Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 516. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: Engage dimensionally. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, and Justin McCord

Transcript

516. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: Engage dimensionally. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, and Justin McCord · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the nine nonprofit trends that matter in 2024, sponsored by our good friends over at RKD Group.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: We love this value aligned partner that's helping nonprofits build long-term donor relationships through next generation tech, data and marketing strategies that are driving omni-channel experiences and donations.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Learn more at rkdgroupcom.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm Becky.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the good community.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: So let's get started, becky, what's happening?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like I want to text you and I want to email you right now and talk to you, because I want to engage dimensionally.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about this.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: What a transition, oh my gosh, you are so on your A game so random.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, friends, if this is not making sense what Becky is saying, let me back up for a second.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: You're catching us in the middle of our trend series that always kicks off the beginning of a new year.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: We call it trends that matter in 2024.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: And so we take weeks unpacking these kind of connection points that we see in conversations of organizations that are living out the impact uprising in real time, bringing a lot of supporters into their cause, believers into their cause, and so we want to give you the playbook for how to implement it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: And today it's all about engaging dimensionally.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Is this a new word for y'all?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Because this is so cool.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Let's be honest, this was a new phrase for us as of November 2023, when Justin McCord, over at the RKD group, came to us and said hey, we're seeing something, are you all seeing something?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And we said, oh, we are seeing that.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We just didn't know what it was called.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So today we're going to break it down for you.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about engaging in more than one way.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So, if you remember, back in 2022, we chatted about how the sector needed to stop thinking one dimensionally.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that, john?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: We were kind of just testing the waters.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And so today is that two point over version, where we're going to take that concept to the next level, because the future success of your nonprofit increasingly hinges on the ability to adapt to this changing landscape and just make it relevant to the one person at the end of it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: So understanding the complexity of our donors needs how they want to connect with us, how they want to engage with us on a personal level.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: All of that is no longer optional, but it's absolutely necessary because we understand that identity and the things that we care about are informed by so many data points and engagement signals.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So that means today's donor is going to demand a deeper approach to engagement that recognizes their interest, their behaviors, their motivations and the values they share with your cause.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: So what's going to be the answer to that?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: The more data points you add, the more possibilities are going to emerge, and that's when we begin to engage dimensionally.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: That's me hitting it at a really high level.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I mean it's so exciting because these trends, of course, stack, because we see how they thread together.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: So if you've listened to the series, we're talking about the power of growing.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Our movement always starts with the one, and the idea that we can mobilize one person so much better in today's world is really exciting.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And we don't have to go at this alone.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: There is so much tech that we can use to our advantage to be able to do this and really personalize messaging.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: So the first thing that I have to say we're going to wrap up some key points of things that you really want to get right about.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: This is one we want to get outside of transactions as our sole source of truth.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: We are so much more than just the checkout screen right, which means that it's an opportunity to lean into this age of personalization.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I mean today's world like there's so many experiences that we have online that know exactly who we are, and we want to model the things that we see in the for-profit world and some of our consumer experiences and bring those kind of ideas over to the nonprofit space.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: How can?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Whenever someone logs into your website, it shows that you know who they are.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: It shows the past donations that they have, so you can pick up and continue that conversation as we keep going forward.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I love that so much.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I want to throw another one in there about how can we start to integrate dimensional thinking Into your strategies.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And, for starters, thinking dimensionally is directly connected to that idea of how do you connect the dots, so ensuring that your data sources are unified in one system which, by the way, you know, if your database is not clean, none of ours is.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Can we just accept that at some point?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It's never going to be as clean as possible, but we do need to be tracking all of those data points in one area, because it's going to help us sort of coalesce.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: What are these behaviors and habits that are coming out of it?
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And it's going to ask the question of do you truly know your donors?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably know their name and their address, maybe their mail or email and their transaction history, but what about their wealth, capacity for giving or, better yet, like, what about their motivation for giving?
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Where are they following you on different platforms?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Are they opening up your email, you know, but very active on Facebook?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe we need to like switch the way that we interface with them.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: All of this attention sort of on the I'm going back to my marketing class, john, with, like, my psychographics.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Is that we're really going beyond those basic demographics to really look at behaviors, and this is going to reveal which causes a donor feels most passionately about.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It's going to show what kind of content that engages them most and then it's going to show what kind of communication channels they prefer.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So if we're not looking at that information and we're only looking at their transaction history, that is such a different thing.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: It's such a narrow piece of the behavioral pie that's going to get someone in the right seat on the bus at the right time, in the right moment for the right ask.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Dang, it's powerful and it really opens the doors to start integrating that dimensional thinking into all of our strategies.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: And if this is kind of like stoking a flame within you, you're like man.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I want to like dive into this.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Not only do we have a really amazing guest coming up to really break this down, but we have had a lot of cool conversations on the podcast.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: They kind of talk about this intersection of this, and so I want to lift a few conversations that we've bundled as a playlist.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: This playlist can be found in the episode description and on the landing page for today's episode.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: But I mean, look, we've had really deep conversations about building donor journeys, about how do you like engage people along the way.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Cameron Bartlett's come in the house and schooled us friends.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I'm like how do you actually do that?
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: But also like how an organization like the Sierra Club manages 3.8 million members.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a number that still rocks me to my core.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: But how do they do that?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: In a way, they're engaging dimensionally.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: They know their organizational donors in lots of different capacities and they're meeting them where they're at.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: So we'll link up that episode.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, what are the email marketing strategies that are like cutting through.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: At the moment, Caitlin Bond came into our house and she taught us all about building your email list.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: What are the KPIs you can really watch for?
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: What are those signals which you're alluding to, Becky, not just the transactional, but what are those kind of like engagement metrics that tell you, maybe, what's happening in the minds of your email list?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And then linking up with a lot of organizations that are doing it well.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: So this playlist is totally fire and we can't wait to connect it up to you.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I feel like the excitement in our voices and I am here for engage dimensionally because it's already happening.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you, starbucks is engaging me dimensionally incredibly well.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I made a donation to my alma mater the other day via phone.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I got a text from them afterward that was circling back on something I said in our conversation and I was like this is happening.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: This is happening right now.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: We want you on the front end of it.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So let's go into some pro tips here, and I want to start with segmentation.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Segmentation is going to be your best friend.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I want you to get in there and get segmentation.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: A BFF necklace.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Do you remember those, john?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: That used?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to have like the cut in half the half heart.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Segmentation is going to be your best friend forever, because we want to segment donors based on various criteria like donation history, frequency of giving, areas of interest, like we're going to start looking at how often they're engaging with our content or with our social channels, and this is going to help us tailor communication strategies and engagement efforts for those specific donor groups.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And guess what?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: If you can connect them to each other, that goodness is just going to be fostered because they have so many commonalities.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: So segmentation is key.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: That's so good, and I'll keep going on that one, because when you start overlaying beyond just the donation patterns, look at the engagement metrics that are overlay on top of these.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're talking about how they gave Meaning like which platform did they use, what time of day, what was the prompt that created that call to action moment that they maybe took action?
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: How many times did they open the email or whatever it could be?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: But as much understanding of knowledge, of signals that you can understand, especially at scale, is going to give you a better lens of maybe how you can better reach other, like similar, audiences, and that's what we want when we're trying to steward and shepherd thousands of potential people through kind of a unified effort.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want to throw this one out here, because we've got a great case study that's coming up on the podcast in a couple of months.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: We want you to employ A-B testing and, if that's a new term for you, we have a episode on the playlist where Sam Baker breaks down A-B testing and what that can do, because it's really about testing variations and communication styles, frequency content.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: This subject line does better than that subject line.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: This type of day is better than this type of day, and we're gonna have John Delane-John with Summit Ministries and they did some A-B testing on their year-end appeal.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: On the A series, I want to say they had a 1.2% return and on the B test, they had something crazy, john, like a 65% rate, like where people responded, and so I really want you to try this out as part of your pilot for this year, because A-B testing can change the game.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are talking small shifts that really like stack up and add up and I got to throw a pro tip on here, because this is probably available to you that are you thinking about and incorporating this into your strategy?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Is that, how are we personalizing communication just wherever possible?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: So if you have all this data at your fingertips, how can you reflect it back to your supporters so they know that you know that you're not just emailing dear friend, you're emailing Becky.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And how can we start to incorporate that into all of our acknowledgements and relevant impact reports and all those different places?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Personalization is the way we're trying to build trust and we build trust whenever we know people by name and we recognize their shared humanity and speak into that relationship.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: So this feels a little 101, but at the same time it's like sometimes the basic things are really really powerful to just get unlocked with our data and kind of our outreach efforts.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Heck, yeah, no more hashtag.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Basic.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Basic is going to get you to the next step, and that's what we want.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And guess what?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: It's time to bring our guest on, and we've already cheased him and you don't even know that we have because it is a great joy to bring in Justin McCord, who's the senior vice president of marketing communications at the RKD group and I wanna add this in here because RKD is the sponsor of this trend series and we're just.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We love them.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Not only are they one of the largest direct marketing agencies that's exclusively for nonprofits in North America.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: They're the kindest humans.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: They give so much away for free, they share so generously and they're just thinking at another level.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So last thing I wanna say about Justin he's just an incredible dad, husband of a beautiful educator and principal.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: This music lover is the biggest deadhead that I know.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Justin, thanks for coming onto the podcast Get In Our World.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Hi Hi, how are you?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: What an intro.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: John, it's your turn, you go.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Okay now.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: So Ha, ha, ha, ha ha.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Ha, ha ha ha, wouldn't that be amazing.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Round two, that's the real two.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you for bringing this incredible trend to our attention.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I love the partnerships between our two companies because, honestly, we were seeing some of these trends but we weren't thinking about it in the way that you kind of expressed us to think about, and so we're really excited, Justin, to dive into this topic today.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: But first we want people to get to know you.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Tell us about growing up, tell us about your heart for this work.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I know it goes deep, so take the mic, my friend.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Well, I gotta say it is.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It's an honor to be in this space with the two of you, and so, before I answer your question, I just want to acknowledge and honor and lift up what y'all do, because no one else does it in terms of the amplification of so many great voices in this sector.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And it is, I know it's a burden, I know it can be.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: It's a joy too, but it's a joy, right, and so we are all better because of the work that y'all do, and I want y'all to hear that as we're recording Julie, do not edit that out and I don't know if I can say thanks to Julie.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I feel like I can because I listen so much.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, so, justin Gally, when I think about like what are through lines and informative moments, there are a couple that come to mind.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: My mom.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: So I grew up in a dusty West Texas town.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: My mom lost her parents when she was in her teens, her dad to ALS, her mom to kidney disease, which I didn't learn, by the way, until I was working in the nonprofit space and working on some health and disease clients.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: And so she's the youngest of six and she was raised by siblings but also by an aunt that took her in and that aunt became my grandmother figure and so we called her Manny.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: It's a great grandmother name, manny, and she was an absolute spitfire, like just this ball yes, this ball of West Texas creativity, and she was a sculptor and she was a painter and she was the best cook and all grandmothers are, but Manny just like goat of cooking, especially pies, and she loved professional wrestling.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And so, yes, I'm like picturing Justin and Manny like watching Nacho Libre together.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like she passed this to you.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: You're my friend that loves wrestling she did, she like she would take me to see professional wrestling events in gyms and call a Sims, and she also shared her kitchen with me and her studio with me and we watch movies together and so, like the first kind of thread that about Justin is, I think the thread of creativity stem from Manny and especially the thread of storytelling and my love of professional wrestling All stems from Manny fostering those things and then opening that space for me.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: The second thread is how my parents kind of prioritized being intentional in the communities around us, definitely our faith community and also our family, a large family that we were a part of and regularly spent time with, and so it's not just like hey, be a part of it, but it's like that intentionality and contribution and what it means to especially be out front in some of those communities.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: And this all kind of spun up to when I was 16, my first job was as an on air DJ at the small country radio station in Sweetwater, texas, waiting for anyone that's surprised here.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I was 16, working three nights a week and on air as the voice for a community Right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: And now I look back and think what was?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: who authorized this?
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it's so cool, actually, the radio station, the owner of the station it's a regular endeavor, like he always wants to have a couple of high school students on air and it's just incredible training, incredible life skill, work of the responsibility and the opportunity.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: And so I think that that threaded this idea of being a voice for people and being a mouthpiece and being out in front of people.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: And so that's the second thread.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: And then the third thread is y'all know, my career started in sports marketing, and so I worked in minor league baseball, I worked in professional soccer, and there's something that's, I think, uniquely powerful about creating experiences for people that helps form the way that you think in this space.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: And there was a one person in particular in my time in sports that has left the biggest life impact on me.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: He is, his name is Bobby Ryan, and Bobby had retired from soccer after a 10 year career at the same time that I was joining the front office.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: He was transitioning to the front office and I had the chance to walk alongside this incredible individual who had been the face of the franchise, not necessarily the most gifted athlete, but the most gifted spirit for this franchise in the community and I saw, as I walked alongside him for a couple of years, how much he gave of himself to everyone.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Bobby tragically passed in September 2011.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: And his spirit is still with me today.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: It's with my family today and and actually it's a part of the triggering events that led me to wanting to come to the nonprofit space and joining RKD in 2012.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so those are.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Those are kind of like three random threads that tie together and form a picture of who I am.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Justin, I mean, your story confirms why we like you so much because you're so dang interesting and intentional and I'll say you know, in terms of like somebody, that that has really been intentional in our friendship to like reach out to send us books in the mail.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: They're like hey, I think you would like this.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: You tracks me down on our on our US road trip to find my Airbnb address to get me a book in my hand.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: That is the intention of Justin.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: But I just love this throughline because this theme, this trend we're talking about, is engaged dimensionally, and already the storyline that you're sharing gives us lens to why this really matters.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: We are not just donors, we are not just we don't show up in one way in this world.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: We have interests, we have values, we have overlap of experience and we need to evolve to be missions that meet people and stoke those things and bring alive the things inside people, and so it means we have to think outside of just this one lane, and so I want to give you a chance to just talk about this trend kind of at a big level, and then we're going to go deeper.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: But like what do you see when we say the opportunity that exists, when we say let's move from one level of engagement to engaging dimensionally with our rabid fans and our believers and our donors and all of that?
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I want to caution people out front that this isn't about relationship fundraising.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: That's not the way that I'm thinking about this.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: We're thinking about this.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: It's not a pursuit to be everyone's BFF.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: I think that a lot of times we get trapped in that in fundraising language, and so you know, when we think about dimensionality, it's about data on context, like data in context and data on context.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: And and, john, as you were saying, too often as nonprofit marketers, we think about like baseline data as how we make decisions, right.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: So, and that tells us a disservice, because donors are more than just an account ID in our database, right?
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And they're more than just a transaction.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: And as you're hinting at, and as I love hearing Claybuck say, that the Venn diagram, overlap between donors and donors and humans is 100 percent.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's not a Venn.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It's a circle.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It's a circle right.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Two circles layer on top of each other for sure, and humans are multi-dimensional and complicated.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, we think that there's an opportunity this year for us to take a step forward in understanding those that believe in our causes in new dimensions.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: And so you know, here's kind of what I mean with that.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Becky is one Becky.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Right, there's, there's, there's only one Becky.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: We both know that.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: But with each data point that we add about Becky, we understand something more about her.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: And and so you know, if we thought about, let's say, you know, becky had donated to mine and John's nonprofit and we can't just think about her through.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: She made a gift to this appeal in December.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: So therefore, we're going to slot her into our cultivation series and give her the same message that we're giving to Julie and to Clay and to everybody else.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Right, there's something else that we can tap into to better understand Becky so that we can make better informed decisions on how to better wed her to the cause.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: For instance, one of those data points might be when did Becky make a gift?
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: Was it weekday Becky, or Saturday Becky or Sunday Becky?
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Because those are actually three different Beckys, and that's just adding one data point, like when, like when, and not oh, it was two months ago, no, no, no.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Like what day of the week was it?
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: And then, what if you had another data point of like what time of day, or was it from her laptop, or from an iPad or from a mobile phone?
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: And, depending on the device, what was the operating system like?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: All of these are incredible signals that can help us better understand data on context of who Becky is, so that when you roll those up into larger cohorts, you're like, wait a second, I've got this massive segment of people that look like this.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: These are all the people that are the Beckys, and what if I talk to them this way?
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Like what if I reshaped my message Towards this?
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: You know, set of data, and so that's a, that's a framing on this dimensionality and dimensional thinking, and and we think that it it helps you better understand your audience, which makes you a better marketer and a better fundraiser in the end.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So what you're not saying, justin, is that we should only look at what someone has given in the past as a means by which we should communicate with them in the future, or we should not just look at their wealth rating.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: You know, what we're saying is that there are, there is a lexicon, there is such a myriad of we call them data points, you could call them psychographics, you could call them so many different things, but it's really behaviors and we call them engagement signals in our work.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Wait, ways that, just like Somebody sends up just a little smoke signal of like I'm here and I'm I'm looking.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: They may not even be engaging yet, but they could be lurking, and I do think you're.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: You're casting this net and this vision in such a beautiful way, and I think that the mindset Shifts that have to happen in this are going to be core to understanding how we move forward.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So I want you to kind of talk about the old ways, which maybe I teased a little about the way that we've been taught to engage in the past, versus how we can start thinking about how to layer these engagement signals into our work.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Take it away.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: I'm proud that in 2023, our team, we put out a movement, a message we put out, you know, a thing that became a movement which is another one of your trends, by the way and and this movement for us was quit bad fundraising.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: And this idea of quit bad fundraising was both self-reflective for us as an organization and also looking at the larger sector, and about a mindset shift that we felt Was and is needed.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: So we decided to put a wrapper on it, and and what we saw was that there was this amazing community of people that came together to self identify the fundraising practices that they felt were outdated, like they personalized it for themselves, and and and the reality is that the data all around us shows that it's time for Our sector to make some mindset shifts right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: So the Edelman study and the findings of of trust, the fundraising effectiveness project you know long-tail retention challenges like report after report after report, and so we can choose to look at these as chicken little, or we can use them as an opportunity to To truly make that mindset shift, and, and so to understand where we want to go, the one of the phrases that we're using a lot is liquid expectations.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: That's what our donors have now liquid expectations, and what I mean by that is, with one swipe to the side, either side on your phone, you go from your banking app to maybe Kroger app to order your groceries to be delivered to your house, to Streaming your favorite Gravel Dead concert from 1972 might be Europe, I don't know to you know to texting your spouse, to Sending a snap to your 15 year old son, like that is.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: That is liquidity in how I I experience life, and it's liquidity and how every other donor experiences life and every brand that they engage with have been able to make these seamless experiences come to life, for them to flow into that pattern, and we're not there yet as a Philanthropic sector, and so that's the expectation that our donors have, that's what we should aspire to, and so that's that's where we need to go to now.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Where we are right now is something like we decide it's time to do our annual fill-in-the-blank campaign.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Then we decide the universal message that has passed the test of the development team, and then the marketing team and Thank goodness the marketing team didn't make too many changes and then the communications team that agrees with the marketing teams little changes and then the executive team signs off on it.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: We have our universal message that we have for our campaign, and then we choose our channels and it's probably the same channels that we used for this same campaign last year and and then, lastly, we identify segments and selections from our database on who to talk to, and so it's campaign message, channel, audience, and that is backwards, like that's so backwards.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Keep going, it's just like why?
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know, becky, why is audience last?
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Like what?
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Why are we thinking about Believers last?
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: So this is this mindset shift is flip that and start with People, start with the audience, start with understanding them and their context and, in aggregate, you'll be more effective in delivering against those liquid expectations that all of us carry, as do our donors.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this conversation is just so good.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: It's connecting to other trends, too that are coming up in the series about making generosity frictionless.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: It's like this idea of like we got to get people to act in that moment because there's so much distraction at all times, and it's almost like, how is our tech holding us back in that?
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: So I won't riff on that today, but, staying in this lane, let's start to break this down, because we're going to get into some case studies today that are going to be really cool, but, like, talk to me about someone that's listening to this conversation and they're like that's totally me, which you just described of like we're doing this in reverse.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: What are the ways that we can begin this journey?
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: You know of like, where to start.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Like, what is the first next couple of steps for a nonprofit to dip their toe in the water on this?
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, so my answer might be a wet blanket, so I'm apologizing.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Apologizing upfront.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: You have to start by understanding the data that you have, and I know that that's not nearly as fun as imagining all of the creative nuances that you can put into versioning a message for Becky or John or Justin, because I do believe that all three of us would receive a different message in the end because of the context of who we are and where we are.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: But you cannot engage dimensionally if you do not understand the dimensions that you have to act on.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: So, inventory your data.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: That is step one.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: The number of organizations that don't have business rules and guidelines and centralized data like that's got to be.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Our step one is is let's get there.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: I remember when I was working with a large health system and we were working on the launch of a campaign and we were thinking about all the data available and the data ranged from our primary CRM right.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: So data lives there.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Lots of really good data lives there.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Then there's an email platform there's data that lives there.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Then there's a donation platform there's data that lives there.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: Those three silos do not always talk.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: What about Google Analytics?
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: That's another set of data.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Do we have our business rules, understanding how we're using that and even like event attendees in Excel that were saved locally on the hard drive of a major gift officer On a jump drive somewhere, right, and probably post-it notes of data.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: So the point of starting with data is you got to bring it together, you got to unsilow your data.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: You have to break down those walls and get it into a place to where you can see what you have, so that you can see what you can work on.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: And so this idea of data governance, this idea of business rules within your approach to marketing and fundraising, that's a big part of step one.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: So inventory, add that data governance and then connect it.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Your goal should be to get it into a singular system so that you have as many data points as possible, right?
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: So we're talking like a data lake, and I am not the technical person, so I can imagine what a lake looks like, with all sorts of data creatures in it.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: I can't explain to you all the time how it happens, but when you put all of those pieces together, then you can see an aggregate, all of the data that you can work off of, and then it helps power personalization, it helps power automation, it helps you rethink your segmentation based off of audience first, not audience last.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: And then the third part is to activate and activate your data, and when I hear the word activate, I kind of think of throwing this massive switch on a wall.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, very Tom Madison, turning the lights on right first time, totally.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I was thinking Chevy Chase flipping the lights at Christmas.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Either way, I was more like in pinky in the brain.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: So again, context on data, context on data.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: But the idea is OK, we've got all our data sources together, we understand and we've got it formed in a way so that we can see more context on who our believers are.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Now, how are we going to use it?
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: And then, what does that mean for the messages that we want to create?
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: What does that mean for the cadence in which we want to deliver messages to individuals?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: What does that mean in terms of how we want to focus on retention or how we want to build trust and transparency?
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: All of these things are rich, rich ingredients to solving some of the major things that are holding us back right now.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: It has such possibility in it, and I have to tell you that, to me, is the metaphor for the nonprofit sector of opening king tuts too.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: If you can dive into this data, the treasures, the insights that are awaiting, you can unlock the trend that you mentioned just before, which was our trend number two, which is how do you find the one and then turn it into activating a movement.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: And this is absolute groundwork for unleashing not only that movement, but the personalization, the understanding, the sense of belonging.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: And so you guys are already doing this real time, I think.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Rkde group.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I'm watching your case studies and I just think you are on the cutting edge of it.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So we want to take some time and say who is doing this, who's doing this well and what are the results.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: So we'd love to hear a case study from you.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I want to acknowledge that we're all on a journey.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: We're all on a journey and so everyone that's listening to this, give yourself grace, because, yes, there are some cases that I'll share with you an example of an organization that we work with, an example that I know about from someone that we don't work with, and then an example that I see other people putting in place.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: But I don't want people to feel like this is some Tony Stark, jarvis, iron man system.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Cerebro yes Right.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I mean Iron man.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: He was on a journey in and of himself as a project.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: He never quite was perfected either, so it's okay to be somewhere on the journey and not necessarily to the end of it.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: That said so, here are a few ways that I've seen folks add dimension into their strategies.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: So this example comes from work that we have done with Susan G Komen, and so we've had a chance to work alongside their team in adding dimension into their online giving processes.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: So analysis had showed a target gift array, like a choice of dollar handles that you would show to a donor right based off of their previous giving, based off of other data attributes that we knew about those.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: So for known audiences within the database, we had this target array.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: What if you're an unknown audience, like that's the unlock right?
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: How do you attack the unknown audience?
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: And so, if we didn't have a target array, we used two different data points to make decisions on what to show individuals as they landed on a donation form.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: The first was the operating system on the device that they were using Is this Mac, is this a PC, is this an Android device, et cetera.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: So operating system was data point number one.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Point number two was their location.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: So by understanding someone's location, that could mean at the zip code level, you're understanding.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Okay, what does it mean for people that live in that zip code?
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: Like, what can we infer based off of that zip based data?
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Or at the IP level, is the IP address an office or is this a home?
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: And so when you start to add in all of those data points, it creates a combination of variables, and our analytics team had identified what are the most optimal gift array options based off of a series of variables to show these unrecognized donors whenever they came in.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: And so it ultimately led to a series of if-then decisions that the code was calling for on what to show John whenever he landed on the donation form and I know it sounds like highly technical.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: It really is a series of if-then decisions based on available data which led to stark not Tony stark increases in their average gift and online conversion rate.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Holy cow, I mean, yeah, there's just.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I can see really easily how obviously Coman is a massive organization.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: You're working at a big scale.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: But this spirit of innovation, trying stuff, looking at your data and making decisions, like that's like the rewiring that all of our shops could embrace and start with the tech stack that you have and then plan for budget, build, grow, disrupt, adapt, repeat.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do all our values at you at the same time.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: But I love that example because actually all of those things I would have just passed by, I wouldn't think that those are interesting data points to even look at.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: But this is just showing like we have to go in with a beginner's mind.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: We have to go with the curiosity about how we can maybe get to know people better.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And so you know we're going to wrap this up with the one good thing.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: So bring it home.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: We would love for you to tie in that one good thing that maybe engage dimensionally, or something that we can do.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: That's going to improve the way we do this work.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: What have you got for us, my friend?
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Understand that life can be challenging, and even for us in this social impact work, it can be so stressful.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: And so, for me, the one good thing and I do think this is a tie to engage dimensionally and it's to be intentional about those around you.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I read this quote from Picasso of all people I guess this is Manny filtering down all these years later and it said that the meaning of life is to find your gift.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: The purpose of life is to give it away, and that preaches to me, right, and so I think that that's what I try to do, that's what I know you two try to do, and, as marketers and social impact professionals, I think that that's the same thing that we can do when we take a step back and we try to think about our audiences first, we think about the people that we're engaging with first, and who they are, and so, whether or not that's like giving of yourself notes, texts, asking people questions, just find your gift and then give it away.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Dang.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I love that so much and I just feel like I'm toasting my iced coffee to Manny and Bobby and Pierce and you, and like everybody that you mentioned in this story.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: That's just beautiful.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: The intentionality of action, like what the power of that is, and we get to sit in this work, like what a gift that we get to be in this space.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: So, justin, people are going to want to connect with you that aren't following your podcast.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Like tell us, connect with that, connect with the other ways that you show up and RKD shows up online so people can find you.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can definitely connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: It is a space that I think of as the modern day Agora, like it's the public square, and I don't take lightly the opportunity to contribute and connect with folks at the public square.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: So connect with me there for the listeners, and don't be afraid to be an active participant in the public square.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: We're working, john.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Like you said, ma'am, we're in this sector, in the midst of a significant change and it's an incredible opportunity and we can all learn from each other, just like I learned from the two of you on every stinking episode with the guests that you bring on your insights and together we can go further, and so that's a great way to connect with me, to connect with other Arkadians and, yeah, Well, I just want to close up with gratitude because I just I feel very full hearted in this, I feel very empowered in this conversation, and I also just want to thank you and RKD group and anyone who pours into the we Are For Good podcast or into our community, because these conversations, these convenings, these insights, they absolutely matter and they are ripple affecting, and so want to give a shout out, of course, to Ronnie, to Tim, to Kate and to Bart, all of our friends over at Arkady Group.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Please check them out, please connect with Justin.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I can assure you your heart will be fuller and your mind will be blown by what he can bring into your life personally and professionally.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend, appreciate you so much.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Such an honor.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.
• 41:47
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• 41:50
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• 41:54
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• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Backslash hello.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast writing interview?
• 42:02
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• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much, friends.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Can't wait for our next conversation.