Ep. 110: From Indifference to Magnetism: Shedding Formality to Fuel Funding and Engagement
EPISODE 110
From Indifference to Magnetism: Shedding Formality to Fuel Funding and Engagement
About the Episode:
Today, we're going to talk about formality and how it's keeping your funding stuck and it's keeping your superfans from even finding you in the first place. Very often organizations come to me with a growth goal, whether it's revenue growth, whether it's programmatic, whether it's talking to the same donors and same followers online – and I often find that their efforts feel very stale and engagement is very low. When I audit their current efforts, I look at what they are doing and notice time and time again that it’s often very formulaic, very safe and very similar to other organizations. It falls in the bucket of what we call “best practices.” Sometimes formality feels like a necessity, but what it does is create a barrier between you and your supporters. They're not seeing that you're for them so they're not magnetically attracted to your stories, to your fundraisers, to your events, because it just seems kind of bleh. This is a huge symptom of you being in what I call the Zone of Indifference. So throughout this episode, you’ll learn how to overcome your fear of standing out to move out of the zone of indifference to create a campaign that not only meets but suppresses your fundraising goals.
Topics:
Recent Purpose & Profit Club™ client wins that Christina is celebrating and the takeaways (and mindset) you can apply based on their success
The most common places Christina sees formality showing up and how it’s holding more donors back from coming your way
Writing from the 1:1 POV to break free from formulaic content and foster more engagement with your audience/donors (and examples from big brands)
How the fear of standing out and breaking the status quo is often at the core of formality and how to overcome them
Examples of how centering truth and vulnerability have created huge success for certain thought leaders/brands
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:
“It's not about being polarizing, it's about redefining what your values are and how you tell those stories, becoming a brave fundraiser, becoming a brave storyteller, and letting your guard down.”
“When your messages just blend into the noise they sound like everybody else, and behind that is a fear of standing out.”
“If you want your funding to be different, if you want your funding to grow, if you want to have more superfans, more Social Street Teamers™, more ambassadors, you cannot continue to do the same things that you've been doing.”
“It's not just about sending more emails, it is not just about more more more and that that will do it – it is about thinking about the energy, the intention, the truth, the reality behind your messages, behind the stories that you tell.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
-
*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 00:09
Today, we're going to talk about this idea of formality and how it's keeping your funding stuck and it's keeping your superfans from even finding you in the first place. Okay, so before we dig into that, I'm going to share some celebrations we've had recently in my coaching program, the purpose and profit club. It's been a really big growth month here in the club. We had one amazing Executive Director kick off their monthly giving program, and they welcomed 53 new donors in seven days. 53 new donors in seven days. And I just hosted a webinar this week, and we were talking about how that would feel and what that would be like. And so many people in the chat would be like, Oh my god. It would feel amazing. It would feel like a dream come true. It would feel so good. And what was really interesting, and something to really underscore here is you can, you can make that happen and still come up short of your goal. So it's really, really important to celebrate what you have accomplished, not how far away you are from your goal. So for example, I'm going to use 100 let's say their goal was 100 and they came up short of that goal. So you have two options there. It's like a fork in the road. You can say to yourself, well, crap, we didn't meet our goal. This was a fail. Or you can say, hell yeah, we started with four monthly donors, and now we have over 50. Now I have so much more data on how to start and grow a recurring giving program, what to do next, how to roll out the red carpet for these donors, and how to build off of this success, right? One keeps you going. One keeps you in forward momentum, and the other feels terrible. So it's really, really important the next time you don't hit your goal, whether it's a funding number, an event ticket sales number, a sponsorship number, anything like that, I want you to ask yourself, like, what have I done that is as incrementally progressing me to my goal? Like, what is a win in this? Right? I may not have reached the total goal that I wanted to reach in this but how did I actually put the stepping stones to get there? Like, what does that look like? Y'all that is the secret to keeping that momentum and that success, that like growth mindset to keep you and your staff and your constituents and your members excited and moving forward. Other one will make it feel terrible for you, and people will be excited, right? So where can you celebrate? Like, take a moment be like, alright, what have I done? What have I What can I celebrate on we had another another person in the club share that their staff. They were like, looking over the financials. They welcomed 100 new donors this year, 100 new donors. And I'm just like these organizations range in revenue. It's so exciting to really be a part of their success, of growth, of moving into this year. If you're curious about the club you can join, click the link in the show notes to book a call with me that is the best way right now to get your buns in the club. All right. So let's talk about formality, where I see it showing up, and how it is holding your funding growth back. Okay, so today's episode is really going to be about diving into this concept deeper. So very often organizations come to me, and they come to me with a growth goal, whether it's revenue growth, whether it's programmatic, whether it's we just are talking to the same donors and same followers online, and it feels very stale. Engagement is very low. And then I audit, I do go through discovery, and I look at what they are doing, and why notice time and time again, what they're doing is very formulaic, very safe and very similar to other organizations. It falls in the bucket of what is, quote, unquote, best practices, right? And so sometimes formality feels like a necessity, but what it actually is is it's creating a barrier between you and your supporters. They're not seeing that you're for them, right? They're not like super magnetically attracted to your stories, to your fundraisers, to your events, because it just seems kind of bleh. This is a huge symptom of you being in what I call the zone of indifference, the zone of indifference, and I have a training about this, so just send me a message if you want to grab that training. The zone of indifference is really this comfy, cozy, low risk point that so many organizations are stuck in because I. Of this need to, like, look professional, be formal, be buttoned up right, be in the guardrails of what nonprofits should and shouldn't do, should and shouldn't. Sound like, how often you should fundraise in, what ways you should fundraise, and all of that like that is a box, and it is a box that is keeping your organization small. It is keeping your organization stuck. And I want to offer this is, could be you. You could be in that box, even if you're a $2 million organization. This is not just for organizations who are at a couple 100k okay, I see this throughout, right? So it's like, how do we bust out of that box? And it's not about being like, what is the word? It's not about being polarizing. It's not about, you know, being political if you're not a politically Affiliated Organization. That's not what I'm saying. But it's about redefining what your values are and how you tell those stories, becoming a brave fundraiser, becoming a brave storyteller, and like, letting your guard down, okay, stepping from the zone of indifference into the zone of attraction. So that's we're going to dig in today. After today's episode, you can definitely go back and, like, read some recent emails, maybe some blog posts, maybe an online fundraiser page that you put out a direct mail piece and be like, yeah, how was this kind of formal? How was this a little too buttoned up? How was this not even attracting super fans, because it's super redundant to what we always say. Okay, so I want to share some examples of what this looks like in the wild. So what this looks like in the wild is, let's say you're a pet rescue. Does your direct mail piece? Does your year end appeal, if I just swap out your name of your organization, pretty much sound like the same formulaic story. Ask, story. Ask, call to action, sign off, if that's it. First of all, totally normal. Second of all, let's shake things up. Okay, so I want to share some case studies with you that still can be professional, but can shake things up, and can start to shed that indifference and share shed that formality that is rampant in social impact. The first piece is really thinking about when you're writing any piece of content, creating any piece of content, this could be a graphic, a social media post, a letter, an email to a prospect, an email to a sponsor, any of that. What if you wrote it for one person, like one human to another, Christina talking to Marco. What would that sound like? Like that is different than Christina just sending out an email to 1000s and 1000s of ominous people. When I write from one human to another, it changes everything, and it will for you to the other hack here is to write like you're writing to a friend or maybe one of your favorite or most engaged supporters. So think of her, think of him. Like think about writing to them, writing creating content for them. You'd probably cut the first three sentences of like, dear so and so. How are you snooze? You'd be like, hey, the sun is shining. And I thought of you. I remembered that conversation we had, or I had to tell you this. I had to just jump in and tell you this message that I received from one of our program participants. Can I like, You got to jump in like, there would be a tone to it that would be so different from like that, dear, blah, blah, blah, right, all right. So let's share. Let's look at some like in the wild. What does this look like when that formality has been shed? And this works for big brands, okay? This, if this works for big brands, this can work for you too. So one example is a while back Patagonia, which makes like, you know, the outer outdoor wear, so like fleeces and all the hiking stuff. They had a campaign that was a picture of a jacket for Black Friday. They had a campaign that went out and it said that. All it said over it was, don't buy this jacket. What think about that? Imagine you're like flipping through a magazine or scrolling on Instagram, and you see Patagonia, and you see a jacket that looks cute, and it says, don't buy this jacket that would stop you in your tracks. There's a cheekiness to it. There's a curiosity to it. And what it ended up being was an urge to customers, because Patagonia has a very strong environmental stance, they actually wanted their customers to think twice about buying the jacket, right and think twice about just consumerism, and it was an approach to selling that was aligned with their brand values. It's so interesting. It's like flipping it on its head. Okay? Now I saw an add on to. Facebook recently, there was a very similar it was for, I think it was for a litter box for a cat. I think that's what they were selling, something for a cat, a pet product, but the image was flipped upside down, which at first stopped my scroll, because I thought they've they forgot to rotate the image when they uploaded it. No, it actually, when you, like, read the content of the ad, it was talking and it made a play on words about how this will, like, flip the script for you, or something like that. And it stopped me in my tracks. But if you think about that, if that ad was going to go across to 10 different nonprofit boards, not every board member would be like great idea, right? There will be a lot of discomfort. There will be a lot of people saying, no, no, no, that's not best practice. No, no, we won't seem professional. Okay? Well, this was still a highly professional ad. This Patagonia campaign was still highly professional. It just wasn't so snoozy and boring and informal, right? Another example of this are with thought leaders. Think about the thought leaders who maybe you follow, you subscribe to their email, you've read their book, you listen to their podcast, whoever those people are. So Gary V is a good example of this. If you don't know him. He is funny and crass and a marketer and just, I feel like he owns a probably dozens and dozens of companies. Okay, so he's an entrepreneur, he's a social media expert, and he has a very punchy, raw, unfiltered way of storytelling. His videos are just punchy. They're tell it like it is. They're really but they're also, like, really aspirational, like he believes fiercely in helping people, and it comes across in a way that is so him, that there is no way I could receive an email from some other person and mistake it for a Gary V email, or look at a YouTube video from some other creator and Be like, is that Gary V No, I would know it's uniquely his. He has this authenticity, his transparency, and no wonder he can fill out conference centers when he does. I think it's called V con or something like that, like these huge conferences, because he has raving, super fans. He could have never, ever done that if he had stayed in the guard rails of what a marketer, entrepreneur who has an expertise in social media should look and sound like? No, there's like, all these content. There's all these videos of him going to like yard sales. He loves to buy random stuff at yard sales and then flip it on eBay, like letting people in, letting people into a little bit of his his interest, like outside of the business, is really, really fun, too. So Gary V is a good example of this. I'm going to share a few more with you about this idea of the zone of indifference. How to step out of it, step step into magnetism, where your messages aren't just blending in with everybody else, like that is the trick. But first, I want to just underscore that this work of shedding formality may feel uncomfortable breaking the mold. The pieces that are keeping your funding stuck are in fact, it's kind of like a hang on. I redo that. When your messages just blend into the noise they sound like everybody else. There is a fear of standing out now, that fear may be personal, or that may be just like a fear organization wide. Okay, so I want to offer that that is part of the layers of moving from this indifference into magnetic attraction so it's not gonna feel like super, super like excited, or it's not gonna feel super comfortable to go through this process, and that's okay, like the first time that you send an email where you've written it from a point of view that is actually your own, or from a tone or a voice that is more personal and more true and not an ominous brand, and not generic and not sterile. You may have people who respond like a board member who responds like that was different. You're like exactly. That's the point. If you want your funding to be different, if you want your funding to grow, if you want to have more superfans, more street teamers, more ambassadors. You cannot continue to do the same things that you've been doing. Those actions got you to where you are today, and that's a beautiful thing. However, if you have a goal to grow, you have to switch it up, and you have to be willing to step in that spotlight. That spotlight is an organizational spotlight, but that spotlight is also a spotlight. For you, your thought leadership. Let the person who's in programs or development or the ED or marketing or comms have voices online, see what that does. Okay? Let's talk about some other examples. So this idea of authenticity and intention, okay, so it's not just about if you hung out in any of my trainings recently, I've mentioned, we're getting into a very busy time. It's an election year. It's also getting into year end fundraising. Those are, those are naturally, like, two things that you're up against to stand out in a crowded space, online, in person, etc. But it's not just about sending more emails. It's not just about more more more and that that will do it. It is about thinking about the energy, the intention, the truth, the reality behind your messages, behind the stories that you tell. So it's not about sending more and just saying, I tried, I'm done. It's like, okay, but what was actually the content of what you did? More of okay? You won't want to sound transactional and fake or just again watered down. So you want that authentic, relatable tone. That tone is going to be friendlier than the tone you're probably currently using, which is more formal, yeah, that is how you build loyalty. That's how you build trust. That's how you prime you tee up your audience to take action. All right, think about Brene Brown. She sort of jumped on the map for most of us, including myself, when her TED Talk went viral many years ago now, her TED Talk went viral. She's a if you don't know her, she's a researcher, she's a TEDx speaker, she's an author, she's a podcaster. She had this TED talk called The Power of vulnerability, and in it, she really talked. She went inward, and she like talked all about her research, and she talked about vulnerability, and everyone went wild. People were sharing it. People were re sharing it. It was social everywhere. Everybody was talking about it. She was guesting on all of the talk shows, news articles written about it. And it was like, Oh, she struck a chord. Why did this idea of vulnerability resonate so much with people. It's like in a world where everything is filtered, in a world where everything is air quotes perfect, in a world where everybody is just trying to appear a certain way, it was like relief, like, what's actually true here? Right? What's true here? What's the truth? Everyone wanted that piece. It like cut the crap out of it, and it really resonated with a lot of people. It created super fans for her in an instant, right? People were buying her books in an instant. Highly recommend her, her her work. If you're not that familiar, she's wonderful. It was so relatable. Her style of storytelling, it like, brings you straight in. Okay? So she's a really great example of, like, Yeah, you don't have to be Gary Vee, right? You don't have to be Patagonia. Maybe you're more Brene. Think of somebody, a thought leader, a brand, a nonprofit, a mentor, somebody who you think does it right, or at least resonates with you and ask yourself, like, where could I make 10% more of a change like they would? How could I make this 10% more honest? And again, it's going to push you. It's going to push you because it may sound like sending an email at the end of a campaign that says we didn't meet our goal. Yet, we're not done. That's it. Like letting them know you didn't meet your goal yet. Here's the goal. Here's how far you've come. You're not done. Here's what's possible when you do achieve their goal. Here's what's possible with where you're at right now. Those are not emails that are easy to write, necessarily, but those are the emails that will convert into higher donations. Same thing with phone calls. You can go through and you can make your phone calls to your major donors and your prospects and follow the formula some book, it's 25 or 30 years old, or whatever. That tells you the exact formula way or and I highly suggest this. You can call your prospect and ask good questions and be a wonderful listener. Lean in, ask questions. And when they say things like, I'm not sure you can say, tell me more about that. When you ask them for a donation and they say, not right now, don't hang up, right? Keep going. Lean in. Ask them when would be a better time? Ask them what they're thinking. Ask them what their their plans are for their charitable giving this year, like it's this idea of running instead of running away, like leaning in going towards and you can tell them little bits about you. A lot of times I see organizations keep this wall up. Up about their life internally in the organization again, because we have to seem professional. We have to seem formal. And listen, I'm guilty of this too. I know what this is like, because a decade ago, this is what I thought was best practice, right? It's like you have to look a certain way, you have to say certain things. Your proposals have to follow a certain cadence. Don't follow up too much, follow up just the right amount. All of those rules will just put you in a box. That's it. That's all they'll do. They won't get you closer to your goal. Okay, you so what are some ways you can let your guard down a little bit? What are some ways you can step into the spotlight this year? Increase your funding, increase awareness, increase passionate advocates to champion your cause. What are some ways one would be engaging your audience on social media, creating stories that actually feel like stories you want people want to share. Look at that like think about the next time you're on Instagram or LinkedIn or wherever you're like to hang out and you actually hit the share button, or maybe your neighbor hits the Share button and they share a story from an organization, from a nonprofit, from a thought leader, what made them share it? What motivated them to do it? It was probably a really great story. Maybe it was newsworthy or timely. Maybe had a great hook and it just captivated them right away. Maybe it told them about something they didn't know was a problem in their community or it it shared a success, a problem that was solved, a win, right? Look at that. Ask yourselves, how can I engage our audience better? This might be through like behind the scenes, stories, maybe Day in the Life, posts, real time updates. Look at humans of you New York. Remember that account that was like, really, really, probably is still popular, but it was really popular past decade. And why again? Brene Brown, example, one human telling another human, kind of their life story, two strangers connecting for a moment, and then people would absolutely like go in the comments on Facebook or wherever the posts were and be like, how can we help this person? How can we lift them up? People just like letting their guard down. Everyone is so hungry for that. So how can you do that in a way too? This is not about letting your guard down and saying it's so hard. No, no, like things are dire. No, I want to talk about letting your guard down in a way that still serves your mission forward and is not just like a rant or a complaint. Yeah, you with me? There's one final campaign I want to share with you, and this was the team trees campaign. So this was in 2019 if any of y'all have a child, you've probably heard about YouTuber Mr. Beast. So this was a campaign that was a collab between Mr. Beast and the Arbor Day Foundation, with the goal of planting 20 million trees by the end of the year. So they use, they partnered with this like Mega influencer online, had an alignment okay with their cause, and using his channels for good with that very clear goal, big audacious goal, by the way, which I love, a big audacious goal. The campaign used a mix of social media challenges, viral content and collaborations with influencers to have that urgency, that momentum. And it was successful because it was driven by a genuine passion from the organizers, from the participants. Okay, so here's the result. Here's what happened. It exceeded its goal, raising over $20 million and planting more than 22 million trees. So it showed how partnering with the right influencer, the right ambassador, letting your formality go by the wayside because the Arbor Day Foundation, it has been around for best, I can tell a very long time for them to partner with a YouTuber like Mr. Beast. Like took some guts, right? I was sure there were people who were like, this isn't a good idea. Why would we partner with an influencer? Let's go talk to our major donors to raise that money. Yeah, let's go do it the way we've always done it. How about we don't how about we change it up? How about we try this? How about we see if this is something they would be interested in? And this is a lot, and that is a really good example of twist on the method that I teach. So I teach the social Street Team method. I teach this inside the purpose and profit club, and this is where we're like, okay, who are your super fans? Who are your ambassadors? Who are the influencers that can partner with you, that can raise visibility and funds for your cause? Now it's awesome if we can get a Mr. Beast for your for your cause. I'm all in. But I want to give you the caveat that you don't have to. You can have success. Street Team partnering with influencers who have a couple 1000 or a couple 100,000 followers online and have a wildly successful campaign. We see 2x to 10x their next campaign using this process. So it's so so fun, but it takes guts to say, here's who we're going to partner with. It takes guts to say we're not going to be so formal this time around, we're going to trust our influencer partner to create their own content because they're a content creator, and not make them there's no way they made Mr. Beast just put out the same messaging that the foundation was always pushing out. I'm sure he was like, I hear you. I hear your mission. We've got our collective goal, we've got our collaboration, and now I'm going to go create some content around it, right? Like letting him create content around it, and having the freedom to say it in a way that would resonate with his audience, versus telling him like an actor, repeating lines, no, no, no, that doesn't work, right? So do you see the nuance there? All right, so let's recap. Let's see. Let's recap where we're at. Let's recap and come up with some action steps. So hopefully by now, you've come up with some ideas of how you can dish the formality to increase your visibility, to increase your funding and your impact. Yeah, so think about who resonates with you. Maybe it's a thought leader, a brand, a business, a nonprofit, who does that well, the next time you get an email where you see an ad or you watch a commercial, and it actually stops you, and you're like, Huh? Like, Super Bowl ads do this really well, right where they're like, cheeky, we actually watch them. We're like, whoo. What's happening here? The next time any of that happens, or you see a piece of content being shared online, you're like, What? What was so great about that? Was it letting their guard down? Was it a little less formal? Was it more authentic? Vulnerable, true, honest? It definitely wasn't in the zone of indifference. Okay, ask yourself, What's one step I can take today in preparation for our next campaign. All right, so be brave. You've got this let it be a little wobbly. Let it be a little uncomfortable. It is worth it. Because remember, if you want different results this year, you cannot replicate what you did last year. You with me. If you want help, I want to encourage you to book a call with me. I will have the club open at the time of this being released, so make sure you book a call with me and we can find out if the club is the right place for you. I'm cheering you on, and I'll see you next time bye.