Nonprofit411 Podcast

The update your donors remember is rarely the polished one.

Brad Ton is a senior account executive at FundMiner. He studied sports marketing at Indiana University and sold tickets for the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers before a sales boot camp through TechPoint, an Indianapolis nonprofit, introduced him to fundraising through OneCause. After eight or nine years in fundraising technology, he moved to the donor relations side, where he works with community foundations and hospital foundations on what happens after the gift.

Sarah describes the email she suggests to the rural nonprofits she works with. Open a blank screen and write that you just saw Susie come in, over the moon, because they finished her porch. Brad's first reaction was that there's no ask in it. Send that out. Then he pointed out that before they hit record, Sarah had asked for his mailing address so she could mail him a handwritten note. "That's everything," he said.

If stewardship keeps waiting for a free afternoon, this conversation is about sending it anyway.

In this episode

• Why donor relations gets treated as work that doesn't raise money, and why Brad says that couldn't be further from the truth
• Sarah's porch email, and why the less fancy the update, the better
• Ten handwritten notes or 500 newsletter emails, and what makes a touch point count

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

• Count last week's new donors. Write each one a short note about one thing their gift touched, with no ask.
• Keep a running bank of small stories as they happen, so impact updates and year-end reports never start from a blank page.
• Put stewardship on the daily list, not the someday list. Brad keeps his short, works it in order, and crosses things off.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Brad

• FundMiner: https://www.fundminer.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradton/

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit411: https://nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:40 The hobby question
• 04:02 From ticket sales to nonprofit tech
• 08:24 Fundraising isn't begging
• 09:40 What happens after the gift
• 12:05 Technology that frees us to be human
• 13:08 The porch email
• 13:57 Why stewardship gets pushed aside
• 15:21 One email, one reader
• 17:30 A bank of stories
• 18:07 Making it a habit
• 19:08 The bar for human connection
• 20:02 Ten notes or 500 emails
• 21:45 Count your new donors
• 23:13 Technology as a habit tool
• 24:35 Human is better than done
• 25:25 Video messages, stumbles and all
• 27:34 Where to find Brad
• 28:12 Stack days

A sponsorship pays for one program. A partnership can change what your organization is able to do next year.

Dan Drucker spent more than 35 years in corporate B2B sales and marketing, the last twenty or so at Canon, running sales and marketing for the US. He retired at the start of 2024 and founded Philanthropy Fuel, where he helps nonprofits build corporate partnerships. He writes The Fuel Tank, a free weekly newsletter. He volunteers at an animal shelter, and he and his wife are birders.

Dan tells the story of a conversation he had with the head of employee volunteerism at Goldman Sachs. He was asking her about her work when it occurred to him to ask whether the bank's financial experts ran financial literacy workshops in underfunded communities. They did. It's one of the biggest things they do. He was already working with a hospital system in an underfunded community near him. He introduced the two. That match existed before the call; nobody had asked the question.

If the only thing you've ever asked a business for is a check, this conversation is about everything else you could be asking for.

In this episode

• Why a sponsorship keeps an organization living paycheck to paycheck, and what a partnership does instead
• The translation test: the two-word question that turns your impact into something a business can use
• Skills-based volunteering, and why twenty scientists beat twenty extra hands on a volunteer day

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

• Take one line from your last appeal and ask "so what?" until it describes something a business gets. "We planted 10,000 trees" becomes a hands-on volunteer experience their employees will ask about.
• Write down every business you already know: current sponsors, vendors, volunteers' employers, board connections, recurring donors. Those calls are warm. Start there before you research anyone new.
• Look past the CSR officer. Employee engagement, HR, marketing, and volunteer services all have a reason to say yes, and they're easier to reach.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Dan

• Philanthropy Fuel: https://www.philanthropyfuel.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/druckerdan/
• The Fuel Tank, his free weekly newsletter, comes out every Sunday. Sign up from his website or LinkedIn.

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit411: https://nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:03 Photography, Birding, and Paying Attention
• 03:31 Thirty-Five Years on the Corporate Side
• 04:57 Two Sides That Don't Speak the Same Language
• 07:13 Start by Looking Inward
• 11:59 The Translation Test
• 16:07 Your Sponsors Are Your First Stop
• 20:04 Reaching Beyond Your Region
• 22:17 Sponsorship or Partnership
• 25:08 Skills-Based Volunteering
• 30:15 Joint Research With Health and Education
• 31:42 Where to Start Today

Abbey Harlow works with rural nonprofits, and she'll tell you burnout isn't a personal failing.

Abbey Harlow founded Harlow Nonprofit Consulting in 2022, after twenty years in nonprofit strategy, fundraising, and facilitation. She came in sideways: music venues, a semester interning at a Smithsonian museum, then fundraising jobs at museums and performing arts organizations. She works from rural Vermont, where she grew up and lives now, and she helps stretched teams move out of survival mode.

Abbey walks through an exercise she runs with rural leaders. Write down everything you did in the last week. Sort each item into one of four quadrants: urgent and important, urgent but not important, and so on. Then look at what surprised you, and which quadrant took more of your week than you meant to give it. The last question is the one that does the work: what could you have delegated, and if there's nobody to delegate to, what could you have not done, and how would that have felt? Most of us keep carrying tasks because we assume something bad happens if we stop. Naming the task makes that assumption testable.

If the only advice you've been given about burnout is to take better care of yourself, this conversation offers a different place to look.

In this episode:

• The three things rural leaders named when Abbey surveyed them: funding, isolation, and burnout
• Why the burnout conversation starts with a sector-wide belief about mission work, not with the individual
• The four-quadrant exercise she runs with leaders, and the question at the end of it

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit:

• Write down everything you did last week and sort it by urgent and important. Look for the quadrant that took more of your week than you meant to give it.
• Pick one task you've been carrying and ask what would actually happen if it didn't get done. Test that assumption before you keep paying for it.
• Try one micro boundary. One leader Abbey works with stopped answering email the minute it arrived, and found that some things resolved without her.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Abbey

• Harlow Nonprofit Consulting: https://www.harlownonprofitconsulting.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harlownonprofitconsulting
• Rural Nonprofit Leader Summit: https://www.harlownonprofitconsulting.com/rural-nonprofit-leader-summit
  

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit411: https://www.nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class to explore the systems that keep community at the heart of fundraising: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 09:47 Funding, isolation, burnout
• 11:57 Squeezing water from dry sponges
• 19:22 Burnout starts with the system
• 20:49 The four-quadrant exercise
• 29:23 What every rural leader should know

Kind Persuasion — with Madeleine Nance

Your supporters have already told you why they give. Most organizations let it evaporate.

Madeleine Nance has spent seventeen years in the nonprofit sector. She started in-house in Australia as a development director, working inside three organizations that ranged from an animal shelter to one of the country's largest national charities. She then spent seven years as a fundraising copywriting specialist, and now runs Kind Word, where the work is mostly strategy and training. She joins Sarah to explain where fundraising copy actually starts: not with words, but with the person who is going to read them.

She walks through a real example. A woman being interviewed for an animal organization mentioned, almost in passing, that she keeps old towels in the back of her car, just in case she comes across an injured animal that needs help. That one sentence tells you more about who gives to that cause than any donor persona ever will. Put it in an appeal, and the next supporter reads it and recognizes herself.

If your appeals sound like everyone else's, this episode explains why, and what to do about it.

In this episode:

• The name cover test, a five-minute check on whether your copy sounds like anyone at all
• The four steps of Kind Persuasion: I care, I feel this, I trust you with this, I'm in
• The one phrase to listen for in every supporter conversation
• Why demographic personas miss what actually moves people
• How to reframe the ask so it stops feeling like a favor you're begging for

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit:

• Cover your logo and read your last appeal cold. If a stranger couldn't name your cause, the words aren't working yet.
• Start a spreadsheet. Every time a supporter tells you why they give, write down their exact words. In a few months you'll hold language more persuasive than anything you'd draft alone.
• Listen for "I'm the kind of person who…" Everything that comes after it is usable.
• Open donor interviews with easy yes-or-no questions, then follow with "tell me more." People warm up as they go.
• Decide what feeling you're after before you write, whether that's warmth, outrage, or heartbreak, then build toward it on purpose.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Madeleine

• Kind Word: https://kindwordreview.com
• Join Madeleine's newsletter where she shares Kind Persuasion strategies for cause leaders: https://resources.kindwordreview.com/profile
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleinenance/

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit411: https://www.nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 06:03 Where Copywriting Actually Starts
• 14:11 Tapping Into What People Care About
• 21:14 The Name Cover Test
• 28:01 Persuasion Without Pressure

Every nonprofit is sitting on a gold mine of stories. Most never mine them.

Don Martelli is a former Boston Globe reporter and longtime PR agency executive who now leads PR Bunker, working with mission-driven, impact-focused organizations. He helps nonprofits tell the stories their communities need to hear so they can engage the people who fuel the mission. He joins Sarah to explain how nonprofit PR actually works: how to find the one human story that carries your whole mission, how to place it with the right reporter at the right moment, and how to turn a single piece of coverage into a campaign that raises real money.

He walks through a real example. A woman named Lisa, once homeless, now helping others through the same organization that housed her. That one story, told well, raised nearly a quarter million dollars in a week.

If PR feels like a black box, this episode opens it.

In this episode:

• The "micro that fits the macro" method for finding a story reporters actually want
• Why the most positive stories are the hardest to place, and how to place them anyway
• Paid, earned, shared, and owned media, explained simply
• How to pitch a reporter in 250 words or fewer
• Why a fractional expert often beats hiring in-house

A few ideas to steal:

• The story is the headline. If you have to sell it, it isn't a story yet.
• Keep the pitch to one paragraph, then follow up until you get a yes, a no, or silence. Silence is a no.
• End or start each week by asking your team, "What happened this week that made you feel good?" Those are your stories. Someone has to own collecting them.
• One good story, repurposed across your site, newsletter, socials, and a podcast, is a marketing campaign, not a one-and-done.

Connect with Don

• PR Bunker: www.prbunker.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/donmartelli
• The PR Bunker podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pr-bunker/id1839463900

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit 411: www.nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class to explore the systems that keep community at the heart of fundraising: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map
  

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Nonprofit 411
• 02:57 The Power of Impactful Storytelling
• 05:56 Telling Impactful Stories through PR
• 09:06 Advice for Nonprofits on PR
• 17:23 The Role of Consultants in Nonprofits
• 24:09 Utilizing Impactful Stories in Nonprofits

The conversation covers the concept of social fundraising, the evolution of fundraising work, engaging donors and advocates, borrowing a crowd and corporate partnerships, media partnerships and retention strategies, the importance of consistent communication, and concludes with a call to action for the listeners. Key takeaways include the importance of social fundraising, understanding the donor journey, and the need for consistent communication with donors and supporters.

Connect with Daryl

• FundRazr: www.fundrazr.com
• ConnectionPoint: www.connectionpoint.com
• LinkedIn: search Daryl Hatton

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit 411: www.nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class to explore the systems that keep community at the heart of fundraising: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map

In this episode:

• Why you should share results 80% of the time and only ask 20%
• How to borrow a crowd from your board, volunteers, and corporate partners
• Why your best advocate might be your smallest donor
• The "forgettable zone," and the simple weekly habit that keeps you out of it

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Alignment
• 02:05 The Concept of Social Fundraising
• 03:37 The Evolution of Fundraising Work
• 06:28 Engaging Donors and Advocates
• 10:07 Borrowing a Crowd and Corporate Partnerships
• 13:24 Media Partnerships and Retention Strategies
• 26:01 The Importance of Consistent Communication
• 32:13 Conclusion and Call to Action

Not because they don't care but because they think they're about to get blamed.

That’s why Tim Sarrantonio’s so excited about the Generosity Roundtable - a role-playing game for nonprofit professionals. It creates a safe space for nonprofit professionals to think through real problems, without the finger-pointing.

Listen to the full conversation on the Nonprofit411 Podcast

What if fundraising isn't really about money at all, but about generosity, trust, and the ways people choose to participate?

Tim Sarrantonio joins Sarah to rethink what fundraising actually is. They get into why generosity and identity are tied to trust, why creative play matters for understanding it, and how a role-playing game might be one of the best professional development tools the sector has. Along the way: the state of nonprofit education, budgeting under pressure, using feedback and data to make better calls, and what AI is changing.

Tim Sarrantonio is the founder of The Generosity Spectrum and the creator of The Generosity Roundtable, the nonprofit sector's first role-playing game designed to help organizations practice decision-making together. He has spent nearly fifteen years working at the intersection of generosity, technology, and nonprofit practice, supporting organizations as they navigate participation, trust, and change.

In this episode:

• Fundraising, redefined as generosity
• How role-playing sharpens nonprofit learning and decision-making

Connect with Tim

• The Generosity Spectrum: www.generosityspectrum.org
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsarrantonio
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Sarah

• Nonprofit 411: www.nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class to explore the systems that keep community at the heart of fundraising: class.nonprofit411.org/fundraising_roadmap-440406

Chapters

• 00:00 — Redefining Fundraising as Generosity
• 02:33 — Journey into the Nonprofit Sector
• 04:07 — Challenges in Nonprofit Education
• 06:10 — The Role of Generosity in Community Resilience
• 07:08 — The Need for Practical Application in Nonprofit Education
• 07:29 — The Importance of Professional Development
• 08:59 — Budgeting Challenges in Nonprofits
• 10:37 — The Role of Role-Playing in Nonprofit Learning
• 16:27 — Feedback and Data in Nonprofit Decision-Making
• 23:00 — The Impact of AI on Nonprofit Dynamics
• 30:09 — The Generosity Roundtable Game

The importance of curiosity in donor relationships: Fundraising isn't about selling but building genuine connections with community members.

Phone calls as an effective tool for engaging mid-level donors: Personal connections and voicemails can foster trust and increase donor retention.

Systems and strategies that work: How having the right tools in place can make a huge difference in donor engagement and nonprofit growth.

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