Tony’s guests this week:
Julia Bonem, executive coach and principal of Career Change for Good
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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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s friday, may twenty fifth twenty twelve welcome again and i very much hope that you were with me last week. I’d be devastated if i had learned found out that you had missed last week’s show, which was susan gordon, who told the story of causes dot com ah platform for activism and philanthropy. Also with me was professor gen shang. She shared her research on five words to boost your fund-raising do you remember what they were? Kind and caring were two of them? That was last week, this week, charity transition. We’re talking about making a career transition into charities, but julia bonham’s strategies will also help those who work in non-profits already and are looking to make a change within non-profits she’s an executive coach and principle of career change for good don’t let your employees listen and go off line. Maria simple is the prospect finder and our prospect research contributor this month, she has tips for conducting offline research. There is a world outside the web use your board network in your community and host cultivation events. The best prospect research comes from face to face meetings with people who you want to know better between the guests on tony’s take to its planned e-giving, not product giving that’s a block post from april that i haven’t talked about on the show, use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us on twitter. Right now, we take a break and when we return it’s charity transition with julia bonem stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police crawl are said to want to nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom at to one to nine six four three five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio. Naturally, my guest now is julia bonem she is principal of career change for good, an executive coaching firm dedicated to helping corporate executives transition into the non-profit sector and non-profit professionals move up when she started her consultancy two years ago, julia had twenty four years of experience in non-profit development, very pleased that her practice brings her into the studio. Julia welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me today. Telefund have you, um, what? So what’s a yurt top idea for making the transition from something corporate into a job in non-profit well, it’s very important, tony, to be very committed to a mission or two. Obviously, if we’re interested in animal rights, for example, or women and children’s welfare to really have that nailed down, we don’t want to have sixteen interests when we go out into the market. Although we may have those or the or the standard, i’ll do anything i just want to, i just want to give back really, really very unfocused and really, really difficult in the market right now, the market is a very crowded place it’s very noisy when people tell me when i’m coaching them that they’re open when they initially start with mayor, we have our initial consultation that is fine, but in terms of getting out there and branding, it is really important in the networking in the written and oral communications that they have a very specific focus. The second part of that is in addition to being really committed when we speak to one, two, three missions that they have some form of non-profit experience it’s very common when i’m seeing career changers that they have not everybody but that ah, good, a goodly number of them have corporate experience have transferrable skills, but you can, you know, jump up and down about a mission, but unless you’ve done specific volunteerism and i can talk a little bit more about project work, get into the project work it’s very hard for an employer in this market to think about bringing somebody on board that doesn’t really have an understanding of how non-profits work, okay, before we get into the volunteering and proving your commitment, are there sectors in the corporate side that air that seem like you’re? Finding more people from particular sectors that particular careers within corporate that want to make the move to non-profits than than others. Well, as many of us know and it’s been in the news, the law field attorneys are particularly exp burian sing a lot of turmoil right now with the downsizing of firms and even in house ah, loitering within corporations and so a lot of attorneys air looking to use their very fine, in many cases writing skills and analytical skills to transfer over into non-profit other development work and other parts of non-profit besides attorneys, well, there’s a lot of downsizing as we know in corporate america, particularly on the financial side. And so some of those people are looking to move over with their financial skills with their spread sheet and, you know, cfo skills into non-profits that khun use them on the cfo ceo side. So you said a lot of people initially are open, which is good how can someone focus on one or two non-profit commissions? Well, what i do with people is really start to drill down on what their interest areas are and come up with targets, so as i said, before we don’t wanna have a plethora of targets, we want to have one, but how do you two three figure out what? So we we very often people are able to figure out the missions that they’re interested. And so, as i said before, animal rights children, women’s welfare could already could be charities that they already give two absolutely where volunteering usually people have a very clear idea about which missions motivate them. The mutt most the second piece is what size organization they want to work in, and that could be a cultural preference. I like working in a small entrepreneurial startup, or it could be a cultural preference for a larger, generally more specific job functions that come from working in a major university or hospital, so stewardship or major gifts or an in house attorney, which not all non-profits have and or, you know, a cfo type position as opposed to cfo and operations. The third part of the target, which is usually harder for people, is what function they want to perform so often people know that they want to get into fund-raising or they know they want to get into the law side. But they’re not quite sure they may have been an attorney in other cases in a law firm, but they’re tired of practicing law so they don’t know that they want to transfer their skills but not their job title sabat attorney or general, exactly, and that’s where the hardest work comes in. All right, well, let’s talk, we just have about two minutes before break let’s introduce this idea of the volunteering being specific in your in your volunteer work very, very important, and i don’t want a privilege any type of volunteerism over another. All volunteerism is important in their sector as we know, but if we want to get into a new field it’s important also volunteer strategically. So again, if i’m interested in health care, i might go to my local hospital or hospital that has been particularly helpful to somebody in my family or myself, um, rather than a specific disease foundation necessarily where those skills will be transferable, as opposed to another subject matter broker and then in addition, project management skills are very important, so we really want to dig down in the volunteerism and be able to say ana resumes at the top of our resumes, by the way, and i think we’ll get into branding a little bit more later. What are the project skills within those specific areas that i was able to get my hands into and show achievements in? We’re gonna take a break right now. Julia bonham is principal of career change for good, and, of course, she’s going to stay with us, and i hope you do, too. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding, you’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving. E-giving 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 huntress people be better business people. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. If you have big ideas and an average budget, tune into the way above average. Tony martin. Any non-profit radio ideo. I’m jonah helper from next-gen charity. We’re talking about charity transition with julia bonem on executive coach julia before the break you had you had were giving the example of strategic volunteering, and you said, if you’re interested in health care, it might be a preference for volunteering in a hospital setting versus one of the maybe maybe one of the medical causes. Why did you make that distinction? Well, it really depends on the person, but some of the medical causes air very specific, and again, i don’t want a privilege one type of volunteerism over another, but if you have a more general interest in health care or if there’s a hospital that’s particularly speaks to you or your family because they’ve been helpful to you in your particular circumstance, that might be a more logical place for you to volunteer than, say, a disease related, you know, foundation, clearly you need to spend time at an organization that’s meaningful to you get something out of it, you’re going to get great project work-life we’ll talk about it, perhaps not just do something because it seems good, absolutely, like it seems good for the resume is what i mean absolutely so it’s it’s a mix of both you can’t on ly be committed to the mission and expect an employer because we’re really talking about as being it’s attractive to the employer is possible in addition to serving your heart without that mission speaking to you. In addition, teo, being strategic and your volunteers is, um, from a skills and project point of view. Now this volunteering doesn’t have to be on a board that could be aboard, but if they have an opening on, if they have a need for someone like you but doesn’t have to be bored, volunteering doesn’t as long as you’re able to get that project work where you can show some specific achievements. For example, very often, when people are interested in higher education or in education in general, i counsel them to reach back, for example, to their independent school or if they went to an independent school or to their college in order to do class fund-raising, for example, or class organizing or writing for the college, these air skills that are going to be immediately picked up on because they want to involve their alumni and they want to, you know, get that extra volunteerism. Onboard and its project work really important, right? You’re stressing the importance of project work, not just sort of showing up and stuffing thiss type of so you you need to be vocal when you’re volunteering about the types of things that type of work that you want to be doing? Absolutely, you know, there may not be that opportunity right away, but as you get into your tenure and i hope people you know, develop a tenure where they are volunteering, they can’t approach people for project work if they can’t get it right away, because they’ve, you know, made their inroads, they’ve made their networking there, they’ve done their networking there, and they’re able to reach out at a certain point when the timing is right. Okay, so let’s, talk a little about the branding of yourself, and this is this will start to apply to people who are within non-profits already capsule and want to make it just a job change, not a not a career change. Obviously the resume is critical. What of the other tools that we’re branding ourselves with? Well, the resume is critical if i could just go back for second because we want to get the non-profit volunteerism if we haven’t worked in a non-profit before at the top of the resume and their ways to do that a lot of times, it’s buried at the bottom, particularly for career changes because they’ve been using a certain resume and corporate that they’re not, you know, necessarily knowledgeable about how to translate that into a non-profit setting. So how do we get that upfront instead of, like you’re saying community activities way down at the at the bottom? Well, we can have a section called non-profit experience a top with there description of what they’ve been doing, but more importantly, the achievements that they’ve had in their project work, and then we can have a section called other corporate experience. I prefer other because it’s sort of de emphasizes in heading what they’ve done by highlighting it as corporate as opposed to other experience that might be transferrable. Okay, on the other parts of brandon and their three other parts of branding are the aural pitch, which is so important, then goes back to what we spoke about at the beginning of the program in terms of targets, so we want to be able to say very specifically and it’s very much like a business pitch for those of us who have mbas air transferring over from corporate sector or raising venture capital, for example, who we are, what we’ve accomplished with some specific examples to examples, preferably what we want to do next. And this is the most difficult part are unique value proposition. Okay, let’s, let’s. Come back to the aural pitch and the details let’s just lay out what? What? What are branding methods are right now? Well, that’s one of them on paper, we also want to have well online. We also want to have in written form. Arlington on arlington needs to have the key words in that very important real estate right below our name what we want to do, it doesn’t necessarily have to reflect what we’re doing right now. So i have somebody, for example, who is not a director of operations right now but has director operations, you know, analytical skills, strong writing, for example, and then they can echo those within the linked in profile in the summary and specialty section. The idea is to try and be found, if you will, by people that are interested in your background as employers and as recruiters to a certain extent, which we’ll talk about later and also anywhere you’re going to be talking to somebody, either in a networking context, networking with hiring managers or for a job interview, you’re going to be checked out on the web and so it’s going to be a regular google check and also on linked in check, and people want to see what you’re about, whether you’re going to fit in based on your experience and based on the way you present yourself, okay? And there’s there’s one more tool that we need to have, right? Yeah, business card. The business card is really important, and that also has two echo what is being said under that real estate onto your name, if you will and at the top of your resume. Okay, so this is you shouldn’t be giving out for job search purposes. Career change purposes. The business card of your current employment. Well, you can on some people feel uncomfortable carrying a second card, but what i would say is optimal is to carry a second card that has more than just your name. Your email address your linked in and your phone number, which is very important, but also those keywords about what you were looking for, what you’ve done in the past so fund-raising professional major gifts, an annual giving or attorney non-profit expertise, okay? And what if you’re making the career change? What then? It should echo what your linkedin says about what you’re aspiring to absolutely aspiring is okay, we don’t necessarily have to make a ha one hundred percent history of what we’ve done on the business card. We can position ourselves because it’s all about marketing, positioning, ok, so we have the resume, the aural pitch linked in profile and and your business card absolutely what’s another. I think people get hung up on the reservation. I would ask you what what’s, another piece of advice for the resume. Just a really succinct profile about what you want to do, what you’ve done, what your core competencies are at the top. In addition to the experience that we talked about in the non-profit and other sections with quantifiable project work numbers, people get caught up on sometimes not having numbers. Numbers don’t have to be dollar signs, although that is important if you have them also know if you if you coordinate events or or you’re an events professional or you aspire to be an events professional, how many events did you do in a year? How many people attended? How many people volunteers? Did you organize anything that helps in in the quantification of what you think she knows where all those important outcomes that you mentioned earlier? Absolutely what’s your advice on length of resume two pages this fine in the non-profit setting some career changers get let’s unless these days, but particularly people who have been on wall street in the financial sector that’s a demand often that they be on one page in their own profession. I think that you, if you have, if you’re out ten years, say even five you can go to a page and a half ten, i would say more like two three is excessive, i think in this market, ok, even for someone who’s got maybe twenty years, twenty five years experience, and they’re looking to make the change. Often those people will do a summary bio on a separate sheet of paper that they can submit if the employer’s interested, but certainly for first queries. I think that two pages is is the limit. Um, i mean, i could do my life in two paragraphs. One has three sentences. So concise is good. Absolutely achieved. Very little. It’s. Easy for me to convey. Convey what i have done. Well, it goes back to the marketplace. It’s. A very crowded marketplace. They say that on average and employer will look at your resume for ten seconds and you have to be able to capture in in six thickness and often in bullet points, which i really like. Ah, a clear and concise message. Okay, let’s, talk a little more about linked in. You gave a little tease about what should be on linked in profile. That important, that important real estate right below the name. Because that’s going to be seen right after what else around lincoln? I like summaries that are in the first person. I think very often when you kind of talked about here in the third person people trying to sound academic or, you know, smart tony martignetti was this and that i right? Yeah. It’s just i bring people in, and that goes. To the photo as well. The photo you want a snapshot, you don’t have to look like you know it’s a studio, you know, perfect portrait, but just to bring people in, a lot of people don’t have photos. A lot of people have very casual photos, and i like something that brings you in both the language and the visual, and then the summary section is really important to position yourself again. This is the section this’s, the narrative where you write your own paragraph, not where each job appears. Supper absolutely, that is the central summary. Go ahead, exactly. So you want to talk about your achievements again? I’m really harping achievements because they’re really important, and then you want to position yourself as you do in the oral pitch, as you do, you know, hopefully at the top of your resume about what you’re looking for and why you as opposed to anybody else in the market and those might be specific degrees that you have. It might be that you lived abroad. It might be any number of things that you bring to the project experience to the market that others may not replicate in the same way, then, on the specialties section i really like and i like a list of what you’ve done proposal writing, if you’re an attorney and this is where you would bring in your project, work from the volunteering absolutely, but in the skills and it’s called out a special specialties is it’s called that on link toga there’s, a relatively new section as well. I won’t call it new new, maybe a year to old called volunteer experiences and causes where you want to really bring that up front above, often depending on how comfortable you feel about and how involved you’ve been above the work experience. Okay? Oh, and you can move the sections around sections around now. Oh, i don’t know if people know do you know how to do that specifically? Go into the edit section where you work iss and you can bring that up? I believe i don’t know the specific, okay, but there is a way to change is a sequencing. This sequencing is really important, and then the skills come in again, where you can choose specific name tags for what you’ve done and those air also searchable by potential employers and colleagues okay, so oh, god and then groups is really important. You can choose up to fifty groups and linked in. I don’t know that you want all the e mails that come from that, but you could do daily or weekly. Jj, i just repeated change your preferences for each for each group individually you can have. So if one group is really important to you, you can get daily emails, others less important. Get weekly digests absolutely and it’s really important to start contributing selectively. I mean, you don’t want to spam everybody but as a thought leader in some of those groups, so i’m a career coach. I may want to go to one of the groups that i belong to non-profit transitions, for example, non-profit boards and start talking about some of these issues, and people will often do in lincoln in in messages to me as a result of those postings where they post questions and we start to develop a relationship. Okay, we spent a good amount of time on linked him, but it’s one of the four important tools and for people who don’t have it, they obviously need to have it they need to have it also, tony, because we need to develop over one hundred connections often we want ends to certain organizations were applying tio we’re interested in certain organizations learning more about them. It’s very difficult if you don’t have a broad network either online or offline or both to find people that can make the introductions for you into the organizations and for the opportunity, believe it or not, we have just ah committed a half or so left let’s talk a little about networking because that’s critical and we’ve been talking about online networking what’s your advice around face-to-face networking. Well, first, we want to look into who is within our immediate network family, friends, people that we know on board spouses of those people who are on boards. A second piece are events, and i counsel people to go to at least one of them a week from their alma mater, possibly in an industry specific event, so it could be the support center for non-profit management, women in development, association of fund-raising professionals, junior league sponsors a lot of events cope if you’re interested in events specifically event organizing council on protocol executives, that’s group okay, okay, and then we want to start to tap into the hidden job market where we actually list out organizations that were interested in and use linked in and other connections to try and find the hiring managers within those organizations and take meetings with them. The hiring managers not just that’s, not the hr people. This is the manager who’s your you’ll be working for at a sylar grantwriting hopefully working for starting out with a networking relationship that you hopefully keep up over time, and when an opportunity becomes available either within their organization or another one, they have a positive impression of you and are able to either hyre you refer you to that opportunity, we have to stop there. Osili bonham is. Julia bonham is principal of career change for good. She started her consultancy two years ago when she had twenty four years of experience in non-profit development. My thanks to julia, and right now we’re going to take a break, and when we returned, it is tony’s. Take two, stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna 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, it’s, time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour in april, i had a block post called it’s planned giving, not product e-giving and i wanted to make people aware that there are some financial advisors who sell products like life insurance and annuities, and often they want to offer their help to your plans e-giving program. But often your program is not their first interest. Their first interest is earning commissions on the financial products that they sell and it’s amazing how when you talk to them, their best solution for your plan to giving program is just happens to be the product that they sell. This does not apply to all financial well, never financial advisors, but all people who sell financial products. I in fact, when i do seminars for clients, i routinely include somebody who is a life insurance broker, but the person that i use understands the role of life insurance in a broader plan to giving program, and there are people who cellphone ansel products who don’t recognize that, and they just think that the basis of your programme, as i said, should be the products that they sell. So you just want to be aware of self interest among some people who are offering to help your plan e-giving program? Do they have your plan e-giving program and your donors as their first interest? Or is there something else going on? And that post is from april it’s called it’s planned e-giving not product giving, and you’ll find that my blogged at tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for for friday, may twenty fifth twenty twelve it’s the twenty first show of the year. Maria semple is with me. Maria, how you doing? Hello, how are you today? I’m doing terrific, lee, you are the prospect finder. You are also an experienced trainer and speaker on prospect research. And people will find your website at the prospect finder dot com and they’ll also find your book, which is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects now. And maria simple. Welcome back. Thanks so much for having me back, tony. My pleasure. As always, we’re talking about go off line. There are things it sze hard for me to believe that there are actually places that people can go for prospect research and they’re not on the web, is this actually a truth? It is it is absolutely so you know, i i was thinking about this because i do a lot of networking, and sometimes i will see non-profit executives attending, and it seems as though it’s definitely more than smaller to midsize non-profit so that would be your audience of listeners. Tony and i was thinking about how someone who might be an executive director or a development director who is looking to do some more prospect research, whether they’re doing reactive or pro active research, and we’ve talked about that in the past couple times where you may have certain people you’re looking to gain more information on or you’re looking to just get more individuals aware of the great mission of your non profit organization and therefore spread the message, and hopefully they get engaged and become donors. So i was thinking about some of those offline activities and thought we might concentrate on that for this particular segment. Yeah, sounds good, let’s see? So when they were talking about shops where there isn’t a devoted prospect researcher and maybe, you know, i think later on we may we may bring in those shops where there is a devoted prospect researcher, because there are things that they could be doing also that are not online, so we’ll get to that. But the board is for smaller shops, the board is a good place to start. Is that right? The board is a great place to start, so if they really understand how, how, just constantly keeping their antenna up, for example, when they’re out and about in the community, doing other community service or in their business world if they’re able to just i kind of know what to listen for in terms of engaging more people for your non-profit working okay on dh, what are we asking? Boardmember is to listen for what specifically what instructions should we be giving them? So i think it be great to give them instructions. First of all, they need to be very clear and understand everything that your own organization does, so that when they’re out engaging with people and they’re having a conversation and letting people know that they serve on a specific board on, and they should be very proud of that their ambassadors for your organization and then they engage in a conversation, you know, let’s say you they are a boardmember for a local why? And they happen to be talking about something, some aspect of the children’s programming, and if they happen to notice that that seems to really catch the attention of the person that they’re speaking with it’s definitely an opportunity to engage them further, invite them in for a tour. Uh, maybe invite them to an upcoming cultivation event or gala event or something like that indefinitely on opportunity, a door has been opened really for you to get more information and engaged that person further. My first guest today, julia bonem talked about for people changing jobs, having an aural pitch should should board members have something similar? You know, the elevator pitch, you know, that would probably be great, of course, when they’re out and about and networking there, they’re thinking about their own elevator pitch, but certainly they should have a very concise the description of what the organization does in such a way that it’s not going to bore the person to tears, that’s listening to them, but certainly will make the person se gi tell me more about that organization sounds fascinating. So, yeah, that’d be great, you know, speak. Speaking of other guests that you’ve had on your show, tony, you had someone on on april twentieth who was from morgan stanley, her name melanie dellaccio burghdoff schnoll begun begun, and she talked about something called radical list. Elearning and that really kind of piqued my interest because that’s, exactly what we’re talking about here is radical listening, so moving the donor or the prospective donor and really at some point that will help you to form a valuable proposal. So she talked about the aspect of putting on your listening ears. I’m putting some information out there and waiting for that reaction. So in terms of prospect research and you’re out and about in the community and doing your offline activities, as i call it it’s important to really put those listening ears on and and understand what the person is communicating to you and then all importantly, making sure that you go back and capture that information in some sort of a call report. Uh uh, maybe create a new donor record in your donorsearch off where a donor prospect and capture any important pieces. Of information you’ve gleaned from that conversation. Okay, we’re going to talk about the coal reports shortly thiss doesn’t stop with just the like the fund-raising or development committee that this should be the full board, i think no, i think it should be the full board. Certainly the fund-raising or development committee is most focused on fund-raising but really, the entire board has a fiduciary sponsor ability to the organization and the full board. They’re all ambassadors, and they are they are all every one of them ambassadors. So, you know, there are plenty of ways to get them up to speed on the fact that even though they may not be totally comfortable in being the person asking for money, there are certainly a lot of other points along the development, a cycle that they can be very helpful for they can host cultivation events, they can invite people to those events, they could certainly get involved in thanking people in stewarding people, and every one of those points along that development spectrum is an opportunity for the boardmember to engage people, to again be an ambassador for your organization and gathered valuable, valuable information that we probably will not find online. Yeah, i blogged about this at one point where saying that you’re your your best prospect research and of course i’m not a prospect researcher, but i believed that i still believe that you’re best prospect research comes from face-to-face meetings on, in fact, that was just happen to have it here it was called best prospect research comes from the prospect on dh that was blood that in july two thousand ten, right? I had an opportunity to review that because i wanted to make sure you want to make sure that i i covered, you know, any of the points that you brought across in that, and they were all excellent point, you know, i like the way you talk about really, you know, sitting down over some sort of a meal if it can’t be a complete meal, obviously, you know, you can meet for a cup of coffee or something like that, but there’s, really, you’re you’re right, tony there’s something about sitting down across the table from somebody and in a more relaxed atmosphere, as opposed to a planned meeting in an office or something, which then feels very much like a business meeting i like, i like that you’re you know, you’re sharing a physical space, you’re probably not sharing the food because you don’t know the person that well, but you’re sharing a physical space and there aren’t going to be interruptions by assistance and other people coming in or calling the office. Of course, people do have cell phones, but usually they’re polite enough to turn those off or at least not take the call when it comes through. The thing i like about meetings over a meal is everybody understands the flow, you know, we have a general idea when the server is going to come and bring water, and then when they’re goingto take the order and roughly when the food is going to come and, you know, this sort of there’s a flow that everybody understands, but when you’re in someone’s office, the flow is totally under their control, and i like a more neutral, uh, space that everybody understands the timing of right, and i think that people then will open up a little bit more, you know? They most people tend to live to talk about themselves and their family, so it’s definitely. An opportunity for you as putting on your prospect research had, if you will, to gather more information on those missing puzzle pieces that you perhaps did not readily have available in internet databases very often information about a spouse and about their children. Those are usually harder pieces of information to find on the internet unless there’s been really great biographical articles written on that person already, which is more a rarity than not know. So in a one hour meeting, you can learn a lot that could take you very much longer than that to find out on the web, and then you might not even find it right like that radical listening? Yeah, just, you know, and so they’re like i said there’s that point along the continuum of fund-raising cycle that doesn’t involve the actual ass. So gathering that information and and understanding what pieces you may have missing from your your prospect research report or your donor file is definitely important as well. Let’s go back to directly to the board there’s another way that they could be involved formally, which is, and i’ve talked about it on the show, having them screen lists of people like peer reviews, absolutely what? How does that take shape was that you would want to make sure, first of all, that everybody understands they’re coming to this meeting, this gathering and that, and that should be done really in a private office space, not in a public space. So you want to have that, as, you know, a focus meeting on doing a a peer review session or prospect review session, they’re coming. Ideally, you should be coming to the table with list of prospective donors that you’re hoping to gleam or information about these air prospects and maybe even just suspects and maybe even just suspects want to explain what a suspect is. People may not know the difference well, so that might be somebody who you’ve heard about in the community. They happen to be engaged with other non-profits do similar type of work to yours. Sametz you think that they may be wealthy, but you want to kind of have an idea before you start delving too far along into this, you know, prospect research process, so maybe they actually know them and can give you some additional information, right? But at this point a suspect, you know very little about you just have those beliefs that you described on dh opinions about what they might be interested in, right? Exactly. Okay, so so how does this peer review screening worked then of the other board? So ideally, if you couldn’t bring some names to the table for people to look at whatever you might already know, some very basic information about the individuals where they reside, where they work, um, and again, this is all very confidential, and i also recommend that anything that you do print out in these reports on dh circulate amongst the committee members stays in that room. It does not leave, so i’m very sensitive to trying to keep information all as confidential as possible don’t let people take take the list home with them or email it to people who can’t make the meeting shouldn’t do that. Well, if you have some sort of a secure, more secure email system, you know something that would allow you teo securely share the information? Yes, you could do it that way. The person can’t make the meeting, but the best feedback is really going to come when they have that. Interplay amongst each other and, you know, saying, oh, yeah, i’ve heard about that person and, you know, i happen to know a lot about their business or their very new to the community, and i know they have a wife and two young children, so it may spur on additional thoughts and conversations that simply won’t take place if you just female out a list and say, let me have your feedback on this, you know, um, let’s talk about family foundations for a minute because i find that when non-profits are really looking to expand, uh, their donor full and get proactive about getting more names in the pipeline, i usually tell them what focus on some family foundations in the community because these are people that have taken philanthropy to a new level, have gone the step of creating their own family foundation. So let’s, take a look at these families and see if they might be suitable prospects for us so you can use something as simple as guide star most non-profits will have access to their premium level service for free so you can actually do this type of research, come up with names of family foundation’s let’s, say, in twenty five or fifty mile radius of your zip code and then bring those names to the table, along with the trusty names affiliated with each foundation. So it’s an opportunity for you to walk into a development committee or a board meeting or a peer review session and say, my research has shown that we have one hundred and fifty family foundations in our nearby communities, that we serve here’s, a list of them here, the trustees. Does anybody have a connection to the foundation way have only about thirty seconds before a break, where will people find this guide? Star premium service that you’re saying is free guide star g u i d e s t a r dot or ge if they maintain their own non-profit the report on guide star, they will also have access to a premium level service access. Okay, and you and i have talked about that before we’re going to take a break. Maria simple, the prospect finder, will stay with me. We’re talking about your offline activities for prospect research. Stay with us. Talking alternative radio. Twenty four hours. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio 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. Talking. Welcome back, come with maria simple, the prospect finder, but let’s talk a little about the importance of call reports capturing this information that that we find in our face to face meetings or just everything is not a meeting, just a chance running into somebody. Yes, absolutely. So a call report would be something that we see ideal to have every executive director development director boardmember prepare after they’ve had it sit down meeting with someone or perhaps even a phone conversation with someone so it’s important to capture that information as quickly as possible after the conversation has taken place, there are going to be tidbits of information that you’re going to glean from that conversation about maybe some very citic aspect of your programming going back to the earlier example of the y why serves of such a wide variety of age for people right from instant and learning how to swim all the way up, tio senior citizens and programming for them. So it’s important to understand, perhaps what aspect of your programming? Maybe they really love the aspect of senior citizens getting in the pool, doing water aerobics or something like that, you know, so you can engage them further in conversation about programming for seniors, so it is important tio lather that information and capture it somewhere you’re going to forget the information. Our memories are very short and it’s important not only to gather the information for an immediate thie immediate near future of when you’re going to further cultivate and solicit that person, but also for the longevity of the organization, you know, in the fund-raising world in the nonprofit world, people move around a lot. So so what do we want to capture in these kottler force? What? What sections should there be? I think that you should be making sure you capture information again about specific programming they’re interested in general age groups. They’re interested in helping what? What are their? What are their hobbies and interests? So that might give you some idea of their level of well in terms of how they spend their free time and all the personal sort of biographical information we took with children’s children, families, what other boards do they serve on? That’ll give you so much information if you know what other boards they serve on, you’ll want to make note of that because again, where they’re serving on boards, they’re probably donating and you can sometimes find even at what levels they’re donating by tapping into specific databases or even going to the web site of that particular non-profit if they have an annual report in a pdf format on their website, you might be able to glean information about what level of e-giving they’re involved in with that particular non-profit so it’ll help you formulate and ask a little better when the time con when the time comes right and these things reports should probably probably be confidential in the office right now, but they should also be shared. They should be shared with the people that need to see the information. Okay, so first of all, the information should all be very factual. I always say to people, when you’re typing up any kind of prospect, profiles are putting information into your donor-centric self is more of an investigative reporter and state everything very factual, you know, date of divorce. If there’s been a divorce or something like that, you don’t need to say anything further about the divorce fight. What you might have heard that maybe in in public circles, you know, i’ve heard the standard that you shouldn’t put anything in a call report or really, in writing or e mails that you wouldn’t want that you’d be embarrassed if the person you’re writing about saw right, and in fact they have the right to walk into your non-profit at any time and asked to see their donor record that you do want to be very cognizant to that at all times and write your report with that i wear go ahead, we have just a couple minutes before break. Go ahead. Yeah, so yeah, just to make sure that the information that you wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere online can perhaps be gathered from any conversations you have let’s talk about, ah, hosting cultivation events for four suspects now that we’ve identified what a suspect is, and for prospects, this is another good wayto meet people and it’s it’s, not the one on one lunch, which could be a little off putting to some people, right? So cultivation events are great and there you will definitely want to have your radical listening ears on prices. So you wanna have if you have an opportunity to make sure that you engage all of your board members to have the same radical listening ears on who are attending this event that yeah, it’s a great opportunity in very often they’re held in someone’s home and so again, it’s a more relaxed atmosphere, you have an opportunity to present a sum information about your non-profit and their importantly, there’s no ask made at that event it is purely for cultivation purposes only. And if you state that the event is going to be an hour long, keep it to an hour long. You know, people’s time is very valuable, so it’s an opportunity to to fill in the blank, some missing pieces that you might have on people. Or maybe it’s the first time you’re getting any information, perhaps you’ve not done any prospect research on them at all, and meeting them at this cult patient event really kind of raises your antenna a bit to say, wow, this is someone we need to engage further and learn a lot more about you could use your board to invite people to the to the to the meeting that to the event that they might know people that they may know yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that and that is a great way to engage your board. Okay, so you’re not asking them to ask for money. Just bring some people to the table, right? Maria, we have to leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me on the block with those offline activity. My pleasure, as always. Thank you, maria simple is the prospect. Find her you’ll find her website, the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects. Now i want to thank our very much, of course, and also julia bonem been a pleasure having both of you as guests next week, scott koegler will be with me he’s, our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news and the other guest. I don’t know yet because i’m recording on may first. But how can you find out who that guest is going to be? It’s so simple? Find out for our insider sign up for our insider email alerts on their facebook page. You can like the page and you can also subscribe to those weekly alerts. You know you can listen. Live our archive to catch us on the archive. Goto our itunes paige at non-profit radio dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our hashtag is non-profit radio on twitter. Use that thing. 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