Tag Archives: Video marketing

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 February 17, 2017: Don’t Burn Out In 2017 & Personalized Video

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Paul Loeb: Don’t Burn Out In 2017

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Paul Loeb 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 50 years of activism, he has a lot to recommend about keeping yourself motivated day-after-day, especially in a time when nonprofits may suffer federal cutbacks. We talked at Opportunity Collaboration 2015 in Ixtapa, Mexico.

 

 

 

 

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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. 

Nonprofit Radio for April 4, 2014: Vivid Video & A Board That Brings In The Bucks

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:

Ross Minichiello, Mary Carlin and Gloria Ramon: Vivid Video

Ross Minichiello
Ross Minichiello
Mary Carlin
Mary Carlin
Gloria Ramon
Gloria Ramon

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Ideas for producing and repurposing that video you make each year come from Mary Carlin and Ross Minichiello of Riverside Digital, and Gloria Ramon from Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A.

Deborah Stanley: A Board That Brings In The Bucks

Deborah Stanley
Deborah Stanley
Deborah Stanley from Blackbaud wants you to lose the fear of talking about fundraising with your board. And how is it that board service is like an infant’s life? (Recorded at bbcon 2013).

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host, you know i’m glad you’re with me if you weren’t, i’d developed ingi vel hyperplasia if it came to my attention that you had missed today’s show vivid video ideas for producing and repurpose ing that video that you make each year come from merrily mary carlin and rossman akello of riverside digital and gloria ramon from brooklyn legal services corporation, eh? And a board that brings in the bucks never stanley from blackbaud once you lose the fear of talking about fund-raising with your board and how is it that board service is like an infants life that was recorded at be pecan last october on tony’s take two between the guests. Take care of yourself in spring and summer. The time is now. I’m very happy to welcome right now to the studio we have in the studio. Rossman akello he’s principle and executive producer for riverside digital productions. Also in the studio is gloria ramon. She is director of development and communications for brooklyn legal services corporation, eh? Brooklyn a provides legal assistance to low income, individuals and community groups in brooklyn, new york. Gloria leads brooklyn a’s development, marketing and communications there a beak, a dot, org’s and on the phone is mary carlin. She is vice president of business development for riverside digital. They have been in video production for fifteen years with clients that include god’s, love, we deliver and brooklyn, eh? Ross and mary are married and they met doing a play together. They’re both former actors and stage directors, and you’ll find them at rivers aside. Digital dot com, ross and gloria and mary welcome. Thanks, tony. Thanks for having us on today. It’s a pleasure. I’m glad everybody’s together talk about vivid video. Um, mary, i feel bad for you because you’re on the phone so let’s, start with you because you couldn’t you couldn’t be in the studio with with your husband. Video is is really critical for storytelling, isn’t it? In twenty fourteen? Absolutely, when you look a thie popularity of viral videos, stories that people share with each other on a daily basis on the effectiveness of that type of communication, it’s just i think it’s so important for non-profits two to understand that they can share their story that way and that it’s really going to reach so many more people and it’s a very cost effective way to do it. We’re also even now seeing email with video embedded not just a link through, but but actually embedded in prison. And, you know, it’s video is just like the primary source of sharing fun stories, and they’re been a variety of ways that have been developed to do it. You’re right, and ross were talking about mostly event video today? Sure way do aa lot of gala video, gallon honoree video for not for profit organization. So, you know, at all these gallas they have these tribute videos, they honor various people who have contributed and they’ve, you know, you’ve people have contributed either monetarily or through probono work and way get a snapshot of those people’s biographies, but we also talk about the effect ah, that they’ve had on the organization a zoho ll the mission of the order position, okay? And we even could go could go ah, broader than just the gala or the event honoree type video could be covering an event like a run or walk race? Sure, we’ve we’ve done those as well, we’ve we’ve covered we’ve covered events like the gods love race to deliver where we’ve interviewed people who are participating in the race. We’ve we’ve sent cameras into the race itself to get the real experience of participating in the race, and we again we get opportunities to talk about talk to people on the ground who are part of the organization, who support the organization and get their reactions to whites such a pleasure to be part of it. I love your deep bass voice. Thank you. Thank you that’s like alec. Alec baldwin. I’ve been told. Okay. All right, if you if you want. I wasn’t thinking him, but okay. Sounds good. I was thinking like an orson welles kind of, uh yeah. Buy-in voice not appearance. You look much better than orson, even when your son was living. Thank you, citizen kane. Orson welles. Exactly. That’s right, gloria, how is brooklyn? A using video? Well, we’ve primarily used the video’s for our annual partnership awards benefits. Ross just said we area re honor three individuals for their commitment to pro bono work, community service and that’s. How we’ve used the videos to tell their story. But also the story of brooklyn legal