 All right. It looks like we've got some people joining. Hello if you just joined us for today. We'll get started in just a second before I start talking. I just want to make sure that everybody who is on the webinar can hear me speaking and see my screen. So if you could just use the chat box to let me know that you're able to hear me talking and you should see the cover slide that has the Cincinnati Gives logo, that would be a huge help to me. And don't be shy. Okay. Perfect. Thank you, Mary. All right. Perfect. So hello and welcome, everybody. This is our second webinar for Cincinnati Gives. And this webinar is really going to be focused on strategy and how your nonprofit can use Cincinnati Gives to engage your donors and reach your fundraising goals. My name is Linda Carhart and I'm the senior community engagement manager here at Mighty Cause. And I thought I was going to be joined by Ivy, but she's not able to make it to this webinar. So it's just going to be me. And then we have some guest presenters that will introduce a little bit further into the webinar. Here's a look at today's agenda. Just so you know, we are recording this webinar and you will have access to the recording and slides that'll be put on the Cincinnati Gives website in the nonprofit toolkit area. So you'll have access to everything we go over today. And we will save some time for a live Q&A where you can ask any questions that you have about Cincinnati Gives, the Mighty Cause platform, fundraising strategy, and more at the end of the presentation, we've got quite a bit to get through today. So we just want to save those till the end. But you can feel free to utilize the chat in Zoom. You can talk to each other and you can also put any questions that you think of while I'm presenting in the Q&A window in Zoom so that those are there and ready to go once we get to the Q&A. So before we really dive into strategy, I just want to make sure that everybody on this webinar is on the same page about the basics of Cincinnati Gives and do a quick review of some key things that we went over during our Getting Started webinar. The biggest and most important thing to know about Cincinnati Gives is that it is a 10-day challenge and it starts on November 29th at 5 p.m. and ends on December 9th at 5 p.m. So within that time period, you'll be able to take advantage of the Giving Tuesday Momentum Giving Tuesdays on November 30th this year. And Cincinnati Gives is the online component to Cincinnati Magazine's Guide to Giving Edition. And the benefits of participating in this event are numerous, but chief among them is the $35,000 that are available in prize money. Registration is open right now and we've got just about a month left of registration. It closes on November 22nd. So if you haven't already registered for this year's event, please feel free to open up your browser and get registered while you're listening to this webinar. I swear it won't hurt my feelings and it shouldn't take you very long at all. So once you're registered, you'll want to get familiar with your admin dashboard. All of the people who are authorized to represent their nonprofit on Mighty Cause are known as admins. And when you're an admin and you're logged into Mighty Cause and you're on your nonprofit page, you'll see a menu on the left-hand side of the screen when you access your profile. That is your dashboard and that's how you'll access all of the fundraising tools that are available to you on Mighty Cause. This is where you'll find reports and so on. So from the top down, you have your overview screen and this is where you can get caught up on key metrics and performance indicators since the last time you logged in or whenever you set your dates to. There's actually a lot you can customize on this screen. So if you participated in years past and you want to track your donor retention, you can easily do that from your overview screen just so you log in and you're able to see what your donor retention rate is and you can customize those dates as well. Your organization profile is really the centerpiece of your nonprofit's presence and from your dashboard, you can edit the public facing profile, which you can also do easily on the page. So there's a little bit of redundancy built in. You can go onto your page and just edit things there, but you can also use the menu on your organization page to navigate to different areas of your page to edit. Under fundraising, funnily enough, this is where you'll find all of your key fundraising tools, such as matching grants, campaign pages, where you can view and track peer-to-peer campaigns and so on. So if you are looking for a fundraising tool, it's probably under fundraising. Reports is also pretty intuitive. It's pretty obvious what's there. If you're looking for a donation report, all of your donor data, your disbursement reports and so on, you can find those under reports. On Mighty Cause, you actually have a good amount of control over the checkout process, so you can customize that under checkout. That's right on your dashboard. And one thing I will point out here is that under checkout, you can fill out your thank you page, which is a to-do list item, and we recommend completing that. And you can also add a custom message to the receipt that Mighty Cause sends each donor that will help you automate donor acknowledgments. And under settings is all of the fun housekeeping for your organization. You can add and remove admins from your setting screen. You can set up EFT or just check that you have the correct account added as your EFT account. You can update your legal information if you need to do that, if anything has changed. And make sure that we have all of the correct information for your nonprofit. All right, so your profile, as I mentioned, is really the heart of your Cincinnati Gives campaign. This is where donors will be going to learn more about your organization. And you'll want to make sure that it is reflecting well on your nonprofit. This is the main link that you'll share with your supporters. So when you're on your organization profile, you can just copy and paste the URL of your organization profile from your browser and share that to your channels where you connect with your donors. You can do quite a bit to customize the look and feel of your page so that it reflects your nonprofit's brand. And this is also where you'll talk about your work, your mission, and make the case to donors that they should support you during Cincinnati Gives. If you've participated in previous years, a lot of this may already be in place on your profile, but we definitely recommend checking in before the event starts just to make sure that it's up to date for this year's challenge and doesn't contain any outdated references or references to 2020 Cincinnati Gives campaign. To track progress towards your goal and show everyone how much you've raised during Cincinnati Gives, you'll want to adjust your page metrics. Right on your profile, you have a goal and progress bar with some metrics that are right below that that show the number of donors you've gotten and how much you've raised in dollars. This is all customizable, so if you don't want a progress bar, you can actually remove it, or if you don't want to show the number of donors, you can opt out of displaying that. So you can choose what you display here. And basically every editable feature on your profile has a little pencil icon next to it, and that will open up a screen where you can edit it. So on your goal and progress bar and where your metrics are on your organization profile, there are a couple of little pencil icons there, and those will open up the windows where you can customize the information. So for your goal, you'll want to make sure that you're counting from November 29th at 5pm, both of those things you can set within that window, so that you're only counting donations and donors that count for this year's Cincinnati Gibbs event. So if you participated last year, you are most likely counting all of your donors from last year, and if you've been on Mighty Cause longer than that, you're actually most likely going to be counting from the time that you joined Mighty Cause. So definitely take a look at your page metrics and just make sure that they're set for this year. And lastly, before we move on, I wanted to remind everyone just to take a look at your checkout flow and make sure that you've taken a moment to customize it. You can create an update your thank you page. That's a page that donors are taken to as soon as they complete their donation. And it's where unfortunately, old information tends to hide. So it's definitely worth taking a look at your thank you page, looking at your donation levels and the descriptions if you have any that are present there, and also your message for your donation receipt. That is where a lot of old information tends to hide because as an administrator, you're not necessarily seeing that because you're not making the donations you're looking at your page. So just take a moment and customize your checkout flow and do a quick audit at the very least if you participated in 2020 or 2019 and make sure that you're not have you don't have any old information that's hiding in your checkout flow. It's very easy to do. And I highly recommend just taking a look, making sure that everything looks the way you want it to. All right, so now on to the more exciting stuff, which is rules and prizes and how you can win some cash for your nonprofit. So there is $35,000 total available to win. Sorry about that. And the grand prizes are for your cumulative fundraising throughout the challenge. So this will count from November 29th at 5pm through November 9th at 5pm. When you're looking at a grand prize, these are the you're looking to raise the most during the duration of the entire challenge. So first place is $10,000, second place is $6,000, third place is $4,000, fourth place is $2,000 and fifth place is $1,000. So there are a lot of chances to win just by raising the most that you can during the challenge. So these are really, you know, where you want to focus your energy and make sure that you're maintaining momentum and you're getting your total as high as you can possibly go so that you have a chance to win some of these extremely generous prizes. You also have additional opportunities to win in the form of bonus challenges, which will allow you to win an additional $12,000. The Meet Your Match bonus allows organizations who have a matching grant and we're going to talk more about matching grants a little bit later on worth $500 or more over the course of the entire challenge to be entered into a pool to win the Meet Your Match prize, which is $2,000. So there is an incentive for having a matching grant available to your donors that is $500 or more because it'll make you eligible to win this prize when the winners are pulled. There's two qualifying organizations that will be randomly chosen from this pool of participants who have at least a $500 matching grant that you've actually met on Mighty Cause that will win an additional $1,000 for their organization. There is a special prize for small organizations worth $1,000, as well as prizes for organizations that purchased a profile in the Guide to Giving, an org that raises the most money on Giving Tuesday, which again is November 30th, and several time sensitive bonus challenges that run for a single day from December 1st to December 8th. I recommend taking some time to really read through the prize schedule on the Cincinnati Gives website so that you understand what prizes are available, when they are available, and how you can win them so that you can strategize to take home some of this money because there's a lot of opportunities to win. There are fairly diverse challenges to win prizes during Cincinnati Gives, so definitely check the prizes page on the Cincinnati Gives website for the most up-to-date information. I was told that they were able to secure some additional funds, so some of these amounts may have actually gone up. So just take a look at the prizes page on the Cincinnati Gives website and make sure that you understand what's available, and that way you can create a strategy to win some of these prizes. It's also important to understand the rules of the event as well so that you don't accidentally break a rule and knock yourself out of the running for these prizes. So in order to compete, you must be a 501c3 non-profit serving the greater Cincinnati area, which is part of the registration process. So if you are approved for the event, then you qualify to win prizes under that rule. You can win a total of one grand prize and two bonus challenges. And if you win one grand prize and two bonus challenges, you will actually be pulled out of the running for future bonus challenges to give more organizations an opportunity to win. So there is a lot of opportunity to win, and we want to make sure that that is spread as equally as possible. So there are some limitations on the number of prizes that you can win. You cannot donate to yourselves, and this is very important. So for sure, individual employees, board members, and so on can make contributions as individuals from their own personal accounts, but you cannot use Cincinnati Gives to funnel organizational funds back to your organization that is unfortunately considered cheating. So if you want to make sure that you don't knock yourself out of the running, just don't engage in any activity along those lines because we will be able to see that you've made a large transfer of funds from an organizational account. You want to make sure that you're engaging real donors and not just trying to game the system. You must have 10 unique donors to be eligible for a grand prize, which hopefully should be very easy for everybody to meet that qualification, but it basically ensures that somebody can't plan one major gift to go through during Cincinnati Gives and win a grand prize. You do actually need 10 unique donors in order to be eligible for a grand prize. Offline donations are not eligible for prizes. They are important and they can certainly be entered on your organization's profile to reflect the totality of your fundraising. For Cincinnati Gives, there are always going to be some donors who just prefer to give via check or some other means, but because they don't count toward prizes, you want to do everything that you can just to make sure that your donors understand that you should give online if at all possible. With that, I wanted to pass the mic to Mary from Linder Center of Hope to talk about how she and Amy made Cincinnati Gives work for their nonprofit. I will put myself on mute and let you go ahead and present, Mary. Thank you. Well, we're happy to be here this afternoon to let you know what we did. We came in second place last year and first I just want to say that Linder Center of Hope is not, we are participating in the Cincinnati Gives magazine ad campaign this year, but we are not participating online just due to a major capital campaign that's on our horizon and so we just wanted to back off just for a little bit this year and also, you know, we want to spread the philanthropy around Cincinnati and let other nonprofits do their due diligence and hopefully get as much donations during that time period as possible. I want to start with something we didn't do last year that we wish we had done and that was we wish that we had sent out a postcard about this time of year to let everybody know that we were participating online. Everything is taking place online, but we wish that we had gotten things into people's mailboxes that would just alert them of that fact, but what we felt worked the best for us was, first of all, we secured a matching gift donor and what that did for us was not only wasn't, it was a $5,000 match, but the donor was also one of our board members and he's also very, very competitive, which is great because he sent out information to all of his employees saying that his group was actually going to challenge Linder Center of Hope to raise the most money and he sent emails and notices out to his friends and challenged our board members as well. So it was a good bit of advertising for his organization and ours as well. We got a lot of board involvement right before the challenge started. We had a board meeting that took place and I made a point to talk about the challenge and talk about our matching gift and so we communicated that at that moment and then immediately challenged every board member to contribute. We also, one of the things that we felt really helped was we had a very targeted something that we were raising funds for. It was telehealth services at the center. So it wasn't just, oh, give a gift to our organization, but it was very targeted. It was very specific. We also branded the challenge with some icons that we put on our website. We did through social media and we did through Mighty Cause as well. So we had the same kind of look throughout the entire campaign. We had a banner that we put on our website that announced the challenge and so every time that somebody would come to our website they would see that. We also changed our donate page and that was significant. So any time that someone would come to Linder Center of Hope and want to make a gift online they would go to our donate page and it would immediately take them to Mighty Cause if they wanted to make a donation and it would highlight the challenge that was ongoing. So for those 10 days all of the gifts online would go through Mighty Cause. If you have a marketing department work really closely with your marketing department, they were so helpful for us in helping us put ads on social media, sending things out to their contacts as well. We asked our employees to do the same thing. We reached out to all of our employees and asked them to contact their friends and talk about the challenge that way. I think it's really easy to make a gift. Amy Coker who works, we work side by side, she was the one that really set up the whole Mighty Cause online page and I know sometimes it seems kind of overwhelming but I think it was fairly easy for Amy to work with and if you have any comments Amy you could go ahead and unmute and say a few words about that. Sure I think that the best thing for me like any other platform that's new is to get in there and just really dig in and see how everything works because you know anything new is going to be daunting at first until you figure it out. So there was a taskbar I think on the left hand side and there's different sections within each of those and so what I wish I would have done from the beginning is to go and just really look and see what is within each of those things because there's a lot of information available. There's a lot that you can see that I didn't realize. So go through each one, figure out what each one can do, what information is there, you know maybe take notes for future reference but from there it's just take it step by step and they give you a pretty good guide of how to set it up. You know changing your page to make it look like you changing the basics of you know your goals and all of that that reflect your organization. All of those things are within a template and you can go and just and put those things in and then when you go to your site it shows up nicely but yeah that would be my suggestion is just really look at it and go through each section and dive in and learn about it before it goes live and then you're trying to find everything. One other thing that I wanted to mention that was very helpful is when we did get a call from someone who wanted to make a gift online or I mean on the phone we would ask them we would tell them about the challenge and we would put their credit card in for them online through the Mighty Cause website and so that was helpful. I don't remember if we had anybody that called about sending a check but if you do it's also a good idea to say you know we're in the middle of this challenge and would you mind making a credit card gift? So those are a couple of ideas as well. I think that's about it. It was a lot of fun. I tell you that you can't just put your information online and let it sit because you've got to take action to get people to go to the website and make their gift. That's really important and I think the most important thing is to get a matching gift from someone or a few of them so that when you reach a certain goal and your next goal and your next goal that people are going to match that gift. So that was I think the biggest thing that really helped us along. I think that's about it. But if we're going to sign off here in just a couple of minutes we are Amy and I are so if anybody wants to contact us that's fine too. We're glad to help out. Excellent thank you so much for your time. I think it's really important to hear what has worked for nonprofits who've participated in this campaign in the past and I think there's a lot of really good information to take away from everything that you said Mary particularly about being proactive. If you just kind of put your information up and you know that you're in your search and you wait unfortunately it's not the field of dreams. If you build it they will not necessarily come you need to direct your donors to the correct place to make a donation. So it's really about an integrated approach with catching people through various online channels and also offline channels. Most nonprofits have both kinds of donors people who are very much online and on social media and also donors who look for your mailers and like to call your development coordinators and make their donations that way. So you want to make sure that you reach those people and I love the idea of a save the date postcard. Just so those people who are not necessarily tuned into everything that you do online are aware that you're participating in this year's campaign and know to go online and make a donation for Giving Tuesday or throughout Cincinnati Give's challenge because otherwise you may lose those donors or they may just simply not know. So really running an integrated campaign is such a great way to handle it and I love the suggestion of putting you know making your donation page on your website Mighty Cause because if you're getting donations through your website your donor is not going to know necessarily that it's not your normal donation process and this is one of our key product offerings. So it will fit into your website it will work with your website. We have a lot of options in terms of how you can integrate a donation form into your website. So thank you so so much for all of that great advice and I definitely agree with Amy some of the best ways at least for me as well is getting in there and just seeing the tools that are available. Mighty Cause is a pretty powerful platform. We have a lot of options and unfortunately we can't put them all in front of you all the time because that would be completely overwhelming but just taking some time to see what's in those sub menus as Amy mentioned can be really helpful because there are some powerful tools within those menus and if you didn't come for our first webinar on getting started we went into a lot of the details about what's in those sub menus so make some time to go to the non-profit toolkit on the Cincinnati Gives page or website rather and watch that webinar if you want to get like a guided tour of everything that you can do with Mighty Cause because we're really focusing on sort of high-level planning and strategy today but that's definitely the key to it is knowing how to use the tools that are available to you. So thank you so much for all of that great information. You're welcome. Good luck. Thank you. Great. Take care guys. Thank you so much. All right so with all of that said we're going to move on to goal setting and leaderboard strategy. So one of my favorite sayings is failing to plan is planning to fail and I really think that success starts with smart goal setting or to put a finer point on it setting smart goals. Smart goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and either time-based or time-bound starting with thoughtful goals that have metrics attached to them are really going to help you plot out a path from point A the beginning of the challenge and point B the end of the challenge and help you achieve your goals. So for instance a smart goal would be retaining 40% of your donors from 2020 Cincinnati gives campaign that is specific. You're looking for a specific amount of retained donors and you have a metric attached to it so that you can monitor how you're doing throughout the campaign and if you're falling short of where you want to be with donor retention you can adjust your strategy to get more retained donors from 2020. Increasing your total amount raised by $5,000 is another example of a smart goal because that's specific. You're looking for a $5,000 increase whereas raise more money is not a smart goal because there's really no difference there between raising $5 more and raising $5,000 more. You're not really setting a clear path to success and you can't really monitor how close you are to that if you're just saying more. Engaging people is also not a very helpful goal because obviously that's the point of fundraising is you want to engage your supporters, you want to engage your community but that's just not really specific enough for you to create an action plan. So when you start with smart goals you're really able to create a roadmap for your nonprofit to get you to your destination which is reaching your fundraising goals and hopefully winning prizes. You'll also want to make sure that you're not shooting yourself in the foot with goals that are not realistic or within the scope of what you can realistically achieve so scale your goals to your capacity. A lot of nonprofits are still kind of in the recovery process from COVID-19. We've got the great resignation as they call it happening so sometimes there's some turnover and churn within your staff. So if you have those concerns definitely think about your capacity and what is realistic for your nonprofit to achieve since Netty gives. If you shoot for the stars but you don't have the resources either the human resources or other resources to actually achieve that then you're going to unfortunately end up disappointing yourselves and not achieving those goals. So really think about your capacity and adjust them to whatever your challenges are and what your capacity is at the moment and also focus on setting goals that are meaningful for your organization. Not all of them have to be hardline fundraising goals or percentage increases. Just really think about your big picture goals at your organization, your end of year goals, your giving Tuesday goals and what can you do to produce a result that is meaningful for your nonprofit so that Cincinnati gives is not just beneficial in that it can help you win prizes but it also is helping you toward your greater goals as a nonprofit. Something that I also think is really helpful to mention because we can kind of get stuck on the money is that you want to also set some non-monetary goals and those are goals that are really about supporting your organization's mission, what you're doing this year, maybe setting you up for your year-end campaign. So some examples might be getting some peer-to-peer fundraising going. If this is not something that's normally in your wheelhouse and not in your strategy for what you typically do, an event like Cincinnati gives is a great way to sort of bring peer-to-peer fundraising into the mix and we're going to talk more about what peer-to-peer is and how it works a little bit later on in the webinar. Increasing the number of gifts through online channels, if you have a ton of donors who like to give via check or they like to call you and give you their information over the phone or people who respond to your mailers, making it a goal to get more of those donations coming in through online channels is a really great non-monetary goal that can help support you throughout the year. As Mary was mentioning earlier, a matching grant is a really great way to make the most of Cincinnati gives. We're going to be talking more about those in a minute as well and Cincinnati gives is an event that can be used as an icebreaker to get your first matching grant for a campaign. Board engagement is always something that you want to consider. Non-profits pretty much all over the country are struggling with how to get their board engaged in fundraising and this is a really fantastic opportunity to talk to them about fundraising and get them involved and also things like increasing your one-time gift size. Overall, that will boost the amount that you raise and it's a really great non-monetary goal that you can measure right on your overview screen. So one of the things that you'll have to do with a giving challenge like Cincinnati gives is maintain your fundraising momentum. It's a couple of weeks, it's not just one day, so you'll have to be strategic about how you approach your supporters and your social networks so that you are able to