Latest / Money to Give / Ep. 54 Part 1: What Donors And Nonprofits Need To Know Right Now with Erinn Andrews

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Ep. 54 Part 1: What Donors And Nonprofits Need To Know Right Now with Erinn Andrews · Money to Give

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: What happens when the world of charitable giving evolves faster
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  Speaker 1: than most people can keep up, and how can donors, nonprofits,
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  Speaker 1: and advisors navigate the shifting landscape with confidence and clarity.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money to Give with me Rick Peck, the
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  Speaker 1: philanthropy guid With over twenty years in the nonprofit sector,
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  Speaker 1: I have seen hundreds of millions of dollars transferred from
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  Speaker 1: donors to nonprofits. I have learned a lot along the
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  Speaker 1: way that I want to help convey to you by
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  Speaker 1: loyal listeners. In this podcast series, we talk about one
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  Speaker 1: how nonprofits can most effectively showcase their mission and vision
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  Speaker 1: and raise as much money as possible. Two how donors
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  Speaker 1: and potential donors can make the greatest impact possible in
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  Speaker 1: the world. And three how professional advisors, including philanthropic advisors
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  Speaker 1: can offer the most up to date information and services
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  Speaker 1: to their clients.
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  Speaker 2: So join us here each episode for more than that
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  Speaker 2: giving feeling.
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  Speaker 1: In this episode, I'm joined by Aaron Andrews, founder of
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  Speaker 1: Gifteam and President of the International Association of Advisors in Philanthropy.
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  Speaker 1: Aaron works with donors across the country, helping them refine
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  Speaker 1: their giving, discover meaningful opportunities and avoid common pitfalls in
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  Speaker 1: an increasingly complex philanthropic environment. Together, we explore the trends
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  Speaker 1: she's paying close attention to, from legislation around qualified charitable
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  Speaker 1: distributions to the rise of impact investing to the rapid
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  Speaker 1: growth of new philanthropic advisors entering the field. We also
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  Speaker 1: discuss donor overwhelm, the importance of right sizing gifts, and
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  Speaker 1: why nonprofits must strengthen their systems if they want to
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  Speaker 1: build trust with today's supporters. Erin's insights offer clarity, practicality,
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  Speaker 1: and a refreshing inside look at where the sector is heading.
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  Speaker 1: This will be the first of two episodes with Erin.
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  Speaker 2: Let's begin.
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  Speaker 3: So, Aaron, you and I have known each other a
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  Speaker 3: long time, and there's so many things that we can
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  Speaker 3: talk about, and we will. So I'm going for lunch
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  Speaker 3: with one question, and maybe what we can do is just,
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  Speaker 3: you know, volley this back and forth with each other.
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  Speaker 3: So what do you what would you say right now
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  Speaker 3: you are passively paying attention to.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, So we talk to each other from time to time.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes I get to see you at conferences.
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  Speaker 5: A lot of travel.
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  Speaker 4: This past fall, I was on the East coast a
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  Speaker 4: bunch and in Canada and all over a couple of
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  Speaker 4: things that I'm passively paying attention to and when we
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  Speaker 4: were thinking about this, When I was thinking about this
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  Speaker 4: maybe a month or two ago, it's actually changed a
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  Speaker 4: bit since then. So one thing I'm paying attention to
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  Speaker 4: that we were talking a lot about at the DAFT
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  Speaker 4: Giving Summit in September and d C was this idea
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  Speaker 4: of being able to donate QCD funds, and I'll explain
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  Speaker 4: what that is, directly into a donor advised fund. So
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  Speaker 4: when an individual retires, if they have money in their
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  Speaker 4: IRA and they don't need to take that required distribution,
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  Speaker 4: they can convert those dollars to a qualified charitable distribution
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  Speaker 4: and send that money directly to charity and not how
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  Speaker 4: that impact their taxable income, which is fantastic and can
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  Speaker 4: really help folks who are charitably inclined.
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  Speaker 5: In our field.
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  Speaker 4: As you know, that really has to go directly to
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  Speaker 4: operating charities that are working in communities.
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  Speaker 5: That money can't go into a donor advised fund. And
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  Speaker 5: so I know that there is currently a.
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  Speaker 4: Piece of legislation that's being proposed in DC that would
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  Speaker 4: allow individuals to put that QCD into a donor advised fund,
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  Speaker 4: So I was kind of paying attention to that because
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  Speaker 4: I know that's been on the DAF sponsor's wish list
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  Speaker 4: for a long time. I was just in New York
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  Speaker 4: days ago, a few days ago, and the latest I
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  Speaker 4: heard from professionals in the field who've also been paying
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  Speaker 4: attention to this, think it's pretty unlikely that that's going
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  Speaker 4: to pass. It's something I've been watching a little bit
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  Speaker 4: this fall. Again, lots of folks in the field have
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  Speaker 4: been talking about it for a while. Maybe at some
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  Speaker 4: future point, but it seems not super likely to happen
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  Speaker 4: right now. I'm not sure if you've heard anything different.
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  Speaker 3: On your Well, actually, it's very timely that you're saying that.
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  Speaker 3: I actually talked to a woman today who the majority
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  Speaker 3: of her wealth is in every time of plan. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: most all of her wealth is in either four or
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  Speaker 3: three v's or iras, and she said, I'd love to
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  Speaker 3: consider a QCD, And I said, well, that's good. You
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  Speaker 3: have to do that directly to charity. You can't put
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  Speaker 3: it into a donor advice fund right now. And she goes, oh,
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  Speaker 3: So it was kind of a non starter for as
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  Speaker 3: far as tapping into that wealth as far as putting
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  Speaker 3: it into a donor advice fund, But I mean, she
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  Speaker 3: could still be charitable, but it was a kind of
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  Speaker 3: a classic situation that you're talking about. She's seventy one,
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  Speaker 3: she's not in an RMD, you know, she's not having
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  Speaker 3: to take required minimum distributions yet, but she has the
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  Speaker 3: ability because she's seventy one to start doing qualified charitable distribution.
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  Speaker 2: So she's kind of case in point right.
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  Speaker 5: Yep, yep. So that's one thing that I'm kind of
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  Speaker 5: paying attention to.
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  Speaker 4: I'm always sort of looking and listening for what's happening
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  Speaker 4: in the DAFT world. Another one that I've been listening
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  Speaker 4: to for a while now. With my work at Gifteam,
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  Speaker 4: we're really just advising in the C three space. We're
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  Speaker 4: just advising donors giving to charitable five oh one C
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  Speaker 4: three organizations based in the US for the most part.
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  Speaker 4: But there's just been so much chatter around impact investing
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  Speaker 4: and really vcs and other family offices trying to look
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  Speaker 4: at DAFT dollars and how they can leverage those for
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  Speaker 4: more impact investing opportunities.
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  Speaker 5: Most of the donors.
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  Speaker 4: I'm working with are earlier in their journey and so
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  Speaker 4: they don't even know what impact investing is or what
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  Speaker 4: that world of possibility could be. But I have been
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  Speaker 4: seeing a lot more conversations and dialogue around that topic.
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  Speaker 5: What about you.
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  Speaker 4: Have you been swimming in those waters too and seeing
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  Speaker 4: a lot of that or I.
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  Speaker 3: Have, But I mean, actually, before we go into what
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  Speaker 3: I'm seeing, maybe just break that down into a little
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  Speaker 3: bit more detail for people who don't know, like as
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  Speaker 3: far as vcs, family offices, DAFT dollars, impact investing. I
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  Speaker 3: think a lot of people don't necessarily know how this
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  Speaker 3: all works, like you said, five oh one C three money,
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  Speaker 3: and so I think these are nuances that are beyond
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  Speaker 3: some people.
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  Speaker 2: And also impact investing.
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  Speaker 3: Can feel a little nebulous, So maybe break it down
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  Speaker 3: on maybe an example, a specific example of what you've
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  Speaker 3: seen when you're when you're talking about this.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, okay, so maybe first the very basic description the
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  Speaker 4: idea with impact investing is you take money and you
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  Speaker 4: invest it in a for profit organization before it's gone public,
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  Speaker 4: so it hasn't reached the not there's not an option
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  Speaker 4: for everybody to.
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  Speaker 5: Get in the game, so to speak. So it's pre IPO.
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  Speaker 4: Which means they're still testing their business model and whether
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  Speaker 4: that can work. But the idea is with impact investing
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  Speaker 4: to look for for profit entities that have a social
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  Speaker 4: mission or a social purpose. Something that they're doing is
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  Speaker 4: benefiting people, animals, the environment in some way. So it's
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  Speaker 4: not just like selling a product to make a bunch
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  Speaker 4: of money. So if you can put your investment dollars
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  Speaker 4: early on into those types of for profit entities and
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  Speaker 4: they end up succeeding, they will have an impact, a
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  Speaker 4: positive impact on the world, and your dollars at that
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  Speaker 4: critical moment of investment opportunity would have enabled them to
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  Speaker 4: get there. Once they're traded on the public market, then
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  Speaker 4: your dollars are not better than anybody else, as anybody
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  Speaker 4: can get in on that deal. But an impact investing
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  Speaker 4: opportunity means you to put the money in to something
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  Speaker 4: that's going to have a positive social ROI, and you
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  Speaker 4: do it before it's gone public. So it's a unique
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  Speaker 4: opportunity to have disproportionate social benefit impact with for profit dollars.
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  Speaker 5: However, there's a lot of.
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  Speaker 4: Risk, so you put the money in and the company
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  Speaker 4: might not be successful. They might never IPO, in which
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  Speaker 4: case you might lose that investment. So you're taking on
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  Speaker 4: a certain amount of risk by putting your capital there
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  Speaker 4: in that place. You can do this type of impact
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  Speaker 4: investing through many donor advised funds. So think about the
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  Speaker 4: money you have sitting in your DAFF which as a
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  Speaker 4: grant really is just going out to five oh one
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  Speaker 4: c three organizations, but it's.
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  Speaker 5: Invested in a certain way.
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  Speaker 4: In the meantime while you're making those decisions, well, you
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  Speaker 4: can choose to invest those assets in impact investing opportunities
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  Speaker 4: with the understanding the money might not come back and
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  Speaker 4: that's a risk you're willing to take because it's charitable.
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  Speaker 4: This is a way to play with charitable dollars. So
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  Speaker 4: the example I have is a student I've been mentoring
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  Speaker 4: for a long time, had a summer internship with a
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  Speaker 4: really big name uh offspring of a very famous tech
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  Speaker 4: entrepreneur in the Bay Area. And this person's launching this
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  Speaker 4: new company to fund early medical startup types of ideas,
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  Speaker 4: And how can we provide funding to scientists to medical
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  Speaker 4: professionals to play around with new ideas, some of which
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  Speaker 4: are going to fail, but some of which could be big,
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  Speaker 4: and then we need to bring those to market to
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  Speaker 4: make those medical solutions accessible to more people, maybe at
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  Speaker 4: a lower cost and and and you know, easier to
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  Speaker 4: to help heal people, whatever that purpose is.
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  Speaker 5: So how can they get in on the DAFT.
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  Speaker 4: Dollars to use it as risk early risk capital to
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  Speaker 4: fund some of those innovative idea of the scientists just
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  Speaker 4: working on this thing on the side. And again that
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  Speaker 4: money might come back to that DAPT in ten years
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  Speaker 4: if it's been successful, or it may never return. So
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  Speaker 4: that's just one example, but just hearing like in the
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  Speaker 4: family office space this is playing out as well, where
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  Speaker 4: you know, those individuals have quite a bit of capital
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  Speaker 4: that they can play around with and pull from different buckets.
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  Speaker 5: So that's that's sort of what I mean.
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  Speaker 4: And also again just curious about how if you're privy
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  Speaker 4: to any of those conversations or examples in your line
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  Speaker 4: of work as well.
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  Speaker 3: No, thanks you, thanks for laying all that out, because
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  Speaker 3: I think that people are surprised sometimes that that DAFT
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  Speaker 3: dollars can go towards such things. I mean, I know
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  Speaker 3: that when I first discovered it, I was like, is
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  Speaker 3: that really true? Can that really happen? But what I've
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  Speaker 3: seen is recently a woman came to me and she
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  Speaker 3: said we have a for profit entity that freeze dries
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: food so it preserves long longer for people who are
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: you know, working in say places like a foodshelf or
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: something like that. So she said, because food goes bad, right,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: So she said, well, if we can keep it preserved longer,
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  Speaker 3: then that helps feed more people. Right to state the obvious,
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  Speaker 3: But she said, we have a we have a special system,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and we need investments and we're looking for something. So
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: what's out there? And I introduced her to a donor
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  Speaker 3: advice fund and that opportunity. She goes, oh, that's great
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  Speaker 3: to know. So and then there were some firms that
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: she I wanted her to know, so I kind of
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: sent her on her way. So, yes, I see that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Excuse me, I see that happening much more often. There's
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  Speaker 3: going to be a lot of great ideas that are
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  Speaker 3: helping this do a positive social impact that the nonprofits
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  Speaker 3: aren't necessarily going to come up with. I mean, I
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: feel like there's lots of I mean, there's countless ways
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  Speaker 3: that these innovators can come forward and help it. They're
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: all whether you're a nonprofit or for profit, you're trying
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  Speaker 3: to source capital, you're trying to get your ideas off
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  Speaker 3: the ground, get the proper amount of money to scale,
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  Speaker 3: and so it's really I think it's fascinating to see
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  Speaker 3: what comes forth and how in many ways the nonprofits
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  Speaker 3: and the for profits aren't aren't that different, at least
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  Speaker 3: on the idea of like taking their ideas and maximizing
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: the impact that they're trying to make across the world
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  Speaker 3: or at least in their own hometown. So yeah, so
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  Speaker 3: it's that's that's an interesting thing will be It'll be
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: interesting to see where this goes from here.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there are two other things I wanted to share
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  Speaker 4: that I'm paying attention to as well. I don't know
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  Speaker 4: if you saw the news earlier this week rick about
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Arabella closing. That was pretty that was pretty big news.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: So I think it was maybe in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: There was an article and basically they are.
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  Speaker 6: Don't perfectly quote me everyone, I know we're recording, but
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: look up the article to get the details. But they
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  Speaker 6: are shutting down Arabella as an entity, and part of
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  Speaker 6: it is going to be reabsorbed into a new entity
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  Speaker 6: that already exists.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's a might be a C four that's
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  Speaker 4: already out there. But they're restructuring. I think a lot
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  Speaker 4: of what I mean, I'm not saying this with any
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: insider knowledge, per se.
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  Speaker 5: I don't.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not, you know, bringing information in from an insider
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  Speaker 4: at Arabella who shared this with me. But I think
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  Speaker 4: there have just been so many changes this year in
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: our space and our sector. There are changes every year
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: and every years like, oh my gosh, this is the
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: year unlike any other, and yet here it is again.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: And the Gates Foundation pulled out of a lot of
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: their work, which was a major significant portion. In general,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: I've been seeing some of those larger consultancy groups shifting
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: and changing strategic leadership, strategic priorities, and so I was
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: very surprised to see that Arabella is shutting down in
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: the entity that it was, and we will see it
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: goes from here. But this also feeds into the general
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: trend that I'm seeing and I know you're seeing, and
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: we're seeing an advisors in philanthropy just this massive boom
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: and new philanthropic advisors entering the space, career shifters moving
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: from directors of development or other professions into the philanthropic
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: single shingle just sort of sole proprietor LLC kind of model,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: which I mean it feels like a hockey stick moment
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: for that field, and lots of reasons why we could
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: have a whole podcast on that you probably already have
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: with other speakers.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: But those are just other things that have been top
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: of mine this year for me.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting you say that about the hockey stick.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, the thing I've said, just based on the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: statistics and based on the numbers is last year five
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: hundred and ninety two billion dollars was donated it. It
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: does sort of lend itself to there's going to be
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: a demand for people coming in and helping either nonprofits
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: or donors or professional advisors get the help they need,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and there's enough breadcrumbs to go around, I think, you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: but I think it also goes down to lots of things.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: What kind of training do these people have. I mean,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: obviously they've had a career in it, but being like
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: you say, a single shingle or whatever it is that
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: they're doing, Like, do they have the proper training to
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: be a business to run something like that? And how
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: are they sourcing their clients, how are they collaborating with
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: other people? I mean, again not knowing what happened with Arabella,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: that would be an interesting breakdown to say, what is
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: it that they were being opportunistic and looking at other
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: options or was their business model failing them somehow?
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Who knows? Right?
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, you just will have to go and read
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: the article to learn about it. But I think it
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: is a moment in time where you stop and say,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: this is a very well respected firm that lots of
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: people are talking about, and it either makes us all
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: kind of shiver in our boots a little bit and
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: say what happened here? Or again it could be just
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: a matter of adjusting to the environment, right yep. So
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: super interesting, Yeah, super interesting. But it kind of reminds
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: me of of training. We were talking about how you
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: and I obviously have the common interest in the International
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Association of Advisors in Philanthropy, where you are the current president,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I'm past president, and how we are trying to train
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: these advisors to be the best that they can be.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: And then there are other groups out there like Daylight
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Advisors and twenty one sixty four and CFRE and the
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: American College, and it just feels like, relatively speaking, there's
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: there's so much opportunity for people who are coming into
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: the field to not only learn how to be a
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: good philanthropic advisor, but now you're making you feel like
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: probably there's room for how to run a business doing
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: it as well, and making sure that we're not forgetting that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: It's not only the knowledge that you have, but it's
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: also having something that can sustain, right.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with single shingle.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: And I've had an LLC consultancy before I was doing
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's a wonderful model, but you don't have
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: efficiencies in the same way as you do with a
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: multi person or a larger entity. We need both, you know,
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: like we need options for everybody, but they are pros
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: and cons.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: No, for sure. Let's switch to you a little bit.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about donors.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: So just generally speaking, just tell me what you're thinking
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: about in all the experience that you've had, or maybe
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: with the recent moments you're having with donors. Just say
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: a little bit about what you're seeing.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So I started Give Team three and a half
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: years ago or.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: So, and we have worked with hundreds of donors and
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: it's been all across the US, and it's been just
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: really interesting to take a step back and think about
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: what has worked, what I've experimented, you know, in ethical
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: way with donors to understand like are you interested in this?
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: Are you interested in this? You know, So a couple.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: Of observations just as I take a step back and
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: sort of a peak behind the curtain. One thing I
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: started out early on coming from Stanford really wanting to
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: test with donors was the concept of collaborative funds. So
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: the idea is, you know, there, as an individual donor
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: in any particular environment, geography, market, do we really have
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: a front row seat as to what's happening around food,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: insecurity or climate or education, workforce development?
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: No?
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: I mean unless my profession happens to be in that field,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: what do I know? Right, just as an individual? And
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: so the idea of what if we could pool resources
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: with other people who care about some particular topic. It
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: could be a topic like workforce development, It could be
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: a population like women, it could be you know, any
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: number of things. And then had people who work in
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: those fields or who are on the ground in those
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: communities say, this is what the urgent need is and
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: these are the preferred solutions right at this moment. Fund
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: this fund and we will distribute those resources to the
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: organizations and leaders who are making an impact in the
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: way we need today. It's a brilliant model. It makes
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: a ton of sense. Many community foundations have funds that
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: donors contribute to in this way.
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: So there has just been.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: An explosion of collaborative funds in the US. Great people
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: leading this movement, a lot of wonderful options for donors.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: So in all of my engagements, and I still do
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: this today, but I've just I usually know where the
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: answer is going to go. I present, I say, are
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: you open to do you want to fund individual organizations
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: or would you are you open to funding a collaborative
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: or an intermediary that might redistribute funds based on some priority.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: And I don't have the exact percentage, but it's got
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: to be ninety nine point nine percent of the time
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: donors want to fund the individual organizations.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: And I've had a really.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Hard time getting people to be interested in or willing
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: to fund collaborative funds with a few notable exceptions. And
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: so here's where the learning potentially is for anybody listening in.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: For the most part, and by the way, the donors
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: that we're working with are earlier in their journey. Doesn't
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: mean they're young.
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: They've been in their twenties to their nineties.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: But they have mostly been giving reactively to usual suspects
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: like their kids' school, they're alma mater, a religious group,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: a big food bank, you know, like just kind of
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: the usual suspects.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: In their world.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: So once they then start moving toward intentional giving, where
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: they're like, oh, I really want to focus on homelessness
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: or food insecurity, you know, then they start being more proactive.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: That's where I start to see it change.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: But I get them right at the beginning of that journey,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: and for those folks, they really need to be connected
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: to one entity in order to see and feel in
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: touch in the same way that they know their kids
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: school and they know the college they went to.
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: That that is a level of like.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Trust that needs to be built into this journey. So
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: that makes a collaborative fund a lot harder because you're like.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: Who are they? Where are they? I can't, I don't know.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: It's not tangible right right, right. So the exceptions are
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: I have found climate.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: And reproductive health for the most part, if there's a
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: donor that's working that lives in a particular geography, and
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: most of our donors want to fund place based.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: Climate is something that it's not like.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: The air I bring, you know what I mean, like
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: it like the oceans impact us, the atmosphere, the like
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: weather patterns, like there's so many things that go beyond
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: just one micro climate.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: So if you really want.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: To fund climate and you have fewer dollars you know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: to put toward climate, because a lot of donors feel
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: like they have.
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: To show up with a million dollars otherwise there's nothing
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: they can do.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: And most of the donors we're working with aren't giving
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: a million bucks to one group. So if you can
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: pool your resources with others, there's a chance to make
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: a difference, especially for a cause area that is bigger
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: than just your backyard, that really is going to impact
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: the planet and the future of your children and your
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: grandchildren and our species and all the other things. So
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: climate has been one where that sometimes lands for donors,
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: and then the other one is reproductive women's rights, women's health,
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: where you know, each state is takes sort of slightly
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: different perspective on this, depending on who's governing at any
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: given moment, and so some women in red or blue
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: states want to direct their dollars usually where there's the most.
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: Need, and in many in many cases it's.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Not where they live, but or maybe it is where
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: they live and they're funding their local thing, but they
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: also want to fund, you know, the other states where
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: access is more limited. So for reproductive health, we've been
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: very successful in presenting collaboratives as a great way to
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: share those resources across the country where the need is
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: most urgent. So those are just that's just one little
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: takeaway that I've found pretty useful. And I continue to
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: ask about collaborative funds to try to spread the word
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: and educate donors. But you know, maybe as we grow
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: with them, as they move along in their journey, they'll
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: get further along.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: That's really insightful. I've never I've never heard anyone speak
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: about this the way you just did. Around what's working
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: and what's not working with collaborative funds, I think it'll
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: be interesting, it would almost be interesting to go back
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: to them, and for all the reasons that I think
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: you intuitively sort of mentioned, which is, climate change is worldwide, right,
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: so it's big, and so it's not necessarily your own hometown.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: And reproductive health is also something you could argue is worldwide, right,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: but then there are also things you could say mental
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: health is worldwide too, and some of these others, I mean,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: poverty of food scar city, those are worldwide. But it
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: doesn't seem to have the same kind of energy said
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: it's almost like these people want to choose the individual
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: institution to fund, which you're reminding me of Tony mentioned
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: community foundations. It makes me think back to sort of
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: the thought process that a field officer, especially a program officer,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: would follow at the end of the year, especially in December.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: They would say, we start with the unrestricted endowments. So
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: whatever is kicking out money for whatever the purpose is
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: the highest priorities of the day, then we.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Can take that money.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Then we can go to what is the equivalent of
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: the collaborative funds field of interest funds, the idea that
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: we can take money from field of interest fund and
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: distribute that over you know, that year, because who knows
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: what the nonprofit is that might have come just emerged
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: and we can fund that, and maybe other nonprofits went
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: out of business, so but we're still giving on that theme.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: And so that's money, that money is available, and then
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: there's donor advice for money with especially people who who
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: have designated broad charitable purposes as their purpose statement on
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: their donor advice, when they could say, well, we can
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: put our money anywhere, so we could take that money
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: as well. So when they were looking for money for
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: certain causes, they would say, we want the unrestricted money
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: from both the donor advicemen and the unrestricted endowment. But
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: we also if there's a theme from a field of
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: interest fund that we can grab, we'll grab that too.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: But I have to say the biggest field of interest
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: fund I remember at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation was
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: funded by one entity. It was around forty million dollars
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and it was for substance misuse and ironically from somebody
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: who didn't have any of that in their family. He
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: was just concerned about it and it was pretty visionary
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: because he did it back. But I think it was
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: around twenty five years ago now, so before the the
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Heroin and you know kind of Ventanyl and all that,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: kind of long before that, he was still concerned that
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: this would be something that would be you know, playgueainst society.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so they learned a lot from distributing money
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: from that field of interest fund for substance misuse. But
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: by no means are we done, And by no means
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: was that something I would say was so many people
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: giving to it, it was just funded by one person.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: So so you know, I'm sure that's going to happen too.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Over time, these collaborative funds might be heavily funded by
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: one person who says, uh, do with you, do what
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: you will with this money, put it toward where you
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: need to. Ideally it would be lots and lots of
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: people contributing to them. But you know that might be
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: a trend to watch in the future as well.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: Something else that we like, I mentioned we were working
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: with donors from their twenties to their nineties, which is
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: very cool, but lots and lots of like really truly
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: like my ninety something year.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: Old, he's just a gem. But so many of the
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: folks we work with are retired.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: They're like retiring early or they're moving into retirement, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: now they're shifting some of their priorities to giving back.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: They've kind of been saving and working and now they're
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: like playing with the grandkids and traveling. But they also
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: feel like they have a little bit more brain space
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: and bandwidth to do more giving back and they want
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: to One thing I'm finding with that audience and this
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: is what donors in general, Many more donors are wanting
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: to give in more than one local location. So that's
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: super interesting, especially if we're any community foundation professionals who
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: are listening into this conversation.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Where community foundations are fantastic.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I love them, and they have a wonderful advantage into
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: their local community and they can advise donors on that.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: But paying attention to oftentimes those retired donors where they
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: may have grown up in one place but be retired
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: in another place, or they are retired tired in there
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: where they've been for so long, but their three kids
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: are now in three different geographies, or their grandkids, or
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: they have multiple homes. We work with a number of
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: different donors that have a primary home and multiple a
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: secondary or a third home in other locations and they
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: want to have a charitable giving footprint in those other geographies.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: So that's just something else that I've been seeing. I
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: don't know if you've got any thoughts or reflections on that.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I think that's fascinating.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: It makes a lot of sense, right, because you develop
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: a sentimentality for that certain local area. If your grandkids
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: are growing up in that area, you want to be
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: as healthy as possible. You have sentimentality where you grew up,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: and so it makes a lot of sense. What I'm
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: seeing as a trend, I would say, is and I'm
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: thinking of some work I was doing up in Hanover,
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: New Hampshire, where that's where Dartmouth College is, and these
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: people are very true true blue or I would say
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: maybe true.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Green bleeding green for Dartmouth, and.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: They just say, I don't really care what nonprofit it is,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: as long as it's in the Upper Valley, which is
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: sort of what Handover's part of is what they call
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: the Upper Valley. And I just thought that was really
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: fascinating because they said, this is our community, this is
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: what we care about. I haven't seen what you're talking
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: about with helping their kids and their own communities, but
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: I'm not ruling that out either, because I think these
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: people are starting with this is what I'm looking at
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: in my own hometown. But that's true for older couples.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: It was true for younger couples. They just have this
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Their roots are very deep in the area, they really
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: care about the viability of that area. But I do
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: like the idea of retirees and such caring about the
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: viability of multiple areas where their family is affected or
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: growing or thriving, and they just want to make sure
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: that I guess the ecosystem of nonprofits around them are
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: also thriving, right.
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: Yep, yep.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: So that's been another one, another one, and we started.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: We've done this since day one. But I just if
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I take a step back and reflect on what's very
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: valuable in terms of the advice we give donors that
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: we're working with. They are really hungry for help figuring
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: out how to write size the gifts to new organizations,
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: most donors and a great place. We always ask this
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: in the very beginning, what's your usual gift size? You know,
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: like when you write a check or you fund an organization,
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: what does that check size normally? And if they say
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: five hundred or one thousand, I know what I'm working with.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: If they say five to ten K, I know what
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: I'm working with. If they say fifty k. And we
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: work with donors across all those spectrums, like your usual
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: gift is fifty k. Fantastic you know, but of course
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: most of them, it's a much smaller number per individual organization.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: And so it's really helpful to get where are you today?
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: And how can I help you get a bit bigger
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: and get a bit bigger? How can we bring more
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: entities organizations into your portfolio? How can you increase those
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: gift sizes, because most of these folks are increasing their
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: charitable giving budgets, and I don't want them to give
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: five hundred bucks to twenty organizations. I would muge rather
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: they write a number of ten K checks, you know,
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: how fulfilling, you know, like that's your showing up as
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: an important donor for that organization. And so it also
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: comes with making sure we're recommending organizations that are not
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: massive relative to the size of the potential gift that
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: could be coming through. So that's something that I've just
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: noted is very appreciated as advice. And we always give
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: it as a range because we are not so presumptuous
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: as to say, like you have to give them fifty K,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Like I don't know, You're going to have to decide
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: what the right budget is for you, but we'll give
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: them a range of what we think is reasonable. Also,
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: taking into consideration if they want to, if they're planning
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: a longer term, a state plan, a state gift they pass,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: and maybe the gift today would be five figures, but
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: when they pass it would be six. We're going to
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: look for organizations that can absorb a much bigger gift
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: later on, but where that five five figure gift would be.
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: Very meaningful today.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: So for the advisors out there making sure that you're
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: building that into your advice back to donors as well,
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: it's been really well received.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: So that's interesting. I have two questions sort of for
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: you on that. One is, have you ever seen it
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: go the other way where they are increasing the amount
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: of giving they're doing, but they're decreasing the number of
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: nonprofits that they're giving to. And the reason I ask
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: is because a trend I've seen at least a little
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: bit was a couple who said to me, we will
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: prioritize a capital campaign that's happening currently over anything else,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: which means we will divert or direct at least for
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: a temporary period of time to that local organization that
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: we think can make that big difference, because this is
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: the time they're calling for that money. So you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: up to and including in the extreme, you could see
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: it almost be like we're going to make one huge
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: gift a year to one nonprofit and make a great
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: deal of impact based on the fact that they're asking
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: for specific dollars for specific reasons at a critical period
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: of time.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: So have you ever seen anything like that?
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: Well, not quite that extreme.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: I actually find a lot of the donors we work
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: with don't want to just one and done it and
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: like give a big, big, like a one time gift
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: and just like now we're done with all of our
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: charitable gifting. Not saying that that was exactly that situation,
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: but definitely do see a calling of organizations off the
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: portfolio list. But it's very strategic and it's not done
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: in a not thoughtful way. So they may have been
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: supporting an organization at a small amount for a long
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: time and then go through a process with us where
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: they're like, I just this is what I want to
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: focus on these three topics, and these two organizations just
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: don't fit that anymore.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: And so you know, we help them also say like,
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: you know, give them one last gift.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Let them know that this is your last gift, so
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: they're not you know, counting on that. It's really important
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: to communicate with the organizations you're supporting, but it's a
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: very natural process to realign you what you're trying to fund.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: I've got a donor right.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Now that has given away maybe seventy five percent of
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: what she was planning on giving away this year, but
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: she's saving that room and she's adding She added new
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: organizations to the list this year, maybe like four or
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: five new organizations, but she's saving that last twenty five
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: percent because she doesn't want to give more to those
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: entities right now, because she knows a few are having
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: a capital campaign next year, so she's just going to
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: roll over that twenty five percent budget from this year
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: to next year so she can keep supporting the existing organizations,
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: but has this buffer to do a much bigger gift
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: to a couple of them next year.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that totally makes sense.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: I've seen also the other side of that, which is
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: a couple I remember talking to you and they say,
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: we we've been so hyper involved with so many organizations.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: There's there's rarely a board that we haven't been on
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: on any nonprofit in our area, and they want to give.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: It's sort of what you were saying before, which isn't ideal,
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: but they want it. They're okay with giving five hundred
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: dollars or a thousand dollars to all these different organizations,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: and they didn't seem to want to move.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Off of that.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: They kind of feel like, we feel loyalty to all
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: of them. We know our gift isn't necessarily moving the needle,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: but we also kind of feel like, you know, the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, another kind of counting on us.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: You know, we if we pulled our support, they'd say,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: what happened? You know, You've been so loyal to us
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: for twenty five years. So I think there's that push
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: pull that a lot of donors go through, which is
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: what's a meaningful gift versus what's a loyalty gift that
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I'm giving because I just feel loyal to them, And
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: and then maybe it leads to at some point the
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: idea of making a bequest or something much larger later
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: to say, I still love you and loyal to you,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: but if some future point, I'd like to make a
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: much more significant gift. And I think what you and
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I also talking about with maybe the exception of a
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: capital campaign, is a lot of the times, these are
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: unrestricted gifts, saying we're giving you this to put toward
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: your highest priorities. As an institution, we don't really have
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: a specific idea except for that capital campaign, where there
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: is a specific objective to fund or a specific program
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: or or building or something that they're funding. So that's different.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: They can earmarket towards that. But most of the time,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: I think what you and I are seeing is, hey,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: we trust this organization. We're going to give you this
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: unrestricted gift, and you can do it, do with it
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: as you will, right.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Yep, yep, super interesting. I know we are kind of
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: close on time here. There are two last things I'd
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: love to share as we round the bend, because again,
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: like we could go on for hours, of course, no.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Man, Well can I say this, Aaron?
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: I want us to do a part too, so if
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: you have any final thoughts on donors, we can finish
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: it up and then I'd like to come back and
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: talk do a part two with you.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: Well, okay, so how about I do one more note
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: on donors, And I do want to end on one
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: note for the nonprofits, just because I think the donors
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: and nonprofits kind of go hand in hand and that
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: sort of makes sense together. So I guess one other
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: observation about donors, and it's a bit of a worry
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: of mine. As so many new philanthropic advisors move into
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: this field, donors feel overwhelmed so quickly. It is so
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: easy for them to feel overwhelmed like they don't have
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: enough time that they're going to you.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: The more you.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Say, sometimes the more they pull back because they're like,
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: oh gosh, I'm not thoughtful enough. I'm going to screw
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: something up. I need to do this well. So my
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: overarching piece of advice is to make any engagement you
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: have with a donor as simple as possible.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: Try not meant to.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: Make it not significant or important, but really boil it down.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: I'm getting a notice that internet is unstable.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Are you with me, Rick, No, I'm with you.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: Okay, these things happen, so anyway, one of the things
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: that we do is we try to boil down a
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: lot of the steps and just make things very simple.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: But even after we've given our recommendations about organizations for
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: donors to consider funding, we provide them with here are
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: like three things you can do. Now what what what
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: do I need to do to move forward, and then
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: we're following up with them, Hey, how did that first
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: one go?
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: Are you stuck?
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: And just having that little birdie in their ears sometimes
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: can help them hold them accountable because otherwise, left to
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: their own devices, we all know that there's something that's
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: going to fill that void, that space. We're gonna go
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: make dinner, we're going to go, you know, meet up
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: with friends, like there's something happening, and so to keep
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: things moving along, don't forget get like really easy frameworks
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: and reminders and touch points to keep them moving along.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a good reminder that you and
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I are living and breathing this all the time, and
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: sometimes we're thinking of this at another level, and they're
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: just kind of sometimes taking their training wheels off and
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: they want to They have a lot of other things
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: going on, as you say, and they want to know
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: that they're making an impact, they're doing something important, and
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: maybe you're making it as easy as possible.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Maybe at some future point they want.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: To make it more sophisticated and deeper, but that's the
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: journey that we're all on.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: That's true for any of us.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: You start simple, you do things that are making impact,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: and you feel like, Okay, that was good enough, and
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: then in a year from now or two years from now,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: you might say I have a little bit more time, or.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: I've learned something about myself or this experience, and now
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: I want to tweak it in this way. Just like
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: setting expectations though that that's part of the process and
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: that is to be expected. It's not like a, oh,
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: that advisor didn't warn me that I should be thinking
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: about this last year. Well, you like, really, let's just
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: start with A, B and C and then next year
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: we can layer on D and E and F. But like,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: you want to start somewhere because you have to just
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: get some experience to know what's going to work for you.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: Otherwise we just sit around saying this is ideal and
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: you really have no idea.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: No, that's right, and it's you're trying to avoid that
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: perfectionistic mindset, which is there's never it's never perfect. You're
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: never going to be perfect at this. So if it's
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: good enough for now, and like you said, you can
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: keep learning and evolving over time, that's the best that
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: we can hope for. But to think that I didn't
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: do it well enough, or I could have done it
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: better it's like it kind of takes the joy out
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: of it at a certain level and almost becomes a chore.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: And who wants to go and do this if it
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: feels like it's work instead of feeling like that was
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: fun and meaningful. And I get pleasure and satisfaction from
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: this rather than I did it wrong. Every time I
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: do it, I do it wrong. I don't understand the jargon.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: I don't understand this. I feel like I'm over my head.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: I'm even seeing people who are sophisticated donors continue to
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm not doing enough. I don't know enough.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: And it's like you're pretty advanced as donors go on,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: you still feel overwhelmed. Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: I meet those people all the time too. I'm like, oh,
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: you're in great shape, and they're like they just feel
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: so overwhelmed. Still. Yeah, it's incredible.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: Okay, my last last word that I'll leave you with
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: On the nonprofit side, because I suspect you have development
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: directors or other nonprofit professionals who listen into your podcasts,
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: we really encourage donors, if it makes sense, to reach
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: out directly to organizations if they feel like they need
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: more information before making a gift, and so we'll share
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: with them information about who the right person is to
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: contact at that organization from publicly available information. I cannot
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: tell you how many times we hear back from donors
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: that they reached out to three of the four organizations
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: and didn't.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: Hear back from any of them.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: And it is just absolutely mind blowing.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: And I love all the nonprofit organizations that we're recommending,
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: but it's it's like, here's a layup. We're bringing you
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: up like an A plus potential you know, donor to
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: support your work, and there I don't know if it's
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: going to their spam filter or if they're just super busy,
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: which I absolutely understand as well.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: But it's super.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Important to make sure you have a real email address
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: on your website that somebody, a human is checking regularly
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: and looking out for those types of inbound requests for connection,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: because we will then often broker that introduction and I
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: have to do a lot of expectation setting with the
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: donors and say it's not you, it's not the organization,
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: don't worry, We'll find the right person.
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: Don't hold it against them.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: But I prefer not to have to do that, you know,
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: fixing behind the scenes obviously in the first place.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you're trying to tee up the ball.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: And I've actually had that happen a few times, or
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: at least once, where I said to one institution, Hey,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: this gentleman just wants to take a tour of your facility.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: He's considered a gift. I'm not going to hold him
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: to the amount, but he's considering it. I didn't get
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: a call back, and then I said, I called him
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: back again. I said, right, first of all, I'm working
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: too hard to get this connection here.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: And then they.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Said, well, you want to talk to so and so,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: let me pass the message on to this person. I
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: was like, give me a break. So, I mean they should.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: They should be doing everything they can to make it easy.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm asked. He's just asking for a tour.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: He's not asking for anything other than just to walk
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: around and to learn a little bit more about what's
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: happening because he's concerned. And that was that was by
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: my prompting. So he looks even worse. I say, I'm
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: talking to him, say you should learn more about the organization.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Why don't you give him a call? And then I
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: said you know what, I'll do it for you. I'll
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: reach out and I'll see And so I don't have
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: any I mean, what's the message.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: We don't care about your gift, we don't want you
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: to be engaged. I mean, so I agree with you.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: I think that I have to believe in my heart
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: of hearts that they do want to connect with that
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: potential donor. But if your mechanisms and your systems are
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: lousy or your feedback loop is terrible, I also feel
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: like when you talk about info AT can be a
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: lot worse than you know aaron At, because then if
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: I'm calling, I'm reaching out to you. I know that
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: at least you're accountable, and worst case scenario of an
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: auto reply or.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: You refer me to somebody else exactly.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Yeahah, I'm more likely to want to reach out to
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: a person, and the info AT already makes me feel
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: like I'm going into the void. Now, I'll tell you
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: a terrible, extreme situation of what you just described. I
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: heard of an organization that had a situation where from
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: if you can believe this, from April through November, all
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: of the people who are trying to reach out to
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: this organization through this inbox got stuck in this inbox
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: and no one was checking the inbox.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: It ended up being over eight hundred emails.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: And so what happened was by the end of the year,
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: the organization's like, you know, what's I had a quiet
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: around here. We're not getting a lot of donations and
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: we usually get a rush, and so on and so forth.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: The only way everyone found out about this happening was
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: because a friend of somebody who worked there reached out
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: to that person said, you know, I've reached out to
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: your organization twice. No one's gotten back to me. Can
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: you check into that. So then of course the employee
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: the friend checked into it and said, oh my gosh.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: We've got a real problem here.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: So it was I would argue that it was millions
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: and millions of dollars of lost opportunity because of that.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Now they've corrected it since in my understanding, But still
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: back to who's watching the store, right, I mean, it's like,
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: imagine you have a store and your customers are walking
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: into the store, or they can't even get in your store.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Your store is locked, right, Yeah, you can't get in,
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: So it's like, this is not acceptable. I think that
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: to me Aaron placed the idea of a nonprofit almost
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: like eating their own cooking, so to speak, Like imagine
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: yourself as a donor and you and you pose as
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: a donor sort of like with cybersecurity, or they create
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: opportunities to you know, is bait to see what happens
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: these scenarios where you know, how does the how does
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: the population react when I throw them this what is
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: you know, a spam type of situation or a phishing
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: expedition or so to speak, how does the institution react
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: to it? You could do the same thing for this
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: type of thing around if somebody reaches out to learn
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: more or they want to make a donation and and
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: say it's you. You're the one who's doing it to
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: your own organization. How are you being treated?
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: How?
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: How what was your experience?
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: And that is very enlightening because it's like, yeah, well,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: if that happened to you, I bet it's happening to
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: other people. That's been always my philosophy around this type
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: of thing around customer service.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: I'm probably not.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: The only one this is happening too, So anyway, it's
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: it's a wake up call. I think what you're saying
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: and what I'm saying is don't.
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: Check your systems, don't shoot yourself in the foot. Were
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: good work, but don't let an administrative blip or issue
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: get in the way of that. Right this, Yeah, this
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: needs to run smoothly in order for the connections to
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: be made.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: So yeah, look at your process.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Because not only are the donors or potential donors feelings
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: hurt and feeling like, okay, so you don't I guess
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: you don't care about my gift, you also, as the
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: broker of it, are feeling like do I want to
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: reach out to this nonprofit anymore? They're not getting back
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: to me. Why am I going to try this hard?
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: I'm going to find a different nonprofit that has better
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: customer service?
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: Right correct, very true?
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Makes sense.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: Anyway, That's what I've got.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: For you, Rick, That's a lot, and that's why I
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: want you to come back. You know, we're going to
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: come back.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about some things maybe next time,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: things you might be excited about, maybe things that frustrates you.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'll weigh in as well, and I'll do a part
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: too here because I knew I knew what I were
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: going in today. I'm like when Aaron and I are
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: talking that we're going to have plenty to talk about.
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: Hard to shut us off exactly. Thank you so much,
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: appreciate it.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you, and thanks for everything you're doing and
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: everything you're doing with Gift Team. Actually, before we go,
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: even though we're going to do a part two, how
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: would people reach you? How would people reach Gift Team?
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I like to keep it simple.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: You can email me Aaron at the giveteam dot com.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: Note I spell my name with two ends, so it's
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: E R, I N N at the giveteam dot com.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Check out our work at thegiveteam dot com.
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: And yeah, just reach out.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: I do answer my email, and I even do check
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: my junk spam folder just in case, because sometimes something
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: slips through the cracks. So I would love to hear
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: from you and see how we could work together.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: That's great, and I do the same. I put my
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: spam folder all the way up at the top so
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: I can look at it, and I see things that
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: get caught up in there, and I grab them before
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: it becomes a problem. Can people also reach out to
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: you through LinkedIn?
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Of course I don't have that one memorized, but you know,
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: like Aaron Dash Andrews or something like that. Hopefully it's
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: pretty easy to find, but please find me on LinkedIn.
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty active there, as you know. Rick A.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, you are amazingly good at posting things on LinkedIn.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: And it's Andrews A and D R E w S.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: If you're not sure if that has an S at
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: the end, it does so, Aaron Andrews, Yes, you're welcome.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, I.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: Look forward to part two. Thanks you have a great
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: rest of your day and we'll see you next time.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: Take here, Thank you.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: That wraps up today's conversation with Aaron Andrews. Her frontline
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: experience with donors and advisors reminds us that generosity grows
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: stronger when it's supported with intention, clarity, and thoughtful process.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Here are three key takeaways from our discussion. First, donors
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: crave simplicity, clear next steps, Manageable frameworks, and patient guidance
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: help them stay engaged and avoid the overwhelm that innstall
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: even the best charitable intentions. Second, strategy shapes impact, whether
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: it's right sizing gifts, exploring collaborative funds, or giving across
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: multiple communities. Donors make the greatest difference when they align
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: their giving with their values, capacity and long term goals.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: And third, responsiveness matters. Nonprofits must ensure their systems, especially
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: email and donor contact processes, are functioning reliably. Mist inquiries
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: mean missed relationships, and relationships are the heart of effective fundraising.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Money to Give. This conversation resonated
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: with you. Please leave a review on your preferred streaming platform,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: share it with a friend or colleague, and most importantly,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: keep that giving feeling going. We are now broadcasting in
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: thirty seven countries and growing with nearly ten thousand downloads
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: to date. A reminder, this podcast is made to be
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: for educational purposes only. For specific advice related to your
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: own situation, please consult an attorney, financial advisor CPA, or
• 51:09
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• 51:12
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• 51:15
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• 51:18
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• 51:22
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• 51:26
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• 51:30
  Speaker 1: podcast guests, while also getting helpful tips and advice for
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: nonprofits donors and professional advisors. Meaningful giving starts with meaningful connection,
• 51:40
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• 51:44
  Speaker 1: next time, let's keep making a difference together