0:05  
Good afternoon or late morning, depending on where we're talking here from. We have a nice turnout today. So I'm going to give time give things a little bit of time. My name is Tim Sarrantonio. As we file in, I am director of corporate brand, for neon one. I am the least important part of today's presentation though. So we're gonna get started very shortly, we're gonna give it maybe another two minutes tops. Before I hand it over to today's presenter. Rickesh is going to be going through honest fundraising, building trust and funding through open conversations. He of course, will be the star of the show, I'm going to hand it to him to walk us through what the agenda is going to be like things about him, etc. But I'll cover the basics in terms of how this is going to work, folks. We'll give it another minute. Before we get started, the most requested question we always get for these is Is this being recorded. It is. So we are recording right now we have the live transcription. But we will also be adding the closed caption options to the recording afterwards. I always like testing out the chat, which is available for us. So there's two ways that you can interact with Rickesh today and myself if necessary. That first one is going to be the chat. And that's an important one for this. So I would love for people to type in who you are and where we're hearing you from today. And and you can do kind of host and panelists so we see you got everyone those are the options. Feel free to do it to every one like we're cash is doing. We got Matt from Branson, Missouri. Welcome, Matt. So this will help show that we can see and interact and this is going to be something that we want to hear from you. Awesome. Hello, Mario and we got Arthur a. All right, Chicago strong, where Neon one is headquartered. We got New Castle, Delaware. Thank you, Christina. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool. We got a nice breath. Do we have anybody from Canada today? We typically have some Canadians that tune in. So

2:24  
fellow Canadians joining. Yeah, Canada representing.

2:28  
Hey, there we go. Oh, wait, you know what, every time without fail now that we are, we are international in our scope. So that is great. Okay, so the basic flow that we're going to have today is this is being recorded, this will be emailed out to everybody who registered. If you have to drop we completely understand to. And also, it will be placed on the neon one website at NEON one.com. You'll see it under the Resources section that we have. So that will have the slides that will have the transcript that will also have the video itself. So we try to be you know, the whole shebang there. Otherwise, we're cash the floor is yours, actually. So I'm going to turn things off. I'll be watching the chat for people. If you want to make sure that we're catch sees a question, by the way, use the q&a. But the chat is going to be also helpful. If you have a comment. Or if you put a question there, it's just q&a ensures that he's going to be able to find that to answer. So that's it. Otherwise, thank you very much, sir, for joining us. I am so thrilled to have you. And you know, I'll be here if you need me. But otherwise, welcome.

3:46  
Thank you so much, Tim. And thanks, of course, to Neon one for hosting this session on honest fundraising, building trust and funding through open conversations. Greetings, everyone who's here, I'm so grateful that you've chosen to spend time with me today. That really means a lot. And if you're tweeting, my handle is constant changes, which pretty much describes our whole sector of course, or I do respond. So I'm really happy to happy to be here. So we're going to be using the chat box a lot as Tim had said, And if time permits some q&a at the end, so do put your questions in there. And just so I can share I can get in the into everything I need you today. I'm not going to be checking the chat all the time or the q&a all the time, just periodically or when I ask you just one person yell but I'm doing my best to multitask here. I've done this format a couple times and it usually goes well. And I also am someone who's just naturally a fast talker. So I don't mind if I'm talking too fast for you. Plug in the chat, say recache please slow down we can understand you. I'm working on it. It's a lifelong journey for me. I just have lots to say in my brain. I think goes faster. My mouth goes faster than my when you know one of those things. Anyway, so whenever you do a presentation, oh, I didn't introduce myself who am I? So I'm Rickesh Lakhani pronouns he him his I call myself the chief sabbatical officer because I recently stepped down from an IDI role that I really loved after eight years. whereas it was time to change. Also, I'm wearing gym shorts. And also, I've used that same joke about shorts, that three other presentations, it doesn't feel good to tell the truth there, it feels like let's just be let's just be real with each other. So here's some opening guidelines, which I love to share whenever I am doing a presentation like this. So first of all, we're here for an hour, right? So I'm not going to change your life. We can't solve all the world's problems. I'm not going to be presenting any magic bullet, there is no single answer that's going to solve everything. And at the end of the day, you have to do the heavy lifting. I can't do it for you. But what we can do is talk about being open, honest, and telling more of that whole truth to donors to increase their engagement and support, trust and ultimately funding. That's something that we can do. So what I hope that you get out of the session today, is really understanding why honesty and fundraising is so fundamental, and the harms of withholding reality from our donors, from donors, sorry. And the other thing is learning how to build trust and funding through through increased transparency and very intentional and open conversations where we bring donors in closer to the work. So listen, here, fundraising is hard work. Whenever I say talk about things like this, it's hard work requires listening, relationship, building self reflection, I can't promise you this will be easy. I can say it'll get easier over time. Because you're just not used to it, maybe, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. So as I as we said, this is going to be a very interactive session. So I'm going to start off with asking everybody here to now this is your chance to blow up the chat. Get in there. What are some things you wish donors would know, but that you aren't telling them right now, for whatever reason that is typed with a chat box. And remember to keep it clean, please. In the meantime, while you are hopefully participating and typing something into the chat, which I'll get into get into later, I'll just give you some of the things that I you know, think that I wish the owners knew more off, or I wish I could talk about the talk about with more. Sometimes we feel we can't tell donors that the program didn't work the way that we thought we thought they think we're going to fail. And that's a bad thing. We might tell them, we might not feel like we can tell them how much work it is when we get a very complicated restricted gift, the actual impacts that that has on our organization. We're like, Oh, you're giving we'll just accept it. Also, we kind of discussed how the hoarding of wealth inevitably creates inequities, which require social good organizations to exist in the first place. Now, look, I'm being I'm being a little bit cheeky, I'm working up to that. That was a little bit out there. But I mean, obviously, they need to know that kind of stuff. So I'm going to come in and just sort of check into the chat box here, chat box here and not, hopefully I'm saying names correctly. So Laurel says, even a $5 donation is great. Yes, thank you. We always think we see these multimillion dollar donations, any amount of giving is significant. And we always want to celebrate that.

