Ep 71: How to Handle the Biggest Challenges Nonprofit Leaders Face
EPISODE 71
From Challenges to Successes
Today I'm sharing an interview every mission-driven leader needs to hear. We dive into the hurdles leaders often face – juggling time constraints and securing vital funding. I'll share from my own experience how an entrepreneurial mindset and a positive approach help navigate these complexities. Thanks to our friends at Your Path Nonprofit Leadership Podcast for letting me share this conversation!
Together, we'll uncover three key aspects crucial to effective leadership, focusing on practical leadership strategies, and offering straightforward tactics for nonprofits to boost visibility, retain donors, and enhance fundraising efforts.
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Resources mentioned:
Easy Emails for Impact: My email marketing course for nonprofits, consultants, and social impact businesses. Learn more here: www.splendidcourses.com/easyemails
Amplify Social Impact: My signature digital marketing and online fundraising course. If you’re ready to start a profitable digital ambassador program or influencer marketing program, this course is for you! Sign up for my free masterclass and get $200 off the course here.
Private coaching: This is the fastest way to kickstart your growth and have support, strategy, and momentum to grow sustainably without burning out. Start by scheduling a discovery call here.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Christina 00:02
Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here, ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, let's go. I can't wait to share this conversation with you.
Earlier this year, I was on the your Path to Nonprofit Leadership podcast, ed by Patton McDowell, and this conversation was one of those where it was like, yes, I just left going. Everybody needs to hear this. And he so graciously said yes, you can share this with your audiences. Shout out and thank you to Patton In it.
In this conversation, you're going to hear us talk about leadership in a way that you really were not talking about in our sector and that I really want you to hear. Okay, I'm sharing this idea of lack of time and lack of funding as the two main challenges that so many of you all come to me, and I get it. Those are real challenges and real pain points and what to do about it. Patton McDowell is the founder and president of PMA Nonprofit Leadership. He brings such a vast knowledge to the sector and I think it's part of why, right away, we just got it and we were in a rhythm, in a groove, and this conversation is one that nonprofit leaders need to hear. Especially if you're feeling the crunch or the burnout, this is a conversation for you. I'm excited to be here.
Patton 01:28
Thanks for joining me. I'm excited to be here, thanks for having me.
Christina 01:31
I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
Patton 01:33
Christine, I'm excited about this conversation. You're doing some wonderful work in the nonprofit and, I would say, entrepreneurial space. You've certainly worked in both of the for profit and nonprofit arenas and I would dare say those are skills that our nonprofit leaders listening now can use both sides of that equation and that's what makes you especially qualified to talk about what you're seeing and how you help nonprofit leaders in particular. So let's start with that. You work with a lot of them, you're coaching them, you're training them. What's the biggest challenge you're seeing right now? Anything in particular jump out to you as you think about nonprofit leadership.
Christina 02:10
Yeah, I think that the two things that come to mind are time and money. Right, it's like funding, funding, funding. Right, we see, giving is down, you know, in all the headlines and it seems really intimidating and scary. And those are the two things time and money, and all the enough time. We need more funding and more money. But really, I think what the biggest challenge is is how they're thinking.
So, it's actually how you think about some of those problems, which I will. I will agree with you, those are challenges, right, those are real problems, but how you're thinking about it informs everything. I'll give you an example, which is many of us, including myself we have a lot of thoughts about doing our taxes. I don't know why, but about two months before tax, like before I talk to my accountant and give him all the stuff, I start the dread cycle.
Patton 02:59
I don't want to do my.
Christina 03:00
I had to find my thing and I had to start. You know, meanwhile, like it's never actually been a problem, I just dread it, and that informs my entire experience beginning, middle and end of the task. And so how we're thinking as leaders really does inform our experience of it, and then it informs kind of how we show up. So when funding is an issue, when time is truly an issue and you're overworking how you're thinking about, it actually can kind of burn you out a little bit more.
Patton 03:28
So that's a good point, and I guess I'm guilty as well. So you see, procrastination maybe, or because we do, we get paralyzed. Are you seeing a lot of that as it?
Christina 03:37
relates to raising money. So it can show up a bunch of different ways.
It can show up as procrastination. It can show up as just thinking well, I read that article and giving is down, and so now I'm going to go into that funder meeting with the thought giving is down. Oh, don't do that. Giving may be down for some people, but don't decide for people if it's down or not for them right, or whether or not they like there. It's just, it's just such a bad way to to kind of go about your life. It's like the the Achilles heel kind of dragging it in behind you, of like bringing that to a funder meeting, bringing that to a Zoom coffee with a potential part you know what I mean.
