The digital world has opened a new range of possibilities for higher education institutions as they look to connect with alumni and other prospective donors. Opportunities for greater creativity and the ability to make the donation process much easier and more personalized have greatly advanced how institutions can better engage constituents. However, one thing that remains the same is the importance of building relationships.
This episode features a discussion between Sue Cunningham, President and CEO of CASE, and Tim Hill, President & GM of Blackbaud Higher Education Solutions, about the Blackbaud Institute’s “2018 Charitable Giving Report: Higher Education Spotlight.” Listen in to hear what Tim and Sue have to say about higher education trends in 2018 and how they compare to prior years, and how digital tools and campaigns will affect the future of higher education giving. And to learn even more about this topic, click on the link to the webinar in the “Resources” section below.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Webinar: 2018 Charitable Giving Report: Higher Education Spotlight
Report: 2018 Charitable Giving Report: Higher Education Spotlight
Quotes:
“Clearly the digital world has opened up a huge range of opportunities, and we’re seeing imaginative and creative use of those both in the context of a broader engagement and also specifically around fundraising.” – Sue Cunningham
“We forget that sometimes you’re competing for that dollar with other types of institutions.” –Tim Hill
“Whether relationships are being built face-to-face or whether they’re being built remotely, I think relationships are at the heart of what we’re about and what we’re doing.” –Sue Cunningham
Has your organization better connected finance and development and you’re now looking for what you can do next to ensure sustainable mission success? Today’s episode focuses on learnings from Blackbaud’s Financial Management Toolkit, an expert guide for connecting finance and development as a strategic partnership.
Industry expert Pamela Gignac, Vice President of Development at JMG Solutions, shares strategies and best practices for using donor statements to position your organization for a successful sustainer giving program. Listen in to learn how to begin, how donor statements can be used to build trust and start new conversations with donors, and which donors should receive the statements.
After the episode, access the webinars listed in the Resources section below to hear more from Pamela and other experts.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Full Webinar: Sustaining the Transformation
Finance and Fundraising Webinar Series
Quotes:
“Where it’s really relevant, more than in any other place, is particularly with major gifts.”
“If one organization does it, then donors get used to it.”
“The donor statement is one that allows us to personalize the accountability that we have to our donors.”
Digital transformation may sound like a buzzword, but the reality is that it fundamentally changes the way organizations operate and innovate.
Special guest Mike Gianoni, president & CEO of Blackbaud, joins us for our 100th episode to explore the topic of digital transformation and how it drives business performance. Listen in to hear what Mike has to say about how technology has changed the way organizations run over the past few decades, why successful digital transformation requires more than just new technology, and how leaders can champion digital transformation across their organizations.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“Obviously, digital transformation impacts all of us. It’s changed our lives significantly.”
“Digital transformation is not just about the software and the IT, it's about moving the whole company in a different direction.”
“It's not just the IT person's job to drive digital transformation. It's actually the CEO's job or the executive director's job to drive it because you have to change everything, not just the software.”
“To really get ahold of this, everything has to be rethought. Every part of the business, every aspect of the business…financial management to mission delivery, fundraising, all of it.”
Nonprofits and other social good organizations face many challenges, but one that can be seen over and over again comes from inside the organization. Different departments, such as development and communications, don’t effectively engage with each other, hampering their ability to reach out to and engage with donors as successfully as they could.
Today’s guest is Sam Stern, CEO of Magnify Good, a communications consultancy that helps social sector organizations magnify the good of the work they do. He joins podcast host Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud to talk about how organizations can transform by focusing on working more connectedly across departments, particularly between development and communications. Listen in to hear what Sam has to say about where to start to increase inter-departmental collaboration, how creating personas can help organizations operate more effectively, mirroring the donor’s journey with evergreen content, and the importance of technology to bring all the pieces together.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“What would happen if we all focused on doing our work together in a fashion that would be more effective and lead to better results?”
“Having this persona in the front of your mind all the time is going to help you get to the point where you can even test these things to see what’s working best and what’s not.”
“How do we need to think about this, organizationally, and make decisions as to whether this technology is actually just going to be more work and not really pay off any benefits, or if it’s really going to empower us.”
Everyone knows that social media has a massive impact on today’s culture, so how can social good organizations effectively leverage it to engage supporters? What does your organization need to do to execute an effective social media strategy? What benchmarks should you be tracking your performance against? How can you improve if you’re not where you want to be? The guests in this episode of The sgENGAGE Podcast are going to help answer these questions.
Today Jocelyn Wright, Instructional Designer and Jenny Toledo, Instructor at Blackbaud University, join your host Roz Lemieux, Director of Blackbaud Labs, to talk about some of the highlights from the M+R Benchmarks Report and what they mean for your organization. Listen in to learn why social media tracking matters, what development professionals need to know about Facebook fundraisers, and what to expect from Instagram’s new donate stickers.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Blackbaud University Organizational Best Practices
Blackbaud University Organizational Best Practices Course Listing
Quotes:
“We need to use social media to our leverage. That’s where everyone is. That’s where everyone is engaging and talking with our organizations. We have to be where the people are.”
“We have seen that video content is actually the most engaging across all platforms.”
“If you understand your audience, you understand what message they resonate with, what they connect with.”
What do finance and development have in common? A goal to keep the organization on the path to successfully fulfilling its mission. So, it's critical that finance and development are aligned both on the goal and on the path they'll take to getting there. Today’s episode focuses on the learnings in Blackbaud’s Financial Management Toolkit, an expert guide for connecting finance and development as a strategic partnership.
Industry experts and Toolkit contributors Russell Pomeranz, president and CEO of Claverack Advisory Group; Lucy Morgan, director of MyFedTrainer.com; and Bess Hamilton Foley, chair of the Nonprofit Operating Reserves Initiative Workgroup, share best practices and tips for how finance and development can collaborate to determine the organization's path to mission success. Listen in to hear what they have to say about how finance and development should work together, coordinating a revenue strategy that includes grants and fundraising, and strategies for fundraising an operating reserve.
After the episode, access the webinars listed in the Resources section below to hear more from Russell, Lucy and Bess as well as other experts.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Webinar: Getting Aligned on Finance and Mission Strategy
Finance and Fundraising Webinar Series
Quotes:
“Finance and development working together have the necessary financial and programmatic impact to build the mission-sustainable nonprofit however that mission adapts over time.” –Russell Pomeranz
“One of the parts of federal grants that we tend to forget about is just how big that purse is.” –Lucy Morgan
“An operating reserve helps to ensure that you can continue to reliably deliver critical mission services.” –Bess Hamilton Foley
Getting supporters to take action and engage with elected officials on policy issues can be a challenge, requiring organizations to start thinking outside the box. Learn from one social good organization how innovating and testing new tactics can help boost advocate engagement.
This episode of the sgENGAGE Podcast features an interview with Chris Masak, senior associate director of advocacy at the Alzheimer's Association. Chris shares how the Alzheimer’s Association has experimented to get more people engaged in Alzheimer’s advocacy. He also gives tips on how to identify people likely to take action on your cause and how to decide which methods of engagement to experiment with. Finally, Chris discusses the new tactics and technologies he is looking forward to trying next.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Grassroots Galvanizer Playbook
Quotes:
“When it comes to the advocacy work, if you’ve taken an action recently, if you’ve spoken out on an issue and done it in a way that we like, those are the people that we want to identify first.”
“It’s the long game that we’re ultimately looking for. Some of the stuff that has come out as beta tests or trial runs, those are the things that have had a lasting impact on our movement.”
“Even the biggest organizations probably have fewer resources than you’d expect when it comes to certain things. There’s some duct tape and glue going on no matter what.”
We spend as much as 20% of our day doing manual repetitive tasks, and those manual tasks often end up costing organizations a lot of money in lost productivity, fraud and errors. So how can social good organizations fix this? Enter robotic process automation (RPA), a technology that automates repetitive processes and allows organizations to better control their expenses, increase their margins, and drive more revenue.
In this episode, Blackbaud’s RPA expert Louis Stratton explains what robotic process automation technology is, how it strengthens internal controls and why it benefits organizations to include it as part of their strategy. After listening to the episode, check out the webinar through the link below to learn even more about how RPA can influence your work.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Webinar: Robotic Process Automation: What It Means for Your Organization
Quotes:
“We live in an era where digital transformation is radically changing the way we interact, work, and live.”
“One thing that’s always constant is that hardware gets better, then software gets better.”
“In business, the robot is the software.”
It’s easy to think of data as something that’s entirely neutral, but like most things, data is open to interpretation. It can be affected by human choices and by human biases, and often social good organizations don’t realize that they are working with biased data that ultimately affects how they achieve their mission.
Today’s guests are Vanice Dunn, director of equity, and Lane Trisko, director of digital and data strategy at Provoc. Vanice and Lane talked with Roz Lemieux, director of Blackbaud Labs, about their work helping social good organizations identify and remove bias in their data, and how data bias ultimately contributes to institutional racism. Listen in to hear what they have to say about what data bias looks like, common mistakes to be aware of, and strategies for overcoming data bias.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“I think that people have this misconception that if they approach with a data first approach or if they’re rooting their work in data that they’ve got it covered.” –Vanice Dunn
“What you carry around as your own unconscious bias or your assumptions is going to find its way into those decisions.” –Lane Trisko
“Being more strategic and rooting out bias in the way that you allocate those resources that will be allocated regardless is in service of the mission that your nonprofit exists for.” –Vanice Dunn
You’ve probably heard a lot about persona-based marketing. But do you really know what it is? What are personas, how do you develop them, and what do you do with them? And should your organization even be worrying about incorporating personas into its marketing efforts? (hint…probably)
Rachel Clemens, chief marketing officer of branding and digital marketing agency Mighty Citizen, joins the podcast to talk about persona-based marketing can amplify a mission-driven organization’s marketing efforts. Listen to the episode to hear more about what function a persona serves, how organizations can identify the audiences they should create personas for, and how persona-based marketing differs from segmentation.
Bonus - you’ll also learn how your mission-driven organization can win $25,000 in free communications services from Mighty Citizen.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Mighty Citizen Fundraising Campaign Metrics Template
Mighty Citizen Marketing Campaign Template
The Next Generation of American Giving
Quotes:
“The purpose of them is to learn to see a person as an actual person that’s looking at your org, not as someone you’re just trying to sell to or talk to or get a donation from.”
“You’ll know you’ve interviewed enough people when you start to anticipate their responses to your questions.”
“We always say research kills opinions.”
Things are changing in the world of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Employee volunteerism is on the rise, and a variety of new trends in employee giving programs are taking hold. Today’s guest, Dustin Joost, VP of Sales and Marketing at YourCause (a Blackbaud company), joins the podcast to talk more about these trends and what they say about the state of CSR today.
Dustin discusses ins and outs of the newly published “2019 CSR Industry Review.” Listen in to hear about major report findings, what’s driving the rise in corporate volunteerism, and which statistics Dustin found surprising and exciting.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“Really what we’re trying to do is build the largest network of do-gooders to go out and make a meaningful impact in the world.”
“Some of the most impactful companies that we’ve seen are able to tie their community relations efforts into that first-day experience.”
“Peer-to-peer personalizes what fundraising means.”
How does unconscious bias interfere with the hiring process? It may be different than you think. Listen to this episode to learn more about how unconscious bias affects the workplace and how it can be overcome to create diverse and inclusive workplaces.
Today’s guest is Paula Brantner, president of PB Works Solutions, LLC and senior advisor to Workplace Fairness, a nonprofit organization working to promote and preserve employee rights that maintains the most comprehensive online resource for free information about workers' rights. Listen to the episode to hear what Paula has to say about strategies that organizations can use to reduce unconscious bias in the hiring process, tactics for reaching out to and recruiting diverse candidates, and the benefits of a more diverse workplace.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“I really started paying attention to diversity and bias issues when I realized that a lot of times it’s very difficult to bring a lawsuit when you’ve encountered these in the workplace.”
“You may think you don’t discriminate, but these forces may be working in your brain based on your life experience even before you take any action against them.”
“When you actually get to the point of sorting and interviewing particular candidates, make sure you have a diverse group of people looking at the resumes.”
Cheryl Contee, CEO of Do Big Things and author of the upcoming book “Mechanical Bull: How You Can Achieve Success,” joins the podcast to talk about digital innovation and how it can be used to increase stakeholder and supporter engagement. Listen to the episode to hear Cheryl and guest host Roz Lemiuex, Director of Blackbaud Labs, discuss what innovations can be used to help increase engagement, why online influencers are powerful, and how organizations can balance efficiency with innovation.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Video interview: Cheryl talks about how Leveraging Video Content with No Budget
Quotes:
“New power really does rely on reaching out to the new power players, and the new power players are online influencers.”
“What people do trust are their friends, their families, and the influencers who matter to them, particularly micro-influencers.”
“This is a time now when organizations need to be follower-led.”
How can fundraising professionals, especially those working for smaller organizations, improve their own fundraising skills? And what can organizations do better to attract and retain fundraising talent?
To help explore this question, Jason Lewis, author of “The War for Fundraising Talent: And How Small Shops Can Win,” joins the podcast to talk about his ideas about arms-length fundraising, creating value for donors, and how organizations can empower fundraisers in ways that set them up for success and job satisfaction.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
The War for Fundraising Talent: And How Small Shops Can Win
Quotes:
“Your local Starbucks knows how much initial volume they want to come through the door to purchase that first cup of coffee, and they’re going to spend quite a serious amount of money to get that first consumer, that first person to purchase that first cup of coffee.”
“At some point, we have to recognize that generally speaking, what we expect of them is more every time we reach out to them.”
“Passion can play out in a very harmonious way, but it can also play out in a very problematic way.”
Many nonprofit organizations struggle with communications. A lot of times, this problem is caused by too many complications in their strategy.
This episode’s guest is Michael Beall, Principal Consultant and Communications Practice Leader at Accordant Philanthropy. Listen to the episode to learn what Michael has to say about how organizations can uncomplicate their communications strategy by prioritizing communications to different audiences, how budget fears affect communications, and how to test messaging to see what resonates with different donors.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Article: Uncomplicate Your Communications Strategy
Webinar Series: Resources for Creating an Atmosphere of Engagement
Quotes:
“I think a simple exercise to do is to really list those potential priorities, those different audiences, and just assign who’s number one, who’s number two, who’s number three.”
“The interesting thing is that when you poll donors, they tell you the opposite – that they’re overwhelmed by frequency and by noise. And that really, that’s not what they’re looking for.”
“You’ve really got to test it out before you send it out.”
What is digital transformation, and how is it impacting fundraising in the social good community? What does digital transformation mean for those organizations themselves?
To talk about this topic, Brad Little, Managing Director of Consumer Solutions, joins the sgENGAGE Podcast with host Steve MacLaughlin. Listen to the episode to hear what Brad has to say about digital transformation tools, how personal connections matter, and what the rise of crowdfunding means for social good.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Digital transformation tools
How consumer behavior is starting to transform the nonprofit sector
Why personal connections matter in fundraising
Finding the right way to share stories to the world in a way that inspires people to act
Why crowdfunding is accelerating, and what that means for social good organizations
Resources:
Quotes:
“Many of us would consider digital transformation much broader than trying to do digital things well.”
“Every industry, as we all know, is somewhat disrupted by not just the internet but the phones and access we have in our pockets every day.”
“Some of the work that we’re trying to do is find the way that we can help drive new supporters and net new donations that they maybe wouldn’t have gotten without using various softwares out there in the world that we might be able to produce.”
Why does fundraising matter so much for nonprofit organizations? What is the best way to measure how effective fundraising measures are? What do diversified fundraising programs look like? Today’s guests are joining the podcast to help answer these important questions.
Anne Wallestad is the President and Chief Executive Officer of BoardSource, and Andy Davis is the Director of Education at BoardSource. They join the podcast today to talk about diversified fundraising and metrics for fundraising success. Listen to the episode to hear what Anne and Andy have to say about the essential nature of fundraising for nonprofits, the best way to balance efficiency and risk in fundraising, and how organizations can measure their dependency quotient.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Anne Wallestad, President and Chief Executive Officer, BoardSource
Andy Davis, Director of Education, BoardSource
The Right Mix: How Diverse Income Models Influence Giving
Measuring Fundraising Effectiveness: Why Cost of Fundraising Isn't Enough
Quotes:
“Organizations do have to help donors get to know their organizations, share how their work is having an impact, share how a donors investment would have an impact.” –Anne Wallestad
“If you think about it just in terms of shorthand, cost of fundraising is a measure of efficiency, dependency quotient is a measure of risk.” –Anne Wallestad
“Everyone knows that your weight is a measurement in some way of how healthy a person is. But what if we were told that weight was the only thing that mattered, like sometimes is the case with cost of fundraising?” –Andy Davis
Have you ever read something that totally changes your perspective on a subject? When it comes to fundraising, it’s not uncommon for people in the nonprofit sector to have set ideas about the process of fundraising, but today’s guest is challenging those perspectives.
Greg Warner is the author of the book Engagement Fundraising: How to Raise More Money for Less in the 21st Century. He joins the podcast today to talk about what prompted him to write the book and what engagement fundraising means for the nonprofit sector. Listen to the episode to hear what Greg has to say about why it’s important to take a more modern approach to fundraising, how to move from relationship fundraising to engagement fundraising, and what the first steps are toward engagement fundraising.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Engagement Fundraising: How to Raise More Money for Less in the 21st Century
Introducing the "Four Selfs" of Engagement Fundraising
Quotes:
“Things that the sector believed just were not true, especially from a donor’s perspective, but also from a technology perspective.”
