 We will. Well, and I'm excited because today is Friday and those of you that join us on a regular basis, we welcome you back and we're so glad that you're here. We also want to thank our fundraising Academy Friday ask and answer sponsor. So again, not new, not new to us, but definitely a new placement here as we move forward. So on occasion, you will see that Julia and I or I will be replaced by Mr. Tony Bell with fundraising Academy. So a thank you to our presenting sponsors you see them right in front of you. These organizations exist for you. They are here to pour into you and your communities and help you do more good. So please do check them out. I think we all have an obligation to spread more love and cheer and goodness in our world, and these companies are helping you do that so please do find them online and let them know that you saw them here at the nonprofit show. And another person you're going to see here of course is Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, and I am Jared ransom, also known as the nonprofit nerd, the one and only nonprofit nerd, really excited to be back here so I am ready for any of these questions I'm sure that we've got some do'sies but as you all know, Friday is our ask and answered, and there are several ways in which you can send us your questions. We actually, you know, will allow, if time allows I should say any live questions that might come up so there is a Q&A for those of you that have joined us for today's show. If you can't answer it during today's show, we will make sure that we include it in a future episode so enough from me, let's get us going. You ready sister ready. Okay, this comes to us from Shannon the Hudson, probably Hudson Valley, New York. We have a tourist based economy and are wondering if we can connect our visitors to our nonprofit donor base. This is an interesting question. This is even a good idea. We have a lot of historic, and I think a historic buildings, and I think visitors coming here would appreciate this, wouldn't they become donors. So we see this question every once in a while for anyone that's involved in tourism. This is a big issue, do you share your databases. Do you think that tourists are going to be turned off by engaging or being asked to engage for like say the local art museum or animal shelter or, you know, human services campus whatever. It's a very, very interesting kind of conundrum that I think a lot of nonprofit share with tourist based communities. Yeah, I'd be curious to learn more. I was just in Park City, Utah, and for those of you that might also listen to the chitty chat chat I'm starting to plant even more roots in that community. But I was out there for the July, you know little festival out in the park it was beautiful. The Chamber of Commerce was there, and they had volunteers walking around with clipboards, asking individuals to, you know, fill out a questionnaire, and I thought that was really interesting so of course me as the nonprofit nerd right. I could read between the lines I knew exactly what they were doing, and I was applauding them I was kudos good for you right because this is a community, no matter where you are and where you live that people are attracted to so if you are I think if you are a tourist designation and you have a high tourism economy. I think it is a great opportunity to offer a way of engagement, right, but again I wasn't like, you know, really strong armed into anything, it was just a questionnaire. For me, I appreciated it, I enjoyed it. I also wanted to know a question that they were asking, right, and so I was analyzing from the beginning but I do like when there's an opportunity that says, you know, the support of our community and our visitors help to continue the great work, and you know stories that were able to tell, especially when it comes to something like a historical space or a museum, or some type of arts and culture. I think that's really important. But what have you seen Julia anything you know my sense of it is, is that if you are a tourism based economy that also is trying to garner second or third home ownership populations. Then that's going to be something where those populations will be more apt to invest. I would say this is a great argument for that digital database issue. I mean yeah do you want to invest in snail mail and trying to get to all these people around the country or possibly the world. Not, but a digital database that is identifies this person or these people as visitors, you know, I think there could be something to be said for that and I also think that if you are a nonprofit that's doing like a community event you're a human shelter human services organization, but you put on a big say weekend arts and crafts festival or you put on an event you know what I mean, to benefit your organization. I think that's where tourism can fit. It's, it's a deeper strategy that goes forward with other members of your community. So Shannon you need to be talking to like Jared said you know, the city manager, the Chamber of Commerce, figure out and Visitors Bureau. Yeah, yeah CVB I mean how do you leverage your nonprofit work with somebody else in the community. So good question, good way to get started. Great question. And I, you know I'm always a huge proponent to say, reach out to another community what are they seeing what are they doing where have they had success, because I believe, I believe in collaboration I think that there is a way for us to learn and share our insight with one another. So, you know if you if you know someone in another community that might have a similar, you know, environment, I think it's worth a conversation. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, I think it's a way of diversifying your, your risk as well. Okay this comes, pardon me. I was going to say revenue but yes I agree. What word did I say, did you say risk. Yeah risk, I meant risk. And I said revenue. Diversify your revenue diversify your risk you know both of those are words. Two different things. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Emma from Portland, Oregon writes, this is like a whole week of quite answers we could give her, we're thinking about developing a legacy gift process for our nonprofit. We've never even had a request given given all the information on the transference of wealth. We need to do this. Where should we even begin with your board. I think yeah so Emma, great question. I love that you're seeing this as an opportunity. There is this huge transference of wealth. In fact, Julie and I have before called it this tsunami of wealth transference because it is really coming in a huge wave. So I think there's a couple of things to do here but first of all, if you have a fundraising or development committee, you know bring this up to that committee and then also bring it up to the board. I always think a great place to start is with your board members is to ask them to, you know, go ahead and create a bequest a living trust or will, where they're leaving this organization in that document. So one of the things, you know, one, it allows them to really go deeper with their involvement but secondarily Emma, you're able to like go through the trials and the errors and the questions, your board and together before you take it out to the your whole constituency base. Yeah, absolutely. I love that that is, first of all, that's the appropriate thing to do. I love that you look at it as a test. You I know. The other thing is, you really need to get some sort of legal and financial input on this, because there are certain documents that you want to provide to your donors so that it goes into your state. There's transference of wealth that that some estimate everything anything between like 55 trillion with AT to 90. We are in it. It's going to last for about another 25 years. So the amount of wealth that is being transferred to these next generations. It's never been anything like it in the history of our country. What we're going to see is we're going to see a lot of surprised family members. We're going to see a lot of states, estates and chaos, because the airs might not agree with what these bequest decisions were made, you know, were deemed appropriate and to funnel. You really are going to be smart if you have a program. And if you have a program, here's the little secret. It gets you out of a lot of this emotional aspect because it's very easy to say, Well, you know, that's our process. And this is what we do and this is how we manage it. And then it puts your organization on a better trajectory for more significant gifts. I guarantee. No, there are costs involved, but you need to be strategic about it. And now is the time. You know, I just thought of very funny is our guest, many episodes ago, Emma, so I would, I would go back and search for Kyle Daniels. I don't believe that museum currently he's Yeah, he's in Chicago, he was a planned giving officer. He had so much passion for planned giving and he was really just, I don't know, for me, I really just enjoyed I thought he was a dynamo. Okay, so we have done a full episode on planned giving and that might be something that you want to go into our archives for those of you that may not be familiar 350 plus archives so we've been doing this since March of last year. And so there is one specific on planned giving. Yeah, he, he was fabulous and he was with the Field Museum of Chicago. Yeah, amazing. Okay, let's get to Noah, coming to us from Tahoe Nevada. Wow. Okay, we are thinking about having a community contest to create a new logo for our nonprofit. What if we don't get submissions or what do we do if we get submissions that nobody likes. It seems a bit risky to take this on. Oh, I think it's fun. I love this and in fact, here in our community, Julia, our buses are public transportation had something similar where they did a call for submissions. And there was a student, a college student that submitted and one and so you know they did like it. And they wrapped the entire public, you know, transit kind of system here. But no, I think this is a great opportunity to think beyond the box you are doing a bit of an assessment of what are others perceiving about you as an organization. So I think that's really going to tell you and elicit a lot of information. If you receive something that nobody likes, I think you can still find elements that you do like colors, graphics, emotions right like all of this comes out through logos or art design. So I would be inclined to say that you might not love everything about one particular submission, but I do think you'll walk away loving the process and getting your community involved, and therefore moving, and maybe even taking some edits and tweaks from one that really, you know, checked most of the boxes, and then see what you could do with that individual or with someone else to take it to the next level. You know, I love what you said about community engagement, I think that's brilliant. I also think that you could, if you're really that fearful. Why not do this, and attach it to a campaign. So as opposed to the rebranding of your whole organization, something of that nature, maybe tagging it to a specific effort. It could be an event, it could be a campaign, it could be, you know, a portion of your campus. I mean, do you see what I'm saying I mean you can have some connectivity to what's going on but not overtake the whole organization. I really hope you let us know how this turns out. It's going to be interesting because I really do think now that you will start to see how many community individuals perceive your organization, and that will show up and I think that's going to be a really fun journey. Yeah, I think it's cool. I think it's really cool. Literally cool because can you imagine how beautiful Tahoe is right now. Right. I've never been I need to I need a reason to get there Noah hint hint. You know we might have to come and personally deliver this answer to you. Right, right. Or I'd love to be on the review committee or something but yes, that sounds good. I love it. Okay Jerry from Carmel, California. Is it appropriate to have our annual report in a PDF and not printed. We have some team members who say this is illegal. I don't want you to go first Julia. Okay, so this really depends Jerry on your state laws, it also depends on your bylaws and what you've structured. If you have structured a reporting mechanism. I'm not mistaken and most states, it is a requirement that you if somebody walk in theory somebody walks into your reception area, they can ask to see the annual report, and that it has to be surrendered. I would just say that you could do kind of a hybrid. Most definitely it needs to be in PDF format so that it's convertible. It should be on your website. It's going to be asked for grant applications, board members or board prospects are going to want to be able to see this. It needs to be good to go in PDF format. It's also becomes locked down it's more secure, but the reality is in olden days we used to print all these up and it would take all this time and money. We would just nail mail them out to everybody and we would use those as a brochure. I still think you can use your annual report as a brochure, but there's print on demand. You can have a smaller internal print printing where it's put into like a binder situation and used internally and not really distributed, except if there's a call for it. Yeah, you should always have, I believe, and I'm older than Jared by just a few years. I always believe there should be a hard copy of this. And let's say you. So Jerry, I have seen, I've seen some really beautiful reports, but I have been referring to them as impact reports, not annual reports. So I think we're starting to see a shift in language, right. And so an impact report for me is a down and dirty two page kind of infographic document eight and a half by 11. So I use it multiple ways which, you know, again, hopefully Julia endorses that because, you know, she would never buy ground beef and not have at least three meals that week to use that ground beef on. So that repurpose and that reuse. So a couple of things here right. You could take your annual reports, and you could have multiple multiple pages right. A lot of people still print or still categorize their donor levels to say, you know, individuals in this giving circle in this giving circle and they literally print the names. There's some pros and cons to that that I'll just spare us all a lot of time right now and not go into that and maybe it can go into another episode. I think that when you can drill down a multiple page in a report into a two page kind of impact report. It is short and sweet like Julia said you put it on your website you send it out in an email communication trick of the trade. I print them out with a letter from the CEO, and I send those to top donors. So anyone that is a major gift donor receives that impact report in the mail in a large like eight and a half by 11 either white or Manila kind of envelope. With a personal letter while a form letter, but then a personal note. That is by no way shape or form of fundraising initiative or activity, but money typically does come in after that because you're, you know the whole thing with with fundraising is you want to ask. You want to think you want to report and you want to repeat. And so when you were providing this impact report and a letter and a personal note. Typically that is a motivation for this major donor or someone of a capacity level to make an additional gift. That's how I use it I also use elements of the impact report in a social media campaign. So there's so many ways to, you know, slice and dice and all these great things of the impact report. I would have a couple on hand I would have a couple printed at the front desk you know and maybe some of your meeting rooms, but then I would also make sure that it's very, you know, accessible electronically. Yeah, and I love what you had to say I love using the word impact. I think that's super powerful. And I agree with you this is, you know, at the heart of it and annual report is really a brochure. I mean, like the 990 the great Brenda Blunt CPA from I Bailey says, look at the 990 as a report as a as a marketing tool. So there's somebody goes to look at you, they're going to get information that makes them want to engage with you right. So I think that this is a really interesting thing. Jerry an issue of being legal or not legal I mean there is that piece of it, but the reality is think beyond that and think of it as a tool for being able to generate excitement from the people that you're going to be working with. You know, very interesting, Jared, you are amazing I loved your answer. Well thanks. Yeah, I mean I pretty much always like your answers I gotta say. So one of our one of our favorite favorite guest he did make a comment and he says, I love the way Julia agrees wholeheartedly with what Jared says. So thank you. Sometimes we don't always agree. No, we don't always but that's, I'm always right. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I'm always right in that word that we don't agree. Okay, Olivia, here we go. I'm going to ask the question this you asked the question sister. This is a standard process for honoring board members who go off the board. We have done some very nice plaques for some board members and nothing for others. I'm the new board liaison. Congratulations. Yeah, help standardizing this also kudos to you Olivia. Okay, this is one of your favorite things Julia board liaison I think that's one of your favorite topics. So I'm going to let you start. Well, yeah team Olivia I have a special place in my heart for board liaisons. They are the glue that keep boards and organizations together. And so yeah team, you're absolutely right. I would also encourage you to look into adding an emeritus board if you don't already have that, because that's another way of, you know, thanking and honoring and retaining that relationship and keeping that champion close to the fold. But yeah, I would definitely definitely make sure that you are doing the same thing, because that's just bad form. You know, yes, and when I read this question Olivia, I'm reading between the lines. Is there a process for members who go off the board, are they terming off the board where they have to leave the board. Are they left under duress. Like, I think there needs to be a much broader and deeper conversation about if this than that if this than that. And I would standardize that for any and almost all scenarios. I do think there needs to be a line item in your budget. Right, and to Julia's point and I know that she would clarify this as well. The emeritus board is not where all board members go. It is, it is really for those select board members that have been voted on by the board and we have a episode focus strictly on emeritus board in fact led by none other than Julia Patrick. And this is, you know, one of her one of her other focuses. So I would Olivia really look at, I huge on benchmarking what are other organizations doing right how have they standardized this, because the last thing you want is for a board member to serve any term, and receive the appreciation and the recognition, unlike another, you know, or our board member within the organization sorry about that. So we really don't want to have that favoritism we do want to have an equitable practice and that will come from standardizing if this than that if this than that for any and all scenarios. I agree. And I think the other thing too is that, you know, when somebody that has been on your board and they have championed your organization, you don't want to lose that. And even if it's been something that's been maybe less than successful. It might be okay to still try and do something of an outreach where you off board them in a way that doesn't damage the relationship because again, you don't want somebody going out and and saying things that are unflattering about your organization you want to be able to, you know, cultivate some some good feelings so wow okay Olivia, yay team. Yeah, and congratulations on being named the new board liaison that's phenomenal for you for the organization for the board and I love that you're looking into standardizing because that is a very important process. It's true. It's really true. Hey, lots of great questions this week. I love love love that we have such an array of questions that it seems like every week we we get new things that are just like yeah Okay, so keep them coming you can tweet us a question email go on directly onto the website. Carrier pigeon. Hey, I was at an event not too long ago and somebody said Julia will you ask this question on air take my name off. Oh yes, I want to be a name withheld I'm sure that's what it was I was like okay no problem. Yeah, let us know what what we can do to help you where we really want to express some gratitude to fundraising Academy who stepped up to be the premier sponsor of our Fridays ask and answer it's a lot of fun. It's a great relationship and so we want to thank them for coming on board again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself the one and only Jared ransom CEO of the Raven group. Again, we mentioned where you can get a hold of us. We are now coming up on 2000 Twitter followers. And that is our executive director, Kevin pace. And so I want to give a shout out to him, because he's really the one that has stewarded this and it's been a lot of fun to see, see that grow. So thank you very much. Again, thank you to our presenting sponsors. Next month you're going to get to see some new sponsor logos coming on board we're very very excited about that. And so next month starts next week. So we'll be talking about that and we want to see your logo up there. We'd love to talk to you about partnerships. Thanks for joining us we know that we're going a little over time we got a little verbose but we're just we have immense gratitude to each and every one of you who show up for our episodes either live or recording. We have all of our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us to continue these episodes and bring in some really national voices to talk about everything relevant in the nonprofit sector. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend rest gets you know recharge come back join us on Monday we have another week of like really robust conversation so make sure that you do come back and join us on Monday but get some rest in. Absolutely. And as we like to end every show, we want to remind you to stay well so you can do well. Have a great weekend we'll see you back here on Monday.