Nonprofit Communication Strategies for Modern Donors

Oh wow, that just jumped. Okay, all right. I hit start, and you all appeared. So good afternoon, and welcome to nonprofit communication strategies for modern donors. Presenting for us today is Julia Patrick. Julia is the founder and CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. She spent decades in Read More

Oh wow, that just jumped. Okay, all right. I hit start, and you all appeared. So good afternoon, and welcome to nonprofit communication strategies for modern donors. Presenting for us today is Julia Patrick. Julia is the founder and CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. She spent decades in the nonprofit sector as a board member, a volunteer, and philanthropist. She’s known for her direct her direct executive coaching and her popular nonprofit board boot camps. Julia also created and hosts the nonprofit show, the nation’s only daily live broadcast for nonprofit professionals. Now at more than 1,400 episodes, she also wrote Building Board Champions, activating impactful nonprofit board members, and co-authored the architecture of fundraising, building a career, developing relationships, and structuring success. So, wealth of knowledge today. So, perk up your ears before we get started. I have a few housekeeping items to mention. Yes, the webinar is being recorded. It will be sent to all registrants. And keep in mind that we have a lot of registrants, so that means a chat that is just going to be continually scrolling by. So if you have questions, make sure to put them in the Q and A section so that we can see them. And if, depending on how much time we have at the end, we’ll be answering some of your questions. All right, Julia, you are all set to get started.

Great. Hey, Lori, thank you for that lovely introduction. And I got to tell you, we’re we’re marching towards 1700 episodes. So

okay,

I know it’s crazy. We’re now in our seventh year of the nonprofit show, and I am very very delighted that DonorPerfect has so graciously invited me to speak to you all today. Talking about nonprofit communications, they are changing every moment. It’s an exciting time, and we’re going to talk about why they’re changing, how they’re changing, and what you need to know about it. Again, I’m Julia C. Patrick. I’m just delighted to be here. As we talked about the nonprofit show, I hope you join us on some future episodes. So, what to expect? We only have an hour. We’re going to fly by through a lot of things. We’re going to be talking about the donor demographics, understanding what are influencing things going on, how this current donor market is different when we talk about these different demographics, how we can use our CRMs to understand ways to note to to navigate these changes. We’re going to dip into the structure of storytelling because it’s changing a little bit. Hint, hint. Not really. It’s an ancient science, but we’re kind of revisiting it, and then we’re going to be talking about those communications leading and building up relationships. Last but not least, we’re going to talk about how do we understand success? Because if we don’t understand what success is, then we don’t understand how to measure. So the starting point is what is a modern donor? It’s really skewing towards younger demographic groups. A lot of times we’re calling this next gen donors. The biggest thing for me here, and I think for you, is that these younger modern donors-they’re digital natives, right? Older donors, which we all have, and that’s great, and that’s really for so many of us the lifeblood of where we are right now. I’m going to use the word comfortable. They’re comfortable with technology, but here’s the difference: they’re not digital digitally native. So let’s break this down a little bit. Boomers ages 62 to 80, Gen X 46 to 61, and then the mills and the Z’s. We’re talking about that 30 to 45, and then we’re dropping to another group, the Z’s, which are going to be let’s say more in their early to to later 20s. I want to bring up something that Giving USA has highlighted, and I think this is important for the overall concept of talking about donors. And I think this is a really interesting thing. You know, Giving USA is reporting that the dollars are up, meaning donation dollars values are up, but the number of donors are down. Now, some of this is just a demographic flow. Doesn’t mean we’ve lost the the imagination or captured new donors. I mean, some of that is in play, but the reality is we still have a robust influx of dollars. So, what do we do with that? How do we understand that? That’s one of the things that we’re going to be talking about today and really exploring. So the one of the biggest influences that will ever occur in my lifetime and your lifetimes as well is the great wealth transfer. We are seeing the largest transference of wealth in the history of our nation. We’re in the middle of it. A lot of us will will use that $90 trillion number. I’m seeing it now move up towards 130 to 140. Wherever that lands, it’s a lot of money, and so it’s not all cash. It involves the transference of wealth and assets such as real estate, arts, collectible, intellectual property-probably one of my favorite things-and so these are the things that next-gen donors are going to be dealing with. They’re going to be inheriting the assets of their grandparents and their parents, not all cash, and then they’re going to have to make some decisions about their charitable engagement, and so we want to paint that picture very quickly because if you can understand what this is going to do to the charitable sector, it is awesome. Planned giving is a huge, huge issue for everybody to be talking about. So when we talk about modern donors, really one of the big things is the the navigation away from snail mail and more towards digital mail, and we all understand that. But there are a few nuances that we really need to look at. First is digital first means sell first.

A lot of us work in offices or on laptops, and that’s great. And we might have just these enormous screens or several screens. But the reality is, our modern donors are working off of their handheld devices. Sometimes you can luck out, and that’s a that’s a tablet or an iPad. But the reality is, chances are, it’s a phone, and so this changes the way we need to be thinking about how our communications look. And here’s the big secret: shorter messaging, phone visibility first. You can do quicker, frictionless response times using stronger visuals, shortening your narratives, and for a lot of us in the nonprofit sector, that’s tough because we’re used to the big story. That’s not working as much because it’s really hard to deal with those those aspects of communication on a cell phone. QR codes, man, those have picked up. They they kind of came in and then they went out and now they’ve picked up. COVID, I think, is one of those things that really reintroduced QR codes. Use QR codes, and you will be amazed at what it does for your communications. Storytelling is going visual, and we’ve got to recognize that. If we don’t, then we’re going to be out of it. So when we think about this, like the big ideas here for moving forward with this conversation, the largest wealth transfer in American history, we’re in the middle of it, so it’s going on. We now have four generations, four generations working together in the same marketplace, four generations in our families, four generations of donors, and four generations of volunteers. This is a-it’s kind of an interesting thing. We’ve never really dealt with this before, and so you can imagine when we have four different viewpoints, behaviors, educational levels, and attitudes. Some exciting things happen. Let’s put it that way. Sometimes it gets a little spicy. So, digital communication really want to make you think about the handheld aspect. It’s not just email or or the digital aspect of your website-it’s really how all of this is transferring to a handheld device, and I think that’s something we we tend to forget about. So when we talk about knowing your your donor, and this is a really key aspect that I think DonorPerfect can really help us with, and and we can learn from them on this. Is that data is going to direct a lot about how you think you know about your donor and what you know about your donor? My challenge to you is to end the speculation. If you can really focus on your CRM, you’re going to know what the data points are. You’re going to know your donors, and that takes them an investment, which we’re going to talk about how we build stronger donor files. Because the more information we have about our next gen donors, the more we can respond to them in the ways that they want to be communicated with. And this is some a new approach. For a lot of us, we haven’t done this in the past. We’ve just always kind of pushed out what we thought was the right thing, and then we would kind of wait, cross our fingers, and hope it resulted in some donations. My challenge to you is: let’s stop thinking that way and let’s be a lot more confident in what our data is telling us, and how we link that up, I think that is one of the big, big, if you will, changes in how we’re behaving. So when we talk about donor segmentation, not all nonprofits are going to be doing it the same way, right? We have giving levels, we have frequency of gifts, we have recurring donor programs. I hope you will. I hope you are all dealing with that. I call it the Netflixing of philanthropy. I’m waiting for Netflix to send me a cease and desist cease and desist letter any moment. But think about it. This monthly approach to having small amounts taken out of your banking account every month every month. It’s easy to navigate. It’s it’s something that that next gen donors are used to. Doesn’t mean you can’t escalate them up, but you get them in the habit of working with you and communicating with you and understanding what your nonprofit does. This, to me, is one of the gold keys for any nonprofit.

It is something that if you’re not doing it or you’re not doing it well, I really encourage you and your organization to step back, be quiet for a moment. Look at what the opportunities are for this type of donor segmentation. You’re also going to want to want to understand demographics, where they live, how they’re engaging with you. Remember, next gen donors might not have the cash reserves to engage at this moment. At this moment, but a lot of times their other resources include time, includes the opportunity to volunteer, thought leadership, service, board service, committee service, and so make sure you’re tracking what type of engagement you have and what the potential is there for that next gen younger person. I also kind of want to tweak a little bit here and and push you to fall back on that old adage: time equals money. I think a best practice is to schedule 12 minutes for each donor to input into your CRM, if you are working off of a portfolio system where you have several people that you parse out your donorship, your donor relationships with, great. If you’re just a one man band, then this becomes even more important, and you might have to trim some of that time. But the idea here is that you want to make sure that your CRM is really containing the information that’s so valuable. Taking time to make notes. A lot of times we meet with a donor and we’re like, “I’m going to remember that story forever. I’m going to remember that question forever. I’m going to be able to connect with them forever, and you lose it, or you have to pass that information on to somebody, and it’s not there. If you have ever gone into donor management and hoped that that CRM was going to populate information and help you build a relationship, and there’s nothing there, you know what I’m talking about because it’s really miserable, and so get into the habit of scheduling time for every donor. And if you need to block out increments of 12 minutes, I think that’s a secret number, so that you train your brain and those around you are trained to know that this is valuable time that you are investing in the process. Your CRM, I like to say, it’s another team member, it’s another employee with you, sitting in your office with you, sitting in your laptop, if you will, sitting in your phone. So don’t lose out on that incredible Opportunity. This is the next piece that I really want to address. And when we talk about who our next gen donors, which we’ve covered, we’re talking about the process of understanding who they are and what they’re doing. I want to reach back into times past. Aristotle’s modes of persuasion. It’s a really interesting way to look at things. Obviously, it is not a new concept, but it might help you to figure out how do we tell our story, especially if we’re really pestering you. To focus down, narrow down, shorten, strengthen. How do we do that? I like the pathos, ethos, and logos model, and this is a framework that’s very easy to understand, very easy to manage, and that’s starting off with pathos, the emotion. How do I feel about the story? How do I feel about this work that your nonprofit’s doing? And then ethos, credibility. This is really jumping up, and as we move into the giving season, we hear nothing but bad stories about nonprofits. It seems like, and so we have to fight that bad apple issue. What is the credibility? Does the donor trust your story? Does the donor trust that they are going to make a philanthropic investment that’s going to be worthy? Right, and then logos. This is the the newer aspect for next gen donors-they are much more susceptible to demanding logos, the logic aspect. They want the metrics, they want the data. Their parents and grandparents more emotional. They’re more persuaded by the emotion. Next-gen donors have grown up with metrics and data, and the way they’ve been educated, the way they think, they look to the numbers. They can read charts, they can read graphs, and they want to know the impact. When we talk about impact, this is it, my friends. This is where the rubber meets the road.