“Engagement fundraising really focuses first and foremost on the consideration process that the donor goes through.”
“It’s not about moving donors, and it shouldn’t be, but that’s what people think. The key to success is to provide value in a way that helps donors move themselves forward in the giving consideration process.”
It’s clear that social media can be a powerful tool for social good. Online campaigns like #MeToo have been greatly effective at raising awareness and sparking action. But not every campaign is so effective, and social media activism can be polarizing and difficult to manage.
This episode’s guest is Susan McPherson, founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies. She joins the podcast to talk about hashtag activism, why some social media campaigns are successful while others aren’t, what social good organizations can do to help ensure the success of their social media campaigns, and how to appeal to members of Generation Z.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Follow Susan on Twitter: @susanmcp1
GRASSROOTS GALVANIZER: A modern playbook to mobilize, organize, fundraise and influence
Quotes:
“Social media can be an incredible way to scale reaction, to rapidly organize a message of dissent or awareness about an issue.”
“Remember, sometimes it’s OK if every campaign isn’t about getting people to make a donation."
“The most moving social campaigns are generally not associated with specific brands or organizations. They’re typically supported with a moment, feeling, or call to action.”
Today’s young people know that they can have a hand in shaping a better future and solving the world’s challenges, and they’re embracing their role by engaging in causes and supporting organizations and companies that align with their values.
This episode’s guest is Meredith Ferguson, the Managing Director of DoSomething Strategic. Listen to today’s conversation to hear more about DoSomething.org and DoSomething Strategic and how they are helping engage millions of young people in social change. Learn about how Generation Z is different from previous generations when it comes to social good, how social good organizations and companies can engage with this younger generation, and what makes young people gravitate toward causes.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Learn about DoSomething Strategic and DoSomething.org
Article: What Drives Gen Z: Is It the Experience or the Cause?
Quotes:
“DoSomething.org is the largest platform for young people and social change. We have 6 million members worldwide in 121 countries between the ages of 13 and 25.”
“The interesting thing is when we ask young people who is responsible for solving the world’s most pressing problems today, they said “citizens”. A plurality of them said, “we are.”
“If you’re not communicating via text, then you’re likely not activating as highly as you should.”
Work doesn’t mean the same thing now that it once meant. Workers have different motivations and skills, and organizations are changing their look in order to be more diverse and inclusive. What does that mean for the future of work?
In today’s episode, you’ll hear a session from the 2018 Social Innovation Summit facilitated by Rachel Hutchisson on the topic of “Skills, Brand, and Space: The Future of Work.” Listen to the conversation with Carina Wong, Senior Advisor, Innovation & Scale at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gary Bolles, Chair for the Future of Work, Singularity University as they answer questions about purpose and passion in the workplace, the changing skills required in today’s workplaces, and how workplaces themselves are changing.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“Working at the Gates Foundation, I know that I work at one of the most purposeful places in the world, and that it’s a privilege to be able to follow your purpose and passion.” –Carina Wong
“Engagement with work sort of runs this spectrum from mild disinterest to all the way through to feeling like it’s your mission in life.” –Gary Bolles
“Inclusion is simply the inevitable result of that kind of process – of opening up your thinking and realizing that only by having a diverse set of problem solvers will you be able to solve the problems of tomorrow.” –Gary Bolles
Social good organizations and private companies have many differences, but they also have many things in common and can benefit from some of the same strategies. Lean principles are being used more and more often among startups and tech companies, and social good organizations are alsolso seeing the value of these principles: thinking big, starting small, and seeking impact.
In today’s episode, Steve MacLaughlin talks with our guest Ann Mei Chang, author of the book Lean Impact: HJow to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good, about how some of these lean principles are being implemented in social good organizations. Listen in to hear what she has to say about transitioning to using lean principles, getting comfortable with failures, and ensuring that a successful program can scale.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good
Quotes:
“I started to realize that while people get really excited about technology, what I think truly differentiates Silicon Valley are two things: one is the audacity of the ambitions in Silicon Valley, and the second is the pace of progress.”
“I think there are many, many organizations doing incredible work, but it’s still in the early adopter phase.”
“One of the things I like to say is it’s important to fall in love with your problem, not your solution.”