Tag Archives: Video

Nonprofit Radio for November 30, 2020: Virtual Event Engagement & Personalized Video

My Guests:

Mike Wilkinson & Joshua Meyer: Virtual Event Engagement
Virtual events are routine now and there’s good reason to believe they’ll outlive the pandemic. We’ve got you covered with pre-, intra- and post-event strategies to maximize engagement and raise more money. Our panel is Mike Wilkinson from Human Rights Campaign and Joshua Meyer at OneCause.

Mike Wilkinson from Human Rights Campaign

Joshua Meyer at OneCause

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Barnett: Personalized Video
Matt Barnett explains the benefits and use cases for short videos that grab attention and thrill recipients. Think volunteers, prospects, donors and anyone you want to feel special. Matt is at Bonjoro.

 

 

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[00:02:44.94] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Yes, Abdominal has made it into the introduction and exalted August position indeed. Welcome. Heh Abdominal. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with Bala Muthiah Mandrell, Aris if you exposed me to the idea that you missed this week’s show virtual event engagement. Virtual events are routine now, and there’s good reason to believe they’ll outlive the pandemic. We’ve got you covered with pre intra and post event strategies to maximize engagement and raise more money. Our panel is Mike Wilkinson from Human Rights Campaign and Joshua Meyer at one Cause and Personalized Video. Matt Barnett explains the benefits and use cases for short videos that grab attention and thrill Recipients think volunteers, prospects, donors and anyone you want to feel special. Matt is with bon jour. Oh Antonis, take to my December Webinar were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives Prospect to donor simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month. Here is virtual event engagement. It’s my pleasure to welcome Mike Wilkinson and Josh Meyer to non profit radio. Mike is deputy director of events at Human Rights Campaign. He and his team organized over 30 annual events nationwide. He previously worked for the National Kidney Foundation and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. HRC is that, HRC dot or GE? And at HRC? Joshua Meyer is senior director of marketing at one cause. He has two decades of fundraising, volunteer management and marketing experience. He started his non profit career at Human Rights Campaign. The company is that one cause dot com and at one cause Mike Josh, welcome to non profit radio. It’s

[00:02:45.10] spk_1:
great to be here. Thanks for having us, tony

[00:02:47.05] spk_0:
E. Have you back now? We had originally recorded this as part of the non profit technology conference when events were still face to face and we were talking about digital engagement for your face to face in person events. Obviously, Josh, you’ve seen lots of clients. Well, all clients, I suppose, either move or cancel events. I mean, there’s all that is the only two options in today’s world, Um, but there’s still a lot we could do around Digital to keep people engaged pre during and after, right?

[00:03:21.14] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s that’s for sure. I think back in March, we had a weekend with hundreds of events ready to go, and it went down to zero. But I think what What was really interesting is that, you know, non profits are so resilient and they quickly figured out that they had to sort of make this ritual pivot, right. And we’ve seen a lot of that Ana here one cause we become sort of focused on virtual. First Way had these long standing in person fundraising events sort of moved to a virtual virtual format on dso they all. They all get it. And I think I’m really excited. Toe have Mike share sort of what they’ve done over at H. I see, you know, as their sort of moving the virtual, the next thing now is really like, how do we engage people? Right? What’s the social engagement component of these of these virtual fundraisers, and how are they? How do we get the people who are watching from their living rooms right to get involved right in this, uh, this virtual program. So there’s all sorts of neat things that we’re excited to share about.

[00:04:24.77] spk_0:
Yeah. Cool, Mike. What did you see initially? A T h R c where you did you see declines in in, uh, event attendance initially when you moved online, and then now you’ve gotten smarter and you’re seeing increases.

[00:05:35.24] spk_2:
So initially, I’d say, you know, our approach was we sort of had, you know, money in the bank already for some of these fundraising events. So we used that as an opportunity to do some testing on virtual events. You know, we already had, um, some results for events that have been canceled. We had folks that are sort of like, wait a minute, I paid money for this event and, you know, as a charity, they want us to keep the money, but they want something for it s oh, we did two events in, uh, April and may, um, that were events that pretty much were carry overs from in person events. And we learned a lot from those events. Um, I wouldn’t say that we saw a decrease in attendance from the event, but I will say, um, you don’t have the attention span that you have for a Nen person event. That immersive nous to it is just not there. So you have to do a lot of work up front in order to get folks to be excited to actually participate in the virtual event.

[00:05:58.24] spk_0:
Have you found there’s an ideal duration or just vary by type of event? I mean, I’ve been hearing like 45 minutes, even less than an hour. People are seeming thio, seeming thio, seeming to seem to prefer.

[00:06:10.24] spk_2:
Yeah, I mean, I would say unless you have fee like blockbuster capabilities of, ah, Hollywood studio, you’re not going to keep anybody for longer than a now, er, like they’re just not going to do it because it’s not that interesting. You know, I think I think 45 minutes is a good amount of time. I think, um, we had one signature event that I think we’ll probably talk about here a little bit that went a little bit longer. That had a big national scope. But yeah, you have to be very, um, reserved in the amount of content that you present to the audience because they’re going to be paying attention to Onley pieces of

[00:06:50.64] spk_0:
it. All right, Josh, why don’t you start us with, you know? So we’ll do this, like, pre during and post event. Um, you have ideas around SMS texting?

[00:07:01.92] spk_1:
Yes. So we’ve seen texting, um, both to drive attendance. Right, But also engagement, um, at the event. I think the other thing that we’re seeing pre is this this sort of change on? Mostly, uh, you typically pay for one of these fundraising events, right? If you’re going in person and we’re seeing sort of a change in that people are organizations are charging them or they’re not charging. They’re trying. They’re using them Is broader engagement tools, um, to get sort of general membership. But maybe also major donors involved. Whereas typically, sometimes these gallons would focus more like the major donors set Onda as a result of that, then they’re also sort of layering in. And Mike and his team did a really interesting thing there, which is sort of doing tear. So there’s like, a free tier for ticketing. But then there’s also like you could upgrade paid, uh, ticket that got you some sort of swag or some sort of premium that they would send you afterwards, right? And so I think that’s when you’re kind of looking at sort of your driving attendance. And how do you factor in where you traditionally see revenue coming from from tickets? How do you should have recruit some of that that revenue and as part of your fundraising stream on driving through actual ticket sales and our engagement that day of using SMS Thio get people to engage like I don’t know if you wanna talk a little bit more about how you guys did, um, ticketing. But also e think it was really interesting the ambassador fundraising that you guys around your table captains?

[00:10:01.14] spk_2:
Yeah, certainly eso to Joshua’s sort of lead into that. We did realize that the really powerful capability of the reach that this messaging can have, Um, you know, people talk about it like this mystical thing, but it’s fairly obvious a virtual event. You don’t have to travel to it. Um, it removes some barriers to attendance. So, um, you know, I work in a division called Development and Membership Development being high dollar fundraising and membership being probably your $10 a month monthly donors, you know, we would not see a lot of those $10 donors in our ballrooms each night. So what we were able to do is create a new event that will merge both of these fundraising techniques together. Whereas we provided ways for folks who are smaller dollar donors to participate in the event at low to no cost at all way really brought in the messaging on dhe. This came at a really key time in our mission because, you know, we’re in election polit political organization, so that election was coming up and it was important to get our message is why it is possible. But we also wanted to provide opportunities for those folks who were giving us, you know, $100 well, over $100 you know, each month to participate as well. So we sort of did this thing called the Quality Captain, which is a peer to peer ambassador fundraising campaign. We allow people to set up fundraising pages and ask their friends, colleagues, co workers to support them. And really, since there’s no table for them to come and sit at, this is the spot that we said, Hey, this is where you tell your story. This is where you put your personality into this event, and it really worked very well. So

[00:10:49.54] spk_0:
Okay, let’s take a little step back just to get some mechanics down. So you’re you’re collecting cell numbers at the time of registration. Are you giving people an option thio to receive these text messages about the event, or do you just ask for the phone number?

[00:10:57.44] spk_2:
Yeah. So at the time that people registered, we did ask for their cell phone number on dhe. Then, you know, sort of told them that in participating in this event, you’re going to receive text messages. Uh, yeah. Folks that have attended in the past are pretty used to this because one cost has had a long history of doing this in with the event on dhe. You know, at any point, someone can opt out of this, but we did say, giving us your cell phone number and we will be texting.

[00:11:27.04] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Um, so let’s not Let’s not focus just on this large event, but you You’ve been doing lots of smaller events also since since March, right? Virtual events

[00:11:38.20] spk_2:
know what we did was we decided that rather than tests or organizational capacity. And do you know, 30 events across the country? We were going to use the leadership structure to focus on this one large event in September.

[00:12:05.84] spk_0:
All right? And and the event was in. I’m sorry. You just said in September September Okay? Okay. Mhm. Okay, um, Josh, anything more about the pre pre event phase? I mean, well, yeah, give me some insight. Like, how often are people getting messages before the event?

[00:12:26.54] spk_1:
You know, I think it varies with the organization, right? And I think it sort of depends on how you’re using it, right? We’re seeing, sort of. I think there’s probably too tight right there is sort of the messaging to try and get people to purchase the tickets or just to pre register. And then I think there’s the messaging sort of that happens the day of to get people engaged in the fundraiser, right? So there’s usually a set period of time when the sort of the program, right, so that virtual livestream is happening on dso. You wanna make sure that you get as many people there, you know, engaged in the live programming as possible, so I think there’s, you know, oftentimes a couple a couple of text messages that lead up to that. But then there’s usually fundraising components that are happening in tandem. Right? So we talked about ticketing, right? So that would be sort of, you know, prior to the day of to try and get people to purchase registrations. Often times we’re seeing our clients, um, set these virtual events up in tandem with online auctions. Right? And so there’s messaging around that on dhe. Then, you know, depending on the software people are using, right, as people are engaging in these online auctions right there getting automatic text messages. So the text messaging is, um you know, it sort of varies depending on what the organization is trying to accomplish at at the different points leading up to that event.

[00:13:36.94] spk_0:
Okay, okay. Eso then let’s let’s do during the event. So the event is live Now, folks are are on. Um, Mike, how many people did you have? A tw the peak.

[00:13:55.24] spk_2:
So we had I want to say we had 2000 people pre register for the event. Additionally, we live streamed the event on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. So Let’s say we probably had about 8000 people viewing at the peak. Um, okay, Of those 8000, those 2000 pre registrants are the ones that received text messages to engage further with us.

[00:14:19.04] spk_0:
Alright, and just for a little more context, how many of the 2000 that preregistered were were, uh, had paid? Versus were the free free tier. We had

[00:14:31.25] spk_2:
about 70% that were free on bond. We had 30% that were paid.

[00:15:16.54] spk_0:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. They have relationships with journalists because of the trust they’ve built with reporters and editors and outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Turn two is the first call these outlets make when they are sourcing stories on charitable giving, non profit trends and philanthropy. That means you get first crack at first class media exposure. The right turn hyphen two dot CEO. Now back to virtual event engagement. Give us a little more detail About what? What you got If you if you paid, was probably was it more than just Mike? I’m sorry. Josh mentioned swag, but what else What else did you get if you paid for the event?

[00:15:31.43] spk_2:
Yeah, we branded some really great merchandise packages. You know what’s great if the human rights campaign is We have a very strong brand that people identify with eso. We made some commemorative pieces. Um, and, you know, way sort of have different tiers. Where if you gave $35 you got a bandanna. Non. If you gave $50 you got the band and in the face mask. And the more that you gave, the more stuff that you received. So

[00:15:58.89] spk_0:
Okay, so it was OK. There was swag was ultra ultra swag.

[00:16:03.17] spk_2:
I wouldn’t say it’s like trade show giveaways. I would say stuff that you would probably walk into a store on 12 purchase. So

[00:16:10.95] spk_0:
okay. And strong brand. So loyal, loyal folks who would like to have a commemorative pieces. All right, All right, So now, Mike. All right, so during the event, what kinds of text messages or folks getting?

[00:16:26.34] spk_2:
There were two primary ways that you could support us during the event. Um, it is to bid in the auction that was online or to make a contribution. So folks were receiving text messages at key points in the run of show so that they would either a place a bit or make a you shot.

[00:16:47.64] spk_0:
Oh, what was the content for the? Was this a 45 minute event?

[00:16:52.54] spk_2:
So the event in September was a little bit longer because it was their national event. You

[00:16:58.63] spk_0:
did say that. I’m sorry.

[00:16:59.59] spk_2:
Thats one is a signature event, and people were really excited about it. So, um, you know, to your point, you know, folks that didn’t pay any money for this event, we assumed that they had a lower investment in attending at all. So those folks were invited to what I would probably call the main stage event, and that lasted for one hour. Um, for folks that were donors to the organization or who bought one of those ticket packages, that’s a clear indication that they’re very interested in seeing mawr. So they were invited to see additional content. That was 30 minutes in advance of the event. And this is really cool, because this 30 minute, um, basically VIPs section of the content was designed with, like a behind the scenes sort of look. So they got to sort of see how the virtual event was running. And some really specialized content focused on their deeper connection to the organization.

[00:17:58.44] spk_0:
Oh, including how the event was running. So they saw some backstage

[00:18:02.40] spk_2:
s. So we had some backstage elements backstage. Pass. Yeah,

[00:18:08.74] spk_0:
Okay. And what was the what was the main stage content?

[00:18:12.22] spk_2:
So the main stage content highlighted are really strong video packages we’ve even before the pandemic. We have very strong video content that’s very impactful. That really talks about the state of the movement, why you should get involved. We also pared those with a lot of celebrity messages and performances so that we were able Thio have some folks that folk that people recognized that really were boasting or cause. We have a long history of always having celebrity guests that are event. So this one was an opportunity. Instead of just seeing one celebrity guests, you got to see basically 15 of them really talking about why the cause was important.

[00:19:10.54] spk_0:
And I’m hearing that prerecorded content is valuable, takes a lot of pressure off. The folks running the show toe have to switch back and forth between live live appearances. Did did you have? Ah, do you have a mix of pre recorded in and live content or was mostly pre recorded? That’s what I’ve been hearing about pre recorded.

[00:19:14.65] spk_2:
Yeah, So I would say we’re probably about 60 40. Prerecorded content, 60%. 40% live. You know, we have found that pre recorded messages air great. But our mission sits on the cusp of history every day. And when something happens in politics, when you know who tweets something out ridiculous. We have to. We have to. We have to be responsive to that in our programming. So, um, some live, some live elements were absolutely necessary and honestly, like that takes a lot of the pressure off of us to use our crystal ball, which these days is so much more fuzzy than it used to be on be able to really resonate with folks hurt what folks heard in the news and what’s affecting them that day. But that doesn’t mean that, like the prerecorded content was bad at it just means that, you know, we were able to get some of these messages from folks that are celebrities or friends of the organization in advance and piece it all together in a way that worked. This

[00:20:12.74] spk_0:
seems like a good time for you to explain quickly. What? What HRC does for folks who don’t know. Human rights campaign. You have a lackluster host. Ah, good host would have asked you that at the beginning s, uh, but make up for my shortcomings, Would you?

[00:20:27.94] spk_2:
Yeah. So the human Rights campaign were a 501 c for charity, and what that means is that we are engaged in political work that advances the right of LGBTQ people across the country s Oh, this is a little bit different than 501 C three. Work where political work is not allowed. We are the kind of the opposite of that. You know, we still are designated as a charity. There’s some some differences with the way gifts or processed. Um, but, you know, we’re allowed to go out and say we think that this is the issue that should be report. This is the issue that should be pushed through Congress. Your local legislature. This is the This is tthe e candidate, that candidate or, you know, current, um, elected official. That’s going to do that so whereas in a 51 C three like that’s sort of off limits.

[00:21:19.41] spk_0:
Or mostly, I mean, you’re limited to the percentage of your you said at key moments. Folks got fundraising messages or maybe auction messages. How did you How did you time those to the content? What’s the relationship there?

[00:21:38.84] spk_2:
Well, we did do actually live fundraising appeal where, you know, folks were able Thio, you know, make a donation on their smartphone. And we had a large thermometer up there that showed how many people across the country were making donations. Um, and you know that that was always a really successful fundraising technique in person, and I continue to be so in the virtual world. We just had to make sure that we had the magic formula to get people to that moment in the program so that they were ready to give. There’s nothing different about that. You just have to think about what that means in a virtual world, starting with the first time that someone learns about your event,

[00:22:27.94] spk_0:
let’s lay concerns about, uh, folks maybe feeling like they got too many messages and opting out. What? What did you see in terms of people and any any time during the during the process before, during or after the show opting out of these SMS messages.

[00:22:47.14] spk_2:
So we get very few complaints about books in during the run time of the event, receiving too many text messages, I’d say maybe we get comments that there are a lot of text messages, but nobody’s mad at us. You know, folks sort of when they sign up for an event, realized that they are asking for a high level of engagement. So during the run town time of the event, um, it’s very difficult to over communicate with them. Um, you know, we have to pay attention to in advance of the event, like how often we talk to them. I would say we probably started about 10 days out with a message launching the auction on then maybe one or two reminders about what’s going on so that they could get get ready for the event, and some of these text messages are people were waiting for because it included information on how to do things like actually watch the live stream and stuff like this. So some of them were very nuts and bolts types of messages. They weren’t just Always give us money. Give us money. It’s like, Okay, you purchased two in a ticket. A ticket to this event. This is how you get in, you know? So

[00:23:47.24] spk_0:
Okay, Now, will you also emailing or this is strictly SMS.

[00:23:52.64] spk_2:
Absolutely. So we sent emails as well. You know, you’re obviously able to put more detail into email. Um, you know, I find that email is really tough these days just because there’s so much noise. You know, you’re lucky if you get somebody to even get their email on their high priority inbox and they get filtered a lot. So there are a lot of folks that do you read our emails, but there’s a lot of folks that that’s not how they found us. So they’re not receiving those emails. You gotta get really creative on how you reach out to folks.

[00:24:24.34] spk_0:
Okay? And but so the more immediate ones, like during the show that was that. I’m guessing that was exclusively texts. You weren’t sending emails that. Okay,

[00:24:34.46] spk_1:
Okay. E think One of the other avenues that we have at our availability right is also live chat, right So you have. You can sort of push that text message right to someone’s phone during, ah, virtual event. But we’re also seeing a lot of our clients engage in sort of live chat that’s like built into the page, right? So So as people are watching the converse watching the show, they’re able tohave conversations or they’re able to make comments. Or they’re able to actually engage to the school with the speakers or the organization on DSO. There’s that’s another sort of avenue we’re seeing organization sort of really harness in. Some cases were actually having, like, there’s a staff person whose sole responsibility at the virtual event is to monitor the chat and thio, address any donor questions or also to just really pump the pump. The people that are watching the show up right, like get them engaged on dhe sort of start the conversation. Uh, you know, somebody what you would do you see, like in a live event at at a table, right? People are commenting and watching and engaging on the show, and we feel like that sort of helps. It helps the fundraising in the long

[00:25:51.44] spk_0:
term. And Josh, I’m assuming one cause is a is a platform that offers this these functionalities that we’re talking about.

[00:25:59.64] spk_1:
It is Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do offer virtual virtual event center, sort of ties all that together on DSO. I think, you know, there’s there’s a couple other components depending on sort of what you’re looking, um, at accomplishing or how you want to set up your event. We definitely can help you with that, but yeah, I think between text messaging, the live chat, virtual streaming or even sort of broadcasting pre recorded videos as we just talked about, you know, we have We have tools to help nonprofit organizations make that really easy on. Really, really smooth. If they’re if they’re looking to make the move from in person toe virtual event,

[00:26:38.94] spk_0:
take us to the post event. Now, Josh, what does that messaging look like?

[00:26:43.74] spk_1:
Yeah. I mean, I think the post event really is, um we’re looking at some of those tried intrude best practices, right? Like you’re still gonna want to do the personal Thank you. Note. You’re gonna still you’re gonna look at all your data and who make who made a donation at that virtual event right Onda who made, you know, silent auction purchases on D do that outreach post event. And then I think it’s really, um, you know, if you have new if you’ve acquired new donors is part of that virtual event right, you’re gonna want to do You’re welcome. Siri’s. You’re gonna wanna take those people through very much like you would do in person event. You can get creative with social or online channels, right? You could as an organization. Do I Thank you. Video that gets pushed out through your social channels Or just, you know, it could be an instagram message or image, right? Thinking people who attended s So I think there’s ah lot in that post event, right? I think there is. A lot of it remains the same. Andi, guess right. We can also bring in text messaging, right? You could do a post text messaging as as a as a way to think, people. Uh, Mike, what did you guys dio a ce faras posted that wrap up.

[00:28:40.14] spk_2:
We always send a thank you email. We were in a unique position with our September event. Um, in that first holes, phenomenally successful, we raised over $2 million had great viewership of the Livestream. Um, and you know, we were facing the election coming up. So our campaigns and organizing team was highly interested in engaging these folks to see um, if they would doom or it was great. Is everybody who was, ah, supporter of our September event was ready to doom. Or so we gave them additional ways with the organization to connect eso that they’re not just sort of writing checks, but they’re also sort of getting the work done alongside a lot of the staff, which was really, really, really transformational for us is an organization. This year it’s It’s actually one of the things that I look at 2020 and think about. Wow, I never would have imagined that that to go like that, but it did so

[00:28:54.14] spk_0:
excellent. Did you use a lot of video afterwards? Video clips to remind folks of the experience.

[00:29:01.54] spk_2:
We had one video message from our host that we emailed and texted out on dhe. It was basically just a big thank you. Um, and I think it was a reminder that the auction was closing because it went a little bit a little bit longer and sort of last ditch. Like if you didn’t make a contribution and you’re feeling like it, then then don’t let us stop you. So, um, u m and that went really well. So

[00:29:26.84] spk_0:
and what was the I know you said raised about $2 million overall. What was the proportion of the 8000 overall who e either gave or contributed by the via auction versus non donor?

[00:29:41.60] spk_2:
You’re asking such so many data driven questions? Things,

[00:29:45.83] spk_0:
non profit radio Don’t hold that. Come on. What are you expecting? I mean, the host is lackluster, but the conversation is not Wow. Well,

[00:30:18.74] spk_2:
I mean, way clearly had about, you know, 800 people that make contributions for tickets. E would say that. I mean, this is a very hard number to quantify, because between our our ambassador fundraising campaign that the the ticket premium sales and the auction I’m making a guess and say we probably had

[00:30:21.64] spk_1:
it was a lot, right?

[00:30:23.12] spk_2:
Yeah. 2500 people making contributions at varying amounts. So

[00:30:28.54] spk_0:
just trying to set expectations. You folks, um, context, Okay,

[00:30:32.69] spk_1:
any one of the things that we’re also seeing as a lot of these virtual events are bringing in new donors for a lot of the reasons that we previously discussed. And so it’s making sure that you know what we’re advising our partners, our clients is that, you know, making sure that as you’re bringing in those new donors, that you have a way to engage them, right and that there there is. There’s a set plan to do that follow because it’s more than just the event. Follow up, right. You have new acquisitions, and now you gotta get them engaged into your mission and your messaging and make them, you know, become routine. Regular donors on DSO. I just think I don’t caution, but I think it’s just something to consider, right as you’re looking to do this, virtual that because it’s a lot easier for people to plug in and they don’t have toe, you know, go to a hotel and they can just turn on on from their from their living room, right? We’re seeing this high number of new new donors, and so figuring out the strategy around that is really

[00:31:37.47] spk_0:
important. Well, maybe not a caution admonition. You’re admonishing admonition that, and that’s consistent with face to face events. I mean, you had your you just You have to be thinking through what you’re going to do for the for the folks who came to your what used to be a face to face event, you know, they were brought by ambassadors might talk about the ambassador program. And so they were. They were brought by folks who needed to fill a table in the past. Excuse me, but they were They were new, new to the organization. And so you wanted to suss out. Are they interested in a long term engagement or they’re really just don’t wanna hear from us anymore. They were doing a friend a favor,

[00:32:10.15] spk_1:
right? Right. Well, then, yeah, and then trying to figure out how you could build that relationship, right?

[00:32:47.94] spk_0:
Uh, and, uh, you know, there was. I don’t know if I don’t know if it’s true or not, but just intuitively in the face to face events. The folks got these new acquisitions, got something out of it. They got they got cocktails and a dinner. Um, now they don’t get that. So maybe there maybe they’re more likely to be interested in the in the mission because, I mean, all right, so they’re giving up less time, but they’re getting less for it. There’s no there’s no free cocktail hour and and and dinner. So maybe I’m thinking maybe they’re mawr invested virtually even though they’re spending less time. But still, time is valuable. You know, they’re not even getting free drinks out of it. So

[00:32:57.39] spk_2:
I would say you’re onto something, tony there because folks have been looking

[00:33:00.90] spk_0:
Thank you for rescuing me. Thank you. Because I wasn’t even sure that I wasn’t sure if I waas Thank you, Mike.

[00:33:05.70] spk_2:
Folks are looking for those take action items in their homes. So if you’re able to provide those to them in conjunction with these with these with these virtual events, um, they’re much more apt to take them as opposed to, you know, they have a nice meal. 129 cocktails. And then the next day, they think that was great. I wonder if I will do that again, and then you’ll see them again next year, as opposed to the next day. They’re sort of like Okay, well, I can sit here, and I can get involved with this organization in ways that I haven’t before That you know, isn’t far off. And I think I think you’re definitely right. That that this leaves Thio, it lowers the bar for entry into further engagement with it with the organization.

[00:35:39.04] spk_0:
Yeah, all right. I think that’s a perfect place to leave it. My savior, Mike Wilkinson. Thank you for that. Deputy Director of Human. I’m sorry. Deputy Director of Events at Human Rights Campaign HRC dot Organ at HRC And Josh Meyer, Uh, senior director of marketing at one. Cause one cause dot com And at one cause Mike and Josh. Thank you very much. Good ideas. Thanks. It’s time for tony. Take two. I’m hosting a new free webinar planned giving five minute marketing. It’s kind of nice hosting my own webinars. I did one in November. We had very good turnout, so I’m hosting one this month in December. It’s another quick shot. 50 minutes on planned giving marketing how to promote the idea of planned gift to your prospects. Who are the prospects? What’s the message and how do you get it out? Multi channel. Plenty of time. Also, for your questions? Absolutely. My favorite part is questions you can register at planned giving accelerator dot com slash webinar. It’s on December 17th. I hope you’ll be with me. That is tony. Take two. Now it’s time for personalized video. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome my next guest, Matt Barnett is Papa Bear at Bon jour. Oh, he launched from Sales Hack for his first business, where he would send every new lead a personal video to delight and surprise them. His goal is to be the next Zappos to be the most loved brand in the world. When he’s not making videos or products, he’s out tagging bandicoot ce for wildlife research. He’s with us from Sydney, Australia. The company is at bon jour, oh dot com And at Bonn jaro app. Matt Barnett. Welcome to non profit radio. A pleasure. Pleasure to have you, uh, I’ve been doing this show for 10 years over 500 episodes, and you are the the most remote guest by far before this. Yes. Uh, before, before, this was your home was from the UK.

[00:36:07.13] spk_3:
Good. Good to hear. You should get some more. Ozzy’s a lot going on here, Especially the environmental side of things raises its head. I think

[00:36:21.83] spk_0:
and and and speaking of, well, environment or animals, what are you tagging? Bandicoot? What’s a bandicoot?

[00:36:23.63] spk_3:
Have you ever played the game? Crash Bandicoot? They are nothing like that. There are small marsupial. Looked like a get a rat with a long nose but have pouch with the care of the babies. On dhe, they dig around for grubs and roots. We go out and tag Aziz the isolated population and one the headlands here, where they’ve got certain genetic traits. And we tagged those monitor them and they’re great case study for for the animal in isolation. Also collecting the wildlife rescue we have you know, we have a python living in our basement. It’s very It’s very Australian out

[00:36:59.19] spk_0:
here, marsupial. So we don’t use that word too often here. But kangaroos are marsupials as well, right? Is that

[00:37:07.53] spk_3:
you guys have you guys have them? You have a as well.

[00:37:23.13] spk_0:
Okay. Thank you for educating me about wildlife in the, uh so it’s good to have you. Good to have you from Sydney. Um, personal video. What do we What are we talking about when we say that personal video, What does it look like?

[00:37:31.43] spk_3:
Eso what it is is essentially sending quick asynchronous. They’re kind of one sided personal messages that are targeted towards individual Boehner’s in this case. So if someone dropped, if someone gives donation, then having won the team within a few hours, we can say, Hey, Mrs Jones saw that you donated $734 to the cause. Just wanna let you know how much that means to us. You know, the money is probably gonna be used here, here and here. And just again, Thank you for a while. Support on. So the idea here is very quick messages that are shot on desktop or phone. They’re not edited, nothing else. It’s just a piece comes on its directed act. An individual rather than a piece of concerts used again and again, again, generically.

[00:38:24.02] spk_0:
Okay, one time. One person, one use. And they’re probably watching it on their phone, Mostly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I saw somewhere you call this the, uh, purple cow of donor engagement. What is that? What do you mean, there?

[00:38:26.02] spk_3:
Yeah, it’s actually it’s actually that’s actually quite fun about one of our clients because I think you’re international in the States. um se. So I guess it’s kind of a secret weapon that they used. They’ve used on a quality campaigns during the recent pandemic, because what they find is that going that little bit extra, I think I think it’s a really like linking donors to benefactors, especially if that could be done so in their in their cases. Actually send videos from schools in Africa to donors, Um, is just it’s like for three second investment. The impact it’s having on donations on be engaging lapsed owners and getting donations that don’t have to increase the nation’s isn’t saying it’s kind of off the charts they’ve ever done. I mean, it makes me it makes it might, of course. Of course it makes

[00:39:20.12] spk_0:
sense. Yeah, Andi think purple cow comes from Seth Godin that, you know you would if you saw a cow would be no big deal. But if you saw a purple cow, you know, then you’d be tweeting it. You’d be taking pictures, you know, it would stand out. So it’s a pattern interruption. We do something special on dhe. That’s that’s that seems like a feature of one of many features, like It’s something special it? Tze personalized. It’s sincere, right? I mean, you’re you’re looking at the person on your phone there speaking right to you. They’re saying your name there, thanking you. It’s it’s like it’s human.

[00:40:00.91] spk_3:
Yeah, like there’s like there’s incredible power in the name way. No, this year, I think Andi And then the other thing is that the the authenticity of it as well? I think I would suggest that authenticity is it’s a challenge day, a fake news that I said So I think I think that really is coming through, I think, especially where you know many of our experiences, our distance, you know, even prior to the world situation as it is today because the way we work gain that bit of community connection back again on doing it in a surprising, authentic, like the way it joins the light is because it’s not expected. It’s because because the bar is so low, it has a huge impact on the Barlow we could rant about again. I think it was just so much opportunity here for anyone willing to put it more often.

[00:40:47.33] spk_0:
Yeah, and we’re talking like 45 seconds or a minute, right? These air. Quick, Quick shots. Minute maximum. Okay. Is that one of your tip? Is that one of your? Is that a best practice? Keep it short.

[00:41:30.21] spk_3:
Yeah, I think there’s an engaging point of view, I think, within the women Charity Specter within down space You know, you could talk more like Absolutely, But the reality is you don’t you don’t need to. It’s not about It’s not about doing a sales picture and that, yeah, it’s just acknowledging. So it’s stopping for your danger, acknowledging, you know, a customer client a don’t know that that’s what you were doing it. It’s not even about the video. The video is the medium that that shows that you’re willing to do this, but it’s actually the time. That’s really what you give me, but you’re saying you are worth might be one of my teams. Time to stop. Just thank you in person. If the 22nd. That’s fine. Yeah, obviously you’re doing a lot of these from from the person doing the videos. Shorter means you can get them or easier as well. I mean, that’s an aspect to it. Less than a minute is all it takes.

[00:41:48.71] spk_0:
Yeah, and I like that. You know that you took the time to thank me personally in in a surprising, humane way. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, there’s a you know, you said I mean, there’s a there’s a there’s a connection there, you know, you’re looking right at the person you’re saying their name again. I gather, that’s I I see that in a lot of the the advice to that some other interviews you have done, you know, you got to say the person’s name mean that Zamora it’s personal. Yeah.

[00:42:07.40] spk_3:
Say the name. You know, like, if you’re able to see, you know, we’ll try to help you here. We’re trying to show you kind of actually where they’re based. What donation amount is how long they’ve been a donor. So you can customize what you say you go, the further you can. You know, I see you’ve been with us for the last three years. You know, everything you put in this on now, I think especially specifically here. This is what saying earlier is the idea of like connecting the dots so down into benefit. Like, what is that? You know, $734 done like specifically. If you’re gonna line this, there’s amazing people. It’s storytelling, you know, People go. I could see how that dollar makes difference. And quite often, you know, for me, like for us as a company way gives charities. We do this as well. The key thing is about impact. You know, we’re on enterprise cut like company. So and what we’re giving is not a million. So I’m like, right, I wanna make sure every dollar counts. So what’s the impact on this thing here? What you’re doing is you’re making it much easier for customers to see sort of donors to see the actual impact with dollar. And that’s what’s gonna make me stay with you. Be a donor for life versus, you know, switching other causes This time gets on.

[00:43:13.40] spk_0:
I saw one example where a non profit linked to a video. And so in the in the video that they sent to the donor, there was a link Thio, like a mini documentary about how the money is used and what the what the organization is doing.

[00:44:31.99] spk_3:
Yeah, and so s so you know the other part. This, obviously is that when you’re using this be this’ll kind of communication. It’s very hard, quite engaging. So you have an opportunity there. Thio, take that storytelling further, potentially ask that donut can take the next step. So in that case, what they’re saying is it Thank thank you in person, um to show you what it is go and watch this. And so what we’re doing is obviously driving traffic, but those videos of you getting a lot more views off the back of those those combined with the fact that take a long time bringing back in lapsed owners get people thio up their donations, increasing the nation’s obviously stay around. Some Chinese used that Teoh they’re available. They’re subtle. They’re like, Here’s a little bit more body or here’s a link Thio Share the story on social or, you know, here’s here’s our latest campaign we’re doing We’re building X Y Zed, please gonna be more about, you know, on inform yourself as well. So it is opportunity here. They’d be starting conversation that that’s not a it’s not a lycan endpoints. It’s the start of, you know, the next piece of engagement which can lead Thio. You

[00:44:35.06] spk_0:
wanna have some kind of a call to action, right? Have them do something beyond just beyond beyond the thank you. And so what are the use cases? Have you seen for nonprofits? Aside from donations, what other? What other uses are are nonprofits. Putting personalized video to

[00:45:04.75] spk_3:
E because it was just here is taking time with the individual donor. It tends to get so intense it used with donors and partners. So it’s being used either on on daily Drive, just as a daily habit. So anything comes in your thank you’s Ugo campaigns as well so specific drives they’re doing. We get used a lot for laps for lapsed donors. So reengaging past owners A ZX. Well, bring them back into the fold.

[00:45:14.19] spk_0:
Okay, so something like, you know, you haven’t been with us for a while. Exactly. We’d love to have you back. Here’s here’s what Here’s what our work is And here’s Here’s a link Thio what we’re working on now or something like that,

[00:45:43.59] spk_3:
Yeah. You know, obviously informations we’re just trying to do is to re engage those those users and be like, Look, this is what we’ve been doing in the last two years Since Since you’re with us, we’ve come a long way. Here’s what the impact you made. And so what I can do is to re engage me. Some of your customer base, especially ones that you know, are potentially large backers or more torrential backers to bring them back into the fold, especially especially with the younger child. Is that growing up where in the year the impact they’re making is exponential because of the movies they’re making?

[00:45:57.59] spk_0:
Um, I could see you know something like for volunteers. Do you know, if you just want to thank someone for having spent an extra 20 hours the past week doing extra volunteer work for the organization, stuffing backpacks for for Children, going back to school, where you know most people do five or 10 hours and somebody does 20 or something, You’re just a little shout out to them. I mean, it could be a simple thank you like that, right?

[00:46:55.48] spk_3:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s why we use that way. Get used internally on teams, especially when people have quite, um, probably less engaged volunteers. Nowhere like people like May. So I’m involved in a wildlife system called called wires, which which is huge really, although firefighting states in Australia where you know it’s massive again with us, where we’re not necessary is fitting underneath people above us, you know, we’re not turning up for such thanking people who are less connected as well. Like you said, the ones that go above and beyond for their work like it, it’s one Does that to you, Like you know, it’s all worth it. You know, like again, again, again, it’s connecting. What I’m doing is a volunteer to the end result. So again, it’s back to the impact Peace. Like, um, I’m making an impact. Has someone noticed the work I’m doing because you haven’t noticed? Maybe I should put my time somewhere else.

[00:47:19.18] spk_0:
Yeah, eso like anytime you would think about writing a thank you note, you could consider ah, personalized video.

[00:47:32.28] spk_3:
Yeah, I think so. And this is like it’s not the answer to everything. And this is just another arrow within. Within your quiver on. Great. There’s different ways. Toe communicates, I think, with the video. But here’s the thing. It again. It’s not about the video that the fact that you can get it across the authenticity it’s you yourself, you know that 70% of communication is in the face the face. Yet it’s not even in the tone of voice. So if you get across people love it. They connect with it better. I just think Video’s amazing medium for this. Ah, nde on the other side. It’s a lot quicker than sending. You know I’m more cost effective than than writing a thank you elements and that off. It’s definitely worth try

[00:48:42.97] spk_0:
time for our last break. Dot drives dot drives Engagement that drives relationships dot drives is the simplest donor pipeline fundraising tool. It’s customizable, collaborative, intuitive. If you want to move the needle on your prospect and donor relationships. If you want to get folks from prospect to donor, get the free demo. As you know, for listeners, there’s also a free month. Go to the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. We’ve got but loads more time for personalized video with Matt Barnett and and you’re right. I mean, you see so much more, you know, written words. You know, that’s one Dement Well, all right, this is one dimensional too, but you can hear the person’s voice. You could see their expression when they say thank you. See their smile? It’s It’s so much more engaging than, uh than a hand written note in certain or even type you know, the word word word document on you.

[00:49:05.32] spk_3:
Show them any of the most powerful things which, which is hard to dio, is when you know, like we see people doing these videos like with kids and schools in Africa or they do it No wallowing like a wildlife center or they do it while that one the one camps with everyone about behind them. Ah, nde, You’re not just gonna shoot you like Look, look, this is this is this is the impact like check it out. You know, this is what’s happening so that that’s that’s that’s become a wow stuff. It is. It is hard because you’re always in their situations, but when you pull it off people just it compared to a leather like it’s like seeing is believing, you know,

[00:49:39.97] spk_0:
now does does the team at bon jour. Oh, that you’re the papa bear of Are they able to see all that? Can you see all the videos that people do?

[00:50:25.46] spk_3:
Eso accounts accounts of private? If we asked, So what we will do it, especially with non profit. So we personally like me and probably a few. The team members are pretty driven. We do the whole one sense. We talked about as much time as we can. We tend to get on calls and consulted held by non profits, get most system. So when when we do that is one thing we suggest is that we have permission. Can we come in and have a look on? You could use a few examples. And then what we could do is experts is kind of suggest otherwise. From what we’ve seen up to the user, Uh, obviously the only other thing is that call them privacy privacy reasons. Then myself and my CEO could do that. Otherwise it will, Private. It’s all off the record.

[00:50:49.16] spk_0:
Okay, Because I want to know if people are using this for, uh, you know, for prurient, uh, illicit in place of sexting. I’m gonna send you a I’m gonna send you a or Oh, yeah. Are you seeing any of that? The only thing we’ve

[00:50:50.07] spk_3:
seen is we have some swingers clubs.

[00:50:53.40] spk_0:
So what? Swingers clubs? Yeah. Alright, alright.

[00:50:56.28] spk_3:
However, however we talked of you. It’s not being used in that way. It’s being used as a lead generation, like business funnel. Let’s just look at it like, Well, that makes sense.

[00:51:12.46] spk_0:
So right. Okay. Ah, funnel. Okay. Again,

[00:51:13.10] spk_3:
again, again. Look like how we used during private, You know, of course, on users can choose if their recipients can share the videos. And non profits were, like, let let them share them. Because if they take it to him and say, Look what I got off the heart foundation, thanking me for my donation like that. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s awesome storytelling. But if you want to be used in privacy, then we could lock that down.

[00:51:39.26] spk_0:
Oh, yeah, These are right. Incredibly terrible. Yeah, yeah. Um and this is this is you know, this is also consistent with what I’ve had a lot of guests say, and I’ve said on this show many times that that in doing production that in doing video, uh, sincerity always trumps production values. You know, you don’t have to have a fancy Mike. You could do this. You could You could do this walking to your car. It doesn’t take fancy studio when it’s genuine. And sincere

[00:52:02.45] spk_3:
like like Abbott’s, like real life, you know, like like like Like, who do you trust more? The guy in the perfect tailored suits or the guy wearing a T shirt has got fun with enthusiasm, you know, like like shake your hand and hugs you. I’m gonna go with that guy every time, like it’s the same thing, you know?

[00:52:18.35] spk_0:
And are you seeing, uh, Mawr use of this during the pandemic? E mean people are so much more accustomed to seeing each other by video. Now are are you seeing a burst since, uh, since March?

[00:53:16.75] spk_3:
Yeah, like I think it’s helped. I think it’s helped in terms people overcoming you know, the Fear video, which I think comes from the idea that video has been the car medium of film for so long that you put on on on a pedestal. Now, realizing it’s it’s not that it’s just the same as having a coffee. So I think we’ve people using Zoom people getting a video calls. Mawr has obviously made people realize that actually videos easy on dso. There’s a mental pieces become over. I think there’s also a challenge that living in a bit more to disconnect environment the moment we’re struggling. Thio connect Obviously not with team members on my partners and do things like this, but with their customers as well. And so we’ve been adopted, like in that space and videos being more adopting that space to help keep those relationships going where you couldn’t. But you can’t have the coffee or or go to the conference today. You know,

[00:53:18.15] spk_0:
um, want o share a good client story, somebody that another one where someone used it successfully and saw an increase in gifts or volunteering. Whatever. Yeah, yeah, we just

[00:54:00.06] spk_3:
we just that given we just doing that with the Heart Foundation here in Australia, which is a large organization s made a lot of work in schools in the big A little school fundraising. So they did two things. Uh, they went out and they did what he said. They congratulated the Children who got the biggest fundraisers. So the whole team went out on just engaged with those high performing kids from organization directly, whereas normally they would always be kept a kind of arms on the other than it did in the way that where they were, where the kids were raising funds was through skipping competitions on trying to kind of crazy skipping competitions. And so, it turns out, quite your team on the heart foundation, our next level skippers, where they’re doing tricks and stunts. And so those team, we’re sending our videos through the kids in schools being like Okay, right, whoever you could do this and basically challenging them to kind of come with crazy stuff. And so, like, really engaging with again directly with kids rather than just the teachers, which ultimately they have been generated $45 from just one of the schools. I think the private previously with them $5000 because they got a LH the Children themselves so much more engaged that it became a real driver. Whereas there wasn’t one of those fundraising things you do at school. So it’s interesting again. Is that connection between the cause and the people doing the fundraising?

[00:54:55.94] spk_0:
You’re seeing Children, too? I mean, that’s a heart string. Yeah, Heartstring puller.

[00:54:57.64] spk_3:
Yeah, exactly. Um,

[00:55:00.54] spk_0:
um what else? What else should we be talking about? That I I haven’t asked you.

[00:56:32.93] spk_3:
I think like so. It’s just like beyond your personal video, but I think just the idea off personal. So the idea of personalization of scale, the idea of taking a little more time with customers like we haven’t here that way where we say automate process, but not relationships. But I think I think you take that into into any aspect you’re doing in terms of customer engagement or in terms of marketing on. So I think where on where you can, where you can start to personalize your experiences and your customer experience, like your your donors or your partners, or to your or anyone who engage in the organization, you are going to get better results. You know, I suggest you probably get a return on any of the extra time that you put in. So I think, you know, we start to come past the stage where you send the yearly update and you’re like, This is what the fund has done this year, and these impacts were made to yeah, as donors like, we want to know what our dollars are doing because we have so much choice because we’re being picked all the time to invest in different areas way do bounce around, especially my generation. So you look kind of like between e. Guess Young, young, um, young Corporates, young people making decent money, who have now, for the first time, I got my to spend on causes they’re passionate about. I’ve got on there’s good money to spend where we’re gonna put it. It’s gonna be hard to know. So it’s just that way you could pursuant experiences and you connect people with people like ultimately, If that happens, the decisions easier for the benefit of me. Because I go What I know these people. Therefore, I believe my money will go further here. That’s not obviously necessary. True, but that’s that’s how you feel. So I think, you know, the more we could do personalized customer experience, customer journeys. Being through video will be it from any other means on. There’s a lot of smart systems out there now that start to tell you more information about your donors so you could do that. I think the more you connect the end benefactor to the donor as well, it’s super important. You know, You see this doing on products now where if you buy products that are fundraising, you could look at it and it’ll tell you the journey of the dollar and where it goes, the more you could do that. Connect the dots, which in space technology is a lot easier. I would argue again, the mawr likely here you have a of keeping donors for no, not a year, but 10 15 2030 years.

[00:57:37.63] spk_0:
And based on how you make them feel, you know, there’s a lot of research that says people people are less likely to remember what you tell them, but they’re they’re very likely remember how you make them feel. So if you make you make them feel special by doing personalized special things, like notes or videos or, you know, connecting connecting them to their to the impact of their dollar, that that’s all that’s all feelings and that stuff is in the heart. Once, once we hold a cause in our heart, then our our brain will say, you know, go ahead and make a donation.

[00:59:25.42] spk_3:
Yeah, way give, because it makes us feel good. Like we’re satisfying human urging, you know of doing good. And have you looked at it, You know, from, uh, whether you’re, uh, wanna be a possible or negative about it. You’re like it. We’re doing it. We’re doing it for a personal reason. I’m doing it because it makes my dolphins go. I feel good, like I could get back eso you need trigger those on storytelling on connection does that. You know where things would have worked 10 years ago because now there are so many causes and so many systems, and so just just generally get the average person gets 65 notification today from emails and SMS. Everything else like How do you cut through that? Like it’s hard like everyone’s, You know, you’re not just competing against other nonprofits. You’re competing against every single person who is contacting this individual ornate, multiple times daily basis. So you need you know it’s not. It’s not whether you could do better than that. It’s not whether you can get the attention over another cause. It’s whether you could get attention over other businesses and everything because the dollars could go anywhere on That makes it incredibly hard. But I think with with with good causes, you have this massive benefit where you are like like like like you pull heart strings like no else can like you have these stories, you have these stories. You have these people, you have the good things of doing. Just how do you get that to the individual?

[00:59:28.02] spk_0:
Interesting when you say, you know you’re not only competing with other nonprofits, but also businesses. But also you’re competing with every app on the person’s phone that that for which they have notification set, you know, So that could be their stock. That could be their their their their stock trading account. Uh, it could be their bank. It could be their newspapers. You’re competing with every everything that’s tugging at their attention. But here, you know, you do something personalized, sincere, genuine, quick shot 45 seconds. And it’s it’s something unique in their day in their weak easily.

[01:01:14.31] spk_3:
Yeah, I think it s I think communities play a big part here, and this is well, so building an active private community for for everyone involved because that’s where conversation start to happen. Because I think there’s a There’s another piece I like RL interesting. Yeah, which I think most realizations don’t do the best job off. And this is around the advocacy side so often we will focus on on the new donors. And, like when on the next one, like it’s much easier to grow donations from your existing community was than his mom from new ones. I think the way to do this is to make U M. Into what I call super fans. Yeah, this applies to business. That’s the challenge. That’s everything else you want, people who are going to rave about you and talk about you. And to do that, you need to consistently engage them. I always think about with its about making lifetime. Dana is not not single donors. So if you’re not running an active community or if you’re running a community just like it’s not just about talking, it’s a two way peace. If you’re not making this active, I would challenging to look heavily at that because that’s where you can make your connections happen on the quiet to scale as well. Um, so I think a lot of times they don’t do a good enough job. This it tends to be a lot of one way Commons versus two ways on again. I look at that. I’m like this opportunity because most of us are not in many communities, we get lots of all my stuff we’re not want to in the community. You instantly start to cut through that because, you know, you get medications for my community and your prioritize those. Like if you know, if you’re if you’re small, if you’re starting up, it could be a WhatsApp group. It could be that simple, but looking for ways to cut through with something, that person is going to keep this a priority and know that whatever comes from that is one they’re gonna open.

[01:01:47.81] spk_0:
And that’s when you get to the stage where they start missing it. If they’re not hearing from you, it’s been a couple of days. There’s been a week or something. I haven’t, You know, I haven’t heard from this. You know this group where you know where they’ve been. So

[01:02:00.00] spk_3:
if that happens, it happens. You’ve done it.

[01:02:57.90] spk_0:
That’s the gold standard. Oh, yeah, that’s a that’s a gold standard. That’s Ah, that’s Ah, triple play. But I’m not very good at sports, but that’s Ah, that’s Ah, home touchdown. So, yeah, when they start missing you, um All right. All right. Went thio. I feel like way we’ve given, like, enormous motivation for why, why people should look a TTE not only personalized video, but just personalized action. Personalized engagement. You know, we talk so much about the community talking about sex segmentation, but this is segmentation to the smallest possible degree, the most segmented to the individual, not to the collect, not to a collective of of 50 or 100 or 5000 who are devoted to petition signing for for your cause, you know. But this is the individual. After they’ve signed, it’s it’s it’s hyper personalization, hyper segmentation, which is called personalization, I think.

[01:03:36.30] spk_3:
Yeah, yeah, I think in order to tackle this again. So my suggestion is it may seem overwhelming, but you need systems that are quick to do so They need to work out the time you put in. But you also need need need toe like bring in, bring in anyone involved in the cords. So talk about, for example, be take myself his involvement in the wildlife rescue. Face it to May. Would you mind thanking you? Don’t of a day like sure. Yeah, like so. Like use your use Anyone who’s volunteering like get him to help us. It’s like you have a I think it becomes easy If you could spread it amongst enough people. The other thing is obvious to say, segment out and go like not all donors are equal. Maybe in terms of like value their big in terms like the dollar valuables in terms of the influence and that kind of reach they have as well. We’re engaged. They asked, may be focused on those first start with those and then start being down. Um, yeah, the smart ways to do it. So like like anything start small. If it works and you essentially get return on investment much, I hate that term. Then then you could start to work out how to scale it more because it was working like Like it doesn’t matter like it will scale. It will pay for itself. Just take a small step, But don’t get too overwhelmed. Begin.

[01:05:16.99] spk_0:
All right, Matt Barnett, Papa bear a tw bon jour Oh cos at bon jour oh dot com And at Bonn Juro App. Thanks very much, Matt. Good to talk to you. Pleasure. Thank you. My pleasure. Next week, your annual report as a marketing tool. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you. Find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Beseeches Still good We’re holding on to that not losing beseech were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives Prospect to donor simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty, be with me next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for September 8, 2017: Video Storytelling & Deep Pockets

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of pancreas ola thigh assis if you hardened me with the idea that you missed today’s show video storytelling in a crowded video internet, how do you tell that compelling story? So your message moves others to take action. Sharing their smart strategies are yasmin win from vibranceglobal and sherry cheney jones with measurement resource is that originally aired september fourth, twenty fifteen and deep pockets. How do you find pockets of wealth in the communities you serve? Maria simple reveals her secrets. She’s, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder that originally aired march twenty eighth, twenty fourteen on tony’s take two five minute planned giving marketing. We’re sponsored by wagner, cpas guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps dot com you’re not a business you’re non-profit apple owes accounting software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com is them. We be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We be e spelling dot com here are yasmin win and sherry cheney jones with video storytelling welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fifteen the non-profit technology conference we’re at the austin convention center austin, texas we’re kicking off our coverage with this interview. Are my guests now? Are jasmine win and sherry cheney jones welcome. Thank you. Thank you, it’s. Good to be here. They’re seminar topic is stop shooting videos. Start unlocking stories. Jasmine win is founder and ceo of vibranceglobal and sherry cheney jones is president of measurement resource is let’s start sherry, what are non-profits not doing quite a cz? Well as they could with video interviews, storytelling? What? From my perspective, because we help non-profits measure and communicate their impact in value, they often are focusing on their impact. So how are they changing lives and changing circumstances there, too focused on the activities. So, really understanding what your true impact is and telling your stories from there. And you’re trying to elicit really heartfelt story telling stories. You know, emotional. We want emotional impact. Okay, what would you have you have? You know, i think that a lot of times we focus so much on the technology, the process of doing video and also the questions. That we ask people, and so we don’t focus enough on the connection and really, when you are able to provide a space for someone too open up to feel that they can speak about their passion, be grateful. They then create that connection that we can then capture and witness through videos and so it’s that focus on that connection rather than just the information or that exchange. Now, as we are today, you’re asking people to get in front of lights and cameras or and mike’s andi, open up. Yes, men. How are we gonna start this process first? Let’s, start with how do we find the right people? And then we’ll get into coaching them and and getting their best performance and storytelling out of them. But how do we find the right one? Yeah, absolute. Tony that the key thing is selecting the right people. And that starts with being mindful of who your audience is. You know, we found that the most impactful, ah, relevant person to interview talk with are a representation of our audience. So, for example, for appealing to a donor’s, then it be great to have a financial supporter donors to be able to speak in their language in the same mindset for them to connect and relate. So think about the group’s. We want this interview to be meaningful for and select people from that constituency. Right? Volunteers, donors, board members. Yeah. Ok. And someone who’s were well respected. Who’s. Our ticket who’s also a very passionate and a champion of of our particular cause to be able to speak for us but also, at the same time, carry the torch for our audience so that they can connect with them. Sure, anything you want to add to finding the right person is sure. I always say, think about your wise. Why do you do it? You do, but not just why does your organization do what it does? But why does your funders fund you and whitey? You’re participants participate. And when you’re finding people to tell your story, you want to make sure that you are covering those three perspectives. Okay, three wives. The three wise. Yep. Three wise men know e wise? Yes, different wise. Okay, sure. Let’s, say with you now. So we found the right people. How do we start the process of making them? Comfortable evoking the really heartfelt emotion that we’re tryingto chief? Sure. Well, i will actually default to us because he’s really good at that, you know, i’m i’m the one that helps you create the content think about what you should be eliciting and he’s when it does the great interviews, maybe you’re more on the on the production side. I’m more on the defining what what questions? You should be asking what impact you should be drawing down of them stuff like, okay, we’ll come to you very shortly. Okay, okay. We got plenty of time together. Twenty five. Just great. Yeah. You know, for someone to be at ease. You really it’s it’s? Really? About how you think about the interview or how you think about it being on video? A lot of times, people focus on the act of, you know, being on camera so they feel like they’re being evaluated. They’re being judged or in an interview, maybe you think of, like, a job interview or or some others where they have to perform, and they have to be perfect. And what that does is it raises this level of anxiety where you have tio feel. Like you have to know not necessarily be your best to be your most authentic. Authentic. Yeah, you’re you’re going to be your best if you’re most if you you’re most attentive, you just you write, which is hard to get and even on even in still right videos, pictures it really is okay, yeah, how are we gonna do so down? So so part of that is in the initial invitation is instead of hey, can you do a testimonial keen? And you come on camera and do a video it’s about framing it in a way that helps them give instead of being put in a position to perform. And so what i mean by giving is, you know, i’d like to invite you to come and share your story so that we can help inspire others like you. You know, we we want to put you in a place where you can be of service to others, and when you’re in that mindset of being of service, to be able to share your experience and insight so that it can help others, it takes that pressure off because now it’s about your own story, your own experience. And there’s no right or wrong. And so that that’s the first step is the mind set piece. Okay, so let’s try to avoid characterizing it as testimonial. Do you know, do something that way? Put a label on right or even an interview? It should be more of a conversation, and i find that mom i doing so far, you’re doing great. My failing is a failing grade know you’re at least a b plus or something. You’re doing great. You’ve done this a few times. I have a lot of securities right already. Absolutely cool. Yeah, s so tell me more. So so so that’s the first step is setting up the frame for for what? That experience is like giving them information so that they feel prepared, you know, even some questions not necessarily for them to prepare a script, but for them to at least be a tease to know what to expect, that there’s not going to be this sort of curveball, or they’re gonna be blindsided because people have a lot of anxiety around, you know the uncertainty. And so that that’s another element. And then once you actually get into the session, then then it’s really about creating that space? I go through a specific routine if i find that someone’s either really nervous or they’re very tense, where we do an exercise called a ci gong, slap on what that is is where you basically take your hand and one hand and you slap thea part of your front part of your arm all the way back to up to your chest, and then you do on the other side and then down to your legs and then back up through your back and then on your head as well. You do that a couple times having how hard you’re slapping, just just so just like just like this. So you’re going back like this and and and then down to your chest and then back-up and what you’re doing is you’re activating the various different meridian parties and your body, your head too as well, too. And then once you do that a couple times, you’ll notice this sort of tingle. It just activates the energy and yourself and so that’s physically gets you ready. Another gong xi gong slap? Yeah, yeah, you can google that nok will be on youtube. The other parties is also getting you into what we call the vortex or the zone or, you know, the peak performance state and so, you know, i listen to some music, so whatever music kind of gets you going here, the whole goal is to are we asking the person i interrupt all the time, you know, that’s bad that’s, bad technique, a weapon? You don’t have a conversation, really? So we’re asking the person in advance what’s your kind of music or bring bring some of your favorite music, you can bring some of that, but even before the actual interview, i will take time to have a phone conversation, just tow learn about that, okay, build that report so it’s not. We’re not meeting for the first time on camera and, uh, and that way, we feel like we’re friends and i can ask them about different things, so the whole goal is to get them out of their head and into their hearts, because when they start speaking from the heart when they start opening up that’s when the magic happens outstanding. All right, 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. Dahna surely now let’s, come to you with questions. Um, well, jasmine alluded to a little bit, but the types of questions where you’re aware your expertise comes in. It’s sure, in terms of thinking about what? Why are you doing this video? I’m sorry i called you jasmine jasmine? Pardon me? Sorry about that. Yes, you have been eluded. So what’s the purpose of the video you’re shooting. Who is your audience? What do they care about? And what we know about is although fund-raising is up from where it was pretty great recession levels, people want to know that there their money is actually making a difference. So no longer can we just say, oh, here’s a cute kid, i’m going to tell you my story about, you know, my family people really want to know that there’s a collective impact going on that there’s, you know, in the measurement world, the outcomes that you’re achieving. So you want to think about what are those outcomes that you know that people want you two to be showing and then making sure your interview questions air addressing those so people are telling their stories around how they experience the outcomes that you are saying that you’re achieving how they’re experiencing a perfect and we’re going to get really kind of personal, right? Like how i saved your life improved your life, help your child, etcetera. Yeah. So, you know, we have a list of twelve outcomes that typically non-profits air achieving like increased knowledge increased, gilles, you know, maintenance of new behavior, reduction of undesirable behavior. So no, those going in before you start asking your questions and let your interview we know that you’re going to want to know about, you know, how did this program increase your knowledge or help you get a job or, you know, decrease your, you know, risk for heart disease or whatever it is that you’re non-profits doing, make sure the questions are aligned with those important outcomes. Should we stay away from giving exact questions? You will be asked one, two, three, four, because i find in doing my show that that then leads to scripted questions, lead to scripted answers and and that’s not from the heart, that’s from appearing, like memorized so so sherry but we want to give them topics, right, but not exact questions. Is that? Is that the best practice or what? Either, either, yeah. I found that i could give them some questions and with a disclaimer that, you know, these are some of the similar types of questions that will be asking and then also explain to them how to prepare. So just think about some bullet points or just some stories that may be relevant but not necessarily prepare a script per se as well to so that that it alleviates the anxiety, but you’re also making sure that they don’t have a prepared answer. Percent yeah, yeah, like i said, then that’s not that’s, not the impact you’re gonna want, all right, anything else, before we get to the actual either of you need anything else before we get to the actual session with mike’s and lights and cameras that we should be thinking about? We didn’t talk about yet, you know, i think that’s that’s pretty much covers it for now we’re going to go and dive a little bit deeper into our session, then during that time. Yeah. Oh, well, i mean, there’s stuff you’re going to say in this session, you you won’t say here is that well, actually, you know, know what? We’ve got someone holding back. Of course not. Your size is okay. Okay. All right. I want shortchange non-profit ready. You know, of course, that all right. All right. So now we’re in the session, so presumably we’re in some kind of studio. These got a microphone because it might just we could just be doing audio, right? Possible? Absolutely. But might be lights and camera also who’s best toe ask, what do we do when we’re in the studio? Now? I could i could do that. Okay, yeah, you know, it’s again, it’s first getting them into that state it’s a two part process getting them into that place where they’re not thinking from their minus their speaking for the heart, then the next step, then it’s it’s like a dance. Then you’re the lead. And so through your mindful questions that you’ve designed, you’ve created both to communicate impact illicit to bring it out from them, per se. You’re also thinking about what is the overarching storyline that you’re trying to create. So one of the things that well, that we’re going to discuss in our session is the frame where for an appeals type of video, you know these air the videos that ah, non-profits play at their events to appeal to, you know, fundraisers and donors. And so there’s a seven start, seven step formula that i generally recommend to my clients as a guide for creating questions to elicit out those components. So the first part is, is that emotional hook or that connection? Something, whether it be a piece of data, something that’s compelling, or a story that just gets people that initially engaged. So they want to continue to watch the next step, then is ah gratitude appreciating the people that are there the people that have already supported you recognizing them so then they personally feel connected. Engaged. The third part then is impact showing the difference that that their support up until this point has made to show that you have traction, and that your stewards of their support this far. Then the next step is really diving into the importance of the purpose of the mission. Why are we all here? Why is it important to support us then? The next step is to is to paint a picture of what the future can be. So this is where we are. But this is how much we can this is how many more people we can serve. This is the greater impact that we can do. And then then goes the call to action, which is this is how you can help. This is how you can be a part of us achieving this bigger future. And the final part is that emotional clothes wrapping it up, tying it back to either the mission or or completing the circle of this story that leaves them with this emotional connection. But now they’ve see why why we’re doing this. They also know how they can be a part of it and that’s the framework in which we start to create questions that we start to elicit out in each of the different interviews. Sherry, this is a real art because that’s a lot to pack into what’s probably gonna be, you know, like a ford of five minute video or so bad. It’s doable, of course. Yeah, yeah. And i mean, in the session, we’re going toe share case study where one organization was ableto talk about their recreational programme with kids, but at the end of the day, they were able to demonstrate how they had a fifty seven thousand seven hundred seventy percent return on investment in those chilled children in terms of really transforming their earning potential over their lives. Just buy this, you know, recreational after school program and talk about and your fund-raising appeal if you’re able teo to share those stories, talk about those kids experience and at the end of the day, say, oh, by the way, give us five hundred dollars, and we’ll turn that into two hundred eighty nine thousand dollars for these children over the course of, you know, their lifetime that’s, very powerful and, you know, checkbooks are flying nah bins what if we’re in our studio session and it’s not going so well? Our interview is not really loosening up very tense you’re not getting the kind of emotion you’re hoping for. What what can we do to you? Break that besides achy gong slap anything else we can do? Like in them in that moment? Loosen him or her up? Yeah, yeah, you know, first of all, i always try with something with physiology. So some physical movement, whether it be breathing or others just to kind of, you know, shake out some of the stiffness there. If that doesn’t work, then i should start to shift into what are they passionate about? We totally go off or off camera off mike now, mike, or even even if the camera’s still on, but i shift their focus on hey, you know what? What do you know? What are you most passionate about? Tell me about your favorite, you know, and start getting really personal, and when they start to then connect with what really means, you know something to them, then it slowly they slowly start to kind of open up in that way. So i found that to be really effective, it might actually be a good idea to keep the camera rolling or the mike rolling because you might capture something really good whether they know it’s being captured or not. They’re there more of these because you’ve broken that i see you looking the tension about okay, let’s, create anything you want, but i was just saying, you know, a lot of it is the magic and editing, so if you know that framework that yasmin laid out and you know, that’s, what you’re going for, your looking for those nuggets that you’re going to put into that framework when you go to create your video and edit it together. And that that’s a really good point. Sherry, is that you know, when you’re looking at the post production editing process, you wanna have someone on your team that understands the story framework here? Not just someone that’s really a great good, you know, an editor or your your brother in law who knows howto video. But someone who understands the purpose understands the story’s understands elements of marketing as well so that they can put those pieces together in a meaningful way. Alright, we have plenty of time together. So you took some now about postproduction. We moved into that suddenly, that was well done. Thank you, baizman. What? What more about postproduction? Aside from let’s not have an amateur doing it. What else? What else can we say? You know, post production actually starts with preproduction. Always found that it’s very, very important to know the roadmap rather than shooting a bunch of content audio or visual and then just dumping it on to someone and saying here, figure it out so it’s it’s it’s essential to be involved throughout the process s so that’s, really, the key part here and then the other part is, is to understand buy-in to have someone who really understands the dynamics of human conversation per se, you know, there’s certain ways in which people speak that are more flattering than others. And so it’s it’s a very subtle nuance of how to cut the foot the pieces and then start assembled them together and then tie in either music or other elements that enhance that experience, whether it be visuals or other things as well to it sounds like you’re strongly suggesting that this be done by a professional. Yes, absolutely on dh they be involved from the beginning? Not just that you’ve given them a raw video file, and now they have to try, too. Kraft, what you’re describing? Great. Yeah, yeah, i think specially for your your fund-raising appeal videos and maybe the things on your website you’re going to ask people to donate to your cause. But i think for and you can correct me if you disagree, but for your maybe website testimonials or other things, you know, in our session, yasmin’s going to actually do one. On his iphone so just depends on what the purpose again understanding what is the purpose of the video? Your beauty that’s an excellent point. Yeah, i mean, we were we were talking last several minutes about the least, i think the the video that shone at the gala that ideally is evoking tears and and moving a room of seven hundred people or, you know, whatever, but on the other end of the spectrum share your point is really well taken. This could be very low production value with somebody with an iphone on dh can still be very, very moving. Yeah, absolutely doesn’t the production values don’t have to be high to be compelling? Yes. Depends what your purpose is. Yeah, and and and again, it’s, just starting with understanding, understanding your purpose, understanding your audience, understanding your call to action on and then finding the right medium for that. Um, i’m still going. Yeah, absolutely. It’s it’s really about having a storytelling mindset, it’s about having a mindset of thinking about what? What are we doing right now? And is who is this meaningful for? And then let’s just capture that moment, especially with technology these days. With, you know, our smartphones or iphones or android phones, you know, the cameras and the equipment is so advanced and it’s, i mean, you could capture a great experience bar trying to do it in the dark, but, i mean, if you think about wow, if i’m constantly thinking about how can i share this moment with someone else and who would benefit and why they would benefit, then then you’re you’re ready to go and as far as, like professional editing, you know, quite honestly, people can edit themselves, but really, i find that, like ninety plus percent of the clients and people i work with it’s a tedious process and that’s something that if they can learn how to improve the quality of capturing the experience that they can handed off to someone else, even if it’s simple edits it’s accessible and affordable for just even the average person who’s just doing a video for their they’re easing or something like that by phone has been picked up his phone as he was talking for those who are not watching the video as a visual. So i mean, it’s just it could be just that simple. Sure. You look like you want to add something. No, i’m just a green. Okay, oppcoll we still have another couple of minutes left together. What if i not ask you that? What have we not talked about? It doesn’t matter what stage of it is, what more would you like to say? It’s a great topic, i think. Just a kind of reiterate it’s about thinking about this experience, the interview or the video really as an opportunity for for you to help someone else give and and the way that they give is through their insights and experience. So we appreciate the opportunity to be here with you, tony, to be able to share and so it’s a it’s, a conversation and it’s an opportunity to give, and i think that really, when you start thinking of it this way, it alleviates a lot of stress and anxiety around the experience. Yeah, i’d love to leave loved leave it there, but we still have a couple minutes left, so i’m gonna press it’ll further on something i was thinking about when you’re recording. Do we do we need tohave an interviewer? Or should we just let the person kind? Of go free form and on dh hit on the topic questions hoping that they’ll do that or we need to have an interviewer. I i think yes, i think so. And unless the person is experience and very skilled with being able to create a connection themselves with either the camera, they’ve they’ve had either training or they could do it naturally. But i would say that the majority of the people are looking to have an interview because the goal is to experience a moment of connection. And how can you experience a connection without having some other person person? Lester trained to connect? Yeah, yes, directly to account. And so to answer your question, yes. Ah, it’s important to have at least someone there to connect with. Okay, yeah, sure, because i think it’s not it can be very scripted, and we’re trying to avoid that scripted feel so an interviewer helps reduce that that scripted feel better, more connection, okay? And, ah, there is one story i’d like to share and it’s about giving as well, too, and sherry’s heard this story a number of times because we actually start third i’m speaking together here, but last year, we were at the non-profit technology conference, and both of us were there to writing. So you guys last year, samaritan picked you up last year we missed each other in d c. Yeah, so sure. And i were both staying with our good friends neil and heather. Now new one. Heather had this amazing ten year old daughter named kendall. And every morning when we sit down for breakfast, kendall would just light up the room and she’d ask questions, and she will have about a minute left. Okay. Okay, so, so so anyway, you’re trained, so i know what you know. I’m gonna tell party there’s just to the store here, and i will re kapin the session here. Don’t worry about the way we wanna hear your story. Okay. All right. So so then ah, went the last morning that were there. She just barely looked up from her bowl and i said, hey, what’s going on, you seem different and she said, yeah, i’ve got to go sell girl scout cookies today i said, well, what’s wrong with that. People love cookies she said, yeah, but every time i get out there i get rejected and so i said, yeah, gosh, you know, i totally understand, so i asked her i said, hey, candle, how much of your cookies she said they’re four dollars a box? So i said here, here’s, twenty dollars, once you give me five boxes, she said really has like, yeah, it’s like, but here’s the thing i don’t eat cookies myself and so she but i want you to do what what i want to do is i want you to give these cookies to five people that you’ve never met before. All of a sudden her eyes lit up, she ran to her mom and said, mom, guess what? We get to give cookies away then? And i said, now here, kendall here’s, the reason why i want you to give those cookies away cause i want you to know what it’s like to make someone’s day. I want you to see, hear and feel their appreciation, and then when you’re out there and you’re asking someone to ask by a box of cookies, try this instead. Ask them hey, is there someone in your life that you really care about? I’d like to help you make their bay by giving them a box of cookies. So what we’re doing is we’re creating an opportunity for someone to give and so similar to this interview experience when you create an opportunity to give you shift that dynamic, so outstanding, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you very, very much. You your favorite cookies with thin mints, by the way about us so good on this. Emotions are number two yasmin win he’s, founder and ceo of vibranceglobal and sherry cheney jones’s, president of measurement resource is non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fifteen the non-profit technology conference, thanks so much for being with us deep pockets with maria semple is coming up first, wagner cpas they do go way beyond the numbers for you. They have got dozens of policy statements for you to download a wireless device policy like no talking or texting while you’re driving for business purposes. Segregation of duties for financial oversight this chart will designate for you who should sign the checks? Who should write the checks? Who posts the accounts receivable? Who approves the payroll? It tells you who to assign each of these task too, and a bunch of other tasks. There’s a whistleblower policy, a conflict of interest policy, a travel policy, dozens of policies too many for me to name them all, go to wagner cps dot com creek resource is then guides stop wasting your time using business accounting software for your books you aren’t a business you’re non-profit appaloosa counting is designed for non-profits built from the ground up to make your financial management simple and affordable. It’s fun to counting, advanced reporting, donation tracking and more it’s all in one easy to use software they’re at non-profit wizard dot com check that out now. Time for tony take two i cut down my five minute plan giving marketing tips to a video that’s about three minutes long took it all down twenty five to three did the phone segment on the august eighteenth show? If you want a quick refresher video, you can have the takeaways in a three minute video. Plus, of course, there’s a link to the full facebook live video it’s at tony martignetti dot com for those five minutes plan giving marketing tips that is tony’s take two and here is marie a simple with deep pockets. Maria semple is with us. She is the prospect finder, the trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com, and her book is panning for gold. Find your best dahna prospects now she’s our doi end of dirt cheap and free ideas. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple. Welcome back from vacation, maria. Thanks, tilly. Great to be back here with you. I’m glad you are. Where were you on vacation? We took the kids who are both in college. We took them on spring break and went down to riviera. Maya in mexico. Was this a selling vacation? I know you’re an avid sailor. No, it was land based. But it was wonderful. We did get out on a little catamaran to play that they had available at the resort, you know, to take out on your own. Just, you know, a smaller one. There was fun. There were times where your college kids thrilled about going on spring break with their mom and dad and sitting on the beach instead of being with their friends and drinking beers. Actually, they were. They were just fine with it. And, yeah, we won’t address the other. Part of that, i’m sure if they’re below twenty one that i’m certainly don’t drink beers or anything, are they? They’re they’re of age. They put it that way. Okay, okay, um, well, i’m glad you’re back. Uh, we’re talking about finding pockets of of affluence in communities. This this comes up in your practice, it does. It comes up a lot in, especially when i’m doing seminars or workshops in front of live groups, you’ve inevitably always have somebody raised their hand and say, g, we we really like to know a little bit more about our communities in terms of affluence. What what are the more affluent, zip zip codes on dh then, you know, what is philanthropy looking like in general amongst high net worth individuals? So i thought it might be kind of interesting for us to take some time and talk about what some of the resources are that are available online to kind of examine. You know, both of those areas. Okay, before we go online, is there any chance of starting with your immediate internal resources, like you’re bored? You could could you start there, perhaps? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You could definitely start. With your board what what i think is usually helpful, though, is if you very often, if if you goto your board and try and have a conversation at a board meeting or a development committee meeting and just kind of say, well, who do you know, give us the names of everyone, you know, you know, sometimes it’s better to kind of have maybe sort of almost vetted list first to se gi these air, some people we’ve identified or these air some affluent zip codes we’ve identified in our region? Does anybody know any of these people, or does anybody know anybody in the in the zip code? Because then now you’re getting them to really focus in on some specific people or some specific communities, and then, you know, versus them just trying to figure out who they know in their entire world or roll adex, okay, so we’re going to go online to try to generate these resource is start t these resources to try to generate lists and give people names and communities and things like that, too, jog their memories. Yeah, i think i think that works at a little bit better for a lot of boards, because a lot of people are a little bit more perhaps reserved, or they say, well, you know, who is it that you want me to bring to the table here, give me a little bit more parameter around that. Okay? Well, you’re our diet of dirt cheap and free, so where should we get started with this? So, you know, the census pulls together a lot of great data about communities, and that really is the basis for a lot of these statistics that you can get regarding not only where income levels are and wealth, but how what the makeup is of the population, right? So this could have implications not only for the fund-raising side of your non-profit but also thinking about programs and services that you offer. And, you know, maybe you have certain services that are more geared toward females are more geared towards certain types of populations, maybe immigrants, so you would want to know how you know, what is our population, makeup and how well, with this programme are service you’ve made have a sense that this might be something that you want to offer at your non-profit but not knowing the exact make of of the community you you would probably be, you know, better off. Just kind of doing a little bit of research to see. Well, just what are the numbers of the people in that community that make up that population? Ok, how do we access the census data? So one source is directly from the census itself. It’s it’s called american fact finder. And the website is a fact finder to roman that’s, the numeral two three arabic. We know that’s the arabic numerals, right. The arabic numerals, right back finder to dot census dot gov. So that is a pretty good place to start, because what you can actually dio is you can put in your specific zip code that you would like to do a little bit of research on. And you can get information, for example, like the average adjusted gross income for that community versus the entire state. What charitable contribution deductions are in that zip code. So that could because tito that’s very interesting. Yeah, it’ll. So i had gone in in prep preparation for this particular show today. I went in and put my own zip code in and saw that the average charitable contributions were three thousand sixty two dollars, right? So if you’re trying to think about where tio really start mining specific communities, it could be an interesting way to see if that how about community compares to other nearby communities, and you can also look at income income statistics there you can look at income, you can look at average adjusted gross income. You, khun look att estimated median household income. Andi khun, look att house values as well. So i thought that was kind of interesting because a lot of people will say, well, g, you know it it seems to be that the communities where there might be hyre hyre home values could potentially then translate to higher income bracket and potentially hyre giving as well, yes, interesting so you can you can play with these different variables of income and assets and charitable deductions average terrible reductions in the right zip code, for example, in my zip code. One thing that i found to be kind of interesting when i looked at the estimated median house value in in two thousand eleven as it was broken down by race, um, the asian community came out highest at just over five hundred seventy five thousand. The next highest level was the white population at four, sixty nine and change. So it was interesting to see how, how even they can break it down by race, based on the information found and census data. Okay, and that’s all that fact finder to dot census dot gov, right and another site as well. Which is it? City dash data dot com mom, where you can look at a lot of this broken down but focusing first on the census site that i mentioned the fact finder site, you can download their data into excel spreadsheet. So i thought that was interesting, because then you can you know, if you if you needed to do any type of reporting at your in you can take those spreadsheets and share them with other people within your organization, be that, you know, staff, or or bored, you can also sort you can also sort by different variables, right? Absolutely. And then they also had poverty, statistics and statistics around veterans. So if you were looking to try and figure out where the poverty stats, where, you know, maybe you’re trying to develop programming for lower income children in your community or something like that. You can try and take a look at where those stats are also some non-profits are addressing the needs of veterans, and so you could try and determine what the numbers of veterans in our communities and trying to come up with programming for that specific population. Okay, that’s a very good one. I love that one. Ah, yeah. All right, you mentioned city hyphen data. Dot com city data city data dot com there’s a hyphen in there? Absolutely. And i can put these on your facebook page, if you like after the show. Well, yeah, i’m going to do the takeaways and i’ll have a bunch of them. But you, khun, you can then add some or two you’ll be able to add beyond what i what i put in the takeaways. Okay, okay, terrific. So there again, you can search by zip code and again, you can look at the those adjusted gross income figures, charity contributions, home values again broken down by race and so forth. And, you know, you can a lot of the data you’ll you’ll note it’s laid out a little bit differently. So i think what i would say to your listeners is checked both of them out. See what type of information it is that you want to pull out of this. Andi, see if if if the data is going to be useful for you, it’s presented a little bit differently on the two websites. But i have a feeling that the actual core of where all the data is coming from. It’s really? All from the census. Oh, interesting. Ok, same data differently presented. So youse both lookit lookit? Both. Okay, absolutely. This is an example. You know, i love this example of ah, value that the government provides us through the through the census. Yeah. It’s all it’s all there, it’s free. And so why not take advantage of you know, all of this? All this work legwork somebody else has done for you. What else you got for us? So then i was beginning to think about, well, let’s, look, a philanthropy in general and the mindset, perhaps, of high net worth individuals and two interesting studies that are out there. One is by bank of america. They do a high net worth study on the last one was done at the end of two thousand twelve and another a source that i do want to give some time to talk about is the chronicle of philanthropy because they did something in two thousand twelve called hyre how america gives you remember that and the make of america’s study it is quite lengthy. They do have an executive summaries well, and that girl is a bit longer. So but of course, if you if you just google the bank of america hi network study, you’ll get right to it as well. But what i thought was kind of interesting is that, you know, that they profile how the high net worth individuals are giving now. So where the state of giving wass and at that point in time when they did this study and also how they might be projected to give so i would really encourage the non-profits to take a look at that, especially if they’re looking to, you know, really increase their individual giving program. Ah, most high net worth individuals just to kind of understand where the mind set is for these individuals. Okay, so this is sort of after you’ve identified people that this isn’t really to identify pockets of affluence in your community, but how to deal with those affluent populations, right? Why they why they give what motivates their giving? What motivates their giving? Right? So trying to trying to figure out where they’re giving, where, where might it be going? What is their mindset? So it’s one thing to be able to identify those pockets, but then how do you interact with them? How do you take that data and make it useful for you? Right? So one thing that i found interesting on on one of the pages of the report was that of that particular report was that the high net worth donors are increasing, they’re increasingly directing their gifts towards operating support. Ah, and this is something i get all the time. When i hear at my seminars, people will say, well, you know, the foundations and corporations they really want seem to really want ty, they’re giving to very specific program, nobody wants to fund operating support, but here in this report, they’re saying that they are open to the high net worth individuals are open to ah e-giving you contributions toward operating support. So i think that this is a huge opportunity for non-profits to focus up, because obviously these donors do understand about overhead. They understand that there has to be money for the lights and the heat, et cetera, and i think that you can easily direct some of your conversations to that. That sector. All right, we have to. We have to take a break for a couple minutes. Maria, when we come back, we’ll keep talking about these deep pockets, how to find them. We’ll talk about that chronicle of philanthropy survey, and i know that you have some others, so everybody stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from a standup comedy, tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked. And naomi levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively clamber station top trends, sound advice, that’s tony martignetti, yeah, that’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. Oh, and i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. More live listener love going abroad, sweden, iran and carefully uk but it’s not spelled carefully like the word of course, i could be bringing mispronouncing it, but it looks like carefully to me. C e r p h i l l y welcome live listen, love also tampa, florida, atlanta, georgia, moorestown, new jersey and two unidentified in the u s so if i didn’t say your city, your state, you could be you could be masking, which which which i can’t say i blame you for, but we know you’re out there. We see you very vaguely somewhere in the fifty states. Maria simple. I want to thank you for including a picture of me on your the prospect finder, micro fiber cleaning cloth. Thank you like that. I don’t know how i feel about my face being smeared across people’s monitors and smartphones, but but i think there’s a little picture of you and me in the studio, on the arm, on your cleaning cloth. Thank you very much. You’re very welcome, very welcome. So i decided that sometimes that some of my speaking engagements i might be able to hand that out and be a nice little thing that people could keep and think about our faces for years to come. And i noticed, too. If i if i stretch it vertically, it makes me look hydrocephalus. Oh, my goodness, i haven’t tried them, and if you stretch it horizontally, then looks like i’ve gained about one hundred twenty five pounds. Can i send out some listener lovas? Well, three times? Well, because of your show, i was asked to go and speak to women in philanthropy of western massachusetts back in february, and they’re huge fans of your show. And so i just wanted to give a shout out to them and say hi, thank you very much. Women and women in philanthropy western mass and they’ve invited me to come, but they’re booked until, like, next mayor april or something like that. Twenty fifteen not talking about this year. They’re booked until spring of next year sometime. So tired. Organized group. Yeah. I have time to make my reservations. Um okay. Let’s. Go back to our deep pockets. Was there anything more you want to say about the bank of america study of high net worth philanthropy, or we finished with that? No, you know it’s very in depth, really good projections i found on pages sixty three to sixty five of the study of how they’re giving now and how they’re projected to give so people are feeling a little overwhelmed with study, and they want to at least try and figure out what wears what this all means for me. And where should i go with it? I would say they should focus on pages sixty three to sixty five study that’s incredibly valuable, because and so is the fact that you said earlier there’s an executive summary, because if i was listening and i heard sixty five pages in a survey, i think i’d move on to your next suggestion. But that’s, just me, but it is called the bank of america study of high net worth philanthropy, and as marie said, you can search for that and get it for free. What do we got over the chronicle of philanthropy? This how america gives thing. So what they did back in two thousand twelve, they, uh, they decided to make an entire map of the united states you can put in your zip code and get a lot of data. On where philanthropy is for those specific zip code. So i thought that was kind of interesting because, as you know, the chronicle is one of those resource is that a lot of people really rely on. Um so when i gone in, i put my zip code in, i took a look at they give a breakdown by total contributions what the median contribution is. And then they also give you the median discretionary income. Um, and then they give it as a percentage, they give you the percentage of income given. So i thought that was it was pretty good. They give a breakdown as well by demographic. So you just have an idea. You can look at a breakdown by age, race as well as education level of the population. Uh, just in case that was of interest to you. And they give a breakdown by income level of giving. So if you wanted to see, like they break it down between the people who make between fifty, the study basically starts at assuming on income level of at least fifty thousand. So fifty thousand to one hundred, and then one hundred, two hundred, two hundred. And up and then all income levels help me understand how you would use all these sites. And i know there’s another one one of two we’re going to get to but some claim gives you ah, project a task a need. How would you use all these different sites? You go to all of them? Or do you? You find some from some sites and other info from other sites. How do you approach this? Well, it really depends on what specific piece of information they want. Most of the time they’re giving me the name of an individual. Teo actually profile for them, and other times they might come to me and say, well, you know, we’re interested in it banding and doing some proactive prospecting, you know, where are some of the more affluent neighborhoods that we should be looking to perhaps hold cultivation events? Um, sent mailers out, too, so they’re just trying to identify what are those pockets near them that they should be potentially targeting if they want to get into some proactive prospect and get some new names of people associated with their organization? Right? And if that’s your that’s, your charge, the ladder to find those pockets. How would you how would you approach that? So i would probably go. Teo, both chronicle of philanthropy study, as well as the census data to try and identify where those hyre income levels are and those those locations where people are giving more. So they be more of, i guess, the more likelihood of success if they’re both approaching people with higher incomes and also are accustomed to giving hyre levels of money. Okay, okay, on. And then, of course, you have to devise. You know, what is going to be our plan if we want to go to that entire zip code? What? You know what? What are we going to do? Are we going to divide the mailer to go to all the households there’s in every door direct program, for example, that the post office runs where you can target specific zip codes? Um, every every door direct, no shoot. Right? We’re out of time. Let’s. Hold that every door. Direct, let’s, let’s. Talk about that next time. And ah, unfortunately have to leave it there. So there are some other resource is that you have? Which we will include? You can add to the to the takeaway is that i do on the facebook page, okay, sure, absolutely. Thank you very much, maria simple, the prospect finder at the prospect finder dot com, and on twitter at marie. A simple thank you, maria thank you next week, run like a business and program you’re bored. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. These are our sponsors weinger sepa is guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps dot com you’re not a business you’re non-profit apolo see accounting. It is software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com, and we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, and this 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 green 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 a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe, add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s, why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge. Somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh 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 put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with ad elect assists if you deflated me with the notion that you missed today’s show, don’t burn out in twenty seventeen paul lobe has been doing social change since the vietnam war, and his most recent books are soul of a citizen, and the impossible will take a little while. After nearly fifty years of activism, he has a lot to recommend about keeping yourself motivated day after day, especially in a time when non-profits may suffer federal cutbacks. We talked at opportunity collaboration twenty fifteen in x top of mexico and personalized video or your videos engaging and deepening your donor connections. Are you taking advantage of video personas? Is video part of your donor onboarding and retention strategies? If you answered no to any of these, michael hoffman and jonno smith can help you. Michael is with c three communications and jonno smith is from make a wish america we talked at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference on tony’s take two is your thanks sincere? We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by we be spelling super cool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com here is paul lobe with advice on not burning out. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of opportunity collaboration twenty fifteen we’re back on the beach in x top of mexico with me is paul lobe he’s, the author, most recently of soul of a citizen and the impossible will take a little while, plus three other books before those those two have sold over a quarter million copies, you’ll find paul lobe at the impossible dot org’s polo. Welcome to the show. Glad to be here. Thanks. I’m glad we’re together on the beach. I want to talk about avoiding burnout. A lot of your work for decades. Going back to the seventies is in activism. Citizen activism, right? Um, taco, actually, let’s. Start with a cool story that i heard you tell about rosa parks. So it’s. Interesting. Because rosa parks is the sort of story that everyone thinks they know. You know i can go. I can be overseas and people know the name i can talk to eleven year olds and they know the name. Oh, yeah. She’s the lady on the bus. But what’s interesting to me is that most people know in a certain version and they know it as one day she was writing on this bus and sort of just feed retired. She just refused out of nowhere and single handedly launched the civil rights movement. You know, all by yourself is this lone heroic woman. And i get very frustrated when i hear that story because it strips away the context that’s so important understand that actually is much more empowering that that story and so i look in there several elements there’s the one he is that’s, their mistake, the element of community. So she at that point is the secretary of the end of the civil rights organization in montgomery, alabama. And she has worked for dozen years with the p co founded by her husband. That particular chapter was a barber in the city and she’s doing these sort of humble towns, like getting people to come to meetings and all the stuff that certainly is not going to make the history books. Or the network news or even page six of the local paper. And when you take that away and you take out all the other people that she’s working with, it becomes a sort of lone crusade, which is very much a mythology of our culture. I mean, you know, one of things i sometimes bright lad in the language around social on ownership is lone hero super person. Yeah, but she’s, part of a community that she’s built there’s, others in it. There’s ah, a union organizer, gotomeeting nixon who’s, the head of the local. At that point, he’s, the person who gets a very young and relics on martin luther king involved king is all these excuses. He’s young he’s, new in town is thing was reluctant to join. He was reluctant to join. Yeah, he’s reluctant step for we think of them as leaping forward, but at that point, he has not really fully he’s not embraced that path. He’s still, you know, well, i i’ve got divinity school. I’m going to be a minister and it’s not at all clear that that’s going to be his direction. So he’s looking, i think warily at it and there’s a phrase i used the perfect standard, which is the notion that you need to know everything be the perfect place in your life, be the combination of sort of albert einstein, gandhi, king wonder woman, mother grace, you know, add seven other people, you know, none of us is ever going to get there so and it’s also about the perfect time and place and, of course, he’s saying, well, it’s, not the perfect time in place. I’m too young, i’m do knew all the excuses, you know, in his case elements of truth, but he’s their excuses. And so it’s nixon, who persists, gets king involved, and montgomery is where the world hears the king as well as in rosa parks. So when you strip that away and you make it the long hero, it ends up, i would say, being very disempowering to people, even though think it’s an inspiring story because they have to be as her work as a perceived princessa rosa parks perceived rosa parks as opposed to the real heroism which is doing the stuff day after day after day. Um, and then the second element is that they think it is. A sort of accidental action one day, her feet hurt, but there she wasn’t. The first person refused to move to the back of the bus. There was a young woman who was actually unmarried and pregnant. They just died not from the youth section, not to build a campaign around because they’re up against enough as it is latto strategic decision and these parks had got the summer before arrests, going to trainings at a place called highlander center labor and civil rights center still going in tennessee despite being burned at once by the group klux klan and so she’s meeting with an earlier generation of civil rights activists smaller move but still certainly present and when she acts it’s intentional, intentional doesn’t mean she knows the outcome. I always said that there’s a two, two aspects one is, you’ve got to have a leap of faith. The minister, jim waller’s, from the social justice magazine sojourner, says hope is believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change. Yeah, so, you know, by your actions, you change and you have believe it faith about the possibility, but right next to that is intentionality, which just means you’ll be strategic. So you’re looking at you’re saying, ok, what do want accomplished? How do we get there? Who are allies are the obstacles? How do we get the resource is how do we carry it out? How do we tell our stories? All the practical stuff? Of course they had to deal with that montgomery and and when parks took that leap, she also knew that it was going to be part of intentional campaign. They would run his best they could. And, you know, they’d see where lead and it is. Yeah. I love the story because of the intentionality aspect, and that leads us to the social change work the people are doing now, right? And where we get to the potential for burn out in all this day after day after day after work that is so intentional and so time consuming, right? And and so and so emotionally fraught. And the stakes could be life and death and disappointing. Yes. And i just ate pointing. Yeah, yeah. You know, never enough resource is all of those kinds of things. So so i think there’s a third element. That’s missing is perseverance, which is okay, you know, twelve years, if she gives up in your tender rate, we’ve never so and so and so that that carries into that question of burnout persisted. You have to keep going. So let’s spend some time talking about sort of empowering people toe, right? Not burn out in their day to day work as they’re going about their struggles. Where? Wherever in the world yeah, you, uh you believe a lot in, uh, support and they do, and the disempowerment of isolation isolation is the killer. I mean, when you feel like you’re the only one you’re up against every but when you change it to okay, we’re up against a lot, but there is a way and the wii doesn’t have to be thousands of people. It can be three or four people that are the ones that you rely on, but it’s so easy. I mean, i i find myself i run a project that i found it that gets students engaged in elections using the resource is of the colleges and universities. Shut that out. What’s the name the campus election engagement project. Campus elect a door ad it’s really demanding on dh. You know, resource is and on also sometimes, you know, really hard personnel situations and, you know, because this comes up, you hire people and sometimes problems like you and i remember one particularly acute situation, which really, wass i mean, it was just the kind of thing we are going to details that just wrenches your heart wrenches your soul on it had the potential to destroy the organization and and just trying to deal with my own. And then, you know, call. I talked to a friend who we have really wonderful street newspaper in seattle where i live real change that where homeless people sell it and it’s partly professional staff partly almost poses a great model. And, you know, i just called my friend who who ran it was like, ok, tim, why don’t i d’oh it’s like, you know, you really you know, this is something that you can’t you’re not large enough to handle the son, you know, you know, when you know, you just hear this, you have to be ableto, you know, hard as it is to say, this person can’t be apart the organization because, you know, it’s just this otherwise you’ll be in constant crisis, so we need to have support. Yeah, it could be it could be colleagues similarly situated right in the community or across the country, right? Yeah, could be, yeah, with funders even made the tech with the technologies we have, you know, it doesn’t have to be geographically focused. Yeah, but you do have tohave and you have to have a team of folks. I mean, on the other side is we’re doing, like, i mean, i’m asking people in my election project to basically take the culture of us college or university, get access to the administration, and we go in through sametz works that they tend to work with, but even still, you know, and the student government convinced them to do something that they haven’t done before, or now that some of them now they have done because they worked with us, which is to make a priority of registering their students to vote and getting to reflect on issues and helping them turnout at the polls in all non partisan is this school has to be done lorts ad and i mean, we’re just think, okay, here it is, here’s how we’ve done it before go do it and so it’s hard. So, you know, part of even like working it’s harder working virtually, but we have our conference calls each, you know, in the heat of it every week and me, we’re gonna do a video or we don’t go hang out or whatever, and we’re supporting each other. We’re appreciating each other’s successes were brain streaming through the through the project. We also have coaching the cohesion in the group is what sort of were being extremely were being extremely intentional. The cohesion doesn’t happen automatically were laughing and making jokes talking about, oh, did something cool happened in your personal life? Two be able to sort of give people the sense that it’s not just because in our particular case, they really are physically on their own there’s not somebody in an office, but they’re off on a college campus know weather off where they happen to live, and then they’re either talking by phone or visit making site this is tow campuses, but they don’t have the calling next to them. So we try and very intentionally create that community because otherwise they would they will burn. Out, 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. Dahna about in in recruitment, there’s gotta be there’s gotta be things that you look for bringing people to the organization that are going to help create this cohesion, you know, it’s a good question, i’m not, and i wouldn’t say i’ve always been perfect at it. I would have had my share of a fallibility, but i do think that, you know, as i learn and we all do, you know that being able to i mean, have a strong sense of self but also know that you’re not going to do it all on your own know that you’re going to be working with others no, that have a sense of humor. I mean, if you’ve got a sense of humor, helps help cement slim and you see people in just, you know, dealing with the hardest i lost the vote, heart wrenching situations and there’s a sort of i mean, somebody called gallows humor, which french trenches humor has in-kind wartime or whatever guys get you through it’s so important in prison culture, they talk about the brotherhood of suffering, yeah, it helps to be that cohesive group, right? And so, you know, one of the stories i tell in the impossible, take a little while. Um, is, you know, they’re breaking it robben island prison in south africa, you know, they’re telling mandela and all those other folks, you know, you are going to rot here, the world has forgotten about you, you will never leave here alive, and they isolate him in every way they can. And so they’re breaking rocks in a prison courtyard, and they start whistling a freedom song and just just that, you know, okay, we’re not allowed to have this political conversation, but we all know what this means, and they’re they’re ice. They’re denied newspapers and, you know, further isolate him. And they said guard who’s got his tuna fish sandwich wrapped in a newspaper and throws, you know, sandwich stores in his paper in the trash, take it surreptitiously under their shirt. They see a story that they think might give each other heart and in a kind of coded script on toilet paper’s only paper, most of them had access to the right, you know, just something that will tell that story of the outside world so that people are connected to the outside world to each other. And then they pass it hand in hand, you know, when they’re waiting, you know, had lunch or whatever the damn chance or in the yard. Yeah, so it’s just it’s those air extreme situations, but they also suggests to me that and this is the lesson of both soul of a citizen and be impossible to take a little while, but that in any situation, you know, you don’t have to be faced in prison. But if you’re doing difficult work, you need that camaraderie. You need that community. And you have gotta be we know recently intentional about trading it about, uh, the scope of the work of the organization being judicious about what the organization takes on, right. So it’s not straying from mission and and stressing stressing in killing staff? Well, yeah, i think we are. I mean, i think we all face that challenge because if you’re trying to do something, i mean, i was the needs are so great, the needs are so great, and i always encourage people to think really large and to tackle big systems on a lot of times. There’s a tendency to sort of yeah, which i describe it. It’s i think there’s a value in that more delimited personal work, it’s i don’t want to demean it in any way. Hyre but i remember stanford students saying very well meaning lee, i’ve learned so much volunteering at this homeless shelter, i hope my grandchildren get the opportunity to volunteer at the same homeless shelter that i have and as his friends sort of try to gently remind him that really wasn’t the point. And so if you’re working at the homeless shelter, which is great, you wantto look upstream and you want to be able to say, okay, what am i learning from this one on one encounter? And how do i buy-in with others and join together others to tackle homelessness on a larger platform? Because if you don’t it’s just going to the endless parade of need, so i think that that’s true and at the same time well, where do you draw the bounds? And you look around the issues and there’s poverty and inequality and climate change and, you know, on and on and on, you know, police violence, i’m not stone on on on how do you deal with all of it? And so i think part of it is just you do have to think about what your capacity is. You do have to think about the past people. I tend to be somebody who thinks large and tries to get my project on staff to think large and probably, you know, maybe drives them a little too hard. But by national directories is wonderful. Twenty eight year old is pretty good at balancing, like, all right, you know, this is what we can ask people to do. And if they do it, well, that will matter. But i have this wonderful friend who i nufer years who died at a hundred to is an environmental activist. And of course, you know what time she reaches her. You know, late eighties and nineties, you know, you’re asking your weather sees her secret of longevity is certainly but also her secret of being able to keep doing this work. Yeah, on and so, you know, one of the phrases she does that you know, you you do what you can, you can’t do everything you have to say no to people, but you can do what you can and then you could do some more and you could do that your entire life. And then she also another point she was talking about reviving our spirits and she said, you know, you go kayaking, you go hiking, she both into her nineties and she gets the mist of a smile and she says, then you come back ready to take on exxon, you know, so she’s willing to take on exxon, but she also knows that she has to go do those other things to renew her soul, you know? And, you know, and humor and just she and this sort of goes to the recruitment to you, right? You recruiting hole people? Yeah, you have other interests beyond the work that you’re you’re hiring them for your not recruiting robot? Yeah, no, absolutely. And so i think having, you know, having people who really are just i mean, it’s hard because i always want people who are passionate about the cause, but also but not one dimensional, but no one dimensional. Yeah, yeah, and not, you know, we’re not recruiting robots aboutthe aboard as potential support you, you know, in times again, times of burnout, we’re not talking about your fiduciary responsibilities. But hyre valuable to have a couple of trusted board members who, you know, i would you can’t trust confide in i mean, i would say the trusted people can be anywhere, so i think, you know, if they’re on the board that’s terrific, you know? And there was also i mean, sometimes you sort of worry, will you exposure in, er, you know, the afraid of the classic phrase about politics and sausage making it’s like you really don’t want to see how the sausage is made? I mean, there was there was at least those those sure are meat eaters and made sausage sometimes i really don’t want to see how it’s made and, you know, do you expose the inner workings that boardmember than thinking, oh, my god, this is like, you know, we’re in crisis, we’re in crisis, you know, you know, and the same thing’s true with funders, i mean, certainly myself, you know, there’s funders who i have a very serious, trusting relationship who really do want to know and who i trust if they recognise that, oh, everything is not going perfectly, but this is true in any organization and is not and he’s, perfectly compatible with doing astounding work, you know, i remember i had a staffer once was running operation brilliant, brilliant guy and you, you know, innovated. A lot of the things that moved us forward is an organization, but at one point he liked the plan, which is good because he brought. He brought us to a higher level of planning, and planning is really good. But at one point, he said, it’s supposed to election is that you planned all this stuff out and, you know, it’s all going out, it’s all happening, different blade, yeah, and i’m like and yes, and that’s always going to be the way it iss. It is gonna happen differently, and the planning was good and it makes us respond, you know more effectively, but there’s always going to be if you’re doing anything worthwhile, ambitious enough to be worthwhile, there are always gonna be things coming in from left field on her balls and what not and it’s just. How about sort of going backto what the one hundred two year old activist saying she kayaks, etcetera, right? And he’s mischievous? I mean, i remember a lot of us hundred to you talk. I think there are like he was busy in your party little chablis apartment lived on second, section eight subsidence dilgence social security, which, when she was twenty three years old, as a young union activists, should help lobbied through one of the first public pension programs in america became a model for social security, so something she did in twenty three or four benefits there are ninety eight, ninety nine, one hundred, and i think her i can’t see what she was talking about her landlord and said, well, you know what? If something happens, you know? Yeah, just dig a hole in the backyard. I’m pretty small. I don’t take up my face, you know? She just was she didn’t know there was one point there was was in central america, something there was a congressman she met. She was very active with the audubon society and and who very condescendingly in the way that when does towards the old than the young sort. Said to her, oh, so i hear you’re a birdwatcher like, isn’t that? And she said, yes, there’s a lot of birds in washington d c that need watching these days, but i was thinking of the kayaking, she she takes care of herself, she takes care of its just got this wonderful sense of humor, right? And she’s a kayaker and yes, you know, so having similar to recruiting people who aren’t one dimensional, not being one dimensional yourself. Yeah, i mean, you do have to take care of yourself. You do. I’m a big proponent of naps. Yeah, i’ve blogged about the the the the love i have for napping. But whatever it is, you do need to have something outside. Yeah, yeah, i know it and it’s true. And, you know, and again, i think we all wrestle with i mean, i certainly wrestle with that it’s like, you know, on, you know, my wife’s going out to see a play. I’m she works very. She works very hard, but in a more contained space probably dad, you know? And i’m like no, i got this deadline. I got to do this, you know? But, you know, if i over the years on a runner and run in my early sixties and been running since i’m fifteen and fortunately, my knees haven’t given out and so, you know, if i go run, i also live in seattle, so i get to run by water, but, you know, if i’m traveling, lecturing on the road, it’s, like i take a break, which because i met town, make my living, you know, i take a break and i run along usually if there’s water around, i’m going to run along the river or the stream of the, you know, whatever the lake and it just, you know, physically, it flushes me, you know, they did toxicity out of you, but it also just, you know, it gives you a space and it’s it’s, you feel better afterwards? Endorphins, there’s lot to be said for endorphins, flood flow. All that stuff suppressing the stress hormones. Yeah, yeah, i can think of offhand. Well, no, gentlemen. One of them? Yeah. Suppressing those. Yeah, and building up endorphins. And yet, yeah. And i think also things like diet. Yeah. He’s getting enough sleep? Yeah, yeah. I mean, i called. I mean, i called the holy trinity of, you know, exercise diet, which includes, um, good supplements. Yeah. Ok. And after? Yeah, not not on the suicide. Very practical. And you know what? Yeah, you are dealing with serious dressed. This will help. Uh, this will lower your cortisone there’s. Another right doesn’t stretch on and, you know, and sleep, were i my sleep tends not to be that great. So i just figure okay, i’m gonna log nine hours to get a where you get seven and a half, okay? Yeah. And, you know, and that helps about switch gears a bit to the teo donor-centric team. It don’t, er burnout, right? You know, i’ve been doing this. I’ve been supporting this cause a long time. I feel like it’s time to move on. I need any advice around that. Well, i think part of what happens is people have this constant pressure to sort of see the quick short term results and a lot of times howard’s in new york by accepting the impossible take a little while the greatest story. And he talks about the optimism of uncertain. You don’t know when the moment will turn you go backto parks. Of all, the wasn’t like she was doing lots of things for twelve years, as they all were one of them little spark, but you couldn’t anticipate which and so i think, it’s very it’s, very easy to sort of say that success is for human dignity that we’ve had were inevitable civil rights movement. Of course, eventually they would have revealed gay rights in eventually. Well, our environmental challenges open question whether we will be able you do what we need. Well, we are able to do what we need climate change, but they have the will is yeah, the will for it. I mean right now, you know, the technology is there, renewables have now passed, you know, they are cheaper than coal, there are equal with fossil fuel without any externalities at all. And you know, when next molly’s it’s not even close. So but will we have the political will? I don’t know, um, it depends on us and you and the stakes are pretty ultimate because, you know, we’re talking about the habitability of the planet. So you know, when i when i look at it, you know what i what i see is donors being subject to the same schools is the rest of us buy-in possibly possibly in a more mediate wet because they’re not actual sum of money, but a lot of making sure they aren’t in the field, they’re they’re dealing with, you know, with them, you know, then the publicans of hands, possibly and it’s so and they’re getting reports, but they may not even have time to read the reports and, you know, depends on how good the people are a storytelling and so i think and, you know, let’s be honest, at least on some issues, they they may be insulated by privilege, they’re not, you know, they’re not seeing in their social circle, and i remember talking with one of our funders, and she said, well, she has a couple different pieces, like one of her groups, they are just not always down in silicon valley, they are just not at all concerned about this stuff at all and, you know, so she’s an environment that is not reinforcing her concern. Yeah, and that’s what? You know, that makes it harder to continue as a donor, then everyone’s talking about these urgent issues and oh, yeah and, you know, here you are, so you’re trying to address them, so i think you know, the challenges well for the rest of us, to try and offer that perspective in our work, which is hard because we’re often mean again, the stakes couldn’t be life and death, you know, they’re huge, even if they’re not immediately life and death wait care passionate about our families to myself, it’s like this is what we can do, and we want to put these many people on the ground in our states in time to really work with the school’s for this election and the clock is ticking and, you know, so, you know, from the donor perspective, if you want to try and really see that long term, you know, i mean, and of course, you want to be rigorous and you want all the rest of this stuff, but not get but see that long term goal is his long term goal recognized the the the short term, the short term impacts we can have, right? And but you also see the longer the wait and see how things build on the other thing i think is, you know, there’s a certain, you know, i would argue that our our culture, including certain the non-profit donor intersection, has that has adopted dahna bh session with certain kinds of measurement to the detriment of other kinds of metro meant measurement. And so it’s, metrix, metrix, metrix, metrix and i mean, i mean, i’ve been seattle in a city where it’s particularly talks, because we’ve got a tech culture, and yeah, some of the numbers could be exceptionally important. There’s, no question about that, but here’s, a story that embodies the process of what’s occurring that can be equally indicative. And so when you’re trying to evaluate impact, which is a reasonable in good thing, you want to take that broad, long term picture, and you want to get the understand all the different ripples of a particular organization. You’re supporting our considering supporting. Yeah. That that’s that can be as warm or important. Then then the numbers, you know, and not to dismiss the numbers, you know, but another way of measuring there’s qualitative, this good storytelling as well. Yeah, but, you know, in which can include numbers which can include numbers the air of i mean, you know, when i talked to donors, they know we have some very good numbers on our project. Way from our best calculations. Couple hundred thousand students who voted our last year who wouldn’t have otherwise? This is huge, you know, for a tiny minute budget of well, i have less than half a million dollar budget for that level of impact is amazing. Yeah. Yeah, we just have about a minute left or so you’ve been doing activism. What? Forty some years? Forty something years. It creeps up on you. What do you love about it? Why do you keep forty you? Why so long? What do you love? Well, some of it’s that the work continues to need to be doing dahna but some of it is that you do. I think the old skills and you build a sense of capability. And you can see, things happen that you’ve done or and this is what i would say is that everybody wait the books that i write, try it like impossible and so try to connect people to a broader stream of people working for such for social justice that started way before any of us were born and is going to continue long after we die. And if we feel connected that stream, it can help carry us, and we can help carry others. And to me that’s a lot of what keeps me doing it because it means that not only do i have a community that supports me current time, but i have a community of historical time, which i could see is supporting, and that makes you an awful lot of difference. Follow-up he’s written five books, the most recent our soul of a citizen and the impossible will take a little while you’ll find him at the impossible dot or ge paul, thank you so much. My pleasure. Been a real pleasure talking to you. Thanks a lot. On the beach on the joanie martignetti non-profit radio coverage of opportunity collaboration. Twenty fifteen. Thanks so much for being with us personalized video coming up first, pursuing they have mohr free research for you. This one is a paper it’s their e-giving outlook report. They bring in data from several industry reports, different reports and put it together with their own boots on the ground perspective as fund-raising consultants to give you precautions, opportunities and questions for discussion in your office e-giving outlook report by pursuant and it’s at. Pursuant dot com click resource is than content papers we’ll be spelling spelling bees for fund-raising have you checked out this video? You’ll see live music, dancing, standup comedy, spelling and raising money from millennials it’s that we be e spelling dot com now time for tony’s take two my video this week is, is your thanks since here less thanksgiving, i got two messages that said, thanks, but they added in promotion and solicitation that made them sound less than sincere like here’s an example. Just wanna wish you a happy thanksgiving and ask about your athletic fund-raising i’m kidding like, well, happy thanksgiving to you. And can i borrow five hundred bucks? Have you got all the insurance you need? Uh, might you be in the market for a used car happy thanksgiving i have another example of something less than sincere and a little more to say about sincerity. The video is at tony martignetti dot com that is tony steak, too, from ntcdinosaur sixteen here. Michael hoffman and jonno smith on personalized video welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc this is day three with e san jose convention center, and this interview is also part of ntc conversations. My guests now are michael’s, michael hoffman and jonno smith. We’re going to eat them in a moment. First, i have to shut out the swag item for this interview, doing one each time and this is a t shirt from canopy studios. What i like about this one is the pretty green tag i mean, they don’t just toss you a t shirt and throw it on, but comes a little pretty green ribbon, i should say pretty green ribbon. We had that to the swag pile the three day pile with a small thumb because that’s a soft item, alright. Michael hoffman and jonno smith. Michael is ceo at sea three communications. Jonno smith is director of brand marketing and digital strategy at make-a-wish america gentlemen, welcome to non-profit radio. Thank you, michael. Michael, welcome back. Thank you, it’s. Good to be back two years ago and tc believe was twentieth. Twenty fourteen. Your workshop topic donor onboarding and stewardship using personalized video to create stronger constituent ties and raise more money. Okay. That’s a mouthful. Yes. Let’s, let’s. Start with michael. You’re the c three is a video production company and marketing what’s. What is personalized video? Personalized video is away. Toe put user data inside a video to give every individual a personalized video experience. So it may say hi, tony, in the video and you get a link to that video that’s for you. So it’s almost like mail merge for video. All right, what’s the okay, i have a couple questions. Can this be done on a large scale or were absolutely so we’re not talking about recording an individual video about now we’re talking about tony. Hello, michael. Hell, john, we’re not doing that. We’re talking about automated triggers with a c r m so that we can take any data out of your database and say tony gave fifty dollars, last year. Tony, will you give one? Hundred dollars this year. Or thank you for your gift of x and the ex comes from the database. Okay? And these are called triggers. Within a video, you create a trigger to make the video so it might be a first time gift. Or it might be trying to upgrade you. And then the system will produce a video on the service side and send you a link to a video that has your name in it on way. See that people are incredibly responsive when we are customized to their own experience. How okay, if if i am the person in the video howto my lips sync with each different persons also mostly we don’t do audio we just to text on the screen so it might say hi, tony in ah in words on the screen on then there’s kind of a generic voice over. We have done it with voice and basically the way you do that would be to record, you know, the top two hundred first names, for example, and then and then have a default for names that don’t fit so most people would get you know, something that that says their name. And other people get some default, but usually that’s not necessarily worth the effort, because just seeing your name on the screen and seeing a donation amount or something specific about you, i really had an impact. Upstanding how long have we had this personalized video technology? We’ve been doing it for years, mostly for peer-to-peer fund-raising sofer run, walk and ride fund-raising mostly tto help the person who’s raising the money, who’s just a donor really ask others for money, so it’ll say, you know, tony is walking in the in the important, you know, make a wish event. Yeah, and you should support tony and and so you could just send that video to your friends, and that does the asking for you because most people don’t like to do the asking, and most people aren’t very good at it. So we’ve seen that raise money we’re doing working now with the alzheimer’s foundation and alzheimer’s association, and we’ve done for american cancer society, and we’ve done for autism speaks we’ve done from video reference it’s a very successful company. Did you develop this? We did. Yeah, we did. And there’s other other folks doing it there’s some. Companies that just do this for the corporate side, which is really what got us into the question of onboarding and stored ship on retention because we’re seeing companies like a t and t uses technology to welcome new customers to say hi, tony, this is what you ordered this when you’re billing date is this is who you know and and it keeps people are connected. I saw jonno check his watch. He’s. Well, let’s bring you in there’s a part of this. You know what? I’m speaking at a ten o’clock. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Okay, it’s. Nine. Forty. All right, we’ll try to be mined mindful of that, but i got to get these twenty one minutes out of you. All right, so how is make-a-wish using this? Well, what we’ve done is work with michael’s team to create nineteen in nine different audience personas. And historically, all of our video has been very make-a-wish centric and not focus on our constituents. Oh, and so we created dahna personas volunteer personas medical professionals because they’re very important to our wish referral process, huh? And have rolled those out across all sixty two our chapters in the us. As a framework for them to think about storytelling and video storytelling specifically in a different way. I’m not just talking about make a wish and how great we are, which we are, but we couldn’t do what we do without hundreds of different people to make witches happen. And so by featuring these different personas in our videos, it really moves make-a-wish out of the hero role and more into the mentor role and puts our constituents ahs the hero of our story. So personalized video is just one tactic in a in a bigger strategy, which is to really understand who your donors are and speak to them, you know, clear directly, personally, thoughtfully, yeah, we’ve been just really privileged partner with make a wish on figuring out who those who those folks are today and who they will be in the future and on dh, then to be helping them shift the messaging so that it really speaks to those people in their role. Yeah, it really does mean using their name that speaks to them. Yeah, right, i’m saying, but even outside the technique of personalized video, we’re doing that through all other kinds of content. Development just wanna banding that, you know, the major donor is of this age or is likely to like these things. Then when you start to create content, you speak more clearly to those people, even if you’re not using their name. Okay? And this is one of many channels that you’re communicating with courses altum staying multi-channel sure, all right, you know, you’re specifically using this for donor onboarding and retention or stewardship? How, john, how are you using it in the end? Donor-centric video technique, it’s personalized video is just one tactic that we’ve used around this donor onboarding in sword ship. Oh, okay, but well, you have video personas, though yes, so just a little bit different. We’re not at the point yet where we’re featuring the person’s name in the video, okay, but we’ve just changed the storytelling archetypes, so to speak, to focus on these different individuals and make them the folks of the video instead of it being all about us, okay, makes a lot of sense. All right, so then for onboarding michael, how how are non-profits using it or how might they? Yeah, i i think i think it’s a powerful opportunity. To say when somebody doesn’t action or does a donation to say to them, you know what you just did was really important and organisations are so focused on acquisition all the time, it’s like that new name, that first gift that they forget to amaze and delight their donors afterwards. And so the theory and we’re seeing it again in the corporate world, is that if you treat them well at the beginning and you explain what they did and why it was important, then they’re going to stay with you longer. And so we know, for example, that monthly givers often drop off after a couple months when they see this thing recurring on their credit card, but if you keep them for longer than a few months, they might stay for seven years, so just using different techniques, personalized video being one of them to really speak to them in those moments and say, hey, what you’re doing is really important and here’s the impact that it’s having and here’s people like you who are doing it and doing incredible things and making them part of the story, one of our most important metrics is donor commitment. Score, which is the non-profit equivalent of the net promoter score and we measure that on an annual basis with our donors, you have to explain what the net promote. I have george in jail on sorry twenty martignetti non-profit radio i do not know what the net promoter score is, so and i’m the on the orbiter for jorgen shell. So? So when amazon asks you, how likely you to recommend amazon to a friend on a zero to ten basis, the nines and tens are considered promoters of that brand and the ones most likely to purchase again and to refer amazon and there’s a group that’s adapted that for the nonprofit sector and not only asks, how likely are you to donate to this organization? But are they your favorite charity? Do you love this organization? And they combine those scores to understand the donor’s commitment? And so we measure that on an annual basis and what we’ve seen since we’ve transitioned to the more personalized form of storytelling in general and specifically through video is that our donor commitment scores have started teo increase because the donor’s air really seeing themselves in our stories for the first time and in a long time, okay, and what are some of the other techniques that you’re using alongside the personalized video? So we’ve once we created these nine different personas, we actually built collateral around them for all sixty two of our chapters and developed with michael’s team, a flip book that sits on every marketer and fundraisers desk throughout make-a-wish way have a thousand employees throughout the u s and so having a shift like this and storytelling was a massive endeavor. We didn’t want the personas to end up on the shelf in the office, so to speak. And so literally we put these flip books on everyone’s desk, and when they’re getting ready to send an email or write a direct mail letter or create a video or whatever the case, maybe they can literally flip the persona and remind themselves about their demographics there. Psychographic sw what? What these individuals value so they make sure that they’re truly speaking to these individuals and personalized and segmented way, right? So if you’re writing an e mail or you’re writing a facebook post, you look at those pictures of those people and you say, well, will this person like that was this speaking to them now they’re not it’s not speaking to everyone. It’s, speaking to specific types of supporters donors wish, refers on making that really top of mind all the time when you’re doing content creation. Now the flip books are the persona. Yeah, the nine percent cracked and their posters on the walls and there’s, you know, an idea of like these air, our constituents, we need to be talking to these people, you’re not the audience, these in the audience. So when we think about the language we use, when we think about the things we want to share, when we think about how to ask for for donations, we have to look at these faces and their character, and we have to say, you know, will this resonate with them on dh that sharpens started to sharpen the messaging on, but also diversifies the messaging because it’s not just one one type, so make a wish kind of got caught in talking one way tau one type and the way to grow is really to think about, well, who were those other types that we weren’t speaking too? Okay, and it sounds like common sense, right? People have been talking about being donor-centric and constituent centric it conferences in presentations and white papers for ten years, but the reality is, most organizations have not really embraced that. And although it seems like common sense and doesn’t sound like a controversial idea, it was actually very controversial for many of our chapters, especially those with staff who have been there for ten, fifteen, twenty years. They’ve been used to talking exclusively about make a wish, make a wish being the focus, and when we said no, if we’re going to grow, if our donor commitment scores are going to rise, we need to flip that and people were resistant to that. And so the flip books really helps push that along. What are some of the other personas you mentioned? Doctors, volunteers, major donors? Who some what are some of the other? Sure so we created not only current heh personas, but perspective personas of those who were not currently reaching that we feel like there’s a good opportunity. Two one example of that is a volunteer persona of an older male. Most of our volunteers are younger females, but we thought there was an opportunity with men who are approaching retirement age to become volunteers who helped grant our wishes. A tte the same time, those individuals could potentially become candidates for plant giving, major gifts and so forth. Doctor’s on social workers and child life specialists, or court our mission. And they’re a really difficult audience to reach. Eso, we develop personas for all three of those individuals. And it’s enabled our chapters toe. Think ah, a little bit more strategically, about how they get into the conversation, in hospitals, in treatment centers and with nurses, and so forth. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked. And naomi levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to, he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation, top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m lawrence paige nani, author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. I like the idea that it’s not only people you’re dealing with now, but perspective volunteers, for instance, the old er, the old er older guys, yeah, i mean, that was really an important insight that michael’s team helped us come teo and sell internally. Yeah, yeah, and also, for example, it fits in with the diversification of america as well. So, you know, we have a millennial donor-centric perspective dahna persona whose latino so, you know, those air communities that the chapters are starting to connect teo and don’t necessarily have the insight or the language to connect well, and so the persona is help them do that. Jonah, what kind of reactions have you gotten from donors who have received personalized video for whatever stage of their relationship with you? Yeah, so, ah, since we started implementing this about a year ago, ah, pretty much every single metric on our youtube channel has doubled subscribers, engagement, comments, shares, you name it, we’ve, you know, historically are channel had gotten a little flat. Excuse me, are these personalized don’t don’t personalize videos on youtube channel their videos with these personas featured in them on our youtube channel? Yes, not not the ones personalized each individual doesn’t. The person doesn’t go to youtube to watch it. It’s a it’s a private somewhere, as i said make-a-wish e-giving treyz you guys wait, give me a break elearning this now i’ve got about fifteen minutes of forty six seconds into personalized video. You’ve been doing it for years, okay? Yes, yes. Oh, no. Just saying that personalized video where the name appears in it is one tactic that make a wish is not using yet right? And they’re using the broader approach, which is to really see yourself in the video in the broad sense that there were somebody like you on the video, i think that’s having a great impact, i thought you meant they weren’t using them in donor onboarding but you’re not not using that. You haven’t personalized the videos yet, correct. Okay, you too. Metrics have doubled in views in every single way. Yeah, as you know, we believe as a result of changing the storytelling paradigm on youtube. Historically, all of our videos were about the wish, the child’s name, their disease and what they wish for organization centric or when you were talking about being donor-centric exactly, and now they can actually see themselves in these videos, riel live donors, medical professionals, volunteers contributing to our mission. We saw a video in the session that that make-a-wish produced that was these guys who created a polar plunge thing, and then they were somebody said, why don’t you make it a fundraiser? And they raised over five million dollars for make a wish and the video was about they spill it on you, but the video was about them, right? And there the donors on there, the fundraisers in the video was about them. It wasn’t just about the wish kids and the impact they had a huge impact. It had a huge impact on their life, right? They were incredibly moved by it. So this donor-centric heimans techniques is really saying, well, that’s an important story to tell and that impact is valuable, right? The impact on the child is a focus, but that impact on the donor is a real value and it’s something that make a wish is bringing to the world and let’s talk about it. Yeah, i mean, videos like this, i think, really make volunteering and giving contagious because people are able to see themselves in these videos more than they have in the past and they can say, well, if these these two guys from long island put together a polar bear plunge that raises five million dollars from make a wish, why can’t i do that? Why? Why haven’t i done something as simple as that that’s exactly how the ice bucket challenge took off right for for a l s purely organic and it was it was a beneficiary who thought of the thought of it, and it is now obviously took off from there. So in this case, a donor saw it and said, why don’t we do the same thing? So it’s our job to remind people every day how they khun get involved and and stay of involved? And if we’re just talking about us, we’re not going to be able to be doing that. Yeah. Grayce now, general, won’t be respectful of your time. It’s ah, about seven minutes of no it’s. All right, ten. Thirty i’m good. Oh, ten. Thirty. Okay. Okay. Because michael and i could’ve wrapped up in like, the next three, four minutes. But you’re good till ten. Thirty, i speak in ten. Thirty, so okay. Oh, yeah. We’re gonna get you wrapped up in a few minutes. Okay. Um, so we do have a few more minutes left. What what more can we say about this technique? The multi-channel that goes along with think, you know, important thing to say is that there’s a lot of shiny objects here. There’s a lot of technology is there’s a lot of good strategy, but in the end of the day, it all bumps up against culture and capacity. And and so you can say let’s be donor-centric you can say whatever, but if you have buy-in grain silos, if you have people have been doing some things for thirty years the same way that’s, what you’re going to run into, and so well we’re really focused on and what we’ve been working with jonno. And is this culture change and that’s not an easy process? That’s something. But if it’s not built in tow, whatever it is it’s it’s not gonna work. So when we think about strategy, we really think about that culture and capacity and, you know, how are we designing for change? Johnno talk a little about that. Because this this applies not only to a video strategy but really anything new where there are long term employees who haven’t been doing this way. Culture change, we all know, is enormously difficult. How did you bring along the recalcitrant ones? Yeah, absolutely so creating the percentage was twenty percent of the challenge, you know, eighty percent was rolling it out, and we work with michael’s team to create something internally. We call the content strategy collaborative, and we’ve broken our sixty two jap chapters into cohorts of fifteen, fifteen chapters with similar characteristics and are putting them through a nine months virtual learning program where each month they participate in a webinar on a topic related to one of the personas. Then they have personalized one on one coaching with a marketing and fund-raising coach, and then they get back together with their peers at the end of the month in a webinar that we call a share fest, where they share how they’ve experimented and tested and started to implement these personas in their storytelling and their campaigns and it’s been ah, overwhelmingly successful so far, the chapters love the program and have been extremely engaged in it and they’ll be spending literally nine months, five to ten hours per month. Just focused on this for the next year. Yeah. All right, so so there really weren’t people who were seriously objecting because they were brought along in the process and it was it’s a working product is the working process. I mean, even in this program, you know, there’s there’s, people, there’s, you know, resistance to specific things all the time. So it’s ah it’s working through it it’s saying, hey, we never did it that way or hey, look, we have events we’ve been doing our schedule a certain way, and we feel really full, like you want us to do these other things, you know? So that’s it it’s not a straight lying. So the program is great. And it’s moving the needle, but it’s turning a big ship? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Where we want to leave this? We have just like, another minute or so left. What? What happened? We set about it that that we should yeah. I mean, i would just say, ah, you know, every day if you work in marketing or fund-raising the non-profit you’re going to get an email from a vendor with a white paper about being donor-centric you’re going to go to a conference and see all the sessions air about that? But if that’s been going on for ten years, why have things not changed? And, you know, one of my former colleagues used to call it the mission megaphone. All we’re good at doing is sort of shouting our mission, but nobody’s listening, nobody cares what your mission is, that they care about what impact they can have on your mission. And until the sector really embraces this idea, e-giving will continue. Tio tio, grow at a at the small rate that it that it is. And so, you know, i would really challenge all of my colleagues to think seriously about this and start finding ways to implement in their organizations. Okay, outstanding. Thank you. Deep thinking civilization, right. They are michael hoffman, ceo of c three communications and jonno smith, director of brand marketing and digital strategy at make-a-wish america. Gentlemen. Thank you again. Thank you. All right. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc the non-profit technology conference. Thank you for being with us. That was interesting. I got i got a little confused. I feel like i wasn’t totally paying attention to what michael was telling me. So i apologize for that, michael his first time going through it. Sorry about that. Next week, jean takagi returns he’s, our legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group. You know, jean takagi, if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we’d be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We b e spelling dot com, a creative, producers clad meyerhoff sam leave uses the line producer. I’m still working on hyre, not am and fm outreach director. Social media is done by susan chavez. On our music is by scott stein. Offgrid me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and i agree. 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 a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful posts here’s aria finger, ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno, two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric 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.

15NTC Videos: Social Media

More interviews from the 2015 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network. These are on social media, including video strategy, emerging channels and getting your emails delivered. 

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Zombie Loyalists with Peter Shankman