services and how they meshed together. And is this video shown at your annual gala? Yes, we what. We’ve shown the video at the event. And then we usually send the video out after the event to people who have an intended posted on our website posted on our youtube and facebook page. So now it’s, sort of wanting to take it to the next level. Ross, we can we can use these videos for a different purpose to it. They want to be limited to the the night of the gala. We show it and then it goes, it goes in storage, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s, always thean tentoni, it’s always the intent that, you know, not only we talking about the individual being honored that evening, but we always like to tie it back to the mission the boots on the ground work because of the contribution, whether it is again monetarily or it was it’s probono where courts just advocacy work that’s being done by this individual through volunteerism, we always want to bring it back to the core mission of the organization, and therefore you can repurpose that video beyond the night. That’s really the most important thing we all know that the funds were scarce in and the not for profit world. And so i’ve seen i’ve seen gala videos that are strictly biography videos of the individual that have no shelf life beyond the night. Yeah, they don’t care. They don’t tie back to the mission. They don’t tie back to the mission. I know it’s a biopic it’s a biopic and you know what it is? It makes the individual feel good and yes, they get honored that particularly, but it has no life beyond that. We want to be able to have the organization cable today, the piece a zoho whole or in part and repurpose it on their website through a viral marketing campaign. Social media however, they best want to use it on dh how do we plan? I mean, that s so we’re going to do that. This has to be planned for before we start shooting. Absolutely it’s it’s you don’t think that kord yeah, i was just going to say, like, the process that ross and i have had in the past three years now that i’ve been working with him is just that we sort of plan out, you know, once we determined who our honorees are, the conversation then is sort of what story do we want to tell and freaking out? The best way to tell that story identifying potential? You know, clients that we can have in the video other supporters, of course staff members on brother non-profit organizations that we work with. So it’s really, you know building that story. Oh, other non-profits even a cz well, okay, so so the point is you need to plan production. What purpose do you have? Do you have in mind what purposes you have in mind for this? So that when you’re when you’re in production, you’re going to satisfy your goals it right? And it always comes it all comes down to drilling down to what is that course story? What is the what is the emotional impact? What is the work that the organization is doing? And how does this person either fit into that directly or help facilitate the that? That how does it serve the mission? Okay, mary, when when we are looking for a video production company to work with, what should we be thinking about? Well, you know, i think that first you should be thinking about the the quality of their work. He’s got to go on and look at aa number of sites websites and make sure that the quality of their work is just really current and clean on how well do they tell the story of the particular organization? Um, that is covered in the video, and it is it is the audio. Good. Is the video good? You know, very simple ways of looking at it and going okay, yeah, this is aunt. Does it impact you emotionally? Doesn’t motivate you to get involved. Oppcoll with this organization. What about checking references? It’s appropriate to ask for? Ah, producers references? Absolutely. Yes. I mean, after you checked the website and liked the work that you’ve seen, you should get recommendations. You should speak to people and say, okay, how were they to work with that? They stay on budget. Did they deliver on time? Do they hit each one of their deadlines on the day of the event? Were they there for you to support you, to make sure that the video played correctly, you know, these kinds of things, so that they that thie non-profit staff member felt completely supported during the process and confident that the video was going to tell the story that they wanted to communicate to their clients and their excellent thank you, there’s. Like, half a dozen very good questions to ask. Ask a reference that you just you just rattled off. Thank you. We’re gonna go out for a couple of moments. And when we come back, we’re all going to keep talking. Ross and gloria and mary and i, about vivid video. Hang in. There co-branding dick, dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get into thinking. Good, do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss. Our coaching and consultant services are guaranteed to lead toe right groat for your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. One, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping hunters. People be better business people. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on with ross, minnick, ello, mary carlin and gloria ramon. And we’re talking about vivid video. Gloria, my pronouncing your last name, right. Okay, good. Thank you, altum. Let’s. See, ross, you’re the executive producer at riverside digital. What? What ideas have you got for for the production now that we know what our purposes are. Well, we’ve hired the right person. You know, our long term purposes for the video. What are some things that you think we need to keep in mind for production? Right, it’s always. Good idea. Tio, have a strategy session with your client and someone like gloria always has such great ideas about, you know how you want the peace to look. Do you want it to look clean? Do you want it to look what i mean by clean is, you know, oftentimes we shoot with that sort of mac mac commercial. Look, with the with the clean white background but the or do you want to have a more organic feel? More environmental field? You want it to be, you know, buy-in people’s offices he wanted to be, you know. Wanted to be outside, you talk about how you want the look and feel of the video to be that’s one one question to contemplate, let me stop you there and turn to gloria. How do you how do you answer questions like that? Well, you know what? When, when? Someone when ross and mary asked, what do you want the look and feel to be, like that’s a pretty that’s a pretty open ended question i often like, i don’t know, yeah, but part of it also depends on who you’re honoring and sort of how you want to tell her story, like, for example, when our last community honoree he was, you know, fabrice fabrice, community activist so we wanted to shoot him in the neighborhood, you know, walking around with his, you know, local residents and just getting that feel of him in the community. Whereas when, when we are attorney honoree, we sort of focus that maurin his home, and so it was just, you know, different sort of creative background elements so it’s, really, who are you honoring what’s the focus and the concept of the video and then sort of take it from there. But what i do appreciate that it is it is, you know, a back and forth, like, sometimes we have ideas and ross’s like, no, that doesn’t make any sense, so it is sort of a back and forth so nice about it right now. E i think you would be yeah, and so that’s what? You would have to have your counting on that. I mean, you exactly want a creative person who says yes, yeah, that doesn’t really fit with what, on dh here’s, why that doesn’t fit with what we just talked about exactly because, you know, you know, i’m not thinking creatively on a day to day basis, you know? So when we have to start having those conversations, i appreciate sort of the gold, you know, the back and forth and sort of think about it this way and have you thought about this way? And i’m like, yeah, yeah? Or you are thinking very creatively about marketing and communications and development. Fund-raising but not about video story tell exactly, which is why we need a producer we need an expert, yeah, yeah, i know. And when we are, you know, talking about a particular honoree, we want to sort of set up the you get really good spokespeople for that honoree and craft questions that are pretty much the same for each of of the spokes people so we can get we compose that same question to multiple people and get different responses and put those responses side by side to see how different people have the take on that particular issue with the honoree. So, yeah, that’s, that’s one thing we craft the questions often times together and or we sort of refined them together. Okay? What story? You got married? Sorry. Please. Oh, no. Right. That’s way. Just want to help a person like gloria, you know, shaped the story that they want to tell. Okay? And in regarding of spokespeople, i mean, you really you wantto you want to find spokespeople that are energised that have a lot of a lot of things, good things to say. You want them to be good on camera. I mean, sometimes we, you know, it takes a lot of editing, so people don’t make a great presentation. Exactly. So you want to, you know, i would say, you know, talk to your talk to your own reeks that’s usually where the spokes people come from and say, look, we really want someone who’s going to sort of stand up for you and sort of have a strong voice. Gloria, have people usually been forthcoming with the honorees, been forthcoming with suggestions, but completely they usually know who’s in there in a circle who talks about them well, and those are the people that we want. And what i find is that when when, you know, when you’re asking someone to talk about, you know, their friend or or colleague there, they’re excited about that. And it is true about choosing the right questions because someone could talk forever or sort of go on about anecdotal stories. But you want to get key points, but it’s it’s so far, it’s been fairly easy finding the right people. Okay, okay, russ, what else? What else should we be thinking? Let’s? See, i would say, well, i mean, you want to. Well, on a technical note, i mean, mary is sort of brothers before, but you want to on the wants of the video is complete. You want teo and you’re ready to show it. You wantto have sort of technical overheard you want have at least one technical rehearsal going into the presentation because this is generally these air live events. And so you want, teo, make sure that, you know, you have redundancy and the way you can play the the video that is to dvd and it’s on a digital file, and you want, if you can, we’d like to go the day before the event and play the video on the actual equipment that’s going to be used on that night, you know, one of these, you know, when he surprises and you know what? We’ve had surprises. Yeah, but you basically a tech rehearsal, you want to have a technology just want to know that that thing is going to play, you don’t want it, tio have a blank screen. When when it’s showtime. Okay, it’s just so surprising, tony, all the money that goes into a benefit on dh, the flowers and the meal and drinks, and then not to have the a z tech staff, they’re revealing your material beforehand is, you know, it’s absolutely crucial to have that done that work that you put into the video it’s going to show and the videos going to be seen exactly the way you intended it to be. Russell russell, who did teo? Some problems that you’ve seen the past mary’s there are is there a exactly actually rushing to that? Okay, is there a bad story that yeah, i mean, we’ve we’ve at a gala of a few years ago, they just could not get the video to play, i couldn’t get it to play at all and so oh, and i had actually gone the day before, and i saw it play on the on the equipment, but they switched it out last minute off the equipment they switched the equipment, anime and so it’s i mean, really, i mean, i’m once i deliver it, i i