501c Drop

38% of your year-end revenue will land in the last six days of December, and until November 3rd your donors' inboxes belong to the election. BetterUnite CEO & Co-founder Leya Simmons goes solo on the three pressures squeezing this giving season: the midterms, an economy that splits your donor file in two, and the first year-end under the 2025 tax law, with a week-by-week plan through December 31.

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Wealth data is less than 10% predictive of generosity, and 80% of nonprofits still lead with it. Nathan Chappell, Chief AI Officer at Virtuous and founder of Fundraising.AI, joins BetterUnite CEO & Co-founder Leya Simmons to get specific: where the RFM score came from, what responsible AI requires operationally, why beneficial AI is the harder test, and the 10% airplane question.

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The paddles stayed down because the paddle raise started at 9:30. George Franco, Your "Good News" Auctioneer, joins BetterUnite CEO & Co-founder Leya Simmons to take the gala night apart: why you plan from 9:00 backwards, whether the fund-a-need or the live auction goes first, how a $900 fishing trip sold for $6,000, and why the scribes and clerks matter more than the auctioneer.

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our nonprofit does not have a volunteer shortage. It has a job description problem. Linda Lysakowski, ACFRE, MTS-FT, Spark the Change Founding Partner, joins BetterUnite CEO & Co-founder Leya Simmons to argue that the volunteers are already out there, and that most organizations start recruiting before they have decided what they want a volunteer to actually do. They cover where to look once you name the job, from campus computer labs to the chamber of commerce to the estate planner advertising in your church bulletin, the position description every volunteer needs, and why board members are the most important volunteers you have. Plus the giving minimum that quietly caps your best donor, the three fundraising jobs waiting for the volunteer who will not make an ask, and the volunteer appeal most organizations never run. All of it anchored by the line worth taping to a wall: you never insult someone by asking for too much, but you can insult them by asking too little.

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Only 7.1% of new donors ever give again, and the nonprofits beating that number are not working harder, they are automating smarter.

Kirby Cathey, Account Manager and Event Specialist at BetterUnite, joins BetterUnite Co-Founder Leya Simmons to count down the five things nonprofits still do by hand that software should be doing, from paper auction donation forms to sticky-note seating charts to typing the same email with different names. Then they build the playbook: the first-gift welcome series, the recurring giving conversion hiding in the fact that monthly giving is 27% of online revenue, and the lapsed donor workflows that turn once-a-year attendees into year-round relationships. Plus the line that governs all of it, automate the logistics, never the relationship.

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Stop asking "how do we get more people in the room?" Start asking "how do we leave them changed?" Melissa DeClue, M.Ed., CFRE, Founder & CEO at Amplify Missions, joins BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons to map the donor journey before, during, and after your events. Melissa shares how to move from a transactional mindset to Event Experience Design, from auditing your run of show around what each donor should feel, to her five guiding principles of Receipts, Thank You, Access, Impact, and Invite, to the 72-hour and 30-day follow-up plans that keep the energy alive long after the lights go down.

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She's worked over 1,000 nonprofit events. Here's what she wishes every event lead knew before the doors open.

In this episode of the 501(c) Drop, BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons sits down with Kirby Cathey, Account & Event Specialist at BetterUnite, for honest, boots-on-the-ground advice on pulling off a great in-person fundraising event this fall. They cover building a timeline backwards from your anchors, the winning-bid notification mistake that hijacks your fund-a-need, signage that answers questions before guests ask them, and the assess-communicate-solve play for when event day goes sideways.

Fall event season is almost here. Consider this your backstage pass.

▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube - https://youtu.be/qjxNbjZBrV0
📝 Read the blog - https://blog.betterunite.com/webinars/behind-the-scenes-with-kirby-the-real-talk-on-event-day

Every nonprofit is losing everyday donors. This global ministry found a fix that actually works.

In this episode of the 501(c) Drop, BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons sits down with Jeff Givens, VP of Advancement at Evangelism Explosion International, to unpack the peer-to-peer "Sponsor a Nation" campaign that has brought in 285+ unique donors, roughly two thirds of them brand new to the ministry. They dig into the live donor leaderboard that turned a Fort Lauderdale banquet into EE's biggest ever, the Houston Sunday school class that adopted Azerbaijan and produced 16 first-time givers, Puerto Rico's 51-donor surge, and why clarity and transparency are what turn a $25 gift into a lasting donor relationship.

📖 Read blog - https://blog.betterunite.com/webinars/cracking-the-mid-and-low-donor-problem
▶️ Watch the full episode - https://youtu.be/HpHGtm3LcuI

Your auctioneer can tell how your event will go within the first ten minutes. Here's what they're seeing.

In this episode of 501(c) Drop, BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons sits down with Dan Campbell of Raising Paddles LLC, whose team works 300 events a year and has helped more than 1,000 nonprofits raise over $500 million. They cover why an auctioneer is a revenue strategist with a microphone, how many items a live auction should really have, the "fishing" technique that pulled in $200,000 before one paddle raise even started, and the board activation strategy that took an organization from $800K to $2.2 million in a single year.

Your community is not your audience. It is your fundraising engine.

In this episode of 501(c) Drop, BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons sits down with Floyd Jones, Founder of BackBlack, for a Webinar Wednesday conversation on turning community into a force that mobilizes supporters, activates board members, and drives real dollars.

Floyd breaks down his Four C's framework (Captivate, Communicate, Convert, Catapult), why fundraising is a team sport, how to build tiered pathways for volunteers and peer fundraisers, and why the data says your next gift is already sitting in your database.