 All right, so it's two o'clock. We'll just go ahead and get started. Hi, everyone, and thanks for joining me for today's webinar, Small But Mighty, Fundraising Tips for Small Nonprofits. My name is Linda Gerhart, and I'm a Community Engagement Specialist here at Mighty Cause. Before I came to work for Mighty Cause, I spent the majority of my career in the nonprofit sector, specifically in animal sheltering and animal welfare. I worked with some very small nonprofits with under 30 employees and one of the biggest animal welfare nonprofits in the United States. So I've been able to see how both large and small nonprofits operate, and I've learned a lot. And a lot of what I'm going to share with you today is recon from the bigger nonprofits that I've worked for and some tips that they use to help them grow and get to the point where they have so many programs and multi-million dollar budgets. And while you can't do everything that the big dogs do, today we're going to talk about the things that big nonprofits do that you can do to help you grow, keep your programs funded, and improve your fundraising. Here's a look at today's agenda. We have a lot of ground to cover. So just as some housekeeping before we dive in, we're going to do a Q&A at the end of the presentation. So if you think of a question you want to ask while I'm presenting, just type it into the questions box of your go-to webinar panel and we'll make sure that we get to it at the end of the presentation. So first things first, I just wanted to quickly go over some big changes we've had here at Mighty Cause, the biggest of which is the fact that we are now Mighty Cause. We changed our company's name from Razu to Mighty Cause last month, and that was the last step in a management buyout that took place in 2017, which means that Mighty Cause is now an employee-owned company. If you've been paying attention to things happening in the nonprofit software and crowdfunding space, there have been a lot of consolidations and acquisitions and this makes Mighty Cause one of the few platforms that is still standing and not owned by a larger company or a group of venture capitalists. So in this way, we're in a really unique position to serve and provide resources for small nonprofits because we're a small business and our interest is really in building lasting fruitful relationships with nonprofits above everything else. In case you're not familiar with Mighty Cause or Razu, we were one of the first crowdfunding platforms on the scene and we've been focused on cause-based fundraising and nonprofits since our inception in 2006. So that's over a decade at this point. We've helped raise more than $600 million for over 30,000 nonprofits and we were also the first platform to host Giving Days, which are 24-hour online giving marathons. We recently rolled out some exciting new tools for nonprofits and we were also rated one of the top nonprofit software providers by Gartner Research. And since the beginning, our aim has been to lift up small nonprofits and we're also helping mid-sized nonprofits as well. Our business model is basically to disrupt the crowdfunding paradigm and help small nonprofits build capacity by giving you all the tools that are available to large nonprofits at a much more affordable price. And again, our focus as a company is on building relationships with nonprofits and this webinar is really just an extension of that ethos. We don't want to stop it just providing tools. We wanna ensure that small nonprofits have access to resources and training that helps them grow and become successful and keeps their programs funded. All right, so with that out of the way, we're gonna dig into the real meat of this webinar, which is our tips for small nonprofits. And I wanted to start off with planning because when I worked at a large national nonprofit and then moved to a small local nonprofit that had an admin staff of five, the biggest and most clear difference I noticed was in the amount of planning that took place. And so that's why tip number one is plan like a pro. So I totally understand that planning can be really hard when you're on a small team or even just a team of one, but it's one of the most important things a small nonprofit can do and here's why. First, even though planning does require a little bit of time investment upfront, it will ultimately allow you to manage your time better, which is important obviously because small nonprofits have to treat their time like it's precious and make sure that everyone is spending it in the most effective way possible. And failing to plan usually means that lots of time gets wasted putting out fires. And a lot of those fires could have been prevented in the first place with planning and even the ones that couldn't have been prevented could have been put out more quickly if you had a plan in place. So second, you have limited resources at a small nonprofit. It's really important to take a step back, take stock of your resources and make sure you're using the resources you do have most effectively and in a way that helps you get towards your big picture goals. Planning is also a key part of growth, being able to grow as a nonprofit, start new programs and initiatives, hire more staff, have a bigger operating budget. Nonprofits that are able to grow are strategic about it and in order to be strategic, you have to plan. And that's really all most planning is. You're just creating a roadmap for your nonprofit, getting from your first year as a 501C3 through to your 10th year. And that's a lot easier to do if you have a path mapped out for yourself. So really what planning does is it allows you to take a step back from the day to day, look at the forest instead of the trees and think big picture. And this is really what is the big difference between small nonprofits and large nonprofits. Large nonprofits are always thinking big picture, how they can have the biggest impact and advance their big programmatic goals and working toward those high level goals above all else. And small nonprofits, because they can have a limited capacity and a limited number of people, tend to focus primarily on day to day operations, which is totally understandable, but can also be a hindrance when you're trying to grow and keep you from achieving those high level goals. And so now we're gonna move on to the types of plans that your small nonprofit needs. Some of you may already have these plans made and this may be the first time some of you have thought about creating a plan for some of these things, but when you have all of these plans made, you'll be in good shape to meet your fundraising goals, your programmatic goals and you'll be able to grow better. The first is a business plan, then a donor pipeline, then a volunteer recruitment and engagement plan, a communications plan and a