8:02  
How much administrative costs are? Yes, absolutely. They've been villainized. So much. And we've been kind of taught to minimize and what that percentage is and do everything we can to kind of like, you know, finagle with that and that. And that's, that's problematic, they need to know and embrace that this is part of running an organization, how much it really costs into our capital projects, and that we had no real way of seeing the cost overrun coming. Oh, my gosh, anyone with experience in construction renovations or anything, anything like that would understand that budgets do go over you do your best at the beginning. And sometimes these things happen. Thank you. These are these are examples of the great examples. And we often feel we just cannot talk about them. And so we can't talk about we feel we can't talk about these things. But what would happen if we did? And how can we open up the conversation? So that's a sneak peek into something called reframing, which we're going to get into a little bit later. So here's my question, right is why why don't we talk with donors about these things? Why do we feel like we shouldn't engage with them on these important conversations that are actually our reality? While we might be afraid that we're gonna upset them, they're going to hear something, we tell them, they're gonna get upset, they're going to tell our boss, we don't know if they're actually interested in, in what we're saying that like, maybe they just want to give their gift. And, and that's it. There's definitely a power or identity dynamic here and differential, they've said, between fundraisers and donors often, we also may feel that our own organization or our leaders don't have our back if something doesn't go the way that we thought it would. And in the end, I think it comes down to what we're all incentivized about, which is we're worried they will not give to us and what will that mean if I tell them this truth, and they walk away? Right? So as I speak to in many sessions that I do, we have to recognize the power dynamics at play here, depending on your position, your identity. Sometimes in these situations, you might opt for self preservation, if you're in an unsupportive environment in particular, and I would understand that But if it's related to donor perceptions, or anticipated reactions that we just don't know, because we've never even talked them like this, I wonder how much of it is true and how much we kind of create this image in our mind. So let's explore that today. What is honest fundraising to begin with bringing people closer to the organization and our cause through a heightened level of transparency, including all things good and bad, to increase trust and ultimately, increase funding. So it isn't just about not lying, which we shouldn't really be doing anyways, it's really what we're here to talk about is more about exposing more of our reality. Right? So saying things like, we have to pay our staff equitably, right. They a lot. And a lot of folks don't actually agree with that, like, No, you're working a charity, you should work for peanuts. Our sector isn't perfect, but we're working on it. We're afraid that if we tell them some of the the flaws in our sector that they'll they'll stop giving. But I think they need to know these things. And just like any other sector, where we have room to improve, we have to invest in fundraising and technology. These are related to program delivery, and program development, and community work, right, we need those things to to our work well. So we have to explicitly talk about those things. And another one, which I've been talking about a lot is, we're often here cleaning up the mess of a flawed system. So it's great their organization exists, running these programs, filling in gaps. But honestly, a lot of times we're just cleaning up mess made, you know, that's not really to do with us. We're part of that whole system that together, though. So I think a lot of folks, maybe you need some more discussions about that, as well. So that's part of our role is advocacy. So imagine saying things like this and the reaction you might get? Like, what if we had more conversations like this? Do we think that it would lead to better things? I mean, I think so. I mean, I hope that someone whose name is on the this webinar talking about about this would hope that hope and believe in this, and I do and I've done it, let me give you a couple of examples to maybe drive things home, we had a company that called us up, and they said, We want to have, we want to have all of our employees, donate clothes. And then we want you to bring in folks that are less fortunate and have them come into the foyer of our organization and pick out clothes, while our employees kind of standard they had this multiple levels they want in place like even watch from the balconies. And when they described it. I was like, oh, boy, I'm raging out here to you know, compose myself was a phone call. And I was like, I gotta say something here, because clearly that is not represented is not reflective of the dignity we would want to have when doing this type of work. But I was like, I don't want to just assume people know this and would go there. I'm in the space, I'm going to think about this stuff. They might not be so I had the conversation with them. I said, let's talk about what your intentions are. What are you trying to do here? Because this is what the impact of this would be lack of dignity would feel it would feel, you know, it wouldn't be it would be here, it could be humiliating, it could. It's just not it's that we don't want to put people on display. Right. So that's what I told them when they were like they said, Hey, thank you so much for telling me I hadn't thought about it that way, let's rethink, you know what we can do. And it could have gone the other way. But I knew I my boss in particular would have totally had my back, it probably would have said the same thing I did. And this was a $75,000 relationship to by the way. So you know, I didn't believe I was putting it at risk. But I could not let that continue or, or do it just to make them happy. One time, and you're probably accurate. While we're here through the chat, if you don't mind, just for a little fun. I love hearing the weirdest things that people have offered to donate to you. So please throw in some of these here. And then, you know, sometimes we just say oh, thank you and smile, when really we should say Hey, this is is or is not appropriate to give. Someone called us up, it was a hotel chain and said, Hey, we want you to we want to donate 10,000 plates. And I was like, Ah, okay, use plates, which is fine, necessarily anything inherently wrong with that. But as I dug a little bit further, they're like, We want this to all happen in one go. So that someone has to pick them all up in one go. And they have to make the arrangements to do it. Okay, so the law can help deliver them or anything like that. And then the kicker was they wanted a tax receipt. So we would have to go through the work of figuring out getting market value on used plates from a hotel and giving them a receipt. And so I was like, you know, it's not going to work for us. And I said, you're probably going to try to call a bunch of orgs. And you're probably gonna get the same answer that getting for me that this is just not feasible. Here's some ways that you might be able to make it work.

