Givecloud – Telling Your Story in Various Ways

Darryl: Good day, everyone, and welcome to Telling Your Story in Various Ways on the Givecloud platform, presented by Keisha Simpson. Just a little background on Keisha. In 2018, she and her sister, Teagan, founded an Instagram movement, Live Life Unfiltered, which aimed Read More

Darryl: Good day, everyone, and welcome to Telling Your Story in Various Ways on the Givecloud platform, presented by Keisha Simpson. Just a little background on Keisha. In 2018, she and her sister, Teagan, founded an Instagram movement, Live Life Unfiltered, which aimed to spread the awareness on how social media affects young women’s mental health.

Later that fall, the sisters launched the As She Is Instagram campaign, which encouraged young women to share their unfiltered stories on social media. The As She Is challenge reached well over 100 million people, that’s an astonishing number, with participants from more than 60 different countries, celebrities, Olympians, activists, community leaders all joined in to show their support and acknowledge that being real and unfiltered is crucial to our mental wellbeing.

Keisha’s also a recipient of Canada’s Top 25 Women of Influence Award, so Keisha comes with a tremendous background in terms of digital capability and getting your story out. We are really looking forward to hearing some background, both on the movement, as well as the Givecloud toolset and how you can end up using that to tell your story and use some of the features to keep your donors engaged.

Just a reminder for all of you, before I hand this session over to Keisha, I’d like to remind you to add your questions to the Q&A tab so that we all can see them and answer them at the end of the presentation. Anything in the general chat may not get answered just because of the scroll of the screen, so we’d appreciate that. At this time, I would like to turn it over to Keisha.

Keisha Simpson: Thanks, Darryl. Today we’re talking about storytelling and the impact that it can have on fundraising. We have 30 minutes together, so we’re going to use the first half of this session to really dissect what makes a powerful story, and then in the second half, we’re going to look at different tools that can enable you to turn your storytelling efforts into dollars for your mission. Then lastly, we actually have a quick announcement from our CEO, Josh Bloomfield.

Before we dive in, though, we do have a quick video that I want to show you. It’s a really good example of how you can use nonprofit storytelling to really make an impact. This video that we’re about to watch is from the organization called The Girl Effect. I’m sure a few of us have heard of them before. They’re founded in 2008 and they use the media to unlock the power of the girl. The first time I watched this video, I think I actually literally got the chills because they did such a good job at storytelling and really pulling me in. Again, it’s a really good example of how impactful stories could be in the nonprofit space. Without any further ado, I’ll press play.

Keisha: I hope people liked that, but let’s dive in now and look at storytelling in more detail. What exactly is nonprofit storytelling? Storytelling is an art and it’s an ongoing process and a skill that you can develop, but it’s not actually that complicated to learn. Storytelling is an innate part of what makes us human and bringing this humanness to your nonprofit is what storytelling is all about.

What exactly does make a compelling story? Whether we’re trying to get our toddlers in bed on time, or you want to get your supporters to make a donation, every compelling story actually has a few similar elements; characters, conflict, resolution, and it follows a similar plot outline. We actually saw all of these different elements in the Girl Effect video.

Why does storytelling work? In today’s digital world, stories can be a compelling avenue to helping you build relationships with your supporters, and it can be a powerful way to help you humanize your charity. For example, sharing your founder’s story can help you humanize your nonprofit and make it easier for your supporters to connect with their mission.

The second reason is it helps you create contacts or simplify abstract concepts. Often, the mission of your organization includes complex issues or solving problems that many of us have actually not experienced in our own lives. For example, trafficking extreme lack of basic human needs, or even complex science-based issues. A really good example of this would be the Nature Conservancy. Just the name itself, Nature Conservancy sounds complex, cold, and frankly, is a little hard to pronounce, [chuckles] practice a few times, but when they added in the tagline, the coral nursery, it helped soften the brand, conjured up thoughts around babies, and ultimately made it easier to identify with.

Storytelling can also help you educate your audience. Organizational psychologist, Peg Neuhauser, found that learning, when done through a compelling story, is a far more effective approach of educating than simply sharing facts and figures, which intuitively does make sense. When we deliver examples or teach through storytelling, supporters are actually going to remember far more accurately, and for far longer.

Lastly, storytelling creates heart to heart connection. We’d like to think that our buying or decisions are based on rational analysis, but in reality, emotions are greatly influencing our choices. Studies show emotional response has significantly more influence than when we are provided just with information. Probably, the best example of this is going to be the identifiable victim effect.

The identifiable victim effect shows that the story of one victim tends to be far more powerful than hearing about the tragedy of an entire group. Why? Because when we learn the identity of one victim, even just like their name, photo, and a brief description of who they are, we’re going to have a deeper emotional connection than when we hear about the suffering of an entire group of people. Yet, this is actually counterintuitive. Rationally, it makes more sense that we’d be more motivated to help 100 people than we would to help just one person, but in reality, in most cases, this actually isn’t the case.

Once you’ve told a powerful story and you’ve captured the attention of your supporters, we’re going to want to make sure that you’re able to turn that attention into retention. Givecloud has simple online experiences that can help you transform these connections you’ve made into fundraising dollars that can make an impact. While we do have quite a few features that can enable storytelling like Peer-to-Peer, Text to Give, memberships, or our online store, I do just want to spend five minutes looking at two of our features.

What is important to know here is that Givecloud was actually founded as an add-on to DonorPerfect. We were created over 10 years ago, specifically for DonorPerfect, and as a result, this really needs two things. One, our integration with DonorPerfect is in real-time, meaning the moment a transaction occurs on Givecloud, all of that data will be pushed over into DonorPerfect, and two, our integration is best-in-class and you’re able to customize it. No matter how you use DonorPerfect, you’re really able to go into the back end of Givecloud and customize integration and setup so it works with the way that you’re currently using DonorPerfect.

As a result, what we see is that six months after signing up with Givecloud, on average, DonorPerfect organizations’ online fundraising will increase by 72%. Again, like six months after you add us, we should see an average increase in online fundraising going up by 72%. I’m going to hop over here and show you a little bit of what it would look like if you set up Givecloud with your organization.

This is my charity, Live Life Unfiltered, and I’m going to go quickly here because we don’t have too much time, but I want to show you just how a few of our solutions would work. We have our donation page. You have the ability to dedicate your donations. Come over here to fundraisers. This is a peer-to-peer site. Online store, view a product. We have upsell features, promo codes, and checkout. What I really would like to show you today, because it really does relate to storytelling, is our donor portal.

The way that I’ve set this up is I can actually have my donors hit hidden or secure content that otherwise they would not be able to see. When the donors log in, they’re able to see this page which was built with our website builder. We do have a website builder and I’ve just taken one of the templates and I’ve customized it with some of Live Life Unfiltered’s photos and brandings and colors.

I’m able to tell my supporters about the As She Is campaign that occurred last year and how successful it was. They would only see this page when they logged in, otherwise, they don’t have access to it. You are able to create different pages or different experiences for different groups of donors, which will allow you to customize the storytelling experience.

Then once they get past the landing page of their portal, they’re able to go to the home profile of their donor portal where they’re able to manage their entire experience. Everything that Givecloud does, every page, every field, every click was designed intentionally to help you maximize your relationships with your donors, and right from the portal, I’m able to, as a supporter, manage all of my own information.

I can change my billing address on file which will automatically update DonorPerfect’s record. I can download a tax receipt, so I don’t have to call you. I can manage this all from my backend. I can change a reoccurring payment or change my payment method. If I was running peer-to-peer campaigns, I’d also be able to manage this all right from my backend.

Then the second feature I would like to show you as well today is our events and registration. This page was also built with Givecloud’s website builder. It’s a template that I drag and dropped and I customized it with my information. When I click on a ticket, I’m able to buy a ticket for the event. Now you can customize this setup so that you can buy a ticket and make a donation in one checkout experience, or I could buy a ticket and pick out my t-shirt size all in one checkout experience. In this example, I am just choosing my ticket. I can pick different options of ticket levels. If you want to have multi-currencies, you can do that. You can have as many custom fields here as you would like.

Then when I purchase the ticket, I will actually receive an automated email thanking me for my purchase, giving me information about the upcoming event with my tax receipt, as well as a QR code which I can then use to get scanned into the event, which will allow you to easily check people in and be able to track and report who has come to your event.

That about wraps up my side of things, but before we go, we do have an exciting announcement from our CEO, Josh Bloomfield. He wasn’t able to be here with us today, but he did record a video to give you a sneak peek into what’s coming with Givecloud and how you can fundraise like it’s 2099 with DonorPerfect. Without any further ado.

Josh Bloomfield: Thanks, Keisha. Hey, Sarah, hey, Darryl, and hey, everyone. I’m Josh, CEO and Founder here at Givecloud. I’m so sorry I couldn’t join you in person today but listen, I want you to recall the last time you donated online. In fact, I bet I can recall the experience for you. It wasn’t memorable. It was an online payment. You filled out a bunch of form fields, you clicked submit, probably got a confirmation email of some kind. Do you remember how much you gave? I know you remember one thing, you remember why you gave, there was a story.

A story somewhere on social media or through the grapevine about a struggling family, a hungry child, a suffering animal, or a neglected community. What if a fundraising experience could make you part of that story? What if a donation form felt like you were having an impact instead of just processing a payment? Let me show you an example of what I mean.

During COVID, our local Christmas toy drive, who usually collects toys in person, was unable to collect physical toy donations. In 2020, they launched a traditional lackluster donation form and collected a couple of hundred dollars. In December 2021, they tried a new approach. They ditched their stale donation form and used Givecloud’s patented new donation form. Instead of focusing on money, the toy drive chose to focus on impact, on the story.

What you are seeing are how many toys I want to provide for a child at Christmas. At the top, you’re seeing who else is giving in real-time but as I swipe, I’m able to reveal higher levels of impact. What was remarkable is how many people immediately swiped to the most amount of impact they could have. The average donation soared and the toy drive exceeded their fundraising goal by three times.

It’s not just the focus on story and impact that impacted their fundraising. From that social proof you saw that creates that little bit of FOMO, that fear of missing out, to subtle animations and transitions, to the lightning-fast checkout, which by the way, if you haven’t noticed, I haven’t had to fill out a single form field yet, to upsells and upgrades, to opt-ins and social fundraisers focused on the impact that are ready to share with your friends and family instantly. It all adds up to more dollars for your cause.

We believe that when a donor loves the giving experience, they’ll give more, they’ll give faster, they’ll give more frequently, and they’ll tell their friends about it. This same technology is available in multiple languages, currencies, and templates. This template brings all the elements from that previous example into a traditional appeal with a strong transparency promise that connects to both the intellect and the heart and trust of your donor. All of this is fully embeddable in your website with no redirects.

I love this quote, “Good brands are transactional, great brands are emotional,” and a great cause is one you feel an emotional connection to, and the Givecloud is the only tool built to connect your story to the hearts and wallets of your supporters, setting you up for long-term recurring support for your cause at any scale. Pair your story with Givecloud and reliably turn attention into retention.

I believe Keisha and Sarah will share a bit more, but I’ve authorized them both to give you all early access to these forms fully integrated with DonorPerfect today. Thank you all for being here. This is the first conference I’ve missed in many, many years. We’ve been a partner with DonorPerfect for 10 years now, longer than any other fundraising partner, and it feels strange not being there. Hey, Darryl, great job hosting. Thank you, Sarah and Keisha. for holding down the fort. Happy fundraising all.

Darryl: Josh undoubtedly brings so much energy to all of these. [laughs] Miss him.

Keisha: That about wraps things up on our end. As Josh said, we will be giving everyone on this call early access to these features. I believe Sarah has dropped in the chat a link where you’re able to get early access, or you can drop into the lounge and we’ll be able to set you up. Otherwise, we are here to answer any questions.

Darryl: Keisha, one of the questions that came across, Ben was asking, “Love the idea of donor portal. To clarify, do only Givecloud forms connect directly to the portal, not DP online forms. Is the download process for donations through Givecloud only automatic, or is there a manual option?” Certainly, I can answer the early part of it. The DP forms do not provide portal functionality. That is something that is relatively exclusive to the Givecloud integration. Then as far as the download processes, what options are available there?

Keisha: I didn’t quite catch that. [laughs]

Darryl: Just curious as to whether or not the gifts, do they download automatically from Givecloud to DonorPerfect only, or is there an option to do it manually?

Keisha: You can have them hit a queue, and so if you wanted to, you could set it up so all the gifts will hit a queue, and you can go through them separately.

Darryl: Got it, got it. Great. Great. Well, there are certainly two pieces of content here that I’d like to draw some connection with, and Keisha, you shared an amazing story at the very beginning of this, the story was told through video and so forth. One of the things that I wanted to tease out of this is Givecloud has been at the forefront of what I’m going to call digital experience, because if you’ve watched a great story and you’re about to give, but then, things are a little bit clunky or whatever, in terms of your gift process, that ends up having a negative impact on the positivity that the story ended up giving.

I think, Keisha or Sarah, if any of you can share a little bit about your– Just the Givecloud mindset in terms of easing the process to give. What are some of the things that you’ve heard from your clients that you could maybe share in terms of just how impactful that has been? You’ve quoted one statistic, it being the 72% growth in online giving, but I’m sure you’ve also maybe captured a couple of stories from clients just that they’ve had donors that found it super easy to use.

Keisha: Yes. Everything that Givecloud does, every feature that we built, again, is built specifically for DonorPerfect because we were built as an add-on for you guys, but our focus is really on creating those digital experiences and making sure that we provide your donors with the best, most seamless experience that they can. We want it to be easy to use modern, and really create emotion. We want your donors to be able to go on and feel the power of your story in those online experiences because especially as we go online, it’s harder and harder to build those relationships. Everything we do is focused on adding emotions to each of these features.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. Emotion, as you wrap it around the feature set, is a really cool concept. I want to ask our audience out there right now, just as far as, how many of you have recurring giving programs. If you want to just drop something into the chat, maybe make a comment about what has been a success for you. Maybe that can produce some of the discussion that we have here about easing the giving for second-time gifts and so forth, as well as recurring schedules.

Keisha, one of the things in reading your bio, and talking about the number of people that you ended up getting, supporting your course, because our conference is all about storytelling. Do you have any secrets to share in terms of how to get 100 million people to put their eyes on your program?

Keisha: Yes, luck helps. [laughs] Actually, everything that we did was storytelling. We told the story of two sisters who struggled with their body image and their mental health because of social media, and then we collaborated with actually other influencers, so worked with different celebrities who were willing to help out the mission, and they told their stories. Everything is so much more compelling when we’re telling stories because we’re connecting with people and we’re building those relationships. We avoided all the boring stats stuff and just got right down to telling real people’s stories and that took off, and it was a really good way to spread information about an important cause.

Darryl: Great, great. You actually put your non-profits cause and you put it on top of the Givecloud framework. Was it just for this presentation here, or have you actually been using it of late?

Keisha: Well, because we had a lot of success with our charity, but it’s not how you pay your bills. [laughs] We have slowed down on Live Life Unfiltered, so we’re not currently working on it. We have both gone our own ways, and we are paying our bills though, which is a really good end-point for the journey, but the As She Is campaign does live on, but the actual charity, we have shut down.

Darryl: Awesome. I understand, understand. Well, at some point, it takes a tremendous amount of time. I think everybody that’s in our audience knows the investment that they have to make to keep their non-profit going for sure. Alice has mentioned that they wanted to start a monthly giving program, a recurrent giving program at their non-profit. I think one of the key things, while storytelling is a component to it and we can definitely cite non-profits that will communicate, there’s usually a metric that gets applied. If you give $10 a month, that helps to feed X number of people, or it helps to address certain things.

Keisha, and Sarah, I’m just curious, I’ll pose the question to you, you can think about it as far as the Givecloud clients. We know that you’ve got a really strong feature set around recurring giving. We’ve often heard that when you set up a recurring giving program, you have to make it a little bit like a club, that it’s not just about putting a little checkbox on the form, that says, “I want to give monthly,” but you’ve got to start communicating, either you get branded in a particular way. Can you expand on that a little bit as far as what you’ve seen some of your clients do in terms of promoting the “club” of recurring giving?

Keisha: I think the organizations that have had the most success with that have built memberships. We do have the ability to use memberships with Givecloud. On average, when a DonorPerfect organization adds on Givecloud to their solution, we see monthly giving go up by 28%. Again, where we see the most success is the organizations that start the membership program. You can have different levels with Givecloud, like lite or bronze and gold, and you’re able to create this program that encourages people to give monthly, and then they can also get promo codes, et cetera, that they can use on your online store, that sort of thing.

Darryl: Got it, got it. Adding 28% to your monthly giving is another huge increase, like who wouldn’t want to have another 28% in their bank account? What are some of the features that are unique, I guess, to Givecloud? I think you’ve got some email reminders and so forth, that are wrapped around the membership program. Can you talk a little bit about those?

Keisha: Yes. When you use our membership program, you can have the ability to have different levels. We will send out automated emails encouraging people to renew their membership. If their membership’s about to expire, you can set it up so that a month before they’ll renew, they’ll get an email, or maybe two weeks before so you don’t have to send those out manually. That would take a lot of time, and then they’re able to renew right through their donor portal. The donor portal will have a big red sign saying, “Hey, your membership is about to expire,” if the end of the year is coming up, and they can manage, again, their membership right through the portal. They can go in and see the benefits of it and really learn more about their program.

Darryl: Great, great. Well, and so one of the key things about having the donor portal is you can log in, and as a donor, I could actually change my amount right from the portal, I believe, is that correct?

Keisha: Yes. You’re able to log in, you can change your reoccurring payments. You would be able to download your tax receipts, change your billing address, change your shipping address. All of this can be done from the portal and it will automatically update DonorPerfect, which is obviously very important.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. Do you find that a lot of the nonprofits with these programs, will they encourage people to upgrade, and do they encourage that at particular times of the year, seasonality aspects to say, “Hey, now’s a great time to increase your monthly giving?”

Keisha: Christmas is a really great time to do that because everyone’s obviously in a bit more of a generous mood. Generally running a campaign right around the holidays is what we would encourage and see as the best practice.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. Carrie shared a little bit. Their online giving society is called Renewable Resources. Again, putting that name over top of the membership group or the community sort of builds that sense of belonging that ends up happening with your recurring givers as well. I know that’s definitely key. The video that you showed at the very beginning of our session here, I think everybody’s jaws dropped as to how impactful that is. I want to speak a little bit about the Givecloud website builder features. Is it possible to take a video like that and embed it right on the homepage?

Keisha: Oh, yes. [chuckles] We have quite a few organizations that do that. With our website builder, there’s quite a few different templates, and you’d drag and drop the templates and then you’re able to go in there and customize them for what you’re looking for, and embedding a video right there in your homepage, I think, is one of the most powerful ways to get your supporters really interested in your mission.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. You walked us through events and I know we’re still sitting here in a virtual event this year, and Givecloud implemented some really cool features for virtual events in the future, which we certainly hope we can step away from. What are your thoughts in terms of hybrid and whether that’s going to have a place in the future? What’s your gut feel?

Keisha: I don’t think anyone really knows, [chuckles] but generally, from just checking out different sources and listening to different people’s opinions, it sounds like we will obviously be going back to in-person events, but there’s always going to be a place for virtual events and for hybrid events. The world’s going to become more aware of the environment and there’s obviously a convenience to just doing things virtual. It’s definitely more healthy for our schedules.

Darryl: [chuckles] Well, for sure, for sure. I know one of the virtual events that you had put on with your tool set early on, and you have the ability to stream video as well as take donations, write on an embedded form. I believe you had one client that was at Timothy Robbins that they had used as one of the spokespeople that was out there. I don’t want to put you on the spot. Just in terms of the success of that, having a spokesman, of course, is key, but can you talk a little bit about that fundraising campaign and just how virtual helped them out?

Keisha: Yes. Sarah, do you know much about that campaign?

Sarah: I don’t know the specifics because that was organized through the organization, but I think the key part of that is having the speaker and being able to really, we’re talking about storytelling today, but really tell the story through that whole event and have someone who is really great, a really great and powerful speaker being able to share the story. They did see a huge, huge success. It was really fun to watch to see such an impact being made and using the virtual events platform on Givecloud.

The virtual events platform, it has emojis that come down the screen as people are donating in real-time. It makes for a really engaging virtual experience at a time where we were all stuck at home, so. [chuckles]

Darryl: Yes. There’s that example of that touch that Givecloud puts on all of their products to evoke emotion just out of using some technology. I think what I recall maybe in talking with Josh at some points during that virtual event is that I suspect it was north of six digits that was raised. The thing that I guess I would point out to our audiences is that major donors do not always have to give by check. A major donor can give, if they’ve got one of those community personalities that would actually draw people to your event, then being a part of your event or speaking at your event can end up raising six digits as fast as them writing a check.

In addition to that, you’re also going to get donor acquisition and engagement because new people are going to be signing up to hear what they’re going to be sharing. That’s just a little piece on the event aspect to it, for sure. The other pieces that I find really cool in terms of the Givecloud solution for events, we’ve got a lot of organizations that are doing galas and so forth. To some degree, the ticketing wants to be simple for a gala and it wants to be online. Can you discuss a little bit about what’s the best method from a check-in standpoint for a gala? Because your system does much more than just charge their credit card for whatever the tickets are, right?

Keisha: Yes. The QR code is a really helpful feature. You’re just going to get your QR code right on your phone if you bought a ticket online. Then you can go right to the door and pull up your QR code and you as the organization can just scan people in using a regular iPhone, so very quick and easy. If someone doesn’t have their QR code on hand, which there will be people, you can manually check them in, and it brings you right to a report and you just click off the keys there and then you’re able to track and report on exactly who attended the event and see those settings, which is quite helpful.

Darryl: Great, and much like DP forms, I think if a donor makes a purchase of a ticket or makes a donation, both of those records go back into DonorPerfect as individual gift records as well, right?

Keisha: Exactly. You’re able to set up the integration for each specific feature of Givecloud. You can really customize it to make sure that data gets pushed to the right place in DonorPerfect.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. A couple of questions, and Sarah’s been super diligent at answering them, but I wanted to pull some of them forward. Noah had asked whether Givecloud does capture data for donors and contains a dashboard for analysis. Yes, there’s certainly a degree of reports that are out there, but as well, every Givecloud piece of data that you might have will also end up appearing together with all of the DonorPerfect data that’s out there.

Sor mentioned, does Givecloud connect to DP forms or it’s a separate entry point? It is a separate entry point. As a matter of fact, just to sort of emphasize this point, you can replace your entire website with a Givecloud solution so that all of that great content can actually be built, and I want to bring this up because the beauty of the Givecloud forms is something that is really strong, but that capability extends itself to the rest of your website if you’re using the full Givecloud platform, just because of the way that they’re able to lay out graphics and pieces that would draw donors in and keep them there inside of your website, which I think is key.

I think we’ve got some clarity on that. There are also some very unique features that Givecloud provides. One of them is a tool called Child Sponsorship. That does not have to be exclusively used for children. I realize that every nonprofit may have different constituencies, certainly for humane societies as an example. I used to do a lot of work with zoos and you can actually sponsor animals that would be inside of the zoo. Where else can people use this sponsorship utility and how does it work really if you can expand on that?

Keisha: Yes. Again, sponsorships, in this scenario, we do have corporate sponsorships, but we also have the ability for you to go on and sponsor a child or sponsor an animal, or Darryl, to answer your question, classrooms would be a common third example. You could sponsor an entire classroom and the features, you can see the information about the child right from your website. For example, if we’re talking about children, and I can go in and I can see their biography, I can read more information about them. I might check out a video about the child or about your organization, and then I can see their updates.

Then once I choose to sponsor the child right from my portal, I’m actually able to see even more information about the child and I can get timeline updates. If my child graduates from grade one to grade two, I’ll get an email letting me know. I’m able to go right in and continue to build my relationship with them by seeing all this information from my portal, and just like with a reoccurring donation, I could write there, up my donation from $30 a month to $40 a month.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. One other unique piece and I can go on to this, I think Josh pointed it out that Givecloud has been one of the longest partners that we’ve ever had and they had built specifically to the DonorPerfect API so everything flows super seamless but one of the early features that existed was e-commerce. E-commerce is a bit unique. It’s different than taking a donation. You may have inventory that you need to relieve, you may also have digital products, which I thought was really cool.

At this point, Givecloud is the one tool that we have that actually can give you a full e-commerce catalog if you will. Can you talk a little bit about how extensive some of those product catalogs are? Digital t-shirts, whatever it may be. What could a nonprofit sell that would help raise money for them?

Keisha: Basically, anything, [laughs] but popular examples would be tote bags and t-shirts and sweaters and water bottles, or you could sell digital content. One popular example would be one organization did videos for how to train your dog, and you can pay for those videos and then you’d be able to download them right from your portal and view them or maybe webinars. That’s popular in the kind of educational space, and then from my online store, you can break it into categories or catalogs. You could break all of your products into categories. I could go in and see the item and then you can set up promo codes. Then we also have upsells, which can be a really nice way to kind of increase your overall donation by a few percentage each month.

Darryl: Interesting, so if I want to buy, let’s say just the t-shirt, you could upsell me to a package that would include a t-shirt and a book?

Keisha: Yes, exactly. The software will know that you have the t-shirt in your cart but it will know that you don’t have the book, and so it will encourage you, Darryl, to say, “Hey, Darryl, you should also buy this book, it’s really good.” Then you’ll add it to your cart and it can all be done in one checkout experience with a donation, which is an important feature that’s built specifically for nonprofits and it’ll allow you to check out quite seamlessly.

Darryl: Wow, that’s super cool. I think another important piece to note, when you’re selling product like that, or maybe even memberships, fair market value is a key component to that, right? For the nonprofits that are not selling anything today, can you explain a little bit about what fair market value is and what you need to consider from a tax basis?

Keisha: Yes. You’re putting me on the spot. [laughs] Sarah, how much are you able to–

Sarah: I was going to give the easy answer as I’m not an accountant or a tax expert [chuckles] but you do have the ability to document that and to add that while you’re setting up your online store and setting up your e-commerce side of things to make sure that as you’re doing tax receipts, as you’re recording on this information, that you’ve set that up correctly. That was my pass-off answer to accounting and finance experts.

Darryl: All good. All good. No worries there. Actually, in working with the zoos, one of the things that they have to account for is their membership actually contains a certain degree of fair market value because there’s a commercial value to it. The key part for a nonprofit is that the donor is not allowed to recognize the commercial value as a tax-deductible portion.

If you’re buying something that’s $50 and $25 of it is the fair market value of it, they get a tax deduction for the remaining $25, and that’s something that your system handles and can populate into DonorPerfect as well. Very cool. So much that you can do with Givecloud. I know you’ve got text features and so forth, and we oftentimes tease that you’re sort of the Swiss Army ’94, the toolbox of giving tools that are out there. It’s so hard to keep it all reined into just one particular topic area. I know you also have some kiosks that are available. Are those typically used for events or where would a nonprofit want to put a kiosk in?

Keisha: Yes, we have a POS and a kiosk but the kiosk is specifically like a self-service donation section so you could add this to your event, and maybe on the way out of the event, you could encourage people to stop by the kiosk and also make a donation. They’re able to go right up to an iPad stand and they can just plug in their information so, I want to make a $100 donation, they can choose whether it’s reoccurring or it’s a one-time gift. They can also cover the monthly cost, and they can get a tax receipt, all generally in like 15 seconds of filling it out, so a really good way to encourage people to give right during an event.

The other option, Darryl, for events would be Text to Give. We do have Text to Give with Givecloud and that’s really popular. At the end of your session, you could say, “Hey, guys.

Text this number and give us if you’re able to make a donation, we’d really appreciate it,” and they could do that all off from their phones, receive a tax receipt, all of that quite quickly. It’s a nice little add-on to your Givecloud solution.

Darryl: Awesome, awesome. I think you’d need to go to where they are, right. There are some people that are totally comfortable with doing it on their mobile phone and we see the stats rise constantly about that, but some people may just find that a kiosk is a little more comfortable to them, the ATMs and so forth, and whatever it might have been something that they would use more readily than trying to use a mobile phone piece. Paula actually asked, does the system have the ability to calculate and deduct sales tax with purchases?

Keisha: You can do taxing right through Givecloud. You’ll be able to– no matter where you’re buying your product from. If someone’s in Ontario, or if they’re in Newfoundland, they’re able to get those tax receipts properly. Yes.

Darryl: Great, great, and I believe there’s also an integration. When you buy e-commerce online, is there shipping charges that can be built in and calculated?

Keisha: Yes.

Darryl: Tell us a little bit about how that works? I mean, is it with just one company or?

Keisha: No, we integrate with a few different solutions but Canada Post and the UPS, so you can set up either of those with us, and all of that we will help you with the setup when you sign on with Givecloud, but you’re able to customize whether they get a flat rate fee or maybe if they’ll get free shipping if they have products over $50, that sort of thing.

Darryl: Got it, got it. That integration, basically, I think it just takes the address of whoever the donor is, the recipient of the product, and if there is a variable pricing, it will actually calculate whatever that would be, right?

Keisha: Yes, exactly.

Darryl: Based on geography. Awesome, awesome. All right. I know we had another one that showed up in the Q&A. Examples of nonprofits that had pivoted to the Givecloud web builder for their entire site. These may be the anecdotal stories. If there’s any clients that you can think of that maybe they– did come from WordPress and then they went to Givecloud, what’s that experience like for them?

Keisha: Yes. I see [unintelligible 00:48:16]. Tree Sisters is an organization that we work with that’s built their entire solution on Givecloud’s website builder. This is just one example but they’ve done a really good job in storytelling and sharing their mission with their supporters.

