allows you to do that level of segmentation, you know? And then, you know, even when the person went to hit the opt out if he if they had, if he had it, perhaps at least then given the option to say, you know, if you know, why are you leaving us? Would you like to receive less email? Click here for the lists you’re interested in staying connected to then your friends might have stayed and said, i only want theo, but he didn’t have that sophisticated didn’t have the separate lifts, right? Yeah, now he was aggregating and that was a mistake and those were just the people who told me so right? Yeah, you’ve got it here too. Like you said, there are rules. It’s a kansas family way won’t even talk about the law yet we’ll get there. Let’s go there right now. But we were just talking about what individual people give you. Permission, teo teo to send them email about right? Let’s, go out a little early for a break. When we come back, we’ll talk about the laws can spam, etcetera around emails stay with us 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 durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Maria let’s, let’s move to the legal legal side with his can spam act what we need to know about yeah, so i mean, google it, you get all the information you want, but i’ll give you some of the basic highlights of what you have to have in place to be known as a permission based email marketer. One of the things is you have to have that one click opt out opportunity that that’s safe unsubscribes button has to be clearly accessible to people it’s, usually at the bottom of every e mail. Also at the bottom of every e mail, you have to have your physical address where the company is based, so that has to accompany all of your e mail marketing. You have to have a clear, concise subject line and not not be a misleading subject line. There’s certain things that’ll kind of get you routed to a spam box if you put them in the subject line of there’s there’s a lot of conversation now around the word free free always used to get you into ah spam box, but i’ve talked to some people who have been doing email marketing that say they are using the word free like you no, come to my free seminar or whatever, and they are putting it in there and it is getting too in boxes, so i don’t know, maybe the maybe more sophisticated, some yeah, something’s happening, okay, but basically look at your own spam boxes and whatever words you’re seeing being used in those subject lines. Just stay away from using all of those on and there’s lots of articles that you can find online as well. You know how to structure, subject, line and so forth, so can’t be misleading. So they’re a couple of other things, and actually for any of our listeners who are in canada or marketing to people in canada, there laws are even more strict than the laws in the united states. S o you want to stay compliant with what is called castle csl? Think it’s called canadian anti spam legislation are even more strict than the u s laws are. So especially if any we have any listeners who are, you know, bordering the canadian ah yeah, the and you, you might have. Some, some, some donors or people that are you know, you’re communicating to make sure that you are staying compliant with castle. Okay, now we can give a shout out to a constant contact. You do you do work with them, right? You’re a certified guru, you know, grand, high exalted mystic ruler with with that’s the honeymooners reference with the constant contact. Yeah, i’m one of their authorized local experts. So i do go around and do a lot of talks around email marketing, best practices, you know, things to do not to do to get yourself in trouble. Um, so yeah, i really enjoyed that i enjoy my affiliation with them very much, and i’m also one of their master certified solution providers. So i help my clients actually implement those strategies. Go that’s what i saw maybe think of grand high exalted mystic ruler master service stressed mannion master certified as a certified party metoo downgrade us strategic command. Whatever i said, ok don’t even listen to myself. I don’t know what i’m saying. I don’t pay attention. I don’t know why others do you gotta do okay, so since you’re mss p m c s p q. R s you got any advice around a subject line? Testing? You know, how do we get the best subject lines? So you want to think about keeping your subject lines pretty short? About five to eight words. Ah, most pete, a lot of people around it’s hovering around the sixty percent mark right now, people are opening their emails or looking at e mails on mobile devices. So it’s super important to test your your email. Make sure you preview send it to yourself. Look at it on the computer. Look at it on your mobile device. I have a colleague who has a different mobile device. Take a look at it as well. Um, so about five to eight, words is good. The most important words should be upfront. So if the ah, you know, the meet of what you’re trying to say is like, you know, the eighth word out, people are really there. We call it the to the rule of the two two to rule. Right? You two seconds to get somebody’s attention. The first two words matter most. And you have to be able to demonstrate to them why it’s important today that they opened that email. Okay. Yeah, i see. I see valuable oppcoll real estate in that subject line. Wasted sometimes when the now i didn’t know that too. You know, first two words of support, but the wasted something like announcing my war here is my you know, no kidding. I mean, you know, it’s, cut that out. You know, it’s, just use this if it’s free, you know grayce seminar next week don’t say announcing my seminar next week, which is free, right? And then there’s an area underneath the subject line known as pre header text, which typically on lee shows up a mobile devices. So that that’s pretty cool. That’s? Um, extra real estate? Yeah, the pre header. Yeah. You see that? And some people don’t use that. You’ll see. It’ll say just something perfunctory. Like