By Sarah B Lange under Uncategorized on July 7, 2023

CANDY – the kind you don’t want to eat! (How to stop losing donors and make more money)

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Hey everyone, I'm Sarah Lange and I'm here to spark the philanthropy revolution. The word philanthropy means love of mankind. My show is all about the ways we can open our doors and hearts so we can do more good.

Hey everybody, Sarah Lange here. For those of you who are new to my show I'll tell you a little bit about who I am. I am a fundraiser. I live in Massachusetts, but I have clients all over the country, soon to be all over the world. I'm all about world domination, not really, but I wanna help nonprofits everywhere.

A little bit about my “why” There's different reasons I got into this field because I've been in here for over 30 years, I know I don't look that old, right? But my parents were very much about kind of doing the right thing, and so they were very clear about what was right, what was wrong. My mother engaged in a lot of charity, so she was a stay-at-home mom, but she was also a member of the junior league and did a lot of projects in the community to help people.

Both of them raised me to believe that it was my job to help people who weren't doing as well as I was. I really, really appreciate that. What I came to understand later is that they forgot to tell me that the rest of the world didn't work that way. I remember telling my dad in my early thirties, I was down in his house and we were like making dinner together and I was telling him some of the hard knocks I'd taken. He said, “Yeah, I feel bad about that. We raised you the right way, but we forgot to tell you that's not how the world works.” I was like, “Thanks dad.” Anyway, that's just a little story I wanted to share with you.

In today's episode, I wanna talk about candy and it's not the kind you wanna eat. CANDY stands for Chasing Annual New Donors Yearly. It’s not sweet and it certainly does not satisfy any kind of craving. The question I often ask my clients is, are your donors tuned in? and are they turned on? Do you even know? Most of them don't know. Most of them don't know if their donors are tuning in, they don't know if they're turned on and engaged and happy but the reality is that if they're not tuned in and they're not turned on, they're very unlikely to renew their gift.

That just puts us back on the treadmill because for every, obviously every donor we lose, we have to go out and find another one and we can lose up to 30% of our donor base every year so sit with that for a second. Up to 33% of your donors can walk away each year and how many years before you're down to zero?

When we lose a donor, it could be somebody who's been giving to us for a long time or at a pretty high level, and now we have to go out and find a new donor and chances are they're gonna be what I call baby donors, right? So, these are new people who are not gonna make a big investment. They might like test the waters and see what a $25, $50 or $100 gift will get them in terms of, I don't wanna call it return on their investment, but they wanna see how it feels to support your organization. It's gonna take work to get these new donors to renew and increase their gifts so for every donor that walks out the door, we now have to go find another one and it might take a few years before they're at the level of the donor we just lost.

It's like taking two steps forward and three steps back, right?

When I was climbing, oh my gosh, why am I spacing? Oh, Mount St. Helens. So, Mount St. Helens blew its top, and when I was out in the Pacific Northwest, I hiked up to the top and they were only allowing 200 climbers to go up every day, and so when we got towards the top, it was literally, we were walking through ash, and so you'd like take a step forward and slide backwards, take a step forward, slide backwards, so it was like a real slog to the top. And that's what I think of when I think about having to renew our, you know, find new donors.

This is what I call being on the donor treadmill. You got donor off, donor on, donor off, donor on. This is a really exhausting way to raise money and it's super inefficient. So why do so many of our donors walk away? Honestly, it's because most of us do a lousy job at stewardship.

Many of us are under so much pressure to get the next dollar that we don't have time to appreciate the one that came in. I've been under that pressure too, working at different organizations, having to raise money. I remember when I came back from maternity leave, the budget for the next year had been set and they put in an increase of $325,000, but they didn't ask me where I thought that money could come from, so I went to the board, the next board meeting, and I reminded them that there's no such thing as the fundraising fairy and that I was already working full time.

Unless they were gonna help fill that gap, that they had to go back and rework the budget because I was already dancing as fast as I possibly could. There is a lot of pressure to keep raising more and more money.

The other reason is because most of us have been taught to use a transactional model of fundraising because that's the norm. What we fail to understand is that our donors are trying to make a difference in the world by supporting our mission and that their donation is an extension of the relationship they're trying to have with us.

Most of us think we're fundraising, but our donors are engaging in philanthropy. So, philanthropy means love of mankind and there's lots of different ways it can be expressed, and the way that our donors are expressing it is by handing us a check and saying, “I personally can't do anything about issue XYZ, but I'm giving you some money in the hopes that you can make my philanthropic desires come true.” They're engaging in philanthropy we're engaging in fundraising and so we're missing each other like ships in the night.

When we keep losing donors, we get so busy chasing new donors, we don't have time to really pay attention and build relationships with our existing donors, which in turn means more of them are gonna walk away. It's a toxic cycle and it's a recipe for failure. The number one reason that donors walk away is because they feel their gift and therefore, they do not matter to the cause. When we do not engage in good stewardship, we're gonna end up eating lots and lots of candy. We're gonna be chasing annual new donors yearly because we keep bleeding out donors on the other side.

In today's competitive market, we've got 1.5 million 501C3s and the issue of donor loyalty and retention is critical for our organizations. Why? Because individual contributions provide us with that unrestricted income that we need to fill those holes in our budgets and deal with economic uncertainty so the more donations we get, the more financial freedom we're gonna have and donors provide us with the long-term security we need to survive.

Especially these days where there's so many things changing and the political mood is tumultuous and our country is really divided, individuals who care about our mission and wanna support our mission could make the difference between our organization thriving or just barely surviving. So, it's really important to pay attention to your donors. The good news is, even though overall the numbers are decreasing, the numbers of dollars given are increasing.

In 2021, Americans gave $484.85 billion to charity and about 80% of that came from individuals. That's a lot of money. And if you do the math, that's more than 310 billion that came from people. It's people like you and me so we have donors everywhere. They're down the street, around the corner, across town. Like, yeah, hopefully you could get Bill and Melinda or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to support your cause, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim so let's go after the average donors who are everywhere.

In 2022, Giving USA just came out with this report, Americans gave $499.33 billion to charity. Okay, so in one year, what was that? 15 billion more dollars were given to charity. There's lots of money out there and people are giving their money away, we just have to figure out how to get it.

Why is the individual number decreasing? What we're seeing is that boomers who are the wealthiest generation that this country has ever seen are actually dying off. They have largely carried philanthropy for the last several decades. They'll continue to do so through 2035. But as they're dying off, if we're not replacing our donors, then we're gonna be in trouble.

I was working with an organization recently and they're a new client and I was doing a donor data dump so we could look at who's in their donor pool and it turned out that the average age of their donor was 65, and when we looked at the rest of the data, so you got a bunch of people who are retired or about to retire carrying your organization at a time when perhaps they're moving into a phase of their life where their income is more restricted.

We really have to think about a donor strategy for bringing younger folks into the fold and what kind of messaging do we need to create to excite younger folks about the organization, But the problem is a lot of us don't know who's in our donor pool and we're not doing a very good job recruiting the next generation. Sometimes we just kind of accept that whoever shows up and gives us money is enough, but we have to really think about who our donors are and what are those characteristics and where can we find more of them.

The other thing is that people are feeling kind of jaded. A lot of times donors feel hounded for money. As I said before, nonprofits tend to engage in fundraising, not philanthropy so recently I made a donation to an organization because somebody I know asked me to and they sent me a thank you letter, took them 90 days to do that, and they included a donation envelope in the thank you letter. I can tell you right now, I will never donate to that organization again, because first of all, I don't know why it took you 90 days to get me a letter for my donation when the letter was very clearly generic.

I don't know why it took so long to hit the print button but the other thing is when you include a donation envelope, what you're saying to your donor is your gift doesn't matter and it wasn't enough. There's no gratitude in the thank you letter when you're asking for more money. Give people a break, let them know how their money was put to work and the transformation that they helped make happen before you hit them up for the next gift.

People are feeling a little used, a little bit like ATMs. And so, some people are kind of backing off. The other thing is that a lot of people up to their giving during the pandemic and have kind of now that that's past step, they're giving down. But in general, if you look at the data, 20% of first-time donors do not repeat their gift the following year. Why? Because it's a transaction. Well, we treat it like a transaction to them, they're trying to have a relationship. So, 20% of people who give you a gift are not gonna show up again and that's totally our responsibility to excite them and include them and engage them so they will show up again.

However, donors that receive a thank you message within 48 hours of their gift are four times more likely to give again. It's not that hard to thank somebody within 48 hours given the technology that's available. I'll talk a little bit about that in a few minutes. Four times more likely to give again if you thank them promptly. Why are we not doing that? Why are we allowing donors to walk away when it's not that hard with today's technology to say thank you and say it quickly?

