 Welcome back to another episode of the non-profit show. I'm so excited to have you with us. I'm here with Jack Alotto, one of the amazing trainers from Fundraising Academy, man of mystery, international traveling cuisine. He's going to be sharing his wisdom with us again. I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Non-Profit Academy. We're so delighted to be joined today by our presenting sponsors and they include Bloomerang, American Non-Profit Academy, Non-Profit Thought Leaders, Staffing Boutique, your part-time controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University who actually sponsors Ask and Answered every Friday. So it's their people that come on and help us answer your questions. We also are joined by JMT Consulting, Non-Profit Nerd and Non-Profit Tech Talk. If you've missed any of our episodes, we're marching towards a thousand shows. You can find us on our app, streaming broadcasts and podcasts. Kevin Pace, our intrepid executive producer, told us this week that we just pushed up our 500th podcast, which is amazing because we started as a broadcast and we are broadcast, but we added the podcast files and we just hit 500. That's amazing. Okay. You ready to answer, Judith? I'm ready. Maybe we should explain why my name says Jackalotto Nacho because Julia, you're the only person who knows, well, I'm not the only person who knows what my official real name is, but you have given me this nickname. I love it. So only you are permitted to use it. How's that? Okay. Perfect. Because you tell a story about going to Catholic elementary school and one of the sisters is taking a role and says Ignacio, Ignacio, Ignacio Elotto, and you're like, oh my God, there's somebody here that has a name like mine. My same last name. Maybe it's my lost brother or sister. But you did not know that your name was Ignacio, and so you didn't know that she was calling out for you. Right. And so I remember her coming up to me, this tall, imposing woman saying to me, your name is Ignacius. And that's the name you're going to use in our Catholic school, and that was it. I figured out what my name was at that point. Ignacius. I misspoke. Yeah. It's one of the classic stories. Great Italian way of saying it or a Spanish one. Yeah. And, you know, as we talked about, when I go to Spain next week, you know what's on my passport? It's not Jack, so. Yeah. You know, I think the thing that I love about that story, Jack, is that, you know, it comes from the Latin root word of Ignacian and igniting, and you ignite passion and you ignite, you know, the desire for all of our viewers to learn and do better and be better in this amazing sector, the nonprofit sector. And so when I heard that story, I was like, oh my God, you are the embodiment of your name. Yeah, I love it. And I'm actually born in a fire sign as well. So Ignacian, Ignite, Igneous Rock, all comes from the Latin Ignacius, Ignacio. Ignacio. Okay, so everybody, you've had cuisine. You've had, you know, Bible study, religious studies. You have names, everything, but we got to get back to Judas burning question. You ready? Yes. I was recently asked by donor, if I could share my history with the organization and what changes I would make to the management of it. It took me back and I felt like maybe I was asking to rat out my nonprofit. This is a really interesting question. It's a great question and it's a leading question. Okay. Go ahead. What I mean by leading is that it says, what changes would you like to make as if the donor already has it in their mind that there has to be some changes? Okay. If I was asked that question, I would be so concerned. Like, where are they going with this question? And it's a tough one. It really is. And I think the way to answer it is to say, well, I love my management. We have a team. I'm not gonna discuss the internal workings of our organization, not even with a donor, but if a board member asked this, I wouldn't discuss it. Or sometimes I think, what I used to do when I would get a question that I was like, I don't wanna answer this question is I would make up a question in my mind and answer a different question. Like I said, I love the team at our organization. We're all working together. We're operating from management to other secondary staff, especially in the development department, the fundraising department. We're really, I really appreciate that team spirit that we have in our organization. When I read this question from Judith, all I could think of is what happened in the life that day of that donor? Like had they just come from an internal management meaning where something went on and they had that same question for their team and they were looking, I don't know if it's like a genuine question and it's really trying to dig down because there are other problems or if it was just something that was environmental because it's such a wackadoo. To me, it was like, totally, if this, I mean, I've never heard this question. Yeah. Or you could turn it around and say, do you see any, what changes would you make in our management? Have you had a problem with anybody in management? There's so many questions that you could turn around and ask them as a way to understand. And if they said, yeah, well, I talked to your executive director and she was not, she did not steward my gift as well as she should have. I have some issues with the way she spoke to me about the gift. Then I think that that leads you down another road that you really need to talk with your leadership about. Okay, I talked to a donor, especially a major donor or someone who makes a transformational gift. We have to pay attention to what their concerns are. Right, right. You know, I would not have thought about your tact of asking a question back. And when I think about the fundraising academies cause selling cycle, you know, that is kind of a natural part of talking and building a relationship. And so I think the answer of asking another question is probably gonna serve you well in many cases, not just for Judith and this particular question. Right, and what you're referring to and you are becoming such the cause selling expert is how to handle an objection. And one way that