The Nonprofit Hero Factory

How can nonprofits fundraise during a crisis without sounding opportunistic or worse, tone-deaf? Whether it’s disease, war or natural disaster, there always seems to be an emergency in the headlines. One thing is clear: in times of crisis, people become more empathetic and generous—and not just to causes directly related to the emergency. Data from the pandemic now shows that people gave to a wide diversity of nonprofit organizations. So why were some nonprofits able to expand while others felt sidelined and had to consolidate? A more nuanced look at the data delivered across the board revealed that those that did the best during the pandemic did two things: They asked for donations often, and they contextualized their appeals. Steven Shattuck, the Chief Engagement Officer at Bloomerang, looks at the data they and others collected and shares the takeaways that nonprofits can apply to their development strategy. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep53 ** What we discussed: • Why directly addressing a crisis can help you raise money • How to avoid the trap of a scarcity mindset • What is necessary for a humanistic appeal to supporters • Blending old and new technologies to build strong connections

The word “community” is frequently thrown around in nonprofit communications. But what does it actually mean, and what does it take to form a true community that provides value and drives increased repeat giving? At a time when nonprofits struggle with donor retention, efforts to tap into identity, increase value to donors, make them feel more invested, and retain them year after year, have to be a top priority for every nonprofit development, marketing and communications professional. Louis Diez, Director of the Annual Fund at Muhlenberg College believes describes his superpower as building communities of purpose that energize donors and raise donor participation and major gifts—and he has the numbers to prove it. Louis joins The Nonprofit Hero Factory to share how he builds communities that deliver ROI both to donors and to the organization, and how other nonprofits can do the same. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep52 ** What we’ll be discussing: • Why communities are critical to nonprofit organizations • Four factors that define community • How building communities of purpose energizes donors and raises donor participation and major gifts • How to create a community where people are so involved that it becomes a part of their identity • The best way to get donations without asking for them directly

There’s a new individual giving report, and the good news is that household charitable giving is on the rise. The bad news is that over 80% of new donors don’t give to the same nonprofit again the following year. The biggest difference maker? Treating donors as individuals, understanding their motivations, and reinforcing how your work connects to their personal identity. In other words: personalized, story-based communication. Today, for example, people are generously donating in support of Ukraine, which is on our minds because of the invasion, violence and humanitarian crisis we are witnessing. For Boris, the crisis in Ukraine goes much deeper than what we are seeing on TV, but how likely are most people to continue giving when another crisis dominates headlines? Are we just locked in a cycle of emergency response giving? Tim Sarrantonio, the Director of Corporate Brand at Neon One, an integrated network of products and support for nonprofits, knows that finding accurate data and making connections between data and the broader story is the key to successful nonprofit fundraising. Neon One’s data report, Donors: Understanding the Future of Individual Giving, was released on March 8. He’s here to talk about what they discovered. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep51 ** What we’ll be discussing: • Where to find strong, relevant and timely data about individual giving behavior • What objective data says about what’s actually happening now • How data and storytelling come together to improve donor retention

Whether you participated this year or not, the reach and impact of GivingTuesday is undeniable. Nonprofits in the U.S. alone raised $2.7 billion in 24 hours. Millions of people around the world gave money, time and voice to the causes they care about. But it’s not as simple as saying it’s GivingTuesday and asking for money. We invited Kathleen Murphy-Toms, GivingTuesday’s Director of Digital Strategy, back on the show to talk about what works, what doesn’t, what to do now, and what’s next for the movement after 10 years. Not surprisingly, we had a lot to talk about… ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep50 ** What we discussed: • The growth of GivingTuesday and what’s next • How nonprofits can use GivingTuesday as a springboard • Why the scarcity mindset is counterproductive • Cause coalitions to raise the tide (and more donations) for all • Creating and harnessing urgency • Preparing for a great GivingTuesday 2022

“If you approach the wrong donor the wrong way, then you will leave money on the table and you'll lose them at hello." All your donors are not alike. They may all have one thing in common: they want to support your work. But their motivations and interests may vary widely. Understanding why they support you and how they prefer to do so can make the difference between greater support and alienation. Unlike actors, they’re not going to ask you “what’s my motivation?” Instead, that’s a question that you should be asking them. Sybil Ackerman-Munson of Do Your Good has helped funders give away over $45 million to nonprofits whose work aligns with their own ethos. In the process, she identified three donor archetypes, based on their motivations. Sybil joins the show to explain how nonprofits can better understand and communicate with each type of donor to create better, more beneficial relationships for both sides. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep49 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The importance of positive messaging even in dire times • Three three categories that every donor falls into, and what that means for your fundraising • How to determine what type of donor each person is • The problem with the competitive scarcity mindset • Opportunities and fundraising advantages of collaboration

