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- [00:03]
Greg Warner
If you want to generate the truly transformational, meaningful gifts, whatever that means to a donor, and usually they involve assets, you have to understand the value equation and you have to be the way that for profits are with customers is you have to really care and love your customer. You have to really care and want to hear and love your donor. And unfortunately, the sector as a whole has treated donors like they are disposable and like an atm. It's kind of like, look, we're great. We have great programs. You have money. Give it to us.
- [00:45]
Rob Harder
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the nonprofit leadership podcast Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All of these reasons combined led me to start this show, and it's my hope that through this series people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better.
- [01:19]
Mike Lee
Better.
- [01:21]
Rob Harder
Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm Rob Harder, your host. Fundraising, the topic we're talking about today. And now we've had a lot of different guests talk about fundraising on my show. If you've been listening on a regular basis, today's focus is going to be on data and really good fundraising tools to help you improve as a fundraising professional. So let me give you a little bit of background on my guest and then we'll talk about some of the tools he talks about because I think it's going to be really helpful for you today. My guest is Greg Warner, and he heads up Market Smart. And one of the tools he's going to talk about quite a bit is the fundraising report card. Now, here's the good news for you. It's a free resource and I'm going to give a link in my show Notes where you can just click on it and you can actually do this for free. And it'll give you at least a baseline, a real basic foundational report on your donors, your lapsed donors, the trends within the donors you have, how much are they giving? Are they giving more? It'll help you segment your donors. So a lot of different great things that will come out of this report card. Again, it's totally free just to get you started. Now, of course, he's got a lot of other tools that I'm sure he would love for you to continue to offer and take advantage of. But this initial one is free. And I think it's a great start because what it'll do is help you become more and more intentional with how you are managing your donors. And so within that, one of the biggest things that he emphasizes, and you've heard me talk about this many times, many of my guests have talked about this. And but it's so important because sadly, too often nonprofits get so busy they forget about this, right? And this idea is you never want to treat your donors as walking ATM machines, right? You always want to treat them as human beings, real people that want to talk to you and connect with you as a human being. So you never want to approach people as a transaction. You always want to approach people with this idea of relationship, not transaction. So whether you're an executive director, development director, program director, never treat people, never treat donors as just a transaction. That's where a lot of nonprofits go wrong. And donors notice that very quickly. So he'll talk quite a bit about that. So what are you supposed to do? Well, he gives a couple of different tools. We talked about the fundraising report card. He also will talk a bit about how he's utilizing AI to improve the efficiencies in his organization and the tools that he's providing to for other nonprofits. And what I love about this, you've heard me say this over and over again. You know, my show that when you have the right kind of AI and you utilize it in the proper way, it ideally what it does, it, it takes those repetitive tasks and, and basically takes them off your plate. So you have more time now in your schedule to spend with donors. Spend with people, spend with your staff, actually meeting with them in person, talking to people. That's really what only you can do. And that relational aspect can become even stronger in your day in and day work. And that's by utilizing AI to do those repetitive tasks. So he'll talk about that too. So it's just a really fun conversation. And again, he has really good tools that I think can help you move further, faster when it comes to fundraising at your organization. Well, as always, thanks for tuning in. Now on to my interview with Greg.
- [04:37]
Mike Lee
Welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast with Rob Harder. I'm Mike Lee. I live in Washington, D.C. and I'm a listener just like you. We are all on a leadership journey looking for ways to learn and grow. Each week. I look forward to hearing Rob's latest discussion with his guests. I invite you to join us. Thanks for listening. Now here's Rob.
- [05:01]
Rob Harder
This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, welcome back everybody, to the show. I've got Greg Warner here today. Greg, I always like to start my podcast episodes with inviting my guests just to share a bit about the background, their story, how they got to where they are, in particular for you, how you got to market smart. So maybe just give us a bit of your story today to kick things off.
- [05:24]
Greg Warner
Yeah, sure. Well, I guess you could say I, I'm a serial entrepreneur, although my entrepreneurship is just with this business for the past, let's see, since 2008. And this business, MarketSmart, started off as a marketing agency for private sector businesses. And we would generate leads for sales teams and nurture them with automation. When marketing automation was first born, essentially in 2005 or so, was when that really came into the market. But as I made more money and as I started to learn to give away money and give away money with like a comma in it, and I was only in my early mid-30s at the time, the more I gave, the more I found dissatisfaction with the way that the sector and my favorite charities treated me. And what I learned later was I was a mid level donor, which kind of puts me in a strange category sometimes they either take you off of the transactional list, but then they sort of solicit you in a much greater way, especially when they, well, screen you and they see the size of my home and things like that. Never mind that my mom might have been sick at the time, which she was, and my kids were young and I had college coming to pay for. But anyway, I ended up with dissatisfaction in the way that I was treated. And I called one of my favorite charities and I found the person responsible for sending me what I thought were crass kinds of messages and overly solicitous messages for lots of money without really knowing me or understanding me. And what I learned was that there's a methodology that's been baked into the sector for 50, 75 years and this is the way it's done. And I ended up saying to her, well, why am I so upset then if this is the way it's done? And she said, well, you're not wrong. I get a lot of these kinds of calls. And so I said, well, what if I gave you a strategy that would not tick people off and hopefully make you more money? And I gave her one. I thought about it, I gave her one. And it wasn't that much different than what we were doing for the commercial sector. And it's basically that we would survey supporters and then help them self qualify whether they're ready for outreach or more cultivation. And then we would use that data to power automations so that in this case the lady's name was Judy, could multiply herself and could cultivate relationships personally, but at arm's length until those people were ready for more meaningful contact. So we did that and it worked gangbusters. It was amazing. So much so that she didn't have time to actually call people. And I ended up being the caller for her as a volunteer to help her set appointments. And I would pre qualify and prioritize people and make sure that she was spending time with the right people. What happened was immediately we got referred and to another charity, similar kind of cause that I actually donated to. And then another and yet another. And then we started spreading out and getting referred to other kinds of charities, nonprofits, a college, a big cancer research center. And then I, I said, well, I'm going to shed the old business that was less meaningful and just build this. And I, I decided to build our own software so that we could have more control over the whole operation. And that's pretty much where we are now some 15 years from that beginning time.
- [09:23]
Rob Harder
It's always interesting what prompts people to go into what they're doing. And I like how you turned a really difficult situation into hey, how can I practically help you? As opposed to just being mad, hanging up the phone and getting out of there. So I'm not giving to them again. You know, you kind of turn that painful experience and interaction with now helping all these charities. And I have a feeling this is what led to the fundraising report card. But let's talk about that for my listeners again. You're going to hear about it. You'll see it in your on my show notes for this podcast episode. Episode. There's the fundraising report card. Talk about how that first came about. What was the pain point in the sector you were trying to solve with that original report card? I'm assuming it's related to that call you just had, but tell us more how you developed that and then how it's grown.
- [10:04]
Greg Warner
So it's somewhat related. Again, I stumble on these solutions and the story behind that is that there's a wonder was a wonderful man, he's passed away named Bill Levis. And Bill Leviss was part of the Urban Institute. He worked there and then he created something called the fundraising Fitness Test which was done in. He programmed it himself in C And then which is an ancient programming kind of language. And he would do these analyses for charities to help them understand their data and their metrics. And he created a group that most, most of us know now called the Fund Effectiveness Project fep. And they come out with metrics every quarter. He and I became friends because I think he wrote something or I wrote something. Somehow we became connected and I realized that he lived just a few minutes from my office. So we ended up having lunch fairly frequently about once a month. And he was kind of. He had tunnel vision. He was very old, but I would, you know, walked with a cane and a stick to. So he didn't bump into things. And he loved Indian food. So we'd go to this all you can eat Indian buffet and talk about metrics and the glossary of terms and making sure that it's industry standard and all this kind of stuff. And then one day I said, well, why do you keep using this C. It takes sometimes a data set takes a whole 24 hours to think about it before you even get your results. Why don't you just let me. I'll rebuild it for you in a different kind of. In Python, at the very least in react. And he said, okay, that's a great idea. Go for it. So I started rebuilding that. We got about halfway through building a really great app, and then the committee or whatever of fep, I don't know exactly what happened, but they did not want my app to be part of their. I guess they wanted to keep it kind of separate. I don't know the whole story, but he said, I'm sorry, but you're on your own. So I finished building it, and now I've been giving it away for free to the sector so that people could get their metrics easily as part of my philanthropy. And we do get a benefit at Market Smart in that we get to understand the industry and the benchmarks and it has attracted some. Some customers to us. But now we're also tying it all together with that system that I described before with the surve, the marketing automation prioritization dashboard. But since MarketSmart offers a 10 to 1 return on investment guarantee, what we do is we prove that we actually helped raise the 10 times the investment in Market Smart. We proved that using the fundraising report card, a little different version of it.
