 Welcome everybody. Thanks for joining us today. It's great to have everyone back together again. I know a lot of you were involved with our prep rally, and we appreciate that. And there's just so many new things to learn on this platform, Mighty Cause, and about giving the giving day we give Catholic. So thanks again for joining us. I just want to give you a little bit of update as to where we're at. So today I was looking at our page and I see we're 48 hours, 48 days and 12 hours out from giving Tuesday. And we're excited to be moving toward that. I think we're at a really great pace. Don keeps us on pace. And we're each, we have 188 organizations that are registered for we give Catholic this year. We're inching toward and pretty sure we should be able to get to 200 organizations registered by the time it closes on November 1st. So if you know of anyone who's on the fence there, please urge them on to get registered for we give Catholic. The giving guide is off to the printer. I hope that you've all taken a chance to look at it. I've been on it out last week in an email and it will be in the Northeast Ohio Catholic magazine that comes out in early November. And as far as marketing is going, we are meeting today with our diocesan communications team. And they help us every year to work at getting the word out about we give Catholic will be recording some radio spots with Bishop and we'll have our billboards up and running in November and starting to get the word out. So even though we've just started the month of October, it seems like we're really getting close to some heavy duty promotion time where we give Catholic. And next week, I want you to know that the emails will start coming regularly on Tuesdays and we'll start our pre event contests. So look for that. And if you have people on your team that you'd like to receive emails, please send their information on to me. So that's it for a quick update. And we're just happy that you're here today. And I've had Fred with me in my office. I don't know if you have a few words to say, you might have to move up toward life. Good afternoon, everyone. Great to be with you. And wow, 48 days. It'll be here before you know it. So we're all really excited and getting pumped for the best giving day ever. So hope you are too. And looking forward to today's webinar. So welcome. Awesome. Thanks, Linda. Thanks friend. Hi, everyone. If you attended the prep rally, I know you have already met me, but I am Dawn. I'm with mighty cause and I'm the. Project manager for this year's. We give Catholic. And let me. Here are our pictures. If you wanted to see a still of all of us. But if you want to see the live version where, you know, our videos on, so that's cool. But like I said, I've, I'm the project manager for this year's we give Catholic. I'm here to help with anything as well as obviously Linda. Who is knowledgeable about all things. But without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into today's webinar. The agenda for today, we're going to quickly go over some of the basics that we discuss during the August webinars that we had. If you were not able to attend any of the August webinars over three, we're all about getting started on the platform registering. If you weren't able to attend any of those, make sure that you go to the toolkit on we give Catholic.org. There, the recording is posted there for you to enjoy at any time. As well as a recording of the prep rally that, that we had at the end of September. So if you missed anything, if you wanted to go back and review some of the information that was part of those webinars, we're also going to go over the 2021 prizes. There are going to be lots of winners this year. So we're very excited about that. And basically there's almost something going on the entire day. So it's going to be a really fun, fast paced giving day. And so we'll go over some of those prizes. So you all can start strategizing now. And then the meat of today's webinar, we'll go over giving day strategies. Essentially, you know, we'll talk through different email strategies, social media strategies. We'll talk about what you can do with the leader boards, get your donors excited. And then of course the all important communications that you have with them as well to help make your giving day successful. And then after that we'll have a Q&A. And so if you want to save your questions to the end, so they don't get lost in the chat. Feel free to do that. Otherwise, you know, we'll be monitoring everything and we'll be able to answer as many questions as we can at the end of the webinar. So. Okay. So we give Catholic basics. So as you all know, the giving day this year is giving Tuesday, as always. This year it falls on November 30th. Like Linda said, registration is not a big deal. So we'll be monitoring everything. And we'll be able to answer as many questions as we can at the end of the webinar. So as Linda said, registration is going on now. It ends on November 1st. We're very close to the goal. So if you know of any organization that hasn't registered yet, please try and get them on board. We're going to do our best to get them on board as well. And if they have any questions about registering or, you know, want to know the basics, again, that webinar that we had earlier in August is posted in the toolkit. You can find a list of all the prizes. There's a rules and prizes tab. So if you just go there, all the prizes will be listed there. The rules are listed there so you can access them at any time. So again, there's lots of prizes. So don't feel like you have to write them all down now. They're already ready for you to review in the, in the, on the site, on that rules and prizes tab. Okay. So quick recap on what we talked about in August. Hopefully a lot of you have gotten into your accounts, have been able to check out your profiles, have been able to check out some of the tools available to you on the mighty cost platform. Really quickly, your dashboard is going to kind of be your, your hub of your account. The overview tab is, is where you're going to see any announcements that we have for week of Catholic. It's going to list some stats for you to be able to see, like what's going on during the giving day, what's going on with your, with your account just overall. So it's a nice place to go to just get a quick view of, you know, how many page views you've had just largest donations, et cetera. There's lots of different stats you can, you can add to make it, to make it best for your organization. The other tab that I want to call out is fundraising. So this is where you're going to be able to access any peer campaigns that you have. You'll be able to access the matching grants tool, the text to give tool that we'll talk about later in the webinar. And any other tools that, that you want to access as well, those will be, that'll be in the fundraising tab. Reports is where you'll go to access your donation reports, the disbursement report after we give Catholic is over. The report section in your account is going to be very helpful. After the fact and the day of, because we do have a donor retention report available to you all. I talked about that a little bit during the prep rally, and we'll go over it again today, but the donor retention report is going to be really, really awesome on the day of, so you'll be able to see right away, you know, who you've retained from last year and who hasn't been retained. So you can reach out to them. And that report will be found in that report section on your dashboard. And then the last two, I wanted to call out the checkout flow. You have the ability to really customize that, that process for your donors. So the checkout flow is going to be awesome because you can customize your donation form, your thank you page that donor, see after they make a donation, as well as the receipt that they get. And then lastly, settings, you know, all the kind of boring stuff. This is where you can add admins to your account, you know, people who can manage the account. This is where if you need to update legal info, if you want to set up direct deposit, so you get your funds through EFT or just double check your address settings to make sure that the check is going in the right place, all of that is going to be under settings. So I definitely recommend familiarizing yourself with your dashboard because there's lots and lots of great stuff