Most every organization keeps records of their donors—whether it’s in advanced CRMs or simple spreadsheets. But there’s a wide gap between keeping records and maximizing donor data to build strong relationships that raise more money. Regina Alhassan of ResearchPRO joins us to share her strategies for collecting valuable data, tracking it over time and allocating your resources and your requests accordingly. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep48 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The types of data nonprofits aren’t tracking well • Using data to build relationships • Maintaining data integrity in your database • Screening donors to match your ask to their capacity

Which is a better way to serve your nonprofit’s program participants: Experience and knowledge-based assumptions, or regular input from the participants themselves? The answer is, of course, combining both. After all, how do you know how to apply your knowledge if you’re not regularly asking your beneficiaries what they need and how it’s working? That’s where evaluation comes in, to collect the feedback and input from your constituents and provide insights (and stories) to how you’re doing and how you can serve them better. Allison Shurilla is the founder of AS Community Consulting. In this interview, she lays out how evaluations can help nonprofits by first clarifying what they want to achieve, then establishing the evaluative processes that they can use, and finally incorporating them into their regular processes. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep47 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The problem with how most nonprofits lead programs and devote resources today. • What evaluation means, how it works and how it helps optimize your hero creation systems • Ways that nonprofits can start incorporating evaluation into their practices and processes.

Getting media attention for your nonprofit’s work is a powerful way to reach new people, build your authority, and shape the narrative around your mission. It's not enough to put out a press release and hope it gets picked up by some new source. Today, nonprofits of all sizes need a media strategy built on relationships and the ability to provide value to both the reporter and their audience. For better and worse, news media itself has been undergoing rapid change over the last 20 years. With newsrooms shrinking, news cycles accelerating, and news sources multiplying, the competition for attention presents both a challenge and an opportunity for media-savvy nonprofits to step in and make their voices heard. Sean Kosofsky, founder and CEO of Mind The Gap Consulting has been working with nonprofits to develop their media strategy. He joins us this week to break down how any org can develop relationships with news media and to be part of the public conversation versus simply reacting to it. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep46 ** What we’ll be discussing: • How news media has changed and the opportunities it creates for nonprofits • What it takes to develop relationships with reporters • How to identify the outlets and reporters you want to work with • Ways to lead or add your voice to the conversation

Does it feel like your nonprofit running on a donor treadmill? You’re constantly expending your resources to attract new donors, hoping that you get them quicker than you lose the ones that you had before so that you can do more. It’s exhausting and often demoralizing… and it doesn’t have to be that way. Improved donor engagement and retention starts with a great welcome experience. Using a combination of personalization and automation, an email welcome sequence can start a conversation and build a relationship that provides value to both sides and lasts for years. Rachel Bearbower of Small Shop Strategies helps overwhelmed executive directors create simple, effective welcome sequences on autopilot. She joins us this week to share how they work, and the 5-email formula you can use to get started today. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep45 ** What we’ll be discussing: • How personalization and humanization helps make a genuine connection • The cost of acquiring a new donor vs. retaining them over time • What to put in your donor welcome series to keep them coming back and donating again

What website trends should nonprofits be conscious of in 2022? The last two years have dramatically changed the way that the world connects and does business. Everything possible went online in 2021, and with it, the noise level has made it harder and harder to capture attention, make a connection and inspire action. If nonprofit websites don’t keep up with visitors’ expectations, they’re likely to lose more potential heroes than they gain. In this episode, Boris looks at the 5 biggest trends from 2021 and 5 ways nonprofit websites must respond if they are to achieve their goals. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep44 **

For most nonprofits, the cost of a cybersecurity professional seems unjustifiable. However, the cost of an attack could be catastrophic. (And if a cyberattack sounds like something that happens to large tech companies, you haven’t been keeping up with the headlines.) Fortunately, there are simple approaches along with low-cost tools and training that can help mitigate those threats, help you meet requirements and help you sleep easier at night knowing that your supporter data, funds and, more importantly, supporter trust is secure. Joshua Peskay of RoundTable Technology started out as an “accidental techie” in a small nonprofit, so he understands the struggles they face. He joined us on the show to talk about the risks, the tools and the strategies for minimizing and managing the threats that we all face today. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep43 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The threats that nonprofits are facing and the pressures they’re feeling from all sides • Challenges of justifying cybersecurity costs to supporters vs. the true costs of not being secure • Free assessment tools and trainings to identify and shore up weaknesses • Three simple, inexpensive measures that nonprofits can take to dramatically decrease the risks of cyber attacks • A plan for starting and not feeling overwhelmed

The digital age, accelerated by the pandemic, has pushed most activities, including fundraising online. That has opened up our stories to audiences around the world. At the same time, that has removed some of the personal connection that we have to each other and causes. Sarah Welch is a behavioral scientist and Vice President at ideas42. She focuses her time thinking about—and helping organizations—affect positive change through the principals of behavioral science. Sarah joined the show to chat about what’s been happening in the nonprofit world. How do we navigate the changing landscape and rally support for causes large and small? ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep42 ** • What we’ll be discussing: • The changing landscape of philanthropy • Navigating the new reality to rally support for causes large and small • The advantages and disadvantages of online events • How to adapt our storytelling to generate support for different size causes

Is your nonprofit board making the most of your stories to connect others to your work? We know the power of stories to build empathy, understanding and connection to others. It’s critical to fundraising and nonprofit success as a whole. Your board is likely made up of intelligent, successful individuals who care deeply about your work. Chances are, however, their backgrounds are not in storytelling for fundraising. So how do you equip them with the knowledge and skills to share your stories with the world and raise more money for your work? Stephanie Minor of NPO Centric helps nonprofits with capacity building and board training. She joins us on the show to share her strategies and best practices to help your board get on board with storytelling. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep41 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The importance of board storytelling • The tools board members need to help them help you • Training your board on client storytelling • Making the most of client stories for your board and beyond

When Greg Harrell-Edge first joined CoachArt, they were doing great work in the Los Angeles area. They knew that there were so many more kids who could benefit from their services, but with their current systems, it was taking 7 hours to match one child to a volunteer. In the last 5 years since Greg joined, CoachArt has quadrupled impact, doubled revenue, quintupled cash reserves and have now gone nationwide. The journey began with questions about what was holding them back, and what it would look like if they could grow. That led them to exploring and adopting technology and dramatically changing their story. Greg joins us to talk through the challenges they faced, successes they’ve realized and how other organizations can adopt innovation into their own strategy. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep40 ** What we’ll be discussing: • Identifying the bottlenecks and obstacles in a nonprofit’s work • The growth questions every nonprofit should be asking • Developing and adopting tech solutions that help you scale without breaking the budget • Persevering in the face of pushback and setbacks • The impact of innovation on culture and fundraising

How do you build and grow a nonprofit legacy gift program at the most sensitive time in modern history? Legacy planning can be tough to talk about in general… but during a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives might be the toughest. And yet, we have a responsibility. Not to our organizations, but to the people who care about the issues we’re tackling. We owe them the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the world. When legacy inquiries spiked 300% last year, nonprofits that had well-established gift-in-will programs found themselves better-equipped to maintain their funding and services. They were also in a better position to honor the hopes of their supporters for a better future. Legacy fundraising consultant Ligia Peña helps organizations create or reboot their legacy programs systematically. She joins us on the show to share how nonprofits of all sizes can identify and track the most important key performance indicators, creating simple dashboards that assess the health of the program. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep39 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The need for legacy giving opportunities today • Legacy gift tracking mistakes that most nonprofits make • The two types of KPIs every organization should measure • The four stages of gift prospects you can track • Dangers of false security and how to spot them • Simple tools for tracking your program’s performance

When Covid shut down non-essential access to hospitals, it effectively shut down all of Hearts Need Art’s programming, as it did for so many other service-based nonprofits. Artists were no longer able to perform for patients, patients were no longer able to get much-needed emotional support, and they couldn’t deliver on their promise to donors. This easily could have been the end of the line for the arts in health nonprofit that Constanza Roeder created just a few years prior, based on her first-hand experience of being a cancer patient and the support that got her through it. Instead, the young non-technical, resource-strapped organization took on the challenge with their greatest asset: creativity. They developed new programs to meet the new constraints and, in the process, created a significantly more scalable system for delivering their programming that creates stronger connections between their work and their donors, provides a greater continuity of care for their clients, and allows them to reach exponentially more people in need… without over-taxing their resources. Hearts Need Art founder Constanza Roeder joins the show to share her story and break down how any organization can do the same. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep38 ** What we’ll be discussing: • Transitioning an arts-based in-person program online • Responding to the needs of your communities in crisis • Creating scalable systems on a budget • Communicating pivots to donors • Impact and lessons learned from going digital

What happens when socially conscious millennials and others profit billions of dollars from cryptocurrency investments? They look for ways that their windfall can help those less fortunate. This year, one platform alone will handle over $100 million in cryptocurrency donations to nonprofits. And they expect it to 10x next year. What started out as a novelty in the tech and finance space has now turned into a three trillion dollar movement that impacts most aspects of life today. Yet, it still seems complex (cryptic?) for nonprofits to get involved. Between the technical aspects and the legal concerns, most nonprofits have been hesitant to dive in. Alex Wilson co-founded The Giving Block when he saw that nonprofits had a hard time overcoming the hurdles necessary to accept and process Bitcoin donations. He joined us this episode to demystify cryptocurrency donations for nonprofits and why it’s important to join the movement sooner rather than later. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep37 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The current state of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency donations for nonprofits • What’s different about the cryptocurrency donor avatar versus most others • Why crypto investors need to be able to donate in their favorite cryptocurrencies • The tax implications for donors and nonprofits • How nonprofits can get started and take advantage of the possibilities this season and next year

Nonprofit volunteer time across the U.S. in 2021 is now $28.54/hr on average. They are often your greatest investors and champions… and that’s not even counting the donations that they make on top of their time. But with COVID and other challenges, too many organizations just don’t know how to capitalize on this opportunity. Even for nonprofits who understand the tremendous value of their volunteer force, COVID-19 presented seemingly insurmountable challenges. Many halted or completely abandoned their volunteer programs, breaking the connection with their biggest supporters or worse, breaking their trust at the worst time possible. Dana Litwin is a Certified Volunteer Administrator (CVA) who specializes in helping nonprofits create more volunteer opportunities online. She joins us on the show this week to share her insights on the ROI of volunteers and how we can help them help us regardless of pandemics, geographical and time constraints. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep36 ** What we’ll be discussing: • How volunteer engagement, online and off is critical to a nonprofit’s success • Lessons learned from nonprofits’ response to the pandemic • The three Cs to a happy and engaged volunteer team • Creating engaging virtual opportunities for volunteers • Challenges associated with the lack of value and understanding of volunteer services • Expectations, responsibilities, and tools for successful volunteer programs

Can asking your supporters for their help and input actually raise the amount they’re willing to support your nonprofit’s work? There’s a phenomenon in psychology, studied and demonstrated by behavioral economists, in which people consider something they’ve taken part in creating to be worth more than the same thing made by a professional. This cognitive bias is called the IKEA Effect In this episode, Boris discusses strategies for nonprofits to capitalize on the power of the IKEA Effect to form a stronger connection with supporters, increasing your perceived value and raising more money for your work. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep35 ** What we’ll be discussing: • The IKEA Effect — using cognitive bias to create stronger connections and raise more money. • The Endowment Effect and how it can be beneficial to your organization. • The importance of creating valuable experiences for your supporters. • Why should your supporters be connected with beneficiaries? • Connecting actions and results by telling stories. • Avoiding the Disenfranchisement Effect.

The power of storytelling lies in its ability to connect people and share experiences. Regardless of how great a story you tell in the middle of the forest, if no one’s there to hear it, it doesn’t make an impact. In this third and final part of our exploration of Nonprofit Storytelling the Hollywood Way, we’re going to focus on elements of story craft that make stories more impactful, give them greater reach, and keep people coming back for more. ** Episode Links and Shownotes: https://nphf.show/ep34 ** What we’ll be discussing: • Tricks borrowed from Hollywood, Shakespeare and Dick Wolf • Ways to make sure your most important message gets through • Packaging your story to get the most attention and interest