 Welcome and thank you for joining us. Another episode of the nonprofit show, we are thrilled to have with us today, author, trainer, consultant, and coach. We have Joanne Appoltz with us today. Creating sustainable and high ROI is what Joanne is going to share with us. But before we jump into this conversation with you, Joanne, we of course want to make sure that our viewers and our listeners know who these voices are. Thanks to Julia Patrick for being here and creating this fabulous platform. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I get to join Julia and have fun in her playground. I'm Jarrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And we of course are thrilled to have the ongoing support and continuation from our presenting sponsors in which you can see on the screen. But I'll also let you know that we have the support from Bloomerang, from the American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising academy, nonprofit nerd, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader, as well as the nonprofit Atlas. So please do check these companies out. They are here to help you do more good in and around in your community. So please do check them out. And if you missed any of these episodes, again, thanks to our sponsors, we have placed them on Roku, on YouTube, on Amazon Fire TV, as well as Vimeo. And if you miss us there, you can catch us on podcasts. So we're also podcasting and streaming rather on wherever you listen to your podcasts. So make sure you ask and queue up the nonprofit show. Speaking of queue up, Joanne, we are thrilled to have you with us today. Welcome. Thank you. I am thrilled to be here. I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Oh my gosh. You know, we're super excited to have you. And as I mentioned, really before we got going in the green room chatter, man, anybody that gets their thoughts organized and articulated in a book format, I bow down to you. But this is not your first rodeo. You produced a number of books and writing. And you mentioned you're already onto your next book. Yes. Yes, I am. I have written or co-written 19 books. I'm on my 20th manuscript right now. And the reason I write is because at this point in my career, I spent 30 years in the trenches in the field of nonprofit working my way up from volunteer to executive director. And I really feel a need to give back. I think that we get what we give and it's my turn to give to the world. So what I do is a lot of blogging and book writing so that people can access some of the ideas that I have had that have helped me be successful over the years to really give them a compass to go by. And I do some consulting as well based on people who need a little bit more intervention. And then I have some online trainings. I love it. Now here's the cover of your new book and let's hold it up because ours has our books have not arrived. Woohoo, yay team. Oh my gosh. Now this is the thing, sustainable high ROI fundraising system. Woo, that's a heavy lift. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, talk to us about that. I mean, you've taken, I imagine the portfolio of your career and systemize it, it sounds like. And so we're really excited to kind of hear what that looks like. And let's start with the inspiration for this book because how did you take all of this knowledge and kind of funnel it down into one system? Well, I first wrote I first wrote 14 books about it. I've been writing about the same thing for 20 years and I finally looked at my books and I thought, here's a theme that's holding them all together. And coming from the executive director viewpoint of where I was involved and you're like, wow, what just happened your first year and everything is hitting you all the time and it doesn't let up. Something that would help executive directors really get the gist of fundraising which is their second most biggest concern that they have, the first being board relations and really helping them to find something that will help them easily raise more money and get the financial results that they need so that they could have better relations with their board. Wow. You know, you've said so much already and really what hit me is that statement of hitting, right? Like there's so much that hits us day in and day out. It's coming from all different angles. It's like a real live game of dodgeball and every day is changing the last three years, right? Ever-changing, so landscapes, priorities, work locations, a little bit of everything. So you've been working on this book, as you said, over your career, now's your time to give back but you focus on a couple of words and we talked about this before we went live but sustainability and how that might mean different things for different people and different organizations. So with that being a key point of your book, Joanne, I'm curious if you would be willing to kind of all encompass, tell us what sustainability is and what that looks like for you as it relates to your career and experience. So basically what sustainability is to me is the ability to realize continuous net surpluses. So I not only go into like net income and how you can make sure that your fundraising systems are actually making you money, because some of them don't and some of them, some non-profits don't realize that they're not making money because they run the gross instead of the net. But I also tell you a little bit about how to build wealth and assets so that you can tap into your assets so that you can grow more net income so that you can tap into your assets. And really the goal is to meet more mission so that you're getting into this cycle of raising more money which motivates your donors to give so you can pour back money into mission which further motivates your donors to give which gives you more money and you start in that sustainability cycle of continuous net surpluses, excuse me, and growth that you're going ahead. This is, it's a growth model. Okay, first of all, I think that in almost 500 shows you're the very first person that has really taken this to that extreme of surplus. And we don't talk enough about surplus. It seems like we just talk about keeping the wolves, you know, Bay from the door. So I love that you're saying no, let's look at this in an abundance, you know, manner and so that we can keep moving forward. I am so loving this, loving, loving, loving this. Yeah, that growth model is important and you're right, Julia, and what you said, Joanne, is, you know, if we only look at the gross numbers we're really not doing our self due diligence. We have to look at the net and so many people are misinformed that nonprofits right there in the name cannot make a profit, but that is a myth and we absolutely can. And the more surplus, the more we're able to meet and exceed and deliver on our mission. So thank you for that definition. As one of my CPA friends is non-profit is a tax exemption, not a business strategy. Yes. Exactly, thank you. And you know, we need to be reminded of that because it's such a part of the culture that we, and it's, you know, sometimes there are days when I want to say it's more than our culture, it's a trap that we fall into this, you know, almost poverty mindset that just really to your point and to use your words is not sustainable. You know, it is just not a way that we can navigate, you know, forward. So I'm really excited to have you talk about this. And you talk, let me go back a little bit, you talk about a system. Are you trying to communicate here that this really is like a charted path that we could take and that we share this with our team and our board and our community? Yes, and there's four components to the system. The first component is to take a step back and look at where you are and see where your fundraising strengths and gaps are so that A, you know where to fill in the holes, but B, you're really coming from a strengths-based viewpoint and you're working with your strengths rather than against your weaknesses. It makes things easier to implement at your nonprofit and it makes for a better work environment so that your retention goes up so that we all know, we all know about the great resignation and getting retention nowadays. And then there's three components and depending on what's going on at your nonprofit, you can tackle one or all three at the same time, but the first is empowering your board to fundraise and really engaging them to fundraise. The second is mobilizing your staff and putting into your structures and your budgeting, those things that will help your staff be successful so that you can reach the financial goals that you and the board have set. And the third, and often you don't find fundraising books talking about this, is exciting your community. And I spend quite a bit of time talking about messaging and branding and how that relates to fundraising and exciting your community. I can't wait to get my hands on this book, Joanne. It sounds fantastic. And one of the things that it's a big number that Julie and I throw out, but currently I believe there's 1.8 million nonprofits in the US, 1.8, right? And so when you talk about exciting your community and how you brand and market this, I'm curious if you can share with us a little bit of insight of what that might include because I'm curious how we can stand out. So when you start by surveying your key stakeholders and your key stakeholders are not only your donors, they're your board, they're your staff, they're your advocates, they're your community collaborators that you partner with, they're your community leaders as well and your competitors. Find out what your competitors think about you just as well. And you might not be able to ask them directly but you can certainly survey them or you can get some insight information by pretending to be a consumer of theirs. But really taking that and seeing what words excite them where all of these interests intersect and then taking your message and crafting individual messages, marketing they call them value propositions and really honing down on what excites them, what words, what concepts excite them so that you can move your mission forward in a package that they are likely to look at and open as you go forward. Okay, yay team, you're speaking my love language because this is one of the things that I think is a big problem in the nonprofit sector is that we become philanthropic snobs or we think, oh, you know, my way is the best way and everybody should care about this. The reality is we have to sell our missions. Yes. We have to get that into our mind that it's not a bad thing. We need to sell service to our clients. We need to sell service to our donors. We need to sell service to our staff and our teams and to your point, our stakeholders so that we can be more sustainable. I mean, it's, I'm so appreciative that you talked about this. I don't know, Jared, it seems to me like a lot of times in the fundraising ecosystem we have the marketing folks and the messaging down the hall to the left around the corner in another building, right? And that we don't see them working, you know, in harmony. It's really a problematic. The Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption, right? And I forget the lady's name that works with Rita, but she was talking about how marketing and fundraising all falls under her umbrella. And that's exactly what you're sharing here, Joanne. And I'm curious about A, B testing. Is that something that you recommend we do as we, you know, send out messages? Are we sending out an A type message to one segmentation, a B type message to another and then seeing kind of which one excites the community most? Yes, I think that's a great idea. And if you're mailing lists to small, then it's a matter of sending different messages at different times. If your mailing list is large, it's a matter of segmenting it out. I would suggest that you take the message that you have for each target group that you're working with. In other words, each segment that you're working with and test within those segments so that you know what's working and what's not working before you invest a whole lot of money into a huge campaign that doesn't have the potential to make that you want it to make. Yeah, that's smart. Thank you for, Garrett, thanks for that question because that's really true. I think we need to be a lot more strategic in this piece. We had a guest in the last couple of weeks that said, we need to start, stop thinking about if it looks pretty and what the data is telling us. Yes. And that, I have to admit, I was like, what? I'm all about the pretty, you know? And to me, I make this like judgment about if it looks good, then it's gonna be good and it's gonna work. Not real, that's old school thinking. As my mother would say, that's stinking thinking. We need to kind of rephrase some of these ways that we look at these systems that we put in place. So really interesting. Really interesting. And that goes to the branding aspect of what I talk about in terms of you're trying to create an experience. And when you create an experience, I mean, I've been at nonprofits and I used to do this as well when I was early in my career where it looks pretty and therefore that's what we're gonna go with and these are the colors that we're gonna use and this is the font that we're gonna use and this is the script that we're gonna use and really you need to get down to your one core message and what kind of fonts are you gonna use? What kind of colors are you gonna use? What kind of, how are you gonna answer the phone? What type of pictures are you going to use? What type of words and concepts are you gonna use? How are you gonna write it? All of that goes into the experience that you're creating so that you are sending one great big singular message about who you are and what you do to the community so there is absolutely no doubt about what you stand for. Okay, elephant in the room, Julianne, right? We talked about this live dodgeball. So we talked about how there's all these different issues and opportunities and challenges that we're being hit with when and how, maybe the better question is how do we relate the importance of this when we're still playing this live dodgeball? So essentially, how do we find time to focus on our message or are the word of 2020 to pivot and say, okay, now's the time, we just need to take a step back, we need to assess, we need to engage with our stakeholders and we really need to take a litmus test to see, are we doing it right or is there ways for improvement? So let's talk about that elephant in the room. When the heck are we finding time to do this? So when I liken it, what the situation that you're describing to flying a plane and charting the course at the same time. That one, yes, that sounds familiar. My God, that's fabulous. You need to be looking at where you're going and where you wanna go and the course that you wanna take at the same time you're dealing with all of these fires that come out. Depending on the size of your nonprofit, sometimes executive directors have a hard time delegating. So delegation is part of that. Also, sometimes we just get so caught up in the daily fires that we forget to go back and pick up the fire hose so that we can prevent other fires. And I would suggest in the way that I dealt with that time constraint, when I was an executive director, I spent about 70% of my time putting at the daily fires and I spent about 30% of my time looking for the water that I would need for the next fire that would pop up. Love it. Yeah. Love it. I think that is magical thinking and that it identifies that this is what is going to be reality, but the reality of, like you said, charting versus fine. And it goes slower than you want. I know that and it's harder than you think and I know that too, but it just requires a lot of discipline and regularity and really putting into place some real principles that you're going to move forward to and some real dedication to that. Amazing. Amazing. Great answer. Well, let's talk about this organizational capacity. And again, I said earlier in today's episode, there's a couple of words you use and they might have different definitions for different people. So the organizational capacity factor as this relates to the sustainable ROI. Talk to us about this and again, let's start with kind of your definition and how you speak to the organizational capacity factor. So what I mean by increasing by organizational capacities, you're looking, again, it's a definition of growth, that your nonprofit is actually becoming bigger in terms of mission, in terms of finances and in terms of asset growth, wealth building. So that it doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing it very quickly, but it means that there's a steady pace forward. And what I have found through my 30 years of practice and my three years of consulting experience is that if you implement all four components of the system, you tend to more than double your return on investment. And that is not necessarily your net income, not necessarily do you double your budget right away, but you get more out of the resources that you already have. And who can say anything about that? That would be a good thing to have, to have more would be for our resources would be great. So this organizational capacity factor, again, I feel like organizational capacity and sustainability have really been buzzwords in our sector. And I love how you speak to this, because again, it goes back to putting profit back into nonprofit and having it as a tax exempt status, not your business model. So really looking at that by way of wealth and assets. And again, and Julia, maybe you can, you know, speak to this, those aren't words we often hear, wealth and assets within a nonprofit. Not in management, you know, we do in fundraising because we all want the wealthy donor, right? But I think that it's really incumbent upon us to look at this in a sustainable way, so that we can be, we can be working at more, solving the problems of what our missions are, right? As opposed to just throwing money at certain things and building our little empires, we need to be really at the heart of it saying, what do we do to go out of business, right? And I think a lot of us aren't willing to have that conversation, you know? And sometimes the problem is so enormous that we say we can never solve the problem, or we can be a service to that problem. So Joanne, I'm really interested in this because it seems to me that this is such an intellectual conversation that a lot of organizations would be like, I don't have time to think about that. I've got to put out the fire and, you know, I got to feed people and that's true. So how do you find that balance to have these hard discussions? The thing that I think about most often is board relations. Your board is going to be more profit-minded. They generally come from the corporate sector and they're going to understand words like return on investment and marketing and net income and net surplus. And if you want to be able to communicate to your board that you want to make an investment in fundraising, it behooves you to be able to talk their language. Just like you're going to talk the language of your market segments and your key stakeholders to get it out there, you want to improve your board relations. And this is one way to do that. Love it. And thank you for drawing that line between who's serving on the boards and who's serving on the nonprofit staff. It's a pretty divergent group of people. Well, the mindset is totally different. One of the greatest obstacles I have in becoming a consultant was taking on that profit mindset in terms of, wait a minute, I can't just give things away anymore. I have to give the low-cost things because I need to pay for them. And that really is what it is about in nonprofits. So often we don't think of that because our grants, if we don't spend them out, then we're gonna lose money next year. It's a totally different mindset. It is and it perpetuates that scarcity. It perpetuates the whole, we have to start at zero every year but it doesn't mean that we can't have a successful endowment or that we can't pay our staff higher wages. Like there's so many ways and how we can invest back into our mission to build this organizational capacity and sustainability. And see, I told you, Julia, I still need more coffee. But it's really important. And I think you are just spot on, Joanne. I am so, so grateful that we have had you on to talk about all of these topics. I'm curious if you could share with us where we can get our hands on your book for those of us listening in today because I'm sure based off of today's conversation, many listeners and viewers alike are gonna say, okay, I need to know what this lady's talking about. Well, there's two places that you can find it. One is my website, joannoffoutcourses.com which you have up on the screen. Under books and courses. And I have the book available there. You can also find it on amazon.com. But if you buy through my website, you don't have to pay shipping if you buy it through Amazon, you do. You know, Joanne, this seems like a really great thing to purchase and distribute to your board or your C-suite. Jared and I have been seeing more and more organizations kind of doing their own book club. And we have actually a book club on the American Nonprofit Academy website. But I'm seeing more organizations do this so they can actually get some thinking time. They can get that thought structure so that they're not just running from meeting to meeting to fire to fire. And like I love how you said, I'm looking for the water from which to put out the fire. I love that because it really does kind of train your brain into thinking about this in a different way. Really interesting, really, really interesting. I think sharing these words and the books with your team, you know, whether it's staff, but staff and board, it really helps you get on the same page and you all know where you're going. Your language becomes consistent. The vision, the path, the journey becomes consistent. Because I think we're mostly all interested in learning, like continued education, continued learning. But if development's learning something and programming is learning something and finance is learning something and they're all different somethings, you know? I think that kind of pulls, but if we can have a book like this one that you've written, Joanne, and we can all chart our path together, I think that's really where we see the biggest success. And not to get on the topic of the next book, but the next book is really a management book in terms of how to take the system and get your feet on the ground and what you need to do to move it forward, getting your feet wet. It really, so I'm gonna sell them as companion books. You need to read first because it really gives you the outline of what you're talking about and gives you the structure. And it does have some on the ground suggestions as well. In terms of what you need to do to get where you wanna go. We're gonna have you back on to talk about that book. I know you're 15 chapters in right now. That sounds like a great partner book and we are so thrilled to have you share that with us today, Joanne, so that our viewers and listeners alike know to go ahead and start reading this one and get ready for the next one. It's been amazing, Joanne. You know, two words for you, pre-sales and bundle. I think this is really, I loved what you said, Jared. You know, we are in search of knowledge because we have gone through so many things in this last three years, we're still in it. And I think we are seeing that we need to do something differently. When we first started this show, Jared said, our sector is due for a disruption and we have been living that. And with that, we can't just all run around with our hair on fire. I mean, that is my, generally, that's my go-to action, but I gotta say it's not a good way to manage and learn. And so it's been really lovely to have you on to chat about this. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined by the nonprofit nerd herself. Joanne, thank you. You've really fired me up today. And I love, love, love this journey that you've taken and that you're actually sharing your knowledge with our sector. So we are really honored to have you on today. And you are right, Ms. Jared. We will have to do a follow-up with that next book. Super cool, super, super cool. Hey, we wanna make sure to make sure that we extend all of our gratitude to our sponsors that are with us day in and day out, Blumerang, the American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit nerd, fundraising academy, the nonprofit Atlas, nonprofit thought leader, and staffing boutique. And as we end every episode, we'd like to remind ourselves and to you our viewers and listeners, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.