 it's remarkable. Well, hey, if you've joined us, anybody, this is like the power hour, we're witnessing with our great friend Jack Alotto from Fundraising Academy, and we are talking about the backbone of our country in our Green Room chatter and how it has really been influenced by faith-based organizations, sometimes that we don't know because it gets spun off or whatever. And so, yeah, I mean, this is one of those things about our nation. For all the things, the foibles that we have and the issues that we have, you know, you cannot beat us on philanthropy. As I get older and I look around the world and I talk with different social sector leaders around the globe and just people in our sector, we really, it is something that is truly remarkable. And so, but we have a long way to go. We have a lot of things to do. And Friday, hopefully, we help you with that because this is, I think, my favorite day. It's our Ask and Answer episode. And it's really a lot of fun. If we haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And today in the hot seat is Jack Alotto, our friend from Fundraising Academy, who we always love his energy and the things that he has to say. He's the man that knows all about CFRE as well. And so, we are thrilled, Jack, to have you back. Great. I'm happy to be back. Happy Friday to everyone. Hard to believe. Well, before we get going, I certainly want to make sure that we thank all of our presenting sponsors who are in with us day in and day out so that we can deliver this content. Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy. Thank you, Jack. Nonprofit Nerd, your part-time controller and staffing boutique. Thank you to all of our partners that help us. Okay, you ready, my friend, to get going? Yes. Yes, let's do it. We got a big question. This comes to us from Rachel from Portland, Oregon. I've heard a few of your guests mention hiring freelance or external labor for graphics. Specifically, I recall your guest, Anthony Wilson, speak of contracting low-cost podcast editors. Can you tell me the name of this company or site? So, Jack, I had to go back and I had to watch that episode. And he specifically mentioned the company Fiverr. It's F-I-V-V-I-E-R, I believe. Yeah, it is. I've heard of them. And here's another one, TechSoup. Yes. TechSoup is awesome. Our friend's at TechSoup, which is actually located in San Francisco. I've seen their building many times. But you know, for me, Julia, the thing about this is that what she or he is talking about is a consultant relationship. And I think for me, and I've hired many consultants, I've been a consultant. And as have you guys as well, there are three important things about hiring or even pro bono consulting. And the first thing is to have a really clear understanding of your organization's needs, timeline, budget, who's going to oversee this consultant, whether it's pro bono or paid, and then you need an agreement. The second thing is you have to find the right partner. Now, in this, they're looking for a graphics, some graphics help. So you're not going to want somebody like me who's going to help you with maybe a capital campaign. You want somebody who has that specific skill. And one of the things that you might do with either of those organizations is to develop an RFP. What is that a request for proposals that people even pro bono consultants, you know, give you some guidance around what they could do for you. And the third thing, which is really the most important thing, whether it's a volunteer or paid consultant is get a letter of agreement, do your due diligence, and absolutely understand who is going to manage and oversee that consultant. Make sure you have deliverables in that, in that agreement, and also how you're going to evaluate that person pro bono or paid consultant. Those are really the three things that really, I think, stand out to me in working with any consultant, whatever the project is. You know, amazing, amazing advice, Jack. I really appreciate it because you're right. While Rachel from Portland is looking at a freelance thing specific to this graphics, what you just said is magical for any type of relationship. And in the green room chatter, we were talking before we got started, I think even before we were on camera, the issues of hiring right now. And we had a guest on this week, staffing boutique, the CEO, talking about how hard it is to find, to fill these positions. And one of her advice pieces was, you know, look to this freelance part time relationship, because that's probably going to be something that's more manageable. So I think we're going to be seeing this kind of relationship moving forward on a lot of levels. And so I love your advice. So when I, when I think of my own career, and maybe you too, Julia, I did volunteer work. And that built up my skill sets. And maybe it wasn't the best development professional, but people gave me a chance to try it out. And they trained me. That's the other thing they did. So just before we move on, Rachel, scope of work was number two, excuse me, number one, I'm getting ahead of myself. Number two was the contracting evaluation, if you call MOU, memo of understanding, something that's written down that memorializes all of this. And then number three was the management follow up. And, and who's going to watch it, right? Yeah. Did I get those in the right order? Yeah. Right. Well, that's a great relationship. Yeah. Okay, cool. That's great. You know, man, that's good advice. Okay. You know, Jack, how I love anything with the name withheld. This is like my favorite. Okay. Name withheld Orange County, California. We're looking at expanding our development team and have been told by a board member that we should recruit from the university, private college sector. Why