 Well, hey everybody, we're really excited today to have Jessica Hart-Magle on with us. We're going to be talking about digital payments, and this might seem like a little in the weeds, but this is really one of those topics that's at the forefront of how we work with modern donors. And so we're really excited to get this information out there. If you have seen something or you follow us on social media, we have been chatting about a very specific tech survey that Blumerang is doing. Fascinating questions. I mean a lot about frustration levels, you know, knowledge levels. It's not a sales pitch by any stretch of the imagination. I think that Blumerang is trying to get a grip on how people are adopting technology and what's their pain point and what would make it easier. I assume this will be something of a sector review. So anyway, tell Blossom that Blumerang mascot what you think about it. It's very interesting. I think it took me three, maybe four minutes. Okay, so today in the hot seat, nonprofit knowledge, what we need to know, taking digital payments. I think I'm perspiring already because this is like something that gives me stress, Jessica. Don't stress. Yeah, it is. It's a hot topic and we would not have this hot topic if we didn't have our presenting sponsor. So we're very, very appreciative of you joining us and talking about that. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd is off this week on vacay. So she'll come back and join us next Monday. I'll bring her in to go. Jessica, you are the vice president of products for Blumerang, which is pretty amazing considering how much your product changes and evolves to meet the needs. But today we want to talk about those digital payments. And I want to back up and have you explain what are the types? It's not just one type. No, not at all. There are so many different forms of digital payments today and you know, it's rapidly changing, right? So when speaking of digital payments, it's really any form of payment outside of a payment that you would receive physically in your hands, right? So it can involve a credit card. It can involve a ACH or EFT, electronic check essentially, electronic payment from your bank account using your bank account and routing number. It includes forms of express pay that a lot of, you know, depending on how immersed you are into the Google platform or the Apple platform, you could use Google Pay or Apple Pay or Venmo. And there are a lot of various express pay options that are supported now when making payments outside of being physically in person with someone. So it's pretty expansive. You know, it's funny because think about back in the day, it used to be, do you take American Express? No, we're just taking B semester card. I mean, so limited. And now it's just, you know, opening up. And it seems to me that the younger demographic of donor expects this. Absolutely. I mean, even, even though there are certain demographics of donors who still love to receive that piece in the mail, right? They love the feel of that, that tangible piece of mail that they receive. They still prefer to actually give through an online vehicle. So baby boomers prefer to give through online vehicle, you know, millennials, Gen Xers, all of them, 55% or more of them prefer to give through a digital channel versus sending in a check or doing it in person. You know, I love that you just drew that link between still getting something snail mail, but ultimately navigating the donation in a digital format, just because you're receiving the mail doesn't mean you're gonna, you're gonna actually use that, that envelope or, you know, that's really interesting. I don't think we think that way. Yeah. And it's so true. I mean, that's the first thing I look for whenever I receive a solicitation in the mail is where's, you know, what website do they want me to go to, to, you know, support them. So, interesting. I love that. Okay. Well, that's a good way to start this conversation because just expanding our minds as to what's out there and what the demand is. Talk to us about why. I mean, the ease and security issues we're going to get into. But can you share with us some knowledge about what taking a digital payment, how it might change that relationship? Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's really interesting to review the data and the statistics on this, which is, you know, something that I love, you know, geeking out on and spending time on. So, but yeah, when we look at donor retention and how challenging it is to make a connection after that, you know, first connection that you have with a donor, we see that when people give digitally and then are included in like a monthly giving program, right, that they are retained by a much greater percentage than if they are mailing in or required to mail in a physical check every year or every month or whatever, you know, cadence that they're used to supporting your organization, right? So it can go from a 62% retention rate using check up to in the 80s using a credit card. And if someone is using their bank account, like they're as an electronic payment method with their account and routing number, then it increases up to 94% retention for another gift. OK, so you go from like in the 60s to the 90s? That's correct. Do you have engagement? That's correct. For people who are, you know, committed to the organization and give on a regular basis. So yeah, it's amazing what leveraging those digital payment channels and vehicles can really do to help with the retention for your business and for your mission. So and on top of that, you know, there people are I think they don't understand the cost that it takes for managing all of the checks and the direct mail responses that come in using a check, right? So if they're coming in from a lock box, there's costs associated with the lock box. If they're coming in, even just to the office, the cost to enter that data by hand and also the accuracy, right? So you could end up inaccurately entering the information, which then you can't build a relationship with the donor. If you if you end up accidentally entering in the incorrect information for the address or the phone number or the email address. And and so there's there's a lot that goes into the why. But really, it's it's essential for building a better longer longer term relationship to to have the information