This Fundraising Voices podcast features RNL’s Josh Robertson who covers the importance of using personalization to communicate with your donors. Josh and Brian discuss: Why personalization is important for engaging the 21st century donor. How artificial intelligence (AI) and new, easy to use platforms can transform your communications. How to get started with turnkey solutions like RNL QuadWrangle and harness the power of this technology immediately. Find out more about RNL QuadWrangle here Our...
Nov 21, 2019•19 min
This Fundraising Voices podcast features provocative fundraising expert Jason Lewiss, CFRE, author of The War for Fundraising Talent. Jason and host Brian Gawor discuss: Challenging the assumptions we have about what it takes to be a successful fundraiser. What’s happening in small and large shops to recruit and retain top fundraising talent. What you can do as a fundraiser to become better, and advance your career. What’s next for 21st fundraisers looking to engage new and diverse donor populat...
Oct 30, 2019•29 min
We've just released our annual report on annual giving trends, from a survey fundraisers this year. I got on the line with Shad Hanselman, RNL's annual giving guru, to talk about the results, including what fundraisers say about: - Usage of channels, like direct mail, phone, email, crowdfunding, giving days and online giving. - Where fundraisers wish they were spending more time. - What fundraisers think is best for donor acquisition, retention, and upgrade of donors. - What's being done for you...
Oct 08, 2019•21 min
The basic job description of a fundraiser is to reah out to donors, listen to them, and provide opportunities. To see if there might be a chance that the donors want to make a difference for your organization, institution, school or charity. Well, increasingly, those conversations will happen with numerous members of the donor's family or even 's financial planners. Arlene Cogen used to be a financial planner, someone who was really focused on amassing money for her clients. Then, she left finan...
Sep 24, 2019•17 min
Philanthropy is more than money. It's more than values. It's all the other ideas and time of the things that they bring, and this is becoming more and more critical as we look at the younger generations. We spend a lot of our time in the fundraising world thinking about how we can better connect to donors, how we can make the ask better, how we can engage donors, how we can increase their passion for giving. But we're probably not spending enough time thinking about how we work, how we can work ...
Aug 30, 2019•25 min
Keeping the data on our donors, our supporters and the people that we serve secure is absolutely crucial for the success of any organization. There's really nothing that strikes fear in the heart of fundraisers or leaders at nonprofits worse than the idea of a data breach. Paul Ruffalo, who has decades of experience working in this area knows this, and I got on the line to talk with him about what's changing in the world of data security, and what he thinks organizations should be doing best to ...
Aug 29, 2019•29 min
How do you provide service to your donors or alumni at 3:00 AM in the morning? Or get them answers to their questions about giving, reunions, projects or even planned giving in real time? An AI chatbot may your answer. On this episode, our "designated millennials" Peter Christian and Quinn McGourty-Holland teach Brian Gawor how to make a chatbot work, including followup campaigns through Facebook Messenger integration. If you want a demo of the chatbot, get in touch with us today at ContactUs@Ru...
Aug 09, 2019•22 min
Engaging students in philanthropy is a key part of your fundraising development plan -- learning about the impact of donors, engaging students to give before they graduate, and asking students to help in the stewardship effort all can make a difference. Chris McBride from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Howard Heevner from UC Santa Cruz, faculty members at the CASE 2019 Engaging Students in Philanthropy Symposium talk about the power of student philanthropy programs. Find out more about the Symposi...
Jul 25, 2019•16 min
Running your giving program strategically definitely means thinking out to start of the year, how you're going to approach donors, ask them for gifts and thank them, but it also means putting in place the infrastructure to deal with the unexpected. Missy Kennedy at UNC Wilmington is an expert at this. She's had a lot of success over the past few years engaging the entire campus community and dealing with unexpected needs and challenges that philanthropy could definitely have an impact on. I got ...
Jul 02, 2019•19 min
Katrina VanHuss at Turnkey is transforming peer to peer philanthropic engagement. In this conversation, we talk about the psychology of peer to peer donors, technology and strategy that can maximize peer engagement, and what we think is next for peer to peer fundraising. Check out TurnKey at: https://www.turnkeyp2p.com/
Jul 02, 2019•23 min
One of the consistent things that I hear from institutions that I work with is that they're really interested in doing a better job engaging younger donors. We call them millennials. We're lucky enough at RNL to have two millennials of our own. Peter Christian and Quinn McGourty-Holland, who are just rock stars. They spend their days talking with RNL partners about new solutions and how best to surprise and delight what could be the most generous generation in history. We're going to watch somet...
Jun 21, 2019•22 min
Like many of you I'm lucky enough to have more than one alma mater. One of those is Illinois State University where I'm actually still currently a student finishing up my doctoral degree. I came to Illinois State University kind of in the middle of my career and the institution really blew me away. ISU has an incredibly deep commitment to the success of students. When you look at the key statistics on Illinois State University they blow away the competition in terms of retention, student success...
Jun 10, 2019•28 min
Over 30 years ago, Al Ruffalo wanted to help colleges and universities, and he gave it a try. What came of his efforts, and the efforts of the people who were part of those initial experiments, was the modern college and university phone outreach program, which has raised billions of dollars. It's also been a lifeline of real, honest to goodness conversations between students and alumni for the past three decades. This work is obviously changing, and the company that Al and company built has cha...
Apr 12, 2019•22 min
What would you do if you were lucky enough to come into a bit of money? Buy an expensive car? A big house? Or would you do something more people are considering -- start a family foundation and try to make a difference in the world? Well, that's what Suzanne Skees and the Skees Family Foundation have done. But they're doing it differently. With over 40 family members involved (some younger than 8 years old) and unrestricted grants to charities across the globe, they have something different and ...
Mar 29, 2019•33 min
Recurring giving is a big topic these days, particularly among our higher education partners. Everyone's watching the massive increase in subscription services, and particularly how young alumni or donors use them. Also, we're just really excited about the idea of people buying into consistent, regular giving. But most of us haven't really figured out how to give for monthly gifts real well, how to thank recurring donors, or even in some cases how to receive the gifts correctly. It's a tremendou...
Mar 19, 2019•22 min
Having a good relationship between your marketing department, and your advancement division is absolutely crucial. Michael Stoner, co-founder, and president of mStoner Incorporated knows this, and he's completed some research recently showing how this relationship can really propel the results of an advancement division’s ability to engage donors. I got on the line with Michael to talk a little bit about his history in higher education marketing and what he sees next for the integration of commu...
Mar 04, 2019•16 min
For a long time now, annual giving programs have utilized matching gift programs from corporate sponsors as a great way to increase their fundraising totals. You can, generally speaking, increase your results by about 10% just by engaging corporate partners who have matching gift programs available to your alumni and other supporters. I got on the phone with Teddy Callow at HEPData, one of the premier providers of matching gift data and resources to talk about how you can best engage donors in c...
Mar 04, 2019•18 min
Alumni participation: It's a key statistic that we all know is very important. It helps drive rankings and it's also evidence to suggest that we're really getting through to donors. Participation something that we all think about, but we're not really great in talking about. That's because it's been declining over the last 30 years at American higher education. Overall, generally speaking, alumni are just less likely to give to their alma maters. Dan Frezza at William & Mary is looking at th...
Feb 01, 2019•22 min
Working with major donors to ignite their passion to give is the #1 to transform your organization. Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels know this, and talk in this episode about what's changing with major giving, and how to provide gift officers the tools to connect with the best major and planned giving donors. Check out Veritus Group at veritusgroup.com
Nov 02, 2018•18 min
Crowdfunding is a great way to capture new donors. This socially-connected and optimized online giving platform is now in use by over half of higher education institutions for fundraising in one form or another. We’ve released our 2018 Crowdfunding Index, which reviews over 5,000 charitable crowdfunding campaigns on the RNL ScaleFunder platform, with combined giving of $73 Million. I got on the line with RNL crowdfunding expert Mary Grace Baldo to review the data, and talk about key trends and w...
Oct 12, 2018•17 min
Your high end donor prospects invest in experiences. This is true both in how they give to charities and how they spend their leisure time. Adam Capes knows this and he's pioneered a new way to engage high end donors with luxury experiences that also make a difference. Check out Getaway2Give here. In the 21st century your top donors are much more willing to invest in experiences than stuff. What Adam's figured out is that having a memorable experience as part of a donation is really crucial to e...
Oct 12, 2018•18 min
Making sure that your major and planned giving fundraisers are productive is a key part of raising transformational gifts for your organization. In the second year of our major and planned giving productivity survey, we explore these issues, find out what major and gift officers think about predictive analytics, wealth ratings, and how they're able to qualify donors at scale. I got on the line with Josh Robertson to talk about the results of our second survey on major and planned giving producti...
Oct 12, 2018•16 min
Looking into your database of supporters and searching for those people who are ready and able to make a major or planned gift is crucial to any organization's success. But how do you find the right people and ask them in the right way at the right time? Well, Greg Warner at MarketSmart has some ideas. In fact, he's built a name for himself by directly challenging our assumptions and the generally dated tactics we use to engage donors. I got him on the line to talk a little bit about how we can ...
Oct 10, 2018•20 min
Annual giving is the lifeblood of most fundraising programs, and we’re interested in keeping a pulse on current trends and fundraiser challenges. We’ve published the second version of our Advancement Leaders Speak series, where over 250 annual giving leaders told us about where they’re focusing their energy to connect with donors. Included this year is a special focus on both parents and leadership givers, two important groups. I got on the line with annual giving career veteran Shad Hanselman t...
Oct 10, 2018•18 min
Every year, the Nonprofit Research Collaborative puts out two big surveys to track trends in giving. Organized around 15 different fundraising methods, it’s one of the most comprehensive surveys around. The Winter 2018 Nonprofit Fundraising study report is just out, and shows that most charities are doing better through the end of the calendar year. I got on the line with Melissa Brown from the Non Profit Research Collaborative and Aggie Sweeney from Giving USA to go over the results and talk ab...
May 25, 2018•17 min
Student philanthropy programs are an important part of the advancement efforts. We know from research that almost 90 percent of colleges and universities do some type of student philanthropy program, whether it’s a philanthropy day, a student phonathon, a student organization, or even involving students in thanking donors. The Engaging Students in Philanthropy Symposium, offered by CASE as part of the Student Advancement conference coming up in just a few months, is a great place to find out abo...
May 16, 2018•20 min
Over three quarters of higher education institutions use the phone in some way to reach out to donors each year. At the biggest programs, this amounts to a student caller phonathon, which contacts thousands of alumni, parents and friends. These phonathons or telefunds can generate millions in support, not to mention great conversations which build the relationship with a donor. We’ve just released the RNL Phonathon index, looking at 93 phonathon programs from 2014 to 2017, with over $300M in ple...
Apr 17, 2018•18 min
Strong use of data is the cornerstone of any great fundraising program. The best programs take this to the next level, moving from descriptive to predictive – actually guiding gift officers and annual giving appeals to the donors who seem the most ready. Making this transition can be daunting. So today, we’ll talk with one of the authors of a new book, Data Science for Fundraising, building data-driven solutions using R. Ashutosh Nandeshwar is a fundraising data veteran, and a thought leader in ...
Apr 09, 2018•18 min
How do we get more people interested in fundraising as a profession? It’s a key question we’re trying to answer, as we struggle to fill positions, engage donors, and take advantage of the tremendous interpersonal talents of a rising millennial generation. I came across a book that is quite different than anything we’re used to reading about fundraisers. What happens when you go from rocker to fundraiser, and go all in on philanthropy? Mitch linker, author of No One Dreams of Being a Fundraiser: ...
Apr 08, 2018•19 min
We have the winners of the 2018 March (Alumni Giving) Madness tournament! This tournament is our fun way to determine the top alumni giving institutions for higher education fundraising. We took the institutions in this year's men's and women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments, analyzed their alumni giving statistics, and determined the two top institutions for alumni giving. In this podcast, we break down the results, methodology and talk about how to amplify alumni giving for your institution. 2018...
Apr 02, 2018•16 min
