Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 599. 2025 Social Impact Trends That Matter: Simple Shifts on Repeat. (Adam O'Brien)

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599. 2025 Social Impact Trends That Matter: Simple Shifts on Repeat. (Adam O'Brien) · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: That 1% step is going to change your mission and it may not be today, may not be tomorrow, but I guarantee if you commit to doing the things, the small things first, and testing iteratively getting better.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Better is subjective, so don't look at your fellow nonprofit professionals and think, oh, I'm not like them.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Focus on yourself, focus on your mission 1% better every day, or even every week.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: it's going to radically change your mission.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Welcome to we Are For Good's Social Impact Trends that Matter in 2025.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: In partnership with our friends at iDonate, we have hundreds of conversations each year, both on the podcast and offline, with incredible change makers around the world.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: This limited series we're lifting the eight trends that have cut through to us over the past year.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: These ideas and shifts hold the power to transform your mission from the inside out, and so, in these eight episodes, we're breaking down the trends one at a time, and inviting a subject matter expert in to take us deeper and to put it into practice.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: All right, let's get started.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Hey, becky.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Hey John, so glad we're back in the trend seat.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I know, and I mean today's topic is simple shifts on repeat and I feel like that feels like it needs to be on a t-shirt or at least a coffee mug or something like that and enunciated very well.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean it's just be on a t-shirt or at least a coffee mug, or something like that and enunciated very well.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean it's just been a motto at we Are For Good for a while that we call try stuff.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So we try to implement that into every aspect of our work here.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: But to talk a little bit deeper, we wanted to tap an expert.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: You know, be like this isn't just our idea.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: This is an idea that some of the most brilliant marketers are using too.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: The man, the myth, the acronym AOB, Adam O'Brien, is with us today and I mean I get to love this so much.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Adam put his bio in quotation marks.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: This is his bio.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: For the past six years he's been immersed in the nonprofit world, either working directly with them or empowering missions, but today he leads the marketing efforts at Over it.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I Donate.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you, friends, for putting together this series with us, where the team is just him, but he makes it look like a crew of at least one and a half people on good days.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Adam is an elder millennial.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: He's a proud dad of three, he's a fellow podcast host yeah, buddy.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: He's a sneaker enthusiast, diehard Sacramento Kings fan and he is a mental health advocate.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I'm sure under that jacket is probably it's Aloha t-shirt, because he's usually rocking that one of his favorite charities.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing what sets Adam apart is his passion for leveraging tech to make a real impact, and now he is one of the most genuine, kind-hearted cares about people humans that we have met on our journey, and so I'm so excited we can talk about optimizing conversion rates and building seamless tech stacks in the company of somebody that's such a dear friend.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Adam get into this house.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's going on Wow, that was a struggle to write that with AI.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to lie to you.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Very human Way to go AI.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look at me.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird writing stuff for yourself, but hey, this has been one of the most exciting things to happen in 2024.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And 2025 for me is finally to make it onto the we Work For Good podcast.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Becky and John, first of all, before we get rolling, let me say how much I value and treasure both of you for what you do for the nonprofit space.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: There would be so many people that would be in similar rounds of claps, hugs, kisses's, everything in between for the stuff that you do and the resources you provide on a weekly basis.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So thank you both of you, and also for everyone that supports y'all means the world to me and I wouldn't be anywhere else.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: But doing this with y'all and I think expert is is maybe generous, but we'll see what we could do over the next period of minutes here.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Well, on behalf of the we Are For Good podcast.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Sorry it's taken so long to get you in this chair, because not only are you such a force for good, but you know marketing at a different level.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: In fact, I have pulled some of your quotes into presentations I've made because you just have this profound way that you can say something very succinctly which is not my jam in such a powerful way and I think just this notion of small shifts on repeat is this.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: The reason I'm connecting with it is because we understand the power of habits.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: We understand the power of what building consistency can do, how it's going to innovate and unlock so much.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: So I just want to get your perspective on this, adam, because you really helped us shape this trend this year and I thank you so much for your just insights and knowledge there.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: But we talk about pilots, about innovation and trying stuff on this podcast, but why do we need to iterate?
