← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
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- [00:00]
Julia Campbell
In a world hungry for change, nonprofit impact matters more than ever. Yet you're asked to constantly do more with less. What if you could do more with more? That's the promise of Bloomerang, the giving platform built for purpose. Fundraising, CRM and volunteer insights are integrated to reveal opportunity and generosity so you can make more connections with more funds raised for even more impact. Now that's more like it. Learn how you can do more with more@bloomerang.com that's B L O O M E R A N G.com now on to the episode.
- [00:46]
Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started.
- [01:34]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Hi, everyone.
- [01:36]
Julia Campbell
This is Nonprofit Nation with your host, Julia Campbell. Today we're going to answer the question, why do women give? And what truly inspires them to give more? And I'm joined today by Jacqueline Ackerman, director of the Woman's Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and a leading voice in gender and philanthropy. And we're really going to talk all things academia, all things philanthropy, all things of your background, and I'm really looking forward to sort of your unique perspective on giving and how gender is a factor in that. So welcome to Nonprofit Nation.
- [02:18]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Jacqueline, thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
- [02:21]
Julia Campbell
So you have dedicated your career to growing women's philanthropy through rigorous research, but you started not in academia. Can you share a bit about your history and how it shaped your perspective on philanthropy?
- [02:38]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Sure, I'd love to. My. My intersection, my interaction with nonprofits and philanthropy actually started when I was a baby. So my parents were aid workers in Haiti, and so I lived there from the time I was 3 months old until I came back to Indiana for undergrad. And that was just a really interesting experience. Hard to put into like one sentence or two. But as it relates to nonprofits, Haiti is the most missionary heavy and NGO heavy country kind of per capita in the world, just because it is so geographically close to the US but also has so much need and so I had the opportunity to see a lot of nonprofit activity and philanthropic investment. And as he may or may not know, Haiti is not really doing amazingly well despite all of this investment. So had the had the chance to kind of see what approaches work, what sorts of people doing the work and their backgrounds are actually making a difference versus the large scale investments that aren't really culturally competent and don't end up making a huge difference, at least not over the long term. They're not sustainable. And so that kind of set me on my path. I knew when I left Haiti that I wanted to stay in touch with that world, whether it meant staying in the US or not, and doesn't seem like it would lead me to research. But I do love that my work helps inform other people about how to fundraise, well, how to invest in women's and girls issues, which is a huge issue both in the US and around the world, and then how to raise up women's leadership in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector. So I'm not certainly a frontline person, but really love to see my work extend out through the sector and hopefully make things better little by little.
- [04:46]
Julia Campbell
I love that. So I think you, you kind of answered this question, but as director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute, I mean, there's really a pretty ambitious research agenda. Can you tell us if, for people that are not familiar with WPI, about WPI's mission and sort of what sets your approach apart?
- [05:05]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Absolutely. So the Women's Philanthropy Institute exists to conduct research, curate research by others, and to disseminate and share research out to the broader population. And that research falls into a couple different buckets. So we were created and originally did a lot of research on women as donors. So gender differences in donors, how are men and women doing things differently? How can fundraisers approach women in ways that appeal to them, et cetera? That is still a core piece of our research. And yet over the years, we had been asked more and more, you know, we're looking at women donors. What about women and girls as recipients of philanthropy? We know that's a huge issue that we just hadn't tackled. And so about 10 years ago, we did really the first inquiries into who gives to women and girls, why do they give, what keeps non donors from giving to women and girls? And then in 2019, we launched the Women and Girls Index, which is the first time that we've been able to measure giving to women and girls and compare it to the broader sector. So if you hear the statistic, for example, that less than 2% of charitable giving goes to women and girls in the US that is from the Women and Girls Index. And so we publish that annually to update that. And we see that the percentage of total giving is moving, but extremely slowly. So it's been less than 2% since 2019 and since our data started back in 2012. Those are though the two main areas of our study. We have recently started to dig a little bit more into women's leadership in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector. There are some excellent other researchers doing that work, but our faculty member, who is Dr. Young Ju Lee, has been at the school for a couple of years now and that's her area of focus. And so in our more recent research, you'll see that issue raised more and more and we intend to do more about that in the future. Just the general concept that we women are the bulk of the philanthropic and nonprofit workforce, but not the majority of leaders of C suite folks. And they are, you know, as you get higher and higher in the kind of asset revenue size of nonprofits, there are increasingly fewer women in leadership of those nonprofits. And so just an interesting area for us to dig into what is holding women back in leadership in the nonprofit sector?
- [07:51]
Julia Campbell
Yes, exactly. So what are some of the most surprising or eye opening findings that you've uncovered about women and women in philanthropy?
- [08:01]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Yeah, so overall we know that women are more likely to give than similarly situated men. We know that they give higher amounts. They give for different reasons. So women are more likely to give out of altruism, a sense of empathy, thinking about the end result or the end user, if you will, of their philanthropy, of their giving. Men tend to give for more, what we call self centered reasons. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can be anything from like I'm giving to this poverty relief center because it operates locally and so it's going to help my neighborhood and perhaps my property values, etc. So their charitable dollars are certainly important, valuable. But men do tend to give in a more transactional way, just a one off gift. Women tend to be giving consistently over time, even if it's smaller amounts. And they spread out their giving across multiple causes and organizations. So that's one reason why perhaps women have not always been recognized for the full value of their philanthropy. And that's something that, you know, if you followed WPI and our research, we harp on that all the time. Women give more, women are more likely to give, women spread their giving out. But that's just a fundamental piece of our research that if you're not familiar, you may not be aware of. The other thing that has really both surprised and sadly like not surprised me is that less than 2% statistic that women's and girls causes in the US are just not getting a huge percentage of total charitable giving. And that is if you kind of look around and see the state of things, maybe it doesn't surprise you, but it is a little bit disappointing that year after year it continues to go up just a little bit, but it's not hit that 2% marker yet as of our 2021 data.
- [09:58]
Julia Campbell
Wow. I know that that really is surprising. That's pretty eye opening for me. But it's not really surprising. It's not like surprising. It's more upsetting, I think. How can we translate this research into action? Because you said that one of your goals is to get the research into the hands of fundraisers and donors who can act on it. So what are like a few tangible ways that the people listening nonprofit fundraisers can use WPI research, I guess to build deeper relationships with women donors?
- [10:33]
Jacqueline Ackerman
I'm glad you asked because that is kind of our North Star is not like putting out 50 page research papers that five people read. And they're all academics. We really do want kind of the frontline folks who are meeting with major donors or who are drafting your annual appeal to have access to this research, even if you don't have time or bandwidth to be able reading everything, attending every webinar, et cetera. And so what we try to do is pair every research launch that we have with an infographic that just gives you the top line findings really easily. And in the case of larger reports, we usually do a quick summary or a how to guide. So as an example, we just earlier this week launched literature review, which is like not the sexiest research I admit. But it, it is important because we started our kind of big research agenda about 10 years ago with a literature review that said, okay, this is the state of the field. This is everything we know about gender and philanthropy. This is what needs to happen to move the field forward. And that was kind of our agenda over the last 10 years. And so this helps us take steps stock of, you know, how have we influenced the field, how have we influenced others to do this research? And what does this kind of look like today? So it's really important research. It's also really dense. And so we have paired that with four user guides that we are trying to publicize just as much as we're publicizing the full report. And so those user guides are for donors, nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, women's and girls organizations, and then women leaders in philanthropy and nonprofits and any allies that want to support them. And so they are one page, and it's like, here's what you should know, here's what you should take away, and here are some concrete actions that you can take and some resources if you want to learn more. And so that's kind of the. A great example of the approach we try to take. As far as, you know, what can. What can fundraisers and nonprofit leaders take away today? It is, you know, you have to approach women differently. And that means everything from the way that you're writing your appeals, the stories that you tell. Are you telling stories? Are women in the stories? Are women donors on your website and telling their stories? Do you have opportunities for women to be part of your organization, whether that's in a volunteer or a committee or even a board role? Are you approaching women donors with incentives to give, like naming a building or a program? Because that is not a thing that appeals to women. And we have so many examples of major women donors actually rejecting those offers. And so what matters to women is, is the end result. It matters who you're going to impact, how you're going to impact them. And you need to pair things like numbers and ROI with stories. And then kind of the basic, even farther back from that is to actually pay attention to women donors. That the stuff I just said is right, if you've already paid attention to women donors, if they're important to you and your strategy. But a lot of fundraisers, especially those less familiar with our work, are kind of using the same old toolkit to approach the same old types of donors. And those are going to be predominantly wealthy white men. And we know that those donors are still important. They're not going anywhere. But we need to expand how we think about donors and what our kind of standard donor is if nonprofits are going to survive and thrive in the coming years, because so much of this great wealth transfer that's happening now is going to win. And so if you're not paying attention to women and how they give, you are going to miss out and leave money on the table. So the other thing I would say is understand that women are giving and giving more, but they're spreading out their giving. And so perhaps you need to have a lower threshold when you screen folks for a major gift officer. Maybe you need to consider a woman's history of giving, even if they haven't given one Lump sum when you screen them. And when you are talking to households with multiple adults, you need to make sure that you are inviting the women along. I've heard too many horror stories of, you know, fundraisers having meetings with husbands of heterosexual households in their offices. And the wives are just like, you realize that I'm the one writing the checks, right? Like, you realize that it's me doing this work. And so it's really important to think about women at all stages of that fundraising process. Yes.
- [15:46]
Julia Campbell
I don't know if you saw the tweet from Stephen King. His wife received a letter and it said, like, Mrs. Stephen King on it, and he tweeted it. I don't think he called out the charity by name, but it was such a great tweet off to find it because he was, you know, he was making the point like, is my wife not her own person? This is something that, like, completely turns both of us off. You know, how much trouble is it for this charity to learn my wife's name? You know?
- [16:16]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Right, Exactly. It's. It's stuff like that. And also, you know, I hear a lot of nonprofits, especially the smaller ones, say, you know, it's really hard to connect with all of our donors on that level. And I just think that, first of all, there are ways of storing your data and of tracking your donors that include different members of the household, giving them hard or soft credit. However you want that to work in your organization and making notes on who the decision maker is. I will acknowledge that it falls through the cracks. I mean, you would think that the Women's Philanthropy Institute would be perfect at this. And yet I saw an email to a donor that I had to be like, nope, we need to make this to the wife. I don't know how that slipped through the cracks. So, you know, even the best among us, it. It happens to the best among us. But I think it's an opportunity to connect with donors. If you, you know, you know, you don't always want your fundraising calls to be about an ask. You want it to be about donor engagement. Thanks, et cetera. And so if you can just call up your donor and say, you know, this isn't a solicitation. Thank you so much for your gift. You know, we have you and your husband listed as this. Is that how you want to be addressed? Yes. Because you will find some especially older generation women who are like, Yes, I am Mrs. John Smith, and I want to be referred to as sure. And that's great. So it is hard to know and just intuit that necessarily so asking is really important.
- [17:49]
Julia Campbell
What I also appreciate about the WPI is the emphasis on viewing giving through an intersectional lens. So how does this lens change the way we understand and engage women donors across different backgrounds? And why is this important?
- [18:05]
Jacqueline Ackerman
It's so important to look intersectionally because women aren't a monolith. We know that black and brown women have different histories of giving, different patterns of giving, different experiences with how they've been treated by nonprofits and fundraisers over history. We know that poor women, we know that disabled women, LGBTQ women, et cetera, all of these different intersectional groups have had their different experiences and often traumas with the nonprofit and philanthropic sector. And so you can't just say, okay, I know how to. I. I know the differences, gender wise, between men and women. And so now I have two groups, men and women. No, they are. They are still, you know, a donor is a donor. They are unique. And you need to understand their backgrounds, especially if you're approaching them for large gifts. We do see that overall, when we look at different racial and ethnic groups, for example, that women are still more likely to give than men, regardless of what group you come from. That said, the way that different folks define philanthropy does differ. And so you have some research shows higher rates of volunteering among white households. And is that accurate? Not necessarily. Because when you dig into that and you ask, for example, you know, I've seen in interviews where talking to, for example, a black woman and saying, do you volunteer? No. Okay, do you volunteer here, here, here? And one line is like, do you volunteer at your church or at your children's school? And she's like, oh, well, yeah, of course. Right. And so there, there are some things that are just kind of built into people's understandings of, like, this is how you live. This is not like philanthropy. And so it is important to realize that even when you're reading research that says there are these differences, you really need to dig in and understand how people's experiences and histories have informed that. And so we know that black and brown communities, communities of color, broadly, are very active in informal philanthropy and interpersonal transfers in kind of the care community, and place a little bit less importance on formal philanthropy, formal volunteering. And so it shows that when you value certain things in research, you're kind of predicting your own results. So when we as researchers are like, yes, dollars are the most important thing, and formal volunteering through a 501c3 organization is how we're going to measure it, Then we kind of predict our own outcomes.
- [20:50]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh, it's so interesting. What about generational differences? Like, are Gen Z millennial women, boomer women giving differently? And how can we respond to that?
- [21:02]
Jacqueline Ackerman
It does tend to be a little stereotypical, but older women are more likely to give to religious causes compared to younger women. And what I find interesting, this is not necessarily from the Women's Philanthropy Institute, but it is from Lilly Family School of Philanthropy research. They did a recent study on younger donors. And what seems to be true for women seems to also be true for younger donors more broadly. And so we know that women think of philanthropy, think of nonprofits and their investments in them as really broad. They are giving, they're giving politically. They are speaking out. They are spending at stores that give back. They are investing their 401ks and other investments in socially responsible investments. And so they're using all of their resources. And in fact, some folks who are working in non profits are like, I am taking a lower pay rate, and that is part of the way I give back. And so that is true for women. And we found in this new research that that is also broadly true for younger donors. They are thinking, not about, I'm giving to this specific organization. Like, they're not like, oh, I'm giving to, you know, the local dog shelter, animal shelter. They're thinking, I care about animals, and I'm going to give to those causes. They're not loyal necessarily to your organization. They're loyal to a cause. And I think that gets stereotyped as they're not giving. But the fact is they are giving. Their loyalty is to a cause, it's not to an organization. And they are giving, but they're giving in a lot of different ways.
- [22:48]
Julia Campbell
So many different ways.
- [22:49]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Those ways are not always recognized. So, yeah, and I just think, you know, this like, kids these days attitude, like, you're not going to change it. You need to adapt to it and meet younger donors where they are. And so if that involves, you know, you partnering with other organizations in the same field to appeal broadly to the younger generation, that's great. If that involves seeing how you can incorporate younger folks into your volunteers, your perhaps a junior board, et cetera, it's, I think, futile to be like, maybe they'll change and become more like the boomers. I just don't think that's going to happen. So if we want our nonprofits and philanthropic organizations to survive, we really do need to meet younger folks where they are and learn from them. There's so much that we can teach them. Sure. But there's a lot that they can teach us too.
- [23:45]
Julia Campbell
Right. And I what I see with Gen Z or even like younger millennials, like you said, they are not bound to institutions. If they want to provide coats to the homeless, they're going to just get a bunch of coats and go out and give them. Exactly. I know my daughter and her friends, they were doing a service project, not affiliated with a nonprofit, and they were making bag lunches and bringing them places they were going to like the senior center and playing games. And it was things that it wasn't, like you said, the formal form. And it probably is not documented in some big database on volunteering, but it is all giving back. And then all of the things that we do for the school school or little League or I'm thinking I volunteer at my children's theater program. Like all of those hours, countless hours that people are spending that really translate into generosity. I think that's so interesting. So what are some trends in philanthropy right now? Like what? First of all, let's talk good news. Is there good news coming out of anything right now? Let's have some good news, maybe. But like, what are some trends in philanthropy that you're seeing? And if it's bad, you can tell me. I can take it.
- [25:07]
Jacqueline Ackerman
I hear you on that. It's been tough for folks in philanthropy lately, especially, funding is being cut. Funding is being cut in ways that are a little bit unpredictable. And so even if you're behind cuts, you're all for them. It's really hard to plan for. And we know that cuts disproportionately impact certain types of organizations serving certain types of communities over others. We have projects from our Equitable Giving Lab at the Lilly School, for example, that show that women's and girls organizations and organizations serving communities of color both disproportionately rely on government grants for their funding. So I'm so sorry. I responded to your question with like, no, it's real bad.
- [25:54]
Julia Campbell
No, I mean, the headlines are bad, but I think the headlines are bad.
- [25:59]
Jacqueline Ackerman
I will say that I try to end every talk or event or panel that I moderate with a like, what? What do you see that is going well? What gives you hope? Because it's not like we're going to leave the field or just what, women and girls? Not a thing we're investing in right now. Like, we're going to keep going. So what is going to keep us optimistic? And a few things keep me optimistic. The global wealth transfer, the generational wealth transfer is and is going to continue to be huge for women. It is going to transform the way that we think about donors, the way that we think about women using their money. It's just going to be such an enormous investment into women's hands. And we know that women are more philanthropic than men, and we know that women care about women's and girls causes and other kinds of marginalized groups when they do give. And so. So I think that is a longer term, 5, 10, 15 year away, but it's still reason for hope. I think sometimes we get caught up in the short term, which is right now really challenging, but in the long term, I think that we are going to see really good things come out of women donors. The other thing that gives me hope is I keep saying this less than 2% statistic about the amount of philanthropy going to women and girls. It's also growing. So when we first started, we saw, I'm gonna say six, six and a half billion dollars going to women and girls. Don't quote me on that exactly. I've got the numbers somewhere. But the last time we published it, it's over 10 billion. And so as a percentage of total giving, it's really not growing or growing very quickly, but as a total amount, it is growing. And we do see some especially major donors like Mackenzie Scott, like Melinda French Gates, really coming out publicly and saying, I am going to invest in this area. This is why you should join me. Here's how, et cetera. So those things give me hope as well.
- [28:13]
Julia Campbell
I love that. I love hearing about the Mackenzie Scott gifts. That always makes me so happy when I see an article about that. So what's your message to fundraisers who want to be more inclusive and intentional in how they build their donor communities?
- [28:29]
Jacqueline Ackerman
I think there are opportunities at every step of the fundraising process to be more inclusive, especially of women donors. And so depending on your role, on your place in that process, there are some simple things. You don't have to take a week off work and totally revamp your way of doing things. There are some simple, small steps that you can take. And so if you are a prospect researcher, as I said, women are less likely to get your attention because they're giving a little bit less over a longer time to a broad variety of organizations. And so if you can figure out how to estimate a woman's broader generosity that might bring more women into your donor roles, if you are doing all of the emails and all of the correspondence and all of the asks, then you need to be paying Attention to how women receive solicitation. So are you incorporating stories? Are you highlighting women donors so that the folks who receive this can see themselves in your donor base? And that's one way to really easily address some of these issues that turn women off. And then if you're a major gift officer, I mean, first of all, just make sure that you are talking to women like you can look through your calendar, say, okay, I have all of these meetings. Have I asked this person if there are any other people in their household they'd like to include? Even if it's already a woman, she might want to bring in the next generation. She might want to bring in a relative, a parent, a sibling. And so it is important to kind of go through and say, am I meeting your needs? You know, I think our role is, of course, to be responsive to our own clients and the people that we serve. But if you meet the needs of the donor as well, in terms of incorporating family values and the next generation into those conversations, you're only helping your organization out in the long run because that's the way to have sustainable investing from those families from generation to generation. And then, of course, it's how you thank people if you do so important, if you do, you better thank people, how you record those conversations and those interactions in your databases. So regardless of like your role, it is entirely within your power to do something small that will still impact how your organization sees and is seen by women donors.
- [31:04]
Julia Campbell
I love that. Well, Jacqueline, where can people learn more about you and the Women's Philanthropy Institute and connect with you online?
- [31:12]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Yes, yes, we have a website. It is a long URL, so I'll make sure that you have that put.
- [31:18]
Julia Campbell
In the show notes.
- [31:19]
Jacqueline Ackerman
You can always just Google Women's Philanthropy Institute, Indiana University. And then we are Also on X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and so you can find us there. We put a lot of content out on LinkedIn and you can kind of see see our announcements about webinars and other events there.
- [31:41]
Julia Campbell
I love that. Well, thank you so much. This has been really eye opening, really interesting. I've learned a lot actually of taking notes and I know that my, my listeners are going to appreciate it. So I just really appreciate you coming on and sharing your knowledge.
- [31:58]
Jacqueline Ackerman
Thank you so much.
- [32:06]
Julia Campbell
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening.
- [32:11]
All the way to the end.
- [32:12]
If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram @JuliaCampbell77 Keep changing the world you non profit unic.