Ep. 150: Donors Are Shoppers Now. Is Your Nonprofit Ready? with Salvatore Salpietro
EPISODE 150
Donors Are Shoppers Now. Is Your Nonprofit Ready? with Salvatore Salpietro
About the Episode:
Donors don’t act like traditional donors anymore—they act like digital shoppers. And in this episode, Salvatore Salpietro, Chief Community Officer at Fundraise Up, joins me to break down exactly what that means for your nonprofit.
This isn’t about throwing shade. It’s about meeting donors where they are—on their phones, on the go, and expecting the same seamless experience they get from Amazon, Uber, or Netflix.
Topics:
Why nonprofits are 10–20 years behind on digital fundraising
How donor expectations mirror consumer habits
What nonprofits can ethically borrow from e-commerce brands
How better donor experiences drive recurring giving
Why “tech hopping” alone won’t fix your fundraising
The overlooked power of automation and personalization
How nonprofits can stop losing donors with outdated systems
Why improving the donor experience isn’t a luxury—it’s a survival move
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“If I have to get up and donate, you've lost me.” Christina
“Donors are acting like digital shoppers right now.” Christina
“The expectation of the consumer is a donor, and a donor is a consumer. We don't need to separate that.” Salvatore
“20% of donations are going through Apple Pay.” Salvatore
“Take keystrokes and clicks away from the donor.” Salvatore
“If you want more of something, you have to rise to the occasion of their user experience.” Christina
“As a nonprofit sector, do we want to be more like the government sector in our approach or the profit sector?” Salvatore
“Nonprofits will not exist if they don't rid themselves of how it's always been done, mindset, and apprehension to change and evolve and meet donors where they are.” Salvatore
“You're sitting on untapped revenue. When the person makes the donation and they don't hear from you after that, they've turned. If you just make that simple change, you will see them give again - send them a thank you email.” Christina
“The donor psychology and the buying psychology are different, but the expectation is the same for both.” Salvatore
“The tech is not the solution, but it's a component that will determine the multiple on the return of your efforts.” Salvatore
“The technology you use can reverse negative trends and amplify positive trends.” Salvatore
“The best onboarding process I've ever been involved in has been where you invite the new members in and the current board members do the orientation.” Sabrina
“For a board retreat, you must have a good facilitator.” Sabrina
“Your goal is to leave the world in a better place than how you found it.” Sabrina
“If it’s not a win for everyone, it’s a loss for everyone.”
ABOUT SALVATORE:
I help nonprofits cut through the noise of outdated technology so they can focus on what matters most: their mission. My journey began in e-commerce and startups – from building new processes at WebCollage (acquired) to co-founding ISEBOX – where I learned how technology should empower organizations. Then, at the Child Mind Institute, I saw firsthand how nonprofits struggle with clunky tools that drain time and resources. That’s why I joined Fundraise Up as its first GTM employee – to revolutionize how nonprofits fundraise.
As Chief Community Officer, I simplify complex tech strategies into actionable steps (no jargon, just analogies that stick), share data-backed fundraising insights from 12+ years in nonprofits and tech, and bridge the gap between Silicon Valley-grade tools and mission-driven teams.
What fuels me? Knowing that every 1% increase in donation conversion = thousands more meals, vaccines, or educational programs delivered. Our AI-powered platform isn’t just software – it’s a force multiplier for global good.
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Christina Edwards 0:04
All right. Y'all. I am thrilled for today's podcast, because we're finally meeting kind of in real life that we I've got Salvatore Salpietro here on the podcast. Run fundraise up, and he and I share some very spicy beliefs about the nonprofit sector. So I'm really excited for this conversation. We have definitely messaged a lot through LinkedIn, and when I heard you were speaking at the Stripe sessions, I was like, please come on after you speak. So a warm welcome to you Sal and tell us a bit about your role, and then we'll dig in to to all of your findings from the most recent stripe sessions and beyond
Salvatore Salpietro
sure and thank you for sharing, joining me in some of the spiciness, and having being another colleague and peer in the space of sharing some spicy takes.
Salvatore Salpietro 0:54
My name is Sal I am the chief community officer at Fundraise Up. I am the first employee at Fundraise Up So I've had all the jobs back when we were a small company. So I've done the support, inbox, the marketing, the onboarding, the demo, the whole thing.
Christina Edwards 1:11
I don't think I realized that that makes sense, but you know, I feel like you then, you know, each facet of like the customer and the donor and all of the different sides,
Salvatore Salpietro 1:19
yeah, and, and prior to being a Fundraise Up, I was the Director of Digital fundraising at a nonprofit, a national nonprofit, and I worked in academia some years back, so I've got this kind of, I hope, a 360 view of what we're dealing with. And, and yet, prior to that role at the nonprofit, I was working at an E commerce startup, so I've got Okay, kind of like all the pieces to put together. In my current role, I'm Chief community officer, and that means Sal go do things like this, like speak Christina, and go to conferences and try to learn from the space and share learnings with the space.
Christina Edwards 2:01
So but there are so many people who go to conferences and do things like this, but they don't say, and they don't say what you say, they don't do what you do. And I think that's the perfect place to like what is, if you're going to just anchor us in on a hot take that you have about this sector that I find very refreshing and forward thinking that is going to move this section sector into sector into more impact. Tell us like anchor us in on that.
Salvatore Salpietro 2:28
So everything that I I talk about starts from we as a sector are 10,15, 20 years behind. We have a lot of solutions and roadmaps available to us of how to have impact, and we just don't do we prefer to commiserate than act.
Christina Edwards 2:50
Because, what do you think?
Salvatore Salpietro 2:53
Because I think it's almost a learned behavior now for the whole sector. Yeah, I think, I think it just takes, like, changing the mindset, like, let's have an action forward event, not, you know, let's talk about how we're going to fix a problem event and and then obviously, the other things that are inherent we have, we're overworked in the space, we are underpaid in the space. We're under appreciated, etc, etc. But, yeah, you know. And then we talk about, you know, I can't find new donors, and the younger demographics don't want to give, and I go, but, you know, look at that donation form. It's literally from 1998.
Christina Edwards 3:31
That's right. Like I why I think I should have it embroidered on a pillow. At this point, I feel like I say it on all of my webinars. I've said it in so many times on the podcast, but my litmus test is, can I donate from my phone on my couch if I have to get up, it's not me. You've lost everyone, right?
Salvatore Salpietro 3:48
One of the first conferences we ever did, it was myself and Peter the co founder and CEO, yeah, storyteller, storytelling, tellers, conference in San Diego. Awesome conference. We had no money to buy swag in a booth. Had some cash and Christina, what we did is we covered the table in $20 bills. We had a little time, kind of like a frame paper sign, Fundraise Up whatever early, earlier version of the software. And the table was covered in 20s. I would walk over and go, What is? What is this real money? Pick it up. I go, here's the deal, open your phone, make a donation to your own nonprofit for 20 bucks. I'll give you 20 bucks back. Okay, yeah, eight out of 10 gave up. Oh, couldn't do it. One. One woman was an executive director, says she was there for about 18-19, minutes, and she said, I refuse to give up. Like, this has got to work, right? I can't be running. Yeah.
Christina Edwards 4:50
She's like, I can't be representing this experience. This is terrible.
Salvatore Salpietro 4:54
And the common response was embarrassment, or, Oh, I don't really. Want to do that, I'm afraid to. And that's like, what?
Christina Edwards 5:05
And we are accepting this. And I can kind of hear my audience going, okay, ours isn't that bad, ours isn't that bad, but we are accepting status quo. Of like, yeah. All right, you got a pinch to zoom in? And yeah? All right, there's 25 fields, but it's not Christina now, it's not terrible, and it's like that status quo. You're leaving so much potential money on the table. Yeah,
Salvatore Salpietro 5:30
absolutely. I mean, you're not pinching to zoom when you buy on Amazon or Uber Eats. That's right.
Christina Edwards 5:36
So perfect. I was gonna say donors are acting like digital shoppers right now, so that was one of the things I got from your session. So talk to us about
Salvatore Salpietro 5:43
that. Yeah, nonprofits aren't getting a pass by donors, from donors, right? They're not saying, Oh, it's a nonprofit. I'm gonna take the extra 18 minutes to get through that donation form, right? They're not doing it. They're just not able to. They're not hardwired that way now with an instant economy.
Salvatore Salpietro 6:06
So the their expectation, this is kind of the crux of the session at stripe sessions, was the expectation of the consumer is a donor and a donor is a consumer. We don't need to separate that out, and they spend 95% of their dollars on things and stuff and services, and it's super easy to do, and 5% of charitable, 5% of overall income spent on giving in the US as a loose statistic, the 95% of their interactions are dictating what they expect on the 5% and if you're not there and meeting them with an experience that allows them to participate how they need to, and when I say need to, I literally mean need to. Like, I'm a mother with a child in my arm, and it's a month old, and I have one hand free, and I'm watching TV and holding my baby like I can't go upstairs and get my credit card and because you just texted me with this, and I hit the link on the text, and I get to a donation form that looks straight out of, you know, the early 2000s
Christina Edwards 7:14
lAnd I personally, in that situation, the first feeling I feel Is overwhelm, and I'm out, correct? I'm like, forget it, right?
Salvatore Salpietro 7:23
Somebody other day that said, like, even, like, buying, like, if they don't have Apple Pay, I'm not, I'm out. Yeah, yeah.
Christina Edwards 7:29
Right before this, this interview, I went to walk to my coffee shop. I just take my phone. Now, that's it. Apple Pay, that's it. That's it. There's no wallet. There's no and it's like, that is a habit. Now, once I, once I moved to Apple Pay that is a habit that is in my brain. It is so easy I love it 10x more than I love any other option. And it is a barrier, and it will continue. Yeah, about
Salvatore Salpietro 7:53
20% of donations are going through Apple Pay that growing as nonprofits are embracing and opening their doors to younger donors and millennials and 2030 somethings and 30 somethings and 40 somethings. So it's moving, it's moving that way.
