047: Fire Up Your Board Fundraising – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guest this week:

Gail Perry, author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Board Passion Into Action

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com

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Treyz dahna welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent if you feel that your non-profit doesn’t get the attention it deserves, maybe in the media or maybe from consultants. You have a home here at tony martignetti non-profit radio, the aptly named host tony martignetti fortunate that i found this show last week, we had techniques to develop your corporate sponsorship strategy remember, my guest was john hicks talking about corporate sponsorship, and we had a review of fund accounting software with shows technology contributor, the editor of non-profit technology news. Scott koegler this week for the hour, fire up your board. Fund-raising i’ll be joined by gail perry gale is a consultant and the author of fired-up fund-raising turned board passion into action. Her book title pretty much says it all, she’s going to share proven techniques to motivate your board to step up to their fund-raising responsibilities gayle’s book is published by wiley, and it is available on amazon scales with us for the hour at about thirty two minutes after the hour on tony’s take too. I’m going to talk about sexism and how it’s being suffered by professional women. I blogged about that this week and also your last chance at a discount to the next-gen charity conference, which is next week in new york city. All that on today’s show. We’re going to take a break. And after that, i’ll be joined by gil perry. Please stay with me getting lending, the wounding e-giving ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, waiting to get you thinking. E-giving cubine. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one i want to make your car relationship as fulfilling as possible. Then please join us, starting monday, may second at ten am for love in the morning with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all. Please tune in and call as we discuss dating relationship and more. Start your week off with love in the morning with marnie alison on talking alternative dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Zoho welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m joined now by the president of gale perry associates. Gail perry is a consultant and author. As i said earlier, her book is fired-up fund-raising turned board passion into action, published by wiley, available on amazon dot com. Gail is an international speaker on this subject, and she leads her own has led her own consulting firm for over fourteen years. I’m very glad that gale’s practice brings her to the show today. She’s joining us from north carolina? Welcome, gail. How you doing, tony? I’m doing well. Welcome. Welcome to the show. Pleasure to have you. Yeah. Why’s fund-raising important for board members. Well, actually, they they actually own for our big fun before. And many say that they have a very bilich. Although boardmember not agree with gail. I’m goingto interrupt you. I know you’re you’re on you’re on a vonage connection, i think. Is that? Yeah. And it’s breaking up a little bit. Do you have another phone that you can call on and i will do a little a little song and dance while you call him? Okay, please. Do. This is tony martignetti. Let me ok. I was also for my song and dance like this. She cuts me off. We’re just having a little technical problem with trying to get a good connection from gail galley there. Any better? Yes, it sounds better. One. We want to continue with the question why? And you cut me? I didn’t get to do my song and dance. You believe this? Alright, maybe. Maybe later. Notion. Uh, gail, you still there? There. Gail it’s. Beautiful. All right. You know, this is live radio because this wouldn’t happen otherwise. Let’s, take a look at tony’s. Take two at aa. Seven minutes after the hour instead of thirty two minutes after the hour. Do we have freddie? Do we have gale back? No, we don’t have gale back. Freddie will let me know. Um, the subject that i blogged about this week actually is sexism buy-in not only in the office, but generally in the office and outside the office suffered by professional women. The story that i told took place in a bar i was with a professional colleague was a networking dinner. Um and to rather boorish married guys intervened while i was in the men’s room and came back to find them harassing might be a little strong, but harassing might actually be appropriate. I’m not sure the woman that i was having the meeting with we had to sit at the bar because there weren’t any table reservations available. You can see the whole story on my block at m p g a d v dot com, and it actually has garnered some comments from women and men. The women are telling stories about their own situations, how they might be marginalized in an office that they actually working, but they’re there they lied, but their clients don’t recognize them is the leader, and another story was about a woman who was afraid teo actually stopped wearing dresses in the office because of comments that were made. Another story was from then you adjunct professor, the university wasn’t giving him enough office space or professor or classroom space. He had to run his classes from his home, and he relates how one of the female students was so uncomfortable with that idea that they that she un enrolled from the program from from his class so that’s all on my block. Um, the other thing that i wanted to take a few seconds to talk about on tony’s take two much earlier than anticipated is the next-gen charity conference, and that is coming up next week. I’ll be speaking on friday about social media and planned giving, and you can have a twenty percent discount to that unconference on my block. Go to the block, looked for that post, and you click the link to a twenty percent off discount on the nextgencharity conference. We have gale back, but we’re going to take this break. I’ll be joined by gail perry. After this break, please stay with me. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz 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, three that’s two one two, 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set two one two nine six, four, three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom, too. One, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Krauz hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Yeah. Durney welcome back to live radio, tony martignetti non-profit radio that last commercial by larry bloom. He says we make people happy. His show is the divorce our i know the show makes him happy, i think it’s it’s catharsis, cathartic radio for larry bloom. I know that very heartfelt, very tender radio. You can listen to his show the hour preceding mine. I’m joined now by gail perry. Our subject is fired-up you’re bored fund-raising gail, you’re with us, right? Okay, excellent. Much, much better. And let’s go to that first question. Why? Is fund-raising important for board members? Gale? Well, boardmember have such a responsibility to make sure the organization is successful. But the problem is that many organs many boardmember zehr not enlisted a recruited on dh, told when they’re recruited that their job is fund-raising so at the outset, they should be told they should be told and it doesn’t happen. I think that non-profits or embarrassed to ask him or afraid to bring it up. And i think it backfired terribly because then the champ wants the board to helping fund-raising in the board. Says what? What do you what do you know? What about yes. You know, the chronicle of philanthropy just yesterday in the online edition, had an article about the frustrations among non-profits that board members don’t step up to this important obligation. And on the side bar, there were four articles going back to, i think nineteen, ninety seven since then, and all of them had the headline’s something like non-profit boardmember sze don’t step up to their responsibilities, and here was basically that four or five maybe articles since i think nineteen, ninety seven, i know this is an enormous area of frustration for non-profits yeah, it is, but the problem is that i think i think non-profits bear a lot of the blame because i think i think, frankly, i think their expectations are way too high. You can’t expect untrained volunteers to be successful in fund-raising when they’ve never done it before, and they may not have the personality for it, frankly, i don’t want on that boardmember there soliciting because they wouldn’t be good at it. You probably have to clean up. Okay, we’re gonna talk about that later on. But what other roles there are around fund-raising besides soliciting, but so you think you think the responsibility. Lies with the non-profit wants a little more about that. Yeah, there’s a there’s, a sinus flandez says, we all get the boards we deserve, and that means that the more time and energy you spend on your board, the more you get out of him. Um, and i think that non-profit leaders need to take take a leadership wrong with their board and give them training and talk to them about expectations and talk to them about, um, what it is that the job of the board members is to do because so many boardmember don’t know, and i frankly, frankly, i think a lot of people who served on boards are very well meaning people, and they want to do a good job, but you got to tell him what you need. Yeah, that’s always that’s always the case, they’re passionate about the mission, and i know part of your messages toe unleash that passion, we’ll get to that, but they’re always passionate about otherwise they would have turned you down, you know? You know, they care, but you’ve got to figure out a way to make it easy for him and make it fun for me and what are some of the challenges that that are either organizational or personal to board members? Well, you know, for one thing, they don’t know anything about fund-raising they be racking? I think it’s unreasonable to assume that somebody can do a great job when they when they’re totally untrue ride and i’m a battle that weary, hardened veteran of twenty five years and fund-raising and i’m very comfortable with that. I got his sessions, i write articles in conferences, i understand the techniques in the technology, so one of the rules is they don’t understand it at all. I think four members think that fund-raising is all about asking for money, and we all know that that’s not particularly good fund-raising because good fund-raising is much more of a cultivation process in the relationship driven process, but if boardmember think it’s all about asking and it’s all about money, then they freeze, you know, from from opera started about think fund-raising is about changing the world and helping children and helping the environment and all the things that you’re raising money for, and the board members get stuck in this mythology of what they think fund-raising years and they make it into this horrible yucky, embarrassing, um, tacky poor manners, you know, they made it back-up all sorts of myths about it, but when you do it right, it’s a really joyful experience and your matching donors with causes that mythology often is carried on by the organization. Yeah, you know, i think i think i think fundrasing got a bad rap all around because a lot of people are nervous about it and they don’t they don’t understand it, they don’t know how to do it well, and and it does take a special skill set really does. What about the the meetings that board members are attending and they’d be used for your laughing looking she’s, laughing at me on my own show? You believe this? I know you. I know you’re laughing question, um, adult light board meeting. You don’t think that board meetings are boring, and i think the board members would tell you that they’re boring and i would say to you, if you have boring meetings, what kind of a board and you gonna have a board board? Uh, and if you have a board board, i don’t think they’re going to take action and fundrasing so it’s very important that we make boardmember into a cheerleading session and a and a exciting motivational experience now, that’s interesting sometimes, you know, something called a cheerleading session is used majority of lee, but obviously you don’t mean that. How would you turn boardmember into a cheerleading session? Well, you know, i think it’s gotta have some excitement of passion to it. I think the leadership has got to be passionate and excited. I think you’ve got to talk about important issues. You’ve got a door way shit boardmember time with crap. Excuse me. You know, um, thank you. You bring in testimonials from people who who, uh, who are being helped by your organization. I mean, just last night i was doing aboard retreat with our local women’s center, and i asked the director to tell us a story of something that had touched her heart recently. And she said she told the story of this woman who had two children, preschool children, small ones. Her husband lost his job and he abandoned the family. And she was that her last resort. She didn’t know what to do. She was going to get evicted. From her apartment, she has no money. She had nothing. Two small short. It had never worked outside the home. And when gene, the director of the women’s center, told her that that the women’s center could help her with her rent for a couple months. So she got herself established. The lady burst into tears and gene in telling the story last night she cried, had a blower nose and and, you know, it was in front of all the board members and the board members really got it about how important their work. Wass and it was a very touching and motivational. It was probably the most touching moment i experienced all weekend work. Yeah. That’s. An outstanding story. And and in a in a board meeting. And what was the reaction to board members? Could you see any? Oh, yeah. Physical reaction. Thank you, teo. Right. They could feel the energy. I think a lot about energy. I think that energy probably maybe is the basis of all this stuff. Let’s talk a little more about that because you think about it a lot. What do you mean about energy? You know, do you let me give you a little example? Do you have a friend whose energy is like the cold, clammy kitchen sink? You know what has been friday night with them, right? But do you have a friend whose energies like the warm sunshine and you want to spend time with them and one of my great fund-raising mottoes is winding down, throw a party because what if you could make what you’re doing fun? You attract people tio and four meetings air fun if the board members enjoy getting together, if, um if they if you could make your boar biddies into a party and let people enjoy themselves, you attract more people to your cause. And if you’re having a fund-raising of yet turned that into a party and you will bring me more money. There’s a whole lot of this attitude about, uh, being gregarious and being i mean, you changed the world by expanding your energy and influencing other people. And if boardmember zehr embarrassed about fund-raising and embarrassed about, quote, hitting up somebody or something, their energy is going to be like the clothes cold, clammy kitchen sink. So i gotta get four members away from their myths about fund-raising being yucky and get him pointed toward maybe. Friendraising. So they could be excited about what they’re doing and really inspired about the work. And and there are other activities which we’ll talk about that that are appropriate around fund-raising. It’s interesting that, um, uh, act of fund-raising can be seen as yucky and clammy and dirty and embarrassing and begging, even which is a very based form of human actions or the same action at same activity fund-raising can be seen is one of the most powerful shining examples of compassion and human. Yes, i’m talking with gail perry she’s, a consultant and author of the president of gale perry associates, and her book is fired-up fund-raising turn board passion into action. Gail, aside from the’s very poignant testimonials at meetings, how else can can we in live in this thiss passion? Well, i like, i’d like to ask for members by the care. What do you mean, just go around the table and ask or, you mean, write it out? How logistically detail, how would we do that? Development director for hospice tried the question with her group this way, she said to our board members, and they were very stiff bunch of immune who didn’t like they thought their job is to manage money, not to raise it, you know, that kind of people, and she went around the table and she said, tell me what legacy you’d like to leave from serving on sport right there went around the table. Whoa. And he said you would have thought i’d open the floodgate. She said she had never seen such emotion in such passion in these people. And she said i was a sea change way have a meeting she had had with these people in three years in a again a very telling story, gale, we actually we have a call, and i haven’t even said the number. Look at this. If you’d like to talk to gail are calling number is eight. Seven seven, four, eight, zero for one, two, zero, eight, seven, seven. Forty xero for one to zero and we have a caller. What is your name, please? Hi. My name is marion marion. Hi. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. What’s your question for gail might. My question is, what are boardmember sze? We’ve made the mistake. Scale is already, uh, discussed in terms of we didn’t pre educate them about the fund-raising aspect. Um, i guess going forward, you know, live and learn. How do we go forward in picking board members? How do we screen them and educate? Them before we picked them that this is going to be part of their job duty. And also does she have any ideas in terms of resources that we could use to get people over this hump of feeling like fund-raising is yucky because i agree with friendraising actually, maybe the goal is to ask those friends for money, and how do we educate our boardmember appropriately, barry and i’m going to ask youto take the answer off off off line on the air because you’re breaking up a little bit, but we have your questions. Thank you very much for calling again the number again. The number to call is eight seven seven for eight xero for one to xero gale, what about the marin’s? First question on on screening board members? Yes, well, let me give you an example. I’m chair of the board governance committee for statewide boarding here in north carolina, and we were literally a fund-raising board and we have changed our mission to write be much more specific about fund-raising and it’s, my job to be the rude i’m sorry, it’s, my job to be in charge of the boardmember recruitment process? Not surprised. And so we’ve had people in action all over the state all year and, you know, feel feeling and potential boardmember and i have gotten off the phone with thes women that we’re enlisting, and i said, listen, i just want to go over with you, the expectations, and i don’t you to be surprised i said the really number one job of boardmember xyz to be leaders in their local fund-raising event in their local town, and do you have any problem with calling people for sponsorships and blah, blah, blah and very explicit to him? And they usually say, no, i’m happy to do that, and then i say and, you know, i just want to let you know that most of the board members almost all of us are contributing at the thousand dollar level is trailblazers, and i don’t want you to be surprised about that either. And do you think that’s, something you could consider and the people i talked to said, yeah, i think i can consider that so it’s been it’s been amazing? That has been so easy for me to talk about it because it can be embarrassing, but somehow i’m not the person who enlisted them, i’m sort of like the policeman to screen them before they come on the board because they want to be accepted into this group of very high powered women, and they don’t want any surprises, and so they’re pretty grateful for the for the conversation with me, and they’re really what about putting these expectations in writing nothing that’s very helpful. So after you’ve gotten their verbal but there’s, nothing there a lot of organizations that have lots of written expectations that board members have signed and nothing’s happened. Yeah, well, ok, of course, that the writings need to be enforced mohr essential than the riding it out. Okay, think about it because you gotta oddball people or get him on the phone and very direct because people don’t read stuff anyway. All right, well, but so are you suggesting a conversation and then something in writing? Onda writing, of course, needs to be enforced. Yeah, yeah, you know, people don’t enforce stuff going just although i do know a couple of boards that they give their boardmember xero sort of a report card at their place and every board meeting about where they stand. On their commitment. Yeah, well, i think we’re going to talk later. That’s a wonderful idea. We’re going to talk later in life. We’re going to talk later in the hour about self assessment in just a minute, we have left before a break. Gale, can you share with our caller the sum of the second question? Cem resource is for making fund-raising more appealing, you know? And if i could suggest a my website gai o perry dot com, i have a ton of articles, uninspiring board members and lots of different techniques buy-in conversations to stage with them to help them change their attitude about fund-raising i think you need to have a frank fear of convert xero fund-raising conversations, um, and that i think that’s very healthy and what you call it cleansing moment, so let him throw up about it. Uh, and then you’ve gotta have a conversation about abundance versus scarcity and about the importance of optimism and the connection to their passion and then friend making such a big deal. Uh, because, frankly, i held my speak all over the country on this, and i’ll tell everybody i would rather have a friend to my cause than a donor. Excellent. Gail, we’re going to take a break. Those resources are available at gail perry dot com, and you’ll also find a link to those resources, which are which are excellent. I was through them on my block it mpg devi dot com under the show today’s show post. We’re going to take a break after the break, of course, gail parry stays with us and hope you do, too. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. 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. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Yeah. Durney yeah. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. My guest is gail perry, the author of fired-up fund-raising turned board passion into action that is published by wiley and available at amazon. Gail, you left with a very interesting sort of ah, phrase. Repeat that for us and let’s let’s. Think about that friend making. I know what i said. I said i would rather have a friend to my cause than a donor rather have a friend than a donor. And people are shocked when i say that it’s a little more about the reason is that i ask everybody, what will a friend do for you? You know, and friends to your cause will do everything in the world, including give money. And so maybe we do need to change our fund-raising in the friend making. Because if you make friends out of your donors and bring them much more deeply into the cause and get them really involved, then they’ll stick with you for the long run. And we have a terrible problem in fund-raising ofwhat we call donorsearch trish in which is, of course, the fact that donors give once, and then they slip away or give twice and they don’t stick around. I mean, tony, do you know that statistics for donor attrition? And i do not know them. But before you, before you cite wth, um, i do know that it’s it costs a lot more time and money to find a new donor than it does to treat well and retain an existing donor. You know, i was reading some statistic. They said it was. It cost ten times more to get a new donor or a new customer for business than it does to retain one on one of those attrition way, halling statistic is that across the board, the probability that i will make a second gift, your organization, after i made the first one, is only fifty percent at really that’s the high fifty percent, really some other studies cited even lower than that. And so i would say that non-profits are failing miserably a customer service and donorsearch ofhis um, so therefore, maybe maybe maybe we do need to focus on our current donors and love him a lot and involving more daily rather than going out and beating our heads against the wall in the much harder work bringing. And of course, every organization is going to have their own statistic, which they certainly should be tracking their own. Their own donor, tricia. Well, they ought to be, i think, tracking their own donor attrition on dh if they find that number to be hi, that percentage to be hi. What what can they be doing, teo? To reduce that to reduce the attrition? Got lots of things they could do you that wee hollow howell movement in fund-raising called donor-centric fund-raising. In fact, there was just a twitter chat on that topic that i was following a little while ago. Um, donor-centric fund-raising means that you are thinking about your donor rather than yourself all the time. And you communicate with your donor frequently with cheerful news about the results that you’ve achieved in the world with their gift. And you do everything you can to make the donor feel passionate and connected. You invite, um, two special things. You send them special mailings. You you did not, uh, meaningful information about what you’re doing does not include a boring newsletter because studies show that most donors fund that non-profit newsletters are boring and they don’t read. Um and, you know, somewhere some organizations have what they call a donor appreciation of the if something signs boring, that’s fine sporting, i’d rather go to a barbecue. Some eyes have to settle, celebrate the donors, but not to a donor appreciation of. So i think non-profits need to think a lot more entrepreneurially about what donorsearch customer service really looks like and be creative with whatever the organization does in terms of programming to bring violent, bring donors so programming communications well, thank you. Statistics show that the the phone call thank you probably is the most powerful to keep a donor giving in connected and i think one of the best ways well, i don’t know. Ah, great way for donors for board members to be involved. Eyes making those thank you calls. I have some clients who do that. Others don’t but just a simple just called to say thank you not to ask for anything more, not even to invite you, but just to say thank you, right and healthy. Burke is the great canadian researcher has done a study after study own the statistical results. Of what happens when boardmember say thank you and in a very, uh make a phone call to say thank you. And her very first study that she’s repeated over and over with many different sides organizations here’s the first study, it’s amazing. She was working with the canadian paraplegic association, and they were doing a phone mail campaign all across canada, and the average gift of the campaign was twenty six dollars. And she did a test and had the board members make a thankyou phone call within twenty four hours after the gift was received to one out of every ten donors on that big campaign. So they they made their phone calls. The boardmember had a great time. They enjoyed it. It was theory. Well orchestrated. It’s been five months later, they re solicited both group, the group that hadn’t gotten a phone call and the groups that had gotten a phone call. And so guess how much muchmore money? The people who were phone called game i don’t know, did a double thirty nine percent there, nine percent more from the ten percent so here’s proof that boardmember can directly impact the bottom line and fund-raising without having to ask for money, right? And that’s what we alluded to earlier it’s not it’s, not all about asking on so that’s that’s what all of my message is all about, and i think border treats around the country and i’m very popular with boards because i give them easy ways to make a difference and fund-raising that don’t involve asking, so they like me and also try to turn the retreat into a party and they like that. Yes, well, you’re very popular with tony martignetti non-profit radio, but we got to call you before i had announced the phone number to call. Well, little tweet out a minute ago, you know, thereby calling look that she’s tweeting while she’s talking to me on the phone. Now, what about that previous guest? I had alice march, the attention factor and that’s that’s not good practice non-cash i’m sure you did it on a break. I actually did it on a break, but the number to call if you do want to talk to my guest. Gail perry is eight, seven seven for eight xero for one, two zero, eight, seven, seven for eight xero for one to zero and gail is the author of fired-up fund-raising turned board passion into action. What else? Gail, besides the simple and the thing that something that everybody would love to do besides those simple and pleasant thank you phone calls, how else can we engage board members? That is not a direct solicitation. Well, one of the when i was writing about, i interviewed a lot of the second directors and one one person just said something so tellingly, she said, if i could just get my board members open doors, that that would make my make my life so much easier. But they are embarrassed about opening doors, and they think it’s all about money, and they won’t do it. And so let’s, let’s give some thought about how boardmember can open doors in a way that is easy for them and playful and fun, and is like throwing all their friends onto the bandwagon rather than being stiff and awkward because, you know, i like i like the metaphor of a bandwagon until boardmember that everybody they know, especially their family and close friends, needs to know that they are very excited about thiscause and they spend a lot of time on this call and until i tell boardmember that, you know, you’re familiar with the concept, of course of barrel marketing and the notion that ideas are viruses and they spread and so tell boardmember they need to be sneijder’s everywhere they go, they need to be sneezing on everybody, you know, to spread a cunt contagious epidemic of happy news about the work that they’re organizations doing to make the world a different place, a better place. So that’s just asking them remember, laugh if they might back-up thinking they understand the concept of sneezing on everybody, they know they can do that. So we have to we have to in order to help them sneeze properly. The i have found out that board members don’t know what to say. If you really think about the good book, they don’t know what to say and that even boardmember have come to me and they say i wouldn’t have a chance to talk to somebody what i talk about, wait before we talk about what it is you want them to say, who is that they should be talking to? Well, sneezing on who they need every boardmember even if they say they don’t know any quote, wealthy people include every boardmember has relationship that can help forward their organization. It might be with a church, group or club, or a foundation or corporation. Or maybe they’re wealthy. And what about their co workers? Well, their coworkers, too, although sometimes co workers. Is your employee anyway? Sometimes that can be a little touchy. However many businesses adopt causes for their employees to get involved in. Okay, that is part of a team building so it’s, very broad, mostly personal relationships, personal networks, and this is this’s country back-up all the special network that any one person has. I mean, i’ve got my hairdresser, i’ve got my dry cleaner, you know, i’ve got my extended family, which is very large professional friend, social friends, you know, most of these people know that i’m wildly passionate about a couple of causes and that they’re always invited right now your advice is your advice, gail, is gail dellaccio matter that’s why they went down to a party it’s a matter of getting boardmember into a different spirit about their cause, okay, but what should they be? What should they specific find a spirit of inviting people on a spirit of sneezing everywhere, talking about it and not being afraid or embarrassed about talking? And what should they be saying, gale? What specifically? Well, you know, like the women’s center last night we talked about we did a little bit of messaging. We did it, we did a mingle exercise, and i asked everybody in the room to get up out of his chair and find another boardmember and just tell him why they care so on, and we did that three different times, they find three different boardmember zor four different board members and just shared a conversation that while they cared, and so i think, what a boardmember should talk about what i think here about the organization because that is an impact statement it’s not specific, it usually doesn’t have programs and services and data, and it has an emotional story that comes from the heart. Give us an example of a statement like that. Well, i believe in the women’s center because one of all right, i’m involved this organization on the passion about, i think, politics for hobby and it’s a pack and, you know, i’m of active democrat and also it’s not all fun raisers to be active in any politically and either side, because it’s good it’s good, it helps your fund-raising and multiple levels, so i’m passionate about the democratic collison electing women office, and i just believe that when mohr women are in the general assembly of north carolina, we have better laws for children, for