there for you to, you know, get messy with. So first thing you want to do if you haven't already is customize your profile. Very basic stuff, you know, you'll add a logo, add a banner. We do have template banners, but like default banners that, you know, if you can't find something that you like or, you know, you're just not sure what to use or maybe you don't have a professional photographer or any like good pictures to choose from. We do have some gallery images for you to choose from for your background that will look good. And then this is a great place. The profile page is where you'll be able to go and really let people know here is why, you know, we're participating in We Give Catholic. This is where, you know, here's what we're fundraising for. So the profile is really what you want to focus on during, you know, this is especially early time in the giving day process. The profile is where you're going to be sending people to donate. You know, that way the link is going to be at the top. It's also, you can copy the link on the profile page too when you're in edit mode. And that way you'll know, you know, this is where your donors will go. They'll come here. They'll click donate. They'll go through your process that you've set up and just will be completely immersed in your organization during We Give Catholic giving day. This is especially is a great spot for you to let people know your mission. You can add lots of pictures. You can add videos to your story section. Just make it really, really personable to your organization. So your donors know who they're donating to feel good about it and are, you know, we'll be happy to help you participate in We Give Catholic this year. The other item that I want to call out is that customizing your checkout flow. So here's some quick snapshots of how, you know, what that looks like. It's all on-page editing. So we try to make it really easy for you. The pencil icons, you know, kind of indicate where you can make changes. But customizing your checkout flow will allow you to really collect the data that you want from your donors to make this giving campaign super worthwhile. Because obviously, you know, this is just one appeal that you're doing during the year. You all do different appeals during the year. So taking advantage of We Give Catholic to really, you know, kind of get that information you need from your donors to be able to solicit them through the rest of the year. Making sure that you, you know, get that information in your checkout flow so that it's collected in your donation report will just help you in the long run. So make sure that you at least review what you have in that in that checkout flow. You can add multiple donation suggestions. You can add, you know, $50 will purchase this or, you know, $100 gets us this. Then letting them know those impact levels is really important to, you know, kind of allow donors to connect to, you know, what they're giving to your organization. Your checkout form, your donation form also allows you to allow donors to add a dedication or designation. So if you have, you know, different areas that you want them to be able to give towards, you can add designations to your donation form so that that way you know when you download your donation report, here's where these funds should be going if you wanted to do that. And then you can also preview your whole checkout flow within that checkout section so that you know what your donors are experiencing when they go through that donation form. And then a post checkout is always important too. It's still a part of the, you know, the solicitation process. So when your donors after they complete their donation, they'll, you know, receive this thank you page where you can add a video, you can steward them in different directions. You know, maybe your call to action on that post checkout page is share our organization. You know, that way other people will donate to us so you can add a button, you can add a video, you can add images, just make it make it really personable that way your donors, you know, that can be a whole part of your process and just part of your flow. So now that was a quick recap of what we talked about obviously are the webinars in August were much larger or larger, longer than that. So if you, you know, want more information about any of the things that we just talked about or, you know, just kind of want to get a refresher. Again, those webinars are located in the toolkit, but now we're going to talk about the super exciting part of the webinar. So Linda is going to go over the prizes available during this year's week of Catholic giving day. Thanks Don. So yeah, I'm going to go over these prizes, which many of you are very familiar with. You can see we have 46 prizes available during the giving day. And this does not include our matching gifts that we are going to present this year, the $15,000 void waters and gift and the $60,000 tuition assistance gift. So as you know, there's a friendly competition that goes on for these grand prizes. And it's a very, it makes it very exciting to watch those leaderboards. So there are grand prizes for the different categories. The schools have three different categories. They're categorized by small, medium, large. The parishes are categorized that way as well. And then we have Catholic charities and the nonprofit organizations. So it's a lot of fun to try to strategize to obtain those prizes. Those are our largest prizes of the day. Then we have, and yes, the largest prizes of the day, $2,000 in the first place categories. And then we have the prizes that are going on throughout the day. We have the largest donation. I believe that's a $2,000 prize as well. Last year, I believe a $25,000 gift won that prize. Just to let you know. Sowing the good seed, that is the prize that is for all, all of our returning organizations. It's based on percentage increase, dollar amount from the year before. So your dollar amounts of last year will all be entered in there, your totals, and then the percentage of increase along with the largest percentage of increase can win this prize. The new Eve, this is for our new organizations. They have their own leaderboard. Where they compete for top, top place based on number of unique donors. And as I just have described before, a unique donor is represented by a unique email. So I would be a unique donor. Fred would be a unique donor based on our emails, our email addresses. That's our identifier for that. That way, if I go in and give $5, $20 gifts, I'm still only considered one unique donor. So I would be a unique donor for your organization. We have also the prizes, some eclipsing prizes for the donor that eclipses $1 million, $2 million. And then again, a donor that eclipses 10,000 donations, donors. These prizes will be identified by the actual donor who their name will appear in lights on that day. And then they eclips these amounts. And then we'll be tied to your organization or the organization that they gave to at that time. So then throughout the rest of the day, every hour is covered. It's either a random drawing to give everybody a chance. All you need is one donor during that hour, if it's a random drawing, or it's based on number of donors and you're competing again for the most donors during a specific hour. And you can find all that information on the website. As Dawn said, they're, they're listed there under the prizes and rules on the website right now. And I'll be giving you some more of that information and some, as we go through the rest of the time leading up to the giving day. So I hope you're as excited about the prizes as we are. We have $62,000 that we're going to be giving away from now until November 3rd through November 30th. So that wraps up the prizes. Thanks Linda. Okay. So going into the strategy for we give Catholic this year, Linda had already sort of mentioned really utilizing those leaderboards for the strategy for this year. There's going to be a lot of different leaderboards. As she mentioned, there's going to be three separate leaderboards for schools and parishes. So I would definitely recommend making sure that you're keeping track of where your organization stands on the leaderboard that you're listed in. That way, you know, take screenshots of the leaderboard whenever you post on social media so that your donors can see exactly where you stand and, you know, try to