 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad that you're here. We've just been chatting together, James and myself. Thrilled to have you with us, James Golder. He is Partnerships Manager at Bloomerang, and he is bringing to the conversation today what I find very interesting, and I cannot wait, of course, to guess what, nerd out with you over this topic. So you're here to talk to us about the $25 donor experience experiment. And if that's not, you know, a mouthful, I don't know what is, but before we jump into this experience experiment, I want to say thank you to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. So nerdy, I tried to put an N in James's last name, trying to spell nerd this morning, but thrilled to have this conversation and honestly to serve day in and day out alongside our presenting sponsors, which also include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. If this is your first time joining us for this episode, so glad that you're here. For those of you that are loyal listeners and viewers, you've heard me say this before, but we are coming up on 900 episodes, and that is such a huge milestone and literally so much gratitude goes out to these partners. So thank you to each and every one of you, allowing us to have the magnitude of these conversations. It's really just been so much joy to my life and hopefully many of yours. Hey, if you want to go back and listen to our recordings for the last three plus years, you can do that because we have them accessible to you on broadcast and podcast platform as well as an app. So in just a few hours after our live conversation with James, this conversation will be uploaded and you will receive a notification that it's ready for you to listen to again or share it with your friends and colleagues because I guarantee you James is bringing tons of nuggets of wisdom and information. So again, I want to officially welcome you, James Golder, Partnerships Manager at Bloomerang. Welcome back. Oh, thanks so much for having me. This is so much fun. I'm looking forward to our conversation today. Oh, me too. You know, going through the key talking points for today, I'm always amazed because we're talking about $25 donor experience experiment. So let's get started with this. Why was this research even conducted? I mean, I would really like to know who was the person that said we should do this. But regardless, what really was, you know, the catalyst to perform this research? Sure. So in my position at Bloomerang as a Partnerships Manager, I work with our national accounts and you can see two of them up there right now, Feeding America, Humane Society, Think Boys and Girls Club, Habitats and so on. And you asked who came up with this idea. It was actually our good friend, Steven Shaddick. Several years ago, yes, please applaud him. Don't tell him I said this, but he's a wonderful person. And Steven used to give $25 to, usually he kind of picked a city and he would do 50 organizations in Chicago, let's say, or something like that and then track the responses and all of that. And I thought, given my current position, why don't I do that but do it for these, what we call national accounts? So we've done it with six so far. So Feeding America, I'm gonna try to remember them all, Humane Societies, Habitats, Boys and Girls Club, Free Clinics and Meals on Wheels. And thank you, thank you. And so I donated $25 to 50 of each of those organizations, one in each state. And then we looked at what happened. So what happened before the donation is made, what did the online donation forms look like and all of that? And then what did the thank you process look like afterwards? Yeah. Were you surprised? Like were they night and day, completely opposite spectrums? They were all over the place. So looking at what we would call the donor experience, right? You visit a website and you say, okay, I'm gonna donate to this free clinic, this Meals on Wheels, whatever it was. Some of them provided an amazing donor experience where it was streamlined and incredibly easy and it didn't take me a ton of time. And then others, I hate to say it, Jared, but others I would click on the little donate button in the upper right-hand corner, nothing happened. Oh really? Like the link was broken or what? Exactly. The link was broken or sometimes it would take me to a page that said, the dreaded 404 error or whatever it said, that sort of thing, which is heartbreaking. I would have to go and find someone else to choose from at that point. So that would be one of the biggest takeaways that I would throw out there for your listeners is please go give yourself an online donation, please. Go visit your website, try to look at it from the eyes of someone who has never been on your website before. Is it easy to find the donate button? Does the donate button work? Am I having to navigate through a whole bunch of pages and I don't know what's going on with all of that? Or is it really easy to give that donation? Just see what you think and see what happens after that and see if that reflects well for a brand new donor or maybe there's some opportunities to improve some things there. You know, I really appreciate that, I'm gonna say invitation for our viewers and listeners. I think that's always a great opportunity. I coach similarly with my clients, James, and we'll say, you know, even if it's an event you're having, register for someone else's event, go to their event, but follow the communications and what's being shared and how they talk to you, that tone of voice, you know, all of it. So I think there's so many ways which we can employ, you know, this experiment. Talk to us about collecting the data because as I hear you talk about, sometimes you got that dreaded 504, or 404, but I'm thinking as well, the process of the data collection, you know, if you donated $25 to 50 organizations, they're coming into your inbox, like how are you capturing this data and what is the process of that? Spreadsheets, lots