192: Choosing And Living With Your CRM & What Makes A Strong Proposal? – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Lisa Rau, CEO of Confluence Consulting and Tim Sarrantonio, account specialist for Z2Systems.

Cindy Gibson, our grants fundraising contributor and principal of Cynthesis Consulting.

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

144: Grow Grassroots & Divine Devices – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Michael O’Brien, founder and principal of mob advocacy

Scott Koegler, editor of Nonprofit Technology News

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

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No. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent it’s august seventeenth. Oh, how i wish and i hope that you were with me last week i couldn’t stand knowing that you had missed last week’s show working with your small organization board what’s special about working with small shop boards, we talked about setting expectations, recruiting, training fund-raising and assessing your boards capabilities. My guests from fund-raising day twenty twelve were terry billy from the hudson river museum, wendy no adele from yonkers partners and education, and lisa rob, executive director of the new york state council on the arts. Also see the smart cr m system, constituent relationship management. You’ve got constituents, employees, donors, volunteers, clients and vendors. How do you manage your relationships with them? What’s the impact on your prospect management maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, had lots of ideas last week, as she always does this week grow grassroots. Michael o’brien, founder and principal of mob advocacy, knows how to bring people to your cause with grassroots advocacy. How do you activate people who are the grass tops and how do? You engage them, and where do you go to meet potential coalition partners, what’s, the value added for your work. All of that, with michael o’brien. Also divine devices, desktops, laptops, tablets, handhelds. Scott koegler has tips for picking the right device to fit your budget, work, style and personality. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news in our regular monthly tech contributor. Between the guests on tony’s take to help me out and get a free book. My book. I’d appreciate your help with a three minute survey, and i’ll say more about that on tony’s, take two. Use the hashtag non-profit radio on twitter to join the conversation with us there. As always, we take a break, and then when we return, it’s grow grass roots with michael o’brien, stay with me. You didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink, you’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Dahna good joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city in pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller emotional freedom, and greg brayden will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve, save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot order, or h a n j dot net. Hi, i’m donna, and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family, court, co, parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more. Dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever. Join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio where else you’re going to hear those kinds of ideas? Nowhere. Michael o’brien is my guest. He is the founder and principal of mob advocacy, a multi state government relations firm that focuses on helping small businesses and non-profits manage legislative and regulatory processes, he has over ten years of experience managing state and local government relations and political programmes. Michael has launched many national grassroots advocacy campaigns that have impacted legislation and policy at both the state and federal levels. Michael brian, welcome to the show. Thank you. Good afternoon, it’s. A good afternoon to you. I’m glad you’re with us. Well, let’s, let’s define grassroots advocacy. So we know everybody’s starting in the same place. Sure. I define grassroots advocacy as engaging regular people that the typical constituent in order to impact public policy or public opinion. Okay, go ahead. Is there more, uh, just to say that it varies from what’s considered direct lobbying, which is ah lot more heavily regulated and requires, uh, registration process with either the state federal or local government. Right. Okay. But it goes it. Could be that, but we’re going. We’re going to talk about the doing it. The grassroots with the with the average joe, the average right and the average jane. Also, jane is welcome to participate as well. Um all right. How does this, uh, grassroots advocacy? How can it help? Small charities? I think there’s three ways that, uh, grassroot dad? Because he helped out small charities. One, uh, i think grassroots advocacy is often essential to organizational missions. Uh, it’s. Hard to think of. Ah, oven issue out there. That’s not impacted by local, state or federal legislation or regulatory process. Uh, so it’s important for your organization to be involved. Second, it’s. A great way to engage volunteers and donors. Small amount profits are asking people to give money. Um, you know, off all the time, you know, four, five times a year in order to be successful. That has to be part of the process. But it is important to provide some different different ways for volunteers to get involved in different ways for them to have an impact other than giving money. And this is a great way to be okay. And this actually i know. You have another way, but this actually could lead to someone becoming a donor so they might come to your cause and sign a petition or do things that we’re going to talk about and then become a donor down the road absolutely small, small, just like small donors become big donors, small advocates become big donors and, you know, those top advocate said that organization’s looking for ok and even you know, that could become small donors because then small donors have become big donors, has become big donor it’s all part of a spectrum? Absolutely. Then big donors could continue to become grassroots advocates, but they wouldn’t go back to being small donors way. Hope not. No, no, that wouldn’t happen. Okay, and then what’s the other. What else is this important? The third way. It’s. A great way to find new supporters. Er, you know, for for volunteers, donors even those on the on the, uh whose responsibilities include fund-raising it’s sometimes hard to ask somebody who’s brand new to an organization to get money but it’s easy to say. Hey, can you spare five minutes in and send an email to your to your legislator? Can you spare five minutes and signed this petition it’s an easy ask. And once you get those people involved in your organization, you know, they have some kind of interest because they they took that step and got involved. And so it’s a good way to increase your your your database and gives opportunities to call the-whiny-donor further, i love that easy, easy entry point and then also can help new entrance introduce your cause to their friends as well, who who may very well be sympathetic. Absolutely cool. Okay, um, and so you’ve seen this make make a real change. I mean, this really can impact policy and funding in things. I mean, absolutely, i don’t i can’t think of a of a major advocacy campaign that that i’ve been involved with that didn’t have grassroots as as a key part of that, uh, lawmakers, they listened the lobbyists all day long, and they know there’s a bent out there, but when it when it hits home, when their constituents are calling in or sending emails saying, hey, you know, take a look at this that’s that’s when it really hits home, when when it’s people voting for them. Back home have an interest in it. Lawmakers take, uh, take a much closer look at the issue. They do ok, i’ve always you know, i’ve always wondered because i fill out petitions sometimes or send emails and make phone calls, and i just wondered if it really is making a difference. Sometimes you don’t get the feedback from the organization, which i maybe we’ll talk about, but that’s a downside, but but i just always wonder, you know, but you’re saying, yes, people good. What makers do? Listen, yeah, okay, okay, we have just a little less than a minute before before first break. So why don’t we just, um but you just introduce us to the idea of the way social media has helped create these grassroots campaigns to make sure that could be a whole show it and i know what you’re going, you’re going to squeeze it into thirty seconds, and then we’re gonna come back and talk about it more after a break. Ok, the internet. It has completely changed grassroot dad, because just by making making it easier one for organizations to reach their advocates and spread their message, but, uh, you know, making it far easier and cheaper for those advocates to reach out to there to there legislature, especially those in washington. I mean, if you’re in california, used to be a long distance call, uh, you have to go through the switchboard, you know, with the internet, it it’s an email on your getting directly, oftentimes, to stafford, take, who takes care of that issue. Okay, that was well said on, we have live listener love going out to california, a one e looks like a wani california live listener love going out there. Right now, we take a break, and when we return, michael brian stays with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology, no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s, provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s, really going on. What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me, larry. Sure you’re neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio, dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. 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 we are back, and we’re talking about growing your grassroots with michael o’brien. I got some more live listener love. We got a couple of news out their new bern, north carolina knew palestine, indiana welcome and michael o’brien, i’m going to challenge you. If you’re going to use an example, you have to use one from a state where we have a live listener. So, so far, we’ve identified california, north carolina and indiana, and there are others, of course. So please confine your examples to those states. No problem. All right, that was one more time. California, indiana, north carolina. Alright, let’s, continue online. I’m sure there are sites that can help charities create a grassroots campaign. Yeah. There’s. A number of different sites. Uh, both free and, uh, pay sites that okay. That help you grow and manage your grassroots campaign. Uh, let’s. Let’s. Name sametz. Talk about some free ones. Sure. Justin. Detail some great, some good free ones. Uh, there’s a a new company. Fairly new company called pot woobox, which is a a great job with federal legislator. Popped like alternative father. Right? Pio pio. Gop video right now, if you go to pot. Woobox p ot vox there’ll be marijuana legalization advocacy pot box you can you can actually find information about marijuana legalization on pop fox is well, you can. All right. Also smoke a bone box. I’m sure okay, uh, pop fox. Yes, but it is a kind of a new grassroots tool. It measures public opinion. But how many letters going in for and against an issue it free for organizations and individuals, too, to sign up and to help kind of broadcast their message to other potential supporters. Uh, and just recently, the democratic caucus in the house and the senate announced that they’re giving the sentiment feet from pop box tto help, uh, help keep there, uh, caucus informed on public opinion on different issues. Okay. So just as an example of how, how much of an impact this makes you know when when lawmakers air using that direct public opinion data, you know, you know, every letter count, just like every vote counts in elections. Every letter counts in a grassroots campaign. What else you got? That’s free. Uh, bill track fifty and some light foundation and thomas help look at legislation that organizations might be interested. In okay. Agreement that was built. Track foundation and its satellite bill. Track fifty. Bill, check fifty. Pardon me, bill. Track fifty. Fifty dot com. Yes, the sunlight foundation. Some light foundation. Okay, again. And congress dot org’s, congress dot org’s. Oh, interesting. Are they affiliated with with our united states congress it’s affiliated with cq roll call? Actually, what is that? Congressional quarterly. Real congressional quarterly. What? You’re watching? We have jargon jail in tony martignetti non-profit radio, and i will throw you in there. Especially is somebody who’s. Ah, troublemaker. Sorry about that. That that’s, uh, that’s just the name that’s. How i’ve known that this is cq on then thomas dot lock, dot gov and those air great tools to research federal and state legislation. So you can have an idea of what issues you want to take? Uh, take action on. And then, um, i don’t know what of a good free state local advocacy piece, but i know there that there are some in development, so hopefully and they in the coming months, we might have a good one coming. Okay, i’ll tell you why our audience is small and midsize charity. So we’re going to stick with the free sites. And if people want to find the pay sites, i’m sure they can do that. We’re going to stick with talking about the free ones. So let’s, stay online for a little while. What? I mean, you could you could build your own cause site, right? I mean, it’s it’s virtually cost less to put up a website. Correct? Uh, okay. And what should you be doing on that website when you put up your yurt grassroots cause site of the top things you know, make sure your issue is defined in ways that the everyday voter or everyday legislature legislator can understand. Uh, people want to think that our elected officials know a lot about every issue. Uh, that’s just simply not true. They don’t have the time, uh, or the capacity to know everything about your issue. So keep the language simple. Umm, you know, make sure it’s in terms that that an everyday person can understand. Ok, i try to use my grandmother tests. You know, my grandmother can understand it that i’m doing the right thing. Okay? I’m going to stay away from that. I like grandmothers. I don’t have mine with me, but i’m just going to let that go. Listeners may be disappointed, but you can come up with your own retort to michael’s. Grandfather, grandmother, test on why it’s a grandmother test? Not a grandfather test. Okay, what else? What? We should be capturing emails. I’m sure. Right. What else should be doing on this site? Yes, a way for people to sign up for your information. Uh, and, you know, a simple email collection or ah, form where they can add in additional information so you can match them, uh, with their legislator, uh, is important depending on the size of your advocacy campaign. Uh, e mails could be fine. You know, you might want that additional form information. It doesn’t take that much longer for somebody that fill it out. I don’t think it’s a huge deterrent out there, okay. And, you know, third, uh, you know, provide opportunities for your supporters to spread the word. You know what? Twitter with linked in with facebook, you know, just having the send this to three of your friends, you know, using using social media and and that, uh, you know, social media to help grow your your grassroots campaign, those are the three essential pieces, okay? And i see i see that often when i’m asked to sign something on dh then i do it, then i get something back it’s usually from move on dot or ge i get something back saying thank you. Now, please share this and they have buttons to share it on twitter, sharing on facebook, et cetera. Right then, then, validation process and, uh, you know, i know a lot of fund-raising cos there now, you know, kind of using that validation process as well, you know? But, you know, the validation process really helps grow your grassroots process, the validation process being what? Thank you that i’m referring to the they having tony send is sending no doubt, teo friends saying, hey, you know, i support this i believe in this, you know, take a look at it. You know that validation is is key to growing your your your grassroot that base. Okay, okay. Now, if you so if you fertilize your grassroots on dh use lots of, i guess use lots of weed, b gon and adequate fertiliser. Then the grass is going to grow. And you can have these things called grass tops, what are grass tops, grass tops or the kind of the super advocates? So there there’s two categories that i put people in the people who are who are the most passionate, most vocal on your on your issue? Uh, they’re the people who answer every email respond are contacting their legislature legislator hyre uh, they’re important because they’re out there, they’re promoting and and you want to keep an eye on them because you don’t want them to over promoting, go overboard. You want him to stay on message. But, you know, the passion is there. They’re easy to motivate. Yes. The second is the grassroot supporter who’s who’s connected, who lives down the street from their state legislator. Uh, who’s. You know, brother, in law’s, the mayor, you know, those people who have who have personal connections to legislators and the’s air the grass tops the’s the grass tops these these are the grass tops. So you have your passionate, passionate, always their advocates. Then you have the people, uh, who have some real access that your general, uh, general constituents don’t have. Okay, when you marry those two and put them out there, you have a very powerful combination hyre that can hit people in ways that your traditional grassroots doesn’t always said you might not hit the right legislator every time with your grassroots database, but with your grass tops, you might be ableto sneak peek in somewhere where you didn’t necessarily have access reached before. All right? Michael o’brien is the founder and principal of mob advocacy, and we’re talking about growing your grassroots and you’ll find his block at mob hyphen advocacy dot black spot dot com were a little more live listener love going out foreign now tokyo, japan welcome pens burghdoff, germany welcome. You’re going to want to hang out because i’m gonna be speaking german later on. I promise you. I’m speaking german later on. Hang on their pens. Berg, seoul, korea, vienna, austria. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, michael. How do we engage these grass tops differently than we do the grassroots? Uh, well, first of all, they just like, just like your major donors, they do take a little extra cultivation. Um, you have to do that. Prospect research on your grassroots database? Yeah. People don’t always think about it. You know the process. To cultivate a grassroots said forget is exactly the same as the process to cultivate a funder and a major donor. You got to do the prospect research. You gotta do your homework. It’s you know, it’s it’s not always easy, you know, sometimes it starts by you catch an address or you’ll catch a name. And, you know, i wonder if this person knows and, you know, you connect some of the dots, uh, and it takes, you know, the government relations person of the grassroots person or even the executive director reaching out. Say, hey, you know, i saw that you have an interest on this issue. Can i talk to you about it? And, you know, you you start that discussion process and find out, you know, how interested are they? How connected are they? Um and then, you know, just like with the major donor, you know, you make that ask, hey, can you help us? You know, beyond just that five minute weather and oftentimes, if if, if they’re connected and already have an interest in your organization, you know that it’s still an easier asked that then asking for money? Oftentimes i’m going anyway. How about getting other groups involved with you to help you? Other charities? Perhaps? Sure. Coalition work, i think is is important. Individual charity’s only have so many, so many people on the database lists, they only have so many reach, whether you know, whether that numbers, whether geographic area, you know, whether that’s, you know, pinned down by the the, uh, the scope of the mission reaching out to other organizations who do similar work or, you know, maybe completely different work, uh, but still having an interest in the end outcome of of your issue, and i want to make the point that those coalition partners could even be corporate, right? Absolutely. I just think that something really interesting at a local station here where banks had allied with charities because they both had an interesting in preventing hydraulic fracturing that process of releasing gas from the from the crust in shale of the earth because the banks lose mortgage revenue when property values decline, and that happens around hydraulic fracking sites. So so companies had allied with charities. It certainly does. And, you know, even even when they when corporations don’t have a a personal stake, there’s a lot of a lot of corporate responsibility out there. Ah, latto corporations are getting involved in their communities and, you know, when you get those corporations involved, they can help fund from of that grassroots advocacy work and help you no help with the promotion. And, you know, grassroots advocacy is is a generally a low cost, um, product, but, you know, every every little bit is a resource drain on a small non-profit so corporate partners out there can can help with that funding on help, you know, help raise resource is help, you know, provide validation. You do all of those things? Yeah, all right, so just the fact that it doesn’t have to be another non-profit could be corporate, i imagine now, a little quickly because we only have a few minutes left their sights that could help you find coalition partners. Um, you know yes, yes, you know, pop box will will list organizations that are supporting, supporting or opposing, uh, legislation and certainly that’s. A key indicator. You find legislation that you’re interested in, you can look at supporters and the opposition. Okay, pick your side and you pick your team, so to speak. Uh, are there other sites? Uh, you know, not that i know. Okay, i think congress dot orden might, but i’m not. I’m not okay, but and then you could also use too traditional social media, right? Linked in facebook searches? Absolutely. The traditional social media. Uh, find out who is talking about your issue. Um, you know, it’s it’s much easier to research issue advocacy. Now that never given, given the amount people are talking about and the interest in it. Michael, what is it about this work that really moves you? And why do you why do you love this? You know, it, uh, i had always wanted to work, uh, with the non profit in the nonprofit sector. Uh, you know, i think part of it was growing up in a strong catholic family coming back. I always wanted to give back, um, but i also had a passion for advocacy and and politics and government and, you know, helping non-profits to make the impact is is really what drives me. You know, i’ve worked worked for and with several non-profit organizations, you know, doing health care, social justice, education on dh loved it every day. You know i often i feel you know, it’s been a long time since since i’ve actually worked. Uh, you know, i just love my work so much, you know, it’s like i don’t even have a real job. Alright, dahna co-branding grassroots can change the world. Grassroots can change the world. You know, it’s uh, you know, one person at a time. All right, michael brian, founder and principal of mob advocacy. You’ll find his blah but his blogged as you’ll find his, you’ll find him blah, bing at no that’s. Not true. Blogging at mob hyphen advocacy dot black spot dot com. Michael, thank you very much for being on. Thank you for having me. It was great great talking to you. I’m glad you got jordan. Thank you has been my pleasure. Now we take a break, and when we return, we got a little more live listener love going out and then tony’s take two and then scott koegler with divine devices. Stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city. In pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller, emotional freedom, and greg brady will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve? Save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot, or or a h a n j dot net. 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. Snusz you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz durney lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. Welcome back. We’ve got more live listener love going out. Lutherville, timonium, maryland that’s a heck of a town you got there. Lutherville, timonium in maryland, rest in virginia and quebec city in the province of quebec, canada. Welcome, welcome, everyone. Time for tony’s take to my block this week. I’m asking for your help and to show my gratitude, i will give you a free copy of my book. I have a three minute survey on charity registration, which is the requirements in every state and district of columbia that charities register with the authorities in every state where they are soliciting donations. And i wrote a book on this. Oh, and i happen to have the title of the book right here. What is it? What a coincidence. My book is called charity registration state by state guidelines for compliance, and it sells for as much as two hundred ninety nine dollars, depending on the size of your charity. But if you take this short survey, you can claim a free download of the book. You’re your input. Is is that important to me and there’s? A link to the survey on my blogged the post is called helped me out and get my book for free. My blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com? Well, treyz is expected to be, and so if you take the survey, you’ll get get a free book that is tony’s take two for friday, august seventeenth, the thirty fifth show of two thousand twelve. We had a listener joined since the last live listener love, and so before i bring scott in, i want to say hello to serbia. Hello, serbia. Scott koegler how are you? I’m good tony, how you doing? Great, you’re not survey. Are you serbia? No, no, i don’t think so. No, we have taken a wrong turn. We travelling to south carolina today, so but i think when you’re in the carolina, you’re in south carolina. Scott koegler of course, our regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, which you will find that end p tech news dot com and this month we’re talking about devices, scott there’s, tablets, there’s, laptops, desktops, handhelds how do we figure out what the heck is good for us? Yeah, kind of never ending, isn’t it? They used to be a pretty straight decision between desktops and laptops and that for real work. Those air still kind of the main options. But today, you know, you get, uh, tablets and bones everywhere from three and a half inches, ten point one inches on size, and pretty much they’ll do all the same thing. But also pretty much all that same thing is is usually less then, you know, real work. Another one generally don’t have keyboards and those kind of things so let’s kind of segment into those two categories. First foryou, portable before you, scott. Before you do that, i want to point out we know that you are the tech contributor because you don’t just say screen size up to ten inches. You say up to ten point one that extra tenth of an inch makes a difference. We gotta be precise. This is technology was the record demands precision. And scott is the man who delivers it. Okay, i’m sorry. That’s. Any inane interruption? Go ahead. That’s. Right. Um, so again, in the form of unity passes on the kind of work i need to do obviously gonna be sitting in the office. You can use either. And that that decision based you haven’t called back. Scott scott scott, stop for a minute. I’ll tell you what, you’re cutting out kind of badly. Give us a call back on the same number, but eight. One, eight, three, right. You know the number, but use eighty one, eighty three. Okay. And while scott is calling back, i’ve got some more live listener love. Hopefully he, uh he taps quickly on those on the phone. Who else you got? Pittsburgh. Oh, i mentioned pittsburgh, germany. Okay. Um, new york city, new york, new york. Excellent. Finally, somebody from new york. How come nobody from new jersey? Where is my mother? My mother and father are not listening to this show right now. Unless they’re in lutherville. Timonium, maryland. But i don’t think that’s them. I believe my mother and father are not listening. And ah, this week, is there my mom’s birthday and their anniversary? And i’m going out there, and they’re not listening to the show. You believe that? I mean, i may not go. I mean, go, go. We got scott back. Excellent. Scott, i don’t hear him. We have scott in the system. Scott oh, dial. Tone that never sounds good. Do i have to start and punishing my mother again? There he is. There he is. Okay, yeah, i’d rather talk to scott than admonish my mother. I’ll do that over the weekend. Okay, you’re going to break down our devices for us into two categories? I believe right. Let’s start with just desktop laptop as one category. And having said that, both of those generally well, i think, almost always have keyboards and keyboard is really key to the kind of things that people generally call work in an office or latto build it, you know, involves writing text using the keyboard for american trees and things like that and those air really much more suited to that kind of work than our tablets and cell phones and those kind of things. So the soft virtual keyboards that appear on tablets and phones were pretty well, but if you really need to get a lot done, you’re better off just having a keyboard on your hands. Uh, just, you know, more accurate. Better sure, sure. So it really depends on what you’re what you’re you’re functions are what you were like. What your goals. Are for the hardware, right? Exactly. Exactly. So let’s, just talk about the difference in key in, uh, laptops and desktops. One of the key difference of differences. There is the price. So the best tops are generally less expensive than laptops for a similar amount of power. Just because all the miniaturization that is required to make a laptop cost extra money. Okay, i was wondered why the bigger one is less generally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, they don’t care about the size. They’re just, you know, stuff all this stuff and then stick it on the floor. So, uh, so that’s kind of one way to do that. So if you got b b funds and you don’t need the larger screen that’s also available generally with a desktop, then you might want to opt for laptop because obviously it’s it’s portable, and you can take it with you. If you’re not always working at your desk, you can move it. Otherwise other places taken home, take it on a on an event or something like that. So there’s a difference there, of course. Sure. Um what what else? Well, what about software availability? Well, software is always a key and a lot of software, especially non-profit kind of things are going to run on generally windows windows operating systems, so that may even exclude using a mad uh, you need to really check your your software course. If you’re using a cloud based application, then you, khun pretty much use any kind of operating system doesn’t matter whether it’s windows or or mac or even it’s kind of lennox operating system very well. You make a very good point about what what platforms are supported by funk by applications that are important to you, there’s one that i using planned giving that does not support the apple os. So i have to have a programme called parallels on my apple computer to run windows just for that one program, but it is essential, right? Right, see that sometimes will dictate what you’ve done, and of course, once you’ve done that, not only have you spent more of your apple computer, but you spent more for the parallels, right? Exactly. So now you you know you really enough there, so you really need to decide what’s most important to you, and i kind of touched. On one of the reasons for getting a laptop and that is the portability, and so now we start to talk about, okay, what kind of jobs are you going to use that require portability? Uh, one that i think i said was that he’s going to an event on a laptop is good if you’re going to have a table inside you, but if you’re going to be wandering around the event and you want to interact with people, take pictures, maybe dio email sign ups for your newsletters, those kind of things, uh, a tablet is probably the perfect device for that kind of thing, a smartphone, probably a little bit less than perfect, although you can certainly do those things, but again, you get smaller keyboard, you know much a little bit more difficult to use quickly, okay? And there’s so many tablets out there. Besides, the ipad is the google nexus and the microsoft surface. Samsung has one, i think the galaxy i mean there’s so many tablets, yeah, there’s a huge variety, in fact, buy-in while apples still dominates with the ipad, i just survey that the android operating system, which is what’s used in pretty much every town would accept apple and been in windows tablet, so andrew, it is outselling apple on a poor unit basis, so it just kind of interesting. Yeah, yeah. So i know it doesn’t say if any better or worse generally means it’s less expensive devices, they’re less expensive. Okay, um, but at the same time, i’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s the application that counts, you know, if you can get to the internet and you can access the functions that you need, it really doesn’t matter so dahna look at your budget, see what it is that you need those the system that you’re looking at, support the function you need and within your budget, and then go ahead and buy it, you know, they pretty much all work okay and the features on not necessarily just sticking with tablets, but just across all of them. I was looking i was when i was researching our segment on dh i actually do research, i know it doesn’t sound like it, but actually do research for the show and prepare the show. I found something the iphone headphones, you know, the white headphones that you get, and they have a little tiny panel on them built into the built into the wire and there’s ten i found a site that there are an article had ten different things that you could do with that little with that little panel like you could if you tap the middle of it two times that’s to pick up a phone call, for instance, or, like, tap it once and that’ll put a put a phone call through tio to voicemail. When you’re getting if you’re getting a call while you’re listening in to skip a song, you do a triple tap or what? It’s incredible just on this tiny little skinny panel the features on that are available, right there’s? One more hidden one if you stand on your head and you stick it dunaj it’ll actually call your mother, okay? I don’t really appreciate sarcasm on this show. I play things pretty straight pretty close to the vest. Now. Watch, watch. You know, sarcasm is a very dangerous thing. Uh, but you know that point there’s there are many features on many systems, computers and even software, and the rule of thumb is eighty twenty just like, you know, all the eighty twenty rules where eighty percent of the people used twenty percent of the function, yeah, just like you have an iphone, right? I do have that i do, and you’d never do those things. No, i didn’t know that i could ignore it incoming call, buy long pressing the center button twice or so you know, i just i just usually hang up on it, but, you know, you could do that. Yes, i’ve noticed, okay, so what? We’re going to take a break. So when you were little chuckle mode here we’ll take a break, but i want to send more live listener love it’s, it’s pouring in san angelo, texas, san diego, california, rockville center, new york. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We’re talking to scott koegler, the regular regular tech contributor about divine devices were going to keep talking about that subject. Maybe not with scott koegler might hang up on him after this break. Talking dot com. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks band 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. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot com let’s monte m o nt y monty taylor dot com how’s your game want to improve your performance, focus and motivation than you need aspire athletic consulting, stop second guessing yourself, move your game to the next level, bring back the fun of the sport, help your child build confidence and self esteem through sports. Contact dale it aspire, athletic consulting for a free fifteen minute power session to get unstuck. Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. 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. Welcome back, scott kapin did you hang up on us? I am still here. Okay, dear chagrin. Damn. Not yet. All right, now, all these features and all there’s a pact with the stuff that most people don’t use, you have to you have to wonder about what your employees are capable of learning. Well, exactly. And and how much do you want them to learn? How much extra time do you want to put in on finding out things that they may never use? Uh, there’s a big difference between buying a computer to operate your business and one for your personal life. I generally try to minimize the expense and the feature set of business computers because typically, you know, i’ve been unemployed. I need them to do three things. Four, maybe five, generally, not twenty. And if i say i’m buying something for myself on much more liberal in terms of the kinds of features and even the amount of money that i’m gonna want to spend interesting that’s an important distinction. Yeah, you don’t want to be thinking about you don’t want to be making that crossover. Yeah, this is this is for other people to be using to be efficient in your business exactly, and also in terms of employees abilities there, maybe training costs, but actually be hard costs not only in time, but but if, if the saw if the hardware is very different, i mean, you could end up having to pay somebody like the network it altogether, and then to train employees to operate the network and then as well as operate the devices exactly you want to make. It is standardized, as you can within the organization, so that one person could get up and walk in, walk to another computer and do the same job and not have to relearn. You know where the tabs on where the keyboard durney that’s one of the things that happens between pieces and max, although it’s it’s less it’s less of an issue anymore. But, you know, the key and the maki kind of get confusing sometimes for people that try to make that transition, even though the actual applications may run exactly the thing. Yeah, yeah, i see that because my my office computing, his apple and all my clients use windows and i do a lot of work in my client’s offices, right. So i have special challenges anyway. But talk about that’s different show. Okay, there are you have some ideas for sites where we can find reviews. I love reading user reviews. I love that that the web enables that. Well, there’s two things that i would recommend one is just a scene at dot com, which is not really user reviews, but they are there. I’m not going to say that professionally generated reviews, they’re actually automatically generated reviews, so they’re standardized. How they do that automatically is a whole other topic. Fascinating. I used i used that scene. That site, those air not well, there you are, right. I knew they weren’t user reviews, but there isn’t a live person writing these things. Generally, not somebody looks at, um uh, really? Uh, yeah, they are actually generated by automated system. Okay, they pull your pretty well, um, i’m not sure right now they do a good job, but the other is just, uh, just do a search online for a review of this type in review. And then in the name of the product that you’re looking for. And course, the good part about that is that you will get a just a huge list of possible reviews. The bad part is that, uh, most of them will be completely bogus and badly written. You never really know. Yeah, right now does, like amazon dot com. And you could you could go to amazon and read reviews, but not necessarily buy the product from amazon. Do that. Do you know if they do, you have to be legitimate user to review a product on amazon. Do you know you have to? You have to register on amazon, but you don’t actually have to have purchased the product. Okay, so that kind of, you know, in-kind negates some of the reliability hoexter tenses suggest that the credibility is not as high as it ought to be. Okay, right. Okay. But there are lots of consider. Well, there’s consumer reports. Yes. Yes. There are some, uh, some reliable reporting, you know, agencies, they used to be quite a quite a few more. In fact, i used to do computer and software reviews. Yeah, when i was doing, you know, muchmore freelance writing. Um, but, uh, those reviews have have gone away in favor of user reviews, you know? Personally, i don’t think they’re quite reliable is my own my own wonderful ladies? Yeah, well, i can tell you and there’s probably a reason you’re not in that business any longer. Exactly. Yeah. All right. But now, you know, consumer reports, i subscribe to them for a year. I think i think it’s thirty dollars for a year and you can access all their online. Not not to the written subscription, but for the online. I mean, i go to them when i’m going to spend, i don’t know, like more than a couple hundred dollars on something i go to consumer reports their objective. They don’t have advertising. They don’t take advertising dollars. Yeah, so all right. We have just another minute. A half or so before break before we wrap up. Scott, what else do you want? What else did i keep you from saying? I think really the most important issue is, you know, people always asked, you know, help me buy a computer and i pretty much always start out with what’s your budget. Because it’s pretty easy to start looking. And then, you know, feature creep sets in and know what’s another fifty dollars. Here, what’s another hundred years there, and all of a sudden, you know that six hundred dollars desktop computer that would actually do a wonderful job for you terms into a you know, fifteen hundred dollar laptop with, you know who knows what kinds of extra features agree. Okay, same thing is renovating. Same thing is renovating your bathroom. Your kitchen? Yes. Yes, exactly. Don’t you don’t need the stainless steel pulls on the kitchen drawers. When? When grass will do just fine. Right? Alright, tigress. Okay. Excellent. Scott. Good time today. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on. Scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. Which you’ll find it n p tech news. Dot com. Thanks very much, scott. Figure. Thank you. More live listener love joining us boring oregon alcohol in california. I used to go to i want to alcohol in. Once i spent two weeks in alcohol and kelowna, british columbia, canada. That’s two two different provinces. Also, quebec represented outstanding. I want to thank scott koegler, of course, and also michael o’brien for being on the show today. Next week, campaign volunteers rich foss is the author of green light fund-raising we’ll talk about recruiting the best volunteers for your campaign, and jean takagi and emily chan are legal contributors returned with law wisdom from san francisco, have you checked out? Are linked in group odds are you have not because there’s over a thousand listeners and there are not a thousand members of the lincoln group so ajar you have not been there, but you ought to be. Also, i host a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. It is called fund-raising fundamentals it’s, a ten minute monthly podcast devoted only to fund-raising though i have a summer siri’s on grant seeking the latest is relationship building with foundation program officers and the first two in the siri’s were researching foundations and writing winning proposals like this show it’s always experts whose brains on picking for your benefit. It’s called fund-raising fundamentals it’s on the conical website chronicle of philanthropy and it’s also on itunes, continuing to wish you good luck the way performers do around the world because i feel like doing it. I don’t know it’s, just fun last week, you may recall, was from german, the german orthopedic surgeons house owned buy-in bro, because they wanted you to break. Your neck and your leg. Those the germans this week from australia, chuck us. I’m wishing you chalk us because in the early nineteen hundreds, chicken was a special meal and most shows paid performers fees based on how many people were in the audience. So a full house meant that the performers would be able to afford chicken after the show, and one former one performer would peek out of the curtain. And if it was a full house, they would tell the troupe, chalk us, which is the slang for chicken and now it’s used by australian entertainers before a show as a good wish for a successful turnout. So i’m wishing you focus. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is our line producer and also my language instructor from germany and australia and others. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules i very much hope you will be with me next week. That would be the twenty fourth of august friday two thousand twelve one two two p m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting which is always at talking alternative dot com. Hyre co-branding dick dick tooting. Getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network waiting to get in. Cubine 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. 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Hyre 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 are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective be happier and make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking.

130: Donor Retention & More Maria Sites – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Jay Love, CEO of Bloomerang.

Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, consultant in prospect research and author of “Panning for Gold: Find Your Best Donor Prospects Now!”

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

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No. Hello and welcome to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m your aptly named host it’s february twenty second. Oh, i very much hope that you were with me last week. I’d be aghast to hear that you had missed some raise money while some raise hell. I talked about women in philanthropy, with marshals to panic. She was founding editor in chief of contribute magazine and is the new media adviser to the new york university heimans center for philanthropy. We talked about limbaugh and koman leadership roles, traditional giving and how women organized themselves also, pinterest and slideshare amy sample ward returned she’s, our social media contributor and membership director of the non-profit technology network, and ten she shared how small and midsize non-profits khun reap definite value from these lesser known social sites. This week dahna retention j love is ceo of bloomerang we’ll talk about holding on to donors you’ve got because it’s much cheaper and easier to keep a donor than to replace one j has strategies for you. Also more maria sites maria simple, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder keeps up her reputation. As doi n of dirt cheap and free this munch this month, she’ll review donorsearch and list select between the guests on tony’s take two the irs publishes a list of charities that have lost tax exempt status each month, and in march, that list will be longer than it has been other months, and i’ll explain now i’m very pleased to welcome j love he’s, the ceo and co founder of bloomerang and senior vice president of avectra both companies serve the non-profit sector only with tools for fund-raising and communications. He was senior vice president of the arts and culture division at blackbaud. Before that, he was ceo and co founder of e tapestry jay’s, a member of the national board of the association of fund-raising professionals. And i’m very glad that his work brings him to the show. J love, welcome hey, thank you very much, tony it’s, good to be here this morning. It’s a pleasure to have you dahna retention. Jay, why is this important? Well, because it’s it’s continued to fall. The main source of the data that i’ve been referring to so often in the last year has been from the fund-raising effectiveness. Project, otherwise known as f d p that was a combined effort of the urban institute and the association of fund-raising professionals, and they’ve been doing this for the last five or six years and it’s the first time that data of this nature has come directly from the donor databases, so that they’re the charities that have the software that’s in used by the various vendors there now sharing the summary data and being able to tell from that summary data exactly what’s happening and retention of donors from one year to the next. And what it’s quite scary, and that that retention rate has dropped from the low fifties now to forty one percent in the most recent survey. Has it been dropping consistently through the five or six years that you’ve had this pair with a year or two that had held pretty steady? But overall, it’s dropped about ten or eleven percent since the time that the study has been an active let’s just reassure any charities that might be using software. You would certainly know if your data was going to be included, right? And it would have been anonymous ized and aggregated absolutely ill. It is summary, data and it’s part of the licensing with the vendors the very nice part about that is not only does it provide information that people can use, but many of the software vendors are allowing you to compare your results to the aggregate results. So you have a very good idea of how you’re comparing against the national average and like i said, let’s hope that your individual charity is doing better than losing six out of every ten donors from one year to the next because, you know, losing nearly sixty percent is a pretty scary proposition. It means that you have to be on a constant treadmill, bringing in a brand new first year donors and the retention rate for the first year donors is even worse in most cases that’s down in the twenties or thirties as far as three tension for those individuals and the next thing i was going to ask, what you just aren’t used answered it so thie retention rates are falling, which means attrition rates are rising and we’re now at fifty nine percent. We’re now fifty nine percent in the most recent study there and like i said it’s a trend we’ve got to turn around because, as we all know, just like the commercial world, existing customers or existing donors in this case are much easier to keep than bringing in brand new ones because the retention rate is at least a little bit hyre for those folks that have already been with you, do we know about how much this costs, how much it costs to acquire a new donor versus those organizations? Do you know that most people know that the cost to acquire a new donor is usually more than the money is received from that donor in the first year? You don’t get tau ah break even status until the second year in most cases and of course, there’s considerable time involved acquiring new donors versus thanking and keeping retaining existing donors. Yeah, and and there’s some basic things, tony, that people can dio, you know, one of things that we tried, teo, allow software packages to help people to realise is if a brand new donors in and it happens to be above the average doner level that you have, that might be a situation instead of sending out that tired old thank you letter that you might want to pick up the phone and call that person and thank them directly and get to know them a little bit, or try to set up that face to face meeting or get them to come take it to review facility or something, because if there’s a telephone contact the retention rate, doubles or triples and we’re going to get to a bunch of those factors that we know influence, retention. But jay, you’re your background is technology tapestry blackbaud now bloomerang and avectra is this strictly a technology problem or there’s a there’s a big donor? I mean, sorry, there’s a big personal factor to these to these relationships as well, very much so i don’t a relationship there is no different than any sort of a personal relationship, a friendship, and i know in some large organizations there those donors are people that you’re only meet via electronic communications or written communications in some way, shape or form. But even that, as we all know, if you had a pen pal, back when you were in high school, there were ways of building that relationship and taking it to the next. Level, even if it was only through written communications so that you can, you know, have that person on the other end of the