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So let's get started. Happy Friday. Hey, everybody.
We are going back home. Yep, that come to annual giving. It's been a while since we live there.
Yeah, we thought you know, we have a lot of great conversations on the podcast. Sometimes they're feel good stories. Sometimes they're inspirational. Sometimes they're real tactical. But we don't talk a lot about just the basics, right fundraising. And we have a wide range of listeners to the podcast. And we just wanted to kind of give some of our best frameworks for some of the core pieces, that would be true of any nonprofit. And if you're not there yet, that's okay, lean in and into these conversations over the next few weeks, and will kind of help guide you with some starting place.
And I have to say, as you just kind of set the tone there, it took me back to my little 24 year old self, and I'm hired in my first time to go into a fundraising shop. And I find out that I've annual giving within my department and the imposter syndrome was, Oh, it was like rockets propelling off of me because I'm like, What is annual giving. And I think anybody who's ever new to a shop, looks around and they're like, I don't know what this department does. I don't know what this word means. I don't know how it all integrates. And so we're going to do a couple things. We're going to tell you about the basics. But we're going to put the we're for good veneer on it. Because we also want you to think about how can we shift the way we think about annual giving or any of these topics that are going to come in our Friday episode, we want to layer on the where is the humanity portion of this? Where's the innovation? Where's the creativity? Where is the building believers and growth mindset. So all of that's going to be threaded in, buckle up, we're gonna have some great Friday combos coming up. Okay, so
just on a real basic level annual giving is what your base of the pyramid that traditional donor pyramid
church collection played, yeah, passed around. And whatever anybody can put in there is going to be caught in the annual giving that,
but let's think about some of the conversations we've been having. We've heard that the donor pyramid base is eroding. Right, so scary. So Gabe Cooper has been on second season. And he wrote a book on responsive fundraising and called attention to the fact that retention is going down, fewer donors are coming to the plate at the smallest levels. So fewer people are getting involved in the mission, which means, you know, you may not even realize it yet your fundraising performance may have been on target, but you may be losing no number of donors, which would bring us back to the base to say what's happening there. And so today, we want to have this conversation about annual giving, because I'll be honest, I think Becky and I look at this and think about it differently. All the time. I think it keeps getting progressively more community based and more progressive, as you know, new strategies emerge. And as new technology is available to to do things at scale, because we believe annual giving is much more than just trying to get people to give every year yeah, you know, we really believe the goal is lifelong engagement is this journey that you're trying to take your donors on. And if you think of it less of like an isolated gift that you're trying to get every year and you're thinking about what is the journey? What's the experience that we're trying to bring somebody along? It reframes everything that you're trying to do, and all the things you're trying to align and the systems you're trying to put in place to do that. And it completely makes you rethink how you go about it.
Yeah, I love the way that you just frame that entirely. Because it takes it from less of a tactical strategy, which is what we're thinking of, like, get the gift and get the gift year after year. And it really looks at it through the lens of transformation. And it's like how can I take this gift and planted as a seed that's going to germinate, you know, to the next to the next plant the next seed that's planted through another gift or how can I elevate volunteerism in here advocacy? And it's like, how do you keep enriching the gift and the journey over and over again? And I have to give john some props because I think I've said this on the on the podcast before but when we were envisioning our company, we literally were thinking about what if the basis of our company is flipping the donor pyramid? What if it really is about taking the people who are at the base that are very, very humble but consistent donors and making them the most important people
what would happen if you could create something that inspires scale? To jump in and pour in, and that was the basis of what we thought for our company, but also, it's the basis for how you build believers long term. Yeah, it's about building this ecosystem, where people do become believers in your mission. And those are the people that are not going to let your mission die, they're going to be the people that do call their friends and advocate that invite people into giving programs or invite them to events or whatever different ways that you're showing up. And so the reason that we love working on the base is just that I mean, you know, you get to do that at scale. And so everything that we're going to talk about today, while it does have to be looked at through the lens of how do you do this a lot and repeatable. But how do you keep it as personal as possible, because for us, fundraising is relational. And especially as you look toward transformational giving, you really have to get into a space where you understand intrinsically what's motivating the donor, and how you can find connection points for what you're trying to accomplish and what they're trying to accomplish to their own values. And finding that magic spot in the middle. So we believe in you're giving us the training grounds to basically do that.
And I think that if you look at it almost like a path, if you're looking toward the end of the path, the way that we're trying to push annual giving donors is we're trying to push them into a path for major gifts, we're trying to put or push them into a path for a planned gift, or somebody decide they just never want to get there. They just want to regularly support you over and over again. And I think that's great. And so look at it from that long lens and think about how do you play the long game to get smaller gifts over time. I know Cameron Bartlett just talked about this on Wednesday, and donor journeys, because we're building to repeatability. And that is really where the power is an annual giving.
And when we talk about repeatability, go back two weeks and listen to Vic Harrison's podcast, she does a brilliant job of just breaking this down. Because the days of thinking of annual fund is like this one time a year that you're getting a gift may work at some organizations. But really, everybody's moving in the direction of repeatability in a more frequent basis at a smaller amount. Because in this collision of time when information and content is everywhere, there is so much competition for your donors attention in your mind. And it's not just of the nonprofit world, it's all the messages that are out there. So getting into these relationships where there's much more communication ongoing is really the wave. It's the wave of the future right now. So how do we build that repeatability all the time,
and digitally is going to be such an important part of that. And so if your digital game is not strong at this point, this is the time you need to dig in. So I want to kind of talk a little bit about the goals of annual giving. And of course, we're going to talk about the science of the goals. And these are the things that are always discussed anytime you pick up a book or especially a textbook, understanding annual giving. But we're also going to talk about the art of fundraising goals too. So here are the three points that you'll see anytime you want to learn a little bit about annual goal, your it's really about acquisition, retention, and upgrading donor. So we're trying to get them in the door with a gift, we're trying to keep them within our home. And then we're trying to get them to slowly and incrementally move up move their gift higher and higher and higher. So that is the science but of course we are forget is going to put in a little bit of the art. Because we think the humanity is like where the real connection lies and where the opportunity to really grow engagement is. So the art of fundraising goals might include something like connecting based on your shared values, and maybe befriending and having a really genuine personal relationship with individuals. And I will say that's a relationship for the organization, not a relationship simply with you. Because if you ever leave the organization, we want to make sure that they that that that friendship, and that connection and partnership is still very, very sound. The third one is we got to communicate impact. You know, if there's no way that we could ever retain that we could ever upgrade if we're not saying Look what you did, and doesn't this feel good. It took a collective effort. And that's what our annual giving is about. It's all about collective effort. And that feels good. And it's so much easier to ask for another gift once you've shown that impact. The fourth one is deepen the relationship through and flowing employing all of these diverse engagement tools. Gone are the days when we can just email somebody or mail them a direct mail. It's like you really have to be looking at your engagement strategy from a multi channel perspective because millennials consume their information much differently than a boomer and we talk about the power of segmentation. We're going to get into that a little bit. And the last one is you're trying to move those donors into their final parking lots you know whether that's major gifts, whether That's playing gifts or whether that's just lifelong loyalty and commitment, get them into those two final parking lots. That's your ultimate goal? Well,
I think, you know, we've had a couple conversations that have broadened the scope of what annual giving could accomplish. And I think there's one coming down the pike, that's really going to challenge this notion too. And it's with Eric wrestler, Eric was so smart, and I can't wait for this episode to come out. Because it's really flipping the script of, you know, I always thought of annual giving. And when I was a director in that role for, gosh, almost a decade of we're trying to get people on the train like this trains move, and I'm trying to get people on the train to keep moving when staying with us. And it really is a train. But I think what the notion is now is that you have to understand that there's people that you're moving that haven't made a gift, and may never make a gift. But they're part of the journey too. And these conversations with Eric and Cameron from this past weekend, Vic, are looking at it more globally of the narrative that you're driving through your storytelling, how are you shepherding a group of people, maybe you don't even know their name yet. But through your campaigns that are running on Facebook, or maybe some awareness or advocacy work that you're doing, you're moving people into closer relationship with you by understanding your mission, by understand your values, which is why at the core, you're never going to see us champion doing some kind of cheesy campaign that redirects people from what the core mission or value is. It's just a cheap way that people try to get tactics that try to get short term appeal, we're always bought into this longer term engagement of trying to shepherd people to understand why they'd want to get involved in why your organization is specifically accomplishing what you're saying you're going to do. Because once you align on values, the gifts are going to follow and everything with that's going to follow.
JOHN is so wise, it always does come back to values that comes back to goals. But you know, we're not going to get into all of the guts of annual giving, you know, we're working really hard on framing out some workshops, where we can really dive into how to build frameworks for this, how to employ this thinking, and those will be dropping later in the year. But you know, we just wanted to go through a couple of pro tips today. And these are tips that we think will elevate your current annual giving program out of where it is today into this new path of reentry. And so the first one that I want to talk about is don't lump all your donors together when you're engaging them. And when you're communicating with them. All donors do not need to be treated equally, because they're all different individuals. They consume their information in different ways. They are encouraged to get involved based on different things. Some of them want storytelling. Some of them just want, you know, I can't believe it. But some people still want their annual report their hardcopy 50 page annual report. Understanding your donor means that you need to be contouring messages, segmenting them, grouping them accordingly, and communicating with them in a way that really serves them best. It's about meeting your donor where they are.
Yes. Which is the perfect segue into really look at your mid level donors. And please don't call them mid level donors, because that would be like the most insulting thing you could say, right?
Like, yes, that's like a definition in our sector, we need to put to bed, a new one, let's come up with that later, john. But
this real kind of special space that's between a first gift and someone really moving into just being personally managed and major gifts. What is this segment and I think that the groups that do this really well treat this group at an elevated way where they give them a peek behind the curtain of the mission, they have a little bit more access to the leadership to understand where the vision of the organization is coming. Because you get to be connected at that level. And if you get connected at that level, you want to push forward. So it's like how do you build up this mid level section to where they know that they're kind of growing in relationship with them, and you're kind of keeping a pulse on them? That's a huge segment that a lot is missed. When you don't do what Becky just said, step one of lumping everybody together, they're these people that are raising a hand they want to go a little bit deeper with you. So how are you doing that with them? Taking a quick pause from today's episode to thank our sponsor who happens to be one of our favorite companies virtuous. You know, we believe everyone matters. And we've witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you see an activate donors at every level. And virtuous is the platform to help you do just that. It's so much more than a nonprofit CRM. virtuous helps charities reimagine generosity through responsive fundraising. And we love it because this approach builds trust and loyalty through personalized donor engagement. Sound like virtuous may be a fit for your organization. Learn more today@virtuous.org Follow the link in our show notes.
Okay, so the third pro tip we want to talk about is about diving into the communication segmentation. And I really think that this is something that can elevate your game because it's not just putting together our one annual appeal in the spring and hitting send on it and mass send, send everybody in the BCC column. It's it's about being smarter about how we can leverage who they are and what we know about them to really target those messages. And I have to give a shout out to Adrian Owen Jones, who talked about how do you pull your data out of your database and information, use it to inform how you will communicate with people. And so go back to that episode, it was Episode 64. And she talks about how you can partner with your ops team to sort of start a framework and start putting your donors into different buckets where it makes sense. And then I think the other thing is, you know, think about your email list and think about how do you grow your email list to understand who your donors are? Just Campbell without in the bones is so smart about finding ways that you can segment based on your email list and how you can build a really authentic relationship with someone who's who you may never even see, because that's the challenge with annual giving, there are so many donors, you can't, in essence, sit down with every one of them, get to know them. But through the virtual world, in the social world, we can find out a lot about their values, who they are, we can watch their comments on our social channels. And so finding a way to segment into that to create a really authentic conversation is really going to make your donors feel seen. And that just Campbell episode is Episode 20. Love Jess, she's
awesome. She is smart. So the next one is that we need to make giving really simple and we've talked about this a lot. You know, we're very web based and our, you know, organization today. And also just think the power to nonprofits is to own this space, you know, it's a playground, it's a sandbox, you can try things, it doesn't mean you have to keep it that way forever. But removing the friction to giving has got to be one of your priorities with annual giving, because you're trying to get a lot of people to engage with you. So there's a ton of great tools out there. You know, we've had several of these friends on the podcast with give butter and with virtuous. And with
Dana Snyder's really well,
yeah, but there's lots of great fundraising crowdfunding platforms that you can use and plug straight into your site. So this shouldn't be friction for you. But make it something that's easy to do that can be social, that's just takes and makes giving super easy.
I love that. And it should be super easy. It should be something that people don't have to think about and work hard to give us a gift, it should be one click Done. And then we just start the loving on them through our stewardship. Okay, so here's the next one. monthly giving is your new best friend. If you do not have a robust monthly giving program, you are going to miss out on the new re entry into this new world post COVID. And this is again, Vic talked about this a lot on her episode, which was Episode 118. You have to think about monthly giving not as in how do I get someone to give me something each it's about repeatability. How do we get them to almost like you're not even thinking about it. So but but they're seeing the impact. They're not thinking about what's coming out of my bank account every month, they're thinking about, oh, I keep hearing from my nonprofit, my favorite nonprofit, they're showing me what my monthly giving is doing. I feel like I'm in community. I feel like there are a lot of people like me out in the world who have banded our tiny gifts together. And we are having a mighty mighty movement. And that feels good. And a little Marketing Pro tip from john and it you get a name on your monthly giving program a brand it like make it like a cool, hip fun environment that people are going to want to come and join. And start with asking those giving amounts really small, play smaller and build up
such a good one. So we just dropped the episode with Cameron Bartlett this week. And it was about donor journeys. And I'd really encourage you to lean into this one because it really speaks to the continuum that people are on. And really understanding what that journey is, is probably the most important thing you can do as a nonprofit, what is typically step one through step 20 of how someone would really engage and move through your organization. He did a great job of explaining there's a lot of times people skip steps, and you got to be ready to deal with that, you know, you're going to have people that don't need to be warmed up to your mission for, you know, five years before they're going to make a transformational gift. But understand the general flow is going to allow you to build messages and campaigns and steps that are going to really cultivate in mass this annual giving pipeline and so that is something you should be thinking through and mapping out. And this really could be your playbook by combining donor journeys and monthly giving friends this could revolutionize and provide some sustainable sustainable revenue for your organization which is the end game of annual giving.
And if you're really interested in that, I really encourage you to go find Cameron on socials because he posts this he's working with new story now at which is Like one of our favorite nonprofits, we just geek out over how amazing Their mission is. But he has some really practical tips about how to do this. And I think if you can just follow that a little bit, it might give you some examples of what to do. Okay, so we're going to get into this final section here called do this.
Not that it's reminded me of the eat this not that is that what this is totally
what this is for that? Yes, I do remember it except for we wanted to create a visual for you of this is kind of the old thinking, this is how we want to move you into new thinking. So Johnny, want to take the first one.
Okay, so I think we got to start with the don't do this, right. Sure. So don't send one fundraising appeal letter once a year. Okay, well thinking, do create multi channel, multi phased approach to grow engagement throughout the year. And I think you could replace the word direct mail with just about anything, anything. One of the things that we see a ton is that, you know, nonprofits will put all their stock in this one event, and maybe this is shifting now, because COVID changed all events. But I think if you put all your stock in one night, how you're missing the mark, because the end game is engagement, and the end game is trying to build believers. So it's probably not all going to happen in that one night. What are you doing before it? What are you doing after it? What are you really doing after it, you know, is really where the secret sauces. So think multi channel and think bigger than just the one.
Love that one? Okay, the next one is, don't make a restricted ask discussing the benefits of whatever you're trying to fundraise The one thing for, do talk about impact. Rather than the projects, we're trying to lift you out of the granular because when we're sitting there talking about restricted gifts, we're almost cutting off our nose to spite our face, right? We have so many conversations on this podcast about, you know, the dangers of talking about overhead and how we need to be shifting donor thinking and donor trust into pouring resources into unrestricted giving. We just had a really powerful conversation with Anna Marie, our Galapagos with the Hispanics in philanthropy group. And her talking about how their organization was getting so much restricted money during COVID. Yet they were almost about to go under, you know, in terms of payroll, but then the Mackenzie Scott gift comes in and they're she's done so much vetting on the organization, she has found the values aligned, she has seen that the impact is at the top of what they do. And she gives this $15 million unrestricted gift. And to Anna Marie's quote that will stick with me in the rest of my mind, she said, it gave us the ability to run. And so if you can talk about impact rather than the granule detail, storytelling is important, we do want to illuminate the things that we're doing. But we really want to bring the impact out. And we want to keep talking about the CAT scan and what the CAT scan is going to do. We want to talk about how we're helping people with neurology to have full, vibrant lives, you know, with their healthy brains,
I love Donald Miller and story brand, as some of you know, of turning that into a story that really is about the end impact. So lean in there, if you're looking for more direction. Okay, the next one is don't lump all your donors into one appeal and treat them equally I know, this is super tempting, because data is a beast. And sometimes you're staring at that spreadsheet, I've been there. And you're like, I don't even know what to do. Find ways to segment into groups that you can Shepherd, you know, as specifically as possible. And some just ways that we would say to do this is look at who is lapsed, you know who has given it's time to renew their gifts, you can talk to them a specific way, look at people that have only made a first time gift that you can talk to them a certain way, maybe you can look generationally, or, you know, through maybe that came through at the same time through a certain event, find that connective tissue and really leverage that in the way that you're messaging with people because you're going to see so much more of a lift, as you show that you know, and understand that the journey that they're on specifically.
Love that. Okay, the next one is, don't leave the amount space blank on your pledge card, or give just a variety of options. do create personalized giving amounts for each renewal, ask this is going to do a couple things for you. One, it's going to let your donor know that you have some really tight data and that you are honoring their past gift. You're appreciative of it. And you're keeping track of their data very well to it saying we saw your gift and we were able to do X with it, would you consider upgrade. So not only are you taking care of the retention, you're taking care of the upgrade, and just having that ability to say hey, we would love for you to just kind of increase your investment and here's the amount. It gives some it sets an expectation for your donor if this is where we would love to see you. This is the place that we want you to partner in that right there. I can think of a couple times john where we have done some really intentional upgrade. I think about it in an employee giving campaigns. And it was through the roof, the percentage of people who will actually just say, okay, it's only $1. More Oh, it's only $5 more, it just seems so attainable. And that's just a really easy hack
100% I love that one. Okay, the last one we have here is don't just try to distribute something and forget to examine what worked and what didn't. So basically, don't not have a debrief,
that was like a double negative, right. It's
also the afternoon unpacking what I just said.
But it's like, look at your research, right?
Like, evaluate it, you want to be in a position to try stuff and to be able to pivot and to test and adapt and repeat, did you catch our core value in there, it's like, grow, adapt, repeat. I mean, we call it risk capital, it's like, you want to be in a position that you can try things that could have incredibly high leverage. But you've got to have the room in your budget and your time to actually implement that. And so I think that's the value here.
And I would just piggyback on that, that, you know, we talk about trying stuff all the time. And if you're not trying stuff, you're not going to innovate, you're not going to grow. And the best place to use some of that risk capital to try some stuff is an annual giving, start with the base and see who lifts out of there. And then I think you can see some clear delineation of, Oh, this person's going into mid level, sorry, I just use your phrase, because we haven't come up with a new phrase for mid level, or Oh, this person needs to is going to lift out and they have incredible loyalty, we need to ask them for a planned gift. So try some things, we understand that a lot of your organization's leaders who may have done the same old things forever, maybe a little risk averse. So try something small. And I love the way that we can just look at our analytics and point to it and say, it's telling us we need to segment these people and write a new narrative. So okay, I hope we gave you some new things to think about is we're navigating this new annual giving world because we feel like we've been in this world for almost 20 years. And there's so much untapped potential there. And you have so many emerging rabid fans who are looking to break out and be your rock star volunteer to be your rock star, major gift donor, or even if they couldn't give a major gift, they may have a network that can open the door to someone who does. And so find a way to really get to know them on the annual giving level, elevated beyond the acquire, retain, upgrade, go into those soft skills get into that art of fundraising, we really think you could transform your annual giving program this way.
That's it level up friends. Here's the deal, Becky found an amazing freebie from our friends over at donor search that we are linking up in the show notes
Nathan Chapelle.
But this is 24 actionable annual fun strategies. It's just a great starting place. You know, I think the the secret sauce of the organizations that have evolved and have seen the least amount of you know, hardship over the last year are those that have remained nimble, and they're willing to try new things. And so just be open minded here. And that's our calling for today is rethink your annual giving strategy and lean into some of these new ideas and see what sticks for your organization. And then tell us about it. We'd love to hear from you.
Yeah, we want to know what's working. What did you try that actually was a huge success or gave you an aha moment, it could have told you what you should not be doing. So yeah, be great listeners. Pour into that creativity. And this is a great place to start. High fives to you. were written for you.
Thanks for listening to our first back to the basics conversation diving into annual getting, 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. It's our own social network and you can sign up today at we're for goods comm 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 Boris boom thanks for being here.