gamify it for yourself. Because if donors know like, oh, we only have $300 until we move into the next leaderboard spot. Let them know that they can't help you unless you ask and they won't know what to do unless they can see and you tell them. So make sure you let them know what the leaderboard prizes are, you know, whatever position that you're in. If you're going for third place, if you're going for second place or first place, make sure that you know if we win this prize, here's what we would get. And, you know, here's how far behind we are right now, or here's how much we need to keep in order to keep our spot. So just make sure that you continue to keep them updated throughout the day. I have seen a lot of organizations when they, you know, continually are, you know, posting every hour with their, with their leaderboard position. You know, if they've been in the same spot for like four hours straight during the giving day, they're, you know, they're like this, you know, we really need to make a push. We really need to get going. And then you can utilize the different prizes that are available. You know, if they're the method of entry is most donors, if the method of entry is most dollars raised, use those prizes in conjunction with your leaderboard strategy so that you're really getting your donors to know, here's exactly what you can do. And not only will we bump up in our leaderboard position, but we'll also win this extra prize, which will help us do X, Y and Z. So really take advantage of the, the leaderboards that are available during this year's We Give Catholic and then, you know, just utilize that as, you know, your fundraising momentum so that you can keep it going strong all day long. So one thing that you'll want to start thinking about now is what communications tactics you're going to be using during We Give Catholic. So obviously, you know, you're going to want to try a couple of different methods because not everyone is going to fall under one umbrella. So some of the ideas that you can utilize is, if you're able to do media outreach with local outlets, that's great. Obviously not everyone's able to do that. So, you know, if you have a blog, if you have a school newsletter or, you know, bulletin or something that you're able to kind of let people know this is coming, here's what we need from you. Really start getting that information out there on whatever, whatever channels that you have available to your organization. Start making videos now or start planning videos now. One of a really great way for you to take advantage of getting people intrigued and involved is making videos. And they don't have to be professionally shot. They don't have to be, you know, just these grand videos that you make. People love just an iPhone or, you know, an Android and then talking into it. So it can be super simple. You can just, you know, be walking around your school building, letting people know here's where we are during the day and all that good stuff. They love seeing that candid, the candid stuff, because it makes everything seem more real. So try and plan a couple, you know, videos of updates during the day, just doing, you know, Facebook live or something. So that people can, you know, chime in, see what's going on and, you know, get a feel for your passion because you can't, you can't relay, you know, the excitement or, you know, the anticipation of something through text necessarily. So you're going to want to try and, you know, convey it through a video is great. And again, they don't have to be professionally made. They're just videos where you can connect to everybody. People that is, you know, really what's going to drive donors and get them to watch and see and feel your excitement through the different platforms available. Obviously the next one, email marketing, you're definitely going to want to plan on different emails to send. We'll talk about email specifically later on in the webinar, but emails are probably going to be your best friend that day. to be your best friend that day, you're going to want to make sure that you plan at least a couple emails during the day, letting people know where you're at on different leaderboards or towards different prizes, because obviously you're not going to necessarily get your whole market through social media, and social media is going to be great for doing like immediate updates or you know up to the minute updates, but you're going to want to make sure you plan some emails that people will be able to access at any time during the day and kind of get the gist of what you're going for and feel compelled to donate as well. Social media, obviously another great tool for you to be able to utilize and include in your communication strategy during the day. We'll talk more through social media later, but that's definitely something if you're able to pre-schedule social media or email emails, then definitely do that ahead of time, but start thinking about what kind of social media you want to take advantage of, where you're strong in terms of your social media presence, and start planning through those as well. If you have the budget for it, then I would definitely recommend trying out some ads that you can target people or you know in certain areas or you know if you want to target people through Facebook or if you want to do a Google ad, just if you're able to kind of take it to that next level and do an ad to get yourself really out there for a week of Catholic, then that's always a good idea to look into. And then lastly you don't want to forget about just the actual physical marketing tools that you have available to you. So car decals, yard signs, posters, postcards, etc. Now is a great time to start sending out postcards to let people know that we give Catholicists coming up, get them kind of prepped. We always talk about how we're going into a more virtual type world where all we do is email and do social media and things like that, but you can't bypass the physical mail either. Like people go out to their mailboxes every day and get their stuff and they look through it and they can post it on their fridge and not forget about it. So if you are able to do postcards or a mail newsletter or something, I would definitely recommend trying to incorporate some of that into your communication strategies as well. Jennifer has created some very lovely like physical marketing tools that you can utilize. If you go to the toolkit for We Give Catholic, it's just wegivecatholic.org and then under resources you can find the toolkit. There's a graphics button. If you click on that, it'll bring you a ton of different graphics that you can utilize in all of your communications. And she's created different physical marketing tools as well for you to take advantage of. So I would definitely check those out and try and make something like that included in your communications tactics for this year's We Give Catholic. So let's talk about email strategy really quickly. So with emails, this is going to be, like I mentioned, one of your more important marketing tools for the day and leading up to the day. So start planning out, you know, what emails are we going to send prior to We Give Catholic to start kind of prepping people about this ask that we're doing? What information are we going to include in the emails? What calls to action are we going to include? The best emails that you can create are going to be short and sweet and simple. So donors, a lot of them are going to be, you know, they have lots of stuff going on. They're bombarded by lots of messages. So you want to make sure that they get the gist of what you want in a very simplified way. So they're not going to sit there and read a novel from you about all about the history of, you know, giving Tuesday and your organization's participation in it. They want to know what do you want from me? What can I do? So keeping your emails short and sweet and to the point is the best strategy that you can have when it comes to email marketing. The other thing that you'll want to kind of start thinking about is segmenting your audiences. So obviously, you know, with your donor bases, you've got larger donors, you've got medium-sized donors, and you've got smaller donors. They're not all going to have the same message that you're going to want to send them. So, you know, you're not going to want to send a large donor a call to action to like