Fundraising Freedom Podcast with Mary Valloni

If you have been following the Fundraising Freedom Podcast, when I first started it I actually called it the Mary Valloni Show. And if you've been following for a while, you know that I follow the steps that I teach in my book, Fundraising Freedom. Those steps follow the acronym FREEDOM because what I want for you, and what I want for me, is freedom. So, I have been spending the last several weeks and really the last several months thinking through what my vision is. What does it actually look like to focus your vision? 2020 has obviously caused us to have to take a step back and really look at everything. What is your vision for your life; the passion and purpose that you have for the work that you do? If you're anything like me, you've probably had some moments where you're like, ‘what am I doing? What is happening? Where do I even fit into all of this?’ I’ve spent a lot of time journaling and walking through my vision for this podcast, my vision for my business, and trying to really pull back the layers and remind myself why I do the work that I do. In chapter one of Fundraising Freedom, I share with you that I really want to make sure that you have your mission, your vision, and your timeline in your budget. I also want to make sure that you know exactly why you're doing what you're doing. If you don't have a passion for the work that you're doing, people will see that. Usually, that means that your donations will run parallel to that. You may see that your donations declined because the people just don't follow this movement that you have created for your cause. At the top of every podcast episode, I talk about how I want to educate, encourage, and empower fundraisers to raise more funds and have more freedom. And I do believe that that is at the core of what I do. That is my mission. I want to teach you, I want to encourage you, and especially this year, I want to encourage you to keep going and to not give up. I want to empower you to know that it's possible to take that education and really step out into a new place in the work that you do so that you can speak on behalf of the people you serve. Those three core tenants are what I believe, and I spent several years really trying to nail down what that mission was. Of course, on the vision side, I've always wanted to end the lack and scarcity mindset. In the nonprofit sector, even the word nonprofit means not for profit. And so many people look at our nonprofits and say, ‘well, you can do this on less, you don't need that much.’ As nonprofit leaders, you are told that you maybe shouldn't make as much as you make or that you shouldn't be compensated well for the work that's being done and I just do not believe that I believe that you should be compensated well. I also believe that your charity should have every dollar that it needs to actually end whatever problem you are trying to solve. I would say 100% of you are trying to raise dollars for your nonprofit because whatever you're trying to fix wasn't fixed by the for-profit sector. So not only do you have to do this on limited resources, you have to follow the government guidelines and you have to do it with very minimal income. I understand the challenges that you are faced with and I get that, and I feel your pain deep within my soul. I mean, I have been doing this for 20 years, and I know that you guys sacrifice, and you do this with very minimal rewards. I just think you guys are absolutely incredible; the heart that you have for the people you serve is just off the charts. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate the ability to share with you some of the things that I've learned in the nonprofit space. Of course, we know we can always do better and that there's always more that can be done. But the thing is that you guys are showing up every single day, doing the hard work that somebody else couldn't accomplish. For that, I just want to give you the biggest high five and virtual hug and to let you know that I'm really just so grateful that I get to really do life with you guys. I’ve had to have some tough conversations with myself, and I'm sure you have been in this same boat, trying to figure out what are we going to do as we move into the new year. How are we going to stay focused on what we were actually called to do? For me, I’ve had such clarity in the last year that I was really called to help faith-based organizations. My heart is for people who are sharing the gospel and helping change lives. I've launched several programs over the last several years, mostly on one-on-one coaching and group coaching; helping people raise money in a group environment. The reason why I did those things was that that's what worked for me.  So, I wanted to create an environment for you so that you knew that you weren't alone, which was my why statement. That was the why behind everything; I do not want you to be alone. I do not want you, for one second, to feel alone in the work that you're doing because you're not. You have so many people, me included, who care about you, who care about your work, and the fact that you are spending every day doing the hard stuff that nobody else is willing to do. I've launched some programs, one of which is called Fundraising Freedom Academy. Several of you joined in and saw really, really great results. I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars, which was just absolutely incredible. And to me, I was really humbled by the fact that those students of mine trusted me every couple of weeks, as we transitioned some of the things that we were doing, and you believed that what I was teaching was effective. Almost three years ago, I launched a program called Fully Funded Academy with my friend Mike Kim. I had actually been following Mike on his Brand You podcast for a couple of years as I was trying to build out my own personal brand, Mary Valloni Consulting. When I actually got a chance to meet him, we sat down and decided that we were going to open up a program called Fully Funded Academy, I was so excited because I had such a passion for missionaries, but it was really more of a passion project. When we launched that program, it was just absolutely incredible. We have hundreds of students now and that program has grown exponentially over the last few months. And I know that the writing is on the wall, that I have to put more of my focus on those students of mine. If you joined in on my webinar this week, you know that I have opened up a new program called Fully Funded Orgs. Fully Funded Orgs is all about raising funds for your organization. It’s a modification of my former program, Fundraising Freedom Academy. But this is really just streamlining and getting back to focusing my vision on helping those faith-based organizations and individuals. I really cannot tell you how thrilled I am about all the people who have already joined. We've already had people reaching out and sharing that they are so excited about this program and want to share with their organizations and the people that they knew about this resource. This is a program that runs for a year and is specifically focused on raising those big dollars - six figures, even seven figures for your organization. But the really great thing is, is that I have this whole team of coaches who are helping me, I have people who are experts in the space of administrative support, website support, and large-scale major gift donations. I know that I can only do so much on my own – I know a lot about fundraising, but we're always better together and I want to follow what I teach in step 3 of Fundraising Freedom, which is to enlist your team. I want to bring people around my students and make sure that they are taken care of and that they have the resources they need to continue to grow year after year after year. I'm officially starting my first session on January 6th. I do want to share with you that because of these big things that are happening through Fully Funded Orgs and Fully Funded Academy, as well as my one-on-one coaching, I have decided to make some shifts for 2021. One of those big shifts is that I will be putting this podcast on hiatus. I don't want to say that I won't ever do another episode on this show. But I do want to share with you that because I'm shifting my attention over into those programs that I'm doing, I have another podcast. If you have not already listened, we have two seasons of the Fully Funded Podcasts that are live. You can immediately go there and check out those episodes. I love podcasting and I love helping people raise money so I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to share resources, educate, encourage, and empower nonprofit leaders until I am in the grave. Because I believe in you, I want to help you however I can. But I want to make sure that I'm also available and really there for my students. I have this really crazy radical empathy for these ministry leaders and for these faith-based nonprofit leaders. You are welcome to jump over there, download, and subscribe to that podcast. Every episode that we do is also on YouTube so you can watch these interviews and actually see me have conversations with some of these really great leaders in the nonprofit and ministry space. Fully Funded Academy is an introductory level of raising support. My partner Mike Kim, who is a marketing expert, has written support letters and templates for emails or for blog posts. I mean, the resources are crazy good. Mike is the best in the industry - he's a former copywriter who teaches copywriting and is so good at what he does. It's only $49 a month and that is full price, it’s never going to go up on you. I invite you to join us over there, I do calls twice a month. And then Fully Funded Orgs is also two calls a month. So, for anybody who joins in on Fully Funded Orgs, they actually get four weeks every single month, with resources available to them from my team and me at Fully Funded Academy. We not only do the teaching with the coaching, but we also have a community on Facebook. You can post questions or whatever is going on in your fundraising world, and those people are there for you. They're just absolutely incredible people and so that is something that I just want to make sure that you know is available. I simply cannot share with you how much I appreciate you and how I appreciate the ability to do this podcast. I started this podcast in January of 2017 and nearly every single week, I have been on the microphone sharing some crazy ideas that I have about fundraising. I have loved every second of it and as I said, podcasting, in general, is something that I will continue to do. As we roll into the holiday months, I want to wish you guys a Merry Christmas. I wish you crazy abundance in your year-end support raising and that you use those letters to speak boldly. That you invite people to just come be a part of the work that you're doing, and you do it with such confidence and being so empowered to step out and share the message of your cause. Thank you again, and I hope you all have an incredible holiday season here and I will see you over on the Fully Funded Podcast. Let's go change the world one volunteer and $1 at a time.   Resources: Mike Kim Brand You podcast Fully Funded podcast Fully Funded podcast on YouTube Fully Funded Orgs   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

Today we're talking about how to create a personal or an organizational budget that actually works for you coming into 2021. I know that budgeting is something that some people love, and other people hate - there's a love-hate relationship with the budget. And for many of you, you've probably already gone through the budgeting process. Usually, that happens in the fall time as you're preparing for the next year. But you may be in a season where things are changing every single day. We never know what tomorrow is going to bring. Today's conversation is probably not going to be this brand new information that you've never heard of before. But I think that what we can do today is we can actually talk through making your budget work for you. As I work with organizations, what I find is that so many of them do not have a fundraising number that they're actually working towards. Many times, they get into this cycle where they just want more. However, it’s important that you actually have a clear number, an actual fundraising goal that you're working towards. I don't want you to randomly pick a number, that is not a great way to budget, it's not a great way to fundraise or to invite other people to be a part of your work. Here are some tips I want to share. If you look back and reflect on 2019 and consider how much you raised as well as the work you did, you’re probably going to pick up about 50% of that normal behavior, and 50% of 2020, after March, where we had to modify everything. So 2021, you're probably still going to have online events, you're probably still going to have the social distancing, and possibly doing a lot of things on Zoom, and working through major gifts, shifting that fundraising around so that you can modify your behavior to fit the season that we're in. As we move into 2021, I want you to look at where your money went. I work on my budget every single week. I know that some people don't look at their budget very often, but I am a stickler for the budget because the budget tells you where your money is going, and it tells you where it went. As you put numbers on a sheet of paper when you budget, you're just randomly putting numbers down on a sheet of paper, right? Because you're just trying to get a good 10,000-foot view of what your budget looks like. So, as you're putting those numbers down on paper, the best way to budget is to look at where did we spend the money last year. Now you may be a first-year raising these funds or bringing in these dollars and so you may not have past years to look at so the best you can do is really just take a good guess at what it's going to take. When you start assessing and you look at where the dollars went, where did we end up spending money? Maybe we didn't spend in certain categories like travel conferences or training because, in 2020, some of those things just didn't happen. So for 2021, we're going to modify that and start to add a little bit of that back probably for the second half of 2021. Hopefully, after we do get some sort of vaccine in the process, that'll allow us then to start looking at, well, maybe we can do some events in the fall of next year, but maybe not huge ones, just small things that you can start to engage people back into face-to-face communication with your organization and with your cause. Number two, look at what your priorities are, what is most important, and in the previous posts, I've talked a lot about going back to your vision of what is it that we're trying to do as an organization, what's the ultimate end result. Now if you are a fundraiser, you're not responsible for the mission side of the organization, you obviously are just given a number from the mission side, and they're telling you “Hey, this is how much it's gonna cost for us to do the work we're doing on the mission side, here's your number.” Now, that is actually an easier position to be in. That's the position I was in for many, many years, where I just was told, “Hey, go raise a quarter of a million dollars, go raise a half a million dollars, that's what your task is.” And I never had to really come up with my number, so to speak, but I was able to create those stretch goals and, and really work with my committee to come up with a goal that we wanted to do as a team. Set your priorities, what are you spending those dollars on so that you know exactly how much money you need to raise.   The budget is what allows you to feel comfortable about making the ask when you know where those dollars are going to go. You can answer your donor’s questions, you can answer your prospective donors’ questions because you know exactly how that money is going to be spent. If you are in a position where you're, if I say to you, “hey, I want to give you $10,000 to your cause.” And your immediate reaction isn't we're going to do ABCD with that money. If you are like, I don't know what we would do with that money, you have a problem. And the reason why you're not seeing those gifts come into your cause is that you don't have a plan. People who have money will smell that out, they will know that you are not prepared and you're not ready to receive their gift, which means they're not going to give it. So make sure that your budget is really clearly aligned so that you know when you're having that conversation with somebody your mind shifts over during the conversation to those line items. The next thing is I want to make sure that you have clear categories. If you're raising funds in different buckets such as from individuals, companies, or organizations like churches or clubs, you want to start to look at those categories of income first. Then we want to look at each category of income, what expenses are we going to have that correlate to that category of income. What is it costing us to raise these dollars? This is your fundraising budget. If you are someone who is responsible for the mission side and the fundraising side, you need to budget to make sure that your mission is really clear on the expenses that it's going to take for that that what you're going to do on the program side. And you're going to need to know your expenses on the fundraising side so that you are really clear on those percentages. And just as a reminder, if you are the program, remember this - if you are a one-man show or a two-man show, and your program is you doing the work, you sitting down, you training you helping that individual, you are the program. So anytime that you are the one who's putting out the results, that tangible stuff that's happening, like your organization wouldn't happen without you, you are the program. So your salary, everything that falls under those line items, that's part of the program. Next, we want to total all the categories. How much are we raising in revenue? How much are we spending on our expenses? These two numbers should be equal, we want a zero-based budget so that we know where every single dollar goes. Now, if you do raise above and beyond, and you’ve fulfilled every dollar on this budget, the next dollars that you bring in, they're going to go to A, B, and C, and maybe those are projects, maybe those are categories that if you can fulfill your base budget, these are the things that you’d love to do. You can share that with your donors. You can share that with prospective donors so that they know you’ve got a vision that far exceeds your basic budget. Number six, after you've got your categories taken care of, then obviously, we take action. Now we do with the budget says, we follow the plan, we stay at or under each of those line items. Now, here's one thing that I want you to understand is that you created this thing. So it's yours, you put the numbers on the sheet of paper, nobody is going to come after you and say “oh, my gosh, John, you spent $1 too much in that category. And not enough over here.” While number six is to take action and to stay out at or under those line items, number seven is you can make edits, you can change things. If you end up spending more in one area and you're spending less than another, it's your budget, you can make those changes. So whether you're doing this for your personal budget, or whether you're doing this for your organization or mission ministry, you can make those edits as needed. As you're going through each of these steps that I shared with you, making sure that you really assess where you're at, make sure you know where your priorities are, you get through and you set those realistic goals, create the categories, total the categories, take action, and then make edits as needed. Those are the seven things that I wanted to share with you as you're building out your budget. And as you're thinking through your budget and your line items, how can we be the most efficient? How can we be the most effective at raising funds, and really, when it comes down to it, if you know your numbers, you will be trusted more.   Resources mentioned: https://mint.intuit.com/ https://www.everydollar.com/ Stewardship Application Questions about Stewardship? Laura Diaz Mission Advocate 773-919-6500 ldiaz@stewardshiptechnology.com 7 Fundraising Secrets Every Ministry or Nonprofit Should Know to Thrive in 2021   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

Today, we are jumping into the topic of thankfulness. As we gear up for our Thanksgiving holiday this week, I wanted to be sure that we talked about how we can thank our donors. So, we're going to talk about the top 20 ways to thank your donors in 2020. As you know, this is such an unusual year. In the seventh step of my Fundraising Freedom process, Make Your Difference, it’s all about thanking people and getting people engaged in the work that's being done so that they keep coming back year after year. In that chapter of my book, I discuss the five love languages. Many of you are familiar with Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages, but if you're not, those five love languages are words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. Those five areas are really the areas that we're looking for as we're thanking our donors and inviting them to continue to give year after year. A study that came out from Merci Chocolates shows the fact that we actually say “thank you” over 2000 times in the course of a year. This means that most of us are saying thank you at least five times a day. But the deal is, that based on their study, over half of the people said that they were insincere when they actually said those things to us. So, when you say thank you nearly five times a day, up to three of those times that you said thank you actually didn't mean much of anything. Sometimes we say thank you, but we don't always get it across. I would love for the study to be able to actually address how many times a nonprofit or ministry leader actually said thank you because I would say that we are probably in the 10s of thousands, if not more because we're always saying thank you to our volunteers and donors. That's where I want to kind of shake those things out for our conversation today. How can we make saying thank you a little bit more sincere so that our donors really do feel like they mean something to them? In that final chapter of my book, I specifically tell a story where a lady had donated something to an auction that we were we were doing, and she saw that I showed an interest in a ring that she had donated. I made a comment about potentially bidding on that item at the auction. Of course, I worked for the organization and was obviously not able to bid on it. She came back a few days later and gave me another ring that looked just like the other one. And she was very kind to do that. As an organization, we aren't allowed to receive gifts like that and so I actually took the item and donated it back to the organization. But later on, I saw her at an event where we had a booth set up. She approached me and was really upset with me because I hadn't sent her a handwritten thank you specifically for that item that she had given to me. Now she had received a thank you in the past, we had thanked her for her donation of the ring, she just was locked into the fact that I personally did not send her a handwritten thank you showing my appreciation. And at that moment, she gave me a what for; she got on my case, as I was trapped behind a booth space. She told me that she was going to make this a teachable moment for me. But in return, she actually made me feel really hurt because a volunteer of mine had invited this lady in and so I was more concerned about another volunteer’s feelings around this situation and that I had upset this potential donor who was a friend of hers. I immediately left the space and went and called my volunteer that I really did have a relationship with, and I told her I was so sorry that this had happened. And of course, it was a teachable moment. I'm still sharing it today and it’s a moment that I really reflect on quite a bit. But the thing is that it comes back to how people like to be shown appreciation, how they like to be thanked. As I talk about the five love languages, it's really apparent that some people really like and really need those words of affirmation, they really need that gift of some tangible item that's in their hands to show that you cared. When I tell people about how to thank donors, I always reflect back on this, but then I also just highlight the fact that those five love languages are important for us to do across the board. I will say some people do not want recognition, that would really upset some people. This is where you, as the leader of your organization, have to pay attention to your donors, you can't just cookie-cutter, throw them all in a box and say, “Hey, one size fits all,” because that is not how this works. Here are the 20 go-to great ways to thank your donors in 2020. I'm not going to say do every single one of these but look through some of these that maybe you're missing or haven't incorporated in the past and create a thank you plan. The first one is a handwritten thank you. This is a very standard go to thank you that you can do either from the executive director or the leader of the organization, or a volunteer. When I say handwritten, it could even be something that doesn’t have physical handwriting, but it’s personalized with information that is specific to your donor. Number two give them the opportunity to share a testimonial. I love asking donors to share why they're a part of the work that's being done. When you give somebody the opportunity to share, it feels really special, they feel like they were chosen. So that's a really great one to do. Number three send a personalized gift. This would be something that really means something to them, maybe it's something that you thought about because you saw something somewhere, and it made you think about them. So that personalized gift that was sent just for them, not everybody else. Number four send a general gift like cookies, a gift certificate to a restaurant, for those of you who don't have any restrictions on alcohol, you might be able to send them a bottle of wine. These are items that are unique but also go out of your way to say we appreciate you and at the end of the year. Great time for you to deliver that. Number five, a social media post saying something nice about them. Maybe they're selling something this holiday season, they're pushing something, or you just want to promote that individual for what they've done for your cause. So that's a great way for you to be able to recognize that donor through social media. Number six, a personal thank you video. Now I've talked about this before with Bonjoro or loom. There are lots of different video platforms out there, most of you guys have a smartphone that you could just snap a video on your phone and send it to them by text or send it to them by video, but a personal thank you video that tells somebody that you care. They hear your voice, they see your face, they hear their name, those are all key things as a part of that video. Number seven a public thank you. Now we are in a global pandemic so a public thank you would normally happen at an event in front of a group of people. This public thank you is going to most likely be something that you send out through an email or send out through your social media. But you can still do a public thank you, you can say thank you to our sponsors, thank you to this one individual who went above and beyond. Even if you want to keep their name anonymous, when they see it, they're going to know it's them. Know that you can modify this public thank you in a way that really recognizes their gift and recognizes how it felt to you when they gave to your cause. Number eight, a year-end letter sharing where the money went. This is your financial review of 2020. What have you done in the last year with their money? That letter is such a great way for you to communicate, thank you for giving your gift because these are all the things that we were able to do and in the last year because of it. To be clear, this is not your year-end appeal or your support letter at the end of the year. This is the Financial Review letter that says thank you for doing what you did. Here's what we did with it. Number nine is just an immediate confirmation that their donation was received. Now, this can easily be overlooked. I get that you're busy. You're trying to end out the year, you're probably trying to reach out to as many people as possible. But come back around and give them immediate confirmation. I know some organizations don't give this information to you right away. But if whenever you find out that a donation was given and received by your organization, be sure to reach out to that person and give them a verbal thank you or an email thank you acknowledging the fact that you received it, and that you appreciate it. Number 10, a video call. This is different than the video thank you. This is an actual “let's schedule a time to talk on zoom” or whatever your preferred video method is. Typically, we would have maybe scheduled those face-to-face meetings, but instead, host those video calls just to touch base with them. Number 11, assign giving levels and recognize them when they hit a certain level. If you have different levels, whether that's monthly giving, or whether that's annual giving, once they hit a certain level, you can start to recognize people differently. Maybe that's gold, silver, bronze, or diamond, platinum, etc.  Whatever you start coming up with these naming levels. And once they collectively have given to a certain amount, you can recognize them with that level. So, let's just say somebody gives you a monthly donation, then they give you an annual gift. And with those two combined together, and then let's add a third one in, maybe they attended a virtual event of some sort that you've posted, made a donation there. And now collectively, their gift has put them over the top on a certain giving level, you can then reach out to them and say we just want to recognize you and let you know that you just hit our gold level as a donor. And we're just so grateful that you have given at this level. Number 12 give them an award to display. Now back to this number 11. With the different levels, this is what I typically would do is once they hit a certain given level, then we give them an award. Now every organization is different when it comes to what is a major gift contribution. For me in the past those giving levels, typically once they hit the $10,000 mark, was a big level for us. And so, we recognize those cash contributions at $10,000. With a special award. Let's talk about a media outlet or somebody who donated a product or service to the organization. Once they hit $25,000 of income support, they got a special award. So, you can do this at whatever level is most comfortable for you guys. Number 13, a video tour. Now a lot of you probably have done these, if you have a physical location that is worth having somebody walkthrough, you might actually have some sort of on-site tour, you may still have that. And that's fantastic. But for those of you who don't have the ability to physically have people come to your space, you may actually do a video tour. And it's an invitation to come to this on-site visit and maybe you are taking your phone or your computer or actual physical camera around your facility and giving them a tour, showing them how their donation made a difference showing where the needs are. Number 15, invite local businesses in your community or across the country, depending on where you're located, that give discounts to your donors. Specifically, some businesses that are partners with you that say, ‘hey, if one of your donors comes to our place, we're going to give them 10% off, or we're going to give them 25% off because of their donations and their contribution to the work that you're doing.’ That's a great way for you to be able to engage local businesses, highlight those businesses that are a partner of yours, and then also give recognition and give something a discount when they're buying gifts for the holiday season. Number 15 reach out on their special day. Maybe it's their birthday. Maybe it's their anniversary. Maybe even it's the anniversary that they started giving to your cause. And just pay attention to those special dates and recognize them. Number 16 spotlight a donor on your website. Your website is your own space, you own your website. You have the ability to use that as an advertising platform so take this real estate that you have on your website and spotlight your donors. Number 17 create a personal experience. This is something that you don't necessarily have to have that personal experience together, you can have that personal experience where they get to go somewhere, get to experience something that matters to your cause, and gives them that unique experience that they couldn't have gotten anywhere else. It might be a guided tour; it might be a peek behind the scenes. Number 18 send a welcome kit or a package that really gives them that appreciation that you're welcoming them into the organization. You might have a certain level of gift that somebody is giving where you mail them a special kit just has some swag in it so that they can start to promote the work that you do. And people can say, ‘where'd you get that shirt from?’ I can say ‘oh, well, I'm a new donor to the organization. And they sent me this great kit with all this stuff in it.’ Number 19 is a really, really easy thing for you to do, which is just sending a picture. This might be a text, this might be on Facebook Messenger, it could be an email, but sending a picture, not with a ton of text, but just the picture that describes what it is that you're doing or a change that happened in somebody's life because of them. So, if when I get a picture of somebody who's like, hey, this kid just got access to resources that he never would have gotten access to, and it's because of you. And that's all that needs to be sent.  Number 20 is very similar to sending the picture. The final way that you can thank somebody is to share a short story of life transformation. Stories are ridiculously powerful. You guys know that when you can see a face when you can hear a voice when you start to really create that, like, this is why books are still a thing. This is why people continue to read and when they continue to read fiction or nonfiction is because storytelling is powerful. It's why we watch movies, it's why we watch TV, it's because we want to be immersed in an experience and that story. So, use these stories to just invite people into the fold and walk through the experience that your people experience when they come through the life transformation that your cause is all about. Those are my 20 ways to thank people and to show them the crazy incredible impact that they're making in your cause in 2020. I just want to leave you with a few things to think about. As you continue on, I want to make sure that as you talk to your donors, and as you thank them, one of the things that we really struggle with is often when we thank donors, we have a tendency to also ask, so I want you to hold back. And really, take a moment to say this is really just our chance to say thank you. We're not asking for anything in return, we’re just saying thank you. Hold and refrain yourself from making another ask on top of the thank you so we're just flat out or focusing on the thank you not on another ask. We also want to focus on the donor, not their money. We want to focus on what a difference they made. Who are they? Why are they important to your cause, not their money, right? Money is the least exciting thing about any of us. The last thing we want to think about is actually talking about their money. We want to talk about them and what a difference they have made.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

