 another episode of the nonprofit show. So glad you're here today, joining us with Bloomerang for Nonprofit Power Week. And in the hot seat, we have Ann Feldman, Julia Patrick and I are just so thrilled to have Ann joining us today as she is here to talk to us about first time donor journey and what you might need to do to get that second gift. So stay with us. Ann's got several tips and techniques that she's going to share with you. And this entire week is dedicated to Bloomerang Nonprofit Power Week where we really dive deep on several subjects and conversations. So yesterday we kicked off with Josh and so grateful to have him kick off this week. And we have the rest of the week dedicated to these episodes as well with Bloomerang. So thank you so much, Ann. We also want to remind you who we are if you are viewing or listening. Leah Patrick's here today, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group, your nonprofit nerd. And for Valentine's, I just have to show my super nerdy love glasses. I can't keep them on the entire show, but I did want to be a little bit of a festive as we sit here today. So, so glad to be alongside you Julia for these conversations. And we have to also give a huge shout out of gratitude to our besties over at Bloomerang, the entire team that have been with us honestly since the very beginning. American Nonprofit Academy, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Nonprofit Nerd as well as your part-time controller. Thank you to these companies that have committed their mission to your mission and to help you do more good throughout your community. Hey, if you missed any of our episodes, we're coming up on four years, 700 plus episodes. I know Julia, it's just like mind blowing. It feels like yesterday, doesn't it? But you can find us on Roku, YouTube, Vimeo, Fire TV. And for those of you that are podcast listeners, I'd go ahead and queue us up there too, wherever you stream your podcast, you can find the Nonprofit Show. And just a few hours later, you will find this episode that we are recording live and interviewing live with Anne Feldman, CMO, Chief Marketing Officer at Bloomerang. Welcome back, Anne. Thank you, I've been looking forward to this day. I'm really excited to be here. So we appreciate the Nonprofit Show very much. Absolutely. You know, Anne, I say this all the time. Jared and I talk about this privately, but one of the really unique qualities we think about our partnership with you and at first I thought you were just trying to behave and seem like good partners, but now I realize it's in your corporate DNA. You share, and you share information with people who are not necessarily your clients. And so one of the things about this Nonprofit Power Week with you all is a lot of times organizations that have this, have invested in this information, in this knowledge, they won't give it out unless you're part of their client base. And so it is such a powerful thing for us to be able to engage your talent base and have them share. I would say, Jared, and you probably, you probably have an opinion too, expensive information, right? Yeah. It's really cool. So thank you, thank you, thank you for doing that. Well, thank you, Julia. It is central to our DNA. So yes, we are focused on making great software that's really easy to use to help nonprofits, but we also equally important is create the content or resources and make it available for free. So that's why we love things like this because there's just a wealth of information that our team has the opportunity to engage with other nonprofits and learn from them. And then how do we lift that up and serve that up to the broader community? Because we're here to maximize, help maximize the impact for all nonprofits. So really pleased to be here. Well, thank you all so much. Yeah, it's an amazing thing and we see you doing it day in and day out. And part of this discussion that we're gonna have today and I think we don't have it enough is about the concept of first time donor behavior. I love you use the word journey, which I think is a fabulous, fabulous word. Why is this important? Well, let's start with a few data points some of you might be familiar with, but the first time donor retention rate on average is about 18%, just over 18%. Can you imagine if we only kept 18% of our donors, how hard it would be to keep our organizations going? Get on the flip side, when you get to that second gift, you raise that retention rate up to 60% plus. So there's a real opportunity of you've convinced them the first step in the journey, to say, hey, what you're doing is interesting and valuable and I wanna have a role in that. So now let's tap into that. So it's a really, really important piece of when we think about the long-term sustainability of our organizations and what we're doing is get them coming back. It takes some work. It takes some work and Josh mentioned that yesterday. So again, this entire power we kind of builds and stacks on top of each other. So feel free and go back to watch yesterday's episode where Josh talked about these three trends that we wanna look at. And this first time donor is one of them as well as that donor retention. And you're right, Anne, imagine if we were a storefront and we only had 18% of those customers return the next year. So as you talk about this, how are some ways that we can get these donors not only to come back, but to stick around? And I have to, as we think of Valentine's today I can only imagine that there needs to be some love shared. Yeah, definitely love. So love with that, thank you, note. Personalize, thank you, note. You might think, oh, I don't have time to write a big long letter. It doesn't have to be a big long letter but the handwritten note and that can take a lot of different forms. So you might think of your classic note card and handwriting that note. That sure, that is one approach. I received, I made a donation recently to an organization and they had their form letter but then they had one of the founders of the organization handwrite me a note and say thank you so much for helping me and my friends. We really appreciate it. So there was that handwritten component and I'm telling you about it because it stuck with me. Meaningful to me to get that little extra thank you on top of. It can be personalized thank yous. Yes, it could be written. It can be a phone call and here's where I'm gonna go with this for a second. Phone calls are very powerful as well when it comes to personalized communication and thank you. It speeds the gift to, a phone call can speed a gift that speeds the time to the second gift but also think about it this way when sometimes I don't get that person on the line there's visual voicemail. A lot of times we read our voicemail on our phones now and so you can think of that as get that personalization in right away. Hey, Sally, thanks for your gift. You know, so there's a lot of different ways that you can make that connection and that personalization to say thank you and to express your gratitude for their contribution. Oh, and I'm so glad you mentioned that because voicemails, you know, often I think if someone doesn't recognize the number they might not answer but you're so right and I read those messages all the time, you know the voicemail message and how it dictates that. So I'm so glad you mentioned that when it comes to personalizing the thank yous. What about like, is there an opportunity to engage the clients or those we serve in the personalization? Absolutely, I mean, when you think about stories, right? And stories of the most powerful thing of what, you know, your gift means to me you can incorporate video maybe depending on your organization and your cause and all that good stuff, engaging with recipients of donations, just helping to share the impact. I have a fun story, I talked to a major gift officer so she received a initial donation from organizations. Sometimes people are doing that to kind of test you to see how you come back around. She wrote that handwritten thank you and that donor came back and gave $25,000. And they said, this is kind of, you know this is awesome story, but what they said was it was the first time in 20 years that I actually received a real piece of mail like somebody wrote me a letter. So that's like, don't underestimate the power of the personalized thank you. I think everyone right now, Julia and Anne are like writing thank you notes, you know like just hoping that they have one of those unicorns and their constituency base too. That is such a great story. And you might feel overwhelmed, right? Or you have a lot of thank yous to do to bring those stuck little cards to your next board meeting and say, we're gonna take 10 minutes and you're each gonna write a note to so and so just different ways to how do you scale especially if you're limited from a staffing resource perspective and time. So there's a lot of different techniques you can apply to get that personalized thank you out quickly. Well, I think it's a great thing for volunteers. I think there are a lot of people that would just love to do that. And it is, again, I agree with you. We're not getting enough things in snail mail and it is, it's also the right thing to do. You know, it is the right thing to do. And so to getting our donors to that second piece, huge. Another point that you have for us to help us understand the donor journey to a second gift. You talk about sending more information about your nonprofit. So what does that look like? Think about this. So a lot of times we think about the stages of a donor journey up to that first donation. There is then the clock starts ticking. There's a window of time. There's about a nice little 90 day window where you can accelerate that speed to a second gift. So it isn't the ask right away but it's that cultivation, right? It's tell me about your programming, right? Tell me about the impact of my gift and acknowledge that and what that equates to. Stories are a fabulous way, right? Take it a personal story. You can send your mission, if you've got a video around your mission and some of the programming that you're doing, sending those impact statements, infographics, other things, help me understand how the donations are going to work and the impact that they're making in the community. That's a really important component of bringing me along the way on what's going on there. So it's about different little touch points along the journey where you're just engaging with them and teaching them about the different ways that they're making a difference in the community. I love that you mentioned that 90 day window and I need to help but think about automation, right? Like Bloomerang has so many opportunities for that and to really engage in a personalized manner even albeit automatically. Talk to us about some of those ways because and I know I'm putting you on the spot here Ann but there's so many ways that you mentioned capacity, like we don't have that much time. Like what are some ways that we can still provide this impact more information to the nonprofit or to the donor for the nonprofit in that 90 day window? Right, so the best thing to do is to map out your, what we call like in the marketing world, your cadence or your sequence. So first take a step back and do some planning and say, okay, we got that first donation. What are my defined touch points along the way, right? And what's my goal of communicating with them? I'm not making any asks. I'm simply engaging with them and teaching them about our organization because I wanna turn them into a really strong advocate and fan for what we're doing and I wanna keep them coming back. So map out, it can be emails, emails are nice but then you wanna layer in other touch points, right? Maybe there are opportunities to participate, different events or activities. Tell them about that, right? Tell them stories about your mission and things that are going on there and just keep bringing them along. So a great example, acknowledging that gift. So I'll tell you a story of I made a donation to an organization and I was doing some research because I wanted to understand the impact of my gift a little bit further and it was hard to find that information. And I remember when I made the first donation to the organization, I was like, wow, this is a really important cause. I'm really passionate about it right now. If they would come back and ask for a recurring donation I would absolutely say yes. So I ended up, took a little bit of time, ended up doing the recurring donation and then recently I was doing some research on how much does it cost to help this child with special needs over a course of a year? I couldn't find the info so I emailed the executive director and I found out and I was like, I should up my, just another $50. I could actually in my mind realize that I'm helping a single child for an entire year with the education and therapy and all these great things. And so, but it's just a little bit of storytelling and finding those ways to touch along the way because that donor might be thinking about, I'm excited about your cause and what you're doing. So finding different ways to tap into my excitement and passion through educating me on the impact of a gift. Yeah, and Julia, I don't know about you but I'm guilty of this. I'll have a predetermined amount in my head. I go to the website and I'll say, I'm gonna donate $25 and then they have that. Here's what $40 will do. And I'm like, okay, I'll do 40 instead of 25. So your story and it's something that I think many of us can probably improve. I'm glad you got the information that you received but what if we were able to package that and to share that story so that you the donor or any donors out there, right? I don't have to do that research. That to me is a huge takeaway. Right, right. It's a real opportunity because again, I've looked at a lot of organizations and from large national organizations to very small local nonprofits and I found it really hard regardless of the size. So I think we've got an opportunity to tell the story and pull on that thread if you will of this, this much can support a family to have a clean water filtration system or whatever it might be. It was like, wow, that's it. It's amazing what a few data points like that but layering it into the human element or the storytelling aspect of the impact of the gift. It makes it real. And I think that's part of this journey is that we are trying to make this a real championship opportunity. Somebody can be the champion of a mission with an impact but if you don't know, you're looking at the $40 versus, oh, $100 is gonna solve this problem, right? And so it changes the conversation and I think the mentality with which our donors operate. So I love this. I think this is a really smart way to go. Another thing that you advise us on that donor journey to a second gift is highlighting volunteer opportunities. Okay, this is not one that we hear about in conjunction with this conversation and we should be talking about this. Right, giving is not just with donations but it's also with our time, right? And it's a very powerful way to help move that. So tell me about what you have planned. So as you're thinking about that donor cultivation and next step is then, hey, highlight the ways that I can get involved because I'm really passionate and excited about it. Tell me about the events you have planned. Maybe you're doing some outings where you're bringing your donors together or maybe you're having a donor recognition event. That might be an idea for some of you out there but also just the volunteer opportunities. How can I engage a little bit more? I, again, I've been making some donations lately but it made a donation and then we had a conversation around ways to get involved. And so I said, well, my husband's really talented basketball. He could do a basketball clinic and then we just started talking about different volunteer opportunities to engage. So it was a really nice way to kind of build trust. Again, it's all, this is a relationship business, right? So highlighting those opportunities to connect, whether it's volunteering, if you don't really have a strong volunteering program, think of different events, different activities, different ways to bring people that are passionate about your organization together where humans were social and if you're in a situation where you can bring us together, really amazing things can happen from that energy. Yeah. One thing that we've seen over the last three years is potentially a dip in that volunteer activity because of access to programs or closeness to people. But I think that's really coming back now, Ann. And I love the opportunities and the innovation that's coming around volunteers IRL in real life, Julia. Thank you. So I love that you mentioned that. It's like, let's think outside the box. What are ways that we can continue to immerse these donors to become more fully engaged in who we are and what we do? So that's really important. One of the things you're gonna talk to us, and I cannot wait to nerd out and hear you nerd out about it, Ann, is to track and appeal to donor preferences. So is this, are you talking about donor segmentation? How are you suggesting that we can really track this? Yeah. Well, there's a couple layers to this. So let's unpack this for a second. So tracking one, so we just talked about kind of the journey and defining that life cycle of your donors and their journey and what phases you wanna move them to. Kind of step two is, do you have a good system in place, right? That you can actually track your interactions with them, right? Whether they're emailing with you or you're having phone conversations or they're volunteering, is it easy for you to do that, right, to track that? So that's an important kind of baseline piece, but to appeal to donor preferences, one of the things that is, I'll say one of the most cost effective or, I hate to say the word cheap because time is expensive too, but surveys, right? Understand your donor preference. And there's a lot of different ways in which you, different topics that you can survey your donors to understand what are the things, why did they donate? What are the things that they care about? What types of, maybe they are interested in certain types of volunteer opportunity. Really understanding, getting their input, what they care about, what they wanna hear about from you, right? And being able to understand that, track that in your system, and then you can get into the segmentation, right? And then it gets back to the personalization component. When you understand, okay, Jared really cares about volunteer opportunities. So maybe you have a volunteer newsletter. I'm gonna send, make sure it's okay. I'm gonna send Jared information around volunteering, but that survey piece, takes a little bit of time to write it. You might wanna sample it depending on how big your population is, but be ready to commit to whatever you're asking for from them to say, yeah, we can support that or be committed to the types of questions that you're asking, that you're actually gonna honor those preferences that they share with you. That's really important. I love that. And I love, again, it ties back to this word journey, but understanding kind of the flow and being ready to navigate it and not just start something that you can't finish. This is a bigger thinking and it's gonna take a little bit more of a structure to kind of understand how this plays out. One of the things that I really want to end strongly with because I love this and of course it is Valentine's Day and who could forget our favorite little Valentine hearts. But I gotta ask this question. The magic of matching gifts. Man, I think this is something we don't do enough and it's so powerful. How can we engage folks in this? Well, there's some great tools and technologies out there that make it really easy, especially if you're asking for donations online of, hey, check if my employer has a matching gift, double donation is a great example of that. But before we get into like how to do that or whatever, the data is really compelling. So if you're not doing this, look at more than half of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs today. Those are the really big companies, even small companies like Bloomerang. We offer a matching gift program. We actually today put $25 in every employees because we wanted to share the love today actually with our employees. So everybody is out there donating to their cause of choice but there's about two billion that passes through the corporate matching gift program in the US. So there's money there. And so it's a missed opportunity if we're not tapping into that and reminding us. Now, let's say you don't have the means necessarily to kind of layer in something like a double the donation where the donor can automatically look up to see and then connect. Once they make that first donation, so again, that follow up, tell them about your organization in that 90 day window then at some point in that stage, make a decision of when we're gonna educate them on, ask them if they have a matching gift program and teach them how to go pursue that if the company they work for has a matching gift program. Give them some guidelines. There's fabulous resources out there if you just Google matching gift donation. You'll find all kinds of resources of how to do that. We've got lots of great articles on our site but it's a really, really, really powerful way to expand that gift. Really important. And I never, ever, ever thought of this as a touch point in that 90 day cycle. I mean, have you Jared? Cause I love this concept. You know, I've heard of it but I don't see it implemented very well. And you mentioned, and I mean, there are some automation ways and I really think getting to know the donor because I have to be honest, ladies, I see so many donor databases and many organizations do not know the employer of their donors. And so getting that piece of data is critical to this matching gift piece, Julia. So I really think it comes from, you know, that first time donor as we started this entire conversation getting to know them, you know, like really getting to know them, taking the time. And as Anne said, it might mean you have to take a step back, just take a step, you know, deeper. And I think it's so critical but during this 90 days, you know, this matching gift, as you said, Anne is a great touch point. Right, and there's all, you know, different companies have different rules on their matching gift windows, the time frame. So there are some time frames there. Sometimes it's within when that gift was received. Sometimes it's certain times a year around end of year or tax. So especially now, if you brought in a lot of donors here at the end of the, you know, the end of 2022, now might be a good time to just layer in a matching gift reminder to those new donors to see if we can't pull some of that in right now. So there's a definite opportunity here. Again, layer that into that, again, ways to engage. Survey them. When you survey them, find out if they're willing to share with you who they work for. So again, then you can go, oh yeah, they do have a matching gift program. You can look that up pretty easily. That's what I was thinking. That's a great way to collect the data is that survey. I'm curious, Anne, you know, do you recommend an annual donor survey or how often should we be surveying our donors? Well, I always like to think about it a little bit differently. I think about like kind of cohorts, if you will, or of when donors kind of come in. So there's that end of year donor. Now's a great time. If they're brand new to your organization, reach out to them and get to know kind of their preferences, what caused them to donate, those types of things. And then I like to think about like my ongoing, so again, segment your donor population, your first-time donors, and then windows of time of when they came in. Think about your long time, your recurring donors. You might wanna ask them a different set of questions because you may have different information on them already, right? So segment how you think about surveying then just sending everybody the same survey every year. So take a step back and think about what do we wanna learn and understand, what do we wanna get better at on how we communicate, how we engage, how we get them excited about our mission. I love that cohort mentality. That's another big takeaway. We've had several with you and chief marketing officer. I love all of this. I knew it was gonna be a super nerdy conversation to match yesterday with Josh. So for those of you watching and listening, thank you. We're not quite done, but I do wanna make sure that you have Ann's contact information. Ann Feldman serves as the chief marketing officer, CMO at Bloomerang. So very grateful to have your time and expertise with us here today, Ann. And then also the entire team at Bloomerang. Thank you so much. And I love that they're sharing the love today. So, hearing that Julia has really just, I saw your reaction to it as well. Such a great opportunity to go out and elevate our community. So thank you. Yeah, super great idea. I'm gonna borrow that one. I think that is really clever and a great way to reinforce your commitment to the nonprofit sector. It's been amazing. Hey, again, it's been amazing to be with you again. I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself. I like to call her my nonprofit nerd, but she can be yours as well. This is a really exciting time for us because we don't do this very often. Nonprofit Power Week only comes a couple of times throughout the year. And so during this week, we're gonna be talking about a lot of things. As Jared said, they all stack together. But if you've missed some episodes or you wanna join us in future episodes, we're gonna be talking about everything from giving trends to spring cleaning, your donor database. Can't wait to hear about that. And then tax receding. What does that look like? And how can you make the process easier? And then we'll finish up the week with the five biggest questions that you should be asking or thinking about when looking at investing in a CRM. Really a lot of fun content and it's something that you definitely wanna be a part of. And again, we wanna express all of our, yeah, our love especially today. Jared, while I'm doing this, you gotta put on those sexy glasses. Oh, I know, they dropped to the floor. So bear with me. So we wanna thank Bloom Rang, American Nonprofit Academy, staffing boutique, there she is. Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, the nonprofit nerd herself and your part-time controller. These are the folks that have been with us day in and day out and really let us share our love and our passion for the sector with all of you. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm fired up to get re-engaged on this journey and to understand more and really dedicate thought time to this process. It's not a one-and-done thing. 100%. Not a one-and-done thing. Hey everybody on this special day of sharing our love and our passion, we want to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here for another fabulous day of Nonprofit Power Week with Bloom Rang.