any amount counts, you know, donate $25. If they're regularly donating $1,000 to your organization, you don't want to ask them to donate less. So start thinking about, you know, what messages do I want to send? Who do I want to send them to? You might have a couple emails where you send them to your whole entire group. And then there might be a few emails that you send specifically to targeted audiences throughout the day. And it doesn't have to just be with your donor base either. You'll want to think about, you know, do I want to send specific messages to the staff? Do I want to send specific messages to our volunteers, to our parents, et cetera? Think about the other audiences as well and figure out what kind of tailored messaging do I want to send to them, too. The next thing that you want to really start thinking about as you're in your planning process for we give Catholic is the schedule and timing of your emails. The day, as you all know, is going to be crazy. You're going to be, you know, checking the website a million times during the day, you're going to be focused on where your organization stands on the leaderboard. So you want to have everything lined up ahead of time. You want to make sure that you can any general emails that are going out, get those written, get them uploaded in your email service, get them scheduled. That way you don't have to worry about them at all. Make sure that you have, you know, some sort of hourly calendar of the day or, you know, calendar for the week leading up to it where here's the emails that we're going to send. That way everyone who's involved in the Giving Day for your organization knows what's going on, knows when the emails are being sent. If you have a general email being sent at, let's say, noon and, you know, and then wherever your organization is on the day of and let's say that you have, you want to send an email immediately because, oh my goodness, we're only a hundred dollars behind an organization and we could win this prize. You might not necessarily want those emails to go right after each other. So everyone who's involved in your Giving Day should know, here's when we have the emails going out so that you can pivot during the day if needed. And then, you know, any scheduled emails, any pre scheduled emails that you have going out, they're not, you know, overlapping with immediate day of emails that you send last minute. So just getting that schedule, getting that timing, you know, kind of coordinated, making sure that, you know, you're paying attention to when the matches start that you're eligible for and, you know, what's going on during the day in terms of prizes, making sure that you incorporate that into your schedule for the day is really important as well so that your donors again are just on the up and up, know what's going on and can really help you as you go through a week of Catholic this year. So making it mobile friendly goes along with the first bullet point as well on the slide. So a fair number of donors are going to be looking at the emails on their phones. So that's another reason why keeping it short and sweet and to the point is, you know, best for everyone. So they're going to check it out on their phone, they're going to scroll through. And, you know, they're not, obviously, as you all know, reading a novel on your phone is not ideal. So making sure that you keep your email short and to the point so that all audiences, regardless of what device that they're on, are able to view it and understand what you're trying to say to them is super important. The other item that you can start kind of playing around with now is A.B. testing your emails. So for those of you who don't know, basically A.B. testing is kind of testing out, you know, what works like you have your A subject line and your B subject line and which one gets opened more. And so then, you know, oh, B got opened more, that's what I should send during the giving day or that's the kind of email subject line that I should be sending so that I get more a higher open rate with donors. So kind of playing around with that A.B. testing, previewing emails, you know, sending those tests to your staff to make sure that, oh, yeah, these look good. Clicking through all the links, making sure the links work. They go to the right places. Making sure you test everything out ahead of time. That is really important as well. There's still lots of time before we give Catholic, so you have lots of time to be able to go through all of these things. So making sure that you're all set and ready with, you know, everything that you're going to do is definitely the best strategy is going to make the actual giving day much less hectic for you on the day of. And then lastly, with your email strategy and really with anything that you send out, make sure that there's a clear ask to donate with the correct link. So you're going to want to make sure that it's very clear what you're asking donors to do. So, you know, even if your email says, like, we're only $200 behind, you know, second place, please help us move into second place. The button on the email or the social media post or whatever, it should very clearly say donate. That way, when they click, they go to the page, they can donate and they know exactly what to do. There's no questioning. Making it very clear is super important. So when you're creating your emails, when you're writing them, I highly recommend having multiple people take a look at them to make sure that they look good, they make sense, and they're super clear. We do have different templates for email available in the toolkit. So don't feel like you have to start from scratch. I know if you want to send a handful of emails, it can be a little daunting trying to sit down and write them off. So there are templates available for you. And then you can just amend them to fit, you know, your specific organization. Social media strategy. So biggest piece of advice is post for your audiences. So if you have the highest audience on Facebook, go ahead and just focus on Facebook for the day, or, you know, leading up to it. Don't, you know, don't try and open up a brand new account somewhere and, you know, post on there. It's just going to dilute what you're trying to do. Go where your audience is, make sure that you're speaking to the people where they're at. And that way, you have the most impact through your social media strategy. With social media, you can also schedule those posts ahead of time as well. That way, you know, when you have specific scheduled posts, your team is able to have the bandwidth to do personal interacting on the giving day. So when people comment on your posts when they, you know, share or react, you have the time and you have the energy to be able to respond to them in real time, because you've scheduled posts ahead of time. Obviously, you're going to have, you know, last minute posts that you have, but you can always go ahead and write those ahead of time. Get them on paper, get them in your, you know, Google Drive or wherever you keep your stuff. That way, you know, when you're ready, you can just take that template post that you've created and stick it in there so you're not having to spend the time making it up that day. And it's fast. It's easy. And then, then again, you have the bandwidth to be able to react to people. Posts that have people, you know, really commenting and interacting, lots of engagement with the post, those continue to get bumped up on people's news feeds that are connected to you. So if you're able to take the time to be able to really engage your audience on a specific post, then that's what's going to continue to keep your post or any of your posts really in people's news feeds. Because, you know, if someone posts and then nobody does anything with it, the algorithm for, you know, the social media companies, they think, oh, nobody cares about this. We want to show them content they care about and are engaging. And so it's going to just drop down to people's news feeds until it drops off. So you're going to want to make sure that you spend time interacting with people on your social media on the day of that way, more and more people see it, encourage people to share your posts, that way even more people see it. And that way you get the most out of your social media. So I would definitely recommend getting at least one person on your team to just kind