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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: May, 2019
May 30, 2019

Digital transformation may sound like a buzzword, but the reality is that it fundamentally changes the way organizations operate and innovate.

Special guest Mike Gianoni, president & CEO of Blackbaud, joins us for our 100th episode to explore the topic of digital transformation and how it drives business performance. Listen in to hear what Mike has to say about how technology has changed the way organizations run over the past few decades, why successful digital transformation requires more than just new technology, and how leaders can champion digital transformation across their organizations.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Digital transformation over the past 30+ years
  • How digital transformation has changed various industries, such as banking and farming
  • How digital transformation drives business performance
  • What social good organizations can learn from the digital transformation of private sector companies
  • Barriers to digital transformation in social good organizations
  • Why digital transformation needs to be a team sport
  • The responsibility of the C-suite in leading digital transformation across their organization
  • Examples of social good organizations that have been positively impacted by digital transformations

Resources:

Mike Gianoni

Blackbaud

Quotes:

“Obviously, digital transformation impacts all of us. It’s changed our lives significantly.”

“Digital transformation is not just about the software and the IT, it's about moving the whole company in a different direction.”

“It's not just the IT person's job to drive digital transformation. It's actually the CEO's job or the executive director's job to drive it because you have to change everything, not just the software.”

 “To really get ahold of this, everything has to be rethought. Every part of the business, every aspect of the business…financial management to mission delivery, fundraising, all of it.”

May 23, 2019

Nonprofits and other social good organizations face many challenges, but one that can be seen over and over again comes from inside the organization. Different departments, such as development and communications, don’t effectively engage with each other, hampering their ability to reach out to and engage with donors as successfully as they could.

Today’s guest is Sam Stern, CEO of Magnify Good, a communications consultancy that helps social sector organizations magnify the good of the work they do. He joins podcast host Steve MacLaughlin of Blackbaud to talk about how organizations can transform by focusing on working more connectedly across departments, particularly between development and communications. Listen in to hear what Sam has to say about where to start to increase inter-departmental collaboration, how creating personas can help organizations operate more effectively, mirroring the donor’s journey with evergreen content, and the importance of technology to bring all the pieces together.

 Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Looking inward for problems rather than focusing on external factors
  • Steps for helping departments work better together
  • Developing personas to understand the donor’s journey
  • Creating meaningful and lasting content
  • The role that technology plays and shifting organizational thinking around digital transformation

Resources: 

Sam Stern

Magnify Good

Connective Impact eBook

Quotes:

“What would happen if we all focused on doing our work together in a fashion that would be more effective and lead to better results?”

“Having this persona in the front of your mind all the time is going to help you get to the point where you can even test these things to see what’s working best and what’s not.”

“How do we need to think about this, organizationally, and make decisions as to whether this technology is actually just going to be more work and not really pay off any benefits, or if it’s really going to empower us.”

May 16, 2019

Everyone knows that social media has a massive impact on today’s culture, so how can social good organizations effectively leverage it to engage supporters? What does your organization need to do to execute an effective social media strategy? What benchmarks should you be tracking your performance against? How can you improve if you’re not where you want to be? The guests in this episode of The sgENGAGE Podcast are going to help answer these questions.

Today Jocelyn Wright, Instructional Designer and Jenny Toledo, Instructor at Blackbaud University, join your host Roz Lemieux, Director of Blackbaud Labs, to talk about some of the highlights from the M+R Benchmarks Report and what they mean for your organization. Listen in to learn why social media tracking matters, what development professionals need to know about Facebook fundraisers, and what to expect from Instagram’s new donate stickers.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Highlights from the 2019 M+R Benchmarks Report  
  • Why social media matters to social good organizations and why it’s important to track
  • Social media vocabulary and best practices
  • What organizations should be watching for on Facebook and Instagram
  • Insights into online monthly membership programs
  • How to brush up on social media strategy and take your organization to the next level

Resources:

Jocelyn Wright

Jenny Toledo

M+R Benchmarks Report 2019

Blackbaud University Organizational Best Practices

Blackbaud University Organizational Best Practices Course Listing

Quotes:

“We need to use social media to our leverage. That’s where everyone is. That’s where everyone is engaging and talking with our organizations. We have to be where the people are.”

“We have seen that video content is actually the most engaging across all platforms.”

“If you understand your audience, you understand what message they resonate with, what they connect with.”

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

May 2, 2019

Getting supporters to take action and engage with elected officials on policy issues can be a challenge, requiring organizations to start thinking outside the box. Learn from one social good organization how innovating and testing new tactics can help boost advocate engagement.

This episode of the sgENGAGE Podcast features an interview with Chris Masak, senior associate director of advocacy at the Alzheimer's Association. Chris shares how the Alzheimer’s Association has experimented to get more people engaged in Alzheimer’s advocacy. He also gives tips on how to identify people likely to take action on your cause and how to decide which methods of engagement to experiment with. Finally, Chris discusses the new tactics and technologies he is looking forward to trying next.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Chris’s insights on advocacy strategies for large and small organizations
  • Identifying the right potential advocates to engage with
  • How to determine what new engagement methods your organization should try
  • New technologies and advocate engagement tactics to get excited about

Resources: 

Chris Masak

Alzheimer’s Association

Grassroots Galvanizer Playbook

Quotes:

“When it comes to the advocacy work, if you’ve taken an action recently, if you’ve spoken out on an issue and done it in a way that we like, those are the people that we want to identify first.”

“It’s the long game that we’re ultimately looking for. Some of the stuff that has come out as beta tests or trial runs, those are the things that have had a lasting impact on our movement.”

“Even the biggest organizations probably have fewer resources than you’d expect when it comes to certain things. There’s some duct tape and glue going on no matter what.”

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