 Hey there and welcome, happy Friday. It's another Friday, another Ask and Answer, and we're glad you're here for the nonprofit show conversation. Thank you also to our partner in these Friday, Ask and Answer dedicated episodes, which is Fundraising Academy at National University every single Friday. An amazing trainer from the team joins us. And today we have with us none other than the LaShonda Williams, thrilled to have you here. LaShonda is an MPA CFRE and trainer, of course at Fundraising Academy. She's joining me, Jared Ransom, non-profit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group in today's Ask and Answer conversations. So thrilled to have you here LaShonda, very briefly. Thomas, a little bit about your role as a trainer with Fundraising Academy. What does that mean? What is your position in that space for everyone that might be new to learning who you are and what you do? So working with the Fundraising Academy is definitely a plus on my list. I might actually have an opportunity to work very closely with the team in developing some of the curriculum. And we try to develop curriculum that is practical and actual and impactful based on the cost selling cycle we develop presentations, webinars. And also we're diving into conferences. This is our second year. We cover a variety of different topics that will help those that are in the non-profit sector increase their impact within their various organization and then most importantly equip them with essential tools to not only establish meaningful relationships but tools to sustain those relationships and be able to retain those donors. So each of us on the training team, we have different areas of expertise and we work as a collective to be able to provide comprehensive training and webinars for all of those viewers out there. Great, well, thank you so much for that quick rundown. We also wanna say thank you to our partners that allow us these conversations day in and day out. So shout out of gratitude to our friends over at Bloomerang and American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, again, Fundraising Academy at National University. We are LaShonda joins us from today. Also thank you to 180 Management Group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT Consulting, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. These are the companies that are with us day in and day out to have such high level conversations. They've helped us to produce nearly 1,000 episodes. LaShonda, that is coming up. I hope you join us March the 5th will be our milestone moment. You can find all of our previous episodes including the ones that LaShonda has joined us on by downloading the app. Go ahead and just scan that QR code right now. I'm sure you're sitting on your phone. Hopefully not sitting but nearby. You can also find us on streaming broadcast, podcast platforms as well. So queue us up wherever you stream your entertainment. We hear quite a bit LaShonda that someone goes in to watch one episode and several hours later, they're still listening, still watching. So we love to hear those stories. If that's you, if that's your experience please share them with us. LaShonda, you know how this works. You are at this. So I'm going to read the statement, the questions allowed. Pass it to you first and if there's anything where I feel maybe I could add some expertise would love to join you in this dialogue. So Paul in the Bay Area, San Francisco, California. He writes in, I am taking the helm of a nonprofit and I am new to the community. However, I am not new to the nonprofit sector. I am thinking about asking the board members to set up three lunches during my first six months to introduce me to key community leaders. Do you think this is a savvy idea? LaShonda, do you think this is a savvy idea? Absolutely, Paul, you are on the right track. You want to be able to have the board members to make those introductions to those key members in the community because they need to know who you are. The only thing I would add to that is maybe accelerate that timeframe because six months is a little length of time and you really want to be able to kind of hit the ground running. It depends on where your organization is as far as meeting its goals and your metrics. And I would also add, consider hosting a salon event with some of those key community leaders inviting them out and hosting a meet and greet so that you can have an initial introduction and then that determine a prioritization list of those that you want to meet with one-on-one. So definitely, Paul, you're heading in the right direction. I'm gonna pass it over to you, Jared. What else would you like to add? I 100% agree. I love that you're recommending to truncate it from six months to a shorter timeframe. And I love the salon, right? Like a one-to-many conversation is often a great strategy. Paul, I love that you're leaning into the board members for this because that is going to set the tone, I believe, for how they work with you, advocate with you, how they play a role in cultivation and stewardship as well as connection. So 100% agree with LaShonda, you are on the right path. Absolutely love this. And would love to hear, Paul, how your board responded and how those meetings are going. So keep on it, you're on the right path for sure. Okay, Rachel, I know that you probably get this question asked a lot, but what is the average number in a development officer's typical donor portfolio? And LaShonda, I'm reading between the lines. I'm believing average number of donors, average number of constituents, right? Maybe not that dollar amount, but really how many files, records, should we be working as a development officer? So what is your thought here and your personal experience? So I will lean into the last time I was on the show, we got asked this very same question a couple of months ago. And I believe in quality over quantity. And I'm thinking that you probably want to max out between 80 and 100, which is typical. But you also want to be mindful of where those individuals are in the portfolio. How many of those individuals are pre-qualified? How many of those individuals have already given to the organization? How many of those individuals are at the stewardship stage if you are inheriting a portfolio? So you want to also be mindful of what your metrics is and the size of your office resources or everything. And again, the most important part for me is quality over quantity. Do you want to have a robust portfolio and not be able to get through the list of all of the donors and prospective donors? Or do you want to have a real meaningful conversation or meaningful opportunities to engage them so that you can continue to be successful in securing funding for your organization as well as maximizing the impact. So I would say balancing is very important looking at your metrics and as well as the number of individuals in your development staff that are managing portfolios. Yeah, I too echo that. Anytime I have more than 100, it seems too much. It seems as if I'm not able to give that personalization and to be present in those conversations and even communication exchanges with those donors in a portfolio once it gets over 100. Also what I'd like to advocate for is feel free to meet with the rest of your team, executive director, any other titles and members within the development team. See how you can shift and shape your portfolios to accommodate capacity, right, connections. I have very often within my teams, LaShawna and I'm curious if you do the same. You know, we will meet regularly, quarterly, so to speak. Here's where I'm at with my donors. So-and-so is not responding to me. I think they might be best worked, you know, worked by and with another representative. If I can take someone from your list, could you take someone from my list, that kind of thing. Do you work in that way as well, LaShawna? Cause I've done that and it's been successful for me. So when I work with Bower College of Business, that's the exact way we operated. The development professionals would come in and on a weekly basis go through the list of calls, the contacts, and then also talk about the linkage, ability and interest, which is most important and honing in on the most effective way to be able to cultivate donors and identifying, as you said, if the individual may have a stronger connection with another development member or if that person in fact may need to be cultivated by someone at a higher level because they may have a higher capacity. So spot on with what you said, but also making sure that you have that balanced approach and looking at that linkage is really important because that will help with ensuring that you're maximizing your time and that you're able to go through the portfolio in a very meaningful and strategic manner. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for adding that LaShawna, I appreciate it. All right, Rachel, good luck. Can't wait to hear how your portfolio management goes. This is nearby me, Flagstaff, which has been getting a lot of snow lately. So Flagstaff, Arizona, name withheld. They state, I am a board member and the CEO recently came to me at home to ask if I would serve as a reference. She is interviewing for another job. I'm super concerned about doing this when I don't want her to leave our non-profit. Can you offer some help? This is a cheesy LaShawna, take it away. This falls under the line of ethics. So the good news is you have a great relationship with your CEO. And if you didn't have a good relationship, he or she would not have asked you to serve as a reference. What I will say is to honor their confidentiality and perhaps ask, is there a particular reason why they feel like it's time to transition out? Many instances when individuals leave organizations, there's not a conversation to talk about what we can do to enhance their experience and to keep them. People are often just submitting resignation letters and they're accepted as opposed to having a conversation about what we can do to retain this talent for our organization. So I would say definitely talk to her. Yeah, absolutely. And clearly what I see here, there is a relationship beyond professional. It goes to personal. And I do think there's some kind of level of transparency that needs to be shared, as well as keep using the word advocacy today as a board member to advocate to that CEO that he, she or they share this transitional desire with the board. As you said LaShawna, let's see what's working, what's not working. Like what is the impetus for this change? Perhaps it is time for the CEO to move to another position. And what does that look like for the organization? I am a huge proponent for succession planning. So I would love, love, love for that succession planning conversation to happen regularly, not just because there's an impending transition on the horizon. And definitely having standard operational procedures in place is really important to help with a succession plan. 100%. So good luck to you. I know that that's a little tricky conversation. All right, we're going over to Maine where I guarantee you it is a very cold. So Carla, should all board members be under the same development officer's portfolio? There seems to be some confusion about this on our team. I think it should be on the board liaisons list since we have a give or get policy that she ultimately monitors. What would you share with Carla LaShawna? Just for continuity, it's important that you have that one person to maintain everyone because then they can provide updates on the entire board on a regular basis and also be able to track the progress of the board holistically. But most importantly, you want to make sure that the board is moving in the right direction and that they're hearing the same messaging. And in instances when you have divided out the board members into different development officers, depending on the officer and the relationship, the conversation can sometimes become a little disjointed. So for continuity purposes, I would say that all of the board members be under one particular development person and that would be the executive director or whomever is the highest ranking official in the organization. Yeah, I like that response a lot in the approach. Sometimes for me, in a little different perspective is I will have two champions for a donor, especially a high level donor. And the reason I do that, like there's a main person responsible for, I'm gonna say champion again, that relationship, there's a secondary person. So what that's doing, the strategy of that is to build, that was my southern accent coming out, Lashonda, build deeper relationships with the organization so that if and when that CEO, executive director, whomever moves to the next organization just as our previous conversation was, our previous question rather, building in that depth and breadth of that continuity. So again, I always see it as a team sport, fundraising is a team sport, and just because a donor is in someone's portfolio doesn't necessarily mean that someone else on the team cannot talk with them, but it is to Lashonda's point, very critical that you share information and that you have captured these conversational notes so that we're speaking in a way that is informative and we are informed of the conversations and that we're not confusing the donor by having similar conversations and it doesn't sound like we're on the same team, if that makes sense. So the other thing I just wanna call out is I personally have never worked with an organization that had a board liaison. So this is a different opportunity for you, Karla, and this may absolutely be where you want to lean in to the board liaison to support the person that is managing this donor within their portfolio. I love that you have a liaison. Definitely, and then you may discover when you're sharing out the progress of the board and what's happening is you're cultivating, engaging and stewarding, you may discover that there are some individuals on your team that may have really strong relationships with those particular board members that can enhance whatever efforts that you have in place. So definitely it's a team sport. It's a team sport. All right, let's move into, this is more of a comment we realized but we're gonna banter on this and riff on it regardless. Name withheld in Minneapolis, also very cold right now. Our nonprofit will soon be 75 years old. First of all, congratulations. I think we should do some milestone marketing but our CEO does not think it is necessary and that it would distract from our main message. In parentheses, he is totally wrong on this one, exclamation point. LaShonda, what have you seen? Again, not really posed a question here but what have you seen to be successful for milestone marketing initiatives especially when it comes to that timeframe? Milestone marketing initiatives are critical to an organization because it creates an opportunity for you to not only bring awareness to your organization to additional constituents and prospective donors but it's an opportunity to celebrate those individuals who've been supporting your organization for a long period of time. You may have some individuals that have been supporting the organization since its impetus. You may have some generational donors that you wanna celebrate. So the celebration can include a variety of different things but most importantly, it's an opportunity for individuals to have a awareness about your organization. You're making it more available, information more available to the broader community which can allow you to have significant donor acquisition because if we don't know about your organization we cannot support your organization and there are a variety of creative ways that you can facilitate milestone marketing. It doesn't have to be one that is very expensive because resources tend to be a challenge within nonprofit organizations. It could be something as simple as a digital campaign and perhaps creating some opportunities and some collateral that's all electronic on the website. And there are many instances where when partnering with various radio stations and television stations, you can get coverage because it's a milestone year which could be Gratis, which is Gratis marketing for your organization. So there's some very creative ways that you can do that without breaking the bank. I agree. I echo everything you just shared. I'm a fan of those milestone marketing and efforts and initiatives to LaShonda's point. It's a great time to highlight the success, the progress, the partners that have invested in this journey and really having that opportunity. I do wanna speak more to that resource side because perhaps your CEO is seeing, this isn't budgeted, this is something we don't have the dollars for. So I would come back and really devil's advocate, look at what could we make possible? LaShonda suggested some digital opportunities. Maybe you just add something to your email signature block or you create a landing page on your website of a timeline of the last 75 years. I think there's a lot of really great opportunities. I was recently at my local zoo the other day and there was a timeline of a particular building and it really spoke to what happened in our local community for the last 100 plus years. And I found myself mesmerized looking at this timeline and seeing, although clearly I wasn't born 100 plus years ago, but I was looking at it and I just found myself really engaged in learning more of that history. And I think this is a great time to go back to your origin story, your history points. I think all of that is good. So I would support it and also like, what is that happy medium so that you're not breaking the bank and you are still highlighting that milestone metric. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. All right LaShonda, we're gonna riff off the cuff here because I pulled out my phone. I have a question that someone has sent to me this week. Question for you, how did you decide what your budget was or is to meet with donors? Any insights on how to allocate those expenses based off of anything, perhaps operating size, fundraising goal, et cetera. Someone told me that their budget was $500 to meet with donors and looking for a better dollar amount. They don't feel supported with that 500. So curious LaShonda, how you would answer to this person. So I inherit budgets. That's the good news and not quite as modest as $500. Gosh, that's a very interesting budget. So that allows room for creativity. I definitely would think about all of the things that is encompassed in curating a donor through the development cycle and what those dollar amounts entail. And develop a case for support for a more substantial budget because depending on the number of people in your portfolio, $500 is very modest. And I'm not certain if that's even realistic, depending on those numbers. There are instances where prospective donors will offer to pay if you have lunch or to have coffee, but obviously because we're in the nonprofit sector and we wanna demonstrate our gratitude, we don't want them to feel as though they have to support the meeting that we're having with them to cultivate the relationship. The other part is considering the budget being so modest is thinking of creative ways to cultivate them by inviting prospective donors to the organization so that they can have experiences in real time with the organization. And $500, I would probably max that out with having an event, a salon event and inviting everybody, all the people all at once, like your top 10 or 15 donors so that you can have a really nice touch point with those that are pre-qualified, those that have the highest capacity, that have the highest linkage, the highest ability and interest. So you wanna look at those three areas and have a salon event is what I would do if the budget was $500 and there was no working around it. And then that's an opportunity to demonstrate or to put your organization on the top of their minds and then an opportunity for you to follow up and meet them at their place of business or as you're talking to them, bringing them to your organization so that they can see specific things that they're most interested in. Great insight and I agree. I mean, even when I take myself to coffee, it could sometimes be $10, right? And so if we're paying for a second, a third person, like there's 30 out of your 500 for your annual budget. Anyway, so it goes quickly. I love the salon. One of my replies to this person was like, how much are you looking to raise? Maybe you can use that as a qualifying factor to help determine what you would like to support in this budget for next year, right? Like clearly it's set this year, but what research can you do to support your request to increase that amount next year? How many donors to your point, LaShonda, are in your portfolio if we have that 80 to 100 that we referenced in a previous question today? If you say on average, I don't know, $30 per person, what would that be? A little more than 500, but figuring that out. Yeah, so I think going back to this question, and we get questions all the time, so I appreciate you riffing on this one, is really like what is your goal when it comes to fundraising and then how many individuals, what is that impact and a potential ROI? I would support your request for your next fiscal year budget line with some of this additional information. So again, a lot to consider and a great opportunity to get creative. Definitely developing your case for support. Absolutely. Well, LaShonda, this has been fantastic. Again, for those of you that have joined us today or you found your way to us through one of our recordings and our platforms where we store all of our episodes, LaShonda Williams has joined me today, NPA CFRE Trainer at Fundraising Academy. Please visit Fundraising Academy website. It's fundraising-academy.org. And LaShonda, we have a few minutes. I know we talked about Cultivate, the conference that's coming up May 2nd and 3rd with a little bit of our time that we have left. Would you please share with us a little bit more because this is the second annual conference coming up and registration is open. Yes, we're very excited to be hosting our second annual Cultivate conference in sunny San Diego. It'll be held on the campus of National University. It's a wonderful opportunity to experience the campus, creating a heightened awareness. Most importantly, it's an opportunity where we'll showcase some of the best and brightest talents as it relates to development professionals that will be speaking on a variety of different topics and we have a variety of different tracks. We have three tracks available. So depending on your level of interest, we have something for everyone, but most importantly, we want to make everyone aware that this conference is the conference you don't want to miss because you will be cultivating knowledge, you'll be cultivating relationships and cultivating impact. And we have the information available on the website. We also have a video that provides highlights from last year. And last year was phenomenal. We received some tremendously great feedback. And as a result, we are back again. And we did listen to some of the feedback. So we are definitely engaging some of those areas that people said they wanted to know more about. So this is the conference that is for everyone. It's for those that may be in the beginning of their career, for those that maybe are transitioning and they're not certain exactly where they want to go in the development space. And there's something also for those that are in leadership roles in creating opportunities in spaces for them to share authentically, talking about metrics, what's most successful, best practices. So all of the things that you need to have a whole encompassed and fully functional office. And I would say to consider, if you can, have multiple people from your office to come so that you've had someone from each of those tracks, you'll be able to get the big picture. This year, unlike last year, we will have some of the sessions available on demand, which is going to be great. So if you're not able to attend in real time, we will have those available on demand, which will add an opportunity to broaden our audience even further. So for those that aren't able to come, they can still experience Cultivate in the virtual space. Absolutely. And some of that feedback from last year has moved into a day and a half conference this year as opposed to a one full day. So lots of good information there. Again, you can find the registration and conference details at fundraising-academy.org. I will be there presenting about Rents, Repeat and Recycle, your content. LaShonda, you saw me present on that in Nashville. Yes, it was amazing. Thank you. So I'll be rinsing, repeating and repurposing that particular presentation into the Cultivate conference. So again, just really honored to continue to be of service to our community. Well, hey, I also wanna say thank you for these partners for continuing to be of service to our community and to these conversations. Thank you to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University. Shout out to LaShonda today who's joined me for the ask and answer. Also thank you to 180 Management Group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the companies that we just, you know, owe so much gratitude for because we are coming up March 5th on our 1,000th episode. And as we end every episode, Justice Today and LaShonda, this is for you my friend. We want to remind all of you to please stay well so you can do well. Thanks everyone, have a fantastic weekend.