Hey everybody. It's good to see you all starting to trickle in.
We are so excited that you're here.
We are excited to take questions.
When I give you a minute, go ahead and get settled. Y'all,
do you wanna like
we'll how to do this?
We'll introduce ourselves to you and you introduce
yourselves to us, let us know where you're tuning in from.
My name is Abby Jarvis.
I am part of the team over at Neon One. I am in Lakeland, Florida,
so it is quite warm outside despite me wearing a Krampus sweatshirt.
How about the rest of you?
Where are you where are you guys tuning in from?
I guess I'll go,
because I'm wearing the stupidest outfit today. So,
my name's Tim Sarrantonio, and I am calling in from
upstate New York today, and it is amazingly not snowing here yet.
How about you, Sam?
You're on mute.
Thank you, Abby. My dog was was barking at someone. Hi, everybody.
My name is Sam Nyland.
I'm the product marketing manager here at neon.
Super excited to have everyone join today.
I'm located in Colorado.
It had a light dusting a snow last night, but it is no sunny
in about fifty degrees. So
And do we need to adjust the chat settings? Yes.
I was just going to say it looks like we need to
do Everyone.
Yep.
Whichever neon one webinar's host.. I think that's you, Abby.
Oh, great. I don't know how to do that.
Just go to the bottom chat. Okay.
Hey. There they are.
Okay. Awesome. Yay. Thank you. Any any anything.
Great. Oh, there we go. Either way, it works. Oh, look.
And and and Awesome. I see some familiar faces. I see some
faces, some some folks who submitted a question to us.
Which is great. And so,. Abby, how's this gonna work today,
actually? Cause we got, you know,
about an hour And this is a fun format inspired by the
butterball turkey hotline. And yes,
we've seen the West. Wing clips folks.
So we're gonna get that that notation out of the way. Abby,
what's going on today?
So our goal today really is just to be available to you all.
As you ask questions about year end fundraising in particular.
We can talk about other kinds of fundraising,
but I know that's very top of mind.
As we answer questions,
we've gotten several questions from folks kind of ahead of the webinar,
and we're gonna try to focus on topics that are really widely
applicable. So we'll get into some things.
And we got a couple specific questions about the Neon One
platform, but not everyone here is a Neon One user.
So we wanna touch on some topics that are helpful for
everybody regardless of what systems they're using.
So one of the questions I actually wanted to see Tim and
Sam, if you would be excited to talk about it with us.
We got a couple of questions around best practices for
communication at the end of the year,
particularly those last three days of December where everyone
is sending fundraising heels and donors are running around
and getting ready for new year's eve parties or if you're
like me and just sitting in my house trying to recover from
the Christmas parties. So,
Tim, Sam,
how do you feel about exploring some year end appeals and
communications? I think, yeah, what would be helpful, folks,
because we wanna have a lovely set of things to dive into
beyond that question too.
So you can kind of do two things. We'll embrace the chaos
a bit here. There is a Q and A section. If you want
to make sure that your question stands out from the lovely
chat that's happening where people are talking about where
they live, you know, the hat that I'm wearing, stuff like that.
Use the Q and A,
and that'll make sure that all of us can see it at the top,
and we're going to try to get that. You can use the chat too.
We'll pay attention to the chat and start putting in things.
Now the way that we'd love to organize this too is maybe
we'll start with things that that kind of deal with people
engagement, how people like audience segmentation,
thinking about, like, emails and how many to send like that.
And then maybe some of the giving
experiences that people have, especially some data relating
to end of the year giving.
That's what I'd love to be able to help answer.
And then Sam is our. Neon specialist,
right? And so we'll be able to dive into technical
specific questions that are a little at least broader.
We have one that was, Abby, who who also gave us a really
good question that we're going to make sure that we sit was
Sarah Koch? Yes. Sarah Koch.
And Sarah, I believe you are here.
From Houston, Texas. Hello.. So we got your question.
We're gonna be answering that. And we also have some, you know,
maybe some prizes in giveaways that we'll do for folks who are doing this.
So we're already getting. Elaine's question in. So, Abby,
now that we've kind of table set, our end of the year,
you know, buffet of questions that we're going to dive into.
Can you kind of re,
rephrase that again for us so we can kind of make sure that
we get into the question itself?
The question itself was kind of around how many emails people
are planning on sending the last couple days of the year.
And then any tips for making those emails,
probably because they're gonna be appeals,
how to make them effective,
especially because we know so many donors are gonna be busy
those last three days of the year. Who has already
scheduled?
Any emails?
That's a good question.. For the end of the year.
Who's already scheduled something. And if so,
how many have you scheduled?. And if you haven't yet,
how many do you plan on doing? Me, four Zander,
killing the game. This is on my to do list today.
Colleen, that's the most relatable thing I've heard today. Sarah,
I hope you're not scheduling four thousand six hundred emails.
I think that's a bit much, but, if it's to that many people,
that's, that's perfectly fine. Three
for two done already.
Oh, and we're getting some great,
some great questions coming in. So,
so we'll kinda facilitate that. We'll have two,
we'll have about two every week through the end of the year in
different variations.
Abby, you know,
seeing some of this information,
I'd actually love to kick it back to you for a moment.
What did we find in our research, actually?
Yeah. So if you're not familiar, earlier this year,
we published some research based on all of the different
email campaigns that out last year.
And that was all of twenty twenty two,
but we did do a close look at emails that went out during the
last three days of the year.
And we found that the average nonprofit regardless of their
size sent about two
appeals. We're making an educated guess that they're
appeals. About two email campaigns,
in the last three days of the year. So,
I'm kind of curious how many are you all planning to send,
like, the that period, the last three days.
The last three days. Because,
because this connects to something that Daniel said in
the Q and A, and I'm gonna read this out loud.
We did very little for giving Tuesday this year because I
feel the idea is a victim of its own success.
I I do have some data that. I can talk about for that.
That is everyone is soliciting donations on the same day,
and it's really difficult to stand out.
They have the same challenge.
It seems is present at the end of the year,
which I point out as well.
How might a group stand out and get noticed?
So I'm gonna kinda connect both of those.
And we have people who are coming in and and and saying,
you know, there's zero, there's one. So on giving Tuesday,
which is is not the biggest giving day of the year.
Actually, if we go pound for pound,
it tends to be the thirtieth thirty first depending on even
the type of nonprofit.
Because different missions, like for instance,
religious organizations in our data set,
we actually don't see a big spike or engagement on giving Tuesday.
It really goes up on the thirty first as well as during
something like Christmas.
Christmas appeal. So, one,. To answer Daniel's question,
we actually found that when you are segmenting properly to your
audience, which is. Carolyn's question,
It doesn't matter if you're sending even two or three to
people if the information is intriguing and valuable to them.
That's the biggest insight
in that you need to segment in a way that it's not just you're
pulling the list which Sam can talk about in terms of how to
do that in a CRM.
But you do it when it comes to the copy and the appeals that you're writing,
even the tone and the emotional sentiment that you have,
because of the things that we're learning is donors are
very emotional people, rightfully so. And so leading
into those emotions and not making it transactional,
don't care if it's giving. Tuesday or end of the year.
If any of you have prescheduled something that says,
it's December thirty first. Please give I need you to rethink
that subject line.
So let's kinda address two other things here. Abby, what are
emotionally resonant
words, phrases, things that we found in our research drives
donor engagement.. And then, Sam,
I'll kick it over to you to talk about segmentation. Sure.
Let me I'm gonna try to multitask,
and then I'm gonna talk and pull something same time. However,
one thing we know really resonates with a lot of people
is not necessarily a word or phrase,
although I'm absolutely gonna share a couple of those with you.
The big thing that we found is that words or phrases matter
less than the way a subject line makes people feel when they read it.
So across all of the organizations that we looked
at, across all of the thousands of email campaigns that we
evaluated, across missions, verticals, nonprofit size,
every factor. The emails that performed best
had subject lines that made people feel good. And it
evoked positive sentiments.
So if you're looking for a way to stand out in a crowded
inbox or
leave aside crowded inboxes because not all of your donors
may be getting a bazillion solicitations,
standing out to a really busy person.
Stand out to them by by making your subject line eye catching
and making using your subject line to get people excited or
make them feel good.
So a lot of the positive sentiments that performed
really well in the emails we evaluated this year had
sentiments like excitement or joy or gratitude or optimism,
things that make people feel good. So asking someone to
give before midnight isn't necessarily going to help you
stand out. What will help you stand out is using your
subject line not to drive home a a deadline or a goal but
to evoke feelings in the people who you're talking to.
I can't talk and type at the same time.
Thought I could do that. I can't. So I'm going to pull up,
the the research we have around the actual words and phrases
that that evoked a lot of engagement. I will say that,
my kind of favorite finding that we had, in our subject
line analysis was that direct, like, action verbs asking
people to donate was really effective.
So using the word support in a subject line had a positive impact,
a three hundred and seven percent positive impact on the
performance of that email.
Donate is another word that showed up in our list of
words that had a really positive impact on on an
email's performance. So
cut to the chase,
in your email subject line, if you wanna stand out,
wanna get eyes on your message, use those action verbs support,
donate whatever you wanna go with, and it,
positive emotional sentiments. So that will help you stand
out. And then Tim to kind of build on that.
The positive emotions and sentiments should carry
through. I think the rest of your appeal.
Ask people to give certainly, but it lead with gratitude.
Share a story based appeal instead of just asking for
someone to donate because it's the end of the year and they're supposed to.
And it ultimately comes down to what is the story that you're telling people?
Because if it's a story that prioritizes your organization
and the money that you want, That will turn off donors.
That'll turn off people who are considering supporting.
And it's also I know that we all have numbers that we hit.
But it's also important to realize that on January first
and beyond of twenty twenty four, those people are still there.
And they are going to expect some sort of update. And
engaging these folks,
even if you are acquiring first time donors in November and
December the fundraising effectiveness project,
which is the largest analysis of individual donor data,
has found that people who give for the first time during this
period have a much higher retention rate. And our theory
is it's directly tied to the communications that they're receiving.
And the quality and overall volume of engagement.
It's better to over communicate in some ways,
or at least your perception of over communication and then the
data will tell you they're actually unsubscribing in large
amounts. That only really happens you start to abuse your
list, most nonprofits in our dataset, and I will answer,
one of the questions about Mailchimp or not.
In our dataset when people are using our Neon emails,
they're not they're actually not sending enough email in
many different ways.
So let's actually talk about segmentation itself. Sam,
first, why is it beneficial for people to look at using the
integrated email versus relying on a third party like Mailchimp
for for things because what are the benefits on something like
segmentation and appeals when using the connected approach.
Yeah.
I think using Neon CRM's native email functionality You can
also use the audience segmentation functionality.
Right? So when thinking about year end appeals,
they're there's many different scenarios and many different audiences
that we can take a look at.. So those can be people or accounts
whose last gift right was in the early part of the year.
So not somebody maybe that just recently gave within the past
month or two months.
You can also segment and take a look if you did run a year end
appeal last year. Those who gave maybe last year and have
not yet given this year to your year end appeal.
We can also take a look at know if you're a volunteer run
organization targeting kind of those volunteers and talking about
their contribution in time in hours an impact and then
asking if they they want to make a year end financial contribution.
And I think, another one here, just to,
I think Tim you answered a little bit
about audience segmentation with different types of revenue
streams. Right? Yeah.. I like that question.
So it sounds like and if. I'm reading this correctly.
You have a revenue stream as a result of different events that
you hosted. Right?
So people that have attended those events I can assume maybe
that there's a transaction to tie to those event registrations.
So that's one revenue stream and then of course taking a
look at our donors.
So being able to report on people that have more than one transaction,
inside of Neon that is something that we can pull
through our communications and mailing reports through an all
accounts report because all accounts reports are going to
be able pull in meant all transaction types that that
Neon has. Right? So events
donations, we can even tie in you know,
if you're a membership focused organization folks that maybe
became a member this year.
