0:01  
Well, I am so excited to see so many of you here. We're gonna go ahead and get started, I am tickled to death that you guys get to hear from Julia today. I have had the pleasure of hearing her talk lots of times and learn something new every time. So before we go ahead and get started, if you're not familiar with me, my name is Abby, I'm on the Nyan one team. And I'm going to be keeping an eye on the chat and the question box, and everything today. So if you have any questions or comments or anything like that, I'll be the one that's intercepting those and, and talking with you guys. If you're not familiar with the on one where in online technology company that serves nonprofits like you, and one of the things that we love talking about here is how to build relationships with donors and supporters. And Julio is going to share a lot about how you can build a communication plan that helps do that. So before we get super into it, I want to go over just a few housekeeping items. So one, do please ask questions. We want this to be as useful as possible for you and your organization. That said, the chat does move quickly. So if you have a question that you would like us to answer, please drop it in the q&a box. It's a lot easier to keep an eye on things over there. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the chat box. I love it when you guys use the chat box. So please talk to us in the chat. Just make sure questions go in the q&a box. So we get to it. And then the most popular question at webinars is are you recording this? And the answer is yes, we are recording this. You'll get a link to the recording in an email tomorrow morning and the recording will also include Giulia slides and a transcript. And that email has links to a few

other resources that you might find helpful if you are interested in building out a donor communications plan?

That is all I have to say, Julia, do you want to take over? And yeah, sure, share about vacations.

5:14  
Thank you, I am thrilled to be doing my first webinar of 2023, with my fabulous friends at NEON one. Thank you, Abby. And today, we're gonna be talking about something that's near and dear to my heart planning, and especially communications planning. So I know we have a big group today. And I'm really excited. If you're familiar with Zoom, then you know that there's like the q&a and the chat. And while I adore the chat, and I want all of you to participate, to keep the q&a sort of available to me, so I can see it at the end. And so we can really filter through a lot of the chat and make sure you put your questions for me in the q&a function, because the chat kind of moves quickly, which is great. And I want a lot of participation, but just to look at your, your particular zoom bar, and make sure that you are entering your questions in the q&a. So

a lot of you probably know who I am only because I've sent this out to my email list and my social media and a lot of my clients, but if you don't know who I am, if you're new to my world,

a few things I just want you to know about me, I am a mom of two, I have a podcast. It's called nonprofit nation. I've written two books, a lot of which I incorporate today, one on storytelling one on social media, I create a lot of courses for nonprofits. And the most important thing to know is that I am a former development and marketing director for small shops. So I have worked in that sphere. And I've been, you know, done everything from going on lunches with major donors to cleaning the coffee machine to you know, picking up the balloons for events. So I understand if you're working for a pretty small shop, or even a small to midsize shop. And that's how I really design a lot of my trainings. So today, we're gonna cover a lot, and we're gonna go pretty fast. But that's why it's so important to know that you will have access to the recording, and you will have access to the slides and extra resources. Because what I really want to cover is what I want to talk about how to be successful in communications and to hold your donors attention and grab their attention might involve different tactics and strategies than you're used to. But I want us to be able to at least get the skeleton of the strategic donor communications plan today. And when I talk about donor communications, that can involve anything from offline to online, my particular wheelhouse and area of expertise is really online. So we're going to focus on website, email list and social media. That doesn't mean you can't use other platforms. There are so many different ways you can keep in touch with donors. And then I'm going to give you some free and low cost tools that you can use to start creating all this kind of content today. So we're just going to touch on the digital landscape, the marketing landscape, the communications landscape, entering 2023. Now this is one of those my one of my favorite gifts, but outlook. Not so good. Okay, so a lot of the platforms that we have relied on as our bread and butter, to connect with donors, and to really build a relationship with them, whether it be postage, I don't know if any one of us sent out holiday cards, I sent out probably about 200 Holiday cards, and I would say about half of them still have not been received. So whether it's analog, whether it's digital, a lot of these platforms that we have previously relied on. We can't really rely on the old ways of working. Of course, we know Twitter is burning alive, or Twitter is just kind of a mess. I think it's actually a real metaphor for what's going on. In a lot of the digital landscape. It's just so completely unpredictable. And we a lot of us have relied on Facebook, for example, Facebook groups, Facebook, fundraisers, or our Facebook page, to be communicating with our donors and to be communicating and acquiring brand new donors. But as we know, these places are continually in flux. Like we cannot continue to rely on the same things that we've always done. sure a lot of money is being raised on these platforms. I'm not going to deny it. I wanted to throw this statistic in just to show you that we can't ignore the places where we previously been. But we also need to probably be diverse.

defying into a few different spaces, our donors are still relying on digital tools. And they're still relying on channels like social media, as the tool that most inspires them to give, it still drives a lot of traffic to campaign pages. And a lot of money is still raised through these platforms, whether it's directly on the platform or whether it's sending them to a different page. But the only constant is change. And we know this and as communicators, as donor relations professionals as fundraisers, we do need to be able to ride the wave and kind of see the horizon and understand what's going on.

