The ENGAGE Podcast

When you reach out and engage with donors, you could be setting the stage for a relationship that lasts a lifetime. This is even more important with your younger donors - however, you need to use the right strategies to begin to build that lasting relationship. What are younger donors looking for? What’s the right approach and what will it take to execute?

In this episode, you’ll hear from Joe Garecht, President of Garecht Fundraising Associates and founder of The Fundraising Authority, about cultivating younger donors. Listen to the episode to learn what donor cultivation means, what the cultivation process should look like, and about the 8 keys to cultivating younger donors that may alter your playbook. 

After listening, click on the webinar link in the “Resources” section below to hear more from Joe on this topic, including the younger donor lifecycle and what to do after getting that first gift.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• The importance of building lifelong relationships with young donors
• What donor cultivation means to different donors
• The process of cultivation - from weeding out prospects to a set endgame
• Going beyond social media to cultivate younger donors
• Relationships with businesses vs. individuals
• Making your cultivation process scalable
• Telling the story of your nonprofit while including your donors

Resources:

Joe Garecht

Webinar: How to Engage Younger Donors to Create Lifelong Relationships for your Nonprofit

eBook: The Nonprofit Planning How-To Guide

Quotes:

“Cultivation is what happens in between. It’s all the communication and interaction that occurs between your nonprofit and a prospect.”

“The big goal of the entire cultivation and engagement process, the goal that it’s focused on, is the ask.”

“Don’t spend time trying to cultivate people who just aren’t interested in your organization.”

Is your organization no longer content with just “making good grants” or “doing good things for the community?” Have you thought about how your strategies need to change to achieve new goals? 

Today’s episode features Cynthia Schaal, Chief Program Officer at Exponent Philanthropy, discussing how your organization can have a greater impact. Cynthia takes you step by step and helps your organization understand the obstacles you might face after taking a fresh look at your goals, strategies, and outcomes, and helps you determine what you can do differently to achieve more. After listening, click on the link to the webinar in the “Resources” section below to hear even more from Cynthia on this topic.

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

• Steps to creating a high impact philanthropic program
• What “high-impact philanthropy” really means
• Setting clear outcome goals
• Designing effective and coordinated strategies
• Establishing a learning plan 
• Overcoming common obstacles
• Dynamics, readiness, planning, and focus
• Capacity and implementation
• Assessing and integrating your work

Resources: 

Cynthia Schaal

Webinar: Ramping Up for High-Impact Philanthropy

Exponent Philanthropy

Ramping Up for High-Impact Philanthropy Toolkit

Quotes:

“Perhaps high impact for you might be reaching more people or more places with your giving.” -- Cynthia Schaal

“Those who are giving in a high-impact manner match those strategies to their goals.” -- Cynthia Schaal

“It could be that everybody around the table comes to the work with a different perspective, a unique point of view, and really thinks they have the best idea for how to use the resources.” -- Cynthia Schaal

The digital world has opened a new range of possibilities for higher education institutions as they look to connect with alumni and other prospective donors. Opportunities for greater creativity and the ability to make the donation process much easier and more personalized have greatly advanced how institutions can better engage constituents. However, one thing that remains the same is the importance of building relationships.

This episode features a discussion between Sue Cunningham, President and CEO of CASE, and Tim Hill, President & GM of Blackbaud Higher Education Solutions, about the Blackbaud Institute’s “2018 Charitable Giving Report: Higher Education Spotlight.” Listen in to hear what Tim and Sue have to say about higher education trends in 2018 and how they compare to prior years, and how digital tools and campaigns will affect the future of higher education giving. And to learn even more about this topic, click on the link to the webinar in the “Resources” section below. 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• The current state of higher education giving
• How much fundraising comes via online sources
• How current digital trends have changed how donors engage with educational institutions
• Multi-year trends in giving
• How advancement professionals are responding to the changing landscape in giving
• How institutions can harness the power of digital and online strategies to tell their impact stories and reach more donors
• The increasing role of #GivingTuesday in higher education fundraising

Resources:

Sue Cunningham

Tim Hill

Webinar: 2018 Charitable Giving Report: Higher Education Spotlight

Report: 2018 Charitable Giving Report: Higher Education Spotlight

Quotes:

“Clearly the digital world has opened up a huge range of opportunities, and we’re seeing imaginative and creative use of those both in the context of a broader engagement and also specifically around fundraising.” – Sue Cunningham

“We forget that sometimes you’re competing for that dollar with other types of institutions.” –Tim Hill 

“Whether relationships are being built face-to-face or whether they’re being built remotely, I think relationships are at the heart of what we’re about and what we’re doing.” –Sue Cunningham

Has your organization better connected finance and development and you’re now looking for what you can do next to ensure sustainable mission success? Today’s episode focuses on learnings from Blackbaud’s Financial Management Toolkit, an expert guide for connecting finance and development as a strategic partnership.

Industry expert Pamela Gignac, Vice President of Development at JMG Solutions, shares strategies and best practices for using donor statements to position your organization for a successful sustainer giving program. Listen in to learn how to begin, how donor statements can be used to build trust and start new conversations with donors, and which donors should receive the statements.

After the episode, access the webinars listed in the Resources section below to hear more from Pamela and other experts.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• What donors want to know about the impact their funds have
• How the donor statement helps build trust
• Tying statistics and impact stories together
• The first steps for creating donor statements
• Which resources need to be used to create donor statements
• Pros and cons of including expense details
• Which donors to target with donor statements

Resources:

Pamela Gignac

Full Webinar: Sustaining the Transformation

Finance and Fundraising Webinar Series

Financial Management Toolkit

Quotes:

“Where it’s really relevant, more than in any other place, is particularly with major gifts.”

“If one organization does it, then donors get used to it.”

“The donor statement is one that allows us to personalize the accountability that we have to our donors.”

Digital transformation may sound like a buzzword, but the reality is that it fundamentally changes the way organizations operate and innovate.

Special guest Mike Gianoni, president & CEO of Blackbaud, joins us for our 100th episode to explore the topic of digital transformation and how it drives business performance. Listen in to hear what Mike has to say about how technology has changed the way organizations run over the past few decades, why successful digital transformation requires more than just new technology, and how leaders can champion digital transformation across their organizations.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Digital transformation over the past 30+ years
• How digital transformation has changed various industries, such as banking and farming
• How digital transformation drives business performance
• What social good organizations can learn from the digital transformation of private sector companies
• Barriers to digital transformation in social good organizations
• Why digital transformation needs to be a team sport
• The responsibility of the C-suite in leading digital transformation across their organization
• Examples of social good organizations that have been positively impacted by digital transformations

Resources:

Mike Gianoni

Blackbaud

Quotes:

“Obviously, digital transformation impacts all of us. It’s changed our lives significantly.”

“Digital transformation is not just about the software and the IT, it's about moving the whole company in a different direction.”

“It's not just the IT person's job to drive digital transformation. It's actually the CEO's job or the executive director's job to drive it because you have to change everything, not just the software.”

 “To really get ahold of this, everything has to be rethought. Every part of the business, every aspect of the business…financial management to mission delivery, fundraising, all of it.”

Nonprofits and other social good organizations face many challenges, but one that can be seen over and over again comes from inside the organization. Different departments, such as development and communications, don’t effectively engage with each other, hampering their ability to reach out to and engage with donors as successfully as they could.

Today’s guest is Sam Stern, CEO of Magnify Good, a communications consultancy that helps social sector organizations magnify the good of the work they do. He joins podcast host Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud to talk about how organizations can transform by focusing on working more connectedly across departments, particularly between development and communications. Listen in to hear what Sam has to say about where to start to increase inter-departmental collaboration, how creating personas can help organizations operate more effectively, mirroring the donor’s journey with evergreen content, and the importance of technology to bring all the pieces together.

 Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Looking inward for problems rather than focusing on external factors
• Steps for helping departments work better together
• Developing personas to understand the donor’s journey
• Creating meaningful and lasting content
• The role that technology plays and shifting organizational thinking around digital transformation

Resources: 

Sam Stern

Magnify Good

Connective Impact eBook

Quotes:

“What would happen if we all focused on doing our work together in a fashion that would be more effective and lead to better results?”

“Having this persona in the front of your mind all the time is going to help you get to the point where you can even test these things to see what’s working best and what’s not.”

“How do we need to think about this, organizationally, and make decisions as to whether this technology is actually just going to be more work and not really pay off any benefits, or if it’s really going to empower us.”

Everyone knows that social media has a massive impact on today’s culture, so how can social good organizations effectively leverage it to engage supporters? What does your organization need to do to execute an effective social media strategy? What benchmarks should you be tracking your performance against? How can you improve if you’re not where you want to be? The guests in this episode of The sgENGAGE Podcast are going to help answer these questions.

Today Jocelyn Wright, Instructional Designer and Jenny Toledo, Instructor at Blackbaud University, join your host Roz Lemieux, Director of Blackbaud Labs, to talk about some of the highlights from the M+R Benchmarks Report and what they mean for your organization. Listen in to learn why social media tracking matters, what development professionals need to know about Facebook fundraisers, and what to expect from Instagram’s new donate stickers.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Highlights from the 2019 M+R Benchmarks Report  
• Why social media matters to social good organizations and why it’s important to track
• Social media vocabulary and best practices
• What organizations should be watching for on Facebook and Instagram
• Insights into online monthly membership programs
• How to brush up on social media strategy and take your organization to the next level

Resources:

Jocelyn Wright

Jenny Toledo

M+R Benchmarks Report 2019

Blackbaud University Organizational Best Practices

Blackbaud University Organizational Best Practices Course Listing

Quotes:

“We need to use social media to our leverage. That’s where everyone is. That’s where everyone is engaging and talking with our organizations. We have to be where the people are.”

“We have seen that video content is actually the most engaging across all platforms.”

“If you understand your audience, you understand what message they resonate with, what they connect with.”

What do finance and development have in common? A goal to keep the organization on the path to successfully fulfilling its mission. So, it's critical that finance and development are aligned both on the goal and on the path they'll take to getting there. Today’s episode focuses on the learnings in Blackbaud’s Financial Management Toolkit, an expert guide for connecting finance and development as a strategic partnership.

Industry experts and Toolkit contributors Russell Pomeranz, president and CEO of Claverack Advisory Group; Lucy Morgan, director of MyFedTrainer.com; and Bess Hamilton Foley, chair of the Nonprofit Operating Reserves Initiative Workgroup, share best practices and tips for how finance and development can collaborate to determine the organization's path to mission success. Listen in to hear what they have to say about how finance and development should work together, coordinating a revenue strategy that includes grants and fundraising, and strategies for fundraising an operating reserve.

After the episode, access the webinars listed in the Resources section below to hear more from Russell, Lucy and Bess as well as other experts.

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

• How finance and development strengthen each other’s work
• Taking a longer-term view at how finance and development should work together
• Incentivizing the united front of finance and development
• Importance of coordinating your revenue strategy between grants and fundraising
• Focusing on transparency and accountability
• Strategies for funding an operating reserve and why it’s important to have one

Resources:

Webinar: Getting Aligned on Finance and Mission Strategy

Finance and Fundraising Webinar Series

Financial Management Toolkit

Russell Pomeranz

Lucy Morgan

Bess Hamilton Foley

Quotes:

“Finance and development working together have the necessary financial and programmatic impact to build the mission-sustainable nonprofit however that mission adapts over time.” –Russell Pomeranz

“One of the parts of federal grants that we tend to forget about is just how big that purse is.” –Lucy Morgan

“An operating reserve helps to ensure that you can continue to reliably deliver critical mission services.” –Bess Hamilton Foley

Getting supporters to take action and engage with elected officials on policy issues can be a challenge, requiring organizations to start thinking outside the box. Learn from one social good organization how innovating and testing new tactics can help boost advocate engagement.

This episode of the sgENGAGE Podcast features an interview with Chris Masak, senior associate director of advocacy at the Alzheimer's Association. Chris shares how the Alzheimer’s Association has experimented to get more people engaged in Alzheimer’s advocacy. He also gives tips on how to identify people likely to take action on your cause and how to decide which methods of engagement to experiment with. Finally, Chris discusses the new tactics and technologies he is looking forward to trying next.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Chris’s insights on advocacy strategies for large and small organizations
• Identifying the right potential advocates to engage with
• How to determine what new engagement methods your organization should try
• New technologies and advocate engagement tactics to get excited about

Resources: 

Chris Masak

Alzheimer’s Association

Grassroots Galvanizer Playbook

Quotes:

“When it comes to the advocacy work, if you’ve taken an action recently, if you’ve spoken out on an issue and done it in a way that we like, those are the people that we want to identify first.”

“It’s the long game that we’re ultimately looking for. Some of the stuff that has come out as beta tests or trial runs, those are the things that have had a lasting impact on our movement.”

“Even the biggest organizations probably have fewer resources than you’d expect when it comes to certain things. There’s some duct tape and glue going on no matter what.”

We spend as much as 20% of our day doing manual repetitive tasks, and those manual tasks often end up costing organizations a lot of money in lost productivity, fraud and errors. So how can social good organizations fix this? Enter robotic process automation (RPA), a technology that automates repetitive processes and allows organizations to better control their expenses, increase their margins, and drive more revenue.

In this episode, Blackbaud’s RPA expert Louis Stratton explains what robotic process automation technology is, how it strengthens internal controls and why it benefits organizations to include it as part of their strategy. After listening to the episode, check out the webinar through the link below to learn even more about how RPA can influence your work.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• The state of business today and how much time and money is lost from manual repetitive tasks
• The relationship between digital transformation and robotic process automation
• The limitations preventing us from having more on-demand information
• How RPA helps organizations strengthen internal controls
• The future of robotic process automation
• Examples of how organizations can be transformed through RPA

 Resources:

Louis Stratton

Webinar: Robotic Process Automation: What It Means for Your Organization

 Quotes:

 “We live in an era where digital transformation is radically changing the way we interact, work, and live.”

 “One thing that’s always constant is that hardware gets better, then software gets better.”

 “In business, the robot is the software.”