 Welcome to the non-profit show. Really excited that you're here, especially to start a new month. So today with us on the non-profit show, we have Lori Zoss Kraska joining us. Lori is the founder and the CEO of Growth Owl and she's brought to us a conversation that we've talked about several times but it never gets old and it is always one we need to know more about and that is how we can fully engage our corporate sponsors. So stay with us because she has a lot to share. If you haven't met us yet, want to introduce the two of us, although it's me today flying solo, but want to say thank you to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Non-profit Academy for creating this platform where I get to serve as the co-host day in and day out. I'm Jarrett Ransom, non-profit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. Truly honored to have the backing, the support of our presenting sponsors, our corporate sponsors, if you will, Lori and we of course want to fully engage them. So thank you to Bloomerang, American Non-profit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, non-profit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd, as well as non-profit tech talk. These companies are here to help you elevate your mission and to do more good. So please do check them out. They're fantastic partners of ours. I learn a lot from them and they've also helped us to produce many episodes over 900 and you can find them on these three platforms. So first of all, you can scan that QR code and download the app. You can also still find us on streaming broadcast and podcast platforms. So pretty much anywhere you consume your entertainment, just call up the non-profit show and you'll find us. And in fact, later today, this live conversation you're listening to now with Lori will be up on those platforms. So I wanna welcome you to the show for those watching and listening. Really honored to have with us today, Lori Zoss-Kraska. She has an MBA and a CFRE. So in my terminology, Lori, super nerd, which is a compliment. I love, I love nerds. I think we're founder and CEO of Growth Owl. So welcome to you. Oh, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, well, this is your first time with us, Lori. So we wanna learn a little bit about you, but tell us about you and tell us a little bit about Growth Owl and what role you play in this community. Sure, so Growth Owl was founded in 2018. And what we do is specifically work on behalf of non-profits, associations, other purpose-driven organizations to help them find funding, sponsorship and resources, specifically from Fortune 1000 companies or larger corporate potential sponsors. And we do that in several different ways. We have options for direct representation. There's options for training. There's options for a bit of a hybrid approach where we kind of do some research for you, find your prospects, give you the narratives of what to say, give you the tools to reach out and we're kind of like the odds behind the curtain helping you and mentoring you through the process. Also do a lot of speaking engagements within the nonprofit and association community about this topic. And as I think we'll talk about later, I wrote a book about this topic as well called the Boardroom Playbook. So specifically really geared towards corporate engagement. That's really the work that we'd like to do with clients throughout the country. Well, thank you. And you shared with us or shared with me earlier. Are you joining us from Ohio? Is that right? Yeah, that's correct. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, correct. Yeah, and just I don't want to say enjoy but just experience your first snowfall for the year that started last night. But you do serve other communities outside of your local community. So let's get down to business because I'm looking forward to you sharing some of these tips, but we're gonna start off which I love the power of brevity. So what is this power of brevity? So we have to remember when you're engaging corporate decision makers, well, whether it's on the philanthropic side, corporate social responsibility or marketing, these are very busy people and you only have so much time to get their attention, right? So when you're thinking about sending that first email, one of the biggest mistakes that most purpose-driven organizations make is they say way too much. On average, when I'm looking at client emails they're 500, 600 words. That is way too long. The power of brevity is being able to make a connection with a corporate decision maker through brevity and just understanding that the goal of that first email is just to have enough interest from the decision maker to get a second conversation to get moving, right? You're not selling anything. You're not talking about all the different pillars, mission, vision, value of your organization. What you're doing is just finding one compelling connection. What is it that your nonprofit does that connects to what this corporation is interested in? And you can find that through research, setting up Google alerts, looking at their website, looking at their social responsibility pages, who they support philanthropically. But if you really just start with a message of who you are and what organization you're from, what is the connection between your organization, your mission, vision, and values, and that corporation's work? And finally, what is it that you want next? 150 words or less, this has been a formula that's worked very well for myself and my clients. You're gonna get a big hoop of respect, I like to say, from those decision makers because staying brief says that you're respecting their time. And as you know, time is definitely precious. So 150 words or less. So that means we are not giving them everything plus the kitchen sink, right? That's right. And you often see emails that are 500 plus words. Yes. So we're looking for that magic, 150 and less. Keep it short and sweet, align to their mission, align to who they are in some of their areas of interest. That's a really good tip starting off. Now let's move into decision making. Yeah. I'm curious, right? Corporate depth perception, what's this mean? Yeah, so this is a term I utilize for having empathy and understanding the process of what it's like working within a corporation. For us on the nonprofit side, finding funding for our organizations is priority number one. But for that corporate decision maker, what your interest is, is priority 375,625, right? If we're lucky, right. If you're lucky. So what happens is a lot of folks within nonprofits, we take this personally, why are they responding to me? I mean, there's such a match here. You have to understand the process. And as I said earlier, just utilizing that brevity, that shows that you have the understanding that there's a lot of other things going on. So I find if you just take the time to really understand that the corporate process has a lot of components to it, it doesn't always have guidelines like traditional foundation grants or foundation asks. Some of it is a little more wild, wild west. Just knowing that and acknowledging that is gonna relieve pressure on yourself as well as provide empathy for the decision maker. They're gonna feel that. And again, you're gonna really set yourself apart. Two questions. And I'm gonna pick them both because if I don't, I will forget the second one. No problem. But the first one is, is there a certain time of year we should be reaching out to these companies? And secondly, if we don't hear back from them, should we try again? And if so, how often? So is there a certain sweet spot of timeline, Lori? And then also, should we just send one email and say a prayer or should we send it again and again? All right, let me start with the first question. So really every corporation is a little different, but if you're dealing with corporate philanthropy, they tend to be a little more calendared. So this time of year is perfect. They're thinking about their calendar year and sometimes what's frustrating is in a nonprofit, that might not match your calendar year, but most corporations are on a January through December calendar. So right now, if you're listening to this in November, this is the perfect time to outreach because they are starting to have those meetings about what is it they wanna look at and give towards the film-threatening standpoint. However, I wanna say, if you're targeting corporate social responsibility, which we're gonna talk about in a minute here, they tend to have much more flexibility to be able to speak with you throughout the year. They have a little more, actually a lot more flexibility in terms of their budget on where they can give funds and corporate social responsibility is growing in funding. So that's another thing to keep in mind when you're comparing corporate philanthropy versus corporate social responsibility. And to quickly answer your second question, you definitely need to follow up. My guideline for follow up is what's something I call seven by seven. I'll email every seven business days for seven weeks, but I don't say the same thing. I'll come at a different perspective. The second email might be just following up on my email. The third email might be something like, oh, I found this interesting article regarding maybe something in that corporate sponsors industry that's philanthropic. Again, continuously finding connections, maybe finding something on the decision makers LinkedIn that I can reference as a point of interest. So seven by seven is what I like to say. I try to really follow up every seven business days for seven weeks until I get an answer. Wow, you are full of these tips. I love that. So first email, no more than 150 words. We're following up every seven business days for a consecutive seven weeks. Oh my gosh, good stuff. Okay, we did tease a little bit of that CSR going forward as we call it corporate social responsibility. Talk to us more about the connection there, Lori, within that corporate social responsibility. Or again, if you're watching, you see the CSR highlighted because that is also the acronym that we also refer to this as. Absolutely. And some of the components that fall under CSR that probably many of your listeners are, it's a part of their values admission would be DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion and things like accessibility. Those also fall under that umbrella of CSR. But I like to talk about CSR because it's been my experience with many nonprofits, they usually only see two ways in, either through corporate philanthropy if they have a foundation or corporate marketing. And there's actually this third level that it's actually a very successful level to engage. And CSR really started to grow right before COVID. We started to see Fortune 1000s hiring corporate social responsibility chiefs that reporting directly to the CEO or sometimes reporting into the board. And they have full decision-making authority, they have very healthy budgets. And the whole purpose of the CSR budget is to engage with community organizations. That could be nonprofits, it could be educational institutions to find ways to get their brand associated with good work. And when we mean good work, we mean philanthropic nonprofit work. And I'm just seeing a lot more success in many cases of connecting my clients through corporate social responsibility and having success versus sometimes corporate philanthropy or corporate marketing. So definitely when you're doing your research, take a look at who is overseeing in CSR and don't forget to engage them. That is a really good point. Another question for you because what I hear often really falls within those first two buckets, truly. Just mentioned Lori. And I see a lot of organizations, they want to tap into the corporate companies for a Gala sponsor or a bike or a race sponsor, right? So really that event specific. Our corporate partners, I mean, I do feel that they're looking for a partnership. So they're looking for reciprocal engagement. Absolutely. Share some of those examples outside of literally the ballroom logo, right? Like for that Gala or whether it's a charity race or hike or some kind of event, what else are these companies looking for? You know, when you think of some of the things you've talked about and in any way that you can include your sponsor as a thought leader is really gonna set you apart. So a great example would be probably more in the conference space. So if your nonprofit is having a conference or they're having a large meeting and you're looking for sponsorship support, offering the sponsor a thought leadership speaking engagement within that sponsorship actually could really set yourself apart. And again, they understand, you know, corporations are savvy. They understand that they're not gonna come in and do an advertising pitch. I think that's the biggest scare I hear from folks. But again, they really understand that they need to come in and be a thought leader and talk about something of value to the people that are at your Gala or at your conference that is gonna provide a little synchronicity for everybody. So that's probably one of the biggest ways. Also, if you're able to have some sort of online engagement either pre Gala or pre-conference or post in engaging the potential sponsor to be a part of that that's really popular right now in terms of some of the things I'm hearing from my clients and their corporate sponsors. It could be something as simple as providing and if the sponsor could provide the introduction to your keynote speaker or the sponsor could say some really great words of support at your Gala to introduce some big news because a lot of Gala's have some really good big news, right? So just little tweaks like that can really make a difference in setting yourself apart. I appreciate that. And I love that you mentioned the virtual component because here we are, right? You and I are meeting virtually at times our supporters and even our partners, you know, they're across communities and not necessarily attending in person. Are you seeing that virtual response still being desired by the corporate engagement? Oh, absolutely. And let me tell you a lot of nonprofits that I work with are actually coming up with digital sponsorships to get some funding for their digital accessories and resources. And this is not going away, you know? I think one of the reasons why you're able to be successful in your show and I've been able to be successful in my work, you know, I'm utilizing digital resources to reach nationwide to all different types of clients, right? So this is a tool that's only going to grow. So, you know, if you're thinking about, well, geez, how are we gonna resource this? We don't have the funding. Think about a digital resource sponsorship that could be a definite option for you. Yeah, wow, that's another good one because you're right, I don't think it's going away. One thing we've seen is really the expansion of the community, you know, that net has been cast, you know, far and wide and it's not really retracting, maybe in some communities it has. So really good tips here. Okay, you've shared already so much with us. I love the little tidbits, the nuggets of information, right? Like I will always remember 150 words or less and I have to witness also Lori, chat GPT is my best assistant. So even putting that prompt into chat GPT, I think, you know, is another good way to go forward. But how else can we set ourselves our nonprofit? You know, we talk about here on the show, there's 1.8 million nonprofits today registered in the US. So regardless, that's competition. So how can we set our nonprofit apart from the other 1.8 million nonprofits? And besides the 1.8 million nonprofits that are competition, especially if you're engaging corporate marketing, you're competing against broadcast dollars, digital dollars, Google dollars, print dollars. So this is another reason why I really like engaging corporate social responsibility or philanthropy. Just a side note. But honestly, I think my biggest tip for your listeners and your viewers is just because a large Fortune 500 is in your backyard doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna be a good funder for you. I think that's probably the thing I hear about the most. And I know sometimes you'll get pressure from your board. Well, blah, blah, insurance is right in our backyard. Why aren't we getting 50,000 from them? Right? Everybody's heard this, right? The thing is to be successful with corporations, you have to do your homework to find the niche. And the more niche you are or the more niche your program is, the better chances you're gonna connect with the corporation. Because based on the feedback that I get from the corporate decision makers I talk to, they see a lot of general asks. That is not what they're looking for. They're looking for specific program funding opportunities. It's the difference between saying, provide funding for my nonprofit that helps K through five versus provide funding for my nonprofit that helps kindergartners and first graders with after-school care and reading programs. That's the difference. So being specific, doing your research, finding the companies that wanna support that is really gonna help you stand apart. What about, thank you for that. What about if you are in a metropolitan community and there's industrial companies that you are moving into your community, there's large retail stores moving into your community. So I mean, this is public knowledge, right? So you'll often hear this, especially if you've got your ear to like city council meetings and things like that. What, should we be reaching out to these companies before they move into our communities? How soon should we be courting them, so to speak? Oh, and you hit the nail on the head. The sooner the better. I'll even give you a quick example. I did some work here locally in my community. We had a very large retailer move into my community. And once I got that information, I spoke with their regional vice president that I knew was gonna head up the area. And we were able to get some significant funding dollars for our first responders who are doing first aid training for kids that had various types of disabilities on fire safety. And this retailer was extremely excited to wanna be a part of that. And they shared with me that at least for the first year or two when an organization comes into a community, they tend to have more dollars to be able to do community engagement types of activities with nonprofits. So yes, your tip is it's perfect. Yeah, it's keeping in line with your Chamber of Commerce. Economic Development is another organization you wanna look at in your areas. They tend to know even before the Chamber of Commerce sometimes if you have an economic development department or organization, they have excellent information and starting to engage as soon as you hear something, absolutely. Yeah, I love that example. And even knowing that oftentimes, and maybe not the case for everyone, but for your example, this company that you mentioned, they have more spending dollars year one and year two. And I can imagine they're really looking to solidify their footing with some do-gooders, right? You know, in this way. I wanna ask you another question. How do we engage the company employees, right? Are we looking to really engage that executive or the person with the purse strings, if you will? Are we really looking to engage at that general all employee engagement level? How deep should we go with our engagement? I think it depends what you're looking to do. So in the work that I'm doing and that I train my clients on, they're looking specifically either for funding or large resources. So I wanna engage usually someone at a vice presidential level or above. However, if you're looking for resources like maybe a corporate volunteer program or maybe to talk about a corporate match program, that can be something facilitated with a human resources manager or a director of human resources manager, that would be very appropriate and probably a very welcome conversation. So unless there's some sort of referral that could happen, so maybe you're at your child's softball game and you happen to be sitting next to a middle manager at a large organization you've been trying to target, if they're able to provide a referral, that's wonderful. You know, that's another way that you can engage. You know what I'm always surprised, Lori, thank you for bringing that up. How often that happens, right? Like how these people that they're part of your community, you're right, they're children or probably at your children's school, doing recreational sports together. So even going to the grocery store, right? You might run into someone that you've been trying to connect with on LinkedIn or through one of your seven emails. That's right. That's right. You know, being able to make a connection beyond the organization, like as a community, as a mom, as a fellow softball supporter, that goes a long way as well. Yeah, there's so many good opportunities. We have a question come in. So I'd love to ask this to you real time. What do you find that corporations find most valuable to receive being a sponsor in terms of what they get out of it? That's a good question. Okay, so I'm gonna answer this in a little different way that you're probably looking for because it popped in my head and I wanna say this. On that first email, never send an attachment either. Ever, ever. Think about it. With the way corporations have their email systems set up for security, if it is an unknown email address and it has an attachment, it's not gonna be seen by anybody. It's gonna stay in an abyss. So I did wanna mention that by the way. No, good point. Does not also mean like links to something because we could point them to a YouTube video or we could point them to something else. So we just wanna keep it text-based. You do. So if you wanna put a link in, that's fine but because I've experimented with this and continue experiment. Some of the larger Fortune 1000s might definitely list you a bit for too many links but if it's one link to a verified website, basically if the website matches to what your email address is at saypuppies.com, or .work, that's gonna help you. So one link I think is appropriate. So I did wanna mention that. Yeah, I'm glad you did. Yeah, absolutely. But in terms of what corporations are looking for to kind of move the natal to wanna work with you, I think that was the initial question. Well, what are they looking to receive? And so I don't know if this is maybe a gift or engagement but like really what is it that company is looking to receive through partnership? Got it. So once again, that's gonna depend on where the money's coming from. So if you're working with corporate philanthropy, that's pretty much an understanding that through their philanthropic mission vision values they have money set aside that they know is gonna go towards non-profit, goodwill community engagement. And they might ask for some of the same things that the traditional foundation might ask which could really vary. But I've also had clients that when we work with the corporate foundation, once they vetted out the nonprofit and knows that they know it's legitimate, they don't really ask for much after that. Now, when you're working with corporate social responsibility, it's a little different. CSR is also seen as making a corporation more valuable. It's something that even Wall Street looks at. Are you a good corporate citizen? Are you sustainable? What are you doing to help other organizations? So in that respect, if you're getting the money from CSR, they may ask you more about sponsorship related items like logo placement, like thought leadership, like can we sponsor a webinar? It's definitely going beyond the traditional things that you might think of with sponsorship. The question to ask yourself is how with you being comfortable with it, how much are you able to include the sponsor into your programming? Great insight. You have really just provided so much, Laurie, helping us look differently set apart from the others. And as you said earlier with me, if we do the things you mentioned, the brevity, provide all of this, we will really be set apart from the onset. I love it that you mentioned your book early on and I want to wrap up with that. Unfortunately, our time goes so fast, but Laurie, it's been fantastic having you here. Tell us a little bit about who your audience is for the book. Whose hands do we need to get this book in and where do we find it? Yes, the boardroom playbook, the not so usual guide for corporate funding can be found on Amazon. So just type in the boardroom playbook on Amazon. Great for nonprofit executive directors, presidents, board members, and anybody who's looking to engage corporations for corporate support. Yeah. Well, I think that's pretty much everyone. So great to know that this resource is here. Laurie Zoss Kraska, thanks for joining us. Again, for those of you watching and listening, Laurie serves as the founder and the CEO of Growth Owl and you can check out their website at thegrowthowl.com. Some great insight there. I've already learned so much. I really love those little nuggets of takeaways. So I'm going to forever remember those, Laurie, and just so appreciative to have your time here. Well, for those of you that have joined us today, Julie is having a fun day away, November one. And as I like to say, when the cat's away, the mice will play, but I'm Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, had a lovely conversation with you, Laurie. Also want to say thank you to our partners that engage with us on such deep levels. So thank you to Blumerang, American nonprofit academy, fundraising academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. These are the companies that keep us moving and growing and producing more and more conversations and episodes. So please do check them out, including today's conversation with you, Laurie. As I mentioned, it will be uploaded later today thanks to our executive producer. And as we end every episode, including a brand new month, November one, we want to remind all of you to please stay well so you can do well.