of be the point person for social media, whether it's just on the day of, or if it's for the whole campaign, get them to be the one who is responding to people on social and things like that. So you know somebody is on it, and you're not pulled in, you know, several different directions. Obviously, not everyone's going to have the luxury of being able to assign specific people specific tasks. So if you're one of those people who wears 10 hats, I applaud you. But now is the time to think about, okay, what does that look like for me? Do I need to pull in, you know, my niece, who is, you know, 20, to be able to manage the social account or at least let me know what's going on during the day. So I'm not having to monitor it myself. Who can you pull in to help you with the social media for the day? Now is a great time to start thinking about that and getting that in order so that you're not scrambling last minute. Next item, if you have the budget, I highly recommend boosted posts. It's, you know, not terribly expensive, and it really can go a long way, especially with your audience. It kind of, it definitely helps in terms of getting the word out there, having more people see it. So if you've never boosted a post before, I would definitely look into it, check it out, see what it's about, see how much it costs, if it's in your budget, great. And then kind of figure out if you want that to fit in your strategy for your social media or not. And then lastly, I, you know, we kind of talked about engaging content already, but posts that have photos or videos do much better in the algorithm than just all text posts. So you definitely want to include at least a photo or video with all, you know, most, if not all, social media posts that you do. The videos that, you know, we kind of talked about earlier with part of your communications tactics, going on Facebook live, you know, giving people a tour of your school, giving people a tour of your parish or, you know, your, your charity location. People love behind the scenes stuff. They, you know, even if it's somewhere that they've been before, they're, you know, they get really excited about it. So try and give them content like that, interactive content, interview staff, interview people who've been impacted by the work that you do. That kind of stuff you can get set up ahead of time so that you can, you know, share those things on the day of, get people excited, get people engaged. So start thinking about, you know, what kind of interactive things can we do with our audience on We Give Catholic Giving Day. And that way you can plan ahead, get your photos in order, get your videos in order. If you want to do a couple live videos, then, you know, you can, you can make sure you have the outline for those written out. Here's what we're going to do in the video. And, or here's what I want to talk about. And that way you have everything set up ahead of time so you're not, again, scrambling on the actual day of. The other strategy piece is just really utilizing the resources that are in the toolkit for this year. There's lots and lots of really great items. Like I mentioned before, the trainings are all in there. This recording will be in there. So you'll want to make sure that you check that out. But this is where you'll be able to access tips, how-to's. This is where the email and social media templates. You'll be able to find all the logos. So definitely check out the toolkit. Make sure that you, you know, see what, what can I use, what's most applicable to me. And take advantage of those. I know Linda and team have worked hard on creating a lot of those resources. So I highly recommend taking advantage of them. Getting into some alternative strategy pieces. Asking for seed donations is a great way to kind of get your, get your giving day kicked off. So having a couple of people up at midnight, getting ready to make those donations right away, that's going to help when it comes to early in the morning, when most of the rest of your donors are getting up. Having those people, you know, already having donations on your, on your page, that's going to get people excited. So, you know, ask your staff, ask your volunteers, inner circle people, your, your mom, ask whoever is willing to, you know, stay up at midnight for you, get, get at least a couple donations on your page so you can see people are excited about this. People like what I'm doing and then it encourages other people to give to your organization once, you know, they actually start waking up in the morning and, you know, going about their day. Another tool to use is securing a matching grant. Obviously, Linda and team have got some matching grants scheduled and ready for you all as part of the prizes, but you as an organization can set up your own matching grant to help, help you out as well. So, we have a great matching grant tool available for you under the fundraising section of your account. So I highly recommend going into your account, checking it out. Make sure that you're accessing, you know, your organization under wegivecatholic.org, because that's going to give you access to all of these awesome tools. So when you're looking and starting to think about a matching grant, start talking to your major donors, start talking to, you know, if you have a board, great. Start talking to your staff, you know, maybe they can pool a matching grant for you to be able to use during the giving day. Maybe a major donor wants to take that extra step and provide a matching grant for you. Or if you're, you know, fortunate enough to have some corporate partners, definitely take advantage of those two. So make sure you're starting to talk to them now about the opportunity of, you know, having a matching grant for your organization during wegivecatholic. So it's kind of asking them to take that extra step. So they're not just providing you with a large donation or providing you with, you know, a pool donation. They are, they are ready to go ahead and take that next step for your organization to get others to donate to you as well. So that the others want their donations, you know, doubled. It's a one to one match, two to one match, you know, there's lots of opportunities that you can create within the matching grants tool. You can do, you know, if you have several smaller matches that you kind of want to create a strategy around that, you can do a cued donation. So you can do our cued matches. So you can do, let's say you get $100 match from somebody, you can set that up to say, hey, if we meet this $100 match, it unlocks a $1,000 match or a $500 match, and that way you can kind of keep your matches going throughout the day and and allow people to donate and get their donations matched. And then it's also another talking point that you can use throughout the day as well. So there's lots of different things that you can, you can do with the matching grant tool. We do have information about the tool in the toolkit. So for those of you who are just getting started, if you want more information about how to prospect, how to cultivate people to do a matching grant for you, definitely check out the toolkit and our resources on that to help get you started. Before you go any further, there were a couple of questions that came in that I hate to get too far away from the slide. Yeah, no problem. One of them was what is a seed donation. So if you could explain what a seed donation is, the other one is a question about using company match for donations. So if I work for a company and they have a matching program. So like an employee match? Yes. Okay, okay. I believe that I believe that's what Catherine was or Katarina was asking if that's not true. Katarina, just type it in. Okay. So a seed donation is basically one of those first donations that you get on your page. It's kind of it's kind of a donation that gets other people to donate as well because they're excited about it. So like think of a seed with a plant. If you plant the seed, then it grows and you know, so think of those donations as your your seed donations are your kind of initial donations and then they grow into more donations as people kind of come to your page and see that people are donating and they're excited and they're engaged. People want to be a part of something that's successful. And so if they if they see that you already have donations on your page, then they're going to get excited