It's like you're kind of showing up with with like ER, like sad face, you know, and then no one wants to know that that doesn't really create. That make create somebody showing up and making a gift one time, but that does not create lifetime, life long giving, like that ER Kind of kind of mentality.
Patton 04:38
So we'll put. I'm picturing ER and and you're right, I've been in staff meetings or team meetings with the ER leader, right, yeah, and I guess that's another way this manifests itself, right, if I am struggling personally as a leader and well, I'm glad you're raising that, because there may be listeners right now who are, in fact, reading these headlines. They're nervous, they're stressed, they're manifesting in every different way, and, of course, I want to talk about how you, though, are helping these leaders get through that. But before we do that, let's talk about your journey. How did you get into this space that now leads to helping nonprofit leaders?
Christina 05:15
Yeah, so I definitely have forever straddled the line of like working with nonprofits, working for for profits and loving that sweet spot. And the more nonprofit leaders I work with, the more that I'm like y'all are just entrepreneurs, I get it.
Patton 05:29
I get it.
Christina 05:30
Like we are our biggest critic, we are our biggest champion. When it's good, it's good. When it's not good, it's not good. And so I love working with nonprofits for that reason. I would say I really got my start when I started in PR and marketing agency years and years ago, and that is when I started working with nonprofits along the way. So we worked with big for profits and along the way I started working with these nonprofits. I'm like why aren't they doing any of the strategies that are making these other brands so much money?
We can adapt them and develop them to work and so ultimately that's when I started consulting and coaching and teaching online courses and kind of scaling to one to many and I feel like there are so many nonprofits. One of the things that when you kind of get into my world I sort of push you to do is like we got to ditch the old way. We got to ditch. We can take what we want with us, that's fine, but we got to ditch a little bit of the old way of how we think about fundraising, about how we think about marketing, about how we think about messaging all of it. And I would say one of my sweet spots is because I don't come from a development background, so I haven't read the same book that you read or were taught to read.
I'm like let's go ahead and leave that book on a shelf. I got a better book for you. Let's do this way.
Patton 06:47
Love the book analogy because of course I'm going to ask you for book recommendations later. So delighted that you're already getting warmed up Exactly what talk more about the old way. What old ways do you see that you're helping? Try to change.
Christina 07:03
Well, we have a lot of innovation in the nonprofit field. So we have that. So we have people who are working for organizations that are maybe founding their organizations, that are disrupting the field, and then they're also going. Well, this is the cultivation process. This is how I have to steward new donors, this is how I have to ask, and it's like we can question all of that. There is not one right way.
I always say to my clients if there was one right way, there would be one book at Barnes Noble that would be how to make money for your nonprofit, and there would be one marketing book.
There's not one right way. And when you start to really believe that there's not one right way, there's the way that you decide, works with your mission, works with your vision, works with the way that you want to talk to people, the words you want to say. It attracts more people to want to be around you. It attracts more people to want to vocalize their support for your organization, fundraise alongside with you, so you're not doing it alone. So it's just that idea of the other piece that is hard. I'm like we're not cursing.
And one piece that's hard for me is Well, it takes this amount of time. I have to have this amount of time before I can do this thing, and I'm like that's not true and I feel like a lot of times it's doing a donor or a disservice If you put them on some sort of standard schedule, right, right, because I might be fiscal year-end or my fiscal year-end, that's right, I'm going to call those who need me, like I might be the person who wants to help your organization and because I've only given $100 one time, you've put me in a bucket.
Or because I give $1000 once a year. You put me in a bucket you've decided for me and that's not cool. So there's a better way to kind of cultivate people in a way that feels good on both sides.
Patton 08:54
Love the way you put that, and I've seen a lot of nonprofit leaders I've worked with. You're right. They kind of get parachuted into an organization and they just assume that, well, we got to keep doing it the way we've always done it. And so I guess, that I guess resating your point right that are you often trying to break them free from? You don't have to do it the way you've always done it.
Christina 09:14
Yeah, and letting them see we don't have to throw the whole thing away, because there is I mean listen, if your organization's at half a million dollars, you've got a lot of good in there that got you to there right. But to get you to a million dollars we got to be willing to shake things up. We've got to be willing to shake things up so we may start to inject one new strategy and then kind of develop as we kind of layer them on. So it's not like ripping a complete bandaid off and, like I said, there's a lot that's working. It's just being willing to adopt some new strategies along the way.
