Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 622. Hold Fast: Building Donor Trust in Uncertain Times - Mike Duerksen

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622. Hold Fast: Building Donor Trust in Uncertain Times - Mike Duerksen · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the good community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Becky friend in the house.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, dear friend in the house, brilliant, visionary and someone that we learn from every single time he comes onto the podcast, which this is his third time.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Y'all we are holding fast.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Hold Fast series, and if you've really dove into this series, it's an extension of the conversations that we already had at Impact Up in April, as we're talking about this notion of holding fast and weathering the storm.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So we're continuing to explore what it means to stay grounded and true to our values in the midst of uncertainty.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And Mike Dirksen is in the house with Build Good and man.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: What an incredible human being.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Thanks for sorry for jumping in here.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, we're not even done.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Hold on to your butts because we got a lot more to say about you, mike.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So there's Mike's voice.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: He speaks to this entire sector as just somebody that brings his mind, brings his heart, brings storytelling in a way to help us all do better and build better.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You may know him as the CEO of BuildGood.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: He's on the heels of hosting his first ever BuildGood Summit.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I mean getting together people in real life.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Mike just shows up for this community in such a powerful way.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: He has helped countless organizations move beyond transactional fundraising to really meaningful, sustainable relationships.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And y'all get this at a moment when 55% of our community said their biggest challenge is maintaining strong funding relationships.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: We feel like this conversation could not be more timely and Mike is going to bring his calm, clear voice to the chaos.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: My friend, you're a family man and you're always welcome in this family here.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: It's so good to have you back on the podcast, mike.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Good to see you.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: It's such an honor to be here.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: You know, like before we hit record on the mics here we were talking about we are for good a little bit.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: And, um, what I didn't say is that, like every time I talk to you, I'm incredibly inspired as a, as a business owner, on what you guys have done, because you, uh, you actually like walk the talk on the community thing.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Everybody's like, oh yeah, community, right, just get closer to people.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: But like you've built this entire we are for good based on just rallying people and then like listening to them and then engaging them and then actually like like doing what you say you're going to do.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: So it's incredibly inspiring.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I feel honored to to be sitting at the table with you oh my gosh, I feel like you always do this.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You get the mic and then you try to turn it for good, but this is, this is about you and your brilliance.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you for your kind words, really sweet you.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, my friend, how can nonprofit leaders walk into this moment right now?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, we still need to think about how we're acquiring donors, how can we keep our donors with us retention.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: How are you walking into that right now with so much chaos?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: What's some advice that you jump into today with?
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: The way we're approaching fundraising at the moment is like, yeah, a lot of things seem uncertain, a lot of things seem divided, everything seems highly polarized, but maybe this might not apply for every cause, by the way.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: What we're really interested in is what is the common ground and what is just like human stories, and how can we just get back to the story of one, and how can we just get back to having dinner table conversations in our fundraising as much as possible?
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: And a lot of your growth you asked about, like, how organizations think about retention and growth a little bit A lot of your growth is very likely going to come from retention, maybe not as much from new donor acquisition.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: So I don't know if you want to dive in there, if that's a good place to start.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, keep going.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Let's double click on that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: A lot of fundraisers are probably in a situation where they're being asked to do more in the next 12 months with the same or fewer resources.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: So let's just use a very practical example.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Let's use easy math.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Let's say you're raising $1 million per year and the board or leadership says let's grow by 20%.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: We need to raise $1.2 million per year.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And that might seem doable, it might seem feasible.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: That's finding an extra 200K.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Now, realistically, what people never take into account is that you're going to have some revenue churn year over year.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Even the healthiest of files, you're going to be losing some money year over year.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: So let's say you have an incredibly healthy file, you're doing all the right things and you're losing about 20% of your donors and maybe 20% of your revenue every year.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: So now, next year, you've got a million that you raised this year.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Next year you want to raise 1.2.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: That seems like you need to raise an extra 200K.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: But you're also going to lose 200K.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: So that takes you back to 800K.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: So now you've got to raise an additional 400K next year in order to meet your 20% growth rate.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: So you think you have to raise an additional 200K.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: You actually have to raise an additional 400K, 200k to stay, even another 200k to grow by 20%.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Now, all of a sudden, your growth rate that you set for yourself has doubled.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And your heart rate while you're doing this math?
