 Welcome back to another episode of the nonprofit show. We are thrilled you're here. I'm thrilled you're here because today I have one of our favorite, favorite guests, Jack Nacho, Elado. Let's fire up this show today. Let's do it. All right, all of it. Jack Ignacio, I like Nacho. Nacho's the best. Elado, you know, Jack is, I'm gonna brag on you a lot of it. Jack is a CFRE, but more importantly than that, he's one of the masterminds in this nation who's formulated some amazing training. And before we end today, I'd love to kind of talk about that because the CFRE nation is such a challenge and it's such a pinnacle for so many people in their career. And you have, I mean, I know people that took your classes, Jack, before I ever met you. Okay, I don't think I've ever told you that, but I do know of your legacy in this space. And so I think it's a really cool thing that we get you on to talking about this. But enough about you. Yes, enough about me. I'm blushing, you can't see it, I'm blushing. Well, let's get on and let's see what we've got cooking today with our questions because you know, we always have interesting questions that come in and those questions really come from across the country and they're supported by our presenting sponsors and they include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University where Jack hails from, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Okay, you know, Jack, I was telling you this in the green room. Last Tuesday we hit our 1,000th show, which blows my mind. 1,000 of anything is a lot. I'm just gonna say it. But you can catch up with us on our app and streaming broadcasts, podcasts. We will meet you where you are when you have an issue or you need some thought leadership. So definitely check us out. Okay, Jack, you know, name withheld. Super important. I'm gonna man up and tell you, I took this person's name off. I do that a lot when I think, I mean, St. Louis is a big city, but still I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Oh, gosh. Yeah. So the question is this. I'm trying to get my non-profit to invest in branded branding note cards, specifically A2, which are a standard thank you note card size. Yeah, it's like this size, right? It's the perfect size. My CEO thinks they are a foolish expense. And as someone in development, I believe this is an essential tool. How do I convince him to do this? Yeah, I love the idea of a branded postcard. I think let's talk brands for a minute, Julia. Even more than a branded postcard, you know what I love for a non-profit? A brand. I love for non-profits to have a brand. A brand is what distinguishes you from other non-profits in your community, especially those non-profits who are working in the same space. The brand is your personality. It's your unique style. It's the thing that makes you unique. It is what is most recognizable about your organization. It's your particular attributes, the way you do business. If I told you, Julia, that in the community, there was a family displaced by fire and they had no shelter, the brand that comes to mind is the American Red Cross. Yes, yes. If we talked about cancer, the brand that comes to mind is the American Cancer Society. And when I think of prevention of drunk driving, I think of mothers against drunk driving. All of these brands come to the top of my mind whenever I think of the uniqueness that they bring to the work that they do. And the most important thing at the end of this question is really what's important to me. How do I convince them? He or she thinks that it will support their fundraising efforts. You want to remain at the top of your donor's mind. And that's what brands do. They put you at the top of the mind of the donor and the prospect. When a donor is thinking about making a gift, we talk about this in cost selling all the time, you want to be at the top of their mind. And brands help you do that. So Jack, I know you have an illustrious career as a successful fundraiser and of course, a thought leader and an educator, but when you were in the trenches raising money, did you, Jack Nacho Alotto, write handwritten notes? Did you use that in your school? Absolutely. I used note cards with our brand on the front, the name of the organization or logo or something that was very distinguishable. And I always wrote handwritten notes. And I know when I talked to my niece and nephew, Julia, they said, cursive, we don't know how to read cursive. They have to get their parents to translate it. So even if you print, it's so personal. And think about the double whammy you give to your donors and your prospect. There's your brand on the front, they open it up, they see your brand, and then they see this beautiful, print it or cursive handwritten note. What better way to bring a donor close into your organization, to build and strengthen a relationship with a donor than by doing a handwritten note. Right. Well, name with help from St. Louis. You should be in the range of 50 cents a note card. And this is fully branded with a branded envelope, maybe as high as $2.50. You know, I think that we do not ask enough. I mean, in the nonprofit sector, we're always asking our donors and our partners, but I don't think there's any problem going to a local printer and saying, hey, I need this, can you get me a discount? How low can you go on this? How can you get me, you know, to have this? Because this is a critical, I mean, to me, Jack, if you look at what the tools are, this is in the toolbox. I mean, you know, your website, your email, your business cards, you know, your LinkedIn, your A2 note cards, no joke. This is like one of those things. So I think you've got to do it. And I appreciate doing like note cards. That's great. But I think you need to do branded note cards. I don't think it's enough just to go out and get hallmarked. Right, absolutely, absolutely. Your brand is you. It's your uniqueness. And so use it everywhere you can. Yeah, well, sorry to get all up in your business name with help. Come on. Nacho, Nacho and Julia are very, very... That's right. Fired up about this, so. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, okay, let's go to Janelle and Omaha, Nebraska. Jack, this question came in and I wanted to save it for you because I was really looking forward to what your comment was. And Janelle writes in, how do you feel about asking for money over a meal in a public place? I'm debating about changing my strategy when it comes to making an ask. Thanks for your help. Yeah, so here is, it doesn't matter how I feel about it. It matters how the prospect and the donor feel about it. So if your prospects preferred place of meeting is in a restaurant or in a coffee shop or wherever, it's really important to be donor-centric. You wanna meet where they wanna meet. And one of the things you could ask them early on in your building a relationship with them is where would you like us to meet to talk about what we're gonna do? But I wanna add a caveat to that. So I'm putting together with Angela Barnes a presentation for AFP icon. And one of the things that I've noticed in my research is that you don't wanna meet in like a donor's home unless you have another fundraiser with you. So there are some places where I would recommend you not meet it unless you really know the person really well. Because we're seeing that there are, there is some sexual harassment out there in private places. So I would like to keep it in a public place. You know, Jack, that I know that's something we're gonna bring you on with Angela and we're gonna have an episode just about the research that you've done. But I really appreciate your starting point. Ask the donor, the prospect. That's like duh. And you could say no to some places, you know? Unless, you know, I mean, if it's what, you know, you could say no. You could say, you know, maybe a more appropriate place is my office in an unprofit organization. But I would stop feeling that. Where do you like to talk with me? And definitely bring them to visit your organization. You know, Jack, it's so funny. I was thinking about this and I hadn't thought about this for years. And one of the first boards I served, I was asked to accompany the CEO to make an ask. And it was a sizable donor and they had been a donor for a long time and we were moving into a capital campaign, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so the, I said, well, what's the amount gonna be? And the CEO said, well, it's gonna be a million dollars. And I was like, oh my God, holy crap. And she's like, well, he totally has it. And he, you know, it's just more of a formality. And he likes to go to super salad. And it was like, it was a chain, like salad buffet. And I was like, oh no, we're gonna, I will take him to X, Y, Z, like la-di-da. And she's like, no, Julia. He likes the idea of our stewardship and he had a horrible, a horrible childhood and was always hungry. And so for him, when he sees this like buffet of nutritious food, this really strikes a chord with him. And so exactly what you just said, I had never really thought of it, is where does that donor fit? Where did they want to fit? It's really smart. And, you know, I've been invited to, to lunch by the donor and it was so loud. So there are some things that we want to make sure we consider. I, you know, I'm annoyed in a small place with a lot where I'm yelling at somebody. So you pick your place, but definitely consult with a donor where they would like to meet you. Well, and you know, Jack, the other thing too that I always am concerned about is privacy and like that, that whole thing of like, you know, especially if you're in a small community. I mean, I live in the fifth largest city in America, but in so many ways we're a small community. And you just don't go out to lunch where you're walking through the door and you don't see people and you're, hey, hot, you know, and all this. And so then it's kind of a weird thing, I think, when you're, you know, you're gonna be soliciting somebody. Absolutely. Anyway, okay, well, that was fascinating. Let's go on to Janet from Port St. Lucie, Florida. Janet writes, we are working up a new sponsorship donor and our team is split on this. Do we, oh, this is so interesting. Do we use more data points or emotions in our pitch deck? Big new discussion. Yeah, I love the question. And so, you know, I look at it from two perspectives. The first is from individuals when you could get sponsorships from individuals, you should be asking individuals for sponsorships or from corporate or business sponsorship. Here's the thing about both of those entities. As you build a relationship, and you know, cause selling is a relationship building model of fundraising. As you're building those relationships with either individuals or corporations or businesses, you will come to understand whether it's numbers, data, how many people did you serve last year? Or whether it's an emotional thing, maybe a storyteller, a story about a beneficiary or a client which will elicit an emotional response. So here's your job as Janet, your job as a fundraiser is to find out what motivates your donor. Are they motivated by rational things like data points and numbers? Or are they motivated by emotions? Or most likely by both. Now, with a corporation or a business, they might be more motivated by data points. For example, many of their employees may use your services if you're an animal shelter. Maybe they come and adopt cats, cats, and dogs from your animal shelter or a hospital. Maybe they use the emergency room or positions there or whatever it is. Or maybe they volunteer for your organization. They may ask you numbers like how many of our employees are volunteers or how many of our employees are donors to your organization or whatever it is. Or maybe they're just motivated by social responsibility towards the community. And here's another thing which I've looked at in trying to answer this question. Some corporations and businesses, they wanna co-brand with you. Yeah. They want politicians to see that they are supporters of community organizations. So if finding out these things is a complicated thing, it's not that complicated. You just get to know that your donors, your corporations, your individuals, and then you give them the data or the emotional stories that they want. So, Jack, let me ask you my own question on top of Janet's question. And that is, we keep hearing more and more about this next generation of donors that are the millennials to Gen Z. And they are much more attracted to impact into data and the metrics than they are their parents or grandparents on the emotional side. Are you seeing this or do you think that this is a blood theory? Are you? No, I think it's definitely, you mentioned millennials. Millennials wanna be involved as volunteers. I don't think baby boomers are that interested in volunteering. You know, they're older, they're maybe more sedentary, but millennials want to see impact. They wanna see the data points. If you are housing the unhoused, they may ask you how many people did you provide shelter for last month or a year? And they wanna be involved. They wanna be a volunteer in your organization, they wanna, and I love that about millennials and other generations that really want to have an involvement in the organization and it's just so important. It is and I think as we know, I mean, the more you have a relationship on that campus or with that cause or, you know, whatever it is, I think that it's just, it links you to an organization's mission in a way that is just so hard to get any other way. I mean, getting a piece of mail or an email or, you know, a pen or mug in the mail isn't gonna be nearly as impactful as serving, you know, in a food pantry or, you know, attending a cultural performance. I mean, you know. When I worked in healthcare, I used to say you can't leave the hospital if you go to a neonatal intensive care unit or, you know, a birthing center. There's little babies in those bassinets. It's such an important thing to do. Yeah, it really is. Well Janet, I hope this helps and I really like Jack's advice on this. I think it's super, super important. Okay, let's go to this is a completely different question. This comes to us from Henry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And he writes, we used to be super strict and consistent about running campus tours every Saturday. Now with COVID slowing down, we're trying to determine if we should return to this model of fundraising or not. I think of this as, you know, Terry Axelrods, Ben Avon model, you know, get people like to the campus, to the tour, tour in a box. If you didn't have a campus, you know, get that relationship started and then, you know, navigate down the field to it towards an ask. I say absolutely. Oh, you do, okay. I'm seeing firsthand your work and the physical environment in which you do your work is a great cultivation tool for prospective donors at a college campus or high school, whatever this educational. Students, students coming, you know, I mean, I look at my nieces and nephews, they visited college campuses. They talked with students that firsthand, you know, approach was so important. I remember way back when I used to write grants or early in my career, I used to end every grant with an invitation for the program officer to come and visit our physical environment. And I used to say something like this, Julia, this grant proposal and this letter, this cover letter could never portray the intensity of our work. Instead, I would like to invite you to come and see firsthand the important work we do in the community. That simple sentence, and I would give them my phone number, have a contact me. They'd call me up and they say, you know what, I'm gonna take you up on your offer to come and visit your organization. And it's just such an important way, a cultivation tool and I highly recommend it. You know what, I love that approach, Jack. I think it's genuine. I think the thing too that impresses me about that is that you are kind of saying, I have nothing to hide and maybe this won't work, but something else will or it's like a relationship cultivation as opposed to just that grant transaction. And transparency, you're saying, come and visit us and maybe meet our beneficiaries, maybe meet our clients, pet a dog, scratch a cat, whatever it is. It's such an important way for them to see firsthand and for them to understand what your cause is and what your mission is and see firsthand how you are advancing that mission. I love it. Well, let's go to another question that name withheld and this comes to us from Henderson, Nevada. Our new board chair thinks we should have at least one employee on the board. This would be an actual voting member. I have never heard of this, have you? So I have never heard of an actual voting member as an employee because that line between the board as an independent organizer and a policy-making board and staff as the implementers of the policy that the board enacts, here's the thing, I worked for organizations where the CEO or the executive director was an ex-officio member of the board. They attended the board meetings, they didn't vote, but they were there, they talked about things, they gave reports and things like that. I've attended many board meetings. But here's the thing that I recommend. Every organization does that board needs assessment, what do you need? Here's the thing that I really think is important and I see this trend, people are talking about this. We're gonna talk about it next Thursday. Is putting beneficiaries of the services and the clients on the board and get them on the board, incorporate them into the decision-making process. I worked in organizations that were working in communities of color and there were no people of color on the board. So it's really important for us to be immunity-centered. I agree. My first response is absolutely not because this is a conflict of interest. I mean, a legal COI policy that you are asked to report on to the IRS every year. And it is a conflict of interest. I think ex-officio is a super powerful thing going both ways for the board, for the staff, they should be there. But yeah, no, I can understand where this board chair's coming from. They wanna probably know more about the organization and it's well-intentioned, but this is not the fiduciary nor proper stewardship method. It just isn't. And so, yeah, don't fall into that trap. I agree, I agree. It's just not good. Okay, I'm sorry to like rush you along, but I didn't want to leave this moment together because gosh darn it, it seems like forever since I've been on the show with you, but that can't be. But anyway, I want you to spend a little bit of time talking about what the CFRE training, it's coming up. We're gonna be at AFP in Toronto for people that might wanna meet you. Can you talk about what some of those trainings are looking like coming up? So first off with our mutual friend, Mui Kawaja. He and I, we're gonna do a Muslim study group specifically for Muslims who are involved in fundraising. Already we have 19 people in that group. It's listed at the CFRE.org website. You could join it, I'm excited to do it. It's gonna be in the evenings on Wednesdays. It's gonna be much longer. My traditional study, and that starts April 17th. Okay, next study group that is four Saturdays and I already have 89 people signed up is going to start April 20th. And it goes from 9 a.m. until noon Pacific time. And it goes through, I think May 11th is the fourth Saturday. So definitely anyone, both of these study groups are free. They're free, so avail yourself of it. It's really worth it. And I will be in Toronto with Angela Barnes. We're gonna present a paper on Saturday morning. I'm sorry, Sunday morning at 9 a.m. So if you're there, come and say hello to me. I love to meet previous CFRE study group participants, of which, by the way, Angela Barnes is one. I love it, I love it. Well, it's funny, Jack, again, in the green room chatter we were talking, I knew about you before I ever met you because I have known folks that have taken your trainings and your study groups. And so it was super cool when I got to meet you because I was like, oh my God, he's like super famous because I knew that you were doing it. I'm blushing, I'm blushing again. No, I mean, so I was like, wow, it's super cool. So I think this is a great thing. And again, I love that you're gonna do this with Mookie. We are in Ramadan right now. We had Mookie on for Ask and Answered last week. I saw that, I saw that. Yeah, we spent a little bit of time, me, I'm always pestering him with questions, but bless his heart, he's always so kind and so gentle to him. I love the man, I've known him for almost 10 years. He was in my study group and he of course is a CFRE so he's a great guy, I followed his career. I know he's in Florida now, so I'm gonna miss him. I'm not gonna, he's not gonna be close here in California, but he's a great guy. Yeah, he really is. Well, Jack Alotto, CFRE, you're a great guy and you're also a trainer with Fundraising Academy National University. Check out fundraising-academy.org and you can learn all about the amazing tools. Most of these teaching units are free and so it is remarkable information. I always say, Jack, if I had had this in my life 40 years ago, I would have raised millions more, literal, no joke, millions more in my community because I would have had tools. Yeah, but you know what? What organization wouldn't love you, Julia, on their board? And that's where you made such a contribution to the nonprofit sector and you have my admiration. Well, don't say that because we don't want more calls. Of you trying to join. Yeah. Julia, please join my board. Okay, don't do that, people. Don't do that. I get asked far too many times and I just, yeah, that's not an opportunity right now as we like to say, but an opportunity to meet Jack Alotto, certainly check out the AFP conference coming up in Toronto. Amazing presenting sponsors that are here and they include marching down this field with us. It's amazing. Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, where Nacho Jack Alotto meets us from, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that join us day in and day out. Okay, Jack, you always, you know, you give me hope for our sector. You give me intelligence, inspiration. I think you make, when they always say that hokey thing, put the fun and fundraising, I feel like you're that dude, you know, that you make it fun. And so thank you so much. Thank you. I love talking with you. It's a lot of fun. Hey, every episode of the Nonprofit Show is fun. Sometimes we're more kooky than other times, but our intent is always there and we end every episode with this message and it goes like this, to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here next time. Jack, thank you so much, my friend.