14:14  
Okay, look at this. Heidi saying that one thing that was donated was a free root canal is an auction item. I mean, I straight up root canals are pretty expensive. So that can be cool. But that is very strange. Okay, use breast pumps that are some items that you just cannot donate. I mean, on that regard. We had one organization where a CEO had come on to sort of have discussion with us about, you know, us shelter that we were supporting. And then they out of their own volition. We did not ask them to do that they did not check with us donated a US mattress. They just left it on the front steps of this us shelter because they had some beds there. And so it was like we had to go by like, look, they had to, we have to pay to remove this now. So it was a whole conversation there. But we get some strange things. People just think oh, you should just be happy and get it right. So But here's the thing about this, right? It's we often placed the blame on others. But there's an important element here. And that is that we have to also be honest with ourselves. Like, here's some things that we do as charities or social good organizations that to me, you know, are not maybe fully truthful, to be honest. So what about that situation where someone gives you a matching gift, and they gave you $50,000, and you say, We're gonna use it as a matching gift. But even if you only raise 30, through whoever, whatever the matching protocols are new donors or any donor, you still get the $50,000, as has been donor found that out that their gift was not it didn't really matter that they gave her not to influence that. Honestly, I don't think they'd be happy about it. So I don't agree with that. I agree with matching gifts. They're very, very powerful. I don't agree with the five to one matching thing where it's like, what's the point, because the studies show that any matching gift is what impacts giving not the rate, as much of it about how much that ratio is save that money and use it for other things. But if we had a true matching gift, now, good, good luck trying to pitch this within your organization. And let's say we don't get the money unless we actually meet those criteria. Right. So that's something that we do or say that our administrative costs are zero, because someone is funding them, doesn't mean our costs are zero, just mean someone's decided to, if anything, restrict their gift to administrative costs. So that to me is not truthful. We also pretend that we're this sector got this halo, and that we can't do anything wrong. Again, not truthful. We know lots of harms are happening within our own walls that we're trying to draw awareness about. And not speaking up when someone donates to us breast pumps, or whatever the case would be or a root canal or maybe you accepted the root canal, but but the items you can accept, you just say thank you just say, actually, you know what, this is actually not appropriate. And here's why here's what we are looking for. So what happens when we hold back all these realities from donors? Well, usually what happens when we don't speak our truth is, whatever was happening just continues, because nothing has shifted the pattern. So usually, we over simplify complex social issues, right? We talk about, oh, we just need this one thing, and we can solve this big problem. I can't be like hunger, homelessness, or whatever the case would be access to food, you know, poverty, these are all very, very wicked issues with multiple levels of things. So we try to market things and make it we need that marketing one liner. Yeah. But are we then causing harm by making it seem too easy that these problems are so easily solved through a Donations like no, it's gonna be a whole bunch of things. We also create false and unrealistic expectations. When we do this, we miss this is a big one. I mean, we missed opportunities to educate and connect, when we have a chance to, to bring a donor closer to the work that we're doing. That, to me, is a chance to build relationship that we often miss because we're like, we just need to close the gift and move on. And that is that is dangerous. So that's why I believe, you know, we, we need to be more honest and truthful. So as this young child is scratching their head, probably wondering the same thing you are well, okay, it's all well and good to identify this, but how do we actually prepare for having some of these honest fundraising conversations, and by the way, I'm doing a lot of talking here, that's not how it's going to be, we're gonna get you involved just a little bit in the chat room, we're gonna have some some mini workshops, live workshops that we're going to do together. So as we're preparing for these honest conversations, you need to know your organization, you need to know the donor, I need to know yourself. And often you'll see me play things back to you we play a role in this. So let's start with the organization. What are the things that are real pain points in your organization, but you just have not told your donors this? And you've just accepted that this is the way it is, but maybe, maybe you shouldn't? What is something about your work that you keep hidden, perhaps out of fear? What would help external people truly understand, a deepened understanding of your cause that they don't often hear about? And what does management and leadership support look like for you if things don't go well? And again, I'm going to come back to that, that not every environment is conducive to this, if it's like, no, you get the gift no matter what. And you if you take a chance, and you say something, a donor comes back to you, and you're you get penalized for it again, I understand. That's, that happens. And so I get it. But that is really important to know, to say, Hey, I'm gonna have these kinds of conversations, and how do you feel about that? They'll probably tell you a lot about the work that you're working in.