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: yes, and so, very simply, you may not be able to find 400k of new revenue.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: That is not as easy to do and we'll talk about in this conversation, about how it actually takes some time to build a sustainable program and how a lot of wins happen a little bit later on in terms of like net revenue wins and so a lot of your growth.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: I would say, just plan for it to come from retention, plan for it to come from the donors that you already have.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Donors you already have are a lot more valuable than the ones you hope to acquire.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: You have to be acquiring donors, but today growth is going to come from today donors and then tomorrow growth is going to come from donors you acquired today.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: So that's first mindset is like let's really see who's in our file, who's connected with us, let's really focus on going deeper with those folks.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: It is better for your file overall.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: It is also easier.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: It's an easier lift for you than having to stress about finding thousands of new donors and raising all this new money from new donors, and so, frankly, it's just the healthiest thing to do for your file.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's such good starting counsel.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I think for this conversation and I hope it gives our listeners an exhale a little bit that the people that you need are already there.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: They already believe.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: We call them believers.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: How do you activate those rabid fans?
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Because I think your point is really well taken, because to acquire a new donor is significantly more expensive and takes more time than trying to retain an existing donor.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: So let's go a little deeper into these audiences, because I'm wondering what sort of advice you would give to organizations who are trying to identify those, because you have a big pool, you have a lot of donors in there.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: How do you identify and prioritize those people who are already connected and how do you start to lift those in a cadence that makes sense?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Because you've come on the podcast before and I love your evangelism of saying if you're just showing up to ask every single time, like, you're going to alienate a lot of that base and so it cannot just be this drumbeat of asking, asking, asking, but like, how do you find those people and what is the rhythm that you put them in to where they're really seeing that they're an active part of this movement?
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: So let's say you've got, and everything we're going to talk about today is very much focused on less so institutional funding.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: So less so like big funders although a lot of this stuff also works for big funders but we're very much talking about like community level, giving the average donor next door.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we call them mass, broad-based donors, mid-level donors, those types of people let's say you've got this pool and you've got maybe a thousand or a few thousand in your file.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: There's two ways that we would start to identify okay, who can we go a little bit deeper with?
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: And both of those things have nothing to do with the size of the gift.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: So, if you're just thinking like who gives the most not a bad way to think, of course, whoever gives the most, yeah, try to have a good relationship and see what their interests are.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: But that is not necessarily the key indicator of who can give more.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So we would look at that file and we would be like, okay, let's look at who are key multi-year donors.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: So these are people who give year after year size doesn't matter 50 bucks, 100 bucks, 200 bucks who gives year after year?
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: You may find that you have a few hundred people who give to you every single year.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Once a year or twice per year.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: They've been showing up regularly.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: That is a huge signal, a huge signal.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: So that's a cohort of people who absolutely would be good candidates to try to design a program around like based on outreach, and we'll talk about that in a second.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: So that's one way.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Another way is to actually just ask people if they want to go deeper, and you can do that one-on-one, but you can also do it at scale.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Donor surveys are an incredibly underused tool.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: So many organizations just don't ask for feedback.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: They ask for money, but they don't ask for brain share, they don't ask for opinions or feedback, and I think maybe they just don't know how, or maybe they're a little bit afraid, or maybe Don't have time haven't thought about it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not on the KPI board.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I feel this.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Now you can ask a few different ways.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: You can have a question that says hey, if in the next six months an urgent need comes up, would you be in a position to make a gift of $500 or more?
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Would you be in a position to make a gift of $1,000 or more?
