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Neon One Webinars: Hey, everybody! Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to see you all logging in. Today is going to be a really great session. I am delighted that you all are here. I am here with Marcia Beckner. She is going to share some absolutely phenomenally practical advice, and I think we all love practical advice this time of year. But, of course, I have the, dubious honor of doing the boring part.

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Neon One Webinars: of the webinar, which is telling you the housekeeping thing. So, if you aren't familiar with me, my name is Abby, I run the Webinars Program here at Neon One, and if you have gone to any of our sessions, you know that we love it when you talk to us in the chat. Marcia is going to ask you some questions, so if you are comfortable talking, do share your feedback in the chat. We're keeping an eye on it. That said, if you have been to any of these sessions, you also know the chat

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Neon One Webinars: Cat can move really fast, so…

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Neon One Webinars: If you have any questions that you would like us to get to at the end of the session, please try to drop that in the Q&A box. If it's in the Q&A box, it won't get lost in the chat. I will be able to see it, we'll flag it, and we'll talk through them at the end of the session.

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Neon One Webinars: The other perennial question, are you gonna get a copy of this? Are you going to get to see the slides and the recording? The answer to all of those things is yes. You are going to get an email from me tomorrow with a link to the recording and some other resources, so you'll be able to rewatch this.

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Neon One Webinars: Share it with someone, or just come back and visit it, because you love the content so much.

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Neon One Webinars: With that being said, that's all from me. I'm going to turn things over to Marcia, who is going to share how you can put together a phenomenal GivingTuesday campaign without stressing yourself out.

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Neon One Webinars: Let's see… there you go.

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Marcia Beckner: That's a big promise, Abby.

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Marcia Beckner: Because…

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Neon One Webinars: I've seen, I've seen it. It's gonna be great.

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Marcia Beckner: Yes, yes. Okay, let me hit share on my screen. Hello, everyone.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, let me know, Abby, if it's working.

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Neon One Webinars: That looks great.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, great.

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Marcia Beckner: All right, hello everybody! I am so happy that you're here and that you've taken time out of your busy week to be with us today. We've got about 45 minutes slotted to talk about GivingTuesday and your Q4 strategy.

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Marcia Beckner: answer any questions, work through it together. There's already over 50 people on here. Think of these 50 people as, like, your… your community. We're all in this together. I know that fundraising sometimes feels a little bit…

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Marcia Beckner: competitive, because there's only so many dollars out there, in quotes, but I really believe that

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Marcia Beckner: The people in, you know, your community, in your professional community, like fundraisers here, can, share some best practices with each other, share templates, share what's worked, what hasn't, and really band together to make our sector, as a nonprofit sector.

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Marcia Beckner: Healthier and, and in a place where we can work long-term.

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Marcia Beckner: My passion is helping nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, work without burning out, and

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Marcia Beckner: Is this possible? Yes, this is possible. This is my true belief. I've been in the nonprofit world.

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Marcia Beckner: For nearly 20 years, and, I love it so much because I love the people. I love all of you that are making the world a better place. And, so if no one's told you yet today, I'm really proud of you for being here, for doing this work. It's not easy work. In my former career.

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Marcia Beckner: Before nonprofits was in selling, large computer systems to businesses, and some of them cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars, and that was my quota, is to sell millions of dollars a year in computer equipment.

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Marcia Beckner: And I will tell you, that was easier than fundraising. I'm just gonna say it. Fundraising, I think, is just one of the more challenging roles in nonprofit, but it is also one of the most meaningful and important roles, because you are bringing people in to your mission, and you're creating an impact together.

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Marcia Beckner: So, before we get started, I would love to see in the chat, if you could put in the chat, what's your role at your organization? Are you an executive director, or…

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Marcia Beckner: or a development manager, or an intern, I'd love to know. Let me pull up the chat so I can see as well.

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Marcia Beckner: And hello to everyone! Thanks for sharing, where you're at.

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Marcia Beckner: Hygiene from the cancer support community, my former colleague, I'm so glad you're here.

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Marcia Beckner: Well, we have people who run the gamut.

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Marcia Beckner: Amazing. From all over the country.

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Marcia Beckner: Lots and lots of rules. So fundraising is not one role, is it? It is… it can have so many different names.

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Marcia Beckner: But regardless, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you for being here. Like Abby said, if you've got any questions, put them in the Q&A box, separately from the chat.

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Marcia Beckner: And… and please just keep connecting with each other on the chat, because

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Marcia Beckner: As I said, we are a community of fundraisers who love our missions, and we're making the world a better place, and that matters.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, so I have been in fundraising for 13 years of my career, and I know, I just want to say, I see you, I feel you, it's very hard, I want to meet you where you are.

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Marcia Beckner: You know, there's a lot of research out there that we've probably seen. This is some more research that I just found. 94% of fundraisers say they feel tremendous pressure to succeed, and it's no doubt, because you either have cancer patients relying on you, animals.

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Marcia Beckner: the arts world, child welfare, you could be from any… the environment, right? The pressure is really because

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Marcia Beckner: It's not always a bad thing, it's because you care so much about what… who you're working for and what you're working for.

