Nonprofits Share Their Best Giving Tuesday Advice

0:02  

Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Happy Wednesday afternoon to everyone on the line. See, we have attendees jumping on now. So we’re very happy to have everyone on the line today. My name is Josh Read More

0:02  

Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Happy Wednesday afternoon to everyone on the line. See, we have attendees jumping on now. So we’re very happy to have everyone on the line today. My name is Josh Kolbert, I am the product manager for DonorPerfect online forms. It’s a pleasure to have all of you with us today. Giving Tuesday is our topic or topic. There’s your topic of the day. And we are honored to have a few stellar DonorPerfect clients on the line today to talk to us a little bit about GivingTuesday. And some tips and advice and best practices for GivingTuesday success. With us online, as I said, we’ve got n Carter from the Catholic High School Foundation, and Maggie Keppler, Bullock of the American Society of transplant surgeons, Maggie, and how are you guys this afternoon?

0:58  

Excellent. Thank you, Josh. Great, thank you, Jess.

1:02  

Excellent, great. Well, thank you both for joining. And again, thank you, to everyone who’s on the line, we have some exciting topics to discuss the really the GivingTuesday, we’re always thrilled when we can have clients on the line sharing their real experience in these types of sessions that makes the sessions, you know, interactive, and from my perspective, much more fun. And now I think for the folks on the line, we’ve got a treat in these two organizations and our two, our two hosts today that, you know, really have had some fantastic success and giving Tuesday’s pass. And so, you know, I’m going to ask Maggie and and to talk a little bit about some of that success they’ve had and some of the strategies with GivingTuesday, and some of their success stories and challenges and how they’ve overcome some of those challenges. And also, of course, we’ll save some time to talk about 2020 2020 is an interesting year, for for many reasons. And I believe it Maggie and Ann have some really valuable insights to share around what they’re planning for GivingTuesday 2020. And, you know, for the folks on the line, of course, we are going to save some time for questions. And so feel free to put questions into the question box. And we’ll save about 1015 minutes at the end that there are questions and you can ask Maggie and then questions directly. So with that, we’re gonna get started and start our conversation today. And, Maggie, we’re gonna start with you, if you want to tell us a little about the ASC FC, the Association of transplant surgeons, that would be fantastic. Tell us a little bit about your mission, a little bit about what you’re doing. And if you want to talk a little bit about your past experience with GivingTuesday. Perhaps some of the success that you’ve had, that would really be fantastic.

2:36  

Absolutely. Well, thank you again, for inviting me to be a part of this panel. And good afternoon, everyone. I’m looking forward to a really engaging discussion today. So you know, the the ASDs is an organization that was established in 1974 by an physicians who saw the need for transplant surgery being a life saving procedure for their patients. And so really, it was a grassroots organization. And really, they focused on educating their members on what is transplant surgery? what are best practices, what are techniques. And over the years, it’s really evolved. And we’ve worked with different industry partners for funding and things sort of changed in the early 2000s, when companies couldn’t just give us a million dollars to do you know what we needed to do. And so they established a foundation to serve as the fundraising arm. And I shared this with Josh and an earlier this week, their fundraising strategy was to ask every member at the time, there was probably about 1200 members to give $1,000 and then never make another donation. So I always say that’s an interesting fundraising strategy certainly wasn’t a sustainable one. So when I came into the role in 2015, I really wanted to re engage members and develop an annual giving, giving levels and really encourage that culture of philanthropy. So I think 2014 was probably the first year we participated in Giving Tuesday. It started off with a match from our, at the time our secretary on our council, who said, you know, I will match up to $5,000. And it’s really grown in this past year in 2019. We had huge success with I was able to garner a match from a corporate partner up to $25,000. We reached our goal by 11am that day, and the the funds kept coming in and and we were lucky enough to raise about $96,000 That day, including the corporate match, so it was a huge success. And one that starts certainly I’m very proud of being a Part of that’s awesome.

5:03  

You know, and kind of saying, you know, opportunity for your like, it’d be great for everyone wants to learn a little bit more about the Catholic High School Foundation in your history with GivingTuesday. And, you know, I know you’re humble. But I also know from our conversation, you’ve had some success with GivingTuesday as well. So I think, you know, we can just give our audience here a quick introduction, and then we’ll start talking about strategy and some of that good stuff. That’d be, that’d be great.

5:25  

Sure. Again, my name is Anne Carter, I’m the development director at Catholic High School Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas. And I’ve been here for 15 years, and the school’s been around since 1930. It’s an all boys Catholic High School ninth through 12th grade. And the foundation is separate from the school and that we raise money primarily for a bar Alumni Association, we do not ask parents for money, unless they choose to donate. And so we can make it or break it by our own hand. And so our alumni are very loyal to the school and they give back to provide a base tuition assistance and teacher salaries. And like I said, like in 2015, we dabbled in the Giving Tuesday day just to see how it would go, we raise about $9,000. And we just kept going at it, and thinking it would kick off our year and giving. And so in 2019, we actually raised over $80,000. So it was a big jump for us. And we were excited. And we did some things differently. And each year we’d learn what to do. But But yeah, so we’re we’re excited. Thank you for having me.

6:34  

No, absolutely. Um, you know, and and sticking with you, you know, fantastic success. Can you give our audience a little bit of some maybe some of the highlights of what you did to fundraise successfully? For GivingTuesday? And what led to that $8,000 Plus for their for their specific tidbits that might be helpful.

6:54  

Sure. Yeah, my grad school is a very unique school and that we advocate or the we want the boys to advocate for themselves. And so we don’t really have a lot of mom volunteers at the school, we do have a group of rocket moms. But they they’re not up at the school very often, they only are there for special events. And so like, if the boy forgets his lunch, and the mom brings it, it goes in the trash, or they have to take it back the boy, you know, he has to learn a lesson. So what we did is we thought people would like to see catch a glimpse of Catholic High School, what happens during the day here at Catholic High. So we went with some Facebook Live videos starting about 630 in the morning, with our ROTC program, and then highlighting classrooms and lunch, you know, what happens at lunch, and just doing different things. And I think that made a huge difference, because people tuned in, they wanted to see what we were doing what what it was like to be at Catholic High. And then our matching gift donor actually came at lunch and announced their match gift in front of the boys, which was exciting. So that created a whole lot of excitement at lunch, we that was our biggest donation period was at lunch because of their match. And so that was the tidbits that we had. So we did some giveaways or some power hours throughout the, throughout the day, just to make it more fun, and exciting.

8:20  

That’s great. That’s great. Thanks, Dan. Maggie. Okay, I have some some questions here. I mean, you guys, you know, obviously, it’s it kind of started mostly from the ground up and have raised now, close to $100,000 in a day, which is pretty amazing. Can you give us a little bit of a flavor for some of the strategies and tactics that you’ve employed that have been most successful for? GivingTuesday?

8:38  

Yeah, so you know, we always start our outreach to our our members, you know, who are mostly our donors, we get very few, you know, contributors, we, I call them in contributors internally, because I’m working with Transplant Center surgeons, so donors are, you know, a little bit of a different term for them. So, you know, we start our outreach, usually like the end of October, and it’s always presented to our board and our council and our committee chairs, you know, ingraining it in their heads, this is coming, save the date. So that outreach is done, you know, through emails, when we’re having direct meetings, it’s posted on our website, I always put it in my signature block, you know, save the date Giving Tuesday, donate here. And so we’re just constantly getting the messaging out. And we’re you also use a variety of social media, like, I’m sure many of these organizations that are on today are doing. You know, but you know, really what our members respond to is that competitive nature. And so, you know, the corporate match was a huge incentive for our group. Because it was, oh my gosh, we have to meet that, you know, I want to make my donation I normally give it at the end of the year, but I want to ensure that we’re maximizing that corporate match. So you know, I guess the message here is if You know, you know, your, your constituents and your donors that you’re working with, you can really use your messaging to play into that. So that they, you know, so they have kind of that hook to participate. And that’s what’s worked really well for us.

10:14  

That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that detail, Maggie. You know, I think some of the some of the questions we’ve gotten previously, and I see even a couple of the questions popping in here in the box in regards to GivingTuesday, in many ways, is a great way right to acquire new donors and get new relationships and get new names into your database. Can you give us a feel for what anything you may have done or seen to kind of Springboard GivingTuesday into a kind of an end of the year campaign? You know, have you seen any of those donors, you know, either, you know, re up for the department of the year or become more sustainable donors, you know, beyond GivingTuesday? Or, I guess, more broadly, how has GivingTuesday impacted your end of your fundraising in terms of being any kickoff for it, Maggie is going to go first, and then ask him the same question as well.

11:05  

Yeah, I mean, it’s, again, I’m sure, like most organizations that really kicks off the giving season for us, those kind of, you know, depending on the year, five to six weeks before things wrap up. And, you know, one of the things that I’ve shared with our leadership is, you know, we’re striving our our B hag is to get 100%, giving from all of our members to date, that’s about 1900 members. So that’s a big goal. Because, you know, at the end of 2018, we had about 130 donors, and at the end of 2019, we were up to 151. So that’s actually a win for us, because we’ve, we’ve now captured, you know, a nice increase in donors. So, you know, one of the messages that we’re always trying to get across is getting that 100% Giving from our board 100% Giving from our council, the ACS and the foundation are two separate organizations. So they have, you know, two separate leadership groups, and then also doing that outreach to our committee chairs, and actually now focusing on committees, so we’re doing outreach to the committee chairs, to get them excited about participating, whether it’s giving Tuesday or the end of the year. So that’s kind of how we’ve how we’ve been starting to grow and tackle and get people excited to be a part. One other little thing is, you know, we have one member who’s actually really dedicated to our trainees, medical students and residents. And, you know, one of her missions is to talk to some of our younger fellows to say, you know, it’s never too early to start giving doesn’t matter if you don’t have $5,000, to make a donation this year, get started small, and just be a part of the culture is it’s also another opportunity for them to get to know their peers and their colleagues in the transplant space.

12:53  

Yeah, that’s it. That’s awesome. Maggie, I think that last bit there, too, from some of our experiences are really useful, especially in the early 20s, when you were, obviously there are challenges we’re all familiar with. And I think it’s important, especially with GivingTuesday, being a day that can be a springboard to the end of the year, to encourage folks, even if the donation feels small to that person. It matters to all of our great organizations, I know, it matters in our conversation, it matters to you, and it matters to and so I think, you know, from our perspective, that is an important point is it’s never too early to start donating, even if that donation, you know, to the donor may feel small, it actually may be unlikely is quite meaningful to the organization. And so I think that, you know, the spirit of that encouragement is really important. So kudos to you for for that. You know, and I guess from my perspective to kind of hear from from you guys, as well, in terms of the Catholic High School Foundation, you know, can you talk to us a little bit about GivingTuesday has been kind of a springboard to end of your fundraising for the foundation as well.

