The 6 Pillars of Your Fundraising Success

0:03  

Good afternoon. And thank you for joining us for the six pillars of your fundraising success growing community in tough times. Our presenter today is Pamela grow. Pam is the author of simple development Read More

0:03  

Good afternoon. And thank you for joining us for the six pillars of your fundraising success growing community in tough times. Our presenter today is Pamela grow. Pam is the author of simple development systems successful fundraising for one person shop and the founder of basics and more online fundraising training. She has been named one of the 50 most influential fundraisers by civil society magazine, and named one of the top 30 most effective fundraising consultants, basics and more online training has provided education to nearly 10,000 nonprofits from around the world, including Habitat for Humanity, hover International, classrooms, central Plan International, the Salvation Army, Children’s Defense Fund, and more. Now, before we jump into the presentation with Pamela, I have a few housekeeping items to mention. q&a will be towards the end of the webinar, but feel free to add your questions to the questions pane at any time, there is a PDF of the slide presentation in the handout section of your control panel. So you can download from there. And the webinar is being recorded. So it will be sent out tomorrow. That being said, I’m going to hand this over to Pamela.

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Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I am gonna go ahead and let’s see, I’m gonna turn off my camera. And let’s see, you can see my screen, so I just need to start. There. How’s that? Well, welcome, everybody. Welcome to Growing community and tough times. And I am absolutely thrilled that you’re here today. I know that you’ve got a lot of a lot of things vying for your attention. So I really do appreciate it that you’re here. And and thank you, Laurie, for that introduction. Let me see what else. Um, feel free as we’re going through today’s training to type in questions throughout. But I’m going to actually be taking them at the very end. Now. Can you see my screen? Okay. No, you can’t see.

2:20  

I can see your screen Pamela. But it was not in presentation mode. There we go.

2:28  

Okeydoke. So before we get started, I had a little question that I wanted to ask, How are you feeling a friend of mine introduced me to this tool, and I just love it. And I really would like to kind of take the temperature of the room. So if everybody could go over to this mentee, it’s in the chat section. Is it in the chat section Laurier in the questions section.

2:54  

It’s actually in the chat. Cool,

2:57  

go right there to that URL, and let me know how you’re feeling about going into fundraising right now. This year. We’re almost done with January. That’s kind of crazy. Cuz doesn’t it seem Laurie like you blank? You know, you think Oh my god. It’s January. You know, we’re in a brand new year. And you blank, and it’s November. So how are you feeling right now? I’m gonna give you like, let me see like, one or two minutes. I can also type into the questions box as well. Are you feeling apprehensive? Are you feeling hopeful? Are you feeling persistent? Are you feeling kind of scared? Oops. I went out again.

4:06  

Feel like I should have the Jeopardy music going? Right. Let me see if anyone has responded. Okay, I have it already set up. Nope. I know. I thought I did. There we go. It’s got the word cloud. stressed, exhausted, uncertain. Community Supported I love that. optimistic. Hopeful, stressed, excited, overwhelmed. Concerned, worn out frustrated. Kind of a mix there. burned out. I think community supported is my favorite answer. They’re despondent. Oh, wow. Well, Oh, thank you for that continue, continue. And I’m gonna go back to the presentation we’re gonna get started

5:12  

you guys can see my screen. Alright, right. Let me just ask you a couple quick questions. Can you imagine what it would feel like to just send out an email and fund that new program that you’ve been dreaming about? Can you imagine having a strong reserve fund and never having to worry about where the money to support your programs is coming from? Can you imagine having an organized fundraising system that continues to grow and sees you through any crisis?

5:52  

After this webinar, hopefully, you’re going to be able to make the ultimate shift from struggling to grow your fundraising program being stretched too thin, feeling really uncertain of what you should be doing to knowing exactly what you want to focus on, and ending the year having exceeded your fundraising goals. Well, Laurie already gave me that fantastic introduction. These are some of the organizations I’ve worked with all around the world, organizations just like yours. I’m also a mother of two grown daughters in Philadelphia. Let’s see what else I love to bake. I love to read. I love classic films. So let’s get started. Americans gave to charity like never before. So we’ve seen these statistics all over the place. But how do you keep the momentum going? People are feeling really worn out really tired? How do you keep that momentum going into whatever is coming our way in 2022. This is growing community and tough times the Six Pillars of your fundraising success. And before we get started, I am going to launch a very short poll. And I promise you this will be the only poll today. pillar number one is your fundraising plan. So does your nonprofit have a fundraising plan for 2022? If you could just go ahead and respond to this poll? We’ll leave it up for a minute or two. Yes, no, kinda sorta.

