 Welcome everybody. Thanks for coming back to another show. The non-profit shows here every Friday with our friends at Fundraising Academy to answer your questions. Now LaShonda, you know because this probably happened to you, but people tweet us, they email us, they stop me on the street, I had somebody stop me on a plane once and ask could you you know address this question. It's a really interesting thing and so we are so excited to have you on today. We get a different voice and a different perspective from Fundraising Academy each Friday and LaShonda Williams comes to us from the great state of Texas and so are you ready my friend? We're gonna thank our sponsors. More importantly I want you to be able to reach out to LaShonda and her team at fundraising-academy.org where you can learn more about all of their projects and at the end of the show we're gonna talk about a really interesting conference that they have coming up which I heard there's only like about 20 tickets left. You are right spot on. We have like right at 20 so Cultivate is definitely catching storm and things are moving very swiftly so if anyone is out there interested in coming do not delay because you may possibly miss the opportunity that you've been waiting for. I can't believe it. I was on a meeting with your team leaders earlier in the week and they they said wow you know it's going we're gonna sell out and I'm like oh yeah you'll sell out and they're like no like in the next week or two. Exactly and we're like six eight weeks away so yes exactly. Very exciting. Well the non-profit show will be there and we'll talk about that a little bit more. We are here today and every day thanks to our amazing partners and sponsors and they include Bloomerang, American Non-Profit Academy, Non-Profit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Non-Profit Nerd and Non-Profit Tech Talk. Okay you can get to us in many ways through our app, through our streaming, through our podcast and through our live shows but what's really interesting about this is that the archives for all these questions go back from the very beginning and so there's a lot there that you can find with us and we're going to jump right in because you know Lashonda, I get all excited when I have a name withheld, city withheld. It's always a little juicy. Okay this is a really interesting thing. This person writes in, I'm writing a book that shares my insights into what it looks like to be a fundraiser in the non-profit space. I'm doing this to point out the negative aspects of being in cause selling or mission sales. As the way I see it the customer is always right, mindset is being used in non-profit development. Do you think this is true? Very interesting question. It's like a pull. Right you know I see fireworks but in a different kind of way so I will say first you know I'm curious to know why you would like to share the negative aspects of fundraising because when I think about fundraising the first three letters are FUN and so fundraising most people enter that space because they want to make a difference and although sometimes we may have less than favorable experiences, the outcome, the impact are the things that are what really kind of drives most of us but not necessarily all of us. So that's the first part of my response. The second part is there are mechanisms in place that do actually provide support for fundraisers. So for example I'm certainly you know everyone in the non-profit space is aware of the donor bill of rights and they're like well what about the fundraisers? Well you know I can recall specifically there was a chapter that was either St. Louis or Chicago I can't remember which but they came up with a draft of something comparable to the donor bill of rights which would address fundraisers rights and so AFP had been working on some things to create opportunity space and some leveling of the playing field so that everyone feels as though they are equally valued and I would also say that from a being a professional in the industry I've had the pleasure and benefit of working with individuals in leadership who also think about the employees and we reemphasize the importance of ethical behavior and a part of that is making sure that in the event that your non-profit professional is feeling like they are being infringed upon or as something unethical or if they are being harassed you know the same attributes of sexual harassment in the workplace are applicable in the non-profit space when you're engaging with a donor so I would say that there are mechanisms available and your mindset is thinking about some of the best business practices are also applicable in the non-profit space especially when you're thinking about HR related concerns as it relates to rights and so my experience I can only go off of my experience has been one that's been favorable and supportive and I feel really really sad that unfortunately this individual may have had a bad experience or had bad experiences but when you're thinking about human resource concerns they are applicable to those in the non-profit space as well you know Lushanda I love I always love your mindset because I think you're so empowered through and towards positivity I mean for the number of years we've worked with you I really admire that and I think it's incredibly powerful and I agree it seems like this person might have really had some negative things that has changed their point of view about the whole process and and everything and that that's that's real and that's not shameful but I've got to ask this question have you ever been in an in an environment where the the I almost want to use the word toxic that the relationship with the donor became so toxic that you and your team or your organization in essence refunded their money and and closed that door and said we're not the right fit for you I kind of quoted Terry Axelrod twice this week that the the woman who started raising raising more money and and then ultimately became Benavon and she has this phrase called bless in release meaning thank you and go forward and do great things they're just not going to be with us have you ever been in that environment so I have been very fortunate that it's not escalated to that particular point and so a part of a part of the donor cycle you know is beginning to think about you know in the first part of the cost-selling cycle as well you're thinking about the pre-qualification and you're doing all of this background research on your prospective donor and so we've been fortunate to be able to be preventive and to identify early on if there were some questions about whether or not this relationship was a good relationship and so an example that I will bring out about a decade ago with another institution they had accepted some funds from a particular donor who later had been accused and prosecuted of a crime and they refunded those dollars so I mean that does happen however I've not been in a situation like that because we've you know been pre-emptive and done due diligence on the front end to ensure that you know if someone's going to make a sizable gift that that person those funds are made legally and that they're not in conflict with the organization's mission goal objectives and also ensuring that it will continue to create opportunities for subsequent gifts you know that it's it's supported that linkage ability and interest is very important and making sure that there are no ethical implications of receiving that gift yeah and that acceptance policy comes into play as well looking at that you know when you're thinking about those attributes yeah exactly well I I know that at AFP coming up in Toronto which you will be there with the fundraising academy team Jack Alotto and Angela Barnes are going to be doing a seminar on you know kind of touching on the topics of of how fundraisers are existing and and what they what are I don't want to say the negatives but what some of the challenges are I am assuming some of these conversations will come up because I think you're right about this we don't really talk about it and we don't really always have a strategy and I think there are a lot of nonprofits that don't even have a gift acceptance policy like we won't take money from companies that sell alcohol or exactly or tobacco or firearms or I mean no matter what whatever it is you do it's a it's not across the board but you know what I mean right so it's just kind of an interesting thing that we need to kind of take a breath and and look at these things so thank you definitely yeah thank you for for bringing that up okay here's another name withheld and I'm gonna man up and say or woman up that I took the name off because Sacramento is kind of a small I didn't I didn't want to out somebody so the question is this Lashonda I'm leaving the for-profit space for a job in nonprofit fundraising I'm used to earning commissions I just learned that the nonprofit organization I am joining does not do this is this a normal thing in the nonprofit sector that is another great question Julia and I'm so glad that you withheld the name yeah for that particular individual so I will go back to the why so many individuals not everyone I know this is a very generic statement enter the nonprofit space because you want to make the world a better place there are some opportunities to secure and and live well in specific positions in specific areas however most people enter just in the spirit of I want to make the world a better place and I will be able to secure funding beyond what my capacity would be I could make a donation to an organization and so I'll just go from my vantage point and so with that you know there's a big difference in nonprofits and depending on the type of nonprofit but specifically as it relates to bonuses to answer your question more directly AFP provides specific guidelines about the bonus process and so with the bonus process it is strictly based on you know what your salary is and it's based on your performance not based on the amount of revenue that you've raised you're not able to get commissions based off of referrals nonprofit is a business but the model is a little bit different as it relates to the ethical implications and the reason why I think it all exists is to ensure that our prospective donors know that we are vested in the organization and we're not looking at them as potential capital but we're building a relationship with the individual to help amplify the mission of our organization to amplify the impact of our organization so what I will say if this is a huge challenge for you now you may want to have that conversation and ask perhaps there are mechanisms in place that you've not been made aware of you know should you meet your goal that perhaps you may be eligible for a promotion or perhaps there's merit pay incentives and you know Julie and I we've talked about that before many organizations depending on its structure will offer merit pay based on performance evaluation and that evaluation is not just specific to the fiscal metrics that you are asked to achieve but there are other variables involved and we just want to make sure that we have clean lines and that your motivation is altruistic you know yes we all want to live well however we also want to make sure that our organizations continue to thrive and are able to sustain right you know and thank you for giving that overview because what you everything you said is really the gold standard for our sector and this is not new I mean this is a very tried and true approach that everybody pretty much understands buys into except for those who don't and this was my concern when I read this question is that I felt and I'd love your feedback on this I felt that this person has is has a lot of missing links to the ecosystem of the nonprofit sector and my question are they ready to actually perform in this environment because this is such a basic thing that I gotta believe there are gonna be other wackadoo things that we do in the nonprofit sector that is different from the for-profit sector that will just fritz them out or not allow them to be successful so for me I was just like whoa red flag red flag red flags right you know immediately I thought about what's your why so why did you transition from the for-profit space to the nonprofit space because you know we don't enter the field because we're we're looking to become millionaires and I can remember how I was a volunteer for my alumni association for a good 10 plus years working on the board doing fundraisers with my alumni association for free as a volunteer for many many years before I actually transitioned into a full-time position so much so that my friends and family was like well do you work for them they're like no this is what I love to do you know with my free time and I would constantly say you know if I do things that I enjoy that the financial opportunity perhaps will come later and I've always operated in that space so that I'm happy with the roles that I've accepted and I've accepted them because of my connection to the organization and its mission as opposed to what the compensation might be right well you know it is a it's a it's a profound question and I appreciate that it came in I have fear for this person because I don't know if this is going to pardon me if this is going to work out for them you know I'm I'm not I like to err on the side of optimism but you know if this is something that's causing some challenges on the front end of the employment I'm just afraid like you that perhaps there will be some subsequent challenges along the way adjusting to the nonprofit space because we operate totally different you know with with business the bottom line is the number and and people may not necessarily be as forgiving in the business sector as they are in the nonprofit space yeah I agree and I it's it's fascinating and it'll be interesting to see if they if they respond back to us or come back with with other comments because it's it's pretty intense with that with that's an intense kind of in some ways heartbreaking question okay Matthew from Fort Lauderdale writes in I'm starting to make more donors I'm starting to take excuse me more donors out to lunch and I need a better method for tracking and paying for these lunches I am putting them on my own credit card and then waiting for reimbursement which is costing me money and stress cash flow that's a very great question so apparently they are this individual Matthew I'm so sorry that you've not been given a company card to manage that what I will suggest is having a conversation with I think it's human resources or perhaps procurement office which all kind of falls under that h-line spectrum to discuss you know if the company the organization if that can secure a card that you can use or talk about what is a reasonable time frame for reimbursements because when you're talking about reimbursements on your credit card there are a couple of implications there one depending on what your limit may or may not be it could create some financial hardship for you and your family and your monthly budget depending on the timeline in which the reimbursement happens you may be subject to interest rates yeah and so those interest rates are things that you definitely will incur which is punitive to you when you're acting on behalf of the organization so those are some serious conversations that you need to have with HR and then the other suggestion and it's not the best suggestion okay this is just an a plan C okay plan C plan C is to have a dedicated card that you use specifically for your organization and that way you don't mix up the different accounting issues so that you can you know provide them with the full statement on that particular credit card and that way you know worst case scenario perhaps they will you know pay the credit card company direct if you provide them with that full bill so that way you can have it separate you can maintain great records but I would start with asking them to secure a card if they would not if they're not open to securing a card then let's discuss what the reasonable time frame is for reimbursements and you know in the nonprofit space we talk about best practice when we receive a gift we'd like to get that acknowledgement letter in 72 hours so can I get my reimbursement in 72 hours of submitting my receipt so applying some of the things that we have in place for donors you know bring that to their attention that you know that's a really interesting way to do it but again plan C would be a separate credit card that you keep everything separate from and then you provide them with all the information upfront but do not incur any late fees if you can or the interest on that because that can be very costly to you yeah and it never goes away I mean it just never goes away yeah the rolling credit yeah that that becomes a challenge and today's interest rates are really really high and so you don't want to put your family in a in a financial crunch so have the conversation first and foremost that's important and I would add LaShonda you know you can go to virtually any supermarket and they will have kiosks or you know sections at the end of their aisles what they call the end caps where you can buy pre-loaded visa cards or I'm a hundred percent there you know and and um while it might not have the tracking and everything at least your finance or accounting department can can do that because that's ridiculous I mean it is and it's not you know gosh the very first question we in today's episode was about how you know we are not making a lot of money in this sector so you're already coming to the table with somebody who's probably right fragile economically and you know here's the other part of that whether or not you know the individual is fragile or not I don't think necessarily is the focus the focus is I'm being compensated at this level to do this particular job but I did not sign on for these additional fiscal responsibilities yeah because you know then you then you're infringing on my monthly budget so it's really important but I think your suggestion is spot on you know with those prepaid cards from the different restaurants and or the visa master cards and then you just supply the detailed receipt after it's been used and that helps with the reconciliation process and that is a win-win for everyone right I agree okay well hopefully that's straightened that thing out because that's dreadful that that's just dreadful I think we've been I think we've had that question maybe once before but I think what's happened to LaShonda is you know people are getting out people you know during the pandemic it wasn't that big of a deal because people were just you know trying to get zoom appointments right right maybe having lunch delivered or you know something like that to be a little creative but yeah people were going out okay this is interesting frustrated grant writer from St. Louis Missouri writes in I'm a grant writer and I have a CEO who just told me to apply for as many grants as I can even though the organization not be may not be covering the type of programming called for in the grant application can you help me here I need to explain why this is a mistake and costly at that wow so Julia you have had some very interesting writers this week and do understand frustrated grant writer you are not alone no you know we started off talking about linkage ability interest in doing all of the pre-work and the same thing happens when you're looking for grants you want to make sure that there is an alignment with programs and services that you currently offer because they may ask you questions about you know what have been some of the implications of your work what are the impact what is the impact and if you don't have that content you know you're starting to fill out this application you've gone through all of these processes and then for not and it's it's truly not a good waste a good way to use your resources because not only is it costly from your time it is costly from a financial standpoint and it's also costly from personnel because you can literally be spending time putting together quality proposal for a grant that aligns with your organization so I would say that you would probably need to kind of give an overview to to the individual about grants and how the process works because sometimes