maintain some momentum and keep them donating throughout the entire duration of the challenge. And one of the ways that you can do that is by mapping out many goals for your campaign and that will help you achieve your overall fundraising goal. And one thing that I do want to note is that you're most likely going to see your biggest week during the first week of the challenge because not only do you have that excitement of this is something new, this is novel, you also have Giving Tuesday happening during the first week of the campaign and that is one of the biggest fundraising days in terms of volume in the entire year. The biggest day all year is December 31st, Giving Tuesday is number two. So you're going to be getting some of that momentum up front, but you want to sustain it as best you can. So think about how you can set goals that are realistic for each week, maybe shooting for the stars a bit during your first week, but also setting goals for each additional week like help us raise a thousand dollars this week. That keeps people interested, it keeps them excited, and it'll also help you win prizes since you have these bonus challenges that are sort of in addition to the overall long game through the leaderboards. And one thing you'll definitely want to make a top priority, particularly if you have participated in Cincinnati Gives in the past is donor retention. So donors who've given to your organization before, especially for Cincinnati Gives, they are low hanging fruit. It is really unfortunate to ignore this particular demographic of donors because they've already bought into your cause. They know what you're doing, they know what you're about, they've made a donation, and once you've already gotten somebody to make that first donation, it's much easier to bring them back to make a second donation. So what I would recommend, especially if you've participated before, is setting a specific donor retention goal and then making that part of your overall strategy. So if you're doing an email campaign, think about targeting donors who've given in the past specifically so that you're reaching out to them. Donor retention, unfortunately, year after year is very low in the nonprofit sector. Acquisition is always a big part of nonprofit fundraising strategies, but unfortunately, the gains that are made in acquisition are offset by losing donors to attrition. So when you gain a donor, sometimes you're actually losing a donor for each one, and you can sort of end up stuck in this position where you're constantly trying to acquire donors, but you're not holding on to the ones you have. So definitely making it a goal to retain at least 40% of donors from previous years from 2019 and 2020 is a great way to make sure that you're reaching out to this demographic of donors, and you're really not letting the low hanging fruit just stay there. You're actually grabbing for it because these are people who are already bought into your cause and they're very likely to come back and make another donation. So these are easy donations, don't leave them on the table, make sure that you're thinking about donor retention. And to help you with that goal of donor retention, we do have a report on Mighty Cause that you can use to A, get a snapshot of what your donor retention looks like right now. So see who's come back to make another donation since you had your last Cincinnati Gives campaign, but really the cool thing about this report during Cincinnati Gives is that you can actually export a report that has the names and information of donors who have not yet been retained so that you can target them for outreach. I don't recommend just sticking to email blasts, definitely sending some specific targeted outreach to donors who've given in the past is highly recommended. If you have their phone numbers and you have some volunteers or development staff that are able to do this, actually picking the phone up and making a phone call to them and letting them know, hey Cincinnati Gives is here again, can we count on you to make another donation? That's a really great way to get people to come back and make them feel special and appreciated, giving them a little bit of extra attention. And every time you send out an email, whether you use constant contact, mail chimp, whatever you're using, you can always easily kind of set up an email that has only slight edits to it that reflect that it's two people who've given in the past that encourages them to come back and make another donation. It's very easy for them. They may even have their information saved in Mighty Cause if they create an account. So talking specifically to these donors and utilizing that donor retention report is a really great way to ensure that you're able to reach your fundraising goals. So your leader, the leaderboards are really where it is all about. And this is where you'll be able to see in real time how you are ranked during Cincinnati Gives. So you want to keep an eye on it, make sure that you're checking in on the leaderboards for those grand prizes and see where you are. Because sometimes if you're about to crack the top five and there's some prize money available to you, that can really help you market your campaign to your donors and get them involved in giving you the boost that you need, giving you the donations that you need to crack the top five and win some of that prize money. So asking for their help, letting them know where you stand, giving them some updates like, hey, we're at number seven. We really want to crack the top five by the end of the week. Those kinds of things can be really effective strategies for reaching out and keeping people interested in the campaign. And it'll also help you sustain your fundraising momentum just because you are in the number one position after giving Tuesday does not mean that you will stay there throughout the campaign. You've got a fight to maintain that position and get a chance at winning that prize money. So make sure you're keeping track of where you are on the leaderboard and use that to your advantage when you're communicating with donors. All right, so I said we would get to this. So I wanted to get into matching grants, which is one of the key ways that we recommend engaging people during Cincinnati Gives. So basically what is a matching grant? A matching grant is ultimately kind of a Bogo sale on donations. So every time somebody makes a donation during Cincinnati Gives, if you have a matching grant active, their donation would be matched by this pool of money that you've secured from a donor or a sponsor. So it's ultimately a marketing tool because if you have a match from a donor like, say, you're reaching out to a board member or pulling together funds from your board or working with a major gift donor or sponsor, you may be already able to secure that money just as a lump sum. But instead of using it and just taking the check, you're actually leveraging that money to gain interest from other donors by offering to match their donations. So donors love these things because they are a way for them to make their money go further. They can do more for your nonprofit. If you only have $30 to give the allure of being able to actually contribute 60 because of a matching grant is really attractive. And it can also be a great way to engage bigger donors like sponsors, major gift donors, board members and so on. There are a lot of different ways a matching grant can look. The biggest thing that I would recommend is going into the matching grants tool and just seeing the options that are there, you can do matching grants that kick in when you reach a certain amount. There are one-to-one matches where when somebody donates $20, that $20 is matched and it appears as $40 on your goal and progress bar and in your donation report. There's a lot of interesting, cool stuff you can do with a matching grant. But these are basically tools that you can use to get donors interested because you're offering them something in return. So again, as I was mentioning before, matching grants generate a lot of interest. It's kind of like a sale that a retail store would have, except with donations and charities. It makes their money go further and it also is a great strategy for winning prizes. So for instance, if there is a bonus challenge that you are really just hitting the gas pedal to win, having a matching grant can be the thing that tips you over the edge and wins you that prize. You also have the meet your match challenge. So if you have at least a $500 matching grant, you are part of the pool of organizations that are eligible to receive an extra grant, an extra prize for your nonprofit. The other benefit, aside from the donors who would be giving to take advantage of a matching grant, is that this is a really great stewarding technique for donors who are tried and true and give to you on a regular basis. So for instance, a major gift donors, this is an interesting way for them to use their donation for a greater good rather than just cutting you a check and letting you do what you will with the money. This allows them to get involved. It keeps them interested and it kind of kicks their involvement up a notch. Some other things that you can do is involve your board. The end of the year is coming up. If you have board dues and you are able to use board funds for this purpose, you can get your board to actually pull together a match and provide that to your donors. So really using strategic matching grants is a great way to win prizes and really make Cincinnati Gives work for your nonprofit. It works on so many different levels and the timing now is really perfect for you to start these conversations with potential grantors. So that begs the question, who