about it as opposed to being like the first one to donate. So you kind of want to set those up ahead of time, those seed donations to kind of plant the seed to get others to want to donate to your campaign as well, who might not be directly connected to your organization. And then the second question was about employee matches. So I mean employees who donate to your We Give Catholic page are definitely welcome to utilize their own company matching program. You can, you know, if you want to enter in those those employee matches as offline donations, that's a possibility. There's there's not a direct way for the company unless the company wants to like pay by credit card to your just like a regular donor. You know, they can definitely do it that way. There's a couple different ways that they can do it. So I think that is that I think that was the question. Oh, you're muted, Linda. Was that the question? I think in the past when we've had a we've had a couple of employee match programs, and the money will come in after the giving day. The the company would ask us for some information. And that would be something that you as the donor the donor themselves would set up with their company. Yes, happy to provide the information they need to make that employee match happen. It may not happen on that day, depending on your employer. Yes, that is correct. And that will be separate from corporate sponsors for a match. So that would be and I think I see a question. How do you approach a potential corporate sponsor? How do you get your foot in the door? So that's a great question. We do have some tips in the toolkit. We have a blog about finding matching grant sponsors and corporate sponsors as a part of that. So I would recommend going to the toolkit and reading that blog to kind of get an understanding of what that looks like. The the best way to do it is it if you don't already have a corporate partner that you usually partner with, probably not the direction that you want to go for this year, because it's going to take a lot more bandwidth for you to to get that. And it might be better for you to focus in areas that you're already, you know, kind of thriving in. So if you have major donors, that might be a better area for you to kind of try and cultivate or prospect for a match, or, you know, a staff getting them to pool, you know, $50 each, that those would probably be better. At this point in time, those would probably be better places for you to prospect for a matching grant than approaching a brand new corporate sponsor. That's something that you'll want to do starting in January. If you want that to be a part of your strategy for next week of Catholic, maybe start, you know, looking through who might or even this giving even this giving Tuesday, maybe looking around which which corporations which businesses in my area seem to be more philanthropic, who's donating who's doing things on giving Tuesday, and then maybe after the holiday season, approach them and say, I'm an opportunity. Here's what I do. And that way you kind of cultivate the relationship that way they're ready come next giving Tuesday next week of Catholic Day. So that's kind of the approach that I would take if you don't already have a business that you partner with. And that way you're not kind of diluting your efforts on things that you can spend and be more successful at for this year. So that would, I think that would be my advice for for this year. I know a lot of our organizations have vendors that they work with, have schools have certain vendors or parishes. And many, many times that I see those as the matching gift sponsors during we give Catholic, it seems that they want to help their organizations be successful. So that's, I think that's probably the first and the easiest place to start. Also, I would also look back at donations from last year, you have your donor list from last year. And if you have people who are large donors year after year, those are people that you already have a relationship with that you could approach. Yep. Yep. Those are great ideas too. I can't remember if I talked about this slide. Promote your matching grant. I'm so obviously if you get a matching grant, definitely tell everyone about it. Shout it from the rooftops, let people know, here's you know what we've got going on. And, you know, promote the matching grants that the community foundation is providing you. Let them know, you know, when they start, when they end, let them know what they're all about, share the progress on social media. This is a great time to also take screenshots of your there's a tile that will show up when your matching grant is live on your profile page when you've set it up. So make sure you take a screenshot of the matching grant tile, share it on your social media, let people know where you're at so that they know to donate. Okay, so Text to Give is another great tool that you can utilize for your We Give Catholic Giving Day. I did talk about Text to Give already in the prep rally, so I'm only going to kind of touch on it here, but I would go ahead and explore the Text to Give feature that's in your account. But Text to Give is going to be most profitable for you when you use it for, if you have, if you're going to do an in-person event, if you have people getting together, or you know, if you have any of those physical marketing tools that you printed out or stuck signs in, include a text to give on that. That way people, you know, when they're walking by, they're not having to like type in the whole URL, but rather they can just type in the keyword, get a link to your profile, and then donate from there. So the Text to Give is great when you've got those, you know, when people aren't going to be right in front of their computers, checking their emails and doing things like that. That's when the Text to Give is going to be most profitable for you. Some other features and, you know, kind of strategy pieces that I want to touch on are activating your ambassadors and utilizing peer-to-peer. So if you haven't already done so, or if you don't know what it is, like peer-to-peer is going to be, you know, activating your staff, your board, etc., or, you know, your pastor, really anyone who is directly connected to your organization or really is involved in your organization, ask them to take an extra step above donating. So get them to set up a peer-to-peer fundraiser for your organization. They can do that right through your profile page. Next to your donate button is a fundraise button. If they click that, it'll walk them through the steps. They can create their own page and having them do that extends your reach beyond your own donor base. So getting them to ask their friends and family, solicit their, you know, circle for the Giving Day on your behalf, just kind of take some of that bandwidth off of you and allows you to focus on other things. So if you're able to get a lot of different peer-to-peer people to step up and create fundraisers for your organization, that's awesome. This is a great time to ask them to do that. When, you know, now is when you, you know, since you, since donations happen on the day, now is a great time to get people set up to peer-to-peer, do peer-to-peer fundraising for your organization. There is more information about peer-to-peer fundraising in the toolkit. So if you, you know, want to learn about it, want to find out more information about it, that's a great place to start so that you can see, is this going to be a good fit for my organization? Who should I ask? What does that look like? Those are the kind of questions that you can ask and find answers to in the resources that we have in the toolkit as well. Yes. I know that we're running pretty close on time. Yes. And there's a great question here about text to give or text to give that came in through the questions and I'm just going to read it to you and then maybe we can, I know there's other things that people can look into that are included in the slides in a future time. But right now the question is, does the text to give go directly to the school, church, nonprofit website? And from there, can you click on appear to peer? Great question. So the answer is yes and yes. So and by website, I mean your We Give Catholic profile page. So when you set up a text to give keyword, that will take people to your organization's profile page on the We Give Catholic site. From