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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: Category: general
Jul 10, 2023

They say that the only constant is change, and change is often brought on by crises. In this panel discussion, Blackbaud’s Melissa Furr talks with two veteran grantmaking professionals to discuss how their organizations manage their mission while staying in tune with the needs of their communities.

Lisa Tacker from the Two Ten Footwear Foundation and Beth Broomall from the Charles H. Dater Foundation share their best practices and advice for organizations on things to do before, during, and after a crisis to make sure your organization avoids mission creep.

May 25, 2023

When is the last time you took a bird’s eye view of your engagement strategy? From how many solicitations to send a year to maintaining your donor database and keeping your message aligned across teams, engagement can quickly become stale or ineffective without a tested strategy. In today’s episode, Kate Averett Anderson of the Blackbaud Institute sits down with fundraising experts Lawrence Henze and Nathalie Highland to discuss best practices for engagement and tools you can use to communicate with your supporters more efficiently. After the conversation, check out the free Development Planning Toolkit from the Blackbaud Institute to fill out your own Engagement Strategy framework and put what you’ve learned into practice!

This episode of the ENGAGE podcast features excerpts from the webinar Development Planning: Your Three-Step Guide to Engaging Supporters. Catch the full discussion, on demand, now.

Topics covered in this episode include:

  • The pitfalls of an unexamined engagement strategy
  • Breaking down silos for more effective engagement
  • The benefits of reduced solicitations to supporters
  • Tips for testing new approaches and conducting donor surveys

 Resources:

Development Planning: Your Three-Step Guide to Engaging Supporters

 Quotes:

“Through those direct and personal interactions with our staff and our experts, donors were given the opportunity to understand not just what we do, but how and why we do it. And so that has been a real benefit and jumpstarted our major gift program and has helped to spur our growth over time.” – Nathalie Highland

“I've always asked my clients to put me on their mailing list, and I would typically make a donation to them to see how they communicated with me as a donor. And I spent eight years tracking those communications. What I found was that there were some organizations that sent me at least at least 36 direct mail pieces per year!” – Lawrence Henze

May 18, 2023

As women wield greater economic power and harness their influence to lead change, their generosity is rapidly transforming the philanthropic landscape. What is possible when women are active participants in philanthropic work, engaging all the levers available to advance the public good?
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI), part of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI, increases understanding of women’s philanthropy through rigorous research and education with the vision of empowering women to use their wealth and power to uplift others. Following WPI's sixth national symposium All In, All Rise, WPI Associate Director Jacquie Ackerman sat down with three symposium participants to discuss how women’s involvement in philanthropy influences and strengthens communities, encourages greater strategic giving and builds a more diverse community of engaged citizens.

This is an excerpt of a conversation that was part of the Blackbaud Grantmaking 2023 Thought Leadership Webinar series. For the entire thought-provoking discussion, please watch the full webinar.

Guests: 

  • Moderator: Jacquie Ackerman, Associate Director, Women’s Philanthropy Institute
  • Dr. Monique Couvson, President and CEO, Grantmakers for Girls of Color
  • Natanja Craig-Oquendo, Executive Director, Boston Women’s Fund
  • Marsha Morgan, Board Advisory Member, Community Investment Network and Black Women Give Back honoree

Resources: 

Apr 3, 2023

How much impact does volunteerism have on our wellbeing? 

Hear from Jude O'Reilley, CEO of VolunteerMatch, as he talks with Blackbaud's social responsiblity manager Melissa Furr about how volunteerism is closely tied to personal health and wellbeing. Jude and Melissa share how you can incorporate volunteering in the workplace and acheive the feeling of being connected to something larger than oneself.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • What is VolunteerMatch?
  • A longing for community
  • The four pillars of wellbeing
  • Best practices
  • Employee Input
  • Physical, Financial, Emotional, Social, and Intellectual wellness
  • VolunteerMatch's new campaign Get that Grin

Resources:

Get that Grin

VolunteerMatch

Edelman Trust Barometer

Quotes:

"One best practice is to think beyond the volunteer day."

"We shouldn't underestimate employees themselves being the key motivator for other employees."

"Most people rely on colleagures and their employer for information that they trust the most."

