 Welcome, thank you for joining us. I cannot believe this year is flying by, but we're miss if we didn't have Steven back on joining us, Chief Engagement Officer at Bloomerang, Phenomenal Donor Database, CRM. Steven does what we call the SHATIC test and that has to do with Giving Tuesday. And so Steven's here to talk to us about the recap of how it went this year for Giving Tuesday. So before we dive into this very robust and fun, because Steven's fun conversation, we of course wanna make sure you know who we are. Julia Patrick is here, Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, hopefully your favorite nerd, your favorite nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And I just learned that Steven has a pair of my glasses, not those that he has on now, but if any of you have a pair of my nerd glasses, they also make excellent safety goggles. So thanks, Steven, for being the tester of that and there's Julia modeling it. Thanks so much, Vanna White. So thrilled to have Bloomerang and all of our presenting sponsors supporting our episodes. You know, we are going on 450 strong two in the making. Wow is right, Steven, every weekday. And we really would not be able to continue these conversations with all of you, our favorite guests and viewers if it weren't for the continued support of the sponsors. So please do check them out and support them as they support us. Steven, welcome, how are you my friend? Good, thanks for having me. Absolutely, we're thrilled to have you. You know, giving Tuesday is always such a big day nationally when it comes to philanthropy. And again, we're gonna talk about your Shattuck test and some of the other things because you are such, I don't know, very experienced, very wise, very knowledgeable when it comes to the sector. And we're just thrilled to have you today. Oh, thanks, feelings mutual, you two are awesome. I can't believe how many of these shows you've done. This is amazing. We can't either. Yeah, of course, Julia said two weeks in the making. And here we are, two years in the making. I love it. Yeah, hey, you know, I wanna, before we go any further, I was taught, if you joined us in the Chitty Chat Chat, I was talking about this. I probably send Steven's book out somebody once a month. And I love, love, love this book. I think it had, it's a super easy read. It's a great, great conversation starter for a development team or a nonprofit that's looking to be more strategic with their development and their fundraising. And I'm like super bummed because I keep hounding him like, what's the next book? He is writing, but it might be a little bit of a diversion. We'll get you back for another book. But having said that, check this out because it's gonna dovetail a lot of what we're talking about. And Steven, a big part of your book that I really, really find interesting is the piece about Giving Tuesday. And you have some fascinating things that you go through, give us a quick recap of what happened this year, which everybody was a little like, oh, what's gonna happen? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And especially since we had two Giving Tuesdays last year, right? That's one cool thing that Giving Tuesday did in the, you know, the throws of the pandemic was very quickly to organize an event in May and in November, December, like they normally do. So with that, and then just the fact that, you know, 2020 and, you know, now into 2021 feels like 2020 a lot in a lot of ways, what was gonna happen and it was the biggest Giving Tuesday ever. And every Giving Tuesday has been the biggest one ever, you know, year over year. So that was great, right? So we had about a 9% increase. We, as in all the nonprofits who raise money on Giving Tuesday, I can't take credit for that. We saw similar numbers at Boomerang, you know, year over year increases. We saw about 40% from last year, which was awesome. And other database software programs, you know, reported very similar findings as well, 30 to 40% increases. So, you know, it's just another data point in what we've been saying for almost two years, which is the help is out there if you ask, right? No matter how tough the economy is, and actually it's the inverse, you know, as you look back on 2020, 2008, 2001, every, you know, economic downturn, the nonprofit sector has been able to weather and, you know, achieve some really awesome results because it in general donors step up in times of crisis if they are asked. And that's what we saw with that with Boomerang customers. So I'm not surprised by these results because Giving Tuesday is a day when people ask, when maybe they normally wouldn't. And that's one of my favorite things about Giving Tuesday is that it really encourages nonprofits to go out and ask for support. And I think it's very easy to be cynical about Giving Tuesday and I've been guilty of that in the past because it seems like, oh, everybody's asking and, you know, donor fatigue and all this stuff, that hasn't ever rung true according to kind of the overall data. Now everyone's mileage may vary, of course, on the day, but it's gonna be a strong Q4. All the data, again, Q4 is very similar to Giving Tuesday whereas every Q4 has been bigger than the last Q4. And this Q4 is not gonna be any different. I feel very strongly, you know, you can have me back in January and I'll have the numbers if you want. But it's just the beginning. We've got a whole month left, right? We're recording this on December 14th, half a month, I guess. But a lot of cool things are gonna happen in these next two to three weeks. You know, December 31st is always a big day. So if you didn't participate in Giving Tuesday, you still got a lot of time to raise money for year end. If you did participate in Giving Tuesday, you don't have to be done. That's another thing I see a lot of people say like, oh, that's it, right? We've exhausted all of our donor support. Not true, but the success of that is gonna be dependent on what you do with some of those Giving Tuesday dinners, which I think we're gonna talk about here in a second. Not to get ahead of myself, but yeah, all good. This year, Giving Tuesday was November the 30th and we talk a lot about the power of December and statistically about 30% of all operating dollars for nonprofits across the nation are raised in the fourth quarter. And up 40%, we're looking at, again, statistically across the nation, 13% in December. So what you just said, Giving Tuesday isn't the end. No. There's still so much more to do in these final couple of weeks, but as we look at that, and we've teased this name before earlier in the show, the Shattuck test, don't, don't, don't. What is that? What is it that you do and what did you find this year when you did the Shattuck test? So what I tell people really starting in November as they're kind of preparing for, not just Giving Tuesday, but year end in general, is you got to make sure people can donate number one. So I encourage people to donate to themselves. First of all, make sure everything's working, right? Because you don't want to wake up on November 30th or December 1st or whatever day Giving Tuesday is and something's broken, or it's not working the way you want it to, maybe your vendor lets you down or it's not working on the mobile app, just making sure that happens. And I'm going to be saying that over the next couple of weeks because December 30th and December 31st, same thing. Even with the tax law changes, December 31st is still the biggest day. There's still something in our brains that, oh, I got to make that gift before, you know, the ball drops and get that 2021 gift in. So you can still do this. So number one, can you accept donations? Is everything working the way you want? And it's a good thing to do, not just in November and December, but maybe once a month or maybe once a quarter just to make sure. But then the other thing and something I talk a lot about in my book is what happens after someone donates? This is usually kind of an afterthought, right? What are we saying to these donors? You know, what's that experience post online donation look like? Because if they're a brand new donor, for example, these are the first things that we are saying to these donors, even though it's through automated processes, right? It's the automatic receipt that the online giving provider sends out. It's your website's confirmation page. I tell people to look at those two things very closely because they're usually kind of an afterthought and they are usually very robotic and boring and transactional. And then the donor isn't getting anything from us that is really kind of, you know, saying thank you in a heartfelt way until perhaps days or weeks later, if at all. So what I look at, it's basically a secret shopping experiment, I guess secret donation experience or experiment where I do that and I look at people's confirmation pages and the email receipts, and then I kind of see what they send to me. Is it a welcome kid? Is it a phone call? Is it a handwritten note? And the reason I recommend those things is we looked at Blumerang customers during the pandemic who were really successful. And one of the main things we saw, in addition to the fact that they were asking or asking more often than those who weren't, but it's that they were doing things like calling donors and sending videos and doing Zoom calls, things like this or FaceTime calls, some sort of personal interaction. Because I think one thing that burns donors out on Giving Tuesday is it's a very transactional experience for them. But if you can go and give those donors a really positive personal experience, that is gonna stand out amongst all the other, perhaps Giving Tuesday gifts or year-end gifts that they make to other nonprofits if they are donating elsewhere. And the cool thing is, and Jared, you nailed it with the December thing, is if you do a good job of stewarding those Giving Tuesday donors and making them feel like, oh, that was nice. They seem to really appreciate me. You got a whole month to which you could maybe get a second donation from them, right? And I think that's why a lot of people consider Giving Tuesday to be the end because they haven't gone through that stewardship process and then they're maybe disappointed and they feel like, oh, dang, Giving Tuesday cannibalized the rest of the year-end. And maybe what actually happened is those donors didn't get a good experience on Giving Tuesday and perhaps that lowered that threshold that they were gonna give again before the end of the year. And one thing I pay special attention to is monthly donors who give on Giving Tuesday. That's a huge engagement signal that they are already on a schedule, that they gave an extra gift. Brand new donors, like I mentioned, because Giving Tuesday is typically a very big kind of acquisition event. And then perhaps other types of donors that you should say, oh, wow, that was interesting that they also gave on Giving Tuesday. I don't wanna let that go unacknowledged. So I recommend Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of that week. And it's not too late. It's only been a couple of weeks. It's not too late at all. But hey, are you really reaching back out to those people? Because they did have a lot of choices on Giving Tuesday. They probably did get a lot of emails and see a lot of Facebook posts, but they chose you perhaps exclusively or in addition to a small amount of nonprofits that they chose to support. So, and I always say this, but the real work kind of begins after that gift is made. But that work I think will pay dividends, particularly in the higher chances that they would give again before January 1st. So give us the details on the Shattuck test is brilliant. I love it. You go into a lot of detail with various organizations that do not know you, do not have any idea who you are and you detail what your experience is. Remind us how many folks you're reaching out to organizations and what your gift was. Usually I give about to 50 organizations and you nailed it, first-time donor, because that's significant, right? Because for first-time donors, their retention rates are typically 19, 20% especially for online donations, which are even lower when you compound online and first-time. I give $5 and I've given higher dollar amounts in the past, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. A lot of people will kind of bulk at me and say, oh, you gave $5, but what did you expect? But one of the reasons that the gift amount doesn't really matter is I look closely at things that are automated. In other words, if I had given $1,000, I would have gotten the exact same thing. Does not matter. And maybe someday technology will allow for perhaps some customization based on that, but we're not quite there yet, but I think we probably will be soon. But what I'm looking at is the confirmation page. What's on that page? Usually it just says your donation is confirmed, thank you. And then the donor is like, okay, they're gonna close the website because there's really nothing else to do. But why not give them an opportunity to watch a video or fill out a survey, read a blog post to look at upcoming events? Those are the kinds of things I recommend there just to kind of keep them engaged. Because if they leave, you have to go reacquire them, which is not very fun. Then the receipt. And usually this is just a receipt. It's very boring. It looks like you bought a gallon of milk from these nonprofits. But why not go in to your software, right? And customize it to say thank you. Sometimes they don't even say thank you. And that's what I record in the book, Julia, is if I give 50 gifts a year, 47 or 48 of them, there's nothing on the confirmation page. The receipt is a receipt, barely says thank you if at all. And then a couple of weeks later, I'll get a templated letter. And when I do this on Giving Tuesday, what I'm looking for is, do they acknowledge it as a Giving Tuesday gift, right? Hey, Steven, thanks for giving on Giving Tuesday. We know you probably were getting a ton of emails. You chose us. Thank you so much. Can't wait to tell you about all the great things that your gift is doing throughout the year. Very rarely does that happen. I'll get a gift maybe a couple of weeks before the end of the year. I'll get a letter. It's just the same thank you letter that they were probably sending out on November 1st or December 1st or whatever. So that's what I really am looking for is, do they say, hey, you're a first-time donor. Thanks so much for your first gift. And thanks for also giving on Giving Tuesday because donors kind of like it when you tell them what kind of donor they are, right? Thanks for being a monthly donor. Thanks for making your first gift. Thanks for giving to us on Giving Tuesday. Those tiny details kind of show the donor that you're paying attention. And it will also kind of help you write the rest of that letter or craft a story because those types of donors are very different. A monthly donor, you probably already know them. Monthly donors really go underappreciated, I think. First-time donors go under-recognized for starting that relationship. So those are the kinds of things I'm looking for. Do they call me, right? Another thing, one of my rules is if they ask for a phone number, even if it's not required, I give them a phone number. I think maybe one time out of 300, I've gotten a phone call to say thank you, which is interesting because we looked at Blumerang data. Our customers who call first-time donors, their retention rates go from about 19% to 60% on the first-time side. So it's a great, great thing to do for first-time donors is to call them, especially if they give you a phone number. If they don't, I wouldn't go like looking forward or calling their office. It's a little weird, that might be a little too much, but I always say like, I gave them the phone number, why they asked for it, right? If they weren't gonna do anything with it. And I know we're all super busy. It's just a completely hectic time of year, but these are activities that we've kind of proven, and I'll send all the links if people wanna see the raw data to have a really high impact. So I always say, well, there's probably nothing else that would be better to do with your time. And it's not too late, right? We're recording this on the 14th. It's two weeks to the day. It's not too late. You could still pull up that list if you're giving Tuesday donors, maybe filter by, was it their first gift? Add a filter, did you get a phone number? It's not gonna be a lot, probably if you're adding all those filters and then take a half hour today or Friday or over lunch or whatever, call them. Say, hey, thanks for joining the family of donors, especially on Giving Tuesday. Wow, you had a lot of choices. Have your board members do it. Buy them a pizza, have them all come in. If that's safe to do, give McGrubhub, give card, they're staying at home, call. Because this is the key, this is the one day of the year where it's the most robotic. It's the most transactional. It's the most, or I guess it's the least personal of fundraising days. And not in the asking, but in the follow-up, right? So that's what I wanna impart on people, participate, first of all, that we could do a whole, you probably have done shows of people recommending how to raise money on Giving Tuesday, but what I want people to focus on now is let's say thank you to those people because you want them to give again, and they might give again before the end of the year, depending on who they are and what you say to them. I love, and I've had the great opportunity to work within Bloomerang with a couple of my clients lately, Steven, and your friend Blossom that sits above your left shoulder for everyone who's looking. As you talk about that first-time donor and the Bloomerang CRM has this great opportunity where Blossom indeed is telling us, this is their first gift, right? Call, this is a task. And that is huge when it comes to the communication and thinking because you said really the ability to retain this first-time donor is quite low and essentially having to re-acquire, so going back into the acquisition phase, talk to us if you would, Steven, really about how do we continue to build on this relationship? So what are those actions that we should take? You gave us great ideas and even saying it's still not too late. Yeah. Go on and do that. And if it's not you, it could be a board member, make it fun. So what are some other actions when it comes to building that donor relationship? Because it's not just giving Tuesday where I feel we fall short. I hear a lot from individuals that say, oh, we had our gala and we won't talk to these people again until it's time to invite them the next year. To the next one, yeah. Why do we keep repeating the same bad people? Well, I think if you wanna stay on the first-time donors particularly, because that's where there's the least amount of a relationship, right? Talked about calling, that's a great thing. A welcome kit, just something that is exclusive to that first-time experience where you're really welcoming them and making them feel like, oh, wow, they paid attention, that that was my first gift. And educate them, because even though you've acquired them as a donor, they may not totally understand the entire breadth and width of what your operation is doing, even though they've donated, like they've probably been convinced to some point that you're doing good work and they've donated. But in that welcome kit, maybe it's some educational material, right? Or maybe a video from the watch that the truly explains, hey, you gave to this organization, but here are all the things that were making possible through donor support and through other types of support on this mission. Then thinking of the mission, they're a new donor. They're practically a stranger to you. So inversely, that they don't know much about you, you probably even know less about them, right? I think one thing we suffer from is maybe a little bit of a curiosity about our donors. So I imagine if you got a birthday present from a total stranger and it was exactly what you wanted, you'd probably think, oh, that's weird. I wanna find out what that's going on here. Have that same kind of curiosity about first-time donors. So surveys, that's one first-time donor surveys so, so powerful. Why did you give? What's your connection to the cause? Why do you care about the wildlife here in the Southwestern United States? Why do you care about water quality in Africa? Why do you care about whatever the thing is? Because even though first-time donors are a unique group, within that group, you may have very, very different people giving for different types of reasons. You may find out like, oh, this person had, their grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's, so that's why they gave. Or this person saw a Facebook post, right? And they were kind of moved in the moment. You might wanna say different things to those people, but probably the most important piece of information to know about a donor, especially first-time donors, is why they care about your cause. Usually they were touched by it in some ways and you can use that information to sort of contextualize your subsequent communications to those people. That's a really good foundation for the relationship. Not only are you asking, showing interest in the donor and their sort of philanthropic goals, that's a really great basis for the relationship, that alone, but any information that you get is gonna be so, so powerful in communicating to them going forward. For example, you get a Giving Tuesday donor on November 30th. They give online. Maybe your confirmation page says, hey, thanks so much for your gift. What prompted your gift today? And they write in. Well, it's Giving Tuesday and I've always wanted to give. I've always cared about this cause. And I rescued an animal. We had a rescue animal as a kid. And I'd love to, you find something amazing out, right? And then you get that information. You can kind of weave into the thank you, maybe weave it into the stewardship. Then maybe last week in December, you can go back to that person and say, hey, thanks so much for giving on Giving Tuesday. We're so happy that you joined the family of donors. And thank you so much for telling us that personal story. We've got a special need right now related to that thing you mentioned. Would you really be willing to chip in an extra seven or $10? It doesn't really matter how much they give, right? But going from a first gift to a second gift, you go from 19% retention to 60% retention. So you can, yeah, if you can cross that chasm, you're in good shape, right? But the success of that second ask, I think it's really, really contingent on knowing something about that person and then sort of contextualizing the appeal and getting that in front of them rather than on December 31st, you go into your database, you queue up this kind of generic, it's December 31st, you should give and it goes to everybody and it doesn't talk to those different types of people, right? That's where the disappointment I think is gonna come in. Again, this is a lot of work. This is gonna take a lot of work. And if you're a one-person shop, it's like, holy crap, I can't do all this, this is ridiculous. And that's why I focus on the first-time donors because it's probably the most bang for the buck of going from the second gift. Second gift for the third gift, you won't see those 40% increases in retention necessarily. So if Giving Tuesday was kind of a big acquisition period for you, that's the key is to start to build that relationship. And just like any relationship you have with family members, friends, colleagues, I think a lot of it is showing an interest in them, right? I mean, when I log in with you two, we're all the time talking about what's going on in our personal lives. And I feel like we know each other because we've done that. So do that with the donor as well. And so much of it can be automated, right? Putting it on your confirmation page, putting it in the email receipt, queuing it up to go out automatically to all your first-time donors. I'm not a big fan of automation, but there are some ways that you can do that and it's not so onerous for you. But call them, if they pick up, you can ask those questions and you don't need to send a thing. You are always so inspirational. There's so many things that I want to add and do differently with my clients, but what really landed with me today, Stephen, and it kind of tags into yesterday's guest, which they brought to the table. It's all about being the hero. And as we talk about, there are 1.8 million nonprofits in the nation, in the United States, and this donor picked you, right? You, they are your hero. And for us to continue to talk to them in that manner, get to know them, communicate in a way that continues that. And as you said, yes, let's jump that chasm and let's take them into an ongoing supporter because we get to know them and continue build on those relationships. So I was excited to nerd out with you today of Thanksgiving Tuesday. As you said, it gets bigger every year. I know the three of us and probably everyone watching the show woke up that morning to an email full, email box full, you know, communication. So Stephen, we are so grateful to have your wisdom, your expertise, and your valuable time with us today. And of course your partnership here at the nonprofit show with Bloomerang. So we wish you the best. It is the middle of December. Cannot believe that's happening, but we heard you say you'll come back in January and talk about Q4. So I'm gonna get you on the books, my friend. Yeah, we'll do it. And December 31st, I'm telling you folks, it's way bigger than giving Tuesday. So have something going. You know, I love this. And you like choked me up, but no, thank you very much. Check out Stephen's book. It is such a great tool. And now that you've heard him speak with us and hopefully you've heard him before on the nonprofit show, it really gives you a lens and how to retool your thinking. It's just masterful. And again, I send it to somebody probably once a week. I wanna remind everybody that you've been with Julia Patrick, that's me, and my nonprofit nerd, your nonprofit nerd, the nonprofit nerd, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, thanks to all of our sponsors who are here with us day in and day out and allow us to have this national conversation. We're really proud of the amazing leaders and bright minds that we get on the nonprofit show, day in and day out, a wide variety of people. And so thanks to our sponsors and people like Blumerine who actually even send us, hey, this is a great thought leader, you ought to chat with them. It's been a magical, magical thing. Okay, Stephen Shaddick, you rock. I have so many interesting observations from your comments. It's really cool. And I agree, I'm going to really refocus on that end of the year and see what happens to the communications that I have with nonprofits. I think that I might be disappointed. Hopefully not. I mean, do you know what I'm saying? I think a lot of people to your point, they hammer on Giving Tuesday and then they're like, okay, we're done. And they're done, right? But so you've really retooled some thoughts here. I'm very, very grateful. Hey, Jared. You too are awesome. Thanks for doing all these shows. It's been such an honor. And again, thanks to all of you that have joined us today for this Giving Tuesday recap and to learn more about the Shaddick test. Hit your ducks in a row because you and your organization might be on Stephen's list next year. He goes far and wide across the nation. So again, Stephen Shaddick, if that comes up in your donor database or you might want to check and see if it's already there, give him a call because chances are you have his number. But thrilled to have you on, thrilled to have each and every one of you joining us today for today's episode. We hope you'll come back on tomorrow. And until then, as we end every episode, we ask you to please stay well so you can do well. Thanks everyone and thanks, Stephen.