13:51  

Yes, um, like I said, before, that we don’t ask our parents for money, so the school doesn’t. So this is a way that we could ask them in a softer way. And they can participate on their own. It’s all voluntary, you know, and parents, they come and go, so we constantly have a new base of parents coming in and supporting the school, which is nice. And we do have about 45% of our donors that gave to giving to say give, again, in some capacity, like, most of them are alumni. So that helps because we have other things that go on throughout the year. But then you start to see those parents giving consistently and then they might give small one year, but then the next year, they give a bigger gift, because they bought into your organization. And in they’re excited that their son is year. It is a spirit. It does kick off our year end giving, because it’s like we do our annual appeal, Giving Tuesday and then our year end appeal. And it’s mostly our year end appeals, all email and social media as well as giving Tuesday. And it seems to do very well. And I think it’s just to keep in mind, too. People, hey, we’re here, remember us at the end of the year, please, good. And it also allows our younger alumni to give a recurring gift because a lot of the younger folks can give a monthly gift $10 1525 is a way for them to kind of get their feet wet, and then continue to give throughout the year. So yeah,

15:24  

I think that recurring element to to kind of touched on what Maggie touched on as well, in terms of, you know, small gifts, being able to be a good way to get people in the door for interview or fundraising, which is which, again, you know, our experience shows is pretty important. You know, and in terms of goals, he talked a little bit about this is some of the revenue or the financial goal, but then you guys have other noteworthy goals or any interesting goals that we’re trying things we’re trying to try to get out of GivingTuesday, whether it be new donor relationships, or trying new strategies, or anything, you know, noteworthy or new from a GivingTuesday perspective, they they may be worth sharing with the group is there.

16:02  

Not only the Facebook Live videos helped us reach a different audience. I mean, we were able to reach our parents and our alumna audience, but we also reached prospective parents and prospective students, they do follow us on our page, and we shared it a lot and boosted our posts. So that help. And so they kind of get a, you know, an idea of what happens, a Catholic high school if you’re not familiar with our school, and as an incoming ninth grader, sometimes that’s kind of fun to see, we saw the serious side of it by showing classrooms, and then the fun side of it by showing some fun activities that we did. And so I think that was new for us. We’ve never really dabbled in Facebook life, and it was a little scary. We did have some a PR firm that did it pro bono for us to help us out that it really paid off and social media. It’s amazing what you can do with it. So we reached a whole new audience.

16:59  

With that, that’s great. Yeah, social media is certainly certainly a powerful tool. You know, Maggie, speak for yourself. He’s gonna have similar questions where they’re beyond obviously raising money. And clearly, you know, ACS did. You know, were there? Were there specific goals that you guys had that your new things you want to try that that worked? Well, or even some things perhaps, that maybe you tried and, you know, are still fine tuning a little bit for 2020? But curious, you know, from your perspective, what were some of the other objectives from a GivingTuesday campaign, besides the obvious one of raising money?

17:33  

Yeah, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, that 100%, giving from the individuals who are in a leadership position is always a goal every year. And, you know, we do reach that from our foundation board. But that also, again, as I mentioned, trickles down into the other leadership positions that we have within the organization, our council, our committee chairs and the committee’s itself. So, you know, we’re continuing to see an increase in the committee chairs, giving 100% Or I think we were at 73%. Last year, so we’re continuing to grow that and, and expand that out to committees. And certainly, garnering a corporate match was a goal of mine last year, and I’ll be looking to do that again this year. And, and potentially exploring doing it on a day that’s not giving Tuesday. You know, as we get into talking about what a what a fun year, 2020, has been. To explore new ideas, you know, we don’t know what it’s going to look like, but I think we don’t know until we try. So I’m looking into trying to find a random day where we can promote philanthropy, you know, later in the year, in 2021. You know, so those are, you know, those were kind of our, our strategies for 2019. Sure.

18:58  

So kind of a good segue there, Maggie. And we’ll start really talking more about 2020. And a couple minutes, because, yeah, certainly a certainly a fun year, and certainly your year and all that kind of thing, try some different things, because some of our tried and true measures are harder to do this year. But yeah, before we jump into 2020, I just want to follow up on 2019. In the past, kind of one more question to that, you guys probably have some relevancy to 2920 20. Right. And that’s, you know, what have been some of the challenges that you’ve seen in terms of, you know, executing a solid GivingTuesday campaign, and clearly, both yourself and M, have been able to do so. You know, but talk to me a little bit if you can about maybe some of the challenges that you faced, whether it was when you first got started a few years back, or even as recently as the past year and you know, maybe some of the tools or tips to overcome some of these challenges, because certainly it’s not easy to write to raise, you know, almost $100,000 in a day. It requires a lot of hard work and I’m sure wasn’t something where you just flip a switch and So you’re gonna have a corporate match and be able to raise all this money. So yeah, are there any particular challenges that they jumped to mind they’d be, I think, probably pretty useful to to hear and talk a little bit.

20:10  

Yeah, so I’ll share two with you the first. And this kind of goes back to when we first really started fundraising for the organization was buy in from our, from our members and our leadership, there was really strong opposition to establishing a fundraising program that was consistent, and that took place each year. Some of our members, though, they’re very generous, we’re, you know, that balance between us being a membership organization, but also, you know, wanting to have, you know, funds for research and other educational programs that we offer, you know, they there was some feedback that they didn’t want it to be a pay to play situation is how some, some members, it wasn’t the majority, but that wasn’t feedback. And so it was really just ingraining it in them every year. And this is this is what organizations like ours should be doing. I worked a lot on finding resources on BoardSource, have peds website to help educate them to say, you know, again, this is what kind of the industry standards are, this is what other groups are doing. And, and we should be a part of the conversation and the activities that are taking place. So that was the first challenge. The second challenge, I find, you know, that’s probably more relevant now is just being the only development person in the organization, we have a small staff we have, you know, 15, or, or so that are dedicated just to the American Society of transplant surgeons, and I’m the only person that ever really touches the fundraising. I work with members of our communications team on the outreach, but it really does come down to me. And so I’m sure there are many of us on the line who suffer from the same thing is all of a sudden, it’s October 14. And I say to myself, Oh, my goodness, where’s my Giving Tuesday outreach plan?

22:14  

I mean, we know and Giving Tuesday is probably you know, years out, we know, we know it’s coming. And yet, it’s still a challenge to make sure that we’re, you know, doing the communication on top of it and getting it out there. So that, again, from my perspective that our members are prepared and ready to give.

22:34  

And that’s certainly something that, you know, both challenges, I think are from, you know, pretty consistent with, with the challenges I’ve heard from going back a couple of years from conversations with clients, you know, in terms of fundraising hurdles to overcome. You know, I think, you know, there’s there’s never, sadly, there’s never seen nearly enough time in a day. And one of the things we’ve tried to do here, DonorPerfect and happy. We’ll be happy to circulate. Meg, I know, you said you’ve had some familiarity, but we have started to put together communication templates that our marketing teams put together, that, you know, I think can be hopefully pretty helpful to folks in terms of being able to kind of get messaging started. And so, you know, we will share that out with this audience as a takeaway from this webinar, and hopefully that can help people kind of get started, because certainly, we recognize that it’s can be imposing and certainly we’re here to try to help and provide as much guidance and good content and templatized content as as we possibly can. So as you said, Maggie, I know for a fact you are you are not alone in having those challenges. I’m quite sure there are many others on the line there that are that are in the same boat. And I think it’s helpful to hear at the same boat, but be that there’s, there’s there’s, you know, real solutions to those challenges. And that’s great.

23:51  

For just a moment, just to say, you know that before switching to DonorPerfect, which we did in I want to say early 2018. What am I thinking actually might have been early 2019 that we finally switched. It was just an Excel spreadsheet. And we are, yeah, we were partnering with another kind of just like online donation form so that people could give online. But I think that was one of the other ways that we were able to make 2019 so successful is we had like a really strong, you know, software tool that helps us not only do the donations, but it’s also a good database for us. So, you know, I know that you didn’t ask us to do a plug, but I will say that, you know, that was that was a really nice tool to help, you know, enhance what we were already doing.

24:45  

Well, I appreciate that. I think we appreciate that. That does bring a smile to my face. And and yeah, that’s what we’re here for. Right is the tool is designed, you know, we’re using this session to share best practices, but you know, we do believe that our software tools can help you A lot of our clients on the line including yourselves magazine in, you know, accomplish these objectives. So I’m pleased to hear that and, you know, certainly we’re happy to talk about that. But but that’s a thank you for the glad glad to hear that we’re hoping to further your resulting as I’ll say so. And your perspective, I think it’s helpful for us to, you know, Maggie listed a couple good challenges. I’m sure there’s some overlap. But, you know, walk us through Yeah, what have been some of the big challenges you guys have seen in last years in terms of being able to execute GivingTuesday campaign, you know, to get to $80,000. So that’s, again, no slouch at all. And I think from my perspective, sounds like you really kind of did create that, you know, good hard work. And I’m sure there were challenges there as well. So if you can identify some of them for the group and how you overcame them, I think that’d be really helpful.

25:47  

Sure. When we first started 2015, several people are most of the people didn’t even know GivingTuesday was, and so we had to educate our donors. And every time we sent something out, it was what is giving Tuesday, this is what Giving Tuesday is and you know, there’s a lot of worthwhile organizations to give to us. And you have to tell your story on why should I give to you. And they’re not, some are not, they weren’t the largest gifts when we first started. But we were out there doing it. And it was free, because it’s just a social media email campaign. And I didn’t like put a whole lot of effort into it, because I just didn’t know what to expect. But then each year, I’ve learned what I need to do better for the next year, I need to stay on top of it, I need to be better prepared, I have to have a plan. Because you have to do posts and what what am I going to post this and what am I going to do during this and there’s sometimes one year where I was flying by the seat of my pants all day long, I was just coming here today. Focus on Giving Tuesday, and it doesn’t stop at five o’clock, you know, I went home. And at eight o’clock, I’m sending out emails, I’m doing Facebook posts, because I think back in the day, he couldn’t schedule a Facebook post. And so it you know, I’m sending, I’m still at 10 o’clock on my phone, looking at how much money’s come in. So it’s a full 24 hours. But I think, you know, with DonorPerfect coming out with some templates, and I read all of it, and I fit it to my organization. So how’s it gonna benefit me? And how can I switch it? We’re not some of these organizations that you know, feed the poor, you know, that really tell you at your heartstrings, and so you’re competing with that. But you’ve got to tell your story, too. And it’s just how do I do that. And so, I did a lot of quotes one year about giving and why it’s important to give and just posted quotes on the the emails in the social media posts. So each year is different. And each year we’ve evolved, and I think the more active you are during the day is better. But you got to watch the emails because people get bombarded with emails. So it’s a balance, it’s a fine balance. And I think you’re like Maggie, we’re it’s October 14, then I’m sitting here going, what are we going to do. But each year, we learned and it’s nice, that don’t have perfect as those GivingTuesday web forms that we can just slide in. It’s a nice link that we can put in our emails and on social media, and it makes it so much easier for the donor and then for us, as well. So we appreciate that. And so yeah, it’s just as you come up with a plan and educating your donors on what GivingTuesday is.

28:39  

Yeah, yeah, no, and I’m glad that, you know, I’m really, like I said, going to same as Maggie. And I’m pleased to hear that some of the tools that we do offer have been helpful. That’s certainly our intent. And, you know, that’s our goal. And I think we’ve heard from others that they can be very helpful for this important Giving Day. So that’s what we strive to do. And if they’re, you know, we’re always open to feedback and how we can make those things, whether it’s from other viewer or others on the line, or any clients in general, you know, how we can make our advice and guidance as effective as possible. You know, and sticking with you for a minute, you know, and I think, you know, we’ve kind of talked a little bit around 2020. But, you know, this is an interesting, fun, unusual, challenging whatever adjective you want to use, but it is a different year. There’s no doubt about that. And we all we’re all familiar with the reasons why, you know, recognizing this October 14, and we’ve got about what, six or so weeks? Yeah, I guess if we’re the only, you know, how are you feeling about GivingTuesday 2020? You know, I know, you said you’re still in the infantile stages of some of the planning, but have you given any thought to what might be different or have you had any conversations with donors, other members of staff that would give, you know, some, some light into what you might expect for 2020 GivingTuesday?

29:55  

Well, I’m usually forgiving Tuesday. I never know what to expect because cuz it’s, it’s crap to you just because everyone’s you know, asking for money that day. And so um, but I do plan on, like Maggie go into our board members and asking them to give her get again they did last year they were given get give or get $2,500 that really pushed it up, I think they raised over $37,000 Just from the board, which was nice looking at a matching gift and Maggie gave me a good idea, maybe just go into one donor and asking for a bigger gift instead of several smaller matching donors, I do have somebody in mind and then also look at probably promoting the recurring gifts and monthly giving a little bit more because we know times are hard for several of our donors and our families and one of our donors that his business is dropped 40% Because of COVID. And so we we don’t want to pressure anybody, so we were gonna probably not do a hard sell, but we’re gonna still do it. Maggie did looking at doing a Day of Giving. We’ve tried that last year and giving Tuesday just works for us, for some reason, it just as when everyone’s in that giving mood, and I don’t know if it’s because we’re school, and by may people are worn out and ready for summer, and I don’t want to give. So you have to find what fits your organization and how you do that is up to you. But I mean, I think we’re going to look at more recurring gifts, probably.

31:34  

Yeah, like I said earlier, I think the responsibility of the recurring really, we’ve seen a big lift in recurring donors this year, and recurring transactions. You know, it’s I think, there’s certainly a mindset that we’ve observed, that, you know, giving a 15 $25, or even a $50 gift monthly, you know, maybe more palatable than giving it 200 or 500 or $1,000 gift for, for a lot of folks during you know, just the year with a lot of uncertainty. And so, you know, I think that’s certainly a worthwhile endeavor. And we’ve, we’ve started to see more recurring gifts, even in the last couple years with GivingTuesday, as just, you know, recurring donations in general become a little bit more of a widely accepted notion that people are promoting. And I think from a forecasting we’ve done, I’d say we expected recurring donations to be part of a big part of Giving Tuesday for for 2020. You know, magazine, okay, same question for for you. And you kind of mentioned a couple of things as well, but curious as to, you know, what you may be thinking for 2020, if there’s things you’re planning on doing differently, if we’ve had any conversation with any of your members, or staff around, you know, what we might expect in what, what could be different this year, and how we’re going to navigate it?

32:47  

Yeah, you know, our, we’ve had conversations with our board, and, you know, a lot of our members, and this is what, you know, what I’m hearing from them is that they had to take pay cuts from their institutions. And so, you know, we might not see the same amount and gifts. But that being said, I’m still going to go forward with giving Tuesday, it kicks off our season, and it you know, Garner’s a nice feeling of community, from our members who haven’t, you know, been able to see each other the way that they typically have. And so, you know, I still feel that there will be some interest, again, will it be as high as last year, I’m not sure. Our corporate partner that I’ve been working with should still be able to do a match this year. So I’m gonna be keeping my fingers crossed for that. And then, you know, kind of the two other things that I’m looking into are, we’re going to have a webinar, kind of on the tax advantages of making a donation. And so, you know, the, you know, for some of our older members, who would be in that required minimum distribution age, you know, the Cares Act has actually suspended that for for 2020. But from what I’m hearing from our members who are in that, that age bracket, their tax advisors are actually encouraging them to continue with making their RMD for the year. So, you know, we thought that some education around that and just again, the tax advantages of making a donation would be beneficial for our membership. And so we’re going to do that, probably sometime. I mean, I’d like to do it at the end of October, but it’ll probably be maybe the beginning of November. And then, you know, one of the other benefits of our organization is we typically have, you know, several annual in person meetings, and obviously, that has been taken away from us due to the, you know, the pandemic, and so, we weren’t able to have our annual foundation recognition event that we typically have. And so I’m working with our board to try and do a virtual event, possibly sometime in December because that does end up turning into a fundraising event for us. And so, probably just be like One hour event, and I’m working with somebody to do like a cocktail making class or a cooking class. Again, just to get people together, do something fun, and remind them that the foundation is is still a part of, you know, their community. So that’s, again, I don’t have a crystal ball to see what that turns into. But knowing our members, I think that it will be encouraging for them.

35:28  

If you have a crystal ball, you can let us know how the rest of this year works. Yeah, let us know if you can figure out if you can figure it out. But that’s the that’s great and helpful as well. One thing that, you know, I guess I throw in as well, just from my perspective, and we haven’t talked much about this today. But just for the folks on the line that, you know, I do feel compelled to offer some, you know, a tip, it also is, you don’t have perfect does offer a crowdfunding kind of a peer to peer fundraising tool. And, like I said, making it, we really haven’t chatted about that much. But, you know, it is something that we see, you know, a lot of organizations do, especially for GivingTuesday. And I think some of the value of the crowdfunding tool in general is that you even if folks don’t have the propensity this year to be able to make a donation, they may be able to fundraise on your behalf. And so I would encourage anyone on the line who’s interested to to reach out to us, if you’re, if you’re interested in that tool, we found the pretty effective on GivingTuesday. And in general, and especially in the New York Times of 2020. And so, just wanted to kind of put that out there a little bit, and there’s certainly plenty of information that we’re happy to share on that, as well. That’s great. Um, you know, I think we’re going to move towards questions, because we do have a handful of questions that our panelists are participants, I’m sorry, to answer or, and want to be able to get to those. But, you know, I think one of the questions that we’ve heard from folks before this, this session, that curious Maggie and, and from her perspective on is, you know, there are a lot of folks who are on the fence. And, you know, Maggie hasn’t developed that crystal ball for us yet. And so they don’t know how effective GivingTuesday is gonna be, you know, Matt, you start with you, and I will get the end. But you know, if any of the folks on the line or any, you know, Development Director or anyone in any organization in general, were to come to you and say, Hey, Maggie, I’m thinking about doing GivingTuesday this year, again, are trying to give it Tuesday. But you know, we’re nervous about this pandemic, in the economic climate right now. What would your feedback be to them? I mean, in all honesty,

37:31  

I am, personally think that there’s no harm in trying, you know, there’s even if you were to do like a soft launch of Giving Tuesday and see how it goes, I think you can benefit your organization can only benefit from it. Because you might grab one to 1015 new donors that you didn’t have before who were encouraged by, you know, what your mission and what your message is. I presented some data to our board a few weeks ago about kind of what what some folks were researching around trends and giving for 2020. And this one was done by fidelity, charitable, and it said that, in particular, millennials, were projected to actually increase their giving at the end of 2020, simply because people’s hearts are challenged during this time. And so they feel compelled to support organizations that matter to them, maybe more so than they would in in previous years. So, you know, as a, as a philanthropic community, we should be capitalizing on that and encouraging, you know, new donors, old donors, and anything in between, to participate in Giving Tuesday and, and if they have a connection to your organization. Hopefully, they’ll they’ll participate.

38:53  

And, you know, and so my question for you, so I’m on the fence, and, you know, not quite sure if it’d be worth the effort. We’re given Tuesday, but what what would you tell someone, you know, in that position?

39:04  

Um, I agree with everything, Maggie said, it doesn’t cost you anything to do, why not dabble in it and see how it goes. It took us, you know, maybe two or three years to really get going and get some money under our belt, but I think you just constantly share your story. And the more the more you communicate with your donors, and the people that support your organization, or just even in the community, the more likely they are to give to you so it doesn’t hurt and I would I would go for it.

39:35  

Okay. Great. So we do have a little bit of time for some some questions. And we do have an engaged group, like I said that ask some questions. And we have questions for both of you. But the first one, I say right when Maggie is for you, and it’s for someone who also worked for, you know, health and related validation, and I think there were a couple questions around, you know, if you can talk a little bit about the corporate match and how you lined up the corporate match and you kind of What went into that for some folks? That will be?

40:05  

Sure. So just for some background ASDs has worked with a variety of industry and pharmaceutical partners for decades. And we have one partner who has said to me, I talk to them on a very frequent basis. I’m, you know, as the director of development, I also engage with our corporate partners, and in that way in selling marketing and sponsorships for our meetings, but they’ve always said to me, if you have new ideas, and you need support for us, please bring it to us, we may not always be able to support it. But, you know, we like to, we like to review that. So I have already identified with them that I know I can come to them with with my grand ideas. So when I had this idea, they were the first group that I thought of, and they just, quite frankly, they jumped at the idea, they actually got their entire employee team on board with it. And we’re sharing, you know, the stats that I was giving to them that morning during Giving Tuesday. And so, you know, that was kind of how I had approached that piece. And I’d be happy to talk with that individual for that question offline for more information if if you need more.

41:17  

Sounds great, thanks. One question that I think you know, in terms of the some of the lead up right into giving Tuesday are and really guys coming from GivingTuesday, that there’s really more of a point of clarity. For and for Maggie for the ATK in the 96k. Was that a number that was raised specifically on GivingTuesday? Or was that and then starting with you? Was that a number that was a springboard into giving for the rest of the year? And just as a point of clarity for the audience? Yeah, there’s a couple of couple questions around around that, in general, sir,

41:47  

the 80,000 was actually done, we send out a couple emails prior, save the date, get ready for it, we always do a give now button, so that if they want to give it because it’s a call to action, let’s get in while we have their attention. And so it’s probably about two weeks prior to giving Tuesday, and then the actual day on Giving Tuesday was 80,000. And that does include or you’re giving, so it’s just giving the campaign was strictly 80,000.

42:16  

Okay, great. And Maggie, same. Same question for free. Yeah.

42:21  

Yeah. For us. That was our number on Giving Tuesday, and anyone who had pledged to say, I will give this amount, you know, on Giving Tuesday, you know, some of our groups have checks sent in, and there might be a delay from cashing it. But for us, that was just giving Tuesday, and it was not posted at the end of the year giving.

42:40  

Great. Okay. You know, couple other questions from the group here. One in particular, that seems to be coming up quite a bit. And we talked, we talked to GivingTuesday, kind of as a springboard for into your fundraising. Maggie, you’re in you’re curious, if smokes curious, we have tips for you know how to I guess, you know, use GivingTuesday as a springboard as opposed to a negative influence? And then that you’re giving it I guess, how do you? How do you communicate the value of giving on a day, in this case, December 1, versus the next month of the year, if there are particular strategies that you can share? Value starting with you in terms of, you know, how you communicate? Yeah, you communicate the value proposition of GivingTuesday, specifically, versus the rest of the year?

43:26  

Yeah, I mean, I’ve always used the GivingTuesday toolkits that a variety of groups put together and the messaging that, you know, you’ve spent a lot of money on people in your lives, and, and potentially, yourself, but, you know, you spent a lot of money these past few days on Cyber Monday and Black Friday, and all of that. And so, you know, the messaging that the toolkits often say is, you know, this is a day of philanthropy to give back. And so why not participate in that. And so that’s kind of how we’ve always guarded our messaging. And again, you know, if you’re able to have a hook, so before we had a corporate match, we would always do like a board match. So our board would write, you know, would commit to X amount of dollars, you know, 30 to $35,000. And, you know, please, please help us meet our match from what our board members have given. So, you know, if you’re able to include a little bit of a hook, I think that that also, you know, as adds value. But certainly, again, I think, the messaging that has been established for giving Tuesday, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Because it, I think it’s a powerful message, no matter what your mission is.

44:33  

Great, great. You know, and same, same question for you in terms of just you know, I think that’s really helpful, Maggie, thank you. And in terms of just you know, using GivingTuesday, as a springboard, were there any particular tactics you’ve employed that you found to be particularly helpful for the group in terms of you’re going to get into the start of the end of your giving campaign?

44:54  

Well, I agree with what Maggie said, the templates and the tools that GivingTuesday gives you and other organizations Other companies is good messaging, I just I go with that I fit it to my organization, you know, tug at the heartstrings a little bit because it is the season of giving. But I really try to keep them separate in a way, because I’m so focused in on that one day. But then it’s when I do my ear and giving, it’s more of that touchy feely tug at your heartstrings. It’s, you know, you just you have a little bit of opportunity to get that tax donation in because that’s a big deal. So it’s almost different messaging, I think, for your and giving, then Giving Tuesday, but it’s a way to get off to get into that season of giving. Does that make sense? So that we use so?

45:48  

No? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we have time for a couple more questions. Maggie and Anne, thanks for hanging around feel, then we appreciate it. And I think everyone the line, appreciate that as well. Why don’t we talk a little bit in a minute, we’ll start with you again, just to kind of keep going back and forth. You know, we talked a little bit but with, do you have any thoughts on on how to message in relation to obviously some of what’s going on with COPPA? And you talked a little bit about that. But I guess more specifically, you know, are there any tactics that you might take for, you know, the COVID pandemic situation that you could advise folks on that you think may be effective from your perspective?

46:28  

Yeah, I’d be happy to share an example. And I’ll start off by saying that, you know, for us, we’re going to use the messaging on how our membership has been impacted. So you know, one area that we’re really passionate about getting funds for each year as research and supporting medical students and residents in their research. And we have $5,000 grants and $40,000 grants that the organization commits to, but we also like to get member commitments from so that we can impact more trainees. When COVID hit so many institutions, again, for our membership, were just the research facilities were shut down, they weren’t allowed to do research. And so that means that the field is being impacted. And so one area that I’ll be doing messaging this year, is to last year, we had our research grant recipients record, like us 45 second video about who they are and what their research would be focused on. And so I’m going to use videos like that, to put into little snippets to send out to say, you know, this is what you can be supporting this year, let’s make sure that we’re still funding research. So that’s, that’s kind of one strategy that I have this year, and how I’m going to talk to our men are fundraising. Great.

47:52  

And, you know, answering question for you. I know, it’s a tough, it’s a tough one. But you know, are there tips or things you’re thinking of that might be helpful to, you know, effectively message, you know, with, with COVID challenges that we’re all facing, and how you can, you know, entice people to get to the foundation during this time?

48:12  

Sure, I think you have to empathize with what we’re all going through, you have to understand that we’re all hurting. And but if you know, if you didn’t have that extra income, if you weren’t directly affected, you know, think about giving to us, one of the things that Catholica is that the teachers are still here, they are working so hard to still bring that high school experience to these kids, and that were half virtual and half in class. But you know, we had to be strong, teachers had to be strong, the teachers had to learn a new way of teaching. And you the donor, were able to put the teacher in the classroom, you helped us by increasing their salary, given them a bonus or whatever we needed to do. But it’s because of them, that we’re able to still bring the the Catholic experience to the Boys Deserve it in, it’s been a bad year for them. But we’re still getting abled are still being what we normally do during the school year, if that makes sense.

49:21  

Great. Great. So I think we have time for two more, two more questions. You know, and then we’ll, we’ll, we’ll give me your many, many thanks, Maggie. And, and and starting with you the concept of recurring donors, you know, some of the questions are floated around, you know, how do you you know, is there a better question more broadly? Or is there a best way to approach a recurring donor like, how would you how do you go about it? Or do you have tips for getting people to add to give monthly as opposed to the one time ask, are there any kind of tricks of the trade there that that can be helpful?

50:00  

It’s not really actually, it’s from your web link forums, you can do a one time gift or a recurring gift. And we put that on everything, we do highlight it a little bit in some of our emails that we put out that you don’t have to like we have a lifetime membership, it’s $500. And you don’t have to pay it all at once. You can pay it off monthly, quarterly, however you wanted to annually if you want just a one time gift each year to pay it off. And so I think having it on that form gives the donor the choice. And they can say, Oh, I’ll make a $10 monthly donation. And they I’m telling you, they forget about it. And it’s been going on for years. And then I’ll have people email me and say, I want to up my monthly donation to this amount now. Great. I think it’s just from your web link form is how we’ve done it, we haven’t really advertised it or done anything differently. So thank you.

50:58  

Like I said, always, always, always glad when our software can help to drive success. And we talked a little bit about modeling earlier, but it certainly does seem to be an area of success. Magazine tips for you, before we move to the last question, which is an important one. But a tip for you in terms of, you know, communicating with monthly givers, and how to be able to, you know, entice people to give on a monthly basis.

51:20  

Yeah, I mean, actually, that’s something that we haven’t we tried, before I came into this position, there was kind of a push for monthly donations, and it didn’t really take off. But I actually I’m appreciative of Ann’s advice on this call, because that is, I think a strategy that could work really well for our group, you know, to address the question about, you know, just recurring donors in general on an annual basis, you know, my strategy for this year is to just encourage them to give again, and not necessarily ask for a certain amount, and being sensitive to any financial impacts that the pandemic may have had on them. But just encouraging them to be a part of, you know, the giving culture that we’ve established.

52:11  

All right, last question. And like I said, I think this is a really a good, good one to end on. I believe. You both alluded to it October 14. You know, we’ve got a handful weeks ahead of us, I guess, from your perspective and start with Maggie this time around with and, you know, it’s a two part question. When do you really kind of get started? And we kind of dance around? What, how many emails are the right? What’s the right amount of emails to send? How many emails should you send to people? Or how many communications I suppose it’s not just limited to email, how many communications from your experience you think you should send to people, and you both had success with this so curious to your perspective on that? Sure. So

52:53  

from our timelines, we’ll be probably doing our first Outreach at the end of October, it will kick off with, we have our first we have a council meeting next week. And then we have the board meeting after that. So you know, there will be direct conversation. In those meetings about it, just say, hey, don’t forget, and then we’ll do our actual outreach to membership. Like I said, the end of October. And then I’ve kind of been like, in the beginning, like in an every week, especially in November, every week in November, you know, sending out a direct email. And then certainly, as people do donate their names are removed from the, you know, from the constant contact email list. And then we scatter out, you know, various social media outreach, kind of every couple of days in between those emails. The other benefit that our organization has is that we have a member news email that goes out every two weeks. And so there’s always a spot on the member news for Have you made your donation yet, save the date for giving Tuesday. And then once Giving Tuesday hits, we’re sending, you know, the Friday before we’ll send an email, and then the Monday night before we always send an email and then the morning I was giving Tuesday, it’s giving Tuesday’s here, make your donation in various communications go out throughout the end of the year, to remind people to keep giving.

54:18  

Awesome. And let’s bring it home with you kind of same question too, in terms of you know, when when, from your perspective, should folks get started? And how many? What’s the right number of communications? What’s that magic number? Um,

54:30  

well for us, we have a big event next week, and it’s going to be pushed a little bit to the end of October, beginning of November. We have found out with our donors who are mostly men, that you can’t do it too far in advance. And so usually about two weeks before Thanksgiving, we just kind of hit it with an email. And then the week before Thanksgiving, we hit it with another email. And then we do some social media. Yeah, but then we really hit hard, you know, obviously on Giving Tuesday the amount of emails, I think it just depends on your constituents. You don’t want to bombard them. But then you also want to kick off the day, you want to announce your match gift, because if you announce it during the day, it’s kind of fun and add some excitement. And then people will start emailing you or calling you did you? Do we reach the match? Do we get it. And so you have to announce that you reach some some fun giveaways, you know, we call them power hours, and we give away some school merchandise like Catholica stuff that are fun for our alumni. And then you need to do I think, one at dinner. Don’t forget about us, it’s still giving Tuesday, and then maybe one more about 10 o’clock, just to say, we’re almost there, we need to reach out, we need to reach our goal. And if you just create that excitement all day, then I think they stay with you. And so and that’s, but sometimes you can send they get bombarded because they’re getting emails from so many different organizations. So you have to be careful. And so I think probably, you know, three is a good balance, if you can create that momentum during the day.

56:20  

So great. Well, that takes us to just about time, you know, I do, Maggie and and I do really, from the bottom of my heart want to thank you, it’s you know, I think it’s really beneficial for all of us to be able to hear from a couple of organizations such as yours, to talk about the success you’ve had and be able to give tips. It’s, it’s frankly, more effective than, you know, cell phone America was a DonorPerfect just telling you stuff. I think it’s great to hear real success stories from clients. And then both of you are so maglich, Deborah Bullock and Carter, Catholic High School Foundation for an and the Society of American Society of transplant surgeons, I apologize for for Maggie, to great organizations, thank you both so much for attending, we do really, really, really appreciate it. And, you know, good luck for this year. And certainly everyone on the line, let us know how we can be helpful in your journey for GivingTuesday and of your fundraising for 2020. Along those lines, before we sign off, you can see here on the screen, we do have a couple more webinars, you know, lined up for lead up into giving Tuesday. And then right after giving Tuesday, we got a couple questions, we’ll be communicating out, you know, some of the materials that were shared today and reference in terms of templates and information on crowdfunding. And we, frankly did not get a chance to answer all the questions. So we’ll answer as many as we possibly can. But I am and I do see a lot of comments. And and Maggie, who I want to share with you that we have a lot of folks on the line. We’re saying thank you so much. This is great. So informative. So one more time seriously, thank you both so much. This was just a fantastic webinar. And I really enjoyed having the opportunity to moderate.

58:00  

Thank you. And feel free. You know if if there’s any follow up questions and you want to share my email, I’m sure and would feel the same way. Please, please. No. We’re happy to if there’s any questions that we didn’t get to this afternoon, but thank you for having

58:14  

Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. We will communicate with you guys and communicate back out to the group. Thank you very much for that Maggie and anything else?

58:24  

Nope, we’re good. Thank you so much. And I guess like Maggie said, feel free to email if you have any follow up questions. We’d be glad to help. Absolutely. Thank

58:31  

you everybody. Thank you. Thank you so much everybody gonna end the webinar. Take care everyone be safe and good luck.

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