would this be a good idea? And how can we compete with such large salaries? So I, this question, this question brings a huge red flag to me. Okay. And what that red flag is, is that a board member and the words we should. Okay. So this product, this hiring is first of all, an operational thing. Now you can invite board members to sit on an interview committee, but the we should is sort of like a directive. So that's a red flag for me. And maybe the first thing I would do is determine who does what in an organization. Board members, policy, approving plans. They're not really sending directives to staff like you should or we should do this. So that's the first red flag. The second red flag is large organizations. I don't know the size of this organization. Large organizations like hospitals and universities, which this board member is advocating, use very few volunteers in fundraising. Smaller nonprofits. And those are the ones that have my heart definitely are those who are using lots of volunteers. So you have to ask yourself that question. Is this a large organization or is it a small organization? So that's one of the things that come to mind immediately. The other thing is just because now I worked in hospitals, I worked in large organizations. That doesn't mean that I am a better development professional than a major guest officer at an organization with a staff of five people. It could be so much better than someone like me who came from a large organization where I had lots of resources. And I just was running with these resources. Smaller organizations depend on people who volunteer, who do a lot of work and fundraisers. The best fundraisers, Julie, that we've said many times are volunteers. They really know how to raise money, especially if they're trained correctly. So it really depends on the size of the organization. But that big red flag for me is the board members being involved in operations. And I know why this person withheld their name. I don't blame them. I probably withheld my name as well. You know, Jack, when I read this, I thought my first thought was the board members probably in business and getting the general business RSS feeds coming across their desk and seeing XYZ person just donated to this university or that college. We know that in the U.S., the largest funded and endowed organizations are universities and private colleges. And I think that looks really sexy and it looks like, oh my God, those people are doing it right and they know how to get the big bucks. And so I can see probably where the genesis of that thought was we just need to get the heavy hitters from the university system. To your point, that's not really going to solve all your problems. It's not going to solve your problems. No, it's really interesting. I mean, that's the type of question that's never come in. Okay, Thomas from Fort Worth, Texas. I'm coming from the viewpoint of the for-profit sector. Why does the nonprofit sector not invest in quote unquote team building or even a little bit of staff training? This is a huge problem. Huge problem. And you know, for me, I think that one of the most important things in any organization, no matter the size, along with this question, is building teams. And here's something that I like to say about building teams. How do you build great teams? And I don't think this requires a huge investment, Julia. What you do with your teams, building teams is you create mutual respect. You help them understand how each staff role is interrelated to each other staff role. You invite creativity and ideas for improving operations from everyone, not just from those who are working in major gifts or annual gifts or even the program side, allow everyone to express their feelings. You invite people to talk about their problems and challenges and failures openly. That's how you build a team. You have regular staff meetings. You recognize success. You give individual performance evaluations. You make sure that everyone buys into a staff team. You set team norms, expectations and interactions. So building teams is pretty free and everyone should do that, no matter the size of the organization. Now ongoing staff training, which was the second initiative, this person from Fort Worth, which is a beautiful town by the way, talked about. So when I worked and people would offer me staff training, no matter what it was in-house or external, I would take it. Here's the thing that I like to say about allowing staff to develop themselves. It builds loyalty. When you say to Jack, go out and learn about plan giving or go out and learn about cause selling and we're going to support you with this, I become loyal with this organization because and when you're loyal, when your employees are loyal, you know, back to your previous guest this week, when your employees are loyal, it aids in retention. They're not going to be out looking for other jobs because you've created an environment both with the team building but also with enabling me to build my skill set. One of the things that I think you do and again, this doesn't cost money is you allow employees to identify areas that they would like to build their understanding of. And yes, it could be annual campaigns, capital campaigns. I went to many plan giving programs, trainings. It could be about stewardship, cultivation, etc. There are loads of ways to provide these trainings, bring in professionals, online programs, like this program that we have right here. They're learning. This is a free way that employees can develop skills. So it's really important. So all of the study groups that you might have around CFRE or other things. And it's really, really important to show your employees that you want to help them develop their skill set. You know, it's interesting, Jack. I love what you how you started off and that it's a group thing because what I see is like the management side investing in this or demanding it or or even recognizing it and it's separate from program program. And and I think we need to have more programming people at the table so we can understand what it is that they're doing what they want to do. And then I think the programming staff needs to know what fundraising does. I think a lot of times programming is like, well, they just go out to lunch and have, you know, cocktails and ask for money. I mean, you know, and then we each have our silos and we are kind of competitive. So I like what you said. I think you're right. We need to be, you know, rallying the troops better and right. Yeah. And you know what? Think about your own career when you work. If I went to an organization and I said, hey, I really like to learn more about writing a grant. Yeah. And they said, you know what? No, we don't think so. Can't afford it. You know, if you want to pay for it. I mean, when I took the CFRE, CFRE, I paid for it myself. Yeah. And not many people can afford that themselves. So if your employer says, you know, I'm not interested in you advancing what they're saying is I'm not interested in you advancing professionally. Yeah. Time to move along. Yeah. I mean, it's huge red flag. I mean, absolutely. And I appreciate you bringing it up because I think that's another lens to look at that. Yeah. And I think that's, I think that's really important. Okay. Makayla from Lexington, Kentucky writes, do you have a dollar amount of percentage we should be budgeting for marketing communications in relationship to total annual budget? We are a growing nonprofit and need some help with this. We had a similar question to this last week. And it was about the growth of marcoms because they never really had it. What's your take on this? So I think we have to take it and turn the question. I love the question, but I would turn around. This is a math question. What percentage of our budget? I don't like math questions. Okay. I didn't do well in math, math in high school and college. What I want you to ask yourself is what do you want to accomplish that should dictate your budget? If you are starting a plan giving program or a capital campaign, both of which require marketing communications initiatives, then that is going to dictate what your budget should be. So I really think it's important for us to ask ourselves the question, what are we trying to accomplish? What are our needs as it relates to marketing and communication? And then create a budget based on that. Okay. You know, I agree. I agree in principle and I agree in part, but I would say the standard that when you look at budgets, it's going to be high. It's going to be between 7% and 10%. And my sense of it, Jack, is that I see too many organizations that don't spend money and don't do a good job with the marketing. And then I'll be really candid. I see organizations that I think are like, wow, we really are spending money on this. And yet they have put the dollars in and they've put the packages together and the marketing and communications is spot on and they raise the big bucks. And that's kind of being a philanthropic snob, which I own. But I see this day in and day out when I look at organizations, and I think, my God, this is an organization that needs to be supported. It is so essential. And they don't have a strong marketing communications, platform sensitivity, funding, all of these things. And so they can't move the ball forward. And yet, Miss Bunny's Bunny Rescue has all that and people are just throwing money at bunnies. I totally agree with you. One of the things that we talk about all the time in the classes we teach at the fundraising academy is that you have a strategic plan, then you have it, which outlines your programs and your activities, your development plan, which is going to be what you use to fund those programs, activities, and then the marketing and communication plans, which talks to your various constituencies about your programs, activities, and your efforts to support those via fundraising. So I totally agree with you. We need to have marketing and communications money. Marketing and communications is the other side of that coin where one side is fundraising and the other side is marketing and communication. So definitely I agree with you. But I think as part of your deliberations, as part of your leadership and management in your organization, you have to define what your market, what do you want to accomplish with your marketing and communications? Who do you want to communicate with? How do you want to communicate with them? How are you going to segment them and targeting your messages to those various segments? Those are key components. But yeah, just to say, 10% of our budget is going to go to marketing. We have a million-dollar budget. We plan on spending $100,000 on marketing. I don't know. No, I agree with you on that. I think that perspective is strong. I think it gives you permission to figure out how you're going to structure your marketing and communications team, too. Because you're right. You can't just throw money at it. You need to have measurables so that you understand if you need more or you're successful. Or you're not successful. Let's say you decide, Julia, that now you want to start a social media marketing campaign. How much is that going to cost? Who's going to create the messaging? Who's going to be updating those social media sites over once a week, every two days? What's the resources you have to do that? Do you have staff? Do you have to hire staff? That would go into your marketing communications budget. Is someone going to write messages from outside of your organization who's going to monitor it? Even if you just had a social media marketing, they just want to, you know, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook is still going to cost money. It's going to cost, yeah, and it's going to cost time. Okay, now here's another name with help and I got to mess up to you, Jack. This was something, this was a question that somebody asked me when I was out in public recently. And so I said, I will put this up on the nonprofit show. I will not use your name and they're like, yeah, please, do not use my name. So here's the question, Jack. We have a retiring CEO and a potential leader who they could promote. I'm assuming, and I'm not assuming, I know it was internal. As board chair, I'm wondering if we should set up a co-leadership position or situation. And then of course, please do not use my name. So I'm not a big fan of co-leadership. And I'll tell you why. Unless you clearly define who is going to do what and who is responsible for what. They're equal. You know what I am a fan of? Transitional leadership. I'm the retiring CEO and you're the incoming CEO or you're someone inside the organization or outside. I want you to come and be with me and I'm going to transition all of these things that I'm doing to you. And it's a great way to test your ability to manage this as CEO. I love transitional leadership. They're less problems because I'm still the leader, but I am slowly and surely transitioning my responsibilities to you, Julia. And then eventually in six months, like this question says, I'm going to go away and it's going to be all yours. I love that. I think that's great. When I think of co-leadership, I think of that, you ask your mom and you don't get the right answer. So then you go and ask the dad. And I kind of feel like co-leadership sets that up. And my dad always said, go back and ask your mom. So did mine. And then one person is like the fun parent and the other person's the enforcer. And you learn, you navigate naturally, well, I want to get this answer or I want to get this moved ahead. So I'm going to ask that person and not this person. So I kind of feel like to your point, yeah, co-leadership is not good, interim, navigating that in, I think that's a much better thing. And then having a definitive break for the existing CEO. Yeah. One thing you don't want to have is, especially if they're a founder CEO is them hanging around and looking over your shoulder saying, Julia, now that you think you should do this, well, I'm already out of it. It's your show now. You're in charge. And that, I think that co-leadership is fraught with so many problems. And you're right. I love that you brought that up because founder syndrome is a real thing. And it's a brutal thing. And so to your point, that's even more important. And I can verify with you, this is a founder situation. Again, this was somebody that came to me at a public event and asked me to weigh in on this. So yeah, really interesting. Well, Jack, you are Jack of all trades, as you like to say. Master of none. Master of a lot. Jack Elotto with Fundraising Academy. You know, you have always been such a joy to work with. You bring us so many great ideas. And I think as a trainer and the, you know, the national exposure that you have, you get to bring a lot of different viewpoints to us. And so we are thrilled when we get you in on the hot seat. Jack has done some really cool work with us. He was a big part of our full week that we did, Nonprofit Power Week with Fundraising Academy, just specifically addressing major gifts. And then we have Jack back on in just a very short week or so, talking about something really interesting, the top 10 Epic Fundraising Fails. Yes. And you know, Julia, every single thing out there tells you what to do, what you should do. And what we're going to do is we're going to talk about what you shouldn't do. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've looked at these decks, these show decks for the show run, and they're fascinating. I think it's going to be really, really good. In fact, it's so good. We put you in on two days. It's going to be March 1st and March 2nd, because we really wanted to take a deeper dive. And so make sure you mark your calendars for that. And of course, if you're not able to join us on that, you can definitely get back through our archives. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors, Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy, Nonprofit Nerd, Your Part-Time Controller, and Staffing Boutique. You all are here with us day in and day out. Jack, we are moving towards our 500th episode. Yes. Congratulations. Is that crazy? You know what? You guys don't look a day older than your second episode. I don't know. It was pretty rough in the beginning. I got to tell you. It was pretty rough. But yeah, no, we figured things out. We are still figuring things out. And a day like today is great because we get people to write in, to call in, to, you know, use social media. And it's really a lot of fun. So if you have a question for us or any of our experts, drop us a line and let us know what you're thinking and where you could maybe use some help or you could actually just use a different voice. Because you know, Jack, as Jared and I always like to say, we always have an opinion. So do I. And my opinion is always right. Oh my gosh. Well, hey, this has been a marvelous, marvelous way for me to end my week. Jack, thank you so much. We're really looking forward to having you back on with us. It's going to be a lot of fun. And as we remind everybody and ourselves every day, as we conclude our episode of the nonprofit show, we want to remind everyone to stay well. So you can do well. We're going to see you back here next week. Thank you.