 Welcome and good morning or good afternoon wherever you might be tuning in for our live show today, the nonprofit show that is. And today as our ask and answer this week though has been a power week with fundraising Academy at the National University. So we are so thrilled to have with us today, Hannah burger, Hannah, your ears have probably burned every single day this week because we have mentioned your name. In particular, not only for today's show for our Friday asking answer, but we've mentioned the accelerate program that you have been a huge part of, you know, at the end of all of our show so I'd love to get more information from you on that. Hannah again is with the fundraising Academy she's a trainer there, and she's a philanthropy coach she's pretty cool I really enjoy our conversations, you and I have spent some time on another ask and answer episode. And it's just so so great to have you here so thank you for joining us. That's my pleasure. And thanks to our presenting sponsors which include blooming American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy at the National University nonprofit nerd your part time controller staffing boutique and the nonprofit thought leader. Thank you so much to these amazing companies that keep these conversations going and growing like the one that we're going to have here with Hannah. If you missed any of our episodes from this week the power week with fundraising Academy or any of our previous episodes, you can find them on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV, Vimeo, and wait, there's more just like a good info Marshall I like to say but wait wait, there's more than the you can listen to the nonprofit show wherever you stream your podcast so if your podcast listener like Hannah and I are because he joined us in a green room chatter you heard all about the books we're reading the audio books we're listening to some podcasting and things like that so this show will absolutely go into our podcast for the nonprofit show so thank you for joining us. Are you ready my friend. I'm ready. Let's do this. Well, welcome back I'm so glad to have you as you know, our Friday our Friday as I so lovingly refer to it is dedicated to our viewers and our listeners sending in questions. And today I do believe we have a lot of questions from the cause selling education model with fundraising Academy so I'll start off and this one comes from National Tennessee and Fay wants to know how she will know the right time to bless and release a potential donor. She's confused by how many questions she should ask before they give up. So I'm going to let you kick off this answer and you might want to share a little bit about what lesson releases. Sure, I love that she's that terminology so you know bless and release is not something that is exclusive to the cost selling model, but we like to say it when it's time to just let something go let it go and let it grow. Yeah, so this is a great question and I don't have perfect direct answer because a lot of this comes from experience right so I've been working in the nonprofit fundraising space for about 20 years now. And it's a piece of the puzzle that you just kind of have to fill your way through it first. But what I did notice in the way that they asked this question is how many questions should I be asking before I let the relationship go. And my gut response to that is if you're asking questions and getting answers, you're in it. Don't let that go like you are cultivating that relationship. I would say bless and release a relationship when they go radio silent on you, or when they've told you now is not the time you might bless release and come back later, right. But if they're still chatting with you you're asking questions getting answers that's just cultivation so keep working on it. Get your strategy together about what type of investment you're going to ask this individual for and make sure that you're asking sometimes you know I work with clients who they're saying I just can't move this relationship forward sometime your prospect is waiting for you to ask right they want you to invite them in so what do you think Jared. I love that and I love that you mentioned like if you're asking these questions and they're responding you're in it like you're doing the work the good work of the cultivation. And so I don't think you know to answer Faye that there's a magic number of questions but this entire week has really provided you with so many amazing questions to do the cultivation with the donors and so to use that to your advantage. I also feel like I'm pulled to say, you know one of the questions you might want to ask Faye is, you know, are you still interested in continuing the conversation and learning more about our mission. But I'm also kind of channeling Tony bell from yesterday to say, you know, are you ready to make an investment, are you ready to consider what a gift might look like to this organization. So yeah I think if you are getting responses like Hannah said, you're in it my friend, like it's a fun ride. Yeah, another phrase I love to use when I feel like things are stalled out. How do we move this forward. Right, almost put the ball back in their court. I really love that and it can be as simple as that. That's one thing we've talked about over the course of this week, the nonprofit Power Week with funerals Academy is really these open ended questions right so we're really wanting to draw out information from the donor and have them really answer that so thank you Hannah there's there's one more question how might we move this forward, great one. My neck of the wood here in Scottsdale, Arizona name withheld after watching your trainers speak about cause selling, I think I need more professional development myself. Do I look less professional or capable if I ask my CEO for additional training, I don't want her to think that I don't know what I'm doing. That's a great question. Do you look less professional, absolutely not. I like to say if we're not growing, we're dying. Right, so one would hope that your CEO has that same sort of growth mindset and wants their team to always be investing and learning. I mean, you know, I'm a former executive of nonprofits and anytime a team member came to me with an interest in professional development and a plan. You know how much it was going to cost how much time away from the office they would need, what kind of support they might need for me as their supervisor, going into this learning opportunity. That's super exciting. I do recommend that you have that conversation. You know if you're on a fiscal year that starts July one, start chatting about those things with your CEO before the budget gets approved so I'm going to guess that that's April May right. So that way you make sure that the resources are there to support you. Yeah, I think that's that's fantastic. You know, hopefully all of our organizations have professional development in there. I was just meeting with a client. It might have been yesterday all these days kind of you know, go overlap together. But he had mentioned that his director development you know had had worked towards and earned her CFRE and that was paid for by the organization and so I think these professional development opportunities is really fantastic when our when our organizations can provide them. And you know, I don't think it makes us look incompetent. I don't think it looks, you know, less professional. My take on this honestly is it shows your investment in the mission and it shows your investment in the sector. And that to me speaks volumes I pride myself I know you do as well Hannah. I'm, you know, the donor code of ethics, and that is something that, you know, through cause selling through CFRE through other trainings, you will just continue to gain more insight on best practices as we move through still some pretty uncertain time so I say go for it advocate for it absolutely. Absolutely couldn't agree more. I think there's a lot of us I know I have a coach I work with, you know, a coach myself and I've worked with several throughout my career. And I just think you know, as, as Hannah said, if you're not growing you're dying so you might as well. You know, continue to grow and sprout new opportunities so cause selling is a great model. Those of you that joined us this week, Julia Patrick myself and even Tony bell yesterday we all said, we wish we had this earlier in our career. Me too. Me too. But now we have it so it's, it's there. All right, Jared in Dayton, Ohio. While it seems quite natural for anyone to navigate the cause selling cycle, how long does it really take to become proficient with this. I'm thinking about myself and how quickly this process can become second nature to how I work my donor portfolio. That's some great insight. So this question for those that might be watching or listening that haven't been tuning in all week. The cause selling cycle is a eight step cycle that we use to kind of move our donors through an entire relationship. So, short answer is if you were to invest your time and resources in doing the cost selling seller it, you get really proficient in this in 10 weeks. Because we are training every single week together we're modeling each step with one another we're doing exercises that support it and so by the time you're done with cause selling accelerate, you're ready to go and it's kind of become part of the way you practice and do your job right. You know, pick up the textbook or research the eight step model online and try to incorporate it into your work and honestly, it's, it is a practice that if you're really focused on building beautiful relationships right you're not doing fundraising as a transactional as a practice but as a practice of nurturing relationships caring for the people that support your organization and your mission. You're probably already doing it, we just kind of break it down into steps that make it easier for you to identify where you need to invest more time and resource and energy. Right so without fundraising Academy and the cause selling model. It's only about a decade of just doing the work to realize this is the process that I use this is what works this is what keeps people moving along and relationships blooming. But there are easier ways now right as Jared said, if only we had this earlier in our career. I'm right there with you a lot of trial and error, a lot of butterflies and anxiety of what if I say and do the wrong thing. The model is fantastic. I truly believe Jared, you can pick this up pretty quickly. You're likely doing a lot of it naturally, especially if you have been as Hannah said in that relationship building mindset. You know, I think this really comes natural to that. So it could seem like it takes a long time to really go step by step by step by step. If you're implementing perhaps a moves management system, and you're looking at how the model integrates with your donor database and CRM. So some of those logistics Jared, I think that's where, you know, I would feel a little more time intensive but I honestly believe my gut tells me although I've never met you, you're probably doing a lot of it already. So give yourself a lot of credit that you are very proficient, you know, in the model in some way, shape or form and now really putting the, the mindset to each step as Hannah said you know there's so there's eight is that right. Yeah, eight, eight steps and so, you know really looking at that and where your portfolio, your donor portfolio falls into each of those, you're probably going to be surprised. Yeah, yeah. And I will say this if you were coming into a new organization, new portfolio, new team. I always say it takes about 18 months to get everything established and running like a well oiled machine. And I say that both for the fundraising professionals and for the executives or board members that might be watching this right because it does take a little time for things to really gel. Yeah, you know. So, yeah, again, I think if you really focus in if you were to take the cost selling accelerate you could very quickly feel much more proficient in the eight steps. But, you know, getting things kind of in that flow state if you will, it's going to take a little time. I love flow state I was talking to someone about that the other day and it's becoming more mainstream that you know phrases I saw it on a Netflix show that I was watching about flow state and for those of you that might not be familiar. I highly recommend that you Google that there's a lot of information out there about working in flow state so thanks for dropping that negative information on it. That's a good one. Shandra from Sacramento, California, perhaps not too far from you Hannah because I know that you're in California yourself. But Shandra wants to know what part of the cost selling cycle is your hardest, and which part is your easiest. That's a really interesting question. This is going to reveal what a nerd I am about fundraising. Do I need to like get my my nerd glasses because you're just going to be super nerdy. Yeah, okay, so to me yeah. Eight steps in the cost selling cycle, they are prospecting. So that's identifying and qualify your potential donors right. Pre approach this is when we do all of the background research to figure out how we get to this person who our connections are what are they interested in, which of our programs might they want to invest in. How much are they giving other organizations so we know what kind of gift we can expect or, or plan for. Then there's your approach, which is when you actually make contact. And I'll come back to that. And then there's need discovery which is you have contact and you're interviewing them and finding out what makes them tick and really developing the best plan of action for their investment. Then the presentation. Where you're like, Okay, this is what we've come up with this with all the research and the interviewing and everything has led to then handling objections right so responding to their concerns challenges questions about what you presented. Closing the gift, right, and then stewardship, the what I call the Karen feeding of our donors. Yeah. So, so that was your eight for those of you watching I was I was trying to keep my finger count right along with Hanna but those of you listening I know it didn't make a difference but. Okay, yeah, a pin in one of those is. Yeah, so I will say the hardest one is the approach. Okay. Now, sidebar caveat to that. For instance, last night I was at an event where I had an idea of who was going to be in the room, but I didn't exactly have identified specific people that I definitely need to talk to right so I was working the room, right as we do as as social butterflies and fundraisers. And so that was just organically meeting people and networking and socializing right but making connection. That's not what we're we mean we're talking about the approach the approach is like I have this person on my target list, and I need to make contact. This is the hardest part in my experience because we live in this world now where people are just inundated with information. People who are social anthropists or somebody who's really well known in your community. They're probably getting a lot of outreach. They may have a gatekeeper, you know, and you may have to try to reach out then identify people to help you reach out, and that piece of the puzzle, I think takes the most time. Right because there's also the element of building trust. Right. So that would be the hardest for me. Yeah, once you get over. Yeah, once you get over that hump. It's, it's kind of like that's where the fun kicks in the easiest one. I'm going to say stewardship. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's, they've already made a commitment. It's a family and that to me gets really easy. You just make sure you're giving them the love and appreciation and recognition and the information they need to keep investing. Yeah. Well, I would definitely say the stewardship as well. I'm right there with you because you know that part of the cycle is really about continuing to express gratitude and continuing to express the impact in which this donor supporter investor whichever terminology is choose to use has really made an impact for the community right that because of you statement we've been able to do so much because of you, your investment your support your transformational gift. And that's so much fun. Right, like that is just a lot of fun, because who doesn't like to express gratitude like that hopefully makes the other person feel good it makes you feel good. I would say for me the hardest would be, and I'm not as versed in the cycles right so I want to be honest with that. I would say for me, go ahead. Okay, I was going to say, you know, it's really connecting and the prospecting so once I have people in my portfolio and for those of you that might not work a portfolio but you have like a donor database. You could have just some natural, you know, people in there that you're like, oh this person's been pretty active I'm going to reach out to them and reduce myself. But for me it's about really finding the new prospects, right like finding those new people that might have the, and I love the Madden test so I really like to do like, that's where I nerd out and I've sent Tony some some examples that I've sent my clients but you know who has the propensity to give and how might we bring in some new donor engagement for the organization and that that takes a lot of sleuthing, a lot of work. It does and I'm glad you brought it up because this is where my nerd really shows like the question was easiest and hardest part of the cycle but my favorite part is actually prospecting. Okay, great. Like, I love when clients say to me, we just were tapped out we've, you know, completely saturated the market, we don't have any other people and I'm like, give me your list. I can make this happen. My favorite things to do is identified like connection is my highest value. If you've done any of those sorts of values based assessments. And I just nerd out on figuring out first degree connections to people LinkedIn is like my favorite place to be agreed. Yeah, LinkedIn is phenomenal. I love that you shared that. So let's get a little nerdy or Hannah and I'm actually going to skip over this real quick but we can get back to it. Tell us how you nerd out in the Accelerate because you mentioned the Accelerate program, you know, throughout today's Friday ask and answer but I'm curious to know more, because you have a cohort starting so so nerd out with us on this what's coming up. So we're starting September 13. It's a 10 week program we meet every Tuesday morning online, it's in a virtual classroom. We max out at around 30 participants because we want to make sure that everyone gets, you know, very individualized attention, right so we do the curriculum together we walk through the entire eight step cause selling cycle and weeks. Every single participant is going to walk away with a perfected pitch, right, that they use in every scenario what whether it's introducing themselves in a networking event whether it's you know that very first approach with a donor. They're going to walk away with a lot of new beautiful relationships peers in the sector that they can then rely on for all those times that you need that tribe you know the folks that understand the pain points and the high points. So you're going to walk away with exercises that you can use at your organization to increase the culture philanthropy with your whole team to use with your board to identify new prospects in their networks in a very painless way. And we say it's a it's a great course for emerging fundraisers but I've had folks participate that are at the director level of their organization. Perhaps that are founders or EDs or board members who realize that they to need to have some training and fundraising and everybody finds great value in it. So, again, as Jared said earlier, I wish that this type of training existed with you know, 1520 years ago. Because it's all the things that I wish I knew and learn the hard way and that's the other fun part is that you get to hear all of my horror stories so you don't have to make the same mistakes. And I know I've made some my friends like again, I didn't have the cause selling model so I really was trial and error for the last, you know, two, two and a half decades. Now you had mentioned for one of our one of our one of your responses for a question here is that like you really get to learn the model the the cost selling education model in this accelerate program. I love that you mentioned there's about it's capped out at 30. Can you talk us through like a little bit of what to expect through this cohort that's coming up. Yeah, so every session it's it's a, I consider myself a great facilitator. I'm not a keynote speaker right so this is not like come to a lecture and watch my head on the screen for two and a half hours. It's a high engagement cameras on doing lots of breakout exercises to support the content that I do present. And then every session we also have coaching opportunities right so it is a code of silence safe space, you can come to a session and say, This is what's happening right now in my development team. Here's the struggle I'm having and we work through it together in real time. So it's tremendous. That is invaluable. I just want to say that in and of itself is priceless. Yeah, it's been really, really great so every week we do it depends on you know some of the eight steps take longer than others to work through. But you know there's eight steps there's 10 weeks, we kind of break it up one step per week and then we also have two sort of really special engagements we work in there one is an interview with a philanthropist. And I'm not going to say who it is yet, but I arranged that I interviewed them with the whole cohort present and then the cohorts able to ask questions of a philanthropist. Somebody that they're probably, you know is on their prospect list that they have an opportunity to get to know in an intimate setting, which is a really great value add. Yeah, and then we also do pitch fest right I mentioned that everybody leaves with their pitch perfected that they can use all the time. And we bring in the other cost selling trainers from fundraising Academy and then also some special guests from the nonprofit community around the country to act as both coaches and judges so again, more great expertise to tap more relationships to build. It's a and it's fun. It's fun. So I encourage everybody to check it out. I want to shameless plug if you ever need a judge please call on me it sounds amazing I would love to see how the Accelerate program works with so many of the cohort and I'm just huge advocate for professional training so another one of our questions that came up today. For me, I'm a constant learner and so I just, there's always more to absorb and so I love that you said you know it's for your emerging fundraisers and so many others so definitely take advantage of this Accelerate program that's coming up you do have to apply. Is that right. Yes, you do. Pretty, pretty painless process though and I will say this the price point I think is one of the best I've seen the program and the textbook. It all runs around $500 so the return on investment is outrageous. That is fantastic I you're right I don't know any other program that has that you know entry point level that hopefully is accessible to so many in our sector so thank you so much for that. I'm going to go back because I don't want to skip over you Hannah you are always fantastic my friend. I knew the first time we met and I had to learn of course how to properly say your name and I've never forgotten since then, because it looks like Hannah but it's Hannah. Yeah. Yes, thanks mom and dad for me as well. But I just love the name I love nerding out with you. You know, kindred spirits for sure and we of course have shared our book list so again those of you that joined us early you heard a little bit about Hannah burger. I'm going to comment the philanthropy coach as well as fundraising Academy trainer, and as you just heard she also oversees the accelerate program so this is the national online cause selling accelerate model with fundraising Academy at the National University so check that out. If you do want to apply, you can see right down here it's a bit Lee, set 13 cohort but you can also find it on fundraising dash Academy.org. Hannah, there's there I go sorry so much for that. I'm thrilled to have you here thrilled also to have our other amazing sponsors that provide us these platforms for conversations like the one we just had with Hannah. So thank you to Blumerang American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy with National University that provided this entire power week for each and every one of you we've had amazing guests from fundraising Academy join us this week. Also thank you to nonprofit nerd, your part time controller staffing boutique and the nonprofit thought leader again these companies have been with us day in day out. They're here to support you and your mission. And I really do hope that all of you will check out this accelerate program. I'm interested in it not only as a judge but you know I share a lot with my clients about where they can find more information so I'm definitely going to share this on my LinkedIn channel as well so thank you. Oh, thank you so appreciate it and consider yourself signed up for judging. Yes, I cannot wait. Thank you so much. It's on the air so you know it's happening but it sounds amazing cannot wait to hear those pitches so thank you. And thanks to all of you that joined us this week it's been a robust week. Great conversations great questions. You can find all of what we shared on our streaming platforms. And it's a fry yay so I hope you all have some rest and relaxation on your calendars this weekend. I know I do or I at least plan to and enjoy your weekend. Come back to us on Monday we've got another lineup for next week. And until then, please stay well, so you can do well. Thanks Hannah you're amazing.