coming in directly through a digital channel. You know, it's fascinating you said that because every once in a while will be involved in a donor audit, a donor paying audit. And so then we'll we'll measure everything from how a check is received from, you know, different, like if you will, mystery shoppers and one of the things that I always do is do a cash donation where we have different bills. So it's like a 20, a 10, a five and a couple of ones. And then we'll see if some of that cash got skimmed. And it's so for for tracking shortage. And it sounds awful, but I think a lot of organizations don't necessarily understand how this works. And as you grow, how perilous it can be. And so this concept of taking a digital payment, I think can eliminate a lot of that when you look at the whole trajectory of how revenue is coming in. OK, this is something that I'm really interested to talk to you about. And that's something that we we're starting to hear more, not starting, but we've been having this discussion about meeting donors where they are. Do you have a sense that donors are engaging one way with their smartphones versus their laptops versus their desktops? Or do you have any ideas on that spectrum for us? I do. And yeah, so, you know, last year was a very interesting year in the world of philanthropy and just the world in general. And while we did see that, you know, people were were very generous during, you know, a time of crisis. We saw that, you know, giving increased through digital channels by 90 percent while just giving overall increased by only about nine percent. So it's I think it's just so important to think about about how people want to give. And again, like you have here just meeting them where they are and and wanting to make sure that those those channels are vehicle. You want to make it easy for them, right? You don't want them to have to think about how can I support this mission? How can I support the organization that means something to me? So being able to use social media and, you know, an online, you know, having an online presence is so important in being able to share those those ways to support ways to support the organization through those vehicles that they're they're already going to and they're looking to make a connection. Interesting to see when when our donors were forced to go digital. Now it's going to be really interesting to see in this next 24, 18, 24 months. What do they continue? Or, you know, what is that looking like? I mean, you'll have to come back on and share that with us, because it's certain. Yeah, it's certainly going to be kind of a test. Now, part of this discussion, I want to know you talked about this, which I've got to be honest with you. I hadn't really thought as much about this on the physical side of, you know, taking in money, opening the envelopes, you know, all of this, comparing that to the cost. And a lot of times we call them, you know, merchant fees. Can you share with us some overarching ideas that we should be looking at when we take digital payments? Yeah, I think this is really important because, you know, not all opportunities are created equally here. So when it comes to accepting digital payments, nonprofits have options, right? There are different there are different partnerships and depending on which one, depending on the partnership, the fees and the costs are definitely different. So evaluating that is really critical and making sure you understand what you're getting into. And specifically, there are there there's a processing fee that is always going to be associated with processing a digital payment, even if it's an electronic check, there could be like a flat fee of 30 cents or something like that that's associated. But with credit cards, depending on your partner, the the fees could vary from, you know, two percent to six percent, right? And so finding out if the the partnership that you have, if there is a difference based on the type of credit card, based on whether someone's using American Express versus Visa, or some partners treat just have a flat percentage across the board for all the types of credit cards that are used. So that's really important. Also, making sure that, you know, if there are any monthly minimums because some partners have a monthly minimum and a monthly just a monthly platform fee that could be associated. So making sure that, again, that you just read any of the, you know, small fine print to understand what the overall costs will be to your organization is important. And then comparing that with all of the options that you have. And then and then making sure you understand what you're getting for that money, right, because there are certain offerings that partners will have where with one partner you might receive free credit card updates. So if a credit card expires, then you don't have to worry about calling or contacting the donor. And that's just happening behind the scenes automatically for you. And then the other thing to take into account is which online platforms your partner is is able to work in conjunction with or that their partners with, right? So certain processors and certain payment platforms can partner with certain types of online giving platforms. And so making sure that the one you want to use is compatible and and that that platform that that they're partnering with that they offer the ability to have the donor cover the fees, because if you're wanting to try to take on fewer fees and less of that cost, if you partner with an online giving platform where they give the donor the opportunity to cover those fees, we've seen that over 90 percent of donors are willing to cover the fees because they understand that there's a cost to running a profit organization as a business. I love that. And I think that's genius. I think that's something that we should all be looking at. Because, yeah, I mean, we when you give your your harder money, you want it to go, you want it to have as much impact as possible. And if you can help alleviate that that additional cost, shoot, I think that's I think that's brilliant. Now, you mentioned something I want to delve into a little bit more. And and I think it's, you know, payment tracking and reporting. But I heard you say or I think I heard you say that you want this to, you know, be able to come in and join in with your CRM, correct? Yeah, it's about