and lots of spreadsheets. So yeah, I would create a spreadsheet for each of the organizations, so Feeding America, Boys and Girls Club and so on, and then track who I gave to, the date of the gift and then all kinds of other. I've got one of them open on my other screen right here and there's probably 60 or 70 columns worth of data there. So a lot of things that we looked at, that I looked at, was are there multiple methods of payment available, or is it just credit card? That's it. Am I allowed to give a gift in honor or in memory of someone? Am I allowed to designate the fund? Is the landing page after the gift is made, is that on the organization's website or is that on a third party website where I have to somehow figure out how to navigate back if I wanted some more information about something? And then was an email receipt sent to me? Was it personalized and customized or was it just a straight up receipt like PayPal or something like that? And then do I get thrown on an email newsletter list? And was I given an invitation for an event or an invitation to go volunteer or take a tour or something like that? So what did that ongoing engagement look like? I compiled all of that information on spreadsheets and then people who are way smarter than me looked at all of that and created those donor experience reports that you showed a shot of a second ago, put them up on our website and people can access those. And thank you for that. A little while later, for those of you watching and listening, we will tell you exactly where you can access this report, but let's talk about, through that data collection, James, what did it reveal? What were some of these key pieces? You mentioned the variety, were there patterns? Was there really things that stood out to you? What did it reveal to you? So I think there were a couple of things. So I'll start with a sort of global view of the donor experience and then get into a specific example or two. I think what we're seeing is a shift in how organizations are accepting online donations. Thankfully, we're seeing more and more, sort of modernize a little bit, where their forms are getting away from what you picture in your mind as say 2008, 2009, 2010 and more modern, a little more streamlined, sleek. So we're moving in that direction, but there were still quite a few that kind of reminded me of 2008, 2009 time period. So a lot of room for a little bit of improvement there. And James, remind me again, these were national accounts, right? So they're not, I'm assuming, they're not a startup organization, they're not under three years, but maybe a national account still is. I mean, these are really mature organizations. Am I correct in that assumption? So ideally, yes, they should be mature and not only that, they should be getting, hopefully, some guidance from the national organization to kind of say, hey, here's a good thank you cadence, here's some good online donation forms, that sort of thing. And I don't know how that guidance looks or what that is or anything like that, but ideally that should be happening. And I think what I saw is that there's still a fair number of these organizations that if they are getting that guidance have kind of slipped through the cracks a little bit. And honestly, could be providing a better experience for their donors, which would hopefully then lead to those donors coming back year after year and keep donating. Yeah, thank you for that. I'm curious what you saw by way of the payment options, right? Like I know particularly Bloomerang has its own merchant key or account, I don't necessarily speak that lingo. Were there options where, I don't know, like Apple Pay is an option now in some places. PayPal is still an option. There's so many different options. What did that reveal? Yeah, it's such a great question. Thank you for that. So, and humor me, I'm gonna tell a story here and it'll come back, I promise. The data is that about 10% are offering something other than just credit cards. So I did count ACH, bank draft, however you wanna call that, but then also like you said, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Venmo and only 10% are offering anything other than just a credit card. And this really hits home for me because about a year ago or so, our middle daughter called me. She goes to UVA, which is over that way. And she said, hey dad, I've been volunteering with this organization off campus and I'd really like to donate to them but I don't think I can. And I said, oh, why is that, honey? And she said, well, they only take credit cards and I don't have a credit card. I have a debit card, but it's not a credit card so I can't use that and I don't see Venmo or anything like that. So I guess I'm just gonna have to find another organization to give to. And I giggled a little bit because of course you can use your debit card there but the point is that she's a 22 year old and she didn't know that. And so if you're restricting your donation pages to only include Visa Mastercard American Express Discover, there's a chance, probably a decent chance that some Gen Zers have visited and kind of said, oh, well, I guess they don't accept the only method of payment that I have. So I need to go find someone who does. So consider talking to your online donation provider, finding out if that's a possibility to add at some point because you're gonna make it a lot more accessible for any and all donors who want to impact their community through your work. Yeah, I don't mean to put you on the spot but I'm curious of two payment options. Stock and crypto, did those show up on the donation page for you? Very, very infrequently, the statistics, oh no, I do have those. So less than 5% had those options there. Yeah. That is so fascinating. Something that I think could really be worked in pretty easily, I would imagine for a lot. Yeah, okay, fascinating. I know I said that word just literally seconds ago. Talk to us now about like, once you got that receipt and