Ep 78: [Client Success Story] How Wendy Faust Doubled Her Fundraising Goal

EPISODE 78

Cultivating Donor Relationships Through Personalized Communication

 
 
 
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
— Quote Source

Wendy Faust's story is not just about overcoming personal battles but also about her dedication to changing the ALS fundraising landscape. As the executive director of the Live Like Lou Foundation, she draws on her experience as a cancer survivor and leverages the power of storytelling to make a tangible difference in the lives of those affected by ALS.

Her journey with the foundation is a testament to the enduring spirit of Lou Gehrig, whose legacy of courage and determination remains at the core of their mission. But it's not just about remembering past heroes; it's about creating a resilient community in the present that can face the under-resourced battle against ALS—a battle that leaves no survivors to share their stories.

“We tripled the frequency this year, plus added more targeted, segmented, specific information. Our open rates through November are at 64%!”
— Wendy Faust

The shift from using basic spreadsheets to a sophisticated CRM system marks a strategic move in the way the foundation communicates with its donors. By sending out more frequent, meaningful messages and adding a personal touch through anniversary emails and handwritten notes, they have seen a surge in loyalty and fundraising success. These efforts underscore the importance of understanding and tuning into your audience, as well as the surprising benefits that come with increased online engagement.

As Wendy discusses the transformative journey of ALS fundraising, she highlights the strategic shift from quarterly to monthly newsletters, the benefits of email marketing, and the critical role of data analytics in understanding donor behavior.

Through the use of CRM tools like Bloomerang, the foundation has been able to effectively segment and target communications, saving time and resources for a small team and paving the way for automated processes that will scale future efforts.

But perhaps the most compelling aspect of Wendy's approach is the way she harnesses emotional connections through storytelling. She shares anecdotes of backyard sanctuaries for ALS families and triumphant research breakthroughs, all funded by generous donations. These narratives not only resonate with emotion but also reinforce the purpose behind the foundation's work.

In her episode, Wendy also touches on the importance of partnerships and events, such as collaborations with Major League Baseball and a fraternity, which have significantly expanded the foundation's email subscriber base and overall support for their mission. The chapter on email frequency and online presence impact particularly stands out, as Wendy discusses how an increase in email communication has led to higher engagement rates and opened doors to unexpected opportunities.

As the conversation wraps up, Wendy reflects on the profound impact of personal stories, like that of a young woman with ALS who uses humor and social media to build awareness and create a supportive network. She also anticipates the fresh energy that new board members will bring to the cause and the potential of platforms like TikTok to share stories and increase engagement.

In conclusion, the episode serves as a celebration of the power of shared narratives and an invitation to connect with Wendy Faust beyond the microphone. It's a call to embrace our journeys, overcome self-doubt, and find joy in the privilege of our endeavors—a mantra encapsulated by John's 100-mile bike ride for ALS, reminding us, "We get to do this."

About Wendy Faust

Wendy has more than 20 years of professional experience in nonprofit leadership including corporate communications, fundraising, leadership development, marketing, and administration. Before joining the Live Like Lou Foundation as the organization's Executive Director, Wendy served in executive leadership for organizations including Marian University, Alpha Gamma Delta, and several private high schools in Southern California.

Connect with Wendy and the Live Like Lou Foundation 

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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 All right. Welcome to the podcast. Wendy Faust, I'm so excited to have you here. You're the executive director of the Live Like Lou Foundation and you also took one of my programs and before we started recording, you told me some numbers and I was like, oh my gosh, we actually have to start recording right now because I'm so excited. But before we dig into the data, tell us a bit about you and your work with Live Like Lou.

Wendy 00:41

Sure. So I have been a Live Like Lou's executive director since the fall of 2021. I was the organization's first full-time employee, so we are relatively small grassroots for about six years old. The co-founder of the Live Like Lou Foundation helped really establish the day-to-day operations of the organization. She retired as a board member earlier this year, but she lost her husband, als, and when he was diagnosed with the disease in 2011, the two of them decided that they were going to live like Lou, and the reference there is Lou Gehrig.