19:13  
Knowing the donor, so how do they think, what are their interests? What do you know about them that will influence how much and what you will share with them? These are things that we're doing when working with donors anyways. Right? We should be doing the same thing and using that information here. So one of the things the tools you can use is, for example, a self assessment tool. These are not perfect. We know they're all flawed in their own way. But the biggest learning from them is that not everyone thinks the way you do. And that's, that's really the key learning from these. So this is one of them. It's called the DISC profile. It's one of my favorite ones. Are the people driven, ambitious push forward kind of dominant D type. Are they you know, social kind of Chatty influencer type? Are they a data driven, thoughtful, analytical, conscientious kind of C type? Are they behind the scenes supportive steadiness or S type? Now just We know none of these are good or bad. Sometimes you do like true colors or DISC profile or StrengthsFinder, you're like, but I wanted that one, this one's bad. None of them are bad or good, it's just being aware of them is the important part. And then knowing about yourself, and perhaps where the other person's coming from will help you target your conversations. This will help you speak to how they're most likely to elicit. So if it's about, for example, unrestricted funds, maybe for a C type who's very analytical, you might present data on how long it takes and how many hoops we have to jump through behind the scenes to manage so many unrestricted gifts. I mean, recently, I someone was telling me in their organizations a $10 million org, and it's not like gigantic, but pretty big. They had at one point, they said that up to 120 Different restricted grants to manage, I just, I just blew my mind, I can't even imagine that, right? For an S type, you might talk about how this would be more supportive of the organization's goals. And that's something that drives them and so on. So this is one of the tools that you can use, for example. So then we always bring it back to ourself as this, this person is looking in a mirror combing their hair, reflecting, you know, what is holding you back, what is getting in your way, what are your fears and concerns? What would it take for you to embrace more having more of these kinds of conversations? And where do you need more coaching and support? Alright, so as Homer Simpson thinking, what is holding me back? Now, I always, as I said, put things back to you. Because in some way, we have a role here, it's not only dependent on others. I talked before about this tool called reframing. And sometimes you know what, it's what we're saying is actually fine. It's the packaging. That's the problem, right? So when we talk about reframing, so how would you respond, for example, to, you know, how might we might say, oh, we need a multi year gift. But I wonder especially, let's say if you're talking to a dear dominant type was very direct, not bad. But what if you reframe to, by contributing over a few years, you can ensure programming can remain in the community, it might give you better results, and most actually, in most situations, that when what, similarly, if someone proposes something that would make you have mission creep, instead of just saying that would take us away from our mission, which is the truth, sometimes little reframing a little finesse might help that here are some initiatives that are more closely aligned with our mission that you can support, and so on, you don't understand the cause. I would love to continue the conversation to increase your understanding of our work over time. So it's like there's inside voice and outside voice almost. And I'm not saying we sugarcoat things too much or anything like that. But I think the framing actually does help a lot in many cases. So if I'm talking about it, I must have done this right. I must have, I must have had some of these conversations. Well, here's some things that I hadn't definitely the first times I was doing these, I was very, very nervous. But I've things that I've actually said to donors, board members, big supporters, our organization operates in underserved communities. Why do you think some communities are underserved in the first place? And a lot of times I'll you know, get a head scratch and be like, Well, what do you mean, like, well, this is a systemic issue, here's what happens, we start to get into that, and, and so forth. I talk about virtually no one is fundraising, fundraising, so we can invest in ourselves, having these conversations with donors about the importance of fundraising, we're not able to put forward a specific number of children, we will reach for this proposal, because there are too many variables that are out of our control. So we can talk ideas, goals, whatever. But if it's like, we need to reach this many people with this money. I mean, honestly, I run a social service community based organization, there's way too many things that make it you know, challenging to sort of commit to that as a contingency of the funding, right? Where they like, if you don't do this, you don't get the funding, or you get get less of the funding. And this is another one and I actually presented on this recently at another conference, we, we always have to be mindful of white savior ism. In our work, we had a whole conversation about this at our at our board of directors level, and look almost all the time, it leads to good conversations that has led to better outcomes. There's some people who made us not sort of fully engaged. But no one's ever come back and said, This is horrible. I'm leaving your orc at the worst, they just maybe don't fully get it in the first couple of conversations. And also, here's some results, that from having these types of conversations, here's some results that we had achieved by sharing with one funder, the things that would support our growth. So they asked me, they said, you know, what are some things that, you know, we could support, there's the programming side, what else could we support? So I could have just said old programs and easy locked down, because it was pretty much a good chance we're gonna get funding. I could have just gone with the program side. And I was like, No, you know what we're going to do, we're going to, we're going to tell her truth here. And so I said, here's some things that we would like to do, but no one else will fund. No one else is really funding us that we can't find them. And they, they weren't programming directly programming related. And they funded those things with a quarter million dollar investment over three years that included revamping our website, three years of hiring a full time fundraising staff, I was the only person in the IDI running fundraising before that points. I was ecstatic launching a CRM system I'm sure that you know Tim is happy about that. They figured if we could do these things, we could actually better fundraise for ourselves. Now again, in fairness, they asked me what you know, what are some other things to find, but I could have held back and I'm so glad I let loose even though it might have been a small risk, and that came through. We've also secured the largest gift in our organization's history by talking to a couple about the importance of unrestricted multi year commitment with no true commitment on the KPIs is influencing the funding, and how this will open things up for us. And they agreed and a couple other examples like that. And so I was almost surprised that I'm like, when I first started doing this, it's like, what's gonna happen here? I don't know. And it turned out that that actually, people thanked us. Like, if you ever had a donor, thank you for telling them something. A lot of times they they're they're getting coddled. So when I tell them some of these things are like, Why did no one ever tell me this before? And so I'm like, okay, good. This is this is, you know, demonstrating, you know, that the openness and transparency that they're looking for. So imagine if we just went with donors with what donors ask without questioning, right all the time, we might not have these opportunities. So here we go, workshop mini workshop time. So let's actually work through some of these. This is where I really need everybody in the audience here today. who's joining to take part and and blow up the chat here. All right. So I'm going to put up a specific phrase that you've likely heard. And I'm going to start it off with some suggestions. But I want you to type in the chat box, how you might approach and address this. What I love about doing this is that everyone's coming from different perspectives. And I learned so much from reading these two. So it's partially selfish. It's like crowd hacking these issues. But

26:17  
let's, let's give it a shot. So remember, it's about how your audience will best receive information. So throw out some ideas. So here's the first mini workshop, a donor wants to target their gift, which is very typical, I want my donation to go to this specific thing. So if your goal is to say, well, we don't really want them to restrict this gift, we really would prefer what I call will be what we call mission based funding, right versus unrestricted, I think people have a certain connotation with unrestricted funding, reframe mission based funding, where they are supporting all of our work, which all does ultimately support our mission and programming. What would you say in response to I want my donation to go to this specific thing? So here's some of my ideas. A lot of times, you ask the question back, what is the goal you're trying to achieve? Our programs are so important to what we do. And there are also a number of other functions within our organization that ensure our programs are well supported, resourced and sustainable, those funds would still be very much supporting this program, but also ensuring our organization can operate to sustain it. What is it about that initiative that appeals to you? Can you tell me more about that, that one's a great one almost anywhere, it would be helpful to understand when you consider impact on an organization, what that looks like for you, we can still report back to you on the success on the progress of the original program you're looking to fund regardless of where your gift goes, we can still target our messaging back to you. So those are some ideas that that I have here. So, Alison, here thinking themselves in saying that correctly, we'll be more than happy to receive. I wonder if you can explain a little bit more about that. I'm not I'm not I'm not clear on that. Because it means that we will just be happy to receive any any gift. Because in some cases, I mean, this might actually make sense. They might be restricting it to something that you're perfectly happy to receive for. But what if you want to start to to now move them away from a restricted gift to an unrestricted gift? What are some things that that you might position back to that donor? So looking for my wonderful audience here to help provide your lend your awesome brains to this and throw in some ideas into the chat my friends?

28:28  
Give you another moment. I know this is maybe sometimes a little tricky to think about the exact wording. Especially if you haven't done so have you ever thought about this before we normally just we just normally just take what comes. But if you're like trying to shift donor thinking, what what might you actually say back to them?

28:50  
Okay, well, maybe folks are just typing some very long answers. Oh, here we go. Thank you, Andrew. We cannot, we cannot always know exactly where our funding will be needed most at any given moment. Yes, thank you, Andrew. This speaks to the flexibility factor that sometimes you can't have funding that's restricted for our program. I've actually seen this before, not in our org, where one program is over funded, and other critical aspects of the organization are underfunded, and you cannot just move them over. Right? You have to like, you have to go through a whole whole process if you were to do that the donor may or may not agree. So without that flexibility, especially as we've seen in the pandemic, it's been that flexibility piece is absolutely critical.

29:33  
I am inserting myself slightly into this. So I did put something in the chat.