we handle objections is by asking clarifying questions to understand the objection. And that's what I'm advocating you do with this donor. Judith, as you asked her or him questions to get clarification on really what their issue is. I love it, really interesting question. Judith from LA, L-A-C-A. Thank you so much, really super interesting and I can't wait to kind of think about this more. Okay, frustrated in Chicago. I always love it when people like sign their names with like, you know, something like this. I'm in programming and just asked my manager for a $1 per hour race. They said, no, and I feel as though the manager did not even take it up with HR. What should I do? You know, how would I handle this? You know, here's how I would. I would not necessarily need to find out whether they handled it or talked with HR or not. Do you know what I would do? Here's what I would do. I would go into that supervisor and I say, look, I get that I'm not gonna get that raise that I asked for. Tell me what changes you would like to see in my work product so that the next time I come to you and ask before a raise, we're gonna get to yes. Wow. Back on then, ask them, is it, you know, I'm in programming, I'm assuming that they're in programs of the organization. Should I be doing something else with our clients? Should I be doing something else as it relates to our services? Is there some place I'm falling short? And if I were that person supervisor, I would applaud them and say, look at this individual who works for me. She wants to know how she could get to some higher level of productivity that would lead me to say to her, yes, I'm gonna give you a raise. So we just got a question and a comment that came in and this was my origin, this is exactly what I came to. This comes to us from Michelle and she writes, I would hope there's an annual process for merit increases. And thank you, Michelle, for writing in because that was my first reaction was like, well, it sounds to me like there's not a review situ, environment, scheduling, anything. And we hear this a lot in the nonprofit sector that organizations don't schedule these up and then it leads to such unhappiness and we know we don't have enough people to fill the jobs we have open in the nonprofit sector. So retention is just such a huge issue that we don't even address. Yeah, and I think Michelle is right on. If there are some merit increases, if there's an annual review, I mean, in my work experience working in healthcare philanthropy, I was reviewed at least once a year. And as a result of that, either I got a raise or some other kind of thing. Assuming that I was a good employee and of course I was an excellent employee. So I always got the raise that I was looking for. Just kidding. No, I think you're right. And I think to Michelle's point, it's really a level, I love your approach. What is it that I can do and to do well and do better and all that. But at the same time systematically, what is set up so that we all have that opportunity to talk? Because I think a lot of times in this situation, and we don't know if frustrated in Chicago's environment, but a lot of times decisions get made because there are so many other people and they're afraid of like, oh man, if I work with you, then I'm gonna have to deal the same thing with 12 other people or 30 other people or maybe just two, who knows? But yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's the whole HR dynamic that goes on in nonprofit organizations. I mean, here's one of the policies that the board should be passing. HR policies as it relates to these types of things like raises, et cetera. So that you're not stuck in a situation where you have to go to your supervisor every time you want to raise. I mean, if they have an annual review process and that review should indicate areas that need improvement, challenges you have or ways that you can get to that higher level of income. So yeah, I think that HR policies are an important part of I don't care what size nonprofit you're in and those HR policies would articulate how these things are in. Right, they help really set a structure and I agree. Well, frustrated in Chicago, we've hopefully given you a lot more meat to this question than just the dollar an hour. I mean, it seems to me like there's some systemic things that you need to think about and look at. And for your next job or next environment and work environment, these are things to be thinking about to ask upfront. What's the annual review process? So best of luck to you. Okay, let's go to Thomas from City with Health. I'm traveling to a conference. My NPO has offered to reimburse me for travel expenses. The problem is that I don't have enough cash reserves to pre-fund this trip. Any suggestions on how to navigate this cash flow problem? Good question. Yeah, I love this question and I've been in this situation as well myself and my own. I'm sure many people have. I think you need to go to the leadership of the nonprofit organization and just say, hey, my credit card bill is, and this has happened to me, it's gonna come due before I am reimbursed for this trip. So, and I don't know a supervisor who, and if your supervisor isn't caring about this problem that you're articulating to them, then I would be really concerned about the work environment I'm in. I think any supervisor could call up finances and say, hey, can you cut Jack a check for $250 to try? Yeah, whatever it is to cover the cost of this trip. You know, we, look, I get that, there's lots of things we bear as employees. This should not be one of them. No, I agree. And I think it's, I think that you're right about the cash flow issue about when does your credit card come due and how do you, the stress of trying to figure this all out and then reporting back out and then trying to push to get the money back in. You know, you're collecting. So the issue I have with this with Thomas is that, you know, his organization is asking him to fund this process, right? Yeah, definitely. And that's not good. Yeah, I agree. Totally. That's not good. Well, let's hope Thomas that this helps you give you some confidence and some teeth. You can always do travel gift cards or cash cards that can be purchased, you know, that have a definite limit on them or amount. I mean, that's one thing that is a quick and easy thing to get around. And so, but yeah, I agree. Don't bear the brunt of this. Okay, you know how I love name with health? This is like my fabulous thing. Okay, do you feel that it's corporate espionage to attend another nonprofit's gala to see how they manage their event? They work in the same space as we do and I would call them a competitor. Honest to goodness, we get this question a lot. We really do. And we get it from people that want to travel to other communities and that want to stay in their own community. Yeah. So what do you think about this? I don't think it's corporate espionage. I think it's that. No, I really don't. I think, you know, I worked in healthcare philanthropy. I would go to other hospitals, gala. I would go to other hospital, you know, golf tournaments just to see how they were run. Try to, it's more of a learning experience. It was at least a learning experience for me. Is their chicken better than the chicken I'm serving at my gala? Are there decorations or their theme or the way they're handling registration? And I learned a lot by actually attending other events hosted by other organizations. Here's where the problem comes, okay? Let's say you go to them and say, can you give me a list of your donors, espionage? And that's absolutely verboten as it relates to ethics. We can't share our donors or how much they give those kinds of things. It's privacy unless the donors are sure. Tell St. Francis how much I gave to St. Rose Hospital. You know, I mean, that's a different thing. But generally, I mean, we really have to look at the code of ethical standards that we have and determine, you know, when is the line crossed? I don't believe this crosses the line. Okay, let me ask a follow-up question to you. Did anyone ever kind of like give you the side eye or come up to you and say, dude, I know what you're doing. I know you're checking us out. I mean, did you ever have that? No, what I would do is, and I really think this is an important thing. When I was the Chief Development Officer at a hospital, I would make contact with other CDOs at other hospitals. If I was working for a, and you know, have some coffee with them, have a cordial relationship with them, and then just say, hey, can I come? Listen, I was invited by other CDOs to sit at their table. I mean, that's what we need to do. You know, have friendships, be considerate, talk about things. I just didn't have coffee all the time with other executives from other hospitals or other social service agencies. Just do what they're doing. That's what we should be doing as nonprofits. Yeah. Well, and I think it speaks to the issue of collaboration, collaborative funding, best practices. And then I also think, Jack, you know, and I don't know if this ever happened to you, but I got to believe that people were watching you and saying, what is it going to take for us to get that dude over to our team? Right? I mean, did that ever happen? Yeah, well, not really because I was always trying to be loyal to the organization or maybe I just wasn't that good at that point. But yeah, the thing is I actually tried to steal other people from us, the organization. Remember, I loved this other CDO from another hospital and I would ask her all the time, don't you come work at our place? You know, remember even going to our CEO and say, I really would like her to come and be on our team. And he would say, go for it, you know, but what she would always say to me, you know, I like where I am. I want to stay where I am. And that was, you know, that's okay. I mean, we should talk about things. We talk about salaries. We talked about donors. We talked about those donors who would ask questions like our first question. How do you want to change management or board members who are a little out there? You know, so, you know, it was just such a good way. It was cathartic for me to meet with my peers. It still is, you know, to talk about issues that we share. You know, I worked for Catholic Charities and we used to meet with Jewish community services. We were doing similar work. It was great. Yeah, and I think that's a whole nother thing because I think that's really important. Absolutely. Well, good response and really interesting perspective to get that. You're the perfect person to have answered that question. Another name withheld, city withheld. Now, I'm gonna man up or woman up, I guess I should say and admit that I took this person's community and name off because I didn't want them to be identified. And sometimes we do that because we just think it's the smarter thing to do. So the question is this, our CEO is asking the development team to increase our average donor amount by $50 per person. This is for those on a monthly giving plan. I have some donors who will be stressed out by this and I'm frankly stressed out about it too. Any ideas on how to proceed? For a monthly giving, that's, there are probably a lot of folks that are giving $50. Yeah, but here's the thing. Where did the number 50 come from? It's like they put these numbers into there and say, go, I'm not, listen, I work for people who have done this early in my career. Go out there and increase your monthly giving donors by 10 bucks. You know why, where did that number come from? Is it some mathematical formula? Here's the thing that this is one of the most important questions we're talking about today. One is, let's stop looking at donors like they're ATM machines. They're not ATM machines who we could periodically go and say, I need an additional $50 from them. That's number one. Number two, who are monthly donors? Monthly donors are such an important and integral part of the fundraising work that we do in nonprofits. These are investors. These are loyal donors. These are people who have internalized the mission, the vision, and the values of your organization. Why would you risk that to get additional income? If I'm a $10 a month giving, and I give $120 a year, and you come to me and say, I need you to up your gift without any rationale, without anything, it would be crazy. And I'm gonna give a plug for the fundraising academy because we have webinars which are free at mylearningportal.com, one monthly donors and their value to our organization. These are the people who will step up and give you a big gift for your capital campaign. These are the people who are going to leave you some type of gift in their bequest or as another type of planned gift. These are really important. Don't mess with them, guys. It's not to say you shouldn't try to incrementally increase their gift. Yes, you could talk about the greater impact they will have if they move from $10 a month to $15 a month. That's okay. But to arbitrarily just say to your staff, I want you to increase the average giving by our monthly donors by $50, that's problematic for you because you're gonna lose the most valuable, loyal investors you have in your organization. I love the way you looked at that. And I'm sorry to interrupt, go ahead. I was gonna say and retention rate, the highest retention rate that any organization sees is in their monthly donors. I wouldn't risk any of those things for a CEO or a development officer or a director of development who says to me, go out there and raise an additional average of $50 from your monthly donors. Don't do it. Yeah, no, I think it's good advice. My first thing was $50 is a heck of a lot to a monthly, on a monthly plan. I mean, most people are gonna be well under that. I mean, and that's why it works because they're like, I said it and forget it. I don't have to worry about it and I don't have to stress about my finances. It's just an ongoing thing. And so this could really rock the boat. And so I appreciate your comments. I really, really do. Well, it's been another amazing day and time with one of our absolute favorites, Jack Alotto, nachos, we like to call him, Alotto. Fundraising Academy Trainer Extraordinaire, National University, before I let you go, and I know this is coming out of left field, Jack, but so many people at the beginning of the year really commit to CFRE, the process. And I know that you do training. Could you speak briefly about what that looks like and how that works? Right. So right now we are in the very first, I'm in the very first study group, CFRE study group. And I gotta tell you, I have 176 people from all over the world, including Australia. Yeah, I mean, it's just amazing. Every year I'm just astonished by the people who step up and commit to four Saturdays. I get people from Australia who say, I'm gonna set my alarm, wake up in the middle of the night to attend the study group. It's for me, one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done in my career. People ask me all the time, why do you do this? Why are you doing this tomorrow? But here's the reason. When we, like what we're doing right now today, Julia, with the nonprofit show, when we help people who are trying to raise money for the arts, for animal welfare, for social services, for a whole whole, universities, hospitals, healthcare, the poor, the marginalized communities in our country, Canada, wherever they are, when we help them be better fundraisers, our lives are enriched. If that question about monthly givers and raising that helps some development professional respond to a question they may get from their leadership along these same lines, and they talk their leadership into not messing with those monthly donors, that raises all. Yeah, yeah. And so four study groups a year, you know, and this year I'm pleased to report that one of our study groups, our mutual friend, Mui Koaja and I are gonna host a study group just for Muslims who are involved in fundraisers. Wow, super interesting. So how would we find out about this? So our study groups are listed at cfre.org. Go to study groups up there. You'll see me up there. You'll see me and Mui up there. And there are other study groups, not just ours, but the next study group after this one starts in April. That will be the second study group posted by me this year and then we'll have one in the summer and then one next fall. And I love it. I love the people who come to this. I love talking to them about it and I love seeing them, love hearing from them. This is a wonderful experience for me. Well, I think it's such a great thing that you do and I think it's such a great thing for our sector and also really from everything that I've ever heard, well, before I ever even met you. And that is that if you can find this cohort, it's gonna increase your professionalism and your ability in your career, but it's gonna help you pass that damn test. That's right. And that's my goal. The first thing I say in the very first study group, my goal is for you to get across that finish line. Here's the thing. The nonprofit show does this, CFRE does this and the fundraising academy at National University does it as well as your other sponsors who you've listed here, Blumerang, et cetera. We're all in this business of creating a profession where people can be at their best so they can raise more money, so they can help more people, animals, whatever it is. And that is a great joy for me. It's amazing. Well, you are a great joy for us. Jackalotto, CFRE, Fundraising Academy Trainer at the National University. You really just bring us so much information and the wealth of knowledge. And I think more than anything too, you're very encouraging and you always give us a way to see through these issues and problems. Another way, a reason why we are here is because we have amazing sponsors and they include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leaders, Staffing Boutique, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, as we said, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that join us day in and day out and boy, are we grateful for their support and their involvement in this thing that we do every day. All right, Jackalotto, Man of Mystery, Man of Global Traveler, be safe, have fun, bon voyage. Thank you very much. I love seeing you always and thanks for having me today. It's been amazing. Hey everybody, as we end the episode today, we want to remind you to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here. Thank you, everyone.