Jan 13, 2023

As part of our series on the Future of Nonprofit Finance, Blackbaud’s Sarah Curry sat down with George Werbacher, the Senior Manager for Information Security at Blackbaud, to discuss how nonprofit organizations can prioritize cyber security in 2023. George talks through how organizations can see data security as an investment and highlights how implementing controls helps the organization do more to drive impact. He explains how organizations can do a “threat model” to start an open dialog about where the risks are, including who is using data and how that’s being used.

Resources:

Dec 29, 2022

As part of the series Future of Nonprofit Finance, Blackbaud’s Sarah Curry sits down with Alex Wilson, the Co-Founder of The Giving Block to discuss why the conversation around cryptocurrency matters for nonprofit finance teams. They touch on some of the cryptocurrency trends and why organizations should think about owners of cryptocurrency as a donor demographic as well as a way to diversify revenue streams. 

Topics covered:

  • Is cryptocurrency safe?
  • How does it work?
  • How is it tracked?
  • How do taxes work?

Resources:

Dec 20, 2022

In this excerpt of a conversation with Satonya Fair, President and CEO of PEAK Grantmaking, she encourages grantmaking organizations to rethink their relationship with risk. Instead of focusing on being responsible for the foundation, she recommends looking to how organizations build deeper relationships with applicants and grantees and be poised to be responsive to the needs of the community.

Resources:

Dec 9, 2022

For the past 10 years, the Blackbaud Institute Index has tracked year-over-year trends in philanthropy and annual giving statistics—with the goal of empowering organizations to know their sector and raise more, faster. Over this time, the Index has grown to track over $51 billion from over 8,500 organizations in the United States!

To celebrate we’ve invited some of our most trusted advisors, industry experts, and friendly faces to lead virtual fireside chats, podcast episodes, and more! Today’s episode of the sgENGAGE podcast features a conversation between Steve McLaughlin, Vice President of Product Management with Blackbaud and a senior advisor to the Blackbaud Institute, and Dr. Una Osili. A global expert on philanthropy and social innovation, Dr. Osili has more than two decades of experience in leadership, economic policy and research across the public and private sectors. She serves as the Associate Dean for Research and International Programs, Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy, and Dean’s Fellow for the Mays Family Institute on Diverse Philanthropy at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

There is no doubt that the giving landscape is shifting—from the donors who are responding to the way they want to be engaged. In this excerpt from their longer conversation, Steve McLaughlin and Dr. Una Osili break down the data on the changing demographic in charitable giving and how fundraisers can leverage this information to grow alongside this new generation of donors.

Topics Covered in this episode:

  • The latest data on who is giving to charitable organizations, how they choose to give, and what drives them.
  • Strategies to engage with a new generation of donors and prepare for the future.

Resources:
On demand, Blackbaud Institute Index’s 10th Anniversary Celebration
More from sgENGAGE and the Blackbaud Institute
To receive quarterly updates on the Index straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Source newsletter.

Quote:
“There's a bit of a call to action for nonprofits and fundraisers: how do we engage the next generation of donors? We have four generations in the charitable landscape and a big part of our job ahead, our task ahead, and the work ahead–for all of us–is engaging that next generation of donors.” – Dr. Una Osili

Dec 1, 2022

Alex Budak, UC Berkeley faculty member and author of Becoming a Changemaker, joins Blackbaud’s Rachel Hutchisson to discuss how to develop your mindset and leadership skills to make positive change as part of our CSR Book Club Series. 

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • What is a changemaker?
  • How to drive change
  • Humility in Leadership
  • Changemaker Index
  • Leadership book recommendations

Resources:

Alex Budak

Becoming a Changemaker

Changemaker Index

Quotes:

"Leaders might be scarce, but leadership is abundant."

Nov 4, 2022

For the past 10 years, the Blackbaud Institute Index has tracked year-over-year trends in philanthropy and annual giving statistics—with the goal of empowering organizations to know their sector and raise more, faster. Over this time, the Index has grown to track over $40 billion from over 8,400 organizations in the United States! 

To celebrate we’ve invited some of our most trusted advisors, industry experts, and friendly faces to lead virtual fireside chats, podcast episodes, and more! Today’s episode of the sgENGAGE podcast features a conversation between Blackbaud Institute managing director, Ashley Thompson, and leadership expert and coach Marc Pitman. Marc helps high performers keep their edge, emerging leaders maintain their momentum, new leaders confront the demands of their position, and established leaders find fresh strategies. In this excerpt from their longer conversation, Marc and Ashley explore the concept of doubt and how it can be embraced as a framework for developing your skills and becoming an exceptional leader.

