 Welcome to another great episode of the nonprofit show and we titled it ending the end of year with a 374% increase our friend, the guru of all gurus. Yes, push up those glasses, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven group. And before we get into that, we've got a little bit of housekeeping. Again, I'm Julia Patrick here with my cohost. I love when I get to interview you because it's always amazing. And I get to learn things, but this is a really cool thing that we're going to talk about today. I'm excited. Yeah, I'm really excited. And you know, we have partners that join us on this journey. And I bet some of these partners were involved in this process. And so we want to say our gratitude to Bloomerang, American nonprofit academy, nonprofit thought leaders, staffing boutique, your part time controller, 180 management group, fundraising academy at national university, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd herself, of course, and nonprofit tech talk. If you want to share this amazing episode or get back to any of the other 900 plus episodes, you can simply do that by joining us on our app. Oh, and it matches today. It does. I like. I'm getting sold. I had to get the red case so I can see it in the depths of my black handbag. Well, look at mine. It is bright pink, but it's right along with my logo, right? I was going to say it should be there. Streaming broadcast, podcast. We are wherever you are. And my favorite is if you go to, and I have done this, if you're in your family room or living room watching TV and you have a smart speaker, you can actually say the nonprofit show and it'll come up. It's a little kooky, but super fun. So we will meet you where you are and where you need to be. Sheridan Ransom, nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. I love this image of you. Is this taken in your office? My home, yes. So I had a photo shoot. I was recognized as a woman to know in my community, which included a photo shoot. And what you can't see in this photo intentionally behind me were hats because it's it's spoke to all the hats that we wear in the nonprofit sector. Awesome. That's super, super cool. Well, I love this image of you and you've never taken a bad picture, but I just think this is great. So let's get into it because this is a really, this is a chock-a-block full conversation. First off, talk about the end of year process. Like before we get into who the comment, who the person was, talk about, or tell me, explain to me, end of year, what that looks like, not just for this client of yours, but just in general, what are we looking at? Yeah, so end of year, we're talking calendar year is very critical for the nonprofit community. I like to say, Julia, we have trained our society that that is the giving season. October is when it starts, November is when it ramps up, and December is when it accelerates. So that October, November, December calendar year, Q4 is so critical. Now, for many nonprofits, that is simply midway through their fiscal, right? So we're doing this huge push because it is when the majority of, you know, givers have been trained to give. However, it's really mid-year of, you know, most organizations that have that July one fiscal. So it's critical. So statistics have shown really like 30% of fundraising dollars come in in those three months. And so the majority also being in December. So I led a campaign that was remarkable, extremely successful, and I am spilling the beans right here, right now. Now, I will say too, for those of you that might already follow me on LinkedIn, I have shared a lot of this. So we're just diving deeper into the conversation. So talk to us about the organization and I don't, I don't want you to necessarily divulge the name, but could you paint a picture of who they are and what they are so that we can understand how you integrated this into like a multi-channel push? So I think what's really important is to know that this organization received notification in August of a looming funding cut. September was when that cut happened of over $400,000, okay? And their smaller organization, no more than a million. So losing over $400,000 is a hemorrhage. I mean, it is a hemorrhage, right? And so looking at this from a standpoint, not human services, not basic needs. So their focus is really more wellness. So mental health and wellness. And so really looking at this from a separate lens, because it's not saying we need basic food, clothing and shelter, which I've got to say, Julia, is where the majority of my career fundraising has been focused. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's an interesting thing to think about the, the fright and the stress that a cut like that puts on an organization. It must like just yank back the chain on any creative thinking and innovation, because you're just working from pure fear at that point, right? You are, and you're, you know, you're sharing with the funders that, that this funding loss has happened. You're sharing with the staff. There might be fear amongst the staff. Am I safe? Am I going to lose my position? What does that look like? So I was, you know, committed to raising the bar higher than I've ever raised. I set a goal of raising $200,000 in 90 days. They'll shy of that raised $177,000. So just shy of $200,000. And I was waiting for that angel donor to say, here's the rest. Like here's the rest of that gap. Yeah. Let's get you over the hump. Yeah. Didn't happen, but that's okay. So really looking at this from the foundational standpoint that we have here is an integrated and multi-channel marketing. So, you know, everything is better when you're communicating with your audience on all of the platforms. And I'm going to share all of that here. So my go to is always email communication. Yeah. And then how do you repurpose that into, you know, so many other platforms, social media, additional emails. There's just so many ways to really integrate this. I'm going to talk about an end of year appeal. So a mail solicitation that was sent, all kinds of things. So essentially, we took one message and we scattered it among all the ways and we're consistent and consistent and consistent because that's where I find whether you're wanting to gain muscle and lose weight. Consistency is key also into gaining donors and increasing your revenue. So And I love that because in other words, you did the heavy lifting upfront. You really branded that strong identity. I've got so many questions about this. Bring them. You made it consistent. Did you share with the community that you had a looming budget cut? Absolutely. You did. Yeah, we were very transparent that we lost over $400,000 and where that funding cut came from. Okay. And then how that would negatively impact and has already negatively impacted the programming, right? So X amount of children, X amount of classrooms, X amount of schools will no longer receive our service. And we really had to change, you know, how we were doing programming, how we were just all of it. Everything had to be reassessed. So really looking at this from transparency. And you know me, Julia. So for me, authenticity is key and transparency is key. So we absolutely did share that we had a immense funding loss. Yeah. Wow. I'm really, I'm so glad I asked that question because I don't know what I would do. And that's, you know, I mean, I really, I'm gonna have to think about this. I'm gonna have to really, really think about this. So talk about you started this appeal when, and then when did you finish it? And tell us how many hits you, how many pushes you made? Yeah. Touch, touch, touch. So I counted end of year starting October one and ending December 31st. And we are an organization that our fiscal is July one, right? So this again, this is a mid year push. And so we, you know, really started in October, we had an in person event early in October, which brought in some opportunity for new donors, you know, to really cultivate and steward those, those individuals that did come over the course of the 90 days, 11 emails were sent out. Now I'm not all to one demographic. We did segment the, that list and really figure out, okay, where are my lie bunts. And you've heard on this show before, lie bunts is one of our favorites. So that's an acronym for last year, but unfortunately not this. Because to me, Julia, those are our lowest hanging fruit. You don't even need a ladder to pick that fruit, right? You're right. Right there in front of you. It is tangible. So reaching out to that list. We also looked at our side bunts, which is some year, but unfortunately not this. And then also $0 donors. And so giving Tuesday fell within that 90 day block. And one of the campaign outreaches for the non donors was simply to give us $5. And the point of that was to get them to make a donation. A financial donation, because then we get to steward them, cultivate that relationship in a little different manner than we have previously. I love it. It's, it's like you've, you've paid somebody to become a warm lead. Yeah, 100%. So one thing I'll share with the consistent branding and imaging. We were consistent with sharing about the funding loss. We were consistent about sharing our $200,000 goal. We were consistent in bringing updates to that goal, right? We're currently at 12%. We're currently at 14%. Showing progress bar. The other thing I did, and this was, I want to say new to me, Julia, because I get bored easily with seeing the same thing. I use the same photo of the same young woman, young girl, a student on everything, on sales, on social media, on the, the solicitation. It was the same photo, right? So someone could say, Oh, I've seen this before, but the recollection is what I was looking for. Awesome. And you know what? I mean, you know, I've been in marketing and publishing for all my life, more than 30 years of my professional life. And this is the hardest thing for people to understand, because we get bored. We assume that things have, you know, like everybody else is going to be bored, because we're working with these images. But you have to remember people see it like that, maybe. So you've got to keep, you reinforce it. Good job. That, that's like, okay, the show's over, because that's like my happy point. I did get tired of seeing the same photo, and I was so tempted to change it, and I didn't. Now, I might have added another image, right? Like on the mail solicitation. But the main image of this young girl that we used stayed prominent and stayed as the number one primary image. Okay, you are rocking it. You are doing so well. I'm so, so thrilled to hear this and proud of you. Now, when you talk about amplifying your outreach, I mean, I would, it's fair to say that the year prior, 11 touches had not been orchestrated. No, and that was just email. So 11 email touches, right? Not to mention social media. And so when we increased our marketing communications, we increased it across the board. And the easiest place to increase this, I'm going to say is social media. And, you know, you can repurpose a lot of content using AI, artificial intelligence, chat GPT is always my best, you know, friend. But really sharing, you know, we talk a lot about when you ask, when you ask for support, you want to ask, think, think them, report to them and repeat, ask, think, report, repeat, and you do the same cycle. So a lot of social media posts, right. And again, using the same image for Giving Tuesday as we did for the holiday appeal and things like that. So social media through the roof. And my number one channels always LinkedIn and a lot of nonprofits do not leverage LinkedIn to its capacity. Huge corporate opportunities there, huge individuals, right, that we can engage with them either from a board perspective, a volunteer perspective, an individual perspective. So do not miss LinkedIn. And then the meta universe, right, where we use Facebook and Instagram. And those are often linked together. Absolutely. They are posting one, you're posting the other On the other. Yeah. So those three platforms. I love it. And again, you still stuck with the same imagery, the same color scoping. Did you change the color scoping? No, you know what's interesting, Julia? So we've decided as an agency to remove one of our brand colors, we decided that it was too harsh, it was too bold. It was just no longer resonating with the vibe of the organization, especially when it comes to wellness. You don't want to have anything that's going to be too stark and you just think, oh, that doesn't feel good. Too aggressive, too aggressive. Too aggressive. So we removed a color from our color wheel and stayed consistent with our primary colors, right? So the colors did not change. We didn't even go to holiday colors, right? Okay, that was why I asked that question. I thought you might. Yeah, well, because you see a lot of organizations that really amp up the Christian holidays, which I think is a big mistake because then it leaves off other faith constructs and makes it look like it's only a Christian ask. 100% and this organization is very inclusive of all people and of all, you know, essentially thoughts and beliefs. So to us, that was very important. Now, if your mission obviously is faith-based and let's say you have a huge Catholic following, you want to speak to your audience. So we were speaking to our audience, right? By really opening it up and keeping it non-denominational, non-faith centric, you know? So we stuck to our colors and our colors only. Oh, my God. And think of the money and time and effort that you saved. I mean, don't you feel like this is just going to make future campaigns so much easier to even just consider because you'll be like, we can do this. Yes, 100% the other thing I'll share and I know we're not done. But I mapped all of this out in September, right? Launched in October. And then everything we did, I tracked its success on this plan so we can rinse and repeat for next are this, this individual, you know, and to make those tiny adjustments, you know, maybe we send an email earlier, maybe we segment the list further. But this way we can track because the one thing I know to be true, true, Julia, in my 20 plus years of consulting, too many organizations do not track. And so we're throwing spaghetti, we're throwing paint, we're throwing everything on the wall and hoping that it works, right? We're using the pray method. We really hope this works and we don't know. Well, and also I think what happens is that and I don't want to get too far off. I want to get back, I get on to this next topic of the personal touch. But I think a lot of times we believe that something has impacted a certain way. And it's just our own emotions or or feeling. It's not a data point that we can follow. Right. That's where we make a lot of mistakes, where we continue to make these mistakes. Before we move on, I want to get into this a little bit more. The personal touch, the gratitude video, the personal email, holiday cards. Talk about how you wove some of that in because that's kind of a heavy lift for most organizations. So we were very particular with the videos. And in this instance, the founder is still very much involved with the agency. And so they did some gratitude videos and I provided a very short snippet, a very like small script. Here's what I'd like for you to say to this person. They absolutely did that. We branded behind us, right? So we used a branded Zoom background, if you will. So everything like a separate repeat, very similar. Yes. And so we made sure that, you know, reflected all of our branding, our messaging. Like everything just looked the same. And I have to say, Julia, it didn't cost a lot of money, right? Like I use tools that are free to the nonprofit community. I'm not a graphics person. I am someone who, you know, loves loves a plan, loves consistency and really loves to see success. I love it. I think it's just fascinating. OK. So. Yeah, the video, right? So we did the video and then we did some personal emails. And so I was I was reaching out to some of our donors, some of our supporters, to say, you know, your contributions over the last X amount of time. Some of them I did a year. Some of them I did since they've been involved and really helped to demonstrate what their dollars have done for the organization and put it into tangible. So for instance, you know, for for those of you watching and listening, perhaps twenty five dollars feeds a family for that is how I essentially set up the language I reached out to some of these donors. And I said, you know, your donation of X amount over the year has helped to feed X amount of families for X amount of time, something like that, right? And then we did the holiday cards and again, same branding, same coloring for our cards. And we put a personal note on there. So every single card had a handwritten note. And we have gotten so much comp, so many compliments, so it was nice. I love it. This is kind of a kooky question, but when did you send those holiday cards out? Do you remember? Yeah, it was right after Thanksgiving, so early December. So they landed early December. Great. OK, great. Because I think that's another thing. Yeah, not to mention it went on the heels of a solicitation. So it also, you know, back to back, you know, November was the solicitation and December was the holiday card. Now, sneak peek, I will tell you the next mailer we have planned is Valentine's and it is yes, it will land mid February. It is a heart shaped postcard and we're selling it or sending it rather to the majority of those supporters. It is not an ask. It is purely a gratitude piece, zero solicitation, just a heartfelt message. Well, and I think, again, we lose track. We think if we were communicating an ask and ask and ask and you've got to be doing these gratitude pieces, because in essence, that becomes an ask. It does. Yeah, I mean, you've got to fit in phone calls. So whether it's a personal email, a phone call, I engaged the board. There was a handful of board members that said, I'll make some phone calls. Yeah, yeah, all they were doing because I mentioned the party in October. They simply called and said, thank you for attending the party. Thank you for coming. It was great to have you there. Great to meet you. And you know what? This is a national board, so not all board members were present. So even some board members that weren't at the party still made thank you calls to say thank you for attending. Thank you for being there. So it was all hands on deck, team sport. It was a lot of fun. And again, like really seeing that success. So last year, just under $40,000 was raised for this agency's end of year campaign. This year, just under $200,000. So that's the 374 percent increase. Amazing. OK, so we all know you're a rock star. I mean, I see it. I live it with you. It's it's it's just crazy good stuff. You are your superb at being strategic and inclusive and positive. Thank you. I'm going to go a little bit to the dark side and say what? Even though you have all this amazing success, what would you have changed or what will you change for next year as you navigate this again? Yeah, so we really cut corners when it came to cost, right? So I mentioned I did a lot of it myself. I use the tools that were free tools like Canva, you know, to help design. We were printing, you know, I went to like an office Mac staples, printed, folded, stuffed, stamped. Next year, I hope that we have money, you know, in the coffers, so to speak, so that all of this can really be integrated into a professional, a more professional distribution, right? And so it took a lot of time and energy because we didn't have the money. And so I was determined to make this as cost efficient as possible, which I love, Julia, because this speaks to the potential. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. It really doesn't. Yeah. When you look at your time frame and understanding, I mean, this sounds to me like you didn't have much time to pull this together. I mean, I see this most of this work. I see the plans being finished by July 31st. Right. For most organizations. So talk to me about this in terms of when things went out and how they went out. We're going to be in a general election this this time next year. We will have been finishing up a general election, I should say, moving into the inaugural season. A lot of people in the nonprofit sector are really freaking out about that because they think there's going to be a diversion of funds and attention. Do you see yourselves changing because of that? You know, I think so. The difference is and I know this, right? Like when it is a campaign season, I do alter ever so slightly. However, those that give to political campaigns, they give because they believe I believe they believe so strongly in whatever the campaign is that this individual is is lobbying for, right? Spousing, but they're not charitable deductions. Anything given to a political campaign is not a charitable deduction. And so we, the nonprofit community, still has that, right? So I think when we wave the flag of a tax, a tax deduction, this is a charitable deduction, right? And many states, they have the tax credits. Arizona is one of those. So you're still going to have supporters that give to the tax credit because they need to for their tax benefit, right? Right. I think just ever so slightly, if we change our language and, you know, know our donors and our our constituency base and to speak to that point, I think is really important. OK, one last question and and this is speaks to the whole continuity and consistency. Would you use the same graphics and color and promotional direction, art direction? For that next for the next year? Well, I get it will be this year, but, you know, in 11 months, 10 months, 100 percent. So I use the same girl, if that's what you're asking. Yeah, yeah, all of that. Yeah, I will find an image and use that same image, right? Because I do believe that that contributed to the success because the recall of that really elevated over the 90 days. Whereas I think if we change and change and change, even though we might get bored of seeing it because we touch it and see it all the time, our audience is also getting peppered, you know, from so many different angles. Because during this 90 days, Julia, I was solicited also from multiple agencies, right? And so really looking at it to say, OK, what like what is staying the same? Because to me, that cut through the noise because it was so consistent. Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's a reason why we call you the nonprofit nerd. Yes, I'm going to push my glasses for our podcast listeners. Jared and I are both wearing glasses today and we just pushed them up with our imaginary tape above the bridge of our nose. That's right. Jared, our ransom nonprofit nerd CEO, the Raven group also the co-host of the nonprofit show, which is like an amazing thing. I mean, not only do you look good, you sound good, but you do good. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. You know, it was a it was a heavy lift. It was intimidating. I set the goal at I set the goal at 200,000, knowing that was quite lofty and very pleased with the results. I'm so excited. Now, we want you to come back in 10 months and probably let us in on what the plan is. Maybe we'll have you come back in like August or September and talk about this. If you're OK with that, I'm just throwing this on you. But I think it would be really cool to say, OK, what does the plan look like? Right. And how how do we navigate that? Because this has just been super, super cool. And, you know, sometimes consultants aren't really they're not excited about sharing this because it's somewhat insider information. So I say, thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's kind of the recipe, right? But we have to find our special ingredient to that recipe. And so I do encourage all of you, you know, go to my LinkedIn page. I also shared this in an article format so you can see that there. And it talks about the 11 emails, the 26 new donors, the increase by 100 percent from one donor. So it's all in there. I want to give and be of service. So an honor. Thank you, Julia, for putting me in the hot seat to share this. Oh, my gosh, it's been fabulous. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, Jared Ransom, my co-host. But today in the hot seat, actually as a guest, so CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we have amazing partners that don't script us and that really give us the freedom to have these conversations. They include Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leaders, Staffing Boutique, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd herself, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Wow, I'm super energized. I love starting the week this way. We're going to get you back on, because now we've seen how it finished up. I want to see how we kick it in and how we get it started. So, yeah, I mean, you know where I'll be, Julia. I'll be right here. Yeah, but I'm putting you on the booking calendar. Go ahead, that's a spreadsheet, sister. All right, my friend. Hey, everybody, as we end every day, we like to remind ourselves and our viewers and our listeners. What, Jared? Just stay well so you can do well. Thanks, Julia. Thanks, everyone.