victims, for the environment, and women deserve the voice and they need the voice. And so that’s my personal opinion about why i think my organisation is important, and so the women they’re people, they could say, you know, i’m just so worried because these these homeless women and children are the most fragile people in our society, and they’re right in our backyard, and it breaks my heart to see him, and we really need some help and it’s an ideal way of opening a conversation about the organization that you’re so passionate about and bringing more friends to it that’s the whole objective and, you know it say, boardmember don’t have to have a big speech prepared, right? They could just talk about their own personal opinion about what’s important, and they could do that because they’re not going to forget that they might forget the mission statement in the three million marketing messages, but they’ll remember why they care, you know, what’s another way, way, actually, before we move on to the other additional ways i do wantto put a disclaimer in that gale’s evidence of me, i mean, advice of sneezing is contrary to the centers for disease control recommendations that your sneeze into your elbow that is not she does not want you to seize a terrible shoretz you sneeze openly broadly and the b aerosol ing your good message throughout the subways and your community do not sneeze into your elbow. Gail, how else again? Thiss to me, i think, is the crux of our whole conversation, ways specific ways that board members can be engaged. That is not a solicitation. How else? Alright, now two of my favorite ways our host tours and host small social, i think it’s just a thing your temple non-profit if every single boardmember hosted on event in their homes, just introduce their friends to the cause no soliciting just introduced him just think what networks your organization would open forth for the future boardmember for example, we had a new director of the carolina ballet here in north carolina and almost like a ballet boardmember and i had a porch party to invite introduce people to the new artistic director, and it was way had about twenty people who came and forty people invited, and you have a very big porch. Yeah, well, having a big old southern front porch, i have a lot of parties here in new york city. We have a balcony. Party would be a boardmember in the executive director squeezed onto a balcony. It’s about fourteen inches wide deep. But that’s that’s only applies here. Wait, we have a national audience listening, right? Not just new york. We certainly do, in fact, that if a porch party really goes over well in texas and some about the places that work, um, but from that porch party, the ballet got eventually a wonderful new boardmember and a major donor. And it was the first time these people had been introduced to the ballet and as the boardmember didn’t have to do anything. All i had to do was have a little party until everybody, they needed to meet this hot new gun town. So it’s, very easy. And it was i wasn’t very one self conscious are anything. See, the problem is that boardmember think it’s all about money. They’re not going to do it because their energies going to clam up and they’re going to feel self conscious and awkward, and they’re going to back away it’s, not about money, it’s, about introductions, right about making friends friends, because even if people can’t give, they may have other relationships they can offer that can open doors. And, you know, if you think about the vast possible network that your organization could make use of it’s better, it’s, good to think. In a very broad, we have to take a break. My guest is gail perry, the author of fired-up fund-raising turned board passion into action. Take this break, please stay with us getting linking, the ending, the ending, you’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving. Thank you. Cubine. Looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your car relationship as fulfilling as possible? Then please join us, starting monday, may second at ten am for love in the morning with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all. Please tune in and call as we discuss dating relationship and more. Start your week off with love in the morning with marnie alison on talking alternative dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcast do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing efforts. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com. Talking. No. Durney welcome back to the show. I’m joined by gail perry. Gale let’s, let’s. Spend our remaining minutes talking about let’s. Get at least just one more idea. How boardmember sze khun do something fund-raising related. That’s not a direct solicitation. Yeah, something else that i find very helpful. I call it the v i p prospect game. I always like to make everything into a game for boardmember because it sounds a little bit more interesting and fun. And you’re gonna explain what the viper prospect game is, right? Okay, no jargon jail today? Yeah, here’s the thing the issue i’m tackling is that board staff always asked the board over and over for names of people and everybody boardmember every boardmember starts to give ten names san and boardmember won’t do it because they don’t know what’s gonna happen to these people after they name has turned our turn in but what i do as i tell everybody to take out a sheet of paper that they do not have to turn in and just think for a minute, see if they could make a list of up to ten people who could catapult your organization to a whole new level catapult. And i’m not talking about messing around and, uh, and then i’m quite i give about five minutes and our mind and that these three people could be representative of corporation shin. They could be a state attorneys. They could be government agencies are elected officials. They could be individuals, corporations, foundations, you name it. Close social club. Um, and i try to broaden the basis for the board members to consider all the possibilities of relationships they have. They could catapult their organization. And so i give them practice creating a prospect list and thinking about this without being self conscious, that they have to turn in the name. And then the step one step two is that i asked them to turn to the person next to them and just discuss one of the names on one of their lives. Uh, so what i’m doing that there is giving them practice moving from prospect identification to actually considering strategy and it’s, a low key, low pressure exercise that help support members get them warmed up to the whole idea of thinking big talking about specific individuals and then moving to strategy of high weekend, um open the door and cultivate a deeper relationship with this entity or this person and what i do after the exercises that i try to create a viper task force committee and of the board members to need after the retreat because we usually do this in a retreat for man need after the retreat and come up with the prospect lift and the staff is going yes, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you, because the staff has been trying to get the board members to do this forever, but the way they were being approached made the board members feel uncomfortable and and the board members would back away. So again, you know, master, a playful, lighthearted approach to a topic that can be very scary for people has been helpful. Yeah, we just have about two minutes left. What about board members that aren’t going to jump on board with this? They’re they’re just so let’s call them just difficult board members, they’re not coming on board with these with these ideas. How do we manage those? Well, you know, i started managing my expectations. Um i think it any board you’re gonna have a handful of people who are dead weight and if you beat yourself up about trying to get these people at, you’ll kill yourself. I just been tryingto tryto keep him quiet on and hope they don’t cause any disruption, and then i’ll pull out my term limits to make sure that we can rotate them off the board. Yes, written term limits, which also need to be enforced absolutely latto don’t okay, what if eso you you’re really so your advice is just bide your time until the term limit ends, and it could be in the beginning of their term? Well, you know, i think i have a friend who was is in the second director here when he had boardmember who weren’t showing up for doing what they needed to do, he would go meet with him, and he would say, you know, is there another way you would like to be involved with our organization or serve our cause? Because since you can’t quite do the boardmember job well, and i would say that, and he said they were relieved because they were feeling guilty. Yes, they felt guilty and didn’t want to let the organization down on and also, i think pierre pressure is a huge motivational factor because nobody wants to look embarrassed in front of their peers. Everybody wants to do come to that board meeting prepared and having done their list that they said they would do. So i find pierre pressure very, very helpful. And so you have to board meetings, have to praise the people who are performing, and you have to honor and recognize them. And i think i think it’s all about motivation and team building. Yeah, we have to leave it there. I’m sorry. Our time is up. My guest has been gail perry, consultant as president of gale perry associates and author of fired-up fund-raising published by widely available on amazon piela one. Thank you very much for being on the show. Thank you. Yeah, and remind people that my web site is gail perry dot com and their lots of articles on resource is there that you can? All right. Thank you very much. Ok. Bye, gail. Next week. Bountiful bequest. That’s. Why you should start your planned giving program with bequests and how to do it. My guest will be susan dame green and also next week. Thrift shops, ops. Should your non-profit have a thrift shop as a source of revenue? What are the implications of doing that, and how do you get started? I’ll be joined by shevawn weber, who has a lot of experience working in thrift shops and managing them. You can get our insider alerts aboutthe show and see where my live appearances are on our facebook page. That’s ah, tony martignetti non-profit radio on facebook. Dot com, the creative producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff, the owner of talking alternative broadcasting, his sam liebowitz. Today, we have a guest line producer. I’m grateful for his help. Freddie fuko. Social media is by regina walton of organic social media. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. Join us next friday, one p m eastern here at talking alternative dot com. Durney e-giving didn’t think dick tooting good ending things. You’re listening to the talking alternate network to get you thinking. 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You’re listening to talking on their network at www dot talking alternative dot com now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing effort. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is we do whatever it takes to make our clients happy contact them today. Admission one one media dot com. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. 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