Optimizing Your Data: Forward Thinking Approaches to Simplify Your Workflow & Increase Constituency Participation
Air Date: January 2019
Are you optimizing your data to improve productivity with your team while aiming to inspire, engage, and connect constituents to your mission? Learn how to maximize resources, simplify collaborative workflow, and drive up constituency participation for your nonprofit. Chris Vetetoe, Director of Sales and Marketing with DonorLynk, will present forward thinking solutions that simplifies your processes, improves donor relations, and increases volunteer participation. As a former Director of Advancement, Chris Vetetoe has walked in your shoes and understands the challenges you face at your nonprofit.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION
0:59
Hey, good afternoon. This is Jay Frost speaking to you and as you can see we are welcoming you to another in a series of DonorSearch Flash Classes and that logo you see does not mean that DonorSearch has turned into another kind of place, but rather that there’s a new branding that’s just today and that’s the DonorSearch logo.
1:19
You can see it right up there top again, the 2019 Flash Class series and of course, I’m Jay Frost speaking to you with a silently in the background. But keeping things under control is our producer Hannah Krobock. I decided that it was about time you saw a face behind the voice. And so this is of course another in a series of Flash Classes that have been coming to you since the mid 2016. But before we even begin today before I have the chance to introduce our presenter, I wanted to make sure to take just a couple of minutes while you gather your forces together gather around your favorite electronic device.
1:54
Get something nice and cool to drink to reintroduce you to the platform. We will be using and also tell you where you can get the content that will be sparing today both in a recording format and also in slides and we’ll start right there. And as you can see the homepage of DonorSearch will look the same except the logo, but if you were to go to the resources tab at donorsearch.net will find the Flash Class library right where it’s always been that’s under the resources tab once.
2:24
And Flash Class library and right there you can get a copy of porting of today’s segment will be posted there in just the next couple of days. In addition, the slides will be coming to you direct from our presenter. So you’ll have contact information of the concluded but we also have yours and so you can look to your email in the next couple of days for a copy of his slide deck. So again slide they’re coming to you via email recording available on the DonorSearch site.
2:52
Of course if you were to go to that and look, for the library, it would look much like this. You can search for any topic and any presenter in the series there now over a hundred fifty two sessions. We’ve lost count lots and lots of them lots of different subjects. So do take a look there for this but also for all the others and share them with your colleagues great. It’s great stuff. And of course, I’ll see a free credit granting. So we’re accumulating those credits for your certifications a good place to get them as far as interacting with our presenter. We do it encourage you to do that, but we have silenced your microphones.
3:24
So Me Ambient sound won’t get wave your enjoyment and that means that we want to encourage you to go and look for the questions tab in the go to webinar control panel. And if you see it on my screen, which is on the right, you can look right there in the middle bouncing arrow is and that’s the questions tab. Go ahead and post any question or any comment at any time and I’ll make sure to share those with our presenter at the conclusion of this presentation. They can write down in there.
3:51
So don’t wait don’t hesitate go ahead post at any I’m about anything related to the session and I’ll make sure to share it so he can address it. Of course this session is coming to you today on this really really important subject of Optimizing your Data for Thinking Approaches to Simplify your Workflow and Increase Constituency Participation and we’re really happy to have with us today our presenter, which is Chris Vetetoe and Chris is the Director of Sales and Marketing at DonorLynk.
4:21
Of course, he comes to you with a lot of experience starting as a former director of advancement were apparently was also listening some of these actions the past and still chose to join up. So it says a great deal about about he’s here helping us to grow. This series is experiences with donor cultivation constituent received revelations, volunteer management brand awareness. And also of course extensive knowledge of data-driven one-to-one marketing stations the drive revenue and participation.
4:50
He’s been able to implement solutions that increase the nation’s improve productivity and Increase constituent participation just like he’ll be talking about today. And so with that we’re very happy to pass the baton to Chris. Thanks so much for being here today and presenting.
5:06
Thank you Jay. Thank you Hannah appreciate it very much and welcome everyone to the Flash Class Optimizing Data for Thinking Solutions to Simplified Workflow and Increasing Participation as Jay admission in my background. I have worked with I’ve worked as an advancement director. I’ve also worked helping many nonprofits around the country improve their processes and just want to share a little bit some solutions that can help you and what you do on a daily basis.
5:41
First of all as we talked about for thinking of solutions to increase participation will look at it from a development perspective.
5:51
If you’re not actually in the office of development, that’s okay because many times these roles get blurred within the organization depending on the size of your organization and the roles and responsibilities the office of development in a lot of cases were actually work under the office of advancement and don’t have an office management lot of times. They work our needs directly to the executive director.
6:17
The role of advancement and development within a non-profit. Like I said me time gets blurred we as nonprofits depend on our donors and volunteers to accomplish our mission. There are two keys to build you markers that we want to focus on today as we talk to these different solutions one is how effective and efficient is your development office and the second part is how consistent week today our constituency So nonprofits are many times lacking resources or they work out minimal resources. And so there are many challenges that are nonprofit faces. I’m not going to go through the list of the challenges that are on the screen at this point time.
7:08
However, most of you can probably relate to one two or more of these challenges and you probably have some unique challenges of your own the question I have is how many of you feel like you Pulled in too many different directions or you feel like you wear too many hats. When in your organization. Do you feel like your job to Nate lot easier? Well, that’s one of the things we’re going to try to address a day to see if we can help you make your job easier and improve your productivity. So let’s talk about some of the steps to success.
7:44
There are some key pillars as we go through this that are going to resonate throughout the Entire presentation so collaboration with various departments such as leadership, administration, board of trustees, board of directors, groups volunteers Etc Cal. We collect and organize provided track financial and other relative data.
8:10
How we connect the interest and values to the mission of your organization by providing support for the various constituency groups as we go through you’ll find these pillars to success that will resonate throughout our conversation today.
8:27
So as we talk about solutions and we talked about their you know, how important it is to improve our workflow and continually strive to cultivate with our constituency. There are three solution sets are going to come and play throughout our conversation one is centralization. Most of you are may or may not have a CRM tool.
8:54
A centralized hub for all your data entry activities. This should be a 360-degree view and it should be easy for you to operate and should be functional.
9:05
So the questions you need to ask yourself is if you don’t have a CRM you need to look and try to get more second of all is if you do have a CRM, is it a hundred percent customizable to your needs?
9:18
And can you access this CRM from any device at any time? And is it 100% functionable to you at that time?
9:28
Does your CRM do more than just how’s your dad and that is great. But it’s how you use your data that makes the difference the second aspect of this is customization from terminology to workflow workflow policies processes business rules issue. You should have a hundred percent customized process to meet your needs.
9:52
When you operate into a CRM, you should not conform yourself to the CRM. Every nonprofit is different. So what you need to do is have a CRM that conforms to you the third aspect of this which most often does not get talked about in nonprofits is automation.
10:13
Are you using trigger based call to actions based off if it is then that logic?
10:21
Combining these three will allow you to live with the right message to the right person at the right time for the right result.
10:33
So let’s talk about the collaborative approach. The first ability marker that we want to talk about is effective and efficient to part of the management to do that. You must have a collaborative approach.
10:47
I worked in and have had many clients that this becomes often their biggest bottleneck for success.
10:56
As a development director, we are only as good as our plan and the people to help us accomplish the plan.
11:03
From the Board of Trustees to our Administration leadership to various departments within our organization to Partners in the community to volunteers and help us serve our organizations working together in understanding roles and responsibilities is critical to a collaborative workflow.
11:23
Most often nonprofits are limited in time personnel and Financial Resources.
11:30
The question is if you could simplify and improve your productivity and spend more of your time building relationships with your constituencies, would you so this is a flow chart that I put together that kind of outlines a collaborative approach. Now this diagram is a visual example only the workflow and collaboration efforts for each non process. Non-profit is unique to itself from your strategic Vision to the financial plan to your development plan. All departments should be connected.
12:09
Is everyone within your organization rowing in the same direction to help you accomplish your mission?
12:16
So such departments that you might be working with to be marketing finance or your business management department partners and the community board volunteers donors employees Etc. So how can you simplify your workflow and productivity?
12:36
Let’s review some key solutions to a collaborative approach that can help you in your day-to-day work.
12:44
So first, let’s talk about the CRM tools that we mentioned earlier. There’s three different solutions that we’re going to talk about here. First is the CRM the CRM make sure its cloud-based. You must be able to access it anytime and anywhere working your nonprofit and working with constituents groups. We are fluid at any point time. We could come across a donor. We could come across a volunteer of the come across.
13:11
It’s a New Prospect and we want to be able to be able to record information or be able to access the information. Does it have a mobile app having a mobile application makes your life simpler. You should have a 360-degree view of all your data.
13:33
The important thing about the data is it just it needs to be able to be functionable so you can actually make it work for you in real time.
13:43
Another aspect of this is being able to hold everyone involved accountable if people see their tasks and responsibilities and deadlines if it’s visible to them, then you productivity of your organization increases and hence. You will be more successful.
