 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here and we hope that you stay because we have an episode today that we think is gonna knock your socks off. I absolutely adore our presenter from Bloomerang today, Margie Whirl. She and I have several ways that we've worked together in the past. And so I purposely asked for Margie to join. I had to talk to the uppers at Bloomerang and say, can I please have her? So she's bringing a topic about working smarter, not harder, which I think we can all use a little dose of that. And she's gonna share with us tips and techniques about automation and how you can automate certain tasks for your nonprofit productivity. So before we hand the microphone over to Margie, we want to remind you who we are if we have not met you yet. Hello to you, Julia. Of course, Julia C. Patrick is here, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Thanks to you. I get to serve day in and day out because of your lovely invitation to serve as co-host. I'm Julia Ransom, nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. Really honored to serve alongside, but truly we wouldn't be here if it weren't for these amazing sponsors. So shout out of gratitude to our besties over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, 180 management group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. So these are the companies, most of them have been with us with the 950 plus episode journey we've been on. And if you missed any of those 950 plus episodes, you can go back and find us on these three channels. So go ahead and scan that QR code. Stay with me, Julia. I know, I know, I'm sorry. It's raining, Jared, I'm all messed up. Scan that QR code and download the app. You can also find us on streaming broadcast and podcast and you might just find yourself binge watching because we hear that quite a bit that someone goes on to watch one or listen to one episode and they stay on for several. So consume at your leisure. We invite you to do that. Okay, Margie. It's like the crown, Jared. You sit down for an episode and then you're there the whole day. I'm just saying. I haven't done that yet. So I have heard it's an amazing show. So Margie is here with us today. Have you seen the crown, Margie? I've seen some of the episodes. I had to stop just because of the binging danger. I really had to just kind of put it on hold for a little bit because I was having issues walking away. Just like the nonprofit show. I'm just saying. That's right. So Margie Whirl joins us today. She is curriculum manager at Blamerang and I again, just want to share Margie and I have worked together in the past. She's presented with our partner at Fundraising Academy National University and I helped to facilitate that webinar. I've joined Margie on the Blamerang webinars, all kinds of fun stuff. So I purposely asked and said, can we get Margie? And I want her specifically to talk about automation because it is the nerdiest topic that we need to be talking about. So welcome. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. And you know what, Jared? It's funny when you told me the topic, my first thought was, oh, automation. And then I started looking into it and I was like, oh yeah, automation. This is a great topic and it's just so timely. I mean, we really need this for our nonprofit friends, for them to be able to be successful in their missions. Yeah. Well, you know, it's such an intimidating topic and everybody's talking about it. And so then I think as a leader of a nonprofit, you're like, oh my God, it's one more thing I'm behind the ball on. One more thing, I've got to catch up. And so I've got to start the conversation and ask you, is this really something that only the mid to large size organizations can do? Or if you're a startup or you're small, can you, should you put this on the back burner or should you move forward? No, I think that's a great question, Julia. And I'm so glad you're asking it because this is absolutely not for just one, this is a one size fits all, right? Well, this is something everyone needs. Basically, if you still have work to do at the end of the day, it's for you. You still are going to be, because here's what's happened and I don't think we can have this conversation without talking about the pandemic. Since the pandemic, nonprofits have been reporting that they are seeing jobs going unfilled. They aren't able to fill these positions. There's a much larger scale of work that needs to be done. The need is greater in their community and the funds are less. So what we're looking at for our nonprofits is doing more with less overall. If that's you, then automations are for you. And I'm gonna guess that's everyone in this audience today and I'm sorry that's you, I really am. I wish that we had other ways to help but certainly automations is a great start. And you know what? I think there's kind of big A automations and small A automations and we'll talk about that a little bit too. Yeah. You know, I love that you said this is a one size fits all. I think the sooner you start this, especially as a smaller nonprofit, maybe even a startup nonprofit, you stack on these habits, right? Kind of like you stack the automation, you stack the technology, you stack all of the process and systems. And I don't know about the two of you and all of our viewers and listeners but I love when we can simplify, right? Like let's find a simplistic, effective and efficient process. I love that you said that, Jarrett, because I think you're right. A lot of times in the nonprofit sector and even the for-profits sector, we spend time making corrections that are ultimately are basically bad habits. 