 Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. My name is Mark Armstrong. I am the host this evening with TechSoup. I'm a project manager with Square, a Drupal and CVCRM development company out of town. Tonight, we are joined by Tricia Rosevere, who is the co-founder and CMO of ZGIV, a digital auction platform for nonprofits. And she is going to be sharing with us three easy digital fundraising events to host this spring. So with that, I'm going to turn everything over to Tricia. All right. Thank you so much, Mark. And it's great to be here, and thank you all for joining. I'm really excited to tell you about actually, there's four. I said three easy, but I slipped a little one, another one in there. So I'm going to talk about four easy digital fundraising events to host this spring. And as Mark said, I am the CMO and co-founder of ZGIV. ZGIV, as he said, is a digital auction platform. And our whole purpose in life is to make auctions easy for nonprofits, which typically they're not. We actually, what we've done is just really simplified it. I don't know if you know the Geico Lizard. Pretty much everybody knows the Geico Lizard. And he says, I can save you 15% in 15 minutes. We like to say that you can program an auction on our platform in under an hour. So that's not official tagline or anything, but to get the point across. So if you can see here, this is just a little bit of a who we are, what we look like, and I'll get into that a little bit more later. But I wanted to start out by sharing where we began, because it really comes into the lens of why we're doing what we do. And we actually didn't start out to become a tech company, to become a digital auction platform. I was working for one of the largest nonprofits in the country and had been doing that for quite a bit of time, and came from corporate prior to that and branding and marketing. And my husband and I had an experience. Actually, the Christmas Eve, we got a text from a friend saying there are 60 teenagers that are going to wake up tomorrow and they don't have any gifts at the children's shelter just 20 minutes down the freeway from where we were. And long story short, we all rallied and we got all these families together and went down there and gave these gifts. And we came home and talking to the leaders there and going, there's a difference between surviving and thriving. And so we actually started Give Hope Love. And if you read my bio, you'll see that I'm a co-founder of Give Hope Love. And Give Hope Love is all about helping foster kids thrive and be able to get the additional resources that really helps their mental health and their self-esteem so that they can truly live successful lives. In the course of that, we decided what we would really like to have our own payment processing, a text to give, that type of thing for digital fundraising. And I had a lot of partners, technology partners that I had worked with in the past. And so let's just go ahead and build this, and so we did. And when we were done and we were talking different people in the industry and we kept getting the same feedback, this is great. But can you share this technology with other nonprofits? It's so easy. And so we did, and that's actually where Z Give was born. And I tell you that because I understand nonprofits, we understand the world of nonprofits. Give Hope Love is now the foundation that Z Give gives to. So a portion of our profits go to Give Hope Love, so we're still able to do what we do and help these organizations and help these kids. But now we get to be part of your story, of our client story and nonprofit community and be able to help you raise money for your cause. So just going in, that's who we are and that's where it all started. And that's really the lens that we come from. I wanted to start and just a little bit, talk about donors. Fundraising needs donors, this is to go together. And so before I get into these different ideas for digital fundraising, I just wanted to talk a little bit about what donors expect today, because that plays directly into the type of fundraising that you should do. The most important thing I usually say is that donors are consumers, they're us, right? They're you and me, they live in the real world, they engage Disney for everything, they're shopping on Amazon, they're ordering groceries, especially during COVID, we're ordering groceries online. They're on social platforms, they're on Facebook and they are really engaging digitally for almost everything. And so that is a very important, taking that piece starts to roll out well, okay, so what else is it that they're looking for when it comes to giving? They want you to make it easy to give. I can't tell you how many different websites I've been to for our nonprofit and sometimes I can't find the donate button. And if you do find it, it's a couple layers in before you can actually donate. And by that time they're gone. And so they're looking for quick and they're looking for easy. They want to shop, they want to buy and they want to give in a manner that's familiar to them. So again, a digital framework that this feels this looks like how I shop, this makes sense to me. And they want to be part of your mission. This is a big one and you might already know that back in the day it was like, hey, a dollar from every can of soup, whatever goes to this organization. And we were okay with that. And now it's really changed. Everything from every brand in the world is looking for a way to connect with their consumer because they know they need to have that transparency and they need to have those lines of communication and a relationship. And it's the same thing for nonprofits except they want to feel like they are part of your mission. And they prefer engagement that is meaningful and even fun. So it's your job as a nonprofit really to meet them where they're at because the reality is, is if you don't you're going to lose them. And so what is it that you need to be doing today to keep donors engaged? Again, back in the day if you could send them a yearly receipt for their donation, sending a newsletter a few times a year asking them for donations. And I'm not calling anybody out here. So if this is in your camp it's just to say things really have changed. And the result of that was that you could have this disconnected donor and the average nonprofit was losing about 50% of their donors per year. And it all came down to lack of meaningful connection and engagement. So what are those rules? I already mentioned making them feel like they're a part of your mission sharing impact stories with them saying thank you without asking for money. And here's where it leads into what we're going to be talking today is inviting them to engage in more fundraising events throughout the year. And that's the bullet that usually people go, oh no, I can't do that because we all know that in-person fundraising events are hard, right? It's not a secret. The first two points up here they are expensive to host. They are a drain on your staff. And for those reasons it's really what kind of drove this idea of most nonprofits are still having one in-person event per year to sustain their entire year's fundraising. And we run up against this a lot where we're helping to educate our clients and the nonprofit community and pretty much anyone else that will listen is that sustained fundraising is where you wanna be. And what we hear is I'll just put this off until COVID's gone. And that's not realistic, right? So if you're looking at what is it that you're doing? What is your strategy? You're all here because you're interested in digital and so you're ahead of the game. And I really commend that. When it comes to in-person events again I'm certainty of depending on what part of the country you're at you may be like, I can't do it in-person or I absolutely can or what should I be doing in terms of hybrid or mixing it up so that I can get that sustained fundraising? And a point that you may or may not be familiar with is according to millennials and Gen Z who are by the way now the largest demographic in the US and very philanthropic they don't like to attend in-person events. And it's particularly on the auction side they would rather do this virtually they'd rather give virtually, digitally. And so it's really important to be able to go what is it that I'm doing now? What is this strategy and what can I incorporate into this portfolio? So that moving forward now and moving forward that I'm prepared and that again you as a nonprofit can just not just survive but truly thrive. So to answer the question how can you achieve sustained fundraising and sustained donor engagement and the solution is digital fundraising? You may have come for different reasons maybe you have a digital fundraising platform and you just needed some inspiration maybe you have access to it but you really haven't done anything with it or maybe you're just exploring the idea of incorporating digital fundraising and so just to make sure we're all on the same page. Digital fundraising it's basically a toolbox. It's tools that enable you to generate donations and be able to engage with your donors from all of these different touchpoints that I have here from website and social media all the way to emails and then what we're talking about today which are the events. And what these tools are and they can be different on the ZGIF platform it's text to give, scam to give, link to give and then there's something called text to join and text to engage, engaging and again going back to that sharing stories with them. We know that email opens well before COVID they were about 22% now there's somewhere in the 17, 18% which is really low. So how do you as a nonprofit know that you're actually engaging with your audience? So being able to have access to be able to text them maybe it's once a month, maybe it's more your audience but being able to say, hey, thank you and hey, here's the impact you're making. Here's a little short video that we just took on our iPhone that we're in the field and we just wanted to show you. So text to engage is really important and that is actually part of a digital fundraising solution and text to join is that idea of I don't have a mobile community but I have email and so this is about creating a campaign that invites them to join your mobile community so then you can text them. This is what digital fundraising is truly these tools. One question that I get a lot is is it relevant for my audience? I understand the millennials and the Gen Zs and Gen X but my audience is mostly baby boomers and the answer is absolutely yes. So not only you as a nonprofit are really you need to be looking at catering and talking to these millennials and Gen Zs but your boomers, they are absolutely growing in that digital space and COVID really pushed that. Before COVID, QR codes were pretty much just for the younger generation and now if you go to a doctor's office or you go to a restaurant, you may have to scan a QR code. They've been on there because of Zoom, they've actually taken over Facebook and so this is a very, this audience is very much growing in the digital space and so I can honestly say yes, digital fundraising is relevant across all generations. So having said that, okay, we understand we need to move past in person and just relying on that one thing for our entire fundraising. We understand that it is relevant across the different generations. So let's talk about some ideas. I'm gonna start with number one, a digital giving campaign, low hanging fruit. So if you have a digital fundraising platform, this is what it looks like to send out a digital campaign where they can scan, they can text to give, they can click a link, right? So this is something you do via email or via text and this is you putting together a message of, listen, we'd really love to have you part of this, we need to get 50 winner codes to these kids, would you be able to give or if this is a general giving fund, this is driving them to be able to give as they would if they went to your website. You