 talking about who you're telling your story to and Boris we had you on before you were so riveting we loved the things that you had to say and then we were like we got to get you back on beginning of the year because this is when we're making some of these decisions and chatting about these concepts so but before we do I want to make sure you know who I am I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom my intrepid co-host is not with us today but she'll be back with us next week. I want to thank all of our presenting sponsors without you we would not have these riveting conversations that we get to have every day we just surpassed our 450th episode and thank you Boris somebody in the media you know that's a pretty that's a pretty big deal and it is for us so anyway we're really excited about that and our presenting sponsors have made that possible they've also made it possible to have Boris Kapsky in Boris came to us and I don't know if you know this for us or not you were recommended to us by Bloomerang Steven Chattock who's like this guy's like really smart you got to get him on your show. I did know that and I'm very much appreciative to Steven for that and I'm going to be doing a webinar with Bloomerang I think later on this year and then one with their sister company in the next couple weeks. Awesome awesome we'll get us that information and we'll make sure that we share that because we are big fans of their work we've seen it work in action and be very successful and I can imagine you're quite a powerhouse with joining forces with them so that's super super cool. Boris is going to talk about this and we will put this back up again but you might notice at the end of Boris's website he has a page dedicated to the non-profit show with some additional materials that are relating to the things that we're talking about thank you sir very much for doing that extra work I really appreciate it. It's my pleasure you guys actually inspired me to get some of my website stuff together with these resources so I was happy to do it last time I came on the show I started doing something for you guys and now it's in a nice format so I'm really happy with it and yeah basically .workstrategy.com.tns will pull up several resources around online storytelling including specifically what we're going to be talking about today. Awesome well that is a treasure and thank you so much okay so come back to the main theory of my bad illusion turned out to be a referenced avatar back in when did that come out like in the 80s or 90s? In the 90s I think if I'm not dating myself too much but you know avatar too was supposed to come out years ago and he's still not done with it apparently uh James Cameron being the perfectionist that he is. Well what what in the heck is this? Yeah and more importantly why do we need them? Let's start there. Sure that's a good place to start as any in fact it's probably the best place to start and yeah most people if they know the term avatar more people will know it as the name of that movie or the name of the kid's cartoon avatar the last airbender where it's this character but it comes from the idea actually originally in Hinduism of a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth so an incarnate divine teacher of some sort now I'm a nerd and a geek from way back and we used to use this term a lot in marketing specifically it's used as a virtual representation of your ideal audience member for whom you're creating your stories in other marketing terms it's also called the target persona there are several different terms that people use I really like avatar because I like that we're creating we're we're divining something we're trying to make corporeal this otherwise somewhat ethereal concept of this third body person. And you know what I love the way that you describe that because that's really true I think that we have especially in development we tend to think we know who our donors are we tend to think we know what they want and we tend to go after the same types of people. Yeah and we make some assumptions right we make a lot of assumptions and we think in the general and in the vague and I'm pretty sure I mentioned this last time I was on the show but I'm a recovering actor and filmmaker I spent a lot of time my undergrad and post-grad degrees are in theater and then I spent a lot of time in Hollywood working on all kinds of projects learning to write act direct all of that stuff and one of the things I keep coming back to is my training in theater in Shakespeare you know Shakespeare was very specific who he wrote for Mammoth was very specific who he wrote for and yet everybody can relate to the stories because the stories are universal you can't talk generally to everybody you've got to have in mind exactly whom you're speaking to if you want to make a connection with anybody at all and trust that through the specific there is universal you know coming back to Shakespeare real quick he wrote about two teenagers in what was it 1400s Verona in Italy right and we're still reading about them and connecting with them today and there's still operas and new movies and and all stuff being done around them so he was super specific about who these people were these avatars were and yet we could still relate to them the more specific it could be the clearer you could talk and you can't talk to teenagers the same way you do to you know octogenarians you've got to know your language okay so then that helps but it also mystifies me because that's a wide range so help me understand then how many avatars should we be looking at I mean if we're if we're looking at you know different types of people in our communities can we get like too muddied yes we can if we choose to the answer is it really depends on your resources and your programs and the size and scope of your organization I don't know if now would be a good time before I even get to in the number of avatars or I could I could do it either way I guess essentially you can have as many avatars as you have people that you want to connect with that are different enough so many of your programs might attract the same individual whether it's as a donor or as a client but some of them might be completely separate now your mission is the same your mission is to make the