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Like why now, and what macro things are happening and what data are you paying attention to?
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: That's really going to give lift to this need to iterate.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Man, that's a lot.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Let's see if we can chop this down.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: It was a lot, I feel like that was like six questions.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Godspeed to you.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: No, let's chop this down, john and Becky, keep me honest as we kind of go through here.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And from the second, really, I kind of started to get into the nonprofit space, the tech for good space.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Even before that, serving as like an associate communications help for a small nonprofit in Florida, one thing that kind of jumped out to me was like hey, we need to raise all this money and it's nonstop.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I know y'all have experience specifically as individual contributors and leaders in the nonprofit space.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: It never goes away.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And it's the same for the business world too.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Right, there's a lot of similarities, kind of scary similarities, between those two.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: But it quickly came out into my brain of like hey, if you just do what you've always done, you're not going to hit those goals and that's, that's it, right?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: So as that starts to formulate, learn more about marketing, digital fundraising and trying to figure out how to master and become better at those, taking those huge leaps and bounds didn't make sense.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I got really frustrated with myself, with the work I was doing, until you started to understand that it's not about the big swings that make a difference, it's about the iterative changes over time, and really there's a million different stats Next After does a great job with benchmarks.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: M&r Report great job with benchmarks, right, that's where I draw most of my understanding of a baseline.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And then you take what happens if you go 1% more over a six-month period of time, that's 2% compounding over five to 10 years down the line.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of difference.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: When you think about donations, new donors, average dollar raise, all that metrics that go with it, but it's really, at the end of the day, it's the impact that your mission is able to do that much more because you made the investment internally to make the small changes understand.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, what if we say something differently here?
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Let's test that.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: What if we change the layout of yes, a donation page to do X, y or Z?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Let's test that.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: It doesn't take more than about four to six weeks to run.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Typically a test right, and you have some statistical relevance.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: But then you learn and you grow and pretty soon you have this completely different way of talking about things, doing things in your nonprofit than you did even six months ago.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I look at like to write Love at Arms, as you mentioned.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite nonprofits, loved them so much.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: And the shift and change they've really made over the years.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: When I started following them, which was she's, back in the early 2010s, maybe even before that, with all the post-hardcore bands that love to rep and basically support them in their mission, as they are new to what they are now, they're, to me, an econ powerhouse out of nowhere.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: The merch is so tough here, their merch is so sick.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I have several of their merch.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I love them and people stop you when you're around to talk to you about what's on your back and your arm.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I mean it's beautiful.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I have a catch-all right here Perfect perfection scratched out.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Presence is highlighted right my shirts same thing, Becky.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Every single time someone stops me and says, hey, I needed to see that on your shirt today.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And every single time I stop and think, holy cow.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: This is the pinnacle of understanding not only the mission, how to message it and then how to activate that.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: That wasn't done with one shot, that was iterative tests over time.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So I digress.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: We'll go on for minutes and minutes on this one, but ultimately it's the idea and the understanding that, hey, those small victories are compounding.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: There's one thing you take away from this.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It's like, hey, that 1% will grow into 10%, It'll grow into 20%, it grows into something that is life-changing for someone and that's really the ultimate driver of all this.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, what stands out to me, too, is that it is time to get in the game.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Like if you're hearing this and you're like I haven't started, like there's safety and just understanding you're going to not figure it out on the first pass, like you just got to actually publish, like hit, publish, hit, send, hit, post.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Whatever your action is, that needs to happen, just get it out in the world and that's information and it's not going to be failure, it's going to be an opportunity to learn and iterate and give you your next 1% shift.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: So I think it's got to start with action, which I love that you're pointing to.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, my friend, you're such in the world of, like SaaS marketing, which I think is fascinating If you're not following software as a service, like follow this friends, like if you want to think outside of the realm of nonprofit.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I always love studying what other marketers are leaning into and what trends are happening, because we're usually behind the curve, but we usually get there eventually.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, what are the macro things happening and the data that you're paying attention to?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: You dropped some reports there.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: What are the macro things happening and the data that you're paying attention to?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: You dropped some reports there.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: But what are the other things that stand out to you, that you think?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: our listeners should lean into yeah, can we start with?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: My hot take and I'm going to ride this all through 2025, is that there should be no reason why we approach as like hey, nonprofit as a whole, we're behind in tech trends.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Let's change that.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: We're behind in tech trends.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Let's change that.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Let's go and say, hey, how do we use GPT or chat GPT or however you want to call it the AI overlords?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: What are some actually usable tools and ways to apply this?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Testing is a great example.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: You don't need fancy tech.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: You don't need understanding of how to do complex Excel spreadsheet formulas Like you don't.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: The coolest thing about tech now and really the trends in B2B SaaS, where we're dealing with and we because I live halfway into that world too, it's what I do Reduce budgets and reduce resources, oftentimes like I'm a team of one and I make fun of myself a lot for it if you follow me on LinkedIn.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: But it's very, very similar to what a lot of nonprofits are dealing with a restraint on resources.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: That hasn't changed for a long time and it probably won't change for a long time, right, but that's okay.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: It's about understanding resources.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Uh, who you're, who you're trying to reach, your core demographic or, as I say, icp, not insane clown posse becky um but your ideal customer yeah, for sure yeah I had to sneak it in.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: This is where we go.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, that is, it was on music television that I couldn't watch yeah, same here.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, television you called mtv music television.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Back when MTV played music videos.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, those were nice, but ideal customer approval is simply who are we trying to reach as a business?
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And that maps over to ideal customer donor or ideal donor, right?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Who is the person that you are reaching your mission is going to resonate with?
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: That has become the North Star for any B2B SaaS person.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I'd argue that's very similar, if not identical, to what nonprofits are trying, or should be trying to do with their website, their donation page.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: You think about this idea of a value proposition, or understanding and writing exactly to what makes your nonprofit unique, what problems you're solving in the world, and then also the impact that donations and support brings, right?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: How many times have you gone to a food bank website?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm using this as an example, but you don't understand.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Hey, if I'm donating $50, is that one meal?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Is that three meals?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: What is the actual tangible impact?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Those are some of the things that go back to A-B testing.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Test a donation page without that impact statement.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Test it with, track it in a Google spreadsheet.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: You don't have to have any extra tools.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Literally track it in a Google spreadsheet and you can see.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, this actually does make sense when people provide clear, concise understanding and value.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: That translates, no matter who you are.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: That's the type of stuff that everyone in B2B SaaS is doubling down on, in addition to using silly acronyms across the board, but that mirrors directly across to the nonprofit space.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So it's really not that far outside of two different worlds.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: It's very much closer than what people realize.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: It's okay.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: We've been in the nonprofit world, we know the CRUTs, we know the CGAs, we've got the craziest acronyms.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: I think every business does.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: But I do think you're making such a solid point about this concept of trying stuff, because to us it is the ultimate long game play which is, again, core value number two of this community, and I also want to give everyone a different word or two to think about.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Trying stuff in these pilots, in this testing, it's listening, it's curiosity, it is looking and asking different questions, it's throwing something out there and taking the time to really be present with the data, with the human who's giving you feedback, and it can, I think, reorient your messaging, reorient the way you show up, where you show up.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: And so I want to drill a little bit into pilots, because I want to get into the practical of how do people do this.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Walk us through some pilots, even just some ideas.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: If you can just throw some spaghetti at the wall and walk listeners through how they can run some of these, whether they're campaigns or tests, and how they can iterate this year, whether it's in marketing or fundraising, tech, whatever.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Like, the lane is yours, my friend, take it away.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: So there's this idea and concept of a voice of customer that hangs out in the B2B marketing world.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: All it says, in the simplest form, is go talk to your customers and understand the pain points that are being solved with your product and then take that and make content and make content and message.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: That same applies here, right, I would argue, voice of donor, or VOD, if we want to coin that, not video on demand, but voice of donor, right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: All it takes is three to four conversations with different donors to understand exactly the impact that your mission is having, or how they came about, to supporting your mission.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Those stories are so critical for a couple of reasons, right.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: One it helps you to have more informed tests.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You can hypothesize on the tactical, for instance on a donation page.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: My hypothesis, that is if I have a value proposition at the top, if I get rid of all the other fluff, the newsletters call to actions and.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I can streamline things to just a simple ask Maybe my donation conversion shoots up by 25% to 30%.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: It's a big jump, right?
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Or if I remove the navigation header on my donation page, what does that actually do?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: It's not holding people captive.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: You still have that logo in the top left-hand corner that's hyperlinked to your homepage.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about that, right?
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But what does that impact?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Is it 20%, 30%, 40%, lift in conversions or shoot?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Look at this.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Put a donate page or donate now on your homepage in the top right-hand corner with a clear, defined color button CTA.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Do it, get it out of your nav, do it now.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's 100 to 100, almost a 200% jump in conversions, if I'm not mistaken, based on next after data.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Like these are actual experiments that have been run by other nonprofits.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: So just take those playbooks, go, run those, test them and then repeat.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But when you get into the copy, when you get into understanding of how content contributes to the journey of a donor or a potential donor, those stories from actual donors and actual impact mission impact stories is what drives everything.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Like people do love to understand how and the transparency around how, their donation impacts the mission, right.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: That is important as becoming much more important as we see things like generational wealth shifts, which is crazy, right?
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: You see events like Giving Tuesday.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Although they're incredibly successful $3.6 billion captured the overall consensus is donors.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: The number of donors is down.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So what does that tell you?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: People are being more choosy about.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Can we say choosy yeah?
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: we're going to say that More choosy yeah we're going choosy.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to put that on a shirt now about when and where they support, but they're still showing up, which means that, ultimately, the reason to test and to continue iterating is because you want to be donor-centric Donor-centric being that you're not going to tell them or dictate how someone can give.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Let's just get that out of the way.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: It's 2025.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: At this point, let's provide the ways and the avenues and clearly mark those for people to then select and choose how to give.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: That is what 2025 and beyond and that's the role Tech is to be able to support those choices.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: It's not the hero, it's the supporting sidekick along to your mission.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Like I, sometimes I get on one, but like there's this whole idea of, like donor centricity, right, and what are we doing if we're not enabling that?
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Like we're going to, we're going to slowly kind of fade out.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean and I will.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I just want to put a caveat that we're not saying that you're orienting your entire mission around this donor and you're wielding to their power.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: That's not what this conversation is.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: It's like we you know, probably everyone listening here grew up or has watched the transition of Amazon coming onto the scene.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Right, it's like they didn't launch with the type of easy to give situation that is here today, but it's like they keep twisting and iterating.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was books that goes to.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: We're putting buttons in our cabinets and you can push a button and you're going to get restocked to paper towels.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Did y'all see that whole thing?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And it's like they make it simpler and simpler as we go and it's like there's things that we can learn by watching that those that are meeting the moment are always testing and evolving and then they're shedding the stuff that doesn't work.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: And it's like just that habit or that mindset.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: We're not building monolithic things.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: We're building digital things that are easy to change.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Change the color today and see what happens, and it doesn't have to like shift or bet the whole farm.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: You know like I think that you're walking us into that.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: There's so much here at stake.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: That's possible and it kind of makes it fun too.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Can I?
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Can I jump in here, because I think what John is saying is so insightful.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I think what you're leading the audience to is just so mind-shifting.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Not only are you going to be able to translate that data into fundraising or donations or activation, but you're building belonging with that individual, because the more that you listen and make those adjustments, the more people say oh, I feel seen, they did listen to what I had to say.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I am valued here, and so that's also deepening the relationship by simply listening and pivoting from that data.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: So I think that there are so many big things that can come from just testing, including growing that movement and growing that sense of community that's already existing within your mission.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to that point, there's this whole idea of two segmentation.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And for those of you who are unfamiliar, listening, what segmentation means is simply it's you're grouping people by a common data point or a common theme or insight, right?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Not all donors are built to like For me.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I love merch from To Write Love in Arms.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I love supporting and I am supportive of their monthly giving program, right, but it's not the same as a few other nonprofits that I support.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: But there's context.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I also am tied to the mission more.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I'm probably in a certain age group I gave it away.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I'm a millennial, so my habits and propensities are way different than another set of.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you donors that they've segmented out based on other likes, trends, whatever, right, there's no shame in that game, because it gives contextual information and resources that I find valuable, that maybe John or Becky doesn't or my parents wouldn't, and that's a okay.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: But those segments allow you to test and iterate even further, giving very bespoke, specific pathways of learning about missions, about learning the impact, about how to get involved, how to be in the community that are very, very much fine-tuned.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And that's also the great output of testing, right?