If we want to communicate with the five distinct generations of donors that we have, and I believe there's probably even six distinct generations now, but the Zoomers Gen Z, they're using different platforms, we can't continue to rely on the ways that we've communicated with the baby boomers with the matures with Gen X, which is me, which is the millennials, every generation requires not necessarily a totally different strategy. But there are so many different tools that are cropping up. So Gen Z, you know, they use a lot of these tools, but they are increasingly getting disillusioned with the tools that we are relying on like Facebook, okay, I love this particular quote from Jules TR PAC. She's one. She's a content creator that all of you should follow. She's a Gen Z content creator, she covers digital culture for TechCrunch. And she says that Facebook to Gen Z, it exudes the energy of a spam email, which kind of makes me shudder. But if we're only relying on Facebook, to reach our donors, and to reach different different donor populations, then we're missing out. So you know, Instagram, tik, Tok, YouTube, these are all different platforms that we should be exploring, and perhaps using to reach our donors. Now, what we say to our donors, is incredibly important. So I have a quote here, from Mark Phillips and Mark Phillips writes a superb blog called clear ideas. It's required reading for all fundraisers. And they right the only thing that matters a dam is the donor experience. If we've got that, right, we'd never have been in this situation talking about donor retention. I still don't understand why so many organizations dropped fundraising for brand awareness as an addiction to interruption recruitment techniques. The result is that we have a massive pool of people who at best, tolerate how fundraisers, treat them, tolerate how fundraisers treat them, that's stuck with me. Because if you think about the communications that maybe you have been sending out, or maybe you've received from organizations and causes that you support, does it excite you? does it inspire you? Does it speak to you? Is it really meant for you? Is it encouraging you to join a movement? Is it inspiring you to be part of something bigger than yourself. And if you look at this amazing Venn diagram that Mark Phillips developed, I share it in every webinar. It's just so perfect. The things that we want to tell our donors and our donor communications, versus the things that donors want to hear from us. Yes, there is a place where they meet, but we need to focus more on what they want to actually hear from us. And that's how we're going to cut through the noise cut through the clutter. You know, pick your cliche that you want to say. So when you're creating your plan, the key here is to set your overall strategic vision. Now, the only TED talk that I make my clients watch all of my clients, every single one that I forced them to watch it is a TEDx talk, technically, but Simon Sinek start with why it's also a fantastic book.

If your donors are not on board with why you do what you do, they are not going to care about the how or the what. So how can we opera opera, operationalize this? Why is the big picture the goal, the end game, the destination, the vision, the reason you exist? How the strategies required to get there, the what are the actual tasks, techniques and tools to carry out the strategies? Now a lot of us care and focus a lot about the how and the what in our communications, but we miss the why we missed

that big picture. And that's what really instills our donors with hope and inspiration, and happiness and joy. So we need to set some goals for our donor communications plan. This is sort of the long term, overall success that we want to create. So I'm going to show you what a goal is not it's not getting on Facebook, getting on tick tock, getting a lot of followers, getting a lot of reach using hashtags on Instagram, those are tactics. And those are tools. And they can be used to get you to your end goal. But they are not the goal in and of itself. And this is a cartoon that I always I always really love to show it's, it was first put on Beth Cantor's amazing blog. But if you think about it, if you're thinking about your program, and you're saying, our cat adoption numbers tanked this quarter, but the important thing is our YouTube views are way up. I think it's a little bit skewed. So don't focus on the tools and the platforms. First, think about your goals for donor communications, you know, you want thought leadership, you want to become the go to resource, you want to fill up your events, you want to reach more businesses and corporate sponsors, you want to get more community support, we have to improve on the communications goal of raising awareness, we really need to focus on community building and building a movement rather than just sort of raising awareness. And Seth Godin always says, or Seth Godin, he doesn't always say it, but he did say it. And I always repeat it, because I think it's a fantastic quote, we all know that root. The turnips are root vegetable, we all know turnips are a root vegetable, that doesn't mean we're going to buy them and have them for dinner. Awareness. Without action does not mean very much. This also means getting clarity on your audience. So if you have that goal, and then you get clarity on your audience, this is going to help accelerate your communications plan and your communications content. Because you know what you're trying to achieve, and you know, who you need to bring on board, and who you need to target and talk to, to actually achieve it. So a lot of you are going to say you have 10 audiences. But if we're thinking about our community donor communications plan, you should be thinking about donors. And certainly, there are many segments of donors, there are new donors, there are monthly donors, their major gift donors, their plan giving donors, I mean, there are corporate donors. But in order to get traction, in any of your communications plans, it's really important to define what they all have in common, because it's really going to affect where you spend your time on these platforms. And where you spend your time in general. How often are you going to post? How often are you going to email how often you're going to send out communications? What are you going to write and share about because if you don't know who you're talking to, how will you know what to say and how to say it. So an example that I give is a client of mine, Rhodes Scholar, they were they used to be called Elderhostel, their nonprofit in Boston mass. And they found that connecting with donors was incredibly difficult. So their audience is predominantly older. It's predominantly 65. Plus predominantly women, predominantly women who are widowed or single, who are interested in taking their educational trips or interested in funding their educational trips. And they just were not getting a lot of engagement on all of the content they were posting. They weren't getting engagement on their emails, they weren't getting really engagement on their newsletters. They didn't really understand their community and why anyone would pay attention to them. So we analyzed, who made up their donor database, who took their trips, and who their audience was on social media. And we sort of found the threads that ran through everything.

And we found their avatar, and we called her the funky grandma. So the funky grandma, she's an older woman, who likes to learn likes to travel enjoys adventure. She's very interested in women's issues and history, interested in advocating for older adults. She's interested in, you know, creating and sharing all this kind of content that we were creating. But once we knew who we were speaking to, every post had to pass one test, any type of donor communication really had to pass one test. Would the funky grandma like it? If so, we sent it out? If not, it's reworked. Now, that's not excluding people, because I still actually really like a lot of the content that they send out and post and I'm not a funky grandma yet. That's my goal in life.

But they had a 500% increase in engagement, and increase in open rate and increase in donor retention because they knew who they were talking to. And they knew the kinds of topics, the kinds of things they wanted to hear about. And it's not just about accomplishments and impact. It's a lot about building this community around central topics around things that people care about. So how can you identify your own funky Grandma, you know, refer back to the goal that you set? Do some reach research to figure out who is already with you who's in your donor database, think about who you aspire to connect with? Who can help you reach your goal? And where do these people spend time? And how do they like to receive communication? So step two is identify who's already with you. So I mean, a lot of us I don't think are starting completely from scratch, we do have some donor data that we're able to analyze people that have raised their hands to say they want to hear more from you. And I find that it's a lot easier to focus on this group of people who've already opted in, they've already raised their hand, they've already made a donation, or even made an inclination, maybe their prospects than it is to grab the attention of complete strangers. So

use the insights and analytics available to you, in your CRM in your constituent relationship management platform, in your database, on your digital channels, in your email, on your social media, use the Insight and Analytics that are already available to you to really figure out who's already there. And there are three real buckets that you can pull from to really help understand your audience, because understanding your audience is absolutely the number one key to success for any communications plan. What's the demographic makeup? What topics tend to get the most engagement? Now, if you sent an appeal letter, and it just got you know, 50% more donations, or you got a lot of calls, or you got a lot of emails, or a board member? Quite a few people told you anecdotally that they really loved this particular letter, this particular newsletter, write that down? What tends to get the most engagement? That is not an accident? And we want to recreate that? And then what types of content get the most engagement? Does your audience like video? Do they like text? Do they like graphics? Do they like events? I mean, what what is it that they like? Does live video work better than recorded video, all of this is data. That is not perfect data you're never going to get. There's no such thing as completely 100% perfect data. But all of this is going to help you inform your communications plan and help improve and iterate on it. If you don't know what your donors want, then you need to ask them, you need to send out a survey, you need to talk to them, you need to call people, you need to hold focus groups, you need to find them where they are and talk to them. You actually need to do some research, like a scientist to find out what they want to hear from you what really what they like, and what resonates with them. And also maybe where they spend their time online or where they like to hang out or what kind of events they like. So the Malala Fund, once you donate, they send you this very simple survey, take our short survey to tell us about yourself and why you're committed to girls education. What word best describes you? And this helps them better segment their communications, but also helps inform them like how are people hearing about them? What are their donors want to hear about? What do they care about? World pulse does an annual impact survey. And they asked people not only why they donate, but how world pulse has helped them in their own life and their community. And you know, world polls they give you know, you can win $100 Malala Fund doesn't do that you can choose to do a donor survey that has an incentive or a donor survey that doesn't. I don't really think it matters. I think that the donors that are going to answer we're going to answer no matter what. But the key here is trying to systematize and understand your audience in a more cohesive and comprehensive way and also a data driven way. Okay, step four of your plan is to create a message or messages that are designed for them. What's in it for me, you all of you are asking this right now.

If you're on this webinar, what's in it for me? What am I going to learn? What am I going to take away with? Anytime you're asking someone for attention? Anytime you're asking someone for their hard earned dollars, anytime you're asking anyone for anything, they're gonna say what's in it for me. And it doesn't mean they're selfish. It just is part of human nature. You know, what value do you provide to their busy lives? Like, if I complete this action? How will I feel will participating in this event, or making this donation make me feel like I've done something meaningful? And that's really the key, I don't see a lot of messaging driven by this will, I feel like I've done something meaningful. So I do think we need to shift our messaging from how they can help us to how we can help them. So show them the impact, make them feel like they made a difference? What problem are we solving for them? Now you might, now that might be very literal, like, you might not literally be solving a problem for me. But I'm thinking of the organizations that I support. I can't actually be in the trenches fighting this particular cause, you know, yes, I can go to protests. And yes, I can make a donation. But if I'm thinking about the causes I support in particular, I'm not the expert, and I cannot be the one in the courtroom, or I can't be the advocate, I can't be the counselor, you know, and I'm thinking it's solving a problem for me, in that I want to help. But I, the way that I help is through my donation, the way that I help is through my engagement and my participation. Why would these donors share your content? You know, is it useful, valuable educational, entertaining, that's the only for real reasons. People share things useful, valuable, educational, entertaining. That's it. What type of emotion resonates the most with your audience? Now, if you think of PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, they understand that their audience gets mobilized by being angry. So they share very provocative and graphic videos and photos and stories. Now, best friends, animal society, completely the opposite. They know that their audience does not like that. And they want to hear the happy inspiring stories of animals who have been saved. So what type of emotion resonates most with your particular audience? What's going to inspire them to take action? What's going to inspire them to share? And then you know, what sets you apart? This is something we have to think about, you know, what sets you apart? I really hate the word competitors. And I'm upset that I let that slip through. But what sets you apart from other organizations are what sets you apart from brands, what sets you apart from anything that's competing for someone's attention. You know, what do you do best? Why do people love you? Why do people participate with you? What do you believe in, that can really get people excited and inspired.

That's what he's International. They know that their audience loves these little mission moments, these little anecdotes, these kinds of stories from their community, from their mentors and mentees, that sort of make you smile make you happy. Make you remember, Oh, I really love the work of Best Buddies. Amira Incorporated, if you've been on a webinar with me, you know, they are one of my absolute favorite organizations. I just think they do a phenomenal job, expressing the why, but also really doing storytelling that is kind of in an ethical way. That ensures that the survivor has dignity and integrity, and not of course, exploiting them or sharing any identifying details, but bringing in their community. So if you look at the milestone Mondays, you know, we want to start out the workweek by sharing some exciting news with you. This is what's going on this bring us in and then I always like it. Everyone always says in the comments. Congratulations. This is so amazing. And they do that every single Monday. If you look at the Black Dog Institute, something like this a statement. Let's build a mentally healthy world. A statement like that is incredibly powerful. It's never been harder to grow up mentally healthy, and it's only getting worse. Those statements that's the problem that you're solving. That's the why. And even if you've donated, you still want to understand the why you want to know about the problem you're solving and you want to know that it's bigger than you

answering question

Students for people. So what is it like to be a childhood cancer survivor? It's complicated. Any kind of content that you can use to address myths, address misconceptions, fill knowledge gaps, think about the frequently asked questions that you get in your work. The donors want to know, we can't assume that they know and we can't assume that they don't want to know.

So step five of your plan. This is where you choose your communications platforms. So really, the communications platforms that you choose, will help you reach your target audience, get them to take the action that you desire, those are the platforms and channels that you focus on. And don't be afraid to break up with platforms that are not working, okay? The platforms don't matter much. You know, they don't matter nearly as much as your message as your why as your content. You just need a lens and a strategy to evaluate new platforms and audit old ones, because the platforms themselves, they really don't matter as much if you do not have this connection with your donors, if you don't have this message to share this, why? It doesn't matter. If you have a bullhorn, and you you know, stand out on City Hall steps like it's not going to matter. So I do like to share the technology pyramid. It's kind of an oldie but a goodie. It's from ideal aware. And the reason I share it is because social media is really the icing on the top of the cake, like people know me for talking about social media, they know me for teaching social media marketing. But if you don't have infrastructure, if you don't have a mission based software package that is like a CRM or a fundraising software, a website, a way to track constituents, and email is hugely important, then social media is really not going to help you. So unfortunately, I think a lot of small nonprofits start at the top. But it's really important in your donor communications, that you start at this infrastructure, having a place to track people and segment people having a place to understand where they're coming from, and where they came from, and what they're interested in. And then website broadcast email and social media. So this is an oldie but a goodie. And I really, really love the technology pyramid. It's almost like if you look at it, it's like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs a little bit like you have to have certain things for other things to work. So everything kind of builds on everything else. So your website, that's this is your communications hub. Okay? This is where your donors are going to find out more about you to find out how to donate to find out how to reach you. And this is where they're sending people. So if I like Amira Incorporated, I always send Well, I usually send them to either their Instagram because it's amazing. Or I'm like, Okay, go to their website, because that's what happens. Also, just think about it, I'm not going to say, a Lex A, because I know all of your devices will go off, or G O G, L E, because all my devices will go off in my house. But think about it. That's how we search for things. That's how we ask for things like find this, you know, ask this. So your website is so important. It is your communications and fun raising hub, it needs to be well equipped to handle new people and older donors. So what are some key elements of effective websites, photos, peeking curiosity, a way to capture information. And this is incredibly important. Because you can send people to your website, you could send people to your donate page, they might not always complete the donation, they might not always complete the action. So make sure there's some kind of email signup, maybe you want them to sign a petition, just make theirs make sure there is some call to action. So you can capture this information. Storytelling, of course, is hugely important. hugely, hugely important. We think that our donors know every single thing about us when they make a donation, we just think we assume I don't know why a lot of my clients feel like oh, well, why would we put this on our website? Because all of our donors already know this? No, they don't. I would assume that I would have I would make an assumption. They know much less than you think and that is okay. They came to you because you're solving a problem that they think is important and you have that solution. You have to continually be creating this emotional connection with them. And not necessarily I don't like to say educating don't

ORS because that assumes, I feel like that's kind of preachy. And that's, that's just kind of patronizing. But offer them this information, offering inviting them in to your website. And making sure everywhere in your website, there are opportunities to sign up to get more involved, add impact to your inbox, join the fight against hunger, I love this language, I love anything that says, join the fight join us, especially if your donors have already joined, you could say, you are awesome for joining the fight against hunger. Doesn't that sound better than thank you for your $10 donation, like you joined a fight, you joined a movement. And that's amazing.

Email is going to be your real relationship builder.

This is where you're going to really determine first of all, what kinds of content your donors like and engage with, because you're going to get the data on open rates, click through rates, what blog posts, they like, what kind of stories inspire them to donate, it's really fantastic for collecting this data. But I don't want you to think of email as purely a transactional mechanism. Because email, I mean, you wouldn't just send emails to your friends if you only ask them for money. So constantly using email to be building this awareness of what you're doing, sharing these fantastic stories. And then yeah, when you have an ask, when you do have a project, a campaign and of your appeal, you need their help, letting them know that you need their help. But this doesn't have to be in every email, I don't in fact, think it should be in every moment email.

So MailChimp found the average open rate for nonprofit emails is almost 26%. Compared to the universal open rate of 6%, I think of my open rate was 6%, I would evaluate what I was doing. But that's just a benchmark, I'm sure yours is higher, I've actually worked with so many different nonprofits where their open rate is much higher. If you have a small email list, but a high open rate, that's better, because

you want to make sure that your content is resonating. So reach, reach is great. But resonance is so much better than reach personalized emails, that's with a name, whether you put a name in the subject line or just like a Hi, Julia, in your sort of Saudi salutation of your email that's really going to help open rates.

And then of course, I mean this, I feel like I talked about this all the time, it's 2023. So maybe we should this should be over. But we don't want to do those emails that are five columns, and 35 graphics, it has to be like look at the Night Ministry, their email, a graphic, some bullet points, some bolded headlines, something that could be opened on a mobile device. So email communications, shorter emails more frequently. This is I think this nonprofit sector is one of the only sectors that sends one quarterly newsletter that has like 300 stories. If that works for you, if your donors love it, then keep doing it. But I want you to experiment. Send your donors shorter emails more frequently. One call to action, consistent branding, great subject line from a person. Email is not the same thing that it was five years ago, 10 years ago, six months ago. Okay, it needs to be shorter. And it needs to be more personal. And it needs to just feature like, you might not even want to tell us anything to do. It might just be open the email and here's a great story.

Subject Lines, huge piece of your communication plan.

I just see so many emails that are like, newsletter. I have one client and they will not change. They will not change their subject line and that's fine. But it's always like blah, blah, blah, November newsletter. Okay, well, I guess if people are expecting it, that's okay. But tell me what's in the email. Like what's in it for me? Why should I read it? Why should I not delete it? There are so many tools you can use to analyze your headlines. Have your blogs have your subject lines, have your even have your press releases.

Think about what's going to work to get it opened. Now you don't want clickbait you don't want to be manipulative. But you do want your email to get opened because you want it to hopefully get read. You want it to resonate with the appropriate audience.

And then if you do have an action to take, I mean Rosie's Place, they don't always ask for money, but they usually ask you to watch a video. The video is in there, and it says, you know, watch this great video, read through the story, experience her story, and put the call to action in the email. I think the key here is that we just need to make it incredibly easy for the donor to connect with us. Because they're kind of doing us a favor, there by opening the email, but they're also we're doing them a favor by sharing some fantastic information with them. So think about your email content. Think about all of your content, actually. can you improve the writing? Okay, can you streamline it? Can you tighten it up a little bit? Are your images eye catching? Are your readers engaging with it? Are they actually care about it? Is it providing valuable information that people can't find anywhere else? Is it solving a problem? Or are you telling the same thing every week? Is it concise? Is it easily digestible? Is it easy to understand? Right? Keep it short and sweet. Think about St. Jude's weekly news feed your patient's story makes me feel great to be a donor Rosie's Place. She lost everything but we never lost hope because of you. Norma got the support she needed to reclaim her dignity and rebuild her life, watch her story hear your impact in Molly's life. Think about saying you like because of you, this is what you did.

Same with on social media, you know, social media, you can use it for amplifying everything else that you're doing. So the social media platforms that you use, I can't tell you which ones to use. It's based on your target audience, your donors, also your capacity and your bandwidth, and also what you're interested in, right? It's very unpredictable, you have very little control, as we know, for the past few months, a little bit of a framework before jumping in, ask if your donors are there, ask what kind of value you can add and ask what kind of content you're going to be creating. So the best kinds of social media posts, they actually are I love this one, please don't shell sandwiches, actually Liverpool library. I'm not on Twitter anymore, but they are on Instagram. And they're just always sharing things that are unexpected, entertaining, interesting. Educational, inspirational, provocative, these are all key elements of any kind of communication that you should be sending out.

So the way that I always frame it is you know, 80% of your communications should be interacting, educating, inspiring, entertaining, and connecting 20% can be promoting. Now just because it's promoting, it doesn't give you an excuse to just be boring. Okay, you still have to be interesting. The Marfan Foundation of I, they're one of my clients, I absolutely adore what they do on social media. They share real stories from real people that have this chronic illness. They're trying to put a face on this illness because it's very rare and a lot of people know about it.

Amira, seven days of gratitude, you know, Curator battles, creepiest objects. If you saw what the museum's did in COVID, I adored it. And it's it's very collaborative. So don't think you have to be operating in a vacuum. How can you be collaborating with like minded organizations or maybe organizations just in your, in your vicinity, right? Think about the kind of content that's really going to get a lot of engagement and eyeballs and make people laugh.

And you know, a lot of us we deal with very, very hard and difficult and complicated topics every single day. You also can ask people to just message you even ask people for interaction, even ask people to talk to you. These are all ways that you can be using these channels to build out these relationships. And this is such a great example of some kind of piece of communications valuable eight tips for a perfect hike. With kids. This is valuable educational, this is something that I would share on my channels, and then storytelling, reminding the donor, why they give what it's all about shedding light on who works there, and what is so specific and so special about your organization.

So there's ways to repurpose and remix your content.

And what I encourage all of you to do is to create a list of content topics, that you know you're

that really resonate with your particular donors, like, you know, like, I know Amira, they're like, oh, they love milestone Mondays. They always have a letter from their executive director, they love updates on, you know, just real success stories, inspiring stories, they like statistics. So they already have their content topic calendar. So create the list of content topics. And this is where it's really fun, you know, brainstorm, think about everything that has to go out. Think about the content topics that are really going to help your donors know like, and trust you even more. And then list out all the possible stories that can be told, and how much can be scheduled ahead of time. So this does take some time, and some planning and some structure. But it's the fun part is the brainstorming the content topics, then list some types, like what are some communication types. You can create an infographic, you could pre write an article, maybe write an article for your local magazine, an op ed, you could take photos, you could do videos. So it's dependent on your capacity and your bandwidth. And this is when you're going to put it together in a content calendar. And I will actually send this template out. It's just a real quick Google Spreadsheet, content calendar, nothing fancy. And this is where you're going to kind of put it all together and see, okay, we've got an email going out this week. What kind of story can we put in? Okay, we've got Instagram this week, what can we put in, and you've got to leave some whitespace in there. But this is going to give you a good sort of framework and a handle on what's happening each month each week, you know, and you can kind of see a little bit into the future. All right, I want to make sure I get to questions.

And I'm just gonna orange juice.

I also want to say you know, have fun.

This is it's supposed to be fun, right? It's supposed to be enjoyable, communicating with our donors, communicating with our communities, building these movements.

I'm gonna go really quickly through the tools of the trade. Like I said, you will get the slides Canva Of course, we love Canva. A lot of us use Canva for graphic design. Animoto is one of my favorite tools for video creation. Just really quick and short video creation. Word Swag is another one, you are going to get the slides you'll get these links. This is Word Swag is one of my favorite apps. And then for scheduling a lot of these communications, I don't really believe in scheduling too much out ahead of time, I think that you can create a lot of it, but I don't want you to just schedule it and set it and forget it. I want you to be able to respond and answer questions and and go in and check your DMS and check the comments and see if people have questions and concerns or even if they just have accolades for you. But these are some of my favorite tools. I personally really like buffer. And they all have nonprofit. They all have nonprofit discounts.

So my last point is that trends, tools and platforms come and go. This was a cassette player Walkman that was sold at Party City this year. My it was a part of the 90s wall. Okay, there was a 90s costume wall, which I wanted to buy everything in the 90s costume wall. And my son came up to me with this, he was like, I want it. I don't know what it is. And I was like, oh my god, I think I actually have a real Walkman. So the trends, platforms, they come and go, Okay, how we listen to music, we still have music, we still play music, it just it changes the tools and the platforms come and go. But what doesn't come and go is meeting your donors where they are right making every interaction, frictionless clear. Thinking about your donors. First, when doing any kind of communications plan. This is the only way to future proof your communication strategy. If you are just dead set on I'm going to use a Walkman for the rest of my life. Great. I mean, I have cassette tapes that I would love to share with you and I have no way to play them. But you're not really going to go very far.

Stephen screen says the habit of regularly contacting your donors always works better than going dark for weeks at a time or months at a time. Donors in motion tend to stay in motion. Donors at rest tend to stay at rest I love love, love that, quote. Donors in motion tend to stay in motion donors at rest tend to stay at rest. You can do this all of you have

I have the passion, the capacity, the knowledge, you can do this. And I'm here for you. The on one is here for you. And I would love to take your questions. So this is where you can reach me if you have questions that go beyond the webinar. And I know I went a little bit beyond time, but I would love to answer some questions. And there are some really great questions. Good. I didn't check it. I know, I saw the chat was blowing up and everything. I was like, I try not to check it because I get distracted when I'm presenting.

50:33  
I know it's hard, but there are some really great questions. So first, I want to ask a question from Lisa. They said they were primarily with youth. And they're looking for some insight into how you can balance storytelling without it feeling exploitative. And they noted that they also work with their an LGBTQ org, and not all of their participants are necessarily out. So how can you tell stories without exploiting or compromising the people whose stories you're telling.

51:05  
Storytelling has to be permission based 100%, it also has to be sort of a, I don't like Win win, I don't really know how it has to be a mutually beneficial situation for the organization and the person like the if the person that is telling the story feels exploited in any way, then it's it's not, it can't be told like it needs to be completely faxed. The key with great storytelling is trust. And if you look at a lot of the organizations that I referenced, and also I worked in domestic violence for years, I've worked at raping rape crisis and in sexual exploitation and trafficking organizations. If you look at the stories that they tell, it's usually from a third party. If you look at Amira, specifically, they never tell stories of that they never tell like it's not a person on camera, telling their story. It's usually a program director or it's a third party kind of story. I also recommend following the Night Ministry, they're an organization in Chicago, and they serve

LGBT youth that are homeless, or they serve really any any kind of youth that are homeless, but primarily a lot of marginalized youth. And the stories that they tell are usually like third party or they don't use the the names and identifying details.

But there's a lot of fantastic work in academia out there on you know how to do ethical storytelling. So I would look at the Goodman center, God ma n to the Goodman center, specifically for some resources on how to tell stories that involve like very marginalized communities or youth. But I think the key here is that it doesn't have to be like me saying, Hi, I'm Julia, I'm 17. You know, I'm homeless, like it doesn't have to be that it can, there's ways to tell stories that are still very engaging through without identifying details, like creating sort of an avatar of, of the people that you serve, but also talking to program officers talking to people that are working with this problem in this issue every single day, that are experiencing it, and talking to them about their experience talking to volunteers, talking to you know, people in the community. So it doesn't always have to be a first person story. But I think it's an incredibly important question. Because, you know, we don't want to, we don't want to resort to, you know, exploiting the communities that we serve in any way. But there's, there's definitely ways to do it to provide agency to the person whose story is being told without, like, outing them, like that's something that you would never want to do, but without providing those kinds of identifying details. Definitely, that makes a ton of sense. And that is a difficult topic, especially when you're looking for ways to tell compelling stories. But I think those are some really good starting points. And I hope you guys have kind of gotten some inspiration. There are a ton of questions pouring in if we don't get to all of them. I there is an opportunity to opt into receiving emails from Julia at the end. So if we don't get to your to your question, contact Julia here, or keep an eye out for those those emails. We've gotten a couple of questions related to how to do all of this with a small, small shop. So Katie asked question on content planning and bandwidth. How do you

prioritize what content to create if you're short on time and bandwidth. And then Heather chimed in, and she said, you know, she's an army of one, what are some things that she should focus on first? So how do we, how do we do all of this, when we're a small shop, we're operating alone? Well, you need to pick and choose what's going to work best for your particular audience. So if you look at the example of Rhodes Scholar, they still focus on Facebook and email. And that's it, because they know that their target audience is older. And they've just done studies and surveys and found that the majority of their audience, that's where they are, they're on Facebook, I think they're actually going to branch out to Instagram this year, Facebook and email. So being laser focused on where you can get the most kind of bang for your buck, like, Where will you make the most impact, because we can't, you know, if you if you are working with, say you're working with teens, but you're spending the most time on Facebook, there's not alignment there. So look for the kind of the platforms that align with your goals and align with your audience. And don't get, you know, do not get wrapped up in sort of the shiny new object syndrome. Focus on what you're doing, like do an audit and figure out, Okay, we're on five social media platforms, but really only one is working. So why don't we kind of double down on this one, and then maybe, also, you know, put some more effort into email. So you don't have to be everywhere, I don't think you should be everywhere. I also think less is more like quality over quantity every single day. And if you know all you can do as an email newsletter, and that's working for you, then that's great. But we really do have to be, we have to be very strategic and where we put our time because I understand that you know, and also, maybe social media is not the place where you want to go. Maybe if you're a staff of one, you want to be calling donors on the phone every day you want to be going and having corporate meetings. You want to be writing grants like that, who knows? Like I can't tell you specifically what's going to work. But definitely look at where you're kind of your where your time wasters, where are your bottlenecks, what's holding you up and evaluate all of the time you're spending and look at maybe one or two places where you know, you can communicate with the majority of your donors, what resonates with them, and then evaluate, you know, maybe table the rest until you have more capacity.

57:42  
That makes sense. And it sounds like I mean, everything you've said hinges on understanding your audience and where they're spending their time. And that actually brings up a really interesting question that someone asked they their main audience, are people with rare people, their patients and then their patients families, but those aren't necessarily their donors. So the patient's friends and families are the donors, not the patients themselves. So when you have two distinct audiences like this patients and donors or something like that, how do you keep that in mind when you need to communicate with with both very disparate audiences?

58:23  
So I work with the Marfan Foundation, and I work with the Gervais Syndrome Foundation, both are really rare, disease, chronic illnesses, and they have the exact same challenge. So their communications strategy is separate. So the families, they provide services and resources, I'm just to give you the Marfan Foundation, services and resources and ways to advocate for the families and people that are that are living with this chronic illness. And that's a completely different subset, then their main marketing audience, which is what I call it, so your main marketing audience, yeah, sure, some of those people are in that, but it's mostly people that don't necessarily know about the illness. They might be interested in learning more they might want to advocate, those are your donors. So they are different audiences. And you you might have been, there might be some overlap. But I do think recognizing that they want different things and they need different things. So maybe creating a newsletter for everyone but then having like one separate communication that goes out to this other audience is worthwhile. But I think that's any nonprofit we have the people or animals or land or program you know, we have we have the the problem we're solving the people that we serve the the assistance that we're providing.

And then we also have

Have the general public that needs to understand more about what we do. So I think there, I would look for the threads that tie them all together. But then I would definitely treat them like I would give them separate information if, if possible to segment out the two audiences to depending on what your goals are for the year, are you trying to grow your program? Are you trying to grow sustainability? Are you trying to grow your revenue? Growing corporate sponsorships? Or, you know, it really depends on what your goal is, and and what your you know, who can really help you achieve that goal? Interesting.

1:00:38  
So it sounds like at the advice around understanding your audience's understanding where they spend their time separating and segmenting these audiences, so you can speak to them directly. It sounds like this ties heavily into the tech pyramid that you showed at the beginning of your your session. And someone actually asked what CRM and fundraising softwares do you recommend to track your different demographics or different audiences all of their information and interactions? How what would you recommend there?

1:01:09  
Well, the the tech stack, I think, what, what I want to drive home about that is that you need the infrastructure first, before you can even develop a communications plan. Because if you just start spraying out communications, or getting on social media, or sending out emails, I don't know how you would even get the emails to send out to, but it's not going to be as effective until you first of all, it's got to be permission based. But secondly, until you know, a little bit about this audience. So you know, I definitely think me on one, obviously, like, all of you are my favorite is a great altar is a great option. But it really just depends. So I think that it depends on what you're trying to achieve how you want to grow, are you using it for programs are you using it for events are you are you just simply want an email list, then maybe MailChimp, because MailChimp is free up to a certain number of emails. So I would start where you are, as long as you have something, what I don't want you to do is just have a Google spreadsheet, I don't want you to be emailing people in Gmail, or Outlook or Hotmail, or whatever you have, I want you to have like a systematized permission based database or email software, where you can start collecting information on the people that have raised their hand, even if they're not donors, you know, and said, they want to hear more from you. So that you can continually build on that and do it in a way that's lawful and also ethical.

So I just I really encourage people to, to start to start small. But to start with the end in mind, like where are you trying to grow to? And what kind of things are you going to be using in the long run?

1:03:01  
Definitely, in that same tech pyramid diagram that you had you included a piece for specific mission based software. Yeah. And my asked if you could give a little more insight into what specifically that might include.

1:03:18  
So ideal were identified it as like, if you have advocacy programs, if you have, say you need to track volunteers, in some way, maybe you have like when I worked at the domestic violence shelter, we had a hotline,

calendar and tracker of who was trained when they were, you know, on the hotline, so that was more mission based and not outward facing was more internal. So mission based is more, what are you using internally, that can help your programs run more efficiently?

1:03:53  
Okay, great. That makes a ton of sense. Knowing that that's internally facing is very helpful. Okay, well, I wish we could get through all of the questions and comments that you all have dropped in. It has been so much fun getting to hear from everybody. Julia, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. I have so many notes scribbled down, and I'm gonna have to go through the slides and revisit some things. So everyone do keep an an eye on your email tomorrow. We're gonna send out a follow up that includes a link to this recorded session. It'll include Julia'''s slides, it'll include a transcript of everything. And there are also some additional resources in that email that you can use as you work through planning your own donor communications. You guys have been phenomenal. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. Julie, I appreciate you so much, and I will talk to all of you soon. All right. Thanks, everyone. Bye, everyone. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai