The Groupfinity Podcast

#016 - Sean is a coach, consultant, and trainer for nonprofit leaders.  Today, he shares some of his Facebook Fundraising secrets.  Using some of his strategies, some organizations have been able to raise over $10,000 in as little as 30 days.  

One secret is you have to do the work.  The good news is, you likely already have the skills to do this.  If you know how to post on Facebook you can do this.

Sean says that if you have 500+ Facebook friends, you can raise $1,000.  If 10 people in your organization do this, you can raise $10,000.  It only takes a month.

The key takeaways from my discussion with Sean are:  

#1 People are FAR more likely to give, if someone they know and like asks them;

#2 Get people willing to do it, have them invite their Facebook friends, and post daily; 

#3 You will be surprised by the people who donate; AND

#4 Don’t assume someone doesn’t have money to give - don’t be both the buyer and the seller.

Be sure to check out his website at nonprofitfixer.com.

#015 - Ellis is a nonprofit lawyer.  She started the Charity Lawyer Blog to help nonprofits make sense of compliance and legal matters.  Her motto is Nonprofit Law Simplified and that’s just what she did in this interview.  

She simplified a number of nonprofit legal and compliance requirements that a lot of small groups struggle with.    

We talk about compliance requirements around:

• -getting your 501c3 started;
• -how to register with your state; AND 
• -what you need to do every year going forward to stay in compliance.

We also talked a good deal about when it makes sense to get a fiscal sponsor.

Be sure to check out her website to access her registration guide, which is summarized by state.

#014 - Lindsay LaShell is a self-described “marketing activist”.  Her mission is to help organizations increase justice, equity, and sustainability by making their marketing more effective.

Lindsay shares with us how important it is to be clear on what our audience wants from us and deliver that.

It is ok for there to be a whole bunch of people who are NOT your people.  Any marketing strategy that is set up to say we don’t want to alienate anybody, is going to do a terrible job of connecting with the right people.

Lindsay is running a Pro Bono Marketing Bootcamp in December.  If your organization’s budget was less than $200k in 2019, you are welcome to apply and snag a free spot.

#013 - James Speirs from ABC Fundraising shares with us how they pivoted when COVID hit from fundraisers primarily focused on food items to selling custom face masks online.  The face masks have been such a HUGE HIT, they’ve become their MOST POPULAR FUNDRAISING CONCEPT.

It is pretty simple.  You give them your logo & background color and for a low initial $40 fee, you get a web-store with about 20 face masks available in both adult and youth sizes.  Eight are custom with your logo and the remaining are either general (eg American Flag, blank, dog, cat, etc….).  The variety makes customers buy more.  

Their process reduces the risk to the group / organization because:  

-You don’t need to carry expensive inventory. 

-Low 50 face mask minimum (not 50 orders, 50 total face masks) 

-Masks are prepaid - they only produce the face masks that are ordered and pre-paid.

-Very low upfront costs - only $25 set-up fee plus a $15 web-store fee.

-Your group gets a check when the campaign ends a few weeks later.

Customers place their order and pay directly in the web-store.  The variety in the web-store (20-ish masks) AND a discount when you buy 3 or more, results in 80% - 90% of the customers buying 3 or more face masks.  

This has been a HUGE hit with schools, churches, youth sports, local businesses, and non-profits of all sizes.

You simply send your logo and the ABC team will work with it and provide you with 8 custom face masks plus some generic options for your web-store.  You can be up and running in 24 hrs and have your funds in a month.  

One of his groups earned $2,000 on a $40 investment - that is a WHOPPING 5,000% Return on Investment.  AND FURTHERMORE, they’ve opened their store again.  Once you pay the initial $40 fee, you can open and close your web store whenever you want.

S #1 Ep #012 - Greg Quiroga from Stellar SF Fundraising went from 100% live fundraising galas to 100% online events in a matter of weeks.  His customers are nonprofits and schools and they all shut down their scheduled events when we went to Shelter at Home in March.  Greg quickly pivoted and started advising his clients on virtual events.  

You can’t stop fundraising because of COVID-19.  As Greg puts it… “if you don’t ask them for money one year, it will be harder to get it the next year.”  In this episode, Greg takes us inside some of his recent virtual events for fundraising and shares what is working.  

If you are struggling with the decision to take your fundraising event virtual, there is something here for you.  A lot of it is ATTITUDE! You have to get over your fears and BELIEVE you can do it.

Greg talks about using a variety of platforms including Zoom, YouTube, Facebook Live, and Twitch.  He says it is best if you can get guests to stream the event to their smart TV to limit distractions on the computer.

These are tough times for sure, but many organizations are still raising money.  Your organization's costs are not going away so you still need to fundraise.  
-Your supporters have likely done a number of virtual events for charity by now so they are accustomed to them.  
-There are a number of virtual events to raise money around a number of great causes.  
-Virtual events for adults are quite popular right now.  
-In some cases, people are looking for virtual events to attend.  

Virtual events in 2020 are exploding.  We even came across a recent post titled “Virtual Events To Attend This Week”.  If you are not asking, those funds are going somewhere else.

Be sure to stick around ‘til the end when Greg shares his secrets on how to produce successful virtual events for fundraising.  

The key takeaways in today’s episode are:  

#1 On average, virtual events are netting 90% of what they did as live events.

#2 A lot of your success rests in attitude.  You have to believe you can do it.    

#3 Keep it to 45 minutes to 1 hour.  People’s attention span likely can’t take much more than that.

S #1 Ep #011 - Dondrell Swanson and his team were hosting a 400+ person annual convention in March. Then the state and local governments put restrictions on large gatherings and ordered people to Shelter at Home.  He and his team had to decide whether to reschedule to a future date or cancel.  The venue was putting pressure on them to reschedule to a later date.  This particular event is in the springtime every year.  Moving to a later date was risky.  They were unsure as to how it would perform later in the year.

Dondrell shares the team’s thought process at arriving at their decision and what they learned.  If you face this situation now or if you will face it in the future, there are takeaways you can apply to your situation.

S #1 Ep #010 - Becky Urbano is the auction chair for her elementary school.  Their auction was scheduled to take place just days before the shelter in place was ordered due to the coronavirus pandemic.  She and her team had to scramble to change course fast.  In a matter of days, they had to cancel vendors and move their event online to a virtual one.  They lost deposit funds paid to vendors, but they were able to minimize other losses and still had a successful event.  They used social media more than they had in the past to inform the community and drive excitement. 

Becky’s key advice:

The key takeaways in today’s episode are:  

#1 Don’t be afraid to ask your guests to donate their ticket funds
#2 Be proactive and emotions must take a back seat  
#3 Prepare for the worst-case scenario     

They had to scramble fast to scrap their physical event and go virtual.  They did the best they could with the hand they were dealt, but still raised money.   Do what you can and don’t worry about what was planned.  This covid-19 crisis has taught us that we have to do things differently.  You have to think out of the box.

S #1 Ep #009 - This is my interview with Christy Noel, VP of Marketing at MobileCause.  Nonprofits use MobileCause’s online and event fundraising software to boost their fundraising efforts.  This episode was recorded in early April when organizations were faced with having to cancel or postpone their events due to the coronavirus pandemic crisis.  The social distancing and stay at home orders as a result of the coronavirus pandemic are adversely impacting nonprofit organizations’ fundraising events.  You may have to decide to cancel your event.  Local authorities may force you to cancel your event.  Christy shares what you can do.  Specifically, she talks about transforming “in person” events to virtual ones.  

Christy’s key advice:

#1 Don’t drag your feet on moving to a virtual event.     

#2 Don’t assume you need to refund your ticket/registration funds.  Communicate with your guests and sponsors and come up with a way forward that works for both sides.

#3 Add value to your sponsors by continuing to promote them.  

You need to continue communicating with your guests and sponsors.  Let them know what you are doing.  Let them know how they can help.  Don’t assume they know.  

There are plenty of tools out there to help and we’ve listed some in the show notes

S #1 Ep #008 - This is my interview with Sam Swaim who is the co-founder of Swaim Strategies and we explore the question - Will coronavirus stop my nonprofit event?  Swaim Strategies works with nonprofits, large and small, to bring people together through events.  This episode was recorded shortly after many local government authorities implemented restrictions on large gatherings due to the coronavirus crisis.  Many organizations had events planned and were wondering if they could or should still host their event.  In this episode, we talk about what the decisions leaders of organizations are grappling with.  Sam shares what she is seeing and hearing from nonprofit event organizers.  On the one hand, you don’t want to host an event that is not safe for your community.  On the other hand, you may have extended substantial financial resources towards the event.  What happens if you are forced to cancel your event because your local authorities have put a "shelter at home" order in place.  What can you do to protect your organization's finances?

S1 Ep #007 - This is Part 2 of my interview with Beth Sandefur, who is the founder and owner of Beth Sandefur Events.  She works with nonprofits to help them execute successful events.  Beth is a seasoned event planner with a strong background in development and hands-on experience with theatrical production. Her efforts focus on planning and execution of fundraising galas, typically with a large auction component. As a planner, she believes in working with clients to find the inefficiencies and redundancies in their systems to create a streamlined approach, keeping the organizational mission in the forefront.

Beth taught us the importance of setting your goals and visualizing your outcome and working backward from there.  In this episode, Beth teaches us how to incorporate “Revenue Enhancers” to increase our fundraising yield.