Darryl: Great, great, and just because it might be a question lingering out there is, is there a conversion utility or do you really want to start from scratch when you build a whole website on Givecloud and it’s time for a refresh? It’s not like you don’t want to take a WordPress site and say convert, right?

Keisha: No, you would use our templates and build those over on Givecloud.

Darryl: Got you, got you. Okay. Yes, that’s actually a gorgeous-looking site. Great graphics and really pulls you in, good layout. Love the panels that are sliding across, they’re very cool. Kelly asked, is there a comparable feature at Givecloud like EP video? Not that I know of, but I don’t know if that’s something that’s on the roadmap?

Keisha: EP video meaning?

Darryl: That’s one of our partner products that actually will allow you to record a video of yourself either thanking a donor and then it gets sent via email, but you can also send an email of the video campaigns and so forth that you do. I suspect Givecloud has focused a lot on the websites but a video that you make for the website is just as capable of being included into an EP video subscription as well that you would then email out I assume.

Keisha: Yes, but we don’t have any solution right now where you can text videos or anything like that.

Darryl: Got you, got you. Okay, great. Well, actually, I see another question just popped in here, so, oh, that was the question about a DP video. Cool. Well, Keisha, Sarah, we’ve talked about a number of the features that are out there in Givecloud. Any others that you would identify as far as a storytelling component that have really helped your clients get the message across and boost their fundraising? Anything that I’ve missed touching on that’s part of the tool belt?

Keisha: The other main one would be e-cards. That’s a feature that like people will come to gift card maybe for the donor portal or the website or the events and registration, but they hear about the e-cards and they’re quite excited that that’s part of our package. You have the ability to sell e-cards. Also, we have tributes on our donation page, but then I could also go on Mother’s Day and I could pick out a card to send to my mom. She’ll get an automatic email or she can get a letter saying, “Hey, your daughter, Keisha has just donated in your name.” She can get a personalized message right from me and she’ll get a beautiful email. You can customize the template so it works for your organization, but that’s another feature that people get excited for because they weren’t expecting it.

Darryl: That really hinges on something, and thank you for bringing that up, I meant to talk about it earlier. For those people that want to celebrate their birthday, but instead of giving gifts, they could point people to their favorite nonprofit’s Givecloud site and say, “Hey, just give in my name,” as a tribute or whatever. Then they’ll get a card that’ll recognize the gift that was given on their behalf, right?

Keisha: Yes, exactly. Then you could also do peer-to-peer. I could do it that way and ask for e-cards, or I could say, “Hey, guys, it’s my birthday coming up and I don’t want any gifts. Make a donation to Live Life Unfiltered. This is my campaign and I’m trying to raise $1,000.” Then you can build those really nice peer-to-peer campaigns where I can add in my own photos or my own video. I can add in my story and really share why I want to fundraise for Live Life Unfiltered. Then on it, you can honor roll which does create more competition and encourages people to give a bit more. There’s a few handy features there that work with storytelling and increasing your overall fundraising.

Darryl: Yes. That’s really great. This is a perfect way of trying to generate buzz on social media, but then draw them back into a place that people can make donations, and somebody new that’s making a donation on the behalf of somebody else is like that crowdfunding construct. You’re getting one of your supporters to encourage all of their friends to give to a nonprofit that they may have known nothing about, but just because you’re a friend of Keisha’s, you’re now going to become aware to it and there’s going to be some percentage of those that will remain as part of the donor pool that you can reach out to in the future.

That leverages so much for those of you that were part of the DP social campaign product that we talked about yesterday. It’s just another way that you can try and leverage social because those social media companies are not very giving in terms of the data that they have as far as who’s been supporting you and following you and all of those other things. It’s just a great way to leverage that. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I know we’ve talked about a lot of features here. I think we’ve caught all the Q&A that’s out there, so we’re okay to just wrap up a little bit early today. I know we’re heading towards the close of our session. I really want to thank you so much, Keisha, for sharing that, and Josh for the video, Sarah, as well for helping to answer our questions.

Next up is From “Liking” to “Loving”: Connecting your social media audience to your mission and Digital Payments in a Digital World. No matter what session you choose, you will not miss any content because all of this is being recorded and everyone that’s been a part of this session, thank you so much for sticking around. This was great fun. I’m going to try and dig up who made that early video because I think that was really cool.

[laughter]

Darryl: All right.

Keisha: Sounds good. Thanks, Darryl.

Darryl: Thanks, everyone. Take care.

Keisha: Bye.