Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 169. The Reluctant Fundraiser’s Guide to Raising Money (+ Tips for Small Nonprofits!) - Cindy Wagman

Transcript

169. The Reluctant Fundraiser’s Guide to Raising Money (+ Tips for Small Nonprofits!) - Cindy Wagman · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, I'm john.
• 0:02
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the we are for good podcast.
• 0:05
  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.
• 0:14
  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.
• 0:23
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Hey, Becky,
• 0:37
  Becky Endicott: welcome everybody.
• 0:38
  Unknown: David spirits in the house. Oh, my
• 0:40
  Becky Endicott: gosh, we have just met our friend, but we feel like we know Cindy wagman. Yes, she is a legend in our industry, she has set up a stake already. If you are in tiny nonprofit, you are in for a double treat today because she is going to bring so much expertise to this conversation. But you know what, if you're not a tiny nonprofit, you're also gonna get a ton of value. Because Cindy is wise. And yeah, we're just gonna have an amazing conversation about how to get your small shop set up for success. So want to give a little bit of background on Cindy. She is based out of Canada, we love our Canadian friends. And she has this heartfelt goal to unlock the potential of small nonprofits through fundraising. So she has spent her entire career in fundraising, she has stayed in the sector as a purist, and she knows how to make it accessible for small nonprofits in a way that is really empowering. And it's mission enhancing. So she's got this top rated podcast huge. and Canada here in the United States call the small nonprofit and then just on the side, you know, she's president and founder of the good partnership and she was for good way before we were she what she was like the original goodie, right? So we love her cuz she's so values driven. She has such a proponent of social justice. And we love that she has a heart for the little guy. So Cindy, welcome to the we're for good podcast. We are geeked out to talk to you today.
• 2:04
  Cindy Wagman: Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. And I feel like I should be with you all the time. Because that is such an awesome introduction. And I just want to be around your awesomeness always. So man,
• 2:15
  Becky Endicott: I just think Yeah, Oklahoma.
• 2:19
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, it's a balmy 107
• 2:22
  Becky Endicott: degrees today. So I want you to give us just some background into your story. You said you've been in fundraising your whole life. Good for you. Yeah. Tell us about little Cindy growing up and how you came to get this passion for social justice and small nonprofits?
• 2:37
  Cindy Wagman: Yeah, so Oh, I'm gonna take you way back. Yeah. I've always been involved in the nonprofit sector in high school, I volunteered, I was always just part of my, my time. And, as I, you know, like most, especially back then this was 20 plus years ago, I didn't really know what I wanted to do was a little lost in school, like, really debated, dropping out after second year university. But then one summer, I actually met two professional fundraisers. And all of a sudden it clicked like that. That's what I want to do. I want to work in the nonprofit sector, I have not cut out to be a frontline worker. So this felt like a really good alignment. And I decided, great, I am going to do it. And so I actually wrote a thesis in my undergrad at university on feminist fundraising. And, yeah, so excited. And then I really just, I went looking for a fundraising job, and I've been doing it ever since. So I definitely think I'm one of the very few people who made a very deliberate decision to pursue fundraising.
• 3:54
  Becky Endicott: It could be the first one we've ever had on the porch person from that kind of amazing and to think that fundraisers can inspire young minds, people you out there, you can inspire a young college professional to join this profession. I love it.
• 4:07
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, Cindy, you have just put your flag in the ground around small nonprofits. And I just love that you serve this space. This is we're not kidding. You are a legend in this space. I think a lot of people look up to you and lean into your content and your teaching, because you just make it not smarmy. And I can't say that. But you, you teach just ways. And I love your book that's coming out is all about raising money without selling your soul. It's called raise it and I want to talk about that today. But we just kind of give us an overview of, you know, how do you set up a small shop for success? and kind of give us some tips because you're the legend of tip giving to the small shops.
• 4:43
  Cindy Wagman: Thank you. And yeah, I mean, one of the things that is so the reason I focus on small shops is a deeply personal one, which is I just think they're doing amazing work. I've worked in big institutions. I've had that experience and I think That, for from a values perspective, smaller organizations are just creating much more change for the size of their, their organizations. So I love doing that. But every time I meet someone who's not a fundraiser, and I introduce myself as a fundraiser, they always say the same thing. That is such a hard job. Yep. And this story that smaller organizations are telling themselves that fundraising is hard, or achy, or it doesn't work, because we don't have a strong enough brand are all these things, these are narratives in our sector and in our minds that are holding us back from achieving the impact we want to have in the world. And so my mission really is to help all those reluctant fundraisers figure out that it's actually a really enjoyable thing, and really empowering activity or profession, and that it's critical to their success. And so how do we help them overcome that barrier. And when I started doing this work, I really, you know, so much of what we teach is tactics, just here's how to write a direct appeal letter. And there's so many amazing resources out there on that, you know, here's how to run an event, here's how to do a peer to peer campaign. But you can't help people to do things. If fundamentally, they don't feel comfortable, it's like trying to eat a salad when there's an ice cream in front of you. For me, I'm never gonna pick the salad same. And so we hear from small nonprofit leaders that they're so busy that they have all these other things they need to do. But part of that is because they're focused on the ice cream, it feels better, it's easier, it's more comfortable. And in order to get them to start to do the fundraising, which we know you have to do the work to get the success, you have to address some of your your how your brain is, is wired. I mean, some we call it mindset, but it's really based in neuroscience and how we understand our decision making processes, okay,
• 7:23
  Unknown: not to completely interrupt you. But I just love that you are going in this space. And it bothers me that I was in fundraising for so many years. And we never as a group would sit down and talk about that mental barriers or blocks, we would talk about tactics, we would go to conferences, to talk about tactics, we would always talk about the things to do and never look at ourselves internally of what's blocking us. So drinking this up, my friend love it.
• 7:45
  Becky Endicott: I actually I have just been nodding the entire time. And I actually was about to say something that you just illuminated. And so our brains are already fused. But I think this is what makes you so special, Cindy, is that you don't just give someone tactics, you don't just even give them strategy, like you go up to that uncomfortable level that people are typically not wanting to address. And it's like, what is that thing holding me back. And if we can retool that and examine it, the tactics become easier, the strategy flows out of us so much easier if you take away the smarmy feeling because you know exactly the authentic person that you are that's going out and doing the good work. So completely loving this conversation. And I want to talk to you just about how you feel that fundraisers, board members and volunteers are holding themselves back.
• 8:44
  Cindy Wagman: So it's it, in some ways, a very personal way, which is we, the way our brains work is they're designed to create shortcuts they want. They're very complex and brilliant, but they're also incredibly lazy. And so the way our brains are designed is that they create shortcuts that are really sort of embedded into our brain over time as repetition or habit. And so what happens is, our, our we hear stories, or we experience things over and over and over again, to the point where it feels like truth, even if it isn't truth. And so, some of the things I hear in our sector are, you know, we have to have a million dollar Gala. And we see that over and over again. And then maybe we see that in the news. And maybe we see all these other big organizations and then we start thinking, well, I can never do that. So I'm not even going to try or one. I mean there's some really deep beliefs that we hold around money and power. And that philanthropy is something that rich people do or And I can't tell you how many times I've sat around a board table and asked people just think of people who could give to the cause. And what they pictured the shortcut that's in their mind is someone who can write a $5,000 $10,000 even million dollar check. And that is not philanthropy. That is not what I'm asking. But that's become this short cut in our brains, so that even when we start the conversation, it's completely cut off. And so the work that we have to do is start to identify our beliefs around philanthropy and fundraising and even around the nonprofit sector. The value of our time is a big one that comes up over and over again, how can we ask people to, you know, contribute towards things like base base pay and operations, which we can do, and I have done successfully. But very often, we don't even go there because we don't necessarily think it's worthy of supporting. And so all of these beliefs come up, and we have to understand and identify our personal beliefs that show up for us in fundraising before we can start to address and rewire our brains around it.
• 11:18
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• 11:51
  Becky Endicott: I am First of all, I'm learning so much and my mind I am feeling 20 years worth of flashback and fundraising as you talk about things that have inadvertently been hardwired in our head heads. And I have to say, the damn donor pyramid. That's right, I said it, john, I'm not gonna apologize. That pyramid that top 1% that crest, and that point is so crippling to our sector. And it is it is crippled our ability to look at everything else beneath it. And it's in, in in to your point, if you think that who can make a gift is only the 1% you're missing everything beneath it. And I think of the donor pyramid stop thinking of it as like a pyramid to me, I think you look at it like an iceberg. That is the only piece people see up there. If Yeah, if you look at what is beneath it, it is a massive potential group of people that could grow your mission that could add this wonderful point that you're making here, which is a commodity of time, and volunteerism. And you start to shift your mindset and your thinking that of Oh, I need to be spending all my time at the 1% Yes, you need to spend some time up there, that's going to be a high ROI. But that doesn't mean the transformational potential does not exist at the underbelly of that iceberg. So anyway, I'm loving what you're saying, Cindy, and I'm just here to say preach.
• 13:24
  Cindy Wagman: And, and very often we don't have those top, you know, the top of the pyramid type donors in smaller organizations, ever. And that's also okay. And so much of what we need to understand. And again, it's this, you know, we have these images of what fundraising is by what we see from the outside of organizations. And usually, and I really believe our sector sets us up for this as we think the big is best. And that we think that they're the generators have best practices that we have to then translate to smaller organizations. And I don't believe that I don't think that that's where best practices necessarily have to come from. But what happens is a smaller organizations, we see this, we hear these repeated over and over again, this is what successful fundraising looks like. And we just get, and we were like, well, I don't, I don't know how to get there. So we don't try. Or we really do try to have a million dollar gala, and end up netting $1,000, which is also terrible, considering all the time and money put into those things. So it's absolutely the way our narratives around the sector have been developed are predominantly from those large organizations that take up so much of our mind space. And it's not it doesn't translate. It's not necessarily the same for small organizations.
• 14:52
  Jonathan McCoy: You're completely right. And that's it. I can't miss the parallel that that's the philanthropy that gets the front page attention that's at the biggest top level, that's who's on the stage at conferences. It's these huge organizations that are hard to relate to hard to have a budget in the even realm of what you could accomplish. So okay, let's dive in. Let's give some, you know, specific examples for small shops, what are some of the best practices? What are the things that you think that move the needle the most? First?
• 15:55
  Cindy Wagman: Yeah, so the first thing is, align your strategy with where you are, right? And this is work that we do. For those listeners, who can't see, both john and Becky just put their hands on. But strategy is to move you forward. And in order to move forward, you have to understand where you are right now. what resources are available to you? Where is your community? Who are the people who care about your work? Which brings me to the second point, which is start with people who care? I'm definitely not the first person to say that fundraising is like matchmaking. Sorry, I just, I love your reactions I love. It's so great. Keep doing it yet. Don't let us know I will often and I've, I've been the person I had to write a letter to Oprah. Because my board thought that Oprah had lots of money, therefore, we need to ask her for money. And every time I tell that story, I have someone say yes, I had to do that with a local philanthropist or Ellen's generous, or Warren Buffett. And that's not fundraising, fundraising is understanding who cares about your work, and inviting them into an opportunity to invest in that work, and invest in the future that they think is important to them? And so yeah, definitely focusing on care over capacity is one of the other big things I think smaller organizations need to know. The other is curiosity. So the other thing that comes up over and over again, I know you're gonna love this one is pitching, we need an elevator pitch, we need a pitch deck. And that is the fastest way to shut down a conversation. Instead, approach donors and this is true for every single type of donor from your $5 donor to your $5 million donor from your individual to your corporate and foundation, start with curiosity, understand them, have a conversation, learn about why they going back to point to why they care. And then you are able to have more productive conversations around meaningful giving. That means something for the organization and means something to the donor.
• 18:23
  Jonathan McCoy: I have to geek out on the word curiosity, because it's more focused on discovering what matters to that person, because we're subscribed that there's enough I'm not trying to convince you to give to someone that you don't care about. I'm curious, like, why is that not what's taught? It's not just prospecting and trying to figure this out. It's like, just get to know them be curious about their story. And what moves their heart, you know,
• 18:48
  Becky Endicott: and like a pitch, how how smarmy that's our word. I guess this time. It doesn't feel good to be pitched. But it does no good to have a conversation and explore a partnership that you know, is all about value alignment. Hey, this is who we are. This is what we're about. These are the things we're going to do. Would you like to be a part of it? Does that jive with who you are as a person and as a company? That is an entirely different conversation than walking in with your slide deck flipping and saying, okay, here is our mission. Next. Here's our vision next. I mean, we have all seen this play out over and over and the glazed over look of our prospects and our donors. I think they're tired of it. I think they're ready to just have a cup of coffee, get to know Cindy, get to know her organization, whatever she's representing. This is the dawn of a new philanthropy and we are here for it. So I have to transition to this incredible book that you have raised, or that you've written and it's you can buy it now which we will be by quite yet we have a coupon Yeah, wait, wait, wait, because we have a coupon code for you. But you'll get it in October, but it's called raise it The Reluctant fundraisers guide to raising money without selling your soul. How amazing. So you really dive into how the sector is broken, how we're going to be rewriting our brains as fundraisers and all these things that we're talking about right now. So can you talk a little bit more about the book, why you wrote it and what, what people can glean from it?
• 20:25
  Cindy Wagman: Before I do that, I want to add one thing to curiosity because I think it's important, especially for smaller organizations. It's not I've just been curious about the donor, it's also being curious about the work your colleagues, making sure that you understand the programs and the clients and, and, and finding those intersections between that and your donor. So I just want to point that out because sometimes good printed, and there's a lot of criticism these days, I think rightfully so around, we're too focused on what the donor wants or needs. And it's not that we're, the magic is not in giving up your mission to fulfill what your donor needs, it's finding the points of intersection. So curiosity, also important with your staff and your programs, and LDAP, but I will talk about them. Um, so yeah, over as I was consulting, and I started the good partnership, I think six years ago, now just over and one and also in my career, but it really didn't dawn on me that all there's so much we're, we're our own worst enemies, we are getting in our way of fundraising success more than any other excuse. And as I started to learn more about being a business owner, which is what I am now, I really started to uncover people who were studying and researching the neuroscience behind how we behave and our our habits. And that's when it really clicked for me. That, that this is not just like, a question of having more information that we actually really need to address some of those root causes. And I also took a minute to reflect back on like, what I thought, I've always had a hard time articulating what made me successful. Because I have, I think, you know, from the outside perspective, I have been successful in my career, I've worked my way up the nonprofit ladder. And I actually think one of the critical pieces to that success has been this sole fact that I believed I could, that I didn't see barriers to that success that I didn't put any excuses around why I couldn't be successful. I just said, I'm going to do this, and it became inevitable. And so to me, things started to really click when I was like, Okay, well, this isn't just like me self reflecting, there's actually science behind this. And as I started learning more and more about that, that is what I want to share with our sector. Because I really think that that is holding most organizations back
• 23:18
  Unknown: to me, I also see the threat of abundance, and you haven't said that word. So I don't want to put that on you if you don't necessarily agree, no,
• 23:23
  Cindy Wagman: no, I subscribe, the abundance for sure.
• 23:26
  Unknown: I'm just like, going at it with that posture just changes. And I'm the same type person. I'm like, why not? It's just a number. Like, it's literally just if it's if we're talking about that it's getting to a certain number. That's possible, like anything is possible. If our missions and visions are bright enough, like if they deserve that, then we can find it we can find donor. So I'm just really loving this love the alignment of velvet
• 23:50
  Cindy Wagman: and abundance. I just want to talk about that. Because I do think it's really important. I mean, I see so many organizations think that there's, you know, only so many donors to go around. And so we're competing, or they think that you know, same thing, like our donors only have so much thinking gifts, so we can't ask too much. abundance is a mindset, it is a shortcut in our brains. And we're not built to have an abundance mindset. It is a practice or mindset you need to cultivate. In fact, we're very much built to be risk averse. We like status quo, we like things safe, and abundances more risky. It's unders it's almost just like believing that things will come around that, you know, for every donor who says no, there's going to be one who says yes. For everyone who doesn't really care about the work that you're doing. There are people out there who do and I think that abundance mindset is so so critical, especially again, for small nonprofits. We've been wired to think that there's the haves and the have nots, not just with donors, but with organizations, right? The big organizations, they have all the resources, they have all the things and our small organization, we just will never get there. And so we that abundance starts to close in and it becomes scarcity. And that really keeps people not just stuck. It's actually like a cycle, a spiral. Yeah, and it becomes worse and worse. And one of the things that happens if you I want to talk a little bit about the the science behind it, so One of the things our brains does is it actually looks for information. It's called confirmation bias, it looks for information to reaffirm our existing beliefs. And so what happens when we think no one wants to give to our cause people don't care about us, we're too nice or too small, what have you. And then we have a conversation, where we go in for let's say, we go into pitch someone. And again, we know that that doesn't work. But we feel like we've given it our best, and we don't move forward with a productive conversation, we don't get a gift. That information reinforces our belief that we're not good at this, which means we're less likely to try, which means we are never going to get good at this. And therefore we're not we get stuck in the cycle. And so it's really important to do this work. Because it's very easy to just get quickly sucked down into not doing anything. Okay,
• 26:33
  Jonathan McCoy: that you just want. Cindy is your coach, right? Because I just Yes, I do. I know. I mean, we consult with nonprofits too. It's a barrier and you need somebody sometimes to come alongside you. Because the default is there's not enough where this is holding us back or people don't understand. But I would love to hear you've probably walked people through some breakthroughs on this working with a lot of small shops. Has there been a story that sticks out to you that man, there was small thinking going on, or there was lack of abundance here? And they really shifted the script? I would love to hear that?
• 27:06
  Cindy Wagman: Well, I think the one that's on most people's minds very recently is just with COVID. When COVID started, every single arts based organization I knew or no, he said, we cannot ask for money. Right now, we're not a frontline, not just arts, literally anyone who wasn't like a food bank or hospital, they were saying it's not an appropriate time to ask. And they projected their own feelings and beliefs around the value of their work, and made the decision for their donors, instead of actually listening to their donors and understanding what they needed or what was important to them right now. And the organizations that we work with that did ask that continued to fundraise saw incredible results. One of my clients, a small liberal arts organization in in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada. They even before COVID, they were really uncomfortable with fundraising, they felt it was going to really change the, the nature of their service and alienate people. And when and then they started doing community based fundraising during COVID, and raised more money in like the first four months of their fiscal than they had ever before. So it really, there's so many stories, but COVID, really, I think is a universal one. For so many organizations that felt we don't want to be insensitive because again, it's this mindset that that we're coercing people out of their money. And that's not true donors actually really like giving when we do it well. And so we had, you know, shifting the way we think about giving, has not been coerced or forced into something or convinced, but actually an opportunity and being part of a community. And, you know, we saw that really show up for smaller organizations who continued to do the work,
• 29:14
  Becky Endicott: isn't fear, just the worst? And I say fear as if it was a human being, like the way that that person or that thing can come in and rewrite narratives in our head that are completely untrue. And then they skirt us from the thing that we should be laser focused on. So if I can take what you're saying back to kindergarten, and say, what what I feel like you're saying right here is if you're going to have an abundance mindset, you're it's like a muscle, you're going to have to flex it over and over and you're going to have to practice and at the most basic kindergarten form, that means you're going to have to be brave, you're going to have to do things that you're uncomfortable doing, you're going to have to do what we call try stuff on the podcast. And it's really about can we get out of our comfort zone a little bit? can we can we put the decision making power in the hands of the person? You know, I keep saying this? I actually saw this on a Facebook group thread. This week, there were people saying Do I need to have an employee giving campaign and there was a massive amount of people who told this poor woman? No, don't do it. We were already asking too much of our employees and boom, all of a sudden, we took the power out of the employees hands to come in and be a part of A miracle, we don't have to make heavy handed asks, we're literally extending someone an invitation to come alongside us and be a part of the miracles that are happening on the front line. Don't take away that power from someone, dig inside yourself, find ways to be courageous. And if you are having a hard time finding your courage, you've probably just need to pick up Cindy's book, or you need to text Cindy or dm her because she's very active on socials, or find a coach or someone that can help you cultivate this, because I think it's not only going to help you in your career, I think this is fundamental across your personal life, your mental health, I just think it has a lot of resonance and a lot of different areas.
• 31:14
  Cindy Wagman: I want to unpack what you said, because I think it's so important because, you know, this poor person who posted about the employee giving have no idea what they were in for. But also, I feel so bad for all the people who've had their brains wired that this is bad, because probably they've experienced a really toxic work environment, where they felt really pressured to give layered on to these heavy handed fundraising tactics. And so it's no wonder they feel that way. Right? It's no wonder that that's their reaction. This is how, you know, our brains work through habits. And so we we've experienced it over and over and over again, that becomes our default, that becomes our truth that we can't do this in a way that's actually empowering to our staff. And similarly, and this is actually what I wrote my thesis on almost 20 years ago, we have this belief that the communities we serve that we're embedded in, are not able to give, and so we don't ask them as well. And that is a very unempowered thing or disempowering for people. Again, it's not up to us. Now I'm not saying go in like how people for money, but it's never up to us to project our own feelings about fundraising and giving to anyone. And I in the book, I talk about this, you know, I come from a Jewish background where everyone regardless of your income, you always put aside 10% to support the community. There's a lot, most racialized communities have similar views of philanthropy, which is that this is a collective responsibility. And we all give back what we can, and somewhere along the way that's changed in philanthropy. And so we then decide that it's, we can't ask people, instead of looking at fundraising as a way to say, okay, actually, you're a community, we take care of each other, we build things together. And ultimately, we're accountable to you. Which in some ways means that it makes a lot of sense for you to have financial accountability over us.
• 33:30
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, thank you for leaning in leading that conversation way before it was popular to have that conversation. You
• 33:37
  Becky Endicott: were ahead of your time, Cindy 100%.
• 33:40
  Jonathan McCoy: But just couldn't agree more with what you've just shared there. Yeah,
• 33:44
  Cindy Wagman: I will say Kim Klein is one of the writers who I was inspired by. So again, 20 years ago, she was writing about grassroots fundraising, I definitely cannot take credit for for starting this or anything like that. You know, and I feel so honored to be part of ongoing dialogue, right. We're not going to solve this in a couple years. But I think it's a really important part of what we think about and talk about as a sector.
• 34:11
  Jonathan McCoy: You're such a good person she is I mean, what we, our banner here is always talking about impact uprising, because we believe that just like you're describing the act of giving itself, philanthropy is just as transformative for the person giving as it is maybe for that in tangible impact. And so we just believe getting people involved at every level is transformational. And I think that you just supported that in spades. And so I just really appreciate everything you brought to the conversation. kid you we love, we love story. I know it's part of your book of the power of story. Would you share, you know, a story of philanthropy that stuck with you even being in the field for 20 years even consulting hundreds having all the podcasts? What's his story that just give me the smallest thing that just stuck with you of philanthropy is power.
• 34:58
  Cindy Wagman: Okay, before I tell the story, I have to tell people why stories actually are is because again, this is actually there's some science behind it. So when we talk when we're having a conversation, the part of our brain that lights up, if you're doing a skin is the part that hears and understands language, which makes sense, right? We make sense of the sounds. And when we hear a story, of course that part lights up, but our the part of our brain that experiences things also lights up, and so to our brain, it's as if we are in that story. And we feel this one, we're watching movies that are good and compelling movies. And so it's really important as we connect with people that this is actually how we can relate. And I used to work for Documentary Film Festival, where I really saw the power of film and storytelling and changing people's minds about things they would otherwise take as fundamental truths. So I just had to mention that, honestly, I have, I have so many stories big and small. One of my favorite experiences was really early on in my fundraising career, I worked at a women's shelter. And a lot of our donors were little ladies who lived in our neighborhood or just outside the neighborhood of the shelter, and they just cared so much. And every now and then I would have a tax receipt that I'd have to deliver. And I'd look at the address. And I'd say, okay, that's kind of on my way home, I'm going to handle it right. And through that, I got to meet some incredible, generous folks who, and the reason I love the story is they didn't think that their gift quote unquote, warranted a hand delivery or that extra gesture of saying things. But when I did that, they just you can see how it lit them up, and it made them feel so great. And I think if we can all experience that you start to see that fundraising is an incredible gift. And also, I always say I get to see the most generous side of people. I can't think of any other job where that's true. So yeah, I love that.
• 37:23
  Becky Endicott: Is anyone surprised that Cindy picked a story about a small gift at a tiny nonprofit? And how it's changing the world? Because I am not
• 37:31
  Unknown: how you took a donor from becoming this rabid fan probably after that experience. Exactly.
• 37:35
  Becky Endicott: Exactly. Cindy, you're such a good human. So you know, our podcast, and you know that we end all of our conversations with a one good thing. What's your one good thing?
• 37:46
  Cindy Wagman: I feel like we we kind of I was gonna say curiosity, but we definitely covered that. But I'm gonna say it again, because I can't I really don't think I can say that enough. And one of the things that people struggle with is they hear this and they and they hear and understand, okay, like, I get that it's important, but they don't necessarily take action to practice curiosity. So that that's the one good thing if you can figure that out. I'm curious, I think you'll figure out fundraising really quickly.
• 38:21
  Unknown: Oh, my goodness, okay, we just have love this conversation. Can we transition people are gonna want to connect with you, they're gonna want to read your book I want to have I want to order it, but I can't multitask. So I'm gonna wait till after we get off this call. But could you share a little bit? Where can we find your book, and let's share that amazing promo code that we
• 38:39
  Cindy Wagman: so you can find the book at WWW dot raise it book.com it's pretty self explanatory. And you can use the code good, and it's my gift to your listeners. 10% off your order. And please do connect with me. The good partnership calm, you can find me on most social media platforms, not quite that active on tik tok. But
• 39:06
  Becky Endicott: I commend you for being in there. Yeah, no kidding.
• 39:10
  Cindy Wagman: That's my guilty pleasure when I'm tired. And
• 39:14
  Becky Endicott: Cindy, you feel like a coach as much as you are a teacher. And I really value that about your personality. So if you still if you're loving what Cindy is saying, if you want to be fed by what she was putting down, please also go and listen to the small nonprofit. It's a top rated podcast. And Cindy is an incredible host. She has incredible guests on there. We've listened and gotten so much out of it ourselves.
• 39:37
  Cindy Wagman: It's been such a pleasure for me to have this conversation. And to your listeners, you know, you mentioned Becky, that you're not alone. And I think that's one of the biggest things I hear from people over and over is that they're, especially in small organizations. You're the only one often and you're the only one fundraising or you're the only executive director and it feels very lonely and it feels like your experiences are unique to you. And if any of this content can make you feel like this is not you, this is bigger and you have control you have power to change the way things are. Then I feel like I've done my job.
• 40:19
  Unknown: Microsoft a good person. Thanks for being here. Cindy.
• 40:22
  Becky Endicott: We adore you amplifying everything you do and just cheering you to success.
• 40:27
  Julie Confer: Hey, friends, thanks so much for being here. Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links freebies and even sharable graphics, be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at weird for good comm backslash Hello. One more thing if you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and Your support helps more people find our community. Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is sunray by Remy Boris boom