Latest / PGgrowth - Planned Giving podcast / NO 102: SPECIAL EPISODE All About Goody Gibson

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NO 102: SPECIAL EPISODE All About Goody Gibson · PGgrowth - Planned Giving podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_04: The PG Growth Podcast.
0:22
SPEAKER_04: Hey everyone, Ed Sluga here for the Peach Growth Plan Giving Podcast.
0:27
SPEAKER_04: Today I've got a great conversation with Goody Gibson from Empower NFP about data.
0:33
SPEAKER_04: And data is incredibly important.
0:36
SPEAKER_04: He and I go back and forth about whether it's the most valuable or the second most valuable asset after your brand.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: You can decide after you listen to this.
0:46
SPEAKER_04: He convinced me in the end it's probably the most valuable asset.
0:50
SPEAKER_04: It's a great conversation.
0:52
SPEAKER_04: Things about data are said on an ongoing basis.
0:55
SPEAKER_04: People are concerned about their data.
0:57
SPEAKER_04: And in fact, there's this whole element of people being almost ashamed about their data.
1:04
SPEAKER_04: They think their data is the one that's not great.
1:06
SPEAKER_04: Everyone else's data is in great shape.
1:08
SPEAKER_04: It's not the truth.
1:09
SPEAKER_04: We go through all of that.
1:11
SPEAKER_04: It's a wonderful, wonderful podcast, great insights, and a great uh uh way that uh NFP, sorry, Empower NFP and Goody Gibson are helping people out.
1:22
SPEAKER_04: So have a listen.
1:23
SPEAKER_04: Uh again, thanks so much to uh Jordy Baronsluga for doing the production of all of these.
1:29
SPEAKER_04: Check us out at uh PGgrowth.com.
1:32
SPEAKER_04: Of course, take a look at the PG Commons, join us there as a community member, and we'll talk to you next time.
1:43
SPEAKER_04: All right, Goody Gibson.
1:45
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for joining me today on the pod.
1:48
SPEAKER_04: So, Goody Gibson, principal consultant, MF, uh, sorry, empower NFP.
1:53
SPEAKER_04: That's always a tongue twister for me, I gotta say.
1:55
SPEAKER_04: But anyway, you'll tell me a little bit about what that means.
1:59
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, experienced uh professional in this business, in in the for-profit and the not-for-profit business.
2:07
SPEAKER_04: I'm really excited about this conversation with you today because I think I just want to set the stage a little bit, right?
2:13
SPEAKER_04: So, what I find out there when we talk to charities, we've talked to, you know, at this point, I give I get a little pushback from our team and various others, but I will say I've talked to probably over a thousand organizations over the 30 years I've been working, right?
2:29
SPEAKER_04: They haven't all been clients, but I've had conversations, you know, proposals and stuff like that, uh, conversations about working with them, maybe have worked with some of them, you know, directly as an employee.
2:40
SPEAKER_04: Everybody focuses on their data.
2:43
SPEAKER_04: And what I find right now is that the database, just generally, you're gonna be able to kind of give us more definition about what all this stuff means, but databases are this incredibly embarrassing thing for most charities and not-for-profits who raise money across the country.
3:01
SPEAKER_04: They don't want to talk about it.
3:03
SPEAKER_04: They they and they're like sheepishly saying, Oh, our data is a mess, right?
3:09
SPEAKER_04: And what we say is, you know, I I started saying this a while ago because I felt I had to.
3:15
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, the fact is that you're part of the rule rather than the exception.
3:21
SPEAKER_04: Everybody's data is kind of a mess.
3:22
SPEAKER_04: So let's get let's get that out of out of uh the way.
3:26
SPEAKER_04: So I'm really excited about the conversation, but before we enter into all that, just kind of give us some context because I think that's really important for everybody who listens.
3:33
SPEAKER_04: Just give us a kind of a career sort of uh synopsis of where you got and how did you come to empower NFP?
3:40
SPEAKER_04: How that you know, how did that all happen?
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh first, um thanks for having me, Ed.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: It's always great to see you, and um, I'm sure we're gonna have a great conversation.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, in terms of the journey, uh as you talked about, I'm I I came out of the for-profit world first.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: I spent um just short of 30 years in the uh advertising agency business, uh, spending you know 13 years at Cassette Communications and then seven, eight years at uh McCann worldwide, um, and uh and then had my own agency uh which I sold in in uh 2014.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: So and my focus in that area was mostly in the um initially in the direct marketing and database marketing world.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: So I've been around data for a long time.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, what I can tell you is uh yeah, people are people's data is generally a mess.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Um both nonprofit and for-profit.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a uh kind of myth in the uh uh nonprofit world that the for-profit world has their act together.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Um and that's not entirely true.
4:54
SPEAKER_04: Perpetrated, of course, by the for-profit sector, right?
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's not entirely true either.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: So um um, but um, but they do have more money to invest in it.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: So um that's uh that's that can be a big difference.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um my career in the advertising world, I worked on a number of um nonprofit and had a number of nonprofit clients, including uh United Way back in the day, and um Kids Helpful, and we launched with Bell um and uh uh had the opportunity to work with World Vision uh while I was in McCann.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: So so and always was intrigued by the sector in terms of how it worked and and um how money was raised, etc.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And um and how how you know programs were delivered or programming was delivered.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: So so it was a sort of back uh interest in my in my uh in my for-profit days.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: So when I uh sold my organ my agency at the end of 2014, I was kind of wondering what to do, etc.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: And got a call from um my old client United Way, and they were looking for some help with their marketing.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: And um, so I joined them and uh ended up uh having the uh chief development officer uh uh retire, um uh Julia Gorman, and um ended up taking over the fundraising.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: So that was a uh pretty sizable staff of about 130 folks.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: We were uh we raised about a hundred, we finished at 110 million on my last year with them.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: And um it was very interesting, you know, that was a great learning experience.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: Learned a lot about uh not only sort of annual campaign and what I call annualitis, um, but um also uh the philanthropy world and and how that world worked, uh understanding moves management, etc.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: And um got into some legacy work uh there and uh uh and then ended up moving over to Plan International, who um was actually my old clients from uh World Vision.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: So they called me and uh said um hey listen, um would you come and help us?
7:22
SPEAKER_01: We want to bring together our our marketing communications, our philanthropy, and our uh uh uh mass fundraising um teams together.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: And we need a leader who can who can do that.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: So I moved over to them just in time for COVID to break, and um uh uh spent some time with them and uh four years with them and learned a lot about all kinds of different uh new fundraising channels and uh big face-to-face investments going on and things like that, um, and and challenges in terms of getting their philanthropy um business off the ground.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: So um, which, you know, in the non in in you know, comparatively to uh you know, a hospital or a university, uh, when you're trying to sell social programming that's half halfway around the world, it's a bit trickier for sure.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: So um anyway, that was uh that was a great experience.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: And um you know, throughout both places, uh I it it was pretty clear to me that the data was a big issue.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: And we we went through in both places a uh fairly significant transition in terms of CRM platforms and moving from uh blackbot to Salesforce and uh to less or more degrees of success.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh those are tricky transitions at the best of times.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but what there wasn't was uh a really focus on the data, right?
8:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, and they're the challenges I see in nonprofits is they may have someone on staff who um knows the data or but they don't really have the capacity to manage the data or analyze the data uh effectively at the scale they need to actually um uh improve their fundraising and marketing efforts.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: So that's um uh that's uh sort of a summary of of how I got there.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: And while I was in um the n in the for-profit at Cassette, I started a data management team there.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh they became successful in their own right and ended up calling them into a couple of situations, uh, both at United Way and at uh plan and and then finally at Care International, where I I was I uh uh worked for uh Matt really uh Matt Leave replacement for a year.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: So um at any rate, uh, and that was to fix some just some basic data problems that we were having and nothing too spectacular.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: But um when I finished that contract and at the end of 2014, I was simultaneous to Blackbot putting out their latest um state of fundraising report, which is a actually a report I find quite useful.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: It's based on a lot of data, and um you know what it said, in fact, the latest one, the 2025 one, is uh states that um you know, currently better than 55 percent of um nonprofits are struggling to meet or just making their their targets in terms of their fundraising targets.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: And um 62 percent of them say that the best you know the the most valuable thing that could happen in their organization is better data management.
10:50
unknown: Yeah.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: So when I read that, I was like, okay, that is my experience too, right?
10:55
SPEAKER_01: If we had better data management and better data analysis, we would be much further ahead.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: And uh we would have been able to accelerate um our growth uh faster than what we what we did.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: So I contacted my old colleagues and said, I think we need to create something targeting the nonprofit industry um that is right size for their budgets, etc.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: And um uh out of that came the creation of Empower NFP.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: And uh so that's how we got here.
11:31
SPEAKER_04: That's great.
11:32
SPEAKER_04: Well, thank thanks.
11:33
SPEAKER_04: And I think you know, your wide, and I I can say this, I mean, even though it's kind of narrow, uh um uh in the grander scheme of all the things that you can do in the world, right?
11:43
SPEAKER_04: That's what I mean.
11:44
SPEAKER_04: But being having worked in these kind of you know uh incredibly large organizations that are for-profit driven by a certain thing, and then moving, yes, to some large organizations in the not-for-profit sector.
11:58
SPEAKER_04: But I think particularly in your United Way days, you know, seeing all these smaller organizations, agencies of the United Way, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, you saw all of these incredible groups doing really wonderful work in a different way.
12:16
SPEAKER_04: But all of them, all of them across that spectrum dealing with this data issue, right?
12:22
SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh, you know, again, it's as I said earlier, it's the rule rather than the exception that we've got, you know, bad data.
12:30
SPEAKER_04: And or so maybe define a little bit out there for for us.
12:36
SPEAKER_04: What do we mean by by bad data?
12:40
SPEAKER_04: And I I and I, you know, this is really important, and you and I have talked about this just before we came on this, but in other times, you know, there's an argument, right?
12:48
SPEAKER_04: There's an argument.
12:48
SPEAKER_04: What's the most important thing your not-for-profit has or your charity?
12:53
SPEAKER_04: Is it your brand or is it the database?
12:56
SPEAKER_04: Either way, it's one and two.
12:58
SPEAKER_04: You can put them at one and two, but everything else comes afterwards, right?
13:01
SPEAKER_04: So uh we, you know, I find that uh even the smallest of charities are now having brand books and brand guides and you know, and they've got brand value statements and and all of that, right?
13:17
SPEAKER_04: So their brand, they're working on their brand.
13:19
SPEAKER_04: And I know that's something you've got great experience in as well, right?
13:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
13:23
SPEAKER_04: But they're not working so hard in the data.
13:26
SPEAKER_04: And and so yeah, I'd love to talk a little bit about it.
13:28
SPEAKER_04: But maybe first, if you can, maybe the top three things that are not do being done well with data, uh, you know, from the inputs, from the use of it, um, and that is frustrating people that that they might call you to say, hey, you know what, we've got this issue.
13:48
SPEAKER_04: Can you please help us?
13:50
SPEAKER_04: You know, what what are those?
13:53
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: So the way we define the quality of data um is really around three components.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: One is the accuracy of it.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: So that's the basic, you know, um, do you have the correct addresses for your donors?
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Do you have the right contact information?
14:12
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a bunch of duplicates, records in your in your systems?
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Um so that all of those sort of data hygiene things, um, which are actually quite tricky to manage.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's you know, it's not easy to keep a clean database when particularly in a world where people are entering their own data into your you know um uh donation forms, etc., and they call themselves Mr.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: one time or not this, or they spell yes with an initial in their last name.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: So it's it gets kind of tricky.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: So you really need to have a disciplined approach in terms of managing data hygiene, and and you and you constantly need to clean your database.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: That's just the way it is.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, the other piece to it is what I call the utility of the data, and that's is all right, can you move the data into environments where you can make it work for you?
15:05
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, if you need to move it into a call center, can you move it into a call center, whether that's inbound or outbound, and have your um call center representatives pull up a file or record and see the history of the donor, etc.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, and answer any questions effectively, right?
15:24
SPEAKER_01: So that's you know, that's one area.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: Another area is can you move it into an analysis?
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, do you have the data organized to move it actually into a platform for analysis?
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's a different animal in terms of because then we're looking for all kinds of extra data associated with the um with the uh uh core sort of donor records.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the other piece, which is probably the biggest, is the processes around the data.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: So do you have the management and analysis processes around the data that uh actually work?
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that could be as simple as how do you pull a list for a mailing?
16:06
SPEAKER_01: How do you pull um and surprisingly, um either it's most cases it's either being done incorrectly or at minimum inconsistently.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: So you it's very hard to sort of determine exactly um you know who's being contacted when, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's really the three areas that we look at when we talk about uh um uh the quality of uh donor data.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: We have uh we have a measurement tool on our our website that's just uh we call it the um uh data uh uh uh quality index.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it it's a quick 29 question, fast-paced survey, but it gives a pretty good idea of where you probably got holes in terms of your overall data management.
16:57
SPEAKER_04: Um we'll put a link into that because I know people, you know what, we have this really uh it's an interesting world, as you know, in the not-for-profit sector, a lot of do-it-yourselfers, right?
17:08
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and and and they do want to take some steps originally to try and figure out, you know, even though I said everyone could probably take a look at their data and say, it's I need to do something about this, or we need to do something about this.
17:23
SPEAKER_04: We still want to kind of not kick tires by any stretch, but do some of the initial analysis, right?
17:28
SPEAKER_04: And in fact, as professionals in the organization, that we're that's what we're being called upon to do.
17:33
SPEAKER_04: So we'll we'll give uh a link to that so people can can uh take a look.
17:38
SPEAKER_04: But let me talk about the the the uh the for me, there seems to be a cascading activity here, right?
17:45
SPEAKER_04: It's the data, first off, the data accuracy, both on particularly, I guess there's two areas that there's the there's the input of the data, as you said very clearly.
17:56
SPEAKER_04: But there's also uh, and depending on how you actually collect data and the types of data that you collect, right?
18:01
SPEAKER_04: There's data changes all the time, right?
18:04
SPEAKER_04: You know, people move, uh whatever it is.
18:07
SPEAKER_04: I mean, you just cascade.
18:09
SPEAKER_04: So that's the first thing.
18:11
SPEAKER_04: Um and then of course it gets into uh uh you know the utilization of these things, you know, kind of moves all the way to I and I of course from our point of view on the plan giving side, we we're asking people all the time to go in.
18:26
SPEAKER_04: We want to use your we want to use a segment of your overall data to help us do this.
18:31
SPEAKER_04: We need a pull done, you know, and that that's where we come into this.
18:35
SPEAKER_04: Well, our data isn't great.
18:37
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, um, but so it's it's the old thing garbage in, garbage out.
18:42
SPEAKER_04: So maybe some you know, quick, you know, quick analysis of some some processes that are not being followed, or some that you know are in erroneously being followed, or you know, what's the what do you find when you go in and see and that is causing this initial thing, this data accuracy?
19:04
SPEAKER_04: You you showed you told us about one, which is really uh interesting, which I didn't actually think about, right?
19:10
SPEAKER_04: Which you went to directly.
19:12
SPEAKER_04: That's self-directed data input, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna put my information in because I'm gonna give you a credit card payment, or I'm gonna sign up for an event.
19:22
SPEAKER_04: What are some of the other across different yeah?
19:25
SPEAKER_04: What are some of the other things that you find when you're working or you've seen seen databases that are some of the, you know, I don't want to say primary causes, but some of the ones that are, you know, you see in lots of different examples out there of this data inaccuracy.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: So um most of the I mean the data and uh inaccuracies really come from just a lack of hygiene practice, data hygiene practice.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: So um it without a doubt, your data is gonna fall into um inaccuracy, right?
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Um 20% of the people move every year, right?
20:03
SPEAKER_01: So uh your a good portion of your data is gonna um uh be out of date.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: So are are you running address correction?
20:11
SPEAKER_01: Are you running um the programs you need to on a regular basis?
20:16
SPEAKER_01: So um not having clear um guidelines in terms of how data is entered is another problem, right?
20:23
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got um uh particularly like a call center who's entering data uh for you, or a vendor, a face-to-face vendor who's calling entering data for you, um, if they don't have um specific guidelines that they're following, then you're gonna have inconsistent data um inputs.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: So um, and and then the other thing we see is uh no processes in place to catch duplicates other than reactive.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, most people are reactive, they send a they send an email or a direct mailer out, and they get a bunch of what uh you know, they get a bunch of um bounces or white mail back, and um they they react to it.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: That's not what you want to do.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: You want to you want to, you know, every month you should have a process that you go through and and hygiene your data.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, those are the kinds of things, even things like um correcting standardizing data.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you enter a phone number?
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Right, so um there's probably 10 ways you can enter a phone number, and believe me, they all show up in the date in the databases we know.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: So just running standardization practices, um, and the technology's there to do it pretty easily, and and but it's not part of the asset management mindset that we that you you alluded to, right?
21:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like this is your valuable asset, you you know, it's like not painting your house, right?
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Then it's gonna rot, right?
21:55
SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, uh absolutely, and and um and those are you.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: Know that's uh it's absolutely true.
22:02
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I don't believe that people sit around and don't pay more attention to their what one of their most valuable assets.
22:09
SPEAKER_04: And um I I I think I think it's this is my own personal opinion about it.
22:14
SPEAKER_04: I think it's uh an uh a data or uh a donor um uh acquisition mindset that we have, that the current data isn't important because we're gonna get some a whole new bunch of data this year, right?
22:29
SPEAKER_04: Um, because we're gonna acquire a whole bunch of different uh donors.
22:34
SPEAKER_04: And I think that has kind of trickled down because you have these big, as you know, large national organizations.
22:41
SPEAKER_04: Some of them are regional, like United Way of Greater Toronto, huge, but regional organization.
22:47
SPEAKER_04: And they're after that acquisition a lot of the times, right?
22:50
SPEAKER_04: Uh maybe not United Way so much, but some of the other ones.
22:52
SPEAKER_04: We want more people in, more people in that we forget the process of the ones we already have, right?
22:58
SPEAKER_04: Uh and those that's such a valuable thing.
23:01
SPEAKER_04: And if we think about it as a growing asset, uh rather than in a if you know, to use the house mentality, we paint it, we keep it clean.
23:09
SPEAKER_04: We're not hoarders, you know, we're not filling every nook and cranny with with with uh data and some of it junky.
23:17
SPEAKER_04: But you know, I think that you know this is a wonderful um, it's one of those things.
23:22
SPEAKER_04: If if I could start charity tomorrow, I would make sure all of these things are in place, right?
23:28
SPEAKER_04: But what you do is you go into organizations that haven't been doing that.
23:35
SPEAKER_04: And then you're you're given the you know the the purview to try and retrofit or to retroactively, first off, data cleansing or hygiene, but then putting those things into place.
23:52
SPEAKER_04: And and I think sometimes just as an aside, there are they're likely, and you know, this is my take on it, you can you can respond to it as you wish, but they're likely folks internally who think they're doing a really great job in data hygiene.
24:07
SPEAKER_04: And they've done a really great, you know, they they've kind of made it up though as they've gone along.
24:12
SPEAKER_04: They're like, well, we need this, so I'm I'm gonna come up with a process.
24:15
SPEAKER_04: And a process is maybe half of a good idea, not a full good idea.
24:19
SPEAKER_04: So you've got to go in and you've got to navigate various people, you've got to navigate use of uh use of it currently.
24:27
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and and your purview is to get the data uh to a to a better state of condition, not perfect because it will never be.
24:37
SPEAKER_04: Uh, even if you and as you said, even if you got it perfect today, by tomorrow it will be imperfect.
24:42
SPEAKER_04: There'll be changes to it.
24:44
SPEAKER_04: But so so maybe talk about the process and the things that you do, because um, it's just one other thing before I let you talk about it, is a lot of people do look at this um and and say, our data, the problem is so large, I don't know where to start.
25:03
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I you know use that old sort of saying about how do you eat an elephant, you know, one bite at a time.
25:08
SPEAKER_04: Like, how do we get to fixing this problem?
25:12
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but uh incomes and power NFP, and then you've got a process.
25:16
SPEAKER_04: So maybe you could just from a high-level point of view, how is it that you take that database and and get it to its best possible self?
25:26
SPEAKER_01: So uh before I get to that specific question, um, I think it's important to talk about two sort of things that I see happening everywhere all the time, right?
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, and they come up from they come directly from my experience at United Way, where it's you know, which was an organization with what I call has annual itis, right?
25:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like right, the the year-end campaign, the workplace campaign happens, um, and uh year end happens, and boom, the needle goes back to zero and you start again.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's kind of uh it's kind of get the engine rolling again, etc.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: Without really a lot of um knowledge about what's gonna move forward in terms of you know, if you've got a proper database and you've got a good idea of you know who's giving to you, you should be able to predict pretty quickly in terms of you know revenue that's gonna come in.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can't have this sort of mindset of starting from scratch every year.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: That's that's actually counterintuitive to what database marketing is, um database-driven fundraising is.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, that's that's one thing.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: The other thing is the the what I'll call the um acquisition trap, right?
26:48
SPEAKER_01: So typically what I see is you you talk to an a nonprofit, um, and they say, Oh, our our our fundraising is going down, like we're not meeting our numbers, right?
27:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, we we need more donors.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: That's our first thing, and it's usually the CEO.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: We need more donors, yes, and bigger donors, nor bigger.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that is uh kicks into you know every chief development officer's or fundraiser's mind and says, Okay, I gotta go find new donors.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the challenge there is it costs a lot to get a new donor.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: And if you've got a big leaky bucket, what's the point?
27:30
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna invest you know thousands of dollars in acquisition efforts and and just have it right.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: So that's not where to start.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: So where you have to start, and I call it, you know, I like to see a sort of integrated marketing and fundraising funnel.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Most most nonprofits are start somewhere in what I would call mid-funnel where they have a a name and they're or a list or something, and they're trying to convert them to a donor.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: They're not doing much at the top of the funnel to build the pipeline, that's another discussion.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, but um, you know, the the the reality is is you've got to start building from the bottom up, right?
28:13
SPEAKER_01: So how is your donor retention?
28:15
SPEAKER_01: What is going on that you are losing so many donors, right?
28:19
SPEAKER_01: So the reality is, is even in the best situations, nonprofit or for-profit, right, you're not going to get much better than 90% retention rate.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Like that's about as good as it gets, 90, 92 percent, that's about as high as I've seen in any category anywhere.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, which means you're still losing eight to ten percent of your your donors every year.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: So if you're sitting on a large donor base like I you uh you know United Way Toronto or Planet International, that means you have to acquire you know tens of thousands of new donors every year.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: So acquisition is still an important part of the mix, but you've got to you've got to minimize it, minimize it.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And the way I look at it is if you're if your if you're if more than sort of 10 to 15 percent of your fundraising revenues is coming from new acquisition donors in year, then you are in a bad place because then you are just chasing uh you're just you're just trying to fill the bucket, you're never gonna grow, right?
29:27
SPEAKER_01: So you've got to get it, you've got to get that first year's revenue to a manageable um proportion of your overall revenue.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: And you've got to start focusing on retention, and you've got to start focusing on average revenue per donor, right?
29:42
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, retention is the most important thing because that's the relationship.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: There's no there's no average, there's no average revenue per donor without the relationship, so it's always relationship before revenue.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh uh you know how you get to that uh understanding is understanding who your best donors are, right?
30:08
SPEAKER_01: So there's a an old um easy way to think about data uh and what you're trying to do with a database, right?
30:16
SPEAKER_01: So it's called the picket fence strategy.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: I talk about it all the time, it's drives people crazy.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I talk about it so much.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, it's it goes back to Rogers and Peppers and you know the eight eighties, right?
30:28
SPEAKER_01: In terms of you know, when we all started doing database marketing in the early days, but we all knew instantly, and instantly, we know it costs three, four, five times more to acquire a new donor than to keep a uh an existing donor.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Everybody says that, everybody will nod their head, but they don't really know what how to go about doing that.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the the the quick answer is in this pick and fence strategy is you know, just you know, if you were to draw a line in with a distribution line of your donors, you'd end up with a curve like that.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: And um, what you want to do is fence off your top donors, you though those that's right, find your Pareto principal, it's somewhere between 10 and 20 percent driving 50 plus percent of your revenue, right?
31:16
SPEAKER_01: And focus on those.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: Who are those people?
31:19
SPEAKER_01: Why are they your best donors?
31:21
SPEAKER_01: What makes them interested in your organization?
31:24
SPEAKER_01: They will be different types of those kinds of donors, but once you know who those people are, then you can go to the rest of your database and say, first, go to the rest of your database, say who are is in that database that should look like those people, and how do I get them into that box?
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Right, because that's the fastest, easiest revenue you can make is terms of upselling the right people into your the relationships you already have into bigger support uh for your organization, and then finally use that information you have to go get the right donors, right?
31:58
SPEAKER_01: Because, for example, with Plan International and many charities who use face-to-face um extensively because it delivers the fundraising volume you need, but it doesn't deliver the loyalty you want.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: So you end up with a pool of donors, you're gonna lose probably 30 to 50 percent of them before the first year is out.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Um so it's not the greatest channel for us for us, but it does deliver the volume.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: We need to replace that that uh that massive gap of just natural attrition in your donor place.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: So um everybody's racing to try and figure out how to close that through other channels because you need to find channels that aren't necessarily that what I call opt-in, opt-in support.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: I've I like your organization, I'm gonna support you, not the guy who knocks you on the on the on your door.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: And yes, I'll support the organization for the moment to get you off the porch.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: That's that's what we don't, you know, that's yes, that's what we don't want, right?
33:07
SPEAKER_01: So um, so understanding your your very best donors and starting from that at the bottom of the funnel and start working your way up, right?
33:15
SPEAKER_01: And and um that is, you know, if you're if you have the ability and the capacity and the and the resources uh to do some work at the top of the funnel, then you can bookend it and start working to the middle.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: But um, if you don't have your bottom sorted out and you have this leaky bucket, you're kind of foolish to spend some money at the top of your right.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: So we're we're talking to a number of clients about that right now who want to come out with big new campaigns, they're about to make big media investments, things like that.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: And uh you know, they don't even know really what the what the performance of their lower lower and bottom funnels are.
34:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's interesting.
34:03
SPEAKER_04: And I on on some of that, like and I understand going out and getting new donors because you're able to do that, that look like some of those donors, right?
34:12
SPEAKER_04: Our major gift donors look like this.
34:14
SPEAKER_04: We can go get some more uh mid-value, you know, monthly, all of that.
34:19
SPEAKER_04: What I like about that is if you put on the legacy side that hat that I wear, when you do that work at the front end and dive into loyalty, what you're doing is also creating a pipeline towards legacy.
34:32
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
34:33
SPEAKER_04: And that those legacy people start off primarily within your your donor base.
34:39
SPEAKER_04: And that's why we have this, and it's reminiscent of something that we say to uh organizations and the way they need to structure their stewardship, donor retention, right?
34:50
SPEAKER_04: Donor thanking is an act of donor retention.
34:53
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and what we what we say is that if you think about when you acquire a new donor, you're also acquiring a plan giving prospect, then you treat them differently, right?
35:06
SPEAKER_04: That you know, yes, I've you've acquired them for this, and that we can we the cash check is cashed, the credit card has gone through, whatever it might be, they've signed up for monthly donations because you're on the porch and they want you to get off the porch, whatever it is.
35:22
SPEAKER_04: Um, if if the standard has been, I have to say this, Goody, the standard has been, well, that's great.
35:29
SPEAKER_04: We we you know, we check this off, we've hit our target, wonderful.
35:33
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna take two weeks off, we'll start the whole thing again, right?
35:36
SPEAKER_04: That's the United Way's uh annual itis, as you say, right?
35:41
SPEAKER_04: Uh and there's there's a whole group of people who are brand new who have given this donation, whether it's through mild interest or perhaps incredibly profound interest.
35:51
SPEAKER_04: And what we're saying really, what we're gonna do is next year is get a get a whole bunch of the other ones, and we'll kind of leave those, folks.
35:59
SPEAKER_04: Um, uh, and that's for me on on our side uh of that equation, that legacy side, it's it's it's profoundly short-sighted, yeah.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh I I I equate that.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'll take a page out of the commercial world.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: I went I spent many, many years working in the financial services and the automotive sectors.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: And um both for many years were just focused on acquisition, acquisition, acquisition, and not really paying attention to um uh you know their current their current customers um and owners.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: And uh what those organizations have done now quite successfully is adopt what's you know what we call a um a full sort of customer life cycle approach, or in our case, the donor life cycle approach, right?
36:53
SPEAKER_01: So that is really, you know, when someone comes into you, whether they're new or lapsed or um uh a loyal a loyal donor, you should know, um, you know, you should know their age, you should know what life stage they're in.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you should know what value tier they're at, right?
37:10
SPEAKER_01: In terms of, you know, are they, you know, are they gonna are are are they a major donor um or are they not a major donor, right?
37:18
SPEAKER_01: That's um and uh you should be able to track that relationship lifelong.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: And that leads to the the legacy opportunity you're talking to, right?
37:29
SPEAKER_01: Because everybody comes in, you know, if you follow that life stage and you're gonna go through, you know, just beginning the um, you know, the nesting stage and all that, you're gonna be they're gonna be in a career building stage.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: If they're in a career building stage, how do you talk to them then?
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you get into a retirement planning and legacy stage, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_01: So you need to understand where people are on that and meet them where they are, right?
37:54
SPEAKER_01: And they don't they kind of expect it.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's one of the things that we used to talk with.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: I talked with everybody is you know, my experiences, commercial world, nonprofit world, any world, are transferable, right?
38:07
SPEAKER_01: If I have a fantastic experience with a retailer and they kind of know what I'm all about and do all the right things, then I come to a uh nonprofit organization and they keep sending me on you know welcome letters when I've been a when I've been a donor for years, or my family has been donors for years.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: That's drives you.
38:32
SPEAKER_04: Well, let's take that though.
38:33
SPEAKER_04: And and look, you know, we do a lot of work with various organizations that want desperately to have, say, a fully functioning website.
38:40
SPEAKER_04: Well, let's take it to the data, okay?
38:42
SPEAKER_04: What we say on the website side of things is that there has to be an experience with that website, uh, or the marketing materials, or how data is collected and how we interact with you using that data.
38:56
SPEAKER_04: That is similar to the for-profit world.
39:00
SPEAKER_04: Now, give me a second to explain what I mean.
39:04
SPEAKER_04: Intuit, not intuitively, but I think instinctively we don't differentiate.
39:10
SPEAKER_04: I think if we go to the local charity and look at the website and we say to ourselves, well, it's just a local charity, so it's not going to be as fully functioning as going to, you know, whatever, ordering something online from a big retailer or going to uh, you know, uh streaming services and things like that, other things that we do online.
39:34
SPEAKER_04: We, you know, our intellect can tell us, well, these are different organizations, so and they have different resources.
39:41
SPEAKER_04: And so we'll allow for the charity or the not-for-profit, for my experience, to not necessarily be as great, right?
39:49
SPEAKER_04: But instinctively, underneath that intellect is boy, this is not as good.
39:54
SPEAKER_04: And I'm finding it clunk, I'm finding it hard.
39:57
SPEAKER_04: And we we make a comparison immediately.
40:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:02
SPEAKER_04: The resourcing side of it is unfair, uh, because obviously, as you said, you know, earlier on in this conversation, the for-profit sector does have additional resources to put to a problem like that.
40:15
SPEAKER_04: If they see their website interface not as good as their competitors, they will up their game.
40:21
SPEAKER_04: They have to up their game.
40:22
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
40:23
SPEAKER_04: Charities can't do that.
40:24
SPEAKER_04: On the data side, you know, charities have to think in the same way, right?
40:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and what what we say on that website side is don't do a lot, but do one thing really, really great.
40:36
SPEAKER_04: Like make it simple, make it clean, make it an enjoyable experience.
40:42
SPEAKER_04: You're not going to be able to have paid, like, don't make it complicated because you can't reinforce that and you can't resource it for the long term.
40:50
SPEAKER_04: Um, so you know, just try and do as the best that you can and make that experience the same.
40:56
SPEAKER_04: Because people won't walk away saying, oh wow, there weren't lots of clicks through and pages.
41:01
SPEAKER_04: They'll just say clean, nice, enjoyable experience, clean, nice, enjoyable experience.
41:06
SPEAKER_04: Let's get to the data, sending the welcome package many times.
41:09
SPEAKER_04: What are some of those things that you know, a data administrator that again, let's just be honest about it, not as resourced as they can be, or their colleagues are in a similar organization or similar size organization in the uh for-profit sector?
41:27
SPEAKER_04: What can they do?
41:28
SPEAKER_04: What can they look to to try and implement some things to make their data?
41:34
SPEAKER_04: I mean, let's just talk about the capture, the data coming in right now.
41:39
SPEAKER_04: They can't deal with history.
41:41
SPEAKER_04: They'll call you to come in and deal with their history, but how do I make it better going forward as of the time I listen to this?
41:49
SPEAKER_04: What are some things that I can think about and put into practice tomorrow to make the new data um better and more usable?
42:01
SPEAKER_01: So there are some simple tools, I think, too, that you know, I always look for when we're talking with clients.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: So one is we talked about in terms of, you know, do you have do you have guidelines around data entry, right?
42:14
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, and it does the whole organization know, right?
42:18
SPEAKER_01: But behind that is another tool, which is uh a classic um thing called uh data dictionary, right?
42:23
SPEAKER_01: So do you have a data dictionary that actually describes every uh field in your in your donor record, what it's for, where that data is supposed to come from, how it's supposed to be input, and what you know, how it's supposed to be output.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: And um that's that's kind of a bible for a for a database.
42:45
SPEAKER_04: And it's kind of written down, right?
42:46
SPEAKER_04: Like you have to write it down.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: It's written down, and it's and it should be you know to some degree policed, right?
42:52
SPEAKER_01: That like if if you've got uh, you know, and part of a new the new employee's onboarding piece would be okay, you need to understand what a donor record looks like and what each component piece of it is and how we use that.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: That I've never seen that happen anywhere in uh in the well, I I have to say I worked in an organization that did the onboarding part of it, yeah, but the policing part wasn't great, yeah.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: So that's it gets and it gets tricky because you're working with vendors, you're doing all kinds of things, you've got multiple systems, I might have a different peer-to-peer system, etc.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, so it is it does it, you know, you can do all this stuff, and it still is inevitably your data is going to get a little messy, which is why you need to have a hygiene process.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: That'd be the first thing I would look at for is do you have a data hygiene process in place?
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Are you looking every month at your, you know, do you have a system that spits out, hey, here's 35 records that have fields that are not in in the in the uh up to standard.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: In terms of how we input postal codes, how we input you know surnames, etc., whatever it might be.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, those are things you need to put in place.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: My my my gut is the problem is is to most organizations, even the large ones.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: I've worked at I've worked at two of the largest in Canada, uh, in terms of United Way Toronto, where we didn't have any data people.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: I had to bring in the first data um uh management, management and an analysis person into that organization to get our direct-to-donor fundraising off the ground.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: Um at Plan International, we had a small small team of four or five guys that were pretty competent, um, but still couldn't keep up with the demands of the organization in terms of I need this report, I need this list pulled, I need this.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: So the when are they going to have time for hygiene?
44:55
SPEAKER_01: When are they gonna have time for all this?
44:56
SPEAKER_01: So there's a great underestimation, I believe, at the executive ranks in in terms of how much work it requires to maintain a decent data file, right?
45:07
SPEAKER_01: Of your donors.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: And again, it comes back to uh do you believe that's you know a key asset of the organization, or is it just a thing that I use, you know, every every now and then?
45:21
SPEAKER_04: So there's a strategic component of it and part and looking at it strategically, and again, I love the way you explained it as an asset, right?
45:29
SPEAKER_04: And will you will you maintain that asset to bring you increased value, or will you see it as a diminishing value to the organization?
45:39
SPEAKER_04: And it's always got to be an increasing value.
45:41
SPEAKER_04: But let's be, you know, I think you touched on something that's really, really key.
45:45
SPEAKER_04: And I'd like to in our last few minutes here just talk about this.
45:48
SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, you can maybe talk a little bit too about how Empower NFP brings this partnership because you know, I know when we go into organizations, it tends to be because of a bunch of things, right?
46:01
SPEAKER_04: One is uh what we do is that area, legacy giving, plan giving, is identified as something that needs to be implemented into the organization in a strategic way.
46:14
SPEAKER_04: And I want to be clear about that strategic way.
46:17
SPEAKER_04: Or that it want they want the organization wishes it to be an enhanced program of fundraising, again, in a strict strategic way.
46:26
SPEAKER_04: It's the first thing.
46:27
SPEAKER_04: And I think this is where you come in on the data side too.
46:31
SPEAKER_04: It's people making decisions that it's a strategic priority for us to look at this.
46:37
SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, the other thing they talk to about us is or that we bring is that we're the we're a vendor that can come in and do these things while current staff are doing everything else that they need to be done, right?
46:49
SPEAKER_04: We're a capacity, we're shorthand capacity.
46:53
SPEAKER_04: People will often ask us, you know, can't we do this on our own?
46:57
SPEAKER_04: And I will I will often steal from an advertising campaign for a vendor in Toronto, but I steal it regularly, which is uh if you could do it on your own, you would have done it already.
47:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
47:09
SPEAKER_04: And and the reality is that it's not because of lack of knowledge, and that's what they're really saying.
47:15
SPEAKER_04: Like, why can't we just do this?
47:16
SPEAKER_04: You probably can do it, you're probably smart enough to do it.
47:19
SPEAKER_04: You got all the tools and sort of skills to do it, but you don't have time to do this, right?
47:24
SPEAKER_04: So strategic imperative, understanding a vendor is necessary, right?
47:29
SPEAKER_04: And then we come in and we partner along.
47:32
SPEAKER_04: So maybe talk about coming to that strategic priority, but then you've you've there you've you've been contacted, and how you sort of come in and just play that partner role with the organization to help them achieve the first steps towards this this better data.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um uh in terms of our you know, how our our approach with clients and we're always looking to create that partnership, we're always looking to be an extension of the team, you know.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: We're always that's the end goal for us.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, because you know, I think it you've you've you touched on an important point.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: I had a wonderful um board member actually at at Plan International who constantly reminded the organization of the difference between expertise and capacity, right?
48:22
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, he says just because you have expertise doesn't mean you have capacity.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so don't tell me you can do something when you really can't do it, right?
48:33
SPEAKER_01: Right?
48:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not I'm not questioning your expertise, I'm questioning your capacity, right?
48:40
SPEAKER_04: And that's that was I mean, that was so great in terms of put it simply too, don't overpromise and under deliver.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: And again, it's not I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, I'm not trying to yeah, tell you you don't know what you're doing, I'm just telling you I don't think you have enough time or resources to get done, right?
49:05
SPEAKER_01: So get help, right?
49:06
SPEAKER_01: So um, but in terms of the approach, I mean you know, probably like you, there's a every time we meet with a client, there's a upfront sort of discovery and diagnosis, uh uh and yeah now data data diagnostics to be you know, I talked about the uh data quality index on our site, that's an easy peasy thing.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: We've got multiple levels of kind of data reviews and audits that we can go through with with the client, and we try and right size those based on what they've done in the past, etc.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you know, a lot of it ends up around what what are the management processes around this, right?
49:45
SPEAKER_01: So that's where we can get in in terms of talk about sort of best practices in terms of you know, here's here's how you should be managing your hygiene processes, here's how you should be um pulling lists so that in and doing contact uh management, right?
50:00
SPEAKER_01: Because the other thing we see all the time is the same donors get mailed every time, they pull the same list every time, right?
50:09
SPEAKER_01: So um, so that's uh so and and and you know, or just not having a fundamental analysis like an RFM analysis that give me a basic value segmentation on the on the data, like right.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: You have a value segmentation, no.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, how are you how do you know what to do then?
50:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: So um, so you know, those are the kind of questions we get into, and sometimes you know, if it gets technical or you know, the other thing we see is trying to do everything with the CRM, right?
50:43
SPEAKER_01: So CRMs are wonderful tools, they're not built for everything though, right?
50:48
SPEAKER_01: So um they're they're you know they are great supports for relationship um fundraising and and building relationships and tracking relationships and things like that.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, often they're the you know system of record, which uh sometimes I scratch my head about that, but um uh nonetheless, it's where all the transactions are are kept, etc.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, but what they're not really good at is you know, if I run a want to run sophisticated analysis, it's not a great environment to run analysis.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: So this is where often clients need a a data mart or something, and you can, you know, they cost nothing, nothing to build, right?
51:33
SPEAKER_01: But you need to know what you're doing, right, in terms of how to set them up.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, that's the data management analysis um piece, and then we talk about strategy because yes, there's lots of fundraising strategies out there, but there's not a lot of strategies around the data supporting those, right?
51:51
SPEAKER_01: So, what is the underlying data strategies you need?
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that you know, that gets into things like you know, that lifecycle stuff, that picket fence stuff, that um, you know, having a funnel organized, right?
52:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there, you know, we have a slide everybody sort of mouth drops at which is basically, you know, if you have a funnel set up and there's you know five layers to it, and if your baseline here and I show a live example, right?
52:18
SPEAKER_01: Baseline, if I get a one percent increase across that funnel at each layer, I get a 20 27 net increase at the bottom of the funnel.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: One percent.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: So the the beauty of the funnel structure is uh incremental improvements mean big improvements at the bottom of the funnel.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's that's key.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Um we can help with uh data execution.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we do you know, pull lists, we can help with email deployment, we can do all that contact management stuff, response management stuff.
52:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, we're not there to do the creative, we'll work with your agencies, we'll give cues around what to do there.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and um, and then a lot of things, you know, with the advent of Power BI and everybody wants dashboards, everybody wants sort of living uh real time, which I hate the term real time.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, it's like in time, give it to me in time.
53:17
SPEAKER_01: I just need the information in time to do something with it.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: So if it's a monthly cadence, that's fine.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: If I can't action it until you know for a month, that's fine.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: So um, but nonetheless, there's a lot of work happening around uh you know figuring out what to measure, how to how to do it, etc.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: And and that comes back to that funnel structure, understanding the KPIs throughout the funnel, what are the what are the key conversion KPIs you've got to look through at through the funnel, and what are the um leading indicator KPIs, right?
53:52
SPEAKER_01: So leading indicator KPIs tend to be donor performance.
53:56
SPEAKER_01: So if I see donations dropping off for a donor, what do I do?
53:59
SPEAKER_01: Right, or what does that tell me?
54:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, or if I see a channel, channel performance is the other area, right?
54:06
SPEAKER_01: So if people aren't responding to emails, people aren't clicking through, people are we're losing people on our uh donation form page, those are the things that we need to watch from a right, but that but oh and can be leading indicators to whether or not you're gonna make that conversion metric, right?
54:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
54:26
SPEAKER_04: Interesting.
54:27
SPEAKER_04: Really great stuff, really uh and and very uh the work that you're doing for me is really, really uh, you know, incredibly important, and we need more folks who are very honest and sober about this uh for our group.
54:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh I wanted to ask a quick question, just as a parting question, and uh I'll call I'll put the context into it and and get get your your take on it.
54:48
SPEAKER_04: Um and without naming any names of any sort of one product or another, we often hear uh the notion of transitioning from one CRM provider to another CRM provider.
55:03
SPEAKER_04: And and what happens a lot of the time is um we we have a client and they're they're struggling with their data, uh, and then you know we'll we'll have another conversation and we'll hear, oh, we're moving from one platform to another platform.
55:24
SPEAKER_04: And what with what comes with it is a great deal of excitement.
55:28
SPEAKER_04: And the excitement is it's all going to be better, right?
55:32
SPEAKER_04: Once we get to the other platform, it's all going to be better.
55:36
SPEAKER_04: Um, and it to the point where um people, we have one client right now, they're they're just cannot wait to get from one platform to the other.
55:45
SPEAKER_04: And they really do think that's the sun is gonna you know come out, it's gonna be warm, they're gonna be you know 10 years younger and 20 pounds lighter, everything's gonna be better once it goes over.
55:56
SPEAKER_04: And I I I'm obviously putting this into sort of a context where I'm not so sure that's the truth.
56:03
SPEAKER_04: That if you're not using this platform well, why do you think you're gonna use the next platform well?
56:10
SPEAKER_04: Right.
56:10
SPEAKER_04: And I and again, my position would be, but I'd love to hear your comment, is it you better be using the platform you're on at the highest capable possibility because transferring out of it, and there might be lots of good reasons, but there are lots of risks when you do that and go to the next platform.
56:28
SPEAKER_03: Huge risks, yeah.
56:29
SPEAKER_04: But that's my take on it, just from a from a data perspective, you know, what's your thought?
56:34
SPEAKER_04: And again, without naming anybody or any kind of platform, your thought about that mindset or that or that decision making.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, I agree with you.
56:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think um uh you need to make sure that you uh are using a platform is to its highest capacity before you think about right, and it's it's almost never the platform problem that you're underperforming, right?
57:03
SPEAKER_01: That's that's in that's um but what I can absolutely but what I can tell you, I mean, the the there's so much technology hitting uh the nonprofit space.
57:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, between uh the the you know fundraising platforms out there, the CRM platforms out there, the analytic platforms out there, they all come though with a price, right?
57:28
SPEAKER_01: Because they need your data to what make their platform work, but they need their your data in their configuration to make their platform work, right?
57:37
SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't really help any organization to have a holistic view of their data and data like these these technology providers, or worse yet, the integrators, right?
57:49
SPEAKER_01: Because the integrators are paid to get the platform to work, they don't really care about your data, right?
57:55
SPEAKER_01: So that is uh I and I won't name I won't name some integrators.
58:02
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to put my uh hands around their neck, but um uh so you know I think you've yeah, my feeling is you've got to look past the technology and you've got to look squarely in the eyes of your data, right?
58:19
SPEAKER_01: And what are you trying to do with the data?
58:22
SPEAKER_01: Right?
58:23
SPEAKER_01: What do you need the data to do for you, right?
58:26
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I've been through uh a number of these kinds of transitions.
58:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh the requirements gathering process is broken, they go to the wrong people.
58:39
SPEAKER_01: Those people don't have an end in mind in terms of what they think they want to do with the data.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: So they turn into weird brainstorm sessions.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be nice to do this?
58:48
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be nice to do this?
58:49
SPEAKER_01: Right?
58:50
SPEAKER_01: And the integrators are like, Well, you know, so um you got to you actually gotta know what you want to do with your data, right?
58:59
SPEAKER_01: And these are platforms.
59:02
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, they're super powerful.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they you know, with the data they're super powerful and they you're bringing AI into the blind data strategy, they're just gonna make what's broken broken bigger, right?
59:17
SPEAKER_01: So you yeah, that's the missing layer for me.
59:21
SPEAKER_01: Is this the foundational work of the data strategy to build your technology stack on it?
59:28
SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, that's that's my point of view on it.
59:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a bit self-serving, but it's also why I've created well.
59:37
SPEAKER_04: I look, I agree, I agree fully.
59:39
SPEAKER_04: I brought it up because uh, you know, my my take on it is and and get it gets back to a few points we touched upon, right?
59:46
SPEAKER_04: We don't have the resources in the not-for-profit sector to actually do a data transfer of that correctly.
59:51
SPEAKER_04: Like we try to do it on a shoestring budget, right?
59:56
SPEAKER_04: Um, and the inter everybody comes in and they've got lots of uh lots of opinion, the integrators, the platform people.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_04: Um and and the and the other thing that'll often happens that I've seen over the years is that you have the larger the organization, the more distant the IT folks are from the use of it on a day-to-day basis.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_04: So what you're doing is you're telling someone who is operating uh and and overseeing the operation of the CRM or the platform what you need, and then having them interpret it, and they interpret it with the platform provider, and and a lot of times the fundraisers are cut right out of the equation.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_04: And and then you know, there's a conversation that's being held between people who think differently about platform use.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's not to denigrate or to criticize them, they're thinking the way they think, and they've been given it, it's uh now some of them are better at it, uh okay, and they come in and they make sure that those things are done, but there's almost um, you know, in in that transition, we're going somewhere we don't know.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_04: Um we're being told it will be better, but we're how do we know that?
1:01:15
SPEAKER_04: And until we are doing this well, and this is what you were talking about, till we have all that hygiene and the data procedures and the use of the data in place properly.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_04: Why is it going to be it any better over there?
1:01:29
SPEAKER_04: That's my take on it.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_04: We're a fantastic conversation.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_04: Any any kind of final thoughts about about data and the use of data?
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think uh two things.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: One is um it is the greatest asset in the organization and it's the most immediate asset.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, brand is important, but data is your cash register.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: So um, if I had to prioritize, I'd prioritize the data.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: I've done a lot of brand stuff and I love brand and it's important, but um, again, it's uh it's the foundation, uh, the data foundations is you know, if you're doing a bunch of brand stuff and everything else is a mess, you you're kind of wasting your money at the top of the funnel again.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_01: So so you know, look at focus on the bottom of the funnel.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's the most important thing.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to touch on what you just said, because one of the big values that I think we provide is to be the to help close the what is often a ginormous communication gap between the marketers and fundraisers and the you know it groups or or the data management uh department, whatever what however they're constructed, right?
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: Because you've got a bunch of um very smart tech guys talking to a bunch of very um smart uh marketers and fundraisers, but they're it's like Venus and Mars.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's you know, it's it's that.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_01: So we often are the middlemen, right?
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: We're often the ones trying to the interpreter saying, okay, I understand what because we're we're fundraisers, but we're also data guys, right?
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: So yes, we we play the interpreter to the to the um it folks, say this is what they're looking for, right?
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is what and well, I don't know how to get there.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll show you how to get there, right?
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: In your language, tech, you know, and the and yes, yeah.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: So that's a big it's a big challenge, right?
1:03:28
SPEAKER_01: And and I haven't seen integrators do a great job of it because they're so focused on the platforms they're being paid to deliver, right?
1:03:36
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, get you know, get excellent onto the last acts of the data, is my final comment.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_04: Really great conversation.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_04: I always love diving into data with you and and various other uh other uh activities of the fundraising and not-for-profit sector.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_04: Your your experience is so varied.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_04: I mean, you really do bring lots of different approaches to this and uh and a sensibility that I always love listening to.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_04: So thanks for taking some time today.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_04: Goody Gibson from Empower NFP.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_04: Uh, really, your insights have been uh incredible.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_04: Thanks a lot.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Ed.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_04: It was uh good fun.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
1:04:19
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