 So, welcome. Thanks for being here. We're honored to have you spend some time with us whether you're watching this live. Welcome if you are. And also, through the recording, welcome to those of you watching the recording. Another episode of the nonprofit show and today this bright yellow means it is a thought leader episode. These are very special. They're few and far between. We don't do them weekly. We certainly don't do them even monthly. But today we have Jessica Gruber with us. Jessica is our friend at principle creative director at buzzworks creation. So welcome to you, Jessica. And she's here to talk to us about breaking the digital noise and fundraising. And right now q4 2022 couldn't come at a better time Jessica. We're honored to have this conversation with you. Before we jump into the conversation we want to remind our viewers and our listeners who we are. So hello to Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jared ransom your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group. We are honored to be marching towards 650 episodes. Thank you to our very generous presenting sponsors. We're honoring American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy at National University be generous, your part time controller staffing boutique nonprofit thought leader and nonprofit nerd. If you haven't checked out these companies. I encourage you to do so because they are here to help you with your mission, move it forward, just as all of our recorded episodes are so if you have any interest in some of our recorded episodes. We hear often that someone will go to listen and watch one and they stay on for like six more episodes. So you can do that to you can find us on Roku, YouTube, Vimeo and Amazon Fire TV. And for those of you podcast listeners, go ahead and queue us up wherever you stream your podcast. So today we're going to start again with our with our guest Jessica Gruber thrilled to have her here again Jessica serves as the principal creative director at buzzworks creations. Welcome Jessica. Hi Derek hi Julia thank you so much for having me on here I'm excited to be here. I do have one question from the last time I was on here. Did you ever get the scotch tape sponsor for your glasses. We're still working on that right we haven't quite stuck that one. That's very good. Well you know the nonprofit nerd her trademark are her glasses and when we do events when we go out and we send swag boxes to gifts to our sponsors and people that we meet along the way. Those are prime swag and people always like I need my glasses and you're right. Hey Jessica it's fabulous to have you with us and as we were talking in the green room chatter man q4 is just loaded up with so much noise. I mean, I would say some of its good noise. Some of it not so much but we're really excited to have you here to talk to us about that but before we get into it. Tell us a little bit about what buzzworks does. Buzzworks is a digital agency specifically created for nonprofits, and we work with organizations to build kind of a base of their story their mission and things to drive what they do. And, but it's there's also this different level where we take a look at what's going on in your digital space space, and who you're interacting with and how we can take those relationships and pull them offline to create this stronger relationship and this bond between you to create that true community in your nonprofit. Fantastic. And I just have to say like anyone that works exclusively with nonprofits is fantastic because I feel like there's so many web designers there's so many, you know, creative designers content writers, but to know the market and to know, you know, the nuance of the nonprofit sector that takes a little added touch so I'm excited to learn from you here knowing that you work exclusively in the nonprofit space when it comes to their their digital elements and again today we're going to talk about breaking that noise. Yeah, let's do it. Well, one of the first things that you kind of point out, or I should maybe say frame this conversation is you have the most interesting two phrases. Stay aware and in touch. So what does that mean what does that look like I should say within the nonprofit sector when it comes to digital communication. So stay aware has a double meeting. A lot of times as nonprofit leaders, we get put in positions where we're focused on our mission we're focused on driving it. And we forget to look up, and we forget to look at our community, and that person that is there to help you. You're just an ask away, you're just so focused on your mission. So the first day where is looking up and realizing you have this community to support you. The second will stay aware is making your community aware of what you're doing. Because if you're not sharing these stories. Yeah, you're doing all this good stuff. But if you're not sharing it. It's staying bottled up inside of your nonprofit. And no one knows what's going on. There's several ways to stay in touch with them and one of the one things when we build websites and digital spaces. Once we get that donor. The easiest way to figure out how they want you to stay in touch is a second small ask. And that question is, what way would you like us to communicate with you in the future. And there's several ways you can list you can do text missing you say, Oh, I just want to know your social media. You can ask for their email. And one option we like to get is none I know you're doing a good job keep on doing it there are those those people and nonprofits that they don't want you to waste your precious time on informing you they know you're doing a good job. They are the people that want to be involved they want to know your story and they want to come up on your journey with you. Yeah, you know, having that awareness and honoring it. Because I know I've been in so many databases it'll say you know, do not solicit do not contact this person they really only want their end of year tax receipt because they're so committed to the mission. It's really hard but I, I, again, want to recognize, you know, we need to be aware but we need to honor that as well and so, you know, staying in touch with them in regards to that. Now, you're going to talk to us to, and I love this one, Julia I think I like this one, the most is interrupting and engaging, and this is something that you talk about and again today's episode is all about breaking the digital that's amazing. Again, we're here at q4 so talk to us about are we interrupting, or are we engaging. I love this question. Okay, so you brought a creative on the show. Yes, we're going to go out there clowns in the circus. Okay, not the creepy Steven, it's, yeah, the slapstick ones that you see in the Barnum bailing circus is. They are the ultimate disruptors, but they are the ultimate engages as well I mean you have the remaster taking the show around. But the clowns are the ones that hold them together and I learned way too much about clowns this weekend for this. Wow. You actually have them working as a team together. And their faces aren't painted, just to be silly their faces are painted to exaggerate emotion so people, thousands of people in the stadium can see it. And the positions of the clowns they all compliment each other so you have the leader, and you have kind of the front and then you have the one that's being silly, and all of these people come together to create this story that engages. It disrupts, it keeps your eyes off of what's going on around in your world, and it brings you into their story to focus on them. And so today I want to share a technique we get our impact stories from our clients are nonprofits. And it's all it is is six questions. So you guys ready for this. Yeah. Okay, so the first one is what's your story. A lot of nonprofits they come in and they say I can't ask them what your story are. And this question it's so general it's not asking them to go back to the past, where it's negative it's just saying, where are you coming from to make it more relatable. Your next question is, what was your hesitation in working with us. And so now you're creating what object objections did they have to coming in and seeking help. And this doesn't even have to go for clients you can use this on volunteers, you can use this on donors. What objections do you have coming in to being a volunteer what objections did you have coming into being donor. The second question was, after you started working with us, how did that hesitation changed. And this is where they get to spotlight you and say, Oh, they were the best ever they solve my problems, I was able to get back to the community. It's really a family this is what I love to do. So we go one step further and it's what's one takeaway that has impacted your life. I've seen stories where I wasn't even the volunteer that gave the story, we, we posted her story on social media. And then her daughter came in and said, Thank you for so much for making her part of your community. She was just widowed. And she needed a place to come in and volunteer and create and she had just moved into easel. And so we got that. What's their story by posting the first part and it was just a beautiful story to see that they had truly built a family within this nonprofit. To have that community. Yeah, yeah, so the next one is how will this change your life in the future. Yeah, I like that question. Yeah, so now you're not, you're not just talking about the instant fix that they saw, you're talking about the future and how they helped you see their future and how they accomplished their vision, whether it was to get back to community whether they needed your services, and it excelled them in life, or whether they were able to give your third plan giving to you so that you could do their mission to go out and do good. And the last question is kind it's kind of a bonus question is if you're on the fence and working with this nonprofit. What words with some words, and this is where it comes in and it makes it authentic, and it brings ties that whole story together, and it just provides that beautiful touch to the end. You're so great six amazing questions. One of the things we talked about during the three years of the pandemic is that return on relationship. And I feel like these questions that you just shared with us Jessica, really touch on that. So, yeah, and we're definitely going into a time because everyone's tired of the zoom and being online that they want that relationship that they want to be part of the community and so it's really a good time to go out and get that. So it's also I think I love that you said, and it's actually been a thread throughout this conversation this morning, is that engagement piece and listening to what the donor, or the person that you're going to be engaging with. And I can see this volunteer staff funders community partners, but asking them instead of telling them what you're going to do, but asking those questions. It's it's really an important thing and I've got to believe for a lot of folks, they don't see asking questions as engagement but what I'm hearing you say is that it really is that process of engagement. It's a new way about it. Yes, it is a process of engagement and once you get these stories, you're able to start creating these profiles of these are the people we need to attract and you're able to pull these words up. This is what people are responding to. And so I'm going to take these words and start putting it back out in the community. Very, very, very interesting. You know, Jared, we talk about this so much about how we don't ask our community enough we just assume. We do we assume a lot and you know even our guests previous talked about really that data the research of the constituency base and so it's really important and I do think that that's something that all of us in the sector could do a much better job of. And now I'm curious, Jessica, because you're going to take us into the power and the use of influencers. And I feel like that word influence or influencer has really grown also that's accelerated over the last couple of years. But what is using the power of influencers mean, when it comes to breaking that noise of digital fundraising. Really influencers, it's just a different word people have coined to pure to pure fundraising in the digital space. So what you're looking for are influences, especially if you're starting out this can be a really powerful way to jumpstart your social media influence or your donor influence or whatever you're wanting to influence. You find that one person within your community, and they don't have to have a lot of connections they just have to have powerful connections to move you. And you ask them and you go say hey can you help me out with this bit. Good resources for finding your influencers would be in local news outlet. We just did this, our local food pantry, they have a shortage on food. And so we connected with the easel news, and they came out to the chamber so this is kind of going off of the digital space, but then we brought it back in the easel news challenge at the chamber to challenge five businesses to fill the shop fill the pantry. And so then those five businesses had to go out and challenge other business another business and so now we have this cascading effect of giving back. That is so important I love that you bring it back to the peer to peer that connection that power of relationship the power of partnership. I've seen that trend over the last couple of years I would say it was really, you know, advocating for the supporters of the mission to help, you know, spread the word and be advocates for the mission and other, you know, parts of communities because we're all looking to build our donor database, and how do we attract and attain new donors so that peer to peer influencers that's that's an important one. And I would, I would say the most important part of the peer to peer is they brought you in, or they brought their connections into you. So now you need to nurture those that they're still kind of cold they're a warm, cold introduction into your nonprofit and so you need to jump on it and nurture those people into a more warm relationship. The other thing you can do with this is, okay this person opened their network to me. Yeah. How can I open my network back to them to support them in what they are doing. And that helps them be. Oh, they want to support me now. Okay, now we've just made this alignment, and now they want to support you more in the future. I like that you said that because I feel like that creates champions for our missions and our causes, and so that it is a continual thing because I don't think we recognize that enough. You know, these are, these are the people that go out into our communities and have other relationships or opportunities that can really, really help us. Yeah, you're right in that we don't nurture them. I appreciate that you use that word as well because I feel like we don't nurture our champions enough is as part and parcel to this. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be through thank you letters and all these notifications there's other ways to nurture these people. What are their goals and what are their values and how can you tap into those to to grow them. Absolutely. That's fantastic and especially at the digital age you know like sharing a message or are making it so easy to invite someone else to an event or to, you know, share the mission of the organization, because we all know that you know the voice right at our fingertips for so many of us and to use their voice, in addition to the nonprofits voice is pretty, pretty powerful and you're right, Julia I love that Jessica use nurture because we do need to nurture those relationships. Yeah, and we don't do it enough I appreciate you bringing this to the forefront. I also like what you had to say, and that sometimes we're like so deep and into what it is we're doing and our heads are down. We're looking up and looking out. I would imagine that that kind of feeds into the whole nurturing aspect, and why we're not doing it. Yeah, and it's, it's interesting. Because, when, when you're a smaller nonprofit, your goal is to be the bigger nonprofit. When you, if you look at a bigger nonprofit, they have that development team. They have people to do it. They have people specifically out there. Nurturing people for you. That's how important it is. I love that you brought that up because that's absolutely true. Yeah, let's kind of switch it up a little bit and we're talking about, you know, the noise and all these things that we need to be doing. Let's talk about visual storytelling. You know, we get so caught up in the narrative. What does this mean. So, there's different levels of visual storytelling. Everyone has this expectation that we have to be Instagram perfect. It's pretty and yeah. No, you don't have time to go do that. I mean, yes, if you're doing a fundraising event, and you're spending. Yes, get the photographer to take the amazing photos so people want to share it. Before sharing behind the scenes. It doesn't have to be glamorous. Some of the best posts come from just small video clips of what they're doing behind the scenes. One of our nonprofits they're going, they're needing to do updates and so we took just small photos of them having to push their services out the door and this ramp was like it didn't have a rail and so we made it just a funny video of, okay, now he has to be the superhero. Yeah, and he has to make it out this door and it moms if you have a child and you push destroy a little stroller through a door you know how hard that is. And then there's this legend so we made this funny and then we had a second volunteer I was like, okay now it's her time. And so it's just a fun video to get people involved in seeing what people, the volunteers really had to do to accomplish their mission. I think the other thing that I would say is to use infographics. I love infographics, but it can't be like the ones that are just stats from research and white papers, they have to be relatable to your audience. So we did one I keep on going back to this food pantry. We took the six months of the amount of people they have served in the past six months, and we compared it to the milk prices, the rise of milk prices. And you definitely saw the increase of people they needed to serve and now for food pantries it's really hard because their prices are increasing. And they still have to buy more food. And so it, and we put that up there and we started getting donations on that one graphic. So that's pretty powerful I love the creativity of that truly. And I also love an infographics where like let's say for the for the pantry, instead of a regular thermometer, you know let's stack milk cartons instead of that regular thermometer and I think that's a great visual element for storytelling that's not your typical, you know, mercury kind of looking. It ties it back to the mission and again it goes back to that storytelling. I love. You know, Jessica, I've got to ask this question because we're so panicked about trying to get all this work in is q for there's a lot of uncertainty. We still get the year end donations with, you know, the economy and flux and concerns there. What are you seeing I mean are you seeing that you're having to change the narrative because of where we are right now, or are you just like, stay the course use these tools, but stay the course I mean, where are you in that ecosystem of change. Um, right now, I would say, stay the course. I mean, it just consistently show up. Okay, don't get scared of it because as soon as you start getting scared of it. That's when you start hiding again. So you need to be aware, stay aware of the community, know that we're going through this time. And when you ask, be aware that we're doing this is what's happening. How we can we make it happen. We're going to get back to the to the top which was stay aware and in touch right like really be in touch and one of the things that we know happened early in the pandemic was so many nonprofits were like we're just going to hit the pause button. We're going to sit on the sidelines right and I feel that if we continue to be fearful of what's going to happen. Then many people will probably retreat as you were, you know saying Jessica to staying the course I love that that's your final answer and moving forward, you know to and stay aware and stay in touch with your constituency base. It's really important, you know, we've got a viewer that just messaged in and this is going to put you a little bit on the hot seat but a viewer's right has written in is canva a good tool to learn how to create an infographic if you're not a graphic designer. So I think you're I think that your infographic has really resonated with our viewers and listeners, but talk about that if you could briefly. Yes, I use canva. My team uses canva. If you're a nonprofit, they have a program where you can get canva for free so go sign up. I love that well thank you I appreciate you giving us that insider tip because that's that's amazing that's really really important. It's a great tool and you're right Jessica it has some templates in there so for those of us that aren't designers, it can at least get you started. I mean, I come from a design background, I still go in there because it's just so easy I mean I have my programs that I do my fancy stuff. Sure. But yeah, if I made something quick, or I'm doing something more social media based I'm in canva. You're doing canva. That's that's incredible well good that's an that's an amazing endorsement and we really really appreciate this. Well hey everybody I want to make sure that we spend some time connecting you our viewers and our listeners to Jessica Jessica you've got a new series that you're going to be launching in November. Can you share with us what that's going to be. Yes, we are it's if you go to your nonprofit growth.com. It's going to be a three part series on building your community and we're really going focus on relationship maps, and your recruiting message and how to network to bring in this community to build you up. Awesome. Fantastic. How long is the workshop or the series. We are doing them once a week so it starts November 3 at 1130 central. And we're doing them once a week on Thursdays up until Thanksgiving. Awesome great timing well that's great and tell us again the landing page on that the landing page is your nonprofit growth.com. Love it your nonprofit nonprofit growth.com fabulous idea and this is I love what you're kind of where you're directing us to because I think a lot of times in the nonprofit sector. And Jared and I've talked a lot about this, you work so hard to this like q4 and then you don't do the stewardship that you need to build those relationships at the beginning of the year. And we're going to talk in that series or last session is talking about how to systemize it to make it easier on you. I love that efficiency is definitely one thing that we need here in the sector. Jessica Gruber, thank you for joining us as a thought leader for today's nonprofit show again for those of you watching or listening. Jessica is the principal creative director at buzz work, buzz works creations. And the web address for that is buzz BUZZ wks.com. So check her out and her team again exclusively providing amazing services for the nonprofit community the nonprofit sector. Thanks for doing what you do Jessica we're so grateful to have you here. Thank you and if you guys like this show. Go share it with another nonprofit. It's, it helps it. It grows it grows you and it grows everyone. So go share the show. I love that. Thank you. Well, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined by Jared ransom, the nonprofit nerd herself. We could not agree more share our content. Yeah, we love that. Well, thank you. That's really cool. That made my day that really did. Hey, another thing that makes my day is all of our sponsors are with us day in and day out so we can have these conversations like we have today with Jessica. So we want to give our gratitude to bloom orang American nonprofit Academy, your part time controller be generous fundraising Academy at National University, staffing boutique nonprofit thought leader and the nonprofit nerd. Without these folks we wouldn't have these conversations. Hey, Jessica, you're a real treasure. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been great as we like to end every episode. We want to remind ourselves, our viewers, our listeners and even our sponsors. Stay well so you can do well. Thank you ladies. We'll see you again.