And then of course your your online store purchases as well. And and, Sam,
you're gonna do some show and tell a little bit later.
This would be a good one to maybe talk about basic
segmentation. And here's something that that,
Abby know you were even asking me about this yesterday.
Yeah. Somebody okay. So here's a scenario. You send out,
and maybe you send out and you decide through of the best
practices we found, I'm gonna send something on like, you
know, the twenty ninth and then maybe the thirty first.
And you send out an email on the twenty ninth, and it hasn't asked.
And then that thirty first email, do you want the people
who donated on the twenty ninth, and they gave the money
to also get
that email that asks again.. Is that a good thing? Let I
don't answer you two.
Is it a good thing that if somebody got asked on the twenty ninth?
That they also get asked again on the thirty first.
Is that a good generosity experience trust building
exercise for your organization?
No.
No.
That's correct.
So, Sam,
How can you automate exclusions
like this?
Cause that's something that. I think some people sometimes
miss is that lists can auto and this is another benefit for
using the in house
email because it can auto update lists. Versus hoping
that the integration connection.
And this happens with a lot of other systems too.
Many other systems they might say, look, we don't do. Email,
please use something like constant contact.
And we have these if you like this stuff.
It's just another step.
You have to think about. So you can achieve this with Neon or
whatever, and something like Bloomerang or you know,
Bloomerang and Mailchimp and stuff like that too. But
Sam, how can you get ahead of it?
How can you automate the fact that, like,
the twenty ninth is not on the thirty first, those people.
Yeah. So we and and I was sorry. I was typing an answer
here. So I'm I'm coming in on the last part of this question.
So I think what we're talking about is setting up a an email
audience, right, that has certain
identifiers we can call them of making sure that somebody fits
within that list. So you can set up parameters that say
if a person makes a donation by a certain date or something
like that, or fills out, you know, that an email sign up,
it's similar to like a distribution list.
It's going to pull them into a
Uh-uh. Uh-oh.
Oh, no. Oh, you're back.. You're back. You're back.
You were just you it it. I think your internet was so excited
about you talked to the exclusions that it froze up.
So Sorry, everyone. My internet has been a little bit,
hasty this holiday season this far.
But
yeah, I I got I don't know where I trailed off at.
But said it being able to set up
an exact distribution list with with
quantifiers of making sure that a person fits within the list.
Is already going
to provide you with that segmentation.
So you don't have to actually go into Neon and pull your
certain reports on those people.
They're already included and in your email audience. And what's
cool to get to. Paul Let's point?
Because this is a time of the year. I before earlier today, I
actually sent out all my. Christmas cards, right? I put
all of those in the mail.
And people are doing things like direct mail like Paulette
question. How many are doing direct? So, actually,
let's ask Paulette's question,
because I'm gonna tie it to something that Sam's talking
about. That's really cool.
When it comes to a connected strategy, Paulette said,
how many are doing direct mail versus emails?
So first, are you doing direct mail? Or emails.
And then also, are you doing direct mail and emails? Mhmm.
Both. Both. Yes. Jocelyn. Both.
Jocelyn, JCC, Justin, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to make it to the
broken in event tomorrow night, by the way. Okay.
Jocelyn's with the local JCCs connected They're having a
great event. I got the emails.
It's a Neon donation form.
Just emails this year. Email only to gifts under a thousand,
both to larger gifts.
Naomi. Interesting.. Abba, you see that.
What what where's your head go?
I understand the practicality of it.
I also know how I behave as a donor.
So that said,
that is probably a great tactic if it's something that you know
has worked for you in the past.
I will say this. I'm always a fan of Direct mail,
and I personally as a millennial donor respond very
well to direct mail appeals because
I get I think the last time I counted,
I think it's something like three hundred emails every day.
And I'm probably gonna miss your your email appeal. I only
get, like, two to five pieces of direct mail a day.
I'll see it and respond to it a lot more.
Here's my stack from December.
So far.
That said,
I think every fundraiser has to balance the fact that direct
mail appeals tend to have one of the best returns on investment.
Of all different fundraising channels.
I also know direct mail takes a great deal of time and
attention and resources to execute.
So I don't think there's any one right answer. I think if
you can do both, that's a phenomenal tactic.
You're reaching your donors on multiple channels.
You are getting their attention.
You see people like me who. I love getting email. Nope.
I love getting direct mail.. I may miss your email.
If I get your direct mail piece though,
I am probably gonna go online to donate to you.
But I also know that you have to be select sometimes
about the tactics that you use and email is
by far a more cost effective way to reach donors you may
just wanna spend a little extra time on that subject line that
preview text and putting together an appeal that grabs
people's attention in their very crowded inboxes. So let's
do I wanna show you something very cool folks on a
sophisticated approach to direct mail that also syncs up
with your giving.. And I've proactively
gotten rid of my address.
So you all get if you if you wanna start to solicit me,
you could probably there is a question about address updates
I am going to answer that too. With Sam, we can answer that.
Actually, you can answer that from the CRM side.
So this is respiratory health.
So association, we've actually spotlighted,
did a great video of them.. If you scan that QR code,
I don't know if my my camera is gonna allow that there.
But if you scan that, that goes to a campaign
aligned
donation page to their CRM.
I was just gonna ask him how many folks
are using a QR code in your year end appeal or your
direct mail pieces like this that will take the user
to the online donation form.. And it says save a stamp.
Yes. But not for the envelope.. Isn't the envelope? Yeah.
Smart. This is what it says.
Save a stamp and scan here to give.
Save a stamp and save here to give.
My millennial part loves that because. I don't think I own any
stamps especially if you're like an environmental or
conservation organization, save the trees.
Can we do this from Neon, Sam?
A one hundred percent? Yes. You can. So we'll show that too.
Oh my god. Yes. So so, yeah. I mean, we're not designing the
full envelope folks in CRM.
Please don't do that. And then, but, like, the the queue QR
code attribution, the campaign, easy.
And let's think about the language that RHA is using
here. Your gift
their future.
Your gift, their future.
Okay. Interesting.