A different study found that first time donors who get a personal thank you within 48 hours are four times more likely to give a second gift within the same year. So not only are they four times more likely to give again, they're four times more likely to give again in the same year, so you can see the power of thank you, the power of gratitude, the power that happens when we engage with people and let them know they matter.

One of my favorite people, excuse me, around individual donors in terms of research is Penelope Burke. She's out of Canada, but she really does a lot of research, excuse me, around donors and why they give and how they give and how often they give. She found that a thank you call from a board member to a newly acquired donor within 24 hours of receiving the gift will increase their next gift by 39%. This is such a great way to get your board involved.

All they have to do is pick up the phone and make a phone call to this person and say, “We really appreciate it.” Chances are they're gonna get a voicemail, right? So, you give them a script and they say, “We really appreciate your gift. We look forward to working with you to move our mission forward.” Bingo, now they're gonna increase their gift by up to 39%. So that's pretty amazing return on your investment. One phone call, the gift goes up by 39%. I would like those odds, the 39% return on my investment. How about you?

Another study showed that 36% of individual donors admitted they could have given more, and in some cases, much more. So, this includes an eye-opening 53% of donors under age 35 who said they left money on the table and 35% of America's most generous donors who give $10,000 or more to charitable causes. Clearly there's some room for us to grow when it comes to inspiring our donors to give their max.

I'll be totally honest with you, I give at a bare minimum to my undergrad institution because I have issues with the way they go about fundraising in particular, it is puzzling to me that less than 2% of their alumni have been giving nonstop from graduation, less than 2%. Okay, so we're not talking about a big pool of donors and yet their solution to recurring giving is to send people, if you've given a gift three or more years, you get this little card saying, “Oh, you're a member of the 1819 Club.” Because that's when my undergrad institution was formed, and then I get a sticker that's about this big with 1819 on it.

I'm not really sure how many of those they think I need or what I'm going to do with all of them, but I can tell you what I do, I throw them out and then I put the thank you note in the recycling. They're probably never ever gonna get even remotely what I could give and am giving to other institutions who have done a better job of stewardship and cultivation. I haven't been shy about my feelings. I've talked to the folks in the annual fund department, I've talked to the folks in the estate planning department because they keep sending me estate planning material even though I've told them I'm leaving them a gift in my will, and I actually Xerox the page of my will that shows the gift and mailed it to them, but they keep sending it stuff to me, “Oh, have you included this in your estate?” I'm just like, so don't do these things. Because then you've got donors like me who are not gonna give you even a 10th of the potential funds that we could donate. Don't let your donors leave money on the table.

Retaining donors costs way less than acquiring them. Recurring donors give an average of 42% more than one-time donors so the whole point is to invest in your existing donors because they're gonna give you more money currently and over the lifetime that they're with you than your one-time fly-by-night donors. Reducing your number of lost donors in dollars is the most efficient and least expensive way to raise money.

When we're on the donor treadmill and we're watching donors leave and we're scrambling around trying to find new donors and then they leave, a third of them leave, this is exhausting, right? And is it any wonder that the average tenure of a fundraising professional is now down to 16 months? 16 months, that's bad.

That tells you a little bit about how the industry is doing in terms of keeping its staff. And that also harms our efforts with donors because if you're the new person coming into that job and you're trying to connect with donors, the first thing they're gonna ask you is what happened to the previous person. And if this has been a trend and you're now like the third person in four years who's contacting them, they're gonna start to lose confidence in your organization's mission. This kind of turnover is dangerous to our longevity.

At the same time, I don't blame people for losing their jobs. I have been in those jobs where I came back from attorney leave and I'm like, “Did you guys pick up a crack habit while I was away? Like, where do you think all this new money is gonna come from?” Like, I was stunned. I kind of had to give them a good talking to about like, “Okay, so where's this money? You've identified sources of this new money.”

But a lot of people don't have that kind of chutzpah or they worry about losing their job or getting in trouble if they kind of take on the organization, senior management that's making these decisions. Instead, what we do is we look for a new job and we leave, right? I'm not saying I blame fundraisers for leaving and in fact, you know, that's why I started my own company because I got tired of being on the treadmill, but it's damaging. It's really damaging. It's damaging to those of us who are doing the job and it's damaging to our building our momentum. It's damaging to our donors because they can end up losing faith in our institution.

Are you ready to get off this treadmill? The good news is there's the key way to get off is through stewardship. Stewardship isn't just about taking care of your donors' money, it's about taking good care of your donors because what we need to understand is that their check is an extension of them. From their perspective, they're looking to change the world in a very particular way. Maybe they want abandoned dogs to find their forever home, maybe they don't want to see women in domestic violence situations, maybe they want to see the world filled with art and music, right?

Whatever their vision is, the reason they're giving you their hard-earned money is because they feel that alignment in their heart with your mission, so when we take good care of our donors, guess what? We're taking good care of their money too because their money is an extension of their feeling about us. Delivering excellent stewardship is gonna increase your retention rates and help with new donor acquisition because engaged, inspired donors spread the word to their family, friends, coworkers, and other peoples in their circles.

Now I've said this before, I will continue to say it, 63% of donors contribute to causes that are recommended by their friends and family. 63%, right? We want that good word of mouth churning through our communities.

The first place to start with stewardship is understanding your donors' motivation. Donors want to make a difference, they want to do good in their community, they yearn to contribute to something larger than themselves. Sometimes it's because the need is urgent, so for example, in a city about an hour from here, there was a pretty significant fire and it displaced a lot of families and then everybody lost everything because the building just went up in flames, it was an older wooden building and so the need was urgent. These people A had no place to live, but they didn't even have clean underwear, right? They didn't have a toothbrush so the community really rallied and raised a lot of money for these folks because it was urgent, right? There's that urgent need.

Sometimes people feel a sense of obligation. I know I was raised to believe that if I'm doing better than somebody else, it's my obligation to help them out. Similarly, sometimes we're taught to, it could be part of our religious, cultural beliefs and practices. They could be supporting similar organizations and want to kind of like spread the wealth a little bit. They're in the habit of donating and this is what you really want to leverage because you don't want somebody to make one donation and walk away, you want to keep moving them up the ladder. You want them to become a habitual donor, a significant donor, a major donor and then hopefully leave something to you in their will. You want to get them as far up the ladder as you can.

Your organization is known for doing good work so we have to think about our reputation. We have to think about reputation management. One of my clients got an extra $18,000 last December because a local foundation had some extra money laying around so they called them and they're like, “Hey, we're sending you a check for 18 grand.” Like, “oh darn.” So, if you have a good reputation, you're gonna be on the receiving end of unexpected gifts like that. Some people want to leave a legacy and some people want recognition.

But again, 63% of people recommend places to donate to their friends and their families and their coworkers. And research shows that word of mouth advertising is way more effective than purchased or other forms of free advertising. The last thing you really want a donor saying is “the only thing you care about is money.” And that's kind of how I felt when I got that thank you letter with the donation form. My friend is on the board of this organization so I just gave her very clear feedback that that's not good. It's not a way to foster feelings of gratitude and generosity on the part of your donors. It's not a best practice by any means.

This is why donor surveys are so important because you need to know how your donors think and feel about you. You also want to ask all those donors that walked away, so any of your last donors, I would really encourage you to talk to them and find out why they walked away. Sometimes it's economics. Most of the times it's mostly because you didn't make them feel like they mattered. Again, donor surveys, super important.

The number two reason that people give to you is because your mission aligns with the way they want to see the world. For example, if I don't want to see women and kids homeless, I'm going to support organizations that get women and kids safe, affordable housing, right? If I don't want to live in a world where people are dying from cancer, I'm going to support cancer causes. If I want to live in a world that's full of art and music, those are the kinds of organizations I support, right? So, there's that alignment between what my heart yearns for and what you're doing because most of us cannot take on these issues, which feel really big, right? So, we're going to give our money to organizations that are tackling those issues.

The number one reason people give is because they were asked. It's that simple. Most people want to contribute to the world, they just don't know how, so it's our job when we're working in a nonprofit to help guide and direct those generous instincts that are already available to us.

At a bare minimum, stewardship should include thanking them in a timely manner. I would really recommend figuring out some kind of automatic thank you that can go out, whether that's that your director of development has a handful of board members who are ready, willing, and able to make those phone calls within 24 hours. And they get a list at the end of every day. Maybe somebody's on Tuesday, maybe somebody's on Wednesday, maybe somebody's on Thursday, right? So maybe they just make whatever calls need to be made in that day.

You can also do this electronically. I'll talk about that in a second, but you have to thank people for their gifts in a timely manner. I really recommend switching up your thank you note on at least a quarterly basis because I have literally gotten the same thank you note from an organization three years in a row. Even though I told them like, “This is not good, do you want me to write you a new thank you letter?” They declined my offer, and after three years of getting the same, literally the same thank you letter, I was like, “okay, this isn't that hard.” And it just made me feel like they're not putting in the effort, right? So, I stopped giving to them and that wasn't the only reason, I'm not that harsh, right? I'm pretty easy going, but there was some other stuff that was going on with their fundraising tactics that just really turned me off.

Most donors are not gonna tell you about that. I will tell you about that, so if I'm the squeaky wheel, you know there's a bunch of other squeaky wheels behind me that aren't telling you. When your donors are brave enough to give you some critical feedback, I would not assume that they are the lone voice in the wilderness. So, let's thank them. Let's make it timely. We need to inform them about how their gift was spent. This does not mean you need to give them an Excel spreadsheet on where their $25 went, but you need to give them a sense of like, “hey, here's how we're moving our mission forward and you helped with this.” So, you wanna, again, like affirm their purchase, right?

Because you're in a business. You're in a nonprofit business, but you're in a business and so we want people to come back for more, right? Just as if you were running a for-profit business, you have to create that desire for your donors to return. Let them know how their money was put to work. If they contact you, please get in touch with them within 24 hours. Again, squeaky wheel, you wanna deal with them and then be polite, timely, and frequent in your communications.

There's organizations that I have donated to that I've never heard from again until they asked me for money. I'm like, “you don't have a newsletter, you didn't bother getting me on the newsletter list.” Like, “did my money just go into a black hole?” You have to have a communications program, even if it's just a quarterly newsletter and a bunch of social media posts, you gotta get the word out about the good work you're doing.

If you wanna do some great stewardship, I have a bunch of ideas for you.

First, let's treat our donors like people instead of ATMs because donors are an extension of the relationships they're trying to have with you, not a transaction.

Send a heartfelt handwritten thank you note within 72 hours of a donor's gift. For larger gifts, pick up the phone and thank them the day the check comes in. I cannot stress enough the difference that this is gonna make in terms of your retention and you don't have to write all the thank you notes. You could have your board members doing it. You could have volunteers doing it. Some of your clients might actually wanna do it. So, there's other resources.

We used to have our team group when I had my last development job, this was back in 1999. I used to have our team group handwrite all the thank you notes because who doesn't wanna get a thank you note from a kid? And they used to love doing it. And so, I would just, for 15 minutes at the end of every one of our meetings every week, I would have them sit down and I would give them the names and addresses and they would write out the envelopes and they would say thank you. Obviously, I gave them scripts, but our donors loved it. We got phone calls about that. Also picking up that phone is really important.

If somebody just gave you a chunk of money, I wanna know why, right? I'm always very curious about that, give them a call. And then also solicit your donor input, so this is where that annual donor survey can really come in handy because it's gonna help you learn about what's important to your supporters and where you might be going wrong.

So again, connecting with those last donors is really important. And you wanna provide a range of communication options. Some people prefer to hear from you by phone, imagine that, my son would not fall into that category. Others prefer snail mail, this is gonna be most of your boomers, they like paper. You can send out emails, you can send out texts, you can use social media. Obviously, most of us are doing that, but you wanna make sure that you're consistent with your communication across the different channels that your donors use. So again, this is something you can find out in your donor survey. “Hey, where are you” in terms of social media. Don't just like tweet if nobody's on Twitter.

They're gonna let you know where they're hanging out, but you really, really wanna make sure that you're being consistent in your communications. I also love to provide donors with extraordinary experiences, so have them come in for a site visit, for a rehearsal, an open house, like get creative and get in the door.

There was a project that we were working on, which was we turned 50 units of, so we turned an old school into 50 units of elderly housing with onsite services. And so, in the early stages of that project, we actually had what we called hard hat tours. And this was a way back. So, we would just have small groups of donors come in and we'd give them, we'd say, “you have to wear closed toed shoes,” hopefully like hiking boots or something. And then we give them hard hats and we'd show them around the building because the school building was over a hundred years old and had some really unique architecture features.

We kind of led people in on the tour and they loved it. It just, they were so engaged and curious about what was happening with the building. So do stuff like that, be creative, get them in the door because this is where they are gonna have this like visceral emotional experience and they're gonna connect more deeply with your organization. If you're doing a kid's art exhibit, have them come in the night before, right? So, you can always open the door a little early to them.

The bottom line is that by investing in your existing donors, not only are you gonna see an increase in their contributions over time, you're gonna have to spend less time chasing down new ones, and remember 63% of people donate to organizations that are recommended. These are people that you wanna leverage to get their peer circles involved, right?

It's also really important to understand and adhere to the donor bill of rights and I'm gonna have Chris drop the link in the chat for you so you can go on over and see what the donor bill of rights is all about. It's really important. It's something that's upheld by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, AFP International, all levels of AFP uphold it. I subscribe to it. I think it's really important for us to look at the donor bills of rights and make sure that we're upholding it.

The other thing is we wanna make sure that we're ethical and transparent in all that we do. Our relationships, and this includes with our donors, are based on trust so everything we can do to bolster confidence among our donors is gonna work in our favor. I found that the best way to systematically engage in ongoing stewardship is by designing a donor journey and I do this with most of my clients. This means you take potential supporters on a journey to turn them into long-term donors and advocates. You never know when you're gonna need your donors to step up and defend you for some reason, even if it's just with a local foundation that didn't give you a grant this year.

There's four stages. The first is Awareness. Obviously, if we want people to support us, they have to know that we're around. So how do people learn about your organization and what it does and the difference you're making in the world? Are you discoverable? That's really important. Sometimes when I look at my clients' online presence, it's pretty wobbly. Ways you can increase awareness include advertising. You can go to conferences. You can go to networking events, use social media. One underutilized resource I see a lot is appearing on your local cable TV shows. You would be surprised how many people tune into local cable TV. So, if there's shows that are relevant to the mission of your organization, get on them because they're gonna play over and over and over and over. And there are people up at 3 a.m. who could take an interest in your organization. So that's an underutilized resource. You could do podcasts. You can be on other people's podcasts. You can write op-ed pieces. So really anything you can think of to raise awareness is gonna help.

However, before you start, you have to decide who is your ideal donor avatar, who tends to support your organization, and where do they hang out? For example, when I was working with a domestic violence organization down in Connecticut, we decided that our target audience was women over 18. We started thinking about, “okay, well, where do women over 18 hang out?” So, we started looking at like women's groups in the area, so book clubs, yoga studios, women's business events,

We’ve just brainstormed this huge list of places and events where women would be and then we started strategically having people from this organization attend those events and go speak to those groups. And it really increased their awareness. We saw a concordant rise in donations and volunteers.

The other thing is thinking about who they are. This is, again, we're doing a donor data dump is really important. And also, excuse me, looking at who's following you on social media.

The second phase is Consideration. This is when your potential supporters checking you out. So, what's your online presence like? I was just on the website of a Worcester nonprofit yesterday and noticed a whole bunch of stuff hasn't been updated since 2018. Oh, like my first question is like, “are you guys even still open?” Like I know there are, but that's a really long time. To me, like, I'm not gonna donate to them. If you can't update your website since 2018, like I don't wanna know what else you're not doing right.

Anyway, you can share success stories, infographics, annual reports, videos, testimonials. Those are things that you can all do to boost confidence during the consideration phase. Finally, they're gonna make a decision and the balls are in their court. Just make sure it's easy to give and that all giving options are prominent. Again, when they give, thank them properly. Set up your donations in such a way that they get a confirmation and thank you for the gift right away. You can actually set up your website that they automatically get a thank you and confirmation page.

Then set them up on a drip campaign. A drip campaign is when somebody gets a series of emails at intervals for a certain period of time. And very few nonprofits do this, but they have a huge impact and it's a really great way to keep them involved. Then once they're in your tribe, you want them to evangelize. Remember 63%, right? Encourage them to tell their friends and family about their donation and with their permission, you could post about their donation.

These are all ways you can engage in stewardship and avoid eating candy, right? You don't wanna be chasing annual new donors yearly. That's no fun for any of us and it keeps you on the treadmill, which is exhausting.

I hope that was helpful. Chris is gonna drop some social media links into the chat for you to follow me on social media.

We also have the enrollment page for the online Fundamental Five group coaching program, which is still open enrollment. It's rolling enrollment, so you can join anytime and you get two coaching calls a month, access to my Fundamental Five curriculum and your entire organization gets to join for only 397 a month.

I'm really glad you joined me today. Thanks for your time.

If you've got questions, get in touch. I'll be back on July 20th with Tom Ahern, who is like one of the bad-ass folks in the industry. He does an amazing job doing copywriting for nonprofits around the world and has helped them raise lots and lots and lots of money. We're gonna hear from him on the 20th so I hope you'll join me for the event with him.

All right, have a great day. Bye, everybody.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Got topics you want me to cover? Organizations you want me to showcase? Let me know. Also, I'm here to help you revolutionize philanthropy at your nonprofit. If you wanna talk about what that looks like, drop me an email.



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