Ep. 111: Driving Donor Action: Navigating 3 Phases of Campaign Growth
EPISODE 111
Driving Donor Action: Navigating 3 Phases of Campaign Growth
About the Episode:
Today on the podcast, you're going to hear a recording of a webinar I knew I needed to share with you. I'm sharing the three phases of campaign success – pre-game, launch, and taking your victory lap – but most organizations skip to phase 2, stay in phase 2, and never make it to phase 3.
So as you prepare for the busiest time fundraising this year, think about how you can make sure that you move through phase one, into phase two, and finally landing in phase three. Throughout the episode, you’ll learn how to build buzz during your campaign launch and maintain that momentum and close strong for donor retention.
Just a note that we recorded this training on Zoom, and we had so many great questions come in, like I said, I couldn't keep it a secret. So please enjoy and you're going to hear me mention the club and if you want to know more about what we do or if it’s right for you, the best thing you could do right now is book a call with me, the show notes will have a link to my calendar. Book a call with me, so we can make this year your most successful one yet.
Topics:
What should happen in the Pre-Game to prime your audience, drive excitement, and anticipation
How to launch so it creates loads of engagement via a social street team and creates a frictionless experience for every donor
What to do after you’ve received your big pop of donations at the beginning of the launch but then giving has died down mid-launch
Why you should always take a victory lap, even if you didn’t meet the goal that you had set for yourself and why the week after your event is so crucial
The necessity of strong stories that stand out from every other organization in your niche
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Take the victory lap, celebrate the success you've had, even if you didn't make the goal.”
“You get to be authentic, you get to be transparent, you get to be vulnerable. You get to be human. You don't have to sound like an ominous organization that just sounds professional all the time.”
“Phase two and three require something important, they require strong stories. None of this will work well if your stories are sterile, generic, diluted, they sound like everyone else.”
“It requires bravery to tell stories more honestly. It requires bravery to tell stories that are more humanizing.”
“Grit is about that sort of long term commitment to your goal, it is about resilience.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 00:12
Hi, ginger and Vicky and Whitney. Hello. All right, I am doing a couple things to settings. Happy Friday. I'm glad you're here. Pop open the chat. Tell me about your organization where you're calling in from, and what brought you here today. Well, I get everything going. Let's see Here we are gonna perfect. You gotta pin me. Awesome, perfect. Who all is here? Okay, introduce yourself in the chat, because this is something I want this group to be engaged. Okay, so you're gonna get the most out of this session if you're engaged. So tell me about your organization. What is the problem you're hoping to solve today? Okay? Whitney is here from the Institute for sport and social justice. What is that? Tell me more. Whitney, all right. I see, okay. Ginger is from South Boston Development Corporation. We create and preserve affordable housing. Wonderful. Okay? Love that Andrea's here, Nancy's here, ginger and E Heber on. Tell us about your organization and the problem you're hoping to solve today. So as I said to those of you who are just kind of filing in today, we are going to interact. So I want you to use the chat. You will have some opportunity for some coaching, if you want some help. Today, we're here talking about the three phases of campaign success. Okay, so the three phases of campaign success, all right? Eileen from positive teams in San Diego, cool. We train and place service and facility dogs, amazing. Hang on, I'm going to make this chat bar bigger. Okay, okay. Whitney says I'm in Ann Arbor. We educate, empower leaders in sport to create a safer, more equitable and diverse world. Wonderful. So have you been deep into the Olympics? Whitney, as much as I have, I feel like that's probably right up your alley. Amazing. All right, so we're going to dig in. But as I said, Today is an interactive session, so please use the chat. Please ask questions. And I want to know the big thing that you're working on, the big thing that is a question, a problem, a challenge or a goal that you're working on right now, or maybe looking in towards year end. Okay, so I have this lovely board behind me. We're going to talk about the three phases of campaign success. And what's really interesting is, as I was creating this today, I was thinking about how most organizations start and stop in phase two. Okay, phase two, they actually skip phase one and they blow past phase three. So what I see again and again is organizations start in phase two, do the the campaign, and then start another campaign in phase two. So if that's you now today, you will have the awareness I need to start in phase one, and I need to make sure that I leave time for phase three, because that's a really important retention piece. Okay, so let's dig in to today's training. Let me move a couple things. Awesome. All right, so phase one is all about the pregame. If you've ever gone tailgating, pregame tailgating. Give me a one in the chat. Okay, if you've ever gone tailgating, I've gone tailgating this many times, but I know about it. I know what's up. Okay, yes. So what happens when you're tailgating? What happens when you're pre gaming? You are in anticipation of something for which is not currently happening, right? Ginger says, yes, okay, yeah. So you've been tailgating before. Maybe you are going to a football game. Maybe you're tailgating before a concert. I remember going to a drive in movie once, and there was almost like tailgating, like people hanging out before the actual movie started, right? So that's tailgating, okay? So how can your organization before you actually launch your campaign. And say, give, give, give, give, give story, give story, give, right? How can you actually start to pregame? What would that look like? And if you have any ideas, I want you to type them in the chat as I'm going through this training. Okay, so I'm going to share with you some ideas of what a pregame is. A pregame is building anticipation in advance of a thing, in advance of your campaign. So let's use some examples here. If you have a campaign coming up, I want to know the name of your campaign in the chat. Tell me what that is. Tell me what the goal is and when it starts. So while you're doing that, let's say you. Have a Giving Tuesday campaign coming up. Okay, how are you priming your audience that that campaign is coming? How are you building anticipation and awareness that that is company coming in advance of actually launching the thing? If you think about tailgating, that's exactly what happens. People are hanging out, they're catching up, they're saying it's so good to see you, and I can't wait for so and so to play. Or what do you think's going to happen in the game? Right? That's tailgating, right? So what are some ways that you can prime and seed your audience in advance of this campaign? Well, gratitude. Now is a good time to thank them for their support. Leading up now is a good time to show them social proof. Social proof is simply what we do works. Here is the proof of what we do. So if you have programming, you can show stats, testimonials, program participant stories, what we do work. So endorsements, okay, that's social proof. Teasing out something is coming. If you think about going on a trip to Hawaii, part of what makes that trip to Hawaii so special is the anticipation of going on that trip. Give me a one in the chat if you're with me. Yes, going to Hawaii is amazing. But think about it, it's all of the people that you talk to. So for example, this summer, we went to Panama for a month, and in advance of taking that trip, it was like all the people who were like, Oh my gosh, what are you doing? Where are you staying? Are you going to the beach? Are you what else is happening? It's the anticipation, and you're talking about it in advance. That's what happens in the pregame when you don't do this. What it's like for your donors, your subscribers, your members, your followers, is it's like you're just walking along and all of a sudden you're like, donate today. Ha, I'm in the bushes. I'm jumping out right versus them, expecting through this pregame that it's coming. Okay? If that is resonant with you, if you have questions about the pre game, put it in the chat. If you've never done a pregame strategy, let me know in the chat. Okay, more often than not, I see either no pregame or I see the tiny, tiniest, tiniest pregame. Again, I'm going to go use the tailgating example. Think about the people who tailgate. They get there at like, eight o'clock in the morning. If the game is at 6pm It's wild. They're not getting there five minutes before the game and starting a tailgate. No, there's, like, grills. There's whole thing. And I want you to think about, I'm not going to pregame one day in advance of my fundraiser, of my campaign, of my launch. I'm going to start pulling that, stretching that timeline out and actually doing that longer and start dripping out that anticipation in advance. Okay, phase one pregame most often skipped, yes, okay, yeah. Tanya says, No, we haven't done a significant pregame effort. And that's really, really normal. I see that time and time and time again. Okay, think about a like, I've used bombas before as an example. If they're dropping a new design, like, let's say they have a holiday sock bundle they're dropping, do they let you know on December 1 that the holiday sock bundle is here? No, they're seating it out building anticipation. They're maybe showing you that this is what it looks like, or this is who it's for, or look at these cute family wearing the matching socks, right? Building that buzz. Maybe there's a wait list, things like that. Then you've got phase two. Phase two is where most organizations just hang out. They just call the whole campaign. Phase two. Phase two is the actual launch. This is when you open doors, you kick it off. You send an email, you maybe are on the phone, you have a direct mail piece, you have social media posts, whatever it is is kicked off, okay? And whatever syndication method that you use, whatever kind of multi channel platforms you use, you kick it off with a lot of energy. Again, it's that sort of beginning of the game. You're super excited. There's a lot of energy around it. What most organizations aren't doing is these two things. They don't have a social street team, so it's the organization siloed off, and the organization is fundraising in this campaign. Okay? So the big distinct distinction here is that I actually want you and your advocates, your champions, to use their channels as street teamers, to fundraise alongside of with you. And if you've ever watched like a book launch, or like any sort of new thing come out into the world, the book launch is what comes to me. So if there's a thought leader publishing a new book, what will happen is, like everybody on that launch day will she'll have podcasters featured on her, you know, guesting on podcasts. There'll be news articles written about it, things like that. Like a movie premiere, same thing. So we'd see the movie. We'd see. Ads for the movie, we'd see people talking about the movie on social media, full court press, not just the movie, talking about the movie. Yeah, you with me? Okay, so that's the first important thing. Is the social street team. The next important thing here is frictionless. Friction is you sent me an email. I'm interested. I'm interested. I want to donate, but crap, I'm on my phone, and I click the button. I'm pinching in to zoom in, I could barely read your page, and then, boom, I have this long form payment structure, and you want me to get up and go enter in my credit card information. That is a friction full experience. So we want to make sure that in the launch that is as frictionless as possible. That means that you have a donation tool that has lots of different payment methods. That means that you have everything sized for mobile. A lot of people are going to be on mobile. That means that you're meeting me where I am. If I'm on Social, I'm seeing it there. If I'm on email, I'm seeing it there. Maybe you have SMS texting or things like that. That's on there too. Okay, that's the launch. Let's see. I'm going to check the chat and as I'm going to just drop in questions in the group here. Okay, one of the things that occurs to me is that two pre games I went to, we were much more about gathering and having fun, not particularly the game. Some people were there for the game. It seemed like, in a way, it was a way to gather people who didn't much care for the game itself. Yeah, and building community, yes, but you were all there for a purpose. You gathered there on Saturday morning, in advance of the game, and that's all it is. And I agree, and I think that's an important distinction. Is the pregame doesn't mean you're just saying, Look how amazing we, the organization, are. It's just lightly seeding out something is coming. And you can actually tell them what that something is, or you can say, stay tuned on Monday, the ninth, for a big announcement. So you can do that. You can tease it out that way, either way. Okay, so we've got phase two, the launch phase, what I'm calling 2.5 because this is still part of launch phase. So every launch has a couple of very predictable ebbs and flows to it. Okay? So no matter how long your campaign is, your campaign may be a week long, a month long, or a couple months long. I see these same predictable phases. The first is at the gate. When you make that full big announcement, you've got your street team, you've got your advocates, it's frictionless. We see a big pop of donations in the beginning. If that's you give me a one in the chat. It's like the day you announced the thing. It's like all the people who wanted to go to the movie first all the people who wanted to buy tickets to their favorite performer, we buy them first, we go to the pre sale, right? That's, yeah, you're super fans. And then I'm going to use a week long just as an example for this. But this is true of any container of time. There's this point in the middle where you're like, that was it? This is a that's it. That was the pop. We're never going to meet our goal. I call this the messy middle. This is where we see a decrease in engagement. Okay? And you're like, well, I could tell the people who were going to give and share and support already did. You can give me a one in the chat. If you're like, Yes, I'm familiar with this. And internally, it just feels like stagnant. It feels like maybe a fail. It feels like it's just like, I kind of a bummer, right? So here's the thing. Here is the antidote to that feeling and to that occurrence which is really, really predictable. And I call them momentum boosters, okay? So imagine you're, like, just driving down the road, and it's kind of an open road and you decide to, like, really hit the gas, and your car goes, like, you know what I'm talking about, like, kind of, kind of gun it, right? My son calls this when you hit the jackpot, he's like, hit the jackpot, and he was kind of, you know, your hair kind of goes back, okay, that's what we want to do to your campaign. And in order to hit the jackpot, to have a momentum booster. You need something to announce, something to inject an action in, something to get the people who are warm they're reading your emails or seeing your social posts or getting your card, whatever they haven't yet taken action. So what are some momentum boosters you can bake in to your your year end campaign. If you have ideas. Drop them in right now. I want to hear them. So I will share some of my ideas, okay, and some that have worked for our clients. So one idea is, you don't announce the donor match until you need it, right? So you can announce the donor match as your momentum booster. It could be on day two, day five, week three of your campaign, you get to decide, okay? So you could announce a donor match, okay, another one would be starting to really go social for a day. So you could do a series of lives on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever your audience hangs out, and do testimonials or do interviews or bring on program part. Participants, something where it's like an all hands on deck