100%. Absolutely, yeah, for sure. Really cool. So Margie, you're gonna talk to us really about how this works in our database because you are representative of Bloomerang. And what I love about Bloomerang is really being a thought leader in this space. So this is a conversation whether you use their specific database or any other database. So really looking at this from, you know, a efficiency standpoint. So talk to us about like, where should we go for the most logical areas to begin our automation? Absolutely. And I just wanna say, first of all, Jarrett, I would love to call out the fact that some automations are free and some automations are low cost. So I wanna kind of start there and then we'll build from there. So one of the things I love to think about is not all automations are tech. And I would like to say that, yeah, I think that this is an interesting concept. My mind is blue. I'm like, what do you mean by tech? I thought I sensed to mind's blowing. I wasn't sure that it was yours, Jarrett, but I guess... Yeah, okay, I wanna hear more about this. Yeah, so here's an example. I used to work at United Way and my job was immersive learning. And I did simulations and these simulations had kits and we took the kits in and people would write on these whiteboards. And I would give them a wipe and instruct them to clean the whiteboard before putting it away and put everything back as they found it. And of course, not everyone did that. So I would bring the kits back and I would sit for an afternoon scrubbing off whiteboards, putting everything back. And that was something I was doing instead of interacting with donors, instead of working in the areas where I could develop better immersive learning technology. I had to sit and take that time, right? So think about this. Can an automation be utilizing volunteers or interns to do work for your organization? And there's a side benefit to this. We had an intern who came in and took on that task. She was at a local college where she needed service hours. So she benefited from getting her service hours. We benefited from having her come in and do this work and also she developed an affinity for our organization. Maybe she became a future donor, who knows? We also had a retiree who came in and she loved the work that we did. And so she would do this for us as well. And after they got in, people started to say, hey, wait a minute, you have an intern, you have a volunteer. I have this over here that I need to... So automation can actually be a human thing as well. I love this. And I would have never thought of that. And as nonprofits, we think of the workforce that comes to us by way of volunteer engagement interns. What a wonderful opportunity. I love that this can really be applied in all areas. And we just need to think a little further on that. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of times we're looking for ways to engage our donors. And if they're wanting to help, why not utilize that? So I'm gonna start with that. Also think about free and inexpensive technologies that you can incorporate. The most recent one, Jared, you're actually gonna love this because this has to do with you. In my work, I have partners that I have to make appointments with outside of the company. I can't see their calendars. I have no visibility into that. And the way I used to do this was I would open up my calendar, I would open up my email. I'd have to look for available times, right? Many of you've probably been through this. Send those over, like type all those into an email. Send those over to the partner. Wait to hear back when they were available, right? Then I'd have to go to my calendar, schedule the time, send that off to the partner. I don't know about you, but I'm tired just listening to me talk about this. I mean, I'm glad you said something. Yeah. Right? It's just too much. Thank you. I discovered Calendly. Yeah. You can have a free Calendly. So I now just send that off. People schedule time, it's done. Can I just say too, I think that the pandemic normalized Calendly. Yes. I feel like earlier, let's say, 18, 19, early 20, anytime I would see someone send me a link, this is, oh, schedule here on my calendar. I thought, they're a little pompous, right? Like, or lazy. I did that too. Oh, yeah. And now it's like efficiency, automation. It's what you do. And it's almost like, if you don't have one, people even ask for it. They'll say send me your schedule link. Absolutely, right? It's almost anticipated that you have that. Yeah, I think so. One of the things that I love is the automation within Bloomerang. And again, this can be done with many CRMs. I have been on another conversation with you, Margie, where you shared some of this around task and reports and setting up, okay, every Friday at this time, talk to us about those options. Absolutely, happy to do some. I'm always happy to talk about the automation that Bloomerang has. We're constantly looking for new ways to help automate systems so that nonprofit customers are able to really focus on their mission because that's what really counts at the end of the day. So one of the experiences I've also had working at a nonprofit was that our fundraisers needed reports weekly on their interactions so that they could see who they have and have not touched within their portfolios. And we have admins who are going in and doing these reports, right? Sending them every week. There's no need for that. Inside Bloomerang, we have the ability for you to make dynamic date filters and to just make it so that it automatically sends so you can have a report going out weekly to the same people and it will rotate the date for you so that it's keeping up with time, right? Moving forward in time so it's rolling and it will communicate that information without you touching it. Another great example that Jarrett just referred to is tasks. Sometimes it's really hard to keep track of tasks and also to know what others are doing as well. I don't know if anyone else has ever suffered from duplicate effort. We used to see a lot of that in some of the nonprofits I worked at. One of the features on your dashboard in Bloomerang, so as soon as you log into Bloomerang, you see your tasks, but not just your tasks. Everyone else's tasks in the database as well. So you are able to see who is doing what and you're able to track that information. It also sends you reminders. If you make a task for someone else, it sends them email reminders. It moves a task up as the date becomes closer. So if you have some sort of automation around tasks like that, I encourage you to use it. It is so easy to lose track. And I tell you the Post-it Notes system doesn't work very well. I've seen Post-it Notes on the bottom of shoes before and you don't know about that task if it's in the bottom of your shoe. So- Yeah, you know, Omergy, I love this because I think a lot of times, I know for me, I get very, very hung up on the task and I feel like I'm the only one rowing in that direction. And then I get frustrated with everyone around me because I'm like, come on, you guys, you're not doing what we're doing. And it's like, but wait a minute, everybody doesn't know what you're doing. So this dashboard piece, and I've seen it in other software, it's a game changer because I think it elevates everybody's activity as well. It builds accountability. Absolutely. And it also helps you to know, for example, if I'm talking to a donor about volunteer work and the fundraiser is talking to the donor about something else and someone else is talking to the donor about sponsors, we can all see who's having conversations with this donor so that we aren't trampling the donor so that we're being respectful of the donor. So it gives you visibility in that way too so that the right hand knows what the left hand's doing if you're a larger nonprofit where maybe not everybody talks every day. And we know that happens. Like I've got stories of that. I know so many others have stories of that. Let's move to the investment that's needed. And my top question when it comes to investments needed to automate Margie is around time because I feel like the end goal is efficiency. However, we might just spend a little extra time investing in getting this set up. Talk to us about this. Yeah, actually a recent report said that 77% 77% of organizations said that they have software and tools that they think could do more for them than what they're using it for, right? And so there's always this, there is a need to invest time. And I highly encourage that if you do and bring in any kind of software for automation that you do spend time with their support team with their help articles wherever you can find that knowledge that you can gain so that you're really utilizing it to its full potential because especially if you're investing in it if you're investing money in it you need to invest in time as well. That's the other side of that coin. Otherwise you're probably leaving some automations on the table that would be super useful to implement with your organization. May I add to that? I love your suggestions. Take some time, get your coaching hours in whatever they offer. Do the help articles. I love to also find group forums and community chats that maybe aren't led by that company to see what other people are doing and how they're utilizing that thing whatever it is that we're really looking into. I find valuable insights into these groups and it's like, oh, I would have never thought of that. Absolutely, yeah. And part of what I do at Bloomerang is we offer free education. It's called Bloomerang Academy. And one of the things I loved here is when I see people in the chat communicating with each other about the best ways to use the software and how they've found this and they found, oh, I never knew that before. And it gets really just so exciting to me to see that. So that kind of ties in with those forums, right? Where you can educate one another on ways that you're utilizing it because truthfully our nonprofits are the boots on the ground. They're the ones using it and they're finding amazing ways to automate systems within Bloomerang and other CRMs as well, I'm sure. Right, that peer to peer transference of knowledge is so valuable. It's priceless truly. What about the cost? And I would like to stick really to that CRM space. I know a lot of CRMs and even this data you said 77% of users say they're maybe not using it to the full capacity. There are, as you had mentioned, no cost, low cost, probably a little higher cost. But can we talk about financial investments? What does that look like? Yeah, I think that, well, one of the things that I really like, especially as you're looking at a CRM is look to see what is included, right? As far as automations are concerned, places to look for that are like reports. Do they have the automation around reports? Do they have automations around emails and donations? The task automations we talked about, right? And another thing to really think about is if it's not an automation, is there an integration that can help automate other pieces of software? For example, we have integrations that are native to Bloomerang, like QBO, like QuickBooks Online, like MailChimp, right? However, we also have Zapier that can help. Now, some of those are gonna be add-on costs, right? But many of these things come native with your basic subscription to Bloomerang. So when you're looking at a CRM, first of all, be thinking about that because it's a very key part of having a CRM that truly, truly will work for you and automate and help make your staff more productive. And here's another thought. It also helps your staff not feel so much burnout. If you are automating, your staff is going to be able to have that comfort, right? Of knowing that these automations are doing the things that might have made them burn out at some point if they were being loaded with an oversized workload. Yeah, you know, I think a lot of times, Margie, the first thing is you look at that price and you're like, what's the cheapest price? And it's just, you know, you go on every website and they have these like little boxes and it's like this per month. And, you know, if you wanna bump up a little, and I think that that is just such an easy trap to fall into that, oh, this is the lowest cost per month. So that's gonna be the best choice versus to your point, what is it gonna actually do for you? And what are your additional investments? Because I think that's just a brilliant thing that we don't look at those added on situations. We're like, wow, yeah, we need these reports, we need these apps, we need to get these other things. And then before we know it, we're getting mistrustful of that CRM because we keep adding on expense, costs that we didn't expect. Exactly, yeah, and I love that perspective. I think it's really important before you go looking for a CRM because you're right, we start looking at the price, right? Before you're looking, start thinking about what automations are gonna be important to you. And then start looking and seeing is this going to be included? Is this going to be extra? And the other part, the other piece of any automation that you're considering is think about staff time versus the cost of this automation because a lot of staff time goes into some of the work that these automations can lift off of your staff. I just love the task, or I forget what it was, it was the report. And if that's something that you need to send to your supervisor or the CEO or whomever, maybe a committee chair, you can automate that. So even if you're on vacation, or you're on a lunch meeting and that can go through without you having to be there to physically manually hit that button, we don't have much time and we knew this time was going to fly by. But let's talk about how we know when our automation is effective. When do we say, yes, this was home run or when do we say, you know what? We need to rework that one, right? Exactly, and I love this question. I think it is a great question. So I think the way that you know it's working, at least from my perspective, is if you're spending less time in your database and finding more value out of it, you're probably on the right track because you are not having to touch things as often, but you're getting extreme amounts of value from your CRM. A CRM should not be just a data collection receptacle. A CRM should be a breathing, functioning piece of data. I'm trying to think of a word that it's expanding your data. Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you, Julia. Words, I think it should be expanding your data, sharing your data. It should be part of your data strategy and I love that. Yes, it needs to go out and it needs to not just take in the data, but be sharing it out. So if you're seeing that you're not having to spend as much time in there and you're still getting a great deal of value, the other thing I think is if you are able to spend time on that mission critical work, the human side of things, the parts and pieces that you sincerely cannot and would not automate, if you are able to spend time and more time on those things, you are being successful. Of course, you can set metrics around this, you can establish metrics to measure things, but I think really at the end of the day, a lot of it is just going to be demonstrated in how you're doing your work. Yeah, I was going to share one of the tools that I love within Bloomerang and I am a user, right? Like they're wonderful loyal sponsor here over the show and I've used them with so many different organizations that I've had the privilege to work with is when I send an email to a constituent, to a supporter and I do the BCC at email address, it automatically puts that email into their donor record so that I don't have to copy it, paste it, like that in and of itself is an additional four or five, maybe six steps, one email address in the same email I send and it's there. And if it's not there because the donor record hasn't been created yet, it will prompt you that there is no donor record and therefore you just create it and now you've got that set up. It's kind of like set it and forget it, you know? It's completely like set it and forget it and that's one of the things I love is all of that vital information that you need to be able to really stay in touch in a very meaningful and intentional way with your donors, all of that's being put into your database without your thought, without your extra effort. I love that. I do too. You know, as we wrap up today's conversation, I would love Margie, if you would share because you do webinars often. In fact, I don't know if you know this, but I was in on yesterday's webinar about modern donor acquisition or retention, I think is what it was. So you are constantly providing resources and tools and education to our community. What does that look like and how do we find out more so that we can, you know, just learn more in this arena? Absolutely, yeah. Thank you for the call out and I didn't know you were on yesterday, Jared. That was a fun session. You know who else was moderating, Julia? It was one of our other favorites, Diana Otero. And so she's moderating the conversations and I just wanted to say, hi, ladies. She's great. Yeah, no, she's, yeah, we've learned a lot from her and continued to, so. Diana is amazing and I always shout her out when I can because I just think she is a remarkable lady. But if you're interested in finding out more about our webinars, please come to our website, bloomrain.com. And if you go to our webinars and events, you're gonna find all kinds of interesting nonprofit success and thought leadership webinars that you'll be able to attend. They're gonna really help you be able to do the work that you're doing in your community in ways that just are gonna help you and make you more successful. And we do have Bloomerang Academy too for anyone who is a Bloomerang user or interested in just seeing a little bit about how Bloomerang works. If you go to our Bloomerang Academy, you can sign up for our classes, our sessions there and just see how our database works for you. We're always interested in sharing that information. Thank you. It's great. I think the thing about you and your team, you're always very quick to talk about the sector as a whole and not just pitch your own product, but you always seem to really support the health and the knowledge and the exploration of excellence across our sector. And so we appreciate that. We really, really do because it's a rare thing to find, somebody that will come on and to all of your team members, they seem to do this. It's a cultural thing, I think. And so Margie Whirl, curriculum manager at Bloomerang, the website is bloomerang.com and you can go on there and then from there, you will see just a tremendous amount of information, white papers, videos, the Academy, all different things that will help you to be more effective no matter what the tools that you're using. I think that's the brilliant piece of this site is that it's just a generally strong place to get good current information. And so definitely check out Margie and her amazing team because this is something that is a changing time. And Margie, you said something really interesting and that was so many of these things have been propelled by the pandemic. We wouldn't be having a lot of these conversations if we hadn't had been just like jerked so quickly and then had to kind of come up with the new ways to do things. And Jared and I see that every day. That's something that's very evident, but with you and your team kind of really leaning into that, I think it's been amazing. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. We've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared R. Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we are here, 950 shows past that actually, I'm strong and really because we have this amazing support and it comes from Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Stephanie Boutique, your part-time controller, 180 management group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting. Again, the nonprofit nerd herself and nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that really stand behind us day in and day out as we march towards our 100,000th show. Not easy to say, huh? Jared. It's not easy to say, no. But it's exciting to say. It is, it's crazy, it's crazy to say. Well, as we end every episode, we want to remind ourselves, our viewers, our wonderful guests today to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone. Thank you, ladies.