to view this best to view this online in better form matter. Something whatever you like here. Yeah, but how do you get to that pre formatted? How’d you get to that? Protect so in email service providers like constant contact it’s actually in the header options it’s underneath the subject line, you can actually put another line. Think of it. As a subject line, point to point oh, yeah, right. Ok, so, it’s gonna depend on what provider you’re using, right? You want to look for that real estate? Yeah, you want to look for that really stayed in your head or options so that you can actually put it in there. And and as i said, it’s, mostly just viewable on mobile devices, but it is going to give you that option, that opportunity, because in a mobile device, you’re going to see the from line. So who it’s from the next line is the subject line in the third line is is valuable real estate now, too. So you want to think, you know, you know, how do we want to appear in a new in box? Because people who are there in boxes are so incredibly crowded and you’re competing against everybody else trying to get their attention especially, you know, around, you know, holiday time or giving tuesday time. So, you know, think now you know, this is january think now to win, you’re going to be running you’re giving tuesday campaign in november, start thinking about interesting subject lines that you’re going to use leading up to giving tuesday. How can you tweak that subject line? How can you tweak that pre header text to build some excitement leading up to giving tuesday? You’ve got plenty of time, no excuses. That’s. True. Yes, eleven months. Okay. No, no. Cool. Alright, that’s. Yeah, the subject line. Very interesting to me. Um, yeah, now we i think this is sort of subsumed in what we’re just saying, but you know why? Outlook is not the best. Teo, just be sending mass e mails from, you know, because all these features which you don’t get all the features, first and foremost, you’re not staying compliant with the can spam law, right? So when you’re sending out so you don’t footer the unsubscribes none of that is there, and then what what you’re doing is if you’re sending it out through your outlook account, typically you’re only sending it out and what batches of fifty or maybe a hundred is not going to allow bigger batches, right? Exactly. But what’s happening is even if from let’s say, i send une email out and i’m sending it in batches of fifty i might send it to myself. You have to maria at the prospect finder dot com and put everybody else as blind copy, right? So you think, okay, i’m you know i’m good because i’m not showing everybody’s email address and so that everything’s cool, but it’s not because the computers receiving those emails can detect that there are fifty other blind copies attached to this and the computer’s receiving them, right? Theis peas receiving them. Say, well, wait a minute, hold on a minute. This looks like it could be spam. I’m not going to put this e mail in your inbox. Tony, i’m going to take this email and i’m gonna put it in your spam folder because they can see that it’s attempted the bcc. Yes, he could be hurting yourself. So yeah. So you’re thinking your emails are getting through to somebody’s in box and there’s a pretty good chance that that’s been routed to somebody. Spam. I don’t know. I don’t know about you, but i never check it. Yeah, rarely. And i’m scanning it. You know, there’s hundreds there. I’m looking, you know, probably the first dozen or something. I remember the dark days of non-profit radio five and a half years ago. When i was doing the email blast, and even before that, when i when i had my own, when i was doing email newsletters and i would send them out in batches of sometimes one hundred or ninety eight worked. But then yahoo was the back end, then they would change their algorithm, so ninety eight wouldn’t work. I have to go to, like forty seven or something forty nine and i’d be doing that like twenty times to get the thousand round. How long duvette state are? Oh my god, it was ridiculous! Yeah, i took it an hour, but then you also had no idea who received it. You don’t know that none of the three analytics air gone you don’t you don’t you don’t know who received it. Who opened it? Who clicked? Where was their interests? Right? You know what? What were they interested in in reading about rates? Not well. Click to your website. That’s that’s. Super important have none of that much more sophisticated and well let’s not get carried away. I’ve gotten better. We’ll put it that way. But now i know i use use male chimp for for the for the weekly email alerts for the show, right? So, i mean, you have to use something you have to use some sort of a system that’s going to give you those back and athletics and keep you compliant with all the laws. I mean, you and i, we don’t want to be known a spammers. I’m sure all your listeners in the non-profit arena, they don’t want to be known as a spammer. No, of course. Right, right. Let’s, you have some tips about, like, finding the best email service provider. We talked about that. Well, i mean so it depending on what your you know what you can afford to do and not dio it really will depend. So for some organizations who don’t have ah ah, high level of sophistication and how to use email marketing. It’s super important that they have somebody to call, right? So male chip, for example, of my understanding is there’s. A email is the way way to go about rittereiser carpet for me, but right, right, so that you know so they live chat to write. Okay. So live chat where’s with constant contact there’s an eight hundred number to call. So you get a live person bragging about? No, no, but you know what i’m saying, but it’s, no milk for some people’s chimp it’s a chip don’t don’t beat up on the trip, but for some pizza. Dora borton, it’s tohave the phone service for right, right? Yeah, depending on you know how, how sophisticated you know how much experience you have? We’ll go with using these so so customer support, whatever that is. So just explore customer support options because that might be important to you. So understanding, you know, are you paying by the number of emails that you park in the system? Are you paying by the number of emails you’re sending on a monthly basis so there are there are fees based on, you know, how how often you’re using the system in some cases? Okay, um, you want teo, you wantto make sure you have all those back end analytics and the other thing that that you want to make sure that you can do is take your emails and integrate them with your social media. Good let’s go there, okay, so super important that that you’d be able to do that so so as an example. When i send out my newsletter on my monthly newsletter or where i’m going to be speaking, or whatever that simultaneously, when i set up and schedule for that email to go out it let’s, say, ten a m tomorrow, it will simultaneously post it to my twitter, my facebook and my linked in accounts so that right opposite the post what is a post that act? A link to that newsletter? Okay, so so now people who are not even subscribed to that database to my email newsletter are going to be seeing it because they might be following me on one of those other social media channels, so they still get access to the newsletter, you know, with all the branding. Oh, so your newsletter is sitting somewhere on your site. So the newsletter every newsletter that you send out is an actual girl? Not sure. Funeral no ideo for so yes. So it’s a girl. So it’s basically it’s that earl is what’s getting shared amongst all those social sites. So you want to be able to do that and it’s a huge time saver to be able to simultaneously set up that send to have it. All done. Send post done. You know, it’s it’s just it’s out there for you. And are you able to format what is posted on the social sites simultaneously is not just a canned correct here’s maria’s latest newsletter, right? So you would so you know, your your voice in twitter might be a little different than your ass in the other social networks. I’m also the photo that you decide to attach with that post because photos we know get ah hyre engagement on social media. So you do want to select some sort of a photo that captures the essence of that post? Eso you draw that right out of your in my case, i dropped right out of my constant contact photo library and i posted at the same time. Okay. Okay. Excellent. Um, emails. Good. So it’s important. So anything else you want to say about email before we we pursue something else? I know what you know. I think that you know, just as long as people are doing it and my my maquis message around it is it’s not dead because it’s still the hardiest r a y for for your money is right. In the inbox. So right in the box. Okay, all right, now you have a chapter that is devoted to what your primary work is. Prospecting expanding your your networks on dh you’re our diet of dirt cheap and free you even if we’ve talked about some of these in the past, hasn’t been recent so let’s, let’s share some some local resource is right. So you know what a fan i am of local library libraries, and so i definitely want to bring that to everybody’s. Attention again, thie still might. One of my favorite databases in the local library is reference yusa. So if you’re looking to prospect for lists of specific industries also they have a database around. Ah, homeowners database. So if you’re looking for new homeowners or people who live in houses of valued above five hundred thousand dollars, you know, whatever it is. So i would really recommend that you go to your local library, talkto a reference library in about reference, use a specifically and how you can use it. I mean, i use it off site. I use it by my using my library card. The bar code on the card? Yes. This is something we’ve talked about, but not recently in a while, but now you’re a couple of years having that library card. Yeah, i don’t i don’t even step foot into the library to use the databases. It’s fantastic, you know, on dh then even when there is a there might be something that i’m having trouble researching, and i can’t seem to find the answer to it. A lot of libraries will have available free chat with a reference librarian. Really? Yeah. Yeah, i know you can do that with the new york public library system, for example. Um, and in new jersey, we used to have a twenty four seven until there were pounds of budget cuts and then that that went away twenty four seven. But local libraries have tried to maintain it, you know, during working hours is closed. Can this is new jersey to imagine what the rest of the country is doing. How much more sophisticated i grew up in new jersey. That’s why that’s? Why? I’m comfortable saying that i don’t live there now, but i grew up in old japan. New jersey. I’m bona fide. No. Okay, good. Very good to know? Yeah, the local library card. So how do you do you have an i d number is just it’s a barcode that you know, the number underneath the bar code that’s what gets you in? And it’ll ask you before you actually try and use the reference yusa from your desktop at home. It’ll actually ask you to input your library card number. Okay, so, you know it’s fantastic. So that that that is really good resource. I know. A few years ago, my my local united way, we were looking to connect with more women business owners in our county because of ah, local women’s fund-raising event we were doing so actually used reference yusa and mind it simply for our county. Um, and then you khun you, khun select by gender for the top executives. So i selected female and, you know, came up with a list invited all these people to the event through ah, a mailer that sent out and, you know, it did result in one or two new sponsorships actually for for the event. So, you know, as and i was doing that as a volunteer for the organization. But this is something really easy that that any non-profit organization can assign to even a high school student to be able to do for them. What other resource is might we find in our public library that we could ask about? They will often be able to tell you about local business resource is like business publications that are really geared toward your state. So if you’re you know you’re looking to connect with, you know, some certain associations, they’re speaking of associations, they have a publication called the encyclopedia of associations, which is not online, it is online as well. In some libraries, my mind doesn’t have it available online, but in case your library doesn’t know that there is a hard copy format to this encyclopedia. I mean, just for the general public, you can’t there’s no there’s, no encyclopedia of associations online, that’s free. No, i think you have to go through a library portal. I’m pretty sure i mean, the book exists, but i i’ve never tried accessing it to through, you know, going to any website other than accessing it through library. What a fan you are of public library. Huge. You go there for, um what about? Is that a lexisnexis? When you find that it, like public libraries, typically not for free? Well, if they’re going to have it, they’re going to probably require you to go on site to use it because it is a very expensive database. Okay, so something some libraries might have it, but you have to go there in person to use it. Okay, um, let’s. See what else you got. Anything else local? We got just about a minute or so before break any other local free dirt cheap. Well, i mean, you know, my one of my favorites too mine. Islington. So what we we probably want to dedicate a little more time to that again. But you definitely you know, it’s, the only social media network that khun b mind you, khun set up those advanced searches. Once that searches set, you can have linked and just continually return those search results. Okay, why don’t we take our break? And when we come back, we’ll talk more about how underutilized maria thinks linked in is stay with us. And ah, tony martignetti is making mistake. I thought it was a it was a later break where you don’t go anywhere you are. You had to stay with us because i have to talk about pursuing and how grateful i am that they renewed their sponsorship. I love it. Thank you so much for doing that. And really, just for that, i would ask you to check them out if you need to raise more money just because they’re loyal toe non-profit radio. They have tools that make your fund-raising more efficient, better managed. They have a tool velocity that will help you find new potential donors and the existing donors who are ripe for for upgrade. S o if somebody’s giving you, you know, a thousand dollars a year, they can give you five thousand velocity can help you find them. If there’s giving five thousand, maybe, you know, twenty, five hundred, they could be giving ten thousand velocity one of the pursuant fund-raising tools pursuing dot com. You’ll raise more money now. It’s time for tony’s take two. I want to say thank you. So here it is. Thank you whether you’re listening live podcast or affiliate. Whether you get the weekly show alerts their email here, they’re just called maria email here’s here’s email talking with me about maria and you know how valuable email is as a tool, i have weekly alerts they go out every thursday tell you who the guest star if you’re getting those in your inbox, thank you so much. If you’re subscribed on youtube or you with me on twitter, i thank you. Um, connected on linkedin, thank you very much. Facebook fan. Thank you. I thank you if it’s none of those i don’t know what the hell’s wrong because there’s so many ways to connect with me, you ought to be taking advantage of one of them, so i would say, you know, if you’re not, you’re cheating yourself. Really? I mean, yeah, you know, it’s your life. Go ahead, it’s your career if you want to put it at risk by not being well informed through non-profit radio, uh, you know, you’re going to suffer the consequences. Oh, i can do is make it available to you to quote alec baldwin in glengarry glen ross. I have no sympathy for you. That’s tony, stick to take it. Or leave it. Okay, maria simple. Now we can continue talking about linked in which you this is what this is. What first length you to me years ago, it was at the westchester county a f p and you were on a panel with a few of our friends, the wrist angle and mars and mark halpert talking about how underutilized linkedin is. And you were so good in it that i not long after invited you to be a contributor on non-profit radio so linked in brought us together. Do you still think it’s underutilized? This was, like, forty years ago or so five years ago? Yeah, i mean, believe it or not, i still go around and i do talks, and i still have people raising their hands saying, yeah, kind of there. I don’t know what i’m supposed to do one i mean, i’m there people look at yeah, they still do they still look, er, you know, and so you know, non-profits you have to realize that lincoln actually has resource is set aside for for your sector, and so if you go to non-profits dot linked in dot com, you’ll actually see the slough. Of resource is that a for-profit like tony or i would have to pay for? Yes and a non-profit can have it for free, you know they have the board connect. So if you’re looking to augment your board this year twenty sixteen it’s, a tool made for meeting boardmember it is a tour for meeting for board members, right? And people will indicate that they are looking for boardmember ship opportunities so you can use that that database to prospect for those people who have raised their hand and said, hey, i’m interested. Where do you find board? You’ll find board elected non-profit dot lengthen dot com yes, non-profits i think non-profit but you have to have a non-profit account in order to use it, right? Well, they so yeah, few. So if you work for a nonprofit organization, you should be able teo and all. You know, all this. The steps and procedures on getting tied in with that is it’s all you know, very clearly outlined there for you at that non-profit darlington. Yeah. Ok. Right. So that be sort of your your your starting point portal for all this rain information? Eso you know that it’s? Something that’s underutilized and i think that non-profits could take advantage of that. We’re looking for volunteer opportunities. You khun post those as well. So there’s a volunteer we were talking on the last show about volunteer matching so you can you khun use that for that? If you have job positions that you want to post, you can use that they’re so there’s really a lot more that that non-profits could be doing work with lengthen even as a prospect research tool oh my god. Somebody’s coming to your event if you want to know more about them before they come or afterwards billions i know you’re a big fan of pre event. Yeah, research. We had a show on that back in november, i think or early december prion post event research, right. But but just as a prospect research tool having nothing to do with events, right? Exactly. So when i’m sitting down doing prospect research every time i’m given a name to research, that is definitely one of the places i look. Well, actually, even when i googled the person’s name if they have a profile on linkedin it’s coming up on page one of clinton’s of google search results eso it’s you know, inevitably i am going to end up whether i go directly or google pushes me there. I’m goingto linked in to find information on somebody, and you’re getting insider tips. I mean, maria is a prospect researcher her cos the prospect finder for god’s sake, you know, you’re getting insider tips, you know, like i said, it’s, your life if you’re not paying attention to this, i have no sympathy for you. I don’t know what else to say. All right? What? What else linked in what else could we be doing? So i think that, you know, one of the other things that you want to think about doing is leveraging your own internal databases are sounds. Warren. What does that mean? So? So think about again going back to what we talked about on the last show. Your your tribe, right. Your board, other people who are close to your organization, you know, how can you use that? To be able to, to magnify and grow, you know? What are you doing? What type? You know what? Types of cultivation events, what types of gala event? You know what are you doing to engage a larger community on dh then also, what are you doing in the online world to engage and and build your tribe as well? And some of those online ambassadors again, you know, i hate to keep bringing in giving tuesday, but it was very popular in twenty fifteen it’s surpassed the prior year. I would think that this is only going to continue to grow, just like we’re seeing online shopping grow during the holidays. You have to be thinking now, what is your strategy going to be around giving tuesday? You know what? What should we be doing? Maybe there are some online ambassadors in the linked in space that we should be looking to recruit. You could bring it on to our tribe was looking for you circles back to lincoln and i was getting impatient e was giving you time try not to jump on you where you’re digressing only i’m allowed to digress. I created aggression, alright, you licked it back to lincoln that, yes, so you find people who have a lot of juice on lengthen or who are close to you or you’d like to be closer to write. Right? And maybe there are people who are, i think, what do they call it? Self professed lions al i o n s i don’t know. What is that? I think it linked in open networker s o thes air people who have, i don’t know thousands and i don’t know they they’re self professed lions on lincoln s so if you’re connected to them, then you’re only two degrees separated from whole slew people. Ok. Eso if you could get a lion to be their designating themselves on the lion yeah. What? You just put that in your sometimes so far line? Yeah, i see it in their headlines quite often. Lion? Yeah. Lengthen. What is it? Open networker. Well, well, everybody’s alive, but that’s, what link, then is open networking. Yeah, but some people are, you know, a little bit. I mean, it depends on how people use linked in. And some people are a little bit more guarded with how many people that they let you know let in but linked in open networkers lions, they just don’t connect with anybody anywhere around the world there. Horse linked in horse murcott maria’s left the way i do. It with anybody that means is that what that is? Well, but i mean, maybe maybe that is red or maybe that’s what you wanted to call them till this is ready? Your shirt? I don’t. All right, watch out for the lions. I don’t know. Yeah, yeah. Personally, i don’t like connecting tow lions. Yeah, because i mean there’s no connect. I mean, i’m pretty liberal about who? All who. I’ll connect with her, but yeah, i mean it’s, not just anybody. I have some standards. My wife may be listening. I mean, i have some standards. All right? All right. Goodness. Is that the show’s going? Dariel really go. I think this is xena’s trajectory. This is the scene. If we’re talking about downhill were at the scene with the apogee jutze went to the appetite of the zenith. Alright. Yours red is your shirt. All right? Let’s, move on. Wade beat up lincoln and told people multiple times you’ve got to be doing more with yeah, absolutely. You have to leverage it. Okay. Okay. Um, what else were we? We were starting talking about local. You didn’t mention chamber of commerce. You did back in december, right? Chamber of commerce, you’re big, you’re big fans. Chambers of commerce. Yeah, absolutely. So you know that that’s certainly one way you can you can leverage your your local presence, you know, sit down and talk to your two. If you’re a member of the chamber certainly talk to the person who’s in charge of member services. Sometimes they have non-profit membership categories do yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they’ll have special events and so forth and talk to them about you know what you’re you know, you hope to dio and then also, you know, there might be opportunities to partner with the chamber so that, like i’ve seen in some communities where there will be, like, almost like a biz fast but it’s really just to showcase the local non profit organization. So all the vendor tables are on ly non-profits you know, in the room so that’s really a great way to showcase, you know, the local organizations, so if that doesn’t exist in your community, maybe you can help to spearhead that effort. And you know what? Go race association doesn’t exist created right? Creative organisation, gramps great. Tell the chamber you know you’re missing an opportunity. Yeah, one hundred non-profits in this in this town, right? Okay, well, i kind of did that on my own and my own chamber. I really pushed them, too, you know, creating a separate non-profit council within the chamber. And then, of course, when it came around to them saying, ok, well, somebody needs to chair that committee. You go for zoho careful what you ask for. Are you still chair? I coach eric i coach arika you brought some, but i refused to coach. I refused to take it on alone. And not because i didn’t want to do the work, but because i felt it was important that it had to be a somebody wearing a non-profit hat, right? I wear for-profit hat as a consultant. Yes. I really felt that it was important that somebody wearing a non-profit hat be seated at the table to spearhead the effort. Okay. In other words, you pulled in another sucker. Well, we looked around the table and found a rationality e i said, i’ll do it. If somebody also helped me with talk about getting through the week without a good rationalization, then go no. Now, that made a lot. Of sense. Okay, you have a chapter on technology? Yeah, what’s the problem here. So, you know, there just aren’t enough hours in the day, tony, so i needed tio for myself, i needed to find some tools. So i am, you know, inserted in my book some of those tools that i’m using that i that i find are very helpful in terms of online aps. Or or, you know, computer apse, that that will allow me to to gain back a little bit of time. One of those tools that i’ve been using that i really like is called asana have you spell it? No, i don’t know a asana and in so they have free version, sana is a yoga is not a yoga. Or is that a practice or something? Asana, no sun worship? No, your that’s a sona? No. Okay, i don’t know. I forget that way we can edit this part out. Now we don’t do post production on this show and you’re stuck. You’re stuck. Okay, asana and they would tell me about it. And so there’s. Another one also called base camp over. The one that i’m using is asana dahna is what to do? So it enables you to keep a project moving along, right? So? So you have a project you have who? The collaborators are on that project, right? And so they could be people in your office. They could be boardmember sze yu know whoever it is. And then everybody’s assigned a task. And so the beautiful thing is that asana once everybody’s been assigned to task, of course, that everybody in there has an email is associated with it. Asana will automatically send out an email saying you have a task due today for exercising project project management. Yeah. Collaborative project management. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it free? Um, so there are i’m using it for free buy-in of dirt cheap in free. But but there are also, you know, depending on a guest enterprise level, you know how many people have to use it there have step up opportunities to what projects have you managed on asana? Eso is an example. I have. Um ah, speaking, when i do my speaking engagements, i will have my my my virtual admen who was actually from my community. But she works, you know, doesn’t work in my office. So i have her do some pre calling on dh post calling t my events just as a friendly reminder. You registered. Well, look, you know, marie is looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, so when i set up for every event that i set up, there are the repetitive tasks that happened with that event. S oh, there’s the reminder to me to send her the list of the registrants than than the reminder is sent to her automatically from the system. On what day she’s supposed to call me uncle? Okay, so it’s, you know, and then you can park documents in there too. So when i want to send her the list of people, i don’t have to do it just through email, i can upload it into the asana dashboard so that she can go there and retrieve thie spreadsheet of people who are registered for the event as an example so non-profits could use that as well, right? So you have, you know, all kinds of events and non-profits writing an event could be, i don’t know an office renovation. I mean there’s all kinds of potential project. Yeah, the annual report has to get done right. We could have one for mailings, strategic from your from your communication strategy plan, communications plan. Think about just even giving tuesday, right? Right. You know what the date is going to be and start thinking out. Okay, well, what do we need to start doing now? What do we do in february? March, april? What do we need to do monthly as we move toward giving tuesday, and then, of course, things will ramp up closer. You’re all about giving tuesday ten months early. Well, you want to think about it earlier. I agree. I agree. All right. We have a couple minutes left, and you’re you’re closing. Chapter is about your tribe. We talked about the tribe in the back in december, but feeding, keeping your tribe engaged, keeping the tribe in gates. Right. So you do need some sort of a tool, right? I mean, as a prospect researcher having that cr m customer relationship management tool in the nonprofit world, we really call it that donor a management system. It’s really vitally important to have all that information parked someplace because what we what we have to be able to do is understand you. Know how people are engaging with the non-profit on dh. There has to be that his that history, right? Because staff changes so much you need to be ableto have that history move from one staff member to critical you can’t. You can’t have somebody leave your organization, and institutional knowledge goes out the door. Yeah, well, keep this topic up. Well, let’s, let’s to go after this, our last break, and we’ll continue this conversation. 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 they are levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy 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 guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. If you have big dreams in a small budget tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio, i d’oh. I’m adam braun, founder of pencils of promise. I can’t send the authentic, the bona fide, the genuine live listen love, because we are pre recorded today, but of course the love goes out. Whatever city state you’re in podcast pleasantries, same thing that over ten thousand listening on whatever device, whatever, who knows? Whatever all the things i say, whatever place, whatever you’re doing, wherever you are. Thank you. Podcast pleasantries out to the podcast listener that’s you that’s you right there listening right now and affiliate affections are many am and fm stations throughout the country affections out to those am and fm listeners. Let your local station know thatyou listen, by the way, that would be cool. I’d love to get some feedback. Um, but i know you’re out there. Affiliate affections. Okay, mohr with maria coming up here it is right now. We’re up. I don’t know why i said coming up because this is it, um, written it. We’re in it right now. You experiencing it? Live pre recorded. Okay. Keeping people engaged. I mean, this tribe engagement is just, you know, you just want to be friendly. I mean, you just wanna have conversations with people online like you do face-to-face it’s. Just keep up the relationship, right? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But, you know, there’s certain things that you want to think about, maybe thinking about a calendar on a weekly basis, maybe you know, you khun schedule out some of the posts used technology to tools like hoot sweet tea, post some of that stuff, but maybe monday is going to be i don’t know your motivation monday or something like that. And then maybe tuesday you’ll post about, you know, an upcoming event that you’re having in the in the way distant future. Maybe wednesday is your day to do ah, a fun fill in the blank engagement thing with your audience. So, you know, if you have those sort of general things all right, this is what we do on mondays and tuesdays and wednesday. Of course, you have to be ableto. You know, when something happens, you need to be able to react neo-sage before. But if you have that yeah. General plan. Right and engagement plan with you with your tribe. You mentioned motivation monday. Watch the use of a liberations that’s. Pretty much proprietary to me on non-profit radio. Is it watching? Well, podcast pleasantries, affiliate. Affections live. Listen, hello, haven’t you noticed, have you not noticed tony’s take to have you not noticed a pattern? How long we’ve been on this show for a half year’s motivational monday, yours no, but it’s in a liberation. Ok, so what i’m saying, cubine well, though, i heard all of the things i thought you were claiming, motivated, you know, that’s, a that’s, a that’s, a lackluster at best. All right, if we want to choose a cr em if we don’t, if we’re reevaluating now, we’ve had entire show’s on right choosing the right database. I’ve had guests on from non-profit technology conference, but, you know, it’s good to hit the highlights on dhere different voices. So your advice on choosing the right, you know, i mean, just generally, right? So you like you said you’ve had a bunch of guests on who really delve into it a lot, but, you know, just at a high level, you know, you want to think about, you know, how easy is it? Tto learn the system, right? How many times i’ve talked to a non profit organization and they’ve said, yeah, we’ve got a donor database and, you know, we’ve had a some staff turnover, and we don’t think people are really using it all that effectively and, you know, certainly our board has no idea on how to use it. And so you want to make sure you know how user friendly is it is everybody up to snuff on their training? If if you i got to spend the money to train some new people than then that’s what you have to do, but it makes no sense to have a database that that you know, it’s that whole garbage in garbage out, right? If if people aren’t using it properly, it’s it’s absolutely no use to the organization and you can’t get out of it what you need no, no, absolutely not. Also thinking about technical support, how was that handled? You know, is it email support? Is that phone support is a chat support? Is that all of the above? So just understanding, you know, once you get past the sales process and the person that you’re talking to that might be selling that system to you, what kind of support is going to exist after that? Also conversion support that’s always a big top. Yes. How is our data going to get from? Whatever were you doing now into this new system that we’re going to be spending a lot of money on? Probably, you know, so conversion support? Yes. Ok, s o you know and what’s that conversion support going to look like what? What format will it take? You know? Is somebody going to be in the office with me? Is somebody going? To be on the phone, you know how, what? What is what format is that going to take for some organizations? It’s, it’s, super important to know how customizable it is. Also, some people want to make sure that it integrates with outside systems, like if there, if they’re using an outside system to run an email marketing program, you know, do the system’s integrate so that as an example, if if somebody ops out of your email marketing list, is that opt out going to be carried through and reflected in your donordigital base, because otherwise you’re not going to be staying compliant with that can spam law that teo so you want to make sure that if you are looking at a system that it is going to be able to integrate and play, i like to say play nicely with other systems so that, um, things integrate and opt ins opt outs are all reflected across the board evenly, okay, so you know, things like that might be it might be really important. The other thing that that people talk about a lot is it cloud based, of course, and if it isyou know who has access? To it, what are the passwords? How often are you changing the passwords? Who has access to those past security? Generally, yes, oh, just security generally around that sea are m is really super important, you know, when where? Well we’re talking about, you know, prospect research, especially, and those serums and those donors, han ege mint systems, they’re going to hold the data, you know, when i do a profile for somebody for an organisation, and i deliver that profile, i’m delivering it in microsoft word format, actually, because the expectation is there going to copy and paste in or at least somehow make this as an attachment to that, that that constituent that donor prospects profile around with their record in this? Yeah, and so it’s got to be secure. I mean, yeah, i mean, the information that i’m pulling as a prospect researcher, i’m getting that in the public domain, but nevertheless, you want to be sensitive to the fact that you don’t want this information just walking out of the office and floating around it’s still personal, even if it’s public domain it’s also aggregated and lots of individual bits of publicly available data when pulled. Together in one document have a good much greater value than all their their constituent pieces floating out that you had to spend the time to find, right, exactly aggregated it has a lot could have a lot more bigger consequences if lost or compromise right than then scattered. You let you have some advice around using linked in as a starter. C r m yeah, so it could definitely be be used as a starter. Cr m one of the interesting things is, once you are first degree connected to somebody you’ll notice underneath that box that has their photo and and their headline and all that underneath that box is an area there’s a tab called, um, i think it’s like relationship or something like that so you can actually put in there some notes. You know how how i met tony? You could sort of tag them? Yeah, pre-tax probono except that well, yes, it’s certainly because these notes are searchable. Well, i’m not sure if they’re searchable, though that would be really great, maybe that’s coming down the line, but definitely i could put i could put no notations in there and it will also send me a reminder so let’s say you and i talk and then for some reason, we decide we need to talk again in a month about something so i can set up a tickler reminder within linked in and it’ll lincoln will email me a reminder that, hey, i’m supposed to talk to tony today. Oh, wow, i don’t know. Where is this? Tell tell us again. So it’s underneath, you know the box that has your photo and and all of that. And then eso underneath that there’s a tab? Where there you can fill out your your contact information and then there’s another tab where your first degree connected to somebody that’s for you personally to see. So you know. Gosh, tony, if you ever want to see what i have written up about you in my link dahna thank you. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want alluded to obliquely. Not at all. No let’s. Move to a different subject. No. Okay, but that’s all right. So you could put notes? Yes. He coming notes contact. Exactly. Exactly. So it’s, you know, contact out of base light, if you will. But you know it’s kind. Of useful if you if you just need even a little reminder sent to you about something. Okay, we have about thirty seconds, and then this wraps up our are to show extravaganzas yes, of your of your of your book. So what do you want to leave people with? You know, i just want to leave people with with the notion that you know that in order to magnify their organizations, they just they’ve got to get themselves out there and they’ve got to get out there online, they’ve got to get out there networking, they’ve gotta have good, solid websites, um, and and they’ve got to be willing to get out there and shake hands and meet new people and really become part of the community. We got to leave it there. The book. Just just get the thing for pete’s sake. It’s on amazon, magnify your business tips, tools and strategies for growing your business or your non-profit you’ll find maria at the prospect finder dot com and also at maria simple on twitter. Of course, thanks so much for being in the studio to shows. Thank you so much for having me, tonia marchenese absolute pleasure. Next week, gerald richards on leadership development and amy sample ward returns our social media contributor. If you missed any part of today’s show finding on tony martignetti dot com, where in the world else would you go? I’m still not sure if i’m going to keep that for all of twenty sixteen, but i’m not saying we’re not. We’re sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Pursuant dot com. Our creative producers, claire meyerhoff, sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by dina russell. Our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark 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 am 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 gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe, add an email address their card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and 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 expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. 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.