kind of media day. You could make a big announcement. Maybe your ED wants to come on and make a big announcement. You could have a challenge. Now, this is a little bit more of an advanced technique, but let's say we've got a month long fundraiser. Well, let's inject a mini campaign in there. Maybe it's 24 new donors and 24 hours, right? It's like a sub goal. Inside the goal, if you've ever done that, or give me a one, if you're like, oh, I want to try that, give me a two. And you get to pick what the mini campaign is. Okay? So it could be one of those. It could be some sort of limited time offer. The limited time offer could be any donations that come in this week will receive a hat, we'll receive a thing. We'll get a thing, right? You could have an offer. That offer could be a swag item. It could be something else. They could be a VIP invite to a chat, insiders group, a meet up online, something like that, upgraded tickets to an event. Okay, so there's a lot of different ways you could add momentum boosters here it could be a partnership announcement. Maybe you're bringing on a really awesome partner or sponsor. It could be that maybe you've got an amazing social street teamer that said yes, and that social street teamer is a big deal. This happened to one of my clients. They had a street teamer that had over a million subscribers on YouTube. Momentum booster. Go live with that person that day. You with me. Okay, so momentum booster is a surprise. That's the piece. Now, most organizations just stay in two and then they're like, it's over. And I decide that it's over based on time. So for example, giving Tuesdays over there for my fundraiser is over. The campaign is over. No, no, no, no, no, no. And then we just stop. We kind of lay back because it's exhausting and tired, and then we pick it back up when it's another campaign time, yeah, sound right? So we're not doing that. Instead, we're going to do the victory lap. Okay, think about a victory lap, right? You win a race. Do a victory lap. But here's the distinction with the way that I'm teaching the victory lap is, no matter if you raised $1 you still take a victory lap. And I will share why one is. It's a victory. If you raised $1 it's a victory. Somebody was generous enough to say, yes, I want to donate, right? It's a victory so even if you didn't make your goal, let's say your goal is $50,000 and you're at $42,000 when the campaign's over. Okay, take the victory lap. So what is a victory lap? A victory lap is closing the story loop. Okay? It's saying this happened. We're at $42,000 amazing. Here's what's next for us with that $42,000 we're going to do X, Y and Z, thanks to you, right? And then you say it's not too late. You want to make a gift. Let's go and you have a call to action so you can take the victory lap. Celebrate the success you've had, even if you didn't make the goal. So in my coaching program, the purpose and profit club, we have an organization that just did their first monthly giving launch. Okay, so in seven days, they brought in 53 new donors. Okay, what I said to them was, take that victory lap. Okay, so it was a seven day campaign, so on that Monday, I want you to close the loop what happened? And here's the thing, their goal was higher. I think they've knocked it out of the park, and they do too, but their goal is higher. So it's like you don't always have to take the victory lap at on a soapbox with your gold medal, saying We did it. We're amazing. You get to be authentic, you get to be transparent, you get to be vulnerable. You get to be human. You don't have to sound like an ominous organization that just sounds professional all the time, right? That sounds so generic and buttoned up. So you get to say congrats, like Thank you. Here's what happened. You stuck with us. We welcome to 53 new donors. We raise x amount of funds. We're not done yet. Here's what's next, and you paint the picture of what's in the future. Okay? And then with her, what I said to her was, I want you to send a note in that victory lap email, and I want you to say maybe becoming a monthly donor wasn't right for you right now, you can make a one time gift to this campaign here, and have a call to action to make a one time gift in the victory lap email. And she brought in a couple more $1,000 with that alone, right? And it would be so easy to say the campaign's done splat. I want to rest now. I had somebody on my podcast who's an event expert, and he gave such great advice. And he said he does a lot of he does basically all in person events. So he's just like, that's his world. Been doing it for 20 years. And he said most often he sees these organizations, you know, these are huge fundraising events. So much effort came in, planning the event, putting on the event, doing the. Event, the knee jerk reaction is, God, I just want to take that Monday off, right? I just want to take the week off. Let my staff rest. I want to rest. We did it. I'm out. He was like, That is the worst time to take off. He's like, that is the warmest, most engaged your audiences all year. Think about that, because if they're on that event Saturday night, they're dancing, they're seeing people they haven't seen in six months or a year. They're more engaged with your mission. They're more clear on what it is you do right then and there than they will be for the next 364 days, potentially. And when you don't take that victory lap, when you don't close the story loop with them on Monday, pick up the phone, call them. Oh my God, it was so great to see you. Here's what we were able to raise. Here's what's next. You're missing that like sweetest honeymoon period. Okay, so this is a version of that, and I want to offer just build it into standard practice, whatever our victory lap period is. So it might be a day, if it's an online fundraiser, if it's an in person Gala, you may say, you know, we need, we need the full week to follow up during this very highly engaged period. So you could decide, like, how long you and your team needs for that sweet spot period, for the victory lap, but then decide it's the week after that that we take off. It's the week after that we build in the rest. So it's not that I'm saying don't rest, it's that I'm saying stretch it out just a tiny bit more. Okay, it's like you got one more leg of the race that I want you to run. The race wasn't just this one solo launch, Okay, questions. Drop them in the chat. Are you with me? Does this make sense? Yeah. Okay. So the goal of closing out the campaign, closing out the story loop, having that victory lap, regardless of what happened, is so that you can wrap it up by sharing outcomes, what was achieved, what wasn't the story, the energy behind the message, maybe some surprise moments that happened that would be kind of cool to see maybe you had some board members or some volunteers or a surprise message from a program participant. Share that, ask permission and share that, right? What were those kind of unexpected wins in it? Even if you don't meet your goal, there's, it's littered full of wins. Okay, all right. So what I wrote down here is phase two, phase 2.5 and Phase Three require something important. They require strong stories. None of this will work well. If your stories are sterile, generic, diluted, they sound like everyone else, if you're a pet rescue, I want it to sound like your pet rescue, your point of view, not the 10 other pet rescues in my area. Okay, so strong stories, high frequency. None of this will be successful if your frequency is safe and cozy and forgettable. Okay, so this doesn't work. If you're like, listen, we sent out two emails, and I don't know what happened, right? And we didn't hit our goal. I'm like, Well, that is not enough emails. Okay, so I see in the chat, okay, what time period are you assigning to these phases and what frequency period? Here's the thing, these three phases could be used for any type of fundraiser. So sometimes our fundraisers are a week long. Sometimes they're longer, like a year end. So you're going to decide what that is for giving Tuesday. I would have your pregame a couple weeks in advance. I'd start seeding it, okay? And your launch and your momentum booster I would have over the course of the week. You can stretch it out, okay? So it's going to depend on the actual campaign itself, but high frequency, I just hosted a webinar about fundraising success in an election year, and the big thing to take away is that it's going to take more repetition to get your audience's attention. So that means more more outreach, more emails, more social posts, okay, energy up advocacy, so meaning that you have other people championing and advocating for your cause. They may be fundraising, they may be boosting visibility, but using what I teach, using the social Street Team method, so that there are other people alongside of you, and not just you, the organization, fundraising, yeah, you with me. And then these are the two core core values that you need to have carrying in through your end, bravery and grit. Because it requires bravery to tell stories more honestly. It requires bravery to tell stories that are more humanizing, more real, like two friends talking and it also tell takes a lot of grit to get through the curves that messy middles, the peaks and the valleys of a launch. Okay, grit is about that sort of long term commitment to your goal. Grit. Grit is about resilience that like, Huh? Maybe your experience is different. Maybe you you launch your fundraiser and right out of the gate, it feels pretty quiet. Grit is the courage to continue and continue strong, not continue in like a soft way, but like a full court press. Okay, that's great. So in an election year, you can December 31 of this year, blame your outcomes, your results on it and be like, well, crap. It was an election year. You know, at the time of today, we have no idea what's going to happen in the presidential election, but what I can tell you is it's going to be a very loud time online. And after election day, it will be louder. It's just going to be a wild Nova or November, yeah, so you can decide, Yeah, that sucks, and I don't know what we're going to do and shrug or plan for it. Start a movement, get the support to stand out. You're the perfect time right now to see it right? It's like you see it coming. You have the forecast this is happening. So what do we want to do in response to it, to plan for it. So one thing I want you to do is start this process earlier. I don't want you to wait until mid November to start year end fundraising. Okay, you with me? All right? Yeah, I want you to start this process earlier. I want you to think about who can I bring in, in my street team now, to prep me for the next few months? Okay, so that it's not just you siloed off. Okay, so you're here because you're actively trying to solve the problem, yeah, otherwise you wouldn't be here. So I want you to tell me what problem you're trying to solve. Okay? Because when you already know how to swim, you don't sign up for swimming classes, right? So what problem are you trying to solve? Take a moment. I'm gonna have a sip of water. I don't need to tell me in the chat. All right, let me go through this here. I'm okay, I see earlier, but I see we've started to collect feel good moments from our therapy and facility dog volunteers to do pre game for giving Tuesday. Now is the time to do that exactly. Now is the time to collect those posts right, to collect those toast devotios, to ask for an interview, to get get your street teamers on board, to plan an IG live with somebody. Right That now is exactly the time, yeah, okay, how to navigate year end fundraising in an election year? Yeah, exactly. So the first thing I would say for that is, let's say your strategy for 2023 was, was what it was. Please don't replicate it. We have to build on top of it. Okay, so that's the first thing. Do not expect to replicate last year's strategy and get the same results, because we're dealing with a completely different time. Okay, so that's the first thing. So we need to to ideate and add to it. The second thing we need to do is create a street team. If you haven't already, I want you to, I really, really want to urge you to do that, because that's the piece that ends. The sort of, where is everybody engagement so low, right? Think about this. If you have kids, did you go to Google to find your pediatrician? Or did you ask another mom? I know what I did. I did two things at that time. I didn't have a whole lot of mom friends with my first child, so I went to the the local community Facebook group that was moms. And I was like, Where do I go? Who do I see? And they were like, you gotta go for so and so. Watch out for so and so. I don't like them, right? One trusted endorsement to another. That's the power of influencers. That's the power of having digital ambassadors. So that's a big thing. The other thing, I would say, is to increase your frequency. So whatever you're normally doing, I want you to take it to 11. So increasing your emails, increasing your social posts, if you do direct mail, give me a one in the chat if you do direct mail, okay? If you have a direct mail list, give me one in the chat. And for those of you that do add another piece, direct mail is great. It's important. If you have it, great, add more. So. For example, you do one year end fundraising letter, please add two. You may also want to consider moving your timeline earlier. Okay, so if you normally roll something out in early to mid November, want to roll that out earlier and also think about what we want to do in mid to or in late November and also into December. Okay, all right, let me see here. Okay, managing and balancing big gala event in october YEAR end fundraising 40th anniversary celebration. Yeah. Well, the good thing about that, that you have, like, multiple things going on, is that you can do distinct, separate campaigns, and one campaign is going to appeal. To one audience or a group of people that might not appeal to another. So that's actually a good way to scoop up different people. Okay, so the annual gala is going to get the gala folks year end fundraising are going to get the folks who are used to that that's their time to give 40th anniversary celebration. That's something we want to celebrate all through next year it looks like, like, make that a theme, and that can be another theme, messaging piece that goes out, versus just lumping them all together. Okay, so I would picture like, what I'm doing with my hands, peaks and valleys. So if you were going to roll out those three themes, Whitney, what I would do is go, what is when am I first talking about this? And then adding a little buffer time, and then this one, and adding some buffer time, and then this one, okay, all right. Andrea says distinguishing a special campaign and supporting efforts from end of year campaign outreach, yeah, so that's going to be similar to what I just said is like, do you want to brand your special campaign? Is there a theme for your year end campaign, so that I as a donor, I as a follower, am clear the differences, right? Oh, this one's specifically talking about this, or this is specifically I'm very clear on the goal, I'm very clear on the outcome. I'm very clear on the programming and how that's different from the other one, and that you're not talking about them all at the same time. So it's just like, all mixed in together. I was picturing like a stew, like crock pot. You're just lumping them all together. When you do that, you say, a confused mind doesn't buy so confused mind doesn't donate either. So if it's like, should I become a monthly donor? Should I give to the year end? Should I buy a gala ticket? Should I go to the anniversary event? Forget it. I'm not doing any of them. Right? So that's why I like kind of dis. Kind of distinct pieces. Yeah, this is the work we do in the purpose and profit club. Many of you have already gotten emails about it. It is open for enrollment. I'm going to go ahead and drop my booking link to book a one on one call with me in the chat. Okay, we're enrolling now, and I want to tell you a little bit about it. The first thing is, this is a small group of nonprofits, and I know every single one of them in the club very, very well, so I don't have to go through discovery. So when you ask me for feedback about your campaign, I'm not giving you like broad strokes feedback that I would give to anyone I know your organization. We meet every single week. We have, we you have every bit, of course, content templates, anything like that, you would ever need to support you in this process. But more than that, we do the inner work to get the motivation and the outer work, the strategy piece as well. So if you want to grab a spot with me, the next few days are open. Okay? So I'm going to keep going through the chat, because I see more questions on that. Somebody said, How do I create a street team? Yes, so we teach that in the club, and there's templates and tools and everything that you need to create your street team. Next month's theme is going to be about the street team concept, so that everyone can go ahead and have I want everybody to have at least 10. And 10 is possible. 10 is possible for an organization with 100k budget. 10 is possible with an organization of a million plus. What I mean on that is it's accessible to you at any price or at any fundraising level. This is not something where we pay influencers or anything like that to be partners. They're ambassadors. They want to use their voice for good. It's pretty impossible to hop on Instagram right now and not see that. You see so many people who are interior designers, makeup artists, anyone who has a voice lifting up their candidate of choice right now. If you see that right now in the chat, give me a one right, lifting up, using their social platforms of hundreds of 1000s of followers to lift up their candidate. Right, to say, I care about this, and you should too, and they will do that for your mission too, but you have to ask them, and you have to make it really easy, and you have to make it not feel like committee or board work. So that's the nuance there. Okay, let me keep going. Okay, direct mail once a year. One end of mirror. Okay, so those of you with direct mail, please, please, please, please, like, really momentum booster, like, hit the jackpot on that, because the direct mail will really help you. So maybe you want to do an oversized postcard and you want to do a letter, maybe you want to do something else, like those last two weeks of December, I've written hundreds of direct mail pieces for my private practice, and it's like, what worked even just two years ago. We're ideating on and we're iterating on, and it's really, really important, especially during an election year, because what do we get right now if you're being inundated with direct mail, postcards, like I am giving you a one in the chat, like there's so many, and they're getting bigger and wilder and all of that. So it does really work. And that's the other thing I want to say about an election year, is it works is like, look at how much email they send, text messages. I was getting text messages last night at midnight. That was like, hey. Christina, the you know, so and so wants to hear from you. How are you going to vote? Right? So many different ways. They're trying to figure out as a voter, and, you know, get my attention. Direct Mail, text messages, email, social influencers like Right? They're going all in, and they are unafraid to email you often. Okay, yes, Teresa, send me an email. I can send you a replay if you need it. Okay. What other questions do I have? Let's see All right, Nancy, I see that coming in and yeah, just keep dropping them in as as we go through this so Nancy says we need to switch donor platforms. This just made me think at some point, once we have it set up, we could launch a mini monthly giving campaign to help get people aware that we have switched our donation link. One, does that seem like a good idea? Two, we should we do this as soon as possible, or Okay, going into year end, great question. I'm actually going to go back here. Now is the time, and there's almost like the pre, pre game. So instead of tailgating, you're like, shopping for your tailgating stuff. I don't know. Now is the time to make sure your fundraising tool is exactly the right one you want is exactly frictionless that Christina can donate from her couch to you without getting up and grabbing her credit card. It is there. Okay, so I would do that right now. If you have questions on which ones I like, which ones are great, you can send me a message after this. I also want to offer there is no one right. One right? Think about how many different brands of jeans there are right now, we're all have different brands of genes. Why? Because we have different preferences. There are some that are great for smaller and mid size and larger size organizations. So I can point you to those. But I really want you to get a tool that is like, make sure it has apple, pay all the credit cards, Google, Google, pay Venmo, PayPal. Those are the big five. Okay, um, should we wait to launch a mini monthly giving campaign or use it as kind of a post victory lap Giving Tuesday? I would need to know, like, why to go to bat to wait? So right now, you know, we're end of summer here ish, why not run a mini campaign in the next couple of weeks, right? Why wait that many months to to launch it now, if it's for a monthly donor, so we do want to think about like, do you have your tech set up for that so to make sure that those pieces were to get were ready to go? But we have a lot of people right now, my clients in the club who are fundraising now and are will also fundraise like they normally do on year end. But I'm like, let's get some revenue in now. Maybe we want to run a fundraiser to lapse donors. Maybe want to reengage that group. Maybe we want to just start seeding what I call like VIP donors and identifying them. We have a Multiplier tool for that in the club, like, how? How do we want to start priming people for what we want them to do. So I wouldn't necessarily think of monthly giving as a post like, Hey, if you didn't give on Giving Tuesday, why don't you become a monthly donor? I would think of it as its own solid, standalone campaign. Or hey for monthly for giving Tuesday, why not make it all about becoming a monthly donor. That would be another way to do it, because monthly donors are amazing. We have a series on my podcast coming up about that. We're bringing on a lot of experts on monthly giving, and so it's just such a smart thing to put front and center because of the subscription economy. Like I think I have at least more than 20 subscriptions right now. I don't even know how you know what I mean. It's like between food deliveries, between Spotify, between all of the different Netflix and cable and things like that. So we are used to subscriptions, but I don't want you to just launch a monthly giving campaign and just have it be like an afterthought. So you can create a actual you would have enough time to create it for giving Tuesday, that's for sure. What other questions do we have? What I want to also talk about is this inner work. Okay, so what I see is I see two types of leaders come to me. I see the leader who is feeling frustrated or overwhelmed or burnt out. Who is feeling time scarce and who feels like, like, kind of like the hands in the air shrug like, I don't know what else I can do, right? I don't know what I could do. It's so hard right now, inflation, economy, engagements low. I don't know what I said I could do. And then I see this more curious, almost like a like, like this, this, I'm picturing a magnifying glass like I'm in the lab. I'm getting curious. Like, oh. I wonder what I could try, right? If I know I hit my goal. December 31 we do it. We hit my goal. I wonder what else I could do. I wonder who I haven't asked. I. I wonder what conversation with what donor I've been putting off that would be a really key conversation to have. I wonder how I could get a little bit more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. What donor conversations have I been avoiding that could actually take huge chunks out of our fundraising goal? Right? How can I get more brave, more courageous? And that grit, that grit is so, so important, because that's that piece of like, when you fall, when you hear a No, when a campaign doesn't go how you want it to right out of the gate, it doesn't stop you, it doesn't slow you down, right? That's the piece is like, how do I actually just go, yeah, that's just part of the deal. And we go and we go, and that's like the inner work. That's the mindset piece that's really, really, really essential for this time. All right, um, any other questions, or we've got a little bit of time. How about if anyone wants to unmute and get some coaching? I'd be down for that. I'm also going to drop in a link to the club so you can actually look at that page and you can go through it, and if you have any questions on that, you can ask me now.
41:09
All right,
Christina Edwards 41:19
okay, all right, y'all don't be shy. You're here. You've got me what questions you have?
41:31
I've got one. Yeah, how do you What? What? What are the, what are the main, what are the main points of readiness to start a monthly giving campaign. To start a monthly giving program? Okay, if we have a small, yeah,
Christina Edwards 41:47
anyone can start a monthly giving program. So as long as you have a tool, a fundraising tool, a way to to collect payments that is set up for that, is modern enough to where it's not a PayPal link that is not ready, that is not right, or that it's not adding a lot of friction, and there's a lot out there. We are now at a place in in the sector, where there's enough decent options out there that are not very expensive, right? So that's the first piece. Is like, do we need to sit switch tools? Are we using something that's old and outdated. That's the first piece branding. It is going to be really, really important. Please don't call your monthly donors, monthly donors. Please don't call your social street team or social street teamers. Think about it like, who, what do they want to what? It's an identity, right? It's that piece of community. It's what we see millennials and Gen Z really be passionate about, think about bumper stickers. Like you sort of get a sense from, like, my neighbor, whenever her niece comes over, she has a bumper sticker that says, Tell your cat. I said, which is, like the sound you make cats. I'm like, that's a cat lady. Like, I love it. Like I get it. And so it makes me smile every time. Not that I'm saying you need bumper stickers, but like, what are those affinity markers? What are those attributes you want to have a cool you want to have a name that's like, relevant to your organization, especially for your street chambers too. Like, we should call them something, okay, fundraising tool that have a plan to start or grow it, so I would absolutely create a campaign for it with a clear start date, a clear end date, a clear goal. Because it's many, many times, and I didn't really say this, but many times, the mistake I see a lot of organizations make, whether it's monthly donor donors or any sort of campaign, is they're going for a drive. Okay? It's like if I took you in the car and you and I just drove, we are technically driving. We're going places. But many times I see campaigns like this, where there, I'm unclear how much you're trying to raise and by when you're trying to raise it by and for what purpose. It feels very general to me, versus you hop in my car, I plug in the GPS, you know, you're like, Oh, we're having tacos tonight. Got it, and I know it's 20 minutes away. And so that helps me as a consumer, figure out, like, what is it they're working towards, and is that, for me, is that something I'm interested in participating in? So for monthly, monthly donation campaign, I would want the same thing of like, start and end, yeah.
44:23
Do you think that a general, like, a campaign to increase our general fund? We could, we could, we could, you know, spin that somehow, oh, yeah, what? Because, because, what I mean, like, we, we've been getting, we've been getting, we've gotten some significant government funding. And, you know, that's all restricted, and, you know, you have to, you know, do all the reimbursement and that kind of thing. And so we do need to protect and increase our general fund.
Christina Edwards 44:47
Yeah, I don't think it needs to be like restricted or for one specific program or anything like that, but we can talk about through story, what that will be used for, right? And no one's excited. Did. The truth is, it's very, very hard in that general fund is going to be like, operations, admin, things like that, as well as lots of other stuff, right? So we want to talk about the stuff that they're going to be most motivated and excited about, yeah. So
45:13
say, be honest and say it's for the general fund, but tell stories about what the campaign work you can what
Christina Edwards 45:19
does the general fund do, okay, so even,
45:22
even the operational stuff, well,
Christina Edwards 45:25
just you tell me, like, if you're like, Christina, yeah, I mean it.
45:29
I mean, you know, our general fund pays the rent that hosts our offices, our general fund, you know, keeps the lights and electricity on, our general fund. Our general fund makes possible campaign components that are restricted. Funding does not allow, allow, but
Christina Edwards 45:44
why do you need lights on? Why do we need an office? Why does that matter
45:48
to do the work,
Christina Edwards 45:52
which is keep going
45:55
that allows us to plan our Coastal Cleanup Day, that allows that allows us to plan and be the county coordinator for Coastal Cleanup Day, where we're going to be host. We're going to be coordinating cleanup sites at 36 sites around Contra Costa County, including without
Christina Edwards 46:08
general fund these days, when it made possible without general fund, that's the lift for me, is it's hard. It's just where we are as humans. It's hard to be like, Oh, I'm excited to pay your salary, or to pay for the Yeah, or whatever. However, I'm excited that that's what that makes possible. And so you could tell that story 100% Yeah, and it would be kind of fun. I could get excited if you started to let me know about the people behind the organization, where I'm like, Yeah, you know, like, where I'm like, Oh, I see what's up, general funds, right? So you could have some fun with it too. In that way,
46:42
that's a great idea. I like that to craft it around, you know, bring forth the personalities inside the organization, what everybody does, and, yeah, makes possible, what they're what, what your funding of this person's work makes possible. And these are the people doing it. These
Christina Edwards 46:55
are the people doing it. Like, yeah, 100% I think that would be really great, right on. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. Nancy, I see you have a question you can unmute. Or I see, is it better to say without general funds or with general funds? Why don't you unmute if you can? Okay?
