Episode Transcription

David Pisarek: Ever wondered why some boards of directors just can’t seem to hit the mark, or how to breathe life into those dull board meetings and create a powerhouse of passionate folks? I’ve got answers to all these and so much more. Don’t miss this. Welcome to the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast. I’m your host, David, and in this episode, we’re going to be talking all about those things regarding internal and external relationships with Teri Beckman.

Teri and her experienced team at HIGOL have helped mission-driven leaders increase revenue and community impact by an average of 50 % within 12 months of working together. Teri’s worked in businesses and organizational development for 30 years, including five years as an executive director. She totally knows what it takes. Teri, thank you so much for joining us on the episode today. Welcome.

Teri Beckman: Oh, thank you, David. I’m so happy to be here.

David Pisarek: So why do many boards of directors seem hesitant or ineffective in supporting digital initiatives?

Teri Beckman: That’s a great question. There’s probably more than one answer to that. One probably is, who is the makeup of your board? And if your board is skewing white hair like me or older, they are just going to be less comfortable with digital in general. I feel like the last couple of generations have literally been born with the phone and their hands coming out of the womb.

I think if you grew up that way or even if you’re a millennial bridging those different generations, it’s hard to understand that older folks, it can be really a big learning curve. They’re just unfamiliar and then less trusting of digital as well. Some of them may have been ripped off, unfortunately, not being able to identify scam artists and stuff. But I think there’s also underlying your question, why is the board sometimes just not comfortable with fundraising? I think that goes a little bit to just our personal relationships with money.

Money tends to be an emotional issue for most of us as human beings. It represents our energy in the world. I think it’s possible, though, for executive directors and development directors to have some conversations to open that up a little bit for board members so that they can get involved in ways that they’re comfortable with. Even if they’re not comfortable making direct asks, there are other things that they can do.

I think also in terms of digital, it’s communication. Take the time to really walk through with them, how this is going to work, and why digital can really leverage the power of your message essentially and really have a very positive effect on your fundraising results as well. I think once people see how things work and they see results, they start to get more comfortable.

David Pisarek: Yeah, being able to have the metrics behind it, I think, is an important thing for sure. Having the KPI. “Yeah, look, we did this. We spent X amount of money to do a digital annual report,” for example, instead of printing thousands and thousands of copies on Postage, “we were able to save this, that.” So it’s really about shifting the allocation of budget, maybe, versus having to invest new funding in some stuff.

And I think there’s an opportunity there for a lot of organizations to stop for a minute and go look at how you’re spending your budget.

One of my best friends used to work at a giant PR company, and they had tons of materials that they were printing and sending back and forth. And he had a conversation said, “Hey, can we switch all this to PDFs?” Like, “Oh, it’s going to be such a big expense for Acrobat Pro because they need to create the PDF,” and all that. And they ran the math. Within, I think, six or eight months, they had recouped the money, the expense.

Teri Beckman: Not to mention your environmental footprint. The energy and the trees and everything that goes into printing everything, it’s like, “Enough. We don’t have to do all of that.”

David Pisarek: We need the trees for the forest so that we can go hiking.

Teri Beckman: Yeah, and we can save money. I think more and more donors appreciate that. And they also appreciate, “God, something else on my desk. Really?” It’s just so nice to be able to point and click to what it is that you want to see and read, and you just have very easy access to it that way.

David Pisarek: I think it’s important to also understand for sure who your constituents are, who are your major donors, who are government officials that might be providing grants or access to funding and things. Sometimes they actually need something in print, but you can make a one-off print thing for them that gives them all the insight that they’re looking for.

I don’t think people need to do massive projects all print anymore.

I think that that’s shifted 10-12 years ago. And I think in terms of technology adoption, non-profits are at the bottom there. Big business that’s pushing, eventually you’ve got government, then sometimes you’ve got schools, education in and around there, and then you’ve got non-profits. And I found both in my employment in non-profits and through my agency working with non-profits that they’re 8-10 years behind the trend.

Teri Beckman: I think also to your point, David, you can use print in very judicious ways. If you’re trying to cultivate a donor that you know has means and you’re developing this relationship over time, you’re getting to know them, you can send them in the mail something that relates to something they love, maybe a T-shirt from the school they went to and a copy of your annual report or special things that can really have an impact that you wouldn’t do with hundreds of people.

David Pisarek: Thinking about digital assets, are there any specific digital assets that you think are essential for non-profits to potentially attract and engage new board members and even donors?

Teri Beckman: Just to step back a little bit, the first thing that I encourage with clients is to really develop a strategy around board cultivation, around donor cultivation, and some of that is overlap, but they are two distinct things, and I think a lot of it can be digital.

We have a digital board matrix that we like to share with clients and also just with any non-profits that are interested. That matrix helps you to really see who are your existing board members? What are the skills you want to have on your board given whatever industry you’re in? Let me give you some examples of skills, of general skills. Some skills tend to be universal for 501(c)(3) organizations, but definitely you need to tailor that to your own organization. Then you can develop a matrix where you can see what are the skills of existing board members and what are their backgrounds and makeups. And then you see graphically where the holes are, where there are no Xs and where you need to fill, who’s out there that we might be able to attract? And then you want to have a plan. I mean, same thing with donors. It’s the same general idea, although you hopefully have many more donors than board members potentially.

And then in terms of your cultivation, how does that work? For smaller organizations, what we have found, and even larger organizations, honestly, it works with both. But what we have found to be super effective, again, digital, very low-cost, is to have a very well-put-together essential business case for yourself. That is often in PowerPoint, and you can make it into a PDF.

You want to be able to state succinctly what is the difference you’re making in the world. What is the impact? Measurable impact over a certain period of time.

Then have your data so that folks that are analytical can see that this is a real problem in the community. “Only 60% of our high school students are graduating or whatever, and we want to be to 100% in the next 20 years.” That’s a compelling case for support.

Then the stories, the heartfelt stories of how you get there. What have your success has been? And then what’s the next step? How can people get involved with you? This can be in an eight-pages slide deck. And then you start to have conversations with donors around that as well as board members. It’s like a great way to start to cultivate board members on a case-by-case basis. That’s another, I think, digital asset that’s really important.

David Pisarek: The three big things that I think anybody listening to this should really take out of that is strategy, impact, and make sure that it’s measurable. And those are the three things that will get you to take your organization to the next level.

From the strategy side, making sure that you’ve got the inside, on-side, I love saying that. You need the board to be on your side. You need the staff, the employees, the volunteers, anybody that’s the constituents, the people that are using your services or your programs, they need to all understand what your goal is, what your impact is, and how you’re going to be out there in the world. And how can you actually measure that? How can you track that? Because, and here’s the important thing here, you’ve got an awesome strategy, you know you’re creating impact. But if you can’t say, we’ve helped 10,000 people this year, we’ve helped five people this year, regardless the size of your organization, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the numbers, you can’t make the compelling case about your impact.

Teri Beckman: You cannot. Yeah. And you’re going to attract some donors who’ll be like, Oh, it sounds good. I’ll give them a hundred bucks. It’ll be much harder to attract the five-figure, the six-figure gifts if they can’t actually see the impact of what you’re doing.

David Pisarek: And one of the other things just around impact, correct me if I’m wrong here, Terry, and to anybody listening if I’m wrong, send me an email, tell me I’m wrong, okay? But if your organization is going out with an email blast or snail mail, letter saying, Hey, make a donation. If you’re not staying top of mind with the people that you’re trying to connect with, even if it’s the five dollars a year or donor, whoever it is, if you’re not talking about the impact that you’re having, they really don’t care all that much about your organization unless they’ve actually used your services or they’re related to or know somebody that has.

So if you want to broaden your audience, if you’re going to go to the post office and send out a whole ton of postcards to specific zip codes, if it’s not talking about the impact you’re having, you’re not going to get the right response. And that’s where the strategy piece comes in and how that marketing communication plan around driving your organization forward.

Teri Beckman: We really need to recognize that people don’t care. They don’t care about how you get there, which is what your organization is about. They just care that you’re going to get the result. That’s what they’re really giving to, is your result. I remember very well, I mean, this has happened many times, but we’ve done some group intensive work with executive directors.

And what’s your vision for the future? What are you trying to do in the world?

I remember one woman saying to me, this goes back to the high school example. She’s like, “We want to expand into five schools next year.” And I’m like, “Nobody cares about that. Nobody cares.”

David Pisarek: Why do you want to expand into five schools?

Teri Beckman: Yeah, exactly. “Oh, you’re trying to get our graduation rate up to 100%. Okay, well, then maybe I would be interested in learning more about you,” don’t start with the how. It’s not about you. And that is hard for executive directors to understand, especially founders sometimes. But it’s very important to realize we must center this work on the impact. And also to make sure that you’re setting the GPS that way. It’s really important for your strategy to know that you’re on target with your strategy to say, In 20 years, we want to see 100% of students in this county graduating.” That all of a sudden, you start to see how what you said, we’re talking about with the alignment. How to align everything behind that. How to get the right board members, the right team members. Are we doing the right programs? Are we seeing the jumps and student achievement? Because this is the goal we’re going for, so everything’s got to align. If your goal is we’re going to expand in five schools, that’s a very different goal. And people need the courage to put their stake in the ground to say to have a big, audacious goal where 100 % of the students in this county are going to graduate in 20 years.

And that draws a lot more people in. And you can’t do that alone. You need partners. You want a big enough vision that you can pull people in to really support where you’re going. Then you’re doing something with your life then. You’re really doing something.

David Pisarek: There’s a really great Japanese word that I think really translates here. It’s called Ikigai.

There are really four rules that govern Ikigai, and it’s what do you love? So your passion. What the world needs? Which is your mission. What are you good at? Which is your vocation. And what can you get paid for? Which is your profession? And what you can get paid for, if we translate that to the non-profit world, is what can we get people to buy and to donate? Whether it’s time, money, effort, a like on social media, or a share of something. What can we get people to actually care about, and how can we bring them in?

And if we can think in that way, and I think people that found non-profits that start them CEOs, executives, the board, the people that work there, they care about the organization. They care about what the end goal is. How can we bring people into that? I think by having clarity around those four things is really going to improve the way that you message, the way that you talk, the way you provide your service, and the way that you do everything that your organization does.

The other thing that I would implore people to do is ask why. “Why do we do what we do? Well, we do it because X, Y, Z.” Eventually, you’re going to get to the, “We do this because X, Y, Z,” and that is the mission. That is the goal. That is the purpose. That is what is going to drive you forward.

And do that as an executive director, do that as individuals on a board or in your role as a digital marketer, whatever you do, but share that with other people. Do it as an entire board and then disseminate that. Okay, that’ll provide extreme clarity on why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Teri Beckman: Absolutely, yeah. It just came to my mind, David, but I have a couple of really good articles that talk about vision and what it is and how you create one. If I send those to you, maybe you could put them in the show notes for people.

David Pisarek: Yeah, that’ll be awesome. We talked about digital assets a little bit. One of the biggest digital assets that I think a lot of non-profits and charities underutilize is email. How can listeners utilize maybe personalized email to foster dialog, cultivate relationships, or secure donations?

Teri Beckman: Great question. There’s different ways obviously to do email. The very personalized email is in your personal inbox, and you can certainly leverage that. Then there’s email that get generated from CRMs, and those also can be very powerful. Again, it goes back a little bit to strategy, just what’s going on and knowing when to use which.

Certainly, there are certain times of the year, a formal campaign is very powerful. Giving Tuesday, that’s a very powerful time for people to be able to use digital marketing and emails and even just the whole end of giving season.

We’re getting to the end of the end of giving season. End of your giving, I like to say it’s not an event. It’s really that really needs to be a campaign of sorts. Organizations that have specific goals, “I’m trying to raise $10,000, I’m trying to raise $100,000, I’m trying to raise a half a million,” whatever it is for you at the end of the year, like actually having a specific goal, telling people the impact that this goal is going to have and then keeping them abreast of, “We’re 50% there, we’re 75% there, we’re 90% there,” that really energizes a campaign.

David, as you reminded me before we started, statistically, the most money is given all year long the last two days of the year. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. It doesn’t matter where you are in your campaign right now, even if you’ve already hit your numbers, keep going because you’re going to continue to get donations if you are sending out high-quality emails that are both informing people where you are. I think personalized emails are also very powerful. It’s a way to really deepen your one-on-one relationships with donors and especially again, at the end of the year.

David Pisarek: For anybody that’s thinking about how do we get more donations, what can we do, I have a great e-book. It’s called Three Simple Words to Increase Your Donations by 20%. It’s backed by psychology and does actually really work. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes as well. One last point that I want to talk about before we wrap this up, Teri, is website costs. So websites, you can do them really inexpensive. I would say those are probably cheap. And with cheap, there are connotations around that.

I want to emphasize low-cost is typically cheap. There are free builders out there and stuff like that. But I think organizations need to shift their mind around marketing and communication efforts where it’s not an expense. It’s actually an investment. In your organization, it’s an employee working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the entire 365. The question that I’ve got for you is, how can we help board of directors who typically need to approve larger expenses? How can we get them on-site to understand the importance of web and digital marketing?

Teri Beckman: ROI is probably the easiest way. It’s for them to actually see the return on investment that putting money into digital could actually create for you. That would also be my advice.

If you’re not sure about how you would use digital to really leverage your fundraising, I would start with, well, do you know what are your goals for next year? Have you done the planning organizationally to really understand where it is you want to go in the next year?

I mean, this is the end of the year. If you haven’t done it, this is the time. This is the time to get really clear about that. Then once you’ve got your goals, you have a sense of the impact you want to create,

how are you going to get there? How could digital really help you? I think it’s at that point that going back and really listening to the podcast could be most valuable to really find the podcasts that are focused in the areas that you want to explore that could help you reach your goals.

David Pisarek: That goes back to what we were talking about earlier, which are the three things: strategy, impact, and measurable. You can’t argue with the numbers. Awesome. Teri, this has been such an amazing conversation. If anybody wants to get in touch with you, what do they need to do? Well, they can go to.

Teri Beckman: Our website, which is higol.co. We do have something that will come up when you go on the website, and that is that that I was referring to earlier, that’s a really powerful tool to start to work with your board. I’d really encourage you to download that.

There are other tools as well on the website that you might find really helpful. If you’re a larger organization with revenues like five million or more annually, we do quarterly roundtables for those executives, their own set of particular challenges, and so that’s why it’s curated for them. But if you fall into that category and you’d like to be with other non-profit leaders, we tackle a topic every quarter that’s critical to non-profit sustainability.

We’d love to have you join us. You’ll find your way there on the website as well.

David Pisarek: Amazing. You also have a few ebooks. I think you have four. We do.

Teri Beckman: Yes, we sure do. Those are the other resources I was referencing on the website. We’re going to get a media page, David, so that people can be able to access asses like this podcast, for example. We’re constantly working on our website. You’ll find that in the non-profit world, you want to always be making it better and having partners like David who can help you be able to do that and really leverage your work.

David Pisarek: Yeah, we’re going to have a link for the website in the show notes as well as for… You have an e-book landing page, so we’ll put a link for that as well.

Thank you so much for joining in, Teri. It’s been great having you here on the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast.

To everybody listening, if you want any of the links, as I’ve mentioned, I think, two or three times already, head over to nonprofitdigitalsuccess.com. Click on this episode for all the details.

And until next time, keep on being successful.