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The Art and Science of Nonprofit Success with Tim Sarrantonio | Nonprofit 411 Podcast · Nonprofit411 Podcast

• 0:03
  Hello, welcome to the nonprofit 411 podcast where we explore resources and strategies to help nonprofit organizations thrive.
• 0:10
  I'm your host Sarah Barton, and today I'm excited to welcome our guest, Tim Sarantonio, Director of Corporate Brand at Neon One and Chair of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project.
• 0:23
  Welcome, Tim.
• 0:24
  Well, thank you for having me, Sarah.
• 0:25
  Excited to be here.
• 0:27
  Yes, so I'm very excited to have you.
• 0:29
  I love data.
• 0:31
  I incorporate data in all of my career.
• 0:34
  Like, I just can't get away from it because I love it so much.
• So when I saw that you like to collect and talk about data, that was very exciting for me.
• 0:41
  Yeah, it's funny because my origin story is like the opposite of a data person.
• 0:48
  I thought it was going to be, well, maybe a different type of data if we want to contextualize it.
• 0:53
  Right.
• 0:53
  I was, I want to be a historian.
• 0:55
  So I would look at, you know, things like, uh, primary documents of handwritten things that people did back in the 1930s, that type of stuff.
• 1:03
  So to be in a position where I'm speaking with relative authority, I would say if I, you know, humblebrag, I guess is the term, um, That about nonprofit data and like the most trustworthy source for donor retention metrics, for instance, it's, it goes well beyond my company, but especially when we get into the things that we're passionate about, it's really kind of fun to nerd out on diversifying those different types of channels that people might need, right? Like that's something that I know we, we want to get into.
• 1:39
  And, and so you have to have a little bit more deeper details.
• 1:43
  So that's what we can get into.
• 1:46
  Now, see, I think that's a good fit with the history stuff because I think it's about legacy, right? Yeah.
• 1:50
  Data provides, uh, proof of legacy.
• 1:53
  So before we get into that conversation, though, I want to ask you my, um, opening question for all of my guests, which is what is your favorite hobby? It's hard to answer that only so far that it's like, do I say reading or do I say cooking, right? Because cooking is more a necessity, obviously.
• 2:15
  But I enjoy flaring it up, I enjoy attempting to serve my young children things that ultimately I end up eating.
• 2:26
  Um, and, and so I take pride in that, and, and research and learn.
• 2:31
  I used to, to homebrew, for instance, before, um, uh, I, I became sober.
• 2:37
  And so, the process of that is fascinating, but in turn, I think I spend the majority of my relaxation time, like, reading.
• 2:46
  So, um, I, I guess I'll, I'll answer, and I'm not gonna be meandering like this all the time, folks, don't worry.
• 2:54
  So, the, the, um.
• 2:57
  I guess I would go reading, because that's what I'm spending the focused time of relaxation doing.
• 3:02
  You know, I also have an arcade machine in my house, so I like to play that.
• 3:07
  Uh, I hang out with my kids, I hang out with my family, but like, that's not a hobby, that's like being present.
• So, um, you know, my own time, it's reading.
• 3:16
  Yeah.
• 3:16
  Reading.
• 3:17
  I'm a So I come from a lot of readers.
• 3:20
  My dad owned a bookstore when I was a kid, and so I worked at a bookstore.
• 3:24
  It was a used bookstore, so I worked at a bookstore as a kid, and up through high school, so I appreciate good readers.
• Well, my father was an author, actually.
• 3:35
  Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, he's practically retired at this point, but, um, uh, yeah, he's written over 50 novels.
• 3:44
  Yeah, you might have stalked him back in the day because he was a kind of prolific horror and science fiction writer.
• 3:52
  Yeah, so I did read some horror science fiction.
• I like fantasy a little bit better than, um, He dabbled.
• He dabbled.
• 4:00
  Yeah.
• 4:01
  And then now I really, Well, I rarely read with my eyes.
• 4:06
  I do tons of nonfiction, you know, but I like, I like the mysteries.
• 4:11
  They're easy to read that in teenage, teenage novels.
• 4:15
  I read teenage novels all the time.
• Like, I think they're great little stories.
• 4:18
  They're short.
• 4:19
  I can get through them, you know, and then in an afternoon and it's a fun little story.
• 4:24
  We started when my kids were young, we, um, did tons of audio books.
• 4:29
  So I'd start these series, like, um, Pendragon or the 39 clues with my kids in the car.
• 4:38
  And then I was like, well, I got to finish all of them.
• So just kind of get going.
• Yeah.
• 4:43
  I can't get into the audio stuff and I, and I insist on having a physical thing.
• 4:49
  It's just, I don't know, there's just something about holding something in your hands that's powerful, but, you know, I digress.
• 4:56
  That's, that's my hobby.
• 4:58
  It's great.
• Thank you so much.
• So, tell our listeners a little bit about where you are now with, um, NEON and, with NEON1 and with the, um, Fundraising Effectiveness Project and a little bit about your background.
• 5:14
  Yeah, so, Kind of has hinted at, I, uh, originally thought I was going to go into academia, and so I did what everybody who goes into academia does, which is go into debt, because you keep going to school.
• 5:29
  So, I, Uh, lived in upstate New York and said okay, I, I think I want to continue focusing on, on history, specifically labor history.
• 5:40
  Uh, I've always been fascinated with the rights and movements of, of individuals, right? It's not always the great white man of history narrative that carries the day.
• 5:50
  Actually, in reality, most of the time it's people like you and me, working together.
• 5:55
  Trying to solve a problem.
• 5:57
  And that's the narrative that I've always been fascinated at.
• 6:01
  So, when I went to school, Uh, I ended up, uh, living in Ireland for a year.
• 6:07
  I got a master's degree there.
• 6:09
  Um, I went and lived back in New York City.
• 6:12
  I went to Columbia Teachers College, got a master's degree there, and then, uh, promptly, uh, worked at coffee shops in Chicago because that's what those degrees led to, right? Like, folks, I'm not speaking glamorously about academia here.
• 6:27
  It's not, it's not that I wasted my time.
• 6:29
  Everything has a reason, but come on.
• 6:33
  Like, I, I, I, I, I'm sitting there, an embarrassing moment.
• 6:36
  Um, that hammering at home was when I met somebody I went to high school with while I was bussing a table in Chicago.
• 6:42
  And he was like there for a law school situation.
• 6:45
  I was like, this feels like crap.
• 6:47
  So, um, my, my father eventually flew to Chicago and I was like, you got to get a job, man.
• 6:54
  And so like, we can't, we can't pay your student loans anymore.
• 6:57
  You got to get a real job.
• Um, and I ended up getting a job as a grant writer.
• In 2008.
• 7:04
  And so we can kind of go a few different ways there.
• 7:07
  But, you know, in general, I started my nonprofit career in the space and and and eventually after working almost in the prototypical like evolutionary cycle of a nonprofit tiny all the way to really well resourced.
• 7:23
  And in everything in between.
• 7:25
  I had a few different jobs until I, I kind of finally landed in the tech space, the supporting side, and that was 13 years ago, uh, this month, uh, we're recording in November 2024, and it will be 13 years since I joined what eventually became Neon One.
• 7:41
  So, it's always been focused, again, on what are the, the people doing? And so even thinking about talking about data, it's like, look, I lived it.
• 7:52
  I ran databases.
• 7:53
  So I always said, let me have an empathy.
• 7:56
  Of what the user is actually going through and and and from that a lot of different things blossomed from there So sorry for the monologue, but I guess it is No, you're very it's very interesting.
• 8:07
  So I started I got my master's degree.
• 8:11
  I have a master's degree in public administration.
• That was my first First introduction kind of to the nonprofit world.
• 8:15
  That sounds useful.
• 8:16
  I got mine in culture and colonialism.
• 8:19
  Oh yeah.
