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All right. Good afternoon or late morning, folks. We have a lot of people registered today. And over the next three days for Dream big welcome to dream big. I'm going to give things a minute or two before we get started with Rachel Muir right. Muir All right, rockin There we go. Yeah, we got a lot of people registered for today. So I am excited. Let me get everything ready to go for all of you for today. We're gonna get into some housekeeping items very shortly to kick off the next three days of live education. But before we get started formally, for the several 100, folks or so that we have a ready if you wanted to test out the chat, because we want things to be interactive. I know Rachel wants to hear from you, too. We have two ways that you can do that. We have chat is disabled.

1:08  
Sure. Yeah. Zoom just in this. This happened me the other day. You have to turn on chat. You have to turn it on. And I think you can do it within chat. I actually rebooted my whole thing. Zoom just changed this, but you can do it within chat. And yes, pretty pleased. Do do that so

1:27  
that attendees can chat with hosts and panelists. I am going to do that. I just turned it on. So so we can see it. Everybody else there. We got Hey, Holly Holly's already already tracking it. You know, when I'm going to do it for everybody.

1:44  
Why not? Do it for me too, so that I can like chop people up?

1:49  
There you go. So I'll turn that on. Let's do it. Okay, everybody channeled list. Okay, so we're gonna get into the recording questions. Don't worry, folks, we're going to answer those types of questions. q&a is up and running chat is up and running. Kim Reginaldo is already doing what I would be asking as we get started, which is can you please throw in the chat, who you are and where we're hearing you from? I am in upstate New York. Rachel, you've been , you know, jet setting all over the place. So where are we talking to you from today?

2:22  
I'm in Austin, Texas. I'm a native Austinite and my husband's a native Austinite. So I like to joke that together. We're an endangered species.

2:30  
Awesome. Well, we got St. Paul, we got San Antonio, we got Austin, we got New York, we got Chicago, we got St. Petersburg, Florida stay in Illinois, Albany, Georgia, not not New York. We got Emma from Greenville, North Carolina, we got people from everywhere. And there's hundreds and hundreds of you that are excited to dream big with us. So we're gonna go ahead and get started. So we got some great content over the next few days. So first, a few housekeeping items before I hand it over to Rachel, our kickoff presenter. First, what exactly is this that we're experiencing? Well, we're going to be doing a few different things. Today, we're starting with the first of three live sessions focusing on the the idea of generosity moments, specifically digital generosity, moments, these are being recorded. These are going to be sent out at the conclusion of the three days, as well as a larger Resource Center. So there's some cool ways that even you can get involved. Barbara, Paula, Nancy, Jacob, all of you and the several other folks that are beyond the chat that I've seen, I want you to get involved. And I'm going to tell you how I'm going to tell you how. But first, what is happening over the next three days as part of the live dream experience. First, we have Rachel kicking things off with on top of the world give your donors moments that matter. So that's what we're going to be doing today. Tomorrow, in another recorded session, out of all three recorded sessions. By the way, we'll be joined by neon one users Team Gleason Foundation, and they're going to be talking about how they've created fundraising fireworks in a digital environment. They've done some really cool things. We're going to hear from them on how they did it. They're actually really excited to share the sausage of how they actually created the thing. So it's very practical hands on engagement. Then just making sure clearing out the q&a. Okay, so then what we're going to be doing is hearing from Woodrow Rosenbaum on this Thursday, July 28. And he's going to be talking about from scarcity to abundance. They actually released a massive report some of the data you're actually going to see flagged very shortly for me. Anybody knows me I you know, I love data. So he's going to be talking about some of the ways that we can take the moments that Rachael is going to kind of dive into and inspire you to think about and how you're going to hear the practical ways that Team Gleason has done it. He's going to then give you that larger context on why, why now? Right? So when we talk about a generosity moment, because you might not be familiar with the term might be a new term for you. It should be because we made it up. And so what it is, is taking a few different things that you're already probably doing, and just giving it a name. So what is it and why focus on it? First, why do moments matter? Actually, why does generosity matter? So the pandemic actually showed that there's more and more people who want to give to your organizations. But the issue is that a lot of the folks who might be discovering you for the first time and going in and having that first moment where they're excited about you, unfortunately, it doesn't stick. The average new donor retention rate according to the most recent Fundraising Effectiveness, project data, which is somebody who gave in 2021, only 18.6% of those people are going to come back again this year for your organization, most likely. Why is this matter? Because it costs you money to acquire one person in a blended outreach plan is typically going to cost $1.25 to get that $1. But if you keep those people because you've stuck with them, and you've stuck in their head, and they remember, and they fall in love with you, it's only 20 cents, it's only 20 cents to keep those folks around. So that's why we want to focus on that generosity moment. So what does that define that so there's two primary concepts that we want to talk about. The first is from next after, and it's basically the moment of decision. So this chart is put yourself in the shoes of an average donor.

They're going about their day, they are open up emails from Netflix and Zappos and it's Prime Day and the kids are, you know, screaming at them in the background, or, you know, you're trying to figure out what to do for dinner, all this type of stuff, right, you're the interrupter. You come in, and you make them perk up and say, Hey, pay attention to me. Then you have points that you're building up to where they have a decision to make, are they going to give are they going to not? And where the generosity moment comes into play as during that what we see here, the conversion horizon. So next after is done a lot of research on this. But really, this comes down in plain English somebody wants to give to you or not. So how can you make them? How can you make it from simply a situational gift into a generosity moment. And that's where psychology comes into play. And that's what Rachel's really going to get into today. What's the generosity moment, we look to Daniel Kahneman, who talked about the peak and rule. And basically, the average of an experience isn't what people remember. It's whether it was really good or really bad and how it ended. That's it. It's the power of the moment that you want to tap into. So Rachel is going to get into that. But before I hand it over to her, I want you by the end of this in over the next three days, and we'll we'll keep this open for the week. Submit your own moment. I'm going to pop into the chat right here. Bookmark this, come back to it. Submit your own moment. 30 seconds. Take your phone out. Tim, this is my generosity moment. This is what I did that I'm really proud of Rachel's already done hers. You might have even seen it in an email. We've had some other moments start to come in. We're going to give our favorite moment, some money. And then we're going to take all the moments and put them into an inspirational resource for you as you head into your end of the year. So that's it Rachel. Little bit longer than my five minutes but we had to let a lot of people into the room so floor is yours. I'm going to turn my sound off and watch the chat and handle

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that. And I and you turn off your so I can screen share to

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yes I am going to do it all so you can take on the

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Yay. I just want to say I'm so excited to be your guest today. And I'm so excited about this awesome, you know, invitation that all of you have been given. I hope you take Tim up on it. I think it is really really exciting. And I can't wait to be inspired by your generosity mom. Hi, I am super thrilled to get to be with you today. My name is Rachel mirror if you've never seen me heard me type new into the chat, so I know if I'm totally brand new to you yay, Katie. Yay, Laurel. Awesome. Well, I'm

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excited to meet you, Katie. Lauren, look, Rhonda, yay, Andrea, I'm excited to have so many new friends today. Ashley, I am super excited to be with you today and have new friends like you. I have spent my entire career in fundraising, I started a nonprofit to empower girls in math, science, engineering and technology called Girl start, which is still thriving, and is turning 20 years old this September. my weaknesses are wine tasting and cheese plates. And I love helping people love on their donors. And I also love helping make fundraising easy and painless for you as humanly possible. And today is so full of a lot of inspiration, I just put a link into the chat, where you can get your hands on these slides if you want them. Right right now, you can learn more about me at Rachel muir.com. Here's all the fun that we're having today. Excuse me, I'm going to be talking about what makes certain experiences remarkable like why you remember some experiences over others, I'm going to be mentioning this book. And I will also put a link to this book up into the chat. Because this is a really great book, you might want to grab this book. But there's a lot of inspiration. This is written by the Heath brothers, who also wrote me to stick we're going to be talking about what makes certain experiences remarkable. I'm gonna give you five ways to create moments that matter for your donors and the tools to do it and stand out and make your donors feel like heroes. I'm going to talk about the virtuous circle, how you can use it to raise more. And I'm going to give you a little yay wonders where this book, I'm gonna give you a little bit of homework to think about to audit your donor communications and think about, you're asked to think ratios, especially since it's July 26. And we're getting up on end of the year fundraising, since is a good time for you to be thinking about all this, I also brought party favors, because that's the kind of person I am. So I'm going to post those into the chat. This virtual guide is where you can grab all of the tools that I'm going to be talking about today. All of the technology tools are in there. And I also have 23 ways to shower your donors with love. And you know, it's a really great thing to do before and of your fundraising shower, your donors love love. Because then they're going to be you're going to be top of mind to them. And they're going to feel really excited and really inspired about coming to the end of the year. So I'm going to be chatting you up in the chat. And if you've got questions, I just ask that you pop those into the q&a box so we can keep them separate. So I would like to ask, excuse me, everyone joining us today. Type yes. into the chat. If you ever surprised your kids, by picking them up at school, with with their bags, packed, putting them in the car, driving them to the airport and taking them to Disneyland Disney World. If you ever did that kind of like magical moment for your kids. Holly did it? I wasn't expecting like a little diversion. I've never done it. Okay. Jeffrey did it. Paul did it. I've never done it. I didn't I didn't take my kids, but they knew we were going oh, cares that I don't have kids have a parent did it for me. So if if you did it for your kids, or if your parents did it for you, and it was a magical moment, just type magic enter the shot. So I know that like that blew your mind. And it was really okay. Yes, I was just like it was magic. That's the moment you're never gonna forget. And I'm glad for those who had your the experience to not feel bad. If you haven't given your kids that experience, you can engineer and that's the beauty of this whole presentation. And the whole concept of the power of moments. You each of you has the power as an architect to engineer amazing moments, not just for your donors, but for your kids, for your partner. And you're going to learn a little bit about that today. But these magical moments matter. And it's empowering to think about you being able to do this yourself. And I'm going to ask you and I'm not expecting a lot of people are going to say yes to this, but type tight me into the chat. And let me let me finish my little like my little introduction to this.

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A minute describe an experience you might have had as a new employee. So let me finish this experience before you type me into the chat. Okay, because I want to make sure or that you've got like this whole kit and caboodle. All right? I'm asking you, if you ever as a brand new employee retreated to a welcome kit, maybe some flowers, maybe some swag, like a T shirt, a backpack, a coffee mug, a pre arranged lunch date with your colleagues. And then, in addition, stick with me before you go type in me. In addition to that, kind of like warm red carpet welcome. I want to use if you had this experience, where it could have been a week later, could have been a month later could have been two months later, you had an actual orientation with other new employees. Were people from the leadership team of the organization, maybe the CEO popped in for 30 minutes. Maybe the CFO popped in for 45 minutes, different key leaders when organization came in and did a little presentation and welcome to you and got to know you. Maybe it was a half day. If you had that experience, you've got the swag and you got some kind of an orientation. Type me into the chat. Yay, Jordan had it. A me okay, I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Um, type, whether it was at a for profit or nonprofit, I had that experience. It was at a for profit, okay, yay. A lot of you had it in a nonprofit, okay, I'm impressed. That's a great nonprofit that makes my my heart happy. And this is the way that we can create loyal, invested employees who want to work with us, who will be dedicated for us and our cause and our mission, who will go above and beyond and who are who are invested 100% in the success of the organization in the future, that organization, this is how you do it, by thinking thoughtfully about their journey, and setting him off on the right foot. Hopefully, you're sharing that with your board. But you may not be doing this with your donors, you may not be doing this with new donors. And that is the whole goal of my presentation today is for you to think about not just for new donors, but for donors, period, think about how you can be giving them fantastic moments that matter. So some moments are just more memorable than other moments. I mean, you're a parent, Tim's a parent, Tim has twins, he has three daughters. And there are certainly moments that are gonna stand out and Tim's life as a dad. But every day he spends with his kids. I mean, it kind of runs into one another. But some moments are more memorable than others, like the day that you took your newborn home from the hospital. I like Tim have twins. I remember taking my twins. And I remember like they were in their little car seats. And I like gave him a tour of the house. Like they, you know, needed that. But I did, I was so overwhelmed with everything. Taking your newborn home, your first kiss, your first crush, the moment that your partner proposed, that moment was so special for me, I actually asked my husband, when he was done, I was like, Oh my God, will you repeat that whole thing. Because I was like, I want to remember every single moment of this, so do it all.

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And thankfully he did your high school graduation. These are moments that you are going to remember. And the interesting thing is we go through our lives. And these moments really stick with us. You know, prom your first day, it's your first kiss. But as creators of experiences, we ignore their value. As people who experience these moments. We love it, and we remember it and we cherish it if it's good. But as creators of experiences, we ignore their value and we ignore their power and we ignore it to our detriment. Because you have an golden opportunity here to create magical moments for donors will not just cherish but always remember and as Tim said, humans remember the best or the worst moment of an experience as well as last one and they forget the rest. When when you go to Disneyland or Disney World, you remember the best moment. And you remember the last moment and you kind of forget the rest. And that is how our brains work. And that is how our brains are wired. I had the opportunity. And I learned about this hotel from reading this book. But there's a hotel. It's actually not a hotel, it's converted condos. It's in LA it's called the Magic Castle Hotel. It isn't I mean it is it is a hotel, but it's converted condos that have been painted canary yellow, and it has the most rapturous reviews on TripAdvisor. And the last I checked, it was like rated like number three or number four of all the hotels to stay in Los Angeles. It's in Hollywood Hills now, or Hollywood. It is. It is not the a four star hotel by any stretch of the imagination. It has sparse furniture, but it has a moment that delights every person. It has many moments that delight anyone who comes to stay at the Magic Castle Hotel, and that is next to the pool. Again, not an impressive pool, very small pool, not a junior Olympic sized pool. Yay, Ron just said the old school pneus of it is so cool popsicles. When you go to the pool. There's a cherry red telephone, you pick up the phone and on the other end of the line, the person says popsicle hotline and you say what flavor you want. And a waiter comes out with a silver tray with all kinds of different popsicles and you get to pick whatever flavor you want. They also have an unlimited snacks where they will give you any snack you want off their menu. I'm talking kingsize, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey bar with almonds. Look, my dog Max, like he heard that he was like, Wait, did someone say snacks. He doesn't bark. So he's been sitting on my lap this whole time. But look at him. He's like licking his lips. He's like someone's a snap. But they will give you snacks anytime you want. They will just like pick up. Hello, Julie Shannon, they will they will just bring you snacks to your room. It's all about the surprise and delight of the experience. And that is why this hotel stands out. And I'd highly recommend you go. I also highly recommend you get tickets to the Magic Castle next door, which is where they have incredible magic shows and amazing food. So I don't want you to leave moments to chance with your donors, I want you to create magical ones. And I'm going to teach you how to do that. And today we're going to be talking about creating remarkable donor movements that they're gonna cherish and that are going to matter to them. And I'm gonna give you tons of ideas, and tons of tools to help you do this. So donors want to be the hero of their own story. We know that and you should know that in your communications, you don't need the credit. The donor needs the credit, you need the gift, I want the donor to be front and center. But here's an example of this. And this is an example of a really magical moment. Take me into the chat. If you did the Ice Bucket Challenge. I mean, this I bet the chat is going to explode with everyone's Yes,

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I did that I did that I did that even climate got in on the action. My favorite frog, Kermit the Frog. What was magical about? Well, there are lots of things that were magical about the ice bucket challenge, not to mention how much money they raised. But also, it took it also that it didn't come from within the organization. It gives an idea that came from outside of the organization. But most impressively, the donor was the hero of the story, the person that was doing the ice bucket challenge was the hero of that story. And that's why it was so successful. And that is why it took off. So some of the things. One of the core elements that make a moment magical is elevation, insight, pride and connection. So when you think about those words, when you think about elevating an experience, you think about like, you're getting married, you're, you're with people that you love, who love you, you're having fine food. When you think about insight, and you think about all the opportunities you have for insight for people to learn something that they didn't know about your cause. Think about the opportunity, you have to give your donors pride immense pride in feeling good about how generous they are, and the impact that they're making. And think about what an opportunity, you have to have people feel connected. Like they're a part of something bigger, that they're making the world a better place, that they're connected to other people doing the same things. So I'm gonna give you lots of different strategies and give you five memorable moments, strategies and tools. And I'm going to give you some nonprofit examples along the way. type your questions anytime into the chat. Oh, yeah. I love that people are already sharing generosity moments and I want to encourage you, Andrea, Tim put this in the chat earlier and I'll invite him to pop it in there again. But he has actually I think I can pop it in there. I invite you guys to take on Tim's challenge, and as a $500, you could you could be given $500 to your charity for a great generosity moment. So I just put that into the chat. So the first tip that I want to give you is leverage milestones. There are, I mean, it can be your daughter's birthday, it can be a holodeck can be valentine's day can be St. Patrick's Day, and you're just telling them how lucky you are to have them in your corner. It could be the day that they made their first gift to you. There are so many milestones, so I am not. I'm basically sports illiterate, totally honest. I somehow managed to play basketball in college. I mean, college, oh, my God, no way high school. I played basketball in high school. And I don't even know what position I played. I can't even believe I was on a basketball team. It's a miracle. So I'm not I'm not really familiar with sports. But I do know that ESPN does the senior Signing Day. And there's two founders of an awesome nonprofit, Chris and Donald who's who's founded Yes, prep, which is a charter school network serving low income students in Houston. And Chris McDonald, we're hanging out in a bar. I mean, like, like, every good story starts on a new bar. And they were watching ESPN. And they were watching the senior signing day. And they were like, You know what, why don't we do that for our kids. So hey, there are nonprofit, they're moving really fast, just like you. And a few months later, they held their very first senior Signing Day. So the high school students that were going to Yes, Prep Charter School in Houston, Texas, took the stage. And they announced where they were going to be going to school in the fall and they dropped a t shirt or pennant with their school's mascot, they kept their choice of college a secret from their family and friends. And after each announcement, the room totally erupted in applause, everyone cried. A tradition was born. You know, talking about elevation, that was an elevated moment talking about insight. There are middle school kids in that audience who are like, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to be up on that stage. And I'm going to reveal where I'm going to college in front of an audience like that, I'm going to do that. There was immense sense of pride, and of course, an incredible sense of connection. So so that is a charter school signing day. Great example of all of those elements, but especially pride and elevation.

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You can use milestones. Companies use milestones all the time. This is a company I used to work at a fundraising software company, you may have heard of it. We were we were called convenio. We were later acquired by Blackbaud. But when we were convenio, the at each year we had all these milestones your one year anniversary, your three year your two year your five year you get a teach you we were always getting T shirts, but there was backpacks or a Swiss Army knives or was like luggage there was there was just stuff celebrating you. And it was nice to be celebrated this example from Hulu. Here's a little something from us one month free, type into the chat. If you buy your dog, your pet food from chewy type chewy into the chat if you love to eat, and you use chewy to buy your pet food. Yay, I love chewy. They're amazing. And once upon a time, chewy decided to surprise all of their customers will not all of their customers send on their customers randomly. With pet portraits. They were you know, they'd be communicating with someone and they would say, well send me a picture of your pet. And then they would surprise them with this signed by the artist with a background of the artist. piece of art for your one of a kind. And Laurel sent this in as flowers and a portrait when our dog passed away said I got a pet portrait. It was awesome. That is something you're always going to treasure. She says I'm sending give Versary thank you emails every month. I love this. I encourage you to plan the donor journey this. This is a journey and you know, great companies are thinking about what are my experiences that I'm giving people along the way and you saw those graphs from our our data loving friend Tim, where he shared like what are the peak moments you need to plan the journey do not if you want to create magical moments, you are not going to leave this journey to chance my fundraising friends, so I'm going to play another game and this is what is your postscript communication? You can score one point for each thing you regularly sent Okay, so the Mac some number of points. Don't raise your hand because we're not here together. Don't raise your hand. Just type 1056 Look at all these email thank you auto responder, thank you letter handwritten thank you card phone call. And for each thing that you regularly send type in the number like I said one thing I'm a millennia is a one out Alicia is a four Terry's of five that I think the Mexican get here's a 10 is their new a new donor welcome kit. Okay, some people, if you're one, if you're two, if you're three, you've got some opportunities, even if you're a five, I'd say the average here is like three, we've got a lot of twos and then a couple of fives. So I'm proud of all my fives. But these are all opportunities, your retention is up to you. It is purely up to you. It is I mean, I mean, life happens and some donors are going to move away some, you know life, we don't we all won't be here on this earth forever, some donors will pass away. But in general, your retention is up to you and is up to you to make those donors want to stay and telling them how their gifts made a difference is a really important part. So all of you who typed in my fundraising friends, you have opportunities to boost this take a screenshot of this right here. I'm also going to be sharing, I've got a stewardship plan. I'm going to pop that into the chat. And I also have to just give you some more ideas. I also have a download on donor love and it's loaded with like 23 different ideas for how to love on your donors. Type in and tell me what is the number one reason why donors stop giving type that into the chat? Why do people stop giving? Typing in friends?

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Suddenly, so don't feel appreciated. And as I said, No, thank you. Forgetting not thank you stop asking lack of communication. They feel invisible. The reason that donors feel like the readers the reason that donors give is over solicitation. But what's important here is the way that they define over solicitation because they define over solicitation is being asked to give again, before they knew that their gift had an impact. The only way that they are going to know that their gift made an impact is if you describe the impact that they had, it is not enough to just send a thank you letter, I want you to do better than that. I want you to report back and tell them how their gift made a difference. Okay? If you do that your donors are ready to be asked again, they're feeling a warmth, do we bronzy glow about giving to your cause? Because they believe they really matter. And they really make an impact. And where do we want to give where we believe that we really want to make an impact. This is the virtuous circle, you ask you thank you report back. Thinking is beautiful. reporting back tells me I can trust you. It worked. I feel great for making a difference. It's really reporting back that makes that person want to give again, and I'm proud of everyone for thanking their donors. But thanking your donors is really one step in the process. They need to know that their gift made a difference 80% of donors according to Lynn Wester who I adore, she's like a fundraising comedian. Say that they were never told that impact of their first gift. And that is a tragedy. I mean, really, you ask you think you report back, you worry about the ask. That's cool. I get it. You care a lot about that. And I want you to get that right. I want you to nail the ask. But the parts that your donor care about is the thinking and the reporting back. It's not a complete circle. If you just think you need to also report back thanking and reporting back to your donors, like hooks, they are like hugs, okay, like look how, look how happy she is, look how happy her son is. I'm gonna give you an example of reporting back so I wrote this myself. Um, this is an example. But this is, you know, you have no idea how much we appreciate your recent gift. Thank you for responding so quickly and generously. The fact that you're thinking of others says everything about your kindness and your compassion, giving them an example of like, I'm telling them how great they are. Your communications are a mirror to your donors. How are they going to look in this mirror? Amanda asked, can you report simultaneously to asking again, for example, last year a gift name enabled us to serve X children with their continuous wear this year? So Amanda's doing a Vasque where she's like combining the work Pouring back into an ask, I would just report back and then I would do an ask and people aren't motivated by you help 6000 Penguins get sweaters people are motivated by you helped newborn penguin. We named I don't know, curly, blah, blah, blah, blah. Tell me the life saving story about curly, okay. So because of you every child who needed assistance got it. Here's some photos of your gift in action, your generous and loving heart again, I've first I've told them the volume that their gifts speaks volumes about their kindness and compassion. Then I've talked about their generous and loving heart, then I'm saying your kindness helps when they met when they needed it most. Thanks for being part of our family. Always leverage the PS The PS is like the most important part of any letter and appeal a thank you letter, your eyes will always gravitate towards that. So leverage it, use a PS include your phone number, because they want a private tour, or just let them know when they're going to hear from you next, and how in this example, it says, we're going to continue to update you on all the ways you're making a difference in our monthly email newsletter. Tip number three, make it official with a stewardship Plan Do not be leaving this to chance. It's going to take organizations to architect these amazing moments. And a stewardship plan is a great way to do that. So type into the chat and tell me do you type leaves or root? Do you water your plants by the root? Or do you water them by the leaves? Yes, the roots, the roots. Okay, that's how we do it here. I'm using you need, if you celebrate your donors generosity, by the amount that they give, that is the equivalent of watering your plants by watering the leafs.

36:54  
It is a transaction it is in the past, Don, I'm glad that your plants are being watered sufficiently. That's all I can say that she and her husband are doing both things over there. Um, but but the amount that I give to you is no indication of most nonprofits hold back the love and attention and the generosity until you make a really large gift. And they're kicking themselves in the foot and they're hurting their retention. And they're suppressing larger gifts. Because if I don't feel like I'm going to make a difference if I don't feel welcomed by you, if I don't feel known by you. Why would I give to you again, if I have a bad experience? I mean, biomimetics if there's anything we're not ambivalent about as Americans, it's that we want to have outrageously fantastic customer experiences. That's why the Magic Castle Hotel is one of the top rated hotels in Hollywood. They are delivering incredible experiences. They also do your laundry with a sprig of lavender it's it's an amazing experience. I can't they also have like a coke fountain with all the different flavors they have like a self serve self serve ice cream, I mean to you guys, it has anyone booked a reservation. It's a really nice photo. And and it's a it's a beautiful experience. Okay, so using choosing to recognize gifts by the gift amount is a way to put yourself out of business and have horrible donor retention. Do not do this. This is the worst stewardship plan I've ever seen. And I don't want you to do this. Okay, this nonprofit, oh my goodness, they're breaking my fundraising heart. People have to give $10,000 to know how their gift made a difference. People have to give $10,000 to get a thank you note from the fundraiser. That's insanity. This I mean, donors aren't giving to you to get their name on a building or to be listed in your newsletter. I hate I hate donor rolls and in annual reports. I hate them. They are full of errors. Yes, Lisa Booker stay there full of errors. They don't motivate anyone to give. They take insane amounts of time. Free yourself from wasting your time doing that. Do not do this. This is the worst stewardship plan in the world. Someone probably from corporate America wrote this. And it's terrible. And I don't want you to do this. If you treat donors based on gift amounts and not their behavior. Like it's a first time donor or their actions, you will lose money and you will lose donors and I don't want you to do that. So this is a stewardship plan I want you to adopt. I have put this into the chat. I'm going to pop it in there again. I also have a really good I'm really good like 23 ways to shower your donors with love. I'm all about the donor love. So use that This stewardship plan is organized by the longevity of the donor, are they a new donor? Is it a second gift, it's a third gift. It's not by the Gift Amount. Stop creating stewardship plans based on gift amounts, you're breaking my fundraising heart, don't break my heart, just don't do it, you're gonna lose an addition to breaking my heart. Whether you care about me or you don't, you're going to lose donors, and you're going to lose money. So don't do it. Do it based on the behavior. Are they a first time donor?

40:28  
Are they a memorial donor did they give an in memory of someone that they lost? We have to treat people like the amazing, beautiful unicorns that they are. It's not a one size fits all thing. I have a mild obsession with stewardship and with helping you be better at your fundraising. And if you want some help with any of that, you can check that I just put the link into the chat. I have a really awesome program called The League of Extraordinary fundraisers. It's ridiculously affordable. It's only $49 a month. Next month, we're covering major gift fundraising. And then for two beautiful months, we're gonna be digging into end of year fundraising in September and October. My fourth tip is just be an actual human being. Don't write thank you letters like a robot. don't communicate like a robot. Be personal. Be emotional emotion is what works in fundraising. It is the only thing that works in fundraising. You have to make donors feel something in order to give. And please personalize. Do not use your friend. Do not use your friend. If you know my name, use my name. Okay? It's called a personalization tag. It is ridiculously easy. Sure, if you don't know my name, you know, you can say friend, but nothing. Well. This is one thing that makes him mad. When I get a letter from a nonprofit, sometimes you guys I get fundraising appeal letters addressed to Rachel Muir, that say, Dear friend, I want to scream. You know my name, you have my address? Why are you? What are you doing? Oh, no, I want to say that personalization starts with you. And I highly encourage you to like, like, walk the walk. Okay. I hate it when people do not have their phone number and their email address in their subject line. Like why are you making it hard for me to contact you put your photo in there to your fundraiser for crying out loud. You want to be the person that everyone recognizes at the party. We want everyone to be making a beeline for Julie Shannon. And they see Julie Shannon because they see her beautiful headshot and her email and they're like, Julie, I love seeing you. Be recognizable use why stamp is totally free. You can personalize your email signature file, please put your questions into the q&a box. My friends. Yay, Tracy said do away with donor roles. Sarah said what is the better way to do this? If you are a one person department? Sarah, if you are one person department, you're gonna do the best that you can. That's what you're gonna do. You're gonna do the best group that you can. Yay. Lori's give me a shout out. Laurie. Okay, so I have this awesome program called League of Extraordinary fundraisers. And, and we have an elite group within it where we meet every single week. And it's amazing. And it's like 10 of us. So email me if you want to join that it's private. It's not on the page. But you can email me if and I will put my email in here too. If you want me to send you the link to join them. It's really fun. We do everything from critique fundraising appeals, and everything in between.