there, they can see different peer to peer people who have set up pages for you if that's what they want to do, if they want to donate to someone specifically. If they don't, they can just click donate and then donate directly to your organization without having to go through peer to peer. Usually if people are going to donate to peer to peer, it's because they were directly solicited by somebody who set up a peer to peer page. So that's not going to quite factor in as much. But when you set up a keyword, it's going to bring people directly to that profile page on the We Give Catholic website for your organization. And then they can just click donate from there, fill out the donate form and be on their way. And I don't want to keep people past their time. Well, it will be recorded. So if we need to go along and people have to drop, then they can always come back and watch the end of it. Okay, there is a question here in the chat that you might want to answer about cryptocurrency. Oh, we're getting fancy now. So currently, no, we, I mean, before Bitcoin, we'll want to add Venmo since that's probably a little more of a popular payment method for the record. We don't have Venmo yet. But people can donate through PayPal and Apple Pay and Google Pay and all that good stuff. So currently we do not accept cryptocurrency. And hopefully that's something that we can do in the future. And yeah, but I will, you know, I'll always add that to the docket. And if we get enough people who asked for it, then that'll be something that we'll be happy to add to be able to attract those unique and untapped markets. So good question. Team fundraising. So team fundraising is another part of peer to peer. It's like a step above that individual fundraiser. So team fundraising is going to kind of give you your own gamification for your for the giving day. So if you can't, we have an example here of the board gives back, this is a team that's consisting of this organization's board, the board competes against each other to see who raises the most money on the giving day. So you could do something like that too if you wanted to kind of create, you know, more gamification for the giving day. Good teams could be, if you're a school, they could be classes, you could have classes, you know, have team pages, the kids sign up, or you have an adult do it for, you know, join the team and then the kids each have their own fundraiser, solicit their own, you know, circles and then whichever kid raises the most gets, you know, something or, I don't know, gets a day off or whatever kids like these days. But, you know, you could do another team could be teachers, you could have a team of, you know, different departments, or, you know, whatever, if you have volunteers, you want to do a team of volunteers, whichever volunteer raises the most, so you can kind of, you know, create that competitive nature that go along with your giving day and make it fun. It's just another level. But, you know, if you're, if, you know, you're just getting started in peer to peer, maybe the best place for you to start this year is that individual ask one by one, you know, will you make a fundraiser for more organization and then keep this in mind for next year, kind of bump it up next year, make sure that you continue to grow and take advantage of the We Give Catholic giving day so that you're continually improving. And, you know, you can take these strategies and tactics as well outside of We Give Catholic. So if you wanted to, you know, do something like this with team fundraising later on in the year, kind of test it out, and then really utilize it for We Give Catholic next year, then that's always a possibility too. Campaigns is going to be your, the individual place where you can go to see who started individual fundraisers for you, you can see, you know, quickly, you'll find the campaign section within your account under fundraising, but you'll be able to see exactly who started those peer to peer fundraisers for you, how much they've raised, you'll be able to email them through the platform with your giving sort of email service. So that way you can keep in communication with them, encourage them. You'll also be able to create fundraiser templates. So if you wanted to make it really, really easy for people who are utilizing the peer-to-peer functionality and creating fundraisers for you, the templates allow you to kind of pre-fill out a lot of that information for them. So, you know, if you wanted to pre-fill out a title, provide them with an image, then, you know, that way it just makes it, it's like one less step they have to do to get their page off the ground. And maybe, you know, if they're kind of hesitant about becoming a peer-to-peer fundraiser for you, because it seems like a lot of work, then, you know, creating this template could be one way you can take away that barrier for them, so that they take that extra step for your, for your organization. So next I want to talk about donor retention. So being able to focus on donor retention is going to be a really good strategy that you can take during this year's We Give Catholic. As it is in business, it's a lot less effort to retain donors than it is to acquire new donors. So make sure that you're taking care of the people who have donated to you in the past, and make sure that they're the first ones that you reach out to. So instead of, you know, making your first strategy, how many new donors can I get this year? That's definitely a strategy that, you know, is something that you want to include, but make sure that you're taking the time to, okay, how am I going to solicit the existing donors that I have? Think through those emails, think through the messages. How are you going to retain those donors from last year? The, you know, don't just include them in your regular outreach, create a focused strategy. So they've donated to you before, they have a connection with your mission, you want to acknowledge that. So you don't want to send them emails, you know, that make it sound like they have no idea what's going on. You want to make sure that, make them feel like they're a part of the family of your organization. And that way they grow in their relationship with you and, you know, can potentially donate more, become just a regular donor every year for We Give Catholic. That's kind of the goal that you want to take advantage of and focus on with the donor retention. And then lastly, you know, work with them to increase their gift or their support level. So if they donated $10 last year, try and get them to donate $15. Try and get them to donate $20 for this year. Let them know, hey, you donated this much last year. Would you mind increasing your gift this year? This is how much more we can do if your gift was $5 more. So letting them know how much more they can help by increasing their gift is a great way to, you know, kind of retain them and make them feel good and personalized. They're, you know, they're not just a number in your donor database. They're stacy. So let them know that you care about them, that what they're, you know, what they're giving to you matters, and then how much more they can help you if they increase their gift by, you know, whatever percentage you want to present. So with focusing on donor retention, we have a donor retention report that's available in your We Give Catholic organization account. So this report is going to be able to allow you to quickly download a list of previous We Give Catholic donors. And then this way you can segment that email blast based on, okay, they've only given to me one time. They've given to me multiple times. They've given less than $100. They've given more. This report will allow you to kind of filter, segment, do what you need to do to be able to get those emails that you've already written and scheduled out. The donor retention report also allows you to send individual emails through the platform as well. So you can email, you can see on the screenshot here, you've got a donor, if they're green, then that means they've been retained. You've retained them. They've donated to your 2021 campaign. They're good. You can just, you know, thank them in your regular thank you follow up. If the circle next to their name is red, that means they haven't been retained. So you're going to want to email them. You're going to want to contact them and let them know, hey, don't forget, We Give Catholic is happening. You should donate. Here's what you gave last year. So you'll be able to see exactly how much they gave. This is a good way for you to be able to also encourage them to increase their gift. If they gave to you once before, then the likelihood of them giving again is going to be higher than someone who's never given to you before. So making sure that you, you know, utilize this donor retention report. If you see anyone that you feel, you know, that you need to solicit even more than an email, you know, maybe make some phone calls during the day, especially if it's a large donor that gave last year and you've noticed, hey, they haven't donated yet this year. Make sure you give them kind of that higher level of outreach. That way they feel even more warm and fuzzy and want to give more to your organization for the giving day. So once the giving day happens, then this report is going to be, you're going to be able to see the report. You can see it now if you filter through dates, but on the actual giving day, it's going to fill out for you. You'll be able to see exactly who's donated again and who hasn't. And then of course, if you have any questions about it, then just let us know. But this is going to be super handy the day of so you can kind of check it throughout the day. And you know, maybe around one or two o'clock, you can really look through it and start emailing people, hey, halfway through, make sure that you donate before midnight tonight to that way you're able to have a 100% retained rate, which would be amazing. And then lastly, always important, giving day follow-up. Make sure that your follow-up is prompt and it's personal. So, you know, with your profile, you have the ability to customize that receipt and thank you that they get, but that's not the only thing that you're going to want to send them. So, that's going to be automatic. They're going to get an auto thank you from you. But you know, depending on what you have the bandwidth for, depending on what you normally do, make sure that you follow up with, you know, if you do handwritten notes, if you do personalized emails, if you do, you know, whatever you end up doing, make sure that you don't forget to incorporate that in your strategy. A lot of people, you know, you do a lot of strategizing leading up to the day of, but that follow-up is always important too so that you can continue to solicit them throughout the year, that they can stay a donor, you can retain them for next year, and, you know, just increase the amount raised for you year after year. And pay special attention to those first-time donors. So, that, you know, you've taken the time, you've spent the effort getting those first-time donors, don't let them go. Make sure that you have special outreach just for those first-time donors. You know, maybe that's a welcome packet to your organization, maybe that's a special, you know, actually signed thank you letter. Maybe that's a, you know, an invite to, you know, an event that you have, whatever it is, try to give special attention to those first-time donors so that they feel super warm and fuzzy and want to donate to your organization again next year or throughout the year. Basically year-round stewardship and communication is going to be so important for you to be able to retain all those donors year after year and continue to grow them as, you know, maybe that first-time donor this year gets to know your organization over the next year. And then next year they become a peer-to-peer fundraiser and solicit their group. That's all of those new donors that you've gotten because you took the time to really give them thoughtful communication after this year's We Give Catholic. So you never know what, you know, what kind of donor, what kind of partner they're going to become for you. So making sure you give them that special attention and, you know, at the same time continuing to give your existing donors the attention and encouragement that they need to let them know, you know, this is the impact that you're having. You did this for us this year is always a good idea. So make sure you don't forget to include that in your communication strategies since the follow-up is super-duper important. And then lastly, support. Our support team is here to help you. Linda's here to help you. And I've included our support information on this slide. So, you know, we're here to help with whatever you all need technical-wise. We can help and Q&A. So I appreciate everyone who was able to stay on. I really apologize for going over. But I am ready for questions, which I think we've been getting. Let me look at this. I think the only one that we haven't answered here, Donna, is can you personalize thank you notes as they donate? Yes. So you can, you can personalize the top portion of the receipt. So if you go to your account, if you look on your dashboard, there's that checkout section in the dashboard. You click on that, and there's three things that you can customize in there. You can customize your donation form, the thank you page they receive after their transaction is completed, and then the receipt that they get once their transaction completes. So when, so for the receipt, you can, it'll say like dear donor name, whatever the donor's name is, and then you can customize, you know, thank you so much for donating to our 2021 We Give Catholic campaign. Your donation will go towards a field trip or books or whatever your mission is. So you can definitely give them that personalized thank you. This feature is super helpful for those small organizations where everyone has to wear 15 hats. If you have the bandwidth to send out personalized thank yous after the fact, that's always a good idea. But you can personalize the top portion of the receipt that they get, so they at least get something. Great. Fred, what do you think? This is all great stuff. You give a great presentation and got a lot of information packed in there. So yeah, I think it's gonna lead to a lot of really creative pages and a great giving day. I hope so. There's a lot you can do with customizing your profile page, making it look really cool. I highly recommend, I can't remember if Jennifer mentioned it on the prep rally, but I highly recommend getting an account with Canva. I personally love them, I use them for like everything. They have free accounts where you can just, it makes you feel like you're a designer. I am not a designer, but I've been able to create beautiful things with that program. So I highly recommend checking that out as a free design option to just kind of spice up your page, spice up your emails. They have templates and stuff too in there, so that's a really great resource for you to utilize as well. But yeah, I mean, there is a lot of information. So if you need to watch this over and over and over again, I won't be mad. But yeah, I'm glad I was able to answer all of the questions and provide everything. So that's great. And if you're a new organization and you're feeling like this is so much information, choose three things that you can do. Maybe it's yard signs, emails, pulpit announcements, or maybe it's something else. And if you're a new, if you're an organization who's been with us for six years or four years, five years, pick one new thing that you want to try this year. That would be my recommendation. And other than that, I would just say thank you, Dawn. Fred and I are here also to help anyone who needs it. And you can just give us a call. I think we have one more question, which I don't actually know if I know the answer to. Alan put it in the Q&A about the thank you IRS code. It has the required IRS language, but I am not versed on exactly what that language is. But you should be able to, if you go into your checkout flow, you can send yourself a test of the receipt. And that should include, I think that includes the information. But I can find out exactly and Linda, I can send you that info. So if anyone else has that question, you can let them know. But it should have the correct information based on your organization. And usually those statements say that no goods were accepted for this combination. Yeah, and it definitely says that. Yeah. So, okay, great. Well, I should have this recording posted in the toolkit tomorrow. So if anyone wants to watch it again, more power to you. And I really appreciate everyone's time. Thanks everyone. Thank you.