you know the the challenge is a lack of knowledge so going through actually one of the applications and kind of talking through the process and how grants work and how we can't just make up a new program today that we don't have people in place to actually facilitate the programming you know if it's an expansion of an existing program I can understand that however to just offspring and say we're going to start this new program just because this particular foundation is offering a grant I don't think would be justice to your organization especially if that particular programming has nothing to do with the current services that you provide if it's it's not an extension or doesn't complement what you're doing then unfortunately it's just not a good fit and so I'd say do your due diligence and provide some background informational grants in the processes right and you know my my my first thought was you know this is more than a number scheme only about 30 percent I mean if you're successful about 30 percent of of all the grant applications you make are going to result in what they call a grant win so you need to understand kind of like what that looks like for the amount of work and the amount of money whether you're paying an outside grant writer or an internal one it still costs money right and so you have to be more strategic it's it's ridiculous to just be like throwing the spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks right or gumbo you're putting everything in the pot like no that's fabulous well hey we don't have much time left and I didn't want to leave this this Good Friday and it hasn't been a Good Friday with you LaShonda we kind of teased this at the beginning but as we speak today there are really less than two dozen tickets left to cultivate it's sold out last year talk to us about what goes on and and what to expect to cultivate so cultivate 2024 is the conference that you don't want to miss we're very excited Julia as she said we've got less than two dozen tickets left we'll talk about ways to cultivate knowledge relationships and impact we have speakers from across the US we're very excited to offer 18 sessions that will be very intense some of them will also include opportunities for real-time action planning we'll have networking opportunities and most importantly we will have the opportunity for everyone who is present to be able to be a part of something unique something different we've lined up our keynote in our plenary speakers and if you want to know who they are you'll have to go to our website because I'm teasing just a little bit more but we have phenomenal folks like when I say phenomenal we're very very excited we just released it on um LinkedIn and on Instagram all the social media earlier this week and we are looking forward to engaging everyone who is present to help them amplify their cause and most importantly provide them with some useful tools that they can use immediately upon the conclusion of the conference you will have information that you can apply in real time this isn't something that you have to think about and ponder over you're going to be ready and equipped to go full throttle the next day all of our topics are encompassing things that are current trends so that you'll be very knowledgeable of things that are currently happening we have some information on AI we have information on metrics because we're always talking about metrics you know you know we mentioned earlier the donor-centric concept so there is a variety for everyone we have something for executive leadership we have some things for those in that middle space and then for those that are newcomers and just in case if you're not sure where you fall in the spectrum or where you want to be you can create your own schedule and be able to kind of sample some of the different things that you feel like you need specifically so that you can grow as a professional so we are looking forward to cultivating relationships impact and knowledge this year for the second year in sunny san diego to a day and a half of very enlightening and amplified ways to increase your fundraising abilities i love it now let me ask you one quick question before we go do you have to be a professional fundraiser or could you be a CEO or cfo or even you can be a CEO a cfo there is something for everyone when we pull together the the schedule we wanted to make sure that we could address everyone so for the novice or for someone who may even be interested in transitioning into the fundraising space so we have something on every level whether you're the expert or whether you're the novice and you're just kind of muddling your way through we wanted we were intentional with making sure that we had something for everyone and i think that's why we're less than two dozen tickets away i'm just like stunned well we will be there the nonprofit show will be broadcasting there um from live from uh from san diego um on that friday so come by where you'll see a setup and introduce yourself and who knows maybe we'll even get you on the show um well shonda thanks we i gotta believe that this is going to be sold out by mid yes and i'm thinking i'm thinking over the weekend julia everyone that's listening right now is going to the website and once they see our um our keynote and our plenary that is going to completely seal the deal we have a dynamic lineup of speakers again from across the country whose areas of expertise um are wide range um in fundraising something definitely for everyone i love it well la shonda williams mpa cf re one of the great trainers and i always say one of the great minds from fundraising academy you're always a joy to be with check out the work that fundraising academy at national university does at fundraising academy dot org the majority the majority of their site has free content and it is astonishing what you can learn for yourself independently for your team and for your organization um i can't recommend them enough it's just an amazing amazing place of knowledge and again another amazing part of what we get to see each and every day here at the non-profit show is the support of our sponsors they are truly remarkable and they include bloomerang american non-profit academy non-profit thought leader staffing boutique your part-time controller 180 management group fundraising academy at national university jmt consulting non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk hey my friend have a wonderful safe and blessed holiday weekend thank you and you too and i'm looking forward to seeing i know it'll be a lot of fun everybody as we end each episode of the non-profit show we like to leave with this message and it goes like this to stay well so you can do well we'll see you back here next week thank you everyone thank you leshawnda