Podcasts about nextafter

All mentoring organizations always need more of two things:Mentors and Money.November 15th officially starts the End of Year Giving season, so tune into our podcast to learn how to maximize your fundraising during the final days of 2024. Maintaining consistent communication with donors during this season is vital to ensuring their continued support with such critical funding at stake. Effective donor engagement can mean the difference between meeting or falling short of fundraising goals, which in turn can influence an organization's ability to execute their mission. We talk about this, and so much more, on this episode of You Can Mentor.--Find all fundraising wisdom at www.nextafter.com.A curious mind, a competitive drive, and an empathetic fundraiser, Courtney Krus leads client success at NextAfter. In this role, Courtney drives the strategy, testing, and optimization within organization's fundraising programs; ultimately helping nonprofits grow more names, donors, and dollars for their cause.Prior to serving as Executive Vice President with NextAfter, she led the digital marketing and fundraising for a broadcast, publishing, and education nonprofit. She has developed and directed multiple innovative, multi-channel fundraising and content marketing campaigns and led enterprise content strategies within the for-profit and nonprofit space.Her extensive experience fuels her desire to help organizations embrace a culture of optimization and testing, and champion a donor-centric, data-driven philosophy. Courtney is also a board member for a local nonprofit and a momma to two boys.--You Can Mentor. We help Christian Mentoring Leaders thrive.Come to our National Christian Mentoring Gathering.Join our monthly Learning Lab Leadership CohortsCheck out our books and shareable resources. Be a part of our Christian mentoring network.Find ways to get better through our coaching and consulting.Find all at youcanmentor.com or follow us @youcanmentor on Instagram

Today we're launching the Build Good Summit, and introducing the first speaker—Nathan Hill from NextAfter.Nathan and the NextAfter team recently analyzed how the fundraising of 211 nonprofits impacts donor retention.And in today's chat, he's sharing 3 key things you can do to retain more donors—backed by research and actual donor data.If you want to get fresh ideas to grow your revenue—and get together with other fundraisers who are doing interesting and innovative things to draw donors closer in to the mission—join ust at the Build Good Summit on May 22-23, 2025 in Toronto.You'll hear from fundraising innovators who'll focus on practical examples to grow your fundraising—stuff that's actually working right now to help some of the most innovative nonprofits grow.You can get your tickets now at www.buildgoodsummit.com —➡️ Join our FREE training on how to build a fundraising flywheel that can 2x your revenue—without hiring more fundraisers or changing your tech and tools https://flywheel.buildgood.com 

Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab and consulting firm that works with businesses, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity.A nonprofit thought leader, Kachuriak is the author of the book Optimize Your Fundraising, lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard, Why Should I Give to You? (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and The Midlevel Donor Crisis. Kachuriak has trained organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences. Kachuriak is also the co-founder and board member for the Human Coalition, a member of the board of directors for Open Doors USA, an Advisory Board Member for the SMU Digital Accelerator, Advisory Board Member for Kids Prosper Kids, and an Advisory Board Member for the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact.Kachuriak lives in Prosper, TX with his wife Rebecca, and their four children: Max (13), Charlie (11), Gracie (10), and Joey (4).

In this episode of Inspired Nonprofit Leadership, host Sarah Olivieri welcomes Brady Josephson, VP of Marketing and Growth at Charity Water, to discuss innovative strategies in nonprofit marketing. Brady shares insights on creating future demand, the importance of monthly giving, and how to prioritize donor retention. Learn about the concept of 'future demand' and how it can help build a long-term, sustainable donor base. Brady also emphasizes the value of always testing and experimenting, creating a culture of curiosity and continuous learning. Tune in for valuable tips on nonprofit growth and donor engagement. HBrady is VP of Marketing & Growth at charity: water — a nonprofit bringing clean and safe water to people around the world — where he leads a team of storytellers, creatives, and marketers responsible for growing, supporting, and celebrating the charity: water community and their impact. Brady joined charity: water from the NextAfter where he led marketing and helped launch the Institute for Online Fundraising which uses experiments, data, and original research to develop evidence-based tools and training to help nonprofits raise more money online. Previously, he had his own agency providing digital services to charities in Canada and the US, worked for Charitable Impact — an online giving platform and Canada's fastest-growing Donor Advised Fund — and led marketing for Opportunity International in Canada — a global nonprofit that creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to help end the cycle of generational poverty. He started his career as the 1st full-time employee for a startup nonprofit, Spark Ventures, doing development and impact investing work in Zambia. A self-described charity nerd, Brady received a Master's degree in Nonprofit Administration from North Park University where he has also been an adjunct professor. Outside of the classroom, Brady has shared his learnings and failings throughout his career as an international speaker, writer, podcaster, and advisor. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter. He lives just outside Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Liz, son Hendrix, and dog Melly. Here's what to expect during the episode: The Importance of Future Demand in Nonprofit Marketing Strategies for Building Future Demand The Role of Monthly Giving in Sustainable Fundraising Testing and Optimization in Nonprofit Marketing Donor Retention: Challenges and Insights Connect with Brady: >>Website >>LinkedIn >>Twitter >>Email Sponsored Resource Join the PivotGround newsletter for weekly tips and inspiration for leading your nonprofit! Access it here >> Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn. Connect with Sarah: On LinkedIn>> On Facebook>> Subscribe on YouTube>>

So you want to find new donors online?Then this is a foundational podcast episode for you to listen to.We're beginning our series on online new donor acquisition with a master of digital fundraising: Jeff Giddens from NextAfter.In our chat, we get into: Why sending prospective donors to a donation page might not be effective if you want to actually get a first gift from someone Why trying to understand donors is a better strategy than trying to get them to understand your cause How to think about your new donor acquisition strategy using content offersHow to find, create and develop content offers prospective donors might actually want to download How to build an effective acquisition funnel How to drive traffic to your funnel using paid adsThe key metrics you should keep an eye on to begin testing and optimizing your acquisition funnelAlong the way, we also get into how direct mail—and even door to door fundraising!—can influence the way you think about new donor acquisition online.—➡️ Join our FREE training on how to create compelling fundraising messaging that leads donors to action and raises more money, from more people, more often—simply by changing the words you use: https://www.5minutefundraisingfix.com/register 

Want to know one of the most common budget categories I see with a note that says, "I would love to add this someday!" when I'm building custom budgets? It's giving. Most people want to give to causes and organizations they love, but many struggle to fit it into their budget or think that the amount they can give won't matter. Today, I'm chatting with Nathan Hill from NextAfter about the impact you can make through giving regardless of the dollar amount.You can find out more about what Nathan's doing with NextAfter at decodinggenerosity.com/Learn how to confidently move from stuck to stable in your finances with the budget system that's build around your unique pay periods. Pay Period Budget Academy gives you everything that you need to grow your confidence, contentment, and your net worth. Join Pay Period Budget Academy today at debtfreemom.co/pba, and use the code PODCAST at checkout to get 20% off!You should be a guest on the Debt Free Mom Podcast! Head over to dfmpodcast.com to fill out the guest application and talk with Carly about your money questions, triumphs, and insights.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

226: Why Do People Give to Your Nonprofit? (Tim Kachuriak)SUMMARYDo you know how to write your nonprofit value proposition to increase donations? Do you know why people give? In episode #226 of Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, Tim Kachuriak, founder of NextAfter, a fundraising research lab and consultancy, explains why he's obsessed with discovering what inspires people to give and how his organization is helping nonprofit leaders answer those questions and more. He shares key takeaways learned through their research and how it compares with the latest Giving USA results. Is there a true generosity crisis among mid-level donors happening now? Learn how and why nonprofit leaders should sharpen their value proposition and what that can mean for their key volunteers and board members.  ABOUT TIMTim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab and consulting firm that works with businesses, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. A nonprofit thought leader, Kachuriak is the author of the book Optimize Your Fundraising, lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard, Why Should I Give to You? (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and The Midlevel Donor Crisis. Kachuriak has trained organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences. Kachuriak is also the co-founder and board member for the Human Coalition, a member of the board of directors for Open Doors USA, an Advisory Board Member for the SMU Digital Accelerator, Advisory Board Member for Kids Prosper Kids, and an Advisory Board Member for the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact. Kachuriak lives in Prosper, TX with his wife Rebecca, and their four children.EPISODE TOPICS & RESOURCES The Marketer as Philosopher by Flint McGlaughlinLearn more about NextAfter and find helpful value proposition resources hereReady for a Mastermind? Learn more here!Check out Patton's book Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership: Seven Keys to Advancing Your Career in the Philanthropic Sector

Donor retention is broken. This is no surprise to anyone who has worked in the nonprofit industry for any length of time. Despite all the best practices tactics about sending thank you cards, making phone calls, investing in new technology, etc. – the average donor retention rate seems to be stuck around 45%. I n a brand-new research endeavor analyzing both the donor retention performance and the donor experience of 212 nonprofit organizations, the team at NextAfter has begun to uncover what may be the most important ingredient to keep donors around for the long term. The best part? This magical ingredient has nothing to do with your technology, your reach, or your budget. Instead, it has everything to do with why your donors give. Tune into the latest episode with Nathan Hill, VP of NextAfter Institute, to learn about their research-based strategies to increase donor retention.

