508: End Of Year Fundraising – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This Week: 

End Of Year Fundraising
Jen Frazier talks you through. What do you want in your workplan? How does the pandemic impact your strategy? It’s a comprehensive convo for your 4th quarter. She’s founder of Firefly Partners.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

489: Leadership & Donor Advised Funds – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week: 

Leadership
In two recent shows, guests agreed that Amy Sample Ward represents a shining example of vulnerable leadership. So who better to speak to about leadership—whether in a crisis or not? She’s CEO of NTEN and our technology and social media contributor.

Donor Advised Funds
Let’s relieve the misery of DAFs. There may be a lot you cannot find, but you’re not helpless. Maria Semple has advice and resources for finding and reaching the funds. She’s our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder. 

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

455: Online Major Giving & Online Adversity – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week: 

Online Major Giving
Do you have web forms for your major donors? Our 19NTC panel hashes the pros and cons of automating major giving and—if you decide to expand to online—how to work around the obstacles. They’re Adam London at Project Donor Love; Carrie Rice from Carrie Rice Consulting; and Anneliese Davis with Rahab’s Sisters.

Online Adversity
How do you maintain personal and organizational values when people are screaming at you in the social networks? Burt Edwards, our panel of one from 19NTC, shares strategies and systems that keep your staff, supporters and social ambassadors safe when they speak out online. He’s from Friends of the Columbia Gorge.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

440: Small Dollar Donor Power & Donor Retention – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week 

Small Dollar Donor Power
Small dollar donors are shifting the digital fundraising landscape. Our panel reveals basic principles of running a sustainable program online. They’re Sara Kerrigan from ActBlue and Carrie Mann with Friends of the Earth. (Recorded at 19NTC)

Donor Retention
Now that you’ve got new donors, learn how to keep them with you: Avoid retention pitfalls, leverage technology and track the right metrics. Our teachers are Laura Cole and Paul Habig, both from Sanky Communications. (Also recorded at 19NTC)

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

437: Reduce Donor Abandonment & Welcome Your Donors The Right Way – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week 

Reducing Donor Abandonment
From Amazon to Zappos, there’s a lot you can learn from e-retailers to keep your donors in the checkout stream as they make their online gifts. Our 19NTC panel, Matt Scott and David DeParolesa, reveal proven e-commerce strategies to increase online gift completion. Matt is from CauseMic and David is at Give Lively.

Welcome Your Donors The Right Way
Your donors now complete their online gifts at record rates. Have you got in place a multichannel welcome and nurture series to receive and steward your new donors? Our panel will get you started. They’re Brenna Holmes with CCAH and Chrissy Hyre from Innovation. (Also recorded at 19NTC)

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

431: Retain Your Subscribers – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2This week:

Retain Your Subscribers
Is your churn too high? Conversion too low? Credit card problems getting in the way? Robert Skrob is author of the book “Retention Point,” and he reveals strategies to keep your monthly sustaining donors engaged – for life.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

372: Free Coaching In 2018 & Maria’s 2018 Plan – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Curtis Springstead, head of northeast New Jersey region of SCORE. 

Also, Maria Semple, our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder. 

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

340: Healthcare Funding Options & Shared Leadership Options – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Chris Labbate, regional executive vice president at Marsh & McLennan Agency.

Also, Gene Takagi, our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

325: Grow Your Sustainer Revenue & Protect Your Donors’ Data – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week: 

Allison Weston & Chrissy Hyre, from Chapman Cubine Adams + Hussey. 

Also, Tracey Lorts and Joshua Allen, both with Greater Giving. 

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

089: Get Monthly Givers & Strategic Organizations Raise More Money – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Bob Wesolowski, president of Caring Habits

