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- [00:00]
Rhea Wong
Hey you. It's Rhea Wong. If you're listening to nonprofit Load On, I'm pretty sure that you'd love my weekly newsletter. Every Tuesday morning, you get updates on the newest podcast episodes. And then interspersed, we have fun special invitations for newsletter subscribers only and fundraising inspo because I know what it feels like to be in the trenches alone. On top of that, you get cute dog photos. Best of all, it is free. So what are you waiting for? Head over to riawong.com now to sign up.
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Katie Troyer
Foreign.
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Rhea Wong
Welcome to nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host, Rhea Wong.
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Katie Troyer
Hey, Nonprofit Lowdown listeners, it's Rhea Wong with you once again with nonprofit Lowdown. Today I am talking with my friend and former student, Katie Troyer. She is the executive director at KGSA foundation, which stands for the Kybera Girls Summer Soccer Academy. And today we are talking about the joys and challenges of raising money for an organization that is outside of the U.S. so, Katie, welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here, especially with you, my mentor. I've learned so much from you in the last year.
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Oh my gosh, I. It's been a delight to work with you. But before we get into the nitty gritty details, tell us a little bit about kgsa.
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Yeah. So KGSA is the Cabarra Girls Soccer Academy. And it's a free high school that serves around 150 vulnerable girls in the Cabarrus slums of Nairobi. And the foundation is based in the US and we are the fundraising and marketing arm for the school. Our team is small, just me and my fabulous executive assistant, Miriam. I want to give her a shout out. In addition, I have 10 board members across the US and so I work very closely with our school director, Clarice in Kenya, who is a phenomenal leader and actually the first female director of the school. So we're all about educating, inspiring and empowering girls.
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That is awesome. As someone who has been to Ghana once before, an incredible country and incredible work. Actually, the question I have before we jump into the nitty gritty is I'm just wondering, how are all of these funding changes in the country and the tariffs and the cutting off of humanitarian aid, how is that affecting your organization, if it is at all?
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So we are too small to get USAID funding. However, the international development sector has been attacked. First it was the illegally dismantling of USAID and cutting pepfar, which is saving lives all over the world, especially in Africa. So it's a really hard time with my sector. And so I was just at a conference at the Posner center for International Development last month and most organizations of course had to make cuts if they got USAID funding, both cutting programs, cutting staff. And so what they're doing is they did admit that most of them hadn't been focused on private philanthropy before. And so now a lot of them are hiring development directors and they are hoping to fundraise from individuals, foundations, family foundations, especially here in the US So it's going to be a more competitive market. But fortunately we have 300 donors across the U.S. we have very great donor stewardship. We have people who love our mission in school. So my focus is just going to be focusing on improved donor stewardship, trying to get more FaceTime with them. And now is just a time, I think, to survive and do what you do best the next three years until we hopefully have a change of policy.
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Yeah, I think that's right. And actually that's what I'm counseling everyone on is double down on the community that you have, bring them closer, add tremendous value. And I think this is the same advice I had during COVID as well, which is like, people are going to save us.
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Yes, exactly.
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So talk to me about this because this is a challenge I hear with some nonprofits, which is the work that you do isn't so readily shown. It's not so easy for you to just invite people for a site visit and meet the girls and so on and so forth. So how have you been thinking about bringing the work to people? When your work is in Kenya, your donors are in the US like how do you make it real for them?
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So something that I. So I've been leading the foundation, this is my fifth year and something that I've done that has been very successful is taking donor impact trips to Kenya. So that means taking donors from the US to KGSA to see the impact. And there's something really magical that happens at kgsa and you can only understand it by visit videos, brochures don't do it justice. So this school, small school, is having a huge impact on the lives of girls in Kibera. And if it wasn't for kgsa, these girls education, most of them would just end. They're so grateful to receive a free high school education and boarding. So quite remarkable to meet them and witness how education is changing their lives. So the last trip I did was in February. I took a team of 25 supporters from the US to Kenya to visit the school. The trip was nine days, including international travel and we Planned it over Presidents Day weekend so people didn't have to take as much vacation time. And the main goal was to inaugurate the new classrooms. Many of the travelers had donated significantly to the successful capital campaign. And so they wanted to be there for the ribbon cutting. And it was a beautiful ceremony with speeches and dancing. It was very joyful. And then we also toured the school, played soccer against the school team. We lost. They beat us like 11, 2. It was quite embarrassing, but very fun. We visited the girls homes and of course we did some sightseeing for some people was their first time to Africa. And others had visited KGSA a few times before. But regardless, people returned to the US on fire for kgsa. They're passionate about our mission to educate, inspire and empower girls in Kibera. And they share their trip experiences with their family and friends. And that creates a pipeline of prospective donors for me to follow up with. So I'll give you a few examples from this last trip. One couple from Denver is hosting a fundraiser at a wine shop in a few weeks. Another supporter donated $25,000 while we were in Kenya and is connecting me with people in his business world. These trips are worth the time and energy to plan and lead. I have a lot of people who are like, oh my gosh, that sounds like so much work. I don't think it's worth it. But it's the. It's my favorite part of my job. And this was the second trip I led like this and I've learned a lot of lessons. We offered a trip back in 2023 to celebrate the opening of the long awaited dormitory. And that was 42 people. Way, way too big, way too many. So this year I scaled it back to 25. On both trips, I divided the larger group into smaller pods of six to seven people and each pod was assigned a leader. Many of my board members led pods. And then in each pod we had three student ambassadors and a teacher to host the group. And this model has been extremely successful and people really bonded with their fellow POD members. In the future, I hope to offer trips twice a year, maybe even three times a year, but with smaller, more intimate groups of supporters, probably between 10 to 12 people. These trips are also a great way to engage my board. On both trips, board members have brought their family and friends, many of whom became major donors. I know other non profits do it and some of them delegate out the trip planning to consultants. There are both for profit and non profit groups, teams that do this, but for us it made sense for me to do it. And I work with a Kenyan ground agent that's owned by a female, a Kenyan female, which is rare these days. So our money, our tourist dollars are going back to Kenya, where I believe they deserve instead of like international corporations. So it's a win win for everyone locally and for us here in the U.S. yeah.
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Okay. I have so many questions about this because it sounds like these trips have been a real benefit in terms of both bringing in new prospective donors and really getting folks who are already donors to be excited to tell their friends about it on the outside. I am imagining that it might be difficult to like convince someone to go on a trip to Africa. So I'm just curious, has that been a challenge or how do you frame that so people are like really excited and carve out time to go because they also have to pay for the trips. Right? So they're paying for the trip. They're taking time away. Nine days is like a pretty significant chunk of time. So what is it that you do to help people get to get to a yes to come on the trip?
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So first of all, I announced this trip about six to nine months before we go. And when I announce that there are people are immediately like, I've always wanted to do this, sign me up, or I love the last trip, I want to go again. And other people who are like, that's not my thing. But that's amazing. So honestly, people self select so I don't have to do a lot of convincing. We do different preps, like the itinerary. We stayed a very nice hotel with a nice buffet breakfast that I know people won't get sick at. We have a swimming pool. So it is definitely a comfort trip. Like, I'm not asking them to have any hardship on this trip, but it's definitely different taking the 20 minute bus ride, actually, we go in Matatus, like little private vans to Kibera and go into the biggest slum in Africa. And so we do a lot of conversations ahead of time over expectations about how to act both for our safety and to be culturally competent. And if I feel like someone's really not a right fit for the trip, I'll be honest with them. But honestly, everyone who's gone, most of them are already world travelers. Some of them have never been to Africa or never been to Kenya. And it's on their bucket list. And so it's a trip of a lifetime for them. The prep is not too hard because people really self select. Plus, as you said, their paying for this trip and so they are choosing to do this more service oriented rather than going on a true vacation. This is more of a service learning trip to learn about our mission and see the impact of their dollars, which goes a long way in Kenya.
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So the something that you said which I think is really interesting is that you have donors who are raving fans. I know your donor retention is very high and I think part of it is that you've really doubled down on building community. I know a lot of the donors that you have been connected to, board members and pass board members. So talk to me about the ways that you build community aside from this trip, because I think the trip is great. But you know, it happens once a year or twice a year. So there's a lot that has to happen in the in between times. So what is it that you all are doing?
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Yeah, so community building is critical to our work and it's also challenging because our supporters come from all over the US and since like you said, our programs are based in Kenya, not everyone's going to go. So we have to bring the KGSA magic to them. So first of all, I write a weekly E Blast that goes out to everyone and I really work with our Kenyan staff to do storytelling. We have a journalism club at the school. They make videos, they take photos. So people we have like usually a 50 open rate and a good engagement rate, maybe a click through of 5 to 7%. And every time I send an engaging email that's tell stories, I probably have five to 10 donors who immediately within the first hour it sent out email back and said this is so great. Keep up the good work. So one is very engaging storyteller E Blast. We've tried to organize different events in the cities where we have the most supporters. So the Twin cities in Minnesota where we started, Denver where I live, San Diego and Boston, and we have board members in all those places. So we try to balance between hosting fundraisers and fundraisers because I don't want to ask for money every time I actually see someone. We also try to organize a tour, every US tour, every two years where I travel across the country with one of my Kenyan colleagues or an alumni of the school to thank donors, recruit new ones and build community. However, that may be more difficult under the current administration, which is another reason why I'm planning to pivot to more donor impact trips. And I'm really hoping that the people who go to Kenya, since I can't be everywhere in the US that they help me organize community events maybe twice a year where I don't have to be there, but either a board member there or someone who's really passionate about KGSA is, hey, everybody, I'm going to this soccer game. Join me or let's have happy hours somewhere. So a lot of it has to be our supporters helping me to organize it because I'm a one person organization, plus my executive assistant and I can't be everywhere. So it is a challenge. But I think we do it well with the limited resources we have.
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Yeah. And I think the other thing that it's like incredible to me when we first started working together to see how passionate people were about supporting girls education in Kenya, if you're US based, I just, I think I didn't expect the extent to which people would be so committed to a cause that many of them have never seen firsthand. What do you think the secret sauce is there?
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So I think it all starts with our founders. So Ryan Banning was on study abroad when he met our founder of Dual. And at that point, KGSA was a soccer program for girls. And it had evolved into the first free high school for girls in Kenya. So at that time, it was like 13 girls in a shack with mud floors and two volunteer teachers. And Abdul said, I have a dream. I have a vision of a school serving many more girls. Can you help me? And so Ryan went back, he was from the Twin Cities, and he started recruiting families and friends. And it just really started grassroots and locally led. And because we've really been intentional about communicating how dollars can really go really far in Kenya, people are just super excited to give and know that their dollars is changing the lives of a girl. And for me, I'm very passionate about telling a story. I have a daughter who's now 14. She's been to Kenya with me three times. And to know that she's graduating from eighth grade soon and to know that if she lived in Kenya, she could be married off, she could be maybe working and have to support herself or her education could end. And I think there are a lot of moms, grandmas, aunts, dads who really believe in their daughters, their granddaughters, the girls in their community. And so this is a way to honor them and to help girls around the world because they realize not everybody has the privileges that our girls do growing up in the us so it's just something very special.
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Yeah. And I think to really tapping into that personal perspective of, here's how KGSA intersects with my own life. If I, if I have a daughter or a granddaughter, or if I was a girl growing up. I think we can all understand that. We want to be able to provide opportunities to other girls.
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Absolutely.
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So let's talk about your board members, because I know you said a lot of your donors are coming from board member introductions, and I know the big challenge that folks have out here is getting their board members engaged to do things like host events, make introductions, come to various events. So what are you doing to energize your board members or get them aligned? Because you. It's a small but mighty board. Five people, if I'm remembering correctly, we.
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Have 10 people, but half are the original board. Basically from the half had been on the board for over 10 years.
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Okay.
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Yeah. I think that it's fairly common with small nonprofits like us to have a different board when you first get going and then you evolve and need a different board. So when we first started, we needed passionate board members to roll up their sleeves and offer time and talent to get the organization up and running. And the foundation received its 501C3 status in 2011. And some of our board members have been involved since then or a few years after that, and it's only natural that they wouldn't have the same passion or time now. Also, when they signed up to be on the board, there was no expectation that they would need to fundraise, network, connect, help me build the donor pipeline. However, we're a much different organization now. This is my fifth year leading the foundation and the four new board members I recruited were onboarded with the expectation that fundraising was an important part of their board responsibilities. So it's no surprise to them and they are my biggest front fundraisers on the board. We just had a strategic planning retreat and one of our work pillars is organizational sustainability in terms of fundraising and board development. So we're planning to create a board matrix, identify any gaps and recruit new members. I also hope we will. I also hope we will introduce a give or get go for each board member and turn limits in the near future. I love my current board chair, Diane, who is super smart and retired from the med tech device field. She joined the foundation in 2020 just before I did, and her plan was always has always been to serve a few terms and then roll off to give the opportunity to someone else while continuing to be a KGSA donor and advocate. And she's visited KGSA twice and she tells everyone she knows about the special school. She's recruited her fellow cross stitchers, her former colleagues, her husband's co workers and her family. And that's the passion I need from every board member. So I think we'll get there. And also you and you taught me something very important in our class was to bless and release. And so letting people know, it was an honor to have them thank you for their work and just encouraging them to take a break. It doesn't mean they can never be a board member again, but just helping them to have a little bit more self awareness of what the organization needs and what they can bring at this time. So it's probably my hardest part as a executive director, working with my board chair. For sure.
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Yeah. And I will say too, the way that I've seen it work is in my own experience and from what I've seen with lots of organizations around, around the way is it's usually one or two board members that really changes the culture of a board. And so for my organization it was Liz, if you're listening, it was Liz who came on and was really willing to give personally, was willing to have conversations with other board members about accountability and expectation. And in partnership, I think we really changed the whole culture of the board. So it, it's usually one person that can tip the scale.
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So that's it. Because we have half our board, so we should be there soon.
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I think Diane's doing a great job. So maybe Diane is the person for you. Talk to me a little bit about how you're thinking in terms of using the momentum of the trips to Kenya to then bring more people into the fold. It sounds like it's happened quite organically. But is there a strategy that you're implementing?
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So we created this year a new program, two new programs actually, an advisor program and an ambassador program, one to off board board members into other very important roles and also to onboard people and have a pipeline not only for donors, but for board members. So the ambassador program is for people who want to help us tell the KGSA story. So when we were in Kenya, I talked about this and I had a sign up sheet in their welcome folder. And it's just, here's how you can help us spread the KGSA story. Gift our books to someone. You can host a community dinner or Jeffersonian dinner as they were formerly called. You can introduce someone to Katie or a board member and go to coffee in your area. You can follow us on social media, share social media, post or share a newsletter. So that was in the packet and I had six people sign up to the ambassadors, which is great. And so my goal is to work with them one on one with an ambassador Plan this year of like, how we can spread to their network. And then the advisors are all the different areas where we need advising. So finance, I T, legal, accounting, fundraising, all of that. And so we had another six people who were on the trip be like, hey, I'm really interested in this. This is where my professional skills lie. So the way that we'll be engaging them is when we're done with our strategic plan, we'll share it with them and say, where do you want to plug in with your expertise and be in our work group to help? So those are two ways that we did more structure. Before, it was more organic, but this year I really wanted to structure it. I learned a lot in BAG too, about structuring spreadsheets, man time management. So yeah, that has been very helpful. And it people feel honored to be welcomed into a community and to be like, I'm an ambassador, I'm an advisor. So it's really great.
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Yeah, I love that. Okay, I'm gonna talk about me since we're on the topic. So before we started working together, what were the biggest challenges that you were facing in terms of fundraising?
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I think I just did not have enough time to do all the things I needed to. So I. Fundraising was just here and there and I didn't really. It wasn't strategic and it wasn't a plan. But the thing that I took away from bag, the main takeaway was how to prioritize my limited time and energy. So I'm focusing on the fundraising tasks that bring the most return on investment. That sounds really easy, right? And if you listen to podcast or get her email blush, you can learn a lot. But honestly, taking like a crash course and going through all the BAG modules, I learned a lot and I think so there's different stages, right? And the stage where I needed to improve the most was the qualifying stage. Because before I would meet with someone and I was spending a lot of time meeting with people without having a plan or direction on why I was meeting with them and how to follow up. So now I go into every meeting with a prospective donor or partner with the intention of finding out, one, are they interested in us to do they have the capacity to give? And three, what are my follow up steps? And this has saved me so much time and energy because I used to chase new leads and lapse donors and some people just want to be on our weekly newsletter list and are interested in donating or don't have the capacity to, and that's okay. And sometimes people give a nice one Time donation because their friend asked them to, or that was their passion in the moment, and they move on. And that's okay. And I think I had a lot of guilt about people who told me no or weren't interested, and so I chased them. But you have taught me if they're not interested, they're not your people. And it's okay. There's enough people. Just find your people. So I think that's the biggest takeaway I had. And I also had new ideas, like cleaning and segmenting our email list, engaging supporters with donor surveys, and then the community dinners. And your program is great because it was all the tools I needed, like the templates and the coaching calls and the weekly group calls and then the Slack channel. Like, just to be in an environment where there's other EDs and development directors. Like, I really felt like I had a community of support. And so the investment was well worth it. Our revenue increased by 25%, which is incredible for a small organization like us. Yeah. I recommend you to everyone. I recommend you to everyone.
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Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you so much. So let me just dig into this because I love a success story. Is there any gift that you could point to that you felt was a direct result of the stuff that you learned working with me?
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During our last US Tour, which was in September and October of last year, I remember we were talking in our group about how it's so hard to crack donor advice funds. Like, it's just no one knew how to do it. And we had gotten a few anonymous gifts through a community foundation in the San Diego area. And so I thought, you know what? I'm just going to invite them to our community event and see if they can come because they have donors that are interested in us. So I got connected to someone and she said, I'll pass it on. Of course I can't share their information. And she said, oh, you know what? I have someone who actually already supports something in Africa, and they can't come to the community event that they'd be open to coffee. So we went to coffee with the deaf advisor was there. This family was there. I was also with one of our alumni from the program. So a Kenyan perspective. We had a lovely chat over 45 minutes. I gave them the materials, gave them the books. And then after the meeting, I asked the DAC advisor how to follow up with them. And they said, you know what? They seem very interested in your wash project, your well project. Maybe just send them a pitch and low pressure. Hey, you seemed interested in this. Do you want to support it. And lo and behold, like, within 24 hours of sending that email to them, they said, we are funding this 100%. And they wrote a check for $45,000. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. I think Marvin prepped one of your colleagues. Marvin prepped me for that call beforehand, and I went in with such confidence. And so that's just like one of the run of the results.
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So, yeah, I love that so much. And, Katie, I have to tell you, it's been such a delight to work with you because you are an action taker. I know you're the kind of person that, like, you tell you what to do, and you're just going to go and take it and run with it. And so it's been so fun working with you.
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Likewise. I miss. I miss the group, but I'm busy implementing everything you taught me.
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You can always come back in. Last question for me. If folks are listening to you and they've been on the fence in terms of working with me, what would you recommend?
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Definitely set up the one on one call with you so you can learn more about their organization. And it's really helpful to have a board member on that call. Again, my wonderful board chair was on there. And so when I pitched the cost of the program with her to the finance committee, they were like, absolutely. Like, Katie needs this. And I honestly had told them I have taken every free webinar, read all of the E blasts, the newsletters, listen to podcasts. Like, I've done as much free advice as I can, and now I just need coaching that's more customized and individualized. And so I would say bring an advocate with you. So, like, for me, it was bringing my board chair, Diana Long. She's been an amazing partner in all of this.
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Yeah. And you know what? I will tell you, too. Katie is from where we started to where you are now, it's like a one. You're confident. You're so strategic. You're so clear about what you're trying to achieve. And it's not that you weren't before, but I think the program has helped you really crystallize your focus. I don't know if you think that's correct.
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Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think it was a year ago we had that initial colon, and I started in June. Yeah, yeah. And I think our major donors would say that, too, that, like, Katie. Katie is more intentional in our meetings. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I love that. All right, my friend. This has been so fun. So folks are listening out here. And you think that it's hard to raise money for an organization that is not in the U.S. listen to Katie, because she has successfully done it. She's built up these really powerful and close knit communities and she continues to raise more money. So congrats, Katie. I'm so proud of you.
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Thank you. And if you want to learn more about us, you can go to our website, kgsafoundation.org/e blast. And we'll have a little incentive if you sign up for our E Blast. We like to give away some freebies to people who are new to our community. So you can also follow me on LinkedIn. I'm Katie McNeiltroyer there.
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Okay. And I'm gonna make sure to put all of your info in the channel.
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Okay?
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Katie, thank you so much.
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Thank you.
- [25:53]
Rhea Wong
Thank you. Hey fundraisers. Looking to nail those big fundraising asks? Check out my Big Ask gift program@riawong.com bag. Say goodbye to uncertainty and hello to.
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Katie Troyer
Confidence with my program.
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Rhea Wong
Get expert strategies and personalized support to secure those game changing donations. Don't let fear hold you back. Join me and take your fundraising to new heights. We're enrolling now@riawong.com bag. That's riawong.com bag. So if you like big asks and you cannot lie, I'll see you in the program.