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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to High Impact Growth, a podcast from d'. Amagi. For people committed to creating a world where everyone has access to the services they need to thrive, we bring you candid conversations with leaders across global health and development about raising the bar on what's possible with technology and human creativity. I'm Amy Vaccaro, senior director of marketing at Dimagi and your co host, along with Jonathan Jackson, Dimangi's CEO and co founder. Today, we're diving into a challenge many of you may be facing. The scramble to diversify revenue streams in a changing funding landscape. If you've traditionally relied on grants or high net worth donors, how do you successfully pivot to individual giving and the one to many model of fundraising? We're joined today by Javan Van Groningen, founder of Donately, to explore the art and science of digital fundraising. We discuss why storytelling is your most critical asset, how to avoid random acts of marketing, and the evolving role AI plays in donor engagement. If you're working in the nonprofit sector trying to figure out if you should be chasing the consumer dollar and how to test that water without sinking your budget, this episode offers the roadmap you need. Enjoy. All right, welcome to the Codcast. We are so excited today. I'm here with Jonathan Jackson, as always. Hey, John, Good to see you.
- [01:21]
B
Great to see you as well.
- [01:23]
A
And we are excited to be joined by Javan Van Branigan, who is the founder and creative director at Donately and here to share some of his wisdom with us. We are in a very interesting moment in time where organizations all over are scrambling to figure out fundraising and some organizations that may not have done it before or considered it are testing out individual giving. So we're really excited to kind of hear a bit of your story and also gather some of your advice for organizations including ourselves today. So, Devin, welcome. Good to see you.
- [01:56]
C
Yeah, thanks for having me. It should be fun.
- [01:58]
A
Yeah. So you've been in the digital fundraising space for over a decade, and can you take us back to the origin story for Donately? What was the problem or friction in giving that you saw that convinced you that you wanted to build a new platform from scratch?
- [02:14]
C
Yeah, well, I'll try to be quick, but I'll go back a step before that as well, which was being originally in the digital agency world and really wanting to believe in what I was building. And my heart was connected to the nonprofit space. And so that first kind of inkling towards how do we take digital services into the nonprofit world was started with an organization called Invisible Children. I moved from the agency world over and worked on the nonprofit side of things and really fell in love with this idea of bringing top notch quality agency work into the nonprofit space space. And so I started that in 2009, built 50 and 50, which is a creative agency, branding, web marketing, really just saying, hey, how do we take this for profit world of digital and fundraising or E commerce into the nonprofit fundraising space? And then as we did that, there was a glaring gap in the technology side of things. So what organizations needed on the face was just a really simple and clean donor experience, right? Forms simplified data going where it needs to go. And really the tools at the time were not cutting it. And so we built Donately really to solve that first problem, which is to build really simple bettable giving experiences that donors could do much easier, could enjoy. And then the data on the backside of that was really tricky for a lot of organizations and still is. That market has evolved over time, but that's why we started in the first place is donor data needs to move somewhere valuable. You need to be able to make data informed decisions on that information. And it doesn't need to be rocket science. It was really at the time a gap that just needed to be filled in terms of integrations and connections and keeping it really simple for the donor. So we originally used language like donor first and that was really the ethos is like let's not build from the back end forward, let's build from the donor experience side of things and then figure out the data behind that. And that kind of brings us not necessarily all the way to today, but really why we started Donately and why we're still trying to solve those problems today. Right? There's a lot that's changed, but we're still trying to solve that beautiful, engaging kind of story driven donor experiences on the individual level. And then how do we move that into the data tools that are out there? And for me personally, more of the for profit tools, I think they're the most powerful. Their roadmaps are the quickest. How do we take those tools and make them work for nonprofits and make it work so that we don't put any friction in that donor experience.
- [04:28]
B
That's awesome. It just sounds like part of it is building just amazing software for really important use case around driving donations and demagogy. Kind of aspired to do the same thing with how we built Commcare and our new Connect platform. And I'm really excited to hear less on the technology side of where Donately is now has been a market Leader in driving individual giving and campaigns and donations and all these tooling and things you need to run a sophisticated digital campaign. But going back to first steps, you mentioned, you crossed from agency into the nonprofit world and the programmatic side, how did that experience shape the platform? And also, like, what makes for a good story? What makes for a good fundraising push at a very macro level? You know, just as our listeners are hearing, we're all struggling with revenue streams now, we're all struggling with the changes to the global health landscape. So we just took a step back and what the technology, what made Invisible Children work well as a story, as a narrative? And how do you think about the potential for nonprofits to tell their story and to be compelling in what is increasingly crowded? And, like, lots of people are trying to figure out how to do this. So how do you think about what makes for organizations that can be successful with the type of approach that donately enables?