29:38  
Okay, please. We're excited for your support. One of the ways that we can best achieve the impact you're looking for in the programs is by properly funding our operational staff. Would you consider unrestricted gift to help us have the flexibility on achieving the goal you're looking to see? Brilliant literally copy that. Like seriously, thank you because that's exactly We're trying to move people away. And the worst they'll say is no. And you still end up with the restricted gift, you know, in the worst case scenario, right. But that was really great. Our entire organization works collaboratively collaboratively to achieve our mission to ensure specific programs success. Thank you, Jasmine. Yes. Talking about other aspects of the organization and saying, we're a team here. There's not one department it's not just the program department or not just the fundraising or whatever. Everyone works together on this. Right. That's great. And Dr. Bonner, how about if I share some ways your gift can reach even more people if the gift is not restricted? I that is so pure and simple, and yet powerful. I love that what I love while these, your gift is most impactful when when use towards your overall mission, will you support our mission? I like that you just like point by question, right? It's like, can you support our mission? Oh, my gosh, in order to grow our programming, we need to support other aspects of our foundation, not just a specific program. Yeah, that that base that foundation, we don't want to have what I call the skeleton of the organization, which is like the infrastructure piece, we put too much stuff on on top of it without a solid foundation, we could crumble, we have a need to expand that area. But in order to do so, we need to first expand a couple of other areas to get the people and procedures in place to accommodate that. So it'll lead to overall expansion of your area of interest. See, this is all y'all are already reframing masters here. So I guess I don't need to talk too much about that. Thank you for that Loretta and Heidi, one phrase I tried to use is to ask if a gift can be to be used for areas of greatest need, with preference given to donors pet project, there you go, that's a creative way to do it, and say, we've got the option to put it wherever we need to put it. But, you know, we'll put a preference towards your project. And also, like I said, Before, you can just report back to them on the progress of that, say you've done the mission, and we can still customize our communications with you. Where this is wonderful, y'all really came through, thank you. I don't like when there's crickets here, because that makes a little awkward for me, I just sit here for five minutes and stare at you. And you don't want that as creepy. So thank you, Tim, also for for coming in. Let's go on to the next mini workshop. So I've heard other versions of this before. Those poor people I'm giving to wouldn't need help if they worked harder. So now this is speaking to a donors perception of they're like, Hey, I'm happy to give but my belief system here, my value system is saying that these are poor people. And, you know, I'm giving but I wouldn't have to if they worked harder. Now we know. There's a number of reasons why they're why there's just another way that they are and why we need to even have philanthropy. And it's not just about working hard. It's not just about bootstrapping it, there are barriers, there are so many other layers to this. And how would you approach this particular thing when you're trying to move the donor away from this kind of thinking, or at least just bring them into other types of thinking that relate to this? Because my immediate thing would be to get get upset. But you know, we don't want to build walls to try to build bridges, right? I mean, sometimes honestly, you call out you gotta call for what it is. And I think that's totally fair to. In this case, I would say, my first instinct. And what I asked when I said something someone said something like this to me was, can you please tell me more about that? Or what do you believe are some of the reasons that people experienced poverty, that gives you a lot of insight into to where they're coming from? And then might be an information gap? Can I share with you some research, which shows that this is a systemic issue, and not just based on individual performance? And there are a number of there's lots of research on so I'm gonna take in the chat box, all I believe, I would ask the owner to say more, so I can understand what they mean. Yes, get them talking. Because you don't know where that perception is coming from. You don't know, maybe their history you don't know where they grew up where this perception came from? It came from somewhere. So I think that's a really important thing to get them talking, perhaps, is to learn more before but just react. And can you tell me more about that or say more is always a good thing? If you're not sure don't have enough information? All right, I'm looking for my awesome team that came through last time to this one's a little bit, you know, a little more nuanced, I would say a little trickier, but an important one, because sometimes donors do come to us with a certain perception of what they think the communities we're serving are like, and we have to, you know, represent communities we serve and are part of with with dignity and respect and make sure that we're doing that appropriately. Tim, my friend, something to add.

34:28  
I think this is that this is an area where storytelling really comes into play, because if you can show them maybe there's an interview that you've done a video that tells a story of an individual that represents the larger problem that you're trying to solve. Because I would be worried to put them in the room with somebody directly out of the gate here, right. But if you could start with, you know, research, that's good, but some people are going to refer Rain that narrative toward Well, that's biased or or, you know, whatever phrase that people might have. But a lot of times people can open up, if you start to connect their identity with the identity of the person that you're trying to solve, right? Like, what's that common ground like what you're talking about. And so you could do some powerful storytelling, the session that we're doing next month, or next week, for instance, there's a little bit of a focus, if you joined us last week, we had a panel of storyteller creatives. And then they started talking about the importance of authenticity and honesty. Now we are linking toward next week where pathways Community Center is actually going to be talking about their immersive art exhibit, and on homelessness, humanizing homelessness. And so what they've done is be able to get very, they were even talking about this recache, where they had very skeptical people live in the shoes of the folks that they're actually doing things with, because they designed it with them. And they said, that's been transformative. So if you have an opportunity to open people's eyes, and you can do that through the medium of storytelling, artistic expression, etc. It resonates on an emotional level that sometimes research doesn't even do

36:25  
that. No, thank you for that addition, absolutely storytelling, because many ways to convey information. And so research is very much only one of them. Also, knowing what DISC profile there are, right? analytical type that may be restricted might do something versus someone else who's like, now that doesn't matter to me, it's great. And so you might have to figure out again, what's gonna what, what is something, you're going to say that's going to be most likely to respond to the way that they think, as well. So that was great additions in a great example that you gave. So thank you,

36:51  
sir. Good questions, by the way, like, I'm, these are good. I'm pumping these back. For people who can't join us. Or following along in our Slack community, folks, by the way, are connected fundraising, Slack community, there has been some interesting side conversations happening. So Right.

37:08  
Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. This is gonna get to other folks too, because I always learned from this, I'm gonna ask you to download the chat for me after today. Okay, so here's a couple others that came through Christina, May I share with you some information I learned that helped me to see the greater need? I think that's great to say perhaps even saying, I actually thought some of that too. And here's some things that helped me. That is the relationship piece that I think someone was like, Okay, you actually thought that same way. Potentially, we're here to give our community a space and opportunity to succeed, which has many layers to it, thank you, Sinead. That is true, helping us see the broader picture not over simplifying complex issues, right, because they are complex, ask them to volunteer participate in the program to see how we impact our community and how the community responds to our support that goes into what what Tim was talking about, about experiences, and storytelling and immersive things that help you kind of be more involved that you actually see things in progress. Okay, just I'm just reading this next couple ones a lot more came through, which is awesome. Okay, so here's one I flagged for some of those lack of motivation. It was Loretta, we've also seen that there is a need for addressing mental illness, addiction and job preparation, then bring in how the org is working to target these issues. So this is yeah, this is talking about how, you know, in some cases, like there's different there's different elements and layers to this. But there's also a connection to things like mental illness, addiction, opportunities that are available, and then talking about how you're working on those to support people. That's very, very powerful. Ready? Thank you. So this is great. Again, everyone's coming through on the audience. Here. We got, we got one more, so please keep the momentum going for a mini workshop number three. Big one. I hope there's lots to say about this one, because I know that everyone feels passionately about this one. I don't want to fund salaries or administrative costs. So you know, that's, that is something that, you know, we hear a lot about. And so I have some ideas that I would I might come back with, what do you believe administrative costs are used for? What is it about those usages that you find problematic? Give examples. Oh, I love this one. By the way. The restaurant example, I didn't invent this. But you know, where someone only wants to fund they want to fund the food, but not the electricity, the servers, the shaft or the the chef or the insurance. They're like, well, I want to buy a pizza, but I only want to pay for the dough and the pizza, not for all the other things that go into make that what it is. So I've I've, I would probably be mindful of who I use that example with. But I think I've opened a lot of eyes with that particular way of looking at it like when you go and buy and then we're not selling a product, right. But I think that framing of there's so many things that go into things. A couple of you already said this. There's a lot of things that go into doing our work. It's not just one area or one aspect. And if we can say, yeah, there is service chefs, you know, insurance, electricity, bills, whatever. It's not just only the food aspect of it. So the restaurant analogy, and I think the word I've often used before, which seems to kind of maybe open some eyes sometimes is like view the word puzzle, like those things are all a part of the puzzle of our overall cost. So they see it as something that has to come together for us to do our work. So I'm looking to y'all again, and I'm putting pressures. Last one. So come on to finish, let's finish strong throw in the chat box, how you respond to this, this piece around I don't want to fund salaries or administrative costs, what would you say? In response, Tim, I'm sure you have lots of thoughts on this one. I'd love to hear

40:33  
from you. I'm gonna wait though I want to encourage silence is going to help encourage other people to step up? So

40:40  
comfortable silence Okay, all right, it is okay. Well, they're coming in fast and furious. Now. Now I'm going to try to keep up. It is impossible. Heidi says it is impossible to be a good steward of your funds. Without a properly trained staff, you can't ensure your funds will be put to the best use without that 100%. I mean, we're in a social service or social service organization, its people, the people, we didn't have stuff in our buildings, we didn't have any of that stuff. And so I think for them to understand the importance of people in this equation is really, really critical, and they need to be properly trained and properly compensated, I might add to Sinead, I have thought this before, but we need funding for all the boring stuff. Because that is how we're able to continue our program. It's big money honest, I think, like don't underestimate the power of humor, either. We want to make sure that we have everything we need to do our work and have the best staff to accomplish our goals. So it's like yeah, maybe those things are not boring, or glamorous, or whatever you want to say. But they are all part of this. And honestly, sometimes community works, you know, social good work, whatever you want to call it. It's not glamorous, it sometimes can be, quote, unquote, boring. It's exciting in terms of what you're trying to achieve.

41:54  
Heidi, Heidi should say, to ensure that our dental insurance is not solely covered through in kind donations.

42:06  
Yeah, we don't want the staff to say can I get my treatment this this?

42:11  
Donors in order to get root canals? Okay. Let's go back to Loretta as actual answer. Let's go.

42:18  
What did they donate the fillings but not the dead time for the dentist? Right? Yeah, there we go. Our greatest resource are the passionate members of our team. They are the ones who set up and deliver our projects, which is a necessary piece to make our projects happen. Thank you, Loretta, Jennifer, here, we propose local

42:33  
to me. Hello, Jennifer, by the

42:35  
way, represent, we provide free legal, civil legal services to provide quality services to the community, we have a staff of trained, educated and experienced attorneys and advocates to assist our community funding salaries is key to our mission. Thank you very much for that, Jasmine, you understand how important our work is. And we want the best people to ensure that important work is done successfully. Yes, thank you.

42:58  
I'm gonna thank you, Jasmine for joining the community. So she's going to be a little up on the fact that I'm going to take your slides and actually turn into a little slack talk tomorrow for these mini workshops. So

43:09  
wonderful. The government Tim has has handed so many pies. Speaking of bakeries and restaurants, the pie man like the pie man a pie man? No, thanks, everyone. I really appreciate the participation. And I really want this chat. So I can learn from from this in terms of the fright

43:25  
Well, I will be yes, you will get the chat. Perfect, perfect. So

43:29  
we can't workshop every single objection out there. I mean, I've tried to work some other ones into this session casually. But you know, try this, try this yourself, you know, brainstorm ideas of the things that you would like to be able to say and the potential responses you might get. And this will make these ideas more readily available when you need them. And I think someone might say this to me, let me pre kind of do that work. Because I know when I'm going into difficult conversations or harder conversations, I need to make sure I know what I'm saying. And I have even sometimes the specific wording I'm going to use. And that's just me, maybe that helps you but practice this. As I would say start with kind of your, your kind of closer donors, the ones that are a little bit more close to you that you know that they're gonna be more open to this. So it feels a little bit more, more safe. So I'm going to just throw these in here, because the slides are going to be available for you. And so just to give you some more ideas and examples of kind of sample questions, phrases, you can consider using some of these have a specific context. Some of them don't, but I encourage you to just, you know, if you're struggling with the words, as I often do, that's why I had to write these out. Just maybe give some of these a shot. I want to share something with you out of respect for your support of our organization. You deserve to know that you may not always hear this from organizations, but I think it's important that you know, I appreciate that sharing this with you maybe at a risk, but I didn't want to leave this conversation without you knowing that. And so what these do is they kind of we have that duality of like, you know, I, we, I believe to be honest that we do a disservice and we disrespect donors by assuming they can't handle the truth, a lot of the times, so to me, these are conversations about respect and saying, I want to be transparent with you because I believe you can handle this information. And let's hope that they can. And usually, they thanked me for some other ones. What is your just to get them talking? What is your current understanding of this issue? Why do you think that organizations like ours may not always share this with you? I think they can think about why don't people tell me everything sometimes? What other information would help increase your understanding of this? Given what I've just shared? How might that change your view, how you view your giving? So you can see that if I would have told you is actually having them think differently, but ultimately behave differently? Now we know and, and Tim will vouch for this. Lots of resources says what people say they do. And what they actually do is not always the same. But I think if you can feel the donor, kind of saying, Hey, I understand that, and maybe I will think about, you know how I'm gonna make my gift this year, then that's how you know you're kind of getting through to build understanding, help me understand. I feel like we're not on the same page yet. But I would like us to get there. I believe there's a way for us to both get what we're looking for. Please share more about that, again, that and can you tell me more please share more golden in almost every situation. Now, I'm not the only one talking about this, in fact, honest, the honesty component is a very central principle to community centric fundraising, as a lot of research related resources and initiatives of groups and people and educational resources that you can access here. They're already talking about a lot of this. So it's not just this session, there's more work you can do after if you're really interested in this to explore further. So community centric fundraising, they have a whole set of principles. And there's some of this is talking about that honesty component. Trust based philanthropy is a little bit more targeted at the grantor is talking about how do you and participatory grantmaking as well, how do you do granting in a way that where you're actually in trust with the communities that you're working with? The ethical Rainmaker podcast, is absolutely wonderful. And talking about issues that you really don't hear about in many other places. These are a couple of Canadian examples, but totally relevant wherever you're in front today, the small nonprofit podcast by the good partnership, and the Ontario nonprofit network digging in podcast, and these sometimes talk about broader issues, but they often relate to raising awareness, education and engagement about some of these other other areas that usually we don't talk with owners and stick in that sorry, and that board members about even.

47:31  
Okay, so Well, now, go implement all this, like, you know, I start practicing the skills, right? start being more honest, start educating, start engaging, then do it again. And again, you will get better at this, the more that you do it. I know I did. And here's my thing, right? If, if no one else, do it for me, look at my puppy dog eyes, right now. If you walk out of this hour, we're having together and you don't do something differently out of this, you're gonna go back to your regular life. And I know that to do list you've got waiting for you. But I wouldn't have done my job. I really, really want to see you succeed in this. So we've talked about a lot here, right? How are you going to decide what to do next, I really want you to choose two to three honest conversations you're going to have. And by when and I mean it, write it down. If you need an accountability, buddy, find one, you know, message me, I'll call I'll call you back in a month, I'll message you in a month or two and say, Hey, did you to actually do this? How did it go? Let's talk about it. You need to change your behavior, or this will not make any difference in your life would have been a that was a nice hour, but life is the same. So please, whether it's right now, or shortly immediately after this unless you booked a two o'clock zoom, which most of us probably have or a two o'clock meeting. But please, please take this into action. And I believe here's the thing, I believe you can do this, like you got this, right. I know you can do this. You're already here. You're open to this in the first place. So I really want I really want to see you succeed. And just so you know, I'm here to help. You can reach me I'm very responsive on LinkedIn. Hit me up on Twitter. I even have a Oh, Andrew, look at it my wall. Yes. STOP WISHING START doing the stolen from the wall behind me. Wonderful. And I've also started a very experimental tic tock and tim's on tick tock to win at Charity dad checking me out. And yeah, just message me. And I'm happy to continue the conversation with you. So that's, you know, if we here's the thing, right, we need to move from telling donors what we think they wanted to hear to what they need to hear. If we don't say something, how do we expect something to change? That's the bottom line here. So I really appreciated the time everyone's put in here. Now we have a little bit of time here. And so if anyone does have any q&a, we have a few minutes right and we can actually feel some we

49:47  
do. Yeah, we got we got 10 minutes. I was just checking tick tock actually. So just in case. Yeah. So if anybody has questions or are things that you're struggling with this is a great opportunity to share those. This is a space of welcoming these types of conversations to you know, a lot of the resources that were cited are things that that neon one is supporting the ethical Rainmaker were actually a seat the word their first sponsor, actually. So for them. Rickesh, I don't know if you if you talk to Michelle, because she she mentioned that while folks are maybe putting stuff, we're going to try to have them put together a panel actually for generosity exchange. So pretty excited. on that. Exciting.

50:48  
Lots of stuff going on here.

50:49  
I love the mini workshops, I think. How do you address ultimately, the fear? That is underlying a lot of reasons that hold people back from from initiating this because there's a power dynamic when it comes to money? You know, and and no amount of framing sometimes can overcome that hierarchy. So how do we address that?

51:26  
Right? Well, there's like a, there's a, there's a shorter answer than a longer answer. For answer is an entirely other webinar hosted by me on one of the future, perhaps Absolutely,

51:34  
you are welcome to come back.

51:39  
Because like there's, there's obviously a thing here, where just the, you know, how money is viewed, who is valued within organizations and within society. And so that's a whole other thing that, you know, we were talking before, that's not something we're going to be able to address, you know, in perhaps in our little in our in our particular space of things. But in terms of the fear of like, I think that the questions that I asked before about knowing your organization, knowing your donor and knowing yourself, or what kind of come in here. So if you know, you're an organization that does not support you, when you take risks, or when you try to do the right thing, or you try to draw attention to things like this, then you know, that's an overly important piece of information for you to have, because I don't want I don't think it fundraisers should be put in a position where they're like, in the middle of their management and leadership and the donor, and they feel like they can't win either way. Yeah. So I think that's a critical piece. So if the if the fear is based on, I don't think my boss has my back if something goes sideways here, right? And it might I mean, I think some of the things we're talking about here, maybe the donor doesn't respond in the best way. And maybe they go and say something, if you know, your, your boss doesn't have your back? Well, then I think ultimately, sometimes the question is, am I in the right word, but I did say before, it's like, if you if the fear is not based on any actual experience you've had, it's more just this is just what we think. And this is a lot of the perception fundraisers have, we can't say these things to donors. And I can't be the one to say them to donors, but have an internal conversation amongst your team and say, this is going to help us, you know, be more honest and open and most of the time, they're going to be responsive to it. So I think starting with starting where it's it's kind of safe is the right word, but starting within your team, starting with donors who are closer to you who you know, wouldn't entertain the conversation. And then you can get practice in sort of an environment where it's a little bit less. Risky is the right word, but there's less unknowns. But the power dynamics are something that's like that's the bigger piece, but within this kind of a framework, just giving it a try and testing the waters, again, knowing you have support behind

53:33  
that. And that's, I think, an important distinction. And that's also the kind of it kind of is interesting relating to the question that came in how can you use this on us approaching donor acquisition? intriguing question. Because if we're trying to enter into things, honestly, you need money, if we're going to be honest, right. But if you're doing this type of approach, it's almost that it lends itself to be more relationship, and people centric as opposed to transactional, then, if you're actually living this, but what are your thoughts on that question?

54:13  
That's a very good question. Because I think another question that comes up around this is, you know, this sounds like it's something that's more kind of like for face to face or major giving. And I think some of the examples we use today are assuming that you have FaceTime with the person, you have the ability to have the conversation with them. And so it's like, well, kind of supply to sort of other forms of fundraising, more mass appeal type things. And I think that it can, I think that I know that for example, direct mail is driven through a lot of scientific pieces around a B tests, like all that different stuff. But what if you start a B testing different framings of how you position your work, and seeing if it makes a difference? For example, if you frame something in a way, like I've seen, I've read some direct mail appeals and I'm like, Wow, I can't believe you said that in there. And so, can we start to test The waters on being a little more honest think does it have an impact on donations? Does it How does it detract from them? I mean, in the end, it's not always about only about how much money we raise if we're, if we're doing something blatantly wrong, we should, we should change it. But I think there's an opportunity in many different forms, to just test the waters and say, what if in an appeal, I'm trying to think of an example here, but it's such a good question, it hasn't been a little bit kind of stumped. But if we can include a couple of sentences in an appeal versus another couple of sentences, and just see this, what does that do? Right? And does that make a difference when we say something that we really have not talked about openly? And honestly, before, for example, when we put a direct mail appeal, we we want your support to, to fund to fund salaries or something like that not worded quite that way? Yeah. What are we trying to say? It's the people that that are behind all this? And can we get your support? Seeing what that does? I don't know, I have less experience with this, to be honest, in more of a mass kind of scale. But I think in terms of campaigns, in terms of major giving, in terms of a lot of the environments, we're in even special events, because oftentimes, you're doing a lot of storytelling and sharing. I think those are opportunities there. But, Tim, do you have any other thoughts?

56:09  
Yeah, if you actually we did a session in June on philanthropic psychology with the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy. And I think that like taking some of the concepts of of heading toward an identity based approach to your appeals, when you do a mass appeals, what you're trying to do is shift and kind of one of my big rules is focused on the person, not their money. And this gets to what Reverend Dr. Bonnie Hollinger said in the chat, too, which is that, that think of the money as a tool, they have it, but you're the expert in using that tool, right, that helps not fear the power. And so with philanthropic psychology, it's about centering the conversation ultimately, on who a person is. And with you, you need to understand your relationship to that person. And if it's coming from a place of openness and vulnerability, and saying, like, there's some organizations, they might be in a tough spot. And they need that help. And they might be worried to say, they're gonna think that we're bad at like managing our money. Right? If we say that, and that's something to overcome, because a lot of people, if they truly care and love the organization, they're actually going to see that as a higher calling, to activate on and you can do that in your copy. So I think back to that June session there, but this is one that I want to sit with a little bit longer to thanks. And that person is anonymous. So they like came in dropped that that like, right on us to think about, in a big way, there's a lot to unpack there.

57:54  
I would love to think about that one too. And then next time of doing a comparable session, actually maybe explore with, you know, have some more conversations with colleagues and other folks and maybe have a better some more responses to that. But it's a really good question. I think one that is worthwhile exploring is to what are some mechanisms you can you can use, but I like what you said, Tim, about some of that approach piece. But I think wherever we can insert otherwise, D we should be trying to.

58:18  
I think it's beautiful. I think I think this is this is such a great exploration and such an important conversation. I'm really thankful for you joining us. I'm I'm looking at you on my second screen. So I should here I'll look at Yeah, straight on

58:34  
in the eyes. In the eyes. Let's platform and thanks, really, thanks so much for everyone being here and taking part like that's what makes this session work. And so I really, really appreciate everyone, great conversation, great contributions. And thanks for of course, being here. For this time, it really, again meant a lot to have you being proud of this.

58:53  
Thank you. We will be sending the recording out the deck out the transcript out cash, I'll send you the chat. I'm not going to do that at a privacy for everybody there but I can I can do something there. But we'll also continue this conversation or reappear if you weren't ready to share. Or if you thought about it, or maybe we even tackle that question the acquisition question head on in the connected fundraising community. I am putting that in the chat for people to sign up. We try to do a newsletter. Each month, we try to call out the conversations that happen in the slack group. So some people just joined for the newsletter. Others want to actually join as part of the slack discussion. So very cool. Now go forth, and have those honest conversations. My friends, thank you all for this. We'll see you next week. If you haven't signed up, I am going to actually do one more call to action. Sorry, I'm violating Take my rule, which is you only try to focus on one call to action at a time. But sign up for next week's session where we're going to hear from one of your neon one colleagues, if you're, you're part of our ecosystem directly. And Alex is going to walk through how they designed that immersive experience around homelessness in an ethical and collaborative way. I'm really excited. It's gonna be an interview. So a little bit different format. But there we go. Or cash any final words?

1:00:33  
Thank you to him the neon one for hosting and good luck, everybody. I can see good things coming out of the site. And I'm hoping for the best for everyone. Thank you.

1:00:41  
Follow him on tick tock. If you're on tick tock. It is. Well, where he's you got? You're the one that got me into it. I gotta say you're the one that pushed me over. So yeah, I do. 15 minutes on my treadmill. It's boring. It's like Hi,

1:00:55  
I'm Bill treadmill tips is good stuff.

1:00:58  
Thank you. Awesome. Okay, folks, have a great day. I didn't need this coin. By the way. Rickesh. It's a little little in joke between me and him. Everyone. Have a great day. And we'll see you out there. Be honest and share back.

1:01:12  
Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai