096 – How to Plan Using Your Non-Profit Data with Beth Saunders

Episode Transcription

David Pisarek: How can you transform your non-profit’s data into a powerhouse of engagement and stewardship? Stay tuned. Listen to this episode and find out.

Welcome to the Non-Profit Digital Success podcast. As usual, I’m your host, David, and in this episode, we’re going to be talking all things non-profit strategy and engagement with Beth Saunders.

Beth is passionate about making missions happen. She partners with non-profit leaders to connect people and programs to missions and goals. Her signature framework called MapMoveMeasure™ is a guide for channelling your experience, your expertise, and your data. Yes, your data elevates stewardship and increases overall supporter engagement. Beth, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.

Beth Saunders: It’s great to be here with you, David. Thank you.

David Pisarek: Thank you. So I guess I’m always a little bit curious. What drove you to working in non-profits?

Beth Saunders: I believe that I might be a little different than some of the other consultants you know that started in non-profit and did fundraising for years and years.

I grew up in the corporate banking world and after umpty ump years of that decided and realized I was looking for a little more meaning. And it really struck me. I call it my Salisbury Hill moment. And the reason for that… You’re smiling so hopefully you got the reference and for those of you who didn’t it’s Peter Gabriel Salisbury Hill.

I was literally on a really big adventure vacation and I was hiking in the Andes mountains and I just had this moment where I was completely alone on the trail and I just looked around me and noticed how big the world is and how small we are and that I really wanted the little time I had here to make more difference. I wanted to contribute and make an impact and not just be a grain of sand. So I came back from that trip and joined AmeriCorps Vista. That’s how I transitioned out of the corporate world into the non-profit space. And I guess the rest is history you know?

David Pisarek: Yeah I think part of that is… I think there are different times in our lives right as we age that we’re like, “All right, there’s a little bit of a legacy piece. How am I leaving my mark on the world? How am I helping? What am I doing?” Not everybody’s there. It’s not for everybody that’s for sure.

It’s hard to chase for financial reasons right? Non-profits are typically underfunded even though they do really amazing amazing work. Anybody listening to this is probably going, “Yes, you’re right, David. That’s exactly what’s going on. I like working with non-profits because I know that we’re doing really good work for them and helping them fulfill their mission and their goals and their ambitions and why they started as a non-profit to begin with.” So I love that. That’s awesome.

Beth Saunders: Yeah, I agree. I would just say there that, you know, for those folks who have a commercial or corporate background, I was pretty easily able to transfer that and actually start doing project management work.

And I look back, and I think what I was doing was solving business problems using technology. It really translated into the non-profit space, which then later translated into consulting back to the non-profit space. So it’s been a really fulfilling journey.

David Pisarek: That’s awesome. All right, so in your intro, I mentioned MapMoveMeasure™ framework. So, I guess what are the key elements of that, and how can non-profits use it to enhance digital marketing efforts?

Beth Saunders: Sure. MapMoveMeasure™ is something I came up with to make strategy more approachable.

Sometimes, we hear strategy, and the only thing that comes to mind is “strategic planning,” and that’s the most familiar form of strategy, at least in the non-profit sector, I would argue. And while that process is important it’s not the only strategy.

And I also think that hearing the word strategy can sometimes make people just feel a little like they’re suffocating. It’s a little heavy.

MapMoveMeasure™ is a framework, and what it’s doing is drawing out three key components of engagement strategy, of which two really important are bookends.

The bookends are a vision map which is my version of a theory of change. So, if you’re familiar with the theory of change, it’s about really mapping outcomes that depict your theory for how you will make change. And that’s what non-profits are all about making positive change in the world.

So a vision map makes that big theoretical process very tangible. So that’s the map and the measure I’ll jump to. The other bookend uses a framework called the engagement pyramid, which was pioneered by the founder of Round Wire Consulting years ago. This pyramid is really about drawing on your data in order to understand how much people want to engage in your mission work to help you achieve your goals.

So there are different levels of engagement, and we say engagement, not donor support or volunteer because it’s all the ways people engage. And then we connect the outcomes that a non-profit is trying to achieve with all the different ways people can engage and that we measure in the period. We connect that by moving so move is what a non-profit is actually doing. It’s not moves management but we all understand moves management.

So it’s about moving people, your supporters, through a really personalized journey and inviting them to participate in your mission. So you invite them to help achieve goals that they share with you and you measure their engagement so that you can always make the right offer at the right time.

So that’s MapMoveMeasure™. This framework quite frankly amplifies any and all strategies that a non-profit has. Digital marketing strategy fundraising strategy and communication strategy because it’s keeping you laser focused on what you’re trying to achieve.

David Pisarek: I love the idea of going, “Alright here’s where we are here’s where we want to be. Let’s connect that and then tie that back to the people that we need to engage. How can we emotionally invest people in what we’re doing?”

And a lot of that I think comes through storytelling impact statements talking about where it is that you’re working what you’re doing how you’re helping. And “Oh by the way you can also be a part of this either through time or money both volunteering even just sharing this to your network and letting people know ‘hey this is something that somebody is spending time and effort trying to do and help.'”

Beth Saunders: That’s exactly it.

And you know what you said is you can help and people want to help because they share your goals. So, if I want to make the same change that that non-profit is working to make, I’m going to be more likely to say yes.

When they invite me to make a gift or invite me to volunteer or invite me to take an advocacy action invite me to join on social media. And I call these things invitations because your supporters actually want to be invited. They want to be welcomed in.

When the non-profit practitioners and leaders are thinking about asks suddenly becomes something that you can be afraid to do. You don’t want to ask for too much right? You don’t want to just burden people or cause donor fatigue as we hear about. But if you’re inviting it’s exciting and it’s a very welcoming and warm feeling.

David Pisarek: I think about “Hey, look, let’s go on a road trip together.” Versus “Hey, I need you to go and get snacks and pack your luggage and do this and buy a canteen and get a tent” and a very different approach. Like, “Hey, can you do this?” Versus “Hey, come with us along with on the journey, the path that we’re taking.” Look, non-profits are, in my opinion, friendly soft, warm, and fuzzy. And the invitation I think speaks volumes to that.

Beth Saunders: I love that you said… I did call them journeys but you talked about a car trip. And the vision map is literally a map for a reason.

You know, to me, it serves as a roadmap for all things. If folks are familiar with the theory of change, they’re probably more familiar with it on the program evaluation side. We use the theory of change to know if our programs are effective and how effective. And theory of change is actually more than a basic logic model. But that’s for another conversation.

I like to think… I love this model of theory of change because I’m very goals-focused. I’m motivated by achieving goals. And the thing is is that if we only stay focused on the really big goal that we all know as our vision statement it can just feel too big.

Even your most committed donors might care about that vision and deep inside think, “Yeah, that’s really going to take a long time to achieve.” So the vision map creates a roadmap for how to get there.

By laying out shorter-term goals we’re going to achieve these outcomes sooner. They’re more tangible and they’re more relatable to people as a result.

And so you have this series of outcomes that will be achieved by that non-profit, whereas the vision is probably shared by a lot of other non-profits.

Like there’s not only one in the whole world that envisions a world without hunger or envisions a world without poverty. I think most of us envision that and want that. But what will your non-profit specifically achieve to move toward that vision? And that’s what that roadmap, the vision map, does. It makes it very tangible and relatable for all of us regular people walking around every day. It motivates us to get more involved.

David Pisarek: I know you talked about it moments ago. We’re recording this on Thursday. Two days ago, Tuesday, I did strategic planning for my agency. We do this every quarter. And when we look at this, we look at “What is our five-year plan?” So that’s like the vision.

What’s the one-year plan? So the short-term or I guess near-term and then we do quarterly strat planning and then we break that down following the EOS framework to create rocks for us to do. And what is it that our focus is as the business, as an agency, as a non-profit?

What are the things that you can do this quarter to get closer to the one-year goal that will get you closer to the five-year goal and breaking it down to these micro-tasks? And I find that that becomes really easy because then you’re not thinking about this really big hairy audacious goal right? You’re thinking about what is the thing that’s going to get me closer to that goal.

Beth Saunders: That’s exactly the way I like to think about engagement strategy, which is what MapMoveMeasure™ is about and it’s different.

MapMoveMeasure™, an engagement strategy, is a really great pre-strategic planning activity and post-strategic planning. So pre because as you go into a strategic plan, you’re going to be thinking about everything around your business operations, your board structure, your funding mix as a non-profit, and a lot of things that are operational in addition to your mission work.

So if you go into that with a clear roadmap of vision like I said not just a vision statement which is obviously important but a vision map then your strategic planning is already more targeted it’s already more focused and therefore will be more strategic than it would have been.

I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen a strategic plan that doesn’t have a goal around DEI anymore or diversifying your funding model or expanding your funding mix building a major giving program. These are some really common goals coming out of strategic planning and engagement strategy is a way to help a non-profit achieve those goals because it’s engaging your supporters. We don’t have to do it all.

There’s people who love us love our goals and want to get involved. So it’s a really great way you approach it and making it shorter term again. That’s making things tangible and doable. I call it the Accountability Ceiling within the theory of a change. Your vision’s your vision. But what are you accountable for and what are you going to be accountable for today next year and the year after? And that’s where you get short medium and long-term goals.

David Pisarek: If you’re listening to this right now, take a look at your vision statement.

Don’t talk about your organization. Change it. Give yourself permission to change it. Change your vision statement to not talk about yourself but to talk about the outcome that you want to achieve.

Because then you’re dealing with “Here is the thing that we want to do.” How are we going to get there? And that’s the map. That’s going to be your GPS pointing you the guiding star towards how you’re going to get there.

And if you keep taking the tasks that you’re doing, however big or small they are, and measuring that against “Is this going to get us to do or accomplish this?” Yes or no? Maybe it’s not worth doing. You can leverage that in your decision-making.

Beth Saunders: You know you don’t need me here. You’re saying it all. That’s exactly how I like to talk about vision.

And one thing I would add to what you just expressed, David, is that you not only take a look at your vision and make sure it’s not about your own organization, right?

Your vision is the change you wish to see in the world. It’s the change you wish to make. If it has action words in it, it’s not a vision. It’s a mission. So a vision is the result. And results they’re the end product.

So try to take words out that end in “ing,” you know? But the data piece of all of this is like, “How do we know we’re achieving those outcomes?” That’s program evaluation.

The engagement strategy that we’re talking about today is still data-informed because when people get involved in your organization you’re tracking data. If you’re entering a gift you’ve tracked data. If you’ve entered in volunteer time you’ve tracked data. The question is are you measuring it? Because lots of non-profits capture a lot of data on digital. You could speak to this better than I can I’m sure.

There’s aggregate data and then there’s authenticated. I call it authenticated where I actually know the person right? I know the individual that took the action.

You can know the number of website visitors or Instagram followers. But I would like to be able to find out the actual visitor and relate that to a constituent. And so you implement tools and invitations that a call to action that someone identifies themselves.

And it doesn’t have to only be your online donation form. Obviously, some of the most common digital interactions that we can measure are email newsletters, online gifts, signing up for volunteering, and following on social media if that’s possible. That indicates that someone is beginning to engage and then it’s the non-profit’s job to provide a relevant call to action to invite them to become more engaged.

So knowing the data is one thing. Receiving and tracking it is another. Measuring it is another. Knowing what level of engagement that supporter is telling you they’re at is important to help you make the correct next app or invitation if I follow my language.

David Pisarek: I love that you’re talking about leveraging the data.

I know that in a number of episodes, I’ve mentioned, “You need to run your non-profit like it was a business.” If you were a business that does heating and cooling and somebody called you saying, “Hey, my air conditioner is broken. I’m curious how much is it going to cost?” “$3000. Okay, see you later.” Right? Or whatever it happens to be. Instead of doing that, “Hey, can we come and take a look see what the actual real problem is? Maybe you don’t need a new one. Maybe there’s a fuse that’s blue.”

You can engage with people in a way by understanding who they are. You can have volunteers do this in your non-profit donation comes in you can have that volunteer do a search on social for this person.

See if they’re following you. See if you can do a DM to them so it doesn’t even have to be public but see if you can connect with them and say “Oh, thank you so much, Beth. Really appreciate the $30 you donated to us. Here’s where the money is going to be used. This is the impact it’s going to have. Thank you so much. Keep in touch” or whatever. Right?

Then, you can build a nurture series over time with them where you essentially create a CRM (a customer or client relationship management tool) so you can store the data. We know that having a CRM in place will let future people in a similar role know what has happened previously.

Beth Saunders: Exactly.

The first iteration of my consulting practice was helping non-profits be successful using their CRM and building it out to be horizontal. It’s not a fundraising database because that’s a very narrow channel but more of a CRM, as you said, constituent customer-client relationship management. And that’s where it’s human-centred.

And that’s what engagement’s all about developing not just a relationship but a longer-term meaningful relationship. And it’s longer-term when somebody doesn’t get bored, and there are a lot of ways to participate.

And it’s interesting. So that’s your engagement pyramid. You need a lot of different invitations a lot of ways people can get involved and not only in what they do but in what role they play right? So, the role is to advocate for volunteer donor board members.

There are lots of ways. But in your CRM, you always know that “This is David, and he interacted with us in all of these different ways.” If you have a donor database, you’re usually tracking gifts and maybe making notes about other things, and notes are not really reportable or measurable. So I’m two thumbs up on the CRM.

David Pisarek: Yeah. We need to think of donors as a continuum. It’s not like they come in, they donate, that’s it. What led them to donate? What is the psychographic behind the reason that they’ve made a donation?

I have another episode, episode #16, where I talk about psychographics and the importance of understanding that. So go listen to that after this. Don’t leave right now. Stay here with Beth, and I, you know, really understand what is at the core of why they engage with you either on social with a donation, filling out a contact form on your website etc, etc.

There are so many reasons that people want to engage with you, and there are different personalities and rationalizations as to why. So, having some kind of real data behind it for you to make informed decisions to go, “Oh, we did a fundraising charity car wash last year around this time, and these are the people that came. We had a clipboard. We had somebody there taking names as people came through and we’re using that data to reach out to them to see what we might be able to do or not do with them moving forward.”

Beth Saunders: That’s a really great way to use digital and online technologies.

As I said earlier, that engagement strategy has a lot of different components, and MapMoveMeasure™ just makes it a little bit more doable. But all those other components include something you were just describing called a Persona.

So there’s a market, there’s audiences, and there’s Personas, and that’s also pretty academic. But you can make all of these things simpler and tangible by thinking of a persona and tracking what we call affinity in the non-profit world.

Every non-profit has a mission, and there’s often more than one pillar within that mission. And so if you know the event, or times we call them campaigns, if you know what drew that person to your organization, and if it’s online, you had a specific campaign, and you were talking about one pillar of your mission.

Maybe you are in housing, but you also offer some education workshops or some after-school care because you know housing needs to be more all-encompassing. Well someone might have more affinity to childcare that enables the parent to work while they’re in the housing than just the housing.

So if you ran a campaign around that and you track that affinity then your messaging to those supporters who responded to that campaign is more personal.

Even though you send an aggregate message to all the people, it feels very personal because it is about that pillar of your affinity. So when you track affinity, and then you said earlier like, “What brought that donor to the organization?” often the first interaction is through volunteerism.

And so if you have a way for people to volunteer and you aren’t offering them to support you financially, you’re really not only denying them the opportunity to help you more, but you’re missing an opportunity yourself.

So a lot of times people will volunteer before they give. It’s a way to get to know you better. It’s the beginning of a relationship. It’s also why in the engagement pyramid that giving time is quality engagement but it’s actually a lower level of engagement.

Before we say people giving money because giving money is a sign of really deep trust and commitment where giving time is a little bit easier to do. So digital gives you the opportunity to track that campaign or to track the form that they got filled out so that it can come into your CRM and then you can measure it more easily where you have a lot more context around the transaction.

David Pisarek: They touched on some of the challenges that some organizations have. Do you see any other more common challenges that non-profits face and how they could maybe overcome them? Leveraging data and strategic frameworks.

Beth Saunders: When I think about the biggest challenges, something that we’ve all heard about, and this is not necessarily about running a non-profit, it’s mindset I think we’re made to feel that, and a lot of us live with a scarcity mindset in the non-profit space which is why I’m really careful about the language I use.

I started by, you know, I mentioned I ask versus invite, and when we are only tracking data, and we’re constantly in the hamster wheel of getting stuff done, getting that data entered, getting more stuff done, and entering more data, it’s because we’re never looking up.

So, if you’re always looking down and just getting through your day and getting your work done, you’re probably living in a scarcity mindset. Like I don’t have the luxury of time to zoom out and get a bigger view. And so, something I think non-profit practitioners can do is just start by changing your language.

Think of every appeal and ask as an invitation and an offer. Actually focus on vision more or at least as much as you focus on mission. Because when you focus on vision you can’t help but look up.

I mean, I almost challenge anybody to think about their vision statement without looking up and then talk about what they’re achieving. When you talk about achievements and outcomes, it’s also coming more from abundance than thinking about all the things we need to do, which is stuff that isn’t done yet, and that’s scarcity.

I also think scarcity comes into play when we think we can’t afford to do certain things, or we don’t have all this sophisticated social media technology, or our website is just a one-pager. There’s no “just,” there’s no “only,” there’s no “it’s not enough.”

I always encourage you to do the absolute best that you can to achieve the most that you can with what you have, and then you will achieve your goals. So work within your means, and you can still achieve a lot.

David Pisarek: Absolutely.

You know there’s so many advancements in technology certainly with artificial intelligence and different platforms that exist out there to help you try to do the stuff that you got to do faster.

Where can we leverage technology to help us by giving us reports to analyze something to do all those types of things? I would also encourage people if you’re not following me on social go follow me on social. But what I am talking about is my calendar. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t get done. And what I do is I actually block off focus time in my calendar. I’ve got almost every day of the week a different focus time.

And sometimes like strat planning I was just talking about that was a three-hour block for me to go through and do that on Tuesday. If you need time to sit down and review your web analytics review your CRM data figure out planning for your next event put it in your calendar, and block off the time to dedicate your focus time to be able to move the needle on that task that thing that report whatever it happens to be so you can actually get it done.

Beth Saunders: I agree.

Just going back to scarcity and abundance; You don’t find time, you make time. There’s no time to be found.

And I do something similar where I block time just to get my own work done.

I can hear all of my non-profit friends and all my non-profit clients saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, easier said than done.” The thing is that I truly truly believe that even though it’s easier said than done, it doesn’t mean it can’t be done and that you really can’t afford to not do it. S

o if you want scarcity, the scarcity is if you don’t do some strategic thinking and if you aren’t planning strategically, you’re actually losing time because you might be following tactics or scrambling to research more prospects instead of cultivating the relationships you already have.

And so when you allow yourself to make the time to zoom out think about relationships and that you don’t have to do it all on your own you have supporters they’re waiting for you to welcome them in and it’s really worth it.

Again easier said than done. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it can’t be done. And that’s why we offer tools that help them get it done right.

You’ve got digital tools. I have a framework. There’s a lot of supports out there for those leaders to invite their supporters in.

David Pisarek: Absolutely.

There’s a matter of giving it the importance and giving yourself the permission to say “I actually need a half hour tomorrow to do this thing” and then putting it in and making sure that it gets done.

One of my little tricks is when I block off time in my calendar I’ll put something in my calendar to take care of. Like “I need to reply to this email or work on these proposals” or whatever it happens to be in the non-profit space. I worked in non-profits for 16 years. I totally get the “Yeah better said than done. I’m wearing five hats that I’m doing the job of 15 people.” I get that. What I found though is putting an event on my calendar I don’t let myself move it more than one time. If I move it once I’ll put a little asterisk in the title so I know that I’ve moved it. I have to move it a second time.

Then I question whether, one, it’s something I need to do, two, whether it’s something important that has to get done, and three, is there somebody else maybe that should be doing this. If it’s like, “Hmm, you know what? This doesn’t really need to get done.” Cool. Go on. See you later. Now I have a half hour to focus on something else that is important or to go to this meeting that I got called into at the last minute or “Oh you know there’s this crazy fire happening somewhere and I need to write a news release” or whatever it happens to be. So I think it’s important to use your calendar but it’s not carved in stone as well.

Beth Saunders: It’s important that any structure is flexible because if it’s not flexible, then it just breaks. That’s like goal setting right? That’s like appeals and event planning.

You need to allow for some flexibility and some variability so that you can learn from it and grow with it. Otherwise, things just fall apart and break. It’s too rigid.

I believe that in the way we think about things, I reframe things a lot and, you know, just coming all the way back to the idea of strategic planning. I was recently asked by two different organizations about helping guide them through a strategic planning process, and it really felt like they weren’t ready for that reframing the strategic planning to planning strategically and spending time creating a vision map really answered most of the questions that they were currently asking.

So sometimes relying on what we are familiar with is more than you need. So putting one event on your calendar to get that one thing done might be enough. Then going through the whole strategic plan doing a vision map and creating an immediate roadmap and then figuring out different ways that your supporters can be involved in measuring that might be enough to move the need.

David Pisarek: Beth, planning strategically instead of strategic planning flipping the words I think that’s really awesome. Amazing insights around strategy engagement data and planning.

I hope people listening to the show have been able to get some great advice and thoughts and some gold nuggets from you out of the conversation and talk to one of your peers about it. Like “Hey I just listened to this episode. You know Beth said this thing. What do you think about it?” Just have a conversation. You never know where that’s going to go and how impactful that conversation will actually be. Beth, if anybody wants to get in touch with you what do they need to do?

Beth Saunders: Well, the easy way to find me is on LinkedIn and if you just look for Beth Saunders you should find me.

Beth Saunders Associates is my consulting firm name, and I am to follow up on what you said. I love that challenge. And if you have a takeaway and you learn something go digital and tell us about it. Share what your takeaways were and what your conversations were, and tag David and me.

Also, on my website, you’re welcome to book a time to just chat. I love bouncing ideas around and helping people think through issues. So bethsaundersassociates.com, where you’ll also find a downloadable free guide for strategic stewardship called MapMoveMeasure™ your guide to strategic stewardship.

So, Beth Saunders Associates MapMoveMeasure™, can’t wait to see you online.

David Pisarek: Amazing.

Beth thank you again so much for joining in. It’s been great having you here on the Non-Profit Digital Success Podcast.

To everybody listening, if you want the links to Beth’s website, her LinkedIn resources, and the things that we’ve been talking about, head over to our podcast page at nonprofitdigitalsuccess.com. Click on this episode for all the details.

And until next time keep on being successful!