world a better place through this type of work but if you're an organization that's serving some of the more core maslow hierarchy of needs like housing and food well some people might have housing but not have food and vice versa so those those avatars are a little bit different and the person who's going to support the donor who's going to support one of them might be different than the donor who supports the other some might be the same and that's okay they're not going to say oh well you only do housing because you're only talking to me about housing no no they'll connect to your mission and to your story and then they'll see everything else and they'll be more likely to support you so you've got your donors you've got your clients you've also got your volunteers assuming you have some volunteers right you've got your board members if you're looking for board members then they're an avatar for you as well so it really depends on the size and scope of your organization I say that at least you should have two which is for your client your ideal client and your ideal donor or supporter in whatever way and the last way I'd say to think about this avatar and then I do want to break down what goes into an avatar but the last way I want to say you should think about this avatar is it's the center of the bullseye right if you're doing archery or whatever you're you like to do that involves a bullseye playing darts right you're going to aim for the bullseye if you don't hit it you still got plenty of room to make your mark right and to score something so that avatar is the very center of your bullseye it's the person that if they find your story whether it's your website or your social media and get enough content and value from you as soon as they connect to it they're going to be able to say yes this is what I want I'm so glad this exists in the world because I need this in my world okay I've got to say you've like blown my mind because I shamefully have only ever thought about this from the donor perspective I've never thought about clients leadership try you know outside leadership stakeholders employees yeah I mean so I am fascinated by this it's a much more comprehensive concept maybe is the even the better word to say yeah when it comes to employees it comes to culture right these are the people who are going to resonate with your work that are going to fit really well because they have and I do want to get into like what are some of the traits that you want to put into an avatar but some of them are values and morals right you want your employees to to mimic or not to mimic but to resonate with the values and morals that the leadership has and vice versa so absolutely what are so let me break down really yeah let's talk about that an avatar in my system is comprised of two different types of traits there are demographics and there are psychographics okay equally important the demographics are for those familiar with demography the things that are measurable that can be answered really easily on a census survey like age gender location education level income levels family structure right those are all things that can be easily bucketed if you will by our standard measurement terms those are demographics then you have the psychographics which are at least as important and those and there's a more extensive list that if you do get the the resources that are on my website you'll see but they break down into things like concerns and passions okay what are my concerns if I'm your potential donor what are my concerns in the world and my passions in in the world right that I'm going to have to resonate with probably more than anything else there's a pain that I feel that I want to be a hero if I had the resources I would step up and I would fix it okay and there are many things in my life in my world that I would see you know homelessness or issues you know with children going hungry like animals break my heart right so those are my concerns and I'm passionate about several of those things if I see an organization that's doing the making the difference that I want to see in the world I'm going to jump on then there's values and morals right so this doesn't just apply to politics but it will definitely affect how you speak to me and don't forget that just because you're addressing some of my concerns and passions that doesn't mean there aren't dozens of other organizations doing the same thing I'm sorry to say it but today especially we are global you know we're online even if you're trying to connect in your little corner of the world your little globe your little world there is still so many options that we all have so I might resonate better with your values and morals the way that you are going about changing the world then I might with another organization and that's fine there's room for all of us as long as we're doing good work and finally there's habits and interests now these are not as salient in terms of whether or not I'm going to resonate with your work but they speak to my personality and yours they show that we have some commonality I don't want to do business with a non-profit I want to make connections with people in an organization I want to see that they get me and that I understand them and when you're posting on social media if all you're posting is you know look what we do look what we do look what we do then you don't care about me you're all about yourself however if you have identified that I have some habits maybe they're shopping habits maybe their arts and crafts habits whatever there might be an interest in the world and you could say hey here's something cool that we think people like you might enjoy right obviously you don't say it exactly like that but put it into a story then I'm going to say oh wow these folks really get me and I'm getting value and I'm feeling like I'm working with friends right okay so just to refresh you have demographics you have psychographics and then you have habits and interests classify habits and interests also under under psychographics because it's really something about my personal mental view of the world right and that into your point you you started you framed it up by saying these are harder things to measure yeah yeah so that's why they're a psychographic okay yeah okay so I got to ask this question because this is a heavy lift for even a large organization how do you determine this how do you figure this out so that is a huge question yeah sorry I came here for the easy stuff you promised me softballs so that is a hard question to answer because there's many ways to answer it and it does depend a lot on your organization and the work that you're doing one way is simply look at your current audience assuming you have a current audience look at them and make a best gas a center of the road you know of what they are sometimes there might be an actual person already in your donor pool or your board or your client pool they could say you know what this is exactly the person that we've built this organization for and yes all these other people are benefiting of course as well but this is the this is the bullseye and I encourage actually every organization for every avatar to even give them an actual name okay that was going to be one of my questions yeah they could be the person that that you're referring to you might want to just switch it up so that it's not confusing between the person that is a client but give them a name and even find a picture you really want to make this as personal as possible and there's so many stock photography sites that you could find pictures on but that way like have their you know how a lot of people will have photos of their family on their desk right yes they remind you they keep you connected right to to the things that are important to you what if whether it's actually a framed photo or even on your desktop sometimes when you're working on something you have an image even if it's just a mental image and a name of whom you're talking to you're talking to a friend you care about them and you want them to understand the specific thing I was just recording an episode from my podcast and and we were talking about this where you don't want to be writing email copy that that is all stayed and stoic of hello dear sir or madam we are now working on this we would love your support no you're talking to norma I don't know I just first name the popped into my head Jennifer was one of the most popular names of my generation right I'm talking to Jennifer she lives here she does this and cares about this so I'm going to talk to her like the friend that she is because we're on a mission together you know I love that and I've never heard anyone offer that piece of advice about making it um I mean yeah I've heard you know people say yeah make the visual you know if it's even a cartoon character or something how whatever but I mean doing that but having it in your your work environment I love because that changes the way that you are communicating and it makes it I would imagine it would help you to refine some of your choices it actually I can see it making your job easier what do you think that's true absolutely it makes it easier and it makes it better because you're not just talking to some random audience and you are connecting to someone on a personal level it changes everything in so many ways there I want to suggest because you did ask a broad question no no that's fine I'm here so I wanted to say there there is another way to go about this and it is a little more challenging but equally if not more so sometimes rewarding depending on your situation okay and that is we actually start with this is part of the whole storytelling framework that that I work on but we start with what are our goals okay as an organization we were created to do this right we identify those and then we say okay who can help us achieve those goals what do they look like so it's not hey I want to attract wealthy people who make over you know $300,000 a year and have three kids it's I want to do this who's going to join me on this journey whom can I help achieve those same goals right the hero your avatar is your hero you are not the hero you are the person organization programs that are going to empower a simple individual like myself to become a hero because I don't have the bandwidth the resources to make the difference that I want to see in the world with your help right so every nonprofit either sends out help us do this or they say things with your help we can do this and that's fine I don't like the first one the second one is better but the reality is I'm not helping you do something you're helping me do something you're helping me affect change on a concern or passion a problem that I see in my life right and that's part of that avatar breakdown you're helping me fix that and I want to thank you and I'm going to thank you by giving you money to help you do more of it or by giving you my time or by giving you my voice those are the three categories of resources that I classify they are money voice and time right love it okay so you just like blow my mind in so many ways our time is almost up which is like a crime shame but I got a couple questions I've got to ask you because I'm fascinated by this um how you said you need to have two at minimum least what what do you think I mean is it like five six seven is it I mean because it's like you know anything if you have too many you start to dilute your intention are you you know your what is it what does it look like so essentially it depends again on how many programs you have okay and then for each of those programs if you need volunteers then you have an avatar for a volunteer for that program if you have clients then you have an avatar that is a client for that program if you have people that you want to you know donate or corporate sponsors that you want to attract right people within uh within a corporation that can help you do this right then they are your avatars you start with of course your clients because that's whom you're here to serve your secondary I think is actually your donors because they are the ones who are going to help you serve your clients right and then you expand from there and there what can what can you create content for there's no point in having an avatar if you're not actually trying to talk to them so whether it's content that is going on social or on your website or videos that you're making and putting on YouTube or the person that you want your board member to go and talk to to make the ask the in-person ask or the virtual in-person ask as so many have had to be today those are your avatars don't make more than you need to and you shouldn't have ideally more than one client for a program you might say have okay well we're serving children sure and you want to appeal to those children but really your avatar in that case is the parent because they're the ones that are going to make the decision right okay that is amazing I love love love this I've got a question that's come in and before we move on Jane asks do you try to assign avatar types within your donor and prospect databases to help customize communications yes absolutely okay so when you're collecting information passively or actively because there's nothing wrong with serving your donors and serving the people who are interested in supporting you in general like the prospects might be you should have some sort of tagging some sort of segmentation process in your content management not content management I'm sorry in your CRM your your constituent resource management system where you could say okay this person came in from this source they came to us this way we posted about this they opted in one way or another to our email list or they wanted to come to an event this particular kind of event this person we spoke to them as a Jenny so now we're going to keep treating them as a Jenny until they tell us otherwise I love it okay now this is a heavy lift which I think is super cool I'm all about this this approach but my question is how are you sharing and educating other silos within or in an organization because if this is just the development team talking about this and getting all excited and then trying to get marketing in to support it it should really go beyond this right it should be it should be organizationally why yeah so when I work with organizations absolutely I give a presentation to every kind of stakeholder that we could pull together and then even make the you know presentation available online so that they're all on the same page and understand the value of it usually marketing are the people who are driving this from from my experience because they understand avatars in terms of well marketing if I want to send something out on Facebook by the way avatars are great for Facebook because you know what their interests are you know how to talk to them you know how to find them in the segmentation that Facebook offers right and that so many other advertising platforms offer so I find marketing is on board from the from the jump as the kids say today from the jump I think I'll have to ask my kids later but development may or may not be on board as quickly but we'll get there as well I actually start with getting all the stakeholders on board program leaders right the ones that are actually interfacing with the clients they are the ones who are going to know the clients best and help you create that avatar best right development will hopefully if they're all on the same page be able to give you one maybe two avatars because you might have multiple programs that you're trying to get donors for right easily from them and it's a fun exercise to do to get everybody on the same page and the leadership should also be involved because you know the executive director should also understand and have input on whom they think we're trying to attract as well so I don't think it's a challenge in terms of them wanting to do it I think it's a challenge of them understanding what it is and the value of it and getting everybody together in a collaborative exercise to get these done you know I I think what you just said is is really pretty magical because think about how we've had to change how we are meeting our our stakeholders and our clients and some of these decisions that we've made have been very charismatic I mean things that we have looked into somebody's eyes and made a judgment and made a decision and that has changed and so the more intellectual we are about this and trying to quantify and qualify at the same time I think is is magical thinking I really really do okay this time has like been it has just gone by so fast and I want to make sure that I get Boris's information back up here because just for the nonprofit show he's done an amazing thing and it's a tremendous gift to us and to our viewers he's come up with a separate page that has a lot of additional materials and items that support these two episodes that he's been on so check that out dot work strategy dot com forward slash tns the nonprofit show we are super honored that you would do this thank you so much for us it's holding my pleasure I first of all really enjoy these conversations with you live on air where you do surprise me with some hard questions it's actually a lot of fun I love it and of course I love reaching organizations and helping them in any way that I can so if anyone wants to reach out go ahead download the resources chat with me I'm happy to help well you are a treasure I love your vibe I love your perspective which I think is super cool and that could be a whole nother show in itself but I think we've got to come back to you for some other things because you've just been really amazing and and you have created a hair on fire moment for me for sure which is a good thing I would know I'm getting to the point where I don't know as much as I used to but hey hey everybody I'm Julia Patrick you'll see Jera Ranson back with me next week we want to thank all of our sponsors and all the folks that allow us to see our program and our archive on Roku on YouTube Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo check us out again these are the sponsors that come to us every day with this amazing content and we are so honored that we have their time and talent hey Boris you're a rock star so much so that I know you're going on to another show I'm about to go on to a LinkedIn live talking about what's new and five things to do for nonprofit websites in 2022 because I love rhyming so yes thank you so much for having me on Jared I hope you're having a fantastic vacation I'm taking it very personally that you weren't here to chat with me today but I'll let it go I'll somehow let it go we'll we'll repair that hey everybody as we end every episode we want to remind you to stay well so you can do well we'll see you back here tomorrow