47:23
Yeah, obviously we have the same question as and I guess the question I'm wondering is, is it better to say without general funds we couldn't, in her case, do these coastal cleanups, to say with these general funds?
Christina Edwards 47:39
I love this question. Okay, so here's what I would say. The good news is, in this, what, which I've mapped out for you, and I said lots high in frequency, right? To get people's attention. And so high end frequency means lots of emails, social, posts, outreach, etc. And I don't mean the same ones, where we're, you know, sharing the same photos and graphics again and again again. But actually, we're telling the story through different lenses, right? And that's how we're like, is it this motivation? Is it this story? Today we're going to tell this story. You could tell one story from like, three different people's point of view even, right? So to that point, you have the opportunity to do both here. So you could tell the story that's like, without these general funds, XYZ wouldn't be possible, and then you could tell a story five days later. That's like, here's what the general funds make possible. I would probably change the the like verbiage a little bit so it sounded different. But one is painting the positive picture, one is painting the negative picture. And those are going to motivate two different people. That's actually similar to a story brand framework, where they call this negative stakes. So without this, this won't be possible, right? That's the negative stakes. And there are some people the negative stakes matter. I've told a story before about how it took, like, five emails and five text messages before I ordered my daughter's school photos, and the negative stakes, they said to me was, if you don't order by Monday, you're missing it. We're deleting the site right now or never, negative stakes, and that's when I ordered it. So for me, it was a combination of dialing up that urgency and that negative stakes and repetition and reminders that finally got me to do the thing I wanted to do all along, which was, where are these photos? So I would say both. I have a question. Yeah, Heidi,
49:31
hi, thank you so much. I have enjoyed I'm sorry I'm driving and so my self. Oh, you're fine. Only allow me do audio. You're good. Um, I own a ranch and rescue, which I know there's a lot of rescues out in the United States. However, ours is associated with mental health and wellness in that we do human interaction equine therapy, so we help people and we help animals. And so our tagline is a safe. Space between the saved and the broken. And so we, we have been a nonprofit, IRS approved since 2015 we are having our very first inaugural fundraising gala. We're not calling it Gala, we're just calling it a fundraiser. It's out in the leaked spot in Utah? We have NAMI, National Association of Mental Illness coming to speak. We've got one of Tony Robbins top 10 speakers coming to speak, and we've been advertising it for since the end of July. And can I tell you how many tickets we've sold? Tell me 10.
Christina Edwards 50:43
What's the goal? How many do we want to sell?
50:46
The venue holds 300 people. We were going to be we were going to be happy with if we got 150 people
Christina Edwards 50:52
there. When is the event?
50:56
September 9. It's a Monday night. We did it a night, a weekday night on purpose, so A, we can get the venue at a reduced cost, B, so that people aren't busy over the weekend, and just, you know, not able to come and Thursday nights are out. Because I think there's probably a dozen fundraisers going on those first two weeks in September in Utah, not just for rescues, but for other other fundraisers.
Christina Edwards 51:23
So I want to make sure I don't jump and guess your question. But is your question just, what do I do?
51:28
Yeah, okay, good. We have, okay, yeah, we don't know.
Christina Edwards 51:32
So okay, what if you're going to, like, triage this? And guess what do you feel like is the biggest issue here that is causing ticket sales to be so low.
51:45
Um, well, we we assumed it was the price, because, as you've already stated, it's an election year, and everybody's holding on to their money. So we actually reduced the price and to $170 a ticket, and that the venues that were added the five star resort, it's a very elite venue. You have to be a member to even get in. So for them to even let us house it at this venue is a miracle. But we reduced it because two weeks ago, another sanctuary had their fundraiser, and they actually had to cancel it. Lack of ticket sales, and theirs was over $300 so we reduced it to 170 we just did that last night. We've had one ticket sale since we reduced it. We haven't gotten the information out to everybody yet, but we're working on that today. So I think it was the price more than anything. And so, but, but, but, we've sent it news, press releases. We've sent it to publications. We sent it to we don't have a huge email following, just because we didn't have that set up properly. So yeah. So how do we get people there? What do I need to do?
Christina Edwards 52:53
Give me your idea of just like, how many people on your email list? How many donors do you
52:59
have? So you're going to hate me. Up until this point, I've never asked for a penny. I have funded this nonprofit with my own dime. Up until a month ago, when we've received donations from people who just have seen what we have done. Do you have people who give scholarships to the people who come who can't afford it? So our income has come from Me, personally funding it, as the CEO, founder, and from the people who have come on site and gone through our program. So how many board members do you have? You haven't asked for donations before, so I'm sorry.
Christina Edwards 53:33
How many board members do
53:36
you have? Five, okay,
Christina Edwards 53:39
and email list size.
53:42
I I'm guessing we only have like 50 consistent people on our email list. So how
Christina Edwards 53:51
did you think that you would sell 300 tickets? Where did you think the people would come from? What was the point? So
53:57
I pulled Yeah. So I pulled in a committee, um, the committee, our high profile people who promised, as coming on as the committee, that they would send it out to all of their contact influence. And so we sent it out to about 800 people. So I assumed you know that we would get close to 100 or just off the event that we haven't,
Christina Edwards 54:22
okay, um, one is, it makes sense, if you don't have a current audience who is used to this, this is the first time you're asking them to spend money, right? Yeah, okay, so, like, that's the first thing. The second thing is, this is the first time you're hosting this event. So that's the other thing. Even if a more established organization was hosting an event, you know, next month, they have to train their audience and go, that's what this thing is. That's what this thing is. Are you coming to this thing? Right? That's the piece. And so that's the other piece is, it makes sense. So your audience is hearing this offer for the first. Time ever, and your audience is really, really small. One of the things that you said was press releases. You said people kind of sharing it to their to their networks, things like that, right? Yeah, wait, so, yeah, those are, those are, like, imagine a big net in the sea, and you're like, trying to go fishing for, like, a tiny fish, right? And the little fish, it's hard to grab that tiny fish with a big net, okay? Because those are, like, going out casting a wide net. Like a press release is great, but it's casting a wide net, okay? What is going to move the needle here for you is individual outreach. Individual asks, text messages, phone calls, individual email, individual posts, not wide not share this on your social network. But can you email 10 people individually, Julie and invite your personal network? Can you do 10 a day, five a day, that is going to move the needle. How many people have you personally invited?
56:04
Uh, how many do you think we've personally invited ourselves? Probably, I'm guessing 200 of those were personal invites. Okay? And
Christina Edwards 56:12
how many of those email, yes? How many of those people said, Yes, I'll come?
56:19
Well, that those are the ticket sales are from those personal invites, and we have you said you
Christina Edwards 56:24
sent out 200
56:28
so so we've sent out the publication. We've sent out we've had other people send out to their contact that the people that have actually bought tickets are people that either us on the board or to the people on our committee, sent out personally, a text message or email and said,
Christina Edwards 56:44
That's what I'm saying, is that's the that's what it's going to take for this to really see jumps in sales. Is everyone needs who is affiliated with this organization, that committee of high profile people, I don't want them just to add it in some sort of newsletter or publication, they literally need to say, I'm going to this. Will you come to here's a link to buy a ticket. Okay? And then, okay, and then they need to send follow up emails or follow up phone calls. If they're not an email person, then they need to do text or phone calls, but it needs to be one person inviting another person and doing this at volume.
57:21
Okay? So those people that we reach out to, who we get them to purchase a ticket, ask them to please share and invite their friends personally,
Christina Edwards 57:29
not yes, yeah. Well, the Well, the first layer is, let's get the people who are most who know like and trust you, whether it's your organization or just you. They know you personally. They know you're or a board member. They know Joe the board member, or they know Julie the committee member. We need those people to invite their networks to come, okay, their friends and buy tickets. Okay? That's the first Okay. And, I mean, if you think about if we're just, let's just say our goal is 100 just to keep numbers, that's like, everybody just reach out to 10 people, but they need to do that this weekend, and then 10 more on follow ups. Like, yeah, like following up, not just one email, but hey, did you might have missed this. Following up on this, I'd love to see you on Saturday night. Here's the link, here's why. And you know it's going to a really great cause, which is doing X, Y and Z, but like at volume. Okay, okay. Think, think about the last few events you, you went to, you were invited to, you chose not to go to. You probably didn't see it from an ad in the paper, hold and say, I'm gonna go. Yeah. So that, yeah, that's the piece that's really going to now, as you grow this event, it becomes an annual event, we start to have a nice donor list, we have to start to have a nicer sized email list. Then we see some of that happening. But in the beginning, for this first time, it's going to be a lot of grassroots. And that's normal, okay, the other thing I would offer to you is, one is event ticket sales are always last minute, so like, welcome to the wild world of events. Totally normal. And I know it's nerve wracking. That's the first thing heard that, yes, sort of comfort. I would never say it's an election year and everyone is holding on to their money ever again. That's something you said to me earlier, and then you told me the story about the other organization that had to cancel those that event. I want you after your after this call. I want you to find another organization that absolutely killed it. They had an amazing event, and I want you to think about them, because it may be true that for some people are holding on to their money. But I work with organizations all the time that are doubling their revenue, that are 5x ing, one fundraiser to the next. So both things are true. Here it is true for some people that money's tight, and it's also true for some people that they're more generous than ever. And one belief is going to. Keep you in a spin and make it very hard to meet this goal, and the other one is going to move you forward and actually go, oh, who could I call? Oh, who could help me if that organization can do it? So can we Yeah,
1:00:11
oh, yeah. So positive. So our synergy, our synergy of this is going to work, and we're going to make it work, and we're going to call and contact as many people to get them there as we can. Yep, right. Hey, Yep, perfect. You got it so much now I was driving, so I didn't see the link of availability for the coaching call with you. This is the second time I've listened to you, and I learned so much in just the two times that I've listened to you, I would love to somehow join forces to be able to get us going, so that as a as a little nonprofit, we want to become a really good, yeah, integrity built valued profit for nonprofit, for people to come to. So how can we do
Christina Edwards 1:00:58
that? Yes, you need to join the Club. You need to join the purpose and profit club. This is the coaching. This is the work that we do there. This is the support you get there. You're welcome. Barb, I see that yes, and you can book a clarity call with me to learn more about it. Here's what I want to offer for everyone on the call before we wrap up. Is the investment in the club. For some organizations, may feel like a leap, and what's interesting, and that I was thinking about is we want our revenue to leap. We want our revenue to jump. We want our donors to give more than they ever have before, to be more vocal than they ever have before, to bring in more referrals than they ever have before. And many, many times, organizations themselves are not willing to make that investment or not willing to take that leap first. It's almost like, well, somebody has to do it first. Many times, organizations need support or skill building or just the inner work and the strategy to take that their their donors to the next level. But it's about taking that like first step first, whether it's with me or another program, it's like, you know how to get the results that you have today. Those are the results you know how to get you know how to your staff. Knows how to do it. You know how to DIY it. You know how to have some support to do it. But when you're ready to reach another growth level, whether that's a couple 100,000 your next million, whatever it is, it's like, why am I not willing to invest in support to get me there, to support me there. So that's the first thing I want to just have everybody chew on for a minute. The other piece is this idea of sometimes we make investments. I do this in my business too. Organizations make investments that are one time expenses, like for single use. So imagine like going to ride, going to travel first class, and it's a $5,000 ticket, right? You're going to Italy. That is a one time experience, right? Versus spending $5,000 where you're actually investing in strategies, you're investing in tools, you're investing in your brain, you're investing in your staff's brain in a way that will sustain your organization. So I consider the club, I consider any of my coaching and even my courses this way is it's something that you build off of, and you bring with you, kind of like school, like college, yeah, and it's something you carry with you, versus, like a one off amazing flight to Italy, right? So I'm going to drop back in the chat. Please schedule a call with me, and I will do my best to send out a replay of this. We've had an amazing group. Thank you for participating. That always makes it I know it's really helpful for everybody else when we can go, Ugh, that's happening in our organization, too, or I feel stuck there. So we learn and we get motivated from each other. So yeah, thank you so so much, and I'll see you guys soon. You.