 So Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, and living like Lou means living with courage, living with determination and with gratitude, and those three things are things that Lou Gehrig exemplified in his life. I mean, certainly, teamwork and determination as well. He showed up for his team. He was not only exceptionally talented, he was just an incredible human. So Live Like Lou exists to do three things to meaningfully support families that have been affected by the disease. We do that through hands-on service, scholarship programs for children and ALS families and home improvement grants. We also fund emerging ALS research, so early in career scientists we want to. We focus on the basic science of the disease, keeping them in the lab, studying what's causing the disease, and then our third mission. Focus is to amplify Lou Gehrig's story and create more awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Christina 02:02

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm like nodding to all of it. So for a lot of our listeners, I think, als kind of first, like me, came on the map I was looking at it today I think it was 2014 was the ice bucket challenge, and that was really where it was like became a household name, a household phenomenon too. It was the first big giant viral fundraiser, and what I was thinking about in advance of this conversation today was like it put the organization or it put the cause on the map, right, but it also shows you, I think, the power of like something going viral, but that not being the end. All be all to longevity, sustainability. Can you talk a little bit about how maybe that awareness piece was really, really important, but also how it's like you can't what happens after it?

Wendy 02:51

right, yeah, I think you know everyone, every nonprofit person in my personal history I've been a nonprofit development for the better part of the last two decades and communications, corporate communications prior to that every organization, every business is looking for that ice bucket challenge moment. And I would say, even before working for the LiveLackLew Foundation, I didn't have a personal connection to ALS. I married a baseball player who happens Luke Eric, happens to be his personal hero and someone that he has had as a role model his entire life. But I wasn't super familiar with the disease as a nonprofit and corporate communications person. Everyone would kill for those ice bucket moments that you have, that viral, that viral thing, but I would say that since taking this role, it's about 50-50, that people know the ice bucket challenge was ALS, or they remember the ice bucket challenge but don't remember the cause that it was for. And I think that is what really speaks to me for this disease in particular that the awareness side of the work that we do is so important. Because it's not that ALS is rare, it's not that ALS is incurable. This disease is underfunded and there's not enough awareness about it, right? So I'm a cancer survivor. There are so many incredible cancer organizations. I've done a ton of volunteer work with various ones of them.

 Most people know someone connected to cancer, but I will say without fail, I have chills while I say this to you. Once you meet someone living with ALS, you are touched for the rest of your life. But to quote one of the most incredible women living with this disease, brooke EB, she is in her early 30s and she has become the TikTok voice of ALS. She had a quote in a magazine recently that was so powerful to me. Other diseases, like cancer, have survivors. Als doesn't have survivors. This to be this fatal. So that ice bucket challenge moment helped. But did it right? If you can't even name why you were dumping a bucket of ice water on yourself? If you gave the $10 to the organization at the time, what has that continued communication look like? Because we need more people that care about this disease. And so, whether it's another viral ice bucket challenge moment or it's creating ambassadors for this cause because again, we firmly believe it's not that it's incurable, it's just underfunded 100% Okay.

Christina 05:11

Thank you for that. I think you said a lot. You said continued communication and that is the piece I'm so glad that you said for all the people that know of the ice bucket challenge. You just schooled me because I would have guessed it was higher, at least associated with ALS. But I'm in the pool with you, right.

 I'm in the nonprofit world. So the average person is like, yeah, I heard of that, but they're not necessarily connecting it to the cause, which says, oh boy, we're not done yet. We are not done yet. And that is what we seek to exist, and that's why the viral moments are great, but the continued communication, that's where we build trust, loyalty and that's where we see the increased funding. So let's dig in to our conversation, which happened in the DMs, on Giving Tuesday, I think, or the day after, on Live, like Lose Instagram. You're like we doubled our Giving Tuesday goal and so I was just so, so excited and so you and I were DMing and I'm like all right, what do you think Like? What was the special sauce? What do you feel like? Did it Anytime? Any of my clients? They 2x their goal. I'm like what worked right and I want you to share. What do you feel like worked well to help you 2x your goal?

Wendy 06:17

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to back up a little bit to what brought us to even having an email system in the first place, for a little bit, yes, right. So I will get to your question. Yes, but I think the story helps really articulate the importance of the email communication. So I get hired fall of 2021. I inherit a spreadsheet of 34,000 rows of donations and names and email addresses and phone numbers and holy cow, all right, wow yeah, wow Okay, we've come a long way.

