 Thank you so much for joining us. If you've been with us all week, we've done something really innovative called non-profit power week, which we've sort of hashtagged it. With the amazing Fundraising Academy, just to give you some background, we had this idea almost a year ago and Fundraising Academy was like, yeah, let's do it. And the concept being, we get drilled down on a week with one topic moving through every single day and it's really, really been great. And we've really drawn upon the leadership and the brain trust of Fundraising Academy and we have been so amazed by the things that we've learned this week. So really an exciting time for us. But you know, Friday is always asked and answered and we didn't wanna deviate from that. So we brought back Tony Bell to talk to us and answer all those questions that you all have. Again, we wanna thank all of our sponsors without you, we would not be here having these amazing programs that we do every day. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Non-Profit Academy and today in the hot seat with me is Tony Bell, Senior Director Office of Programming Administration of National University. And he heads up this amazing, amazing program called Fundraising Academy as well as some other groups I might add but we've got them for Fundraising Academy. So Tony, thank you. Of course, thank you. I'm always so honored to represent the Fundraising Academy and curriculum from the Academy. You know, I make sure folks understand I am not the architect or author of, you know, of these strategies. We worked with Dr. Lill, who's an expert in sales to create this incredible textbook and found cause selling. So I'm just really honored to be the messenger and kind of help share with the sector the benefits of leaning into these kind of strategies. Well, you know what? This is where I look at it. Is it anyone can have a good idea? And this is just my opinion but it takes a good messenger to take those ideas and move them forward. And that's what I think has been really interesting with the people that we've been able to work with with Fundraising Academy and correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like your talent team they've been on the front lines. So they're not just academicians they've actually had to do the work. Yeah, I mean, we're not hiring spokespersons. You don't know what I mean for the curriculum. The curriculum is just words on paper without individuals that have the experience to bring it to life and to talk about how it impacts, you know your work on a daily basis. So, yeah, we don't bring in like I said, you know script for the audience but it's real important that, yeah that folks have that boots on the ground experience. Thanks for recognizing that. Well, no, it's important. Okay, so I say let's get at it. Now I'm gonna give everyone that's watching us today a little bit of a fair warning. Sometimes as these things happen we get like a little bit of a lag or a freeze. So don't give up on this it's just a very like a minor little thing and this is just life in the digital age. Okay, let's hit it my friend. Jennifer from New Orleans asks my CEO wants me to bring a board member along to a final ask. I've been following the cost selling cycle and I'm a bit concerned about having someone who does not know the process come along. Any suggestions? We've had this question similar to this before. It's really, it's a big question. What do you think? Yeah, well, again, yeah. Jennifer, great question. New Orleans, one of my favorite places as a foodie. I love New Orleans. So again, one love that you're following the cost selling cycle. I really hope it's beneficial for you. There were a couple of different ways that I looked at this particular question. My first response was no way that I would not bring the board member to the final ask. Unless, remember already has a relationship with the potential donor. So for example, if the board member referred the potential donor and you've been stewarding the relationship and now you're at the point where they ask, bring in the board member if they already have a relationship with the potential donor. Otherwise, absolutely not. Okay, I'm just, I have to say, I didn't think that that's what you would say, but I get it. It's relationships. Why are you now going to introduce a stranger to the relationship at the most critical part of the cycle? Wow, so what I hear you saying then is that use the board talent, but bring them in earlier. Yeah, I would bring them in earlier, maybe around the needs discovery. Bring them in around the needs discovery. So they're part of the kind of Q and A with the potential donor. So the board members getting to know the potential donor or investor through the needs discovery process. So again, you don't want to invite a stranger to the most important part. Well, it's so important, but you're about to have gifts. So I would not bring a board member that doesn't have already some relationship with the potential donor. Okay, I love the way you answered this because I've got to say it's that's not what I would have thought. But I totally see what you're saying. So Jennifer, I would love to know what happens because I think a lot of times too when the CEO asks you to do something, then you're kind of like hesitant to maybe push back a little. And I have so much respect for board members, right? They are volunteers with the highest level of accountability to an organization. So I really respect the role that they play and how they serve organizations, but not everyone comes to that role with an altruistic approach. And so if the board member doesn't, I would be concerned that the board member wants to go to this meeting because there's a B2B opportunity, right, a business to business opportunity. Okay. So again, you don't want, again, a stranger getting in there and kind of derailing intentionally or not the conversation for any other agenda that might exist. Okay, you know, I'm like now on your team because I see what you're saying. And I think it's very strategic, I really do. And plus Jennifer, you've done a lot of work and as Tony said, you don't wanna derail it. Okay, let's go to Charles in Denver, Colorado. Our development team was thinking about asking our CEO to allow us a cause selling mission moment at some point in our weekly staffs and stand-ups. We think it would be helpful for our other team members to learn this stuff. So Charles, thank you. And I appreciate that you find the curriculum that valuable and that you know what we say, we all sell in some way, shape or form, regardless of our role in an organization or in life, we're all selling it at some point. We just may not use that terminology. So I totally support this. I always support a mission moment at the beginning of board meetings, at the beginning of staff meetings, just to remind us of why we're here and to remind us of the great work that we're doing. So I love mission moments. I think that they were really important part of a meeting agenda when you have the time to include them. So yes, please do. And there were all kinds of little nuggets that you can pull out of the cause selling curriculum that could be really meaningful in 90 seconds or less. Okay, so to drill down on that, you're thinking that like literally that minute and a half you feel like you could get something communicated to the staff. And I'm thinking this is everything from programs to maybe facilities management, the receptionists, clerical, everything, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there were little nuggets around embracing objections, right? Everyone has to deal with that regardless of your roles. So little nuggets around helping folks change their mindset around objection, curriculum around social styles. So you understand how folks can start to recognize and learn how to respond to the social styles of the other team members across your organization. So yeah, I really like it. We're developing what we're calling donor quick connect questions. So depending on where you are in the cycle, there are specific questions that you might wanna ask a donor open-ended question. So yeah, there's all kind of a great little nuggets be valuable for that type of mission moment. And I think Charles, it's important. I like what you said, Tony, at the very beginning and that is that everyone is selling. Selling is not a dirty word. It is a great, great concept that the minute somebody walks onto a campus or into an office or into a program, even in a virtual program, there's a way to connect and tell the story. It might not end up resulting in a donation, but you could create a new champion or cheerleader that goes back into the community. And we all need that. And I know I've said this many times, especially in the nonprofit space, when we use the term selling, you're selling a concept, a solution to a community need. And so what else could you possibly wanna sell that could be more important than a solution to a community need? Thank you. That is it. I love that. And you have said that, but I needed to be reminded of that. That's the golden nugget. And Charles, maybe that should be your first cause selling mission moment to communicate to your team. So they don't just turn off, oh, this is about selling or development. That's not me. But to say, look, we're here to solve a community issue and it's all of us. And everyone, we say this too all the time, that fundraising is a team sport. And so in today's environment, a little less so than in other, use our cell phone a lot now. So a potential investor donor probably has your cell phone. But if not, when they're calling into an office, you have that director of first impressions, your receptionist answering the phone, you know, dead and, you know, on some of these concepts, because that moment of truth, that interaction. Yeah, I love that. I think that's super cool. Okay, well, thank you. I think we need to really be thinking about this. And even I'm kind of thinking about my own team. Yeah, this is a healthy thing. It really, really is. Doesn't need to take a lot of time, but it just helps you focus and helps the whole team understand to your point, Tony, why they're there. Okay, let's get to Kenneth from Orange County, California. Given COVID and the pandemic, do you think that, oh, this is interesting, that all phases of the cause selling cycle are still working? Are there things that we should modify? Yeah, so we know, yeah, no, great question, but we know from feedback from our learners that participate in our cause selling cohort, because we do a selling cohort, it's a certificate program where you can earn a certificate in cause selling. So those, we've heard from individuals that have gone through the live online training during this moment and time during COVID, activated the cause selling cycle completely virtual like this and have secured transformational gifts for their organization. So we had two folks in particular, one who was so excited, they got their first major gift, which was $50,000. A small grassroots organization doing great work, that was transformational for them. Another one got a $500,000 gift, if I'm not mistaken. Again, this process completely, the interaction was all digital through Zoom or whatever platform. So the cycle still works, we just need to tweak it a little bit. Just so when we talk about face-to-face, well, it's still face-to-face, but this is the face-to-face. Some other things that needed to be tweaked a little bit during COVID is kind of some of the prospect strategies. What else, we haven't over the last year and a half really been able to go to chamber events or some of the places where you might meet people and start building your pipeline of prospects. So some of those resources have been minimized pandemic, but the cycle is still strong because it's about relationships, it's about the face-to-face interaction, whether that's happening in person at a coffee shop or in an office or live online similar to us today. Tony, it makes me think back to our conversation yesterday about really mining your internal databases. And probably a lot of us were just like, oh yeah, that's a pain, but now with this last year and a half, that those that had the well-managed database were sitting a lot better than those that didn't. Very true. I never thought of it in that relationship in this way. It's really important. Yeah, but it's an excellent question. I really appreciate Kenneth bringing that up because the relationship one-on-one and the way in which we do that has changed a little bit, but the value of that certainly has not. Awesome, awesome. All right, Kenneth, thank you. I think Kenneth has been paying attention because that's a pretty high level question. So yay to you. Yes, exactly. Okay, let's go on to our next question from Linda San Antonio. This was really interesting. I could kind of understand this. Linda writes, I had a donor comment that it was obvious I had gone through some sales training. He said it like it was something bad. I'm kicking myself that I did not have a good response. What should I have said? So I would say that every person, let me rephrase that. I would have said to the donor that yes, you're absolutely correct. My organization commits to professional development so that we can be the best that we can possibly be, not only for our organization, but for the communities that we serve. So yes, I'm proud to say that I have gone through some training because I work for an organization that supports this level of professional development. And I'm thrilled that you've recognized that I've been through this training because I really had hoped that it would build my skills. Oh my gosh. I'm sure Linda is like, dang it. Why didn't I think of that? I love that you said that. I love that you said that and yes. And oftentimes, depending on the donor, so kind of put the mirror in front of the donor and say, I'm sure in your industry or the organization or the company that you work for that professional development is important. So that you can be the best that you can be for the company that you serve or are leading and the best that you can be in terms of how you represent whatever product or service that your company is offering. So make that activity, it's a great opportunity to make that connectivity to help your donor realize the true alignment for profit and nonprofit when it comes to how we run our business. You know, I think that's really, to me, Tony, that's kind of almost like a groundbreaking mindset because this is one of the things, we're talking about the great resignation, we're talking about compassion fatigue, we're talking about all of these amazing people that are leaving our sector for a lot of different reasons. And I think one of them is professional development. I think if we were investing in our people and it doesn't take a lot, and sometimes it's just the idea that our organization wants us to be better and are willing to make that investment. And there are so many, aside from the Fundraising Academy, and we have a lot of curriculum on our website, a lot of great content that is free. And other organizations do as well. So you can lean into our prerecorded webinars with your whole team, watch them, and then have a group discussion about what you watched and what you learned. But looking at Linda's question, just one more thing about Linda's question. He said it like it was something bad. So the donor might, the part that might have sounded bad was, again, the word sales. So that's where Linda could use the terminology that I'm always saying and that is, yes, but I'm selling a community, I'm selling a solution to a community need. So. I love it. Wow, this is cool. That's a really interesting question. And I bet Linda is one of many, many people that have had this happen, but I appreciate Linda that you stopped and you re-framed it and reached out to us. I think that's super cool. I just, I love it. Okay, let's go to Donna from Detroit. Thank you for teaching me about cause selling. It makes sense and I'm empowered by it. My question is this, how long will it take me to be proficient and confident in the process? So Donna, that's a great question. And I wish I had just this awesome answer for you. I think we've talked about this a little bit before, right? Is it gonna take me three months or six months or a year and a half? So I'm gonna lean into part of what we talked about yesterday and say to you, Donna, celebrate the small successes along the way in the cause selling cycle. So when you are at your pre-approach and you have secured that meeting with the donor, Papacork, celebrate that. I love that. I think you're right. Because she uses the words proficient and confident and those are two different things. Those are two different things. It really, really is a hard ask to know where you are and where you're gonna go. And so cool. That's a great way to look at it. And I also think, Tony, again, to piggyback on what you said yesterday, to me, this kind of fits into that mindset because it's not all rainbows and unicorns. They're gonna be tough days. And so to be able to empower yourself with that positivity, to recognize, yeah, we're doing great things. We've had some successes. It's not just the final check that comes in. Right. So the proficiency comes through just doing it and then the confidence comes through the wins. And again, it doesn't mean the big win. Build your confidence with the little wins as well. Right. I'm wondering along these lines, it might be, and maybe I'm just speaking for myself by the way I live and learn, but it might be a good idea to take that cause selling cycle graphic and laminate it or put it in your bulletin board or have it out there so or in your notebook or whatever you do so that you are constantly reminded of the trajectory and the phases, the process and then those individual steps because I would imagine in the beginning you could get really hooked up on, oh my gosh, am I on step three or am I ready to go to step four? I mean, it may be a little too rigid and not as much of a flow. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And I love that idea of actually printing out the cause selling cycle and take it a step further and every time you move forward or put it next to that part of the cycle, right? So you're starting to build stars on how you are being successful through the different steps of the cycle. Again, how do we add fun and fundraising and little things like that? Your little smiley faces just elicits some joy and increase your feeling of accomplishment. I love it. And I think if you're part of a team, another strategy would be to celebrate your team member successes. I love the gold star concept. Okay, Betty Liu, you've moved on to here. You've got four stars on step seven. I mean, there's just a lot of ways to keep reinforcing that this is fun and positive and a really good thing. Absolutely. Well, it's really hard to believe two things today, Tony. One, that it's Friday. We've got a full week of nonprofit power week with Fundraising Academy. And then our time with you is up. It always goes by too fast. These were eight questions. And I, you know, again, just thrilled and really quite frankly, humbled at how so many folks are leaning in to cause selling and how so many of these questions were really very cost selling centric, right? Yeah. So I love that. I love it, love it, love it. You know, I think it's one of those things, Tony, and you know this being in this sector, especially when you're doing training. It's really one of those things where you go in, you're in a room, you're in a conference, you get all amped up, you get all fired up, and then you go home to your community and then you're kind of isolated and no one's there to share that, you know, raw, raw. And then you get fearful about like, well, wait a minute, was this artificial? You know, can I really make this work? Can I really do this? And so I think this partnership and having your team continuously help us with these strategies has been great because this is not a one and done thing. I think that's one of my big lessons I've learned. Yeah, no, I love that you said that. You're right. This is meant to build a relationship with a donor for long-term success. Yeah, yeah, really amazing. Hey everybody, check out fundraisingacademy.org. They have a lot of really interesting pieces on it. They've been great about posting these recordings on their site. So that in addition to going to thenonprofitshow.com, you can find all of these different classes, but these episodes that we have collaborated on because it's really an amazing trajectory that the cause selling education takes you through. Again, you can reach all of the cause selling, learning episodes that we've done on the non-profit show back onto our site and we have gone through every single one of these steps with Tony. And it was quite an endeavor. And I think every time Tony and we did this, Jared and I were like, ah, why didn't we know this? So it's been a really an amazing thing to see that journey. And so for those of you just getting into fundraising, for those of you that need to support fundraising within your organizations and for those of you who think that this might be a great career or trajectory within in your organization, I really encourage you to check these out because it makes a lot more sense and we need those fundraisers, professional fundraisers in our sector. That's my pitch for the profession. Hey, we also want to make sure that if you missed any of the episodes this week for our inaugural power, non-profit power week, we started off with determining capacity. We talked about prospects and really how we can rank and rate and figure out where our prospects are. Love the episode we did, which I don't think we've ever talked about before in such a direct way about gatekeepers, who they are, what they want, how to navigate them, fascinating. And then overcoming objections. This was really for so many of us that mindset question and so check out these episodes because they're just amazing. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors for being with us on this journey, day in and day out. Next week, we are into our 360 plus episodes. And so really these folks have stepped up. Wow, Tony, this has been amazing. It has been a great privilege tag non-profit power week. Really, really excited for this idea came to life and of course we're honored to partner with you to bring just these incredible opportunities to the second part of the conversation. So thank you. It's amazing. Your team, I've got to witness are fabulous to work with. They are all over the United States really working on the ground to help our nonprofit sector. And it's really been an amazing thing to see. And so I can't say enough about this type of training because it's really agnostic in that you're teaching a path and a way to do things. And oh, by the way, you can buy more hours with me or consulting or services. It's not that at all. It is actually an educational logical method that anybody can do, anybody can do. And so I think that's why Jarrett and I are so super excited about this. Hey, as we end this amazing week, it's not been an easy week across our country. And we have some tough times ahead of us more than ever we want to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here on Monday. Tony, you rest up my friend. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much.