 Welcome, thanks for being here we're so glad that you're joining us for another episode of the nonprofit show. I'm glad to be back co hosting alongside Julia and thrilled to have one of our sponsors with us to kick off our Monday or as I'm going to refer to it. It's fun. Yay, because Friday gets all the fun and Monday should also get a little bit of fun. But James Golder is here with us and James is a partnership manager with Bloomerang. And he's going to talk to us about donor retention trends so so glad to have you here James before we jump into the conversation we of course want to make sure that our viewers and our listeners know who they are looking at or listening to so Julia Patrick, of course is here. Julia's wonderful platform. Julia is also the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, and puts up with me each and every day as her co host I'm Jared ransom, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group and again just honored to continue to be of service in this way as we navigate forward. Thanks to our many presenting sponsors that have partnered with us and collaborated in many, many ways, as we continue to talk about additional ways for collaboration. If you miss that you might want to join early for the green room chatter which is where we talked about a collaboration even further but really excited to have Bloomerang as one of our presenting sponsors in fact one of our very original sponsors joined us in March of 2020. Thanks to the American nonprofit Academy, also fundraising Academy which National University. Thanks to nonprofit nerd, also your part time controller staffing boutique and the nonprofit thought leaders. All of these are here to help you move your mission forward. Many of them as I mentioned have been with us from the very beginning. If you missed any of our episodes or you think you want to you know share an episode with a board member or senior leadership or really anyone. You can find all of our episodes on Roku YouTube Vimeo as well as fire TV. But if you're a podcast listener, like I am, you can also queue up the nonprofit show on podcast so make sure that you queue us up and all of these different streaming programs continue to listen and learn as we continue to chat. So we really pride ourselves on not being a webinar, not being a lecture and really, you know, touting the fact that we are a very casual conversation. So James Golder has joined us today been waiting very patiently thank you James. Again, partnerships manager with Bloomerang. Welcome our friend we're so glad to have you. Nice to be here. Thank you very much I've been looking forward to this for a while. Yeah, us to you know as we mentioned in Bloomerang has been a fantastic partner. We also broadcasted live from the AFP icon Vegas booth and where I got to meet a lot of the team members so really excited to have so many faces and voices and perspectives on today. So tell us a little bit about what you do I see the title but let's really talk about you know what that title means for you at Bloomerang. Sure. So, mainly I manage our national account partnerships. So I'm working with organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, YMCA is kind of those big sort of umbrella organizations with lots of little chapters or sometimes just a few chapters or smaller organizations under them trying to help them get the best that they the best usage out of Bloomerang that they can get so that they're really taking advantage of what the platform offers. And of course reaching out to new organizations under those umbrellas to see if maybe they would benefit from a conversation about Bloomerang. So it's kind of a little bit of sales a little bit of account management kind of all wrapped together. I really enjoyed it's a lot of fun. And a lot of relationship. A whole lot of relationships absolutely right. You know before we get into to talking about, you know donor retention strategies and trends. Paint a picture for us about what Bloomerang does, because we use the name Bloomerang everybody sees that you guys are so remarkably collaborative. We really are out in our sector, doing amazing things. But let's take a step back and really understand what it is that your platform does. Sure. So there's a couple of things I think Julie you're you touched on the fundraising best practice information that we put out to try to help fundraisers kind of get a better grasp on things like retention and engagement and that sort of thing. So that is a really big part of what we do. We funded studies in the past and we continue to do that. And we also publish white papers have webinars are all kinds of educational resources that Bloomerang puts out there to really help fundraisers do their job a little bit easier. We also have a database as well. So if you think of those organizations that maybe are managing their donors using spreadsheets, or in some cases, handwritten notes, we've seen that too. And everything in between. We want to help make that a little bit better. Right so there's a lot of technology that we can use and a lot of processes and systems that we can bring into play that will make their lives a little bit easier and allow them to focus on those relationships that they have with their donors instead of, you know, did I remember this in a thank you note to this week to my donors or something along those lines. I want to try to make their jobs and their lives a little bit easier when we can. And I have to say I've had the pleasure of working within the donor database of Bloomerang and I've had my hands in several donor databases and Bloomerang always seems to be very user friendly and I cannot tell you James how many evenings I have spent perhaps with a glass of wine in my hand on the online chat with the support team. It is phenomenal phenomenal and so I just have to have to witness Julia to you know all our viewers. I'm not an endorsement, you know for Bloomerang, although I love the organization I love the platform so I am endorsing it. You know just say everything that it has provided what I have seen from my client side has really been phenomenal so thank you for all that the team does. And that's a really good point to I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this is easily the best group of people that I've ever worked with. I've been here since 2015 and they are phenomenal. Just an amazing group of people who genuinely care I know it seems a little eye rollier cringy or whatever but they genuinely care about the missions of the organizations that we're working with and I mean hey if we can help fundraiser put a little bit of extra food on the table for the community, help get some you know pets adopted that sort of thing great that gets us out of bed in the morning so it really is a great company full of really good people. Well, yeah it's fantastic and you know and all of that goes into today's conversation when it comes to donor retention. And I'm curious let's just kick it off here we have a clock for those of you listening that's the graphic here. How do we spend time on donor retention and you know what are the things that we should be spending our time on specifically. I'm thinking about as we're you know producing this live today many of us just started our new fiscal year. We're looking at the end of the calendar year and so our big push season is upon us so how do we spend time on our donor retention and where does that you know fall. That's such a great question. I think that too often in conversations that I've had with people the big focus is on its event season so we have to focus on getting those events and getting them all to turn out perfectly and and we're going to get these numbers and and yeah absolutely you should do that that's that's great and then what are you going to do after that. Oh, well we'll add them to our newsletter. Great. That's a terrific idea what what else and and so yeah I think the more touches you can have with these people the better particularly the people who if you're able to see what their capacity is and they're they have a little bit higher capacity so let's reach out to those people and maybe I don't want to jump on the phone schedule a coffee meeting with them do something to engage with them and and really get to know them. And one of the best things that I've seen recently I gave to a new organization I've never given to about a week ago and they sent me a survey. Three days four days I don't know something like that after the donation was made asking me, why did you donate. What was it specifically about our mission that appealed to you so that I wrote back in the email and told them what it was specifically, which will allow them I don't know what will happen. You know in the future but it could allow them to really tailor their communications to me, moving forward in a way that will engage me more than if it's just a generic, you know hey can you donate again kind of thing. And if you just put a big focus on engaging with people in multiple ways you know some of us like phone call some of us like email so so just get out there and engage with people and and your retention numbers will will start inching up. And speaking of that retention number and again I've had the pleasure of working inside blumering and I'm sure other donor data bases provide this as well. How do we, you know, figure out our donor retention rate and what are we striving for so let's kind of take this this mystery of donor retention. Can we quantify that James is that something that we should be looking for a quantifiable number year after year. Essentially you want to take the number of donors that that donated in a given year how many of them came back the following year. So you can do that on a rolling year you can do it on a fiscal year it's a couple of different ways that you can calculate that. But the fundraising effectiveness project, essentially, is kind of sets the benchmark for that they look at data from all kinds of databases blumering included but others as well. And they look at that those numbers to see how many people are coming back year after year, and the number goes up and down a little bit but essentially for the last 10 years or so it's covered somewhere between 40 and 45%. So we're finding that less than half of the donors come back year over year which I can tell you from a business perspective if less than half of our customers were coming back. I don't think I would be here right now I would not have a job if that was happening. No, when I hear that, I always have this moment where I'm like, well that can't be true. That's just not accurate. I mean because it is so shocking James, it's just so shocking to think that you would have something that somebody felt compassion or passionate, or they felt driven to engage in, and then it just goes away. Gone. It just goes away. And so that's why this is just such an incredibly important thing. And Jared, thank you for asking that question because it frames this up even more. So let's get into that. What about those focus, the focus on first time donors? Why