Explore every episode of the podcast Using the Whole Whale - A Nonprofit Podcast
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internet History Hinges On One Nonprofit 🌐🏛️ (news) | 12 Sep 2024 | 00:18:47 | |
Nonprofit News Roundup: Internet Archive's Legal Battle, AmeriCorps Grants, and Addressing Child Malnutrition
Hosted by George Weiner and Nick Azulay of Whole Whale Key Topics Covered:
The Internet Archive's legal struggles highlight the delicate balance between copyright protection and the preservation of digital history. As nonprofits, understanding these dynamics is crucial for safeguarding our collective digital heritage. Call to Action:
Every nonprofit, regardless of size or scope, contributes to a larger narrative of service and impact. Whether it's preserving digital history, supporting community service, or addressing global health issues, each effort underscores the power of collective action. | |||
| YOU are not the hero - Your Donor is | Interview with Dr. JJ Peterson StoryBrand | 26 Aug 2024 | 00:54:02 | |
This week's podcast features an enlightening conversation with Dr. JJ Peterson, head of StoryBrand ( mystorybrand.com ) and co-host of the Marketing Made Simple podcast. Dr. Peterson shares his expertise on how nonprofits can leverage the StoryBrand framework to clarify their messaging and engage donors more effectively. With a background in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, he offers unique insights into the differences and similarities in their marketing strategies. Key Topics and Guests:
Dr. Peterson's insights remind us that effective storytelling is not about making the nonprofit the hero but about empowering donors and stakeholders to see themselves as vital participants in the mission. By simplifying and clarifying their message, nonprofits can better engage their audience and inspire action. | |||
| Are These Organizations Really Nonprofits? (news) | 11 Jun 2024 | 00:18:12 | |
Are These Organizations Still Nonprofits? A Deep Dive into Nonprofit Status and the Blurring Lines
Overview
This week on the Nonprofit Newsfeed, George Weiner, Chief Whaler of Whole Whale, and Nick Azulay, Senior Manager of Digital Strategy at Whole Whale, delve into the complex and evolving landscape of nonprofit status. They question whether certain large organizations still meet the true spirit of what it means to be a nonprofit. Key Topics and Highlights
The conversation highlights the need for a national discussion about what truly constitutes a nonprofit. As organizations grow and evolve, it's crucial to revisit their missions and ensure they continue to serve the public good. Additional Stories
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| Helping 40,000 Young Entrepreneurs | Sky’s The Limit | 15 Dec 2022 | 00:48:37 | |
Interview with co-founder and CEO of Sky's The Limit ,Bo Ghirardelli. Bo discusses how they built a youth entrepreneurship network that has supported over 40k young people. Learn how Sky's The Limit leverages corporate partners to help achieve its mission.
Links:
Rough Transcript [00:00:00] Today on the podcast, we have a great guest who has bravely come on, despite, frankly, Responding out of the blue to a message that we sent him cuz I found the organization very interesting. Bo Garelli, co-founder and CEO of Sky's The Limit, and that's sky's the limit.org if you wanna find them on the interwebs. [00:00:23] Really quickly on Bo, since I did find him on LinkedIn, which is amazing, but this is quite a track record. After graduating with an [00:00:31] mpa, [00:00:32] In nonprofit management from the University of Washington was in the Peace Corps. Love it. And he was a small business development consultant in Morocco. Wow. And then goes on to co-found two other organizations [00:00:45] in Morocco before, I guess in 2010 [00:00:50] for 12 years now. [00:00:51] Co-founding Sky's limit. So Bo thanks for joining us and maybe you can start with that. Why is there a limit at the sky? What is going on there? Can you tell us what the organization does? ? [00:01:01] Sure, yeah, a little. We work with underrepresented young adult entrepreneurs to help 'em chase their business dreams. [00:01:09] And we combine business mentoring, advising and support and community with learning and training and access to a startup grant fund that we build. And so those three things that the mentoring, training and funding are really Produces some greater than their parts. [00:01:25] And we've been as you mentioned, doing this for 12 years, but only six as a technology organization. And we can get more into that that journey later on maybe. Interesting. So maybe just to pull back why this cause, why this. Okay. I'd probably start at the beginning in that sense then so I was born and raised in Oakland, California to a family full of small business owners. [00:01:49] And the conversations at the table were were about how to build businesses, how to solve problems for your customers, how to think about and develop. A business that's truly valuable to the community and and then, concurrently out, out in society and school, raised on this this myth of the American dream where America was touted as this land of equal opportunity. [00:02:17] And I, I did not see that playing out in my friend group and my community. As I saw vastly different outcomes for people based on arbitrary things like their skin color and their gender and other other opportunities that were there weren't Really gave lie, I think, to in, in many ways this this idea of the American dream and equal opportunity for all. [00:02:40] And that really sparked a desire in me to figure out how I could kinda combine my. Love of entrepreneurship and love of entrepreneurs themselves with with a way of creating a more just and equitable world. So the journey led to being a, a middle school teacher. [00:02:57] I'm in south central la and when I got the opportunity to teach a, an elective chorus to, in, in middle school, I asked my students what they wanted to learn and they said they wanted to learn about business and money. And that was the first entrepreneurship course I taught and built was was helping sixth graders understand. [00:03:16] What it's like to build a business. And students loved it. I loved it. And and I went on in into the the Peace Corps and during the Arab Spring I joined the Peace Corps in order to kinda respond to this this crisis that was brewing in North Africa in particular. It was really rooted in a lack of economic opportunity for young adults of working age. [00:03:40] So roughly 50% of working age young adults at the time were unemployed. So it's a massive unemployment rate, completely destabilizing the the countries and societies and. While I was there, I asked the young people in the community, like about what what they needed. And they said, Look, we have business ideas. [00:04:01] I've got a business idea, but I don't know what to do with it. So we built a business training program really rooted in business planning. And they said, Okay, now I got this plan. What do I do? And so we said, Okay, let's go to the microfinance organizations and see if they'll lend any money. So we went to all the, these ostensibly non-profit microfinance organizations. [00:04:20] None of them would lend money to, to the young entrepreneurs. I was working with and and so we said, Screw it. We'll build our own fund. So I flew back to the Bay Area, raised some money from some generous folks in the community. And we created our own loan fund and underwrote interest free loans to entrepreneurs. [00:04:38] They got their businesses up and going, and they said, Okay. Now what, how do I keep this thing alive? How do I grow it? And that's where we tap the community of business leaders for mentors and advisors, supporters to wrap a community of support around the entrepreneurs. And so that's the birth kind of our model of combining those three things that mentoring, training and funding. [00:04:59] And and my Moroccan co-founder took that, that over. And I went back home to Oakland because the same thing the same gap in the ecosystem exists in the United States and existed in my own hometown. And so I, I felt a need to respond to my own community at home. And sure enough we can approved that out, right? [00:05:18] We launched and quickly got served hundreds of entrepreneurs. We had thousands applying from around the country, and this is for everywhere from, rural Georgia to Detroit to, to the Bronx, like people were applying from across the country. And it just showed that there was this massive gap for earliest stage young entrepreneurs, people of color, women. [00:05:39] Low income entrepreneurs who had all kinds of business ideas, everything from starting a clothing line to building a gourmet popcorn company to launching a beauty line. So the so I think that was the catalyst for kinda why we. Why we needed to transform what we were doing as a brick and mortar in Oakland to, to figure out how to serve a national and eventually global community to meet this need. [00:06:06] So that's a long answer to your question, but but that's the why and what of our story that's. [00:06:13] That's what I love about podcasts too, because guess what, , We have the time. We have the time to talk about it. And the truth is it matters quite a bit. The motivation and the process of how organizations are formed, how they have listened to the community and how they've responded over time, and very impressive that you have. [00:06:34] Served over 40,000, if I have that right. 40,000 underrepresented young entrepreneurs from 50 states, and also a number of countries. And it seems like when you move from brick and mortar to digital, I'm seeing a sort of app look on your site. It looks like there is in fact an online. Portal that you created. [00:06:56] I wonder if that isn't that moment where you went from serving into the hundreds to the thousands. Maybe you can talk me through that shift and what [00:07:03] led to it. Yeah. So in, in 2015 when we had over 5,000 applicants to our Oakland based program that at best could serve people in the Bay Area we, I went to one of my best friends and who was a tech founder. [00:07:18] He was at the time working on a small startup called blockchain.com, which is now a very big startup. And he and I, it's, he and I had spent many late nights in college talking about. What what our purpose was in life and what the what was the meaning of all this and what should we do about it? [00:07:38] And he was a child entrepreneur in the same way I was different kinds of businesses, all technology based. For him, he to building a web company as a, 14, 15 year old building websites for other businesses. And and I said, Hey, look, I know you're really busy with this other startup, but what about helping us transform? [00:07:56] There's a clear demand here. And I think the only way we can meet that demand is through technology and. The reality is that our customer our, the entrepreneurs we serve are the first generation of digitally native entrepreneurs. So when we think about meeting customer needs, our entrepreneurs want are going online. [00:08:15] They're looking online for services and support. We took this this evidence to a few pe We shopped, shopped this around for a while. We were very fortunate to have a tremendous partner in, in Accenture and Accenture's corporate citizenship group understood this. They understood that that just like how the For profit sector was going had been undergoing decades of digital transformation that the nonprofit sector was also going to do this. [00:08:42] And and certainly George you understand this well coming from a tech nonprofit that and so they said, Look, yes, we get it. We'll fund it. And they have for, eight years now. So they've really co-created this platform with us. And they did it in a really innovative partnership. [00:08:58] They staffed a team of engineers, designers. Product manager to the, to sky's the limit to, to help us, build the platform that would power the services and support and impact. We were looking to achieve with our entrepreneurs. Now there's a second component to this and this is why, corporate funders are over 90% of our funding. [00:09:23] Is that the Fortune 500 has some of the best and brightest people working for them and they've, the Fortune 500 can afford to pay the high salaries, the good benefits. It's the fortune in 500 in the Fortune, right to. To really support these incredible people and help them have great jobs and et cetera. [00:09:43] And and so we recognize that the community element of what we're building at Sky's the limit was actually the harder side, right? We had a lot of entrepreneurs signing up. So we need to figure out this other side of the community who was going to support the entrepreneurs. And Not only did we get funding talent from Accenture, we also got to we also got a channel to recruit. [00:10:06] From there, at the time I think there were 500,000 employees at Accenture, and now it's. Closer to a million than not. And and just an incredible global workforce that that was, that has come to bear and engaged thousands of their employees as volunteers on the platform in support supporting entrepreneurs. [00:10:25] Everything from a digital marketer in New York, helping an entrepreneur launch their first Instagram ad campaign so they don't waste a ton of money. On the ads that aren't working everything from their internal legal department coming in and providing pro bono legal services to, to product developers, helping entrepreneurs, hone and enhance the value proposition of their products. [00:10:45] So there's a, there's so much we can do with folks inside the Fortune 500. And then we've continued to replicate that model now with PNC Bank, our second largest funder, Goldman Sachs Wells Fargo, hp and some others who've come alongside and said, Hey, we give we will fund and we will provide. [00:11:04] Access to our employee base as volunteers to bring this, the, this community together online so we can go into a little bit more about the platform. But that's the genesis of that and of the transition to becoming a technology organization now half the team or on our product and engineering. [00:11:21] It's so interesting cuz there are a lot of different paths that a nonprofit can take to funding and clearly, If the money isn't there, it's very [00:11:29] hard to support [00:11:30] Your stakeholders. I'm curious, can you take me into the room of you pitching Accenture? Like how, Cause this has gotta be on a lot of organization's mind. [00:11:39] You're like, Oh yeah, all you do is talk to Accenture, talk to pnc, get Goldman Sachs, throw a sales force in the midst. So you just walk on the door, knock on and say, Hey, money please. Now. Okay. time, talent, treasure. So can you talk to me about how it looks like you landed that anchor partnership [00:11:58] with Accenture? [00:12:00] Yeah. I certainly did not get into this work to fundraise, but the reality [00:12:05] yeah. No one told you that nonprofits actually are obsessed with money because you have to get [00:12:10] that right. Yeah no. I, It was, sorry. It was like it's one of those things like, look the mission and the people we serve are the end for me. [00:12:19] And money is certainly a means to achieving that end. So fundraising has increasingly been more and more part of my day to day. And look, the, some of my favorite days we're working one on one with our entrepreneurs in the earliest days, understanding, their pain points and what their, the problems they're trying to solve. [00:12:37] But to, I think, unlock the kinds of resources we need to make a dent in the size of this issue. It's gonna take hundreds of millions and billions of dollars and. . And that is what it is, right? I've had to learn how to do this. How do you do it? So what the journey looked like for us is we tried a lot of things that didn't work first and foremost, so failed a lot. [00:12:58] Okay, so then, so once we figured out all the ways that this didn't work, like cold messaging, [00:13:02] sending to HR at Accenture, [00:13:05] the Sure. Everything, but what we realized was like that we had to find companies that had, So step one, find the, find companies that have a public statement around their corporate citizen. [00:13:17] That, or corporate social responsibility programs that aligns with your mission. If it doesn't, then it's gonna be, it's gonna be a hard road. There's so much internal negotiating and so much internal planning that went into stating these public goals for these companies. You gotta align with the, I think you all of this is just my perception or my belief. [00:13:36] So I think you gotta align with those. Once you do that you can the next step is much harder. It's figuring out and navigating the decision making process for how a funder can how a, how corporate funder makes decisions around who they. There are 2 million, I think over 2 million non-profits in the United States. [00:13:57] There are often many non-profits doing similar work. And every nonprofit is, is looking for and hopefully trying to talk about their, comp their advantage, right? Their edge, their why me? , why this organization? And I think. That does matter. But what we realized was that in many corporations, you need to find somebody who cares. [00:14:19] You need to find a champion. . And that champion needs to be able to influence the decision making process for funding inside of a corporate. And so that's eventually we found what worked. And so we started to recruit, managing directors who. Who could care about, not only not only cared, cuz it's easy to care about our work, right? [00:14:38] It's a widely appealing mission. And but, Caring going from caring to acting was a journey. And I think ultimately we just find people that we have meaningful relationships with we genuinely care about them and they genuinely care about us. And then we, we also need to then after we have that kind. [00:14:57] Based relationship, we need to deliver results. And that set and that's, a third piece here is like, how can you deliver results to the to, to a corporate who has a stated goal of what they're trying to achieve? And how can you do that? Technology, at least for us, our, our part, big part of our story was like, look, this is a big need. [00:15:16] There's big numbers involved. And and even, we just hit our 50000th sign up. Last month. And so it's just, Hey, congrats. Gotta update all those numbers now. . Yeah. . And and we and we have to figure out, to me that's just the tip of the iceberg. [00:15:29] It is just the tip of the iceberg. And we have to, continuously create value for entrepreneurs, for the volunteers we serve. And then a third customer group, which is the. And so we treat, we treat those partners as a customer group and we. We feel accountable to delivering results against their funding. [00:15:45] Why they funded us. And it's for the impact. It's for the mission. And often it involves a, an element of scale to, to what they're looking for. And and all of those are important. And understanding each funder is, different, Each corporate is different. All of those corporate, social, respons. [00:16:02] Goals are off, are all tailored exactly. To to the corporate. And how they measure success is different. It's one of the vast complexities of the nonprofit sector, right? Is what success looks like and what impact, how do you measure it? On the financial side, all of these companies use Gap, right? [00:16:19] There's a very clear set of ways for accounting for the financial performance of a Fortune 500 company. And they all [00:16:26] use, I'm sorry. GAP is general accounting principles. Is [00:16:28] that right? Yes. Yes. There you go. Yes. Thanks for spelling that out. So it's, it is a, it's a formal process for counting for financials, so you can compare the financials of one Fortune 500 company to another. [00:16:41] But how do you compare the, impact of one nonprofit to another? Is often very difficult because there is no standardized process. And we're talking about people's lives and we're talking about multifaceted issues on impact. So ultimately to bring this full circle, you have to be able to position your. [00:17:02] Properly for in the ways in which these corporate funders measure. Impact. And and that's so that's a final piece of it. But really finding that, that champion and showing how you're better better different and and then delivering results and maintaining and valuing the needs of that partner over, over many years is how we've, I think retained some of our corporate funders for a long time. [00:17:29] So to roughly summarize, [00:17:31] it sounds like you start with this alignment list, this list of potential organizations that you have vetted and checked with regard to their vision, their csr. [00:17:44] Corporate social responsibility [00:17:46] programs then take a step back and potentially identify champions and you have an advantage just to reverse engineer this, it seems where you have a backyard full of potential volunteers that may already work at these organizations or can be recruited to become volunteers to see it firsthand, which can be pretty powerful. [00:18:04] There's no substitute for putting in the time. Once you have that, you develop them into a champion and then you expand within with this sort of bigger vision. Clearly the name is, Sky's the limit, but you are bringing numbers, you're bringing opportunity for impact that is at a scale that frankly companies that deal in the billions understand and it just lets you, it seems level up and align with [00:18:30] these organizations. [00:18:33] Yeah, I think an so to speak about specific value propositions for corporate funders. So one is employee engagement, right? One of the top concerns, particularly now in this in this really tight labor market is retention and attracting new hires to, to companies. [00:18:52] And then with the murder of George Floyd, you had a a social wining that demanded the companies, the employees who worked at these, at big companies are demanding a response. And more than, Lip service to the issues. And I think that the, one of the ways in which we've we've seen some corporate partners for example, PNC Bank made a massive racial and economic opportunity investment to in, in low income and black communities across the country. [00:19:24] And they were, and they've and as part of that commitment, their people are able to volunteer on sky's the limit with the entrepreneurs we serve. 61% of the entrepreneurs we serve are black entrepreneurs. Again, most of our entrepreneurs are between the ages of 18 and 30, right? [00:19:39] The working with young adult first time, earliest stage entrepreneurs, 80% are pre revenue. And this is a part of, part of our pitch to corporates, and part of the reason why we've had so many people sign up is because that is a true gap in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, even for nonprofits. [00:19:57] Many nonprofits in the entrepreneurship ecosystem serve entrepreneurs who are more established. So they, especially if you're a lender or a C D F I a microfinance organization in the entrepreneurship space, and you're a nonprofit, you're still looking for an entrepreneur who's had one or two years of business operations. [00:20:17] . But there's a massive gap for earliest stage entrepreneurs who don't have friends and family with money and who don't have savings, right? We know over half of America only has $700 in savings. The we call our fund, our grant fund, the Friends and Family Fund, to recognize this gap that exists for founders who don't have friends and family with money, because that's how privileged entrepreneurs get their first money. [00:20:42] They get it from friends and family. And if the business doesn't work out their friends and family aren't taking them to court and suing them they're just saying, Okay, we're gonna let it go. Yeah. Took a flyer and that's what happened. Yeah. So all of this ties into the, this kind of the why. [00:20:59] Why does your work matter? Why is, and why are you filling a need that others aren't? And what are you doing about it that's more efficient, better, faster, cheaper? All of those value propositions matter for corporates and particularly we, the employee engagement angle is an aspect, is an important part of why corporates partner with us. [00:21:17] Gotcha. Now that you [00:21:20] have passed 50,000, it sounds like signups and entrepreneurs. I have to say that [00:21:24] the resources are pretty [00:21:27] broad and impressive. You have on the site accounting, building a team, business planning, legal leadership, funding, operations, Like it just goes on and on for the really, like how we go from zero to one for these entrepreneurs. [00:21:42] Can you tell me, moving back to the tech you've. [00:21:45] How the app and maybe even the website gets [00:21:49] that entrepreneur from zero to one. And I think a [00:21:53] very tricky part, how you create [00:21:56] the right connections between mentors and these entrepreneurs. [00:22:02] Yeah. Absolutely. And we are, we're still, even, five years into building the platform, we're still we're still iterating, right? [00:22:09] Like we have we can always be better, in my opinion. And we're still trying to solve what is fundamentally a matchmaking problem, right? As you pointed out. The. Entrepreneurs and volunteers create profiles on the platform, right? And we ask a lot of things about you about what you're looking for. [00:22:28] And then we use that data. To recommend matches for you, but we also recognize that many people, we take a lot of inspiration from dating apps. The major difference from for us is, of course, these are platonic relationships, professional relationships and on a dating app, you don't really need to explain what, what dating. [00:22:50] To people come in with a clear preconception around around dating and finding a partner, et cetera. And maybe people have different preferences except within that ecosystem. But when you talking about mentoring, it is a, you ask 10 people what mentoring means and you'll get 10 different answers. [00:23:09] And and really what the kinds of interactions that we're facilitating between entrepreneurs and supporters more broadly. It's, it's between entrepreneurs as peers, Between people who, who may be an accountant really good at accounting, but not interested or able to support in any other area. [00:23:27] Or you've got, small business owners or general entrepreneurs who've been on the whole journey and understand this. Then you got people who have an hour and you got people who are looking for. A long term relationship. And some people are looking for, shorter term engagements both on the entrepreneur side and the sporter side. [00:23:44] So there's so there's just really a a ton of nuance and a ton of different types of engagements. Everything from pro bono offering, so that accountant, maybe they'll help you set up your, their, your QuickBooks for your business. That's nice, but maybe they also. [00:24:01] Want to give you some general pointers around around. Accounting and how to think about managing your money, how to track your money, but you're not formally structuring saying [00:24:09] Hey, if you talk to this person about accounting, you have to go jump into their, QuickBooks [00:24:13] and go grind this out, or build their website for them. [00:24:16] Yeah. One of our principles is that we want to mimic the way humans develop relationships in the real world. Through the platforms. So there isn't a lot of like constraints or rules or if I, I met you George through LinkedIn. Great. Cool. We hashed out what it was. [00:24:35] Why are we talking, what is it about this, There are no, no rules about what kind of messages you can and can't send. Sure. There's common decency and we certainly have policies around building a healthy community. But beyond that, it's not to say that, if I'm an accountant that I am or if I'm an entrepreneur looking for accounting support do I even want to set up QuickBooks? [00:24:55] I, Yeah. What do I want? It's so matchmaking between the nuance and what happens if you're as a first time entrepreneur. There's all these things that you're constantly learning about what you need, and your priorities are constantly shift, shifting as you figure out what it is. [00:25:10] It's a very messy process, building a business, right? And there's a in 98, 9% of our founders are solo. So what are you doing when you're on your own, you have to do it all. You're all your. So again, the community aspect becomes really important, but the matchmaking problem is a really difficult one to solve, and that's what we've been really working on, is helping people meet each other where they're at and supporting them in in building meaningful relationships, whatever that means for an entrepreneur supporter at any given time in there. [00:25:42] Is it all one to one or is it one to. Yeah it's primarily one to one. Wow. So entre each re each relationship is treated on an individual basis. So if I'm an entrepreneur platform, I can have I can reach out and build an entire advisory board. I can have, 10 different people. [00:25:59] Doing that. So in that sense, it's one to many. And a volunteer can match with multiple entrepreneurs across many different areas. Now, am I actually [00:26:07] swiping right and swiping left on people, or have you dialed [00:26:09] back the dating to that point? Not yet. That's certainly on our minds. [00:26:14] Oh guys. But yeah, the question is like how do we help you find what you're looking for in the community? At any given moment because it's changing rapidly, particularly for the entrepreneur about what their needs are. And how do we help you do that in a way that's engaging, gamified et cetera. [00:26:31] What we've done is. We've built a gamification system into the platform so that the entrepreneurs and supporters who are creating the most value in the community as measured by, spending time together, achieving measurable results for co, for the entrepreneurs in their businesses. [00:26:46] Which we call milestones. So cheating a business milestone. Everything from naming your business to getting your first business bank account up, all the way to getting your first customer, raising money, hiring employees, All of these are common business milestones. So we track those in the platform and the community members who are. [00:27:04] Who are creating the most value are getting the most points. And those points aren't just for show. They actually govern our grant program. Entrepreneurs can create pitches on the platform and then the community votes on who wins those pitches. So your points are your votes. And so that's a way for us to, Oh, [00:27:23] Yeah, [00:27:24] so there that the interaction, but the points aren't just there for smiles and dials, like it's there [00:27:28] for actual. [00:27:29] Cache in the community. That's right. Yeah. And you vote for yourself or only for other people? Sure. You can vote for your, your points go to your vote, your votes if you have a funding pitch. But you can also use 'em on other people if you'd like. If you're a volunteer, you don't have a funding pitch, so you're you're voting. [00:27:44] If you're an entrepreneur, maybe you aren't ready for funding yet or you haven't created the pitch. So sure, you can use yours however you like. The. But the point is that, this governs hundreds of thousands of dollars that we've given away through community voting. [00:27:56] It's real money on the line and and we're always working to increase the size of that fund. And we've got a couple of, and I assume you don't [00:28:03] take any, so it's not like a Y Combinator where you're like, All right, we get 10 points of your company going forward. [00:28:09] It's just no equity. It's a pure grant. [00:28:11] It is not repayable. It is as free money as it gets. Yep. And we're working on a couple experiments around this. The, blockchain technology is a really interesting potential use case here. Cuz essentially what we're building is a Dow a decentralized, autonomous organization that is governed by a, a token. [00:28:32] And in, in this case it's on our platform. But we're we. In the process of building a pilot dow that will, potentially transform our community to be able to be governed by a, an actual blockchain based token that is immutable and and will have real control over the disbursement of these funds. [00:28:51] And it'll all be on chain and and auditable and verifi. And really empower the community to feel a sense of deep ownership over, over sky's limit. And eventually we have plans in the future to turn over the entire sky's the limit organization. To the Dow. Everything from governing, what features get built to who the staff, the everything, and certainly the governance of the fund itself and where those funds go. [00:29:21] But I think that's a long ways off still, but it's certainly yeah sky coin to the. Yeah, certainly something that we're we've been thinking about and already testing without blockchain technology right now. But but yeah, that's the community is at the hardest. [00:29:34] Sky's the limit. And we believe that the people closest to the problems that they're trying to solve are. Suited to solve those problems. And we really do want our community to, can take an ever greater voice in in what we do and how we serve two-sided [00:29:50] marketplaces [00:29:51] are absolutely the scariest, [00:29:53] the hardest, the most difficult to get going as a flywheel. [00:29:56] Right now I'm curious, do you need more entrepreneurs or do [00:30:00] you need more volunteers? I need you, George, on the, I'm somebody who gets that, that problem. It absolutely is a big one. We have we manage a bit of the kind of the two-sided demand dynamics here. We often, we have many more entrepreneurs signing up than we do volunteers, but we do offer peer matching and. [00:30:20] That is a one way in which we think about balancing out the Demand from the community for meetings, for support. We're also working on other ways to engage beyond just just meeting. We're buildings, we're thinking about and cons and designing right now, some asynchronous. [00:30:38] Opportunities for supporting an entrepreneur. Everything. Think about get, getting feedback on your business plan from the community would, could be really helpful and valuable. And get in writings. You don't have to, wait and book a meeting. But using that as a one of, one of the problems we've noticed is that. [00:30:56] Maybe if you're joining a dating app, you're looking for dates, you're ready to go on the date when you joined. So it's not gonna hold you back from messaging people. But we found that so many people need to understand what the, they need to go on their own journey to, to saying, Okay, I'm ready to talk about something. [00:31:13] The vetting and the prepping. [00:31:15] You don't wanna put somebody who's I don't know what a, what is a business? And you're like maybe you're not ready for a mentor. [00:31:20] Maybe, or maybe you are. And maybe the question, this comes back to the matchmaking problem. How do you get, how do you get the right person at the right time in your journey as an entrepreneur? [00:31:31] And same thing on the volunteer side, right? Because it's, it, there's a lot of imposter syndrome from volunteers. It's never, I still, I [00:31:39] wanna be very clear. I don't know what I am. I have no [00:31:42] idea. It's one problem at time. And that's the thing, right? And that if only more people just were like, okay with that, that we're all kind of making this up as we go along. [00:31:51] And if that was a more broadly met that was more broadly known message. We'd have, I think a much more open and ready to jump in kind of mentality between with communities. So doing this digital community piece is a tough problem to solve, but the. [00:32:08] Reward when we crack the crack. The code on this is tremendous. It's imagine unlocking the social capital, the talents of the Fortune 500 and beyond. And really and unlocking the talents of all these entrepreneurs. Who are starting businesses across the country across the world who aren't getting the support they ha they need from their own community or from or online. [00:32:32] And we can truly I think create a valuable experience for both entrepreneurs and supporters that could change the world. Spinning up a bunch of [00:32:41] economic engines from the people. Potentially needed the most are in the communities that are, have the greatest opportunity, I'd say to benefit from creating actual companies. [00:32:52] It's not, the idea of a handout. It's this idea of training as a great opportunity. And the exciting part about this type of model, and I'm wondering if this is actually bearing to be true, is that after, I imagine over a decade of. Do you find that there are people that came in as entrepreneurs coming back as mentors? [00:33:12] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We see that all the time. And part of the peer matching is, Hey, I'm an entrepreneur with the same kind of problems you're trying to solve, and neither of us have a solution, but let's figure it out together. That's a, an absolutely can be an absolutely powerful relationship. [00:33:30] It, or it could be an entrepreneur who's Hey, I joined Sky's Limit with just an idea, and now I've got, a couple hundred grand in revenue and a team and working on product market fit and found it to some degree. And now I can come back and or not come back. [00:33:45] I never left. I'm just can I help unshare some ideas along the way? Absolutely. So that's the. The reality is that our our system is broken right now. And so I think it's a tough thing to try to build a new system because what we're doing is too incremental. [00:34:04] Like we have the same problems and some of the problems are getting worse in our society from a socioeconomic equity lens. And. We need something that is that is going to transform the reality around where opportunity exists because the talent is certainly everywhere. [00:34:23] And I think the. The way in which we do that is by reducing the friction from people who care to and from reducing the friction for entrepreneurs to get support to get community, to get to have a thought partner. And it doesn't have to be a, a Fortune 500 volunteer. It doesn't have to be a, another small business owner who's, been there, done that. [00:34:45] It can be. 24 year old who's, in the same place as you and you can work with them in, in building your business together. Yeah. To [00:34:54] even find co-founders. It sounds like there's a lot of opportunity once you get everybody in the room. Absolutely. But I'm gonna pin you down tomorrow. If 10 new volunteers or entrepreneurs showed up, which would be the [00:35:06] one you would say you needed more? [00:35:08] 10 new volunteers. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Maybe this [00:35:12] is a good transition into our rapid firearm pinning you down. Please keep your responses to about 30 seconds, respond as needed. And if you're ready, here we go. What is one tech tool or website that you or your organization has started using in the [00:35:28] last year? [00:35:29] We just started using Century for error log monitoring on the platform. What are some tech issues you're [00:35:35] currently battling with? [00:35:38] We are currently battling with wrapping up our web app and deploying it to the iOS and Android store. What is coming [00:35:47] in the next year that has you the [00:35:48] most excited? [00:35:51] I think a big overhaul of our user experience design is is what I'm most excited for. And then the and having that be the impetus for the launch of our iOS and Android app in 2023. Can you talk about a mistake that [00:36:06] you made earlier in your career that shapes the way you do things? [00:36:09] Ooh, there's too many to choose from Doing too much, right? Startups often die from indigestion instead of starvation. That's not always true financially, but it can be from like an op standpoint. Like where do you spend your time as an entrepreneur in the earliest days? And how do you how do you balance it all? [00:36:27] Because it's too much. And brutally prioritizing is is a skill that is That I've learned the hard way of how important it is. You believe that [00:36:37] non-profits [00:36:38] can successfully go out of business. Yeah, and I think they should aspire to. I wish that we had more going out of business though. [00:36:46] Cuz I, we don't see a lot of non-profits, fully achieving these kind of persistent societal. Problems that they're what we're working to solve. [00:36:57] Fair to put you in the hot tub Time machine. Send you back to the founding of Styles Limit. What advice [00:37:03] would you give yourself? [00:37:04] Just focus on people of finding people who, who care about the mission and care about the work and and don't let the people who don't get you down. [00:37:14] What is something that you think your organization should stop doing? [00:37:19] Lot of things. This is back to my earlier point around indigestion killing startups. I think we have got to stay focused on the matchmaking problem that we're trying to solve between community members and I think that anything that isn't trying to solve that needs to be deprioritized or to give you a magic wand to wave [00:37:41] across the social impact [00:37:42] sector, what would it. [00:37:44] Oh man. I think that I would I, I would. Just find a way to, to build trust more between between the entire sector. If I could wave a magic wand trust building is difficult and it's hard. And we face it in tr in our community, right? Trying to build trust between members of our community. [00:38:07] But when there is that trust, it's tremendous things can happen. And and I think that I would certainly wave my wand over the kind of philanthropic funder place and say, examine what you're doing as a funder to encourage or not trust in the nonprofit sector. What advice [00:38:28] would you give college grads currently looking to enter the social [00:38:31] impact? [00:38:32] Focus on creating value for who you're serving. I think Richard Branson has a quote that it's like he, something along the lines of the. The only mission worth pursuing in business is creating value for people in people's lives. I don't think that's any different of the mission for the social sector, right? [00:38:52] Like it is ultimately rooted in creating value for the people you're serving. And I would make sure that. Staying anchored to that and measuring that. And and listening to the people you're serving, [00:39:05] what advice did your parents give you that you either followed or [00:39:08] didn't follow? [00:39:09] One of the big business lessons at the table is don't spend more than you have. And it's, and it, I know it sounds so simple, but man how many businesses have gone out spending more than they have? And same thing for, non-profits. That's all right. Final hardball here. [00:39:26] How [00:39:26] do people find you? [00:39:27] How do people. [00:39:29] If you're an entrepreneur we're here for you. You can sign up on skys limit.org. Everything's free. If you are a professional or a business owner and And you care about this work. And then you can either both and sign up as a volunteer on skys.org. And you can fund us and you can, and do both of those from our website at skys limit.org. [00:39:55] Both. Thank you for your work. [00:39:57] I love what you're building. I love that you have a bigger vision of what's possible and we appreciate [00:40:02] it. Thanks so much, George. | |||
| CVS CSR Needs a Health Check (news) | 13 Dec 2022 | 00:23:36 | |
CVS Shows “Pledges” Do Not Equal Direct “Donations”
In November 2021, US pharmaceutical giant CVS’s social responsibility team announced a $10 million commitment to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to be delivered over three years, as reported by Quartz. However, what CVS omitted is that the donations collected from customers through in-store fundraising weren’t going to be in addition to the initial pledge. Rather, they would be used in lieu of donations coming from CVS’s coffers. Customers subsidized CVS’s generosity without knowing it, as their donations were part of a larger pledge that CVS had made to the ADA. A new lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, claims that by failing to disclose the exact way in which the funds raised would be used, CVS committed fraud. Nonprofits (and donors) interested in better understanding corporate partnerships should heed the word “pledge” as merely marketing lingo until actual monetary donations are received by the NPO organizations such corporations purport to support.
Summary
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| #GivingTuesday Predictions: Search Is Down, Hope Is Up (news) | 29 Nov 2022 | 00:26:04 | |
2022 Giving Tuesday Predictions: Search Is Down, Hope Is Up
Whole Whale, the publishers of this newsletter, predict a record-setting $3.2 billion will be donated for Giving Tuesday this year. The prediction is the result of an analysis based on an adjusted linear regression, trends in Google Search terms around “Giving Tuesday,” and national giving trends. This method predicts an 18% or $500 million increase over 2021’s total amount raised. While this is an optimistic prediction, several negative indicators might give nonprofits more caution heading into the season of giving, including decreased Giving Tuesday search volume, narratives around inflation and economic pains, a public drained of giving after an election cycle, and a potential return to post-pandemic giving patterns. Yet, elections can lead to heightened social engagement, and online shopping trends continue to be strong despite economic worries. (2022’s Black Friday set a record for online giving.) Whatever the final tally of donation revenue comes in during #GivingTuesday, remember to thank your donors!
Summary
Rough Transcript
[00:00:00] This week on the nonprofit News Feed for November 28th. This week we, uh, we have our big day, the day of the Tuesday of Giving, giving Tuesday. We're excited to talk about this and what's going on. Nick, hope you had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed family time. I know you had a massive amount of, uh, of humans eating Turkey. [00:00:26] We had a massive amount of humans eating Turkey. Multiple turkeys I should say, but it was super fun and happy giving Tuesday. George, I sorry I didn't get you anything. Um, but what I do have for you is some predictions. Uh, we are starting out with our 2022 Giving Tuesday predictions, and we're going with the headline. [00:00:51] Search is down, hope is up. We're seeing some. Conflicting factors. So Whole Whale, which is US , we write the nonprofit newsfeed, whole letter, uh, newsletter. And we as in you predict a record setting $3.2 billion to be donated for giving Tuesday this year. And our prediction is the result of an analysis based on an adjusted linear regression. [00:01:17] But we also take a peak at things like Google Search terms around giving Tuesday and broader. Giving trends. So using this method, we have officially predicted an 18% or 500 million increase over 2020 ones total amount raised. So this is an optimistic prediction, but there are several negative indicators, uh, that could potentially, uh, be pushing down this increase in including headlines regarding, uh, inflation and economic pains. [00:01:53] We just came off an election cycle. Maybe folks are tired of giving, um, and we're potentially returning to kind of a post pandemic social engagement. That being said, we're seeing online shopping trends from Black Friday set new records. So it seems that even though we're all talking about the economy, the consumer, uh, sector, particularly on Black Friday did real well. [00:02:21] So, George, what's, what do you make of this as the, the, the predictor himself? The, the Chief Guesser and Chief Waer? Yeah. I am excited. 10 years of giving Tuesday. I mean, this is the 10 year anniversary, uh, of how it's come up and, you know, it is pretty steadily in terms of donations, uh, increased at a, at a decent clip. [00:02:45] One of the things though that I am seeing, and this is tough cause there's some lagging search data when I'm pulling it up, but right now, um, it, it is, it, it's trending behind. Um, Uh, call it 10 to 20%. It's hard to pin it down exactly year over year, but it is certainly not exceeding previous years of giving Tuesday. [00:03:09] And if you look at this trend for the past five years of, uh, giving Tuesday in search, why I care about it is that I'm hoping that it becomes a regular recognized holiday on par. The other major players, you know, Halloween of, you know, black Friday, of things that you will see in terms of increasing search. [00:03:33] And, and frankly, over the past five years, it has been, um, it's peak, it's peak in terms of search related trends and, uh, questions in the United States being asked and has decreased. And this is seemingly continued into, into this year. And. One of the things that you need to happen for a holiday is continued awareness. [00:03:58] And part of that awareness, and this is a proxy, but part of that awareness is the number of people putting in related queries to, to giving Tuesday in and around the holiday. And, you know, hopefully this isn't, uh, fatigue setting in, but we'll see it, um, we'll see the results in terms of, of dollars and maybe, uh, maybe it's just one of those. [00:04:20] That finds, uh, finds its level of awareness, but a different level of giving. So I'm, I'm still optimistic about the giving cuz as you mentioned, people are, are still spending despite threats of recession, uh, looming overhead. And hopefully that continues. And, you know, we, we've been telling people to check their, check, their real time analytics to pay attention to look. [00:04:42] I think it's an important time also, as you are looking and reviewing, like, okay, how did it go? How's our donation form? Like this is the kickoff to giving season, but also this is the last year. This is the last year that your current universal Google Analytics will work. We'll show you conversions. We'll show you where donors are going. [00:05:05] This is it. This is the last December you. With the old version of Google Analytics. So just for funsies, take a look if you haven't already at GA four, Google Analytics four. It's the upgrade that Google is forcing all clients to move onto. Mid next year, in July of 2023, take a look at what it looks like in terms of your donation tracking and flow, because that's what you're gonna have this time next year. [00:05:35] I mean, this won't be the last time I talk about it, but this is your last season, so this is a good time to be taking notes of what you, uh, what you may need to plan for next to your next season. But right now, pay attention, make sure donation forms are working and doing your best with your email messaging. [00:05:52] Get people in the door. [00:05:55] Yeah, George, those are great points. We'll wait to see the final numbers, but if you're listening to this today, make sure you check your forms and something we say at Whole Whale is always remember to thank your donors as well. Um, and if you follow the newsfeed, you can see some links to some best practices around fundraising, thanking your donors and all that good. [00:06:17] Right. I can take us into the summary now. And this is an article from Non-Profit Technology. Uh, news was reposting from, uh, KOMO News, KOMO news uh.com, which talks about. In Seattle, Washington, um, a Seattle based nonprofit called Housing Connector has part partnered with a local technology firm, Zillow, which I'm sure you've heard of, to help more than 3,700 people. [00:06:48] Homeless people move into affordable housing, and this was over the past three years and. I'm gonna guess, George, that we put this in here because we love a good public private partnership. It seems here that housing connector had a system for seamlessly connecting landlords to qualified homeless tenants eased the friction in that process. [00:07:15] Of course, with anything administrative. Um, it, it's really significantly harder for folks experiencing homelessness. And in addition, uh, with assistance from Zillow, we're able to get homeless folks into housing. Um, cuz we are experiencing a housing crisis in these United States. So this is just a real cool example of tech and public private partnerships creating real results, at least in Seattle, was. [00:07:44] This is exactly right. Their, their housing connector. They're talking about the efficiency that it gives case managers at the tip of their fingers, like the alternative here. The alternative here is that, Communities, municipalities pony up for incredibly expensive databases to manage and and maintain really cuz you need live data. [00:08:08] And the truth is, the public market has already created this. They're paying for it. Zillow's doing just fine because of their knowledge of, uh, real estate networks. And this is the a type of partnership that creates efficiencies and really, Focuses resources on affordable housing, which if you pull the thread on so many societal ills in the United States, so many of them, that thread leads right back to affordable housing in areas that have access to resources, solve that. [00:08:44] Um, and so I love seeing Zillow being a part of this and hope other. Other districts to take a look at this, uh, this housing connector versus, you know, the question of like, wait a minute, we have to build everything internally and go this, um, go this other route. So, uh, yep. I like highly and stuff like this. [00:09:05] Yeah, I absolutely agree. It's a, a cool story. We hope more of this happens. [00:09:10] The moment you've been waiting for George. Our next story is from Market Watch, and the title of this story is Charities funded by Sam Bankman, freed of the infamous FTX fame, has been asked to return donations to nonprofits that Ft X's fund had given money to. So the background on this is Fdx is a cryptocurrency exchange created. [00:09:37] Sam Bankman Freed and the whole system collapsed a couple weeks ago in. What was a liquidity crisis that essentially created a digital bank run. And it's much, much more complicated than that. But anyway, uh, this exchange collapsed, but its founder was a very public proponent of the effective altruism movement, um, potentially to. [00:10:03] Market himself and, uh, divert attention away from other potentially illegal, if not, uh, morally questionable actions. Um, but anyway, the funds that the foundation has given to nonprofits, um, there's a potential that in an effort to repay, um, folks who have debt in, in ftx, there might actually be clawbacks essentially. [00:10:29] Uh, Through the, the process nonprofits might have to give some of the funds that they got donated back to the foundation, um, which is devastating to these nonprofits. And it seems that a, a couple of people might be stepping up to kind of, you know, provide cover for these non-profits, so it doesn't happen. [00:10:50] Um, but, but Jordan, I mean, this is, this is terrible. And, uh, I have, I have more thoughts, but I wanna, I wanna get your thoughts on this. Well, this is just, you know, watching one, one shoe drop after another in terms of the, the level of fraud, which frankly is not the first time we have seen in crypto, or frankly in financial markets in general. [00:11:17] You don't need to have that long a memory to realize that yes, this was in the level of a 16 billion fraud, but there was a level of 60 plus billion by Bernie Madoff also. A very well known philanthropist and clawbacks actually happened in that case as well. Which is just an important note to, to nonprofits receiving some of these donations, which is just brutal for them. [00:11:42] You know, you're making plans, you're hiring, you're saying, Hey, finally this capital plan strategically done is gonna happen. And suddenly you're, you're now dealing with, uh, potential, you know, pullback of funds and that, you know, over a hundred nonprofits, I believe in the days of Bernie Madoff and that crash, uh, received such clawback notices. [00:12:04] And so coming back to this character, Sam Bangin Fried, uh, the damage is, is still being calculated. Um, and, and albeit less money, there was his deep, deep connection and association with the effect of altruism movement. And there is some soul searching that needs to be done. And part of that is that when people. [00:12:30] Make pledges, especially those that are in the public spotlight, that are seeking investment, that are seeking to build and effectively pay for a, a moral cause. Washing a official stamp from media and investors alike, that I am one of the good guys. I am one of the people out there making positive change. [00:12:52] You can trust me with your funds, which by the way, he was gambling. Overtly with customer funds. That's not a legend. They can see that now. Um, and this was clearly paying the price to, in the same way he, he bought a stadium rights right in Miami, the Fdx arena. He was buying the movement of effective altruism to burnish his reputation. [00:13:18] And now even beyond. You know, the, the call of effective altruism is using data and research and logic and making the best possible decision to solve the causes you care about. It's aligned with a bit of utilitarian thinking that even if I do, uh, morally corrupt jobs, questionable, and this is coming directly paraphrased from a. [00:13:44] In a paper written by one of the main philosophers behind, um, McCaskill, William McCaskill, one of his papers, talks about taking morally questionable jobs because somebody else will do it anyway, as long as you promised to make large donations in line with effective giving effective altruism. This is a very tough moral justification. [00:14:12] To play, especially when you play it at scale. And the fact that teacher pension funds were actually somehow rolled up in this as well and now are, are left empty. Um, all for the, the grand total of pledges that Sam Bankman free made. Yes, there was some money made, uh, and donated, but that money is now even being clawed back. [00:14:35] I want to say it as many times as as possible, but when you. A millionaire billionaire making a pledge. It's called pr. They're making pr. They're not making donation. They're not changing society. They're making pr, public relations. I want to look good for something I haven't done. I think everyone's red flags. [00:15:00] Red cards tie in some World Cup should be high, high. When we see pledges, they're worth the paper they're written on and maybe even less. It's frustrating. It's frustrating. Uh, net net, this is not going to end crypto philanthropy in the same way that Bernie Madoff to end family foundations and, and fiat giving. [00:15:29] Um, this is not gonna end effective altruism, though. It's gonna push for some soul searching and, um, A lot, a lot more questions about, well, how morally bankrupt can I be and still make that tithing at the end. [00:15:45] The church did this a while back. Look up the history of tithing. It's quite interesting. It doesn't go well. Alrighty. [00:15:55] I mean, more ran ranum, but uh, you know, it's. It's good to, to turn around and look at the power of, you know, billionaires in philanthropy, um, and the detriment, um, that can, uh, can be cost. Yeah. George, I, I really appreciated that. For our listeners, maybe they're just this year they've started experimenting with crypto donations. [00:16:21] Maybe they have a way to donate, uh, cryptocurrency to your organization. I think this situation has led to a crisis of trust coming from a lot of different directions. If you are a small made or large size nonprofit, how do you instill trust for people who follow this and maybe a little jaded by the whole thing? [00:16:49] How do you as a nonprofit communicate trust? [00:16:52] So you're saying for like, if you're accepting crypto philanthropy, crypto donations through your site, there may be questions of how, you know, like this is all a fraud, right? This is the, the top line banners one. You know, remember that roughly 40% of millennials actually have and own cryptocurrency. , um, and are able to, to sort of use it and, and I would say some of those parallels to, just because Enron existed doesn't mean that the entire equity market was a sham, that you shouldn't accept stock donations. [00:17:27] The truth is when you accept crypto, uh, it is, if you're used at least the giving block, full disclosure, whole. Um, manage that manages with them as a client. They're a client of ours. Uh, but once that donation is made, it is immediately liquidated. So I don't care if you are getting some sort of animal coin or a Bitcoin or Ethereum, whatever it may be, once it hits that donation form, it is processed into fiat Hold onto your dollars type of things. [00:17:58] One of the questions, however, is, as with any other donation, is that if it was I begotten and it is of high, It there could be suspect to clawbacks if there are legal proceedings. So maybe that is actually one, maybe large takeaway that when you receive a large donation, um, don't, aren't counting those chickens, um, just yet and making sure that that is money you can hold onto. [00:18:23] But, uh, I would say keep going and it is, um, it is a minor setback and if you really parse into it, you're like, oh, I. Crypto was all on the blockchain and it was all transparent. How, how could this level of fraud be is, is because this was a classic Ponzi scheme of centralized control over these assets. [00:18:46] There are abilities on the blockchain to have your own wallet the same way that you have a wallet in your pocket with $20 in it, and you're like, as long as I hold this, as soon as you hand that over. To a Lehman Brothers and they start leveraging the heck out of it. And you're like, I know I can get my $20 whenever I want. [00:19:06] That's where the centralized trust comes in. And this particular company was based in The Bahamas with no regulation, oversight, financial responsibility, board members, or, um, frankly, asset back checks involved at all. And so when that happens, that's, you know, that's just human. Error that is, uh, human fallibility. [00:19:29] It's hard to say, like, alright, you don't give that diri to anybody asking, but I I'm hoping that this isn't a knee jerk reaction of like, oh, we gotta pull our crypto off because it is all a scam. It's like, it is not, scams get perpetrated on top of it as, as they do with every other financial market. And this will set probably, uh, the crypto space back. [00:19:51] Um, they're saying, you know, a year or so, um, as there's ripple on effects. But, um, the underlying my confidence in underlying technology, uh, remains and people are still building on it. George, I think that's a great synthesis of all the different kind of threads that nonprofits should be considering, and I'm sure we'll talk more about this in the next couple weeks, months. [00:20:13] Um, as we do follow the crypto philanthropy space, I should say, we've got a, a webinar coming up with care two, um, I don't know when you're listening to this, but on. I should know it off the top of my head. December. I'm gonna say first December 1st. So check out, uh, that webinar. It's uh, hopewell.com. Um, you can find it on our webinars section there. [00:20:36] That is an awesome reminder. You get to listen to us live, not me. Um, but you , you. I don't wanna do that. You do that. . Well, George speaking. Uh, wealthy philanthropists. Um, we wanted to highlight, uh, someone who is skeptical of them. Uh, our next article, um, comes from npr and the title is Pablo Eisenberg, A Fierce Critic of Nonprofits and Philanthropy. [00:21:11] Critical out of fierce love, I guess you can say. Um, has died at age 90. Um, so Eisenberg, who was someone I didn't know until I read this article. Um, Is a professor, nonprofit leader, a social justice advocate, just really, really cares about, um, issues of equity and justice, and apparently was somewhat famous for kind of sticking it to the stayed old, outdated. [00:21:43] Um, however he perceived it kind of traditional philanthropy space. Um, it says here, chastising prosperous donors for giving disproportionately to Ivy League schools, rich hospitals, and well endowed museums all while getting tax breaks. Um, so it seems like kind of a, I don't know, sticking out for the, the little guy in the, the philanthropy space, but seems like a titan nonetheless, within the, the philanthropy. [00:22:10] Yeah, I mean, I put this in here also, uh, because I think you know this as an outspoken critic. Um, you know, often said of mega billionaires out there, um, that pledged, there's that word pledged, red card pledged to donate the majority of their wealth. Uh, were not spirit desire. He, uh, he criticized them for not giving away more of their fortune immediately. [00:22:35] If you have it, give it away. Do the work, do the work now, and gets even more frustrated watching these towering offices be, be built, um, around giving away this money as opposed to doing the work. Uh, so I do, here's what I would say. I, I do believe when you're giving away that level of wealth, you must probably be very careful, um, about giving it away in ruinous ways. [00:23:00] Um, I, I like the sentiment in there. [00:23:02] I like it too. I think this guy deserves a movie. . I'd watch that movie. I don't know how many other people full would, it was a little niche, but I'd watch that movie. Uh, maybe Netflix. Netflix is at a documentary budget for that, for sure. All right. How about feel Good story? George, what have we got? This one comes from Ktv Q. [00:23:24] Dot com and it is about an organization called Adult and Teen Challenge, which is a faith-based recovery program for men and women that suffer from addiction. And they are selling live Christmas trees to raise money for program costs, to help teens and other young adults experiencing addiction and needing recovery. [00:23:46] And we do like a good seasonal article, and I don't know what says. Seasonal fundraising, um, like a Christmas tree sale, nothing. Not to like here. Yeah, it's, it's great. And I also love these earned, uh, earned models, um, that usually can be program related, but certainly around the season when people are buying you, if you have the ability to, to match a program to something that can be purchased is a way for you to generate some earned revenue, which can be put to good causes. [00:24:20] It's great. All right. Got a, got a question for you. Oh boy. Yep. What should an unwell non-profit Twitter campaign do? An unwell non-profit. Just not, well, not feeling great, not feeling great Twitter campaign. Oh man. What did they do Nick? They should, uh, get treatment. Oh my. Oh, oh my. Look, they've made it to the end of this podcast. [00:24:48] They deserve that. All right, have a good one. Happy given Tuesday. Happy Giving Tuesday. | |||
| Controversy in Qatar & Giving Tuesday is Coming (news) | 22 Nov 2022 | 00:18:28 | |
Qatar World Cup Centers International Human Rights Issues, Corruption, And Sportswashing
The 2022 FIFA World Cup is underway in Qatar in a climate marred by years of controversies related to human rights issues, corruption, and influence peddling. While this is the first time the games will be held in an Arab country, Qatar’s bid was a remote possibility until it shockingly won the bid back in 2010. FIFA, the international governing body of football, is considered one of the most openly corrupt institutions in sports, where bribery, corruption, and influence campaigns are rampant. Since winning the bid, Qatar has faced sustained criticism for labor rights abuses since the country began luring low-income workers (largely from Asia) to work on construction projects in what international human rights groups have labeled dangerous and exploitative conditions. The country has faced renewed criticism of its internal human rights issues, particularly around women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights since fans have started to arrive. International NGOs have been long calling for accountability over the games’ human cost, and teams have been put in the awkward position of navigating complex disagreements between the Qatari government, FIFA, and the general public. Read more ➝
Summary
Rough Transcript [00:00:00] This week on the nonprofit news feed, well we're talking about a little thing called the World Cup and unfortunately, how it is mired in a number of issues of human rights and corruptions, so we'll get to that in just a bit. I'm back from Hawaii, uh, on a trip with my family. It was fun. Lot of sand everywhere. [00:00:49] Kids love the beach. Uh, but it's, it's, uh, much appreciated. Nick, that you and Matt handled last week, I, uh, I was a little jealous. I did wanna share a few words on the FTX collapse, but we'll, we'll get to that in the future. Something tells me those dominoes are not done falling. Yeah. George, I'm sure, I'm sure that story will be making a comeback as we talk about crypto philanthropy and the fallout from that. [00:01:16] To your point this week we wanted to talk about QAR and the 2022 FIFA World Cup. So the World Cup began this weekend in Qatar in a climate marred by, let's say, years of controversy related to human rights issues, corruption in. FIFA and influence paddling across the board. So this is the first time that the World Cup is being held in a Arab country, but Qatar's bid was considered just a remote possibility until it somehow shockingly won the bid back in 2010. [00:01:55] And fifa, the international governing body of football. Is widely considered to be one of the most openly corrupt institutions in sports, uh, accusations of bribery up and down the whole chain. It's essentially assumed Qatar bought this bid. Um, but now this is coming full circle because since the bid was awarded to guitar, the country has consistently faced criticism for pretty egregious labor rights abuses. [00:02:26] Uh, human rights issues, uh, workers working in extreme and deplorable conditions on the massive construction projects. And now that the World Cup itself is underway, a focus not only on the labor issues, but of just human rights issues more broadly in the country related to women's rights, um, LGBTQ plus rights, and the country's facing. [00:02:51] Criticism from international NGOs calling for accountability and the whole thing's kind of a mess. But it's a complex situation. So, George, what, what are your thoughts on this one? This brought to you by the public service announcement that not all nonprofits are good. And I'll remind that FIFA actually is a, is a nonprofit, uh, that, that is running this. [00:03:19] And I think, you know, you mentioned that you wrote a paper about this when you were in college back in 2010, about the human rights abuses, the, you know, the modern day misuse of labor there. Estimated deaths, which can't be accounted for. But Amnesty International and I have seen others quote in the, uh, 6,000 or more potentially that have actually just died, you know, issues of taking someone's passport once they come in and forcing them to work. [00:03:49] Uh, you know, that it's, uh, it's an unfortunate thing to be happening in, you know, this age of , this agent of like modern globalization. When you bring the Globe's spotlight in, I think we have to be careful also about pushing Western ideals on other cultures. It's hard, you have to balance this like absolutism that we have the perfect moral compass here. [00:04:21] So, you know, put a pin in that perfect moral compass here, baked in our western ideologies of, of, of rights and equality, and you really have to. It's hard to remove that because I do think there's some objective truth to like allowing certain freedoms of frankly, people to love each other, uh, to have providence over their own bodies. [00:04:47] Uh, I, I, I want to believe in something like that, but also you just have to note when you're, when you're speaking with that, you know, absolutism to just be careful. The fact that they're, they're doing this. They couldn't even have it in the, the summer. They had to have it in November because it's not a climate that, uh, accommodates life in the summer. [00:05:10] Like, no joke, 120 degrees. Like you can't take a ball in that temperature. I think the ball just sort of evaporates. It makes no ecological sense whatsoever, uh, to have done this and made this level of investment. And I really hope a touch more. Frankly, discretion and intelligence of just because they can pay doesn't mean we should do it this way from fifa, frankly from the Olympics, from these large institution, large institutions that, you know, do pull the world together. [00:05:43] I, I think there's something very beautiful about the World Cup and I, and I hope it doesn't get lost because yes we can, we can focus here, but the truth is 5 billion people are most likely going to watch. 5 billion people are going to agree that one team beat another team. Do you know how hard it is to get 5 billion people to agree on a thing, to watch the same thing? [00:06:07] There's just, I think, something beautiful about this, that despite all of this and the sports washing involved, like it is, uh, it is something that I'm glad everyone is still participating in and, and not simply boycotting because it's. It's easier to destroy than to create. It's harder to, frankly, some of these captains wanted to wear arm bands in support of issues of LGBTQ and human rights. [00:06:35] They wanted to take a stand. Some are kneeling, some are showing it, but they're still participating. I'm more nervous when we stop participating collectively. And so, you know, uh, that's, that's how I'm viewing these games. I'm gonna watch. And we'll, we'll watch the news and we'll see that. And, uh, it's hard for mold to grow in the sunlight and there's a lot of sunlight right now on guitar. [00:07:02] Yeah, George, I couldn't agree more with that, that characterization. And I wanted to give a shout out to some of the, the nonprofits that have been doing, uh, really great reporting on this. And I've been flagging it very early. And as you alluded to, I wrote a paper on. Years ago in college because the issues were, were still salient then. [00:07:24] But Amnesty International in particular has done really great research from the beginning on workers and yeah, it's, it's really challenging. Um, and, and really actually sad, I mean, workers are essentially being lured, uh, Poor workers from Asia into this country, they're having their visas confiscated. [00:07:47] It's not a good situation. Um, but I think to your point, the World's Cup is an opportunity to shine light on these issues, right? And I do not think we should be giving Qatar Pass. But that being said, uh, the chance to come together, Is, is really important, especially in a time of division. So yeah, I agree with that. [00:08:15] But let's just fire everyone at fifa. I have no . I Oh yeah, let's get of those. Let's cleans. Oh my gosh. [00:08:23] I think, I think 5 billion of people could possibly agree to that, that it's, it's really funny to see an institution solo, but an event so, Yeah. Um, , if you, if you're really into this, like do a deep dive on the bid, it's like the most outrageous thing. There was like a plane of the US delegation that flew to wherever it was, like Finland, Sweden or something for the bid process. [00:08:52] It was like, Mid-level State Department people, a couple of us soccer people, the United States activated Morgan Freeman took him on this plane, but it was clear like Morgan Freeman didn't prepare anything for this speech. It was like this like kind of incoherent jumble of like why the, it's the whole story's wild. [00:09:12] If you're into it, just read about it. Uh, but, but anyway, we'll leave that. [00:09:17] Uh, yeah. Moving into the summary, I'll, I'll jump through this quickly. Meta, formally known as Facebook, the artist , formally known as Facebook Me, is gonna spend, uh, 7 million to stoke reoccurring donations around Giving Tuesday. Which is great. We'll, hope you're all getting ready for your Giving Tuesday to, to make what you can of the kickoff to Giving season, not the end, but the kickoff to Giving season. [00:09:41] We have a bunch of those resources. Hope you find them. And, uh, another one here. Uh, Nick, do you wanna talk about what Bezos is announcing? Yeah, George. So Jeff Bezos, uh, formerly CEO of Amazon is, has announced, was giving away most of his 122 billion fortune. Uh, but this article from cnbc.com says, leaves many questions unanswered. [00:10:10] Uh, It says that Bezos, thus far has resisted developing a public philanthropic identity, unlike that of his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott. But I don't know what's your take here is, is, is Bezos having a, I don't know, a conscious time? Time to do. Good moment. What's this about? I'm gonna say the following phrase, and I'm excited because I'm gonna say it so many times that people are gonna be sick. [00:10:40] And here it is. Pledges are pr. That's it. I'm gonna say that every single time I see that, those of you listening, every time you see something like this, every time you see a post like this, I just want it ring in your head. Pledges are just pr. Cause if you were doing it, we would see the check and we saw that with Sam Bankman. [00:11:07] Getting all that ink across all those papers about how altruistic you was going to be in the future. Right about me now for things I haven't done. It's called P, so Bezos can shove it until we see a check. That's what I think. [00:11:25] I agree. See? See it Hit the books then we'll. We'll talk again, uh, remains to be seen. He's got some, some rockets to fund as well. So yeah, God bless him. Get it done. All right. This next one comes from care.com out of, uh, Richfield, Minnesota, and this is actually a follow up on a story we've talked about, but, uh, there was a 250 million fraud investigation to Feeding Our Future, which has fractured trust and efforts to feed hungry children across Minnesota. [00:12:02] Um, and it's really affecting, uh, this nonprofit and a time when it's, quote, quietly delivered 10 million meals to hungry kids and counting. So, Yikes. It seems that you just have a perfect storm of kind of bad scenarios. Here. You have 10 million meals to hungry kids. Uh, being that's a gap, like that's a gap in our safe, our social safety net, in my opinion that is being filled by this nonprofit. [00:12:32] Also at the center of a quarter of a billion dollar fraud investigation. Yikes. It's sad to see. Hopefully it doesn't erode confidence in giving locally to food banks that you know are serving your area. The, the larger groups have have a trust gap to fill. I'd say the ones that are, you know, chapter based and working out there. [00:12:57] The on the onus is on communication and transparency, but please don't let that hopefully be a barrier to giving locally, supporting, uh, supporting your. Food banks and nonprofits. We, we spoke and had that podcast recently with Move for Hunger when, you know, please go back and listen to that if you haven't. [00:13:17] Uh, because I think Adam Lloyd does a top shelf job of explaining how the need is year round and there's ways to support that. Yeah, George. Absolutely. And this actually takes us into our next article for nonprofit pro.com, which says that on behalf of a poll conducted on behalf of Vanguard Charitable conducted by interviewing 2000 US adults. [00:13:42] Uh, it found that 60% of American donors with a charit giving budget, say rising inflation had no impact on their giving or caused them to increase their giving over the past 12 months, the nearly 24% saying they increased their giving. So we were talking about how critical time this is. Food pantries and nonprofits like that. [00:14:06] Um, but it seems that the, the giving public is aware of that need, not stopping, giving potentially increase in giving e even in light of inflation. The survey size is a little small, 2000 adults, but. I think that's really optimistic news that the public is still committed broadly to charitable giving despite, uh, what's now kind of record setting inflation. [00:14:37] It's a positive signal, one that we hope is, uh, is accurate as far as polls go. Giving Tuesday coming up, we're predicting that over 3 billion will be donated, uh, in and around the day, and hopefully is a, is a strong end of. Giving cycle. You know, sadly, we might as well just root for the markets to go up because that is another predictor of, uh, of giving. [00:15:00] You know, we're past midterms, so now, uh, it's time for nonprofits to get their narratives out there. [00:15:06] Absolutely. All right. How about a feel good story, George? What do you got? All right. This comes from the venerable ks LTV five.com and Salt Lake City, Utah. And it's estimated that Americans will throw out more than 200 million pounds of perfectly good Turkey meat this year, uh, most of it after Thanksgiving. [00:15:32] But this woman. Uh, Dana Williamson founded the nonprofit Waste Less Solutions, which tries to rescue unused food and donate it to community organizations that need it. And we talk about food waste a lot on this podcast. And there's a couple, quite a, a number of organizations working in this space now, but great to see, uh, local Utah resident, uh, bringing it close to home and helping out the communities in Salt Lake. [00:16:02] Any, any percent or stats on what percent of those, uh, pounds of Turkey are actually dry because he definitely left it in the oven too long. No stats on that. Nothing there. No stats on that. We gotta call the the Butterball hotline. I love projects like this because food waste needs to be solved locally. [00:16:21] It's a last mile problem. We have enough food, we don't have enough food in the right places. Um, going back to Adam Low conversation in our, in our previous podcast, to end on a lighter note and because he made it to the end. Hey Nick, I got a, a question for you. How, how do you organize a Giving Tuesday fundraiser to help the earth? [00:16:42] I don't know. How does one organize such a thing? George, you plan it. [00:16:51] That was good. That, that's, that's, that's your, that's your, that was good. The best one. All right. On that note, uh, leave a rating if you feel like it, if you feel like giving. Um, and we hope you have a wonderful holiday. | |||
| Maximizing Corporate Event Fundraising | Move for Hunger | 21 Nov 2022 | 00:34:41 | |
Conversation with Adam Lowy, Founder and ED of Move For Hunger. Adam shares about the landscape of food insecurity in the US and the need for year-round support for food banks - not just around Thanks Giving. Move for Hunger is also succeeding with great in person truck pulling events that raise food, funds and awareness across the US.
Video from the truck pull event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hwJTpFHZQ8
Rough Transcript [00:00:00] Well, we've got a returning guest, Adam Lowie, founder and executive director of Move for Hunger, move for Hunger, mobilizes Transportation Resources to reduce food waste and fight hunger. And we're gonna get into how they're doing that. They were founded in 2009. So Adam, you've been at it for quite some. [00:00:47] We met actually back in the day, my former life as Chief Technology officer of do something.org. When Adam Lowie was, was it at that time a Brick Award winner? A Do something award winner Do do something, yeah. I think it was the Do Something award technically at that point, yes. A do something. I think I still have my little exclamation point trophy from back in the day. [00:01:11] Well, these were the sort of best of the best of young entrepreneurs in the social impact world. And I, I remember Adam at the time and we stayed friends and we stayed friends. He was a member of the New York City Global Shaper community and has really built something incredible at Move for Hunger. So, In, in your words, can you remind us, because obviously all of our audience listens to every single one of our over 250 episodes. [00:01:40] remembers all of our guests. Can you remind us how Move for Hunger does what they do best? Absolutely. So we started, as you mentioned, 13 years ago, out of my family's moving company. We saw folks leaving behind or throwing away food when they were moving, and started to ask that question, do you wanna donate food when you. [00:02:00] Turns out people wanna do good. You just have to make it super easy. And in this case, we were bringing a food drive into people's living rooms. Uh, today we have trained more than 1100 professional moving companies across the US and Canada to make food recovery a core part of the way they do business. [00:02:18] We've expanded from just movers to work with relocation management companies, temp housing providers. We work with more than 600,000 apartment units, for folks moving in the multi-family industry. And we're also now tackling fresh food. So for us it's really about, ensuring that we can mobilize transportation networks to be in the right place at the right time to get food to where it needs to be. [00:02:39] And altogether we've now collected enough food to provide more than 25 million meals, uh, to folks. And it's an incredible number, but also it's an innovative approach. We are, I'd say, generally familiar with how food banks work locally, and I think this is addressing both a problem and opportunity, uh, to, to use these resources, which are, you know, moving trucks and moments, which are moments. [00:03:08] People relocating their living situation and saying like, yeah, there's a lot of waste in that system. How do we redirect that? And then it seems like you're expanding now to realizing that there's a huge last mile problem. As I understand it for food insecure people in our country there, there's enough food, there's enough planted, grown. [00:03:33] In our country to feed everyone. However, getting it to where it needs to be is that last mile problem. And it strikes me that trucks are, are a good way to do that. And so maybe a little bit more on how you're expanding there. Yeah. So you kinda hit the nail on the head there. 35% of food produced in the United States ends up in landfills. [00:03:57] And if you zoom out globally 28% of the world's farmable land. Grows food that will never be eaten which is just a wild number, you know, to think about. Hmm. and all of this, well, you know, there's now 38 million Americans including one in six kids that are going to bed hungry each night. So for us, it's really about mobilizing existing resources. [00:04:17] You've got these companies, you've got these trucks, they're providing a service, and this is something that helps 'em stand apart from the competition. It's providing a really great service to their customers. You know, if you've ever moved, didn't know what to do with that food. Maybe felt guilty about throwing it away. [00:04:33] Here's an easy thing to do. but it's not just about that last mile. In some cases it's about the first mile. So we're working with farmers. We are working with CPG companies, distributors. We just install a cold storage hub in Rhode Island to work with local fisheries out there, to be able to keep food cold longer so it doesn't have to go to waste. [00:04:56] Um, and that fish is being distributed across our Rhode Island. We've done the same with some farms in New Jersey and some other places, Kentucky as well. Um, You know, there, there's a lot of reasons why food goes to waste. It happens at the farm level. Um, it happens when food is rejected. Um, we talked to, uh, a company that had bananas, um, 250,000 of them to be exact, that were. [00:05:24] You know, the grocery stores no, no longer wanted them. They were at a port in Los Angeles and we were able to recover all of that food and get it to local food banks within just a matter of days. Um, so again, right resources, right time. Mm-hmm. , um, you could have a dented can in a 12 pack of soup. The, the grocery store isn't gonna take that 12 pack anymore because one can was dented. [00:05:47] Oftentimes that food is discarded, and that's the reality of what's happening, not just in our country, but. . Well, I wanna come back to some of those stats, as you mentioned, one in six kids, uh, facing food insecurity. You know, we're coming up on Thanksgiving and this is a time of year where food banks get this sudden surprise amount, not surprise amount, predictable amount of support of volunteers of yet another can of cranberries. [00:06:20] Can you, you know, from the perspective of somebody who works in the industry is like, uh, you know, you welcome volunteers with open arms, but there's a very much like, you know, where, where were you yesterday? Um, so what is the feeling at at food banks right now coming into this Thanksgiving? They're busy, right? [00:06:41] They're, they're busy of an ever, um, part of it's for, you know, the reasons we just talked about. Food insecurity is, is at a, at a high, yes. In some cases it has lowered a little bit. Um, but then you couple that with inflation. I went to the grocery store yesterday and probably spent the most I've ever spent, and I wasn't even shopping for Thanksgiving yet. [00:07:00] That is a reality for a lot of people that are seeing, you know, these food prices increase when they go to check out. So it's, it is becoming more of a problem than, than I'd say it has been in the past. Really where we are trying to kind of take this. As we go into the holidays is listen, hunger is a year round issue. [00:07:22] People are food insecure on a year round basis. And by the way, hunger is a symptom of poverty. You know, handing someone a can of food is not going to solve their food insecurity problem. Um, you've got the cost of food, you've got the cost of healthcare, you've got the cost of housing. Insurance. All of these things are at all time highs. [00:07:40] While wages are still at all time lows in, in many cases, um, yes, we're seeing some wages, um, increase, but, but that doesn't affect a lot of the minimum wage workers, um, out there that are working two, three jobs and still trying to decide between. A meal for their kids or you know, paying rent. And that is a real negotiation that a lot of families are doing. [00:08:05] So when we think about the holidays, and I'm sure the food banks will agree, Yes, this is a busy time of year, but what we have moved for hunger at least trying to do, is create opportunities to have people think about food insecurity throughout the year, um, with different campaigns. So in February we do our Spread the Love campaign where we collect peanut butter and jelly. [00:08:26] Um, or maybe in August we're doing our Shark Week food drive, um, where we're collecting can tuna fish cuz kids like tuna just as much as sharks do. Right. Um, in August, we're the only game in town. No one's holding a food drive in the summer. And by the way, kids are outta school. They're not receiving emergency food assistance or reduced their pre lunches. [00:08:43] Those are the times where we really need to think about how do we put more food on the shelves of food banks and pantries. Those are the times where we need to raise our voices as hunger relief organizations and be the loudest, because that's where the difference can really be made. Yes, the food banks are gonna be fine this Thanksgiving. [00:09:01] They're gonna feed a record number of people between Thanksgiving and New Year's, but come January two. Those shelves are just as barren as they were before Thanksgiving. And this is where we all need to come to come together. Not just to donate food, but donate dollars, donate time, um, donate your voice advocate, and really come together to make sure we can, uh, really reduce poverty, because that's the only way we're gonna reduce food in insecurity. [00:09:30] We're such great creatures when it comes to moments of compassion, but sustained effort. It's just, it's tough. It is. It's, it's really hard. Which is why coming back to your solution make it easy. People do care, make it easy. People wanna find a, a moving company that supports move for hunger and will donate that extra food. [00:09:55] You have a search on your site that has a network of moving companies that will actually directly assist in moving that food that last mile. And so, yeah, you can't just depend on these moments of caring, but rather you have to make it convenient and, and not just convenient for the person that wants to give, but convenient for the person that is actually implementing the process, right? [00:10:20] So in our case, our movers, our multifamily partners, our relocation management companies, if you can create something that becomes part of their business model, becomes part of their standard operating procedure, if you. Then at some point you don't actually need a charitable cost. You know, you talk about charities going outta business. [00:10:40] We're not trying to go outta business right now, but it's really fun to be able to see like companies like Bell Partners or fpi or Allied Van Lines like. Talking about food insecurity or food waste and food recovery as part of their marketing that wasn't happening 10 years ago. Um, but now it's something that they're touting as part of their brand, part of their values, um, and part of the service that they're offering their customers. [00:11:08] And I think it's important that you have found this industry found an in innovative way for the industry to work in and around and directly on the cause of food insecurity. You've doubled down, really focused on how do I not just sort of ask for donations from this industry, but ask for the work, ask for their expertise in terms of moving and provided extra value along the way, and that's. [00:11:42] Kind of where I wanna take this conversation. I'm gonna play this, this clip as a part of, part of transition where I was lucky enough to attend one of these fundraising events where all I got was a message from Adam. It was a text message, Hey, wanna pull a truck this week? And I was like, oh, what is he doing? [00:12:02] And, and sure enough, I found myself pulling a truck. So play that. [00:14:05] All right, Adam, so what you heard in the background was a lot of noise, music, maybe me being a little winded there. Uh, can you describe what was going on at, at this event that took place in the Bay Area, uh, the other month? It was such an incredible event. Um, we worked with, uh, bam Bay Area Mobility Management, which is a relocation association, um, in the Bay Area. [00:14:31] And, um, we put together one of our favorite events, which is what we call a truck pull teams of 10 competing to pull a moving truck in the fastest time. Um, we had the most ridiculous venue, the USS Hornet. Which if you've never been, I, I recommend it. Um, what, what a ship that was. And they gave us the entire pier. [00:14:52] Incredibly generous. Um, but we raised a ton of money and it was a lot of fun. And, you know, we had, we had taco trucks and beer trucks and, um, team building and people working together. To do this thing in this moment that they typically wouldn't do and everyone walked away knowing not only did they pull a truck, um, but the, the funds raised that day were going back to helping us feed thousands of people. [00:15:16] Um, and it was probably one of our most, one of our largest truck pulls that we've done on to date in terms of, um, you know, people coming back out after the pandemic in terms of dollars that were able to be raised. Um, and. We shot a great video from it as well, uh, which has now been used and seen over and over again by others that are now inspired to wanna hold a truck pole in their communities. [00:15:42] And that's what we're trying to think about. How do we, how do we scale these events? Before the pandemic, we were doing a lot of 'em. I think in 2019 we organized nine truck poles. Our plan for 2020 was 16 of them that we had on the books. And then obviously, Covid happened. Um, so this year we did three, and this was one of the three. [00:16:00] And I was so happy that you were able to be there and see it in person. I didn't think that you were gonna pull it, uh, yourself, let alone drag me into pulling a truck. It's been a while. Um, but uh, you know, it's about creating these fun experiences for people and companies, and that's what we try. So I wanna unpack this because I think now that we're in a, you know, knock on wood post pandemic fundraising environment, you're combining some smart elements. [00:16:30] One, you're focused on this industry. So you're, you're creating this package that has value, that is aligned with what they do. Moving truck, we're gonna move the moving truck. You get to pull it, truck pull. It is a unique experience. You're allowing also teams. Teams to jump in, fundraise to be a part of that. [00:16:50] You have a unique venue potentially, but this can be done in a parking lot. This can be done in your, you know, asphalt backyard, and it can be paired with conferences. It can be paired with these industry events that are hungry. They are hungry for social ties, impact and particip. And you know, this checks a lot of boxes, so, you know, I think it was really smart to just not just run the event, but also sort of frankly bring, bring the cameras. [00:17:22] And maybe you can talk a little bit more about how you see this expanding and how you see it as both raising awareness and also funds. Yeah, so, so during Covid, you know, I'd say prior to Covid we were doing a lot of in-person events. We loved in-person events. We did a lot with conferences and associations that we were partnered with, and then, All of that had to stop and we had to change our model, right? [00:17:45] So everything became virtual. What, what type of virtual team building could we do? We did a virtual karaoke event. We've been doing virtual trivias. Um, we found like a lot of different ways to engage people where they were virtual wine tasting, you name it, we were doing it, um, because. We needed to find ways to not only meet people where they were, but also let them feel like they were still giving back. [00:18:08] If you talk to most charity organizations that utilize volunteers, they were, they were at a standstill as well. People couldn't come in, so a lot of organizations had trouble actually delivering their services. Um, and it was a, it was a problem. So, It was great during that time for us to be able to be a little bit creative, reinvent a little bit of what we're doing. [00:18:30] Now that we've kind of come out of c we're not abandoning that aspect of it. We're in some cases creating this hybrid experience, right? So, hey, if we're gonna do a food drive with you on site, uh, maybe it's one of our favorite ones we call, can the CEO or you fill your CEO's office with so much food they can no longer get. [00:18:50] Maybe we're gonna kick that off with a virtual trivia to educate people about the issues of hunger and food waste. Because while we can't be there physically for your food drive, um, we can be there to host this great team build that then kicks off and hopefully inspires team members to collect even more food than they would have before. [00:19:09] Right? So building up that moment, you can use the virtual. Uh, to almost, uh, work toward that in-person event. Um, and when we have these in-person events, then it's a matter of just engaging your networks and we're very fortunate to have a lot of networks that, um, we can kind of engage that way. What kind of staff is necessary to run that kind of event? [00:19:33] Where I'm not quite sure how many people were there, it was a good amount of people, but like, what does a truck pull event staff look like from your, your. So there's definitely some behind the scenes happening before the event had happened itself. Um, but on site, again, depending on the amount of people that are going to be at the event, but we can usually manage it with two, uh, two people that are staff from for hunger. [00:20:01] And then maybe a handful of volunteers can probably get away with four volunteers. Um, and that can run a truck full of up to 200 people, uh, most likely. Mm. You know, you hit those numbers and your math begins to, to work out. Uh, especially if you have multiple events, right? Just one and done the sort of, you know, can we do one massive chicken dinner and call it a day? [00:20:24] It's sometimes frustrating, I guess, to watch that type of model. And that model was really shaken, I'd say, during the pandemic because, you know, it's all about this one day of fundraising as opposed to, A part fundraising, part programmatic implementation of an event that is doing the work that needs to be done, local building of awareness of funds, and also donations. [00:20:54] Like you're pulling it together in the right way. And it also seems to be more, uh, sustainable because, You're mixing those two parts. Uh, does, does that make sense? Is that intentional? There are for profit companies out there right now today that regular companies are paying to manage their team building and employee engagement experiences that exists. [00:21:21] Why can't we be the ones that do that better? And at least have a charitable twist and an impact arm on it? So instead of some company giving, This for-profit, $10,000 to do whatever it's going to be. Why not? Why can't we be the one that's getting that $10,000 donation, giving people a great experience? [00:21:40] And then that company also is able to know that they were able to feed a whole bunch of people. Um, that's kind of the way we think about that. And I agree with you like that model of like the one big dinner. That's gotta be on the wayside. And we never did the big gala or anything like that. I know. I never got an invite. [00:21:57] I kept waiting. No, I, well there was nothing to, I invited you a truck pull. Right. Um, instead it was how many of these different food drives fundraisers, special events could we do with our partners? We have a lot of partners, um, and a lot of them make a contribution every. But those partners have employees and those employees can also be champions and advocates and donors and volunteers. [00:22:23] Um, so, you know, for any other organizations listening, you know, I do not discount the, the network that you have built with your partners because there's so much more than just a check one time to have their logo on your website. Um, you know, , anytime that we're going into a big partnership, I don't lead with a big ask and say, can you give us a hundred thousand dollars? [00:22:47] I lead with what are you doing from an employee giving an employee engagement standpoint? What can we do to become part of your culture? Because if you do that, they're gonna stick with you. And most of our partners have stuck with us for over a decade now. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And it. It's easier. I'll say once the flywheel is going, you've got like amazing footage of these events and the history and relationships. [00:23:12] But even starting out, you bring up this, this point that just sort of stuck in my mind for, for folks listening and looking for ideas and it's like, oh, that's easy for you to say, you know, you're dealing with moving in trucks. They're right there. It's like so easy. Like, here's what you actually just gave as a, as a solid idea. [00:23:27] Maybe you can help me flesh it out a bit more, where. There are corporate engagement, there are corporate activities. There is somebody in HR at Major Fortune 500 companies right now looking for that corporate event, team building. I'm using keywords right now. Team building events for corporate gatherings. [00:23:49] Take a look at what's being offered. , see the sort of ropes courses or the escape, the whatever room. Packages that that are being provided. And then ask yourself, are any of these programmatically adjacent to potentially what we do? What would it cost to get someone on our team to do event planning or bring a fundraiser in for event planning and organizing and take a shot at selling it? [00:24:16] Does that feel like a, like a, a couple, two step approach? Yeah, I mean, it, it can't hurt, right? Like someone else is getting that business. There's a market for already. Let's put the twist on it. Um, and that's really what we're trying to, to make work. Um, And, and, and you kind of, uh, mentioned it there as well where it has to feel like it's connected to your program. [00:24:44] So it's not like we're just picking things that these companies are doing. But there are a couple things like that people wanna do cooking classes. We haven't done it yet, but if we could find a way to make that work, like, and the costs made. A hundred percent. Um, we could probably find a way to do some sort of zero waste cooking class for a corporate event. [00:25:08] Um, unfortunately cooking is probably one of the most expensive things from a cost per head standpoint, but we are exploring those options because they do feel very relevant in some cases to the work that we're doing. Yeah, really. It seems like you, you don't maybe wanna do all of the things you wanna do one thing or two things pretty darn well have that package ready to go so that you have the costs, the planning all in place so that it's like, and you fundraising in a box, right? [00:25:39] Yeah. Um, and, and that, and that honestly is what the truck pull is like. We ship everything to the mover, the truck pulls up, your whole event is in the back of the truck, , right? So it's, it's so easy. Cleanup is easy. Setup is easy. Um, and, and that's what we want. We wanna create events that can scale. Um, you cannot scale a foundation, gala, dinner in 30 locations and a hundred locations. [00:26:04] The amount of time and resources that it takes to plan those things, it doesn't make sense. You'll never be able to do. But can we scale some of the things that we're doing virtually or, or can the CEO Food drive? Absolutely. What is the price point? What are the resources? What are our costs? And ultimately, most importantly, I would say, what is the impact? [00:26:24] Because, you know, you can do all these things and not raise any money or food in our case, and what's the point of doing it? So there's gotta be impact. The, the ROIs gonna be worth it that way. And for, I just wanna come back to the, to the staff. Cause I feel like I'm glossing over some of the complexity inherited in event planning. [00:26:47] You know, is this a position that you would sell something potentially then hire a part-time event planner? Like what is like the zero to one for implementing, we'll say a programmatically aligned corporate event fundraising. Thing. That's, that's the secret sauce. Georgia, but , that's why I'm asking. But, but you know what I, what I a hundred percent will say is you need to create it first, right? [00:27:21] Mm-hmm. , you need to test it, and then you need to do a few of them. Um, once you've done a few, you can learn really what your price point is, and then once you feel comfortable selling, Then you can ultimately begin to start hiring that part-time, then full-time person to be able to implement some of these things. [00:27:38] Um, when we started, you know, we didn't have an events person. Um, fortunately my background is experiential events. I was doing event marketing before I started Move for Hunger, so I've always loved that aspect. I could, I could plan one truck pull. Could I plan 30 and do some of them simultaneously? No, you need support for that. [00:27:57] Um, and by the way, it's not just an event planner, it's who's doing your marketing, your photography, your graphic design to bring this stuff to life. Like there are more elements that go into just those things besides the two staff members that are on site to actually physically run the events itself. [00:28:17] You can build that small. Not everything needs to be big and grand, um, to begin with. Um, but I will say there's a lot of, uh, tricks and ways to cheat to do some of that, to make it feel grander than it is. You'd be surprised just having a branded tent, top canopy at something with your table, bring a tent. [00:28:38] It all, all of a sudden looks like an event. A tent does not cost that much money. Um, but without that tent there, it looks like it's a much smaller spectacle. Um, but now with the tent, you've got some images that you can take and, you know, those are the things that make things feel real. Yeah, I think that makes it just like a lot more practic. [00:28:58] Because sometimes it's, you know, like watching someone at the, you know, top of the top of their game already going full speed, being like, it's easy. You just, you know, put one foot in front of the other, you're like, no, you started small. You grinded it out. You figured it. But I think those are, those are some great first steps. [00:29:16] Uh, alright, well. Thank you for, for sharing those points. Are there any other big things? Cuz I've already done the, the rapid fire with you at least twice I think. Um, are there any other final points, you know, you're thinking about as we we move into the end of the year for, for Move for Hunger or what's getting you excited? [00:29:37] Um, you know, we did a few things. At the end of this year and like tried some new campaigns that worked really well. Um, and I'd say the reason that they worked really well. Was because we had the right champions in place and the companies that we were working with. So this is not only something that I planned to do more of in 2023, but also that I would really, really encourage other organizations and companies to do. [00:30:05] And I'm just gonna leave you with two very quick examples. Um, one of which I just did last week, um, in, uh, Amelia Island, Florida. Um, we were at a conference with one of our partner. They were planning to do a little fundraiser for us anyway, and they had dueling pianos as their entertainment. Um, I talked to the CEO and and said, Hey, How much would it take to get you up there singing a song? [00:30:29] Right? And he said a lot of money. So I got on stage and I told everyone that if we raised $5,000, he's gonna get up and sing a song. And you know what? We raised $7,500 and it was just so much fun, um, to be able to do that and to see his employees want to support his embarrassment, if you will. He's got very little shame. [00:30:54] And it was one of the easiest fundraisers that we've ever done, and the cost was virtually nothing. I was there anyway. Um, and the same thing happened a couple weeks prior where we're in Las Vegas. Um, and it's really hard to get anyone's attention at a convention in Las Vegas cuz there's so many distractions. [00:31:10] Um, but one of the larger CEOs of one of the companies that was there agreed to jump off the stratosphere about two weeks before you can, you can do it. It's a thing that people are allowed to. So the, one of the tallest buildings in Vegas, and I, I asked, I'm like, Hey, would you be willing to jump off this building if we were able to raise some money? [00:31:28] And he said, I'm in. And this guy, by the way, is one of the nicest kind of CEOs, TER Global Relocation, has been a partner of ours for a long time. Such a cool guy. And. He jumped off the stratosphere. We created a lot of buzz for his company at that conference, and we raised a whole bunch of money to kind of support the cause. [00:31:47] These are things that don't take a lot of resources. Instead, what they take is who are the people are willing to embarrass themselves? Put their lives in danger. Do something fun or silly. Small stuff, right? Let's, let's not put everyone's life in danger, but do something fun and silly. Um, and, and think about tapping their network, not just your network, but their network. [00:32:10] Um, I know that's like basic peer to peer fundraising, but when you can do that at scale with the CEO or a C-Suite executive, it really goes a long way. And, and we were really thrilled. To see how well those two activations went for us. I think it's testament to how ingrained you are with this niche community, this niche business network, and then you kind of know it and go all in. [00:32:35] And I think we can get a little insular in the the non-profit world where we forget that there are entire industries just around moving companies. And like that's just one of many, many, many company networks that are out there. Like, here's another game. Look at Vegas conferences coming up. Just the random Vegas conferences coming up. [00:32:59] And look at how many random things that you didn't realize. Professional networks gathering together, looking and needing to stand out. And I think those types of opportunities will present themselves. Adam, thanks. I hope you are doing even better next year. More truck pulls and more food delivered to those in need. [00:33:22] Uh, again, how do people find you? How do people help you? You can visit move for hunger.org. You can make a donation. You can hold a food drive, you can donate your food when you move, you can advocate, you can learn about the issues of hunger and food waste, and share our content. Um, and you can show up at a truck pull, uh, near you. [00:33:40] George, I hope to have you out to another truck, pull or put your life in danger at some point in the new year. Um, and I, I always really do appreciate, uh, having the opportunity to, to reconnect my friend. Well, thanks for your work and appreciate it. | |||
| FTX Collapse & Effective Altruism (news) | 17 Nov 2022 | 00:22:06 | |
What The FTX Collapse Does & Does Not Mean For Crypto Philanthropy & Effective Altruism
Crypto-exchange FTX, one of the largest such exchanges, collapsed last week, leaving the cryptocurrency world in disbelief as stakeholders try to piece together what happened and what comes next. The company’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried (known by the moniker SBF) was a visible proponent and donor to the effective altruism movement, as well as someone who built a personal brand as a prominent crypto-philanthropist. As noted by The New York Times, SBF was perhaps one of the most visible supporters of Effective Altruism, a community underpinned by a utilitarian approach to giving where donors focus on giving only to the most impact-efficient charitable causes. Created by Oxford philosopher William MacAskill, the Effective Altruism movement faces serious reputational trust issues as supporters worry it was a cover for the reckless FTX founder. It was also revealed by The New York Times that the two largest FTX Foundation grants went to nonprofits where MacAskill was on the board or directly supported the work of Effective Altruism. Bankman-Fried, who has also spoken frequently of his crypto giving, may have abused the crypto-philanthropy space to shield himself from questioning, but nonprofits should still understand that 38% of millennials own crypto and represent a major (and growing) potential source of donation revenue. (Editor’s Note: The above link is a blog post written by Whole Whale CEO George Weiner, the publisher of this newsletter. The Giving Block is a proud partner and client of Whole Whale.) Read more ➝
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| The Power Law of Large Donors | Causevox | 17 Nov 2022 | 00:29:14 | |
Rob Wu, Founder of Causevox.com shares lessons learned from talking to over 100 large gift officers and donors. Learn about the BAIT approach to donor qualification. BAIT - Budget, Affinity, Intension, Timeliness
About Causevox 11 years of experienceWe launched in 2010 and help nonprofits rally communities and raise millions every year. 1500+ customersFrom small community-service charities and national organizations to global development nonprofits. 75,000+ fundraisersFrom DIY fundraising and peer to peer to events and donation pages, CauseVox has you covered.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Today [00:00:26] on the Whole Whale podcast, we have a returning guest who may, if I'm right, may be setting the record for the, the most, uh, appearances on the whole Whale podcast, episode 50, The Data Behind Donor Retention, Episode 1 53, Analytics Answer, Who are My donors? And Episode 1 59 Survive the nonprofit software business. [00:00:47] Rob, we always appreci. Your candor, your willingness to come on the show to talk about it. And this is Rob Ru, of course, the CEO, founder of Cause Box. He has been diligently working in the sector, I believe, at least on cause box since [00:01:03] 20 11, 27 officially. [00:01:08] Officially 2010. Uh, actually also the same year that whole Whale was founded. [00:01:12] So, uh, we were joking before we turned on record of our, our various, uh, check-ins with each other over the years. And, uh, we're still, we're still doing it. Rob, [00:01:21] I'm so happy you're still alive, George . Thanks, [00:01:24] man. You know, we'll, we'll continue to, to check in over the years. I brought you in today though, because you are always looking for the upside for the nonprofits using ox. [00:01:37] You're trying to stay on, you know, the, the practical, I'll say the practical cutting edge of how to raise more money for great causes. And so I was hoping you could share a bit on what you have been focused on this year with regard. Major gifts. [00:01:55] Yes. How I see it in terms of my mission is that I'd rather be useful than to be sexy. [00:02:03] I'd rather be valuable rather than to be a unicorn. So if you look at the field of all the animals, there are all these analogies. I'd rather be a zebra than a lion or a unicorn or whatever fancy animals there are. So, Starting cos walks Over a decade ago, you, we came into this, uh, this business to become a digital fundraising platform because there's a big gap between technology and fundraising where a lot of nonprofits couldn't go online. [00:02:33] They didn't know how to do it. They didn't know how to utilize all the ways of social media fundraising. Digital fundraising, peer to peer. This and that. So it's been a great journey to us help accelerate that piece of digital fundraising and by bringing more and more organizations online and where we had some of our best years of growth and over covid, unfortunately, where a lot of organizations were transitioning into digital fundraising. [00:03:01] As we see the next steps of what's coming up, I think one of my biggest frustrations is that a lot of organizations see. Online fundraising as a siloed approach where they think, Hey, I need to run an event. I need to run a gala. I need to do peer to peer fundraising. I need to be on Facebook. And they kind of just treat, uh, the, that style of fundraising as a one and done thing. [00:03:26] They don't look at it as a process of how you can grow donors, of how you can grow gifts, how you can upgrade folks up the pipeline to become major donors. So I went on this quest to figure. When you're looking at major donors, how do folks actually get major donors? How do they qualify them? How do they really work through this process to grow a small $100 gift all the way to a hundred thousand dollars gift? [00:03:54] And the results of this were actually really surprising, where it gave us a lot of inspiration behind what we should build next when it comes to major gift fundraising. [00:04:03] That makes, uh, it makes a lot of. And as you're, as you're building this in this approach, the way I guess I look at it is that if you are ignoring, if you're ignoring the major gift strategy of your digital fundraising, You are missing out on easily half of the potential revenue you could and should be making. [00:04:25] What does that actually mean? If you have a hundred donors, I can very confidently tell you that there is probably a power law distribution of their wealth and capacity to give fancy way of saying that 10% of them have 90% of the wealth, because frankly, that's just how the things in America are carved out. [00:04:44] Thanks to capitalism, the question. That you should ask next is who are those people and what should we message them? So maybe you could pick up the thread there. Is it just, you know, smile and dial and be like, Hey, you have money. Give now please [00:05:00] more. Right, right. It is kind of funny, like, so I did this huge research quest to, to speak to over a hundred people on major gifts. [00:05:09] So I talked to, uh, over a hundred people who are either major gift officers, where the day to day is just about talking to rich people and China secure donations all the way to major donors who have carved out half a million dollars or more to give annual. Give to organizations. So across the board I've talked to like a lot of folks, and what's really interesting is that it's less about the message itself. [00:05:31] Yes, having a compelling story and follow up and the exercise and activity of reaching out to prospective major donors is important, but what's actually more important? Is understanding what the process looks like. Having a complete process of taking a mass donor, which is someone who gives what, 50 bucks, a hundred dollars at your Facebook fundraising or your, your gala, that kind of thing, and having them have a strong cycle and process and methodology of identifying who are the folks that I should be reaching out to as my short list of major gift prospects so I can grow them conversations. [00:06:09] On one end you have a lot of folks who do events and mass fundraising and crowdfunding and peer to peer. On the other end, you have just a short portfolio of a hundred, 150 people, uh, where. Uh, those are just like your prime targets and essentially you're just kind of reaching out to them and trying to secure meetings and tell 'em their story. [00:06:30] It becomes a very one-on-one sales process, like for better work. And there's a huge gap in a middle where I've also identified that for mid-level donors, nobody knows what to deal with em. So that part gets severely ignored. And when you look at parallel, which is kind of the distribution of, of uh, I, a handful of donations can have astronomical impact on your fundraising. [00:06:53] Uh, the, the top matters a lot, like major donors matter so much where you get a 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars gift that's transformational in terms of a small organization or if you get a number of mid-level gifts, which is around five 10 k each. Getting a handful of those, that's also transformational. [00:07:13] But then when you look at mass level gifts, if you get additional five more donations of a hundred dollars each, that's not transformational anymore. So it's kinda interesting where a lot of folks focus too much time on the mass, not enough time on the major, and no time at all on the mid-level donors. [00:07:30] So they're missing huge opportunities. [00:07:33] Mm-hmm. , and that's the graduating donors, I think is maybe one of the terms I. Used in the past, how do we upgrade our donors from this level to the next level? But also acknowledge that like, guess what, You know, somebody who's given 50 bucks, maybe, maybe not. Is there, you know, wealth engine type stuff. [00:07:51] I know Wealth Engine is a company, I know there's other, uh, data pools out there. Does that bring any extra information to you, or do you prefer just to look. The spread of donation amounts. Say like, All right, here's my bucket of people that donated an a hundred. As you mentioned, like, Oh, this person donated a thousand. [00:08:11] That's interesting. Maybe I have a talk with them. Which way do you like to. [00:08:15] Yeah, if you have the resources and the time, the ability is to do both approaches. That's where some of the organizations they, they really flourish because they have just a lot of different data pools to tap into. Of course, one of them would be like using folks like Donor Search and Wealth Engine and iWave, and to provide a great Kind of just well screening data where you can pipe out data into their services and come back with a rating in terms of the properties that a donor owns and if they have more of a propensity to give, you know, that kind of stuff. [00:08:45] But really, when I talk to a lot of major gift folks, that data is rational at best. So it's not very bad. Mm-hmm. , So the most accurate information actually is previous giving. So if you have giving history of a donor, uh, the two things that typically, uh, are really great indicators of a great and major donor prospect, one would be is their, their loyalty. [00:09:09] Meaning that are they being retained year after year If a donor is donating year after year, Whatever it amount, they already meet a qualification of, they support your organization, they know something about it. They have shown this intent to give, and they're just tied to you. So there there'll be a great prospect. [00:09:27] The additional layer you can layer on top is actually giving amount. So donors that give it over a thousand dollars typically be the threshold. . [00:09:35] All right, I'm back. [00:09:38] I really like. How you were talking about the behavior, It's something that I consistently try to pull our clients toward, our teams toward in terms of finding insights, which are less about what public data we've scraped and more about, show me the behavior. Is this person acting like someone who cares? [00:09:57] Are they showing the capacity to give through their actions? Because truth be told, a lot of this wealth data is essentially address zip code based. They pull it up and look at like, Oh, they live in this zone and live in this reason. They don't even talk about the, the reason they may have given, which is maybe it was a, a one and done check because, you know, someone's nephew wrote them one time and they don't really have a emotional connection to the organization. [00:10:22] So I like starting with your, your own data in your backyard as you. To these fundraising experts. I'm wondering what is the most common way of starting that conversation of like, Hey, you've got a lot of money and seem to care about us. How about more like what is the shape of that? What is the cold, warm intro? [00:10:51] Yeah, so ideally you're starting with a set of folks that have already donated to your organization. So you're looking at your own, uh, donor pool, whether you have 200 donors or 2000 donors or 20,000 donors, which is whatever. Uh, whatever you're looking at, you're starting with these. Warm donor prospects who've given something to your organization so they know something about you. [00:11:13] So it's not a cold type of outreach. It's something that is more about, uh, having a conversation with somebody that, uh, knows what you do. So you start with that kind of formulate a list of folks typically. If you're looking at doing major gifts full-time, you can reasonably work only around 150 folks as part of your portfolio. [00:11:32] So it has this account management focus where you short list list of folks who've, uh, given to your organization, uh, several years in a row that given over let's say a thousand dollars or whatever that threshold is. They can be higher if you're a larger organization, lower if you're a smaller organization and you come up with a list of. [00:11:50] If you do have the ability to bring in some of the wealth data, uh, that we just mentioned, then you can use that to segment even more until you get to a point where you have 150 people that you can work on for a year. So after you have that list, then what you wanna do is, uh, basically qualify. So your goal is to get to a qualification meeting with a donor. [00:12:11] Qualification meeting just means that you have a conversation with a donor, uh, to better understand. Uh, the capacity to give as well as their affinity to give. So those two points, capacity to give would be, uh, this basic understanding of how much wealth they have. Is, is this somebody who has. The ability to give more than a thousand dollars. [00:12:36] Like can they give $10,000? Can they give 50? Can they give a million? Basically having a conversation, asking some questions to better understand what, essentially what is their wealth, and not in those direct terms would be the first part. The second part would be understanding the affinity to give. Why did they give to your cause in the first place? [00:12:55] Is it because they're personally tied to your organization's work? Or was it because a friend asked a friend or something else in some other circumstance? So to better understand, essentially the affinity to give, I also like to add in, add a few additional qualifications to it based on my conversations with actual major donors who are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. [00:13:17] Uh, one. The third one would be intent to give. So someone who has an intent to give, uh, that is typically a lot stronger than someone who does not have the intent to give. Intent is essentially what I, is an indicator of generosity. So someone who says, Hey, uh, I have a donor advice fund. I'm trying to spend it down every. [00:13:40] And, uh, I already give as part of my culture, of my process, as part of my family values, then that person has a stronger intent to give and are, and will be more likely to give. All else being equal . And the second, uh, qualification that I wanna add in is around budget. A lot of major donors that I talk to, they actually have carved out budgets for giving. [00:14:05] So when they look at their plans, look at their cash flow, uh, they look at their donor advice fund or kind of whatever they have, they think about, Okay, I have a budget. I, and I want to donate $300,000. So, and they try to figure out, how do I do that? I give to the folks that I already give to, Yes. But then I still have a chunk of it that I'm trying to figure out who to give to. [00:14:27] So, uh, in another instance, my framework for qualification is called Bait. Bait. Yeah. The budget, the affinity, the intent. And you also need to have the timeliness to give as well, like talking to somebody at the right time. That would be the last point I didn't really touch on, which is around this idea of like, did something happen where they, they come into an liquidity event where someone sold their business or they had a windfall of some sort. [00:14:55] So a lot of major donors I talked to, uh, come to that point where they're like, Hey, I just sold my business. I have a lot of millions to, uh, to give away. Uh, now is the right time for me to get an ask from a non. So, [00:15:10] and being top of mind in that moment is probably pretty valuable. [00:15:14] Yep. Yep. So after you have this qualification framework and kind of the screening then really becomes an exercise of saying, outta these 150 people that have on my list do they check the boxes in terms of, uh, being qualified for B ait? [00:15:29] And if they do, then I will make a. So it's as simple as that. The hard part though, is actually reaching out to each one of the hundred 50 donor prospects and trying to get that conversation so you can qualify them to get to a point where you can make a ask. [00:15:46] Yeah. I imagine people are not itching to have a, a conversation like this, and I imagine it is packaged in a different way, such as talking about, you know, the, how the organization plans to grow. [00:15:58] Maybe it's a capital campaign, maybe it's an upcoming event. It seems like there is more effective if you've got some sort of branded thing that you can talk about as opposed to give because it's Tuesday, [00:16:10] right? Right. It's give, because it's Tuesday is definitely not a good reason for major donors to give. [00:16:15] It, it, a lot of the outreach that happens with major donors happens way beyond the giving season that follows every year. It's really about, uh, thanking a. For making that initial, uh, donation or series of donations and having a conversation with them to better understand why they give to the organization and how the nonprofit can better match, uh, opportunities and present opportunities of giving to the donor. [00:16:46] So, so that's really the key, getting that conversation, doing the qualification and understanding if this major don. Prospect would be a good person to make up bigger asks too. So a lot of it just revolves around just getting to know a donor. [00:17:04] Yeah, and I mentioned, I mean, I just kind of threw out there the like events, the capital campaign, or maybe you're asking them, Hey, it's the end of year, we're looking for someone to put up a matching gift that will help other people. [00:17:18] Are there other programmatic activities or types of packaging? I, I guess, that these conversations revealed as more successful than others? Things that are trending more given the, you know, shift in wealth or shift in, uh, philanthropic interest? Yeah, [00:17:37] I think was it really interesting, especially when I talk to major donors they, they, they. [00:17:42] they profile the same as any other person that you talk to where they're really interested in causes, they wanna connect their dollars with making an impact. They want to hear a compelling story. So it's, it's less specific about the time of the year and more about, uh, what kind of programs are available. [00:18:01] There is an information gap when it comes to major donors and major gift officers, where major donors have the capacity. And they need to know what giving opportunities are out there because nonprofits never do a good, a great job of presenting all the opportunities that someone can give because they're just limited to their, their tools that they have, like their website or social media. [00:18:25] And then major gift officers need to figure out what makes it a donor click and then presenting those opportunities. So I do think that there. Campaigns that organizations do, if you're doing a capital campaign, like building a building, that kind of thing, uh, that, that is a great opportunity. But by and large, when it comes to major donors, uh, they're supporting the programs, uh, the annual funds or just kind of whatever gap fundraising an organization needs to do. [00:18:51] Yeah, the opportunity. To match that donor along their interests could be, you know, around a program, something they are particularly passionate about inside the organization and like, Hey, here's an opportunity for a, a multi-year support of this program happening in this region that I know you're interested in. [00:19:11] Mm-hmm. , but it's about, it's about matching that. But it does sound like a lot of work, right? This like tracking, tracking down 150 people, having those convers. But it does seem like you, I mean, you only need a hit rate of what? 5% if they're the right gifts. [00:19:27] You only need a small hit rate. So that's why a lot of organizations that invest so much staff time and effort into major gifts, where if you just secure a handful of them, then it's transformational as well as when, when I look at, uh, fundraising folks, development folks at an organization, they're better equipped to have conversations and tell stories on a one-on-one basis than on a one to many basis. [00:19:51] Uh, I think for a long time, uh, we're. We as kind of just an industry we're trying to transform, uh, kind of fundraising people who are really good at one-on-one communications and turn them into digital marketers where you're saying, Hey, like, learn how to do direct mail or learn how to do social media, or learn how to put on large virtual events. [00:20:12] So kind of forcing people out of like their skill sets. Or what they know the best and trying to push 'em into kind of this mass fundraising. And I, I believe that if you're able to do mass fundraising well, or just do it okay, as long as you have a, a, a steady inflow of new donors. You just kind of need to set some parameters and throw them at fundraising people so they can have these one-on-one conversations, get the major gifts, and use the parallel effect to transform the fundraising results of the organization. [00:20:46] I have this, [00:20:47] this assumption that if you gave me the fundraising data of, you know, a donor pool, I could calculate a projected potential. Upside for a large gift. Am I like, you know, am I on some sort of, you know, data island with this? Is this like an assumption too far because you know, if you've seen one, you've seen one? [00:21:08] Or is it pretty immutable? Once you see like major gifts implemented over a period of time that you would get a distribution saying like, All right, if you have got, you know, 30% of your audience donating a hundred dollars, here's your upside. Here's what's potentially sleeping in [00:21:24] in your backyard. Oh, for sure. [00:21:26] I, I think you can completely forecast it given enough data set. Now, of course, if you're a small organization, let's say you only have a hundred donors, then your distribution in your data forecasting is gonna be grossly inaccurate. But once you get to, uh, several thousand, tens of thousands of donors, then you can easily make assumptions to start forecasting. [00:21:46] And then that's where things get interesting, where then you can know, Oh, we need to talk to X amount of people every year because then we'll close a dozen major donors. And this is implication of that forecast. [00:21:59] I think that's helpful, especially if there's somebody listening that has a. A standard, we'll say, sort of let people donate as they're going to donate. [00:22:10] We'll go after grants and things like that. But individual donors are just, you know, fine at this, whatever level they wanna access at. We have an annual event. But I think looking at it as saying like, you're leaving money on the table if you aren't seeing this type of. Power law in giving, cuz it certainly exists in wealth. [00:22:25] Is that a fair phrasing? [00:22:27] Yeah, a hundred percent fair. I, I think for a long time, uh, and this is one of my frustrations, uh, at cos box is that, uh, we're empowering folks to do kind of these mass giving opportunities, but then there's not an easy way for folks to say, Okay, now what I. These couple hundred donors that I got from my peer, peer or craft funding campaign, let me have an easy way to move them on, upgrade them into a major donor. [00:22:53] Uh, so that's something that we're building towards, to helping organizations have, have the right tooling so that they can reach out to folks, have those conversations, qualify them, track the stages, and eventually close on these major gifts. [00:23:08] Does it make sense to be really trying to have those. Obviously qualifying conversations earlier in the year, and then as you move to the end of the year when you know, uh, you know, tax advantages, especially for the rich, they're thinking about donations and making those final donations. [00:23:23] Is it more extreme in that, like you gotta have those closing conversations in q4 or are large net worth individuals just dealing with DAFs and it really doesn't matter when, when that gift is. [00:23:36] Yeah, it, it is more of a letter. It, it is not as, uh, important when it comes to time of the year. Uh, but you before, for most major gift plans, their work plans is based on an annual cycle though, where at the beginning of the year, uh, they come up with a portfolio of folks to work and then they figure out what is my work plan for each specific person? [00:23:57] When am I gonna reach out to them and when I'm gonna make an ask, But ask, coming on a rolling basis. Uh, some donors are qualify a lot faster so they can make a proposal center proposal, make an ask for a major gift while folks, uh, sometimes just kind of drag it out depending on time of the year. There is more urgency at the end of the year, typically speaking. [00:24:17] But, uh, for major donors, they really break this process. They're not molded into, uh, this seasonal annual in of year giving. [00:24:27] I think it's just super helpful and it's something that continually is on my mind because we work at various levels for digital fundraising, but also just for awareness building. [00:24:37] But inevitably it is looking at a marketing funnel where you're turning attention into interest as measured by emails, converting those folks into people that care enough to open their wallets, and then sometimes it can sort of be left. At that point of the funnel as opposed to saying, and the next phase is this. [00:24:59] You gotta have conversations. Your CEO needs to be set up with people that have been qualified to say, Hey, here's our larger vision and here's why I need a quarter million dollars to get there. . [00:25:09] That's right. I, I think it's, the challenge right now is to make sure organizations are set up to have opportunities for major donors to donate. [00:25:17] Uh, or kind of presenting in that format is one of the big challenges. I think the second big issue is that, uh, organizations don't have the right tooling. You know, I, I've been on this research quest and essentially folks have been telling me that when it comes to major gift fundraising, they just take data outta their data. [00:25:36] Their CRMs and they just manage it in their head or in their spreadsheet when it comes to major gifts. So, the, the work of someone who's touching major donors, it really isn't served by by tools. So I think that's another gap too, where infrastructure, having the right tooling, having the right process built into the tools just aren't there for folks, and that's one of the reasons why folks don't do it. [00:26:00] Well, it sounds like a, a great opportunity and a natural evolution. Maybe you can tell us a bit more about how people find you and maybe some of these new tools that they can check out at cause box dot. [00:26:11] Yeah, so at Cosmos we're launching a new product. The, the product name's called Morningside. For now, probably need a better name, but the idea is that we want to build, uh, a product geared towards major donors. [00:26:24] So we call it a major donor workflow Product essentially has three different tiers, uh, three different pillars. The first pillar being that, uh, you have a suite outreach tools, so you can send. Like one on one emails to donor prospects. You can text them, you can make calls, you can do all your outreach in one tool instead of depending on your phones or depending on your email system, uh, so that you can track everything in one place. [00:26:48] Uh, the second piece of it would be this idea around donor tracking, where you can track. What stage a donor is in from prospect all the way to committed and fulfill. So you can easily see outta my portfolio. Major donors here are folks I've had meetings with. Here are people who are qualified. Here are people who've committed but haven't paid, and here to people who paid. [00:27:07] So you can easily see that as well as you can apply different work plans to each donor where you can chart up. Uh, for this donor prospect. I'm gonna touch 'em four times a year, hear the dates that I'll touch them. It's basically like a. Giant reminder list or to-do list that lets you easily just see what needs to happen on one day. [00:27:26] Uh, and then the D pillar will be attaching payments. So just the easy ability for, for donors to, to, to make a payment. But, uh, And have a customized, uh, donation page, equipment page for that. As well as if you're doing an offline, then they can send in checks or, uh, forward that information to their donor advised fund, uh, for our stock transfer, things like that. [00:27:48] Uh, essentially the idea is that we wanna be end to end when it comes to major donors. So gonna help folks not only automate but accelerate their major gift fundraising. [00:27:57] Awesome. Really appreciate you walking through it and excited that you're gonna be helping more organizations get a, get a bit more in their, uh, in their bank accounts. [00:28:07] So thanks, [00:28:07] Rob. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks George.
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| Crypto DAFs are 3X MORE Generous that Traditional DAFs | Endaoment.org | 10 Nov 2022 | 00:44:29 | |
Alexis Miller, Donor Engagement and Strategic Partnerships Lead at Endaoment.org shares how crypto DAFs work and why nonprofits should start paying attention. When compared with traditional DAF payouts, Endaoment is showing 3x payout rate of funds- 22% to 58%. We also discuss other ways crypto donors differ from traditional fiat donors.
About Alexis Miller Alexis Miller is the Donor Engagement and Strategic Partnerships Lead at Endaoment, the first 501(c)3 community foundation built on the Ethereum blockchain. Alexis works to facilitate collaboration between nonprofit organizations and crypto donors. Before joining Endaoment, Alexis worked as a philanthropic advisor and a development professional. She earned a Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and now lives in Washington DC. Resource Links
Rough Transcription
[00:00:00] Well, we found a reoccurring guest, well I'll say organization joining us today from endowment, and they are helping turn crypto holdings into crypto givings, which is a topic that I love. I just love it. I'm long crypto philanthropy. Alexis Miller donor Engage. Strategic partnerships Lead at Endowment is joining us today. [00:00:32] Kind of as a follow up to our conversation a year ago. We'll put that in the show notes. And Alexis, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Master's degree in Social work, Went on to donor services officer and Baltimore Community Foundation. So definitely kind of one of us, as well as working at, uh, Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. [00:00:56] So now you have landed at endowment, and maybe for our newer listeners, can you explain what endowment spelled? Endowment? Mm-hmm. . I'm not pronouncing it right. I feel like you really have to put M faces on the Dow. Can you explain what. Yes. Thank you for having me, George. And for that introduction. So endowment, spelled E n d a o m e n T. [00:01:22] I always try to, sometimes people Google us and can't find us because we're spelled d a o, not d o w, like the traditional way. We are a 5 0 1 C three. Non-profit community foundation that essentially exists for the crypto community. So we are built on the Ethereum blockchain, so our actual non-profit entity structure is built using. [00:01:46] Blockchain technology, and we essentially serve as that community foundation resource. So we were created really to solve two problems. The first is to allow a tax compliant and easy way for donors to be able to give Crypto or NFTs. And on the flip side, allowing non-profits to be able to receive donations that originated in crypto. [00:02:10] No cost to the nonprofit. So that is a little bit of what we do. I will get into the details, but our kind of bread and butter is our crypto donor advised fund. So similar to other community foundations that offer a donor advised fund, charitable checking account. Essentially we do the same just using crypto. [00:02:30] Maybe we can make sure that this makes sense, because I feel like there was a lot of words with lots of words, a lot of acronyms, because that's what technical people seem to enjoy doing by making a ton of acronyms. Maybe we start with the, as you were explaining, Dow and what that actually means. The d a o as I understand it. [00:02:52] What, what, what does that actually mean as it's part of your name? It is part of our name, so, DOW stands for a decentralized autonomous organization and basically what that means. An organization or an entity where the decisions are being made by the community as opposed to like a top down approach. So having your CEO or your executive director make all of the decisions, you're actually putting voices into the hands of your community or stakeholders to have a say in how the organization is run. [00:03:28] So that. A term that's used widely in the crypto space is a dow, but the concept is something that other folks are using just maybe in a little bit of a different way. So in short, we're talking about a daf, but. For crypto. Is that a fair quick summary? Yes, yes. Another acronym. You know, like it's, it's funny, my, my a donor advised fund. [00:03:53] You're right. Yes. We're gonna have a lot of gloss. It's all good. It, it's funny cuz you know, my background's in non-profit and I feel like non-profits use a ton of acronyms and like insider language. And now I'm in this fine, I'm kind of balancing the non-profit world with the crypto world. And they also use a ton of acronyms, very different acronyms, but you know, gotta get used to both of the lingos for sure. [00:04:16] So let's just make this tangible. Somebody has a crypto windfall. They're then interested in deploying that capital for social impact, making the world less terrible. They come to endowment.org. What happens? Good question. So, you know, as I mentioned before, we're built on the Ethereum blockchain, which I'm, I'm gonna get technical for a, a second and then I will make this more easily digestible. [00:04:50] But basically the blockchain is just the technology that underpins. This whole crazy world of cryptocurrency. So think of it as like, a public ledger where basically all of the transactions and data is taking place. So what that means in practice is our nonprofit is actually set up so that you can see all of the transactions taking place. [00:05:14] So, All money flowing into endowment and all money flowing out of endowment is technically publicly available without any personal information. But all of that information lies using what's called blockchain technology. So that's kind of like the basis, So we're built on. Blockchain technology, and when someone comes to, you know, endowment.org or app.endowment.org, they would connect their wallet that holds their cryptocurrency and they could take an action on our platform so they could open up a donor advised fund by clicking a button, they could make a direct donation to a nonprofit of their choice. [00:05:53] Basically skipping the fund process and just giving a one off donation to any nonprofit in the us and. We handle all of the tax receipting so that individual donor is giving us their name, their email, their address so that they can get a tax deduction if they choose. And you know, within 24 to 48 hours, we are turning around that donation and getting it into the nonprofits bank account as US dollars in cash and turning it from the cryptocurrency that it originated in into us. [00:06:29] Gotcha. And to date you have deployed, it looks like over 50 million according to the website, to a total of 924 organizations. I'm curious, uh, how has growth been? Because right now, I don't know if you've noticed things like Ethereum and others are down 60, 70% just this year. Has that slowed growth? What is it looking like for endowment right now? [00:07:02] Yeah, so we are right at the $50 million mark and. In terms of growth, you know the market is down for sure, but our average donor is someone who has been in the crypto space since, you know, 20 16, 20 17, 20 18. And most of our donors, while they still might be, you know, down some money or down large amounts of money, They're pretty much up for when they originally invested in the crypto ecosystem. [00:07:34] So for us, we're still seeing a lot of activity. It's definitely slowed a bit. But we're still seeing that. So to kind of like take a step back, I'll give you some, some statistics based on this year versus last year in terms of how we're doing in terms of getting money out into the hands of nonprofits. [00:07:52] So our, and, and again, as I mentioned like blockchain, everything's transparent. We also are, so on our website you can actually see, uh, a lot of these statistics that I'm going to share. And, you know, we really try to keep our community informed. The ecosystem and the impact that people are having through using endowment. [00:08:14] So we have granted, to date 58% of funds that are sitting in donor advised funds. So 58% of the capital that has gone into endowment has been distributed out to various nonprofits across the country. Just to give you a comparison, the average I believe this is through Fidelity, is 22% a national average for donor advised. [00:08:39] Deploying capital. So as you can see, you know, And that's annually, I guess for the, the DAF distribution and Yeah. Yeah. Annually for the DAF distribution. So you can see that our community is really, really focused on getting money out into the community to support their favorite nonprofit or to support an area of interest. [00:08:58] And they just need a little assistance identifying who to actually support. So 58%. Capital that has been basically ingested by endowment has been distributed out to various non-profits. And that's lifetime. That's a lifetime distribution number. Lifetime distribution. Yep. And, and we started at the end of 2020. [00:09:15] So year to date, we've had $21.15 million donated to endowment. So 21.15 out of the 50 million has been donated. This year, you know, in 2022, and we've granted this year 17.9 million which is both of those numbers are up from last year. So if you think of, you know, 2021, the crypto market was a lot higher. [00:09:39] Yet we've actually done more volume in terms of both donations and grants in 2022. Then, sorry, one more time. Was 17 distributed over 20? 17 distributed this year in 2022, and you have collected 21 million and we've collected 21 million. I mean, you're tracking at 80% at that point, so that, you know, I think it's even more impressive if I'm just speaking, honestly, looking at the annual cause I feel like there's many sins hidden in average numbers. [00:10:06] Yeah. This is not a sin. This is actually. Contrary to what I would've believed in a down market where I imagine a donor coming in who has transferred over their, you know, do coin. Millions may have chosen not to liquidate, but to hold and maybe hold until it goes back up. This doesn't seem to be the case, and I am right in that assumption that when a donor comes. [00:10:31] Connects, their wallet moves over an asset that that asset isn't immediately liquidated like it is with say, the giving block when a donation is triggered on site directly to a non-profit. So we do actually liquidate it to US dollar coin. Okay. So yeah, so we are taking in whatever cryptocurrency is donated to us. [00:10:53] We always say that anything that there's a liquid market for, we will take. So we don't have, you know, a hundred cryptocurrencies listed on our website. Okay. We really will take anything and work with any donor who has any crypto. We immediately convert it into US dollar coin. And then it's SDC, I believe. [00:11:09] Yes. Yeah. Yep. So U sdc and then it's granted out as US dollars to the nonprofits bank account. Mm-hmm. one, one thing we launched last month in our version two of our platform is actual portfolio allocations, which has been super exciting and was the top feedback we received from our donor community last year. [00:11:30] So, It's always exciting when you can take feedback and actually build something or do something about it and not just say, Thank you so much for your feedback. We'll take it into consideration. So endowment just launched our version two of our platform and one of those features includes portfolio allocations where people can actually take that us d c, that US dollar coin that's in their donor advised fund and actually invest it in. [00:11:55] Right now we have three different. Crypto native portfolio allocations that they can invest it in. So when they're not granting out, they, instead of kind of having their funds set idly, they can actually deploy their capital and hopefully earn a little bit of interest making their fund grow, which means more money to charity. [00:12:16] I don't fully understand that. Can you explain more? How, how is my fund growing? So you're putting together portfolios I understand of nonprofits. Let's say I wanna go help the environment because maybe the coin of my choice is proof of work and it's torching a bunch of electricity and I wanna like make amends on that. [00:12:38] Is that what we're talking about? There is a essentially an index fund for. That you had packaged for the environment, for social justice, for women's rights, Actually, The kind of the opposite. So it's actually like taking, it's taking your cryptocurrency and actually investing it in like an, the version of like an etf, right? [00:13:01] So most donor advised funds, you're actually investing those assets in like a money market or in some sort of actual like financial investment vehicle. So, Community foundation's, Fidelity Schwab allow their donors mm-hmm. to take, you know, if you have a hundred thousand dollars in your donor advised fund, you can actually invest that in a money market or in an ETF that the board obviously approves, and you can earn a little bit of yield on that. [00:13:29] So. Mm-hmm. , you know, when I was in the community foundation space, we would have donors in a, in a good year who were making. Eight to 10% on their money, so that capital is being invested and then you're able to actually give more money out to charity. So we're doing the same thing, but with crypto. [00:13:48] Portfolios essentially. So instead of investing in, you know, a Fidelity ETF or something, you're investing in Ethereum or you're investing in Ave or Compound, which are the three portfolios that our board has approved right now. So you're taking your idle capital in your donor advised fund that you're not granting out imminently and you're actually investing it to hopefully yield a little bit of a return so that you have more money to grant out to charity in the long term. [00:14:19] That's, you know, that's interesting. I won't touch on it too much though. I, I feel like one of the reasons that this year you're tracking at what sounds like four x the rate of distribution, then standard DAFs. So by the way, I'm coming up with a title of this podcast right now. I feel like a good one. [00:14:36] Crypto philanthropists, four x, more generous than greedy. Little fiat DAFs, right, Who are tracking at 20%. In general, your overall numbers are three x, right? If we're talking 20% into 60% distribution, I'm all about the distribution. I'm all about putting the money to work. Nothing frustrates me more than money sitting on the sidelines while non-profits are out there doing the work right now. [00:15:05] And so I get, I'll just be honest, hesitant about, Hey, here's a way for you to like stash it and make 0.78% on compound. By the way, no subtle risk to what may actually happen to that capital. Looking at what happened to DAFs this year alone, with the market dropping 20% that were in safe, I'm using air quotes, safe investments just means less freaking money for non-profits headed into a recession. [00:15:35] You can tell I'm frustrated by that , so I think this is interesting. , but it doesn't, it it's not, It's not exciting in the sense that like getting dollars out the door, which is, which is really great. I wanna come back to, unless you have a finer point and you wanna push back on that, I'm fine to. Listen, I, I, you know, I, I agree with you for sure. [00:15:57] Like money needs to go out into the hands of non-profits. You know, I will say that we are working at a way faster pace than traditional DAFs in terms of getting that money out. We have a four x this year, four x this year. Yes. We have, you know, a two year inactive fund policy is an example. Most community foundations have five years where you don't have to do anything with your. [00:16:17] For five years. Hmm. Ours is two. And I will say just anecdotally, based on our community, people are super generous and wanna get money out into the community. So even if we're letting them invest a small portion of their donor advised fund, they are not necessarily investing their entire donor advised fund. [00:16:37] They are still getting money out into the hands of nonprofits. Yeah. And we've seen this time and time again with Ukraine, with reproductive rights. All of the horrible things that are going on in this world, You know, we have been able to raise money imminently, and the fact that we send grants via a bank wire and not a check, like most traditional DAF providers, we are able to actually deploy capital in one to two days to these non-profits that really need it. [00:17:06] So, you know, everything we do at end. Very, very mission driven and mission-aligned, and we are taking some of the traditional narratives of donor advised funds and, and of philanthropy and really flipping it on its head. My last point about this, and then we can totally move on, is our fee structure, because that is something compared to the traditional donor advised fund that really, really sets us apart. [00:17:30] You know, we take a transaction fee, it's one and a half percent. It's super upfront and transparent on our website, and it's actually weighted at the throughput. So we take 0.5% when someone is making that initial investment into their donor advised fund, and we take 1% when it's going out to the receiving nonprofit. [00:17:53] So we're actually financially incentivizing ourselves by taking a larger fee to get money out of the DAF and into the hands of nonprofits. Most traditional donor advisement providers are taking a fee based on assets under management. So if someone has $500,000 in their DA and they grant out $200,000, they're left with $300,000 and that. [00:18:16] Donor advised fund provider is getting less money. So there's no financial incentive for these larger daph providers to actually get money out into the hands of nonprofits that need it imminently. So, you know, we're trying to really change the narrative and one of the reasons, and one of the ways we're doing that is with our fee structure in terms of waiting more on the output and on the throughput. [00:18:40] Sorry. Not taking a fee based on how much money is actually in the donor advised fund. The adage, show me the incentive. I'll show you. The behavior is ringing in my ears. I wonder, coming back to the fact that you're built on Ethereum, which is a publicly auditable database living on the blockchain, that it's publicly available that I can check. [00:19:04] You said words, they sounded. . Here's the thing. I can check that. I can check the holdings, I can look on the chain, I can see where the assets are and I can see where they aren't. I think that's a sort of like amazing trust but verify. Mm-hmm. that traditional DAFs just don't have for sure. And I think that maybe part of this ethos, it's, it's easier to stay honest when you're kept honest. [00:19:31] For sure. We, we, That's something great about crypto Phil. Yeah, it's not just our board. You know, since we are structured as a nonprofit, you know, we do have a board of directors and it's not just our board us, us being accountable to our board and to our staff, right? But we're actually being accountable to our entire community and ecosystem. [00:19:49] And even beyond that, because somebody who is not a donor to endowment, has no relation to endowment, can actually see that public trail on the blockchain. So anyone. Check our work can see the activity that's happening. And that for me personally, just coming out of the non-profit, traditional non-profit landscape is something that was really, really exciting about what endowment is doing. [00:20:14] Because there is that public trail, you are able to check activity and it's just adding layers of transparency that people are really looking for. Both donors, non-profits, and just people in general. This world needs to be more transparent and upfront and, you know, inviting people into the conversation. [00:20:33] And, you know, we definitely are doing that at endowment and, and we're kind of practicing what we're preaching as well. [00:20:42] Okay. I was doing some back of the envelope math, so already asterisk. Be careful with that. 924 organizations have been the generous recipients of that amount of, you know, percent of 50 million that has been distributed. 924 is not a lot. That's actually a, a rather small distribution on average looks like $54,000, uh, headed toward, on average. [00:21:06] These organizations, again, average is a dangerous number, probably throws against a power law for the distribution of this capital. So a sort of consolidation of cause. What is top of mind? What is noisiest? What is emotionally resonant of the moment? And as I explore some of the, the top organizations getting funds and community funds, it does seem like there is a pretty high consolidation around those topics of reproductive rights, of gun violence, of, as you mentioned, Ukraine. [00:21:41] Can you tell me a bit about. How a nonprofit listening right now that is not the, in the limelight in the moment right now on that cause, how might they engage with this platform or at large crypto donors that seem to be following the shiny social issue of the moment? Sure. So I think it's important to note that, you know, we have nonprofits that are signed up with endowment that haven't. [00:22:12] funds. Right? And that's okay because you are adding awareness to your donor community that you offer this type of giving vehicle. So you know, once a non-profit is onboarded with endowment, again, we're completely free for non-profits. So there's no contract. You know, nonprofits aren't paying. To potentially get a crypto donation. [00:22:34] We're completely free. We're really offering this public goods infrastructure where we want every nonprofit to be able to benefit from, we call them crypto originated donations. Since we transfer it into US dollars, we want every nonprofit to be able to participate in this ecosystem and benefit from this new asset class and donor group without ever having to pay. [00:22:55] Because if. Wait, it then all of the large nonprofits who have the budget will be able to benefit and the small grassroots nonprofits get left out. So when, you know, our CEO built endowment, that was really important to him to keep it free for all nonprofits. So that's like my first note is like, get set up with endowment. [00:23:15] Like gonna give us a little shout out here. We're completely free. You don't have to pay and get set up and like start communicating to your donor base that you're now set up to receive crypto donations. So, You know, I always tell nonprofits like start spreading the word within your own donor community, right? [00:23:32] If you are a nonprofit and you have a newsletter, if you use Twitter, if you use Facebook, if you use Instagram, spread the word because you don't know who's a crypto holder, and just because somebody hasn't come knocking on your door and saying, Hey, we have Bitcoin, do you accept? It? Doesn't mean that they're not holding crypto. [00:23:49] The other aspect is on the donor education side, because. Right now, again, I'm not a cpa. This is not tax advice, like I'm not a financial professional. But crypto is tax the same way as stock is where if you have appreciated crypto assets or appreciated stock assets and you donate them to a 5 0 1 C three, you can mitigate your capital gains taxes while also taking a tax deduction. [00:24:14] So there's actually a benefit financially why someone would donate crypto. There is an education gap because there are so many people out there who are holding crypto who would never think of it as an asset that you can donate. And I just think about non-profits and the education that they've had to do about stock donations. [00:24:35] I mean, it has taken years and years to educate the masses that you can donate stock, and it's a change in behavior for people, you know, instead of donors putting. Their $5,000 donation on a credit card are sending you a check. If they have appreciated stock assets, they can actually donate it and it's beneficial for them and for the nonprofit. [00:24:56] So once a nonprofit starts educating A that they are set up with a platform like endowment to receive the crypto donations, and B, start educating their donor community on the actual benefits of giving crypto, you'll probably see people coming out of the woodworks. So, That's kind of my plug for how nonprofits can kind of benefit from this and start spreading the word. [00:25:21] And then you see nonprofits who are like totally embracing this crazy crypto community. You know, like there are nonprofits who, a lot of them are larger nonprofits, but they have a, you know, gaming in community manager, or they have like a dedicated staff person, whether on their development team or their marketing team who. [00:25:42] On Twitter trying to find NFT projects to collaborate or learning more about the space. And I would just say like, you know, if you work at a non-profit and you're crypto curious, like do some research, like find out what's out there because there's a lot of people in the crypto space and in the nft, the non fungible token, like the little digital JPEGs as people call them. [00:26:06] There are a lot of people who are looking to give back and to do good and just start like seeing what's out there. Because I'm not saying you should hire someone on your non-profit team to spearhead this, but if you're curious at all about the space, start doing research and talk to your team about it. [00:26:22] Because there's people who wanna do good in this world and support non-profits. And you know, we, we now have created a platform where you're able to do. Yeah, it's, I mean, you're, you're spot on with regard to the opportunity. You know, there's, I'll, I'll pause on it cause I'm gonna put a pin in. There's no downside. [00:26:44] I'm gonna put a pin in that for a second. Just to add to this, the idea that, because no one has come to you saying like, Hey, I'm a crypto donor, itching to give you money. Doesn't mean they're not out there. A recent study from Investipedia showed that 38% of millennials hold cryptocurrency, 38%. So there is a high probability that existing donors to your organization, uh, meaningful percent of them are, are already holding cryptocurrency. [00:27:18] What's more, if we're talking about millennials, we're entering into in this. Five to 10 years, the largest wealth shift in human history of boomers, shifting wealth, transferring wealth to millennials. I'll let that sink in for a hot second, as you may write off. Now, that said, Alexis, it has been an adage that has kept me alive for quite some time of not being the first penguin in the. [00:27:48] Are you familiar with that? Penguins actually, when they're trying to suss out whether or not there's a shark in the water before they go fishing, they'll all cuddle up right next to the edge, and whoever's the first penguin in the water, they see and they look over and they're like, Did Jim get eaten? [00:28:03] Did he not get eaten ? And if it's safe, they all start jumping in and getting fish. Now where I'm going with this is that we're still pretty early. There's still a lot of confusion, I would say around. Whether or not accepting crypto hurts the environment supports terrorism. You know, blind, small puppies kills rainbows. [00:28:25] In a more practical sense, earlier this year, Wikipedia chose to stop accepting crypto after having accepted it since very early on. Can you talk me through some of the pain points or potential honest downside? That are talked about with regard to non-profits choosing to move forward or not on accepting crypto. [00:28:54] Sure. Before I get into that, I want, since you just gave that great stat on millennials with crypto, I wanna give another stat and stat. Stat sta an article. Sta sta sta . Yeah. So, and then I will get to your question, but so to add to that We just did an article in, In Giving Compass and in Candid, and I quoted a Fidelity research that said that, you know, One third, 33% of crypto holders have actually donated digital assets to nonprofits, and half, nearly half, 46% of those donors felt it was difficult to find charities, which directly accepted cryptocurrency donations. [00:29:40] So that to me is saying that. People want to donate crypto, they just can't find non-profits to accept it, which is just going back to my point of like, get signed up. Because if it's not on your website and you're not promoting it, then people are gonna go elsewhere. So I just wanted to share that stat. [00:29:59] It's something that I, you know, I have been sharing a lot recently because it just adds to the point about. Why it's so important for nonprofits to get set up to not have to pay for this, because people are looking to donate crypto and they just are gonna turn to the next nonprofit who is set up to receive it. [00:30:17] So that is my stat add-on. To go to your point about, you know, kind of like the hesitations or maybe like the weaknesses in crypto, you know, It's a really interesting space because of a lot of the privacy and security and you know, when I first started with endowment, I was completely new to the crypto space and I had a lot of preconceived notions about like, Everyone in crypto is like a crypto tech bro, and they're sitting behind their computer and they, you know, like are all engineers. [00:30:54] And I had all of these preconceived notions about like who is in crypto. And now that I do this for a living, I have met so many amazing people who are in the space who do not at all look like. What I imagined, and there is a huge women in crypto community that I'm, you know, I've connected with a lot of people who have similar backgrounds to me. [00:31:17] I just found someone the other day who also has their master's in social work, and I'm like, I never thought sitting in my, you know, social justice class that I would be sitting here working at a crypto nonprofit, but here I am. So I think a lot of it is like the preconceived notions and the judgements that people make. [00:31:34] Like there are a. Diverse people who are in the space. You know, crypto's also. International, Right? Really anyone who has access to internet can access crypto. And we've seen a lot of use cases of people who aren't able to access bank accounts, be able to open up a crypto wallet cuz all you need is an internet connection. [00:31:57] So it's actually, there's a lot of use. Cases, especially in other countries of how people have been able to use crypto. Not just to give back like we're doing an endowment, but actually instead of traditional banking because for one reason or another they don't have access to traditional finance and banking means. [00:32:14] So it's been a really interesting use case. On the flip side, there's a lot of securities and risks. Like I wouldn't encourage anyone to just open a crypto wallet if you don't know what you're doing. You need to be able to educate yourself on the landscape. And you see all the same headlines as I do with different protocols who are going belly up and CEOs leaving, and there's a lot of noise in the space for sure. [00:32:39] And part of it is like having a trusted source of where to turn to. And I think for. I'm grateful that when I started with endowment, my team was super helpful in educating me and telling me like, Don't interact with this company or protocol and this is where you should focus your efforts. And you know, like different podcasts to listen to and blogs to read because there is a lot of noise and that is really important because you don't know what. [00:33:09] Fake and what's not, and you don't know what's legitimate and what's not. So that's definitely a hurdle because if you don't have a team like endowment or a friend who's in the space, it is really hard to know what's valid and what's not. You know, speaking to like some of the environmental impacts, you know, like we're built on the Ethereum blockchain and we just moved to proof of stake, which just lowered the environmental impacts by 99 point, like nine, 7% or something. [00:33:36] You know, a lot of other things in our world today take up a lot of energy and. Ethereum just merge, which I don't need to go into the details, but basically like the energy consumption that Ethereum is using has been increasingly lowered which has been huge for the industry. And, you know, we do work with environmental nonprofits that are signed up with us and like see the, that the benefits are kind of outweighing the, the negatives. [00:34:03] Is there anything else specifically you wanted me to touch on in terms of like, The negatives, I guess, of the crypto space or, or the perceived negatives of the space? I suppose if there was a I'm, I guess I'm in the mind of a non-profit that is worried that they start talking about the word crypto and those headlines of fraud, of criminal activity of, you already mentioned the environmental component, which is awesome. [00:34:35] Just. Make sure that that is clear as a bell because you are on Ethereum, literally because you exist when somebody moves their money onto there, connects their wallet and moves their Bitcoin, there it is liquidated and is actually on an energy efficient network. You are actually a net positive for moving cryptocurrencies onto a green network quite literally. [00:34:56] So that is hopefully becoming a moot point. The criminal activity one could be one that, let's just say older donors assume that it's all Silk Road type of nefarious activities. Russian billionaires being able to avoid sanctions, fill in the blank. Cnbc, uninformed post about how crypto's being used, how is that responded to, or can it be responded to because the same arguments can, should be made about cash. [00:35:29] Cash is the number one full stop used for criminal activity worldwide. Yeah, so, you know, I will say with endowment there, you know, there's a, an ofac like bad actor, bad wallet list that exists and. We are crosschecking wallets that interact with endowment. I don't know the, you know, I'm not, I'm not on the engineering team, so I don't know the logistics of how it happens, but you know, because people interact with our platform using their wallet, we are able to crosscheck it on the ofac. [00:36:07] Bad actor wallet list. So that is, you know, for us as an organization, that's kind of how we are checking ourselves to your point. Exactly. There is bad stuff going on in every industry, whether that's with crypto, whether that's with cash. There are bad actors everywhere in this world. And you know, we've seen it a lot in philanthropy, like people are. [00:36:31] Making a lot of money with their company that's maybe not doing so good in the world, and they're parking their money to be charitable and they're getting buildings named after them, and that money is dirty money essentially. So I would say like, this is my personal opinion, that. It's happening everywhere. [00:36:50] And that just because the headlines are talking about crypto now doesn't mean that that doesn't exist in the world today. And you know, if anything, using a platform like us, people are charitably inclined and they're doing good in the world. And you know, our donors also like, Most of our donors are under the age of 45. [00:37:09] Most of our donors have made their wealth in a very short amount of time and feel so grateful to give back to the communities that have helped them or that they live in, or that they've benefited from. You know, time and time again, we talk to donors and they say, I've never been able to give more than $500 to charity, and now I'm giving $50,000 or $500,000. [00:37:29] And just the. Heartwarming sentiments of these people who have made a lot of money in a short amount of time is really, really inspiring. So there are bad actors everywhere. There are also people who are incredibly generous and philanthropic and wanna give back, and in my opinion, the headlines need to focus more on the use cases for crypto and how it's being used for good and how it's helping people who don't have access to bank accounts as opposed to the opposite area. [00:37:59] Gotcha. Yeah. And thanks for, for making that point. I know it's, uh, it, it's one that probably comes up, uh, a bit. I wanna talk about one more feature on the site before we run out of time here, which are your community funds, because I think it lends itself potentially to a strategy. Can you explain what these funds are? [00:38:18] I'm on the site and I'm seeing something like the Art Blocks Fund or the end guidance ending. And gun violence fund advised by hug and some are advised by endowment. I'm interested actually, if you can talk about the ones that are advised by other projects and other groups here. What is this? So community funds are. [00:38:43] Really think of them as area of interest funds. So somebody could come to our site and open up a fund that is supporting gun violence, that is supporting reproductive rights or Ukraine. And these community funds are most often utilized by groups of people, whether that's an NFT project, whether that. We talked about Dows in the beginning of this conversation, whether that's advised by a Dow, whether that's advised by a group of friends, and it's really a great way to be able to raise money for the cause or area of interest that you care about. [00:39:23] So we saw this. With reproductive rights, right? So endowment as an entity set up a protect reproductive rights fund where we vetted seven non-profits, both national and local. We wanted a combination of, you know, like the more well known organizations paired with the small grassroots non-profits. We identified seven non-profits that we were gonna split donations to those organizations. [00:39:51] So anyone. Come to our site, make a donation to our Protect reproductive rights fund, and we would evenly distribute to those seven non-profits. That was a great opportunity for anyone who wanted to support the cause, but didn't know where to turn to or didn't wanna do the research on their own. In addition to that, we had other groups of people and FT. [00:40:11] Artists dows different protocols, some companies that opened up their own funds that they could actually fundraise from. So an example. There's a Dow, an NFT project called Cowgirl Dow and Molly Dixon, who's their founder and artist, she set up a. Fund where a hundred percent of the NFTs were supporting various reproductive rights nonprofits. [00:40:38] So anyone who purchased one of her NFTs, a hundred percent of the proceeds were going to this fund. And then she was using her community to actually vote on what nonprofits to support. So it was giving people a voice, giving them a say in how the funds are being distributed. And then because it was. [00:40:57] Public fund on endowment. Anyone could just donate into that fund. You didn't have to purchase an nft. You could just go to her fund, make a donation, and know that your money was supporting reproductive rights nonprofits. So they're a really great tool in vehicle for kind of that collective giving model. [00:41:16] You know, like in. A lot of nonprofits offer giving circles or have a way where people can kind of pool their funds together and distribute among various nonprofits, and that's essentially what our community funds are doing, is giving a say to various communities across the country that want to give back to a specific area of interest and mobilize their community to get involved in some capacity. [00:41:40] Gotcha. This is the index fund of non-profits that I think I was thinking of earlier, but what great functionality and also transparent, again because it is built on the blockchain. Alexis, thank you so much. Are there any final thoughts, bits of advice, stats, , that that's, that you were hoping to share before we sign? [00:42:05] No, this is, This has been great. I mean, I would just add, you know, End of year and it's giving season. And I would encourage, you know, from the donor side of things, if anyone has it, if anyone's listening and has cryptocurrency, please consider donating to your favorite nonprofit. And from the nonprofit side, get signed up with us before the end of the year. [00:42:27] Or just do some research and like figure out what works for you. Or just survey your community and see if anyone has crypto. Like take an action, do something out of your comfort zone, this giving season. And. , you don't know where it'll lead. And I, I will end with that, but this has been great and you know, I'll give a little plug. [00:42:46] Like for anyone who wants to learn more we have a whole like resource. Center, we have a crypto 1 0 1 dictionary for nonprofits who have heard terms like blockchain and dow and don't know what they mean and wanna learn more. It's on our website. You know, we are really here as an educational resource and if anyone has questions they're curious about the space, like please reach out to us. [00:43:06] Our website is endowment.org or on twitter@endowment.org on Discord. You can email us. All of the links will be shared in the show notes and. Thank you George, this, this has been a great conversation. Well, thanks for your time and we appreciate the work. Thanks. | |||
| Greenpeace: ”Recycling is Futile” (news) | 07 Nov 2022 | 00:18:08 | |
Reality of Recycling Comes To Forefront As Environmental Concerns Peak
Nonprofit Greenpeace has released a new report acknowledging the gross inefficiencies and near futility of recycling, as reported by Grist. The report highlights that even while the use of plastics across the world surges, the amount of plastic that gets recycled has decreased, a symptom of a solution no match for the scale of a problem it hopes to address. Greenpeace states that “U.S. households generated an estimated 51 million tons of plastic waste in 2021, only 2.4 million tons of which was recycled.” Because of the complexities of sorting, the chemical hazards of the process, and the use of low-grade plastics, the U.S.’s recycling infrastructure is abysmally short of where it needs to be to reduce plastic waste. This report comes as the United Nations-sponsored COP27 climate summit commences in Egypt, where U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has warned the world is on a “highway to climate hell,” set against a backdrop of war and economic crises.
Summary
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| Voter Engagement Can’t Be One-and-Done | Voter Empowerment Project | 02 Nov 2022 | 00:52:16 | |
Interview with Dave Chandrasekaran, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Voter Empowerment Project. VEP leverages skilled volunteers to help front-line community-based organizations that work on voter engagement. Dave shares how they engage volunteers to support communities over time rather than just every 2 years.
Learn how trust was built with CBO's over time and how skill-based volunteering is creating amazing impact.
The Voter Empowerment Project (VEP) is a grassroots initiative that launched in November 2019 and mobilizes individuals to support voter turnout in high-need areas. VEP’s network of volunteer professionals provides remote technical assistance to small, high-impact, front-line organizations that mobilize voters in historically disadvantaged communities.
Find VEP on:
Rough Transcript
[00:00:00] We have a very timely guest on with the midterms coming up. We reached out to the voter empowerment project, voter empowerment.org, voter empowerment.org, and we found none other then the co-founder and executive director Dave Chandresakaran to join us on the podcast. [00:00:46] Dave, how is it? It's going great, George. [00:00:48] Thanks so much for having me on. [00:00:51] Well, I could imagine, I don't know, a million other things that you are racing to do as we approach such a important time in American Politic, but I maybe we could start with your story. How did, how did this begin? I, I know 2019 was the year, but maybe you [00:01:08] can bring us back. [00:01:09] Sure. Our founding was back in 2019, but it really was inspired by some experiences several of us had in 2016. And I, along with many of my colleagues who are here based in the DC area, we like to every election cycle go knock on doors and go phone bank, and we try to recruit as many of our friends and colleagues to come and do the. [00:01:30] And so in 2016, many of us were in Pennsylvania. And on, on one day I was in South Philadelphia knocking on some doors, predominantly African-American neighborhood. And there was an older black gentleman who answered the door in one case and had no interest in voting. And he explained that was because quote, you people come here every four years, you yell at us to go vote and you leave because you don't give a damn. [00:01:52] That's something that when I tell that story, often everyone in the room nods their head. They've all experienced that when they're doing election related work. But I think the problem was as I spoke to some of my colleagues in the campaign sector, they said, You know, that's what happens. You talk to 10 million voters and you upset 2 million of 'em. [00:02:07] It's just collateral damage. And I think as we experience what happened to people, especially communities of color after the 2016 election and for the years afterwards, a lot of people were absolutely suffering, especially people of color. And when we approached 2020, I really didn't wanna perpetuate that situation of having out of towners, parachute into black and brown neighborhoods and just tell them what to do and then leave. [00:02:31] And so we really, were brainstorming in 2019, how can we still activate volunteers from around the country, but do so in a way that's more respectful, that's gonna have, you know, meaningful impact and really values the communities we're talking to. And so we recognize that. Hundreds or thousands of really small, amazing non-profits out there that are doing this work. [00:02:52] And they do it year round and they're based in the community. They reflect the community. They work not just on elections or voter empower, empowerment or civics. They also work on housing and healthcare and education and criminal justice reform. So they just have far more trust in their communities, but a lot of them are under. [00:03:10] And so we thought, why don't we find volunteers from around the country, all of whom are just really smart and have a lot of skills, and let's go to these fall nonprofits and let's say, Hey, if you have access to our network of just really smart people, what could we do for you? And so that morphed into this model where we kind of became a pro bono consulting firm for small organizations that were at the front lines of helping get out. [00:03:32] That's [00:03:32] so interesting cuz you hear this, You know, you people come here every four years and tell us to go vote. It's like there's this giant voter apparatus, this amazing engine that gets revved up with the order of billions of dollars and then disappears, vanishes overnight. and it in one way makes complete sense. [00:03:55] It, it seems like there's just like a lack of feedback loops because I imagine the other side of the narrative, the people that are working for progressive change in these neighborhoods say, Well, well, well, yeah, well, we're going to do the work. Didn't you see that, this or that, or the things that happen, How do you view the, the underlying problem here? [00:04:12] I've labeled it as a feedback loop, but clearly that's over. [00:04:15] Sure. So if you think of the sort of electoral industrial complex, it's a multi-billion dollar industry that pops up every two years, every four. I recognize that for better, for worse, that's how our electoral system works. It's donors going to campaigns to political action committees, and then hundreds of millions of dollars spent mostly on advertising, on networks and digital space. [00:04:37] And the whole goal is either to persuade people to vote for your candidate or to eventually get them to come out to vote. And that's not gonna change any time soon. But for those of us who want to participate in a way that's maybe. We have built our model recognizing that there's amazing groups who do this work, who can help build trust among folks who are disenfranchised, who've really been left behind and can earn their trust. [00:05:00] When we then go and say, Hey, we'd love for you to register to vote. If you aren't, or we know you're registered, we'd love for you to go and exercise your right to vote. And what can we do to help you if there's barriers because of voter suppression laws, because of the difficulty in finding your polling place because you move. [00:05:14] and I wish there was more emphasis on that to the larger, broader industry that's working on elections to realize that investing in these groups and doing so not just every two years or four years, but year round, that really helps a lot of these groups report that's funding comes, you know, the summer before an election. [00:05:30] There's all this beltway influence on them of what they need to do with strings attached to the funding and then it disappear. So they hire people and then have to fire people and then find new ones again. And then, you know, and one thing I'm very thankful of is that a lot of the philanthropic community who cares about civic engagement and democracy have really moved more to this longer term investment in these kinds of organizations, multi-year grants that are big enough that they can hire and train quality staff, that they can use some of that money to invest in the community through outreach and events. [00:06:01] And I think that is having an. But I'll be honest, as you know, the rise in voter suppression in many states around the country is making the task of helping people vote all the more difficult, You know, dozens of laws have been passed in, in many, many states that are specifically targeted at help, making it harder to vote, especially for people of color and other disfranchised communities. [00:06:21] So I do hope that the larger industry that cares about voting rights will really look at how we invest that. and the support, not just episodically, but year round over the long term, and helping these groups really expand their impact over time. [00:06:37] I do wanna get more into how you are working with volunteers, training them, placing them, connecting them. [00:06:44] But I'm also curious because there's a sizeable voter engagement and, you know, midterm circus going on right now. I know you're focused on the overall, like how do we build over time, But I have you in this moment. What is top of mind for you right now? What are you looking for as we roll into what's gonna be a very noisy week [00:07:05] politically? [00:07:06] [00:07:06] Our model has two. One is helping amazing small, high-impact organizations working at the state and local level who are mobilizing communities of color and rural Americans and returning citizens and first time voters and young people, and we want to really help them expand their impact. [00:07:24] The second objective though, is activating more people in civic engagement, and so we really prioritize creating volunteer opportunities that are more accessible and meaningful and engaging. For people who otherwise wouldn't get involved. And in fact, in our first year of operations, over 80% had only participated in less than three campaign cycles. [00:07:46] 40% had never been involved. So we see that as our mission in addition to helping frontline work. And where that really comes in this year though, is what many people are noticing traditionally in midterm election. The enthusiasm among voters and the enthusiasm among volunteers and the enthusiasm among donors is just significantly lower than presidential years. [00:08:07] And I can honestly say that 2020 probably had the most attention compared to, you know, decades of elections. And I think we all understand why it was a very intense election. There was very vitriolic. But that really has had an impact on us when we're trying to find more people to participate as volunteers. [00:08:21] It was much more difficult this year compared to 20. So that was huge lessons in what we need to do in a year on fact function of engaging volunteers, building opportunities that will keep them involved, keep them enthusiastic and make sure that they're available to support these groups in a year round fashion. [00:08:38] Since that's the one, one of the most important things, I think we're seeing that the vitriol and, and devices and politics is not going, not going away anytime soon. And that certainly motivates some people. But there was a lot of people who were volunteers with us and a lot of the groups we. They just really care about helping people get out to vote. [00:08:54] It doesn't matter whether you're liberal or conservative, it doesn't matter, you know, where the voter is in the country. Everyone should be able to exercise their right to vote, especially those who've been disenfranchised. And I think that's been a huge selling point to a lot of the volunteers that we talk to, rather than door knocking or phone banking and talking to strangers on the phone. [00:09:11] And, you know, that's a very difficult circumstance difficult activity, and frankly, not everyone's good at. . But instead of that they can use their existing skills helping really amazing frontline groups and the staff they get to interact with. It's, it's just a much more pleasant experience. And so we certainly hope despite lower enthusiasm in these quote unquote off years, we wanna figure out how we can grow our impact in recruiting volunteers so that we're delivering for the groups that we're helping. [00:09:33] That makes sense. And so, Maybe you could say a bit more about, I think on a macro level, I will also say that we've seen a, a decrease in, in volunteers. There are, you know, big picture things like employment levels after effects of covid involved in this, as well as inflation costs of gas for transport. [00:09:54] That volunteering in general seems to be on a bit of a decline. What is your hope though, when you recruit volunteers at this time of year? There's a sudden surge, albeit much lower than our every four year. This is an off cycle. What is your hope though, in, in raising the, the visibility of the voter empowerment project, in front of volunteers? [00:10:18] I guess at this [00:10:19] moment [00:10:19] we are very much interested next year and focusing on understanding what motivates people to volunteer, what excites them about it, and what can we do. To earn their participation. So for example, we're really broadening our investment in professional development. So we recruit volunteers. The youngest was 14 in 2020. [00:10:40] The oldest was much, much older. They are anywhere from students in high school and college to early career professionals, to executives, to retirees. But especially for the younger volunteers, we know that there's a way we can help them develop. Help them find mentors, help them as they advance in their careers or in their education. [00:10:58] And so we really wanna highlight that. We wanna develop that more formally so that when we approach, you know, the masses we wanna recruit to volunteer, we can say this is something that you benefit from as well. So that it doesn't rely on people's political motivation or the intensity of an election cycle. [00:11:11] It's just an opportunity that they see that's meaningful to them. We also want to convey that volunteering to help other people vote. Perhaps it's just something everyone should. For those of us who have an easier time to vote, maybe that's a way of giving back the way. Volunteering at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, or helping to mentor young people in your nearby schools. [00:11:31] Those are things that many of us have done over the years. This is something we all should just do and everyone can do it whenever you have time using your existing skills. We really believe that it doesn't matter what skills you have. Maybe you have graphic design, social media skills, data analysis. [00:11:44] We need a lot of. But also just people who are really good at Googling information or really good at just writing and building information putting up to da the documents calling volunteers of a small nonprofit and getting them to come out to volunteer. There's a lot of ways people can help and, and it, so we're gonna spend a lot of time next year figuring out both what to offer and then how to take that message out to the public when we recruit volunteers. [00:12:07] Yeah, it's a couple steps removed, I imagine, on off cycle years and timing. It is. Potentially tough to connect that, that impact, right? A volunteer who hands out and creates, you know, impact in a soup kitchen is very different than someone who builds capacity in a frontline voter empowerment organization on the ground somewhere doing, you know, as you mentioned, data analysis or marketing, pr, communications, research. [00:12:38] You know, you're helping the people who are helping the people who are then going to vote. How, you know, are these times of year, maybe I'm getting into more specifically here, are these times of year easier because voting and the importance of voting is top of mind for recruiting volunteers? Or is it just so noisy that it is other sort of more, we'll say soup kitchen focused direct service on the ground, smile and dial types of volunteering that that overtake these. [00:13:07] The first thing I'll say is we really wanna say there's no such thing as an off year. That voting is a thing we should think about always, regardless of whether it's midterm or presidential election. And in fact, in many places, your state or your local municipal government will have elections in odd numbered years. [00:13:25] And there's many elections that happen. Some happen early in the year even. And so we want. Both voters understand the importance of coming out to vote, but also volunteers understanding the importance to volunteer throughout the year, throughout different cycles. And we recognize though that, that the larger narrative around what's happening, presidential election, you know, Democrats are Republicans, that's probably gonna motivate most people, but we really think that there were a lot of volunteers in 2020 who wanted to get involved, didn't know how, and once they did, they were really eager to come. [00:13:56] Our post activity survey in 2021 showed that 97% were interested in volunteering again, and 86% said that they just had a deeper understanding of issues around voter disenfranchisement. And over 60% said that really helped them understand issues around racial injustice. And so we hope that once folks get in the door and they participate once that, they'll really come back. [00:14:18] And we have seen that. But you're right, there's, there's, nothing's gonna make it easy to build enthusiasm at a time. People have been overwhelmed and traumatized by the pandemic and by other issues and political vitriol and criminal justice reform issues. So we wanna also be empathetic to that. [00:14:33] Our big motto is that those who want to help, here's an opportunity for one way you can. And there's many, many ways you can help, whether it's in voting or other ways. We just wanna create a very attractive one for the people that it'll benefit and who who would like to, to get involved. And so that's really on us to make that volunteer opportunity attractive. [00:14:51] And one of the things the volunteers really said, they appreciated volunteering in a nonpartisan way. They appreciated working with these frontline groups, most of whom are led by staff of color, who were just genuinely amazing people. And some of our volunteers built really great relationships with the staff of those groups on the ground, even if they lived a thousand miles away. [00:15:10] Some of them joined the boards of these organizations. Some of them became direct volunteers for these organizations. Some of them became donors. So I really think that experience is one that makes it worthwhile and we hope to really amplify that message by saying, Here's this great opportunity not just to help the public, but really to help you as well. [00:15:26] I really [00:15:27] am interested in how you're crafting this volunteer experience. Clearly based on the, you know, exit polling, , the surveying that you're doing of volunteers that are, are part of. It is working. How many volunteers have gone through this process? Can you gimme an idea of some of the numbers and then as much as you can, Like what kind of impact can you tell these volunteers are having given the wide range of services that these volunteers are then providing to frontline [00:15:56] organizations? [00:15:58] Since the start of 2019 when we launched, we've had, you know, close to 500 people sign up, interested in volunteering. About a half of them eventually ended up participating, getting onboarded, getting involved in a project. But I'd say about 180 or so have been like really active in doing, in delivering services. [00:16:15] And we certainly hope in the future to double or triple that number once we expand our capacity. We know. For most volunteers, it's really hard to balance their work commitments and other things going on in their lives during a pandemic childcare, a lot of you know a lot, and that's why we allow volunteers to volunteer when you have time. [00:16:36] Do you have a couple hours this week? Great. If that's, if there's a project that needs someone to help edit a newsletter and you have time to do it, great. Do it. And then if you're busy for a month, that's okay. And when you're free again, come back and we'll offer what other projects are. We also want to make sure that the groups we're helping are able to receive our help without adding burden to them. [00:16:54] And that's why one of the most important things we do is we manage the delivery of services. A lot of groups match people, They match volunteers to organizations, and I think that model absolutely works as well. But we wanted to be careful because. We didn't want the organizations to have to have an additional thing or additional person to have to oversee. [00:17:12] So we just get the info from an organization. Let's say they wanna update their website, They want new information on their civic engagement page. They just don't have time to research it. They don't have time to upload it. We'll find a volunteer who can do the research. We'll find a volunteer who can then take that information and write copy to go on the website. [00:17:26] And then we'll find a website expert who can then take it and put it up online, maybe a graphic design volunteer. We'll create some great graphics with it and add it to that webpage. And so, you know, multiple people are working on a. And we can get this done in maybe a week. And if folks want to go out and hire people, if they had the funds that could take, you know, three weeks just to sign the contract and then months of meetings, and then maybe it's update. [00:17:47] So we really value our rapid response process to help these groups who are in need, who just don't have the time or capacity to do it in house. This is such an [00:17:57] important point, and I'm really happy that we're turning towards it because I think there's this myth. All you have to do is point a volunteer at a nonprofit and boom, good things happen. [00:18:08] Ignoring the amount, the amazing amount of project management, organizing, messaging, and generally corralling of volunteers to have an actual workable product created. Maybe you can dig a little bit deeper into how this actually works, because it sounds like you are effectively running an agency. That is leveraging volunteers to have finite [00:18:36] deliverables [00:18:37] that can be relied on by these organizations. [00:18:42] Like, What, This sounds like a PM circus. What is going on? How are you doing [00:18:46] this? So we often describe ourselves as a pro bono consulting forum for small, under-resourced voting rights organizations at the front lines of voter engage. But I think that sounds a little corporate. So we really consider ourselves an organization that gives free technical assistance in a way that is tailored to what an organization drives is their needs. [00:19:08] But you're right, managing all of the different projects is an enormous hercule effort, and it's not insignificant. And that's one of the reasons we're really, you know, aggressively trying to raise more money from foundations, from donors, so that we can hire more staff. It really just comes down to. Good people who are organized, who can help recruit volunteers, who can help identify the great frontline groups that are doing voter engagement, and then who can help assign the volunteers of the work. [00:19:34] But the most important is following up and making sure the services get delivered, especially since volunteers are donating their time. It's not like their staff, It's not like you have that ability to sort of really just directly have that authority to sort of order them to get certain things done. [00:19:47] You're really asking for. , which is why we are very supportive in helping. Any time a volunteer needs help or needs information from the organization, we can help facilitate that if needed. Anytime the organization feels like a volunteer maybe isn't responding we'll step in and figure out what's going on and just wanna make sure that soup to nuts, everything gets done. [00:20:06] And that's our really we pride ourselves in delivering things on time and in a satisfactory fashion. In a way that's equal to or better than what a private sector consulting firm would do because these groups deserve that. They don't deserve second tier service. [00:20:21] We were talking with the podcast r i p, medical debt and how they turn $1 into a hundred dollars of leverage to alleviate medical debt. [00:20:30] I see for voter empowerment dot. That you actually can, can claim that you are getting a three to one, right? You're getting matched on your generous founders, which is awesome. Can you explain maybe, is there a leverage where I donate $1 to essentially your amazing project managers there who are organizing all of these volunteers and these hours, Like what type of leverage do you see happening with dollars put into the organiz? [00:21:02] Yep. I appreciate you bringing up our current fall fundraising campaign. Our, one of our board members has generously agreed to put up $10,000 in matching funds. She's gonna donate $200 for every donor who contributes this fall, and so we're very excited to be able to expand our impact by securing more funds that can both help us, you know, invest in hiring more staff, but also in different projects like our professional development program. [00:21:31] That's gonna help create opportunities for skills training and mentorship for our volunteers as well as for staff at the partners, because a lot of our frontline partners said we really would love more professional development opportunities, but we also wanna see how we can leverage getting more financial and other types of resources to our frontline partners. [00:21:48] And so, for example, in 2020, We recognized that a lot of our organization partners had never had voter file data before to help them target their messaging, target, their outreach, door knocking, et cetera. So we said, How can we help you access voter file data? And so we found some opportunities where they existed that were actually pretty affordable, but they didn't have it in their budget. [00:22:07] So we were able to raise a bit of money from some donors to pay for that voter. But then we realized we have this voter file data. Well now you need to use text banking tools and phone banking tools, et cetera. And some of them didn't have that. And so we said, Okay, why don't for, you know, for the next three months, we'll pay for those services for you so you can get it off the ground. [00:22:24] And then a lot of them had never done paid advertising on social media before, which is another key way to reach certain demographics. And so again, we were able to raise a bit of money to help them fund their digital marketing campaigns that we ran through volunteers, but we needed that tiny bit of money to help it get out the door. [00:22:40] So that's another area where we're willing wanna expand our project to help support these organizations. And donor and foundation support is gonna be critical to. [00:22:48] Yeah, there's a lot of leverage happening here. I, I don't know if it's even possible to say like, Oh, we do this many projects. This is the average size, this is the average output, or however it would come across. [00:22:59] But this is a leverage play very clearly, where you are able to create the, the tool, get access to the data, and then. Offer it to organizations that need it the most, on the front line and also, you know, it seems like provide funding to them on occasion as well. [00:23:16] Yeah, we've executed several hundred projects for the organizations and from a wide range. [00:23:21] It could be revamping or redoing many of their websites and no critique to non-profits. But our websites are not known for being cutting edge . And we were fortunate enough to have several computer science students who then became graduates from Stanford, who were just amazing at this stuff. And we also created, you know, 50 to a hundred pieces of individual social media content, graphics, cap. [00:23:43] That were plug and play for several organizations based on topics they described, or we analyzed voter file data for them to help them create targets of who they should go doorknob to, who they should phone bank based on the demographics and the zip codes that they wanted to focus on. Or we actually helped some groups figure out how to do volunteer recruitment better, so it could be anywhere from as simple as updating their volunteer signup form on their website to collect the information they need to better use their volunteers. [00:24:10] To researching what are some great student groups in your area? Or if you need, say, volunteers who speak Korean or Vietnamese, let's find some networks of people who speak that. And then we would actually engage those organizations to recruit those volunteers to the frontline partners. So the projects were, were really diverse. [00:24:25] And some would take an hour or three hours. Some would take, you know, once a week for, for three months to help execute. And it just, A broad range of ways. We help organizations and the, and create them in a way that volunteers who have different time, different skill sets and different interests can really plug in wherever they want. [00:24:42] Yeah. This [00:24:43] is, this is great. I'm, I feel like I'm being sold to become a volunteer. I'm like, Oh, I know how to do that. I could do that. I could, I know how this would work. Talk me through. I'd go, I would sign up on the form and then I'm contacted. I imagine I'm vetted to some extent. What would my experience be? [00:25:00] And I guess maybe it also depends on the time of year, because right now, let's just be honest, , you're volunteering to like work for the next week. This is not the, you know, maybe the right flow, but big picture, if you care about voter engagement, it seems like a great use of, of energy and skill. So walk me through what that, you know, onboarding, What does it feel [00:25:20] like? [00:25:20] What does it look. Well first off, George, I absolutely would like to recruit you to come volunteer, and I know several groups have been interested in launching podcasts. Your expertise would be very, very well received. Oh, yikes. . So, in terms of the process you know, if you find our website, voter empowerment.org, you know, you can click there to sign up to volunteer, and. [00:25:40] You know, you'll, we'll reach out to you pretty quickly and just say Thank you for volunteering. The signup form includes an opportunity for you to list what are the different skills you might have. It might be creative, like graphic design or social media or writing. It might be technical, like web design or data analysis. [00:25:56] Or computer programming, or it might be sort of logistics, an administration, like helping to recruit volunteers or helping with backend HR operations. and we'll, we'll onboard volunteers just to give an overview of what the experience is like and we really get a sense of, well, what kind of time, you know, do you have now over time, over the year? [00:26:16] And then we can add you to our list of volunteers based on the skill set you said you have. And as we approach organizations throughout the year and they share with us, Hey, right now I really need someone to help me draft some new social media content, we'll reach out to anyone who said they had social media expertise and say, Is anyone available to help this amazing. [00:26:33] Asian Pacific Islander Outreach Group in Arizona or in North Carolina create some new social media content targeting youth from API backgrounds. . And so we see which volunteer might have both the skill set, but also the sort of experience in those communities that can help volunteer. And then we'll, we'll, you know, ma link the organization and the volunteer and we'll oversee the process, provide them with any information and support and check in as they, you know, create the social media content. [00:26:59] We'll make sure it meets the needs of the partner, ultimately leading to creating, you know, a Google Drive full of content that the organization can, can use. And once that volunteer's completed, you know, we like to check in and see how things. and then the volunteers sort of able to come back whenever they, they are interested or if they get busy, they're, you know, we understand that and we, we, you know, give them their space cuz everyone has a lot going on. [00:27:20] But it really is flexible, built around your, your availability, your skills, and your interests. The other thing we do is that we know some people might come in with a little bit of knowledge of something, but not a lot. And maybe they wanna enhance those. So let's say you're, you know, preliminarily good at some website design, or maybe you're someone who likes the, you know, you wanna learn more about fundraising. [00:27:41] Well, maybe we'll pair you with a volunteer who's an expert in that on a project so you can get some sort of apprenticeship exposure. And we hope that you can develop those skills as a volunteer. Not just to be able to help other partners through v e P over time, but also that can add to your skill set as you develop your own career and can apply for jobs that look for those kind of skills. [00:28:01] So like I said, we really want to invest in the people participating in the program as much as we're investing in the organizations we're serving. [00:28:06] Yeah. That, you know, that makes, that makes sense in terms of just like the amount of time, like how much time is like, I'm gonna fill out this form. I'm like going through right now, I'm entering in my skills and the extra pieces that I can. [00:28:18] You know, what is the amount of time before I would be potentially placed on a project? Or is it, it's like I get called in if the project arises that matches [00:28:26] it. The volunteer can get invited whenever we have any project that seems to meet their skill set. So it might be that someone signs up and maybe they're someone who has video editing and video prediction skills. [00:28:37] And at the moment there isn't an organization who needs that. Well, it might be, you know, we're not gonna reach out to that volunteer right away until we have that. But for many of the groups, they have such a broad range of needs for, for so many different skill sets that most volunteers have something that fits some project that's open. [00:28:53] It can be as complex as doing some really sophisticated regression analysis of something, something through data, data tools, or it can be as simple as data. Just need to find out what is the demographic breakdown among 18 a plus year old in Milwaukee. Folks can just quickly research that and pull together and make it into a little, you know, worksheet that they provide to the partner. [00:29:17] So for most volunteers, we really will have an opportunity right away. Now you did mention, you know, how about right now we're less than a week away from the election, and it's true that most things towards the election is already in motion. But one of the things the organization said very clearly is that when they need help is not only September through. [00:29:37] Perhaps even more important, starting next year, January through next summer, the summer of 2024, that's when they have time to work on things, to take on new projects. That's when they really want to test out new tools or new ways of doing outreach. That's when they'd like to learn and take trainings on how to, they can improve their social media skills. [00:29:58] So we really are aggressively inviting people to sign up, to volunteer right now while elections are on their. So they can help us out, you know, in November, in December, and into next year, which I think is gonna make or break voter turnout in 2024, if that's something people care about. [00:30:13] The human [00:30:14] response to emotion and disaster thinking and of the moment is gotta be so frustrating for you. We donate and we're triggered to donate to disasters, hurricanes, when they happen, and then the interest die. As well as the attention and then the commitment to it falls off. So it really does seem like when people are motivated in this window is, is when you would recruit the most volunteers. [00:30:40] Is that accurate [00:30:42] or do I have this wrong? It's a hundred percent accurate that people are certainly more motivated to donate or volunteer. In the moment in a crisis in response to a, a severe event, whether that's, as you mentioned, hurricanes like Katrina or the tsunami in Southeast Asia or it's in the aftermath of earthquakes or, you know, horrible, horrific mass shootings in the US And then certainly elections and 2020 was probably a hallmark sign of how so many people were interested in getting involved. [00:31:11] And some found a way, but many didn't. And so we were one opportunity that many people got. And like I mentioned, a lot of folks said they appreciated our opportunity cause it was unique. It allowed them to use their existing skills and didn't put them outta their comfort zone and let them work with amazing small, frontline person of color led organizations. [00:31:29] But I think that's the reality and I don't blame anyone for being reactive when it comes to their tism in their philanthropy or their volunteer time. I think that's just part of human nature. And that certainly was the case for me when I was younger and, you know, I evolved to become someone who really got. [00:31:44] Year round. Volunteerism is a good thing, not just for the community, but for myself. And it can help me advance and grow as a person and in my career. So I take it upon ourselves to help educate the public that, you know, next year, next January, February, is as far away from an election cycle as you can be. [00:32:01] That's gonna, you know, really be on people's minds, but that might be the best time to come. Volunt. And we want to earn folks interest in that by creating opportunities that are easy, that are meaningful, that are rewarding by investing their professional development. But really, we're gonna sit down with all of the frontline organizations we work with, and we work with over 30, and we hope to grow that we're gonna find out what do you need now in 2023 to help you grow? [00:32:25] I wanna take that directly to the volunteers and say, I just heard from the most amazing frontline groups in Georgia and in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Arizona, and in Texas and Florida, and this is what they say they need to succeed. And you have those skills to help it. So we're partnering, We're looking to do an impressive outreach with universities. [00:32:44] For example, we've contacted about 300 universities in several of the states that we're working in, over the past couple weeks, thanks to our amazing interns who are working with us this fall. and we're talking to multiple student groups in those universities saying, We'd love for you guys to volunteer. [00:32:58] We'd love for your students to apply to intern with us, and we'd love to invest in those students so that they're getting something out of this. And we think that'll be a huge opportunity to, to both support young people, but also create a pipeline among them to become future leaders. In civic engagement, we wanna reach out to mid-career professionals, so folks who might be lawyers or data analysts or web designers and say, This could be a very easy way for you to compli. [00:33:23] what you're doing in your day job with a little bit of just rewarding altruism out there. And maybe that'll even help you build some connections and build relationships. And then there's a lot of executives and a lot of retirees who have enormous amount of skill, and especially the retirees have a lot of time on their hands. [00:33:37] Mm-hmm. and saying, You know, here's a great way you can help positively impact our country at a time when democracy is. So I'm consciously optimistic that we'll be able to recruit more volunteers despite, you know, this year's lower enthusiasm as we really invest in what we think is gonna matter to the volunteers. [00:33:54] One more important [00:33:56] part of the puzzle, I mean, you're dealing with a two-sided marketplace, which is notoriously the hardest where you're finding volunteers, but also the projects, the types of projects structured in a way that are. Package so that a volunteer can actually plug in play. But more importantly, you mentioned the, the 30 community based organizations as I understand it, that, that you have and you have built trust with because you know that is really where the actual impact occurs. [00:34:26] Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you recruit them, how you work with them to find those types of projects, and even like what is the most common project you see coming [00:34:35] in 2020? Yep. In late 2019 and early 2020, I just researched, you know, civic engagement organizations in the many states we were focusing on. [00:34:47] And I could tell you it was an enormous amount of research. I built a, a very impressive list of 300 plus organizations and I just called email . And then I had emailed them a second time and then a third time, and I got a response rate of maybe about 10%, but even that was 20 plus organiz. But I heard from one of our, you know, the first organization we work with, an amazing group in Michigan called API Vote Michigan. [00:35:05] The director has since joined our board and, and she's lovely. Rebecca, she's just been an amazing partner. She told me, you know, I got this email from you for free help and communications and social media and web design. I just didn't think it was real. It seemed too good. Definitely fake. Definitely [00:35:20] fake. [00:35:20] Here's three. Yeah, sure. Where's the catch? Where's the, you? . [00:35:25] And so you're right. We really had to earn the trust as a new organization that at the time was grassroots. We weren't incorporated at the time. We were just a, I always say we were just a bunch of nerds with the Google spreadsheet and we were eventually able to earn through, you know, having her on board, having a couple others during our pilot phase, having them be able to give us quotes that we used in our email outreach to other groups to show that we were real. [00:35:45] And so over time we built up, you know, we built connections with several groups, but the most important thing that we learned from them was that they. Didn't wanna be told what to do. And I think that's a very common relationship between Washington, DC and community based groups. Out in the field is a very didactic relationship, and that's not what we were, We were very wanted to hear from them what their needs were. [00:36:05] But the other thing they told us is that we would give 'em a list of ways we could help and they said, I didn't even know I could access voter file data, or I didn't even think about creating video ads to post on social media. So we didn't know what we didn't know until v p came and showed us the opportunities and that I really take pride in that we were able to help expand their scope of what they wanted to do to impact other entities out there. [00:36:26] We were fortunate enough to then get incorporated. Last year we joined a fiscal sponsor that handles all our back ends and now, Formal non-profit c3. We have our web domain, we have our formal emails, so that really helps in our outreach now. And I can assure you I haven't had as much difficulty getting organizations reaching out to me lately. [00:36:42] Many, many want help. And so we're actually in the opposite circumstance where we have so many projects that need to be done and not as many volunteers. Oh, interesting. Come all on. But again, I think that's the heat of the election cycle. Could we really ramped up in the summer and. And I hope next year as we are past the election cycle, we have a bit more time to both grow our volunteer network to invest in them, but also work with the organizations. [00:37:03] You know, they don't need a three day turnaround on something after the election the way they do now. So after the election, we can take a writing project on, and it's okay if it lasts three weeks, or we can do a web design and it's okay if it lasts a month, and that'll just help increase the number of volunteers who can participate since it'll fit their schedule. [00:37:19] That makes a lot of sense, but it also sounds like a lot of work. But that's where the leverage comes in, right? That right there is, you know, building that trust packaging, productizing the types of ways that, v e P can support via volunteers and, you know, then, then move those, those projects forward. I mean, it's, it's really impressive. [00:37:41] And I will say I'm, I'm sold. I officially, I hope I don't offend you. I literally did. The whole submission of my, my form as a, as a potential volunteer. So, maybe I'll be doing a follow up on my actual experience, because this makes a lot of sense to me. [00:37:55] I'm always satisfied and happy when I hear a new volunteer signs up close. [00:37:59] Very exciting. And I, I am shameless in recruiting anyone and everyone in all of my personal, professional and social engagement. So, so I'm very thankful, for you to. I should have [00:38:08] known when I entered into this, this podcast that this would be the net result. Before we move into the Rapid Fire, any final, final thoughts, notes on the upcoming midterms, the chaos confusion or what you see with the [00:38:22] organization? [00:38:24] Yeah, I'd say two things. One is, uh, someone who's worked both in the voter engagement volunteer side, but also on the policy side, trying to pass the Freedom to Vote Act this past year that. . I would argue that democracy is under attack now more than it's been in well over half a century, and I haven't been around for half a century. [00:38:40] So I've consulted a lot of folks who ha were around when the Voting Rights Act and others Civil Rights Act were passed. And they absolutely agree that the vitreal and divisiveness we have now is, is very scary. And most importantly, the laws that were passed to disenfranchise the vote have made it so that it's becoming legal. [00:38:58] To basically impede someone's constitutional right to vote. And so we really just hope people recognize that and are able to step up again with whatever they can. So my second point is when it comes to the voter empowerment project, we believe strongly that everyone can help in at least one of three ways. [00:39:14] You can volunteer, you can donate, or you can share. Now we'd love for you to volunteer, but not everyone's schedule allows, or maybe that's not meet their interest. But then would you be considering making a tax deductible donation at $25 during our fall fundraising campaign where you know it's gonna get matched by 200 bucks? [00:39:31] Uh, but if for, for some reason that's not possible either, can you just take our website and post it on social media? Say you heard it on this podcast, Sounded like a neat opportunity. Maybe you know, a few friends who have skills in graphic design or data analysis or web design or writing or fund. Can you email them real quickly and say, Hey, check out this website. [00:39:48] And we really feel like everyone can do at least one of those three things to help us try to preserve democracy. And I'm not being hyperbolic. I, you know, it's scary to think about where this country could be in 10 years or more if things continue in this way. So I'm, I'm just hoping we all can do our part and step up in whatever ways we can. [00:40:04] Yeah. [00:40:05] Catalyze on this, this moment of compassion and concern for the actual work that needs to be done with the organizations on the front. Makes a lot of sense to me. Alrighty. Moving into rapid fire. Here we go. What is one tech tool or website that you or your organization has started using in the [00:40:23] last year? [00:40:23] We recognize that doing everything off of spreadsheets was not possible. And so especially for managing all of the individuals who've donated to us and others we went to a very simple but very accessible CRM called action. And a lot of non-profits start there. There's, you know, bigger ones and more sophisticated ones that are more expensive, but it's really proven to be a very great entry level one for us to really get our, the, the hu the humans we work with into a, a, a more manageable circumstance, uh, so we can engage with them better, but also keep track of who's involved with voter empowerment project. [00:40:57] What tech issues are you currently battl? [00:41:00] The single biggest tech challenge we've had is being effective at project management tracking. So we've been using spreadsheets primarily, and I think we were lucky enough to have some pretty smart data people who created really sophisticated. [00:41:12] Formula is in our project management spreadsheet, so it is very functional, but we recognize the need to move over to more sophisticated project management tools. And we're actually in the process of doing so. Uh, we have a contractor who's bringing us on to monday.com in the next week or so, one of many that's out there. [00:41:27] And we definitely recommend to small non-profits that these tools, the one that fits your budget, the one that fits your needs. I really do think that they have a return on investment. Uh, and so we're excited to transition over. What [00:41:40] is coming in the next year that has you the most excited? [00:41:43] I do believe that one way or the other, the elections will motivate people to get more involved in democracy, or at least I'm consciously optimistic. [00:41:52] And I think everything that's happening in our public discourse, is, is being felt by more and more people. I hope then we can tap into that by and recruit them to volunteer and that we'll. The broad volunteer base next year like we had in 2020 to really meet the needs of the frontline partners that we know is gonna be great next year. [00:42:11] Can [00:42:11] you talk about a mistake that you made earlier in your career that shapes the way you do [00:42:15] things? Now? [00:42:16] Throughout my career, one thing I know I've done is try to do everything for everyone, all the. And that means, especially when working with Frontline Partners, which has been a core aspect of my career, whether it's health policy or gender based violence or here in voting rights, and in this project, we really recognized the need to focus in on where help was needed most. [00:42:37] And so we, you know, had to pick certain states where we knew voter suppression was at high risk. We also had to decide which services do we do, and which services do we know not focus on. We purposely limited our focus to voter engagement and not policy and. And then we really had to decide which groups to work with. [00:42:54] And so we prioritized small groups that are under resourced, that are at the state and local level. Even though there's other groups that are very deservative of help, we just wanted to tailor and focus in so we can, you know, do it well for the people we're serving. [00:43:07] Do you believe that [00:43:08] nonprofits can successfully go out of [00:43:10] business? [00:43:10] I think I have a broad response to that question. I think there are circumstances where there's a very intense specific need, a need to pass this bill, a need to address this urgent climate crisis that's in a particular community where a coalition can form or a non-profit can set up and they can say, Look, we're here through the end of this problem. [00:43:28] It might be a year, it might be five years. We're fundraising for it, we're staffing up for it, we're gonna. For the better. And then we disband, and I think that's healthy. So I think sometimes a lot of non-profits start up and then they're just in perpetuity forever, and then they're just fundraising forever and then they just become part of the Emilio. [00:43:43] But I do think a lot of the other non-profits that are built to solve some of the most intense issues of inequity, both domestically and internationally, I, I just don't have optimism that we're gonna solve most of those issues anytime soon. And so sadly, we do need those non-profits to exist and to fundraise and to have. [00:43:59] Over the long haul as we try to solve really big problems with really great solutions. Do you think the voter [00:44:05] empowerment project could successfully [00:44:07] go out of business? I will happily, you know, close up shop of the voter empowerment project. If and when every person is very able to exercise their right to vote in a, in a easily accessible way. [00:44:22] I think the trend is heading in very much the opposite direction. And so, you know, the main reason for us incorporating is. We check, is there a need for this model long term? Is there a support for it? Is, you know, does our frontline partners think that they need this help, uh, going forward? And the answer was absolutely yes. [00:44:38] So for as long as we can be helpful, we'll be around, uh, as long as we have the funding to do so. But if and when voting becomes as easy as it should be in the country, I will be the first person to close up our shop, free up our web domain for anyone else, and to, for us to go focus on the next big problem. [00:44:54] We won't be holding [00:44:55] our breath. Uh, aspirationally. I like it. If I were to put you in a hot tub time machine back to the beginning of your work with the voter Empowerment project in 2019, what advice would you give yourself? [00:45:07] Uh, a few, a few things. One would be start earlier. Uh, we certainly were aggressive in our thinking in 2019, but you know, we should have started it earlier. [00:45:13] The second would be to build relationships with formal entities sooner. Whether that's national organizations or especially universities. Uh, it wasn't until later that I really realized how much students were an, an amazing source of volunteers and had unbelievable skills, social media, web design, writing, uh, so start there earlier. [00:45:32] And then thirdly, I would've invested our project management tool much earlier on because I think that would've made us much more efficient. And so I do encourage organizations to think about that instead of just relying on spreadsheets and. [00:45:44] What [00:45:44] is something that you think your org should [00:45:47] stop doing? [00:45:49] We're really exploring next year comprehensively. What should our focus area be? You know, do we continue exactly how our model is? Should we expand the organizations we work with? Should we expand how we help? Should we look into charging money for our services? I. One of the things I think we've been good at is making sure we don't have mission creep. [00:46:07] And so I want us to resist that urge as much as possible. Cuz we've all, we've all heard the great need from the frontline organizations and so far we've been able to resist. I think there's a temptation to want to do more and to expand outward in a way that might stretch us too thin. And so that's one thing that I'm really hoping we, we avoid doing. [00:46:25] If you had a magic [00:46:26] wand to wave across the industry, what [00:46:28] would it. I would absolutely love more organizations to make good on their commitments to dei. I think there's a lot of talk and a lot of great language on websites about wanting to diversify their staff and wanting to ensure that more funding is going to under-resourced organizations from historically, you know, underprivileged communities. [00:46:46] I think it's starting, It's nowhere near where it should be, and so I'm the kind of person that wants to have this job. But if there's a great person with lived experie, That really has a better way to fit. I wanna be someone who will step out of the way and let them take the reins. And I just hope more people in the in the movement will recognize that one of the problems is who's in charge, and if they're willing to step away, that might actually help, uh, advance the cause. [00:47:08] How did you get started in the social impact sector? [00:47:11] It's interesting because my college focus very, was actually biology. I was really into the hard sciences and life sciences and wanted to pursue, you know, medicine over time. But before I applied to med school, I actually did an AmeriCorps program in Boston for two years working with young people in Boston, as well as focusing on healthcare advocacy in Massachusetts, and I got hooked. [00:47:30] I loved the advocacy area. I love the organizing side. I love the policy side. You know, the thinking part of my brain. Loved problem. But the human side really loved working with people, especially people who were facing challenges. Uh, and so that really, really stuck to me and I ended up going to med school and then halfway through I ended up quitting. [00:47:48] Cause I really missed the advocacy side when coming back to it. So I thank AmeriCorps so much for that experience. What [00:47:55] advice would you give college grads currently looking to enter the social impact sector? [00:48:00] I think broadly is. Really identify what is it you care about in terms of issue. Is it healthcare? [00:48:07] Is it climate? Is it, uh, criminal justice reform? Think about the ways you, what you like to do. Is it social media? Is it writing? Is it fundraising? Is it policy? Is it organizing? And then reach out to as many people as you know that are in the field. Not everyone likes to take on college grads as mentors, but many people out there are happy to talk to you. [00:48:25] I'm happy to talk to folks to just give them that advice. I will say this, right now, when you look at the job, If you are in development or you're in digital strategy, those are the two things. Well, you'll be employed for the next 10 to 20 years for sure. So if that's something you understand, I definitely recommend going into fundraising, Going into social media, digital strategy, what advice [00:48:45] did your parents give you that you either followed or didn't quite [00:48:49] follow? [00:48:50] Uh, my, I think at a young age, certainly there was a lot of pressure to do well in school and to make. And I think, uh, I think over time I've been able to help my parents understand how great it is to be in sort of progressive non-profit advocacy. But I think probably most importantly is they're just very into family and community and just sort of, you know, loving respect and honoring people in your life and, you know, contributing that way. [00:49:13] And I absolutely think I channeled that to the broader community at large. Uh, I will say the advice they're not, I'm not taking, that they would be mad at is going to visit them more. And so I think I know I need to do. Thanksgiving coming up, so I'll, I'll be sure to go and see them. Gotta go visit. Have you called [00:49:28] your mom [00:49:30] Yes. We talk, we talk periodically. Not as much as they'd like, but uh, but they've actually over the years, have become a lot more active in social justice issues and fundraising and donating and whatever. They sort of do something progressive or they donate money to a candidate or they, you know, knock on doors. [00:49:43] My mom will always text me excitedly and so it, it is heartwarming to see sort of how we've both, you know, we kind of share those interests in sort of supporting the. That's awesome. [00:49:52] Also, shout out to my mom, who's probably listening to this podcast. Hi mom. Alrighty, , final hardball question. How do people find you? [00:50:00] How do [00:50:00] people help you? [00:50:01] Please check us out@voterempowerment.org. As I mentioned earlier, there's three ways you can help that anyone can help. You can volunteer, you can donate, or you can share. Please sign up to volunteer. I promise you the opportunities will be fun. They'll be interesting, they'll be meaningful and rewarding, and we invest in you so you can grow your skills. [00:50:21] If you can't do that, or in addition to, can you please donate $20, $25, a hundred dollars, whatever you can spare, our, our generous board member is matching every donation with a $200, uh, match. And so we hope to get as many donors between now and the holiday. And then lastly, can you share our website? Can you share our social media? [00:50:40] Adam Empower Voters on Twitter and on Instagram. And voter empowerment.org is our website. We just need more people to know about us to know that we exist, cuz we know once folks find out about us and get involved, they really do appreciate our model and what, what it sort of allows for them to do as a volunteer. [00:50:54] And we just need to get that word out more. And we really appreciate everyone helping us do so. You have [00:50:59] it. Share either your time, your treasure, or your tweets. Do. I love the skill-based approach to a massive problem facing democracy in our country. I wish you all the best, and I thank you. Thank you for [00:51:12] the work you do. [00:51:14] Thank you George, so much for having me. And thank you for doing this innovative podcast. I, I always appreciate it and folks in the media really prioritize bringing folks on board who can talk about, you know, movement building. And so thank you so much for what you [00:51:24] do.
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| AI in the Nonprofit Sector: Revolutionizing Social Change (news) | 04 Jun 2024 | 00:15:41 | |
Hosts: George Weiner (Chief Whaler, Whole Whale), Nick Azualy (Senior Manager Strategy, Whole Whale) This week's episode of the Nonprofit Newsfeed dives deep into the growing influence of AI in the nonprofit sector. George Weiner and Nick discuss the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities, highlighting key stories and developments. Main Topics
The episode underscores the transformative potential of AI in the nonprofit sector, while also emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and responsible implementation. As AI continues to evolve, nonprofit professionals must navigate these changes thoughtfully to maximize positive social impact. | |||
| Terrifying Twitter Trends - Nonprofits React (news) | 01 Nov 2022 | 00:23:01 | |
Reactions, And Worries, As Musk Twitter’s Takeover Is Finalized
Elon Musk’s $44 Billion takeover of Twitter was completed last week, with Musk officially becoming the owner and de-facto CEO of the influential social media platform. The drawn-out saga of the acquisition, which at times seemed like it would fall through, marks the beginning of a new chapter for a platform now run by one of its most prominent users. Musk's ownership has raised new questions about content moderation, rules around speech, and other fundamental questions about what Twitter (and by proxy, social media) should even be. The takeover, with Musk being a self-proclaimed advocate for “free speech,” has spurred a sharp increase in derogatory posts from trolls, according to the nonprofit Network Contagion Research Institute. While Musk sought to assuage the fears of advertisers by saying the platform would not become a “free-for-all hellscape,” some prominent corporate advertisers already appear to be wary of the change in discourse on the platform.
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| Girl Scouts Get $85 Million Historical Donation (news) | 25 Oct 2022 | 00:21:19 | |
Girl Scouts Get $85 Million Donation From MacKenzie Scott MacKenzie Scott, known for historic billion-dollar donations continues to change nonprofits’ fortunes, this time with an $85 million donation to the Girl Scouts of USA. The donation is the single largest donation in the organization’s history since its founding in 1912, and will help the organization recoup a loss of programming and membership as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reporting from KUSA.com. According to the report, only 2% of philanthropic giving in the United States goes directly to programs expressly interested in serving women and girls. Youth membership in the Girl Scouts dropped nearly 30% in the first year of the pandemic.
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| “Big Lie” Affiliated Nonprofits Scrutinized By FBI (news) | 18 Oct 2022 | 00:19:27 | |
“Big Lie” -Affiliated Nonprofits Scrutinized By Authorities On Eve of Midterm General Election
Two organizations associated with the “Big Lie,” the disproved conspiracy that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, face scrutiny for financial impropriety. The Arizona Attorney General (a Republican who as recently as 2020 courted Trump’s endorsement) has asked the FBI and IRS to probe the nonprofit organization True The Vote, an organization that purported to document unfounded claims of election fraud, according to reporting from Politico. Similarly, the nonprofit organization Defending The Republic led by Sidney Powell, a prominent character in the plot to deny the 2020 election results, has made highly questionable expenditures after raising $16 million, including to private companies that Sidney Powell is listed as a manager, as well as reportedly expenditures to Powell’s personal legal fees. The Justice Department has subpoenaed Defending The Republic’s documents as Powell herself faces multiple lawsuits, legal sanctions, and other legal inquiries as reported by The Washington Post.
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| 10th Annual Giving Tuesday: Predictions & Strategies | Big Duck | 18 Oct 2022 | 00:32:22 | |
Discussion with Farra Trompeter, Co-director of Big Duck, and George Weiner about the 10th anniversary of Giving Tuesday. How should your organization approach this year's event on November 29th?
Will Giving Tuesday raise a new record on the day? Whole Whale predicts it will.
Should your organization adopt a new 'Collective' giving approach to the day? Farra talks through a recent post about collective giving how to bring a spirit of abundance and consider how you can use this day to educate and inspire your supporters beyond your mission. https://bigduck.com/insights/approaching-givingtuesday-with-a-collective-lens/
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| Marijuana Win For Social Justice (news) | 11 Oct 2022 | 00:21:26 | |
Weekly Nonprofit News summaries. In Win For Criminal Justice Advocates, Biden Pardons Marijuana Charges & Orders Evaluation of Cannabis Scheduling The Biden Administration announced last week a series of pardons for those charged on federal, simple marijuana possession charges, in a win for criminal justice reform advocates. The legacy of the Nixon Administration’s “War On Drugs” is still felt throughout the United States, where black and brown Americans are more likely to be charged for marijuana use than white Americans, despite similar rates of usage. NPR quotes Patrice Willoughby, vice president of policy and legislative affairs at the NAACP, who says that “The failed policies on drug criminalization have ensnared many on nonviolent, marijuana offenses.” Biden has also “instructed the attorney general and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to start the process of reviewing marijuana’s status under federal law, according to Politico. Advocacy groups continue to highlight the need for reforms at the state level.
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| What is the CURE for medical debt? | RIPMedicalDebt.org | 06 Oct 2022 | 00:45:51 | |
On this episode Allison Sesso, the CEO & President of RIP Medical Debt talks about their unique approach to alleviating medical debt of Americans. By leveraging medical debt markets and partnering with hospitals, RIP Medical Debt is able to achieve 100X leverage on every dollar donated to wipe out debt at scale.
How big is the problem? The SIPP survey suggests people in the United States owe at least $195 billion in medical debt. Approximately 16 million people (6% of adults) in the U.S. owe over $1,000 in medical debt and 3 million people (1% of adults) owe medical debt of more than $10,000.
RIP Medical Debt by the numbers:
RIP Medical Debt was founded in 2014 by two former debt collections executives. Over the course of decades in the debt-buying industry they met with thousands of Americans saddled with unpaid and un-payable medical debt and realized they were uniquely qualified to help those in need. They imagined a new way to relieve medical debt: by using donations to buy large bundles of debt that is erased with no tax consequences to donors or recipients. From this idea RIP Medical Debt was born, a New York based 501(C)(3). The results have been spectacular—billions in medical debt eradicated so far, providing financial relief for millions of individuals and families.
About Allison Sesso President / CEO Allison Sesso became the President / CEO of RIP Medical Debt in January of 2020. RIP Medical Debt was established for the sole purpose of reducing the medical debt burdens of low-income individuals with limited capacity to pay their medical bills by leveraging donations from people across the country. They have abolished $7,091,262,274 to date for over 3,987,191 people. Under Allison’s leadership and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, RIP Medical Debt launched the “Helping COVID Heroes Fund” focused on relieving the medical debts of healthcare workers and emergency responders like nurses, home health aids, pharmacists, social workers, hospital technicians, the National Guard and others working on the front lines of the pandemic. It also benefits service workers and others facing financial hardship resulting from the COVID induced economic downturn. Through this effort RIP has abolished over $100 million in medical debt. Prior to joining RIP Medical Debt, Allison served as the Executive Director of the Human Services Council of New York (HSC), an association of 170 nonprofits delivering 90% of human services in New York City. Under her leadership HSC pioneered the development of nationally recognized tools designed to illuminate risks associated with government contracts, including an RFP rater and government agency grading system. She led negotiations with New York City and State government on behalf of the sector and successfully pushed for over $500 million in investments to address the nonprofit fiscal crisis. During her tenure at HSC, Allison also led a commission of experts focused on socialdeterminants of health and value-based-payment structures and published the report,Integrating Health and Human Services: a Blueprint for Partnership and Action, that examines the challenges of operationalizing relationships between health and human services providers, offering several recommendations. She also served on the New York State Department of Health’s Social Determinants and Community Based Organizations (CBO) Subcommittee helping to formulate recommendations around the integration of CBOs into Medicaid managed care. Allison’s work on behalf of the human services sector led City & State to recognize her as a top nonprofit leader in 2018 and 2019, one of the 25 most influential leaders in Manhattan in 2017, and one of New York City’s 100 “Most Responsible” in 2016. She recently received the 100 “Most Responsible” award for the second time for her efforts at RIP Medical Debt. Allison also serves as the Vice Chair of the nonprofit “Right to Be,” formerly Hollaback!, a global movement working to end harassment through bystander intervention training and storytelling.
Rough Transcript
[00:00:00] George Weiner: This week we have an awesome guest who I, I think I promised I would track down somebody from R IP medical Debt because they kept showing up in the news and innovative approach to dealing with, uh, a tremendous. Problem in America around, uh, I'd say healthcare and debt, and none other than Allison Seso, the CEO and President is joining us. [00:00:52] This means a lot. Thank you, Allison, for, for taking the time today. [00:00:55] Allison Sesso: Thanks for hunting us down and finding us. We love talking about our work and, and the issue of, of medical debt, so I appreciate every opportu. . Well, [00:01:05] George Weiner: let's drive right into it on the front page of r i p medical debt.org. On the front page of the.org site, I see every $100 donated relieves 10,000 in medical debt. [00:01:19] First off. That gets my attention. What a perfect way to start a conversation. But how does that work exactly? [00:01:29] Allison Sesso: Yeah. We are a, uh, a unique model and we take advantage of the for profit, uh, debt market, uh, and use it for a mission driven purpose, which is really exciting and, and I think unique. So we do get an incredible return on investment and it's because there is a market for debt buying, uh, that is, has been established, and That is because, uh, there is a for profit industry that we take advantage of, uh, and they are looking to make money off of the issue of debt. We, on the other hand, are trying to relieve debt, so we take donations from individuals, we take 'em to the debt market, and we buy large portfolios at. [00:02:10] So, the individuals that are in those portfolios tend to be financially burdened. They are poor, they are, um, in fact, to qualify for our program, you have to be 400% of poverty or below, or the debt birth burden has to be significant compared to your overall income. So it has to be 5% or more of your income. [00:02:28] We do an analysis of the debt portfolio and we buy all of the accounts that qualify and then we purchase them based on. For profit rates. And so we're competitive with that market, but because the for profit folks are trying to make money, they have to really depress the prices and they have to have a really deep discount in order to make sure that they're making their money back. [00:02:49] And so we don't have to make our money back. And so we're able to take, you know, $1 and turn it into a hundred dollars of medical debt relief. And as you pointed out, you can ex expand that. So, you know, $500 gets rid of 50. Um, $50,000 of medical debt. And so that's how we're able to, provide massive debt relief to the tune of $7 billion to date and grow. [00:03:12] George Weiner: Yeah, I think there's a lot to unpack there. Maybe I, um, wanna poke a little bit more into like, making sure I actually get this. So let's say I'm, you know, a family living below the, the poverty line meeting your, your standards. There's an, uh, unexpected accident and injury. I then am in the hospital for a few days and suddenly I'm walking around with 45 grand in debt overnight. [00:03:34] And because of the way our systems work, this is now. A debt I owe to creditors. Now that debt, as I understand, can first go from the hospital to maybe a secondary buyer, right? There's like all these markets of like, Oh, I'll grab that one, I'll grab that one. And then it seems like they're, there's a discount on it cuz it's not dollar for dollar you're getting. [00:03:56] A hundred x leverage on it. So there's some discounting of my debt with that 45,000. Can you just walk me through like the individual, like I am sitting here, I've got 45 grand in debt. I can run off to a sort of like Go fund me type site and be like, Please, please, please, please pay this money. I have a story. [00:04:19] I have a narrative. And unfortunately I have to compete with other stories around me. What is the alternative path that my 45 K debt takes in your world? [00:04:29] Allison Sesso: Yeah, so your, I could buy your debt probably for $45. That's the diff . That's, that's the difference. It's pretty, you know, I'm sorry, I don't understand. [00:04:39] I'm sorry For $450. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Um, Um, Um, so yeah, I could buy your debt for $450 and that is because I'm not just buying your. I am buying the entire provider's portfolio of bad debt, so it's more attractive of an option. So basically I'm, I'm a hospital or another healthcare provider. I am serving people who can't afford to pay. [00:05:02] They are poor as you just described. And, and by the way, just to be clear, it's 400% of poverty or below, so it's not just under poverty, but four times the amount of poverty. So it's people that are poor but but not necessarily. Oh, so [00:05:16] George Weiner: four x the whatever, $45,000 Exactly. Anywhere you are. Okay. So [00:05:21] Allison Sesso: that, that matter. [00:05:22] So we're really like helping people that. Really trying to make ends meet but aren't actually, uh, technically in poverty based on the federal definition. So you, you know, you, there's, there's, you have to, In order for our model to work, we're buying the entire portfolio of many of those individuals who have the 45,000 or a thousand dollars or $2,000 of debt. [00:05:43] Uh, that all together. So it's source driven. So basically I'm going to the hospital or other healthcare provider and I'm saying, Give me the debts. Give me your entire portfolio of debt that you have tried to collect and you have been unable to collect and mostly been able, unable to collect because the individuals are, uh, financially stressed out and can't. [00:06:03] Afford to pay this bill. I will look at that portfolio and I will assess what can I pay for that? And this is if I'm a for-profit, not F R P medical debt, but as a for-profit debt buyer, I will say, Okay, I'm gonna pay this. I'm gonna pay you an X amount of dollars for the entire portfolio for thousands of people's bads. [00:06:23] On the bet that at least I can squeeze enough out of that. Mm-hmm. , you get to make up for the investment that I've made plus, Right. Cuz I'm looking for a profit and I squeeze those individuals either by calling them, by putting it on their credit, you know, and giving them bad credit by sometimes suing them and taking, putting leans out on their. [00:06:43] Um, on their cars, on their vehicles. So I take different tactic to try and collect on that. And so that establishes this debt market that establishes a price that is very depressed and discounted. And again, that's what r i p medical debt takes advantage of. So I'm competing with that already depressed price that is driven by the fact that people are trying to make a profit off of these bad debts. [00:07:05] But in my world, I've sort of flipped it on its head and I'm. I will pay the same as the for profits, but I'm not trying to make a profit. I'm just trying to provide relief. So I'm going to take donated dollars, so I don't need to make any money back. I'm gonna go to that same debt market. I'm gonna say, give me all of the bad debts that you have available. [00:07:25] I'm gonna pull out the ones that are for, which is most of them, like 80% oftentimes of people who are financially uh, struggling. And I will pay. this amount, and I pay based on, usually the debt is, um, the older it is, the cheaper it is because [00:07:42] George Weiner: the idea is it pays outstanding, puts a higher discount on the probability [00:07:46] Allison Sesso: that gets behind. [00:07:46] I'm, I'm paying like, you know, a million dollars for, you know, $300 million worth of debt in one fail swoop. And so it's thousands of people that are getting helped. [00:07:58] George Weiner: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So staying with the story here, I have incurred this 45,000. I have not been able to pay it back in thirty, ninety, a hundred eighty days. [00:08:09] I am within that window of one to four x the poverty level. And do you like show up at my door? Like an oversized check. Is it like, uh, so like how am I notified that? Like, hey, you're suddenly like, you don't owe this anymore. Like, how does this final, like I release you of your burden before, Like what, Like is there a confetti? [00:08:34] I'm like, that would be a lot of, uh, groundwork for us because we've helped over 4 million people. So that'd be a lot. Lot [00:08:40] George Weiner: of confetti. And then we got the environmental problem on that. A lot of conf the [00:08:43] Allison Sesso: confetti ideas. Yeah, exactly. It would be a lot, lot of champagne, you know, it would be a lot. no, we, what we do, first of all, The debts tend to be at least a year old because the hospital does it is required like by regulation, they have to try to collect that could be sending one letter, it could be sending two letters. [00:08:59] It depends. And so every hospital is different. And the thing is, when you've seen one hospital and their approach to collections, you've seen one hospital and their approach to collections. So there is no like, well what's the standard? There's some norms, but there's really differences. Like for example, not while hospitals sell their debt roughly and. [00:09:17] Like, I'm not even a hundred percent sure, like, but it's roughly like 30% of hospitals that sell their debt. So not even all hospitals sell their, their debt to begin with. but we do get hospitals to sell to us that don't normally sell to other for profit debt buyers, which is, I think, important. But So you are that individual. [00:09:34] We would not have access to your file and your debt and when, until a hospital engages with us and agrees to work with us. So that's an important element of our model, is that hospitals have to be interested in working with us and say yes to dis debt relief. Once we get a hospital involved, we will get their entire bad debt portfolio. [00:09:53] So you, if your debt of that 40, uh, what did you say? $45,000? Mm-hmm. , then we. , uh, send letters in mass like we do to every other individual that's in that thousands at one time that basically say, We are our IP medical debt. We have relieved your debt. You are free and clear. Check us out. We're for real. [00:10:14] Like, believe us. and [00:10:16] George Weiner: oh yeah, but there's a lot of, Sure right Where, where's the timeshare agreement? [00:10:21] Allison Sesso: Right. And you don't have to do anything. And the other thing that's really important is there's no tax burden associated with it. When, when certain debts are relieved, there can be a tax burden because it's considered a gift equal to the amount of the debt that's been released. [00:10:33] Right, exactly. So could you imagine you get a debt relieved and then you get a tax bill. It's like when you win a lotto and you have to pay taxes. You're like, what? ? The good news is soured. but with r p medical debt, that is not the case because we are disinterested third party. So you get this debt relief free and clear. [00:10:48] And honestly, the, the debt relief happens whether or not you actually pay attention to the letter. They really can [00:10:53] George Weiner: just continue to do what you were doing, which was ignore the problem and hope it goes away. Which I have to say, never were, I can't use the word never, because apparently sometimes that works. [00:11:04] Allison Sesso: Well, I mean, look, the people who were, we are helping though, at the end of the. everyone. I mean, we get the stories back from individuals. Mm. They want so desperately to pay. They really do. And they feel like failures because they haven't been able to pay. Mm-hmm. . So these aren't people who are just like, Whoa, let's hope for the best. [00:11:25] I'll just keep ignoring this. And you know, these are individuals. Something happened to them. Either they got sick, they were in an accident, whatever happened to them. Maybe they just are poor, like, and, and have other obligations they have to pay for and they can't pay this bill. And so we are relieving those debts of individuals who were forced to pay a bill that they should have never been forced to pay because it's unaffordable. [00:11:51] George Weiner: Yeah. Cuz clearly they had that desire to pay it back, but not the means by which to do it. What's more, medical prices are not exactly accurate in the United States. [00:12:03] Allison Sesso: I don't know if the word is accurate. They are all over the place because we have this weird system where the insurance company is paying and the prices are ar. [00:12:16] Yeah. [00:12:18] George Weiner: Yeah. Uh, when you operate as an individual in a system designed for these large players that are charging what they will, it just breaks, it seems like, and you're just left with outrageous numbers, and debt burns. [00:12:32] Allison Sesso: I think that we've created a, a. Typical consumer approach to healthcare and it doesn't work like the economics don't align when you're buying healthcare, first of all, you would pay a lot more than you would for any other good or service, right? [00:12:49] Because it's your health and your wellbeing. So like your artificially willing to to pay more. And I think we take a little bit of advantage of that in some ways. And, and I think that the fact that we have insurance companies that are negotiating what to pay is. Makes it complicated and it's really hard to navigate this as an individual, nor I think should we have that expectation that people, while they're sick, should be navigating what they're gonna pay for a service that they have Really no real way of doing comparison shopping on. [00:13:24] George Weiner: this is very different than a lot of other models that I see. And you must, and I see it on the site saying, if you were an individual looking for medical debt relief, that is not us. And that must be hard because you were. You know, behind the curtain that's behind the curtain running in debt markets, which frankly, you know, this may be the first time many people are hearing about this. [00:13:51] I'm curious how, how did this organization come about? It's been around for, for a while. [00:13:59] Allison Sesso: Well, I mean, actually we've only been around since 2014, so it's not that old considering, I mean, a lot of nonprofits. Just years old. You know, we, we were . We've only been around since 2014 and we, we came we came into being, because we have two, uh, former debt buyers who understood the market. [00:14:17] I think that was a key element of it. Craig and Jerry understood, uh, how the debt market works and what it costs to buy. , they were inspired by Occupy Wall Street, actually. Uh, and they saw that there was this group doing this thing called the Jubilee, where they were trying to do just what r i p does in, in large scale, which is to buy medical debt, and relieve it, but to make a point. [00:14:42] And they recruited actually Jerry's help in this. And then Jerry referred Craig. Then they sort of made their point as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and they were gonna pack up and go home kind of on, on this whole debt relief front. And I think Jerry sort of said to Craig like, We gotta make this a real thing. [00:15:01] And so they did. They, they really, they, and I think that they have a book that, that they put out talking about this. You can find it on our. , it's called End Medical Debt, and it tells sort of the origin story of of R I P and and and how they thought about this and one of the key moments that really helped the organization propel forward. [00:15:20] Was being highlighted on John Oliver, which, you know, I'm a big fan of, I was before I got this role and knew about r i p medical debt, but he really, did some debt relief through the institution and, uh, and that propelled a lot of donors to come to the table. Cuz without donors, this really doesn't work. [00:15:38] I mean, I can go to the debt market all I want, but if I don't have a lot of people supporting my ability to buy the debt, it, it doesn't, it doesn't work. So, That's our story. It was two Defiers who were brave. They took some. They almost went into poverty on, on, on their own because of the fact that they, they took this, uh, this on and they just thought this was too good of an idea to let go. [00:16:00] And again, John Oliver helped propel us and then the board of directors, you know, said, Let's take it to the next level. And, and then I came in as a, as a seasoned executive director type and, and we were able to really, uh, propel this work forward and we're gonna keep doing. . [00:16:16] George Weiner: Yeah. I mean, 24, I mean, you've made it through some, some filter bubbles for sure. [00:16:22] In terms of like the filtering of can you make it five years, can you make it over a, a certain amount of revenue, but you're starting to, uh, really pull. Pull through. It also strikes me because medical debt is the number one reason someone declares bankruptcy and it seems like this is, uh, something that may slow that down. [00:16:45] Uh, but I don't know how big you need to be, like billions of dollars that you have done. 4 million people. I think you said like those are big numbers. How big do you actually need to be in your mind to, I'm not gonna use the word solve, because you, you are not solving, you are resolving a broken system that will continue to break things. [00:17:08] But how big do you need to. To take this actually on at the level that you'd imagine? [00:17:13] Allison Sesso: Yeah, I, it's a good question and it's one I often think about as an executive director, or sorry, as a, as a CEO of the institution, it's one I often think about. What I would say is that, , we need to both be a certain size and relieving a certain amount of debt every year. [00:17:32] And I don't know what exactly what that number is. It really depends on the donation size. Maybe it's 10 million, maybe it's 20 million. I like the number 25, in terms of our budget size every year, uh, I'd love to grow to that size and, and you know, we're, we're more than halfway there already today, in consistent revenue, but, you know, we'll, [00:17:51] But the other thing is, I, I loved how you framed it and said, We're not solving but, but resolving this, the issue. And that's a hundred percent true. And that is our mantra. What I wanna make sure is that we're not just trying to grow to a size that picks up and just keeps resolving the issue, but at, in the process of resolving the issue for individual. [00:18:12] We are very intentional about telling the larger story about the issue of medical debt and how systemic in nature it is, and that we are very intentional about pushing for larger changes that are above our pay grade as an institution. And so to me that is really the key. So our size almost doesn't matter as much as our. [00:18:36] And so by growing our voice within this work and growing our expertise and taking the data that we are getting in mass, so we are having a deeper understanding. How many people, uh, we, how many people we're helping, what their situation is, what is their race? What is their economic situation? Where do they live? [00:18:56] Is this, is this problem more prevalent at certain types of hospitals, nonprofit versus for profit? I think over time we'll be able to take a deeper look at our data collectively as we do more and more direct hospital work and contribute to this issue in a larger scale. And be able to hopefully push for, uh, larger solutions that are above again, our pay grade and who we. [00:19:22] George Weiner: So the debt, we were talking about this before, the debt that a individual incurs, going back to like, here's a, my $45,000 and surprise debt that I now owe. I have a family, uh, we live, you know, in a house we're doing right. But this is something that frankly does not fit into the budget, not even by a long shot. [00:19:42] Uh, I may. Go into bankruptcy, but it seems like there is a like actual adverse medical effect to having debt. There's like a relationship to having this like held over my head that has negative consequences. We think we were talking about the drama report or other reports out there that suggest that like, I mean, it's just. [00:20:09] It hurts my brain to put it in the order of logic that like I went to the hospital to get better and now I'm probably gonna get worse because of the overpriced and debt that now chases me indefinitely. And can you tell me a bit about that relationship of debt distress? [00:20:23] Allison Sesso: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, it is the number one theme that we see in the letters that come back from individual. [00:20:29] We help, uh, it's overwhelming for individuals and, you know, stress is. Undermining of health and financial stress. Stress is one of the biggest things, and we look at poor communities and we see. You know, diabetes, we see all these stress related diseases, heart issues that are all stress related, that are more extreme. [00:20:54] Uh, and so in, in terms of medical debt, it is in itself a social determinant of health. And the social determinant of health is something that hospitals have increasingly been looking at and are spending. Millions, billion dollars, billions of dollars across the country trying to invest in community programs that address social determinants of health. [00:21:16] And yet, as this Gemma report that came out just recently shows the medical debt created from going to the hospital itself is a social determinate of health. So if, if we can really look at medical debt, , we can actually get rid of one of the stressors that's causing people to have to go to the hospital or get care to in the first place. [00:21:38] So I think it's a really key issue that you're raising and one that we wanna make sure that we keep elevating. Cuz again, these providers, these hospitals are investing lots and lots of money into social determinants of health. Those are things like environmental situations family dynamic. You know, lot things that are in the environment, not your own personal health. [00:21:57] You know, living in a food desert. All those kinds of things contribute to the undermining of health. And it's a, it determines how well you're going to be healthy, hence, hence the social determinate of health language. And so the fact that medical debt itself is among those is something we need to really look at. [00:22:14] And I'm so grateful that there is this new report that points to this because I think it will create, To reexamine billing and practices at. [00:22:26] George Weiner: and I think this is the Jam and Network, uh, that that put this out. But we'll put a link in the, the show notes on it cuz there's a certainly a lot in there and it's one of those things I'm glad somebody did the research on and I am now forced to think about it, but also, I'm sadly not surprised. [00:22:44] I'm not surprised that having, uh, you know, the, the threat of somebody putting a lean on the house that, you know, my kid lives in, like wouldn't cause me stress. Like I go, I went in cuz I broke my ankle, right? I went in cuz I broke my, and I walk out like two years later with diabetes and other stress related disorders that put me back on that bill. [00:23:05] Like, [00:23:06] Allison Sesso: well not only that but the other on top of that, the. Stressor is that people don't go to that hospital because they're scared. They're either gonna incur more debt cuz they have had some, or they know of a friend or family member that's had debt and that it's put them in a, you know, difficult situation and so they don't go and get the care that they need. [00:23:24] People are sitting outside of hospitals waiting to see if the pain dissipates before they walk in. or they're just ignoring it and, you know, putting, you know, Ben Gay on their knee over and over and over again, and taking Advil and trying to ignore the problem until it gets to a point where it's actually even more expensive to solve and to adjust. [00:23:46] George Weiner: Yeah, I mean, the, the size of the problem, it, you know, it's, what I like is that this is a pretty smart and leveraged play at an intractable problem, like the, the scale that you need to play at. And I'll just play, I'll, I'm show my own hand. I don't think it's solved by GoFundMe. No. Truly just it is, and you also even brought up the tax issue that I'm pretty sure if I got my 45 grand from people giving me money, and it showed up as a check to me, I now owe at least a third of that I think in taxes, depending on where I [00:24:19] Allison Sesso: am. [00:24:21] Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how the GoFundMe works in terms of the tax system, but it's definitely a popularity contest. How. That's the problem because what I mean for GoFundMe to work you, you need to tell your story effectively enough to have people give to you over others. GoFundMe is, The number one thing people go to, like they go to GoFund me for medical debt. [00:24:47] It's the number one reason to go to GoFund me. And most of them do not work. They do not reach, reach their goals. And certainly you're not gonna reach your goal if you have an ongoing medical issue. Like what? If you have, uh, a chronic condition, you can't keep going back to the well and begging your friends and family. [00:25:02] Not to mention the fact that a lot of people are able to. Money if they have friends with money and people with money tend to have other friends with money. People without money tend to have friends without money. So the, the, the GoFundMe is absolutely not a solution and it really is a popularity contest. [00:25:18] It's how well you're able to tell your sob story. and I just think that's a freely heartbreaking situation that we're putting people in to have to put themselves out there in that way in order to solve their medical death. . [00:25:33] George Weiner: Yeah. The, you know, frankly, it's, it's not really the, the individual's supposed to do everything they can in their power. [00:25:39] and so if you're back into the wall, I understand the market force is there pushing there, but there's only one winner in that. It's the person that takes 2% of transaction. if you were looking at a macro system, something like r i p, medical debt, uh, I'm wondering if, you know, just to sort of speculate on it, are there other areas where you feel. [00:25:58] George Weiner: Financial levers, debt markets even are unexplored avenues for this type of impact. [00:26:08] Allison Sesso: I mean, I think that there's probably other kinds of unaffordable debt that could be looked at for sure. The thing is, medical debt is unique, and I do think that people are potentially more willing to donate to, uh, medical debt causes because you have such little control over the situation. [00:26:27] You, you can be insured. Most people actually are insured. 90% of Americans are insured today. yet 41% have medical debt. So it is not a matter of having insurance. So you can do everything right. You can have, I. , you can still and are likely actually to get medical debt. In fact, the, the number one cause of medical debt isn't, is, or, or directional relationship is not whether or not you have insurance, but whether or not you get sick, like, so you're, that's, that's the number one connector, which is that means you couldn't be insured. [00:27:02] So I. At the end of the day, we can't look at things like GoFundMe for the solutions here. I think you're right that it is, uh, just creating more profit on top of a, a profitable system. Yeah, we, we have to, we have to look at at bigger solutions beyond beyond this, and I think that, that our model could be used for other areas. [00:27:25] but I think that people are more likely to give to medical debt because of the fact that there's so much little control over how much debt you end up in. People are less forgiving if you end up overusing your credit card or, Yeah, even if you can't pay a utility bill. Honestly. Yeah. [00:27:40] George Weiner: Yeah, the story obviously, obviously matters, but also, you know, I'd say your ability to, as you came back to it, say like you're able to go through and understand the data behind the actual communities that you're choosing to go for, and just to track back on the conversation. [00:27:56] You're like in your. Ideal world, you're like, I think we have about 25 million worth of work you wish you could do every year in this. [00:28:05] Allison Sesso: Yeah, I think 25 million feels right today. Now, I don't know. I mean, ask me, you know, in, in a year from now how, how we feel about that. But I think 25 million gives us a pretty steady pace. [00:28:16] Of doing debt relief, in mass, right, For individuals while also investing in our own ability to tell the story of medical debt. Cuz that's important, right? Like not every dollar do we only spend on medical debt. We spend a lot, almost every dollar on medical debt relief. But we also are intentional about investing in storytelling so that individuals can be heard and that we're, we are thinking about what is, what it feels. [00:28:43] To have medical debt. And what are the implications on your mental health? What are your struggles with the hospital finance system? What is it like for your family every single day when you have this thing looming over your head? How have you avoided care? What other trade offs and decisions have you made? [00:29:00] Have you borrowed from friends and family? All those kinds of things. So we are investing in different systems, but I think 25 million. Feels good as an annual like rate of our budget size because I think that gives us a large scale ability to relieve debt across the country for a lot of people again, and, and lifting up the stories at the same time. [00:29:26] Yeah. [00:29:27] George Weiner: Yeah. Well, just, I mean, I won't call out your nine 90, but it, it is all public and so you're, you're hoping to grow there, it seems. [00:29:36] Allison Sesso: Yes. We're hoping to grow there. That's right. I mean, we've had, we've been, uh, lucky to get a 50 million gift from McKenzie Scott, uh, which is Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, and she's been wonderful in the nonprofit sector and able to. [00:29:51] push organizations forward. But that's a one time gift, right? Yeah. We're able to do those in multiple years, but we have to be careful about you not expanding our staff to have an expectation that that's gonna be our permanent bottom line. So we pay lot of attention to that reality, and so that's propelled us forward in a lot of good ways and allowed us to invest in even ways in which we can donate and become more, you know, In which we can maximize our ability to fundraise and then also look at our own systems, become more efficient so that we don't need as much staff. [00:30:26] Uh, so we've done those two things with those funds, but we need to grow to, I think, a, a permanent, like 25 million size where it's year after year we're able to support that. [00:30:38] George Weiner: And that makes sense. Part of my mind, I keep going back to this $45,000 family that just ran into this just stroke of unlock and, you know, following through the pattern. [00:30:50] Like it, it is amazing that there is R ip, medical debt that may show up like in some ways, like a lottery ticket that you're like, I didn't know I was playing this one, but I won. And like frankly, I've lost enough. That's amazing. I wonder if there's a world where the probability that I'd have to pay my full debt could be made more publicly known to me. [00:31:12] And I know there's also nonprofit hospitals that technically if they're serving the public benefit actually are. Uh, due to absolve some of that debt as well. But I feel as though you're not told the full truth when you're handed that bill for your, you know, scan your PT scan and you're like the what? [00:31:29] And your overnight visit. There's no like, and by the way, you know the probability if you're in this area and you make this much, that if you just wait, frankly one year and don't pay this, like nothing battle happen because the converse is true. We've been taught to pay every bill that shows up to us. [00:31:44] Cuz that's how you are an honest participant in. , uh, economic society, What does that look like? ? [00:31:52] Allison Sesso: Yeah. So it's, that's a difficult question to answer because I don't think we're in enough hospitals yet, by any stretch, to, for anyone to feel confident or comfortable to just, you're just gonna [00:32:02] George Weiner: run around and catch that fly ball. [00:32:04] Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:04] Allison Sesso: Right. And also, we're still investing in our fundraising abilities. And I don't know, at some point maybe people are exhausted about paying for this too. And our issue. Not as exciting. You know, we, we are competing, frankly for donate donor dollars with things like Ukraine or abortion rights or gun rights, you know, so there are, there is a limitation to how much I can guarantee that I'm gonna be able to relieve people's debt. [00:32:28] And also remember that in order for me to relieve your debt, you have to be financially burdened, right? So you have to be 400% of poverty or below, or the debt has to be large compared to your. So I would be leery of people feeling comfortable with the idea that eventually not [00:32:45] George Weiner: pay. By the way, this is not financial advice. [00:32:48] I repeat, this is a nonprofit podcast. This is not financial [00:32:51] Allison Sesso: advice. Right. And, and, and I will say, frankly, you know, there is some concern on the hospital and provider side that, that if they work with us, that that. That that will happen, right? That if that people will bush think, Well, I don't have to pay my bill. [00:33:04] So I don't think that that's a good way. Wow. [00:33:05] George Weiner: I didn't even think of that, but [00:33:07] Allison Sesso: Right. That, that's, that's a good way of [00:33:10] George Weiner: not you have thought about this as the ceo. Yeah, [00:33:13] Allison Sesso: exactly. And it's not something I would say we've experienced. What we've experienced is people who can pay their bills do pay their bills. [00:33:22] There's people in the middle Right. That also pay their bills, but to a, a large. where it's a a difficult situation for them to pay the bills. I would like to address those people as well, like they sign up for a payment plan that they can't afford. What I would advise people, is to not sign up for payment plans that they can't afford. [00:33:43] If it's $700 a month and that's gonna create a real financial burden on you and your family, then do not sign up for it despite all of the pressure that you might feel from the debt collector, if it's an individual, individual entity or if it's the hospital themselves. So that's what I would advise. [00:34:00] Unfortunately, as much as I hate having to tell people. be their own advocates. This system is set up that it expects you to be an advocate for yourself, and so you have to advocate for yourself and make sure that you don't sign up for things that you can't afford. [00:34:19] George Weiner: Uh, what a mess. It just, what a mess. In my mind, I'm just saying like, Well, what if I just waited, like I had my $45,000 debt and I just waited out of like, I'm gonna buy this back on a penny on the dollar in a year. I'm gonna come back to you as an independent broker, and I'm just go buy back. [00:34:36] Allison Sesso: Yeah, but you aren't, you can't do that. [00:34:38] Right. You know, you're not gonna have the negotiated power that I can collectively, and you can't come to r i p and. Well look, I got this one debt. It's 45,000. I'm in [00:34:46] George Weiner: Texas. Hear me out. I mean, you can, I will donate this much over here for the help my angle get better fund, right? Exactly. Doesn't, doesn't work. [00:35:01] No, [00:35:01] Allison Sesso: it doesn't. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. But I do. But I will say this, when we work with hospitals and increasingly so, Our vision is for when we work with hospitals that they take a look at their financial assistance policies and try, because you're right hospitals, especially non-profit hospitals. [00:35:20] Mm-hmm. are supposed to give out charity care. They're supposed to focus on low income individual. Remember that [00:35:25] George Weiner: C3 classification in the old taxis? [00:35:27] Allison Sesso: Yes, exactly. But the thing is that, Hospitals don't really get that classification taken away. Like that's not, that's not a thing that really happens that frequently. [00:35:38] Yeah, I, and I, and I don't, I don't mean to imply at all that hospitals don't take that seriously. I think they take it very seriously there. They're nonprofit status, and again, not all hospitals are alike. There are some bad actors and there are some that are genuinely struggling right now. Hospitals are not really in a great financial place. [00:35:56] Compared to some of the patients, they're probably better off. It depends, you know, on the situation. But hospitals are supposed to provide charity care, bottom line, and so they are not necessarily as generous as our program. So there's people in between, like some of them could be 200% of poverty or there's discounts provided at 300% of poverty, not the full, you know, getting it all relieved like r I p. [00:36:21] So we do hope though, that by doing an analysis of their bad debt file people, that means people that did not get charity care, whose debt we are buying, that we're able to give them information that helps them reflect on their own charity care policies and approaches, like letting people actually know about the charity care, making sure the application process is not to burdensome. [00:36:45] We encourage hospitals to do what's called presumptive eligibility, meaning that they just take a look on their own by buying data from, from TransUnion like we do, or any other, you know, Equifax, whatever. Buying the data, looking at people's incomes and making assumptions about whether or not they deserve or, you know, can get. [00:37:02] Charity care based on their income, and then they just give it without, just like we do. We just give it away. We let people know that they've gotten this free kick, this debt relief without them having to fill out any paperwork or anything like that. . [00:37:17] George Weiner: So that's so interesting. I didn't realize You're not looking at pii, personally identifiable information to the degree where you see maybe a name and an address. [00:37:24] You're getting like top line stats on somebody Or could you do like, do the search for, you know, George, we in Texas who's got 45 K in debt and you're like, Ah, I found [00:37:34] Allison Sesso: you, you're there. No. Well, when we get a, when we get a file, so we are HIPAA compliant, right? So we, we have a DAA with the hospital and, and we, you know, we do keep , uh, we're very vigilant about our, our cyber security and all of that other stuff. [00:37:47] But, and we, we have to be able to have the information of the individual or else we wouldn't be able to let them know about the fact that we've relieved their debt. Right. Right. You do know it. Right. So we do have that information, but, When we analyze a file from a hospital, we're doing it in the aggregate. [00:38:03] We're not focusing on the individual at all, that we're completely ignoring the individual's name and all of that stuff. All we're focusing on is those elements that qualify them, and so we take the entire part that qualifies, and that's what we hold onto, and then we send out the letters after we've bought that debt, et cetera, etc. [00:38:24] George Weiner: Gotcha. I love, still, in my mind I'm thinking like, but there's technically a way I could go through and be like, if my name comes up, let's just say I'd be, uh, encouraged to make a donation. You'd never do it, but would it open up a second? Don't get my debt for me. [00:38:42] Allison Sesso: Let you know. We'd never, ever let you, We would not, we don't give away the names of the individuals that we. [00:38:49] if people want to tell their stories, they are encouraged to do so, and we let them do that and they can put their stories on their web, on our website, and they can talk to our anthropologist, but we would never tell a donor you helped X, Y, Z. Ever. [00:39:01] George Weiner: Oh, that's fair. I was saying in reverse like the, the person who's like in distress, like, could I go search a database to be like, Oh, I'm in this distressed category of people, but you can't open up it up because of hipaa. [00:39:11] Yeah. [00:39:12] Allison Sesso: Well, you need to find out if we already relieved your debt. If it's already gone, we, we would've notified you. [00:39:20] George Weiner: Oh, thank you for humoring me. I'm such a, such a rabbit hole runner. That's even a thing. All right, we're gonna move to rapid fire. okay. With your permission, Please keep your responses as short as you feel like they, eh, feel like. [00:39:34] Okay. What is one tech tool or website that you or your organization has started using in the last year? [00:39:40] Allison Sesso: Max Q D, which is a qualitative data analysis visualization tool. Cool. [00:39:49] George Weiner: What are some tech issues you're currently battling with? [00:39:53] Allison Sesso: Well, we are making sure that our cyber security is so to compliant, so we're really focused on that and we're super excited about that. [00:40:01] And we also are trying to send people emails in addition to hard copy letters, and so we're working to incorporate that into our model. , [00:40:10] George Weiner: what is coming in the next year that has you the most excited? [00:40:15] Allison Sesso: The ability to enhance how we analyze our data, specifically with a focus on. [00:40:24] George Weiner: Talk about a mistake that you made in or maybe earlier in your career that shapes the way you do things today. [00:40:33] Allison Sesso: Creating space for everyone who's a stakeholder, be it on the board, on your team, uh, donor to make their voice heard and to be part of decision making. By not doing that, I think you really undermine everyone's buyin to what you're doing and the direction you're headed. [00:40:52] And that was a mistake I made in my career that I have overcorrected for, probably . [00:40:59] George Weiner: Do you believe nonprofits can successfully go out of business? [00:41:04] Allison Sesso: I sure hope so. I really do. I think that nonprofits are generally not set up to solve problems, but resolve them in your. And I hope that nonprofits can have a greater voice in getting systemic change so that they can help solve problems at a larger scale. [00:41:24] George Weiner: If I were to put you in the hot tub time machine, back to the beginning of your work at r I p Medical debt, what advice would you give your dryer self yourself [00:41:34] Allison Sesso: to focus on the progress over the. So that I could feel more excited about the work that I'm doing going forward and less [00:41:43] George Weiner: stressed. Uh, if I were to give you a magic wand to wave across the industry you work in, what would it do? [00:41:52] And you can't say, just clean up every single bit of debt [00:41:57] Allison Sesso: across the industry. Uh, I would, I, I would say, and when I say the industry, I'm talking about the nonprofit industry at large, I would say improve the marketing of the industry. I think that we. A, a skewed view as if we are the secondary industry that's sort of just doing what everyone calls God's work, which I hate. [00:42:16] I think that we are doing an essential, fundamental, fundamental function for society and that it takes real skill that not everybody has, and not everyone can from a business can just jump in and do, and take over and do well. And I think that I would do a better job of marketing who we are and how important we are as an, as an industry in terms of non. [00:42:38] George Weiner: What is something you think you should stop doing? [00:42:43] Allison Sesso: Uh, sometimes I think we put our heads down too much and do the day to day work, you know, going in and outta of meetings, taking, checking off our to-do list and I think we need to stop doing that as much and put our, pick our heads up and look at the big picture and appreciate what we've accomplished. [00:42:59] George Weiner: How did you get your start in the social impact sector? [00:43:04] Allison Sesso: I don't have a good answer for that. I feel like it's a calling for me. As lame and cheesy as that sounds, I've always, uh, felt like I needed to work in a mission driven, uh, capacity. And so here I am. , [00:43:19] George Weiner: what advice would you give college grads looking to enter the sector? [00:43:24] make sure that you have a strong ethical and moral compass and that you have people to talk to to ensure you stay with that because money and donors even can really influence you in a way that's not [00:43:37] George Weiner: always. What advice did your parents give you that you either followed or did not? Heed [00:43:47] Allison Sesso: Finding balance in my life, both in terms of work happiness and personal happiness. [00:43:56] To be [00:43:56] George Weiner: clear, you heated that advice. I [00:44:00] Allison Sesso: did. Yes. I'm very happy in both my work life and my, My question [00:44:03] audio1239347413: could [00:44:03] George Weiner: have gone the other way there. Life, right? could have been a real dark turn. Yeah. Uh, that's wonderful. Uh, how do people find you? How do people help you? [00:44:14] Allison Sesso: Well, first donate to us please. Uh, r i p medical debt.org. [00:44:19] I can't do this work without that. You can also follow us on Twitter, on Instagram. Just add our ip medical debt. but I really encourage you to, uh, to take a look at our website, check us out and, and talk about the issue of medical debt, uh, how it impacts you. I think one of the biggest problems with this issue is that people feel like they've personally failed when the reality is the system is broken. [00:44:41] And you have to remember that. And unless we talk about it in our personal stories, this issue's gonna be with us and it's gonna be killing us slowly, literal. [00:44:51] George Weiner: I'm grateful for the work that you are doing. Thank you. Thank you for, uh, just, uh, continuing to, to make this a national issue and an Avenue, Avenue to finally put dollars to work, I think, in a high leverage way. [00:45:03] Thank you. Thank you. | |||
| Should Nonprofits Takeover ESG & Hurricane Ian (news) | 04 Oct 2022 | 00:31:34 | |
Discussions of Corporate ESG Ratings Should Be Monitored By Nonprofit Industry
More and more, discussions about the efficacy, morality, and financial benefit of ESG-rated publicly-traded companies on the stock market are becoming commonplace. At nonprofitnewsfeed.com, we think that nonprofits need to be equipped with the context needed to engage both prospective donors and the public at large with what ESG is and is not. ESG, a catchall term for “Environmental, Social & Governance” is marketed to be a way to group, define, and measure companies by their broader (hopefully positive) impact on the world. However, as this op-ed from The New York Times makes clear, ESG (and ESG-related financial products like indexes or funds) are at best unproven in their effectiveness, at worst, a marketing ploy designed to obfuscate the harm done by the very companies on the list. Nonprofits should heed that fact as the general public and high-value donors discern significant investments in a wobbly economy, ESG may well increasingly become part of the conversation as a socially conscious (but financially beneficial) alternative to charitable giving in the minds of wealthy donors and investors, regardless of the efficacy of such an approach.
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| Nonprofits Respond To Hurricane In Puerto Rico (news) | 27 Sep 2022 | 00:20:18 | |
Nonprofits Respond To Hurricane In Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico felt the brunt of hurricane Fiona last week, shutting power to the island and devastating everything from homes to agriculture as severe flooding uprooted life yet again in communities. Puerto Rico, still recovering from hurricane Maria which landed back in 2017, again finds itself in need of assistance and as yet a path towards a resilient recovery. Nonprofits like New York-based Your Network Caring Community Advocates have already started collecting supplies to aid in recovery, and on-the-ground organizations like the Hispanic Federation are also accepting donations. While digital attention for providing aid to help in the wake of natural disasters spike to highs in the immediate aftermath of an event, the long-tail recovery efforts often require sustained rebuilding that takes years of reinvestment.
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| Pooh & Public Domain Creative Opportunities | MarketingArtfully.com | 21 Sep 2022 | 00:56:06 | |
The copyright on Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne officially moved into the public domain this year. What does that actually mean? How might nonprofit's use public domain characters like this to help tell their story? Tara Jacobson is the owner of MarketingArtfully.com with over 20 years experience in the marketing industry. She helps us break down what is possible and comes up with creative ways nonprofit causes might use the IP.
Resource links A lot of websites were shared on this awesome episode, here are the URLs mentioned.
About Tara Jacobson Tara Jacobson is the owner of MarketingArtfully.com with over 20 years experience in the marketing industry which translates into highly successful marketing systems for her “DIY” and entrepreneur clients. Tara’s strong history in Psychology, Entrepreneurship, and Creativity, combined with her 100 miles per hour, “tell it like it is” personality have earned her the title “The Queen of Marketing Ahhh’s” from her raving fans. Tara brings a true small and medium sized business perspective to her work. She has talked with over 1,000 small biz owners about their goals, plans and dreams, helping them to grow and make sure that their marketing increases their intended efforts!
Rough Transcript
[00:00:00] George: We have a very interesting guest who is, I'll just say it very brave because she is coming in because I reached out to her completely cold, like completely cold. I'm sitting there looking up information about creative ways of using public domain characters and works and none other than marketing, artfully.com. [00:00:50] And then I reached out to the owner and Tara Jacobson was nice enough as the owner of marketing, fully marketing artfully com. She has over 20 years experience in the marketing industry, but is, I would say coming at this as an outsider to the nonprofit and social impact industry in her work with over thousands of small and mid-size businesses and in this world. [00:01:13] Tara, can you tell us maybe a bit more about your work and what. [00:01:18] Tara: So I started internet marketing and making websites with like dream Weaver and all of that back in the day. Merge two, I was a realtor for a couple of years. That was interesting. And then I owned a marketing company for years and one of the reasons why I got so interested in. [00:01:37] More so trademark and copyright and later on, interested in public domain is because it's I believe it's $600. You get fined as a business. If you use somebody's copyrighted or trademarked work and it's $10,000, if you do it for a client. So I was like, I have always bought every picture I've ever owned. [00:02:04] I've always had. Oh shoot. What it was called, where the domain of where you got your things and yeah. You sourced the information and yeah that to me was super important years ago when I was posting things for people, making social media graphics, things like that. [00:02:23] And I got really interested in it. So we're gonna talk today. I'm gonna give you a little course in all of the D. Terms that are gonna come up. And then I love that we're gonna brainstorm some ways that nonprofits can use 'em the only nonprofit I've ever been involved in was the Colorado house rabbit society. [00:02:49] I do have a blog post on my website about how to get volunteers, cuz they were really bad at it. And so I did I did write them a blog post on how to get volunteers, but I haven't worked tons with nonprofits, but I've worked with all kinds of businesses over the years, small businesses and medium size SSEs and small business. [00:03:13] George: Yeah. And I think that's helpful context too, to say, like what's at stake. Why do I care about this on one end? There's the penalty side, which is frankly, not as much fun as the creative, which we'll get to, but I'll just say from personal experience, we had interns writing content at whole whale. [00:03:32] Seven years ago, I get this email from it's like a take down notice, but also basically we used like a picture of a squirrel with some nuts that somebody just Google. Just Google the image and the content really wasn't used at all. And we got fined. I will say I, I can't officially say, but it is in the thousands of dollars for a picture, an intern put on our website like a decade ago. [00:03:57] Like it's very real what you're talking about and very painful. So I think your note, I'll just put an exclamation point on. It's worth checking because the algorithms that people have for quickly searching and scanning websites have improved for scanning for this type of copyrighted work, all righty onto you. [00:04:17] What, and there's [00:04:18] Tara: so much available for free or a very little money. I'm gonna explain the difference, how you get super free stuff, and then how you get like really tiny money. And to me, tiny money is under $10. Maybe not under $300, I'm talking tiny money. So we're gonna start off by talking about what trademark is. [00:04:47] So trademark gets talked about a lot and trademark is just the words. So you, so Nike's swoosh. The picture of it is copyrighted because it's an image, but the word just do it is trademarked and you can't use those kind of terms. What you're talking about with the creative and the marketing, and maybe pictures for blogs and maybe pictures for things to sell or images for things to sell. [00:05:17] Is called copyright because copyright covers artistic things like pictures poems, books, things like that. And things come out of copyright. I looked it up after 70 years. So things before 1924 are in the public domain right now. And something super exciting came into the public domain this year, which was the original poo bear. [00:05:46] And [00:05:47] George: all the characters, right? So everything from the mil books are public domain. [00:05:53] Tara: Yeah. And there's illustrations of P bear and EOR and the hundred acre words and things like that, that people truly have a heartfelt connection to. So if you're talking about doing something that is going to help a nonprofit, you're not looking for something that's going to. [00:06:16] Be mercenary or something like that. You want something that people can go back to their childhood and think, oh my gosh, it's poo bear. I love poo. And there's a whole list of and you can put a link on it. I have a whole list on my website of stories that are in the public. So Rapunzel, Rapunzel it down. [00:06:47] Your hair is in the public domain. So that is something that people can use. Oh, we have to talk about public domain too. But that is a story that people can use. What they can't use is tangled. Tangled is the dignified version of. Yeah, Rapunzel, let down my hair. So what you wanna do is you wanna make sure that anything you're looking to use, there's a database. [00:07:19] It's the PT, PTO database. It's called test T E S S. If you just search test on. Google, they have a way to search for it. And you put in only look for live ones. So if you look for live and dead ones, then you're gonna get a lot. But we only care about the ones that are live right now. And so you can find out if something is in the public domain is a avail, is copyrighted or not. [00:07:46] Now public domain is way more just than things that have gone on a copyright or that aren't trademarked. There are things called creative commons where an artist or a writer or people like that will take their items and file them as creative commons. Now you want what's called creative commons. Oh zero zero. [00:08:12] And that means they hold no They don't have any license on it. Where if it's just like a plain creative comments, a lot of times they'll exclude a commercial license, even though you're a nonprofit, if you're selling something commercially, that would be violating the terms of that license. And you can find all kinds of things doing that search for pictures, for your website, for things like that. [00:08:38] Now there are places that say they. Creative commons things like morgue file has a lot of pictures on it. It's just one of the places. And, but they don't have a vetting process. They rely on the people, uploading the pictures to do it. So we're gonna talk for just a wee minute about why sometimes it's better to purchase it than not. [00:09:05] Okay. Even if you're using something that's in the public domain. So we're gonna talk about poo. Because I love him and absolutely but you could go, you could grab a book off the shelf. You could download that you could scan that image. You could fix all of the little problems with a graphic. [00:09:29] Program like Photoshop and make sure it's in the proper condition to use on a t-shirt or use on postcards or things like that. Or you can go to a place like creative market where somebody has already done that for you. Like an artist has already done all those steps. And you buy it with a commercial license. [00:09:52] Usually they're about $11, I think, to get like a set of P bear images. Alison Wonderland is in the public domain. So you can use Alison Wonderland. Now they have, somebody has trademarked Allison Wonderland on t-shirts. So you still, even if it's in the public domain, you always wanna go check the trademark database. [00:10:14] It's not, there's no like blanket, these are all safe and these are not all safe. You always wanna go and check. So does, [00:10:22] George: so the trademark database, what does that look like? Is that tests or is that a different that's test? Yeah, no [00:10:27] Tara: that's tests and all you do is you put you put in Alison Wonderland in tests and click live and click search, and then it'll show you what category of things are. [00:10:42] Ex like you have to exclude. So say it says t-shirt clothing. I can't remember what's all in that category, but you could make greeting cards. Nobody's trademarked that for greeting cards. So that's why you wanna check. So even if you think, oh my gosh, Allison wonderlands gone. It doesn't mean it is. [00:11:04] If you're not using it on the thing, they've trademarked it for. And I have such a good example that I looked up for you. So the word elf. Is trademark for lighters, photography, backdrop, and amplifiers three different categories. You can't use it for that. But as of right now, if you wanted to use it on a t-shirt you be, it's not just the, you're gonna put a picture of an L on a t-shirt and you're and for nonprofits, you may be able to avoid some of these problems, because you're functionally selling. to your constituents rather than as much trying to sell internationally. Sometimes you may wanna sell internationally, but if you're doing a fundraiser internally and you're not gonna be advertising it online or in a huge way, then you may be able to get away with it. [00:12:08] If they do send you a cease desist, then you have made commercial money on it though they can claw back that money. So it's worth looking. [00:12:16] George: Yeah this complicates it a bit more because prior to even you saying that, I just assumed if it's in the public domain, I'm looking at a picture of Winnie the poo. [00:12:26] Somebody could have trademarked that on a t-shirt. So I'm like, oh, I can spin up my t-shirts with Winnie the poo on it. [00:12:32] Tara: No, they can't trademark the picture of Winnie the poo they could tra they could, and they can't copyright it because the copyright belongs to AA. So Uhuh, the original artwork is in the public domain. [00:12:49] What they could do is, and it would take 'em a while to do it, cuz they have to show the first time the trademark, the word was used in the public and then they have to pay money to get it. It's about 12, $1,200 to get the trademark and then they have to go through a whole process where it's vet. So you and they won't go backwards. So if you were to sell a Winnie, the POH says, Winnie the poo, it's the poo bear old P bear you're done. And in two years, somebody trademarks Winnie the poo and you had used it. They don't go backwards. Does that [00:13:26] George: help at all? You know what it helps with reminding folks that just because it's on that list, you should double check the database, especially if you're going to put marketing power behind it, putting it on products and as you go to use it, but. [00:13:40] Again, though, is a massive shopping list because there are some edge cases maybe you can't put poo on a lighter, but [00:13:50] Tara: no, you can't put, you can't put an El on a lighter [00:13:53] George: I know let's get your, let's get it straight. Elves, not okay. Poo, like we'll just memorize whole thing. Poo's good. He's good to go on a lighter. [00:14:00] There's that huge the movie's coming out, right? They did a horror movie with Winnie the. Can drop this season because you can do [00:14:12] Tara: that. You can do that now. And so all of these amazing things that people, and it's not even just, so Walt Disney was brilliant. He took over so many fairy tales. [00:14:31] Yeah. And stole them for him. There is a real beauty and the beast story that is an old fable from like, When the black plague was around that he then made specific. Now you can do all kinds of things with beauty and the beast. You just can't do the bell in the yellow there iconography, right? [00:14:58] Yeah. Okay. And then spec. So that's from both the old movie and the new movie, and then you can't do, and then you can, but there's so many things you can do. Like sleeping. Beauty is you can say sleeping beauty. He doesn't own sleeping beauty. He owns Aurora because that wasn't the name of the original sleeping beauty. [00:15:22] It was. Sister. And so he picked that one. So then you wanna really try, I do know a lot about this. You wanna try to make sure that something isn't copyrighted or trademarked before you use it and just BEC and do not go to Etsy, do not go to anywhere and do a search and think, oh, look, this is all over Etsy. [00:15:46] It must be okay. That's not how the world works. [00:15:50] George: Yeah, you're really talking about the original, like name of the character as presented essentially in the trademark language, in the copyright public domain and the images I'm looking through your piece on Allison Wonderland. You may have that image of Allison, a blue dress and the the mad hat, or it is a very different look, frankly, but it's still recognizable as the charact. [00:16:16] but it doesn't necessarily have that immediate brand recognition that essentially that's a Disney version Disney, it Disney it. But right now, for instance there's two movies about pinoc one on, I think Netflix and one on Disney as a rerelease guess what, that's another story similar to, as you just mentioned beauty and the beast that you [00:16:35] Tara: can run with. [00:16:36] Yeah, there are so many things. And oh and they're really mad about this, but I think in the next year it might be next year, Nikki's coming [00:16:45] George: to town. [00:16:47] Tara: Old Mickey, like really old Mickey. Oh, G Mickey. Yeah. OG Mickey is coming out of copyright. And so that's, what's fun about it to me. Like I, I make stuff for now I make artwork. [00:17:03] I'm an artist now. And I make artwork. So I made my own version of the mad hatch actress who does not look like Johnny Depp. It doesn't look like Disney's version. She's a woman in a hat and the original Alison Wonderland had that 10 and 10, six thing in her hat. And so she's very recognizable as Alison Wonderland, as the Matt had her from Allison Wonderland, but she's a feminist version. [00:17:41] George: So now we get into maybe some of that creative elements, unless there's some more guardrails you wanna toss [00:17:45] Tara: out for folks. Nope. I think if you've gotten this far and you have all of the warnings [00:17:51] George: you really made them take their vegetables first, right? Amen. Vegetables and vitamins first. So you can riff on them. [00:18:00] You can take this original concept and riff on it. Can I just maybe up to a thou 3000. Explain to me what are the advantages of using a character that has this recognition [00:18:14] Tara: already? Okay. So the reason why there is copyright and trademark is because it would be so much easier to sell a Alison Wonderland. [00:18:30] Queen of hearts mug. If it looked just like Disney's right, people have already paid money to go to the Disney movie. They've already paid to go to Disney world. Walt Disney has already done the work to make people want to like that. And so it's unfair if you think, oh, I wanna do something with transformers because there's good brand recognition. [00:18:58] The reason why you wanna do it is because there's good brand recognition right now. The reason we now I wanna I'll give you my Madha example. The reason I wanna do a Madris is I can use all the words except for Alice in wonder. So mad Hatter, isn't trademarked tea party. We are all mad here. [00:19:23] All of those things are not trademarked, so I can make a mad Hatter shirt with we're all mad here and I can market it in a way that it will be able to get found by a portion of the population that's interested in the Alice Wonderland story. That's why I wanna make a bad hatch actress, because I know that there are people that already resonate with that character, whether it was the Disney character or whether they read Allison Wonderland in their childhood, or whether they saw Johnny DEP any which way they have a feeling towards that character. [00:20:00] And I can use that to help sell my stuff. [00:20:04] George: Gotcha. So you're shopping for. These characters in part because of this. And I wanna come back to the value that you are essentially borrowing for free. Think about the amount of attention it took to bring that character to millions of people. How much would that have cost for you to do the same? [00:20:24] Now you then, because of that attention, as I understand it, there's recognition. Oh, I see that. I grew up with that. I was read that. And then with recognition, you then can play with the affinity, which by the way, can be positive and negative. There are often villains in here as well, but you then can immediately start on page five instead of page one. [00:20:45] And then it sounds add your flavor of brand message, even advocacy. Does that sound right? [00:20:53] Tara: Yeah. Exactly. So gimme an idea of one of your nonprofits. [00:20:58] George: Oh gosh. We have a lot of animal welfare organizations I'd say interested in preserving and saving and protecting lands. [00:21:07] Tara: Okay. So animal welfare makes me think of the big Wildcat organization when I was in Colorado. [00:21:14] Which makes me think of the cowardly lion and they could use the cowardly lion, the original Frank bomb, cowardly lion, which is in I'm 95. Yeah. It's in the public domain and do something with the cowardly lion that matches their the way their nonprofit is set up and who it's serving animals, right? [00:21:43] Yes. And so if the Wildcat sanctuary already knows their people love big cats, and now they're giving them the cowardly lion with that affinity to not the movie, the book. And that character, but you can still use cowardly lion and all that comes with it. And all the heartstrings that come with it, then all of a sudden you have a target market group. [00:22:10] That's already predisposed to like it and buy it at a higher price because they don't really care. They know the profit's going to. The animal rescue group, they know that this is something that they're gonna love and cherish because it helped their thing, but they also enjoy wearing it. And in wearing it now they're promoting the animal rescue group. [00:22:32] So there's like this amazing circle of wonderfulness. [00:22:37] George: Yeah. I thought you were gonna go with Tigger, but you threw me a curve ball. I maybe have gone with You could ERs and saving Tiggers because he is a character inside of winning the poop. Now [00:22:49] Tara: you there's once you start brains but think about that, you and I went to two totally different things that are both actually big cats that could help an annual animal rescue. [00:23:02] So say you rescue turtles. You wanna find. Maybe I, and don't take, don't quote me on this, but maybe the wind in the willows is in the public domain, the original book, and there's a fun turtle in there. Or those are the kind of things you wanna try to figure out how you can mono, how you can really use their. [00:23:24] Brand recognition to make your customers who are your donors, more willing to buy something and not only buy it because that doesn't help as much. If they're not wearing it and helping spread your message. [00:23:38] George: I wanna pull the thread a bit more because immediately you talk about merchandise. And I imagine if I were to drop you into many sort of after thoughts of we'll call it a Shopify or a Spreadshirt or a very cafe press talking about we put our logo on a shirt, so our. [00:23:55] Audience can go get it. It's an afterthought. It's not the forefront. Can you explain very quickly, like when you look at the opportunity of petsy or putting imagery on a shirt, is there money there? What does that look like in your [00:24:08] Tara: world? Okay. So for a nonprofit, specifically, not in my world, because in my world, I'm an artist now, but for a nonprofit number one, I would suggest they use red bubble. [00:24:21] It is incredibly simple. You do not pay a dime to list any of the products. And as a nonprofit, you make this say, you say, and you don't have the, you don't have anybody on staff with the ability to make what you need. Number one, you can go to creative market right now and they have there's a gal on there that does dark Alice. [00:24:53] There's all kinds like pink, Alice and dark Alice and you can just buy a graphic. That's already ready to drop on a t-shirt for 12 bucks or 20 bucks. So you've bought the right to use that on a t-shirt and then you can put words on the top words on the bottom, wor you know, the name of your charity on the back. [00:25:17] And if your people do not have the ability to do that, you can go to a place like fiber, which is F I V E R r.com. And give them the graphics that you wanna use that you've paid for. Don't rely on them to get the graphics because you want to control the fact that you have purchased commercial rights to use this. [00:25:43] Ask them to make you a t-shirt and they'll make you a t-shirt for 20 bucks. [00:25:50] George: So the, then the creation of it. So how do you set up a shop? What do you point people to set up your shop for red bubble? And you can set up a custom shop with my nonprofit and I get some graphics that just frankly, go beyond here's our logo. [00:26:04] We [00:26:04] Tara: did. Oh, gosh no. You could put your logo graphics on there. You could like that could, and you could even make it cute. Okay. So if I had at least the I, okay. Let's not as cute as the WWF, cuz they have a super cute logo, but say you just have a word logo, right? Yeah. You could take and put a Christmas hat on it for Christmas and then they would have to buy it for Christmas and you could put some Mardi Bo beads hanging on it or put some shamrocks on it. [00:26:38] For I was gonna say the 4th of July, but for St. Patrick's day. And you could do all kinds of things. If you just wanna tart up your logo and then yes, other people in the world could buy it, but primarily you're gonna be driving the people who already like you. To that place so they can buy things. You can buy stickers, you can buy blankets, you can buy. [00:27:03] And all you do is you upload your thing once, and then they put it on all that stuff, if you want. [00:27:09] George: And it's on demand creation and shipping, and it's all handled for you. But I think getting back to our ideation, let me give you another another type of organization, and this is gonna be tough, but you asked for it. [00:27:20] We've got. Cancer related organizations interested in awareness for let's say lung cancer or colorectal cancer. So what types of I see her smile. You can't see, dude. I'll narrate, she's laughing and smiling. She has an idea. All right. What do you well for the call I'm way, ER, than nonprofits, right? [00:27:46] Tara: That's okay. So for the colorectal one, I would go with but why didn't you get your test with somebody's butt and not saying B U T, but B UT, but why did but implying that everything's about a butt, right? Colorectal cancer. It's your butt. I like your job. [00:28:07] That's the kind of thing that you have to get out of your own way and figure out something cute with a marketing hook that is going to to be interesting to people, to buy cards, to buy. [00:28:27] So what, so if you're [00:28:28] George: not, I would've gone wizard of Oz with this one, like a behind the curtain, or like a wizard behind the curtain or a. Maybe a 10 man or something like I have no heart. All right. Like maybe I guess in my mind went there. [00:28:41] Tara: I'm not done with this yet. [00:28:43] George: Oh, hold on. Keep cooking. [00:28:45] Tara: So for the lung cancer I would and you can do this on fiber, or you can ask if anybody's an AR is artistic in your group, get longs and have them painted with. Have them painted with some kind of PA cute pattern. So have some artist make lungs look pretty. And then that's going to be something that people already sorry about the rustling. [00:29:18] People already want to support this, but if there's a beautiful set of lungs and you can put that on something on a card, on a whatever. So if you aren't looking for products, I guess I'm just stuck in the products right now. What were you looking to use public domain stuff. So I can give you better examples [00:29:42] George: then. [00:29:42] Yeah. Moving out of the product land. I would say it's the process I'm imagining is shopping through a, Winnie the poo in all the characters, and then saying what type of graphics could we use in our website, art blog posts, social media, mini campaigns that might be around fundraisers and that type of use where it's just it's the ability to have an immediate, as I mentioned before, a combination of recognition and. [00:30:10] Then telling a nuance of your story, [00:30:16] Tara: I would still buy the cause. You're when you're buying the P bear thing from creative market. You're buying the set. So the entire set of the P air images. So you've got, say you were to do that and we'll let's talk about the Colorectal one, because if I'm going in, I'm going to the hardest one you have Tigar and I'm so happy that my, my friend P got his colorectal screen. [00:30:56] He's bouncing on his tail, right? Yep. so this is something, [00:31:01] George: no, you're right. You can take these characters and have a dialogue. And what does it mean? That happens. It's just it is so much it IBUs it with so much more nuance. Doesn't it? Because then you're not thinking. So colorectal cancer for Mego. [00:31:16] Tara: I go directly to the gal who was on the today show whose husband died. Jay died. Super cute lady. Can't remember her name right the second. And so there's a lot of bad associations, sad associations to that. And there's not this This feeling of hope that if you help donate to my cause we can. [00:31:47] Do so many more things than just mourn people. We can help with research. So maybe you have, what's the one that's always the owl, is the smart one. And so the owl says did you know that your donation helps us research cures and things to help with colorectal cancer? Like now you're saying, oh, it's not just this horrifying thing that everybody's gonna die from. It's that you, as an organization. Present a way for people to be hopeful and to want to donate because, and to want to share socially. Yeah. Do you wanna share a picture of a colon? I have seen a picture of a colon and they are not attractive. [00:32:42] Do you wanna share a picture of a colon or do you wanna share a picture of tiger jumping up and down? With a funny context to it, but here's the game that I'm seeing. You're bringing in characters that have a normal relationship, and then you're adding dialogue. It's a caption contest in some respects of saying, what would this dialogue look like if it were about our cause? [00:33:03] George: All right, I'm gonna throw you another one, unless there's another point here. No, I like. Okay. The news literacy project, and then generally anybody dealing with misinformation online. And so this particular organization works with educators and journalists to give students the skills they need to discern fact from fiction and know what to trust. [00:33:23] Tara: Oh my goodness. I would totally use. Was oh, we just watched this. Oh, you can't use it. I can give you a great example. Can't uses. So you charming was the villain and guy was the villain in in frozen. You could do this on social media. You could absolutely do this without getting in trouble. Yeah. [00:33:55] Prince [00:33:56] George: times. So just yeah. Who like a quiz who was the villain in social media da, everybody knows fake news sometimes or however you put it, that things aren't always what they seem at first glance. Yeah. And so you're talking about the fact that don't forget when you're reading the news things. [00:34:21] Tara: Aren't always what at first glance ever news or Scrooge is in the is in the public domain, that Scrooge store. That's why you have, that's why you have SCR and you have all those movies that are made of it, but you could put something about You can't use Scrooge duck, but you can use Scrooge and you could put something about the fact that Scrooge goes bankrupt. [00:34:52] Loses all his money. and then underneath you could say something like not true. He donated it all to a, to worthy causes after tiny Tim taught him the right way to do it. Make sure to fact check. Yeah, [00:35:07] George: I. All right here. I'm gonna play one into you. See how you would go with the queen of hearts is public domain. [00:35:14] Yeah. And notoriously pretty terrible leader. Did you have the little cards as like defenders or like at least the soldiers, right? No. You could have she has queen of heart soldiers. Yeah. Two soldiers, the queen of hearts talking to each other, being like, I'm not sure red. Paint's so great for flowers, but I'm not gonna look it up. [00:35:35] So painting the roses red, like all of that sort of iconography and you're like check the, so this could be part of an ongoing joke series. Could even be a, could even be a shirt. go, I'll go back to your product. But no, but it could all [00:35:48] Tara: of that's and I just set up a I've had an Etsy shop, but I just, the reason why I suggest red bubble. [00:35:54] Is because it is the easiest thing in 20 years, I have ever done online the way they've made the website and the ease of adding. It just has to be a big enough picture, which is why I suggested a fiber person, cuz they're gonna be able to there's terms like it has to be 4,500 pixels by 5,005. [00:36:17] And nonprofit people are like LA. I can't hear that. but any kind of graphic artist can do that in a heartbeat. That's just not a hard thing. And so if they have an idea that they wanna implement, they could implement it with somebody on five or very easily. Gotcha. All right, [00:36:37] George: you ready for another one? [00:36:38] Sure. Let's keep going. All right. This is one move for hunger, but also hunger organizations in general, food banks, collecting food and in general for move for hunger, they're a national nonprofit, and they have a sustainable way to reduce food waste. Mainly when people move, instead of throwing it away, they have moving companies that have been part of their network that get food that last mile to donated to local food banks. [00:37:01] So anything in the food bank, food insecure. Space. Okay. What [00:37:07] Tara: would you play there? So I go to the mad Hatter's tea party where they're eating right. Right after this, they called the moving company and they came and, or they called moved for hunger and no food. No teacakes were, was. And that's all imagery you ha can go grab and that's all imagery. It's just there. And people already know it. And they know about the, I if I was doing move for hunger, I would do a whole series of it with like cupcakes, like a really cute cupcake. Maybe even not a Alice Wonderland cupcake, but you can use, drink me. [00:37:49] You can U I. Always check. You can use drink meat. You can use eat me and then say [00:37:57] George: no, those little tags that are like so iconic to [00:37:59] Tara: it. Yeah. So eat me on a little cupcake. Cause you can buy those kind images already made. And once you have your little cupcake, then you can say not a Chrome went to waste. [00:38:13] Because the food bank showed up or the Mo food movers or move for hunger showed up. And so you're go, like the big part of whatever you're doing is gonna be the cupcake and the eat me. And then especially on social media, then the underneath of it is the message with a link to your donate page or a link to your about page so people can understand what your thing is. [00:38:39] People want to know how to help, but you have to attract their attention before they know that you're there. I adopted three kids from foster care and so food, poverty is super important to me because my kids came from that situation. But there's no way for me to know. And I work with realtors all the time, cuz of that little two year thing in real estate, I would think that you could contact realtors and have them give everybody who's moving a flyer to put in the homes of the people who are moving. [00:39:16] And you're literally touching so many more people who are moving, but you have to attract that realtor first. [00:39:24] George: Yeah. I had the thought of Winnie the POH and honey, I'm done. I'm all in poo, but Winnie the POH and honey, like he's always looking for honey, always hungry and nothing is Sader than a sad poo and an empty honey. [00:39:35] Tara: Exactly. That's wonderful. I love imagine, right? That is wonderful. There's a whole bunch in SCR. So you, so then at Christmas time, yeah, you do Scrooge and tiny Tim never had enough to eat. This is the. If tiny Tim had been alive now move for hunger. Would've been able to help. So your image is something endearing and heartfelt and that, and then your message is that this is an actual thing that helps people. [00:40:12] And what you, oh, here's another thing. Oh, this is a big one. Let's talk about demographics, right? Who has the most disposable income right now? And I see a lot of people tr okay let's start. Coherently cuz I just got really excited. So people with money are I'm 56, so I have money and people older than me. [00:40:39] So let's say 50 and older have money, disposable income to donate. So you want most of your Donations your hardcore, Hey send like I, I support best friends, which is a dog rescue. It's a giant rescue place, but they had a dog town, TV show and stuff like that. So I donate to them and they send me emails with pictures of dogs and dog stories and sometimes dog t-shirts and things like that. [00:41:11] And I have the disposable income to do it. I also donate to Kiva and which is for entrepreneurs overseas, their micro loads. So you want to take. And figure out what kind of images are going to appeal to people who are older. If you're looking for donations, not to say, to ignore younger people but that's a better target market to to. [00:41:43] To get money, easy money, recurring revenue, whatever you wanna call it, because the disposable income is there. If you are trying to get volunteers, I don't volunteer very often. I'm old and grumpy, and I don't really like to leave the house and. So you are gonna get a lot more volunteers from the younger people. [00:42:08] So you would direct if this is what your what the data from your past marketing campaigns has shown in your nonprofit. If it doesn't show that, then don't do this, but think about it. And if you can get volunteers from younger people, then figure out how you can use those kind of things, more hip and ed. [00:42:33] And mine can go back to tradition and sentimental and things like that. So those are all also things you wanna put in the mix, not just what is the character you're using, cuz you could use Tigger the same way. You said to you, I said, oh, I said to use. No. You said to use 'em for the wild cats, but you could also use him to say, Hey, hop on over and help us with the the drive to end colorectal cancer. [00:43:07] George: Yep. Fairly it's really usable. And I wanna put a finer point on what you're saying with regard to generational targeting because the characters. Are coming into public domain are 70 to a hundred years old. They are perhaps more recognizable, they're recognizable and broad, but specifically higher affinity, higher recognition for let's just be honest, a generation over 45. [00:43:30] Tara: Absolutely. I agree with that a hundred percent now I would say that my daughter, who is 17 recognized the mad hat. Because my artwork is a little cartoony but if you, yeah, your style. Yeah. Yeah. My style is a little bit more cartoony, but if you were to just put and she recognizes old poo, so then you would have to go to the really big ones. [00:43:56] You couldn't go to like owl from poo. You would have to go to poo bear, Tigger, EOR. Piglet and then you want yeah. Piglet, but then you want to to find out like how people are using those characters in common vernacular in the zeitgeist, because are you a Tigger or are you an E or is an actual thing? [00:44:29] I'm an ER, meaning that I tend to be a little. I just had this conversation with one of my friends today that I'm a little bit more grumpy and a little bit more doubting and she's a ticker, she's all everything's great. And everything's fine. And da. And so that's already in the Zeit case. [00:44:50] So you could do a fun quiz on, on your social media and say, are you a ticker or are you a E or. We're gonna have a drawing for a free entry to the, whatever you have coming up for one person from whichever team wins. Yeah, I just throwing other just looking through fictional characters, there's so much more than I realized Robinhood, Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein's monster is a, we've only just scratched the surface of kind of what's possible. [00:45:26] George: I wonder I've been playing around with Dolly two and image creation from AI, and I realized that you can actually take one of these originals and do riffs. I think you'll get more random than you would an artist, but the ability to do variations, even on, on some of these imagery, once you have, as you acknowledge like that style of the original thing that people may recognize, you could actually move those characters around more easily than ever before. [00:45:51] I think especially for a nonprofit on social media, if you're doing no commercial sales and you're just posting on social media. Yeah. And you wanted to take, say the drippy clock from Dolly. And put it on the front of your building and say, Hey, it's time to, it's time to donate times times running out to donate for the September big cat whatever for that. [00:46:24] Tara: There's a general feeling that as long as you have changed, as long as more than 40%. Change, so there's a, I'm really big on the bad things that happened. So do you remember that Obama poster that was really graphic stark graphic? That was, are you saying the Shepherd's ferry one? [00:46:51] I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. He copied that from a picture that he didn't have the commercial rights to use oh, that's. Okay. So he is in trouble for that. He's getting sued by the photographer, or he's been sued by the photographer for that because he didn't change it at all. Short of poster, short of what anybody could have done in illustrator. [00:47:16] He made it exactly. [00:47:18] George: He just dropped it down the middle and changed one shade, changed the other shade, hit it with an outline and he is And bam you're done well, the original photographer could prove it was his. So the thought is that as long as you change about 40%, but there's lots of really recognizable. [00:47:35] Tara: I don't know if CLE. K L I M P T. He made all that gold arch where there's two people on you. Yeah. And there's gold. All of that is in the public domain. His stuff [00:47:48] George: is his is the kiss, right? That's the [00:47:50] Tara: symbolic one. He did the. Yeah. So there's tons of stuff. If you start to, to take a look and then, so you can go to, you can do a search for creative commons which is an actual place. [00:48:08] Creative commons. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And use lots of things there because there are a lot of contemporary artists. There are a lot. Just people who love to make art or who love to take pictures who are willing to have people use their artwork with a commercial license. Cause you still have to have a commercial license. [00:48:30] You are a commercial entity, even as a nonprofit yeah. So you're not using it for personal. [00:48:39] George: Yeah, you have to, especially I think the bright line here I'm taking away as we wrap up is for general social media and your website use there's clearly ways you can use it, but you definitely have to double check, triple check and even consider paying for some access to it. [00:48:54] When the commercial rights of like, all right, I'm putting it on an item to be sold and revenue will be generated albeit even for a non-profit [00:49:02] Tara: a hundred percent. But I also think that there's ways to. Collection like to pay for a commercial license of a large collection for a low amount of money that you then know unilaterally, you have purchased the commercial right to use, right? [00:49:19] So if you have all the poos and you have all the Allison wonderlands and you have a creative intern and you say let's all help you brainstorm things to do. They could be posting on social media or your website for the next year. With all different kinds of fun things. Yeah. [00:49:38] George: All right. Normally I end with rapid fire questions, but I will trim it down a little bit, maybe for you and some final wrap up questions, unless there's any other finer points you wanna put on this overall conversation? [00:49:51] Tara: No, I think this was fun. It was interesting. [00:49:54] George: Little bit different. Alright, so what is one tech challenge you're currently facing right now? [00:50:01] Tara: I just wrote in my newsletter about this, that my first reaction to anything is I can't do that. I'm an EOR, so I think, oh, I can't do that. I don't know how to do that. And one of my friends today, her coach told her she had to do TikTok and she said I don't, she was freaked out, just freaked out. [00:50:27] And she said, I don't know how to do this. And so I talked to her for a little while and at the end of it, she's oh, I absolutely can do this. So I think when my first reaction is I can't do this, number one, I'll phone, a friend. And then number two, I will look on YouTube because everything you need to know about how to do anything is on. [00:50:49] George: All right. What new website or tool have you started using in the past year? That's been a game changer for you, red bubble. [00:50:57] Tara: Red bottles. So fun. Love it. And I have no affiliation. [00:51:01] George: Yeah, no this ad brought to you by red bull com find your new [00:51:07] Tara: hobby. Exactly well, but I think it's because I've used Etsy for so long and I've worked with so many entrepreneurs and it is hard. [00:51:16] Like it's just it's hard to use. It's hard to do things and. So it's distressing to give that as a person who suggests ways to make money or to do marketing or to do things like that. It's distressing to me to recommend something that I know that they're probably gonna spend a lot of time at and may not succeed. [00:51:40] Yeah. Where I was like whoa. All my little people will be able to cause my, my readership for marketing artfully is women who tend to be older, who may not be as technically inclined. And so to have something to recommend them. I'll give you another one though. canva.com. Oh, [00:52:01] George: we're friends of Canada. [00:52:02] Yeah. Okay. [00:52:04] Tara: All right. If you're doing any kind of graphics. They like, so you could totally pull your logo into Canva and they have all kinds of elements in there. And when I said put like a little Santa Claus hat on it, they would have a Santa Claus hat. You could stick onto your to your thing, even for the top of your new, how fun would that be? [00:52:29] The top, the header of your newsletter every month. You stick something on it and then seasonal [00:52:35] George: iconography. [00:52:36] Tara: Yeah. Yeah. And then people get used to looking for that, and that's a way to get them to read your newsletter, which is the point. [00:52:45] George: All righty. What is one piece of advice your parents gave you that you either followed or did not [00:52:50] Tara: follow. [00:52:54] Don't open things with your teeth. I paid a lot for them and I opened things with my teeth all the time. [00:53:04] George: That might be the best answer to that question we've ever had. And we've had many years of this that's I'm not gonna pull all the thread there. I think that was perfect. Final hardball question here. [00:53:13] How do people find you? How do people help you? [00:53:17] Tara: So I I have a, I marketing art fleet is helpful to marketing things. I have another website called artsy Fary life.com and I have a lot of stuff on there. That's artsy Fary art, artistic stuff, and then also a bunch for Alzheimer's. Cause my mother-in-law has Alzheimer's so caregiving for Alzheimer's. [00:53:45] So if anybody has that, then there's a lot of good information. [00:53:49] George: And what might somebody reach out to you personally, to do, to work [00:53:54] Tara: on? I don't work for people anymore. don't [00:53:58] George: I did that. I'm outta the client games. All right. It's lucky, [00:54:01] Tara: but you know what, but you know what? I have an open offer to anybody to email me questions and I get lots of questions. [00:54:10] It's Tara at marketing artfully. And so while I won't do it for you, a lot of times I have either a recommendation. Or I can answer a question really quick, quickly for you. That would maybe be something that would take you a long time to figure out. And I have people email you know how some people don't mind getting texts and a text will Fritz out my day. [00:54:34] I get emails all day long from people, and I've done that for years. For 20 years. My email has been out on the internet and it's in lots of my blog posts that say, feel free to email me if you have any questions. And then if you're more artsy, I have a really cool newsletter on artsy Fary and if you're more marketing, I have a really cool newsletter on marketing artfully. [00:54:56] George: I appreciate you answering my random cold email to you, and it all makes sense. Now. I appreciate you giving generously of your time and thank you. [00:55:05] Tara: It was nice talking to you today.
Podcast picture credit: OpenAI DALLE2 edit of A. A. Milne Winnie the Pooh on a log being interviewed | |||
| Patagonia Goes ALL-IN on Nonprofits (news) | 20 Sep 2022 | 00:11:35 | |
Patagonia Goes All-in Transferring Ownership to Nonprofit
The private B Corp company Patagonia, known for outdoor gear and its outspoken position on the environment has transferred its ownership to a nonprofit (reported by The NonProfit Times). The company, worth an estimated $3 Billion, is transferring 98% of non-voting stock to the Holdfast Collective a 501(c)(4), and 2% of the stock (all voting control) to the Patagonia Purpose Trust. Patagonia Founder, Yvon Chouinard has done something unprecedented for a company this size, ensuring that the $100m in profit each year will go toward philanthropic purposes instead of investors. The company still plans to donate 1% of profits toward grassroots environmental causes as well, at the discretion of the nonprofit. Further details of how money will be directed have not been revealed yet.
Summary
Image from DALLE2 - Tree wearing a shirt.
Learn how to create AI content for your organization. | |||
| Roundup for charity on the rise & Slack AI Policy Fail (news) | 30 May 2024 | 00:21:04 | |
Would you like to round-up for charity?
Point-of-sale donations, especially "round-up" campaigns, have seen a significant surge in recent years, raising millions of dollars for various charitable causes. In 2022, these campaigns brought in $749 million, a 24% increase from 2020. A recent survey conducted by Binghamton University faculty revealed that 53% of Americans give impulsively to charities at the checkout, with certain demographics being more likely to donate. Women, Black respondents, and middle-class individuals under 50 who have not attended college were found to be the top-giving demographics, contrasting with traditional donors who are usually older, higher-earning college graduates.
The success of round-up donations can be attributed to several factors, including the perceived lower "pain" of donating spare change, the human preference for round numbers, and the subtle guilt induced by declining a low-cost request. Taco Bell Foundation, for example, doubled its annual fundraising by switching from asking for $1 donations to a round-up strategy. Similarly, Children's Miracle Network Hospitals raised $138 million in 2022 through point-of-sale campaigns, accounting for a third of its total fundraising.
However, the ubiquity of these requests may lead to donor fatigue, and some consumers express concerns about the transparency of where their donations are going. Despite these potential drawbacks, the success of round-up campaigns is undeniable, and they have become a significant source of funding for many nonprofits, raising the profile of local organizations doing fantastic work in customers' own communities. Melinda French Gates says she's donating $1B to women's rights | NBC News
Melinda French Gates is committing $1 billion over the next two years to support women's rights, including reproductive rights, through her organization Pivotal Ventures. This decision comes amid growing political violence against women and maternal health issues, with Gates highlighting that only a small fraction of charitable giving supports women-focused organizations. Her initiative aims to improve mental and physical health for women and girls and includes a $250 million grant for grassroots groups. How might this significant funding shift the landscape for women's rights globally?
Slack users horrified to discover messages used for AI training | Ars Technica Slack users were shocked to find out their messages were being used to train AI models, sparking a backlash that has the company scrambling to clarify its policies. Despite reassurances from Slack engineers that customer data isn't used for training large language models, the existing policy's ambiguity has left users uneasy. Salesforce, Slack’s parent company, promised to update privacy principles to better explain data usage, but the lack of an easy opt-out mechanism adds to users' frustrations.
Current Policy: Privacy principles: search, learning and artificial intelligence | Legal | Slack Updated AI statement: How Slack protects your data when using machine learning and AI How to opt-out Contact slack to opt out. If you want to exclude your Customer Data from Slack global models, you can opt out. To opt out, please have your org, workspace owners or primary owner contact our Customer Experience team at feedback@slack.com with your workspace/org URL and the subject line ‘Slack global model opt-out request’. We will process your request and respond once the opt-out has been completed. | |||
| Nonprofits Recognize Anniversary of September 11th Attacks (news) | 14 Sep 2022 | 00:22:08 | |
Nonprofits Recognize Anniversary of September 11th Attacks With National Day of Service & Remembrance
This Sunday marked the 21st anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. As Americans across the country reflect on the day, nonprofit and volunteer organizations stepped up to honor victims and families, as well as to pay forward the heroic acts of bravery and charitable acts of community displayed that September. The federally-recognized September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance brings together folks across the country to “rekindle the spirit of unity that arose in America in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith, says that “from supporting students and teachers, running food drives and making emergency preparedness kits to helping with home repairs and organizing cleanups, we can help our neighbors in communities across the country,” in an effort to “ensure that what unites us outshines what tries to divide us.” Read more ➝
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| Donate Now, Pay Later Explained by B Generous | 08 Sep 2022 | 00:34:17 | |
Conversation with Dom Kalms, the CEO and Founder of B Generous. B Generous allows for donors to donate now, and pay later. We discuss how this technology works, how nonprofits get money upfront and donors are allowed to pay back the loan interest-free over 9 months.
There are new giving opportunities that are opened up with this new technology and Dom explains them on this podcast. Donors want to give to the organizations they believe in more than ever before. B Generous makes that possible. Today in the United States, more than 70% of donors want to give more to their favorite nonprofit, but simply can’t…leaving donors with two options: don’t donate or use a credit card with high interest rates. We think that’s a false choice, which is why we’ve created a free way for you to support your favorite nonprofit now, while maintaining the convenience of paying over time.
More about Dom Kalms, CEO and Founder of B Generous: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominickalms/
More about how donate now, pay later differs from pledge now, pay later.
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| GOP Senate Ads Fail & NAACP NC Loses Nonprofit Status (news) | 06 Sep 2022 | 00:19:02 | |
GOP-Tied NRSC Mismanaged Fundraising In Lead-Up To Crucial Midterm Elections
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the fundraising and campaign arm of the Senate Republicans, is facing backlash from its own party as details of how it lost millions on an ill-concieved fundraising strategy emerge. The NRSC, chaired by Rick Scott, managed to take in nearly $181.5 million in donation revenue by the end of this July, only to have spent 95% of what it had already brought in, according to detailed reporting from The New York Times. The committee now has less than half of the cash-on-hand of its Democratic counterpart, having gambled it all on a flawed digital donor acquisition strategy. The report also details an ethically dubious text-to-donate scheme in which millions of texts with the question “Should Biden Resign?” -- “Reply YES To Donate” processed donations immediately without any additional information. The WinRed platform insisted the NRSC abandon the tactic. Both GOP and Democratic campaigns have received criticism for aggressive marketing in the past. The 2020 Trump campaign was forced to provide nearly $122 million in refunds. Read more ➝
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| Public Service & Student Debt Forgiveness (news) | 30 Aug 2022 | 00:27:01 | |
Biden Announces $10k, $20k Student Loan Forgiveness For Most Borrowers
The Biden administration announced last week that up to $10k of federal student loan debt would be forgiven for eligible borrowers, including up to $20k for Pell Grant recipients. The sweeping announcement was a controversial policy move but nonetheless a major one, with tens of millions of borrowers affected. According to The White House, 87% of the eligible borrowers currently make less than $75,000 and will disproportionately benefit historically debt-burdened communities, including Black borrowers who hold a “disproportionate amount of student loan debt.” Nonprofit and public service employees should pay close attention to shifting (and temporarily expanded leniency) in rules for the government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Rules eliminating particularly onerous requirements have been temporarily waived but require borrowers to consolidate loans by October 31 to benefit. Read more here.
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| What is SHADOW moderation & how is it silencing speech? | 24 Aug 2022 | 00:48:26 | |
A deep conversation on the topic of shadow moderation, a feature that lets moderators on platforms like Facebook and Reddit censor posts without alerting the person who posted it.
We discuss how pernicious this problem is at scale with Rob Hawkins, the founder of Reveddit, which is a tool that lets users discover which of their content has been removed from Reddit.
This may seem like a small UX feature on the surface, but the implications of silencing speech in this way has large ramifications for the increasing polarization of discord online.
About Rob Hawkins
Rob is a grassroots software developer living in Taiwan and is the founder of Reveddit, which is a tool that lets users discover which of their content has been removed from Reddit. Before Reveddit, Rob worked as a data scientist in the financial services sector to extract key information from large datasets. Rob also spent a year developing websites with DoSomething.org, an organization that inspires young people to change the world.
Resource links
https://www.CantSayAnything.win - A hub for everything Rob is doing to advocate for reviewable moderation on social media.
https://www.reveddit.com
https://twitter.com/rhaksw
Ai Image generated
Created with DALL·E, an AI system by OpenAI
“progression of a match being put out with smoke rising, Photojournalism ”
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| $1.6B Donation to Conservative Nonprofit (news) | 23 Aug 2022 | 00:20:48 | |
Low-Profile Donor Gives $1.6 Billion To Conservative Political Nonprofit
Barre Seid, an “electronics manufacturing mogul,” has donated over $1.6 billion to the conservative political nonprofit Marble Freedom Trust, according to reporting from The New York Times. The 501(c)4 nonprofit, led by a prominent conservative political operator, represents the largest single donation to a political organization ever and dwarfs the spending of the top 15 GOP and Democratic-aligned nonprofits during the 2020 election. The donation was structured as a stock donation, as opposed to an all-cash donation, as a legal way to skirt a complicated web of tax rules. The Marble Freedom Trust is run by Leonard A. Leo, who among other titles, was previously vice president of the Federalist Society, and is largely credited with engineering an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. Justice Clarence Thomas once jokingly referred to Mr. Leo as the “third most powerful person in the world,” as reported by The New York Times. Read more ➝
Summary:
Image from DALLE-2, an OpenAI project. Prompt: "Rainstorm of money on an elephant, nature photography" Learn how your organization could start using AI content creation.
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| Historic Environmental Bill Passes! (news) | 16 Aug 2022 | 00:20:22 | |
Nonprofits & Environmental Groups React To Landmark Inflation Reduction Act Legislation The Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by the Biden White House shortly after passing through the Senate and House of Representatives in what has become a dramatic and unexpected win for Democrats and environmental activists alike. The new legislation is the largest investment in clean energy of any country in history, including hundreds of billions of dollars for clean energy programs and environmental justice initiatives, among other non-climate provisions. “This is historic for environmental justice and front-line communities that have been all but ignored, overlooked, and underfunded,” according to Harold Mitchell Jr. of the South Carolina environmental group ReGenesis Institute. WWF says the new Act gets to the “root cause of climate change – carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels– and offers significant resources addressing those emissions in American businesses, on our roads, in our communities.” Read more ➝
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| No Amnesty for NGO Report on Ukraine (news) | 09 Aug 2022 | 00:26:50 | |
Amnesty International Triggers Global Criticism For Problematic Report Lacking Vital Context
Amnesty International published a new report as part of its ongoing reporting on the war in Ukraine that has been widely criticized as lacking critical context and framing, triggering both internal and external condemnation. The report criticizes the Ukrainian military for violating “international humanitarian law” by putting civilians in harm’s way in relation to where the Ukrainian military places defensive military equipment. While Amnesty (and other INGOs) rightly pride themselves on remaining neutral in evaluating humanitarian and legal violations (in fact HRW made similar assertions in a more thorough report), the framing of this particular report is being criticized for giving ammunition to Russian propaganda, misrepresenting legal norms via vague language, and sidelining Amnesty’s own Ukraine office in its publication. After inflammatory tweets from Amnesty’s Secretary General defending the report, Amnesty’s director of its Ukraine office resigned in protest. (AI’s Secretary General is now facing public calls to resign, and the organization has issued something of an apology.) Large nonprofits should heed this as a cautionary tale of the consequences of a very public fallout from bureaucratic misalignment of process and viewpoints between global/national and regional/affiliate offices. Read more ➝
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| Trevor Project CEO Scrutiny for Past Pharma Consulting (news) | 02 Aug 2022 | 00:22:50 | |
Nonprofit News. Trevor Project CEO Under Fire For Purdue Pharma Consulting Work Trevor Project CEO Amit Paley is coming under internal pressure from staff for previous consulting work done at McKinsey for Purdue Pharma, according to reporting from Teen Vogue. (The first revelations were published by the Huffington Post.) Purdue Pharma, responsible for bringing OxyContin to market, is widely perceived as playing a critical role in the opioid crisis in America. Paley was a consultant at McKinsey working on the Purdue account, although his leadership and responsibilities in that role are disputed. Trevor Project staff have criticized the revelation, especially as the core mission of the Trevor Project is helping at-risk LGBTQ+ youth at risk of mental health crisis and suicide, verticals of care impacted by opioid abuse and misuse. The chair of Trevor Project’s board of directors has expressed “full confidence” in Paley while others inside the organization are quoted anonymously as saying the mood is “grim.” Read more ➝
Summary:
Sponsored: Is an AI Monster coming for content jobs? https://www.wholewhale.com/wwu-live/getting-the-most-out-of-ai-writers-for-your-nonprofits-content-strategy/ Webinar: Thursday 8/4, 1pm EST Are you curious about how artificial intelligence (AI) can help your nonprofit create content more efficiently? In this webinar, we’ll discuss how AI writers can be used to augment your content strategy and save you time and resources. You’ll learn about the different types of AI writers available and how they can be incorporated into your content workflow. We’ll also share some tips and best practices for getting the most out of AI writers. Key takeaways:
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| What does a unified NGO rating system look like? (news) | 29 Jul 2022 | 00:16:23 | |
Charity Navigator To Unveil New, Unified Charity Rating System
Charity Navigator, the 501(c)3 charity rating organization, has provided additional information on the proposed changes to their new rating system. The new system, according to a release, will “will bring together our legacy Charity Navigator 2.1 (Star) system with our Encompass Rating System, rating more than 200,000 nonprofits.” Among other changes, all organizations will be rated on a star system, as well as have the opportunity to be rated for additional “beacons” that indicate more nuanced performance. Charity Navigator, like other charity rating organizations, plays a vital — although sometimes criticized — role in communicating nonprofit trustworthiness to the general public. Nonprofit organizations should pay close attention to how their organization is portrayed by rating organizations, as discerning donors will often use them to verify legitimacy. Whole Whale, the publisher of this newsletter, offers a guide for communicating transparency and legitimacy to donors. Read more ➝
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| Seth Godin on Unlocking Positive Auctions for Fundraising with GoodBids.org | 22 May 2024 | 00:45:17 | |
This episode is also available as video on our channel youtube.com/wholewhale In this episode of the Whole Whale Podcast, host George Weiner sits down with Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and founder of GoodBids.org, to discuss how nonprofits can innovate their fundraising strategies and engage donors more effectively. Seth introduces the concept of positive auctions, a new approach to fundraising where every bid is a non-refundable donation, creating a gap between the winning bid and the total amount raised for the charity. GoodBids.org, Seth's latest venture, is a platform that facilitates these positive auctions, incorporating game dynamics to encourage participation and virality. Throughout the conversation, Seth emphasizes the importance of empathy in marketing and the need for nonprofits to offer donors a sense of belonging and satisfaction. He suggests that nonprofits should focus on creating tension and providing unique, desirable auction items that generate excitement and conversation to attract new audiences. Seth also shares his insights on collaborating with influencers and involving them in the brainstorming process to create more successful fundraising campaigns. He stresses the significance of nonprofits stepping out of their comfort zones and taking risks to solve interesting problems and make a lasting impact. The episode concludes with a discussion on the impact of AI on various industries and the importance of embracing it as a teammate rather than a competitor. Seth encourages nonprofits to use AI tools to enhance their work and stay ahead of the curve. This thought-provoking episode is a must-listen for anyone in the nonprofit sector looking to revolutionize their fundraising strategies and make a genuine difference in their communities. Key points:
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| Surprising Fundraising Facts from Classy.org | 28 Jul 2022 | 00:42:21 | |
Interview with Soraya Alexander, COO of Classy. We discuss the Classy State of Modern Philanthropy and dig through the data. Get the report: https://donationtrends.classy.org/
Rough Transcript
[00:00:00] George Voice Dub: I have known about this particular fundraising platform for quite some time. I'm excited to have none other than Soraya Alexander, the chief operating officer, the COO of classy. How's it going for you today ? [00:00:14] Soraya: It's going great. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be. Yes. [00:00:19] George: Yeah, you pop up, you know, as a definite provider of services, but also a lot of content. I see a lot of educational resources being churned out, which I, as a, as a consumer and creator myself deeply appreciate. And always I'm more interested generally in platforms that can look at their own data. [00:00:40] And so you've recently created this report, but before we get into there, how do you describe in your words, uh, what class he. [00:00:47] Soraya: We've got, um, a fancy brand proposition, but at the most basic level, we do digital fundraising for nonprofits. So the whole suite of, you know, main donation forms to events, to peer, to peer, um, anything that your donors, wherever your donors are going online, we're [00:01:03] George: It's such a competitive landscape. I, when I, you know, 12 years ago I started whole whale. I was like one thing I will never, ever do donation platforms. It just strikes me as like an impossible field to, to kind of grow in. So how has, how has it been over at classy? [00:01:19] Soraya: Oh, it's been great. So I've been a classy for four years. And I think where we get really excited is that, you know, we've got several thousand customers and they are honestly, the sector is made up of the most innovative, ambitious people. And generally. They're totally under resourced to match their ambition, right? [00:01:38] Like that is the definition of the sector. They don't have the resources. I don't know how many, how many, you know, the resources you would need to solve the world's greatest problems, but the sector definitely doesn't have them. And so we really see a lot of promise in technology overcoming that gap. [00:01:52] Like how can technology accelerate your efforts, amplify your efforts, get more fun, city, more good. Um, and so we're really not cynical about, you know, what we, what we do. We see. How technology can transform the work of the sector. So I, I completely love it. The, the pace of innovation, um, the way that we engage with donors, um, has been changing a lot. [00:02:15] So it is competitive, but that also just means we have to be better. And I think the sector deserves that. Um, so I really, it's been a lot of fun. [00:02:22] George: You know, it it's good to hear. And certainly like under resourced is the, is the sad mantra of what's going on and great that you're able to provide the sort of frictionless way to get more money into more good hands. You have come out with the state of modern philanthropy. I was hoping maybe you could pull out what that is first [00:02:45] Soraya: Yeah. Yeah. [00:02:46] George: what do, what do what's the state? [00:02:48] Are we [00:02:48] Soraya: , I don't know that I have an answer. I think, uh, optimistic is probably the one word answer. So the state of modern philanthropy is an annual report. We do it's the, the fifth year we've published it. And we would just kind of glean all of this information from all of the campaigns on the platform. [00:03:05] We would collect all of these insights around donor trends, behaviors, campaign trends, payment trends, uh, and it was just too much too much information to not share it out with the sector. We thought it could be really valuable. So, you know, this past year we saw over a billion dollars of donations. Uh, it was 12 million individual transaction events, 54,000 campaigns. [00:03:27] And so from that, you can start seeing kind of what's working. What's not how are things progressing? Um, so yeah, really happy to publish it. And it. Kind of goes hand in hand. We do several consumer surveys throughout the year as well. And so you marry up what are people saying about how they wanna give and then what actually happens on the platform and, um, you find some interesting, interesting insights. [00:03:47] So yeah, excited to kind of share some of those today, but, um, please do you know if anybody's interested, go, go through there's there's way too many insights to, to talk through. It ends up being, you know, feeling tedious, but we think that we've packaged it in a way that could be really helpful. [00:04:01] George: Yeah. And just so folks know, we'll have the link in the show notes, but I, I found it by going to donation trends dot class e.org. So that's, I think where we can find this, the looking at your executive summary, which I always appreciate. The quick summary. Tell me what I need to know before I need to know it. [00:04:19] Cuz I'm super lazy. You have that events are back. Um, so events were away, clearly events. Meaning I read this as in person fundraising events, cuz that pesky little thing called the COVID. So we're BA we're back. [00:04:35] Soraya: we're back. What, you know, so one of the things we do is because we've got kind of long term relationships with so many nonprofits, we'll only isolate to year over year performance for the same kinds of campaigns and the same kinds of organizations. So this isn't just. We started selling, you know, to a lot more organizations who are interested in events. [00:04:52] This is actual year over year performance. Um, and we saw that revenue from events group 50% year over year. So that's coming back in a big way. Uh, but it's not just coming back in person. I think people got really used to virtual. Events then got totally sick of virtual events, but they held onto some of the digital components that feel easier, more elegant, more efficient. [00:05:15] And so I kind of mentioned these consumer surveys. We did, we actually did a, a fundraiser experience report, which was a survey of donors and they talked about really. Uh, valuing when there are things like digital auctions or, you know, digital fundraisers added on to either hybrid or fully in person events. [00:05:35] So now we are seeing about half of donors say, yeah, we wanna come back to events. Events are raising a ton of money again, you know, anybody who's, um, You know, been in this ecosystem or frankly been in an airport, knows that like the in person experience is back, but that digital component is not going away. [00:05:51] It's just evolving. Uh, so that, that kind of combination we're seeing as a, as a real transformer as we go, as we go forward [00:05:59] George: And just to, to repeat the, what was the year over year increase. [00:06:03] Soraya: 50% [00:06:05] George: About a 50%. That's pretty phenomenal. And again, just the, the sample size, I think, just to confirm is the, the total over, you know, $1.1 billion that transaction, like, so of that has a huge increase. Uh, is the, is the overall amount donated on the platform also increased in that same period of time? [00:06:24] Or is it like the percent of money coming via? Makes [00:06:28] Soraya: Yeah, it's a good question. So we're definitely, um, growing and that's both growing through individual organizations who are growing, who are doing kind of really well with all these optimizations and different campaign types. And, you know, we'll talk about. Um, channel optimization and payments optimization, and then it's also growing just as our out platform grows and we're able to support nonprofits, but for events specifically, these are events that were run the year before or organizations that were with us the year before that weren't running events and what they did the next year. [00:06:56] So it's not reflective of just kind of new organizations it's truly year over year comparison. And we're seeing, um, a pretty drastic, uh, increase, which we find really encouraging. [00:07:05] George: Yeah, you read my mind. I'm like, well, wait a minute. You know, the number went up, cuz our number went up and you're like breaking news. [00:07:10] Soraya: for it. [00:07:11] George: organization's numbers go up because they got bigger. So you kind of controlled for it. Looking at the same organizations. Uh, running these events. I'm curious, are these events I R L or are they a mix? [00:07:22] Do you have that [00:07:23] Soraya: Total mix. We it's, it's a complete mix and it's even harder to what we're seeing is either even the IRL. Very few of them are strictly in person. Now, almost everybody has introduced this digital component. They've, you know, really come to understand that. Why place a geographic limitation, if you don't have to. [00:07:43] And people in the room are happy to engage online with, you know, again, things like digital auctions, so why restrict it, or even timebound auctions, there's no need to restrict it. You're raising more money. If you can kind of open the aperture and it's so easy to do now, the donors experienced with it. [00:08:00] They actually prefer it, um, based on our donor surveys. And so, uh, we see very few pure play in real life events happen. [00:08:07] George: the majority of these are non geofenced. [00:08:11] Soraya: It's it's in person events that have a digital component that has been layered on. That's a lot of what we're seeing now. [00:08:19] George: Gotcha. So there are people hanging out in person, but like, like logo, like, like I'm gonna walk around my block. I'm gonna walk around my block, like, oh, cool. [00:08:27] Soraya: of that, or even just, we're gonna have an in person gala, but our auction's not gonna be a, you know, the paddle race is gonna be ver digital now. And so if you wanna phone it in, you couldn't make the gala that night, you just really could not get outta your sweatpants. You can actually participate at alongside the people who are in the room. [00:08:42] That's a lot of, kind of what we're seeing. [00:08:44] George: Yeah, finally sweatpants for a cause I knew it was gonna come. [00:08:48] Soraya: I am behind that. Cause [00:08:49] George: What is the weirdest event you think classy has been, been parked to? [00:08:55] Soraya: Oh man. You know, I need customer permission before I can talk about some of these things. I will say the coolest one was right at the start of COVID. Do you remember, um, that Robin hood telethon in New York that had. Tina Faye crying. It had, I mean, it had everybody coming forward and really like every celebrity you can imagine coming forward to raise money, um, for all kinds of relief efforts that Robin hood was doing just at the start of COVID incredibly powerful. [00:09:21] And if you had told me that we were gonna be part of some huge telethon in, in the year, you know, 20, 20, I, I would. I wouldn't have believed it. Um, but it was a really incredible kind of moment for everybody to come together. And we were really, really proud to work with them. [00:09:37] George: I'd be so curious. I, I feel like I can just talk about this or parse this out almost in, in a lot of ways. What are the, I don't know if you have this, but what are the highest yield, um, types of events? Is it, is there a certain center, like, oh, they're running the, uh, yield walkathon or like, oh my gosh, it's the, the silent awesome pet grooming Bonanza that like really brings in the dollars. [00:10:00] Soraya: It's a great question there. It totally depends on the organization, which is a really unsatisfying answer. The one thing that I will say is completely consistent is I think sometimes event organizers. Feel like the big ask is getting people to the event, getting them to register, getting them to give again, they don't, they're, they're nervous to ask for those participants to also fundraise on their behalf. [00:10:22] When you do event with fundraising on top of it, you invite somebody to raise additionally either for, you know, uh, run, walk, ride, or even just a gala. Event volume goes through the roof, always encourage your network and your supporters to do more for your cause. It, it, that is a really transformative aspect that takes very little from you. [00:10:42] You are just activating your supporters network, um, and it's not used as much as you'd expect. And, and really that has transformative impacts on, on how much you raise. [00:10:53] George: So as I'm understanding this being explicit, that attend, but you're also fundraising. [00:10:59] Soraya: Yes. [00:11:00] George: Don't just show up, like [00:11:02] Soraya: That's right. And you think about, you know, everybody gets one more donor, you've doubled your event revenue. Like it's not hard stuff. You don't really have to ask them to become superstar fundraisers, say, Hey mom, I'm going to gala tonight. Do you wanna throw 20 bucks on top of my ticket? Um, for something that I care about your mom will. [00:11:18] Pitch in 20 bucks. Um, and that, that can really change, right? Yeah. that changes things. Um, and it's, it's very low lift. It should be no lift with the right technology. Um, and, and you don't, and, and suddenly you have all these new donors as well, suddenly mom's part of your database suddenly you can market to her and get her as a more committed donor in the long term. [00:11:36] So even outside of the event, you've expanded your network in kind of profound ways. Um, so we, we are always encouraging our, our, uh, organizations to consider. [00:11:45] George: right. Big takeaway. Everybody. Get those mom dollars. [00:11:48] Soraya: Get mom dollars. [00:11:50] George: another one we, yeah, hashtag hashtag get mom dollars. Uh, donors give more when they have choices. Can you, yeah. And other news money, money buys things. [00:12:03] Soraya: yeah, shocking. [00:12:04] George: I don't, I don't mean it that way. What does this actually mean? [00:12:07] Soraya: Well, well, so we, um, we launched a payments offering a few years ago because we heard that organizations kind of want everything consolidated. They want easier reconciliation. And so we, we launched this, this payments gateway as a, as a way to facilitate easier organization reconciliation and just reporting honestly. [00:12:28] And then we saw the light on payments and became completely obsessed with how. Offering different payment types can really transform conversion rates, donor retention rates, even dollar amounts that you're giving. And so as our payments offering expanded, we said, okay, let's layer in digital wallets, right? [00:12:46] Apple pay. Yes. You should have apple pay PayPal. Yes. You should have PayPal, Venmo, crypto ACH, which is like digital bank transfer. You start offering all these things and you see individual donation amounts go up, you see conversion rates go up, you see. Um, recurring commitments, go up, you see lifetime value of those recurring commitments extend you start adding all these things up and it starts sounding like comical numbers. [00:13:10] So I'm not even gonna share kind of some of the things we're seeing, cuz I am making our team go through and scrub it a hundred more times before I would share it with a public. But we will say, you know, a couple of the stats we saw, one time donations could increase 50% when you have payment options on there. [00:13:25] And this sounds really profound until you actually take a second and say, how do I behave as a consumer? Oh yeah. If there's apple pay, I am more likely to complete a checkout, whether it's on a eCommerce site or a nonprofit donation form. If I don't have to. Get up while I'm in my sweatpants, you know, watching the gala from home, I don't have to go up and get my, you know, find my phone and find my credit card and find whatev or sorry, find my credit card, find my laptop, whatever else. [00:13:49] So it's really intuitive when you put yourself in the mind of a consumer. Um, and yet we, you know, we still have kind of nonprofit saying, well, I've got, you know, I've got a credit card form. Like that's enough. You know, I, I have a means for a donor to check out that's actually not enough. Um, and. It's transformative when you have all of these options. [00:14:09] And it's also tragic when you think you've spent so long, getting the public to know about the cause care about the cause. Find your organization that is trying to address the cause. Get all the way to a donation form, and then still check out. Rates are. Way lower than they should be. Definitely not a hundred percent. [00:14:26] And, and you think about how much work you have done to then lose the donor at that last moment. And if it's kind of tragic, um, and that's why we've become obsessed with payments, cuz you can start bumping that number up in kind of meaningful ways. [00:14:36] George: Yeah, just to reiterate though, you're saying that the average one time donation was nearly 1.5 X more just by offering these options all in one place. That's that's amazing. I had thought prior. To this, that probably the number one piece that impacted the amount given in that first time, one time amount was the anchoring, what the prefilled amount was, [00:15:03] Soraya: Yeah. We're seeing as actual payment options. It's not just conversion rates that are impacted. It's actually the dollars that you give. [00:15:08] George: Wow. And, and you found, so you now accept crypto. [00:15:13] Soraya: We do we accept [00:15:14] George: when did that start? [00:15:16] Soraya: a couple of weeks ago. We just launched it, um, right in the middle of crypto, winter. It's you know, we'll we'll uh, [00:15:22] George: what are you guys doing? Losing [00:15:23] Soraya: I I know, come on over. No, I mean, the idea, what we've seen is the more offerings you have, we like saying that we know we have more payment options now than Amazon. Um, you know, you just, you wanna come over no matter how you wanna give, we will be there for you. [00:15:35] We will accept. We will accept any, you know, any form of [00:15:39] George: You accept all cryptocurrencies, all, all forms of all forms of the, uh, the doge. [00:15:45] Soraya: Not, not everything, but more every day. I think we just, um, announced that we, we extended to another only 10 currencies just last week. So they keep coming. Um, the capabilities keep extending, um, but very early days. [00:15:58] And I think, you know, that's the most exciting thing for us. Um, you know, we, we did. Credit card and ACH. A couple of years ago, we layered in digital wallets about six months after that, about a year ago, no, maybe eight months ago was PayPal. Uh, then Venmos two months after that crypto, you know, was just a couple of weeks ago. [00:16:16] So, uh, the velocity and the, the focus and the expansion here is, is continuing. And it's really because of that value, we see the donor engagement and the reactions and the receptivity. um, so, so no plans on, on kind of slowing down, we're running out of currencies to accept and, and payment methods to accept. [00:16:32] But, um, as long as there's more, we're gonna keep, keep exploring to create, create new things. That's it? Well, and it's fun cuz now you get to start getting, uh, really weird about thinking. Okay. What does event, you know, we're talking about hybrid events, we're talking about crypto, the future of. Uh, virtual galas where you're just auctioning NFTs, and suddenly things become really interesting is, is absolutely, you know, there are brainstorming sessions happening with some of our most innovative customers around what this can look like and how we can support it. [00:17:00] So, [00:17:01] George: Why did you choose to, uh, why did you choose to accept crypto? [00:17:04] Soraya: Um, really it's about kind of donor choice and organization choice. So our job is to be a platform that just says we can enable nonprofits to engage with our donors in any way that is meaningful to donors. And our job is to. Do a lot of kinda market assessment stay on the cutting edge of, you know, eCommerce trends, donor trends, non-profit trends and say, okay, where, where is this going? [00:17:24] Where can we get more funds to causes that need them? And then we will have, you know, we will pursue offerings in that capacity. So it was, it was kind of an easy choice from that lens. [00:17:33] George: and do you, uh, Do you have any organizations that are expressed to saying like, no, no, no. Like turn that off or I assume they have to turn on all of these things. It's not default outta the box. Right? So [00:17:45] Soraya: We do no, no, no. You have complete control over what you do, how you engage with it, what you turn on. Even at a campaign level, you can decide, you know, this one doesn't really feel right. We don't think it's the right donor base. Um, but here we would like to [00:17:56] George: But your data seems to suggest that you should check all of the boxes, like land C air, however you wanna get us there. [00:18:02] Soraya: our data strongly suggested, but this is why we release these reports. It's like, you know, we'll do the analysis. You can make the decision. The choice is yours. [00:18:11] George: I love backed insights that fly in the face of the. Common knowledge is don't offer too many choices. You're gonna overwhelm the person, keep it focused. Like, you know, you seem to be betraying the, the imutable laws of UX and, and sort of throwing all this. [00:18:28] Soraya: I'm really glad you asked that. So, um, The right options are good. And so more options means you have a higher, uh, higher chance of getting to the right one for that donor. But does that mean all the donor? All those options have to be on the table for every single experience. Absolutely not. And so you're right. [00:18:45] We actually are working on how do you get more insights around who's landing on the page and maybe you cater those options. To that person. So you can have the full suite enabled for every campaign, but based on what you know about a particular donor visitor, you can say, you know what, we're only gonna show these three options. [00:19:02] We really don't see any indication that this person would be interested in option X. So we'll just hide it on that page. So it's not, it's not live yet, but you're absolutely right. Those are, those are things we're exploring right now. [00:19:12] George: be curious. Cause you just turned this on of putting all of those together. It seems that they are they're additive and it's like in addition to not, instead of, and I wonder with something. Like crypto, which has, uh, a polarizing effect, I think in its current cycle of adoption, which is a fancy way of saying doesn't this piss off some folks potentially that are looking at ways to give, and they're like, wait a minute. [00:19:37] This organization accepts, you know, you know, climate destroying cryptocurrency, [00:19:43] Soraya: Yeah, [00:19:44] George: you all. I'm not giving to this organization. I, I wonder if that's a thought or concern. [00:19:49] Soraya: Yeah, well, the, the, the crypto argument aside, we do have kind of off offsets enabled if you want as an organization to sign up for some kind of offset program. So we do have that kind of, um, integrated as well. And then, um, I think it ends up being the, the organizations know their donor base really well, and they say, okay, um, are you choosing kind of greener crypto, you know, offerings, things like that. [00:20:12] George: Yeah. I don't know the right answer, but I do know that more is different. [00:20:16] Soraya: more, more is different, more so far is really. Um, paying off and we are testing the heck out of it. Uh, and seeing, because the second it starts not paying off we'll, you know, we'll, we'll publish that as well and, and give control to kind of moderate. [00:20:32] George: Yeah. The irony to me of also the, like the crypto argument, then we'll move on. Cuz I love rabbit holes is, is the fact that I assume that on donation. The acid is liquidated so you're not holding it. You're technically getting it outta the system and switching back to Fiat. So it's, it's kind of funny to me being like, how dare you, you know, not go green. [00:20:51] You're like, you know what we're doing? Right. We're removing liquidity from the system. You don't like, you know how this works, [00:20:57] Soraya: love, I love that we haven't even pursued that angle, but, um, [00:21:01] George: Yeah. Yeah. [00:21:03] Soraya: It is, it is, it is early days though, and you're right. And the, the, the thinking around it and just the, the process of producing it, everything is evolving so quickly. And so I think for us, it's always, how do we, how do we stay on leading edge? [00:21:16] How do we make sure that. You know, so I started my, my career in the social sector and moved into e-commerce and customer loyalty and customer engagement for the, for profit sector. And so this is kind of the best of both worlds, where I get to say, you know, I ki I have familiarity with what the sector needs and what they encounter, and I know about e-commerce and it was always, you just try to go where the, where the donor, the consumer is. [00:21:37] You try to make it as easy for them. If you just, if the goal. Make it easy for them to spend money with you, then you have to figure out that psychology and that experience, and that is your job. And so for us, that is our job on behalf of the sector that we think needs the most. And so wherever that goes, we will, we will be there. [00:21:54] George: Of working with, and also like talking to folks that have experience in the e-commerce sector, moving into the nonprofit sector. You're like, yeah, go get that money. That's how this works. That's how all of this [00:22:04] Soraya: that's it. That's the, [00:22:05] George: get the [00:22:05] Soraya: the job. That's the [00:22:07] George: overthink it. [00:22:08] Soraya: Yeah. And you have to do that in really sophisticated ways. You know, how do you do that when you're not, um, you know, how do you do that when you're talking about impact, where you're talking about long term relationships, where, you know, you have a fraction of the budget, you've gotta get even more creative and thoughtful and personalized and all these things. [00:22:24] Um, it it's so much more important. You can't just say, okay, we're running a flash sale on something and you don't have those levers. Um, and so I just, I completely love it. [00:22:31] George: We have a final point in here that fundraising among peers thrives on social media and you have this number that peer tope raise on average 3.8 times more than other time based campaigns. Can you help me parse this out? [00:22:46] Soraya: Yeah. So, um, this is really around, you know, focusing on. Campaigns that say, okay, we've got, you know, we've got an end date. If that's an event, you know, you're leading up to an event you're trying to raise money or we're raising for a particular fund. Um, this actually goes back to the events conversation we had earlier, which is just activate your donors and your supporters networks offer a way for them to fundraise on your behalf and for time-based campaigns specifically, you see almost four times more raised when you allow people to fundraise and extend what their own wallet can do, what their own contributions can do. [00:23:19] And then suddenly you also get all these new donors. Um, so I, there's no reason not to allow people to do more than what you know, they're willing to spend in that moment. Cuz they have networks who are going to listen to them. You know, this is important to you and I care about you and I feel aligned to your values and I want to support the things that you support. [00:23:39] It doesn't have to be, you know, their entire network to, for it, to be really meaningful for non. [00:23:43] George: What does this actually look like? Are you saying the organization creates this peer-to-peer fundraising campaign and then sort of enables a certain feature for social share? Explicitly says it puts it in the flow. What, what does this [00:23:56] Soraya: Yeah, what, what we are, what we are looking at. So we have, um, peer to peer capabilities, you know, like separate campaigns and we have events where you've got fundraising on top of it. Uh, so those two event types where you can say. I allow I going to enable you to set up your own fundraising page. That's what we're talking about versus just an event where you buy a ticket or just a campaign where you individually donate. [00:24:19] So we're not talking about social sharing here. That definitely has power, but when you actually encourage people to set up their own fundraising page, we see almost four times more raised. That's right. [00:24:29] George: So the individual is creating a page that they have their, like their fingerprint on under the banner of the organization. And then they're encouraged to share that page on social, check out my fundraising page, and then they post it. [00:24:41] Soraya: That's right. That's right. [00:24:44] George: Yeah. That [00:24:44] Soraya: they don't have to be great at it. You know, that's the, I think that's the compelling thing is people say, like, I don't know that I've got these power fundraisers. I think that was the point. That was really exciting to me. You don't have to have a network of pseudo development staff at your disposal. [00:24:59] You just ask your, your committed fundraisers to open up a page. They get a couple of donations and you think about right there, that's four times as much donations, you know, four times as much volume. It doesn't take long for the math to get there. And yet it feels really profound. When you say four times the amount of volume as any other campaign type. [00:25:17] Yeah. Just, just allow people to kinda help. [00:25:20] George: Yeah, it seems like in some ways you're unlocking the power law even more so where clearly. 10% of your followers, donors supporters have 90% of the potential following. There's gonna be one person in there. Who's just happens to be hyper connected. And by allowing that person encouraging that person to leverage that social network, you're, you're, uh, you're dancing in the right side of the power law. [00:25:45] Soraya: That that's it. And you, it, it really doesn't, you know, if you have really sophisticated peer to peer and event with fundraising, keep, you know, um, campaigns absolutely. That exists, but they don't always have to be that you, you know, with the right tooling, you just say, yes, this is an option. They will take it from there. [00:26:01] Um, so I, I also recognize that we're talking to development officers and development managers who are saying, I don't have a huge staff to launch all these complex campaigns. You actually don't necessarily need it. You know, tech can help you. Tech can fill in the gaps of what, you know, your staff can't do manually. [00:26:17] It should be doing that. It should help you scale. And this is one of those areas. [00:26:20] George: I love it. Anything else about the report we should [00:26:23] Soraya: So there's one piece that is a really unintuitive. Stat. And so it takes a second to parse it, but I think it's, it's fascinating when you think about it. So recurring capture rate, when you are, um, donating and you decide to become a sustaining member as opposed to a one time member. Um, let's say that's a, you know, 10 percent-ish capture rate over time. [00:26:45] When you, as a development officer, look at your transactions, this is platform wide for us. You look at all of your transactions in a month. 58% of those transactions were recurring donations. That means that they were decided to give before that month. So it's not that there's, you know, 58% of the people who come in on any given month are making a recurring gift. [00:27:04] It's that the transactions that are processed in that month, 58% of them end up being recurring gifts that have been decided before that. And so if you think about your donor outreach strategy and your engagement strategy, know that. More than half of the transactions in given month have already been committed to how are you engaging that audience? [00:27:24] So back to like the e-commerce days, we think a lot about, are you talking to your recurring donors? Are you making sure that you're, you're letting them know that ongoing impact? Are you making sure that they have opportunities to give again? Are you treating them like gym members where you're hoping they set it and forget it and you never talk to them and they just let it go forever? [00:27:41] Or are you saying we wanna make sure you understand the value of this dollar because it. It's the, it's the predominant number of transactions, even if it's not the predominant number of donors you see every month. And so we just don't want 'em to, we don't want it to become like the silent majority that you forget about and take for granted and take, you know, just assume they'll always be there. [00:28:01] They require some cultivation they require talking to, and we actually see that about a quarter of recurring donors end up giving one time gifts on top of their monthly commitment. You should absolutely be engaging with this cohort. So it it's, I know it's a little bit of a confusing stat when you say it this way, but I just think about, you know, you look at a report and you see this many times a credit card was charged in this month. [00:28:22] More than half of those cards, those donors didn't come to your site necessarily that month they had already committed. And are you thinking about them as actively as you would any other kind of cohort of donors that month and you should be? Um, so I think a lot about donor segmentation and engagement and ongoing communication, um, and how important it is. [00:28:40] George: think the only thing that stuck to my brain there was that we have reoccurring donors as a nonprofit. [00:28:46] Soraya: Yes. [00:28:46] George: According to your data. Literally one out of four of those folks will just write an extra check. If I reach out to them, [00:28:55] Soraya: Yes. [00:28:55] George: I feel like that is something that would scare the, the fundraising pants off. [00:29:01] Somebody be like, oh my gosh, don't disrupt. Leave them. Be let the money come in. Don't like piss off anybody being like, how dare you ask me for more money. I already give you the money, [00:29:12] Soraya: Yeah, no, [00:29:13] George: no, the data suggests other. [00:29:15] Soraya: the data suggests otherwise. And, and again, I think we're, we're scared because we feel like we got away with something when we got that recurring gift and like, oh my [00:29:22] George: did, you got the [00:29:23] Soraya: money. For however long. Um, but people wanna validate their decision to invest in you. They're investing in your organization and your cause and the impact you can have. [00:29:33] So the ways that you communicate that was a good investment, the way you should validate that investment and the ways that you can communicate, how much more you can do with a little kind of extra on top, that all speaks to their values and why they're with you. So it definitely shouldn't be something scary. [00:29:47] It's really powerful. Uh, donors. [00:29:50] George: That's interesting. I'm wondering, do you know your average retention for a reoccurring donor? Like that, that gift amount? I'm always. Do you get more in the one time where that, uh, that cutoff and that trade off is it depends on, you know, who, which data source you're talking to [00:30:05] Soraya: Um, I do, and I've got fresher data. That's like hot off the press as of yesterday that I won't share yet. So a few years ago we pulled it maybe two or three years ago and we found a recurring donor is five times more valuable than a one time donor. Um, we have seen that go up meaningfully, um, almost. [00:30:22] I, I shouldn't dare you, but something like almost double it's almost, it's almost, it's almost double [00:30:27] George: More. [00:30:27] Soraya: And it's because of some of the, um, capabilities that we've enhanced along those lines of, you know, through, through our payments offering, which is, you know, recurring, retry, recurring capture. [00:30:38] Automatic card. Updater the ability to engage with donors before cards expire. If, you know, if we don't think we're gonna be able to update them, there's all kinds of capabilities to allow you to extend the life of a donor. Because more often than not, you lose a recurring donor because of a payment failure, not because they're canceling. [00:30:55] And so if you can address all of those, all of those reasons, or as, you know, as much as you can, you can extend the life of a donor, um, substantially. [00:31:03] George: That makes sense. And there's also just been like technical shifts in the way some credit cards operate that even when you cancel it, if it's a preexisting payment system already in place that they maintain that while canceling any new charge. So there's like just sort of happy accident of fate [00:31:17] Soraya: Yes. That's right. Well, and the thing that I'll add is if you really can get 25% of these donors to give a gift again, why would you ever say, I want the one time, because I'm scared that this is gonna be a lower donation amount over time. Like they'll come back because you've got that consistent relationship with them. [00:31:32] And so there's just, there's all kinds of reasons why no recurring is still. Still the way to go. [00:31:38] George: Like you're living on the positive end of the hedonic treadmill, [00:31:41] Soraya: Yeah, there we go. [00:31:42] George: fancy way of saying people just get real used to what they've been doing. Right. And like, oh, you know, like life could be as good as you want, and then you get used to it. And you're like, this sucks. I want something new. So on the positive side of that, I'm used to giving my 25 or 50 bucks, whatever the number is a month. [00:31:56] Like that's what status quo is. But is that good enough? The hedonic treadmill says no. [00:32:01] Soraya: We can do more and back to payments offerings. Um, I think we saw that for ACH. Let me see it. Oh yeah. Recurring gifts. When you have all these payment offerings, recurring gifts on ACH, which is kinda direct bank transfer are 30% higher than credit card. So even that number of what [00:32:15] George: Can you say that again? I [00:32:16] Soraya: yeah. [00:32:17] A AC recurring gifts made on ACH versus credit card. It's it's like a direct bank transfer [00:32:24] George: Gotcha. So I connect my bank and then like, I'm, I'm locked in. [00:32:27] Soraya: That's right. That's about 30% larger than those made on credit card. And so back to payment offerings, when you're engaging with kind of sophisticated donors and you can actually nudge them on, you know, if you're giving, you know, these might be like, these are options for you. [00:32:42] These are recurring donors who want to give in these other, in these other ways. Uh, you can actually nudge that number up as well. And so then. You start, you start compounding all of the impacts of these little benefits and it starts to be really, um, meaningful relative to let's say a one time gift where you only have one, you know, payment offering and, um, [00:33:01] George: You also can dance. You also can dance with the fact that you don't have to pay the credit card processing fee when you use ACH. Cuz [00:33:06] Soraya: That's right. It's cheaper for the organizations. That's right. A hundred percent. Yeah. [00:33:10] George: well, awesome. I'm glad you, I'm glad you added that. That's a, another counterintuitive, but look at the data and, you know, file that away. [00:33:17] There's some real, there's some real good gems in here. Thank you for sharing [00:33:20] Soraya: we think so. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We're happy to do it. [00:33:24] George: Yeah. Rather than just keeping it inside. You're like, oh, here are our secrets. You you've decided to share it. I, I do. I do genuinely appreciate that. Alrighty. Are you ready for rapid fire? [00:33:35] Soraya: now let's go. [00:33:36] George: Okay. I don't know if you have much of a choice, but I always [00:33:39] Soraya: I [00:33:39] George: that because, you know, uh, you know, ask, ask permission. [00:33:44] Okay. So let's kick this off. What is one tech tool or website that you have, or your organization has started using in the last year? [00:33:51] Soraya: The calm app. It helps me at work. It helps me with everything. I know you think that's a, that's a, that's a cheating answer, but it's not mental state is everything [00:33:59] George: That's great mind achieves with the mind achieves with the body believes and strike that reverse it. Tech issues. What tech issues are you currently battling with? [00:34:08] Soraya: Data availability everywhere. And as completely as I want all the time, I don't know anybody who won't an won't have that in their answer somewhere on their list. [00:34:16] George: Yeah. What is coming in the next year that has you the most excited? [00:34:20] Soraya: we just joined forces with GoFundMe and there are. [00:34:24] George: about that. [00:34:25] Soraya: Uh, I am so excited because there are a hundred million donors on that platform who are activated and engaged and not actually affiliated with nonprofits. It's all individual acute cause giving. And if we can connect those donors who are responding in a moment to a human and say, there's also organizations fixing this issue at scale and structurally, would you like to meet them and continue this relationship? [00:34:48] I think there is so much power for organizations and that is why we did it. And I cannot wait cuz we are working on it. Right. [00:34:54] George: Might have another podcast in the future. I'm always curious about companies that, that get acquired and then I'm always watching. [00:35:02] Soraya: Uh, I am so enthralled about it. It is like the most exciting area of how do you fundamentally change the game for nonprofits operating at a very competitive market? And I think this is a really exciting one, so I would love to talk about it. [00:35:17] George: All right. We'll put, put a pin in that one. [00:35:19] Soraya: Yeah. Great. [00:35:19] George: Talk about a, can you talk about a mistake that you made earlier in your career that shapes the way you do things now? [00:35:25] Soraya: No, I never made a mistake. I'm just kidding. Um, so, uh, I have so many, um, I think one of the earlier ones was, um, I was, I was, when you're early in your career, you were kind of insecure about how little experience you have. And so you try to overcompensate with confidence and demonstrating mastery, and then you get nowhere cuz you can't actually have honest conversations. [00:35:46] You're not in a position to learn and everybody sees through it anyways. Uh, so I've completely overcome that. Like I just wanna get to good answers and better insights and I don't care who has them. It's probably not gonna be me. That sounds like such a cheesy thing to say, like once you're management, but it's absolutely true. [00:36:00] And. The faster you get over that. And you're willing to say you're willing to like really get into learning mode. Uh, the better, the better your life is the better outcomes. There are, the faster you get ahead. All the things. [00:36:10] George: believe that nonprofits can successfully go out of business. [00:36:13] Soraya: Uh, I used to work at PBS and worked at Lincoln center for a hot second. So I hope not. [00:36:17] George: If I were to throw you in the hot tub time machine, back to your start at classy, what advice would you give yourself? [00:36:25] Soraya: The impatience to be great because the sector needs it. um, just be really unapologetic about that. I think at first you're trying to kind of navigate and make sure you don't rock the boat. I'm all about rocking the boat. If it means it's better outcomes for this sector. And we are really unapologetic about that now, but it took me a little, you know, it took me a second to really own that position. [00:36:46] Um, and I would just, I would just start even faster. [00:36:48] George: is something you think you or your organization should stop doing? [00:36:52] Soraya: I have a million things I should stop doing. One of the things I'm really proud of with our organization is we definitely have a culture of, if you see something stupid and you elevate it and there's discussion and we agree it's stupid, we just stop it. We are actually like very unattached to anything because it's always been done that way. [00:37:07] Um, so I can't think of anything, not cause we haven't done stupid things, but because anything that I know about, I think we've been pretty, uh, aggressive about stopping. I think it's an important skill for any company to have. I will say that or any organization [00:37:19] George: like. [00:37:20] Soraya: it's just, it's just impatient for inefficiency and in, and, and impatience to be great. Like, I really think it comes that that seeps through the, the DNA of, of everyone. So it's not that we can fix it overnight, but if we see something we should, we need to fix or we see something dumb. Yeah. We, we, we try to jump on it. [00:37:35] George: If you had a magic wand to wave across the social impact sector, what would it do? And you can't say just generate a whole bunch of new classy users. Like I'm taking that ability off the wand and no more wishing for more wishes. I'm tired of it. We can't have it. [00:37:47] Soraya: Come on [00:37:48] George: inflation and I won't have it. [00:37:49] Hmm. [00:37:50] Soraya: um, [00:37:51] George: What is your donor [00:37:52] Soraya: Donor retention, fixed donor retention. We're trying in absence of, in absence of a magic wand, we're trying with tech, but fix the donor retention problem, because I also think that talks about are people engaged in the cause. So it's so much more than dollars. It's also about like public engagement with these causes and these missions that is required right. [00:38:09] Alongside the dollars. [00:38:11] George: right now on average 54. [00:38:12] Soraya: Um, our, you know, like our recurring donation or [00:38:15] George: No, just like overall, like, yeah, reoccurring, like I gave this year next year. What percent am I likely? [00:38:20] Soraya: Donor retention across. So there's like a bunch of ways to cut it. It's it's lower than that. Going up fast. If you adopt all of these capabilities, it kind of depends on what you adopt. Um, and it's for the base organization. [00:38:32] I think industrywide not just on classy. It's something like a fifth. I mean, it's something abysmally low. I don't know. Remember the reports are out there. Um, all of these tools we have seen kind of meaningfully increase that long lifetime value, a long retention, um, still lower than I think anybody would like it to. [00:38:49] George: Yeah. So hovers around 20% for you all, [00:38:51] Soraya: Well, not with, not with our recurring and our classy pay customers. So no that's much higher, but, um, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm, [00:38:57] George: Gotcha. Appreciate the sidebar. How did you get started in the social impact sector? [00:39:02] Soraya: I took a semester in college and went and worked full time at amnesty international and the refugee department in DC and loved it. And then started at a strategy communications digital agency for the social sector right after college. So early, as early as you get in my career. [00:39:18] George: What advice would you give college grads looking to enter this sector? [00:39:22] Soraya: Most entry level jobs kind of suck, but. There is always something to be learned. If you really lean in and you try to figure out who is doing interesting things, how can I be of value? How can I work a little harder? Because you get exposure to do interesting things and your job for most of your career is to gain as many experiences as you can. [00:39:40] That doesn't mean job hop. That means whatever you're doing. Try to involve yourself in as much as you can and do it really well. And it will all start coming together into something that looks like a linear career. It just takes a second. So be patient and really lean. [00:39:52] George: What advice did your parents give you that you either followed or didn't [00:39:56] Soraya: Um, I am, uh, I am a little bit intense and I am always trying to like, You know, work really hard to prepare for the next thing to, to, um, set myself up. Well, and I think when I was 15, my mom looked at me and said, you know, you're not gearing up so you can get ready. So your life starts like, this is it. This is your life. [00:40:14] And so it didn't really sit with me. Yeah, that's it. I didn't really sit with me until I had kids, but now I think about it a lot. Like this is it. If I'm not living in the moment, What am I doing back to the com app? the, the grounding efforts are, are, uh, are a dominant part of how I, how I try to operate now. [00:40:31] George: Brilliant. Last hardball question. How do people find you? How do people help you? [00:40:36] Soraya: Uh, come find me on LinkedIn. I am, uh, I am there. I would love, love to connect, go to classy.org. You can contact us there and it's still, um, you know, very accessible team. I would love to chat with anybody who is listening, who wants to learn more, definitely check out the report. But yes, I would love, um, LinkedIn is a, is a great place. [00:40:55] George: thanks for the work you do really excited also about the headways that you're making in the, the GoFundMe and helping nonprofits claim, a larger stake of that, that audience. That's [00:41:07] Soraya: Thank you so much and thanks for the work you do. Um, and I'm so happy to be here. Thanks again. | |||
| 988 Hotline is LIVE! NGOs should be ready (news) | 19 Jul 2022 | 00:27:05 | |
988 Mental Health Crisis Hotline Rolls Out Across Country
The consolidated 988 national mental health hotline rolled out over the weekend, as part of a broader effort to fill gaps in emergency mental health response and access throughout the country. The effort, in large part spearheaded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in conjunction with national and local partners streamlines the public’s ability to talk to a crisis counselor. Years in the making, federal and state governments have spent lots of money to prepare for the rollout, though some questions remain about different states and call centers' ability to handle the volume of calls. The 988 lifelines, as a national helpline, functions 24/7 providing support to people in crisis. The helpline is available for both calls and text messages, giving options to people in crisis for calling for help. Health organizations and other organizations that serve individuals at risk of suicide are advised to promote the 988 helpline through community education campaigns and outreach. Read more ➝
Summary
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| Nonprofit (C)4s Get Ready for Midterms (news) | 12 Jul 2022 | 00:18:57 | |
Lots Of Money To Move Around PACs, Super PACs, But Also 501(c)4 Tax-Exempt Orgs This Election Cycle As the primaries wrap up and the general midterm elections start moving into full swing, more and more money will start flowing through various election spending vehicles, including 501(c)4 organizations, which are sometimes criticized as “dark spending” avenues for political expenditures. 501(c)4 organizations are prohibited by FEC and IRS rules from spending more than 50% on political lobbying or advocacy, though some critics argue that the largest funds might spend beyond that. While 501(c)3 organizations can spend “insubstantial” amounts of money on political lobbying, their 501(c)4 counterparts routinely spend millions during each election cycle. Nonprofits should brace themselves for a tough messaging battle in Q3 to the beginning of Q4 as they go up against political organizations spending millions on advertising, fundraising, lobbying, and the like. Read more ➝Summary:
Transcript: [00:00:00] This week on the nonprofit news feed for the week of July 11th, seven 11, always open lots of money, lots of money moving around packs and super packs. As we move into that type of midterm season, Nick, how's going good, George. We can dive right into it. So alluding to that first story, uh, we wanted to talk about at the head of the podcast was that lots of money are moving around packs super PACS, but also 5 0 1 C four tax exempt organizations, this election cycle as in past election cycles. [00:00:38] So this is something we want to talk about because I think it's important for nonprofit leaders to know that there are tax exempt organizations operating in this space and. Might create messaging challenges and public perception, challenges as we go into what is sure to be another pretty volatile midterm election year. [00:00:59] So 5 0 1 C four organizations are similar to C3 organizations except they are. Specifically designed for groups that work on advocacy they can spend up to, but no more 50% of their expenditures on advocacy, political lobbying, X, Y, Z some of these orgs, however that are associated with packs doll out millions and millions of dollars. [00:01:26] We have an article in here about a pack associated with Senate majority pack, uh, or a, a C4 associated with Senate majority pack. Given out tens and tens of millions of dollars to various causes in previous elections. This is just how it works. Right. C four S are increasingly a vehicle for moving money around in the political space. [00:01:47] C3 organizations can send, spend quote, unquote insubstantial amounts of money on political lobbying. Definitely do research it before you do that, if you're a C3, but the, the takeaway here is that C four S are tax exempted organizations. There's going to be tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars swirling around this year during the. [00:02:13] Quite frankly, C3 should be aware of that. You might see more news stories about X, Y, and Z tax exempt organization, dark money, this that, how can your organization increase its legitimacy. And the perception that your money is being used for good and being used efficiently. Something else we wanted to point out is that advertising during elections can become notoriously difficult for smaller organizations going up against these massive ones cost per click on ad platforms like Facebook are probably gonna be really hard to compete with. [00:02:49] There's just a lot of money. Going for what is a finite and ever decreasing attention of the public. So that's kind of at the top of our story, more kind of broad, not necessarily breaking news, but George, what's your takeaway on this? I think during a couple, you know, misnomers, just to circle back on one, is that. [00:03:09] There's a difference between, uh, C3 and C4 quite, you know, just it's one number apart. But if you donate to a C4, it is not tax deductible. Right. It's very different. C four S are, you know, used both by the. Political left and political right leaning, uh, organizations to shuffle money around. And there's an interesting site, open secrets that really tracks this stuff pretty well to see where, where that money is going. [00:03:36] The other thing to touch on is that the word in substantial. So in substantial is. Actually not zero. And I think this is a bit of a misnomer for some people who assume that, oh, my nonprofit can't spend a single dime on anything that approaches lobbying otherwise will lose our certification. Not true. So the breakdown is if you are an organization with, uh, less than half a million and and revenue here, the percent that may be spent on lobbying is 20%. [00:04:06] For organizations under a million it's, uh, a hundred thousand plus 15% of budget over half a million. And then at the highest level, if you're over 1.5 million as an organization, it's 224,000 plus 5% of budget over 1.5 million. I don't know where your definition of insub substantial comes from, but that leaves some room. [00:04:27] The other reason to bring that up is as it has happened, With Roe V. Wade, there are many organizations now that even by doing the business, they used to do programmatically may actually be looking into this quite deeply because suddenly your, your emails and ads and awareness just about helping women get healthcare for, you know, different areas may suddenly turn into something that looks like lobbying. [00:04:51] So I would say tightening up your understanding of this moving into election season. Also noting that if you enter into a screaming match and hope to have better ROI than the other person with the, the bull horn. Maybe adjust the strategy. So that was a good note. Thanks. Yeah, of course. George, that's a great call out about, about nonprofits and, and that kind of work. [00:05:11] There are some organizations that have like sister organizations, a C3, and then a respective C4 counterpart for this exact reason. Right. And quite frankly, with all the issues we talk about on this podcast, uh, it's pretty impossible to avoid the fact that our government and policies. Proposed and voted on by politicians have direct impact on the beneficiaries of nonprofits and communities and programs that they serve and run. [00:05:38] So, uh, yeah. Great call out there. Shall we move into the summary? Yes, please. All right. This first story is we gotta, we gotta report it out because it's at the top of the top of the feed, top of the news pile here. But this comes from boston.com and it is about an organization. Called violence in Boston. [00:06:02] And that has just been completely shut down because the two people, uh, leading this organization a couple had exclusive control over violence in Boston's financial accounts from 2017 through at least 2020 and are allegedly Accused of essentially committing, uh, systematic fraud, siphoning off donations, creating fake documents to get, uh, unemployment pandemic, unemployment benefits. [00:06:28] They knew they weren't qualified for there's lots of counts of wire fraud coming down on, on these at the top. But, uh, supposedly the board had no idea this was happening and the organization just completely folded. Has stopped existing because it's just a, it was a, a, a money, uh, fr it was a fraudulent scheme. [00:06:51] Uh, I mean, these, these people allegedly kind of, it seems set out to use this as a vehicle, uh, for money, but George, what's your takeaway on this? Yeah, I mean, it's a federal indictment. That's saying that this couple used over 1 million. That was collected in donations between 2017 and 2021 for personal expenses. [00:07:13] So this isn't a, oh, they're being, you know, overly scrutinized on our financials. Uh, this, this is pretty significant and it's just devastatingly unfortunate that it coincides with, uh, certainly the summer 2020 George Floyd incident, where, you know, they really rose to prominence. Uh, according to the, the reporting on this, the, the highest level takeaway. [00:07:37] Is understanding the critical importance of board. A board of directors plays in every nonprofit. They are at the very core, financially responsible. They are on the hook. Essentially as stewards of this organization, they've been put in a position of power that is higher than the CEO they can hire and fire. [00:07:57] That is the most important job a board has. And you are very much derelict in your duties. I'd say as board members. When you are not overseeing the financial health of an organization and attending to that role. So, you know, I would, I would, I would hold that mirror up very, very closely. And I, and I wonder if there isn't, uh, any, uh, legal ramifications for, for that board, uh, because they were siphoning money away from a very important cause a very important. [00:08:27] Area, uh, of I'm sure programs in, in Boston. And I, all I can think of is like that money routing to, to other places. But I, I look at the board of directors here. I L less so on the, the, the individual couple that most of this article points to [00:08:42] yeah. George that's, that's a good point. Yeah. Shall we take us into some brighter news, some giving Tuesday trends. I like it. Let's see. All right. So giving Tuesday has, uh, released a new data commons report entitled from scarcity to abundance mapping, the giving ecosystem and it's worldwide generosity survey. [00:09:06] Uh, it has some interesting stats. I'll I'll I'll, uh, name a couple of them here. 85% of people surveyed globally gave in 2021 that non monetary giving was two X more common than monetary giving, uh, and globally again, in global context, only 5% of people who gave, gave money only. That's a really interesting, only mm-hmm, , that's a really interesting stat. [00:09:32] I imagine it would be much different for the United States, which has one of the most advanced, you know, nonprofit, social. Impact sectors in the world, but, uh, really interesting stat. Another one is that volunteering for nonprofits has increased 7.4% in 2021 after a severe drop in 2020, but remains far below pre COVID 19 levels in the United States. [00:09:58] This is something we've talked about even recently on the podcast here. Uh, Then I, I, one third one is that in the United States, giving to non-registered entities was over twice more as common than giving to registered entities. With most people giving to multiple types of recipients. I imagine that's things like go fund Mees and other fundraisers and, and that kind of thing. [00:10:26] But George, what do we take away from, uh, the summaries of this. [00:10:30] Yeah, the macro trend certainly is down as we've moved through the, the pandemic and many giving avenues 7% increase in 2021 was, was really great. Uh, actually I am also, I also feel like a, a broken record bringing back the fact that macro giving. I love the sentiment. I love the surveys, the, the fundamental gravity of donations in America. [00:10:54] Is the simple relationship of the rule of two, the rule of 2%, 2% of our GDP. Tell me what our GDP is, and I'll tell you what pretty much giving is gonna be, because it has been anchored to that roughly since 1970 and. You know, we can, we can look up and down, but right now I'm a little concerned that the retraction potential recession and that net effect of taking 2% of a smaller number. [00:11:17] So I'm not optimistic about what's gonna happen, unfortunately in 2022. And normally that that sort of consolidation, uh, tends to amplify a power law, but we'll, we'll see, I think it is positive though, that sentiment is, is increasing, is not decreasing. Uh, 82% of Americans affirmed that they gave. And you know, it's a good thing about participation. [00:11:44] I think that's something that you may want to hang your hat on in a year where just the overall volume will be down, but you really want to keep those transactions, those interactions as also an important measure, uh, of what's going on because the, the tail of the tape can be misled by one large donor, not giving. [00:12:03] Yet your actual underlying health might be strong. So, uh, keep that in the back of your mind this year, especially fundraisers who are out there trying to hit your number, like obviously hit your number, but you also pay attention to those, those transactions. And look just more than the, uh, the end of this year, because, uh, as this, uh, downturn recession, however you wanna brand it, uh, will come and go. [00:12:25] But, uh, maintaining the number of unique donors that are connected to your organization will pay dividend. Later. Yeah, George, I think those are great points. And that actually takes us into our next article, which comes from the nonprofit times, which states that nonprofits contributed 1.4 trillion to the nation's economy during the first quarter of 2022, uh, actually exceeding the overall, uh, gross tic product by. [00:12:55] 1%. But states that despite positive signs and comparable charitable giving in 2020 and 2021, the current 8.5% inflation signals that holding study financially is not good enough for some organizations to maintain staff services and impact to 2021 levels and goes into some things as you were talking about to look at, uh, through the end of 20, 22 as inflation. [00:13:21] And recessionary concerns come into play. Uh, George what's kind of continuing along that, that macro conversation about giving a nonprofits and the economy. What's your takeaway from this article first? Always a fan of the nonprofit times clearly. No, we, uh, we occasionally like to write, uh, for them over there and I like that they do this summary. [00:13:41] I like looking. Nonprofits as an economic engine, quite literally generating 1.4 trillion to the us economy, you know, via jobs, making up 10%, roughly speaking of our labor force, I mean, it's huge. And I think oftentimes over overlooked, uh, at that just sort of raw value of what's going on. And usually the, the GDP, just because of the way, the dumb way that GDP, maybe that's as a rant for a future day it isn't properly represented by what nonprofits do, because by the way, our service to each other isn't properly fit into a tiny bucket. [00:14:16] measured in, uh, zeros and ones and oil and gas, but the, the contribution is real. And, you know, there's a, a number, uh, associated with. [00:14:26] Yeah, George, I think that's a, a great point. Takes me back to my high school level economics class, trying to remember what goes into a GDP, but this is a cool way. There's actually, there's a little bit more in here. Sorry. I wanna call call to I'll just quote, uh, directly, cuz it speaks to sort of diversity. [00:14:42] The sector workforce is continuing a trend of losing, uh, racial and ethnic, uh, ethnic diversity proportion of white workers, 70. Call it 78% higher than pre pandemic levels. Uh, generally, uh, the say the racial and ethnic proportions of nonprofit workforce track with demographics of the broader workforce ex except for Hispanic workers currently making up 11% of the nonprofit workforce and 18% of the overall workforce. [00:15:09] According to the, the data in this, uh, report that they. [00:15:12] those are pretty striking data. That was, that was one I missed also that's that's striking. [00:15:18] We'll have to dive into that slide. It's holding up that, right. It's just like, it's holding up that mirror of being like, you know, here's the, here are the macro trends. Like we can use the language, we can, you know, put out the. Put out the campaigns, all we want, but you know, when you look at your own labor, uh, it's an important thing to note, especially if you're serving, uh, those communities, uh, directly and saying like, what is, what is our complexion juxtaposed with our stakeholders? [00:15:44] Absolutely. All [00:15:45] right, George, what about a fun feel? Good story. We actually have one. We, we did our job. This. We actually, we actually have one, it's not so much a story, but just more a cool project. This is a website called Leica, L E L E K a.me dot E. And it is a website that essentially you can buy digital art made by. [00:16:10] Kids from Ukraine, kids in Ukraine and kids in the Ukrainian diaspora and the funds go directly to them. Uh, this is a UK based, uh, organization. They're registered as a non-for-profit company, but they're not a charity. But, uh, there's tons of cool artwork here and they're all around, uh, seven pounds. [00:16:34] I think that's the, what I think the. Oh, that's the, is the weight. It's the currency. I was like the currency, the currency. These kids are churn out some high, high volume. Could you imagine the shipping on that? No, but for seven pounds you could be the proud owner of a digital copy of this really cool artwork made by kids going through what can only be, uh, a heartbreaking time. [00:16:59] And, uh, the money goes directly to, to those kids. And. Uh, kids, families, bank accounts. So just a cool project. And you're seeing lots of really cool social impact like tech, uh, spring up from this, uh, this crisis. And, uh, you know, we talked about crypto philanthropy and, and this, that, and the other, but just another cool little project to help people in this trying time. [00:17:25] Yeah, my only, my only critique here is. It was a huge opportunity to turn these into NFTs and sell them. Uh, instead you can, uh, you can choose to donate and download. [00:17:34] They reach out to them, see if they wanna wanna help moving this into the, the crypto philanthropy world. Anyway, Nick, thanks for bringing this. Thanks for summarizing. Thanks George. Talk next week. | |||
| National Volunteer Shortage Threatens Stability of NGOs (news) | 05 Jul 2022 | 00:24:33 | |
NonprofitNewsFeed.com National Volunteer Shortage Threatens Stability of Nonprofit ProgrammingNonprofits in Arizona are having a hard time getting volunteers to come back compared to pre-Covid times, as reported by Axios. This represents a continuation of a broader trend since the onset of the pandemic, where nonprofits have seen volunteer participation decline nationally. Nonprofits like the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central and Northern Arizona say they may have to stop providing meals because of increased costs and lack of volunteers. Higher gas prices, coupled with fewer work-associated volunteer outings as well as remaining concerns about Covid may have contributed to the decrease. This animal nonprofit in California is entirely volunteer-run and has seen funding decrease by 30% since the onset of the pandemic. Decreases in volunteer participation threaten the stability of the hundreds of thousands of volunteer-led organizations throughout the country. Read more ➝
Summary
Rough Transcription [00:00:00] This week on the nonprofit news feed, we're talking about, uh, national volunteer shortage as it rolls out and continues, Nick, how's it going? It's going good, George, how are you? First week of July? We are we're in the, I guess that means the second half of the year we're doing it. We're doing it. We're now in Q3. [00:00:23] Oh, everything's gonna look brighter, shinier and better forget Q1 and Q2 of this year, they were junk. Things are gonna be completely new and fresh and a lot of nonprofits starting their new fiscal years. So, you know, you can, you can, re-plan based on the new information. Absolutely. I'm bullish on the success of Q3, but let's go right into it. [00:00:46] Our first story comes, uh, as we talk about an increasing trend, which is a national volunteer shortage, that's threatening the stability of nonprofit programming. So as reported by AIOS nonprofits in Arizona in particular are having a hard time getting volunteers to come back compared. Pre COVID times. [00:01:10] And while this represents a broader trend, the article talks about how nonprofits like the Ronald McDonald's house charities of central and Northern Arizona say they may have to stop providing meals because of increased costs and lack of volunteers, some of the contributing factors or potentially higher gas prices. [00:01:29] Coupled with fewer work associated volunteer events, as well as of course remaining concerns about COVID that may have contributed to the decrease in the first place. Um, so just a small anecdote, but from a trend that we've been tracking for a while that we know is occurring nationally, George, what's your thoughts on. [00:01:50] We talked about this early with volunteer match as well, the CEO, Greg Baldwin at the time of saying like, what are you seeing? And it, you know, it was clear that there were a lot more opportunities being posted than there were, uh, people necessarily filling them and to continue that. Into this year, corporate volunteering. [00:02:09] Right? What does it mean when we're not all in the office together, doing things together, local and community. What does it look like over time? As we have maybe moved away from central areas in certain communities? As part of the like work from work from home, the second order effects are, are pretty real where maybe people are staying inside or staying more local more often because of gas. [00:02:31] Like all of those things add up. And then unfortunately, you know, we see where we see a few of these stories. There's certainly many more, there's another one in the California, um, reporting where they are saying like a local animal shelter, not having enough volunteers. So if you see these stories, as we do, we kind of pull 'em together and say like, there are some second order effects there. [00:02:52] Yeah, absolutely. Something will continue to follow, but just wanted to call out again, is one of those bigger trends we like to talk about on this podcast? Yeah. The other piece, when you have fewer volunteers, a volunteer is, and this comes from the data inside of volunteer match, 10 times more likely to donate 10 times more likely to donate than somebody who's not volunteered. [00:03:11] So as you approach. Q4 knowing when you're supposed to be getting and converting donors in particular at higher numbers. This can have that type of downstream effect as well on mid to small nonprofits with high volunteer dependencies and relationships that if you are volunteer, numbers are lagging. So two will probably your donation numbers when it comes that time of year. [00:03:36] Definitely. All right, George, shall we move into the summary please? All right. Our first story is kind of a wild one, and this comes from the New York times. Um, the the title of this article is 76 fake charities, shared a mailbox. The IRS kept approving more. So it turns out this dude in Staten island kept on registering. [00:04:01] Fake nonprofits, but kept getting them approved by the IRS. Um, so this guy's registered nonprofits that don't exist such as the United way of, um, Ohio. Which he registered outta Staten island, the American cancer society of Michigan, which was also registered outta Staten island and did this 70 to 80 times getting IRS approval each time. [00:04:29] This is just one of those classic fascinating New York characters. Uh, he was kind of ha has a history of. Shady wall street pump and dump schemes in the eighties, worked with an associated of the Gambino crime family. And now is living in Manhattan. Uh, the reporters talk to him and he says that he regrets it and is now on the right path now. [00:04:53] But the IRS approved these charities, which is pretty incredible. Um, and yeah, I guess this goes back to our, our story of not all nonprofits are good, but he ultimately did defraud people of approximately 150,000 in donations to these fake charities. That's what they were for, for fraudulently, you know, siphoning, uh, donations away from legitimate charities, like the American cancer society. [00:05:22] Uh, but yeah, kind of, kind of a wild tale. What's your takeaway here, George, just to reiterate this statement. That is almost a mantra here at whole. Where, where, where it is just because you have a 5 0 1 C three does not mean you are doing good in this world. And this is Testament. So making sure that as a donor you're checking the validity of the organization you're donating to is crucial, but also here's a powerful reminder for every nonprofit, especially those that rely on brand national. [00:05:57] Brand and reputation. These are things that probably should have come up in a reputation, defense search and monitoring that should probably go on. If you're the United way, you should have an eye on this. If you're an American cancer cancer organization, you should have an eye on organizations that are popping up and looking to essentially. [00:06:23] Mislead donors with brand, uh, adjacent and sort of mimicking your, your brand, uh, IP. And, you know, you work hard to create it. You should also spend capital time, money, whatever you wanna put towards that. You should spend that toward analyzing whether or not there are. These types of scams in there and, and file those cease desist, uh, letters and notices through there. [00:06:50] Uh, the other piece here, which, you know, kind of, kind of resounded a little disturbingly on the nose for me is the quote that he had here is if you file something with an agency, he said, and they approve it. Do you think it's illegal? So technically, I guess like the approving of it like happened, the IRS looked that and said like, yep, that looks right. [00:07:12] 72 freaking times. Okay. The part where you get into illegal is raising funds under somebody else's name that that's, um, you know, uh, runs a but of false advertising, misrepresentation and fraud. Yeah, absolutely. And George, just back to your point about, uh, You know, that brand protection and awareness piece, this is a little less sinister, but might be a tangible piece of information for our listeners is that you should be every organization should Google themselves. [00:07:44] In a search engine and see what comes up, um, because if you're a larger or medium or larger size organization, there is a chance that a competitive a competitor organization is bidding against you. Uh, in terms of advertising. And again, not a little bit different. This is obviously all course kosher. It's not illegal, it's a strategy, but when it comes to brand protection, uh, that's an important thing to do. [00:08:10] How do you. Show up in Google search. How do you appear on the internet? Are there organizations with similar names that are kind of, uh, milking that similarity for, for what it's worth, you know, and, and that, that kind of stuff is important. So I think you bring up a really good point, even if it's totally above board and legitimate, still important to know what your competitors, who your competitors are and what they're doing. [00:08:34] Yeah. As if he didn't have enough things to do, but there was real money associated with this, right. There was 150, $2,000 that didn't find its way to those handful of charities. So what is the cost of, of not doing brand defense? You tell me [00:08:48] wise is words. All right. I'll take us into our next story. And this one is about a nonprofit calling out Tesla for not disclosing enough environmental data. Um, so. Uh, Tesla, of course, one of the, the. You know, most traded and talked about companies on wall street is being called out by an organization called CDP, which is a global nonprofit that runs an environmental disclosure system for companies, city, states, and regions. [00:09:20] Um, and they've called out te Tesla for not disclosing, um, the environmental impact of their company along with other. Major companies that are, are traded. Um, Tesla got actually downgraded off of the S and P five hundreds ESG index last year, which is the environmental, social and governance index, which is supposed to be, uh, you know, presumably socially and environmentally conscious companies. [00:09:47] And they actually got kicked off that list. LA last year, much to the chagrin of the company's, uh, current chief executive. This is kind of interesting. And I think it's important and goes into the narrative that nonprofits have a power and a legitimacy to call out companies that need to improve their practices for social and environmental reasons. [00:10:10] And that this is getting picked up, I think is, uh, is definitely a good thing. We only need more accountability, not less. What I like about CDP is also that they are essentially leveraging corporate markets and structure to. Improved disclosures with regard to environmental impacts in a very real way. [00:10:32] This isn't just a article published over here on the side. This actually affects the way that your company is listed, which matters very much when you're talking about how fund distributions work and how, you know, we mentioned DSG fund investing works. And I picked up on the story because I remember Elon Musk as with many things. [00:10:53] Moaning on Twitter as he is, want to do, uh, about how organizations like Exxon are on an ESG list, but yet Tesla has fallen off. And frankly, I was wondering like how that happened and like, here you go. Like they aren't disclosing how the organization is impacting and has an environmental footprint. And I think it's important to note because on the surface, yeah, they have revolutionized and moved forward by orders of probably decades. [00:11:19] The electric car movement in America. However, to just tell that story and not also talk about the net effects of lithium mining internationally, and what that actually means in the environment is a misstep. You, you sort of assume you've solved the problem by not looking at the process. And so I, I think a full disclosure of what that, uh, mineral extraction costs is, is important. [00:11:45] You know, are we trading one evil for another. And to what level? So you went on the list, go disclose. Yeah, I agree. I think this is a case of don't let perfect be the enemy a good, uh, but transparency is still important. Right. Um, so I totally agree with that. Take. all right. Our next story is that w three C is announcing plans to launch or relaunch as a non-profit organization. [00:12:16] So w three C is, has to do with internet standards and governance, and they're relaunching has a non-profit George, I'm just gonna toss this over. I just have a soft spot for, I, I grew up with looking at w three C training and learning materials and how they've guided the fundamental underpinnings of HTML and CSS, the things that make your websites bright, poppy sparkly, and, uh, friendly enough. [00:12:44] It, it just is a, been a tremendous organization just in, you know, sort of my, uh, my journey in, in web. And I like seeing them turn to the social good. Uh, for, from the, for profit to the, uh, to the, to the nonprofit W3C was originally founded in 1994 by Tim burner's Lee widely credited as the principal web inventor, much to the chagrin of others. [00:13:11] claim claiming internet, uh, authority. Yeah, it's a, it's actually honestly amazing how much these kind of small organizations and most people have never heard of contribute so much to the infrastructure of the internet. Um, so, I mean, if you talk about accessibility, right? Like web accessibility standards that have allowed and made sure that folks that have, uh, issues with colorblindness or interested in web readers and the standards that have allowed, uh, the, a true diversity of individuals ranging of ability to access the evidence information. [00:13:50] Like these are the folks that are helping look out for, for those as well. Absolutely. All right. Shall I take us into our next story? All right. This one is. Little controversial. I'll put it out there. This was an opinion in the New York times. Um, and the opinion is that Democrats are having a purity test problem at exactly the wrong time. [00:14:16] And the title I think is slightly misleading. And the reason it's included on this summary is because it largely talks about progressive non-profits and. Civil society groups, um, and generally nonprofits and, and activist groups, uh, within the left. And the general thesis of this opinion is that there is a lot of tension between older, potentially more traditional, but also still liberal leaders of these organizations and younger, more diverse, uh, Up comers up and coming people in this organization who are pushing for change more aggression aggressively than their older counterparts. [00:15:03] And the, uh, this particular opinion is that that tension, um, is causing turmoil at these organizations. And, you know, this is a point of view. It's, it's an opinion. Uh, but it's certainly an interesting thing to chew on. And I know we've previously talked about a story here. A C L U uh, was kind of at this center of, uh, you know, fierce protection with simple liberties, which doesn't always necessarily align with, uh, you know, progressive ideas and values, um, as just one kind of anecdote. [00:15:36] Uh, but George, what, what's your takeaway from this opinion? What should nonprofits be thinking about? Because whether or not you agree with this opinion or not, uh, I'm sure that this is coming up in some way or another. Tons of organizations [00:15:52] first off, this is, uh, a difficult issue and to not talk about what any sort of policy brought and implemented to, uh, at an extreme, or even in the wrong way. And it's in that potential negative effects, uh, is a misstep. So. I don't know if this particular article nails all of it in the right way, but I think it's an interesting conversation to have, and it does actually call, um, it does call in a lot of actual quotes from actual leaders and, you know, I'll try to find one particular quote. [00:16:30] We talked through this Ryan Grimm's June 13th intercept piece elephant in the room, meltdowns have brought the progressive advocacy groups to a standstill at a critical moment in the world's history. And so this assessment, you know, As you mentioned touches on the a C L U. They mentioned the gut mocker Institute. [00:16:47] They talk to some people who are, um, you know, only were anonymously talking about the issue. And in one part, just to quote this. Article, uh, consultant who works primarily for nonprofit advocacy groups only spoke anonymously, uh, mentioned that in this quote, uh, she said regularly sees routine disputes over salaries and assignments turned into civil rights issues, making them extremely difficult to resolve under ordinary circumstances. [00:17:18] The failure to give someone a raise, even when it is a black boss becomes a matter of structural racism. She said, and. It continues on with these sort of anecdotal points, I think, to try to prove a macro narrative that I personally need to see more data around. However, with that, you know, a number of citations in these issues and well known organizations, uh, that are clearly cherry picked, there can be a kernel of, of truth, where there is a, a sort of paralyzing inefficiency to the way that DEI might be. [00:17:53] Sadly weaponized in certain situations where it doesn't need to be. And whenever you misuse something, you're actually doing a greater disservice to your true end goal, uh, than implementing it in the right way. But I think it's, there's a kernel of truth here where I think there are a lot of progressive organizations struggling with maintaining their mission. [00:18:15] With a higher expectation of DEI, D E I B in, in the organization in the way they, they do work. And that's not just from the senior level, but also at, it sounds like in this, the, the junior level of how you communicate these things without weaponizing them. To the detriment of the organization's outcomes. [00:18:34] It's a complex issue, but to not talk about it, like you brought it in and you're like, oh, I don't know if we should pull it in. And I was like, this is fascinating. And, and maybe an important conversation and way for you to take this article and send it to your organization and be like, what do we think? [00:18:48] Is there anything thing here? Yeah, George, I think that's, that's an interesting take. And kind of like the other side of this is they talk about, um, how. there's did that, this tension between kind of the, the institutional, uh, structure of an organization and new people who are coming in to create change. [00:19:08] And it talks about how just a lot of these organizations are undergoing really rapid change very quickly. Um, and that in and of itself, uh, Is potentially just bringing kind of these, these issues to the surface and something that a lot of, um, institutions are, are wrangling right now. Um, you know, I think some people would say for the better, some people would say to the detriment of mission, right. [00:19:34] Uh, but either way, I think a really important, uh, opinion here. Um, definitely again, that and opinion, but, um, interesting conversation, nonetheless, and I am trying to also. Keep an eye on whether or not we're talking about the perennial generational shift in work and power that plays out frankly, every 20, 30 years versus our. [00:20:05] People just using at the executive level or at the opinion level, DEI is the broad brush for saying like, Hey, guess what? There's a, you know, a generational power struggle happening. And this is just the, the way that we're going to paint it as a narrative. And so I try to see as best I can. However, I, I think I'm, I'm probably too close to the problem. [00:20:27] Speaking as somebody who straddles as an elder millennial in it. [00:20:30] Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things in there and George, this is not you, but, um, it said that boomers are the boomers are the whitest, uh, generation in American history. And it talks about how whiteness as a racial identity, wasn't really cohesive until the boomers generation, right. A hundred years ago. [00:20:51] It wasn't. Are you white? It was, are you Italian? Are you Irish? And of course. There's a lot of tension there. Um, but that organization. uh, that generation is some of the least diverse and gen Z is the most diverse. Um, and it talks about that, that imbalance now that gen Z's entering the workforce, and it's actually kind of really interesting. [00:21:11] There's lots of articles about gen Z, even on kind of less, uh, less challenging issues like about, you know, offices versus open floor plans. Um, Uh, that are coming into question it's, it's kind of interesting to see out. Um, I think there is, I think there is kind of a, a shift happening, but interesting. [00:21:31] Interesting to say the least. [00:21:32] All right, George, we've waited for this moment for so long. How about a feel, good story. Did we actually do it? Did we find feel good stories and I didn't, uh, I didn't let you down on my. no, we found a feel good story. Um, this one comes from the new Haven register and it talks about how 10 years after launch a nonprofit in Hamden has repaired 173 homes for veterans. [00:22:01] Butch is incredible. Uh, veteran homelessness is one of the saddest and kind of most ingrained problems in this country. Um, but it talks. In this article, how one veteran, um, and, uh, the nonprofit is really working to, to help folks, uh, kind of get a leg out when it comes to housing. Uh, the organization is called house of heroes, um, and they do really great work. [00:22:28] So just wanted to highlight an organization doing awesome work. Hundred 73 houses is awesome. And especially coming off of July 4th, where we celebrate our nation heroes and the people that have lost their lives for our freedoms, it is, uh, great nonprofit doing great things. So hats off hats off to them, little quote we ended with I'll just shout it. [00:22:50] The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity, Amelia Earhart. So I like this mindset of. Especially when things are maybe frustrating when you feel like there's too many problems. Remember the difficult thing is that first step. And then, and then it's about execution. So great words from a great woman. [00:23:14] All right, Nick. See you out there. Thanks for the ongoing support and reporting. Of course. Talk next week. | |||
| Roe v. Wade Repeal Upends Nearly 50 Years Of Constitutional Abortion Protection (news) | 28 Jun 2022 | 00:22:51 | |
Roe v. Wade Repeal Upends Nearly 50 Years Of Constitutional Abortion Protection; Access To Abortions Enters Into State-By-State Public Policy Frenzy Nearly 50 years of the constitutionally-upheld right to abortion access came to an end on Friday with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito with additional concurring opinions by conservative justices including Clarence Thomas, immediately ended federal protection for a woman’s right to abortion. The right to abortion is now a legal question left entirely up to the states, reflecting a public policy landscape upended into chaos. The legal landscape of abortion access across America is complex, with some states that have trigger laws that instantly banned abortion with this decision, and others have dormant laws that have suddenly become viable. The decision comes despite Pew Research polling suggesting that 61% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In addition to partisan and religious divides, among the most salient demographic determinants of American’s feelings on abortion stem from respondants’ age, with young people under 29 indicating 74% in favor of abortion legality in all or most cases. Read more ➝Summary: | |||
| Did DAFs Just Lose $38 billion? (news) | 21 Jun 2022 | 00:13:35 | |
Market Volatility Has Potential To Impact DAFs & Crypto Philanthropy
Major philanthropy trends over the past several years have included the rise of crypto philanthropy and donor-advised funds, alternate forms of giving that may see the trickle-down impacts of the current bear market and overall market volatility. Donor-advised funds, or DAFs, have seen a surge in popularity over the past several years as market-tied vehicles for philanthropic giving with an estimated $160 billion according to NP Trust. While DAFs receive criticism for their sometimes conservative disbursement and lack of immediate impact, another potential flag is that they are affected by market volatility. This will potentially impact giving because of the percent based donation targets for these funds which hover around 20% according to NP Trust. With the S&P 500 down ~20% on the year, and having its worst week since the start of 2020, contributions within the past year to these funds may have decreased in value by as much as $38B. Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that serves as another popular vehicle of charitable giving, is worth less than ⅓ of its peak value in November of last year, potentially diminishing enthusiasm for charitable donations among investors. The Giving Block, a major player in the crypto-donation space, offers DAF investment options that are susceptible to changes in the market landscape. This might be a rough year for overall donations from these sources, though it would be worse if this were happening in December... Read more ➝Summary:
Transcript: [00:00:00] Today on the nonprofit news feed. We're talking about what the market drop might mean to donations. Nick, how's it going? It's going good, George, how are you? I'm doing alright today. That's good because we're about to go into a kind of complicated, but really. Uh, timebound story, really relevant story. And that is that market volatility has the potential to impact DAFs and crypto philanthropy. [00:00:30] So two major philanthropy trends that we've been following over the past couple years on this podcast have been the increase in contributions to DAFs, which are donor advised funds, as well as the increase in crypto philanthropy. Now DS have seen a surgeon popularity and their vehicles for Phil philanthropic giving with an estimated $160 billion in value, according to nonprofit trust and DAS received some criticism for, uh, you know, maybe lackluster rates of disbursement and. [00:01:06] Lack of immediate impact something else that is a potential downside of, uh, putting your charitable giving into the markets essentially is that the S and P 500 is down 20% over the year, just had its worst week. And that. Any kind of asset in the market is being hit right now. Uh, the flip side of that on the crypto side is that crypto is way down essentially crashed. [00:01:35] Uh, Bitcoin is at less than a third of its value than it was at its peak in the fall. And that is likely to have, uh, put negative pressure. People who might otherwise be thinking of, uh, donating cryptocurrencies to nonprofits, which is another trend. So their overall story here is that, uh, the markets may be messing with these alternate forms of charitable giving this year. [00:02:05] George, what are your thoughts? I'll say the larger story is around. I think DAFs, the donor advised funds, which are essentially, you know, donate now give later ish in this optimistic look of money. You'll appreciate over time because it's, you know, in the market. And just back at the napkin, we put in our newsletter that. [00:02:27] You know, this could mean as much as 38 billion. If you're just talking about math, 20% drop 20% of 160 billion. So 38 billion could be off the table. Now bringing that downstream one more touch. There's an average number, according to the nonprofit trust of 20% given. So this sort of percentage based giving of DAFs. [00:02:48] So what does that mean? Maybe about seven to 8 billion, just less on total giving from these DAFs. This. Which is a lot of money and looking at it, I often have gotten frustrated about donor advised funds because of this. Tax break for donations that there's no even minimum mandatory for, for giving. And so it grows or sinks in the market. [00:03:15] Now the frustrating thing to me is that guess what, when the market drops by this much, and the economy potentially is going to be struggling and nonprofits are gonna need it most, it's the exact wrong time to be decreased, the amount of money flowing into the social impact sector. So you've sort of. [00:03:32] Double down and tied an anchor on bad moments so that when black Swan events happen, when social, you know, social need's at its highest, you're at your riskiest, like it makes me frustrated. There's a thing that frustrates me with regard to crypto. It's a smaller market. It's less than a trillion dollars in total market cap right now. [00:03:51] Will this impact current donations? Yes. However, it is much smaller than I think the total opportunity when we're talking about donor advised funds. It's not all doom and boom. No, here's what I'll say. It would be a lot worse if this were happening in Q4. The hope here is that there is a rally that there is a much better optimistic mood for giving when most of our donations do happen in Q4 and in December. [00:04:18] So frankly, a summer slump. Isn't the worst thing. Although I feel for you, if you just launched your capital campaign, that's that's, that's the hot take for you, Nick. [00:04:28] George. That's a pretty good hot take. Uh, I guess we'll see where we're at in December. I'll talk to you in Q4. I'm hoping gonna have a bull market. It's gonna be, it's gonna be great, but, uh, no, I agree with you. I, I appreciate what you said that we at um, when the market is volatile, the donations and the funds within DAF. [00:04:53] Are at their riskiest at the moment that people need it the most. And I think we saw that in 2008, when, you know, people were relying on, uh, you know, the social impact space for help, uh, more than ever. And it was, uh, a slow recovery. So some things to keep an eye on. [00:05:14] All right, I'll take us into our next story. And this one comes from nonprofit pro and it's about new survey ranking. The most trusted. Nonprofits. And we've talked a little bit about nonprofit trust on this show and have talked about how nonprofits are one of the most trusted social institutions uh, in our, our kind of, uh, Social fabric. [00:05:45] But it talked about respondents who lost trust in a nonprofit. And they were asked about the ways in which their behavior changed and a result and of people who lost, uh, trust that says that 45% stopped considering giving to a nonprofit and started giving to different nonprofits. So that's kind of interesting, George, what was your takeaway from this survey? [00:06:07] It's just very interesting to me to like quantify and rank organizations like St. Jude versus make Aish versus habitat for humanity, you know, all of which are in the top 10. And it's, uh, it's an interesting rubric that is, uh, Definitely corollary two donations to the willingness of people to say, Hey, I trust you. [00:06:31] And I trust you with my money, right. That that's the, that's how you finish that sentence. It might be an interesting approach for your organization to maybe create these types of surveys in industries. Right. Rather than like nationally across industries. In verticals. I think there's a lot of opportunity there, uh, to do that. [00:06:52] I know I'm giving away this idea, but we just have too many other things to pursue. So take a look at it because we can see that it is corollary to giving. And that is very important to organizations. I agree. Although my, my gripe is this kind is kind of like the Grammys it's essentially just the most popular is gonna be at the, the top of the list, you know? [00:07:14] But yeah. Yeah. It's name brand awareness, which is why I said there's opportunity in niche, right. In, in, in vertical. Exactly exactly. You know, the, the top 67 most trusted nonprofits of the PICU U area. That's gonna crush. Come on. Oh yeah. oh yeah. I love it. All right. Uh, we gotta talk about it this weekend. [00:07:37] This. Juneteenth. It was observed on Monday. We are recording this on Tuesday and this comes from K H O u.com and it talks about how they were honoring, uh, Al Edwards. Who was the late former state representative from Houston who worked tirelessly to make Juneteenth a state holiday Juneteenth of course, uh, the day in which the last slaves were essentially freed or in the case that the news had traveled to them, that they were in fact, uh, free and. [00:08:16] Yeah, just kind of cool to honor this point in history and how far we've come. We actually looked it up before the podcast. It became a federal holiday last year. So this is our second year celebrating Juneteenth at, as a federal holiday. But of course has been celebrated for quite a while. Especially by folks in Texas. [00:08:34] Yeah. It's a [00:08:35] wonderful sort of legacy and accomplishment to have this as a, gone from a state holiday to a national holiday that is now. Definitely being observed. And just to note, you know, Edward's passed away in, in 2020. So again, a tremendous, uh, legacy to, to behold and clearly, you know, by 2020 hopefully saw that this was definitely coming in as a, as a national quality. [00:08:58] So, uh, a good time to remember and, and great time to. Remember the American history for, for what it was as a, as a truth where it took two years, despite legislation and rules being changed, where, where people were still essentially slaved in Texas. Absolutely. All right, George, this will be our last story for the podcast, but we wanted to quickly highlight one from the New York times. [00:09:24] That's been making the rounds on social media and it's a feature story, so it's quite long, but I think really. Reading and the title is how Houston moved 25,000 people from the streets into homes of their own. And the, the subtitle is the nation's fourth largest city. Hasn't solved homelessness, but its remarkable progress can suggest a way forward. [00:09:46] And the overall, just as the story is really quite remarkable coalition building and uh, uh, pooling of assets and. Drive towards one goal, which is essentially a housing first model. You know, every organization has its needs, its objectives, this, that, and the other but kind of a really interesting saga of how all these different pieces, uh, came together to help folks who were homeless, get into homes. [00:10:19] And goes through like the bureaucracy of it. It's, it's a little bit too in depth for a long, uh, a short form podcast like this, but it talks about streamlining the bureaucratic process from 76 steps to, uh, uh, and 720 days to only 32 days. It's it's really quite remarkable. So we really, uh, suggest reading it. [00:10:41] Yeah, the TLDR is when you reduce friction, you get better results. Fewer people have to wait fewer days. It goes from, you know, a few years to a month. That's life changing. This is awesome. And something to note when you're at a nonprofit, dealing with public policies, look for the friction and look to reduce. [00:11:02] Absolutely. All right. Any, uh, any feel good stories for us [00:11:06] sure. George, I gotta feel good story for you. This comes from news journal, online.com and this story is about a guy named Dan friend who decided he wanted to bring 140 ton world war II tugboat from Sweden back to the land where it was built. And it kind of goes through the, the saga of how he's able to bring this, uh, piece of history home and working with the DIAND. Historic trust and a couple other organizations. [00:11:34] And, and they got a donor for $200,000 to bring this world Wari, tug, bat tugboat back to where it was built. And I think it goes into this larger narrative about how important. History is in, in shaping our, our communities, our, our sense of identity, who we are. And honestly, just a really interesting and cool piece of history. [00:11:55] It looks like there's a diplomatic narrative here. They, they worked with the us embassy in Sweden. Uh, so just kind of a, a, a cool story. Yeah. And also it's for a Memorial day celebration in particular. So consider with the holidays coming. How your nonprofit might be able to entice donors to bring back historical elements, celebrations, and moments that help us, uh, remember our past and support, uh, social impact today. [00:12:22] Thanks Nick. Thanks George.
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| Brookings Institution President Resigns Amid FBI Probe (news) | 14 Jun 2022 | 00:18:49 | |
Nonprofitnewsfeed.com Brookings Institution President Resigns Amid FBI Foreign Lobbying Probe
Brookings Institution President John Allen has resigned after national press outlets reported he was under FBI investigation for undisclosed lobbying efforts on behalf of the government of Qatar. While Allen denies any wrongdoing, he was revealed in court filings to be the target of an FBI probe into violations of FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act), which requires the registration of anyone conducting lobbying activities on behalf of foreign governments. Court documents also show he lied to federal investigators and attempted to withhold evidence saught by a federal subpoena. Allen, a retired four star U.S. Marine Corps general and former commander of NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, publically resigned on Sunday after being placed on administrative leave. This comes amid increasing scrutiny of foreign influence in D.C.-based think tanks, and represents law enforcement efforts to curb illegal lobbying especially by wealthy Gulf countries like Qatar. Most of these policy-based think tanks are registered 501(c)3’s and wield enormous influence in shaping federal public policy.
Summary:
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| Complexity of the Catholic Church & Roe v. Wade | CatholicsforChoice.org | 09 Jun 2022 | 00:39:05 | |
Jamie Manson, President of Catholics for Choice joins host George Weiner for a conversation about what the future of their work looks like in the reality of a post Roe v. Wade world. Jamie shares how rogue bishops in the church are actually speaking in direct contrast to the way a majority of Catholics in America feel about the right to choice according to Pew Research (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/).
Jamie also shares how she is keeping her team motivated and healthy in a once-in-a-generation moment at the organization when the stakes have never been higher.
About Jamie Manson Jamie Manson is President of Catholics for Choice. For over fifteen years she has been a thought leader and advocate in the field of women’s equality and reproductive rights in the Catholic Church and the public square. For 12 years, she was a columnist at the National Catholic Reporter where she was one of the few openly LGBTQ journalists in the Catholic media in the world. She was an often-solitary voice for reproductive freedom and justice and was one of the first to sound the alarm about the right-wing push for religious freedom. Jamie’s expertise in Catholicism and sexual ethics was first formed during her studies at Yale with her mentor, Margaret Farley. She edited and wrote the introduction to Changing the Questions: Explorations in Christian Ethics, a collection of writings by Margaret Farley (Orbis Books, 2015). Jamie has published op-eds in the New York Times, NBC Think, Ms. Magazine, and Rewire and has been featured in dozens of media outlets, including NPR, the LA Times, and CNN. She is the recipient of the Sr. Theresa Kane Woman of Vision and Courage Award.
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| Nonprofit Trust Drops 3% Survey Reveals (news) | 07 Jun 2022 | 00:23:33 | |
Independent Sector Releases Survey On Nonprofit Trust
Independent Sector has released its third annual survey on trust within the nonprofit and civil society sector. The findings show that nonprofits still benefit from strong public trust (56% of respondents say they trust nonprofits), making NPOs among the few social institutions that the majority of the public trust, along with small businesses and community members. However, the sector saw a statistically significant decrease of 3% in trust compared to 2020. The survey also found that education and financial wellbeing drive nonprofit trust, that purpose-driven integrity is essential, and that Gen Z is increasingly skeptical of the nonprofit sector. The survey fielded answers from 3,015 Americans and had a margin of error of +/- 2%. Read more ➝
Summary
Rought Transcript [00:00:00] George: This week on the nonprofit news feed for gosh, June 6th, June 6th, the week of June 6th, we were talking about some of the information coming out of the independent sector on a survey, a non-profit trust, as well as some other headlines related to themes that we've been covering Nick. How's it going? [00:00:18] Nick: It's gone. Good, George. [00:00:20] George: Doing all right. Just, I had a wedding last weekend of an in-law's fun. Hadn't been to a wedding for awhile. So good time to celebrate. Hopefully nobody got COVID. [00:00:31] Nick: That's good. TIS the site TIS the season for weddings. [00:00:36] George: Yeah. weddings. weddings, and funerals. They go on, no matter what I'll say that. [00:00:41] Nick: That is true. But bring us back to the nonprofit news. We'll start off with our first story, which comes from independent sector. Independent sector has released its third annual survey on trust within the non-profit and civil society sector. And the findings show that while nonprofits still benefit from strong. [00:01:02] Trust where 56% of respondents say they still trust non-profits. This is actually a decrease of 3% in overall trust in nonprofits compared to 2020, there are a couple other really interesting findings within the report. One is that nonprofits were the strongest institution when it comes to public trust, beating. [00:01:27] Legacy institutions like government, the media substantially that being said, there's a couple of interests. Nuances and the data and the survey found that education and financial wellbeing drove non-profit trust. In fact, education level was the prime determinant more than any other demographic determinant of trust in non-profit organizations. [00:01:53] They also found that gen Z is increasingly skeptical of the nonprofit sector, not having a negative. uh, perspective per se. But not having a positive one either. So the jury is still out on them when it comes to building that trust in non-profits as a social institution. But George, what were your takeaways from these really interesting and important survivors? [00:02:19] George: yeah, just to start, I always try to find and understand the sample size. In this case, it is a U S general population of 3000 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2%. So any number you hear it's like give or take a couple points. So that's just important to put in mind. I think the differences based on age range, And rising generation being a touch more skeptical is in line, uh, overall positive in terms of this report that I look for is just look, we're talking about people's trust across businesses, government, media, and nonprofits, these four major pillars of information in our society and nonprofits continue to be at the top of it. [00:03:05] Overall trust erosion, just seemingly undercutting everybody. However, nonprofits just play this incredible role with regard to communicating valuable information at a time of mistrust. And so I, you know, I always like seeing that in terms of nonprofits being up there, but the overall number, I believe slipped 3% for nonprofits, right. [00:03:28] Nick: It did. Yeah. The overall number. Crease 3%. However, it was still high at 56%. And the only other social institution that was rated that high in the survey were small businesses and just local communities and community of members. So in terms of our social institutions, nonprofits are still the highest, but yes did slip 3%. [00:03:55] George: I'd say the other piece that I pulled out here is the biggest differentiating demographics. Characteristic is college non-college so more highly educated individuals in this particular survey, uh, were, uh, at a higher likelihood to be trusting the social impact sector, nonprofits and philanthropy. [00:04:17] Nick: That's an interesting one to me. And I think it goes. I think it's interesting because a lot of nonprofits, particularly those that focus on social welfare, uh, might be helping folks in poverty or who may not have had the ratty opportunity to go to higher education. So maybe an interesting dichotomy between. [00:04:44] The folks who might be funding contributing, running, and building non-profits versus beneficiaries uh, potential beneficiaries of those services. And of course that's a broad oversimplification, but to me that was, that was somewhat. George, what do you make of gen Z being more skeptical of nonprofits as an institution? [00:05:07] The, the actual data show that they were more trusting of, uh, crowdfunding, uh, type campaigns and a little bit more enthusiastic about, uh, about donating, for example, to those games. [00:05:22] George: Part of me is not surprised. Ultimately, rising generations tend to have higher levels of skepticism of institutions that pre-existed, that are run disproportionately sometimes by the other generation. And just, it's like a natural curve of what goes. The rise in, in crowdfunding and crowdfunding philanthropy is it's a personal frustration of mine because I don't believe it is the most intelligent way to distribute funds for a public. [00:05:49] Good. I think it's the most popular, I think it's the most social, I think it is near term, gratifying, longterm, even potentially destabilize. To say here's how philanthropy should be done. Where as a massive crowd, smarter than an individual who studies a topic, there are times when the crowd is far smarter, but there are other times when, you know, maybe an organization that has got 10 employees doesn't need $45 million in the span of four days. [00:06:20] Maybe that's a thing that you have to sort of balance. And I think, you know, it's a pendulum, it's a pendulum of a philanthropy that all, uh, Obviously, uh, come and go. And maybe the rising generation pro you know, like coming up, we'll be like, wait a minute. We've seen this show too many times. And the only person who wins in crowdfunding consistently as a crowdfunding platform. [00:06:41] Okay. [00:06:42] Nick: That's fair. I guess in turn, gen Z's are, are skeptical. You are, and we are skeptical of gen Z, uh, over simplification again, but. [00:06:53] George: Yeah, I mean, you also saw this in a macro around crypto, and obviously I've not shied away from being a fan of crypto philanthropy. However, it does also make that crowdfunding a lot easier. I cannot go understated the fact that millions and millions of dollars were sent to the Ukraine without the permission of the guiding powers that be to do so. [00:07:16] And that's, it feels very gratifying in the most. And you know, who who's to say how, you know, 80 plus million is, is being, being used. And it was something that when you take away the middle people, institutions and controlling bodies in place, like you just get money to where you think it needs to go, and it will have different types of second order effects both positive and negative. [00:07:46] Nick: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's that's fair. Agree. All right, we'll move on to our next story. And this comes from the hill and is a little bit more sobering. And the hill reports that data from the gun violence archive, which is a nonprofit has supported 233 mass shootings that have taken place so far this year in the United States. [00:08:11] And this data comes amid the fallout. Several devastating shootings in New York, Texas, Oklahoma. And just with seems like, uh, increasing temperature in the country when it comes to, uh, gun violence. But what struck me about this? Wasn't so much the gun violence as. As terrible as it is not something I'm surprised about sadly, but that the most definitive source on this is actually coming from a nonprofit and the gun violence archive is the go-to source for news organizations and researchers, uh, trying to assess. [00:08:53] Gun violence and mass shootings in particular in the United States. So really interesting that a nonprofit is stepping up here and filling that void, uh, to provide the public with really vital information that for a long time, The government, for example, was barred from studying you know, government agencies were barred from studying the health effects of gun violence. [00:09:15] So there was very, oh yeah, this is famously. That rule was lifted only within the past couple of years. But the CDC, I think it's, the CDC wanted to do a research on gun violence and Congress specifically for beta in the allocation of. So there's kind of a dearth of national data on gun violence and mass shootings. [00:09:43] And the data is all over the place. But it seems that this nonprofit is really kind of DFR Tate of a source of truth on this. [00:09:51] George: Yeah. I think getting back to definitely check this out. Gun violence, archive.org. I'm embarrassed. I had never seen this nonprofit, but it's a great model for showing how you can use data, information and honesty to hold up the mirror to society and say, this is what the numbers tell us about what's going on. [00:10:14] This isn't. I mean, as much as you can say, it's like, it's not an agenda here. It's just your, your numbers. You're not doing well by any measure of what's going on here. And the question is, is this, this, you know, what is, what is tolerant? You know, there's twenty twenty one, six hundred and ninety two mass shootings. [00:10:34] Is that tolerant of a society. I mean, it was tolerant then it was tolerant in 2020 with 610. Mass shootings. It was tolerant by our society in 2019, with 417 mass shootings. At what point, I wonder because the amount of mass shootings per year, it's some sort of threshold. And this organization seems to be asking that direct question by holding the numbers up, uh, as well as other total incidents of guns and other pieces, but the mass shootings. [00:11:10] Uh, particularly of importance because we made assault rifles legal in this country after having them be illegal throughout the nineties. And we simply let the clock expire on that permission. And now I know they're debating slowly, whether or not that might change, but I think one take a look at gun violence, archive.org, to take a look at how your organization responds to your own cause and your backyard, not just gun violence, but how might data be used in this. [00:11:37] way? [00:11:38] To effect change and to hold up that social mirror. [00:11:41] Nick: Absolutely George, that's a great analysis and I have a little bit more. And formation on the law. I was talking about there's a 19 66, 19 96 rule that passed through Congress, uh, called the Dickey amendment, which barred the CDC and other government research organizations from using funds to quote, to advocate or promote gun control, which was widely seen as essentially prohibiting any study of gun violence. [00:12:08] Or gun sales, what have you at the federal level, uh, but, uh, here's to have been repealed in 2019. But, uh, the article goes on to quote that there is a decade gap of, uh, data there that needs to be filled in. So like you said, this, this nonprofits doing tremendous, tremendous public service. [00:12:32] All right, I'll take us into our next story. And this comes from at KSHB 41, Kansas city news, and I'm going to package it with, uh, the next story from CBS 46 news. And these two articles about rising gas prices affecting delivery operations for nonprofits and similarly. Inflation impacting nonprofits ability to feed thousands of kids over the summer. [00:13:01] So we have two local stories here. One is a nonprofit, uh, you know, the price of gasoline is affecting their ability, uh, to, to move, uh, goods around and their operations. And uh, this other story. Inflation, uh, which we've talked about on this podcast, really impacting food banks and other, uh, services providing nonprofits. [00:13:23] But, uh, George, do we see this abating anytime soon? Is this going to be a problem for the long-term? Do we think how, how should we think about this kind of a macro economic, or even just a macro level? [00:13:39] George: So one of the reasons I brought up the articles that I did, I mean, there's so many of these articles about inflation. We talked about it on here, but the shift in the summer is that the school food programs that disproportionately feed a tremendous amount of food, insecure young people in this country through public schools. [00:13:57] Goes away during the summer. And so there's going to be a different level of food insecurity, hitting families across the country. This summer, while gas continues to rise and food prices continue to clearly hit new inflation highs and the cost of, uh, and the cost of food to feed, uh, is going, you know, that that need, that has to be met and it's disproportionate during the summer. [00:14:21] So these ones should program. Uh, or something that I was just looking at. And so if your organization is in and around it, I think messaging the urgency associated with a shift that, that could maybe help with fundraising or improving the narrative. [00:14:36] Nick: Absolutely. I agree. Those programs serve such a vital importance for our school students. And. The summer is hard for a lot of families that don't have not only the those food programs, but even then have to consider things like childcare or paying for camp or whatever it may be. Puts a lot of, a lot of burden on, on folks. [00:15:00] So that's a great thing to flag. All right, our next article, George, I know this is one, uh, that you're a topic you're passionate about and you're passionate about it because you, in fact wrote this article and the title is small. Non-profits, shouldn't be subjected to the same payroll's hacks as Amazon and Exxon mobile written by you in the Chronicle of philanthropy. [00:15:26] Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you. [00:15:30] George: I'm just going to admit, I know this is just shameless. It's shameless for me to bring my own article into our own newsfeed. However, this has been on my mind for probably a couple of years of how effectively the same payroll tax, right? When you pay an employee. That sort of percentage of payroll tax that goes to state and federal, which, you. [00:15:50] know, 10 to 14% give or take is the same rate that a Facebook exec, sorry, Mehta, exac, or somebody at Exxon or somebody at any other size organization is paying the same percentage rate instead of something like, and maybe you're like, oh, that makes sense. [00:16:06] It's a flat thing. Except if you look at our income tax, it's a progressive tax. The percent that a billionaire has to pay is more. On paper, at least than somebody making minimum wage yet at the point of sale at the point of the moment where the nonprofit or the fortune 100 company is paying the person, that's the same percentage rate. [00:16:31] And so I'm suggesting here a policy where in nonprofits that. Our smaller frankly, uh, that are smaller for effectively. I'm calling about a quarter million charities that are operating with less than a hundred employees and less than 5 million in annual revenue. Basically for, you know, a few billion dollars could essentially we could remove the payroll tax. [00:16:56] They're giving them an extra 10%, uh, operating to either raise wages, to hire people, to serve the communities that they already do. And, and by the way, they are, you know, 5 0 1 C3. So they are doing public good. Uh, and I put the cap on that in terms of the Cypress medical thing is because I don't think a nonprofit with like 10,000 employees is the same. [00:17:18] Type of situation that a smaller under 100 person nonprofit is. And yeah, it's a, it's a it's part thought experiment, but also part super freaking practical that literally for a cost of 3.7 billion I'd calculated, which could easily be made up with a progressive tax that we're in up a touch more for organizations like Amazon. [00:17:44] To pay cause they can't get around those taxes the same way they can on income tax on, on their, on their corporate taxes. They can't get away from the fact that they need to pay humans to do work. And that's where a percent is taken out. It'd be pretty easy to move up half a point for organizations that are operating over a billion dollars because they're dodging their freaking taxes. [00:18:05] Anyway. Anyway, this is a window into how. I get with social impact. [00:18:12] Nick: We love geekiness onto this podcast. And George I'd hesitate to guess that listeners who've made it this far into the podcast are just as geeky. So I think we are in good company, but I wish I had, I wish I had a room. I [00:18:27] Uh, we'll look at the data. We'll see many people make it this far. I wish I had a room to, to get you in someone to talk to someone in a suit in a, in a nice office in DC, because I think they need to hear. [00:18:41] George: Well, I'm not going to give up on this idea. I don't know where to go next. I did get a quote from the independent sector, uh, that, you know, they, they do think it's you know, potentially plausible and they, they said there is, uh, some type of, you know, precedent for this type of tax. But. We'll say, I don't know where to go with it next, but I tend not to let things drop, so I'll keep pushing this. [00:19:04] And if anybody listening just wants to take this and run with it, please go, go do it. I'll give you the research. Cause I should be doing my real job instead of trying to push something like this, [00:19:18] Nick: It's for the public. Good. And speaking of public. Good. How about a feel, good story from our favorite. [00:19:26] George: please. [00:19:28] Nick: All right. This story comes from a Western slope now.com not entirely sure, but it is about a nonprofit that's helping, helping formerly incarcerated firefighters get jobs. So it's, well-known that, especially out west, including in California, Oregon, and Washington states have relied on incarcerated men and women. [00:19:52] Wildfires. And that's all, that's a whole other conversation. But they are often trained to perform here at grueling work while earning just a few dollars, sometimes as little as $2 a day. However, there is a nonprofit group with some foundation backing. That's trying to help those firefighters turn their in carceral rated job into a real job. [00:20:19] Upon, uh, their release. So it's helping folks get the, uh, the certifications they need. Cause they already have the real-world training. I've already been doing it. They basically already are firefighters. But helping incarcerated folks, uh, turn what they learned during, during prison into a career. [00:20:38] And I think that's really tremendous. It helps, uh, reintegrate firefighters into, or formerly incarcerated folks. Newly firefighters into our communities. It helps them, uh, serve a public good and public benefit. And we interview when the individuals who participated. And he was saying that he felt that he had something to give back to society and was really proud to be able to serve in that capacity. [00:21:02] So this is a really innovation, innovative program, I think. And I'm for any kind of program that helps formerly incarcerated folks reintegrate into society, uh, because. It reduces recidivism and it has a whole host of other social benefits, but cool to see. [00:21:20] George: That's a really great quote in here from a a person. Uh, incarcerated and Brandon Smith says when you're incarcerated, you have this stigma of being a public nuisance. Being a firefighter, provided an opportunity for me to give back to community and give myself a sense of pride. It was something I wanted to continue as a way of giving back to the community once I came home. [00:21:44] But they noted that after his sentence was completed in 2014, it really wasn't clear how to essentially become a firefighter, even though he was. Already trained in that. And so the certificate cations that he received while incarcerated didn't count and he, uh, and he couldn't even apply for some positions do the criminal records. [00:22:05] So this is a great nonprofit. And by the way, you know, speaking to somebody who's in California, like we need firefighters very, very much so also across the Midwest, because it's going to be a very tough fire season. So hats off to these folks. All right, Nick. Thank you. [00:22:22] Nick: Thanks, arch. | |||
| Gun Rights Advocacy Groups Fill Void Left By NRA (news) | 31 May 2022 | 00:21:12 | |
In Wake Of Uvalde School Shooting, Gun Rights Advocacy Groups Fill Void Left By NRA
On May 24 a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas killing 19 students, two teachers, and wounding 17 others. The horrific shooting has rekindled the decades-long debate in the United States between gun control and gun rights advocates. Within economically developed countries, the United States by far outnumbers other countries in terms of both gun ownership and gun deaths per capita. Among gun rights advocacy groups, however, the infighting and reputationally-damaged NRA has provided an opportunity for other organizations (many tax-exempt) to fill the void, according to reporting from The Washington Post. The National Association for Gun Rights, a 501(c)4 group that often criticizes the NRA for being too compromising, saw revenue increase to $15 million, up from $6 million in 2019. Other gun rights groups have seen similar increases in revenue and capacity. Read more ➝Summary
Rough Transcript:
[00:00:00] George: This week on the nonprofit news feed we have got in the wake of the Uvalde, the school shooting information about how gun rights advocacy is actually increasing for some nonprofits and a number of other summary articles. Following coming after, uh, this Memorial day weekend, NEC. [00:00:21] Nick: It's going good, George. We have a lot to cover this week. Of course, the first story we're going to talk about is. Uh, around what happened in your Uvalde and better conversations about gun rights and gun control advocacy groups. So last week on May 24th government opened fire the Robb elementary school in , Texas killing 19 students to teachers. [00:00:46] And wounding 17 others. And this terrific shooting has rekindled a decades long debate in the United States between gun control and gun rights advocates. Uh, now within economically developed countries, the United States by far outnumbers others in terms of both gun ownership and gun deaths per capita. [00:01:06] Um, but along the debate about how to solve. You have gun rights, advocacy groups on one side and gun control advocacy groups on the other. Uh, we wanted to highlight an article from the Washington post, which is talking about a little bit of the landscape change on the side of the gun rights advocacy groups. [00:01:30] We've talked about those on this podcast before how the NRA has suffered from lots of infighting and legal challenges. As a whole has seen its reputation damage quite significantly over the past couple of years. Um, but as the Washington post points out, a lot of other tax exempt organizations now seem to be filling the void, um, and potentially taking the lead on the gun rights. [00:01:59] Side of the issue here. The national association for gun rights is a 5 0 1 C4 group that often criticizes the NRA for being too compromising saw revenue increase to 15 million up from just 6 million in 2019 on the article sites that lots of other gun rights groups have seen similar increases in revenue and capacity. [00:02:25] So the takeaway here is that what was. Very consolidated. Uh, landscape in terms of advocacy with one go-to group is now splintering and other groups are taking the place, uh, and serving the role once filled by the NRA. But George, this comes as the NRA held its annual conference in Texas, just three days after the shooting. [00:02:51] Um, this conference was on last Friday and it's a fraught moment in the United States. And, um, You know, personally, I think that that gun control and gun safety needs to be acted upon and legislative upon. And unfortunately that were happened, but interesting, nonetheless, to see the landscape on the gun rights side, change in pretty significant. [00:03:12] George: Yeah, it's sort of inevitable the thought that tamping down the NRAS ability to sort of fundraise and operate effectively to assume that that would stop. The progress of guns in this country. And it's unbelievable power in terms of putting money into politics is, is errand, right? It is. It's sort of targeting your energy at the, the wrong enemy because like a hydro, when you cut off its head to more show up in its place, inevitably the source of the money is not going away. [00:03:51] The amount of guns purchased after an event like this inevitably increases, and that simply puts more money in the hands of manufacturers, which then finds its way inevitably into any functioning non-profit willing to carry the flag of, of gun rights over human. And so, you know, in a moment like this, there's a, you know, a rare opportunity to get the country's attention and to focus on something. [00:04:18] I am having a hard time finding faith in Congress that immediately chose the bold action of going on vacation and leadership that has just polar polar views. Interesting narratives that I've seen coming out here are, is around the fact that we actually had a ban on assault. Right. Had a band. And if you look at the number of mass shootings prior to 2004, when it went out of the fact where he was put into place in 1994, by president than bill Clinton, the number of mass shootings go up. [00:04:52] The question that is just hard to reconcile is why, you know, 18 year olds or frankly anyone needs access to high capacity, uh, firearms, if not to kill it. It makes zero sense other than to line the pockets of [00:05:08] these manufacturers under this like misconceived notion of the right to bear arms and it's absurd extent, you know, why, why draw the line of dissolves? Shouldn't we all have, uh, you know, explosives, why am I put on Dara's watchlist? If I buy a extreme amounts of. It's because you have intent to do harm to large amounts of people. [00:05:32] There are potential solutions being talked about that that could work. And you mentioned the sort of larger fact of how America has more guns than other countries. You said, uh, a lot more though, you know, and I think it's important to note that our, our guns, our guns per a hundred people are 120 guns per people. [00:05:52] The next closest is Candace at 34 guns for people. You know that there are more guns than there are people here. Um, and somehow we continue to purchase more. And then that inevitably leads to gun murders per a hundred thousand, which is 30 times worse than Australia's. And a number of times worse than Canada's we're at 3.4 deaths per and Canada is at 0.6. [00:06:14] So, you know, I think what needs to happen differently this time than the last time we had a tragedy. This magnitude, which was Sally and, you know, Sandy hook, December of 2012 is a reasonable step forward. It's easy to respond extreme to extreme, but I think you, what I'm saying, you, I think. Progressive legislators advocates. [00:06:43] Non-profits people speaking to this need to couch, the anger and rage and focus on small wins, which feels just painful to say, but small wins and steps toward reasonable controls on. Anywhere that you can gain this, and I'm not going to list the number of policies out there, but there are areas where Americans all can agree and should agree. [00:07:08] So I think I'm, I'm being a sort of moderate in my expectation, uh, and also analyzing some Google trends and seeing. That so far, we actually haven't hit the overall searches search volume that we saw about a decade ago. Um, in 2013, far from it, in terms of Google trends, searches for gun control as a topic. [00:07:30] So I haven't seen it take off as high as it probably needs to, to actually move the needle. And again, Congress going on a brave vacation. During this time, uh, is going to slow any potential policy. So the question is for, for how long can the state in the media narrative and hopefully not get taken over also by a counter narrative, which is going to be incredibly attractive to take, which is why the sheriff overseeing this, uh, this, this tragedy chose to wait for. [00:08:06] Over 15 minutes to take action. And that's, that's not the point. The point is there's an 18 year old who needed medical help and instead he got help from a local gun store. [00:08:17] Nick: I definitely agree with you. I think to your point for too long folks on the side of the policy debate about wanting stricter gun control have propped up the NRA as this kind of buggy man. But the truth of the matter is. Is ideological divide in this country. And there are a lot of people who repeatedly vote in candidates who are. [00:08:45] Pro gun. And that, that ideological messaging on the right is, is extreme. And I think it's beyond just money and lobbyist. It's a genuine ideological, perhaps demagogues, but it's an ideological difference. And I think that for folks who are looking for solutions need to understand that it's not just countering dark money and politics, it's actually. [00:09:09] Changing minds and having those debates and meeting people where they're at to your point about small wins. Um, but something, something we'll continue to watch. And unfortunately I'm not super hopeful as well, but that being said, um, you have to try and, and we'll keep trying. And this year we have a chance to try again. [00:09:33] So, uh, something, a story and a narrative will continue to be. [00:09:37] All right, shifting gears a little bit. I can take us into the summary. This one comes from NBC in Chicago, and it's about a nonprofit beginning to track anti Asian hate crimes in the Midwest. So over the course of the pandemic, uh, organizations that track statistics of, um, Uh, hate crimes against Asian Americans have seen in over 300% increase. [00:10:03] And this particular organization that Asian American foundation is setting up a program to track hate crimes and AAPI violence while providing legal and other support to victims. Um, To build trust, um, and break down barriers with communities, particularly immigrant communities or non native English speaking communities, um, to, to help these folks feel supported in a time where unfortunately, they're seeing a surge in violence against them. [00:10:33] And I live in New York and there's been really tragically high profile, um, hate crimes against. Asian folks in the New York city area. So there's just something that's, that's very close to us. And I know a lot of here, all of us here at Holwell. So, um, just awesome. Worked from a nonprofit, stepping up to fill that dough, that void when it comes to data and reporting, and that is hugely important when it comes to creating policy decisions and other sorts of interventions to address such violence. [00:11:05] George: Yeah, I think it's important that. Sir, not the qualitative, but the quantitative on this one, trying to document and get the data of what's going on. So you can really understand the scope of the problem. There's one thing to say, one-off events and like it's easy then for the public to say, oh yeah, but that's just like one lone actor as opposed to the larger incidents going up. [00:11:28] So yeah, I like this. [00:11:30] Nick: Okay. All right. Our next story is interesting one, and this comes from the Chronicle of falling anthropy and it talks about how the buffets, um, have stopped funding programs that support women and girls, particularly in the United States. So this article talks about, um, the foundation, um, the, the Novo foundation. [00:11:55] Uh, quote unquote stunned the nonprofit world by announced thing at the height of the pandemic, that it was halting funding for critical programs, focused on women and girls. And the article goes on to talk with some of the, uh, uh, grant recipient organizations that have been on the receipt had been on the receiving end of such funding, seeing it suddenly dry off. [00:12:17] And, uh, the, the, the TLDR of this article is. When it comes to corporate philanthropy, single similarly split second decisions can have really lasting and unfortunate ramifications. And, uh, the article kind of goes on to talk about the need for organizations to diversify funding, which is of course easier said than done. [00:12:40] Um, but George, what's your take on this? [00:12:42] George: No, we covered the Nova foundation out and shift, and this is just the second order or logical next order effect of that, where, you know, the Nova foundation accounted for or reported 96% of funding for that type of work. And it's. It's it's unfortunate because it does then a cliff and raises questions about, you know, was this? [00:13:04] you know, especially if they're trying to turn long-term impact, it's hard to do when your funding can drive overnight. [00:13:09] So, you know, we'll call for much more responsible philanthropy and just, just a warning for anyone who's funding relies heavily 70%, 50% more on one story. [00:13:19] Nick: All right. Our next story comes from nine news.com K USA. And it's about Coloradans being asked to take a water conservation pledge. This is kind of a cool one. It's called the water 22 pledge, and it includes 22 ways for every Coloradan to save 22 gallons of water every day. And according to this nifty infographic, um, Each Colorado and saves 22 gallons per day. [00:13:49] That's 8,000 gallons per year, or approximately 48 billion gallons per year for the statewide. So, uh, this of course addressing the, some, uh, climate concerns around, uh, drought and lack of, uh, clean water, um, and, and really, really dangerously low water levels out there. Um, so, uh, I love it. I love this, this kind of educational approach to addressing environmental impacts. [00:14:19] And of course it takes much more than that, but the fact that this is just one kind of component of that I think is really cool and something we're going to need a hell of a lot more of as we start and continue to tackle the climate crisis. [00:14:33] George: Yeah. I like stories like these sort of, non-profits stepping up for water crises, which are absolutely going to happen across the west Midwest. This. Based on what they're reporting. I think those, those points are incredibly important, but the practical environmental scientist. That I once potentially wanted to be in, in college, uh, has to also point to the fact that in terms of water consumption, agricultural water use is 89% of Colorado state wide usage. [00:15:07] So, you know, the, the individuals, you know, cutting back certainly helps, but I think there's also a lot of room for improved farming practices and, uh, smart irrigation systems that can save quite a bit more if we're just being. Logical about it. So, you know, I, I see stories like this. I'm excited about citizens getting in there, but I hope it doesn't stop there. [00:15:28] And also, you know, allocates for more intelligent, more intelligent ways to save. [00:15:33] Nick: Absolutely. Our next story is from CNBC and it says the tax breaks. Aren't the prime reason for high net worth philanthropy or. So the study conducted by BNI, BNY Mellon wealth management asserts that in fact, tax benefits are not the primary reason that people donate to charity, um, including, um, hyper wealthy people. [00:16:03] Um, and the top reasons for charitable giving include they're donated to a special cause they wanted to see impact they, or they want to give back or increase their legacy. Um, so. Maybe the folks who are a little bit too cynical about, uh, charitable giving. So take a look at this and, and of course, you know, there's exceptions well, um, but it restores your faith a little bit, and it talks about interestingly and perhaps more importantly trends amongst younger people, millennials and gen Z while still building up. [00:16:37] For, as you talk a lot about the greatest wealth transfer in history is about to come our way, um, increasing trends in terms of young people, uh, donating and caring about, uh, social. [00:16:49] George: Yeah, quoting here. The younger generations are more charitably inclined and they care more about impact and nearly three quarters of high net worth millennials and eight and 10. Gen X-ers investors have a charitable giving strategy according to this report. And I think it's important to note that the, the rising generation and the rising generation of frankly, a million multi-millionaires seem to have that type of lens and probably parked under the effective philanthropy, uh, effective philanthropy, effective altruist type of mantra, where they, you know, the care of where the dollars go in terms of trackable impact into causes and issues that serve a greater. [00:17:28] Systemic solution. I would say, uh, also, you know, notably people like, um, one of the youngest, uh, new billionaires out there in crypto sandbank, then freed is also said to be making money so that he can spend money aggressively, uh, in, um, in his work. And it's a good trend to be aware of as some, you know, one large donor can, can make a, quite, quite a difference, especially as how. [00:17:57] Craft your, your narratives and communications to your general audience, because inevitably there are probably a power law dynamic of 1% of that audience has 99% of the wealth. [00:18:08] Nick: Definitely that's a great analysis and something, I guess we'll see, play out over time, but toward time out, I feel good story to finish. [00:18:18] George: Um, [00:18:19] Nick: All right. This comes from KTH news.com, Kilian daily Herald, and it's about a nonprofit keeping them Memorial day, traditional Latifah playing taps. The Mecca Ts multi educational cross-cultural arts of central Texas is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and spreading the awareness of cultural music and dance gathered to play taps. [00:18:46] Veterans grades and honor of their service and sacrifice this Memorial day. And it talks about Mecca Tech's leader and retired us army criminal, Daniel , who was 90, who began this year's remembrance at the grave of his friend. Um, another former board member of this nonprofit retired Sergeant first class Jose land does. [00:19:07] So, uh, music can be an important and valuable way to serve. That part of our life journey and, uh, recognizing, um, friends fallen and war celebrating life morning life and just overall expression. Um, he's like, it's really important to me and I know to a lot of other people, and this is great to see a nonprofit, uh, using it to pay their respects this Memorial day. [00:19:38] George: Beautiful way to remember people that have given the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy. And so yes, to, to the veterans and to the people that are remembering Memorial day, uh, it's much appreciated and like to see non-profits involved in, in keeping these types of traditions alive. Thanks, Nick. [00:19:59] Nick: Thanks, George.
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| Exploring AI in Nonprofits: Insights from Seth Godin & Latest Tech Updates (news) | 21 May 2024 | 00:21:20 | |
📌 This week on the Nonprofit News Feed: Join George Weiner, Chief Whaler at Whole Whale, and Nick Azulay, Digital Strategist, as they dive into the latest developments affecting the nonprofit sector. 🔹 Special Guest: Get insights from Seth Godin on raising over $70,000 through positive auctions with GoodBids.org. 🔹 AI Advancements: Discover the implications of OpenAI's GPT-4.0 and Google's new AI-driven search overviews for nonprofits. 🔹 Fundraising & Tech: Learn about Whole Whale's latest rollout of GPT-4.0 for Omni and Gemini image generation with DALL-E 3. 🔹 Google Ad Grant Cohort: Hear about the clever foundation that secured 10 seats for their grantees and the upcoming hands-on learning session. 🔹 Policy Alert: Understand the potential impacts of House Republicans attempting to cut funding for LGBTQ nonprofits. 🔹 Fraud Prevention: Minnesota Attorney General shuts down 17 sham nonprofits defrauding the federal child nutrition program. 🔹 Feel-Good Story: Celebrate the success of Habitat for Humanity's Veterans Build in Charlotte, NC, providing a home for veterans George and Karen. Transcript: This week on the nonprofit news feed. Well, my name is George Weiner. I'm the chief whaler of Whole Whale. And we have Nick Azulay, the digital strategist at Whole Whale. We're excited. You know, we bring you nonprofit news, of course, but we also want to start talking a little bit about what's going on at Whole Whale. I'm excited because this week we are also dropping our interview with Seth Godin and His work with good bids. org and how they just in their pilot raised over 70, 000 with positive auctions, all of that to come on this feed on our YouTube channel. Also had a busy week last week because we rolled out GPT 4 0 0 for Omni across all cause writer customers. And also rolled out the Gemini image generation alongside DALI three. So we're always pushing the newest and best models to give access to the folks in our cause writer AI. Also, it was pretty funny. There was somebody who reached out for our Google ad grant cohort, a very clever foundation that bought up 10 seats of the ad grant cohort for their grantees and, you know, snapped up all of the early birds. Very, very smart play by them for our Google ad grant cohort hands on learning coming in July. We have seven seats available as of this recording and you know, they are certainly valuable and going quick and hopefully we can help everyone interested in joining that hands on Google ad grant cohort. All right, Nick. About Whole Whale, what about the news? George, this is a big one. And I think that, you know, we're not on just a, any tech podcast, right? We care about nonprofits and tech and digital, but I think last week's announcement, announcements are too important not to talk about because they will have major implications for nonprofits. So last week, both. Open AI and Google and then later Microsoft made various announcements about AI offerings. So open AI released its new GPT 4. 0 model. That was the big announcement from them. The big announcement from Google, at least from our perspective is the rollout of search overviews. You heard us mentioning just last week on the podcast that SGE was coming, search generated experience. Lo and behold, 48 hours later, it was here. So users across the continent of the United States are now seeing AI generated results on their search engine result pages, or SERPs, for a multitude of searches. We write, as we talk about now we don't yet know whether this is reflected in Google search console. We don't know really what the implications will be or have dedicated data to prove how this is impacting search at large. But of course there are pretty major implications, NGOs that rely on organic traffic to drive their mission. So those are the two big announcements. George, there's so much to unpack here, and I think we should I think listeners would really enjoy hearing our thoughts about OpenAI and Google's announcement in particular. But what were your takeaways from this week of just like crazy AI updates from Big Tech? I think I am always of the mindset of like paying attention to like what happened on like page five. Like there's always the front news. There's always the like, hey everybody look over here. Yet the most groundbreaking things, the things that will have The biggest impacts are like happening deeper in the paper. And you have to look a little deeper. And that AI overview is not to be underestimated. We've been talking about it for over a year. We have been preparing our clients and preparing mitigation strategies at a high level. It's not just the nonprofit sector, but everyone in media, they understand what this means. Immediately that they are being disintermediated from the flow of information from this discovery process that we have, frankly, given to Google. We gave them our data and information in exchange for attention measured in clicks. And now those clicks are going to go away. However, I think there's enough, you know, fear, uncertainty and doubt floating about I'm beginning to position our team, our strategy and our clients around a new idea, which is a larger digital footprint. And that footprint goes beyond our website. It goes beyond the four walls of our tiny little postage stamp on the internet. And rather, what is our larger footprint as it relates to measurable attention across platforms. That attention also, I am like every day refreshing the Google search console. The Bing search console, right? I'm refreshing these things so that I can see when they give us access to information about where and how we show up in that AI search overview, understanding how we then influence this LLM. A new vector of LLM optimization, right? Where we say, I get what we used to write and how we used to write, how do we shift toward that I think is part of our new diet in addition to that. Our text, which you've traditionally written those next 10 articles about the information about an apple tree, about a primate, about whatever that topic is, is going to be commoditized by. A GPT that can write the same thing that can answer the same question in that world. I think you have to change how you compete by producing. And providing more intellectual property, more original research things that a GPT doesn't have access to. And that's, you know, can come in the form of surveys can come in the form of original research. You can begin to get more creative though. And so I think I'm excited in that sense of, like, it's going to open up. Creativity rather than treating us all like little dictionary writers of like, I need the dictionary page for this. Like, frankly, that was always inevitably going to become commoditized if you really looked at it with a large enough lens. So I you know, we're watching it and that's just top of the top of the mountain what I'm thinking right now. Yeah, no, totally George. Subscribe to my sub stack. No, I'm kidding, but I think you bring up some really good points. Right. And, and back to the search overview piece, we've been talking about this before. We have links in the nonprofit newsfeed newsletter, which you should all be subscribed to. But even in the GPT 4 0 model. That is now like available to plus users on chat GPT. It is pinging the internet in real time. We were talking about this yesterday. You used to have to use a plugin and it would kind of like go through Bing and it didn't really work. If you ask it right now, what is the. The news over the past four hours, it will know and it will tell you, right? So that brings up real major implications for the dissemination of news, the dissemination of information misinformation, disinformation, like that, that whole nexus, that whole environment. We knew we were going to get there. I don't quite knew I did. I don't think anyone quite realized we were going to get there last week. So that is, I, for me. From a kind of like an anthropological standpoint, right? Like how are, how is this tech interacting with people? That's among the most major updates we've had is you now have these tools that are interacting with news stories in real time, both with search overview on Google's side and native internet access within GPT 4. 0 which is now being rolled out. So I think just to continue that. That conversation and you know, there's so many ways we can talk about this. We can talk about, okay, what's Microsoft copilot doing? What's the whole Scarlett Johansson thing? Like there's so many different angles here. And I think a lot of people have a lot of questions. What's important, though, is, and something that we've been talking about a lot with our clients, right, is, if you're listening to this podcast, you work at a non profit and if you haven't already realized this already, you can't avoid these conversations, you can't avoid this technology. It is coming, have those conversations with staff, have the conversation about what ethical use of these tools look like within your workflow and your processes. Talk about the risks, talk about the amazing opportunities, but like have that conversation. And we have some great resources on how to have those conversations, how to draft AI use policies what type of things to think about when it comes to transparency and, and data privacy. The benefits of the API versus when you're using the free tools, you know, if You're not paying for the product. You are the product kind of thing. So a lot to think about. But again, go to our website. Cause George, George is really passionate. I will say about this, go to cause writer. ai go to whole whale. com. There's tons of free resources. There's paid resources, but we're really just trying to work hard. So that nonprofits don't get caught lagging behind everybody else. And I think that that's really important. So, stay tuned, dig into it, and we'll take it from there. More rants, more rants to come, don't worry. This is true. All right, George, I'll take us to our next one. This one comes from Independent Sector, a outlet that we love. And they talk about the value of volunteer time. So in collaboration with the do good Institute independent center announced that the value of a volunteer hour has risen to 33 49 an hour, marking a 5. 3 percent increase in the previous year. And this figure is based on 2023 data, and it underscores really the, the contributions that volunteers are making to nonprofits. So, essentially, this is applying a, a, an hourly wage assessment to the value of volunteers as they contribute within the nonprofit kind of ecosystem. And That's a high number. And George, we talked about this. I don't think the non profit sector fully recovered from the pandemic still, and the value of non profit volunteers is increasing, probably in concert with a decrease in supply. Yeah, that's a say, you know, like this is the positive framing of it and the value there, but also hopefully what you can do is use this as a narrative for why invest in volunteers because it unlocks it. But to be clear, volunteer management is work. It's not like people showing up for free. I think it is one of the, you know, it's on my top 10 list of major misnomers, things under misunderstood about the nonprofit sector. Why don't you just, you know, get volunteers to do it is because it takes staff time. It takes staff planning. Takes organization to properly execute a volunteer program. And so I'm happy to see this value go up because I think it makes that case internally to be like, when we do it right, we can unlock true value of, of time for for a cause. And what's more, a volunteer is 10 times more likely to donate to your organization than a non volunteer. Those are data from. volunteer match over a decade ago, but I will repeat it as many times as I possibly can because it is directionally true. Once someone has become invested with their time, the dollars are easy. Yeah, George, I think that that's a great point. It'll be interesting to see whether this trend continues going forward. We shall see. I'll take us to our next story. This one comes from MSNBC, and it's that House Republicans are trying to quietly gut funding for LGBTQ nonprofits. So, House GOP leaders are attempting to block funding for LGBTQ nonprofits through the budget process. They were targeting community centers and services had limited success because Democrats controlled the Senate. However, new rules set by the House Appropriations Committee chair aim to make all nonprofits ineligible for certain federal funds which could broadly impact social services. So, George, I think that the key here is that So many nonprofits that provide vital services to communities homeless outreach communities for migrants and immigrants and that kind of thing may very well also provide services to LGBTQ folks particularly LGBTQ, like, youth or homeless folks, et cetera, et cetera. And it's disconcerting to see that coming under attack from Congress. I would have hoped at this point, it was a bipartisan agreement that LGBTQ youth are deserving of federal funding, nonprofits supporting this group. I just wish it was moved into the window of, all right, we can both support this. We can both support the troops. We can both support. So many fundamental basic human rights at that level. So, it's a little dark to, to see that. And also I hope that alarm bells are raised that like, this is maybe on the list of consequences for regime changes out there to, to motivate anyone who has family, friends, connections, interactions with Yeah, I think that's entirely true. Listen, everybody. Get out and vote. That's all I'm going to say. Vote, because God only knows we need you. All right, this one comes from redlakenationnews. com, but Minnesota Attorney General Ellison has shut down 17 sham nonprofits that were accused allegedly of defrauding the federal child nutrition program following a court order by a judge. So these nonprofits were created or revived to, to misuse funds meant for feeding children. When they were just. It's a, you know, a fraud scheme while providing no legitimate activities and failing to comply with investigators. And you can see the names of some of these sham non profits. But George, I think the takeaway here is our long running theme on this show 501c3 status doesn't mean you are doing good work. Two, if you are a legitimate non profit doing good work, it's really important for you to communicate that through all sorts of transparency, have clear mission vision statements, have your Form 990s up there use those annual reports, instill zoner confidence because every time something like this happens, people get a little bit more skeptical, so, you know. Don't know what more to say than that other than I guess they caught them. It seems like nonprofit fraud often goes under investigated. So I guess this is good. Yeah. The federal child nutrition program actually was was a target of a disproportionate amount of fraud from the way it was distributed and the speed it needed to be done. So there's sort of a natural gravity, unfortunately, to people taking advantage of the system. I added the list of names here, not to name and shame, but just to frankly, but more to draw awareness to names that sound like other names, right? Names that may be close to your organization's name. More and more, I think it's important about defending as much as possible. And understanding your digital footprint and your brand footprint of your name. And so, frankly, if your name is the, you know, Academy for Youth Excellence, that was one of the names used here. How do you potentially understand how that's showing up in Google search and then also AI overview of your organization saying if somebody's looking for Your organization asking questions about it. Are they going to find this type of fraud history or are they going to find your reputable work? There's a whole new level of brand reputation that is going to need to take place. And that kind of circles back to the LLM optimization that I think is a different way of playing the game, but it's going to be very important because if your name is similar to the Academy for Youth Excellence. Well, you were one of 17 nonprofit defendants that were dissolved by court order in the great state of Minnesota, or were you, or were you associated? Yeah, George, I think that's fair. You can always take the easy way out and name, name your organization whole whale and forever be associated with the largest mammal ever to roll in the air, no, I kid. But no, I think it's a great point, George. Some of these organizations, right, and this is what they do. This is what the fraudsters do. You know, the American Heart Academy, right? That sounds a lot like other things, but, you know, not real. The Youth Higher Educational Achievement. That sounds legit. Who doesn't want to give to youth higher education? So, be on the lookout. All right, George, how about a feel good story? What do you have? This one comes from Habitat of Humanity of the Charlotte region. Habitat Charlotte. Veterans George and Karen were lifelong residents of Charlotte, North Carolina. Carolina. But because of unabordable housing and limited stock, they faced barriers to entry in buying a home. And thanks to Habitat's Humanity Veterans Build, which engages military personnel to construct homes for fellow veterans, they're now building a peaceful, spacious home in Statesville to enjoy with their 22 grandchildren. Congratulations. George, if you don't know the Habitat for Humanity model, They got it figured out. It's a very sustainable model. They have stores that sell goods. The Restore, that goes back into profits for the organization. It goes into, to paying folks who work there, finding employment. They hire people to build homes. It's, it's it's, it's the best. I think of what nonprofits can be in a very holistic and kind of sustainable approach to social impact. So take a look at what the folks down at Habitat Charlotte are doing. Also, interestingly enough to note Habitat is kind of like Uh, like a franchise, right? There's a national habitat, but 99 percent of the builds you see, et cetera, et cetera in the United States are actually run by regional habitat organizations that fall under the national umbrella. So a lot of them are kind of, financially interindependent. So, see which one is near you and considering getting involved. Great volunteer opportunities too. So many like different and great volunteer opportunities. Go volunteer for a day, volunteer at the store. Just so many fantastic ways to get involved. And they really, really make an impact. Yeah. And full disclosure, we have done work with some of these habitat networks and we have loved every minute of it. All right, Nick. I have a question for you. How how did the nonprofit get injured by what they wrote? Oh, gosh, I don't know. They got scraped by Google. Oh, man, scraped. That's really good. That's really good. George. That's that goes on a t shirt. 📍 Yeah. All right, Nick. Thanks for helping us understand the news. Thanks George. Thanks. | |||
| Do you REALLY need an RFP? | Nonprofit.ist | 26 May 2022 | 00:39:08 | |
Interview with Heather Yandow, the founder of Nonprofit.ist, an online resource that helps pair nonprofits with the right consultants; a co-founder of Beehive Collective, a Raleigh-based giving circle; and the creator of Third Space Studio’s Individual Fundraising Benchmark Report. Host, George Weiner discusses how nonprofits should approach RFPs and finding the right contractor or agency for the type of project they need.
Nonprofit.ist Resources https://www.nonprofit.ist/home https://www.nonprofit.ist/rfp https://www.nonprofit.ist/5questionstoanswer https://www.thirdspacestudio.com/ Heather Yandow is a collaborative co-conspirator and creative thinker with over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit world. Inspired by issues that touch her heart and organizations invested in relationships, Heather gets joy out of helping groups move forward from chaos to clarity. Phrases like “adaptive leadership” and “change management” are sure to get her mind churning. Before Heather joined Third Space in 2010, she was the Director of Development and Communications with the NC Conservation Network, a statewide network of over 100 organizations focused on protecting North Carolina's environment and public health. With a personal motto of “just do it,” Heather identifies problems and dreams up actionable solutions. This talent has led to many projects: Heather is the founder of Nonprofit.ist, an online resource that helps pair nonprofits with the right consultants; a co-founder of Beehive Collective, a Raleigh-based giving circle; and the creator of Third Space Studio’s Individual Fundraising Benchmark Report. Rough Transcript[00:00:00] George: We have got a very fun guest. Heather . Heather is the founder of nonprofit IST that's nonprofit.ist to be clear. And Heather is also a consultant at third space studio. Heather, thanks for joining us. How is. [00:00:18] Heather: Great. I'm glad to be joining you today. [00:00:21] George: Well, you know, I came across non-profits, but I've also been watching your work for a while and I laughed because it was similar to a tool that Holwell has tried to build and kind of does on the side. But maybe we can just start with what is a nonprofit just. [00:00:39] Heather: Good question. So I think of a non-profit is like a florist or a dentist. So a nonprofit is, does a person who has experience with nonprofits. So nonprofit is, is also a website, a directory of nonprofit experts. So coaches, consultants, lawyers, accountants, anybody who can help nonprofits with the challenges they're, they're dealing with. [00:01:04] So we've got almost 300 folks from across the country as part of our directory and leaders, nonprofit leaders from all over the country can come and find the help that they need there. [00:01:15] George: And how is a non-profit is just uniquely different than somebody who is working for a for-profit industry. Like, you know, I work on email. Why is the nonprofit is just so important in this equation? [00:01:32] Heather: I think it's really important because nonprofits have. To some degree, unique set of challenges. We're often resource constrained. We're dealing with different kinds of social issues or behavior change or advocacy that maybe those in the business world might not be. And the nonprofit leadership structure often is really different than what you might have in a for-profit. [00:01:56] So, if you're working in a nonprofit, you might have to be dealing with a board of directors, but it has a whole lot of influence and power over the decisions that are being made potentially. And that often doesn't exist in the same way in the for-profit world. [00:02:11] George: And so this site, nonprofit that IST helps people find these professionals, like, how is it, Matt? It sounds like a marketplace. [00:02:23] Heather: It is a marketplace. [00:02:24] I, I designed it to be somewhat the Angie's list of nonprofit consultants. We do not have all of the features and Angie's list yet, but it is a place where you can come and. Sorta people you can search by any particular category. You can search by geography. You can look for keywords. [00:02:45] So if you're looking for a strategic planning consultant in Florida who has experienced with. You can put all of that in there and the system will spit out. Here's a few folks who might fit the less specific you are, the more people you'll get. But we have, I think, a dozen different specialties now. [00:03:03] And about 40 states, we've got represented. [00:03:06] George: Interesting. What's the most popular fist somebody is looking for. [00:03:11] Heather: The most popular is that people are looking for, tends to be fundraising. Unsurprisingly fundraising continues to be the thing that people really need help with and not whether it's figuring out how to ask major donors for. [00:03:27] funding, setting up bequests, thinking about grant writing, all of those specialties. [00:03:33] We see a lot of interest in. [00:03:34] George: So tools, sites marketplaces, like Fiverr have existed for quite some time or Upwork or, you know, fill in the. [00:03:43] Heather: Yeah. [00:03:44] George: Why did you decide to create one focused on non-profits? [00:03:49] Heather: I think what we saw in the, in the world in the marketplace was that there wasn't kind of trusted. just for people who have experience with non-profits. So certainly you could go on Fiverr, you go on Craigslist and find yourself a graphic designer. But if you need someone who really understands strategic planning, or if you want a lawyer who can help with incorporation, Those folks are a little bit harder to find. [00:04:17] And there was a very fragmented landscape of these directories. So some state nonprofit associations have kind of business directories, some very specific kind of specialties have their own directories, but there was nothing that was really national and that included all of the different kinds of help that non-profits? [00:04:39] really. [00:04:39] George: It sounds like a daunting task to try to corral so many independent contractors or small companies. How long have you been building this? How have you been going about adding to the database? [00:04:53] Heather: So I think it was more daunting than I envisioned. If I had known at the start, how daunting it was, I might not have started. But I began in January of 2019. We got our first expert to be part of the directory. We had a hundred folks by may of that year and opened up to the public. So it's really started getting nonprofit leaders to come and take a look. [00:05:16] And we've been growing really by word of mouth. So there was a big question when we started, how are we going to credential the people in the directory? How are you going to know that you're getting somebody good? And that for nonprofit consultants is actually a really hard question. There is no one a certificate that we can get. [00:05:38] There's no, no particular degree. If you're great in one specific area like fundraising, you might have a certification or coaching. But we went round and round about how we were going to credential people and eventually decided that trust is transitive. And so if I trust you as a consultant that you're going to do good work and you trust somebody else who I don't know, then that trust is transitive. [00:06:05] So I am going to trust that they are also a good consultant. So we have grown by invitation only. So our members can invite. Their colleagues to become part of the network. [00:06:18] George: Interesting. So it's, if a goes B and B equals C. And see, you could get a drink sometime and hopefully be able to speak the same language. So how does, you know you know, we have a wide audience listening. How would a consultant saying, oh, I want to be on this list. How, how would they go about that then? [00:06:39] Heather: Good question. So we do Have folks who are not directly connected. There's a way to apply on the website and you just have to answer a couple of questions. One of the other things that I know about consulting is that. One consultant. Isn't great for everybody. So we're not looking to say here's a set of absolutely perfect. [00:07:01] A plus consultants who are going to work for every person. We're looking to say, here's a set of folks who have some good experience with non-profits who have some trust with their colleagues. And if you're going to hire them, we want you to be a good consumer. We want you to think about how you're actually doing. [00:07:20] Choose who to work with and make sure that the right fit for you. [00:07:23] George: Have you ever had to boot somebody for, for, misbehaving? [00:07:27] Heather: We haven't ever really had to beat anybody for misbehaving? [00:07:30] I'll tell you that story later. [00:07:32] George: I love, I love the postscript on that and you know, it's, it's a. It's an important note though, you know, you, you mentioned sort of Angie's list and a part of that is ratings and trust, but at the, at the heart of it, you know, every organization can't be great at doing all of the things. And some percentage of projects just don't go as planned because that's the nature of consulting. [00:07:56] They have been hired to solve a hard problem, and sometimes it doesn't get solved in the way that everyone hoped. So how do you go about that? I guess as a promise to nonprofits, I assume nonprofits can come on there and post what they need, or look for a professional. Like, what is that type of vetting promise look like. [00:08:18] Heather: So. Promise that this is a trusted network. We allow people to, for nonprofit consultants, they can post their LinkedIn profile. They can post their email, they can put up testimonials about how great they are. And when nonprofit leaders, when a board member executive director development director comes to look, we really encourage them to think about how they're going to hire well. [00:08:45] But nonprofits as a website, doesn't get involved in that transaction. We really wanted to make it as frictionless as possible and also free. So for all of our nonprofit leaders who are coming to the site, it's totally free to get in And get access to all of these consultants. [00:09:02] George: And here's a tough one for you. What about ratings? I immediately think of, as you've mentioned, Angie's list or like a Yelp, I'm saying like, how many stars can I leave people potentially. [00:09:15] Heather: I've been really hesitant to get into the ratings game. And that is. In part, because I'm not sure in this case they'd be super helpful. I suspect that we would be getting a lot of five-star reviews. And that just in this context, I think people are too nice. I'm not sure that we would actually get the kind of constructive feedback that would be helpful. [00:09:39] And maybe that's just what I'm telling myself, because I have heartburn about putting that up and having to deal with consultants who might want to take down negative reviews or kind of mediate any of those. Because certainly there are times when I've been a consultant for 12 years. There are times when the work hasn't gone as expected, and it's my fault. [00:09:59] There are other times when the work hasn't gone as expected and it's actually the client's fault. And so. There's this a lot of a gray area there that I'm hesitant to get into, but is, is definitely on our radar. [00:10:13] George: I don't know the right answer. I have been in the same game for over a decade, and I'm aware that what happens on Yelp ultimately is the, the polars, right? You end up with extremely happy or extremely frustrated, and that can paint a weird picture and then put no marketplace owner in a weird place. But clearly from a nonprofit perspective, you'd be curious as to sort of number served or something there. [00:10:42] It's it's hard though. I started this conversation mentioning whole Wales got a similar product, which a, with a much, much, much smaller band. We only look at sort of digital. RFPs website builds for, you know, we originally did this because we don't build websites at whole whale. And there's a lot of things we don't do that whole well, where we want a need, a trusted network. [00:11:08] You mentioned that sort of transitive property of trust. And so it's like a handful we have less than 20 companies that serve a range of budgets for these types of technical projects and includes like ad-words management. And website dev the problem was, you know, the well, many fold, but just sort of scaling beyond that trust. [00:11:32] And like, we just, I didn't have the guts to just open up the door wider, but also we didn't have enough projects I'd say to come in. So the two-sided marketplace is super hard. We have. A handful of these RFPs coming in. I'm curious on your side, what does that nonprofit flow look like? What does the, you know, average size you mentioned it's a fundraising fundraising, unsurprised type of consulting people are looking for, but maybe you can paint what that looks like. [00:12:03] Heather: So we have been actively reaching out about the directory, marketing, the directory, really putting a lot of our budget behind recruiting. Nonprofit leaders to come to the directory. As I said, it's free to join and you've got to join if you really want to dig into somebody's profile. And we've got just over 3000 members now over the past three years. [00:12:29] So we're doing we're finding that a lot of people are interested in this. The two big ways that folks are finding us one is we invest a lot in Google ads. We have found that that has been a really good way for us to find new. And then also word of mouth. So every time somebody asks me or asks any of the consultants in our directory, do you know somebody who, which we get those questions a lot? [00:12:56] Our answer is non-profits. So that kind of constant referring back has been really helpful. Because we are not always in the middle of the RFPs the best data that we have about what folks are looking for and what they're getting is from doing some surveys every year. And so we know that folks are finding good people through nonprofits. [00:13:19] They're getting their projects done. They're recommending it to their friends. They have a pretty high level of satisfaction. [00:13:25] George: And for our tool, we jokingly called it snorkel. Our front door is an RFP generator. Like we don't let you come into the party unless you have an RFP. Now those three letters, the request for proposals. I know, spark a bit of ire in the consulting space. Maybe you can map out your approach and experience with the RFP. [00:13:51] Do they don't they dilemma? [00:13:52] Heather: Yes. So I am anti RFP just to stake my claim. I think that's Absolutely organizations need to get clear about what they're looking for before they approach a consultant, but that is different than having an RFP. An RFP can help you get clarity on some of the questions. How much money do you think. [00:14:17] When do you want this to be done? What are the big questions are looking to answer? I, have also seen RFPs that are 12 pages long and answer none of that. Right? So they are not necessarily the same thing. I actually asked some consultants on LinkedIn. I put out a post about RFP. And got a lot of great feedback. [00:14:39] Most folks in a similar situation to me that RFPs are just not what works. And I think they don't work for a couple of reasons. One is often they're really prescriptive and that prescription is either solving the wrong problem or. Putting together a scope of work that just really isn't going to address the need. [00:15:02] And part of the reason why you want to work with a consultant often is to help diagnose the challenge, help plan out the solution. So if you're already doing that in your RFP, if you've already seen. We're going to have one, two hour board training and one, one hour work session with the executive committee and that's it. [00:15:21] That's the solution to our problem. Then you're really not using consulting to its full capacity. You're not really using us in a way that's going to be helpful. They also often require a lot of free work. So I am half of a two person consulting firm. We use our time to do the work. And so if you are asking us to put together of five page RFP or five page proposal with lots of responses, we may not ever apply for. [00:15:53] And that's certainly going to be true for other folks who are not part of larger organizations. So you're kind of skewing your RFPs towards people who have the capacity to sit down and write lots of proposals. And finally they're really impersonal, I think when the best fits come, when you actually have that. [00:16:15] That personality, when you're able to talk to somebody and you clicked and you both understand the problem, you understand how you're going to work together. Those work styles really mesh and the RFP proposal process really doesn't do that. Well. I just had the best experience and I didn't even get the work, but it was still the best experience I had somebody send me a request for conversations. It was a two page document that included lots of the pieces of an RFP. And at the bottom, it says, if this seems like something you're interested in click here to schedule a 25 minute phone conversation. So I did my partner and I got on the phone. We talked for 25 minutes, fantastic conversation. And at the end of it, he said, okay I'm going to be talking to our executive director. [00:17:03] And if you move on the next step is a conversation with the two. So that was 25 minutes of our time. 25 minutes of his time. It wasn't the right fit for whatever reason, but that was fine. I would do those calls all day long, rather than write out those large proposals. [00:17:19] George: I, I wish I could say that. Like that's not perfect because the request for conversation, we see, we get those, like a request for information is also kind of goes by, and it's just so much more efficient. And I will say like, you know, we, we live in an RFP world for project sizes and pieces that. I just have to be part of the DNA of the process. [00:17:43] You know, one of our approaches is putting out a template that hopefully elicits something usable and it kind of brings somebody through that process, but we don't respond to cold RFPs where we don't get a conversation first. And I think that's an important note. The other piece I'll say about the RFP is it does help focus. [00:18:03] Sometimes I'd find the project as opposed to. You know, here's a problem. We have no clue what we need. And that's the difference of going to a dentist versus a general practitioner? Do you dentist here, like, let's be clear what the problem is. And so in, in that type of focus, we sort of, we default to the unfortunate RFP. [00:18:27] But I want to pull back to the size of organization that you somehow end up with. As soon as you kind of like pull together the RFP, you have to assume the type of machinery that can respond to RFP put together those pages. Right? We have a win rate of about anywhere hovering from like 46 to 52%, which means half of our work goes into yield dumpster of, of our. [00:18:53] How do you think about the budget expectations when it comes to these conversations? [00:19:01] Heather: The budget expectations from in response to what the non-profit is looking. [00:19:07] George: Yeah. That awkward conversation about how much does it cost? Well, how much do you have. [00:19:13] Heather: Yes. So I take my cues from say yes to the dress. And so have you ever seen this though? It is a. is a I don't know what channel is a TLC probably, but it's about women shopping for wedding dresses. And so they walk into a store and there's wedding dresses from, you know, a thousand dollars to a hundred thousand dollars. [00:19:33] And the bridal consultants, not sales women consultants say. Is there a price point we should pay attention to? This is our price point. We need to respect is there, is there a budget here? And so I lean on that kind of language. So is there a budget I need to keep in mind? Is there a budget you have set aside for this? [00:19:53] I won't really respond to an RFP. I won't respond to an RFP if it doesn't have a budget in it. Particularly for the kind of work I do. If someone wants a strategic planning process, it really depends on what kind of investment they're looking to make as to what the scope of our work can be. And so oftentimes I will kind of walk folks through that. [00:20:18] So here's a few different pieces of work we could do if we do all of them. It's a $40,000 project. If we just did this one little piece, it's a $10,000 project, but I need to understand where you are. And so certainly there's budget implications for that. The thing I think we don't often think enough about, especially in the kinds of organizational development projects is what's the bandwidth that the board and the staff have for this. [00:20:47] So if you're doing a strategic plan or board development, or even in depth fundraising, What else does, does the staff and board have on their mind this year? Are you also going through a diversity equity inclusion project? Are you also celebrating your 40th anniversary? Are you also launching a capital campaign? [00:21:06] Do you actually have. [00:21:07] the bandwidth to do this project this year? Or does that help to determine the size of the project as well? [00:21:15] George: So it's a monetary and a time type of budget. [00:21:20] Heather: Yes. It's. What resources do you have available for this in the coming year or two years? [00:21:26] George: It's super important in tough too, because you know, we've seen a lot of folks. Well, I don't want to put a bunch of down this, but I'm going to give you a five page RFP. I just sort of, I'm like, I won't pass that forward because you know, we've got companies on our snorkel list that we'll do a project for $5,000 in $500,000. [00:21:49] So for you to not give a budget, you're like, okay. I'll, I mean, I'll tell you what happens on the other side. They're like, yeah, we're not going to bother with us. Or what they do is they look at your nine 90 and then they analyze what's going on with the size of the organization and they back into it. [00:22:05] But this could be a small project for you. You just sort of wasting your own time and others' time by not having that budget range. However, I do see the. Converse there where maybe you're talking about a larger, you know, fundraising effort or a larger project where there could be a range and you want competitive bids, because again, a nonprofit is obliged by its statute to have three competitive bids. [00:22:36] And if you say I'm going to spend, you know, $60,000 on this project, then you know, like how much competition he gets. So what is your advice? For, for that nuanced game, [00:22:48] Heather: not all nonprofits need to get the competitive bids but many do threshold on that? Do you know? [00:22:55] I think it might have to do with the funding source. So it might be like government money. You have to get more beds. A lot of the nonprofits I work with don't have to get those bids if they're smaller and they don't have government funding. [00:23:07] I think though that when we're talking about. Reacting based on price, choosing based on price, you are not going to get the best consultant for you. So if your only way of judging is price and you're not looking at that fit, you're not looking at experience. You're not looking at work to be done. [00:23:29] Then I think you're really you're, you're doing yourself a disservice and your organization and disservice. So I. React. Well, when someone says, well, we've got kind of 50 to $60,000, that's our budget range. And here's all the things we want to do. What I see often happens is nonprofit leaders, eyes are bigger than their plates. [00:23:50] Their desires are bigger than their. So I might describe all the things we could do. And then I find out they've only got a very small budget, but they're still trying to cram all of the different pieces in and figuring out how to get the most bang for their buck, which I do think makes sense. But if someone. [00:24:09] Does it have a budget, huge red flag for me, they're not taking this seriously. They're not ready to make a significant investment of time and money if they won't share their budget. I think I try to walk them through. Here's why it matters to me what your budget is. Not because I'm going to max it out, but because I want to right-size the work. [00:24:29] And if they still won't give me a budget, then I think that's a, that's a big question for myself and my colleague, my partner to figure out, do we really want to move forward with this? [00:24:38] George: Yeah, I think the selection criteria is kind of interesting because if you just choose based on price, the adage of you get what you pay for is like an immutable law of grants. That comes forward. And at that point, you know, you should just go onto Fiverr and have somebody just, you know, go do it for $5. [00:24:57] You realize there's a point at which that's a ridiculous thing. And you're playing a weird game by going about that. Coming back to that question, though, you know, you have, non-profits waiting into 300, 3000 X, you know, options out there. How. Just the site or do you advise on choosing that? Right? We'll say fundraising consultant. [00:25:21] Heather: So our advice is to first be clear about what you need. So what's the challenge you're trying to address how many. Do you have to put into it both in terms of money and in terms of time, when do you want it done? Honestly, the wind can be really challenging. So if you have a board retreat next weekend, your pool of consultants is very small, right? [00:25:46] If you, if we have some time and some bandwidth, you have a much bigger pool of consultants. The other thing I encourage folks to think about is what are those kind of untangible, intangible, unteachable things that you are really looking for in a consultant. So it might be, you're really looking for a particular kind of experience. [00:26:09] It might be, you are looking for a particular kind of personality. So you might like someone who is super direct. You might like somebody who is really focused on project and task management. You might know that because of the composition of your board and staff, you really want to be sure that the team includes a person of color in the leadership. [00:26:34] Right? There are a whole lot of characteristics that if you reflect back both on yourself, The organization, the team that's leading this work, you might identify, there's some specific things that we're really looking for. And I think those can be really important. [00:26:48] George: Yeah. So there's some intangibles that like your style approach, other other factors. And then, you know, you have the conversations, it seems like the large part of this platform as you go on here are folks that fit your filter. Now go have some conversations while also sending some of that information upfront as a maybe request for conversation. [00:27:10] Heather: Yeah. I mean, it's, maybe it's an Angie's list. I should call it mass.com. Although I don't actually know much about matching anymore. It's to get you to the date, right? Like there's information here. There's background about consultant's experience, but it's really to get you to that conversation. [00:27:28] to see if there's a match to see if you fit in terms of experience. [00:27:33] If you see, if you like the questions that consultant is asking you, if they have good questions, answers to the questions you're asking them, it's really about that interaction. [00:27:43] George: What's the, you mentioned time, what's the recommended amount of time to sort of buffer in, like, I have a project that needs, I know it needs to start at the end of the year. And here's the funny thing that you and I see every fundraising cycle is I need this to start ASAP, which is just the hilarious four letters that we all see. [00:28:04] What is the recommended amount of time. Let's just play with this game of like, you know, that you're going to need a project in case. When should you start looking for that consultant? [00:28:15] Heather: It's going to depend on how booked out the consultant is, but I will say at least three months in advance you want to have, have the person in mind be signing the contract three months in advance. That way, if you're having an in-person board retreat or you're launching a fundraising campaign, you've got time to do the pre-work. [00:28:36] So that might mean that you need to start searching. Four months, five months, depending on what kind of process you want to do to actually select the person. But three months out is for me and for the consultants that I know gives a good bit of flexibility. What do you think [00:28:53] George: I think the shorter your time to start, the more you're going to end up having to pay for a larger firm that has that type of excess couple. [00:29:01] And that's just, you know what we have seen over time, for example, we're not taking on clients until July right now, and that data is rapidly moving away. And you know, the, the game is that the smaller, the shop, the less they can afford the availability, meaning that, can I just take on another project right now? [00:29:21] No, because I book up my months so that I didn't. I have an idol, you know, an idle hour, which is tough because you know, you miss out on projects and pieces that, that happen, but you can't operate like what we would say, high, a low utilization tool, like a fire department where it is fine because we want them to available and be available when the fire happens. [00:29:47] You just, I think end up with just massive agencies. That you can just cost more and maybe get less personalized. You know, we're a company of 26 people, but when I started, it was a company of me. So I've kind of seen this like grow over time and this game of keeping a plate full while keeping the opportunity to work with great organizations coming in and. [00:30:12] It always frustrates me when a great organization comes in and like, Hey, we known about this project for six months, but we're calling you right now. And you're like, why didn't you message us? We were going to get to It [00:30:26] Heather: My favorite is I put you in a grant requests that we were going to do this work with you next year. Okay, fantastic. And why are you telling me on December 15th? Like we needed to [00:30:39] George: No, but you're in the grant. I wrote you in. Okay. [00:30:42] Yeah. It's it's you know, about that size and I guess I would, you know, the average size of project, it seems like if these are consultants operating at like less than five people who are under five people, it sounds like that's kind of where the nonprofit is hovers. [00:31:00] Heather: Yeah, nonprofit consultants. A lot of fix our solar preneurs. We have a lot of small shops. My best guess is that our. The average project, our projects are somewhere between kind of 5,000 and 20,000 with of course, some variability on that on either side. A lot of the folks that we work with a lot of the non-profits are coming and looking for some startup help. [00:31:26] They're looking for running their first fundraising campaign, doing their first strategic plans. Sometimes those tend to be on the lower budget size, but we certainly have folks or we're looking to do, you know, a statewide communications campaign and need some help. [00:31:39] George: Yeah, I think that's such a valuable service because I know of so many, like solar printers and small shops out there that do great work, but you know, it's tough to find them sort them out. And you know, these are folks that may come and go out with. The career right there doing it between large organ, like large organization work. [00:32:00] Heather: Hm. [00:32:01] George: they'll show up for a while. I'm like, wow, this is great. But you know, it's tough to find that window sometimes. And it seems like a super valuable network for, for folks looking for those servers. All right. Before we go into a rapid fire, I'm just curious, any other final advice for nonprofits that, you know, you want to talk about? [00:32:20] You know, we touched on the choosing the intangibles time and budget, the request for conversation preferred over request for proposal, any other like, you know, insider tips for people looking to find a consultant on nonprofit. [00:32:36] Heather: Last thought is that it's probably going to take you. More money, more time, more energy than you think it will. Which is probably true for every. Consulting gig ever. And every house renovation and everything else you do, but as you're really putting together your budget, as you're thinking about the time span for the work, just know that unless you have a lot of experience with consultants, you probably are underestimating. [00:33:04] And so just go in with a little bit of a flexible mentality about all of those variables. [00:33:09] George: Yeah. It's like the Murphy's law of home renovation as much time as you have allocated for this, it's going to take more time even after accounting for Murphy's law. [00:33:18] Heather: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. [00:33:22] George: Alright, rapid fire. Please try to keep your responses shortish. And here we go. What is one tech tool or website that you or your organization has started using in the last year? [00:33:32] Heather: I am in love with Zapier, which connects all kinds of programs. You can connect your Gmail to your zoom, to your MailChimp. And it kind of, it does zaps back and forth between things. And I love it. [00:33:49] George: What tech issues are you dealing with right now? [00:33:51] Heather: I just launched a big survey on survey monkey and the bots found it. And so we finally figured out how to put a question that was, we want to make sure you're human. Tell us about your favorite meal and why, and that is the, the bots figured out how. The answer the multiple choice question about which one of these is not an animal we thought that was going to work. [00:34:14] It did not. They all knew it was a basketball, but this one seems to work so bots in my survey. [00:34:20] George: What is coming in the next year that has you the most excited. [00:34:23] Heather: are about to, for nonprofits launch our, what we're calling our ethos, which is our kind of statement of principles for the consultant community. We're just about done with designing it and we're going to launch it in the next couple of weeks. So I'm really excited. [00:34:39] to get that out there and, and hear what people have to say. [00:34:42] George: Can you talk about a mistake you made earlier in your career that shapes the way you do things. [00:34:47] Heather: Yes. So when I was. It's probably 15 years ago, I was working with, in my volunteer gig. I run a giving circle at that time in Raleigh called the beehive collective. And we were given this wonderful opportunity to host some events at a club in downtown Raleigh over the weekend. And so we were able to host an event on Friday night. [00:35:09] We had this like. Crazy talent show on Saturday, we had a clothes swap. We used to do that a lot. And then on Sunday night we had this thing called the barrister's ball, just a dance party. Well, nobody showed up to the third event and what I really figured out is how over-saturating her overtaxing, this community that we had, people wanted to show up for it. [00:35:37] It was just too much. They could not do a Friday night, a Saturday day, a Saturday night. And so they made choices. And so as I think about engaging any kind of community, I really think about kind of what's the, what's the cost of this? What's the trade off of this? How do I really figure out what the carry capacity is of my community or of this organization or whatever, and how do I design for that? [00:36:01] George: If I were to toss you in a hot tub time machine, back to the beginning of your work, what advice would you. The advice of take more risks try out more new things. Every time I have taken a risk, I have been rewarded for it. And I have really learned a lot and had a great time made progress on my goals, but have often found myself hesitant, especially early in my career to do that. [00:36:26] what is something you think you should stop doing? [00:36:28] Heather: Saying yes. Saying yes to all kinds of things work and otherwise [00:36:34] George: I already gave you a magic wand to wave across the industry. [00:36:37] Heather: it would stop executive directors from having. Unrealistic expectations about their boards and boards from having unrealistic expectations of their executive director. [00:36:50] George: How did you get your start in the social impact side? [00:36:53] Heather: When I was in college, I joined a environmental group, the student environmental action coalition. And from there just kept going and going and going. [00:37:04] George: What advice did your parents give you that you either followed or didn't. [00:37:09] Heather: I don't know. Sorry, I didn't. [00:37:12] prepare. [00:37:13] George: All right. Final one. How do people find you? How do people have. [00:37:16] Heather: So you can find me@nonprofit.ist nonprofit assist. You can reach me at Heather at nonprofit that IST and I would love it if you're a nonprofit leader and you want to join. Nonprofit assist and poke around and find some folks who can help you and also follow us on LinkedIn. We got a really active LinkedIn page, and then if you're a consultant and you want to find out more about joining the network, please be in touch. [00:37:43] I would love to talk to you about it. [00:37:45] George: Well, thank you for your work and for creating such an amazing tool and resource for the nonprofit community. Good luck. And thanks for sharing your knowledge. [00:37:54] Heather: Thank you so much for having me. This was place. | |||
| 988 National Suicide Prevention Hotline Launches This Summer (news) | 24 May 2022 | 00:19:53 | |
NonprofitNewsFeed.com 988 National Suicide Prevention Hotline To Soon Go Live The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is unveiling a new national emergency number for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. The new 988 emergency number, akin to 911, will redirect to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is managed by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The number goes live on July 16, 2022. The new number is part of a broader strategy to address the crisis of suicide in the United States. Suicide is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 10-34. The SAMHSA 988 FAQ page has important information for mental health partners including nonprofits that may publicly direct folks seeking help to this new number. Read more about how states are preparing. Read more ➝Summary
Rough Transcript [00:00:00] This week on the nonprofit news summary, we have got interesting news coming out about a new national suicide prevention hotline, 9, 8, 8, and some other summary news touching on Qatar, baby formula, and a lot more Nick. [00:00:16] It's going good, George. We had our first real summer weekend here in the city. It was 90 and sunny. [00:00:23] So we're in a, summer's almost here kind of mood, but also coming this summer is a new hotline for folks experiencing a mental health emergency. The us department of health and human services is unveiling a new national emergency number for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. The new number will be 9, 8, 8, and justice like 9 1 1. [00:00:52] It's just those three numbers. And that 9, 8, 8 number will redirect to the national suicide prevention lifeline. That lifeline is managed by the substance abuse and mental health services administration. And the new number it goes live on July 16th, 2022. So this is happening within the next two months. [00:01:14] And the number is part of a broader strategy to address the crisis of suicide in the United States. According to the substance abuse and mental health services administration suicide is the leading cause of death for Americans, age 10 through 34. We recommend that if you're a non. That works in the mental health space or offer. [00:01:34] Beneficiaries, any kind of mental health support, or even has documentation about what number to call. It's important to note that the original national suicide prevention lifeline number will still work, but you may also want to take into account the new number that's being rolled out for organizations that might have it listed on their website and within the newsletter. [00:01:57] We've linked to the FAQ page that has some of the technical requirements, some of the branding requirements for this new rollout. But George, I think this is a really exciting move. It's a prioritization by our government and its partners to protect mental health in the United States. And what's been an extremely trying couple of years. [00:02:18] This is a cool, innovative approach, and I'm here for it. [00:02:20] It's so interesting because technically the line already existed, but I can't tell you it off the top of my head and actually in full disclosure, the national suicide prevention lifeline and the network was at former Holwell client. And with 9, 8, 8, we're talking about a larger conceptual branding, nine. [00:02:40] Everyone understands calling 9 1 1. And what that entails. There's an emergency call nine 11. The truth is the health outcomes for those suffering from mental illness. When the police are called without the proper training in hot moments, do not end well for outcomes, especially. Low-income communities and certainly with people of color, and this has been documented, unfortunately over a number of years. [00:03:07] And some of that information is also kind of in the background on this. And so I think a nationwide branding around 9, 8, 8, when it matters for a mental health related crisis. I will literally save lives. And it's interesting, you know, like it already existed, but getting that out there as wide far as possible, non-profits [00:03:27] are gonna play a huge role, a huge role in [00:03:30] making sure that all communities know what to call and why. [00:03:35] And that will ensure that people with the proper training are deployed in those moments of crisis. As opposed to showing up, you know, with a, I would say to be fair [00:03:47] to the police that do serve and protect [00:03:50] our nation and do amazing job, they can't be expected to serve in every single potential scenario to perfection. [00:03:59] So I think this is just a really great step toward how. How mental health in crisis can be, can be handled in the country. And there's a lot of work to do. And that's going live July 16th, 2022. [00:04:11] Yeah, George that's right. There is a lot of work to do. And one of the concerns is that the number actually might be overwhelmed on, on its roll out. [00:04:22] So different states are working to address this by increasing resources and leveling up those networks because the folks who respond. To those calls, it's a vast and kind of complicated network of, of people. So they're also in the article. It talks about how individual states are vamping up resources to be able to handle the new switch. [00:04:45] But I absolutely agree with you having this as a nine on 9 1, 1 outlet will be extremely important. [00:04:54] All right. I can take us into the summary. Our first story here is a press release from amnesty international, which has signed a joint letter along with other prominent human rights organizations, including human rights. Watch. The business and human rights resource center among others, which is calling on the FIFA president, Mr. [00:05:17] Gianni Infantino to work with the Qatar government trade unions, the international labor organization, the ILO and other intergovernmental actors to protect workers leading up to the Qatar FIFA world cup. This world cup has been. Shroud of controversy and accusations of human rights abuses since it was first announced under quite frankly, a cloud of a suspect of a lot of corruption. [00:05:48] Nearly 10 years ago that this would be the venue for the 2022 world cup. But this letter signed by amnesty and other NGOs is calling on FIFA to set aside nearly half a billion dollars in money to go to workers who have been exploited. And you read down the list of, of ways that these workers are exploited. [00:06:13] They're often. Kind of alert from developing countries, particularly in south and Southeast Asia. Their workers are they're held in the country without the ability to travel home. Their visas are. Taken from them by their employers. It's, it's practically indentured, indentured labor at a certain point. [00:06:36] So really, really serious human rights concerns not to mention the temperature in Qatar is astronomical during the summer. So. One of the reasons I wanted to highlight this is because I think that the international human rights community does a really good job of partnering to amplify their message. [00:06:56] And when I heard about this, I actually heard about it on all different channels. They all seem to actually post this on LinkedIn at the same time. And I saw it all at the same time. And I think it's just a cool way to leveraging partner, strip partnerships for strategic value. Here and whether FIFA will do this, who knows, probably not. [00:07:18] FIFA is notoriously one of the most corrupt international organizations that exists, but nonetheless still I think it's important to try and this is a cool cool approach here. [00:07:31] As you mentioned before, choosing Qatar, a place where it regularly hits over 120 Fahrenheit. During the summer is not a logical place for a massive world cup installation and athletes to be playing. [00:07:45] So clearly I think there's a true cost, a true cost associated with making these types of decisions. That it's great to see these non-profits calling out and saying, when you do these things, there have to be. Just fairness and consequences in the same balance here in 440 million. I know that's a, that's a lot to cover, but certainly to the scale, I'm sure that they have looked at that this second order effect of saying sure. [00:08:13] Guitar, a place that shouldn't be hosting. It doesn't have the infrastructure whatsoever. Yeah. Let's, let's host there because. That that makes sense for soccer should really receive this and a lot more scrutiny on it, especially if you're talking about these types and scales of labor abuses. [00:08:32] Absolutely. And I'll say that this community has been focusing on this issue for a long time and so much so that I wrote a capstone thesis on this very issue in college, which is quite a few years ago now. So it's horrible. You have recruiters going into small villages. In Nepal in Indonesia and other countries and offering salaries that never come to them, they get stranded in Qatar. [00:09:01] The idea is that these workers will travel abroad. They can send remittances back home. It's almost never what they're promised. Their visas are held from them. They're held there. It's, it's a disaster. And the Qatari government's done a little bit to address it, but the whole thing is a disaster. [00:09:19] And It'll be interesting to see how these narratives play out one. Everyone in the world watches the FIFA world cup. And we saw a similar kind of tension about human rights abuses and China with the Olympic games that were hosted this year. But we'll we'll, we'll see. We'll see what happens. [00:09:40] Yeah, the narrative of you're responsible for the second and third order effects. I think that touches on also, not just social justice, but environmental as well, where you have companies that have long profited off of the ability to dump excess carbon into, into the ecosystem and are, are more and more non-profits and organizations paying attention to this. [00:10:03] And I think the true cost of. Organizing and throwing an event like this on the global stage should come with a ticket and understanding that you are responsible, not for just the creation, but the second order impact of what you are, are running. But like you said, I I'm not sure how FIFA will, [00:10:23] will respond to that. [00:10:23] No, that's true. Did you know that New Jersey in New York who will be hosting the world cup in 2026? The next I'm not even [00:10:31] kidding. In 2026, that's like around the corner. [00:10:34] That's an yeah. Four years. Can you imagine New Jersey transit attempting to handle the world's cup? [00:10:41] I mean, I can't imagine guitar trying to handle the world cup and they have no infrastructure whatsoever, but I've been on Jersey transit and. [00:10:48] I love the path train as much as the next human, but I think it is, it is like one extra passenger away from breathing. So [00:10:55] not see, I don't think everyone in the tri-state area actually realizes this is happening, but that's an aside. [00:11:02] Anyway, our next story is also a little bit of a downer. This is about the shortage of baby formula. And this comes from K O I N, CBS six local affiliate out of Oregon. And it talks about how nonprofits that have worked to, to distribute BB form. In which we're in the midst of a massive shortage now are kind of stepping in to fill the gap. [00:11:29] And it talks about some rules that have been changed that allow folks, low income folks who are able to receive formula. Now, the type of formula they can receive has been broadened. And throughout this whole crisis, it turns out there's only like four or five companies that produce. The overwhelming majority of baby formula in the country and seems to just be this kind of. [00:11:53] Collection of mismanagement and miss regulation. That's made the industry so vulnerable to now a shortage of supply, but this is kind of crazy that there is a shortage of baby formula. And even throughout the pandemic, we've had, you know, people bought everything from grocery stores and toilet paper, but that wasn't really. [00:12:17] Like how serious a problem was that really this is a real problem and it disproportionately affects lower income folks. [00:12:24] Yeah. And the article goes on to say, you're trying to do your best. This is a quote, trying to do your best. And gas is also $5 a gallon. You have to drive to six stores to get formula. [00:12:33] And it is so hard. This is the executive director, Mara white of mother-in-law. If you're middle-class American, you can find formula, but when you are low income, you have significant barriers to get formula. And it's absolutely trying. And, you know, speaking as a parent, you know, when you're dealing with an infant, you'd be like there's. [00:12:48] And there's one thing that they can consume is calories like that is your entire life's mission to, to feed that child. So it is unbelievable that a country with our resources has allowed it to get to this level of desperation. I know we are always fighting on many fronts. Feeding infants in the most prosperous country in the world should not be something that has headlined and led by nonprofits to say, Hey, this is a [00:13:13] major. [00:13:14] I absolutely agree. All right. Our next story goes a little bit in a different turn. And this comes from nonprofit pro.com and it releases the results of a band guard, charitable survey, which says that more than one in three. Donor's contributed to disaster relief efforts. So the data here shows that one in three, approximately 37% of Americans who are donors who donated money to a charitable bowl organization did so to an organization that worked in disaster. [00:13:49] Whether that was an org helping out in Ukraine with the humanitarian crisis, there COVID-19 relief or relief in the wake of other natural disasters like wildfires and other crises. This is interesting and something we like to keep an eye on trends and giving and something. We talk about a lot on this podcast is surges of giving an attention around tent pole moments like Afghanistan like Ukraine. [00:14:20] But I think it shows here that those moments, even if they are brief, even if the attention runs out can still make up a very large percentage of. [00:14:30] Yeah, I am. I'm always trying to look at this. We make this point every time compassion is an unstable emotion that is able to be capitalized. That is a quote from Susan Sontag. And so those peaks happen incredibly quickly. Usually around you were to [00:14:45] receive [00:14:46] about three weeks from trough to trough, call it trough peak trough. [00:14:52] Interestingly in this report, though, one of my thoughts is like, oh, is this disaster style of giving actually reducing, overall giving or creating this sort of power law dynamic to an extreme where a handful of charities that happened to be in the line of a disaster, get the funding and the rest. [00:15:10] Yet very [00:15:12] little the quote here is donors who gave to disaster relief and other charities donated 48% more in the 12 trailing months. [00:15:21] Then those donors who did not give to a disaster relief effort, 1800 on average versus 1200 on average. So it's interesting that it seems to be when people are giving to disasters. It's in addition to a normal giving pattern instead, instead of. [00:15:37] Yeah, I agree. And I guess that's, that's a good thing. But yeah, we have this article linked from our newsletter which you can also find in the show notes of this podcast. And there's lots of interesting stats in here, so we recommend that you check it out. Alright, George, how about a feel? Good story. [00:15:55] All right. What do you have for us? This comes from Fox five vegas.com and it is about a nonprofit. That's opened a cat cafe to highlight adoptable felines in Las Vegas. So patrons campaign entry, donation of $15, which gives them the chance to enjoy the snacks, a beverage, and a cafe full of kittens for approximately an hour. [00:16:20] And the nonprofit hearts alive village. Says that the entry fee helps cover costs for a cat or kitten to receive a full set of vaccines and the microchip. And at the end of your experience, if you wants to donate a kitten, you have that opportunity [00:16:38] donate a kitten or donate to support a kitten. [00:16:41] You can, the donation goes to support a kitten. [00:16:44] You can adopt the kit. Yeah. I feel [00:16:47] like you want to take creating a bigger problem if it's like we're accepting kitten donations. [00:16:51] That's, that's a, that's a different kind of a different kind of program. You caught me there, but this is cool. Have you ever been to a cat cafe? I [00:17:00] have walked by a cat cafe and I've seen them. [00:17:04] I know they like launched as something curious, you know, I think over a decade ago at this point, I like this because it is clearly an organization that had a particular, you know, problem, social issue of trying to get more cats adopted and sort of the way they're going about it could be in a for-profit manner. [00:17:24] As in they have a revenue generating hypothetically, you know, opportunity to sell coffee and bring people in. And I think this type of solution makes me. Happy whenever I see it, even if it doesn't succeed, that it's being tried is very clever and can lead to a lot of other, you know, potentially good ideas for other local shelters that say, all right, we have, you know, these assets. [00:17:50] And then is there something adjacent to what we do that could bring in foot traffic driven, bring in revenue and, and serve our social impact [00:17:57] bottom line as well? Absolutely. Sounds all sorts of sustainable to me. [00:18:02] All right, Nick. Thanks for that. And see you next week. [00:18:06] See you next week. Thanks George. | |||
| High inflation hits food banks hard (news) | 17 May 2022 | 00:22:39 | |
High Inflation Continues To Impact Sector, Including Food Banks
As inflationary pressures keep year-over-year price increases high, food banks see both an increase in demand and a shortage of supply. Food pantries across the country are dealing both with an increase in demand due to broader consumer-facing prices, as well as a harder time keeping up with supply because of the same price increases. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that “Some of Feeding America’s food pantry partners have closed because of dwindling donations and higher costs for receiving and delivering food. Others have less food on their shelves even though they have higher demand.” The article goes on to highlight the vital importance that food banks serve and that folks who need the assistance they provide might be more diverse than the broader public realizes. Read more ➝
Summary
Transcript [00:00:00] This week on the nonprofit newsfeed, we're talking about high inflation and how it's having impacts on food banks, as well as a bevy of other social impact issues. Nick, how is. [00:00:12] It's going good, George. [00:00:13] it's just trying to, always just trying to keep up last week was a little weird from the financial side. I'm glad we're not a financial podcast, but a few things went sideways and you know, I think that comes back to the larger issue of inflation going on. [00:00:27] That is. Great segue into our first story that is talking about some of those broader trends, economic trends that you were talking about. Namely inflation and our lead story comes from the Chronicle philanthropy, which is supporting that hi Felician is continuing to impact many nonprofits, but food banks in particular. [00:00:50] And it turns out that many food banks across the United States are being. From both directions, essentially, you have more people needing food assistance because of higher food prices and food banks, having trouble keeping up with that higher demand because of higher food and supply chain issues. So. [00:01:14] Yeah, lots of food banks are feeling the pinch, both with supply and demand, kind of impacting their ability to, to provide for, for folks. The article goes on to state that some of feeding America's food pantry partners have closed because of dwindling donations and higher costs for receiving and delivering food. [00:01:34] Others have less food on their shelves, even though they have higher demand. So you kind of have the economics of this. Hitting where Hertz in both directions. And unfortunately the inflation numbers came out and it slowed marginally with the most recent data. But inflation continues to be a really serious problem heading in this case, food pantries, where it hurts. [00:01:56] I think it's important to note that the general consumer price index CPI is it's not accurate for everyone. It is not inclusive of what might be hitting. Some people that are maybe more dependent on travel by car or at the grocery store for different types of materials. But the high-level here. [00:02:19] Compared to last year at this time, we're about 50% down and where we have received and past feral food donations, and about 20% down from food drives in our collection of food from the grocery store, says the executive director, Tyra Jackson there. And it's it. It's tough. It is tough because you're also talking about donations that may have come and picked up by truck by car. [00:02:43] And there are a few donations being. In addition to people needing it more. So, you know, you're going to see this certainly at food, food pantries among others, but something that we really wanted to pull out as a, as a major, a major narrative as only gonna continue as as inflation and gas prices continue to, to pinch organizations that serve the most vulnerable in our. [00:03:06] Yeah, George, I think that's a great analysis. And just as an aside, I was talking with a colleague at our company who she and her partner volunteered at a food bank down in the Nashville area. And. When they were volunteering there, they found out that the food bank was actually closing two weeks later and that all of those resources were disappearing. [00:03:28] So this is very real. This is being felt tangibly by a lot of people. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable people and just calling out to an article. Or featured on this podcast almost a year ago now, but when you look at the statistics of folks on food stamps or folks needing food assistance, it is much more broad and diverse than I think a lot of Americans realize, and that food insecurity is a much bigger and. [00:04:00] Yeah, I'm a much bigger problem than I think most people realize. So it's something we'll continue to follow. [00:04:06] Great. Should we move into our summer yard? Yeah. [00:04:10] Let's do it. Our first article from the summary comes again from the Chronicle of philanthropy. And this is that nonprofits on both sides of the abortion issue are seeing an increase in donations. This was something that we predicted. It's not that hard, a prediction to make. Something we've talked about would happen a couple of weeks ago, of course, with the draft Supreme court decision propelling Roe vs. [00:04:37] Wade. And at this point How the Supreme court is poised to strike that down, back into the forefront of the narrative here. And there are so many organizations on both sides of this issue, local organizations, national organizations, and this is now the most important or most salient, I should say, policy debate in America right now. [00:05:02] So no surprise that non-profits are seeing an increase in donations. It will be interesting to see. How long this lasts. We often talk about how giving because of various news events and attention to these issues have very short life cycles. We talked about donations to Afghanistan, which lasted, everyone was talking about Afghanistan for about 10 days and then nothing. [00:05:30] Right. So it'd be interesting to see here. Especially as it relates to broader kind of political narratives in the United States. The one difference with this is that that decision from the Supreme court has actually not been officially dropped down yet. It's expected to be released in June. [00:05:48] So that, that news cycle we'll get another bump in June when it eventually does drop. But what's your take on the story? [00:05:55] Yeah, it's kind of hard because we're still just sort of pulling in this article at anecdotal evidence and narratives, large narratives like planned parenthood, Federation of America, talking about how. , spokesperson, they're saying they got 70,000, 70,000 new supporters that had signed on with the organization either as donors or volunteers and had received tens of thousands of new one-time gifts. [00:06:21] And the thinking is that if Roe is overturned, the organization's base of supporters are only going to continue to grow and counter narratives there. Pro-life across America, probably of. Groups has not seen a rise in donations since the week, but other smaller ones have said, there's a couple extra thousand here or there coming in. [00:06:40] So still, , I, I, I'm hesitant to draw a macro narratives other than to say, there's going to be an increase amount of volume here. I think this is the first sort of earthquake social earthquake. This announcement ripples are starting to be felt, but I think the big ones still to come. Potential actual decision would be landing. [00:07:01] That would be the summer. Right? Nick, you know, I, I don't know why July is in my mind, but [00:07:05] Yeah, I think end of June a lot has something to do with the docket. Yeah, [00:07:11] so we'll see. But within the next one to two months, general, [00:07:16] I would say from a strategy standpoint, this was the first press it, but the, the wave of. News and attention is going to be very, very intense. And as all things intense, it will burn brightly and briefly, unfortunately, and then come down to that steady drum beat. So you are an organization that is near or adjacent to this topic. [00:07:38] I would be very much prepared for how you pull in. Monthly sustaining donors in that moment of emotion when emotions are at its peak, because the work is going to take quite some time and it's not a one and done it is something that should it should be part of a, a longer term movement that is is going to take a lot of resources. [00:08:01] Absolutely. That's a great framing. I for one I'm done with earthquakes for, for another decade, no more society altering earthquakes. But unfortunately we have another one. To talk about. And we're framing this around a press release from independent sector, which is a national membership organization that brings together nonprofits and foundations and corporate giving partners. [00:08:28] But they put out a press release, acknowledging the violence in Buffalo over the weekend. That being that over the weekend, a white supremacist went into a supermarket in Buffalo, New York shot. 13 people, 11 of whom were black and 10 of whom died. This was an over act of racism and white supremacy was very, very clear. [00:08:52] And We see the nonprofit community responding here. I don't really know. What more to what non-profits can can do about this. This is, this is hard, a hard, very hard problem to solve. And of course, there's lots of organizations that work in this space, the Southern poverty law center and civil rights organizations that of course over the past couple of days have been really highlighting how national political discourses lending itself to this, these far right ideologies and extremist ideologies. [00:09:25] But Yeah, just unfortunately, and another tragic day in a long string of mass shootings that we experienced in this country. [00:09:32] We saw the narrative, certainly of gun rights and organizations like our town saying reasonable things. Like, I dunno, maybe we shouldn't allow citizens to run around with assault rifles , these high capacity magazines and the ability to, to do that much damage in that period of time, there was another narrative around. [00:09:51] How this was actually streamed on Twitch, which can lead to copycats and narratives that this shooter was partially inspired by Christ church shooting, which was also incredibly terrible, but this sort of mimicry of when people see it is a, a dog whistle and just very dark motivation for, for certain people that clearly need help. [00:10:14] Like this is somebody who needs. Folks that are, , drawn to this type of thought, unfortunately, and this type of action then there's a new piece that seemed to be coming out, which I I'm starting to see nonprofits touch on, which is the narrative around replacement theory. And I'm not going to go into it in so much as, you know, giving it any sort of, even the word theory there it is. [00:10:39] It is a white supremacist fever dream, and I don't curse on this podcast, but I would, if I could, because it's it's a narrative that is unfortunately use because it's pulled into media narratives and reiterated on shows like Tucker Carlson, but it has a very, very dark and dangerous, extreme narrative to it. [00:11:02] And so there may be opportunities for if this does touch on a non-profits work in association with. You know, immigration, anything that supports black or brown people and their rights in this country to, take a look at it and see where your voice on it could, could lend a larger and more clarifying narratives on it. [00:11:25] Absolutely George. I couldn't agree more. And quite frankly, I want to see tech companies take a far more aggressive stance on combating this quite frankly. It's unacceptable. The video was five streamed and is just it's. So you type it into Google. It's the first thing you see that is unacceptable. And I would love to see greater efforts behalf of big tech to work with nonprofits and civil society to, to attempt to mitigate this. [00:11:58] Because quite frankly, it's the pervasiveness of these kind of fringe ideas. And I know that's a whole other thing, but I think that there can be a lot more done. And I think that nonprofits and civil society should be invited to play a role in. [00:12:13] Yeah. I don't know what the right answer is. I get worried sometimes about. The narratives that take hold and whether or not it's used as an excuse to go after big tech. The truth is Twitch took that down within two minutes, which is a heck of a lot more impressive in terms of a timeframe than what Facebook did. [00:12:32] A company, 10 X its size with Facebook live. The truth is the ability to publish on the web. Can't be fully blocked. And by saying like, if only it was taken down, what in thirties. If only it was taken down in 10 seconds, I just don't understand the channeling of the social solution. Can't be a faster form of censorship. [00:12:56] Would've stopped this. I'm not, I'm not buying that as a solution, giving that child that 18 year old, maybe not access to a assault rifle. Would be maybe where I start followed by again, pointing toward being very careful when someone's consuming certain types of content in an extreme environment. And also this individual was given access to body armor. [00:13:26] And so the whole narrative of good guy with a gun didn't matter because this person was actually shot at. And it didn't matter because we have turned extremists into super soldiers with over the counter shit. You can get it well, So I, I'm sorry, I'm not buying if only Twitch took it down and got Dan two minutes, I'm not, I'm not buying that sale. [00:13:45] That's fair. That's a fair, that's a fair argument. I agree with you the much more. Proactive way of dealing with this is a gun laws in New York actually has this red flag gun law that should have prevented the shooter from accessing this firearm. And for whatever reason, [00:14:02] Yeah, I haven't seen the full near, I mean, just, I haven't seen the full narrative, but you know, there's more, there's more guns and people in this country. So I don't know. [00:14:10] I agree. Our thoughts are with the families and everyone affected by, by this fine. Our next story comes from news.art net.com. And this is about the Guggenheim museum, which has long resisted calls to drop the Sackler name, the Sackler family, being the family owners of the Purdue pharma corporation has finally quietly removed the Sackler name from. From the building, the Guggenheim has come under lots of criticism and there's been sit in protests at the museum and attempt to bring to light how this family's money is, is as you know. [00:14:53] highlighted throughout this museum as a donor. [00:14:56] And yeah, George authored this to you. I think I have. Complicated FOBTs here and being a new Yorker, we're both new Yorkers. You walk through any museum, the Guggenheim, the met every exhibit is a who's who of corporate power in America, half the ma is named after the Koch brothers. You know? So it's yeah, I wonder what your take is on this. [00:15:21] It's kind of dovetails a bit also with when we were talking about how. Russian oligarchs were giving in the west to legitimize and cause wash disreputable actions and reputation, and to build themselves up, the nonprofit industry does offer this sort of pathway to respectability at a price. And the question is. [00:15:48] Is it appropriately priced? Should that be for sale? I think this is a big move because clearly the Sackler name like has donated quite a bit to, to the arts and the arts are incredibly important, but maybe not as important as the fact that what they have done to. Drug addiction. And this country is probably unparalleled from other companies in terms of it's devastation. [00:16:20] And , maybe you don't give them the social acceptance pass, but hopefully this is something that reverberates out there that it's also hard. If you're an art, I try to put on the other side of it, like there's somebody on the fundraising team of a struggling museum trying to preserve. [00:16:37] You know, history and legacy of fill in the blank type of art that already struggles. And to say like, oh, you're not allowed to take, you know, money from somebody who that happened to make it from oil from this. So like, you know, where do you draw the line? I mean, I draw the line there, the Sacklers, but you know, it is, it makes, it makes for an interesting conversation, I think in philanthropic communities and maybe even. [00:17:02] Just to bring it back to a listener right now you might want to have with, you know, your board and your supporters being like, you know, who would we not take money from if we did Y what would we do? You know, I think there's a lot of folks that take it and be like, oh, you can make a donation, but sorry, we can't name you. [00:17:18] Like, what did you just do? They're like, all right, we're, we're playing this weird sort of moral shell game. [00:17:25] Yeah, I think that's as an interesting analysis and to your point, I would not want to be the fundraiser I'm responsible for that, but definitely something to talk about. Within your organization. Another organization that's been doing a lot of talking within itself is the Hollywood foreign press association, which you may know as the obscure organization that is responsible for hosting and promoting the golden Globes in Hollywood. [00:17:55] So the Hollywood foreign press has been criticized pretty substantially in the past couple of years for. And I think rightly so and incredible lack of diversity kind of opaque voting processes. And as it turns out this organization, which is a nonprofit actually is reincorporating itself as essentially a business they're selling off assets, they're going to drop their nonprofit status and attempt to boost the golden Globes As a ceremony, I guess. [00:18:29] I'm not as well versed in pop culture as nearly anyone, but it's kind of an interesting move. [00:18:38] Yeah, I don't know. I thought it was just funny that it didn't even Dawn on me that the Hollywood foreign press association was a nonprofit. There are a lot of non-profits out there operating for, for better or worse or for interesting. And I'm always curious when there's a transition, either from a non-profit to for-profit for-profit to nonprofit. [00:18:57] I tend to see this a lot less, the, the move. And I just curious to watch what the net effect is. If anything interesting comes of it, you know, we'll bring it up, but you know, good luck. Sorry. You're leading the team. Am I. [00:19:12] I. [00:19:13] don't know if it gets us. Ricky Jervais is one more year of cringe-worthy. Self-loathing Hollywood criticism all sign up for that highlight reel. [00:19:24] Yeah. As long as, you know, I feel maybe touch better that any profit they happen to be making off of that particular spectacle isn't tax tax subsidized [00:19:34] Hmm. [00:19:35] touch better. [00:19:35] There you go. All right. How about a feel-good story, George? [00:19:39] Sounds perfect. [00:19:41] All right. This is from a local NBC affiliate. K G w. Dot com out of Oregon and it talks about an Oregon nonprofit that's on a mission to bring awareness to plastic pollution by turning trash into treasure and has landed a permanent display at the Smithsonian museum of natural history in a. [00:20:04] Washington DC. And essentially they've processed 37,000 tons of plastic from Oregon's beaches. And they've created 87 works of art and the art as looking at some of the pictures kind of like wide ranging implications. But the, or vision it's a wide vision. But it seems to me that you're keeping trash out of the ocean and creating something beautiful. [00:20:31] Sounds like a winning company. [00:20:33] I look at this just incredibly creative to take the exact problem that is destroying sea life and turn it into incredible works of art, which then forced people to, to see this. And, you know, there's this beautiful picture of a turtle created by all of the plastic junk and it just hits you so tangibly to see something at one striking beautiful something you'd associate with nature, but then realize that that that is exactly. [00:21:03] These animals are consuming in the wild increasing amounts of plastic, which have a devastating, devastating impact on ecosystem could be ideas also, as you work on various issues of how do I take the thing that is the biggest threat and turn it into the medium of awareness. And there's something beautiful about this. [00:21:24] I love it. Thanks George. [00:21:27] Thanks Nick.
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