 Well, my clock says that it's time to get us started and I'm so thrilled to have many of you joining us live for today's show. As always, you can see the recording of this in our archives. But just as we start every episode, we like to extend our sincerest appreciation and gratitude to our presenting sponsors and you can see their logos right in front of you on the screen. Many have been with us for over 365 days, but who's counting, right? This was a two week little idea that Julia had and I said, yeah, I'm up for two weeks and I've been, you know, with Julia this entire time as have many of our sponsors. But more than that, the sponsors are here in your corner. They're here to lift you up, support your causes and everything that you do for your community. So do check them out and give them a like and some love and just tell them thank you so much. And I want to say thank you to Julia for having this crazy kooky idea 365 plus days ago. But Julia Patrick is the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, also known as the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group. And today we have a guest joining us, David Blyar, co founder, president and CEO of Arriva. We are thrilled to have you joining us today, David. We've already had such a great conversation, getting to know you and I just want to say welcome. And thank you for joining us for today's show. Thank you so much, Jarrett and Julia for having me and and having your audience participate on this so I can't thank you enough for making this offer. Thank you. You know, we're really excited to talk to you, David, because when the pandemic hit so many nonprofits who had never thought about really going virtual investing in the cloud, even thinking about it. They were forced into it right in this like really short period of time. And now we're seeing those come to those that are more comfortable, those that are a lot less comfortable and then we're talking recovery. We're moving into that, you know, we've already gone through the first quarter of 2021. Now the reality of the approaching end of the year for nonprofits is coming upon us believe it or not. All these things are pointing towards really understanding cloud based situations and so there's still a lot of fear. It's, it's really something that I think we need to be talking about more and more. If you look at the history of the nonprofit industry as a whole and there's been, and you even have some of your sponsors here, they're all great companies there's so many wonderful companies out here that are doing the good for the nonprofit industry as a whole. And you know if you look at historically where it really started it was with desktop products right I mean, you know just like us right we would install software on a desktop. We would never think that you know I'd have to leave and abandon it I'll come in if I have to work I'll come in at night and you know, then you heard this whole evolution and really what this is all about it is an evolution. It's not just a destination, it's a true evolution. And then when you look at the nonprofit industry. I mean there's many different aspects that they're running it. And, you know, the, as a whole these people that are running these organizations are so passionate about their causes it's not about technology, it's about what they're doing, whether it be programs for children, whether it be, you know, for the elderly, whether it be for education, whether it be for helping, you know, abused women it doesn't matter they're amazing causes that are out there and, and they're down and, and promoting what they do and how they do it and, and fundraising and digital movement and cloud was, you know, 13 steps behind them right, not that it was behind them they just were focused on other things. The pandemic has really been the catalyst for a movement in the digital transformation I mean it truly. It made you do things that you are uncomfortable with it made you figure out things that you had no idea about. And you know whether you're a nonprofit or anything else, you know we only know what we know. We know that other people are doing it but we don't know how they're doing it. And when you hear about the cloud and you hear about, oh my God security and you're going to steal my data, or they can get it in the cloud you know those are always concerns of everybody right I mean it is, but I think there's so much advancement in cybersecurity and so much advancement in security that it shouldn't be the emphasis of not making it and doing a decision. So if you're in a state with the pandemic movement, you have to be prepared to do a meeting like this and a zoom, ask for a donation, right, I can ask you for a donation, but you got to make it easy, because everybody uses a phone today. So if I'm having a conversation Julia with you and, and I say hey would you give a donation, would you give an online pledge, I'd love to give a five year pledge. Great, take your phone. Go here, right there online I can give you so I can, you know, the world used to be is would you give a pledge, right. What do we, what would we do. I call you up, I'd schedule a meeting we go have wine, we'd have a piece of cake we'd have a glass of, you know, coffee whatever that would be. And maybe you would say hey I'll mail you in a check. We don't have that pleasure anymore. We don't have that time. You know with all these zoom meetings right I mean we're out with and everybody this is our way of communicating today, but I will tell you. It's never going to go back the way it used to be, and people have to organize you'll have a hybrid situation. But people have to know that I can have a conversation that I have to move to the digital world. You know, how do I move, you know, your teams that you know that can work anywhere, any place, anytime. This is great and we've been talking so much through the pandemic and I think it was Julia, you that said, if this pandemic and happen five years ago, technology wise, we don't know that like, you know, our nation would have been prepared for that we don't know that we would have had the assets the willingness the desire right like all of that to really move into this digital space, and we have done so with velocity, but as you say that right David it's, it's not by choice necessarily somewhere early adopters, but really all of us were thrown into deep end to say, Hey, we really need to figure this out and I love that you know your company really has worked so hard to to make sure that you've built your