what that looks like. So, yeah, again, if you have a payment processor that works with your donor management platform or with your online giving platform, then it should make reconciliation and reporting so much easier. Right? Otherwise, you're in a separate processing account trying to figure out what dollars over there are tied to the donations in either your online giving platform or CRM. Or maybe it's the same for both. But yeah, it's you want to try to reduce that confusion and pain around reconciliation as much as possible. So having a a processor where that report or where those fees and all of that information is coming directly into into the donor CRM is really going to reduce a lot of time and headaches and just trying to track down where dollars went. So we're, yeah, we're really big on trying to help identify ways to make reconciliation for the nonprofit easier. Right? So that's a that's that's something that I think everyone should be thinking about when looking at their payment solution. Well, I would think that if you if you don't have that, then you'll really. And although we trust Bloomerang, you will be looking to get that data from the provider about what the trajectory of donor patterns are. I mean, if it's not coming into your system and you're having to figure this out on your own, right? I mean, because I would imagine that part of this tracking will help you determine the validity of pursuing those digital payments and how how it actually works. Right? Regardless, you want to make sure that any donation that is processed using a digital payment is captured in your donor management platform. You know, there are some ways around that that, you know, some organizations will have it outside of their donor management platform and then they'll use an importing tool or something like that with like the data in a spreadsheet to try to get all of the data in. And that, you know, that's something that's possible. But just you have to factor in like the staffing time and costs and everything that's associated with that and with not having potentially the real time information there as well. So anything to, you know, help reduce potential manual mishaps or save time and cost is, I think, really important as because most of us are wearing so many hats, you know, who are involved with with with nonprofits and we're just we're trying to do everything, right? So if we can save time around this critical piece of making sure we understand what the what how the donors are supporting us, then that's, you know, that's just really important to consider when trying to decide who your payment provider is going to be. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's really an interesting a different way to look at it. Now, part of this process when we're looking as and I'll call us the merchants, like, you know, the nonprofit, we're in the merchant role, we're taking the money and we're processing it in that digital capacity. Talk to us about deposit time delays and what's going on there? Yeah, so depending on, you know, your payments partner, it could take anywhere from 48 hours to see the money show up in your bank account after a donor makes a donation to, you know, 30 days. So if you have to wait 30 days to money in your bank account after a donor makes a donation, that could that could create some constraints on on what you're able to do during that time period. But yeah, they're definitely evaluated, right? Because again, this is not an area where all payment solutions are created equally. So with some payment solutions, the deposits are going to be every two days, with some it's going to be every 15 days. So it just depends and depending again on the payments solution or provider, sometimes you'll have the option to get the money sooner. If you're paying an additional fee. So that's important enough to you. That's something that you could, you know, evaluate and factor into your your cost. But just know to ask the question, right? Like, how long is it going to take for me to see the money hit the bank account after a donation is received? Because you obviously need to plan accordingly with your budget and with your projections of how much money you're expecting from the campaign and when. Yeah, I would imagine, especially to like, if you're in a crisis campaign where, let's say, you know, we had on Camille Ridley yesterday from the American Red Cross talking about these disastrous wildfires throughout the Western United States. Money is needed now. Cash is needed now. Well, you know, waiting on on that, it's fascinating. And I have to tell you, I never really thought about that until you and I were starting to chit chat about this because that has huge implications. Right. And like, how much is it going to cost you if you want to get your money sooner? Is it even an option? Right. Well, yeah, because if you're talking one or two percent or three percent, all of a sudden that adds up. And yeah, fascinating, fascinating. We don't have much time. This our time today has blown by us. I have so many questions. I know that I'm going to have more questions after we finish today, because I'll, you know, you've got the juices going here. But, pardon me, got to bring this up. The elephant in the room, the thing that I think makes us fearful to get engaged in digital deposits in the first place, payment security. Absolutely. So what are some tips? Yeah, this is a huge pain point for some organizations, right? Just thinking about this creates a lot of anxiety. And so, again, just be really diligent when you are partnering with a payments platform and with, you know, even the if you're using like a processor that's separate from the platform in which you're actually accepting digital payments, you have to be diligent about making sure that, first of all, there, you know, there's security around the hosting of any sort of page that you would be sending out to your donor. You want to make sure that it feels and looks legit because donors are looking for that, right? So you want to make sure that it has a feeling, that it has just an appearance of being secure. A lot of donors are even now looking for the Google ReCAPTCHA sort of indicator that provides there are mixed reviews on that. Some people say, oh, I don't want to have to worry about filling it out. Other other donors are so reassured when they see that because then they feel this sense of security that, you know, oh, the Google ReCAPTCHA is there. They're familiar with it in this world. A lot of it is just about feeling familiar, right? And so, but yeah, with different digital payment platforms, there are things that are happening behind the scenes that donors won't even recognize or wouldn't even know is happening. And those things are really important for you as a nonprofit to evaluate when choosing a payments provider. So there are different tools where if a donor is entering in information into certain fields on a donation page, where it will be able to evaluate if it's a real human entering in that information or whether it is, you know, a bot or some sort of spammer, right, or some sort of hacker based on a number of factors, the speed in which the information is being entered, the IP address that it's coming from. So one thing to really look out for to try to ask about when you're making a decision is do you have tools that can help identify some of these overall like general fraud related activities? Because a lot of them do now. So look out for that, ask them the questions. Do you have any sort of fraud protection with your payment solution? Because if they don't, there are options, there are a lot of options out there that do. So you wanna make sure to partner with someone who has that fraud like radar essentially out there for you. I love that you brought that up because I don't think I would have ever really thought of that. I think it's, you know, I can see asking, well, are you secure? Well, yeah, okay, yeah. But actually knowing like what are some of those steps and how you're always staying ahead because nothing worse than torpedoing your whole donor relationship because of an external fraud situation. Oh my gosh. And we don't expect, you know, people to know which questions to ask specifically, right? Because we're not expecting that anyone at a nonprofit really to be a fraud prevention specialist. So having some basic questions, like is there anything that you track when a donor is entering or anyone would be filling out the form that would be able to track if it's a true donor entering the information or if it's a fraudulent entity who could be interacting with the form. And that should be enough to really start that conversation where if there are things in place, they would be able to list, oh yeah, we have a way to track X, Y and Z. So, and, you know, we could definitely get into a lot more detail about what to look for and some of the potential offerings out there. But I'm intentionally wanting to keep it like high level so that people understand like, this is all it takes to really evaluate this and start the conversation. And then the payments provider can answer those questions and really inform the consumer. Right, I love it. I think that for a lot of our viewers is gonna help us to figure out what is the best provider to go with and how to even really wrap our heads around this because this is not going away. It's only being amplified and the ease with which you can work with your donor and confidence. That is just such a key piece of donor relations. Absolutely, I mean, you have one bad experience, right? And it's not just that personal relationship with that single donor that it could impact. It's, you know, anyone who they would, you know, it's all about networking and all about word of mouth and just the reliability of your organization. So just making sure that there is a secure experience for every donor with every opportunity is incredibly important. Yeah, well, wow. You've been really, you've shown a light on something that I know we need to be talking about. We need to be understanding, but you gave us a lot of tips and an insider view today that I don't know if you could ever get to without your help. So thank you very much. I feel armed to go on that journey and be more strategic and intellectual about what could happen, what should happen, and then what are the costs? Because it's not just the apparent cost. There are other factors in there. So I really appreciate you sharing that. I want everyone to see Jessica's information again. She's the gal to know because she's the vice president of products. And so she sees the future and that's a good place to be. I'm so appreciative that you can do that and that you would share that with us today. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's- Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed being here and getting to talk to you. Well, it's been great. We love Blumerang. You know, I say this every time we have the opportunity. I'm a total groupie of Steven Shattuck in his book, Robots Make Bad Fundraisers. I quote it all the time. Love that book. I'm pestering him all the time for version two. When's that generous book coming out? But Blumerang has been a huge supporter of me personally, of Jarrett, of the nonprofit show, The American Law Profit. Well, it's truly been amazing. And before we log off, it's really important to know that all these names and this concept wouldn't be here if Steven Shattuck of Blumerang didn't come forward and say, hey, you gals, can I be your sponsor? And we were like, what? You know, and I mean, it started the whole thing. So I am eternally grateful for that because once again, Blumerang helped us open our minds just to new possibilities. Everybody, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I mentioned earlier that Jarrett Ransom, who also celebrating her birthday this week is out of town. She'll be back with us on a Monday. Again, thank you to all of our presenting sponsors. Without you, we would not be here talking with the likes of Jessica Hart-Nagel. So we are very excited to have you join us. Also, we just are debuting a new show called Fundraising Events TV. Jason Allen Champion is the host of that. And it's just all things related to fundraising events. So we always like to say from golf to gals, from ballrooms to barns, you know, we got you covered. So check us out there. And again, thank you so much for being on the show today, Jessica, you are a delight. Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here with you. So thanks again. I hope you have a great day. Well, I hope you do too. And as we like to remind everyone as we are, ending today's episode, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everybody.