it took you to an acknowledgement page, if you have the statistics next to you, what was that percent that took you to a third party page because I can only imagine, James, if we're losing our donors, especially a first time donor after their first gift because we've been sent to another page and not redirected to that organization, shed some light on that and what you saw. You're exactly right. So 42% of these 600 donations kept me on the organization's website. So I hate math, but 58% sent me somewhere else and I just went somewhere else after that. Like you said, if you're a brand new donor and you've just donated, you're really excited, you feel engaged, you feel moved, you say, yeah, I have an emotional connection with this organization. I wanna support their work. Let me go and do that. And now I'm somewhere else. I don't know where I am. I have no links to get back. I have no way to get more information. Maybe I wanted to look at volunteering or maybe I would have looked at an upcoming event page or any of a number of other things, but instead I have to purposefully navigate back. We all get distracted by a million things. You gotta keep people's attention focused on you while you have them. So yeah, if you're able to talk to your provider and get them somehow to let you stay on your website with these forms, that is such a preferable way to do things because who knows? Look, there are gonna be a lot of donors who say, okay, I donated, I'm done, I gotta go. I got other things I have to do. That's cool, totally get that. But you'll probably have more than a couple that want to volunteer or attend an event or whatever and you wanna make it as easy as possible for them to get that information or to spark their curiosity while they're donating because they're already feeling good about you. They're supporting you. So give them the ability to keep getting that information. So let's go down the volunteer as well as the event pass. I'm kind of bifurcating in this question. How many of them got back to you about volunteer opportunities or an invitation to an event? Could be an invitation to volunteer or that event? I hate to depress you, but I had less than 1% for either of those. And that would be through either an email or a phone call. I took either. The number of thank you phone calls, you and I have talked before with Julia about how powerful thank you phone calls are. They're just thank you phone calls. I was less than 5%. So those are the big areas of growth, I think, is realizing that, yeah, you can pick up the phone. You should pick up the phone. Call people to thank them and while you're at it, invite them to come in and volunteer or take a tour or attend an event or whatever options you have. But you and I both know, Jared, the more that these organizations can get their donors in front of the work that they're doing, get them on site so that they can see that impact with their eyes instead of just reading about it or attending an event or whatever, the better off, the more connected, the more engaged they're going to be. So pick up the phone, call them, at the very least pop them on an email list or something and send them something. And I was disappointed as well that I think I only got put on about 11% of email newsletter lists. So that's a lot of organizations that could have followed up with me to let me know a lot of stuff, what impact my gift is having, upcoming events, all kinds of stuff that I could have been informed about that I wasn't. I think there's some real opportunities there. You know, one of the things I think about before we move, pardon me, to the next talking point, I'm curious if oftentimes we, and I'm putting myself in the development space, see an address and we think that's not a local address, but your experiment was for national accounts. So that to me, I look like, okay, if someone lives in Chicago, but I'm in Arizona, do we still ask them to volunteer? Do we still ask them to come to an event? I'm curious from what the data really did reveal, what are these major lessons then that you saw and learned through this? And if we could say, okay, friends, all of our nonprofits, here's your blueprint, right? Like here's exactly how you could rock the charts and be well above that median line. What were these major lessons? So I think what it shows me is that there are a lot of organizations that don't have any sort of cadence when it comes to thank yous. I hate to say it's an afterthought, but it felt a little bit like an afterthought to me for a lot of groups, where less than 20% sent me a thank you letter, hard copy. Again, I wasn't added to newsletters very often. I didn't get very many phone calls, I didn't get very many personalized emails. And these are things that should in 2023 not require a huge heavy lift when it comes to staff time and all kinds of preparation and all of that. I mean, hopefully to add someone to a newsletter list is an import, export, maybe have an integration. I mean, that should not be terribly difficult. You should be able to copy and paste, for instance, a personalized email from a board member, from the executive director, from someone that just says, we saw your first gift came through. Thank you so much. What prompted you to give? That's it. That's all it has to be. It doesn't have to be a book and doesn't have to be completely individualized for every single donor. Just hammer out something real quick and easy and copy and paste it. But it still means a lot to that donor when you do it. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that, like I said, there doesn't appear to be a cadence designed. It's more, oh yeah, we should probably send a thank you letter, maybe do an email. And instead, what I would so strongly urge everyone to do is sit down as a team, go give a couple of donations to some organizations in your area. See what their thank you cadence looks like and steal some ideas from them for goodness sake. If they're doing something that makes you feel really good, do it. But get some ideas and think through purposefully. All right, how do we wanna mix up the communications? We don't wanna rely only on email. So how do we wanna mix up things and keep it fresh? How often do we wanna reach out to people? How often do we wanna ask people for their next donation or for their recurring gift or whatever? How do we wanna weave in onsite visits? So think through very carefully and purposefully. How do you wanna create this cadence? And you'll start to find that it almost plans itself for you. I've done this a couple of times with organizations. And once you start thinking through these things, you'll find, well, yeah, but we don't wanna put this here because that's gonna interfere with this. And it almost writes itself for you once you start thinking through how you wanna do this. So I would strongly urge people to sit down and think through that. Do you strongly urge us to do this annually every three years? What would you recommend by way of looking into this? Because when we think of technology and the integrations and all the ways, there's so many technology advancements happening. And so how often should we maybe conduct our own research for this? I think anytime that you're bringing something new to the table from a technology standpoint for the development team specifically, it's a good idea to look at the impact that that's gonna have on all of these processes and to say, okay, we're getting a new database or we're getting a new online donation tool or whatever it is that you're getting. And how is that gonna impact what we're doing now and what we want to do? So certainly anytime that you're getting a new tool, that's a good time to go ahead and reevaluate all of this and think through, is this still gonna work? Is there something I can add to it? Think through how automation might impact, maybe not, but how it might impact things. And then also if you're not, so if you're not bringing in new tools, then I think your idea, Jared, every year or so, I think is perfectly appropriate. Sit down and look at it and send a survey out to your donors and just say, hey, how have we been doing? What can we do better? Do you wanna hear more from us? Do you wanna hear less from us? Ask them and see what they have to say. And then take that, definitely take that feedback into account when you're filling out that new plan. Sounds like there was a lot of major lessons learned. And so I cannot wait to get my hands on this report. We promised you earlier in the conversation, we would tell you where you can find it. James, talk to us a little bit if you would. How do we navigate this report? Is it a PDF? Just kind of talk to us about the report itself if you would. Sure, yeah, it's on our website. And if you Google Bloomerang Feeding America Donor Experience, something like that, it'll pop right up. And you, as you said, Jared, it's a PDF, so you can access it, download it and then take a look at it, send it out to others in your network if you'd like to, anything like that is fine. So our shout out to our amazing marketing team who does brilliant work pulling all of these dry spreadsheets with a lot of data and making it really nice and easy to digest and highlighting certain parts and all of that. They did a fantastic job with these and the end result is just fantastic. Yeah, they look, I will say, I'm judging the book by the cover, but the cover looks amazing. So I'm sure based off of all of the findings that you've shared with me today, our viewers and listeners, again, match my eagerness, so let's take a look at this. But I want to take you up on that challenge and really do a bit of my own research to see, what is happening? I've been in the consulting world for so long now, James, but really seeing like, what are the new things that are coming out? What are the shiny objects that really are exciting and how might that resonate for a variety of organizations? I think there's a lot to learn there and I really appreciate you bringing this to the conversation. James, it's always wonderful to talk to you. Every time I hear that you're going to be our guest from Blumerang, I'm always thrilled because it's a very natural conversation to have with you, but James Golder has joined us today as he's joined us previously here for the nonprofit show. He works at Blumerang and serves as the partnerships manager there at Blumerang. So check out Blumerang.com. I'm a big fan, not just because you guys are partners here at the show, but my hands are in the database for a lot of my clients and I really do enjoy data, being in databases, crunching the numbers. I don't do math either. Blumerang makes it easy and so I also really appreciate the customer service that's provided there. So thank you from one nerd to another. We can push up our glasses now. Right, so thank you, James, it's really great. Thanks for having me, Jared. This was fantastic today. Yeah, well, Julie and I both hope to get you back on again. Every month we are lucky to have a representative from each of these companies join us. So thank you, James, for joining us from Blumerang. Also want to say thank you to the American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University. Also thank you to Staffing Boutique, nonprofit nerd as well as nonprofit tech talk. All of these companies truly are our partners. They allow us these conversations. They allow us access to these experiments and oftentimes breaking news and reports that are being shared here. So please do check them out. They are here, I like to say, to elevate you and your mission. So they're on your team. They might not be on your payroll, but they're on your team, certainly. Well, James, you've heard it before, but as we end every single episode we have, since we began the nonprofit show, we invite all of you, and every day it does sound a little different, but we invite you to stay well so you continue to do well. Thanks for joining me, James. I appreciate it.