My guest today is Sarah, Olivieri. Sarah is the founder and the heart behind the company Pivot Ground. She's a nonprofit business strategist, an author, and a former executive director. I think she's going to bring just a huge wealth of information to you on how to pivot during this season.  Tell us a little bit more about you and the work that you do.  Well, I come from a nonprofit background and I've worn so many hats from secretly fixing the toilet after everybody left so nobody knew and that didn't become my job officially, to Program Director, conference coordinator, graphic designer, teacher, you name it, I probably did it at some point. I've been executive director and founder. I was once the first executive director of a foundation. And then I actually shifted over into marketing and I built a marketing agency for nonprofits. That led me right back into the heart of what makes nonprofits tick - how they're organized and how they bring their people together so they can really make the biggest impact possible.  Tell us about your “impact method” and how affected the lives of the nonprofit leaders you work with.  The impact method is really based on three things that I think every nonprofit needs, and every for-profit to be successful, which is a process of improvement. That's how we deal and adapt to change in an ongoing way. And also, how we root out the issues that are getting in our way in a proactive manner. So many nonprofits are stuck in reactive mode and they're running to put out fires all the time. When you dig out your own issues proactively and address them, you don't have to be in that firefighting mode all the time. Then, your issues become opportunities instead of challenges. The second thing is an actionable strategy. Strategic planning is one teeny piece of making your organization run properly. It's actually making that plan actionable, where a lot of work comes in. And the third thing is, I call it your modus operandi. It's how your organization is structured, what glues everybody together. What is the core belief that your organization holds? What are your values or guiding principles? How is your team organized? What are your systems and processes? How is everybody collaborating and coordinating to work together, and there are some traditional ways of doing this that actually aren't that effective. And yet, they're very prevalent. There are other ways to organize your people that are much more enjoyable and much more effective. Based on your own personal experience, what do you think is working in the organizations that you see?  The ones who are doing it really well who are following the things that they should be doing, and letting go of the things that aren't really making a difference. This can be hard because sometimes the things that don't make a difference for our nonprofit are still really impactful. But the organizations who are doing it well, right now, in the middle of the pandemic, they're raising more money than ever before. They're hiring people not firing people, they are growing, they're expanding their impact their reach, and their base of supporters. So all of this is really possible right now. And they're also they're not overwhelmed. They're not burnt out, they're taking time to address the pandemic, one of the things we do in the impact method is every month, we assess how much time we are spending on each area of our organization on routine things. And we're monitoring our total capacity as human beings. What advice would you give to someone who's just getting started or someone who's trying to raise more funds, trying to get to that next stage of their organization?  Well, staying focused is one thing that I'd really recommend. A lot of people ask me, well, Sarah, if I'm the only one, how do I get out of being overwhelmed? How do I stay focused, and the first step is to take things off your plate and throw them in the fireproof garbage can that I am now virtually handing you because their fires will burn themselves out. That is the best way to get some more time and focus back in your day is to just stop doing some things, eliminate them. And that works even if you don't have anybody to delegate to. After that, do get somebody to delegate to or at least get a machine as a stopgap to delegate to some get some automation tools in place. You can't do it alone. That's probably my second tip; you have to plan to get another person on board whose job it is to do the work as soon as possible. So, for most startups, this means probably you are the executive director, and you need to hire an assistant as soon as humanly possible. They don't have to be full time, but 10 hours a week, it'll be huge, what you can do you full time and an assistant 10 hours will be incredible. My third piece of advice is, think of your startup, just like a for-profit startup would be you're going to go through a planning phase and a funding phase, and then a planning/doing phase and then a funding phase.  You're not going to be both fundraising and doing at the same time until you're really big enough to do those two activities, because you're really starting two businesses at once. When you start a nonprofit, you've got your impact business, and you've got your fundraising business. And so related to that, the biggest mistake I see new nonprofits make is they get a little money in, and then they just start their programs as though they're going to keep going. And sure enough, before too long, they've run out of money, they have to cut back on their programs, and then they don't have any capacity left to fundraise.  So here's what I tell people. Create your initial first plan, get your vision on paper, maybe you reach out to one or two major donors who are going to give you enough money to turn your plan into an actual let's call it an alpha experiment, or a beta test. You're going to flesh out everything that your program should look like initially, maybe there are two versions, you're going to test simultaneously, and then stop and fundraise for however much that plan costs. Make sure your plan includes the cost of evaluation. And then here's the really hard part for you heart-driven people, do not start your plan, until you have raised enough money to execute the entire experiment. Then, once you execute that entire experiment of a plan, you're going to plan to stop your first version of your plan. And then you're going to ask, are we doing more of this? Or are we do we have to experiment again, and then depending on which thing you're going to do, you're going to go and fundraise for that all along, keeping in mind that at some point, you're also fundraising for your ability to fundraise more, because you have to always be growing that side of your business as well. What your thoughts are on what is fundraising freedom? What does that mean to you when you hear that?  I love that question. It kind of has two meanings to me. One is that your fundraising gives you the freedom to make the impact that you really want to make to run experiments. I think, unfortunately, the nonprofit culture we're locked into is we don't take risks, and it's a world of best practices. That couldn't be further from what we need to be doing. Most nonprofits, I say they have a mission impossible. They're trying to solve the world's most complex never solved before problems. That means you have to innovate, and you innovate by taking risks and running experiments. There is no best practice for solving the unsolved other than maybe the scientific method. And so we really need to change that culture. I think freedom and fundraising partly mean that your fundraising is empowering you to be an innovator as a nonprofit. Then the other thing I think of is that, that you find joy in fundraising, that fundraising doesn't feel like this side chore, but that it feels like you're building a tribe of supporters, you could call them investors, people who are trying to achieve the same mission that you're trying to achieve, but you're doing it through your programs, and they're doing it with their money, and you're excited to talk to them and think of them as partners.  Any parting advice from you for these organizations and individuals to really tackle this season and moving forward?  My standard advice is that good advice is easy to find, especially if you pay for it, because a lot of the best advice and doesn't cost very much. But people who give good advice are usually committed to seeing results, and they at least want you to have some skin in the game. But the hard part is not finding good advice. The hard part is following it. And so I encourage you to be brave when things are tough. Resist the urge to just throw it all up in the air and go by your gut. Keep following that good advice just and return to it. It's kind of like meditation, you're not going to be 100% focused or following the advice all the time, but just keep coming back to it. It's never too late to try following good advice again.   Connect with Sarah: Pivot Ground Sarah’s Micro-Trainings   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

Today we're talking about the number one reason fundraisers fail. Contrary to popular belief, it's not because we didn't work hard enough. The number one reason fundraisers fail is from internal conflict. As you know, right now we are dealing with a pandemic, more than likely about to be hit with some economic challenges because a lot of people are without jobs at this point. And so there's still a lot of uncertainty in the environment that we're in. For those of you who are familiar with a SWOT analysis, this may be something that you need to sit down and do so that you're aware of what's going on. A SWOT analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It's really just sitting down with a sheet of paper and writing out your strengths, where your weaknesses are, what opportunities you have, and what threats are out there. Once you do this, you can start to see what's actually going on behind the scenes. Sometimes, I think that we forget that our volunteers, our donors, and the people who are in our inner circle all have to work. Collectively, they all have to work together for the common good of your cause. And if you have any conflict that's going on, you're going to have to address that before you send your volunteers out to share the great reasons why people should give to your cause. If you cannot address conflict you're going to have a really tough time raising funds. Let's talk through that. Conflict typically comes up because you've had a disagreement or a power struggle. You've got people who have money, you have people who have influence, and they're used to being in charge. Then you put them in a room together and you try and get them to work as a team and sometimes, the power struggle ensues. Also, a lot of people you recruit may have an ego and so pride and/or jealousy creeps in. Or, maybe when you're dealing with conflict with staff you've got people who think that they should be compensated more, and they're not, or you don't have the funds to increase their finances. Whatever the reason, there are two main reasons that conflict can arise - communication and emotions. When you think about communication, you may think that you're doing a fairly good job sharing with your people. But if you are lacking that communication, if you are giving either poor information, no information, lack of information, misinformation, or even say you give really good information but for some reason, the other side is not receiving it, you're going to still deal with conflict. To really get through, you just need to be clear, concise, accurate, and timely. You've heard the story so many times from people where you visually start to create colors and create locations as someone is telling you a story. You created this elaborate picture inside of your mind to fill in the gaps of this story that's being told. If we don't give a clear story and don't give someone all of the information that they need, they will fill in the gaps. If a volunteer feels left out, they feel like their voices aren't being heard, or a staff member feels like they're disposable, they're going to start to find alternative places to go and they're going to leave and quit. And that is the last thing we want to see is our volunteers drop off, the people that we love and care about our staff members, we don't want to see any of them leave during this time, because of uncertainty or lack of communication. Number two is emotion. Emotions can sometimes take over. And then all of a sudden you find that your people are angry. So then they rise up verbalize that. If you put somebody in a position where they don't have the information that they need and communication is not great. They're not going to put themselves out there because they don't want to be put in a position that they could possibly feel shame. Fear is obviously huge. Many of us deal with fear. Those people who really process things in their heads deal a lot with fear. Emotions also come up because of past hurts, trust issues, etc. Now that we know that emotions and communication are important to overcome the idea of conflict, one thing that we need to do is we have to have some sort of plan in place to address conflict. You probably have gone through some conflict management stuff in the past. But the main thing here is just conflict resolution. When conflict arises, what do we need to do to actually come together and create a solution to the problem? Now, there are some things that you can do, such as set rules as an organization where if there is an emotion that comes up in text messages and emails, to immediately pick up the phone. You need to hear that person's voice and you need to know that it wasn't coming across as being upset, or whatever that is, and you need to be able to address it right at that moment so you can talk through the situation and figure out what we're dealing with. One last thing I want to leave you with is if you are having an issue with a staff member, donor, or other volunteers, do not vent to your volunteers or another third party. What happens is they will take up that conflict and pick sides. So then, when you've resolved the issue on your side, the volunteer still may dislike the person which can lead to an even bigger conflict. So just don't do it. I hope today's conversation has been helpful for you, wherever you're at. I hope that you don't have any conflict in your organization. But I'm going to bet that if you have at least one volunteer, if you have one, one staff person, that you're going to deal with conflict at some point. I hope this helps you navigate through that and know that you're not alone. Conflict is normal. And sometimes you're dealing with issues that happened years and maybe even decades ago that have never been addressed. I want to see your year-end fundraising being so successful, I want people to look at you and say, that's an organization I want to align with. That's an organization that has integrity, and they have, you know, they're honest, they forgive each other, they love each other. And they want to, they want to really create an impact in the world, I want to be a part of that. So you can see where when this conflict is addressed, you are going to be so much more attractive to your donor base, and more people are going to want to be a part of it.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

We are talking about how to build a new relationship with money today. In the last couple of episodes, I have been really practical in my messaging. But today, I wanted to take a little bit of a different turn on our conversation and talk specifically about money itself. Now for those of you who have read my book, Fundraising Freedom, I talk specifically about our relationship with money (on page 103) and that is what I want to dive into. Some of us have had really good experiences with money, some of us not so much. And so I'm just going to share a few stories and ideas that you can think about and figure out whether or not some of this stuff might be holding you back. First of all, I'll just share a little bit about my upbringing. I'm the youngest of seven and we all have names starting with the letter M. If you have read my book, I talk about my older brothers and sisters who were in college, who were really a catalyst into my fundraising because I just enjoyed spending time with them. Having such a large family, I was never really alone. And that was really incredible. I never thought much about the things that we had, because I valued time so much. I had a lot of hand-me-downs, pretty much everything was secondhand stuff, and we always had food on the table. There were really no complaints. But we did not live, what I would consider, an American wealthy lifestyle. When I was in the second grade we moved across the state of North Dakota and that's really where so much of my life changed. We lived in this really great house when we were in Dickinson; the whole family was there. Then all of a sudden, the kids all started going off to college and so we then picked up and moved to the same college town that all my older brothers and sisters were in. Now instead of living in a house, my mom and dad decided that they were going to rent a two-bedroom apartment. We instantly went from having this nice big house to then living in this small apartment complex where I was sharing a bunk bed with my sister. And as much as I love my sister, that was probably the worst thing for our relationship. The four of us were on top of each other but more importantly, I saw how my friends lived. They had these nice big houses with pools - all the stuff that I so wanted. It felt like this poverty versus abundance way of life. I wanted to be around people who were living an abundant lifestyle. My dad, although he is the catalyst to what I do today, was the most charitable person but he was also an extremely frugal man. I mean, if he could fix the car, he would keep that car for as long as possible until the wheels were falling off. We drove the worst clunkers you could ever find and he was always just so proud of the fact that he could turn something that might have been worthless to somebody else into a usable thing. It's such a quality that I appreciated about him. But at the same time, I just remember as a kid spending so much time just begging him to move into a house. I would look through the newspaper to see what houses were for sale because that's how people sold houses back in the day. They built these beautiful townhomes a block away from our apartment and I wanted to live there so badly because they were so much better than this apartment. By the time I graduated from high school and I was figuring out what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do with my life, it was so important for me that money never stopped me. I would get the scholarships, I worked the job at Sears, I would sell the most. I just never wanted to feel without or never wanted to feel that lack and scarcity again, which drives me so much. When it comes to fundraising, I don't want any charity to feel that lack and scarcity. I don't want you to feel like you can't keep your doors open or do the work that you've been called to do. I want you to be able to see that when it comes to your own personal finances, and the finances of your organization, there are all of these preconceived notions, all these things about your childhood that come up in your fundraising efforts. Because if you are afraid of asking for money, if you feel a little bit shy around asking for money, I bet you can correlate that back to something in your history, your background, and your childhood. I want to reframe your mindset around fundraising and reframe your mindset around money. I want you to start looking at money in a completely new light. As you're thinking through the year and support that you're raising, or you’re looking at your budget for 2021, I just want you to start thinking about how you can create a happier experience for your donors. Are you creating an environment of lack and scarcity, where people aren't necessarily attracted to your cause and attracted to you because you reek of desperation? If there's always a feeling of anxiety and lack and that feeling of deprivation; nobody wants to give to that. People want to feel like their dollars are actually making an impact. So if you're in the current place where everything feels very scarcity-minded, I want you to start thinking about the upcoming year and how you can start making some shifts so that you're ready to receive donations. Think about when people give to your charity, and when you give to charity, think about the joy, think about the happiness that comes when you get to give to that cause. I think that sometimes we forget that when we ask somebody to give to our cause, there is joy, there's really great excitement and happiness for them to be able to give to our cause. But we have to create that environment so that they really do feel happy about every single donation that they give to your cause that they never once question, are they doing what they say that they're going to do? Are they actually appreciative of our partnership? It all comes back to the fact that there's such joy being in partnership together; that the relationship that you have together is really changing lives and it's making a huge difference. The big takeaway for you today is that I want you to spend a little bit of time in reflection. Maybe bust out a journal or a sheet of paper and just jot down some of your money history. Think a little bit about how you can have a new relationship with money around happiness and around gratitude. See if you can kick that into your day-to-day life in a new way as you wrap up the year-end.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

Today, we're going digging into the year-end appeal and I'm sharing the three things you need to include in your letter. This is very specific for 2020. As you know, this year has been very unusual so that means that your year-end appeal needs a new and fresh update. Did you know that a quarter of all nonprofits will bring in nearly half of their income off of this one letter? For some organizations, this letter is huge, it is a really, really big deal that this is done well because it brings in and it generates a lot of income for the organization. For others, roughly 40%, bring in less than 10% of their money off of this year on appeal. This just means you have to know your cause. One of the first things that I want to share with you is that you have got to customize your 2020 letter, this year’s letter has got to look different. The majority of nonprofits are going to put together this letter in October because they want to get it in the mail in November or December.  I want to make sure that you are really clear about what your communication strategy is with people over the course of these next three months. Don't just send out the letter cold where these people haven't heard from you in years. That's a really bad idea. And it's going to fall flat. No matter how great your letter is, if somebody hasn't heard from you in a long, long time, they're not really engaged. So, you may be wondering if you should send your letter by email or snail mail. Either one is fine. Hear me out; either one is fine but direct mail is better. Direct mail costs more so I understand why you'd say it's just not cost-effective to do that right now. The number two option is to do an email campaign that includes your year-end appeal at the end. Regardless of whether you drop this in the mail or you actually send it out by email, note that you want to make sure that you have those touches at least 1-3 times before they receive your appeal at the end of the year. 31% of all donations come in, in the month of December, and 12% of those donations will come in in the last three days. So with your year-end appeal, just make sure that you create that urgency, and you also are paying attention to the calendar, because that is going to make a huge difference. Because we're in 2020 and in a global pandemic, nobody knew that, right? You have to make sure that you address the elephant in the room. You need to include that in our year-end appeal; what have you been doing during the pandemic? What has happened to your organization? Just share some details about how your organization has changed. Maybe some things that you have modified, maybe you were doing that fundraiser, and you had to change it or you did those camps or, these outreach activities and instead of doing them face to face, you moved them virtually. Number two, how has your work actually made a difference? In normal times, we would have just said, “Well, here's how we make a difference.” But in 2020, you have to be very specific about how your mission is still very relevant. Your mission and the way you executed your mission, very well may have changed. Finally, the third thing is that I want you to share what benefits your donors may have in 2020. For those of you who have followed the Cares Act, you know that there are benefits for your donors that allow them to deduct more from their taxes with their donation to your cause. They actually will make money back meaning that they will be able to give more money to your organization without it costing them. The new incentive for the Cares Act is actually two separate incentives, one for individuals and one for corporations. For individuals, they can elect to deduct their donations, up to 100% of their 2020 Adjusted Gross Income. For corporations, they also have the ability to increase those deductions, from 10% to 25%, of their taxable income in 2020. That's a huge difference and a huge incentive for your donors to give in 2020. I hope this is helpful for you as you start to just make plans for this year-end appeal. As you're continuing to move forward, just remember that it's important that we do communicate and that you clearly articulate what it is that your cause is doing and how your donors can make a difference to the work. It's not about you being so awesome and you doing such great things. It's about the fact that you guys all get to do this together. And the fact that you get to do it in the first place is pretty fantastic.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

Today, we're talking about how to end 2020 strong. And we're really going to be talking about your 90-day plan. These last 90 days are going to end the year strong and allow you to really come into these final last months with some clarity, focus, and really give you some practical steps on how to actually achieve the goal that you're looking at. As many of you know, December is the largest giving month of the year; more than 30% of all the donations for the year are going to come in December. You don't want to miss out on that opportunity. And you don't want to miss out on actually achieving the goal that you have for your budget and for your organization. Let's start off by going through the FREEDOM steps. I know some of you are familiar with my freedom process but for those of you who are brand new to this, I will give you a brief overview of the Fundraising Freedom steps. This seven-step process works no matter what the size of your cause is, no matter what the size of your budget. Step number one, focus your vision. How much do you want to raise between now and the end of the year? What is it that you can do in order to raise these dollars? Maybe it's sending out a year-end letter, or engaging people in some holiday fundraiser. You’re going to start researching and trying to figure out what do you want to do in order to raise those dollars. And the research phase, which is step two, is really just you looking at what options are out there as well as what people are doing to raise funds. Step three is to enlist your team. Now you’re going to look at who you need to bring to the table to make this happen. You may have a board, you may have an advisory group, or you may have some people who are already invested in helping you fundraise. But if you don't, you may decide that you're going to bring together three to five new people or just a couple of people together so that you can start having this conversation. Then, you and your team are going to brainstorm how you plan to meet your goal. Enlisting your team is simply bringing people together for a common purpose. This is with anything that you do. If you can find a couple of people who are all focused on the same thing, you're much more likely to actually achieve your goals. Step 4 is to enhance your brand. What kind of materials are you going to need to wrap up this year? Are you going to post some information on your website? Create some additional flyers or pieces of communication to give to people? Are you going to gather people together? If so, you need to send out invitations about the fundraiser you’re doing. It doesn't have to be overly complicated. I think that that's where sometimes we get locked in our head that it has to be super elaborate. Now, don't get me wrong, if you're trying to raise a significant amount of money, the more you're trying to raise, the more elaborate your materials need to be because we need to make sure that people know that you are a valid organization.  Once you have your materials, your name, or branding for this year’s activity, you jump into the next step which is to deploy your team. This is where you let them loose and you want them to help you spread the word and get people plugged in. In step six is where you actually ask for money. And I call that organize your ask. I have to remind people through the fundraising freedom process that you are not asking for money in step one. This is why so many organizations and so many individuals really struggle with their fundraising; they run through their entire list and they go after the people who are friends and family and those who are in your inner circle, and you only have so many of those people. Finally, step seven is all about making your difference. So now it's December 31, you've raised your funds and now you actually go put those dollars to use, and make a crazy, incredible difference in the world. And then you go back and you tell your donors about it so that they can continue to give again. Now, this 90-day plan, as you can see is obviously something that you can stretch over six months, nine months, a year. The one thing about having a condensed amount of time, looking at these last three months, I would say there is no more critical timeframe in the calendar year than these three months.  But I also want you to be thinking about 2021. Now 2020 has turned into a major cluster, right? This is not what any of us has had anticipated but studies have shown that people are still going to give and about 15% are going to give more here in the next three months than they gave previously. A lot of people pushed pause on their giving because they wanted to see what was going to happen during this pandemic so there's a lot of money that's sitting out there more than ever before. People are still going to make that gift; they're still going to want to give a certain percentage of their income to a charity. Know that there is so much money sitting out there, waiting for you.  All you have to do is ask for it.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

Today we're talking about the seven questions to ask yourself before that next big meeting. If you've been following the podcast for a while, you've been following the seven steps that I teach in my book, Fundraising Freedom.  On all the lessons that I've taught over these last 173 episodes, I hope that you've gotten to a place where you realize that the secret to the sauce is your volunteer team. But I want to remind you that when you recruit and build a team around you, the natural response is that they are going to be fired up. And they're going to want to introduce you to new people. I know a lot of people talk about referrals and asking somebody to introduce them to somebody else. And there are lots of different approaches to getting the meeting. But I am a huge fan of empowering your volunteer team to open up doors and really be the face and the advocate for the work that you do. Today's conversation is going to help you through that.  It's really going to give you some tools so that you know when you walk into that meeting, whether that meeting is on video, a phone call, or you are actually meeting face to face that you feel 100% confident and secure, and what it is that you're going to share with them.  The first question that we're going to talk about is who is in the meeting? This is not a tough question here. But you have to know who's going to be at the meeting.  There have been times where I think that it's going to be one person, then somebody else shows up. But if you can identify who are the key players will be in the meeting, that will help you so much.  Now you can really assess the room, how these people are going to interact with each other, and you can determine who should be in the meeting with you. Now, sometimes a volunteer is going to set up that meeting for you. So, in an ideal situation, you're going to have your key volunteer with you.  We really want to ask the question of who will be in the room, their exact title, how to pronounce their name, and their key ability to make decisions. Number two, what is the purpose of the meeting?  Nobody wants to waste anybody's time; you don't want your time to be wasted and you don't want to waste someone else’s. So, let's get right to the point of why we are meeting in the first place.  Maybe it’s just an introduction. Maybe the purpose of the meeting is just a “get to know you meeting.” And it's not about asking for money, it's about just getting to know them and seeing if this is a good fit. Maybe the meeting is an opportunity for them to volunteer with your organization or with your cause. Number three, what's your agenda for the meeting? How is this going to go? Are they going to introduce themselves? Am I going to introduce myself?  Is my volunteer going to introduce me?  Now, I'm not saying that you physically have to write out an agenda or that you have to hand them an agenda.  And the reason why I had that agenda laid out was that my volunteer told me to. I didn't just come into this meeting, super, super organized with that agenda, my volunteer told me that it was how to win over our director. This is how you're going to get him to say yes, you're going to wow him from the moment you walk in. And that's exactly what we did. And he absolutely said yes. Question number four is, what is the most ideal outcome? After everything is said and done, what do you want out of this meeting? What's the intent? It could be just I want to get to know them, I want to see how we could actually work together how we could partner together to make a difference. That very well may be the absolute goal of this meeting but think about the desired outcome.  If it's a financial commitment, think through what it is that you're going to actually be asking and know exactly what it is that you want. Number five, what obstacles could stand in the way? I want you to really think through this because it’s something that you could actually take care of before it becomes an issue or becomes something that rears its ugly head later on. What could possibly stop you from moving forward with this relationship during this meeting? Now, for those of you who are working with organizations or companies that have a lot of employees, you know that there's a lot of voices that are ringing in the leadership's head, what is their favorite charity of choice? What are they trying to accomplish as an organization or as a company?  You better believe that the obstacle is going to be all those other voices, all those other people who are going to be asking questions about why or why didn’t we decide to give our money here? Why did we decide to get plugged in here? So I want you to be thinking about what can you do to show that you align with their values, that you align with their goals, whether that's marketing or promotion, or whatever they're trying to do to get their message out that you are a perfect fit. Number six, how can you best serve them? Now, this goes back to what their plan is.  What are their goals? How can you help move their mission forward? I see that all the time with our charities that we have the ability to take their mission to an entirely new level. If you work with people who are in a different country, if you have access to community members that maybe they would never have access to, that is huge, because now you're saying ‘hey, I can get you access in there. I can show the community what a huge difference you're making.’ And now you're this great testimonial of what wonderful people they are and what a huge difference that they're making in the world. So remind yourself of those things that you can do to actually bring something to the table. This is where you want it to be a win-win, right? We don't want a relationship where they're giving us a handout and we're begging all the time. That's where this question comes into play is what is in it for them? Why would they say yes? How can you serve them to make sure that they feel like they came out ahead?  I try this with every single organization and individual that I work with, I really want them to feel like they won here in this relationship that they got more out of it than they put in. So if that means that it says something about their identity, if it says something about their organization, they get that good credibility that comes with it. You can't pay for that. That is something that people money just cannot buy. And so you have something to offer them that they would never be able to get anywhere else. Now let's think about how you are going to actually follow up with them. When we talk about enhancing your brand, I really want to make sure that you have that case document. I encourage missionaries and those who are raising less than $100,000, that a one-pager is more than sufficient for these conversations. But if you are trying to raise money for a large-scale organization, and you're trying to fund a really large project, you need that case document, I often call it a presentation piece or your menu, lots of different names for it. But in the fundraising space, we call it a case document.  It reminds them of and confirms everything that I already said during this meeting. And so now this is the follow up that I'm going to have, ‘hey, I'm going to email you this document.’ Make sure to include a timeframe as well. What's our next step? Are we going to be meeting again? Are they going to be meeting with their committee? Are they going to be getting together and deciding on what they're going to do in the next week or two? I just want to make sure that that's really clear during the meeting. That way, you know exactly how you're going to end the meeting. The primary thing here is to be prepared. Oftentimes, I tell people the butterflies and anxiety and all that stuff comes because you're not prepared. When you do the research, when you come in confident about what it is that you're going to share, you're going to come across so much better, and people are going to recognize that there's something different about you. You can imagine how many people walk into these offices or have these conversations with people of power and they are extremely nervous.  However, if you come in totally counter to what everybody else is doing and you’re confident in what you’re doing, you will be surprised how that translates and how that turns into dollars into volunteers into partners. I just want to continue to encourage you to stand firm on what you believe and what your cause is all about and present yourself truly as an expert in your space. Utilize that volunteer who is working with you to be an advocate and to really be that testimonial for your organization. And then speak with confidence because you know that this person is already funding and supporting you, and why wouldn't everybody else want to do the same?   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn      