would put this link behind all of these different touch points. So the first one, very low hanging fruit is to have a digital giving campaign. The next one is incorporating digital fundraising at events, right? So if you are having an in-person event, maybe it's a golf tournament, imagine having QR codes at the different holes where they can scan to give or at a wine event or run or whatever it is that you're doing. You can see that all of these tools can easily play into that, whether it's the invitation, whether it's keeping them informed about it with text to engage all the way to how they give. So you really see, I put this together in this particular way because what digital fundraising, the tools do is they support everything else that you're doing. Something that I did, actually it was fall, I did one and then we did another one in the holiday that was really interesting and got a lot of nonprofits excited and they were able to generate a lot of money. What we put together a store, using one of our risk-free partners called Jules with a Purpose, they sell the most beautiful jewelry and it's actually only available for the nonprofit community and so we utilize them at our auction. But we wanna be able to give an opportunity because some people are like, well, I don't really wanna sign up, I don't really want an auction. Okay, we're just gonna put together a store where you can get 100% of the profit. There's actually a link that I accidentally copied text to give and two other things on there, but there's a link that if you actually just wanted to say, yeah, I wanna try this out, you could click it and sign up. But what this is, I'm just gonna click and show you. There are no digital fundraising tools with this and of course there is no auction, it's literally a shop. And you would say, yep, I'm gonna send this out to my donors, we would assign you a promo code and they can go shopping for you, utilizing again, one of our risk-free partners in this vehicle jewelry. This was such a fantastic campaign, we had so much success with this and nonprofits were so excited to be able to go, this is very different. And this is something outside of it, we really hadn't, no one's ever done and we haven't thought of this and it's just ready to go. Going back here, this is just how this would look. So you would literally just sign up, we had the giving box, this was another campaign we did, we'd give you social graphic and a video and even an email template so that you can really just send that out to your donor base and say, hey, please shop on our behalf. This is a perfect time to do that, Valentine's coming up, you've got Mother's Day. And so in terms of what you can do this spring, jewelry is definitely something that works within this season. But I wanna definitely get that point across that it's spring, but what is your digital fundraising strategy for the rest of the year? And so we have sometimes a nonprofit say, I only wanna do one, because I don't wanna exhaust my audience. And going back to what I said before, your donors want to be engaged, they want you to invite them because the average donor is supporting about three to four other nonprofits. And if you're not talking to them, someone else is. And so it's these little touch points. Like this isn't even a complete event, this is a touch point inviting them to be part of something that feels fun, that, oh, I get something pretty from this, something that I can give, but that definitely helps you. And then there's options. Options have been hard in the past because most technology was built about five or six years ago. And so while it worked, it really didn't give an experience for the virtual auction. And so it can feel overwhelming. And we have nonprofits come on board and go, okay, how hard is this gonna be? And truly, I'm actually gonna jump in and show you, if you've never attended an auction, it's fun, it's really fun for your donors. And it's easy, it can be easy. And we've tried to make it very easy. So I'm just gonna actually jump in so you can see this because I encourage our nonprofits to have an auction in the spring and in the fall. Those are the two biggest auction seasons. And the reason is because, again, you can come with different touch points or what are you gonna do in the holidays? What are you gonna do during the summertime? But having something like a jewelry themed auction or even a sports themed auction, you can segment your audience. And maybe you understand them. And if not, there's some fantastic, we have a fantastic partner called bootle.ai and they actually help you segment your audience so that you actually know, oh, these are the people that love jewelry. This is all the women. These are all the men, these are people like sports. So it's another fantastic tool for nonprofits. And you can check that out. But here in front of me, I've got a, our demo, but it's a auction. And it's actually live. We have this ongoing for a year so that we can show you. But this is what it looks like. So think about doing a virtual auction. It doesn't cost you anything. You can actually sign up subscription free. So it doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to rent a place. You don't have to worry about all of that stuff. And some of our organizations say, I don't have enough, I don't have enough items. So I really couldn't do this. We actually have enough risk-free partners. And if you don't know what risk-free means, it means you can utilize their, for example, this ring right here, it's from Jill's The Purpose. You can feature them on your virtual auction. And if it sells, then you just pay the nonprofit price and anything above that is yours to keep. You could actually build an entire auction from all the different risk-free partners that we have. But typically our nonprofits say, you know what, I'm gonna bring a lot of the donated items. And then I'm just gonna kind of spice it up with some higher ticket items and vacations at the same. So from a virtual standpoint, think about being able to