are they leaving? Well, I hope you're sitting down because the statistics get worse for first time donors, if it's one out of two that leave for just, you know, all your donors overall, first time donors are hovering right around 20%. So, one out of five is coming back and saying, yeah, I'll give to you again. So, if you think about it in terms of, okay, we're going to get, so for a lot of organizations right at the events are their big donor acquisition. That's, that's what they're doing their golf tournament gala auction something to get people in the door, then they're taking that opportunity to tell an amazing story, as you just said Julia full of emotion and they're engaging with people and people are moved and they're saying, oh, yes, I want to help this. Here's a hundred bucks, here's a thousand bucks, whatever it happens to be. And these first time donors are writing the check and then I don't, there's something, nothing's happening. I'm not sure what's going on but but there's a disconnect because they were moved enough to write that check for the first time and then they fall off the table and four out of five of them are not coming back. So, I just want to add data and bloomering that suggests that for our users that if you reach out to them and connect with them like we were talking about a minute ago and engage with them, you can move them you can, it can be a bigger gift and it can be a faster gift their second gift. So, you don't have to wait a full year don't wait a full year do not wait a full year. Get out there get in touch with people and engage with them and connect with them and you can make it a bigger gift and make that second gift a lot faster like maybe within three months, but you got to get on it. I do, I, I hear you because I don't a retention, you know, they really say, and, and it's, you know fundraising effectiveness of, you know, engage build relationship, just like you gave that example James of your donation to this organization. You know, email they asked exactly what made you, you know, give this gift. And so having that engagement for that second gift to happen quicker is the trick. Am I right I mean is that kind of what I'm what I'm hearing because if we you know and I think about that 4045% think of all the restaurants we go to think of all the places that we ourselves, you know, go to a cat or you know shop. If we were not to go back just as you said for blurring if your clients were not to come back at that same percentage, it would be horrible and so why are we treating our donors as if they will, they'll come back knowing that they won't so how do we shift that you know like really that focus I mean what are some other tactics and techniques that we should be implementing and employing you know for this engagement. So all of the studies that I've seen about this say that the more that you can engage people and send those surveys ask them, how do you like to be communicated with how often do you want to be communicated with why did you give. What is important to you about our organization so engage with them by asking them questions it can be over the phone it can be through an email, anything like that is fine. And the other big thing to think about it, not for every organization of course but for a lot of them is to engage with people on the volunteer level. So ask them to be a part of the organization by helping the mission through donating their time. And, and it's a subtle thing right instead of referring to it as volunteering but donating their time is what they're doing. So maybe call it that and thank them for donating their time that way. I love that. I love you. That is a huge takeaway and Julia I don't think we've heard anyone, you know we talk about time talent and treasure but to hear, hear, you know the phrase thank you for donating your time. That's a huge takeaway for me thank you. That is, yeah, I would say you know we've done almost 600 episodes. No one's ever said that. No. First time for everything. I think when you have those first time donors, they may not be aware, especially think about an event right they're coming with their co worker or their friend or their family member or somebody because someone has said hey I really like this organization. Come hang out with me at this golf tournament or gala or whatever it is. They don't know what's going on they don't know what those volunteer opportunities are so if they've actually donated at that event. Go ahead and reach out to them and talk with them about those volunteering opportunities they may not be able to but they'll also get a better feel for what you're offering and what kind of impact they can have. It's really a no lose scenario I think. No, I'm curious and this is possibly a curveball James so I apologize in a bit. Are there certain segment groups that we should not spend time on donor retention. And one of the areas I'm thinking are things like a memorial gift where someone asked in lieu of flowers please make a donation to this organization. Is that a segment or population of our donors that we should not focus on donor retention like what's the what's the etiquette there. That's a really good question. So, I, I will never tell anyone do not focus on retaining donors if someone is donated to you by all means get out there thank them engage with them and all of that. But I think you make a really good point with two groups right so the tribute memorial donors, and then peer to peer donations. So peer to peer often are again coworkers family members friends, saying hey, this is really important to me would you donate almost to me. Right, is sort of to the organization but really because of your relationship with me. Those can be really tricky to renew. Now if you do a good job with it you can really make those connections and make it work so again not saying avoid them or anything like that but I think the ticket in that case specifically is to make sure that you're thanking what I'm going to call the power supporter, the person who invited those donors to donate and got those donations for you. Make sure you take care of that person and then if you want to, you know, have that person reach out to their donors personally to thank them and tell them a little bit about the organization and try to connect that way that can work. I, if I had to choose I know fundraisers are insanely busy and don't have a lot of time to do lots of different stuff. But if so if I had to choose I would go after those power supporters and make darn sure that I got them back year after year because they're the ones who are kind of making it happen on some level. That's a great comment the power supporters I love that because we do see a lot of peer to peer, I think peer to peer fundraising is starting to increase. It's really, you know, using that power supporter. That's a new term for me I'm going to take that away so thank you using those power supporters leveraging their relationships and engagement with that additional influence of, of donors. Thank you for that because that's always a tricky conversation that I find myself in, you know, I hear from many of my clients James that are like, we don't we don't even you know we send a thank you note and after that that's it, you know, like we might put them in a newsletter some clients might put them in a newsletter. So thank you for addressing this power supporters and how we can leverage that connection to do more good for for our community. Let's talk about the use of phones right like we talk a lot over the last three years. During the pandemics we like to say plural pandemics, you know, our people still wanting to answer a phone has that actually increased decreased. There's so many ways of connectivity and familiarity with connectivity now so where's the phone playing a role in this donor retention conversation. So please, please, please make phone calls. Please, please I'll beg the impact of a phone call. We went and looked in our bloomering users and the data in the data and you know 15,000 databases, and the gifts are bigger the gifts come faster. The retention numbers are higher. I mean there is literally no downside to making phone calls, none. So get out there and call and the other thing that we found is that a voicemail is just as good as an actual conversation. So, for people who are worried that they're going to get stuck on the phone with a chatty person and you know waste time first of all no you're not wasting time but I get it you're busy. If you just get a voicemail it's just as effective. And here's here's the big secret that we found in our study, call twice. If you if you call twice again the dollars go up the second gift is faster retention numbers are better it just that the benefits are exponential. So, and but it doesn't have to be the same person right so maybe your board members could call. I know they're probably throwing things at their screen right now and say no I don't want to do that but it's not terrible. In fact, you're you're reaching out to people who probably share a lot of feelings that you do for how you feel about this organization and they're probably excited to hear a little bit more about it it'll be a nice phone call. And again shouldn't take a lot of time. I was going to say for years I was on a board a cultural board and we used to have what we called think-a-thons and the board members would get together we'd go to somebody's office and had a phone bank and they would just pass out the sheets and we would be given like a list of 10 to 20 people. And it was super fun and we would say we're just calling to thank you and I can remember over the years and people would be like, you know, I've been meaning to give you make another donation and we weren't even set up for that we'd be like, Wow, you know, I'll have to have someone call you back because we're just here to thank you But we would get what I noticed James was that it would actually re-engage the board members because they would hear great things and then they were just like, Hey, I'll take more calls. I finished up my calls or and we started doing it once a year and then we moved to twice a year because the board members. It was so positive it was so positive and even to your point James when they left a message when they left a message it was still positive so you know I can personally attest to that I think it's a really smart thing. Well, that's what I was going to ask you Julia is as a board member have you you know played this role and and what was the benefit of it but I apologize James I jumped in. I was just, I was going to dovetail with Julia and say that I'm on the board of a small farm here near where I live and we get as a board member I think sometimes we get so dialed in on budgets and then my new show of you know staffing and all of that that we forget sometimes about the mission and what gets people excited about these organizations. Oh yes Julia yes yes yes the chance for a board member to connect with a donor in here. Oh my gosh I couldn't believe you guys were doing this sort of thing this is amazing I can't I mean, I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with someone who was really jazzed about some food access programs that we're doing with a, you know with a bus a mobile, like a, like a food bus, and this person was so excited and just right thrilled that we were going to be getting this food into disadvantaged neighborhoods that were just so enthusiastic and it pumped me up you know I was like oh yeah, that's right. I forgot all the cool stuff that we do this is so great you know so yeah it's a great you make a great point Julia. Well it is magical, you know we need to be doing that and we, Jared and I talked about this all the time and you know Jared really has coined this you know ROI versus ROR return on relationship and making sure that we can get in front of people in any way. It's powerful. It's so important and to have those mission moments as a board member, you know, as you said Jake you know we know what's going on but I won't push blame on anyone else but oftentimes for myself it's like, oh yeah we take that for granted because we hear it see it, you know do it each and every day and so to have a conversation with a support, supporter or power supporter, you know really just elevates that that mission moment for us. All of this has been fantastic, especially as we think of our donor retention and so you know we're really striving for that quantifiable 40%, 45% year over year goal and we're also really focusing on those first time donors because I heard you say it was a sobering statistic. One out of five return from that first time donor. Yep. That's exactly right. Right you said I hope you're sitting down because the stat gets worse. Sorry. No, it's it's really good to shine light on that you know I know because you also acknowledge that we're all extremely busy including our board members but to have these conversations build engagement build relationship, you know all of that is is really important so this is a very important conversation and topic for us to discuss we mentioned earlier. Many of you have started a new fiscal year and all of us are coming up on the push for the end of your fundraising and that is something that we really need to take a look at these first time donors and just the donor retention and you know at large so thank you for bringing all of this to the table. James it's been amazing to have your wisdom. With us and I want to direct everybody to blue meringue dot co you really are the organization has really become a thought leader and so a lot of these things that you have shared with us today you can find even more data. Really significant data collection that has has gone across this country and you're very and it's amazing that you you all share this because I think a lot of organizations would hold this information tight to the vest and not share it and so it really is an amazing thing and you can get access to this information whether you're a client of blue meringue or not. So, we want to say thank you for that because it is sobering to use Jared's word, but it is we need to know this stuff. You know, we need it we need to be very thoughtful about this so an amazing opportunity for us to share our morning starter week with James gold or gold or gold or black. It is Monday. That's right. Monday. Yeah, started talking about our, our spirits and wine and this morning, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, but check out James and blue meringue. It's really an interesting approach to how we can be stronger and more efficient with our nonprofits, especially if we have a little bit of data. It helps us to understand where we might want to, you know, refocus and reapply ourselves. Wow, James, that first time donor chilling. It is the good news is I do want to leave people with a little ray of hope that if you make those phone calls, the numbers go up a lot. We did look at our top 20% blue meringue users and their first time donor attention number is think close to 40 or something like that so you can if you make those phone calls if you do you know kind of the stuff that we've laid out and then there's definitely a light there that that we can all strive for so it's not all hope. Thanks for the silver lining. We definitely needed that. Yeah. The Monday. I can't have us all going back to work depressed. That's right. It's Monday. We're going to coin it Monday so that we can have a little bit of fun and Friday doesn't get all of it. There you go. You know, James, I love it because it's low tech. We can do it. And there's no excuse not to. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, I absolutely love it. What we want to make sure is that we thank ourselves along with James. Again, if we haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick with the American nonprofit Academy been joined today by my co host, Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors who are with us day in and day out who allow us to have these discussions. Blumerang American nonprofit Academy, your part time controller, nonprofit nerd fundraising Academy at National University, staffing boutique and nonprofit thought leader. These are the folks that literally have joined us. Most of them from the very start, more than two years ago when we came up with this wackadoo idea. So thank you so much for all of the support we gain from these these amazing companies throughout our country. Hey, as we end every episode, we'd like to remind ourselves, our viewers and our listeners to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.