I want to share with you today some common things that successful people do.  Number one, they don't allow fear to cripple them.  Now think about people who are public speakers, they do not let the fear of public speaking stop them from accomplishing or stepping foot on stage. They don't allow fear to cripple them. And they allow that fear to be that emotion. They just make that little flip of the switch and now all of a sudden, it's like, ‘okay, I'm not afraid of this. This is fun. This is exciting. It's something that I'm, I can actually do.’ Number two, they don't let others influence their decisions. When you set a goal, whether that is a fundraising goal, recruiting volunteers, or whatever it is, successful people don't let other others influence their decisions. They make up their mind and they move toward it. They don't actually care all that much about making everybody happy. And I know for our people pleasers out there that is so difficult because you want to make everybody happy. But if you're going to actually get to the end result and get to that goal, you have to stay focused on what it is that you want and not allow others to influence your decision or influence that end goal. Number three, they don't give up when times are tough. They keep pressing on, and they're disciplined about it. When they move forward, they do whatever it takes; they stay focused. Number four, they see the lesson when things don't go as planned. And that is hard when things don't go your way, right? But the thing is, there's always a lesson when you're moving towards an end goal. I can remember so many times when I was raising funds and thought it was just a waste of my time. It was a waste of my energy. But now that I'm several years out from that moment, it's easy now to see lessons I learned. I get why I had to go through it. In so many areas of your life, you look back and realize you learned so many great lessons from those hardships, the pain you felt was visceral, it's deep. But successful people are focused on making sure that they see the lesson as they move forward. Number five, they care about the journey. They wake up thinking about how they’ve come such a long way. And I don't know how many times you feel that where you're down on yourself because you think you should be further than you are. But when you can actually start to see the pieces coming together and you're taking the steps towards it, you actually really enjoy the journey. You enjoy the process that you're going through. I do want to encourage you in that because it's really easy to get to the end goal and then think to yourself, ‘well, that was a lot of work and I don't ever want to do that again.’ Because you didn't really enjoy the process that you went through, and it was painful. And maybe you were begging people for money, and you're asking for something that you felt like they didn't want to give to you. And so it didn't feel good. And fundraising should feel good. I just want to remind you of that, that when you ask somebody to be a part of the work that you're doing, it should be a win-win for both sides. I've said this before that I love, love, love fundraising, but that's just because I really love people. And I hope that you can see that too in the work that you're doing. Number six is they believe in themselves. In the process, they never lose belief. Belief is huge for me. I have spent many episodes talking about believing not only in yourself but believing in the work that you're doing and having a belief that it's actually possible. If you don't believe that you can actually accomplish the goal, you're obviously going to give up, you're not going to continue forward. But when you believe that the end result is absolutely doable and that you can definitely get there, then this belief thing will just continue to press you forward and push you towards the end goal. I want to make sure that you're staying the course throughout this entire process. That's why successful people accomplish their goals, they don't give up on them, they believe in themselves and in the process. Number seven, they surround themselves with positive people. I have worked with boards and advisory groups and volunteer groups, where the people that were on the team weren't so positive. They came in with the devil's advocate kind of message.  While I don't have a problem with people who push back on the ideas and things that are brought up as this can make for a better organization, the negative people who just want to show up and don’t think they’ll ever achieve the goal can absolutely kill a fundraiser.  If you have those people in your group, you have got to figure out a way to get them out of there. I'm not a huge advocate of firing people, but if they need to go. What I encourage is to find a new place for them to serve that's going to allow them to really use their gifts and skills. Number eight, they pivot and adjust. As you know, we are in a crazy season and you have had to pivot. You've had to adjust the way that you're doing things. You can't get that huge group of people in one room together right now and you've had to move online, do things virtually change the way that you're raising funds. If you weren't doing that before, being able to pivot and adjust is what will actually get you to the end result. Number nine, they don't need a guaranteed path to success. This follows right along with being able to pivot and adjust. Now I give you a seven-step process to fundraising freedom, and I believe in it, I believe that it's a plan that works over and over and over again. But the thing is, is that when people give up on their goal, or they bail on it, it's usually because they feel like they don't have a guarantee that it will be successful. I can't tell you how many people do not follow through with the things that I encourage them to do because they're not 110% sure that all this effort will be worth it. The people who are successful, they don't need a guaranteed path to success. The fact that there isn't a guarantee actually makes people enjoy the process even more because it's fun. Number 10 on my list is successful people would rather work towards long term rewards than short term rewards.  We live in an instant gratification world, we want it and we want it now. But fundraising and achieving those goals come because you are willing to put your head down, go to work, and do the process so that you can actually accomplishing that goal.  When it comes to fundraising, so many people want to do those short-term fundraising events, which obviously we can't do right now. And I'm so grateful for because those fundraisers are the ones that burn your staff out. They're the ones that burn you out. If you have to do those fundraisers every single weekend or multiple times in a month, it is just so overwhelming. And we're looking at the short term with that. If you start looking at the long term, you're going to start looking at signature fundraising events. And that's what I often teach on and that's my signature program, Fundraising Freedom Academy. That program is all about creating your signature fundraiser. I'm not talking about the large group gathering. In years past, that is absolutely what was happening, maybe that gala, maybe it was a golf tournament or something significant like that. Now, it doesn't mean that we're not going to do other fundraisers along the way that maybe lead into that big fundraiser, but it allows for us to keep our sights on one signature fundraiser and one goal. I hope that you pulled a few nuggets of information from this and if you are looking to raise funds through a signature fundraiser, please check out Fundraising Freedom Academy. I have a free training on there that goes further in-depth on this topic that we're talking about today. And it's just a short training video that you guys can download and start listening to today and start implementing these ideas into your fundraising efforts so that you can accomplish your goal. These next few months, we are gearing up for the year and the largest giving season of the year. I hope you guys know that December, over 30% of all donations are coming in the month of December. So these next few months as you're gearing up for the end of the year, do not go on autopilot. I'm going to encourage you to step up your game, use these next couple of months to really engage new people into the work that you're doing, and start inviting people to support your work.   Connect with Mary:  Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

Today we're talking about virtual events, live events, all that good stuff with my guest, Wendi Freeman. Wendi is the founder and CEO of Be Bright Events. She has worked in the for-profit space, and she's done a lot of work in the nonprofit space as well. Wendi has more than 15 years of experience; she's planned events, conferences, workshops, retreats, masterminds for groups that are anywhere from about 12 people all the way up to 700 people, and their budgets range anywhere from $1,000 to a million dollars. Tell us a little bit more about you and the work that you do today. I did event planning in the corporate space for a little over 15 years and started my own business because I wanted to focus more on organizations that were making an impact in people's lives. I started my business with the intent of in-person events and have since pivoted to virtual events, which has actually been really great. There's such a broader reach of planning events for organizations and entrepreneurs who are making an impact. We've been able to raise even more funds, we've been able to reach and touch even more people, and it's really given organizations an opportunity to really get their messages out in a way that they otherwise previously weren't able to do. How did you add the virtual on top of the already scheduled event? How did that look like for your clients? For a lot of them, they already had the speakers confirmed. So we just reached out to the speakers and told them that we still want them to speak at our in-person event if the dates work for them. But we would love to feature them on our virtual event as well. Almost every speaker was willing to do that because again, it gives them that broader reach. I think you're probably sensing a theme here. With virtual, it's very different than in person. You really have to be strategic in the way that you create your program because when you're on stage, you have a captive audience. When you're virtual, they're not necessarily captive, they're behind the screen, it's very easy to multitask. And the attention span is not nearly the same as it is when you're in person. So we combined a lot of them into panels that kept it very interactive and engaging. And then we had other ones just do a shorter version of their session or one component of their session as a highlight. So not only were we still delivering that value, but we also gain marketing materials to promote the in-person event with kind of sneak peeks of what they're going to be seeing what the type of content is. We also did a lot of modifications - the agenda, the way that they were speaking, and we worked in some engagement activities. So intentional hot seats, intentional Q and A's, and breakout sessions. For some of them, we added an upgraded ticket price that was for that VIP ticket. Obviously, with the VIP you will get all of the recordings. But what that also included was a lunch or a mastermind or some sort of private event where they literally got to be in a room with the speaker, which is something that you would never have. I mean, you're obviously in the room with the speaker at an in-person event. But being 18 inches away in a Zoom Room with fewer people having the opportunity to really talk to that speaker provided a tremendous amount of value to the attendees. Do you charge the same for your virtual events or that virtual ticket as your live ticket? That's a question that I get a lot. You could look at it one of two ways. The first thing that I always say is, you would never have an in-person event for free. The reason being there's obviously overhead, but you are delivering value and people are paying for that value. The same thing stands true in a virtual event. What I've done with virtual events is we have come up with various ticket tiers. That allows you to still offer a higher level of value at a price point that is going to generate revenue for you. But you also can have those lower price points; a lot of virtual events are offering free. For a lot of your listeners that are in the nonprofit space, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, because you want to get that word out, you're going to get more fundraisers you're going to be or you're going to be able to raise more money. But at the same time, when you're doing that, you can limit it to where it's just a live stream on YouTube, or it's a live stream on Facebook, and then people are paying to actually be in the Zoom Room to be a part of those breakouts, to be a part of those conversations, to get the recordings to get any speaker downloads And then making each package a no brainer depending on the level of engagement the attendees want. There's a ticket price that will resonate with everyone. What are you seeing that is being done really well by nonprofit leaders during the season that we've been walking through? What I've been seeing that is has been done really well, our number one, the nonprofit's that are willing to take that leap. It can be scary, especially when you are thinking about in-person events that have silent auctions and different types of events. But there are ways to replicate that in the virtual space. And there's actually some really fun ways we've done silent auctions. We've done online auctions, we've even done in-person auctions where everybody gets sent out a packet ahead of time, and they have their flag number and we're doing it that way. So I think that creating the experience, letting people know that this still is an interactive fundraiser, and being intentional with the sessions that you're having and the different activities that you're doing. The nonprofit's that I have worked with that have raised the most money, they all had one thing in common, and on their registration pages. They had short videos of previous recipients of those funds, sharing their story about what they were able to accomplish as a result because that's what pulls at people's heartstrings. So those were definitely the Top Producing nonprofit fundraising events that I've been a part of were the ones that took the time to get those videos from the recipients really good. What is your definition of fundraising freedom? What does that mean to you? I think a part of freedom comes down to security. Being in a place where you feel secure enough to go after what you want. So many people talk about financial freedom and just freedom in general. And I know for me it comes down to it's not about financial freedom, it's about what is the end goal? What am I trying to accomplish? And how can I do that? When I feel secure, I'm willing to take more risks. When I feel secure, I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone. When I feel secure I am going to be the person that I need to be in order to accomplish whatever it is that I'm trying to accomplish. Do you have any parting advice for people as they launch out into this virtual event space or just nonprofit work in general? I just encourage everybody to remember your why. Why did you start this foundation? Why are you doing this and use that as your momentum to move you forward? Do the things that you might not want to do resource up level up, you know, ask for help when you need help, and use that why as your momentum.   Connect with Wendi: The Virtual Event Experts: www.thevirtualeventexperts.com Be Bright Events: www.bebrighteventsco.com/ Schedule a FREE Strategy Call: https://calendly.com/bebrightevents/be-bright-events-connection-call Virtual Event Toolkit: https://bit.ly/virtualeventtoolkitEmail: wendi.freeman@bebrighteventsco.com FREE DOWNLOAD: Guide to Getting Started: https://www.bebrighteventsco.com/planningworkbook Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wendi.i.freeman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendifreeman     Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn        

Today we're talking about the three things you need to effectively grow and multiply your cause.  The reason why I wanted to talk on this topic is that multiplication is really what we're all about, right? When we join or when we start up an organization, our goal here is to affect as many people as possible in a positive way. We're trying to impact lives and help people who maybe have never been helped before. As you are thinking about how to increase donations and how do you get more people engaged, there are three things that you should really have in that plan.  Whether you are the founder, you've been doing this for a long time, or whether you are a part of a larger organization and just got hired on as development staff, you are in the right place, today's episode is for you. The first thing that you need is an effective board. Some of you don't have to worry about the board of directors but for those of you who have had to recruit one or manage one, you will find out very that this is a difficult group of people to manage because they're not just a normal group of people. These are your bosses. They are at the top of the food chain and they can make or break your organization. It's all about having the right people in the right seats on that bus that's going in the direction that you want to take your organization in. This is a group of people who are basically saying that they will honor the vision and mission of this organization. Now many times we get confused and we think that the Board of Directors should be the group of people who are raising all of our money. I believe that your board should have some skin in the game and they should be giving to your organization. And so if you have board members who are not giving their time, their money, and their resources, you should probably question why they're serving on your board and why they've been allowed to stay. I just want you to be really cautious of the fact that you need to have requirements for your board. And I'm not saying that they have to be your largest givers. I'm not even saying that they have to all financially give. I'm just saying that your board has to be engaged in some way. Number two is all about your staff. Every organization should have paid staff. I know it’s the fad in the nonprofit industry that we should have all non-paid volunteers and that this somehow means you are more efficient and makes for a better organization if you don't have any paid staff. How many businesses are effective when people don't get paid? Not very many. In order for you to really grow and multiply, you have to have effective staff in place. The final thing I want you to be thinking about is your volunteers. We've talked about a board of directors as your volunteers. Now, our volunteers are not paid and this may be you but these are not paid positions. This is what gives credibility to your organization. You've got people in the community who want to give to the work that you're doing and they're willing to do it for free because they want to invest in what's happening. I've always said volunteers give twice as much than non-volunteers. So if you want to grow and multiply, get more volunteers. Sometimes people sit back and say, “I don't even know what to do with them?” Get creative. Some companies will actually pay to have their staff volunteer for your organization, or they will give matching gifts to one of their individuals who give to your organization. Now I want to address the advisory group here. This is something that I'm a huge advocate for.  Recruit a volunteer who can serve on an advisory level for you. This is very different than a board of directors. The advisory group is all about the people who are looking at your finances and looking at your fundraising. They're not looking at your mission. They're not spending a lot of time thinking about how many people are being impacted. They're thinking specifically about who can give and who can be a volunteer in the area of fundraising.  This is a really important season. It's going to make or break organizations and it's going to make or break people. We know that the mental challenges and keeping ourselves motivated and moving forward is tough. I appreciate you being willing to step outside of the box, try new things, and really push yourselves at a new level. Once again, your board members, your staff, and your volunteers are essential to your growth and to the multiplication of your cause. So today, let's get down on paper what we want. And let's go recruit volunteers who are going to help us move our mission forward.   Connect with Mary:  Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

We've been talking a lot lately about a variety of different ways that you can raise funds and today, I wanted to bring a special guest on to talk specifically about working with philanthropists. Kris Putnam-Walkerly is a Global Philanthropy Advisor and she has more than 20 years of experience working with philanthropists.  Kris has an award-winning book called Delusional Altruism and she has helped hundreds of wealthy family foundations, fortune 500 companies, giving pledge signatories and wealth advisors strategically influence and allocate over a half a billion dollars in grants and gifts. Fill in the gaps in your story and tell us how you work with people in the charitable sector. I have been advising and consulting with philanthropists for the past 20 years. I began my career actually working at Stanford University where I was evaluating youth and gang violence prevention programs. And that was funded by a large foundation, the California Wellness Foundation. It piqued my interest because I realized funders, if they have anything, they have money and they have access to wealth. If you start with that, bring in the right experts, and you're really thoughtful and you do your research, you can tackle a problem at its root and try to create lasting change. Philanthropy can really make a difference and help change and solve a lot of the problems that we're dealing with. I went to work at the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, which at the time was the largest in the country. And I began consulting with other funders, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, and many others and realized I not only loved philanthropy, but I loved consulting too and that really began my career. Now I work in a few ways. I help funders of all kinds and sizes. I work with ultra-high net worth donors, leaders of foundations, corporate giving programs, national, local, family foundation, corporate community, and private. I help them to clarify their strategy, and then implement their strategy. And I often am brought on as a trusted advisor. They'll retain me to help them and be kind of strategic sounding board to navigate all aspects of their philanthropic journey. How do you define philanthropy to the world? Well, we're all philanthropists because all of us have a lot of love for humanity. And we all have the ability to give of ourselves, our time, talent, treasure, and I like to add ties, which our ties to the community and the ways that we can open doors and help other people by introductions and who we know. And so, I think it's important to recognize that, you know, we can all find ways to give. What is Delusional Altruism? Delusional Altruism is based on my experience and I believe donors want to make a difference and change the world and be altruistic and deeply care about the issues and communities that they're supporting. And they're also getting in their own way. They often don't even realize this is happening. I wrote the book to help donors recognize the ways that they have their own blind spots, and they often are preventing themselves from achieving the impact that they seek and how to recognize that and then what they can do differently to have a more transformational impact on whatever cause they care about.  What do you see nonprofits doing really well to engage with philanthropists, and not necessarily just during this time, but throughout the year?  I really think you can't over-communicate, especially now. And I know that a lot of nonprofit organizations when this crisis first hit were very worried about how to fundraise. To me, I think you really need to switch your mindset as a nonprofit leader and embrace what I call an abundance mindset. And that could mean many things. But I think for a nonprofit leader, it needs to mean recognizing your value, the value that you provide to the people that you're serving, and the value that you're providing to the donor.  What are you seeing that people are doing well, and maybe not so well in as they engage philanthropists? It's about communication, but it's about your own positioning and how clear you are. How you communicate the value that you bring, why you're the right organization to be doing this work, your accomplishments, whatever it might be, just really having clear communication, if it's a PowerPoint deck, or it's a two-page overview, or it's your website. You don't want anybody guessing as to what you do or be too vague in the description. Or be too shy about sharing your accomplishments. I think all of those things are really important. And I think secondly, and this might surprise your listeners, is you're not asking for enough money. I remember years ago when I was consulting with Charles Schwab Family Foundation, and I would be reviewing proposals coming in. It would be for a really important domestic violence shelter in the community. And it asked for $5,000. To be honest, I would think to myself, this program costs $100,000 a year to run, ask for $50,000 because we'd probably give it to you. It costs money to hire talented people and run organizations and have bookkeeping services and do professional development, develop your board, invest in technology, all of these things. These are real costs. Pretending they don't exist doesn't really do anything for the service and it turns into this sort of cycle of the scarcity mindset. So I would be honest about what it really takes to run your organization and ask for what you deserve. I hear statements like, donors only want to give to our projects into our program. They don't want to give to operational expenses. Is that true? Or is that both? Both. There are a lot of funders who will support core operating support.  However, I think this pandemic has made it abundantly obvious that you can't tightly restrict nonprofit organizations to do only X, Y or Z, when the rug gets pulled out from underneath them, and only A, B and C make sense or they have to reinvent the alphabet in order to proceed. I think the case will be easier to make going forward, that we need our resources to be able to navigate the work. But that said, there's actually a lot of fear in philanthropy. That might be surprising to some people because people equate money with power. One aspect of fear from the perspective of the funder is the fear of losing control, losing control of their money once they give it away. That's why you see so many hoops and hurdles that nonprofits have to jump through to get the funding. What does fundraising freedom mean to you? To me, it means taking the opportunity to explore the variety of fundraising tools that you have at your disposal and giving yourself the freedom to learn. One thing I hope everyone is doing during this pandemic is recognizing and seizing this opportunity to improve and change themselves. I've engaged in professional development, I've read books I was planning on reading that I hadn't read before. I've participated in webinars, I've forced myself to try new technology and take risks, doing things I wasn't comfortable doing before, intentionally to make sure that I emerge from this crisis, a stronger, better philanthropy advisor. That's a very freeing feeling because it's under my control, I can do it, I can do all of this for almost free. I really encourage fundraisers and, quite frankly, funders to do the same thing so that you can learn and add another tool to your toolbox.   Resources mentioned: Delusionalaltruism.com Six Mistakes Philanthropists Make During A Crisis   Connect with Kris: Putnam-consulting.com   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

My guest today is Ben Starling III.  Ben is a former director of philanthropy, has worked on huge projects like the Museum of the Bible and Scripps Research Institute. He's from Palm Beach, Florida, and he runs a business called Southern Philanthropy. Southern Philanthropy offers custom-tailored fundraising services for profit, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropists. Tell us a little bit about you. My entire career has been spent on fundraising. When I was a sophomore in college, I had to work, and I answered an ad on the college billboard to go and run errands at a fundraising PR office. I really didn't know exactly what that meant but I knew that I could run errands and the office was close to the school. So, I went down there and from that point forward, I never looked back. The gentleman was an old man, and he told me he was going to mold me into his image. I learned so much; he was a master. What part of it did you really enjoy? I am always inquisitive about people. I love to know what they think, what they do, what they believe, and why they believe it. I love to know where they began their life experiences. And I quickly discovered in fundraising that, true fundraising, meant that you get to know people and you get to know them generally over lunch and I love a good meal. It was exciting to listen to these people and to understand their life experiences. I come from a small southern town, and so when I met with these people and they talked about their travels around the world, the important people they knew they had experiences that I could only begin to imagine. I've always loved helping people and bringing people to the table. I’ve always had the gift of gab and that has enabled me to have a lot of friends and a large network. I always got great joy in bringing people together for the common good or a good cause. I realized; this is fundraising. This is my profession. This is my calling in life. It was a natural fit. Is there anything that fundraisers should be scared of when it comes to trying to secure a major gift from a very wealthy person? Absolutely not. I can tell you that I've worked with people all over the financial spectrum. And by far the easiest and most genuine people that you will ever work with are those at the highest levels financially. I have often given speeches of lessons from America's billionaires or the 13 billionaires that I've worked with. I can tell you that they're generally very humble people. They're not enjoying attention drawn to their wealth, and they are committed to making a difference and in a lot of times, in fundraising, you can find people who want their picture in the paper or they want their name on a building or they want to be in the spotlight. They want to use a charity in order to get that spotlight. But when you get to the top financial levels, you don't have to impress anyone. So, you're not aiming to chair a gala. But what you are aiming to do is to change the world. Philanthropy at the highest levels is about changing the world. I'll never have a billion dollars to be able to change the world myself but my contribution to changing the world is inviting others who do have that financial ability to join into an organization or to a mission and to participate financially.  What are you seeing right now that's holding nonprofit leaders back? Overall, I have to say it is a lack of fundraising training. For a lot of people, they've cut their teeth in special events, and they believe special event fundraising is the one and only way to go. What I'm seeing now is these event-driven organizations are having a very, very difficult time because of COVID. COVID has shut those events down.  A lot of the event-driven organizations are heavily supported by businesses that give corporate sponsorships and those sorts of things. A lot of that money is dried up and so another source of funds that I teach on are major gifts and key philanthropists in an area. What is a major gift to an organization? I get that every time I speak on major gifts and the answer is it varies. It depends on your organization. I’ve worked in organizations before where $5,000 was a major gift. I have given advice to some startup nonprofits where if you gave them $1,000, they thought that they had hit the lottery with $1,000. When I went to work for Scripps Research Institute it was interesting because the major gifts level started at $100,000. They wanted us to focus on people who could give $100,000 and at the Museum of the Bible, we set the target at $500,000 for major gifts to begin. You have some schools, Harvard and Yale, and some of those with billion-dollar endowments, where major gifts may begin at a couple of million dollars. So, it varies but everybody needs to take a look at their donor roles and determine what is a major gift to your organization. I've often classified that as something that makes a difference. $25 is a nice gift but that doesn't always pay the bills. What is your threshold and, whatever is wanted to establish that becomes your benchmark in the major gift arena. What advice would you give to someone just getting started with raising major gifts? You need infrastructure and you need knowledge. Major gift fundraising is very different than special event fundraising. Knowing the difference, knowing what to look for, and knowing how you should structure things is vitally important. I'll give you an example. So, in special event fundraising, your audience is basically anyone who can afford to buy a ticket to come. Those people who buy tickets will refer to them as ticket buyers. You may have someone there that’s coming who is capable of giving at your major gift level. I cannot stress this enough that in major gift fundraising, you have to know the difference between a ticket buyer and someone who wants to change the world. In special event fundraising, you're focused on quantity. I've always believed that it is much easier to get $1 million from one person than it is to get 10 $100,000 gifts. It's knowing what to look for, knowing how to structure, and then following a strategic plan.   Resources mentioned: GETTING STARTED: MAJOR GIFTS 101 – FAITH-BASED EDITION *Coupon Code: FOB25 Connect with Ben: Southern Philanthropy Ben on LinkedIn   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn            

In the past few months, we have been talking about how to navigate this new “normal” as we walk through the season of a pandemic. Over the course of these last several months, you've had to make a shift. You've had to start looking at different ways of running your fundraising efforts. And so today, we're going to continue on that topic. I'm going to give you a list of the industries that are actually doing really, really well right now, and then we'll talk through that and see how it impacts you and your cause. In the last couple of episodes, we’ve talked about online fundraising and virtual fundraising events. There's no reason why corporations and small businesses would not want to still sponsor your fundraising efforts. How are people marketing right now? How are you engaging donors? How are you engaging customers? Corporations and small businesses are looking to you to get their messages out there in the world and they're looking for creative ways where they can continue to promote and get people engaged in the work that they're doing. It doesn't matter what country you live in. I just want to remind you that humans are humans, it doesn't matter where we live, we all want to be connected to each other. We all want to feel like we're making a difference in the world in some way. We're talking about the people who, in their gut, know that they need to take care of their neighbors. We need to take care of the people that we do life with, and we also have to take care of people who don't have what we have. Whether that's orphans and widows, poor people who don't have food, don't have a shelter, or don't have a place to live. I've been watching these organizations that are feeding tens of millions of people, and the donations are still coming in. And they are seeing growth in ways that we probably would never have understood prior to this. Today as we talk about these corporations and businesses, I want you to just to be reminded that it is natural for them to want to give and to feel like they're connected to the community. So, all we're doing is we're fulfilling the problem. Let's talk through some of these industries and then I will go from there to tell you how we actually engage them and get them to financially support the work that you're doing. Number one on my list is the cleaning industry. People who are in the cleaning and product supplies industry are seeing an uptick because people need to clean their homes. Number two, the health and fitness industry. People are starting to realize that they're packing on a few pounds and maybe it's time that to get that elliptical machine or a few weights should show up at home, or maybe they should walk a little bit more. Maybe they need some new tennis shoes and some workout gear. The health and fitness industry has done very well. Number three, the wellness industry. Mental illness is on the rise and being isolated and not being connected with other people has proven to be something that we all know we need. The next one is the food industry. We all have to eat right? Grocery stores and even restaurants have modified what they do like curbside pickup and delivery. Then you get into the personal safety products like PPE or anybody who's doing masks or any sort of personal protection equipment, those industries have done well. There’s the home and garden industry that’s booming. People want to make their homes look nice. This is also why the real estate industry is doing well - the supply and demand is just so crazy that homes are selling very well. Then we get into video communications. A lot of people shifted from working from a storefront property or office over to home, and they've obviously had to start using new technology. And so video communications like Zoom and GoTo Meeting are raking in the cash right now because we are all online either working or meeting with our families.  Next are the eCommerce sites like Etsy or people who sell most of their products online who will deliver their products and services to your door. They have done well. Then you get into online education. All of our schools have shifted to online and e-courses are on the rise.  And the list goes on. I just want you to see that there is a whole host of industries that are doing well, and I want to encourage you to be much more strategic than you've been in the past. Let's stop focusing on trying to retain the donors that we've had in the past and let's start looking at what new industries and what new people you can start to engage. If there are certain people that you've been following, or people who you have really felt have impacted your nonprofit, then start having those conversations with them about how they could volunteer with your work and how they could adopt your cause. Everybody's looking for that charity of choice and it doesn't matter what their business looks like. Provide opportunities for them to choose your cause. Remember, a huge reason why companies and small businesses give to charities is that they want to make sure that the community sees that they care. When they donate school supplies or to feed the hungry, they are doing all those things because they know that they've got to take care of their people. And in return, those people are going to trust them back and want to do business with them. It's the same reason for both of us; for whether it's the for-profit or nonprofit industry. We want to show the community that we care, and that we're not just coming with a hand out all the time. Be sure to take a few minutes to realize that you have a lot of influence in your community, in the world, and the space that you work in. As you continue to press onward, I want you to take better control and to see that you have a lot of power in this season so go after new opportunities, and find new and exciting ways to engage people into the work that you're doing. It is in your control to invite people in. You're the gatekeeper, nobody's going to just randomly show up at your doorstep and say, “Gosh, I want to market my product through your organization.” They're not going to do that; you have to be creative. And you have to reach out to them and say, “you know what? You guys have been on our mind for a while. And we have this fundraiser that's coming up. And we believe that there's a way that we can partner together online, to make sure that this thing is a success for our community and a success for you as a business.” I hope that this is helpful today as you continue to press forward. And if you need anything, don't hesitate to reach out. I am just like you and I'm on the other side trying to navigate this myself. I hope you have a wonderful week. Let's go and engage these companies that are booming and let's engage them in a way that they can make a difference in the world through your cause.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

Today I’m joined by Philippa Fabbri, director of communications, fundraising, and school design at the Elsen Academy in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape South Africa.  What do you enjoy about fundraising? I wouldn’t say I’m passionate about fundraising but I’m passionate about showing the longevity of my school and making sure that we outlast any crisis that comes our way.  I think fundraisers have got that fire in their belly that you feel inspired every day to get up and try to find something to either create exposure for yourself or create a connection with a person.  Those are the small successes that you live for every day.  But when you do manage to connect with a donor who also shares your vision and passion for your organization, that relationship is the most important one.  That is the key to fundraising.  It’s not how much money can I raise but it’s about the people I can connect with and in turn helping them feel good about donating to a cause they are passionate about.  Tell us about what you do at Elsen Academy and the age range of your students. We have four schools in one.  We have our primary school (grades 1-7), high school (grades 8-12), vocational skills group, and an online learning center for children who weren’t really partial to coming to school every day, wearing a uniform, and other school-related things.  We have 145 total students and a staff of 28 which includes teachers, counselors, admin team, and cleaners.  Our school purely private, meaning we receive no funds from the state so our only income is fees and our fundraising. How were you raising funds prior to the pandemic? We did a golf tournament that raises between $80,000-100,000 and it includes an auction, a raffle, and tee/hole sponsorships.  We also do a fun run and music trivia.  We try to do one event a term.  We rely on people coming out and supporting those. How have you made the shift in 2020 to ensure you don’t lose access to your students as well as your donors? It’s all about going virtual, which started for us the week we were locked into our houses.  We decided to do some live streaming through Facebook.  People were commenting and we were able to comment back and it was amazing to connect with our friends and community virtually and it grew from there.  We also celebrated our teachers and students and we hosted a virtual fun run. What went into setting up virtual space in your home? It started out in our kitchen, then to the lounge, and now we have a studio in a separate cottage.  I had to pivot from being able to physically run an event live to be able to imagine the events through the internet while still providing a sense of community and allowing people to engage.  I think people struggle to understand the concept of a virtual event but when you do it once, it’s easy to build from there. What advice would you give to someone who is trying to shift over to a virtual event? You have to pray that technology actually works and that your internet is stable.  You have to start with something you can manage within your skillset and resources.  Don’t start with something that’s so huge that you cannot visualize what it’s supposed to look like.  I would never have been able to start anything virtually if I didn’t have the right resources at my disposal.  I have a lot of guts and courage and I’m happy to make mistakes because that’s how you learn.  I’m happy to fail and apologize but you get up and you keep trying again.  At the end of the day, I’m not doing it for myself I’m doing it for the good of the school I believe in.  It’s about trying your best and if you fail to get up and trying again. What does fundraising freedom mean to you? To me, it means that as a fundraiser you never switch off from work.  We are always looking for the next opportunity.  Being busy can also be my downfall.  For me, following your 7 steps is vital so that you don’t end up running around doing everything and losing focus on the end goal.  The other thing is that we struggle to delegate – once your team knows what they are doing, let them do it.  You can’t do it all because you’re going to end up not doing anything. Who have you surrounded yourself with in order to be more successful? With the school, it was me and two other ladies who started the school.  It was a sheer challenge of doing something in a space where there wasn’t a lot of facilities for children with special needs in the private sector.  So I had to explain my idea and make sure they trusted me enough to jump in with me and help me to get from one side of the pond to the next.  Starting out, I was a classroom teacher and thought that was what I was going to be for the rest of my life.  And now, I’m doing something I never thought I would do and I’ve had to expand my skillset.  You have to surround yourself with people who believe in you and trust you.  People are trusting you with their money so they have to know that their hard-earned money is going the right place.  Surround yourself with people who share your passion, your honesty, integrity, and the longevity of what you’re doing.  It’s not just for the short-haul – you’re in it to win it and to make sure it carries on into the future once you’re gone.  Do you have any parting advice? It’s all about not giving up.  You have to have that grit and resilience.  There are no pats on the back in this vocation.  You need to be the kind of person who is extremely self-driven and that you don’t mind asking for help.  You have to absolutely love what you do, it’s not a job.  The most important thing is to work with your own skillset.  You’ve got to do what you know you can do well and bring in other people to fill in the gaps.  You cannot try and do everything and you can’t be good at everything.  When you create your team you’ve got to make sure you have someone who is excellent at admin, someone good at figures and math, a designer, and you’ve got to have the cheerleader.  Everybody has their role to play and you have to surround yourself with people you enjoy spending time with and enjoy what you do.   Resources mentioned: Murder Mystery Virtual Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/983478008778523/ https://www.quicket.co.za/events/96712-centrestage-presents-murder-mayhem-and-moonshine-onlineinteractive/?fbclid=IwAR1PvlBKuVgZUFh69Owoq0AkwHhy9e9MkFreXKWPI0FcOH1kjgegSKgZOvA#/ https://www.centrestage.co.za/   Connect with Philippa: Facebook Website LinkedIn   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

Today I'm talking about moving to online fundraising. How do we still build relationships and still communicate and engage donors in the online space? First of all, I just want to share a few statistics with you. Only 3% of charities rated their board and executive leadership as being digitally savvy. This means that we are used to communicating face-to-face; this is very common and very normal in the fundraising and nonprofit sector. We pride ourselves on relationships. We pride ourselves on face-to-face communication, on building relationships with people in person or over the phone, making sure that we are part of their lives. A lot of times our donors are coming into our offices, volunteering their services, and their time. We're used to that kind of communication with our donor base. So, this doesn't surprise me that 3% of charities feel like their board and executives are not digitally savvy. They haven't had to be in the past. Well, we are in a new time. This is a new day. And we are now in a season where we have to be digitally savvy. I'm going to share five different things for you to be thinking about, and how we can make sure that this happens. I know many organizations I talk to really do want to shift their donors over from event fundraising.  Your donors should never get burned out from giving to your cause. Right? We want to be consistently a part of our donors’ lives. We are where they are. And you know that our donors are hanging out on social media. Our donors are online, they're shifting all of their business to online. Many brick and mortar stores are shifting online as well. First, I want you to start thinking about where your people are.  Where are your people hanging out? Are they on social media? And if they are on social media, which I guarantee you that they are, which platforms are they hanging out on? Which social media platform do we need to hang out on more? I went to a conference a year ago called Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, California and one of the sessions I sat through was so profound because I know that it's really easy to want to be in all places. There are so many different social media platforms. So we think we need to be on everything. We need to have a social media presence everywhere. Now, I agree that you need to have a presence and you need to be found online, but I don't believe that you have to be on every single platform. Statistically, the majority of your donors are going to be on Facebook.  It's an older demographic, it's a place where you can actually engage donors a little bit further, and they're actually engaging more in the comments and responding. It's a little bit slower of a social media platform so it allows you for that conversation.  I'm going to encourage you to pick one. And if you do find that your demographic is a little bit younger, if the people who are funding your organization tend to be younger, then you're going to shift that over to the younger demographic into the younger social media platforms, which most likely will be Instagram.  Forty-five percent of worldwide donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program. This is what we want for our donor base. I know that as an organization, you want sustainability, and what would happen if all of your contributions came in, consistently month after month after month without you having to engage them into these large social gatherings of people? It's amazing! It would transform your fundraising. And that's the direction that we're actually all moving toward. Let's talk about your email list. It is essential that we grow your email list. Most likely you already have some sort of way that you communicate with your donors, but right now, email is the new phone book.  Email is the best way to get in front of a potential donor. Because they have in some way said yes to receiving communication from you. We want to make sure that we do permission marketing, not interruption marketing. This is a Seth Godin philosophy.  Permission marketing refers to asking for permission to send people communication and information about the work that's being done. Email is at the very core of online fundraising. And this is where we have the ability to get in front of people and really share our message in a succinct way.  I want to make sure that when you're thinking about making the shift to online fundraising that you start thinking about how to get more people on your email list. Next, let’s talk about your social media platform. I'm going to use the example of Facebook for today's conversation and we're going to marry those two together. Everything that I'm sending out in my email I'm then giving more information on Facebook, or through my social media platforms. When you're emailing, I recommend that you communicate once a week. This is what I typically do. I communicate once a week through email and then I follow that up with social media posts and communication that I have in private Facebook groups. Those private Facebook groups allow you an immediate connection to people. Sometimes people ask me if they should have a Facebook page.  Or, should they use their personal page? Or start a private Facebook group?  There's a benefit to each one of those. I think it's really important that you do have all three because once you make connections with others, that's when you take your relationship to the next level. The more we can communicate, the better. For those of you in the nonprofit sector, I know that you are really sensitive to not bothering people.  That is something that many of us have a problem with, we don't want to pick up the phone and call people all the time because we don't want to be a bother. We don't want to be annoying. We don't want them to stop receiving our phone calls or stop responding to us. But here's the problem, if you only communicate with people when you want money, they know that and they don't like it.  Online communication, our social media, and emails remind people that we're human, it reminds people that we're doing business all year round, that we are inviting them in and engaging them in communication all year round. This is why it's important to communicate more frequently. This is not easy stuff but we have to make this shift. Based on the 2018 Global Trends in Giving Report, 55% of Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomer donors want to give their gifts online. This is why our websites have to be up and running. This is why we've got to be active on social media why we have to be in our email inboxes and make sure that there's a donor-giving opportunity on every single email that we send out. Now I'm not saying do the big blue donate button at the bottom of your emails. I'm saying do a little line that says, “Looking for giving information, click here.” I just want you to see that that when you look at these statistics, less than 20% of Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomer donors want to give their money by cash or check. So let's go engage them.  Let's go build relationships, meet them where they're at, and invite them to be a part of the work that we're doing. That's how we're going to make the shift.   Resources mentioned: 2018 Global Trends in Giving Report   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

This episode airs the week of my 40th birthday and I’m pretty excited about it!  I’m looking forward to the next decade and letting my thirties live in the past like they are supposed to.  Today I want to take you on a walk down memory lane and share a little about what has happened in the last ten years; not only in my business and fundraising but also the single most important thing I’ve learned.  I was working for the American Cancer Society in my early 30s where I spent my time raising funds, working in a nonprofit, making sure that my volunteers were plugged in, getting sponsors, bringing people in on monthly contributions, and trying so desperately to make a difference in the world.  I was fighting this disease that I felt had taken the lives of so many people and I was fortunate to start a new role and fundraiser that in the end, after 5 years, raised 3.2 million dollars and was a signature fundraiser for the organization as well as the community.  I am proud of what we accomplished, and I was then able to start teaching others what we did which catapulted me into the next phase of my 30s.  In this time period, there was one big incident that occurred, which was the death of my father.  He died from cancer when I was 32, just 3 days before my birthday.  He was the most charitable person I ever knew, and he continues to motivate and drive me every single day of my business, the work that I do, and the life that I live.  I believe that his passing was the catalyst to what I do today.  I had this feeling that year 33 was going to be a rough year for me.  I really started to evaluate what I was doing with my life – who did I want to be?  What was I going to stand for?  I knew I wanted to start my own consulting business and yet, at the same time, I let all these ideas of what that was going to look like cloud what I was doing.  So for the next year, I focused all my attention on the American Cancer Society and tried to do my best work. The same year he passed is the same year the entire organization restructured so I applied for a new job that took me from Springfield, Missouri to St. Louis, Missouri. I was now in a bigger city and a bigger office.  We had bought and sold a home.  But once I got into the new leadership position, I got that whole year to sit back and dream about what I wanted to do.  I decided that by the time my dad’s birthday rolled around the next year that I was going to be a consultant so that I could help other charities, ministries, and missionaries learn how to raise money and I was laser-focused. I hired a business coach, brought on my consulting client, and everything moved very quickly during that year.  At 37 I released my book, Fundraising Freedom, and that book was what inspired the training that I teach to missionaries, ministries, and nonprofit leaders around the world.  From there, I had my first group coaching where I pulled together nonprofit leaders who trusted me with their organizations, and we started coaching together as a group.  Although it looks a little different, I still lead that group today, and it’s called the Fundraising Freedom Academy.  About a year later, I started the Fully Funded Academy, which is for missionaries.  Those are my two major programs I lead right now.  I love every single second of what I get to do.  My 30s went from a season of trying to figure everything out and being a student of my fundraising craft, the loss of my dad, and then into the work I do today. Reflecting back on my 30s, the most important thing I learned was belief.  I had crazy belief about what was going to happen next.  Every step along the way I believed that something better was on the horizon.  I had that dream of being a consultant and I started taking steps to make it happen.  I actually used the FREEDOM process I teach in my book, there are no secrets here. The definition of belief is the acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.  That you have trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.  And I had the trust, faith, and confidence in that next phase of my life.  I leaned in and believed that things were going to happen for me.  When it comes to belief, if you can stand on it, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.  One of the books that was big for me in my 30s was, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.  It was the book I read in January 2016 and it was where I learned that you have to have a burning desire for the thing you want to accomplish.  Hill says, “Whatever you conceive and believe you will achieve.”  That statement came right from the Bible.  Mark 11:24 “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  It doesn’t matter to me if you are a Christian believer or not, what I want you to see is that whatever you ask for you will receive.  Verbalize it.  Write it down on paper.  And as soon as you get that burning desire, all of a sudden it becomes real.  Whether or not you pray or not doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you asked.  Ask for what you want, not what you need.  Wanting is all about freedom.  Need is such a scarcity word and you know I’m all about ending the lack and scarcity mindset and to be focused instead on freedom.  When you have freedom in your nonprofit and the work you do, you can ask for whatever you want.  Today, I challenge you to ask for what you want, not what you need.  It’s time to have a new belief system because remember, what got you here won’t get you there.    Resources mentioned: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

Today we are talking about the eight words that might explain why you’re stuck.  As we’ve been talking about over the last several episodes, we’ve been dealing with a pandemic and trying to navigate not being in our offices and adjusting to working from home.  Now, some of you may have already been working from home, but it’s probably still a little different or difficult to have conversations with people.  The eight words that may explain why you’re stuck come from a book by Marshall Goldsmith, “what got you here won’t get you there.” We have leaned on what got us success – what’s worked in the past.  And then rinse and repeat.  But during this season, I’m going to assume you’re struggling.  With everything happening now, your past fundraising efforts are probably not working in the same way now.  We have got to go back to the drawing board and to our vision and reassess where we want to go.  Today I’m asking you to let go of the old ways and accept that it’s ok for change to happen.  Change is hard.  It’s hard to look at things from a different perspective.  I want to help you shift your thinking away from the way you used to do things.  Let’s not depend on old habits, it’s time to think about the future.  I want to give you one thing to think about and that is who you need to know.  Not what do you need to know or how are you’re going to fix your fundraising efforts, but simply who.  When you look back and think about any big successes you’ve had, you most likely had that success because you surrounded yourself with someone new.  Someone who had the ability to think a little bit bigger and differently.  Who do you need to know?  This is a question I write on my whiteboard all the time. Anytime you push yourself to the next level, you’ll always need to surround yourself with different people.  Now, you may have been stuck over the last several months or longer and it’s because you’ve spent all your time around the same people. Many of you have a board of directors or an advisory group who tend to be the same people year after year.  They are probably really wonderful people and I’m not telling you to get rid of them, I’m just telling you that if you continue to surround yourself with the same group of people, you’re going to continue to do the same behaviors.  No one is stretching you or asking you deeper questions.  It’s time to start infusing your cause with new voices, new faces, and new ideas.  I’ve recruited many councils, boards, and other groups of people.  What I notice is when people start to become complacent, they get a little too comfortable.  You know I’m heavy on building teams and finding people who are going to push you and who have the skills and knowledge to take you to the next level.  So, what do you need to do today in order to actually get unstuck and start seeing progress?  Think about someone who wants to run a marathon.  What are some of the things they do to start preparing?  You don’t need to know how to run a marathon, but what you do need to know is who.  Do you need to know a trainer?  Do you need to know someone who’s actually run a marathon?  You need to start surrounding yourself with a group of people who say ‘this is a no-brainer because I’ve done it before.’  When you look at a goal that seems completely impossible and you meet someone who has actually done it, your mind shifts so quickly to thinking you can do it too.  When you think about how much money you want to raise, all you have to do is to pay attention to someone else who is already doing it.  That’s why I’m a huge advocate of reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching YouTube videos.  I am always consuming information from other people who have already done what I want to do.  Start looking for people who have already accomplished what you want to accomplish.  When it comes to fundraising, what you’ve done in the past may not be working for you now.  If it’s not working for you now, it’s because we are in a new season and when it comes to raising money, it’s always evolving and changing.  There are new technologies, new resources, and people are behaving differently.  The tactics that got you here are no longer going to get you where you want to go. People still want to give to charity and good causes.  You’re not out of luck right now.  People still want to financially give to your cause.  It’s time to nix ideas that don’t work.  Don’t force people to go to a physical event when they don’t want to go to a physical event.  Start having conversations with the right people.  These are the people who have the ability to give to you and give to your cause.  Who is going to be able to tell you what you need to do?  The givers.  The ones who have the ability to give to your work.  If I want to get a donation from somebody, you better believe I’m going to be knocking on the doors of the “whos”.  How do they want you to communicate with them?  How do they want you to share opportunities with them as well as the work you’re doing?  I hope this paradigm shift gets you thinking of all the “whos”.  Who do you need to know?  Who has done it before?  Who can show you the way?  Who can be a guide for you as you move forward?  And remember, you don’t have to know everything.  You just need to know what you’re the best at and how you’re helping people in the community and how you’re changing lives.    Resources mentioned: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

Today, I am joined by special guest Evan Cox.  Evan works for Joyce Meyer Ministries and has a background in nonprofit work with the St. Louis Dream Center, Hand of Hope, and many others.  He’s also an incredible copywriter.  I’ve invited him onto today’s show to share his insight on fundraising and the work he’s done. Tell us about yourself. My wife and I started fundraising in order to go on mission trips.  These took us to about 20 different countries around the globe and so for us, our fundraising strategy wasn’t centered around a development tactic or a best practice.  It was a much more personal and passionate approach to fundraising because it meant we either did or didn’t get to take part in the cause we cared so much about.  This involved raising funds through friends, family, churches, and the community.  Then we went outside that zone to others who didn’t know us and we tried to determine what resonated most with them.  Where does your passion for fundraising come from? It’s both a passion and a bit of a soapbox.  When you think about a cause that you care deeply about, that is what everyone thinks about as the first priority.  If, for example, you’re all about clean water, then everything you do is centered around making sure all people have access to clean drinking water.  And oftentimes, subconsciously, everyone on the team can take the fundraising element and stick it on the back burner.  Or slip into, “this is what we have to do in order to get to where we really want to be.”  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it’s a huge missed opportunity.  My passion point is that the cause you care about should be just as important as the people who are helping make that cause a reality.  And I think that’s what nonprofit development is.  Fundraising is really about putting effort and energy into building relationships with your donors, partners, and the people who help make what you do possible.  In the long run, you'll see your donors go through a transformation, which is what we’re all after, at the same time as the people you’re directly serving on the ground are being transformed.  Everybody loves a story, and a story is only good if there’s transformation. What lights you up in the work that you go? When you get to see a real-life change in a person, that’s extremely powerful.  Very rarely do I make a cold call to get funding.  In fact, I would venture to say that, that doesn’t happen at all.  It’s all about caring about the individual needs of the donors.  For instance, I have an on-going list I keep of every time someone mentions a type of prayer request where I may send them a notecard and then follow up with them two weeks later to see how they are doing.  Those moments matter and it’s only through the context of relationships that people feel valued.  If all you’re ever doing is talking about money, people feel that.  They can almost smell it.  And you have to have a relationship built before you can traverse any of the waters. Are you calling on those people because you want their money? I genuinely care about them.  It doesn’t mean you can’t have goals and aspirations, but for me, everything is about going on a journey with folks and that’s thanking them.  I’m not the only piece that’s happening in their world.  For me, it’s all about reaching out to my donors and letting them know I’m human.  Sometimes, you are the donor’s only direct connection to the organization and if you don’t take the time to personally connect with them, it impacts the entire way they think and feel about your organization and not just you. What are some of the ways you’ve worked in the past that aren’t working now? I think what we were already seeing was expedited to another level when the pandemic hit.  Produced, polished content is not nearly as effective as raw and personal content.  There’s still a need to be professional in terms of how you conduct yourself and the words you say, but when you are responsibly transparent and you showcase a new level of authenticity, people resonate with that and respect it.  What advice would you give to someone who is just getting started? First, we live in a digital age where we have so many details at our fingertips.  I would say if you enjoy research get acclimated with what people are saying out in the nonprofit development space in terms of folks who are providing good resources.  Align yourself with people who have been where you haven’t so you can learn from their wins and their mistakes before you have the opportunity to make that same mistake.  Secondly, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.  This is a long game, not a quick or a short one.  If you’re jumping into a development or donor-based arena, the reality is that connection moves at the speed of relationship, and relationship takes time.  You can’t microwave or fabricate a relationship unless it’s been tested by a little bit of time.  Don’t look for a tangible step of you’re either winning or losing right out of the gate because it won’t happen.  What does fundraising freedom mean to you? When fundraising is done right, it changes everything.  That unlocks freedom for you as the development staff or volunteer.  You’re helping folks move from something they don’t have and couldn’t have on their own to something they now achieve.  That transformation is visceral.  People don’t care about your idea or abstract concept unless it’s solving a problem.  On a basic human level, everyone is looking to have their problem solved.  Taking time to invest, unlocks freedom for everyone from donor to end recipient.  It takes time, but it’s worth the investment.    Resources mentioned: Elements of Value Research   Connect with Evan: Evan Cox Consulting   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

I am a huge fan of you raising a ridiculous amount of money and changing the world.  I know that’s what you’re focused on and why you’re here listening to this show but I want you to realize one thing.  If you’re awesome at fundraising and awesome at helping other people, there’s a good chance that you’re not going to be all that awesome at taking care of yourself.  Today I want to talk about how you can take care of yourself so that you can continue taking care of others.  It’s the same idea as putting on the oxygen make first before putting it on your family.  Last week we talked about setting goals and the fool-proof process to achieving any goal and as you know, I’m a major proponent of personal development.  I listen to a wide variety of different people who have are experts in that space.  Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, and the list goes on.  I’m always looking for ways to improve my life so I can help others improve theirs.  I hope today’s show gives you the opportunity to take a step back and look at all these basic needs that you need in order to be successful every single day.  Not just for work, but for your friends, family, and yourself.  If you aren’t familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, his pyramid is the most common of all the graphics we see.  Maslow published his hierarchy in the 1940s and it’s just as relevant today.  At the very bottom is the basic need for food, water, shelter.  The second from the bottom is safety and security.  Then it moves into psychological needs, then to self-esteem, and finally to self-actualization.  When you get to the top, this is where you are achieving your full potential.  What I want to share with you today is Tony Robbins' modification. The first is certainty.  We all need that sense of certainty – food, water, shelter, safety, security.  This is why a lot of us have struggled through COVID-19 and now the racial unrest and the goings-on in each of our communities.  Certainty is something we long for and when we don’t have certainty in our jobs and lives we are uncomfortable.  It doesn’t feel good.  It’s hard to imagine feeling creative and putting on big fundraisers when you don’t feel taken care of.  Remember that.  We all need routines, habits, things we do every day that allow us to feel like we know what’s going to happen.  Second, just as we need certainty, we also need space for uncertainty.  If we always knew everything that was going to happen, we would be so bored!  Uncertainty is what helps us learn lessons and grow as individuals.  It’s also what helps give our lives variety and probably why you love your cause because you never know from day to day who is going to walk in the door or how that new person could change your life. The third need is significance.  You feel like you are making a difference in the world.  This is back to Maslow’s level of that feeling of accomplishment.  We all want to feel like we are making a difference in the world and whatever that looks like for you.  This is a really big one for me.  This is why I do this podcast and why I teach so much because I want to feel like I’m making a difference in the world and that what I offer is significant and matters.  I know many of you in this space feel the exact same way.  You want to use your skills and talents to make a difference. Number four is love and connection.  We all need to feel like we belong somewhere.  This is why we find groups, why people are involved in churches, clubs, and organizations.  You want to feel like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself as well as connected with those around you on a similar topic.  We all want to feel loved.  That’s why in our home lives we want to have those key people who love us and can love them back.  Also, loving our neighbors and loving the people we surround ourselves with. Next is growth.  I think a lot of people forget that this is one of our basic needs.  We absolutely need to feel like we are growing, learning, and doing things to turn us into better versions of ourselves.  Maybe you set a goal and you accomplish it.  You raised those dollars, you got what you wanted to get, and you’re at the top of the mountain.  What happens next?  You come crashing down.  All of a sudden you feel a sense of despair because you came, you did the thing, and now you’re wondering what’s next.  Many of you know I had this experience this last year once our house was finished being built.  It was a huge goal and a huge accomplishment for us to do this, but then I came crashing down off of it because I was like, ‘now what?’.  We want to continue to grow and get better at who we are.  My number one competition is not the people I work with, not my peers, or others I follow online.  I just want to be a better version of myself.  That means I have to grow every day and be in a constant state of learning.  Finally, the sixth basic need is the one I think is most significant to the work that we all do and that is contribution.  We have a basic need to help others.  This is why your donors give to the work you do.  They want to feel like they are part of something bigger.  It’s back to the significance, but also helping others do something they otherwise couldn’t do.  It’s contributing to your fellow man.  This is why when you see natural disasters so many people are willing to jump in and help.  All six of these come back to our basic needs and the desire to live our best lives.  You may notice in one of these areas you feel a sense of lack.  Maybe things aren’t going the way you planned or going in the direction you hoped and so, you have to look at all six areas and ask yourself what’s missing.  Have you neglected an area because you’ve spent so much time in another area?  Or, is it just something you’ve let slip through the cracks?  I think that even though many of us get love and connection with the people we work with, I have to wonder how many of you are pursuing growth and embracing the uncertainty?  The number one question I’ve gotten lately is, “how am I going to raise money during the Coronavirus?”.  Or, “how are we supposed to raise money when everyone is still wearing masks and we can’t meet in groups?”  Here’s the thing, your people want a sense of certainty and you have the ability to create that by continuing to do the work that you do.  But, with all that we’re doing, there is still a sense of uncertainty because you’re creating variety.  Plus, this is a great time to change up the way you’ve always done things and not be so cookie-cutter – this can be why people don’t come back to your fundraiser…they are bored!  They don’t want to come back to the same people, the same theme, the same everything.  Moving to virtual activities is good because you’re able to create a variety for your donor base.  You’re giving them an opportunity to do something different than they would have done before. One more thing I want to share with you today is that when it comes to safety needs, we need to make sure we have personal, emotional, and financial, and health.  That is the foundational stuff that everything else builds off of.  When we feel a sense of safety and security we are unstoppable.  When you don’t feel like you’re struggling for your finances, or afraid that someone might abandon or leave you, you feel stable.  That’s when we can step out and be the best versions of ourselves.  Here’s my challenge for you today, if you are not in an environment where you feel safe and secure, where you feel you have the ability to grow and be the best version of yourself, I want you to take a few minutes and reflect on what’s missing.  What have you not taken the time to really address?  And then get those taken care of so that you can serve people better.  The one thing that most people are really bad about is their finances.  it’s the area I talk on the most; when you are stressed and overwhelmed by finances everything else will suffer.  When you don’t know when your next paycheck is going to come from, whether or not you’re going to stay in the home you live in, or if you’ll be able to pay your basic bills, how the heck are you going to serve your people well?  You aren’t!  Remember, you have to take care of YOU first.   Resources mentioned:  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Tony Robbins’ 6 Needs   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

If you’ve been with me for a while, you know I’m big into goal setting.  I think this is why I love fundraising so much because it’s all about goal setting and can be very rewarding when you reach them.  So today I want to talk to you about how I set goals. Every time I work with a new client around setting goals, I typically take them through a similar process – it’s the same process I teach as well as the process I use myself.  My core teaching is based on 7 steps that spell out the word freedom.  Focus Your Vision, Run Your Research, Enlist Your Team, Enhance Your Brand, Deploy Your Team, Organize the Ask, and Make a Difference.  I take these steps and I dig deeper with the actual goal setting and that starts with asking the question, ‘what do you want?’.  A recent study of Harvard MBAs found that 3% made 10 times more money than everyone else.  The reason?  They wrote their goals down and that is the first step of the fool-proof process of achieving any goal.  When you write down a goal, there is a visceral reaction that happens between your brain, the piece of paper or whiteboard, and the pen or marker.  As soon as you write it down and say it out loud, it becomes believable.  If you don’t believe it’s possible, then you have to continue writing that goal down so that it comes to life.  As this is the Fundraising Freedom Podcast, I’m going to use examples centered around fundraising.  Maybe your goal right now is to keep your doors open and pay the bills, write down that number. Number two, set a date you will have those funds by.  Is that December 31st?  Is it your fiscal year?  Is it something you want to accomplish in the next three years?  Five years?  It needs to be a date that pushes you.  Remember, if it’s an easy number you’re trying to reach, you won’t try that hard.  If you think back to some of the other projects you’ve worked on, you’ve probably pushed yourself harder as the deadline grows near.  This is how people respond to giving as well.  If they feel a sense of urgency, they will make a decision faster than if they feel they have a couple of years.  Don’t drag out the date.  And write it out like this: “I will raise X dollars by X date.” Next, it’s time to make a list of everything it will take in order to achieve your goal.  What will it take for you to accomplish that dollar amount by that date?  Are you going to need volunteers?  Are you going to need to figure out how to raise funds with a different kind of fundraiser?  Bullet it out.  When I do things for my business, I am always thinking of more manpower because I know that I’m probably stretching myself to the max on what I can accomplish on my own.  Or maybe I don’t have the right skills to take it to the next level.  If it’s a time commitment for you, you may have to stop doing something and clear out your schedule so you have dedicated time to spend. Now that you’ve made the big list of everything it will take for you to achieve your goal, it’s time to make the checklist.  This is your to-do list.  Statistically, people who use checklists are more likely to achieve their goals because they have written down the steps to get to the end result.  The easiest way to see progress toward your goal is to work through the checklist and marking items off.  This leads to the next step, which is to take action.  If you list out everything it’s going to take to accomplish your goal and make your checklist, unless you take action, nothing is going to happen.  Finally, you need to do something every single day to get your closer to your goal.  You need to commit to doing daily tasks that will move you closer to what you want.  Is that a meeting?  A conversation?  A system?  A process?  How are you going to make headway?  When you look at people who accomplish big goals, they don’t do it overnight.  Trust me, in 2017 when my husband and I sat down to talk about building our dream home, I thought ‘how are we ever going to get this done?’ We wrote everything down, set a deadline, and had a checklist, we took action, and literally did something every single day working toward it.  The same thing needs to happen to reach your fundraising goal.  One last thing I want to touch on is the SMARTER goal process that Michael Hyatt teaches on.  He’s a guru in the goal-setting space.  He doesn’t just teach the SMART process (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound), rather, he’s changed the first R from relevant to risky.  You’re doing something you’ve never done before.  T stays the same, time-bound, but then he adds an E for exciting and lights you up.  When you’re passionate and excited about something, you’ll actually get it done.  And then the R is where relevant comes back in.  I want you to start thinking about what happens when you accomplish your goal?  Yes, it feels good.  But what happens if you don’t accomplish it?  I use the example of graduating from college.  I set out to graduate from college in four years and I took a big risk by moving out of my home state of North Dakota to Missouri to attend college.  I was paying more money for my education than if I’d stayed home.  The cost of living was much different.  Even though I took a big risk, it was so exciting!  I loved the fact that I moved away to college.  I was dedicated, it was part of my identity.  I didn’t do anything in those four years except focus on being done in four years.  Plus, I didn’t want to look like a failure.  Stop whatever you’re doing right now and: Write down your goal. Set a deadline. Make a list of everything it will take in order to achieve it. Write out a checklist. Take Action. Do something every day to get you closer to your goal. No one wants to stay still and complacent.  You need to push yourself to get to the next level.  Ultimately, you’ll have an incredible time in the process.    Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

I am joined today by Marissa Nehlsen, CEO of a 7-figure business, public speaker, coach, philanthropist, and an all-around incredible person.  Like me, she is originally from North Dakota which makes my heart happy!  What advice would you give to someone who is stuck in the financial mindset? I love this question and here’s my strategy.  First, you take a notecard and it’s a WIG (wildly important goal) and what you do is get those four areas into alignment.  The heartbeat of your organization is your vision, your purpose, your goals.  What relationships do you need to focus on?  When you focus on building strong relationships, you can call on those people in times of need.  People will forgive a bunch when you have a strong relationship.  This is where the notecard comes into play – what are three areas you know you can build strong relationships?  Here are mine – who am I going to serve, how am I going to serve them, and what am I going to specifically do for them today?  My dreams are not built into days, they are built into decades.  I use a Trello board to do this – ten years, five years, three years, on year, quarterly, this week, and then this day.  And I do the same thing on the emotional side.  What am I doing to take care of where I’m going on my personal growth journey?  What am I pouring in?  Who am I listening to?  Who you listen to matters.  Who you mentor with matters.  Get into a mentorship program.  Find a thinking partner.  Now, when you take your new ideas, you have to act on them.  I use the ACT method, what do I need to apply, change, or teach.  This is about systemizing your business.  Once you really focus on your WIGs and what you need to do, it’s very easy to make a decision and not get thrown off course in your organization. What does freedom mean to you? I was raised really poor, like eight kids in a trailer court with my mom in North Dakota, no heat in the winter poor.  It was rough when my parents divorced.  When I was 14 years old, my mom said to me, “Marissa, you can be a victim, or you can be victorious.  Who are you going to be?”  And freedom to me means being able to live out who I was designed to be.  I am uniquely and wonderfully made.  Now, there are a lot of things I am really junk at.  But I was really fortunate that I knew what I was good at early on.  For me, freedom is the ability to act when I’m given the opportunities to act on.  I can act out in faith, I can act out with my checkbook, I can act out in emotions and relationships, I can make decisions quickly because I have freedom in my life.  What parting advice do you have for everyone? I believe we can educate, empower, and equip people to make better decisions going forward.  That is the foundation of who I am.  As we do that every day, it’s with real tools.  Now, you’re not going to get there in 30 minutes or 30 days.  I would encourage you to find a system.  That starts with everything going into your head in the morning, to whom you surround yourself, to whom you let speak into you.  You have to be with people who are growing and moving forward.  If you don’t want to be like them, don’t hang out with them.  I want you to live life rich.  The more I give, the more I get.  Small actions over time lead to big change.  That’s why I love the WIGs because if you can take one small action every day, you can make great change.    Resources mentioned: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It   Connect with Marissa: Website Live Life Rich Podcast   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook

I am joined today by Marissa Nehlsen, CEO of a 7-figure business, public speaker, coach, philanthropist, and an all-around incredible person.  Like me, she is originally from North Dakota which makes my heart happy!    Tell us why the world needs us rich. The world needs us rich in all areas and my team and I focus on four areas of poverty.  I coach and train on poverty mindset with practical steps and practical ideas to bring people out of poverty.  What it means to me to live life rich is about really bringing everything into alignment – spiritually, emotionally, financially, and in your relationships.  These things are all connected.  You can’t give yourself what you don’t have.  I’m a love warrior and a joy warrior.  I will storm the gates with water pistols because we’re not leaving people in poverty and in a poverty mindset.  I see very wealthy people and organizations that are struggling with mindset.  And then I see people who don’t have financial needs.  I believe that freedom comes from when we know who we are, who we serve, and where we’re going.    What would say to a nonprofit leader who wants to end the poverty of running from one fundraiser to the next and really wants to create a rich nonprofit? When the team first came together in my nonprofit, we decided right away that we did not want to be a donation-dependent ministry.  So, we decided to run it from a business standpoint because I believe in stewardship.  The first thing I would ask is if you can think about your nonprofit as a business, what are you producing? Let’s look at your inventory.  Is there something you can reproduce to make a business?  Sometimes, it doesn’t have anything to do with your nonprofit.  For example, I have a client who has a recycling center that runs their nonprofit.  They saw a need in the community but then used the profits from the recycling center to fund the ministry.  I look at it like this, there are three ways to grow money – you can invest in your business, you can invest in someone else’s business, or you can invest in real estate.  Now, the three ways you can grow your business; you can increase the price of the services you’re selling, you can get more clients, or you can get those clients to buy more often.    What are the four elements to living a rich life? Financially, is one of them, obviously. But in ministry work, it’s about spirituality.  When you really begin to listen to that voice, there is a spirit of “lack” in the world around us.  It’s almost like it says that you as a ministry or nonprofit leader cannot live a “rich” lifestyle because you’re taking away from someone else.  It doesn’t matter how well you’ve saved or what investments you’ve made, all “they” see is that you drive a nice car and live in a nicer house than them.  You really have to make a decision between you and your Creator, will I live in lack or want, or will I live in abundance.  We have not because we ask not.  It’s very clear, write your vision, be specific.  Every day I ask, “all that I have, all that I’m going to be, all that I ever will be, is yours so rain down.”  We are called to be stewards.  Good stewardship starts with making sure that you give back, but also that you take care of you and your family.    Another area we talk about is in our emotional side.  There’s emotional poverty and this is the area where we think we’re being selfish if we do something different.  Again, I come back to you can’t give what you don’t have so you have to start with loving yourself first.  There’s a healing that comes along with that; healing the hurts of the past, forgiveness, gratefulness, boundaries.  Relationally, how we live out our relationships is the fourth area.  I don’t think we can save the whole world, but I think you can save the little part that you’ve been given access to.  Anything of significance starts with relationships.    Connect with Marissa: Website Live Life Rich Podcast   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

Today I want to talk about the basics of fundraising. During this season where we are in the midst of a lot of uncertainty, I understand that people are being sensitive when it comes to asking for money.  I want to take a step back and talk about why people say yes in the first place and why we don’t have to do anything crazy during this season.  We just need to get back to the basics.  In the past few years, neuroscience has shown us that we have three “brains” which are the head brain, the heart brain, and the gut brain.  Many of you have heard me talk about the Enneagram, which is a personality test.  In the Enneagram, there is a breakdown of how we each process information.  Some of us lean toward one area than the other two, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t make decisions with a combination of all three areas.  When you’re talking to your donor base, you have to appeal to all three areas.  The “head brain” has 86 billion neurons and this is where we process data and numbers. In the “heart brain” there are 40,000 neurons buzzing around and these are tied to feelings and emotions.  Finally, there are 100 million neurons in your “gut brain” and this is linked to your intuition.  You make decisions that may not seem rational, you don’t have a ton of data to back it up, but it’s just something you feel in your gut.  When it comes to your donors, you’ve probably heard them make statements like, “I feel like I’m supposed to be a part of this” or “my gut tells me I’m supposed to get involved.”  It just depends on which brain they typically make decisions with.  You can tell which one they (and you) lean on based on language cues.  So, what does this all have to do with fundraising? We have to appeal to all three brains.  When you think through your fundraising efforts, you need to focus on the storytelling aspect as well as the numbers.  We have the ability to create incredible stories about our causes that connect to the heart and provides an emotional connection to what we’re doing.  But we can’t only lean on the emotional connection, we must also incorporate the statistics and information to appeal to the highly logical donor; the one who is thinking through all of the details.  This is why it’s important to know exactly how much you’re trying to raise and what you’re going to do with those dollars.  However, we also have to include the “gut” person.  And this one is a lot harder because when it comes to the gut, that person is looking at everything – the story, the statistics, and the branding.  When the gut person makes decisions, they are looking at the whole picture and they tend to make snap judgments about people and organizations. How do you know what’s working?  Through conversations with your current and past donors.  Talk to them about what helped them make the decision to get involved.  With your head, you have got to make sure that in the information you share includes the statistics, numbers, and any other tangible information that relates to why you’re needed.  Tell us about the country or community you live in with real statistics so that people know your cause is a good use of their time and money.  On the heart side, you need to tug at the heartstrings to make people feel something.  You can do this through stories, with photos of people you’ve served, or the work you’ve done in the community.  Finally, in order to reach the gut thinkers, you have to have your “stuff” together.  That means you need to make everything simple and easy for people to get involved with the work you do.  As a donor, don’t make me question whether or not you’re good at what you do; which can happen if you have poor graphics or worse, I can’t figure out what it is you do.  This all comes back to messaging.  When you’re clear and to the point, this allows people to have a gut reaction to your cause because they have such clarity about what you do.  It doesn’t allow for any negativity to creep in. The best journey you can take someone on is to start with the heart.  Know your ‘why’ because the heart is what allows you to keep going (compelling vision).  Then, move to the head.  Bring in the data to back up the heart.  Now, you can jump to the gut.  You have an opportunity to be a change agent.  You get to be the solution to the problem that changes people’s lives.  This is what compels your donors to give because they want to be part of the change.  Finally, you go back to the head because it’s time to handle the objections.  You want to clear up those objections for your donors and help them see why they are a good fit.  I hope you can see how and why it’s important to incorporate all three parts of the brain.  If you only go in the direction that feels most comfortable to you, then you leave too much room for people to say no.  When people have clarity, feel connected, and have a conviction, they will write you a check.    Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn  

In today’s episode, I’m sharing with you the 3-part process I use to help charities raise more money.  These last couple of months have been a bit crazy and the last several episodes I’ve talked a lot about this pandemic and how to walk through this season.  But I want you to know that the topics I’ve covered are things you should do all the time, not just during a pandemic.  This 3-part process is what I say in the introduction of every one of my shows, “this is the place where fundraisers come to be encouraged, empowered, and educated.”  This approach is most effective with charities raising funds and it has worked really well for me.  First, let’s talk about education; the process of learning how to fundraise.  Fundraising is not hard.  If you haven’t read it, you should check out my book, Fundraising Freedom.  I walk you through the word FREEDOM, which is a 7-step process on how to fundraise.  The majority of what I teach is that the 7-step system because it’s so much bigger than just fundraising.  Fundraising is not just about you.  So many people try to go it alone, and nothing that has ever been successful has happened because of any one person’s strength alone.  It’s so important that we invite other people to come along with us.  The first part of my process is how to bring a team together with one common purpose, which is to fully fund your organization or personal budget.  Prior to 2007, I did all of my fundraising on my own.  I was a “Lone Ranger” trying to raise those funds by myself, I never wanted to impose.  This is the wrong way to fundraise.  You NEED to bring people around you who bring in different perspectives.  It doesn’t matter if you’re raising a few thousand dollars or a million dollars, it’s all the same.  After teaching people how to fundraise, the second part of my process is encouragement.  People want to give to the work you do.  You are the one who is coming up with excuses and standing in your own way.  The reason why I know this is because I’ve done this for the last two decades!  I know how to procrastinate and avoid picking up the phone.  Many people think that picking up the phone is something that comes naturally to me, and while I love people, it’s still hard to block out time for fundraising calls.  Everyone needs someone pumping encouragement into your life; encouraging others is my superpower which is probably why you’re listening to the show in the first place! The last piece of the process is about empowerment.  Empowering someone to step out on their own is the ideal for me.  I’m always looking for people who are passionate about the work that is happening inside their organizations and helping raise them up as leaders so they can go out and fundraise on their own, without an attachment to me.  The best thing that happens with my students is when they talk about the successes they’ve had.  All of a sudden, they feel empowered to go out and ask people for funds in a way that doesn’t feel slimy and feel excited about sharing their cause.  I don’t mind jumping in and helping someone raise those funds in the beginning, but it’s so much better when you do it with your own team.  I’m there to walk with you and catch you so you don’t fall on your face.  And, just like learning to ride a bike, when the training wheels come off, sometimes you do fall.  In fact, one of my students told me this week that they screwed up the process and didn’t do it to a tee, and yet, the person they asked still gave.  On top of this process, I want to share with you three things every leader needs.  First, you need to be attractive to others so they want to lean in and learn more about you.  Being likable is a big deal.  Now, I’m not talking about being physically attractive, I’m talking about drawing people into the work that’s being done.  The second is certainty.  When you hem and haw about the work being done, people see that and will not fund you.  You must be certain about the results you can deliver as a person or organization.  Lastly, don’t be boring.  People don’t follow boring people.  When you rattle on and on about your organization and nothingness, nobody wants to follow that. You have to be exciting and share stories about the good work that’s being done.  This is what draws people into you and your organization.  All this means is that you communicate well and are concise in your message.  If you would like to have more of a conversation about how you can learn how to do this with a signature event or a larger campaign, please don’t hesitate to reach out.  It’s why I’m here, I want to help you through the process.  I hope you know I care so deeply about you and the work that you do.  When you believe it’s possible to raise the dollars you need, you will make a crazy impact through your cause.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

I’m joined today with Casey Hill, Head of Growth at Bonjoro.  Bonjoro is a personalized video messaging app with the mission of empowering every organization to build real and lasting relationships with its customers, donors, or community, no matter where they live or work. Casey is a published contributor with Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., and many other world-class outlets. At his core, Casey believes passionately in connecting people and a customer-centric mindset.  Why do you think video is so important? Video has context.  It has facial expression, voice, and body language.  This is why video is so powerful.  People see a video and it allows them to relate and there is a sense of familiarity; there is a real human being on the other side.  Another reason is it’s different.  People receive mass amounts of solicitations every day through emails and newsletters.  If you do something unique, that becomes a branding component of you and captures the attention of your audience. How do you recommend someone gets started with recording videos? When it comes to personal video, the number one fear that is holding people back is actually being in front of a camera.  But, this is more about building a relationship.  People relate to other people who are authentic.  You don’t have to be in a studio with perfect lighting and soundboard.  There’s a big difference in a professionally produced video and a personal video in terms of how you build a connection with someone.  The imperfection is what aids those personal videos.  At the core, it’s all about being human.  The other thing that trips people up is the time component.  You really want to drill down on the result.  You might make 100 calls in a day and get one donor.  Maybe you can only do 40 videos in a day, which is obviously less, but maybe you get two new donors out of the deal.  The result is you’re now getting two instead of one.  Yes, recording a video is going to take more time, but I think you’ll have a greater impact.  Do you have an example of a nonprofit successfully using videos? One I’ve been working with recently is an organization that has hospitals and doctors internationally and they’ve been recording videos on the ground of people getting operations and showing donors their dollars at work.  It’s not a cinematic production; it’s real people talking to the kids they are helping.  It’s incredibly powerful if you as a donor receive a personal video from the organization you just made a donation to.  Video allows you to show gratitude in a whole new way.  Can you share a little more about Bonjoro? Basically, Bonjoro allows you to send personalized video emails. Say you have 50 people who have made donations and you want to send them a personal thank you.  You’d take that list of people, upload it into our system either from your phone or computer, then you start recording those thank-yous.  And that’s it.  What this does is show your donors that you’ve taken the time out of your day to do this thing, which is so meaningful.  You’re investing in that relationship, and the most successful organizations are the ones with strong relationships with their donors and communities. Aside from Bonjoro, are there any other resources you would recommend? I’m a huge book person, and I recently gave my first 10 out of 10 review.  It’s a book called Fanocracy by David Scott.  The whole concept is how to build fans around your organization.  It’s so applicable to everyone, no matter your industry.  Everyone benefits from having not just a customer, but a fan.  When you think about the brands you’re loyal to, what are the things they do to impress you?  The book dives deep into that concept and it goes into this interesting chapter which talks about mirror neurons which is very applicable to video. What does fundraising freedom mean to you? What first comes to mind is staying ahead of the game, or not being stuck in the mode of desperation.  When a donor calls your organization asking if you need help, that’s what you do when a family member or friends needs help.  That’s a different level of connection.  To me, that is an awesome example of getting out of the “playing catch-up” mode.  That organization has clearly spent time cultivating their relationships with their donor base.    Resources mentioned: Forbes Article Fanocracy: Turning Fans Into Customers and Customers Into Fans   Connect with Casey: Casey's Email Bonjoro   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn    

In today’s episode, we are talking about the free resource every charity needs to reboot and start again.  We are in a season where we do need to reboot because we’ve never been here before.  If we look at anything that’s happened in our past, recessions, depressions, etc. we can look to them and see that things will not be the same.  We cannot, especially in our fundraising efforts, go back to the way we were doing it before.  Go to maryvalloni.com to download my free checklist and workbook.  Both of these resources come right out of my program Fundraising Freedom Academy.   If you’ve read my book, Fundraising Freedom, you know I lean heavily on the seven steps I train inside that book.  These are the seven steps I teach every single one of my clients regardless if they are a small startup raising a couple of thousands of dollars or they are big organizations raising multi-millions.  All of them run off this seven-step process.  When you download the checklist, you’ll see the first question asks where you are in the fundraising process.  I want you to see that most people jump right to step six when fundraising, Make the Ask, because they need cash.  They jump into asking for money because they want to make a difference.  When you jump right to step six, you miss out on the first five steps.  You have to start with step one, Focus Your Vision.  This first step is what will help you create clarity on who you are and what you stand for.  It will also help you determine your mission, your timeline, your budget, etc.  Don’t get confused about mission versus vision.  A mission statement tells people why you exist.  A vision statement is your desired end result.  The reason why I want you to spend a good chunk of time on your vision is that if you screw up the vision step of the process, you’re in trouble.  If you don’t have a vision people want to follow or a movement that drives people to all move in the same direction, you’re in trouble before you even get started.    Run Your Research is where I start to give you some homework to see what others are doing.  Follow 1-3 organizations that are doing similar work and are in the budget range that you want to be.  All you have to do is pay attention to these organizations – how are they succeeding, how do they share their stories?  Having these conversations gives you a behind-the-scenes look at how these organizations are running.   After you’ve run your research and found out what other people are doing, it’s now time to Enlist Your Team.  I tell everyone that the team will make or break your fundraiser/fundraising.  You cannot out-perform a bad team.  If you have a couple of bad apples on the executive team, no one gets to out-perform that.  You must pay close attention to the people you allow into your inner circle – especially in the area of fundraising.  I’m a huge advocate of building out an advisory team around your fundraising.  You need to have people who sit around the table and only look at your fundraising.  Remember, your board is not only recruited to look at your finances, they were recruited because they have some sort of connection to your mission and they care about the people you serve.  They’re probably focused on step seven, Make Your Difference.  For us, we need a team of people who only look at finances.  When you have a team that is solely focused on money, you will raise the dollars you actually want to raise.    As you continue through the checklist, step four is Enhance Your Brand, which is all about your website, marketing, and branding.  Most people say they run out of contact pretty quickly and when you get your branding in place, you will never lose contacts.  This is why I revamped my website because branding is so important.  Then I jump into Deploy Your Team and what you want your team members and volunteers to do.  Then it moves on to Organize the Ask, and finally, Make Your Difference.    Remember, a lot of people show up, but they don’t show up ready to serve.  Show up, filled up.  Making that mental shift can make all the difference.  Show up ready to serve and wherever the conversation goes, you’ll be ok with it.  People are going to be drawn to you because you are a strong leader.  Leaders are attracted to leaders.  And when it comes down to it, donors want to know that their money is being spent wisely.  They didn’t become rich or successful because they were lazy.  They worked really hard for their money.  They want to be paired up with a charity that looks like them.  If you are doing this halfway, you are going to lose people.  If you’re ready to reboot and start again, go through the checklist and start working through what you need to do.  Then, download the workbook to get the templates and fill out the checklist items.  You can also check out my website to see all the ways we can work together.      Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Facebook LinkedIn

Today I want to talk through how we can take back some control and turn things around for our causes so that when we come out of this pandemic, we are stronger than ever.  I want to share a few ideas with you as you’re walking through this season.    First, it’s all about perspective.  There are two different ways you can look at this time – you can look at your fundraising as “oh no, we’re going to lose so much money during this season,” where you’re freaking out and leaning toward a decline in funding versus, looking at this time as an opportunity.  What can you do to make this your greatest season ever?  I’m not sure which side you sit on today, but I hope that by the time we are finished with today’s episode you are sitting on the growth side of the fence.    In 2007, I was hired by the American Cancer Society to start a brand-new fundraiser.  It was a gala called the Cattle Baron’s Ball, which was an event that was taking place across the country.  When I was first hired, I was told that the ACS had never hired this position before.  I was so excited because I felt like I had been given the chance of a lifetime.  I did not take this task lightly. I spent my days walking into that office studying, learning, and trying to figure out what I needed to know about the organization so I could really talk intelligently about the work being done.  I did not waste a moment of time while I was there.  I don’t know how long you’ve been in your organization, but I want to ask you, “are you hungry?”  Are you hungry to make a difference and to fulfill the mission and vision of your cause?  If you are questioning your attention and commitment, I challenge you to start right there.  How can you get that back?   My mindset was new money, new money, new money.  I was knocking on doors, I was making appointments and making friends.  I was inviting people to volunteer and trying to create new volunteer roles and positions so I could get myself in front of different companies and individuals.  I spent every day researching my competition – what they were doing, who their sponsors and top volunteers were, and their successes.  What I want you to think about here is if you’re looking for new money, you need to change your perspective toward opportunity and away from the fear and loss.  You have to push everything you knew before aside and start looking at today.   Number two, I want you to create something new.  Start over.  I’m not saying to you need to completely scrap everything from the past, but you need to start from a new perspective.  Innovate.  Be creative.  Take something you’ve done in the past and modify it.  Obviously, gathering in big crowds is not going to be an option this year.  Allow for time in your schedule to think through how you will either create something new or modify something from your past.    Number three, I want you to consider inviting volunteers to help you create this new idea.  I strongly believe in engaging volunteers and know that our most successful events/fundraising happen because we have a lot of people who are all moving in the same direction together.  We often call that a movement, we are all moving in the same direction.  You have to invite people to serve and to step up.  If you try and go this alone, you will only get so far.  I want you to really focus on how you get your volunteers more involved because this is what will help you create synergy to do things you’ve never done before.  I was able to raise half of a million dollars during a recession because I found that “one” volunteer who I was able to engage.  Imagine for a moment that you are doing no fundraisers and you’re starting from scratch.  So, what are you going to do?    In my case, I reached out to an acquaintance I met at a networking event.  She sat down next to me and said, “Mary, I know everybody in this town.”  And it wasn’t in an arrogant sort of way, it more of a statement.  She had been working in the community for a long time.  And even though we hadn’t seen each other in a few years, I reached out to her, not because I wanted her dollars, but because I wanted her advice and feedback on the pulse of the community.  We left that call with her telling me she would do some research and get back with me.  She called me back in a matter of minutes after typing into Google, American Cancer Society gala and found the Dallas Cattle Baron’s Ball.  She was like, why don’t we just do what they are doing?  Now granted, the Dallas Cattle Baron’s Ball was well established and was raising well over $3 million dollars at that time.  We were in an ag community and have similar cultures and so we went with it and in just over 18 months, we netted $500,000.  Do you see how this all started? It was literally one conversation with one person and all I did was ask her advice.  And, it was all done in the midst of the Great Recession of 2008.  I have replicated this same fundraiser and helped thousands of organizations and individuals do this same thing.    I was very fortunate in that I had a great mentor.  I had him walking me through this every step of the way.  I believe everyone needs a mentor and I want to be that for you and your organization.  We all need a guide – especially if you’ve never raised that kind of money before.  I think the reason so many of us fail is that we get it in our minds that we have to do our own thing, all on our own.  This is a false perspective.  It’s time to flip the switch and come from a fresh perspective.  Work with people you like, invite people into a new fundraising campaign in this new season.  As soon as you do this, you’re going to love the people you work with, you’re going to love your job, and ultimately, you’re going to love fundraising.      Connect with Mary: Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap      

Dr. Jonathan Roe has been a non-profit coach and trainer in AZ for more than a decade and is the Founder and CEO of Venture 1:9. Venture 1:9 guides non-profits to a place of courage, health, sustainability and impact, through free training, coaching and granting. After graduating college in Boston, Jonathan spent 17 years in church leadership, pastoring two local churches near Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Ohio. In early 2008, he moved to Phoenix to begin work serving and strengthening Christian non-profit organizations. Jonathan also serves as an Adjunct Professor for Johnson University (Tennessee/Florida) and Point University (Alabama/Georgia), teaches at the CCV Church Leadership Institute, and is a coach and mentor to various community leaders.   How did you get into fundraising and why are you so passionate about it? One of the reasons I’m so passionate about fundraising is you’re raising up people as well as generating resources; to be connected in a meaningful way with your work.  And it’s not just the financial resources.  I work with groups all the time who believe their number one need is a whole bunch of money right now.  When I dig in, oftentimes I see that they aren’t even ready for a whole bunch of money right now.  You need dollars to obtain resources, but you need a bunch of great people with you as well.  Not just high dollar donors, but high-level volunteers who are connected with the work.  To me, fundraising helps to make all of that happen.   What are you seeing that’s actually working where people/organizations are able to create sustainability? If nonprofits want to be around for the long-haul, they have to have various streams of healthy income.  If a nonprofit is running its entire operation off of five families that are providing major gifts, while great, it puts the organization on thin ice.  Or, organizations that are primarily funded by grants – it’s great that they can get those grants, but those [grants] are just a little economic shift from going away.  Focus on the raising up of people.  If you have people who are connected with your work, they are going to help drive your organization forward as well.   Why do you see faith-based organizations trying to go it alone? I think a lot of it comes down to how much do you, as a nonprofit leader, really believe in the work you’re doing.  Not just to change the lives of the people you’re serving, but also the way it will change the lives of the people who are connected with the work.  I see this in fundraising also where I’ll attend an event and the organization will spend 75 minutes talking about all the incredible things that are happening.  And then there’s this really interesting dynamic, where when they get to the end of all that and it comes time to ask people to commit financial resources to it, they all of a sudden begin to apologize for asking for people to give.  I don’t understand that because your work is so incredible, why are you not shouting from the mountain top about the incredible opportunity for others to get involved and drive this work forward?  Looking at our work and fundraising as transactional is the exact opposite of what it should be.  Especially when you look at it from a biblical perspective.  It should be about what we can do together and how we are going to be changed together.    For those who are just getting started in their fundraising, what advice would you give? When groups come to me for help, there are two things I say right away.  First, I have them tell me what they are going to do – 20 minutes later they cannot explain their work to me.  Startup organizations need to be straight on the message – who you are, what you’re doing, what you’re not going to do, how resources are going to be spent, and what’s going to happen over the next 12-24 months.  9 out of 10 nonprofits I work with do NOT have their messaging figured out.  You have to be able to articulate what your work is and why you’re doing it.  Second, set goals connecting the donors rather than dollars.  What I mean by that is, that a lot of organizations think they have to go raise their money as quickly as they can.  But when you only set goals connecting with dollars, the danger is when you hit that goal, you think you’re done.  However, instead of focusing on raising $50,000 for example, focus on raising up your next 50 people.  Maybe 5 of those are going to be major gift donors, 10 are going to be monthly partners, 5 might be foundations and so on.  As you work through this exercise, you’re essentially working through your fundraising strategy.    What does fundraising freedom mean to you? You are not going to experience fundraising freedom when you are a slave to the bottom line.  Sometimes nonprofits get so focused on the dollar amount that needs to be raised, and don’t get me wrong, we need money to get resources, but when that’s the focus then if they aren’t bottom-lining money quickly enough, they start to get desperate.  The flip side of that is to understand that you’re raising money to do great work.  You must seek to understand your givers and partners so that you’re having the right conversations and providing them with opportunities at the right time for them.    Connect with Jonathan: Venture 1:9   Connect with Mary: Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap    

In the United States alone, we’ve gone through 15 recessions in the last 91 years.  Many people talk about the Great Depression that started in 1929, which played a huge role in the way we live today.  That generation still hides money under their mattresses and in different parts of the house because they couldn’t put their money in the bank.  Many of us look to the most recent recession aka the Great Recession that lasted from 2007-2009 and many fundraisers were impacted during that time.  Factor in 9/11 and all of those events have impacted how we live today.  We’ve clearly been able to thrive during every single of those situations and nothing is different about our current situation with COVID-19 either.   Think about all of the jobs that have been in existence in the last 100 years that are no longer around.  It’s because something new or innovative has come to take its place.  That’s really what I want you to remember.  Just because you’re working in a company or organization that was relevant a couple of months ago, it may not be relevant in the next couple of months.  And that’s why in last week’s episode I encouraged you to go back to your vision; to remind yourself why you exist.  I’ve been doing the same.  I’ve been committed to ending that lack and scarcity mindset.  To be perfectly honest, I’m sick of it!  And this new pandemic has created another excuse for lack and scarcity.  We are great at pointing the finger at all the reasons we aren’t raising the funds we need.  So today, I want to address it.  There are 3 things we need to do in order to thrive: accept that change is inevitable, you need to make yourself relevant, and speak up.   We are more than likely going to be hunkered down for the next few months at least.  How are you going to serve your people?  How are you going to change the way you do business?  What are you going to do modify your work so that you are relevant during this time?  Most importantly, this is NOT the time to freeze what you’re doing.   Last week, I hosted a coaching call to bring everyone together.  One of the things I continue to share is that you must continue reaching out to people.  Keep asking your donor base for advice during this time.  Like I’ve said before, ask for advice and you’ll get money.  Ask for money and you’ll get advice.  The more you ask for advice, the more engaged your volunteers and donors will be with the work you’re doing.  If you don’t speak up and rally them together, they aren’t going to come to track you down.    I want to share a few ideas with you on how I’m implementing these 3 things.  One of the major areas I focused on when I first got started was that I wanted to be a fundraising coach, consultant, and trainer.  I wanted to do one-on-one coaching where I could work with nonprofit organizations and ministry leaders to dig in and provide them with expertise and how to avoid the pitfalls of fundraising.  Coaching is a really big deal for me because I can see things coming from a mile away.  You can move so much quicker when you have someone else guiding your efforts.  Consulting is where I go in and dig in deep with clients.  Now, these are really large clients who are running multi-million-dollar campaigns.  And then I do training with larger groups of people.  This has consisted of in-person training days with you, your board, your volunteers, etc.  However, I find the best way for me to train is online and I’m already set up for that, so my life hasn’t really changed a lot.    One of the programs I’ve been running for the last two years has been for people and organizations putting on signature fundraising events.  I made it a high price point because I wanted to make sure the people in my class were really committed.  I did not want people to show up and do it halfway.  I have a great group of students and we meet every single week.  I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated the time that we share together, and I know that they have utilized each other’s ideas – there’s such a synergy between all the people in the group.  I’ve seen their fundraising grow exponentially, and one thing I’ve recognized is that they are not experiencing fear during this time because they have the funds.    Here’s the deal, I’m all about freedom.  The definition of freedom is to act, speak, and think without holding back.  My current students are not lacking or having any sort of scarcity around their finances.  They have the ability to focus on what really matters, which is serving their people well.  I’ve been teaching people how to put on signature fundraisers and we aren’t putting on signature fundraisers right now.  And this is part of the change I’ve had to accept.  What I needed to do and what I have done is to figure out how to make myself relevant.    First, I’m cutting all of my prices!  I am opening the doors for the first time since November.  I want you to have access to me as a trainer so you’re not sitting there freaking out about how you’re going to fundraise and get through this.  You can access Fundraising Freedom Academy at www.fundraisingfreedomacademy.com.  I’m not asking you to apply or jump through any hoops.  I’m asking you to join because you need community now more than ever.  Oftentimes, people tell me that they just want to know how to fundraise, but this is actually the least exciting thing I teach because there are so many sources out there that tell you how to do it.  I find that the two most important things are the coaching and the community.  I show up every single call and want you to know you’re not alone in this.  When you’re struggling, I’m going to coach you through it.  None of us do anything great on our own.  We need each other and we need community.   The other thing I want you to know is that I’ve niched down. I have another program for missionaries called Fully Funded Academy.  If you are a missionary who is raising personal support, please check it out.  But if you are a ministry or a faith-based leader who is running a nonprofit organization, Fundraising Freedom Academy is for you.  It directly aligns with my book, Fundraising Freedom, and it is for organizations and focused on raising tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of dollars for your cause.  I am now allowing students to come in on a monthly basis at only $97 a month.  You can come in, steal what you want, and leave if you want.  But I’m telling you, the most important part is the community.  You can also buy-in at the annual rate, which is less than $1000, gives you two months free as well as access to a live, online training.  I also have one more option where we can do some one-on-one coaching.  Most of my coaching clients are typically with me for three months and then they are out the door!  I want to teach you how to fundraise and then let you go do it.    If you’re feeling stuck and frustrated and you couldn’t afford my course in the past, this is the time to join in on one of my programs.  I’m hosting a free training this week, which I will send out in an email this week.  If you are not on my email list, make sure and go to maryvalloni.com to sign up!     Connect with Mary: Fundraising Freedom Academy Fully Funded Academy Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap  

This podcast began in 2017 right after I’d written my book, Fundraising Freedom.  It was a huge undertaking, I used all of 2016 to write the book.  I pretty much locked myself inside for one year – surrounded myself with authors – and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  One of the topics I’m most passionate about is joy and one of the things that bring me the most joy is having deep conversations.  Being able to have deep conversations about fundraising with you brings me incredible joy!    Looking back a few years ago and thinking about what I wanted to deliver to you, it was really important for me to have a place to share new ideas.  I’ve wanted to be a thought leader in the fundraising space.  I wanted to share my ideas, because like you, I am always testing different ideas to figure out the best way to fundraise.  Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t – you have to be willing to adjust and modify.  What I do know is that the 7 steps I teach in Fundraising Freedom work.  They absolutely work today just like they did when I was writing the book.  The first of the 7 steps I teach is Focus Your Vision and today I want to jump to that step as we figure out how to adjust in this new season.    Focus Your Vision – what is it you and your organization want?  A friend of mine sent me a podcast episode to listen to the other day, and in it, it said that we are all back to being startups again because everyone is home.  How do you fundraise when you’re at home and everyone is stressed about their finances?  Every week I’m on a call with my Fundraising Freedom students and last week I couldn’t even believe we were still talking about this virus.  One of my clients brought up a conversation about how they were on a plan to raise funds for a particular project that now doesn’t seem as relevant.  They’ve raised all this money to do this great project, and now it doesn’t make sense because of health issues and their community is in disarray.  When you go back to the vision of your cause, it may no longer make sense to keep working on the same project.  We have to go back to square one and decide what we are here for.  Go back to the vision and the mission and now, figure out what you can do today to serve your people well.   When it comes to fundraising, I have a feeling that you still need to raise money.  You cannot stop or freeze because you’re going to struggling to raise money if you let this pandemic push you back 12, 18, 24 months.  You must continue to adjust and figure out ways to engage with donors and volunteers.  As you think about your vision, what do you stand for?  For me, I have always wanted to end the lack and scarcity mindset, so this is my season!  I had a client tell me last week that they received a $25,000 donation.  Another told me about a $10,000 donation that came in as well.  There are donations still being made.  Why?  Because those people asked six months ago and are following through with conversations that were had months ago.  Every conversation you’re having today will impact the next couple of months or years.  That’s why important to not stop and continue doing the work you do.   I recently came across an article about an organization that instead of canceling their fundraiser, they moved everything online and held a virtual event.  They raised 140% of their goal!  Last week my clients and I had a brainstorming session where we talked through ideas on how to come up with innovative ways to engage with people.  One of the pastors on the call made a comment about how people are so desperate for engagement and community because they don’t have it right now.  He recommended that now is a great time to host prayer meetings and I immediately stole the idea!  Next Thursday, we’re doing a prayer party!  We’re not going to make it a huge deal, we’re just going to reconnect with people on Zoom and reengage with people we haven’t talked to in a long time.    I send out an email every single week (hopefully, you’re on my email list, if not go to maryvalloni.com to sign up).  I want to encourage you to communicate well with your constituents.  Be consistent.  You have to send good communication, not just anything and everything.  This is when people start to get annoyed and will unsubscribe or unfriend you.  You have to say things that are relevant.  Make sure you’re educating your people about your cause; share the stories about how your people are adjusting and still being served.  Also, you must embrace technology.  Zoom Video is a great way to meet with people face to face.   I want to share an update with you on what I’ve been working on.  As I’m meeting with people, I’m feeling their anxiety and their stress coming across.  When you’ve surrounded yourself with people who are living in a place of darkness, it’s not going to be by chance that you feel fear, anxiety, and frustration.  I’m all about creating an environment that is safe, encouraging, and uplifting.  As I was meeting with my students last week, I had an epiphany that I need to get what I’m doing out to more people.  I’m working to revamp and bring my program to do just that.  This Thursday, I want to get together.  I want to invite you to join me on Zoom at 1PM, and we’re going to get together and talk about how to fundraise.  More important than information, there’s something extremely powerful about community.  Community and coaching are two things I’m very passionate about and there’s something special that happens during these coaching calls where new ideas flow and crazy synergy occurs.  I have room for 100 people.  I’m going to push you and encourage you to continue moving forward.  You are not alone so you won’t want to miss this meeting!   Meeting Details:  Thursday, April 2nd, 1PM CST https://zoom.us/j/242005887   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap    

Today I’m talking with Danielle Holly, CEO of Common Impact, which focuses on connecting corporations and companies with nonprofit organizations.  The core mission behind Common Impact is to tap into the superpowers that each of us has as individuals and to channel them for social good.  The primary way we do that is by working with companies to get their employees into pro-bono skills-based volunteer projects.  The idea came from the legal profession where pro-bono is really popular.    How did you originally get started? It was completely unintentional.  I graduated with a journalism and marketing degree right after 9/11 and I was headed into a career into ABC News and then all media had a complete hiring freeze so I couldn’t get a job there or anywhere.  By chance, I landed at the New York Stock Exchange on the floor, which ended up being a really cool job that ended up giving me a completely fresh perspective on how the world works.  It was a front-row seat to how decisions were being made and also the power that that institution had over the way our resources are directed.  Being in my 20s, I had a lot more disposable time, so I started volunteering with various nonprofits, helping them with financial plans.   What is skills-based volunteerism? It’s the basic idea of providing your time and skills to as a service to nonprofit companies and initiatives; skills and experience that we already have and don’t have to be trained on and use in our daily lives.  This is how Common Impact got started.  We all know that most nonprofits are sorely underfunded, and a lot of time don’t have the resources to direct to critical functions like talent management, strategic planning, financial structures, etc.    Once someone gives of their skills, what happens? One is the level of engagement you get from the individuals who are volunteering.  They are excited about working for their chosen nonprofit, but there is something very human that happens when you are giving something that is unique.    What are you seeing that’s working really well in nonprofits? When people and partners get that there is a mutual benefit to coming together, it embodies everything that is going right, right now in cross-sector partnerships.  There’s really a partnership versus a funding relationship and dynamic; not a program-funder, but a problem-solver.    How can someone get involved with Common Impact? You can go to commonimpact.org or @commonimpact on all social media platforms.  We work with institutions of every size and sector and help them develop a program that best matches their needs.    What projects are you currently working on right now that excites you? We just launched a disaster resiliency report called Disaster Response – From Relief to Resiliency – I’m definitely not excited about disasters, but this is an area where organizations are very willing to help meet the needs of their communities, and we help them discover how they can shift their resources to help communities weather a “disaster” when it comes.    Parting advice? Skills-based volunteerism always seems more intimidating than it actually is.  Please reach out and take the first step in thinking about pro-bono and how the talents and expertise that are either in your network or not yet in your network can do for you.  If used well, it can be even stronger than cash.      Connect with Danielle and Common Impact: https://commonimpact.org/     Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap  

In light of COVID-19, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about fundraising during this time. Do I continue on?  Do I push pause?  Do I cancel my event? My number one piece of advice I want to give you is do NOT stop your fundraising.  Don’t allow this to stale or stagnate or freeze your fundraising because life will continue to go on.  We are all going to continue making decisions on how we’re going to give and invest.  During this time, I want you to realize that this is when billionaires are made.  The wealthy population in all our communities, they are thinking about how they are going to capitalize on this season and how am I going to multiply my dollars and investments?  If you’re diversifying your fundraising, your wealthy donors are still giving.  Don’t hesitate to reach out to your donor base and continue to have these conversations. I want to encourage you to not feel frantic during this time.  For most of you, when you’re fundraising, you do so for the entire year, not just a month.  Whether that donation comes in today or in the next couple of months, you’re probably still going to be ok.  As you’re having conversations about people, I want you to talk to them about their giving in general.  Let them know that it’s up to them as to how they want to make their donation.  Do they want to make it now?  Or, do they want to hold off?  The other interesting part of this season is that it’s tax time.  People are maybe realizing that they should have given more away last year as well as others who are just trying to make better plans.  They are thinking through their generosity, their giving.  Some people who are getting tax rebates now have more money to spend so they are thinking about who they can give to with their tax returns.  I want you to see that just because this pandemic is happening, does not mean it’s going to impact someone’s giving.  Don’t make that decision for them.  This isn’t the time for you to shut down.  Do what’s best for you.  Now, if postponing your fundraiser is the best thing to do, then do so.  But don’t use this as an excuse.  You need to make decisions based on the best interest of your cause, not necessarily what’s going to be the easiest decision.  I’ve seen people push off their events and it’s because they were lazy.  They were lazy in their fundraising months ago and they didn’t get their stuff together, so now, they aren’t in a position to have a successful fundraiser.  Whether this virus was happening or not, they would still have had a poor fundraiser.  When you are tasked with raising funds, I want to give you some tips so you are never in a state of panic. Do NOT stop your fundraising Schedule meetings Plan for the future Prepare for the future.  Use this opportunity to plan the rest of the year.  Sit down with a pen and paper or dry erase board and markers and start talking through what you want to make sure you’re taken care of for the months and years ahead.  Do not allow this time to be the reason for you to go on vacation.  This is not the time to shut down, it’s the time to ramp up.  Now is the time to have conversations.  Don’t allow this time to be an excuse to not move forward.    Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap

On Saturday, I was running around doing my typical weekend errands and since we’ve been having spring-like weather, I decided to start looking for pots to plant herbs in and wound up at Ikea.  I found what I was looking for and as I was loading up the back up of my car, I heard a woman call out to me.  She had her son with her and started talking to me about how she had just left her husband and didn’t realize that the local shelters wouldn’t just take her and her son in, and they were trying to figure out what to do next.  They had gone to the police, their church, and friends to help them try to get things figured out.  They had found a place to stay and it was $38 a day and asked me if there was anything I could do to help.  The entire time, she’s apologizing to me because she feels so bad having to ask for help.  She never intended for this to be the situation they were in.  Because I never carry cash, the only thing I had to offer her was the loose coins in my car.  As I was handing over what I could find, wishing I could do more, this woman just kept apologizing for asking for help.  I had to remind her to not feel bad about asking for help.  As I get in my car and watch them walk off, I immediately feel prompted to at least try to do something more.  My bank was only a few blocks away, so I went to the bank and pulled out more money and told myself that if I ran into them again that I was meant to give it to them.  I ended up pulling out $60 because I wasn’t really sure what I felt comfortable giving.  I had watched them walk away and had a rough idea of the street they were most likely walking down.  Lo and behold, when I got back over there, I saw them walking.  I pulled over, grabbed $40 and headed their way.  I called out to her and when she saw me, the look on her face was disbelief.  Disbelief that I had come back.  She could clearly tell I had cash in my hand, and she came running toward me, in tears, so grateful.  She told me I was the first person who cared enough about us to do this much for us.  We hugged and I headed to my car.  When I got in to leave, I thought to myself, why didn’t I give them all the money?  They asked for $38 and I wanted to fulfill what they needed at that moment. As I drove away, I told God that I didn’t know why I didn’t give the extra $20 to her.  It was a crisp bill and I folded it in half and then half again and when I looked down at it all I could see was, “united in God.”  As I share this, I wanted to share the three lessons I learned. First, asking is hard.  Oftentimes, we want to serve others and we feel guilty when they are serving us.  But I want to remind you that we do need help and we also have to help others.  Don’t hesitate when you know you should act.  On the other side of your ask, that is on them.  That is their decision to either yes, give or no, choose not to.  That says nothing about you.  Second, show your appreciation.  We have to show people we are grateful; that we are thankful for their gifts.  I talk about this all the time in step 7 of my book, Fundraising Freedom, and how it is so important to show the donor that you’re thankful.  The final lesson is when you’re sharing your situation and inviting someone to be a part of it, give enough details to be believable.  You want your donors to feel confident and trust that their money is going where you tell them.  As you’re asking for funds, don’t feel like you have to overshare every single detail.  The person on the other side just needs to know what’s going to answer their questions.  Many times, it comes back to giving them just enough details so they can make a decision.  I know this was a crazy story, but I felt I needed to share it with you.  Many of our donors are making decisions just like I did in this circumstance.  It doesn’t always make sense, maybe they just feel prompted.  Your job is to make sure you are available and ready when those donations come your way.  Sometimes it feels painstakingly slow, but trust me, they will come so stay the course.   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap

If you are new to the nonprofit space, I know this may sound crazy.  Just like some people don’t work out in for-profit businesses, the same happens in nonprofits too.  This is a topic that comes up fairly frequently and it’s a hard conversation to have, which is why I want to make sure you are equipped for when the occasion arises. Here are some of the reasons you may need to fire a volunteer: They don’t align with the values of your organization They did something unethical They don’t get along with other volunteers and staff They aren’t doing anything They are just too busy for the role They are in the wrong volunteer role What I want you to see is that there are a few ways to avoid getting into this situation.  First, you must set clear expectations.  Communication is so critical, and you cannot assume that people know what you’re thinking when you haven’t actually verbalized it.  If you don’t have clear expectations, it’s easy for issues and conflict to come up.  Second, know enough about the person before you invite them in to serve.  This takes time, and when we are desperate for help, we do desperate things.  However, when you have the wrong person in the wrong seat, it’s going to cause you more problems because they aren’t a good fit.  This will ultimately cost you more time and heartache than if you recruit the right person for the job in the first place.  However, should you need to fire a volunteer, let’s talk about how you can do it gracefully. Even though you are firing someone, you should still do it in a way that is kind, courteous, and respects the person on the other side.  When someone feels very disrespected, they will feel fired up and that’s when alternative organizations start popping up.  So how do you avoid this?  First, if you must fire a volunteer, do it in person.  If you’re going to have a conversation about conflict, you’re going to want to see their face.  Do not send someone a “you’re fired” email or a text that says “we don’t want you back”.  Most of the time, you can diffuse the situation by finding another place for them to serve or inviting them to take a break.  When I start this conversation, I always start by asking how they are doing.  Remove all the emotions and start thinking about what could be going on in their life that might be causing the rift.  During this conversation, I’m asking them to tell me what’s going on in their life such as, “I feel like you’ve been really busy.” Or, “I feel like you’ve been really disconnected, is everything ok?”  Maybe they’ve had a death in the family, or they have a relationship that’s falling apart.  Give them the opportunity to share and show them compassion.  And, by opening this line of communication, you are inviting them to take a step back on their own terms.  Maybe they just need a break, in which case you let them know that you will still be there if and when they are ready to come back.  Now, they may tell you that everything is fine and going well.  If this is the case, you can steer the conversation in a different direction and offer them the chance to step up and serve in a place that gives them fulfillment.  Find out what brings them joy, what they like doing for your organization, etc.  You may come to find out that they are simply in the wrong role, so then you can find the right spot for them.  See how diffusing this is?  It’s not attacking or accusing.  If you have a volunteer who has done something unethical, my best advice is to not have this conversation alone.  Bring someone with you – maybe a supervisor or another volunteer so it isn’t you against them.  And know that you may have to bring in the authorities or a lawyer if they’ve done something illegal. If this is the case, you are not responsible for leading this conversation. The other recommendation I have for you is to have term limits on your board or committee as well as when you change out the chairman for an event.  Because if you rotate out the chairman of your fundraiser, you automatically have the opportunity to let volunteers go at the end of the year.  This is a lot of work, but I met individually with every single member of my core committee before we geared up for the next year’s fundraiser.  I gave them the opportunity to step down if they so desired.  This not only helps you maintain the integrity of the organization; it also ensures that your volunteers want to be there.  Firing a volunteer with grace is to truly understand their side and to treat them with respect.  You need to hear them out, help them find the right place, or simply ask them to step down.    Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap    

Martin Leifeld is an author, consultant, coach, and public speaker.  Martin is a professional fundraiser who’s raised a staggering 500 million dollars in his career that has spanned more than two decades.  Two years ago, he was named the Outstanding Fundraising Executive by the Association of Fundraising Professionals in the St. Louis Regional Chapter.  Why are you so passionate about fundraising? First of all, funding enables nonprofits to pursue their missions and grow and expand their impact to improve the world and the lives of others.  If you don’t have funding, you don’t have much of a mission.  Fundraising is the primary way an organization can maintain its ability to do its job.  I’m passionate about working with people who are making meaningful contributions of both financial as well as time.  The other thing I feel passionate about is that our work is honorable work.  It’s almost a calling.  We get to develop ourselves and help donors develop themselves and look to the bigger world.  You talk about how fundraisers are facilitators of philanthropy.  How did you come up with this terminology? It came from experience and reflection.  As I went through this experience of working with donors and watching them being transformed, I began to look at it all differently.  I realized that in one way it’s about us, because we as fundraisers have to pursue excellence, but it’s so much more than that because it’s about the donor as well as the organization we represent.  Based on your personal experience, what do you think is holding back so many nonprofits? On the negative side, fear and ignorance.  We all feel fear and I think looking at stepping into fundraising can be daunting and anxiety-producing.  A lot of this we can address through education; better understanding what it’s all about.  The other part is that there has to be a commitment to pursue major gifts.  If you want to grow your organization and sustain it, you have to grow major gifts as part of your method.  Major gifts require several things.  One, it requires your executive team being educated about fundraising and being willing to be participative.  You have to educate your board, so they have a realistic view and an appreciation of what it takes to raise significant dollars because it takes time.  What we’re doing is bringing someone into a deeper relationship with the organization.  The other dimension to major gift-raising, is you have to be committed budget-wise.  You have to be willing to spend money over time.  As a result, your nonprofit begins to make more money, you’re able to match and exceed what you’re doing, growing what you’re doing.  Celebrating philanthropy in an organization is so very powerful.  It is a way of telling the entire organization that your mission matters. What would you recommend nonprofits do to really take their fundraising to the next level – especially when it comes to major gifts? I think this is a lifelong journey.  Pursue competence in the field.  Competence consists of two basic elements, learning and accruing experience.  You can be incredibly knowledgeable, but it doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing because you cannot gain experience without time.  There are no shortcuts to experience.  Over the course of time, I became pretty competent.  According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something.  And that’s a long time.  Wherever you are in your journey, be committed to those two things. Tell us more about the script you created for yourself for talking with potential donors. Sometimes I’d have two or more hours in the car, and back in those days, I was listening to cassette tapes on major gift fundraising.  I would rehearse what I was going to say.  First, I would think through how the visit was going to go and I would visualize it – the warm welcome, the friendly conversation, the positive nodding of the heads, the shaking hands at the end.  Then I would rehearse the actual sentence, “John and Mary, would you consider a gift of $25,000, which you could pay over 5 years, in order to help our students get the education that they deserve and should have?”  I would say it two dozen times because it helped me address my anxiety and fear.  Don’t let fear stop you.  When you schedule a meeting, those folks know you are there representing your organization with a mission that matters and they are at least curious about it, otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken the meeting.  Tell us more about your book, Five Minutes for Fundraising. The reason I named it Five Minutes for Fundraising because each chapter in one way stands on its own.  It came out of my video work.  I realized that my videos were being watched by some, but not everyone wants to watch a video.  It’s more about noodling and reflecting on ideas.  I recruited 26 collaborators, who are experts in the field of fundraising, who were able to add color commentary to my ideas and were able to make the book so much richer than the original videos.  What does fundraising freedom mean to you? Over time, along with accruing competence came confidence.  People are free around me; they are honest with me and I can be honest with them.  I can draw upon all my experience and try to bring benefits to the person across from me.  In that whole exchange, there is freedom because I’ve put the time in.  I earned that kind of freedom and it’s a joyful place to be.    Connect with Martin: Website Martin's Book, Five Minutes for Fundraising Email LinkedIn   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap Nonprofit Executive Club    

In the last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of traveling, not just for work but also with friends and family.  It was great spending time with my family and to remind me of what’s important - it’s healthy to shut down for a while and regroup.  Time away allows me to clear out the clutter, process information, and to really think about life.  My husband and I took a trip to Mexico, which we’ve done for the last 7 years.  It was pure bliss.  On our flight home, we had a direct flight back to St. Louis.  We get about 30 minutes outside Cancun and some commotion happens in the back of the plane.  The flight attendants are starting to talk, and I look back and wonder what’s going on.  As it turns out, a lady went into convulsions and then stopped breathing.  Four different medical professionals came around her and started chest compressions.  They started in a seat and then moved her to the back of the plane.  Within ten minutes, she passed away.  We made an emergency landing in New Orleans and as the new emergency response teams come on, they immediately know she’s passed. This experience had a profound effect on me.  Death is one of those things that can impact you in ways you never thought possible in the moment.  I know many of you have dealt with grief, and as you know, you start to realize how our lives are finite.  We start thinking about what we are doing with our lives and this has inspired today’s episode about playing the long and the short game.  While I was in Mexico, I was listening to Simon Sinek’s book, The Infinite Game.  There’s something about the idea that we are playing the infinite game in the work we do – especially in nonprofit business work.  We know that when we agreed to come onto this job, we were working toward something that was so much bigger than us.  This is probably why you were initially drawn to it.  I think we all long to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.  When Simon wrote this book, he realized that some companies are functioning off the short, or finite game and others function like it’s the infinite game.  Here’s what Simon has to say: “The infinite game is all around us.  Many of the struggles many that organizations face exists simply because their leaders were playing with a finite mindset and game that has no end.  The leaders who embrace the infinite mindset, they build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations.  They have the resilience to thrive in an everchanging world.  And those who adopt an infinite mindset are the ones who lead the rest of us into the future.” There’s no end to this game of life.  The next generation is going to come through and pick it up and so on.  Those who think bigger and into the next generation are the ones who are leading the way.  And those of you who have a tighter, more finite game you’re playing, you don’t win.  If something isn’t working, shut it down.  If you have a fundraiser that’s 30 years old and no longer working, it’s time to sunset it and move onto something that will.  When I share the message of my seven steps to freedom, I want you to be working towards that bigger vision you have for your cause.  As you think about your vision statement, it really is the infinite game.  And your mission is how you are actually dealing with it today.  I want to encourage you today to shift your thinking to an infinite mindset.  When you think about your cause in an infinite way, you will have a long-term impact on generations to come.    Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap Nonprofit Executive Club    

As I look back on my nearly 40 years of life, I can tell you how many different major things just didn’t go my way.  When I think back to those things and what I actually wanted, I am completely grateful and thankful that things did NOT go my way.  But I know when we’re in the middle of it all, some of those things can feel heart-wrenching and frustrating.  I had a lot of those feelings - especially when it came to my fundraising efforts.  When I was working on one of my biggest fundraisers, I got to the point where I was literally crying out to God for help because I was so emotionally exhausted after trying to find the chairpersons for the event.  I had knocked on every door and thought I had run out of options.  When we finally got the couple we’d wanted to say yes to chairing, the day we sat down to go over the logistics of what it would all look like, the wife looked at me and said, “I have so many things going on in my life right now, I don’t need another damn thing.”  And my heart sank.  I knew they weren’t the right couple for the event.  As lovely a couple as they were, they had a lot going on in their lives and ultimately, they made the right decision for their family.  It all worked out in the end, but in the moment, I was heartbroken because I’d worked so hard to get to the yes. Through my decades of fundraising, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that you cannot control timing.  When someone is meant to have a position on your committee, you can’t rush the process.  We want everything to happen in our timing, and sometimes it just doesn’t go our way.  I want to talk today about how to cope with this and how to move forward.  First, who says what the right way is?  We often have a vision of what something is going to look like.  There are twists and turns that you don’t foresee.  In my previous jobs, there was someone there telling me how I was going to do things – there’s this event, happening on this day and time, this is how much money you have to raise and if you don’t, then you’re a failure.  Over time I came to realize that it really doesn’t matter how you get there, just as long as you do.  And sometimes, we don’t even know what the end result should look like.  I want to debunk the myth that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.  As long as we are focused on the mission and the vision is coming true, then victory!  Mission accomplished.  It’s not about how we get there, it’s the fact that we got there.  You must reframe how you look at certain moments in your life.     It’s so much better when you look at life as an experiment.  You’re going to try this or that and see how it works.  If it’s not working, then you move on to the next trial until you figure it out.  You don’t know what life is going to bring, but in the end, it’s most likely going to be exactly what you need.  I know you’re probably thinking, yeah that’s great when you look back, but what about when you’re in the heat of it all? It’s easy to want to rush through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff.  When my husband and I were working to pay off our student loan debt, we were listening to a lot of Dave Ramsey.  Oftentimes people would call into his show and say, “I can do A, or I can do B.”  And his response was usually, “well, what about C, D, and E?”  There are never just two options when it comes to making decisions.  I want you to take a moment and reflect over the decisions you’ve made in your life; how often did it end up being a “C” option?  It’s about being extra creative about making things work.  Don’t go to anger and worry.  Anger might make you feel better in the moment but won’t get you anywhere in the end.  As for worry, only 8% of all the things you worry about could actually happen because most of it is made up nonsense in our heads.  When you’re going through trying times, think about what could happen. Working out what could go wrong and the worst-case scenario helps you start debunking the Henny Penny story that’s going on in your head.  Take a step back and evaluate what is happening.  Realize that you are not alone, and when things don’t your way, know that you did the best you could with the information you had at the time.  When you have a lot going on in your mind, I encourage you to journal.  Get the thoughts out of your head and on paper.  If journaling isn’t your thing, find a mentor you can talk with to get things off your chest.  Just know that everything is going to turn out ok, and probably go better than you expected.  Life is always going to twist and turn, and you must find a way to enjoy the journey.  Feel empowered by the fact that you get to make decisions.  Start looking for opportunities to learn and grow.  Give yourself some grace and remind yourself that it’s all going to work out.    Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap Nonprofit Executive Club  

The last couple of episodes we’ve been talking about the new year and goal planning.  Today I want to go over the difference between stretch and SMART goals and how you can incorporate them into the work you do.  Most of you have probably heard of stretch and SMART goals but may not know how to utilize them into your goal planning.  A stretch goal is a goal that allows you to go above and beyond what you think is possible.  Some would describe these sorts of goals as aggressively ambitious – they are radically beyond either you or your organization’s current capacity.  You want to focus on extremely difficult challenges that require innovative approaches so you can actually achieve them.  Under the right conditions, you’re hoping it will inspire you to whole new level of commitment.  That’s really what a stretch goal is all about – going above and beyond what’s even possible to achieve. A SMART goal, on the other hand, is one that is much more attainable.  The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.  This is a commonplace formula for goal setting.  Today, I want you to consider throwing this formula out the window. Some of you have heard me talk about how I set really crazy goals, and these are stretch goals.  In the book, Good to Great, these are known as BHAG (big, hairy, audacious, goals).  These are the pie-in-the-sky goals that seem completely impossible to achieve.  The thought is, when you are only focused on attainable goals, you lose sight of the overall mission of what you’re trying to accomplish and you’re less likely to share that mission with others.  You may come across a donor who could write you a really big check, but they don’t because they don’t even know you need it since you haven’t been talking about it.  If you need to raise $1 million dollars, why would you set your goal as $500,000? (Go listen to episode 103, where you’ll hear an interview I did with the master of creating stretch goals, Bridgett Myers.) I’ve been studying and researching high performers because I would consider myself a high performer.  I like setting goals and I like achieving big goals.  But one of the things I’ve learned, is that we (high performers) like the challenge of actually working through the process just as much as we like achieving the goals.  Every single high performer who is making really good money in their businesses and in the work they do are sitting down and working through their own stretch goals.  Any guesses on what the driving force is?  It’s so they can give more money away!  They are strategically planning out their year thinking about how they can be more generous. I will say that I believe very strongly in stretch goals because I don’t really care to fail.  I know there are a lot of people who don’t even want to go down that path.  They don’t want to put that number down on a sheet of paper because if they don’t obtain it, they believe they have failed.  When it comes to fundraising, you either raise it or you don’t.  In the end, I feel like there’s really no way to fail here.  Let’s say you set a million-dollar stretch goal and you don’t reach it, but you get close.  Is that really a failure?  In my opinion, it’s not because you were able to raise way more than if you had just set an attainable SMART goal.  So, what’s stopping you from putting those big stretch goals down on paper and going after them?  I would encourage you to not allow your own fear of failure get in the way of setting the goals of what you really, really want for your cause and for the work you do.  Start with your stretch goals first and then work backward incorporating some SMART goals to help you along the way.  That way, you’re building your system out to withstand the growth you need to do the work you do.  I challenge you to think bigger – what is it that’s going to get you excited?  Look for what will create the urgency you need to propel you toward the dreams of your cause. Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap Nonprofit Executive Club

As we talk about goal planning in the new year, it is easy to fall into one-upping ourselves and wanting bigger, better, more.  When is enough, enough?  My answer is, never.  Our vision should be so big that it’s something we probably won’t accomplish in our lifetimes.  Of course, there will be goals on your list that you’ll be able to knock off.  That’s when you go back to the drawing board and determine where you can raise the bar.  When it comes to fundraising, there are definitely times when you ask yourself when is enough, enough because the goal keeps getting bigger and bigger.  I believe when your goal and vision is big enough, the dollars will rise to that challenge.  Oftentimes, when I talk to people about their fundraising goals the answer I get is the biggest possible number.  And I want to challenge you today to start thinking about the dream.  Instead of saying, “this is what I think is possible,” I want you to look at the vision, look at what you’re trying to accomplish on the mission side, and talk to yourself about what it is financially going to take to accomplish that mission.  When you look at your 2020 goals, start thinking about how you can actually set yourself up for success so that you are continually motivated to work toward to big vision.  But it all comes back to is your vision big enough?  Is it actually the vision you want?  One of the things I encourage you to do is to not miss out on step 1 of my FREEDOM process, which is Focus Your Vision.  If you set your sights on something small, that is not motivating.  As a donor, that does not make me want to give more money this year because I don’t know what you’re accomplishing or where you’re headed.  Are we even making a difference? I hope for you that you can put your head down and sprint toward the goal because you are exactly where you are supposed to be.  If you’re not, this is the season for you to figure out what’s next.  And that’s ok.  Sometimes you go through seasons where you love your work and it’s going great, but you get to that enough is enough point.  It’s ok to be able to hang that up and try something new.  All I want for you is to be really proud of what you do and to never feel like it’s a waste of your time and energy. I hope you can see the results of the work you are doing every single day.  That’s why the very last step of my process is to make your difference and celebrate with the people who got you there.  Celebrate with your entire team.  I believe there is something special about celebrating what you’ve achieved together.  I’m hopeful for 2020 and my hope for you is that you continue working toward your goals and vision and to know that what you’re doing is enough.  Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty excited about the upcoming year.  We are moving into a new decade, I’m celebrating a big birthday this year, the big 4-0.  It’s hard to believe.  As you are planning out your 2020, I want to share with you some ideas on how I plan and set goals. As many of you know, I’m a huge advocate of the whiteboard.  It’s been my best friend as of late as my admin and I worked through what we want to do in the next year as well as the years ahead.  We talked through the dream of Mary Valloni Consulting.  2019 was the year I was able to bring on my first team member and maybe this is the year for you to do the same.  I also picked a word for 2019, which was fly, and my new word for 2020 is multiply.  It’s a word for the year that encompasses the season of life I’m in.  Adding a member to my team was one way to multiply, but I also believe I have all the tools I need for this next season.  I’ve built out everything I need and now I just need to go all-in.  Today I want to talk about the 7 areas to focus on when goal planning and I also want to show you how to use my 7-step FREEDOM process on those goals.  The seven areas I want to touch on today are Physical Financial Spiritual Career Family Mental Social The overarching goal I have for 2020 is consistency.  For my physical goal, my eating has always been pretty good, but when it comes to my physical activity, not so much.  So, my goal is 30 minutes a day.  It doesn’t have to just be in the gym, it can be going for a walk, too.  One of the items on my “what brings me joy list” is Forest Park.  I love jumping into my car with the dogs and going for a walk in the park. Financial goals are important because it’s how we control our future.  I have a savings as well as a giving goal on my list because it’s a big deal for me to make sure I’m financially secure.  Ten years ago, I was going through the Dave Ramsey plan of paying off debt.  We’ve paid off most of our debt, but we still have this small loan leftover from building our house and I’m on a mission to get it paid off in the next month.  For my giving goal, I took out my checkbook and wrote a check to my favorite charity and put it on my vision board so that I can see it every day.  Next is the spiritual goal.  As many of you know, I am a Christian, and one of my spiritual goals is I want to be a better prayer.  I never not want to be in prayer.  For 2020, I will pray for 20 specific people every single day for the entire year.  I’ve already put together the list of the 20 people I will pray for each day.  Starting January 1, I’m going to be praying each morning for this list of 20 people.  Not just for God to help them, but for God to really speak into their lives. The career area is one where people put a lot of attention, but it’s only 1 of 7 areas.  Obviously, it impacts some of the other areas, but I don’t want you to give it more weight than it deserves.  My career goal for 2020 is to serve more people.  When I first got started in my business, I was working with one specific charity and have for the last five years.  I just recently stepped down as their consultant so I could serve even more charities.  I have nearly 300 clients and my goal is to get to 1000+.  What is it that you want when it comes to family?  For 2019, the goal for my family was to build our dream home, which we did.  I told you at the beginning of this episode that I’m turning 40 this year.  My husband and I have been married for 18 and we still don’t have children.  To me, that’s a really big deal.  For 2020, we are going to expand our family – whatever that looks like.  I’m keeping this a little open-ended because I’m not sure what it’ll look like, it could be to have a baby or adopt. In the mental space, journaling is big for me.  It allows me to dump out all the nonsense – all the negative stuff that swirls around but also to write out any ideas I have.  Consuming content from books and podcasts is also a great way to grow and learn to become a better version of yourself.  For me, I want to consume and produce content every day – writing, journaling, and podcasting. As you can imagine, I am an Enneagram 3, which means I’m an achiever, I like setting goals.  But social stuff is hard.  Hanging out with friends or spending time in hobbies doesn’t always give you the same kind of fix as setting/achieving goals does.  In 2020, my goal is to spend time with my girlfriends in St. Louis and reengaging in my community.  One of the other things on my list is coloring.  It’s a way for me to escape the craziness.  For every one of your goals in each of these 7 areas, I encourage you to take my FREEDOM process and begin with step number 1, Focus Your Vision.  I’m going to talk about the career area since that’s easier to wrap your arms around.  What I have done in the career area is go back to what I want the vision to be for my business.  As you know, my 3 components are to educate, encourage, and empower.  I commit to that again for 2020 and say that is what I do, I educate, encourage, and empower nonprofit leaders to raise more funds and have more freedom.  During the strategic planning I did with my assistant, it became apparent that there is one group of people I am absolutely on fire for.  If you can’t answer the ‘why’ you do what you do, then you need to sit down and dig in a little deeper to figure out why you care.  Next is Run Your Research.  I can’t just jump from 300 to 1000 clients overnight.  I have to change my system.  What do I need to study up on?  What systems do I need to know?  Then, you can Enlist Your Team.  Do I need more coaches?  Do I need help with marketing?  Next, you Enhance the Brand.  You’re going to start seeing new branding in 2020 which includes updates to website and social media.  Then, I’m going to Deploy My Team – my assistant, my graphic designer, my team members – everyone is going to be in their lane, they are going to know what their jobs are, and we are all going to do what we do best.  Next, Organize the Ask, I’m going to invite people to be a part into what we’re doing so they raise more funds and have more freedom.  The last part of the process is to Make a Difference.  Being able to continue to spread my FREEDOM message and provide the tools to others to go do what they do. You can see that you can put any of your goals into this FREEDOM process.  As we walk into 2020 together, I’m hopeful about what we are going to create.   I have a crazy belief that ANYTHING you want is possible.  Whatever crazy dream you have in your heart for what you want to do, you can absolutely achieve it!  Here’s to 2020, may it be your best year yet. Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap      

On today’s show, I am talking with Brent Silkey.  Brent and his wife serve college students in St. Paul, Minnesota through the ministry of Chi Alpha and they started a program called 30 for Freedom.  The idea is 30 for Freedom exists to end sex trafficking in our lifetime.  We engage college students in biblical justice initiatives like ending sex trafficking through runs, fundraising, and the like.  What is your take on raising support through social media? When it comes to my philosophy in life, is life is all about relationships.  So I try to be a good friend and invest in the value of people.  Social media can help us to have continued touchpoints with people.  We set a goal to raise an entire director’s salary in four months.  We used social media to share our goals and as a launchpad for the campaign.  How did you launch out on social media? We did a huge social media life announcement, which was informative, but also, if you’d like to be involved in our ministry updates, drop your email below or send us a message.  Our commitment was to do 10 updates a year that would include pictures, videos, stories, and share what God is doing in the ministry.  We also had small gatherings at our house where we invited people to hear more about what we were doing and how they could get involved.  Social media was the front door that then led to the kitchen table conversations. Do you think this same approach can work with someone who isn’t as outgoing as you? I think it can.  Passion expresses itself differently for different personalities.  Tell us about how you make choices about your brand as it relates to your posts on social media. I’m a big fan of Justin Lathrop and he talks about being a likeable Christian.  There are certain things you will never see with me across any of my social media posting – politics, anything controversial, etc.  Even as we train our student leaders and our team, we talk about how they have their own thing but you represent the bigger picture of what we’re doing here so take that into consideration as you post, comment, and like because it touches a lot more people than you realize on social media.  How do you gauge on the topic of poverty vs. the abundance mindset? When I train my team, I tell them that we are not going to have that poverty mentality.  We’re going to be great stewards with what God puts in our hands, we’re going to be responsible with the things we do and share with people.  I’m not in the begging business and I don’t want people to have that perception.  Share with us what you did on Giving Tuesday. I was looking through my inbox where all of these organizations were asking to consider a gift on Giving Tuesday.  And I’m the kind of person who likes to go against the grain in a positive way, so I sent everyone on my email list a Starbucks gift card thanking them for all they’ve done and how we couldn’t do what we do without their support.   What have you seen on social media that drives you crazy? People want to be a part of a winning team.  So rather than sounding desperate about things, you need to reframe it and invite people in to celebrate with you.   Connect with Brent: Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Facebook LinkedIn Fundraising Freedom Roadmap

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who was feeling so defeated because she was in a group of business leaders and felt she was letting down the group and her business coach because she wasn’t living up to their expectations.  I had to remind her that she is not a for profit business leader.   On today’s episode, I am focusing on 3 areas.  First, you need to stay clear on your messaging.  You are not a business leader; you are a nonprofit leader.  These are very different, so let’s clarify:  business = profit, nonprofit = no profit.  What each group claims to be success is very different.  We’re not playing the same game. As a nonprofit leader, you are playing by a whole new set of rules.  As a business leader, success means you’ve gotten money in the bank.  If you are running a nonprofit, success means you’ve spent all your money on impacting the lives of others.  When the need is great, the funds are low.  If the need wasn’t great, you wouldn’t need to work full time.  You could just volunteer your time.  Second, the transaction is completely different.  Think about how your nonprofit makes a transaction.  A successful transaction needs three parties – you, the individuals you serve, and the donors who fund you.  For a for profit, you only need two parties – the person buying and the person selling.  In essence, you are doing double the work as a for profit leader.  Remember, if you put too much emphasis on the mission and not enough focus on your fundraising, you’ll struggle.  If you’re not talking about your funding, you’ll never be able to serve all those who need it.  Likewise, if you put all your eggs in the fundraising basket, then you’ll end up with a lot of money and not enough services to help your constituents.  In the end, it’s all about balance. The third area where business advice doesn’t work for a nonprofit is that you cannot motivate people with money.  Business advice tells you, “you can just go pay people.”  However, as a nonprofit, many operate with a limited number of staff people and a lot of volunteers.  Most likely, those volunteers are giving their time and money to your cause because they care about it.  You can see the business advice is not going to work here because you have to motivate people to donate their time and money to your cause without any compensation back.  I want to encourage you to be clear about what it is you do and why it is you need donors to support your cause. This is where clarity is so critical because you want your donors to see how you need them.  But I also want you to see how differently a for profit organization runs compared to a nonprofit.  If you’ve been caught in the in-between of functioning as a business, but you are a nonprofit, I encourage you to seek advice from other nonprofit thought leaders who understand how nonprofits run.  For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.   

On today’s show I am featuring an episode from a new podcast I am co-hosting with my friend, Joel Kessel.  The Nonprofit Executive Podcast is for growth-minded executives who are looking to take their nonprofits to the next level through strategic planning and fundraising.  On this podcast, Joel discusses his steps to create a successful strategic plan as well as my steps to fundraising freedom.  Here are the notes from episode 3 of the Nonprofit Executive Podcast.  Enjoy! We are talking about fundraising, on which Mary has literally written the book.  We tend to raise our money by taking whatever we can get, however, there is a strategy behind fundraising.  But first, a little background from Mary. When I first took my position with the American Cancer Society, the town I worked in had a population around 150,000 with the surrounding area numbering near 250,000.  Rather than solely focusing on my community, I latched on to what my counterparts were doing in their markets.  One of those locations was Chicago.  My friends in Chicago raised $1.8 million on a first-year event.  No one raises that kind of money without a clear strategy!  Another friend in the Tyler, Texas market raised $1 million in their most recent event and I modeled my event after an event in Dallas.  I had access to all of my peers where I could call on them and ask for advice or materials.  This is part of why we created the Nonprofit Executive Club.  We created a community where executives aren’t competing against each other but can be there for one another to bounce ideas off of and find out what is working in other markets. When I wrote the book, Fundraising Freedom, I was really focused on freedom.  I want every nonprofit to have freedom, meaning to act, think, and speak without holding back.  I want you to be so bold about your cause that you’re not negotiating or belittling your cause and just taking whatever money you can get because you’re so desperate.  The FREEDOM process is a system that works for large-scale organizations as well as those organizations just getting started.  Step 1:  Focus Your Vision. The first step I teach is the “F” of the word freedom.  Joel will talk to you more about vision as it pertains to your vision statement and I will talk to you about vision as you look at how much money you want to raise.  By having a clear mission and vision statement in your strategic plan, by the time you get to me to talk fundraising, you already know what you stand for and how much money it’s going to take to fulfill that vision and mission.  Step 2: Run Your Research.  Once you know what you to, it’s time to start researching what your counterparts are doing, or what successes are happening in your community, and figuring out what our people want.  Step 3:  Enlist Your Team.  This is a process of inviting people in.  When it comes to fundraising, you just need one volunteer who is going to be the face of the fundraiser or campaign.  Fundraising should not be the sole responsibility of the staff person.  There’s an old African proverb that says, “if you want to go quickly, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”  You can go fast if you want, but you are not going to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars if you go it alone. Step 4:  Enhance Your Brand.  This is when you build out your print materials, get your logo and website designed; turn your fundraiser into something visual. The reason you need to enlist your team before building your brand is so your team can take part in the process.  If your team has a say in this process, they will be more likely to sell the event because they have skin in the game.  Just like Dale Carnegie said, “people support a world they helped create.” Step 5: Deploy Your Team.  Your volunteers and your staff go out and advocate on your behalf by scheduling meetings and getting out in front of people.  Step 6:  Organize Your Ask.  This is the reason why we fundraise.  Go ask for your money.  This the number one most difficult thing for boards to do.  But this task is made so much easier if you’ve done all the previous work.  You’ve already done your research, you have a great team, you feel really empowered, your print materials look great, this is what makes it easy to invite others to be a part of what you’re working toward.  Remember, people love giving their money away. Step 7:  Make Your Difference. Let’s go make a difference and celebrate.  So often when we raise money we immediately jump into the next act.  What I want to see is for you to take a step back and you recognize all the people who made it possible.  You’re thanking your donors; you’re acknowledging the impact you’re making on the world.  This is where you start telling stories and talking about the success of the event because if you’re going to replicate this again next year, you have to make sure to acknowledge the incredible influence your cause is making. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Subscribe to the Nonprofit Executive Podcast here. If you are raising $50,000 or more and would like to know more about the Academy, you can apply at http://bit.ly/applyforFRFA.  From there, my assistant will set up a 20-minute conversation with me to see if you’re a good fit and you’ll get the rest of the details on how to sign up.  For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.  Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom.  

We are just coming off the holiday weekend and we’re gearing up for the end of the year.  If you’re anything like me, you’re thinking about all of the things you want to accomplish in the new year.  December is also the biggest giving month of the year; more than 30% of all donations are going to hit in this month with 12% hitting the last 24 hours of the year.  Many times, we feel like we have to beg for those dollars.  In this episode, I’m going to give you some tips so you can avoid begging at the end of the year and what you can do to ensure your success. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know that I teach the 7 steps to FREEDOM: Focus Your Vision Run Your Research Enlist Your Team Enhance Your Brand Deploy Your Team Organize Your Ask Make Your Difference Today we are going to concentrate on enhancing your brand.  What is your brand?  What is it that you’re doing to stand out in the community, region, or country you’re in?  If your brand has nothing to do with begging, then we should probably put the begging process aside.  If your brand is focused on abundance, changing lives and making a difference and you are begging for money, then you’re off brand.  So how do you avoid this?  You must have a plan. When I worked for the American Cancer Society, my signature event was held in August.  In the month of November, I did a thank you event, we hosted a golf tournament in the spring and a children’s party in the summer leading into the big event in August.  December should fall right in line with a big push to your signature event.  For me, I was really focused on getting my sponsors re-upped for the next year.  I wasn’t doing a heavy push to send us a check in December.  Now, that’s not to say you can’t do a year-end appeal, but it should all lead into your signature event/fundraiser.  This is how you stop feeling like you have to get this big donation in before December 31st.  Remember, no one likes a charity that reeks of desperation.  This is the easiest way to push potential donors away from your organization.  You must have a fundraising plan for the entire year, not just the last month. I want you to make sure you’re top of mind.  So, if you’re going to send out that year-end appeal, you need to tell people about what a great year you’ve had.  If you’ve never done it before, now is the time to start a new tradition.  Your donors like to see financial reports and see what you’ve been doing.  Remember, it’s better to overcommunicate rather than not communicate at all.  If you are not thanking your donors for their donations as well as communicating what you’ve been up to, there’s a good chance that they will not come back.  This is how you fall into the trap of begging for money; always having your hand out and freaking out in the month of December.  Be intentional.  Be sure that your donors know they can expect to hear from you.  Whether it’s weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc., that’s your brand; no one can tell you how to run your organization but you. I want you to pause now and think about your cause.  What does your calendar look like for 2020?  What are the things you’re going to do in the upcoming year so that next year you are not frantic and begging for donations in December?  I encourage you to reach out to your donors and let them know about what big plans you have for 2020 and how they can get involved.  If you are thinking about putting on a signature fundraiser, applications for the Fundraising Freedom Academy Class of 2020 are open.  If you are raising $50,000 or more and would like to know more about the Academy, you can apply at http://bit.ly/applyforFRFA.  From there, my assistant will set up a 20-minute conversation with me to see if you’re a good fit and you’ll get the rest of the details on how to sign up.  If you missed the webinar I hosted, you can watch the recording at http://bit.ly/successfulfundraiser.  For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.     

On today’s episode, I’m joined by my friend and client, Dan Hurrelbrink.  Dan is the director of Barnabas Ministries and is coming to us from Romania.  Dan realized that what he was doing to raise money wasn’t working and he needed to make the necessary changes to be able to meet his fundraising goals. Barnabas Ministries was founded in 1993, several years after Romania came out from under Communism.  At first, everyone needed help because the country was in such shambles.  They’ve evolved over time and now primarily work with children and their families along life’s path. Tell us how you came to realize you needed help fundraising and how you found me. Originally, when I was trained as a missionary I was taught to pray and if the provisions come then you move along with that plan.  As the years go by and you have a ministry that continues to grow, that tactic doesn’t always work, and we found ourselves with a ministry that needed support.  We had to turn away so many people because we just didn’t have the resources to help them.  One of my favorite meetings we had was when you had one of your board members with you.  Tell us about the experience for your board member. Working with the Academy for over a year, I was able to clarify what is Barnabas Ministries and determine what direction the ministry should go into the future.  I was able to actually answer the questions that my board member had and that helped to spark the fire under him.  Because I have been out of the country for eight years, there was no personal contact with our board members and the board essentially dried up and went away.  I realized that if we were going to make this ministry work that we needed to have an active board.  I set up a Facebook group and started communicating every idea I had and what was on my mind as well as what I was hoping to see Barnabas Ministries accomplish.  After a while, the board started to communicate and work together.  It was my goal to make sure I communicated with someone every day.  There was a period of time where I didn’t think this was going to work, but I kept at it and one day a member in the Facebook group asked if we could set up a call and every one of the board members was on it.  That’s how I built an A+ board. Tell us about the specific project you are working on and the fundraiser you put on this last month. We’re working on is a capital campaign to build a new $500,000 community center that will house an after-school program.  We will also host adult education classes and eventually will have a church in the building as well.  I had always wanted to have a banquet celebrating our successes of the ministry each year.  But because I am so far away, it’s not been possible until now.  Since getting my new board in place, they were able to put on this event and I flew back to attend.  We have Christian camps throughout the summer, and it costs $50 per child for a week at camp.  We added that into the ticket price of the meal. During this meal, we were able to raise more than $15,000.  Since then, we’ve received another $20,000. What advice would you give the listeners when they are trying to develop their boards? I realized that I needed to set aside time and make fundraising a priority.  I scheduled time in my day to specifically study fundraising and how to do it.  Everything else in the ministry depends on me to being able find those funds.  Because I live in Romania where there isn’t much initiative to move forward in life, I realized that if I was going to make this thing work that I needed encouragement from outside.  This is what led me to decide to join Fundraising Freedom Academy.  Since we are a group of people on the same path, I made a conscious decision to reach out and encourage them in their journeys and in return, they encouraged me on mine.  I make our scheduled meetings times a priority and try not to miss any of them.  What do you want to see happen in the next few years for your cause? I want to see our ministry fully funded and so that I can actually focus on the mission we have here in Romania and help all the people who come to our door, not just a few.  It’s easier now, because my board members are helping to carry the weight of the load of the mission.  My wife and I have been in this ministry for 27 years and we know in the next ten years that it will be time to hand it off to someone else.  We don’t want to hand off an organization that is struggling to survive because no one will want to take that on.  If you’ve listened to April, Joel, or Dan’s stories and are thinking about how you are going to put on a signature fundraiser, applications for the Fundraising Freedom Academy Class of 2020 are open.  If you are raising $50,000 or more and would like to know more about the Academy, you can apply at http://bit.ly/applyforFRFA.  From there, my assistant will set up a 20-minute conversation with me to see if you’re a good fit and you’ll get the rest of the details on how to sign up.  If you missed the webinar I hosted last week, you can watch the recording at http://bit.ly/successfulfundraiser.  For more information on Barnabas Ministries, go to http://barnabasministriesromania.org/ to learn more. For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.     

My guest today is April Jurgensen, who is the co-founder of The Boaz Project and one of my Fundraising Freedom Academy students.  April just recently won an author academy award for her book, The Orphan’s Abba.  April and her husband inspire and equip leaders around the world to care for orphans in their own communities.  Tell us about the fundraising project you’ve been working on this last year. We have called it homes for orphans but it’s basically providing housing solutions for specific children’s homes in Russia, India, and Kenya.  The largest portion is in Kenya where we plan to build a three-story apartment building that will have individual units for house parents and the orphans they’re raising.  Because land is so expensive in our part of Kenya, it makes more sense to build up rather than build several tiny homes.  When The Boaz Project started, we were coming from another mission organization.  In our minds, the way you raised funds was through a letter because this is what most missionaries are trained to do.  My degree is in writing, so writing is familiar and comfortable and so that’s what we did; we sent a lot of direct mail.  I’m still a believer in direct mail, but one of the key takeaways I got early on from the Academy was there’s a whole world of fundraising beyond that, especially if you’re looking for a large gift.  No one just opens their mail and sends you a check for $20,000.  Many people we’ve talked to ask us if we’ve run a feasibility study and look at us like we’re crazy for trying to raise this kind of money.  The real shift for me came from changing my mindset around fundraising.  I had all of these supporters who I simply never asked if they would be willing to give larger gifts.  Now, after 7 months of working the program, we are 40% of the way to our goal.  We are entering the season where most of the giving comes into a nonprofit.  But I also look at it like if we don’t hit our goal by December 31st and we’re around 50% of the way there, it’s much farther ahead than we would be if we were just sitting around doing feasibility studies and discussing whether or not we should take it on.  And the second half is always easier to raise than the first because you’ve got the momentum and that there are others who believe in what you’re doing.  How did you go about making the ask to get your first chairman? The organization had pretty much gotten as far as it was going to go with our contacts.  So, I took your advice and found someone who is well connected and well respected in our community who others want to be around.  One name kept coming to mind, so we made the ask.  The first time we talked to him, he declined, and it was because he’s involved in so many good things and didn’t feel like he had the capacity to take on anything else.  In the time between his decline and trying to figure out who our next ask would be, our pastor offered me a 20 minute slot in both church services and the next day I got an email from this gentleman who said God was talking to him during my speech and he realized he was supposed to be a part of what we’re doing.  What do you think is holding back so many nonprofits from take that next step in the fundraising space? I think there are two answers to that.  First, I think we spend too much time focused on programming.  Yes, it’s the whole point of what we’re doing, but the problem is you can’t continue to do the programming if you’re not paying attention to your donors; nurturing and investing in them.  Second, so many of us are very independent, cheap, and figure the least expensive way to get something done and stick with it.  The truth is you’re going to get so much further in community with a leader who can show you the ropes.  One of the things I love about Fundraising Freedom Academy is the community Mary’s built.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a church or a nonprofit, communities follow their leader’s personality.  The community that follows Mary Valloni is very approachable, optimistic, and cheer you on.  It also helps keep you accountable to your goals.  I’ve been telling myself the lie over the years about how I can’t afford coaching or courses.  And books are great, but there’s nothing like the community that the Academy provides. April has been a great student of the Fundraising Freedom Academy.  She’s watched the videos, done her homework, and has had great success.  This Thursday, November 21 at 1PM CST, I’m doing a free training on how to put on a six-figure fundraiser and giving you the tips that I’ve shared with April and my other students.  If you are raising $50,000 or more and would like to know more about the Academy, you can apply at http://bit.ly/applyforFRFA.  From there, my assistant will set up a 20-minute conversation with me to see if you’re a good fit and you’ll get the rest of the details on how to sign up.  To read April’s book click on this link, The Orphan’s Abba:  Stories from Orphan Care that Reveal God’s Love for You or visit boazproject.org to find out more. Interested in joining the Nonprofit Executive Club?  Check out nonprofitexecutiveclub.com  For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.   

These last few weeks have been quite the whirlwind for me.  I went out of town for 10 days that kicked off with a workshop I did with my friend Joel for nonprofit executives, then to the Igniting Souls author conference, and concluded with taking on a brand new client. What is gratitude?  It’s a feeling of appreciation and showing an appreciation of kindness and being thankful.  Being grateful is being thankful – thankful to others for what they’ve done for us, volunteers willing to spend their time with us, gratitude for people who give generously.  Gratitude is contagious.  Gratitude creates positive thinking.  Our brains cannot think positively and negatively at the same time.  This means we can’t have the glass half full and half empty at the same time.  As someone who works with fundraisers, it’s my job as the encourager to get you thinking about who you can call on and what opportunities you can take to help you achieve your goals.  When you have peace about what you’re doing, you have less fear.  Gratitude creates resilience.  Resilience to life’s challenges.  When you are able to bounce back quicker from what life throws at you, you are able to raise more funds and create greater impact.  We have all been through traumatic experiences; how often do we find ourselves in a position where someone gave to our organization and then all of a sudden, they’re gone?  If you wallow in the sadness of them leaving, you can easily create a downward spiral of negative thinking.  We have to be able to be resilient and understand that not every donor is going to come back, we should never have an expectation that donors are going to give every year.  Gratitude creates joy.  Practicing gratitude everyday brings joy in your life.  I have mentioned this before, but in the back of my journal, I have a joy list.  It’s a bulleted list of all the things that bring me joy.  I try and spend most of my time doing the things on my list that bring me joy because I have a choice every single day to do things I enjoy.  One of the things on my list is deep conversations so I work really hard to incorporate these types of conversations into my daily life and into the work I do.   Gratitude can change everything including our mental state and can help us turn things around.  My challenge to you today is to create your own joy list.  As we gear up for this holiday season and the season of giving, think through those little things that bring you joy and how just by changing your thought process can change how people feel about your cause.  People give to people; they don’t give to causes.  People are giving to you and the life change you are making through your organization.  It’s way easier to give to someone who is positive and shows gratitude toward your generosity.  If you’re feeling really stressed right now, I need you to push that to the side and be thinking positive thoughts because those negative thoughts are not doing you any favors, they aren’t helping your fundraising, and your desperation is repelling people away from you and your cause. Last week we talked about podcasting and I wanted to let you all know that I am launching a new podcast with my friend Joel Kessel called the Nonprofit Executive Podcast.  The first three episodes are dropping later this week.  This is THE podcast for nonprofit executives who are working through strategic plans, board development, administrative support and all of those different roles that come with an executive title.  Joel and I will specifically talk about strategic planning and fundraising.  Visit http://nonprofitexecutivepodcast.com/  Interested in joining the Nonprofit Executive Club?  Check out nonprofitexecutiveclub.com  For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.  Interested in joining the Nonprofit Executive Club?  Check out nonprofitexecutiveclub.com   

Today we are talking with Danny Ozment, founder and producer at Emerald City Productions.  Danny was on a path to becoming a conductor when his daughter’s birth necessitated flexibility and a major change in priorities.  Danny spent the first seven years in his new business focusing on a cappella given his 20-year music career as a singer and producer of choral music and contemporary a cappella. Being a fan of many podcasts, Danny started his own show and quickly began editing and producing podcasts for others. Do you think every nonprofit should have a podcast? Yes – anyone who has something to say should have a podcast.  Most organizations are either developing or have developed content for marketing.  Podcasting can be a way of saving time because you can record a podcast as if you were dictating notes to someone who was going to write a blog post or article.  And then you transcribe it and then you or your support staff can generate the necessary blog articles or quotes for social media.  Podcasts are the one form of new media where you can have a long-form, nuanced conversations and share stories.  People who are listening to podcasts right now are lonely and starved for actual conversation.  When they’re stuck in their long commutes, their frustrating jobs, they want to connect with someone.  Or, maybe they want to learn something while they are running or cleaning their house; podcasts are the way to do that.  The podcast host then becomes their friend or the expert/authority on a topic after a few episodes.  Nonprofits have an expertise in an area and podcasts are how they can share that content. Right now, there are more than 50% of Americans who listen to podcasts on a weekly basis and that number continues to steadily increase.  90% of podcast listeners consume at least half or more than half of an episode.  These people are giving you much more attention than blogs or videos, even more so than social media posts.   Traditionally, podcasts start out establishing the pillars or core values or the cause they are focusing on.  Once you’ve established that evergreen content, it’s a good idea to bring in other experts – from other organizations, other people from within your organization, people from around the world who can support what you’re saying because then the people listening to you realize that you really do know what you are talking about. You also need to think about your audience.  I have clients who will interview an audience member and do a live coaching.  Or they will do a focus group and ask a lot of questions.  If someone wants to start a podcast, what is the first thing they need to know? You have to have the desire to improve communication between you and your community (your cause).  You need a USB microphone – the one I love is the Audio-Technica ATR2100 – since it’s a USB mic, you can plug it right into your computer and start recording.  To record, you can use QuickTime, Garage Band, or Audacity for PC and then all you need after that is a hosting solution; companies like Libsyn, Blubrry, or Podbean take your file and spread it to the rest of the world.  What are you seeing nonprofits do well that you think others should replicate? They stay on mission.  They have a reason they exist.  Strong nonprofit game right now is hosting events that engage the community and really fit people.  What have you seen that’s not working? The number one complaint I hear out of the nonprofit world is we never have enough staff; the whole staff is overworked and underpaid.  Nonprofits don’t outsource enough.  For example, if a nonprofit is wanting to start a podcast, though it’s not hard work, it’s a lot of work because it’s a long play – it could take six months to a year.  Consistency is key – if you are going to podcast once a week or once a month, then you have to stick to that schedule.  What my company, Emerald City Productions, does is produce podcasts for businesses.  On the business’ end, they record into a mic and then we handle everything else from the tech side to show notes to content for blogs and/or social media posts.  This is what I see nonprofits not doing well, which is taking advantage of the contract help that’s out there. Are there any resources you would recommend? If you’re thinking about a podcast, my podcast is a great place to start it’s called Podcast Strategies and people can find it wherever they get their podcasts.  If you are a LinkedIn Learning member, I have an A-Z course called Producing Podcasts and it covers everything from how to choose the audience you’re speaking to, here’s how to choose your title or format, here’s what you do to create the artwork, etc.  For more research on podcasting, Edison Research released The Podcast Consumer 2019. What does freedom mean to you? Freedom to me means having the time to develop new ideas and concepts in my business and organization without having to worry about managing the machine that is the day to day of running the organization.    For Danny’s podcast, please go to dannyozment.com.  Want to work with Danny?  Set up a discovery call here, emeraldcitypro.com/call.   For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.    Interested in joining the Nonprofit Executive Club?  Check out nonprofitexecutiveclub.com     

On today’s show, we are joined by my guest, Meredith Noble. Meredith is the lead instructor and founder of SenecaWorks project management consulting firm and learngrantwriting.org.  Their mission is to empower natural change-makers in making our communities vibrant, sustainable, and healthy. Can you demystify grant writing for us? Grant writing is not free money; it’s a vehicle for driving innovation and making change.  With grant writing, you are trying to find a way to subsidize some of the risk from your organization.  Look at it like writing a persuasive essay – you are trying to convince someone that your cause is worthy of the funding.  You don’t have to be a stellar writer, but through the grant writing process, you can learn to write clearly and succinctly.  Sentences should be 25 words or less, like a newspaper article.  If someone is either looking for a grant writer or considering become a grant writer, what should they do to get started? If someone is considering hiring a grant writer, ask around to find who is behind successful applications you know about, especially if you have a specific grant you want to go after.  If you can’t find someone you’re thrilled with, I recommend using Instrumentl Grant Writing matchmaking service.  Instrumentl is a grant database for finding new grant opportunities.  They also have a service where you can post your project or service that needs funding and they will match you with a grant writer.  Tell us about your grant writing program. We have four modules, the first one is teaching students how to make their projects irresistible to funders.  Second, we show you how to make a bulletproof budget.  Next, is the secret sauce, which is how to find grants and which ones are worth pursuing.  Finally, the last module is how to write winning grants and it’s built for the busy community change-maker who doesn’t have a lot of time.  They can download audio files to listen as they commute to work.  There are instructional videos online access to templates and samples.  We also have a community platform that operates like Facebook. What do you see people doing really well? Most people coming to me have a very clear ‘why’ when it comes to their work; why it’s important. They have so much grit and persistence.  What do you see people struggle with? From a grant writing perspective, people chase grants haphazardly.  They chase them last minute; they are dropping everything to apply for a grant that looks like it’s the perfect opportunity and then they find out in the end that they had no chance, or they made a silly last-minute mistake.  This cycle is really hard to break out of and is the most important habit I would change in people.  I would then replace it with a plan on how to develop a funding strategy, which is a roadmap for knowing which grants you’re pursuing, when, and what needs to be done to prepare.  Here are two tips on how to determine if a grant is right for your organization. Calculate the likelihood of success. Figure out how many applicants applied last year and divide by the number that were awarded funding.  If 100 applicants applied and 20 were given grants, then there’s a 20% chance of getting funded.  I strive for 15% at the lowest, preferably 20%, likelihood of success.  Calculate the true cost of preparing an application. When you consider everyone involved in the process, you’re sometimes looking at $1000 per hour just to meet.  I encourage my students to really think about the true cost of the application.  If you’re a new nonprofit, you are going to be in the red in the beginning.  But it’s ok, because you are building momentum and credibility for managing money.  Tell us about your book. How to Write a Grant: Become a Grant Writing Unicorn.  It’s only been out 3 weeks and has already gotten to #1 bestseller status for nonprofit fundraising and grants.  When people sign up for my free mini-course, I do send them a link to my secret freebie page that I’m always updating with new resources like budget templates, meeting agendas, etc. What does freedom mean to you? I live in Alaska in a tiny house on a lake overlooking the newly snow-capped mountains.  I can walk 100 yards to my office, and we have fiber internet.  I love that I can help people make a bigger impact through the work they are doing, but I love that I can do it from a place where I don’t have to choose between a career or life – they are seamlessly integrated.  That is the ultimate definition of freedom to me.   To connect with Meredith Noble, email mnoble@senworks.org or check out her website, learngrantwriting.org.  You can also go to  Geeks in the Woods to learn more about the Work Life Experiment Pioneering in Alaska. For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap.  Interested in joining the Nonprofit Executive Club?  Check out nonprofitexecutiveclub.com