 Welcome to everybody who's joined us. I hope you were able to hear this. We were just talking with Jack Gallardo, our guest co-host today for Friday Ask and Answer. He spoke about a really powerful mentor relationship that he's had. And he got to spend some time with his mentor who's now 87 years old and she traveled down to be with him for a week. It's really cool. And so that's the thing. Jack, it follows along that thing. I always preach the 10, 10, 10 rule. What are your decisions? How do your decisions impact life in the next 10 weeks, 10 months and 10 years? And when we kind of put those lens on, it changes things. And so that's super powerful. And I really appreciate you sharing that. But we got a lot of questions to get to. So you ready, my friend? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Good morning and welcome to another episode of Fundraising Academies, Ask and Answer. This is one of our favorite partnerships and days of the week because we get to have somebody that comes in from Fundraising Academy. They send us a lot of their talent and then we get another perspective and somebody gets to kind of share their thoughts with us. And so it's super cool. I'm Julia Patrick if we haven't met yet. And today in the hot seat is our friend Jack Alotto, C-F-R-E who's coming to us as a representative of Fundraising Academy. And Jack, we are thrilled as always to have you. You're a lot of fun and you always give us some good ideas. Along with that, we wanna thank all of our sponsors who join us every day. Blumerang, your part-time controller, American Nonprofit Academy, the Nonprofit Nerd, Fundraising Academy, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Atlas. Without you all, we would not have these discussions. One other super cool thing is that we are now putting all of our episodes into podcast format and you can listen to us wherever you get your podcast content from. Jack, you will love that our executive producer, Kevin Pace, was like, Jack Alotto, he's amazing on the podcast. You have a great voice. He just thought you were fabulous. Good. Well, I took some pointers from him too when I first started being on the non-profit show. He gave me some excellent pointers. So hopefully I'm using them. Well, he loved you. He was telling Jared and I was like, you need to listen to the episodes where Jack is on and you need to learn from him because he's doing great. But anyway, okay, enough of the Jack Alotto Love Fest. Let's get to it. Yes, I'm happy. Yes, let's do it. Okay, now you know, Jack, I love a good name with health question. Yes. And in an all truthfulness, there are times when somebody will write in and I will take their name off and I will put in a name with health because I think it's too dicey to identify them. So this is one of those things. I took this person's name off and here it goes. I've been working in the social services sector and fundraising. I admit to being a bit worn out. This is a hard topic. Yeah, in San Francisco, social services. Oh my gosh, I can't imagine. I love fund development and I'm wondering if I should move to a less stressful sector such as culture and the arts. So I wanna say I don't know if the arts and culture are less stressful. I don't have an answer for that. I worked in the arts. I worked for a ballet company. I worked in social services. I worked with homeless and a whole bunch of different things. Here's the thing, guys. Fundraising is hard. It's stressful and it's anxiety producing. But for me, this is a question about culture and mission. Make sure that you are still inspired by the mission of your organization. If you are not inspired, then it's gonna be more stressful and harder and more anxiety producing. But a second part of that inspiration is are the leaders of your organization, the board, the CEO, are they also still inspired by the mission? Because that helps reduce the stress. The other thing is, we talked about my mentor. You know what she did for me? She created an organizational culture that fostered me and made it less stressful for me. Team approach, mutual respect and understanding of the integral part that each team player was, or the importance they played in advancing the mission. She promoted in me. Every training I wanted to go to, she said, go Jack. And the retention rate at our organization was very high. People did not wanna train, change jobs. I stayed there six years. And she thanked and recognized my work as well as the work of others. And she promoted a culture of transparency. All of those things guys bring about less stress in our lives. And all of those things produce less anxiety. I don't know if arts and culture, that was an arts and culture organization. And then I went on to social services. I don't know if that produces less stress. I think culture of the organization helps us do our jobs. Whether we're program managers or fundraisers. So look at the culture of your organization. You know, I'm really intrigued by what you said because I am at one point in my life served on as a trustee for a major opera company. And at the same time, I was a board member on the executive committee of the nation's largest domestic violence shelter. And on a rare occasion, I would have board meetings like in the same week or sometimes like within a day apart or whatever. And I would be intrigued by how we had people die on stage left and right. In theater, right? And then I would go to one of the campuses that we served and people died, women died, you know? And it was like such a battle of my mind to say, what is right? What's more righteous? What's more stressful? And I have to say, I kind of think you're right in that this is a cultural aspect. And so don't think it's just the topic that you're serving to look at the ecosystem of where you're working because if it's not a supportive, positive environment, I don't care what it is. I mean, it could be managing a family foundation that's, you know, has a half a billion dollars in reserve. If there's stress and stress. So I like what you said here, Jack. Wow, you are good. It's, you know, for me, it's about, you know, when you served on that social domestic violence, you were inspired by their work. Absolutely. As well as the opera inspired by their work. We have to be inspired. And our leadership has to be inspired. If it's just a routine thing after while they've been doing it for so long, then maybe it is time to move along to some place else where you can see the inspiration. I work for faith-based organizations. And I'll tell you, the clergy in those faith-based organizations were so inspired by the work that we were doing with social services or homelessness or whatever. They inspired me. Interesting. Yeah. To want to do more. You know, it's that, I love that you kind of turn the thought on this because that's masterful. That's really amazing. I think that you need to send this clip to your mentor who, for those of you who joined us this morning in the green room chatter, we were talking about Jack Alotto who's our guest co-host today. He just ended a week with his mentor. How many years? 37 years ago, she hired me for my first nonprofit job. I love it. And she's now 87 and Now 87. And she came for a visit. I haven't seen her in seven years, you know, the pandemic, et cetera. She lives in Idaho. I'm in California now. And, oh my, it was a love fest. It was just like, yeah. I love it. This speaks to everything we want in our sector. Okay, Mo from Chicago, Illinois writes, I've been trying to manage my donor portfolio with the cost selling cycle. However, I'm the only one in my department interested in adopting this approach. Can I be successful if I am the only one using this system? You know, I love this question. And so in my real house, I'm so glad somebody sent this in. Here's the thing. We talked about culture in the last question. Now we're going to talk about a culture of cause selling. We have to create a culture of cause selling. And it has to be integrated this cause selling as a strategy and as a culture has to be integrated into our entire organization as a whole in order for this cause selling professional to be successful. So here are some things that we have to do. We have to get our board and staff excited about cause selling. And we have to help them understand what this model is and why we as a fundraising professional are using this cause selling model and why we are using it. And these are important things. So how do we do that? There are some things that we could do. We could, for example, show them the difference and why we are using this, where we are moving from a culture where we need your money to one that is transformational. We have to change our vocabulary around how we speak about this model. Because this cycle that this cause selling cycle, this culture of transparency, trust and collaboration that is the cause selling model is so important. It makes us and positions us to be more successful with our prospects and donors. Here's some of the things we can do. We can help them understand the concepts of cause selling. We could bring a specific piece of cause selling to every board meeting, take five minutes to talk about handling objections or practice our pitch with them or tell them the story of the successful engagement with the donor where we use the cause selling model, show them our presentation. Remember not to give a lecture, but to show them how it's working for us. We can meet with our board members individually or our staff members individually. We can show them how cause selling reinforces the value of philanthropy. Show them how cause selling by practicing this model, by going through this cycle can help us earn more revenue from our donors. And all of these things, talking about how we would handle objections or how we would present or how we use the pre-approach, that's gonna bring them in. Once they understand that model, then what you're really doing is bringing that culture of cause selling into your nonprofit organization. I always like to say, I love a culture of philanthropy. I love donor centric fundraising. Now I'm urging everybody who uses this model to introduce that culture of cause selling to their organization. So I'm really intrigued by this because what I hear you saying is that if you don't have buy-in from not just your fund development, but like you gotta really be hammering this across your organization, you might struggle a bit. Is that very... Oh yeah, definitely. Wow, well, I feel badly for you. I really do because it's, that's tough. It is tough. It's almost like Mo needs a support system, even if it comes from another city or another organization to talk about this and witness this. You know, listen, before I knew the cause selling model, I didn't know what it was. I didn't have a culture around cause selling, but once people trained me, people talked about how effective it was at helping them be fundraisers, then I started to buy-in and understand what cause selling means to the fundraising initiatives at your organization. And that's what I'm urging this individual to do, show them by the examples you bring of how you're using this model. They'll buy into it because it's a smart model and it matters, it works, it works. Well, and you know, just before we go into our next question, you could say this a lot about whatever it is your service mission is. For example, if you're doing something like mental health, you want your staff to understand the impacts of mental health and if it's the security guard out front or it's the person that's working in the cafeteria, they still need to know about your mission and what's going on. So it wouldn't be any different for fundraising and understanding cause selling. Really interesting. Okay. From every single employee should understand this model, everyone. And I love- From the janitor, to the admin assistant, to the CEO, to the chairman of the board. Yeah, I love it. That's super cool. Okay, let's go on to Judith in Cincinnati, Ohio. Judith writes, our CEO is not comfortable on camera and is not interested in doing media for the organization. Is it ever acceptable to have someone other than the CEO go on camera or work with the media as the organization's lead voice? Yes. Yeah. Here's the thing that I say. The person who best articulates the mission, the program or the activity is the person who should be on camera. Not the titles, not the thing. You know, in my work, Julia, doctors and nurses were way more effective at articulating the importance of buying a specific piece of equipment and how that equipment would advance their patient, the care of their patients. Sure, yeah. Docial workers were way more effective at talking about reducing gang violence or helping the homeless than I was. So smart fundraisers understand that it is the person who's working in this area. Some of the biggest gifts I've gotten in my career or where people increase their gift was because some person working outside of fundraising talked about the importance of their gift, the impact that their gift made in healthcare or social work or ballet or the arts or whatever it is. So it's not about title. It's more about who best articulates. Now, if it was about looks, Julia, you and I would be picked to be in front of the camera every single time. So it's not about good looks. It's not about how smart you are or the color of your eyes. It's about who best can articulate the mission, the programs, the activities of your organization. Yeah, I mean, having been in the media for 30 years, I'll tell you, my first thing is, that's the role of the CEO. They need to be able to do this for good or for bad. And so Judith, I would say first things first, you need to get that CEO some media training. And that should be a part of it. But I agree with you. I think a good strong spokesman person is really an asset. And that needs to be something that you know you have that talent because bad news stories happen, good news stories happen, but we have this horrible phrase that we use in the media. If it bleeds, it leads. And it is a horrible, horrible phrase, but that means the more dramatic and the more hideous the further up it goes in the news cycle. And so you've got to have trained, reliable, accurate voices on your team that can do this for you. And if you don't, you can create a whole other host of problems. And so yeah, absolutely. It's a big issue. And there are people that do media training that can articulate it. And I love what you said, Jack. It's the person on the front line. Sometimes the other person that can say, this is what's happening and this is what's going on and why we need your engagement. So. And I think sometimes people who are on the front lines are so effective at connecting the viewers to the work of the organization, connecting the viewers to the purpose of the organization. So I think it's really important. It really is. Okay, and Jack, you're gonna love this because this is somebody that wrote in when they knew when we announced that you were gonna be on this show. Andy from Denver, Colorado wrote, Jack, I watched with interest your second episode. Oh, your two episodes. Remember how we did? I was like, what? Yeah. Two episodes. 10 epic fundraising fails on the nonprofit show. How long did it take number of years to become a strong fundraiser? This is a good question. And I'm flattered by that question. Thank you so much, Andy. I really appreciate it. Would you mind sending me a note so I can forward it to my mom so that she understands that other people may think I'm a good fundraiser. But here's the thing. I think there are certain things that make all of us good fundraisers. The first thing I think is understanding what giving is and what it means to the donor. I like to say this, there are certain truths. Giving is an act of love. People give to us because they love what we're doing, the work we're doing. They give to us for a lot of reasons, but to me, that's the first thing. Another thing that I think makes a strong fundraiser is understanding that giving is not a transaction. It is not a transaction. Donors are not ATM machines. And respect and honoring them is so important. I think that when we understand the motivations and interests and we connect those motivations and interests of our donors and prospects to our motivations and interests of our organization, success happens. Here's another thing that I think is really important. Being committed to lifelong learning. I don't care how many years you've been in fundraising. Me, 37 years, it doesn't matter. I am learning all the time. And then- I gotta jump to the- Go ahead. How? Well, I mean, I agree with you. I hear what you're saying and I've witnessed you. I can see that this has worked for you, but what's, at the end of the day, how many years did it take for you to really become good? I mean, did you just like jump out and you were doing this? No, you know, back to my origin story. I had a mentor who carefully read the letters I wrote and she would say to me, oh no, that's not a good sentence. That's not gonna get people to give. She would look at the grants I wrote and even pass her original mentorship. I remember writing grants and taking them to my boss and she would review them and change them over and over again. And I learned so much. It's the things that are hard that we learn from. I don't know, each of us has a number of years where we get better at it. I like to think that I'm continually getting better at it. Okay. Or hopefully getting better at it. I can't say after 10 years I was a great fundraiser and I'm not sure I'm a great fundraiser now. You know, the other thing that I did, I love long time ago someone said to me, follow your curiosity in fundraising. If you're curious about what a plan giving officer does, then learn about it. If you're curious about how to write a great grant or a direct mail letter, then follow that. I have been fortunate because there are so many wonderful people out there who have written some great books, including our cause selling book. And I was curious, what was Simone Joyer saying about relationship building? So I went and got her book and read it. Or what is this author saying about giving? Why people give? All of those things, I was curious about those things. I know we hear in our society, follow your passion. Passion has a shelf life, but curiosity is lifelong. Okay, so. Follow your curiosity. I think it's really interesting because I'm gonna answer for you then this is my interpretation of your answer. And that is you don't perceive yourself is like this hot shop fundraiser in that you are always learning, right? Is that what I'm hearing? Is that how it's evolving? Julia, when we did Epic Fails, what was my mantra? I've committed all 10 of these Epic Fails and another hundred. So I learned from each of those Epic Fails. I mean, I would not know my donor and say, oh, how about this? You know, one time I sat divorced people next to each other at a gala. They happened to have the same last name. So me and my naive, I thought, oh, well, they would love to sit at the same table. They're related. Well, they were related, but now they're divorced. So I mean, you learn from your mistakes, that's what makes you better at it. Would I ever do that again? No, but just various things, sending a letter saying, hey, thank you for your gift to the emergency room and them calling me up and saying, I didn't make a gift to your emergency room. I made a gift to women's health. So all of those things teach us, but we have to retain those learnings so we know better than next time and not make the same mistakes. Well, I appreciate that. I kind of think that that makes you a more interesting human being and if you're always on the journey, you know? Sometimes we think, oh, you do this work and then you reach a place and then you're done. But that's not really true. I mean, life is, and our journeys evolve. And so I like that perspective. So I hope we answered that question. You know the other thing is fundraising is not a static learning, you learn what a culture, and then you're done. Look at some of the things that are happening in fundraising, new initiatives, like empathy mapping or donor mapping or nudge theory which is now coming into some of the literature around fundraising. I get curious about these things and then I decided I have to read a whole bunch about them. That's what we need to do in our profession. Look, marketing is becoming a huge, it always has been huge in fundraising, but now there are some really great studies out there about how marketing can be integrated and how we need to look at, like in cost selling, we talk about social styles. When I was starting in fundraising, never talked about that. No, well, and I think to put a bow on it, just the movement away from just benevolence, data. It's not good enough to have something to tug at the heartstrings. When we talk about storytelling, storytelling, storytelling, but the reality is the modern donor and the next generations of donors, they want to study impact and they want to know what the metrics are. And as a group, don't do that as a sector, we're gonna really suffer from that. So anyway, what is this? That's a great example. It's true, because when I started out, it was all about benevolence. Like make them cry and then they'll write the check. I mean, it's true, it's shameful, but it's true. Well, wow, Jack Elotto, CFRE, we love having you with us. Thank you, Jack, so much. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. Jack is one of the trainers for Fundraising Academy and if you ever get a chance to get in front of him, what an incredible treat that would be. Fundraising-academy.org, check them out. They've got a lot of amazing things and we have their team that comes on with us quite a bit and partners with us in knowledge and training. So I can't say enough about this. Jared and I always say we would have raised millions more if we'd started this. Oh, God, Jack, it haunts me. I mean, because I've never been afraid to ask ever, but I have asked the wrong way and my community would be a lot better if I had known these things. So I witness to you personally, check this system out. It's really an awesome, awesome thing. Hey, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors. Without them, we would not be here having these discussions. And you know, Friday is always a great day because we get these questions that come in. And so it's a lot of fun. We wanna thank the nonprofit Atlas, nonprofit thought leader, staffing boutique, the American nonprofit academy, nonprofit nerd, fundraising academy, Blumerang and your part-time controller. Hey, Jack, I hope you have a restful weekend. Next week it is gonna be busy, busy, busy. So check us out. And we got lots of great things to do for a lot of great people. Thank you so much. As we end every episode, we want to remind you, our viewers, our listeners and even ourselves, stay well. So you can do well. We'll see you back here on Monday, everyone.