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The ENGAGE Podcast

Subscribe to The ENGAGE Podcast to hear experts from across the social good community share best practices, tips and must-know trends that will help organizations increase their impact. Formerly called The sgENGAGE Podcast.
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Now displaying: July, 2018
Jul 19, 2018

It’s easy to see building websites and designing forms as an onerous cost for an organization, especially when there are any number of social media channels that are free to use. But it’s important to ask if those free options are serving the purpose that your organization needs them to serve, and to remember that forms and websites built specifically to help your donors find and support your organization may have a cost, but they also have a value. 

Today’s episode was recorded at the Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School, held in Dublin, Ireland. Tune in to hear an interview with Beate Sørum, an international public speaker and a fundraising consultant based in Norway who brings some unique perspectives on form design and UX optimization. Listen to the interview to hear what Beate has to say about why forms are a good investment, how to engage with your donors through follow-up questions, and how social media is affecting fundraising efforts now. 

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

  • Some of the areas Beate has done testing into and insights that she’s found along the way
  • How Norway has sidestepped the issue of copying what others are doing because of their lack of off-the-shelf solutions
  • Why Beate sees forms as an investment rather than a cost
  • How follow-up questions can be a good way to continue engaging with your donors
  • Untraditional ways of designing forms
  • How to better understand why people give and where giving comes from
  • Why forms end up offering too much choice
  • How social media is playing into fundraising right now
  • How to develop content in a way that’s most likely to achieve the goals of the organization
  • How to determine what’s working on social media when you have so many measurements to choose from
  • How organizations can get started with more effective testing and use of digital channels 

Resources: 

The Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School 2018

Beate Sørum

About Beate Sørum

 

“My task is kind of to get people to stop looking at websites and forms as a cost and start seeing it as an investment.”

 

“Not everyone is going to fill out all your follow-up questions, but that’s OK. You’d rather actually have them as a donor than know everything about them.”

 

“A form is just a piece of code. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to put it within the emotional story that you’re telling.”

Jul 12, 2018

You’ve probably heard the phrase “behavioral economics” before. Not only is it the subject of several best-selling books, there have also been two Nobel prizes awarded that centered on the topic of behavioral economics. But what is behavioral economics, and how does it apply in the social good community? 

Today’s guest is Bernard Ross, Director of The Management Centre. He’s the co-author of the book Change for Good, written with UNICEF’s Omar Mahmoud. In today’s episode, he’ll discuss behavioral economics in the context of fundraising and social good organization. Listen to the episode to hear Bernard talk about why humans make seemingly irrational decisions, how behavioral economics is at work all around society, and how to use the lessons of behavioral economics ethically. 

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

  • Fundamentals of behavioral economics
  • Why irrational decisions can still be predictable and follow patterns
  • Examples of behavioral economics in action around us
  • How behavioral economics are applied in the social good sector
  • How the human brain perceives numbers presented to it
  • How moving from heart to head leads to a decrease in giving
  • What Bernard would say to fundraisers to encourage them to use behavioral economics
  • How ethics intersects with behavioral economics and fundraising
  • Resources that Bernard recommends for nonprofit professionals thinking about behavioral economics 

Resources: 

Bernard Ross

Change for Good

Change for Good handout

Stop Listening to Your Supporters

 

“Behavioral economics says, “what if people are not like that? What if experience and the data tells us that we are all irrational?””

“There’s a whole science of restaurant menu design.”

“We are engaged in a moral business. There’s a moral responsibility to think about “am I using this technique fairly, properly, ethically?””

 

Jul 5, 2018

In this age of social media, activism is becoming more accessible to the masses. But, it's essential that the social media activism is connected to change makers working on the ground. How can philanthropic organizations harness social media activism to create change locally? This episode of Raise & Engage features an interview between Rachel Hutchisson, vice president of Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy at Blackbaud and Darrin Goss, president and CEO of the Coastal Community Foundation, about social media activism, community engagement and more. Listen to hear how movements are being created by social media channels providing information and engaging people around causes they might not be directly impacted by are coming together with deep local involvement on the ground working to impact lasting change. Topics discussed in this episode:

  • The biggest threat to doing social good right now, and the need for social media activism to be supported by on-the-ground support of local organizations changing policies
  • The difference between "weak tie" and "strong tie" activism, and how both are fundamentally needed to advance change today
  • How organizations can leverage philanthropic capital to impact their communities
  • Why social, moral, intellectual and reputational capital are all key parts of a philanthropic organization's ability to make a difference and influence others beyond just their financial capital.
  • Challenges faced by the Coastal Community Foundation, how it has embraced a bold new direction marked by a culture of courage, and how the organization has "turned outward" to directly engage the communities it serves in problem solving.

Resources:

"I think the biggest threat facing philanthropic organizations is a lack of understanding of how real social change takes place in the age of social media." "Philanthropic organizations have far more at their disposal than just the financial capital that we all know and understand." "When funders resolve that they need to work with communities, then they can have the courage to go out and do what the promise of philanthropy is all about."

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