Responsive Lab Podcast

This week Jeff Conn, Co-CEO of NPact, and Gabe Cooper, CEO of Virtuous, join the conversation to discuss the evolving landscape of community-based giving, particularly focusing on the rise and significance of Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) and the role of community foundations. Historically, community foundations have played a key role in philanthropy but are now facing challenges and competition from commercial DAF providers. What can we learn from the rise of donor-advised funds to create more hyper-personal donor experiences and draw people into a bigger story about their impact?

In the discussion, we explored:

What is your year-round brand message for your nonprofit? Most nonprofit marketing is about the offer - what we are asking a person to give. Yet the commercial space spends consistent time and resources on brand marketing. What does your organization believe in or stand for, what do you do, and what are the stories that showcase the world you are working to build? 

Responsive nonprofits are adopting marketing automation strategies and tools to maintain relevance and deepen relationships and engagement with donors. Mark Neigh, VP of Digital at Masterworks, suggests an “always on” approach to build awareness and affinity for nonprofits.

Tune into this week’s episode to learn about the marketing automation strategies and the “always on” framework to stay top of mind for donors and supporters all year long. 

Bonus: this episode was recorded the week of Giving Tuesday. Mark and Bryan spend the first 15 minutes discussing the top lessons learned from Giving Tuesday, and how those lessons inform fundraising next year.

This episode was originally featured on The NonProfit Voice Tech Series hosted by Mark Becker editorial advisory board member for NonProfit PRO.

Spreadsheets can quickly become overwhelming for nonprofit marketers — and even if you think they’re working for your organization, you might be surprised by how much more organized and streamlined your efforts could be. That’s where marketing automation comes into play to remove administrative duties from your fundraisers’ day-to-day activities.

“When we take away the 32 Excel spreadsheets, the manual reporting, the manual memorization of what emails need to go out — all of that — we free up those fundraisers to be out in the community, really doing the job that we want them to do with the most effectiveness,” Abigayle Tobia, vice president of philanthropy at Verland, said.

In this episode, Abigayle shares how marketing automation can simplify tasks, such as pulling reports, reconciling donations, emailing a donor welcome series, bettering donor acknowledgment, making donor communications documentation accessible to all team members, and more.

For Tobia, it’s saved her so much time, that she’s more able to pick up the phone now to call donors — as well as determine which donors warrant that additional point of contact — thanks to marketing automation.