Nonprofit411 Podcast

Sam Stern says AI has read every appeal letter ever published. What it can't know on its own is why your donors give.

Sam Stern is CEO at MagnifyGood, a communications agency for nonprofits, and he built ConnectionWorks, an AI communications system for teams with nobody assigned to communications. He started out owning and managing a group of radio stations, spent 20 years in brand marketing, then 20 in the nonprofit sector. He works from Sarasota.

Sam's clearest example is what most of us hand the tool: a donor who has given ten years in a row, usually $4,000, and lives on the east side of town. In his words, "those are cold raw data kinds of things. You want to get tapping to the emotional component." His alternative starts with a phone call. Ask four or five donors what about your work speaks to them, how they found you, and what made them give. Record and transcribe the calls, then let AI find the pattern. He builds what you learn into a system with three parts, voice, narrative continuity, and relationship architecture, so it holds when staff move on.

If your drafts are correct and still land flat, start here.

In this episode

• Why AI makes nonprofit writing sound the same, and why donors can feel it
• Sam's three parts: voice, narrative continuity, and relationship architecture
• Why he wants nonprofits to say plainly that they use AI, and how

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

• Call four or five donors, ask what connected them, record and transcribe the calls, and ask AI to find the pattern before your next appeal.
• Ask AI to help you define one donor persona: what keeps them up at night, what you do about it, and what they feel.
• Ask AI to act as a brand agency and interview you about your organization, then test what comes out on a social post.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Sam

• ConnectionWorks: https://connectionworks.ai
• MagnifyGood: https://magnifygood.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonprofitstrategist

Connect with Sarah

• Follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcast.nonprofit411.org
• Nonprofit411: https://nonprofit411.org
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411
• The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 05:56 No donor wakes up planning to give
• 12:01 Why AI drafts all sound the same
• 19:25 Voice, story, and relationship
• 27:57 Ask donors for their stories
• 30:42 Have AI interview you

Your donors may not want to talk to you. They want the person doing the work.

Pradnya Haldipur is the founder of Strategy. Creativity. Mentorship. She has spent going on thirty years in the sector, starting as executive assistant to the director of an art museum, where she fell into fundraising by accident. She has since worked with Doctors Without Borders, Mount Sinai, Boston Children's, and Children's National. She calls the work revenue generation, because that's what it is.

One of Pradnya's favorite moments is a colleague's first donor visit. An assistant professor with a first big grant, a systems engineer, someone just starting out. They prep together, the colleague talks about their work, and afterward she hears the same thing every time: "That wasn't as hard as I thought it was gonna be. When do I get to do that again?"

If asking has always been one person's job at your organization, this conversation is about sharing it.

In this episode

• Why "nonprofit" is a tax designation, and why Pradnya says revenue generation instead of fundraising
• The scarcity cycle: raise more first, then we'll invest
• Patient capital, endowments, and why the long game looks different in the social good sector

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

• Bring a program person on your next donor visit. Prep together, then let them talk about their work.
• Ask whether development can have 5% of each person's time, written into their role and their year-end review.
• Put endowment and earned revenue on the agenda for one board conversation, even if the answer is not yet.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Pradnya

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pradnya-haldipur/

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
• 01:22 The hobby question
• 03:54 Falling into fundraising by accident
• 07:54 Why "nonprofit" is only a tax designation
• 08:23 Donors want the expert
• 12:07 A shared desire to solve a problem
• 15:58 Talking about money as money
• 17:08 Bringing colleagues into the work
• 20:13 Five percent of everyone's time
• 23:01 The scarcity mindset
• 26:22 The long game and patient capital
• 28:07 What we forgot about endowments
• 31:56 Who goes unserved in the meantime
• 32:46 Where to find Pradnya

Nonprofit Branding: Roger Starkweather on How Your Team Is Showing Up

Your brand isn't the logo. It's whether everyone around you tells the same story.

Roger Starkweather is co-founder and CEO of ANEWbrand, a Seattle-born agency whose motto is branding for the greater good. He got his start in sales, selling rubber stamps door to door, and has built businesses of his own ever since, including one in construction. He and his business partner, Steven Picanza, have worked together in the agency world for fifteen years, and both have worked with SCORE, a nonprofit that mentors people starting businesses.

Roger describes a project his team is working on right now that never leaves the building. The organization's own groups were arguing among themselves, so ANEWbrand came in with workshops and surveys to say what nobody inside could. Sarah connects it to the mergers she's seeing across the sector. When two people who each own a house get married, building a new one together is easier than moving into either.

If your staff, board, and supporters would each describe you a little differently, start here.

In this episode

• Why Roger calls brand guidelines an operating system, and what happens when nobody feeds it
• Marketing as the road brands drive down, and return on experience as a way to measure what dollars can't
• The internal side of a brand, when staff and volunteers need the same clarity your donors do

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

• Read the top section of your homepage. Does it say why you exist before it shows a single pretty picture?
• Give branding and marketing its own pillar in your strategic plan, with a budget line that can stand up to it.
• Put Roger's question on your next team agenda: how are we showing up today? Any hesitation is worth a conversation.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Roger

• ANEWbrand: https://www.anewbrand.co/
• Email: [email protected]

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
• 02:03 The hobby question
• 03:09 Why nonprofits, and why now
• 05:49 Is branding a real investment?
• 06:15 Your brand is an operating system
• 07:34 What a clear brand does for fundraising
• 10:12 The road brands drive down
• 11:38 Return on experience
• 14:36 Competing on a world stage
• 16:02 Thinking like a retailer
• 17:45 The biggest challenge: the budget
• 19:16 Evolution or revolution
• 20:57 Do nonprofits invest enough?
• 22:49 Signs it's time
• 25:05 When the brand problem is internal
• 26:18 Mergers and the new house
• 28:00 How am I showing up today?
• 29:25 Where to find Roger

Michelle Benson spent 18 years chasing funders, then crossed to the other side of the desk and watched them go looking instead.

Michelle Benson is the founder of Culture of Philanthropy, online training that teaches fundraisers, CEOs, communications staff and consultants how to be found on LinkedIn by the people they want to reach. She was a fundraiser for 18 years and has spent about ten on the funding side. She joins Sarah to explain what changed when she stopped chasing high value funders and started building a way for them to find her.

She tells it from inside a trust fund. Two colleagues came in every morning to a flood of applications, most of which missed the criteria, and had to wade through the weak ones to reach the strong ones. So the fund closed its open application process. Those same two people were handed the giving criteria and, by her account, fifteen million pounds to place, and sent out to find charities themselves. The quality of the pipeline went up. So did the mood of the two people doing the work.

If your whole pipeline runs on cold outreach, this is the second string.

In this episode

Why funders are closing open applications and going out to look instead

The algorithm as a sniffer dog, and what your words and actions send it after

Why a post with plenty of likes can still be a post that failed

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

Write the goal down before you touch LinkedIn. Something as specific as four new corporate funders at around $20,000 in the next 12 months.

Describe your best supporter and your worst one, then write your profile for the best one. Your profile is what the algorithm reads.

Give every post one job, then judge it against that job. If the job was clicks to your site, likes are not the score.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Michelle

• Culture of Philanthropy: https://www.cultureofphilanthropy.co
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-benson-creates-digital-pipelines

Connect with Sarah

• Follow the show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcast.nonprofit411.org
• 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

04:20 Eighteen years of chasing

07:14 "My job is to be found"

14:33 The algorithm as a sniffer dog

25:18 When likes mean the post failed

Michelle Benson spent 18 years chasing funders, then crossed to the other side of the desk and watched them go looking instead.

Michelle Benson is the founder of Culture of Philanthropy, online training that teaches fundraisers, CEOs, communications staff and consultants how to be found on LinkedIn by the people they want to reach. She was a fundraiser for 18 years and has spent about ten on the funding side. She joins Sarah to explain what changed when she stopped chasing high value funders and started building a way for them to find her.

She tells it from inside a trust fund. Two colleagues came in every morning to a flood of applications, most of which missed the criteria, and had to wade through the weak ones to reach the strong ones. So the fund closed its open application process. Those same two people were handed the giving criteria and, by her account, fifteen million pounds to place, and sent out to find charities themselves. The quality of the pipeline went up. So did the mood of the two people doing the work.

If your whole pipeline runs on cold outreach, this is the second string.

In this episode

Why funders are closing open applications and going out to look instead

The algorithm as a sniffer dog, and what your words and actions send it after

Why a post with plenty of likes can still be a post that failed

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

Write the goal down before you touch LinkedIn. Something as specific as four new corporate funders at around $20,000 in the next 12 months.

Describe your best supporter and your worst one, then write your profile for the best one. Your profile is what the algorithm reads.

Give every post one job, then judge it against that job. If the job was clicks to your site, likes are not the score.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Michelle

• Culture of Philanthropy: https://www.cultureofphilanthropy.co
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-benson-creates-digital-pipelines

Connect with Sarah

• Follow the show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcast.nonprofit411.org
• 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

04:20 Eighteen years of chasing

07:14 "My job is to be found"

14:33 The algorithm as a sniffer dog

25:18 When likes mean the post failed

People don't say yes to the item. They say yes to the reason you're asking.

Jo McPartland is the fundraising coach at Dutch Mill Bulbs, a fundraising company founded in central Pennsylvania in 1960. She ran fundraisers as a teacher and as a volunteer leader before she moved to the other side of the table. Dutch Mill Bulbs works with hundreds of groups every season, and Jo coaches them through it, from Scout troops and churches to sports teams and animal rescues.

One group Jo works with has to travel for every field trip. They hit their goal every single year. The kids could say they're raising money for buses. Jo's point is that they aren't. "It's not gas, it's not transportation. That's the means to have that experience."

If your goal feels too big to say out loud, start by dividing it.

In this episode

• Why so many groups start with "whatever we can make," and what changes when they pick a number
• The one sentence every volunteer can say: what it's for, how much, and how to help
• Celebrating halfway, and the pink ribbon tulips that support the National Breast Cancer Foundation

A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit

• Divide your goal by the number of people asking. Six or seven sales each is a couple of neighbors and a coworker.
• Name what the money makes possible, not what it pays for.
• Give supporters two ways to help, in person and online, so a grandparent in another state can still say yes.

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Jo

• Dutch Mill Bulbs: https://dutchmillbulbs.com
• Fundraiser Goal Calculator: https://dutchmillbulbs.com/goal-calculator/
• Pink Ribbon Tulips: https://dutchmillbulbs.com/product/o-pink-ribbon-tulips/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-mcpartland

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
• 01:05 The hobby question
• 02:17 From teacher and volunteer to fundraising coach
• 03:43 How a bulb fundraiser works
• 06:56 The groups Jo loves working with
• 09:55 Choosing the bulbs
• 12:10 Start with the goal
• 13:35 It's not the item, it's the why
• 14:54 Smaller numbers feel doable
• 16:39 Celebrate the wins
• 18:15 Pink ribbon tulips
• 21:30 What groups run into
• 23:30 The group that hits its goal every year
• 25:34 Say it more than once, in more than one place
• 27:10 Not gas money, an experience
• 27:36 Tell them how to help
• 29:16 Where to find Jo
• 30:00 If I were starting from scratch

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