← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
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- [00:00]
Julia Campbell
Convincing your board to invest in nonprofit tech can feel like a challenge. And that's why Neon1 created Six Steps to Sell your board on nonprofit technology. This guide walks you through identifying your needs, showing how technology can streamline operations, and tackling common objections. All to make your case confidently. Just visit neon1.comjulia to download it free and empower your mission with the right tools. That's neonone.com Julia. All right, on to the show. 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 PODC 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. Hi everyone. Welcome. Welcome back to Nonprofit Nation with your host, Julia Campbell. Today we're going to talk about how to engage younger donors and how to connect meaningfully with diverse audiences. My guest is Rapinder Denza and Rapinder is the Director of Mass Marketing at Make a Wish Canada. She's an expert strategist and storyteller and she's worked with numerous organizations across Canada and the U.S. including UNICEF Canada, save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, or Medicine. My French is bad medicine Sans Frontiers. Is that terrible? Anyway, one of my favorite organizations, Guide Dogs for the Blind, and many others. She's a self proclaimed fundraising nerd. Love it. And is passionate about serving great missions to make the world a more compassionate and just place. So, Rapinder, thank you so much for being here.
- [02:32]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to do this.
- [02:35]
Julia Campbell
Yes. And can you please correct my horrible French and say it correctly?
- [02:39]
Rapinder Denza
I'm probably going to butcher it too. But it's. I think it's Medicine Sans Frontiers.
- [02:44]
Julia Campbell
Yes.
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Rapinder Denza
And I probably said that terribly.
- [02:46]
Julia Campbell
And you know that I studied French like for years.
- [02:48]
Rapinder Denza
I live in a bilingual country.
- [02:52]
Julia Campbell
It's so funny. Well, let's start with a fun anecdote from your past that I saw on your LinkedIn profile. So it's your fault for putting it there. Your grade seven story about WrestleMania. I want to hear everything about this. And how does this story reflect sort of your love of storytelling and how you have come to be Doing what you're doing?
- [03:18]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah. Oh, my God, I love this story. And I'm so excited that you asked me. So I was a huge WrestleMania Wrestling WWE amazing. I was obsessed, and so was my entire family. Like, we were just obsessed with it. So in grade seven, there was this contest in. In Canada, there's like. There's this school kind of like, competition where everybody from grade seven will. Will submit a story. And it has to be a short story. And if you get selected, it goes into this sort of booklet of all the stories that were published for that particular year, and it's sold and it goes into the libraries and everything. So I was really exc. So I picked to write about WrestleMania because I had this really epic story about how we were obsessed with WrestleMania, me and my brother, my cousins, and we really wanted to watch it. But in Toronto, in order to watch it was pay per view. And we didn't have the box that you could record the pay per view from. So we begged and begged our parents to go and get us this, like, pay per view box so that we could actually order it and watch it all together. So it was this story. I wrote the story about this journey that we went on to as a family. We had to go. There was only a few stores that were selling it at that time, too. And because we wanted it at such a short time, we forced our parents to drive us, like, downtown Toronto so that we could get.
- [04:31]
Julia Campbell
This is a movie that I would watch it, literally.
- [04:34]
Rapinder Denza
And then. And then we finally got the box and we were so excited and we popped our popcorn and we got everything ready. And I remember sitting there and our eyes were glued to the screen. And it was the WrestleMania that was in Toronto as well. So we were so excited.
- [04:47]
Julia Campbell
And who were the wrestlers? I mean, I only know, like, Hulk Hogan, but I don't. I know Ryder Roddy Piper. I don't know. I'm dating myself because it was in the 80s.
- [04:55]
Rapinder Denza
It's totally fine. But it was like. It was the. The prime of the, like, Undertaker. There was the. Hulk Hogan was still around, but he was a part of this, like, group. It was called the. I recently watched the Vince McMahon documentary and I figured out they had, like, different eras of. And it was the attitude era. So that was the biggest era of wrestling as well.
- [05:13]
Julia Campbell
Like Taylor Swift. But WrestleMania.
- [05:15]
Rapinder Denza
But WrestleMania. So I was so excited. So I wrote that story and I wrote the whole story about the journey. And out of all the grade sevens, I got selected and my story got selected and it was published. And I remember just being so excited. I was like, this is a story I really wanted to share. And it got published. And then that just kept igniting my need and this ability I wanted to have to tell stories. And so I was always the person that wanted to tell my friends stories. I always wrote more short stories. Even to this day, I've been taking, like, creative writing classes and. And it's really taken me into the journey I'm doing with the work I like to do with nonprofits, which is all of our nonprofits that we've all worked with. Julia, you've touched as well. There's stories to be told. Whether those are stories of families, of kids, of. Of dogs, of. Of anybody. Like, these are all stories that need to really be told. And that's what ignites my passion. I think storytelling connects us all. And one of my favorite quotes is from an author that's based in Canada. His name is Thomas King, and he wrote the Truth about Stories is that's all we are. It's what's left of us. It's what's left of other parts. If you think about history, history is just one long story that's been told to us. And so that's something that's been really impactful for me is storytelling, and truly the impact of storytelling.
