The ENGAGE Podcast

In our final podcast of the year, host Danielle Johnson Vermenton shares her favorite episodes from 2016, gives a sneak peek into what’s coming for the series in the new year, and offers final tips and advice for her loyal listeners.

Speaker, author, and coach John Haydon joins host Danielle Johnson Vermenton to talk about how marketing can be a "profit" center for nonprofit organizations. What do we mean by that? We mean turning your marketing department - even a department of one - into a fundraising machine. How? Tune in to find out.

Join our guests, Jodi Smith, Vice President & Executive Director, Sanford Health Systems, and Veronica Brown, Director of Individual Giving & Communications, Chicago Public Library Foundation, to hear what they loved most about bbcon 2016, the annual conference where technology and social good meet. Plus, get the behind- the-scenes scoop on this year’s insightful and inspiring three-day event. We’re even bringing in a number of awesome bbcon speakers for a special encore session!

We have wrapped up our third season of the Raise + Engage podcast. We can't believe it! Let's take a look back at the "realest" highlights from this season's episodes and revisit some of the top tips shared during our open-mic sessions. One of our favorite nonprofit web design pros and guest of the podcast in season three, Ben Wong of Blackbaud, returns to the podcast to relive his favorite moments, share what tips he hopes others took away from the season, and offer some advice he forgot to give during his appearance in Episode 16. Whether this if your first time tuning in or your twentieth, this episode has something for you!

This is a very special episode of the Raise + Engage Podcast! Host Danielle Johnson Vermenton is joined by the two marketing pros behind the #NoFilter Nonprofit program and this very podcast, Emily Popson and Clare Corriveau of Blackbaud, to share how a for-profit marketing team overhauled its plan to increase open rates and reach more people.

These two women are not only passionate about great marketing but also about helping the social good community achieve the best results possible. In this episode they share their journey and process along with actionable tips for you to use to begin crafting your own best-in-class campaign for your cause! You'll get an inside look at what sparked these marketers to take a different approach, why they chose to explore new channels, how they approached planning a year of content, and the importance of putting engagement and interactivity at the top of your organization's priority list.

If you're thinking about how to improve your nonprofit's marketing and communications efforts in 2017, tune in now!

For episode 19 we are talking about the much anticipated end of year giving season. Mike Snusz (Principal Strategy Consultant, Blackbaud) and Danielle Altenburg (Director of Development, Animal Welfare League of Arlington) join host Danielle Johnson for a discussion about giving your end-of-year campaign an extreme makeover: what’s involved, what it takes, and how extreme the changes really need to be to yield extreme results. If your organization can make a few changes and tweaks now, it could be all you need to find year-end success.

#GivingTuesday isn’t a fad anymore, but organizations can’t just send an email asking for donations and call it a day. Your communications need to be on point and drive interest that moves people to give. You only have 24 hours to bring in the donations so boring just isn’t an option. Emily Fink, Development Staff Writer, Sanford Health Systems, joins Danielle on this episode to talk about their first year participating in #GivingTuesday, lessons learned, and how they are approaching the big day this year.

In this episode, Kerry Meyers, Internet marketing manager at The Carter Center, and Scott Gilman, senior consultant at Blackbaud, join host Danielle Johnson Vermenton to discuss end-of-year preparations, leveraging data and interactive content and how to win the hearts of prospects and donors before December.

Your website often serves as a first impression for your nonprofit organization. Are you charming the socks off first-time visitors or leaving them uninterested in your cause and uninspired to give? For episode 16, Danielle is joined by Blackbaud’s nonprofit website expert Ben Wong to cover the 10 most common ways to lose a donor online and how to avoid them. 

There's a debate among experts who work with nonprofits over the driving factor behind end-of-year giving. Is the giving season really inspired by individual donors feeling more generous or have nonprofits created that sentiment through all of our marketing, outreach, and appeals? Danielle is joined by Farra Trompeter, Vice President at Big Duck and Marc Pittman, CEO of the Concord Leadership Group and Founder of FundraisingCoach.com for this episode to tackle this timely topic.