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Is you understand your donors, both new and possibly the future ones even better, providing that unique experience.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not a marketer at all, am I right?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on now, hey.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I want to.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I want to lift up tech for a second, because I'm not saying this because I donate has been a partner with this in this.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: I saw how they built their tech around testing and I thought it was breakthrough.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, y'all have an AB testing component built into your online donation form.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Walk us through what that looks like, because I think putting the power in our hands as nonprofit to realize these are things that aren't we have to hire a developer.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: We can actually do in our own shop with just a couple of clicks.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like oh, I'm not going to do anything related to product.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I was like You're throwing that alley-oop to me.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: There you go, take it and dunk it so yeah, and if you've ever come across me, I'm probably the least pitchy of any tech, and tech is.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Its role is to assist with helping to provide a seamless connection between a potential donor and your mission right, or even an existing donor.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: One of the things, the biggest thing that I love about our platform I donate is what you said, that codeless connection testing tool.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It allows literally a time to.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I did it myself.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I could set up a test that ran.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: A variable view on gift arrays, and gift arrays for those who don't know is just simply the amount that you have to select on the donation page, whether it be 5, 10, 15, 20,.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: There is science and there is tests around saying that four options and a free form is higher performing than a six option and a free form.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Right, it's just the way it is.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Every single test.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: What our tool allows you to do is to figure that out on your own with literally maybe about 10 to 15 clicks at most.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: No codes, no additional tools, no additional subscriptions.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: It's awesome.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's not advanced as some of the other tools, but then again, it doesn't have to be.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: It's meant to be able to provide any nonprofit a quick on-ramp to testing, and that goes across colors, buttons, amount of fields, everything you can imagine.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It's all within there, which is pretty dope.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I'm bipartisan, obviously I'm here for a reason, but again you're going back to my understanding, like how I view tech.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: It's meant to be easily accessible for anyone, and this fits the bill for for what I want out of tech, for nonprofits and you know that's selfish to say, but like it should be free and easy to use, right?
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Not additional, additional.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: You know hoops and hurdles for everyone.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm resonating just so much with this and I thank you for doing the Michael Scott version of explain it to us like we're five years old, because I do think a lot of this is new for a lot of people, and I also just want to empower you on the other end.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: However you are consuming this content, you can do this and I know it feels overwhelming anytime.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Any of us in this lifetime try something new, but just do one thing.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: We call them 1% shifts and it's like let's try one thing, let's assess and again let's get curious about it and make a hypothesis around what do we think is actually going to happen?
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: And the more we're humbled, the more it tells us we need to do more listening.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: So absolutely love that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Adam, do you have a case study that you would be willing to share with us about like maybe someone who's been trying some of this, and give us some insight?
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a couple of them that come to mind.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: One of the first and foremost is Connie Maxwell Jones Ministries.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Right, the phenomenal nonprofit that I've gotten to know their team there over the last eight months since I've been at iDonate and really their biggest time of the year.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: They kind of been using idonate for a while, right, and peer-to-peer, specifically around giving tuesday end of year is like their bread and butter and they've they figured out how to do this thing over over a handful of years and they iteratively keep getting better, to the tune of, like this year they had a goal of 750 000 dollars that they wanted to raise in support of a handful of missions.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Specifically, they are trying to launch an additional campus in charleston, which is great for me because it's right down the street.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I don't have to drive five hours to go say hey to them where they're.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: They're further upstate in south carolina.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: They crushed it, right, um, and in one day that's just bonkers to me, um, and it's not that anything crazy about.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: You know, they were using iDonate forms, yes, but they were able to understand, they clearly articulated what they were trying to achieve, the impact of a donation, and then they also used the.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: You know our tech to go, mobilize it right To just provide the gateway to easy, accessible run right.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Nothing crazy, nothing advanced.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Literally they ran it and did their thing and that's phenomenal output.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Right, and the same thing can be said across a handful of other organizations that focus on running these.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: You know, they understand they get better year over year and this isn't necessarily even a call of like Becky, you were saying hey, don't let it be intimidating.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I like to think of it as like almost like the little tykes of baby testing right, you hop on, it's super easy, it's not intimidating in the least.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: You don't have to buy extra, spend extra money.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: It doesn't require extra resources Like these nonprofits that we work with.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Get it no-transcript.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's also bubbling up for me.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: This is why you want to get in community with folks that don't want to just settle for the status quo, because it's easy when you're sitting amongst friends you're like, hey, I'm trying this play, we're tweaking this thing, you know.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Getting community because I think it really is part of the scaffolding to actually live this out in your life.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever you're trying to optimize Okay, adam, I mean we love you for lots of reasons, but you're a softie at heart.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I mean story, I know, gets you and we always open up the portal to moments of philanthropy, stories that happened in our life that have stuck with us.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Would you take us back to, to one that's really moved you?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: There's not one single moment of philanthropy period Like this goes back to my brother who was born with a lot of, a lot of medical issues right, hole in the heart born that that actually healed on itself, um, but he had a whole bunch of stuff Like, so he relied on us, um, never could walk, talk fully, walk talk fully.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So he's in a wheelchair feeding tube the whole business.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: So, like, my life growing up was spent in Shriners Hospitals, right, so shout out to Shriners Hospitals and what they do across the nation.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: You think about Special Olympics and I have distinct memories of pushing him around the track.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Here it comes, nope, not gonna do it, almost Almost did it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And just the phenomenal support and even just the resources.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Even back in the nineties, before like, I would argue that there was really a big support system for special needs children and their families, right, little did I know that would impact me so heavily coming down the line and then, like you know, my brother passed away and it's it's, you know, going through that whole thing of like, oh, start to see to write love in our arms where there's, you know, understanding of mental health, how important that is.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: So like there's these not single moments, but these missions where they showed up and I had no idea what was going on within the impact line of my life and then fast forward to being a dad, a husband, having now kids that I'm making sure, like, hey, the empathy, the consideration for everyone and being inclusive and also being protective of mind space.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You know, becky and John, your parents, you know how critical it is to make sure that we're doing everything we can to give our kids the tools to maintain a healthy disposition when it comes to life, mental health.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: It's impossible to not sit there at night and be concerned about it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: That's where these missions come into play, right, and this is why I made the jump over from B2B enterprise marketing and that's a mouthful over to tech for good.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: It's not out of this idea and this understanding of like, oh yeah, we're going to do X, y and Z.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: It's like no, this is my heart.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: This is where I've grown up and put roots down into, from firsthand experience and the support that I've gotten on the side.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Now I want to do everything I can to help nonprofits use tech to continue that and what that looks like in the future and for the future generations as cheesy as that sounds that and what that looks like in the future and for the future generations.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: As cheesy as that sounds, that is at my core, why I'm sitting here talking to y'all.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of other micro events that happened, but ultimately those three big, big events pushed me into where we are today, so I digress.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Adam, what's your brother's name?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Andrew yeah, he would your brother's name.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Andrew yeah, he would have been 38.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So it's like we were really really close in age and like it was crazy to go through all of life for 20 years basically supporting and like that was life, that was such a great life, and then to have that removed.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's kind of when he passed away, kind of like part of the whole.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: To write love is, like you know, dealing with all of that mental, mental strain, like anxiety, depression, like not knowing how to do that, and like some of those missions are just absolutely incredible to help say, hey, it's okay, what you're doing, what you're feeling is normal.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Um, here's how to work through that you matter.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And for anyone's listening is dealing with that like go find someone.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I started finally pulling my butt to therapy and making that a priority.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: That changed my life dramatically.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: And, john, I think when you came into my life and Becky was right, when I was starting to realize that oh, I can't mess around with this anymore and like here we are, like a year and a half later.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: It's such a dramatic difference and I have a lot of people and places and events to thank you to are chief among them over the last two years or so.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So thank you again, man.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: We're going to bookend this with just high fives to both of you on all fronts of life.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I just what you're saying right now and the way that you are humanizing men going to therapy, men any of us talking about this and I just feel in my heart like I just want to thank Andrew for the love that he awakened within you, that we get to feel as we're recording this.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Adam is like three weeks away from welcoming his third child into the world three weeks away from welcoming his third child into the world, and so I do think that those formative experiences that teach us how to love and teach us how to connect are everything.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: So thank you so much for sharing that story and sharing Andrew with us.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: You know this podcast well enough to know we're going to ask you a one good thing, so bring it on home for us, aob, what you got.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So if I am encouraging you as a nonprofit listener, don't be afraid to take that 1% step.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: That 1% step is going to change your mission and it may not be today, may not be tomorrow, but I guarantee you, if you commit to doing the things, the small things first, and testing iteratively, getting better, better is subjective.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: So don't look at your fellow nonprofit professionals and think, oh, I'm not like them.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Focus on yourself, focus on your mission.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: 1% better every day, or even every week.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It's going to radically change your mission.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: That is what I am asking you all to think about and committing to doing.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: If you need help, I'm here, right, you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I'm talking craziness all day long.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: That 1% step is going to change you fundamentally, your mission.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: It'll make you change you for the better, I promise you.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I've never met anyone who hasn't focused on optimization or small shifts and been angrier or not.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Come out a better person, right, and I think I'm living sentiment to that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sure y'all have had your steps of 1%, um, and I'm going to stop, because I'm going to save some of this and brand it and put on a shirt and sell that merch.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Um, but I believe in that.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: So much, that's your takeaway.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: That's your one thing, dude, that is so good.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: And the power of consistency.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Like crazy things can happen when you just double down and just iterate over time.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Um, okay, You're on LinkedIn.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Where else can people find you and connect with you?
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: And I donate.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, find me at.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I donatecom.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Uh, most of the stuff routes right through me being a good marketer.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, Find me on LinkedIn too.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I am all over the craziness.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I try to consistently post at least three to five times a week and respond to comments.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: So if you want to come heckle me, that's the place to do it.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Other than that, I think it's kind of like.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Those are the two things.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Right now I'm staying out of the streets trying to focus on getting ready for that third kid, so feel free to shoot me emails.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I'm all in on this idea of chat GPT too.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So if you think about like the tactical aspect of how do I start testing, I literally have made a chat or GPT that literally gives you the blueprints interactive.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: We'll leave it in the notes.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: It hasn't been released yet.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: It's all trained on all of this best practice content.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So literally you could go and say give me the eight steps to run an experiment today.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It's going to pump it out, it's going to be bespoke to you and your nonprofit, which is even cooler amongst a million other goodies.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: So three ways chat GPT, find me on LinkedIn or I'd donate.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: And kudos to people who listened through the end of the episode, because you just figured out how you're going to get the freebie for this, so bravo.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you for that share.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: It was very generous and it is not a watered down thing to say how dearly we love you, appreciate you and appreciate what you bring to this world, my friend.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you, becky.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I just want to be like you, too, when I grow up.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Well, I am much older than you and I have much to teach you.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: 40-year-old man, and I'm working it out too.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you for these small shifts.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: Thank you for the love and the light that you bring in.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: My friend, let's go do some 1% shifting in this world.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: My friends, we are with you.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Consistency is going to build the future that you want to live and work in.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Let's do it together.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Grateful for you, babe.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: All right, thank you too.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Thanks for being here, friend.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Alongside this series, we've created a free 60-minute on-demand workshop, and we'd love to see you there.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Inside, you'll get mobilized to put these eight trends from the series into practice at your organization and, of course, we would love to have you join us Head over to weareforgoodcom slash trends 2025.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Can't wait to see you there.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Have a great day.