receiving and feel like they’re more than just a specific there. There there actually are a person that’s connected to your organization into your mission and their money’s air going tio achieve something different than what they could’t someplace else with those dollars. But as well, technology has a role too. Oh, very much so it’s. Like so many things in life just being able to know what your retention rate iss tends to improve it. You know, i think of the old andrew carnegie story of going into one of this steel mill plants and asking the worker on the line how many of that particular widget or whatever that they made for the day and he took a piece of chalk and wrote it down on the floor and said, you know, twenty one and that was how money this guy did. A shift with the afternoon shift came in it too. Well, what’s that number on the floor, they so well, the big guy was here and they wrote down what they did. Well, that shift, they cross it off, and instead of twenty one, there was twenty five and this went on for weeks, until it was up over fifty, uh, to do that, and it was all because someone was noticing and actually saying, this is the number that we’re shooting for, that we’re trying to surpass, and then not long after that carnegie ah, lock down the steel mill on dh kept all the workers out, but that’s a different story, isn’t it that i was kind of humility at least started a foundation, right? Yes, he didn’t gave lot libraries and pools and lots of public spaces in the in the pittsburgh area, but it was a bit of a baronet. I want that to be any sort of ah, witness are a praise for their for his business practices. I heard quite cruel things came out of that i went to i went to carnegie mellon university, so i’ve heard those stories oh, very much so that haven’t. Yes, all right, so this is quite startling mean, we’re on ly retaining let’s round use round Numbers 16:40 were only retaining forty percent of our donors you’re get, i’m sure, you’re comfortable with the representativeness of the sample that this data is from, you know, just to give you a bit of an idea that this is based upon data coming for about thirty, two hundred charities that in the most recent time period raised just over two billion dollars and fund-raising dollars so it’s, you know, it’s it’s, a small percentage of the total of fund-raising world, but it is a very statistically relevant sample that’s being taken from that group. Now this is primarily focused, i think, what makes gives us so many legs, too it’s primarily focused on the small and medium sized non-profit there’s a few larger ones in there, but the vast majority of the non-profits that are in this represented sample are raising less than ten million dollars per year and most of our below five million. Okay, well and that’s the audience for this show, small and midsize charities jay, we’re going to take a break, and when we come back, you and i will talk a lot about some these factors that we know influence, retention and what charity’s khun due to increase their retention rate and i know you’ll stay. With us j and i hope everybody else does, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? Hi, i’m ricky keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant. If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s, six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s, the 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 welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. J love is ceo and co founder of bloomerang and we’re talking about donorsearch retention this segment, j we know that there are a bunch of factors that either positively or negatively impact retention and there’s a lot of lessons that i think donors khun takeaway, i’m sorry charities khun takeaway from these factors, why don’t we? Why don’t we get started with actually some of them know that that, um charities don’t have a direct influence over, like, like the person’s giving, all right on recency. You know, i can’t break these factors into three categories, tony one based upon financial one based upon activities, and then a third one based upon communications. Okay. And if we take a look at the first one there, as you were alluding to is the financial aspect of it, there are certain things that you can tell that are moving that engagement level or that engagement needle up or down such things is have they made a donation in the last twelve months? Was that donation higher or lower than their previous wanted? They upgraded today downgrade did they make? Multiple donations did they did they support multiple causes or multiple funds within your organization so that they’re, you know, involved in in different ways? Are they doing something in the way of pledging or in a recurring gift mode? We know that someone that has signed a pledge card or that’s giving in a pledging our recurring basis, it’s much more likely to be retained from year to year to year than someone that is not did they come in knowing that they were giving to organization rather than supporting a runner in a race or something of that nature? Some those air, all factors that i think from the financial standpoint can move that needle upper down accordingly. Okay, now charities can have an influence and some of these for instance, you you mentioned earlier if, uh, if an office sees that a new donors gift is above the average, they should you’re suggesting reply with an above average acknowledgement and thank you exactly, you know, do something outside of the ordinary whether it’s pick up the phone, calling them, trying to get a meeting, or maybe a hand written note or a handwritten t s several of the boards that i serve on the first part of the board meeting that we do, each one of us writes out ten handwritten notes during the course of the board meeting to a donor that’s an above average first time donor-centric come in and take a tour of the facility, and you’re doing that in every board meeting you take time begin before every boy, every single board meeting there’s the i’m on the board of the local food bank here in indiana, on the larger food banks, and we have a, you know, sixty eight board meetings a year, and that is part of every board meeting i don’t suppose you’re in bloomington, indiana, with the company named bloomerang are you? Well, we’re actually in indianapolis, indiana way should meet sometime because i’m in indiana very often. Oh, wow, i didn’t realize that’s indianapolis in in carmel, i’m there there quite often. Um, good. So there are other things now you mentioned recurring donations that’s a very positive factor and you’re more likely to retain that donor than then someone who doesn’t do a recurring donation. So how can a charity go out of its way, then to think that recurring versus non recurring donor? Well, i don’t think it’s much as much thanking them in that situation, tony, is it isthe trying to see if you can talk somebody or ah, have them be interested in doing a recurring gift or pledge, letting them know that at the time of making their transaction would be nice to be able to support that critical part of our mission on ongoing time periods, so that if you set that up to do that it’s much more, ah, widely used around the rest the world in the united states, of being able to automatically deduct from a checking account or from a savings account, or even a credit card on a recurring basis. So instead of making let’s, say, a one time gift of, uh, two hundred forty dollars, maybe having twenty dollars, per month taken out with no stop date there, that becomes a way of really having long term retention for that individual, so that may be worth looking into for charities that are not offering that. And if you if you want a lot more information on that. My other podcast, which is for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals look back in the archive of that, you’ll find it on the final on itunes. You also find it on the chronicle of philanthropy website, and i had a guest there named mark, and they are see help ert h e l p arty, and he was an expert in e commerce and talked about online giving and recurring giving and how to set that up so you might look back at that fund-raising fundamentals podcast if you want more detail on how to inaugurate a recurring giving program the way the way j love is explaining, would you like to look at a couple of the other factors here? The activities in the communication once tony well, give me a chance now, jay, don’t don’t take over the show, we’re going to get there, you know the answer, it’s just for that know the answers a quick no, you’re you’re off, we’re i’m goingto have eleven minutes of dead air time now. I had planned to be with you, but i’m voting you off now. Of course. Yes, of course we’re going to talk about activities and communications. All right. What do you have? Under what? Do you have under activities? Well, let’s think about all the different activities that you can track that would be involved with especially and you mentioned with some of your previous broadcast some of the social media, but whether or not someone attends an event or whether they attend multiple events, have they taken a tour of the facility? Uh, those were times of thanks that that happened, but the one night that i think really growing in popularity is all the activities that surround the social media have they posted on your facebook wall, they become a friend? Do they say something about your non-profit with a particular hashtag and a tweet or on facebook or in a linkedin profile for that? Are they? Are they active in some way of promoting your non-profit to do that? And i often think about in the days before their non-profits new tohave like facebook pages and stuff like that, we’re, uh, a very active volunteer. I think it was the american cancer site or something like that turn around found out that there was somebody that already had twenty thousand, you know, people following them are liking them and facebook and they were able to help them bring that facebook page over to there usage. But all those factors, if you can follow those and there’s ways of very easily electronically doing that technology has taken us to a whole new levels where you can be aware of those factors. And it can actually become part of your sierra mere database, knowing that someone has said something about you and giving that a particular value and their engagement level. Now, see, r e m. Of course. We have talked about this on the show, but i want to caution you about george in jail, which i have on the show. See? R e m. I just explained cr m in case listeners may not know. Okay. That’s, constituent relationship management durney aram it’s it’s. A fancy name for a donor database. Okay. And we have had guests on talking about c r m but i like to keep listeners on keep everybody on the same on the same foundation. Um, i think the key difference being instead of just being in a database of pure donors and maybe prospective donors it’s everybody that the non-profit touch is in some way shape. Or form so maybe people that are affected by its mission. It maybe vendors it, maybe suppliers so it’s every single communication interaction that’s taking place indeed. And we have talked about that and some of the platforms that support it on the show. Let’s, let’s focus on some of the things that charity’s can have. The most direct impact on you mentioned earlier tour of the facility, and encouraging donors to do that if they’re especially if they happen to be an above average doner first time, but that’s something that and it’s also a positive when you get the person to do the tour, then that’s a positive attention factor that’s something that a charity khun directly have impact on by extending invitations exactly a standing invitation, but just thinking about what their communications are. Some donors have never heard from their charity except in the form of another request for a donation. It’s always someone reaching out with a hand versus sharing information. So think about it. Perhaps you could set up a communication schedule and actually get back to the person and say, this is how we’re doing. We’re tracking ourselves, and this is how well we’re achieving our mission. And one that’s that’s absolutely magical that i just wish everybody would do is just telling every donor but their money’s air doing what if you can specifically say that those dollars went to this particular activity or this particular fund? And this is what it’s doing? And even if it goes into a general fund, you can just say these air what your money’s are achieving force and just share that information without asking for another donation. People tend to feel very appreciated for that being the case. And and i guess a lot of my experience has come over the years, tony, of becoming much more of a donor myself. And then i used to run an interesting experiment adi tapestry and bloomerang, where i would ask the new employees to take fifty dollars, that we would provide him fifty dollars, and say go out and make five or ten donations to five or ten different charities, and come back to me in three months and let me know who build a relationship with you and who did not. Excellent att those low levels. And what what did you find? Oh, uh, it was there were some absolutely marquis organizations that my employees would stumble upon that even for a five dollar gift, right, they would build a relationship. And what was ironic? Some of my employees are still lifelong donors to those organizations after making that small gift that was given to them to make on behalf of the company. That’s terrific that’s great! Listen, yeah, i just it was remarkable how you do it and i told him to try to mix. I said pick between a few national organisations and a few local organizations just to see what’s going on there because i honestly believe any small non-profit i know a lot of your listeners are in that category, tony. All they have to do is try that express themselves, take one hundred dollars and go make ten, ten dollar gifts or twenty five dollar gift to some national organizations and then just copy what those groups are doing. Find out which ones make them feel the best, and start building that into their own processes that they’re doing it. The local charity. Excellent, that za terrific suggestion in a great use, i think of one hundred dollars you khun khun! Survey, i think survey twenty charities for one hundred bucks, right? I mean, you get to do your own little, many mba, your research project for one hundred or two hundred dollars, and because you get to see every type of communication and i would mail some in, and i would do some electronically and see what the difference is listeners may want teo, listen back to some of the three, four months siri’s that i had with amy sample ward are regular social media contributor about riel engagement using the online networks because a lot of what jay talked about posting on the facebook wall replying to a tweet, etcetera, there’s, their real engagement strategies. And amy and i talked about that over four months of her being on once a month. How to really engage through the through the the social media sites. There’s also things just that people can report to the charity like if they if they keep their communication preferences current exactly things like that in the communication area, if you are able to. If your email system and your communication system is tied into your database, you can check real quickly. Does someone open? My e mails i sent to them are they clicking through to a link senate to read further on the stories? Ah, very important one are they forwarding it on to other people? And, you know, are they lying that you can get all that reported back to you? And it could be part of the data base that you can see, and then you hit upon a real important one there? If someone has taken the time to let you know that their address has changed, either their electronic email address or their mailing address has changed. Boy that’s a very special person you want to put a big red gold star something on that? Because that person, if they’ve taken the time to let you know that their address has changed is is probably four to five times more likely to become a major donor or a legacy donor to your organization in the long run, because they care that’s, they’ve done far out of the ordinary what anybody else would dio that’s so interesting because it’s it’s purely ministerial, they filled out a reply card with an updated phone number or address or email address. What can a charity? Do i mean, should there be a thanks for keeping current with us? I mean, because typically now i think the most charities doing nothing, that it goes to the database administrator, the donor services team, the database gets updated and then that’s it. What could we be doing? So i think that record person gave mark that this is someone who took the time out of the ordinary to do that, and that should be made to the attention of either a gift officer or fund-raising person or a plan giving person so that they can reach out and just try to get to know that person. Because if you combine the two, if that’s someone that’s been eh, multiyear donor, even at a small level, and has let you know that ah, and many of you out there i know have read the book the millionaire next door. That may be a good chance that that person falls into that category and could be a very, very substantial legacy donorsearch sometime down the road for your organization here we have just a few minutes left. Let’s talk about your the communications factors that we’re aware of. That we that we haven’t talked about yet, what are some of those that possibly a little bit of the people that have, you know, that opened up your emails and different things of that nature? Another big communication factor is if you can find out who has visited your website and who has downloaded information, i think every non-profit website should give people reasons to come back. That means that there’s got to be new content on there. Ah, and that could be something as simple as block post from the executive director or from other people within the organization are case studies or case histories, but i always love if you make available documents to download. This is this is a document that tells you about our mission that tells you about our performance metrics, what we’ve been able to do to achieve our mission. If there are pds and different types of documents in background information, annual reports, quarterly reports thinks that nature people love that, download them and look at them, particularly folks, that aaron, that the higher level of donors categories to do that, so being able to track those communication activities and then being wired into your front desk or your receptionist, anybody that calls your organization that should always be marked in the database to know that this person has reached out and actually dialed our organization, whether was asking for information or giving us information or something of that nature, those are people that are communicating with you and that’s half the battle. Yes, these air excellent on dh, very simple strategies. Really j we have just about a minute left. I have to ask you, what is it you love about the work that you’re doing, being able to help all size non-profits do their job better because if you could, i’d have hanging on my wall, something that my daughter created for me when she was in the elementary school saying that my dad works helping further missions of non-profits and i still have that hanging in my wall today, and it will always be part of my life, i think. J, thank you very much for being a guest. You’re welcome. Thank you, tony. My pleasure. J love is ceo and co founder of bloomerang, which you’ll find at bloomerang dot co real pleasure. Thank you very much, jay. Thank you very much money. But when we return, it’s tony’s, take two and then maria simple mohr, maria sites. Stay with me, e-giving. Anything tooting, getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. Cubine are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? 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Lively conversation. Top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m janna agger’s, senior vice president, products and marketing from blackbaud. Yeah, hi there, it’s time for tony’s take due at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. I wish i could send live listener love today, but we’re pre recorded, so i cannot do that. I know you’re out there live listeners and i do love you, but i just don’t know where exactly you are this week. My block this week is expect expanded i arrest revocation list in march. Since june two thousand eleven, the irs has released a monthly list of charities whose tax exempt status has been revoked because they didn’t file the annual form nine, ninety or one of its cousins next month’s list march will be larger than usual because the irs is changing the admission standard for getting on the list. It’s not it’s, not like college. This is it’s getting easier to get onto this list not like colleges. Starting next month. Charities, they’re going to get a one month notice that they’re facing revocation and up until now you didn’t get on the list until you were already had been revoked for six months, so you can see next month is going to be a seven month catch up all this. All the ones that are leading up to six months, plus the ones that are one month away from revocation and there’s a lot more information about that on my blogged, including a link to get your tax exempt status reinstated. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to be on this revocation list, my blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, february twenty second, the eighth show of the year. You know maria simple she’s, a prospect, find her she’s, a regular prospect research contributor she’s our doi n of dirt cheap and free resource is she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research? Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now exclamation mark and you can follow maria on twitter at maria simple fremery a simple welcome back. Hey there, tony, how are you today? I’m doing very well, thank you. Good to have you back. Thank you. You have our doyin has two, two sites why don’t you just give a little overview of what we’re talking about this week? So this week i’m talking about two. Sites that have both a free and a fee based component to them so one will help you both with your reactive and proactive prospect research, which we’ve talked about the house in terms of lives buy-in sorry, no, yes, we’ve definitely talked about proactive and reacting, i would know that’s beyond jargon jail. Now we’re way past that, okay? And then then, you know, and then the other one is really about proactively trying to seek a new new prospects. I’m constantly approached by non-profits that say, you know, we really feel like we’ve tapped out our current donorsearch list and, you know, we’ve done the research and so forth on our list, but we just need to get some new names into the pipeline. So came across an interesting product that i thought might be helpful to at least discuss on the show. Okay, on the first one of these is donorsearch donorsearch yeah, so this is a company that does in depth prospect research, so they are there’s a number of competitors out there that do this on dh donorsearch is based in maryland, and they have they have both a c and a a free product. So i thought we’d start off, at least by talking about the free product first, if you want to do that, what’s the earl for donorsearch first. Well, it’s donorsearch dot net, however, for the free piece. It’s donorsearch lead dot net flash integrated search. Okay, so i’ll make sure that we get that up on to the lincoln. And first yeah, why don’t we do that for both of these sites? Okay, so let’s talk about the free part first for us. Donorsearch so for the free part, you would put in an individual’s name, this is under the assumption that you have maybe an event that you’ve had or maybe a new donor prospect name has been brought to your attention, and you want to do some in depth research on them. Or maybe you have an upcoming cultivation event, and you’d like to know about person in advance of the event so you can put in there their name, whatever you know about them already there named contact info. If you happen to know the company they’re affiliated with, you can put that in there as well and then hit the search button and what it will. Do is it won’t show you the search results on the screen, but it will email you basically, ah, profile of that individual. So it’s really, you know, a quick and easy way to get some vast information on an individual if you’re not already subscribed to a service that would be able to do that for you. So you’re doing this one person at a time, right? That’s, right, it’s one person at a time and you know that where, you know the upgrade to the sea bass portion would be useful is if you’re looking to screen, you know, a lot of names at once it’s going to give you that, you know that capacity, but also they have under the sea bass hold on, i want to i want to stick with the free for the free portion for a couple of a couple seconds more. Is there any limit to the number of searches that you can do on the free? So, no, so if you’ve got the capacity or a gn intern or someone willing to sit there and just plunking a bunch of names and and monitor those profiles coming back through e mails. And and certainly that can be done ok? And how robust are the profiles that you get back? What do they look like? So they cross check the types of databases that would give you both a philanthropic data, but also, you know, the traditional sort of wealth databases, so they’ll give you information about both charitable and political e-giving um and it will give you information about property records, dunn and bradstreet types of reports if they happen to be a corporate insider. Um, political donations, i think i mentioned that if they happen to be in who’s who the marquis who’s who’d database there, their biography will come up there also, if they’re connected to a foundation when their director on a board of directors on a foundation, they’ll come up in the guide star report. So there are, you know, a number of touchpoint that are very useful for you to know about, you know, and the thing i always tell non-profits so it’s really, you know, if you if this is for a major gift, you really don’t want to stop, no matter what company you’re using to get these quick profiles from i would never just stop that, you know, try and go a little bit more in depth look for articles in the newspapers and, you know, whatever else you can find out on the internet free or fee based resource is so i think this is a great starting point. Certainly if you have an event coming up or post event, you want to know some more information about an individual, i think it’s a great place to start it sounds like it’s it’s a pretty, pretty robust profile for for free. Yeah, yeah, it really is. It really is. So, you know, it’s definitely worth looking into. So again, if if you want that that website its donor lee dot net forward slash integrated search ok? And how about there a fee based service so they see the service is at the website donorsearch dot net, and already there’s been some information there about the various products they have, as well as their online screening tool. So, you know, if you’re a non-profit or maybe you’ve just taken over an organization, um, that has, you know, somewhat of a mass of a database that’s never been screened, and you’re new to the job and you’re just not sure g, you know, i’ve got to figure out a way to prioritize these folks a bit, you know, you might want to consider a screening through donorsearch or even, you know, some of the competitors companies out there, but, you know, donorsearch does provide screening services well, okay, do you get a more complete profile if you subscribe versus the free report that you get on donors? Yeah, thie sea based reports, the ones that you would get really as part of a screening would include analytics and what they called predictive modeling to try and figure out, you know, it’ll give you some idea about the person’s capacity, and usually when you have a full screening done, you know, your prospects are kind of raided for you, you know? So you’ll know which one’s elevator to the top as being perhaps the ones you want to focus on first. Okay, so you get something that’s similar to a screening, but you don’t have to buy their screening service, right? I mean, if you want to, well, you won’t have the actual predictive modeling and analytics through the free search, you know you have a batch of names i would, i would really suggest you if you’ve got a few hundred names or a few thousand names that you consider doing it through the sea bass portion. Renee offer, right? But i’m trying to get out. If you do the fee based, are you subscribing to their screening service? Or you can still get individual reports that have the predictive modeling in them? Yeah, you know, when these companies offered screenings generally, you also have access to the database afterward, usually for about a year. So this is definitely something to consider, and then i noticed on their website that they would offer a free screening of two hundred current records to kind of test their full product. Um, so folks are interested in taking them up on that particular offer they can go to donorsearch dot net and check out the information it’s right on their home page. Okay, i’m trying to i’m trying to get at one thing. If you’re subscribing to the fee based service you’re paying for it is that on ly a screening option, like in aggregate? Or can you still do searches of one or five or one? Hundred individuals still do searches afterward of you, no additional names. If they come forward, you’ll have that one off. I’ll go in on dh. Can you give listeners a sense of what the fees are? You know, i really don’t like to get into that type of conversation because sometimes these companies, you know, they change and, you know, this is a recorded show, tony, so i don’t want to really get into that because somebody might be listening to three, five years down the line on ice helps on dh. So certainly, you know, product pricing can change, so i think it’s really best for them, tio maybe just take them up on that free two hundred name offer where at least take a look at these free, integrated search tool that they have on day. If it looks like it’s useful to them, you know, they get into a conversation directly with folks donorsearch okay, i’ve been admonished by maria. Simple. I never. I never said that before. Okay, um, so you had you had talked about this as being a way of generating new prospects? Well, actually, the other tool that’s thay this is really this is really donorsearch is for existing names that you already know, right? Right? So this would be for, you know, screening and so forth, so, you know, definitely if they want to take a look at, you know, integrated search on a free bases, they can take a look at what the output looks like i got you okay? And i liked your suggestion of looking at people after an event, maybe it’s someone came to your event because they were invited by by someone who you do know, and now you’d like to find out more about this, this new person, ways to engage them, which the first segment was very much about today on dh you can use donorsearch to do that, i like that suggestion. Yeah, absolutely. I would suggest that to organizations especially if they’re having hyre cultivation events or even you know, we’ve we’ve you’ve probably talked on your show about these ask events where people specifically come and know that they will be asked to donate well, it might be might be kind of good to know in advance some information about those folks, maybe even advance troop even better. Ok, what’s what’s list select about that’s your next one so listselect is, uh, is by a company the company behind this is called anchor computer company, and they were they were actually started back in the seventies, and what they’ve done is they’ve come out with this product called listselect that could be useful both in for-profit and non-profit world, so it was originally designed for general target marketing, and so it has the names and addresses of close to ninety percent of the u s adult population and it’s compiled from public records and united states postal service data, and then what they do is they overlay it with demographic interest type categories. So i’ve gone in and i, you know, i’ve done a little bit of playing around just to give you an idea of what this looks like so you can actually run your searches just to kind of see, with numbers of prospects might look like, and then you don’t pay for the list until you decide this looks like a list that could be useful to you, um, and it’s. Uh, a list, a rental. I don’t know if you’ve talked about that on your show in the past. So you can either rent this list for a one time use or for a one year basis. Okay, we’re going to go away for a minute. And when we come back, you can talk a little about lister mental, because i don’t think it’s something that i have covered. And we’ll talk more about listselect with maria. Simple. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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 have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Durney i’m talking with maria simple, the strict taskmaster who put me in my place about fees. We’re going talk about fees anymore att least not in dollar terms will certainly let you know when something is fee based. Um, so what’s the fee for listselect now i’m getting well, actually, i did run a couple of just, uh ah searches that i thought would be kind of fun just to kind of see what the costs might be it’s very evident when you run a search so it’s, very clear up front what you’d be paying for that list, you know, before you, actually so they tell you, and so you can change the parameters, tio, what you’re looking for and really play around with it till it gets to a point where you feel like this is a new four doble list, andi something that, you know, would be useful for your organization, okay? In a minute, we’re gonna talk about list rental, but but do you know what the output is going to look like? What? What? Uh, information, you’re going to get about each person before you have to pay for the list? Yes, i’m told that. You get a first name, last name, address, phone number and in some cases, email addresses as well. Okay. Oh, really? So, it’s, just basic contact information. This is not the complete profile like donorsearch does that’s correct? That’s correct. So this would really be used for true proactive prospecting. You know what you think that you would hear in a sales world of, you know, getting more names, more leads into the funnel. So people who might have a certain affinity on do you know? So we could talk about what some of these parameters are way when we get further into the conversation. Okay, but let’s, talk about let’s rental. Now you’re just you’re renting this list. How does that work for you? So you now let me just set it up. You now have the contact information for these people. Email address? I guess. So you have. What does it mean that you’re renting the list? Well, i i think you get the full snail mail, ok? Yeah, and phone numbers. So you can decide that you need that list for a one time usage. So maybe you’re you’re going to send out some sort of a postcard campaign or targeted mailing some sort or targeted calling phone calling campaign? You know, i wouldn’t, you know, being as i also do email marketing as one of my businesses, i’m very sensitive to email acquisition, i wouldn’t necessarily advocate buying or renting email addresses and then putting them into your database and e mailing out i could get you into trouble with your email service provider because it’s, because it’s unwanted and it’s spam is that could be construed as spam. So i’m just very sensitive to that. I think it would be better to use these list, really? For snail mail and phone call purposes, okay? And what does it mean that you’re you’re renting the list? So you actually then don’t own only information? It truly is just a rental on, so, you know they have, i guess, it’s one see if you’re going to rent it as a one time basis and probably a slightly higher fee. If you need to have that list accessible to you, maybe you plan to do, you know, quarterly mailings to the list or something like that? He would need the rental for the whole year, so you’re going to pay maur if you do want to put that information into your donordigital base, i would think so, yeah, ok, interesting, i think. Okay, so you you mentioned talking about a little talking about the parameters of what you’re what the output is going to be, right? So i just don’t like a couple of quick search is just to kind of see, all right, well, if i were, you know, a non-profit executive, what might some of the fields of information be interesting to me so you could do a geographic search and then, you know, break it down further by certain points of demographic. So i had done just a sample search to see well, i’m interested in people who would have an income over two hundred fifty thousand dollars based in new jersey, who are also classified what they call mail order donors i think in our world, in the nonprofit world, we would call that, you know, male appeal donors, and it turned out that there were there was a total household account of just over fourteen thousand names close to fourteen thousand five hundred, and that costs came out to about in the four hundred fifty dollars. Okay, so that was you know what that parameter came up with our center decided to so these are thes air search these air inputs that you’re that you’re trying to narrow your list by our lorts yeah. All right, well, what if i were a non-profit executive with some sort of an animal welfare agency? I might be interested in trying to target people who have self identified as liking cats and dogs right on. Then i decided, well, i might be very geographically focused, and i wouldn’t necessarily need the entire state, so i thought, well, let’s, see what the costs would be if i were to look at maybe two counties in new jersey, morris and somerset counties for people interested in cats and dogs turned out it came up to nine hundred eighty as the household count on that on that costs turned out to be one hundred fifty dollars. Now, how did you specify cats and dogs? There’s a open field where you can have a word interest category interest, there’s like a main interest. So when you’re when you’re looking at the main interests, you can look at things like arts. And entertainment. Uh, babies, children, uh, education just tryingto slipping through here, some of the ones that would be of interest to non-profits outdoor enthusiast, uh, photography, religion. Um, and then they had what they call us sub interest category. You can really drill down even further. And that’s where i got into looking for people who were interested in dogs and cats, for example, i see. Okay, that’s that could be you could have some fun with the subcategories studio going to break it down by ethnicity. Gender. Maria, how do you find all these free and a fee based? How do you how do you how do you find all these new resource is? Well, you know, usually they’re not sometimes they find may and this actually happens to be a situation where rick hilary from from the company reached out to me through lincoln. And, you know, we’ve talked about the power of lincoln for so here was a situation where he brought this particular product, my attention, and we’ve had several converse stations and back and forth about it. And, you know, i took a look at the test because you can actually just kind of play around with it as i did without paying anything at all. Okay, so that that website you want me to give you that? Yes, give it, but we’ll also put it on facebook and linkedin, right? Sure, though, that website is demographics, research, dot com okay, and what’s the earl for listselect uh, that that’s that’s where the starting point is that’s you there? Yeah, they actually give you ah! Pdf that kind of walk you through, how to use it. And they also give you the log in credentials so that you can log in and try and play around with it a bit way have to stop. We have to stop there, maria simple. You know her she’s, the prospect finder, and you’ll find her website at the prospect finder dot com. You’ll find her on twitter at maria simple, and you’ll find the two of us together. We’re going to be doing a chat and online chat hosted by the foundation center on march twenty first about prospect research it’s a two p, m eastern and my burning question is why i’m invited i don’t know they between the two of us, they think we’re both prospect research experts but between you and me, we know that you are. I’ll be there, tio, i’ll do color commentary or something. I don’t know we’re hearing me on, okay, but you can. I have a i have a couple things to contribute, but not as much as you, but you’ll find information about that on the foundation with center website it’s. March twenty first, two p m eastern. Thanks for being a guest, maria, thank you always a pleasure. Next week, juliet fund had more white space to your life she’s, a consultant and speaker, and she also is the daughter of candid cameras allen funt that’ll be fun. Also, scott koegler is back next week. He’s, our technology contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news. We’re all over the social web. You can’t make a click without smacking your head into tony martignetti non-profit radio, by the way, smacking your head in italian is sparkle a testa i learned that when i was in venice asking for directions to a bar once and someone said, sparkle a testa your head on the wall and then turn and make a left and there’s harry’s bar so it stayed with me, um, pinterest, slideshare even before last week, by the way, we were on pinterest in slideshare, itunes, facebook, youtube, twitter, linkedin, foursquare, wherever we’re connected, i thank you very much for being connected wherever it is that i see you. Thank you. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, and the social shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, 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 to two p, m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. I didn’t think you did a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. Take it good! Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications? Then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com we look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting 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 fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me. Larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage. Tuesday night nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio, dot com every tower is a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights, nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Dahna

105: Grow Grassroots & Devine Devices – Tony Martgnetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Michael O’Brien, founder and principal of Mob Advocacy

Scott Koegler, editor of Nonprofit Technology News

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

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No. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent it’s august seventeenth. Oh, how i wish and i hope that you were with me last week i couldn’t stand knowing that you had missed last week’s show working with your small organization board what’s special about working with small shop boards, we talked about setting expectations, recruiting, training fund-raising and assessing your boards capabilities. My guests from fund-raising day twenty twelve were terry billy from the hudson river museum, wendy no adele from yonkers partners and education, and lisa rob, executive director of the new york state council on the arts. Also see the smart cr m system, constituent relationship management. You’ve got constituents, employees, donors, volunteers, clients and vendors. How do you manage your relationships with them? What’s the impact on your prospect management maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, had lots of ideas last week, as she always does this week grow grassroots. Michael o’brien, founder and principal of mob advocacy, knows how to bring people to your cause with grassroots advocacy. How do you activate people who are the grass tops and how do? You engage them, and where do you go to meet potential coalition partners, what’s, the value added for your work. All of that, with michael o’brien. Also divine devices, desktops, laptops, tablets, handhelds. Scott koegler has tips for picking the right device to fit your budget, work, style and personality. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news in our regular monthly tech contributor. Between the guests on tony’s take to help me out and get a free book. My book. I’d appreciate your help with a three minute survey, and i’ll say more about that on tony’s, take two. Use the hashtag non-profit radio on twitter to join the conversation with us there. As always, we take a break, and then when we return, it’s grow grass roots with michael o’brien, stay with me. You didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink, you’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Dahna good joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city in pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller emotional freedom, and greg brayden will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve, save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot order, or h a n j dot net. Hi, i’m donna, and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family, court, co, parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more. Dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever. Join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio where else you’re going to hear those kinds of ideas? Nowhere. Michael o’brien is my guest. He is the founder and principal of mob advocacy, a multi state government relations firm that focuses on helping small businesses and non-profits manage legislative and regulatory processes, he has over ten years of experience managing state and local government relations and political programmes. Michael has launched many national grassroots advocacy campaigns that have impacted legislation and policy at both the state and federal levels. Michael brian, welcome to the show. Thank you. Good afternoon, it’s. A good afternoon to you. I’m glad you’re with us. Well, let’s, let’s define grassroots advocacy. So we know everybody’s starting in the same place. Sure. I define grassroots advocacy as engaging regular people that the typical constituent in order to impact public policy or public opinion. Okay, go ahead. Is there more, uh, just to say that it varies from what’s considered direct lobbying, which is ah lot more heavily regulated and requires, uh, registration process with either the state federal or local government. Right. Okay. But it goes it. Could be that, but we’re going. We’re going to talk about the doing it. The grassroots with the with the average joe, the average right and the average jane. Also, jane is welcome to participate as well. Um all right. How does this, uh, grassroots advocacy? How can it help? Small charities? I think there’s three ways that, uh, grassroot dad? Because he helped out small charities. One, uh, i think grassroots advocacy is often essential to organizational missions. Uh, it’s. Hard to think of. Ah, oven issue out there. That’s not impacted by local, state or federal legislation or regulatory process. Uh, so it’s important for your organization to be involved. Second, it’s. A great way to engage volunteers and donors. Small amount profits are asking people to give money. Um, you know, off all the time, you know, four, five times a year in order to be successful. That has to be part of the process. But it is important to provide some different different ways for volunteers to get involved in different ways for them to have an impact other than giving money. And this is a great way to be okay. And this actually i know. You have another way, but this actually could lead to someone becoming a donor so they might come to your cause and sign a petition or do things that we’re going to talk about and then become a donor down the road absolutely small, small, just like small donors become big donors, small advocates become big donors and, you know, those top advocate said that organization’s looking for ok and even you know, that could become small donors because then small donors have become big donors, has become big donor it’s all part of a spectrum? Absolutely. Then big donors could continue to become grassroots advocates, but they wouldn’t go back to being small donors way. Hope not. No, no, that wouldn’t happen. Okay, and then what’s the other. What else is this important? The third way. It’s. A great way to find new supporters. Er, you know, for for volunteers, donors even those on the on the, uh whose responsibilities include fund-raising it’s sometimes hard to ask somebody who’s brand new to an organization to get money but it’s easy to say. Hey, can you spare five minutes in and send an email to your to your legislator? Can you spare five minutes and signed this petition it’s an easy ask. And once you get those people involved in your organization, you know, they have some kind of interest because they they took that step and got involved. And so it’s a good way to increase your your your database and gives opportunities to call the-whiny-donor further, i love that easy, easy entry point and then also can help new entrance introduce your cause to their friends as well, who who may very well be sympathetic. Absolutely cool. Okay, um, and so you’ve seen this make make a real change. I mean, this really can impact policy and funding in things. I mean, absolutely, i don’t i can’t think of a of a major advocacy campaign that that i’ve been involved with that didn’t have grassroots as as a key part of that, uh, lawmakers, they listened the lobbyists all day long, and they know there’s a bent out there, but when it when it hits home, when their constituents are calling in or sending emails saying, hey, you know, take a look at this that’s that’s when it really hits home, when when it’s people voting for them. Back home have an interest in it. Lawmakers take, uh, take a much closer look at the issue. They do ok, i’ve always you know, i’ve always wondered because i fill out petitions sometimes or send emails and make phone calls, and i just wondered if it really is making a difference. Sometimes you don’t get the feedback from the organization, which i maybe we’ll talk about, but that’s a downside, but but i just always wonder, you know, but you’re saying, yes, people good. What makers do? Listen, yeah, okay, okay, we have just a little less than a minute before before first break. So why don’t we just, um but you just introduce us to the idea of the way social media has helped create these grassroots campaigns to make sure that could be a whole show it and i know what you’re going, you’re going to squeeze it into thirty seconds, and then we’re gonna come back and talk about it more after a break. Ok, the internet. It has completely changed grassroot dad, because just by making making it easier one for organizations to reach their advocates and spread their message, but, uh, you know, making it far easier and cheaper for those advocates to reach out to there to there legislature, especially those in washington. I mean, if you’re in california, used to be a long distance call, uh, you have to go through the switchboard, you know, with the internet, it it’s an email on your getting directly, oftentimes, to stafford, take, who takes care of that issue. Okay, that was well said on, we have live listener love going out to california, a one e looks like a wani california live listener love going out there. Right now, we take a break, and when we return, michael brian stays with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology, no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s, provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s, really going on. What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me, larry. Sure you’re neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio, dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. 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 we are back, and we’re talking about growing your grassroots with michael o’brien. I got some more live listener love. We got a couple of news out their new bern, north carolina knew palestine, indiana welcome and michael o’brien, i’m going to challenge you. If you’re going to use an example, you have to use one from a state where we have a live listener. So, so far, we’ve identified california, north carolina and indiana, and there are others, of course. So please confine your examples to those states. No problem. All right, that was one more time. California, indiana, north carolina. Alright, let’s, continue online. I’m sure there are sites that can help charities create a grassroots campaign. Yeah. There’s. A number of different sites. Uh, both free and, uh, pay sites that okay. That help you grow and manage your grassroots campaign. Uh, let’s. Let’s. Name sametz. Talk about some free ones. Sure. Justin. Detail some great, some good free ones. Uh, there’s a a new company. Fairly new company called pot woobox, which is a a great job with federal legislator. Popped like alternative father. Right? Pio pio. Gop video right now, if you go to pot. Woobox p ot vox there’ll be marijuana legalization advocacy pot box you can you can actually find information about marijuana legalization on pop fox is well, you can. All right. Also smoke a bone box. I’m sure okay, uh, pop fox. Yes, but it is a kind of a new grassroots tool. It measures public opinion. But how many letters going in for and against an issue it free for organizations and individuals, too, to sign up and to help kind of broadcast their message to other potential supporters. Uh, and just recently, the democratic caucus in the house and the senate announced that they’re giving the sentiment feet from pop box tto help, uh, help keep there, uh, caucus informed on public opinion on different issues. Okay. So just as an example of how, how much of an impact this makes you know when when lawmakers air using that direct public opinion data, you know, you know, every letter count, just like every vote counts in elections. Every letter counts in a grassroots campaign. What else you got? That’s free. Uh, bill track fifty and some light foundation and thomas help look at legislation that organizations might be interested. In okay. Agreement that was built. Track foundation and its satellite bill. Track fifty. Bill, check fifty. Pardon me, bill. Track fifty. Fifty dot com. Yes, the sunlight foundation. Some light foundation. Okay, again. And congress dot org’s, congress dot org’s. Oh, interesting. Are they affiliated with with our united states congress it’s affiliated with cq roll call? Actually, what is that? Congressional quarterly. Real congressional quarterly. What? You’re watching? We have jargon jail in tony martignetti non-profit radio, and i will throw you in there. Especially is somebody who’s. Ah, troublemaker. Sorry about that. That that’s, uh, that’s just the name that’s. How i’ve known that this is cq on then thomas dot lock, dot gov and those air great tools to research federal and state legislation. So you can have an idea of what issues you want to take? Uh, take action on. And then, um, i don’t know what of a good free state local advocacy piece, but i know there that there are some in development, so hopefully and they in the coming months, we might have a good one coming. Okay, i’ll tell you why our audience is small and midsize charity. So we’re going to stick with the free sites. And if people want to find the pay sites, i’m sure they can do that. We’re going to stick with talking about the free ones. So let’s, stay online for a little while. What? I mean, you could you could build your own cause site, right? I mean, it’s it’s virtually cost less to put up a website. Correct? Uh, okay. And what should you be doing on that website when you put up your yurt grassroots cause site of the top things you know, make sure your issue is defined in ways that the everyday voter or everyday legislature legislator can understand. Uh, people want to think that our elected officials know a lot about every issue. Uh, that’s just simply not true. They don’t have the time, uh, or the capacity to know everything about your issue. So keep the language simple. Umm, you know, make sure it’s in terms that that an everyday person can understand. Ok, i try to use my grandmother tests. You know, my grandmother can understand it that i’m doing the right thing. Okay? I’m going to stay away from that. I like grandmothers. I don’t have mine with me, but i’m just going to let that go. Listeners may be disappointed, but you can come up with your own retort to michael’s. Grandfather, grandmother, test on why it’s a grandmother test? Not a grandfather test. Okay, what else? What? We should be capturing emails. I’m sure. Right. What else should be doing on this site? Yes, a way for people to sign up for your information. Uh, and, you know, a simple email collection or ah, form where they can add in additional information so you can match them, uh, with their legislator, uh, is important depending on the size of your advocacy campaign. Uh, e mails could be fine. You know, you might want that additional form information. It doesn’t take that much longer for somebody that fill it out. I don’t think it’s a huge deterrent out there, okay. And, you know, third, uh, you know, provide opportunities for your supporters to spread the word. You know what? Twitter with linked in with facebook, you know, just having the send this to three of your friends, you know, using using social media and and that, uh, you know, social media to help grow your your grassroots campaign, those are the three essential pieces, okay? And i see i see that often when i’m asked to sign something on dh then i do it, then i get something back it’s usually from move on dot or ge i get something back saying thank you. Now, please share this and they have buttons to share it on twitter, sharing on facebook, et cetera. Right then, then, validation process and, uh, you know, i know a lot of fund-raising cos there now, you know, kind of using that validation process as well, you know? But, you know, the validation process really helps grow your grassroots process, the validation process being what? Thank you that i’m referring to the they having tony send is sending no doubt, teo friends saying, hey, you know, i support this i believe in this, you know, take a look at it. You know that validation is is key to growing your your your grassroot that base. Okay, okay. Now, if you so if you fertilize your grassroots on dh use lots of, i guess use lots of weed, b gon and adequate fertiliser. Then the grass is going to grow. And you can have these things called grass tops, what are grass tops, grass tops or the kind of the super advocates? So there there’s two categories that i put people in the people who are who are the most passionate, most vocal on your on your issue? Uh, they’re the people who answer every email respond are contacting their legislature legislator hyre uh, they’re important because they’re out there, they’re promoting and and you want to keep an eye on them because you don’t want them to over promoting, go overboard. You want him to stay on message. But, you know, the passion is there. They’re easy to motivate. Yes. The second is the grassroot supporter who’s who’s connected, who lives down the street from their state legislator. Uh, who’s. You know, brother, in law’s, the mayor, you know, those people who have who have personal connections to legislators and the’s air the grass tops the’s the grass tops these these are the grass tops. So you have your passionate, passionate, always their advocates. Then you have the people, uh, who have some real access that your general, uh, general constituents don’t have. Okay, when you marry those two and put them out there, you have a very powerful combination hyre that can hit people in ways that your traditional grassroots doesn’t always said you might not hit the right legislator every time with your grassroots database, but with your grass tops, you might be ableto sneak peek in somewhere where you didn’t necessarily have access reached before. All right? Michael o’brien is the founder and principal of mob advocacy, and we’re talking about growing your grassroots and you’ll find his block at mob hyphen advocacy dot black spot dot com were a little more live listener love going out foreign now tokyo, japan welcome pens burghdoff, germany welcome. You’re going to want to hang out because i’m gonna be speaking german later on. I promise you. I’m speaking german later on. Hang on their pens. Berg, seoul, korea, vienna, austria. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, michael. How do we engage these grass tops differently than we do the grassroots? Uh, well, first of all, they just like, just like your major donors, they do take a little extra cultivation. Um, you have to do that. Prospect research on your grassroots database? Yeah. People don’t always think about it. You know the process. To cultivate a grassroots said forget is exactly the same as the process to cultivate a funder and a major donor. You got to do the prospect research. You gotta do your homework. It’s you know, it’s it’s not always easy, you know, sometimes it starts by you catch an address or you’ll catch a name. And, you know, i wonder if this person knows and, you know, you connect some of the dots, uh, and it takes, you know, the government relations person of the grassroots person or even the executive director reaching out. Say, hey, you know, i saw that you have an interest on this issue. Can i talk to you about it? And, you know, you you start that discussion process and find out, you know, how interested are they? How connected are they? Um and then, you know, just like with the major donor, you know, you make that ask, hey, can you help us? You know, beyond just that five minute weather and oftentimes, if if, if they’re connected and already have an interest in your organization, you know that it’s still an easier asked that then asking for money? Oftentimes i’m going anyway. How about getting other groups involved with you to help you? Other charities? Perhaps? Sure. Coalition work, i think is is important. Individual charity’s only have so many, so many people on the database lists, they only have so many reach, whether you know, whether that numbers, whether geographic area, you know, whether that’s, you know, pinned down by the the, uh, the scope of the mission reaching out to other organizations who do similar work or, you know, maybe completely different work, uh, but still having an interest in the end outcome of of your issue, and i want to make the point that those coalition partners could even be corporate, right? Absolutely. I just think that something really interesting at a local station here where banks had allied with charities because they both had an interesting in preventing hydraulic fracturing that process of releasing gas from the from the crust in shale of the earth because the banks lose mortgage revenue when property values decline, and that happens around hydraulic fracking sites. So so companies had allied with charities. It certainly does. And, you know, even even when they when corporations don’t have a a personal stake, there’s a lot of a lot of corporate responsibility out there. Ah, latto corporations are getting involved in their communities and, you know, when you get those corporations involved, they can help fund from of that grassroots advocacy work and help you no help with the promotion. And, you know, grassroots advocacy is is a generally a low cost, um, product, but, you know, every every little bit is a resource drain on a small non-profit so corporate partners out there can can help with that funding on help, you know, help raise resource is help, you know, provide validation. You do all of those things? Yeah, all right, so just the fact that it doesn’t have to be another non-profit could be corporate, i imagine now, a little quickly because we only have a few minutes left their sights that could help you find coalition partners. Um, you know yes, yes, you know, pop box will will list organizations that are supporting, supporting or opposing, uh, legislation and certainly that’s. A key indicator. You find legislation that you’re interested in, you can look at supporters and the opposition. Okay, pick your side and you pick your team, so to speak. Uh, are there other sites? Uh, you know, not that i know. Okay, i think congress dot orden might, but i’m not. I’m not okay, but and then you could also use too traditional social media, right? Linked in facebook searches? Absolutely. The traditional social media. Uh, find out who is talking about your issue. Um, you know, it’s it’s much easier to research issue advocacy. Now that never given, given the amount people are talking about and the interest in it. Michael, what is it about this work that really moves you? And why do you why do you love this? You know, it, uh, i had always wanted to work, uh, with the non profit in the nonprofit sector. Uh, you know, i think part of it was growing up in a strong catholic family coming back. I always wanted to give back, um, but i also had a passion for advocacy and and politics and government and, you know, helping non-profits to make the impact is is really what drives me. You know, i’ve worked worked for and with several non-profit organizations, you know, doing health care, social justice, education on dh loved it every day. You know i often i feel you know, it’s been a long time since since i’ve actually worked. Uh, you know, i just love my work so much, you know, it’s like i don’t even have a real job. Alright, dahna co-branding grassroots can change the world. Grassroots can change the world. You know, it’s uh, you know, one person at a time. All right, michael brian, founder and principal of mob advocacy. You’ll find his blah but his blogged as you’ll find his, you’ll find him blah, bing at no that’s. Not true. Blogging at mob hyphen advocacy dot black spot dot com. Michael, thank you very much for being on. Thank you for having me. It was great great talking to you. I’m glad you got jordan. Thank you has been my pleasure. Now we take a break, and when we return, we got a little more live listener love going out and then tony’s take two and then scott koegler with divine devices. Stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Joined the metaphysical center of new jersey and the association for hyre. Awareness for two exciting events this fall live just minutes from new york city. In pompton plains, new jersey, dr judith orloff will address her bestseller, emotional freedom, and greg brady will discuss his latest book, deep truth living on the edge. Are you ready for twelve twenty one twelve? Save the dates. Judith orloff, october eighteenth and greg brady in november ninth and tenth. For early bird tickets, visit metaphysical center of newjersey dot, or or a h a n j dot net. 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. Snusz you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz durney lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. Welcome back. We’ve got more live listener love going out. Lutherville, timonium, maryland that’s a heck of a town you got there. Lutherville, timonium in maryland, rest in virginia and quebec city in the province of quebec, canada. Welcome, welcome, everyone. Time for tony’s take to my block this week. I’m asking for your help and to show my gratitude, i will give you a free copy of my book. I have a three minute survey on charity registration, which is the requirements in every state and district of columbia that charities register with the authorities in every state where they are soliciting donations. And i wrote a book on this. Oh, and i happen to have the title of the book right here. What is it? What a coincidence. My book is called charity registration state by state guidelines for compliance, and it sells for as much as two hundred ninety nine dollars, depending on the size of your charity. But if you take this short survey, you can claim a free download of the book. You’re your input. Is is that important to me and there’s? A link to the survey on my blogged the post is called helped me out and get my book for free. My blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com? Well, treyz is expected to be, and so if you take the survey, you’ll get get a free book that is tony’s take two for friday, august seventeenth, the thirty fifth show of two thousand twelve. We had a listener joined since the last live listener love, and so before i bring scott in, i want to say hello to serbia. Hello, serbia. Scott koegler how are you? I’m good tony, how you doing? Great, you’re not survey. Are you serbia? No, no, i don’t think so. No, we have taken a wrong turn. We travelling to south carolina today, so but i think when you’re in the carolina, you’re in south carolina. Scott koegler of course, our regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, which you will find that end p tech news dot com and this month we’re talking about devices, scott there’s, tablets, there’s, laptops, desktops, handhelds how do we figure out what the heck is good for us? Yeah, kind of never ending, isn’t it? They used to be a pretty straight decision between desktops and laptops and that for real work. Those air still kind of the main options. But today, you know, you get, uh, tablets and bones everywhere from three and a half inches, ten point one inches on size, and pretty much they’ll do all the same thing. But also pretty much all that same thing is is usually less then, you know, real work. Another one generally don’t have keyboards and those kind of things so let’s kind of segment into those two categories. First foryou, portable before you, scott. Before you do that, i want to point out we know that you are the tech contributor because you don’t just say screen size up to ten inches. You say up to ten point one that extra tenth of an inch makes a difference. We gotta be precise. This is technology was the record demands precision. And scott is the man who delivers it. Okay, i’m sorry. That’s. Any inane interruption? Go ahead. That’s. Right. Um, so again, in the form of unity passes on the kind of work i need to do obviously gonna be sitting in the office. You can use either. And that that decision based you haven’t called back. Scott scott scott, stop for a minute. I’ll tell you