Name: 5 Years Since COVID: How Fundraising’s Changed & What It Means For You
Uploaded: 2025-03-26T19:30:20.139Z
Duration: 1 h 3 min 24 s
Description: 5 Years Since COVID: How Fundraising’s Changed & What It Means For You

Transcript for "5 Years Since COVID: How Fundraising’s Changed & What It Means For You": Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to our session today. We are really glad that you are with us. I know we have people coming in. The gates just opened up, so everyone's running for a good seat here in the webinar. And so welcome. We're glad that you're here. Hey. As you are coming in, as you are getting familiar with the platform, we'd love to know who you are. We'd love to know where you're joining from. So go ahead, let us know where you're joining from here in the chat. You'll notice the chat there. You can go ahead and maybe where you're joining from. My name is Scott with Virtuous joining from the Chicago area today. And so, yeah, we're really, really excited for, the next sixty minutes together. Just a little lay of the land as we jump in. So you obviously are finding the chat right now and seeing that. And so you can share some questions, some comments throughout. We love participation. One of the things too I love about the chat is you can share a good old GIF, and so I will share my favorite. Just welcoming you, feel free to share your own. Also, above the chat, you're gonna see a couple tabs. You're gonna see one that says dots. So we do have our five years since COVID report there for you to download. So at any point, go ahead and, select the docs there. You can download that report, take that with you, as well as a q and a tab. And so we are gonna allow time throughout for questions. So go ahead and leave your questions there, input those, and you can actually also upvote questions as well. So if you see some that you're like, man, I'm really interested in that as well. I wanna dive into that further. You can upvote some of those questions to make sure that they are answered. So, again, super grateful that you are here today, and also, grateful for our panel, who have jumped on here. We have some some experts in the room, and I'm super excited to ask them questions and then let them, share their wisdom with you. So I'd love if we could just kinda go around and give our a quick little intro. Again, I'll start. My name is Scott with the Virtuous team. Before jumping on, spent about fifteen years in, specifically kind of the faith sector working in local ministries as far as nonprofit work goes. And so, love getting to be on the team now and to help and serve various nonprofits. And so would love to toss it now, maybe to Amy just to give, maybe your name, your title, the organization you work with a little bit about what you all do. Sure. I'm Amy Reynolds. Happy to be here today. I'm the director of client strategy at Allegiance Group + Pursuant. So we are a direct marketing agency. We profit we partner nonprofit success. We create tailored fundraising campaigns that inspire action, build lasting donor relationships, and make real impact. The important thing about Allegiance is that we always use data driven marketing and innovative creative solutions. And we really use, connections with donors to build our organizations up in meaningful ways. Yeah. That's awesome. It's awesome. Joshua, you wanna give give us a little intro? Yeah. Sure. You'll hear from my accent that I'm from slightly, South Texas. Let's call it that place. No. Sydney, Australia originally, worked, with Dunham and Company. Have done that for about seventeen years. I first got into this work, honestly, it was during the GFC, the Great Recession, some people know it as. And so I watch a lot of people. I was in finance at the time, watched a lot of my clients in finance lose a lot of what they had and realized that they had their security in their stuff. And and that was kind of sad to see. So, honestly, the work that I've done and what I could do with myself too is to see people give generously because there's so much more meaning in it as they connect with those meaningful, missions. And so that's, what I've done for seventeen years as a company. We really help to organizations to close that impact gap. Most have bigger visions than they have the resources for, so we come alongside with Mark being fundraising media and brand expertise to to help. Yeah. Fantastic. Mark, how about you? I'm Mark McPeak. I'm the, senior vice president of market research for the 5by5 Agency. Five by five is a full service marketing company, that works with change makers in nonprofits, health care, education, and what we call for profit for good companies. I it's interesting for me, many of you probably think we're in a marketing company market research, but I started a market research firm in 2015. And then in 2017, '5 by '5 acquired my me and my team and I. And, we have a market research vertical in the company. That's all that we do, do a decent amount of, donor research. And I I've actually had the opportunity to be involved into, donor shops in my past. So I'm excited about this and glad to be invited. Awesome. Jarred, you wanna round us out? Alright. I'm Jarred Schremmer, senior vice president of strategy at RKD Group Group. And my, real focus area, I've spent my, spent about twenty five years in the nonprofit sector, wearing a range of hats. And, most most recently, for my current role, was really focused on the, digital and media space and how that was, changing and evolving and how, at RKD Group, we're innovating with that. And kind of the, the next frontier for us and and for me has been really just thinking about those those holistic experiences for our audiences. And so that's where been really trying to, craft, our our vision, to how to really lead with an audience strategy and bring all of those experiences together together, which, at the end of the day, I think that kind of summarizes who our KD Group is. We serve and and, focus on the nonprofit sector, and our goal is to create, or or work with, amazing organizations to create meaningful relationships with their their donors. And so we use a range of channels, and tactics along the way, and we're obviously, hyper focused on on data and having that drive us. But, if we can take all of that information, all of our creative creativity to to bring, impactful relationships between organizations and, donors and prospective donors, then I think kind of similar to what Joshua said, like, we've, made made the type of impact that that feels meaningful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, thank you to all of to all of you here on the panel for being here. I'm really excited to dive in. For those of you who have just joined us, again, welcome. Let us know where you're joining from. Submit questions along the way in the q and a tab. This is a conversation that we're having. And so, we're not gonna walk through a bunch of slides. We're gonna have a really open dialogue and, ask some questions regarding how has fundraising changed in the last five years. What is different? What do we need to be aware of? But, also, what does the next five years look like? And so make sure to download the report as well on the docs tab there, above the chat. Take that. We would love for you to use that as a resource. But I'd love to jump in just talking about the changing donor landscape. I think, for a lot of people, they they realize in 2020, donors gave in record numbers. We saw a surge of generosity, but that generosity wasn't necessarily sustainable. So, Amy, I'd love to to go to you first and just kinda hear what are some of the the biggest behavioral shifts that we've seen in donors over the last five years, and and how should nonprofits think about that and look to adapt? Thank you. So I think the biggest two shifts that we are seeing is donor expectations and also, moving over to digital giving, which I will, say is a a big plus for a lot of organizations. I I'm sure a lot of us are feeling the need to dive into younger audiences, acquire those. So moving into that digital, shift has really positively affected our nonprofits. We're seeing 92% of millennials and Gen z are open to donating online. So this creates a really massive opportunity for digital presence, refining of the online giving experience, and connecting with donors on the on the platforms that they like. So we're talking social media, apps, etcetera. And then going back to expectations, those have really evolved over the last few years. Our donors are much more informed. They want transparency. They want, communication, and they wanna see exactly how their gift has really impacted what they're giving towards. So they want to be a part of your organization. So invite them in. Show them what their gift has been doing, how they can make a difference, what other organiz or what other, donors, have experienced with your organization, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Mark, would love to hear your thoughts as well in regards to just the the shifts that you've seen, in behavior and in donors over the last five years. Yeah. I think, Amy and all of us will be talking a lot about some of the same things, especially around some of the digitization that we've seen and some of those changes that have been made. I first first of all, think about how COVID streamlined so many things. I had a friend who was in telehealth. They were slow walking telehealth, and overnight, it just it just popped. And that seemed to happen in so many ways. One of the things that happened, I think, was there was a sense of a lot more funding available. One of the things that I'm gonna talk a little bit about today is health care. I think in health care, one of the sectors that immediately, you know, the approvals got done more quickly and emergency funding more quickly and all of those things. So things moved really fast. And as you said, now where digital digital options and online options are becoming sort of the first option, recurring giving, more common. And also, I think there's been a leveling of the playing field, so donors have so many more options. So I would agree with you, Amy, that in the idea that donors are becoming even more and more, as you said, informed, but also particular about where their money is going. Some of our health care clients saying that, they're speaking to attorneys more about, you know, where this money's going and some of those kind of things when you talk about larger gifts. They're interested in how tangible their impact is. And so I would agree with you that we need to really be telling stories of the impact because donors are looking for that. Many more are looking for things that are local, impacting their communities, trying to help people around them. We'll we'll talk some more, at least I will, about some of the skepticism and challenges that are being faced. But I think, the idea, that some donors, because of maybe having been empowered in the last few years through social media and some of what happened in 2020, I think, we are being more careful sometimes with our messaging. I had, one healthcare, philanthropist recently tell me we're constantly talking to our influencers. This group, you can say this, but you can't say that. And so people are feeling a little more empowered, and we have to be careful because of that. So in different context. So I think there's been a lot of change. Obviously, we're gonna talk a lot more about some of that. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I have a I have a, kind of a follow-up question at least along the lines of the changing donor landscape. Before I jump into that, though, I did wanna just mention we do have our fundraiser in residence kind of behind the scenes today, Carly Berna. Many of you probably know Carly, but she's, gonna be in the chat as well answering questions and that sort of thing. So, make sure to, ask you most difficult questions for her because she can and the lamb will tell you exactly what to do. So I do wanna continue here, though, and and I know that one of the things that we kind of saw was an major gifts increase, but then a decline in overall participation. And today, we're talking, yes, about, some of the big shifts and some of the things to think about, but I also wanna make sure too that we talk about some practical things, and some takeaways that people can walk away with. So, Joshua, would love to toss this to you. How do you recommend nonprofits kind of approach stewardship differently to keep donors engaged long term? Yeah. It's a good question. I I would say it starts with knowing where they're at. And, if we just look at the kind of the macroeconomic drivers of why are there more major donors giving more and less people participating. And and we look at the trend of the last five years when people were given lots of cash to spend, of course, they have more disposable income to give. And that's awesome when we love that their desire is to participate. But as the jam of, of of increased cost of living, which we all know is a factor in all our research, it comes back as, you know, number two reason why I have slowed my giving or I'm decreasing my giving, that that's having a disproportionate effect on on younger donors. Honestly, they don't have the highest debt loads, and so they they are spending more on that debt. And and so naturally cost of living goes up and they have less disposable income to give. And then and then we look at what happens, the exact opposite of that is where you have assets to leverage. You can actually leverage them for for far more. So people who have assets and often, all the demographics, you know, boomers own 51% of the, the wealth of the nation here in The United States, and so knowing that's the case, well, of course, they're leveraging those assets for return, so we expect there's going to be more to give, and and that has correlated with the amount of giving that's happened. So I'm gonna maybe I'll focus my attention here on the the mass donor level partly because I feel like many organizations are at the point of giving up. It's just a lot of work, and I I do wanna encourage everyone who's listening here. Don't give up because this is an economic cycle. We we don't expect this to be forever. In fact, in previous cycles just like this, we we have seen challenges emerge like this. But if we it'll be a self fulfilling prophecy if we pull back. If we say, well, we don't need the mass donor, work anymore. And so I would encourage everyone who's listening, like, think about what does sustainability look like, for the organizations that have pulled back on mass donor engagement, particularly the ones, we've been alongside and worked alongside. We've seen decline year on year, for those who who failed to invest into things like acquisition and reactivation and cultivation of the of the mass file because they become more and more reliant on fewer and fewer donors. And and that just is a it's a risky situation, you know, formally being in that finance sector and knowing you don't want all your eggs in one basket, because what happens is catastrophic failure if that if that particular driver is removed or that gift doesn't come. And that's that's devastating for the mission that you seek to achieve. So the three things I'd say in terms of the mass donor, level and just just really pragmatic things, don't overemphasize recurring giving in in your acquisition efforts. We I we have seen this trend that it went up and then back down in terms of desire for their first gift to be a recurring gift. I know many organizations are super aligned on that recurring gift for the underpinning of all the funding, for the work, and that's an organizational desire. Unfortunately, it's not always a donor's desire. And partly, that's that's the, skepticism playing out. Can I trust you with a a gift every month? And and particularly, if you go all the demographics, you know, it's only one in five boomers who will ever commit to a regular gift. So and as a regular, that's a recurring on some sort of, recurring basis. So so that's a really simple one is is make sure you allow people to engage with you for the first time in whatever way they want to. If that's a single gift, if that's a small single gift, that's okay because what we want them to do is participate in whatever way it makes sense for them. The second thing is just, loyal donors. We can communicate to them things like others have had to step back. Could you step forward? And that's a way of just keeping that kind of key it's a really simple message and just challenging donors to stay involved, in a way that is pragmatic and and makes sense for them. Because often when they when they are challenged with that message, we're seeing that their average giving in a year go up. And the final thing is just, keep including your lapsed loyal lapsed donors in your communication. I know it's there's an economic reason to to drop, particularly with channels like Direct Mail, to drop those lapsed donors. But we have seen in 2024, many of the organizations we work with, they they were able to offset the losses in acquisition, which was harder in 2024, with the reactivation work that they did. And so I would just say it's probably time to, if you have dropped them, to pull them back in and to start communicating that that missional message again, because likely they're in a different place in, in 2025 than they were when they lapsed. Yeah. Yeah. I think that piece knowing and per you know, being able to personalize to the donor and and what what they care about, what matters to them, understanding, you know, is is so important, especially as you talked about building trust. Jarred, would love to would love to hear your thoughts on this as well in regard to approaching stewardship differently and and approaching in a way to keep donors engaged long term. Yeah. Absolutely. And and I'll, build up a few of the things that were, just shared. But, you know, I I mentioned, when I kicked off kind of my, focus area at RKD Group right now, which, you know, is this audience first approach and strategy. And it's not, it's not new, in the space as far as what we've called it. I mean, it's we've gone through, various, versions of this, whether we're talking about donor centric language or, donor centric fundraising, etcetera. But for me, really, one of the, the first moments I had actually started back a couple of years ago. RKD Group has been building and expanding what we con we call transformational giving. But our transformational giving team, which, you know, is made up of, gift officers that that have, in in other lives have spent time at, great organizations doing amazing work connecting major donors with with causes. And as, I've been introduced more and more to that world, and learned that the ins and outs of it, what what I kind of really recognized at a deeper level than I did before is that the level of intentionality that goes into those relationships if you have a really good gift officer. And unfortunately, as much as in our space, we've talked about donor centric fundraising and we've talked about, you know, putting the donor at the heart of things. Practically speaking, so many of the things that, you know, would come up in conversations with the that that giving team, you just I couldn't even draw a parallel to what that looked like in the mass market. When you when you thought about, you know, for example, I know the best way to contact my donor. And I see, like, even in the chat somebody put in here asking about phone calls. Well, what do I do if they're not answering the phone? Well, what would a major gift officer do if they had a a a person? Well, I gotta keep calling because that's that's the channel I work in or that's where I budget. No. They'd say, you know, how do I make a better contact? Maybe I'm gonna send them a note, in the mail. Maybe I'm gonna get them in that personalized email. Maybe they like texting better. And so, you know, we start thinking about that. Another thing gift officers, you know, talk about is they listen. They listen to what those donors are passionate about, what they're telling me. And I I lean into that, and I start thinking about what we're doing that ties into the the areas that they're passionate about. And so you start saying, are are we doing a really good job listening or not? You know? And and that's the thing, like Amy mentioned, talking about being data data first. We have so much data which is what we should be using to listen. But are we actually using it to to then provide that or just do we listen and then we continue on doing and talking about the things that we wanna talk about? And and and the same thing with goes with, ways that they can partner with us. And and I think that doing a better job of crafting that messages for to some of the audiences we have, is is where there's so much opportunity. And and then thanking them and following up, you know, a gift officer would say, you know, they're never gonna, you know, receive a large gift and not properly thank them and even thank them through multiple avenues and to report back on the impact of their work. And so if we were to take a few steps back and look at our mass market program, how effective have we been about thanking our donors and thanking them multiple ways and showing them of their impact? And so that's really, you know, if we wanna do a better job of, connecting with more donors, I think what we can take away is that the reason why some of our donors continue to give us more and we're seeing that is because we're actually speaking to them well. We're speaking the language they want and the channels that they want. But the other you know, where your antenna should go up is maybe all those that are dropping off, that are lapsing, they're telling us that what we're doing actually is not cultivating a better relationship with them. And that's my opportunity to start adjusting my messaging, start adjusting my channels, and start really trying to, invite them in in other ways, sort of, to the organization. Yeah. Yeah. That's well said. And and you mentioned Angela's question, which was people seem to be reluctant to answer the phone, especially during the election cycle. Any ideas on this trend? And I love what you said, understanding that that the the communication methods that people prefer are really personal. I just the webinar was starting, and I got a phone call. My phone started ringing. And it and like a lot of people, it says under their potential spam, and I silenced it. And unless there's a voice mail, I'm not calling that person back. And even if there is a voice mail, chances are I'm not calling them back. But a text for me, I'm probably gonna answer. You know, and and and so everybody's different. And so I think that personalization, I think, is so important. We have gotten a couple questions I love to kinda throw that are a little bit tactical, but also speak to the way donors have kind of shifted. And so anyone can jump in on here. But, one of them was, you know, would love to hear if anyone has experience with texting donors to ask for gifts or engagement. Has this been successful? Does it differ based on the donors' ages? So, yeah, would love would love for somebody to jump in and and speak to that. Yeah. I'd say a couple things on that front. I think one, we've, found it to be an incredibly impactful channel that has really risen up, I would say, over the last thirty six months. I kinda joke around that, texting, has gone through in my my career about four different cycles of of us being ready for it. But I think finally, this is the one where it's it's sticking, and we're seeing that donor engagement. And I I'm really seeing it come through in two different ways. One, it's a it's a fantastic breakthrough channel if, you've identified donors that have, just not been responsive to mail, have not been responsive to email. It's a it's a great way to kinda break through that clutter and see if you can reconnect with them. And then the second piece is, and this kinda speaks to what you mentioned, Scott. Sometimes there's, you have to lean into where donors are most engaged and most responsive. And so that's where you can also have this group bubble up where you're like, this is a really, you know, we'd call text responsive group. This is this is how they like to hear from us. This is how they're gonna respond to us, and we need to lean into that. And it so it doesn't mean that everybody in your organization is gonna get, you know, 24 texts a year, but there's a group of people. Again, those text response of people who said, this is you know, I don't check my email. I don't, you know, look at my voice mail, and I'm not opening my mail. But if you text me, that's a great way for me to hear about what's going on in the organization, and I like it. That's where you wanna identify those preferences and behavior and lean into it. Yeah. This is a similar kinda tactical question. When should you leave voice mails for current or potential donors? When shouldn't you leave a voice mail? You know, are are there any either best practices or things you all have seen that this can be effective or maybe not so much? I can speak a little bit to, when you can leave a voice mail and when you shouldn't. I think the first time you reach out, we can leave a voice mail. But if you're going to be reaching out several times, I would I would hesitate to leave a voice mail every single time so it doesn't feel so overwhelming for the donor. But trying those other methods, if they're not answering the phone, send them a text, send them an email, you know, try other mess methods. Yeah. Yeah. I I think, again, I some of the big idea is are you are you personalizing that communication? I will say, understanding those pattern interrupts, is important as well for people. So at times where it's like, well, nobody leaves a voice mail, and then you get a voice mail. You're like, oh, well, this has interrupted the pattern, and so that engagement can be high. But I, yeah, I think it that is so important to to really understand and personalize. Let's do one more question. I love these. Keep them keep coming in, but we'll do one more, and then we'll kinda keep going here and and keep addressing them. But, Don mentioned in the chat, is is the text, response age related, or is it kind of across the board? I think that's helpful in understanding demographics there. The in the generational research we just, really, are releasing this week, we did see there is there is definitely responsiveness, more responsiveness from the younger demos. That being said, boomers are on the rise big time for text. So they've gone from about 6% saying they would respond to text to actually close to a third. And and the expectation around communication is pretty similar to that. About a third of them expect that there would be some form of text communication, from a charity they they support. So, I mean, that's that's improving. It's gone up a ton, and I expect that trend to continue. So it it may become ubiquitous, you know, in in time here. There are still some holdouts, in the boomers, for online giving, so you never know. But but it is certainly growing. So I we can see that trend continue. Yeah. Well, this is great. Again, thank you all. Please, you know, keep your questions coming. You can submit it in the q and a tab. You can put them in the chat as well, but we we we love that, and we'll make sure there's time at the end there. But I do wanna jump into some maybe sector specific challenges and and changes or adaptations that we've seen and would, you know, just want to acknowledge there's a diversity of sector even here on the webinar, and and people are in different spots. And they felt these changes in unique ways depending on, that sector. So we'd love to go around and just hear from each of you maybe what you've seen that's changed most in your space and how you're seeing organizations, successfully adapt. Mark, do you wanna kick us off speaking to health care? Yeah. So, by way of disclaimer, I would say most of our health care clients are hospital hospital systems and then people in the entrepreneurial our organization, the entrepreneurial health care space, direct to consumer, things like that. But we learned a lot from some of those, and I'm gonna tell you just a quick story, in in by factoid. The the you you know health care went on this roller coaster ride. 2020, health care's, workers were heroes. You we remember all that. But then it wasn't very long until my health care consulting friends were talking about everybody's leaving health care because it seemed like overnight there was this public opinion. It's we all recognize that the skepticism and even mistrust began to arise about, you know, starting with institutions around vaccines and the government and mandates and all those other kind of things. And unfortunately, it eventually sort of got to the everyday, day in, day out health care environment. So the first thing that I'm just gonna briefly mention is, you know, dealing with this. The federal government muddied the waters, of course, by giving lots of money. And I shouldn't say that was a good thing in a sense. Right? But, a lot of times people are asking the question, why in the world are you out here raising money? Look at all this money you've got. And so these are questions that maybe in the say in that kind of way were not being asked. And some of our hospital system clients have said particularly, you know, big brick and mortar projects or big technology projects, which used to be the things that people were not at all reluctant to give to. There's a lot more skepticism around those, like, aren't you rich and why are you doing that? And, so they have, understood that that they have got to bring what what people are interested in giving to, which is impact in the community. I want to make a difference. I want to make a change. So even when we're telling the story of this new expensive facility or innovation, and I think all of us can learn from this, doesn't matter what our sector is, That we need to help people understand what's the impact of this in a way that really connects to you and connects to your community. So I think it's fair to say that they are focusing much more on impact rather than features, which might sort of be a flip from the way they used to be doing it. And it and one of the things that's really complicated is the kind of catch 22. I wanna walk into a health care facility that's pristine and it's clean and it's high technology and everything, and that conveys excellent health care. But it may also convey you have a lot of money and you don't need my money. And so it's complicated, but I think the answer is that they are really trying, to tell the story in much more personal, impact ways. What is this money gonna do to make this community better, to help people who have needs, things like that. And, of course, just quickly about the digital. You know, the challenge of moving to digital is the same that probably everybody's thinking about. High touch, high relationship fundraising, has now got to trend you know, transfer, over to adapting to this world where, you know, where it's it's now digital. And I think, maybe the maybe the best way to say what they're doing is, that they really are trying to say, how can we be virtual and high touch? Have one client who's in health care now, but for many years raised money all around the world and even had some, you know, $7.08 figure donors, that were giving, and all she ever did was meet with them virtually. And you can still with those best donors, and then we know that with with Gen z and even millennials, we need to be doing a lot more digital. And so I think that's just quick. Yeah. But some ideas about what's going on there. Though, I'd say those two things, dealing with the skepticism and then just like everyone else trying to adjust their high touch, high personal to something more digital. Yeah. Amy, would love to jump over and and hear from you in regard to kind of what you've seen, in education. Sure. I know that we all know education was greatly impacted by COVID nineteen. Classes, went online or stopped. So the education vertical has had quite a few challenges. But a lot of what they have done to pivot is really around that digital first fundraising. When you can't have an event, you can't go to class, you can't go on campus, Let's have a virtual event. That's what a lot of organizations started doing and what has really worked. So shifting those virtual events and crowdfunding campaigns, social media driven asks, and many of those types of things have been really popular post pandemic for the education sector. And then, again, increased focus on engagement, and making sure our donors understand where their gifts are going, how they're being impacted, how people around them are being impacted. And we also have to remember too that donors are much more aware of who they're giving to now. I believe we talked about this a little bit earlier, but really having that edge over your competition, understanding what differentiates you from the rest of the marketplace and your value. And then we wanna ensure we're demonstrating how those donations are are are being effectively used. So really making sure that those online digital efforts are really strong in in coming back to the donor and closing that loop on what what they've been doing, what they've been giving to. Yeah. I appreciate that. Jarred, would love to hear your thoughts in regard to, the human services sector. Yeah. I think, one of the things coming out of, of COVID was obviously, like you mentioned before, such a, influx of new donors. And, you know, one of the things we've been really trying to be hyper focused on is, especially from a mass market perspective, whether you're talking about mail or, digital, etcetera, is we're laser focused on, testing, and and verifying, you know, any any changes we make to a program because, we we wanna be so sure about, you know, what the, performance based decisions, data driven decisions. And, you know, kind of the the realization we've had is that we have a whole wave of new participants that are are joined joined with our organization and have since maybe lapsed, or we're we're bringing in, new individuals every year. And their passions, and their interests and their reasons for giving, could look very different than our loyal donors for ten plus years. And especially when we think about the human services space and the things we're doing, you know, we work with some organizations that are doing domestic work and international work. We're we're looking at some organizations that have historically had strong roots in, feeding and providing, shelter for those in need. But yet there also have programs that are talking about job development and training. And there's, I mean, you kinda name it. On, we can go down the list. And the challenge can be that in our testing world, these loyal donors of ten plus years are driving decisions for our entire program and or file that might not be connecting and resonating with those donors that came on a few years ago or these new donors that are coming in. And so it doesn't mean that we wanna, disconnect or or or, break up the the key things that have driven driven those long term relationships, but it is where we wanna craft new messages and new opportunities to express what you're doing in a way that hopefully is gonna be more impactful to those new donors that that you have. And so that's for us. That's where, you know, we wanna make sure that we're identifying, kinda the unique, persona elements between those long standing donors and those donors that just came in or the our recently lapsed donor group, and then doing some donor research on top of that. So we can really start understanding how different are these groups and and how much, how should that inform some of the testing and changing that we wanna bring to the table. Because I think we can waste a lot of time if the the fact of the matter is the donors we brought in this year look exactly like and are behaving just like the donors we've had for twenty years. But if we're we're noticing they're a lot younger, they have a lot different interests and passions, all of a sudden our media mix should look different. Our creative testing, it gives us a whole range of opportunities. All those things that we say, well, we tested this once and it didn't work or our donors don't really like this program or they don't give to that. Maybe that that was true for this core group that you have, and so continue to talk to them about the food program. But there's a new group that might be really interested in how you're gonna transform lives through job skill training or things of that nature. Yeah. That's awesome. Joshua, let's, let's finish with you. If you could just kinda speak to the specific, you know, faith based organizations. Yeah. Yeah. And Jarred, I love what you just said there because I I think it kinda triggered to me the the transition generationally that we're talking about at the leadership level for the organizations that I'm sure many of you guys on this webinar serve. You know, there's generational leadership change, but also donor generational shifting happening. And I think, that that can mean new expectations, for sure. In terms of the the big two things, in the faith based sector that we've seen kind of kind of combined to make a bit of a storm. The first is, due to that fiscal constraint of many donors, who we previously surveyed, that are weekly church attendance, which kind of fund most of the faith based work, that organizations do. That group of donors went from giving, pre pandemic up to six or more organizations. So it's 6.3, organizations down to around three. So half the number of organizations supported. Now that's a huge drop. And if you think about that in terms of you as an organization, that that includes their place of worship, by the way. So there is a there is, typically for a weekly church gym, that's gonna be the first place that they give, and they give the most to their house of worship. So so when you look okay. Well, I've got to be in the top three passions of a of a donor. That that's gonna that's gonna be more challenging. And so, naturally, that has played its way out in terms of, attrition and second gift conversion rates dropping, that kind of thing. The second thing that happened at the same time was, consolidation of a bunch of media outlets that traditional media outlets that previously, were a great source of acquisition of new DUNS, in the faith based space. So, any some people who are aware of this would be aware of some of the, stations being bought up, and no longer advertising or having connections with nonprofit faith based nonprofit organizations. So that's a challenge. And at the same time, you had event companies going out of business because of COVID, and the shutdowns there meant whole industries, around tours, concerts, etcetera, got shut down. Now it's starting to spin back up, but they're still not at full pace. So again, the crampon acquisition there. And the final thing is just some targeting changes that have happened in the digital space that just mean it's it's hard to find, the right kind of face based donor, for for organizations. Again, we just don't have the same levers, that have taken those levers away. At this point, they've taken them away. It might come back with the ventures. We'll see. They're they're consistently changing their platforms. But those those three, those three changes on the acquisition front have made acquisition harder. So I'd say in terms of, like, prep really practical things that organizations have seen be successful over the last five years, the practical pieces, one is just, make sure you have a unique promise, and and you know what that unique promise is. You know, even through a generational shift, of organization, you've got to know what you represent in the donors mind. Because if you're one if you're gonna be number one, two, or three, you really have to be, like, tight with that donor. And they they have to say, this is part of my life. Like, I'm I'm a one of these people, and and tribally aligned in some ways to say, this is my thing. And in order to get it to that point, you've got to be really clear on what your thing is so that they can align themselves. And let's be honest, a bunch of our for profit counterparts make their brands a part of someone's identity. And I don't think we always do a good job of aligning identity with what they give to. And I think that's a space of opportunity. And I've seen some organizations do that really well. And the second thing is just heavy investment, ongoing investment in multi channel acquisition. And I'd say acquisition now starting at engagement, not at a gift. So that is some participation in the mission of the organization, whether that's it can be as simple as getting a downloadable thing, it can be signing a petition, it can be some sort of sort of participation or step towards the organization, and then the movement of, that participation to a participation to a gift in an intentional way. Because it's becoming more and more expensive for that direct donor acquisition. So kind of building that larger pool of audience of people who believe in the mission and then cultivating from there, new donors. So they're they're the two big drivers in terms of, the faith based space that I've seen, and and what organizations are doing doing to offset it. Yeah. Yeah. I I've so appreciate that. And just a reminder for folks that if you go to the docs tab, you can download that, report. And so all the panelists today contributed to that and kinda spoke to some sector specific things as well, as well as, you know, overall. So, there's actually some more information in there, some more insights, some more things that that I think would be really helpful for you. So go ahead and download that. You know, we can dive, deeper there. Now I do wanna kinda shift the conversation a bit and talk about the role of technology in fundraising. And in particular, like, we know that technology can be a game changer. So from AI driven insights, automation, predictive, analytics, like, all of that stuff is starting to become, more common. But for some nonprofits adopting these tools or taking those steps to use technology, in a way that's really helpful, can feel overwhelming. So, I'd love to just hear, Amy, if we could maybe start with you. How do you recommend nonprofits integrate technology without losing that personal touch? Yeah. So I think that nonprofits should really continue to explore technology and how they can refine their strategies, weight raise awareness, build trust with their donors, and enhance their operations. Some of those key items would be, like, excuse me. Sorry. Other exploring other donation platforms like crypto, ACH, PayPal. Apple Pay is another good one. Crypto seems a little scary, but there are some great platforms that will help you with that. Automating your online fundraising efforts to maximize efficiency, that will help you cut costs, make your life a lot easier, and that's done pretty easy. I think, automating those efforts has become pretty standard now. So if you're not doing that already, look into how you can be, you know, utilizing your time better with something like that. And then, of course, Scott, as you mentioned, predictive analytics. So I will always say that data is the most important. We have to be, you know, creative as well, but let's use those analytics to refine your mail files, improve engagement, target the correct audience. Again, that helps you, you know, save money, create efficiency. And then really by embracing these tools, your organization can kind of grow, into a smarter, more efficient organization. And you can then show your donors how you're doing these things differently to maximize their impact as well. Yeah. That's awesome. Joshua, would love to hear your thoughts on this as well, regarding integrating technology, using technology, but still staying human and having that personal touch. Yeah. Right. And and I'll I'll say maybe, I'll take it from a different angle because I know many people operate within teams. And and the reality is your teams aren't growing, but the workload is, with the all the communication demands of these next generations that we're talking about, the demands of of personalization and how much, they're even expecting. I mean, I just I just looked at the report for Gen z. It looks like they a vast majority, 81% of them want a direct mail appeal in their, in their mailbox every month. So okay. Well, that's like, I don't know how we're gonna do all that. And so part of that, is is just realizing that although there's these high demands for for output from our teams, our teams likely aren't growing at the same rate. So how do we how do we fill that gap? And I'd say, like, for one, how do you you can use great tools like GPT. It's fantastic, and it's only getting better every day. But if you don't have a campaign brief or something that drives the human connection at the start, you will lose it through the process. It will become like mincemeat, and and will not be recognizable for you as an organization. It will not have the unique flavor that needs to, and it won't have a human touch. So so I with in the way I construct these things with organizations we partner with, even with ourselves is these tools are great for increasing the output, but but they need they absolutely need a level of human interaction. And and that starts with what do you input and how is that, directly connected to the felt need of your donor and exactly what they're thinking. Therefore, the output, is better. And the and the final thing is just be careful if you use tools like this because it's easy to switch off your brain or your team may switch off their brain because it's like, oh, there's my hundredth post for this campaign. Fantastic. It's all good. Scroll, scroll, scroll, we're done and away it goes. I would say you've got to have a healthy skepticism when you're reviewing any outputs from these tools, because you've got to put a lens on it that you know, is is gonna bring that greater human connection. So again, when you're at the hundredth post, it's easy to switch off your brain. But if our teams and ourselves as we review outputs from these tools, like, does that actually make sense? And is it connected in a relational way is a question I would be asking. So I kinda took it from a different perspective in terms of your team and how how you create outputs, but it's certainly an expectation that there's gonna be demand for more. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of those things, yeah, that will continue to evolve and grow. And so it's that set ongoing conversation to understand it. Now we we've been getting a ton of great questions, in the q and a, and so I appreciate it. I know I asked for them, and then people were like, yeah. That sounds awesome. So, you can upvote those questions too. If you go in, you're like, oh, I'm curious. What are people asking? You can say, hey. I'm interested in this. You'll move it to the top. I'm gonna answer those kinda in priority, so vote for your own if you wanna answered, earlier. But would love to do this. I wanna make sure we have time for q and a, but really wanted to make sure that we hit on kind of the future of fundraising and what you all are seeing in regard to trends, shifts, things that you believe, nonprofits must prepare for over the next five years. I'd love to go through, you know, with with each of you to kinda hear your thoughts on that here and then jump to q and a. So, Jarred, do you mind you mind kicking us off with that? Yeah. Absolutely. And and I'm gonna, kinda build off of some of the things that, Joshua was talking about. I think that, how organizations handle, and and leverage the technology available to us, will determine whether they're successful at connecting with donors three years from now, five years from now, and onward. And I typically am seeing and I kinda predict that, if organizations fall in either of these camps, they're in a lot of trouble. If they sit there and say, that's not for us, because, you know, we're about relationships or you don't understand my donors are of x age or or, they don't realize is those organizations don't realize is how fast things are adapting and changing and that actually that we have tools in place that can actually better connect you with individuals and allow you to do things that otherwise you couldn't. On the flip side, as an organization that looks at it and says, we can do all of these amazing things, it's gonna completely transform everything. And I don't need the staff. I don't need the certain relationships because I'm gonna have AI and it's gonna do it all. I think those organizations will also find themselves at a massive disadvantage because they're gonna realize that, we're still in a relationship oriented business, and we have to bring that to the table. And I think that's the beauty of what, technology and specifically AI is going to provide for us is it's gonna give us the ability to create more personalized experiences and create the things that we've been talking about wanting to do for so long in a way that's actually scalable. But it's gonna be done because there's that relational intentionality, and it's gonna be done because organizations are literally trying to take it one step at a time. They don't decide, you know, tomorrow that they're ready to run the ultra marathon. Maybe they're gonna start with a five k today, and they're gonna be building up over the the coming months and years. Yeah. That's good. Mark, would love to toss it to you, to share kind of a trend shifts you believe nonprofits must prepare for over the next five years. Well, I I think, you know, I'm the old guy on the call, Scott. But I have always been, perhaps because of the field that I've been in, either an early appreciator or an early adopter of the importance of data. And I would just say to everybody on the call, you know, if you if you're not figuring out how to get all of the relevant data that you need and more data is relevant than it used to be, there's so many things about just relationships and operations that aren't specifically financial, they aren't specifically donor. But if you're not working to capture all the relevant data and get it to a place where it can be normalized, think, you know, a data warehouse or a data lake or someplace where you can have all of your data in a way that you can, you know, not messing with the original source that's being collected, but that you can if you're not doing that, you need to do it now. And we were talking about, Scott, we're thinking about balancing, you know, resources with with all the, you know, limited resources and all the changes. This is something you cannot afford, in my opinion, not to do as an organization. Because as we have to be ready as AI continues to learn and continues to improve, we have to be ready, you know, for that to to be able to take advantage of what it can do for our organizations. And I would say too, as you're leveraging technology, and I appreciate very much, Jarred, what you guys are saying is absolutely right. I think one thing I think about one of my friends is on this call, and I know much of his donor organization. They're as old or older than I am. Don't move too fast with that donor as you you know, so segmenting the donors and really being able to understand, I still need to handle this donor this way. But also, I can't move too slowly. So I'm sorry that you're we're in that position. But, again, normalizing your data, you know, you may have somebody in house now who can use an old CRM and some Excel files and, you know, a paper clip and some tape to produce a report for you. But really, you're gonna have to get to a place where you really do have a a place where you have one source of truth. If you're not there and honestly, it's surprising how many of us are not there, maybe not even close, and we think we're gonna get by. I don't think you are. I would encourage you. And I it's not my business. It's not the business I do, but find somebody. Maybe somebody on this call does that for you for them. But, you know, data and analytics will will be critical moving into the future. Get ready because if if it's not already here, it's coming. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Amy, would love to toss this question, to hear your thoughts. Sure. I will totally agree with Mark on this. Data is so important, but also making sure your data is clean and that you have smart business rules. I think that's essential. Another thing I think the pandemic really drove home was the need to be able to pivot quickly. So we need to be flexible enough to make changes under any kind of circumstance. We should have emergency action plans for anything that could come up. You don't have to have it all solidified, but you should have something in your plan with your agency or your fundraising team, that says this is what we're going to do if another pandemic happens, if, USAID goes away, you know, those types of things. So we're in a a very different environment now, and we just need to prepare and be ready for it. And we need to have team members that are ready for it too. So I think going back to something maybe Jarred said earlier is that everybody needs to be ready, and willing to make these changes, have the knowledge, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah. Joshua, you wanna round us out here on this question? Yeah. Sure. And, like, asking me to predict the last five years, I would have done terribly, I think I think would I predicted a pandemic? Probably not. Would I predicted the amount of change that's happened in this period of time? Probably not. So, I mean, I will say from my perspective, I don't even know if any of us will have jobs or need jobs by the time the the machines take over. So I that that may be the camp that I come from. But, no. But in in all seriousness, like, that amount of change, with with people is is a dangerous level of change, I would say. There is there is anxiety that comes with that, and and anxious people don't make good decisions typically. So I think part of it is encountered with what what you're feeling through this. Like, how do I feel as this change comes at me? And how do I make good decisions, as an organization and as, you know, teams as this change continues to to bombard us. But we also have to put our minds in the in the minds of our donors and say, like, what are they experiencing too through through this change? I mean, and and it'll hit different people differently. Like millennials still have thirty years of work to do, like, so so they're at a very different career stage than our boomer donors who are likely moving into retirement now. There's just a there's a different mentality there. So, you know, I'd say, like, again, being aware of that anxiety, it all it all comes down to relational equity and fundraising. It's trust that allows someone to to give, free and, with their whole heart to the the mission that you you serve. And and if you focus on that and don't make anxious decisions through this to cut whole things or to or to chop things completely whilst recognizing that there's gonna be the the COVID level events that likely continue to happen, I think you'll still bear fruit. And I think and that's that's the most important thing is how do you build relationships that last, even through that anxiety? And how do you even as an organization, how do you create a world that's less anxious through your connections and and, community together? How do you do that in your communication too? So that that's what I would say. It's gonna get it's gonna get, communication too? So that that's what I would say. It's gonna get it's gonna get, bumpy. It's already been bumpy, so expect bumpy. Yeah. We'll get through it together. Right? Mhmm. Well, I I do wanna jump to our q and a. I know we have a a lot of questions here, but but just real quick before we do, we do I did wanna let people know just in regard to some of what we've been talking about in re like, how do you prepare for the future? How do you think through fundraising strategy today? We are super excited to, have our responsive nonprofit summit coming up on June. This is a virtual event, and it's free. And so we would love to, invite those of you here to that. I'm gonna post a link in the chat. You can actually use that to register. But we're gonna be looking at all sorts of things. We're gonna have a we have an amazing kind of, selection of speakers, but things like how do you design and scale a donor retention strategy in 2025 or using AI to turn data into strategic decisions, managing mid and major donor profile or portfolios for real results and and and a ton of other stuff. So that we're also gonna have a first look at our Virtuous 2025 virtuous benchmark report, which is gonna break down a ton of key trends and what you can, do with that data. So I wanted to invite people, let people know about that. Again, it's free, so join us for that. You'll hear more about it, I'm sure, but wanted to just let people know. Now we have a little bit of time here. I'm gonna jump to the most upvoted questions. Like I said, I would. And but let's do our best to kinda answer these rapid fire if we can to get through as many as possible. First one, Amy asked, do you have a few go to questions for gathering impact stories? Jump in, whoever. I'm wanna make sure I'm understanding that. I I guess when it comes to, the recipients when you're you're out there engaging, Somebody put this in the chat earlier, which I thought was was fantastic. It's, reminding that our our donors, are not giving to an organization. They're giving to meet a need to they're giving, to try to give through the organization, I think, is the way the person put it in the chat, which I really liked. And so, when you think about the questions to ask those recipients to get that great impact story, you know, I think one of the great places to start are, you know, if I if I just gave x amount of dollars to take care of this, what would I wanna know? You know? What did this do for this individual? What did it mean to them? What what has been the the result or the impact of it. And so I think, like, if we can if we as an as organizations, as partners can do a better job of trying to, not only connect with donors like we talked a lot about, but also try to put ourselves in donor shoes And so this is our chance to answer their questions. This is our chance to inspire them with these stories. What is what what would they want to ask? What would they want to see? What would they want to hear? What would they care about? And if we can start fueling all of our questions with that, I think our stories are gonna really meet their needs where it becomes less about a checklist we have in our organizational. Oh, we went out and we did five interviews and we asked these five questions, but, really trying to be thoughtful about what the donors wanna hear. Yeah. That's good. Here's another one. Should nonprofits as a general rule build in a permissions campaign into their annual comms calendar? So in other words, understanding how people wanna be contacted, communicated with, that sort of thing. I've seen it work. Well, I I would say I've I've seen it work. It has to be done really well. And I would say you you actually wanna put the control in the hands of your donors all year round. So don't don't just leave it to one campaign. Ideally, from the very, onset of a relationship, there is there is a clear dialogue with the donor about exactly how they wanna be communicated to. You've gotta be careful because sometimes you get overzealous data entry people who are like, oh, the donor, had a question. They must not wanna receive any communication from us. And so be careful of that, that side of things. But I would say I have seen it work. It it's gotta be done in a way that is donor centric, though, because I can see, occasionally, those campaigns are run-in such a way that it's actually about the organizational need. Like, we we wanna hear from you about, what we're spending money on, to communicate to you essentially is the undertone of the message. So whenever you're organizational centric, you're you're taking the the spotlight off the impact of your work. So it it does have to be it comes down to the message and the way in which you craft it. If it's done in a way, in which, you're really trying to gather more information on the donut, and you can use that dataset to to build out what you know about the donut, and and that's the way you're using it to really harvest that data, that's fantastic because it allows you to connect with them in a great way. So that I would say I would, I would recommend that approach, but not so much the eccentric approach, to to that same thing. Yeah. I I know we're we're going over here just a bit. I do have one more, and then we have a few other questions that I know that we can, certainly follow-up on. But, Amy, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this. How does a young organization find new donors in this environment? I think you really have to connect with who your people are. Right? So using, Facebook or digital methods to find those similar interests, Doing events, handing things out locally. If their organization is is very small and local, that's a you have a great opportunity to get involved with your community. And really just focusing on retention with the the donors that you do have, making sure that they know that they're appreciated, but also trying some acquisition methods. If you're a smaller organization, you can do less expensive, strategies through email and digital. You don't have to go out with a million dollar direct mail acquisition package to really get started in that, in that channel. Yeah. No. I appreciate that. Amy, Joshua, Mark, Jarred, we so appreciate your time and sharing your wisdom and insights. Thank you to everyone who, has been here as well. We hope that it's been helpful. We do have a survey, that I would love to, get your thoughts on, and so we just kinda launched that. It's a way for you to give us some feedback for, this session, what what was helpful, what we can continue to do to bring helpful content, to you because we certainly are in your corner and walking alongside with you and want to continue to help nonprofits and fundraisers ultimately grow generosity and see your mission succeed. So, would love for you all to fill that survey out here as that pops up. But, again, thank you so much to our panel for being here, for sharing your wisdom and insights. Again, reminder, grab the five years since COVID report in the docs tab, before you leave so that you could take that with you. We'll be sending out the recording, the, report as well, so you'll get those links. But thank you again so much, for joining us today. We hope it was helpful, and we will see you next time. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.