 and so excited to be at the AFP icon conference. And wow, even more importantly, we have two days of broadcasting from the very booth of our friends at Blumerang. And so we definitely wanna give a shout out to the Blumerang team who has given us valuable, valuable real estate within their space to do our show for two days. So Jared, thank you for being in Las Vegas, my friend. Again, if we don't have it met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm here today with Jared Ransom, as I said. Actually, I'm not here today. She's there today in Las Vegas at the AFP icon conference. We wanna make sure to thank all of our sponsors, Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy, who I just saw them walk by, the nonprofit nerd, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader, and the nonprofit Atlas. Again, I'm Julia Patrick here with Jared Ransom, the intrepid nonprofit nerd. Okay, Jared, talk to us about who our special guest is kicking off our first live remote. Well, I wish you could see this because we have so many people filling the hall right now. We have some of our best friends from Fundraising Academy standing just off the camera. But on camera is Mike Geiger, AFP president, host of this icon event. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. We are thrilled that you are here. First things first, tell us what AFP stands for literally and figuratively. So it stands for the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Now you know that. Did you write it down? Association of Fundraising Professionals. That's right. You know, I say it a lot. I do. I believe in it. I know you. Tell us about it. AFP is really all about helping fundraisers become more effective for their causes. And we do that in lots of different ways. And one of the ways we do it is all of the different partners that we have. So you gave a great shout out to Blumerang. They are a great partner of AFP and we really appreciate them and what they do for our space. Because they work with us, but they also work with other great associations that are in our space. And there are many wonderful associations. But we are almost 30,000 members around the world. We are 240 chapters. That's how we're set up. We have in Canada, we had Canada alone. We have almost 3,500 members, 20 chapters. And it's just an incredible organization to work for. I've been here almost five years. I come from a non-traditional fundraising background, which we can talk about in a little bit. But it's just amazing the community that AFP really is. There's no organization out there. There's no organization that people look to for the type of community that AFP brings. And we only bring it because of our members. Like if I could pick up this laptop and turn it around, you would see how busy it is here. And how many people are milling around. And it may be hard to hear us every now and then because there is so much chatter going on. People are so excited to be back in person. I was talking to a couple of people last night and they said, you know, Mike, we're just grateful that AFP brought us back together. And while it's not AFP doing this, it's all of our partners. All of our members have really responded. And we have almost 3,000 people here. It started, we actually had a free conference today before. Started yesterday, goes through today, goes through tomorrow. And it's just, I don't have enough words for how exciting this is. And the buzz, the buzz is absolutely, absolutely incredible. Yeah, it is vibrating. The whole place is just buzzing, vibrating. So many people here, 33,000. Almost 3,000 people here. 3,000 people, so amazing. Now, Mike, part of this conference is really a push towards education, right? So during the conference, attendees have the opportunity to really hear some amazing thought leaders from the nonprofit sector, speak and teach. Talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, so there are two primary reasons why fundraisers join AFP. And they are both here today. They are the networking opportunity, connecting, reconnecting, and then education. Those are the two main reasons people join AFP. And we do it through the fundraising lens. There's lots of great organizations out there that do different parts of that, but none of them do it the way we do it with the fundraising lens. So we have here over these three days, we have 140 educational sessions, one for zero. And when people registered, obviously they can't attend all 140. So what we do is we record almost all of them. And then when you register, as it is with every AFP icon event, actually every AFP event, you have access to all of the sessions when you leave. So you really, if you wanted to, and you were really dedicated and you had enough caffeine, you could plow through those 140 sessions and really get the maximum education out of this. I love it. And these speakers are phenomenal. So many speakers here, so many different, diverse perspective, all with that lens of fundraising. It is fantastic. Awesome, awesome. Well, you know, it's really an interesting time and for so many reasons, Mike, but I'm wondering in your educational slate, are you seeing a lot of courses that are dealing with the pandemic and post pandemic kind of approaches? Cause we've all had to shift our mindset. That's right, that's right. So I think in 2020 and 2021, we saw a lot of courses, a lot of educational offerings around how do we do things virtually? How do we do events? How do we do fundraising events? How do we bring people together? And it's all been focused around going virtually. And in 2021, sort of that second half, excuse me, it started to focus on, okay, now that we're coming out of it, how do we readjust people to coming back together? Because we've been a part for let's say two years and it takes some reeducation on how to be together. And there's a lot of, I mean, let's be honest, there's a lot of anxiety for many people around being together. Clearly, not these 3,000 people. Let me just tell you, not these 3,000 people. But in seriousness, there is anxiety related to that. And so started to see more of that. And now, and the other pieces with donors, because many donors are, shall we say, more seasoned than others in terms of aid, they are a little more careful about wanting to come together and be in person. So there's been a lot of education, a lot of educational offerings around, how do you continue to steward? How do you continue to prospect? How do you continue to connect with your donors when you can't sit down and have a cup of coffee in real life with them? But as we move forward, we're starting to see less of that because people are eager to come back together. Yeah, back together. So Mike, you mentioned these workshops. We can't go to all of them, regardless of filling up our AFP water bottle, which really is stainless steel. So you can have hot beverages in here as well. Are we able to access those recordings if we did not attend in person? If you paid the registration fee, it is up to you whether you attended or you just wanted the educational offerings that are on demand. Great, so they're still accessible by way of registration. So whether you're here, IRL Julia in real life, which is one of her favorite acronyms, or if you've signed up and you just wanna do it again from the comfort of your home or Aruba wherever you might be. Or your home in Aruba? That's happened too, absolutely. But the halls are buzzing, the people are buzzing, not just because it's Vegas, but the caffeine. We've had so many amazing people walk by. And as you said, we're really just eager, eager to connect, reconnect, educate, re-educate. And you can definitely feel the energy. Yeah, absolutely. But let's remember why we're here, right? It is to improve our fundraising skills and it's to make connections with other members. Right. You know, Mike, I'm just, I know you're like the man of the hour and we're gonna have to let you go soon. Cause I know you were like on the treadmill, you got to be a lot of places. And so we are very honored that you would kick us off for our very first live remote here. And so thank you, thank you from Jared and I, plus all of our viewers, all the folks who'll be watching this as it goes to our archive. I'm wondering if you could give me two pieces of advice. What do you see going forward with our sector? I mean, are you feeling optimistic? Are you thinking that we're still needing to be hold back? And then I'm wondering if you could share with us how AFP is looking forward. Like, are you navigating already to your next conferences? Could you kind of give us that lens? Sometimes we like to say the crystal ball, shine it off. Right, right. Yeah, we know what happens with crystal balls, right? They fall before, shatter into a million pieces and you have no idea what's going on then. All right, so your two questions. So I'm incredibly optimistic about our sector. When you look at all of the research that a lot of different groups have put together, including AFP's fundraising effectiveness project, the research shows that giving is up, number of givers is up, which is actually very important. Very important. And we have been able to sustain that through the pandemic. And I know we're not out of the pandemic, I know that. But through 2020 through 2021 and early into 2022, all of the numbers look really positive. And I think what's happened is while we have all sort of hold back our lives a little bit, we have also realized we can have an impact. Yeah. And we often talk about fundraising is the impact profession. Yeah. But the people who are donating, who are not members of AFP, who are donating to their local cause, they realize I can really make a difference here. And so why shouldn't I have the capacity to do it? So let me do that. And so I think there's great potential there. And I hope we can get some legislation through that allows us to really benefit from tax laws in terms of giving, charitable giving. So I'm very positive about where we're heading. And then AFP, well, we wanna help continue that movement, right? We wanna be a part of that. We wanna work with all of our other fellow organizations. We wanna be very collaborative. We wanna work with our partners. We wanna work with those that support us and really continue to lift up our sector and focus on effective and ethical fundraising because that's really what AFP is all about. And I am just so excited about where we're heading. And maybe next year you'll come back and we'll do a follow-up and we'll see how things went compared to what we were talking about today. I cannot wait. I love it. Mind, thank you. Yes, we will. We will put you down. You know, I know I said this to you in our green room chatter, but you know, Jared and I with all the different people that we interview and all the different people that watch us around the world, you know, we do refer back to AFP, you know, your code of ethics, the donor, you know, thank you, Jared. We just quoted, you just quoted the donor bill of rights in a show last week. So, you know, this is a really important thing and we are so honored that you and your team are there to lead our sector and give us some of those guardrails that we all need to be following and understanding. So thank you. Thank you for welcoming us into this amazing event. We will put you back on the hot seat. All right, I love it. I love it. I never mind the hot seat. I never mind the hot seat. We're gonna keep it warm for you. Yes, please do that. Please do that. Well, thank you, Mike. Thank you. Fantastic. I just got to get off to another event as he puts his mask on. As I put my mask back on. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed it. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. You know, for those of you joining us, it seems like a little bit of odd, oddity. I mean, normally you see Jared and I coming from our studios, but we're really exciting, excited to say that this is our very first live remote. We have sent Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd, all the way to Las Vegas, Nevada. And she is broadcasting today live from the AFP icon conference. One of the very first things that have opened up during the pandemic. And so we're really, really honored that you would be there. And we, most importantly, we are really, really excited to announce that we are broadcasting from the Blumerang booth, the Blumerang folks. And look at that. Josh. Yes. Hi, Julia. How are you? Okay. Living life here in Vegas. Look at this jacket. You like the jacket? It's fantastic. And my colleague, Diana. Come on in, Diana. Hi. Hey, how are you? Hey. Yeah. So Josh and Diana, tell us what your experience has been, first of all and foremost, to all of our viewers. You know, I don't tell this story very often, but Blumerang was really our very first sponsor. We started this idea. And they, they were the ones that came forward and said, yeah, we need this voice. And so I want to publicly say that. Now you have included us in your beautiful booth. Talk to us what you're already seeing about spreading joy. I mean, the joy is everywhere. It's so exciting to just be back. I know I'm going to be repetitive, but I just want to, it's so good to see everyone, like in person, in the flash. It is really, really amazing. And being able to see our customers, Diana has been talking to a ton of our customers. Being able to just be energy in the room is just electric. Everywhere you go, people are, it's great to see people's faces and people's smiles. Oh my goodness. Just being all together is just fantastic. Yeah. Hugs, miss bumps, elbows, you got it all. There wasn't a ribbon that said go all in and hug me. I wish there was, but... And people were doing it anyway. People were doing it anyway. There's so much getting people to come and just talk to us. People that we've talked to just on the phone or on Zoom, getting to just put a face to the name and see them in person has been fantastic. That is awesome. Drop by our booth and come say hello. We love it. Yeah, please do. I think one of the other things that's really interesting is like, you know, you took two years off. Yes. Technology kept advancing. Oh my gosh. And you know, you're seeing people and I heard you mention that your friends at Infinite Giving, like brand new company. Yes. Getting into like the crypto space and like stock, making stock transfers super easy for the small and medium nonprofits. And that's not, I mean, there's so many new players when we have Feather talking about how can you use digital ads to help push your fundraising forward and the Tiltify booth talking about TikTok and how do you, they have their platform to sort of incorporate and using social media. And it's just, it's like, you know, we took the two year pause, but like you come back and it's like even all these new fresh faces and these new ideas and it's just, it's so exciting to be here. You're right. That technology advancement that we've seen. So we've been away for two years, but the technology has matured exponentially. And for us to keep up with that, it's really important. I was here yesterday, right here as you see, hashtag spread joy and there's, you know, an iPad in front of us with the ring light. And it said, you know, do you want to take a photo or do you want to make a gift? And I was like, let's go out, let's create a gift. Like I love this. So the technology, you know, as simple as what that might seem, there's so many other technology advancements that Josh, you just mentioned, you know, that we're seeing come to life. And that is fantastic. Oh, it's all just to me. I mean, it's been fundraising easier. We are also busy, so many things are going on. And this is, it's so amazing all these two are so wonderful. You know, I'm going to ask you to, you know, kind of wave the spread joy banner a little bit. You know, we talk a lot about Bloomerang. We have your folks on, but could you step back and actually explain to us a little bit more about what Bloomerang is and what your products are? We absolutely could. Let's start there, Diane. Sure. Well, it's a donor management platform and we have all sorts of tools that can help fundraisers. We need acquired donors, retained donors, engaged donors, all your fundraising