What is it that your work is doing. What is it that your work is changing in your community? So we think about those three things: the emotional aspect, the credibility aspect, and the logical aspect. Those are three issues or aspects that should be in your storyline when you’re talking about your organization from the elevator pitch to the sit-down lunch, where do all those three three things meet? I think if you look at your storytelling in this way, it’ll kind of help you edit. It’ll kind of help you refine, and it will give you maybe a new framework for your donor communication that might make things easier, might make things more consistent, and that’s really where we want to go with all of this. Truly, truly, the other aspect is we talk about earning versus asking, and when we think about pathos, ethos, and logos, those impact stories, and I love this this trick, the boy, because of you. Again, impact. Where is this donor relationship taking our community, taking our organizations, and communicating with donors is earning their trust, earning their engagement versus asking. One trick is a really interesting way to go. Is that if you look at all of your donor communications stretched out over 90 days to six months, and you took out every communication that was an ask, would you have communications? A lot of organizations would say, “I don’t have any communications. I have no engagement. Right. So you need to change that. You need to really think about that. How are we earning the engagement of our donors? How are we earning their trust and earning a place in their philanthropic journey versus just always asking, because that doesn’t really work. Sure, we’ve got to do the ask, undoubtedly, but we also have to invite our donors to participate, to understand what we’re doing, to champion us, champion us with their their philanthropic dollars, but with their philanthropic influence, and having them champion our work away. So I think the smart nonprofit really moves towards this general idea. Is it scary yet? And there are a lot of boards that cannot get behind this because it just seems so frightening. Because they’re watching the the ledger, the general ledger, and saying we need more cash, we need more cash. But the reality is, this is a longer term strategy that I think is a really healthy strategy and one that really is going to help work. We talked about you know short and direct, TLDNR. One of my favorites. I think this came from Steve Jobs, and it’s too long. Did not read, and he was famous for sending back an email with those five letters. If you got, if you sent him something and it was just too cumbersome. This is the reality, my friends. Especially since we’re dealing with communicating on phones, you got to move shorter. You’ve got to become more direct. It’s okay to have one main message. You don’t have to send a novel every time you’re communicating to your constituency. You can use stronger visuals. You can shorten that narrative, and you can use charts and graphs and metric points. FOMO, you know, fear of what you might be missing out on, being consistent with that brand promise, and that means using the same color scoping, the same fonts, which we’re going to get into in just a little bit, and understanding that you run a really tight communication piece. This can be challenging for some organizations, depending on where you are with your level of staffing and tech. You might have to find some outside engagement on this. Some outside professionals can even be done pro bono, but this is a new and different way for a lot of us to communicate, and it is not without its challenges. I think once you find that you’ve kind of shortened and narrowed in that communication strategy, it makes it a lot easier because you understand what you have to do, and you just don’t try and throw everything against the wall. But it takes some strategy, and so let’s talk about that. One of the strategies is you need to calendarize all of your communications because it’s everybody’s business. It’s not just the fundraising department or the communications and marketing. Everybody should get when these communications are going out, when the deadlines are, on your community calendar.

This shared calendar will help everybody in the organization understand what you’re doing, and that it’s changing, and that it’s being done a little differently. Next gen donors, as we talked about from the very beginning, this is a new time, and so it’s going to be everyone’s business to get on board behind this. For most of us in our nonprofits, we have next gen employees, and we certainly have the potential to have more next gen leaders moving up, bubbling up. So this becomes one of those practices that’s also, I think, very important internally. So I really want to push that idea as a as a best practice for how you can administrate and manage this. The other piece of this that we touched on was that digital nature-the phone versus desktop. Of course, more donors are using their phones and their desktops more than ever. And my challenge to you is: when you are looking at employing some of these new communication and messaging programs, what vocabulary you’re going to use, what color scoping you’re going to use, you need to see how it looks on a variety of phones. Don’t just work on your desktops or your laptops, where things are in a different shape, in a different size, and you think, “Wow, that looks great. You’ve got to actually look and see how is it going to look on somebody else’s phone, and not just your phone, an older phone, a different type of phone. I really encourage you to do at least two different phone platforms and QR codes. We talked about this. I encourage you to go ahead and try and scan this QR code. This will link you to something that Donor Perfect has created, which is amazing, and we’re going to talk about it. It’s all about communications and setting up a practice for how you communicate, but that is something that you want to really make sure it’s working, and not just from one phone. You want to make sure that it’s being activated from a couple different phones before you send it out. And then I call the thumb test. You know how does how does your communication work if you’re holding groceries in one hand, a crying baby in the other, using your phone and trying to work something with your thumb, this is reality. People are using their their digital devices during the rest of their life, during their regular life, right? And so you’ve got to make it frictionless, as we say, make it easy, and you got to test that. Understanding your donor journey is huge, and my advice to you is: don’t just try and test it yourself when you created the work, because you’re going to have some inherent biases as to what’s the next step. Get this in front of. Somebody who is a different age does maybe they don’t know your organization, they don’t know the message, and observe them. See what happens. See how they can navigate what it is that you are communicating. You might find you got to tweak some things, and that’s okay. Better to deal with that now than later. Another big piece about this is donor engagement. I think this falls off our lens because I think sometimes in old school thinking it was kind of verboten or something that we did not do, and that is ask to engage our volunteers further financially, or turn volunteers into donors that we would, you know, obviously navigate gratitude. But that I think is a missed opportunity. Volunteering is a gateway into our organizations, and it helps potential donors learn more about us. Understand what we need. It builds champions, and that’s what it’s going. That’s what it’s all about. So we want to make sure that we are tracking our volunteer engagement hours, understanding the volunteer dollar hours, dollar value. The U.S. Department of Labor, they track and they post every year the the dollar value of of a volunteer hour, and they even break it down into by profession, as from medical to legal to accounting, and then just your general you know volunteer. So make sure you’re tracking that and reporting it out. Recapping how volunteers impacted your organization is great for FOMO, fear of missing out. You want to make sure that you’re engaging folks and letting them know what they might have missed and how they can become engaged.

They can become engaged with more volunteer activities, they can become engaged with understanding more about your organization, taking a tour, attending an event, learning, being part of a discussion group. There are many, many ways, and so don’t leave that off the table because next gen donors, while they may not, as we mentioned, have those assets, ultimately they’re going to be in control of a lot of assets, and as they move up through their careers, they will have more financial resources. So we definitely want to be cultivating them and moving that through. One of the big things that I wanted to touch on today, because it’s kind of an interesting aspect that is an odd thing. My personal opinion is that we tend to get bored with our own stuff. We tend to see, you know, our brochures, our website, our emails, our texts, and we’re like, we got to spice this up. But the reality is, generally, we don’t need to spice them up as much as we need to make sure that the brand promise and the marketing is consistent. That means we’re using the same colors, we’re using the same fonts. If you, as a potential donor or an existing donor, get an email from us and you go to make a donation, does that landing page look the same? Does it have the same colors, or does it look like it’s in a whole nother organization? Shockingly, this happens a lot, and it’s a huge turnoff to donors. So we want to be telling that story and showing that arc consistently with the same use of vocabulary, the same statistics, the same colors, the same fonts, and certainly the same logos. This becomes a really important aspect. Not so fun because sometimes it’s not as creative, and when we look at coming up with a new campaign, we think it has to be new and it has to be different. And while that might be a spark that kind of captures our group internally and our organization. Not always is this the case for building engagement with your donors. You don’t want to have to start off every time with a new story, do you? You want to be able to navigate that story, continue to build that story, to continue to show impact, and make those donors and potential donors feel like they’re the hero of the story. That remember we talked about the boy because of you. That they themselves have been a part of the success, been a part of the solution, and that’s when we talk about the brand promise. How do we keep these next gen donors thinking that they want to keep riding along with us? You know, their parents and their grandparents didn’t need that type of communication. A lot of times, you know, the the earlier generations were just like, we support this and we’re going to continue to support it, and that’s what we do. Next gen donors need a little bit more social, you know, knowledge and information, so that they will consistently stay with you, and that is something that the nonprofit sector is trying to grapple with. We have too much drop off. We have too much loss. Your CRM will help you understand what your donor retention is. In my mind, that’s one of the most important statistics that you could ever track within your nonprofit. Is donor retention? People come in. How long are they staying with you? And that is a big, big issue. Most folks that we talk to, when they start looking at this, are shocked that they are losing too many of their their donors. And sometimes it’s not just a first time donor. Sometimes it’s donors that you know have been with them for a long time. Understanding why these folks leave, and why they stay is super important, and I think a valuable exercise to put yourself in front of. Not always easy, but really, really important when we talk about understanding success, and we talk about how we navigate what it means to be doing something differently, and having it work, and the fear that sometimes is inherent with trying something different-it’s really, really stressful. And so, here are a couple things that might help you to chart where you’re going.

I like to call this understanding success, so that you can just instead of feeling that didn’t work, understanding what didn’t work, and then trying to figure out why it didn’t work, and more importantly, how do you make a correction? Right. This is not a one and done situation. As your employees change, as technology changes, as you understand your CRM more, I I fully believe that most of us don’t engage our CRMs to the full extent of of what they have, right? So every time you can learn more about that technology and how it will help you will help you on that road to understanding success. And then here’s the dirty little secret: not only do you need to understand what the success looks like, but you’ve got to be able to communicate it to your board, and your board chances are they’re older. They don’t really understand the next gen marketplace. They probably look at next gen grandchildren and children and have their opinions about it. So not only are you going to have to track what you’re doing and what is successful, you’re going to have to learn and and articulate that back out and report back out to your team and to your board. So let’s talk about it. There’s there’s seven main things I really want to dig into. Strong open rates. This is an important thing that your CRM will track if you’re using a module that will help you send and manage and send digital communications from emails to texts. How many people are opening up that that that missive that communication? What is that looking like, and how is it changing? You cannot base one action and then look at everything. You need to track it. You need to see what types of messages worked. Sometimes you might hear something called A/B testing, whereby you take a percentage of your your donor database and send them one message, and then another group, and send them a different message, and then you can look to see what the response rates were between the two groups. That can really help educate you as to what is tracking. The other piece of that is understanding what times of the day you’re sending it at right now during a political campaign season, there’s a lot of messaging going out, and you’re probably going to be competing for space, intellectual, and just physical time space, right? So think about that. Pardon me, because that does factor in that. Connection to donor retention rates. We were just talking about that, and I think it’s really important to understand what your donor retention rates are, how they’re changing, and what does that look like. I’m a big believer that when you look at statistics, don’t get lured into something shiny and fantastical. It’s okay to have incremental change-1% 2% 3%-as long as it’s consistent. When you have a wild swing, usually it’s pretty hard to kind of keep going. Right? You’re not going to have wild swing after wild swing after wild swing, but if you can look at a slow and steady growth, a slow and steady improvement, that is really where you win the day. And so again, this is going to have to be something that you might have to communicate back out and report back out to your team so that they understand that’s where you’re going and that’s how you’re trying to measure your success. Understanding about comments and sharing on your posts is another big aspect of where we’re going. We could do a whole section on that, but the algorithms are really being influenced by shares and how many people engage, not just a like or a heart, but an actual comment. Again, doesn’t have to be a novel; it has to be an acknowledgement. Something like, “Wow, I was at that event. It was great, and we loved it. I bring this up as number three is that I think this is something that’s easy for your board and your staff and even your volunteers to do. It’s okay for you to go back in front of those constituents and say, “Hey, can you comment on this post when we post? If we’re posting on Facebook or LinkedIn or X whatever, will you at least write five to 10 words about it just to amplify what it is we did?

Believe it or not, it has huge impact. Anybody can mindlessly just tap a like. Yeah, that’s fine. But the reality is, commenting really boosts your numbers. For those of you who are posting things to YouTube, perhaps you’re doing video shares or you’re doing shorts. Those track really well with next gen donors. But what really pushes them up on the feeds are the comments. And so, when you can share those posts, when you can comment on it, it’s a habit. It’s a good habit, I think, and it can be a positive affirmation of what went on or what’s going on. Sometimes it’s nothing more than I agree type of a comment, but still, it is an engagement, and that I think becomes really, really important. Low unsubscribe rates. I mean, this is the death knell to anybody who is sending out a lot of communications. They don’t want to have unsubscribes, but it’s going to happen. The reality is, you want to track it, and you want to know what the percent to total is. Again, you’re going to have fluctuations. You’re going to have probably more unsubscribes during times of the summer, during vacations, or during the holidays, where people might feel like they’re being inundated. That’s okay. There’s going to be a role. Understand what’s going on and make sure that you’re on top of it. Time spent on platforms. I think this is another thing. We can’t be everywhere at all times. Choose your battles. Figure out what your part of the sector responds to, what next gen donors you’re attracting, and where they go. Facebook is trending now older; has been for a while. LinkedIn is very, very popular with young professionals, and if you have any type of corporate partnership, any type of corporate engagement, community engagement, you want to make sure you’re there. That’s super, super important. And then understanding your success, increasing your engagement. These are metrics that I think you need to figure out what you’re going to look at. Don’t be compelled to understand everything, to monitor everything, choose your battles and then move on. Say, okay, we’re going to really monitor our open rates for the next 120 days. Pick a start date and an end date, but keep monitoring it, and then determine what you’re going to move on to and monitor next. Right? I’m not saying. Look away, but definitely you want to make sure that you’re keeping a good eye and your good resources on your on your investments. I’ve got a couple bonus things for you if you want to use this worksheet that we created at the American Nonprofit Academy. You can email me, and when I’ll send it to you, it’s a PDF. You can print it off. You can print it off every six months or every year, and rework it. It just helps you synthesize the messaging, the vocabulary. Gets kind of everybody on the same page, and for some people, you will have, you know, a greater opportunity to kind of get everybody on the same page. Now, if you’re a one-man band, that’s fine. It might just help you and yourself, but especially if you’re working with some committees or more employees or outside contractors. This is a tool that might really help you, but this is the better tool. I gotta say, DonorPerfect has this amazing, amazing document. Got a QR code here for you. This document is brilliant. It takes the basic concepts of design and helps you articulate them. So even for a non-designer, somebody that can be like, I know what I like, but I can’t identify it, or I can’t articulate why I don’t like something. This will help you refine what it is your messaging should be, or how it looks. It gets into fonts, it gets into colors, it gets into vocabulary. It is brilliant. This QR code will take you right to the donor perfect part of their website where you can download this for free. It really is a superb, superb item. I loved our tool that we created until I saw this, and then I was like, “Oh man, this is the the donor perfect has nailed it on this. So definitely, definitely, I want to make sure that we highlight that. Again, this has been great. I’m Julia Patrick. I have loved my time with you.

I wanted to spend some extra time answering questions. We have had a huge number of people sign up. I believe we passed 2000. I’ll just tell you that I’m in my studio in Phoenix, Arizona, where we broadcast the nonprofit show, and I work off of several screens. I have not looked down at the screen with all the questions because there are so many and so many people going flying by. So now let’s kind of take the last few minutes that we have. Feel free to navigate your questions back up. I am going to move back to that QR code because it is truly this product is brilliant, and if you leave today with nothing more than going on this design tips for nonprofits, that’s the way to go. So I’m going to send it back to you.

Okay, all right. Just so people are aware. I’ve had a number of requests for the slides.

Oh, good. Most

of you know we don’t generally send out slides, but I did upload it into the chat. You can download it from there. And as for the QR codes, we’ve had a few people say that they can’t scan a QR code or their phone doesn’t do them, so the link is in there a few times as well. So you should be able to use the link within the the chat too.

And if I’m not mistaken, you Lori, you can go to Donor Perfect’s website and you can go to the resources section, and there are a lot of materials. DonorPerfect is very generous with the type of information and thought leadership that they give back out to the community. So you’ll be able to find it there.

Yep, most definitely. There’s plenty out there. Okay, I’m gonna pull the most upvoted, and let me see. So the first question it actually has four upvotes. It says collecting demographics can be hard as no one likes to see a survey. How have you seen non? Nonprofits succeed at collecting demographic data on their donors. I

love this question. Thank you so much. This is a great question. I was just talking about this at a staff meeting earlier in the week, and we were we asked the same question: How do we get information so that we can build stronger communications and understand how our donors want to be communicated with? And the answer is relationship-based, and so it means old school: picking up the phone, talking to people, actually engaging on a humanistic level. So this is where I’m going with it, and I haven’t always thought this way, but my sense of it is, I think it’s better and and healthier for an organization to actually know your donors versus having a database of 1000s of people that you don’t know and that don’t really know you, so it’s it’s kind of frightening because we’re asking you to step back a little bit and saying how do I make an engagement, talk to somebody. Remember we had that one slide that said 12 minutes per donor engagement, so that you can really be thoughtful about what that donor’s journey looks like and what they’re at. This is not the one hit wonder get a check and move on. This is a deeper relationship issue. You know who gets this right, and they have the numbers to prove it? Hospitals and universities. Usually, their fundraisers are real social. They have personalities that are social, and they go out and they they talk to people. And this is a this is a different way for some of our fundraisers to deal, and that might not be the answer that you. That might not be the answer you want to do here, Lori. I don’t know. We might be getting thumbs down on that answer.

No. Ah. Okay. Actually, I’m getting people that are saying they’re unable to access the slides. The only way I can send it, I don’t have a link. I just have the PDF. So the only way I can send it is through a PDF in the chat. It’s in there numerous times. It looks like the Adobe symbol, so you can download it from there. Once you hover, there’s a download option.

And I will offer, although this it freaks me out a little to say this. This is my direct email, [email protected]. If you email me, I will send those. I’ll send you that deck as well.

Okay, so yeah, I mean, we have some that can download it and some that cannot.

Yeah, if if you do that, we’ll take care of it. But I can’t believe that I just said that because the gates are are going to open up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that’s

okay. I’m taking one for the team, Lori. But yeah, go ahead and do that. What other questions do we have?

Okay, so we have one more time here. The next question is: How can we get younger donors to care and donate if an organization has historically catered to older generations, organization is about community social programs.

You know, this is a great, great question, and I, I’ve been. This is an eternal question, right? Like, how do you get somebody to care about Domestic violence. If you’ve never felt, if you’ve never dealt with it, how do you get somebody to care about illiteracy if you’ve never if you’ve never faced that battle? How do you get people to care about diseases that you might not have any any connection to right, and so you have to think outside the box. Next gen donors are much more interested in the impact to community, and so what does it mean when we have, for example, a failure of healthcare access while we have a burden that’s placed upon ERs, and when we have too many ERs filled with people that could be treated by primary care physicians, then we can’t treat, you know, emergencies. I mean, do you see where I’m going with this? Is that it’s really what is the implication? And this is what when we talked about understanding how to tell the story. Next gen donors are very metric and data oriented, not as emotional, right? I mean, it used to be I would have said, okay, well, pretend like you’re talking about your grandparents, and you love Grandma Jeanie and Grandpa John, and you wouldn’t want them to have a problem, would you? That doesn’t apply as much. You want to talk more about the data and the statistics about what’s the reality behind an issue, and why does a community need to to really drill down? Now, having said that, I’m going to put the stake in the ground that says you’re not going to be all things to all people. You you will have people that will say, “Yeah, tough problem, but it doesn’t it doesn’t attract me. It doesn’t pull at my heartstrings next, and guess what? We call that the bless and release moment. Terry Axelrod, the great founder of Benavon, I heard her say that bless and release concept probably close to 30 years ago, and that is, you know, somebody that has philanthropic capacity has the ability to engage, but they’re just not the right fit for your organization. Nothing wrong with saying, “Wow, we get that we’re not a fit, but we hope you go back out into our community and find that thing that’s a fit, because that’s the right way to go. That’s right. Way to go. Okay, Lori, I’m stepping off the soapbox. That was a long

one. Okay. Do you have any insights as to the frequency of communications with donors?

Love this question. This is a big question. First and foremost, thank you for that. I love that you’re thinking about this. For a thank you for any type of donation, the thank you should go no longer than 48 hours after the donation is made. Digital, okay? Of course, that means you’re responding via email, text, and then if you want to go further and you can, you got volunteers or you yourself. A handwritten note is like super powerful, and that’s great, and that’s really where a lot of us should strive for. But that reality is the first 48 becomes really important. The next piece of advice I have: Remember, we talked about that measurement. That if you looked at your your communications, and you pull back on on all your communications that were just asks, would you still have communications going out? Most of us are probably like no. So the reality is, I love, love, love, love a monthly short impact communication. Guess what? We just reached this milestone. Guess what? We just served this these this number of meals. Guess what? We just hit this this pinnacle. We just got this award. We just secured this partnership. Those are the types of things. What’s your impact? What’s the good news? Sure, you need help. Sure, we need more engagement. Of course, but I think that should be the starting point. Is is a quick, short, well-branded, concise-not a novel. I see too many nonprofits spending far too many resources on these exhaustive email newsletters that no one’s going to read. No one’s going to read and engage, and so make them short, make them sweet. I think sometimes it’s good to envision a postcard in your head. If I had a postcard, I had a front and a back, and I had to make it snappy. What would it look like? That might be the way to go. Once a month for sure. Okay, Lori. Time is wasting.

Okay, so since several staff members, including leadership, meet with donors but may not have the time, or desire, or skills to spend much time entering data, what techniques? How can okay? What techniques can CRM managers help get the knowledge from the staff into DP?

Right into data. Yeah, donor perfects data pace. So this is the thing. I’m kind of you know mean about this. I think it needs to be part of the job description. I think it needs to be measured. I think if you are a development director or a CEO, I think you need to go in and you need to look at this, and you need to see what the engagement is of your system. You know, it’s very easy to say, I didn’t have time, and that’s why we give you that 12-minute moment. We’re saying you got to make time, you got to build it into your time, and that is because that individual does not own the data. The organization owns the data, and we’ve got to be looking forward towards who can keep the stewardship of our donors because our fundraisers change. AFP, the worst statistic in the word in the world, reports that the average development director only stays in their jobs 17 months. Well, friends, that’s not enough time to build strong relationships. And so, what happens? We got to fall back on our on our database and have that information. And this has to be a practice, and it has to be called out. Sorry, Amin. Sorry, Lori.

Okay, so one of the earlier questions that came in-this may be the last one, but we’ll see. It was something that you had said, and Lisa asked, “Love to learn more about donating intellectual property to a nonprofit.

One of my favorites, you know, I I put it up there on the slide, but I didn’t articulate it. You know, Irving Berlin wrote the great American song “God Bless America, and when he wrote that, he in the early 1900s, he from the get-go assigned the royalties to that piece of music, to the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of America, that’s crazy to me that somebody would have. I mean, a that’s how much money they were making on intellectual property and royalties. But the reality is, this is now in under the purview of a lot of planned giving Organizations, planned giving professionals. It involves attorneys because it involves memos of understanding and the assignment of those legal values. IP is where it’s at. I think there’s huge opportunities there. But again, you have to understand how to manage it, right? And so you have to be have a very, very strict-not strict, strict, yes-but structured giving policy. You need, and that giving policy isn’t a one and done. It should be reviewed every, you know, at least once a year with your attorney, you need to have a really good legal framework because you’ll be dealing with estates, and so you want to make sure that the heirs understand what the benefactor’s wishes were and that it was legally set up. It’s a dicey thing, but I think it’s very exciting, very exciting. And think about all the intellectual property still, but of course being created, but that has been created in our country, right? I mean, there’s a lot, and it’s sitting there ready to go somewhere. Should go to your your nonprofit.

Okay. We’ve had a few comments about QR codes on mobile phones, kind of defeating the purpose, and I I totally understand that. But then there were a few questions about open rates. Someone mentioned that they theirs is about 30% and asked if that’s a good rate. And other people were saying, “What is a good open rate, and what is ditto for unsubscribes as well? I mean, is there like a threshold that you should be looking for?

Yeah. So this is that short answer, and it’s it might not be very satisfactory, but it’s it’s about the rate. I mean, 30% is great. I would say 25 to 35 is a sweet spot. But this is the key. It’s what’s the trend, right? Are you staying consistent? Are you growing up? Are you plummeting? And that, my friends, is kind of where you want to look. Remember, we talked about really digging in on some type of metric that you’re going to really track for 90 to 120 days. That’s where you want to live. And I think when you look at those, if you look at that tracking, that will also help you refine your messaging where it needs to be refined. It’s frightening to look at those numbers. It’s frightening. I mean, even for me in my own business, I get really torqued out when people unsubscribe, and you know, I see the numbers shifting. But even I have to step back and say, okay, what’s the trend? What’s the trend? Remember, one to 3% That’s okay. Be looking around at that, and then understand you’ll have a seasonality. You might have more unsubscribes during the holidays or during summer vacation. Just happens. So, well, Lori, this time has gone by so fast. It

certainly has. Yes, and we’ve had people that have been jumping off and were saying that they really liked the the topic, the presentation today. So I think they will be taking away some great strategies.

Good. Well, it’s a joy. Donor perfect. I’ll just witness to everybody. The team is great to work with, just lovely. I actually was meeting, was introduced more fully to your team and leadership via Jeff Vogel at another conference where we were speaking. He was on a panel with me, and I was like, “This dude’s got it all, and so I was like, I need to be talking to him, and then it just grew that relationship from there. So, thank you to DonorPerfect and Lori. You’re great to help me with this. Thank you.

Oh well, thank you. You know, you getting to spend some time with us today has been great, and for those who took the time out to attend today, I know you guys are so busy, but I’m so glad that you were able to show up here. And we’re hoping that you leave with some fresh ideas, practical strategies to strengthen your donor communications, and let’s build some lasting relationships. All right. So I hope to see you in some future webinars, and thank you again. I hope you have a great rest of your day and rest of your week.

Great. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Laurie.

Thank you.

Bye.