Christina 06:49

It feels really good, let's take a moment, because that is enough. Where some people would have a level of overwhelm, where they're like I can't, so let's just take a moment that you said I can, I'm going to figure it out, let's go.

Wendy 07:00

Well, very thankful. I worked at a university where, by happenstance, I had taken over advancement services for a little bit of time. Well, not a little bit of time. I ended up taking it over and running the advancement services office for several years. So trial by fire, I figured out how Yep?

 I had a lot of experiences in it, so I knew where to go. At least I knew the tools I needed to be successful. So, but within two months, we had a CRM up and running and we use Bloomerang, and within Bloomerang, they have a baked in email platform and our co-founder, who had been running the day to day organization, had been essentially using a Gmail or using her outlook and blind copying people when she needed to send out information, and it was obviously successful. Obviously effective because we're here today with an incredible group of people that were very interested in our work. But come January 2022, it's a whole new day that I have the ability to do branded communications, to track opens, to track the data that is so important to help tell the story of who's interested. And so we really we got to work and we set out to do a quarterly newsletter and we were successful with that Additional segmented you know, touches to other individual people from time to time as well throughout that year. But then came across you and joined the email boot camp, especially yeah, yeah At the beginning of this year, and honestly, christina, like it really opened our eyes to increasing the frequency, not to be afraid of unsubscribes.

08:29

I think I was in the first, you know, my first year. I'm like looking at the unsubscribes from every message and I'm like, oh, it hurts my feelings but in reality it's told me who I need to focus on and it's told me who is the highest and best use of my time. So this year we set out to at least have monthly communication. So three time, three times the amount went from quarterly to monthly Yep At least monthly communications to our broad database. We've successfully done that and on top of that we've been able to segment much more meaningfully that when we find out someone's interested in our ALS family programs or alas research or alas awareness, we're able to really send targeted messaging. Our gifts are coming in also with appeal codes and things like that. So the segmentation I think has been super priceless along the way, through great ideas, through you and some of the other groups that I've been a part of. I firmly believe the investment in professional development is so huge and so you know, through going through the course with you and the follow up information you've provided, I soak that stuff up and I've followed a lot of those recommendations we implemented.

 In October we implemented an email on the year anniversary of your first gift, because I had someone really, really smart to make a comment to me that when she's a very known entity in the alas advocacy world I had the pleasure of having coffee with her beginning of October and she had said to me that when individuals ask her which alas organization they should donate to, she gives them a list and she shares to her favorites are, but that she tells them they should call and ask if I give $100 today, how will it be used in the next 30 days?

10:03

And that was so powerful to me because so many of our donors are peer to peer, so many of them are about $2550 $100. Yep, yeah, I'm are, and I ended up sitting at my daughter's swim meet that weekend with lots of time on my hands. Put together, this is what your dollars are doing immediately, and in the last year you gave your first gift. This is what we're doing. So there's only a quarter of history there of people that are getting those emails, but we've started to add things like that into the mix. We do a first time donor thank you email. We do when I register for our newsletter on our website.

 They get an email on the Monday following we haven't built journeys yet. It's on the list coming tomorrow and Thursday. I'm actually interviewing for communications person to join our team. So we're growing, which is exciting, and the donor journeys and series are number one on the list of their responsibilities when they start with us. Suffice it to say, I think you know getting to the Giving Tuesday success we've. Giving Tuesday 2021 was the first time we had any kind of presence on a day like that, I think out of the gate. You know, 15 of the donors were my friends and family, yep. So we had a great donor acquisition success on that day, but the dollars we didn't hit the goal, didn't know where to set the goal right, like it's the first time you're doing something like that and a dedicated giving day about six months later didn't hit the goal. Giving Tuesday last year didn't hit the goal. Giving day this year didn't hit the goal.