- [05:42]
C
Yeah, I'm glad you asked that, because I think as we build the technology, then we ask all these people, hey, what are we struggling with? Story keeps coming up, and it's such a subjective term. So where I would land with that is really an organization's brand and what they're doing, what the problem is that they're solving. There's probably a handful of pieces that need to be dialed in. So when we look at brand and brand messaging, we we're looking at first off, who you're speaking to, really understanding your target audience, and then what pulls on the heartstrings there? So what do they care about? And if they're coming to you, they obviously care about something, at least in the ballpark of what it is that you're communicating in terms of your mission and your vision. And then you need to be really articulate about that. Right. What is that problem, which a lot of organizations skip over? They assume that the problem that they're addressing is really well known, and I think they just want to talk about what they're doing and all these problems are solved. But you have to start with, like, what is the need? And then connect that to specifically how you do the work that you do and then invite people into it. Right. If you talk about it being a story, what's great about the nonprofit world is it is the ending is not there yet, and a lot of people want to be invited into that story. So so much of what you need to do is say, hey, here's where we are. We are hitting a very critical point where this either becomes a tragedy or a Success. And so you invite people into that. But in order to do so, you have to be very clear. Right. People need to understand exactly what it is you're asking them for. And so the technology and the story kind of come together at that point where you say, okay, great, we've told you the problem. We're talking to the right person. That right person has been explained what the problem is. And we've now said, hey, we've got an amazing solution. This organization does this amazing thing and here's where we want you to come in. And that's where those two things come together. Because now you can explain all the options and give them options. Whether that's peer to peer fundraising, whether that's a specific campaign, like a crowdfunding campaign for a specific project. There's a ton of things you can do. And I think we'll kind of maybe get into the conversation around what trends we're seeing stuff, but you got to test the waters, see what's resonating, get it out there and let people hear it. So I would say that's kind of what we're seeing. And maybe a trend right now is like you said, it's getting so saturated. So you have to make sure that story gets out there. And I think we see a lot of organizations struggling. You got a lot of AI content, a lot of stuff kind of overwhelming people in different social channels and in your blog, just that message is not getting out as much as it was. I see people trending towards solving the story and then getting it out there and even repeating it, just pushing it out and making sure people have access to it.
- [08:08]
A
Yeah, no, this is like such a timely conversation because I think as demagi we're, we've been navigating all of the funding changes that have unfolded over the last year year. And one thing that we are starting to just dip our toes into is individual giving. And what could that look like? Because I think we do have a really strong story for individual giving, perhaps for the first time ever. So, yeah, I don't know. John, do you want to share just a little bit about what we've been working on with Connect and kind of get Jevin's thoughts there?
- [08:37]
B
Yeah, I'd love to. And that connection between the brand and the tech and the story is something we've been thinking a lot about because we've made various press pushes at different points. When we were the biggest frontline worker platform in the world and still are. When we broke into the US market during COVID and these Kind of transition points for the organization were like, okay, maybe this story could finally break through. And it's been really tough to figure out, is it us? Are we able to tell our story in a compelling way that it can get picked up and kind of break through the noise? But our latest foray into this is really about trying to connect individual givers directly to funding frontline worker activity. And the first time we're trying this is with kangaroo mother care, where for $37 you're able to fund a frontline worker to provide home based kangaroo mother care coaching to a small and vulnerable newborn. Right. So it's like an infant in rural Africa who's getting care and your donation is going to pay the frontline worker to provide that coaching for the household. And so from like a cost effectiveness argument, from all the like technical terms we think about that we know are not necessarily compelling consumer terms, we're like, this is a home run. And so we're starting to be like, if we can't pull it off with this, then every other idea we have is kind of worse than this one in terms of we think being a compelling story. So we've had a lot of fun trying to figure it out. But part of the reason I was so excited to have you come on and hear from you is organizations who might be trying to think about this for the first time. Maybe they were funded traditionally by high net worth individuals or foundations or going after competitive grants and think that maybe they have elements that could be appealing to the consumer market but have no experience doing that to individual giving. How can they use your platform and your methodologies to like, test? Is it there? What should success look like the first time you try to do this? That was one of the big debates we had, Amy. We were trying to think about this. I'm like, is raising a thousand dollars from a cold start good? Would that be like, oh, if you raised a thousand from a cold start, like, you definitely have something, your expectation should be 0 net new donations or should it be like, no, no, if you can't get 5k the first time you try this, there's nothing there. So I'm curious, like, as people try to think about this, how do you recommend they break down the problem and use your platform to test?
