 Welcome. Thanks for joining us. We have another show of the nonprofit show, another episode, I should say. And today I have to share is, let's see, it's today, Tuesday. So it's episode 598, I believe. So we're coming up so close to that 600, which is this. You're in the 600th episode week. So thrilled to have you here. Yes. So again, we have Margaret Brasda Poirier with us today. Grants for Good. And she's here to talk to us about social media plus grants equals funding. So I'm excited to dive into this with you. Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy is still enjoying some much time off. We like to give each other some some time away. I'm Jarrett Ransom holding down the fort for her today. I'm also known as the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. Julia and I are both extremely honored to partner with our amazing presenting sponsors. Those of you that might be watching, you can see their logos on the screen, but those of you listening, I'm going to give a verbal shout out. And I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you so very much to Bloomerang, American nonprofit Academy, fundraising Academy with the National University, nonprofit nerd, your part time controller, staffing boutique and the nonprofit thought leader. Please do yourself a favor, check out these companies because they are here to pour into your mission, help your bottom line and help to provide the solution to your community problem. Hey, I mentioned that this week is our 600th episode, but that also means that you can find our previous episodes as well as this one later on today on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV, Vimeo, as well as podcast. So if you are a podcast listener, go ahead and queue up the nonprofit show wherever you stream your podcast and listen to us there. Margaret, welcome back my friend I am just, yes, thrilled to have this time with you so what's been up that I mean that's an open ended question but but tell me what you and grants for good have been up to lately. Oh my gosh, well Jared the last time we talked was probably about a year ago because I think I was episode 100 something that's what I remember. Oh my God, that's the last time I was on this show we certainly been talking since then but exciting stuff at grants for good. As you know I started my nonprofit grant writing consulting company way back in 2009 so now more than 13 years later, we're working with just hundreds of people all throughout the US and Canada. I've even got some folks globally that are in my all about grant writing online course which I can tell you a few things about at the end of the show. But yeah we're just happy to be here and happy to be serving our nonprofit customers all over the place. So thanks for having me back. Well thanks for saying yes, I cannot believe it's been over a year. I feel like it was just you know last quarter couple of months ago so thrilled to have you back I know I've shared your company and your amazingness with so many people because your first presence has really just you know, been a milestone for me so thank you for as a colleague thank you so much. Yeah, my pleasure. So we're going to get super nerdy today and you're going to talk to us about social media and what that means for us when it comes to grants so we're going to start off about how nonprofits need to be known before they can get grant funding. Exactly. Yeah, you know I picked this topic, Jared, because it's something that not too many people are talking about right now, and I actually presented this at a national conference last year. And it really garnered a lot of interest. Last time I was here was talking about tips for grant writing you know a far more general topic. But now we're going to talk about social media. And one of the things social media does for us is it does help us get known. Why do we want to be known, why is it so important. Well, you and I know that when you meet somebody for the first time, whether it's a new friend a friend of a friend, a work colleague, you've got to know them. And eventually get to like them and then liking builds to trust. Now this is something I learned through some marketing geniuses out there they said you know no like and trust remember those three words. So it's important for your nonprofit for you to be known in the community, and well respected, liked and ultimately trusted, so that people will seriously consider investing their time or their money in your mission. And we're talking about fundraising so being trusted is important you're, you're being entrusted with somebody else's money it's a big deal. That is a big deal and I never really would have thought, you know that social media plays a role in the success of grants so it makes sense it makes perfect sense because I to have heard that same, no like and trust right. So yeah, share with us then you know what this means to to be known, especially on social media. What is this exposure that we that you're talking about that we need to garner on social media platforms. The first thing I would encourage if if our listeners and watchers haven't done there already is pick a form of social media when you want to become really active. Now, here's a mistake I made a couple of years ago. I realized wow there's LinkedIn which I've been on forever, there's Facebook, there is Twitter there's Instagram even take talk. And I got so excited by all of them that I was posting on all of them all the time, except to. So, it was too much, I was spreading myself so thin you probably know the feeling right here you know the best piece of advice I ever got from somebody about social media is so simple. It's pick one, and really stay active and engaged on it. So, so I picked to of course I have to overachieve. But I picked to so I'm very active on LinkedIn that's my primary one. The reason being, if you are working with a nonprofit or your fundraiser privately or with government whatever the case may be. This is the number one platform out there right now for be to be sales so business to business communications. That's where you want to be. My second favorite is Facebook. And I have a business page grants for good you can find it on Facebook, and I like that one too because I can post a lot on it, but it's not nearly as interactive as LinkedIn. That's, that's the one I would encourage you I think Instagram's great if you're really into visuals. Twitter can be fun if you enjoy it for me. I'm picking LinkedIn with a sprinkle of Facebook. I would agree that's my number one platform is linked in. But my question for you, Margaret as it comes to grants is often the grant writer the person overseeing these these proposals and managing are also not the same person doing the social media platforms. So how do we best work together to accomplish this goal. Well that's a great question. I mean the first thing is a responsibility of the grant writer or fundraiser people tuning in today is that you know you have the difficult job of first of all identifying what kind of foundations or what kind of state and federal grants do you really want to apply for for your organization, which ones are the best fit for your work. So, where the two people can work together your social media marketing or your grant funder grant writer rather the grant professional or writer can identify a list of foundations that they really want to know more about after they've done the research and you know I've taught this course as well as how to find the best funders. If you need to have those go to Facebook and LinkedIn and see if they have a page, and if so you're going to want to connect with them. Now, I got a pause for a moment Jared because some of the clients I work with. They have such small budgets that they don't have two separate staff doing this sometimes it falls on the executive director to do everything or it falls on somebody to do big programs to do all of that to identify the funders to get active on social media. So, I want to share some really three quick tips today that I think our listeners can take with us and use right away. Give it to us what's tip number one. All right tip number one. So I've already done kind of a pre tip. Your challenge today is to pick at least about three to five foundations or funders that you think are going to be a good fit with your organization. So tip one is to see which funders are on my case LinkedIn or Facebook which is what I use, and then make sure that you click the like or follow them and really be diligent about every day going to their page to see what they're posting. Now here's why this matters tip one this is why it matters. You want to learn more about your funders right. This is a great way to do it. Sure, their website is one way, the zillions of databases out there for funder research is another way, but social media is going to be the most up to date. I just posted today, you know, and yesterday day before. These are the most up to date so look to your funders and find out who are they funding oftentimes they will share success stories about some of their grantees. Because now you know what kind of organizations are they really interested in right sometimes they will talk about new board members or new staff that have joined the foundation, in which case guess what you can connect on LinkedIn with those staffs now you've got another point of entry with somebody at the foundation you want to know who's who, so that you have a person to speak with, ultimately, great advice. There's a lot of kinds of relevant, relevant things to like their newest guidelines or even grant opportunity so it's really worth doing that. Wonderful. Now that's fantastic so, so all of you listening, you heard the challenge is, is to pull out your list and connect with these funders. What's tip number two that you have for us. Number two is something that is not a one day thing. It's something you're going to be doing five to 10 minutes out of your day and that is engaged with the people you just connected with. Now, this is advice I received and don't kick yourself if you're not perfect because I don't always do it either. I connect with some great new people every day. It's really hard to carve out the time in our busy work schedules to be extremely consistent. But as best you can, even if it's every couple of days, engage with those funders and what I mean by that is, look at what they're posting and see if there's something you want to ask or comment about in the comments section, something that's useful and relevant. Not so much. Thanks for sharing, but you might want to say, Wow, that tip was really helpful because you can use it to further our youth mentoring program in Rochester, New York. Right. And now there's a sign that, Oh, look what this person does. So it's another way of being known. It's also a way of opening up that to a conversation with a funder that may otherwise not know you. So going beyond the like, or any of those other icons you want to actually engage in the comments section. I was going to ask him and maybe I don't want to stop tip the number three but what is that etiquette right because the last thing I imagine we want to do and the last thing that your coaching market is, you know to constantly respond check out our program check out our program like, so what is the etiquette on that engagement level. That's a good question. It's so just like our conversation here today has to be real authentic relevant. So does all of your engagement on any kind of social media. After a while, if you are just engaging for the sake of flashing in front of the funder. It really will become looked at is inauthentic and you don't want to do that so it's really a matter of doing it in a way that that does feel authentic to you, where you really have something relevant to say, and I find that there are some people you're going to engage with more so for me, for example, I've been working with, I'm in Rochester, New York, and I've been working with our local Rochester area community foundation for years. And I see a lot of their posts because the algorithm on LinkedIn says, Oh, markets always looking at these posts and she engages with them so I'm going to see those show up a lot more. And I do engage with them, not just in LinkedIn but also through email and phone calling so it does not feel spammy. If I started suddenly engaging every day with a brand new foundation that had never heard of me or my company or any of my clients, it would look a little suspicious it would look a little odd. So, you know you might want to ease into that. Yeah, starting with somebody new. Good advice, very, very good advice. So what's tip number three that you have for us here. Okay well tip number one was connecting with the funder right researching connect with some funders tip to is engage with them. After a while of engaging with the funders, why not invite them tip three to follow you or your organization. So now that relationship goes both ways, where they will see your posts show up on their feet more regularly as well. So that's number three deliberately, because if I just met you on the street, Jared, I wouldn't say hi how are you doing do you want to come over to my house. Right on the other way. Right. I don't know with you and your energy with it. Yeah, you and your energy I might say absolutely. Yeah, having those connections is really important. So, so that third tip really is asking them to connect back with you is that what I'm hearing. Yeah, I would recommend doing that and then you know continue that engagement. Now, here's the responsibility that comes with this third step is, if you are a nonprofit that has your own social media page on LinkedIn, or your own social media page on Facebook, for example, it comes with the responsibility of you posting very relevant content on a regular basis. Okay, so it's not a quick fix, but this can be fun too. So one thing I would recommend is on your social media pages be sure to post often. And someone's going to say well what does that mean how often you can post daily. I would say if you post three times a week. If you can do that. That's pretty good for the algorithm on LinkedIn, which is sort of a mystery, but I work with a consultant that is a specialist in LinkedIn. And she has given me some great tips and one of them is post three or four times a week, daily, if you can. Yeah, and make sure that it's relevant it's timely it's not spam. I talked at the beginning of the show I posted a picture of my son playing golf. I have to toss and things like that once in a while, it was a Friday I was just feeling like I wanted to share some joy and his face just emanated the joy and I said share something that brings you joy. Right, we need that. That's the human side of us. We're not just work animals all the time. So, what's no I'll put that into a LinkedIn post. Just last week I decided you know what one of the biggest challenges that the people I work with have is budgets. It's really hard to create a grant project budget for funders, and they're all different. So I shared three tips one each day that hopefully helps the people that I'm connected to develop better project budgets. So, I'll tell you what you could never run out of ideas for posts. All you've got to do is listen to what people are saying, listen to what they need help with. What are their questions. And those are the kinds of things that I like to address in my LinkedIn posts. Let's say you're a nonprofit that works on a youth mentoring program. Why not showcase with permission, one of the families or kids that have been helped by your program. You can showcase that you can showcase a fundraiser that your organization just had or it's a great way to invite funders to your fundraisers, whether in person or virtually. So there's a ton of things you can post. Are you also recommending that we, we use video content as well like what's, you mentioned the algorithm and I know I feel like the algorithms always changing, but should we include some videos in here. And then mixing up your posts that they stay interesting. So, there are times you may want to the other day I reshared a blog post by one of my favorite bloggers who lay the le. Oh, he is the wittiest writer I love reading this post I thought I've got to share this one so it's, you know, check out earlier this week gets on there. So sometimes I will reshare articles I think are really useful. And other times I'll share my own tips. Sometimes pictures video, absolutely, I wouldn't go every day with video but I think it's a nice thing to sprinkle in throughout your social media posts. And secondly, the live videos really do increase your visibility in the algorithm and what I mean by that is, when you're on LinkedIn, you'll see a whole order of different posts you want to be near the top of that order for other people, sometimes the video streaming does that. The, the other thing you can do is, is when you connect with people there's a little bell icon, if you ring someone's bell or if you click that bell next to their name, you're going to see every time they post something. It's kind of a polite way of stalking if I should use that word. But if, Jerry, if I want to see what you're posting every day, or if I want to see what, you know, Julia who's not here today what she's posting, I would click that bell icon. And then every day when I get on the LinkedIn, I will see in my feed, something you've posted. So if you find someone really interesting, do that so that you don't miss what they're saying. So I just found that bell, and I think it might be on Instagram as well. So there's several different social medias that allow you that notification when someone makes a post so that you can respond in a timely manner. So do you recommend that we ring that bell as you say for our funders so that when we connect with them, because we're going to accept our challenge right viewers and listeners. I know that today we're really going to connect with our funders do do we take that extra level or should we wait a while. I think you can take that extra level because what happens is when you click that bell icon, or when you click the blue button in LinkedIn that says follow Facebook also has a similar notification process. When you do that, it is not spammy because it doesn't mean that the funder is seeing more of your posts, it means that you are seeing more of the post of your funders. So it, I'm glad you brought that up it really means that you won't miss anything that they're saying, okay, so that you have the opportunity to click on that post and say, maybe I want to comment on that or maybe I want to build upon that information and share that information or maybe I want to just let this one pass. So it gives you that opportunity at least to do it. So as we're connecting with our social media, you know, accounts, I'm curious for those grants that we already receive funding from. Are we already like are we taking that first step market to say okay, these are our current funders so let's make sure first and foremost that we're connected with them. Are you also looking at prospective funders and then engaging in that kind of like relationship building at that at that level as well so we're kind of looking at the entire gamut of funders. Absolutely, I think we really need to look at both and you know as we were talking on this show up till now in my mind I was really thinking of perspective funders new people that you want to start to connect with. I just brought up an excellent point and that is what about the funders that have already invested in your cause in your mission in your nonprofit. What about them. Well, I'm friends with many of them and oftentimes I will hear from them. Why don't nonprofits put us on their email list once they get a grant for us. No, I want to know what's going on I want to get their newsletter I want to be invited to events. And so, as in grants for good as a grant writing consultant, I advise nonprofits to do this all the time. Sometimes they don't, but it's really, really good advice that you can use that so easy to do. And just like doing that. Why not engage your current funders on social media as well. You can even do a shout out to them if it's okay with them if they don't wish to remain anonymous on your page you can say thank you so much to the, I'm going to use Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because everybody knows them. And you can say thank you to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for funding our transformational, you know, high school education project in Austin, Texas, or wherever you may be. And by the way, another little trick I love this one too is when you say Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation click the at icon as you are typing, and you will see that their page comes out it's a way of tagging them like you might do Facebook or Instagram. So it's a way of tagging them as well, and then they will know that you have just let you know you've just promoted them, essentially, and they do receive a notification on that. So that tagging does give a notification, but I think that's fantastic and I agree with you, you know, when you have this award and you want to shout it from the rooftops, with their permission, of course, you know, that's a great opportunity to share with your community and and to engage deeper in that relationship. Yeah, so there's, you know, there's a lot of fun little tips and tricks it may sound overwhelming to some of our viewers and listeners but believe me, just like everything else when there's a habit established, it will work so for me. I carve out a little bit of time at the beginning of each day or mid morning when I need a break from all the other things I'm doing. And I just take 15 minutes to post something to engage with some other people on post and see what's new that's interesting. It's a great habit and and I can already imagine you know so many of our viewers going to say, Okay, you know, I'm drinking that Kool-Aid market, I'm going to take this challenge I'm getting connect with funders on social media, and and start to, you know, have that engagement because as you said that engagement is really, really important. If you sign off I you have something special you want to share with our viewers so would you share what this grant writing discount code offers. I would love to if if you are wanting to learn more about grant writing I realized today we talked entirely about social media because it's just a fun topic and something that you don't hear very often. If you're listening to the show and you're thinking okay I do do some grant writing but I'm not exactly getting the results I want, or you're thinking yourself, Wow, I hardly have ever written a grant or never ever have. Then this is definitely the course for you. If you are somebody who already is doing great than bypass this, but if not check it out all about grant writing.com. In the same modules, it's a self paste online course and I teach the whole thing so you'll learn everything from how to find those best funders right to writing that every aspect of a grant, including those hard to do budgets. So if you're a listener of the show your friend of Jared and Julius then just use the NP show 20 code NP show 20 look at 20% off. I've also got a free before you if you go to grants for good.com, you can download my seven step grant success guide so check that out as well. And I want you to have the best success possible with your funders and with social media we'd love to hear how it goes. Thanks for you listening on our podcast. It's grants for good and the number four not written out so grants the number for good.com and of course, take advantage of this discount code if you're interested in the grant writing offer opportunity that market offers so so so honored to have you you know, I would have never thought early in my career that social media ties into the success of grant writing and this episode you know all almost 30 minutes it goes by so quickly proves to us that it really does so thank you for sharing these great tips and connectivity and social media with with us today thrilled to have you here thrilled to have our presenting sponsors which we take your advice and we connect with them as well because you know they support us so to have their support as presenting sponsors. We're so very honored. You'll find that Julie and I both as well as our company share a lot of information from from these companies we tag them and give them all kinds of shout out like the ones that I want to do right now. So thank you so very much to all of our presenting sponsors that keep these conversations like that one we just had with market today going and growing. So thank you to Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy with the National University nonprofit nerd your part time controller staffing boutique and the nonprofit thought leader. I mentioned earlier in the show to do yourself a favor and to check these companies out. I hope you did it during the episode because market gave you some great information about how to connect with your grant funders on social media but now's a good time to check out these funders so you won't miss anything from us there. Margaret thank you I hope that all of our viewers and listeners are are busy typing away and their social media platforms and connecting with our funders and then engaging and inviting them to connect with them. So thanks for these tips and tricks it's so glad to have you back. You're so welcome it was my pleasure and I wish you all the best and ever all of your listeners and viewers. Thank you so much Margaret and thanks for all of you that have joined us today. We end every episode by saying please stay well so you can continue to do well. Thanks everyone and have a great day.