11:27

You know I don't want to go lower and lower but at the same time you know, I think what I saw with Giving Tuesday this year is a couple of things the frequency of the emails that they're getting, talking about impact, hiring someone who's helping with stewardship and making calls and sending handwritten notes as well Yep, it's been huge. I can't underestimate that personal touch and that human connection side of the work that we're doing. But I think social media as well was a big piece of it. We're telling more, we're telling our stories better, we're talking about our impact better and we have an incredible story to tell, and so the frequency of our emails has been huge. I mean, if you want me to dig into the numbers, yeah, let's give people just some context on numbers.

Christina 12:08

So when you talk about, it's interesting because you talk about really coming on with this huge database. That was very, very, very analog, right, you know? I mean, yeah, it's spreadsheet and kind of inheriting that, and so your email list size we're looking at 20,000 ish subscribers. That is enormous. Just to be, I'm always like you're sitting on an untapped gold mine there. There's so much opportunity there. So there's that piece. Yeah, let's get into some of the numbers. But I think that will help people root into the context, because it would be easy to think that this is a small shop organization. But your numbers are not small shop numbers Like you are. It is an impressive, impressive feat what you've been able to accomplish and in such a short amount of time. So let's yeah, let's dig into some numbers.

Wendy 12:58

Well, when we joined your email boot camp in January, you appropriately had asked us for some of the statistics and we had started gathering that at that point, but it was what really brought to light for us that you know, in 2022 we had 59% open rates on our emails. Right Profit average 20ish 25%.

 Yeah, so it's still great, amazing, it was incredible and we were, you know, delighted by that. And I will be very honest, christina. When you talked about you need to be sending emails weekly, it was like, oh, but they're gonna unsubscribe, right like that. Tripled the frequency this year, plus added more targeted, segmented, specific information. Our open rates through November are at 64%. It's ridiculous.

Christina 13:38

Tripling the frequency Tripling the frequency, which resulted in increasing the open rates. You guys Like. This is, I feel like when the inner chatter does sound like oh my god, I'm gonna be over emailing, it's like what if it's the opposite? What if the exact opposite happens? What if it's better?

Wendy 13:57

Yeah, keep going. I think you know we've also been able to learn a lot through who's clicking and who's opening, and I think that's you know the beauty of our Bloomerang platform and the preprocessor engagement tool and their engagement score. We use that data and we use that information and we're pulling lists based on that, so people who are reading our emails are getting a little bit more.

Christina 14:19

So glad you said that, because you only have so many hours in the day you have. To my knowledge, it's you. You have a full-time staffer. It sounds like we're bringing on another person. You have a small team. There's almost only one.

Wendy 14:32

We hire, we've learned who runs the programs that did the email? Yep, yep, sarah. We hired in May. She's a storage and development director, and then we are hiring a full-time communications position and we have a part-time database administrator.

Christina 14:45

Perfect. So when you're looking at a database that's that big, it is like needle in a haystack. When you're like, who do I call today, especially if it hasn't you don't have that sort of history from the previous ED or something like that to say these are you know. And when you start emailing or you turn up that frequency and the data starts to tell you right, with a great CRM, with something like Room of Ranging, the data starts to show up and say do this not that, try this not that? Right, and it actually becomes an easier process and to me that's like an upfront lift that's worth every single dollar to get that data out of. Yeah.

Wendy 15:21

Absolutely Well, and that's you know. We're looking at other options in 2024 to help build those journeys more automatically so that we're not having to use the staff time to manually do it, which we are in Bloomerang. It's been great. We're looking at those options when we hire that position to explore and automate a lot of this work, which is really exciting. And you know I'm looking at my spreadsheet of my programs dashboard. I set my goal for the open rate to be 55% for this year because I was like no way it's going to get better, it's going to go down Because now, like the novelties worn off, they get emails from Live Like Lou cool. We've gone up 9%.

Christina 15:59

There's no novelty. Yeah, this is yeah. Yeah, there's no novelty.

Wendy 16:04

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's pretty fantastic.

Christina 16:06

I'm curious. You were right. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I'm curious where for a lot of organizations who are like how did they get that many email subscribers? Where do your email subscribers come from? Is it a lot of peer fundraisers? Is it like? How do people find you? Maybe this is the best question.

