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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: December, 2020
Dec 31, 2020

Do you know how to not only interpret your organization’s financials, but also how to present them to others as a compelling story that offers transparency and increases donations and impact.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Stephanie Skryzowski, founder and CEO of 100 Degrees Consulting, about how to use and communicate your organization’s financials. Listen in to hear what Stephanie has to say about why sharing numbers is important, who needs to know your numbers, and what the best ways are to present your numbers to different audiences.

 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Stephanie’s role as a CFO
  • Why it’s important to use and share numbers
  • Benefits of financial transparency
  • How sharing numbers improves relationships with donors
  • How to share financials with your board
  • How to share numbers with your staff
  • Sharing with donors and the public
  • Ensuring that you have a strong financial foundation
  • Checklist for budgeting best practices
  • What reports tell your organization’s story on a monthly basis
  • Five financial reports to review every single month
  • How your data can be visualized
  • Checking performance vs. plan

 

Resources:

Stephanie Skryzowski

bbcon

5 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Financials to Increase Transparency

The Buyer's Guide to Fund Accounting Software

 

Quotes: 

“As these organizations are sharing more information about themselves and about their financials, they got more money, which leads to greater impact.”

“Before we start telling our financial story, we need to have the foundation of financial management really solid at our foundation.”

“You want to make sure that we are coding all of our revenue, all of our expenses to admin, fundraising, or programs along the way, so that we can really easily pull this report.”

Dec 23, 2020

Feedback is a gift, but the thought of giving feedback can be scary. However, whether you are giving the gift of feedback to an employee, a manager, a teammate, a donor, a supporter, an advocate or a peer there is a process you can use to ensure your gift is better accepted.

In today’s episode, Monica Mutter, Director of Leadership and Culture at Blackbaud, focuses on the steps you can take to give effective feedback. Listen in to hear why Monica calls feedback a gift and what steps you need to use to give feedback in a way that helps the person receiving it become better for the next similar situation that arises.

 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Why Monica says feedback is a gift
  • The cost of feedback
  • The selection process for feedback
  • The neuroscience of feedback
  • Where people are left at the end of a feedback conversation
  • Checking to see that the timing is right
  • The steps for preparing to provide feedback
  • The steps for delivering feedback
  • Resetting expectations
  • Having the person identify behavior changes they can make to incorporate the feedback

 

Resources:

Monica Mutter

bbcon

7 Steps for Giving Effective Feedback

 

Quotes: 

“Feedback is a gift on so many levels.”

“Because there is a cost to giving feedback, as we mentioned earlier, we want to make sure the gift is received.”

“What’s most important is where we leave the person at the end of our conversation.”

Dec 17, 2020

Content is at the heart of how your constituents engage online. It’s how you inspire supporters to action and nurture their passion for your mission. But getting top-notch quality and performance from content isn’t always easy. 

Nyleva Corley, principal user experience designer at Blackbaud, talks all about how to get the most from your content on today’s episode. Listen in to hear Nyleva speak about how content attracts viewers and drives traffic, the link between content and constituent opinion of your organization, and why a content strategy is critical for social good organizations.

 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • What content attracts viewers and drives traffic
  • How much content is being processed daily
  • The definition of content strategy
  • Why working on a content strategy is critical
  • The link between your content and how your constituents feel about you
  • How to take inventory of all your content
  • Performing a content audit
  • The message hierarchy
  • Performing a gap analysis
  • Page description diagrams
  • Storytelling techniques
  • Tailoring your content to specific audiences
  • Creating an editorial calendar
  • Developing your content style guide

 

Resources:

Nyleva Corley

bbcon

Guide to the Nonprofit Web Design Process

What Is Content Governance and Why Does It Matter?

How to Write Effective Web Copy (Part 1): Make It Readable

How to Write Effective Web Copy (Part 2): Make It Stick

 

Quotes: 

“If you could focus on the content that was most critical to your organization and expire or archive all of the other content, just think of the great content you could be producing.”

“You want to start relationships with your constituents on your website.”

“Content strategy is not something that you do one time, in a silo, all by yourself.”

Dec 10, 2020

End-of-year fundraising is always important, and this year it has added importance with organizations needing to make up potential COVID-19 related shortfalls.

In today’s episode, Michael Johnston, founder of hjc, discusses some of the things that you should be thinking about when it comes to end-of-year giving and busts some common end-of-year fundraising myths.

 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Why this year is the most important year for end-of-year fundraising
  • What’s great about December donors
  • What you can find in the End-of-Year Fundraising Toolkit
  • How to make a holiday persona
  • Mapping out the holiday journey
  • The myth that holiday giving is only from October to December
  • How end-of-year fundraising spans the wide spectrum of society
  • Bringing different fundraising channels together
  • Last-minute giving

 

Resources:

Michael Johnston

End-of-Year Fundraising Toolkit

Last Minute Tips for Year-End Giving

 

Quotes: 

“You might want to make a holiday persona or two.”

“Don’t be afraid to make direct references, but still respect all religions and secular celebrations.”

“People hold off on their giving until the last minute.”

Dec 3, 2020

Can you think of a business process in your organization that is inefficient or time consuming, yet no one has been able to change the process for the better? When you know the steps to follow, eliminating waste is easier than you think!

In today’s episode, which features a session from bbcon 2020 Virtual, Jackie Huffman, Operational Excellence Engineer at Blackbaud, shares how to analyze your business processes by identifying and removing waste. Learn how to identify value-add and non-value add steps and ultimately improve your constituent experience.

 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Jackie’s role with Blackbaud
  • How to analyze business processes
  • Value-add activities
  • Non-value-add activities
  • The 8 categories of waste
  • Preventing and removing waste from processes
  • What a waste walk is and how it can help

 

Resources:

Jackie Huffman

Guidebook to Becoming a Lean Organization

7 Steps for a Successful Lean Implementation at your Nonprofit

Quiz: How Lean is Your Business Office?

 

Quotes: 

“Anything that does not meet the value-add definition is what we consider waste.”

“The problem with waste is that it consumes our valuable resources of our people’s time.”

“Because transportation is not something we’re willing to pay for, it is clearly a waste.”

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