should be done, but i always like to make sure i’d like to be in the room at the time and trouble shoot help figure it out, but yeah, you know, a t end of the day, they did get it to work one minute before went up, but, you know, it was a nail biter, okay? Okay, tech rehearsals. Decker, husky and i would also say to to plan ahead on the other platforms you want to use the video so, you know, my what i do is sort of, you know, let ross know that i want to be able to put on youtube or post on facebook because he’ll have to go through the process of compressing the video so we can use it on different platforms, so always remember think ahead like, yes, it’s for the night of but where else do i want the studio to go? What other technical issues become arise? Arise uh, mary, what is a b roll on? Dh what’s its role? Oh, sure. Well, this is b roll is shots of the area, perhaps where a building is, maybe it’s, maybe you’re going to be shooting in a playground. You’re interviewing somebody in the playground, but then you would take shots of children playing in the playground it’s a sort of execution, a sense of the setting of the environment where the organization is making an impact, for example, and it’s usually shot there’s, not any audio, but so that then you can take voiceover. Perhaps an interview is running long, but they’re an important points in the interview instead of focusing. On that person’s face, but all time you can go to the dear old, you can go to the setting that interview because speaking about and you can show different shots, and it really gives much more visual interest to the piece because that’s, another thing that we see often in the’s er honoree tributes is that they’re too many talking heads and low people, maybe making good points. It gets a little boring visually just to see people speaking all the time. So it’s great teo, you know, encouraging the production team to go out and get some b roll, because then it will just make the video that much more interesting. Visually on dh photos there’s a photo archive that could be good. Good b roll material. Also, photos are great and you and you could do a lot with photos now. I mean, in the age of photo shop, i mean, you can take part of the image and highlight a part of the image and you can do a lot creatively inside a photo. So all those photos that are, you know, sitting, you know, in an archive somewhere or in a file cabinet those need to be repurposed and brought out to help help help tell the story. I mean, it definitely adds a personal note. Two stories, you’re nodding a lot. Yeah, and i was just going to say two and even other videos in twenty eleven my first year working with ross, we post some humus lee honored sergeant shriver, and i feel that’s like of fantastic video, of course, because who he is as a person, but we were able to use some of the video from forgetting the, i think seven poverty, thank you, a lot of his personal photos, so it just it just made the video that much more dynamic and a clip of sort of, you know, a little bit of one of the speeches he gave about poverty, and it was, you know, the night of, you know, it really moved the room, and so exactly you want you want the video to be more dynamic, and i would say to what? They would get a lot of b roll, because then it allows you to repurpose the video later on, because when you’re getting a lot of shots, whether it’s, you’re the neighborhood you’re working in. Or the you know, the youth program that you worked with. Get a lot of that, because then we could recut it later. Ross could recut it later, and, you know, use it for other purposes. Let’s. Just remind us who sergeant shriver was sergeant shriver. Wealth in the legal world, he was a founding member of sort of legal legal services corporation and he’s. Been way was instrumental, very instrumental in shaping legal services in all over the country, was tapped to be to start the war on poverty and to the johnson administration, yes, and that’s. Sort of. Out of those johnson programs came legal services corporation and brooklyn legal services. Sort of. Ah. Organization that came out of that right and because i know you’re serving your e-giving legal assistance, low income not only people, but also but organization organization. Yes, we also provide legal legal services to non-profit organizations engaged in community development work. Ross, how are we going to do all this in how many minutes? This is sounding like a thirty five minutes, forty minutes winning documentary, but it can’t be the night of the gala does not allow for a forty minute documentary on individual no, he needs to be really tight. I would say no more than five minutes. Somewhere between three to five seems to be a sweet spot where people can engage. You can tell a good story in that amount of time, and people you want to leave them wanting more. You don’t want them saying, you know, when i’m going to get my next drink or order? Yeah, so they want they want a nice a short and sweet and impactful. You really wanted teo leave. You want to have to start, start strong and strong and have an emotional impact. What advice do you have turned a little bit to the to the to the event thie event coverage, not showing but the run walk ride gloria, is this brooklyn a involved in have events like that or we don’t do any runs, it walks, we do we the past couple years, we film the actual program itself. So ross has done that way do cover that we do cover events, we covered the night of just so we all the speakers are covered, and you have a fear archives, and you, khun, for people who couldn’t make it that given night, we post that online and ok, we generally shoot that with two to three cameras. So there’s some variety in the visual. Okay, okay, uh, what else? What else around anything different that we would be doing for something that is going to be an outdoor run, walk, ride, race? Something like that? Well, i mean, you know, there are so many we’ve covered races where we’ve thrown guy’s on roller blades with steady cameras on steadicam, saand and video cameras now there’s so many great wearable cameras, you know, we we will put those people out in the race, he’ll actually do the race, or they’ll ride along in a bike to capture the footage to get that get that sense of, you know, this is what the event is. This is how how people engage on the actual walk and running component of the race. And then you wanna have more of a more traditional cameras to record the experience after the race before the race get get people, you know, interviews and that sort of coverage where these wearable cameras warned they’re amazing how you can mount these. I mean, these these cameras, you can mount them on the surf board if you want. So you can imagine you can wear them on your chest on a hat you could wear the money a wrist there are and the images spectaculars, um and the whole idea. Pardon me till he’s no upleaf is capturing the energy and enthusiasm of the participants in the event so that you can bend, cut, ah, highlight reel and use it as a terrific recruitment volunteer recruitment and part participant video. You can cut something short that can be shared on social media platforms saying, hey, look at a great time at this event last year come on and join me this year. Sign up for my team and let’s walk together yeah, it’s a great way to engage you know, the young young people and it says that this is definitely the place to be. We’ve actually covered races and repurposed the footage. Not only is a end of year wrap up video, but use that as a commercial, we’ve used the the actual footage, the b roll footage from the event used it in a commercial to promote god’s love we deliver. You could see that on our website, actually, which is a riverside digital dot com? Absolutely, gloria, how have you repurposed some of the honoree videos or the end or the gala videos that gala coverage that you’ve done well so far, we’ve repurposed, um, to do like a sort of organizational wide about brooklyn legal services video, so we’ve used some content for that, but we are actually at the stage now with ross having discussions about now that we have this powerful leo videos, what to do next with it? And so really for me, it’s thinking about our larger communication strategy again, sort of how i want teo expand our reach, i engage people s o looking at all this content that we have and see what we can do more, you know, to do more with it. Very nice position to be. And to have that video portfolio teo, turn to wey have to leave it there. Rossman, akello and mary carlin are with riverside digital productions. You’ll find them at riverside digital dot com gloria ramon, director. Development of communications for brooklyn legal. I kind of garbled brooklyn, brooklyn legal services corporation a and they are at b k a dot org’s. Mary ross. Gloria. Thank you so much. Thanks, tony. This has been great. It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. I want to remind you that spring and summer are are here, summer’s coming spring is here. And i think that now is the time for you to be thinking about your summer plans. Or maybe even fall plans. You work in a e-giving profession and that’s what we’re all about. And you’re giving day in and day out. And probably not just eight hours a day, but ten hours, maybe. Maybe. Mohr some days, weekends. Weekend work. Not so uncommon in non-profits you’ve got to take time for yourself and summer and fall or good times to do that, a lot of people, obviously we take vacations, but planet now start looking ahead now so that when summer is when it’s labor day, you’re not looking back saying, where the hell did summer go and how come i didn’t take time off? So please, if you’re going to give to others, as you do and you get joy from doing it, you’re going to give i believe you’ve got to take and that is taking time for yourself. So plan now and rejuvenate later and that’s tony’s take two for friday, the fourth of april fourteenth show of the year. Very glad now, tio introduce a piece from be become the blackboard conference in october of last year with divers stanley from blackbaud this is a board that brings in the bucks. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of bb khan, twenty thirteen, where outside washington d c at the gaylord convention center in national harbor, maryland. I’m with debbie stanley. She is manager of the customer service team at blackbaud, and her session topic at bebe khan is building a board that brings in the bucks. I love the alliteration, as listeners will no doubt be stanley, welcome. Thank you, and i’m sorry to correct you, tony, but its manager of customers success when i was just service, you said service, and while we’re all about service, my team is about success. Esther and i wrote down success too, and i still read service alright, i’ll get another shot at the end, okay? I’ll get it straight, but its success right here. So you did? I know. Okay, well, that’s really not much of a reassurance because it just means i can’t read. I know that i wasn’t listening, i just can’t read. Um, yes, this is a big problem fund-raising boards on dh lack of fund-raising among boards, maybe the entire board or maybe some individual board members i’ve had guests on. We’ve talked about this, not that tony martignetti non-profit radio is going to change it, but why is this a perennial topic? Well, tony and that was one of the reasons i wanted to be very clear about the difference between service and success. Board members feel like they’re serving your organization by giving their time giving their talents but being a successful boardmember is giving of your treasures e-giving money helping raise money, you know, we’ve been raised in our society. You don’t talk about what the top three at the dinner table politics, religion, money? Well, the bottom line is companies aren’t afraid to talk about the return on investment, they’re not afraid to talk about what type of money they need. I mean, they put a price tag right there, but we is non-profits are ashamed to tell our board members i expect you to raise money. Why is that? I think that the the comment that was made in several of our sessions today was fear we’re afraid they’ll leave. We’re afraid that if we make that a requirement, they won’t join us in our very important work. So it’s fear and i hate that i hate that, but that’s true. So there are lessons that we can learn from the corporate side absolutely out being unabashed, talking about money? Absolutely, absolutely. And i think there’s a lesson to be learned a cz non-profit professionals and non-profit leaders get the fear out of the room. It has no place at the board table. Your constituents, the people that you serve every day are scared enough. They’re scared of going hungry. They are scared of losing their homes. They’re scared of their children, going without education, that’s something to be afraid of. Don’t be afraid of telling your family, your board of directors that you’ve got a problem, that you need their help. And that is why they are there. The number one reason for your board is to raise money and to make sure that you are financially sound. So we’ve got to get the fear out of the room and it’s just it’s, basically just going, swallowing hard and making they ask and telling them what you need. Okay, well, how are we going to get started with this way? Want to put our fear aside what we do while tony, i think that like any good problem, it’s admitting we have a problem, it’s saying, we know that that problem is out there. I mentioned today in my session that i would love to see organizations like a f p board source. Other trade organizations that served this, this very important sector of our business bringing this conversation out there and, you know, the only thing that’ll that will hurt us is not having the conversation of listening to each other, saying, hey, how are you solving that problem? It’s been hurting us, it’s, and it continues to hurt us because we’re not getting to any resolutions, and i think it’s got to be a conversation that comes out of the hallways of the non-profit andr labbate squarely into the board rooms of every non-profit not just these guys, you know what, the top level that can’t afford to make those give or get requirements it’s got to come down into our small to midsize non-profits where board service is considered a privilege at every level, you know, it’s, a it’s, a paradigm shift if you’ve got no not know what part of the country you’re from, but here and certainly this is true. If you want to serve on the board of some of the top tier non-profits they have no problem asking you to write a check for twenty five thousand dollars a year, a year exactly. And if you don’t give that money or you don’t get that money in some way you’re not on the board, but you’re going to make sure you give her get that because you want to be on the board. It is a place of honor. We’ve got to dio a paradigm shift where there is a place of honor for anybody that serves on a non-profit board, i’d love to see a f p boards source try to get some activity congress where you get a tax deduction for board service or something along those lines where we could really make systemic changes in the way that we run the third sector, where being on the board is an important valued piece of our society. Now seo’s executive directors can give their board members these feelings right with the right kind of leadership in the right kind of message is absolutely and the way they treat the board meetings and, um, engage with board members. I mean, you could do this on individual level, even without the congressional absolute about the tax advantage, absolutely we can do that, absolutely, that needs to be done. It has to be done, it’s not being done, and part of the problem with that is the ceo and the executive director’s are not being so supported by board presidents and bored leadership of mandating yes, fund-raising is a function of this board. So your executive director confide that battle all they want, teo. But if the board isn’t going to self govern, they’re not going to get very far in a meeting we had yesterday out of the forty, fifty people in the room on ly about eight of them had a board e-giving requirement and the number one reason why they didn’t was they’re bored wouldn’t enforce it, so you’re you’re e t kayman lee do as much as they can dio and then their hands get tied if they can’t be supported by the efforts of the board dafs how do we start to change the mind of the other thirty eight, thirty years in the room? I really think that it starts with educating the public on what it means to be on a non-profit board ah, the fund-raising requirements in the need i love the talk, the ted talk, the ted talk that all the non-profits latto damp alatas, ted talk because it’s so important to understand that there isn’t just in general operations and restricted dollars, but it costs money to run a business, any business and non-profit is a business, you know, you talk about the executive director’s, you know, encouraging their board members to be a fund-raising board we’re we’re we want to force them to do that, but we don’t want to pay them anything, you know, we want that to be a volunteer effort because our it’s just it’s, it’s, it’s whacked, it’s whacked thinking so we have tio start educating our public on what boards service on a non-profit is really about we need thio increase visibility for volunteerism s o it just it’s education, okay, education, but, well, let’s talk about how the, how the edges sarrantonio can start doing this when we need some some concrete steps. But why? Why do you wantto make sure listeners know that you can find that dahna video that debbie is talking about by just googling dan pelada, it’s, two l’s and two piece and the name of that video is the way we think about charities is dead wrong. When we did a show on that, you’ll find jean takagi. And i commented over over two shows up one each month. He’s, on once a month about how we got to these steps, thiss stage and how. The plot of vision could be executed. You’ll find that with me and gene takagi. Okay, so, debbie, what are we going to do? I mean, what is the executive director seo gonna do? Concrete steps. How do we start? Toe make the board members feel what you’re talking about. One of that in our in our session today. What? We talked about it it’s like birthing a baby, you know, start recruitment. It does. It does. And if you see it in the in the same terms, they’re fresh there knew you. You made him from scratch. I love that line. S o build him up. Right. So the first thing is, you know, you want that baby to be able to hold up their head and look you in the eye and say, i know what this is all about. I get the mission, i can articulate your mission. I looked around that room and i said, how many of you non-profit professionals today, ken, recite the mission of the organization? I had to tell you, tony, i was a little taken aback that not very many people raised their hands. We have to be able to articulate that mission in a very simple, short sweet sentence, and we is non-profit professionals have to be able to do it, and our board has to be able to do it. We talk a lot about the elevator speech, the two minutes if you’ve got something and say, hey, i heard about that board, what is it you want to make sure they’ve got that down pat? So i think that’s number one, make sure they can hold their head up high and they can look you in the eye and say what that organization is all about. The second is about building the body. Now that you’ve come raise your head, you want to make sure that they can sit up straight and that’s the heart, make sure that they’re giving first of all, we’ve got time telling the treasures, bottom line, they have to give you money, they had to give money. There are very few corporations or grantspace foundations, that well funded organization that does not have one hundred percent board giving, you know? And yeah, that doesn’t mean you have to give twenty five thousand dollars like you have. To for the new york symphony, give a gift that is meaningful to you. You know, if if i go and ask my mother for a loan, i better make sure that i really don’t have a thousand dollars sitting in my bank account when i go and ask my mother for a two hundred dollar loan that’s just not right, and we’re serving this because we want to do the right things, do the right thing, invest in the non-profit so making sure that heart is right and then it’s what you do give your board things to do, give them riel task, you know fund-raising is not just about the ask it’s not just sitting next to somebody asking them for money are asking them to contribute in the room ways. There are other things that board members could do around fund-raising that i’m not soliciting. Exactly host a party at your house. Um, introduce the organization to new people absolutely acquire new donors, absolutely go through a list of donors and make connections for them. There’s any variety of things that a non-profit boardmember can do, they can write a letter to their congressmen, do some advocacy. Help get a grant by writing letters of support, there’s any of a number of ways, things that that organizations can’t even on the stewardship side thanking donors, maybe have, ah, call bank of of trust is actually, one of the suggestions we made this morning was exactly that. So there was a reason calls to make you’re saying, thank you, i know it. Don’t you love that? Yeah. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight free that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. If you have big dreams and a small budget tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio, i d’oh. I’m adam bron, founder of pencils of promise. So there’s all kinds of things, that non-profits khun, do you know, tony, we sit there forever, and we say they won’t raise money, they won’t do this, they won’t do that. We’ve got to take some responsibility, too. I’d say we’ve got to train them, we’ve got to help them. We’ve got to, you know, create an environment where fund-raising is easy, okay, you mentioned a couple of very important things, training and support who should be doing this, training the executive director, thie staff of the non-profit, together with the board chair, together with other members of the board and it really it’s about your non-profit. Yeah, there’s. No one size fits all, but it is creating a culture where fund-raising is the primary. I’m stopping myself because i hate to say primary because and for specifically, right after i said different strokes for different folks, you gotta look at your non-profit and decide how you’re going to execute it, but the bottom line is you have to execute a plan where fund-raising is a critical part of that plan, and so it can be everything from an annual training session where you bring in outside counsel. I’m a big believer in bringing outside counsel they here from a different set of ears, then that voice they hear every day when they hear that voice once a year, you can get some points across. She can’t another ways sometimes that can say things about what you’re saying points across, they can say things that insiders can’t say. Well, you know, the insider can say it, but they don’t hear and then they’re right in some ways you can’t say it it’s like that elephant, the room everybody knows that person right there needs to be off the board, but it takes a consultant to come in and say, leave no before somebody here is that so you had training creating a culture of environ unenviable mints of fund-raising have good board materials, good board recruiting, good board training. So it’s very clearly spelled out that this is what we expect you to do. I hear a different advice on this around the the the expectations of boardmember ship at the recruitment stage what’s your advice around whether there should be a document that signed that i understand i’ve read all these expectations, and i intend to live up to them versace laying it out, but maybe not being as formal as as a signed document. You have a sense of that always the signed document, never, ever, ever not a signed document. So you could say, i have an opinion, okay? And and my reason is this when you sign any type of car or when you enter into any kind of contract there’s a signature involved and you are entering into a contractual agreement with a non-profit that says i’m coming, i’m taking a space on the board. I am going to adhere to my duty of care as late forth by the attorney general, whatever governing body governs this non-profit in exchange, you’re going to provide me training here to provide me opportunities to serve and i’m going to do this in exchange for this partnership that we’re entering into for the next two years. So you actually like to see it laid out in the form of a contract? Well, you promised it, maybe not illegally, yeah, yeah, i’m not. I am an attorney, but i’m not using it that way. Now you’re not legally enforceable agreement in terms of, i promise to do this and you, the charity or promising to do that, absolutely a memorandum of understanding. Okay, yeah, what about the another area that you mentioned support with training, there has to be ongoing support. How should the charity be supporting its boards? Fund-raising i think that at every first off, i’m a big believer in fen development committee’s, as part of your board structure, and then they kind of oversee all of the fund-raising activities at the board level and beyond. But i think that thie support from the non-profit is ongoing and systematic at every board meeting. There’s a report there’s request there’s follow-up your development officers very involved with the board giving program ah there’s annual training on fund-raising activities, maybe quarterly training on different trends going on, it is an integrated part of your board meeting in your board culture. Okay, so actually, an agenda item. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, i showcase today. Ah, couple of items that i would always include in your board package is part of your fund-raising reporter you’re dealt development report and one of those is you’ve got your annual campaign. You’ve got your events and how much they raise. Well, your board giving program should be reported on his well, it doesn’t have to be a dollar amount, but your goal is for one hundred percent of your board to give every month put it in there. Is it sixty percent? Is it seventy percent? Is that thirty percent and make them look at it every month and it’s like you’re going to know you gave? I’m going to know i gave there look around the table and they’re wondering who didn’t give. All right, what we’re going, what we’re gonna do with the with difficult cases it’s, easy to say, get them off the board, but that’s often very difficult right now, you can’t just i, you know, it’s, just we go back to the analogy of birthing a baby. You can’t give your kids back, but boardmember zehr are some ways that you can encourage them to seek service other way other way other way, first of all, big proponent of of term limits. So if you’ve got a two year term or a three year term, scattered terms, then you know you’ve got this problem. Herson, you’re only going to have them for a short amount of time. That’s one that is easily executed, easily implemented. The second we talked about signed or not signed agreements, you’ve got a signed agreement. I’m going to do this, you’re going to do that, and if you don’t here’s the agreement. That’s. The easiest way to make sure that you’re bored or all doing there are behaving themselves. They’re behaving in the manner in which you expect, and as we’ve said, this has to come from leadership. The board chair has to embrace this in order for it to be a part of the culture of the board. Absolutely, yes, the board has to embrace it, and they all have to agree that this is behavior in which they’re going to hold themselves accountable. What else would you like to say about getting bored that brings in the bucks? I i’m honored to speak to this topic, first of all, because i feel so passionately about it, and i do believe that we’re seeing improvement. It’s not there yet, but it will get there. And it’s continuing the conversation. We have already gone a long way in the last couple of years of getting away from the diatribe. We’re not going to pay our people. We’ve gotten to a place where we are professionalizing the non-profit sector and i am thrilled to be part of those conversations and i am honored as i said, to continue with these dialogues and i think that’s just what we have to do. We have to keep talking about it. We have tio continuing. Continue with the education, treat the non-profit sector as a person professional business and they will act more professionally. It’s, just like your kids. Tell him what you expect and hold him accountable. Debbie elliot. Sorry, debbie stanley. This time i messed up her name. First time s geever topic. Uh, title that’s. Terrible that’s. Okay, you may be memorable. I’m sorry. Debbie stanley is manager of the customer success team. Blackbaud, thank you so much for being a guest. Thank you, tony, for having me. It was a pleasure, right? Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of bb khan twenty thirteen. Thank you so much. For listening. My thanks to everybody at blackbaud and bb con for all their help and and the very nice stage position that that i had on the exhibit floor, doing all the interviews from there. Lots of thanks, tio. Everyone at blackbaud next week, author dennis miller. He’ll be on for the hour talking about strategic alignment in his third book, what are we aligning and why is it important for your success? Our creative producers claire meyerhoff sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing. The remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules he’s, the one who helps me when we go to these conferences on our music, you know this music it’s by scott stein. He’s around brooklyn. 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If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking. Hyre