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Marcia Beckner: So, in the chat, let me know, do you feel today like tremendous pressure to succeed? Put in the number 94. If you feel cool, calm, and collected, put 6. You're part of the 6%, and yay for you.

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Marcia Beckner: We got a few 94s.

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Marcia Beckner: 94s.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay.

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Marcia Beckner: I haven't seen one 6 yet. So I am hoping that

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Marcia Beckner: with this plan that we're gonna be talking through today, that you feel, like, less pressure, because you're gonna have a plan. Sometimes the pressure also comes with just, like, a huge goal in Q4, and you're like, I don't even know where to start, right?

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Marcia Beckner: Like, we're gonna take a little bite out of that today, and I think you're gonna leave with feeling much better and in control of, like, what your strategy and your plan will be.

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Marcia Beckner: If you want, you can da- it's going to come with a…

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Marcia Beckner: a planner for you. If you want to download that, and as we go through it, I'm going to give you the link to that in a little bit.

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Marcia Beckner: So that you can kind of walk through it yourself and take notes.

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Marcia Beckner: So, you know, one thing is, like, we all, you know, yes, we're burnt out, we're working too many hours, potentially, but the reality

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Marcia Beckner: of this field is that there is a lot of turnover. And so that is one of my missions, is to help nonprofit leaders and staff teams work at a pace that doesn't cause them to say, I'm done, I'm leaving.

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Marcia Beckner: Because they got to the edge of burnout. We want to see the symptoms early, early, and know why this is happening, so that you can build in periods of rest.

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Marcia Beckner: Rejuvenation, recuperation, after, like, a heavy season.

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Marcia Beckner: So, 9 in 10 fundraisers say staff vacancies significantly increase their workload. Who in the chat

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Marcia Beckner: says, yes, I'm experiencing that now. There's… we're understaffed.

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Marcia Beckner: Oh, hi Daisy, I just saw you in there.

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Marcia Beckner: Ugh, we have no staff, 100% volunteers, Jennifer.

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Marcia Beckner: Thank you for being here, you can do this.

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Marcia Beckner: And I'm going to talk about, you know, one of the ways… we can't do this alone, right? We can't do this alone. So, yeah, we never seem to be at full capacity, I hear you. And that is a chronic problem in our world, right? There's too much to do, there's not enough people, there's not enough time.

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Marcia Beckner: And we start to feel like hair on fire.

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Marcia Beckner: This is also a really busy season for galas and events.

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Marcia Beckner: And so, on top of kind of, like, thinking about GivingTuesday and end-of-year fundraising, we're also… many of us are also planning big events and worried if people are going to show up.

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Marcia Beckner: So… so I just want you to know you're not alone. This is… I'm sure everyone here can… can relate.

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Marcia Beckner: And that's most important, is that you connect with others in the nonprofit world to really just even have coffee throughout the quarter, and just, you know, have some decompression time to yourself.

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Marcia Beckner: Taking walks, and… and also connecting with others in similar situations.

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Marcia Beckner: So, what is the antidote to too much to do, too little time, and not enough people?

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Marcia Beckner: We're gonna have to start earlier.

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Marcia Beckner: That's what we're doing today. October 1st does not start until next Thursday, so we're taking this week to kind of get a plan

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Marcia Beckner: together, or the framework of a plan, and then in early October, we've got… I'm going to share with you, like, a weekly tactical plan, so that you can space out the pressure that it doesn't feel like that emergency. You're going to take one… one week at a time.

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Marcia Beckner: One clear priority at a time.

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Marcia Beckner: And most importantly, and I see you, Karen, team of one, shared ownership across the organization. And the organization can go beyond paid staff. It can go, you must have volunteers, you must have people that your organization is benefiting, your community that you're supporting.

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Marcia Beckner: You've got to spread the ownership of your success, because no one can work on an island and be successful. Not in this work. It's too hard. So… so I want these three principles.

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Marcia Beckner: To be front of mind for you is getting shared ownership.

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Marcia Beckner: Really clearly prioritizing what you need to do this week, and just taking it a week at a time.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay.

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Marcia Beckner: one, you know, we're partnering with Neon One, and Neon One is an amazing partner of mine. I really believe in what they do. I grabbed this screenshot, Abby, from your website.

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Marcia Beckner: And it really talked about the benefits of using Neon 1 specifically, but also, I'm also kind of, like.

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Marcia Beckner: What's it? A little bit higher level.

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Marcia Beckner: Technology, systems, automation are your friend.

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Marcia Beckner: We've got AI now, which we don't want to overuse in the wrong way, but we want to use technology for back office things and create a system that you can plan things in advance, you can schedule emails in advance, schedule LinkedIn in advance. There's a lot of, like, technology tools that can help you stay ahead of the curve.

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Marcia Beckner: Because the good thing about technology and AI is if we use it right, we are…

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Marcia Beckner: Focus… we are able to use our human capacity for building relationships with our donors, with our funders, connecting with our community.

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Marcia Beckner: AI will never, ever take that over.

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Marcia Beckner: Oh yeah, you can, you can, automate LinkedIn, you can schedule posts in advance.

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Marcia Beckner: I just saw that, Jennifer. So, anyways, technology is your friend. I hope that you are able to automate some of these things that we're going to be talking about, and you may have a volunteer, or an uncle, or somebody that's really good at technology, and really just ask for people's help.

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Marcia Beckner: Like, don't think I'm gonna figure this whole tech thing out on my own if that's not your thing.

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Marcia Beckner: find somebody in your community who is. I know that there's some

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Marcia Beckner: There's some tech, like, resources out in the nonprofit community, I don't know what they are off the top of my head, but there are, like, resources that can help you. You know, maybe one of your grantors can steer you in the right direction, or a fellow ED or fundraising friend.

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Marcia Beckner: But make sure that you are leveraging technology to the best of its ability, so that you can do what you do best, which is form relationships and connection, to make, you know, to make your mission thrive.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay.

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Marcia Beckner: Hello, I haven't formally introduced myself yet. My name is Marcia Beckner, and I'll just give you a little bit about my background. Today, I am the founder and CEO of Culture Cares.

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Marcia Beckner: And what that means is I'm a nonprofit CEO, an executive director mentor, and culture strategist. So I'm working with… directly with EDs and CEOs to help them build healthy, inclusive, and empowering cultures where all teams can thrive.

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Marcia Beckner: And that sounds kind of vague, right? But I put together this CARES model and this CARES system to help measure how your culture is doing in your organization, and then we create a roadmap together to improve it.

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Marcia Beckner: And only when we understand, like, by measurement, only when we understand the data around what's happening in the culture can we take steps to really improve it, and so it is a data-driven framework.

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Marcia Beckner: To help. And, and so I've been doing this, that for 6 years with Culture Cares, but before that, but in 2007, I started a cancer nonprofit called My Lifeline Cancer Foundation. It's because I had cancer myself. I had stage 3 ovarian cancer.

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Marcia Beckner: when I was just 27 years old.

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Marcia Beckner: And one of the things I struggled with most was keeping my friends and family up-to-date on a manual basis, calling people back, and this was back in the late 90s, so this was actually 30 years ago. I was 27, so you can do the math how old I am today. But,

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Marcia Beckner: I really, like, struggle with keeping people up-to-date with what was going on throughout my treatment process.

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Marcia Beckner: And a few years later, when I got into the tech industry, I… I was just fascinated by digital and the internet, and decided to start a digital community that we called MyLifeline.org, so that people

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Marcia Beckner: facing cancer did not have to face it alone or isolated. And I led that organization for 10 years as the executive director for most of the time, and at

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Marcia Beckner: one point, and at a certain point, at, well, 10 years, we decided to merge into a global network called the Cancer Support Community, which my friend Jean Horn is

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Marcia Beckner: on the call today and is still working there, and supporting are MyLifeline members. So MyLifeline still exists as a digital community for people facing cancer. And, and it is… we've served hundreds of thousands of people with cancer over the last

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Marcia Beckner: I guess since 2007, almost 20 years that we've been around.

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Marcia Beckner: And while I'm not working with them day-to-day anymore, I left 6 years ago because I saw in our field there was such extreme burnout, stress, and overwhelm, and I wanted to do something to help solve that problem, because

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Marcia Beckner: you're the people out in the field that are working so hard, but you're working yourselves to death. And I'm like, it doesn't… we're not doing that anymore. This doesn't have to be, because the turnover is really crushing our organizations, and so we need to learn how to work at a sustainable

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Marcia Beckner: Pace that's realistic, for the bandwidth that we have as humans.

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Marcia Beckner: And so that is my motto, that is my mission today, and… and why I put together this plan, to kind of help you feel a sense of control over what's, you know, what's expected of you in Q4 this year. So that's a little bit about me, and thank you again for being here.

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Marcia Beckner: All right, let's get into the brass tacks.

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Marcia Beckner: The way… I was taught to kind of think about, like, planning. We have a strategic plan for a year, right? But every quarter.

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Marcia Beckner: to have, like, a quarterly strategy. So every quarter before the next quarter, have a meeting with your team, and say, here's… let's lay out the framework for the next quarter. What are our goals? What are the resources we need to achieve those?

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Marcia Beckner: Who's on the team, who's responsible for achieving these goals, and start to, like, get your team, your department, whatever it is together around whatever your goal is.

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Marcia Beckner: And then each month, set a specific monthly planning meeting. So, today we're going to talk about your quarterly strategy. Let's assume this is your quarterly strategy meeting right now.

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Marcia Beckner: In October, I want you to have a plan about, or a meeting specifying what's going to go on in October.

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Marcia Beckner: And then in November 1st, what's in November? December 1st, what's in December? And then every week, you're meeting with your team, probably, and you're just driving tactics. You're just getting the work done, putting your head down, and getting the work done.

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Marcia Beckner: And so this is, like, for my brain, this really works for me when I think about this.

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Marcia Beckner: So overall, like, the overarching goal is really to have, like, a monthly kind of a frame for what is going to set you up for success to get you through December 31st in a healthy way.

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Marcia Beckner: So, Giving Tuesday this year is on December 1st, which is in 8 or 9 weeks away.

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Marcia Beckner: But I don't see that as the finish line. I see that as the beginning of your month of December. And then before that, we'll prepare to, like, really leverage GivingTuesday as a day. And Abby, I'm going to quote you, because on a prior webinar, someone asked, aren't people still burnt out from GivingTuesday? Isn't it saturated?

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Marcia Beckner: And Abby said… Abby is our researcher, so she's looking at the research, and she says, actually, it's not saturated at all. It is because we talk about it all the time in our, you know, in our profession. We're talking about GivingTuesday as a milestone marker.

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Marcia Beckner: But for the outside world, the bankers and the lawyers and anyone else who's not in nonprofit, they don't think about… they don't think twice about GivingTuesday. So to them, every year, it's like something new. So I want you to not shy away from

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Marcia Beckner: from making GivingTuesday the best that it can. And just so you know, last year I looked up the stats, $4 billion was donated on GivingTuesday.

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Marcia Beckner: So I want all of you to have a big piece of that $4 billion. So just know it's not… don't think about it as scraps, try to have an abundance mindset. There's a lot of people giving on GivingTuesday. And then the other thing I looked up about GivingTuesday was, like, why it was created. I don't know if you know this, but

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Marcia Beckner: It was created as a counterbalance to Black Friday.

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Marcia Beckner: So Black Friday is just all about materialism, and I kind of… I'm just gonna say my opinion about it. It's very materialistic, right? You're buying, like.

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Marcia Beckner: gifts and things for your friends and family for Christmas, for yourself. If you're like me, there's more that comes to me than my… I'm like, oh yeah, I was shopping for my friends, and then I see something on sale. I don't know if anyone else falls into that trap, but it's all… it's very materialistic kind of holiday.

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Marcia Beckner: And then Giving Tuesday is just that, like, how can we get that way with all of the causes that we care about?

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Marcia Beckner: And so I love kind of thinking about it like that, maybe, you know, is like, yep, you've had your Black Friday, now it's GivingTuesday, and maybe you can kind of mentally tell them, this is your chance to give to all the causes you care about, and… and no matter what the amount is, but just, like, make it like a Black Friday.

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Marcia Beckner: for, you know, try to get their hearts, you know, in that place to… to think about it that way. So yeah, maybe read up on GivingTuesday in Little, and… and educate your own community about what the purpose is.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, so October is your preparing and… your prepare and position.

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Marcia Beckner: November?

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Marcia Beckner: Activate, amplify. This is where you're just gonna, like, really start to ramp up towards the giving season.

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Marcia Beckner: And then December.

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Marcia Beckner: starts with GivingTuesday, which is so interesting this year. It's not always on the 1st, but it starts on GivingTuesday.

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Marcia Beckner: And it ends with December 31st, which is where a lot of people are donating at the end of the year to get their tax deductible.

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Marcia Beckner: donations in, right, before the tax year ends. So…

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Marcia Beckner: That's great, you know, I'll take anything that, if you want the tax donation, you know, bring it here.

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Marcia Beckner: So, whatever the incentive, whatever the motivation is.

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Marcia Beckner: You know, just really kind of pull that into your community and close strong and celebrate. But I wanted to talk about December not being about, like, working really hard the last couple weeks, so I want you to think about automation and planning things in advance, so that you can also start to

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Marcia Beckner: Start to slow yourself down towards the end of the year so you can enjoy the holidays with your family, and take the rest that you need.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, any questions, Abby, of this? And then I'll get into the weekly tactics.

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Neon One Webinars: I don't see any questions yet.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, all right, well, this is where I want to give you the guide, so that we can walk through it together.

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Marcia Beckner: Maybe I can put the link in?

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Marcia Beckner: Here, I'm gonna put the link in the chat.

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Marcia Beckner: So that you can have this guide. If you have to leave early today, I just want you to have this guide. It's culturecares.com slash Q4.

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Marcia Beckner: So you can go and download it right now. If you don't want to download it right now, I'm going to walk you through it, so no, no problem.

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Marcia Beckner: Yes, and Abby said you'll get the link in the email, too.

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, now I'm gonna get more brass-tacky, if that's okay, and stop me, stop me anytime.

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Marcia Beckner: But this is when, you know, we've got our… this… I kind of, like, laid out, like, what the quarterly strategy could be. Of course, you may want to add, change anything you want, but now we're going to get into the monthly plans. So the monthly plans are going to lay out what you need to do.

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Marcia Beckner: to, to set yourself up for success.

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Marcia Beckner: So, think of, like, the weekly focus rhythm, and when it comes to making goals for this year, I'm curious how you make goals.

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Marcia Beckner: And, and see if… I just want to make sure that the link works, if it's… is someone saying it's not working?

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, let me know if it's not working.

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Marcia Beckner: So, think about, like, Q4 as kind of your campaign, right? Your end-of-year campaign, and looking at getting your calendar out, and kind of starting to block

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Marcia Beckner: slots on your calendar. So…

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Marcia Beckner: This is really important, because if we don't block time, we're gonna feel that hair on fire, because we're gonna be like, I didn't have time to do it.

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Marcia Beckner: So one thing that you could think about doing is, like, blocking off every

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Marcia Beckner: Monday for a half day to really, like, get your ducks in a row for the week, whether it's to write a few emails, or to write a few social posts.

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Marcia Beckner: But maybe, like, a 4-hour block a week, whenever that works for you, to really ensure that you're staying on task with your plan. And I know I started talking about goals. The goals are really important. What I've seen is that

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Marcia Beckner: sometimes Q4 gets that pressure, like, oh, we didn't raise the money from the first three quarters, we're putting that all on our Q4 campaign, and that feels very crushing if you're not

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Marcia Beckner: If you're not, like, keeping on track with the financial goals for the year.

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Marcia Beckner: So, I'd like you to consider maybe not putting all the pressure on Q4.

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Marcia Beckner: It could have the opposite effect of motivating your team.

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Marcia Beckner: It could just feel so overwhelming that they… that people throw their hands up, like, there's no way. I can't even see a way to do that. So I'd rather you set goals based on your history. Q4 last year, Q4 the year before, what were… what was your organization able to do?

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Marcia Beckner: And set the same goal as your realistic goal.

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Marcia Beckner: And then maybe set, like, a 10% increase as a stretch goal.

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Marcia Beckner: And… and set the big goal to meet the budget for the end of the year. Maybe, I mean, still, it's great to think big, and think, like, what major donor, what major grantor can I go to, and tell them, we are this much in the hole, based on where we should have been by September 30th. This is a great conversation with your board.

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Marcia Beckner: How can you help us fill this hole?

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Marcia Beckner: But just… don't put too much pressure on Q4 to where you just feel, like, exhausted and not able to give your best.

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Marcia Beckner: Because we really want you to be

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Marcia Beckner: In a place where you feel healthy, and in talking to your donors in a healthy way that doesn't feel too desperate, because

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Marcia Beckner: they… that might scare them away a little bit, like, oh no, are they going under? So you really just want to have, like.

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Marcia Beckner: A realistic goal, a stretch goal, and of course, that goal to hit the end of the year, especially if you're feeling a little bit behind.

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Marcia Beckner: I'm gonna say, too, like, another…

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Marcia Beckner: thing I just thought about this morning is it's a political order. We have our midterms coming if you're in the U.S, and there will be some dollars going in that direction to candidates, and so

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Marcia Beckner: I don't know if that matters to your community, but just be aware that if you're just setting these monstrous goals, like, think about the external environment, what else is going on, but then also set those… set that realistic stretch goal, put your blinders on, and go.

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Marcia Beckner: You know, just do your best, create the, you know, really nurture those relationships with your giving community.

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Marcia Beckner: Week 2?

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Marcia Beckner: Gather stories and visuals, and again, just adapt this to whatever works for you. These are just some ideas.

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Marcia Beckner: There is a really great free app out there called CauseCircle. CauseCircle.org.

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Marcia Beckner: This is a free app that you can share with your board members, your ambassadors, your volunteers, your beneficiaries, and say, hey, can you just share your story really quick in a one-minute video about the impact that we've had on your life?

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Marcia Beckner: And you can connect… create… those are very human social… you can use those for human social media connection points.

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Marcia Beckner: People are really,

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Marcia Beckner: like, standoffish about AI, complete AI communications, whether it's social or email. So, CauseCircle.org will pierce through the noise, because it's your community talking to your donors.

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Marcia Beckner: And so that is just… that's one tool. There's probably a lot of other tools out there, but it's a free tool, so I just wanted to share it with you that you could start, you know, collecting those stories and visuals.

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Marcia Beckner: In October, what we always did at My Lifeline was really focus in on getting a matching gift, or two.

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Marcia Beckner: Who are your biggest donors that can match

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Marcia Beckner: the success that you have in December.

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Marcia Beckner: We would get a $10,000 gift, sometimes we got two $10,000 gifts.

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Marcia Beckner: I have another, a colleague who got a lot more than that. That was all we were able to get. If you can get more than that, great. And then you're able to put this in your communications. We have a matching gift for $10,000. If we raise $10,000 on GivingTuesday, your donation is doubled.

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Marcia Beckner: Engage your board members to help you find these matching donors, or companies, or sponsors.

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Marcia Beckner: And then start to populate some of this content into your email tool. I'm not sure if Neon One lets you pre-populate your emails.

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Marcia Beckner: Abby, maybe you can jump in here.

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Marcia Beckner: Yes

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Marcia Beckner: Okay, I'm not sure. Whatever tech platform you use, though, whether it's email, most of them let you kind of start to pre-populate, so in the end of October, you can focus on that.

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Marcia Beckner: November can be your kickoff and your soft launch.

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Marcia Beckner: really be… it is the season of gratitude, right, with Thanksgiving that month. So really pull in as much, like, gratitude for all of your donors.

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Marcia Beckner: And just keep on sharing your gratitude, spotlight your donors, spotlight your board members, your best volunteers, spotlight the people that are in your community that are thriving with whatever service you're providing.

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Marcia Beckner: And just be full of gratitude.

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Marcia Beckner: In November.

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Marcia Beckner: That will draw a lot of people towards you.

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Marcia Beckner: Peer-to-peer fundraising.

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Marcia Beckner: Help your ambassadors, peer-to-peer fundraising, help them amplify your message.

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Marcia Beckner: By maybe giving them some, you know, templates of an email, or… Or social.

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Marcia Beckner: And continue that matching gift challenge to your community. Hopefully, you'll get a matching gift.

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Marcia Beckner: That can double or triple the impact.

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Marcia Beckner: And then finally, finish scheduling every post-email reminder for December.

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Marcia Beckner: And if you can get that done in week 7, even better.

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Marcia Beckner: But I also just… I want you to feel like you're pacing yourself at a pace that's not strenuous.

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Marcia Beckner: And then in December.

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Marcia Beckner: We've got Giving Tuesday, December 1st.

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Marcia Beckner: maybe you can have your… it's a Tuesday, right? After Thanksgiving. Maybe you can have your board

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Marcia Beckner: And your volunteers at, like, a mini-event at someone's house.

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Marcia Beckner: or,

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Marcia Beckner: Or just online, just be announcing the impact and really tracking those donations coming in. And you can post more often than just once that day.

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Marcia Beckner: Like, just keep on, like, whatever that thermometer is, like, we're 30% of the way there, we're 70% of the way there.

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Marcia Beckner: Thank you, thank you.

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Marcia Beckner: Make those calls.

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Marcia Beckner: The mid-month appeal, We've got that urgency for those people who like tax.

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Marcia Beckner: Tax deductions, that is a huge motivator for the end of the year, and why December, I think, is the biggest gift month.

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Marcia Beckner: In the country.

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Marcia Beckner: Major donor engagement.

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Marcia Beckner: Coffees, thank yous, your matching donor, stay connected. Who can your matching donor bring to that coffee?

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Marcia Beckner: And really, again, use your technology so that you can be

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Marcia Beckner: Away from your computer screen, and in front of your donors, if possible.

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Marcia Beckner: And pre-schedule this holiday gratitude.

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Marcia Beckner: there's one thing about gratitude, that I learned from another executive director, where he said.

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Marcia Beckner: If someone donates, there was tiers of donations. If someone donates over $1,000, they're getting a call from the CEO. A personal call. Thank you.

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Marcia Beckner: From the CEO or Executive Director. If they get a donation for $500 to $1,000, the development director's personal call, thank you so much. This really makes a difference.

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Marcia Beckner: And really making, you know, if it's a $20 donation, you're getting lots of those. That's amazing, but it could be overwhelming to call them. But the more you can humanize and personalize this gratitude in the age of AI, you will stand out.

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Marcia Beckner: A personal thank you note, written, handwritten, no one does those anymore. So if you want to stand out, it's always the personal human touch.

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Marcia Beckner: So, that is a 12-week tactical plan that you can adapt and adjust with your team. Make sure you're not doing this alone.

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Marcia Beckner: Protecting staff energy is your fundraising strategy.

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Marcia Beckner: The worst that could happen is that you push yourself through a brick wall next quarter, and in January, you're on Indeed and looking for another job.

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Marcia Beckner: some… I just interviewed someone for my podcast, and she said something that I think about every day. She said, the best thing you can do for your organization is to come back tomorrow.

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Marcia Beckner: I'm gonna say that again. The best thing you can do for your organization is to come back tomorrow.

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Marcia Beckner: What do you need to do at 5 p.m. tonight?

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Marcia Beckner: So you can come back tomorrow.

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Marcia Beckner: It may be shutting the laptop, knowing that the email inbox is never clear.

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Marcia Beckner: And they can wait till tomorrow.

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Marcia Beckner: So, I want you to think about that as you're going through the quarter, and if you're leading a team, I want you to think about that, because staff retention is…

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Marcia Beckner: Crucial for the success of your mission.

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Marcia Beckner: Turnover is… is stand… you know, it rolls us backwards in our momentum, and so staff energy, keeping that healthy.

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Marcia Beckner: Is a high, high priority.

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Marcia Beckner: Paste the push. An idea is to block a no-meeting day.

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Marcia Beckner: in November and December, and I'd like you to have maybe every, like, another organization I work with.

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Marcia Beckner: every Friday is a no-meeting day. Like, no internal meetings. If you're meeting with donors for coffee, that's fantastic, because that should be, like, energizing to you anyways, is, like, really bringing people into your mission.

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Marcia Beckner: But no internal meeting days on Fridays. And the way she described it, this other executive director, is she said, it's like clearing the cache.

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Marcia Beckner: Found your week.

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Marcia Beckner: I love that as a tech term, right? Clearing the cache in your browser means kind of a fresh start. So, if Friday, as an example, is clearing the cache.

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Marcia Beckner: then that means that you're just, like, catching up on the emails for Monday through Thursday, you're setting up your plan and you're blocking your time for what you need to do next week, and then you can close that laptop on Friday and really take

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Marcia Beckner: Saturday and Sunday to rest, get outside, and really focus on what you personally need.

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Marcia Beckner: To be healthy and happy.

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Marcia Beckner: Build your 90-day rhythm. Here's, like, an idea, kind of, for a weekly rhythm, is to do, like, a Monday huddle in the beginning with your team. This could be 15 minutes, naming the top, you know, one to three priorities for this week, looking at your weekly tactical plan.

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Marcia Beckner: Midweek, check in with your donors and your board, and make sure that your board is also doing what they… what they,

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Marcia Beckner: So that they would be doing. And then Friday, just close, maybe on a Slack channel or a Teams channel. What's a… what wins did you have this week?

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Marcia Beckner: And really celebrate these, really, no matter how small.

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Marcia Beckner: What wins? Did you sleep an 8-hour night last night? That is a win.

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Marcia Beckner: That is hard to do sometimes with all the things going through our head.

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Marcia Beckner: Do you, you know, what… who are you grateful for? What are you grateful for?

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Marcia Beckner: So don't forget to, during the season of gratitude and thanksgiving, to be grateful.

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Marcia Beckner: For… for anything in your world that makes your life a little bit better.

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Marcia Beckner: And then…

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Marcia Beckner: This is kind of on number… number 3 kind of leans into number 2, but also spotlight your team's wins.

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Marcia Beckner: It could be publicly, you know, within your community space, could be with the board, it could be with the rest of the staff, but who's really, like, bringing the best version of themselves?

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Marcia Beckner: to your organization.

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Marcia Beckner: And how are they doing that? Are they taking care… if you're the best version of yourself, you are taking care of your health and happiness, and doing what you need to do.

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Marcia Beckner: To take care of yourself. Only you can do that. No one can do that for you.

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Marcia Beckner: So, I really hope that you prioritize that over the next 90 days, and… and also block out time after this busy season of Q4 and December. Block out time for PTO in January. Do what you need to do to come back in January rested and rejuvenated and excited for the year ahead.

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Marcia Beckner: That's what I hope for you.

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Marcia Beckner: Fundraising success is short-lived if your team is exhausted.

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Marcia Beckner: Balance workloads so your people can bring the passion, clarity, and creativity to every donor interaction.

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Marcia Beckner: That was the purpose of this.

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Marcia Beckner: It took me a while to learn to do this. This is a picture of our team and board many, many years ago.

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Marcia Beckner: But when you… when you bring your outside… you bring the… all the volunteers and the people who care about your organization together in a physical space.

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Marcia Beckner: It… it creates magic, especially in this world of remote

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Marcia Beckner: Work, where we're always behind a computer screen.

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Marcia Beckner: So bring people together as much as you can, that is something AI will never take away from you. Bringing people together is basically all we have left. Not basically, that was a little pessimistic, but we need to, like, we need to stay together.

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Marcia Beckner: In physical spaces that bring smiles to our faces.

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Marcia Beckner: So, that ends… this presentation, I hope you are able to download this planning guide, and use it, and…

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Marcia Beckner: Share it.

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Marcia Beckner: And create that sense of shared ownership.

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Marcia Beckner: And… If there's any questions, I'm really happy to answer them.

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Neon One Webinars: I actually have a question for you, because it's a question someone asked me, and I wasn't sure of how to answer. So, there are a lot of folks on this call who either are entirely volunteer-run, or they are a team of one.

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Neon One Webinars: And I know they see a lot of large nonprofits that are well-resourced just run these incredible, like, complex campaigns.

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Neon One Webinars: What are maybe one to two things that you would really prioritize for GivingTuesday if you are a small shop, and what's one or two things that you would not prioritize or take off someone's plate on that day?

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Marcia Beckner: Yeah, well, I'll put on my hat for when I started my organization. We were all volunteer for 3 years. We had a board of directors. Like, you can't be a nonprofit without having a board of directors. That's a legal requirement. So I just want to say, I'm sure you're not alone.

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Marcia Beckner: It was all the board helping me, to start to build the financial capacity to hire a staff.

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Marcia Beckner: Our first staff member.

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Marcia Beckner: And… and that was able to, like, you know, once we had an extra set, then you start to, like, snowball and get some momentum. That staff member gives you more capacity to have another staff member to serve your community, right? So, you're not alone.

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Marcia Beckner: Your board members, this is their responsibility, is to help you make this a sustainable organization that can survive long-term.

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Marcia Beckner: So that's what I would first prioritize. What I would not prioritize is getting all caught up in, you know, images and doing a million social media and everything. Your best bet is to pick up the phone and call and build those relationships. And that's where I would focus, and who can they…

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Marcia Beckner: introduce you to that cares about this. And… and start to look for grants to kind of get you off, you know, get you off the ground.

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Marcia Beckner: So that's… that's what I would do, is personalize outreach and… and access your board of directors and their networks.

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Neon One Webinars: Perfect. I was on the board of a nonprofit in my hometown, and I was the one running the Giving Tuesday campaign. And I will say this, my board members were lovely, they needed a lot of direction, so that helped a lot. They…

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Neon One Webinars: needed a lot of direction, but they did help. And so, if you encounter reticent board members, I would encourage you, give them some coaching.

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Marcia Beckner: Yes.

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Neon One Webinars: They want to help very frequently, but they frequently do not know how.

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Marcia Beckner: Yeah, I want to underscore that, that most board members don't know what to do.

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Marcia Beckner: So, you've gotta, like, train them in what you want them to do, and if you give them very specific jobs and hold them accountable, hopefully they'll get to a place where they hold themselves accountable. But make sure that, you know, that you give them specific jobs, versus, can you help me fundraise for GivingTuesday?

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Marcia Beckner: More specific, you'll get… you'll get more out of them.

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Neon One Webinars: Perfect. Someone did ask a question in the Q&A, and Kyara wanted to know, do you have any strategies for fundraising during harder economic times, or ways to be mindful of this? We've seen many people in our community struggling financially, and our donations have reflected this.

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Marcia Beckner: Yeah.

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Marcia Beckner: I think that's the age-old problem in nonprofits. Every year has its own Challenges, right, with the economy.

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Marcia Beckner: I mean, it's just… that's why I started at the beginning. It's not an easy job. It's a really, really challenging role to, you know, to go out there and… and put your heart on the line and ask for financial support.

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Marcia Beckner: I would just say, just don't give up and make those personal outreaches to people you know who do have capacity.

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Marcia Beckner: and financial capacity to help, and… and put together your case of support. This is our… this is before people come to us, during and after, and just really show… and ask them to partner with you. And… and can we have a house party at your… if they have friends who have money.

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Marcia Beckner: then can we have… can you host a party and bring friends? And we're gonna share with them what we do in your… in our own backyard community, and… and just…

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Marcia Beckner: And just keep trying.

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Neon One Webinars: Definitely.

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Marcia Beckner: And, yeah.

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Neon One Webinars: I would also offer this, point. Kyara, one of the things that's really cool about GivingTuesday is that giving money is the most common activity that happens on GivingTuesday. We know this from GivingTuesday themselves. But only giving money is the least common activity. Most people are also advocating for their favorite nonprofits.

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Neon One Webinars: They're volunteering, they're putting together in-kind donations, so collecting cans, or dropping off food, or doing something. If you are looking for ways to engage your community on GivingTuesday, and you know that their capacity may be limited, you might want to consider offering other avenues.

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Neon One Webinars: That they can follow to support you, and then when their financial circumstances change, when things are a little more stable economically, those relationships will still be intact, and they may even be even more committed to your cause because they have supported you in multiple ways. So I would encourage you to try that.

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Neon One Webinars: Gabriela asked…

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Neon One Webinars: Let's see, are there resources available that can guide us for how to give the board specific responsibilities and what those might be? I'm really new at all of this. Marcia, do you want to speak to that?

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Marcia Beckner: Sure. One thing you can do is put together… I run this mastermind of executive directors, 10 executive directors, and I just had a meeting about this last night. One has had a lot of success with putting together a spreadsheet.

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Marcia Beckner: And on the left column, write down all the things that you want help with. It could be list your different events.

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Marcia Beckner: You know, it could be whatever you need help with. It could be a volunteer drive, or bring people here, raise this much money, whatever it is. And then on the top, so think of it like a grid. This is what you need on the column. On the row at the top, put every board member's name.

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Marcia Beckner: And say, which one do you want to specifically contribute to?

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Marcia Beckner: And she even goes a step further with a point system, and she says, to be on our board, you need to have 20 points a year. So she gives every job

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Marcia Beckner: a point, like, 4 points, or 2 points, or 6 points for whatever it is that she needs help with. Find a sponsor for our gala in the spring.

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Marcia Beckner: That will get you 4 points. And you need to get up to 20 points to stay on our board.

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Marcia Beckner: And what she finds is that the board members start to get a little competitive, like, oh my gosh, this person's gotten 7 points, and now I want… I want to get up to 10 before that person. It becomes kind of a game, but it's also very concrete. So that could be something, rather than, like,

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Marcia Beckner: you know, like, offhand, yeah, I'll do that, and then they never remember that they said that. So just, you gotta document it.

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Neon One Webinars: Yep, I'll add this, too. Similarly, we did kind of the gamification thing for the board that I was on. The other thing that worked is at a board meeting before the Giving Tuesday campaign launched, I gave a really short overview of what GivingTuesday was, what we were raising money for, and then I gave them a series of options, like you said, so they didn't have to wonder

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Neon One Webinars: how they could support it. They had a list to choose from. I love the points idea. But giving them a menu, so to speak, was much more effective than asking them just to help.

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Neon One Webinars: So I think that was wonderful advice.

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Neon One Webinars: That is all of… well, it was the last question. It's also the end of our time together, so what perfect timing. Thank you, Marcia, so much for being here and for sharing this with us. Everyone, I hope you have a lot of ideas, and more importantly than having ideas, I hope you feel reassured and empowered and confident as we go into this season.

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Neon One Webinars: I know it is a busy time, I know you are busy people. I hope this has given you permission to take a step back, take a deep breath.

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Neon One Webinars: look at all of the beautiful things that you're working on, and then come up with a plan to make it happen. You all are phenomenal. I am going to email you a link to a page tomorrow. It will have the recording, the slides. That will also have a link to the guide that Marcia included in her… in the chat and in the session, so keep an eye out for me. We will talk to you very soon.

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Marcia Beckner: Thanks, Abby. Thanks, everyone.

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Neon One Webinars: Bye, everybody.