Wendy 16:28

Yeah, great question. So we do have. One of our main drivers of contacts is through a peer-to-peer program. So Lou Gehrig was a member of a fraternity, fidel to Theta, columbia University, and so we exist because our friends at FIDEL to Theta helped establish Live, like Lou's national presence. We existed grassroots, locally there in Pittsburgh when Suzanne and Neil Alexander Neil was first diagnosed and they did some work locally in Pittsburgh and then, in 2017, through FIDEL to Theta fraternity, we were established as a national nonprofit and the fraternity has a program that's existed since 2010 called Iron Phi, and individual members of the fraternity can become an Iron Phi by raising $1,000 through their own personal network and completing an athletic challenge. So it can be 5K, it can be marathon. I became an Iron Phi. You don't have to be a FIDEL. I did an indoor triathlon at Orange Theory Fitness where I worked out and became an Iron Phi, and we're starting a program next year in January. We are starting a program called Lou's Crew. That's going to be comparable but intended for non-members of the fraternity. The majority of our emails came from there.

 Additionally, we have more than 500 ALS families that have registered for our services since 2018. So along with those individuals usually come a caregiver, so we have about 1,000 people affiliated with the various programs that we run for ALS families. We have an audience of about 150 researchers that are connected somehow to ALS research at a different university or institution. We do events with Major League Baseball, so Lou Gehrig Day started in Major League Baseball in 2021. We held one event that year and now we're up to we did nine events with Major League Baseball over this past summer in 2023. We hope to have 10 Major League Baseball events next year. But we had over 1,000 people buy tickets through us to sit with Live Like Lou, at one of those nine baseball games this year. So they become part of our audience. They're able to give a donation when they purchase their tickets. Many of them do so. Our audience is people interested in baseball, interested in the Lou Gehrig.

Christina 18:31

I'm hearing aligned partnerships, aligned partnerships and the other thing that I'm hearing is you can have an incredible impact. This is fire hose amount of subscribers, amount of supporters, amount of and these are two very specific partnerships, one with the baseball and the other with the fraternity. It's very specific. You don't need to have this. I need to have my hands in this many buckets to get 20,000 subscribers. So to get this impact point is just these highly aligned partnerships and nurture those, let those grow. So that is so smart, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad you talked about the segmenting too, because you can segment out people based on their preferences.

Wendy 19:16

Right. Well, and not to make this too duh, but we launched a brand new website. We went through a rebrand this time last year. We launched the new brand first of January. That was the first time we had a dedicated website, so our website was tied to our giving page, so we were very limited on the number of pages we could have content design.

Christina 19:35

All of that until a year ago, so one of the things that is very, very clear and maybe it's the last 12 to 24 months is that live like glue foundation have said we are investing in an online presence, we are investing in what it's going to take to bring us up, and there was quite a few investments in this. It's like let's do the website, let's do the continuing ed, let's do make sure we've got a CRM rocket enrolling, let's make sure the fact that you're even saying we're hiring somebody for comms it's like so many people are like you can't wait what, and so I'm seeing that as very, very strategic and maybe let's talk a little bit about why that like, why the online piece?

Wendy 20:20

Yeah well, so the website thing, just to mention, we've had 268 people through November sign up to receive information from us because we have a link to do so on our website that we didn't have until January of this year. That has blown my mind. My goal for the year was 200 people would subscribe. I set that goal like shot in the dark, right, like I have nobody else who are gonna go to the website and say yes, please pick 268 through November of people that have said tell me more about Live. Like Lou, right, that opt-in has been so blatant.

 So I you know the investment in the operational capacity of the organization is. I attribute it to an incredible board of directors. I'm a board of trustees. I'm so fortunate with incredible leaders that are willing to say yes and that you know investing in these kind of operational tools are going to pay off in spades, and they really have. I mean, it blows my mind sometimes to look back at some of the numbers and to see where I'm a huge goal setter and you know to look at the metrics and look at the KPIs and set those things up. It's powerful to know that that investment in infrastructure is able to help us be more successful fundraisers, I mean this communication specialist. No one is more excited than me. We went to Canva designing social media posts on Giving Tuesday, chatting with you.

21:45

That's right. Three months from now, that is not going to have to be me, which is so exciting. Yes, we want to offload that job for sure.

