 Welcome everybody to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're so excited that you joined us today. If you joined us in the green room chatter, we're talking with our guests today. Wow, I'm impressed that you're here today, Kirsten, because she's making a major move to another city and another part of the country in just a week. So bless your heart for coming on the nonprofit show when I'm sure you got a lot to do. Anyway, but we're gonna be talking about something that's really, man, it causes a lot of stress with folks and it's getting your capital campaign started right. I mean, I'm looking at our, and welcoming our new co-host, Meredith Tarian with us and she's shaking her head like mm-hmm. Yeah. I know what we're gonna be talking about. So we've titled this capital campaign magic because I think that there's probably a lot of science and basic routine to this, but we got to think of it in magical terms because that the path forward is quite magical. So we are super excited to have Kirsten White, wait, want, lend, blah. Easy for me to say, joining us today. Also, who joins us every day, day in and day out are our amazing presenting sponsors and they include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, your part-time controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These folks are with us day in and day out and they've been with us as we have produced more than a thousand shows and you can access that archive on our app through streaming broadcasts as well as podcasts. So we will meet you where you are according to what you need. Okay, Kirsten, you got to tell me about this adorable photo. Let's start there. Absolutely, so when I'm not fundraising up Blumerang, I'm actually photographer. I do weddings, I do elopements, I do portraits, pairs, all of that. So this was two falls ago, this is our dog Putin, we also call her Pie, but she is very much a Velcro dog. And so I thought it was absolutely fitting that when I was taking my new headshots for my website that she just made the photo. Love it. I think that's fabulous. Well, it's a fabulous image. And for those of you that might be listening to us via podcast, you owe it to yourself to go back through our archive and find it because it's really a cool image. But one of the things we were talking about in the Green Room Chatter, Kirsten, is that everybody that we've had on over the years from Blumerang, and we never have the same people on twice. It always seems like your team gives us amazing talent. Everybody seems so passionate about your product and your work environment. What does that mean to you in terms of what you do? And if you could explain that to us. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. First, I will just say that, you know, when I was doing my masters in nonprofit management and leadership, I was like, how do I get into fundraising? Like I know that this is the kind of community connection I want, like, I love art history. I wanted to be a curator at one point, but I'm like, I need to talk to people. I need to get people to care about what I care about. So I thought fundraising was the best fit, but for me, I didn't know that there were like tools like Blumerang and like wealth prospecting tools that existed out there to help fundraisers do their jobs more efficiently. So when I found Blumerang, it was kind of by accident. I was working with an orchestra doing a little bit of their data management and they're like, we use Blumerang and I'm like, fabulous, what is it? And so that's how I kind of figured out what it was. I've been with Blumerang for about three years and I started in the support department. So I learned the product from the technical side and then I got to transition to my current role which I work on the managed services team. So clients pay to work with our product. Essentially what that means is I do one-on-one work with our clients and two of the main projects that I work on are efficiency audits. And then I also work on quarterly strategy, kind of advising. So the first part of that, the efficiency audits is I will look at your database and your data and say, hey, we can't contact 50% of the people in your database. Let's remove them. Let's make sure your data is all clean. Let's, hey, you have this in your contract but you're not utilizing it. Let's make sure you're utilizing this tool to make sure you have the best experience. One, fundraising, you can raise more money and your data is really clean. So I help them do what they intend to do on the platform better. And then the second part of what I do is I work with organizations in the quarterly strategy program. So I'll meet with them every 90 days and we run 72 different data points to say what's happening in your database, right? Like how are people giving based on- Oops, you may have a little freeze. Like how are people progressing through their data plans, right? I help you look at different areas of your fundraising based on nonprofit best practice and donor behavior to say, hey, we really wanna increase the loyalty. Here's how we do it. Here's the segment we need to look at. Here's this particular thing that we need to focus on. So I help bring a lot of visibility to align with their fundraising strategy. So those are the two main projects. I know that was kind of a mouthful. So let me know if you have questions. No, you know what I appreciate and Meredith, I'd love your comment on this is that a lot of times we look at software and I don't care what it is, right? I mean, if it's email software, calendar software and it's like, oh my gosh, we just need to pay the $19.99 or the $99.99 and drop it in and it's gonna solve all of our problems. I love that you