In the nonprofit sector, it’s easy to think of the pool of donors as being limited. You end up returning to the same group time and time again. But is there a different pool of donors out there that you’re not reaching, perhaps because your organization isn’t reaching out to them with the right language or operating within the right cultural context?

Joining Steve for today’s episode is Adrian White Slagle, the Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Supporter Experience at Operation Smile, a nonprofit medical service organization that helps children born with cleft conditions. Tune in to hear Steve and Adrian discuss how to expand your donor base by engaging with multilingual donors.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• The changing demographics in America, including the rapid growth of the Hispanic population
• The large percentage of Hispanic Millennials in America
• The importance of engaging bilingual and multilingual donors on a cultural level
• The importance of Spanish in Hispanic culture, even among Hispanics who also speak English
• The process of implementing multilingual programs for donors
• The benefit of starting small and layering in more widespread multilingual efforts gradually
• The importance of understanding key cultural values when determining if a cause is relevant to a specific audience
• The benefits of starting with a digital campaign first in order to gather valuable quick data about the response

Resources:

Adrian White Slagle

Operation Smile

Blackbaud

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Quotes:

“I think you can start out slow and small and just continue to layer on adapting from what you’re already doing, and that works.”

“If we’re not diversifying our audience, we’re just saying the same things to the same people, and at some point, they may move on.”

“We’re not reaching out to people who are sitting there waiting for us to start a conversation with them.”

We’ve all been there: the latest reports show this one color donate button works best, everyone is blogging about shortening subject lines, our board is inspired by another organization’s successful campaign and suggests we emulate. We find ourselves at the crossroads of “Should we do that?” and “Will that work for us?” Steve MacLaughlin, VP of Data and Analytics at Blackbaud and the host of today’s episode, explains that the answer is almost always going to be “it depends”. It depends on your mission, your technology, your audience, your goals – it depends on each organization’s unique situation and circumstance. The only way to get your answer: Test.

Joining Steve for today’s episode, a true expert in the field, is Tim Kachuriak, the Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for Next After, a research and consulting firm that helps nonprofits, NGOs, and businesses grow their research capacity. Tune in to hear Steve and Tim tackle everything from why you can’t afford not to be testing, a simple change that tests showed could increase online giving up to 20% and how to get started with simple data points.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• How the web works as our own behavioral laboratory
• Why testing is important for small organizations as well as large ones
• The challenges of determining what is and isn’t working and where testing is needed
• How data can demonstrate the changes in donor activity over time
• How best practices can provide diminishing returns as more organizations adopt them
• How to prioritize which areas to test using analytics
• The three components of creating online revenue
• Next After’s projects for 2018

Resources:

Tim Kachuriak

Next After

Blackbaud

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Blackbaud - Facebook

“The thing that I’m usually amazed by is how seemingly small things can make significant impact as it relates to getting more people to say “yes” to give a gift to you.”

“One of the ways that you can mitigate risk is by doing testing and finding out for sure, using data, what works and what doesn’t.”

“I love best practices, but I love them as a starting place, not a final destination.”