fundraising plan. And that's a lot of information. So in the next few slides, we're gonna go through what these plans entail and what's involved in making them. Excuse me. So first we'll go over a business plan and a solid business plan is going to answer some very basic questions about your nonprofit. What is your goal? How is your organization structured? What programs and services do you offer? Who do you serve? What are the key differentiators that make you unique in the space you serve? And what are your big picture goals related to your cause and what's your plan to make those goals happen? This is a foundational piece of planning that every nonprofit should do. And a lot of you may have already written a business plan when you were going through the process of becoming a 501c3. And that's awesome. But if you don't have one, don't be intimidated by it. There are endless free templates available online. And a business plan is something that really sounds more intimidating than it is. So it's important to take the time to learn what goes into a business plan and get one together. And if it's something that is really just intimidating to you, you can enlist outside help from board members and volunteers who have experience in this area. And eventually you'll get to the point where you want to create a business plan for every new program and each initiative that you watch. Next, we have a donor pipeline. And that sounds a little bit like jargon because it kind of is. But all a donor pipeline is is a roadmap for the process of acquiring and retaining donors. There are four basic steps in a donor pipeline. Prospecting, which is the process of identifying potential donors. Cultivating, which is building the relationship with your prospect. Soliciting, which is obviously the ask and stewarding. Stewarding is very similar to the cultivation process, except instead of building the relationship from the ground up, you're nurturing a relationship that you already have with a donor. And this is so important because donor retention is a huge problem in the nonprofit sector for organizations of all sizes. Then that's because stewarding can really become an afterthought. Like once donations are made, a nonprofit may send a thank you card or a thank you email, but then the communication and the nurturing sometimes stops. So this last step of stewarding is hugely important. Now, some nonprofits have extra steps in their pipelines. For instance, for major gift donors, research is a good extra step that happens before cultivation. And it's where you find out more about the prospect, what moves them, what they're interested in, what brought them to your nonprofit, so that you can form a better connection with them and you're in a better position to form a relationship with them. And also so that you can tailor your ask to them so that you're more likely to get good results. You'll also see nonprofits with reporting added to their pipeline, which is often part of the stewarding process where they report back to donors on the impact of their contribution. Sometimes this will take the form of an annual report. So this is just a very basic sketch of what a pipeline should look like. And in terms of implementing it, if you're using a CRM-like Salesforce, it's built in, but it can also just be as simple as adding tags to a donor's record or adding a column to a spreadsheet if you're still very small and managing donors outside of a management system. A pipeline is important because it'll help you better evaluate the state of your fundraising. How you'll do this is by looking for leaks and clogs. For instance, if donors tend to leave the pipeline at a particular spot, meaning they don't have any further relationship with your nonprofit, that's called a leak. If your leak is at stewarding, then you know you need to work on engaging donors after they made their gift. And a clog is when you have a bunch of donors stuck at a particular spot in the pipeline. So if you have a clog at the solicitation step, that means you'll need to take a step back and evaluate how you're asking so that you can keep your pipeline flowing and keep donors moving to that next step in the pipeline. If your nonprofit is really small and only has a handful of donors, this may seem unnecessary, but that couldn't be further from the truth because a donor pipeline will help you better manage the donors that you have right now and it'll assist you as you grow. It's a foundation that not only makes management more doable, but also will help you get to the point where you have more donors to manage. All right, so now we're gonna be talking about volunteers. And we're gonna be talking a lot more about volunteers a little bit further on in the webinar, but I wanted to go through the basics of volunteer recruitment and management plan. And this is really a tip within a tip here because small nonprofits, volunteers are so much more essential to your operations than they are for say a very big organization that has lots of paid staff. So because volunteers are so important, it's essential to be smart about recruiting volunteers and matching them up with the jobs where they can do the most for your nonprofit. And a lot of small nonprofits volunteer positions are kind of filled as they are needed. For instance, if you need something on a weekend, putting a Facebook post up or sending out an email to just quickly get those spots filled, but having a structured, robust volunteer program is a must for small nonprofits because without the ability to have paid staff to do every job that you need done, you need to lean on volunteers to get the work done. So the first thing you'll wanna consider when coming up with your plan for volunteers is how and where to recruit them. You can do this in a lot of different ways through your website, email, hosting, events for people interested in volunteering, having sign-up sheets. The possibilities are really endless, but you'll wanna have a system at least for identifying necessary positions and where and how you intend to fill them. You'll also want to think about a volunteer application process, which is a way to get the information and the documentation you need from volunteers, such as their availability and any signed waivers. And a roadmap for development, which I'll revisit a little bit later on. And you'll also need to plan a way to keep volunteers engaged and feeling appreciated. And just so you know, Mighty Cause has a new tool you can use to post volunteer opportunities and manage volunteers, which is available just to premium subscribers right now. And we'll be talking a little bit more in depth about this subject later on in the presentation. So the next plan is a communications plan. And we actually have a template for a communications plan that I've included as a handout to make