And then it says help RHA develop patient and care giver
resources for people living with lung disease.
I know exactly what this is going toward.
I know exactly what this is going through. Abby,
when you hear that language, what do what do you feel?
What do you think? From your your expert analysis?
Say it again, please. Your gift, their future, help RHA
develop patient care giver resources.
I really stick on the your gift their future bit because
one drumbeat that I will never stop playing is that
fundraising is most successful when you connect your donor to
the people that will be impacted by their generosity
and that is a phenomenal way to do that.
I also really enjoy the fact that the nonprofit isn't
removed entirely from that situation.
You're still being off to help the nonprofit,
which is a really good way to build affinity between the
donor and the nonprofit,
but the emphasis is not on the nonprofit.
The emphasis is on the impact.. Hold it up again, please.
Everybody wants me to hold up the really good example from
RHA. I'm still just getting rid of my address here.
I'll see this,
and it's not something that we've touched on yet with
direct mail appeals. I love that it's on the envelope. I don't know.
I haven't process how I feel about the QR code on the envelope.
I think it's really cool,
but I'm trying to think about how I would I mean,
I'm I would open and read appeal before I actually made a
gift, but that's beside the point. Anyway,
I really like that it's on the Here's an interesting one.
It says inside Zander's story. Oh my gosh.
Yes. I'll read it for sure.. And see, this is the thing folks.
The experience that I'm expecting when I hit that
donation button and. I get the email.
The because I've received these.
You have to think about timing.
And when you're planning your end of the year campaigns,
even if we have only a few weeks,
think about the experience that somebody has if they're
interacting with every single one of these pieces of information.
And I can tell you and this is why I love that this
information is on the envelope. I can tell you exactly what my
reaction would be.
I walk out through my front door to my mailbox
And between my mailbox and my front door on the return trip,
I've already decided what email or what mail I'm gonna open.
If you are just sending me a plain white envelope,
I'm probably not gonna look at it because I assume it's junk
mail. But if you put that. Zander's story, a nice, like,
tagline, your gift, their future,
you will grab my attention in the three point five seconds.
It takes me to get from my mailbox to my front door,
and I will absolutely open your email in your mail.
So, and I want to,
because one of the things that. I know we're going to have and
we kind of expect it in this is people want someone on one
help, some consultation help, some services,
some other more specific product thing.
Sam's here as a resource, but we have like people who are
dedicated to doing these types of training. So Sam,
Let's maybe touch on what are the services that people can
utilize for not only help,
but maybe even fold in that that data services question too.
We also have some solicitor questions that are super interesting.
So I want to make sure we save time to at least dive into a
few of those. But talk about services in,
in both data and consultation that people can leverage. Yeah.
So I think just piggybacking off of direct mail,
I think to answer
I think it was. Tracy's question.
Can you talk about best practices for validating
addresses? Yeah. So Number one,
what we can do in CRM just because there's a shortened time period.
If you haven't already,
I would recommend setting up your duplicate scans to be able
to make sure that we can merge certain types of addresses.
Just double check that for before you're sending out your mailings.
Another service that Neon offers is a data enhancement
service the n c o a update which is national change of address update.
So this is the service our team provides.
This is a one time service that you can purchase,
where it is updating, of course,
all of your constituents constituents
physical addresses using the n c o a data. Right? So,
the process involves both standardizing any of those
physical addresses well as updating them in case
constituents have relocated.
So I don't know Tim and. Abby like in terms of best practices,
maybe just dependent on how many new constituents you get a
year. How often
in terms of of average do you recommend maybe NCOA?
Well, it depends.
So somebody even said is is a feature built into Neon.
So we have We have services that are, that are built in as,
an optional package.
We also have an integration with a platform called True Givers.
For an automated run every single night.
Sometimes people don't want to do that.
They don't need it enough.
When I was doing direct mail and I had a mailing list,
of about twenty five thousand records,
but I was still stuffing those envelopes at my desk.
I did it four times a year, based on the main appeals.
It was like a quarterly update. The USPS,
the historical data on file at least shows that Americans,
eleven percent of Americans move on an annual basis.
So there is likelihood.
Now who knows what that's like post COVID, you know, all the,
all the New Yorkers who fled there and went to Florida and
Texas. Sorry, Abby. But,
but I think that at least once a year is a good thing.
And so, how do you handle old return to mailer addresses,
adding a note record? Oh, that's an interesting one, Sam.
Because there's there is there is historical precedence for
even data being updated that you can reference it.
There's a few ways that you can kind of handle old addresses
when you're doing updates.. I would put a note.
I would update it and put a note
Mhmm. An account note.
Yeah. Because you can have multiple addresses
within an account. Right? You can also input a time period of
those Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. The seasonal address things for the
snowbirds too.
Yeah. And just just to reiterate,
we do estimate have a direct integration with True Givers.
So if you're looking to have kind of that nightly kind of
ongoing national change of address like to your systems. Great.
That's a great option.. The service that we offer,
it's a one time. It's one hundred and fifty dollars.
I think it's a great deal for you know, hey,
we're gonna do this every year before our big direct mail appeals.
Wonderful.
And and for folks who might need some one on one help,
we can also have our team reach out.
So we'll make notes of that,
and have the team reach out. So, Carolyn, for instance,
we have that. But also,
we can have,
we also have our services page and go to Academy dot Neon One
dot com because there's also live trainings.
Not just on demand learning management courses that are available,
as well. So you could kind of, yes,
you'll be with other people,
but you're all talking about similar stuff. So Yeah.
Just popped that into the chat. Awesome.
I was gonna ask.
Can we take a look at this question that Paulette added in
here because I think it's really important and I think
it's a really common question.
Paul had to ask, you know,
if we don't have emails scheduled right now,
what are the top things we can do easily or effectively to get
this done, especially if you're a team of one?
And I have opinions and feedback.
But I know everyone does. So everyone,
let's put our heads together and come up with a plan that
will help Paul out and Paula sure you,
you are not the only one on the call that is navigating this.
So I think this is a really important question.
Sam, when we get into the Don't tell.
It would be great to go over and show the new donor welcome
series one click workflow.
Which will also what this weekend have tone Yeah.
Alternatives rolled out that we wrote
So that you, that lean into that tone and that sentiment
and, you know,
items that it's optimism or excitement or things like that.
Those are going to be a drop down,
and it's going to change those to automatically go through
each of the automated emails. So. I would say maybe in Sam,
how about we go over to product in about ten minutes? Perfect.
Yeah.
And I will I will take on the perspective of Paula because I
have a kind of a good run through for, hey,
if you're signing up last minute and you're putting stuff together,
we'll kind of take it from that angle. Before we do that, I
wanna also address maybe not Jennifer's explicit question,
but Jennifer is he she I. Jennifer, I saw the pop up from
the Slack group because folks And we'll put this in.
Maybe we could drop this.
I don't have the chat ability, to drop it,
but the connected fundraisers community is a slack group of
folks just like you. And we're gonna also maybe drop some
extra resources in that community.
We're gonna expand those conversations not just going to
be slack if that's not your thing,
but it is a thing where people like you were talking with each
other. Jennifer, we saw your question.
If we don't get to it today,
I will make sure to get to it in the community.
So I just wanted to, to say, we'll answer that,
live no matter what What else do we want to cover before the
we get into more than the on specific stuff?
Cause I see solicitors,
a few times, emails.
What what else Abby do you wanna make sure we touch on
before we kinda kick in this? Well,
I wanna touch on some advice for Paula and others like them
who are looking to put together an effective email appeal in
the last couple of weeks. So
I'm gonna throw a shameless plug in there, Paula,
in the email that you're gonna get from us tomorrow morning
with a recording of this session,
there are a couple of resources in there and including a year
end fundraising letter templates resource.
So I write for a living the hardest part of writing
anything for myself, emails, blog articles,
whatever is starting from scratch. It's really hard.
So hopefully those templates will get you started.
Most of those templates story oriented.
They're impact oriented,
and you can use them to start putting together an email if
you need to do that.
Another resource that's in there is the nonprofit email
report that focuses specifically on year end.
So there are some tips in there that can help,
but one thing that I would encourage you.
So use a template or use something like and I know I'm
gonna say a, like, a controversial phrase.
Use something like chat GPT to get you started writing.
Hone your email appeal.
Make sure you lead with gratitude and focus on sharing
stories and connecting donors to the people that they'll
impact with their gift and then include multiple links to your
donation form.
So in the research that we did, we found that six links to one
donation form had the best impact on click through. The
idea I think behind why that is is if you're sending a really
beautiful year end appeal, your donors reading it,
you're telling them this story, their heart has been touched,
they're ready to your work.
It should be very easy for them to get to your donation form
from wherever they are as they scroll through your email.
So that's what I would do.
I would start with a template or something else so you're not
starting from scratch.. Tell a good story,
invite people to give and make it easy for them to do so.
Tim and Sam, what would you add to that? Like, what other
kind of infrastructure would you add to support that?
I think a lot of times, and this gets into,
I wanna make sure I'm referencing the right name.
Might have been Elaine.
Yeah. Where it's like, I'm overwhelmed.
I'm a team of one. What can I do? And you have to think about, again,
I wanna go back to that new donor retention number, eighteen percent
yet when it's done,
and engage this time of the year that can go up by forty
percent improvement.
Why?
Communication?
It is almost universally understood that constant
updates in communication are key. So looking at,
and we will show it the one click workflow. For new donor.
Like, turn that thing on after making the proper adjustments
to personalize it.. It's not much work.
And we can touch on that. I think is is a critical thing to
do because it's not just that you got the gift now.
You got the emails out now.
It's that you continue the conversation as if this is an
ongoing connection that we are building with these folks.
And then you start to get more sophisticated specificated and
go into it.
And we'll try to go into,
some of the address management if we have time, Sam,
So that's that's my thought,. Sam. Anything to add?
Or maybe it's show and tell time?
Yeah. No. I'm
I don't have anything that much to add. No.
Before we do that or as you get the screen maybe queued up,
Sam, I wanna address that we had, we put out in
social media, and please, what is it like and subscribe?
Is that what all the YouTubers say? So If you follow
if you follow us on social media
and our social media
just rock and rock star Chris. Straub is in the chat. And so
check us out we are gonna continue to have these stories,
these tips, but we solicited,. Hey, do you have questions?
We had a really good question from was it it was Susan?
Right?
So, yeah, it was in the the video that we got. And so
we're gonna reach out and we're gonna give,
our friendly folks who added a video to one.
We got one video in,
and we're gonna be sending you special things.
So I'll be following up directly with you on this
amazing bookbag that's going to be filled with four hundred
dollars worth of professional development book.
That is a gift from us to you.
Hey, Susan.
Yes.
Thank you. Thanks for trusting us and do doing that. Oh,
Sarah. Sarah. Sarah.. I mean, yay, Sarah.
Sarah. Oh, my. Today, it's been been my brain is mush, folks.
So if if you can't tell.
So, Sarah, yes, thank you,. Sarah. We will be following
with, with that, book bag.
I'll try to get it out before I hit the Lego Land by the end of
the year. So thank you,. Sarah, for that submission.
And Sarah's question was like,
How do I run reports on things like giving Tuesday?
So maybe even touching on when you build queries, they
actually have applicability
for things like direct mail for analysis.
So even like an all accounts report, Sam,
this is gonna cover a lot of different questions because you can save that.
And then apply it to email and apply it to things or use it
for internal analysis.
So Sam, whenever you're ready, let's go ahead.
Awesome. Let me
And look at this. Yeah.. Hold on. Look at this.
Carmen? Great. Carmen, I'm gonna give you something too.
I'm gonna send you some Neon socks
because you're helping out Greg in the chat,
and that's what we love too.
This is a community approach to things. So Carmen, thank you.
You're getting some socks as well. I'll follow-up.
Alright. So let's pull some show and tell for for the next,
you know. Everybody see my screen?
Okay. Awesome.
So I think we're we're we will first kind of start. We
touched a little bit on segmentation ideas
So we'll jump into the reports area of Neon CRM.
And what I'm gonna do is. I'm just gonna pull a very simple
reports. So if you're like, hey,
we haven't done anything for for year end. Let me get a
quick year end campaign up and running and let me target some folks.
What I'm gonna do here is head to Okay. Yes. Your your screen
is moving. So we can confirm that. Yes. Great.
So I'm gonna head into new reports.
Here we have obviously the the different sections.
I am going to create a direct mail, a a mailing report.
So I'm gonna go ahead and
sorry. Again, my internet is
And if it gets watched. In Comcast, I really
we can kick it over to me if we do have problems with that. So perfect.
And the reason that we're choosing a specific type of
report is the name of the report matters for what's on,
what gets auto populated here. That's why you know,
we have different options to help streamline this.
So a mailing report is gonna automatically remove people who
don't wanna be contacted.
Yes. And I think that's a big big thing here is Neon
CRM is already adding three criteria.
So it's excluding people who are of course, marked as deceased.
It is excluding people who are marked as do not contact and
people with at least one email opted in.
So we'll come into edit criteria here as again we can
see that already applied and I'm simply going to come into add criteria
we can go ahead and of course for this report specifically.
I am coming in with the mindset of I do not likely want to solicit
folks who have already made a donation within the last few months.
I would like to send my year end appeal to everyone who has
made a donation or has not made a donation and we'll say
with the the last three months.
So we're excluding that group of people.
So we always wanna head down to donation because I'm I'm
focusing in on donors specifically.
I am just going to type in,
first
donation date
and I want that to be blank.
Here I'm going to actually go ahead and add an additional search group.
So we can also see that all of this information in this
criteria is also applied when. I add an additional search group
Again, I can head on to the donation area,
but I'm just going to go ahead and click in donation date.
We will do that here is going to be less than or
equal to and I'm just gonna go ahead and type in
We'll do nine.. We'll do September
twenty twenty three.
So for this,
basically we're looking for people who haven't donated in
the last three months. So we're looking through people
So we have this list here. Again,
we can come into output columns.
These are already going to be generated,
but I'm pulling donations. So. I'm maybe not needing to pull
my membership amounts or store purchases amounts and things like that.
I'll go ahead and run my report.
So here we have our list.
Again, I can take out some of this information here.
But we have because this again is a mailing report. It
is going to allow me to create a mailing directly from this report.
You can also save even the mailing report and eventually
apply it to an email
audience as well now.
Before you had to rebuild the whole thing. Exactly.
There's also, don't forget the power, Sam,
can we also go over if you don't mind to the configure side?
Oh, configure report. Yep.
Because I wanna show the other powerful thing here.
This is when you understand what these do.
If you go to edit criteria,
the other possibility for something is not You can exclude
from results. You can search within results.
So think of these as search group one, search group two, either or.
These are it's either this or this.
These are two separate. Yeah.. Searching within that subset or
within that small group.
And what happens is it's it's what is that?
The Venn diagram. This is almost the Venn diagram.
It's gonna show everybody that that fits either that criteria
exclude from results means, okay,
I've already started with this thing and I don't want these
people. Like, get rid of my board members.
Don't show me people. They might fit the criteria otherwise.
So click on exclude from results and then that, geez, Carmen.
I maybe I'm gonna send you more than than socks because, like,
when creating a report,
click on exclude from results from there in the search field,
select valid primary add Chris, and it's not equal to yes. And
this is this is where this is just databases folks.
This is called. Boolean searching,
and this is why people sometimes struggle with
reporting, not just neon, just reporting because, like,
you have to think What is the computer thinking sometimes?
And so the computer is only looking at the data that it
sees. So it's like,
do I want a valid address. I'm saying yes or no,
depending on how I set this up.
Just starting excludes is awesome. You darn right,
Jocelyn, excludes
Can I call you when I need you? Oh, wow. Amazing, Carmen.
So this is cool. We we're here too. But like,
This is the community part. So, Sam, keep going.
Let's let's make sure I also want to talk to there's some
solicitor questions, donation form questions,
but what did we want to make sure to do here because this
also gets to Sarah's question on giving Tuesday results
because you can also add campaigns to this.
You can go,
I wanna see people who donated to a specific campaign,
not just a time period.
So what other things are people that they could leverage maybe
even custom fields.
Yeah. So we I mean, we can come in here and if I want,
let's just add it through here. But if I yeah.
If I'm pulling maybe some You need to type it in. Exactly.
There are many custom fields in this system. Well, yeah.
This this is this is what happens when you let your sales
team have have control over this. They make it for everybody.
But we see our custom fields here.
Maybe it's While you're doing that,
I'm gonna answer. Kenny's question.
Can there will there be duplicates?
If you're running mailing reports, no.
That's the power here is that it can auto remove rows.
So the difference between something like a mailing report
a donation detail report for instance is like a mailing
report will be like, I don't care if they gave multiple
times. Just give me that person once.
Versus a donation detail report,
you can get a little bit more nuanced in the the targeting of the money.
It's gonna show you like every single instance of somebody
doing that. But the fun part, you do an email list?
Goodbye.
Gonna it's gonna remove all those those duplicates
automatically when you send the email.
The mailing,
not so much if you're using different types of reports.
But if you're using a mailing report, it should just show that.
Oh, the households. Caitlyn, we'll get into that.
We could talk about that.
Same for email reports. Yeah.. Report type matters. Yes, Carmen.
Give Carmen some more socks.
Kailyn, the Kaelenkins of socks too.
Absolutely.
Nice. Okay.
Awesome. So I really what. I wanted to also showcase
is the email builder and if you're putting together kind of
some of your year end. Hey, thank you so much for making
these donations in the past year.. We do have an easy way
to put that into an email.
It's directly, it's native within the email builder itself.
So I've gone in and already created. Actually, let me come in.
Yes, correct.
That's right. See,. Greg, you got it.
I'll just show this to just in terms of time. So what we have,
when you're when you're building an email,
you can actually add just how you're building a content block
with your text or adding a picture or what have you.
There is
when you're adding content, you can add different columns.
You can also have the option of adding a donation summary table.
So this is an example of that donation summary table.
Rather than using something like an itemized donation table,
which is also something you can utilize and build maybe in your
your direct mail pieces at the end of the year as well.
So I have put together this very simple email. Hey, thank
you so much here. You know,
thank you for your generosity through the last year.
Just giving you some insight into how much you actually gave to us,
the total amount and then it's giving an itemized list of donations.
You can also showcase and kind of change the donation summary
table to have it have the donations allocated to a
specific campaign specific fund or specific purpose criteria.
So on and so forth with the rest of the email here, you
know, then adding in, you know, hey,
to make it toward the end of our our your goal, make a
donation now.
So this is just a kind of an email that I put together based
off of some of the email templates that our our content
team put together, which is our. New Year's Eve email, which I love.
But just saying, hey, you know,
help us reach our goal at the the stroke of midnight.
This is how you will impact
make a donation here.
On the on the solicitor stuff, by the way,
because I see those coming in.
The the thing to generally say is there's likely going to be
some limitations on copying people
if not outright not allowing that in a mass email.
That's the thing. So so this is where it exploring workflows.
It may be saying we could pop over to some of the one clicks
as an example of what we mean here. Some workflow automation.
Might help here. If you're trying to get solicitors involved
on,
updates or having them involved in the solicitation process or
stuff like that because if you're sending out mass email,
it it it's just the rules are very, very tight. On, you can't
just, like, copy a bunch of random random stuff on there.
So the the that's generally, like, that's not us.
That's, like,
hot mail outlook, Gmail yelling at us for this. But
there are things that even with this, you can start to automate
assignments, updates, activities,
all this stuff.
So let's take a look at the one that we're going to highly
suggest everybody take a look at, the new donor welcome series.
Sam walk us through this because this is a one click
workflow that somebody can turn on with just nominal minimal adjustments.
Yeah. So again, just a few didn't see me.
You're essentially gonna go in your system under workflows.
We have them list out for workflows that you can
customize and build yourself and then we're just simply
clicking into one quick workflows.
Currently, we have five.
We are excited in twenty twenty four to be rolling out a
variety of new one click workflows.
So you can simply turn it on but before that you likely want
to come into copy the workflow, make it your own.
I'm simply going to walk us through what is included in
that workflow. And we have communication update. So, Robin,
we're seeing your questions on design and things like that.
Yeah. Give us a little bit of time. We hear you.
The communications is like top of charts,
including texting and things like that too.
So, we talked a little bit about this at generosity
exchange. If you're interested in the product roadmap,
including communications, go check that out.
We actually put that up.
Have a few different ways that you can check it out.
Sam, go through this because I love this.
I also love it because I help write the copy. But
Yeah. Yeah.
We'll see Tim's name in here. One thing to point out,
so we see right here.. Okay. This is and again,
this is a a first time donor new welcome series.
Right?
We really wanna curate that experience for a first time donor.
So we'll see right in here the series is not included the
initial donation receipt.
That's something you'll set up separately in your system
emails which will automate and say, hey, thank you so much.
Hence the reason we have this trigger set up for seven days
after that initial first donation.
You can come in here to change you know that if you wanted to
go five days after whatever.
We are now
entering into the actions that are going to take place. Right? So
if and again,
we have let's see target only don't only includes donor
covered fees, equal. No.
Okay. Anyhoo. So we have the yes branch. We have our no branch.
I'm gonna click into here so we can get a good understanding of
the copy that Tim helped write.
So this is something that is here that you can just simply
input your own kind of customization.
We've already added in, you know, dear household,
dear preferred name.
Salutations here. Thank you again for your gift of.
So as we can see, this is what's going to be automated.
You can obviously put in your own context here,
add in a picture if needed,
you're likely going to want to come in here and obviously add
in your sender name. So if that's coming from you,
individually or maybe your development department if you
want to go ahead and change the subject, you can do so here.
Then we're adding distinctive time delays. So again,
these are things that you may say, hey,
we wanna shorten this length. We wanna add
the length of this. We can come in and change between,
you know, even down to minutes is crazy. And and and this is
there's some science behind this in terms of, you know, why
these types of things it's really the time to convert a
new donor is very critical that the sooner that you get that
second gift the higher the retention rate likely will become.
And especially if you want to enroll these people into
something like a recurring giving program,
that retention rate goes up significantly,
but we've also added some phone calls in here to queue up.
And this gets you into ways you can play around solicitor
assignments too.
Activities, things of that nature. So, Sam,
why don't you talk about this?
Because I also want to make sure that we touch on donation
forms because we can show both the q r the elements thing for
QR codes as well as the pop up so we can at least answer
Jennifer's question,
and we are we're we're we're we're talking about,
and getting in contact with people for support consultation.
We're we're making a list to everybody asking about that.
So no, we're going to be following up on that one.
Hard to do that when there's so many of these folks in the
call. So let's get into this.
Yeah. So this is, again, we're adding you know,
a thirty day time delay.
We don't want this to be five days after with, you know,
this is a slow building process of donor retention here with
new donors. But sending a second email
you know a little bit longer a little bit you know giving some
more information there.
You can change that of course.
And then what we're doing is automating an activity to take
place. So as we can see, it's going to be assigned to Tim,
you know, obviously you can update this to yourself.
But this is just a simple reminder.
Hey, maybe,
this is a time to reach out to that new donor and say, hey,
thank so much for that gift.
This is what we've been doing over the past you know two months.
So with any of these one click workflows,
you can easily add additional actions to take place to
trickle down. But these are just really great starting
points. If you're if you're unfamiliar and new to
workflows, it's a simple turn on,
customize it and set it for you to the world.
Why don't you pop over some very basics because templates
things like that for like giving Tuesday end of the year,
some things that we've added to the system.
You could see these in some donation forms while you queue that up.
Let me get into some of the other auxiliary questions that
I'm seeing. And, Abby, is there anything that you've seen?
Cause you're paying attention more than me that you will you
might wanna address?
For those of you who are asking for additional training and
support, I'm pulling some links for you.
And I'll drop those in the chat momentarily.
Could you go down to the action part of the workflow? So,
and then this is also like, check the academy.
I'm serious like folks, the self guided learning.
This is not a bunch of YouTube videos.
This is hands on interaction.
If you haven't used. Neon One Academy,
We've invested a significant amount of money and time and
energy into this resource because it is nuanced. It is
like personalized to you, you can also get in and go, okay,
I wanna test this out without screwing up my system.
So love that. We will be,
getting into some of those follow-up resources too.
There should be an academy course on workflows. Yep.
We have fundraising consultants on our partners page.
There's a directory.. Those are some folks.
I will be honest that. I have visions of overhauling that.
So, Marla, if you're interested in somebody specifically
that you might want to find, drop me a link, you know,
connection on LinkedIn,
and I might be able to make some recommendations to you too.
Okay. What else, Sam? Let's let's all be respectful. Yes.
This is being recorded,. Sarah. And I'm not sure.
I think people wanted to see, hey,
how can I. That form enhancements? Yeah.
So any form you've created, we can come in here.
You'll see this little sparkly star form enhancements
So we can come in here and if this is tied to your year end
fundraising campaign,
you can set up a goal meter which is going to of course
have your, you know, tenth thousand goal.
It can be set up in a, kind of circular manner.
It can be set up in a a vertical manner.
You can throw in your top supporter list of your you know
biggest donor donors in most recent donors.
That's always fun for folks for sharing capabilities.
There we go. That's that's it too.
QR codes and pop ups. We get all the questions that we super
simple. You simply click it.. Say, hey, I really like this
hand in heartbreak.
I can go ahead and download that. Boom. I have my QR code
which is popped up on my other screen here but you can simply
take this copy and paste it on all of your print materials.
And I know Jennifer,
I believe you were asking about the pop up model kind of form
button. So that is something that can be created here.
And again, you can brand it with your organization's colors,
font capabilities,
the different sizes and fun little eye ons that are
included in that as well.. And this is very good.
If you're having a dedicated, like,
landing page for something like,
let's say you're doing an end of the year,
restricted give appeal for your capital campaign.
And you wanted to tell a specific story on a webpage
that has much more flexibility than this giving form,
this button is really good because you can use that to
insert it in parts of your website that are not related to
the Neon One ecosystem. And then, and to give it full
circle, Elaine, this is also how you can get things on your website.
The very first question, merging campaigns with forms,
I can link with my website,
you could have a campaign drop down if you wanted to, or an
assignment of different campaigns.
Can we maybe even quickly show. Is that at the very top, Sam,
or the settings? I think that might be the settings.
Sorry. I was what are we? Go to the settings for a moment.
Bad?
Nope.
Nope. That's okay.
I'm frozen. You know what? Let's
wind it down. Yeah. Wait.. Alright. My Internet. Okay. Yeah.
Sorry. Internet. Say, reclaim the screen.
Let's reclaim the screen. So Abbie.
Mhmm. I know I was a whirling Dervish on this one.
Won't you
wrap it up for us? Well, so before I actually close things
out, I wanted to ask you all two really important questions,
especially as we're looking forward to twenty twenty four.
Was this helpful to you?. And is this kind of Q and A
session or something along these lines something that you
would be interested in attending in the future?
Let us know in the chat, and I will CJ, yes and
yes. Amazing. I love to hear it. Lot of yeses rolling in.
This is the kind of thing that we really want to continue to
offer, especially next year.
This is something that is accessible to everyone whether
or not you use our products and seeing you all say that this
is helpful is really wonderful. So
and thank you for your patience because we honestly had no clue
what all of you were going to ask the breadth and depth of
the questions whether it was going to and we knew that some
folks would be like we need some help.
So we we we were prepared for that, but That's the thing.
We can start to drill in to specifics like we're gonna
do events or stuff like that because if we like this format,
do it more for you. So. Absolutely. So thank you for
sharing. This has been helpful with you.
And, honestly,
thank you all for helping each other in the chat.
Seeing you all help each other,
sharing your experiences has been phenomenal.
Thank you so much for being here today.
I know that this is a really busy time of year.
You're balancing a lot of different tasks. Your to do
lists are probably getting a little out of control.
So thank you so much for and your time and sharing your
expertise and your enthusiasm with us today.
Oh, and and and same for some of the folks who are like, I,
you know, I'm getting used to the system and stuff like that.
That's where that one on one consultation,
the Neon One Academy.
Please don't ignore those resource is for the self guided
learning as well.. Sam, yeah. And, yes,
I was just looking in the chat because it looks like my,
capability, I only can,
message hosts and panelists and I think maybe you too Tim. Whoever put the
so I don't know if that resource got out to everybody. Oh, which one?
The Neon One Academy link, the office hours group training schedule,
and then if they're looking to buy individual kind of one on
one consulting services.
And we've been making a note while our team's gonna
follow-up on that. And, yes, this is recorded.
It'll be emailed out tomorrow tomorrow. I just sent it to everyone.
So, yeah, that's an important thing to know. Please use
those. Yeah. Please use these.
Tomorrow morning at around,
I think we usually send them at ten or eleven eastern time.
You're gonna get an email from me.
It'll have a link to this recording.
It'll include a link to these resources that I've just put in the chat.
It also includes some links to other resources that may be
helpful to you over the next couple of weeks.
It has year end fundraising letter templates.
It has templates for thank you emails.
It has some research around year end data.
It also has
some resources that you can use to set up a new donor welcome
email or even a series of emails.. So keep an eye on your inbox.
You're gonna get all these versus from us tomorrow morning.
And continue to join these sessions with us and talk to us
and share your questions.. This has been a ton of fun.
And next time, we're Let's bring. Carmen on. She can help too.
I wanna give her a round let's give her a round of applause
for being the real hero here.
Absolutely fantastic. Alright.
Cool. Alright, everyone. Thank you so much. I hope we talk
to you all very soon.
Thanks, everyone. Bye.. Awesome. Thank you.