What do you know about setting goals for yourself and your team and managing those goals? In today’s episode, you’ll hear an excerpt from the Skills UP webinar series. In it, you’ll hear Damaris Herron-Watkins discuss best practices for creating and managing your team’s goals. Listen in to hear what she has to say about the purpose of goal management, the different types of goals, and making goals SMART.
Topics Discussed in This Episode
Resources:
5 Keys for Achieving your Organization’s Goals
Quotes:
“A couple of reasons why goals are important is one, they help to prioritize your work and the work of your team.”
“When we’re creating goals for our team, like I said, you have to make sure you know what your goals are for the year.”
“SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.”
International Women’s Day is on March 8th, 2022, and it’s a good time to think about the state of women and girls worldwide, how current events may make violence and abuse even worse than they were, and how to move forward by empowering each other.
Today’s guest is Vesna Jaric, the Interim Chief of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. Listen to the episode to learn about Vesna’s role at the Trust Fund and how current events affect the state of women and girls around the world.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Learning from Practice: The Impact of COVID-19 on Violence Against Women and Girls
UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women
UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women on Twitter
UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women on Instagram
Quotes:
“So far, the fund has supported more than 600 organizations in 140 countries and territories across the world.”
“I would argue that violence against women and girls is probably the oldest and most persistent problem the world is dealing with.”
“Women’s rights organizations have been the first responders.”
We are highlighting an excerpt from the Skills UP Webinar Series where Deb Taft, CEO of Lindauer Global, will be talking about the dynamics of hiring and how you can achieve success in effective retention. Listen to what she has to say about the Great Resignation, the rise of freelancers and gig workers, and the remote/in-person hybrid.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Skills Up FREE Webinar Series for nonprofit managers
The Future of Executive Search
To Attract Talented Fundraisers of Color, Get Your House in Order
CASE xChange Podcast; President and CEO Sue Cunningham interviews Lindauer CEO Deb Taft
4 Keys for Attracting, Hiring and Retaining a Successful Major Gift Team
Quotes:
“I think one of the dynamics to think about is that there is very little loyalty.”
“So, hiring is on steroids, and if you are struggling to retain and hire, you are not alone.”
“I just need people to understand, that employees will choose you, talent will choose you, or not, depending on what’s possible.”
Public policy impacts decisions made around charitable giving. These policies can influence how people give, when they give, and how much they give. So what are the likely effects for 2022?
In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Brian Flahaven to learn how policies have impacted giving over the past few years and what’s ahead for the coming year. Listen in to hear what Brian has to say about his role in the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and what they do, what current legislation is on the table, and whether Brian believes it will gain traction this year.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Blackbaud’s Charitable Giving Report
Quotes:
“Having an incentive there, sending that signal, will encourage more Americans hopefully to give even more to charitable organizations during these difficult times.”
“In the tax world, it’s pretty much been a partisan game over the past few years.”
“A lot of institutions are actually creating their own giving days.”
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“When you’re identifying a mentor, be really upfront with them about why you’re asking them, why you thought of that person.”
“I also believe that the best mentors are always mentees themselves.”
“Look for the type of sponsor you want, the gender doesn’t matter.”
Giving doesn’t stay static. As things change and more innovations become available, giving changes with it, and that’s true for the upcoming year too. Today, you’ll be hearing about some of the changes and giving and how social good organizations and donors are affected.
Sonia Nigam, Co-founder and CEO of Change, and Amar Shah, Co-founder and President of Change, discuss changes in online shopping, how social good organizations are adjusting to cryptocurrencies and NFTs, and what’s going to happen going forward in 2022
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“I feel like one of the most interesting evolutions around giving today is how it’s becoming more experience-based.” –Sonia Nigam
“Social good’s really at the foundation of this ecosystem.” –Sonia Nigam
“I think one of the biggest things that’s going to continue is the increase in online giving, either via e-commerce or even via cryptocurrency.” –Amir Shah
What do you know about cybersecurity? You’re probably aware that it’s a threat, but if you don’t know what cybersecurity threats entail or how to increase your own security, how can you really protect yourself or your organization? Listen in to this BBCon excerpt to learn about some of the basics of cybersecurity, including what the risks and threats are, steps you can take to protect yourself, and how to implement policies at the workplace that protect your company.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Cybersecurity Industry Standards
Security at Blackbaud Overview
Quotes:
“Additionally, 85% of the breaches that happen involve some sort of human element.”
“Bottom line, social engineering takes advantage of someone going about their usual day.”
“If you receive an email, phone call, or voicemail that feels odd, it probably is.”
Trends in giving and donor retention are an important topic in the fundraising landscape, and at this time of year, it’s a good idea to take a look at what’s been happening in the fundraising world. Looking closely at giving and donor retention now with help you get a handle on end-of-the-year giving and some clarity about what will be coming in the new year. Listen in to this episode to hear from Erica Wassdorp about current fundraising trends, how online giving has developed in different kinds of organizations, and how to handle benefits for recurring donors.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Blackbaud Institute Retention Toolkit
Quotes:
“We have to tell them that they can make a difference even when it’s with a smaller recurring gift.”
“I think the other piece that has really helped with that, of course, is the whole digital, online opportunities.”
“The only promise you want to make to your new monthly donor is that they’re going to get updates from you.”
Are you dealing with problems in your organizations and wondering why you can’t solve them, or why you can’t solve them in a lasting way? Listen in to this excerpt from bbcon 2021 Virtual, where Sarah Beauregard, Senior Process Engineer at Blackbaud, discusses root cause analysis.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“If we pull up the weed by the root, it won’t come back.”
“Also as a part of this step, we identify who those subject matter experts are that could help determine why this problem might be happening.”
“The real value here comes from engaging those subject matter experts on a guided conversation to get to that root cause.”
What do social good organizations need to know about corporate philanthropy? In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Julia Beltran, partnership specialist from Double the Donation, to learn more about corporate giving programs and how to promote them. Listen to the episode to hear what Julia has to say about common types of corporate philanthropy, data points on matching gift programs, and how to boost a companies’ matching gift percentage.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“Over 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer matching gift programs, so quite a lot.”
“I think that people do engage in matching gift programs, but they don’t nearly engage as much as they could.”
“Engaging donors during the giving process, or like right when they’re about to give, is a great way to encourage people to submit matching gift requests.”
Volunteering is changing. Many volunteer opportunities went virtual because of the pandemic, and like other types of work, it may never look exactly like it did in a pre-pandemic world. So what does volunteering look like now? What resources are there for professionals in this space who want to learn more about how volunteering has changed and how to rise to those changes? In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Ben Sampson of WeHero. Listen to the conversation to learn more about what WeHero does, the latest trends and changes in the volunteering space, and how to provide new and different volunteer opportunities.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“Workers are going to come out of this really wanting agency in how and where they work, but also that ability to really connect meaningfully with people.”
“One of the big pros that we noticed is we saw people from different countries, different cultures, connecting over a common cause and volunteering.”
“Adobe does a really good job of building a portfolio of numerous different kinds of volunteer opportunities.”
Is donor retention different when the donor is acquired online? In this episode, you’ll learn more about ways to improve donor retention for online-acquired donors. Joining the podcast today is Rachel Clemens, Chief Marketing Officer of Mighty Citizen. Listen to today’s conversation to learn what Rachel thinks about building relationships between donors and organizations, the role of segmentation, and how language factors into donor retention.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“I always think about donor retention as part of the donation process.”
“It’s not a transaction. It’s a relationship.”
“The thing that comes to mind almost immediately is just getting their tech in check.”
The newest Blackbaud Luminate Online® Benchmark Report provides unique insight to online fundraising during its meteoric rise in 2020. Learn more about the shift to email engagement, how one-time online giving changed nonprofit revenue composition, and the steady march of sustainer donors. Joining the podcast today are report analysts Mike Snusz, Rachael Ahrens, and Deb Ashmore of Blackbaud’s Professional Services team as well as Erik Leaver, Principal Customer Success Manager. They also share their predictions for the next big online fundraising opportunity in this new guide.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Blackbaud Luminate Online Benchmark Report
Quotes:
“Ultimately, I always like to have nonprofits know that the best benchmarks are your own.”
“Be prepared for emergency giving.”
“Those that grow the fastest have the most robust direct acquisition strategies.”
We are now just a little more than a month from GivingTuesday is getting closer all the time, you don’t need to stress if your organization hasn’t yet developed its plan. Today, Blackbaud’s GivingTuesday experts Matt Connell and Jackie Zimmerman join the podcast to talk about the value of Giving Tuesday, how organizations can start planning now for a successful day, and the GivingTuesday campaigns have inspired them.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“While we should be giving every day of the year, let’s make sure that we especially give on this particular day of the year.” –Jackie Zimmerman
“If this, again, is your first experiment with it, you’re not the first people experimenting with it.” –Matt Connell
“Giving Tuesday is the day I make sure that my matching gift is used up for the year.” –Matt Connell
Digital communications have become ever more important over the last year and a half, and visual storytelling is a critical part of an effective strategy. Visual images help supporters visualize and understand what the organizations are doing, and how their contributions make a difference.
That's why today we are bringing back an ever relevant episode originally recorded at bbcon 2018 featuring Ira Horowitz, the founder of Cornershop Creative. Listen in to hear what Ira has to say about why visuals matter in storytelling, how to demonstrate to donors that they can be the heroes of the story, and how to match copy with the right visuals for maximum impact.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
How can finance and fundraising departments better work with each other? Why does it matter? Often, these disparate personalities find that working together feels chaotic, but it doesn’t need to be that way. In today’s episode, you’ll hear some ideas about how finance and development can build connections and better work together to support the mission.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Financial Management Toolkit – Blackbaud Institute
Blackbaud University Curriculum For Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
Quotes:
“The idea of everybody working together as a team in order to support the mission is immense in a nonprofit.”
“Nobody that is in finance in a nonprofit organization wants to see us go over budget.”
“I would think that the first thing you want to do is open the line of communication.”
Today, improving ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance is no longer optional. People want to work for companies that are helping to change the world, consumers are making purchasing decisions based on how brands are solving social problems and addressing climate change and investors consider companies that are ESG laggards to be high-risk. Despite the imperative for corporations to be making social change a priority, many businesses continue the practice of "CSR lite," an approach that prioritizes communications and optics over meaningful and measurable change.
Join Paul Klein for a conversation about why it's more important than ever for corporations to shift from a checkbox approach to corporate social responsibility to one that contributes to solving social problems. They will discuss what social change leadership looks like today and how businesses can help solve social problems and benefit from doing so.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
[book] Change for Good by Paul Klein (ECW press) - coming spring 2022
Quotes:
“I think that the social dimension of business is the next frontier of what it means to be a business in society today.”
"There's a leadership vacuum at a social change level."
“So many companies don't take [being socially responsible] beyond the bare minimum and that's what CSR lite is. It's the optics, rather than the substance."
“To me, the essence of innovation is thinking about the fastest way to make the biggest difference at the lowest cost.”
What impact has COVID-19 and the racial justice movement had on corporate social responsibility (CSR)? The Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals (ACCP) partnered with Rocket Social Impact to research just that. Join Carolyn Berkowitz, President and CEO of ACCP, on today’s episode to learn all about it and what motivated their research.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
The Impact of Pandemic & Racial Justice Movement on CSR
Quotes:
“The expectations of CEOs and of senior leadership is significantly raising the game. They want to be reported to more frequently and want to have a greater hand in the [social responsibility] work.”
“There’s a heightened demand for measurement and there is not necessarily an increase in the internal resources to do that work… We’ve got to have the right people in the right places to do the volume of work that is expected and necessary to make change.”
“40% of companies in the survey said that they are making a long-term CSR focus-area shift. 64% of those are shifting or adding racial justice and racial equity as a priority.”
Federal grants complicate the budgeting process. You have to consider a lot of different scenarios, and you don’t have any room for error. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Stacy Fitzsimmons and learn more about budgeting for Community Health Centers when grants are part of the picture. Listen in to learn about where to start with your budget, why you need to break costs into buckets, and how to get yourself audit-ready.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
eBook: Set up Your Community Health Center for Federal Grant Success: https://hello.blackbaud.com/budgeting-for-community-health.html
Whitepaper: Data-Driven Decision Making for Community Health Centers https://hello.blackbaud.com/Datat-Driven-Decisions-eBook.html
Quotes:
“With this type of budgeting, you’ll also be setting yourself up for success and making sure that all of your funds are traceable within the accounting system by your grant award.”
“Why I recommend this is that you will then be able to report against your budget by these categories when you’re asked to report against it.”
“If you have documentation that supports that expense entry, upload it with your entry so that documentation is right there.”
What is corporate purpose? What are the current rules for corporate purpose? And why do we need to redefine them? In today’s interview with Judy Samuelson, Founder and Executive Director of the Aspen Business and Society Program, you’ll learn about her new book, The Six New Rules of Business, and why she’s been on a mission to disrupt economist Milton Friedman’s narrative about corporate purpose.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World by Judy Samuelson
Quotes:
“I like to say single objective functions, whether it’s about stock price or customers, rarely ends well.”
“In order to do very much, to last for very long, you simply have to be balancing the inputs that are critical to the health of the enterprise.”
“Sustainability is not an end game either, it’s a mindset.”
“Today the responsibility of companies is defined way outside the gate of the business.”
“To solve the most complex problems we need to bring people together, we need to bring these remarkably powerful institutions that we call business together to collaborate to go deeper into systems and change the norm.”
GivingTuesday isn’t a new or unexpected event, but some organizations struggle to make the most of it. Whether it’s learning how to better engage supporters or improving results over previous years, standing up a successful campaign may seem overwhelming. With 2021’s GivingTuesday coming up sooner than you may think, Sophia Latto joins the podcast to give expert advice on what organizations can do to seize the GivingTuesday and make it a repeatable success.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Blackbaud's GivingTuesday Toolkit
Quotes:
“It’s important to connect a personal story about real people with your impact for GivingTuesday.”
“I always think of GivingTuesday as being the kickoff to end of year fundraising.”
“Keeping it simple will help you keep everything streamlined.”
“Think in terms of engagement and build that relationship and that goodwill with your constituents before you hit them with hard asks.”
Over the past year and several months, change has been one of the few constants you can count on. Of course, change always happens eventually, but recently, everyone has been in a period of greater amounts of change than usual – and people are beginning to get fatigued. How can you prevent change burnout in your organization? By implementing change management.
In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Melissa Rancour, Principal Instructional Designer at Blackbaud University about why it’s important to talk about change management, the importance of the questions that need to be asked about change and what order to ask them in, and what to do with the questions once you know them.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Quotes:
“All those changes we’ve experienced over the last 14+ months, most of those have been quick changes with no prep. Change management means we need some prep.”
“If you go through the questions process it can help you know if that change is going to ripple into a bigger change.”
“It’s because “what” impacts “when” something can happen.”
For years, the role of development operations teams has been perceived as a data and technology-focused position within the nonprofit world. As technology, nonprofits, and the way we fundraise has significantly changed over the last few decades, so has the role of the operations team. For organizations and leaders willing to evolve, this presents an incredible opportunity – both for the organization’s success and the individual’s advancement.
In today’s episode, Deb Taft, CEO of Lindauer and Luis Morales, senior director of information strategy at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, chat with guest host Ashley Sweeney of Blackbaud about the ways that today’s DBAs are adding value to the organization, how leaders can maximize this impact, and what operations team members should do to advance their career.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Promoting Your Value as a Database Administrator
Confessions of a Database Administrator
Confessions of a Database Administrator, Part II
Quotes:
“The value I see the operations team offering is collaboratively ensuring that our clients, their colleagues, have the context they need to make strategic data-driven decisions.”
“The value of the operations team is different and differently valued than it was years ago as a profound driver really of nonprofits and advancement results.”
“The operations team can create value by enriching conversations.”
“It’s about more than just filling requests and mailing lists and reports. We are the subject matter experts for the organization’s data, integrations, trends, etc.”
“I encourage my team to work as an internal consulting company with different business units in the foundation are our clients.”
How has the future of social good changed since COVID? Much of the answer has to do with how the pandemic impacted leaders in the nonprofit sector. Here to talk about it is Marc A. Pitman, founder and CEO of Concord Leadership Group. Listen in to hear what Marc has to say about the effects of uncertainty on nonprofit leadership, what needs to be left behind as leaders and organizations move forward, and what isn’t coming back post-pandemic.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
Blackbaud Institute npEXPERTS 2021 eBook
Quotes:
“Anytime we start taking over the decision-making for someone else, we’re robbing them of their humanity.”
“Everybody was scared, but some leaders were able to continue navigating the ship, while other leaders were panicking in an unproductive way.”
“I hope we get over the butts-in-seats equals productivity mentality.”
Inclusivity matters. Diversity makes organizations stronger and better. So how do social good organizations engage donors of color? Joining the podcast today to talk about this issue are Brenda Asare, President and CEO of The Alford Group, and JoAnn Yoshimoto, Senior Consultant at The Alford Group. Listen to today’s show to hear what they have to say about why it’s important to engage donors of color, how to build trust with donors of color, and what you need to think about to understand different types of donors.
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
Resources:
The Mays Family Institute on Diverse Philanthropy
Quotes:
“When we go back and look at the genesis of what it means to be generous, people of color have been doing that all of their lives.” – Brenda Asare
“It's not as if there's one specific way to approach this community versus another community versus another community. Don’t use what we call a cookie-cutter approach, a one-size-fits-all.” – JoAnn Yoshimoto
“What I really dislike seeing in the field of fundraising is the smile that you put on when you're asking for a gift and then you turn your back and it's over. That's not how you create trust among diverse communities. You need to engage consistently, authentically.” – JoAnn Yoshimoto
“Fundraising doesn't happen in a bubble. It happens within a culture.” – Brenda Asare
“Nonprofits have the opportunity to create even more impact. But how can you do that when you are neglecting 30-40% of a population who have the capacity, desire, and readiness to give but you're not asking?” – Brenda Asare