 So really excited to share with you that today we will be talking with David Adley, Director of Outbound Sales with Bonfire. So we will be learning from David about apparel fundraising, what that looks like and in regards Bonfire in particular does T-shirt fundraisers, but they have launched as David said a little bit earlier, seems like almost every week a new product line. So that's what we're going to dive into. So of course we want to start every episode by thanking our presenting sponsors. You can see their logos right in front of you on the screen. We are so extremely grateful to have their continued support and to continue the show. If you've been watching or maybe this is your first time, you will know or you will know now that our 300th episode is Friday. So we typically do every Friday as an ask and answer this Friday. We are going to of course thank our presenting sponsors and really just share kind of what we've noticed along the 300 episodes and what we are looking forward to in the future as we all continue to navigate this recovery phase. Thank you so much to Julia Patrick for creating the nonprofit show. Julia is the CEO of the American nonprofit and I get to have fun every day with her. Nancy Mansom, the nonprofit nerd, also CEO of the Raven group. So thanks again for joining us today for another episode of the nonprofit show. As I mentioned, we have David with Bonfire and welcome David. Thanks so much, Jared, Julia, you guys are, I've only been here a couple of minutes. I can tell you're a lot of fun, appreciate you having me. We are. Yeah. Imagine when like the camera is not rolling, right? I can't, I can't imagine so maybe we'll get a little bit off camera time later. You know, it's funny because T-shirt culture has become such a cornerstone of American, well I'd say American society, but global society during the pandemic. And before T-shirts were kind of special use things because you really couldn't in a lot of ways wear them to work or you didn't wear them to work. And now over this past nearly two years, people are wearing T-shirts and Bonfire I think has got to be right in that sweet spot of all of this activity. And so talk to us about your platform, how you founded this company, how it started and the evolution of it. Yeah, it's really funny you mentioned that actually because my coworkers, my teammates were making fun of me this morning in a little stand up meeting we had because they were like, I didn't know you owned any other shirts besides T-shirts. And I was like, I'm going on the nonprofit show today. I got to look respectable. But I don't think I've worn anything but a T-shirt to work for, you know, the last six years that I've been at Bonfire. But yeah, you're exactly right. There is something special about T-shirts. And that's why a platform like ours exists. And you know, not to get too philosophical about them right off the bat, but there is just something emotionally resonant and different about fundraising with them because not only are you giving back, but you're also saying a bit about who you are every time you put on that T-shirt. So yeah, a lot of a lot of special qualities in my opinion. I think so. So talk to something you use the most an interesting phrase, apparel fundraising. I love that because you put those two words together and it's kind of this magical thing. Talk to us about how Bonfire is really championing that concept. Yeah, I think apparel fundraising has historically maybe been a cringe worthy term for a lot of folks in the nonprofit world. Just based on my experience working with so many of them, they all have without a doubt a horror story about a box or multiple boxes or bins of shirts that are still collecting dust or cobwebs in a corner of their office that some poor intern now has to sort through and figure out something to do with them. And, you know, for us, that's why our platform exists, is to alleviate that burden and make apparel fundraising easy and fun and to use your words magical. You know, it doesn't have to be this logistical nightmare that I think a lot of people associate with T-shirts. And, you know, that's what our platform serves to alleviate that burden. You just triggered a lot of PTSD for me. And I don't say that in a joking way or kind of do, but I don't mean to make light of PTSD, but I can like visually see and feel that dark closet that was the storage room, right? And the shirts were shoved in this bin. We had no idea what sizes they were, no idea what colors they were. Inventory was so not our jam, right? So like we we deliver programs. We don't do inventory. So I think, yes, you hit the nail in the head or maybe the gong on the center, right, with this whole like, you know, just reverberating. That's the right word. Like, all because, yes, yes, yes, I think we can all relate to that. That's right. Well, I'll put a finer point on that for you here. Let's we'll get I'll give you this is a relic of our old office. Here it goes. I love it. OK, that's a first for the nonprofit show. We have the first of many. We often we still use the gong virtually to celebrate whenever we work with a big get a new big nonprofit client to use Bonfire's platform. So doesn't have quite the same punch that used to in the office, I will say. I love it. I think that's brilliant. I really, really do. Well, talk to us about the power of branded merchandise. I mean, one of the things your website is fabulous, by the way. And when I look at the designs and you you you do a masterful job on the website of showing different clients and how they've done their shirts. To me, the starting point is great design. Those shirts are really cool. I mean, they're not just the standard block of logos all over, you know, a lot of NASCAR or something. I mean, they're like really cool messages. And so I'm curious about that. How do you work with clients? Have your clients all come to you with these designs or do you help them out? Yes, it's a good question. It's kind of a mixed bag, but I think you nailed a really salient point, which is that design is paramount to the success of a really good apparel fundraising campaign. And I do think that's why our platform has been able to have the success we had is in large part to our amazing design team. And I appreciate you calling out the ones that we featured on the site. But there are so many within that that they whether we work with a massive nonprofit or a small animal rescue or anything in between. It's like we're we're we are very passionate about making sure they launch with something that's going to have that emotional resonance with their supporters, because in addition to inventory, not being in anybody's jam, neither is kind of like your standard logo apparel. No offense to most nonprofits. But I think that they're not designers and nor should they be. You know, this is they have a mission that they're going after and trying to focus on creative graphic design is typically not at the top of the list. But and that's why I think a lot of people have bad experiences with apparel fundraising in the past, because they like, oh, we slapped our logo on a shirt and why is nobody buying it? Well, it's because they don't want to look they look in their drawer and they're not excited about putting it on. So I think that kind of consultative approach we have with our nonprofit clients leads to a lot more success fund raising with apparel than they have had historically. Wow. I love that. Jared, you had a question on the like race t-shirt. Am I right, David? Because I'm guilty. I have signed up for those races just to get that t-shirt or better, a long sleep t-shirt. That is like gold, right? Yeah. And so these with bonfire, there's so many different options when it comes to apparel fundraising and it goes beyond. I don't want to say that you don't offer the race t-shirt, but I what I've seen is it goes beyond that. Yeah, beyond that, not just in terms of design, but in terms of the actual quality of the apparel to. So it's actually I use I use this line a lot when I talk to clients, it's like we don't want you to think about your standard five K day race shirt because you put that on once and you're like, this doesn't feel great, you know. And so we only source, you know, really high quality apparel that actually looks and feels really good. Now, you're doing something really interesting and pretty unique. And that is, is that you're not only helping with the design and the production and quality and feel, but your platform also has the interactive aspect. So you're working directly with the consumer and the transactions are happening that way through you all, right? So you're not going to get the the the closet full of old t-shirts. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, the whole logistical process we offload from the nonprofit and put it on to us, not just in terms of the order fulfillment, but then the subsequent customer service that comes with the inevitable size exchanges and order got lost by USPS, you know, you name it. Bonfire is going to take that burden off the nonprofit and make sure that their supporters are 100 percent taken care of. So it's completely risk free from the jump. They'll never you never pay anything to use Bonfire. We you bonfire and the nonprofit only make money if shirts are sold. So they'll never have to take the risk of upfroding a cost for a bunch of shirts that they may or may not sell. And then if the campaign does awesome, they actually stand to make more money as they sell more shirts within the campaign because we get a bigger discount, the larger the order is essentially. Wow, the brain is spinning, Julia. I'm seeing like a nonprofit show apparel coming out here in the fall, maybe. Which which does lend me right to David, are you only for nonprofits or do you also have a for profit line or market opportunity? We primarily started as a fundraising platform, mostly for what I would say would be urgent causes, you know, have a family member who's sick and he did raise money for medical benefits. And we did work with a handful of nonprofits that definitely evolved and to be like, man, we have a great model for nonprofits, too. And now it's even expanded further past that. So while I believe that nonprofits still are primary audience, we have really seen a need for this on even like the content creator side of things. So think like YouTubers, Instagrammers, people who want to monetize their brand, they built a very loyal following for. And yeah, we've really seen an uptick in that side of our business. And then last during the during the height of the pandemic, we for the first time ever had broken into kind of like the small businesses. We were seeing massive amounts of restaurants, you know, raising much needed funds with, you know, they've never done kind of campaigns like these in the past before. So it always amazes me how much our model continues to fit different molds. What's the average per T shirt range that you that an or a nonprofit can assume that they're going to be able to take away on this? It's typically between ten and fifteen dollars