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Go ahead and select. There isn’t there’s no identifying factor here. I’m not going to call you out or anything. Looks like I’m getting. Let’s see, let’s let’s let a few more people vote. Oh, this is good.

8:18  

I swear I need to get the Jeopardy theme. Let’s see a couple more. A couple more. This looks good.

8:30  

So this is what it looks like. And I’ve done this poll several times. And I usually get pretty similar answers. So about 50% of you actually do have a fundraising plan for 2020 to 9% said no, they don’t have a plan. And 40% said, kind of sorta sometimes I get a little higher on the kind of sorta, but excellent, thanks for responding to that.

9:02  

So I’m going to tell you about a study that was done by Dr. Adrian Sargeant of the Institute for philanthropy. And he did this back in 2020. And they found that those organizations that had a written fundraising plan, outperform those without a plan. And it kind of goes without saying, but, you know, we can get so caught up in so much. We’ve got so much on our plates that a lot of times the fundraising plan is the last thing or you you start out the year very hopeful or your fiscal year with a written fundraising plan and then it never gets touched because you’re dealing with all these all these. These emergencies. So they identified organizations that can show the following factors experience a higher level of fundraising growth, and enhanced donor retention, and loyalty. And that’s what we all want. donor retention and loyalty. Loyalty is when you’ve, you’ve had a, you’ve had a donor for 3040 years they’ve given to you every year, maybe they’ve been a monthly donor, they become a major donor. And eventually, they leave a bequest, a higher degree of donor centricity, the celebration of philanthropic philanthropy embedded at their core, and that’s pretty much your culture, a strong case for support, and a high degree of board engagement. Even before the pandemic 38% of fundraisers reported planning around a potential recession, and 29% reported planning around a presidential election. After two years of unrest and uncertainty, we can expect these numbers to rise as fundraisers and all sectors strive to make the most of highs and mitigate the lows. So here’s what you pretty much need for a strong fundraising plan. You’re gonna want to brainstorm with your staff, your board, your fundraising team, to understand where the funds are needed most. You’re going to want to review 2021. What worked, what didn’t work, you really want to have a clear handle on what your organization’s donor retention rate is. For grants, you want to you want to consider you know, any kind of project special projects, state federal foundation funding, if it’s if it’s high on your list, grants is actually often something that I will recommend outsourcing for smaller nonprofits. And thinking to about how is your nonprofit attracting new donors, we talk a lot about retention. I know DonorPerfect talks about it a lot. Do you have an active donor attraction system in place? And you’re going to want to take a look, of course at your fundraising infrastructure. And then you want to set SMART goals. So what exactly are SMART goals? You’ve probably heard this before this is this is a business concept. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and time bound. So it’s not going to be we want to raise more money in 2022. It’s going to be for instance, instead of saying, roll our monthly giving program in 2022. years gonna say growing our monthly giving program by 50 new donors by October 31, by way of, maybe you’re gonna do four dedicated monthly giving campaigns. What I’ve seen some of our students do, they’ll do one direct mail, and then they’ll do maybe, maybe three or four email and social media monthly giving campaigns. And you want to dream really big. Not crazy big. Not like, you know, Mackenzie, Mackenzie Scott’s gonna leave us a gift. More like, you know, shooting. This was one of our students. You know, I remember I was on the phone with her. She was she she was with our urine fundraising class. And I said, Well, what’s your goal? And she said, maybe 15,000. And you really want to think big, you really want to dream big. This is kind of a sample fundraising plan how much you intend to raise from your individual donors, from your monthly donors from board giving, from events, private foundations, government grants, etc. 42% of fundraisers say changes in staffing will affect their annual planning, planning. And your culture is going to directly affect the adoption of your annual fundraising plan and the implementation. When you create a culture that’s going to keep your team close, that culture piece can be tough. And you focus on needs within your nonprofit, you’ll find a way to align them with your overall mission. This is a story from about five six years ago from one of my early students Mandy, she had moved I believe for this job she she moved to take this job with intervale center and she got on board and quickly found out the situation that I know I’ve been in myself and you may have been into where you find out your third, fourth fifth Development Director, and maybe two or three years, and the board is wanting to hire somebody to sort of save them, but they don’t have any kind of culture. Mandy went to work right away, it was the first thing she did on creating a culture of philanthropy. And I can actually send you a link to what she used for both her board and staff, how she gets started. And I’d say five or six years later, not only is Mandy still there, but she’s, she’s got a phenomenal fundraising team as well. And intervale center is doing great, they did terrific through the last two years. This is how important your fundraising plan is. I love this tweet from everybody’s friend, Clay Bach, he is amazing. Only in the presence of a well thought out strategic goal and values driven plan, can you achieve what you need to and have the ability to adapt and adjust as needed? Your fundraising plan, it’s your commitment to your organization, your community and your donors. I love that. So, DonorPerfect. And I have put together this if you don’t have a fundraising plan, or if it’s kind of sorta this 2022 fundraising planner, and I do believe it’s in the handouts, or maybe Lori is going to actually send that out afterwards, but you will be receiving that. So moving on to pillar number two, and pillar number two is your story. And we hear a lot about stories. And storytelling seems to be something that a lot of us struggle with creating that emotional story. I love this one from new leash on life. They are a DonorPerfect client. And they’re a nonprofit prison dog training program that saves the lives of shelter dogs at risk of euthanasia, and gives incarcerated participants a chance at redemption. I mean, you can imagine the kind of stories that they have.

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And for those of you who really, really struggle with storytelling, because we live in such polarizing times, I urge you to really pay attention to hony Humans of New York because they are masters at really empathetic, brilliant storytelling. And this was one of my favorites. This was from a couple years ago. Stephanie is a 76 year old woman who had really fallen on hard times, she had worked in the sex industry for a number of years. And over the course of I think it was about eight weeks, Brandon shared her story with pictures of Stephanie. And these stories were incredible. I mean, they were just incredible. You laugh to cry. And then he set up this GoFundMe to raise money for Stephanie’s medical care. And as you can see, they went they went over 2.5 million. And they’re they’re a good study, because like I said, we live in such such tough polarizing times. And you can really get a lot of lessons in empathy. Storytelling creates change. This was just a local campaign that was put on by I think they actually have these all over the country. But ours was called Black mainline speaks. And people were encouraged to share their stories. This is a great way to share stories on Instagram. So students, students and parents shared their stories about the racism that they had encountered in both the private and public schools out here. And a lot of schools have already made significant changes. So emotional storytelling, it’s really at the heart of your fundraising. It’s something you want to spend time on all the time. And it’s also when it’s done well, you know, it just raises a tremendous amount of money. Nashville rescue mission raises about 2 million a year with their print donor newsletter and that’s no hard ask. Create, you know, the kind of collaborative storytelling system that you can share with everyone who’s involved.

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So pillar number three Your new donor pipeline. Because donor retention is so important, we’ve stressed it for years and years and years. But you do also need to be bringing in new donors, you are going to be, you know, you’re going to be working with I mean, attrition is really natural. Donors die, they move, they have a change in circumstances. So you want to think of ways that you can fill your prospective donor pipeline. One of my favorites is through free downloads on your website, through uh, through some, some careful searching through your Google Analytics and kind of determining what people how people find out about you, if they don’t know about you how they find you on the web, and then maybe pulling together something, something that would benefit them something of value, short courses. This is another one of my favorite ones because you build an email relationship. Piggybacking on another organization’s list, I’ll show you some examples of these direct mail acquisitions still works. Facebook ads. For Facebook ads, I typically what will recommend a good copywriter because generally with Facebook ads, you’re you’re wanting to bring new people onto your list, you’re not looking for a donation right right then and there, it’ll depend. But it’s good to have somebody who knows what they’re doing petitions, events, how you’re transitioning your event, your event participants into actual donors. Here’s an example of piggybacking. I am a I’m a subscriber to Mother Jones and a donor. So I got this email from Feeding America. And that’s how they Feeding America brings new people onto their list. You want to put your social media emphasis always on capturing email addresses. Here’s the Cornell Lambert Academy, they have created a free course.

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What I like to recommend rather than then spray and pray is that you pick two or three tactics, very specific tactics. Another one that I didn’t mention is is the kind of like the Ben avant point of entry events are always good to where you have a board member invite maybe 1015 people to come over for cocktails or whatever to their home and just to introduce people to the mission. But pick two or three that work best for your organization and your donors, and really focus in on implementing them through the next year. And think, too, about how you can really empower your supporters. This is a great tactic because if you’re spending a lot of time on social media and you’re not getting a lot in return, empowering your social media, you’re empowering your supporters or donors, to fundraise on your behalf is just a great way to kind of focus on what you can control. One of the best examples I’ve seen and you can download it yourself is from the soI Dog Foundation, they have a lovely a lovely, fundraise for soy dog fundraising guide. They are a they are located in Thailand, and they are focused on the welfare of dogs and cats. This is a great one, donate your birthday. And then they tell you step by step by step how you do it. And when I’ve created these for clients, what I what I typically like to do is actually create one and do share screenshots, you know, make it as easy as possible. And then events. How are you following up with ticket buyers? How are you following up with donors? pillar number four is your data. I can’t believe this three and three and 10 nonprofits still struggle with data management. Of those fundraisers surveyed in the Is Salesforce trends study? Oh, I can’t read that. 69% Fine, sharing data across departments to be difficult. Your data will really allow you to build deeper donor relationships. And I know it isn’t a lot for a lot of us, it’s not our favorite subject can be kind of scary. But once you start really digging in. Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion. Remember to that Excel is not a database. That’s actually that used to be my mailing address. But that is not my name. And this came in from one of my subscribers, and I called them and sure enough, they were using Excel as a database. It’s a spreadsheet. It’s not a database, and your data can really get mucked up badly. Purposefully built communities is an organization that did not have a database, and they were using Excel. But they chose DonorPerfect because of the ability to create tailored online forms. And it is very user friendly. pillar number five, your mindset. So instead of focusing, and this is hard, right now, this is really hard. Because like I said earlier, we’re in really polarizing times we’re in, we’re in really, times of great change, it’s really tough. So you’re one of put your focus on things that you can control.

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You want to really acquire, and I’ve seen this Wow, have I seen this in the last couple years, how you have adapted and pivoted. I’m sick of the word pivot. But how you have adapted you know, when when things didn’t go as planned. We saw so many organizations that had events plan, but instead they turned it into an appeal. And they did better than the event. And this, again, is something that kind of goes hand in hand with culture. What can you do every day on a daily basis to kind of create that, that abundance mindset. And I think that showing gratitude is one of the most powerful, powerful ways to create abundance. If you can take five minutes every single day, set a time for it. Maybe it’s going to be 10am 11am. Just say on the dot, I’m going to call a donor to right out of the blue, just to say thank you and see what happens at the end of the year. Future if you take away nothing else from today’s presentation. If you just implement this one thing, I promise you, you will see amazing things happen. These are some of my favorite books that helped me in the last couple of years. I’d love to hear yours. This one a more beautiful question. The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas by Warren Berger is amazing. essentialism the disciplined pursuit of less 18 minutes fine your focus master distraction and get the right things done. This is a great, great tool for helping you get focused and and kind of letting go of everything else. And of course, we’ve got to include give and take from Dr. Adam Grant. It really I recommend this one to everybody. You’ll change the way you think about competition. When things fall apart, heart advice for difficult time bye she’s a Buddhist nun Pema children and dare to lead brave work tough conversations whole hearts by Dr. Brene Brown focus focus focus always on what you can control and now we come to pillar number six, your fundraising systems and of course your your your database Is this going to be a part of the fundraising systems? I’m gonna take a break right now. And I want to ask you a question is having I don’t have a formal poll, but it’s having a core base of individual donors, important to the future of your mission. Because maybe it’s not, you know, maybe you get plenty of, of government support. Maybe it’s not important, but is having a core base of individual donors important to the future of your mission? Go ahead and type into the question box and let me know what how you feel about that. Oops.

30:45  

Yep. Justin says, yep. Anybody else chiming in? And I asked this question, because sometimes Absolutely, absolutely. Great. Really 100% Hi, Sarah. Hi, Berkeley.

31:13  

I’m a big believer that I started actually in foundation grants and foundation funding. And I started there because I had worked for a family grant making foundation for about seven years before I transitioned over to the other side. And that was what I did for the first four or five years, until I really started to realize the individual support was where we’re at that it creates a more equitable, more Democratic base of funding.

31:52  

And I know that we’ve all had this, you know, write us a grant from the Gates Foundation, you know, what I used to hear all the time, let’s go after calls. I mean, look at how that turned out. Or to build a major donor program. I met up with an organization just last year, they were tiny, they didn’t have any of their systems in place yet. They had a handful of individual donors, and they wanted to start a major donor program, you really need to get your systems in place before you do that. My work has found that donor centered fundraising, when it’s done, right, really leads to community. And when I talk about donor centered fundraising, and when I talk talk about it, it’s really the ASCE think report model. I think, I think everybody’s familiar with that. Maybe you’re not. But that ass thank report model. And your donor communications is really the engine behind what drives your fundraising, your organization’s fundraising. And what does it look like? Well, the Ask let’s start with the Ask the ask is going to be a strong multi channel campaign. This is from one of our students it was a couple of years ago, well, a few years ago now, but that was actually her first appeal letter, and she just killed it. So it was a direct mail letter. It was targeted, it was segmented. I can’t remember how many segments she had. But everybody did not get the same letter. And then it also had a four or five email sequence, and also included their social media. So that’s a strong multi channel campaign. And why do we really want to focus on the Multi Channel campaign when, when online giving is all the rage? Well, multichannel donors contribute up to four times more than online only or offline only donors. And I’m going to ask you, well, you can just chime in if you’ve had this experience, too. But when I talk to longtime fundraisers who’ve maybe been in the sector for 2030 years, everybody has had that experience of getting a check in an envelope that was coated from for a campaign or a newsletter 2030 years ago your thank you, your thank you really matters. And again, I I advocate for a multi channel thank you one that includes regardless of how the gift is made, one that includes both both a thank you letter, and a thank you email Well, wait a minute, just anything que your thank you is so important. The Center for philanthropy led by Dr. Adrian Sargeant, they came up with this other report on the power of Thank you. That was a couple of years before the planning report. So they did a an analysis, looking into whether receiving a thank you letter, actually increase the gifts received at renewal. This was a very controlled study, they found that those who received the Thank You gave an average of $45 more than those who didn’t receive a thank you. Donors are more likely to continue giving to your organization when you’re quick to show gratitude. nonprofits who thank their donors through DonorPerfect same day solutions have seen their retention rate increase 56%. Do you know that every point I forget the exact stats on this, but every point that you can go up in terms of donor retention not only makes you more money, it saves you because you’re not having to constantly reinvent the wheel. And thanking donors in a multi channel approach achieves a much higher retention rate than using a single channel. So your ask thank report systems are really your easy button for growing your individual giving program. A lot of us a lot of times when I work with smaller nonprofits, maybe they have one year end campaign. And we finally achieved enormous success just just from implementing one or to others to start out with. Ask thank report, repeat. Now we come to report how are you showing your donors their impact, and your print donor newsletter is still the best way to report. Maybe you can’t afford to do it do 12 newsletters a year like Nashville rescue mission? Start with to start with three Lisa Sergeant’s call calls donor newsletters, she’s the leading donor retention expert in the world I think and when you follow a very very simple formula, sometimes your donor newsletter can actually raise more than an appeal. This particular organization did this is a beautiful, beautiful example their work is complex. But yet look you can see just from that cover, how they simplify it, how they bring you the donor into the picture. They raised 20,000 or their very first print newsletter. Your print donor newsletters are also critical, critical to your plan giving. I mean, I worked with an organization once that actually it was one of my first consulting clients, they had actually never had a direct ask in 30 years. Instead what they did, they had they had a monthly newsletter that went out that was served as their fundraising piece. And they had the most bequest yes I have ever seen with a small organization. Rinse and repeat it is that easy. So what other systems you need while you want systems for for monthly giving. Go ahead and type into the chat box Who here has a monthly giving program. We saw a 25% increase in total dollars for monthly giving in 2021. Monthly giving was hugely popular. This email is again it’s from intervale center 85% retention rate for monthly donors and 2021 85%. Here’s an example a couple of examples. I love that line. This is from intervale center because even in a pandemic this work does not stop and see how very specific they are about what your gift actually accomplished. What the donors gift accomplishes. This was from it’s just from one of our students who just introduced a monthly giving program right in the middle of of COVID. And she she really had great success

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definitely sign up for air ECOWAS turps newsletter. I read it every week. She is a dear friend. And she works closely closely with DonorPerfect I know. And when you’re looking at databases, if you are looking for a new database, find the right fit. I remember I have a chapter in my book is something like is is the perfect does the perfect database exist? You know, there really isn’t the perfect database but there’s one that’s just right for you. Another reason this ASCE thank report systems are more important now than any other time in history is that trust in nonprofits has really decreased significantly. I mean, trust in all of our institutions, has decreased significantly. But it’s pretty sad that it’s decreased in nonprofits as well. Think about what kind of habits will will really keep you going throughout the year and keep your communications consistent. So how has this multichannel asthenic report approached fate fared during pandemic times? Even donors who have been hit economically are remaining remarkably generous. We see we’ve seen what’s been going on the last couple years in terms of fundraising. This stuff works. It’s a sure thing, which is cool. While income is up by 63%. So what are the long term effects of COVID on fundraising? Many people made significant savings over the course of the pandemic. I know so many people who got who got their stimulus checks and gave it all to charity. People do not like uncertainty. These are really uncertain times. You can be there for your donors right now. They want fundraisers to solve not sell. People want to be seen as a valuable member of society. We all want that. And they only have a certain amount of emotional bandwidth. And they count on us to take charge. So how do you safely navigate through 2020 Really focus on your aspect report systems, you do want to appeal every year you’re on appeal. Move it up to two or three. Try a print donor newsletter if you don’t do one, master your digital systems. small donors really do rule I think the last two years what we’ve seen with the growth of monthly giving proves that and if you are looking to grow your organization’s Major Donor Program, do you know most major donors actually come in by way of an initial $25 gift. Strong direct mail strong donor stewardship is really the foundation of your major donor program as well rethink events and their role in your plan. And above all else focus. Oh, that was that was my first year I walked into such a mess that I remember thinking I was going to quit after two weeks. But we focused on individual giving. And it was crazy

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if all our were brave enough to see it if only were brave enough to be it. Your fundraising plan your storytelling, your lead generation, your data, your mindset, and your fundraising systems. I love this. We know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. But if we merge mercy with Mike and Mike with right, then love becomes our legacy. We live in very challenging times. We live in polarizing times. And so do your donors. We are all in the same boat. You have the power you have the knowledge to give them hope and to know that they’re making the world a better place through you make yours a legacy of love. And with that, I think we’re okay. timewise Oh, good. Just check my clock. Go ahead and exit out and check and see if we’ve got any questions.

45:30  

Hi, Pamela. Hey, we we do have a few questions that came in. Well, I’m going to save more than a few. Okay, let me see if I can start from the top here. I need to scroll up a little bit. And see what I have. Usually I can sort these with the flags. Okay.

45:54  

Cool. I don’t know how you’re sorting. Um,

45:59  

yeah, you can sort them with the flies. I was trying to. Let me remove that. Okay, so um, let me see. Somebody’s asking if you are able to share out with the group, these sample fund development plans that you talked about? Is that an option?

46:26  

Sure. I don’t have it right. Handy. What do you mean? Yeah, yeah, I can do that.

46:33  

Okay, well, if, yeah, if we need to, we can include it in something in the email. That goes out. Super. Okay, so one of the other questions is for this is from Megan and she said for a very small development shop. For example, only one person, where would you recommend spending the most time and energy?

47:03  

Oh, that’s a great question. I don’t I don’t have access. I don’t know how many donors you have. I would focus the most on stewardship. I would make 2022 The year of stewardship and really implementing that goal going and, and having that phone call every single every single day. M really reaching out to your donors personally.

47:31  

Yeah, I totally agree with that.

47:38  

Yeah.

47:40  

Okay. Um, you had mentioned the culture of philanthropy paper from Mandy and I’ve had more than one request for that

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event actually any any blog post? I can I can probably find the link right now. Hold on a sec. I’m gonna stop sharing my screen. I will go find it because I know it’s right there. Yeah, it’s a really handy tool. It’s a hard thing. The and she started with it. But it’s it’s so important. One of my favorite stories ever

48:30  

what else?

48:32  

Okay, so we have um, Isabel is asking what piggybacking is she said she wasn’t quite understanding what you were telling them.

48:42  

Oh, interesting. One second, I will pull up um let me put this link in the box. I’m just going to put it in the chat section

49:04  

so that is where you can download Mandy’s tool.

49:08  

Okay, so for those of you who have been having issues, finding the chat box, I’m going to use I’m going to take the link and I will include it in the email that goes out afterwards. So that’ll come with the recording and everything else. So I’m just gonna grab that.

49:31  

Looking for that. Here we go. So here we go. Feeding America and Mother Jones are both nonprofit organizations, Feeding America teamed up with Mother Jones and Mother Jones sent out an email with this petition. So that’s, that’s just a great way to bring new people onto your onto your email list.

50:00  

Okay, well, that being said, I did have a few people comment about that. Jeanette, asked, Can you please provide details on how Feeding America accessed Mother Jones as readers? Is this a paid list acquisition?

50:15  

Well, that’s a good question. I can’t I actually don’t know. But I’m kind of thinking they worked it out between the two of them. Typically, organizations will do that, you know, maybe maybe they’re kind of kind of going to exchange, maybe Feeding America, we’ll send out an email on Mother Jones behalf.

50:37  

Okay, well,

50:39  

you know, petitions are one of the best ways to bring in new names, but everybody doesn’t have a cause. A petition worthy cause.

50:50  

Okay. All right. Well, I’m moving on to Gary’s question. Gary said, we want to crowdfund, but since people who are social media savvy or who have micro influencer contacts are very pricey, and we are still volunteer run out of funding, mainly due to being radical, for example, focused on nine been non violent resistance for climate and economic justice campaigns. How can we attract crowdfunding direct? How can we attract crowdfunding? Directors willing to work for big commission? At least initially?

51:32  

You know, that’s a good question. And I honestly is too scary. I’m not really equipped to answer but I can, if you’d like to email me, Gary, I can check around and come up with some ideas for you. But off the top of my head, I’ve never encountered that before I did I did not put my email address in here. Do you want me to put it in?

51:56  

Um, you if you want to add it now so that they can see it? Otherwise, we can include it in the email that we send out?

52:08  

There you go.

52:14  

That’s a good question from I’m not sure I’m pronouncing your name, right. Um, I’ll see you. She says how many appeal letters are good to send every year? I think I mean, how many appeal letters in the course of a year. And that’s totally dependent on your organization. I do know that a lot of organizations only do one year end appeal. And this is where we saw the biggest gains where I have seen the biggest gains is is just merely transitioning from one to two or three. So say you have, say you have just one year on appeal, you’re gonna go to a year end appeal, and then a spring appeal, probably April, May. And then once you once you evaluate how that went. You can also add in an appeal that’s very specific just for lapsed donors. It’s all pretty much dependent on your donor base, and where you’re at right now. And don’t forget the print, print donor newsletter. Really phenomenal source of revenue revenue.

53:24  

Okay. Okay. So, I found this to be an interesting question from Stephanie, because she said for the five minute call, when you talked about making a call every day. How do you determine who to call each day

53:42  

I would just start out with calling one donor picking them out at random. And just giving them a call and thanking them for their latest gift.

53:53  

Okay, so there’s no rhyme or reason as to be around or anything. You’re just saying just pick someone.

54:01  

Right. I mean, I’d make a special plan for very lapsed donors, but yeah. Get in the habit of speaking with your donors personally. You’d be surprised. I think the best gains that you can have are making it a practice to call every brand new donor. The second thing the second, a new gift comes in. That happened to me once. Okay,

54:33  

ah, let me see here. I think we have a few more. Um, Someone also asked, because you you talked about Erica last door, and someone is asking about her email address as well. Is that something that we can give out? I wouldn’t give her out again on her to get on her list.

54:59  

Yeah. Absolutely let me go. Let me go grab the the link and get it for you. Okay?

55:07  

Yeah

55:15  

yeah, Eric is great. I know she does a lot with you guys. I just love her.

55:23  

Yeah, we’ve worked with her a few times as well.

55:26  

She is amazing. And I think it’s a really great idea to subscribe to her newsletter because it really helps keep you focused on monthly giving and you want to you want to be focused on it. I mean, I’ve seen donor retention rates as high as 90%.

55:49  

Well, that’s a better great number.

55:54  

Oh, Robin Healy makes a great point that I missed earlier on that one question. One comment on commission based compensation, commission based fundraising is not compatible with the code of ethics, such as the AFP code of ethics. Thanks for that. Yeah. And thanks for coming. Robbie. I know your work. You’re amazing.

56:24  

Okay, yeah, Debbie says, I like to call new donors to find out what inspired them to give. Nothing will will help you really get a handle on why your donors give than doing that. That’s, that’s so smart.

56:43  

Didi is asking you a question. And I’m gonna throw it out here, it’s probably gonna be almost the last of them. But only because something caught my eye about what she’s planning to do after the webinar, because she says she’s literally meeting with her boss after the webinar about a donor plan. Do you have that perfect number of how many touches we should make with our donors in one year?

57:09  

Oh, that’s an interesting question in in my book, I’ve actually always recommended 12 touches a year. Now see that can be that can be, you know, a combination of print and digital can even be personal. Another idea that I really like is to, to keep your list active, because I don’t know about about you. But I know that a lot. A lot of people are seeing, you know, lower open rates. But if you send a personal email

57:44  

to a donor everyday, just one or two lines. Um, that’s a good way to keep your list engaged. Um, where was I going? What was that last question? Now I’m looking for a slide.

58:00  

The one the one that DeeDee had asked because she has a meeting.

58:05  

Oh, about the 12 touches.

58:08  

Yeah, that’s what she wanted to know what that perfect number of how many touches we should make with our donors in one year. And that’s what you said. 12 total? It’s 12.

58:20  

I mean, if you if you have a an email newsletter, you definitely want to send it out at least once a month. If not, twice a month.

58:32  

Well, do you have any recommendations on how to get started with past donors that you’ve never thanked from months ago? Oh, that’s a question probably Michael.

58:47  

I had that situation months. I actually was very honest. I I batched. All the thank yous and I just apologized. I said, You know what? I just started here. And I saw that you haven’t been thanked. And so I want to let you know how much we were we really appreciated your gift. It’s never too late to say thank you. Yeah.

59:16  

No, of course not. Okay, I know we have some additional questions here that we will not be able to get to because we are past the hour mark. So we’re gonna have to finish up our session. So I apologize for those that we did not get to. We had a lot of questions come in, which makes me happy because that means that they were very much engaged. Me too. Okay, so for now, I’d like to thank Pamela for joining us today. I believe the attendees have plenty of takeaways to work with. And just keep in mind, for those of you that are still with us that this webinar was recorded, it will be sent out tomorrow we will include have as many links as we can within that email so that you have all the resources, you can reach out to DonorPerfect to go to meeting 15 here that is the response on the email that goes out. So if you have any questions, or anything that you need based on what you heard today, please reach out and ask. But for now, that’s it for our session. I appreciate you all joining us today. And I hope you have a great day and a prosperous year of fundraising.

1:00:32  

Thank you so much. Have an awesome week.