- [10:43]
C
Yeah, I mean, testing, you kind of gave a bit of the answer there. And just the question, which is, I think testing is absolutely critical, right? You have the data, the tools that you use should give you the data to recognize what's working, what's not working. And you gotta be testing messaging. You have to be testing the types of fundraising you're doing. Everything from galas to two or three dollars asks on social media. Like, there's a lot of ways you can do it. And so first off, having the backbone of data that can tell you, hey, we ran this, here's how much we put into it, here's our internal cost, here's what it generated, especially early on, once you found traction, then you can start to hold onto those techniques. But if you are currently in a space of having never done it before, I would say be ready to try a handful of things that maybe don't work, right? If you're going to run some paid media, don't expect that to be, you know, you're gonna have some big return on ad spend. Like that's a really tricky thing to figure out the perfect messaging, the perfect audience and the perfect segments. And so testing is key. And I think you have to recognize the big shift when you talk about one to one fundraising versus one to many. And that's a shift that a lot of people underestimate the level of work that it takes, right? So if you go back to the idea of, let's say Charity Water or Invisible Children, or to write Love on Her Arms, any of these organizations that have really done well at that kind of micro giving level, you have to recognize that there's a lot of work in that, right? This is a demographic that is eager for information, eager for connection, eager for assistance, right? You don't do a peer to peer fundraising campaign without dipping in and trying to nurture some of those peer to peer campaigns that are doing well or really pushing that towards influencers. So it is a decent amount of work. And that's why I go back to that idea of testing. And if you put too much in without realizing what's working or what type of individual fundraising is going to be successful for you, you can burn a lot of money that a lot of organizations don't have, right? So test the waters. Start small. A lot of tools, including donately. We launched cart items this past year, which gives you the ability to do event registrations. You could do virtual products, you could do actual products, you could do events. Like there are a lot of things that you can try. Build a simple page, get it out there and see what's happening, and then build from there. And going back to you as an organization as you dip in, a big question is, do you have the right people at the table? Is your email list going to have the Right. People who are going to want to fund these things. And you got to look at that too. This might be a whole new market. Right. So you have to go all the way back to the beginning and say, how do we target, how do we move from the one to one large donors? Do they seed this out and maybe get some kind of B2B relationships or rhythms going where you get them fired up and pitching that mission, or do you have to find new markets? And that's something too that I think a lot of organizations need to recognize is you probably in the marketing perspective have to do a little bit of fishing before you can shoot out emails that are going to get people giving those smaller gifts.
- [13:33]
B
I love that terminology. And one thing I want to call out is we talk a lot about this one one versus one to n on product development. You know, a lot of the global development sector is one to one projects. You do the super custom thing, it works in that country, but it's not particularly scalable and it's great if it's is funded well. But in this new era, a lot of people need to shift from one to one project styles to one to end project styles as well. And so that giving mindset has a lot of parallels, I assume, on like one to one giving versus one to end giving.
- [14:02]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I mean that it's like product and services. Right. Like when you're providing services, like I said earlier, we still have agency services in our organization. And yeah, you can build amazing things when the funding is there. You can build very customized experiences, data and with integrations. Right. We could customize everything and make it exactly how you want it to move, but then that's dead in the water for our next client. And it's kind of similar. You can nurture a relationship with a high net worth donor and that's very important. But that doesn't scale. Right. So trying to get that sweet spot where there's a high enough dollar amount with your donors, high enough conversion rate. But now you've got this pool where you can do the one to end or one to many, amplify that kind of base.
- [14:39]
B
Yeah. So I'm going to ask for some free consulting for, not for the moggy, but for our listeners who are running, let's say a one to $5 million business. Never done their nonprofit, they've never done one fundraising before. They do amazing work because everybody listens to podcasts, does amazing works. They got the story, but they're used to one to one fundraising. It's all high net Worth individuals, it's all foundations. They want to figure out who are they competing against. That's one of the things I have with trouble. Right hand wraps. You're doing amazing work. You're cost effective. It works, it's proven. But who does your story get put next to in the potential giver's mind? And how do you like, kind of look at those other stories and be like, ah, I would give to myself. I'd give to that other one that's a better story. So I need to really appreciate that. I don't know how I would come up with a better story than that. You know, water is pretty compelling. Like education pretty compelling. Like, there's some things that are extremely compelling. Like, do you literally have to be able to get a better story than water.org in order to get consumer funding? So I think, like, how do you just think about comparing yourself to the market and like, is this compelling? Should I go down this track of a lot of iteration? Amy and I debated this a ton with inbound marketing for Comcare over the years, and it's like, who are people searching for the traditional agency work that just takes a ton of iteration and outside help because it's a whole discipline unto itself. So I imagine one of your points is going to be like, you need to get help. People understand this market. But if you're the CEO listening right now, what are the first couple steps you recommend they take to wrap their head around? Like, could you even play in this space successfully?
- [16:08]
C
Yeah. It reminds me of some of the SEO and the large language model research that we do right now, that it really has sped up our ability to recognize that, because you can just ask those tools doing deeper research, who are the organizations? If people are looking at us, who else are they looking at? Who else talks like us? And it's a really good tool to get some homework done. Okay, and then how are we different? And you might have to pressure test that. Right. We keep using this term, like vet and validate. AI gets it wrong a lot. I think the glory days where we're like, oh, this is just going to be this rocket shift to the moon of, like, value. We're kind of hitting like a little bit of like a slop scenario where like, okay, it's a lot of data, but we need to clean it up and we need to understand, like, what's actually correct in there. But it'll give you a ton of that research much faster than you could have two years ago or I don't know what timescale to give it. It's all been changing so fast. But asking it and giving it, hey, here are people that say they do the same things as us. Let's talk about how we're different. What we're leaning towards this idea of a unique value proposition which is critical, right? If you're going to go out with the same exact model as Water, that's a pretty hard sell, right? Because they've got the dollars down. Then you know exactly where your money went. You get a project email that shows you, you know. Then if you get to the high net worth donors, some of then their galas are top notch, right? So what you have to do in that moment is find how you're different. One of those ways is to verticalize and say, well, hey, we're better than them at this specific thing and you go after that specific market, right? So that's kind of a high level idea is you have to find your way to scoot to the side and be better in some specific area in that story. And then there's even techniques and channels to do that, right? So every organization can't dominate every channel, right? So if you're trying to do this and you're trying to throw better galas and you're right down the street from Jerry Water, that might be something you need to consider doing different, right? And so you've got SEO and you've got paid and you've got social and you've got influencer marketing. You've got different channels you can go after. I mean, I feel bad for people who are just stepping into this because technology has really opened up so many different ways that you can scale your business, but you got to find the ones that work. Goes back to that testing idea, right? So I think in those moments, it's not necessarily like you said, that you have to find a way to be better. You just have to find a way to be different and then find a place that you can sell that different message. Okay?