this part super easy because going through the worksheet, I find is a lot easier than explaining all of the steps and all of the things that you need to consider when making a communications plan. But the basic gist of a communications plan is identifying your key messages, identifying your audiences and then working to develop your voice as a brand. And I've written a lot about communications planning on our blog, Mighty Blog, and given webinars on this topic. And one thing you should know is that one of the huge things that separates small nonprofits from large nonprofits is an understanding that your nonprofit has a brand and you need to market it to be successful. A communications plan will help you map out your messaging, find your audience. So I recommend starting by downloading the worksheet and then just working with your colleagues or on your own to get started on this. And just so you know, this worksheet is something that I developed when I was working for a small nonprofit and I was the whole marketing and communications department. So it really is pared down to just the essentials that you need to start communicating more effectively with your supporters. And the last one before we move on is creating a fundraising plan. This is an annual plan so we recommend creating a new one before the year begins but it's never too late to start. So even though we are into May at this point, if you don't have the rest of your year mapped out or have a fundraising plan for the rest of 2018, go ahead and create one so that you at least have a roadmap for the rest of your year. A fundraising plan will take you through your calendar year and outline your financial goals and fundraising goals, your key fundraisers such as your spring fundraiser giving Tuesday and end of year just as an example, identify the people who will be working on your fundraising team and lay out some structure for your fundraising efforts. A lot of small nonprofits kind of assume that they can just wing it when it comes to fundraising and that may work for a while but planning will help ensure that you're on track to meet your fundraising goals and aren't left in the lurch if something unexpected happens. You can always add more fundraisers in throughout the year but having a structure for your fundraising calendar and a few big campaigns that you orchestrate throughout the year will ensure that you at least have your organization's basic needs met. All right, so one of the most common questions we get at Mighty Cause from small nonprofits especially ones that are just starting out is how do I get donors? So in this section we'll go over tips that will help you grow your donor base. The process of getting new donors is called donor acquisition and this is a pretty complex topic because there are a lot of ways that nonprofits can find new donors including paying for lists of donors but right now because you're small nonprofits we wanna focus on sort of the DIY methods of acquiring new donors that don't cost you a lot of money. And the first tip here is to make donor acquisition a priority at your nonprofit. It's so easy to get lost in the day to day of running your organization and all of your programs but unless you make finding new donors a priority you won't be able to grow. You won't be able to make those programs bigger and help more people and take your nonprofit to the next level. So as you're thinking about the planning you need to do and your organization's priorities make sure donor acquisition is absolutely on that list of top priorities. Excuse me. The second tip is to make it easy for donors to find your nonprofit and that means having a website or at least a mighty cause page if you're not able to have a website built just yet because people will Google you and they'll Google for nonprofits who are doing the kind of work that you're doing. And so it's really important to have a digital presence. It's also part of how people verify that your nonprofit is legitimate. If they look you up because they're thinking about making a donation and somebody told them about you guys and they can't find a digital footprint if they can't find any information about you online they may be hesitant to make a donation which is totally understandable because people want to vet the nonprofits that they support. So ideally you'll want to build out a full website but if you're super small a mighty cause page can function as your website while you work on building your base and then get to the point where you can build your own custom website. The next tip is to look within for donors and what I mean by that is that instead of focusing all of your efforts on bringing in strangers tap the people in your nonprofits inner circle first for a small nonprofit having your board of directors and agents and peer to peer fundraising can help you acquire new donors and build support for your nonprofit and the same goes for staff and volunteers ask for help from the people within your organization first and then expand outward. People on boards are often super well connected and know people in the community and can help you get introductions to people that can help you with people that are interested in your cause or charitable giving and really at the end of the day there are no better supporters and spokespeople for your cause than the people who are directly involved in it. So think of ways of ways to involve everyone in your organization and fundraising whether it's asking staff to help you build support and spread the word about a fundraiser or asking your board to get involved in a campaign you could even host a friend raising event where you ask your board and your staff to bring a friend to an event you're hosting so that they can learn more about your nonprofit and your work and you can shake hands get email addresses and make contact with new people once you've got a good base of support from within you can easily move outward and start expanding. And to find new supporters we recommend becoming a presence in your community. A lot of small nonprofits can have what I call the field of dreams mindset which means that if you build a nonprofit that serves a need you assume that people will come to your nonprofit and that's really just not the case. In order to make a difference in your community you need to be part of that community and often that means putting your boots on the pavement getting out there talking to people and meeting the people where they are. So check community calendars have people handing out information and talking to folks at the local farmers market or really anywhere you can get out there and meet people in your community. You can have benefit nights at local restaurants happy hours you just have to put yourself out there. And the follow up to that is working on forming community partnerships by putting yourself out there and making your nonprofit a noticeable presence you'll be able to make more context and ultimately pick up more supporters. And lastly network we'll talk about this in depth in a few slides but networking will help you start expanding your base of supporters and help you build allies. Another one of the most common questions we get from small nonprofits is about building an email list. A lot of our resources talk about sending out emails and we talk about the importance of email all the time but if you don't have that many email contacts yet that can be a hindrance to actually fundraising successfully so it can be hard to know where to start. So here's how you can build your email list. First find opportunities to collect email addresses which seems obvious but what that means is basically just persistence. Obviously anyone that can that makes a donation to your mighty cause page can be added to your list but think of all the different entry points to your nonprofit whether it's in your lobby at a brick and mortar location over the phone, your website, your blog events and so on. You'll wanna make sure you're collecting email addresses at every entry point from every touch point in your organization. A lot of building a robust email list is really just about persistence and making it a point to actually get the email addresses wherever you can. Also find email marketing software that works for your budget and your needs. Services like MailChimp and Constant Contact are great entry level programs that are very affordable and will help you get started with email marketing. This may already be something you have but if you don't absolutely start researching email marketing software and try to find something that works with your budget because email is a direct line to your supporters so it's a really important investment to make. Pardon me. The next tip I have is to start an e-newsletter. Think of a snappy name, pick up a mobile friendly template and just use it to give updates on your work and share stories from the field and promote the different things that you've got going on at your nonprofit and then start building engaging content with news and stories and calls to action. The relationship between nonprofits and businesses and the people who give their email addresses is transactional. So when someone gives their email to a business they're usually doing it for something that benefits themselves like being told about a sale or getting an exclusive discount code for nonprofits. What you have to offer is your content, information about your work, stories about the people or animals that you help and the things that they can do to get involved in your cause. So as you're going through your day look at your work from the eyes of a storyteller, find the stories that demonstrate what you do and why you do it and then share it and build an email around it. And that will really help keep people engaged and when you get the, you'll have something to lure them in. You can share stories on Facebook and encourage them to sign up for your emails for more. And obviously a big key to getting emails is making it easy for people to sign up. If they have to call your nonprofit and ask to be added to your email list no one's gonna do that. So make sure you have a lot of pathways to collect email addresses on your website, a sign up sheet at your front counter and at every event, even a pop-up on your website, a form on social media, a lot of email marketing software will allow you to build a form where people can sign up through social media. And the easier you make signing up the more likely people are to actually do it. And last, there are a lot of great free resources out there that can give you a crash course in email marketing. And most companies that provide email marketing software also provide a training library and webinars. So make a point of becoming familiar with the basics of email marketing and how to write an email that compels people to click and donate and the best practices for managing your lists and sending emails. It's definitely worthwhile to spend some time googling and reading blogs and articles about this topic because email is such an important tool in the nonprofit toolbox. So we're gonna talk a little bit about networking and if you're anything like me it can be something that you dread but getting out there attending conferences, booking speaking engagements, going to community events, getting out there and shaking hands and kissing babies. It's all part of the hustle that's required to get a small nonprofit off the ground and growing. A great place to start is by finding like-minded businesses and community groups. So for instance, if you're running a food bank, a local farm to table restaurant or a grocery store might be a natural partner for you. If you're running an animal rescue, a local pet supply store or veterinary practice could be a really great strategic ally. These kinds of strategic partnerships can be game changers for small nonprofits. So this sort of networking is really important and helps you build grassroots support for your organization and can open the doors to all kinds of sponsorship opportunities that will help you grow. You can also host a meet and greet to get started networking in your community, hosting an event with snacks and drinks and a friendly invitation to people in the community is a great low key way to network without having an ask. If you have a brick and mortar location, giving a tour of your facilities and just using that opportunity to get to know some new folks in your community and start that conversation with them is a great way to spread the word about your work and conversely show up to community events that already exist. Things like town hall meetings for your local government, any community meetings that are open to all attendees participating in a giving event, anything like that. A lot of times there's advocacy events you can attend that are related to your cause. For instance, a national nonprofit I used to work for had lobby days where they'd have advocates in a particular state all come together and meet at the capital and meet with local lawmakers to advocate for their cause. And these were great advocacy opportunities, but it was also a really great networking opportunity. You've got to meet people who are doing the same kind of work that you do and working for the same kinds of causes. So keep an eye out for opportunities to get involved in your community and meet some new people. Another great resource for networking is your board of directors. Often your board is very well connected. So if you're looking for partnerships, a great place to start is by asking your board to make introductions with some of their contacts. The big secret to successful networking are basically just scheduling meetings and then following up. So let's say you meet someone working for a local business that you'd like to partner with at a community event. You strike up a conversation with them and say, hey, I'd love to talk more about this thing. Can we set up a meeting? And then you get the meeting on both of your calendars. And then after the meeting, you just give them a call or send them an email to follow up on what you talked about. So really, that's all that's involved in networking. It's getting introductions, having a conversation, scheduling a meeting, and then just following up. And it can be really hard for people like me and all of the other introverts in the crowd, but it will be really helpful for your nonprofit in the long run. Okay, so now we're gonna circle back to talking about volunteers and how to create a great volunteer program. So we've already talked about why volunteers are so important to small nonprofits. So we won't retread that territory. Here's how you can get a volunteer program planned and off the ground. The first step is really just determining your needs. As we discussed, nonprofits can fly by the seat of their pants with volunteers much of the time, but odds are you have tasks and jobs at your nonprofits that volunteers could easily do for you. So take an inventory of the work that needs to be done from sorting through in-kind donations and tabling at events and answering phones to higher level things like building a website and even helping with accounting and development work, and make a list and write job descriptions for the positions. They don't need to be elaborate job descriptions, but just a brief discussion of what you expect, what you need in terms of time commitment and skills, whether it's being able to lift 30 pounds or knowing someone's way around QuickBooks. And the next step is building a roadmap for volunteers. After you get the volunteers recruited and you have some applications. So first, that's the step you need to take first is recruiting volunteers. So think about how you're gonna do that, whether it's through your website, putting it in your newsletter, posting it on a community board or posting it on your Mighty Cause page with the Calls to Action tool. You'll also need an application, which will get their basic information, including what their skills are, what they're interested in doing, how much time they can commit and when they're available. If you have a website, you can put a volunteer application form right on your website. So anyone looking to help out can easily apply and also keep some paper copies at your front desk and bring them with you to events. You can also host an info session where people can come in and get information about your work and volunteering. And then somebody will need to sort through the applications you receive and work to match these volunteers up with the best job for them based on the jobs you need filled and what the volunteers have told you about themselves in their application. You'll wanna host a training or orientation session so your volunteers know what to do, what the expectations are and are set up to succeed at the job you've placed them in. And then once you've got the positions filled, you'll need a structure for your existing volunteers. A lot of nonprofits with robust volunteer programs use a system of levels for volunteers, meaning that when somebody starts their level one and they can advance to higher levels the longer they've been with your organization and the better they get at performing their job which you would evaluate each time a volunteer wants to move up. You can set it up however works for you but one way to help volunteers level up is by offering additional training and additional skills that you would like them to have. So for instance, at an animal shelter I worked for volunteer dog walkers started out with entry level training to walk dogs safely. And at first they would only be allowed to walk the most docile dogs. When volunteers wanted to work with dogs who were bigger pulled on their leash or were reactive to other dogs while on walks they would need to complete training to become a level two dog walker. And dog walkers could keep leveling up from there. At the end of the ladder was mentorship. They'd actually take over training new volunteers because they had completed all the training themselves and had real world experience to share. And that was a huge help to the staff because they didn't have to take time out of the day to complete that training and it made the mentors feel honored and special. Eventually being able to have experienced volunteers get involved in training and mentorship is the goal of volunteer programs because it takes more of the pressure off of you to provide all of this training and mentorship. So ultimately giving volunteers a ladder to climb and progressive responsibilities is a great way to keep them engaged because there may be some volunteers who don't mind showing up every Saturday to answer phones but a lot of people will get bored with it and the levels are there as a way to keep them engaged while allowing them to do more for your nonprofit. And evaluating where your volunteers are at will also help you weed out any volunteers who maybe need some additional training or really just aren't a great fit for your nonprofit. Sometimes warnings and termination are necessary for volunteers, especially ones who might jeopardize their own safety or the safety of others. Or even just volunteers who don't reliably show up for their shifts and don't complete their tasks. So that's something you'll also want to structure in and make your volunteers aware of. You don't have to call it progressive discipline but you do need to plan a method of handling volunteers who just aren't working out. And as we talked about, you'll wanna make volunteer appreciation a priority. Think of ways you can recognize your volunteers beyond just having events for them, awarding badges to volunteers who go above and beyond, profiling them in your newsletter, recognizing a volunteer of the month in your lobby, and even just little perks like coffee and donuts on a Saturday morning can really go a long way toward making them feel special and appreciated, which is ultimately the key to getting them to come back and volunteer their time to you. I mentioned it briefly a bit earlier but Mighty Cause does have a tool available for managing volunteers called the Calls to Action tool, which is available to premium subscribers. This tool allows you to post-volunteer opportunities, manage your volunteers, email them through the platform, it sends automated reminders, and it also allows you to upload any forms you need to distribute like waivers. Premium subscriptions start at $99 per month, which is very affordable, and you get a whole host of other tools in addition to Calls to Action. And the big bonus is that you'll never pay a platform fee when you have a subscription to Mighty Cause. So if you're looking to incorporate more volunteers into your operations, you can sign up for a demo with us and see the tool in action, and talk to us about your needs and your budget and see if Mighty Cause Premium is the right fit for you. It may not be, but it could be a great upgrade that allows you to do more. So in follow-up to this webinar, I'll send out a link where you can check out some group demos, we have one happening tomorrow, and you can also get a free trial of Mighty Cause Premium. You just need to sign up for that demo ahead of time and just keep an eye out for that link. So moving on, our last tip is to spark interest with marketing and outreach. The first tip I have for marketing and outreach is to create a presence on social media. As we talked about earlier, your digital presence is a common way for people interested in your work to verify that your nonprofit is legit and having active Twitter and Facebook and Instagram accounts is essential. Because a lot of people will check social media first. And I just wanna note that I said active accounts because if you create a Twitter account and you send out one tweet per year or have a Facebook page that you only post to once in a blue moon, it's almost not even worth having those things at all. So create your accounts and then post to them regularly. It's a great place to get people interested and engaged and move them into the donor pipeline and just to have conversations with people interested in your cause. So be an active user on the platforms you want to use. And don't just talk at people, respond to their comments and be an active participant. If you don't have time for social media, this is also something you can work with volunteers to help out with. You just wanna make sure that you provide some guidelines for them so that they understand how they're supposed to talk about your nonprofit. And you wanna follow your communications plan to make sure that you're speaking consistently on social media. And next, we just talked about this that utilize email marketing software. There's no way that individually sending out emails to all of your donors is possible or sustainable. So do your research and make an investment tool in a tool that works best for you because you can't effectively market your nonprofit if you're not sending out email blasts and an e-muse letter. So again, check out MailChimp and Constant Contact. We have no relationship with either company at Mighty Cause that they are the most affordable and effective entry level email marketing tools available. The next two tips are about messaging and voice. Having a consistent voice and consistent messaging is so important and will ultimately make all of your marketing so much easier. So your communications plan is really going to be your guide here and help you develop your messaging and voice because it'll help you figure out how to talk to people about the work that you do, what bells you're gonna wanna ring over and over again when you talk about your work. It can be jarring for people on social media and reading emails when each post and each email sounds like it's written by someone completely different and it creates a dissonant experience for your supporters. So working to develop a consistent voice will help build trust and help build your brand. And next, you'll wanna be on the lookout for opportunities to build your audience and we've already talked about how to build your email audience but on social media, most of that is just making it easy for people to find you. Making sure your supporters know about your social media accounts and encouraging them to follow you, putting a link on your website on your Mighty Cause page and basically using whatever avenues you can find to get more people to follow you. And finally, if you download and fill out the communications planning worksheet, use it and utilize the tips on the worksheet because it is a really helpful guide to getting your marketing and messaging in order. So the other piece of this is outreach which is less about blasting things out and more about personalized contact with your supporters and your community. We've talked a lot about this but I can't reiterate it enough. Get out in your community and meet the people where they are. Look for opportunities for outreach. Sometimes this can be piggybacking onto other events in your community. For instance, if there's a big 5K or bicycle ride that happens in your community, get a team of people together to raise money for your cause or see if you can just reserve some booth space at the event. One of the bigger fundraisers we have going on Mighty Cause right now is a bike ride through all five boroughs of New York City and a nonprofit called the Marty Lyons Foundation isn't hosting the event. A bigger company is hosting that event but they enlisted participants to raise money for their cause at the bike ride and they're raising tens of thousands of dollars without the hassle of having to put together their own event. So look for opportunities like that where you can get involved and be a presence without actually having to take on the challenge of actually organizing the events. One thing I highly recommend is segmenting your supporters and finding personalized ways to reach out to them. For board members and major gift donors, personal check-ins and meetings with them throughout the year is a great idea. You wanna keep those relationships personal and consistent when you have a new fundraiser or program launching, check in with them to get their thoughts and ask for their support in person because for these segments going the extra mile to communicate with them is essential to maintaining that relationship and keeping them involved at such a high level. For the other segments listed here, come up with a plan to reach out to them. Check in with the people who've used your services, follow up with one-time donors, give them a call or send them a note in the mail or just send them an email. Come up with an outreach plan beyond your marketing plan so you can keep nurturing and growing those relationships and just scale the size of your effort to the type of relationship that you have with each supporter. And finally, track your contacts and track your outcomes. This will let you know what kind of outreach works and is worth continuing and what outreach is not as productive so you can do more of what works and less of what does not. And you can always try to change up your approach so that you can get the results that you want with your outreach. Okay, so to wrap things up, we'll talk a little bit about the next level and where to go if you've already laid some of this groundwork. The first tip about leveling up is investing in tools. As your nonprofit grows and you have more support, more donors, more contacts, you'll need some tools to help you manage them better. One thing to consider is a CRM or a client relationship management tool which is also called a donor database sometimes. It's a bigger investment and there's a lot of tools out there. So as you find you're outgrowing your current tools or your current systems, investigate a CRM. Another great tool to invest in is marketing automation tools like Autopilot which basically automate things like welcome emails and email series and can automatically plug contacts from one source to another. It's really helpful when you've got a lot of contacts but when you're outgrowing your current tools, automation is the next step. And then you'll want to consider Mighty Cause Premium. Premium is our subscription service as I mentioned and it gets rid of platform fees on Mighty Cause and it gives you a lot of access. It gives you access to a lot of additional tools that can be really helpful like a CRM tool, data analytics, automation and integration with other programs and the calls to action tool for volunteers, a custom donation page and a custom subdomain and a bunch more. It's a really good affordable step up for nonprofits who are looking to do more and get more sophisticated with their fundraising and it's really the most affordable tool on the market. We made sure when we were determining prices that we were competitive and it's really the lowest available, lowest cost tool with the highest value. So as I said, I'll send out a link to sign up for a demo and follow up to this webinar. So if you're interested in leveling up and getting more sophisticated, I highly recommend just signing up for a demo and getting a free trial. The next thing you'll want to do as you grow is determine an advertising budget and consider paid advertising. Things like Google AdWords, Facebook ads, direct mail marketing and so on can be an excellent way to grow even further and help boost your nonprofit's visibility. And as you make contacts in your community, you may want to consider launching a formal sponsorship program and creating a one page for prospective sponsors that explains each level, what your sponsor provides and what you provide in turn. This is really the next level in creating and managing community and corporate partnerships. And finally, as you grow, you'll most likely want to add some development and marketing staff as soon as your budget allows. Having dedicated employees who are in charge of handling your fundraising and your marketing are a worthwhile investment and will help you take your nonprofit to new heights. All right, so I know that was a lot of information to throw at you, but now I'm going to open up the floor to any questions. So if you have a question, just type it into the questions box on your go-to webinar panel. And it looks like we've already got quite a few, so I'll just go through them one by one. Okay, so this question is about ticketing for an event. Right now, we do not have a way to sell tickets through Mighty Cause, but that is coming down the pike. There is a, you could, there's a lot of different ways you can do it. And if you would like to contact me offline, we can talk through that and just work with us, work toward a solution for you so that you can use Mighty Cause for your event because we have great team fundraising tools and we're rolling out an events tool very soon. So just, if you want to email me at lindaatmightycause.com, I'm happy to set up a call so we can sort of take that offline and talk about your needs and working out a solution for you. Yes, we will be sending out a copy of the slides as well as a recording of this webinar. What are ways to address leaks from a donor base that occur at the stewarding stage? Well, that's a really great question. A lot of it is really just noticing who left the pipeline. Did this donor just stop, did we stop contacting them, figuring out what happened with those donors who were leaving? You want to look for patterns. So for instance, if you sent them a thank you card or you called them to say thank you for the donation but then you never followed up, then you would know, okay, well, we need to stay in contact with them. So you have their information, your goal is to get them back into the pipeline. So there's really no hard and fast rule here but you basically just want to look at who's leaving the pipeline, what's causing your leak by looking for patterns and then take steps to correct that because you can get people back into the pipeline once they leave. You just need to figure out what was the lapse and how can we fix it? So making contact with them and just checking in with them even if it's just sending an email, making a phone call, sending them a note in the mail, those are all ways you can get people back into the pipeline. And then when you realize that this is what was happening is that we weren't contacting these people anymore or we weren't giving them a follow-up after they made their donation, which is really common. People will make a donation to a fundraiser and then the nonprofit takes their donation and makes good use of it but doesn't actually communicate with the donor about what their donation helped them achieve. So it's really just a matter of looking at the information that you have and just trying to A, get them back into the pipeline and B, correct the issue that caused the leak. So hopefully that answers that question. Let's see. Okay, there's a question about marketing automation tools. Though they're a little bit more expensive. I'm not gonna lie to you, it's a higher price point. Marketing automation tools basically allow you to plug people into journeys. So instead of creating a bunch of one-off emails, you can create a journey for them. You can create a welcome series for instance when they get on your email list, you can send them a series of five different emails that just is automated for them. So you do have to build the emails but when you get 10 new contacts, you don't have to send 10 more emails. You don't miss them. You're able to automate that process. So that can be really helpful. A lot of marketing automation tools will pull in contacts from AdWords. They'll help you sync up your lists and get more sophisticated when it comes to things like A-B testing, and I'm sorry, I'm losing my voice a little bit, but A-B testing different segments of lists and basically creating a more complex structure instead of just blasting an email out to all of your contacts at once. So that's basically what they do. One that we use here at Mighty Cause is called Autopilot. And again, it's a much higher price point than a program like Mailchimp in constant contact. And they do have some of the tools that you can use to build journeys. But it's definitely something if you're advanced level, if you're mid level to advanced level with email marketing, it's something to look into because it does take a lot of time out of just creating these one-off emails multiple times and helps you get more sophisticated with testing different subject lines, testing different buttons, different button placements. So that you can get more clicks and get people to the place that you wanna get them whether that's your Mighty Cause page to make a donation or wherever you'd like to send them. So it's definitely worth looking into if you're comfortable with email marketing, they are a little bit more cumbersome to use in some ways because you have to be able to create these journeys and understand what they do. But definitely it's worth looking into if you have any questions for me or questions about specific tools or specific functions, I'm happy to answer any questions directly via email. All right, okay, sorry, I'm just reading this next question. Okay, so this is actually a really good question. This is about email lists. This nonprofit has an email list of about 600 and they have about 100 people that seem to be very interested and the other 500, they're just really not paying attention or opening emails. And so kind of where is the focus? Do you wanna really nurture that 100, that group of 100 that are opening emails and really interested or do you wanna try to get more people involved? And the answer is really both. Honestly, one thing you probably wanna look into is the industry standards for open rates. It's not unusual at all for out of a list of 600 to have just 20% actually open an email and even less than that click through. So unfortunately people just get inundated with a lot of emails, so they'll see it. They may even just look at the preview on their phone but not actually open it and not click on anything. So that's really common. So don't be discouraged by that if you're sending out an email to 600 and 100 people actually open it, that's not a bad response rate at all when it comes to the standards in the industry. I would say what you would wanna do most likely is try to A-B test. You can do that easily through most email marketing software. It could be an issue with your subject lines. Try different things and see what works and what gives you a bigger open rate and what gives you a lower open rate. Try different placement for buttons. So if you have an email going out with a call to action button and it's at the bottom, try moving it out to the top and see if that helps you and just test and try different things. And with those 100 people that are super engaged with your nonprofit, send them more emails. You can start a segment of those highly engaged email recipients who wanna read your emails and are reading your emails and are clicking through and send them more and ask more of them because they're engaged. You can even take it to the next level and email them personally and just talk to them and find out more about what brought them to your nonprofit and what they're interested in. So there's a lot of things you can do. You basically wanna do both at the same time. You wanna try to increase the amount of engagement that you're getting and those people who are highly engaged, especially if you're seeing them over and over again opening your emails and responding to your emails even. Take them to the next level and just nurture those relationships because right now they're opening emails. You could turn them into sustaining donors or even major gift donors depending on the type of resources that person has available. So that's a really good question and I'd love to hear some results if you're able to do some testing and find out what's maybe causing some low engagement rates but honestly it's not really that low of an engagement rate. It's pretty on par with what we see across the industry unfortunately. Okay, so this is a question about paid advertising avenues. I know we're coming up on an hour so if I miss anybody's question I'll just follow up with you in an email. I'd like to know more about paid advertising avenues other than basically print advertising. And that's a great question. Basically you wanna look at digital channels because that's where most people are. I talk a lot about meeting people where they are and where they are is online. So thinking about Facebook advertising things like Google AdWords. Ad role is kind of a remarketing tool that you can use. There's other remarketing tools that you can use as well. So basically if somebody goes to your website you can have advertisements show up all over the web for them. And the cool thing about those is that you can really track your results and see what's effective with digital advertising in a way that you really can't with print advertising. You don't really know how many people are seeing a billboard and how many people are taking action because they saw a billboard. So with digital advertising you can really get more information about what people are doing and what people are responding to and what's not really a good use of your money. So I would definitely look into the different digital channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram which is done through Facebook advertising and just get familiar with those tools because that's where the people are. People are definitely much more responsive to online ads than they are to like a radio ad because how do you track that? It's really hard to get that data. So if you're looking for more paid advertising venues I would say check out paid advertising on social media check out Google AdWords. There are Google grants available for nonprofits that basically give you a free amount of advertising each month. It's quite a bit, it's like $10,000. And consider utilizing that and moving into the digital space as opposed to staying with print or billboards or radio or TV. All right, so again, yes, we're gonna get, I'm gonna send you the slides and I'm gonna send you guys the recording as soon as this webinar is over. So keep an eye out for that. If you guys think of any other questions or need some more tips or need some more personalized advice for your nonprofit you can always email me. My email address is linda at mightycause.com that's L-I-N-D-A at mightycause.com. I'm always happy to set up calls and chat with you about whatever issues you're encountering and give some advice. So don't be afraid to email me, I don't bite. But we're coming up just at three o'clock now. So thank you guys so much. So those were so many great questions and I really appreciate you taking your time taking time out of your busy day to come to this webinar. So thank you guys so much. Keep an eye out for that recording and have a great day.