 Topics Covered in this episode:

  • Leveraging your strengths and weaknesses to become an effective leader
  • Storytelling as a tool for identifying your unique contributions

Resources:

Blackbaud Institute Index’s 10th Anniversary Celebration

More from sgENGAGE and the Blackbaud Institute

To receive quarterly updates on the Index straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Source newsletter.

Quotes:

“My premise in my working with leaders has proven that sometimes, ‘what am I missing?’ isn't the right question; that doubt can push us and can get so big that it pushes us to ask, ‘what if I'm the right person for this role?’ ‘What if I'm exactly what the team needs?’ ‘What if this organization is exactly the voice the sector needs?’” – Marc Pitman

Oct 24, 2022

For the past 10 years, the Blackbaud Institute Index has tracked year-over-year trends in philanthropy and annual giving statistics—with the goal of empowering organizations to know their sector and raise more, faster. Over this time, the Index has grown to track over $40 billion from over 8,400 organizations in the United States!

To celebrate we’ve invited some of our most trusted advisors, industry experts, and friendly faces to lead virtual fireside chats, podcast episodes, and more! Today’s episode features a conversation between brand strategist Ben Smithee and the Blackbaud Institute’s Ashley Thompson. At The Smithee Group, Ben Smithee has been helping leaders and businesses dream bigger and achieve more. In this excerpt from their conversation, Ben shares his expert advice on how a powerful brand allows for organizations to drive higher value and cataclysmic demand. Unfortunately, as Ben points out, powerful branding like this is one of the biggest areas where organizations fall behind today. He and Ashley connect on current trends in philanthropy and the for-profit sector to outline how you can get ahead of the curve by creating a relevant, legacy-focused brand in today’s digital ecosystem.

Topics Covered in this episode:

  • What is a brand and, more importantly, what isn’t?
  • Building equity by delivering on your brand’s promise
  • Growing your legacy alongside a new generation of donors

Resources:

Blackbaud Institute Index’s 10th Anniversary Celebration

More from sgENGAGE and the Blackbaud Institute

To receive quarterly updates on the Index straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Source newsletter.

Quotes:

“A brand is a promise that an organization has the opportunity to deliver upon.” – Ben Smithee

“How do we become relevant to the future of the organization and create a legacy? By focusing on the future stakeholders of the organization. We can't fall in love with how we've always done things.” – Ben Smithee

Oct 13, 2022

For the past 10 years, the Blackbaud Institute Index has tracked year-over-year trends in philanthropy and annual giving statistics—with the goal of empowering organizations to know their sector and raise more, faster. Over this time, the Index has grown to track over $40 billion from over 8,400 organizations in the United States! 

To celebrate we’ve invited some of our most trusted advisors, industry experts, and friendly faces to lead virtual fireside chats, podcast episodes, and more! We couldn’t have kicked off the series with a better guest than Chuck Longfield, renowned data scientist, philanthropy strategist, and the creator of the Blackbaud Institute Index! Now retired, Chuck allowed us to steal him from the golf course for a little while to sit down for a conversation with Steve MacLaughlin—lucky us!

In this excerpt for the sgENGAGE podcast, Chuck shares the inspiration behind the Blackbaud Institute Index and the value of such a significant and diverse data set when determining current trends and best practices in the sector. After the podcast, check out the full webinar, available on demand, where the two discuss the lessons Chuck has learned over his 40 year career, and put their heads together about how these lessons can help organizations navigate the road ahead.

Topics Covered in this episode:

  • Origins of the Blackbaud Institute Index
  • The Importance of benchmarking
  • Applying academic rigor to the study of philanthropy

Resources:

Blackbaud Institute Index’s 10th Anniversary Celebration

More from sgENGAGE and the Blackbaud Institute

To receive quarterly updates on the Index straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Source newsletter.

Quotes:

“Because there really wasn’t any gold standard, different organizations can pick and choose their metrics can pick and choose the definitions of their metrics. And it causes organizations I think, too often, to come to the wrong conclusion about maybe what their next step should be. And so, for many of the years that I've been working in this area, I wanted to try to standardize these metrics.” – Chuck Longfield

Sep 14, 2022

Many foundations face hurdles in creating advocacy agendas whether it be convincing a board of directors, finding the time and resources, or seeking funds from grantmakers. Chynna A. Phillips, senior director of policy and research at Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina, and Melissa Levesque, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Coastal Community Foundation, spoke with Blackbaud’s Sally Ehrenfreid, government relations lead about implementing advocacy in foundations and their respective journeys.

Topics covered:

  • Introducing advocacy and policy to boards
  • Building advocacy into your organizational infrastructure
  • Creating an advocacy agenda rooted in core values
  • The distinction of advocacy and policy versus politics
  • Advice for nonprofit organizations seeking funding from grantmakers

Resources:

Chynna A. Phillips

Melissa Levesque

Sally Ehrenfried

Advocacy and Awareness: 4 Tips for Virtual Campaigning

Quotes:

“Boards decide how fast you’re going to move as an organization.”

“We had our grantmaking and community leadership committee really own sort of the nuts and bolts of developing our advocacy agenda.”

“A great grant proposal is really just exceptional storytelling that matches a need for financial support.”

“Stay connected to your ‘Why?’, build trust with your community leaders, and have honest conversation.”

Aug 25, 2022

The shift to remote work post-pandemic has caused many employees to feel stressed, burnt out, and out of control of their workplace dynamic. Meico Marquette Whitlock, founder of The Mindful Techie, shares tools and strategies on how to regain control and relieve the stressors that face us.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • Major impacts of the pandemic on wellbeing
  • How values have changed
  • How nonprofit professionals can adjust to the new workplace
  • What leaders can do to protect their employees
  • Tools and strategies to enhance your wellbeing

Resources:

Meico Marquette Whitlock

The Hybrid Workplace Wellness Playbook for Grantmakers

6 Ways Nonprofit Professionals Can Conquer Post-Pandemic Workplace Stress

The sgENGAGE Podcast: Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Wellbeing for Grantmakers

5 Ways Grantmakers Create Work- and Tech-Life Balance

Quotes:

“A lot of organizations are making assumptions of what people want, and I think the first place to start is to actually ask the question.”

“You really have to just be human and be very vulnerable about what you're dealing with and to see them as a person versus an employee or a worker.”

“practicing social distancing with your technology can support you in having a healthier relationship with technology.”

 

Aug 18, 2022

Businesses emerged as the most trusted institutions in the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, which also showed that people expect more from businesses in solving the world's problems. So, how can companies step up to lead the charge and maintain that position of trust?

Kendra Fogarty, corporate social responsibility manager at UScellular, spoked with Blackbaud's Rachel Hutchisson about the role of CSR and community engagement in building trust with consumers, employees, and community members. Listen in to hear Kendra share her key takeaways from the Edelman Trust Barometer data, how UScellular engages communities and employees, and how companies can make sure that their philanthropic programs truly meet the needs of the communities they are intended to help.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer
  • The opportunity for companies to continue to build trust with employees, consumers, and communities
  • The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on community connections
  • How UScellular approaches CSR and community engagement
  • How companies can help employees feel a sense of community and purpose
  • Why CSR is important to institutional investors

Resources:

Jul 15, 2022

Employee volunteerism has become an essential component of a company’s corporate social responsibility and employee engagement strategies. In this episode, Melissa Hackmeier, global head of employee & community engagement at MilliporeSigma, joins the podcast to discuss how she launched the company's first ever global volunteer program and the best practices and lessons she’s learned along the way.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • How Melissa developed and implemented MilliporeSigma's first-ever SPARK™ global volunteer program, which has more than 9,700 employee participants engaging 235,000 students in 36 countries to date
  • How Melissa secured buy-in for their program
  • The key's to the program's successful launch and lessons learned along the way
  • The role of technology in enabling a successful global volunteer program
  • The SPARK program's biggest impacts, both internally and externally
  • Melissa's advice for other CSR professionals looking to start or grow employee volunteer programs
  • What nonprofits looking to engage with corporate volunteers should consider

Resources

Jun 23, 2022

Open, honest, and transparent communication with grantee partners can help minimize power imbalances and help foster a sense of mutual transparency and accountability that is critical to our success as grantmakers. Hear from Shaady Salehi, executive director, Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, Lisa Maloney-Vinz, director of global community relations, Ecolab Foundation, Drexel Owusu, chief impact officer, The Dallas Foundation, and Lauren Scott, executive director, Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund about how their organizations are embracing transparency.

Mar 25, 2022
As we trend towards a sense of normalcy in 2022, the convenience and cost savings of remote audits are here to stay. Whether you began remote audits out of necessity during the pandemic or have been doing them for a while, join us and Paul Preziotti, CPA, nonprofit audit expert, and Partner with Johnson Lambert, for tips on preparing for and running a successful remote audit. You’ll leave knowing how to:

 

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

-Is a remote audit what your organization needs?
-Plan for what an auditor will need to see
-Create a strong audit trail with documentation, naming conventions, and accessible details
-Gather what you’ll need and provide secure access to your auditor

 

Resources:

Paul Preziotti, CPA

Webinar: Be Audit You Can Be, Remotely: Preparing and Running a Successful Remote Audit

Blog: The Final Step of the Nonprofit Audit: Presenting Financial Statements to your Board

 

Quotes:

"As the auditee, you have the ability to mold this relationship however you want it."

"I think [hybrid audits] are terrific and I think that could be a good solution for a lot of you that want the best of both worlds."

"If we have an audit that's beginning the first week of May, we want to be able to hit the ground running."

 

Jul 25, 2019

Peer-to-peer fundraising continues to be an increasingly important part of the fundraising strategy for nonprofits and other social good organizations. But how do you know if your organization is successfully leveraging this fundraising channel? And what trends should you consider incorporating into your programs?   

On this episode, the authors of the just-released 2019 Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Study – Katie Walters, Tanya Turschic, Shana Masterson, Robyn Mendez, and Jennifer Cobb – join the podcast to answer these questions and more. Listen in to hear about different types of peer-to-peer fundraising programs, what motivates participants, the influence of Facebook on giving behavior, and why email is still an indicator of engagement.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • How organizations can use the study to improve their peer-to-peer fundraising programs
  • Important benchmarks from 281 organizations across the U.S. and Canada
  • Types of P2P fundraising programs
  • The rise of crowdfunding and DIY fundraising
  • What motivates P2P fundraisers the most
  • The impact of registration fees on fundraising behavior
  • Email as an indicator of engagement
  • How to benchmark your organization against the study findings

Resources:

2019 Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Study

Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Resource Hub

Quotes: 

“The most popular programs that we see are DIY fundraising programs and crowdfunding programs.” –Robyn Mendez

“Fundraising performance benchmarks by participants and by fundraisers, they help you measure your event potential.” – Tanya Turshic

“Every organization who has ever had a peer-to-peer fundraiser, ever, has the same exact goal. They want to attract more participants, they want to have more participants fundraising, and they want to have more participants fundraising more.” – Shana Masterson

May 9, 2019

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: 

  • How finance and development strengthen each other’s work
  • Taking a longer-term view at how finance and development should work together
  • Incentivizing the united front of finance and development
  • Importance of coordinating your revenue strategy between grants and fundraising
  • Focusing on transparency and accountability
  • Strategies for funding an operating reserve and why it’s important to have one

Resources:

Webinar: Getting Aligned on Finance and Mission Strategy

Finance and Fundraising Webinar Series

Financial Management Toolkit

Russell Pomeranz

Lucy Morgan

Bess Hamilton Foley

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

Jan 3, 2019

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:

  • How Ann Mei leverages her Silicon Valley background to help social good organizations achieve greater impact
  • How social good organizations can transition to using lean principles as an approach to solving problems
  • The core principles involved in lean  strategies
  • Setting big goals and getting comfortable with failure
  • Making a successful program that can scale, and learning how to iterate

Resources:

Ann Mei Chang

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.”

Aug 30, 2018

How well do you really know your donors? Do you know what differences exist between your donors that live in different parts of the world? Do you know what cultural characteristics influence how much your donors give and how they choose to give? 

Today’s guest is Mark Phillips, the Managing Director of Bluefrog Fundraising. His work involves doing deep dives into the motivations of donors to better help charities understand their donors wants and needs. He does this by conducting extensive interviews with donors in different parts of the world. Listen to the episode to hear about how these conversations can inform and improve charity organizations. You’ll hear about how Mark got started with this kind of research, which countries he’s conducting interview in, and how charities have changed their behavior thanks to Mark’s research. 

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

  • How Mark got started on the path of trying to understand donors on a deeper level
  • How the research interviews Mark does differ from ordinary research and surveys
  • Which countries Mark is doing research in
  • Cultural characteristics about giving in different countries
  • Moments during Mark’s research where he’s learned something surprising
  • How charities have changed their behavior based on Mark’s research 

Resources: 

Mark Phillips

Queer Ideas

Bluefrog Fundraising

 

“One of the very lucky things in my career was I worked for people who had a focus on what donors needed and what donors wanted.”

 

“Some organizations, their most valuable donors they are not giving because they’re receiving postal appeals that are not appropriate to the way they want to support the organization. And that is not a rare occurrence.”

 

“Because donors weren’t seeing their money making a difference, people were assuming that these organizations were incompetent.”

Aug 17, 2018

Most people are aware of the differences between public charities and private foundations. However, donor advised funds, or DAFs, are often not understood as well. Donor advised funds have been around for many years, but they have changed and evolved significantly over the years, and many nonprofit organizations and fundraisers could benefit from a greater understanding of how donor advised funds work and what their pros and cons are. 

Today’s guest is Brian Mittendorf, the chair of the accounting department at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. Brian joins the episode to help explain how donor advised funds work, what controversies surround the practice of using donor advised funds, and where this segment of charitable giving is headed in the future. Listen to the episode to hear what Brian has to say about why donors choose to use DAFs, what a commercial DAF is, and how the new tax laws affect donor advised funds. 

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

  • The basics of donor advised funds
  • What made DAFs popular
  • How donor advised fund sponsor organizations’ work
  • Why donors choose donor advised funds
  • Where commercial DAFs got started and how they work
  • The type of control DAF donors have over what happens to the funds they donate
  • What happens to the money donated to a DAF and how it’s disbursed
  • Questions over whether donor advised funds need more regulation
  • Controversies around donor advised funds
  • How the new tax law has incentivized giving through donor advised funds
  • How DAFs handle non-cash donations, like stock
  • The future of donor advised funds and how regulations, or a lack of regulations, will affect that future 

Resources: 

Brian Mittendorf

Brian on Twitter

 

“Most individuals probably don’t have the resources to set up an entire private foundation, but if you think of them as the resources as a bunch of individuals being pooled together, then it’s going to be worthwhile.” 

“There’s not one person who’s really rich, but if we pool together a lot of different people with the same mission in mind, we can achieve a lot. Kind of what a private foundation could have.” 

“If I want to talk about a broad controversy, it’s that donor advised funds are typically used as vehicles that are really convenient for donors, and people who are concerned with them are concerned that they’re focusing more on donors than they are on the mission.”

Jun 14, 2018

Now more than ever, nonprofits need to ensure that they have high-quality, up-to-date data. However, a lot of nonprofit organizations struggle with the issue of data health. Why is data health so important in the nonprofit field today, and what can organizations do to bring themselves and their data up to speed? 

In today’s episode, I’ll be speaking with Adriene Chisholm and Alan Dix of Blackbaud’s Target Analytics about the new report from the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact, Untapped Potential: The Case for Data Health. Listen to the episode to hear what Adriene and Alan have to say about the biggest struggles nonprofits face with their data and how it affects fundraising, what first steps organizations can take to move in the direction of better data health, and how to avoid those dreaded “yellow stickers.” 

Topics Discussed in This Episode: 

  • The most common data health areas that organizations struggle with
  • Why physical addresses are such an important piece of data
  • How data health can make fundraisers more efficient
  • Valuable data to collect beyond basic contact data
  • What organizations with a large digital presence should be doing to ensure their data is working for them
  • Why organizations shouldn’t rely purely on digital data
  • How to manage expectations about digital and social data
  • How digital data may be more restricted going forward due to privacy concerns and regulations like GDPR
  • First steps organizations can take to move in the direction of better data health
  • Where data health is going in the next several years 

Resources:

Download Untapped Potential: The Case for Data Health

Connect with Adriene Chisholm and Alan Dix

 

“We’re all trying to be C+ students by limiting our ability due to poor data health.” – Alan Dix

 “Maintenance is always easier. It’s a lot easier to maintain your car than it is to get it fixed after it breaks down.” – Adrien Chisolm

“Data health is easy, it really is. It’s like getting your oil changed. You know you have to do it every 3,000 miles, just go and get it done.” – Adriene Chisholm

 

Jan 25, 2018

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

Blackbaud - Twitter

Blackbaud - Facebook

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.”

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