Christina Edwards 8:08
So it's not just about a form. It's not just about having Apple Pay and other gunmo PayPal, all things, right? It's, it's about this idea of what else, and this has always been the foundation of a lot of what I teach and research and look into is, what are they doing outside of us, outside of the sector that is working so beautifully, especially for E Comm, and where can we adapt that? So like for your work, I've seen, you know, the sticky button. I've seen the abandoned emails. I love an abandoned email. And abandoned email is basically like, hey, Christina, hang on. You were looking at those shoes. You were close.
Salvatore Salpietro 8:49
It works. There's a reason every McDonald's and every shoe company in bombas are doing it.
Christina Edwards 8:54
You liked them. You want to. And I'm like, Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, my son came in the room. I got distracted. Thank you so much. I would like the shoes, right? These are doing us as a service as much as they are doing the company a service. So, you know those there's so many opportunities to like, to tap into technology, to help fundraise, and I feel like so many nonprofits aren't doing it. That's kind of the crux of what brought this conversation together.
Salvatore Salpietro 9:20
Yeah, correct, correct. All the things that E commerce, things you know, platforms do you know we work at, Fundraise Up and I work personally to educate an industry like you. Need to translate that and find that version of it for you. We do scale for 1000s of nonprofits, but things like the cart abandonment, like recovering transaction costs, but you know, I, I can't tell you how many meetings I've been called to last minute where we don't, you know, we don't think it's right to ask donors to cover fees. Well, no, that's a hot one, right? I mean, I hear you sigh.
Christina Edwards 9:58
Guys, you can't see if you're. Not if you're just listening, my eyes are rolling my I want my head in my hands. Yes, there's
Salvatore Salpietro 10:05
a difference asking for a tip on a donation then being very upfront and saying, We have transaction costs. Would you like to cover them? That's right. Humans are used to that. They are paying for their safety cars on Uber. They're paying for the Uber delivery fee, ticket mastered convenience fee. You're paying for it. They're used
Christina Edwards 10:27
to it. They're okay with it. I think the amount of time people and I would imagine boards have just lamented about something as finite and tiny as that, when they could be solving a better problem together, then that is so frustrating to me. That is the cost of doing business.
Salvatore Salpietro 10:46
So we built this, this functionality around that specific topic that allows AI to figure out when to pre check the box and when not to and it looks for every orgs individual kind of point where we check it. I'm offended, and I'm gonna, kind of like, not give, as you assume, I'm gonna cover another $70 on whatever. Yeah, so that that seems to make everybody happy. Okay, so my larger donors won't, you know, they'll be able to opt into it, and the lower value are accustomed to it and okay with it. So, you know, kind of working to bridge those gaps in conversations. You know,
Christina Edwards 11:22
yeah, absolutely. And when you think about what nonprofits are missing out on, that is already working so well in the for profit world, from the sense of you mentioned AI, from the sense of technology, what else comes to mind is like, why aren't we doing more of this.
Salvatore Salpietro 11:43
I mean, it's, it's the whole end to end experience for a donor. Dynamic Pricing exists in E commerce, dynamic s. Now, you know, we started rolling that out into the space when we founded the company, and when the company started in 2018 now, a few platforms have the intelligent ask array, which, you know, I am glad to see this technology that's, you know, being brought into the space, being adopted by more and more. So that's a big one, right? I mean, we see that dynamic ask arrays allow the right ask,
Unknown Speaker 12:20
not the highest ask, right?
Salvatore Salpietro 12:25
The iPhone donor. You know, donors,
Christina Edwards 12:26
let me, let me. I'm sorry to interrupt, but let me stop you real there, which is what he means, is, instead of landing on your form, and it's saying $25, $50, $100 in the box, it actually we let AI take the driver's seat, right? And decide it might say, what? $24 I don't know Sure, $70 it's dynamic based on a lot of factors.
Salvatore Salpietro 12:49
and none of it's like personal information. It's like, I know you own a second summer home, so I'm gonna ask you for more. It's based on, oh, Manhattan residents have higher disposable income than people that are in Nebraska, or the data showing us that iPhone donors give 30% more on average, right? So let's, let's ask them for 30 instead of 25 and right? Let's factor all that in just making it feel more personal, more relevant. 20 bucks is is coffee and a croissant in Manhattan, and it's a week of lunch, you know, maybe a couple days of lunch in in Omaha, I don't know. So it's about making it relevant and personal,
Christina Edwards 13:29
yeah, what else anything else come to mind on that, on that topic of, of what else you feel like is low hanging fruit? We should be doing more of,
Salvatore Salpietro 13:38
um, I mean, in that, in that check out experience is where I kind of spend my time. Yeah, tell us about that. Payment Methods are the key there, just removing friction as much as possible. Christina, I don't know the last time I've entered my full mailing address anywhere online, except on a nonprofit form, like they finish it for me, when I say, That's right,
Salvatore Salpietro 14:06
Is it low hanging fruit? Yes and no, right? It's very complicated to build that into technology, because there's a lot of a lot of implications. What if I'm outside the country, what if I'm an ex, whatever. But it's critical. It's ubiquitous everywhere else in our space. I'm still typing my phone and they go my dad and my CRM is so dirty. I just everything's inconsistent. And I had Street and st and str and yeah. Well, hey, if you, if you had an auto complete and took the take keystrokes away from the donor, that's the whole game. The whole game is take keystrokes and clicks away let and when you automate and you personalize, and you have payment methods and autocomplete, it's you're just making it, you can make it a zero click experience where I just tap scan done, right? And that's it, a slight digression, unless you have. Want to get to specifically, no,
Christina Edwards 15:01
no, keep going. That's good. I did this. Will loop back.