Starita Ansari, president and chief change officer at MSB Philanthropy Advisors

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

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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s friday, april twenty seventh twenty twelve i sincerely hope you were with me last week. I’d be devastated to learn that you missed the to melanie’s. Melanie schnoll begun from morgan stanley we talked about how to look good when you’re recruiting board members and die end of the day. Melanie west from the wall street journal writes the donor of the day column. She and i talked about how to pitch her to get your donor’s covered in that column this week. It’s get monthly givers bob wesolowski, president of caring habits, helps you get habitual monthly donors through electronic funds transfer. You may know that as ft, who were the best prospects and how do you ask them? How do you upgrade donors? And when should you say thank you that was pre recorded at philanthropy day two thousand eleven, hosted by the westchester county chapter of a f p also today, strategic organizations raised more money. Starita ansari is president and chief change officer at msb philanthropy advisors. She wants you to organize thoughtfully around your mission. Looking strategically at your inputs, outputs and outcomes to boost your fund-raising revenue that’s also pre recorded at flying through the day last year on tony’s, take two between the guests. I don’t know what’s going to be on my block this week because i’m recording in early april, but i will look back at a few recent posts. You can use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us on twitter. Right now, we take a break and when we come back, give monthly, get monthly givers, stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. 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 crawl. Offset. 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. 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, geever. Oh! Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio. Now i have pre recorded interview get monthly givers, and here is that welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of national philanthropy day, hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals westchester county chapter with the edith macy conference centre in briarcliff manor, new york. I’m with bob wesolowski he’s, the founder and president of carrying habits, which is dedicated to building and operating monthly e-giving programs with elektronik funds, transfers and bob’s conference topic is techniques in monthly giving bob wesolowski welcome. Thank you very much. What do non-profits need to know about just generally before we get into details about monthly giving? What? What are they not doing that they ought to be doing? Perhaps? Well, i think the big secret for for this group is that many organizations have heard about monthly giving programs. Goodness knows they’ve been around since the early nineteen eighties, but many organizations have stayed away either because they think they need to be larger or because they think they need tohave more technology to do it successfully and that’s just not the case. Okay, so what can the smaller organization due to encourage monthly gift? Well, i think there are two groups within the smaller not-for-profits i think in in every case all organizations have a core group of constituents. They essentially make a contribution every time you ask. They may be donors, they maybe board members, they maybe folks who are somewhere in between. And so the first thing that will do is help the client identify who those particularly loyal donors are and work with them first. Ok, so loyalty is where you want to start in developing your prospect. That’s, right? Monthly giving that’s, right? I think we live in a world of finite resource is in a in a perfect world. You could send solicitations to all of your donors all the time. But with with finite resource is you have to pay, choose your battles, all right? And when we’re looking at loyalty, which i’m sure is determined by the consistency of the giving that’s correct over many years over is that right? Not necessarily. I think typically when you start to look at a group that says, where should we go? One of the things that will look at is data over the last twelve to eighteen months and will help to identify those donors who have made perhaps two or three contributions over the last twelve to eighteen months and that’s generally pretty good starting point, all right, and only interested in the size of those contributions or does it could be very small and still qualify as a prospect? Duitz this process is geared mohr towards lower donors, donors whose annual giving might be, at a minimum twenty five to fifty dollars, and certainly no more than five hundred dollars. And the reason we put a limit on five hundred dollars is that in many cases, once you get into that kind of atmosphere, those donors are mohr important, they feel more important, they need to be stroked a little bit. Mohr and in general, they don’t like the anonymity that goes with the monthly giving program. All right, are we interested in ages that important in developing our prospect pool? The only if a number assuming non-profit has the well i know relies a lot don’t, but assuming they do have a jj age is an important consideration agent demographics is important when you consider whether you’ll all for the donor, a recurring credit card contribution or a recurring funds transfer contribution. Okay, but the key factor is loyalty to the organization. Once you’ve got that loyalty than their candidate, once you start to look at the demographics, then you’ll have an idea as to whether you want to offer your donor’s credit card or funds transfer or both. Ok, maybe we’ll talk about how to segment in in a few moments, all right, so we’ve developed our prospect pool. We know we don’t have to be a large organization, we don’t have to have special technology and sophisticated technology. What do we do now? We have our prospects pool identified. We have found that most organizations get involved with this through a direct mail campaign. They’re certainly larger ones that do telemarketing, but direct mail is generally the best way to start with us on dh it’s a simple, simple ask the kind of thing that these folks duel the time now there’s some clients who may d’oh three or five four direct mail appeals per year, there are others who do eleven or twelve buy-in if the group is doing fewer solicitations per year, let’s, say, three or four, we’re certainly not going to suggest that they devote one entire repeal to monthly giving. What we would suggest is that this is included as an option. On the other hand, if a group is doing ten or eleven or even twelve direct mail’s solicitations in a year, there are so many going out that in that case, it’s generally far easier to dedicate one of those solicitations to a direct mail campaign. All right? And if it’s not a dedicated direct mail piece about monthly giving, can it be a simple as as a ps yes, in a letter. So how would we would we work that a little? Well, i think what what happens is that and it’s kind of interesting if you go back and look at the pbs and the npr market has, in contrast, goodness knows they’ve been doing this for the better part of two or twenty or thirty years. And i think where a lot of those organizations tend to fall down is that they look at the program in terms of the benefits to the donor. It’s easy. To do no cheques to write no stamps, to buy no trips to the to the post office, in fact, they are particularly core reasons to contribute to an organization. All giving is his mission mission based. And so the first place to start in that solicitation is if you become a monthly geever you help us lower our administrative expenses, if you become a monthly giver, you give us income that we can rely on month tomorrow. So there’s, this kind of fund-raising is no different than any other fund-raising we don’t, we don’t rely on the ease of giving when we’re saying send us a check, you know, or there are, or the ease of giving in other ways, i mean it’s, it’s, mission driven, it’s, almost love of the organization. And by the way, here’s an option that happens to be easy. That’s. Exactly right. Ok, so we can do this in a ps we could say your gift this your gift could be a recurring gift. Would you then include a form for people to fill out? Or is it better to drive them to a website toe? Have them sign up there for monthly giving. Or what’s the best. You certainly want to include the form because donors tend to respond to the media in which you, you contact them. If you give them direct mail, they’re going to respond to direct mail. If you contact them with an email blast, they’ll respond on on the web. Okay, so you certainly want to do that it’s also important to because over the years the banks have been particularly effective in convincing donors of and organizations about how wonderful credit cards. In fact, we have seen changes so that there are different requirements to enroll a donor with funds transfer as opposed to credit cards. That is to say, if somebody wants a recurring gift with a funds transfer that is out of their checking account or savings account, there needs to be a signed authorization in place for credit card you can simply click through. Yes, this is what i’d like to dio and it’s over and done with the garden tending the ending the ending ding, ding, ding you’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. E-giving you could 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. Dahna hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. 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 talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m kate paler, executive director of dance, new amsterdam, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Yeah, let’s, go back to something you mentioned earlier about age being a factor in whether you’re asking someone to do the credit card or the electronic funds transfer from a from a checking account. How does that how does to break down across ages? In in general, what we have found is that donors who are younger, better educated, maura, fluent mohr, disposable income i prefer elektronik giving that is to say, credit cards. Donors who are older, less well off clearly go for funds, transfers. And so, for example, if i would look at a typical catholic client where the age of the donor population might be average about seventy two, seventy three years old, i wouldn’t be surprised if seventy percent of the donors gave with funds transfer as opposed to credit cards. On the other hand, if i was to look at an organization like the union of concerned scientists or some of the other groups, you might expect to see a fifty fifty split. Or you might even see sixty, forty or seventy thirty split in favor of credit cards. And is that just because the older population is less comfortable revealing credit card information? That’s. Exactly. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, we in an interesting side note we were work with a church congregational church up in aa connecticut. On one of the things they found is that the five o’clock service every day, every sunday was the one that was most crowded. They would have a couple of hundred people in there. That was the one with the younger folks and their role in their thirties. They all had the three year old, four year old five year olds. When it came time to pass the plate around. Even though that’s where most of the commissioners were, those collections were the lowest. Everybody had debit and credit cards. When we introduced a monthly giving program for them, contributions went way up. Where do you find roughly the age demarcation line between willingness to do it by credit card or preferring the electronic funds transferred by checking account. Roughly. Where does that age breakdown? Somewhere in the fifties? Okay. Okay. All right. So we were, uh we were talking about the marketing of really, the solicitation of this direct mail is your preferred method. Can you can you can this be successful? By through email solicitation or that that was not, it certainly can. And in fact, one of the things that i’m going to talk about my presentation today at the conference is that there are any number of organizations out there who have one line giving capabilities and somewhere along the way, someone suggested that they include a monthly giving option in there. Some of these groups would would argue that because they allow monthly contributions, they have a monthly giving program. I would differ with that because in many cases, yeah, you have monthly monthly donors out there, but it’s not really a programme groups don’t know what to do with them, they don’t know how to solicit them, they don’t know