 Welcome, I'm going to say welcome back for many of you because I know we have a lot of loyal viewers and listeners, but also welcome if this is your very first time joining us on the nonprofit show to the nonprofit show. Today I am thrilled that we have Chad Barger with us Chad is a CFR E also CEO of productive fundraising. And we were just talking about where we last met at AFP icon and asking if you know will we see each other again on the next one but for today's conversation over the next 30 minutes we are talking with Chad, as he brings to us a topic all about creative and affordable donor stewardship and this I'm going to say we can't talk about this enough because this is a topic that I believe Chad like really needs to be at the forefront but stay at the forefront. So, before we jump into this conversation with you, I want to say thank you to Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. Without her creating this platform over four years ago now you know we are marching to 900 episodes, we wouldn't be having this conversation with Chad so lucky to be here I'm Jared ransom, you're nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven group. We're also extremely honored to have the continued support from our amazing partners so a shout out over to bloom ring. Also want to give a shout out to bloom ring because you are our friend that connected me with Chad and really grateful to have this introduction. Also thank you to American nonprofit Academy, fundraising Academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part time controller, staffing boutique nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. Friendly reminder, these companies are all of their representatives they're here for you and they want to help you and your team do more good. Check them out they're great people. They believe in your mission and they want to help you elevate that mission across your, your community so great partners to have. Hey I mentioned that we have a lot of episodes to go back even our guests today admitted to me that he went back and watched a lot of randos so really excited that you did that. But reminding all of you that you can download the app right now so you can just scan that QR code that you see on the screen. You can also watch us on streaming broadcast platforms, some of your favorite, and then also on podcast platform so pretty much wherever you get your payment you can queue up the nonprofit show. And in just a matter of hours Chad this live conversation is going to be uploaded on all of those platforms so again for those of you that have joined us so glad that you're here. Chad Barger CFRE is with us today he is CEO of productive fundraising. Welcome to you my friend. My name is Sarah it's fabulous to be here. We've had this book for a long time so I'm excited the day is finally here and really excited to talk all things stewardship today. Yeah, before we do that tell me a little bit about yourself Chad and a little bit about the services you provide through productive fundraising. First thing I'm a career long fundraiser, all I've ever done kind of fell into the sector I was a AmeriCorps member, and then realized I could use my business degree for the nonprofit side so always can been kind of behind the scenes on the nonprofit side. I started as a front line fundraiser and then, you know, did what most of us consultants did we kind of fall into it so I was a p chapter president and learn that I really love to teach and train folks so they can raise money for what they're passionate about not just me doing that. Totally. So, launched my firm about eight years ago now, and we do fundraising training and coaching primarily for small to mid size organizations, religious helping them get unstuck and keep moving forward with their fundraising operations. We all need a little help with that and I love that you have spent also quite a bit of time frontline fundraising and so with that Chad and your expertise, you bring a lot of insight into this importance of donor stewardship. We're going to talk not only about this importance but the importance of it across all channels multi channels. What I'm curious what worked for you and what are you seeing is really working today so that you can you know share more, share more with us about this. So as I work, you know, primarily with smaller organizations, I find, you know, if they can do stewardship, it's kind of an afterthought. You know, when we have time, and we really never have time. There's always a million things to do. And when we look back on some of those statistics. What's the average donor retention rate 42.6% in the US is the last number I saw coming out of giving USA. Most of these small profits they lose over half of their donors every year. And we spend all this time focused on acquisition which need to find new donors find more donors, and we forget to focus on the ones we already have. So that's the easier part. For me, that's the more fun part, you know, deepening those relationships and going from there so that's kind of the one piece of just remembering to do it or making a priority. And then the other piece is, you know, we think we just can email them or put it on social. And, you know, we think that takes care of it. You know, what are your habits, Jared? Like, how much of your email do you actually read? How much of your Facebook feed do you see? Like, you know, it's very spotty. And I like to say it needs to be across all of your channels, especially any channel that you use for solicitation also needs to be used for stewardship. And the big one for me is mail. You've got to get some donor love in that postal mailbox a couple times a year, especially if, you know, you're expecting them to send back the envelopes when you send that solicitation letter. So just thinking through how do we spread that stewardship across all channels throughout the year. You know that retention rate is still shocking I've heard it before Chad but it's still shocking and I really appreciate the analogy that I've heard before about you know imagine if you were a restaurant and only, you know that that percentage came back to dine at your restaurant like would you stay open? Likely not and if so for just a short amount of time. So really looking at it that way as well. And I hear you I do think often, you know we're saying we need more donors we need more donors but what the heck are we doing to show our appreciation and nurture those that are currently donors and have helped to make already a considerable impact. So, I appreciate all of this that you're bringing let's let's move into this topic, which I'm like, what is this quite mean right like tell me more about this but it says don't worry about small worry about silent. What does this mean? This is this is always the pushback I get. So when I'm talking about you know we need to be in touch with our donors we need to be you know telling them thanks and impact and reporting and all of that. I get that you know, Chad we don't have time to do that we're too small. On behalf of one, you know, we don't have a dedicated donor relations person and fine, you need to find a way to squeeze some time in because don't worry about being too small, worry about being silent. When your donors don't hear from you when they make that donation, and they get your generic printed gift acknowledgement letter that barely says thank you. On behalf of the board of directors of ABC organization dot dot, you know, no. They don't, we don't delight them. They don't hear what actually happened with their money. All these things. They just hear silence until when until the next time you need more money, and then they get that solicitation letter so you know what's that. I like to look at that donor experience, you know tracking that donor experience throughout the year what does that look like for our organization and how can we get more touch points in there that are a little creative and we're going to get some of those today to just let you kind of expand that and kind of have your donor say, Oh, wow, this organization actually communicates with me. They actually tell me what they do with my dollars, you know, I like them, I trust them. Maybe they deserve more of my dollars, you know, these kind of pieces. I'm really curious so when I started my career 20 plus years ago. I was really taught that a monthly newsletter, as well as maybe two direct mail appeals or solicitations right in the US PS that that's enough like that's enough communication, then added technology to social media platforms, you know and it was like well how can we post, you know, five days a week twice a day, there was so so many opinions, right out there. What are you seeing are some of those best practices right now, and specifically when it comes with email because we had another guest on and she really coached that weekly emails that's where that's where we need to be. And I'm curious what you're seeing in, you know, in your communities. I really preach consistency, especially with digital. So not, you know, we need to get this many out but you know if we're going to post weekly we post weekly. If we're going to post month through a monthly email newsletter we do monthly. I'm not what I see a lot of times is, Oh, we haven't put anything on Facebook in two and a half weeks maybe we should put something up and some random thing goes up. I always joke that people like to take a photo of the squirrel sitting on their sign out front and just post that but oddly that works really well. Squirrel posts like get tons and tons of likes so if you are struggling with content. You know, get an animal by your sign that tends to work. But yeah that consistency and I like to like how do you determine that with an email blast. I would there to be like maybe three things in it, because they're not going to scroll down and keep reading all that stuff. So, if you have three things every week great. If you have three things every month. Just don't give me a monthly E blast and then you have 37 things in it that tells me you could be doing, you know, shorter frequency. You're doing work but nobody's reading. So consistency above frequency is kind of where I'm at what what makes sense based on the amount of content you have and your ability to actually get it out there. You know, really valid point I appreciate consistency over frequency. I feel like, you know, with a lot of the organizations, especially if you're one person team you're thinking, how come I'm going to do all this, you know, and so having that consistency cadence likely is more important than the consistency cadence. And I would echo, yes, people love animals so oftentimes you know, and I remember social media, you know, even if personally, even if you didn't have a photo to put up people still say, you know, cat photo just for interest or just for attention and so finding opportunities. I don't know to just catch people's attention and and to, you know, get them to really have eyeballs on that content, I think it's pretty important. But I really I mean I'm feeling so much better already with your statement of consistency over frequency, because being silent as you said is really not where we want to go. And this, how do the board members Chad, because all for your shop. Yeah, exactly. All board members can play a role in stewardship, but they might not all play a role in fundraising. How are you seeing board members and stewardship really finding a balance with one another. Well, I do a ton of board training. That's actually our biggest training group here at productive fundraising, both in person and virtual. And I time and time again like I'll be getting ready for a board fundraising training session. And one of the board members will come up to be and we'll be like, I'm here but I really don't want to be here I don't like this fundraising thing I'm not comfortable. I don't want to kind of talk through it and you know what it is and talk about relationship building and all of that. But I also like to find that every board member needs to be involved in the fundraising process, but they don't all need to be frontline fund They don't all need to be directly asking. And one of the greatest ways to engage those ones that aren't so comfortable is with stewardship. Let them thank our donors, let them be out there having these conversations. One of my favorite things is board, thank you calls, just let them call our donors, you know, give them a each board member one month of the year that they call 20 donors, or you know do a big thank fest in January whatever works for your organization. They have one amazing call where they connect with another donor that cares about thing they care so deeply about. And they just form this connection. They're hooked. They just, they love this. I have a donor former board member. This is probably about 15 years ago now that she was making board thank you calls and connected with somebody in the community, they had a great conversation. They had a coffee, they kind of hit it off and grew into this great friendship where they now go on vacation every summer together, and it started with a donor thank you call. So, it can be powerful we have stats that back it up. I'm going to go back to the big Penelope Burke donor centered fundraising study of, you know, 40,000 households in the US and Canada. And they studied this and they find that people that receive a prompt thank you call from a board member tend to give 39% more the next time they make a donation. So, I love that statistic that's who I'd I give to the board members that say, oh, I could make calls but it makes no difference, like, you know, like, that's a waste of my time. No, it's not. It's almost a 40% increase. So, that's one way that I like to engage board members but I have two other favorite ways but I'll let you chat there Jarrett's you have any comments on on board thank you calls have you seen any great experience with that throughout your career. So, thank you chat I have, and I same thing, I feel a lot of board members see fundraising is the F word, and they're scared they want don't want to be involved. But one of my questions to you chat should a new board member also jump into that stewardship process or is there kind of a buffer of timeline, you know, board members there's term limits so there's new board members there's more experience more mature board members. When is it the right time if you will to kind of plug in a new board member into the stewardship process. Yeah, that's a great question. Surprisingly, I don't get that that often so I would say I don't want them to do it like in month one, but I also don't feel like they need to be on board for a full year before they can do it. So maybe they've been to a board meeting or two, they've gone through our orientation process, which we actually have, we have that board orientation process. And then, yeah, but, and I give them a script to. So it's the kind of walkthrough if they're not comfortable they can just kind of read through the script and, you know, go off of that. But I really just want to kind of throw them into it and because they don't have to have all the answers. They can say, you know, that's a great question. I'm not sure about that. Let me check with our executive director and I'll get back to you. And now there's another fabulous touchpoint for the donor when the person calls them back. So, you know, that there's that fear. What if they asked me something I don't know. That's fine. No big deal. I appreciate that. And I'm thinking, well, first of all, like, I appreciate you don't get that question often because that means, you know, hopefully organizations are saying there's no reason to wait. But perhaps in that first month, you know, if an organization is making calls regularly and not a January thinkathon and it's, you know, a more regular cadence, maybe the new board members can, you know, sit in with the board members making the phone call. I feel as soon as they make a call and you said they have that that one awesome conversation with the donor that will immediately draw them into that mission, you know, draw them into that mission moment to to hear the impact from someone that is giving financially. So that that was just one of your, you know, suggestions here I want to hear these other two don't hold don't hold back. The other two. When we're doing our events. I love to assign my board members each to a couple tables where like at that lull in the event like between dinner and dessert, they're going to get up, go over kind of button. Excuse me, folks. My name is Chad, I'm on the board here. I simply wanted to say thank you. Thank you so much for coming out this evening we couldn't do the amazing work that happens in the community without you. We just wanted to make sure you know that have a fabulous evening. And then they walk to the complete other side of the room and they do that with another table. Right. So, you know, we get the board out and about, you know, so many times you talk to our corporate folks and they say, you know, we come to your events and nobody even really talks to us, like, you know, there's no get we don't really feel that appreciated. So great way just to make sure that's happening. For my extreme introverts that will not pick up the phone will not go to a table. They can write the thank you notes. Right. The thank you notes are still incredibly powerful tool that handwritten thank you. I've had multiple times my career where I send one. And then I show up a year later. And there's my thank you note pin to their bulletin board. It's great for the last year they came into work and saw like our organization name and logo and spot and have that good set. There's power there. So it's not just for nieces and nephews being forced to write them to say thank you for the birthday gift. They have a true purpose in fundraising and all over the place and you know, we're members are great at those as well. I love that I love the introvert strategy as a complete extrovert chat it has taken me all of the years of my life to really understand individuals that are introverted and I am so grateful truly to our introverted friends, because I have so much from these individuals, you know, because I only live in that extrovert space and so having that comfort ability. Absolutely let's involve them with the the handwritten notes let's get them involved in, you know, in that aspect of it it does mean that they get a pass because they're still very much involved. But let's give them something that is a little more comfortable for them. So all great insight. As we run close to the end of our conversation. I don't want us to forget this talk to us about cause donor delight and you're really going to talk to us about how we can create this is that right. Definitely want to do that I mean everybody does the basic things we talked about them already. You know we send a monthly email blast. We send the gift acknowledgement letter maybe we do thank you calls or notes. So what are some different things that can do without completely breaking the bank that might set us apart a little bit. So I have a couple quick things that I like to do with groups. I love postcards. So postcards like jumbo postcards you know the big guys, they are incredibly effective anytime except for during the month of an election, because our political friends also really like them. They just stand out in the mail. They're cheaper than a newsletter. They work great. They allow you to do all kinds of fun stuff. I love kids art on postcards just let them do design like kids right thank you notes works great. You can go vertical all kinds of fun. I have to had a lot of success with die cut postcards so you can mail shapes. Alright so here's a heart. There we go. Another heart, an owl, a pineapple, an ice cream sundae, these mail for the same price as the jumbo postcard. I've had donors. I was working at a United Arts Fund, I nailed the violin. I had donors call me and say chat oh my gosh you mailed a violin I didn't even know you could do that. We go on to have this great little conversation. My donors called me that never happens. So the next year I mailed a ballet slipper the year after that I mailed an artist palette you know if your printer already has the die they cost no more than this. And so just kind of looking around to find that vendor I use one out in Florida if anybody wants a name you can send contact me, but those are fun. They're different. And then just kind of gets that little touch point that's a great example of something in their mailbox a couple times a year other than just your solicitation letter. And it doesn't have to be this 20 page newsletter that takes forever to put together. Now chat are those. Thank you. I have three more. I know are those donor thank you pieces are they invites. What are they specifically those postcards. So like this one says you are the apple of our eye. You know you're an answer to a prayer because of you a recently unemployed dad will feed his family and get help finding a new job and tells a quick story. That's what I love just like thanking donors sharing a quick story done. Yeah, you know I again will witness I've never received a die cut postcard I love them I can absolutely see how the violin was a huge hit. Maybe even pulled at their heartstrings didn't don't right like, but looking at it from that aspect. Tell me the next two that you have for us and I'm being a little mindful of our timing Chad but I want our viewers and guests to hear these other two. Got it. Yeah, I like to take people behind the scenes, and I do a lot of work with like libraries and museums, and they think like behind the scenes. That's not a big deal. Well, the boiler room that's no big deal to you, the cataloging room that you're in every day. Our donors never get to go in. It's just kind of taking them and creating this little experience, you know have some beggars and muffins a couple words from the CEO, do a little behind the scenes tour of the library. You know, and maybe they get to help unbox the books and catalog them like it's mundane for us as staff but things they don't always get to do. It's kind of sense of like an immersive experience. How do we directly involve them in the program I mean some of us have very sensitive issues and causes that we serve and we can't always do that. But if there's a way to actually engage the donors and let them experience it. But that's more powerful than any postcard we can possibly set. So how do we do that for those Chad do you set up regular opportunities to bring in donors. Is it a one on one donor experience. Talk to me about that because I'm curious how that small groups, like, you know, eight to 12 or something. And a lot of my groups will do something quarterly. Something different like something might be out of the field something might be in the facility. And the beauty with this is, even if they don't come, the mere fact that they were invited is a touch point and they feel appreciated and that's amazing. I got my last one and that's for the donors that don't come, or you know the ones they the check comes we try to engage they won't meet with us. Nothing. I love to use this thing. I love to use the cell phone we all walk around with these high powered high resolution video cameras at all time and don't use them. And for me, it looks something like this like you know, hi Joe, it's Chad at the museum. We just finished setting up the new exhibit. It's amazing. I can't wait for you to see it. You made this possible. It wouldn't have been able to get done without you wanted to get a sneak peek here we go spinning around. Thank you again, you're the best. I love that you're right I mean, here's fine right like let's use it. And if you don't like the know the tech or how to do that it's not that hard but there are great companies out there that will make that super easy for you as well. So we have the tools, we just need to use on. We have the tools where we're equipped to provide some delight Chad you have been a delight truly Chad Barger CFRE you also offer monthly webinars so I want to give a shout out to you on that and also invite everyone who's watching and listening. You can go to productive fundraising.com. And that's where you can find the next webinar that Chad will be hosting so this is I believe a monthly series and so constant rotation of his own topics and conversations. And answered by our good friends at Bloomerang so thank you. Yes, well thank you Chad it it's truly been fantastic. Want to say thank you also to Julia Patrick and for those of you that have been watching or seeing are sorry watching or hearing my voice today I'm Jared ransom nonprofit nerd. Thank you to our amazing sponsors. Absolutely echo that Chad thank you to Bloomerang for bringing Chad to me and making this introduction at AFP icon. Also want to say thank you to the American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy at National University nonprofit thought leader, your part time staff and boutique nonprofit nerd as well as nonprofit tech talk. These companies allow us to bring in amazing guests like yourself Chad to really nerd out because that's, that's all what I like to do right like let's just get down and dirty and and talk about this from a true, you know, nerd standpoint So thank you for all of you that joined us today either live are on many of our platforms where we show all of our recording coming up on 900 episodes truly so October. That will be here soon but I want to say thank you again to Chad. Thank you to all of you that have joined us today for the conversation. As we end every episode, we want to remind you to please stay well. Thank you Chad.