provides a matching grant, who actually gives you the money? So most commonly what we see are board members or trustees. So either individually, some of you may have somebody who's interested in giving a matching grant, they may as a group decide that they want to give you a matching grant. So each board member contributes a certain amount and you pull that money together and that is your matching grant. Again, if you have an annual donation requirement for your board of directors, you may want to consider using that for a matching grant. Major gift donors are often sources of matching grants. We're coming up on the end of the year. So for instance, if you have a donor who tends to give a large donation in December and you know that they tend to do that, you may want to reach out to them and say, Hey, we are doing Cincinnati Gives this year. Is there any way we can work with you to get a donation that we can utilize as a matching grant? Sponsors and community partners really love matching grants. It's like catnip for them because they get some recognition from your nonprofit for their philanthropy. So you also can upload logos, you can give them shout outs on social media and really get them involved and utilize them and really talk up their philanthropy. So sponsors love matching grants. They love providing those and getting the recognition and goodwill that comes along with providing a large donation to help a nonprofit. Also, you want to think about collectives. So individually, you may not have somebody who can provide $500 plus, but if you got your highly engaged volunteers together and they all gave $100, you may have a matching grant there. So think about groups of people, sort of affinity groups that can work to provide a matching grant by pulling together funds and then you can have a volunteer match, a staff match, and so on and so forth. So these are people in your nonprofits inner circle, people who are already highly engaged in your nonprofit and have a donor relationship with your nonprofit that you'll be leaning on to ask for a matching grant. So the process for securing a matching grant is very similar to securing a major gift because essentially that's kind of what it is. So you start with prospecting kind of coming up with your list of people who might be willing to provide a matching grant and are in a position to do so. The thing you're looking for most here is history. People who've given to you in the past, especially in larger amounts, are better prospects than people who have never given to your nonprofit or have only given in small amounts. A donor who's only given $20 is not going to be likely to give you $500 for a matching grant, but somebody who gives you $500 annually in one lump sum may be a good prospect. Outreach is the next phase where you're kind of putting feelers out. You're initiating the conversation with them, you're kind of finding out what's going on with them and just sort of getting a feel for whether or not they might be warm to providing a matching grant. Obviously you may want to, you may learn when you reach out to a sponsor that is a local business that their business isn't doing so good. They've had a hard time because of COVID-19 and maybe it's not a great time to ask, or you may find out that a sponsor is doing really great and is in a great position and is likely to give you a grant. So this is kind of the discovery process with your matching grant prospects. And then finally you'll just want to make an ask of the potential grantor and see if they are willing to provide a matching grant. I really recommend sort of letting the donor lead the way here and leaving it open if you go in with a certain idea about how much or how much it's going to be used. Sometimes the answer will be no, I can't provide you with $1,000, but maybe they can provide you with $500. So keeping it open and just coming up to a consensus about whether a matching grant is possible and leaving some of the details down to a collaborative process with the grantor and keeping it a little bit open and flexible is what I recommend, but basically prospect, outreach, and ask. There's three basic steps and it's really not much different. It's actually a little bit of a shorter process than securing a major gift. So creating a matching grant on Mighty Cause is pretty simple. We do all of the hard stuff for you. You just have to tell us what you want. So in your matching grants tool, you'll be able to enter in the type of match it is, how it functions. You can add a logo, set the date and time your match is active. And just as a note, you can have multiple matches at one time. So for instance, you could have a match that goes through the entire length of Cincinnati Gives and also smaller grants or grants that you're using strategically to say when a bonus challenge. So you can do a lot of really cool, interesting things with matching grants. I just recommend getting in there. It's under fundraising in your dashboard. Take a look at the tool, see what it can do, and get a feel for how they work because all of your options are right there in the tool. And there's a couple of different ways to structure a match. For instance, per donations match, like a one to one match, you can even do a two to one match or match a certain percentage. Those are all options that you can choose if you want to do it. We're specifically going to match each donation. Something you can also do and maybe helpful during one of the bonus challenges is a cumulative threshold match, which is basically a fancy way of saying that the match will kick in when you've reached a certain goal. So you get to determine what that is, but you can set a threshold match if you're looking to raise a certain amount because that's advantageous to you. So you don't have to necessarily do it one to one. You can gun for a certain goal and set your match to support you in achieving that goal. So there's a lot of different things you can do. And as Amy was mentioning earlier, I think the easiest way to sort of wrap your head around it is to just get into the tool, start clicking around, see what's available there and see what might work for your campaign. So where your grant display is on Mighty Cause, primarily the most important part is a donate, it puts a sticker on your donate button. So anybody who clicks that donate button will be aware that you have a matching grant live. You'll also have a full profile of the grant on your organization's profile or story. And the really cool thing is that donors can actually find you in a special search for organizations that have matching funds available. A lot of donors are very savvy and they're looking to make the most of their money. So we have a special match filter set up that they can use to specifically find organizations that have matching funds available so they can get more for their donor dollars. And obviously being included in that search might help you pick up some new donors. So there's a couple of different places where your grant displays, you know, but we're basically building in some marketing tools that you can use on your page and on the Cincinnati Gives website. But it's important to know where it will show that you have a matching grant available. So some frequently asked questions about matching grants. The most common one that I think we get at Mighty Cause is does this matching grant have to be processed online? The answer is no. Your grantor can really fulfill the match in whatever way you would like. So if they would prefer to send you a check for whatever the amount is, then that's absolutely fine. However, it is advantageous for you to encourage the grantor to make that donation online. So if you enter the grantor's email address when you're setting up the match and their match is fulfilled, we will send them an email that lets them know, like, hey, your match was fulfilled or your match was met. Here's a link where you can complete the match and actually make the payment. If you do that online, you get credit for it in leaderboards and it counts toward prizes. So that's something you want to consider when you're talking to potential grantors is the fact that, you know, they can make their donation online and do even more with their funds. And I do want to note that we have a tool that you can use to donate directly from a bank account that caps some of the fees. So obviously, if you're donating $20, fees are not going to be a huge consideration. But if you have a larger amount like $1,000, your donor may not want to pay that fee because it's always a percentage, right? So if they use the bank account donation through the Plaid app, they can pay directly from their bank account and avert some of those fees that might get a little bit high with a larger donation. It puts a cap on that. And the details are in the FAQ on the Cincinnati Gives website if you wanted to look into how that works. Do donations made to peer-to-peer fundraising pages count toward this match? That's up to you. You can set that when you're creating the match. So if you want to capture as many donations as possible in your match, you can certainly include all donations made to peer-to-peer pages. But you can also limit it to your organization profile if you want to make sure that those matching funds go a little bit further for your nonprofit. As I mentioned, you can have more than one matching grant active at the same time. You can also kind of schedule them to fire at specific times. So if you have one match that you want to use on a specific day, and you want to trigger this other match to trigger at a certain time, you can set that up so you can actually have quite a bit going on in terms of matching grants at the same time. We are well prepared to handle that kind of volume for you and we'll do all the math for you. You just have to tell us what you want by putting it into the matching grants tool. And if you enter your matching grant wrong, that is probably the majority of the questions and panicked emails that we get in support on a giving event like Cincinnati gives. But as long as it's not closed, you can edit your matching grant. If your match is not currently active, you can delete it and start over again. If you really botched it up and you need to start from scratch, you can do that. But our support team is here to help you and we are here to help you solve matching grant issues should they occur. Don't suffer in silence. Don't work. Don't sit there with a matching grant that's not set up right. Please reach out to us at support at mightycost.com. Let us know what's going on and let us support you and help you through any issues that you may have with your matching grant. It's a complex tool. It does quite a bit. It's very powerful. So if you make a mistake or you get lost or you're not quite sure what the right way to set it up is, just contact us at support. We're here to help you and our support team knows matching grants kind of inside and out so we can help you through any bump in the road that you may encounter as you're setting up your match. And a matching grant that is not promoted is kind of like a tree falling in a forest. If you don't promote it, nobody's going to know about it. So you want to make sure that you're doing your due diligence to alert your supporters that you have a matching grant available. So promote it in any emails that you have going out. Use social media to alert your followers if you have multiple matching grants, something that can be really effective is actually creating a schedule for them in a graphic so they know when they can take advantage of a matching grant. And sending out emails when you're matching a grant is about to become active is a great way to signal to donors that they should give now to take advantage of that match and it'll also give you a little bit of a boost in donations. So the matching grant on its own is not going to work unless you promote it because ultimately a matching grant is a marketing tool. So if you don't actually market your grant, it will not be successful and it won't do as much as you want it to do for you. So as you're planning your matching grant, set it up so that you're incorporating that into the rest of your promotions for Cincinnati Gives. All right, so I said we would talk more about this and we are we're going to chat through peer-to-peer fundraising. So peer-to-peer fundraising is a fundraising technique where you leverage your existing supporters to bring in new supporters by asking them to make a fundraiser and reach out to the people that they know to make donations. So ultimately peer-to-peer fundraising is fantastic as a donor acquisition tool. And it's a great way to increase your reach when you have an event where you have a time limit in place. So this allows you to get beyond your existing base of supporters and reach new people and loop them in for Cincinnati Gives. So people who may be interested, so in terms of like why peer-to-peer fundraising is so important, it's a really fun thing for donors and supporters to do. Sometimes nonprofits are a little bit shy about asking people to fundraise for them, but it's actually a really easy thing for them to do. They can create a fundraiser. You can actually set up a template for them. And it's a new way for them to show their support for your nonprofit. So you're trying through donors who are there for every campaign you do, any volunteers you have that are there to support you in person day to day. These are people that you want to target to be peer-to-peer fundraisers. And it's part of the stewarding process. You're deepening that relationship with them instead of asking them to sort through in-kind donations or give you $20, you're asking something new and different from them. So donors are interested in that generally. And a lot of them are perfectly willing to create a fundraiser for you for people who are kind of digital natives of the social media age. This is second nature to them. They know what they're doing. And it really gives them an easy way to help your organization. It's also a way for people who may not have a ton of money to give on their own to increase their footprint and give more to your organization by becoming part of an army that you send out there to fundraise on your behalf. So by not just giving you money, sending you money to use during Cincinnati Gives and getting people excited about your cause, spreading the word and making donations, they are able to do more for your nonprofit than they may be able to do with their own wallet. And also social media age is all about the idea of telling people who you are and what you're interested in. And this is really appealing to a lot of people for them to be able to talk about a cause that they care about, why they support your nonprofit, how they came to be involved with you. So it's a really exciting opportunity for them to talk about something that is important to them. So your supporters are usually very open to being peer-to-peer peer-to-peer fundraisers. You just need to ask them. So in terms of asking them, you want to start by looking at people inside your inner circle. So when we talk about board engagement, having them be peer-to-peer fundraisers is a really great way to get them involved in your Cincinnati Gives campaign and also get them on board with fundraising. If your board has a fundraising requirement every year, this is a great way to get them to meet that requirement before the end of the year. Volunteers and staff are natural peer-to-peer fundraisers. You can ask at a volunteer meeting or a staff meeting or just send out an email and let them know. You can go here and sign up to be a fundraiser for Cincinnati Gives. Program alumni and people who've used your programs and services are great people to ask to be peer-to-peer fundraisers. Anybody in social media channels, your nonprofits inner circle, and you can also just send an email blast to all of your email lists to let them know that they can fundraise for Cincinnati Gives. So make it easy for them. We do have templates that you can use, you can create rather for your peer-to-peer fundraisers that allow you to pre-fill some of the parts of their page for them. You can also offer incentives, things that are just little tokens like bumper stickers, t-shirts, that sort of thing. Offering them as a reward or incentive for anybody who signs up as a fundraiser is a technique that I've seen work well for people and really just giving them a space to talk about your organization, what it means to them, and talk about your impact. Sometimes creating some talking points for them is also really helpful in helping them be successful and know how to talk about your cause because it's not natural for most of us, but you can give them a little bit of help by giving them some talking points, sharing a document with them, and also maybe sharing some graphics and a video with them that they can use to add to their page and also use on social media. So team fundraising is something that is available if you really want to knock it out of the park. A team is a group of people who've come together to fundraise for a common cause, in this case, your nonprofit. So the team itself has a goal, let's say it's $10,000 and you may have 10 people on that team whose goal it is to raise $1,000 each. So this is really perfect for groups of people, affinity groups that you want to target for peer-to-peer fundraising, like your board, your volunteers, and so on. If you have any sponsors, sometimes companies are willing to start a team for you and fundraise to show their support on Cincinnati Gives. And it's really making it, it's kind of taking peer-to-peer fundraising and kicking it up a notch and you're upping the ante, you're making it a group effort. So there's group identity at play and you're able to harness the power of a group of people rather than just individuals here and there. And through these team pages, volunteers can talk about the power of volunteering for your organization. Your board can talk about how important it is for them to be part of the board for your organization. There's a lot of really great storytelling that usually happens with team fundraising and peer-to-peer fundraising. And Teams is a great way that you can harness that and give it a structure where multiple people can get involved and fundraise as a group for your organization during Cincinnati Gives. All right. So marketing and promotion tips, like how do you actually get the word out to your supporters about Cincinnati Gives? So the first place that you really want to start is what is your story? Mary was talking about this a little bit when she was presenting what her organization did last year. But really, what is the story you're telling? So for them, they were fundraising for a specific thing. So that's an angle that you can consider. Are you fundraising for something specific, a particular program or aspect of your work? You may actually be fundraising for something very specific like a new roof or a new piece of equipment. So what is your angle? What is your story? What is your campaign story? What are you using to connect with your supporters? You want to make sure that it is personal, that you have visuals to support it. So videos, graphics, photos, and so on. And then you'll be sharing the different aspects of that story on social media. So yeah, you want to tell a cohesive story, but you may be doing that through the course of many different emails and social media posts, just to sort of keep the story going and enhance it with each piece that you put out to the public. You also want to tailor your ask to your story. Using the items in your checkout flow, those options you can customize can really help you tie sort of the more technical pieces of your campaign, like how much you're suggesting people give to your overall story. So for instance, if you're fundraising for a particular piece of equipment, maybe $20 covers part of that or provides a specific piece of that equipment that you need. So thinking about how you can incorporate that story throughout your campaign through every piece of it. And really what we're talking about is impact stories. We want to tell the story of your nonprofit and the work you do through this story that you're telling in the campaign. So for instance, if you're fundraising for a new roof because you have a leaky roof you need to replace, you may want to talk about the story of what you do at your facilities and why it's so important for you to have safe functioning facilities at your nonprofit where you can greet people and provide services to them. So that's sort of the place you want to start is what is your story? What is the angle? What is your pitch to donors? So email marketing is going to be sort of your secret weapon on Cincinnati Gives, because social media operates on algorithms. So there's no guarantee that you're going to catch a supporter in their newsfeed at any specific time. They may in fact see posts days after you make them, depending on what their preferences are. But your emails are going straight into their inbox. That's a direct line to your supporters unless they've unsubscribed. So let's talk about how you can construct a good email strategy. So keeping your email short and sweet is something that I recommend on in this day and age. Everybody has a really short attention span and most people do not sit down and read giant walls of text. So you want to make sure that it is skimmable that people can get can get the gist of what you're asking and what you're talking about through the use of images and headers. And they can really just skim it and see what you're asking of them using strong calls to action or CTAs like donate now or help us today. A lot of nonprofits can default to sort of soft asks like thank you for your support. They haven't given yet. So don't thank them if they haven't given yet. Ask them to donate now and use strong CTAs that are easy for them to find within the email. Definitely test your email for mighty cause. I do manage our email marketing and there's no worse feeling than realizing that you sent out a key email with the wrong link or a typo. So test your emails. Make sure that everything works and loop people into testing it for you. Use mobile friendly email templates. On most email marketing programs that's not really an issue anymore. Most of them are mobile friendly but sometimes you'll find a template especially if it's one that you've used a lot in the past that is not mobile friendly and doesn't look good. If people open up your email and it looks crazy, they're not going to keep reading it and they're not going to keep donating. So test it on an actual phone. And one thing that I really recommend is trying to segment your emails. And what I mean by that is instead of sending one email as a blast to your entire list, taking that list of people and sort of dividing it up into affinity groups. So for instance people who've donated in the past, the donor retention piece I was talking about, people who volunteer for your nonprofit, you wouldn't want to ask them to make a donation without acknowledging the time and effort that they already give to your organization. So people that you want to talk to a bit differently like board members, you can also segment by gift size so that if you want to pull out people who give over $100 you can make a specific monetary ask of them. And you can keep things small for people who've only made small one-time gifts. So there's a lot you can do within an email. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about creating a completely different email for each segment. You're taking an email that you build and you're editing small parts of it. So the CTA, certain sentences in the text, maybe an image or a graphic, you're just slightly editing it so that you're tailoring it to the person that you're talking to because people are much more likely to respond and do what you want them to do if you're talking to who they are and the relationship that they have with your organization. So email marketing and donor retention, one thing that I really, really recommend doing is have a couple emails on deck for people who have not yet been retained this year. And that way you can just pull the report. You can upload the list into whatever program you're using and you can send the email. So having some donor retention emails already built on deck ready to send just need the list updated, uploaded. That is a great strategy for getting people to come back. So as you're building your emails, think about your donor retention strategy and how you'll build that into your email marketing strategy. And definitely have a few that you already built in your email marketing program, whether that's mailchimp, constant contact, whatever you use, and then just go in really quickly and pull that list before you're ready to send that email and make sure that you're targeting everybody who has not yet come back to make an additional donation because the more donors you can retain, the higher your total amount raised will be. And I know we're going over our time a bit. There's just a lot of content. So if you do have to leave, that's absolutely fine. We'll make sure that everybody has access to the recording and the slides. They will be on the Cincinnati Give site most likely tomorrow as soon as we're able to upload them. So I apologize for going over time, but I just wanted to let you know that we'll make sure you get the recording, but I'm going to hang on to the bitter end if you'll stick with me. We're almost done. Social media marketing is going to be an important part of your campaign as well. Use the Cincinnati Give's hashtag. What I would recommend, especially on Twitter, where hashtags are still a key way people interact with each other and join conversations. If you use TweetDeck or Hootsuite or whenever you happen to use, use the Cincinnati Give's hashtag and monitor it and get involved in the conversation that's happening around the event. That's a really great way to get your posts in front of more people. Be responsive on social media. Unfortunately, social media platforms are no longer chronological. They use an algorithm, which is a mathematical formula that is sort of customized for each user based on the kind of content they tend to interact with and their preferences to decide what to put in front of users when they scroll through their feeds. So it's not chronological anymore. And one of the ways that you can sort of make sure that your posts are seen by more people is being interactive. That's what a lot of social media algorithms are looking for, is they want people interacting. So be responsive to any comments that you receive. Thank people for retweets, that sort of thing. I really recommend appointing a social media manager or finding a volunteer who can help you manage this during Cincinnati Give's so that you don't lose any opportunities to engage with your supporters on social media. And I definitely just recommend staying within your comfort zone during Cincinnati Give's. Go to where your audience is. Meet them where they are. If you have never in your life used TikTok at your nonprofit, you don't need to try that for Cincinnati Give's. Stick with what you know has worked for you historically and where you have engaged followers and supporters. Make sure that you're making the most of your efforts by not spending a bunch of time trying to make Twitter work for you if it has never really worked for you in the past. Just be smart about how you're using your time and know that you don't have to use every single platform to market your campaign. Go to where your audience is. So when we were talking about algorithms before, there are certain types of content that the algorithm tends to like. And in particular, video is really great on social media. Facebook loves video and also Instagram loves video. And they also love stories. So those are basically video based. But think about video content that can be helpful. Instagram and Facebook are both pushing reels, which is kind of basically a competitor to TikTok. So thinking about how you can maybe create a reel in Instagram or on Facebook that you can share on those platforms will really help you because they want to reward users for utilizing the technology that they currently want to market to users. So using stories is also kind of the only true way that you can get around the algorithm because those are chronological. They are time sensitive. They stay up for 24 hours on Instagram. Definitely you can save them as highlights if you want to keep them active. But that way you can contact people in a timely way. So when you have a matching grant going live, post a story on Instagram, post a story on Facebook and that will kind of allow you to jump the line in terms of the algorithm. Now if somebody never interacts with your nonprofit on social media, they may not see it, but some users may actually get push notifications sent to their phone that sends them into the app to let them know that you've posted a story. So there's a lot that you can do with videos and stories in particular. If you, aside from videos, images are really important because what all of these apps want to do is they want to keep people within the app. So they, so posting things that get people to stop scrolling and look at your posts, like images, those are really important to have on deck for social media. So strong, striking, colorful images, images that have a higher contrast tend to do a little bit better on social media. They don't need to be professional grade images. Certainly if you have photographers that you work with as volunteers, you can loop them in and get some photos together. But you can also just use the phone that's in your pocket or contact your volunteers or your staff and see if they have any great photos of their work that they can share with you. Those things work as well. So it doesn't need to be totally formal. And you can use Unsplash as well. I like using Unsplash for stock photos. So if you're like, man, I just really need an image of a donation box, try Unsplash. You might be able to find it there as well. And one thing I did when I mentioned is Canva. I love Canva. That's C-A-N-V is in Victor A. It is a program that is basically graphic design made ridiculously easy and they have templates that you can use for social media posts. You just change out a couple of things, swap in your logo and you're good to go with an optimized graphic post for social media. And they also have a free program for nonprofits. So check out Canva if you're looking at sort of amping up your social media content this year. All right. So this is the last section. Thank you guys so much for sticking with me. So following up is something that you also want to plan for so that you can start stewarding the donors you get during Cincinnati Gives. So really it's important to follow up statistically because we know that the likelihood that someone will come back and make a donation again to a nonprofit is determined by how quickly they get a sincere thank you from the nonprofit that really closes the loop for the donor and gives them a good experience. So as you're planning these different pieces, think about how you're going to thank your donors. So for instance, you may want to set up a trigger so that every time somebody makes a donation, they get an email thanking them. There's a lot you can do. One of the things that I think is really fantastic and kind of gets lost in the digital age is phone calls. It's a great job for volunteers, but having a volunteer give them a call on the phone and saying thank you so much for supporting our organization for Cincinnati Gives. That can make a huge impact and that's a personal touch that we tend to forget about on the internet, but phone calls are really important. So that can be a great role for volunteers to play and it all basically starts the stewarding process. So Cincinnati Gives is not a beginning and an end. You want to see it as a touch point in an ongoing relationship with your supporters. So think about follow up when you are planning these different pieces of your campaign so that you can make sure that your donors have a good positive experience and are likely to come back and make another donation. So how to thank donors? Definitely sending them an email. When everybody makes a donation on Mighty Cause, they get a quick thank you email from us that has their tax receipt and you can include a custom message in there so that you can sort of automatically acknowledge them, but we definitely recommend going above and beyond that to thank them because obviously you want to make sure that they feel special and they feel acknowledged and thanked. So sending them a personal looking email within 24 hours just thanking them for their contribution is something you definitely want to count on doing. Again giving them a call is a really great way to thank them. I donated to a Giving Tuesday campaign years ago as a Mighty Cause employee and within 10 minutes I got a phone call from a volunteer who was really sincerely thanking me for making that donation and it felt great to the extent that I still remember it this day years later. So thinking about phone calls if you can swing that is a really great way to thank donors and get a personal touch in your thank you that will bring them back to make additional donations. And definitely thank you cards are a technique that works really well having it signed by your executive director or even having all of your staff sign cards. Those are really great ways to send a personal thank you to your donors so that they feel fulfilled and have a good experience. And you also want to think about closing the loop publicly. So reporting your results on social media. Did you reach your goal? How much did you raise? And what are you going to do with that? Closing the loop on your story for your campaign. So for instance if you were fundraising for that roof that leaky roof that you wanted to replace and people donate to that cause and they never hear about the roof and they don't know that you were able to replace it that's not going to be a fulfilling experience for them. So make sure that if there are specific pieces in your campaign story you follow up on those publicly so people know that you're using the dollars that they donated for the cause that you said you wanted to raise money for. And thanking everybody again you really really cannot thank donors too much. There's not too much you can do. But thanking them publicly on social media as a group something that can be really easy and fun to do is if you have people back in the office getting them together for a quick video saying thank you that's really an effective way to thank people publicly. And just think about your campaign moving forward. You're probably going to be moving into year-end fundraising after Cincinnati Gives. How can you plant the seeds for your next campaign as you're closing the loop on Cincinnati Gives? And last thing I want to mention is we are here to support you as you gear up for the campaign. And as you start putting pieces in motion we're also here for your donors. So if a donor calls you or emails you and they needed a donation receipt we are here to provide that service to them as well. So don't suffer in silence. Don't try to figure things out on your own and waste a bunch of time. We're here to help you. You can contact us at support at mightycause.com. We are a nine to five Monday through Friday operation and you can also give us a call at 202-800-1618 if you're one of those people who just prefers to talk things out on the phone. But make sure that you're taking advantage of our support because that's one of the benefits of participating in Cincinnati Gives on Mighty Cause. All right so thank you all for sticking with me. I see that we have a couple of questions already in the Q&A. If you have another question please feel free to put it into the Q&A box on Zoom. But there's a question from Wesley. When will the slides be sent out? They will be on the Cincinnati Gives website in the nonprofit toolkit tomorrow. It's 449 here on the East Coast so it probably won't be tonight but it will be tomorrow. And Teddy has a question. Are there any additional fees on donation through Mighty Cause or are they just subject to the usual credit card fees? So they are subject to fees. You would want to check the FAQ on the Cincinnati Gives website to get the full breakdown of fees. And standard credit card fees do apply because those are imposed by the credit card companies. So that's 2.9 plus 30 cents. But the important thing to know here is that your donors have the option to cover fees for you. So if they choose to cover fees which is usually not very much if they're making a smaller donation then you will see 100% of their donation and the full amount of their donation including the covered fees is tax-deductible. So if you're concerned about fees I highly recommend just working that into your campaign and just asking your donors can you cover the fees for us? That would really help us out. But yeah there is some additional fees there and you can see the full breakdown on the FAQ. Nothing is hidden but just check that out so that you can see the numbers for yourself in the FAQs on the Cincinnati Gives website. And one thing I also wanted to mention I think I mentioned it before with matching grants is that people do have the option to give with a bank account. So when you're working with donors who are giving in a larger amount they probably want to make their donation by connecting to their bank account through the PLAT app. It's completely secure. Any donations over $100 and over are eligible to make donations from their bank account and that puts a cap on the credit card fees which are proportional. They are a percentage and so that puts a cap on those fees and you should be able to find that information in the FAQ as well. All right so it's just about $4.51 here. I'm losing my voice but if you have any questions you can always feel free to email me. You can email support at support at mightycause.com. You can also email Ivy and others at Cincinnati magazine if you have any questions about the challenge itself but we're always happy to field any questions that you may have about the Mighty Cause platform, navigating it, making use of the tools and features. So I think that's all we have in terms of questions for right now unless anybody has any last questions but we will make sure that this recording is put up on the non-profit toolkit as soon as possible and you'll have access to the slides there as well. Thank you all so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you sticking with me even though we went over our time but thank you so much and happy fundraising and good luck during Cincinnati Gives.