Salvatore Salpietro 15:06
I did a session called bias and fundraising data, identify, mitigate and grow. I did it both at AFP icon and NTC.
Salvatore Salpietro 15:18
Those are two different audiences. One might be more progressive, one might be more center. Nonetheless, I showed I shared the same content and data with both cohorts. When I start the session, I ask everyone, get out your phone, scan this QR code. This is hope you ready for a little spicy.
Unknown Speaker 15:38
And I say,
Salvatore Salpietro 15:39
in the word cloud, enter the first word, or words that come to your mind when you think of your
Speaker 1 15:44
ideal, your your typical donor. People start entering
Salvatore Salpietro 15:50
on their phones, click, click, tap, tap, and the word cloud starts forming. Yeah, and we had maybe about 100 people in the one room and maybe about 40 in the second room.
Speaker 3 16:01
Nonetheless, the words chosen for both groups
Salvatore Salpietro 16:09
were pretty much the same, and the most selected words,
Salvatore Salpietro 16:18
old, rich, white.now we're self identifying in a session about violence, about who your perfect donor is, no one said, long time citizen of my community, tree hugger, children, cancer survivor, no one said anything that had to do with the Mission. Yeah, right. And then we just kind of automatically pigeonholed us ourselves into, Oh yeah, 65 old and white with a college degree in two houses. That's my guy, yep. And then we and then we go into another session at the conference. Go, why can't I find more donors? Like, that's wild and all when I say, it comes off full circle when we take the technology, right? A 65 year old retired person that has money, that has is looking for things to do, can power through your antiquated donation experience, right? They need something to do anyway. And I mean, I'm speaking for my dad. He does handyman jobs, and he looks for things to do, and if I send them a new trick for the iPhone, he's all over it.
Salvatore Salpietro 17:35
So when we upgrade that experience, we're now able to accept and meet younger donors where they are, they're not going to give as much. No, you're not going to lose the 65 and older. You're going to add net new, massive groups of donors that are younger, more passionate, longer LTV, right, longer life value, because you're getting them now at 28 years old, when they're getting married and they're going to with your organization for longer. So that's again, is it low hanging fruit? I don't know. It's necessary fruit, eat your vegetables.
Christina Edwards 18:09
I think it's a matter of just realizing that if you want more of something, you have to rise to the occasion of their user experience, and also that if you're looking for only old, white guys. It's a terrible fundraising, right, like you're reminding me. So we, I've had a several yard sales in, I don't know, the past 15 years, right? My very first yard sale was probably 15 years ago. Our loft complex, right? Had all of our stuff out, and I remember it. These are, these are the cash days. This is when yard sales I remember. I said my husband to the store, was like, go get more ones, right? Yeah. Fast forward, yard sale about three, four years ago. This time our house, the whole street to the yard sale, and I ran inside to my printer, print my Venmo code. No one had cash. No one yes. And I was like, I'm ready. Let's go. And at some point, then people would say, Well, do you have this app? And I was like, No, I was ill prepared, right? Yeah, everything. And what happens? People leave, they go into my neighbor's house and start shopping there instead, right? And it's like, you have to now, did some retired folks come with piles of cash? Sure, ready to shop. But what if I was only selling to them? My kids had their whole Pokemon table set up. Okay? They were ready for mom or dad to whip out Venmo for their shoppers like you got to meet people where they are.
Salvatore Salpietro 19:32
My daughter would be there at your table getting all the other Pokemon cards. Yeah, we, as a non profit space, yeah, are having a yard sale accepting cash. That's right, that's it.
Christina Edwards 19:44
And also, I do want to talk a little bit about there's this resistance that I hear that sounds something like, oh, you know, I don't want my my accounting person. They're gonna they don't want to learn. Another tool. It's more for them to reconcile. They are really comfortable on this one. Oh, my. Marketing person only knows this one, and it's this resistance to any change. Meanwhile, we are being lapped, lapped by the for profit sector, because their thought process is, they also have the accounting person. They also have the marketing department is like, I guess we got to figure out how to, how to learn this new tech. Let's go. It's totally different. And instead this, this need to stick to what we've always done, gets us always done results.
Salvatore Salpietro 20:37
Yeah. I mean, as a as a sector, as a nonprofit sector, do we want to be more like the government sector in our approach, or more like the profit sector? I mean, like, you have to make a choice. And I think we find ourselves in a limbo. I'm all for Let's go the, let's, let's go the innovative route and and let's find the more efficient way to do things. Yeah, you know. But yeah, that's that happens all 12 i If we call him Joe in accounting, and it's always Joe in accounting that says he doesn't want to change anything, right? I don't want to change my exports, ports, anything
Christina Edwards 21:07
He knows exactly how to run those reports, how to reconcile, and it's it's going to be more tech, more more blah, blah, blah for him to learn. And it seems to me that oftentimes the conversation starts there when you add Joe in accounting, and then to me, it's the board member who's like, oh, the fees. And I'm like,
Salvatore Salpietro 21:27
Yeah, look, I think, I think when we make those requests to Joe and accounting of the board, instead of saying, hey, we want to change X platform, and this change might be needed, I think what we fail to do is add the next paragraph, which is, we're going to be able to feed 600 you know, more children this month because of this technology. If we do not meet that goal, we're happy to revisit, like, tie the impact in that message. Because when Joe in accounting says, I don't want to work with a new spreadsheet format, I go, please deliver that message to the person has to euthanize the dogs the SPCA, I'm brutal. Like, like, like, it's gotta Yeah, you know what?
