Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear. Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:01:00] Simon Scriver: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Uh, my name is Simon Scriver. I’m one of the co founders of Fundraising Everywhere. You’re very welcome joining me today. It’s good to have you. Um, and today we have a lovely episode because we are focusing spotlighting.

[00:01:17] Simon Scriver: Uh, one of our members, this is our kind of member spotlight, uh, and someone that we at Fundraising Everywhere have been so happy to have, uh, as part of the family. Uh, I don’t know, is that a bit much, Sarah, to introduce you as part of the family? How do you, how do you view your relationship with Fundraising Everywhere?

[00:01:32] Simon Scriver: Because we love you. But. I don’t know if you just kind of, are we just that annoying email you get sometimes? What’s your relationship to us?

[00:01:40] Sarah Shooter: Gosh, you’re not annoying in the slightest bit. No, I’m really flattered to be described as family. It’s really lovely. I think I discovered you guys during lockdown and you were an absolute godsend.

[00:01:50] Sarah Shooter: And my membership to Fundraising Everywhere has been the one constant that I’ve absolutely being adamant that we’re going to keep up. Um, very grateful that I’m here at Theatre Hall Workfield. They’ll pay for it for me as well, which is great for me to be part of. But no, yeah, flattered to be talked about as family because you guys are, um, so good at what you do.

[00:02:08] Sarah Shooter: Um, and it’s been so helpful and engaging to be part of everything that you’ve been doing.

[00:02:13] Simon Scriver: Well, I mean, we, I think we just kind of connect people and I think like it is people like you that have made it because you’ve been at members sessions and you’ve been at conferences and you’ve Your thoughts and you’ve been engaged.

[00:02:24] Simon Scriver: And I think that’s where the community is really built is from people like you. So I’m so glad that you’ve, you’ve allowed us some time to chat with you and understand, uh, I guess, I suppose your journey as a fundraiser, I’m curious to hear and how it’s going for you out there at the moment, but I guess just to get people up to speed.

[00:02:41] Simon Scriver: Your position, your current position, you’re Head of Development at Theatre Royal Wakefield, is that right? Theatre Royal Wakefield, what is your organisation?

[00:02:50] Sarah Shooter: Yeah, no, that’s correct. Um, yeah, we’re a small, um, regional theatre, um, for people who don’t know where Wakefield is, it’s in West Yorkshire in the north of England, um, we’re in a relatively Um, classed as a relatively deprived socioeconomic area, um, but we are the cultural venue that sits proudly and have done for the last 130 years.

[00:03:11] Sarah Shooter: We’re an old, um, Victorian theatre. We’re beautiful. We’re a very chocolate moxie type theatre, um, but yeah, so that’s what we are here, um, up in Yorkshire, um, and we’re very proud of the, the role that we play in our local community. We aren’t just some theatre, commercial theatre that puts, um, theatre on stage.

[00:03:28] Sarah Shooter: We do, um, So much more. And that’s why I’m here as a fundraiser. It’s all that extra work we’re doing with our wider community to support them and engage them that gets me up on a morning and makes me really happy to be here for seven years, which I think is just about the longest job I’ve ever had. Now.

[00:03:44] Sarah Shooter: I think we’ve got coming up

[00:03:45] Simon Scriver: to that. You don’t have the seven year itch there, but yeah, I mean, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been there and you’ve achieved some great things in the last few years. But I. Let’s start with your, because I love a good fundraiser origin story. What is your, what is your fundraiser origin story?

[00:04:01] Simon Scriver: Did you fall into or what, how are you a fundraiser?

[00:04:06] Sarah Shooter: Kind of fell into it, but I fell into it really early on in my career. So I, Um, got a job in London, um, years ago, probably about 30 years ago now, slightly terrifying, um, working for a voluntary resource council, um, and ended up, um, advising people on how to write funding bids, slightly scarily at that point had never written a funding bid, so I’m not quite sure how I ended up with that job, um, but stayed around for four or five years, had great success with it, discovered actually I had a bit of a talent and a bit of an interest in it.

[00:04:40] Sarah Shooter: and really enjoyed that, um, enthusiasm I could get from the communities I was working with. I’ve always had a massive passion for, um, different charities and working in the charity sector and I kind of moved my way around. I worked for, um, as it was then an LGBT centre in London, then I worked for a women’s centre in London.

[00:05:01] Sarah Shooter: Not always as a sole fundraiser, but very much with some element of fundraising within my job. Quite often within those roles, supporting other people to um, fundraise. Um, then kind of moved back up north, um, got a job at the archive service, planned to stay there for, I think it was six months and about 10 years later I left.

[00:05:21] Sarah Shooter: Um, having honed my skills in community engagement and fundraising and then ended up back here in Wakefield. And I say back because Wakefield says she’s the first stage I ever performed on with my ballet school. Um, And I was in, we did a ballet about the seasons, um, when I was about 11. So it’s a really lovely full, sort of full circle story of coming back here.

[00:05:45] Sarah Shooter: And this is actually the first job I ever got as a full time fundraiser. And so we’ve been right across, so yeah.

[00:05:51] Simon Scriver: Have you got a performance vibe in you? Like, is that what’s drawing you to a theatre, working for a theatre, or is it just a coincidence?

[00:06:00] Sarah Shooter: I, um, did ballet and various other things as a child and, um, loved it and stuff, but I never actually wanted to be front and centre on a stage.

[00:06:11] Sarah Shooter: But I’ve always loved the performing arts, so I was really, really excited about being able to come back and work in a theatre. I dabbled, I had my, as I call it, my midlife crisis phase where I went and worked backstage and did some costume and tech and box office and various other things so it was really good fun to come back as, um, into the theatre to be able to do that.

[00:06:32] Simon Scriver: I mean, it probably serves you well as a fundraiser, like having experienced some of those other roles and seeing it from lots of different angles, because, you know, fundraising is like you’re connecting so many different people in areas like that’s kind of all you’re doing all the time is connecting people.

[00:06:45] Simon Scriver: So I think having done it, it probably, it’s probably helped you, but you, you know, you clearly got a talent for it and you clearly love it, which I think is one of the things I like about you is you always kind of, you light up when you talk about fundraising. What, what is the talent that makes you good at fundraising?

[00:07:00] Simon Scriver: Like what is, what do you think the skill is that you need to be a good fundraiser?

[00:07:06] Sarah Shooter: Oh, I don’t know. I think, I think I’m quite confident in terms of asking people for money, which I might, it might sound a bit daft in fundraising, but actually I’m not. Because I’ve always been really lucky and I’ve worked in organizations where I’ve actually cared about what they were doing.

[00:07:21] Sarah Shooter: I’ve always found that ability to talk to people about what I do and to be able to do it and that kind of no holds barred kind of approach I think in terms of just being able to just do it. I mean I presented an award at our business awards in Whitefield last year and I was invited onto the stage by um, a local minor celebrity who introduced me as the person who could pick a pocket at a nudist camp.

[00:07:47] Sarah Shooter: Would like massive compliments. Is it

[00:07:54] Simon Scriver: just from conversation? Is it just because, because I know what you mean, what you say, because you do get a lot of people in fundraising even, uh, I don’t want to say afraid to ask, but clearly don’t like the, uh, you know, like it’s, they’ll do anything at all costs to avoid it, which is obviously difficult as a fundraiser.

[00:08:11] Simon Scriver: But is it, I find when, when people kind of reposition how they think about it, you know, that it’s not imposing and it’s not pickpocketing, like how do you, how do you frame it in your mind when you’re having these conversations? Like what, what, what motivates you to do it as opposed to dreading it?

[00:08:29] Sarah Shooter: I think I frame it as a conversation.

[00:08:31] Sarah Shooter: I think that’s a really good way of doing it. I’m having a conversation with somebody and very much like to think it as. I’m not necessarily asking that person there and then for money, I’m asking that person to support my organization. And I’m trying to find out different ways that that person can do it.

[00:08:46] Sarah Shooter: And I think in my head, it’s about having a friendly conversation over a cup of tea. I mean, chatting to people, finding out what’s going on in their lives. And that. I think the thing I’ve learned over the last seven years is the real, real thing is about building those relationships and about understanding and treating each person as a person and not kind of, sometimes you, you learn something or somebody teaches you something and, and you, you go, right, well, I’ll start at a and I’ll work my way through to BI mean, and then I’ll get some money out of them at the end.

[00:09:15] Sarah Shooter: And I don’t think I approach it like that. I, I find everything on a much more personal level. I’m lucky I work in a re, in a, well, a local theater. in a town while we’re a city. But, um, and it’s very much on that level. And I think that’s my strength, that being able to build those community relationships and those conversations with people and being able to really share a passion for both the performing arts and our local city.

[00:09:41] Sarah Shooter: Um, that desire for that to be the best possible place it can be. I’m not sure I would do as well at some of the big national charities. I’m not sure that’s, that’s what my personality is. I think it’s that being able to make. real, genuine, personal conversations, um, relationships and bumping into people and sometimes that’s a pain.

[00:09:59] Sarah Shooter: Um, living and working in the same place can be quite challenging at times, but there’s also something quite nice about walking down Sainsbury’s and trying to convince somebody to support the theatre all at the same time, you know, shy away from doing it.

[00:10:12] Simon Scriver: I’d say you never switch off, but sometimes you get these unexpected wins in Sainsbury’s or just like on the street.

[00:10:19] Simon Scriver: That’s great. Well, how do you spend your day? Like, what does your job look like these days? Are you networking a lot and having a lot of conversations that way? Are you setting up meetings? How do you spend your time as a fundraiser?

[00:10:32] Sarah Shooter: Um, it’s pretty varied here because I, um, I’m a team of, um, there’s myself and, um, Grace who works alongside me.

[00:10:41] Sarah Shooter: But we work right across the portfolio of fundraising, so I’m responsible for Fundraising events, fundraising, um, Trust and Foundation applications, our corporate scheme, our membership scheme, individual giving, so it can be any one of those things. So just before we were doing this, I had the joy of sitting down and writing an Arts Council application.

[00:11:00] Sarah Shooter: Um, when we finish this, I’m going off to a networking event, um, at a new building that’s just opened in Wakefield, um, to try and see, um, what engagement they’ve got there and what businesses are going to be through the door. So. It’s really varied, um, which presents its own challenges cause you can’t really dedicate yourself into one particular area, but also for the way in which my brain works is really helpful because I like that ability to do lots of different things and be able to swap and change between tasks, but we use the building here as much as we can.

[00:11:31] Sarah Shooter: So we’re in the middle of planning for. Afternoon tea fit for a queen, because we have a show coming about Margaret Thatcher and the queen that’s been touring there. Your Majesty! So that’s going to be a little bit of fun. We’re planning for our gala, our dinner on stage, alongside everything else, so it can be anything from ringing somebody up and asking them if they can do me cream tea or trying to blag some free lights for our gala to writing a fondant bibs.

[00:11:56] Sarah Shooter: I mean,

[00:11:59] Simon Scriver: that’s proper, that’s, I think that’s proper talent. Cause you know, you know, me, I have a soft spot for the small charities and the solo fundraisers who are doing everything because I do think it’s amazing that you’re doing those kinds of grant applications and then you are expected to go network and then you are picking up the phone, you are crafting your Christmas appeal, you’re like juggling all of it.

[00:12:17] Simon Scriver: I know we get a lot of people listening to this who are in a similar situation, you know, where there’s only one or two of them. So I, I guess it would be helpful to understand how you approach prioritization or like how you decide what you do. ’cause I always find in fundraising it’s funny, it’s like it all works.

[00:12:36] Simon Scriver: You know, to some extent every form of fundraising works. And so it’s like your job really is figuring out how to use your 40 hours a week or whatever, and I’m curious how you approach that, like how do you decide where to put your time? Is it very reactive because it’s so much for one or two people to cover?

[00:12:56] Simon Scriver: Or do you, do you plot out your months and year ahead of you on what you’re going to focus on and how do you approach it?

[00:13:03] Sarah Shooter: I’m a real planner. Um, so I sit down every year about November, December time and plan our next financial year. So we work the April to. the March to April sort of financial year and plan out what we’re going to do.

[00:13:17] Sarah Shooter: I spend a lot of time, well I don’t say a lot of time because I don’t have a lot of time, but I spend time looking at where we’ve had our best results as well. So I am, I have information at my fingertips because I have to, to be able to decide whether or not I’m going to spend 10 hours planning a gala or two hours putting a crowd funder online because of that different level of time and that different level of engagement.

[00:13:39] Sarah Shooter: Um, so we, um, as I said, a small team of two. Gracie works with me, also does corporate events and other hires here as well. So we do basically income generation at the theatre, if you see what I mean, it’s slightly wider than theatre. Um, but we’re really clear about what we try to achieve every month, what our priorities are and what our targets are that month, When I first started, it was very reactionary and I just couldn’t manage that.

[00:14:02] Sarah Shooter: And we were missing out on things. We were looking for opportunities and it was really hard to make people understand. The length of time, some of the relationships take to create, as you know, if you’re working with corporates, which I do a lot, I’m not going to have one conversation with them and get them signed up into our corporate scheme within a week, but we might have a result with a local funder within sort of three or four weeks.

[00:14:26] Sarah Shooter: So we do kind of, we try to make sure it’s all planned out. So I understand what I’m achieving in each of the areas. We’ve got quite. Stringent budget. So I know exactly what I need to achieve in each of those areas, but I’m quite lucky that I’m really well supported here. So if something does particularly well and we overachieve, we are allowed to drop something else as well, if you see what I mean, to take time and understand what we’re doing.

[00:14:48] Sarah Shooter: So for me, it’s all about that. I know that doesn’t work for everyone, but that’s the only way I can do it is to really understand what I’m doing each month. Um, to be able to move towards the targets of what we’re doing and to be able to really. Understand the best use of my time.

[00:15:06] Simon Scriver: The flexibility sounds really important, you know, kind of being able to drop something or shift your focus because you, you know, you do get these opportunities that come up.

[00:15:14] Simon Scriver: I mean, you, you, you always try me as being feeling very supported by your organization. I know there’s only so much you can say publicly. So just between me and you, Sarah, well, what is it like in terms of the buying? Cause I know I’ve had that experience or I’ve seen in lots of organizations where, where you are only one or two fundraisers, the rest of the organization really does not get it or not.

[00:15:36] Simon Scriver: You know, not support it. Have you been quite good or is there anything that you do to particularly keep that internal buy in going on?

[00:15:46] Sarah Shooter: On the whole, I think we’re really well supported here. I’m not going to sit here and say every, absolutely everybody’s bought, um, bought into fundraising and everyone gets it.

[00:15:54] Sarah Shooter: There are battles. There are, there are challenges. I’m really lucky that, um, our chief exec is genuinely very supportive and very, very keen, but also really understands the value and the power of fundraising and understands the. additional value that we bring. Um, we, we’ve managed to reframe our membership scheme, which has turned itself around from being, um, before COVID bringing us in 6, 000 pounds, it brought us in 20, 000 pounds this year.

[00:16:21] Sarah Shooter: But we’ve also done a lot of work to make the wider organization understands. additional benefit of that because we’ve got 400 members here but actually they booked more tickets than anybody else who came to the theater. They’ve bought more ice creams, more beer, um, all those sort of add on effects as well.

[00:16:40] Sarah Shooter: So I’ve spent a lot of time in the last two or three years, um, really presenting to team meetings, company meetings, and trying to use real tangible evidence of the difference that we’re making within the fundraising team because Yes, it is about hitting our fundraising target, but we’re a theatre. So actually, we generate our revenue in such a wide range that there’s no point doing fundraising at the detriment of ticket sales for the, for the auditorium, because that’s just not going to help.

[00:17:08] Sarah Shooter: So I have done a lot of work to bring people with us. There are still challenges. There are still some people frontline who struggle, um, and have this concept of, um, me wanting them to ask people for money is something absolutely terrifying and something that they absolutely won’t do. But it is a really supportive place.

[00:17:27] Sarah Shooter: We’re a small team across the board, not just in fundraising. So it is, it’s a lovely place to kind of work. And one of the reasons I’m still here, genuinely one of the reasons I’m here, because I don’t think if I’d have had that level of support in some of the challenging climates we’ve had in fundraising over the last few years, being a fund, so literally a sole fundraiser throughout COVID and having a target change from.

[00:17:50] Sarah Shooter: Um, sort of a hundred thousand pounds to 1. 2 million in a week and a half because they closed us down. Um, it, it would have been impossible to do it without the support of everybody else around us.

[00:18:02] Simon Scriver: It’s been such a difficult number of years for, for the arts, you know, and, and fundraisers in arts. And then on top of that, the fundraising challenges, like you said, like season after season, it feels it can be a very lonely job.

[00:18:14] Simon Scriver: And so, yeah, I mean, I’m glad you have grace shout out to grace. And, uh, and to everyone else, but it’s like, um, it’s good to hear you get support. I’m really interested about your membership there, you know, cause you’ve, you’ve seen like great growth and obviously you’ve been a big believer in this for some time with it.

[00:18:30] Simon Scriver: What has been, you know, that recurring income we know is so important. And like you said, so many other opportunities come from those people. What has your overall approach been a bit like, I don’t know how you summarize it in a few minutes, but. What, what makes membership programs like that grow? What do you bring to them?

[00:18:48] Sarah Shooter: Um, personal touch. And we manage a membership scheme that allows us to do that. Um, I’m hoping at some point in the next few years it’ll get to a point where that’ll become harder and harder because we’ve just got so many people in our membership scheme. But we really have worked really hard to find little ways that we can, like you guys do, have made them part of the family here.

[00:19:09] Sarah Shooter: Um, so that we’ve, um, everything from, um, badges, which have proved unbelievably popular, who knew little badges could be quite so popular, um, to little things like putting envelopes on people’s seats. When everybody came back from COVID we hand, and it took forever, but we hand wrote everybody who was in our membership scheme a letter, attached it to their chair when they came through.

[00:19:31] Sarah Shooter: And we handwrite Christmas cards and various other things. I know for some people listening to this, they’ll be thinking, well, we can’t do that because our membership, we’re a national charity and our membership scheme is two or 3000 people, but our membership scheme isn’t, and our membership scheme works because it’s, it’s able to be personalized because it’s able to be managed and looked after.

[00:19:51] Sarah Shooter: Um, I’m talking to you sat in our studio space and we utilize this space all the time for our members, opening the doors, trying to get them to come to private member events, we. We invite them to, um, dress rehearsals, tech rehearsals, which if you work in the theatre just sound like the most boring thing in the world.

[00:20:09] Sarah Shooter: You forget everybody else doesn’t get an opportunity to do that, or get to go backstage and look at how somebody’s costume is repaired, they don’t get it in there while the director and the choreographer shout at people on the stage and tell them that they need to do it better or differently. So. We’ve just used what we’ve got.

[00:20:25] Sarah Shooter: And I think that’s the strength of our membership scheme. We’ve, we’ve sat down and gone, right. We’ve got a building, we’ve got a theater, we’ve got behind the scenes opportunities. Let’s use it. Let’s do it. Let’s put the time and effort in and it’s paid off. It’s really paid off and we’ve dedicated Grace’s job now pretty much solely to managing the membership scheme because.

[00:20:46] Sarah Shooter: of the amount of money that that scheme is now bringing into the organisation. Because nearly every single one of those people donated to our Christmas campaign. Hopefully they’ll come, they’ll donate to our campaign that’s starting next week. They come to our fundraising events. They sponsored me when I threw myself off and cried.

[00:21:03] Sarah Shooter: The Wakefield Cathedral abseiling in September. Worst decision I’ve ever made as a fundraiser. But I decided it was about time I put my money where my mouth was, having asked lots of people to do things for lots of years. I was like, no, I need to do something, but you know, It

[00:21:15] Simon Scriver: finally pushed you off a build, the flames grew.

[00:21:18] Sarah Shooter: Big mistake. But yeah, no, genuinely, I think that’s the value of our membership scheme is because we’re a small organisation, cos I’m, I’m not quite a sole fundraiser, but as a small team here that we’ve just, we’ve just gone for it and we’ve just got to know our members because we can, and that’s, that’s how it’s worked.

[00:21:36] Simon Scriver: I mean, fair play to like your, your work has really paid off in what you’ve done with the membership and the corporate. And really just that whole again, and we know all these areas of fundraising are interconnected. So I mean, it feels like it’s your challenge ahead of you maintaining that personal connection, that human touch as you get bigger or.

[00:21:55] Simon Scriver: Does your team grow in accordance with it? What, what do you think is the future for you? Like, where are you taking them?

[00:22:00] Sarah Shooter: I mean, I’m lobbying for more staff, whether I get, I don’t know, because I do think we’ve hit a point now where we’re going to do more than we’re doing now that we need more staff.

[00:22:10] Sarah Shooter: There’s no question of that.

[00:22:12] Sarah Shooter: And what that staffing is or feels like there’s lots of varying options. It might not be an expansion to the fundraising team as such. It might be sort of admin and various other things, but I think. For me as a sole fundraiser, the thing that was the kind of light bulb moment that has changed a lot of things is to stop seeing things as siloed.

[00:22:32] Sarah Shooter: Um, I don’t see things as, Oh, today I’m doing corporate today. I’m doing my membership today. I’m doing individual giving because I’m dealing with people in Wakefield and some of those people join my membership scheme, um, because that’s the best thing for them. Other people join my corporate scheme because they can do it through their business, but I didn’t have a Wakefield business.

[00:22:51] Sarah Shooter: They’d probably be an individual donor. So we, I think. The value of being a fundraiser who works across all of it is to be able to understand the interconnections that happen sometimes, and I think sometimes in bigger teams that can be lost, um, that we have that joy here of being able to go to an event and, and.

[00:23:09] Sarah Shooter: Chat to people about everything, everything we’re doing, um, and just have those conversations and work out. I think what I said at the beginning, work out how that person can support us, and in what way that person can support us, rather than thinking, I very much don’t schedule my time as Mondays, Carpets, Tuesdays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, whatever, because It just doesn’t work.

[00:23:29] Simon Scriver: I mean, here, the humans, our donors, our supporters, they don’t, they don’t live in that one box, you know, they’re, they’re across it. So it’s funny, it’s funny because it’s almost like a disadvantage the bigger charities have, isn’t it? As you get bigger, it almost automatically becomes silent because you have your IG, your individual giving department, you have major donors, and it’s a really difficult one, one to tap into.

[00:23:50] Simon Scriver: But Sarah, I know you’re like really active in the community, or correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to know a lot of fundraisers. And obviously you’re active in the Fundraising Everywhere community, you’re involved with the National Arts Fundraising School. I feel like you know a lot of fundraisers.

[00:24:04] Simon Scriver: What is the vibe out there at the moment? Like, what are you, what are you seeing out there? Is it, is it a really hard time for arts fundraisers at the moment? Is there hope? Are you, you’re having a good time? Is it just an exception?

[00:24:20] Sarah Shooter: I think it’s quite mixed around the country really in terms of what people are doing. I think in the arts there’s concern, there’s a lot of changes happening, there’s lots of things, um, moving and changing. Um, personally was quite pleased with the change of government, I’m not gonna lie about that, quite actively happy that we’ve got a Labour government in, but at the same time a new government, whatever that government brings change because everybody wants to put their stamp on things and everybody wants to do everything.

[00:24:45] Sarah Shooter: So there’s been a lot of funds suspended and not open and things like that. So I think it’s. It’s a real challenge. People are nervous and concerned, um, certainly within the arts about individual giving, where that’s going to go, where people’s, um, people have to make decisions now about their money.

[00:25:01] Sarah Shooter: Where’s that money going to go? How do we make us continue to make ourselves relevant? I think we guys all know how important the arts are to, to society in general. How do we have those conversations? Um, And I think, don’t want to speak on behalf of other people, but a few people I’ve been speaking to recently have said they were expecting their worst years to be the first couple of years that we came out of Covid, but actually they weren’t quite as hard as we were expecting.

[00:25:28] Sarah Shooter: They were hard, but not as hard as we were expecting. But quite a few of us are really worried about this financial year, um, really worried about where we’re going because I think things are starting to bite now and things, and things are starting to come tricky, but I’m, I’m generally an optimistic person.

[00:25:46] Sarah Shooter: I’m very much, uh,

[00:25:48] Simon Scriver: so I’m

[00:25:53] Sarah Shooter: hopeful that we’ll, we’ll get our way through it. But I just think as a fundraiser, you have to be, if you’re all doom and gloom and you’re worried about this, that and the other, you can get to get yourself tied in knots. I think we just have to go for it and try and see what happens.

[00:26:05] Simon Scriver: Yeah, it’s, it’s wise words. Yeah, I know. I try to be mocked and that’s why I do like surrounding myself with people like you who are actually doing it and feel good about it. And I’m psyched to do it. Um, Sarah, it’s such a pleasure talking to you, but what, what else are you working on at the moment? Where do, where do we keep up to date with what you’re doing?

[00:26:25] Simon Scriver: Is it? Is it by following, um, Wakefield Theatre or is it by, are you active on LinkedIn? Do you share a lot of what is a fundraiser?

[00:26:33] Sarah Shooter: I’m trying to get more active on LinkedIn. So I’m going to say LinkedIn as a bit of a kick up my backside to kind of get myself doing it. Cause you mentioned earlier, I’m also involved in the National Arts Fundraising School and I’m really excited that I am also working for Blackpool Theatre this year as well.

[00:26:48] Sarah Shooter: They, um, they’ve managed to, to get me four days a week, four days a month. Um, they’re paying the theater here for my time to go and help them. They don’t fundraisers. So I’m working in Blackpool and Lakefield. Um, and I’m also working on some workshops to support the arts fundraisers, um, who are perhaps very, very new to fundraising as well.

[00:27:09] Sarah Shooter: So I’m looking at doing, um, some workshops and things around the country, um, to do that because I’m really keen. on helping as much as is possible. I think I was given a lot of support and help as I came through and as I learned what I needed to do. And I’m really keen to give as much of that back as possible as well.

[00:27:25] Sarah Shooter: So yeah, so keep an eye on LinkedIn. You’re very welcome to follow us on our work field as well, but I think personally, you’ll probably get more. From my LinkedIn profile and it’ll give me the impetus to do it now. I’ve now said it out loud.

[00:27:37] Simon Scriver: You’ll have to share this podcast though. But that’s amazing. I mean, the idea that you’re, you’re traveling around theaters to like input into their fundraisers.

[00:27:45] Simon Scriver: That’s pretty amazing. I could, that’s, I see a future for you, Sarah, like touring the country, ballet and fundraising advice on stage, all these things. What is it about the theatre that draws you, I mean, do you go to a lot of shows? Do you watch a lot of the stuff that they show? Are you allowed?

[00:28:03] Sarah Shooter: Yeah, I come here a lot, which is a bit of a detriment because I think I’m never actually quite switched off, but, um, it’s, to me that’s important, I work in theatre, I can’t fundraise for this theatre if I don’t know what it’s like and I don’t know what’s going on in its walls.

[00:28:16] Sarah Shooter: Um, but I like, I, I really do enjoy live theatre. I was really lucky as a child. It was something that, um, my parents really enjoyed and they took me, um, to go and see a lot of live theatre, um, as I was growing up. So then I convinced the wife as well, who was quite interested in it as well. So we’ve kind of, it’s something we’ve done together, um, as well.

[00:28:36] Sarah Shooter: So yeah, no, I love it. And I’m. Off to see ballet in Leeds next week and then going over back to Blackpool to see Grease in June and various things. Um, anything, anyone who are anywhere, if they want me to come and watch the um, theatre, um, feel free to invite me. I’ll give you some free fundraising advice if you invite me for some free theatre tickets.

[00:28:54] Simon Scriver: That’s a great deal. Next time you’re in Dublin, we’ll have to go see, see a show. They’ve got some good stuff coming up. Grease will be good. I like, I’m a big Grease fan. Yeah,

[00:29:03] Sarah Shooter: Blackpool and Port Lockery doing it together, I think it’s going to be excellent.

[00:29:07] Simon Scriver: Would you ever go in there, because I don’t know, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to publicly say this, but fundraising everywhere, we definitely want to go down the road of musical theatre.

[00:29:16] Simon Scriver: We want to put on some musical, because we’ve got Cam, our membership person, who’s big into it, and more and more of us are into it. I think Wicked got us all into the mind for it. Would you ever perform, Sarah? Are you open to come and see?

[00:29:28] Sarah Shooter: I mean, I’m completely tone deaf, but I’d give it a go. I’m very, very happy to stage the Fundraising Everywhere musical here at the theatre if you want.

[00:29:38] Simon Scriver: No, that’s good. Alright, well, you don’t mind. Um, Sarah, we’re gonna have to wrap up. I could just end up gossiping with you all day. But, um, that’s amazing. I’m just so, I’m so happy to see, um, you know, to hear a bit more from you and actually to learn your origin story. Because that’s one thing I didn’t know is how you, how you got into fundraising.

[00:29:56] Simon Scriver: So it’s been really good. And I’m so grateful that you’ve been able to share so openly with you what you’ve been going through.

[00:30:02] Simon Scriver: but thank you, Sarah, for your time.

[00:30:04] Sarah Shooter: No, thank you for inviting me. It’s been fantastic.

[00:30:07] Simon Scriver: Amazing. And to everyone listening, please do follow Sarah on LinkedIn and keep posted.

[00:30:11] Simon Scriver: And if you are in the neighborhood, uh, do go and catch a show at the theater. Um, and I think that offer for some free fundraising advice for a free show. I think that, I think that’s great. I think we need to push that out more. I need to get some more. Um, but to those of you listening, that is our member spotlight with the amazing Sarah Shooter.

[00:30:27] Simon Scriver: Do please, uh, check them out. And if you have any questions, if you have any needs, as always, get in touch with us through fundraisingeverywhere. com. Um, and of course, check out fundraisingeverywhere. com for details about our membership and all of that. And you can join the community with people like Sarah, um, where we sit around and gossip about musical theater.

[00:30:45] Simon Scriver: Uh, but also we learn about between that. So thank you everyone for your time. Uh, my name is Simon Scriver. This has been the Fundraising Everywhere podcast.

[00:30:59] Alex Aggidis: so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear. Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Simon Scriver: So, usually what I ask is I ask something about Amber Consulting because it always fascinates me where people get their company names from.

[00:01:06] Julia Worthington: So, I’d been inspired by some people I’d worked with years ago, and they sort of had names like, one guy had a name Chess, and another guy had a name Aquarius, so I wanted a single word, which was that then in another language wouldn’t be a weird word, so.

[00:01:24] Julia Worthington: And then it also combines, this is, this is really awkward. This combines my name, my first name, my first name is Amanda, which I never use. And my, my husband’s name is Robert. So Amber, it also combines

[00:01:40] Simon Scriver: the two. I like that. Cringy.

[00:01:43] Julia Worthington: Um, so yeah. And

[00:01:46] Simon Scriver: do you, was there ever any point, because you’ve been running that a few years now, is there any point where you regretted the name and you were like, Oh, that’s a pain.

[00:01:55] Simon Scriver: I should have not done that.

[00:01:56] Julia Worthington: No, because it’s nice and short. And then I added the coaching for fundraisers or a fundraising consultant. Cause it was like Amber on its own was, yeah, it didn’t really say what it did on the tin. So I just added that on. So when my lovely graphic designer created it, you can see, she just sort of put it on the branch of a.

[00:02:16] Julia Worthington: of a tree to add that for fundraisers. And yeah, no, never regretted it actually. No,

[00:02:21] Simon Scriver: that’s good. And I do like your logo. I have a thing for owls as well. That’s a coincidence. That’s not on purpose.

[00:02:29] Julia Worthington: Got my owl earrings in today as well.

[00:02:31] Simon Scriver: I do love a good owl. That’s beautiful. All right. Well, hello everyone and welcome.

[00:02:36] Simon Scriver: We are officially kicking off now. This is the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Thank you for joining us. We’re just letting this run live a little bit because people are watching us on LinkedIn live. And so hello to you if you’re listening, watching us on LinkedIn live and people are also in the corporate fundraising chat, Facebook group.

[00:02:53] Simon Scriver: So hello to Julia’s posse, Julia’s crew in the I’m a newbie to the corporate fundraising chat. I’ve only just joined and I’m, I’m, I’ve been digesting that, but hello, hello to those watching and then to the rest of you who are listening back on the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. You are very welcome. My name is Simon Scriver.

[00:03:09] Simon Scriver: I am one of the co founders of Fundraising Everywhere. I’m your host today on the Fundraising Everywhere podcast with my wonderful guest. Julia Worthington. Hello Julia. How are you?

[00:03:19] Julia Worthington: Hi Simon. I’m really well. Thank you. The sun is shining today. It’s just glorious. So

[00:03:23] Simon Scriver: it’s so lovely to see you. You seem like in such a good mood and we’ve just been catching up that we haven’t seen each other since the last conference before Covid.

[00:03:32] Simon Scriver: I saw you at a conference that I was speaking at and I think you were speaking up. Yes.

[00:03:36] Julia Worthington: Yeah, I was there. We,

[00:03:37] Simon Scriver: uh, yeah, there, there were, there were murmurings of the Covid and then literally I got back to Ireland and went into quarantine and that was it. And I haven’t seen it, so it’s so lovely to see.

[00:03:46] Julia Worthington: Yeah, we’ve been watching each other though, haven’t we?

[00:03:48] Julia Worthington: Like observing what each other’s up to.

[00:03:50] Simon Scriver: Well, I’m always, I’m always fascinated by you because, well, we’re here today to talk about corporate fundraising in particular because it’s kind of corporate fundraising month in, in my world because the Fundraising Everywhere Corporate Partnerships Everywhere conference is happening.

[00:04:04] Simon Scriver: That’s happening on Thursday the 20th of March and you should find a link for that wherever you’re listening or watching to check out our conference. So we’re in the mindset of corporate. And one of the people I think of when I think of corporate fundraising is Julia Worthington. I’ll tell you why, because, because I’m not a corporate background.

[00:04:21] Simon Scriver: I was kind of thrust into corporate fundraising when I became a head of fundraising in a small charity and you know, you end up taking on things that you had not really done before. And one of the people I learned from was you. You know, there’s not, there’s not a whole lot of corporate fundraising trainers and people who are so open and sharing with the knowledge.

[00:04:39] Simon Scriver: But then in particular, people who dare I say, specialize in small charities. Like I’ve, I always feel you, you specialize. So I’ve always found you a wealth of information. So I’ve, I’ve invited John. People are going to hopefully ask some questions wherever they’re watching this, but I’m going to crack your brain open, Judith.

[00:04:56] Simon Scriver: Okay. I want to understand corporate funding. So, so tell me about your background because you’ve been a consultant for a few years on this, but you are a charity background. You’ve done this in house as well.

[00:05:09] Julia Worthington: Yeah, my very first roles actually, I did work in the corporate world and I do think that gave me an added skill when I came to do corporate fundraising.

[00:05:21] Julia Worthington: Cause I understood it. I went in as a graduate trainee, so I was kind of immersed in that. Nice, hi Kevin. I was immersed in that culture completely of, yeah, understanding the corporate world and understanding what they needed to get from what you were doing. It was, it’s all about profit, isn’t it? And then I left that sector because it left me a little bit cold and joined a really small charity at the time called Railway Children.

[00:05:45] Julia Worthington: I was their first paid employee, so I did everything.

[00:05:49] Simon Scriver: You were Railway Children’s first paid employee?

[00:05:51] Julia Worthington: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:52] Simon Scriver: Oh, wow.

[00:05:54] Julia Worthington: Yeah, and the income when I joined them, so good fundraisers I always think have great Great memories from numbers, 80, 000 turnover when I joined them. And yeah, I did everything, you know, I took the rubbish home because we used to get charged by our building for rubbish.

[00:06:08] Julia Worthington: So I took that home and, you know, but I also did the, created a gift aid scheme because it was so long ago that it was Millennium Gift Aid. That was when that was brought in. I created that with our treasurer, who was a volunteer, of course, and also started corporate fundraising when I was there. and cut my teeth on Chartered Institute of Fundraising courses.

[00:06:30] Julia Worthington: You know, like you, you take things on that you know nothing about. And I didn’t know anything about corporate fundraising. So I did that course. And then we started to work with corporates in, in the railway industry and the railway industry is incredibly loyal to its sector. And so all the railway companies, and there’s thousands of them, because you’ve not got, just got your train operating companies, but you’ve got your engineering companies and the people who make.

[00:06:54] Julia Worthington: I don’t know, make the signals and just thousands and thousands of them. Once we started talking to them, all wanted to work with us and support us. And we got this amazing relationship from, we had a ball in London, which we had a team of trustees who used to organize this ball every year and it was always at the Grosvenor.

[00:07:14] Julia Worthington: So it was amazing. They have an events company that helped them with it. And from that event, one of the corporates came forward and said, we’d really like to. but you to be our corporate partner. And like I said, there’s thousands and thousands of rail companies. And this was actually one of the retailers on, on the railway stations.

[00:07:33] Julia Worthington: So it’s a franchise SSP they’re called, they’re part of the compass group, which is international and they do all the food outlets on all the stations. So they own all the food lets on the station. So whether that’s a Burger King or an upper crust or a pumpkin or a lemon tree or. whatever you want.

[00:07:50] Julia Worthington: They’re all franchises that are owned by SSP. So they came to us and said, we’d like to fundraise for you. And so immediately I had 400 food outlets all over the country that I had access to as a fundraiser. And I was like, okay, how do we do this then? So it was, it did land in my lap, but then took it by the scruff of the neck.

[00:08:12] Julia Worthington: It was a nightmare the first is what we were trying. And, you know, this is This is kind of pre mobile phone days, and, or if they were, you know, they were just bricks. So what we wanted was everybody to have collecting tins out on all their railway stations, and, but we had to go through their distribution system, and then things would get into the distribution system, and then they’d didn’t come out the other end and they had to try and find a way of ordering stuff.

[00:08:36] Julia Worthington: And then when we did actually get the collecting tins out into all that, because we didn’t have a load of volunteers to go out and do it for us. We were a very small national international charity. When we did get them out onto the stations, then getting the money to us was really difficult because the money would, then it would go into collecting tin.

[00:08:53] Julia Worthington: They would then put it in through that hill. And then we had to get that out the other end. So we had to work that out with their finance team, how that was going to work. It took us 12 months to sort that out. Wow. Get it working in the slick way. So the first year our income from that was about 5, 000.

[00:09:13] Julia Worthington: This is, this is why I’m somebody who goes, you don’t want a charity of the year partnership. You want a multi year partnership because it can take a year to bed it in. If, if it’s a slick company that does it year in, year out, and they know what they’re doing, then yes, they can get it sorted. But if it’s a brand new partnership and they’ve not done it before, you will have lots of hiccups and issues along the way.

[00:09:33] Julia Worthington: So by the time we got into our third year, I think it was, this was bringing us in a hundred grand a year, annually, just from collecting tins.

[00:09:42] Simon Scriver: Well,

[00:09:42] Julia Worthington: because everybody had cash at that time, nobody was using contactless or phones or ever to pay for stuff. So people still using cash. But then we did that. So we have to develop that relationship.

[00:09:54] Julia Worthington: And I think that’s where for me, you know, I really got very good at corporate fundraising. It was like, we need to be coming into this at lots of different levels with lots of different contacts and lots of different tentacles into the organization. Their marketing manager director was really interested in what we did.

[00:10:10] Julia Worthington: So I suggested we got her on as a trustee and she joined our trustee board. So, you know, she was great on the trustee board because she had that marketing knowledge, but equally it kind of really ties them in as well. We started doing some commercial participator agreement stuff. So when they launched a new.

[00:10:26] Julia Worthington: prawn cocktail. What did they have? Prawn chili cocktail roll or something was one of the ones they launched. So we would get 10p on every one of those. So that’s how I learned about CPAs. And they understood that actually they sold more if it had a railway children’s sticker on it. And, and, you know, there’s the evidence out there now you can read about that to see that it does increase sales, which is why so many companies do it.

[00:10:48] Julia Worthington: We got people to go out to India to see our projects. So whichever. outlet, food outlet, raise the most money, one of their staff could go and then, but we actually managed that so that of course, somewhere that’s got six collecting tins at Euston station is going to earn more than a little station at say somewhere in Scottish Highlands.

[00:11:06] Julia Worthington: So then we had to make sure that that was fair, so that how many staff have you got, how many tins have you got, and that’ll be the winner. And somebody what did win, who was right way up in the Scottish Highlands, one of the staff there went out to India. Wow. To see our projects out there and I had to do a lot of coaching with her before she went so that she’d understand what she’d be seeing and, cause it’s a real shock when you go out to India and work with one of the homeless kids projects, you know, it’s not something you’ve ever seen before.

[00:11:34] Julia Worthington: And certainly when you live somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, it’s not something you’ve seen before. And then they went out there as a team, the director of marketing went out with a few of her, her team, this project. And they saw that they were trying to build a new school. So they committed to building a new school for them.

[00:11:52] Julia Worthington: I’m like, well,

[00:11:53] Simon Scriver: blow down everyone.

[00:11:58] Julia Worthington: So we had, you know, some difficult conversations around that. So they just raised, it was only 20, 000 to build a school. So they just said, well, we’ll raise an additional 20, 000. We’ll get everybody doing some challenge events, doing fun rooms and that sort of thing. And so we just were layering it in lots of different ways.

[00:12:14] Julia Worthington: We got them to be regular givers, the staff to be regular givers after we’d worked with them for about five or six years. So that, cause I wanted to maintain some of that income once they decided they wanted a new partner. So we’ve got staff as regular givers, but then we also had leaflets out on, on the stations for customers to take away and become regular givers.

[00:12:34] Julia Worthington: And so we. We’d get a little, you know, maybe one a week from those and it’s income that stayed. Some of it will probably still be there now. They’ll still be getting that income now. So that was, that was my biggie. It raised a million pounds over 10 years and that really grew my knowledge from You know, zero corporate fundraising knowledge to like, yeah, you try this, try that, see what works.

[00:12:57] Julia Worthington: And then I went and worked for Prince’s Trust and did corporate fundraising with them. And that, you know, national brand, big brand, completely different kettle of fish in terms of the contacts that they had and the existing relationships they already had. But the skills I’d learned at a small charity have been the skills I’ve used all the way through.

[00:13:20] Julia Worthington: It’s all, to me, it’s all about relationship building.

[00:13:23] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I was going to ask, like, what are those skills that make a good corporate fundraiser? And when you say relationship building, like what, what should corporate fundraisers be bringing to the table in this? Like, what are they spending their day doing?

[00:13:36] Simon Scriver: Cause, cause I’ll be honest, like sometimes I find when you talk to, especially people who are new to corporate fundraising or people who have had. Corporate thrust upon them as part of their job that often they, you know, you almost don’t know where to start and the board, you know, board members are telling you phone Microsoft or whatever, but it’s like, it sounds like you have a real skill there of layering lots of different elements, but, but is that an organization thing?

[00:14:04] Simon Scriver: Is that an innovation thing? I mean, cause, cause the, the things you’re talking about, they don’t necessarily sound like. Things we didn’t already know existed, but the way you’ve been able to kind of bring them all in and different layers, how, what skill is that?

[00:14:20] Julia Worthington: It’s, I mean, I, I just, I like people and businesses are made up of people.

[00:14:25] Julia Worthington: And I think often when you’re first starting to do it, there’s this, this fear, we use this word corporate, and I think that doesn’t really serve, serve us particularly well in lots of ways because people think corporate and you’re like. as you say. But when we talk corporate fundraising, we just mean businesses and it can be any business.

[00:14:43] Julia Worthington: And it, and that’s the issue. It can be any business. So it’s like the thousands and thousands of thousands in the UK, but it could be, it’s a business that will work for your charity. And so if you’re, I’ve done a lot of work with small domestic abuse charities and for them, one of the things they know, is that one of the few times that the women who are being abused get away from their abuser is when they go to the hairdressers or the beauticians.

[00:15:10] Julia Worthington: The guy might sit outside in the car, but they’re on their own. So as a, um, a fundraiser, but also as an organization, one of your objectives might be, we want to be able to help businesses understand how they can help people who are being abused. So it might be, we want to do some training with them. So actually I want to go out and meet businesses that are our target business area, which might be small businesses and talk to them about how we can help them do their jobs better, how we can help them.

[00:15:42] Julia Worthington: My sister’s a hairdresser and she says, you know, the things you hear people say, but she didn’t know how to deal with them. So you could go in and help them. Like, we’ll come in and we’ll do a bit of training on, on how you can help these people and give them our number and put them in touch with us.

[00:15:53] Julia Worthington: That’s not about making money at that point. It’s about building relationships to say, look here, I’ve got something that’s really useful to you. And people in business, businesses are in business, shareholders in business to make money. But actually, and again, there’s evidence out there that if you are supporting a charity and working with that charity in such a way that it supports your customers, your staff are happier.

[00:16:17] Julia Worthington: Your staff are more motivated and more motivated staff are more productive and more productive staff make more money for you. So ultimately, by doing something with a charity, you can actually Have a more productive team and people who retain your staff as well as staff retention is much higher and that was one of the things that came out of relationship with SSP.

[00:16:35] Julia Worthington: They, they did some research around that in their HR team and discovered a turnover reduced. So that’s a reduced cost. So when you’re looking at who you want to work with, it’s very much let’s. Let’s hone this down to our people who are really helpful for us as an organization, but people we can help too.

[00:16:56] Julia Worthington: So forget the scattergun approach, forget cold, cold emails do not work. How many cold emails do you open? None. And do you take cold calls? No, you get off the call as soon as possible. So people aren’t interested in cold calling. So although it is a numbers game, it’s about let’s reduce this down. Let’s focus in on who works for us.

[00:17:16] Julia Worthington: So if you wanted, I’ll carry on with the domestic abuse charity analogy. It’s like one in five people suffers from domestic abuse. That’s men and women. One in five is one in three women. I think it’s one in one in six men, something like that. So if you work, if you go for a company, he’s got 250 employees.

[00:17:34] Julia Worthington: That’s a lot of people who potentially are being abused, not necessarily physically, it could be financial abuse, it could be verbal abuse, you know, all sorts of different kinds of abuse. So you want your team leaders and your HR team to understand how to work with that if somebody comes to you and says, this is going on for me.

[00:17:51] Julia Worthington: So as a corporate fundraiser, you can say, okay, that’s, that’s one of the objectives of one of the things that I want to do is go out and find some businesses that are the size that will have a lot of employees that this is going on for, and I want to meet them. So then you start to build a list of, okay, who are those businesses in my area that are that size now?

[00:18:10] Julia Worthington: How do I meet them? And the meeting is the networking, you know, get out there networking. And that is, Kevin did, Kevin did, Kevin Crowsdale, who just said hello before, did a great webinar last Thursday for me on using LinkedIn and using LinkedIn to reach out to corporates. So you can start to follow the bigger corporates in your area.

[00:18:28] Julia Worthington: You can go networking. You know, we’re, we’re post COVID now, you can physically go out networking. So start going out and meeting the businesses that are the ones that are on your list, have a list, have your prospect list because otherwise it’s just too many, it’s just too big and you can’t focus on anything and think, right, these are the ones that I want to do, which will help me hit that objective.

[00:18:51] Simon Scriver: Well, let me take a step back from that because I definitely want to, I want to ask you about that. Um, That meeting and that getting in front of them and, you know, even networking, how it works, but taking a step back, we, we have a question here from Tim about what is your view on hunting versus farming?

[00:19:06] Simon Scriver: And I, I, you know, I think he’s thinking along the same path to me as you’re building that list, you’re saying some really interesting things about the matching of, of the size matching of the type. When you talked about SSP railway, I always find it funny in corporate fundraising that it’s like 99 percent of the companies out there you’ve never heard of.

[00:19:24] Simon Scriver: No, and they have money, they, they’ve never really been approached at this conversation. And so, so talk me through that hunting versus farming, that building list. Is it, is it literally sitting down with people in your organization and brainstorming that list or how, how do you approach it when you’re coaching corporate fundraisers, when you start building that list?

[00:19:43] Julia Worthington: Yeah. So if you have, if you haven’t got any corporate contacts at all. And I don’t think that’s true for anybody because I’ve had so many people say that to me and then I start talking and they go, Oh yeah, well, the person who, I don’t know, provides our photocopier.

[00:19:59] Simon Scriver: I got a photocopier from them. That was one of my first corporate wins.

[00:20:03] Julia Worthington: The person who does that also gave us a Raffle prize for an event. So you probably have got some businesses out there who are supporting you, but in a very small way at the moment, because you haven’t asked them for anything else. And most people give because they’re asked. So Yeah, look at, look at what’s going on internally, who’s already supporting you in events through raffle prizes or coming to events and buying tables or buying tickets or who’s gone out there and done some challenge for you or challenge event.

[00:20:30] Julia Worthington: And this is where silo working in, which you see a lot more in larger organizations than you do in smaller ones. It’s like events team are like, you’re not talking to my people, they’re my people. But actually you’re building a relationship with them and people want, they don’t see it as events and corporate.

[00:20:45] Julia Worthington: They just see you as. whatever that your charity is. So it’s getting those relationships internally, finding out who people know, who your suppliers are, as you said, your photocopier supplier. If you’ve got grounds, you know, do you have a gardener? Do you have, you’ll have somebody who comes in and does possibly your IT for you or, you know, just look at all those contacts you already have.

[00:21:05] Julia Worthington: And then I always encourage fundraisers to go out and meet all the other. team members, so the teams, so talk to your service delivery team, because if you send an email and say, does anybody know any businesses that I can talk to? It’ll be tumbleweed. You’ve got to go and meet people one to one in their place where they work.

[00:21:23] Julia Worthington: So your service delivery, go and meet them and sit down and talk to them because their brains work differently to yours as a fundraiser. They, they’re thinking about the clients. They’re thinking about the beneficiaries, you get talking to them and you’ll quite often find they know two or three corporates and they’re like, Oh, I didn’t really think about them for you.

[00:21:41] Julia Worthington: And because their brain just works in a different way. They’re not focusing on the same things you are. And then you can, if you’re a small organization, it might be you can talk to trustees one to one. And again, don’t go to a trustee meeting and just ask anybody know any corporates because. They’re not going to open your little black book up to you until they trust you.

[00:22:01] Julia Worthington: And generally, people in larger meetings don’t really say much. So again, if you can meet them one to one and find out who they know and who they might be able to introduce you to. And if you can go with a list of people you want to meet locally or businesses you want to meet locally and say, you know, these are my top 10 that I’d really like to meet because we’re looking at potentially going in and giving them training on domestic abuse.

[00:22:26] Julia Worthington: They might say, Oh yeah, well, I’m in Rotary with so and so or I’m in Suroptimists with so and so. And yeah, I could do an e intro for you or I could get on the phone now and, and introduce them. So that’s kind of where you start with your warm contacts. And then, but also the cold contacts is look at what your objectives are.

[00:22:48] Julia Worthington: And I know one is always raising money, but what else do you need? Some new trustees. Do you need some new volunteers? Do you? Do you want to go out and do some training around what your, your charity does? Do you need some food parcels because you’re a homelessness charity or do you need some gloves for the winter or whatever, you know, you can talk to people about those and they’re always pleased to give things and then look at the businesses that you think, okay, who’s most likely to be able to do this for me?

[00:23:13] Julia Worthington: Where’s the synergy? You can also start to look at synergy around values as well. You know, cause there’s obviously some businesses that there’s very different synergy say for corporate fundraising. If you’re going to go and speak to Michael O’Leary at Ryanair or. I don’t know, BA, you know, or Wizz Air, or they’re all, all have different cultures.

[00:23:37] Julia Worthington: Michael O’Leary is very obvious about, he just wants to make money. He just wants publicity and to make money. So if you went to talk to him, if provided he passed your due diligence and everything, Which you might not be like, well, we know we want to do, he, he wants to do something that will just make a big splash and we’ll end up on the front pages of all the newspapers.

[00:23:55] Julia Worthington: So if we’re doing something that we think he might buy into, we can go and talk to his team about maybe some sponsorship or working with us on that. So it’s about looking at the synergy of always as a corporate fundraiser, you’ve always got to look at what is the business going to get from this?

[00:24:10] Simon Scriver: Yeah.

[00:24:11] Julia Worthington: And yes, they will get a nice warm feeling, but tangible thing.

[00:24:15] Simon Scriver: I think that’s such an important thing that you’ve brought up and for me, that was the kind of switch flick in my fundraising career, you know, doing corporate, I learned from people like you, I learned from Chris Bayless in Canada, Johan Fox, who is Johan Fox, who is speaking at our conference, the fundraising corporate partnerships conference on Thursday, the 23rd of March.

[00:24:36] Simon Scriver: But one of the biggest things I learned was it’s what value you’re giving them. Do you know, like usually when, when, when you work with boards or when people are new to corporate fundraising, it’s like, well, what do I want from them? And it’s all about crafting the ask. Actually it’s about what, what you bring to the partnership.

[00:24:52] Simon Scriver: ’cause they are a business. Yes. They’re made out, up of people, but they’re a business. And I remember Chris Bayless said, and I’m sure you say something similar or, or maybe you disagree, but he said, you know, when you have that first meeting with a corporate, you’re not arriving with your brochure and you are thing, you’re arriving with a blank piece of paper because it’s all about finding what they’re trying to achieve.

[00:25:12] Simon Scriver: Bring that, and I’m hearing that echo to everything you, you say even from the beginning of the conversation. It was, it was. Well, what can we do for their income? What can we do for their, their staff? And then the relationship seems to follow. Am I, am I. Am I paraphrasing you well?

[00:25:26] Julia Worthington: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and it’s more than ever now.

[00:25:31] Julia Worthington: Absolutely more than ever. You know, 10 years ago, businesses did have a little charity pot, you know, not, I’m not saying a charity charitable trust because a lot of businesses do have charitable trusts and that’s a whole other conversation with that sits in corporate or, or trust fundraising. They just aren’t those little pots of money anymore.

[00:25:49] Julia Worthington: I know they started to dry up in 2008 when we had the crash and a lot of businesses. took their money down to London and out of all the regions and you had to make a big business case to get somebody to buy a table at something and it’s got even worse. And what businesses are looking for now is value based partnerships.

[00:26:06] Julia Worthington: So what do you bring to the table? And, and I’d say more than ever, And I know this is what a lot of smaller charities don’t want to hear is employee engagement. They want employee engagement, but that doesn’t mean volunteering to come in and paint your walls or do your garden. You know, if you’re a charity that doesn’t have a property.

[00:26:26] Julia Worthington: doesn’t have a venue, they can help you with, I don’t know, we’re bringing in a new database and we really don’t know where to start on assessing databases. Do you have a team that can help us to do that? We’re looking to develop our business strategy, our five year business strategy. We’re, we’re looking to train some of our trustees on, I don’t know, reading a financial spreadsheet and reading, reading the books.

[00:26:45] Julia Worthington: Cause a lot of trustees don’t ask money, ask questions about the, the income and the budgets. Cause they’re, they don’t necessarily understand it and they don’t want to look like an idiot. We might need some help with legal stuff and there’s so many different legal kind of contracts that you do need out there and lots and lots of solicitors do pro bono work, but has a value.

[00:27:08] Julia Worthington: So they’re looking for those volunteering opportunities. And if you are getting any of that pro bono stuff, make sure you have a gifting kind register or a laboring kind register. So you say, okay, this lister wrote, wrote us a commercial participatory agreement and they said that the value of that was about a thousand pounds.

[00:27:28] Julia Worthington: So you put that on your gift in kind register, it’s a thousand pound income you’ve generated as a corporate fundraiser, but otherwise the charity would have had to spend that money. So you’ve saved them a thousand pounds. And I started doing this recently with somebody who’d never had one before, a small charity new to corporate fundraising, and within the first two months, I think, she realized she’d generated 40, 000 of income for the charity through Gifts in Kind.

[00:27:54] Julia Worthington: And she hadn’t been monitoring that at all.

[00:27:57] Simon Scriver: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just seen as a, it’s just happened.

[00:28:00] Julia Worthington: Yeah. It’s just something that’s happened. And if you’re, if nobody’s seeing it, potentially they’re then saying to you as a fundraiser, we’re not seeing you raising any money. Well, I brought 40 grams worth of income in that otherwise would have cost us money.

[00:28:12] Julia Worthington: And a charity accountant should. be asking you for a gift in kind register that goes through the books, you know, it’s in and out money. It doesn’t sit on your bottom line, but you know, a lot of treasurers for small charities don’t have charity accounts training. So won’t know that either. So I won’t be asking you for it.

[00:28:33] Simon Scriver: I mean, I, it’s important to know, um, and we’re, we’re running short, so I could talk to you for ages too. But it’s like from the stuff you’re talking about there, that, that in kind stuff is capacity building. So it does set you up to kind of perform better and fundraise better in the future. But it also is that kind of ladder towards perhaps a financial gift.

[00:28:50] Simon Scriver: And I do want to, as I do want to just ask you this question quickly before I start to say my goodbyes. But Tessa asked how this is going back to the SSB. How did you get them to become regular givers from only internally or payroll giving? I wonder if you have any thoughts about that is when you have these relationships with the company, how do you start to pull out some of those individual givers?

[00:29:12] Simon Scriver: Have you any thoughts on that?

[00:29:14] Julia Worthington: Yeah, I didn’t go down the payroll giving route. I have, have done a lot of payroll giving beforehand and, oh gosh, payroll giving is so hard to get people to sign up to, and when they leave the company, the money’s lost.

[00:29:25] Simon Scriver: I spoke to two great payroll giving speakers on the last podcast episode.

[00:29:29] Simon Scriver: So I’m just going to give a plug for that. If anyone, don’t listen to what Julia says about it being tough. These last two speakers said it was great. But Julia, what’s, what’s your part? Well, I

[00:29:38] Julia Worthington: can say for a while I worked for the Civil Service Benevolent Fund and I went out and recruited people. I stood in front of groups of people and recruited for payroll giving.

[00:29:46] Julia Worthington: And yeah, it can, it can be done if, if you focus on it. But. individual giving, if they leave the company, you could still carry on getting the money. And the data is around, people generally only stop direct debits going out of their bank account when they get divorced, they lose a job, or cost of living crisis, you know, that might be when they stop.

[00:30:07] Julia Worthington: But otherwise, it just keeps on going out and often people forgotten they’ve got it. And the way we did it was we got The managing director, CEO of the business was really on board with this. He was the one who brought us in as a charity, so he really supported it. So I asked him if we could send a letter to every staff member from him.

[00:30:26] Julia Worthington: So I can’t remember who wrote the letter, whether he wrote it or I wrote it, but between us, we wrote a letter to the staff saying, you know, Hey, I’m, you know, and he was, he was well liked as well. I’m, I’m going to start doing this because I think it’s a really great way of supporting the charity. So I’m going to be giving every month to this.

[00:30:42] Julia Worthington: And you know, I’d really encourage you if you love what they’re doing, um, you know, we’ve done lots of engagement with them. So they’d seen videos of what we did as a charity that had staff go out to India. You know, they really were fully engaged with, with the organization and what we did so that, you know, that was five or six years in to the partnership.

[00:31:01] Julia Worthington: It was like, okay, let’s ask people if they become payroll, regular givers. And yeah, so it went down the individual giving route.

[00:31:07] Simon Scriver: And I love that social proof from the CEO, you know, that it’s like, I mean, everyone hates the CEO, but you know, just to have someone from their writing, I’m doing this, you know, and I’m making you aware, I think is a really powerful way to do it.

[00:31:17] Simon Scriver: That’s great. Julia, I could keep asking you questions, but we are going to start to wrap up. If people want to learn more from you and your wonderful guests, Julia is running a special at the moment where she’s doing 25 percent off her on demand stuff. But do check out amberconsulting. org. uk. You’ll find that there and we’ll post the link as well.

[00:31:35] Simon Scriver: But amberconsulting. org. uk. And Julie, I would encourage people to, to get in touch with you, but you’re taking a bit of a holiday.

[00:31:42] Julia Worthington: I am. Yeah. I’m, I’m going to take a sabbatical from the end of March through to September next year, and then I’m September this year, sorry, and then I’m going to be deciding what I’m going to do next.

[00:31:52] Julia Worthington: So if you do want one of those webinars replays, they’re only available till the end of March. So you need to, to. Get them as soon as possible. And I did give your Fundraising Everywhere conference a plug on my webinar last week as well, Simon.

[00:32:06] Simon Scriver: You’re very sweet and you’re going to have to sit through me doing it again.

[00:32:09] Simon Scriver: Please everyone do check out the Fundraising Everywhere corporate event coming up. It’s Corporate Partnerships Everywhere on Thursday the 20th of March. You’ll find a link in the description of this and on the podcast if you’re listening back. We’ve got lots of great sessions from the likes of Cats Aid and Dogs Trust, which we hope won’t cause any troubles if they meet in the hallway.

[00:32:26] Simon Scriver: Some specialist causes like Debra UK and we’re going to be doing sessions on regional corporate fundraising on newsletters on LinkedIn and we have some wonderful speakers. And Julia, when you come back for your trip, I hope you will come by the fundraising, if I’m still around, if you will come by the fundraising of Red Podcast and tell us what you’re up to, because I’m always excited to see what you do and, and genuinely you’ve been such a help to me and I know to so many people in terms of their corporate fundraising, making it manageable, making it like something Achievable.

[00:32:54] Simon Scriver: So on behalf of lots of people, I would say thank you for so much you’ve put into this and I, I really hope you do deserve your, your well and break.

[00:33:02] Julia Worthington: Thank you.

[00:33:04] Simon Scriver: That’s it everyone. Well, all the best to, I was gonna call Amber Julian. I did check Forget

[00:33:09] Julia Worthington: called Amber on a, on email

[00:33:11] Simon Scriver: amber consulting.org but UK.

[00:33:14] Simon Scriver: Uh, thank you to all of those for you listening. If you’re not already subscribed to the fundraising ever podcast, please do go ahead and click that sorry button. And as always check out fundraising everywhere. com for our events coming up, or get in touch with us at hello at fundraising ever, if you want to talk to him or talk about anything, I’ve been Simon scribe with the co founder of fundraising ever, lovely to see you.

[00:33:32] Simon Scriver: Goodbye.

[00:33:33] Alex Aggidis: Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Podcast Episodes

Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. In this episode, we’ll be taking a look at one of our favourite on demand sessions in celebration of our Supporter Experience Conference coming up on Thursday, the 22nd of May. If you’d like to join us on the day, you can use promo code FEPodcast25 to get 25 percent off.

[00:00:51] Jade Cunnah: Just head on over to Fundraising Everywhere. com and pop in fepodcast25 at checkout to get 25 percent off our supporter experience conference in May. Now, on to today’s episode. Enjoy!

[00:01:08] Simon Scriver: How are you?

[00:01:09] Muna Hussen: I’m very well, thank you so much. I absolutely love the hoodie by the way. I feel like I need to, I need to get a hold of one of those as well. It’s very complementary colors, Raisley and fundraising. So I think. Oh, I

[00:01:20] Simon Scriver: like that. Yeah, yeah, we’ll get a little mashup limited edition, uh, trainers.

[00:01:26] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I would

[00:01:27] Muna Hussen: love that

[00:01:29] Simon Scriver: I’m gonna hand over to you now But I will be keeping an eye in the chat box and I will be coming back because i’m i’m sure i’m gonna have lots Of questions so over to you.

[00:01:36] Muna Hussen: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much Um, I really appreciate everyone spending the time with me the next 45 minutes i’m going to be Talking about better strategies for email stewardship um Please feel free to introduce yourself in the chat.

[00:01:51] Muna Hussen: I think a lot of you have been doing that already. Let me know where in the UK you are, but also which charity you’re, you’re representing at the moment. If you’re a Raisley client and you’ve joined us, hello! You may have chatted emails with me before. Um, but don’t worry, I’m not going to repeat myself.

[00:02:06] Muna Hussen: I’m going to go into a lot more in depth than we’ve talked about before, so hopefully there’ll be some great, um, new info and tactics for you all to use. Simon already introduced me, but I’m Munna. I’ve been in marketing and income generation for a very long time And I’ve worked with both at charities, but also with charities And the one that I’m always banging on about because I’m so proud of the work they do even to to now Even though I’m not part of them anymore.

[00:02:31] Muna Hussen: It’s the bike project. So In my tenure as head of marketing and fundraising I got to work on some awesome campaigns and I always kind of talk about them wherever I go So check them out the bike project if you’ve got an old bike feel free to donate it to them as well Um simon, would it be okay if we popped up our first poll because i’d love to know a little bit more about What people are doing in terms of, um, email, um, communication.

[00:02:56] Muna Hussen: So yeah, lots of people have said over half have said that, yes, you’re using lots of email to communicate with your donors and fundraisers. That’s awesome. That means most of you are off to a cracking start and I’m looking forward to seeing if any of the information I shared today can help you think a little bit more about, um, where you are at the moment, but also a good percentage have said that yes, but it’s limited.

[00:03:17] Muna Hussen: So again, there’ll be some really, really good, um, percentage, hopefully some good information so that percentage can feel a little bit more comfortable. Um, and there are some who have also sadly said no, but that’s totally fine. That’s why we have these talks. We can, um, hopefully work out something for you that will make you feel a little bit more comfortable with the, with the emails.

[00:03:39] Muna Hussen: Thank you so much, Simon. So, um, what I’d love to do is, um, start talking a little bit about obviously myself, I’ve already introduced myself and a quick reminder that in the delegate bag, which you can download, we’ve got quite a few goodies, it will include. These slides, and you’ll also have access to an amazing email planning document, complete with copy examples, prompts to help you get the best out of if you want to use them, AI content generators, and two complete journeys, one for donors and one for fundraisers.

[00:04:10] Muna Hussen: So please feel free to go ahead and dive into that if you’re already using email like 58 percent of you 60 percent of you said You are as a significant part of your stewardship cons then go ahead and pilfer what you like from this document But if not, then this might be a great place to start so you can download this now or after the talk All right, back to Raisely.

[00:04:31] Muna Hussen: Now, we’re a B Corp fundraising platform, just thought I’d introduce where I’m actually calling in from. It started off in Australia, but we’ve since supported charities all over the world, especially here in the UK. I’m an ex Raisely client. At The Bike Project, we used Razely, uh, quite a lot, and we still use, well, the team is still using them.

[00:04:48] Muna Hussen: See, this is how much I love The Bike Project. I still say we Um, and here at Raisely, we work with charities including MyLoma UK, ISBCC, several of the Age UK orgs, and many, many more. If you want to chat more about this, you can book a call with me via the call to action at the top of your screen, or if you want to chat about email, which is the whole point of today’s talk.

[00:05:09] Muna Hussen: Um, what do we do for charities? It’s basically a means to provide, uh, to help you build all of your community fundraising campaigns in one place with fully customizable pages. So it includes peer to peer, to appeals, to ticketing, to challenge events. And best of all, it’s completely free. So feel free to visit us at raisely.

[00:05:27] Muna Hussen: com. To learn more. But today we’re here to talk about fundraising and it does feel a little bit like I am repeating myself on every talk I’ve done in the last four years. Quite a few, which have been with fundraising everywhere. Um, but the fundraising landscape does remain turbulent. I don’t know about you, but I’d give quite a lot to go back to president and times as opposed to unprecedented times, but alas, we have to continue to roll with the punches and the times.

[00:05:54] Muna Hussen: That doesn’t mean that it’s all bad news to be honest. Yes, there are undeniable pressures But there are also some really good opportunities both, um on the public pressures on the public and us as charities and charity and individuals who work with charities Um, but like I said lots of opportunities as well So the cost of living feels like a buzzword that’s been around for a long time It is a constant pressure inflation is going to continue going up and has been continuing to going up But 73 of the public are still donating money in some capacity And yes, there is a lot of cause fatigue every day.

[00:06:31] Muna Hussen: There’s another vitally important issue that We should be paying attention to that. We should be getting involved in, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is able to get involved with everything. So the majority of individuals are choosing to focus on one cause. And finally, in a world with so many ways to donate petitions or, you know, other platforms through which you can donate, individuals are very keen to engage directly with charities.

[00:06:57] Muna Hussen: And almost half of them are donating directly through their website or through something like Email. Now, speaking of email, why email? Um, well, I think it’s really important to dive back into this channel because sometimes I think it can be a bit overlooked or it can be, um, really, um, scary, you know, as charities, we can be a little bit cautious as to how we use how we use email and when we use emails.

[00:07:24] Muna Hussen: First up, I do have to say that it does remain one of the most trusted methods of connecting digitally with your audience. I’m probably going to use this. analogy so often throughout this talk. Um, but I always think of emails as sort of the podcasts of comms. People are quite focused when they’re looking at emails.

[00:07:42] Muna Hussen: Yes, they’re going through their inbox and they’re checking different emails, but generally they tend to be on that one screen as opposed to when you are in your feed, you might be looking at lots of different things in your social media feed, or if you’re on your WhatsApp, there might be lots of different chats and so on going on.

[00:07:57] Muna Hussen: It is a method that allows you to build a natural connection to your audience. Remember that for the most part, and I do say the most part here, if we are following GDPR laws, and I know not everyone does all the time, email is an active opt in model. So people are wanting to be engaged with you, they’ve signed up with you.

[00:08:16] Muna Hussen: And email actually is also one of the channels that Performs the most strongly. So this is quite a busy chart, but the takeaway here is that social media remains really important and it has its place, but you might be surprised to learn that conversion rates are higher for direct email and web traffic.

[00:08:36] Muna Hussen: Obviously, direct and web traffic is quite obvious when someone is on your website, they are there to engage with you already. But in other words, when it comes to emails, when someone is engaging with you via these channels, they’re focused on you, your words, the call to action, and the impact that you’re putting in front of them.

[00:08:55] Muna Hussen: Social media is converting less, um, and these, the previous channels, so email, web traffic, have higher average donation amounts. So again, I don’t want to bash social media, it’s a really important tool to find your audience, to convert them to your email database. But let’s not neglect the fact that email is really where people engage with you and can donate, um, more to you.

[00:09:19] Muna Hussen: How does this break down? Well, let’s get into some of the numbers. Um, the average email subscriber in the UK receives 121 emails per day between personal and work. That’s a lot of emails for someone to sift through. And a lot of competition for you when you’re sending emails to them and trying to convert them to your course.

[00:09:42] Muna Hussen: In the UK, every single day across all different sectors, 8. 3 billion emails are sent, which sounds mind boggling. It’s not, it’s across all sectors, so not just non profit, but having said that, the open rate for emails remain really good. So an average is 20 to 40%, which means 20 percent of the emails minimum that gets sent across all sectors.

[00:10:06] Muna Hussen: And we’re going to go through the non profit details in a moment, um, get open, which is really good. Now, when you do dive into the non profits here, specifically in the UK, we can see that the numbers are actually remaining really quite high and positive. So charities have been sending an increased messaging volume on everything you’re looking at is since the, since the pandemic.

[00:10:29] Muna Hussen: So since about 21, 49 percent up in terms of messaging volume, which means we’re sending longer and longer emails. This can be a good thing, and we’re going to go into content more later, but this might be a good time to consider how long every email your charity sends is, and who you’re sending them to.

[00:10:51] Muna Hussen: Are you sending too much information in one go for your donors, your audience, or your fundraisers to engage with? This might be a good time to have a bit of a think because that messaging volume has gone up by 49 percent since the pandemic. Speaking of volume, each charity tends to send 27 emails per subscriber per year.

[00:11:12] Muna Hussen: That’s not too many, that’s two a month. That might explain why each email is so long. Again, another thing that you can pause to consider here is, is there a way you could cut the volume down by perhaps considering increasing the number of emails that are sent? One really good bit of news is that list growth has increased.

[00:11:33] Muna Hussen: So there’s been a 17 percent list growth since 2022. People are not getting tired of signing up to emails and that means that they want to hear from you. Your efforts to grow your database are working and they’re paying off because your lists are growing. Now it’s time to think about how you can make the best out of those efforts.

[00:11:54] Muna Hussen: But don’t worry, the good news is going to continue over the next few slides. For every 1, 000 emails sent in the UK across non profits, 66 is raised. Of course, some charities will do better and some are still working up to that. But to come back to my podcast analogy, I told you I was going to use it a million times Via email you’re speaking to a highly engaged individual And in fact email remains such a great channel for generating income that it’s responsible for generating four percent of all Online revenue and we’re talking All online, online revenue, which also includes e commerce.

[00:12:35] Muna Hussen: So it’s a pretty big number when you think about it. I wasn’t lying when I said that the good news continues. One reason why is that the lists are not just growing, uh, sorry, are growing, but they’re, uh, they’re not remaining, um, static because they’re, they’re growing because you actually have a very low number.

[00:12:55] Muna Hussen: of bounces and spams. So only 6 percent on average across the UK nonprofit sector, um, bounces or is logged as spam. And only 7 percent as an average are unsubscribers. which juxtaposed with that 17 percent means that there’s a steady list growth. Um, and that is resulting in a high number of retention, which basically means more consideration should be given and apply to how you communicate with this audience because they’re not unsubscribing, but we want to make sure that those numbers are not actually increasing.

[00:13:30] Muna Hussen: So it’s good news now, but we can’t rest on our laurels. At the bottom of my screen, it says, verify your domain. I do want to pause here and talk briefly about new Google and Yahoo rules. If you know what I’m talking about, feel free to put in the chat if you do know. And if you don’t know, I’m really happy to just give you a very brief breakdown.

[00:13:52] Muna Hussen: Essentially, it’s becoming ever more important to send from a verified domain. So from the 1st of February, this year, 2024. Google and Yahoo have joined forces and they’re enforcing new industry standards for email authentication, verification, and receipt. And it’s all in a bid to cut down as much malicious activity as possible.

[00:14:14] Muna Hussen: So spam, that means. That your emails hopefully will not be caught up in spam if you are verified the combination of these two providers Means that they are controlling over 48 Of b2b emails across the world, which is a huge number And it doesn’t necessarily affect every charity because it is based on volume levels And I think that most charities do not send as much of a volume, but their volume levels are based initially on a starting, um, from a starting point.

[00:14:50] Muna Hussen: They will be reflecting and adjusting the volume levels and they’re probably going to start bringing it down. So you will need to ensure that you’re using industry standard verification methods to ensure that your emails are not going to get caught up in spam. If you’re sending to either Google or Yahoo addresses.

[00:15:09] Muna Hussen: Sending emails through Raisely allows you to verify your email domain But if you have another platform, I would go ahead and double check whether you’re able to verify your domain If you want to talk through the nitty gritty and the technical details of this feel free to book a call with me Or speak to your data or web team But this is already in effect.

[00:15:29] Muna Hussen: So I do want to Just pause there and just remind you to make sure that you’re in the process of verifying, uh, your, your, um, your, um, domain. Quick reminder, check your delegate bag, make sure you’ve got that all downloaded so you can enjoy all the lovely goodies. Now, back to the emails. We talked about the great news of the growing lists.

[00:15:53] Muna Hussen: What are we doing with that list? What are we doing with the content of those lists? It’s not the best news. Charities in the UK have had a 30 percent increase in fundraising messages since 2021. Yes. It’s been a pandemic. Yes. We’ve needed more support than ever, but from the donor’s perspective. It may be quite relentless.

[00:16:13] Muna Hussen: So think about the fact that the email, the email volume message has actually gone up and in that volume message, we’re asking them for more money, more stridently. Part of what we’re going to be talking about today will not just be the basics, but also how to consider new building, building new journeys so that you’re addressing the volume, the segmentation, who you’re talking to, what you’re telling them and also when’s the most appropriate time to be putting those asks.

[00:16:43] Muna Hussen: I just want to reflect again that everything I’m going to tell you today has to be looked at through the lens of your charity. So while I’m giving you some great, hopefully great, strategies and tips, I want you to just take a moment and think about What does this mean for your audience and your donors?

[00:17:00] Muna Hussen: So just remember to look at everything through that lens. Now, first thing I love to just take stock and, um, start with brilliant basics. So some of you or most of you, um, may be doing this already, but it’s great to take stock of your stewardship learnings, how you’re communicating with existing donors and fundraisers.

[00:17:21] Muna Hussen: and how those, uh, and those new to your organizations, what’s the first thing they see or get sent? How do they get greeted? And how are they supported along the way? Well, first impressions count for a heck of a lot. So remember to pause here. Again, think about your donors and your audience. Um, Think about what they need.

[00:17:43] Muna Hussen: So don’t worry so much about industry trends. Don’t worry so much about what everyone else is doing. Um, just think about what they need and what your charity needs as well. So put yourself in the shoes of who’s reading your emails, what type of relationship they have with you and how you want them to perceive your charity.

[00:18:01] Muna Hussen: I’m going to talk about three great tips in much more detail over the next few slides. Um, sending and tracking your first comms from coordinated lists. In other words, applying the correct segment to each individual, even if your database is very small. Remember, it is easier to start as you mean to go on, rather than clean up quite a big list later on.

[00:18:24] Muna Hussen: Add the personal touch, but remember you are still representing an organization, so you do still need to reflect your brand. And keep that front and center of your comms and integrate with your data capture platform. I’m going to dive into all of these in just a moment. Um, but I do want to make sure that if you have any questions, you’re putting them in the chat.

[00:18:48] Muna Hussen: We will try to answer these at the end of it. So feel free to ask questions about any of the slides or any further clarification that you need. What do I mean by personalized comms? We’ll make sure that you send your first comms as soon as possible. Whenever I speak to charities in my day to day life, now I get to help lots of charities, supercharge their fundraising, set up their fundraising campaigns, but, and also look at emails.

[00:19:16] Muna Hussen: Um, this is the one thing that kind of comes up as something that we may not have considered. You may have a platform that doesn’t allow you to send an email instantly, or you may have a bit of a delay built into it. From my perspective, Sending and tracking your first communication from Coordinated Listing as soon as possible is probably the number one tip I can give you.

[00:19:41] Muna Hussen: Ideally, when I say as soon as possible, I mean instantly. So this could be a thank you for a donation. If someone has sent a donation, um, to either yourself or to a friend, um, and this could be a receipt or just a simple thank you. With personalization and i’m gonna dive into personalization and a bit more information in a bit in a in a bit more in a moment Um, it could also be a welcome to a fundraiser if a fundraiser has signed up you want to welcome them straight away You want to thank them at the beginning?

[00:20:12] Muna Hussen: of the journey or Go even further. Send a notification email to a fundraiser when a friend or a family member has donated to their page. That way you’re keeping people engaged within the charity throughout the journey and we’re going to talk a lot about keeping people engaged throughout the journey.

[00:20:30] Muna Hussen: throughout their journey with the charity. Balance the resources you have internally, so this is something I talk about a lot. Think about how much work you can actually, um, chew off, bite off and chew internally, but there will be something that you will be able to do, and starting with that first email is so, so important.

[00:20:51] Muna Hussen: Um, Not just for your newsletter, but also as a, as a donor. So lots of platforms do automate these, having the automated email that gets sent off. Make sure you’re removing the burden from your team, from your resources, by looking into these automation options. You don’t want to get trapped in a situation where you have to send all of these manually.

[00:21:14] Muna Hussen: Because of course you want your list to grow, but you don’t want to be making more work for yourself or for the rest of your fundraising team. Now the next tip is, we tend to use the Royal We when we speak as a charity. It has its place, of course, we’re representing an organisation, but consider how you can be both personal as well as have your brand remain front and centre.

[00:21:38] Muna Hussen: So here’s an example, going to my friend Bob. You can bring in your logo, your design touches, your colors, your tone of voice, and much more, but also personalize it. And we’re going to go into personalization a little bit more later. Use an individual’s name, you know? So yes, you can say things like, hello, friend.

[00:21:59] Muna Hussen: Hello, Um, you know, valued supporter, but those should be fallbacks in case you don’t have someone’s name. Use more details around the campaign they may have donated to. Um, name the campaign they’ve donated to. If they’re donating to a fundraiser, a friend, name the fundraiser that they’re donating to. All of this information should be captured in your forms, and we’ll go through that again in a bit more detail.

[00:22:25] Muna Hussen: Um, Maybe note the amount they’ve donated and more. Make it really chatty and informal conversation that allows you to connect with your donor. Don’t be too corporate and don’t be too sort of official, but also make sure that you’re still bringing in those touches of the brand by, you know, like I said, the, the branding, but also tone of voice.

[00:22:48] Muna Hussen: You can do that by, like I mentioned, the right questions in your form, um, or in your donation or the sign up form, so that you can personalize whatever form that is. Really look into what your current platform is offering you and push it to its limits where you can, and if it’s appropriate for your charity.

[00:23:07] Muna Hussen: Again, looking through the lens of, of your current donors. We all know the difference a personalized email can make versus something that feels like a bit of a mass copy and paste. So don’t get bogged down into too many options, but you should be able to pull data from that signup form or that donation form and put it through what we call, uh, pearls, personalized URLs into your email platform.

[00:23:34] Muna Hussen: And some of the examples you see here is the back end of the Raisley platform. So let’s have a very quick look at the type of personalization, um, you can, um, use. So it’s not just about pulling in, you know, someone’s, um, name, here we go, um, but further around the, the personalization. So let’s think about if you can capture it.

[00:23:58] Muna Hussen: you can use it. So let’s try and understand what connects and use that to help you think through how to capture what you need. So first off, like postcodes. This is a really great one for organizations that are very, very local or hyperlocal. So for example, and a great example could be your gift will go a long way to support those in SW15 or in Tyneside or wherever you need to be.

[00:24:26] Muna Hussen: Can you use pronouns if it’s appropriate? Can you use proximity to the cause? As in, are they someone who has used your services before or have they had a close friend or family member who have used your, um, uh, services before? Look at the marketing opt in. And make sure that you’re respecting data collection so you can speak to someone through legitimate interest when they have Connected with you, but of course pay attention to the type of marketing opt in that they have And is this the first time they have connected with you?

[00:25:03] Muna Hussen: All these questions can be built into your forms And you should be able to integrate with your crm So think about that journey put yourself in the shoes of an individual But again, just in the same way that i’ve i’ve said i’ve talked about balancing your resources Balance what a donor wants to fill in so think about the shape of your form so that you’re able to Capture all of this information and pull it into the email journeys as well.

[00:25:31] Muna Hussen: Now, it’s easy to get excited. I did it myself when I worked at the Bite project. I, uh, used a lot of different email journeys and built on it year on year on year. And it will come a point where you think actually it’s not worth the level of journeys that I have for the type of lists and segmentation that I have.

[00:25:52] Muna Hussen: It is really important to remember the constant relevant comms. So, just want to pause here for a quick moment and just wrap up the last couple of slides. So, again, think about the integration. I’ll go back one slide. Think about the integration that you have and the, um, the, the fact that you can pull it into your data capture.

[00:26:15] Muna Hussen: So if you have a fully segmented list, if you don’t have a fully segmented list, explore how you can have a. A CRM through other platforms. So when I talk about a list, I’m talking about your email data list and make sure that you understand the relationship that each person has with you. That’s what I mean by segmentation.

[00:26:35] Muna Hussen: Um, and make sure that donors are reflected as donors, fundraisers, volunteers. Or whatever else the segmentation is that you want. If you don’t have access to that, then there are lots of platforms out there that allow you to do this in quite a simple way. So for example, Raisley has a simple built in CRM and email platform that will allow you to track, segment, tag, and communicate with your donors.

[00:26:59] Muna Hussen: Look at your current tech stack. If there is anything like that, you should be able to start using it. So just wrapping up here, remember who you’re talking to, the relationship they have with you, and what you want to tell them. If you plan through that for every type of person, you’ll be getting off to a really, really good start.

[00:27:18] Muna Hussen: Now, remember when I said that non profits send an average of 27 emails per subscriber? It’s now time to look at the content of those emails. Um, I’m just going to actually pause here and Amy has asked what is a coordinated listing? What I meant by a coordinated listing, I may have covered this already, is your email database.

[00:27:40] Muna Hussen: So an email database is making sure that you’re coordinating who is where in what list. So if a donor signs up make sure that you’re putting them in the donor list so that when you’re sending information about, uh, for example, fundraising, new fundraising campaigns, you can send it to them as well as.

[00:28:01] Muna Hussen: Fundraisers that may be lapsed so you might want to have a different list for lapsed fundraisers You don’t want to send a a new campaign a new fundraising campaign to someone who has just just finished a campaign for you or who has Um, or who is in the middle of for example a virtual diy Campaign that’s about making sure that you’ve got those coordinated lists built and that’s about looking at your database And looking at how you can automate it.

[00:28:30] Muna Hussen: I hope that’s a helpful amy Simon, would it be possible to get our second question up on the screen if we have it? Um And that would be, then we can have a, a little bit of, um, um, questions. So what would you like to improve about your email stewardship? Wave a magic wand. Um, if you didn’t have any, um, money issues or any.

[00:28:57] Muna Hussen: Um, resource issues, what would be the number one thing, or maybe even number one, two, and three that you would like to improve about your email stewardship? Type it in, and we’ve got some participants typing already, and we will be able to maybe go through some of the details. I think that the thing I definitely want to keep coming back to here is resources.

[00:29:19] Muna Hussen: It’s so important to remember that. You know, we’re not all surrounded by a huge team at the bike project. I had a team I was very lucky by the time I was leaving to have a team of about five But I started off as a single person. So we’ve got a lot of answers coming in here Personalization i’m loving that that is the top.

[00:29:39] Muna Hussen: That’s the thing i’ve been talking about for the last 25 30 minutes Um engagement we’re going to talk about how to track engagement in just a moment um more automation I love that. That’s exactly what I’ve just been talking about. That automation exploring platforms that will give you that automation will take so much work off your team.

[00:30:02] Muna Hussen: Open rates. We are going to talk about open rates in just a moment as well and how to track that. Not just how to look at it, but how to use those numbers to really dive into, um, um, next steps and how to address that. Um, and we’ve got segmented data. Yep. Love the segmented data. It actually is. I wouldn’t say, um, easy, but it is simple to segment your data.

[00:30:26] Muna Hussen: So it does take quite a bit of work and this might be a great time for me just to pause a little bit and talk again about some of the work that I did at the bike project, which I’m now I’m using examples when I’m talking to my current clients. Um, at the Byte Project, we had quite a big list, but we didn’t know who they were and what they were doing and how, and their relationship.

[00:30:46] Muna Hussen: So I was lucky enough to work with the rest of my team to decide on a series of, of lists. But another thing that’s really important about segmentation is deciding what’s the most valuable relationship an individual has with you if they have more than one relationship with you. So, for example, often we have people who are engaged with us in more than one way.

[00:31:11] Muna Hussen: We might have a volunteer that was a fundraiser. We might have a fundraiser that’s also a regular giver. And I think it’s important to think about how you want to celebrate that individual and what relationship you want to celebrate them for. So think about your list. Think about the type of relationships that they have and start slotting people into groups Now you don’t have to go, you know crazy.

[00:31:37] Muna Hussen: You don’t have to spend a lot of time building these lists You could do it as simple as regular givers cash givers Fundraisers, that’s it three lists or you could start with donors Fundraisers or you could start with Lapsed donors, lapsed fundraisers, active, and so on. And as you build your list, as it grows with more people, you’re able to start bringing in more of those segmentation.

[00:32:05] Muna Hussen: And the more segmentation you have, the better the personalization can be. Because then you can say, Hi Jo, you took part in our campaign X in 2023. You raised Y. This allowed us to do So much work. Would you consider now donating to appeal Zed? All of these bits of information allow you to have that personal conversation with your donors on your fundraisers.

[00:32:34] Muna Hussen: Okay. Thank you so much, Simon. Going to pop back to my slides now, and we’re going to dive a little bit further into relevant comms. Just keeping an eye on the time here. Cause I want to have time for questions along the way. Now, what do I mean when I say constant relevant comms? So remember that competition for your donors attention is really, really fierce.

[00:32:57] Muna Hussen: Um, I did say that, yes, it is the podcast of comms, but we’re not just competing with other emails in the inboxes. We’re competing with Netflix. Yes, when we’re looking at our inbox, it tends to be quite focused, we’re in that one screen and you’re not scrolling through a feed, but you do have other devices nearby.

[00:33:21] Muna Hussen: You might have your phone, you might even be using social media or web WhatsApp on another platform. So remember that your donors attention will always be slightly split. And just like. Video killed the radio star back in the day. I think I’ve just aged myself. It may be time to retire the monthly newsletter.

[00:33:43] Muna Hussen: I know a lot of us still do that Or if we’re not going to retire it at least let’s look at what else we can send via communications I’ve popped a few examples in, uh, the coming slides, but all of this is meant to help you look at the various type of emails you can send, um, and also how you can actually use those emails.

[00:34:04] Muna Hussen: Again, based on personalization, based on segmentation, and how can you automate them so that it’s taking all of that work from your fundraising team. So here are some of the examples. You’ve got some emails that you can send for fundraising profile updates. If someone updates their, their, their goal or their fundraising, um, uh, um, um, income, are you able to send them an email to say congratulations or thank you so much for, for wanting to raise even more money?

[00:34:36] Muna Hussen: Are you able to send? immediate confirmations of that donation or the sign up and are you able to send the asks split by the different, um, uh, the different appeals and projects, but also segmenting who you’re sending it to so that you’re not adding to that 30 percent increase in fundraising messages.

[00:35:00] Muna Hussen: Um, not everything. Needs to land in one message. So why can’t we take our donors on a journey? Let’s have a quick look at a fundraiser’s journey here. looking at the fact that their journey begins and you can send them a welcome. So a fundraiser’s journey. So they’ve signed up, um, three days after their profile has created, do you want to send them an update that says let’s get started?

[00:35:26] Muna Hussen: And do you want to automate that so that you’re again, not having your, your team having to remember, okay, it’s been three days and I need to send that and so on. Then it can be followed by some tips on how to fill out, fill out their profile. Further on, it can be, uh, ways on how to ask friends and family to donate to themselves.

[00:35:46] Muna Hussen: Just bearing in mind the cost of living and we might all be worried to ask friends and family for money. A good rule of thumb is three to five emails per journey, but again, it’s all dependent on your audience. And back to my favorite talk Favorite word this talk Um segmentation based on their interaction with you So if they have and i’m going quite deep here again balance it with your resources if they have already taken A challenge with you previously.

[00:36:15] Muna Hussen: Are you able to talk about that challenge in their welcome email? If they are a new fundraiser, are you able to welcome them as a new fundraiser? And as part of your delegate bag, we have included some great email journeys like I mentioned That you can just use so they’re written by our amazing team We’ve popped them into a mirror board and we’ve pulled them out of the raisley system Uh back end so that mirror board is accessible for you and remember to always balance the ask with the celebration, so When as as long we As long as we are asking, we should also be celebrating it.

[00:36:52] Muna Hussen: There’s no point in consistently hammering how much help we need if we’re not also talking about what we are doing with that help. Let’s go into a little bit more detail around each segment and how we can communicate with them. Oh sorry, this is just a quick automated message journey. Like I mentioned, we’ve pulled that out of the Raisely system.

[00:37:11] Muna Hussen: This is what it looks like on the back end of the The Rosalie system and you’ll click on one of these, but they’re all in a mirror board for you. So feel free to download them. And if you don’t, you’ve got my email address at the bottom and I’ll get them right across to you as well. Now let’s have a quick look around the segments that we talked about, right?

[00:37:30] Muna Hussen: So the coordinated listing. So the first one is donors. So new and recurring should be split in an ideal world. You can send them separate emails, either welcoming them to the charity. If then, if they’re new or updating them on what their gift is helping you achieve, how do you update recurring donors?

[00:37:50] Muna Hussen: Well, if there are one off. cash giver. Um, and they have previously donated to you. Thank the fact that they have donated to you again. Of course, all of this is dependent on how long you’re keeping the data for. If someone donated, you know, 10 years ago, you may not have their data anymore, but keeping in mind that this may be someone who’s coming back quite often.

[00:38:12] Muna Hussen: If it’s a regular giver, you might want to update them on what their gift has done six months in, a year in, and so on. And if it’s a new donor, you can welcome them to the charity. Current donors don’t need to know as much about your charity as a whole. They need to know about what you’re doing now. But new donors, you do want to introduce them to your charity and talk about some of the impact.

[00:38:39] Muna Hussen: Let’s talk about fundraisers. So keeping them engaged across the journey. One of the boldest email journeys I ever saw was this fantastic organization that we worked with at the Raisely. It was a 30 day onboarding journey with an email being sent every single day to new fundraisers. That’s really bold, and I think a lot of us will probably be a bit scared to send emails every single day.

[00:39:04] Muna Hussen: But I do want to tell you that there is a balance, if that’s too much for your charity, between that monthly newsletter and the everyday. There are small ways that you can engage with fundraisers. At The Bike Project, we started off by sending emails based on someone’s activity within the campaign itself.

[00:39:22] Muna Hussen: So if they were 25 percent of the mileage or their goal there, 30, uh, 50%, 75%, with conditions built in that would skip over an email if they reached, for example, 50 percent in one day. So consider the journeys that will keep these fundraisers excited and engaged and completing their challenges That’s the point you want to get them through that journey.

[00:39:44] Muna Hussen: You want to get them to their mileage and their goals You can also send You know updates on the amount of money they’ve raised if they’ve raised 200 pounds 300 pounds. Do they get a medal? Do they get a journey? Do you want to talk about what you’ll do with their money? Celebrating the impact along the way for appeals.

[00:40:05] Muna Hussen: There is a bit of a fine line between balancing the ask and again, the celebration, but it’s really important to just have that happen, even mid campaign to keep that donor fatigue down. Cause you’re not the only cause asking for the help, even though they may be focusing on your cause at the moment. So start off maybe with a really bold ask, celebrate the win along the way.

[00:40:28] Muna Hussen: Then have a second ask halfway, you know, three quarters of the way Update them on the post campaign impact give them an update, you know, three four months later down the road Don’t just thank them at the end of the appeal and then that’s it. You don’t communicate with them again other than that. Um, monthly newsletter Now going further with data.

[00:40:50] Muna Hussen: We’re coming to the end and hopefully we’re going to have some questions I’m going to talk for about five minutes more I think it’s really important to focus on this because Just had some questions, just had some, um, sentences pop up around data using, um, the data for, you know, open rates and things like that, and I want to talk about that a little bit more here.

[00:41:12] Muna Hussen: So let’s go beyond the basics. What are the numbers that you can use to further your planning? There are some basic numbers that we can look at and that everyone looks at, but I want to take a moment here and think through what data is available so you can go through the various routes to reach your audience.

[00:41:30] Muna Hussen: First up really really simple open rates click through rates response rates and unsubscribe rates Think about what you are doing with those numbers at the moment. They’re all there every email platform Will show you these these bits of data But are we actually doing anything with them? If you’re looking at the open rate and you can see it steadily declining over the last couple of months or years What is it about your subject line?

[00:41:55] Muna Hussen: Or what is it about the? Um, the kind of, maybe the first impact of when it lands on the inbox that you’re, that you need to test. So it might be the subject line that you need to test. It might also be the time of day that you need to test it. And it might be that because you are not sending, um, Uh, emails quite frequently, you may be ending up in spams at some, at some times.

[00:42:22] Muna Hussen: Think about the click through rates. So, is someone clicking through? And if they’re not clicking through, is it because the call to action is not strong enough? Or is it because of where you’ve placed the call to action? Some websites like reallygoodemails. com allow you to look through all of the data of various sectors and different, um, um, businesses and look at, you know, some of the tests they may have done.

[00:42:46] Muna Hussen: I do know of a charity where they placed the call to action. Right at the very top similar to where your donate button would be on a website, you know top right hand side And they saw a good number of increases in that think about also the unsubscribe rates I talked about the fact that across the sector we’re doing really really well on unsubscribe rates But people do get frustrated So make sure that if you see a high number of unsubscribe rates or a sudden spike That you’re making sure to just take Take a step back and think not just what’s wrong with this email But what have we been doing along the last few months or even weeks to kind of inspire that unsubscribe rate Using utms across all links to track page completion rates is really important So make sure that you’re tracking those links So when you put a call to action in put a specific utm link in so that you can see which call to action What’s the one that worked the best.

[00:43:45] Muna Hussen: And then you can test that again, again, talking about where you’re placing the call to action and then split the data by the type of message and the type of audience. So don’t look at all of your data all at once in the same way that you’re sending different messages to different segments. Make sure that you are splitting that data.

[00:44:04] Muna Hussen: So don’t compare your donors to your fundraisers. Treat each group as their own kind of. Individual group and going even further beyond the data. Here are some examples and we are coming I think to the end of this now So hopefully there are some questions that will start coming through if you can go beyond the data You can use multiple touch points so different email journeys to engage users Based on their interest.

[00:44:32] Muna Hussen: So let’s go into the detail of this If they’ve not opened the emails, let’s say you send an email. Let’s focusing even more. Let’s say there’s an appeal. You send the appeal to your audience. You send them separately to regular givers and to cash givers. Simplest segmentation we possibly can. And you notice that 60 percent of your regular givers did not open the email.

[00:44:55] Muna Hussen: So what you then do is you send them just that group and your email platform should allow you to do this. Set up a new segment. Regular givers received campaign X. Did not open. Send them another email with a new subject line. Don’t change anything else about the rest of the email. They didn’t open it.

[00:45:13] Muna Hussen: They don’t know what’s on inside there. If they did open the email, if a percentage did open it, but they didn’t click anything, add in a new case study. So change up the content of the email just a little bit to make it fresher, or maybe even change up where the call to action is or how many call to actions there are.

[00:45:34] Muna Hussen: If they clicked, but they did not donate. So they didn’t, you use the UTM to track the page completion rate. And this is why it’s really important. And you know that they didn’t click and they didn’t donate. You want to put a stronger call to action. So maybe you want to humanize what you’re asking them.

[00:45:51] Muna Hussen: 50 pounds will allow us to do X. If 50 of you donate 50 pounds, we will be able to help 500 people or whatever the numbers are, but really going strong with that bold ask because at the moment they’re not reacting. So you may as well test it and then repeat it for a specific interaction. So again, I cannot stress enough that you need to have your donors and your fundraisers Having different journeys.

[00:46:17] Muna Hussen: So I’m giving you some really simple examples of how to segment, you know You want to segment your fundraisers your regular givers and your cash givers or just all givers and fundraisers But just having that personalization built into your segmentation gosh Buzzwords today and we’ll be able to really help you get to um, being able to build those those journeys Oh a lot of talking there.

[00:46:43] Muna Hussen: I think we are going to stop here and start asking some questions We

[00:46:49] Simon Scriver: are indeed. And thank you very much for that. Now, I’m conscious people might be have to chip off. And I think me and you are going to get carried away with this conversation. So before people leave, just to remind you, the recording will be available at the same link.

[00:47:03] Simon Scriver: So please do come back to the same link if you miss anything or you want to watch it back. And the delegate bag is there. I know people are looking for a PDF and things like that. So anything people have been looking for in the chat, don’t worry. We’ll get it in the delegate bag for you. We’ll get it there, but you can get that at the same link.

[00:47:20] Simon Scriver: And then obviously to book in some time with Muna, I imagine people want to chat more deeply with you. Um, but that’s the. I’ll leave this up on the screen while we’re chatting a bit so people can reach out to you that way. Sure,

[00:47:31] Muna Hussen: I love talking email, so yeah, reach out. Okay,

[00:47:34] Simon Scriver: good, that’s great because I’ve got some questions for you.

[00:47:37] Simon Scriver: So there’s a lot, there’s a few questions and people have been really good in terms of answering each other’s questions in the chat. So please do keep doing that people. Um, and I’ll focus on maybe some of the questions that others haven’t answered. There was one which I’ve never heard asked actually, which I thought was a really good question from Jade.

[00:47:53] Simon Scriver: And she was talking about email journeys when it comes to things like legacies, which are much longer term. You know, and you were talking about those kind of three to five steps. Um, and, and it’s very, you know, you can’t plan an email journey for multi year, presumably. But how, how do you approach someone who’s maybe on that legacy journey, but is also, you know, your day to day donor as well?

[00:48:13] Muna Hussen: Wow, that is, I actually have never heard that asked before. Yeah, isn’t that a great question? Sorry to put that, I

[00:48:18] Simon Scriver: should have asked you an easy one first.

[00:48:20] Muna Hussen: No, no, I love it because it leads me to think about, um, how you’re communicating with them about their legacy. So a lot of what I’ve talked about has been about celebrating.

[00:48:29] Muna Hussen: What donors have done for you and when it comes to legacies they’ve obviously supported you for for a very long time So it’s about looking at first of all, look at the other comms that you’re sending in them as well Are they folded into your monthly newsletter? Are they do they have a different relationship with you?

[00:48:45] Muna Hussen: So deciding which relationship they have with you is the most valuable I would say off the top of my head, I’ve not really worked with a lot of legacies, but off the top of my head, a legacy relationship is probably the most important relationship they have with you, even if they are, you know, a fundraiser and so on.

[00:49:03] Muna Hussen: I would say, I mean, what do you think, Simon? Would you not? Well,

[00:49:05] Simon Scriver: I think that’s a really interesting question and I would agree because, because of the value of them. And because someone who shows that intention, you know, they’re obviously going to be more engaged in other areas. I think that the challenge that comes to mind is you’ll have a lot of trouble getting that approved, you know, for other teams to relinquish that person.

[00:49:24] Simon Scriver: Yeah. With that longer term gain, which would, which is a really interesting conversation like something.

[00:49:29] Muna Hussen: Yeah. And I actually think you can even consider them on the same level as major donors. You know, these are people that are engaged with you for a long time Major donors I engaged major donors. I engaged with you for a lot of money But think about kind of the level of not just money but advocacy that they are supporting your charity with So really treat them as an incredibly valuable individual and think about maybe updating them Um, not just within the monthly newsletters, but also quarterly.

[00:49:59] Muna Hussen: Maybe you want to send them out a quarterly update on what their legacy is, gift is giving, and really quantify that so that they’re constantly being told this is how important you are and this is what you’ve you’ve helped us achieve manageably, which is why I’m saying something like quarterly.

[00:50:15] Simon Scriver: That’s a really good point about almost classifying them as a major donor and that makes a lot of sense and that’s it.

[00:50:19] Simon Scriver: That seems like a good simple way to start that segmentation rather than overcomplicating it. Which I guess leads on to another question where some people have been asking about where do you start with segmenting? And I know we have a lot of small charities here. who are coming away from this still, we’re still going to feel overwhelmed.

[00:50:35] Simon Scriver: Yeah. It’s going to feel like too much work to I know. Is the first segmentation you do, is that by gift amount, you know, the, the most valuable and less valuable? Like, what are the, what are the priorities that we simply must do?

[00:50:46] Muna Hussen: Yeah, definitely. And again, I’m coming back to, to talking about balancing your, your resources versus what you want to do.

[00:50:52] Muna Hussen: And I’ve done it. I’ve done it. I’ve chewed off way more, bitten off way more than I can chew and been told by like my colleagues and my, you know, the managers that I sort of looked after. Oh, you want to like take a step back really. But, um, I would say think about, um, the, the, your audience as a whole. And I would say the simplest one is splitting your donors from your fundraisers, then looking at your, um, your donors and splitting them again into regular givers, cash givers, and then splitting them into maximum three.

[00:51:23] Muna Hussen: So you want to do like maybe not to 50 pounds, 50 pounds to 150 pounds and then 150 pounds onwards. If people aren’t giving you that high of a gift, you know, come down. Yeah. You’re, you’re

[00:51:35] Simon Scriver: led by your own organization. And

[00:51:38] Muna Hussen: once you’ve split it, look at the numbers. There’s no point in running. a separate journey for a segment that has only got five people in it.

[00:51:45] Muna Hussen: So look at the data and don’t be too afraid to go in, change things and update things as you go. Nothing has to be set in stone.

[00:51:52] Simon Scriver: Yeah, I think that’s great. And I think it’s almost like you’re led by time rather than by the numbers first. So it’s like, well, how much time do I have to put into my major donors each week?

[00:52:01] Muna Hussen: Exactly.

[00:52:02] Simon Scriver: How many people can I fit in that? And that’s going to be. The people that classified into it and everyone else. So I think, I think a lot of it as fundraisers, cause there’s always more you can do. You can always be more or twice as small. So yeah, we

[00:52:14] Muna Hussen: could all use like five more people in our teams.

[00:52:17] Simon Scriver: That’s coming. Well, five more people. Well, one thing that is coming or has come that, that is almost like five people is like automations and you touched on that. And a few people were asking about that. Maybe could, you could speak to that. Where do you start with getting automations? I mean, I’m assuming a lot of tools, you know, Raley I know has, has some automations in there.

[00:52:36] Simon Scriver: Things like Zapier are available to others. Mm-hmm . What, what do you like? What, what have you seen working for people?

[00:52:42] Muna Hussen: So I think it depends on what the capacity of your current tech stack is to begin with. Um, there’s a lot of tools out there that are amazing. So if you have a CRM platform like Salesforce or Raise Edge, Microsoft Dynamics and so on, you can use that in order to.

[00:52:58] Muna Hussen: Uh through your donation form your signup form to segment people but not every charity has access to that because they can be quite expensive So it’s looking at what is your current email platform capable of are you using mailchimp. digital campaign monitor? Are you using raisley? There’s all of these Automations are available.

[00:53:17] Muna Hussen: You will need to carve out some time in your week to just switch off your inbox and have a look into the resource back resource documents at the back end of your platform and use that automation. If you don’t have any automation now, the number one thing I would ask you to start with is. Welcome journey.

[00:53:35] Muna Hussen: Thank you for signing up for a fundraiser and a thank you for the donation If your current platform doesn’t have that there are other platforms that are free that you can look into And I promise you it’ll be an it’ll it’s difficult to set it up, but I I promise you it is worth it So I would strongly encourage you to look into starting with those two automations

[00:53:58] Simon Scriver: I think I think that’s a great point and I would say You know, people have heard me say this on most things is reach out to your supplier because I know people like Raisely if you’re if you’re already a customer, for example, for a start, they they are so supportive.

[00:54:10] Simon Scriver: And I’ve actually seen like, like change features just simply because you request something. So that’s what they’re there for. But even if you’re not a customer reaching out to people like you, I’ve always found people helpful, like you. What, what’s possible and what are the steps to do? And even if you’re not a client or a customer, no, no, no good way to do it.

[00:54:27] Simon Scriver: It’s like, exactly.

[00:54:29] Muna Hussen: Yeah. Don’t be afraid to ask, drop me an email. I’m happy to chat via email or go on a quick 10 minute, um, uh, chat. I’m really happy to, to just kind of talk through where you are at the moment and give you some good ideas, um, on how to get to the next stage that you want to be at.

[00:54:47] Simon Scriver: Someone talked about, um, just ask quickly about, uh, opening rates and there was talk about emojis, you know, too many emojis and too few emojis and what open, you know, does it make a big difference on, on opens and click rates depending on your subject line. I think the general consensus was yes, there’s so much.

[00:55:05] Simon Scriver: So I guess more of my question for you is where do people go to, or where do you go to learn what open rates work and don’t work? And where do you kind of benchmark these things? Like what, what, what’s your go to cheat sheet?

[00:55:18] Muna Hussen: So my go to is reallygoodemails. com. It’s a really good website that you can, it’s a bit like Unbounce.

[00:55:23] Muna Hussen: So you can go on there and look at what’s really working because they aggregate a lot of different email journeys, which I think can be really, really helpful. And the second thing is your own data. So your, your platform should allow you to do A B testing. So most platforms allow you to send an email out.

[00:55:41] Muna Hussen: to a smaller segment with two different subject lines Before deciding which subject line was the best one and they’ll send it to the rest of your um, The rest of that that segment so I would definitely recommend try one with an emoji and then try one without an emoji I think in charities we tend to be really scared of the test and learn methodology because the learn part technically means we failed because maybe it didn’t work as well as we wanted it to, but the point is you’re supposed to be learning something.

[00:56:12] Muna Hussen: So I think it’s really, really worth testing out just using your own data, but balance it with your tone of voice. If you’re quite a serious charity, then there’s no point in suddenly bringing in emojis and confusing your current audience.

[00:56:25] Simon Scriver: Yeah, and I think that scares people sometimes, you know, you talked about being very personal.

[00:56:29] Simon Scriver: And, and that, that kind of advice I’ve heard from like day one in my career, and it’s always worked for me, you know, to like more personal, more people connect. But I know people have a fear sometimes of being like over familiar or being, you know, offending a big formal donor who maybe, you know, doesn’t want to be called by their first name.

[00:56:47] Simon Scriver: Well, what do you say to To queries like that. So again,

[00:56:50] Muna Hussen: I think looking at your audience at the moment, but segmentation will help with that So if you have an a donor a major donor that’s giving you, you know, 10 000 pounds a year You don’t want to refer to them as hey friend, you know, you want to build that kind of personal relationship So I think about start with segmentation But also look at your audience and make sure that you’re doing the work We’re getting away a little bit from emails here, but make sure you’re doing the work in understanding what your tone of voice is and how it works for your audience.

[00:57:19] Muna Hussen: But it’s all about just communicating with people based on their interaction with you and their relationship with you. It’s not really about, you know, how the relationship you want to have with them. It’s about the relationship they already have with you.

[00:57:33] Simon Scriver: Very good. That’s brilliant. I’m so, I’m so conscious of time.

[00:57:36] Simon Scriver: So I’m just going to say one quick thing. There was, there was talk of UTMs about what are they? Um, and questions around that. So I would say reach out to Muna to have a deep conversation because there’s a lot there. But essentially it’s, it’s part of the link. It’s buried within the link and it then tells your system where that person clicked on that link.

[00:57:52] Simon Scriver: So it allows you to track it back. So that, that’s essentially what it is. But there’s, we’re, we’re doing some work on that ourselves and there’s so much to do on this. So we don’t have time for that. But, but just to finally, because I find this so interesting, people always are concerned about sending too many emails.

[00:58:06] Simon Scriver: And every time we see the data and every time consultants and experts speak. It seems to imply we’re not sending enough email.

[00:58:14] Muna Hussen: We’re not sending enough emails. So, so

[00:58:16] Simon Scriver: tell me, tell me just finally, what is, what is the clash there? And why are we having trouble convincing people? And then once they’re convinced, getting approval to send more.

[00:58:26] Simon Scriver: Fundraising emails.

[00:58:28] Muna Hussen: Because I think people consider sending emails as a nuisance. They think that you’re bothering people. They think, oh, well, they’ve already donated. I’m just going to leave them alone or they’ve already fundraised. I’m not going to annoy them. But, and I say this all the time. If you’re a Raisely client, you, you will have heard me say this.

[00:58:42] Muna Hussen: If we talked about email, you’re not Deliveroo. And you’re not wayfair. You’re not sending them emails Repeatedly for stuff that they don’t care about you’re they have actively opted in They have a relationship with you either through Using your service having a family member use your service being a donor being a fundraiser And they want to hear from you a really good rule of thumb to start with is to send one email per week And see how that goes out and The more the data shows, as Simon has said, that the more emails you send up to a certain point, um, the more successful it will be because you’re not bothering them.

[00:59:19] Muna Hussen: Remember that they have a relationship with you.

[00:59:22] Simon Scriver: And you, you said earlier that, you know, people are, um, um, you know, in terms of the content that obviously you’re not going to send loads and loads of emails if you don’t have anything to say, but be led by that content. And our job as fundraisers is to generate that content really.

[00:59:39] Simon Scriver: Um, so it’s like be led up by that. If you have good content, people do want to hear from you. And I, I’ve had, I’ve had mailings from companies where, you know, when I want them and they’re interested, you can email me every day.

[00:59:50] Muna Hussen: Yeah.

[00:59:51] Simon Scriver: You’re interested in it. You know, it’s not that people want less email, they want less.

[00:59:58] Simon Scriver: It’s really interesting, but it’s a difficult mindset to go because almost we’re embarrassed sometimes to represent ourselves and our charities, but actually the person on the other end very often wants to know.

[01:00:08] Muna Hussen: Yeah, they do. They do. And don’t be, don’t be embarrassed. Try it and just keep, keep paying attention to the data.

[01:00:14] Muna Hussen: If you send, you know, if you give yourself a month or two weeks and you send, you know, an email twice a week and you realize that that unsubscribe rate is creeping up, just maybe take it back down. But don’t, don’t be freaked out. You know, your email list is growing. We’re seeing a trend of email list growing and you will be able to learn from that data from trialing new things.

[01:00:36] Simon Scriver: That was great. As always, I’m sure we’ll see you again in the near future. Thank you so much for your time. And that’s great. And, um, I hope lots of people reach out to you.

[01:00:49] Muna Hussen: Let’s talk if you want to thank you so much everyone as always. I really appreciate and thank you simon I love doing these with fundraising everywhere.

[01:00:57] Muna Hussen: It’s such a pleasure. So, thank you so much.

[01:00:59] Simon Scriver: Thank you so much. That was brilliant That was great. So yeah, please do look i’ll leave the contact details up there for a second. Please do reach out Um, but underneath the, uh, uh, video here, you’ll also see a link there to book in some time with me. So one to one time, I highly recommend that.

[01:01:12] Simon Scriver: It’d be really helpful. Um, but also at the same link, remember it will remain active with the recording. So you can come back and watch this back. And then there was a lot in there. Um, and then the delegate bag will remain active. And there’s a couple of things people have requested for, and we’ll do our best to get back into them.

[01:01:26] Simon Scriver: But if there’s anything, you know, people wanted to unpack some stats more and things like that, anything in particular that you want for your own yourself, then do reach out to me because she’s just been so generous with her time and information. So last bits for me. Um, yes, remember, you can get everything from here.

[01:01:41] Simon Scriver: That’s all great. We would love your feedback on that as well. So you’ll see that little pause button that’s still active. Um, so if you, if you want to give any feedback on there and let us know what you’d like to see. Uh in a future session or see me when I come back and talk about at a future conference, then please do Speaking of future conferences, um, our next big conference is the supporter experience conference, which I imagine there’s going to be lots of information Around that out there.

[01:02:03] Simon Scriver: So that’s on the 22nd of may And we’ve got a few other things coming up, but always check fundraising everywhere. com for those Um, you can register for them. But if you’re a member remember as a member remember as a member In December. No, as a member you get access to all that stuff. So please, um, um, if you’re a member, don’t worry about it.

[01:02:21] Simon Scriver: You get access to all this. This recording will be out at your library. You know the drill members. If you don’t know the drill about membership. Good lord. I mean, do I have to keep talking about it? Come on, come on, join the, join the fundraising ever a crew Um, but that’s it for me really everyone. Uh, it’s so lovely to see you and I can I can see some people saying goodbye So thanks ian.

[01:02:38] Simon Scriver: Thanks lauren. Uh, thanks rob fran Yeah, we’ve got some nice chat in there and some lovely lovely words for um, You know, so we’ll try and get that chat. Um, um available for everyone as well Because I know there’s some good resources shared in there. Um, but from me That’s everyone. Uh, that’s everyone.

[01:02:53] Simon Scriver: That’s everything. That’s a pretty bad sign off, isn’t it? Um, but yeah for me, that’s it. We’ll see you at a future event. Lovely to see you and uh, have a good day Take care of yourself

[01:03:03] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the fundraising everywhere podcast If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend?

[01:03:10] Alex Aggidis: And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers that you find us Thank you so much. See you next time

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. In this episode, we’ll be taking a look at one of our favourite corporate partnership sessions in celebration of our Corporate Partnerships Conference coming up on Thursday the 20th of March. If you’d like to join us on the day, you can use promo code FEPodcast25 to get 25 percent off.

[00:00:52] Jade Cunnah: Just head on over to fundraisingeverywhere. com and pop in FEPodcast25 at checkout to get 25 percent off our corporate partnerships conference in March. Now, onto today’s episode.

[00:01:05] Joe Waters: Hello everyone, it’s Joe Waters, and I want to welcome you to How to Use AI to Build Better Corporate Partnerships. And I want to start off today’s presentation by telling you a little bit about me, if you haven’t met me before. I’ve actually been involved in several corporate partnership conferences. And have really enjoyed it.

[00:01:28] Joe Waters: And I’m really happy to be speaking to you here today. Um, I’m the founder of Selfish Giving, which focuses on win win non-profit and corporate partnerships. I also publish, uh, what some consider to be a popular bi monthly newsletter on corporate partnerships. You can check that out at selfishgiving. com. I actually archive all my newsletters on my website.

[00:01:48] Joe Waters: So you can check out back issues before you sign up. I’m a cause marketing and sponsorship expert. So I don’t do everything in corporate partnerships. I specifically focus on cause marketing and sponsorships, and I’ve written two books on the subject. I’ve written cause marketing for dummies and I’ve written fundraising for businesses.

[00:02:07] Joe Waters: I’m an American who’s based in Boston. You can probably hear my, uh, my wicked accent. You guys have your own wicked accent. So I think we’ll work good together. And one of the final things that I want to emphasize is that I am not. An AI expert. I am AI curious, which I suspect you are too. So my goal here today is to really share with you some practical insights about how to use AI in the corporate partnership space.

[00:02:34] Joe Waters: And I really think it’s an exciting opportunity, folks, that you’re gonna enjoy. So what I’m going to be talking about today is I’m going to be talking about the intersection of AI and corporate partnerships and where I think the opportunity is. I’m going to be talking about AI and what I call the partnership solicitation process map.

[00:02:51] Joe Waters: So the process map is all the steps that you have to go through in order to secure A partnership and I’m gonna show you how to use AI in each one of those steps. Now, today I’m gonna have four suggestions for you on how to use AI and two reminders. I think that will be really useful for you. I’m also gonna show you how to use AI to do better searches of your favorite corporate partnership websites, and not just mine, but other people’s sites too.

[00:03:19] Joe Waters: I’m also going to give you four additional A. I. Resources. Um, I have something called prompt pot luck, which I’m going to tell you about when I get there. And then finally, I’m going to talk about proceeding with caution on a I and some of the dangers and some of the hazards that we need to be aware of when using a I around partnerships.

[00:03:38] Joe Waters: Now, just a couple thoughts here on a I. You know, I really respect Mark Schaefer, who is a marketer here in the States, and you know, he’s showing us where we are right now. With AI, we are just getting started folks. I mean, AI has been around since the forties and fifties folks, but, um, it is really accelerating in it next few years.

[00:03:58] Joe Waters: We’re going to see it, you know, affecting our lives in so many different ways, and we’re going to be seeing engaged in so many different things that we use, we won’t even notice it to folks. And, you know, for those people who are thinking too, I often think of AI is. AI learns like humans learn and does stuff that humans do in ways that humans do them, but AI can do them better and faster.

[00:04:20] Joe Waters: That’s the opportunity, really with ai. Now, for our conversation today, I am gonna be focusing on one specific AI tool chat, GPT for, okay. This is the paid version of chat, GPT. Okay? It’s $20 a month. You don’t have to sign up for a whole year. You can sign up for a month and then discontinue it. Or you could use the free version of chat GPT, which is called 3.

[00:04:45] Joe Waters: 5. All right. Um, I think you’ll get many of the results that I’m sharing here today, but I have found that chat GPT 4 is much better and it’s worth the investment. So, Fortunately, because of ChatGPT4, you now have access to a wicked smart partnership intern who works 24 7, doesn’t need coffee breaks, but will sometimes make mistakes, just like the real ones do, right?

[00:05:10] Joe Waters: And some of you have asked, how smart is Chat GPT or AI in general. Well, it would do better on a standardized test than about 80 percent of us. And if you saw my scores from standardized tests, you would know what I mean. Okay, in terms of them being a lot smarter than us in better in some processes. So this is the chat GPT interface, right?

[00:05:32] Joe Waters: In terms of how you would look at it. If you use the chat GPT 3. 5, which is the free version, it’s going to look very similar to this. One of the things that I’ll recommend throughout my presentation is to ask ChatGPT how it can help you. This is critical to understanding and using AI effectively. So I would ask ChatGPT in the field of corporate partnerships, and I provide a definition there, you know, identify the things ChatGPT would be useful for, and bullet this list.
[00:06:03] Joe Waters: Follow this list with the things it would be less useful for. So when we look at the things that’s most useful for, for partnerships, according to chat GPT, what are they? Content creation, right? Which is top of the list here, market research and insights, right? Providing us insights and trends and potential partnership opportunities.

[00:06:23] Joe Waters: Ideas generation for a project. So for campaigns, right? There were 40 different forms of cars marketing. We could use which one would be best for a particular client. Um, F. A. Q. S. And customer support huge opportunity there, right to answer people’s questions. And one of the things I think is really going to be big folks training and onboarding for people as you bring people new people onto your partnership team using a I to Yeah.

[00:06:49] Joe Waters: quickly get them up to speed around partnerships. I think it’s going to be invaluable. And then of course, data analysis, right? It can crunch numbers and data much more quickly and effectively than humans can. And this is just some of the opportunities with chat GPT. Now, what isn’t chat GPT good at, right?

[00:07:08] Joe Waters: Well, human relationships, right? It’s not human. So it’s not, you know, we’re going to need a person, at least for the time being, to manage relationships. It’s also not good, like, complex negotiations or decision making. That’s something to keep in mind, and I have an illustration at the end of my presentation to show you what I mean.

[00:07:27] Joe Waters: Understanding non verbal communications, all right? Can’t see you, right? So, or it’s not picking up. yet in terms of what you’re saying by your nonverbal cues. Ethical judgment, big problem with chat GPT and crisis management. All right, so you can see that chat GPT is going to be useful for a lot of things in the partnership world, but in some ways it’s going to be very challenging.

[00:07:52] Joe Waters: So the next thing I want to do here is I want to match up chat GPT with the partnership solicitation process map. And as I told you before, the. The partnership solicitation process map is basically, and this is not exhaustive, but it’s basically all the steps that you need to go through in order to build an effective partnership.

[00:08:12] Joe Waters: This begins with identifying potential partners and then ends with signing a contract, executing the partnership, and then writing a case study and asking for referrals, right? So it’s a loop, right? You know, we go through all these steps and then we start anew with a new prospect and potential partner.

[00:08:30] Joe Waters: Now, One of the first things I want to focus on with ChatGPT is how it can help us research and evaluate prospects, okay? And there’s just a huge opportunity. Now, one of the things I want to point out, ask ChatGPT how to use it for prospecting, and what does it come back and say? You can do customized outreach, right?

[00:08:52] Joe Waters: Personalizing emails to potential prospects. Speech analysis. And one of the things that you’ll, uh, you’ll learn throughout my presentation is that it’s going to be really important moving forward to record your sales calls with people on Zoom so that you can review and use that content with ChatGPT.

[00:09:10] Joe Waters: Uh, content creation, competitive analysis, frequently asked questions generation. So you can ask chat GPT for advice about how you should use it for prospecting. So one of the things that I did was I plugged in one of my favorite places to visit when I’m in London, the Dickens Museum. And I put in that I wanted to recruit more corporate partners for the Dickens Museum, and I asked it, you know, what kind of companies would be good prospects for sponsorship of the museum.

[00:09:41] Joe Waters: And of course it came back and it said ideal corporate partners might include companies in the publishing and literary sector. educational institution, cultural and historical organizations and businesses with a focus on British heritage in tourism. Now, this is good information, especially maybe for a newbie in the partnership world, but not incredibly revealing.

[00:10:01] Joe Waters: So I asked another question, a follow up question of chat GPT. What is some of the unique businesses? I would want to consider. And it came back and it said some of the craft and lifestyle brands that draw inspiration from the Victorian aesthetic or literally themes, uh, could also align well with the museum’s mission and visitor interest.

[00:10:22] Joe Waters: So I said, Oh, this is kind of interesting. Can you give me a list of these businesses? Okay, and this is where we run into one of the shortcomings of chat GPT is because chat GPT isn’t real time. It’s actually information that was imported up to April 2023. It comes back and it says, you know what? I don’t have that information because I’m not connected to the internet.

[00:10:45] Joe Waters: All right. I’m going to show you shortly though, how you can bypass this and use another AI platform to find out things in real time. Right? So you can use chat GPT for potty of prospecting, and then you can jump over to this other service that I’m going to recommend in a few minutes that will give you additional information in.

[00:11:06] Joe Waters: Real time. Now, one of the things I know from being in London and shopping with my wife is that Penhaligon is a great place to shop there. And I said, does the brand Penhaligon have a Victorian flair to it? Is that something that I would consider as a prospect? And they said, yes. Penhaligon is a British perfume place, you know, that has a Victorian flair.

[00:11:26] Joe Waters: So you can do your research on chat GPT and, you know, uh, investigate companies, learn about different sectors, different industries, and how you can connect with them. And in a minute, I’m going to show you how to get a specific prospect list so that you have something to work with. Now, the good thing about ChatGPT and the Partnership Solicitation Process Map is you can use this throughout the process, all right?

[00:11:50] Joe Waters: So, when it comes to emailing people, right, you can input details about the partnership opportunity, and you can input details about what you think at the beginning might be the reasons for a person to a company to align with you, and then ChatGPT will tell you the prospects, goals, or challenges and come up with you.

[00:12:10] Joe Waters: for you with some compelling reasons, which I think would be useful. So that can be very useful for chat GPT. Another opportunity is post call. And again, we’re recording our messages, right? We’re recording our interactions with people based on the transcript of the following call, identify action items and steps I need to take to keep the momentum going.

[00:12:29] Joe Waters: So think about this. You don’t have to keep track of, you know, what the takeaways from the meeting are. You can ask chat GPT what the takeaway. Of those meetings were right. So it’s like having a personal assistant with you. Another thing that I think is really useful about chat GPT and I’m going to dig into this a little bit to show you more about it is you can upload case studies to chat GPT along with information about your prospect and then ask which case study.

[00:12:56] Joe Waters: Or studies would be most applicable to the prospect and what you should emphasize. And this is very applicable to our conversation because many of you might remember last year at the corporate partnership conference, I talked about case studies and how to write effective case studies. So using the chat GPT to do this can be very effective because it could pick up things in your case study that would be relevant to the prospect that you didn’t initially recognize.

[00:13:22] Joe Waters: Okay. But the thing is. Is again, you can go back to chat gpt and ask it How can you help me write case studies for my partnership and look at all the stuff that it can do for you Okay, it can put it can run the whole process process for you in terms of outlining the structure of it case study. Maybe you’ve never written one before.

[00:13:42] Joe Waters: Maybe you didn’t attend my presentation last year. So you don’t know exactly how you should structure a case study. It can help you with that. It can gather information. It can draft sections with you so you can do everything. It can generate charts and everything that you might need for a case study. So that’s one of the things you want to keep on doing is asking chat GPT, how it can help you.

[00:14:03] Joe Waters: Now how I use chat GPT to write case studies for my clients. Well, I interview them on zoom. And I record it, and then I upload it to Autodat AI, which is a transcription service. And then I take that transcription and I put it right into ChatGPT. And ChatGPT, uh, based on the parameters I set for it.

[00:14:26] Joe Waters: generates a draft of that case study for me. And then throughout the entire process of that case study, I finalized that case study using chat GPT. So we work hand in hand. This isn’t about chat GPT doing all the work. This is about me working with it to write a case study. And here are four different ways that chat GPT helps me write case studies just on the first page of the case study I’ve written.

[00:14:53] Joe Waters: The first thing it does is it helped me write titles. Right. So what I do post case study is I cut and paste the case study into chat GPT and asked me to write four case study titles and I asked for one of them to be very clever, which I think the one on the bottom number four is the second thing that I asked chat GPT to do is in one sentence describe Reynolds Americans business, the businesses I was profiling on this.

[00:15:17] Joe Waters: The third thing I asked it to do was based on the transcript that I put in bullet Reynolds goals for partnering with the organization. Now think about that. That’s a question I asked during my conversation with him. But it’s interesting because sometimes chat GPT picks up reasons that I didn’t recognize.

[00:15:37] Joe Waters: And then I add it to this section. Okay. So it’s like having another person there that can give you lots of great information. And then finally, based on this transcript. Write up a short backstory of the partnership between Keep America Beautiful and Reynolds American. Attribute all quotes to this person.

[00:15:55] Joe Waters: And it takes that information and it writes up the backstory. So this is just four ways that I’ve used ChatGPT on the first page. of my case studies. Now, what I think is interesting about this, though, is when you go to ChatGPT, you have a bunch of add ons that you can check out through this section here.

[00:16:14] Joe Waters: It’s called ExploreGPTs, okay? And two of them that I’ve been using for case studies that you may want to try is I’ve been using Whimsical and I’ve been using SlideCreator. Okay. The first one slide creator is very useful because I can take the case study, put it into slide creator, and it generates a slide for me that I can use and share with my clients so they can use it in their presentation.

[00:16:38] Joe Waters: So sometimes they say to me, Joe, it’s great to have a five page case study. I wish I just had this all on a slide. Well, I can do that in about 30 seconds. Okay. Using chat PT. Did I say 30, maybe 10 seconds with chat GPT. All I need to do is put in, cut and paste the case study, and ask it to generate a slide, and this is what I get.

[00:16:56] Joe Waters: Another thing that you can do with ChatGPT is add Whimsical to it and Whimsical creates flowcharts from it. And I have found this to be very helpful with clients because it shows in a flowchart, step by step, how the partnership works. Now think about the value of this. You’re sitting down talking to a potential partner and you can show them step by step, not only from the case study, but from a flowchart, how a case study works or how a partnership works.

[00:17:24] Joe Waters: Think about this too in the value for onboarding people to your organization, showing them step by step how a partnership works. It can be very valuable. So I would take advantage of those things. Another thing that you can do with chat GPT is following up with people. So based on the transcript of our sales call.

[00:17:43] Joe Waters: Identify the prospect’s key areas of concern, how to address them, and what additional objections I might need to address in our next call. So it’s taking this transcript of what you just said and saying, hey, based on that conversation, what do you think some of the things are going to bring up next time?

[00:17:59] Joe Waters: Very valuable, I think, to your conversations. And then finally with contracts. So one of the things that I love about ChatGPT is if you record a conversation with a potential partner and they, and you say, okay, this is how the partnership is going to work. Do you agree with that? Okay. You want this in the partnership?

[00:18:16] Joe Waters: You can take that transcript, put it into ChatGPT and say, Hey, generate a letter of agreement or generate a contract based on what we talked about in this conversation. And I did that exactly. With uh, here in Massachusetts and in the United States in general, every state has its own what we call commercial co venture guidelines.

[00:18:37] Joe Waters: Okay. So what I asked CHAT GPT to do was to create a contract to me based on the guidelines of the state of Massachusetts. And then it gave me all that information in contract. Now, keep in mind, You want to share this with a lawyer, right? You just don’t want to take this and have them sign it. But the good thing is, is you have all the ingredients right here of a contract.

[00:18:59] Joe Waters: And letter agreements are even easier, right? Based on your conversation. But you definitely want to pass this by a lawyer before you actually use something like this. But I think it’s very helpful to have the terms and everything spelled out to make sure that you’re following the guidelines in this country based on the state that you’re in.

[00:19:17] Joe Waters: Okay, so four suggestions and two reminders when using chat GPT. First thing is, always have it open, okay? Jump on it whenever you have a question. And you know what? Don’t just use it for partnerships. Use it for everything. I use it for things I’m doing in the garden. I use it for planning my trip later this year abroad.

[00:19:37] Joe Waters: Maybe I’ll go see Simon in Ireland. Um, and you know, one of the things, uh, we just got a new dog a couple of weeks ago, right? You know, how can I use this with the new dog? You know, how do I train my dog? How do I get them on the leash? How do I get them to stop barking? Whatever. You know, there’s some really helpful things that I found by using, uh, chat GPT for personal things.

[00:19:57] Joe Waters: It accelerated my learning on using it for partnerships. So always have it open. Okay. Another thing is, is tell it who it is, right? You are a partnership expert for a nonprofit. You are a expert dog trainer who specializes in training terriers. Uh, this is what I want you to do. Tell it who you are. Okay.

[00:20:18] Joe Waters: Share your advice so it can be understood by someone who is completely new in the partnership field. All right. So give it as much information as you can and be specific about what you’re looking for. And one of the great things about, uh, chat GPT is it doesn’t mind lots of information. Your intern probably doesn’t appreciate it, but chat GPT loves it.

[00:20:39] Joe Waters: So long prompts are good. And what I really encourage you to do is have a conversation with it, right? When you don’t get the results you want. Put in more information. Ask it to define things for you. Ask it to explain things for you. Now, Jeannie Jennings did a great job, I think, with this slide in terms of talking about don’t do this, do this instead.

[00:21:00] Joe Waters: And what she has here is come up with 10 ideas for a blog post about using generative AI in email marketing. That sounds pretty good. But what she really suggests is do this instead. And notice it’s a lot of the things that I just told you, right? Give it a role. You are a world class content strategist.

[00:21:16] Joe Waters: Your task is this. You need to think about this from various angles. Ensure that blah. And then provide the output, right? So this is a very specific prompt. And prompt is just input, folks. Think of it like going to Google and you type in something in a Google bar. That’s all you’re doing there too. That’s a prompt in AI.

[00:21:36] Joe Waters: So be as specific as you can. And I have another resource on this I think will be helpful. So one of the things that I wanted to teach you too is how to search your favorite corporate partnership websites. Now there are several of them out there, and I hope you visit mine, selfishgiving. com. But I’m also sure that you checked out Engage for Good in the U.

[00:21:54] Joe Waters: S., Remarkable Partnerships, my man Jonathan Andrew, uh, in the U. K., and of course Sharon and Linda, uh, down in Australia at Stellar Partnerships. Now One of the things that you can do is you can ask CHAP GPT to analyze a specific site, okay, to only look at that site. So Engage For Good, look at Engage For Good and tell me about the legal side of corporate partnerships.

[00:22:18] Joe Waters: And instead of giving you results, like Google does that you need to go through. It just gives you answers. That’s what I love about AI, right? It gives you answers about what you’re looking for, like here, asking my site, selfishgiving. com about checkout charity programs. It gives you specific answers that you can use in the moment.

[00:22:38] Joe Waters: So I find this. to be a much better way of searching sites. And also with Jonathan Andrews and Remarkable Partnerships, look at here in terms of like asking him specific information. Now, it’s interesting with Jonathan’s site, though, is I had to go in and explore a little bit about how he talked about corporate partnerships because Jonathan calls them corporate charity partnerships, which is fine.

[00:23:01] Joe Waters: But you need to use similar language like that in terms of getting the results. Now, what’s good about this is I got results, but then on the bottom, I can ask another question, right? What does it mean to identify a five star prospect? And then chat GPT will come back and explain that to you. So just a much better way of searching sites for corporate partnership information, keep in mind that engage for good.

[00:23:25] Joe Waters: Has been around since 2002. I’ve been running selfish giving.com since 2004. Uh, I don’t know how long Jonathan’s been writing remarkable partnerships and how long stellar partnerships have been around, but there’s lots of information on both those sites. Use Chat GPT to find it. Okay, so I’m going to give you four additional AI resources that you can use, and one of them is going to answer the question that we had earlier about finding real time information.

[00:23:50] Joe Waters: Use Perplexity. ai. Again, this is a Google substitute, right? Instead of using Google, you can use Perplexity. ai. And one of the things you’ll notice, remember earlier I was talking about finding companies and getting a list of companies with Victorian flair in London? Well, when I asked that question at ChatGPT, they didn’t have an answer, right?

[00:24:12] Joe Waters: But when I went on Perplexity, which operates in real time information, they were able to give me that answer. So what I find myself doing, folks, is jumping back and forth from ChatGPT to Perplexity. Now, the difference is, is that ChatGPT is much more sophisticated and conversational, whereas Perplexity, I think, is much more like a search engine replacement in terms of giving you the answers that you’re looking for.

[00:24:36] Joe Waters: So I tend to bop back, you know, from, from each one. I spend a little time on ChatGPT, but then when I’m looking for real, uh, live information, like real time information, I go over to Perplexity. And I did this the other day. I was writing a case study on Gate Petroleum, which is a company here in the States, and ChatGPT, I asked them how many locations they had, how many stores they had.

[00:24:59] Joe Waters: Chat GPT couldn’t answer that question because if the information goes back almost a whole year. All right. Uh, fortunately, a I perplexity A. I had that information, right? Told me it’s got 70 73 stores, right? So the idea here is that when you’re looking for real time information, perplexity dot A. I is probably a better choice.

[00:25:20] Joe Waters: Now you may be wondering where I learn about a lot of the things I’ve been talking about today. Well, I really suggest that you sign up for the superhuman. ai newsletter. And it has some great information about how to use chat GPT and the other, um, AI tools out there, you know, from everything from how to use it for research to how to improve your resume with chat GPT.

[00:25:44] Joe Waters: So essentially in every issue, you get like a free prompt, right. That will teach you how to use chat GPT. And I’ve just learned so much about it. And I think you will too. Um, another thing, too, is it talks about, you know, things that are happening in the AI world, like the launch of Gemini, which is Google’s version of Chat GPT that you can check out and learn from.

[00:26:02] Joe Waters: And then one of the things I love, too, it’s always got five AI tools to supercharge your productivity, and it’s just like, You would not believe all the different AI tools out there that you can use to do things. So it’s just incredible, uh, you know, all these things that are coming up. And I’m only talking about really one today, folks, chat GPT, but there are all sorts of other things.

[00:26:21] Joe Waters: So you’ll learn a lot from signing up for superhuman. ai. Another great resource for you that you should check out is Wired Impact. Wired Impact, uh, I think it was just last week, did a webinar on how to use AI to write non profit website content, uh, copy that doesn’t suck, okay? So I reached out to David over there, who’s a friend.
[00:26:44] Joe Waters: He gave me the web address. The QR code there too will link to that presentation. And I think this is really important because I think non-profits in general need to focus on their owned assets like their websites more to make them more effective and productive for them. But more importantly, I think we need to focus on our partnership pages.

[00:27:03] Joe Waters: Right. A lot of us in non-profits, we don’t have, uh, we either don’t have partnership pages or we don’t have good partnership pages. I think this webinar with David and the team at Wyatt Impact will really help you. So take advantage of this free resource. Let me know what you think about it. The last thing I’m going to recommend for AI resources is another newsletter.
[00:27:24] Joe Waters: It’s called Almost Timely and it’s by no doubt a Boston guy, right? His name is Chris Penn. Wicked smart guy folks, right? And Chris is a data scientist. Okay. This is wonky. All right. And this is sophisticated and it’s complex and I don’t get everything that Chris writes about. And I put that diagram over there on the right to show you some of the things that he talks about.

[00:27:46] Joe Waters: It’s, you know, Sophisticated, right? It’s complicated. And, but one of the things I really like about Chris, though, is he is really out front in what is happening in AI. And he just provides some really good resources, too. This wasn’t something that, uh, Chris created, but it was something that he shared. It’s called the Race Framework for Writing Effective AI Prompts.

[00:28:10] Joe Waters: And it kind of goes through the things that I suggested earlier. Give it a role, give it an action, give it a context and execute it. Right? So there’s a formula to writing these prompts that you want to master and become more effective at. And the race framework can really help you do that. But I can’t say enough about the almost timely newsletter.

[00:28:29] Joe Waters: I understand about half of it every week I read it, but there’s a lot of good information there. And if you’re really interested in what’s happening in AI and how it’s changing and growing, Chris has got a great grasp on it. Okay, next thing I wanted to introduce to you was what I call prompt potluck. So what I did last week in my newsletter is I told people I was doing this presentation and most of the people on my newsletter list are people who work in the non-profit space and I asked them, like, could you contribute a prompt?

[00:29:00] Joe Waters: So what they did was they gave me a prompt. That would be helpful to you in the partnership space. Uh, like I love this one. My prospects, three main business objectives are A, B, and C. My nonprofit can help them in these areas, X, Y, and Z, right? Three compelling bullets aligning our offerings to their objectives.

[00:29:20] Joe Waters: Okay. I thought that was a great prompt, right? So what I did was I curated these prompts on one page so you can check them out. And one of the ones I want to point out is the one on the right, uh, run a basic analysis on the file I’ve uploaded. So you can do all sorts of things with your database here.

[00:29:36] Joe Waters: There is some caution, and I’m going to talk about that in a minute. But, uh, it is, you know, using it to crunch numbers and to look at contacts and look at your database can be very helpful. So, I think we did a great job so far covering the partnership, uh, solicitation process map. I think we, we hit on most of the boxes here in terms of different ways that you could use ChatGPT.

[00:30:00] Joe Waters: To streamline things. The next thing I want talk about is I want to talk a little bit about some of the challenges and some of the dangers of ai. And again, I asked chat, GPT, why should I be wary of chat GPT and ai? And it gave me a lot of good reasons, but I really wanna focus on, um, you know, the, the top four and you know, the biggest thing is.

[00:30:24] Joe Waters: You know, when you are using it for research and you’re getting information when it’s really important information, you want to double check this information, okay, because it’s not always accurate. And more importantly, it’s not always up to date. All right. That’s why it’s always good to do a little research, especially if the information is critical to what you’re trying to do.

[00:30:44] Joe Waters: Another thing to remember is data privacy. Um, you know, AI chat GPT is learning from you putting in all this information. So we need to be careful about the types of information. So if you have information, your organization that you consider sensitive, you do not want to upload that to chat GPT. My wife actually works in the financial sector here in Boston, and they are developing or they’re using a proprietary version of chat GPT that stays in house.

[00:31:11] Joe Waters: Right. So all that information that they put in, they can use it for chat GPT and have all the benefits, but it’s not shared with the outside world. The problem is, is if you’re using the free version or the paid version, chat GPT is learning and processing and uploading this information. So you need to be careful of that.

[00:31:30] Joe Waters: Another challenge with chat GPT is misinterpretation and contacts, right? It is not. Human and how it approaches things. It seems human like, but it’s not human, so it may not fully understand complex, nuanced and sensitive or subjective topics. Keep that in mind. And then finally, I think a real good point here about AI is dependence and skill erosion.

[00:31:53] Joe Waters: Do not over rely on AI. When you let AI take the wheel, it’s like in taking your hands off the wheel of a Tesla. Okay. People think that they don’t need to drive their Tesla’s. They think they can sit in the backseat and let their Tesla drive them to work. It doesn’t work out. Okay. And it’s not going to work out with AI too.

[00:32:14] Joe Waters: So You want to keep both hands on the wheel when it comes to AI, something that’s very important. So when we talk about AI, we think about all these things, right? And we think about this robot, right? Sitting at the computer and we think of, Oh, it’s revolutionary. It’s game changing. It’s brilliant. It’s unstoppable.

[00:32:33] Joe Waters: It’s miraculous. It’s all knowing all these different things, right? Well, I should suggest is instead of picturing a robot like that, sitting at your computer doing all your work, I would suggest you pitch it. This guy. sitting at a desk and doing all your work, right? And it gives it a real human quality.

[00:32:50] Joe Waters: So you’re thinking to yourself, look at that face on the right. Do you want to put the fate of your organization and that person? Because that’s essentially what chat GPT looks like. Okay, it’s young, it’s smart, but the truth is it could be the next Bill Gates. It could be the next Jeffrey Dahmer. We don’t know, right?
[00:33:10] Joe Waters: So we need to be careful about how we use it. And that’s why I say, thanks to CHAT GPT, we now have a great partnership intern, right? Someone who’s smart, someone who’s intelligent, someone who knows how to do things, someone who’s knowledgeable, but we don’t want to trust them for everything. Again, Keep your hands on the wheel, right?

[00:33:31] Joe Waters: Very important. So, today we talked about, um, in general about AI and corporate partnerships and again asked, uh, ChatGPT, How can you help me with corporate partnerships? It will tell you, okay? The second thing is, is we applied, uh, ChatGPT to the partnership solicitation process map. Right. And we saw how we could be used at different places, especially with prospecting in case studies and contracts.

[00:33:55] Joe Waters: Those were just three areas that we delved into. Another thing that I did was I offered four suggestions and two reminders and how do you effectively use it. And the biggest thing. Get on and start using it and start using it all the time for everything in your life So that is the best way to learn how to use it effectively jump off google delete google You know, you don’t need to use google search anymore use chat gpt and use perplexity ai and I showed you how to Use ChatGPT to search my site and other people’s sites more effectively, so you can find relevant, useful corporate partnership information.

[00:34:31] Joe Waters: I gave you four additional AI resources, almost timely, superhuman, for newsletters. And then, um, you know, I also included the, the webinar from Wyatt Impact. And, uh, Perplexity AI, which I think is a must. I think it’s a great companion to chat GPT. Uh, keep in mind with Perplexity, I’m using the free version.

[00:34:52] Joe Waters: I’m not using the paid version. Uh, I may be missing something, uh, from the paid version. I’m sure I am, but so far. The free version has been fine. Um, I shared some prompts with you based on people that sent them in last week for my newsletter. And then I also give you a little bit of warning, right? Of things to think about when proceeding with caution with AI and some of the challenges and stuff.

[00:35:14] Joe Waters: And like I said, you do not want this to erode your skills or your nonprofit. You want to use it as an asset. And the best way to do that is not to let it. Take charge of what you do, but to be in charge of it, something that’s very important. So that’s it today, folks. I’m Joe Waters from Selfish Given. I’m the founder of SelfishGiving.

[00:35:34] Joe Waters: com, and I publish a bi weekly newsletter on corporate partnerships. I’m talking about AI and partnerships more and more every week. If you have any questions from today’s presentation, don’t hesitate to email me at Joe at SelfishGiving. com. Also, I would really encourage you, if you have a great time, prompt that you have been using on chat GPT or one of the other platforms.

[00:35:58] Joe Waters: I’m happy. Send it along to me at joe at selfishgiving. com I’ll share it with the world and share it with other people so we can all benefit from it So I want to thank you for your time and attention today. The robots are not taking over We are the robots in charge of them and I look forward to talking to you all again very soon

[00:36:21] Alex Aggidis: so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us. Thank you so much. See you next time.

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This transcript was created using AI. If you spot any mistakes, please reach out. Thank you!

Earlier this year we shared our 2024 highlights and I realised that for many, this would have been the first time hearing about any of it – which isn’t good for transparency, but it’s also not great for anyone who wanted to get involved in any of it.

So, if you’re a fundraiser changing the world, a charity leader making big decisions, or a sector professional looking to be part of something bigger – here’s what we’re aiming for in 2025. We’d love to have you as part of it!

Our mantra

After getting the team together to plot and plan, a vibe was becoming more obvious.

In 2023 due to a team bereavement, we maintained. In 2024, we grew the team slightly and built strong foundations. And now, with more talent, data, and direction, the vibe is all about LFG.

Let’s F****** Go.

We know what we’re doing well, we know what we need to make better, and we know how to improve it.

So let’s do the thing.

LFG.

Our strategy on a page

In 2024, we had a modest growth in income, which we have put straight back into Fundraising Everywhere’s platform and people.

We have added a new Head of Community Engagement and Relationships to our SLT team, and in early 2025 will be adding two more people to our management team to help us deliver the goals we’ve mentioned here.

A significant investment has been made into our website which you’ll start to see the benefits of in early 2025. Members will be especially excited about this part!

We’re a bootstrapped company meaning we have no investors and are 100% founder-owned. Every member, attendee, and sponsor allows us to pay our speakers, improve the events we host, and invest in the tech we host it on.

We’re hugely grateful to each and every one of you for making that possible.

Objective 1: Grow our community