Nonstop Nonprofit

In 2012, Ashley Gutierrez experienced firsthand how the power of a story can shift the narrative. She took that experience and has brought it to nonprofits all over the world as a master storyteller with impact storytelling group Cliff.co.

Working for Invisible Children in Uganda during the KONY 2012 campaign, Ashley's role was to document its effects in East Africa, to tell the story from the perspective of local leaders. As Invisible Children's video went viral, the energy shifted; people felt heard and seen, and they understood that their stories mattered, which encouraged them to share their experiences on an even deeper level. 

As Ashley notes, the Latin origin of the word "emote" is "to stir, swell, or move", so our natural instinct to sway hearts and minds with emotional tales has a long, storied history.

Invisible Children's KONY 2012 viral phenomenon (that little video with over 100 million views) sparked a movement due in large part to Jason's visionary storytelling, but the effects weren't all positive, especially for the Invisible Children team. While their hyperfocus on a singular goal led to incredible outward success, it also resulted in a breakdown of internal care—a topic that Jason has spoken candidly about in the years following the KONY 2012 campaign. 

Doing his part to normalize our conversation around mental health isn't all that Jason brings to the table, though. You'll hear him discuss Oprah and Obama, the spectrum of activism, his reaction to renewed racial tensions in America, and bringing activism to new generations through a radical new project, Broomstick Engine.

If you know your DAFs, you know that donor-advised funding is growing with breathtaking speed. Charities are receiving money from DAFs at nearly the same velocity as private foundations.

But most people can't join in the party: DAFs require an initial investment of thousands of dollars with average account sizes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But today's everyone's lucky day, friends. DAFs are now within reach for everyone; Millie makes it possible to open your own DAF for $20. 

Listen as Rachel and Justin trade a few DAF factoids, then address topics like...

• unparalleled access to donors through workplace giving
• the effect of matching donations on company culture
• making matching donations less manual, even for small companies
• how letting nonprofits tell their own story promotes equity and impact

Your website. How do you currently think of it? Is it a Project, a Property, or... could it be a Program? 

Madeo, a Webby Award-winning, social-impact-focused creative studio has some pretty clever ideas on how to turn your website into an engagement experience on a par with your programs. With fancy stuff to analyze like KPIs and donor journeys and the "missed opportunity mentality", this interview is a mind-bending game-changer. 

Get ready for an incredible listen, with golden nuggets like...

• How to manage your website with a small budget
• The value of a "debrief culture"
• Viewing your tech team as program managers
• Implementing visionary investment strategies

And last, but not least, Ramy's Top Rebranding Rule: Don't do it. (Yet.)

When your donor base is reliant on relationship-building, how do you translate that to a COVID digital landscape?

When you've invested as much in building connections with your donors as Drew's team has, letting them go is like losing family. So when COVID-19 hit, they jumped into action, scheduling Zoom calls (and walking their donors through setting up Zoom!), telling stories of dealing with coronavirus across the 68 countries they have programs in, and finding out what their donors needed to make it through the pandemic. 

So far, these actions have connected their donor base and inspired confidence that has resulted in additional donations, support, and impact.

"[Artificial intelligence] helps you understand when and how much to ask from your donor base."

If you knew every donor's next gift date and amount, what would you do with that information?

Wes Moon, COO and Co-founder of Wisely, is an expert in artificial intelligence, and he knows exactly what you would do with it. In fact, Wisely's machine learning can help you break donors into portfolios and plan for how and when to not just facilitate predicted donations, but also grow those donations (by predicted amounts, natch.)

Wes also puts us on notice: truth is in the data of the beholder, so charitable organizations are the perfect champions of accuracy and integrity as we feed the machine brain. 

Buckle up: there's a whole new asset class available to nonprofits.

...One that brings an entirely new donor set to nonprofits that they've never seen before.

...One that offers applications that can fundamentally improve the way nonprofits work.

...One that disrupts the underlying problems nonprofits are treating the symptoms of.

We're talking cryptocurrency with Anne Connelly, Faculty at Singularity University, expert in Blockchain.

Anne doesn't pretend that this precise and delicately complex subject matter is uncomplicated, but she demonstrates that it can be interesting and straightforward and—ultimately—attainable. She also advises a surprisingly exciting way to dip a toe into cryptocurrency: go online and buy $1 of bitcoin. 

***** 5-star webinar; excited to watch again. 

Chris Hammond, CEO of Corporate Giving Connection, breaks down his method to peer-to-peer maximization in a personal CEO-to-CEO conversation with Funraise CEO and Co-founder Justin Wheeler. 

Chris takes us down both personal and professional roads—his path to CEO-status is strikingly similar to Justin's—and addresses the challenges that Black men in America face building businesses. 

He also gives compelling reasons to layer your peer-to-peer tactics, including all the non-digital tricks you've developed over the years.

In this webinar, you'll hear from Chris...

• How peer-to-peer can do more than just stand the test of time
• Examples of successful blended P2P campaigns
• The most valuable 10 minutes of research you'll spend
• Why messaging matters when you're talking fundraising success

You may just find that layering the best of off-and-online P2P tools leads to a whole new world of digital fundraising. 

Check out Chris and CGC at https://cgcgiving.com/

Check your to-do list real quick. Managing anti-fraud protection for your fundraising platform has been on that list since... since you made that list, right? What if we explained everything you need to know about real-deal, got-your-back protection? Here's your best chance to check that important box.

Let Funraise escort you down the transaction fraud protection rabbit hole—we'll shed light on all things security from OWASP to DDoS. Get expert answers to questions like these:

1. How does tough security help nonprofits build true connections with donors?
2. How can anti-fraud technology help nonprofits achieve their fundraising goals?
3. How is the COVID-19 crisis putting pressure on security and protection features?
4. What does my nonprofit need to do to ensure we're covered? How do I know how much support and security we need?