 And I don't need to speak. I can just wave and say, Hey, you're up. Hi everyone. It is two o'clock. Welcome to the perfect 10 tips for building a fundraising campaign for give local Piedmont. We are going to wait just a minute as everyone's joining. While we are waiting, if you can in the chat, let me know what your favorite spring activity is so I can make sure you can hear me. That would be great. Although Jane, let me know that it feels like summer there right today. So maybe spring activity, summer activity, whatever you feel like. That's a good one. I love how our walks are good too. I like those. Not working. That's a good one too. These are all fun. Ooh sailing. Do you guys have, are you guys close to like big lakes or the ocean probably? No? Clearly I'm from Michigan. Driving, driving to the lakes. Yeah, how far are you from Lake Michigan? Oh, like five minutes. Wow. Yeah, we moved closer to it. I bought, I bought a boat. So I'm really excited about that. I know it's a bit, it's a small. It's a 1965 boat. It's a vintage. I'm very excited about it. I'm going to take it out. I'm going to wear my little bandana and I'm going to be like on the lake. It'll be great. That's amazing. I know I just got to clean it up a little bit, but it'll be good. I thought this is sail out of Traverse City. That's fun. I love Traverse City. It's so pretty. So we're on Lake Michigan. Well, we're near, I'm near Muskegon, which is probably two hours from Traverse City. Anyway, so fun fact, Michigan has a wonderful wine scene, winery scene. There's lots of wineries along the coast. So if you ever get a chance to try some Michigan wines, they're wonderful. If you like that kind of thing. Okay. Oh yes, I love Mackinac Island too. This is fun. I should just ask questions. No, that's a great question to start with. No tips. Okay, but we do have 10 tips. We have 30 minutes. I was told I get three minutes per tip. So we are going to go ahead and get started. Here's some housekeeping items. I'm Dawn with Mighty Cause. I am working with Sarah whom you met last week on the give local Piedmont project. We're very excited about it for this year. It's the 10th year, which is super awesome and congrats to everyone who's participated all 10 years. Congrats to those who have participated in not all 10 years. And congrats to those who are just joining for the first time. It'll be a good time. A couple of housekeeping items. If you do have a question during the webinar, please put it in the Q&A. And we will get to it if we can after the webinar is over. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is that the deck is going to be more in depth than what I am able to get to today. So what I am planning on doing is posting the recording in the toolkit once we're done. And then I will also provide the deck to what I suggest that you do since I'll need to very briefly highlight each of the tips to me to be able to get through them all. So I suggest you go back to the toolkit after this is over probably sometime tomorrow, but definitely what is today Tuesday definitely by Thursday, and look through the deck, because it's lots of good tips, lots of good stuff. And I will not be able to really get detailed with some of the tips most of the tips today just because of time so without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. So here we go. Our top 10 tips for building a fundraising campaign for Give Local Piedmont. Okay, so first tip, got to understand the ins and outs of the Give Local Piedmont program. Make sure you read through all the rules. Make sure you read through all the FAQs. Familiarize yourself with the offline donation policy. And definitely biggest one, understand and take advantage of the prizes available. There's lots and lots of awesome prizes that you can take advantage of. And so the best thing you can do before you even start, you know, like laying the groundwork for your campaign is understanding, you know, what you can and can't do with it, what counts and what doesn't count, how things count, and then what you need to do to win some of the prizes. And that's all on the aid and assist area of the Give Local Piedmont website. Perfect. Yes. Thank you, DD. Second tip, identify your why. So when you're, some of you may have already passed this point with your campaign, others are just, you know, getting started with how do I even start it. First thing you'll want to do is identify your why, you know, is your organization fundraising for a specific part of your mission, you know, what will the funds you raise accomplish. I have a picture here from the free clinics site, their profile on Give Local Piedmont, they're talking about their expansion project I thought that was a great example. So I wanted to share it here as well. So just think about, you know, why are you fundraising because that will help build that will provide the foundation for some of the other building blocks that you'll need to build upon your campaign as well. Number three, set at least one goal. So last, was it last week, whenever the last webinar that you did with Sarah, we also touched on smart goals, specific measurable attainable relevant and time bound. Make sure you're setting at least one goal so that you know what you're working towards, you know, is it a monetary goal? Is it a donor based goal? Is it that you just want to beat what you raised last year? Is it that you want to, maybe it's a peer to peer goal? Maybe it's an awareness goal, you know, whatever your goal is, make sure that you can measure it to know whether or not you're even successful. And this is a great little chart to be able to look through and think, okay, how are you know, is my goal specific, is it measurable, because if you have too broad of a goal, you're not going to be able to measure it and then you're not really going to be able to know if you're and you won't be able to build upon it next year to get a even better goal. My picture is not coming across. Oh, there it is. Okay, so tip number four, customize or update your organization page. This is also a repeat from the last webinar because it is that important. Your profile page is going to be the main link that you share with your supporters. You want to customize it to reflect your organization's mission and values. This is a perfect spot to be able to reiterate whatever compelling story that you're coming up with to your donors, so you'll want to just make this page really compelling. There are several, I took this screenshot from, oh man. Madcats, I think. It was their site. They have a lovely page as well. So, click around to some of the organizations that are in there to get examples but add pictures when I was clicking around looking for some examples there's lots of organizations lots of you who had pasted in your mission, which is great but like add some you can add visuals to it you can add a header like just adding a little bit more to it will help people stay on the page read through and just reiterate kind of what you're telling them through emails as well. You can also update your goal bar, your progress bar on the page as well. So if you set, you know, dollar raise goal. Initially, you can change that goal throughout the day, depending on, you know, if you meet it and then you meet a stretch goal, you know, so you have the ability to customize your organization page to make it look really nice for when people are searching and also for when donors land on your page to check out your organization. So if you want, can you mention just a little bit about how people can get support for creating a relevant and attractive page because that can be challenging for folks. Yeah, no, that's true. So when you're on your profile there's a little help icon in the lower right hand corner has a it's a gray circle with a question mark, you can click on that. And it should give you specific support articles all about customizing your page you can search for support articles about, you know, what to do to customize your page the best steps to customize your page. We have very comprehensive support articles with step by step instructions on each of the things that you can customize, as well as some that talk through you know what are the best things to update on the page if you don't have time. So through that support icon as well you can get connected directly with our support team that will allow you to submit a ticket, and then that will get you in contact with our support team. So they can help you you know if you're having trouble uploading a photo or uploading your logo or you know anything like that then they'll be able to help with that as well. You can email them directly support at mighty cost calm, but you have access to them through that gray circle support icon in your profile and among like there's a lot of other pages it's on to but anywhere in your profile that that button will show up for you and you can, you can connect to them through there as well. I feel like I'm doing pretty good on time. I'm already halfway through. Tip number five. Hopefully I'm not going too fast. Okay, nobody's nobody's complaining about me talking too fast so that's good. Tip number five set a campaign timeline. So we have a great resource in the give local Piedmont toolkit called the planning guide. This is a great place to start if you are not sure where to start on that planning guide you can print it download it and print it you can fill it out it's some nice questions to help get your wheels turning it's got suggestions and it kind of allows you it's almost like a kind of a template in building a campaign to help plan for give local Piedmont planning deadlines will help you make sure that you stay on track. And then after you after you create the deadlines, go ahead and assign if you can assign out those deadlines or specific tasks to others in your organization. You know, I'm saying that but I also understand there's lots and lots of organizations who are one person shows or who have very limited capabilities and you know I don't have a staff I don't have a volunteer support base you know, it's like me and I'm doing all this good work like for one you're amazing and for two still set deadlines still put out specific tasks but also understand your own limitations and make sure that those deadlines are realistic so that you do not get yourself overwhelmed you can only do so much. You're just doing your best and so set yourself up for success by knowing what you can handle and knowing what is the most important and that planning guideline will help you so you should check that out. Tip number six, create a compelling story so this is a very important part of creating a fundraising, you know, campaign. This one I put it as number six but it's really important, you'll want to create a compelling story to get people to connect with your mission and donate. To do that, you'll want to identify a beneficiary of your mission, it can be a person, it can be a, you know, it can be an animal, it can be a, you know, building, it can be, you know, whatever. Whatever has benefited from your mission, whatever you do. That can be just identify something that people can connect with. Tell that beneficiary story. Is it an animal that has a lot of medical bills, is it a, you know, person who needs, you know, some dental work done is it. You know, you are able to use the donations to create a park for, you know, for kids, or you know a dog park or whatever like help the donors connect to the beneficiary story, give them like examples help them connect to that one individual. That will help them make it feel, that will make it feel more tangible for them. And, and then that will help help them feel like they want to give to your to your mission and your organization. And then, as you create your compelling story, use that story to help answer your why and inform your goals so make sure that everything's coming back to that foundational step of why am I doing this, what are my goals for the campaign, and have your goals kind of evolve from that as well. The next thing you want to do tip seven is identify key marketing channels. So, as you're looking at these marketing channels that are here. And hopefully, I don't know if the videos are covering the image for all of you but hopefully, I don't know, but there's lots of different marketing channels that you can choose essentially. So, my best advice is choose what is has been most successful for you, is it email, is it, you know, in person, is it, you know, postcards, is it text messaging what has been most, most important most successful for you in the past that has, you know, either helped you connect the most with your donors, or gotten the best response from your donors in the past, and some donors respond differently to different, you know, marketing channels so maybe you have multiple marketing channels that are successful, understand, you know, where your donors are you know you're, if you have older donors and they might prefer a letter in the mail that says give to give local Piedmont. Or, you know, if you have some younger donors they might prefer a text message. So, or a social media post you know what has been most successful for you in the past and plan your marketing around those successful channels that that you've identified. Oops. Okay, step number eight, or tip number eight. Right and pre schedule your copies. This is also a very important step to help you stay sane on give local Piedmont. So do everything you can to pre write and pre schedule, whatever you can so email and social media, write out your emails, write out your social media posts there, there are lots of free websites out there that will help you schedule your social media posts so that you can set up everything ahead of time and then it just kind of goes during the day, and you don't have to worry about any of it. What you have to then think about is, how do I respond to people when they comment on my posts, or, or reply to emails, so that I'm being responsive to my support base to get them to donate. Pre scheduling things will will give you that time and space to be able to to respond to them, let them know that you know you're paying attention to them and especially with social media posts pre scheduling that and allowing yourself that space to be able to respond to them will help you in that in that algorithm. You know where the social media companies somehow decide who gets to see what the more you know interactions and engagements there are on a post. More people will see it. And so if you have the space to be able to respond and engage, then, then, you know, the more people will hopefully be able to see your, your posts. Pre write donor letters. Maybe you can write one up, print it out and then sign it and then send it off and that way you have all of them printed out all you have to do a sign your name whatever will work best for you to be able to, you know, get it done ahead of time. Do that. The other thing that you can do is segment your audience now. So by that I mean, you know, who are your larger donors, you'll want to give them a slightly different message than donors who give you $10. Who are your one time donors who are your recurring donors. So you have all these different segments that you can talk to. You don't have to create drastically different emails for all of them but you know, talk to them in different ways. I talked to my, you know, I talked to my grandma much different than I talked to my two year old. So you'll want to talk to your audiences in different ways, because they're, they mean different things to you. They're in different places in their relationship with your organization so if you can segmenting your audience is a good idea to do now. So you have that all set for the day of the other three things keep it simple. But for you know your anything that you're sending out to them always include your call to action. I'm sure some of you would be surprised or maybe not surprised at all how many people I've seen send out an email and totally forget a to even ask. So donors are looking at the email saying, that's cool. But like, what am I supposed to do with this, and then, or they don't send a link to their page so then the donor is like, I want to give but I don't know where or how to give. So if you, you know, send out your social media, or, you know, write it up, your email, keep it simple, and always always always include your call to action, donate, give visit whatever you want it to be. Make sure you always make sure it's very clear to the donor, what am I supposed to be doing with this, and then always, you know, include your ask as well because that's kind of the point of give local people. Number nine, utilize fundraising tools. So this is also a repeat from last week because it is very important. You have a lot of tools that are available to you in your account for give local Piedmont I would. There are there's lots of pictures here that you can look at. Most important thing that I would suggest customize your organization page utilize the tools that are in there and customize your checkout flow. If you can't do anything else, those are the two most important things. If you have the time and resources. Check out the matching grants tool, look at that see how that might help you check out peer to peer fundraising familiarize yourself with that maybe try that out this year. There are a couple more in depth tools but definitely take advantage of the fundraising tools if you go to any of the tools in your profile you can click on that support button in the bottom right and get some relevant support articles that that talk about it. You can also search or support forum to get more detailed articles as well. Number 10, make the ask so this is your building the fundraising campaign. You have all your stuff. The last thing that you need to do is actually make the ask. So when you make the ask and this, you know, this is really, this is a lot of this is common sense stuff so sometimes I know for me sometimes I need to be reminded of the simple things right. When you're making the ask, make sure that you ask a question don't make a statement. So don't say, you know, consider donating, say, donate to our campaign, please, please donate $50 to our campaign, or will you donate $50 to our campaign. So make sure it's a question, make sure that they need to respond yes or no to it. Making a statement gives them the space to say, you know, maybe later type of thing. Make sure that you ask more than once donors. Most donors do not get upset if you if you ask more than once, even to those who have already given, if they've already given to you, they like they've already given to you. But if you have a compelling, you know, reason like hey, we are so close to being the at the end for give local Piedmont we're only $500 away from our goal I know you've already given today, would you please consider donating again to help us reach our goal. They are connected with you. I mean, the worst thing they could say is, no thanks, I already donated. So don't don't feel like just because you you already asked them you can't ask them again. I mean it's it's this kind of the psychology with sales to so if you ask somebody one time they're not more than likely they're not going to respond but if you ask them at least three times they'll for sure respond. Not that I'm not that you need to like ask your donors three times to donate but don't feel like if you've already asked them you cannot ask them again because you definitely can. So the next thing provide an amount that you're looking for be specific. Whenever I solicit people for people for donation or, yeah, I'm saying that right not donations for people but people for donations whenever I do that. They always come back to me and say, Well how much do you need. How much should I get, because if you kind of if you don't give them an amount that you're looking for or give them a suggested amount, then it's like too broad and it's, it like paralyzes them. You know, decision fatigue or whatever that psychological term is. So make sure that you're giving them the options you know, when you create your suggested donation amounts on your customizable checkout form. You can put the same type of suggestions in your emails in your social posts let them know hey $20 will feed a cat for a week. I don't know if that's true but you know so or $50 will do this like we'd love $75. Like this hour, we're really trying to get everyone to donate $50, like give them the amount to donate. And this is a great, you know, kind of a side to say, maybe don't ask your major donors to give during that hour where you're trying to get $50 donations, though that can be a separate that we already talked about. So for other segments, give them an amount to donate so it's not so open ended where they're like I don't even know what to do. I'm just not going to do anything. Include the sense of urgency. Give local Pima is perfect for this. It's one day. You get one day of, you know, the prizes there's there's early giving but you get one day of the prizes. And so let them know like, like, this is when the golden ticket is this is when the power hour is like we're really looking to win it. Give them that sense of urgency, so that they feel compelled to donate at that moment and don't have time like don't you know say maybe later and sit down and then not doing it. It's easy to donate. The website is already pretty easy to use. But when you give them suggested donation amounts, make your donation form very simple. Then it makes it super easy for them to donate and they can do it very quickly. And then lastly get creative. So maybe ask in a slightly different way, maybe do a, you know, Facebook live or, you know, some sort of, you know, video where you're asking people to give you're showing them around your facilities, your, you know, maybe asking a couple questions of the people that you benefit. Get creative with your ask this year. Think up try to think outside the box. I like to Google a lot. So maybe Google some ways to be creative some see some other things that people have done. We have some fun ideas on our on our blog about some creative, you know, fundraising ideas and things like that so try and get creative if you're, we just had an event last month where we had an event at the at their animal shelter to raise money. And they literally slept in the kennels with the, the animals. And that's how they, that's how they were creative about it and raise money so, you know, if you want to do that that's great more power to you but you know, is there another way that you could be creative about your fundraising campaign to get people to notice, make it interesting and then get them to donate. And then use psychology so I have four steps here to use to talk about donation psychology. So first you'll want to frame the ask. One of the best ways to get people to give is to first ask them for their time, as opposed to their money. What I mean by that is if you ask them to volunteer that to them feels like more of an ask than just donating. And so, statistics show that if you ask them to donate their time. First, they are statistically more likely to give if you then ask them to give their money. So I would, I can't like get super into it but I would definitely like do some more of your own research into donation psychology it's super interesting. And that will also help kind of fuel create creativity and, you know, just more information to help you create better fundraising campaigns as well, not just for give local people but throughout the year. Step to make it personal so this goes back to the compelling story, make sure that your letting donors connect with what you do with your mission. So, you know, tell the story of an individual tell the story of you know, a single thing that you're doing to benefit and, you know, with you're doing with their donations. So make it personal. Number three, keep them updated if they know where you're at with your goal that you've set if they know where you're at within the campaign for give local PMAP. You know whatever your goal is or you know what you want them to be interested in keep them updated on your progress and how close you are because that will keep them engaged, make them want to donate again when you might ask to them to donate again. So just keep them informed. And then lastly, very important thank your donors, everyone wants to be thanked, everyone feels appreciated when they're thanked so that is definitely should be a part of the whole planning process what are you going to do to thank your donors after this is done, and your thank yous can look different for your different segments, maybe for your major donors you take them out for a cup of coffee, maybe for your single donors you have a like welcome packet, or you know a little email that says we're so excited that you, you know have been introduced to our organization. Here's what we do. We'd love for you to volunteer here's some volunteer opportunities. You know here's some other ways you can get involved with us. How can you steward your donors in these different segments after the campaign is over so definitely something to think about as well, and a very important piece to remember as you go through your give local Piedmont campaign. There we go. 10 tips in almost 30 minutes. So, I feel pretty good about that hopefully I'm very sorry if I was talking too fast for some people. I haven't looked at. I answered some question in the chat people wanting the deck that you have sent to them directly and I thought you said that all the webinars are on the website to give local Piedmont.org site or will be and I thought you said this one would be up by Thursday so yeah I usually try to get them up the next day. But at the very latest it'll be Thursday. And you can you can listen to it again at like 1.5 slower speed if you want, but also include the deck so you can kind of look through each of that. The slides in more detail. I'll put it right underneath the recording. Okay, I'll be I'll be right there, but yeah it's under the aid in this it'll be under the aid and assist. In the tool kit in the toolkit. I'm trying to see if there's any other questions. Just get it done. I know, I know, I feel like I can be done for the day, can I be done for the day with that. Go to the pool. The pool it's 50 degrees here. Anyway, um, well, good luck everyone. I'm so excited that you're participating in the 10th year of give local Piedmont. I can't wait to see how you all do. There's just a couple weeks left. And yeah if you have any questions support at mighty cause calm. We're always happy to help. And I hope that you all have a great rest of your day. And then a net asked if she wants to stay on. If she wants to stay with us to address donors who are not on social media. So that's a great question. In those cases, I would create a fun mailer to send to them. A phone call is also a great way. Any of the way basically any of the ways that you would get in contact with your donors before there was social media. You know, if you wanted to, if you wanted to hold like an info session at your facility to get you know donors together to say hey this is what's happening we love your support. But letters are always a good idea. Anything that they can post on their fridge to remind them that it's coming up is also a great idea if they're on email then they can you know add them to your email list but sometimes it's nice to just get some fun mail. You know, have your normal letter or you know postcard but put it in a fun envelope. That might be you know give local Piedmont colors. But yeah, so there's a couple ideas. Well in northern Piedmont offers postcards to our participants. Yeah, you can reach out to our office. You can reach out to our office for any support on any fundraising or communications that you don't feel like we covered in the webinar or maybe you want a little more in depth. Jane and I stand ready to assist next week's webinars on communications so it's a follow up and a follow through on what we talked about today to learn a little bit more about technique. And share just ever so briefly. We do have a whole with dawn talking about strategies and timelines we have a, we've had a couple meetings already today internally about when we're putting print ads out when we're doing email blast when we're doing banner ads so it's still a little too early to start all that but we, we started this week with some half page print ads, and then we'll proceed throughout the month in each county with additional announcements through. This is for all participants were advertising on all your behalf. Yeah. If you are looking for examples of anything in terms of copy we have in the toolkit there. I believe I'll double check and make sure they're there but there should be copy suggested copy for email and social media. You can amend the email copy to fit a letter if you wanted to send out letters. Alternatively, Google is a great way there's lots and lots of resources online about sending donor letters, you know, tips advice things like that if you want to get in depth with it. They'll have direct they'll have like full examples to if you didn't want to amend what is on the site, or you know you kind of match them both together. So, I think that's it. Do you guys have anything else that you want to add. No, just mostly know that we're available to assist it. And I think all of our contact information is on the give local Piedmont website as well, and the aid and assist area. Okay, thank you so much everyone I hope you have a great rest of your day and good luck during this week's or not this week's but this year's give local people. Thank you Don. Thanks to everybody.