43:44  
Um, tomorrow we're talking about disc loving doing great discovery when you haven't done it before and you're new to managing a major gift portfolio and how to stay organized as a fundraiser. Okay? Attention isn't free it is the first gift your donors give you I really love using bom bom video email. Now. I've been using Bom Bom for an insanely long time. I'm I'm a terrible typist. I'm a very slow typist. And not only can I be very very personal with video email because people see my face but I don't have to type and I know when people opened my email and when they read it and if they keep playing my video and watching it again and again I get alerted each time it is an amazing phenomenal convenient tool there are other providers than bom bom I don't work for Bom Bom I'm a paying customer I don't get I don't make money if you go sign up with Bom, Bom. They they weren't giving nonprofits free accounts during COVID So they may still be doing that. There are other providers, but like cause COVID and Bon jour, row B O NJORO. But I love video email. It is a great way to cut through the noise is in a busy inbox, get your foot in the door to get a visit. And it's also a great way to do really amazing stewardship. This little Humane Society video is when my friend Julie Edwards used to work used to be the executive director of the phases study in northeast Georgia, and she has an adorable puppy on her lap, and she's sending a GivingTuesday donor, a thank you video email for his gift, which saved a puppy. What I really love about yay, cosmid is getting some love to what I really love about video email is that you, if you set it to notify you, when someone reads it, you can get notified when the videos watch. And yay. And when do you want to be calling on your donor when they're thinking about you? And I can call Tim was like Tim is my donor. And I can say, Tim? Oh my gosh, how are you? And he's like, Oh my god, I just was watching your video. And I was like, that's crazy. I was just thinking about you. He doesn't need to know that. I know that he watched my video, but it's a really neat tool. Texting. I love it. If you watch my generosity moment that I shared. When Tim invited me I talked about when I was giving a presentation in LA to a group of university fundraisers on Valentine's Day. And I challenged them to all pick up their phone and send a text message to donors and their phone and say on this day of hearts and flowers, I'm thinking about you, and how grateful we are for your support or something like that. And the room like exploded with love and happiness. And people were like, Oh my God, my daughter just said this is this made his day my donor just that he's never gotten such a sweet kind texts like this from a nonprofit before my daughter just made me give my donor wants to meet next week and take a tour. It just was amazing. Oh, yes. Nick mentioned. Thank you. And grant a bit, thank view is especially good for larger organizations, their kind of niche is university fundraisers grant a bid is really great for large organizations to especially ones during peer to peer where you want to link together lots of videos easily. So I love texting for stewardship. Yes, I know you can use texting for fundraising. I wasn't born yesterday. But I want you to use it for stewardship because it's unexpected, and open rates average 98%. And you're eight times more likely to get a response in voicemail or email. I mean, type me into the chat. If you get a voicemail from someone you're like, Oh, God, why don't they just send me a text? Like type me if that's you? Because that's me, literally, that's me. I'm like, texting is a 21st century version of a phone call. And it saves a lot of time. And it's a beautiful thing. So Tech, I like text ology. They will give you a free trial. If you say hey, and I don't work for technology, and I'm gonna get paid any money if you sign up for technology. But I found them from my friend Linda Westar. And Laurie asked how can we tell which numbers in our database or textbook this is what's so cool about technology. They not only do they allow you to use your desktop to do all of this, okay, you're not doing this on your phone. They're getting a message on on their phone, but that's not how you're doing it. But you upload a list. If you use a service like technology, you upload a list and it will tell you these are mobile numbers. These aren't so it makes it super easy for you.

48:39  
This is another tool that I totally love. And that is sending handwritten cards and this is my twins when they were younger. Now they're 15 they're full on teenagers. So that's fun. But I'm sure they'll be nice again. But this is beautiful. You do all of this from your iPhone or your iPad. And yes, it is good for data hygiene. It allows you to upload your photos. You do it all with a stylus or with your finger and you know imagine giving your donors a tour. And right afterwards your donors you wanted to send them a photo of them and your student wearing hard hats getting this capital campaign tour. Boom you can do that almost in like three minutes or less. Using the felt app. This is really cool. I found out about this company watching Shark Tank with my kids another card app that I love is punk post punk post since actual draw like an actual artist will draw your card. I like you have you get to pick your handwriting style. You get 270 characters. I love punk post. It is the best Um, so here's one that I sent to this woman named Jennifer. She's a lawyer. She's in Honolulu. She's a really great speaker. And she joined my League of Extraordinary fundraisers. Obviously, an artist wrote this, they don't you know what the AFP logo looks like, okay, they don't, they looked it up. I mean, that's a level of care that these people put for a $7 card. I mean, you're not going to send this to everybody. But you can send this for special occasions, I have so many people that just like, cherish these, I get thank you letters back when I use them. And it's a really fun way to make someone feel really, really special. So my last tip is to surprise and delight because great brands do not just happen. Yay. Carolyn said those were great. So I used to work, I started a company, I started a nonprofit called glow start deletion, who was my deputy director, and is now an executive director is here in this webinar. And when Juliet Shannon and I were running girls start, in the beginning, it was enough to just do an open house on a Friday at summer camp and have the people that came judge the girls websites. Of course, everyone got a prize, you know. But as time goes on, it became I think Julie was saying that it became more like, How can I give these people an experience that feels like a fun, special treat for them, something that they want to do, but they don't get to do during the day, something that they can take their friends and colleagues to do. And so that's where the Let's fly a drone idea came from him enjoy, like breakfast network with other friends. He's summer camp in action and fly one of our awesome drones. Yeah, who doesn't want to leave work and go fly a drone. And Julie made it really awesome and easy for everybody by giving them photo taking great photos of them with their colleagues. This is a great moment of you know, all the things that we that we talked about here. Elevation, insight, pride connection, you know, she gave them photos afterwards, she sent them here's what you did today. Here's all the things that you learned. So they could put it on their company's intranet. She sent them photos of it, it was a really great way for them to get the insight of this is what girls start really looks like to have the connection with the their colleagues and their friends and other donors and end to feel really proud of themselves when they go back and tell everyone at their work, what they just said about this great organization that everyone's can support. So it was totally a win win. Okay, well, we're getting close to the end here. And I just have a handful more slides, but I'm going to give you another Wow. Shock and Awe, surprise and delight way to

