 Welcome back to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here. And Friday, or as I so lovingly refer to it, Friday is one of my favorite days, if not the favorite day of the week, because we do have a dedicated Ask and Answer episode right here on the nonprofit show. Thank you to our amazing partners, Fundraising Academy at National University. So really thrilled to have LaShonda Williams with us today. LaShonda joins us as a trainer from Fundraising Academy. And I'm gonna ask you to share a little bit more about yourself in just a moment, but don't let me forget that, LaShonda, because I know that you come on often, but for some of our viewers and listeners, it might be the first time that they've seen or heard you. So again, I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. And I have with me today in the hot seat that Julie and I refer to it, LaShonda Williams, MPA CFRE, trainer at Fundraising Academy. So grateful to have your wisdom with us to share just some insights because we have questions from our viewers across the globe. They send these questions into us each and every week, and we share them on this dedicated episode. So I also want to say thank you to our amazing partners. They allow us these opportunities. So huge shout out of gratitude to our friends, our friends over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Thank you to LaShonda for joining us today. Also, thank you to nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. Many of these companies have been with us from the very, very, very beginning. And if you've joined us before, you might have been keeping track along with me because I really don't want us to forget. We are coming up on our 900th episode next month, and it's gonna be here before we know it. So thank you to these sponsors that have allowed us this partnership to continue the conversation. And as I mentioned, we've produced quite a bit of content. And if you want to go back and listen to any of them, find LaShonda's previous episodes as well. You can find them on the app. So if you want to scan that QR code, if you're watching or are able to visually see that QR code, go ahead and scan it. Just pull out your smartphone and scan that. You can also still find us on streaming broadcast platforms, as well as podcast platforms. And we encourage you to do that. So LaShonda, thank you, my friend. Before we jump into this question, I actually want to ask you to share a little bit about yourself, a little bit about fundraising academy. And then we're gonna jump into the nitty gritty, which are the questions from our viewers and listeners. Well, LaShonda Williams, as Derek mentioned, and I've been in the philanthropic space for many years, was first exposed to philanthropy as a board member with my National Alumni Association, worked with my National Alumni Association as a volunteer for many years. I was a chapter president of Prairie View A&M University Alumni Association, Houston chapter, vice president of a local Atlanta chapter on the national board. I've been membership chair. All of the things when you talk about transitioning, affinity into philanthropy, I have actually experienced throughout my career and into this fundraising space as a full-time employee recently was affiliated with Prairie View, my alma mater and currently working with South Texas College of Law in alumni engagement and annual giving, which is phenomenal during this centennial year. But recently became affiliated with the Fundraising Academy last year as a result of a relationship with Jackalotto, which was absolutely phenomenal. He actually was my CFRE coach. And so Fundraising Academy offers a variety of training, which is why I really love the program for those that are entering the philanthropic space, whether you are a novice or would like professional material, we offer a platform that speaks to the complete evolution of the cost-selling cycle relationship, which is broken down into three phases, which helps prepare you to not only facilitate prospect research, but also essential elements for securing the gift and most importantly, how to retain donors through stewardship. So there's a plethora of material made available, that's free for those of you who would like to increase your repertoire of skills. Repertoire, I love that word. And thank you for that. There is an online portal from Fundraising Academy. It is great insight. And again, you have great insight, LaShonda. So let's kick it off on this Friday episode. I really want to, this is a good question from Shelly in Las Vegas, Nevada. So I'm gonna read it out loud, ask you to take the first dive if you would, my friend. And then if there's anything that I feel, you know, worth adding, I might add on to the conversation. So Shelly wants to know, our CEO is asking all department heads to attend at least one board-made meeting a year. They are held after work once a month at a location other than our campus. It seems that a lot of our team thinks that this is a waste of time. What do you think about this? Oh wow, this is a great way to get it started because relationships are the heart of fundraising. And it is really important that department heads know the board members because it creates an opportunity not only to foster the relationship within the, from an organizational perspective, but it gives the board members an opportunity to learn more about your various roles and initiatives that you have within your said departments. It's the perfect space to discuss how to develop your case for support. And also to share those intricate details that you may not normally have the opportunity to share. It's essential that everyone on the fundraising forefront or frontline has direct relationships. And I think that it is a great honor to be able to lead and be a department head. But most importantly, what's the tremendous honor is the opportunity to truly engage with your board. I know many of my colleagues in the nonprofit space sometimes find it quite difficult to create time because their board members are so busy. And the fact that the board members are very receptive and want to meet with you and coming out once a year, I think is a minimum. I would really suggest possibly quarterly, specifically around those times when they're beginning to develop the planning for the upcoming year to talk about what those priorities are because no one can effectively articulate the cause for your particular division the way you can. And so I think that this is a wonderful opportunity and brace change and insist on excellence. Oh, you always have such great words and phrases and statements. So thank you, LaShonda. I agree with you. I enjoy going to board meetings, right? I took a little bit of a hesitancy because I know that might sound odd for some people in particular the person that has sent in this question as well as for the team in the development space, right? I find it so advantageous to attend the board meetings. So maybe the department heads are questioning like what is their purpose in the meeting but moreover relationships, right? And that's really what LaShonda started with is having the board really connect with the staff, having the staff get to know who are the fiduciary agents and the leaders of the mission and advocating for this cause. I think it's so important and I couldn't echo more. I think more than one is necessary. So quarterly, as LaShonda said, I think that's a great opportunity. I fully encourage it. And yes, let's strive for excellence and let's work on those relationships. So I think it's a win-win when you attend. And again, I would encourage more than one. So good insight LaShonda and didn't have much to add. So I appreciate all that you shared for that. Good luck, Shelley. We'd love to hear from you because I have a feeling that after these staff members attend a board meeting, they might think differently. So we really- Definitely. Right? We'd like to hear back. Okay. Now we're moving over from Nevada to California. So not too far of a jump, but Trisha in the Bay Area sends in this for us. Our nonprofit is considering organizing a community walk for our area of work, which is health related. There are several nonprofits who work in this space across our region. How do we get all to participate? And if we don't get 100% of these organizations to participate, should we still do the event? What do you think? Wow, interesting. So immediately what comes to mind for me is giving and I have a friend of mine that's in my COP who organizes a variety of different walks. First and foremost, awareness is very important. And bringing awareness to your cause is always a win. It's a matter of marketing. And in the fundraising space and the nonprofit space, we're very cognitive of how we tell the story and the importance and the overarching goal and the potential impact of the participation. 100% participation is a very high margin one of the things that you'll hear with consistency is obviously having matrix but also having smart goals. Like if this is the first one, do you really realistically think that 100% is an achievable reasonable goal? I would probably scale back my expectations just a little bit because 100% is a challenge because unforeseeable things happen. You can get 100% of your individuals and organizations to sign up but there's always that small room of error and even in the research space, there's a standard deviation of I believe 10%. So I would say I would probably get an 80% threshold. I think it's aggressive, but it's a win-win. Like we just mentioned in the other situation, any opportunity to bring forward awareness to your organization and to bring people together, you always have some wonderful advantages and subsequent interactions with them and it creates the foundation and a pipeline for future and subsequent events. And you may also wanna include some of those representatives on your planning committee to talk about what are some key elements that will help encourage individuals and having advocates and ambassadors help with the sign up process. Yeah, my thought originally went to this, LaShonda, as if this is something that the organization wants to bring in all organizations in their region, I would share in the planning, I would bring in a committee, I would bring in a sortium, right? Like let's have all of the players in. I also see it because my fundraising background as a needs assessment, right? Let's assess the need in our community. Is this something that these partners and other entities are willing to participate in? Let's be mindful about when they have other events going on in their own calendar and their own communities so that we're not competing and we are really advocating and embracing an opportunity for all to participate. Now, I love that you said all 100% is a little lofty and I 100% agree on that. I love that. And looking at when I work through goals, I love smart goals to echo what LaShonda said. I also encourage my clients to work on three layers, a good, a better and a best. And so what are these three layers of smart goals? You know, if you wanna attain that 80% that LaShonda said is still a very high percentage, maybe that's your best goal, right? And then maybe your good goal is you have 50% from your region participating and then perhaps you jump to 65% in the better range and then your best is that 80%. So I think there's a lot of ways to consider how you define success but my head and my heart LaShonda goes straight to let's engage all of these organizations in a conversation first and foremost to see if this is a viable community effort and then let's also be mindful about the other competing dates for these organizations because we all know there's a lot going on in a lot of our places and spaces. So. Absolutely and representation is really going to be the critical area for your success. Yeah, I agree. So good luck Tricia, would love to hear from you and also if you wanna broadcast the nonprofit show live let us know, you know, we are going on the road. I gotta love it. I know, shameless plug Tricia, but you know, would love to hear it and if you joined us for the green room chat or you learned that LaShonda and I are gonna be together next week for a couple of days and we're on that later but right now we have Spence in Portland, Oregon and Spence sends in this question for us. Do you have a standard number of email pushes that we should plan for on a monthly basis? We currently send one e-blast a month and we have some staff who think we should send two. What are your thoughts? So Spence, I love emails, first and foremost. So it kind of depends on your organization. I think this is an opportunity for you to develop a communications plan for your organization which will encompass some of those individuals that represent the various programs, areas within your organization. So currently the one email a month may possibly be a newsletter, which would be all encompassing of all of the things that are happening within a given month. There's also room for secondary correspondence because there may be events that you'd like to invite individuals to and you wanna send that communication out electronically. There may be something that's happened. Your organization may have received a phenomenal outlier gift unexpectedly and you wanna make sure that you're able to announce that. So I would say think about some of the critical things that are happening within your organization, the time of year and then plan accordingly. And as we're approaching the end of year, the final quarter of this particular year, email content and correspondence tend to become a little more robust because we want to make sure that all of our donors and prospective donors understand the work that we're doing, the impact we're making and then also are made abreast of how their subsequent gifts can help influence and increase and influx in your outcome and your output within your organization. So I definitely say one is great because that's a really good start, but I would definitely amplify the consistency and the number of email correspondence. I know you're concerned about becoming spammed, but I will tell you this, someone who is truly vested in your program will never put you in the junk mail box or spam you. They're happy to see it. They'll just read it at their leisure. Yeah, I agree. When I first started Spence, I thought, let's just do one a month, 12 e-blast essentially a year, that's good. And then I also really got jaded because Spence, I was hearing from some board members that we send out too many communications, right? And so I really encourage you to look at your data. There's data that you can help to drive your decisions. If you have an email system, you can look through to see what is your open rate? What is your click-through rate? What is the subject line that gets a better open response? There's so many ways to really dive into what is the need for additional communication? And as LaShonda said, to echo some of that, you can segment your communication when you have a communication plan. You can really tailor it based off of which audience needs to receive what information, how often, because maybe you do have some individual Spence that are, typically I see this in major donors. LaShonda, I'm curious about you, where they say, please don't communicate with me on an ongoing basis. What I prefer is, let's meet every six months, let's have a dialogue, things like that. So there might be some outliers within your constituency based Spence that want to be separated from the daily, or the weekly, or the monthly communication. So honor that, honor that communication preference. And I really think the more you do, the better. There's a lot of noise right now. I think we all know this, we all feel it. I too am a big email fan, and I also am a huge fan of multi-channel. So not just relying on your emails, but also having some direct mail where you send it, you know, this thing called the United States Postal Service and it comes in your mailbox or wherever you pick up your mail, it is still very live and well. It is still a high return on investment for a lot of our organizations that have a solid giving portal or giving, you know, support system, I should say. So LaShonda, I'm curious if you have seen where some organizations or maybe those that you've worked in yourself where you have either segmented your communications or you've really honored some of those requests from individual donors that say, please don't send me monthly, weekly, daily, whatever that looks like. Here's my communication preference. Is that something you're accustomed to? Definitely. So I definitely did owe everything that you said. And it's really important when you are engaging major gift donors, especially that you're mindful of the frequency of the communication, but the absolute best way to be able to streamline and to most effectively segment is to simply ask. I just recently submitted a survey for our constituency both electronically and in the mail. And then you're able to segment, if you're a part of your surveys, the frequency in which you'd like to receive your mail, you're able to create those segments so that you're able to not only honor their request to have the frequency that they'd like, but most importantly, you're able to streamline and ensure that they receive all of the pertinent content that they need during that particular time or within those phases that they've asked to be informed. But most importantly, you're honoring their request. And in this philanthropic space, we wanna try to shift to being a little more donor centered and being donor centered means putting some of their thoughts, their desires at the forefront so that they know that we not only honor them, but we also respect them. And then there's that other privacy piece. And so you wanna make sure that within those set emails that you're populating that only those that are essential have access to those email addresses and you have those necessary safeguards in place. But most importantly, when you're dealing with the frequency and donors have identified how frequent they'd like to receive the correspondence, make sure you honor those preferences and make sure that you segment, you check and you double check so that they know that you respect that relationship. Mike, drop, absolutely. Spence, wish you the best. I really encourage you to look into your data, whichever system you're sending it from, most systems, if not all, I really do have the ability for you to see the data of the opens, the click through, all of the good stuff. So really take a look at your data and make a data-driven decision on how to move forward in your communication plan and your style. So great information, LaShonda. We knew you were gonna be a hit. Okay, now we're going to Texas and I believe you're in the great state of Texas. Everything is big in Texas. Well, so is this question. So Janelle from Lobbock, Texas wants to know if it is a good idea to host an all staff lunch on site once a month. We feel that it might be a way to build camaraderie and give our team a reason to be on campus. We offer remote work options, which has made it less of a cohesive work environment. Many of our employees have never met IRL, which stands for in real life. And I just have to shout out to Julia because she uses it often. And I was like, what is this acronym? So in real life, Janelle has this question for us, LaShonda, take it away. So I completely understand the sincere desire to build and foster strong camaraderie because the stronger your team is as a collective, the stronger your output is on behalf of your cause. So I 110% agree with opportunities to engage as a collective. Monthly may not necessarily be feasible depending on the geographical location because with remote, it's defined in many ways. So remote can be anywhere in the US or remote may be considered regional. So there are some potential cost implications with a monthly remote for those that are not within that region or within a reasonable driving distance. So I definitely highly support the engagement opportunity and the perfect example would be, I had the privilege of working in the remote space with my fundraising Academy colleagues and putting together fantastic programming that benefit all of us in the nonprofit sector as we are working hard on behalf of our organizations. And so our big come together for the first time, literally IRL was when we joined each other for Cultivate Conference, we literally planned the entire conference via Zoom and during our Zoom sessions to try to create camaraderie and to promote team, we always start with a lovely starter activity that's kind of like a warmup but kind of get to know you better. Fun fact, wonderful icebreakers because those are ways that you can engage outside of just being very regimented and just consistently only speaking about the work. But in addition to that, we also have our own relationships offline where we talk with each other and it's not always about work, but most importantly, nothing can replace in real life. And at minimum, wouldn't it be great to be able to get together once a month? But again, looking at your budget and where everyone is located because again, remote has multiple definitions. So I would say once a month will be great if it's feasible for everyone, if everyone's in the city, but if not try for quarterly because travel implications and that allows individuals adequate time to get scheduled to travel arrangements and make sure that they're cost-effective but you definitely want to try to promote as many experiences as possible. And even with South Texas College of Law, we all have the remote option one day a week. And so there are specific days that we do have everyone in the office for team meetings to make sure that we have that opportunity to engage with one another because it's really important to see each other in real life. It's important to be able to not only have the camaraderie but just the synergy that you feel in the presence. We kind of talked about that on the front end of our conversation with attending the board meetings. The same happens as you're working with your team. Yeah. All great information and thank you for sharing so transparently because the trainers at Fundraise Academy have such a great rapport with one another. Everyone really supports one another. And so I just really appreciate you sharing that because that is a success story that we get to see and we get to witness. So thank you, LaShonda and Janelle. Best of luck to you. The only addition I would like to add is why not also bring this into a professional development opportunity? So if there's a conference, if there's something going on anywhere in the nation that you think would be advantageous for your team, use that as one of those perhaps quarterly opportunities that LaShonda suggested because that is a great opportunity to learn as a team and build some cohesion and really just elevate how you work together and share knowledge. So really wish you the best. I know that we're all kind of navigating these different times and enjoy it. I think it's really a big one. Well, LaShonda, you and I, my friend, are going to see each other in person. So IRL, we talked about IRL a little bit with the board meeting as you mentioned. We started Freyay's question with that. We ended Freyay's question with this one just recently. So thrilled to see you in person. You and I will both be in Nashville at a conference, both presenting and also the nonprofit show will be there live at the conference Monday and Tuesday next week. So LaShonda Williams will be joining me. She is a trainer at Fundraising Academy. Thrilled to have you here in the hot seat for our Freyay Ask and Answer. And I'm excited for your warm hug on Monday that I know I will be getting from you. And I'm looking forward to it, Jared. We're going to learn a lot and we're also going to hug a lot. It's going to be great. And yeah, going to Nashville, it is sold out. You and I both are speaking and also we'll be doing the nonprofit show. We also want to say thank you to our presenting sponsors. They allow us these opportunities day in and day out to have very thoughtful and insightful conversations with thought leaders across the nation. So thank you to Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University and thanks to LaShonda for joining us today. Also a huge shout out of gratitude to Nonprofit Thought Leader, your part-time controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, as well as Nonprofit Tech Talk. If you haven't checked out these companies, please do that because they really are here to help you forward your mission. So they're really on your team in a remote environment and maybe you will also get to see them, IRL at some of these conferences. LaShonda, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to all of you that joined us either live or maybe you're watching a recording platform. Either way, we're glad you're here. Friday is my favorite day because we are able to answer the questions from our viewers and listeners. So again, I want everyone to have a fantastic weekend, safe travels to you, my friend. I will see you soon, if not Sunday Monday. Very soon. And as we end every episode, as we have now nearly 900 episodes, we want to invite you, remind you and encourage you to please stay well so you can do well. Thank you, LaShonda. Thank you and have a great one. See you.