• 8:20
  Well, it's funny because I worked in higher ed for 14 years and one of my mentors there, whom I loved, she'd always say, Oh, you're going to get your PhD.
• 8:30
  And I'd always say, I don't need to pay somebody to tell me I can learn.
• 8:34
  So, you know, and I was registrar for many, uh, for four years, four of those years I was registrar.
• 8:40
  And I would tell students.
• 8:41
  Listen, if this isn't the right path for you, don't do this.
• 8:44
  Cause it's a lot of debt.
• 8:45
  So, um, so I can appreciate all of that, that piece of it.
• 8:49
  And then I stumbled into data, um, there actually, I was a grant writer and.
• 8:56
  As happens, um, we were switching actually from DOS to Windows.
• 9:02
  Oh, okay.
• 9:03
  Yeah, so that's a, that's a big switch.
• 9:05
  It was, uh, 2002 is when I started.
• 9:08
  We were probably switching around 2004 maybe, but I was very well versed in Windows.
• And the older individuals who had worked in the advancement department forever, weren't interested in transitioning to windows.
• 9:23
  You know, they were very familiar with what they had and, um, all about retirement age.
• 9:28
  And so they didn't, they didn't leave the organization, but they didn't come with us on that journey.
• And I saw very quickly that If an organization is not really intentional about mining the knowledge of those who have gone before on technology, you can easily lose so much, right? What I think has been fascinating, right? Just kind of how my job day to day at Neon One is to generally say who we are and why we matter.
• 10:03
  And especially for 97 percent of the nonprofit sector that is making under 5 million annually a year, and that's including grants, that's including program fees, right? Let me repeat that, 97 percent of nonprofits are making under 5 million a year.
• 10:18
  This is according to 990 data and a study that was done a few years ago that probably needs an update.
• 10:23
  Um, but the Nonprofit Impact Matters Report from the National Council of Nonprofits.
• 10:27
  Nonprofits.
• 10:28
  I like to cite my sources and and so those numbers have generally held strong.
• 10:33
  92 percent being under a million dollars, right? And so where I started to kind of see things personally after working in the sector for a while, is that especially in the pandemic period, we really over indexed on on digital, obviously.
• 10:49
  It didn't necessarily mean that our donors did.
• 10:52
  That's, that's one important point.
• 10:54
  And also the education environment and the way that we learn to get comfortable as people who are tech adverse has not caught up.
• 11:04
  And people are changing the nature.
• 11:06
  They're listening to podcasts, for instance, to Learn about this stuff.
• 11:11
  This is why I love being here.
• 11:12
  And I'm very thankful that you invited me here because I think this is an extraordinary way for somebody who's time strapped to learn about what's happening with donor retention rates or, you know, programmatic investments that could pay off like recurring giving, right? Like we've done research and we publish methodology that talk about these things and help people with these things.
• 11:35
  But If you got somebody who is just scared to log into their computer because they prefer taking notes or they put all their major GIFs uh, management in their email out, you know, their outlook, that's gonna be hard.
• 11:51
  We actually did an internal study of, of, uh, an onboarding quiz that said, how comfortable are you with technology? And the average out of five is a two.
• 12:01
  When people first start with us and that's, we, we cover all the different sized nonprofits.
• 12:06
  We tend to attract folks who are a little bit more established, you know, we're not necessarily the starter database, but that's because, you know, people are doing volunteering and emails and texts and events and all this stuff.
• And that can overwhelm smaller nonprofits in particular, because it's all over the place.
• 12:24
  And so it's context switching, right? We don't talk about the context switching.
• 12:29
  Enough of database, database, database, database, and then like ride your brain.
• 12:34
  Yes, it does.
• 12:35
  I am so glad you're on here and we're communing at this moment because, um, you mentioned so many things that like, so I work in West Virginia.
• We're very rural.
• The technology is, um, we're not early adopters in West, in West Virginia.
• 12:55
  I estimate, without data, about a 10 year delay.
• 12:59
  And, um, I do see that it catches up.
• 13:03
  They don't, I, um, you may know Tim Lockheed.
• 13:07
  He talks about, like, technology delighting people.
• 13:10
  Yes, we, we've, uh, we've, we've worked with him for a while.
• 13:14
  I consider Tim a friend.
• 13:15
  Yes.
• 13:15
  Yes.
• 13:16
  So, you know, in rural communities, technology does not delight people.
• 13:20
  I mean, it's just not an inch.
• 13:21
  It's not a heavy interest for them.
• 13:24
  And, um, and the ways that they do engage in technology are very, are more passive, you know, a lot of times.
• 13:31
  And I say this because I just spent eight years working in community health care, and we find that, you know, paper still works the best, and they really like to have people, you know, and so, um, so I think, you know, this data that you're talking about, not being comfortable with technology, and then the overwhelm at trying to adapt to all of the All of the new things, you know, and the need to consider the burnout related to that really, right? I, I, I, wow, I mean, yeah, there's some kismet going on because one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot recently, if we go back to the origin of the non profit technology, Part of our sector, right? Again, I'm a historian.
• 14:24
  So I do think about this I I can't wait to eventually write the history of the non profit technology space.
• 14:30
  That's that's a dream It's a nerdy dream.
• It needs to happen.
• 14:33
  It needs to happen, right? Well, let's think let's think about this So so you go back into the 1980s 1981 specifically when the company that would eventually become blackbaud Was founded right? It was founded in manhattan as a way to help manage um a private school's You Kind of finances and donor relationships and stuff like that.
• 14:53
  But it was primarily structured as a finance system, right? And, and, and they even have a dedicated financial edge product.
• 15:01
  I integrated that at my last job, right? So I understand that the importance of these components fitting together, but it never necessarily felt.
• 15:10
  It always felt cold, right? And, and I think that especially for a sector that comes in and outside of the program side, what we've seen is that one There's two parallel things happening.
• 15:29
  Number one is that the technology itself still ultimately is patterned on financial management.
• 15:35
  We are adding on components, in many ways, that are trying to catch up to the fact that people do things more than just give money.
• 15:45
  But ultimately a lot of the functionality, the reports, right? Lie bent report last year, but unfortunately not this year.
• 15:52
  That's money.
• 15:55
  I love that report.
• 15:55
  I think it's a useful report.
• 15:57
  This is not an anti money rant.
• This is a, we built it wrong rant because ultimately we didn't build it around the people.
• And people, unlike businesses are driven by not stakeholder value or ROI, but they want to know that like something that they love got better.
• 16:16
  Yes.
• 16:17
  So, so that's number one.
• 16:19
  That's number one.
• 16:19
  I'm almost done in the second one because people, people, how they learn, unlike the program side, I, if I'm a social worker, I got to go to school.
• 16:28
  I have to get certified by the state.
• 16:29
  If I'm teaching, I have to get certified by the state.
• 16:32
  If I'm, if I'm, you know, there's a lot of government elements.
• 16:35
  You can argue back and forth on that side, but at least on the program side, there is a career structure many times, right? I can't just go and throw a bunch of dogs in a warehouse and go, I have a shelter.
• 16:51
  For fundraising and marketing? Anybody can be that.
• 16:56
  But the problem is that we haven't built the system for joy.
• 17:00
  We've built the system to try to extract as much value out of things.
• 17:05
  And people don't know how to do that because they came in expecting joy and love and heart.
• 17:11
  And what we're giving them is something that's like, Yeah, no, uh, what's your cost per dollar raised? And we need that, we need that, but if you start with that as the premise, and all the technology tends to do that, right? Or at least the way that we think about it, and it's not part of the team.
• 17:29
  It's a thing that we use to extract money out of people, and that's not what it's best configured for.
• 17:36
  Okay, rant over.
• 17:37
  Thank you, Sarah.
• 17:38
  No, so, you know, those older ladies that didn't make that transition with us, what was hard for them, the organization had merged, it had grown, it had grown really significantly overnight.
• 17:51
  Yeah.
• 17:52
  And they had always done things, They had done more things manually than not manually.
• 17:59
  And it was because of the joy and the heart in it.
• 18:02
  It's funny.
• 18:03
  Cause I came in and I was like, I don't know any of these people.
• 18:06
  I can't do it that way.
• 18:07
  Right.
• And so I couldn't, I couldn't do what they were trying to maintain.
• Yeah.
• 18:15
  Um, and I do think that that is one of the challenges we go into new positions that if it was built.
• 18:23
  on the joy in the heart because our technology doesn't foster that well.
• 18:28
  We lose it and it's not intentional.
• 18:31
  I didn't want to lose the personality of the organization.
• 18:35
  I was just New to the organization.
• 18:38
  And there were now I had actually, when I started, I had a list of 50, 000 people.
• 18:43
  So like, it was, it may have been even bigger than that.
• 18:46
  Cause we did several data cleanups and it was still 50, 000 when I left.
• 18:50
  So it was probably bigger than that.
• When I started, it's probably 118.
• 18:53
  And, um, you know, how does one person manage to keep that personal touch when you have that many people? And I was like, I don't know how to, I can do it, you know, I could do it generically, like what you're saying.
• 19:09
  And so like, I've really grown up in this space of technology, the colder technology with the financial management software.
• 19:17
  And, and it doesn't, it is really difficult, especially for small, the smallest nonprofits, you know, the, the, the startups and the ones that are very small, they really struggled to make that leap.
• 19:35
  Yeah, because they don't know how they don't know how to lose the heart.
• 19:39
  And there are some things that I don't know how to stop loving.
• 19:42
  Right.
• 19:43
  Because I love them.
• 19:44
  Like, I don't know how to change that.
• 19:46
  And they don't know how to change that either.
• 19:48
  But then it causes difficulties on their stability and their ability to tap into donors because they also can't manage it.
• 20:01
  one on one when there's such a limited number of them.
• 20:04
  I think it's important to ground all of this in the psychology of why people give ultimately, right? And I think that we don't create experiences for people that amplify why people ultimately give the motivations and behaviors that, that support that.
• 20:21
  And, and, and this is both the art and science of generosity, ultimately philanthropic psychology outlined by The Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, Professor Jen Sheng, specifically talks about what activates people are three primary things, and it could be the strength of that depends on your organization, the way that you're talking to them, your financial acumen, like all these things, but ultimately, why does somebody open their heart and their wallet And their time and their energy for you, right? Advocacy, volunteering, uh, in kind donations.
• 20:56
  All of these count as a thing that, that, that the dopamine is fired off at a higher rate when we give and what's happening is that we're doing that because we feel autonomous.
• 21:07
  I wasn't guilted into it.
• 21:08
  That's the ideal state, right? This isn't stare, the sad puppy, you know, when the sad music, that's not what we want to do.
• 21:15
  We don't want to manipulate.
• 21:17
  And then, um, Competency.
• 21:20
  That's the financial acumen side.
• 21:22
  That's the, that's the yes, I did the thing that I told you I was going to do and that's where you got to get like the head side.
• 21:32
  That's kind of the science of it.
• 21:33
  That's where the data really comes in and says, okay, I've invested this many dollars to get this in this return.
• My retention rate is the following things, right? And we can get into that.
• 21:44
  You know, for people who are listening for some of the data side, I think we can jump into that next.
• 21:48
  But the final piece though, and this is where the databases don't help because mass personalization doesn't solve what I'm about to talk about, which is community building.
• People want to be part of a movement and that's where the tech tends to fall apart because they view the individual account record in this silo.
• 22:08
  And so it doesn't take into account, okay, I got a family, I got friends, I got work, I got all these things, I go to church, you know, I go to this political thing, I do this youth sports league, all of these things make us people, and all of that identity ultimately drives whether I give A hoot.
• 22:26
  I'm not sure if I can curse on this non profit so I won't so um, But people don't necessarily care unless it's relevant to them and that's where the art and science of fundraising comes in And the data is very clear about this too when we've studied Um intent signals because people are saying in their donor notes why they're giving And we've securely analyzed that using AI for both of our recurring giving reports.
• 22:52
  People aren't putting down, I'm very thrilled with your financial acumen.
• 22:55
  They're saying, I am so happy that you exist.
• 23:00
  Yeah.
• Yeah.
• I, yes.
• And I, I always encouraged What people to think about fundraising like that.
• 23:09
  Right.
• 23:09
  It's like, Hey, we see those same problems.
• 23:14
  We know one way to help.
• 23:15
  Like, right.
• 23:16
  We just know one way to help.
• Um, I live in a community with high homelessness and high poverty and people who see that, well, you know, they're, it's not just that they're aware of it, but they see it.
• 23:30
  And if, if they're helping, that's amazing.
• 23:34
  You know, they can find people who also want to help it, you know? So my, my favorite nonprofit here.
• 23:41
  And, and, and so we, we, I worked side by side with create community studios in upstate New York and Schenectady, Troy and Albany.
• 23:49
  And they, my favorite thing that I do with them, and, and close to it being a hobby almost, Sarah, is that I'd go to their open clay studio with my daughters.
• 23:59
  And so, you know, they're introducing the wheel, but most of the time we're just kind of doing hand, hand stuff.
• 24:05
  And, um, a lot of that is helping drive.
• 24:10
  interest in things like recurring giving and, and that kind of entry way where it's like, I'm doing this as a father or a family, a thing like that.
• 24:18
  But then I could see all the people who are coming in or people who were all the art that's coming up on the walls that came when I wasn't there, you know, things are happening in the space when you're not there, right? Like, that's what you want.
• 24:30
  And so To, to kind of be able to, to see that come alive and work with them and tell that story, they've inspired a lot of this because I think that even, even the more scientific minded causes, the things that are not in the arts and cultural space, ultimately, we need to embrace that we are creating.
• 24:51
  something for people.
• 24:53
  And that act of creation, right? If I'm working with clay in my hands, that's a form of creation.
• 24:59
  But fundraising is a form of creation as well.
• 25:02
  You are building a world that you are inviting people to and asking them to join in.
• 25:08
  And that story, just like any good story, needs, you know, to get to the point, but also to have a payoff.
• 25:18
  And so I think a lot of it is that balance of art and science.
• 25:22
  And again, like some of the data that we saw for Giving Tuesday, for instance, when you offer that space, we actually found that, um, near 60 percent of people, their first time gift, let's see, increase in people.
• 25:37
  That's a, Oh, 34 increase made on that day.
• 25:39
  I want to get the numbers right.
• 25:41
  Generally, we're seeing a nice increase in people who want to start a recurring gift on Giving Tuesday.
• Okay.
• 25:48
  That's inviting into a community that's saying, I'm going to give monthly and we're seeing really, really healthy growth for that, but we're also seeing that at least 50 percent of people.
• 25:58
  Here's a concrete number.
• 25:59
  At least 50 percent of people are also making another gift by the end of the year because they've Because they belong to it, right? Yeah.
• 26:09
  It belongs to them and they belong to it.
• 26:12
  And they belong to it.
• 26:13
  And, and what's so critical here is that Fundraising Effectiveness Project data for a few years has established that a first time supporter Only 18 percent of those folks are likely to come back the second year.
• 26:27
  They don't feel of what you've introduced them to.
• 26:32
  And those folks, that typically, it costs over a dollar, 1.
• 25 to raise 1, but if you retain that person, it's 20 cents.
• 26:45
  So, what is the data showing is the best way to engage? I think this it's so relevant to the community that you may be engaging to because I've spoken to people who they have an older population and they're worried that they're not going to make the shift to recurring giving right? That's a different conversation to enter into the channel than people who are explicitly focusing on high school and college students for kind of lower, lower size gifts, right? So, um, if you can sum it up, The most effective engagement is one that focuses on building that identity based connection with the non profit, where they are not making the story about themselves, but, and not making the story, the donor's not the hero, the 11 a month that somebody gave didn't solve cancer.
• 27:43
  Mm hmm.
• 27:43
  But it was a drop in a much larger Movement, a ripple effect.
• 27:50
  That's, that's the story that they want to hear about and so when you can basically say your one drop has this ripple effect, your butterfly, you know, flap had this major impact.
• 28:02
  That's recurring giving really working well because people feel like, Oh, I made a difference in a realistic way because I think sometimes we, we try to, we go feast and famine with our communications, especially Giving Tuesday, end of the year.
• 28:17
  Oh my God, it's Giving Tuesday.
• It's end of the year.
• There's only three days left in the year.
• 28:22
  Why does that matter to me as an individual? I'm planning for the ball dropping and, you know, I'm getting all the food ready and all this type of stuff.
• What does that have to do with me? And ultimately what gets people off the.
• 28:37
  Massive amounts of email and letters that we get during this period is oh, that's relevant to me.
• 28:43
  I care and I want to make a difference.
• 28:47
  Yeah, like, yeah.
• 28:49
  And the nice thing is that is.
• 28:53
  So perpetual, right? We can just perpetuate it into the future because we really care about the difference that we're making.
• I do think, I think that that's such a key area where data does help is to be able to always demonstrate.
• 29:10
  How far the ripples are going.
• 29:12
  Are you familiar with ripple mapping? Uh, not that specific term, but I can intuit what it may be relating about.
• 29:21
  Yeah.
• 29:21
  So what, what, what let's, I want to hear about it.
• 29:24
  Yeah.
• 29:24
  So ripple mapping, actually, I know about it through grants and I, I would love, I will give you the resource of how it started, but out of a grant project, like it was this project to see what all the ripples were that were made.
• 29:39
  And so the nice.
• 29:41
  An amazing thing when you, it obsessed.
• 29:43
  So obsessed.
• 29:43
  Obsessed with it.
• 29:44
  I wanna read it immediately.
• 29:46
  Yeah.
• 29:46
  Um, you, it's not just money that was brought in as a result of that project.
• 29:53
  But the people that you met and how they connect and you like, follow it, like, you know, I was introduced to this person because I was at this training and this, that person and us, you know, we partnered and we went here and I mean, it's just like, yeah.
• So when you see it, yeah.
• 30:14
  And I think we, we are so not there from a data analysis standpoint, everything that, that even I cite.
• 30:22
  Or giving USA sites or stuff like that misses the ripple effect Because there's things that are happening outside the formal charitable space such as mutual aid that uh or giving circles that are probably not getting picked up properly or or Or, uh, the large amounts of fiscally sponsored initiatives that are happening that have collaboration elements between different nonprofits.
• 30:46
  That's a ripple effect or giving days.
• 30:48
  We, we, we run giving days for communities like New Orleans, for instance, and that's a huge ripple effect in that community.
• 30:56
  But, you know, somebody moves, they, they, you know, there's data that shows that when people move out of certain geographic areas, you're in a rural area, right? Like, like that's going to have a.
• 31:06
  Different type of approach or thought process when it comes to the ways that you're going to think about how community is being built.
• 31:13
  But, but ultimately, um, I think what, what unites us in all of this is that at the end of the day, I just want to do something that matters.
• I want to matter.
• People want to matter.
• And, and what ultimately drives us is not individualism.
• 31:32
  But actually more of a sense of connection with other people, um, and and I think that our data sometimes can be isolating when you're looking at it and and I want to recognize that and and say that metrics don't have to be scary.
• 31:48
  They can be clarifying.
• 31:50
  If you think about it as part of the team, right, and one of the most comfortable things that people could start with is just learning about motivation when we, um, analyze 13, 000 donor notes in our recurring giving research, for instance, we asked, uh, we looked at, um, why, why people gave what was the motivation.
