 I am ready to get this episode going. And I'm so thrilled to have you back, Nick. Nick Miller, Director of Experience at Front RaiseUp, talking to us today about recurring giving donor strategies. And for those of you that joined us in the Chitty Chat Chat, you learned that Nick was with us in August of last year. So we have asked him to return and we are so thrilled to have you with us today. So thank you for that. And thanks for sharing more with us about recurring giving because again, it is so, so very important. Before we get started, we of course like to extend our deepest, sincerest, most abundant gratitude to our presenting sponsors. We are so grateful to have their continued investment, not only in the shows, but truly in the sector at large. So these companies exist to help you, yes you, do all the great work that you're doing in your community. So please do check them out. They're super easy to find online, super active, very involved in all parts of the sector as it refers to nonprofit. So thank you to our sponsors and please do check them out. And thank you to Julia Patrick for coming home and joining me today. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. She was greatly missed this earlier this week. But again, I hope I did a fine and dandy job. I'm Jarrett Ransom, also known as the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And now that we got this part out of the way, we are so excited again to turn it over to you, Nick, would love to know a little bit more about what has happened with fundraise up and with you in particular since that moving truck arrived on August the third. Thank you so much, Julia and Jarrett. It is such a pleasure to get to join you and the rest of the viewers of the nonprofit show in a return appearance. It feels almost like yesterday that we were on Zoom together, but it also feels like it was 10 years ago. And for those of you who maybe saw that episode back in August, 2020, I was just moving into New York from Portland, Oregon. And boy has a lot happened in that year since we've been apart. And certainly here at fundraise up, there's been such tremendous growth. And so for those of you who are not familiar with our company, we're a company that has built online donation technology that's powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. And the reason we're using those buzzword technologies is to help individualize the online donation experience for every single donor. And as we talk about recurring giving today, you're going to see just how important it is to meet every single donor where they are in their giving journey. Now, I've got to ask, we were kind of talking about this in the 2DChat chat piece of the nonprofit show. Do you think that your company is on track to what they were working on or because of the pandemic and the surge for becoming more digitally connected to donors that you've pushed forward at a more rapid rate? What does that look like? That's a really great question. And for those of you who are in the 2DChat chat, you may have caught that I shared that those so many companies, whether they're working in the nonprofit space or in the for-profit space, truly did suffer during the pandemic. Businesses closed, people were laid off. But where we saw tremendous growth as an industry was in philanthropy itself and people's desire to support their fellow man, woman, animal and everything in between. And certainly that's true of fundraise up and we've seen tremendous growth over the past year and are now working with some of the largest and most impactful nonprofits in the world. And it's a eye-opening experience and certainly one that we're so proud to be a part of, whether it's the recent earthquakes in Haiti or our continuing battle with the global pandemic, being able to serve these nonprofits is incredible. Well, let's get into it and Bravo to you and your team. I mean, it's really exciting to see you helping so many organizations, especially somebody coming in, moving across country into a whole new time and a perilous time at that. But let's start from the very beginning and please describe to us what the reoccurring giving or recurring giving is all about and that structure. Absolutely. So for those of you who are watching, this is likely not a new term for you. Recurring giving has been a practice or a mindset for quite some time now, but what's different about the way we look at recurring giving now than how we may have looked at it a few years ago is that it really needs to be something much more advanced, something much more individualized and interactive for a donor. And again, if you had joined us at the very beginning of the show, when we were just chatting conversationally, we talked a little bit about how the world, if we had technology from three years ago, the world would be a very different place if we were to go through this global pandemic again together. And so Zoom was of course a much younger company, so many of the other platforms didn't even exist. Microsoft Teams was another thing three years ago. And similarly, if we were to look at recurring giving three years ago, we looked at it with a much different mindset. It was just something that we knew as nonprofits we needed to have in place, but maybe we didn't place incredible emphasis on it. But what we know now, especially in the midst of something like a global pandemic is that that recurring support is critical to not only fulfilling the mission of a nonprofit, but ensuring that it operationally can continue through incredibly hard times that impact everybody on the planet. Yeah, I appreciate that so much and really just want to add value to that recurring gift donation because that is something that I really hope many of us focus our time, energy and effort on because we are in, I hate to say it, but we are moving into Q4. And like standardly, typically it's about 30% and correct me if this is not the most accurate data, but 30% of fundraising dollars come in in that fourth quarter. So we will soon be entering that. And what I think some of that fear that many nonprofit leaders that I talked to are really about, we have to start at zero every year. And this recurring donor and this really recurring campaign can alleviate that pressure. It really can help to alleviate that starting from ground zero every year or every month. It's brutal, it's brutal. Well, let's talk about that a little bit with the knowledge that you have and what you're seeing with your company, what do donors do or what are their responses to recurring giving? I mean, does it, what happens? Yeah, this is a great question. And Jared, to also highlight what you just shared about the release of donors dollars here at Fundraise Up, we see about, and I have to talk about this in business term since we're not a nonprofit ourselves, but we see over 60% of our revenue released in Q4. And so that's directly correlated to the dollars that people are giving because our business functions on a transactional model where we only charge per transaction, so per donation. So again, we see about 60% of our company's revenue come through in that last quarter. So it's absolutely a critical period of the year, not just for one-time gifts, but for nonprofits to focus on bringing people in as recurring supporters. And as so many of you know, it's already hard enough to receive a first gift from a donor. You spend a lot of marketing dollars on soliciting people, but it's even harder to get that second gift because there's this gap where somebody says, I gave and so I think I'm okay for now. And so you're having to sell them on your value all over again and it's much harder that second time around. And this is where recurring giving can be so impactful and especially at your end. And so here's a way to look at it. And I'm gonna use in a few of the conversational points I'll make our platform as an example, but your donors are of course used to giving one-time gifts. And again, the way that you might typically invite them into becoming recurring supporters is with a follow-up solicitation, whether it be via mail, direct mail, email, maybe you're using ads on Instagram or Facebook to re-engage people. But one of the things that we found as a company is that there is an opportunity to check two boxes for a donor that's donating on your website. And so for example, let's say that I were to go on to the website for a nonprofit that I support. I select a one-time gift of say $100 and then I'll continue through my checkout process. But one of the things that we do with our platform is use machine learning to intelligently understand what amount somebody is giving and then prompt them to convert that one-time gift into a recurring donation. And so in my example of $100, we're not just taking 100 and dividing it by 12. We're using that machine learning technology to determine two optimal amounts to show to that donor. So it might be $35 a month. It might be $20 a month. And if you're hearing those amounts and thinking, okay, at the end of the year, that's gonna be way more than $100, right? But this is what's important. In that moment, we are reducing the burden, the financial burden on the donor. So they no longer have to release $100 to the nonprofit. They can break it down to say 25 or 35. But then at the end of the 12-month period, they will have given a greater amount than that initial $100 one-time gift. And this is great not only for your retention numbers, but this also increases the lifetime value of that donor. And because this process is happening automatically during the online donation process, you're not having to spend additional dollars to solicit that same donor for a recurring donation later. And I love that you brought that up. Because I think we forget about that. I think we do. And I am guilty because I love Disney, but I just saw that I was recharged again for my Disney Plus because I subscribed during the pandemic for my son that was at home, right? And I saw this and I was like, wait, how long have I been paying for this? And I didn't realize it. So I'm not saying by any means that I want us as a nonprofit leader to really start taking money from people that don't realize it. But I think the point I would like to make, and hopefully Nick, this is also what you're saying, is let's lessen that burden, right? And so we really could afford many of us to do a smaller donation amount more times throughout the year, which really then decreases that burden as you were saying, Nick, from maybe like a big chunk of change that we didn't budget for. I know I would sign up for that. And again, I mean, although I did call Disney and canceled to just have YI. Oh my God, that's cool. That's hilarious. Well, you know, I'm sorry, go ahead, Nick. No, no, go ahead, Julia. I'll hold my thought for a second. Well, I guess this kind of leads us to the next thing I want to ask, and it dovetails to Jared's comment. And that is, what are some of these management issues? Because this is a new, it's not only a new way of thinking, but it's a new way of digital managing our process as part and parcel with our communications to our donors. And the last thing we want to do is Jared just illustrated is to come before a donor and then have them say, what the heck, why am I still being charged or whatever? How long has this been going on? Yeah, so how do you do that? Yeah, exactly. And we're definitely on the same brain wavelength here, Julia, because one of the things I wanted to mention in response to what Jared was sharing has to do with management. But before I touch on that, I'll also suggest to our viewers that there will be times when a donor will reconsider why they're giving. And this is where we have a moment to think about our stewardship processes. And I mean, we could have multiple episodes dedicated just to stewardship. But remember that once you have somebody giving monthly, your job is not done. You still need to continue to provide value to them, show why it matters that they're giving. So that when somebody is looking through their statement and saying, oh, I didn't remember that I was still giving to this organization, you don't want their next thought to be, oh, well, I haven't seen much from them. And I don't really know what they're doing anymore. So I'm going to go ahead and cancel this. You want their thought instead to be, you know what? I didn't know I was still making this donation, but I'm going to keep doing it because I really love what they're doing, and I know what they're doing. And they share it in a way with me that's valuable. So stewardship, a really important part of retention and reducing attrition. Now talking about management and the pros and cons here, I'm going to actually work backwards from what I was originally going to share. And so let's say that you do have somebody who, for whatever reason, needs to cancel their recurring donation plan. In Jared's example, she had to call up Disney, which as much as we love Disney, I can't imagine any positive experience coming from having to call a giant corporation. It was not a Disney experience. I will tell you that. Exactly. It was not the happiest place on earth, that phone tree that you had to go through, right? And then you're on wait. And then maybe you're hearing all of your favorite Disney songs, but you're still on wait for five, 10, 15, 30 minutes while you wait to speak with a rep. So what I want to bring into focus here for us are some of the ways in which you can reduce the management costs for you, not just financially, but people power as well, and how you can increase the positive experience that your donors have. And so one of the ways that you can do this is using technology. And again, I'll use fundraise up as an example, where we have as part of our product offering a tool called Donor Portal. And so every single person who donates to a charity that's using fundraise up will have access to their own personalized donor portal. And they can view previous donations that they've made. They can download their tax receipts. They can manage their recurring plans, peer-to-peer fundraisers, et cetera. But what's most important in terms of recurring giving is that they have options for controlling the recurring plan. And they can control that recurring plan without having to pick up the phone, without having to jump into their inbox and fire off an email to the nonprofit. And we give them options that are really designed to retain the donor. And so if Jared were the donor and she went into her donor portal because she felt that she needed to cancel her plan, we would provide her a few alternatives. Number one, maybe Jared thought she needed to cancel the plan because she didn't want to use that payment method anymore. It was on her AmEx, and instead she wanted to move it over to her Capital One debit card. And so she could switch that from right within Donor Portal. Again, doesn't need to pick up the phone, doesn't need to write an email to the nonprofit. But let's say she instead arrived in Donor Portal because she really didn't need to cancel it. The other two alternatives that we're going to provide to Jared are to A, reduce the amount of the donation rather than cancel it. And B, put that recurring donation plan on pause. And Juliet, you mentioned earlier that sometimes we don't think about some of these things. But when we hear them, it's kind of an aha-da moment where it's like, oh, that does make sense. Because maybe somebody didn't really, really want to cancel it. They just aren't, they're out of a job temporarily and they can't afford to do $50 a month anymore, but maybe they can do 10. And so we give them that opportunity to just reduce the gift or put it on pause. As everybody here I'm sure knows, and referencing again how difficult it is to get that second gift, well, it's even harder to re-engage a donor that you've lost. And so these tools help prevent that attrition. That is brilliant. And it is so much so, you know what, because I'm really big on competitive benchmarking. And I have seen that happen, Nick, with so many platforms in the for-profit sector, right? And again, it's like, okay, what is that disruptive yet innovative solution for our friends in the for-profit sector that we can integrate into our sector? We can learn from that. There's been multiple times and I won't name them because I don't want to feel like I'm giving anyone a bad rap, but I've gone to cancel a system, a software, a platform and it says, are you sure? Or is this just too much for you, right? And it's like, holy hell, why have we not been doing this? Exactly. Yeah. So I've done some work with an organization and I'm gonna say this is really where my naive shows, I thought the only way we could do recurring is if we were doing like a sponsorship of a child, right? So this was an international organization where the organization had set up, like a monthly recurring gift to support the efforts of this child in another country. That to me, I wanna say is like the baseline knowledge that I've really ever had before probably the last couple of years since this resurgence of recurring donation. And one of their biggest challenges I remember was truly keeping that credit card information up to date. I'm guilty of the same where I get a new card and I don't update my information with an organization. So how does fundraise up manage some of those cons? Because I can imagine that that does take some time and some effort for the organization. Yes, this is a great area to focus on because even yesterday, I had this conversation with an organization that their recurring donor base has grown large enough that manually managing the updates to cards that are on file has become impossible. And this is where technology can step in to help. And again, this is technology that maybe we didn't have three, five, 10 years ago but we have it now and it's worth investing in as a nonprofit and it doesn't really cost much if anything at all to use technology like this. But within our own platform, we partner with Stripe which is a payment processor. And between our two platforms, we have technology that's going to automatically know when a donor in this case has updated their payment information. And maybe they, it's the same card but as we all know, they expire from time to time and we get new cards in the mail with new security cards on them, codes rather. And through Stripe, they partner with all of the major banks and all of the major card manufacturers. And so because of that partnership because the technology that's in place, you no longer have to manually call or email a donor to request their updated card information. It's going to happen automatically behind the scenes. And again, this is key not only for retention but more importantly, it's key for majorly reducing attrition. And if you think about it, it sucks to have a donor leave your organization because it don't feel like they're feeling value from it anymore. But it's even worse if it's something as preventable as updating the card information that's on file. I'm fascinated. And we don't have much time left and I don't even know if you can answer this but it just, I'd love to get a framework for what percentage of a nonprofit's donor base should be moving towards this recurring donation structure? Do you have a sense of that? That's a good question. And I don't know that I thought about that for a while but what I would encourage people to do is to form a hyper understanding of your file and this is what's going to be key because the truth is not everybody wants to become a recurring donor. Not everybody's a good fit to become a recurring donor. And so the better you understand the people in your file, the better you're going to be able to serve them. So for example, we have one of our international nonprofits that through this past year has found that the segment that has shown the greatest growth in terms of recurring support is actually millennials. They are more engaged with recurring giving and given more through recurring giving than any other segment. And they wouldn't have known this without having that hyper engaged understanding of who's in their file and who to push recurring giving on. I think we can also think some of our political campaigns because it really does go to the grassroots movement that it's not the size of the gift, right? It's really that continuity and the consistency of the support which then sees that big impact. And so that I love and I love when organizations do take that approach, Nick, that it's like, and I'm not saying maybe the millennials aren't some of their major donors but really seeing this movement of grassroots philanthropy and to see that impact long-term over the course of repetition, right? Which is that recurring gift. I love that. And I think it really does turn that pyramid of most philanthropists like thinking on their head to think, well, I don't have a million dollars or I don't even have $1,000, but I have $100. And yes, maybe I can do $5 a month or maybe I can do $25 a month. And to see that impact over time is just phenomenal. And I know we don't have much time and I wanted to ask this one question and we talked about it before we went live. It was really about how we think our recurring donors but then we also asked them, I don't know if you're up leveling their donation or if you're, tell me about this, you know when it comes to thinking our donors. This is a really important last point to make. And again, it's an area where as non-profit fundraisers, maybe we're not always keyed into and when we find out about it, we think, oh, that makes sense. And so one of the areas where you can upsell a one-time donor to becoming a recurring supporter is actually on the thank you page itself. And again, you know, looking at our own platform, this is something that we've put in place where when a donor arrives at that thank you screen, we will of course thank them for making their donation and provide them some ways to share on social media that they donated. But there's also an option there to say, hey, you just gave a $100 one-time gift. Would you like to make this same gift again at this time next year? And so you've just invited somebody in to be a recurring donor. They don't have to spend another dollar that day and you now have an annual recurring donor. Similarly, we can do the same thing with monthly giving where you arrive at that thank you screen. You can share it on social media. You'll also be invited to become a monthly supporter. And again, this is something that maybe you haven't thought about before. You've just thought, you know, the thank you screen is just for saying thank you, but our company is built on understanding behaviors based on data. And so we test all of this. And so I can sit here and chat with all of you and say there are ways that work, even if you thought they didn't, even if you thought it was faux pas to ask for more money when you're saying thank you, it really does work. I love that, they love it so much. And we could talk for hours. And I heard you say, Nick, that we could probably have many episodes on stewardship. And I think it'd be really cool to do just that. Maybe we could dedicate a week to your efforts, but then also bring in some of your clients to tell those success stories so that we're truly hearing it, you know, like this is how it's changed our revenue. Because to Julia's point, you know, we really wanna have about 75% of our operating budget being individuals. And I would love to nail down of that 75%, what percentage are we striving to make recurring donors? So thank you so much for your time, Nick, your expertise. I'm so appreciative of everything that Fundraise Up does and everything that you are doing there. So please reach out to Nick, you can find him on LinkedIn. I know I have, we are first connection. I think that's what it's called there on LinkedIn. But we are so grateful to have you represent Fundraise Up and join us today as the director of experience. Thank you, Nick. Thank you so much, Julianne Jarrett. It's been a pleasure. It's been great. And I love this conversation because it is, it's the new way that we are reaching our donors. And a lot of this is, as we started off the show today, it was forced upon us because of all of these different things during the pandemics. But what's really interesting is that ultimately it's gonna be the healthiest thing for our organizations, for our donors, for our cash flow. I mean, I think this is really an exciting, exciting conversation. And then of course, to add the digital component is where we need to be going anyway. So check out Fundraise Up. Very, very interesting business. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, been joined today by my trusty cohort, or cohort, I should say co-conspirator Jarrett Ransom, who thank you ever so much for taking the lead and running the nonprofit show for this week while I've been working with a group out of Montana or not out but in Montana. So we'll talk more about that tomorrow. But again, we wanna thank all of our sponsors without you. We would not be here having this robust conversation, learning new ways to support and foster the good work of our nonprofits throughout this country. Hey, Jarrett, I'm like all fired up. I wanna- You too. Yeah, I wanna rethink some of these things that we've been talking about because of this technology and just the concept of smaller amounts but longer duration. It's been really powerful. As we like to remind everyone at the end of every show, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow everyone. Thanks so much.