Patton 09:50
Yeah, well put. And again, as much as we both would love to have that single book tell us the way to do it, every organization is different, every leader is different, and so you're helping them find though their path, if I can use the term I love in terms of this podcast title, but with the path. But is that what the cliche from the for-profit community often I hear is? I wish my nonprofit could just act more like a business if they would provide more kind of business guidelines. Do you find that's true at all, or are you helping introduce some business and entrepreneurial kind of mindsets to your nonprofit?
Christina 10:28
Definitely, definitely. I think I can't help it, because one of my very first jobs I was in sales and then after that I was in real estate, which was really just still sales, and I think having that foundation of being willing to talk to somebody whether it's cold or a warmly and it doesn't matter when prospect about what you do in a way that you're passionate about, whether you're selling literally an item of clothing or a house or something like that gave me a lot of tools that I can adapt for nonprofits, where it's like being able to talk about what you're doing in a way that people are nodding along, they're leaning forward with you, they want to hear about that. You're not annoying them, you're not hounding them, you're not grassy, you're literally just talking about something that you're passionate about. So I think that that translates quite a bit from the nonprofit to for-profit or vice versa.
Patton 11:19
Yeah, so well put, because many of us have had experiences, perhaps, where fundraising was an arm-twisting exercise, right, or we experience it from the other side. Yeah, I can feel grueling, exactly, and we assume that, and.
Christina 11:31
I've been in the. I've been voluntold that I was going to be on the auction committee for my kid's charity fundraiser. I get it. I know what that feels like it's not fun.
Patton 11:41
It's not good.
Christina 11:42
And it feels it's not good and you feel awkward and pushy calling the local small business to donate a thing. I know what that feels like and it doesn't have to feel that way at all Well put.
Patton 11:56
I've seen you described Christina as a purpose and profit coach.
Christina 12:01
Yeah. What does that mean yeah, for me I've really honed in my business and the people I work with. It's like this intersection of purpose, so that mission-driven, heart-centered work that got you here listening to this podcast and profit, because none of this works Like. None of this is scalable. You're not able to help many people, if any, if there isn't funding for it. Right, and I have had organizations come to me who are very, very DIY Very much. I almost call them at the hobby level.
Patton 12:34
And that is fine.
Christina 12:36
But if you want to be a nonprofit organization that really accomplishes that vision that you have in the future, we gotta make money and we have to do it in a scalable way. It can't be like that crazy sprint at the end of the year that you white-knuckle till December 31st.
Patton 12:51
Yes, yes.
Christina 12:52
Right, and then January 1st rolls around, you're like you feel horrible because you're like I gotta do it again. It can't be that Like. That's not the kind of money I'm talking about making. I'm talking about the kind of money that grows sustainably and scales year over year, where you make investments in your employees. You make investments to make sure we're not seeing like crazy amount of churn and burnout and that it's scalable so that you can put more people through your programs or services. That's the piece where it's like we really have to put profit in the mix. It needs to be thought about often.
Patton 13:24
Yeah, and I love the way you're illustrating your coaching style and I'm sure this is the language you use in working with individuals. In fact, maybe speak to the value of coaching. I mean, what are you looking for in an ideal coaching relationship? And talk about the value. I see more nonprofit leaders fortunately, Christina, embracing coaching. I hope you do too, but I wonder if you could speak to the value of coaching, especially for nonprofit leaders.
Christina 13:51
So much. So I think of one of my clients who we started coaching at the beginning of the year and the reason why he's like I'm ready to hit the gas. I'm ready to hit the gas, christina, and I was like, oh, that's good, that's a good sign.
Like he was, like I'm so ready for this to be the year we scale up, and for him that meant really dealing with a lot of mindset stuff around asking people for money. Listen, his programs were rocking and rolling. He had social proof. He had years of this working.
So, for him, his roadblock was asking people for money and working through that, and that was a lot of mindset For other people. They're rocking and rolling and they've got a nice solid strategy in place for marketing and for fundraising and it's just the next layer of like ooh, what does this next layer of growth look like? I think that's what a coach does really, really well is pushing people to that little place they're thinking about going, want to go and feel scary, and so having some support, some accountability and some strategy because there is consulting for sure in that mix. And then inside my courses, one of the things that I started doing.
So years ago I built my first online course and all of my courses are self-study, but I really started adding coaching to it and, without a doubt, people show up to the coaching calls. They are like I don't even know what I want to talk about today, and then one person kind of raises their hand and says something and everybody is like, oh, me too. And immediately feels just like normalized. And seen the person that says, they feel behind on X, y and Z, here's four other people say I do too. And then it's like OK, how do we get you feeling back on track. So coaching can be any one of those things.
Patton 15:31
Yes, yes and well, I'm a big fan, as you know, and have found value. It sounds like you have in the small group setting. We have some mastermind programming, but you're doing coaching, both one-on-one as well as in that small group setting, and then they can do independent study with your courses.
Christina 15:48
Exactly so. My business is split up in those two ways Primarily online courses. So marketing, fundraising, influencer marketing, email, all those good things In there. They do get some support with coaching. We'll meet up as a group, sometimes quarterly or monthly. So I like to go OK, what is our plan? What is your next plan for Q3 or Q4? Let's get everybody on track and we'll go about it that way.
Or they can say I've got this funder meeting, I'm not sure what to say, and then my one-to-one coaching is much more high touch. That's where I'm really getting that comprehensive look at All. Right, what is that thing you want to achieve? Let's peek behind the curtain and see what you're doing and what you're not doing, maybe where we can buy you some time back. Stop doing this double down on this and ultimately that one-on-one. Always they come in for help with a specific strategy, help with a specific campaign, help with a specific goal. But we will always leave in the mindset because the reason they haven't done it yet wasn't typically a template they needed or a tool they needed. Right, it was something else. And so that's that mindset piece.
Patton 16:54
And you started with mindset. You're right and you've weaved it in. I totally understand now and I guess I know unfair question in a sense that there's no single answer, but have you found a sweet spot in terms of the time a coaching relationship takes?
Christina 17:12
That's a good question. So I start everyone on four month packages because I want to make sure I can get you a win. I mean, we experience wins. Really, within the first month will experience a win, but four months I can usually get you an arc through a campaign, through a launch, through getting through some funder meetings, like whatever the thing is, it's a milestone event. Exactly yeah exactly, yeah, so I like four months for that.
Patton 17:39
That's perfect, and I'm grateful because I know you're sharing some of your coaching wisdom with our listeners right now. In fact, I want to jump into something you and I talked about before. You think, and I love rule three here, so you've got a list for me. Let's talk about your three keys to effective nonprofit leadership and the three, I think, distinct categories you've pondered Talk about. Well, I'm going to introduce the first one Decisive, courageous action. Decisive, courageous action. What do you mean by that? And help me unpack it.
Christina 18:13
I think the two words are like inextricably linked. Because sometimes, in order to take decisive action, you have to be courageous, because decisive action is not easy. Decisive action can actually feel pretty wobbly and hard sometimes.
Patton 18:29
Scary Right Sometimes yeah.
Christina 18:31
Yeah, when your staff, your team, your volunteers, your board or whatever is looking to you and time is of the essence, you need to make action. I just don't. I don't actually only mean like in crisis and emergency, but what I see a lot of nonprofit leaders do is kick the can further down.
Patton 18:52
Yes.
Christina 18:52
Let's table this right Everybody's favorite in board meeting. Let's just table this. No, let's not table it, let's make some courageous, decisive action. So that's really, really important. And I think what keeps people stuck is they think they got to research it a little bit more, ask for another opinion, just sleep on it, right, those types of things. And I'm not saying be sloppy about it and just make wild decisions here and there.
19:16
But it is. I like to give myself a time bound. So when I started my podcast I said all right, there's at least a dozen different ways I can upload my episode to the podcast feeds right. I could Google this for months, or I could ask three experts, their advice and guess what?
19:37
All three experts said three different ones, and then I said I'm just going to pick one, and I'm going to pick one today Like decisive, courageous action If I want to make a shift down the road. Fine, but I'm not thinking about this anymore, and so that kind of quick clip is really important.
Patton 19:50
Love that and love the practical example you're giving. And again, that thread you have weaved through this mindset right. It's so much easier to just table it right, or? Just keep going what we're doing Again, you're advising our listeners and these leaders be decisive and mistakes will occur, I guess.
Christina 20:10
It's about to say, and that's the reason why we want to table. It is because then we don't have to fail. On the other side of taking some new action especially is that feeling of I might fail. Oh gosh, what if I did fail? What if everybody hates this decision? What if I hear pushback? Right, I get it.
Patton 20:29
But nothing gained. If we're not going to try, that's right.
Christina 20:32
We're going to go and we still make the decision.
Patton 20:34
Yeah Well, I guess related your second point in these kind of three leadership keys. You talk about evidence of forward thinking. So what you mean by that and maybe what evidence you see of that?
Christina 20:48
Yeah, I think this idea of forward thinking and OK, if you kind of zoom out for the year is what you're doing, pushing you towards where you want to be in five years. Your organization's vision is to the two kind of match up, or are you stuck in rear view mirror thinking, which is again that sort of rinse and repeat of last year? I'm OK with you rinsing and repeating some of last year.
Patton 21:11
Yeah, right.
Christina 21:13
But it cannot be like word for word. For example, giving Tuesday. We all, we all know, ok, what a giving Tuesday campaign looks like. However, this year you're giving Tuesday campaign cannot look like last year. We know that, because if you do that, you're going to see a dip. We know that, right, you're going to see less reach than you did last year. People are probably in boxes or more full, right, so you're going to have to shake things up. And that's that idea of forward thinking. Ok, how could I position this different? How can I message it different? Who can I reach out to? That's different than I did last year. What is that kind of forward thinking?
Patton 21:47
Yeah, and I love that. And again, so you just can't be on autopilot, which sadly some of our friends in the nonprofit space are, and I guess you're encouraging folks to stop to, to, to listen, to analyze, or I guess, is that what for the forward thinking leaders that you see that are really doing it? Well, I guess they're, they're intentional about that review and make changes. Or what. What would you say is evidence, and obviously I think it's something that we should be looking at as a kind of overall.
Christina 22:14
So one of the things I like to suggest people do I did this in my own business was do an audit, Like not just once a year where you're like what the heck is my plan.
I did mine at the end of May because that's when it worked well for my schedule, my kid's schedules, things like that and I said it's not technically six months into the year, but here we go, we're doing a Q1 and Q2 audit and we're going to go vision cast for Q3 and Q4. And I gave myself I blocked out time, I didn't have anything on the schedule for a few days and I just literally ran my reporting, which I don't love to do, like I don't nerd out totally on data but I did.
And I wrote down, just old school. I wrote down what are some insights here? And I was like, ooh, that's interesting. How is this performing differently than I thought I did? Oh, ok, let me do that. And then I took myself out to lunch or out for a walk. And that's when I start to ideate and I say, all right, what do I want to accomplish by the end of the year? And that's the same thing a leader could do, like what sounds fun, what sounds interesting, what sounds cool and creative, what have I seen?
a big, cool charity, water style charity do that I wish we could do what excites me and then go OK, how do we do that? What does that look like? Just dream a little, I think sometimes we get so far in it we forget to step out of it. Enough to dream, and in the ideating is for sure, a cool marketing campaign that people will be attracted to. So you've got to let yourself have some space to be creative.
Patton 23:40
That's where the magic will happen. Love that, Christina. And in fact, I have taken a similar attack to each year having a personal retreat which sounds like what you did in May right, where you just have to unplug. You have to be intentional, but it's a fantastic exercise and I worry again that so many of our nonprofit friends they're burning themselves out by never allowing that kind of time for reflection.
Christina 24:05
I can hear when we say that. It's like I can hear an eye roll. That's like, well, good for you too. You are entrepreneurs. You don't have to, you don't have a boss and I just want to push back and just question that Is it true that you cannot take Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, block them out and take a retreat at home in your office and do this. Is that even like? Are you sure, can you?
Patton 24:29
do it for one day.
Christina 24:30
Because here's what happens is and this kind of talks about what we said in the beginning when you don't do that, I swear tasks take longer. I come back from taking a two day retreat and I work faster. I'm taking more decisive action because I'm back on course. I'm not in a car driving around going. Where am I going next? I'm very clear where I'm going. I'm getting there faster Because I zoomed out for a second and I went. What is it I want to do? How do I want to get there? Who would I need to engage to help me? So it may seem like it's costing you two days, but it's saving you hours and hours and hours of time.
Patton 25:08
So well put. It's a recharge, isn't it? Among other? Things you know, just overall not only strategic in your mindset and all that. But yes, you and I are certainly on the same page, cheerleading for.
Christina 25:20
Yes.
Patton 25:21
Carve out some time for yourself, leaders everywhere, it'll pay off. Speaking of mindset, you're a third of the three keys. You talk about inner dialogue. What do you mean by inner dialogue as characteristic of great leadership?
Christina 25:35
Yeah, this has been definitely one of the more pivotal pieces for me in my own business is just really, I would say, acknowledging that everybody has an inner dialogue. Excuse negative, and that's normal. Everyone has an inner dialogue. I've been trying to explain this to my eight-year-old, just so you can get the lay of the land sooner, where it's like everybody has.
That you know, and as we get older the inner dialogue can be really mean and critical. And just to normalize that, that's the first layer and the next layer is you don't have to believe that, right, you don't have to just go with. That inner dialogue just doesn't want you to have anyone say that was a bad idea to have any campaign feel to hear and know from a funder. It's just trying to keep you safe, right, and listening to that inner critic, that inner dialogue will literally get you out of business. You can't let that one drive in the driver's seat.
Patton 26:33
Yes, you need another voice right, Another voice in there.
Christina 26:37
There was this quote from he was like a retired ultramarathon runner or something like that, and he was one of the oldest guys to do this triathlon or something like that. And somebody said how did you do it? How were you able to complete it? And it stuck with me. I loved it so much. He said I talk to myself more than I listen to myself. Right, Because here is the 60 plus year old guy who's running with a bunch of 20 year olds, right? Imagine his inner chatter.
Patton 27:03
What are you doing?
Christina 27:04
here. You shouldn't do this, you don't belong here, and he's like just talking to himself through it and I was like that's the secret to the universe, right?
Patton 27:12
Beautiful illustration of that. And you're right, If we only listen, unfortunately it's going to drag us down, I guess is your point right the inner voice and so give yourself some dialogue that is indeed positive, Christina.
Fantastic Three distinct areas, I think, and again all rooted in a lot of the mindset being decisive, being forward thinking and making sure the inner dialogue is a two-way conversation right, as opposed to coming at you with somewhat negative degrees. Couple more things that you have got some great expertise on. I think you are somewhat of a guru in the time management and productivity space. I've seen a lot of your content and language around this, but are there certain, maybe a couple of keys that maybe you're coaching or you just in working with non-probably leaders in particular, that could help them be better managers of their time?
Christina 28:08
Yeah, I think that part of feeling like you're just working too much is true. Like I'll give you that.
Yes there isn't enough time and there are so many tech tools now that can give you your time backs. One of the couple things come to mind. One is are you automating your emails, like meaning, are you piecemealing them one at a time? When somebody makes a first time donation, that donor journey, any sort of welcome series happening, that can literally be. You write it once and it's automated. And if I make a donation to your organization I'm put through an email welcome series once. That you wrote three years ago, right?
Those are the types of things and it's like an initial upfront to set it up of time and maybe a little bit of a learning curve, but you see a retention, such a higher retention when you put people through those things. So for sure, email automation and having some welcome series in the background is such a huge one.
Patton 29:08
Nice.
Christina 29:09
Yeah, and really I would say the donation tools is another one of this idea of friction. So this is more tactical. But if I go to make a donation on your website, how many links am I clicking?
before I actually complete the thing and you might say what does this have to do with time? But if you're seeing your donor retention decline or the amount of people who land on your website and never make a donation, that might be conversions. Right, you might not know that number and that's OK, but I'll go ahead and tell you it's probably got a lot of room to be better. So if I land on your website, I want to make sure that I am just teed up and excited to make a gift and you can use a very. There's so many different donation tools out there that do that for you. They use AI, they do all of it, and so it's like I always say to people if you've ever gone to Zappos and looked at a pair of sneakers and then you didn't buy them, and then the little Zappo sneaker ad follows you along around the site and it's like are you sure?
Patton 30:09
Are you sure you didn't need these?
Christina 30:10
I mean we can riff off of that with a better tech product and there are lots of different options. Again, a little bit of an upfront lift to set it up. Totally worth it because why your funding is increasing year over year just by having a couple of things automated and not been enrolling in the background.
Patton 30:27
Yeah, well put and cost effective too, right, christine, if somebody is saying, well, I don't have the budget to do that, but these are not yes, you do Really expensive, right?
Christina 30:35
Yeah, one of my clients. I'm like we got to move you over to a better tool. And they're like OK, and I think it's like most of the time the donor pays the fee for the tool, right, so you just pass it along and it doesn't cost you extra. There's no extra fee for it. And with this one in particular, their website is so outdated that we're going to have to get a developer in. It's $500. I'm like, is it worth $500 to make $5,000?
Patton 31:00
Yes, Like that is a no-win or a spend.
Christina 31:03
Yes, yes totally so don't go. Oh well, we have to hire a developer, so we're not doing it. No, like you got to go a little bit further out on that vision casting, you go. This is a worthy investment.
Patton 31:16
Two great takeaways there. Both I think I could put in the reduced friction category, right, christina? Yes, what kind of friction is there to your email response mechanisms and how could you automate it? Because I think, sadly, many of us are burying those emails, which certainly is not donor friendly. Right, if I'm not responding at all because I'm trying to wait for the perfect time when I could have had a template. In essence, to go back and certainly I love your idea of a listener right now Go to your website right now and see how easy it is to make a gift.
Christina 31:47
I think we sometimes miss that in our own world right and do it on your phone and see.
Patton 31:53
Did you have to?
Christina 31:54
pinch, to zoom in and listen. If you did, it's OK, we can fix it. These are not thousands and thousands of dollars worth of a fix. This is a light lift to optimize like to optimize that entire experience.
Patton 32:09
So we'll put All right. One more category, christina. I want to take advantage of your expertise on the marketing visibility things that you've done. Are there certain things you see again low hanging fruit, maybe that nonprofit leaders could do to better increase their visibility to their various constituents?
Christina 32:26
Yeah, a bunch of ideas. One would be any kind of online fundraiser. If you have either tried that and said, christina, it hasn't quite worked that well, or you do that and it does work, then do more of them throughout the year. So don't just do it on Giving Tuesday.
Yes, and if you're in the camp where you're like no, we've tried it and it doesn't work for us. Then I would say you're doing it wrong and that's fine, but there's a better way. The way that I teach marketing for nonprofits is not about social media content creation. That's fine, you can create great content, but I actually want you to partner with digital ambassadors and influencers.
Patton 33:02
Interesting.
Christina 33:03
And stakeholders and raving fans and whoever, so they can champion your cause and use their networks to boost you up. And that is really a great way. If you're doing any sort of fundraiser even a Giving Tuesday or any other, even events, if you're selling tickets to your events, create a digital ambassador program. I teach this in one of my courses. It's called a street team. Create that and leverage their partnerships, their friends, their family, their community, so that they can endorse you. Every single organization listening to this has that group of volunteers. They can always count on the people who always share their things on social media. So it's about creating a system for them that it's very, very easy, and then bringing in some influencers along the way as well.
Patton 33:48
I love that. And again, I guess, to specify, I was going to ask you how do I find my potential community ambassadors, but I just need to look at who is already most active on my social media platforms, things like that.
Christina 34:01
Right, or I would just I would say who are the, who are the people that I know that I can count on if I call and I'm like I need your help?
Yeah they'll show up, yeah, and that may be somebody who's a physical volunteer. So there's two types of ambassadors. There's the ones, and then they, even if they have a small network, they're still getting in front of their network and they're talking about your cause and championing that way. And then we now live in a World where basically, it's a board member, a friend, a neighbor, somebody that you know has a niece that has a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. Yes or has. Do you know what I mean?
Like I always my, my, my cousin just got married. His wife is an example she's an influencer amazing hundred thousand followers on it, on Instagram, and I've asked her before how many nonprofits have reached out to you to partner? One one, ever. That's it. Wow gets all the profit brands who are like. We want to send you this, you know right.
Yeah and yeah, so there's, it is such an untapped revenue source and it's, it's. It's such a great way again to get outside of your bubble and reach people who you've got to have an alignment with your cause. Of course it can just be arbitrary.
Patton 35:09
Yeah, I love that as a cultivation tactic in a tactic, in other words yeah instead of blasting my message to my whole list, hoping people will run with it, you give this group an advanced notice.
Christina 35:19
Right Is that right, we run a little campaign with them.
Patton 35:22
Yeah, I see, yes, yes and then they feel special and they are more likely to ramp it up.
Christina 35:28
That's what I teach. And amplify social impact. That's that course of like how to how to do it.
Patton 35:32
Yeah, our listeners need to check that out because again and one more related question, christina Cuz I hear from the beleaguered nonprofit leader like uh-oh, and yet another social media platform. Yes, yes how do I? You know, I can't keep up with the ones I have, and now they want me to do tiktok, you know, or whatever. Yes, I hear you too.
Christina 35:51
I'm like you don't have to at all and that is not the secret to you. Growing is for you to figure out. Even me. I was like you know what. This isn't for me. That's okay.
That's okay, yes, but it's about partnering with people who have an audience on tiktok and a natural alignment for your cause. Maybe it's local, maybe there's a community driven component, right? Maybe it's national. It doesn't matter of having an alignment and that's the point of like it's the best news ever, because it's not about you creating a bunch of Content and videos and this and that I'd rather you. It's like sometimes I picture a pie chart and I'm like, if you're spending 80% of your marketing time creating content on social media, stop it. I want you to spend 80% of your time instead making Partnerships with your street teamers and talking to them and helping them collaborate with them right on, you know, a joint fundraiser together, anything.
Patton 36:43
Fantastic and just a sliver of the resources, christina, you can provide. Well, I'm grateful and I'm gonna tell my listeners right now. You need to check out the show notes for this episode. Christina will share in just a moment where you can find her. But before we do that I want to give you kind of a closing statement. In other words, you know there are friends you and I both have that ponder nonprofit leadership getting into it, or maybe they're in the pipeline. If you will. Final advice for somebody thinking about nonprofit leadership oh, it's the best, do it like.
The founder and me remember it.
Christina 37:22
Yeah right is excited for the founder and you like a hundred percent do it. I mean we need we need leaders who are gonna stay in it, who are in it and committed to it, and we need people who are willing to do a lot of the things that we talk about, bring their own expertise, bring their own creativity, bring their own curiosity to the sector and that's, I think, what will keep Staff employee retention. We didn't really talk about that, but just like we. We need passionate leaders.
Patton 37:51
We need you guys, yeah well put thank you for that in a closing statement, and Of course you knew this was coming, and probably the hardest question I'm gonna ask you is to pick a single book of the entire bookshelf. I'm sure that is Literally available to you, but is there one book maybe that's been meaningful to you that you would share?
Christina 38:09
I Actually was hard. I'm such a like reader. All the personal professional development, yes, but I will tell you one, and I'm gonna tell you why I picked this one because my husband does not work in our world. Yeah and I got this book. I left it on my nightstand and he took it, and he never takes my books Ever you'll have different reading, different. Yeah, yeah, he's reading like Russian literature.
Oh, my book and he went right through it and I was like, oh, okay, can I have my book back. So it is called cues by Vanessa van Edwards and.
She studies the science of people and this book in particular for all my fundraisers, all my leaders of the world, is like it's like a hand oh, it's like cliff's notes of trying to decode Everything from verbal to nonverbal cues and communication that that potential donor is giving you. It is everything from your voice, your intonation, the gestures, and she just stills it in a way that's really really approachable.
And for him he's leading a team and he found that really really helpful and also Maybe what he's gleaning from his staff members or how he's showing up to these zoom calls and things like that and sometimes for him I hear him, I'm like, alright, you, I can hear in your internet intonation how you feel right and so how do you have that in a way that is actually helpful and helps you raise more money? So and gets, gets you to know your people better. So, cues, go get it.
Patton 39:37
I'm gonna do that right now, or at least I'm gonna finish this episode and then I'm gonna get it. Love that kind of book. Thank you, christina, for that and everything you have shared with our listeners today. Where would you like our listeners to find out more about you and the great work you're doing?
Christina 39:52
So you can come listen to me at the Purpose and Profit Club podcast.
Patton 39:57
Yes.
Christina 39:58
I also have a freebie that might be helpful for many of your leaders. If you go to splendid courses, comm forward, slash prospect. I take you through this, this new way to think about lead generation in a way that doesn't feel like icky and salesy, and if you feel like you've tapped into your entire donor pool, I've got a free resource and mini training for you there. And then my website is splendid atlcom.
Patton 40:22
Fantastic. We'll put it all in the show notes again, and listeners need to check it out. Find out, christina, where she is, what she's doing. You will absolutely benefit as a result. So, christina, thank you one more time for joining me on the path you this has been.
Christina 40:35
I'm pumped. I'm excited for everyone. Thank you for listening. If you ask me, everyone should have a coach, especially you. I want to invite you to schedule a free discovery call with me. Go to splendid atlcom, forward, slash contact. You'll see my calendar there. Book a call with me. You'll learn about my smart growth method, where we can grow your business or organization sustainably, with ease and massive impact.