- [18:23]
B
So I'm convinced I'm different, I've verticalized, I'm better and at something. How do I understand? Is there really a market of consumers who want to give to the thing I'm claiming I'm different at? That's the thing that I struggle with is I know we're different in a lot of amazing ways. I don't know if we're different in ways that anybody cares about. And so how do you start to play with that and understand like, yeah, you're different, but like not in a good way you're just different.
- [18:46]
C
Yeah. I think there's market research you can get to. And then again, there's a lot of this stuff is public knowledge. When you look at what people are searching for. We have a whole team of people that do some of this kind of search engine optimization work, and the first thing they do is say, hey, like, what are people looking for? And what's the volume of those searches? That's one of many channels to getting data, but I think the data is out there. So again, going back to those language models and asking questions really, to understand, like, what types of stuff are people searching for? What types of information do they need in order to get involved with what you're doing? It's all out there. And again, like, not to push the businesses too much in the podcast, that that is something that we do. Right. Is help people understand this is what you're saying. I'll maybe twist it towards our businesses. Right. We can talk about donately as a fundraising software or as a donation platform. And just simple changes in the way that we talk about it totally shifts the algorithms for how people find us in something like a search engine. And it starts to get in different people's mindsets. I might be talking to a marketing person and now I'm talking to a fundraising person, but they're all blended in. Right. So just little shifts in the way you talk can change who's listening, can change who's showing up at your content. And so you have to kind of think of all of that. I haven't touched on it yet, but we do push pretty hard on this idea of holistic. So we touched on brand. Brand needs to then come to life in your web and in your websites and your technology and your tech stack and then your marketing rhythms. I think you have to look at all of it together and really put together a package where you're kind of doing all of it. Otherwise you're going to have that opportunity to veer off or just talk to a room where nobody's listening.
- [20:25]
A
So I'm curious, you've mentioned, like, a handful of the different channels and sort of. That organizations need to sort of test and see which one's going to work for them. I'm curious, like, what are you seeing working? Like, what are some of the channels that you feel like are up and coming and where do you recommend people look?
- [20:40]
C
I probably couldn't say there's a winner that's kind of fitting for everybody, but I would say that there are a handful that people are trying that I think are finding success in. I do think what a lot of organizations are recognizing right now is it's a lot easier to fundraise when you have something in it for the final donor. Right. So that's kind of like that what's in it for me angle that you take from the donor side of things. We've seen a lot of virtual campaigns where you're giving back, you're getting products, you're getting access, you're getting membership kind of behind the scenes. So you have a recurring program or maybe you're inviting people into a deeper connection to the cause, to the CEO, to the mission. You have opportunities to take people on trips. Like we have to recognize that we're competing for our donors wallets and they're tighter right now. The economy and cost of living. Like there's so much going on and so we have to recognize where people are at and recognize we have to give them something back. So I think those are valuable. I think the influencer space, I think we've seen that growing over the last three or four years just finding individuals who want to build into what they're doing, some portion of social impact. I think we've seen the for profit world be asked to be more philanthropic. And from that you then see corporate giving growing, corporate platforms growing. So your ability to tap into maybe local businesses, business partners to help jump in and like co tell that story, that becomes a good funding mechanism. So we're seeing that kind of allowing the for profit world to kind of share in the impact that you're doing. And I'll touch on too the idea that trust has shifted to corporations. So what we're seeing in like the Edelman studies is people trust corporations now over non profits, over faith based organizations. Like they're all kind of taking a hit. We've had a lot of press, politically defunding. USAID gives people this idea that nonprofits may not be trustworthy. And somehow brands have surfaced as like, oh, we trust brands. We trust these big logos that we see on TV and you know, in the news every day. And so that's just where consumers are at. So if you can tie in with those reputable organizations and kind of be their philanthropic arm. We've seen a lot of success there. And then maybe just a simple one is the clarity of where the money goes, right? Everything down to the fees and program expenses and the admin expenses. I think donors today, they don't want it oversimplified. I think they appreciate the clarity and, and the honesty with where Money goes, they know it's happening. And I think there's been enough in the news over the last few years around, like, the need for those costs. And so if you're not going to run a new program or dive into influencer or corporate partners, just be honest and clear on where the money's going. I think that's really helpful for people to just see that and understand what they're giving to.
- [23:28]
A
Thank you for that. I think this is giving me, like, a lot of food for thought and chance and things that we might want to chat through and think through. Like, even with the kangaroo mother care, like, what is the experience that somebody might want to feel like they were kind of on the inside of that program? And literally just last week, I got to tour around with one of our partners delivering one of these campaigns, and it was like the experience of a lifetime. Right. And not that something we want to be selling, but, like, how do you give people a taste of the impact that they're having? Because it's incredible. And that can really convert someone to be more of an evangelist. I mean, it has for me at least.
- [24:01]
C
Yeah, yeah. And to be able to package that up so that a gift, a small gift, they can recognize exactly what that is, what that care is for that individual in that location, you feel like you've bought something tangible. Right. Like, I was just trying to get in the mindset with my kids this week around, like, hey, you guys are all asking for Christmas stuff. Like, if I gave you some money, like, where would you want it to go? And looking through just a little, like, marketplace package of, like, oh, like you can buy a backpack or you could buy a soccer ball or you could give supplies that it resonates at that level. And I think it resonates even to adults. Right. Like, I want to understand exactly what this purchase is going to do. And I think you have something really cool there where you're saying, like, this is an individual person getting this care over this much time that we can call it a dollar handle that helps people feel like they're getting that kind of tangible object with their investment.
- [24:47]
B
Yeah, that's great. That's what we're hoping. And one of the things that I have very low confidence in my understanding is just like, what are people thinking in those moments of potentially giving? Like, are they Google searching? Do they become interested in water? And then they're looking at different ways to contribute to water? I'm sure the answer is, like, a million different things. Right. In terms of how it works. But you mentioned influencers, you mentioned the AI slop we have coming. SEO is going to change as a result of all this AI stuff. So for people who, I don't want to say just starting, but like there's just so much out there, even just like web digital management, its own like massive hard problem. And then you add on top of that, like figure out the channel where you can be unique and vertical and the this and that. How do you do it in terms of figuring out where to invest your time as a leader who doesn't know the space well, knows there could be something here, but wants to adopt a platform like yours with donatively. But there's so much beyond just the tech piece that you need to wrap your head around.
- [25:40]
C
Yeah. So there's two sides of the house. Right. We have our technology platform and then we have agency services. And on the agency service side of things, I think it's best to just explain how we would solve that problem there and then whether you use us as an agency or you just recognize this is the journey you should go through, I think it'll give some insight. So anytime you're in a spot like this where you need to strategize a pivot or shift, I think it's smart to take a moment to audit where you're at and understand what it is you're trying to accomplish, what your goals are, what your KPIs are going to be, how much you're willing to invest, and really put together a plan. We have a process called an engagement operating system. For us, it's really just audit, look at what it is you find and build out what we call our roadmap. We, which is the steps you need to be taking to get closer to where it is trying to go and then the rhythms that it takes to get there. So I'll kind of unpack that a bit. So the audit's gonna tell you whether the audience is shifting. It's going to tell you where you are today, where you can rank, where you can't rank. From like that kind of SEO perspective, what's your internal team's capacity? There's a lot to cover and we have some resources on our site and some ability to, you know, email people if they want to reach out. But getting like laser focused on that plan and what that roadmap does is it tells you, hey, these are all the projects you need to be working on. And it's kind of a step by step process. Right. So you can't boil the ocean. Right. You're going to get in there and you're going to want to do that tomorrow, right? Have some money rolling in tomorrow from these smaller donors, but it takes some time, right? So the first step might just be getting a digital platform running. Second might be some keyword strategy around, like, hey, look, if you want to go after this audience, here's some keywords you need to be able to rank for and you have potential for that. You have domain authority in that. So let's get five to ten blog posts out the door. Then let's run a campaign at the end of the year. Like, you have to start to break it down into a larger strategy, a larger plan, and then what can you be doing every quarter? And then once you're in that quarter, what are you doing monthly? Because a lot of it just then becomes driving that car, right? What are you doing as monthly and even weekly rhythms? Right. Are we getting a blog post out a month that's in that keyword focused area? You know, are we getting enough people to that campaign page, then hyper focusing on that landing page? Right. Is it converting? Is the form too low? Is it too high? Like. And I would say if you're not ready to put metrics and goals on your leadership around succeeding here, then I would be curious if you're ready to do it. Right. I think a lot of bigger businesses that say, hey, look, we're all about giving back and you, okay, cool, where's your leadership's goals on it? And they don't have any. Then nobody's accountable. Nobody's actually really moving the needle there. You may just want good PR and you're recognizing people want you to do it, but you're not measuring it. So set some goals, go through a process of really recognizing what you're going to do, what you're committed to, how much you want to raise, and then go back to that. Boil the ocean. That's the problem we see most organizations making is they come to us and they want everything. Hey, take over our marketing and oh yeah, our messaging is not great. Take over the marketing. Our website's broken. We've got 2,500 bucks a month. And you go, okay, you can't do that. It's not a budget for that. So ruthless prioritization. Build that strategy and then one thing at a time, and if you're doing the right things, you'll start to stack and stack and stack. You'll start to see those results coming in.
- [28:48]
B
That's great. Yeah. I think one of the things you said right at the end on the stacking, we've definitely seen that on the inbound marketing side where we tried a million different things. No one thing was a home run, but now you built a bunch of content, you're ranking for a bunch of keywords. It's taking longer to convert than we would like, but that's then reinforcing our enterprise customers. So what we noticed too was even though no one weekly task or monthly task was like, okay, that's the 200% ROI we were looking for. Amy, go spend half a million dollars and give me $2 million in 12 months. But it all reinforced. And so by having the discipline to try to stack and get better at it, everything kind of became easier six months later. But it was so annoying to start and be like, we want everything to be better, we want a new website, we want rank for these keywords, we need these blogs, etc. And maybe you can empathize with wanting to boil the ocean when she came.
- [29:40]
A
No, but I do think it's a good example, John, where work over many years across many different marketers that came before me like have paid off such that I think we've got a pretty reliable kind of. This is our, on the Commcare side, our inbound engine there with this individual giving push. My worry is that we're going to do this little test that's like 20% of one person's time going towards it and it won't have results, we thought. And then we'll just, we'll drop it. Because I do think this is probably the case where we need to be investing systematically over time and to Javan's point, really coming up with that plan, putting the weekly, monthly, quarterly rhythms in place. Right. It can't just be a one off so.
- [30:19]
B
Well, that's why I'm asking all these questions. I'm so interested in getting Javan's perspective on. Because if it's going to work, we'd be happy to put the capital against it. But the huge risk, I don't know, it's like, what level of risk should we take on? And I'm well aware, based on literally 20 years of marketing experience that these things take time. You can't blow the air and you got to sequence them, you got to take shots on goal that are going to miss and you got to find the right audience and you definitely have to be different. You know, I think like that's a huge thing for me is like, is there a story compelling? Like, I deeply believe in our story, but like I Don't necessarily know if a random consumer on the Internet does. And it's okay if they don't. Like, I think that's the other thing too is like, it is not the case that everybody's going to be able to be successful as an individual fundraising organization. And how do you think about that? So, Devin, if DiMaggi or somebody else is coming to you and like, maybe they got more than 2,500amonth, but like, not a substantial budget they can afford to lose with today's markets, how do you think about taking that leap and being like, look, you can't just do it for one month. You got to really go for it. And how do you recommend people think about that trade off and whether to go for it? Yeah.
- [31:25]
C
Well, first off, I appreciate you guys just opening up to the struggles that you guys are having and deciding to do a new venture, because that's really where a lot of organizations are, is trying to just figure this out. And you touched on something around the idea of taking, you said 20%, which is perfect because in our heads, when we build out plans, we want to say, hey, if you find something that works, operationalize that. And that should be 80% of your budget, but you should be retaining 20% of your budget to try new things to find that next thing. Right? And I would say try to make that a part of your business model or part of your marketing budget permanently. Because if this doesn't work, that's okay as long as you're testing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So I think that what you guys are touching on there, I would hope you could move into being something permanent. And it is. It's always hard. I mean, it's the minute your budgets get cut, the first thing you cut is the testing, because it's the stuff that you don't know is working and you all pull down into, okay, well, we know this is working, so we're going to focus over here. It's just human nature, right, to not want to be testing the water when you're tight. And every organization we're working with right now is trying to do more with less. Right. Their larger budgets are cut and they're trying to figure that out. So I think trying to come at it with the idea that you've got a little budget that you're willing. And I don't even say willing. You have to have in order to succeed. You have to have that piece of your budget and invest in things because the world is changing around you. Right. Like we can't stop AI from changing things. I just heard a couple weeks ago chat generated content or AI generated content has surpassed human content already. So if you don't have at least a little budget to recognize, how are people doing that? How are they pumping out 10 or 20 blog posts a week with one part time person and keeping it high quality? At least be asking yourself that and at least be thinking through how are we going to compete in that new space. It has to be part of the, part of that regular budget. So I think a lot of people think it's kind of optional, but I think to an organization like yourself, you have to be thinking that it's mandatory to just keep up. So I know it's scary and I know like I said earlier, I started by saying, hey, it's not easy going one to many. It's a lot of handholding for a lot of small gifts. Right? So I think spending the time making sure that you can get to that market and making sure you've got a little bit of a budget to test that. We, once you've decided on that and you have enough data behind it, then I think there are places to go, there are agencies to go to, there are people to hire, there's a lot of options. But I would start by just making sure it's the right investment. And then agencies like ourselves, I think are a great place to start to be able to understand the play and where you should be putting your efforts.
- [33:57]
B
You mentioned the lack of KPIs at the leadership level. What, like, what would make you say just don't like, based on what you told me, don't try this right now. You don't sound ready, you don't sound committed. Because I think a lot of times good agencies, good, like our services, part of the business, I'd say we've created more value in the world by turning people down and convince them not to do the project as much as we've helped. Because you can't just throw money at this problem like you need to. Or maybe you can, I don't know. But like typically you can't just throw money at a problem. You have to decide is it really a priority? And so from your mindset, like what do you see where you're like, nope, like you guys should not try it this year. You should focus on what you're doing and if A, B and C are true to come back.
- [34:35]
C
Yeah, it's pushing. I think usually organizations have come to us with the decision to do it. I think that's kind of a business strategy that comes before our work. But maybe I could speak to like when it works and when it doesn't. And we've seen that we worked with for profit organizations launching social impact campaigns. We've worked with nonprofits trying to sort out entire fundraising ecosystems and partnership partnering with organizations like Salesforce to build out better technology for nonprofits or for profit companies, Qualcomms and Sonys of the world, to build the right mission into the work that they're doing and kind of put that out there. And the reason I said is there a KPI? Is because sometimes you're jumping in for the wrong reasons. And I think you need to make sure that you've set a goal that's intentional, either to actually make an impact or to find a new revenue stream that's going to be $200,000 or a million dollars and stick to that.
- [35:33]
A
Right?
- [35:33]
C
So if I were to go back to the gamut of for profit to nonprofit and when they succeed, I would say you have to be committed to it. You have to be committed to living it out. And I think that's why I want that metric at that leadership level is if you don't have buy in, it's going to quickly come and go. So a metric that's saying, hey, over the next two years, right? You look at the. Maybe a good example is like either the ESG scores for profit organizations or this idea of corporate social responsibility. You set those goals and you say, hey, we want to have this engagement give back with our employees or we want to raise this much money. They have big budgets. It's a little bit easier for some of those large organizations to say that we want to give back X amount. There's a lot of great banks that give back to the United Ways and things like that. And they can say, hey, we want to see this much money invested back in the community. I think maybe think of that, but maybe a little bit smaller, right? What is our organization's goal? How many people do we want to impact? How much do we want to raise either for our community or for whatever, and then ensure that that's tracked all the way to the top, right? And that's always done. And you got the nonprofit level. But if you're in that social enterprise space where you maybe are doing a little bit of both, that's where you see it. You don't want to let the greenwashing happen. You want to make sure there's metrics that are going all the way to the top. For those organizations to make sure that that's happening. So trying to sum that up, I think you have to make sure that you are setting goals for yourself that you are prepared to put in the effort to go after that new market and then the rhythms that you do it over time. Give yourself a Runway that you can actually find those results versus hey, like you know the expectations we're going to see this next month.
- [37:03]
B
Awesome.
- [37:04]
A
I think that means Don, we should go for it. That's the answer I'm hearing. So you, you mentioned Jevin a little bit about AI. You were talking about slop coming out also AI enabling orgs to be able to put out like 10 posts with a part time person each month. I'm curious to hear like where do you see AI creating real value in a nonprofit's fundraising strategy and like what are you looking out for in the next year or two?
- [37:29]
C
Yeah, I mean for today I think the way I'm seeing organizations use it like there's a lot of cutting edge stuff, a lot of bleeding edge stuff. And I think nonprofits, I always typically say like the best place they could be is cutting edge. Like don't go too far into the gambles. I think what I'm seeing it do is a lot of speeding up of production work, being able to get a lot of ideation and iteration out there. But I will warn people that you have to be still doing the due diligence and the work to make sure that what's being created is the right value. Right. You could create seven different versions of an email. You can help it build the automations, you can tell it, hey, this is what I want. I want a 5 email series. Give me some ideas. And again, the better you are at chat prompting, the better you can get that content back. Ensure that it knows your brand and your brand values. And it's a great tool to just be to just like I catch myself just talking, communicating, putting prompts in and getting back just ideas and then taking that over or giving it ideas. Right. It has to be your thought. Tell it to write the blog post, say hey, this is the way we're thinking and what we're doing. I want to write this. How should I structure it? It can create a lot of garbage, but it can also create a lot of really valuable content if you use it well. So I see that being really valuable. I see it being really valuable at analyzing data Donately has tons of donor data at the client level to be able to ask hey, what is changing? What are our donors Doing? What is the platform doing? Are we seeing larger gifts, smaller gifts? So it's ability to analyze data, I think today is fantastic. And where you put it, Be careful where you put that data. But the insights that you can get from it, really, really powerful. I mean, where it's going, I just see it doing more and more of that, more and more of the storytelling. I think there's almost. We're getting to an ethical, a dilemma here with like, how much do we let it tell our story? Because it could easily fake it. Right. If you have a story you want to tell, we can make a photo of that person, we can animate that. We can make it feel so real and we're doing it for good. So I don't know that I haven't decided where those boundaries are for me personally. And it's interesting to have those conversations with clients because you have, you know, we work with organizations that are journalism centric. Right. And they're hard. No, Right. Like these are real stories. We do not use AI at all. But then you have the small nonprofit organizations that are like, hey, we did this. It's just we didn't have a camera crew to film it. So how can we make this in a world of visuals, make this come to life? And it's like, well, these tools are now available. We can make video content that emulates exactly what happened. And we've never had problems with reenactments and documentaries doing visualizations of those stories after the fact. And I think that we're going to see more and more of that, that every organization can really build an emotional connection. We just have to decide how honest we want to be with utilizing AI for that. What else is AI doing?
- [40:14]
B
I'm curious. You just mentioned that shift into such a visual world now, whereas maybe 10 years ago, blogs and written text had a lot more strength. I'm curious, like, have you seen channels start to decay way faster than anybody had thought? Have you seen new channels pick up? I often wonder, like, does anybody read anything anymore? What is putting out a good blog, a good blog article worth versus a good video? And like, how are you just seeing the. I mean, the landscape just wants to be shifting like crazy for your customers in terms of what's working, what's not working?
- [40:44]
C
And yeah, I mean, video content is dominating. You still do get value. I mean, long form content. There are still articles and everything else that are really creating a lot of value, a lot of lead generation, a lot of conversion. But you create that article. You also have to turn that thing into 10 to 20 different social posts. And yes, building videos into that. Whether it's a little segment that you want somebody to speak to it, you just short form, it's a lot of work. It's making it easier. But taking that and getting it out there, you have to be part of the conversations and part of the conversations in more and more places. What I do think is, I don't wanna say it's dying, but it's for the same value. There's also this idea that it's creating noise and I think a lot of the tools out there are figuring out how to stop that noise. So you start using it to make content. And that content is not additive. You're getting flagged for that. So I think that world of like, oh, we're just going to pump out a bunch of blog content, like that's actually hurting a lot of people because it's starting to make your domain talk about too many different things. You're no longer an expert. Like we're even looking at some of the stuff for our agency today and we use some language on our homepage. I'm trying to balance out the like, tech and the like, the style. I want to use the term musings, right? I want to use like, hey, this is stuff we're thinking about. And then all the bots look at you and you go, no, no, no, now you're being flagged as like not technical enough, not a data driven. Like there's just so many ways that we have to be cautious of how those tools are being utilized. So again, I think we gotta watch how content creation and how we use these tools to put content out there. I think a lot of people pump the brakes there because they're just realizing it's not doing what we thought it's gonna do. But AI is helping put a lot of content out there. I'd say the social channels, the video stuff, video's been big. I, I would definitely push into figuring out how you can just even conversations like this. Be open, be honest. People need to know that there are individuals behind the organization. Try to balance that out, balance the functionality, the AI with the human centric side of things. Video, be my lean in there.
- [42:41]
A
Awesome. Well, Devin, I'm mindful of time here and we're just at the top of the hour. If you had to leave our audience with one action that you'd hope they might take as a result of this conversation, what would that be?
- [42:53]
C
Yeah, maybe I would throw the idea. Well, I'll think it's maybe two. One is this term we use a lot because it seems so common when we talk to people is random acts of marketing and try to avoid that. I think it's kind of an epidemic because we see all these shiny toys and shiny tools and so we're jumping on a data tool and then we're finding this thing that quadruples our social posts. And then like I said earlier, we got this tool writing a bunch of blog content. We're spreading ourselves out too far. We're doing everything 75%. And I think it's important people to go back, take a hot second and really figure out what it is you are doing to put your message out there and make sure that it's working and to get a system in place that can tell you whether it's working or not. And on the data side of things, I would push people to make a successful what we call composable tech stack. Something that is the technology is out there now where you don't have to have this big, giant, expensive, all in one technology platform. I would encourage people to find the tools that work for them. Tools like Donately can help you glue the data together so the data can move around and don't pay for a bunch of technologies that are doing the same things. I see a lot of the CRMs in the nonprofit space that are trying to be everything to everybody and they're not. And we're still integrating to Salesforce or to HubSpot or to these larger tools. Just be aware that I don't think you need as many of those tools as you may have today and to consider building a system that's easier to plug and play smaller things to get things done.
- [44:27]
A
Awesome. Thank you so much, Javan. We really, really appreciate your time and your expertise on this show.
- [44:31]
B
Well, definitely be in touch on the agency side. I have a bunch of questions.
- [44:35]
C
All right, let's keep the conversation going. Thanks so much for having me.
- [44:38]
B
Thanks.
- [44:39]
A
A huge thanks to Javan Van Groningen for joining us and sharing his wisdom on navigating the complex world of digital fundraising. I loved his honesty about the work required to shift from one to one major donors to a broad consumer base. Here are a couple key takeaways from our conversation. First, clarity is critical. You have to articulate the problem and invite the donor into the story. They don't know exactly where their money is going down to the dollar handle they won't give. Second, embrace the test and learn mindset. Javan suggests aiming for an 8020 SP split. Operationalize what works, but keep 20% of your budget for testing new channels so you don't get left behind. Finally, stop committing random acts of marketing. Success isn't about chasing every shiny new tool or channel. It's about building a tech stack that fits your needs, setting clear leadership KPIs, and sticking to consistent rhythms in your outreach. That's our show. Please like rate, review, subscribe and share this episode if you found it useful. It really helps us grow our impact and write to us@podcastemagi.com with any ideas, comments or feedback. This show is executive produced by myself. Prathana Balachandar and Michelle Abalencia are our editors, Natalia Glowacki is our producer and cover art is by Sudan Shikanth.