 We start off every episode by saying thank you to our presenting sponsors. We are so grateful for their continued commitment and investment, not only to these episodes and the show, but truly the sector at large because these organizations exist to help you do more good to forward your missions and help you serve your communities in a bigger, bolder, more impactful way. So thank you to our presenting sponsors. And back to our guests today, we are thrilled to have Sasha Lua, CFRE. Sasha is the principal at Moves Management Consulting. She is not new to the show. She's been on quite a few times and is one of our loyal sponsors. So we are so grateful to have you back, Sasha. Welcome. Thank you. Always a pleasure to be here. You know, Sasha, we met you, I think, maybe the first or second week of our first show that was supposed to only be two weeks long, but that's another story. And you were so engaging and you had some nuggets. And one of them was we need to make data sexy again, which we repeat that all the time. So the other thing that you shared with us, which just has stuck in my brain, was that COVID is changing so many things. And you were very, very wise and that you were like, this is not just for the next, you know, couple of weeks, it's going to have some pattern changes. And one of the things that you said was take time, some new time in different time, such as when you're commuting or changing meeting structures and put that back into your database, and you will find some amazing new things. And I have lived with that thought in the back of my brain so much. And I think it's incredibly powerful. And part of what we're going to talk about today is going back to that database, but looking at for those diamonds in the rough, specifically with your volunteers. I don't think we've talked about this at all. No, I don't think we have. And I'm excited because Sasha, you come from such a fundraising background. Of course, you have that designation of a CFRE. So talk to us about engagement and how that plays a critical role, I'm assuming with fundraising. Absolutely. Well, and we all know it's been kind of the hot topic for a number of months, at least in my purview, if not years, that engagements what really is driving fundraising. It's why we have a lot of new CRMs and a lot of new tools and a lot of new bells and whistles. It's not just the traditional how many face-to-face meetings did you get this month to close those gifts? It is so much more. It is what is their experience with your online brand? What is their experience when they're connecting with you through donation portals or they're giving portals? It's just it is so much more. It is that holistic experience of their time with your organization. And all too often, we don't dig into that. And so to me, engagement is fundraising. And when I look at my own career and I look at my time working with donors and what you would call the most successful gifts or the most successful impacts to missions, those are where the donors were highly engaged. The ask was the easy part was kind of the second thing. It was, well, what are we doing today? What's important to you? Well, did you know we're doing this in the program? Oh my goodness, I know you would love it. And those are the types of things that really are driving fundraising today. It's how genuine and how engaging are you with those donors and with those funders. And I think many of the CRMs now really do help you track engagement, right? Oh, absolutely. It takes a little bit of time and a little bit of intention about knowing to record these pieces of information, but they all do. They all will look at how do you track your events, again, the standard face-to-face meetings. Most of them now integrate with your email provider. And so you can track your emails that you directly send, much or in addition to those mass communication emails. And so when you start to bring all of these different data points that are embedded into what you're already doing and then start an analyzing them and looking at them a different way, you really start to understand your donors. Oh, well this whole group of potential major donors all clicked on this link about that program. Why don't I give them a call and see if they'd like to learn a little bit more and do a tour? Those are the types of things that are readily at your fingertips if you just choose to start looking for them. You know what? I love that you said that because I feel like a lot of our engagement is kind of, I want to use the word charismatic. It's something that we think, oh, they had a good vibe. They get along with her but not him or whatever. And it is far too unsophisticated. And then it leaves us open to peril when that development officer leaves because we think, oh, we've lost the relationship. Well, you'll get me actually even more passionate that that's why your donor database is important. That donor database is the gatekeeper of that history with your organization for your donor. And I know I've given the example before and I'll give it again because it's a profound one to me is that moment why I call the lapsed owner to say, hey, thank you so much for your support. We haven't heard from you a while. Let's reconnect. And he goes, well, I'm having dinner with the founder tonight. And I have to pause and go, well, why to come to find out that they're related to the founder. And we didn't know that in the database. And those types of things should be in there like, hey, they, they liked this over there. I'll say it again, their favorite color is green or they like this musical instrument. If you're seeing they're talking with your donor and you're getting those vibes, put those vibes and what you have as those responses into the database. And it doesn't have to be more than a no. And we'll talk about here in a moment how to use those things because I know it's a very loaded question or statement to say, put it in the database, you know, write a note if you're an organization that deals with musical performances, create a custom field that says what's their genre of interest, think through those types of things. And then you have information that, oh, every time I have this conversation, they mentioned this performing artist or this ballerina or this, you know, favorite animal that they loved, record that that way. Next time that professional artist or that animal is having a special exhibit, if you're a zoo or whatever it may be, you can specifically start to target these individuals. And it's not stuff that you're having to survey them for. It's things they already readily shared with you, record it so your organization can do something with it. Shared with you or someone else, because we've talked often about how the tenure of the development person, director, perhaps that title is really about 18 months. And so to keep and capture this data for the benefit of the organization is so critical. And that's truly how we can move them into this major donor or maybe consider what data points we've put into the donor database so that we can track their engagement as a major donor. Is that right? Absolutely. And I know we're going to shift over into how this works for volunteers, but think about all these interactions we have. It's a quick note. It's not a an horrible process anymore. It's this fast, easy thing. Every system has gone through their trouble to make this so simple for the frontline fundraisers or anybody on your team that could possibly engage with a donor. And so get it in there because you just made that comment about every 18 months. Imagine as a donor because we're all potential donors as well. And we have an organization reach out to us and says, hey, I'm brand new. Let's get together so I can learn about your story. And then 18 months later, hey, I'm brand new. Let's get together. Why not? You go, hey, I saw that you met with so-and-so 18 months ago and we learned a lot of this about you. What's happened in your life since then? Let me tell you about some changes. That's why our notes are important. That's why it's important to keep tracking about all this information. And when we jump into the concept of volunteers, if I may, it's not volunteers in just the traditional sense of they signed up for a volunteer program. They're our volunteers. Your volunteers are so much more than that. They are your board members. They are your vendors that are passionate about you that will tell somebody. The second somebody starts talking about your organization on behalf of you and my mindset, they're a volunteer. They're not a formal traditional one, but they are because now they're an advocate for you. So are you sitting there going, you know, I had this great conversation with that vendor rep. This was really fantastic. Let me go into that vendor's contact record, put that employee in there as an employee contact, put a little bit notes in there. And then next time we're doing a sponsorship for an event, I can call back and say, Hey, you remember when we started talking about, or I can spend the next 18 months or two months building up to that ask as appropriate. But I at least thought about it. And all volunteers are such a wide compassing, my category to me and in our organizations, they're not just the volunteers as we traditionally think about it to me. Again, as I just shared, a volunteer is truly that advocate that's willing to either work, talk, or do something on behalf of the mission that they're passionate about. Okay, so I have, I have a question that just popped into my head. Early in my board service career, I was in my early 30s, and I was at a board meeting, and the discussion came up, and it was really interesting. Like half of the board felt that it was inappropriate to ask volunteers for any type of financial commitment, because they said, Hey, these people are already giving to us. And I remember it was such a profound and emotionally charged conversation, because it kind of set a direction for the whole organization. And I would love for you, you started talking about this, but I'd love for you to kind of address that. Do you see that going on? Absolutely, Julia. And if I can share this is one of the things that gets me more infuriated than I can possibly articulate, because how dare we? How dare we assume? How dare we we take that opportunity away from a potential donor volunteer to say, No, we're not going to give you the chance to support our organization. How dare we assume how a donor wants to be engaged with our mission? All you have to do is ask, Hey, volunteer, can I put you into our annual fund solicitations? Yes, no, okay, it's a simple thing, but we don't have a right to assume that. And we've so often, you know, protected and put these volunteers in this category of you're not allowed to touch them. Those are my volunteers. And I will gonna say, how dare you? How dare you take that ownership over someone's relationship with your mission? Your responsibility is to help facilitate greater engagement and greater engagement ultimately is the ultimate gift and blessing of financial support. Maybe not everybody can, but to ask them and give the opportunity to choose. That's a beautiful and amazing thing. And then think about your volunteers just from the data side of stuff. So your volunteers, they're doing so much for you, have you tracked where they're working? Because if you put that in, Hey, that's already another prospect list, you want to grow your prospect list, go through and add every volunteer's appointment, if you know it, check out their LinkedIn profile, you've immediately grown, and then you can strategically start going, Okay, we have volunteer a, we've got a great relationship with them. We've talked to them for the last number of years about this event. They've volunteered at the event. They've got capacity and now feel super special because we invited them to be a sponsor. So they're fairly very special, like they're now this, you know, up and coming and, you know, rubbing elbows with the right kind of people, or whatever it may be that, you know, is the driver or motivator there. But it's the honoring that space. And again, I'll go back to how dare we assume that a volunteer doesn't want to give their time and resources. I think that's to me, the most valuable asset you have. So I know I'm very bored in that one. But it truly hurts my heart when I hear an organization forbid their volunteers from being solicited at least once a year in their annual fund. So, Jared, I'm going to ask you the same question then. What do you see? I mean, is that, you know, over the decades, has that concept changed? No, I've seen it both ways. I am a huge proponent right alongside Sasha that absolutely they should be given the opportunity to give. They're already like, they're bought into the mission, right? They are already some of our closest champions. And so why not allow them this opportunity? And I've seen it backfire where an organization, you know, did launch a very specific campaign and they had a goal that they wanted the volunteers to give X amount collectively, not individually, but really collectively. And some volunteers really did not like that. They felt that they were giving of their time and did not have the money to give. But what you were saying, Sasha, there are so many data points with any individual person, right? And so if we simply capture these data points, then we can start to identify, you know, from from the different pieces of information that we gain, how we might create these win-win opportunities for our community. And that I think is number one, the top focus, not we need 100% volunteers to make a financial contribution. That I don't think is the goal. It's certainly not what I heard you say, Sasha. It's really just allow them this opportunity. Absolutely. Thank you, Jared, for that clarity. I do not believe in targeted campaigns to volunteers when you don't have that culture. I think it does exactly what you articulated, which is create negative feelings. But developing and building it in such a way that it's an invitation to join is a different conversation than saying, we put a goal together that you need not to hit. That's a different messaging. And so to me, you're absolutely right. It's honoring and creating a space, but still it's an invitation to participate. And when I go back in and you start looking at just statistical pull out the relationship, which is really what I'm passionate about and engage with, and we just look at statistics, your ability to meet your financial goals, if you're running short, almost always can be solved by proper engagement within that group. And so it's not going in and saying, oh, hey, you're, you're a volunteer, you're a board member, you're, you know, an active constituent. And so I know you're going to help us get money. It's no, who's the most engaged and who's the most passionate about what we're doing that we can invite to help us accomplish something together. It's a mind shift too. And I think that's an important part as a fundraiser is when we're asking our donors to participate, we're not sitting there going to help us accomplish a goal and we need X number of dollars because we're going to miss our budget. If that's your ask, I'm sorry, you're going to fail like you're going to miss the market every single time. But if you're asking your donors to invite them to be a part of something amazing, hey, volunteers at, you know, and I'll go back to if you put your volunteers in, maybe you recognize you have a large cohort of supporters from a single organization. Well, there's a conversation you need to go in and have and find out who's the champion there that has told everybody about your mission, and then you can build upon it. And as a data, you know, someone that deals with data analytics, I often will clean up a database, we'll get into and start working on it and say, Hey, did you realize you have this relationship with this connection? And a lot of times they won't even realize it because they haven't put the data points together. And so to kind of jump back to the goal today is your your database is your diamond in the rough. If you take that time to just fill in a couple extra points of if you know where they're working, if you know who their neighbor is, if you know who, you know, their their grandchildren or the, you know, whatever that relationship is, take an extra two minutes and fill that blank space in because then what you can do with it so much pays off and pays forward the time and the investment that you took just to enter that information. Not to mention match giving, which is something, you know, we didn't even talk about and I don't I don't intend or didn't mean to sorry open like this whole another conversation. But when it comes to volunteers and you see so many individuals, perhaps, you know, part of a corporation, the employee themselves may not know or be as familiar with the match giving as you are to know that that's that's an opportunity. So that's another way of engagement with these volunteers. Well, and it's and if we're, you know, being selfish to our mission, that's passive dollars that they don't take a lot of extra work for us. And so, you know, it's that opportunity to not leave anything on the table and to create multiple, you know, avenues for engage, you know, for support and then to send back that letter, you know, to a donor to say, you know, we really appreciate your $200 gift through your your organization. We've now been able to turn that into $400. Thank you so much for doing that. And think about next year when they go to give how important that extra piece of it's going to be as a part of their annual giving, that they make sure that that part's done. And so when you want to make an impact on your mission, everything you're doing today could have such a profound impact next year, year after in the year after, just by putting a few good engagement strategies in the place, which is make sure you have this information recorded because if you can't record it, you can't report it, and you can't do anything with it. Right. You know, Sasha, we've been with several of the guests that we've been talking with now, coming up on two years, we noticed a trend with larger corporate institutions saying that they will not engage in philanthropy with an organization, no matter how amazing the work is, if their employees are not engaged, volunteering, donating, board service, all of that. And so I think that's another, you know, concept that we need to understand. It's not always just about that donor, but it's those data points that then carry us through to these other relationships because that's becoming a measurable piece of information that funders are asking for. Regularly. Yeah. And if you haven't even thought of that, how are you going to respond when you have that opportunity? Well, many of these companies to that point, Julia, they have the opportunity for employee-advised funds, right? And so it really is an opportunity that X, Y and Z organization provides, you know, support to the community. But the employees of that corporation are the deciding factors as to where and how much money is being allocated. So that employee engagement is critical through the volunteer channels that you've been speaking of, Sasha. Absolutely. And to bring that even forward, you have all these great workplace giving programs. I can tell when I'm working with a client that they have someone that is actively engaging, actively pursuing and actively growing those relationships because their workplace giving support is just phenomenal and through the roof. And then you can tell attrition when it happens over time, when an organization stops cultivating that revenue stream, stops engaging those volunteers in meaningful ways, stops, you know, planning that as an intentional part. You see those dollars dwindle year after year until they just become non-existent. And so it always kind of surprises me when I go back to an organization, like what happened? Where's your, well, we didn't even know that brought in that much dollars because they weren't looking at it in that way. And I'm like, no, this is a huge revenue. Like get back to whoever was doing that again, go back and work on those engagements. And so again, your data about your volunteers, it's not just about them, it's about the connections, the opportunities, and we'll keep using the word engagement. Engagement is holistic. It is across the board. It is not just this one silo of how are they giving or how are they volunteering? It's how are they on their website? What social media? What connections? What's the conversations with their peers? What's the conversations at the workplace? You mentioned briefly just a moment ago, those employee driven work, you know, funding sources. I know one fund here in town, not only does the corporation itself have its own philanthropy chapter, its employees have their own philanthropy section. And so you can cultivate the organization all you want. But if you don't get past the initial employee giving portal, they don't let you get to the corporation level giving. And so it's very much about understanding it. And I will go back to that 18 month conversation, our turnover tenure that we have in our industry, it takes 18 months to develop these relationships. And so you're just getting them going as you're ending them, we need to get that information passionately in there and talk about it as being part of our ethical and moral obligation to record this information into our donor databases so that our donors and our volunteers are no longer having to deal with our problem of constant turnover in our industry. Yeah, I love that you said that because that's bringing the ownership back to us that it's our problem within our sector of this turnover. That's okay, Jared, that's one for the ages because no one has a mic drop. That's for sure. No one's saying that. No, but it is the ownership. It goes back to your standard operating procedures. How are you acknowledging all of your processes and making sure that you're holding yourself and your team accountable? I'm just as guilty, right? Whether it's, you know, being in that position or as a small business owner, time gets away from you. And some of these tasks that seem menial are truly critical. And so at times it's easy for many of us to say, I'll get to that later or, oh, it's not that big of a deal if I don't log this conversation in. But then you go back to Sasha's story, and I love every time you tell this story, because every, you know, every amount of scar tissue that we've gained through our career is something that others can learn from. But if you had known that this donor was a family member of the president or whomever that relationship was, you wouldn't have been so embarrassed and the next person wouldn't have to endure that embarrassment either. So there is a lot of ownership that I think we, as the professional, really needs to hold and hold ourselves accountable for. Yeah, really honor, really honor. Wow, you know, Sasha, you always take something that I'm like, uh, this is going to be a snoozer concept. If you like never a snoozer with Sasha. Look at that hair, we can't have a snoozer. Well, if it does help, I was struggling covering up with the topic because I feel sometimes that, you know, this isn't everybody's cup of tea, it's, it's my passion area. So I actually reached out to a friend of mine and a regular watcher of the show, Mark Dastasi. I'm going to give a shout out to him and say, hey, Mark, I need some help coming up with the topic. And he goes, you really? Yeah, I know. So throw out a little bit of an appreciation for the help of the topic, but you know, I get it. I totally understand. Yeah, but you know, I got to say though, every time that we have you on, you bring something up that triggers, you know, it takes the action that you can think, oh, this is just data doldrum, and you give it a context that makes it incredibly powerful, incredibly meaningful, and a piece of a much bigger pie that ultimately I think saves time and builds money. Yeah, thank you. And I think it's easy, Sasha, for many of us. What we do is what we do 24 seven, but I certainly don't do your zone of genius, right, and vice versa. So hearing you nerd out over data is something new to me. And so while you eat, breathe and sleep, you know, data, Julie and I don't, and many of our viewers don't either, right? That's the one thing that they, it's like Brussels sprouts, you know, most people will push that off and say, I'm not eating that, or I'm not, I'm not talking about data. And I think, you know, again, like what you share is not new to you, but it is like genius to us, because it's not what we eat, breathe and sleep. So there's so much value. And every time you come on and you share this topic, you really have, you really have made data sexy. You have. And I think the thing of it is that my concern is that it's such a siloed topic, you know, that it seems like, oh, that's those people in that corner office that's dark and no windows, and we just throw them a piece of meat in there every once in a while. And they don't talk to anyone, right? They're introverts, and they don't want to come to any networking meeting. And so what I've learned from you and what I've learned again today is that if we are not engaging, and that was your your magic word today for me, this engagement goes so far beyond what we think it is such a it's such a vital piece. So wow, once again, wow, you made me think today, sister. Well, again, always a pleasure and a joy to be here. And I appreciate that feedback. Because my goal is all in hope is that at least some bit of what I share in each of these sessions is something that's tangible that can go back and be acted upon. Because even if you don't know where to start, it's the silly expression, but just start somewhere. It takes time to make these shifts and changes in your organization. But the culture around technology and data is rapidly shifting in our industry. And I can feel it regularly, or just every day it's coming out. And so you're going to see this more. So if you can start today, make little steps in whatever you can, and it's going to pay off. You know, I that's like, literally, your your zone of genius message, as Jared just said, start somewhere. And here is Sasha's information. I really think that what you said is so prophetic. And that is, this is where we are going. And you can be a part of this or not. But this is really where we are going in our sector. And it's not going back. It's not going back. So amazing. Sasha Lewis, CFRE, we're always so thrilled when we get to talk to you. And you've lit another fire under me personally, to get my own data piece figured out. So I'm just witnessing because it's so important. Oh, my gosh, what a great episode. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom. I always like to say she's my nonprofit. There's so much to go around. Absolutely. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Hey, again, thank you to all of our presenting sponsors without you. We would not be here having these robust conversations that we have every single day as the nation's only daily program, live program that is dedicated to the nonprofit sector. Jared, how many episodes? Of course, you're going to ask me that when I don't know it. We're coming up on 370. So I think, okay, so we're, okay, 370. Okay, cool. So almost 400. That's a heck of a lot. I'm just saying. It's a milestone. And thanks to our sponsors for allowing that to continue. Yeah, absolutely. Without them, again, as we always say every day, we would not be here having this conversation. Hey, another great episode. Tomorrow, even more excitement and great conversations. We thank you so much for joining us. And we like to end all of our episodes with the mantra, stay well, so you can do well. Thanks so much, everybody. We'll see you back here tomorrow.