Christina Edwards 22:09
So I think that's really important, is like, what is the purpose of having more modern tech? What is the purpose? What is the outcome? And really laying that out, and then ultimately, my style is visit Joe's decision, right? Joe, get a weigh in, or are you, as a CEO saying, let's go, we're going to add this tech. Because if I ran my business and asked for, I used to have an agency, and so it's like, yeah, if I had asked everybody their opinion if they liked this style,
Salvatore Salpietro 22:44
it's at a point, especially with all the funding changes and the instability. And I think I have this in my session. It's, this is an existential problem, like nonprofits will not exist. They will not thrive if they don't sort this out, and, you know, rid themselves of this kind of how it's always been done, mindset and apprehension to change and evolve and meet donors where they are. This is, it's not us, US based fact, but it's a perfect example in the UK, fresh top of minds. I just got an email about it this morning. All charities in the UK pretty much only accept direct Bank Debit for monthly giving, right? Because it's always been that way, and because in the, you know, 80s, anything that was a subscription was done that way, and it had and, you know, it was harder for them to cancel and so on and so forth. Not a single e commerce platform in the UK accepts direct debit for subscriptions, right? You pay with, you pay your insurance, your rent, direct debit you don't pay with, for your Netflix and your dog food subscription and the things that boy and we have an entire country that's resisting modernizing that, which I'm there too,
Christina Edwards 24:08
you know, now you're like, Oh, I'm all in, yeah, absolutely,
Salvatore Salpietro 24:12
That's the thing that's going to be the cancer that's going to cripple us if we don't, You know, make those decisions, yeah,
Christina Edwards 24:20
absolutely. I think that's like, another arm of this is, you know, for the organization, that's like, we have some monthly givers. Of course, they always want more. Like, of course, we all do. They're like, that's, that's recurring revenue. That's amazing. And I find, if they would just look at how to your point in the beginning, okay, if I want to become a monthly donor right now, what is that donor experience like? And just changing that, you will see to more forward tech. You will see more monthly donors come in without even running a campaign. I know this because I've had my clients do it. They haven't even run a campaign. They've changed their tech. They've changed that experience, right? It's asking them at checkout, hey, do you want to shift and actually become a monthly donor? Okay, sure, and we as just by asking, and again, letting the tech do that work for you, right? And this is the stuff we're used to all the time in the for profit world. I'm thinking about my supplements. They're like, Hey, you could order them right now, cool. Or you could just subscribe. We'll send them to you every four weeks. We'll give you a discount. What do you think? And I'm like, that sounds great. If I were to audit how many subscriptions I had right now, I'd probably be like, embarrassed, right? But that's but that's it. It's also like, you know, I think I have a toothbrush subscription like down to the most teeny, tiny little things. So why aren't we doing that? Why aren't we automating when we can? Why aren't we asking 10%
Salvatore Salpietro 25:51
of donors will switch to monthly When asked in their fashion, right? Yeah, we don't want you to call them and ask them, right? I don't care if my pizza is three hours late. I'm not calling the pizza shop like I don't want to talk to anybody. Yeah, I'm gonna go into my Uber Eats app. I'm gonna hit the That's right. I'm gonna report the thing. It's late. I'm not gonna talk to anybody. They don't want you to call them. They want to have an experience that lets them decide on the fly impulse.
Christina Edwards 26:19
I do think that's going to be increasing, increasingly generational. So even my generation, like I talked to my friend Jen, I'm like, Jen. Remember when we would talk on the phone in college for like, two hours, and we would ask each other, do you have minutes? Or do I have minutes? Okay, now our entire friendship, she's in Ohio, is we're voice tech, were voice apping each other, right? So, like, what's up? But I think about generations below me, they didn't even have the phone experience. They would rather die than have you call them. So they do want this whole thing again, not only from their couch, but they want this whole experience of not only making the donation, but being stewarded.
Speaker 1 26:58
Yes, yes, potentially, yeah, yeah,
Salvatore Salpietro 27:02
to send me an email once in a while, let me know how much impact there was a stat by next after that said, 28% of nonprofits don't send a thank you email. I'm like, that cannot be true. Yeah, I was at Neo Summit, and yeah, every orb that came to our booth, I said, Can I just make a donation to your nonprofit? Like, yeah, sure. Well, give me the domain. And straight up, that's true. Half of them didn't send a receipt or a thank you, believe it. And I'm talking food banks for entire, you know, state regions,
Speaker 3 27:30
like, yeah, oh, thank you. Email mom, yeah.
Christina Edwards 27:37
A lot of my work is, while I do think lead gen is essential, it's about it's the backbone. A lot of my work is you're sitting on untapped resources. You're sitting on untapped revenue. And it's right there. When the person makes the donation and they don't hear from you, that's it. They've turned and just making that simple change, you're going to see them give again. You're going to see them become monthly donors. You're going to see them come to your event just from that simple change. And it's not about, oh, we need Facebook ads, or we need this outside big thing. We need a hired agency. We need this or that. It's like, oh, maybe, maybe the calls coming from inside the house, right? Maybe when you start there,
Salvatore Salpietro 28:14
absolutely. I posted might have been late last year about the polar bear. Polar bears International, yeah, I made a small I was with my daughter. I think we made a $5 or $10 donation, because she had some money in her green light account. And
Salvatore Salpietro 28:35
I got an email that was automated. I got another email that felt personal. I had a voicemail three days later from them that dropped my voicemail saying, Hey, this is Brenda. We just want to say thank you and your daughter for the donut. It was a never ending gratitude. And I asked him, I said, How are you doing that with a small team? They go, Oh, it's automated. We're using some tech. Yeah, guess what? I've given like, 20 times to them since then. You know, I'm in because they reached out, they showed gratitude,
Christina Edwards 29:01
and it's top of mind. It For Me, it's like, it's not that you're telling me, gosh, I need to be thanked. I need to be inundated with thank yous. But that process, what did it do? It created trust. It created connection. You didn't forget about it.
Speaker 3 29:14
We became fans of each other. There it is. Yeah, totally.
Christina Edwards 29:20
So I want to ask you this question, just based on knowing each other and the post you've had on LinkedIn. I'm curious if fundamentally I want to, I want to know where you fall on this is fundraising, just sales and a different package. What do you think is fundraising? Selling and selling Fundraising?
Salvatore Salpietro 29:41
Wow. This one will get a lot of angry comments. The donor psychology and the buying psychology is different. The expectation is the same for both, right? I expect the receipt. I expect. Expect fast payment methods, I expect money, etc. But the reasons in the psychology are different. What you're selling, and I think I tapped into this in this right sessions too. Toward the end, what you're selling is an emotion, yep, and you're selling, you're selling an intangible, an impact, not a good. So you have to sell that, right? You have to sell. I'm going to give you an opportunity to make a difference, and you're important, so that's selling. I think I'm answering your question, but it's a kind of a two module piece. Yeah, the expectations are the same in the experience, but the way you sell it is very different. But yes, you're selling you're selling impact, you're selling generosity, and that's what you need to facilitate.
Christina Edwards 30:47
And that's why, to some extent, yes, that's different, but using urgency, using strong tech, using good copy, all of those are essential. And that's why, when as something as simple as you know, the programmatic update we get from the nonprofit that's super boring and sterile is forgettable, versus some other type of usually what we see from the for profit sector that feels very personal, that feels an email
Salvatore Salpietro 31:17
an email from one of the nonprofits I support that has a subject line like, check out what we just did, and has one thing, and it's a photo of them doing something super impactful, and that's all I need. I got Megan Walsh. She's all over the place, but she does a nice Friday photo, and she sends one photo on Friday of something that the organization is doing. That's about as much time as I have to digest. Report. I don't need a big, huge newsletter. Give me a quick digestible.
Christina Edwards 31:49
Yes, a quick digestible. I think that's so good. And I think that also takes again, from the person who is sending that email to not ask for buy in, because if you ask your board, if you have show from accounting, what do you think they're both going to be like? You got to do the programmatic update. People aren't going to like that. It's too informal. And I really you want to question all of that. You want to question all the go, all right, I want, here we go. We're going to try it, we're going to let people in, we're going to give something a little bite sized. We're going to do it, you know, maybe more frequently, and just see how people respond. See how people respond. Yep,
Christina Edwards 32:26
I want to talk a bit about going in a slightly different direction. Something else I see that is fairly common is tech hopping. Okay, so I think tech hopping looks like we're changing our CRM again. We're changing our fundraising tool again, we're changing our email marketing tool again, trying to solve right for a fundraising problem,
Speaker 1 32:51
thinking the tech will save you. The Tech is
Christina Edwards 32:55
the end all be all and it's it's tough for me, because the tech is so important, so important to the experience. And tech hopping is something that I see happen in our sector, especially with free or low cost platforms. So where do you what do you say to this? What do you say to the org, who's like, oh, maybe we'll try this. The wind blew me to try that. My board member said to try this. Yeah,
Salvatore Salpietro 33:22
A common theme that I'm hearing at a lot of conferences is I'm overwhelmed. There's too many tech options. Yep, last five years, so many have come onto the scene, yeah,
Salvatore Salpietro 33:36
tech hopping, I'm okay with it, as long as you're upgrading, surfing, modern we all know who the legacy players are, and the ones that feel and look legacy, they might be listening, they know who they are themselves as those platforms, and if you're moving from those to something modern and innovative and agile, hop away.
Salvatore Salpietro 33:58
As far as is tech the solution, it's not the solution, but it's the, it's the, it's the component that will determine the multiple on the return of your efforts.
Christina Edwards 34:12
I really like that? Okay, yes, I'm going to put that in layman's Yes,
Salvatore Salpietro 34:16
I've never used that before, but I think you you get what I'm saying. Yes. Okay, you yourself,
Christina Edwards 34:20
dear Executive Director, dear fundraiser, you have to take action. And you have to hear nos and yeses and nos and yeses, and you're going to keep doing it. You're going to keep doing it. You're keep doing it, and the tech will be the, what was the word you used? The the factor
Salvatore Salpietro 34:37
that determines the multiple on your recruitment efforts. That's right,
Christina Edwards 34:42
I'm doing, like, a whoosh, yes. It will help you scale what you're doing. It will help you have higher conversions, right? It will help the donor, who's like, remember, you know, the donor is like, well, I didn't bring my I don't know, checkbook. You're like, not a problem. Here we go. Right? It will, it will help you. All of that. I love that. I think that's a really good analogy.
Salvatore Salpietro 35:03
Nonprofits ask me all the time, like, if I use Fundraise Up, am I going to just get Are you going to send more donors to my website? I said no, we're going to convert and give those that you already have a better experience. That's right, right?
Christina Edwards 35:16
it's your job to get the people there, dear nonprofit. Going
Salvatore Salpietro 35:20
to squeeze more juice and better experience to those that you're engaged with, already giving you a solid foundation, and hopefully the confidence to build your outreach programs, your lead gen programs, your awareness. And then with that foundation, the return and the fruits of that will be so much higher. I love it.
Christina Edwards 35:41
And then this is a little bit of a an adjacent but do you have organizations that you I would think this is fairly common, but I do want to check in, because I haven't asked before, but where they're using your tool for certain use cases, like maybe their monthly givers, their main page of their website. But there, there are sometimes other tools that they're going to use for, I don't know, an auction, events, things like that. And can we just give everyone permission to have multiple tools? And Joe from accounting is going to be okay? And why that makes sense?
Salvatore Salpietro 36:19
Yeah, Joe's going to be all right. It's all going. to go into one bank account, and we're going to reconcile it, and we're going to now use tools like perplexity and chat GPT and throw the spreadsheets in and say, kick it back the way I need it. It's all there. We can, we can solve for all of it. Our tool is a point solution. We do the one thing. We don't do options, we don't do events, all those things. Many platforms have a lot of things there. Now that's a common question. We chatted a little bit about it before we started. Yeah, at some point, one of those things in a multifunction tool, events, the auctions, the online fundraising, whatever it might be, one of them is going to be a standout for you, hopefully. And that's the part that you want to upgrade eventually to a point solution or a specific tool that does that extremely well, right? Yeah, it's the spork. Will get you so far, right, and at some point you need the real fork. Yes, yes, yes.
Christina Edwards 37:20
I love it so good. We didn't dig in to the we didn't dig in too much into any other takeaways from Stripe sessions. I want to ask you that, and also pulse of donor report, if you want to get into that a little bit,
Salvatore Salpietro 37:30
yeah, well, they kind of coincide. A lot of the data that I shared at stripe sessions was from the pulse of the donor report. So the pulse of the donor report, you can get it at Pulse of the donor.com I was tired of giving out the long URL, so I bought that domain myself and just redirected it. And what we have in that report are a set of data from a set of nonprofits that are all using modern AI powered forward thinking tech, right in this case, and because it's first party data, and that's what we're allowed to have, we have our data and that from stripe, so stripe on the report. So we're using a a payment processor that is very innovative and aggressive. We're using nonprofit fundraising tool, Fundraise Up that is very innovative and aggressive and obsessive about improving the donor experience. And that's our data set, and we compared it against industry benchmarks, MNR benchmarks.com, is when we mostly refer to to see how we're doing. It's a report card. It's not the weather, as Woodrow Rosenbaum says all the time from Giving Tuesday Data Commons. So we looked at that, which is a couple 100 nonprofits, a variety of technology platforms, and then ours. And what we saw in the Pulse of The Donor report is that our numbers are often, you know, in average gift size, an average monthly gift one time, 80%, 90%, 100% higher when you're using tech that is aligned and pushing you in that direction. Conversion rates are double. A lot of the stats that we have are just kind of like, Wait, is this the same industry? Yeah, it's actually like so the tech makes a difference, right? And the nonprofits that are doubling down and leveraging it and investing into their campaigns and efforts on top of a solid Tech Foundation, are seeing right? All the numbers in Fundraising Effectiveness report Giving Tuesday where, like, things are down a little. This is down a little. All of ours, we're not okay.
Christina Edwards 39:46
I have to interrupt because I love that so much. I really think there's, I think it's Bader Meinhof, this sort of idea that like what you see grows, like what you focus on grows. It's true over here, this this report. Report shows that giving is down, while it's also true over here. For this report, in this segment, in this audience, we're doing, we're rocking and rolling, right? So it's like, stop boo hooing over here and focus on your opportunity. Keep going talk more about the report. That's right.
Salvatore Salpietro 40:17
That's right. It's like, if we have one more session where we're, you know, upset about it at a conference, and trying to figure out why. And, like you said, like, kind of, boohoo. Hey, we don't have to cry anymore. We have a roadmap. We have That's right, 3000 nonprofits that are using this tech stack, and they're defying the industry, not right? And I don't, and this isn't a, you know, a Fundraise Up sales session, like, use whatever you got to use, yeah, do it, but you need to have Apple Pay. You need to have the thing that's right, to have a smooth experience, because it's going to turn the tide for you. Yes, you know, I think the phrase I use is, is the technology you use can reverse negative trends and amplify positive trends. You know, that's, that's the impact that the technology can have. I
Christina Edwards 41:02
feel like, for every organization that you can find, sure that's like, a so hard giving is down, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Okay, let me introduce you to my clients. Let me talk to the people. You're, you're, you're, you know, there's so many organizations that are like, this is happening, and this is what this is what we're doing. We're growing who are seeing more recurring I just got off the call with an executive director, and he was like, Hey, we have a board meeting coming up. Hey, we're going to make sure we talk about how many new recurring giving. Let's, let's pull that data. And it's like, yeah, it's not all doom and gloom. You certainly can find it if you want to find it and spend some time there. But that's not very productive, and it's also not true for everyone.
Salvatore Salpietro 41:48
Yep, we I think we can start being more ambitious in what we compare ourselves against. Yes, right? You don't want to look at at at your neighbor, necessarily, you want to aspire to be something that's that's elevated and beyond that. I'm trying to find A right example on the fly of it's not coming to me, but, you know,
Christina Edwards 42:13
That's the part we can learn. We can learn so much from especially ecom, especially founders, right? I'm lucky in the sense that my husband works in FinTech, so he's on calls with these people who are founders of 3, 10, 20, $50, million or companies growing very quickly, sure, online, and they don't break a sweat when last quarter was down, right? In fact, they're doubling down. And sometimes, sometimes he's like, Well, I we call it lovingly and like. It's a healthy delusion, that healthy delusion of being like, I see what last quarter did. Watch. Watch me this quarter instead of being like. Let me talk to the other e comm people that had a hard last quarter, boo hoo like he really, I've noticed the edge the in the mindset that that sector has, where they take what happened, and they move faster and they iterate and They go,
Salvatore Salpietro 43:22
you? Reminded me of highagency.com Have a read when you have a moment. 30 minutes the Wright Brothers, yeah, he he read the story on here like he tried for years, the same week that they
Salvatore Salpietro 43:40
flew for a minute and a half, or whatever it was. This time, the New York Times published an article that said scientists have determined that human flight will not be possible for at least 1000 years based on math needed in the same week.
Christina Edwards 43:54
That's what I'm saying. And he's they're like what they're like? Watch us. He was, what
Salvatore Salpietro 43:58
was it? Delusional, happily delusional, healthy delusion. He was, he had healthy delusion. Check out High agency.com,
Christina Edwards 44:06
that's good. We'll link to it. We'll link to it for sure. Pretty
Salvatore Salpietro 44:09
amazing. And also, we went on the moon before suitcases had wheels. Did you know that that's in there as well?
Christina Edwards 44:19
Thank you for that. Talk about holding on to old tech, right? Schlepping as a chronic over Packer like this is real. This is real schlepping, yeah, totally, Oh, I love this. Anything else before we wrap up, this has been such a juicy conversation. Thank you.
Salvatore Salpietro 44:38
That's, that's, you know, the takeaways I'd like to leave with with your audience, the stripe sessions that I did, you know, it was mostly geared to the E commerce space, to show them that we're here and we are going to show up, and we're going to play the game, and we're going to learn from them with, you know, a subtext message to the nonprofit to say, Hey, by the way, we're now, we're now being seen. We got to step up. So this is my everybody that's listening to step up and take that invitation and and set a new North Star for ourselves. Love it.
Christina Edwards 45:09
And no matter where your organization is at scale, there is something you can do today to level up, level up on this absolutely. So we ask every guest on the podcast to share a thought that they like to think on purpose. This could be an affirmation, a mantra, something you heard, a quote, just something that guides you forward. Would you share yours with us?
Salvatore Salpietro 45:32
I think one of my mantras that I try to live by in anything is, if it's not a win for everyone, it's a loss for everyone. Hmm,
Salvatore Salpietro 45:42
I love it. First thing that came to mind is it win situation, yeah, losing. It's, it's, it's not good karma for anybody. Oh, that's good.
Christina Edwards 45:50
My son just had his final little league game and they lost. That's okay in the playoffs. But I watched the other team, the coaches for the other team care about the win way too much, right? And it's making me think about, like, how is it just it was, I mean, they're nine, it was an amazing
Salvatore Salpietro 46:08
part of perception, right? The losing team, it's like, you had a great time, learned a lot, and it's not right. But for the donor, make it, make it a win. Win, win. Make it a win.
Christina Edwards 46:19
You know everybody, yeah, where can, where you can roll out the red carpet? I have some teachings on that for them, of just making it a win, making that trust right out of the gate, that honeymoon period. Really, really important. Thank you so much. We will link to all of the things, because there was a couple of really important reports, and people can watch your stripe session. Can we link to that too? Is that cool? Just it just went, Okay, we'll link to it because it's a good session, and I like the straddle between the for profit, nonprofit world and the way that you're showing the data, so I think that's important for everybody to see. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. We really appreciate it absolutely. Thank you.