#054 - Rachel Bearbower is the founder and CEO of Small Shop Strategies, a nonprofit consultancy focused on coaching nonprofit leaders how to detangle their systems, so they can focus their time and energy on building relationships and raising more for their causes.In just 3 years, Rachel has built a community where over a hundred nonprofit leaders are showing up for themselves and learning how to boldly fundraise, tell better stories and become even more impactful changemakers.In today’s episode, Rachel shares the 4 templates every nonprofit leader should have locked and loaded and ready at all times to maintain connection with their donors:#1 An immediate automated thank you note or receipt;#2 Within 24-48 hours a heartfelt quick personal email that is NOT the receipt from your CRM that lets your donor know the gift was received and appreciated;#3 An email or video depicting the impact of their gift and reminding them that you did what you said you were going to do with their gift; and#4 A Connection email - Ask for their opinion / Send them an article / Find out why they gaveRachel emphasizes how important it is to ditch transactional relationships and develop real meaningful relationships with your donors - connect donors to the mission, connect them to what their gift actually did.“Donors don't want to fund the process. They want to fund the impact. And so you, the organization, you are the process, and so you wanna remove yourself. So instead of saying, help us buy new uniforms, it's, you can provide a kid with a new uniform.”The key takeaways from my discussion with Rachel are:#1 The best way to connect more and raise is to have a plan;#2 Communicate as quickly as possible after the donation comes in;#3 Automate and personalize your communication; and#4 Make your communication about the donor instead of your organization.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear now being a farmer in training helps Rachel be a lifetime learner and makes her a better nonprofit consultant.

#053 - Adora Drake is a professional digital marketing coach and consultant with a knack for creating marketing strategies. She helps leaders establish relationships with their audience by teaching them the tools for attracting the right fit people, becoming a thought leader, and bridging the gap between initial contact to the final transaction.Adora emphasizes relationship building.  She adds that when it comes to relationships, it is better to go a mile deep than a mile wide.  It is better to build deep meaningful relationships with a few people rather than shallow relationships with many.“So you're building a relationship. No matter where you are, whatever platform you are, make sure you're building relationships.”Adora teaches how we can use her SCALE Framework to convert social media followers to donors:S - Social MediaC - ContentA - AudienceL - LeadE- ExecutionThe key takeaways from my discussion with Minna are:  #1 Master 1 or 2 social media platforms rather than spreading yourself too thin across too many;#2 Find the platforms where your audience hangs out;#3 Consistency key; and#4 Nurture your new members with a welcome series.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear about the welcome series Adora uses in her own business.

#052 - Minna Taylor is a trained actress.  After earning her masters degree, she began teaching accent reduction to corporate clients as a side hustle in between acting gigs.  That experience is where she found the intersection of speech & voice, body language, and breathing."Communication is a physical activity. We think about it as just coming out of our mouth, but our whole body is behind it. And if we go back to that statistic, which is 7% of the information people receive is verbal, 93% is vocal and nonverbal that means our body is doing most of the talking. What I see time and time again and what I saw at the very start of my career was people's bodies silencing them.”Minna outlines the 3 characteristics of the most trusted people:1 Generosity;2 Curiosity; and3 LikabilityPeople come to her to increase confidence, to increase capacity, to speak up, to share their voice, to tell powerful stories, to influence people, and to become powerful agents of change.The key takeaways from my discussion with Minna are:#1 80% of your attention should be listening and 20% breathing;#2 Generosity is about energy and presence;#3 Curiosity is less about asking and more about how you choose to contribute without judging; and#4 We have to like someone before we can trust them.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear Minna share how giving up a little control and being vulnerable leads to being more trusted.

#051 - Rhea Wong makes a return trip to the Groupfinity Podcast, this time to discuss her new book - Get That Money, Honey! The No-Bullsh*t Guide to Raising More Money for Your Nonprofit.  Rhea points out that that mindset is a big limiting factor in fundraising.  We assume people will only give the minimum and we get too emotional about rejection, which impacts our ongoing fundraising efforts."I think people get so emotionally tied up in that if they don't give to my organization, that means all these bad things about me and I'm somehow inferior and less than, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, let's just drop the story.  AND how could we do our job better without this disempowering story?"Storytelling is a key to your fundraising success because we all want to believe that our lives have meant something.  We all want to think about legacy and believe we lived on the planet and the world is a little bit better. You need to help your donor see themself as the hero in the story.  They are the hero, not you.Rhea tells why investing in systems is so important.  We’re always freaking out about money and not spending it and we end up missing the forest for the trees.  Think about how to automate your organization to make you more efficient rather than just the amount of the expense itself.“If I spend money, it's either going to be because there's a monetary ROI, so it's gonna help me bring more money in, or It's going to give me back my time, or it's going to increase operational efficiency. If the expense that you're putting out doesn't do one of those three things, I think you really need to think about your expense.”The key takeaways from my discussion with Rhea are:#1 Evaluate your systems by mapping your processes to where the problems exist;#2 In Fundraising a story is important because it accesses the empathy part of our brain. And empathy is where generosity lies;#3 Don't spend your time doing stupid manual things like data entry. Spend the time creating relationships with humans; and#4 Your meetings should be 75% of them talking, 25% you talking.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear what Rhea learned from an FBI hostage negotiator.

#050 - Today I am speaking with marketing specialist and strategist Lynn Ruby.  Lynn works with small businesses, solo-preneurs and nonprofits who are really good at what they do, but still struggle and get intimidated by online marketing.  The pandemic brought about 3 primary changes to email marketing:  1) Email volumes exploded; 2) 75% of us tried new habits and those habits are sticking; and 3) Brand loyalty was shattered.“…. the volume of email drastically expanded during the pandemic and is continuing to go up after the pandemic. Consumers changed their values, they changed how they're doing things. Email was a big part of that and they're changing their loyalties to brands and all of those things are continuing to change” Lynn shares that if you are not clear and concise, your emails will get lost.  You are not competing with other nonprofits, you are competing with EVERYONE your tribe is getting emails from - large corporations with experienced copywriters.“...if you're a really small non-profit, if you're a larger non-profit, if you're a relatively medium sized business or medium sized non-profit, you're competing with them because they're setting the expectations of how email should be done and they do it very well.They're clear and concise with their messaging and their visuals. And if we as smaller entities cannot rise at least somewhat to that level that those big brands are doing because that's who our audience is also seeing emails from, we're going to be not as effective as we can be.”The key takeaways from my discussion with Lynn are: #1 Email is being used more than ever;#2 You need to move social media followers to your email list;#3 You need a subject line that causes the recipient to open it; and#4 Write the way you talk.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear why you should segment and personalize your emails.

#049 - Today I am speaking with digital marketing specialist Rishi Malhotra.  Rishi says there is a lot of interest in using paid search and paid social in fundraising efforts.  Rishi has a different perspective, however.“I'll probably say I get a lot of questions about using it directly for fundraising, but I would say, the best use case I've seen is typically, to use it to boost your, your email list.”He advises organizations to use paid search and paid social to drive your ideal tribe to a lead magnet - they trade their email address for the promised piece of collateral.  The good news is this strategy will not break the bank.  In fact, Google provides $10k in monthly grants to registered 501(c)3 organizations.The application is easy enough, but he says you may want to get a little implementation advice so you achieve your desired results.Rishi got his start advising small and medium sized businesses on search marketing.  Later he went on to hone his non-profit marketing skills at Blue State Digital.When I asked Rishi if this strategy works for small organizations he said…“I would say that if your goal is to grow and build your supporters and subscribers, and potentially donors, then I would say, it's worth doing whether you're small, whether you're large, if that is kind of in line with your goals. And I think you should pursue it.”The key takeaways from my discussion with Rishi are:#1 Include your location when picking your keywords;#2 Develop a Welcome Series for new subscribers;#3 Use negative keywords to fine tune your search parameters; and#4 The Google Grant Program approves most nonprofits, with only some exceptions.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear what you should be targeting for cost per click.

#048 - Today I am speaking with Gareth Pronovost about using Airtable to automate workflows to 1) save time; 2) reduce errors; 3) stay organized; 4) allow for a single source of truth; and 5) grow and scale their organization.  Gareth asks - are you overwhelmed by an endless sea of spreadsheets?”  I think most of us would say YES!The good news is Airtable DOES NOT require any coding experience.  You just need to know your processes.  Gareth tells us that the biggest payoffs come in email and reporting.  He calls it the compounding effect…“I challenge everyone to think about the compounding effect of 10 minutes a day.  It's like interest on your life - interest on the time that you have on this earth.  Why pay that interest?  Rather than type up that same email 10 times that takes you 10 minutes a day, do it one time.  And so what if it takes you an hour and a half to figure out how to build an automation? You'll have made that back in two weeks, and now you save yourself an hour a week into perpetuity."The key takeaways from my discussion with Gareth are:#1 You don't have to be tech savvy, you just have to be able to articulate your process;#2 Instantaneous replies make donors feel special and heard;#3 Improved collaboration in a remote environment; and#4 You can automate any internet tools that have an open API.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear about Gareth’s courses and community.

#047 Today I am speaking with Jess Campbell from Out in the Boons.  Jess' superpower is building meaningful relationships that then turn into donor relationships. The #1 question Jess is asked is - how do I find new donors?  Jess is a self described friend-maker, and relationship builder with big dreams.  She has developed an outreach method with a 100% response rate that allows her clients to develop new and authentic relationships with potential donors."And so the effort to go into a new relationship with authenticity is paramount. And so, yeah, I have this method that I have practiced to date that has a 100% response rate. And thus I've started teaching it to my fellow fundraisers so that they can make real relationships that potentially lead to friendships and ultimately donations down the line”.You’ll have to listen to the episode to hear the steps.Jess is routinely asked about the effectiveness of sending mass emails vs taking the time to send tailored messages.  She says you have to put yourself in the shoes of the recipient.  How do you feel when you receive mass emails?  Mass emailing may save you time, but tailored messages yield better results.“When something is tailored and specific people feel very seen and that's all we want.  So I would just counter back that yes, you can do something in the masses that is vague and unspecific and you might get a very low return on investment.  Or you can do something that is going to be a little bit more time and a little bit more effort, but it will yield results. And so you just have to choose where you want to put your energy”.The key takeaways from my discussion with Jess are:#1 The follow-up game is the most important part of fundraising;#2 Tailored messages are more effective than mass emails;#3 Sending short messages of value can deepen a relationship;#4 Research says people have capacity for about 150 relationships- when you remove friends, family, and co-workers, that leaves about 75-90.Be sure to stick around until the end to hear Jess’ learnings from the pandemic.

#046 - Today I am speaking with Sasha Lewis. Sasha has 20+ years of experience working with nonprofits.  Her focus is using donor-centric data to achieve greater fundraising success.  Sasha founded Moves Management Consulting to assist nonprofit organizations with technology, specifically using CRM to assist in fundraising.  Her advice is…“Start with one of the little ones, find an investment of a hundred dollars a month and get something going because once you recognize how much it's going to save you when it's done, you're gonna wish you did it years ago”.In this episode we explore the pros and cons of 4 popular CRMs for small nonprofits:SalesforceKindfulBloomerangLittle Green LightBe sure to stick around until the end to hear how the pandemic made organizations put a higher value on technology.The key takeaways from my discussion with Sasha are:#1 The more robust systems may require you to hire an implementation specialist;#2 Select a platform that is simple and straightforward to you;#3 Getting a system that integrates with your existing tools will allow you to automate;#4 Get out of the spreadsheet business and start with something. 

#045 - Today I am speaking with Tobi Johnson. Tobi has 25 plus years of experience with nonprofits.  Instead of simply moving to another job when she moved across the country 13 years ago, Tobi decided to start her own company where she could share her expertise and help organizations with volunteerism.Tobi helps organizations of all shapes and sizes build their volunteer strategy by helping organizations replace old and ineffective approaches with new innovative and research-based practices.One of her superpowers is showing organizations how to onboard new volunteers and make them feel like they are a part of something…“This feeling of belongings ingrained in our nature as humans.”“And when you are a volunteer and if you feel like you're on the outside looking in, you're just not going to engage and you're actually gonna become not as productive.”“The time that belonging matters most is the time when you're onboarding new volunteers and welcoming people in to make sure that every single person feels like they belong.” Through VolunteerPro, Tobi provides online volunteer management training, coaching & community to leaders of volunteers at all levels.The key takeaways from my discussion with Tobi are:#1 If your volunteers feel like outsiders, they are not going to engage and will not be as productive as they could be;#2 Volunteers leave groups when they feel implicit promises are not kept;#3 Make implicit expectations explicit by naming them;#4 Giving informal recognition can much more powerful than formal recognition; Be sure to stick around until the end to hear Tobi discuss using Bling for Belonging.