how to upgrade, they don’t know how to include them in their program. So it’s just starting to feel their way through. I’m with bob wesolowski, he’s founder and president of caring habits. We’re talking about monthly giving, and i want to tie this into something that i saw about doing earlier here on the exhibit floor, bob was fly tying and he’s a fly fisherman and he’s going out on sunday, we’re interviewing, we’re talking on. A wednesday and bob your comment was that the if you if you do your own fly tying, you’ll pay more attention to what the fish are are after is that? Did i get that right? And that’s exactly right? Okay, and i see an analogy in fund-raising i think if you’re if you’re writing some of your own feels you’ll think more about what your donors and prospects are interested in hearing. That’s true, i think you have to know your donor’s a lot better if you’re going to be writing the copy yourself. Okay, so we’re fly fishing for ah moflow e-giving donors we are okay. We’re looking for the players out there and and i’ll confess that when i saw above on the exhibit for doing the fly fishing time fly tying, i thought he was making jewelry. I thought he was a jewelry maker because he had these precise little tools and a light and a little vice holding his the piece he was working on. I thought you were making hearings, but no, not this time. That’s how much of a sportsman i am right? My head is somewhere in a jewelry store. Let’s, see? So then we now have our donors. How how do we thank monthly donor? Do we thank them every month? Is that annoying? How do we go about stewarding these donors that we now have? We have seen a distinction between our religious clients and non religious groups in terms of how they thank donors. I think by and large, if you look at the religious organizations that we work with and that’s roughly fifty percent of our clients, they feel compelled to send a written acknowledgement every month. Even though these charges will appear on the donor’s, a credit card statement or bank statement, thes groups have been doing these hand written acknowledgments or some kind of acknowledgement for decades and it’s very difficult for them to get away from it. On the other hand, when we look at the non religious groups, i think there’s an implicit understanding by the donors that this’s recurring they do not want to get thanked every month. And so, as long as they see that acknowledgement on their credit card statement each month that’s. Fine. I think the other thing that also happens for some of the larger religious groups is they may start out on that path of giving monthly acknowledgments, and in some cases it may take a year, two years for five years in some cases where they finally get enough negative feedback from the donors who say enough alr right, we know it’s gonna happen every month. Save your time saved savior effort. Don’t bother with this stuff. We know it’s going to happen. What about an annual thank you letter? Something like that right at annual is absolutely very important. Very important. You guys, i think you don’t want to be the organization that that cultivates and solicits and obtains a monthly giving process. Donor-centric to say thank you. Just i know the gift is going to come, so why don’t i have to say thank you once a year? Yeah. And i think what’s really important about it is that once you get a donor who becomes a monthly donor, i think it enables you to change the nature of the relationship. If if you look at a group that’s doing four five direct male contribution solicitations each year, every solicitation is give me give me give me it’s it’s a constant ask once you have. That monthly donor, you know, that they’re going to be there for years in most cases, and so you don’t need that constant ask you can begin to provide mohr programmatic information and begin that upgrade process. Okay, so that’s important too? So someone starts at ten or fifteen or twenty dollars a month. Over time, you’d like to be able to upgrade them. Tio i guess twenty five or fifty dollars? Absolutely. And when is the right time to start that conversation after they’ve initially committed to the monthly donation monthly gift? When is the right time to talk to them about the possibility of upgrading? In our opinion, that needs to be either on their anniversary or a program anniversary and let me provide an example, i think you know, if you’re going to be doing sending these things out let’s use example again afore five direct mail solicitations in a year, you don’t want to be as a fundraiser, you don’t want to be in the position of having all of these anniversary’s coming up throughout the year, so typically what a client will do is is group everybody in and say june one, march one that that’s going to be our anniversary date so everybody who was in the program, graham as of that date that’s their their anniversary program and later on today, i’m going to be doing this this presentation with a client buy-in pat chambers daily who’s with the dominican sisters in amityville, long island and the way said they set up their program, they do the solution solicitations every march. All right, donors tend to enroll somewhere between march, and by the end of may or june, they’ll get a group in there on let’s say, we’re in march two thousand eleven. March two thousand twelve will be their first year anniversary because they consider march to be their anniversary month. And then when their two year anniversary march of two thousand thirteen, everybody in the program gets an upgrade, and so they’ll figure the two years into the program, the donor’s comfortable with with what they’ve seen there in the fold. And now you can begin that upgrade process. Okay? And how much is it appropriate to ask them to upgrade to or do you give options? How does that work groups do it in different ways? But if if you’re a small local not-for-profits it’s. Not uncommon to ask for ten percent or flat. Twenty percent. Great. When? When pat started her program nine years ago, it was simple. Would like everybody to upgrade twenty percent. Okay, um ah. Is it appropriate to ask the donor tto decide how much they’d like to upgrade? Or is it better to give them a target? Teo shoot for it depends on the resource is available. There are a lot of clients out there. Smaller organizations that just don’t have the resource is toe late. Laser in specific e-giving amounts. Okay, from a direct male perspective. That’s. Right. So