← RKD Group: Thinkers
RKD Group: Thinkers
From food banks to PBS: Jen Newmeyer’s journey alongside digital fundraising
00:33:38
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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B
Welcome to the Arcady Group Thinkers podcast. Why are you smirking?
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C
Just thinking of the last one in the bottles getting knocked over.
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B
I don't know why. I don't know why there are no bottles there. I do have a Stanley cup. I have a stone cold Steve Austin pint glass full of water. There you go. I have a Nalgene, which is my refill on my water.
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C
How many different containers of liquid do you need?
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B
And then I have an empty Stanley and those are all on my right.
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C
And then there's five more on your left or what?
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B
I'm your host, Justin. I have lots of cups of a cord and with me is Ronnie. I have one plastic cup, Richard, as seen here. Ronnie, our cup is full.
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C
Well done, sir.
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B
Yeah. From our guest in our conversation that we just had, tell us about Jen Neumeyer.
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C
Jen is the senior director of digital fundraising strategy at pbs. She's also very plugged into the thought leadership space in our sector. She's VP of education for the DC chapter of afp. She's the author of a new book that came out this year called Digital Fundraising transformation the insider's guide to revolutionize your strategy and raise more. She just spoke at the Bridge conference where we're like a week coming off of that. And you know, just she's got 20 years of experience helping nonprofits raise money online. And she's seen, you know, in our conversation, she's seen sort of the, the dawn of the digital fundraising era and the evolution that we've gone through. And just her perspective on it is very interesting. And you know, the, the advice that she gives and where she sees the space going.
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B
Yeah, agree with everything that you just mentioned as Jen was sharing a bit of her story in her path. You know what I was thinking about, Ronnie, is it's so interesting to have someone that is a peer for non profit leaders as a thought leader. A lot of times whenever we have conversations with thought leaders, they are not from within the nonprofit. Right. They're, they're consultants or they're, you know, people that have been at agencies or tech companies, et cetera. And all of those people have their place. But there's something that is, I think, truly wonderful about having someone like Jen organically climb to the stature of a pre minute voice around digital fundraising. And I think that's super powerful. And so it was great to hear her talk about some of the things that she has seen in her career as being challenges, some of the things that today are challenges that are holding back digital from maybe Having the air that it. That it could have to be successful and some of the future. And maybe. Ronnie, my favorite part was that none of that comes down to technology.
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C
Right. You know, people, platforms, somewhat.
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B
Yeah, right.
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C
Interpersonal relations.
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B
Interpersonal relations. So, yeah. So get excited. Great conversation. And. And so here without any further ado, is Jen Neumeyer on the Arcady Group Thinkers podcast. Okay, Jen, it's my favorite part of the conversation because it's the anticipation of the first question. And, and, you know, like, we. We told you that in the prep. That there is no prep, Right?
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A
Yes, I'm prepped for no prep.
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B
Good. Good on you.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay. So you are unlike many of our guests in that you seemingly sought out the nonprofit space earlier in your career versus many folks, many leaders that we talk to in the sector that fell into it at some point, like it was a happenstance versus yours. Seems a little more intentional. I would love for you to just start with your time at McGuire and tell us, like, why, like, what was that that drew you to it?
- [04:48]
A
Well, it was somewhat intentional. I mean, I. I started at McGuire, McGuire as sort of an office assistant, and I was attracted to the company because they were working with nonprofits across the country. So my role actually wasn't to work with the nonprofits necessarily directly or dive into fundraising, but that is kind of how it happened. The pathway just opened. And, you know, I really started on sort of sort of the donor data side of things and acknowledgements. And, I mean, back in the day, the big technology advancement was that we were providing our nonprofits from the combined federal campaign with, instead of little donor names on little slips of paper. Donor names on diskette. Yes. Big, big technology jump there.
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B
Huge technology.
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A
Yes. And so I spent a lot of my time training nonprofits on, you know, importing donor names into their system. You know, I did a lot of research on the database systems at the time and all of their import requirements so that we could provide the diskette files with, you know, in the right formats and all of that. But it was through that that. Yeah, and we were. I was working with charities in all sectors, which I think was really sort of eye opening from, you know, from the standpoint of getting started. Like, instead of, you know, starting at a small nonprofit, which I actually, you know, did go to a food bank after that, I sort of had this really higher level view of nonprofits and how, you know, the donation process was working and, you know, working with donors and that kind of thing.
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B
So when do you feel like it was going to Be your thing. Like, was there a certain point to which it's easy to look back and say that. That moment, that conversation, that diskette, whatever it was.
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A
Yes, I can think of a very poignant moment. So I was at the Food Bank, Food bank of Central and eastern North Carolina. Great organization, one of the largest. The largest food bank in the state of North Carolina. And I was there for 10 years building the online program. And, you know, you know, I mean, that was back in the day when, you know, I started there in 2006, you know, so it was like, it was like the social media, like, heyday for, you know, blogs and Foursquare and Vine and all those wonderful things that we had. And so I was really just sort of, you know, building the audience, building our campaigns. Year after year. We had match campaigns and all of, all of the things that I talk about in my first book, that was sort of what I was working on. And I had a sit down. So. So we had some turnover. Like many nonprofits, we. I had several development directors, and one development director pulled me into his office to tell me that he was leaving and he was resigning. And I was like, oh, not another one. And then he looked at me and I remember, like, the sun, you know, there was like glass, but the sun was behind him, you know, and he had piercing blue ey. And he was like, what are you still doing here? And I was like, well, what do you mean? He was like, you're so talented. You have so many ideas. You have da da da, da da. Like, I mean, you really should think about, like, a career and like, you know, like, really sort of taking your skills and talents on the road. And I was like, well, I guess I never thought about it. And I think that that was sort of the sort of the launching pad, the confidence that I needed to say, you know what? I. Maybe I, you know, maybe I can like, take my talents on the road, go into another sector. And that's how I got into public media. And I think, you know, from. From there, that's really kind of where the, the story sort of began. I would, I would say.
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C
What, what actually drew you to North Carolina to work at that food bank? How did that get started?
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A
Well, so I had moved around a lot. I actually was in the travel industry for. For a little while. And so I lived in. I'm originally from Pennsylvania. I lived in Key west, lived in San Francisco is where I worked at McGuire McGuire. And my ex husband and I had a child. So, you know, we had our. We had our Daughter. And we're kind of like, are we staying here in San Francisco? I mean, it's very expensive. We didn't really. We had no family in California, so we were considering either Colorado, where his family was, or North Carolina. So while I was traipsing around the country, my family had sort of migrated south, essentially from Pennsylvania into North Carolina. And we had a lot of friends from Key west who sort of, you know, had also left and were in various places on the East Coast. And so we thought, you know what, North Carolina is kind of a good central location. And again, like, I fell into the job at the food bank. You know, I started there as the database manager with my experience from California, but luckily, which is rare at nonprofits, I had a lot of support from leadership to, you know, to experiment, try new things. Of course, like I said before, it was the dawn of the digital age for non profits, essentially. And, you know, we. And they trusted me to, you know, do a website design. We launched with Conveyo. We started our e. Newsletter, you know, the whole. All of the things. And. And so that's how I was able to really flourish there.
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B
I love that you referenced just the. Taking it back to even like the dawn of the digital age. And you know, you have, for nonprofits, for nonprofits, for nonprofits, you have the tsunami, you have Katrina, you have these things that were forcing functions for. For us to find a way to. To capture charitable donations in a much more personable way. And so you've seen it. You've seen the dawn into the midday or whatever you want to refer to it as now. What is your. What is your outlook on digital fundraising today? Like, when you think about where we are as a sector today, where are we lacking? Where do we need to move ahead? Where are we in a good spot? Like, digital is a big world. Where. Where are we at in it?
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A
I think as a. As a sector now, there are. There are nonprofits who are doing a great job at digital fundraising, but for the majority, I mean, you was. 92% of nonprofits are below $5 million a year in annual revenue. I think that for the most part, we're pretty far behind and where we need to be from a digital fundraising standpoint, which is why I'm on my soapbox all of the time, because I think that for a lot of small nonprofits, like, it's a real struggle to, like, if you have the technology to launch things and you have the skill, you know, you have staff who have the skills, and those are two very big elements that a lot of nonprofits don't have. They're either battling with leadership, not understanding the strategies and not allowing them to, you know, really experiment and innovate, or for sort of those nonprofits that are a little bit more on the larger end of the spectrum, there are collaboration issues. So right now I'm with pbs. I work with stations all across the country and there are, there are a lot of silos. And I think that is probably typical for organizations who, legacy organizations who've been around for a while. And so I think they're what I'm seeing right now. Besides, you know, the tech stack and besides the, you know, the skills on the ground, there's a lot, there's a real issue with sort of the marcom development, collaboration elements that are so crucial for digital fundraising. And of course, you know, each organization, I mean, each team has, they have their own, you know, goals and strategies. And so for the fundraisers, I have to explain that, yeah, you know, your marcom team may not be very receptive to, hey, you know, promote my campaign because algorithms can so easily destroy things that they have built. Whereas the MarCom team may not, may not even really understand that all the great work that they're doing to engage these audiences, like they're, like they really should be talking to the fundraisers about how can we think about a conversion strategy for these folks to bring them into the fold so that development can start cultivate them, cultivating them from prospects to donors.
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B
I think it's, in some ways.
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A
I.
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B
Remember this one time, it's infamous, it's almost mythology and my, my family, when my mother in law used this phrase, I can't win for losing. And so, you know, the no win situation. I think sometimes our, our peers and colleagues in the digital side of a nonprofit, they may feel like they can't win for losing because like you said, the collaboration components, the technology that they're wrestling with, the hype of what's out there, that they don't have access to, the pressure from the development office and, or the board, I mean, that is being boxed in and truly can't win for losing. I read recently a book by a guy named Ryan Leak and one of the things that he said in the book is that collaboration is a mindset, that it is something that you have to intentionally say, I'm going to show up and I'm going to be this, I'm going to demonstrate this. It doesn't work otherwise, truly doesn't organically happen. You have to put the effort into It. And I think we have experienced that same thing that you have of seeing the struggles to collaborate within an organization or sometimes with an organization and its marketing agency. But collaboration is ultimately a mindset. And why do you think that we're not good at it? Why do you think that's such a struggle for us?
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A
Well, I think that from what I have seen, there are a lot of territorial issues. You know, this is mine. I built this. You're, you're. I don't want to have you involved. I think there's that. I think that there, I think that there's pressure from leadership. Like, I can't change these goals or I can't, I can't do anything to disrupt this very carefully built strategy that I've created because I am on, you know, like, my job is on the line for meeting these numbers. You know, whether they're, you know, engagement numbers, whether there are revenue numbers. You know, there is this perception that any, any, any unbalance, like the cart is going to, you know, like, fall over, like at one organization. I remember. So I came in as the digital fundraising director and you know, there was, there was direct mail department and then there was a couple of other departments within development, but direct mail and then also the philanthropy side of things. So major giving plan giving, that kind of thing. And there was a new hire, a new staff member who was brought in to work on mid level giving. So now we know mid level giving requires the, you know, donor side of things, you know, where, you know, direct mail or annual giving happens to be, that bridge to major gift. Like that is the purpose. And so, I don't know.
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C
Yeah, the collaborative role.
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A
Exactly. So I'm not really sure if, if this was clearly explained to the team, but I remember her coming, you know, she came to me and she was like, I'm starting the mid level giving program and I'm really excited to start some, you know, I've identified some prospects and I want to start some emailing to them. And I'm like, oh, that's great. Okay, well, let me, you know, sort of chat with, you know, the other team and we'll, you know, see if we can bring a meeting together. And, you know, so I went back to the direct mail. You know, we had our annual giving group got together and the direct mail person had said, wait, what is she doing? No, she's not, she's not going to steal any of my people. Okay.
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B
Yeah, right.
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A
I am speechless. Like, yeah, so, so, yeah, they've had.
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B
Their ear tagged, right? It's like the ear tags that.
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A
Yeah, yeah, so we can track them. Yeah, right.
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B
Those are mine.
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A
Right. But it was an organization where there was intense scrutiny on the numbers, revenue numbers, meeting those goals, and, and it just, you know, there was just a real fear of, you know, I mean, even though it would benefit the organization in the long run to be stewarding these pros, you know, these donors to higher levels of giving, there was just some real, like, nope, this is my, this is my lane. Don't, don't cross it.
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C
Do you think a lot of that mindset comes from just being in the non profit space? Like this, this fear of failure? Maybe it comes. Budgets are so tight and we have to hit our numbers because not only are we, you know, our funding is limited, but we're not going to be able to serve our mission. Is that something like you don't see in the for profit space and then maybe you have a little bit more room to, to try new things and to collaborate and innovate. Is that what's, what's happening here?
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A
Well, I do think, and you, and you guys probably have more background on this than I do, but, you know, I read all the time about nonprof operating in a scarcity mindset, you know, and so I am, I, I don't, I don't know, you know, enough about how to overcome that. But I think that is, comes along with what a little bit of what you're saying, Ronnie, is. There's, you know, that we are operating on, you know, we, we have to be scrappy, you know, because we're a nonprofit. And who is the guy that came out with the movie? Dan Palado.
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B
Palada.
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A
Palada. And the Uncharitable. The Uncharitable movie. So I think that that like, really is probably a good sort of, you know, you know, flag that helps understand, you know, why all of these things happen. Not just, not just how we're presenting ourselves to donors, but also how that really affects all of the workings internally.
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B
Ronnie, I think that the, maybe the scarcity mindset is a little less on the commercial side, but it's replaced with a cutthroat mindset. And so fiefdoms, you know, the drive in an achievement society to build an empire, I think exists in a lot of places. It's just whether or not you're coming from, you know, I'll cut you or no, this is mine. Right. So defensive versus offensive, I guess.
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A
Right.
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B
So in, in the midst of this growth of experience in 2019, you also added or launched your own Consulting firm. What was the. The driving force behind starting CharityGen?
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A
Well, actually, that was because I had some legal advice to sign my book contract under an LLC instead of my own name.
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B
Smart.
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A
So there really wasn't like, I'm going to start a consulting firm. It more of was like, okay, I signed this contract. I'm like, oh, well, now I have this consultant. I guess I have this llc. I could be a consult. And so that's where I was like, yeah, like, I think, think if there. And there were opportunities where people would come and say, oh, you know, can you help me out with a little bit of, you know, some year end planning, year end fundraising planning, webinars, that kind of stuff. And I was like, okay, so the consultancy is not like a, you know, like a big. It's not like I have two jobs.
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B
Not a thing.
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A
I mean, yeah, but it is there as, you know, as more, you know, of a sort of backup. If people need help, then, yeah, I'm here. Or if I'm doing speaking or something. Like, I've got that all set up.
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B
Nice.
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A
Yeah. Yeah, I know. Not a very exciting answer. Well, I just had to sign some paperwork.
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B
Brutal honesty. Brutal honesty. It was, it was the safe bet around a book, right?
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A
Yes. Totally makes sense.
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B
Totally makes sense. The. The book itself. Where did that idea spawn from? Like, how. When did you realize that you had a book inside of you, much less more than one?
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A
Well, this is such a good story. I came into public media and, you know, at the food bank, as I said before, like, I just had a lot of freedom and support and, you know, to. To flourish and innovate and which I did. And the results were there. We made a lot of money. When I first started, we were making about $150,000 in online revenue by the time I left, over a million. Like, it works. Like, I am a testament that it works. So when I came into public media, I was told, and. And this was with a. An email list of about 10,000 people that, you know, which I was pretty proud of, for a food bank to grow it to 10,000 people at that time. And so when I started at UNC TV, I was told, we have a list of 80,000 people and we don't do any online fundraising. We don't cultivate them at all online. And I was like, wow, watch me work. I'm gonna come in here, just take over and wave my magic wand and make y' all a lot of money. And that could not have been further from the case because the totally different Audience. So my first sort of mini campaign that I launched, which was amazing, it had a beautiful. I worked with one of our producers. They put together a video. It was like, it brought tears to my eyes, just about the importance of, you know, the station of public media and the community. And I think we got, I think we got two donations. The total $75 from a list of 80,000 people. Right. So. So I had a lot of things to figure out at the, at the station, but also there was a lot of resistance internally to what I was doing. And so, so there were all of these, like, barriers that I had to overcome. So I remember going to my first public media conference and I was like, oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to see what all of the other stations are doing. I'm going to glean all of this information, I'm going to take it back to, to the station in North Carolina and all of my problems will be solved. And I remember going into this one, so this would have been 2000, 2016. And I went into a session and there was a, there was a room, you know, the Giant Ballroom, some tables and, you know, a couple hundred, maybe 300 people there. And the session was revealing the latest, greatest strategy in digital fundraising. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be great. I'm so excited.
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B
Can't wait.
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C
It's a great headline.
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A
Yeah. And so the slide turns and it was like email. And I remember just like my jaw dropping to the ground and I looked around the room and I was like, ta da.
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C
What?
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A
Like, everybody in the room was like, ooh, they're writing things down. I was like, oh my gosh. So then I was like, okay, like we've got some real issues within the system. And so then started my close relationship with pbs, with the folks at PBS at the time and working on different, like, we had some different experiments with peer to peer campaigns. I started speaking at, at conferences and there was just so much resistance from, like, we did a session on like a peer to peer campaign and there was this one woman sitting in the front, older, you know, you know, much older woman. She raises her hand at the end and she was like, I don't understand this. My audience would not understand this. And so I would never do anything like, like this. Like the first thing I thought of was like, this is not for you. Like, we're talking about attracting new, younger audiences through this sort of very clever peer to peer thing. So I remember joking at, after like a year and a half or so with someone at pbs. And I was like, look, I'm just gonna write a book, you know, and just put it out there so that everyone knows what they need to do. Like. And so then I was flying home, and I was like, you know what? Maybe I should think about writing a book. And so originally, when I started, it was just going to be like, a campaign guide, actually, you know, it was going to be just a small, you know. And then as I started, like, writing that, I was like, well, you can't really talk about campaigns without talking about, like, the growth funnel or, you know, audience acquisition. You can't really talk about this without talking about stewardship. Can't really talk. So then it just grew to, like, 18 chapters. And so that's how the first book got started.
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B
That's amazing. Yeah, it's. That's a really. That's you on a soapbox again.
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A
Yes.
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B
Like, it was. It was you filled with being emboldened to jump up on the soapbox and write the book.
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A
Right, Right.
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B
Yeah.
- [28:41]
A
And then the second one came around. So the first one, like, almost right after the first one was released, I said, you know, people were still asking me questions, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I'm gonna have to try to explain this in another way. I'm gonna have to write another book. So almost immediately, I started making notes for the second one. But the second one now, you know, because during that time, I got my cfe, and when. During my study for that and taking the exam, there's nothing in there about digital fundraising. And I'm like, okay, like, this could be a clue to why there might be some issues with understanding how digital fundraising fits in development is because it's not a part of any of these giving models. Like, it's not a part of the narrative. When we're talking about a development department, nobody really knows where it fits. Is it in marketing? Where does it go? So then I just started to be a little bit more reflective about putting that together in a way that it would hopefully help it make more sense and going a little bit deeper into those collaboration issues, into leadership, into experimentation, and then expanding more. In the first book, I did talk about engagement and revenue, but I expanded more into acquisition and stewardship. So just sort of, like, building on what was already there.
- [30:03]
B
Yeah.
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C
So as you think about this evolution of Digital fundraising from 2006, when you started in the dawn of the era for nonprofits, to where the book is with, I mean, we've seen an explosion of channels and Platforms and everything. It feels like we're in a moment where the next era has started, really, with AI entering the conversation. Where do you see things going from here as AI is implemented more?
- [30:34]
A
Yeah, I think that AI is going to have a huge impact in the way that we operate, in the way that we fundraise. I think that in many ways it's going to be a godsend for those resource constrained organizations that are going to be able to utilize all of these tools to just find greater efficiencies and therefore focus more on some of the more advanced strategies like experimentation. So, I mean, one of the things that I'm very curious about is how social media is going to evolve for nonprofits. And that is such. That was such an important element for how I built my Strategy back in 2006. Like, I started a social media ambassadors program. We were tagging each other on Twitter and it was like this group that was just 100% invested in moving the mission of the organization forward. And it's really hard to build those kinds of communities with the landscape that we have right now. So it is just going to be interesting, you know, with algorithms. I mean, they were even saying, you know, like, even from an SEO standpoint, you know, websites being, you know, you know, having to rethink the strategy because AI is now part of search. So I think that that is just gonna. Just gonna. I think that there's a lot that's coming at us very quickly and it's going to, it's gonna be. The next, you know, three years are gonna be really interesting.
- [32:15]
B
I smell a third book.
- [32:20]
A
You might be right.
- [32:23]
B
Start scribbling notes.
- [32:25]
A
Right. Actually, I do. I do have a confession that I have a folder on my Google Drive called Book 3. I've already started making notes.
- [32:35]
B
I think this one needs to be more like the Hitchhiker's guide to fundraising and AI.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah, I love it.
- [32:43]
B
Jen. We, you know, I think for so many people in this space, they don't think of themselves as a thought leader. And so. But you know, and I don't know if you think of yourself that way or not, but you are one and you're one that is helping so many organizations in diverse subsectors of nonprofit think about their digital platforms. And so we appreciate that and thank you for hanging out with us for a little bit today.
- [33:12]
A
Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thank you. Group Thinkers is a production of RKD Group for more information, including how you can partner with RKD to accelerate growth for your fundraising and nonprofit marketing needs, visit rkdgroup. Com.