 It's not the highest and best use of my time. I love it. I can get stuck in that all day. Every day I can write, I can. I mean you know some of the skills, christina, honestly, that I learned in your email class too, of just give myself 20 minutes and sit down and write Picked up the Pomodoro timer has been something that I've picked up as well. Just, you know focus for that 20 minutes, take a break, and you know allowing myself to have the creative time but limiting it because it's so easy for me.

22:19

I was a communications major in college. I love to design pretty things. I mean, I've designed baby announcements and invitations and all that kind of stuff for years because it's like a side interest of mine. It's not the highest and best use of my time as the executive director. So the doors that we can open because of this one fun story that came out of this year's Giving Tuesday as well, my stewardship and development director day after Giving Tuesday her name's Sarah, I can call her. She's awesome.

 Sarah was able to call everyone that gave on Giving Tuesday, which is amazing. Right, like everyone's are great, sending an email and everything is wonderful. She made a personal call to everyone in left voicemail. My husband gave and she even called my husband. He was like did you make her do that? No, she just does it. She's smart and very sweet that my husband gave the point of this though one of the phone calls she made.

23:08

I haven't put two and two together in the system of this individual. They gave a gift in 2019. So they were on that massive spreadsheet. They gave on First Giving Tuesday. They gave on Giving Day Giving Tuesday Giving Day. So they get the appeal for this time. They give First time we have the bandwidth to make those personal phone calls. We're not talking a ton of dollars, but he got a phone call. He is a high up in operations for the Major League Baseball team. We've got an AOL email address for him, so I had no idea. But here, okay, we had an event with your baseball team this year. Now I know we need to look you up. No clue that he was connected, following our mission, following what we're doing. So send the emails, send the emails Talk about the impact and holy cow, I mean that was huge.

 When she's making the phone call and she's slacking me, do you know who So-and-so is? I was like, no, I have no idea, I look it up and then Google him. Okay, that's part of the yeh-boo of I had a 34,000 row spreadsheet, but I had no idea the diamonds in the rough that existed in it, and so now we're keeping that stuff together. Keep communicating, keep asking, you'll find success. Yes, exactly.

Christina 24:24

Just keep going, just keep going. Don't decide for people too. Somebody who gives $100, that tells you nothing about their capacity, about anything other than today they gave you $100 and that is a beautiful thing, but beyond that we cannot generalize. And that is such a good reminder.

Wendy 24:42

I think the other happy accident that has to do with giving Tuesday for us and someone specifically mentioned it to me my neighbor actually. She'd my husband became an iron five and her husband had donated to him. So they got our appeal in the mail, our year-end appeal. We intended to send that first class postage and miscommunication. It went out bulk rate. So it hit two or three weeks after we intended, which was a bummer. But it ended up arriving the weekend before giving Tuesday. So she made the comment to me well, I thought that was intentional, because then your branding was similar for Giving Tuesday. Right, right, like I got that in the mail, now I'm getting the email, now I'm seeing it on social. I was like, okay, well, you can think that was intentional, that's right, crazy but okay.

Christina 25:27

So I think it ended up kind of priming them, right, yes, like that multi-channel approach I think also led to more success with Giving Tuesday.

Wendy 25:34

But at the same time our year-end appeal were well over 50 percent to goal and we've already hit the number of participants, the number of donors to our year-end campaign. We've already hit that as of five days ago.

Christina 25:47

Congratulations, you're rocking it. You're rocking it and is funding up year-over-year revenue, yeah, okay. So for everyone that says, oh, doom scroll, doom scroll, I'm going to say it again is your revenue up year-over-year? It's significant, she's nodding significantly up, significantly up, okay. So, no doom scrolling. I want to talk about your storytelling because you started to kind of say it. But one of the things I remember when you sent me your initial emails and one of the things we really worked on and easy emails in the class was just telling not only the stories of impact, but even your story, or your staff, just letting people in, like, instead of sounding like an ominous brand, just letting people in. So how have either the tone of your stories changed, the content or the quality change? Just let's stick into storytelling a little bit.