- [06:28]
Julia Campbell
Did you read Sapiens by Yuval Harari? I feel like I ask everyone I meet this.
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Rapinder Denza
I have that book on my bookshelf, which.
- [06:34]
Julia Campbell
It's incredible. You would love it. You would love it. It sounds very academic, but it's actually about how humans, how sapiens evolved on the basis of telling stories, whether fictitious or otherwise. It's really amazing. I know it's, like, so thick and, like, very heavy, and it seems very intimidating. But honestly, it's one of the best books about storytelling and the history of storytelling I've ever read. I'm just such a huge fan of Make a Wish, and I want to tell a story that I have about Make a Wish. And it's not Make a Wish Canada, but it was. I was at the airport, at Logan Airport in Boston, and I was just, you know, sitting in the terminal, waiting to get on a plane. I think I was going to Orlando for a conference, and the Make a Wish group from Massachusetts and from Boston came in with balloons and an entire band, and they were sending off this family to Disney World, you know, granting the wish of the child. I will never forget that. And I think even like telling the story of witnessing that is a story. As your director, you know, the director of mass marketing at Make a Wish Canada. So what does your day to day look like? Is it just that? I mean I saw people filming, I saw people sharing and what do you find most rewarding? There must be so many rewarding and very challenging things.
- [08:01]
Rapinder Denza
My day to day is always very interesting. So under my portfolio I look after all of our annual giving and I also. So that includes our, all of our direct mail email marketing. I look after the monthly donor portfolio. I also look after lead generation, mid level legacy giving and then our signature events program also sits under my portfolio. So my day to day is very different based on where I need to focus. But truly it's just how do I engage audiences based in different channels. That's really what it is. And my different audiences. Right. Whether those are event donors, event participants, truly for Make a Wish for us events is a very big revenue driver for us. And that's just because it's that community based and people love to community fundraise. And these, you know, wish kids, they're, they're, they're celebrities in their communities. Right. People know about them, they want to help support them. They get really excited when these kids wishes get granted and so that's a very community.
- [08:55]
Julia Campbell
I was so excited. I had no idea what was going on. And I thought this is amazing. There was so much branding but so much excitement.
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Rapinder Denza
Yeah.
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Julia Campbell
Around it.
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Rapinder Denza
Yeah. And that's the, that's the big part. But one of the things I think with, with my role in the area when I came in is there is a lot of excitement, there's a lot of joy. It is a very hopeful organization. But how do you turn that to drive action? So how do you get people to think that, you know, when you have so much happening in the world and you know, we all know when you're in relief and development or where you're in the area where these kids are diagnosed with critical illnesses, but you're the frontline hospital that's, that's helping to save their life in a different way when it comes to how do we get people that know us and they love us and they're like, oh you do great work. But how do we turn that into actually financial commitments and financial supporting towards us? Because that's the thing, it's. People see us as a nice to have and we need to move to a need to have. And that's a big part of when I came in is how do I do that? I feel like that is truly every single day is figuring out how do I get my Audience, regardless of my channel to activate, how do we find new audiences? How do we get out there? Because everybody I talk to is like, oh, I know, make a wish. But then when we ask them, what do you think make a wish does, the number one thing we get told is you're a dying children's charity, so you're helping dying kids. And that's definitely not what we do. Of course, there are portions of our of children that are in palliative care and we have urgent response wishes. But the vast majority we know from research that medical outcomes are improved, health outcomes are improved because of wishes. So that's what we're really focusing on, is getting that story out there. And that's a big part of our fiscal. Just switch over. So fiscal 25. That's a big part of it. And that's really. When you asked me the question of what I find most rewarding about my role is the. I'm a problem solver and I love a good challenge. So coming in here, I truly feel like the biggest reward I have is the ability to come in every day and try to work hard to solve this problem and knowing that the solution is that more kids will get their wishes and more families will be impacted and more, you know, children will have better health outcomes. And that's truly what's most rewarding for me.
- [11:03]
Julia Campbell
I think what you said is so interesting because I know my audience very well and I can hear them thinking. The second that we say make a wish, I can hear them thinking, oh, it's a national organization, it's international. Who wouldn't want to support this? And yeah, it's, it's. I don't want to. I mean, a dying children's charity sounds terrible to say, but I can hear that in the back of people's minds. Absolutely. And what I want to convey to my listeners is that no matter what your mission, you are confronting a challenge. You're confronting some kind of messaging that you want to maybe dispel. There's myths and misconceptions and stereotypes in all of our work about what we do and about the stories that we're telling. So I really want to pull that out because I don't want people to think, oh, make a wish. It's so easy to fundraise. But like you said, people tend to think it's a nice to have and not a must have, which I think is really interesting. So that brings me into younger donors motivations. So you, you mentioned that the donor landscape is changing. That's what we're going to talk about today. So what are some of the biggest shifts that you have seen in generational giving, especially maybe with younger donors versus older donors?
- [12:25]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, this is a something that's always. It's been really passionate for me. I think I was looking at a lot of reports that have come out of Canada, but even the U.S. and that, that changing landscape of the generation that was giving, you know, they're the silent generation or, you know, the really that older generation, they're starting to become, quite honestly, our legacy donors now. Right. And that's. That landscape has really changed. And I'm a millennial. And, you know, my parents have been here for many years as well. And it's just I find it really fascinating because when I went in, when I came into this nonprofit work, one thing I found really fascinating was my dad was never being asked to give money. He never got a direct mail appeal. He never. We were just never targeted. But my dad is one of those people that wants to give back, and he wants to. So. So another part of it is just also the fact, you know, my dad's an immigrant, so I think there's that part, which is how do we tap into a different sort of ethnicity and that fundraising from that perspective. But for me, younger donors are so important because I recently actually, Julia, story to tell you, I went to this Canadian Student Leadership conference, and it was this really great opportunity where they get student council leaders from all across Canada and they bring them together. So these are, you know, high school students, and there's high school students in that grade, 11 to 12. So they're thinking about university. And we went there, we set up a booth, and we wanted to talk to these kids about our Kids for Wish Kids program, which is school fundraising. And I was so inspired. Like, these kids would come to the table and they're talking about make a wish and, oh, I know somebody that's been supported by make a wish or your mission is so great. And they're so passionate. And then I was like, why are we struggling to then get these donors when they become the millennials, when they start to make money and they have income, why are they not coming and donating to us? Our audience, Julia, I don't have the full data, but our audience is very old.
- [14:12]
Julia Campbell
Like, we are a lot of people listening are shaking. They're nodding their head saying, yep, yeah.
- [14:18]
Rapinder Denza
So we, we're like 55 plus, 65 plus. Like, that is our audience. And I think with Make a Wish, I'm like, families are so impacted by the work we do. Right. Because we help kids with critical illness who are kids right now. They're millennials kids. Right. That. And I think, I always think how.
- [14:33]
Julia Campbell
Millennials people think they're younger, they own houses and have college debt and have children.
- [14:38]
Rapinder Denza
Yes. And so I always think, like, why have, how have we not got into that network? And so I really think it's about how do we fundraise, how do we speak to them, what, what channels are we meeting them, what messages are we giving them? I've seen a really big shift in terms of how do we talk to them, how do we personalize our messaging towards them, and how do we meet them where they are. And one example that I'll give you, when I worked with my previous agency, one of my clients was Save the Children. And one of the big things that we were working on is our gift catalog. And Save the Children, this is in the US Their catalog is massive. Right. It's one of the most well known catalogs. It's very well established. And one of the things that we were talking about when I was working with them was how do we take the catalog to the next level? What's the next step? What do we do to continue to engage audiences? And I just remember thinking the catalog is one of the best ways that we can engage a young.
- [15:26]
Julia Campbell
Well, when you say the catalog for people that don't know, what do you mean?
- [15:29]
Rapinder Denza
Their gift catalog. So this is the symbolic giving program.
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Julia Campbell
Oh, the Adopt a Family or Adopt a Sheep.
- [15:35]
Rapinder Denza
Yes. That's a good thing.
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Julia Campbell
I don't know.
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Rapinder Denza
I know. Buy a Go or it's product.
- [15:40]
Julia Campbell
Yeah. Okay.
- [15:41]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah. So it's the, it's the idea that you can buy a product and it's a gift giving opportunity. Right. So that's a gift catalog. It's like the same thing as you'll see the Sephora. Sephora has a gift catalog. And then some of these other organizations. Actually, when Heifer has a catalog, Amazon has a kids catalog. So this is actually what inspired me. So Amazon, they started sending out a kids catalog. So if you're somebody, if Amazon sees that, you buy toys off.
- [16:06]
Julia Campbell
I have that right now in my house.
- [16:08]
Rapinder Denza
I'm sure you catalog. And so I thought this, I was like, Amazon, we all know Amazon is digital friendly, digital first. Why are they sending out a printed catalog and why do people love it?
- [16:19]
Julia Campbell
When people love it, we love it. Yeah, we love it. We love circling it. Yeah.
- [16:24]
Rapinder Denza
And they put stickers in there. They really get that like in area. And so we Thought that was when I was with Save the Children. I was like, this is an opportunity. There's something here that we need. This is a thread we need to pull. So we developed a kids catalog and we bound it into the. The main catalog. So the main catalog is like the big size, and then they bound in a small kids catalog in there. And the whole idea was use this as an opportunity for children to pick a list as they're picking their holiday list. Pick a list of gifts that you want to give back. Pick a. And what it. What our big thing was, Julia, is this is going to open a new market for us, for parents that want to teach their children about philanthropic giving, gifts that give back. Right. This idea of raising kids who care. And that was our big thing. We need to move and get this new audience. And let me tell you, in all the segments that we sent that, we tested it. So in all the segments we sent that, that gift catalog, response was up in all of the segments. And it allowed us to. This opportunity to open up to a brand new audience. And that's what it made me think is like, we met donors where they were. We met these families and of that really want to engage their kids in giving back, because that's really important to them. We met them where they were. And I think that's the big thing that we need to think about is who are these donors? What do they need? Because if you look at this, and I think it was a study that Mike Johnson was a part of, they were looking at, where do millennials give? And they love GoFundMe. Like, that's one of the things that they really. Yeah.
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Julia Campbell
Like, interesting. It's they trust GoFundMe. Okay. I think maybe I'm a Gen Xer, so I'm just. I think that's so interesting.
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Rapinder Denza
Yeah. But I think it's that ability to see the full story, know that my gift is going directly to this family or it's going directly to this. So again, it's that idea of which I think about a lot is giving people the ability to choose. The ability to choose. Save the Children again, is one of the organizations that do this. They have a monthly donor program where you can choose what you want to hear about. So you can choose if you want to hear about climate change, if you want to hear about kids in more conflict areas, if you want to hear about. So it, again, it gives us your ability to kind of choose your giving. And I think that's something that with younger audiences, they like this ability to have control to be able to choose, to be able to feel like, you know, where's my gift going? You know, that trust and transparency is super high with those younger donors. And I think that's what it is. Like I get to choose and I get to feel like that's. I have more of a one to one connection with my giving.
- [18:42]
Julia Campbell
I think that is incredibly important. A lot of what you just said, especially meeting them where they are, which is probably on digital platforms, that's not negating the paper because there is something to be said about the, you just proved it about the, the paper catalog. So testing, iterating and not making any assumptions about where they are, what they want to do and just having these multiple options. I think a lot of the catalog piece is nostalgia for when we were younger, when we could, you know, we look through catalogs. Playing on nostalgia I think is incredibly powerful. I just love all of that. So I think with, you know, so with younger donors. So their motivations might differ from older generations. I see that what you just said, they want to potentially see maybe that immediate impact or they, they prefer GoFundMe where they can actually give money directly to a family. Is that a trend that you're seeing?
- [19:46]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, I think there is. And I, I think the other part that's really important for younger donors and their motivation to give as well is the trust. Trust and transparency. The trust and transparency I think is much higher. Like they're very much into financially what are you doing with my donation and how much of my donation is, is going to the thing. I think this is why you mentioned that you love msf. I love MSF as well. And one of the main reasons I love them so much is that their ethics and their trust and transparency is so high. And you'll see that in like studies that they've done and studies that have been conducted around that relief and development people, especially younger people, trust msf. And that I think is really important for younger donors. And their motivation to give is, is really around trust and that transparency. And so I think that is. And I think it's that openness. Like do I feel like I'm actually being marketed to versus are you talking to me in a way that's authentic and meaningful to me? You know, because you, you know this Julia, like these younger donors are getting ad after ad after, you know, ask after their inboxes, emails are probably overflowing versus like let's say a 55 year old, right? Their inboxes are flowing. They're constantly being Asked for something. So if it feels like a straight up ask, and it's all the time, I think that's where it starts to feel a little bit not authentic to them. And they trust like they trust influencers. And this is, I think, a big area for nonprofits to continue to explore is engaging with influencers. Because everybody now is looking to influencers for what's trending, what's the next thing, and they trust influencers more than they probably trust news outlets and anything else. Right. That's who they're trusting. So I think those things, like influencer strategies are becoming so much more important and vital for engaging younger donors. And that's why TikTok, I mean, I did a bit of a deep dive into TikTok and trying to understand, like, fundraising on TikTok. And I don't know if any organization has quite cracked it, but I haven't looked into it in a while. But I did find that the ones that had the Most followers, like TikTok's nonprofit platforms, had the most followers, were ones that were following trends. They were doing the trendy things on TikTok. They were doing funny things, but they were also being true and transparent. They were taking you behind the scenes. And so people love that. People love engaging with younger donors, love engaging with that.
- [21:58]
Julia Campbell
I just interviewed Bumaka Reg, me and the digital coordinator, and she's a digital director for malala fund, about TikTok and engaging younger donors on TikTok. And what Bumica found was that actually educational and how to videos work really well also.
- [22:17]
Rapinder Denza
I could see that.
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Julia Campbell
And advocacy videos. So they do a lot of advocacy and education around what's going on in Afghanistan under the Taliban, how to improve education opportunities around the world. It was just incredibly interesting hearing about the trends that are working, you know, on TikTok for them. And also they. They do what you said, listen and observe and watch and, you know, sort of take notes from creators and influencers that are doing really great work on these platforms. I think that's so important. It just goes back to who is your audience? What do they care about? Where are they? What are they paying attention to? And rather than us trying to sort of quote, cut through the clutter and get through to them, how can we attract them and how can we create content that they're going to want to watch and see?
- [23:10]
Rapinder Denza
And this is the same thing. Like here at Make a Wish, we do a radio campaign every year and it does very well and it's very successful. But I often think I'm like If we keep doing that radio campaign that's going to be successful, you're going to bring the same donor, because who listens to radio? If you look at the demographic, you're going to continue to bring the same demographic.
- [23:27]
Julia Campbell
Is it live streamed? Because, I mean, I listen to radio on my computer, but I don't, like, have a radio. Is it, is it podcast? I don't know.
- [23:35]
Rapinder Denza
No, it's not a podcast, because that's it. I will listen to a podcast, but I will not actively listen to the radio. But there are people that do, and that's a very particular demographic. And they, they're inspired to give and they continue to give, but it's going to continue to funnel a certain type of donor. Right where I truly believe we need to diversify. If you want to be an organization that's still around and it's still relevant and it's, it's still continuing to grow, we need to engage the next generations in giving.
- [24:02]
Julia Campbell
So I wanted to speak to you because when I reached out to you about being on the podcast, you'd mentioned you wanted to talk about building connections with diverse audiences and how Make a Wish Canada does that. So in my experience, you know, I see a lot of performative gestures and I see a lot of nonprofits kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and kind of seeing what sticks. So how in your experience, like, what have you learned about engaging donors from diverse backgrounds authentically?
- [24:36]
Rapinder Denza
That's a great question. I think a lot of nonprofits haven't cracked this nut. I think there's a lot to still do in this space. But some of the organizations that I've worked with or I've seen do some really great things. Is one is unhcr, so the UN Refugee agency, they have a big base, of course, because a lot of refugees come from the Middle east because of all the conflict that's happening there. And they know that giving around Ramadan is very important. There's a lot that's in, within the Muslim culture and within the religion that's about giving back. And so they've done a very intentional and meaningful job to cultivate that audience. But when they went out to market to them, they did it so in such an authentic way during Ramadan, and they did it on networks that they know have a huge Muslim population. They did it in languages that are understandable to that audience. And they did it in a very authentic way, which was this is an opportunity to give thanks back. And they've done and they've built a base that they know is going to give around this time of year. And that's a very authentic way to engage with that audience versus I have seen other organizations that have just decided, like, oh, this is a great time. Let's go throw this out into market. And that's very polarizing. It can be. It can be very polarizing. We live. And I know you know this, Julia. Like, I'm in Canada, you're in the U.S. certain things are very polarizing. Right?
- [25:52]
Julia Campbell
Every thing where I in America is polarizing.
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Rapinder Denza
Yeah.
- [25:56]
Julia Campbell
You say, I like apples. It's like, what. What about oranges? Everything.
- [26:00]
Rapinder Denza
Like, how dare you like apples?
- [26:01]
Julia Campbell
How dare you like apples?
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Rapinder Denza
Yeah. And so that's where, like, you have to really find that balance. Um, there's a. There's an organization up here called Sick Kids foundation, and it's one of the biggest hospital foundations for. For kids. And they actually have an entire. They developed a marketing department that was marketing towards Asian communities because they saw that Asian communities, again, Chinese New Year around that time. They like to engage in philanthropic giving and people.
- [26:24]
Julia Campbell
And the Chinese community is huge in Canada.
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Rapinder Denza
It is. It's a really. It's a large community. And so it was. Again, how do you engage in those audiences? And I've seen it. Diwali is coming up. That's very big in the Indian population. And so there's a lot of galas that happen around Diwali. And again, it's that idea of how do you engage with this audience? In a way, because it is. It's very much in my religion. It's in a lot of different religions that come from India to give a portion of your salary back to donations. And that brings me back to things with my dad. I often think this, like, he is an untapped potential. I think of my uncles, all of them. Like, I always. I was the person that would go to them and be like, so, did you donate this year? Did you give back? And they're like, no. And my dad, he didn't believe.
- [27:03]
Julia Campbell
They weren't asked.
- [27:04]
Rapinder Denza
They were never asked. And also they. They want the tax deductible benefits like my dad now gives, because he's like, oh, tax deductible benefits, too. And so then he'll come to me and ask me, oh, which organization should I give to this year? And now my brother does it as well. Like, he's come to me and he's like, you know, my brother's another market again. He's a millennial as well. He's a year older than me. Never Been asked for a gift. Never. He never gets thing. And very established. Like, you know, I'm really proud of my brother. He's an engineer. Never been asked for a gift. And I always think about it like, these are. And so it's like, what limitations are we placing in our. In our abilities to fundraise that we're not asking these audiences. And it's. I think it's reflective in the stories we're sharing and the stories that we're telling and the people that we're having represent our organization or even, you know, who we ask to tell our stories. I think it's become more and more important that we must diversify. And I know, I know you know, this to Julia, like, the population in the US Is so diverse and changing, and it is in Canada as well. So if we don't do this, we're going to continue to isolate these audiences. And, you know, I remember one scaring somebody say to me, well, we don't really ask, you know, the immigrant population because they just prefer to give money back to back home. And you know what I wanted to say back to that? I said, I have. My family has been here. My dad came in the 80s. We don't have anyone back home. Our family doesn't live. Everybody's immigrated out. And that's just truly the reality. It's not that they don't want to give. It's that you've never asked them and you've never asked them in an authentic way.
- [28:29]
Julia Campbell
It's not that people do not want to give, is that they've never been asked. Yeah, it's like, I don't know who said it, what. You do miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
- [28:38]
Rapinder Denza
And Wayne Gretzky, also Canadian.
- [28:40]
Julia Campbell
Is that Wayne Gretzky? Oh, yes. I love a good Wayne Gretzky quote. I skate not where the puck is, but where the puck's gonna go or something.
- [28:48]
Rapinder Denza
I'm.
- [28:48]
Julia Campbell
I'm mangling that quote, but I like to use that one because it's talking about not just like, where we are, but where is the puck going to go? Like, that's where he goes. He, like, why would he stay where the puck is? Because the puck's gonna go, you know, across the rink. So not that I'm a hockey expert in anything.
- [29:07]
Rapinder Denza
I'm definitely not.
- [29:08]
Julia Campbell
But I think that is so powerful, and I'm sure a lot of people listening are really resonating with that. The thing that I find is that nonprofit struggle with is just like, how, like, what, what do you think is the first step to take? Like, how does Make a Wish Canada really adapt, sort of their fundraising strategy, maybe some experiments or some testing or some things that you've done that have either worked or not worked. I think nonprofits really are scared to take that first step.
- [29:37]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, that's the right observation. It's. I think people are really scared. They don't want to offend. They get really worried. There's a lot that goes into that, I think for me is always, and this is what I've done my entire career is research. Right. It's something you learn throughout your entire. Like, you have to research, you have to learn, listen and learn. One of the things that we've been doing more here at Make a Wish is surveying. Surveying. Doing focus groups, study groups. And of course, that's just a sampling of a population to more complex sort of narrative. But I think if you get that feedback, that's not your own. So I always say this when I'm within my own organization, within my own teams, I always say, I have a million opinions. You all have a million. We all do. Right. But why don't we go out there and ask the people that are actually going to give to us, that are going to come into the organization and hear what they have to say and really understand that part. We've been doing so much more surveying just to really learn, understand. We've been asking people not in our fold that are not our supporters to give us more feedback of who are we? Who do you think we are? What do you think of our mission or storytelling? And I think once you have that, it gives you the ability to build a baseline and start to test. So if you're hearing, you're not telling us diverse stories, you're not telling me about people in my community, you're not speaking to me. So let's do an appeal that talks about the community. For example, you know, our organizations nationwide, but we have obviously Ontario, bc, Quebec, people feel very strongly, and I know this is in the US too, like your state, depending on where you are, very different culturally. Right. And we've now started to test into that and look and say, if we talk more about their communities and kids in their communities and also looking at more diverse range of different ethnicities and everything like that, what does that return give us? What does that look like? Do people get more engaged? Are they clicking more? Are they donating? And it's not always a donation ask either.
- [31:21]
Julia Campbell
Right.
- [31:22]
Rapinder Denza
It's just to say, are they more likely to Watch a video, Are they gonna click through our emails? And when we eventually put an ask, are they more likely to then to then give to us? So I think that's really. The foundation is A lot of non profits are solving a lot of different problems. And listen, I'm all here for that because being in a non profit, I feel like every single day you're met with a new challenge. And that's just the reality of the market and the world that we're in as, not as people in the nonprofit industry. But I think it's making a dedicated commitment to doing this work. I think that's the part that I would really stress is to make that dedicated commitment. Because a lot of nonprofits will say, yeah, that's phase three, or that's next year, or that's that just take that first step. Yeah, it's taking the first step because we do. We have so many problems we have to solve each day. And everybody says, well, let's go solve all these problems before we even think about that one. But if we don't start doing it, we're never going to do it as an industry. And even in the nonprofit world, we have to decide this is important to us and go in and do it.
- [32:15]
Julia Campbell
So you talk a lot about storytelling, and I know that a lot of organizations really struggle with storytelling on all fronts. One, how do we get the stories? How do we source the stories? Two, confidentiality and ethical storytelling. Three, like getting the story out there. What is your advice for the nonprofit marketing manager that wants to create a culture of storytelling at their organization, but they're getting kind of pushback or of resistance or everyone's too busy, like you said, putting out fires.
- [32:51]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, it's a great question. I think actually when I came in, one of the things I realized is we have so many wish families. We've granted so many wishes. You know, in a year, we grant thousands of wishes, but when we look back, we don't have the full stories of those wishes and we don't have that. And I think part of it is also setting up abilities for people to tell their own stories. So one of the things our teams do here, our wish team that they do, is they have this. When your wish is complete, there's a survey that. That you get to take it in there. We asked them to tell their stories from their own voices. And I think that's really impactful because when you read those, you know, they're not perfectly written. And that's really our job to then take that story and Write it in a way that's impactful, but it's beautiful. It's beautiful because it's from their own voice and from their own narrative. And I think the other thing is we try often, and this is my advice is don't bite off more than you can chew. So that's finding 10 impactful stories. Don't try to take every story and everything, but maybe there's 10 that, you know, you need to tell or, you know, in different campaigns you have to tell. So identify those and work hard on those ones. I get the privilege to interview wish families for, for some of our appeals to, to understand them. And you know what? Honestly, Julia, it's 45 minutes of my day. We record the meeting, we transcribe it, but we, when we ask them questions. But the most incredible stories we get from that, and then we write that story in the voice of that person because that's the, you know, a lot of people will say, is it ethical? Are you putting words in people's mouths? And that's where we're shifting away, which is. It is ethical because it's coming. We're not putting these words in their mouth. We're listening to their story. And then we're turning it into a letter from them or an email from.
- [34:25]
Julia Campbell
Them, of course, giving them right to refusal. And they.
- [34:29]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, of course, yeah. And they, they always, I've never, when I tell you, Julia, like everything we say, those wish families, they'll come back.
- [34:35]
Julia Campbell
Never once had someone come back to you and say, don't tell my story, don't tell.
- [34:38]
Rapinder Denza
And they will never say to you, because I think we trip ourselves over, is that ethical? Is that right to tell? Is that. And we should always do that. We should always have that base. But bring the person that you're telling the story to that table. So don't think that it's not ethical or you think it's a little bit. Ask them, say, would you, would you ever say this? Because 9 out of 10 times we were thinking this with wish families. Like, they wouldn't say this and it's not ethical, but they're saying it. This is hard. This sucks. My life was turned upside down. This diagnosis of my child with a critical illness was the worst moment of my life. And they're saying those things directly from there. And so we should tell that story because that's the truth. That's the truth of their story.
- [35:18]
Julia Campbell
That's the hard part of non profit marketing, is that we are not selling a product. We are not saying your life is going to be amazing. You're not saying we're going to change the world and completely alleviate all childhood illnesses. You are talking about your vision, the impact of wishes and what they can do and not. You can't sugarcoat things. You know, so many of us, I would say 99.9% of us, like all of our missions, are very difficult to talk about. And we want to tell the happy stories, but we can't sugarcoat the reality of the clients we serve, you know, and what they're going through. And I love that you give their voices integrity like that.
- [36:03]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, Yeah. I think that's really important, and I think that's something that has been really important because I. I spent the majority of make for your and Relief and Development, and those are often very hard.
- [36:11]
Julia Campbell
Hard.
- [36:11]
Rapinder Denza
Right. Because you don't get to interview. You know, you're sitting here and there's a story of a child in Afghanistan or something, and then you're trying to tell that story. But we do. You know, that's when they send out and they get those stories and then. And then you're working on it. So I get it. It's hard. It's really hard. But I think we have to amplify the voices. That's our job, is to amplify their voices and not bring our voice always into the narrative.
- [36:33]
Julia Campbell
So how does Make a Wish Canada use digital platforms? I know digital platforms, obviously very central to fundraising. I think a lot of nonprofits are kind of late adopters on this. How do you use social media? Crowdfunding. You're talking about influencer marketing. What are some of your strategies that you're employing right now?
- [36:52]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, that's a really great question. So influencer marketing is an area that's untapped for us. We're just starting in this area. We hired someone very recently that's going to help us and support us in the area of influencer marketing. So we're really excited to be able to. To explore that further. Quite honestly, we're not as sophisticated as we'd like to be in a lot of our platforms. Like, we want to get into things like text. We're not text. Actually, in Canada. Texting is not as easy in the US we have a lot of regulations and a lot of different things that go into it. Yeah. So I think a lot of people think that because I often, like, I have a lot of friends in the US Because I worked cross border and they're like, well, have you done texting? And I'm like, rules are A little bit different here. So we. We're in social. We're all. We're in the platforms that, you know, you would know and everybody in that world would know about. But we are exploring, for us, like I'd mentioned, event fundraising is massive for us. It's a lot of great potential for how we give our platform. Like, we raised our last fiscal year $10 million through event fundraising. Like, it's a big platform for us to be able to give. So we're really exploring in that area how do we give people more autonomy on how they set up their fundraisers.
- [37:57]
Julia Campbell
Right, because you're not organizing every one of those fundraisers.