Tim Kachuriak is the Founder and Chief Innovation & Optimization Officer at NextAfter, a cutting-edge fundraising research lab consultancy that helps charities, nonprofits, and NGOs grow their digital fundraising.In this episode, you'll hear how Tim built a for-profit business serving nonprofit clients, how he knew he had found his calling in the nonprofit space, the similarities and differences between serving for-profit vs. nonprofit organizations, and how he's grown his business to over $25 million in revenue.After starting his own marketing agency, Tim discovered the work he was meant to do - working with nonprofits. He describes how he got introduced to the non-profit space and how his obsession with optimizing fundraising led to his current business, NextAfter. Tim explains a common misconception about the nonprofit sector, how nonprofits measure success, his approach to marketing to nonprofit clients, and how he uses his work with large organizations to benefit all nonprofits.Tim gives us insight into why consolidations in the nonprofit sector are rare, how he uses retail-level funding to help his clients scale, the difference between consumer-based marketing and nonprofit marketing, and how he uses B2B and B2C marketing tactics in nonprofit fundraising.Lastly, Tims shares the two strategies he's used to grow his business, what it means to be a disruptor in the nonprofit space, his advice for anyone thinking of starting a business serving nonprofits, what he sees as up-and-coming trends in nonprofit marketing, and what the next phase of his business is.Skip to Topic:1:16 - Making the move from for-profit to nonprofit7:34 - Leveraging your personal brand to create opportunities8:58 - The massive opportunity in the nonprofit industry9:53 - Measuring success in the nonprofit sector11:41 - Different perceptions of nonprofit vs. for-profit businesses13:25 - How to approach marketing when serving nonprofit clients16:23 - Why mergers and acquisitions are rare in the nonprofit space18:24 - Retail-level fundraising and the lifetime value of donors19:07 - Consumer-based marketing vs. nonprofit marketing20:45 - Using B2B and B2C marketing tactics in fundraising24:15 - The roles media buying and content marketing have played in growing NextAfter27:26 - Disrupting the not-for-profit space through innovation28:47 - Future trends in nonprofit advertising30:47 - Advice for starting a business in the nonprofit space32:19 - The opportunity for Adtech in the nonprofit sector35:34 - What Tim says is the reality of being a business owner37:49 - Bringing partners into your businessFind Tim  at:Website: https://www.nextafter.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak/Visit Stephanie at: https://stephaniehayes.biz/Follow me on Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | TwitterSupport the show

What makes people give? It's a question that my next guest has obsessed over for more than a decade. Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. Tim and his team at NextAfter and have conducted 5,000+ experiments spanning 600+ million donor interactions and first-hand research analyzing 1,000+ nonprofits across 12 countries to understand why people give. In this episode we discuss:

Artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and other tech tools are emerging to (supposedly) make our lives easier. But at what cost? So many of our interactions occur over a digital channel that it can be easy to forget there is an actual person on the other end. Being human in our communications is what makes the difference to our donors. In this episode of the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast, we're talking about why humanity trumps everything else in fundraising. Our special guests are Tim Kachuriak, Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer at NextAfter, and Whitney Norman, Vice President of Client Solutions at Pursuant.

Delaney Mullennix, host of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast, interviews Tim Kachuriak of NextAfter about whether or not nonprofits truly put people over money. Are nonprofits truly dedicated to putting people first, or is it just a marketing tactic? Discover the truth behind the nonprofit sector in this thought-provoking episode!

Part 2 of my interview with Tim Kachuriak and the conundrum of why donors give.

Explore valuable insights to grow your resource capacity as Tim Kachuriak shares his discoveries in the value proposition index study. We'll also discuss digital fundraising, some best practices for using technology to maximize fundraising projects, and how it ties to authors and books.Key Takeaways from This EpisodeValue proposition: What it is and how it relates to digital fundraising and book writingThe value of having compelling stories in your organizationImpact of using text vs. videos on a non-profit donation pageBenefits of turning book chapters into a free online course for donors4 elements of an effective value propositionResources Mentioned in this episodeBack to Earth by Nicole Stott | Kindle, Hardcover, and PaperbackThe Spring - The charity: water storyRevAbout Tim KachuriakTim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. He was the lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard, Why Should I Give to You? (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and The Midlevel Donor Crisis. Kachuriak has trained organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here's How » Join The Author's Corner Community today: Website: Robin ColucciLinkedIn: R Colucci, LLCFacebook: Robin ColucciTwitter: @Robin_ColucciRobin Colucci's Book: How to Write a Book That Sells You: Increase Your Credibility, Income, and Impact

What makes people give? It's a question that Tim Kachuriak, has been obsessed over for more than a decade. And it's what led him to develop the world's largest digital fundraising research lab. Through the course of performing over 2,500 fundraising experiments, he's learned a few simple yet profound truths. I invited him to share those with you on this episode

Learn about the importance of nonprofit innovation, how nonprofits can begin to innovate, and more from our conversation with Nathan Hill of NextAfter! Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. See the full transcript and show notes: www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-innovation Learn more about Nonprofit Pulse: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com Nonprofit Pulse is brought to you by Anedot: Anedot helps organizations save time and money with powerful giving tools. With an easy-to-use platform, no monthly fees, and award-winning service, Anedot makes it easy for organizations of all sizes to receive donations online and grow their base. Anedot is trusted by more than 25,000 nonprofits, churches, ministries, campaigns, and universities.

John Walsh comes to the Nonstop Nonprofit podcast through a purely digital path that began with some of the hardest-to-engage audiences and then expanded to include broader digital strategies. These days, he advocates for nonprofits to lean into digital fundraising, with his specific passion being email.As a self-proclaimed “digital guy” himself, our host David Schwab has seen how digital fundraising's speed, directness, and consistency contribute to donor awareness and engagement in ways that direct mail can't. But just like you all, he's still learning—and John makes that education exciting!Listen in as John teaches us how a holistic communication strategy adds value to all of your fundraising channels, provides actionable first steps for email newbies, and shares his secrets to keeping digital fundraising fresh and successful.

Today's show is about innovation, optimization, and the future of marketing. Join Dave and Carly as they welcome guest Tim Kachuriak. Tim is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer & Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resources. (And, sponsor of Season 2 of the podcast!) Kachuriak is also the co-founder and board member of the Human Coalition and serves on several other boards. He is the author of “Optimize Your Fundraising,” and lead researcher, and co-author of the “Online Fundraising Scorecard,” “Why Should I Give to You?” and “The Mid Level Donor Crisis.” Today's topics: How to use data to successfully release a product. Tim's career and how he founded NextAfter. The future of marketing for and nonprofit organizations. How do we see technology changing in the next couple of years? We hope you enjoy our conversation with Tim Kachuriak! Season Two of the Purpose & Profit Podcast is brought to you by: NextAfter NextAfter is an online fundraising research lab decoding what works in fundraising and creating free resources from their library of 4,600+ online fundraising experiments. You can learn more at www.nextafter.com. Masterworks Masterworks is a full-service marketing and fundraising agency dedicated to helping you achieve your mission. Learn more about Masterworks at www.masterworks.agency. Imago Consulting Imago Consulting is an advisory firm that helps businesses and nonprofits create growth by accelerating sustainable innovation. You can find out more at www.imago.consulting. Special thanks to editor and sound engineer Barry R. Hill and producer Jenna Owens.

For this episode, Jason & Trevor sit down with Tim Kachuriak to talk about establishing and retaining donor relationships and Tim's unique story of how he entered the non-profit space.Click here to watch our webinars, follow us on social media, browse auction items and experiences, and more!Want to check out NextAfter? Click here. HGAFundraising.comThe go-to group in the nonprofit space for fundraising, coaching, and auction items. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating! Reach out to courtney@hgafundraising for guest speaker inquiries.

In the competitive arena of fundraising, nonprofits are always looking for ways to stand out. Anybody involved with a nonprofit is going to be blown away by and benefit from hearing how Tim Kachuriak and his team at NextAfter are using data, research and even secret shoppers to help organizations reach new fundraising horizons through a higher plane of digital expertise. This podcast was brought to you by JC Charity Services. We help build great organizations and we'd love to have a conversation about how we can help you. You can find me at www.makingourworldbetter.com. To learn more about NextAfter and the exciting work Tim and his team are doing, and to check out some of his great TED talks on fundraising, visit www.nextafter.com.  

Making Space for What's NextAfter over 100 episodes and 2+ years of weekly podcasts, The Badass Ladies Club is taking a break from podcasting. We don't exactly know when we will be back, making space for the Universe to guide us is an experiment in deep trust and we are excited to see where it leads!In today's episode we talk about the decisions that lead to our podcast hiatus, and some of the exciting things on the way! Check us out every week on Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok LIVE beginning January 3rd at noon CST.

In this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with Tim Kachuriak, Founder and CEO of http://www.nextafter.com (NextAfter).Tim Kachuriak is a director of innovation and optimization for NextAfter whose goal is to help charities and non-profit organizations grow through their fundraising efforts by digital means. With his team, they use different methods of data collection and analysis to examine patterns that lead to opportunities and to unlock radar digital fundraising performance. He believes that going digital is the future of fundraising and that research is needed for some organizations to realize this sooner. Tim understands the challenges faced by these organizations and the donors themselves. They participated in giving campaigns to become donors themselves to capture the perspective of a donor. In doing so, they were able to discover and fill in the gaps which led them to create more templates, guides and tools, develop 9 different certification courses, organize events with many digital fundraisers and work directly with large nonprofit organizations to optimize their giving performance. Key Points from the Episode: The Importance of Building Relationships with Your Donor The Challenges Currently Faced with Digital Fundraising The Problem of the Email Approach to Fundraising The Future of Fundraising About Tim Kachuriak A nonprofit thought leader, Tim Kachuriak is the author of the book https://books.google.com.ph/books/about/Optimize_Your_Fundraising.html?id=3OjguwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y (Optimize Your Fundraising), lead researcher and co-author of the https://www.nextafter.com/studies/the-online-fundraising-scorecard/ (Online Fundraising Scorecard), https://www.nextafter.com/studies/why-should-i-give-to-you/ (Why Should I Give to You?) (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and https://www.nextafter.com/resources/mid-level-donor-crisis/ (The Midlevel Donor Crisis). Kachuriak has trained organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences.  Kachuriak is also the co-founder and board member for the Human Coalition, a member of the board of directors for Open Doors USA, an Advisory Board Member for the SMU Digital Accelerator, Advisory Board Member for Kids Prosper Kids, and an Advisory Board Member for the Blackbaud Institute for Philanthropic Impact. Kachuriak lives in Prosper, TX with his wife Rebecca, and their four children: Max (13), Charlie (11), Gracie (10), and Joey (4). About NextAfter NextAfter combines the perpetual learning of a fundraising research lab, the practical application of a digital-first agency, and the rigorous instruction of a training institute. Their mission is to decode what works in digital fundraising and then equip nonprofits with that knowledge to fulfill their vision to unleash the most generous generation in the history of the world. They adhere to 8 core values: Focus relentlessly on client success, and everything else will fall into place, Always be testing, Employ MacGyver-like resourcefulness, Be courageous, Empower clients, don't enslave them, Never compromise our convictions in order to meet financial obligations, Be above reproach, and Err on the side of generosity. Tweetable Moments: “8:53: People give to people. And the more that we can actually humanize our communications and make it seem more and more like a one to one conversation, the more effective it is.” “13:14: There's a lot of reasons why cultivating that relationship with the donor is in the best interest of the organization. Links Mentioned in this Episode: Want to learn more? Check out the NextAfter website athttps://automaticmarketingmachine.com/ ( )https://www.nextafter.com/ Check out NextAfter on LinkedIn athttps://www.linkedin.com/company/automaticmarketingmachine ( )https://www.linkedin.com/company/next-after/...

When so many of us started in fundraising, we sat at our computers and typed out plain and what we thought were boring emails to our donors. And we raised money. But as soon as we could afford it, we moved up to email templates in our CRMs or email marketing platforms. These templates made us look professional! They allowed us to easily plug in images, fancy text, links, and other elements. But we didn't know that these templates were hurting our fundraising. Research proves over and again that these email templates hinder the success of our fundraising.NextAfter's experiment #4174NextAfter from a person experimentMORE POPULAR POSTS FROM DAVID L OAKS:Stories: The Currency Nonprofits Collect To Pay Their DonorsYour Response To A Gift Speaks VOLUMESWhy Your Nonprofit MUST Be Able To Describe A World Where It Is NOT NeededStop Asking Donors To Help You Help PeopleDo I Have To Meet With Donors Face-To-Face?Get David's Latest Posts In Your Inbox Each Week

In this week's episode, our guest is Tim Kachuriak, the Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy, and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. Have questions/comments/concerns? Email us at heartofgivingpod@gmail.com. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment on iTunes.    

Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab and consulting firm that works with businesses, nonprofits, and NGO's to help them grow their resource capacity.Are you doing your fundraising alone without a trusted coach? Consider joining the Minor Touches  Major Impact Fundraising Accelerator with me.POPULAR POSTS FROM DAVID L OAKS:Stories: The Currency Nonprofits Collect To Pay Their DonorsYour Response To A Gift Speaks VOLUMESWhy Your Nonprofit MUST Be Able To Describe A World Where It Is NOT NeededStop Asking Donors To Help You Help PeopleDo I Have To Meet With Donors Face-To-Face?Get David's Latest Posts In Your Inbox Each Week

This week is a special episode of IMPACTability® as we celebrate our 50th episode by highlighting some of the best nonprofit tips, tricks, and resources that our experts have shared with us on the podcast. We have hand-picked some of the best segments from our first fifty episodes, featuring guests who have shared their expertise in the nonprofit sector. It's IMPACTability's Greatest Hits! Highlights  Introductions 0:30 Common Donor Development mistakes. 1:30 (With Lou Traina, Senior Consultant at Soukup Strategic Solutions.) What is world class stewardship and how do you get there?  2:45 (With Mark Litzler, Director of Institutional Giving at The Cleveland Orchestra.) What are nonprofits missing with fundraising? 4:11 (With Tim Kachuriak, Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter.) The Who, what, when, where, and why of donors 5:10 (With Tim Sarantonio, Director of Corporate Brand at NeonOne.) Why are some nonprofits tech shy? 6:32 (With Aby Jarvis, Nonprofit Education Manager at Qgiv) New developments in fundraising 7:45 (With Nidhi Doshi, The Founder of PayBee) Benefits of donor research and tips for the field 9:30 (With Daryl Moser, Business Developement Manager at DonorPerfect ) How to get media publicity 13:45 (With Kimberly Lohman-Clapp, Founder & CEO at Golden Hour Communications, LLC) Website Identity thief's 17:00 (With Jeanne Seewald, Trademark, Copyright, and Licensing Board Certified Intellectual Property Attorney) Advice on nonprofit collaborations 20:00 (With Jayson Roa, President and Chief Executive Officer at Avow Hospice, Inc.) Risk mitigation  22:00 (Tony Olivo, Senior Vice President, Software Engineering at FlexGen®) How to handle a board, tips and tricks 26:30 (With Jamie Ross, the President and CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition.) Executive Succession Plans 28:00 (With Peggy Monson, Nonprofit Consultant at Soukup Strategic Solutions) Engage with other nonprofit professionals by joining our https://www.facebook.com/groups/impactability/ (IMPACTability® Facebook community!)  Like this episode? Subscribe to our podcast on https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impactability-the-nonprofit-leaders-podcast/id1590404155 (Apple), https://open.spotify.com/show/649fryS6H0HV5L1gncViE6 (Spotify), or your favorite podcasting app.  Leave a review: Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave us a review. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

“... in fundraising, usually if you ask somebody for money, they give you advice. But if I go and ask people for advice, they usually give you money..."Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy, and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity.Tim is a nonprofit thought leader, lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard and The Midlevel Donor Crisis.He has also trained many organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences.Key topicsDissecting The Challenges between Startups and EnterprisesEmbrace The PivotKnow Your Value PropositionFortune Favors The Brave During A RecessionRapid Fire Questions____________________________GuestTim KachuriakCEO & Founder at NextAfter [@NextAfter_]On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak/On Twitter | https://twitter.com/DigitalDonor____________________________This Episode's SponsorsAre you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?

“... in fundraising, usually if you ask somebody for money, they give you advice. But if I go and ask people for advice, they usually give you money..."Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy, and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity.Tim is a nonprofit thought leader, lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard and The Midlevel Donor Crisis.He has also trained many organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences.Key topicsDissecting The Challenges between Startups and EnterprisesEmbrace The PivotKnow Your Value PropositionFortune Favors The Brave During A RecessionRapid Fire Questions____________________________GuestTim KachuriakCEO & Founder at NextAfter [@NextAfter_]On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak/On Twitter | https://twitter.com/DigitalDonor____________________________This Episode's SponsorsAre you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?

When discussing digital fundraising trends, there's no better person to do it with than Brady Josephson. Formerly of NextAfter, Brady is now the interim Marketing & Growth Lead at charity: water and provides a wealth of experience from both sides of the charity world. On this episode, Ben and Brady discuss the future of data, technology's impact on charity culture, and playing Moneyball in the nonprofit sector. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... Getting to know Brady Josephson, his love of sports, and his NextAfter journey [0:50] Diving into Brady's next big chapter and the need for innovation in the fundraising world [10:57] The effect of tech start-ups on charity culture [15:36] Donors, data, identity, and the problem of tech debt [18:21] Moneyball in the charity world and developing intentional fundraising strategies [24:50]  Scaling the transparent charity model [31:56]  How to stay focused and avoid mission drift as a charity [34:02] Resources & People Mentioned Email Frontier FM YOUR fundraising questions at junkmail@frontier.io!  Frontier has joined forces with NextAfter!  Should you hire Frontier to grow your fundraising?  What Can Philanthropy Learn from Moneyball?  Connect with Brady Josephson Send Brady an email Follow Brady on LinkedIn  Follow Brady on Twitter  Check out Brady's podcast  Connect With Frontier Follow Benjamin Johnson on LinkedIn  Follow Matt Hussey on LinkedIn  Follow Megan McCaffery on LinkedIn  Website: https://Frontier.io Frontier on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frontiermarketingco/

Meet Nathan Hill. Nathan is vice president at NextAfter–a research lab, digital-first agency, and training institute helping nonprofits grow their digital fundraising. Having worked at both large and small nonprofits, he understands the day-to-day challenges of running nonprofit programs. Nathan is obsessed with understanding what inspires people to give through experiments and research.Learn:What you can start testing and experimenting with today for long-term impactHow you can get your whole team, and your leaders, excited about the dataHow nonprofits should be approaching macro events happening all over the worldWhy doing things differently than you've always done will pay offResources:The Ultimate A/B Testing Guide for Online FundraisingNIO Summit NextAfter Learn more about GoodUnited at goodunited.io.

Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab and consulting firm that works with businesses, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. A nonprofit thought leader, Kachuriak is the author of the book Optimize Your Fundraising, lead researcher and co-author of the Online Fundraising Scorecard, Why Should I Give to You? (The Nonprofit Value Proposition Index Study), and The Midlevel Donor Crisis. Kachuriak has trained organizations in fundraising optimization around the world and is a frequent speaker at international nonprofit conferences. What You'll Learn Sticking around can help you build bigger experiences. Tim found himself on stages, speaking about his work because he stayed at the first firm he was with, which ultimately helped him build his personal brand. The safest path to revenue is a good idea if you can find it. Insourcing to create profits works out as well. There is a difference between cash and revenues. When you bring on your first new hire, having some cash built up before your first new hire will make it less scary.  Working in a niche is always a good idea. Tim works in non-profits but specializes in the upper 3.5% because they have economies of scale. Don't feel the need to constantly change your core business model. Stay in your lane and build it stronger. Client onboarding is so important. It helps everyone know what to expect and what the deliverables will be. Establishing core values right away is better than waiting until you've been up and running for some time.  Connect With Tim Work with him: nextafter.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak Buy My Book Unf**ck Your Business: https://amzn.to/3Oddfdd Work With Me Tomas Keenan: tomaskeenan.com

Tim insists that the fundraising community has become “guru-city” - chock full of self-declared experts who believe everything they say is golden. Tim believes that there really is no such thing as a fundraising expert and instead of having all the answers, he has designed a company that allows him and his team to be about the business of learning. The team at NextAfter wants to journey alongside their clients in order to understand what the donor is saying to them. Tim describes their team in much the same way that we refer to ours at Responsive as a professional learning community.  Tim's approach to learning and expertise evidently informs his opinions about the how and why of messaging that we employ in fundraising. He explained that thanks to the Don Drapers of the world, we have all developed impressive bull-shit detection capabilities which allow us to see right through much of what of what shows up in our inboxes. Tim wants fundraisers to wrestle with what should be glaringly obvious: no matter how shiny and impressive it might appear to us, many of our messages aren't getting through resulting in a donor response that doesn't match all the hype. Tim explained that much of the disappointment that we encounter is a consequence of having allowed our marketing impulses to get in the way of our ability to demonstrate that real human beings are hitting the send button.  As always, we are especially grateful to our friends at CueBack for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about hosting the Responsive Fundraising roadshow in your local community, email me for more information. For those who would like learn more about the NextAfter, visit their website here. 

Tim Kachuriak joins us in this episode for an interesting discussion on Why People Give. Tim is the Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and nonprofit training institute. He has spent his entire professional career digging into this question. Hint: he thinks it's an irrational decision that doesn't make sense. Tim is adamant in his belief that human connections are at the core of philanthropic donations, and there is ONE thing that leads to more donors and higher levels of investment.

Tim Kachuriak has dedicated the past 15 year of his life to answer this question… “Why do people give to nonprofits?” And while he's found that the answers vary wildly, he's managed to identify some core principles that can predictably boost giving to your nonprofit. In this week's episode, Tim sits down with me to talk about some simple techniques and everyday strategies you can use to attract more donations and build a better relationship with your donors. Tim is the Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab and consulting firm that works with businesses, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. In this episode, you'll discover: How human behavior impacts fundraising (4:00) The biggest communication problem most nonprofits face (13:25) How to optimize your “donation” page for more conversions (23:00) How to use your donor data to drive bigger gifts (27:30) Why you need to “humanize” your communication. And one proven strategy for doing it (33:15) Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe for new episodes every week! For more nonprofit accounting resources check out www.thecharitycfo.com For more nonprofit accounting resources check out www.thecharitycfo.com For more information on how to optimize your fundraising, check out the NextAfter's free resources and join their mailing list @ NextAfter.com Want to WATCH A Modern Nonprofit? Check out this episode on YouTube now: https://youtu.be/XOOfir_BLj0

Hi, and a warm welcome to The Elevate Business Podcast. Both myself, Ange MacCabe and Scott Rust, are your hosts. We have the pleasure of introducing you to Tim Kachuriak, the Founder of NextAfter. This cutting-edge fundraising research lab is home to the world's most extensive online fundraising experiment library. Tim has spent the last decade researching the question "Why do people give?" to help nonprofit organizations and increase generosity in the world.Learn more about NextAfter.

Have a social impact vision or mission?  Want to change the world?  Need funding to start?  This episode we talk with Tim Kachuriak, Chief Innovation and Optimisation Officer, at NextAfter, an organization with a mission to help nonprofits grow their digital fundraising.  They do this by doing their own research and finding the real data on Why People Give to social causes.  Grab something to take notes with.  Jump into what feels like a jam-packed-workshop!  You will come away with some solid tips and steps to put into practice immediately.  

In this episode, host Carol Schultz speaks with Tim Kachuriak, Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity.  Tim had dedicated his life to non-profit work and is a fundraising thought leader and has realized that the true experts in this field are the donors; he's found a way to ask the right questions to determine why people donate to charities. Listen to Tim's story of bootstrapping NextAfter and how it morphed into what it is today. Learn more at: https://www.nextafter.com/ (https://www.nextafter.com/) You can find more information for all our episodes at https://my.captivate.fm/verticalelevation.com/podcasts, (verticalelevation.com/podcasts,) and you can find Carol on Twitter https://twitter.com/CarolBSchultz (@carolbschultz )or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/).

TL;DR. Your donation page has WAY too much friction. Tim Kachuriak is the founder of NextAfter, a fundraising research consulting firm. Their research approach is unlike anything I've seen in non-profit fundraising. He analyzes where donors get stuck at each stage of the sales funnel and why. On his website there are free eBooks which have in depth case studies that truly changed how I think about fundraising. You're going to love this episode. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak Website: https://www.nextafter.com/ Donation Page Friction: https://donationpagefriction.com/the-donation-page-friction-study-download/ Mid Level Donor Crisis: https://www.nextafter.com/studies/mid-level-donor-crisis/

Learn Business Growth StrategiesE10: Scale by Numbers Podcast Guest: Tim Kachuriak| Chief Innovation Officer | NextAfter Topic: What moves and inspires people to donate

Tim Kachuriak is an entrepreneur, founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer at NextAfter. He is a philanthropist and Board Member of many firms and today you can learn from Tim: Why despite the increase in Digital – Humans deal with Humans Measuring efficiency vs. impact Why marketing through values and mindset gets results Lead with generosity and by example Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Tim below: Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkachuriak/ NextAfter Website: https://www.nextafter.com Tim on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DigitalDonor   Full Transcript Below     Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.   Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you   Tim Kachuriak is joining me on the show today. He's the founder and chief innovation and optimization officer of NextAfter. That's a research and consulting firm that works with businesses and nonprofits to help them grow their resource capacity. Before we get a chance to speak with Tim, it's The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News   Steve Rush: People form an impression of you as soon as you enter the room and before you utter a single word. We've been working behind a screen for over a year now. So, what does our digital body language convey about us? The way we communicate or not in email, text, phone and chats, speaks volumes too. We better pay attention, 70% of communication in teams is done virtually. We send about 306 billion emails a day with the average person sending 30 emails a day. Our electronic communication is only expected to increase over time. And sadly, the tone of half of our digital communication is misinterpreted.   As we prepare for the future of work, we need to be cognizant of what Erica Dhawan calls our digital body language, but it's not just at work where we're glued to our devices. We socialize more online than we do in person now, think about it. When was the last time you went anywhere without your phone? When was the last time your phone was off? In her new book, digital body language, Erica Dhawan outlines, four things we must do to improve our virtual communication. One, value visibility. Since we cannot offer a handshake or showed them a smile, we need to find other ways of being attentive and other ways that people know we're communicating with them and understand and appreciate what they're doing. Communicate carefully, number two. Miscommunication is often at the heart of most people's problems, being straightforward as possible in our words and expectations as well as our preferred mediums is absolutely critical.   Collaborate confidently. How can we freely share ideas and trust others in our own team so that they can take calculated risks? Knowing that their trust, knowing we will trust their judgment and trust totally. Trust occurs when people tell the truth, keep to their word and deliver to their commitments. Trust can only happen after three other steps are completed. And when trust occurs, empowerment follows. So be thoughtful about your brevity, your T-H-X or thanks, your passive aggressiveness. That might be something like, pay my last email, which probably means. Did you really read what I said? Or for future reference, let me correct. Going forward, do not do this again, or can have an impact. So, the next time you're thinking about your digital body language, you're communicating, whether you believe you are or not, that's been The Leadership Hacker New. If you have any insights, information, please get in touch with us.   Start of Podcast   Steve Rush: Tim Kachuriak is our special guest on today's show. He's the founder and chief innovation and optimization officer at NextAfter. A fundraising lab and consulting firm, helping nonprofits with cutting edge research, Tim, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Tim Kachuriak: Thank you so much for having me.   Steve Rush: So, Tim, it's been a few months since we've spoken and the worlds evolved. We've become much more involved with digital and technology and research has been perhaps, you know, been taken to the next level where people have gained their curiosity and so on and so forth. And I'm really looking forward to getting into talk about what work you do and the work that you do with NextAfter. But before we do that, perhaps it'd be useful to our listeners. If you give them a little bit of a summary as to how you ended up doing what you're doing?   Tim Kachuriak: Well sure. I mean, it was very much an indirect pathway into the world of working with nonprofits, but my background story, so I graduated from college right after the events of 9/11, which was a really challenging time for anybody that was trying to move into the job force, especially for somebody who wanted to break in the field of marketing and advertising. But fortunately, I worked at a country club all during high school and college. I'd like to joke. I had 432 aunts and uncles that were captains of industry. And so, I went to the president of the country club who happened to be the president of the second largest ad agency in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. I said, hey Joe, can I come meet with you? He said, sure, come on down. And I did my little dog and pony show and he was like, ugh, man, I'd love to hire you, but we just laid off 30 people yesterday, 9/11 has hit our agency hard, our industry harder and sorry, I just can't help you.   And so, I spent the next six months just kind of wandering around, just trying to find somebody that would give me a shot. And I met a serial entrepreneur, actually at a golf outing. And he said, you know, why don't you do some things for some of my little businesses like I operate? I said, that sounds great. He says, you know, why don't you start a business? And I said, I don't know how to do that. He's like, I do. We've got an incubator in the second floor of our office building. I'll give you a desk, I'll introduce you to people. I'll be your partner. And the rest is up to you kid. So, I'm looking around and saying, man, what do I got to lose? I'm living in my parents' basement. I have zero overhead, no romantic interest at the time. And so, I started my first company, about six months out of college called Ambience Interactive.   And you know, we grew into being kind of like a digital marketing boutique and linked up with a lot of the general market ad agencies. And they would outsource all their digital stuff to us, that was back in 2002 and they didn't have a lot of in-house capabilities to do that kind of work. And so, I did that for about five years and I loved what I was doing, but I wasn't really excited about, you know, the clients that we had and not that they were bad. It just, you know, we had a lot of legal clients and a lot of automotive dealerships and nothing wrong with car dealerships or lawyers, but just didn't really spin my wheels. And so, my church at the time was doing a capital campaign to raise money, to build a new building. And so, I volunteered our agency to do all the marketing materials for that campaign, that was the first time that I was doing digital marketing, but for a cause that I cared about and I thought that was pretty cool.   And so, my next move, I decided I didn't want to operate this business anymore. I sold that and we sold our house, moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Went to work for a nonprofit organization directly. I was there for a short period of time, maybe about 18 months. And that's when I discovered that there's basically advertising agencies that work exclusively with nonprofits and NGOs. And we happen to work with one based out of Dallas. They said, hey, look, why don't you come to Dallas? We've been doing direct mail for 30 years to help nonprofits raise money. We'd really like to break into this digital world and why don't you lead that for us? And so that was kind of an entrepreneurial journey where I moved to Dallas and helped them start this digital division. And quickly, we kind of grew to be the largest, most profitable division of the company. That agency then got acquired about two years later by another agency. And during that time, I really became obsessed with trying to figure out how do we optimize digital fundraising? I mean, I'd seen a lot of the stuff happening in the full profits space. With conversion rate optimization and decision science and behavioral economics, but nobody was talking about that stuff in the nonprofit space. And so that's what led me to start NextAfter, and really what we are today is a fundraising research lab, a consultancy and a training Institute. So, it's been quite a ride.   Steve Rush: Wow. And also remember from when we first spoke, there's a bit of a sliding doors moment for you. Where you were almost going to go down the professional golfing route.   Tim Kachuriak: That is true, yeah. So, I worked, as I mentioned, I worked at a country club during high school and college and for about, I guess it was a semester. I took off and I entered into professional golf training program. I thought I wanted to be a club pro, because I honestly, I just enjoyed being around the golf course. I liked the business of golf. And my boss was this crusty old golf pro, had been doing that for 35 years. He's like, look, man, you know, go back to school, go get your degree. And then you can come join a country club, you know, enjoy playing golf. He was like, I work seven days a week, key to key, seven to seven. He's like, it's a miserable life and I never get to play golf. So, I'm glad he said that to me. And I'm glad I chose a different path.   Steve Rush: Awesome. And the one thing that struck me when we first spoke is this whole cause and purpose, it's really at the heart of what you do. And I know it's a big driver for you. So just tell us maybe, you know, what's the core focus of the work that you do now with NextAfter?   Tim Kachuriak: Yeah, so we kind of discovered along the way that, you know, we're not a nonprofit organization ourself. We're very much a full-profit company, but we've discovered along the way that we are very much a cause-based organization and our cause is to decode what works in digital fundraising. To get into the hands of as many fundraisers as we possibly can so that we can achieve what we think is our cause, our vision, which is unleashing the most generous generation in the history of the world. So practically how we do that is, by doing three things. We do research, we do two types of research, both forensic research and applied research. With the forensic research looks like, we do deep data analysis. So, we're looking at large amounts of data across the nonprofit sector. And what we're looking for in the data is patterns that lead to opportunities to unlock greater digital fundraising performance. So hyper, hyper focus around digital. We believe like many, it's the future of fundraising, but it's still underdeveloped within most organizations in the space.   The challenge we've run into though, is that the kind of data we're trying to analyze, that we most want to analyze either doesn't exist or it's not readily accessible. And that's because what we're most interested in is trying to experience the nonprofit, the NGO, the charity from the donor's point of view. So, we found the best way to get that perspective is by in fact, just becoming donors ourselves. And so, what we do is about four or five times a year, we'll launch one of these major mystery donor studies. As the name implies, we'll go out and subscribe to hundreds of different organizations at the same time. We'll monitor everything they send us. Every email, text message, voicemail, we've got boxes of direct mail, stacked to the ceiling. We analyze those pieces of correspondence and we wait for the organizations to invite us, to become a financial partner by making a gift. And when they do that, we go online to their website and we make a donation and then we continue to monitor how they communicate with us over time, and it's fascinating. I mean, what's always so interesting is how wildly varying the communication experiences from organization to organization.   Steve Rush: I bet, yeah.   Tim Kachuriak: And so, when we do these market studies, we uncover some pretty interesting findings. And so, then we go test it. So that's the second part of the research we do, which is applied research. Where we're using the web as not just a channel of communication, but as a living laboratory where we can run rigorous, scientific experiments to figure out what works and what doesn't work. And we've documented now about 2,800 different online fundraising experiences across a whole range of different types of nonprofits. And we're just starting to scratch the surface to figure out what works. And so, we take everything we learned in the lab and everything we'd learned from the market studies that we do. And we applied to the two other parts of our company. The second is the next after Institute, which is the training, the resourcing arm of NextAfter. And then finally the consultancy which is like basically we function as a digital agency for about, let's see, 35, 36 nonprofit organizations primarily across North America, although we've started to branch out.   Steve Rush: What an awesome way to find out how things work by actually just immersing yourself in that end user experience, it's a neat idea. So, from your experience, Tim, then what sets people apart or what sets nonprofits apart from being Uber successful and gaining loads of donations to not?   Tim Kachuriak: So, the secret, it's going to sound very simplistic, but it's actually quite profound. So, one of the metta findings from our research and from our primarily is that people give to people. They don't give to email machines, they don't give to websites, they don't give to direct mail campaigns, people give to people. And so, we found honestly, one of the simplest and most effective ways to actually improve your fundraising is by humanizing. It I'll give you a practical example. So, if you look at most nonprofit fundraising emails, they've got lots of HTML and graphics and images and buttons. And the problem is, when a potential donor sees that in their inbox, all they see is somebody trying to market to them. And we're constantly being pelted with all types of marketing messages every day. But if you actually scrape away that marketing veneer, get rid of the images, the graphics, the buttons, the text, and just actually write more of a text-based appeal. So, it looks like it's coming from one human to another human. We've run experiments like that with dozens of organizations and we've done in different countries, different languages. We find that it produces 300, 400% higher conversion rates to donor, when you send those types of emails.   Steve Rush: That's a significant, isn't it? And that's the whole emotional connection, I guess.   Tim Kachuriak: Exactly right. That's exactly right.   Steve Rush: So, do you think we're more of a giving nation or giving society now than we were perhaps say 10 years ago?   Tim Kachuriak: This past year with everything that's happened with COVID-19 has been just, I mean, it's been devastating, but it's also been so inspiring just to see how people have responded in generosity, especially online. So Blackbaud who's a big data provider and company in the nonprofit space globally. They just released their charitable giving report for 2020. And what they found is that digital fundraising actually increased this past year by 21%. Where digital as a channel actually represented 13% of total revenue. And that's the first time that it's ever crossed more than 10%. So that was really encouraging, inspiring to us. Obviously, that's the work we do every single day. So, it's kind of seems that the nonprofit space has gotten a much-needed shove into digital transformation, which I think is a good thing.   Steve Rush: And do you think we'll see that continue beyond the pandemic? Do you think there's been literally a cultural shift or is it just that moment in time that kind of almost wartime spirit that's often been referred to in the past?   Tim Kachuriak: Yeah. You know, what's interesting. People that have tracked giving and philanthropy over time. During times of like economic down, you know, downturn, and even just like these kinds of experiences, we tend to see a bump, but the trend line continues to go up into the right. The one thing that's actually kind of troubling is that over the last 50 years, since they've been tracking it, the total number of giving households has been going down, but the total amount given to nonprofits has been going up.   Steve Rush: That's interesting.   Tim Kachuriak: And I think what that suggests is, you know, kind of like some of the income disparity that we starting to see in our world today, that's part of it. And part of it's probably some other things that are probably a little bit too technical, but that's something that's interesting to monitor.   Steve Rush: How as the pandemic really impacted on the nonprofit world, from your perspective, in terms of how they engage with its members and supporters. Are you seeing much more of a move towards the virtual philanthropy? I think you coined a phrase.   Tim Kachuriak: Yeah. Everything started to shut down last March. There was all these data visualizations that were constantly being, you know, posted on the news and they're referring to like just how the disease was spreading. And I said, well, you know, we've got all this interesting data. What if we actually created a set of data visualizations to answer some of these questions that people were asking? And so, we did that. And one of the things we noticed is that email volume, so the percentage of emails that nonprofits were sending went up significantly during this time.   Steve Rush: Right.   Tim Kachuriak: And you think about it, it makes sense. Digital was the lifeline for many nonprofits. They weren't having their face-to-face events. They were not actually meeting with donors in person. And so digital became really, it became the primary channel by which they could engage with their supporters. And I think that's the biggest trend that we've seen is that nonprofits have had to figure out how to pivot during this time. They've had to figure out how to pivot in terms of how they relate to their donors, but they've also had to pivot in terms of how they actually fulfill their mission delivery. And there's been some really great examples of how organizations that have been, you know, progressive and really pioneering have taken advantage of that.   Steve Rush: What would be your experience Tim, as to why nonprofits and charities, et cetera, were late adopters in the world of technology and digital in terms of their marketing approach?   Tim Kachuriak: That's a great question. I think it's primarily because nonprofit industry in general is incredibly risk averse, right.   Steve Rush: Right.   Tim Kachuriak: And if you think about it, there's good reason for that, right. They're trying to steward these resources that have been given to them from their donors. And so, you know, there's this kind of mentality. Like I need to only do the guaranteed things that I know that are going to work. If I try something new and it doesn't work, that's a risk and it could end up hurting us as an organization. But I think what they fail to realize is that because the world is changing so fastly, right. So, aggressively that doing the same thing over and over again is actually more risky than trying something new, right? Because like, you're basically making the hypothesis that like the world is static. And, you know, the same thing I did 50 years ago is going to continue to work today and just not. So, I think the organizations that are starting to embrace that, that are finding ways to mitigate risks, but test new and different ways of approaching the market are the ones that are going to be the winner.   Steve Rush: There's also some that I think in there, isn't there? Around the whole notion of what a nonprofit is. So often people get confused with it's a nonprofit, which means they don't want to make much money. We're actually, I know some incredibly, you know, very revenue generative organizations who are making tons of loads of money, but they're reinvesting in their infrastructure. And they're still, nonprofit.   Tim Kachuriak: That's a great point, Steve. I don't know if you've ever seen Dan Pallotta TEDx Talks, but he talks about this at length. And you know, the issue he brings up is that we're measuring the wrong things. We're measuring efficiency, not impact. And a great example of this is like, let's say that we have two organizations, right? They both do the exact same thing, say it's, you know, trying to cure cancer. And one organization has a million-dollar annual budget and they have 99% efficiency, which means that 99 cents out of every dollar is going towards cancer research. And let's say we have another organization that's a hundred million dollar a year organization, and they have 50% efficiency, right. Meaning that 50 cents out of a dollar is actually going for research. The rest is being reinvested in actually trying to create greater awareness and get more people on board to support the work, which one's delivering greater impact. The one with $50 million worth of impact, or the one with $999,000 that is, you know, basically very efficient. So, it's just kind of like, you know, it's a challenging thing because I think we get kind of twisted up focus on the wrong things.   Steve Rush: So how do you go about changing the mindset of donors using digital then?   Tim Kachuriak: Well, I mean, part of its education. So, the opportunity presented with digital as a channel is that many donors, traditional donors have been acquired through direct mail, which means I'm going to go send a letter, you know, three to five pages or whatever, however long they are. And in that one instance, I have to move you from like, not even knowing who I am to caring about my organization and then giving gifts in that one instance, right. So, there's a lot of ways. I mean, you know, 1-2% response rate to a campaign like that is considered tremendous success. I look at that and say, well, that's like a 98%, you know, failure rate, you know.   Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly right.   Tim Kachuriak: So, with digital we can take baby steps, right? So, what I can do is, I can repurpose and reuse content that I have to create something that's interesting. Like maybe it's an eBook that actually helps the person to, you know, gradually learn about the cause. And now when somebody downloads that eBook, I have their email address. And then I can say, hey, did you read that? How about chapter nine? Wasn't that crazy? And then you can move them down his pathway that leads to giving more gradually, as opposed to having it be more of a direct response type of thing. So, content marketing, I think, is the huge value, add of taking advantage of digital versus other channels.   Steve Rush: Yeah, I get that too. And I see that the way that I respond to marketing, you know, if I feel I'm being marketed too, I hate that, right. So, I just delete, delete, delete, but if somebody wants to share content to educate me, I'm in.   Tim Kachuriak: That's right. That's right.   Steve Rush: Yeah, so is there some science behind what makes people give?   Tim Kachuriak: There's tremendous science, actually we're working closely with an organization based in the UK called the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy and they have the world's first PhD in philanthropic psychology. And they're doing all kinds of really interesting pioneering work in the academic space, trying to explore some of these new theories of psychology applied to the science of giving. And what we've been trying to do is working with their team. Actually, we appointed the NextAfter fellow to do this specific task of actually translating some of their theoretic research into testable hypotheses, that we can go test online with our clients and our research partners. And it's been fascinating, and one of their central theses are, is that when you, you know, when you actually present a message to a donor and, you know, you make an appeal for them to give to your organization, there's different ways you can go about that.   You can do certain things that maybe gets you the quick kit. It gets you the donation today, but it actually doesn't really do much to help the donor come to a place of higher wellbeing, right. Let me give you an example. So, you know, the hyper polarized world that we live in here, especially in the United States, I can go and create a fundraising message that leans into some of the politics of the day and gets people really frothing, mad, and angry. And I know that anger is a great leverage point to getting somebody to respond. Like they're so angry at what's happening in the world, that they're going to go give money to this organization so they can go and like, you know, try to change this thing, right. Well, that's great. And it works, but it doesn't actually do much to help the donor, you know, come to this place of, you know, higher sense of wellbeing,   Steve Rush: Right.   Tim Kachuriak: Whereas you can actually do things that actually maybe get less results today, but it actually makes the donor a better person and feel better. And ultimately, they become a more lifetime partner with the organization. The challenge with that, Steve is like, you know, nonprofits live hand to mouth, right? So, they live in this world of the annual budget. And they're constantly enslaved to like this direct response mindset that I put more dollar in, I got to get $5 out and they don't really think about the lifetime value or lifetime, you know, relationship with their donors. And so that's something that we're really trying to change.   Steve Rush: It's really fascinating. And I guess the, yeah, I'm certainly not a neuroscientist, but there is something around the chemical reaction that happens when we give that kind of, that feeling of pleasure that comes from, you know, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, all of the happy chemicals get released. And that's part of this, isn't it?   Tim Kachuriak: Very, very much so. I'm glad you mentioned that, like there's some really great research being conducted about how, you know, oxytocin, if we can elevate the oxytocin levels in our donors' brains, like they are much more generous. Paul Zak wrote a book about that, The Moral Molecule, and he does like different studies and one where he actually had two groups of individuals and he dosed one with oxytocin and the other one, they got a placebo and they were both given a certain sum of money and they can make a decision to keep all of it for themselves, or they could give it to a needy cause. And those who were actually dosed with oxytocin are 80% more generous.   Steve Rush: Wow, that's fascinating.   Tim Kachuriak: So, what my team is working on today is we're trying to figure out how to like, you know, get all of our donors high on oxytocin as much as we can.   Steve Rush: Yeah, and it's exactly the same in the world of leadership, right?   Tim Kachuriak: That's right.   Steve Rush: Having interviewed hundreds of people through this podcast and the work I do. One of the things that always comes along with this whole thing of gratitude, being grateful. It's the same thing, but almost in reverse, it's been grateful for what's being done and what you can experience around you. And of course, oxytocin the love chemical, as it's often referred to. People feel that they're doing something that's worthwhile and it's raising people's emotions. They're more likely to do it as well, aren't they?   Tim Kachuriak: Yes, that's right.   Steve Rush: So, what would you say having worked alongside, the nonprofit world for such a long time, what would you see as the, maybe the parallels or the divergence that exists in the nonprofit world for the full profit world?   Tim Kachuriak: Yeah, that's great. I've been thinking about that a lot recently. And one of the things that I think is interesting about working and marketing nonprofits is that we don't have a tangible product, right. So, you know, I don't have something that my donor is going to receive in most cases when they give a donation to my nonprofit organization. So, our marketing, you know, more like ideas and values and things like that. And I'm seeing more and more consumer brands that are, you know, shifting away from features benefits and all these things that were the traditional ways and leverage points to get people, to buy their products. And they're really moving more towards marketing of values and, you know, these different mindsets. And so, I see that there's actually probably going to be even more crossover in the future. And so perhaps some of the things that we're working on and decoding about why people give, will have some relevance for maybe some big consumer brands someday.   Steve Rush: Yeah, absolutely right. And I think it's also very relevant now that most big consumer brands are more thoughtful about, they're giving back to society, giving back to communities that they work in, and perhaps that wasn't visible as much 10 or 20 years ago.   Tim Kachuriak: That's right. That is right.   Steve Rush: So, what's next for NextAfter?   Tim Kachuriak: Well, one of the things that I mentioned is that we're trying to find ways to syndicate the research and some of the testing work that we're doing outside of the U.S. borders. So, you know, we primarily, as I mentioned, work in U.S. and Canada today, but we launched a major mystery donor study and partnership with Salesforce.org, and we basically replicated our online mystery donor study in nine different countries in four different languages, which required us to partner with I think five different agencies in different geographic markets to help us execute that. And that's been really interesting just to see the variance and how some of the things that we've learned here in the U.S. have relevance in other markets. And also, we learned a lot from other markets and things that we're actually now testing here in the U.S. so what I'm trying to do is figure out how do we basically like almost franchise the NextAfter model of like, you know, research, testing, and then training and each of these different markets. And so that's a big project that probably is the next three or four years going to be a big focus of mine.   Steve Rush: How exciting. And also, I guess, finding out if there are perhaps different trends, and in fact, you might even have the data to support this. Are there communities, countries that are more philanthropic than others?   Tim Kachuriak: Well, there's certainly is. There're lists that are published every year, and it depends on like how you actually define that. So, if it's like giving per capita, or if its total mountain giving, you know, there's different ways of measuring that, but yes, there is, there's some obvious, you know, target markets that we would be focusing on initially UK, Australia, South Korea and Germany, and kind of like Germany, Switzerland area. So yeah, there some markets that are pretty interesting.   Steve Rush: Interesting. And some hope for us all in the fact that the countries that you've just stated as well are all relatively financially well-positioned. And therefore, it seems to me that there's already some philanthropy going on in those communities already.   Tim Kachuriak: Oh, for sure.   Steve Rush: And I'm pretty certain with your support. You will be able to unlock some more of that.   Tim Kachuriak: Absolutely, yeah.   Steve Rush: So, this is part of the show where we get to turn the tables a little bit, Tim. Get to hack into your leadership mind. So, you have not only been chief innovation and optimization officer. You've led a number of businesses along the way. So, I want to tap into your years of experience and try and distill them down into your top three leadership hacks if you could.   Tim Kachuriak: Okay, great.   Steve Rush: Go for it. What would your top three be?   Tim Kachuriak: I'd say they probably all fall under a central theme, which is, air on the side of generosity. That's, one of our core values at NextAfter. So, this idea of Err on the side of generosity, the three ways that we've actually implemented that into our company, that I think I've have made some big differences. Number one, we practice what we preach, right? So, if we work in the nonprofit space and we want to inspire the most generous generation in the history of the world, we've got to lead by example. So, we give 10% of all of our profits back to nonprofit organizations. And the cool part about that is that when we give these gifts to these nonprofits, we also take everything that we learned through the process of making those gifts and turn them into more research. So, it kind of feeds our research engine.   The second way we try to practice generosity on Err on side of generosity is with our employees. So, one thing we started from the very beginning and as we've added more and more staff, we just continue doing this as the free lunch program at NextAfter. Every single day, every single employee gets a free lunch provided by the company. And it's become such a great way to develop culture and build bonds among staff members because we've, you know, we've turned half of our office now into like this giant lunch room. And everybody sits down together and you sit down with somebody different every single day, but everybody takes a break and we sit down and we eat together. And you know, that does a couple of things. That gets people away from their desk for a few minutes to kind of take a breather, it gets them to talk to each other and relate. And then it also helps them, you know, be ready for the second half of the day by eating. But, you know, that's one way that we do that.   Steve Rush: I love that. Yeah, great idea.   Tim Kachuriak: We also do like a profit-sharing plan where we take half of our distributable profits. So, we put it into an employee profit share pool. So, half goes to the shareholders, the other half goes to the employees. And what's cool is there's no cap on that. So last year everybody got effectively a 24% bonus because of the profits of the company, we had a very profitable year last year. So that's another way that we're just trying to, you know, be generous with our staff. And then the last way is just by being generous with our industry. So, everything we do, all of our research, all of our testing, all of our trade secrets, we have open source, all of that. It all lives on our website. Anybody can access that. All 2,800 experiments have been posted there. There's no password required. You can just go log in and download everything. But we just feel very, very, very passionate about trying to be generous about the things that we're learning through our work with our clients and through our research. And there's a risk to that, right? Because obviously our competition gets access to all that stuff. But I think what I've found is that when we give away our best thing today, it puts positive pressure on the team to come up with something new tomorrow. Like it's positive innovation pressure when you give away your trade secrets today. So those are three ways that we try to Err on the side of generosity.   Steve Rush: And generosity begets generosity, right?   Tim Kachuriak: It does, obviously when we put all this stuff in the marketplace, we don't have to say that we're a thought leader. We demonstrate it every single day, right. And so, we have this endless supply of new potential clients that keep coming in and knocking on our door. So, we actually don't have a salesforce. And yet we have, you know, an endless supply of pipeline, you know, business. So that's a positive benefit.   Steve Rush: Yes, amazing. Well done, love it. So, the next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where we get to explore with you, something in your life at work that perhaps hasn't worked out well. But as a result of the experience, you've turned that into a positive in what you do, what would be your Hack to Attack?   Tim Kachuriak: I guess I'd have to describe it as insecurity as a competitive advantage.   Steve Rush: Oh, Interesting.   Tim Kachuriak: So, yeah.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Tim Kachuriak: And this, I learned with my first experience starting a business. So, you know, try to picture this. I'm six months out of college. I've never had a job at anywhere. I've never worked anywhere. And now I find myself in this position of being an entrepreneur and I have to go try to get clients. And I'm like the smooth faced kid that, you know, doesn't know anything. And I was incredibly insecure and I think everybody is, right. You call it like an imposter syndrome or whatever it is, but we all have this insecurity that we kind of, you know, try to put a mask over it. I guess I learned through that early experience, I've continued through my career. It's like just lean into it. So great, if you feel insecure that causes you to over-prepare and to overwork and to actually exceed the bar every single chance you get, because you don't know where the bar is, right. And so, I've found that to be incredibly helpful especially in the kind of business of serving clients is just, okay. I feel incredibly insecure. I don't know what's going to work. Honestly, that's what led us to getting deep into this world of testing and experimentation is because as a consultant, everybody looks at you, like you have all the answers and deep down inside, I know I don't, right. But when I discovered testing, I realized that I might not know the answers. I know my client doesn't know that's why they've hired me, but we can together go find them by allowing the customers, the donors to teach us what works and what doesn't. So that would be, I guess my Hack to Attack.   Steve Rush: Brilliant, I have this philosophy as well of I've never failed at anything, but I have definitely screwed up and learned along the way. And you often hear people say, well, fake it till you make it. But I think that comes with some high risk. I have a philosophy called mistake it until you make it. And that way, you know, you're always in that mindset of being able to learn.   Tim Kachuriak: Exactly.   Steve Rush: So, the last thing we'd like to do is take you on a bit of time travel. You get to bump into Tim at 21 and give him some words of wisdom. What would your advice to Tim be?   Tim Kachuriak: Oh man, I guess I would say be present. I think especially today in the world that we live in where, you know, everybody's constantly like multitasking. I think I've found the hard way that being present is one of the most effective ways to deliver value to whoever's in front of you at the time, right. So, I discovered this probably not until my senior year of college. I always struggled because, you know, I had the typical client college experience where I didn't really care much about the schooling. I just cared more about like the party scene. And so, I would, you know, miss classes or cut classes and I just wasn't there, right. And then as I entered into my senior year, I was like, man, I need to try to figure out a different plan because this is not working out for me.   And so, I actually stopped buying books and I just went and I'd sit in the front row and I would just be present in every class meeting, I take notes and I would listen and I would engage with the teacher. And like all of a sudden, like everything turned around for me. I went from, you know, maybe a C student to like getting straight A's and it was just this idea of being present. I was like, wow, that worked. And, so I've taken that now into my work. And you know, that's one of my biggest pet peeves is, you know, we'd be sitting in a leadership meeting or something with my leadership team and everybody is so busy and they're like, multitasking. I'm like, look, let's be present and focus on what we have right here in front of us. Because if we can't take care of this, then all the rest doesn't really matter. So, I'd say that I would try to instill that even earlier, but make as many mistakes as I did   Steve Rush: The power of now. It's one of those things that I think when you get it, it's a life changer for you, isn't it? But we are surrounded by distractions and the lure of something else. And actually, just be in that moment, be present and the world will be a grand place for you, I'm sure.   Tim Kachuriak: That's right. That's right.   Steve Rush: If folks want to find out a little bit more about the work that you do with NextAfter Tim and they wanted to maybe have a look at some of the research papers and some of the great work you're doing, where's the best place we can send them?   Tim Kachuriak: Yeah, the best place would be our website, nextafter.com, N-E-X-T-A-F-T-E R.com.   Steve Rush: Perfect. We'll make sure that the links in the show notes and also, I know you're quite a prolific user of LinkedIn and you share lots of stories there. So, we'll make sure your LinkedIn profiles on our show notes as well. And we'll keep our folk connected with you beyond today.   Tim Kachuriak: Wonderful, thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.   Steve Rush: I think you're doing some grand work with NextAfter. It's great to see the energy, the passion you have to unlock the power of giving. And I just wanted to say thank you for giving your time to The Leadership Hacker Podcast today.   Tim Kachuriak: My pleasure. Thank you. Steve Rush: Thanks Tim       Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.    

NextAfter combines the perpetual learning of a fundraising research lab, the practical application of a digital-first agency, and the rigorous instruction of a training institute.www.nextafter.com NIO Summit- Austin Texas September 21-23 2021 GROW YOUR ONLINE FUNDRAISING AND BECOME AN INNOVATIVE DIGITAL MARKETERThe Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit is the premier conference for nonprofit marketers and fundraisers looking to grow their online fundraising. Rather than have an open call for speakers, we hand-select the leading experts in marketing and fundraising innovation from around the world, and bring them all under one roof to teach us how to achieve real and tangible online fundraising growth. Over the course of two days, you'll learn proven and research-driven strategies from these leading experts, participate in hands-on training sessions, and discover all the tools you need to grow your online fundraising and revenue. Through extensive networking opportunities, you'll gather new ideas and learnings from a community of nonprofit marketers and fundraisers like yourself who are seeking the most innovative solutions and strategies to grow their revenue.https://www.niosummit.com/get-tickets/

Save yourself and the nonprofit you're supporting some time and money as I share with you some of the mistakes I did as a funder and concrete solutions so you jump to the head of the line and don't waste your valuable time and money Join me in this episode as I talk about how you can bridge the gaps and move things forward by identifying what kind of funder you want to be! I created three types of funding categories that I believe most funders fall into and it's critically important that you as a funder/donor know which one you want to be prior to interacting with nonprofits - and if you are a nonprofit person you need to know the type of funder/donor you are talking to in order to get the most bang for your buck. Are you a sustainer funder? A campaigner? Or maybe you want to become a launcher funder who loves starting new things? Whatever type of funder you aspire to be, I'll be sharing some tips you'll need to approach nonprofits and the issues you care about, through the different funder lens, to avoid unwanted mistakes!   Episode Highlights: What makes a sustainer funder? What is a campaigner funder? What are the qualities of a launcher funder? The differences between a sustainer, campaigner, and a launcher funder Why it's important to know what type of funder you are Common mistakes for each type of funder   If you enjoyed this episode, listen to these episodes as well #24 Sybil Speaks: Learn Not to Do Harm with Your Funding Strategy #23 Do What You Know Best to Fill A Gap and Help to Create a Nonprofit from Scratch with Nellie McAdams, Executive Director, Oregon Agricultural Trust, and John Paul, Owner, Cameron Winery #22 Unleash Your Digital Power and Magnify Your Online Presence As A Donor with Tim Kachuriak, Founder, NextAfter   Crack the Code: Sybil's Successful Guide to Philanthropy Become even better at what you do as I teach you the strategies as well as the tools you'll need to avoid mistakes and make a career out of philanthropy through my new course, Crack the Code! In this new course, you'll gain access to beautifully animated and filmed short 5-10 minute engaging videos (one per week for a total of 8 weeks), and many more!  I am limiting the overall size of this course to no more than 30 so that you can have a personal and interactive experience learning from me - space is limited sign up soon for the early bird discount! Cart opens on June 7 and closes on June 13. Don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity to be an effective funder while creating a long-lasting positive impact! You can sign up and read more about the course here!   Connect with Do Your Good Facebook @doyourgood Instagram @doyourgood Don't forget to check out the #DoYourGoodChallenge and get a chance to win prizes as you give with a purpose!   Would you like to talk with Sybil directly? Send in your inquiries through her website www.doyourgood.com, or you can email her directly at sybil@doyourgood.com!

Over the years, I've worked with so many great donors and they really give with humility. However, there are times when a donor's good intentions cause more harm for the nonprofit. In this episode, I'll be sharing with you in detail some of the key things that I plan to teach in my course, called Crack the Code: Sybil's Step-by-Step Guide to Effective Philanthropy! Make sure your good intentions bear positive outcomes. I'll be focusing on how to keep from being in what I call a funder bubble. A funder bubble is when you lack the humility needed to gain the trust of the nonprofits you serve. As a result, if you are in a funder bubble, you then can make very damaging decisions and cause more harm than good.  This podcast offers you tips and tricks to help stay out of the funder bubble and give with purpose and meaning. I'll share with you the tools you need so that you can stay open-minded, and not fall into the trap I've seen many fall into so you can be effective at giving your money away!   Episode Highlights: You think you have a new idea but… Don't ask others to be perfect Learn to listen Don't immediately jump to conclusions Be reliable and trust-worthy Don't be cheap Stop thinking that you're the smartest person in the room. You're not. Do what the nonprofits tell you is important   If you enjoyed this episode, listen to these episodes as well #23 Do What You Know Best to Fill A Gap and Help to Create a Nonprofit from Scratch with Nellie McAdams, Executive Director, Oregon Agricultural Trust, and John Paul, Owner, Cameron Winery #22 Unleash Your Digital Power and Magnify Your Online Presence As A Donor with Tim Kachuriak, Founder, NextAfter #21 A Conversation with John Esterle, Co-Founder, Trust-Based Philanthropy    Make Your Money Matter - Learn How to Give with Purpose In this fun, free and interactive training I will teach you how to effectively give your money to well-deserving charities. I bring over two decades of experience working with funders who have contributed over $45 million in donations large and small.  My step-by-step process will reduce your overwhelm, keep you from making costly mistakes, and help you make a real difference in the world.  I offer this free training every second Wednesday of the month. Space is limited for each training - thanks for signing up today. Wednesday April 14th - 5 PM (many of you already have this April link - it is the same as what you already have) https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-JmOEZFDQ0Oa0iICYlPfMw  Wednesday May 12th - 5PM https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pVDFEoAXRkatL8JAbssWxg    Connect with Do Your Good Facebook @doyourgood Instagram @doyourgood Don't forget to check out the #DoYourGoodChallenge and get a chance to win prizes as you give with a purpose!   Would you like to talk with Sybil directly? Well you are in luck! She has free monthly Webinars the second Wednesday of each month at 5PM Pacific Time - register in advance through her website www.doyourgood.com

Starting a nonprofit sure ain't easy but when you know what you're up against, it can be less daunting. Join me in this episode as I interview Nellie McAdams, the Executive Director at Oregon Agricultural Trust, and John Paul, the owner, and winemaker of Cameron Winery on how to create a nonprofit from scratch! As a donor have you noticed a dire need to start a whole new nonprofit organization? Listen to today's episode to find out how to launch a nonprofit from scratch and fund something you deeply care about as Nellie and John share their story, their process, and how you can also bring a solution to a problem!   Episode Highlights: Making a difference no matter how much money you have Connecting your passion into your giving Nellie talks about what the Oregon Agricultural Trust is all about Funding something you care about Filling in the gap and making things happen Things that John and Nellie thinks about   Our Guest: Nellie McAdams Executive Director, Oregon Agricultural Land Trust LinkedIn John Paul, Owner, Cameron Winery LinkedIn   Links referenced in this Podcast: Oregon Agricultural Land Trust Cameron Winery 1000 Friends of Oregon Eyrie Vineyards   If you enjoyed this episode, listen to these episodes as well #22 nleash Your Digital Power and Magnify Your Online Presence As A Donor with Tim Kachuriak, Founder, NextAfter #21 A Conversation with John Esterle, Co-Founder, Trust-Based Philanthropy  #20 Think Outside the Box to do Good in the World with Anne Swayne Keir, Donor Advisor, The Swayne Family Foundation Fund, and Ashley Lukens, Development Advisor, Ashley Lukens Consulting   Make Your Money Matter - Learn How to Give with Purpose In this fun, free and interactive training I will teach you how to effectively give your money to well-deserving charities. I bring over two decades of experience working with funders who have contributed over $45 million in donations large and small.  My step-by-step process will reduce your overwhelm, keep you from making costly mistakes, and help you make a real difference in the world.  I offer this free training every second Wednesday of the month. Space is limited for each training - thanks for signing up today. Wednesday April 14th - 5 PM (many of you already have this April link - it is the same as what you already have) https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-JmOEZFDQ0Oa0iICYlPfMw  Wednesday May 12th - 5PM https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pVDFEoAXRkatL8JAbssWxg    Connect with Do Your Good Facebook @doyourgood Instagram @doyourgood Don't forget to check out the #DoYourGoodChallenge and get a chance to win prizes as you give with a purpose!   Would you like to talk with Sybil directly? Well you are in luck! She has free monthly Webinars the second Wednesday of each month at 5PM Pacific Time - register in advance through her website www.doyourgood.com

Join me in this episode, as Tim Kachuriak, the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, talks about how you can optimize your digital fundraising. The cool thing about NextAfter is they focus on how to support nonprofits to talk with donors specifically via online tools available to everyone through regular marketing strategies. Episode Highlights: • How Tim got into donor-driven digital messaging. • What is NextAfter? • What is Mystery Donor and why it's interesting. • Why should I give to you study. • Tim's amazing success story. Get the full show notes and more information here: https://www.doyourgood.com/blog/22-tim-kachuriak

As donors we need nonprofits we care about to improve their fundraising through exciting digital media campaigns. Whether you're new to digital fundraising or trying to hone your strategy, today's episode will surely help you in your giving! Join me in this episode, as Tim Kachuriak, the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, talks about how you can optimize your digital fundraising. The cool thing about NextAfter is they focus on how to support nonprofits to talk with donors specifically via online tools available to everyone through regular marketing strategies.  Learn how Tim and his team are revolutionizing the way nonprofits talk with donors in this digital space as he shares how they're helping nonprofits unleash their digital power and bolster their online presence!   Episode Highlights: How Tim got into donor driven digital messaging What is NextAfter? What is Mystery Donor and why it's interesting Why should I give to you study Tim's amazing success story   Our Guest: Tim Kachuriak Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer, Next After LinkedIn   Links referenced in this Podcast: NextAfter Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit   If you enjoyed this episode, listen to these episodes as well #21A Conversation with John Esterle, Co-Founder, Trust-Based Philanthropy  #20 Think Outside the Box to do Good in the World with Anne Swayne Keir, Donor Advisor, The Swayne Family Foundation Fund, and Ashley Lukens, Development Advisor, Ashley Lukens Consulting #19 Become an Effective Funder with Fred Ackerman-Munson, Executive Director, The 444S Foundation   Make Your Money Matter - Learn How to Give with Purpose In this fun, free and interactive training I will teach you how to effectively give your money to well-deserving charities. I bring over two decades of experience working with funders who have contributed over $45 million in donations large and small.  My step-by-step process will reduce your overwhelm, keep you from making costly mistakes, and help you make a real difference in the world.  I offer this free training every second Wednesday of the month. Space is limited for each training - thanks for signing up today. Wednesday April 14th - 5 PM (many of you already have this April link - it is the same as what you already have) https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-JmOEZFDQ0Oa0iICYlPfMw  Wednesday May 12th - 5PM https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pVDFEoAXRkatL8JAbssWxg    Connect with Do Your Good Facebook @doyourgood Instagram @doyourgood Don't forget to check out the #DoYourGoodChallenge and get a chance to win prizes as you give with a purpose!   Would you like to talk with Sybil directly? Well you are in luck! She has free monthly Webinars the second Wednesday of each month at 5PM Pacific Time - register in advance through her website www.doyourgood.com

Our good friend Brady Josephson at NextAfter joined us for a third episode here on the podcast recently. You might remember Brady from our conversation about COVID fundraising observations, or fundraising Testing. This week we connected with him to learn about the recent project that NextAfter and Salesforce.org collaborated on, called the Global Online Fundraising Scorecard. This study explored the front-end user experience of donors and email subscribers across multiple countries. Here are some of the key findings we cover in this discussion:Email sign-up was impossible in 27% of cases in the study, either because organizations didn't offer it, or because it took too many steps to discover where the email sign-up was locatedVery little progress has been made in years around the area of using value proposition to either subscribe for emails or make a giving decision (you'll hear Brady outline what the keys are in a successful value proposition too)The dangerous myth that online users don't or won't consume copy -- and address the (surprising) negative impact that video and images have on conversionThe half dozen (or more!) types of friction that negatively impact decision-making online, AND, the one positive type of friction that can actually help you raise more money online!The importance of email cultivation to long-term retention and revenue, and the sad fact that too few organizations are investing in meaningful email relationship building.The truth about email deliverability, and what you can do to improve deliverability for your organization.What's working best globally in sustainer giving, where the U.S. is falling behind in this key giving area, and what YOU can do to improve your organization's sustainer numbers.The trends on email welcome series use, and how one organization tested into a 900% increase in 2nd gift conversion by rethinking their approach to welcome series content.It's always a blast to have Brady on the show, and I hope you'll learn as much as I did in this conversation!Don't forget to download the Global Online Fundraising Scorecard today! This episode of The Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast was brought to you by our friends at Virtuous. We're so excited to partner with them to promote the upcoming 

In this episode of Nonprofit Architect, Travis discusses with Brady Josephson, an entrepreneur working with "Next After". They focus on core precepts of online fundraising, noting results from studies that show the wrong approaches of many nonprofit organizations to raising funds online. Listen in now and be informed Conversation Highlights [00:41] Brady explains that the concept behind "Next After" is basically to collect data, run experiments to essentially figure out what works in fundraising, and make that information accessible to nonprofit organizations [02:20] Donors lie [09:20] Takeaway #1: The Value Proposition Question; why should I give to you, as opposed to another organization, or not at all? [09:34] Takeaway #2: four perspectives from which a nonprofit organization should answer the value proposition question (Appeal, Credibility, Clarity, and Exclusivity) [13:02] Every different organization has strengths and weaknesses [13:16] Takeaway #3: As an NPO, having something more quantifiable or tangible encourages generosity [15:45] When building a scalable fundraising infrastructure, of which email is one of the strategies, you always need to start work much sooner than you think [16:47] Takeaway #4: Offline donors are worth 90% more if they get emails [17:34] Mystery Shopper Studies conducted involved signing up to receive emails from non-profit organizations over some time, to have an idea of the E-mail methods used by a majority of them. [20:22]Brady reveals that based on the results of their studies, most non-profits are not thanking their donors [21:31] Takeaway #5: The first 30-45-day window is one of the most critical times to continue engagement with a new donor, if not they may not make a second gift in 6-14 months, at which point they're gone. [24:58] Brady's advice to startup NPAs: The Culture of Fund-raising & Being proactive [29:48] He discusses the three metrics of online fundraising (Traffic, Conversation Rate, and Average gift), with the results of some studies relating these metrics to NPAs. [31:03] Google Ad grant gives up to 10,000$ worth of free advertising, with terms. This was discussed in detail in a previous episode (Interview with Preston Cone; Facebook Ads, email copy and secrets behind the Google Ad Grant) Remarkable Quotes: [13:21] "Tangibility leads to generosity" [22:07] "The lifecycle of a donor" [26:39] "Bold is definitely better."   Contact Brady Website: www.nextafter.com LinkedIn: Brady Josephson Twitter: @bradyjosephson Brady Josephson is a charity nerd, entrepreneur, digital marketer, professor, and writer. He's on a mission to see more people giving and more causes thriving. At NextAfter, Brady focuses on business development and partnerships, content creation, and marketing. Before coming to NextAfter, Brady worked for the company he started, The Josephson Group, which founded Shift, a digital agency, and Nonprofit Supply Co., a Google Ad Grant advertising service. His work and writing have been featured in CBC, Christianity Today, NPR, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy among others. He has also been a speaker and presenter at conferences in Canada, the US, and Europe including Social Media for Nonprofits, AFP Congress, CyberGrants Conference, RaiseNow Inspire, and BBCON. Learn more about Brady's speaking here. He is also an adjunct professor at North Park University's School of Business and Nonprofit Management, contributes to The Huffington Post, is the creator of The Good Journey Pod podcast, and is founding editor of re: charity — a top nonprofit and fundraising blog. Brady began his career at Spark Ventures, a start-up non-profit doing development work in Zambia, after receiving his Masters in Nonprofit Administration. He oversaw fundraising and marketing there before moving to Opportunity International, the world's largest Christian microfinance organization, where he worked in digital fundraising and then served as National Marketing Director in Canada. Brady then helped start a digital agency working with nonprofits that eventually merged with Chimp, a technology company offering an online platform for charitable giving, where Brady worked in business development and client strategy before launching out on his own. Brady Josephson brady@nextafter.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradyjosephson/ Twitter @bradyjosephson https://www.nextafter.com/ https://www.facebook.com/NextAfterInc https://twitter.com/NextAfter_ https://www.linkedin.com/company/next-after/

It was great to have Brady Josephson back on the podcast today for a second conversation. If you didn't catch our conversation last month on COVID fundraising trends, you should check it out. But today, Brady and I talk about all things testing. This is one of Brady's favorite things to chat about. That shouldn't be a surprise, given his role as Managing Director at NextAfter's Institute for Online Fundraising.As a direct response fundraiser, I'm a big fan of testing. We test all the time. Sometimes we test something that makes a dramatic impact on revenue or results for a client. Other times, a test doesn't go the way we think. It "fails", if you will. But in the end, we still learn from it. To be successful with testing, you have to think differently about the philosophy and execution of tests. That's where Brady and I focused in this conversation. He covered a ton of important ground, like:Why testing is important to fundraising successWhat type of tests deliver the most impact and value (and which tests aren't worth your time)Creating a testing strategy/planDesigning tests for successful learningThe value of iterative testingLow value vs. High value testsThe importance of tracking, and why this is the first step in your successful testing strategyI hope you learn a ton from this conversation, and that you take this opportunity to create or refine your own testing plan for the next year!Special Offer From Velocity Strategy Solutions, Our Episode Sponsor: 

Brady Josephson, Managing Director of the Institute for Online Fundraising at NextAfter recently sat down with us to share what he's learning about the changing fundraising landscape during the COVID-19 crisis. This conversation and the learnings that Brady shares are based on observations from more than 157 nonprofits that were and are actively fundraising during the COVID crisis. Brady is learning and seeing some interesting trends that you'll no doubt want to be aware of:As COVID took hold in early March, a lot of fundraising slowed or stopped. There was a marked decrease in email volume, as some organizations slowed down and some went entirely dark.Starting early in April, organizations began to emerge from the initial shock of COVID, and fundraising (particularly online) saw growth both in April and May (in both email volume and total revenue). This was further supported by the Giving Tuesday NOW initiative. Through late May and into early June, we've now started to see a correction (downturn) in email volume again. There is absolutely value in achieving first mover status when it comes to responding and communicating in a crisis. The faster an organization can get into market and begin to communicate with constituents, the easier it is to navigate a crisis situation. Organizations responding fastest and raising the most money during the COVID situation are those that are NOT focused on perfection, but focused on speed to market. They are willing to move quickly, test, learn, and adapt. The more human you can make your digital fundraising and marketing efforts, the better you'll perform.The elevated sense of empathy across the globe has resulted in increased giving across many different types of organizations, even those that might not typically receive increased funding during a crisis (i.e., arts, etc.).High dollar sustainers may be more apt to opt out of their monthly commitment right now. They are seeing this emerging in the U.S., and we have seen it more significantly in Europe. Since people are at home more right now, a lot more of our online consumption is happening on desktop vs mobile. That's good news because desktop experience tends to increase conversion rates. However, this may mean that when the country reopens and people return to work (whenever that is...), online conversion rates my drop again to reflect the shift back to mobile consumption. Special Offer From Our Episode Sponsor, Velocity Strategy Solutions: