Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Tony’s Guests:
Professor Russell James at Texas Tech University does neuro imaging research to see subjects’ brains light up when they elect to put a charitable gift in their will. This former Planned Giving fundraiser and director of the Graduate Certificate in Charitable Financial Planning has research-based advice for your cultivation and recognition of bequest gifts.
Scott Koegler, the editor of Nonprofit Technology News and our tech contributor, wants you to keep your donor database secure, so nothing can escape. We’ll talk about inappropriate use, SQL, inference and overloads.
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Here is a link to the audio: 119: The Bequesting Brain and Donor Database Dungeon. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.
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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 very much hope that you were with me last week. It would cause me great distress. I couldn’t stand knowing that you had missed thirty four things to know about people. Andrea nierenberg, president of nuremberg consulting group, returned. She had so much simple and valuable easy relationship building advice from october fifth that i invited her back and the last show, which was, of course, two weeks ago, she had thirty four things to know and howto learn them how to preserve them and what to do with them, and her list of thirty for is now on the facebook page and are linked in group also get engaged to amy sample ward are regular social media scientist, social media contributor continued her siri’s on real engagement and building trust through the social networks. October was setting the tone this month. It’s your call to action. Amy is membership director for and ten the non-profit technology network and blog’s for the stanford social innovation review. I want to welcome new listeners. I need a big spike of listeners in october and i hope that you’re still with me in november hoped very much welcome. Welcome to the show this week, it’s, the big, questing brain professor russell james at texas tech university does neuroimaging research to see subjects brains light up when they elect to put a charitable gift in their will. This former plan giving fundraiser and director of the graduate certificate in charitable financial planning has research based advice for your cultivation and recognition of bequest, gift and donordigital baste dungeon scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. Our regular tech contributor wants you to keep your donordigital base secure so nothing escapes. We’ll talk about inappropriate use sql sounds like jargon jail already inference and overloads between the guests on tony’s take to my block this week is charity registration matters. Why compliance with state charity solicitation registration laws is important? If you’re listening and you’re on twitter, you can use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us there where monitoring that hashtag in the studio and i want to welcome my guest is russell james he’s, an attorney and phd he’s, an associate professor and the director. Of graduate studies in charitable financial planning at texas tech university, where he also supervises the graduate certificate and charitable financial planning. He has spoken at the f p international conference, the big twelve gift planters association and giving korea we have listeners from korea pretty regularly, actually, he’s presented his research at universities in the u s, spain, germany, the netherlands, ireland, scotland and england, but i noticed not whales, i guess the welsh don’t care for russell james for some reason, the welsh have not invited him, but the irish, scottish and english have he’s, a consultant to the south korean government, around their effort to adopt plant e-giving legislation, he’s been a plan e-giving fundraiser and a college president. Russell james, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, tony. Glad to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you. You’ve had a lot of jobs but a lawyer. Fundraiser, college president now, college professor, you’re you’re having trouble holding jobs? Yeah, that that is an issue. But hopefully i can. Okay, what’s next, the construction trades. Maybe. I don’t know. No, i’ve got ten years. I’m gonna stop. Okay. Well, that’s it you’re set. Okay. Um, our big questing brain. This is really very, very interesting to me. You do? Ah, neuroimaging research. Why did you decide to pursue this? Well, i’ve spent a lot of time in the area of fund-raising a particular plant giving, and there have been a handful of studies done on shared will get e-giving decision making in the scanner, but nothing had been done yet. Looking at decisions for request, a charitable giving. And so that was something new and something i was interested in. And after getting ten years gave me the opportunity to take about a year and a half or two years to learn how to do this neuroimaging so that we could proceed with finding out how the brain works. When you ask people questions about making charitable bequests, this is not a line of research that a non tenured professor would have the luxury of pursuing. Well, it it takes a long time. And since my original background is not in neuroimaging, it takes a fair amount of time to get up to speed with the process. And it helps having a little bit of job security before you start chasing rabbits like this. That’s one. Of the few jobs you have not held is neuroimaging scientist. Thank you. Um, and what was your methodology for this? So the approach was tio have people when they’re in the scanner, they can observe a computer screen, and we could ask them a variety of questions. And what we wanted to do here is we wanted to have questions that were identical but on lee different and whether we were talking about giving money or volunteering or leaving a bequest gift. And since we can’t actually enforce a bequest gift in the scanner, what we did is we ask them if you signed the will in the next three months, what’s the likelihood you might leave request gift to a particular organization. And we used about about twenty eight large charitable organizations on we also ask them about if they were asked in the next three months, what was the likelihood they might give, give money to the same organizations? Or that they might volunteer time to those organizations in the idea being here, we want to see what brain areas are engaged when people are thinking about the probability or thinking about this idea of, well, let’s. See if i was asked if i was finishing a will. How likely is it that i might do this? Okay, and you compare that with a current gift and volunteering, okay? And because you see those as as different methods of support. And so you thought there might be some different segments of the brain that are that are involved exactly. And also because we understand a lot more about current giving and volunteering because people engage in that behavior very frequently, we can observe it a lot. But the quest e-giving is something that people engaged in very rarely oh, and oftentimes not observed. And so we sort of want to compare with the thing that we know about better. Did the volunteer part did that involve boardmember ship buy-in a chance it did not. It was just a generic question of hey, if you were asked the next three months, right, your likelihood that you might volunteer time too. You know, the american cancer society, for example, okay? Because i think it was boardmember ship. I think their brains would have exploded inside your scanner. You have what we want to avoid. You’d have a mess, and plus you you have a dead subject. So it’s no, in these invalid research. Okay. Concerned with their safety. So that’s a that’s cool this other inside a scanner. And does this look like now? I’m just a little curious about the technology. Does this look like an emery that people slide into? And then the screen is above them? Or what does it look like? That’s? Exactly. Right? So they’re inside an m r i it’s a fairly large boardman sheen, but it still they’re sort of locked in there. And before they do this particular experiment, they get used to using the screen, have a couple of buttons that they can use on each hand to respond to questions on. So they sort of get used to and really, you know, they focus on the screen because there’s nothing else to look at. I mean, it’s fairly dark out there. And you have this projected image of the computer screen on that’s the process which seems very weird, but you actually get used to it pretty quickly. Is you’re going through these preliminary process? How did you get volunteers for to be subjects for research like this? Well, for this first for this first group, we just asked folks who were around the university campus so employees graduate students, that sort of thing in the future we’re looking at once we find the results to make sure that those results are also replicable when we are doing with other populations. Ok, i see grad students. I mean, they’re hungry. That right? So for twenty five bucks, they’ll do anything. You know what? They are paid. Yes. Ok. Eso what did you what did you find? I’m interested in what you found across the three different types of, of, of gift of a way of ways of supporting now also, russell, we just have two minutes before our first break. So just, like, sort of tease what? What you found what we found was two different areas that were much more strongly activated for bequest decisions. Van forgiving, volunteering decisions. Those two areas are the call once called the peculiar and once called the lingual gyrus. Now the brick union is something that’s engaged frequently. When people are taking an outside perspective on themselves, sometimes called it’s been called the mind’s eye. And the lingual gyrus is actually a visual or visual ization area. So when you’re dreaming, for example, you will engage the lingual gyrus, and if you have damage to that area, it can eliminate your ability to dream. So we saw these two areas and independently we’ve got some activity that involves people looking back on themselves from an outside perspective and also engaging in visual ization. But what was really exciting is what we found in other studies that simultaneous osili activated both of the same areas that i think is a lot more applicable to this situation where we’re looking at now so i can tell you about those way have time, or we’re going to take a break first. You said the lingual gyrus is the dream center. Is that right? It’s engaged in that engaged okay area. My lingual gyrus was was hyperactive last night, but you’re probably not into interpreting dreams out suppose you dont go that far do don’t go that far. All right, well, we’re going to end with you, then we’re done. No, russell, james will of course stay with us for this break. And i hope that you do too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s. The answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back were with professor russell james from texas tech, and we’re talking about the requesting brain. We will not be analyzing my dreams. Sorry, but those were disappointed in that, but we will continue. Of course, this is conversation. So this is russell. This is what people sort of their self image and and what you call, sir there, their life story right in the reason we say, that is we looked at some other studies that engaged both of the same areas simultaneously. And one of them, for example, was where they i had older adults in the scanner in their sixties and seventies, and they were shown photographs from across their life from the the different ages of their life. And when they saw those photographs in the ones that they remembered what they were doing, they remembered exactly what was happening in these two areas were much more strongly engaged. And so the idea is that these are areas there is associated with what we would call visualized autobiography and there’s, a variety of other studies that also suggests that your reasonableness of this conclusion so the idea being that when people are thinking about making a charitable request decision they’re actually thinking about this concept of how does this fit in to my life story? It’s almost like they’re riding the final chapter of their autobiography and asking about whether or not this cause or this organization fits with that life story. And so it turns out those are very different questions than we might ask with, say, a current gift issues that are in other context, really important, like what’s the next big project, or how financially financially good is this organization, those things sort of fade into the background on this actually fits with some other research that was just finished last year in a phd dissertation by claire roundly and united kingdom, where she interviewed folks about why they had left money to the organizations that they had identified in their in their state plan. And it turns out that really it was all about their life story, it was about their connection with the cause, or with the organization because of something that had happened to them or to a family member that makes that that connection come together. So this it’s a little bit with an example, one of my friends who’s been planned e-giving after he graduated from law school and had this background training when he would go out and talk to people, he would see that they had all of these tremendous tax advantages that they could take advantage of. Maybe they’ve got qualified money that they want to make a gift and, you know, there’s, a state gift and there’s ways to do that, and he would start by talking about that. And he said i had to learn to stop doing that, that what i needed to do was to start by asking, how were they connected with the organization? What was their life story and how it was it was connected in on so that seems to fit with some of the things that we’re seeing in the scanner here, okay? And that’s pretty widely recognized, i think that it’s it’s, the love of the, the charitable work, whatever it might be feeding people, sheltering, education, spiritual, whatever it is, it’s, it’s, the love of the work that that moves people to include the charity in there in there will absolutely. And i think, it’s the issue here of you know, when we think about this sort of related into some psychology from fifty years ago that talks about how two people deal with it, reminders of their own mortality and a couple of things they do one they tend to avoid those reminders, but the other thing they tend to do is to seek what’s been called symbolic immortality, that’s that something about me that’s goingto live beyond me. So it must be, you know, my name or my values or my my family, and we tend to focus on those things mohr when we’re reminded of our of our own mortality. And so this links in with this old psychological research from for many years ago that talks about people’s desire for symbolic immortality, and it’s actually a form of to use another technical term, a form of autobiographical heroism where we wantto see ourselves as being a significant our lives is being meaningful. And so this, uh, psychological theory fits with what we’re seeing in the scanner, in the sense that people are engaging in this kind of autobiographical thinking when they’re making this kind of you did a very good job there of keeping yourself out of jargon jail by defining that very hard to do, but okay on dh this has some implications for recognition of gift, which will get recognition of gift by will, which will get through this thiss idea of immortality i have to send live listener love got tons of listeners today, it’s incredible! I’m going to recognize first. Seoul korea live listener loves seoul, korea my guest, russell james has consulted with your government as they were trying teo create plan giving legislation. Also in asia, we got tokyo and asahi, japan, and a masked listener in china. I don’t know there’s some kind of furtive activity or it’s blocked by someone else but got a mask listener in china here in the u s spearfish, south dakota. I love that welcome spearfish. You’re not you’re you’re hunting there, but you’re but you’re only hunting fish on dno. No big arms, i guess. Alexandria, louisiana, new bern, north carolina live listener love to all of you in asia and here in the u, s and there’s more to come. Um, visualized autobiography now. So this is russell. This is the way we were perceiving ourselves. This is not this is not rational, right? But this is our our our own self image of ourselves. Well, self image, the difference in an inactive activation here was not taking place in the in the number crunching part of the brain thing wasn’t the purely rational prefrontal cortex this is mme or the you know, the the imagery on the scene oneself and sort of your your own life story or or autobiography, you know, finding some support for some of this earlier research in psychology about people being reminded of their own death kind of lends support to certain results that we see in certain strategies that we see if somebody is pursuing consciously or unconsciously symbolic immortality as part of their estate planning problem that’s, symbolic and what i’d like to be symbolically immortal. Well, i would like to be a very good well, you know, let me tell you about some plan giving opportunities. They’re over there at texas tech and the graduate certificate and channel financial planning to wear. When we look at charities that receive a larger share of their income from the quest sources. Often times, you’ll see charities such as universities that are expected to be around for a very long time, especially giving things like a, uh, an endowed fellowship for a scholarship that that we expect to live on beyond us. And it may be one of the reasons why these organizations or other organizations focused on saving lives, whether finding new cures for for new diseases or other kinds of lifesaving approaches can sometimes be particularly attractive, and if you compare that to other organizations that don’t necessarily focus on raising funds for something that’s going to be permanent, but rather raising funds for something they’re going to do right now and spend right now that’s very attractive for current gifts, but it may not be particularly psychologically attractive force st gifts, because we don’t really want something that’s. Just all of the money is going to be used for a big bang immediately after we die. We’d rather have something that is going to last a long time that maybe our grandkids could come and and say, oh, yes, that’s something that my grandfather set up and still here today. But organizations that might have a more current mission could certainly create a fund or an endowment. Or maybe, ah, part of their mission, that is. Something that’s going to be that is everlasting exactly, and what i would encourage because i know there’s always a tension in those organizations if you set up something that’s permanent, those air funds that you can only use the interest off of, for example, endowment that income off. So what i would suggest is setting up these kinds of permanent giving opportunities exclusively for the quest donors on say, you know you can set up a permanent endowment, you nose let’s say it’s, an animal charity, a permanent endowment that will support, you know, one or two are five animals of whatever the interest of the charity is forever, but that this gift is on ly through request e-giving so you don’t have to worry about cannibalizing your current giving, but yet you give those kind of permanent opportunities that are more psychologically attractive when it comes to charitable bequests. Decisionmaking. Okay, i want to remind listeners. Russell james is an attorney, phd and his associate professor at texas tech university, where he supervises thie graduate certificate in charitable financial planning, and you’ll find information about that at encourage generosity dot com is there also, then the concern russell by the way, do people ever call you james russell? People mess that up all the time. I notice i have not done it once. I’m being scrupulous about not calling you james. I don’t get that with, you know, my name’s, it’s, not generally, not a problem, very black, but i will not. I’m being very careful not to make that mistake with you. Do do smaller organizations now, you think have have a little a bit of a challenge over larger, well established institutions that have been around for decades and generations? Yes, certainly, i think that’s a much bigger challenge when it comes to raising the quest dollars as opposed to raising current dollars, especially if we’ve got this connection where we want something that’s going to last a long time, then we sort of have to overcome that barrier if i’m not even sure the organization itself is going to last a long time. There are some ways to overcome that, though. I mean, you could certainly set up permanent endowments that were, you know, managed by a large corporate trust or bank or something like that so that you could give that that feeling, that sense of permanence that would be there regardless of the sea organization but it’s definitely a barrier. The other thing, though, is that people don’t necessarily have to be attached to a particular organization. They may be attached to a cause and it’s just a matter of finding those people who have that life story connection where it is attached to a cause, if that’s the same cause of your organization on dh trying to make that connection with the life story. And so how would a smaller or newer charity go about doing that? How do you make that connection with the with the person’s life story, based on what you’ve learned? Well, there’s, a couple of different ways to do it. One is obviously if you just know your donors and you know, those those connections and those stories, the other is to remind people of those possibilities by telling stories that give them examples, you know, telling the story about a person who has supported a particular cause been involved with the particular cause and ideally, if you have an example, this may be only for a little bit older organizations. But if you have an example of someone who has left money in a bequest that you could talk about how that person is still having an impact today, even though they passed away a number of talking about the deceased request donor zach plea because that’s that’s, the thing that’s really attractive is if i see that example, not only is an example to me in my behaviour, but it’s a signal that says, hey, these people are still being remembered, they’re still being talked about, and they’re still making an impact and that’s the real message that i think we want to get across. That’s, that’s, symbolic immortality, exactly, and that’s different than what we typically see, which is here’s a story about current donors who have made a plan now that’s fine, but that’s not the same thing as showing that we recognize people who are deceased in there, sir. Still having an impact because that’s, where we get that real example of the symbolic immortality. Excellent, i think that’s really that’s very concrete, valuable advice um, there’s also, you have some advice around recognition based on a person’s longevity of giving, irrespective of of the size of the gift. Certainly so if you think about the goal here, the goal is to make it obvious to the person that putting your organization in their state plan fits with their autobiography. It fits with their life story. So one of the ways that we can remind them of how much they fit their life story fits in with the organization is to consider giving recognition to people, not just for how much they gave this year, but recognition to people for their longevity and giving, especially your older donors who, you know, maybe financially, they have a lot of assets, but not a lot of income, and so they’re not giving us much currently, but recognize them for, you know, reaching a five year club, ten year club, twenty year club, you might even consider recognizing them for their lifetime, giving that this is some amount that you’ve given throughout the line throughout your life and the purpose there, you know, certainly if you’re recognizing him for longevity, that has a nice side benefit on current giving that, you know, you want to keep the street going, of course, but it also is a way of saying, you know, it’s, just like, you know, you get one of these credit cards, and it says members sense, you know what if i’ve got that member since nineteen seventy eight will you know, i’m going to stick with this organization because it’s, just part of who i am, you know, part of my my my autobiography in a sense well, i think charity’s aaron a much stronger place to be. Able to do that if they just remind people, you know, look at how long we’ve been together that that kind of idea, where it makes it clear that the organization that the cause is part of their life story and that that makes it fit in very well when they’re deciding which beneficiaries to use in an estate plan, excellent listeners, i hope you’re taking notes or you’re gonna have to go back and listen to this podcast again. Here i thought, russell james, you know, i figured academic is going to be stuffy, nothing is and nothing is going to apply it’s all going to be a theory, a land, and but we’ll have him on anyway. You know? I’ll make fun of him and things like that, but no, i mean the value, the advice is really valuable. No, i knew this is this is really valuable advice for forgetting bequests. And russell. I never thought you were stuffy. I’m just getting well, i can be if you want me to. Because i also presented academic conference. Yeah, no, i know i left that out of your bio now. No, no, we don’t we don’t want that. Don’t turn. Don’t start turning that on. Keep keep the charming side. All right, so also that this this idea that the organization is going to live beyond me, i know you touched on this a little bit, and i just want to i just wantto see if you have any more advice around how we can get people to recognise that this organization will will live beyond you when when they’re sort of a new organization, we just have about a minute left. Well, one thing to consider is this if we look at the strongest competition and our field for those charitable request dollars, the absolute strongest competition comes from private family foundations, and they’re psychologically very attractive because they have your name on it. They follow your rules, and they could live forever. But keep in mind these very attractive organizations are also new organizations. They’re ones that people create essentially for themselves. So it is possible to set up a scenario where you could emphasize that this fund, for example, is a permanent fund. And, you know, if you feel so compelled, you could even indicate that it’s administered by a, you know, by some other financial institutions or entity. Yet if you if you need to do that, but understand that is the gap. It is easier for a long time organizations, but there’s, some strategies that you can do, which will try teo bridge that gap a bit absolutely excellent. James russell no russell james on attorney, phd, professor at texas tech university and supervises the program and graduate certificate in charitable financial planning at texas tech, and you’ll find that at encouraged generosity. Dot com russell, thank you so much for being a guest. Thanks for having been my pleasure. Thank you, and right now we take a break when we return. It’s, tony’s, take two and then scott koegler, our regular tech contributors with me, with me for donordigital baste dungeon, and i hope you will be too co-branding dick, dick, tooting the good ending, you’re listening to the talking alternate network, waiting to get me thinking. Nothing. Cubine hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications? Then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way look forward to serving you! You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz if you have big ideas and an average budget, tune into the way above average. Tony martin. Any non-profit radio ideo. I’m jonah helper from next-gen charity. Welcome back, it’s, time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. My block this week is charity registration matters. Part of my consulting work is doing charity registration, four charities that don’t want to do it themselves. This is registering in every state where you are soliciting donations so it could be a texas charity, and they may be sending email to wisconsin and paper us mail to pennsylvania and that texas charity needs to be registered in wisconsin and pennsylvania. I do that work, and i also wrote a book for charities that want to do it themselves and my block this week is just reminding charities that it’s important teo be in compliance for three reasons you could be embarrassed. There have been charities that are become public and in the headlines. Um for their failure to comply and have a couple examples on the block. Your board members are at risk because their fiduciary steer charity and if you’re not following laws, there’s potential for personal liability, actually among your board members and the irs inquires the year your annual form nine ninety has a couple of questions that i ask about your compliance with thes state laws and that’s a lot. My blogged the post is called charity registration matters. My block is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, november thirtieth, the forty ninth show of the year. Oh, what a pleasure to welcome back scott koegler he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news, which you’ll find it n p tech news dot com he’s, our regular tech contributor. You can follow him on twitter at scott koegler konigstein and i saw today. Scott, you have a beautiful about paige at about dot com you’re in a desert scene there. Looks like you climbed a desert mountain or something. Is that is that photo shopped? That was actually in phoenix a couple years ago. Okay, it was i did. I did perform some photo shop on it, but nothing that you could notice. Hopefully. Really? Well, it looks very noticeable to me. Were you actually in that setting? Where? The photo that the photo purports tohave one that was sitting on that rock you were? I extracted the cactus songs, though, so that they wouldn’t show. Okay. Oh, i see. All right, they were stuck in your leg? Is that why? Okay, we’re talking this month about donordigital baste dungeon there’s a lot of sensitive data in people’s databases isn’t there there is and it’s one of those things that i think i think everybody kind of knows about it, but i think also that it’s it’s also something that is typically beyond the the the understanding of most folks who are engaged in managing a non-profit i mean, it’s pretty technical stuff, you know? Well, you’re going to break it down because you’re a former officers ceo, right? You’re a former chief information off, you’re going to break this down information off, okay, so we’re goingto this maybe typically outside people’s can, but we’re going to get it within their ken great, but what’s in their first of all what we need to be concerned about what kinds of data first? Well, typically it it could be any data. But the most sensitive, of course, is the information about your donors on a sensitive for a whole bunch of reasons one is you really don’t want that information being spread around, too, although we’re all friendly within the non-profit community let’s, face it. Everybody’s competing for the same funds. So you really don’t want that whole list of donors and their history, uh, kind of spread around to somebody else who may be able to make them, you know, make a better appeals, right? Right. So just just just not letting you get out of the bag the names, right? But then you might have ah, dates of birth. You most likely have addresses. Credit card. What? Right? I mean, well, sure, but right now i’m talking about just the competitive nature, but okay, okay. I’m getting getting someone’s eso security number, which i think typically is not part of a donor database, but definitely credit card information. A cz you said, probably date of birth. Certainly addresses. And those kind of things are pretty sensitive. Um, well, i just moved to south carolina, and just before i moved here. Thank goodness they had a break in of the south carolina, um, business and resident database. And there were literally millions of so security numbers and names. I just sucked out of the database and people around the world, man. Now, imagine if that was new york that that would actually have value. Terrible, right? But in north and south korea in south carolina, no that’s, terrible money, there’s. Nobody listening. I don’t think live listener loved, but nobody in south carolina today, so but i will send live. Loved out tio reston, virginia, forest hills, new york where i used to live. I used to live in a hundred street sixty seven thing i used to write. Buy-in forest hills high school and brooklyn, new york all right, we got some local of local live. Listen, love no. Alright that’s. A terrible new yorker joke. I’m sorry, south carolina. I apologized. No it’s critical. So so that’s that’s pretty embarrassing to the government to the state of the government. What they found out wass that if they had installed a twenty five thousand dollars update to their database, they would have they would have prevented the whole thing which cost them something like forty million dollars. Zoho and isn’t the security doesn’t cost anything it’s relative cost and the damage to your reputation and, you know not to mention the damage to your to your constituents. Financial, no stability and abilities, right? Identity theft is a huge issue. Okay, you haven’t ordered that one of the okay on, we’re going to talk through it. You have an article on this subject at p tech news. Dot com let’s talk about something that i’m not sure you can prevent this one, though inappropriate use right by people who are authorized to access data, right? Did you know tony? And you probably didn’t know this because you’re smart guy, that’s, ziga risk the security is not from outside the the organization, but from inside. Well, i can’t say i knew it, but it sounds intuitive because if somebody’s going to do bad acts, you can’t prevent that all the policies and all the procedures, if somebody wants to get around them and they ran inside are already they’re going, they’re going to do it right, right, it’s pretty easy to do. You put a thumb drive in your computer and you copy it out and there you go. Yeah, typically nobody knows who or what happened. Yeah, there are, by the way, uh, software and systems operating systems like windows. Mac. Um, i got tools that can that can actually prevent that. But again, you have to know about it. You have to know. Think about it, then you have to actually install it. Monitor so it’s not a story simple, but the point is that yes, it’s really possible and happens all the time that somebody within the organization absconds with your data and something they shouldn’t. Yeah, that seems like the toughest one because, like i said, if somebody really wants to get it and they’re inside already, i think they will what’s the physical damage is next what’s your concern that well, you know, physical damages is basically if your computer dies or if your hard drive, uh, you know, fails and he didn’t have been appropriate back-up of your data and again that’s one of those things that just happens all the time and people don’t really think too much about it. Everybody thinks about back-up, you know, you get a computer and set up your back-up hopefully, but unless it’s a an automatic function, unless you’re monitoring it and unless you actually test e-giving bringing your back-up data back from the world story asked the retrieval, right? Yeah, you never know if it really works and you know, the day comes when you really need it, you try it. For the very first time ever. And guess what, probably a thirty percent chance that it’s not gonna work, okay? And that and the back-up shouldn’t only be local shouldn’t only be in your office or even in your in your town. Geever right, absolutely should be. You should have in addition to your local back-up you should have offset back-up, and that could be if it’s physical you can have courier service, pick up a a thumb drive or or a hard drive or wherever and physically carry it off site, and they’re also more and more online back-up services that you simply connect to over the internet cloud, right when you and i have talked a lot about the cloud we have right sabat besides that, a lot of databases now are actually stored in the cloud, so you may not actually have a copy of it anywhere physically within your facility. Okay, so wait be sure you know where it is and where the copies are that you are able to get it back when one and if you need it, something that struck me as interesting you. The article talked about sql so well, i’ll give you a break and i’ll bring it up so you can avoid jargon. Jail? Explain what we’ll explain what sql is. Do you know what? I hope you know what sql stands for? I looked it up. Well, actually, it’s irrelevant, you know, it’s. Very relevant. Weary language structured clear language. Yes. Don’t say it’s irrelevant when you don’t know it’s and it’s enormously relevant. Oh, no, i do know, but the okay. All right. Well, it’s, what? Really right? See, what it stands for is the only thing i know about it that’s all i know that’s. So i’m trying to show off. That’s. The only thing is all i know is what the initials with the abbreviation stands for. Okay, what does west culwell metoo tony martignetti okay. Donordigital base. Which hopefully, in sum of money, what you’re actually doing is your you’re performing a sql query. You’re asking the database to find specific information and that, like that query language. You know something and actually in english, it says find data, like, quote tony martignetti in database a, b c that’s. How actually looks like. But those queries can do a lot of things besides find they can actually delete data. They can change day there, they can move data. And so i could perform equity that says, find all records that include tony martignetti and delete them. Okay, that’s so and there’s all kinds of other things. But you but how would somebody who doesn’t have access to the database this is an outsider now, right? How would somebody who doesn’t have access to the database execute thes sql queries? Well, that’s, that’s what hackers do they find vulnerable spots in certain systems on they just do it. Sometimes they just do it because they’re mean and nasty. And sometimes they do it because they want to move your data from where you have it to where they want it. All right, so so it can’t happen, but it’s basically can it comes up with the under the domain of hacking? Okay, i see you don’t visit, right? It’s, not just inside. I think i think to be more damage done to a database if the if the command was to add tony martignetti, that was probably more create more. That would be much more destructive. What we have just like a minute before before break. Or so ok, you have another interesting one inference. This was logical but interesting what’s what’s inference about in front er, otherwise known as social engineering. If i want to find had the president of a company, i’ll call in to just pick up a phone, call the front desk and say what’s the name of the president company and they’ll give it to me and then i can ask for not in the same phone call, okay, right, separate call or other information and over twenty calls, i’ll get everything that i want. Okay, so each individual bit is innocuous, but you put them all together some nefarious actor is doing, and you can have some really private information, right? Right. And it’s pretty easy to come by surprisingly, yeah, ok, well, yeah, because each little pieces is innocent. Okay, we’re going to take a break, and when we come back, scott and i will keep talking about how to keep your your database dungeon secure. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz lorts oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people, better business people. Dahna have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. All right, scott koegler we’ve laid out these problems and there’s even more in your article. Att n p tech news. Dot com what are some ways toe? Get around and prevent to really prevent these these problems? It really is tough, tony, because there are so many ways that things could go wrong. So the biggest, biggest thing to do is to make sure that you’re paying attention. Uh, number one, i know where your data is and know that it’s backed up half the fact that you have, uh, valid back-up so you can restore check? Uh, check your employees and your your people that are working and have access to the data. You really may not be able to actually prevent it, but no, i just talked to them about how sensitive this is. Be sure that anybody who has access to get to the data has not disclosure. Uh, language in whatever document signed with them, it won’t protect you won’t actually keep them from doing it. But for a lot of people, it may be enough of a, uh just a warning for them toe not go there. It just makes it a little bit tougher. Okay, what about having different access levels? Certainly. And fortunately, most of the applications that are for sale today for non-profits i already have those kind of things. So you have? Ah, user who is able to look up information and possibly key and donations, but they probably don’t have the ability to look into personal histories. They have the ability to delete records, those kind of things. So for the most part, what kind of function is is built into software that amount profits will will buy in order to run their operations. Okay, um, when? When you do buy software, aren’t there sort of default administrative ieds that hackers might be ableto exploit? Uh, yes. Absolutely. Good points a little about that. Would you please? Sure every application comes with the typically it’s the admin or administrator password with password? Password? Uh, absolute first thing you want to change that, uh, you may want to. If you’re actually in charge of setting it up, you may want to remove that that user after you’ve already set up a different one and also check the list. Of existing user accounts because sometimes there may be some in there that air again set up by default. Good remove any that you you don’t know what they are, you can do that also just kind of during your and during the course of using the system, check the usual to see who’s in there. You may have somebody who was registered inappropriately, either by accident or on purpose. They may have found some way to get into the system and register a high level access the count. There really shouldn’t be there. And the best thing to do is just either restrictor access or just delete them. If they are actually somebody that you want in there, go call you up and say, hey, what happened? And if they’re not good, okay, former employees to write, you might have old account old ieds for former employees, certainly, and that should be covered under the hr policies. And i know a lot of small organizations don’t actually have hr policies that goes along with the non disclosure agreement. The sooner someone is charlyne ated, actually, before they walk out the door before you terminate them, you should remove access. To any of the information that you hold right? Okay, so before you actually have the meeting where they’re ended, where they’re terminated, you wantto cut off their access so that they don’t go back to their office and do something mean, sure, because one of their going to do the most right after the meeting, not before yeah, okay, okay, now, i mean, it sounds underhanded, but its protection, i mean, it’s just basic risk management, okay, what about is this much of a deterrence? If if users know that all they’re i don’t know, maybe a keystroke, logging or all their activity with the databases being logged, is that a deterrent? Um, you know, it’s a return for somebody who thinks that they will be held accountable for somebody who who believed that they could get away with it, they don’t care. So it really comes right down to how trustworthy, ru employees and, you know, what kind of people do you have volunteering? And, um, yeah, it’s tough, and i’m not sure that those kind of things are are effective, but it’s, you know, it’s one of those things that also probably couldn’t hurt, right? Yeah, okay. I mean, it will keep the honest people from crossing the line, right? Like putting a lock on the glass door. Okay, okay, um, the thing i was thinking about is maybe this sort of suggests that doing background checks on employees is valuable. I know their their charities that object to doing that, but this is sort of suggesting that knowing the background of a potential employees could be could be helpful. Absolutely. And i think it depends on what’s at risk if you’re a small charity that, you know, has limited resources and limited funds. And, um and you know what, you’re actually what they’re actually what they have, that risk may not be all that much, and i don’t mean to say that you know, that there’s little at risk, but you made you may not really care about doing background checks, but if you’re a respected organization, i think anyone who is coming to volunteer there appreciates that kind of thing. Scott, we have to leave it. We have to leave it there. You can go. Thank you very much. You can follow him on twitter he’s at scott koegler. And that happens to be his name to another coincidence and he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news scott, thanks so much. Thanks my pleasure. Next week i’ll have one of my interviews from bb con, which was the blackbaud conference i was at about two months ago or so, and also maria simple will be back she’s, the prospect finder, our prospect research contributor. And she’ll be back with maria’s top ten the sights she uses most in her work she’s, our doi and of dirt cheap and free. So you know that you’re not gonna have to spend a lot of money to follow her advice today. There’s a new fund-raising fundamentals, which is my chronicle of philanthropy podcast its new out today the topic is year end fund-raising tips you’ll find it on the chronicle of philanthropy website. You’ll find it on itunes and again. It’s called fund-raising fundamentals. You can listen non-profit radio live our archive. Our archive is on itunes at non-profit radio dot net. From there you can subscribe and listen on the device of your choice at your leisure, wishing you good luck the way performers do around the world were still in czech republic and slovakia zoho mv us. Islam vous break a neck, so i wish you for the week. Islam vous. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Last minute live listener love out to mexico city, mexico. Thanks for joining us from there, and i hope that all of you will be with me next week at talking alternative dot com. You’ll listen on next friday, one to two p, m eastern. You didn’t think to get ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get him. Take it cubine hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream. 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You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry. Shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? 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