say, okay, who can I engage in this? My board, my staff members, all of obviously all of your donor base. And then asking them to share that on socials, asking them to invite their friends and family because it feels like a party. When people, when they donate or when they give, confetti goes up, you might've seen that in an earlier slide. So it's a little bit of a gamification. This is like playing a game. People are doing this all the time. One thing that I really try and help our nonprofits understand is when they go, well, but a virtual doesn't have the same feel as an in-person event. And that's absolutely true, but it's not meant to be. And it doesn't need to be. If you have, you know, some fantastic products, if you have a great platform, they can engage virtually and you can raise a lot of money and they can walk away going, that was really fun. And they did it on their couch. They just, and they were able to invite friends. And so now you get even more exposure. And that's something that is a really big deal is that marketing aspect of being able to have an auction that's virtual and all your constituents or your donors need to do is, hey, join us, here's that link. And you bring people in to the fold to enjoy this auction and then get exposure to your cause. So here we are, we have this auction and I'm just gonna go through it and it's really fun. So if you're hosting a silent auction, you can click on that. You're like, oh, okay. You can have as many pictures as you want. You can have a live auction as well. So this shows you what a live auction would look like. Silent auction is when everybody's bidding on the items at the same time and live is when they're bidding individually. But that's what it looks like. And the point that I wanna make is with these, you know, actually this has gone a lot faster than I thought but with these different ideas is that they are truly easy. And you wanna be able to work on what you do, what your passion is, and that is to raise money for your cause. You didn't get into this, like I said, to spend all of your time trying to plan an event. And so digital fundraising is what can really bring that to you. And so now you can augment your entire portfolio around where am I gonna do the in-person events? Where am I gonna do virtual? And all the way through utilizing digital fundraising to support you. We think we lead in making things really easy, subscription free, giving you unlimited options, items and participants, making sure that you can text to engage directly from the platform and providing an interface that is super easy and super intuitive. And we actually are top ranking on kept care. I just wanted to know you can trust us. But the question that I wanna just ask you is how could you be fundraising this year with digital fundraising tools, with digital technology? What could you be doing this spring? And what could you be doing in the fall, in the summertime, in the holidays? There are so many different ways to engage your donors when you're utilizing digital from that giving campaign where it's just a quick send, following that up with a text that says, hey, you know what, thank you so much for giving. Here's the impact you're making. Here's a little video to the in-person events and utilizing the digital technology there, the store if you want, and of course, auctions. This is what we call sustained fundraising. And this truly is the future of how nonprofits need to think about fundraising so that they can, as I mentioned, not just survive, but truly thrive moving forward and be able to reach all of these, this demographic of millennials and Gen Zs that really want to be involved and wanna be part of your mission and wanting it. That is actually what I have today. I would love to take any questions if there's any questions. We have a brochure about ZGIV here if you're interested in that. And if you're at all interested in that jewelry fundraiser that I was talking about, there is a link here that you can actually just click and you could sign up. Dave's It's Only for Nonprofits is one of the questions. Yes, so you have to be a registered 501C3 or C4 in order to be able to use the platform. However, if you aren't registered but you are raising money for good cause, you can actually utilize the store. So the jewelry fundraising store that's open to anyone, anyone else. All right. Thank you, Tara. Great overview and affirming. Your suggested methods are similar to what we discussed in our organization. That's great. We have a lot more that we can show you and I would love to invite you to visit the ZGIV.com. You can actually just schedule a 15 minute chat if you want. You can schedule a tour of the platform and we can show you all these different, these different capabilities and share these ideas with you. Okay. I'm just going to go ahead and put our website right here and so you can go ahead and visit us that or you can also download the brochure. Are there any other questions before we sign off? Awesome. Love learning about virtual options. I'm telling you, they are so fun. So I super encourage you to try them. Give it a try. You've got nothing to lose and we can totally help you and train you and make sure that you are good to go. I know that it is on the east coast. It's actually nighttime here in California where I'm at. We're going into the five o'clock hour. So I want to make sure that you can get back to your families and to dinner. So thank you so much for joining in this presentation and learning about digital fundraising. And I just, I can't wait to see you when you connect with ZGIV. All right, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you, Trisha. I really appreciate it. Someone did ask in the chat if this presentation will be available. I guess in a few days, if you go back to the TechSoup website, the recording will be available there. Okay. Thank you all. I really appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you. Big thank you to Trisha. And we will see everyone next time. All right. Thank you.