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: And the donor isn't saying they're going to make a gift of a thousand dollars and more.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: And the donor isn't saying they're going to make that gift.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: They're just saying that if an urgent need comes up in the next little while, they would be open to having that conversation.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: So they're almost pre-qualifying themselves and you will see that you will very often have hand raisers, people who actually say they can do that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: And now the door is open.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: The door is open for you to follow up with those people and to actually start having a conversation about what urgent needs look like at the organization.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: That's one way you can do that.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Another way is really scary and it's called a nine-word email, and it's scary because of how short it is and it's like a completely plain text email from the CEO.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: We call it nine word email.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be nine words, but it's very short and essentially it goes something like there's an important project coming up.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Can I share more Question?
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Mark, john, that's it.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: You're just asking a very pointed short question.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Dear friend comma, there's no merge field of dear friend at the top.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: No, because that would be 11 words.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Come on now.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: It would be like, becky, we have an important project coming up, can I share more?
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And then, john, that's kind of what-.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I love the directness of that honestly and the succinctness.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And your designer saying unformatted email.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, listen to this advice.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: It's so good we don't have to put the.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know the masthead and the yes and a meme and yes.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, nope, plain text email from the director of development, the fundraiser, the CEO, even better, and we've seen some really big, big gifts come in through this way.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: We just recently sent out a plain text email.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a nine word email, it was a little bit longer, but it was very much about like, okay, can we share more about this project?
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: And a $50 donor said, yeah, sure, but I would like to do it over coffee because I want to make a $500,000 gift.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: What oh?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: that's not even my org and I still get goosebumps.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really cool.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: So this was a children's hospital.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: This guy had been in their file for a long time just making 50 bucks per year, because that's all he was ever asked.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Because, frankly, you do the list poll, you see how much people are giving.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: This is their range.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Somebody gives 50 bucks every year.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Maybe you try to upgrade them, but you're not going to ask for $500,000.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: That would be insane.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: But you never know until you actually give people those opportunities every now and again.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: And so that's.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Another tactic is you can literally just ask people if you can share more about an important project, and it's scary because if people reply, you have to actually get on the phone with them or get on a Zoom with them or have a back and forth via email Real talk here.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is a little bit also how friends would communicate, right, and we all say fundraising is about relationships, but relationships are like it's a lot of emotional labor.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: It just is, and that's what we're signing up for and I completely don't want to undermine the fact that emotional labor is hard.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: But it is also our jobs as fundraisers to connect deeply with people in our files and we have a duty of care, I think, to actually tend to those relationships.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Our jobs as fundraisers to connect deeply with people in our files and we have a duty of care, I think, to actually tend to those relationships.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: So that's another way you can do that is by asking pointed questions.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, mike, what I love about this advice is it applies to literally everyone.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: You weren't putting thresholds of what constitutes a major gift or not.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: It's seeing your file as humans that they are that believe in the cause, and inviting the invitation, the gift of activation, and what's that clear next step.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So so much clarity here.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I got to lift this question that came up at impact up that we didn't have a chance to jump into was this this is from Isaac out in a feeding America, eastern Wisconsin.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Hey, isaac, he said what are some tips for getting through the grind of fundraising outreach?
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Because I mean hearing you describe that.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: There's periods of time when it feels like, is this thing on?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Like, is anybody listening?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It feels like we're not getting responses.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: What do you say?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: What's some advice that you share with your clients for getting through that grind?
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for the question, isaac.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: So, first of all, a bit of mindset, which is we're going to talk about this too which is consistency compounds.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: We all want like wins and we all want them to happen quick.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I am so I'm the worst offender for this.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: That's why I keep reminding myself that consistency compounds.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: But know that what you're doing in those one to three months when it feels like nobody's getting back to you, this thing isn't even working.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Those things are.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: They kind of are working in the background.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: You just won't know about it for a while, and so you just have to tell yourself that it is working in the background.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: You just won't know about it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: So maybe tell yourself, hey, I'm entitled to the effort that goes in into tending to this garden, right, and I'm going to do my best to plant all these seeds, I'm going to do my best to till the soil, I'm going to dig ditches so that when it rains I can capture all the water.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: But I don't know when it's going to rain.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: I do know that when the time comes and it does rain, I've done everything I can to make the most of it, and this garden is going to hopefully grow into something beautiful because of the things that I did that were under my control, and then the things that happened that were out of my control, and the only thing I can do to affect that equation, the final outcome is the things in my control.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: So that's number one.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: You're a bit of a gardener here and nothing is blooming, and that's okay.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: The rain will come and we're just preparing for it and we're doing all the right things.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And if we're doing all the right things and if we do them for like a long time, like if we do the common thing for an uncommon amount of time, things are going to happen, because that is I talked about having a healthy file and doing healthy things Healthy things can't help but grow.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Healthy organisms just grow, and so if you just focus on the health of the thing and doing all the right things, it will grow.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe not as fast as you want it to or maybe not in the way that you want it to, but it will grow, because healthy things just can't help but grow.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: That's so sage, especially for our friend in Canada.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: They just think of your winters, it's like that are so long.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: But holding out that this is holding out that this is not forever, like it does come back, like the plants will come back there.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: They're under there surviving compounds notion.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: If we can take this to someone who's working, whether it's in fundraising or marketing or donor relations or events, annual giving, I feel like this could apply across the board.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: What kind of routines or practices could individuals and teams adopt to make sure that this consistent engagement happens with their donor base?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Can you lob us a couple ideas?
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: You're a fantastic example of consistency compounding, like showing up three times per week whether you felt good or not good, or sad or happy, or like y'all just showed up every single week, three times per week, and it's been five years now, for we Are For Good right, and I don't know if you imagined where you would be five years ago.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, these have been dog years.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: It feels like 50, but yes.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: And.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I've loved them, but also yes.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: But yeah, in terms of cadence, we talk a lot about we call it the fundraising flywheel.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be called that, that's just what we call it, which is getting in a rhythm of listening to donors, engaging them in as much one-to-one or one-to-few as possible.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: So it doesn't have to be one-to-one, it can be one-to-few.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: But really doing stuff where there's a bit of a two-way right, like it's not just you yelling at the void, it's a bit of a two-way.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: It can be town halls or webinars or getting together and doing stuff together.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: So that's listening to donors, engaging donors.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Then asking Asking is a big part of it, but it's only 20% of this equation.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: It's one-fifth of the flywheel.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Celebrating really well.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Philanthropy is really, really good for humans.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: It is good physiologically.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Our bodies actually feel a heck of a whole lot better when we give.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: It's actually a healing thing to do and so we should celebrate that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: We should celebrate that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: It's a good thing, like we celebrate taking care of ourselves and like we celebrate rest and like we celebrate all these other health hacks.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: So we should celebrate giving as the same and making people feel good about their giving and affirmed and seen, reporting back.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: This is a very, very consistent, if you can have one very consistent cadence.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: It's just every month reporting back a little bit to donors on what's happening and being like see, things are happening because your brand as an organization is not your logo, it's not your tagline, it's not like it's always just how people think about you when you're not in the room and how people talk about you when you're not in the room.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: And so how do you become a trusted organization?
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Trust is built by making promises and keeping them, and reporting back is basically you saying we asked you for money, you gave something good is happening.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: We asked you for money, we said something good would happen if you would give.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Something good is happening.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be like incredible, like feats of victory.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: It can be just small wins, but we all want to feel like we're making progress in this thing together and honestly you are making progress as an organization.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: If you're not, you should shut your doors down and you probably would right.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: So just like, let people know good things are happening.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: It's you keeping a promise and it's you building a very trusted brand.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: And recessions, crises, uncertain times doesn't matter.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Everybody who makes it through those stronger than before is trusted brands because they a consistency.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: They were consistently showing up before the crises and be in the crises.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Who are you going to give to?
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Probably the people you trust the most.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Probably not like some unknown entity, like very likely you're going to give to the people that you trust the most, because in uncertain, uncertain times, we all crave certainty and so reporting back.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: And then that's the cycle.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: You can start all over again Listen, engage, ask, celebrate report.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Listen, engage, ask, celebrate report.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: And we run that whole flywheel a few times throughout the year with some of our clients, but you don't have to run it as frequently, as long as you do it consistently.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love your call out for the reporting piece, specifically because we talked about the power of believers and the reality is not everybody that's in your file I'll use your word, mike is a believer.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Some people are.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I may have been given $50 to see what happens, or maybe somebody just got connected through a friend and they supported a memorial gift or something like that.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: And doing these practices, though, we have found can help take somebody from transactional to a believer, and I've seen it like in such tangible terms that actually being that consistent, trusted force and connecting their gift to impact like this is how it happens.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: This is how the sausage is made, proverbially in the shops, because over time, when you do that at scale, you've got a lot of people that believe that my gift makes a difference here, and that's how it compounds doing that over and over and over again.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And I also think, like if it's good news, if it's progress, if it's something to celebrate, I don't know about you all, but the joy is not the predominant thing.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: That's going through my feed right now on my phone, on my news, on what media I'm streaming, and so we have this unique ability to be this little dopamine hit that's like, oh, that feels good, oh, I'm glad I was a part of that, oh, I'm glad that I and 2000 of people I don't even know came together to make this thing happen.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And then what do you do?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: You chase that and I think, having a drumbeat of that and I don't want to say I want to be really clear that I'm not saying to Norman Rockwell this, where you just put out your good news, because I think this whole notion that you talked about early on with your CEO and this nine word email, is like people just want to know what's going on, they want to know what the needs are, they want to know what the story of now is.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: And.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: I think peppering that in and just having that again, that drumbeat, that compounded consistency, is something that is going to stand out and going to build not only tuba believers, but guess what?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Your fans are going to share that and that's how your fans start to acquire new donors on your behalf, and you did it through retention, which I think is also a really brilliant move of what you're saying here, mike.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and what an incredible job.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Right, we get to serve a market of needs, not a market of wants, and so we actually get to in your inbox and in your feed instead of selling you stuff that you don't need and I don't mean to disparage that at all.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: But we get to be merchants of joy, right, we get to be like there's real problems in the world.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: There are big problems in the world, but guess what?
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: You're entirely not powerless about it.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: There's actually something you can do and we're going to let you know the progress that you're making together, right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Small victories over time.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: And what a wonderful thing to reaffirm somebody that their giving was a smart choice, it was a good decision and it was effective, right.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Mike, we like you so much.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: This is why you're so gifted at what you do.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: It feels doable.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: We've kind of had fun with this Hold Fast series, asking for our guests to bring some homework to our listeners.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: So what are some questions or maybe next steps based on the conversation we've had today that could really carry the ripple of this?
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: How can we apply this into our work?
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: So maybe the homework might be something super tactical that hopefully will help your fundraising a little bit, which is I would pull a list.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: I would spend a bit of time in your CRM block, a bit of time on the calendar, see who has made at least three gifts to your organization and who hasn't made a gift, let's say, in 18 months.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: So they haven't made a gift between 18 to 24 months, but their last gift was right before that and they have at least three gifts on file.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: So those are fairly committed donors, at least three gifts on file, and it's been 18 months since they haven't made a gift.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: So they're dropping off.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: So there's been a bit of a disconnect there.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: They may not even realize that they haven't made a gift in 18 months.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: They might still love you, they might be getting all your emails, they might be getting your stuff, they might love you and not even realize that they haven't made a gift in 18 months.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: But that cohort of people is a very valuable cohort and you should reach out to them this month.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: You can make it a nine word email.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: You can make it a postcard.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: You can make it a postcard.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: You can make it a phone call.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: You can make it a ringless voicemail.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Super easy to do.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: You record a voicemail on your iPhone as a voice note, then you go to slybroadcastcom.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I just learned about this tool.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: It is brilliant.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: It just shows up without a ring.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, thank you, and it's transcribed.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Apple iPhone.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: It is the easiest, most amazing thing.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Keep going.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not the aversion Sometimes the robocalls, which I have aversion to them as well, but they're so weird because your phone rings and you pick it up and you have an expectation to talk to a human and you're not.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: You're just listening to a recording, a ringless voicemail.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: The context is I'm going to listen to a voicemail, there's no expectation that I'm going to be talking back to somebody, and so ringless voicemails are a huge arsenal in your toolbox that you can use.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: So that's the homework.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: People who've had a few gifts on file and who are just like lapsing like 18 months haven't made a gift.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Let's reach out to those folks and maybe even let's just go hey, I just wanted to check in.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: How are you?
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: How are you with all of this?
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, in the good times and the bad, we should be checking in.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: That's how people know we care.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I thank you for such a very specific tactic.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I think that that was really, really helpful and listeners come back to us.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Let us know what happens.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: For those of you who really take this activation, we want to knowicemail feature on LinkedIn.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Like it is unbelievable how, in 60 seconds, you can connect Actually, they don't even give you 60 seconds, pretty sure they give you 59, right Before they cut you off.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: So I think that the I think the point is well made that we need to connect, we need to look at the way people connect with us, find those mediums reach out, and I think you're going to be really surprised at how that intentionality, that consistency and that humanness is going to translate into action into your organization in many ways, not just the financial ways.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Mike, you've been on the podcast enough to know we're going to put a bow on it with a one good thing.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: What would you say is your one good thing, sort of, as it relates to this topic today?
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're about to enter the age of AI everything.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: We're already there, but it's going to accelerate an incredible amount in the next 12 months.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of AI.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: We're trying to play around with it and use it as much as we can, but so is everyone else, and I think it's going to be so easy to Maybe I'm going to bite my words I think it's going to be so easy to win in fundraising by doing the most human thing ever going forward, because you're going to be competing with a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel sort of tactics Not that I think it's a competition, but that's what's going to be out there, both nonprofits and from other companies and so I just think the one good thing is like just think about what is the most human thing we can do.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Can we gather with people every now and again?
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: Can we do stuff together?
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Can we do more handwritten touch points?
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Can we do more 60 second LinkedIn voicemails?
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: What human stuff can we do where it's very clear that AI cannot do this?
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: And you just lean into that, and I think it's going to be a huge boon.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: We're certainly doing that already and planning on doing a lot more of it, and in our case we're doing small dinners, more of it and in our case we're doing small dinners like eight to 10 people, and there's a whole thing there that we can talk about sometime, but using that as a growth tactic, but yeah, yeah, it feels like I appreciate your lens because I do think we're uniquely set up to own this moment.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: It's not just about optimized to the end.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It's like about getting humans involved in this really vital mission that we're fighting for and so centering our humanity in that is absolutely the way, Mike.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: How can people connect with you, work with BuildGood, go to all the BuildGood things, like connect us to your work and where you hang out online?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Besides, we know LinkedIn.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: We love that.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if people like listening to podcasts, there's the build good fundraising podcast.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: You can find that.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And then probably the most helpful thing that we do for most organizations is the build good Academy.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: It's we jump on, zoom a bunch of times throughout the week and we help you out with your fundraising.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Very human he's not a bot.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we help you out with your fundraising.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Very human You're with other organizations, he's not a bot.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not a self-paced course or anything like that.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: It's just like we jump on Zoom a few times per week, and so do other organizations.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Everybody learns from each other and that's just at buildgoodcom slash academy.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: That's probably the best way that we can be helpful.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Well, we will definitely amplify and support and applaud that, because anytime we're learning in community from each other, that's where the joy and the good stuff comes from.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: So, mike, just sitting with you is always a joy.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Learn so much, have my mind expanded.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Godspeed on your beautiful work.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming in here and just giving us so much hope and activation, as you always do.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Just adore you.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: I'll come back anytime you have me.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Open door open mic for you, my friend.