- [38:00]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah, yeah. There's a whole portion that people are doing third party fundraising. There's a lot of that. So it's figuring out how do we give them more autonomy, how do we make it easier for them at an event to give, you know, tap to pay, text to give. We're exploring a lot more of those opportunities. And then, of course, we're also trying to modernize our platforms. We're working on a migration to fundraise up. And I know, you know, fundraiser.
- [38:21]
Julia Campbell
I love fundraise up. Shout out to fundraise up.
- [38:23]
Rapinder Denza
Yeah. And so we're going through a lot of what I would say, honestly, a lot of digital transformation, a lot of technology transformation right now. And we're trying to see how we can play in the market of AI. I know that's the big conversation. It's the big place that everybody is right now. And we're working on it. We're figuring it out. We're trying to figure out where we are in that space. And, you know, we're really trying to figure out how do we continue to kind of push the envelope and develop further and more while still laying our baselines.
- [38:50]
Julia Campbell
So that actually segues into my next question. How do you see philanthropy and giving kind of evolving over the next three, five, ten years? Like, what new trends are you seeing as the donor beast gets younger?
- [39:03]
Rapinder Denza
Oh, my gosh. I think this one, I think AI like, I. I hate to be the person to bring AI like back, because I honestly, I'm not kidding you, Julia. I've gone to so many conferences, and I'm like, God, if I have to hear AI one more time, I agree.
- [39:15]
Julia Campbell
With you, and I have been at those conferences, but it is.
- [39:19]
Rapinder Denza
I think what we have to do is we have to look back. Actually, I really like what you said about the nostalgia piece. I think we have to go back to some areas that really resonate Because I think the world's moving forward, but it's moving forward in a way that actually helps us bring back a lot of things. I don't know if you know this, Julia, but, like, in. In Canada, one thing that used to be really popular is UNICEF used to. We used to have these little boxes that we would carry.
- [39:42]
Julia Campbell
Yes, the trick or treating.
- [39:43]
Rapinder Denza
The trick or treating boxes, yeah. So UNICEF used to have those boxes. And then you'd go. When you trick or treat, and then people would put, like, coins and stuff, and then you bring them back to school. And it was an incredible program. And then they sunset it, right? Because there was a lot of things that happened. It was money collection, it was. There was a lot of reasons that UNICEF ended up sunsetting that program. And they brought it back. And they brought it back as a digital fundraising opportunity. And it's so cool. Like, the way that they do it is like kids can collect badges and they can have stickers and they have all this different way and they have, like, QR codes that you can donate to their pages. And they brought it back in a different way. So I think it's going back to things that were exciting, that were amazing and exciting for us and reimagining them. How do you now bring them into this new. To this new world? I also just honestly think that the area of. I think TikTok is a big thing. And, you know, I don't. It's not going anywhere. It's not. Facebook is still very old. It has a much older audience to it, but I think it is very old and I think. So I think things like. I think TikTok is going to be one of them. And I truly, honestly believe the. The face of fundraising is changing. And I think organizations that understand that and they start to go after, not go after, because that's kind of like. Feels weird, but, like, start to see. Speak to different ethnicities, they start to speak to different audiences, whether that's younger donors, whether that's millennials, whether it's, you know, immigrants, whether it's. I think they really need to do that, because I think they're going to be left behind, because I think you can see the trends. You can see that these generation that used to give, that's changing, that narrative and landscape is changing, and if we don't adapt and come down and do something different, people are going to get left behind.
- [41:16]
Julia Campbell
This has been amazing. I'm just thinking about how the Salvation army had to completely pivot and adapt and cope. Covid, because no One was using cash. And so at Christmas time. And now they do this now during the holidays. They have the tap to pay, they have your phone, QR code, Apple pay, whatever you want to do. And that probably wouldn't have happened if the pandemic had not happened. I love this. Actually, this is something we need to talk about. We need to adapt this into like a book. How can we adapt nostalgia, things that we're nostalgic for, but put a lens or put that, that layer of modernity on it, the digital layer on it, that is exactly what's going to work, I think, in the future. I love that so much. Rapinder. It's been amazing. How can people get in touch with you and learn more about you and Make a wish Canada.
- [42:07]
Rapinder Denza
Okay, so if anybody wants to get in touch with me, I'm on LinkedIn. Rapinder Dinsa I know, Julia, you'll put all my like details, but that's the best way to get in touch with me. And then you, you can follow Make a Wish. If you're in the US, make a wish.org and up in Canada. Make a wish CA. We actually just revamped our website, so go check out our website. Make a Wish Ca But I'm always here. I love being part of this community. Like you said in my bio, I'm a fundraising nerd. I have such a passion for this and so I'd love to be connected with the community.
- [42:34]
Julia Campbell
Thank you again. Thanks so much for being here. And yes, everyone go to the show notes, connect and follow every all of the socials. I'll put everything in in the show notes. But really, thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad that we got connected.
- [42:51]
Rapinder Denza
Amazing. Thank you Julia.
- [42:59]
Julia Campbell
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. 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 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 @julia campbell77k. Keep changing the world you non profit unicorn.