 So as I said, I'm Eli, I'm a community manager for TechSoup, and I'm going to be your host today. In today's webinar, we're going to learn about nonprofits and how they can adapt their fundraising and development strategies in this uncertain and unusual time where we suspect there is inflation and a looming recession. So if you've got questions, we have got answers. We've put together a team of experts who will lead a discussion about fundraising in 2023. So with this, I'm going to pass the baton over to Chelsea, who is going to be leading and introducing our experts for today. Thank you, Eli. My name is Chelsea Reichart. I am a customer success manager for onboard meetings. And I work primarily with nonprofits. So I am very excited to be here today to lead this discussion with some really, really impressive panelists. So just to set the scene, we intend to explore during this session, quite a few things, how fundraising challenges and obstacles have changed over the last few years. How important elements of strong fundraising framework, how to address a decline in charitable giving, and how to engage and retain donors during this time. Without further ado, I would love to introduce you to our guest panelists for today's discussion. First we have Stephanie Corey, principal at Stephanie Corey Consulting. Stephanie has dedicated her career to the nonprofit sector for 20 years. She has served as an executive director for a health advocacy organization, as well as program management roles for human services organizations. In these roles, Stephanie expanded programming, strengthened infrastructure, group fundraising revenue and attracted talent. She is an adjunct faculty member for Villanova University's College of Professional Studies, where she teaches fundraising. And Stephanie is also a board source certified governance consultant and a licensed standards for excellence consultant. We have a chapter on boards and fundraising for the second edition of the Handbook of Board Governance, which was published by John Wiley and Sons in 2020. In addition to Stephanie, we also have Eric Hanberg, the author of The Little Book of Boards, a board member's handbook for small and very small nonprofits. Eric has spent more than 20 years working with nonprofits. In addition to serving as the director of two nonprofits, he served as an interim executive director twice and worked with nonprofits in marketing and fundraising. He's also served on boards and committees for more than a dozen organizations, often in leadership roles and several times during a capital campaign. He is the author of four books for nonprofits focusing on nonprofit management, fundraising, social media and board governance, which have collectively sold tens of thousands of copies. They've been praised as essential reads for nonprofits by Forbes.com, LinkedIn for nonprofits, Kirkus Reviews and thousands of executive directors and board members. Thank you both so much for joining us today. And for all of you joining us as well, we are just so excited to be able to present this discussion for you. So to set the stage, I'm just going to go over a little bit of background context before we get started. Looking back over the last three years, the fundraising landscape has changed quite a bit. Development teams went from navigating an unexpected pandemic to facing unexpected inflation rate increases and a potential recession, both of which have had a huge impact on fundraising. Here's a quick recap. In 2020 and 2021 there was a substantial spike in charitable giving lockdowns and restricted social activity left many people with more expendable income than normal. Combine that with a collective desire to help others during a global crisis organizations that rely on charitable giving so an increase in donations from both returning and first time donors. As the pandemic persisted there was a market correction and charitable giving as the world opened back up the public's attention and disposable income started to be spent elsewhere. Then of course inflation started rising costs of living surged and disposable income across the globe declined sharply. We saw small gifts dry up significantly and corporate giving decreased also. This brings us today where nonprofits face the challenge of fundraising under these less than ideal financial conditions. That's why we brought in these two experts to help recalibrate our fundraising perspective and to also offer some strategies for optimizing development frameworks and strategies for unique circumstances. One of the most strategies that we wanted to talk about was fundraising framework fundamentals, say that three times in a row it's very difficult. For a topic and challenge this big it helps to start at square one identifying and solidifying a strong fundraising strategy that is not necessarily recession proof, but recession resistant. Eric, would you be able to start us off with an overview of a strong fundamental framework for fundraising. Absolutely happy to take that on Chelsea. Yeah, so it's important to think about when there's uncertainty like sometimes it's good to get back to basics. And I am really a fan of the donor pipeline and the donor pyramid. And if you aren't familiar with these concepts I'm going to give a high level gloss and if you are hopefully it's just a good reminder of like some of these key steps. If you think about a donor pipeline. I want you to think about a cycle that we're going to take a donor's journey through. We're going to identify who this donor is maybe that just means that they're on your mailing list. Maybe that means they, they catch you at an event, and they say hey I want to learn more. That's the donor pipeline. Next we're going to take those folks that the entry to the donor pipeline. Next we're going to take those folks, and we're going to start cultivating them by telling them more about our organization and good work that we do. And at some point that's going to turn into an ask that might be, you know, out of fundraising event we spend the first part of the event telling them about how great we are and then we ask them for money. It also might be, you know, over a series of emails or letters over the course of a year. And after that we're going to assume that we got a gift from this person. After that solicitation that we're going to thank them, we're going to thank them at an appropriate level that might mean, you know they get a letter the next day thanking them for their for their gift. That might mean for certain folks a board member calls them and expresses their personal appreciation for their gift there's lots of ways to thank them. And we're going to thank them by showing them why, you know, or how we're going to use their gift. We're going to tell them all about what we're doing with it. We're going to show them our good work and guess what that sounds a lot like cultivation. We're going to take that and move them, ideally, to a new level of giving by taking stewardship right back into cultivation and telling them more and asking for a larger gift next. And if we go to the next slide, one of the things that people are like well you know where do I start how do I figure out you know who I want to ask for more money from. I like to think of these three things people you have a great relationship with people who have wealth, who have means, and people who really love your mission. If you can find people who, you know, even tick two of these three boxes you have a great relationship, and they have, they have means. You have a great relationship and they just really love the mission. That is someone who might give a really great gift. If you put the time in. And if you have someone who has all three that has the potential to really maybe even be a transformative gift. So think about these things as I move to this next slide, which is the donor pyramid. This is just a visualization of everyone who who has given you money let's say in the last year. Most likely you have a lot of people at the bottom who give small gifts $20 a month you know whatever it is, something like that maybe that's a big gift for you maybe that's actually higher up on the pyramid. And then you have another group even above that you know in this hypothetical example a couple people who give 500 and maybe one or two who give you know 1000. That's a very normal donor pyramid. And your goal as a nonprofit fundraiser is to start expanding upward on the pyramid. So many nonprofits get stuck with those people just at the bottom, and they don't think about the strategies on how to move them up one level. How do you get the person who gives $50 at the end of the year to give $10 a month that's twice the gift how do you take the people who give $20 a month and get 500, you know, etc, etc. The more you go. That's where the real rewards of fundraising come from that's where there's real efficiencies. And that's where you can really make a transformative difference and I think that that's a really good place to close that fundraising one on one just thrown at you. But again, it is really important during these times to be thinking about some of those basic. Yeah, thank you so much. Once that framework is solidified the next challenge is engaging donors which isn't always easy. Stephanie, can you speak to how simply not being afraid to ask for money is an important aspect for fundraising. Definitely, I think a lot of times we get so focused on cultivation that we don't actually get to solicitation. We're sending an e-news letter we're sending maybe a print newsletter which I love print newsletters by the way because eventually someone will read them. They'll put them in that pile and they'll get to them versus that e-news letter oh yeah I'll mark that to read later and I'll never get to it. And even a soft ask in those in print newsletter just inserting that remittance envelope and it's magic. People will put a check in them and mail them back, especially if you have a direct mail responsive donor base, middle aged and older donors, and even in your e-news letters you know that donate now button, you know, letting people know that, you know, but we're still accepting gifts we'd love to have you make a gift even without the direct, you know, that would be in a typical direct mail solicitation or solicitation email but not being afraid to remind everyone that annual giving isn't just necessarily one gift per person per year and really making the case for why their support matters more now than ever. Yeah, that's that's great advice. Another fundamental element we haven't touched on yet is leveraging technology and your fundraising efforts. Eric would you be willing to speak to the difference that a fundraising database or similar tech can make for nonprofits. Absolutely, it's really essential during a time like this to make sure you have a working donor database, whether that means, you know, getting one for the very first time and making the switch from Excel to a database, or, you know, just really spending the time to make sure it's working for you the way it is. So, you know, fundraising means that you care about the next dollar as much as you care about the dollar that you just got. It means that you can go back to that donor and ask them for money again but that means you have to know who they are, how much they gave, when they gave, why they gave if you can if you can find that information for some of those major donors, and the only way you're going to keep track of that is with the database it's so essential. Again, if you already have one but maybe it's been kind of neglected a little bit because it just seems cumbersome. This is a really good time to reinvest that energy into it because it'll really pay dividends for moving people up to new levels on that donor pyramid. Great. Thank you so much for that insight. Another topic that we wanted to cover today is ways to address a decline in charitable giving a solid framework is so important but we also recognize that some strategies can make an immediate impact during a decline in charitable giving. Stephanie, can you provide some insights on how nonprofits can explore things such as planned giving and donor advised funds to generate funding during the time. Certainly plan giving, which is often, you know, as simple as someone including your organization in their will or as a beneficiary of their retirement plan or life insurance policy. That's not money that generally would come in today because unfortunately we have to wait for the donor to to pass away, but you don't want to stop your plan giving efforts because the time you're investing today will pay off in 510 1520 years. So don't neglect your future of your organization your long term sustainability to focus simply on current gifts. You know one thing you may hear from donors is well my portfolio is down. I'm not in the position to make a significant gift right now. Well for your donors who have donor advised funds or you may hear them called daffs, they have already given that money away, and it is sitting in an account, waiting to be distributed to nonprofits like yours. The donors made an irrevocable gift to their daff and these are held at community foundations, National Philanthropic Trust Schwab charitable fidelity charitable a lot of the big investment companies have have these vehicles, and the donor got the tax deduction they transferred channel they're going to be transferring securities to the daff, and the money is invested and they essentially advise the daff. Okay, we would like to give $5,000 to this organization 10,000 this organization, and the organization will sometimes know who holds the daff. Sometimes they, it will be like the fuzzy bunny fund and you have no idea how to think that person. But if you do have the contact information for your donors that have donor advised funds, you definitely know that that a they have money sitting that has to be given away. There are not currently rules on how much has to be distributed each year so there is some concern with daffs that donors have sort of hoarded money for a rainy nonprofit day, and not giving it away, but the minimum to open a daff at places is five $10,000 but most people have daffs with significantly more than that that it doesn't cost them anything to make that designation to you. Now, I will say some folks look at, just as their personal portfolio, maybe, you know, got have gone down with with the markets they see that their daff has to, and they might want to wait for it to regain some of the funds before they lose them, but you know certainly it's not going to cost anything today and you know certainly again with you making the case for for support, and, and, you know, urging them not to be like my husband is like well I'm going to wait for it to recover I'd I'd prefer to, wait until it gets back to a certain point where it was instead of I tell him you know please support our favorite organizations now, but donor advised funds are definitely a great way for donors to support you right now and to have a sense of someone who has a donor advised fund, they generally have some assets to invest in either a profit, other ventures so it's certainly someone that is capable of making a gift. Great that's such great advice thank you so much for elaborating a little bit more on what those donor advice funds are. Eric, physical mail is another tool that nonprofits can leverage in this climate is that right. And I'll second, you know what Stephanie said earlier, abandoning your news, your print mail feels like a good idea, because you're going to save the cost you're going to save the cost of mailing and you know postage and paper and envelopes and all that stuff. The return on those opportunities to ask people for money via you know a letter at the end of the year or maybe a couple letters at the end of the year. It's really high it's substantially higher than email every so often you know there will be some social media hit that just you know really hits and suddenly you know went viral and you got a lot of money, but you can't bank on that you can't on things like that what you can plan on is if you have a couple hundred a couple thousands addresses of people that you can reliably know that you know 510% of those people are going to probably give if you write a really good letter, you make your case. You will get a much higher return that way than you will via email it's just it's just what the math shows right now. And it's worth continuing, especially if you have those addresses, it can still be really important. Perfect so don't abandon that physical mail that's great advice. Another aspect that development team should be focusing on is prioritizing efficiency and ROI. What are some ways to inject efficiency in your overall fundraising efforts during this time, and this can be for either of you if you have any ideas. Well, you know a lot of organizations think let's let's do an event and we'll raise a lot of money. Well, events are perhaps the most inefficient way in terms of return on investment to raise money and in talking to development directors food costs have gone up. It's so much more expensive to feed people a rubber chicken meal at the club that then it used to be. So if you're a manager aware this knowing that okay my $150 ticket. Wow, probably after everything said and done the organization gets $10 how how is this efficient. So events can be great if they serve another purpose. Are you actually raising friends, are you engaging your constituents. Are you looking at it as simply a way to raise money, probably not your most efficient methodology. I'll chime in there as well. The most efficient way to raise money is to figure out, you know, using your database who's at the top of your pyramid, you know choose five people, get to know them over a couple cups of coffee or visit their home or bring them in for a tour, and then ask them for money, like directly face to face in the same room. Is this a nonprofit that you can support, you know would you make a pledge. That's always the most efficient and for many people can be the most scary, but if you get over the fear if you memorize your first line here's what I'm going to say. You can get over the fear, and you can, you can get amazing gifts that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise by dancing around. So you have to pick up the phone send a text and an email and and don't be afraid of rejection. I mean it people are busy they're not going to read every email from their favorite nonprofit that have the people I don't even think listen to voicemail anymore when you leave it for them somewhere so you, you have to not take it personally and be persistent. I mean, I've even had some folks say oh try 15 times. Okay, don't be that much of a stalker, but don't just call someone once and they don't call you back so you give up. And certainly the folks that the do respond to you and are willing to meet with you. They are a great group to focus on because they're interested in deepening that relationship. Fundraising is a lot like baseball thing that it's the beginning of the baseball season. The best baseball players, you know are only getting a hit three or four out of 10 times, and your fundraising might be the same but you're killing it if that's where you're doing so think about that. Oh, good. I was saying it's prioritizing the time to do that. So it's, you know, using technology to calendar, I'm going to call this person I'm going to email that person and not just putting it off putting it off because yeah it's it's uncomfortable to talk to a stranger but hopefully you do know your donors or if this is a great chance to do it. And especially if you're new at your organization. Hi, I knew I see that you've you've been a donor I would love to meet you and put a face with a name. And you can do that for about 18 months, you can be new for 18 months. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. I'm still new to onboard even though I've been here for like 14 months and it is working really well for me. So thank you for that. Another really important topic I think and we've kind of touched on it but I'm sure there's a little bit more. It's how to engage and retain donor base during this time engaging your donor base becomes more complicated under poor financial conditions, but it's still just as important to keep engaging them one way to activate and retain our donor basis stewardship. Stephanie is there anything else that you can add to explain why focusing on stewardship is so important for fundraising teams right now. Well you don't want to give up on your donors, perhaps you know dispense disposable income is down now but they still love you and as soon as they feel like they can make a gift they will. So don't cut people off your newsletter list, unless they asked to be taken off and realize that you know donors do lapse where they haven't given for you know 1218 months, and they may not realize it. I find so many donors you realize this when you publish an annual report with a list of names in it and they call and say, Oh my gosh I'm not on it and you talk talk to them and pull up your dad and your database and spend two years since they gave and they're mortified because in their past they just made a gift so it's definitely not time to cut people from your communications list, unless someone asks to be, and I would certainly look at the metrics your open rates for your electronic communications and see who's engaging, and and definitely not stop communicating with folks and, and certainly not stop stop asking. Thank you. Eric building on that point can you describe how organizations can get creative with our monthly giving programs. Yes, absolutely one of the things that we saw during the pandemic was that you know organizations that had a lot of monthly donors didn't have as much of a cliff maybe in the spring of 2020. People don't necessarily call the you know stop their monthly pledge like that takes a lot of work they're usually pretty happy to let that ride. One of the things that nonprofits have started to do with great success is simply like, change their their donor, the donate button on the website to be defaulting to a monthly gift, like default that to a monthly gift with the options of $10 a month $20 a month, and then maybe there's another tab that people can can move over to if they want to make a one time gift. But just that default will probably start getting more gifts than you've gotten with just one time work so that's that's one thing to think about. Another thing to think about is that some have created programs where they will have a quarterly webinar, you know, for those monthly donors just as an extra incentive as they're trying to kickstart that. You don't want to go overboard with this but you know just getting something where it's like hey this is something special for a monthly donors who are supporting us month in month out. If you can keep it virtual if you can keep it you know low cost that's a nice thing to do as you're trying to build that that revenue. And you know I remember one fundraising event that I was at where the speaker who was making the ask. If you were going to give $100 give $10 a month, you know what I mean like like things like that like he pitched it at the way to stretch your gift and a lot of people do respond to that it's hard for some people to make a one time gift of $100 $250, but a $10 $20 a month gift, they can actually budget for them and their pocketbook, they don't have that issue that's definitely just mentioned where they're like oh no I haven't made my gift, you know you did because it's on a monthly one. So you can make these these asks, and I think that the many nonprofits, especially now that we have streaming and all these things that we pay monthly for people are used to it in a way that they even you know 10 years ago weren't so it's it's really a powerful way to give stability to your to your giving. And that I love that that really resonates I think especially with younger people who might be interested in starting to become donors for the first time being able to budget something smaller every month is seems a lot more feasible than one larger lump sum so I really appreciate you sharing that. Another thing that I wanted to mention is that on board does provide fun raising support within our portal. Board management software can be very helpful tool for nonprofit governance in general, but also specifically for development teams and fundraising committees. Right now fundraising and financial committees need to be connected and as collaborative as ever board management platforms like on board offer one central location for the seamless collaboration that is vital for an agile and efficient fundraising And as a tech suit partner on board offers special pricing to tech suit members in an effort to make our solutions accessible to nonprofits of all shapes and sizes. So if you're not already an onboard partner, we'd love to be able to demo this solution for you and really talk about how we can make your board or your nonprofit even more impactful and efficient. So we do have a survey that we're going to pop up before we get to the q&a we just want to give you a chance to let us know if they you would like any additional information. So you're going to see this pop up on your screen and if you could just take a moment to respond. Awesome I'm already saying 5657 responses thank you all. Oh, and I just saw your chat and I love that thank you so much. Nice we are at 75% participation go team. Perfect we're going to wrap this up in another five seconds thank you everyone for your participation and closed. So we are going to get to the q&a next is that right you are. Absolutely that sounds great let's move right into that. So, um, yeah, so we've had lots of great questions come from the attendees and really grateful for everyone for coming in and sharing that. Let us dive right in. And I'm going to start off with a question that I'm going to aim right at Eric. So here it comes. Is this a good time to start a fundraising event, even if we've never done one before. I think chapter four of my book on fundraising is called events will kill you, which gets to the point that Stephanie made as well they're really hard. Events are great for getting donations from people who have maybe already given from an annual giving program, and you can get another gift from them in an event. They're also great for finding new donors if you really don't know how to get new donors this is a pretty good way because maybe your board members will bring their friends or something like that you can get some new donors that way. But don't go into it expecting a lot of money in the first year especially. If it's really tight. Maybe it's not the year to try to get this going. But if you really are looking for those new donors or new ways to have your current donors give again, it might be worth considering. Right, so yes, but some caution is preached here. Awesome Stephanie your next. What about donor acquisition. If we think we're about to enter a recession. Well donor acquisition is notoriously expensive, compared to retaining your existing donors. That said, if you have a very small donor base and it's not enough to support you, you know what what choice do you really have. And that's where I would be strategic with donor acquisition when you're looking at mailing list rental or purchase, really having a sense of what the demographics are of who your current supporters are. So who your perfect person is and what more, what, who that person looks like. Where do they live what are their hobbies and really making sure you're being strategic with where you're trying to find new donors. But I would really focus on retention now because donor retention rates are abysmal typically in that the mid 40%. I've got a quick question coming in from john, which says, do we ever stop adding to the donor pipeline or is this a forever project. It's always good to add new people into the pipeline. You know you get email signups that someone who you can start cultivating around that circle. And you'll get people who who self identified by writing you a check you didn't even know who they were they're like here I am I'm a donor using check that's a great great way to break them in the pipeline. But it doesn't stop in the sense that like you're always thinking about a donor, you know they're just given now I need to thank them or it's been a few months now I need to start cultivating for the next one. And hopefully it's not just a circle hopefully not treading water I want you to imagine if I can illustrate it like a virtuous cycle that's going up and off. So what you'll see with that donor pipeline is keep the structure just keep moving people up. So speaking of these models I've got a question here coming in from the Boston Museum, who says, I love these ideas around the donor pyramid and the pipeline model, but I've got a smaller community of about 3000 ish members. Are these models appropriate to a smaller community or is there sort of a cut off. I don't think that there's any that there's any cut off. Even the smallest nonprofit probably has 20 people who give a little bit and one person at the top of their small pyramid. The pyramid works the pipeline works. Sometimes fundraising is one of those things where it's like there's always a new idea there's always a new idea, and sometimes just sticking to, to some basic models will actually help save you time, because you're not going off and trying things. You know, shiny object syndrome, you can really just focus on, here's my plan I'm going to cultivate them. I'm going to ask and then I'm going to steward them. I'm going to take my pyramid and I'm going to try to move these people up one level. It works. Now let's go deeper into donor advised funds. There's a couple questions there. So the first question comes from Elizabeth which is to say, this is a really exciting opportunity. Is there like a publicly available list of donor advised funds or is this also hidden away information. Well, it's not like private foundations that have to file a 990 and you can use search capabilities or go to the IRS website to find them. The reason some people choose a donor advised fund is for that level of privacy. Other people because it's more efficient. If you have and I hate to say this like only a million dollars to invest in a foundation it wouldn't be efficient to create your own 501 C3. Now that said, a lot of times community foundations in their annual reports are on their websites do list new fund donors they have now sometimes people give their funds weird names you're not going to know who it is. Other times it might be the Stephanie Corey fund. So if you can figure out how to reach me, you could potentially approach me, and certainly paying attention to outchecks, you receive money from your donors, definitely noting in your donor database this came through a donor advised fund. So you know who to reach out to, and I will say that some of the bigger organizations really do a lot of outreach once they receive one gift from a donor advised fund they are direct mailing you to death, because my husband does have one and I won't name the name of the National Children's Hospital type thing. We get a letter every month now. Let's talk about some best practices around my follow up question from an anonymous member here is what are some of the ways you would recommend for actually working with and building a relationship with people who are administering these donor funds. Well, there are two differences there so there's the donor, the donor who is sort of, you know, the one who decides that, you know, we hear. So I don't need the money I'm the, why am I blanking on the, we wouldn't call my trustee I'm a successor so I don't get to control our families why my is after my husband passes away that, but I get inserted, you know, make it because he knows I'm going to give it all but so there's like the Charles Schwab that the donor goes and says okay I want $1000 to go to my local humane society. So, you know, certainly a relationship, you know, it'd be very hard to have a relationship with you know, Charles Schwab or what have you but with your local community foundation, you could certainly get to know the staff because believe it or not, some have donor advice funds and don't know who they want to give their money to because they haven't been philanthropic yet and they don't have their their pet causes. So it's being known to them. So if they have a donor that says, yeah you know I have all my money sitting there I kind of like animal do you know anyone who works with animals. And I would treat the donor advice fund donors, like you would, you know an individual donor because we get these letters addressed to dear advisors at the Boris family fund thinking okay, you could just use our names because we do release our names. So we're being treated like for this big foundation when it was a one time memorial gift so it's a little off putting. So I would general, I would typically try to be as personal as possible with with your donor advice fund donors and treat them like the individuals they are not some huge corporate foundation. I would recommend if you don't if you don't have any relationship at all with your community foundation in your area. Find out if you have one get on their newsletter, apply for their grants they Stephanie said they often hold those donor advice funds. And if this, if the staff there knows about you, because hey you got this gift from them. So they can let one of their donors know hey there's this organization doing really good work. You know you there's there's benefits to being part of your community foundations network anyway, but sometimes you might get a get a surprise gift from from their recommendations. Let's go a little bit meta. So someone asked you the question about major gift donors and zoom. Do you think that zoom has a role to play in meeting with donors, or do you think, really because these are high touch relationships, this should only like these larger gifts should only be asked for in person. I think this depends on your donors preference and geography. I don't think your donor wants to see their gift spent on you flying all the way from south Florida to Anchorage to ask them for a gift when that's the only reason you would be in Alaska wouldn't be, oh I'm visiting a bunch of people can I pop in and see you in three weeks. So especially if you're an environmental organization where you know that that's what you're trying to fight against is climate change. And certainly donors comfort level some people are still really concerned about coven and I don't necessarily want to get close to someone they don't know. I would give that as an option to donors I'd love to meet with you what is convenient for you, certainly in person is the best but you know zoom is certainly better than an email a text over the phone. I will second all of that donors donors many donors still prefer it and it saves a lot of time on everyone and if that's what they like stick with the donors preference. Great. So here's a bit of a question around monthly giving and it's about the dance between how often should we be reaching out to people versus every time we asked me reach out to someone. We are then basically saying oh it's a chance me to cancel my monthly recurring donation. And so, is there any advice and just like how do we find that balance point between stewarding these people in monthly donor relationships, but knowing that every time we reach out to them, we also have this risk tied into it. Well, I think you don't want to not include monthly donors in your solicitations now I would probably limit the number of solicitations like if I'm not a monthly donor and you send me seven maybe the monthly donor you don't send me all seven. But definitely, you know don't exclude your monthly donors from your communications. You know, they shouldn't just hear from you when you send them a tax receipt at the end of the year. Absolutely. They need to know what you're doing. I think that the real question is like when do you you know how often do you have news how often can you share. Most likely, you know you can sustain a monthly or a five monthly newsletter. You may not be able to do weekly although honestly, if you have things happening that frequently. Maybe they want to hear from you and if there really is something interesting exciting newsworthy that's happening regularly like don't don't necessarily hesitate to send them. People want to hear good things they want to hear about the good work that you're doing. And that'll be motivating for them. I actually have two questions have just popped in around community foundations and the question is, is there a clearing house how do I find my local community foundations. I say that if your locations is enabled on your browser and you type in community foundation your local ones you probably show up. I mean, I could, I would say you know you'd also start by you know whatever town you live in or state you live in, like I'm in Delaware so we have the Delaware Community Foundation, but then in the greater Philadelphia area, each county has their own plus there's the Philadelphia foundation that covers the five county region. And I realized that if you're living in a more rural area, you know it might be by the state or maybe a few states together. You can certainly just, you know, do that type of search and if you're national organization certainly a lot of community foundations to try to build relationships with but maybe focusing on those and then the area where a lot of your donors seem to be community foundations can be great for other things to you can you know if you get a donor who says hey I'm interested in setting up a plan gift with you and you have no idea where to go your local community foundation might have some resources and ideas. If you have the opportunity to have an endowment they might be able to help administer that for you they they are resources to nonprofits in a variety of ways not just as donors, and they're worth researching your city states and county and see who's around you. That's a really good point because if you know a donor comes to you and says you know I want to do a charitable gift annuity and you're like. Are we even qualified we do that your local community foundation can do that for you. You don't get to keep all of the money because they have to stay in existence but that's how you can certainly help donors facilitate more complicated gifts. Absolutely. Here's a question around the acquisition side of things and purchase list. So Jessica writes in this age where data privacy is a big concern for many people, and the laws are constantly getting tighter. What are the current thoughts around purchasing mailing lists. Is that like a reputational risk for an organization like, or is it something that we should still consider pursuing. I guess I would argue where else are you going to find how else you're going to reach out to people you don't know. And with that we're talking primarily about like a snail mail list but the problem is a lot of those are based on people's magazine subscriptions and I don't know about you but I get a lot fewer magazines now that they come in print. I don't subscribe because I love print. And you know the other option. And again I don't know they would actually does this but if you look at the fundraising literature organizations trade lists. And I'm sure if I can see your face as I see looks of what. But I'm sure Eric maybe that literature says consider trading your list with with other organizations. And certainly what you're getting what you're really getting with the list is you're just getting names and addresses. And it's not. I don't, I'm not aware of how to purchase like email lists and then we're talking about like spam and, and all kinds of things, but also making it easy for people to opt out of solicitation so making, you know, include for any of your donors actually in your direct mail solicitations, giving instructions for opting out of your list. I will. I will add that in my experience purchasing lists is worse at a scale that really is like a large nonprofit thing and a lot of small nonprofits just just can't make it work it requires a lot of follow up, moving people up the pyramid it's a big task to really make it work if you're a small nonprofit. And I'm not sure I would explore that heavy cost. You might consider and even instead of trading I do know some organizations, you know, the three community theaters in my town. Support each other in the sense of like they tell each other hey here's the shows happening at this other theater, because they know that if people support theater in general that's good for all of them. They're not trading their list they're just supporting each other in some ways it's an abundance mindset. And sometimes you might find an organization that is willing to participate in some way with an abundance mindset and share you share each other's news or hey go find out what they're doing. But a lot of people do kind of want to hoard it and they get worried so it's going to depend on on on your organization whether you want to actually trade, whether you just want to support each other. Right, so there's a couple ways to come at that both lead on the explicit list trade and then these partnership models, which don't necessarily get you into like some of these other data sharing issues. So I've got a question here from Barbara, who basically has got a bit of a case study around diversifying funding. So Barbara says, you know, we just lost a major foundation grant and a major government grant, both of which have been longtime, you know, annual general operating support. It's like anchors. How do you suggest that an organization that has this big gap in their in their funding all of a sudden start going and building like a diversified new funding pool. That's actually an opportunity. A lot of times donors think oh well nonprofits are all funded by grants and and government funding is to communicate with your donors. Hey, we need you as individuals now more than ever, and and also exploring opportunities perhaps with with other foundations in your area doing research and seeing who you could develop relations with because relationships with because foundations that are in the business of giving away money regardless of if there is a recession. Yeah, sometimes you can you can do those research you can you can find someone who is a grant writer who has, you know, access to a database of foundations and grant opportunities. And you might, you know, it's might be worth contracting with that person to help you identify new grants or foundations. Going back to the donors is always, you know, where my head goes to as well just like just like Stephanie, you know asking your donors hey we lost this big grant, we're working on it, can you help us fill the gap. You know, don't don't. It's not a hair on fire moment people respond poorly to panic. You got to be you, you can ask to be saved once. And so you don't want to, you don't want to say save us save us you know every six months. So if there's a gap, you can talk about the gap you can talk about the importance of the service. But it's not a panic vibe that you want to be giving off you. You can see not people yeah urgency not emergency. I love that. That should be the manager for all of us I'm going to print it up and put it above my desk. So I've got a one of those tornado questions here on the marketing side of things, which is when I'm starting to put together my newsletter is. How long should it typically be are am I going to try and put my organization's full story in there, but create a 20 page monster. Or do I want to pick like those top two stories, or somewhere in between. How do I figure out what length works for my organization. What I would do is, you know, can you get it out consistently. I would rather see a short newsletter go out with regularity versus some big long magazine that comes out sporadically and thinking about what you can support in terms of staffing as well as your budget for you know for talking about a print newsletter, and also people have short attention span so don't make them read multi page articles so I'd go with short sweet and consistent. I like to think about features, you know like like we have a place for a volunteer of the month we have a place for. Here's it you know here's a heartwarming story, like what are the three things you're going to put in the newsletter, and how frequently can you get three things. And if you can do that, whatever the frequency is and stick to it that's going to be a win. Love it. Yeah, but to me I think that consistency is is so important. So I've got something coming in from Adam, who is is has a question about qualified charitable distributions. Adam says, we're looking into trying to utilize qualified distributed charitable distributions, but we're not really quite sure the best way to get started. Create a website page with the information should we message donors over a certain age. What are some best practices around that. Why don't we just clarify what a qualified charitable distribution is for anyone that's not familiar with that. That's the official term for what you may have heard a charitable IRA roll over. So that is essentially anyone that is subject to the required minimum distributions, and actually even though that age has changed it's still age 70 and a half for this where they can make gifts directly to a 501 C3 nonprofit from their IRA, not their 401k their IRA, and not they don't get a tax deduction but they also don't get taxed on that distribution that the IRS is is making them take anyway. And I would say certainly put that information on your website or that's a great newsletter article. And I would certainly focus the communications on your donors that are in that age group. And also if you are seeing gifts come in that way, know that well my goodness that person doesn't need their retirement income it's clearly disposable income so what a great prospect to deepen your relationship with. It's okay to segment to if you do happen to know certain things about age or things like that it's worth. It's worth sending it to those folks who you know would be, you know, roughly qualified in it. You don't want to waste the time of someone who is 30 years out from this, you know from necessarily putting it in their inbox so if you have it, you know consider it. You know, consider it segmenting awesome that sounds great we are moving towards the end of this really quickly we probably have time for one or two final questions so if you haven't yet throw your question into the q amp a and we'll have a chance to address that before we part and lose direct access to this trio of very smart people. I've got a question here from Melavika who asks, how do you deal with donors changing priorities and focuses post pandemic. How do you balance that tension between pivoting to secure funding from say historic donors you enjoy working with and maintaining your own independence so not getting captured or have your mission that alluded so I think it's often a question of. How much should we pursue the money that's out there but worry a little bit about mission creep versus stick to the mission. I will, I will say that, you know, all of our lives were upended in some way and we have to accept the like people's people's worldviews really did change, and we may not be able to to you know claw them back in every single case. If you're trying to force something I think I think it's easier to think about the people whose worldviews changed, you know, in your favor where the people who came away thinking like I want to support you and trying to find them. If someone has moved away because their their focus has changed. Maybe you can get much smaller gifts from them and keep them around and keep keep them going but it's possible that that they've just moved on and and that is the way of large donors, especially with what we've just been through. Yeah, you have to focus on your audience and not chase folks that are no longer interested but again just because they miss a year and they're giving doesn't mean stop communicating with them. Absolutely. Fabulous and now we're going to move into our final question coming in from Donna. Who's really been talking about listening to us talk about how grants are really used often for restricted specific projects. If an organization is new to working on grant proposals. What is the first thing you should really start thinking about as you bring on this new kind of fundraising to your organization. Well, I would say this is where I often see mission creep because you have organizations that see oh this foundation is interested in funding at. We do why that's sort of close enough to X and we can just really shoehorn that in there and it'll be a match. So I think really staying true to what you're doing and looking for funders that that are interested in that, not changing what you're doing to try to attract funders and and really thinking about what they're interested in and whether it is specific programs or it's capital or they're only interested in funding new projects and really having those conversations with funders. Many of them would rather have a quick phone call with you then have to read through your proposal and send you a rejection because it was never anything they'd be interested in. Keep an eye out for for buzzwords to you know like if you see a grants for capacity building if you see grants for words that you don't know what they quite mean by that 100% column up find out what that means. Maybe you have something that fits. Maybe you don't and it's better to not waste their time. So I would I would avoid shoehorning as well. I think that that's right on fabulous. Well, I have already launched. Our last poll for the day we would love to get your feedback to help make these even better going into the future. I see that already 60% of you have responded I'm really grateful for that. If we can get it up to 75 that'd be amazing. So go go go answer answer answer. And while you're doing that. Let me just take you through our final moments of today's event. First of all, a huge thanks to the whole team of experts who generously gave their time and expertise to participate and answer all of your questions. I'm very, very grateful for that. The second thing is yes slides and videos will be coming at you real fast probably by Monday you'll receive an email that will have all the key links. So you can make sure that nothing that happened today is going to escape forever you're going to have a chance to grab it back and relearn it. And finally, when you close this zoom today, a quick link is going to just pop up and you're going to have our standard serving which is a little bit different than this poll. Again, it's like three questions, we would love your input on that to help make these events even better. But otherwise, with that, I'm grateful to everyone for all of their time. And we do this three times a week so stay tuned, we're really looking forward to connecting with you again and bringing more technology fundraising and communication solutions to you in the nonprofit sector. Thank you all such a pleasure. We'll see you soon. Thank you everyone.