actually can advise and look at what an organization is bringing to the table so that you can set it better. Absolutely. It's not all like the fundraising strategy. It's interesting because my current portfolio, I work with about 80 organizations. They're all so different with what they focus on. Some people are event heavy. A couple of my organizations are very grant funded so they don't have, they're just all in very different stages of fundraising. So it's really interesting to work with them. One, because I learned so much, not being pigeonholed into one kind of organization or one particular sector or one particular NTE code. It's very interesting for me and then I get to spread that wealth to the other clients and say, this is what works well for organizations like yours, for organizations that are trying to achieve the same kind of growth, whether it be in dollars or average lifetime value, like it's really interesting work and it's a beneficial partnership, especially for small to mid-sized nonprofits where they may not have a lot of bandwidth in terms of staff to pay attention to these kinds of things. I love it. Well, Meredith, let's get you to kick us off here because we've got to dig into this concept of capital campaigns. Yeah, absolutely, Julia. This is such a relevant topic and Kirsten, I can't wait to hear what you have to share with us because especially particularly when it comes to capital campaigns, so much of it is driven and informed by data. So tell us on this first one here, what is ROI when we're talking about data and campaigns? What do you mean by return on investment here? Absolutely, you just nailed ahead with the definition of return on investment. This is one thing we don't always think about as fundraisers, right? Fundraising can sometimes feel like my hair is on fire. How do I raise money the fastest? I'm gonna bombard people with email, right? But the thing is, is like, sometimes it's not effective for your particular constituency. So you have to do things that are different. Like when I say structuring a fund, right? Not everybody knows how to structure those things appropriately to be able to see what's most effective for your constituency. So at Bloomerang, a big part of my job is helping people understand how to structure their campaigns, funds and appeals, how to tell what's effective, what's working, what's not working, that way we can pivot their strategy and help them raise the most money. When I say a fund, that's how your organization is using the dollars. Is it an unrestricted fund? Is that fund going to support the activities in a particular program? Is that fund going to support the efforts for your capital campaign? We need to know how your organization is utilizing those dollars. Now, the campaign, that's that overarching fundraising goal. Am I trying to raise $500,000 for a new ambulance? Am I trying to raise $2 million for a new agricultural center? Typically that is an overarching fundraising goal. It's typically time-bound. You have a dollar amount that you need to reach in order to accomplish that goal. I think of it, I'm a visual girl, so I think of it like an umbrella. My campaign is going over the top of my umbrella. Now, when we think of appeals, the appeal is like what compels that donor to give their money to you? Did they receive a direct mail? Did they receive a mass email? Did they find you on social media? And the reason these are all appeals is because they all will contribute to that campaign. When we structure things this way, we're able to see what's most effective. Did Joe, the board member call you and you gave $15,000? That's a personal solicitation. We want to see that difference versus the direct mail. So when your campaign is over, I want you to be able to run a report and say, here's my campaign for my $500,000 ambulance. I've raised $50,000 from direct mail. I've raised $20,000 from email. I've raised $175,000 from personal solicitations. You can see that personal solicitation is the most effective. Now, with my example, I just kind of reiterated there. I said, hey, we're gonna raise, we have raised $50,000 with my direct mail. Let's say you spent $48,500 on this direct mail. It's not a very good return on investment, but if it costs a couple, if it costs $1,000 and you raise $50,000, you're gonna say, hey, direct mail was pretty effective for this campaign. So that's the goal that you want to get to. And those are very basic examples, depending on how much time and patience you have for these kinds of things, you can do it in different emails. You can link online giving forms with different subject lines. So you can say, hey, this person that received this mass email and had this subject line donated through this form, and I can see that on my reporting. And then your other form with maybe different language or you're sending it to a different segment that goes to your other online form, you can see the effectiveness of the method, but with kind of like A-B testing. If you're not familiar with what A-B testing is, it's a way to kind of test what works best. So I always encourage organizations to kind of challenge yourself and say, if I'm interested in seeing how effective this particular part of my campaign was, can I see it? That's the big question, is can I see it? If I can't see it, there is a structure problem with your data. Okay, now I'm gonna throw a wrench in this discussion. Because, I love starting out this way. And I love thinking, okay, we're not just gonna be like wishful and hopeful that the money comes in. But every capital campaign I've ever worked on, 18 to 24 month duration, it seems like you go in with a plan and then you work the hell out of that plan. What I hear you saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you see that there's an opportunity here for a little bit of modification. So that you're not just waiting at the very end and saying, well, next time we'll do it differently. What am I hearing on that? Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think sometimes when we attempt different fundraising efforts, like I'm gonna do this one special event or I'm gonna do this email drip campaign one time during my three year capital campaign, right? We can say, we didn't raise that much money, nevermind. But the follow up to that is, why? Was it a language thing? Did we segment appropriately based on people who were engaged or not engaged? Like there's a lot of follow up questions that can come from failure or quote unquote failure or maybe just not as successful as other efforts. I don't like using the word failure and fundraising because it's not really a thing, right? Like you learn from it and you say, hey, this doesn't work for our constituency, this works for our constituency, let's do it again. Especially in capital campaigns that are longer, you're not just doing your six week end of the year sprint in end of the year end fundraising. You have time to do that kind of A-B testing where you can say, hey, this worked now, this didn't work then, and you can find the right path that works for you. Meredith, what do you think about this? Cause I see- So you know what I love about everything Kirsten is saying right now is, we already know, right? How important data is in fundraising. But what I really hear you saying is that data is only as good as what you do with it, right? So much of what you're telling us Blumerang has these really cool functionality and tools you can use, but what really makes the difference here is what as a fundraiser, what you're doing with that data, right? How you're informing your decisions going forward. Yeah, I mentioned in the beginning of the episode that a lot of what I do is efficiency data. So I will have these conversations with fundraisers every single day. And they'll be like, no, I absolutely need this email record from 17 years ago, even though that person's deceased or whatever. And I'm like, okay, but when did you report on it last? When did it play a role in what you are doing now? That is the question that I ask people is like, it's all well and fine that you have record of every communication ever that you've brought to whatever system you're using. But what are you actually doing with the data? Because if you're not doing anything with it, if you're not using it to say, is it more effective? Hey, they've received this appeal. I'm gonna see who made a transaction after they received that repeal. If you're not doing anything with the data, it's not adding any value. It's really just kind of cluttering anything up. So when people are reluctant to let go of data that may not mean anything now or that is not good data, I challenge them and I say, okay, show me two examples of when you've used that data in the last year and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I didn't. And I'm like, I know. So it's a hard thing, right? Because when we think of data and fundraising, we wanna have as much data, but there's data for data's sake and there's data that is useful. And we have to pivot especially in a campaign and say, what is useful data? If we can't answer that question, we're not thinking about it in an appropriate way. Well, let's then move on to the value of wealth prospecting tools. Because this is another amazing amount of data that can come in and transform so many decisions. Talk to us about what this looks like. Yeah, yeah. First of all, I'll answer the question of what is a wealth prospecting tool? This is one of those things where, when I was doing my studies, I was like, I have no idea what a wealth prospecting tool is. How do they know how to ask Yoshmo for 50 grand, right? How do they make those kinds of asks? The answer is wealth prospecting tools. So one of, Bloomerang's partner is donor search, but there's other ones out there like iWave and things like that. But essentially a lot of those tools will aggregate public record. So if your organization that you donate to, like let's say I give $5,000 to the National Parks Foundation, if the National Parks Foundation publishes an annual report, that's now a public record to say, hey, Kirst Swatland gave $5,000, donor search is going to find that record and they're gonna give me a rating that says, hey, Kirst is on fire, which means she has a DS slash whatever, whatever rating that says, I have the capacity and the means to give a particularly sized gift. Where this can play into your fundraising in general and also in your planning of a capital campaign is you can see what capacity donors have and then not leave money on the table. You're making the appropriate asks for them to them. You're not saying, hey, every single person in my database, I'm gonna ask for $250 because if Julia can give me 10,000, I'm gonna ask for 10,000 from her. And always, I mean, it's important to keep in mind that just because somebody has the capacity doesn't mean they're gonna give you that. They're just gonna write that check when you ask. This is part of the cultivation part where fundraising is so dependent on relationships where, yes, you can see what people have that capacity. So you know what relationships are worth cultivating. And that's not to say that people with a lower capacity don't have that worth in cultivating. We may be able to get them up to higher levels at some point, but it shows you what money is immediately accessible, what people have the means right now, especially if you're in something urgent like a capital campaign. Amazing. It's a really interesting way to weave this in because then the next thing that we really kind of wanna, you know, have you address? And it's a shame we don't have like four hours to be talking because this is so much and it's just riveting. And you know, the other thing too, I think Meredith and Kirsten, you know, so many organizations because of COVID, they stopped their capital campaigns and now they're chomping at the bit to get them reactivated and reanimated even and how do you do that and what does it look like? So let's move a little bit in further to prioritization and how do we look at these prospects using data, using outside information based on the relationships that we have or that we can navigate. What does that look like? Absolutely. This is a fabulous question. This is another one of those things that I don't think I was even really comfortable answering until the last two years, really with looking at so many organizations data. This is a hard one. Who do I put my focus on, right? So we talked about the importance of wealth prospecting and the importance of good data. So when I think of prioritizing data, the kind of industry standard that we go by here at Bloomerang is, you know, every engaged donor gives every year, right? They have to give once every 365 days. That's kind of the goal. I know other organizations operate on more of like an 18 month cycle where if someone hasn't given 18 months then they're considered lapsed. But the goal here is 365 days. The more time that passes, the less likely you are to recapture that donor. So that's why it's so important to keep your donors engaged. So they don't turn into a lapsed donor because it makes them so much harder to capture. So with that in mind, when I talk about prioritization, time is a big aspect. So I may have major donors that prefer to give every two years, every three years, et cetera, which is fine because they're giving those larger amounts. But when I think about prioritizing, it's going to be someone that gave in the last X amount of years. Sometimes we have people in our database that haven't given for 20 years, even though we still have good contact information. I would say they're going to be lower on the priority list than someone who's giving now in the last six months in the last year. Typically when I'm looking for priority one for this capital campaign, I'm going to look for people with high wealth indicators and a system like Blumerang or system like other CRMs, they're going to have some way in there to tag those individuals that have that higher wealth prospecting rating. So I'm going to say that's one of my requirements. The second requirement is if you have a way to measure that engagement. So maybe you're saying these people had personal touch points with me or these people have all of these really positive data trends because they receive our emails and they click on them and they engage and they come to our free events, whatever it is, they're people that are interested. So when we look at the second requirement, we're saying the second requirement is engagement. And then the last requirement for me is like that actual contribution at some point. It doesn't have to be a massive contribution to be able to make an impact to your capital campaign. That's the other thing I don't want people to forget about is it's not always capital campaigns are not only funded by those massive donors and large foundation grants. A lot of the smaller input can be very valuable. So when I think of prioritizing, I'm thinking, do they have a wealth prospecting score that's relatively high or at least what you consider, I keep getting the icons here, at least what you consider a major gift for most of the industry, it's $1,000 or more. And then the second thing is, do they have those engagement scores? The third thing is, do they have a transaction in the last three to five years? If they haven't given in five years, the percentage ratings of them ever giving again, very, very low. So that's what kind of my criteria is for prioritizing. So then if we talk about that top level that we're like, okay, everybody, we're gonna really drill down on this and we're gonna really focus on these and our intention is to connect with these folks. What does that second level look like? And is that something that you spend only, 25% of your time on or you give them to the newbies? Like what does that ecosystem look like? That's a great question. I never thought of it like a percentage split, like where my attention should go. Obviously your priority one, I would say like 60%. You already know those people have high engagement, so they care about what you're doing. You know they have high capacity, you know they've given at least a penny in revenue in the last five years, right? So that's kind of priority one for me. I'm gonna say, let's spend the other 40% on our lower tier and not when I say lower tier, I don't mean lower in value, I just mean maybe lower in capacity or lower in engagement. The other thing to think about is a lot of these wealth prospecting tools can show you future potential. So like let's say Julia, you gave $500 to the National Parks Project. Let's say your capacity rating is actually $10,000. If the National Parks Project is cultivating you, they're gonna say, hey I'm gonna treat Julia like a major donor, I'm gonna treat her like she's given me $10,000. That can really cultivate some of that future potential. It can strengthen relationships. It can get people reinvested in your mission. So that's almost why I say priority one, they're already there man. They've got that cultivation. Priority two really helps you look at future potential. And this is where we start to pivot fundraising from my houses on fire to I see smoke, right? You only don't, I think I don't wanna call it a mistake but I think fundraisers can often forget that you have donors to cultivate for potential. We don't only wanna look at our existing donor base of people that I've given major gifts before to say they're gonna be the only ones to ever give us a major gift. That's something hard to forget. We have to pivot and say, who has potential now? Who can I treat like a major donor to get them to that level? That's part of fundraising that didn't make sense to me before because I'm like, oh if we had 50 people before that had given us a $1,000 gift and some of those donors drop off it's just gonna continue to go down. But we have to look forward and say, what tools do I have to show me future potential? Okay, I'm fascinated by this because Meredith, I've gotta ask you this question. As a seasoned fundraiser and somebody who's in, you know, the space of training and educating and promoting this, how much time or even intent do you think that we as a sector are even thinking about cultivating for the future? So that is such an important question and you're right because, you know, I went to a conference one time early in my career and one of the best pieces of advice that I got was, you know, you should have a full-time prospector on your team. So somebody who's always sort of looking forward to, you know, who do we add to our pipeline? Who are we looking ahead to to cultivating? I mean, like, like Hurston said, so many times we put all of our focus on our current donors, but what about those hidden gems in our database? Or what about those folks that, you know, have the potential or the capacity to give more? So that's, you know, I think the answer to your question is not nearly enough time, right? We're not spending enough time doing that very activity. No, and we don't even, we don't even talk about it. Yeah. And this is where I think it's interesting where when you lean into a CRM or a wealth prospecting tool, you may have those hidden gems in your database. The Joe Schmo down the street that comes to all your free events and has a season pass, right, may have money to contribute. He just hasn't been recognized, right? So he hasn't had that investment in his relationship with the organization, maybe on his part, maybe on our part, we don't know. So that's why it's so important to take a look at what you've already got. Capital campaigns often are preceded by a feasibility study. This is talking about, you know, do our stakeholders care about what we're trying to raise money for? This could be a survey. This could be calling all your donors, right? Do they even care? Do they want to support those kinds of things? And when you talk to people in your database, even if they're not your big donors, your major donors, people you think who are going to have a big impact, one, they could have that more capacity. The second thing is they could be seriously interested in supporting whatever you're doing. So that could be cause enough to get that first major gift from them. Amazing. Well, I have loved this conversation. I mean, Meredith, it's really been fun to have you join us today. You're going to start to see much more of Meredith Terrainian and we will, Terrain, I'm telling you, you need to whack me upside the head. Really, really an amazing conversation. And Kirsten, I love your approach. I love that you're out there really helping us to understand how and why we can be successful just as opposed to like a yay or nay, like, woo-hoo, yay, we did it. And that is, it tends to be like you're a winner or a loser mentality. And that's just the wrong way to be going about this. So, Kirsten Wantland, I'm going to wish you a grand adventure on your new relocation into the West. We need more great talent in the Western United States. So yay team, bring it on over. Database Consulting Specialists with our friends over at Bloomerang. Check out bloomerang.com. They have an amazing wealth of information, white papers, blog posts, videos, podcasts. It's free, you don't have to be one of their customers and it's not gated. I mean, so it's really an amazing assortment of great thought leadership. I can't say enough about it. And I think you'll find that it really can help any kind of direction that you're taking with your organization. So I certainly encourage you to take a look at that. Also, I encourage you to take a look at our presenting sponsors and they include Nonprofit Thought Leader, American Nonprofit Academy, Bloomerang Fundraising Academy at National University, 180 Management Group, Your Part Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Tech Talk, Nonprofit Nerd and JMT Consulting. An amazing wealth of talent and knowledge that supports the nonprofit show day in and day out. And we are really, really grateful for this. Okay, Kirsten, I think you've made me less stressed out about this concept. What about you, Meredith? Absolutely. I mean, there's so much confidence to be had in understanding your data and who better to do it than working with Bloomerang. I've worked with your database, Kirsten, so many times, it's one of my favorites. So loved everything you had to share today. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for having me guys. I really enjoyed my time. Well, ladies, it's been fabulous. You know, we end every episode of the Nonprofit Show with this message. And it's so funny because I swear, it means something different to me every day and I hear something different, but it goes like this. And that is to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.