per share. Yeah. Well, that's that's higher than I thought, based on the services that you're selling. And do you guide your clients to set parameters on what the best sales ranges are going to be price ranges? Or is it I mean, are they different? Absolutely. Yeah. So the reason why there is that fluctuation is one, like I mentioned, you can make more as you just have a larger amount of sales in your campaign, but you could also have a very complex design. And, you know, that just essentially adds to our cost for producing the apparel. So if you have eight colors on the front and the back, it's going to be a pretty pricey shirt for us to produce. So sometimes we'll counsel them to say, hey, look, I actually don't think you need this. Let's go with a simpler design. And to be honest, most of the time, the simpler the design, the better it's actually going to sell. Right. Sure. So talking about selling, what products are you seeing or themes that are selling best? You know, even as we add more and more products to our site, nothing beats the tried and true T shirt. I got it. Nothing. Nothing that we had, whether it's water bottles, joggers, cropped hoodies, beanies, you name it. And T shirts still make up roughly 80 percent of the total sales that sales on the platform. So get into the masks as well during the pandemic. Yeah. So that was the one big thing that did really cut into it last year. We we did. We ended up doing. We have a few different options of masks now. But yeah, during the height of pandemic and even still, certainly a lot of mask campaigns were were popping up. And yeah, we were fortunate to be able to to jump on that, too. Wow. That's so interesting. I would imagine that as an organization is evolving through different parts or projects or even seasons, they could keep adding T shirt designs that it doesn't have to just be one thing. It could be a celebration of a milestone or a specific program or even the run up to an event. Julia, I got to hire you. I feel like you could you could sell this platform. You're ready to go because you're OK. I got a witness to you. This is really this is like a true story. I ran so I'm almost 60. I ran in college. I know shot. Grab your pearls, put your pearls there, David. And so that was like when Flashdance came out and when I was in college. And so I ran a T shirt business out of my dorm room and I convinced my dad to like get me the bigger, a bigger room, like a double so that I could run my T shirt business on the one side without, you know, roommate, which we're doing silk screens where you were like, no, I found I didn't do that because that was like running a business out of my dorm room. And I knew I'd get caught and booted off campus. So I found a company in my hometown that had a self screening business. And I just did a whole bunch of branded T shirts for our college which didn't have them. They weren't selling them in the bookstore. They were only selling books. I kind of went to an egghead school and I was like, hell, no, we need T shirts. And I'm telling you, it was just fascinating to see how it kind of was tribal, you know. And then we figured out we better start launching additional T shirts because we sold one, we wanted to sell more. And but I think I never I haven't really put two and two together with the nonprofit side of how that this could really work as not only, you know, a campaign issue, but a fundraising piece. It's very interesting. I love the entrepreneurial spirit. And yeah, that you tapped into something there that is deeply embedded within all of us, that tribal I want to belong somewhere. And that's what T shirts can can do, you know, at scale. Whether it's a content creators community to show I'm a fan or a nonprofit. I support this cause, you know, in addition to donating, you're actually showing that this is these are my people. And I think that's what's really powerful about apparel fundraising. And I think, too, as you had mentioned earlier, David, it's, you know, it really says a lot about the person. It says who you are. It it's personality, you know, I mean, I love a good tank top and a blazer. I feel dressed up, you know, like I can totally I can totally wear that in my community and feel like I'm showing up in a very polished manner, knowing that, you know, I've gone on like a racer back tank top. But I'm sporting a message or a clause or, you know, a wonderful organization that is very clearly apparel fundraising, you know, and so Bonfire is such a wonderful platform for that. Let's dive a little deeper into your platform, because we do have a question from one of our our live attendees today and wanting to know if if they want to provide t-shirts to their staff, would would they be able to provide a code so they can order but not pay? So that the staff could not pay? Basically, that's correct. So the organization wants to what I'm hearing wants to foot the bill and purchase t-shirts for the staff. Yeah. So right now we have a way of facilitating this where you can make a custom, basically we'll call it a private campaign link. You just share that with the staff. And then you'd have maybe another one if you wanted to that has the same design that you could make public for a higher price. But for the the organization to foot the bill, all they have to do is send this basically a spreadsheet breakdown. And then we basically just charge them on the back end and then ship directly to all the staff members. It's going to get even easier actually in the coming months when we release this coupon code feature we have in the pipeline, which will be able to do it exactly. It sounds like is this listener just described. Yes. You know, that makes sense because I think for us, a lot of us are looking for things that we can thank our donors with or we can do something that would be a team or a staff. I mean, so that kind of David figure that figures prominently. I think probably in what this viewer was thinking. Let's let's talk a little bit more about your donor demographics. I'm really interested in this because, you know, would the patrons of, let's say, an opera or theater company be as interested in t-shirts as maybe something that deals with children or more of a youth youth population? Yeah, good question. And before I jump in, speaking of youth population, if you hear my son crying in the background, apologies, it's nap time. It's good. No, I cry when I need to nap, totally fine. Well, one really interesting piece about donor demographics on our site is that consistently, we found that when we work with nonprofits, they're unable to unlock if you envision like this giving pyramid. And at the very bottom is essentially people like me, you know, younger folks looking to donate to a nonprofit for the first time. And maybe they don't want to give a traditional donation. They're a little selfish. They want to get something back in return. So in this case, that's what I think t-shirt fundraising provides and unlocks that bottom tier of the given pyramid for them. Interesting. And so when you talk about this, are you creating within your portal, the nonprofit can frame in your your your digital store, in essence, or is it a link that then takes them off to to the Bonfire site? How interactive is that? I guess my question. So we as Bonfire, one of the main value props for a nonprofit is that we offload the payment processing and basically all the fulfillment like I talked about. But they're always going to be essentially taken to that separate Bonfire campaign page. They can embed it a store link in their site if they want to. And we have a lot of nonprofits to do that. But ultimately, they're always going to transact on Bonfire's platform so that we can handle all the customer service. You know, we're going to send those emails afterwards and say, thanks for your purchase. Feel free to contact us if you need help with anything. Awesome. Oh, my God, I love that. And another question that I had that kind of relates to the demographic part. How many products do you advise your clients to have? I mean, is it like a one and done t-shirt? Or are you saying start with five things? Or what is what is your recommendation? So it depends on what stage of their apparel journey they're on, I think. And if it's, for example, a nonprofit who's never launched kind of an apparel fundraiser in this digital format before, I always suggest starting small because we use this freight. We throw this term a lot. Supporters can get paralysis by analysis. And if they have too many things to focus on, then they might actually not end up getting anything at all. Whereas if you say like, hey, these are going to be the two to three options you can choose from, especially from a branding standpoint, you don't want to go too crazy and you get too many off-brand colors in your offerings, then that way you can kind of create that cohesive tribal feel when everybody gets their apparel. And there's so many secondary things you can do afterwards. Ask people to take photos, post themselves in the picture, and then you have this kind of collage of folks who are excited about their apparel, and then that builds to more sales. So it all kind of compounds on itself over time. Yeah. I'm guilty of that analysis paralysis, you know, and the same as a restaurant. If I go to a restaurant and there's a super huge menu, I just pick a page. I just pick one page and I pick something on that page to eat because they're the same in shopping carts, right? I look at, well, I could get this tank top in gray or I could get it in another shade of gray or I could get it in, you know, like 27 colors. And then I'm like, I don't know. I just need to like tone it down to as you were saying, David, like let's just let's offer a few key pieces. But I think that to your point that does it builds community. And what I remember you saying, Julia, before I knew that you ran a like t-shirt business in your dorm room, you know, we're talking about how we still show up in community, but we're wearing something that visually represents a cause or a solution to a community problem. Maybe we're going to the gym or, you know, the grocery store. Maybe we're just working out in our yard or walking. So to have something like this and a message that is now branded and visually, you know, appealing on apparel, I think it's really cool. And I hope to see more of this coming back. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, I hope so, too. I know. Well, I'm just a little, oh, gosh, maybe a little jealous. Like I wish my t-shirt stack was as big as yours, David. Oh, if you ask my wife, she would say I have too many for sure. So she's hydro flask. That's right. It's I guess one vice for another. But she does make me call the herd a little bit every every few months. You know, all right, I got some new ones in. Some other ones got to go. But yes, I think that, yeah, the ability to create community. And that's actually Bonfire's mission statement is to strengthen and inspire communities, and it all ties back into that. No matter what angle you're coming at from t-shirts, apparel in general, do help build that sense of community. And I think that's ultimately the mission, the grander mission that we're trying to serve. Million dollar question. I'm curious if we want anyone watching wants to do some type of apparel fundraising, what does the timeline look like from start of like, you know, hey, I'm reaching out now. David's super cool. He has this amazing gong and another string instrument that doesn't look like a ukulele, right behind him. And then now we want to like have this apparel fundraising. So like, what is that timeline if you can share that with us? Yeah, that's a it's a violin in the back. Okay. That's just to let everybody know that I'm a man of culture and taste. You know, clearly, clearly. Don't let the t-shirts fool you. Yeah, I don't know what the gun says about me, but it's probably something totally different. The timeline, so it depends on if you're ready to go. You've maybe you've got an awesome graphic designer in-house. You could literally launch a campaign in 15 minutes. Our platform is that user friendly. You can upload a design. We also have an awesome DIY graphic design tool right on the site. So we have, in fact, many of our users come on every day, and whether they're with nonprofits or just every day, folks looking to fundraise for a cause, create a design right on our platform using the design tool and then launch right then and there. Then the slightly more complex process you reach out to David or anyone on my team. And when we start working with you on the consultative approach for, hey, you should launch for your 30th anniversary later this year, or it's going to be an awareness month, which is a great use case for nonprofits, if not the most prominent one. So we would counsel you like, hey, that's actually, you may be excited about this, but your supporters only have so much bandwidth to give back to you throughout the year. Let's focus it on a time that's going to make the most impact. So looking for those big impactful awareness days and months. And then the design process typically we can turn around a new one in about three to five business days and then work back and forth with the nonprofit on edits from there and then getting you guys to get in the nonprofit samples too. So we want you to be having an effective campaign right from the jump. Great way to do that, just photo sharing with your employees, whoever it is, maybe you have a very influential person in your network. You want to get the shirts too. We're happy to facilitate that on the house on our end. So, you know, all in all, that can take about two to three weeks, depending on, you know, the extent of the design process and making sure everything's in place. But, you know, I would say it's always better to wait to find the right moment rather than rushing into something. Sure. Wow, I love it. I'm so interested, of course, you know, since I had to witness my sort of past to the t-shirts. But yeah, I'm very, very intrigued. This has been remarkable, and it's so hard to believe that we've blown through 30 minutes of your time, David. I want to make sure everybody has David Adley's information for Bonfire. And it's very brave and provided his direct email address to us. So but check out bonfire.com. Really interesting. And just to see the trajectory of change with the basic concept of a t-shirt is really cool. And so you have to take a look at that and check them out. And again, they also have some other products. I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jarrett Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors. We say this so often, but without their support, we would not be here talking about the cool topic of apparel fundraising. I just got to say, I love that. I really do. We also want to let you know that we are launching a new TV program, an additional one. What were we thinking, Jarrett? One's not enough, but we're adding a second one starting at the beginning of June. Fundraising. Yeah, it is. Thanks for reminding me. When we started, Julie's like, let's just do it for two weeks. Another two weeks, two more weeks, two more weeks. So, no, fundraising events TV will be longer than two weeks. That is more of an insight joke. But we're coming up now on our 300th episode. And if that was two weeks, I must have been in a coma because it has been a really fast, or long, long two weeks. Yeah, the two weeks of, yeah. Groundhog Day. Yeah, it is like Groundhog Day. Join us on Friday because we're going to be talking about looking forward based on all the wonderful people that we've been able to interview. We've had over 250 guests on the nonprofit show. And so we're going to take all of the amazing information that we've learned. Jarrett uses this great word, the landscape of understanding our sector. So we're going to be talking about the things that people have shared with us about looking forward. And so I think it's going to be a great opportunity to not only celebrate our milestone, but really give some ideas what you should you you and your organization might need to be thinking about or looking at as we move forward in the recoveries. Wow. OK, David, I'm going to get out my old blue oyster cult T-shirt concert T-shirt that's hanging on by a thread. Damn, I'm jealous. That's an advantage T right there. Vintage vintage vintage vintage vintage. But, you know, T shirts are rocking it. And I'm so excited that Jarrett found you and that we could have this conversation. You know, as we end every show, we want to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.