14:02
And that leads us to the real-time project management, you’ll often times in nonprofits. What we see is nonprofits working from spreadsheets or they’ll have two or three different systems and they have two or three different apartments trying to work together off of few meetings. And then they go off on their way then are trying to execute a plan not everybody is on the same page.
14:26
So with project management, this is key to your success when you When you create a campaign, when you have an event, whatever you’re trying to do, if you can take your workflow, you’re planted all your assignments and responsibilities the content and document management.
14:46
You can share calendars many timelines and milestones and reporting by being able to do this. You can be strategic. You can be intentional if you invest on the front end.
15:00
And it get everyone on board and then it’s going to be easier for you to manage your key campaigns events or whatever project that you have allows you to work cross between multiple different departments between Board of Trustees your executive director. Everybody understands their role. They play in helping you execute your plan as a development director.
15:27
The next aspect to this is accountability many times our nonprofit We have a hard time when we work as development or an advancement of holding people accountable because me, the people that we need to be accountable. We actually may work for or they may be Board of Trustees. It could be a development share. Whoever it may be. Once again, you are only as good as in support of your team simple eyes.
15:56
Senior projects will keep you on schedule will help you reach and and and hit your benchmarks and your critical milestones and it will also streamline any issues that come up so you’re able to address those immediately and they would solve any problems on time to keep you on task.
16:19
So the next aspect of this is 2nd stability marker.
16:23
We want to talk about is consistent donor and volunteer cultivation. Now, I put volunteer cultivation this because some organizations have a volunteer engagement department, some don’t.
16:36
As a development director or Development Office, it’s important that we understand where our contributions come from and not just in financial contributions. We need to understand the time talents and resources that come from our constituencies.
16:55
So depending on your organization your structure will determine your responsibility.
17:01
When you create your development plan, it’s important to understand the metrics by which you are being measured how specific are they?
17:11
How detailed will they be into your constituency groups?
17:15
Is there Clarity across all departments in your goals? And your Milestones be strategic and being potential when creating your development plan take this development plan and implement this plan and your workflow into your CRM. Let this CRM tool help you manage your workflow.
17:42
So when you implement that into your CRM tool you’re taking it from a manual process to online that many of you probably already have a tool that works for you, and that’s great and hopefully that you do.
17:56
But a lot of times what we see is the tool gets complicated or people come in and they go and they so they don’t actually know how to operate the system. It’s important that when you’re looking at your system and you implement your system that you make this as easy as structured as possible.
18:16
So here are some other solutions consider when you’re accomplishing the plant As you go through the process you want to have one of you all Milestones tasks responsibilities can review and acting upon and the key part of that is being acted upon you want to integrate all your losses management of your donors and your volunteers.
18:38
Make sure that you use customized and customization optimization to trigger all your call to actions.
18:46
Sync your emails and your calendars to your CRM.
18:53
And make sure you have real-time tracking and Reporting.
18:57
So if you’re an executive director at your nonprofit and your the restaurant.
19:04
And somebody comes up to you or if you see somebody across the room who is a constituent of your organization. They donated you recognize her face. They’ve been to events, you know their name and you want to go talk to them. What information do they have? How can they access that?
19:23
Can they pull up on their phone and say hey, this is John Doe.
19:29
He gave this much. This is what his interests are in our organization. This is where his values lie.
19:36
So can you access all the critical data you need so the executive director can go and have a conversation with John and John feels like the director of knows him.
19:49
Can you Foster that kind of communication and that kind of relationship at any point in any time as they did?
19:58
Next we’ll talk about database management.
20:02
At the end of the day your CRM tool houses your data, your data is critical to your business.
20:10
Many times what we see and nonprofits is that they house our data, but they don’t know how to use their data. And before I ever actually went to work in the wonderful world of nonprofits. I worked in the corporate world and helping the companies use data-driven Communications to drive retention and market share and the nonprofit world has been a little bit dragging you’re trying to get that concept when you’re you’re selling Concepts and ideas and we’re trying to get people to invest into our organization trying to help us accomplish our mission and we all know that the more we understand the more we know the more we connect our donors to our mission the more successful we’re going to be And we work hard to try to capture that many nonprofits do not do a good job at collecting their data.
21:10
And I can’t tell you how important it is. And if you work at a non-profit and your data is not cold. It doesn’t provide you the key information you need I strongly suggest that you block out some sort of time and you get with a key people in the organization and try to get that data. So when we talk about detonation database management, so what are your procedures standards and expectations for capturing that data?
21:38
How are you generating leads for your organization? Hopefully you’re using DonorSearch.
21:45
Are your profile easily accessible and can easily be updated?
21:53
Are you truly managing moves Management in real time?
22:00
It’s critical for a non-profit to understand its constituencies to really know your constituencies. You were dead. I must be accessible. This must be functional so you can access it when it’s needed.
22:18
So as you look at some solutions that you can incorporate for your data management consider some of the following, okay.
22:28
Set your protocols and standards into your database system, which is your CRM.
22:35
This is the one of the areas where you can use if this then that logic.
22:40
Are you ranking your donors? Do you have donor groups how you segment off your donors? What associations are relationships do these donors have with each other?
22:52
What is the capacity to give what is their interest into your organization? However, you choose to rank or qualify your donor. You should make sure you have that within your database system your database system needs to be secure.
23:08
It needs to be only accessed by usual level password and sign it that way you can control who sees what data and who can act on that data.
23:21
You should leverage your data to drive insights into constituencies and drive donor and volunteer relations targeted communication. So what does that mean?
23:36
If you truly have qualified segmented data on your constituencies, you can personalize and customize Communications to those individuals or those groups.
23:50
You can even create integrated communication with landing pages in every point in the process. You want to tell your story.
24:01
We are always telling the story of our nonprofit and we’re trying to inspire. We’re trying to engage and many times. We’re trying to validate.
24:11
When we tell our story.
24:14
Do we know how our constituency wants to hear our story?
24:19
Are we sharing our story through multi-channel processes? Do we have analytics it tell us how our constituency wants to hear from us?
24:32
All these are key components in your debt. The question for you is are the rules in place to have your data work for you when you are not manually making your data work is your data working for you now while you’re on this flash class webinar?
24:56
If so, great. If not, you need to think about.
25:01
Your data is your issue. It’s your weapon to attack the marketplace the more you understand it.
25:10
The more you’re capable of using it the better results you’re going to get.
25:17
The next part is we want to talk about his research and Analysis.
25:23
Often in nonprofits assumptions are made.
25:27
You know one of the challenges we talked about for with Staffing and volunteer changes many times with nonprofits as we have a turnover rate. A lot of times assumptions are made that are passed on from one group to another or one employee to another many times. We as nonprofit organizations. We think we understand our constituencies and the data is truly an active.
25:53
Your data should be analyzed evaluated and supported on a regular basis.
26:00
Research and Analysis is a critical part to not only how you’re going to communicate with your current constituencies. But how are you going to grow your prospects in the future?
26:12
So here are some solutions you can consider when it comes to research and Analysis. We talked about building profiles early Bill profiles on your donor and volunteers and many cases don’t separate these profiles. You should have all records within one profile of time talents and resources that a consistency can contribute to your organization.
26:36
Depending on your note not depend on your nonprofit. What are the key data sets that you must have on your constituencies.
26:45
Make sure that the people that are in constant communication with your constituencies within your organization understands what those data sets are make sure you capture those.
26:58
For example, if you do social media marketing if you do social media marketing to create new donors or prospects you want to make sure you’re capturing cell phone numbers and email addresses.
27:15
That’s how you can track prospective donors on social media.
27:21
If that’s something you do that’s a requirement for every time somebody logs onto your sister your website size up for an event. How are you? Collect your data?
27:33
always make sure you understand the demographics their interest values talents resources and any associations are connected with make sure that you understand their capacity to gift.
27:48
To Alton donations are not received because simply we didn’t know we could ask.
27:55
Many times in our system it tells us that so so many have given us five thousand dollars last year. Do we know that’s her capacity?
28:05
Maybe they can get 50 thousand dollars.
28:08
All they’re waiting for someone to ask.
28:12
So, do you understand the capacity to give to give so managing relationships and associations on the individual and organizational level is also very important as you move forward understand what those are, understand how to connect the dots that’ll be key as you get you build strong strong relationships and and show your donors and prospects that you understand them and what their interests are. So the next aspect is we want to talk about is the cultivation of cycle.
28:52
So at any point time, we always got to make sure that the donor feels like that we know that. So what is the cultivation cycle? I put this chart together. Some of you may have seen this before or something similar to this but I put this chart together just to kind of give you a visual consistent donor cultivation cultivation refers to identifying cultivating soliciting recognizing and stewarding donors and prospects particularly potential lead donors.
29:25
Do you know who you’re donors are can you identify the key groups in your lead owners? Can you get identify the key metrics that fall within your leads owners?
29:38
The amount of kind of in kind of attention paid to the individuals and organizations when you are not actually soliciting them and make a tremendous difference in your relationship and how you connect them to your mission. So let’s just consider some solutions that can increase donor relations anticipation and donations. Remember our job is to inspire and engage and validate.
30:08
So what does validate mean disconnecting emotions to mock?
30:13
So let’s briefly look at a solution of the donor cycle. So the first thing we want to talk about is prospecting.
30:26
Centralize all your prospects and donor data into the CRM.
30:33
Data should be secure and should be cloud-based. It must be accessible from any device at any time.
30:42
You need the ability to use customization automation to create targeted and segmented solicitation plans.
30:51
And I use this example for but the executive director plays a major role in your fundraising at your organization, especially with your lead givers are they armed with the data that they need at any point in time? And is it easy for them to access that data and have full functionality?
31:14
One of the things that you can consider is if they can access and have full functionality from their cell phone then not only can I tell everything about the potential done with your meeting with the soon as that meetings over they can log their the results of the meeting they can set the next call to actions and they can also dictate possibly or use text messaging. There’s multiple ways that that can be incorporated.
31:42
The key is making sure it’s accessible is it’s a hundred percent functional and also is easy to use next car is the cultivation process.
31:58
me times in nonprofits good intentions. Don’t always work out. I’ve been guilty of it myself in the past.
32:07
And so you said every intent on trying to have a strong cultivation process throughout the entire donor cycle?
32:16
But doesn’t always work out and one of the reasons why doesn’t work out is because many times we wear so many hats we get pulled in so many different directions that a lot of time sitting down in and guy just doesn’t make sense to us when we have so many things to do.
32:33
So when were cultivating be consistency consistent and how we tell our story?
32:40
Across every person that has a touch point with a donor or Prospect make sure the message is consistent system eyes and coordinate cultivation. Whether it’s event follow us volunteering actions Etc. Once again through your user level permissions you given people in your organization account.
33:04
The ability to do certain tasks Empower them to do that let Help you along the way.
33:13
Strongly suggest that you create individualized and segmented communication plans.
33:21
If you have a lead giving group and this group determines about 60 to 80% of the gifts that come within your organization.
33:34
You should not be communicated in the same way. You do a lower-level group.
33:40
Create individualized plans create segments of plans communicates their interest to communicate to their values connect them to your mission at what’s most important to them that will keep them engaged. It will keep them invested and it will make them want to give more.
34:01
The next part of this to consider is are you intentional and are using purpose in your Communications or is everything generic?
34:13
If I gave $5,000 to a non-profit next year and they want to get $8,000 for me this year. Are they asking for?
34:23
Or they just going to send me a direct mail piece and send me a couple emails and give me a phone call and asked me and Chris. Would you please give $5,000, you know you please consider giving her ization.
34:36
If that nonprofit has validated me throughout the years and they’ve confirmed to me that my donation is doing what I’ve expected it to do and they have the right to ask me to give more and if I’m happy and I’m sad so I probably will.
34:53
So being, you know, make sure you have purpose being intentional in your ass when we solicit our donors and we’ve talked about this as you see using customization and automation. But make sure your communications are relative to them you do that with data-driven targeted appeals.
35:19
You do that you can multi-channel communications and make sure that when you’re using multi channel communications, make sure you track and make sure you know what response rates you get from your communications. Everybody likes to talk about Direct Mail being so expensive. It may work for 10% of your constituency base, but it may not work for 90. They may prefer email communications some may prefer social media communications.
35:50
You need to understand. How do your donor base and your prospective donor base want to be communicated with?
35:59
So as you go through the process as you solicit from the appeals the recognition of their knowledge of process. You should be using not only customization.
36:10
But you also be should be using Automation and so many nonprofits don’t consider using Automation in their soliciting process. But this is a two-way street when we talk about automation. It’s not only what you do externally with your prospective donor base. It’s also what you do in terms, for example, I sent out on the pill. I may see that the multi different channels. They may be segmented. I get a response back.
36:37
David wants to give $5,000 Charles Innovation. He does it online because that’s how he prefers to give but what happened to them?
36:45
Does that online gift automatically trigger a series of events?
36:51
Or do you accept your online gift manually entered into your CRM manually enter into your financial system and then manually give identification to here. We need to follow up with your nausea process or is it automated?
37:07
Ideally, if a donation hits my online if I get donation online, ideally the process might be that it syncs with your CRM to automatically goes into your profile and automatically updates your mail donations for the year automatically syncs to your finances Financial system. So automatically goes to your business management department and then automatically triggers the call to action after that only nozman. Is it a email?
37:36
Thank It goes out immediately on receiving the gift says he notification immediately go to your executive director Lee know that it gets another $5,000 and make you need to make a phone call does the next communication also go out to the development offices canaletto. Thank you out whatever your workflow and your Protocols are and you’re a knowledge of process and your recognition process.
38:00
You should automate those call to actions. We’ve had nonprofits tell us that hey if I can just stream on this I can spend more time my donors. Well, isn’t that your goal is to build those relationships.
38:13
So the more you can customize it automate your workflow in your system and especially the solicitation process. If you can do this, the more personalized you are the better response you’re going to get.
38:29
So the next car this is Stewardship. So when we talk about stewardship, this oftentimes gets in my opinion on Papa’s gets overlooked. We work so hard to get the donation. But what happens after we get the donation we talk about knowledge. It’s a minute ago, and that is so critical to what that is.
38:51
And you know, I personally believe that if we are truly using validation Communications, and we’re connecting emotions to mine and we’re letting Our donors know how much we appreciate and we’re constantly sharing with them the good that Their donation is doing to our nonprofit. When we do that. Then we’re going to increase our retention rate year over year with the amount of people that donate your organization.
39:21
Several years ago when the when the when the economy wasn’t as good as it is today. We were all fighting to get donations in the door.
39:31
As a country, we are all competing. There’s a lots of nonprofits out there today that the economy is getting better. We’re still fighting or fighting harder cause more and more people are willing to ask for donations to their nonprofit this time.
39:48
So as we is is we show good stewardship with the money and the donations in the time and the resources that donors are giving to us. It will pay off for us at the end. When you receive your donations, we talked about online gifts. One of the ways you can streamline your pot. Your your process is syncing your online donations with your CRM or financial systems.
40:13
You need to simplify your reporting reporting should it’d be something that generates for you automatically build your custom reports drive those reports to your critical administrators. Our executive director development directors. I mean more trustees drive those reports on a on a on a scheduled basis. That way you’re not running customized reports on a daily basis or weekly for your leaders in your organization.
40:44
Automate the call to actions within your organization based on your policies and your procedures.
40:53
You build those policies within your organization in the for-profit world. We used to talk about service level agreements with our clients and we used to be held accountable for those that service what service do we provide to those who donate to our organization we accountable for that. Are we acknowledging their gifts in a timely manner? Are we personalizing that acknowledgement? Are we creating it?
41:23
is her future giving stewardship is the actual next step of starting the cycle all over again for cultivation. So set your standards validates the donors on a regular basis.
41:39
And start that cultivation cultivation of cycle on a positive note.
41:45
So as we went through the flash class today, there’s three key components to for thinking Solutions as you advance your nonprofit that we see on a regular basis has had a positive impact one is centralizing your data into a CRM.
42:06
Make sure your CRM tool works for you in the way you want it to work for you.
42:13
It must be accessible like we talked about it must be a hundred percent functional but it also needs to be customized to meet your individual nonprofits needs.
42:25
Customize your workflow your processes and your Communications into your system.
42:33
Be who you are don’t change to be something you’re not most of the time when nonprofits try to change how they work to fit a system. They don’t use the system.
42:48
The third aspect which is rarely used in nonprofits that should be used more is automation.
42:57
Automation can literally give you back 20 to 30 hours a week if it’s used properly if you automate is many call to actions as you can if freeze time for your Development Department spend more meaningful meetings, individual meetings,correspondence with people and trying to get them to donate to your organization you build stronger relationships. Hopefully you found this information helpful.
43:36
I’ll be glad to answer any questions if you have any at this time.
43:43
Thank you so much, Chris. Really appreciate it. Do you happen to have a slide with your contact information including that you can put up on the screen for everybody?
43:52
I don’t get our e-mail this out to everybody when we’re done. Okay, and if people want I’m going to read the questions now, but I want to make sure in case anybody leaves at they know where to find you though. So people can look for you at donor link. Why don’t you just give a shout out with your your website address here Earl?
44:14
Yeah, our website address is is donorlynk.com and you can access all the information there and you can contact me through there as well. And as you said, of course, everybody would be getting a copy of a slide deck, but we want to make sure that you can also find him and what you can also do at LinkedIn in order to make sure that you have eye contact and case you have questions that come up after the session.
44:44
But we do have a number of questions here. So I’ll start with one from Tyler and I don’t know this may be a difficult one to answer but it’s a question that I know comes to everybody’s mind which is what are some of the best CRM systems to meet all the requirements to best help team builds teams build strong relationships.
45:03
Hello, there are many CRM systems out there now.
45:07
I can’t honestly say which one’s best because it also depends on your personal for we have a CRM platform that we use within our organization. It’s very flexible is customizable. It’s affordable. But there are many out there that are I strongly suggest that anyone that they do their homework investigate and determine what is your budget? What can you stand and how how robust is your process? There’s some real Cynthia simple.
45:37
Easy, but limited CRM Solutions out there, but there’s some really complex really robust CRM Solutions as well. The key thing is make sure your CRM fits your needs and make sure that it meets your standards of execution.
45:58
When you’re going through that and trying to assess that how long and elaborate of the processes that and how much does that inform who you choose to invite to the table?
46:10
And whether that’s through just a matter of calling people up or visiting websites or whether it’s an RFP process how it custom It’s really not that long a process. You know, the simple thing is once you get a couple of copies come in at you think fits your needs, you’ll tell right away where they truly understand or they’re going to meet your needs or they going to fit you into a cookie cutter platform. And so it’s really about the heart in most implementations.
46:41
Then this the misunderstanding is the implementation into a CRM where you’re changing from one CRM to another or if you’re taking history of manual spreadsheets and you’re trying to import that data that takes a long time and it’s going to be a strain on our department and it’s going to be too complex and that’s simply not the case. Most of the time for example will have applications done in four weeks.
47:08
I wish it’s really not that hard. So it’s once again, what are your challenges what’s unique to you? And I mean every organization is different and you have to make sure that your CRM tool meets your needs.
47:28
We have a question from Bridget who who writes what are some recommended reports? You would suggest that would be good to get to the CEO on a weekly basis and she also adds that we normally don’t get a lot of monthly donations until our special events were year-end.
47:44
Okay, so of course everybody wants to keep track of how much how many what’s the financial gift made to your organization? How many donors you get? How many volunteers you get Bridget? What I would do is I would actually sit down with your executive director and your leadership and find out exactly what critical tone is. They want to see in their reports when you get that information. You can build their you’re forced into your CRM.
48:12
You can set these up to distribute as you remember. One of the key things I said that you need to do is be able to sync your email address system with your CRM system. And so when you’re building out your financial reports your participation level reports your volunteer reports, whatever those key data sets are that those people want to see once you build that record into your system.
48:38
You should be able then to trigger their report to generate on a timely A basis for example, if the executive director is beating meeting with a Board of Trustees first Monday of every month and they need critical financial information. Then build that Rapport based on their knees have is said to be in their inbox Monday morning at eight o’clock once every month on the day if they’re meeting with it boy. That way they have their information their they can prepare for their meeting and you’re not stressed out trying to catch their formation oftentimes.
49:13
In nonprofits, the reporting process is made way more difficult than it should be your system should literally be able to give you that you create customized reports within a few clicks of a button.
49:29
You know, I wanted to ask you about that Chris in in another way, which is that sometimes the senior leadership isn’t aware of what kind of reporting is available. So, I don’t know in these situations where you’ve been involved in implementations, if the you know, the head of the organization and CEO the director is that aware of the potential to issue reports that can be useful to the board or to leadership. What is your recommendation on how to make sure that there?
49:59
Involved in a way that it’s going to be fruitful for them and which ensures that they’re asking for the right kinds of things and that we can provide them the kind of reports that motivate and Inspire and and and move them to take a kind of actions that are useful for raising revenue.
50:16
Sure, we do that on a regular basis. And the reason being is because we view ourselves as an extension of nonprofits development and engagement offices and we try to truly be a cardinal in the part of that is the education process when we sit down or anybody that you work with.
50:36
When you sign up to get their CRM tool or to get their volunteer engagement tool, whatever it is you choose to do.
50:45
They ought to sit down and walk you through the process and educate you on not only the functionality of what it can do but the information you can gather and what you can do with that information when you get other and so any part of that you sign up with auto walk your organization through and say this is what we can provide for you. You tell us what you want and help you set that up in the way that best serves your needs.
51:11
Right, so and not just talking about the features but the benefits so that whether the person’s on the advancement Services side or whether it’s directed development officer even someone in the program side or the head of the organization’s they understand why these reports can really be powerful, right? Absolutely. It’s not just poor sir that you use today. You can take it across all functionality between all aspects of what we do is a development office, you know, an organization we’re made of development directors. That’s who runs our organizations. We were all former doctors right? And so we’ve got only work with organization. We want to counsel them and be a like I said an extension of their office and we want to provide, you know, thought processes and solutions and ideas to help them accomplish your mission at the end of the day.
52:01
As a non-profit, we are working hard to accomplish our mission. We’re trying to do a greater good and so to do that we need it is people like us. Whoever you partner with should be your partner.
52:17
We had a couple questions from from Tyler. I’m going to try to bring together because they talked about kind of the pacing and metrics of our interactions with donors and they have to do with let me see how many times you make a contact with someone throughout the year using these systems many times before and asked and also specifically the kinds of emails and the frequency of emails. I’m Tiffany thoughts on that. I it sounds very customized as an approach.
52:44
But are you seeing that some people be Successful with a greater volume of contacts for example or what are your thoughts?
52:54
Generally as a whole you’re always trying to communicate your brain your message.
53:00
One of the things I would suggest you do is survey your donor base on a regular basis once or twice a year. So that’s a brief survey is to your donor base ask them how often they want to be communicated with how they prefer to be communicated with what channels what information is most important to them use that information to your avenge.
53:23
Most your CRM tools should be a provide surprise for you and that survey sit once you Information back to a survey you should be able to capture that down.
53:34
It’s far as Communications go. I’m a big believer in Wonder Woman personalized communications. The more I can personalize. My communication is based on the interest in values to the donor the more appreciation and response. I’m going to get back.
53:54
If I feel like I give a significant amount of money to you, but every communication I get from you is generic how important to my to your organization and this is and this is this is this is where I talk about breaking down your donor base and understanding your critical data set and understanding interval individualized and segmented solicitation points and also not every communication you sent out during the year needs to be an ask right. It’s so true. In fact, I wanted to ask you you’ve talked about lots of lots of different ways to make sure that everything is customized fitting into this this paradigm you have here about centralized data customize and automate it should be personal and I love that one thing that’s happened. This last year you a lot of us are all these Facebook. For example, there are others to Facebook fundraising appeals where and maybe you’ve done a more I’ve responded to them somebody says I’m doing my birthday this month. So I’d like to raise money for American Lung or for my local shelter or whatever it is, but I haven’t seen personally that reflected in letters or communications from the organizations that I’ve given to through those mechanisms, and I know you are careful in your presentation to say if you’re making a request and you get the information you put in your system so you can follow up and then and personal way are you seeing with some of the new kinds of approaches to pull station especially peer-to-peer is this more challenging for our systems and our processes? How are we going to address this as these continue to multiply?
55:44
Yeah, you know it’s it’s a race and it’s always evolving and it’s always changing one of the things that I try to make sure that nonprofits do is a maintain brand identity throughout the process.
55:58
And so yes social media and pure campaigns crowdfunding that plays a role in what we do and you know, they’re very beneficial and I would never tell an organization not to consider doing that, but I go back to if we are truly trying to foster relationships with our donors, then we’ve got to learn how to do both. We got to have mass communication social peer to peer to peer but we also got to be able to collect the important data and every aspect and then turn that data into personalized communications.
56:35
You know, it’s if you’re if you’re if you have the right platform, you can do all that inside the platform and then you can track the benefits of each one to see which one is paying you more giving you better results, right?
56:52
Well, that’s that’s probably a perfect way to kind of conclude today. Thank you so much for all of this really really great information. And again, if people want to reach out to you, I know they can do so through DonorLynk. So I want to encourage everybody to be on the lookout for that as well.
57:09
As to remember that you can get a copy of this presentation of recording of it rather by going to the DonorSearch site, which is at donorsearch.net and if you go to the Flash Class Library which is under the resources tab. There will be of course a copy this recording there in just the next couple of days additionally a copy of the slide deck will be coming to you in I don’t know when you’re planning on sending that Chris but I guess I’m just the next couple of days or so. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, it will be out in the next day or two terrific.
57:45
Well, so you can look forward to that in your emails be on the lookout if you don’t see it lightnings might have to your spam folder but you always know now how to reach out to Chris through DonorLynk to learn more to get a copy that if for some reason there’s a there’s a hiccup and I also want to of course thank DonorSearch for providing this platform for these sessions. We’ve got another one coming up, of course this Thursday with a not because a lot of fun for people to hear about which is special event New Year’s Resolutions What I Promise Bever to do Again with a couple of old friends from Bright Dot you may remember that company, formerly is Crashing Associates now rebranded as bright dots there’s a lot of rebranding going on that we’re talking about today that’s again on Thursday at 3:00. And so we hope you’ll join us for that. Of course, the producer of the series is Hannah Krobock who’s back there in the background keeping things on schedule, and this is Jay Frost speaking to you. It’s been great having you here today our thanks again to Chris and we’ll look forward to seeing you next time.