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

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…Continue reading Episode 181 | What It Looks Like to Focus Your Vision

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’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…Continue reading Episode 180 | How to Create a Personal or Organizational Budget That Actually Works for 2021

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    

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…Continue reading Episode 179 | The 20 Ways to Thank Your Donors in 2020

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 178 | How to Pivot With Sarah Olivieri

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

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…Continue reading Episode 177 | The #1 Reason Fundraisers Fail

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

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…Continue reading Episode 176 | How to Build a New Relationship with Money

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 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…Continue reading Episode 175 | 3 Things You Need to Include in Your 2020 Year-End Appeal

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 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…Continue reading Episode 174 | How to End 2020 Strong (Your 90-Day Plan!)

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      

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…Continue reading Episode 173 | The 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before that Next Big Meeting

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 172 | The 10 Things Successful People Do To Accomplish Their Goals

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 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;…Continue reading Episode 171 | Planning Virtual Events with Wendi Freeman

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 170 | The 3 Things You Need to Effectively Grow and Multiply Your Cause

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    

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…Continue reading Episode 169 | How to Communicate With Philanthropists with Kris Putnam-Walkerly

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            

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…Continue reading Episode 168 | Major Gift Fundraising with Ben Starling III

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    

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,…Continue reading Episode 167 | The Industries That Are Booming During COVID-19 and What That Means for Your Cause

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 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…Continue reading Episode 166 | Making the Move from Live to Virtual Events With Philippa Fabbri

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    

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…Continue reading Episode 165 | What You Need to Do to Shift Your Fundraising Online

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 164 | The Single Most Important Thing I Learned in My Thirties

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 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…Continue reading Episode 163 | 8 Words That May Explain Why You’re Stuck

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 162 | Fundraising with Evan Cox

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 161 | The 6 Basic Needs to Live Your Best Life

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 160 | The Fool-Proof Process to Achieving Any Goal

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!  What advice would you give to someone who is stuck in the financial mindset? I love this question and here’s my…Continue reading Episode 159 | How to Create a Rich Nonprofit with Marissa Nehlsen, Part 2

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…Continue reading Episode 158 | How to Create a Rich Nonprofit with Marissa Nehlsen, Part 1

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  

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…Continue reading Episode 157 | What You Need to Know to Get Someone to Say Yes

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