- [13:09]
Rob Harder
Okay, well, obviously, yeah, you're an entrepreneur and you get that entrepreneurial spirit that help take an idea and just make something even better and more useful again for nonprofit organizations. So for leaders who are unsure about their Numbers and maybe even overwhelmed by metrics. It's not their thing. How does this fundraising report card really make their performance clear and give them a sense of direction?
- [13:27]
Greg Warner
First, it's the usability of it. It just gives you the simple charts that everybody needs nowadays. Actually, people have told me that sometimes they'll go into ChatGPT or AI and they'll enter their data and they can get the charts as well. But it's not in a dashboard, it's not shareable. It's not like I'm trying to compete with them because we don't generate revenue from it anyway. But it's just very simple that here are your growth metrics, here's your retention, here's your lapsed donors, and it also allows you to segment them by giving level. So it comes prepackaged with like 0 to 100, 100 to 250, $250, $500, 500 to 1000 and then 1000, 5000, 5000 above. So that's prepackaged, but you can go in there and change the figures to your liking and even change the colors. But basically it gives any leader their high level metrics instantly so that they can report to the board. I know some people use it religiously for monthly reports for their like 8 minute session that they get to report to the board how they're doing. And also that way, especially in the lapsed figures, they can very easily see by just clicking on it, you can then see which are the donors that have lapsed, especially the major donors, and make sure that you're on top of that.
- [14:55]
Rob Harder
Interesting. Okay, now you had offered this report card for free, as I understand, for a long time, but you have now built a new one with new features and new pricing. Tell me about what's different about this new iteration and what made this maybe the right moment to make that shift where you're actually charging a bit for it.
- [15:10]
Greg Warner
Yeah, so we haven't launched that yet. It's still in development and it really probably won't be done until later this year. So people can get it while it's free, but the new app will have much more customization and benchmarking potential. So, for instance, we were talking to a consultant that has a specialty with faith based radio stations. So he reached out and he said, hey, I've got some seven right now that I'd like to put in and create a benchmark report for just that super segment, hyper segment. And that's not a problem. That's one easy one. Another is it gives consultants the ability to have multiple customers in one view, or at least under their sort of umbrella. The biggest thing is really the AI capability, which is that. But it'll give you the basic charts that you really need, and we know that everybody needs, but it'll let the user talk to it, to ask it questions and customize or maybe say, well, what happened on this date and compared to that date, you know, maybe there was a gala on the same date or that a direct mailer went out, you know, a year ago, but it was a week apart difference. So they could look at it that way. There's just all kinds of questions that you can ask it. So I think the AI is probably the biggest benefit. Nice.
- [16:33]
Rob Harder
I've had so many people on the show talk about how AI, if you use it well, can really maximize, create more efficiencies and really can be something you could benefit from, whether it be on the user end or the developer end. Okay, so back to the fundraising report card. You mentioned this, that it really is the one of the first offerings that offers real time, up to date peer level benchmarks for those who are listening. Like, what does that mean? Like, what exactly does that mean? How does that change my life as a nonprofit leader? Explain a little bit more. What is it? What, how is it that so important for a nonprofit leader?
- [17:04]
Greg Warner
So this is again coming soon to a theater near you. Right. But the sector has not had a handle on up to the minute benchmarks. If you. And not to disparage in any way, because if you, if you wait for FEP Fundraising Effectiveness Project, they do it quarterly, but it takes at least a month after the end of the quarter, maybe two or three before they come out with their report. And same with anybody else who's doing benchmarking. And big part of that is because of accuracy, but it's also because it's just not done with technology that makes it so it's up to date every minute. So ours is up to date every minute, but will likely, I have to put an asterisk there is although the preciseness of our data, we're not really doing a lot of cleansing or filtering and scrubbing the way that the others are. But I have found that our reports end up being pretty darn close, like within a percentage or two off from what anybody else is saying. So ours are. It would be faster and directional. And frankly, none of those reports can be exact because they're only sampling a small segment of the sector and there is room for error in any kind of data set. But I think theirs would be more accurate. Ours would be faster and more up to date.
- [18:34]
Rob Harder
Okay. No, it's helpful. All right. Well, you've worked with a lot of different organizations. Is there a fundraising metric that you really see as most critical? And number one, so like for development leaders, executive directors, they want to know that. Two, what are some of the common blind spots? What are some of the misconceptions perhaps that leaders tend to have when they look at their performance? They're trying to understand what other trend lines. But maybe there are some blind spots or things that really not looking at correctly. Based on all the research and experience you've had, what would you say to them?
- [19:02]
Greg Warner
First, is the most powerful metric any leader should absolutely pay attention to is lifetime value. Now, this is a somewhat complicated metric to compute, and that's why they don't compute it. Of course we do. But it's the most important metric that anybody can measure because it's the only one that's forward looking, while all the others are pretty much backward looking. So what the lifetime value essentially says is that at the current state of your operation, when you acquire a new donor at a specific level, this is the amount you can expect that they'll give over their lifetime in relationship with your cause. What you want to see is lifetime value increasing. Of course you want to see that. Don't. Because they're retaining and they're increasing the amount that they give. The way that you compute it is a little bit tricky. You have to multiply the lifespan of the donor relationship with the average donation and the frequency of their donation. And the frequency is the number of donations divided by the number of donors. So it's a little bit. If you go to the fundraising report card, there is a glossary there and it explains it and there's blog articles on how to calculate it. But it's really important to understand how your operation is performing and likely to perform in the future, not just in the past, because looking to the past is directional. But it's not as helpful as understanding your lifetime value.
- [20:49]
Rob Harder
I'm glad you're talking about data and really having good data that makes such a difference. I think when you're communicating to donors, communicating to your board for sure, and just knowing where you are, have a good assessment of where you are and where you want to be, and maybe the gap in between where you want to be and where you are. So let's continue to talk about the importance of data because I've had a lot of good people on the show, which I'LL ask a follow up question about Charity Navigator in a bit, but it's related to that because that was Charity Navigator was really as driven by getting data and then telling donors, you know, and mass what this organization's all about and where their money goes, et cetera. So kind of with that same idea of gathering lots of data that are really important. When a nonprofit decides what it means to be really data informed with its fundraising, what are some of the biggest obstacles they run into? Like what are the problems that you've seen again and again that they run into?
- [21:36]
Greg Warner
I'll make a pivot here because not talking about metrics, but most organizations have a very hard time. And I'll be honest with my business, I have a hard time. I'm constantly staying on top of my team and hammering when I see something that doesn't quite look right. It is not an easy job. But getting your data set properly cleansed and organized so that you're making decisions based on real correct data is hard. And that's what I see is probably the biggest problem. And a lot of times it could be data entry or it could be like, well, the previous CFO said that we should count this this way and put it over in this column. And then the new one comes in and changes everything. Well, these are important little tweaks that can really change how you're looking at your operation and understanding whether it's effective in performing and growing or not. However, there's more is that the sadly, especially when it comes to major gifts, organizations measure activities instead of staff outcomes. What that means is, and sadly, all the CRM or whoever builds these tools builds them by asking the customer, I suppose, what they want and what they want is not what they really need. So in other words, they may tell them, oh yeah, we want to know how many calls is my staff making, how many visits, how many proposals, how many solicitations, how many closed gifts and what's the revenue? That's pretty much basically that's all activity oriented and organization centric. It's what the organization wants. What you really need to know, especially in major gifts, is you need to know advancement outcomes. So what you want to measure is has this supporter given you permission to make outreach to them or email them? That's a big one. Have they then, for instance, filled out a survey and signaled interest in giving assets? That's another advancement ticker. Have they moved themselves to the point where they're ready to meet with you? In other words, you want to measure whether the, where the Donor is in the process, not what your staff is doing.
- [24:08]
Rob Harder
Exactly. That's really important. And to have clean data. So important. And then to know what your data means. Right. And then how to communicate then what data you have. Okay, so I mentioned Charity Navigator. A lot of you know what they do in terms of, quote, rating nonprofits in terms of how they use their money, what percentage goes to overhead and administration, etc. Do you. A lot of that sounds like when it comes to fundraising anyway, you're creating a lot of those data sets, not so much for rating a nonprofit, but for helping a nonprofit know. How efficient are they with donors, how effective are they with donors, how many lapsed owners do they have? And again, how much can they predict and forecast for? You mentioned earlier, like a lifetime giving average for one of their donors. So. But it sounds like it's similar in the sense of getting good data is the basis of what you're providing with this fundraising report card.
- [24:55]
Greg Warner
Let me give it to you this way. And this is based on my operational plan, which I wrote to my staff in 2014 when I started understanding AI and studying it. 2014, mind you, that's 12 years ago. And I had this hypothesis for the future of my business and for what I wanted to deliver to the sector. And what I wanted to deliver is the ultimate donor intelligence platform that helps understand the outcomes and where supporters reside in the process, not the activities and what our staff are doing to twist arms and get money out of people. So the system, now if I bring everything together and explain, the system includes this outreach and engagement tool which politely helps people lean into the giving or cultivation process. Grant permission, do a discovery kind of call, but through a survey. And then that signals to this almost, well, nearly sentient kind of avatar. That is what we've been building for so many years of what to say and how to say it and when to say it, and what kind of offers or content to provide people based on where they've been clicking on your website, what they've been saying in surveys or in forms that they download or other data. So this is the warming up period, and we don't have enough staff to do that. And frankly, we don't want staff focused on that. We want staff focused on meeting with people once they're ready, rather than chasing them and cold calling them just because they show up on a wealth screening chart. So this avatar, if you will, is. We call it the virtual fundraiser, but it's not really a fundraiser. It's more of an engagement officer. That's Virtual and does the work for the masses of what one fundraiser could never get done. So the fundraiser actually doesn't have to worry about all that, but they can just do what they really love, which is meeting with people. But then the tie in is that with all the data we've been collecting over the years, we have so much that we know what works when we tie it to the fundraising report card and we look at the final outcomes so that we can then do a sort of retro, what do you call that? Not retroactive, but anyway, we can look backwards to see, okay, these people are the ones who gave, these people are the ones who didn't. What did the journey look like not only with the gift officer, but with their online engagement, their digital body language where they're clicking what they're doing. How did that work? And how then can this system improve upon itself to deliver better content and more value that builds trust and confidence enough so that people will want to talk about big gifts of assets. So that's what we've been building since I working on for 2014. Now finally all the technology is here and my team's working like crazy to connect all the dots and build out the models so that this works and delivers 100 to 1 instead of 10 to 1.
- [28:20]
Rob Harder
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofit's donations? Well, look no further than Donorbox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your fundraising efforts, maximizes donations and simplifies giving for your supporters. With Donorbox, you can create beautiful donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, track donations, and send auto receipts. And the best part, there are no setup or monthly fees and no long term contracts required. So what are you waiting for? Visit donorbox.org today to get started. That is www.donorbox.org. I'm impressed because you're are kind of on the front end, if you will, particularly now that we look at AI and I've as we kind of talked about earlier, I've had a lot of people talk about the implementation of AI to both the create efficiencies as well as just efficiencies around repetitive tasks. And you said, you know, going from 10x to 100x even, and then what does that do? Well, it creates more time for your team at your nonprofit to spend more time face to face, talking to donors, actually interacting with them, having lunch with them, whatever. And I love that approach. I think that is the way of the future and I think more nonprofits need to embrace that. And you Also said something interesting is you don't necessarily have to add more staff, but you also did said you don't have to get rid of staff, it's just you can maximize what you have. Right. And be more effective with what you have by using some of these tools. So to maybe talk a bit more about what have you had to do, perhaps even your own staff, but certainly people you work with to maybe overcome those fears of using AI and this avatar you've talked about, you know, what have been some of the barriers you've bumped into to when it comes to kind of selling people, if you will, on this, a new approach.
- [30:05]
Greg Warner
Well, interestingly, in my own company we found that the more we use AI, the more we actually need more staff, not less.
- [30:12]
Rob Harder
Oh, okay. Yeah, talk about that more.
- [30:14]
Greg Warner
Yeah, well, it's interesting because first we thought, well, we'll, we'll be able to cut staff. But then the more we were able to do and the more value we were able to provide meant that we got more business. And then as we got more business, then we needed more staff to do the things that AI can't do, which is mostly relationship oriented, which is the same thing as we've been doing. Our mission has never been to remove fundraisers from the process. In fact, what we're trying to do is optimize the investment in fundraisers and help them find meaning and purpose and joy in their jobs. Because I had to be honest with you, no, fundraisers really love the job of reading a bunch of surveys and writing tons of personalized, highly relevant emails for cultivation sake and then following up, following up, following up and then cold calling. You know what we want, what they want is they just want someone who's pre qualified and wants to talk to them so that they can start the relationship on a trusting kind of foothold and carry the relationship forward. So if we implement this kind of system, we optimize staff and we make them happier because they're only doing what they love to do, which is conveying wealth, helping people share, really, which gives everybody a lot of joy and not do the repetitive tasks that frankly are beneath them and that the system that I'm talking about can do for them.
- [32:00]
Rob Harder
That's so interesting. Well, I think that you're onto something and certainly I think a lot more nonprofit organizations are moving in that direction. Understanding this is so important and can scale their organization 10x or 100x even. And it's so fascinating that you said when you started doing more of this work with AI, you actually needed to add more people to your staff. But that makes sense because you're adding more value to people. And I think that's a really good point for my listeners to hear, particularly those who are just afraid that the more you implement AI, that means you're getting rid of actual humans on your staff. And that's not necessarily the case. It depends how you use it and utilize it. Okay, so now let's step back just a little bit with it. Broadly speaking, when it comes to fundraising in the social impact sector with nonprofit organizations, you obviously are doing a lot of by providing these data tools. When you think about fundraising in general and the changing landscape we're facing, and we're looking into the next year or even up to five years, what are some of the biggest challenges you're seeing and what do you think nonprofit leaders need to prepare for when it comes to remaining effective in the fundraising space?
- [33:03]
Greg Warner
The biggest challenge is very simple, but it's very hard to fix. And this biggest challenge is that sadly, too many people involved in the sector, and unfortunately especially in leadership and in the board, are not empathetic to the donor experience and are misunderstanding that an exchange of money only happens, especially in the highest figures, only happens when there is an exchange of equal or greater value to the donor. There is no altruism in giving. The exchange has to be fair, honest, and right, and the timing has to be right. And understanding the value equation, because value is in the donor's eyes. So you have to have empathy for the donor and you have to recognize that it's not an activity game. It's not about doing more calls, visits, proposals, and asks, because you could do all that a thousand times more and end up with really literally nothing. If it's done poorly, however, you might end up with some go away gifts and, you know, pat on the head, oh, that's very nice. Go. But if you want to generate the truly transformational, meaningful gifts, whatever that means to a donor, and usually they involve assets, you have to understand the value equation and you have to be the way that not that for profits are with customers, is you have to really care and love your customer. And what's been happening for the past 20 years, it's in the data from the Lilly School of Indiana. The Lilly Philanthropy put out data that shows that in 20 years ago, 66% of Americans gave to charity, but now it's down to 47%. So it's a big drop. People are just saying, I'm not doing it. I want the government to do it. You've Got socialism on the rise. They don't believe in capitalism. And then you've got employees or leaders and board members who think people ought to give because the organization is so great. But I'll end with this because I know this is a big diatribe is the art, the science. Everything about philanthropy and giving is to help support the advancement of the donor's autobiographical heroism. In other words, support their advancement so they can gain a hero story and an identity where they look in the mirror and they say, I did good. I'm a good person. And this is why if you don't want to support that hero story as a leader and you rather want your organization or you to be the hero of the story, and that's where you get to, we're great. Our programs are great. You should give. If you have that mindset, it will run in direct opposition to what the donor really wants. And you can't sell donating or philanthropy to donors. If you want to be the hero. There's cannot. Only in the Avengers movie can there be multiple heroes in the story.
- [36:37]
Rob Harder
Right? Exactly.
- [36:38]
Greg Warner
Otherwise in Star wars, you have Luke Skywalker's the hero. Okay? Obi Wan Kenobi is just the guide. He's just the guide. Be the guide. Don't try to be the hero. Support your supporters. That's the biggest problem I see. And I am sorry I went on such a diatribe about it, but great Star wars reference.
- [37:00]
Rob Harder
Love that they got to love the Star wars reference. But no, it reminds me a lot of. I had Dan Pallotta on the show recently, and he talks about this hero's journey that donors really, at the end of the day, do want, you know, to feel like, yeah, they're kind of a hero in this sense. They would never say it that way, but just they want to make a difference. They want to do good in this community, in this world. And this charity. Opportunity to give to a nonprofit, give to a charity, has an opportunity then for them to be the hero. And then. But bottom line is, I really thought what you said, it was right on this idea of not seeing donors as walking ATMs but really seeing them as human beings. Right. That it couldn't. Should not be a transactional approach, should be a relational approach to your donors. And I think that's so wise. Focus on your donors as real people.
- [37:42]
Greg Warner
Let me be unbelievably empathetic to the leaders and board members that I sort of just bashed a little. I'm going to be. Let's end on a high note for them and be unbelievably empathetic because I've been studying this since I started getting those crass letters from that organization when I here's the problem. And having served on boards and everything, most businesses either have a transactional business like they're a pizza shop or they are a relational business like your wealth manager or your real estate agent. Right. There's one or the other. Charities are mostly both. And when given an opportunity, the gravity always pulls you back to the transactional. It's always easier and more convenient to behave transactionally among your organization people than it is to behave relationally because relationships are sticky and messy and require time and all this stuff. So I get it. Because a organizational leaders have to first realize, hold on, we actually have two businesses we're running that generate revenue here and then they have to pivot back and forth. Yes, we need to do the direct mail and the gala and this stuff and the raffle or whatever, but we also, we need to pivot and change our mindset from transactional and extractional to relational. And this is going to be longer and harder, but the gifts are going to be exponentially greater. So it is not easy to pivot from a different kind of revenue generation. In software that we call it a go to market mindset. They have to run two concurrent go to markets at the same time. But I implore any leader listening to this to just say to them and remember what I'm saying about the transactional versus the relational and recognize that the gravitational pull will and try to swim upstream away from that downstream gravity well,
- [39:58]
Rob Harder
you're getting on something so important. This is such an important conversation. Again, understanding your donors as regular people. Right. This is a relationship conversation. It's not about transactions as you mentioned, but there are transactional aspects to what you need to do, whether it be an events you mentioned. So this is really good. I think my listeners may want to find out certainly more about you and then they probably want to be real interested in this free fundraiser report card before it becomes one where you have to maybe pay. So yeah, tell people how can they find it. What's your website? What's the best place for them to
- [40:27]
Greg Warner
connect with you Website? Well, I'm Greg Warner.
- [40:30]
Rob Harder
Hello.
- [40:30]
Greg Warner
And you can find me very easily on LinkedIn. Somehow I've amassed 20,000 followers, although I don't post that much. But I guess when I do it it's good. Website for market smart is imarketsmart.com got a lot of followers to my blog so you might want to check that out. But then the fundraising report card is@fundraisingreportcard.com I would still bet it's going to be at least six months before we release something new, so take advantage of it.
- [40:57]
Rob Harder
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a great tool. Well, again, super interesting conversation. Greg, thanks so much for your passion and your desire to really provide good tools for nonprofit leaders and for charities to really improve that experience. Going all the way back to that one experience you had that was not very good, wasn't positive. Sadly, you're not the only one that's had bad experiences with nonprofit organizations with their giving opportunities and or lack thereof. So this is really important. So my listeners who are tuning in again today, listen in. You know, lean into this idea of number one, get the tools you need to help improve your fundraising acumen, to improve efficiency in your organization, and check out what Greg has been doing on his website. And this fundraising report card could be just a great first step to kind of get a sense of where you are in your organization, how to improve. So again, Greg, really appreciate you sharing your insights and providing these tools for us.
- [41:47]
Greg Warner
My pleasure.
- [41:48]
Rob Harder
Thanks. Great conversation. All right, everybody, well, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next week. Hey, friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found in on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to, like, subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the nonprofit leadership podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website, Nonprofit Leadership. Well, thanks again for listening, and until next time, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by Donorbox, Donorbox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.