trust and the rapport in the sector to provide these digital solutions so kudos to you and to your solution that you provide. You know, we like to say here one thing we're with our clients for good. Yes, we're here to sell software and we hope our clients would buy our software. Right. But one thing that was important to us as a company was embracing our clients and our clients in their own rights were truly innovative, and they have done some things that, you know, just was amazing and the clients that we have today and I could talk about so many of them were willing to share how they moved through this pandemic. And you know I remember talking to one of our clients the love lady center and it's just an amazing story and it's about, you know, rehab for women and abused women in a center and in a process and they raised money through multiple different ways their thrift stores fundraising, and you know they have a huge facility and, and then when March came it was like everybody we were all in the same boat it was like driving down 95, right, and you're going 95 miles an hour and somebody drops a red light right on 95, and we're y'all just stopped. We just stopped. We didn't figure out quickly enough. How do I get off the exit. I'm going to run out of gas. I need food. I need shelter. And, you know I remember talking and with the executive director there and it brought tears to my eyes how it affected. The food, the shortage of money what they had to do, you know with people that already ran through the programs, and they took a position, you know, probably three months two months after, and we just finished a wonderful conversation she said would you believe it, because of our storytelling, and because of technology allowing our storytelling that we could get it out there. We had our best fundraising year ever. How do you take those stories, you know, how do you take those stories, and it is through technology, but how do you take those stories and say that and we've done so much at a river and I give a lot of applause to our entire team whether it would be our support team, our marketing team, our client success team, even our sales team, they were out telling the stories it wasn't just about selling technology, and that's why we say we're with our clients for good and we've just had so much great success with our clients. And that's, and really when you look at the cloud, the cloud, you know, we talk about the cloud but it really is the ability to use your phone, right, use your phone, you know, whether you give a donation, because you have a great story, whether you send a video, you're giving them away through a phone, right or their computer at home right, but you know some of us just we sit on our computer all day long and then we want to go for a walk. And then if you're doing an auction right, Jared, you said oh I did an auction. Well, just think about today, you're walking down the street, you want to be doing the auction, it could be in Seattle and it could be Pacific time and you're on eastern time and, you know, whatever the time zone is, and you could be bidding on a product. And, and that's why really this whole digital transformation is all about giving you that flexibility. You don't have to go to the event anymore and walk into the event with a silent bid form and be there, you can actually go on a computer and these organizations can set up an auction, all virtual. Talk to us, David. Everywhere in the country. Talk to us about cultivating those donors online right like there have been such an evolution as you said and it really is evolving but how have we really gained the trust of so many of our audiences right and I'm talking the spectrum of demographics and ages right like across, because I remember being a part of many conversations in my career that no we can't have an online auction that we can't do that right that will really make our donors upset they don't they don't want to have phone in their hands and now that is the way to do it and talk to us about and I know Julia has that slide ready for us about the cultivating online donors and how that has really increased during the pandemic because statistics show us right that there really is this huge response to fund right fundraising online hit so many statistics show that our digital fundraising has increased by leaps and bounds. Oh, absolutely. I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about age but I can solely talk about my mom. Okay, so my mom's 88 years old right and and she'll call me up and she says, I don't know what's wrong with my computer, but can you help me, but my mom will go on the computer because this is forced her to see her kids her her grandkids, and you know what, she got used to it. And when you think about that, it pushed her to go do those things right. It pushed, you know, if you look at the younger generations they were ordering pizza online. I'm thinking, I'm not ordering online I'm going to go pick up the phone I want to make sure they got my order right. But if you look at, you know we live in two worlds and it has forced all of these two different worlds to come together and and really stop being comfortable, whether it's online auctions and you're right by the way, these online auctions are amazing. The planning is shorter. The saving of money is different. If you don't want to have a loose touch and I can't wait till, you know you have a show and you actually invite me on the set and we can, we can shake hands and you're never going to lose sight of that personal touch and we all pray for that right we all pray. But even still, you're going to live in this hybrid world because now people realize, you know what, I don't want to get dressed up, but I want to give to the cause right convenience factor. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's continuing. It's continuing in this world of hybrid the hybrid is going to live. It really is. And so people go to the events and some of us won't go, but we still want to give to the causes that we really believe in. Some of us don't have the time to go and give a pledge and meet for a coffee, but call me on a zoom. It'll save me time it'll save you time and I'll give you my pledge online. You know, it is about that. How do I cultivate those existing donors right, and then it's also about, you know, customer acquisition client acquisition how do I gain more clients. And allowing that. So if you look at the simplest things about, like we talked about today of peer to peer fundraising, you can get your board members, you can get your donors, you can get your volunteers to write a personal page, even something as simple as, Hey, I'm turning 40 years old. I'm lying about my age. 40 years old, come to my house, you know, or let's do a virtual party because you can't come to my house. But don't give me a present, please help out this cause of a Ronald McDonald house or a boys and girls clubs, or your local, you know, police athletic league and and give on behalf and I'm the hosting. I send it only to my friends. And you know what they're going to give, you know what else that they're going to do. Because they know I'm doing this and best practices because the way peer to peer should work is when I register online or I give my friend a donation and I submit it. What things happen with the right technology is you're staying on their website. I'm looking at it. I submit a donation. What happens, I get an automatic notification acknowledgement receipt. The staff gets a notification that David Blier just gave a donation on behalf of his friend, Julia, right, Julia, you get a notification that you know David Blier gave, right. And then the organization, whether it's one or 101 it doesn't matter calls David Blier and says hey thank you for giving a donation on behalf of Julia would you like to learn more about this organization. That is a great way and, and, and honestly if Julia my friend is doing something. Yeah, I want to hear I didn't want to ask Julia but yeah I want to hear in the executive director the the director of development, or somebody on your staff. You know how memorable that is for me I've given out, you know, donations to different places, how many phone calls have you gotten the technology and the digital transformation that's going on, and they see it instantaneously, and they pick up the phone. I'm going to remember that organization. Talk to us then about the you know the cyber security and trusting the cloud base, because now that we've had an increase of donations being done in this digital platform. I mean, you know, we get robo calls we get text we get, you know, a billboard that says text this number and you and make a donation right. So what are we talking about now by way of safety because David, I've received you know communication from many many big companies that I work with and I'm talking for profits right saying there's been a data breach in our system, and your communication has been, you know, touched by by someone. What does that do and how does Arriva really talk about that in the sector to build trust through this cyber security age. Well first of all I'm glad you bring it up so I'm not I'm not here to do a promotion, but I will tell you, it is just as important to us, as it is to your audience and in fact, we have Greg Davis, our chief technology who really thinks about security 24 seven and whether there's a breach how do you handle it how do we protect this, we do audits on our software continuously, you know, we work with you know, Amazon, and we are actually doing a cyber security webinar to inform our clients and people in the industry about cyber security, you know, great. There's no one great solution, you know, you do everything. I mean, you know if they can break into Delta and they can break into target. It's not that they can break can't break into a nonprofit, but when you have a single unified database, you know, this is one of the keys to security, you know, and that's what we have established a single unified database to protect, whether you're given or you're giving money on a peer peer and it's going to a single you know database, you know, and data is the one place that you want to protect that right so you do put together, and I'm not data security expert and I don't want to come off that I am, but we have very good data security people and that are looking at this and talking to Amazon and and we do put our our data on their site so there's added levels to that, you know, when you're talking about the cloud and, and they've done an outstanding job at working with us and making sure that our clients are comfortable, you, you know, you have different security levels, even with your own nonprofit, you know, even with your own nonprofit, you know you want to set up different security levels that you only give certain people certain access. So there's a, there's no one specific answer and you know if you really want to learn a little bit more go to our site we're going to have a great webinar April 15 on cyber cybersecurity so, and you'll hear a lot more in detail about that. So from all fronts I mean this is even in your payment process, not just, you know, getting in it's it's how your payment processor is set up we've partnered with very specific payment processing companies, because we're comfortable with where you're putting in your credit card information, and they're following all the regulatory requirements and, and your, and the client's credit cards are being protected and I mean we have so many different levels, we look at so many different things. It's not just one thing. And you're right I don't know if we talk about it enough about security and making you feel comfortable that you know people like, I guess you can break into anything if you really really want to try. And it's a terrible thing to break into the Delta and the targets. To me, it's criminal on that, but even more criminal when you're breaking into a nonprofit. You know it's interesting, because we talked about this a lot in a different context but no nonprofits are very vulnerable for two reasons one because they're easy targets, they generally have a lower level of staffing and technology, but also they are very unact to purse to prosecute, because they generally have a level of forgiveness or benevolence that says, Oh, you know this person must have been in a tough way or whatever and so in in terms of the sector. They're far more vulnerable than I think most people would ever believe and we know that from a lot of the guests we've had on that have talked about this from like an accounting perspective, and fraud, it's a huge, huge issue but, and again we're not here to talk about that today. Before we go because our time is almost up. I really wanted to get your perspective on what the future of cloud based technology might be for nonprofits because it seems like to Jared's point we've moved ahead so quickly we've had to lean in. And now that we're getting more comfortable. What do you see as some of these things moving forward that not only are we going to keep but we're going to amplify. It's a great question. Yeah, it really is a great question. I think, I think people are closer to this whole digital fundraising than they actually think they are. You know, I think that's already here. Like you said, you know, five years ago. We've done five years ago but you know, digital is here. And, and there are software companies, just like a Riva that provide all the digital fundraising capabilities to do everything remote whether it's from fundraising, whether it's on the donor relationship management side, whether it's on the auction side, whether it's on the event side and doing virtual events. It really is here. Right. It's just a man and it's here to stay. And what happened is, let's not be afraid of it at all. Let's embrace it. But let's get with companies like a river and other companies out there that can share with the nonprofits that are still not comfortable with it, because it's it's what they know and it's what they don't know and sometimes they just don't know what to ask and I think it's the all of these software companies to make sure that they're out there and sharing with them. And I don't just mean from a vendor perspective of your software. I mean, from a client perspective and this is something that we've done in the movement and everything that we are attempting to do out there, even from a marketing perspective of how clients have moved digital, what you can do in the hybrid way, how close you already are with your software. You know, I mean people are moving. We still have desktop clients that are out there today. Some of them actually have had a hybrid believe it or not, where there's desktop donut relationship management and they're using some online fundraising, but that still is a problem to the industry and that's a problem that we solve because you don't want to be moving data around. You want to consolidate and this is why I said earlier about a unified database and then having whether it's a donation whether it's a peer to peer whether it's running an event that all of this information is captured in one database. And that way it eliminates a lot of the fraud it eliminates, it creates more awareness, it really helps create an outreach to your existing donors, it takes these small and medium sized nonprofits that don't have lots of staff. I mean if they're fortunate they have a director of development and, and that's doing good, but the digital movement has been here. It's not the pandemic. It's not the pandemic drove us to it, right. Celebrated it really. And I think to to your point, you know with so many of our nonprofits, you starting to actually use the word recovery. We understand that this work from home situation is not going to all of a sudden go is be turned up. People are going to want to remain in home or maybe even work from a different community, and therefore cloud based access is becoming really what's going to allow that to occur. And so I think it's, it's a huge, huge thing. It's been great David having you on today. I mean, this is a topic that is really we're in the middle of it. It's very, very exciting. We have so many new opportunities coming through. I think every day and I think the more that we learn about this. The better I'm really intrigued that you said something that most nonprofits are closer than they know to working in this to working this way. I think that's very interesting because I think for so many nonprofits, this is a highly stressful concept to embrace. Yes, for so many reasons that we've talked about. I want to give everybody an opportunity to reconnect with the Reva. And, and we've been really fortunate to have David on the show today. We just found out that David's company actually has an office in our hometown. So that's kind of fun. So you have offices in Seattle, Florida, Phoenix, and Palo Alto, California. Well, yeah. Hello, Silicon Valley. You got to be there. You got to be there. Well, there's a worldwide space and and I love, I mean, I've looked at your website and I hope that many of you watching today. Well, and I know you had mentioned that you have a webinar and you offer a variety of solutions. So, areva.com is where all of you can find more about this wonderful tech with purpose. Amazing. Hey, Jared, another great episode again. I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd herself CEO of Raven group has joined me today, as she does every day. Hey, we want to mention really quickly that the American nonprofit Academy has launched a book club and a lot of these books that you'll see on the screen. The authors have actually been on the nonprofit show and so we decided what we would do is kind of cultivate books as they come through to us that really help nonprofits. One of the things that we've been noticing Jared and I think this is fascinating. We've had several leaders ask us, what would be a good book for our team to read. It's kind of something that we did a lot in the 80s if there's been a refresh. And so obviously it's virtual which is kind of fun, but the whole reading discussion concept is really picking up speed in the nonprofit sector so we thought we would just go ahead and start, you know, curating a reading list for everybody. Again, if there's a book that we should put on there or if you've written a book, let us know. And David, if you have a book, let us know. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, let us know because this is a growing thing. Again, we want to thank our sponsors without you we would not be here. And again, as Jared mentioned in the beginning. And it's hard to believe but most of these folks have been with us since we started Jared that was like this cookie idea and now really in this last week, we have had our one year anniversary in the last couple weeks so pretty profound and we are delighted that you've been with us on this journey of discovery and support of the nonprofit sector. So another great episode we want to thank David as our guest Jared ransom, great information. I'm super inspired to be more brave when it comes to all things virtual. As I look at my 60th birthday in a couple months, I might have to, you know, rethink this whole strategy and do a big 60 birthday peer to peer thing here to peer challenge on. Yeah, oh my gosh, I certainly don't need the cake. You know, as we like to say, hey everybody as we end every episode we always like to remind you to stay well. So you can do well. We're going to see you back here tomorrow. Have a great day.