if they’ve got the capability to do that, then certainly they will laze iran e-giving amounts. If it’s a smaller organization, then they’ll simply go in with that percentage amount. Okay, for center, ten percent. Ok, how do we handle the fees there? Are there going to be fees that the charity is going to be paying on these credit card transaction shins? How do we handle that? With respect to the crediting of the donor? Do they get credited for the net or just or the gross gift? As an analogy? Let’s take a check deposit if a donor writes a check to a not for profit, not for profit does not deduct any banking fees associated with that. They credit the donor for the full amount, and the same is true for monthly giving programs. Okay, if i give if i give ten dollars, i get credit for ten dollars and you’ll get credit for a hundred twenty dollars for the year. That’s exactly right? And any banking costs is simply their cost of doing business. Ok. All right, what else should i be asking you that? What else would you like to convey about the annual giving one of the monthly monthly giving one of the things which is also very, very important about this is that, um, assuming the client is brave enough to go out with these upgrades and i say brave enough because often what clients will find is that the average upgrade amount going from a one time donor-centric upgrade amount that we’ve seen over the last twenty some years is about an eighty five percent upgrade. So a lot of times and not for-profit will look at that and say, oh, my goodness, look at tony. That’s more money than we ever thought we would ever get from that guy s so when it comes time to upgrade their say, how, how is it possible that he could give more and so there’s an awful lot of reluctance. Once we get the client over that hump, there are two parts to that successful upgrade. The first is to ask, but the second part is a soft ask, which says, i’m sorry, i can’t upgrade my monthly contribution at this point, but i’d like to make a one time contribution. Typically, clients find that when the donor makes that one time contribution, it is as large or larger than what the upgrade amount would have been. They back off from that simply because there’s a bit of reluctance to make that long term commitment at that point, but they still want to make the contribution to the organization so it’s important to give that option absolutely and in fact, one of the things that pat’s going to talk about today when she finally started providing donors with that soft ask the onetime contribution on there, she has found that in every year that she’s done that and it’s been eight years in a row. There have been sufficiently large contributions that they have paid on their own for that appeal. Okay, excellent. What concerns you, bob about? About? Ah, annual giving monthly giving. I’m sorry, whillans e-giving that we haven’t talked about what? Well, maybe looking into the future. What? What concerns do you have for non-profits that are that are doing this for thinking about doing this, particularly for smaller organizations. One of the real concerns that we see is credit card security and credit cards are excellent. Yeah. Over the last seven or eight years, the credit card company, starting with visa and mastercard, including amex and discover, have put in place a set of security standards. Pc i the payment card security standards, which govern everyone who touches a credit card. Processors like ch i not-for-profits software manufacturers, hardware manufacturers and everybody who touches a credit card has to live by the standards. One of the things we find, particularly among the smaller groups, is a rather cavaliere concern about credit card security. They’ll get the credit cards in, they’ll process them. They may not keep them in a locked vault area. Now we have a credit card number. We have its expiration date. Women. Maybe maybe we have the secure code on the back. That’s. Exactly. Religious code. All right. So now these pieces of paper let’s say hopefully they wanted some kind of standard form. But now what we gonna do with these forms? What are people doing? What should they be doing? Well, what they should be doing, what we counsel is to keep those forms for about sixty days, because that will give everyone involved an opportunity to process the contribution and let the donor sayid on their statement. So that’s that’s one poke a bit and just mentioning that now we’re keeping it for sixty days, keeping it secure. So we walked. It should be locked out on someone’s desk or in an inbox. Right? That’s. Exactly right. What some clients are also doing is doing a two part form for their needs where they will have the name and address in the mount of the contribution on the top of the form and on the bottom they’ll put the credit card number and the expiration date. And after it’s processed, they’ll cut off that bottom portion of it. And do a confetti cut through a shredder on the sensitive information. And even i like to really get into detail a confetti cut, not a not a quarter inch strip cut that it’s got people could piece together in five minutes of will. Okay, we have just about a half a minute left. What else did you want to say about the security issue? The other part is that under no circumstances should any credit card information ever be entered onto a pc and excel spreadsheet a database, because when machines get old, they get tossed in the trash. And who knows what happens to those hard drives? Bob wesolowski is founder and president of caring habits, which is dedicated to building and operating monthly giving programs with electronic funds transfers. And we also know that he’s, a sport fisherman and expert fly tire bob wesolowski. Thank you so much for being a guest. Thank you for having me. This has been tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of national national philanthropy day hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals, westchester county chapter my thanks to bob wesolowski for that interview right now, we take a break. And when we returned tony’s. Take two. They didn’t even think that shooting, getting, thinking thing. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, getting anything. 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 lebowitz, 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. Dahna hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. 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 talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back, it’s, time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. I don’t know what’s going to be on my block this week because i’m recording this show a couple weeks early in an early april so here’s a romp through some recent posts, two of them our irs is helping you. I was on my block. Iris has some good education courses and webinars on their site, which is called irs stay exempt, and one of those courses is applying for tax exemption that’s something that we get a lot of questions about. How do i create a charity? What’s the first step? What’s the second step and applying for tax exemption is one of the irs is seventeen minutes web courses a short lesson on getting your five o one c three designation so that you’re exempt from federal income tax and donations that people make, too. You can earn an income tax charitable deduction, another one of their courses on their site is unrelated business income, and i’ve also talked about that here, with jean takagi and emily chan are regular legal contributors again. The irs site is called iris stay exempt. And their links to all this on my block, which is tony martignetti dot com another post from february was respect small donors. I used the example of the new jersey institute of technology that got a five million dollar gift from ah couple that had given just twenty five dollars, a year, and they have been doing that for about thirty years, and j it was very smart to always thank them and developed a relationship with them, and they’re turned out to be a five million dollar gift in the state of the survivor of the and that couple. So a very good tale about respecting small donors. Both those posts are, as i said on my block at tony martignetti dot com, and that is tony’s take two for friday, february twenty seventh, seventeenth show of the year. Now i have a pre record interview with starita on, sorry from the same conference as the previous interview, and here is my interview with her on strategic organizations. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of national philanthropy day, where hosts are the association of fund-raising professionals, westchester county chapter we’re at the edith macy conference centre in briarcliff manor, new york my guest now is starita ansari. She is president and chief change officer at msb philanthropy advisors, and her topic today is why a strategic organization is key to fund-raising success starita welcome. Thank you for having me, it’s. A pleasure. What is a strategic organization? The strategic organization is an organization that understands that passion is not enough in order to fulfill. The mission is an organization that looks at inputs, outputs and outcomes, and make certain that the day today activities are in line with the strategic direction, de fulfills the mission, and eventually, the vision. Okay, inputs, outputs and outcomes. What? What are and organizations inputs. Inputs as an example. Staff finances the thinking, the human capital, the output would be let’s say it’s a homeless oh, program. Okay, so the output would be we fed one hundred homeless people arika but that’s not solving homelessness. That’s a service. But the outcome with would talk about how many people we have placed our strategy and our success and eradicating homelessness. Best outcome. That sounds like there’s going to be quite a process in doing this strategic thinking to become a strategic organization. What what? What is that process like? How does how does this planning and thought process take place? First, one of the core values would have to be critical thinking, being able to evaluate trends in the market and and trends within the community that you are serving. The other piece is making certain that the people that you hyre particularly from a fund-raising perspective is not purely measured on how many dollars that are raised, but whether or not those individuals understand the mission and can communicate the passion. So what that means is that the people who you hyre strategically aligned with the mission and that you look beyond the job description. But you look at the talents that people have that khun strategically aligned with the mission, creating a team based a t jik culture that you would have to assess almost at every staff meeting. So staff meetings are not a discussion about activities. Staff meetings are a discussion about the strategic plan all right? And we’re going to we’re going to talk in detail about some of the things you just raised. But how does all this relate to successful fund-raising? Because that’s, your that’s, your topic out strategic organizations are ki tto fund-raising success philanthropist want outcomes, not outputs? Philanthropists want a return on investment philanthropists i do not want organizations that are chasing after grants to keep the doors open then therefore those organizations ends up mission drift, whether it’s, individuals, funders or the government everyone once out comes, which requires people to be very strategic and cost effective and an efficient that’s what strategic planning does it lets you be cost effective and efficient, and how you’re using money to get where you’re going earlier. Guest on this show has been dr robert penna, who wrote the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Are you familiar with his work and that that book i am not okay is outcomes, assessment or outcomes the attention that outcomes air getting that’s really pretty recent wouldn’t you say within just the past, i don’t know three toe four years or so where outcomes have become so much part of the non-profit dialogue? Yes, before passion and services, you’re doing good and feeling good for decades for generations, that was that was enough, right? That was, that was enough. And then all of a sudden the outcome started creeping in after the enron situation and now it’s ashley, part of the playing field, and so our appeals cannot just be appeals that have you no shows the single female head of household living in a homeless shelter calling on someone’s heart we have to do more than that. People in people are moving from s not meaning services, but s meaning solutions, and another guest has been ken berger, the ceo of charity navigator there now, and other other organizations as well that rank or or assess mission effectiveness for non-profits paying much greater attention to outcomes than then had been in the past, so this is all pretty recent dialogue. But who’s who’s responsible for the strategic planning process is that the executive director’s, that the board is a combination is that the i don’t know, chief fundraiser, the school of thought and theory that msb philanthropy advisors proposes is that strategic planning should be an inclusive process and that you create a culture where everyone understands from the janitor threw the chairman of the board the direction that the institution is going. But most importantly, if someone works for a nonprofit organization that doesn’t have a strategic plan, well, then the vp of institution advancement or director development should push the agenda and create the culture because it’s going to be expected of that person when they are soliciting gifts, particularly the major gifts and a plan gives people want to know where is my money going? Not just today. Three, four, five years from now. So everyone should be involved in the strategic direction for the organization. How do we trickle this down too? You mentioned even the custodian. How do we trickle it down? And then also, how do we continue it? This understanding with people who come to the organization years after a couple of years. After the strategic plan, they couldn’t have been a part of it. They weren’t part of the organization. How do we continue the trickle down the culture and continue it? What i’ve done in my career is that i value everyone when the janet of buildings and grounds you takes the time to talk with everyone internally, to let them know the direction you’re going with your fund-raising you never know who has a relation, shin ship somewhere back and help with the plan that you have for raising money in terms. That’s how you let everyone know part two of your question times what happens when someone comes aboard and after the procedure plan has been developed? I believe in allowing people to bring their talents to the table, show them this a t jik plan and welcome insight that’s one of things i think is important to our success is that we have to move to a model and non-profit sector where evaluation is not punitive and that everyone can have can give a fee back to how the ship is is moving through the waters, and so a new employees should be able to provide feedback and lend insight, but how khun the plan then accommodate that when the person is new to the organization everyone knew presumably is going to have their own insights. How does the plan continue forward if it’s constantly being altered with new in new insights from from new employees? What a plan is not being altered. The goals and objectives are the same. What will alter is additional talent that comes to the table to move the goals and the objectives forward. So everyone, the alumni, the community, the politicians, everyone will know the direction that your institution is moving and everyone hopefully will embrace it and bring what they can to the table. Okay? And if they’re not embracing the mission and the goals, then they it’s probably not the right fit to be working at the organization. Is that right and that’s the point i was making before when people hyre individuals purely based upon pon how much money they’ve raised versus not just the money they raised, but their passion and their understanding, the mission, the goals and the objectives of whatever going backto homes, eradicating homelessness? Well, let’s talk about the hiring process since we’re headed there. How do you ensure that you’ve got someone who is going to be committed to the the mission of the of the organization? When does that does that start out at the advertising stage of the interview stage? The resume screening stage? How do we do this? Make sure we’re getting the right people. We’re going to be as committed as everyone else in the organization, i think it’s important at the job placement stage for and this is going to be challenging. Okay, organize a challenge is good, though it helps us achieve for organizations to be transparent in terms of their core values. That way, you know whether and not that what’s of interest to that individual is of interest to you. Okay, so if there’s space i mean, does this belong in a job advertisement or you really start this kind of transparency at the interview stage? When you’re talking to people the first time you should be on your website, your mission statement should be on your website things that that that demonstrate your vision should be on the website and so people could say, ok, my passion is is social justice after i’m committed to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender issues, black and brown issues. Disability issues, issues of women. I’m committed to making the world a better place for everyone and valuing everyone and valuing, it said. And we’re talking about sort of coming out in the hiring process. Hyre talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free second reading. Learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. 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 fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Talking all calm. Metoo yeah, for may, i would hyre individuals that demonstrate some type of passion, an experience in that area, in addition to being a plan giving officer clearly so clearly, technical expertise is necessary, but your point earlier, it’s not sufficient, correct. Dr starita. Dr starita ansari is president and chief change officer at msb philanthropy advisors, and we’re talking about how the strategic organization succeeds in fund-raising. What about staff meetings you mentioned earlier? It sounds like you’re unsatisfied with the typical staff meeting in a non-profit she’s, laughing. Now you can laugh out loud. I correct, okay. How? Why? Often, people come to staff meetings with a list of things that they’ve done since the last staff meeting. People should come to staff meetings with things that they’ve done to make gold one goal too, an assessment of how long it took to fulfill gold, wine and gold, too. Looking at gap analysis, are we going to meet the delivery ble on the on the time? God, i’m sorry got now on this show, we have drug in jail, so gap analysis it’s okay, you didn’t know, but you’re you’re treading lightly, you’re shutting closely to it. Um, what is a gap analysis on your strategic plan? There you have a critical path, which are the things that must occur in order for goals one and two to happen and let’s say action item three does not doesn’t occur then that puts puts the other goals at risk, gap announces is is looking at where things are falling through the cracks, where there may be human capital gaps because we haven’t hyre someone for position and how that gap is going to impact our ability for the delivery ble and what i’m saying is that staff meetings should should be analytical and should focus on what’s not working what is working and should be so and we should. Celebrate celebrate our successes as opposed to oh, i met with someone at ford foundation i maybe the program officer danny casey, i met this. I meant that i sent out seven proposals it’s clear, now that that sort of really even may be shallow meeting doesn’t promote the work of doesn’t promote the mission orientation in the goal orientation that we’ve developed around our strategic plan, it just becomes a list of activities, like you said, and that’s, what happens? People go through this a teacher planning process, they hire consultants, and the plants sits there, and no one opens the plan to make certain that is involved in the day to day activities, right? So no more of that let’s go around the table until we’ve done in the past two weeks. O r one week since the last meeting. All right, she’s e-giving the hatchet scientist across her neck, which is that’s not i hope it doesn’t mean end the interview. No, i don’t trends you mentioned being ableto assess trends in the marketplace where the non-profit exists. How does how does one how does your organization do that? One way is if you’re in a community. And i’ll stick with homeless, okay? And, you know, there are x number of shelters in manhattan get a sense of what they are doing, what they’re doing well, maybe opportunities for collaboration, what’s your market advantage, what you are doing well, that they’re not doing well. So when you speak to funders, you can communicate your market advantage. Was the trends in terms of homelessness what’s happening because of the economy? There’s an increasing number, single female heads of households that are homeless? What does that mean when a mother and her children are in a shelter? That wasn’t the case before the economy. So that’s a trend that we bets if you’re in the industry, you should be able to communicate the impact that that trend has over the past three or four years on the children in terms ofthe moving around and the ability to perform well in school, because that night in the same school, in terms of nutrition, how does all of that have have an impact on the population that you’re serving? And are we talking here about the executive director of the agency? Or could this be shared with the board? This this type of being out and looking at what’s happening in the community were, i guess, i’m asking, where does the responsibility life for this? In my opinion, the executive director, senor presidente, is the chief fund-raising officer. Okay, if that person is not comfortable being the chief fund-raising officer than the vice president for development, should equip that person with the tools that he or she needs to rise and fly, which means that development officer, or the advancement officer, needs to give the president of ceo the that data, and take the time to train the board on that information. So when they’re doing friendraising, they can speak about the value that their program brings to the community. We have just about a minute and a half left. Starita how about in performance evaluation? We’re looking at employee performance. How does this all work within that? Snusz egypt planning should be part of everyone’s job description oh, really, okay, i think everyone should be responsible, and i think people should be critical. Thinkers and fundraisers should strategically decide who they’re going to cultivate, why they’re going to cultivate that individual what’s the strategy. Look at a question. Which is working? Listen, i’m an annual fund person which works for my institution, is it the fiscal year end appeal over calendar year and appeal so that’s the evaluation piece, and then you take that and you apply that information to your strategic plan on how you’re going to move forward. Okay? Dr starita ansari is president and chief change officer of msb philanthropy advisors. We’ve been talking about the strategic organization and how important being such is, uh, leads to success in fund-raising starita, thank you very much for being a guest. Thank you. It was enjoyable. I’m glad my pleasure. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of national philanthropy day hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals, westchester county chapter. My previously recorded interview with starita ansari my thanks this week, teo, both bob wesolowski and starita and also to the westchester county chapter of a f p the association of fund-raising professionals, especially their philanthropy day organizer, joe ferraro. Next week i’ll be back in the studio on west seventy second street with paul gearan from professional survey group. How do you use surveys as a prospect cultivation tool? Had you craft your surveys? Tto learn what others think about your work i may call that survey satisfaction or maybe survey simplicity or i don’t know, serving up surveys. I’m not sure if you have a suggestion, i’ll take it, but you know i love a liberations, scott koegler keg lor will also be with me he’s, our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news. Keep up with what’s coming up! Sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page. If you like the show, please like the page, you know you can listen live our archive to catch us archive go to non-profit radio dot net, and that will take you to our itunes paige. You’ll see you’ll see about eighty seven shows because i’ve been doing this for about twenty one months. Now you can listen anywhere on your computer the device of your choice non-profit radio dot net on twitter follow me or use the show’s hashtag non-profit radio use at hashtag recklessly our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Our show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday. One, two, two p. M eastern on talking alternative broadcasting, which you always find at talking alternative dot com. I think the dude in the good ending, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get anything? 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