610. How to Reframe Your Engagement + Activate Supporters (Beth Saunders)

6:02PM Mar 17, 2025

Speakers:

Jonathan McCoy

Becky Endicott

Beth Saunders

Keywords:

Community building

supporter engagement

Beth Saunders

move measure framework

nonprofit consulting

meaningful connection

abundant thinking

impact measurement

engagement strategy

data analysis

donor interactions

volunteer activities

nonprofit outcomes

engagement pyramid

strategic framework.

Becky, what's happening? You know, I'm grinning really big, because we've been talking a lot about community. Is the multiplier. We've been talking about community building, how to build with community. And one of those hurdles that is really been coming up for a lot of people in our community is like, how do I get somebody to act how do I get them to lean in. And I want to tell you, friends, this is your episode, because we have brought on an incredible force for good. She is a member of the Impact Uprising. We're so excited. She's in our membership. Beth Saunders is in the house, and today we're going to be talking about activating your supporters to engage with your mission. And so Beth is going to give you the road map, and we are so excited to take community building to the next level. So let me tell you a little bit about Beth before we dive in. She is one of those individuals that is deeply passionate about making missions happen. She has this incredible map, move measure, framework that guides missions for elevated stewardship and increased supporter engagement, which we can all get on board with. And so her consulting practice really reflects her life experience, which is just so interesting. She has studied abroad, earning her MBA, taking a mid career detour to volunteer and travel, leaving her corporate job to serve an AmeriCorps VISTA and ultimately leading her own consulting practice. And all of that has really contributed to best commitment for connecting passion and purpose and Beth. I have to say what you and I have met. We met with, we meet with all of our members, and I feel like your superpower is helping people think in new and different ways about their work, and so I love that you help nonprofits. Think about how to get people to engage with you. So we are going to dive heavily into that. Beth, we are so excited you're here. Welcome to the podcast. Well,

thank you so much. You're pretty good at making someone blush.

I'm reflecting back to you, and I just think yours are the kind of stories that make us smile, that give us hope. I mean, you were working a very corporate job, and you had this hard pivot, and we want to hear all that we're going to get into support or engagement, but I think your story is so interesting, so kind of just take us back to that time and what led you to today, sure,

and I guess I'll start by seeing that what a lot of what, sometimes, like a path or a decision, can feel very scary or looming, and you can reframe that and say it's really exciting and opening new doors. And that's one of the things I love to do, is reframe, right? And think about things from a new perspective. Yeah, and so I don't know I was raised, I kind of followed all the things I thought I was expected to do. So after I graduated college, you know, I started a commercial banking job, and I did that for about 10 years, and at one point I just felt that I wasn't really doing anything meaningful. I mean, there's important work, and there's work that needs to be done, and then there's work that feels meaningful, like it's making a difference. And I felt like nothing I did mattered. So I was trying to figure out what to do, and I took a I'm doing the air quotes, adventure vacation, and one that was my first entree to Peru. I went down to Peru and I kind of explored and went on this hike, and I, in retrospect, realized what I had was a Salisbury Hill moment. I've talked about this in other places, but if you know that song, turns out Peter Gabriel wrote that song because he was really realizing that he needed to move on and do something new. And in this moment, I was standing on the Inca Trail, looking at like, the, you know, this valley and all these mountains, and I'm like, I really need to make a change. And when I got back to my desk at the bank, I kept a photo of my trip there, and I was like, I can't forget how I felt. And so I did. That's when I ended up shifting and thinking, I don't know how to be anything but a banker. So I ended up applying through AmeriCorps VISTA to go into a nonprofit organization that was focused on micro lending and sort of the rest, as they say, is history. You know, I navigated AmeriCorps VISTA for a year working in nonprofits for several years after that, took another career break with my husband, and we lived in South America for a year, volunteering and traveling came back, and yeah, my nonprofit journey continued at that point, but then navigated into working with nonprofits through contract employment and now consulting. And I've just always felt that I needed to have meaningful connection, and realized I needed that through my work as well, and I've figured out how to create that by working with so many nonprofit organizations. I can't pick one passion or one cause, so I cheat. So I guess that's kind of how I got here, right? Is just sort of figuring it out, making some choices that some people said. They said, Oh, you're so brave. And. I thought to myself, well, I guess you could think of it as brave. Maybe it's just crazy.

I relate so much with your story. Honestly. Beth, thank you for sharing that. I think there's some things I just want to point out that doing the courageous thing to step out. It doesn't have to look like going to Peru or getting on the Inca trail or whatever, but just like breaking the monotony to like, really take stock is such like an important factor, and I hope a lot of the tools we share on the podcast talk about that, like, how are we asking the bigger, better question of what we want for our life or what we need for our organizations? I hope this conversation today is a little bit of bomb for everybody in that regard, because you talk about engagement a lot, which I love so much, I think that's such a important thing to center as we are in this attention economy, and how are we actually engaging people and motivating people? And so you spend a lot of time talking and listening to nonprofits as they're analyzing what's our data telling us? What is what are we missing? That maybe the data is saying that we're just not seeing what do you think we're getting wrong right now in terms of engagement, and what's kind of shifted and become nuanced in recent years that you've seen? Yeah,

I thought about that. And, you know, I'm not sure what we're getting wrong. Sometimes it's what we're missing out on noticing. You know, a lot of people think about data, and then you instantly get this image right. And I guess if you're my age, that image might look like a DOS screen, but, yikes, right? But data might look like check boxes or pick list fields, or you think, you think numbers and digits, but data, to me, is a record of an interaction. And in the nonprofit space, we have this tendency to think about those interactions as donations or gifts. I almost always hear people talk about their donors. And what we end up doing when we think about anything as a label is we silo our thinking, and so we get small, we look down, and we and we think small. And I've really come to understand through engagement strategy that it's not about donors, it's about people who donate, right? So the idea is that we're not getting it wrong. We're just we're not seeing the whole picture. So when we I talk about looking up, right? So if you look up from the interaction or the transaction, and you realize that that's a human being who is playing the role of a donor, there's other data about that individual that will help you understand them and how they might want to engage with your organization. So over time, right? We've moved from databases to platforms and CRMs, you know, and then we've moved to business intelligence, and now AI, and there's a lot of ways to analyze data in order to draw out those stories. So for me, it's usually always not usually it's always about looking up from that one thing you're working on, or the one thing you're looking at, I'm literally looking down, right, and then looking up and noticing the bigger picture, whether that's a relationship, right? I again, that reframe, you heard me say, transaction, nah, it's an interaction, right? Donor, no, that's a supporter. That's someone who's passionate about your mission and wants to help you achieve your vision, and they can do that in a lot of different ways. So that's what I think is hidden in the data.

I just hope this is starting to help, and I guess I'm accidentally saying this, but reframe our minds about the way we think about data, the way we interact with data and and I know it's already working for me, because we have such a big trend this year that we have to redefine impact measurement and the way that we have historically looked at data is incredibly transactional, especially if you put that moniker of donor on it. Because if you have, if you're just looking at a donor, you're ignoring all of the people who are lurking around, who are waiting for the step to come into your mission. And there are so many data points that show you that someone is highly engaged, that they are watching, that they are reading, that they are in tune. And so I hear you talking about, like, using these words about opening your mind, and we're a very big proponent of abundant thinking, not just because it feels good and it's nice to have, but because in this scenario, and honestly, I would say for all scenarios, when you start having this abundant mindset, it's going to help you scale your mission. So I want you to share a little bit about your theory on that and that abundant thinking yields abundant results, and scarcity thinking yields scarcity results and so. And I also think that you're leading nonprofits through the change they're making in this world, because your outcome. Focused. And I just think that is such a shift. So take us through the reframe of that. My friend,

who? How much time do we have? Yeah,

keep going, Julie. Just Julie

cuts in. Yeah,

it's really hard. I love that you taught that tied that together, Becky, that you know, to me, abundance mindset really can only exist if we are thinking about outcomes, and it's hard to talk about one without the other. And you know, I will fully call myself out. I'm a consultant, right? I'm on the out side. I am not working in one organization. I do think of myself, and I've been told I'm an inside outsider. So when I do work with you, I really get into it, you know, part of the team, rolling up my sleeves, really working together, and I have been on the inside. But what's important is to bring that outside perspective, you know, you know, you know how, like, you can't really see it if you're in it, yeah, outside of it and so. And then I've already mentioned about looking up well, outcomes are achieved by achieving some outputs, right? You definitely need to have some numbers and some achievements. But if we never think about the outcomes, the real change that's happening, then we are thinking from a scarcity mindset, so like abundance, it feels a little Woo, woo, you know, or all kinds of powerful, especially in times like now, to be talking about abundance and trying to look up and see all the good, when everything feels so heavy and challenging and scarce, yeah. But when we think about abundance, it's, again, it's a it's a reframe, you know, I say, if you only ever talk about the problems, what people don't have, you know, and we think of underserved, I mean, first of all, that's also negative based language. It's not asset based language, if we focus on what, what's missing, and that our organization is filling a gap, that's scarcity, right? And people respond to that pretty quickly, right? Oh, there's a problem that you know, I want to help that, and they give their $25 donation, right? Or they show up at that event for three hours, and they volunteer some time. But if you talk about the potential and the change that will happen that individual's life because of the work of the organization, and you talk about the outcome, I'll give you an example. You know, if we if we talk about that, children are suffering more health issues, and parents are missing work because they cannot afford diapers, right? That's all negative. The children are they're in the hospital with horrible like skin, you know, rashes and and illnesses, and the parents have to stay home because they can't put their child in daycare. That's all true, right? It's also scarcity, and it's scary instead, and you'll get immediate help. Absolutely hands down, people will rise to that challenge. But when we talk about families that have financial stability, like you can enable this family to have financial stability and to succeed at work and that have babies have healthier outcomes. Suddenly, I'm sitting up tall and I'm really listening, and I'm thinking about the future and how that's actually solved a problem, and that actually takes a bigger investment. I just know that. I just know that it takes a bigger investment to help a family be financially stable and for babies to have healthier outcomes. So my feeling is, like, when we talk about scarcity, we get support, and we might get short term, small support. I truly believe, and I've seen it in response with the clients I work with, that when we talk about those outcomes, which is an abundance mindset, you're going to get longer term support, you're going to develop a relationship with somebody, and they're gonna eventually give bigger, and that bigger might be not all dollars.

That's it. Beth Saunders, oh my gosh, like that needs to be like a TED talk. You know, truly, I think what an invitation, and what an opportunity for us in this moment to reframe using your words, using Becky. Becky, Becky, you've been saying that word all the week, too. Of just like, it's an opportunity to invite people into something better, and not just talk about the gaps, because it is exhausting. Like at some point you just can't keep up with all the pain and the problems, but we have unlimited capacity for hope, of like, what could be and like a story we want to be part of or a strong that we want to fix. So I just love that so much what you're sharing. So would you walk us through your framework of map, move measure? I know you use it to really help nonprofits grow their engagement and just kind of wrap around in a lot of different ways. So explain that

for us. Yeah, sure. Map, move measure is actually, I guess, another reframe. Jon, you know, I've learned a lot through theory of change and a framework called the engagement pyramid. And when I was pulling these things together and learning about engagement strategy, you know, it's, I mean, I didn't make this stuff up, right? I didn't develop this out of nowhere. I'm drawing on some really great work and materials that are out in the world, but what I do is try and break things down and make them accessible. So I've taken sort of the what I consider to be the best of theory of change. And theory of change, for those who aren't familiar, is literally expressing your theory on how to create change in order to achieve this long term change, we have to make these steps along the way, and that's called an outcomes pathway. So I've focused on the outcomes pathway. There's a lot of metrics and programming and other things that go with a full theory of change, but that outcomes pathway is really about the change that's happening. So that's the map part, and I call it a vision map. We start with an organization's vision, which side note, if your vision is saying who you want to be and how your organization will be. In fact, that's not a vision. In my not so humble opinion. Vision is about the world that will exist because you have achieved your goals, the change that you intend to create in the world, not in your own organization. So anyway, the vision that we work backwards, right? We say, Well, what are we going to achieve to make that vision real? That's a vision map. The move is, how can we invite others to move along with us to achieve these goals? Who shares our goals and wants to move on a journey with us to achieve them? And the measure is using an engagement pyramid framework. For those of you watching, right? I'm talking with my hands. They're always in the air. Engagement pyramid is talking about people will engage at different levels, and what that really means is they're going to give some amount of themselves to you, and it might be their attention, it might be their trust and their time. It might be their money, it might be their skills. It might be their network, right? It might be their influence and it might be their leadership. All of these are different levels of engagement, but it's three dimensional. So I've taken this engagement pyramid model and made it three dimensional because there isn't a volunteer pyramid and a donor pyramid. There's one period that's it, and the way people travel through it is by playing the different roles that they can play. You can invite them to volunteer, you can invite them to donate, you can invite them to advocate or serve leadership roles. So mat move measure. We're measuring their level of engagement when they interact and it gets you know, that's where the data comes in, but that's the mat move measure. And I feel like it's really a framework. It's a strategic framework, but once it's in place, it harnesses all the expertise that already exists inside of a nonprofit. Our nonprofit friends, the people working hard every day and leading these organizations, they have way more expertise and experience than I do in what their mission causes. But this framework keeps it heading in the right direction, right? It keeps them from going off the map. When I talk about the map, you know, I say, you know how, when you have driving directions, and you get the fuel efficient route, and then you get the no tolls route, and you get the fastest route, they all get you to the same place, but you get to choose which way, but if you go off the map, you're wasting time and you're wasting money. And so by having this vision map, it helps nonprofit leaders keep their organizations heading in the right direction without going on very costly detours. You're

the Siri saying turn around. You missed the turn.

The Michael Scott driving straight into the water, into the pond. We do not want you driving into the pond. And I, I need to geek out on this a little bit, because there's so many things that I'm thinking about at a holistic way, from what you're saying and you're being so calm and how you're saying it. Have you noticed that Jon, like, she's just so like, this is the way. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is the freaking way. Because if you are someone who says, Oh, we value everyone's contributions that come into the mission, yet you're only looking at your data to upgrade people and to get them to make a gift, then that is a very transactional strategy. But what Beth is saying here, which I think is so revolutionary, is your people are leaving signals all over your database about where they want to be what they're interested in. And how often they're showing up. And if we can just partner with them and look at these little beacons and put them in the right path, guess what? It's going to do so many things. It's going to help that donor, supporter, believer, whoever it is. It's going to make that individual feel seen and known. So you're already building belonging into the process. Two, it's very strategic. You're going at their pace. We're just we're testing these things and moving them along the continuum. And it's also really kind to be able to do this holistically with your community. We talked about community as the multiplier we build with community. And so I do think that this is such an unlock to get people to engage back, because you're really allowing them to take the lead. And you're not forcing your campaign on them. You're not forcing what you need this week on them. It is a very strategic process. And I'm just really stinking proud of you for building this framework and making it so simple for everyone. Thank you. And I want to, and I want to talk about these metrics just for a hot minute, because I think, when I think, when you had this little exercise, what do you think, when you think of data, I'm like, I think a Becky going into her hidey hole, you know, like into a turtle shell where it's like, oh, I don't want to do that, but oh my gosh, we've had such a negative relationship with data in the sector, and the data is literally the thing that is going to set us free. And so I want you to talk to people who are feeling that turtle shell moment like I was, and talk about what are those helpful key metrics that we should be focusing on to assess the effectiveness of these engagement strategies? What are the key metrics that are going to help us redefine the impact measurement that we're really looking for

sure and listening to you? I can't help but take a slight detour, but I won't go fully off the map, right? Not want to waste time and money on bringing out we, so many of us, like our stress levels go through the roof when we start thinking about data, because we're thinking about the actual technology systems that we need to use, and it's often a struggle. So I spent many years of my consulting working with organizations to be successful using their technology, and when they're not, it's because it wasn't designed to support their process. It was designed to tell them to work the way it works. And that just makes me nuts, right? I just firmly believe that if you have a clear process, the technology should support your work, right? You shouldn't be supporting your technology. So anyone out there working hard to use your systems, it needs to be reconfigured, or you need something seen,

Yes

But when it works for you, right? You also want to work in your systems. You don't want to put your work in your data like you don't in your database, right? You don't want to do your work and then go put it in your system. Just work in your system. If you do that, then you can track data that represents the interactions that tell the story of a relationship, and the metrics, I think they're all the metrics we already know. The thing that I'm introducing is a new data point, which is the engagement level. And and it's an add on, so if you're whatever you're already doing, when you track your donations, when you're tracking volunteer activities, all these things, you know, board service, committee service, if you, if you tag on to that, and it's not this simple, right? You don't just go, oh, that's at this level. You know, there's a little bit of work that gets done, but when you also have an engagement level associated with it, then the metrics. I go back to the classic, you know, in fundraising, we talked about RFM, the recency, frequency and monetary value. Let's just, let's reframe that. Okay, let's just keep reframing everything good,

because I was hitting that acronym, right? So help me out

recency, right? What have you done for me lately? Maybe you made a gift, but maybe you brought a friend to volunteer with you. Maybe you did something else. So what? What have you done recently? And then the frequency is, how often are you interacting with us. Maybe, you know recent frequency we immediately go to, are they giving an annual gift? Are they a recurring donor? It's not always about donations, right? It could be that you have somebody who's been quietly volunteering once a month for the last three years. They're your champion volunteer. What is the frequency with which they are interacting with your organization, and the monetary value can actually get applied to if you had to put a monetary value on each interaction, how much did that volunteer activity contribute to your organization? How much did their board service? Just their leadership in that committee? D contribute to your organization. So if we think about everything as What have you done for me lately? How often do you do it, and what value is that adding? And you think about it as an engagement level, you will always know who is most likely to say yes to whatever it is that you need to do, right? So I try not to say to ask for because I really like to think about making offers to engage, not asking people like do something. But you'll always know who's most likely to say yes. And what that means is we're going to have a big push this year. We're going to raise money for a special event, you know? I mean, I'm terrible with coming up with creative ideas, right? But if you a nonprofit is always needing some more more support, if you just put that ask or that invitation out to absolutely everybody, it's a very generic message. But if you think about who's most likely to say yes to that specific ask that you have, there's probably someone who has already done something similar, somewhat recently, right? And who's been around a while. But maybe, if it's inviting new people, maybe it is someone who is more new to your organization, right? So these metrics around how much, how often, and the value will help you identify who's most likely to say yes. And I like to think always, and always offer a 123, because when you have those metrics, when you capture data, and you can measure it in this way, then you can always offer to the people supporting your mission. You can offer them to stay right where they're at, offer them an activity that is at the same level, but also offer them a way to step back once in a while, because who knows what's going on, and then always offer them an opportunity to step up, because who knows what's going on, right? And sometimes, you know, when people say no. They're not gone. They're just, that's a that's data too. You need to know what they said no to so that you can offer them something else, right? They didn't say no to you. They said no to what you asked or what you offered. I

think you're right, because, like, the engagements, not just, like, up into the left, like nothing in life is like that. It's like we're walking through life. There's gonna be seasons that we can be more engaged, or maybe we have more financial ability, or whatever the different factors are. So I think I love that you lifted that because I want to partner that with some values we have, which is play the long game. Community is everything when you're building with community. Like the gift of that is to be able to say, sometimes the no is a beautiful answer. Like, we love hearing no. I love when, when our community is like, No, I can't host an impact up. I'm like, Thank you for saying honestly, because I really don't want you to host

it. Thanks for setting a boundary for yourself. And like, I

think that's more we don't give that enough credence that man, that's awesome to get feedback, you know, and be able to do something with that so good.

And when you talked about that, you did this with your hand like you it would look like a ladder, right? I don't talk about engagement ladders. Ladders. You can only go up or down, like mostly up, and you can't move up unless someone gets out of the way, right? And a pyramid is much it's three dimensional. You can move around, you can turn corners, and you can go upstairs and come back down without bumping people out of your way. And I just feel like ladders are very again, we're putting ourselves in that silo mindset. So I never talk about ladders. It's always a pyramid shape, and it's not meant to be hierarchical or indicate importance. It's literally how much someone is giving of themselves. And it gets small at the top, because not as many people right engage at that high level as who the number of people who engage in a low level

love it. I mean, Beth, we could talk to you. We said this earlier. We could talk to you all day. I love the way you've reframed so much of this for us. But I want to ask you about story, because we celebrated here. It's how we transform. It's how we believe movements are born. Or in storytelling, would you take us to a moment of philanthropy that has really moved you and stuck with you over the years?

Well, I might have to take a cheater answer to that question, because I really can't think of a single moment my journey through through life, I suppose, has really been full of so many and when I moved into the nonprofit space, what I realized is I just see it around me all the time. And going back to when I was an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, I probably was old enough to be the aunt, if not, the mother, of everybody else in AmeriCorps, and to see so many young people knowing if they wanted to give and work in this way was so inspiring to me. And then, as I been a consultant and working with people doing such incredible work and having such passion, right to say, I really. Need to make this change and give their lives to it, because that's what you do in the nonprofit space, is you give your life really to your your cause. I'm so moved and inspired by that I'm often brought to tears just working with the people I work with, because I'm so full up with how important it is what they're doing. And so truly, I think I have the best job ever. I get to really experience lots of causes and lots of positive change around lots of passionate people. And that's really what moves me.

I feel you so much. I just think, you know there are sacrifices in this job that make it difficult at times. But when I come back to the little story of the life change of to your point, the person who was able to go get diapers, or the person who was able to get over a hump, because we existed. To me, that is what community is. I mean community is everything, and it's about us pouring into each other. And what a gift that we all get to do this with our unique talents, with whatever we have inside us that makes us come alive. And I just have been thinking as you've been talking and you've been unpacking this in such a beautiful way, like, how lucky are we that we get to have Beth in this work, that Beth walked into a Barnes and Noble, I don't know if it's a Barnes and Noble, and bought a book that said, I'm gonna go on an adventure travel trip to Peru and listen to that nudge. And never looked back, you know? And I, and I speak to you out there. Thank you for listening to your nudge. If you have done anything in this work, thank you for showing up. Thank you for working in it. Thank you for volunteering, because it takes a freaking village to be able to help all the people who need our help in this lifetime. So Beth, tie this entire beautiful conversation up with a pretty bow. What is your one good thing? Drop it here. Give us the last of your wisdom. What's coming up for you is your one good thing today?

Look up and notice, I just really believe that so many of us navigate looking down and getting caught up in the day to day. But if you can pause for a moment and look up, what you'll notice is all the people working with you and around you, and that collectively, all of the positive changes resulting from that, even when it's hard, right? We need to break out of that department silo, the Data Silo, the job silo. Just look up and notice there's a bigger picture. And when you notice that it's actually really beautiful.

Get you bringing this full circle, this conversation. Beth, learned so much today. Heart is full. How can folks listening connect with you? I mean, you do this work one on one with non profits. What a gift. How can people work find you. There's

two places you can learn a lot more. On my website, everything's my name, Beth Saunders associates. I love to bring in other experts and people who have the talents I don't. So I work with associates from time to time. So Beth Saunders associates.com and on LinkedIn, just go for Beth Saunders, and you'll find me there. I love I love meaningful connections, so I look forward to more of that. Thank you. I'm

just so thank you for joining the membership for We Are For Good, because it allowed us to have this conversation where we could get to know your work. And I just heard your story and was like, the world needs this. And so thank you for what you're doing. I feel so optimistic about greater engagement support this year. It's not all on you, my friend, listening. This is not all on your shoulders. Let's invite our community in. Let's be the collectivist and let's build something beautiful together. Beth. Thank you so much. We're always rooting for you. Appreciate you. Thank you.