LIVE from New Orleans: 6 Trends You Don't Want to Miss

7:04AM May 12, 2023

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Mallory Erickson

Julia Campbell

Sterrin Bird

Laura Croft

Rachel Hickok

Craig O'Neill

Keywords:

donors

generosity

good

community

friends

giving

mallory

love

podcast

talk

nonprofits

learning

organizations

people

data

call

pandemic

sector

heard

takeaways

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Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.

So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Becky, we're back. Right?

Happy Friday, everybody we are back. It's good to

be so good. Happy Friday, we're back because we've been on the road a little bit. So today's a really special episode, we're taking you back because we showed up at the AFP international conference, you may have seen it online, it's kind of everywhere for a few days called icon. And this is like a convergence of what more than 3000 Fundraising Professionals kind of took over the city of New Orleans downtown. And you know, we will, you know, walked in the doors never having been to one of these events before. I mean, we've been to conferences, we've not been to this one. So we didn't come in with a lot of knowing what it would be like, but I will say, I don't know about UB. But like I was just taken aback, just with the people we got to meet you know, it's what it always comes down to is like once you get across and get to hear about the missions represented in individual people's stories is like I was so moved by the experience to go and so I'm excited today to unpack because we run our microphones, you better believe we brought little trouble microphones.

And I just want to talk about the picture of that going through the airport, just carrying all the things it

had all the baggage, I feel really bad. And

I was happy to carry it. I think, you know, we just conferences are a thing, and they are an event. And if we're gonna like really talk about the positives in this, it was truly what you just said it was the celebration of community and the fact that we have come to meet you learn about your mission, learn about your heart. And we've done most of it in the digital space. And so to just gather in person and reach out and grab the hands of people in our community and you know me, like I say very upfront, I am going to hug you if you are not a hugger, please raise your hand and tell me ahead of time because I'm gonna go in, and to just wrap our arms around people in this community who care so deeply in doing good and living and working, you know, in a space that feels good for everybody. I mean, that was the great high that honestly I'm still writing right now of actually getting to meet so many people in real life from our community.

I agree to go from like zoom to in real life is like such a fun thing. But also want to like lift because I know we talked about this a lot when we were in that experiences that I couldn't help but keep thinking like, this is not the end all be all either. You know, like this is not the only

not everybody's here. Darn obvious. We're like, Okay, we got a little portion of the community but not everybody's here and we don't like that. So how do we make that more accessible?

Yeah, so I feel more strongly than ever, you know that one of the core reasons why we jumped to start we're for good is because we believed in the democratization of these ideas, and of community. That's why it's not behind a paywall here. It's why we believe in the power of digital community because just as important as who's in the room, and we should work to get the right people in the room is looking and knowing and understanding the story of those that are not in the room and finding them and bringing them into so we want to thread some of those experiences and stories today in this episode and we're going to drop one again next week. But I gotta give a shout out to feather Can we just say thank you. Oh my gosh, quick second. Yes,

feather like opened up there. There was no door, but there was an actual like exhibitor space, and they just welcomed we're for good into their space, like made a little couch area for us, sat down and visited with us and we're just such an incredible partner. So thank you, Noah. Anna Aidan. Everybody who is over there, we so appreciate you.

Absolutely. So one of our trends for this year was prioritizing self growth. And so in this conversation today, I hope you feel this in what we're talking about, because we believe learning is really for everyone. And it's something that is active. It's like, you know, we got to show up and lean and really have the mindset, they're open to learning. And so as we pointed these conversations, I hope that you can use this as a jumping off point to think about what are the you know, takeaways that we're going to share? It's not just John and Becky's takeaways. It's like what we hear coming from the community that would sit down on this couch with us, that would do the awkward thing of being interviewed in front of a giant conference Expo Center of people and sitting next to our call Neons. Okay, so without further ado, we're gonna break down six key takeaways. We heard at AFP icon, and we'll be sharing them over the next two weeks, you get three from us today, and then three next week. So where do you want to start? Be?

I think we got to start with the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. Tim, sir Antonio, was just on the podcast, he was talking about the state of email marketing moving forward. And we were talking about the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, which is FIP. And so there's a new report out it had some pretty harsh information for those of us in the generosity sector. And we just got to sit down with Mallory, Erickson, who, you know, you've heard multiple times on this podcast, she is the future, we believe, have part of all partnerships. She runs the power partners formula. And she had some great insight that she gave us about where are we now? And how do we move forward?

Thank you for having me. So the Fundraising Effectiveness Project came out with its I think it's its quarterly report yesterday, that talks about giving trends. And there were two numbers in particular that were particularly jarring one being that the number of donors is down about 10%, holy cow, yeah, percent. And it's been trending in in that direction for a while with a shift in 2020. We saw a lot of lapsed donors coming back. But we've been moving in this direction for a while. But for me, one of the harder numbers to see was that giving dollars raised was also down because what we had seen before was this trend around number of donors going down. But giving was still somewhat stagnant in terms of dollars raised, and now we're seeing that decline, declining as well. And so I think, you know, it's a sobering, it's some sobering statistics to look at, I think I totally wake up call, even though I know a lot of folks have been trying to get our attention around this for a long time that this was coming and that we're moving this direction. And I think for me, I'm thinking a lot about I think it's easy to see those numbers and feel discouraged, and I am really thinking about how much more influence and power fundraisers have than they think they do. And I think the answer to this is how we think about empowering fundraisers to take more action to be prompting donors more regularly. We've seen in like historical data that, you know, sometimes organizations that get more government funding do a lot less asking. And so I think this might be part of what we're seeing following a lot of PPP loans that organizations asked a lot less over the last few years. So I think it's time to really be thinking about how are we going to be prompting donors to get more engaged? How do we reverse these trends in our organizations actually think we have a lot more influence than we think we do.

I mean, this is why we love Mallory, Erickson, I mean, not only do you lift these important pieces, you're so in touch with what's happening, but it always comes down to the individual for you the one on one, you are an expert at just making people feel seen supported and confident, honestly, to be able to make the ask and I know you put a lot of your work in that too. So I guess I want to ask you for like, what some hope, you know, like, can we pair this with you got this friends kind of moment because you empower people I knew you listen to your podcasts, and I feel Jazz at the end of the day, too. So give us some words of hope for anybody listening that feels a little bit down from this news. Yeah,

I think you know, the thing that I would look at if these trends match what you've seen inside your organization, I would really encourage you I think it's very easy when we get into these moments to be like, it has been a really hard few years with the pandemic, which is obviously true. It is a hard economic climate. But I do think like we can look internally about what's the relationship between how we've shown up as fundraisers and this trend like have we asked less than we have in previous years? Like did we send out less appeal letters? Did we have a shorter sequence for giving Tuesday and end of year? And if you start to see that some of your behavioral trends also shifted and that sort of match your giving trends, then that's actually really good information. And I think really empowering information because then ultimately what you can say is actually if we go back And we add those three more emails back into our end of your giving sequence or we have more meetings again, than we actually can reverse this trend for our organization, we can reverse because I really think that if we look deeply at the fundraiser behavior, we're going to see that we had more influence on this than we think, than we thought we did. This is not like our donor behavior does not drop out of the sky. And it totally makes sense, fundraising is scary. And so it totally makes sense that if you got a PPP loan, you might have taken a big sigh of relief and said, Okay, we can fundraise less this year, we can, you know, maybe have less meetings we can, because you were dealing with so many other changes and so much other disruptions. So it totally makes sense to me that that might have been people's auto response. And so I think the hopeful thing is, if that happened, it's okay. And we can go back to how you were doing it before. Like, you can reverse those trends by increasing your donor meetings by increasing your touch points by increasing your prospect pipeline, which by the way, they're on your list already. That's where you history donors are. And by having more meetings and making more asks, because donors respond to being prompted. And so we can reverse this trend inside our organizations by prompting our donors more by connecting more deeply with them. So I think there's a lot of hope, as long as we don't sort of blame the external factors on this. And we, and I don't mean blame ourselves. I don't blame ourselves, you are nothing

about the shame game, my friend,

like let's own it, let's say like, it has been a really hard few years, and we have a lot more influence and control and power than we've been giving ourselves credit for. So how do we show up differently?

This is just why we listen to Mallory, because there's such a full hearted spirit in this. And I think that if you read that report for face value, there's you can slide into that hole of shame of self loathing, and I didn't do enough. And this is what I love so much about your brand about who you are as a human is you are all about empowering that individual. And so it's not a longer one good thing. John, we got to ask that Mallory's in the chair. So we gotta ask a couple questions. So I'm gonna have one more. And I just want to ask you, because I think you're so good when you talk about just the somatic affects what's happening within our body, what's happening within our mind, what are these narratives that are going on in our head that we're telling ourselves that are kind of false narratives? What can someone do to really reset that mindset, and really get on a path where they're looking forward? Because we don't want you to look in the rearview mirror? There's some things we can be learned from that because we do need to look at our data. And I think that's a solid point. But what's, what's an encouraging starting place for someone to level set that mindset and start to look forward?

Well, I know I've talked about this on the podcast before but like one of the first things is like, acknowledge and validate however you're feeling by whatever you heard, so if you feel overwhelmed, like acknowledge and validate your emotions, that's the first thing and then ask yourself and use your first name when you do this. Like what's next. Like, okay, Mallory, like what's next. Like it makes sense that I feel uncomfortable, I feel discouraged about what these numbers have looked like inside our organization. But okay, Mallory, what's next, like you can do this. And that's a strategy called while acknowledging and validating is something that down regulates our nervous system that's really helpful using our first name. And then a positive encouraging statement after is called distance self talk. So that helps move us into a more like positive mindset helps us build momentum. And then I think the next piece is like, get curious. The opposite of curiosity, trademark

that please. Like every time I just think Mallory like I think this in my life, I'm like, I need to get curious. I love this.

Because so no, I talked about you know, I talked about this, like anabolic and catabolic energy, which I won't go into. But one of the things that really like drags our energy down makes us feel super overwhelmed gets us stuck is judgment and black and white thinking and tunnel vision. And especially sometimes when we hear data like that, it's easy for us to go into like I did something wrong, this is bad. Like we get right into that binary, like black and white world. And so I think one of the ways we can come out of that is to get curious, like, so instead of being like, oh my gosh, I'm so bad at this or oh my gosh, we didn't do this thing, right or just say okay, it's been a really, it's been a really hard few years. Okay, Mallory, what can you do about it? Next, like what's next? And then how can you get curious about your data or about what's possible or who might be on your list that you haven't talked to yet and how might you engage this donor that lapse but used to be really engaged like anytime we can increase our curiosity we start to come out of that tunnel vision, we start to come out of that black and white thinking And because there is not one right way to build a relationship with a donor, there's like 4000 billion great ways to build a relationship with Russia. And so when we're in curiosity, we realized that actually, there's so much potential, there's so much opportunity, it's not about right or wrong. And then we start to see this prism of opportunity and all these different pathways forward. There's so many, so many pathways to reverse, you're giving trends, so many positive pathways to reverse, you're giving trends and so starting to get curious about that is going to help you see all those different ways of doing it.

Always such good wisdom bombs from Mallory, Erickson, and what a gift to see her in person. So

finally meet in person. So we get to talk about this takeaway of generosity looking different through a lot of different lenses. And one was with Craig O'Neill. He's the CEO of iWave. We got to talk to Julia Campbell, our episode number one, Julia Cameron Hall, that really talked about the way different way that generosity manifests itself. And Rachel from people incorporated mental health services up in Minnesota, just talking about the joy in her work, but also how do you engage new generations around this idea of generosity? So here's what they had to say.

Welcome, my friend, just we've been talking to people we want to know what is your one good thing? What is something you've learned at the at the conference that could be great for knowledge sharing for those who can't be here?

I learned that generosity is where you least expect it. So my favorite session was with Tim San Antonio of neon won the generosity roadshow. And I was the CO emcee of this particular event with him. But it was all fundraising trivia. But the gist of it was traveling around the United States spreading love spreading generosity, talking about philanthropy, talking to real people about how and where they make their donations, instead of just staying in our own little bubble. And Tim went from Denver to Tulsa, to Texas to here and just traveled and found nonprofits and actually donated to several of the nonprofits that where he stayed at his Airbnb. They recommend nonprofits to him, Oh, my God. And he said, Alright, I'm gonna check them out and see what happens.

What an incredible life hack though to you know, just like showing up generously,

exactly. So I think that we think of philanthropy in a very linear, traditional way. And we think of generosity in this one particular way. But there are so many ways that it can manifest and show up in our every day. And that's really what Tim kind of taught me just following him on social media with the generosity roadshow,

we just love you. Thank you for sitting down with us today from episode one to AFP icon jeulia. Thank you, yes, I Comcast, nonprofit nation, you download it, add it to your queue, it's in my queue.

Amazing. All right. Thank you so much for all that you do, being lovely humans and uplifting the sector. And I just appreciate you so much.

Guess what we're going to introduce you to Craig O'Neil, who is the CEO of iWave. And can I just brag a little on iWave? Here, they are literally the number one fundraising intelligence solution for 12 consecutive quarters. Can we all just like take a hard pause and give some applause? Because guys, all of you who have worked in the sector, as we have on the front lines, we can not do this work without great data. And the people who are leaning into the behaviors, the humanity of the data, these are things that AI cannot touch is the humanity. So it is a complete honor to have you on Craig, we're so excited to see you. Yeah. Talk to us a little about iWave.

Yeah, well, fundraising intelligence is what we do. We are all about helping people that are supporting such wonderful causes, by raising funds for them to understand donors and what donors care about. And not just how much can they give? Or where do they live? What is their capacity? But what do they care about? What connects with their heart? What types of causes will they want to give to which of course, is when it comes to fundraising, what you need to know. So that's, that's what makes iWave special. It's what we mean by fundraising intelligence.

I love that. I mean, because we call it we're not the best at data, admittedly. But we love that we look at data, but we also trust our gut in just like some of these things that are hard to quantify. And I love that you're censoring that. It's not just a number. You know, it's it's more than that when you talk about passions. And so yeah, I mean, you're here at this conference. There's a lot of conversations happening, what's sticking out to you it's something you're excited about. We're gonna do one good thing from just as a takeaway.

Yeah, and of course, there's been so many but but one early on for me, I got here yesterday, Sunday afternoon, went to one of the sessions. And early on in the session saw this chart that was was pretty grim looking showing that the number of households that give is declining consistently

year over year quarter We've had a couple of people sitting in this chair talking about that. Yeah, kind

of grim. But then there was a little bit later in the presentation, a slide that showed that Giving Tuesday is, has got data that saying generosity is is alive and well, people are giving as much as ever, but they're giving in different ways. They're giving through mutual help. They're volunteering, a lot of people are choosing to give in ways that really connect with them in a in a closer way. And so the big learning is what struck me is we need to figure out how to reach out to donors to people, and understand what's important to them, and does what they care about align with our cause. And let's focus on those folks. Let's let's not bother the folks that are care about something else. Let's understand about the ones that care about what we do what we care about. And let's help them know our stories. And then if that second slide is true, if the spirit of generosity is alive, and well, let's get to the folks that want to be generous about the things that we do. And then that I think should spell success. So I think I found it actually, it started out like kind of grim. And I was very, very encouraged by that.

I am not at all surprised that you're continuing the great brand of Ioway, which is perpetuating hope, generosity. Thank you for that, because I do think, you know, we call ourselves ridiculous idealists. And we're not alone in that. I mean, people who give people who work in the sector, people who believe in what we call the Impact Uprising, yeah, which is wanting to lean in to the joy and the goodness that we want to see in the world. There is possibility and when you get personal when you have that data, you have that conversation you have that understanding, the relationship shifts in positive ways community expands. And I just want to thank you for the way that you interpret that the way that it challenges your team, and just appreciate the company that you are just giving an abundance, we just wishing the best for you. Thank you for your incredible support of this podcast. And a special thanks to clay Buck who introduced us and gave us a rose to come and talk with you. So

I'm talking about clay slides actually in a session that he did yesterday. That was so fantastic. And yeah, my my complete pleasure. You know, being ridiculous idealist. I think you need to be right. But I mean, how great is it, when you focus on we can have an impact, we can make a difference. And then you help organizations do that. I mean, this there's nothing better.

Thanks for being here, my friend. My pleasure,

are so excited to have a new friend Rachel, here. She's from Minnesota, introduce yourself. Tell us about a little bit about your organization.

My name is Rachel Hickok. I work for people incorporated mental health services, we are the largest community based mental health provider in the state of Minnesota. We do everything from street outreach into homeless encampments to therapists and 25 different schools to crisis and treatment. And we also have this piece of our work, we're retraining people who maybe didn't go into mental health, but you need something you need to know something about mental health in order to be successful in their jobs. So bus drivers and librarians and food shelf workers and people who interact with folks who are really struggling, but don't know how to respond. I love

how you're showing up for that. Because mental health is core to what we want to talk about, not just on the podcast, not just in our community, but just in life, you know, and we don't feel like that it hits the surface enough. But thank you for your work in that thank you for pouring into that really holistically to so we want to give you space. I mean, we're at this conference, there's a lot of ideas being shared a lot of relationships, starting with something that's a one good thing that's really hitting you that you're going to take back with you. I love

this conference because there's there's joy in our work, right. And people are excited about fundraising and excited about the difference they're making in the community. But for me, the takeaway was really thinking about what's next and how our industry is evolving. How you know, our donor bases are aging, and what does that mean? And how do we engage different generations? And how do we engage them, and meet them where they want to be and making things accessible? I also think what's really been interesting, you know, comparing last year to this year is the conversations around AI and technology and how are we how we can do our work more efficiently and effectively. But still create really meaningful engagement with our community.

Is Rachel one of the wisest people that we've ever had sit in our chair and she just literally walked by and we grabbed her and I'm just so grateful to know you. Thank you for sharing your heart in this work because you're right, I think we get so tamped down in the tactics and feeling so overwhelmed that we forget the joy that we are imparting that we're bringing thank you for your work on the streets and Minnesota I hope this inspires somebody keep going out there and doing great work Rachel rooting you on.

Thank you. Gosh, I love all those takeaways, such incredible people.

This third trip is really a combining the technology and data revolution that we see happening. So if we're talking about data and technology revolution, you know, we got to talk to stare and burn someone who we trust so deeply, and whose voice is really at the height of this over at Salesforce. But we also talked to Lara Croft, who is the VP for Advancement at the CDC Foundation. So here's what these amazing ladies had to say, Okay, we're here with a woman who needs no introduction. You know her, you've heard her many times on the we're for good podcast, she is one of our dearest friends sterren bird with Salesforce. She is one of the great Oracle's of modern nonprofit fundraising, she is in the chair, she's gonna give us her one good thing, welcome, my friend, what you got.

So I think the coolest thing that I have heard this morning in particular, I was just in a session, moderating a session with the CDC Foundation. Very cool. And the question came up, because, you know, the CDC Foundation had this unbelievable influx of donors through Sure. The pandemic, I mean, on the order of their file is like 125%, bigger than it was prior to the pandemic. Wow, insane. So what's interesting about it is a gentleman in the audience was asking, he asked a question at the end of the session, and he said, Hey, you had invested in the technology that you had, prior to the pandemic? How did you justify that without actually knowing that the pandemic was coming? Because once the pandemic happened, it was easy to justify because nothing broke, because you had the tools that you needed to meet that moment. So what does that look like? And, you know, he asked basically, for some guidance, or like, what's the why around why we wish we should be innovating. And it was interesting, you know, there are a lot of different head nods and sort of head scratches in the audience. But one of the things that I brought up is, you know, this sector, we're so over, indexed on ROI, business value, and all the reasons why we have to go to our boards, and ask for investment in technology, or just even an innovation or a new bodies, you know, the new staff, as it were. And at the end of the day, my response to him was, listen, we're in a data revolution right now, like the whole world is in a data revolution, we've known that in the consumer world for years, the nonprofit sector can't afford to fall behind that anymore, particularly because these incidents and emergencies are going to keep happening. And these communities rely on these organizations to be ready to meet the moment, regardless of what the moment is, whether it's education, housing, food, or a public health crisis. So we have to ready ourselves for these things. And at the same time, we ready ourselves. We are also innovating and take making sure that the sector will be here forever, because we can't afford for it not to be.

I mean, you're you're hitting just a chord in me that's like it's all about sustainability. Because this isn't just another ROI thing. This is about filling in the gaps in our country to serve whenever people need us most when we least expect it even Absolutely. So we'll reason the sector exists. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, my gosh, thank you. So

yeah, so command of data and having having your proverbial house in order. So that when you are, you know, the unexpected happens, you're ready to meet that moment is really where it's at. I mean, and so that how that manifests itself in organizations is the idea that acquisition right now is really difficult. We, you know, new act donor acquisition, I was joking in the session that I was spending onwards or upwards of 12 to $14 million a year on direct mail. Holy smokes, yeah. And now, you know, you can't, you can't make that investment over a seven or eight year period and not expect that return. If you can, you know, find your way to digital engagement and digital marketing as a function of having your connected datasets, hey, you can do that. It'll, it'll be expensive on the front end to implement. But long run, you're set up for the long game, and you can actively acquire new donors from all of your disparate data sets in your organization. So if you got volunteers, advocates, clinicians, patients, donors, you you make your house work efficiently, and then when the new comes, you're ready to catch

in doesn't that feel so much better? I mean, I feel like we're always behind the eight ball. You know, I've always said this, you know, about nonprofit, maybe we're 10 years behind everything in the for profit. But I do think that this point, we're not talking about these fancy sparkly objects that you need to go by as a one off, it starts at home with what you have and getting that operation cleaned up. And I love that sterren who is like so wise about major gifts and strategy. She comes back to data, and that's really the pillar and tool in your toolbox. And I also just want to say anecdotally, steering is also the person who walked up to us this morning brought us breakfast, she brought us water. It's like, these are the kinds of people in this community who just are your friends and care. And I just love the way you show up and just continue to serve. And just be generous to your core. And

you know what, it's a miracle. You guys were dropped into my life for a reason to and I'm so happy to see you. And I'm glad we need to do this more often. Amen. Preach

it out. Love it. We have just met one of the kindest, most brave souls. And I want to introduce you all to our new friend Lara Croft, please, Laura, tell us what organization with what's your title? And what are you guys working on over there?

Well, thank you, first and foremost, for inviting me to say a few words. But so my name is Laura Croft. And I serve as Vice President for Advancement with the CDC Foundation, the CDC Foundation is not CDC, we are not a federal arm of the government. We're an independent 501 C three. And our whole mission is to help people live longer, healthier lives and basically stay alive.

I mean, what a beautiful mission. And it's like we were all so impacted by COVID. But I mean, come on friends, like you had to be at the epicenter of so much evolution in a short period of time, like, give us a little Tibet, we want to get to your one good thing, but just kind of have some context of like, what is life been like the last few years and how are y'all

life has been pretty intense and crazy. But also filled with many, many beautiful, extraordinary moments, I believe. It's been so complex, really, looking back, I feel a little bit like PTSD, there's no doubt we've all been living through a politically charged environment. And people have been very polarized. So you know, first, we've got a brand new disease on the planet, that we're dealing with learning more about every single day trying to understand what we can do to stop it. And there's huge learning curves with that. And when you know, with science, you know, the learnings build upon each other. So the more you know, the more things change, and and you evolve from there. Well, thank

you for giving us just a little bit of that 10,000 foot view. And also, I just want to create some space to say thank you, on behalf of the United States, the world for what you are doing to pour into the health of other people, John and I spent 10 years and nonprofit health care. We are recipients of incredible health care individually, respectively, with our own families. We are firm believers and proponents of science. And we're just wondering, you have been walking around AFP, you and your team learning like what is the one good thing what's something you've heard today that you would love to just knowledge share with those who are listening?

You know, I was sitting in a session earlier, actually two different sessions and some of the the discussion revolved around the responsibility to use our data for good. And there are times that, particularly with, you know, how quickly chat GPT and artificial intelligence is evolving, you know, there's an opportunity, there's a window that perhaps data might not be used for good. So I'm encouraged, I'm optimistic. I think artificial intelligence can be an incredible force multiplier for nonprofits. And we're sitting on the cusp of that.

Thank you for sharing that. Oh, my gosh, I got chills underneath my sleeves of just like the hope that's there. And the such a huge opportunity, what a wonderful time to be in this work together. So thank you, it's been a delight to get to spend time with you today.

Thank you for having me,

rooting for you guys. And all you do at the CDC. Keep going.

Thank you.

Such brilliant insight from these two female leaders. And I'm just listening to this first wave of takeaways, John, and I'm just like, there is so much power in knowledge sharing. And that is what I love so much about having these conversations and bring them to the podcast.

Me too. Because it's, you know, it's one thing to learn that maybe one directional, but to like, share what you're learning, like, that's like the sweet spot. And that's honestly why we created the we're for good community. If you want to place that you can't, you have to fly to get to this. You don't have to get invited into a room, you are invited into the we're for good community. It's a place that we do share ideas we share about where we're stuck. And so today's episode, we just want to invite you to come in there, you know, there's already 1400 people in this community and we're inspired by the folks here, this is not just a typical place. This is a place where people are rooting for each other. And we want you to be the next one in there to join and join the conversation. So it's all that we're for good community.com But don't just be a lurker, like hop in and share what you're learning in your corner of the world and I guarantee you're gonna find like minded people there.

I would just add on and say like, here's my one good thing. If you have learned something this year, if you have prioritized your own self growth, tell us what you've learned. That's been the biggest aha, come into the community, start a conversation, get somebody else to talk about what they've learned, because that was the entire impetus of us going to New Orleans to the Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference. That's a mouthful. That's why we call it AFP icon. But it was really about let's go meet our community. And let's find out what's working and somehow bring it back to everybody because we all can get in lockstep together. So come into the community, come on to our social channels. Let's take this conversation further. And guys, you've only gotten the part one, we got a twofer for you in this series. So come back next Friday, we're going to finish up the last three takeaways, we're going to be lifting more voices from the community into the conversation. Let's just lock arms and learn together guys.

Thanks for being here. Friends. Have a great week.

Hey, friends, thanks so much for being here. Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics. Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free. And you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at we are for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community. Thanks, friends. I'm our producer Julie confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom

Hey friends, we're so excited to announce the launch of fundraising is funny. A new podcast launching and the weird for good podcast network with our good friends Glenn Westar and T clay buck. Every week, you can join them to share laughs and cringe worthy case studies. As we unpack the most ridiculous and positively shocking situations that happen within our sector. We believe in the power of generosity to change the world. And something tells us you do too. At the root of each of these stories is a serious ethical question. A system or structure or person that allowed it to happen are an outdated practice just ripe for disruption. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, or come find them at fundraising as funny.com We can't wait to see you there.