• 32:10
  That's the basic reason why somebody is leaving a note and the data was very clear.
• 32:14
  It's love.
• 32:15
  It's gratitude.
• 32:16
  It's honoring, right? But here's a nerdy Art and science thing, Sarah.
• 32:21
  Somebody writes down, I'm doing this in honor of my grandfather.
• 32:25
  That's in the donor note field.
• 32:26
  But they didn't check the honor box on the form.
• 32:32
  What do we do with that? It is an honor and memorial gift, right? So it's thinking about those ripple effects of the individual actions.
• 32:40
  What is the ultimate story that we're trying to understand about these people and why recurring giving is so powerful is, uh, our data showed that they're going to be having a lifetime commitment for over eight years.
• 32:52
  For mid sized nonprofits, a million, uh, to 5 million, 10 years.
• 32:58
  That's, that's cathedral thinking right there.
• 33:00
  You can go, okay, now I can think about the future because I have this cohort of people.
• 33:06
  Yeah, as we were talking, you know, um, and the ripple, the ripple mapping.
• 33:13
  Yeah, you got to send it to me.
• I want to see that.
• 33:14
  Yeah, we have, so it's very interview based, interview heavy.
• So, you know, the, The way that we capture the data for ripple maps is, um, just very face to face heavy or, you know, time heavy.
• 33:31
  But I think as you were talking, I'm like, Oh, you know what? Nonprofits need to shout out their ripples.
• 33:39
  Hey, we were introduced to, hey, I mean, I think that that has a lot of power.
• 33:47
  And I want to, I want to say it out loud because I, I want to remember it.
• 33:50
  Like I really believe like making sure we map more of the ripples when we communicate back will be is, is super helpful.
• 33:59
  So, um, well it looks like we're getting close to our time and we may be a little bit over.
• 34:06
  How can people find you and find the.
• 34:10
  That the two data guides that you work.
• 34:13
  Um, so best best way to contact me directly is linkedin That's my preferred social network.
• 34:22
  Uh, tim serantonio and then, uh, neon1.
• 34:25
  com um We have uh, pretty prominent ways to get to the resources that I talked about There's an entire giving tuesday resource center and those also do link to some of the giving tuesday data Um Um, and FEPP data as well, because that's, that's important.
• 34:42
  So you could, um, just neon1.
• 34:44
  com and we'll be able to start to find some of this stuff.
• 34:47
  But also we are, I will say as, as a chair of the fundraising effectiveness project, high priority is to have one website that I could send people to.
• Right now there's like, you just Google fundraising effectiveness project.
• 34:59
  And the newest report will be by giving Tuesday.
• 35:02
  So it's on their website, but we're, we're trying to work toward a centralized place for that.
• 35:06
  So, uh, those are, I'm a huge fan of, uh, centralized repositories.
• 35:13
  All right.
• 35:14
  And then one last piece of advice that you'd like to give our listeners as we sign off.
• 35:18
  Breathe.
• 35:21
  I love it.
• We, we don't end today.
• 35:27
  We keep going into eternity, right? Just remember to breathe.
• 35:33
  Awesome.
• 35:34
  Thank you.
• 35:35
  Thank you so much for being on.
• 35:36
  This has been a Phenomenal conversation.
• 35:39
  I'm going to have to have you back because I could keep talking about this stuff We run quarterly reports for the fundraising effectiveness project.
• 35:45
  So I am always happy to talk more specifically about those Uh, especially some of the changes that i'm excited that I think we're going to roll out.
• 35:53
  So Oh exciting exciting.
• 35:55
  So thank you so much for joining us to our listeners.
• 35:58
  for tuning in And we will see you next time Hello and welcome to Nonprofit411, where we dive into resources and strategies that help nonprofits not just survive, but truly thrive.
• 36:12
  I'm Sarah Barton, your host and fundraising advocate.
• 36:15
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