Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 276. Donor Data Matters: How to Rock Your Next CRM Implementation at Your Organization - Chris Campbell

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276. Donor Data Matters: How to Rock Your Next CRM Implementation at Your Organization - Chris Campbell · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: Today's episode is sponsored by feather feather provides digital marketing tools and strategies for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, including the Humane Society of North Central Florida. Stick around for the break to hear how feather power their $300 digital ad campaign that raised nearly$6,000 In just one day. Hey, I'm John.
• 0:20
  Unknown: And I'm Becky.
• 0:21
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the we are for good podcast,
• 0:24
  Becky Endicott: 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.
• 0:33
  Jonathan McCoy: 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.
• 0:42
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:52
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. I'm Becky, Hey, John, you got an old friend in the house. This is so fun.
• 0:59
  Becky Endicott: We are literally going back home today. I feel like because the individual that we have on the show today has literally been a dear friend of mine since we were 18 years old in college. And we have weathered a lot of life side by side. And he just happens to be, in my opinion, one of the foremost experts on really progressive technology, and evolve development. And he has worn a ton of hats in our alma mater shop, Oklahoma State University Foundation, and we were watching what he was doing.
• 1:32
  Becky Endicott: And we were like, hey, CRM implementations are a beast. And there's so much confusion around them, and there's so much intensity around them. Like let's take this down to brass tacks today, and have him walk through it for our listeners. So it's just my great joy to introduce my dear friend, Chris Campbell. He's the Senior Associate Vice President of Information strategy at the OSU Foundation. And here's what I love about Chris. He started in athletics as a fundraiser and a major gifts officer then he moves into the business college, doing not only major gifts, but also managing the annual fund.
• 2:07
  Becky Endicott: So you're starting to see the the level of his path here from major gifts to annual giving.
• 2:14
  Becky Endicott: Then he moved into prospect development and started to oversee that team during a billion dollar campaign. Now he has just finished his tenure being the project director for this really successful implementation of this comprehensive advancement CRM.
• 2:27
  Becky Endicott: That was in partnership with the OSU Alumni Association. Hello, friends. They just went live back in January. And we want to know, just the nuts and bolts about this. And I think there's a lot of people out there that are like, what is a CRM, it's your database. But it's so much more than that. And we're going to talk through why you need this, why it's going to help you accelerate and grow so much. And Chris is just a good dude. And he is going to walk us through this from a progressive angle.
• 2:57
  Becky Endicott: And I just love that you're here. I want to give one little shout out to his incredible wife, Kelly, their two young sons, Chris, you're just an awesome dad, you sports coach.
• 3:05
  Becky Endicott: And we're just thrilled that you're here. So welcome, my friend.
• 3:11
  Chris Campbell: I am thrilled to be I can't tell you how excited I know we probably need more than just an hour but just to catch up and tell stories. But you know, Becky, I'm actually here because of you you that position in athletics came open, and you'd send and I don't know if you remember this, you send an email out to a group of kind of your OSU buddies from college. I, you know, that wasn't me. But it was one of my pledge brothers, that pledge brother for to me the email and literally his email to me, it was like, I think this might be your dream job. You want to check into this. And so I think I called texted you, and then somehow come with an IT background and mis degree, I convinced the hiring manager of essentially a sales job to hire me for that position. But that's, that's how I found out about it.
• 3:53
  Becky Endicott: Okay, I have a very vague recollection of that, now that you say it, but I love the connectivity of that. And I also think it speaks to the fact that we all fall into development from different paths. I mean, I have a marketing background, John's graphic design, Chris has mis like computer science. And I just think it's all serving us in a lot of different ways with our gifts. So thank you for that. That was so kind, but we want to get to know you like tell us where you grew up. Tell us a little bit about your life and how it led you to here which clearly I feel like you just told a little bit of the inception story, which is awesome.
• 4:28
  Chris Campbell: So Stillwater born and raised. I grew up going to OSU football, basketball but any kind of sporting event my family, my mom was a teacher.
• 4:35
  Chris Campbell: She taught for, I don't know, 30 plus years and still water. But I think most people kind of knew us. We had a clothing store in Stillwater. My dad's store Robert Campbell clothing to this day, I still have a lot of, you know, kind of graduates of Oklahoma State that tell me they bought their first interview suit from my dad. So that was kind of our background. So I got a really cool upbringing of my My mom being a hard worker and a teacher, but also my dad being a businessman running his own business, but really the customer service side of what he did to write because I think one of the I tell a lot of stories about how I operate, they relate to back to things that I learned at the store, you know, and one of the things he said to me early on was, you know, they can buy a suit from anybody, right?
• 5:20
  Chris Campbell: What are we going to offer, you know, someone that wants to come into the store that they can't get elsewhere, it's really knowing people, and understanding people and providing excellent customer service, we've tried to bring that I've tried to bring that into what I do, from time to time and how I operate. But Oklahoma State grad, as you said, I was one of the rare students who actually got to meet my my advisor, she shopped at my dad's store, and my dad introduced me one day to make click He who is just an incredible professor, she's retired now. But I was one of those rare students who kind of knew what I wanted to study in college. And I never changed my major, like that was the major I started off with, I would say, my kind of impact story starts there. So my dad had the clothing store for about 20 years, my senior year, he decided to close it, he started to kind of read the writing on the wall of how retail was transitioning, you know, I was lucky to get a few scholarships going into school. But then, by the time my senior year rolled around, and my dad was still kind of making that climb, my little brother was starting college as well. So having two kids in college, but fortunately for me, and you know, mid click, he was always a great champion of mine, my advisor at college, she kept telling me to apply for scholarships apply for scholarships, and I just kept doing it kept doing it by the time my senior year rolled around, all of my school was paid for. And so that was really my first exposure to Don't you know, giving a donation, what the heck is an endowed scholarship? And how does that work? And how does it impact people because I was able to do that. And so, I mean, we were, we were certainly firmly you know, middle class. And you know, we were very blessed growing up, but that, that time in our life, to have that gift of not having to have my parents worry about college for two kids was a really great blessing. So that's kind of where that started. And then a few years later, I moved around, went to Tulsa, went to Dallas, and then eventually came back to the foundation at the end of 2004.
• 7:11
  Jonathan McCoy: Oh, my gosh, I love the winding path. And I'm thinking of me seeing you as an intern on the athletic side. And then coming over. And just to see what you've done is just is just incredible, the foundation to give a little bit of context, I mean, went through a huge period of growth. I mean, the team has grown a lot, they did accomplish this billion dollar campaign. And a lot of us that were young at that time, grew up in development at the same time, you know, we are, our vision was blown out of the water of what's possible, our belief in philanthropy, and just kind of seeing how this thing happens.
• 7:40
  Jonathan McCoy: And so I love that so much of the team is, is still connected to the mission there because it was such a transformative time at OSU.
• 7:48
  Becky Endicott: And I will say there were a lot of 20 year olds at that time, working on the front lines and doing a lot of the progressive things. And so I just say that to people thinking that you need to have a really seasoned fundraiser up at the top accelerating these things.
• 8:02
  Becky Endicott: And I will tell you, when you have a scrappy set of 20 year olds that are fearless, and they have a lot of grit, you can get a lot done. So way to go team.
• 8:14
  Chris Campbell: And I think you know that, well, I had a conversation like this the other day about kind of my path and the opportunities we were given at, you know, 20 something years old, not many 20 Somethings get those opportunities. I'm not gonna say I did everything right. But sometimes learning the wrong way to do it is a really good way to learn the right way to do it. And so I kept taking jobs that I had no experience doing. And that's pretty much been a theme throughout my career. But I've someone early on told me if you're comfortable, you're not learning, you're not growing.
• 8:42
  Chris Campbell: And so that's kind of pushed me into take some of these opportunities, I probably would have said, No, I'm, I'm pretty good. I like what I'm doing here. So 17 plus years later, they're still trying to find something that I'm good at. And here I am.
• 8:57
  Jonathan McCoy: I was gonna give applaud the OSI foundation for investing in people. I mean, you know, and I think we've seen this to have people growing up and investing their careers, but also given them opportunities to move up. And I think there's a powerful culture as a result of that. So I mean, we're here to talk CRM, I'm a little scared of talking about CRM, so I'm not gonna lie. And let's, let's break it down. Because at a starting place, we all need to have this because it's one of those things, it's just core to being able to ever become a really effective development shop. I mean, you can raise a little bit of money without this. But when you're really serious about implementing a development plan, it's just kind of like table stakes. Like you've got to have a really robust CRM and know how to use it know how to get out the data, where you kind of set, you know, paint the picture for us. And then we want to hear your story of of the transitions that you have had over time.
• 9:46
  Chris Campbell: Yeah, yeah. I mean, table stakes has apps especially now, right, a modern CRM, and that's, you know, one of my points here is, you know, a lot of people have the question of, can we afford it?
• 9:53
  Chris Campbell: Can you afford not to do it, right. I mean, I think that's something you really got to think about, but we were we had implemented a system kind of a client server based, you know, really dated, it was probably dated when we went live with it in 2008. But we were on a system there that we have a really talented technology team at the foundation. And they had gotten everything they could out of that. But we were hitting walls, we were limited on our ability to add more information to integrate with other platforms, because a big part of the CRM game nowadays, so CRM constituent or customer relationship management platform, it used across industry, right, you know, we typically use the term constituent in fundraising because we don't, I don't think like to use that term, maybe customer as much it doesn't really apply. So the core tenet for me for a CRM is really having a 360 degree view of the people that loved your institution, right? For smaller nonprofits, that can be a very specific avenue for a place and a university like Oklahoma State, that takes so many different forms and factors, right. It's graduates, right?
• 10:56
  Chris Campbell: It's people that attended, went to OSU, it's parents, it's people that love athletics, they may never have not had anything to do with your institution other than going to football games, you've got to have a way to see and understand those people and engage those people.
• 11:09
  Chris Campbell: But because for us in fundraising, contact information, knowing that's the lifeblood of what we do, we can't reach out to people and find what they're passionate about if we can't connect with them. And that really is kind of the heart of having a modern CRM,
• 11:24
  Becky Endicott: I thank you for breaking it down Michael Scott, explain it to me, like I'm five years old level, because I think us non techies alike need to understand the process. And I think your comment about you cannot afford to not have this.
• 11:38
  Becky Endicott: And I'm not here to tell everybody, you need to dump all of your budget into a CRM system, because it's an expensive process. And it's a laborious process. But gosh, guys, I mean, we preach every single episode about the the explosion of digital, and the digital connectivity and the global community. And if you want to have a to your point dynamic way to work smarter, and to have an intuition as a part of how you look at data, how you look at your donor interest.
• 12:12
  Becky Endicott: This is just not a luxury to me, it's it is a must have. So if you are hearing me now and you're working out of an Excel spreadsheet, or something like that, we just want your tech to be sound. So I kind of want to back it up a little bit, Chris, and ask you about like, How does someone even begin to find the right platform for themselves?
• 12:33
  Becky Endicott: And how do you begin to start to pick the right technology?
• 12:40
  Chris Campbell: Couple of ways, one, go to a conference, right and check the box that says allow your vendors to contact me and then within a week, you'll have 42 people emailing you about their solutions. The other weigh in, we were really lucky to do this, we weren't rushed into the project, there's a lot of shops that like we're going to start a capital campaign. And we've got to get this done in 18 months, right? We were kind of affordable at a luxury of kind of knowing and having a little bit more of a runway. So my partner in crime that leads our IT team that's just a rock star, Jimmy Audra t and I really spent probably the two or three years before the implementation started on the road. I mean, I'm talking, we visited other universities, we went to conferences, we had call, I mean, we did everything. So I would say the first thing to do is start looking for shops in organizations, because I know your audience here is much larger than just advancement that or look like you that are in your space, ask them what they're using. To me, it's really just about talking and getting out and meeting your peers and the partners in the space and really having those conversations and then starting to hone in. For us an enterprise level solution, I mean, a large solution, we have over half a million constituents in our system even more now in the sense that conversion, you know it that the group gets pretty small, pretty quick. They're really for viable solutions that we started with in that space.
• 14:00
  Chris Campbell: But as you said, Becky mean, there are solutions across the board, every shape and size, you know, for any institution that you can look into.
• 14:09
  Jonathan McCoy: And I think what I love about y'all going to kind of a cohort and a peer group, like you need that anyway. And you need that for all the things and we probably should do an episode just talking about finding your peer group. But it does help you know, the right questions to ask because I think probably that may be the one of most critical things when you're trying to figure out any solution is chicken trying to know what to ask if you're just starting a journey like this.
• 14:35
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, friends, this episode is presented by virtuous and they just happen to be one of our favorite companies. Let me tell you why. You know, we believe everyone matters. And we've witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you see and activate donors at every level. And here's the thing, virtuous created a fundraising platform to help you do just that. It's much more than a nonprofit CRM. Virtuous is committed to helping charities reimagine generosity through responsive fundraising, which is simply putting the donor at the center of fundraising, growing, giving through personalized donor journeys, and by helping you respond to the needs of every individual. We love it because this approach builds trust and loyalty through personalized engagement. Sounds like virtuous, maybe a fit for your organization. Learn more today and virtuous.org or follow the link in our show.
• 15:25
  Becky Endicott: Hey, friends, are you ready to take your digital engagement to the next level to kind of feel stuck about where to start? Let us introduce you to feather feathers, an amazing tech startup focused on making nonprofit outreach more impactful by connecting you to your audience wherever they are online, from fundraising to program awareness, they've got you covered. And rather than telling you we just wanted to show you for years, the Humane Society of North Central Florida has participated in a local online giving day called the amazing give. It's a competitive landscape for donations. So in 2021, the Humane Society knew they needed to stand out in order to maximize donations for$300 in ad spend their retargeting ads brought 119 visitors to their amazing gift donation page and generated nearly $6,000 in donations in just one day. With feather a small amount of ad spend can go a long way, learn more about their solutions for nonprofits@feather.co. That's feather without the last e.co.
• 16:20
  Becky Endicott: Now let's get back to this amazing conversation.
• 16:27
  Jonathan McCoy: Walk us through what someone could expect in a journey from going from trying to land on your top four to really sign and all the paperwork and all that kind of good stuff.
• 16:37
  Chris Campbell: Yeah, and it's truly a journey, right? That these shops generally for us, are they they know their stuff.
• 16:43
  Chris Campbell: They know the questions to ask you they What's the size of your database? How many constituents?
• 16:46
  Chris Campbell: What other platforms are you integrating with? Are you using a marketing an email to a marketing automation tool? Do you have a data warehouse?
• 16:55
  Chris Campbell: Right? I mean, all that. So that's part of the conversation and that and that speaks to the scope of the project. I think for us too. And we can talk about cloud based warehousing solution, event management solutions, all the different endpoint and point solutions you need. That's going to be part of the conversation. I think, step one outside of getting to know the market is get to know yourself. What do you have, right? What's your stack right now? Not just what you've got.
• 17:21
  Chris Campbell: But where do you need to go to right? We, you know, we knew we had a limitation with our document management solution that was part of our project and helped us understand the scope of the implementation, we knew we needed a better event management solution, one where you know, you could access the event on a mobile device and check in on a mobile device, you really haven't we spent a good year, year and a half before we even started the project with a what we call it a CRM readiness team made up of folks across our organization, getting to know ourselves, but also getting to know our requirements. I think another piece here that I think is really, really important that people may not think about, don't just focus, not focus on the technology, focus on these companies and the people at these companies. I will tell you some of our most most important decisions, were as much about what we saw and heard and dealing with these organizations that were possible vendors as what the technology could do.
• 18:13
  Chris Campbell: Because, you know, any decent technology organization or vendor. You know, the question nowadays with technology is not can you it's just really more about should you and how should you really understand these vendors, we invited we had two days worth of we had a one day each for the two finalists in our project, they had to go through a very focused and very scripted kind of walkthrough of all these different parts of their platform, they had to stick to a schedule a time schedule. And that way they couldn't, you know, show us some really cool thing over here that really wasn't much of an impact.
• 18:47
  Chris Campbell: But when when we walk away from that we did a survey because we invited everybody from both organizations we had I think over 80 people attend both days, which was really exciting to see. But outside of did it look like they could do this, you know, feature this phone? Could they do you know, membership?
• 19:02
  Chris Campbell: Could they do event management?
• 19:05
  Chris Campbell: Could they do constituent management, the organization we went with, everybody heard them talking about delivering a solution that wasn't just best in class, but was best in class for Oklahoma State. And that was very impactful, they were going to work with us to build the solution that that really met our needs. And so we we were really impressed by that. And that was a big decision factor.
• 19:23
  Chris Campbell: So don't just focus on the technology focus on the organization and the people and ask around, right, because, you know, we're pretty early on in this process, especially with a vendor we chose so there wasn't a huge pool. But ask around and have good conversations, talk to the people that are going through it or you know, have done it. And I think that's going to kind of start to point you in the right direction.
• 20:22
  Becky Endicott: I really liked the focus on research here because this is not something that you can go into just willy nilly. There's got to be a lot of intentionality here and if you're someone who's concerned about out the delusions of vendors coming and hitting you up, I would say a great starting point is pond, go to join pond.com They actually have a way for you to go in and they kind of assess your needs. Chris talked about like asset mapping, like figuring out, what do you have? What do you not have that you want. And I even I would even say, like, prioritize what you want, because I'm sure you're not going to get everything but start at pond and that and you actually get credits for going through their system. And they'll find the right vendors for you to vet that way. You're not just so overwhelmed with, you know, a myriad of choices. But I really like this process. And you know, I think as a marketer, oh, you know, that's the tech team.
• 21:20
  Becky Endicott: That's the IT team, you can't think like that. I mean, this is an all hands on deck. And I love that approach, because it integrates everybody's process in an automated way.
• 21:30
  Jonathan McCoy: So I mean, for something this big, I got to think there's two big tracks.
• 21:32
  Jonathan McCoy: And you can kind of add to this, if I'm missing something, but there's the customizing the CRM to best fit what your organization looks like. But then there's the bringing over 60 years or however old the OSI foundation is now folks have data. And I think to me, that's what feels most overwhelming.
• 21:51
  Jonathan McCoy: It's like this backlog of an in house team is so good, you know, of trying to make sure that the addresses are right, and the punctuation is right. But when you're thinking of that many data points coming over. What does that look like give us a couple of like points of trying to migrate to a system because it feels very daunting. It is,
• 22:13
  Chris Campbell: you know, again, we've got a really, really talented team here. And so when you see the framework there, Jonathan, you said you have two tracks? Well, there's actually we actually had like four tracks. One track was the functional implementation, right? Configuring the platform, those sprints so we hit it was an agile project, we use the agile methodology to implement this this solution. Those Sprint's were not led by technical members, they were led by functional end users. So that was one track. So we had a, you know, bio demo, we had two sprints there, we had four sprints for gift management, we had two sprints for prospect development, one, you know, we had 15 Total sprints. Parallel to that, but also kind of lagging behind because he had to do that work. First was a conversion sprint. So we had one of our chief technical person lead that sprint of taking the 60 plus years of data from our old system, from that old system to the new system. So that was another another sprint we had that was a technical sprint, we had a integration sprint, that lead it was part of the work we did there was to integrate our new systems with the different point solution. So as the database of record for the university, when someone matriculates from Oklahoma State, we get that information so that we can stay connected with them because again, we partner with the Alumni Association, so we get a feed from the university for graduates, right? And so integrating with that information is was part of that integration has been integrating with one of our favorite platforms is ever true. I don't know if y'all are familiar with that, or Brett and grant and that team, they're awesome. But we entered integrating with that solution integrating with the event management solution. And then the the kind of the last sprint, the lagging, sprint was a reporting or business intelligence sprint, so they all kind of lag behind your functional Sprint's, but we had, you know, the way you kind of framed it kind of some of our conversations, you know, what's what do you expect in this process, expect for your team members to really surprise you.
• 24:11
  Chris Campbell: Because we saw that here, we saw so many people. One of my favorite things about this project was we're blessed with less with talented people across the organization. But we had people step up into leadership roles throughout this project just knocked it out of the park.
• 24:26
  Chris Campbell: So it clearly comes down to leadership and communication.
• 24:29
  Chris Campbell: But breaking this project into those Sprint's and those workflows, which, you know, UCI, their project manager that was assigned to us who was really, really good. They walked us through all that we didn't know any of this before the project, of course. But if you have a really good vendor, or a really good implementation partner, they're gonna help you figure those things out and set you up for success in that way.
• 24:51
  Becky Endicott: Thanks for giving a shout out just to the team piece. Because I mean, there's just no way that something of this magnitude could be done by a small group of people. So just really commend you. And I want to transition a little bit to the data because I think you were the one of the first people that taught me maybe about 10 years ago, the importance of like intuitively looking at your data in a completely different way. I mean, I think a lot of us think about extracting information from our database in like just data points, like okay, how much is somebody given and it seems very tactical, and you brought me to this sort of elevated phase of like, what are you trying to accomplish and how Do we try to flex the data to get intuitively what you need out of it? So I want to ask you just about that. And how do you maximize the data that's already in your CRM, and just any sort of indicators or polls that people don't think about leveraging? When they're asking their data team to extract something out, I specifically think about just your annual fund folks or your donor relations folks or your marketing team, what is a really intuitive way to leverage and maximize that data that's already in there?
• 26:06
  Chris Campbell: The first step and really understanding what data you do have and whether or not it's good and whether or not is valuable is to begin to report on it. I mean, when we created information strategy, you know, eight years ago, we picked that name deliberately, deliberately, right? It's data or information by itself is nothing but taking it and using it strategically to make business decisions to make your work better, is the whole point of that. So kind of if there's a theme here, right, like we I oversee our technical teams, it's really, really important for us to have a business user talking about their wants and needs. Right. Becky, like you just said, and I would say, for the implementation as well, for anything you're doing, start with the end in mind, right?
• 26:50
  Chris Campbell: What do you try? And where are you trying to go? What are you trying to get to? Let's have that conversation, and then we can begin to back in to where we are and how we get there. And I think that's the same for your technology roadmap as well. Your development officers want to be alerted. Anytime someone checks in to an event. Yeah. Okay.
• 27:05
  Chris Campbell: There's a user story right there. How do we get there, right? It's not just oh, we need a new event management solution.
• 27:13
  Chris Campbell: I mean, that, that doesn't really tell you anything, think about and that's, that user story is a term from an our agile project of describing a process that needs to happen in a relatively non technical way.
• 27:29
  Chris Campbell: So that's a little bit of a agile tidbit there, but involve people that are doing the work.
• 27:35
  Chris Campbell: And I think it's kind of a little kind of added bonus here.
• 27:38
  Chris Campbell: One of the benefits of doing this project during the pandemic is that we did it all remotely.
• 27:46
  Chris Campbell: And I think we were very, very successful and doing it remotely. What I didn't have to worry about for 18 months was finding a room that fit the number of people that needed to be there, right? Because you don't need chairs in a virtual room, right. So in many of our sprint meetings, we had 40 people on the call, right?
• 28:02
  Chris Campbell: Reporting is often where the execution and the end result of all that work comes out. So in the spirit of start with the end in mind, having someone from a BI team or reporting team in any kind of project like this is super, super impactful if you can make it happen.
• 28:21
  Becky Endicott: I mean, if you are a shop that has going through this for the first time, find some organization that you absolutely adore, that you admire, and ask them for an hour to just talk about this. I think that is what makes the nonprofit sector so wonderful is we have a mindset of generosity in that way. So take advantage of that generosity and pour into it go call Chris, we're going to, or, you know, DM me, he's very active on social media. So I have to transition a little bit because we love to ask all of our guests about a moment of philanthropy that really touch them and inspire them. And we wonder what your story is Chris.
• 29:01
  Chris Campbell: So I started in athletics, and did fundraising.
• 29:04
  Chris Campbell: And then I moved over to our our business school. And you know, for those of you that are kind of familiar with advancement, hired fundraising, you know, raising endowed funds is a really, really impactful way to serve your institution, because they're there, they're there forever, right? Right, you raise the money, and then you just spend the spin off the interest earned on that, and it never goes away. I mean, annual scholarships are amazing. And we love those as well. But so as a major gift officer, you're you're kind of targeting endowed gifts. One of the very first endowed gifts was a scholarship that I had the opportunity to work with and alum on. His son was, I didn't know his somebody was only a couple years older than me. When he was at OSU, he had a medical event and, and passed away. Just a terribly sad thing. And he and his wife wanted to set up an endowed scholarship in their son's memory so that his name would kind of live on and that was one of my very first endowed scholarships to raise and it was that I was like, I'm all in on this. I mean, I'm, you know, I came to OSU to go work in athletics and have fun because I grew up going to football games, it's my alma mater. I'm here 17 years later because I believe in the mission not just of higher education, but what our foundation can do to serve that and not only is a kid getting that scholarship today, but you know, those parents have a way to let their son's memory kind of just live on forever that that that sticks with me to this day. I'm kind of getting choked up talking about it right now, but I just But what a cool way to do so many great things at once. Right. And I, there's just not a lot of industries where you can do that.
• 30:41
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, that's the power of philanthropy, you know, even guys like yourself that could spend 18 months looking at just data points, it still comes back to the stories that gripped us and make us want to pour in and make us want to fight for the data to be so good. So that family feel seen, you know, at the end of the day, if they get something in the, in the mail with the wrong salutation, like, that really stinks, you know, so it's like, it really does matter. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
• 31:07
  Chris Campbell: And, you know, it colors the way we operate and the way we think and I mean, you know, I've had lots of real time, how do you, you know, I'm not a frontline fundraiser anymore, but I spent half a decade doing it. And how did you do that? If you talk about something, and you are passionate about the mission you serve, and you share that vision with other people, that family thanked me for helping them set up that scholarship. Right? How crazy is that? I mean, I just, that's the kind of work we get to do day in and day out. And it gets hard. And like you said, John, and I spent the last 18 months with blinders on looking at the data. But if you can hang your hat on that and use that as your Northstar, you can you can find your way, every single time. It's really neat,
• 31:47
  Jonathan McCoy: such great advice. And I may want to grandfather that in as your one good thing, because you notice all of our podcast, we asked you to just share a sage piece of advice, something a good habit, maybe a mantra that you have, what is your one good thing.
• 32:01
  Chris Campbell: Every business is a people business in certainly, certainly in fundraising and nonprofit. So I would say don't forget that it's still a people business, both with your internal folks and the people you're serving. It's easy to forget that nowadays, right?
• 32:13
  Chris Campbell: Because sometimes we're communicating electronically, we don't even see their faces, it's easy to fire. But remember that this is still a people business, even for someone like me who's on the technology, side of things. Don't forget that you're still dealing with human beings, people with families, people with passions outside of work, I think, serving that and not getting lost in that will take you and your organization very, I think we've done a really great job of that for a long time at the foundation and not forgetting that these are still human beings. And I think that's why we've been able to endure and grow from you know, when Becky you and Jonathan were here 60 employees to now 165 employees to raising 30 or $40 million a year to now we might hit 200 million this year. I mean, it, it's all comes down to the people. And I think don't forget that.
• 33:05
  Becky Endicott: I love that. And you know, our core value number one of this company is that everyone matters. And if you kind of throw everything through the lens of the lowest person on your org chart up to the CEO brings value and needs to be looked at and cared for. I really think that is where harmonious and vibrant cultures can truly begin so. So appreciate you talking to us, like we're three years old and this conversation are not the tech people that I just think this is so absolutely critical to the conversation. If you are trying to elevate and get your game ready for this digital moment that is here. It is not coming. It has been coming and it has exploded and pandemic.
• 33:54
  Becky Endicott: This is such an important topic.
• 33:58
  Becky Endicott: And I just even for all of our marketers that are in this community, you cannot do your work if the data is not working for you. So I really want to encourage everybody. This is my mama cheerleader moment, you can do this, Chris, give us all your contact information. I'm worried about your burnout if 120 People call you. But I know you could probably point people to the right places specifically in other industries, even if they're not in higher ed. So how can people connect with you? And yeah, give us all your social handles to Z Campbell
• 34:30
  Chris Campbell: at OSU giving.com cc ampv e ll at OSHA giving.com. You can go to our OSU giving.com website, which I think you all were the first ones to get that didn't
• 34:40
  Jonathan McCoy: look quite like that.
• 34:42
  Becky Endicott: It's much more involved than when we build a
• 34:44
  Chris Campbell: legacy that you all built with OSHA giving that competency Campbell though, should get you're welcome to email me directly. I'm on LinkedIn, I actually get a lot of energy from talking to people about this because I think you know, this is this is the fun of the job is to help that next that next shop because the shops, we're talking to all do great things. And if they can do that better, how cool is that to be able to touch those different places. So happy to always have conversations and chat and talk a storm up.
• 35:10
  Becky Endicott: Well preach it.
• 35:10
  Becky Endicott: I just want to congratulate you in the team for just this amazing implementation for anyone else that's out there.
• 35:16
  Becky Endicott: Either starting one going through one just completed it pat on the back to you because this is very much a huge undertaking, but it's a necessary one. So thank you, my friend for joining us. We've loved this conversation. It was great to see you again.
• 35:30
  Chris Campbell: I'm flattered that you all invited me. Thanks.
• 35:32
  Chris Campbell: Good to see you guys.
• 35:34
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• 36:07
  Julie Confer: Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie confer in our theme song is sunray by Remy Boris boom