52:47  
delight your donors. You're looking at the late great Liz carpenter I had the pleasure of knowing Liz carpenter. If you do not know who Liz Carpenter was. She was a lifelong Democrat, a trailblazing woman in politics and press secretary for Lady Bird Johnson. LBJ is wife and an amazing human being and I had the pleasure of knowing her in her lifetime and going to dinner parties that she would invite me to and after dinner parties, You can be seated next to a like state senator on your right, and a like, you know, radio host on your left. And they were very well executed and well planned dinner parties where there was like a question. And all the conversation was one conversation. It wasn't just me sitting next to Abby Jarvis talking about AbbyJarvis which would be a blast to do. It was everyone having a conversation together based on these kind of word feeling questions. And this incredible hostess Liz herself. I didn't realize it then. But that was a Jeffersonian dinner. And Jeffersonian dinners are a great way, going back to the power of moments to deliver elevation, you've got an amazing group together, they're having beautiful wine, amazing epicurean food delights and insight there learn there that we're peeling back the layers and learning deep revealing things about the people in this group, and how they think about the world. So I encourage you to check out Jeffersonian dinners, and I'm gonna pop this into the chat. They they haven't like done their security. It's a safe site, even though you might see like a not secure thing. I don't know. It's like the I forgot what, I did it on my site. They didn't do it on their site. They're a nonprofit. But you can also watch this TED talk on how to plan a Jeffersonian dinner. Oh, Julie had a generous moment sending donors a secret message with a decipher activity. They did a camp so they can decode their thank you message and use an activity from the camp that they found. It truly is like a genius at doing all stuff a genius. A Jeffersonian dinner is a small group you have you might you might invite 20 people. Yes, it can be like a women salon. Liz carpenters her name again. You maybe invite 25 people, but you end up with like eight to 10 diverse guests. It's not a meeting, you start with a question. So for example, if it was a dinner related to like building a new film center, obviously, what's your what movie? What's your favorite movie? And why? What movie is your favorite guilty pleasure? If it's about technology, like, Hey, we're starting a technology center. The question might be like, what technology innovation has moved in the last 10 years has most changed your life? If it was, if you were working for nonprofit work with seniors that worked with hospice, disease and disorder, nonprofit, it might be what memory Do you never want to forget? Or if you can relive one memory for the rest of your life? What would it be? If it was an educational organization, it might be what teacher had the most impact on your life? And why mean? You're going to be given this question, thinking about this question you're going to they're going to tell you, Hey, these are the people that are invited to this or you're like, I'm coming to this, I want to meet someone. So anyway, the moderator has a few other questions to deepen the group conversation, but it is an unforgettable way to get people to reveal deeply personal things about themselves that matter to them. And when you create memories, with when you help people create memories with one another, they are more likely to help each other as colleagues and friends. Teens are more likely to help you and your cause. So this isn't a fundraising dinner. This is like a high level get to know you at a really personal level. And of course, you're going to follow up with people to get to know them, maybe invite them to a board seat, etc. So I'm going to wrap up as type your questions into the q&a. We've got up, I have permission to go a little bit over. But type your questions. If I haven't answered into the q&a, I'm just going to give you two pieces of homework if you like. The first one is from my friend, Lynn Western, an invitation to audit your donor communication. So what this looks like is pink sticky notes are any time you're asking for a gift. Green is thoughtful personal thank yous, invitations to events impact reports. Yellow is like passive mass communications, like your newsletter, look at the calendar and give yourself you know, whatever color for what you're sending out what color dominates, is it all? Yellow? Is it

57:45  
like what does it look like it for many of you, it might be a lot of yellow and pink and not a lot of greens. So another way to look at this is to think about and ask to think ratio. And what that is my fundraising friends is if you make a gift, like let's pretend like it's giving Tuesday. Okay, I'm going to make a gift to Julie's organization Venture Lab for giving Tuesday. And let's see what happens between like what happens after that, like what happens after that. Am I what what communications Do I hear from next? I know Julie, she's gonna give me a really nice, thank you. I'm gonna get a really nice update. I'm gonna get some I'm gonna get a lot of greens. Okay, before I get another pink, I'm gonna get a lot of greens. This is an example from my friend Lynn Westar she actually did this every year. She makes Giving Tuesday gifts and then she reports on what happens. Oxfam. She made a gift and then she got 19 asked and three of the you know, greens like the thank yous. I'm sorry, those are pinks anyway. No greens Yeah, greens, heifer 44. Ask and to think use Charity Water five ask an eight Thank you. Now when I say thanks, I'm meaning like stewardship pieces. Okay doesn't always have to be Thank you can be reporting back, you made a difference. Just stewardship in general is what I mean by thanks. Now the opposite is also true. I might make a donation to you and all I get as a thank you and you don't even ask me to make a urine gift I just made it given to say gift. And that is totally your like missing out because I'm not going to make another kit that's I'm not invited to make another gift. So I mentioned to you guys, I have some party favors. I'm going to pop these in here as well. These are today's handouts. And this is a virtual guide to loving on your donors. I'm also going to be answering all questions you guys have. This is a stewardship plan on popping into the chat that I mentioned earlier and I also have this really great piece on donor love. So type your questions into the chat. If you loved this and you want a little more Rachel in your life, I do a really neat program. It's only $49. And we're going to be tackling major gift fundraising this this month, almost August. I'm Alia. So I get pretty excited. It's August, especially on August 5. But we're going to be doing a workshop on major gifts made easy, and then we're gonna be digging right into into your fundraising, and writing better emails and appeals. We only went two minutes over, which is amazing. Thank you guys so much for joining me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at these awesome questions. Cecilia wrote, yeah, we got another Leo in the house. In the line is also born on August 5. I'm sorry. My favorite number Melania. Sparky was yesterday. Happy Birthday, Happy belated birthday. You guys are amazing. Okay, we really only have one question, Tim, because you may have been kicking butt answering all these questions throughout, Cecilia asked when you're really getting down, but fun. It can't be used until the funds are all required that she needs funds. This we can't say what different sort of gift we'll make, except that they're helping us build towards a future merit percentage upon race? I would I would try to do a what do like a will be able to do things like kind of answer, like, when you get to this will never, you know, whatever it is like, we'll never have to worry about keeping the lights on. Or we'll never have to turn away a hungry puppy or a hungry family. Or I would just, you know, it's kind of like Public Television. Like I support public television. Because I grew up on Sesame Street, it was a staple in my TV diet. As a child, my kids love Sesame Street, they watch Sesame Street, like for a really long time, our electric company, my but I give because the programming was important to me. And I learned a ton my mom gives because public television is in line with how she views the world and the values that she has about public television. So so those are different reasons to give. And I would just encourage you to think about what kinds of kinds of things are you gonna be able to do and speak about them hypothetically.

1:02:26  
While and it's also also it could be helpful to understand the donor segmentations that the endowment fund might appeal to right depending on the organization. So you can tailor it more toward the identity of the donor base that you're looking to cultivate to because maybe certain if it's maybe it's a school or something like that, as an example, alumni are going to respond differently than parents in terms of why they might give to the endowment farm. salutely.

1:02:55  
Absolutely. Marilyn asks, Have you ever explained how a fully volunteer development person for trust all the actions they can take? Yes, for this is true for every one of us is true for Tim? It's true for me? Yep, it's true for everybody, you get out there, and you do the best that you can do with the time that you have. There is no different formula for a volunteer versus a full time staff member, you have a volunteer, maybe a volunteer is giving 10 hours a week and a full time staff member is giving 40 You do the best that you have with the time that you have. Make donors feel special. That's that's really the that's the advice.

1:03:38  
What Yeah, ask yourself, Marilyn and I do I can answer Jeffrey's question actually. So ask yourself, what is the primary accountability that you have in terms of the role? Right, if it's development, which is building individual giving, perhaps, then your prioritization is What are you saying no to? That is not leading to that? What are the distractions you almost have to start with? I have 20 things, what are the top three that are going to lead to these type things?

1:04:11  
Exactly? What's revenue producing? What revenue producing when Kaskus and what's not?

1:04:15  
There's a great book called traction. And it talks about structuring 90 Day rocks, in terms of your planning process to say, within 90 days, this is how I am hitting my goal. It's a great book for this type of prioritization. I want to answer Andrew's question first, because that's an easy one. We'll accept generosity moments through the end of the week. This is a recording on the 26th. So by Friday the 29th Is it. Yeah, 20 Nights. We'll we'll do that the neon cares committee. We'll take a look at those. I got some during the presentation. So excited for that. Now. Maybe if we have any other questions, I'm going to answer Jeffrey's Rachel, I'd love to hear how you can set up your CRM to change the way we steward donors, so many donors, so few people in different categories. When asked how much you say My boss wants this, etc. And this is kind of a tale as old as time when it comes to to to where technology fits in this. And so one, we might hear the practical ways that Team Gleason Foundation does this. Because they use the CRM, they use our peer to peer engagement tools. Tomorrow, they're going to be talking about that. Maybe, Jeff, I might ask them how they do that, how do they prioritize their small shop? So that's one of the great questions we can ask them. But there's things that you can automate. When it comes to even based stewardship in something like a CRM, where do something as simple as look at the copy of the automatic email that goes out. And you can even do this with with you know, what you can try to do with Pay Pal to a certain extent, but if your CRM has an automatic thing, look at the copy, see if you can edit the copy with neon CRM, for instance, I know you can. And then what you do is you change even that first line to one, don't say, Dear friend, make sure you have their information you should if you're getting the gift, so that's probably not going to be an issue, but then start to even change the copy to be more aligned with them as a generous person. So instead of saying thank you for your donation of X, on this date, simple change, you are a generous person, because you have given on X date, Y amount, right? Don't make the focus on the money that they gave, do what Rachel said focus on the person. And you can even do that with all your receipts. But there are some cool things in the CRM for instance that you can do but this is not a neon serum product thing so that just the people who are like Oh, Tim suddenly brought up product, don't worry, we got product stuff, but there you go.

1:07:06  
I want to answer Amy's question really quick. She asked, is there any value in asking donors how frequently they want to hear from organization? So this is really important. Amy that's a very good question. You should you can ask a donor that question but do not answer that donor do not ask the donor that question. When they make their first gift. They have to receive your communications they have to hear from you. They have to know what you're you can't like if you if Trader Joe's asked me. I mean they're they haven't asked me this. It doesn't matter my daughter is following them on Tik Tok. Okay, someone who's like Trader Joe obsessed, which I love Trader Joe's. But if you ask me, Hey, do you want to get recipes every month Rachel from Trader Joe's? I'm gonna say no. But my kids in here in the kitchen making Trader Joe's concoctions every day, they're delicious. Maybe I'm gonna maybe if after a year of this, I would be like, Yeah, well, I'll do it. You, you bring up a really interesting concept, which leads to donor surveys. And there's a good way to do donor surveys. And there's a horrible way to do donor surveys. And you should not ask if you ask people who don't know, or have any familiarity with your communications, a question such as how frequently they want to hear from you, when they don't even know if it's good. They're gonna say no. So you need to first prove the value of your communications before you do something like that. So that's my short answer for you, Amy, we could do a whole nother webinar on donor surveys, because they are a great opportunity to reveal major gifts, plan gifts and a whole lot more. But you can you can they also have the opportunity to minute I'm going to put in if you join my, we cover that in League of Extraordinary fundraisers, so I'll put that link in there. But there's a way to do them very, very badly. And if you do them badly, you will lose donors. And you anger donors, and no one wants to do that.

1:09:04  
There's there's an art and a science to it. And we actually are in the process of soliciting workshops and ideas for generosity Exchange, which will be formally announced very soon. This is the big neon virtual conference in October. So surveys might be on the table there. Rachel, How about how about we wrap things up with with maybe a final thought from you. And then I'll just kind of lay out where we're going next for the rest of the week. But any final thoughts before we kind of sign off for today?

1:09:35  
Um, it's I'm really grateful to everybody for joining us today. If you didn't see my video, I mentioned it in here and I talked about everyone how a challenge and a roomful of fundraisers to send a text message to your donor. If I'm going to give you one thing to do today, on top of like, working with me and downloading some of these great resources so you can be free resources, you can be better at your fundraising. I'm gonna encourage you to send one donor One message on your phone telling them why you're grateful to have their support. Just that's it. It can be three sentences, two sentences. That's it.

1:10:10  
Maybe that's your generosity moment folk, that you can do that. You can also I'm following along, we're following along with the hashtag dream big 2020 or two to rather Dream Big to two. And I'll check that out on the Twitter's and things like that. But we got two other great sessions we have some live, or some on demand videos there as there's actually one of our partners, Chris Dre put together a whole guide on the right equipment to get for videos, right? If you're going to buy cameras, if you're going to do ring lights, all that type of stuff, eight minute, hard hitting tactical overview. So we're trying to round out Dream Big to not just be these amazing live sessions, but some ongoing resources for you to be able to create your own generosity moments. So we want to hear about them now. So I'm going to pop that in again. I'm only looking for like two minutes, tops, folks, and send it to me in the camera thing. I got some people sending me YouTube videos of stuff that they've done before. That doesn't tell me a story. So I want to hear your story. Right? I don't want to see the campaign. I want to see your story. Tell me the story. So it's like when you go to Sirius XM, and they're asking you to leave the voicemail. That's kind of what I'm asking you for here is is tell me what like why you like tool. You know, when you're listening to, you know, the rock a hard rock station, basically. Awesome. Rachel, thank you so much. People were so excited for your enthusiasm. And, and this is this is so great. This is so great. Thank you.

1:11:48  
It was a lot of fun.

1:11:50  
Very cool. Well, thank you. Okay, folks, have a great day. We'll see you tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel. The link is literally the same. It's literally the same, you should get another reminder. But if you're like where do I get it and it's the same URL. We made it easy for you. So we'll see you tomorrow. Rachel. Thank you again. And, folks, let's continue to dream big together. We'll see you tomorrow at 1pm Eastern

Transcribed by https://otter.ai