 Hey there and welcome back. We are so glad to have you here for another Friday, ask an answer. And actually, I just realized it's Friday, not Friday. So really glad to have all of you here. Again, thankful to Fundraising Academy at National University for being our dedicated sponsor of these conversations. Today, I am so glad to have Meredith with us. Meredith Terrain. Hope I pronounced that right. Practice before we went on. Meredith is a trainer at Fundraising Academy, pardon me, and founder of the Allied Group. Just a minute, I'm going to ask you to share a little bit about herself. But every single week, we end our week with a fryer, ask an answer, dedicated conversation. So these are questions that you, our viewers, our listeners from around the globe have sent in. I'm Jarrett Ransom, non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. So, Meredith, you are, I'm going to say, maybe one of the newer members of the Fundraising Academy team, but you are not new to the sector, not new to the community. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Fundraising Academy. Yeah, well, thank you for having me today. It's such a pleasure to be here. So you are right. I have been with Fundraising Academy now for about eight months, so I am kind of the newest trainer, so to speak, have loved every minute of it. I am not new to the industry or to Fundraising in general. I've been working almost exclusively in the nonprofit industry for the past 13 years. I did initially a lot of fundraising work and major gifts and data analysis. And most recently, I've done a lot of work with capital campaigns as a consultant. So I've had kind of a unique opportunity to see the whole spectrum here from being an internal frontline fundraiser to being campaign counsel. And so I love the work I do at Fundraising Academy what I love most about that is just that we kind of professionalize that fundraising process and the resources that are offered through Fundraising Academy are just incredible. If I had access to those when I started my career, I mean, what a difference it would have made. 100%, Julie and I say that all the time. It makes total sense, right? And I wish that I had this model when I started because the difference would have been exponential. But we have it now and we're leaning into it big time. We also wanna say thank you, express our gratitude to these amazing partners that are with us day in and day out. So thank you to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, again, Fundraising Academy at National University. Today we have Meredith with us. Also thank you to 180 Management Group, your part-time controller, Staffing Boutique, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd as well as Nonprofit Tech Talk. We are so grateful for these partners. They allow us to have these conversations. If you have your phone nearby, which I think we all do, go ahead and scan that QR code and you can download the app. You can also still find us on broadcast as well as podcast platforms. So all right, well, Meredith, this is our first time doing a Friday, ask and answer together, but this is not your first Friday doing ask and answer. So for everyone watching and listening, I'm going to read our questions, our statements, our comments aloud. And then Meredith, I would love for you to, you know, kick us off by providing some of your professional insight. Julia, I'm sorry you're missing this today because you love the double name withheld, city withheld. So this one's coming in Meredith with the question of, I am in a super tight spot. I think that the CEO of our nonprofit is using our business credit card on things for herself. I have no idea where to go with this. How do I report this? We are a small nonprofit and our bookkeeping service is a remote company. Oh, no wonder this is name withheld, city withheld. Meredith, take it away. Yeah, so this is kind of a sensitive topic, right? This is like, what a way to start our Friday ask and answer series with kind of a heavier question, right? It's heavy. I think what I would say to this is a couple of things. So first and foremost, you know, sorry to hear that you're in this situation because that's not only an ethical dilemma, obviously, but it's also a legal dilemma. So I think a couple of things, reporting suspected misuse of funds within a nonprofit is going to be really important, not only again because it's a legal obligation, but also because it helps you to maintain transparency and integrity with your donors, which of course is going to be your main priority here. So I think that what's really kind of standing out to me about this particular question is the fact that, you know, this person acknowledged that it's a small nonprofit. They have, they kind of outsource their bookkeeping and I think we tend to see that a lot in the nonprofit industry, right? So a lot of our nonprofits are small. They operate on small staffs of less than 10 people and there's not formal HR departments or formal departments through which you can, you know, route your questions or your complaints. I think what I would suggest here would be emphasizing maybe best practices that nonprofits should adhere to, right? So does your organization have a whistleblower policy? If so, then you wanna follow the steps that are outlined in that policy there to report this. If you don't have a formal whistleblower policy, the next thing I would suggest would be to maybe discuss this with like a trusted board chair or a board member, maybe a committee member. If there's somebody on your board who serves in a governance capacity, so a governance committee, these are things you might wanna bring up and discuss is having some formal policies in place that address things that have to do with HR, whistleblower, those types of things. I think one thing I would caution you on though is that's a very bold claim to make, right? So unless you are really certain of this, I would tread lightly in, you know, the accusations that you're making. So again, probably the best way to approach it would be to inquire with your board or with your executive staff, you know, are there formal policies in place for, you know, how to report and account for, you know, credit card usage within the organization? What are the policies in place on our audit and reviewing, you know, the expenditures that are put on the credit card and what is the whistleblower policy? If you have those policies in place, that will help you to avoid these really awkward situations in the future where you're just not sure where to bring your complaint or to bring your acknowledgement to. All great answers, Meredith. Thank you so much. And I also wanna provide some empathy for this person. I have unfortunately been in this situation a few times, I serve as an interim CEO and I have come into a situation where the board had recently let go of their CEO for this reason, they found it to be valid that there was misuse of funds. And so we did move forward with a forensic audit and really looking into the financials. I've also been involved with an organization where there was allegations of this of the CEO. I was not in that position, but I was working with this organization. And we also did a deep dive, not quite a forensic, but we did do a deep dive into it. I tend to air on the side of caution and good faith that perhaps something has slipped through the cracks that is personal, let's address that, let's get that corrected, right? Like let's make sure that we absolutely reverse that and we get that corrected. If that is what's happening, love the whistleblower. Like if that is not a policy that your organization as a small organization, if you don't have it 100%, make sure that you are implementing this. I echo everything that Meredith said as well, speaking to a board member, perhaps even the treasurer would be a good person to go to as well. But as Meredith said, a trusted board member because this is a very peculiar and could be very awkward situation. So, and I commend you for bringing this to attention and wanting to do right by this. So we wish you all the best and we hope that these answers will help to guide you on what to do next. Okay, Meredith, and the next one comes from Steve and we're not sure where. We have a development officer who is going to be let go at the end of the month. How do we ensure that this person does not take any of our donor data with them? I realize this is an ethics issue, but are there some things we can also physically do to protect our organization? Thank you, Steve. Meredith, what would you say for this? So aside from the obvious that it's one of those unfortunate situations, right? So whether it's a termination of an employee for performance issues or as we saw on COVID just a few years ago, there's layoffs that happen across an organization. So unfortunately, these things happen. So I think first and foremost to Steve, I would say good on you for looking ahead at how do we protect our organization and our data because that's really paramount, right? Protecting your donor data and your private information of your donors. I think there are a few things that you can do physically to prevent any issues in the future. So when you do either lay folks off from your organization or let them go, it really doesn't matter. The first one would be review the access permissions that your staff has to the database. So this is aside, what I'm gonna say next is really independent of any issues with termination or laying folks off. I would always recommend that in nonprofits that you have a small group of folks who have access to your database and particularly have access to editing information in the database. When you get too many cooks in the kitchen, there's too many opportunities for human error, right? In your database usage. So particularly in this case where you're letting somebody go, I think you wanna ensure that the development officers access is revoked immediately upon termination. So typically those things are done on the backend before you even meet with the employee. So by the time the employee is notified that they're being let go or laid off, whatever the scenario is, they wouldn't have access to the database immediately upon leaving that meeting. The second thing would be backup your data. So that's something that should be done pretty regularly within your CRN or database as it is. So the whole idea there is to ensure that you have a copy of all the information in the event that there's any unauthorized access to your database, not just from disgruntled employees, but just from outside cyber attacks as well. Another thing I would recommend would be to conduct an exit interview. So that's always a really good process to do when you let somebody go or even when somebody puts in their notice of resignation or two weeks notice. So conducting a thorough exit interview will kind of remind them of their confidentiality obligations and remind them that they don't have any access to sharing this information or it's prohibited to share donor data. And on top of that, something you could do and some organizations do this is they take legal measures to implement like a non-disclosure policy or have your former development officer sign an NDA that says that they agree contractually and they're obligated to not share donor data with the next organization they go to, particularly if it's within the same industry or mission area. So there are certainly processes that you can put into place and steps you can take to kind of protect the integrity of your donor data, but also to just kind of lower the emotions when you're letting somebody go. So again, having that exit interview as a good way to provide both sides an opportunity to kind of talk and to understand next steps. Right, 100% and I echo all of this. I also wanna add the IT department, if you have one either internal or external is your best friend for this. So make sure that they are informed and are aware so that perhaps while you're having this discussion with the employee, they at that time know that that is the time and they can shut off the access to Meredith's point where it comes to severing access. I do know however, that step is often missed with small nonprofits. Meredith, there's still a couple of my former clients believe it or not that I believe I still have access to donor databases. And once I realized that I messaged them and say friendly reminder, please remove me from this database, but it also I have several logins for several different accounts. So trying to figure that out. The other thing too for any small nonprofits you want to make sure that you provide the technology and the equipment for your employees. Therefore they return these items and they're not housed. There's not any documents within your organization Steve that are housed on any personal technology platform. So for any of you listening that are thinking, oh no, we're small and they work off their own computers, things like that. There's some other steps that you wanna take a look at to make sure that you're ensuring that safety. But great stuff here, Steve, we wish you the best. I hope that, again, these answers help you to guide through here. You're right, it is an ethics issue. And I also wanna say, hopefully the person that you've hired regardless of their termination also honors all of those code of ethics that we subscribe to as professional fundraisers. So hope that it ends well for everyone involved. Okay, Jamie and Vegas, how often do you recommend that our development team arrange in-person meetings with donors? With COVID slowing down, I feel that we could be getting back out there. However, I also think we should craft some sort of strategy to make the whole thing more efficient. This is a great question. I too have been getting out there, back out there, right? I've been still doing a lot virtually. Meredith, what would you say to Jamie? Yeah, so this is a great question. And I think I would echo what Jared just said, that I think what we're tending to see now is that most businesses and organizations are kind of getting back to the pre-COVID norm now. So certainly we all still use Zoom and virtual meetings and we've come to find that they're quite effective and they work quite well. But I think that we're beyond the point now where we can't meet with folks face-to-face anymore. Conferences, things of that nature are coming back and we're back to getting into large group meetings again. So to answer your question, I think it's a tough question because there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach, right? So the frequency of in-person meetings between major gift officers or your development team and your donors really vary and are based upon a number of different factors, right? I think in general, what I would recommend is that for your major donors and every organization defines a major donor differently, but for whatever a major donor is for your organization, it's a good rule of thumb to plan on meeting face-to-face with those folks at least twice a year. So I think that that first and foremost is a good rule of thumb. The other thing I think I would suggest is that it's really difficult to raise money from behind a desk. So the general kind of feedback and emphasis that you're giving to your development team and to your major gift officers is that they should really be out there meeting with their prospects, meeting with their donors, really on a daily basis. So each of your major gift officers should be managing a portfolio of major donors and major prospects, right? So that portfolio might range from 25 to 150 depending on the size of your organization. But again, the general rule of thumb is that for every person on their list, for the major donors, they're meeting with them at least twice a year for prospects and for folks who are being qualified as major donors, you wanna make sure that you're having those frequent in-person meetings. And also, I think it's really important to also have some of the other touch points that are not necessarily face-to-face meetings. So you wanna make sure that you're still engaging your donors through personalized communications, phone calls, emails, handwritten notes, things of that nature as well, because all of that counts as cultivation with your donors. So, Jared, what are your thoughts here on, I mean, this question of like, how often should we be meeting with them? I love this question and I think you're right. There's so many variables. One of my questions is geography, right? Like, where are your donors? Where are you if you're regional and that's something that you wanna create a strategy around? I have done that as well, where I'm based in Arizona, that's where I reside, but my donors were the entire Southwest. So how do we meet with the donors in California and in other parts of, and California is large, right? And so it's not like I can just take a quick jaunt from one part to the other part. So I think the geography should go into the strategy. I love kind of, you know, segmenting your donors based off your portfolio to see what that looks like. I will tell you now, my calendar almost looks like coffee, lunch, and dinner, just about, you know, three times a week. And for some days, right, where there are three to four in-person meetings and I'm just going back to back to back to back, that, you know, that is the life of a fundraiser. I would love to ask a follow-up to you, Meredith, for everyone listening, because I love what you said, the major donor. What if they are a potential major donor, right? So they are just under that threshold of how we really quantify the dollar amount for a major donor, which again, I'll say for some of my clients, it's $1,000. For some it's 5,000, for others it's 25,000. So what if they are on the cusp of one of these levels, but the goal, especially within, you know, our fundraising academy model, is to get them to that next level. Would you also encourage that we meet with them in person? Yeah, absolutely, and that's a great question. So a couple of things there, I think we wanna look at, you know, are they qualified to be a major donor? So in other words, do they have, you know, have you determined that they have both the wealth capacity and the affinity to your mission? If that's the case, then absolutely. I mean, they deserve just as much of your time and attention as your major donors. And ultimately, you know, the goal here for us as fundraisers is to develop customized, you know, personal relationships with our donors. It's really about relationship building. So, you know, it's, you can build those relationships a lot more effectively to the extent that you can get in the same room and kind of shake hands and put a face to a name. So certainly as we saw, you know, Zoom calls and emails and phone calls and electronic methods of meeting certainly work, but it's no substitute for being able to kind of sit there and have that fellowship face to face with your donor. Absolutely, there, I have a meeting that I'm scheduling currently and it is definitely six figures, you know, we're looking at a hundred thousand and above and I absolutely wanna meet with this person in person. You know, I want to have that exchange, the body language, there's so much we can read into that. And I love the Madden test that the fundraising Academy of National University has in the model. You know, you could go through this acronym, you can find it on the portal. So go ahead and take a look at the fundraising Academy website for that Madden test. Meredith, I feel like you and I can nerd out on these questions all day long. I'm having so much fun. Okay, I think this is our final question from Taylor in Detroit. What's the value of keeping our color schemes the same across all of our digital and our print marketing? I think it's boring to have it all look the same. What are your thoughts? This is an interesting question. And I love when marketing communications, dovetails and the fundraising because I believe holistically, right? Like it really supports one another. So I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this. So it is an interesting question and I can understand where Taylor is coming from and thinking like, because a lot of times as fundraisers we tend to be really creative, right? So I understand the concern that like, hey, is it boring? Is it stale to be using all the same color codes and color schemes and graphics, that kind of thing. I think if you're looking at it from a brand standpoint though, there's really several benefits to keeping things consistent, right? So brand recognition is first and foremost. Consistency in those color schemes reinforces your nonprofit's brand identity, right? So when donors and supporters encounter your materials across various platforms from print to digital and email, et cetera, they quickly can recognize and associate them with your nonprofit or with your organization. I think the second thing is it delivers a sense of professionalism. So they create cohesive and polished appearances on again, all of your materials across all platforms. And the other thing that I think I would suggest is that it allows for message reinforcement. So certain colors and can evoke emotional responses and convey meanings, right? So it allows you to kind of reinforce key messages and themes across all of your marketing materials. So in a nutshell, I think that there's a method to the madness, right? There's a reason that we keep things very consistent and it's for all those things we just discussed. That brand recognition, the professionalism, the visual cohesion, and then of course the message reinforcement. So I would say try to fight the urge to think that it's boring or stale and recognize that there's really, I think some valuable reasons that we keep things very consistent in our marketing and branding efforts. Yeah, and I 100% agree and I will add Taylor, I think we get bored as opposed to our donors and our audience getting bored, right? Like we're the ones that are seeing it so many times a day, morning, noon and night to the fact where we go home, lay our head on the pillow and start dreaming about it, you know? Like it starts to show up in our subconscious. So I think we are the ones that tend to get tired of the same messaging, but I'll also reiterate, I did a very successful end of year campaign and I used the same image in every single communication piece, right? The same image of the youth that would be impacted by these dollars. To me, it seemed like, okay, should I change this image up? Are people getting tired of the image? But for everything Meredith said, it's really, it's consistency. It's recognition. It's awareness. It's having that visual element that says, I've seen this, I know what this is, right? Like having that connection I think is, that's what you're looking for, right? And so I would say if you're getting bored, perhaps look for some kind of a milestone opportunity if you have an anniversary coming up where you can add something different, a little spice, right? To spice up your palette, a different color, a different logo, look for those opportunities. And maybe there's one sooner than you think to help, I don't know, add some variety. So- That is a great suggestion. I hadn't thought about that one, but you're absolutely right. That's a great way to kind of change things up a little bit. Yeah, when that opportunity arises, it's like, okay, how can we really commemorate this as something different? And just a splash of color, a new addition to the logos, a ribbon, something like that. So Taylor, yes, there is a method to this madness, but we also hear you, I empathize, right? I get bored easily. And so just hang in there. I promise you consistency is the best metric for success. Oh, I can't believe it. We have one more. We don't have too much time, but Jane wants to know, what is the average size of a board of directors? We currently have 12 and thinking about expanding to 17 in order to build a stronger corporate presence in our community. We think that corporations will be more interested in funding if we offer them a position on our board. I'm sure you've seen this, Meredith. What do you say? Yeah, so first and foremost, again, this is one of those questions that's kind of hard to have a one-size-fits-all approach. So the size of the board really varies depending on the organization size, their structure and their specific needs. However, a common range probably for nonprofit boards is typically between maybe 10 and 20 members. So certainly at 12, you're right within that range. I personally am a fan of having boards that are built out a little bit bigger. I think that there's a few reasons for that. And one of the main things being, what you're looking for in your board is networking and connections, right? So that's the real value that your board is bringing you. They should be opening doors for you. They should be connecting you with their networks professionally and personally. I think the other thing there is that we wanna look at skill sets, right? So try to identify gaps within your board. Maybe there's an opportunity to bring somebody onto the board who has a real expertise in marketing or branding. Maybe there's an opportunity to bring somebody in who has an expertise in financial management or governance policies and procedures. So those types of skill sets can be really, really valuable to your board. So as for the piece about offering those corporate presence within the community, I think that certainly that's a good way to do it. If you have folks on your board who have connections and have personal relationships with folks within the businesses in your community, that's a great way to get businesses involved and engaged. So again, I would suggest here that you take a look at the missing skill sets or gaps that you have on your board right now and work at identifying those and filling those first. And then also take a look at, how effective is your board at helping you to network to bring in new donors to acquire new prospects? Jared, what are your thoughts? I agree with you again, Meredith. I was hoping one of these answers we would get to contradict one another, but I often see on the grant proposals where they ask, is there any way for us to become involved with your organization? I have seen on some occasions that the response to that is, we're always developing our board, looking for succession planning of our board members. So that might be an opportunity to mention this and to Meredith's point, if it aligns with what you need, right? Are we in need for what they offer? Is it in line with our mission? For instance, if your organization is within healthcare, maybe you do want someone from your local hospital system to serve on your board so that you're having that insight, right? That is so relevant to your mission and how you serve the community in a collaborative space. So the favorite answer, it depends. Yep. It really depends. There's a lot of variables, but Jane, it's definitely an opportunity, but I think doing it strategically, having a matrix, having kind of outlined what are the gaps we currently have on our board and what are the skill sets that we need to bring in? Great questions this week, Meredith, and you just completely knocked it out of the park. So much fun with you. I look forward to doing another Friday ask and answer. For everyone that's joined us, you just heard from Meredith Terrain, trainer at Fundraising Academy and founder of the Allied Group. We mentioned the portal and I just wanna give a shout out. So go online, www.fundraising-academy.org. You can find that portal if you wanna look up the Madden test and any other great information that's provided there. Meredith, we were talking earlier before we jumped online, but you and I are going to see each other IRL in real life in San Diego at the Cultivate Conference, which is coming up in May. Again, the Fundraising Academy is hosting. So I look forward to seeing you there, Meredith, and I hope that many of our viewers and listeners will also see us there. Absolutely, make sure you come join us. It'll be a great time. We're really looking forward to it. Yeah, it's going to be fun. This is the second annual, so it's gonna be a lot of fun. Hey, before we wrap up today, I wanna say thank you to our sponsors, which include Bloomerang, American Numb Profit Academy, non-profit thought leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, where you just heard from Meredith today. Also thank you to 180 Management Group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT Consulting, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. These are the companies that support us day in and day out to have these high level conversations and to answer your questions. So Meredith, thank you for joining me and sharing your time and your valuable expertise. And to all of you that joined us either here live or you've found us on one of the recordings on the platforms, so glad to have you join us today. And I hope that you'll come back with us next week. Before we sign off, we always sign off with these same words, Meredith. And it's to ask everyone to stay well so you can continue to do well. Thanks, Meredith. Have a fantastic weekend.