tools, online fundraising tools, event ticketing, email marketing, all the tools that you need to get new donors, keep them giving, and be engaged with your organization and get the word out about your organization, too. So, yeah. I think the spread of joy, spread, blah, blah, blah. I'm so excited, Jill. I know, in person. My words can't even come out. You know, I think spreading joy, it's really sort of, it's part of our mission in our vision, right? Like fundraisers, they have really tough jobs, but like at the end of the day, what we want to do is create this world where people are just inspired to give, right? And spreading joy really sort of, I think sums that up. It is more than just the software because it is a family that we're building, right? And it is the Bloomerang family, but it's not that, right? It's everyone underneath that AFB umbrella. Because, you know, we're all in this together. We're all, we all have really important missions that we're driving towards and we just want to be able to help in the way that we can and help provide fundraisers with technology that helps them retain their donors and get that first gift and then, but then help them get to that second gift because we know that's the hardest part, right? Right, so I'm not asking you to give us any like trade secrets, but I kind of am. Okay. I mean, so what do you see going forward? I mean, do you, does Bloomerang, you know, as I know you, I have seen you grow and I have seen you add new solutions for the fundraising professionals in our community. And you, I know you've made some other purchases of other companies and tech companies. Where do you see this going? Can you share some of that with the future without maybe giving us a scoop? Yeah, obviously. You know, for our friends in the non-profit show, we'll tell you everything. Yeah. Yay. Scoop, here's the scoop. You know, really where it comes down to is continuing to iterate on what we have, but that people are really loving and making it yet easier, right? So it's not, I mean, you think about how our tools are designed to help get that second gift, to help retain people, to help people find major gifts with our integrations with our partners over at the donor search, right? With our partners over at Intuit and QuickBooks, just making it easier and it's more of that, right? So that is what the future for the money is. It is building more partnerships, more integrations, making what we already have, which is relatively easy, I think, I mean, that kind of gap and making it easier. I think that's really big, is making fundraising easier. It's hard to tell like six months a year, however long down the road, what that thing is, but we're always going to look for those things that make it easier for fundraising. Yeah, I did. I started my career in fundraising and I wish I had blimmering at that point. Yes. I'm not gonna name what we had at that point, but I wish I had blimmering is all I would say. Yes, I've said that too. I've brought on a couple of clients into blimmering. I personally experienced that onboarding and the customer service and the joy that comes from the very beginning is amazing. You know, another company that we talk about, about we wish we knew and we had this earlier is Fundraising Academy and we have Mr. Tony Bell setting right here. Come on in, sir. Thank you so much. We'll see you again. As Josh just said, man, we wish we had this earlier and I was like, right on cue. Here's Tony Fundraising Academy. As you can tell, we don't have too much shine left. No, we don't, but it's just so great to be here at AFB icon and to see you live in person. Well, tell us what you've seen since you've been here, Tony. Well, I'm gonna sound pretty redundant. What I've seen is joy from what's attending. I mean, it's just, again, the energy, everyone being together, the quality of the programming, I mean, the workshops and the professional development and learning that's taking place, not only from the presenters, right in the workshops, but the learning that we're having over a cup of coffee outside, the weather's beautiful. But also, so it's really a super experience. It's windy, but it's beautiful. It's so nice. So Tony, you and your team are part of the professional education networking and models. You and your team were teaching two days? Yeah, yeah, so we have two workshops today. We're thrilled to be in the position to be a sponsor of AFB icon as well. So really proud of that. But yeah, we have two presentations workshops going on today. So yeah, just honored to get the call of selling curriculum in front of folks. Fantastic. You know, it's so funny. We talk about this all the time, you know, if we, Jared and I specifically, if we had had cause selling in our mindset and the way that Fundraising Academy has packaged this, I can speak for myself. My community would be better. You know, over 30 years of asking for money if I had had these tools in place, if I had had something like AFP icon to go to, right? I mean, this all kind of fits together. My community would be better. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, you talked about your blue ring, wishing that that, so everything evolves. And so, you know, we've had ourselves saying that a lot. Those of us that have had the pleasure of doing this work for a period of time. The seasoned experienced people, right? Yes, we've seen a lot of things come, a lot of things go, a lot of things stick, a lot of things that don't stick. Right. But you're right. I mean, we've seen so much. And to your point, Julia, we've had that mindset. But now we have the framework. Like we have the framework. And I love that you're teaching it here because it is so neat. Thank you. Thank you. It's really exciting. And I think it's cool, Tony, that you and your team have been so passionate about sharing your knowledge and really navigating forward. You have some exciting things coming on online. You have more access to transformational learning opportunities. You have a whole new website. Can you share us, or I should say portal. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? So, yeah, you can go to frontrecentcademy.org and there'll be a link to the portal. That just went live last week, actually. So it's there. There's plenty of on-demand workshops and stuff. And we're just really excited to have that new tool available to folks so that they can access and experience on their own time when it comes to them. And I think that that's really important as well. So thanks for mentioning that. Well, really, again, as things evolve and play around with it works and doesn't work and find the stuff that sticks and can really make a difference. So the investment in the portal was a really good investment. I think for the sector, but also a great investment in terms of the delivery of the call-selling curriculum. Well, it is stunning. I was really fortunate. Pearl Hoagland was able to give me a tour of it last week and walk me through it. And it is remarkable. It is something that if you had a crisis in your nonprofit ecosystem at two in the morning, you can jump on there and you can get some real answers. And it's really powerful, beautifully done. So I can't recommend it enough. Thank you. Thank you. One of the examples real quick is these donor quick connection questions, which was something new that we created specifically for the portal. So if you're going into a meeting with a donor, you can hop on the portal and they're just depending on what the theme is, you'll have questions that will help you kind of get the conversation started. So yeah, so those tools are all exciting. Fantastic. Pearl would have been here. She's getting set up for the workshop right now, which starts in about 15 or 20 minutes. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you, Tony. Thank you so much. I want to hug. Yes, yes. Hugging others. All that good stuff. We've seen each other. In this square. In these squares. Now we're the same square. That hasn't happened before. I love that. Thank you. I'll come back and see you. Be well. Take care. Thank you. Well, to end, so come on, AJ, let me get you into. We're about to sign off. So I want us two of these in real life happening. Floyd Jones, Give Butter, AJ Steinberg, Queen Bee, Fun Raising. Hey, good to see you. Yeah, I know we don't have too much time, but I wanted to bring them in just as we close down to say, look, they're here in real life. Both amazing guests of the nonprofit show thrilled to have them here. You literally just witnessed them meeting in person, like right here on camera. They were standing at the Bloomerang booth. I pulled them both in and magic happens. Red joy is happening. So thank you both so very much. Tomorrow we'll be broadcasting live again. But today you heard from Mike Geiger, AFP president. Julia, thank you. I'm going to let you sign us off and because I know it is right at the 10 o'clock time. Hey, everybody, thank you so much for joining us. This has really been an exciting opportunity for us. You know, this in more than 500 episodes in more than three years of covering our sector as the only live daily program in our country. This has really been an exciting thing for us to do it live remote. We are so proud of Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd, heading out to Vegas to the AFP ICON award where you get to see all different types of people milling in and out. Well, hey, there you go. This is really cool. Hello, hello. We are so excited that we've had this opportunity to bring people in to share and to spread joy. We want to particularly shout out Bloomerang, one of our very first sponsors. They came to us three years ago and said, yeah, we believe in what you are doing and we are going to be your sponsor. It was a really cool moment. It changed the lives of both Jared and I and so many of our viewers that have been with us for more than 500 episodes. Again, we want to thank all of our sponsors without whom we would not be here, your part-time controller, fundraising academy, stuffing boutique, the nonprofit nerd, American nonprofit academy, nonprofit thought leader, and of course, Bloomerang. But wait, there's more. We're going to be back here tomorrow. Jared's going to have a whole other slate of folks and if you are in Vegas, stop by the Bloomerang booth. We would love to meet you. We'd love to pull you on air. It's going to be a lot of fun. Jared, thank you so much. Thank you. We just pulled Mallory Erickson in. She's been a guest as well. So thank all of you. Thanks for everyone that said, yes, I will stop by and say hello and get nerdy with you. So thank you, Julia. Hey, it has been a lot of fun. You know, we end every episode with this mantra and we're going to say it again here today. Stay well so you can be well. We're going to see you back here tomorrow, everyone.