 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here to start your Monday. We were just mentioning in the green room chatter that this is actually the last Monday for many of you that are wrapping up your fiscal year. So today's conversation with Carrie and Kelly is going to be one that you won't want to miss. They're talking to us from one cause about the research release, the 2023 giving experience studies. So there's a lot to share here. Again, for those of you watching and listening, we're so glad that you're here. We have Carrie Woznak and we Chief Marketing Officer at one cause. Thank you, Carrie, joining us from Chicago. And Kelly, with Flesquaz Hague, Vice President of Marketing also at one cause, really excited to have you both here to talk to us about this study. Before we go further, we want to remind you who we are. If we haven't met yet, Julia Patrick is taking a much needed break on today so that I can nerd out with Kelly and Carrie. I'm Jared Ransom, again, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group and really excited to have this super nerdy conversation. But before we dive deep, we want to say thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors. They allow us the opportunity to have these conversations. So thank you to our friends over at Bloomerang, American nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising Academy at National University, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Many of these companies, believe it or not, have been with us from the very beginning. We started the show in March of 2020 and produced over 800 episodes. And if your jaw just hit the floor, like mine often does when I mentioned that. I want to remind you where you can find all of these episodes. So the latest and greatest, you can scan right now with your smartphone, the QR code and download the app. And just in a couple of hours, our conversation that we're having with Kelly and Kerry today will be up on the app. You can also find us on streaming broadcast, as well as podcast. So there's no shortage of where you can find today's conversation. Again, so glad to have you ladies back here with us. I know we've had representatives before from one cause. So I keep saying back with us. I'm really excited to have you. So Kerry, again, chief marketing officer, Kelly, vice president of marketing, welcome to both of you. And thank you for joining me on your Monday morning. Thanks, Jarrett. We're super happy to be here sharing the giving experience study, just a little bit about me. I'm thrilled to be working with one cause for the last 14 years, helping nonprofits use technology to raise more, reach more for their missions. And personally love being involved in different foundations, different organizations, helping them raise money each and every year. So again, we work with about 10,000 organizations and super thrilled to be here. And I will turn it over to Kelly to share a little bit more about herself. Thanks, Kerry. Thanks, Jarrett. I'm excited to be here. I do marketing at one cause, but in my previous life, I was a fundraiser in the frontline trenches as a director of development. So I love to talk fundraising. Jarrett, I love to nerd out on data. I love to nerd out on trends. So I'm just excited to be here to share what we learned in this latest study and just have a really great conversation. Yeah. And I see that we all three brought our own original nerd glasses. So here we are. And we need the tape. There's the ones that I hand out. But yeah, that's okay. We're packing our own heat today. Well, let's start off, Kerry, if you would tell us a little bit about the 2023 giving experience study. When did it take place? Who participated all of the good details on this? Let us know, you know, really where this all started. Yeah. I mean, this study is actually, we are going on the fourth year of the study, which I'm super excited to be able to share the insights and data in it. And what's exciting is that the social donor research that we did in 2018, it was under a different name in 2021. The second study, which was conducted, shed really a light of how giving is changing during the pandemic. And then last year, what we really saw was the beginning of return to in-person. And this year, we're really seeing a big return to normal when it comes to social giving, which will explain what social giving and social donors are in just a minute with Kelly. But just a little bit about the methodology around the report is we actually partner with Edge Research, which is a firm out of Washington DC, the DC area. And they are focused on working with nonprofits like Human Rights Campaign, Meals on Wheels. And when the survey is launched, it's a pool of people that's census representative, which is key. So this is not self-reported nonprofits. This is census data. And we're making sure that it's an accurate representation for various groups, all ages, regions, races, income levels, and it's a focus on 1,100 people who identified as social donors in the last 12 months. And so we're super confident in really, Jared, the data that's coming in, that it's representative of the larger population. And that's why we're so proud to be able to share the data with the nonprofit community and industry. And we believe that it's helpful for any nonprofit looking at how donors are interacting with events and social donor activity. So I will share one in four US adults identify as social donors and their loyalty continues to be trending upward. And so I will turn it over to Kelly who's gonna talk a little bit about what is a social donor? How are we defining that in this study? Absolutely, so. What is that? Okay, so, because people would say, okay, social donors at social media, no. But before I get into the definition of a social donor, I wanna point out one extra thing about the study is this is self-reported data from the donor. So as nonprofit nerves here, like hearing from the donors themselves, having the donors tell you what they want, what they need, what they expect in giving and from the nonprofits they support is so important. It's not transactional data. We're hearing from 1,100, as Carrie said, donors themselves. So when we throw this term around social donor, social donor, what is it? Think about the nature and the essence of donating. What we do is we don't just give money but we also interact, we leverage our connections. And so when we talk to, when we use the term social donors, that is people who give to fundraising events like auctions, gallows, golf outings. It's people who give to run walk rides, peer-based campaigns, challenges, think ice bucket challenge. So it's that huge swath of donors where there is a level of social interaction whether they're interacting with people or being asked by friends to participate and get. I love that. And that's gonna take us to the next talking point is really what motivates this donor generosity. And Kelly, I love that you mentioned the social donor because I've worked with a lot of organizations that sometimes don't see these social donors as true donors, right? They see them as event attendees. They're coming for the golf tournament. They're coming for the run but they might not be coming because of an alignment to the mission. So Carrie, what are we talking about when it comes to the motivation of donor generosity for social donors? Yeah, so when we ask this question, it's pretty interesting over the last couple of years what's popped up. The word ease, it was easy to do. It was easy to give, mission. I care about the mission. It's really important to me. And I trust the organization that they're making good use of the funds. Those are the three top generosity motivators. And when we look at while ease remains a top priority for today's donors, the presence of that mission, I care about the mission and the trust were the top two spots in 2023. And so there's this return to mission focus giving and the need for today's donors to make sure or ensure that the cause they support, the money is going to the right place. A lot of what we also have in the study and this is when folks start to dive in is we have this ecosystem that we created which is our five basic areas of generosity motivators. And that is outside of the mission trust and ease it's the impact that you would make. What is the money being raised for? Would it make a difference? And how quick was I able to make that donation? What's the immediacy of that donation? And am I connected to a person? But when we think about the five generosity motivators the three still remain the top three which is that ease trust and mission. So we're excited to kind of see the trends and the results over time. But again, donors really wanna trust that the org is putting the money to a really good great use. And I'll also say what I think is fascinating about this is you think about it. You think again, these ideas that were socially connected to the causes we support and the fundraising activities that we participate in. And you think about the top three motivators that Cary talked about, mission and ease and trust. If trust is at the center and this is all in the study I encourage everybody to go download if we talk about the generosity ecosystem trust being at the center but you have to understand the mission. So nonprofits thinking about how they're storytelling and how they're messaging and marketing their mission but also that it has to be easy. Think about your real life as consumers you trust the things that are easy you're not gonna go through a 62 step online buying process and be like I really wanna do that again the same culture tree in our giving and our giving experience and our expectations of our donors because they no longer take off their hat and say their consumer hat and say okay I'm willing to tolerate a very friction filled giving experience with a cause that I know nothing about. No, all three of those mission, ease and trust work together to enhance giving. You are so right. I know every time I go to a client's website and it becomes clunky and it's like you're probably losing some donors and so that ease the trust and the ease builds the trust very, very pointed on those facts. So thank you. Let's spin to the impacts, right? Which was one of the elements there but the impacts on building that donor trust what does that look like? And Carrie how can we increase this? Yeah, what was interesting is we specifically asked a lot of questions about what makes you trust nonprofits and we actually had some open ended answers that I think anyone will enjoy reading through as they download the study but overwhelmingly the responses that really related to the impact donors were talking about receiving annual reports magazines that show the impact and showcase testimonials about how different individuals were impacted by that giving or the local community activities were really important in building that trust what local activities versus the national organization donating money to the national org how does it relate back to local area and your impact in your community? A lot of answers included personal connections to those local organizations. So what personal friends or acquaintances or colleagues work locally with the orgs and really believing in the integrity of that cause and the people that are working for that cause and the impact that they're making that importance of being present and promoting in the local community was something that really stood out time and time again and just the open ended answers that came through and then what was super interesting I thought Kelly may agree as well is that charity navigator came up and it was researching playing a big part of trust and so kind of the fun fact was that there were a handful of people that mentioned having a good charity navigator score and now you would think, wow. Yeah, so out of the 1,100 social donors that are a wide census of the population the people that mentioned the few that mentioned the charity navigator scores they were from members of the boomer generation which again was super interesting that they were researching about that organization and really trusting in that score. Kelly, anything else you have mentioned here? Well, I think it's interesting you brought in the boomers so we slice and dice the data demographically by age and you do see some trends. You see that the older demographics, the boomers and matures, they do their research. They're online, they're looking. That's not to say that the other generations aren't and for those that are data nerds, fundraising nerds and love to look at data by demographic highly encourage you to jump into the research study but here's a fascinating thing. Gen Zs, they are motivated by the aesthetic, the marketing of the org and its mission and so you get your boomers who are online looking at charity navigator and you got your Gen Zs who are looking at how hot, how does that look? And there's just some fascinating information in there about what builds trust by age group. That is fascinating. Carrie, I'm a little shocked but I've shared the story before that I was sitting down with a potential major donor and they mentioned at that time the guide star profile which is now candid and so they were clearly doing their research and so from my personal experience of that like I'm only a little surprised that that's still happening, right? I refer to them really as those like charity watch dogs they're really looking at the data, they're seeing what's being reported, looking at that transparency but I can imagine every demographic Kelly as you mentioned, whether it's the boomers or the ones that really like the aesthetics, right? The marketing and the colors and everything just kind of make me feel good. There's a lot of different variations when it comes to that. Now what's additional differences when it comes to donor demographic and behaviors? You touched on this a little bit when it comes to that impact of trust what are the differences showed up in this study? There were a lot of different differences that everyone can hone in on when they read through it but I think as we return to normal and the return to in-person events in a pretty big way nonprofits have fewer virtual events right now and so the access to social giving is starting to narrow being narrow for younger, more diverse audiences and what I mean by that is we did see a drop in the number of black donors reporting participating in social giving and a fewer donors reported being motivated by events being welcoming and inclusive this year. So it's really important to be able to reach those audiences that can't come in person. So to make sure that they're inclusive and that we're gathering new ways to interact with them and engage with them because they did wanna participate when we were in the virtual online world. And so when you get back to in-person it's really trying to identify with the people that aren't able to come in person. And one positive of the pandemic I think was that there were so many virtual options it opened the door for social donors of pretty much all ages and all demographics and that's what we saw. So as we return in-person is how do we continue to find ways to engage those specific folks? And so one of the other thing to think about is the drop in the number of black donors being inclusive or welcoming. It's just showcasing the importance of what we gain during the pandemic and just being very intentional with inclusion, whether it's black donors or any donor for that matter is how do we make sure that everyone feels like they can participate? There were some counter negative drops in Gen Z and black donors and I'll let Kelly talk a little bit more about those as well. Yeah and what I'll talk about a little bit is something that we feel super passionate about and Kerry talked about it is that during the pandemic because of the virtual and online accessibility of fundraising because we all come together we saw an increase in access to philanthropy. We saw people of all ages, all races, all demographics being able to flock to giving. And so as we are returning to normal and we're seeing I think 87% of people said they had participated in some kind of in-person funders or these social donors. We wanna make sure that we aren't then throwing up barriers to giving and giving back all those gains that we saw from the inclusivity and missions during the pandemic. So that's a big, we don't wanna call it a red flag but it's an area that I encourage nonprofits as you read reflect how can we and are we continuing to make our giving accessible to all. One of the other interesting things is we also sliced and diced by urban donors. So you think about it, 80% we're talking about the US population in this subset 80% live in an urban area. So what do urban donors need? What are urban donors thinking? And what we found was a really super positive staff for all of the EU fundraising and settings that 45% of urban donors said they donated more this year and another 45% said they would give $500 or more in the next 12 months. So as we, yeah, as we look at things like retention and also giving averages starting to kind of level out or decline in economic uncertainty urban donors are a huge area that nonprofits can tap into. That is fascinating to me, Kelly and Carrie, you bring up a great point too. And again, we've produced over 800 episodes here at the nonprofit show. And so we've really had conversations with so many thought leaders like the two of you across the globe in these last coming up four years. And so one of the things we've seen and heard from many thought leaders like yourself is that, you know, those walls of giving came down. And what I mean by those walls is really, you know the geographic barriers. Like it wasn't so much just in your local community, right? Because we were connecting online. Some of us were even connecting more with family members and loved ones maybe than we did before because of that need to connect virtually many constituents moved, right? Like they relocated to another community. So we're really looking at and I know like how do we balance the in-person versus the we're never doing a virtual event again but we might be losing some of these supporters. So any suggestions on how we might be able to balance those two? Yeah, I'll just make a comment and then Kelly can follow up. I think that it comes back to those generosity motivators and it comes back to trusting in the organization and what kind of communication are you giving specific donors over the last couple of years and really trying to look at, you know that omnichannel marketing approach. How do I reach people in different ways that will speak to them? And if they cannot come to the event or they just don't wanna come to the event there are so many ways to give to an organization it's just how are we speaking to them? How are we communicating? How are we dripping on them or nurturing them as donors to make sure that they can see the value and trust that their impact's making a big difference no matter if they come or not to that in-person event? Great point. What about you Kelly, anything to add to that? I just would say the donors and it's in the study and you'll see it. We broke it even down by giving type like event donors versus P2P donors. They wanna mix in variety still. They, while 78% of them have flocked to in-person 30% of them are saying, I wanna mix. And here's why we think based on some of the other data in there, today's donors want choice and optionality, right? And again, we go back to their real life. You and I can choose what time you wanna pick up our Starbucks and where. They want the same thing in their giving. And so they're saying, give me those options. Let me decide as your donor how I wanna participate in-person, online, virtually. So I think it's important while we may, you know dread the words like pandemic and pivot that we still keep some of that accessibility left in our fundraising as we return back to normal. I love that. I love that the example you used of our Starbucks, right? Cause we can customize, we can pick up the time, we can choose the location all of that. Half pumps, half light whip, whatever you want. Yeah, that really resonates. And you're right. So how do we customize that donor experience for our constituency? Carrie, you were gonna add something. What were you gonna add here? I was gonna add, it is about being inclusive for those virtual attendees or virtual people that may not come, but also the people that are returning to in-person. Last year, their expectations were different than this year. So last year, they were just ready, Jared, to come, have a good time, talk with their colleagues, their friends, their people that they're donating to, and just be a part of the mission. This year, what we saw in the data, which was super interesting, is people want more of that VIP experience. They wanna feel special coming back. 62% of the event donors said that it's very important or somewhat important that they have different ticket options. And so that told us, and about 30% of them purchased the VIP and the different options because they wanna come and have a differentiated experience. So it was super interesting, like the millennials, very big on like 42% of them were purchasing VIP. They wanna feel more of a VIP experience. Even different income earners or urban donors or men or disabled donors, they were coming back and purchasing those VIP tickets. So the experience for this year in-person, it's up a notch. So it's more creative ideas. It's more different ways to bring people in from a ticket purchase standpoint as well. Yeah, and I'll say- You need a lot to think about. I know our viewers too, they're like, gosh darn it, we have an event and now we need to think about VIP levels. Go ahead, Kelly, what are we gonna add? But I was gonna say, let's not get hung up on the fact that VIP has to equal extra expenses necessarily. It's an authenticity of an experience. It's the uniqueness of an experience is what they're telling us. So I tell my nonprofit friends, like don't freak out. Doesn't mean you need to go add another 50K to the budget. What you need to think about is, yeah, how can I have a varied level of options and how can I differentiate that experience and do it as we do as fundraisers, like creatively, but design on a dime? What I will say, here you quoted this stat. If you think about VIP tickets, half of disabled donors, 50% said they purchased VIP tickets. So when we talk about inclusivity, it's important to keep in mind that bulk of donors who are participating in in-person events. Well, that just speaks to the differences in the donor demographics and the behaviors. There's so much within this study and I know you both have been very generous on where we can find it, but tell us again, for our viewers and listeners, where we can get our hands on this, because I know this is going to be like their top reading list for this week. So where do we get our hands on the Giving Experience Study? It's super easy to find. If you go to our homepage, onecause.com, it is the lead resource on our homepage of our website and you should be able to easily download it right there. And we can also give you the link, Jared. So you have it to share out. Yeah, that would be fantastic. I love hearing this. This is something you've been doing for quite a few years now. It's very inclusive. You said 1,100 participants. Was that right, Carrie? Yeah, 1,100 donors. I love it. Well, you also put something up, something else brewing coming up here for us. So tell us a little bit about what's happening at the conference. Absolutely. So for all of you out there, we do a conference every year raised. It's September 11th and 12th in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Think about that iconic stage. What we're known for it raises bringing some of the best content. Jared's gonna be there along with about 40 plus thought leaders in the fundraising space. Panels, keynotes, practical workshops. But I think what's most important is we've built a community that we've coined our fearless fundraisers. So if you want a great conference that focuses on amazing content, practical insights and incredible networking, come join us at Raising. You can see that at www.raise.com. Love it. Well, thank you so much. I'm very excited to be there and also excited to be broadcasting live the nonprofit show there as well. So thank you both. So Carrie, again, thank you so much. Carrie Wozniak, Chief Marketing Officer and Kelly Velazquez-Hague, Vice President of Marketing. Again, thank you both very much for joining me today, sharing the study with us, so many good insights, so many good stats and data points that we can talk about ad nauseam, right? I know I'm gonna go back and listen to the episode because there's so many good nuggets of information there. Again, Julia Patrick, thank you for creating this platform so we can nerd out with these amazing ladies today. I'm Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd. And we also want to extend gratitude to our presenting sponsors that allow us the opportunity to have such insightful, thoughtful conversations. So thank you to Blimmering American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. I like to remind you that these companies really their mission is your mission. They wanna help you do more good in, around and throughout your community. So do us a favor, check them out, but do yourself a favor and definitely check them out. They've got some good stuff cooking up. Kelly and Carrie, thank you for kicking off this Monday. As I mentioned, it is the last Monday of the fiscal year for many of our friends watching and listening. So again, thank you so very much. As we end every episode, we want to remind you, including the two of you to stay well so you can do well. Thanks again for sharing the study and we'll talk to you soon.