what, you’re cutting out kind of badly. Give us a call back on the same number, but eight. One, eight, three, right. You know the number, but use eighty one, eighty three. Okay. And while scott is calling back, i’ve got some more live listener love. Hopefully he, uh he taps quickly on those on the phone. Who else you got? Pittsburgh. Oh, i mentioned pittsburgh, germany. Okay. Um, new york city, new york, new york. Excellent. Finally, somebody from new york. How come nobody from new jersey? Where is my mother? My mother and father are not listening to this show right now. Unless they’re in lutherville. Timonium, maryland. But i don’t think that’s them. I believe my mother and father are not listening. And ah, this week, is there my mom’s birthday and their anniversary? And i’m going out there, and they’re not listening to the show. You believe that? I mean, i may not go. I mean, go, go. We got scott back. Excellent. Scott, i don’t hear him. We have scott in the system. Scott oh, dial. Tone that never sounds good. Do i have to start and punishing my mother again? There he is. There he is. Okay, yeah, i’d rather talk to scott than admonish my mother. I’ll do that over the weekend. Okay, you’re going to break down our devices for us into two categories? I believe right. Let’s start with just desktop laptop as one category. And having said that, both of those generally well, i think, almost always have keyboards and keyboard is really key to the kind of things that people generally call work in an office or latto build it, you know, involves writing text using the keyboard for american trees and things like that and those air really much more suited to that kind of work than our tablets and cell phones and those kind of things. So the soft virtual keyboards that appear on tablets and phones were pretty well, but if you really need to get a lot done, you’re better off just having a keyboard on your hands. Uh, just, you know, more accurate. Better sure, sure. So it really depends on what you’re what you’re you’re functions are what you were like. What your goals. Are for the hardware, right? Exactly. Exactly. So let’s, just talk about the difference in key in, uh, laptops and desktops. One of the key difference of differences. There is the price. So the best tops are generally less expensive than laptops for a similar amount of power. Just because all the miniaturization that is required to make a laptop cost extra money. Okay, i was wondered why the bigger one is less generally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, they don’t care about the size. They’re just, you know, stuff all this stuff and then stick it on the floor. So, uh, so that’s kind of one way to do that. So if you got b b funds and you don’t need the larger screen that’s also available generally with a desktop, then you might want to opt for laptop because obviously it’s it’s portable, and you can take it with you. If you’re not always working at your desk, you can move it. Otherwise other places taken home, take it on a on an event or something like that. So there’s a difference there, of course. Sure. Um what what else? Well, what about software availability? Well, software is always a key and a lot of software, especially non-profit kind of things are going to run on generally windows windows operating systems, so that may even exclude using a mad uh, you need to really check your your software course. If you’re using a cloud based application, then you, khun pretty much use any kind of operating system doesn’t matter whether it’s windows or or mac or even it’s kind of lennox operating system very well. You make a very good point about what what platforms are supported by funk by applications that are important to you, there’s one that i using planned giving that does not support the apple os. So i have to have a programme called parallels on my apple computer to run windows just for that one program, but it is essential, right? Right, see that sometimes will dictate what you’ve done, and of course, once you’ve done that, not only have you spent more of your apple computer, but you spent more for the parallels, right? Exactly. So now you you know you really enough there, so you really need to decide what’s most important to you, and i kind of touched. On one of the reasons for getting a laptop and that is the portability, and so now we start to talk about, okay, what kind of jobs are you going to use that require portability? Uh, one that i think i said was that he’s going to an event on a laptop is good if you’re going to have a table inside you, but if you’re going to be wandering around the event and you want to interact with people, take pictures, maybe dio email sign ups for your newsletters, those kind of things, uh, a tablet is probably the perfect device for that kind of thing, a smartphone, probably a little bit less than perfect, although you can certainly do those things, but again, you get smaller keyboard, you know much a little bit more difficult to use quickly, okay? And there’s so many tablets out there. Besides, the ipad is the google nexus and the microsoft surface. Samsung has one, i think the galaxy i mean there’s so many tablets, yeah, there’s a huge variety, in fact, buy-in while apples still dominates with the ipad, i just survey that the android operating system, which is what’s used in pretty much every town would accept apple and been in windows tablet, so andrew, it is outselling apple on a poor unit basis, so it just kind of interesting. Yeah, yeah. So i know it doesn’t say if any better or worse generally means it’s less expensive devices, they’re less expensive. Okay, um, but at the same time, i’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s the application that counts, you know, if you can get to the internet and you can access the functions that you need, it really doesn’t matter so dahna look at your budget, see what it is that you need those the system that you’re looking at, support the function you need and within your budget, and then go ahead and buy it, you know, they pretty much all work okay and the features on not necessarily just sticking with tablets, but just across all of them. I was looking i was when i was researching our segment on dh i actually do research, i know it doesn’t sound like it, but actually do research for the show and prepare the show. I found something the iphone headphones, you know, the white headphones that you get, and they have a little tiny panel on them built into the built into the wire and there’s ten i found a site that there are an article had ten different things that you could do with that little with that little panel like you could if you tap the middle of it two times that’s to pick up a phone call, for instance, or, like, tap it once and that’ll put a put a phone call through tio to voicemail. When you’re getting if you’re getting a call while you’re listening in to skip a song, you do a triple tap or what? It’s incredible just on this tiny little skinny panel the features on that are available, right there’s? One more hidden one if you stand on your head and you stick it dunaj it’ll actually call your mother, okay? I don’t really appreciate sarcasm on this show. I play things pretty straight pretty close to the vest. Now. Watch, watch. You know, sarcasm is a very dangerous thing. Uh, but you know that point there’s there are many features on many systems, computers and even software, and the rule of thumb is eighty twenty just like, you know, all the eighty twenty rules where eighty percent of the people used twenty percent of the function, yeah, just like you have an iphone, right? I do have that i do, and you’d never do those things. No, i didn’t know that i could ignore it incoming call, buy long pressing the center button twice or so you know, i just i just usually hang up on it, but, you know, you could do that. Yes, i’ve noticed, okay, so what? We’re going to take a break. So when you were little chuckle mode here we’ll take a break, but i want to send more live listener love it’s, it’s pouring in san angelo, texas, san diego, california, rockville center, new york. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We’re talking to scott koegler, the regular regular tech contributor about divine devices were going to keep talking about that subject. Maybe not with scott koegler might hang up on him after this break. Talking dot com. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks band 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. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. 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Welcome back, scott kapin did you hang up on us? I am still here. Okay, dear chagrin. Damn. Not yet. All right, now, all these features and all there’s a pact with the stuff that most people don’t use, you have to you have to wonder about what your employees are capable of learning. Well, exactly. And and how much do you want them to learn? How much extra time do you want to put in on finding out things that they may never use? Uh, there’s a big difference between buying a computer to operate your business and one for your personal life. I generally try to minimize the expense and the feature set of business computers because typically, you know, i’ve been unemployed. I need them to do three things. Four, maybe five, generally, not twenty. And if i say i’m buying something for myself on much more liberal in terms of the kinds of features and even the amount of money that i’m gonna want to spend interesting that’s an important distinction. Yeah, you don’t want to be thinking about you don’t want to be making that crossover. Yeah, this is this is for other people to be using to be efficient in your business exactly, and also in terms of employees abilities there, maybe training costs, but actually be hard costs not only in time, but but if, if the saw if the hardware is very different, i mean, you could end up having to pay somebody like the network it altogether, and then to train employees to operate the network and then as well as operate the devices exactly you want to make. It is standardized, as you can within the organization, so that one person could get up and walk in, walk to another computer and do the same job and not have to relearn. You know where the tabs on where the keyboard durney that’s one of the things that happens between pieces and max, although it’s it’s less it’s less of an issue anymore. But, you know, the key and the maki kind of get confusing sometimes for people that try to make that transition, even though the actual applications may run exactly the thing. Yeah, yeah, i see that because my my office computing, his apple and all my clients use windows and i do a lot of work in my client’s offices, right. So i have special challenges anyway. But talk about that’s different show. Okay, there are you have some ideas for sites where we can find reviews. I love reading user reviews. I love that that the web enables that. Well, there’s two things that i would recommend one is just a scene at dot com, which is not really user reviews, but they are there. I’m not going to say that professionally generated reviews, they’re actually automatically generated reviews, so they’re standardized. How they do that automatically is a whole other topic. Fascinating. I used i used that scene. That site, those air not well, there you are, right. I knew they weren’t user reviews, but there isn’t a live person writing these things. Generally, not somebody looks at, um uh, really? Uh, yeah, they are actually generated by automated system. Okay, they pull your pretty well, um, i’m not sure right now they do a good job, but the other is just, uh, just do a search online for a review of this type in review. And then in the name of the product that you’re looking for. And course, the good part about that is that you will get a just a huge list of possible reviews. The bad part is that, uh, most of them will be completely bogus and badly written. You never really know. Yeah, right now does, like amazon dot com. And you could you could go to amazon and read reviews, but not necessarily buy the product from amazon. Do that. Do you know if they do, you have to be legitimate user to review a product on amazon. Do you know you have to? You have to register on amazon, but you don’t actually have to have purchased the product. Okay, so that kind of, you know, in-kind negates some of the reliability hoexter tenses suggest that the credibility is not as high as it ought to be. Okay, right. Okay. But there are lots of consider. Well, there’s consumer reports. Yes. Yes. There are some, uh, some reliable reporting, you know, agencies, they used to be quite a quite a few more. In fact, i used to do computer and software reviews. Yeah, when i was doing, you know, muchmore freelance writing. Um, but, uh, those reviews have have gone away in favor of user reviews, you know? Personally, i don’t think they’re quite reliable is my own my own wonderful ladies? Yeah, well, i can tell you and there’s probably a reason you’re not in that business any longer. Exactly. Yeah. All right. But now, you know, consumer reports, i subscribe to them for a year. I think i think it’s thirty dollars for a year and you can access all their online. Not not to the written subscription, but for the online. I mean, i go to them when i’m going to spend, i don’t know, like more than a couple hundred dollars on something i go to consumer reports their objective. They don’t have advertising. They don’t take advertising dollars. Yeah, so all right. We have just another minute. A half or so before break before we wrap up. Scott, what else do you want? What else did i keep you from saying? I think really the most important issue is, you know, people always asked, you know, help me buy a computer and i pretty much always start out with what’s your budget. Because it’s pretty easy to start looking. And then, you know, feature creep sets in and know what’s another fifty dollars. Here, what’s another hundred years there, and all of a sudden, you know that six hundred dollars desktop computer that would actually do a wonderful job for you terms into a you know, fifteen hundred dollar laptop with, you know who knows what kinds of extra features agree. Okay, same thing is renovating. Same thing is renovating your bathroom. Your kitchen? Yes. Yes, exactly. Don’t you don’t need the stainless steel pulls on the kitchen drawers. When? When grass will do just fine. Right? Alright, tigress. Okay. Excellent. Scott. Good time today. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on. Scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. Which you’ll find it n p tech news. Dot com. Thanks very much, scott. Figure. Thank you. More live listener love joining us boring oregon alcohol in california. I used to go to i want to alcohol in. Once i spent two weeks in alcohol and kelowna, british columbia, canada. That’s two two different provinces. Also, quebec represented outstanding. I want to thank scott koegler, of course, and also michael o’brien for being on the show today. Next week, campaign volunteers rich foss is the author of green light fund-raising we’ll talk about recruiting the best volunteers for your campaign, and jean takagi and emily chan are legal contributors returned with law wisdom from san francisco, have you checked out? Are linked in group odds are you have not because there’s over a thousand listeners and there are not a thousand members of the lincoln group so ajar you have not been there, but you ought to be. Also, i host a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy. It is called fund-raising fundamentals it’s, a ten minute monthly podcast devoted only to fund-raising though i have a summer siri’s on grant seeking the latest is relationship building with foundation program officers and the first two in the siri’s were researching foundations and writing winning proposals like this show it’s always experts whose brains on picking for your benefit. It’s called fund-raising fundamentals it’s on the conical website chronicle of philanthropy and it’s also on itunes, continuing to wish you good luck the way performers do around the world because i feel like doing it. I don’t know it’s, just fun last week, you may recall, was from german, the german orthopedic surgeons house owned buy-in bro, because they wanted you to break. Your neck and your leg. Those the germans this week from australia, chuck us. I’m wishing you chalk us because in the early nineteen hundreds, chicken was a special meal and most shows paid performers fees based on how many people were in the audience. So a full house meant that the performers would be able to afford chicken after the show, and one former one performer would peek out of the curtain. And if it was a full house, they would tell the troupe, chalk us, which is the slang for chicken and now it’s used by australian entertainers before a show as a good wish for a successful turnout. So i’m wishing you focus. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is our line producer and also my language instructor from germany and australia and others. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules i very much hope you will be with me next week. That would be the twenty fourth of august friday two thousand twelve one two two p m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting which is always at talking alternative dot com. Hyre co-branding dick dick tooting. Getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network waiting to get in. Cubine 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. 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Hyre 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 are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective be happier and make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking.