The Generosity Freakshow

Networking. You may have just threw up in your mouth a little bit there but networking isn't just about awkward, forced conversations and David Burkus is here to tell you more about it. He is one of the world’s leading business thinkers whose forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are changing how companies approach innovation, collaboration, and productivity and in this episode, he shares some of his research on networking — its power and how to do it better.

Links & Resources

David Burkus: https://davidburkus.com/

Friend of a Friend: https://davidburkus.com/books/friend-of-a-friend/

How can we better and best evaluate a nonprofit's impact? This is something Dean Karlan — Co-founder and Chair of the Board of ImpactMatters, Professor of Economics and Finance at Northwestern University, and President and Founder of Innovations for Poverty Action — has spent his career working on and shares more about his work, research, and experience. He provides some tips to donors and nonprofits alike who are looking to make and show impact.

Links & Resources:

ImpactMatters: https://www.impactmatters.org/

Dean Karlan: http://deankarlan.com/

The first pod of 2020 takes a look back at 2019 as Nathan and Brady talk about some of the highlights from the past year, share some of the things they've learned, and discuss a few of the neatest experiments.

Links & Resources

Experiments: https://www.nextafter.com/research/

Research: https://www.nextafter.com/resources/

Doug White — an author, teacher, advisor to nonprofit organizations and philanthropists — joins to discuss his new book Wounded Charity among other things. Doug shares how organizations should respond to a crisis as well as how the media covers, creates, or convolutes a crisis before sharing more broadly on giving, philanthropy, and generosity.

Links & Resources

Doug White: http://www.dougwhite.net/

Wounded Charity: Find a local bookstore, https://www.indiebound.org/indie-bookstore-finder, or Amazon,https://www.amazon.ca/Wounded-Charity-Lessons-Learned-Warrior/dp/1557789401

Have you heard of giving days? Have you done one? Dana Suther, Assistant Director of Strategic Solicitations at Kansas State University Foundation, joins to share about her experience leading the first giving day in K-State's history. She talks about why they wanted to do a giving day, how they arrived at their singular focus, and how essential coordination amongst teams is.

Links & Resources:

KSU Foundation: https://ksufoundation.org/

All in for K-State: https://ksufoundation.org/AllInforKState/

Pledging has been used in fundraising for years but does it work? How could it be improved? Used for online gifts? Marta Serra-Garcia — a behavioral economist and an Assistant Professor of Economics & Strategic Management at the University of California San Diego — joins to discuss some new research covering the subject of pledging before discussing upcoming research and how generosity can be optimized.

Links & Resources:

Marta's Site: http://bit.ly/350JwO2

Pledging Research: http://bit.ly/2KlWXA4

Since 2003 Movember has funded more than 1,250 men’s health projects around the world with funds mostly raised through a month-long peer-to-peer focused campaign. But how do you create a great campaign? Or how do you make changes to an already good one to make it great? We discuss these questions and more with Alexandra Ryan — Global Lead of Fundraising Products for Movember — and dig into what she and her team did specifically with 'Move' and their award-winning work in 2018.

Links & Resources

Movember: http://movember.com/

Brady's Movember Page: https://mobro.co/14094995?mc=1

Your usual host, Brady Josephson, hops on the other side of the mic to share about new research studying 204 donation pages and another one looking at 2,589 nonprofit emails as well as the launch of the NextAfter Institute for Online Fundraising.

Links & Resources:

Donation Page Research: https://www.stateofdonationpages.com/

Cultivation Research: https://www.cultivatingdonors.com/

NextAfter Institute: https://www.nextafter.com/institute/

If want to grow giving, shouldn't we better understand the reasons why people do, or do not, give? Or why they choose to give again and over time? Nick Ellinger, VP of Marketing Strategy at DonorVoice, Editor at The Agitator, and author of The New Nonprofit, shares from his work and research on how we can listen to donors and what to listen for to increase engagement and ultimately grow giving.

Links & Resources

DonorVoice: https://www.thedonorvoice.com/

The Agitator: https://agitator.thedonorvoice.com/

The New Nonprofit: http://agitator.thedonorvoice.com/buy-nicks-book/

What is 'optimization', how are organizations using it successfully, and where is it headed? All questions discussed in this episode with Carl Tsukahara, Chief Marketing Officer at Optimizely — the world’s leading experimentation platform.

Resources & Links

Optimizely: https://www.optimizely.com/

A/B Test Sample Size Calculator: https://www.optimizely.com/sample-size-calculator/