Wendy 26:42

Yeah, I think I'm a relationship person. I think every fundraiser is a relationship person. I don't know that many people set out to become a fundraiser. We happen into it because we develop friendships, we develop relationships, discover that there's that natural inclination. Our storytelling has definitely evolved and it's through the relationships that we are making with the individuals that we serve I think that's a huge part of it to where we feel more comfortable going to people to say may I tell your story? I saw a great LinkedIn post from someone I have followed and enjoyed forever, lin Wester, the Donor Relations Guru. Oh yes, queen of the word.

 Don't do a fask, don't thank people and ask. Your year-end appeal shouldn't talk about everything that's been accomplished. It needs to focus on this is what we can do because of you next year. Right, I'd ask. Beautiful, it's amazing and it's so true because we're so like. But my mind very naturally goes to talk about all the great things we do with the money We've registered more than ever. Sure For our programs. We've, you know, baseball events. Like everything is through the roof. We'll know. What am I going to do with your money.

Christina 27:50

I try that. That's right. Let's vision cast. Let's dream Like, paint the picture for next year, because I want to get excited about that and go get my wallet. Right, that's right, she's our dream.

Wendy 28:01

Our year-end appeal strategy. We dropped one, so we did a mailed piece that hit the day before giving, tuesday, yeah, yeah. And then we've done one. We did one email last week and it's the story of one of the ALS families that we've served. Young woman living with ALS in North Carolina Volunteer went out to serve her. She, in addition to cleaning out her garage and doing the around the home projects that our program helps with, she was interested in creating a backyard oasis. They went to Lowe's to pick up the supplies because our amazing volunteer, chris, had said oh my gosh, we'll help with that too. We've got you. They go to Lowe's. He stops and talks to the manager at the Lowe's and says hey, I'm here, I'm a volunteer with Lou Gehrig's fraternity. We're serving this family. You know what can you do? The guy gave them 50% off. Whatever they would, they can order Amazing. So we shared the story last week. We posted on social media. I tag Lowe's Home Improvement on Instagram.

 They responded you know it's Friday night, I'm at a holiday party and I like open my Instagram and it's on Live Like Lowe's and I'm like Lowe's Home Improvement responded but we're telling those stories of you know, this is what we can do and it's the gift of time to this ALS family. They can spend time together in this beautiful backyard oasis. Now that, because our volunteer was there and our volunteer said yes, they're going to do it right, and we tell that story and, you know, give so that we can recruit more volunteers, recruit more families and give the gift of time to other ALS. That's right. Time is what they want with a fatal disease. We'll tell the story tomorrow of one of our researchers that we funded that because of the money she received from the Live Like Lowe Foundation. It gave her access to trainings to read her data more specifically that she wouldn't have had had it not been for our funding. She was able to hire a postdoctoral fellow with the funding to dig into the research. This was the research he was interested in. He came and worked for her because of Live Like Lowe's funding. So we're telling more of those stories because we're creating the relationships, we're meeting the people, yep, and we're asking permission, we're asking right, yeah, they're never going to agree unless you ask, and I think people want their stories told.

30:06

And our third one is the ALS Awareness story, a gentleman named Guy who received. So part of our work with Major League Baseball is we work with the Permobile Foundation, who they produce wheelchairs and give them a grant that they then give the gift of mobility through a power wheelchair to people living with ALS, which with this disease, the wheelchair becomes. I mean, it's a person living with ALS, it's their lifeline for safety, for independence, for everything with this disease when they get to a certain point. So we did a wheelchair surprise before the Philadelphia Phillies game in September and this gentleman named Guy received the chair. He wasn't familiar with the Live Like Lowe Foundation. We've started exchanging emails. In this message he sent back to me, he said you know, wendy, in the Pride of the Yankees I watched with my grandfather and I saw that when Lou Gehrig considers himself, as he tells the world, he has ALS. And he said he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. He said I watched that movie with my grandpa thinking what is he talking about? Like he has a terminal disease. How can he consider himself lucky? And Guy sent this email saying that, you know, on the field at the Phillies game that day, he realized what it meant. And for Lou Gehrig to be able to say he considered himself lucky. Sorry, no, you're. That's our final email push and final social media push for fundraising this year.

 So it's being curious to hear the stories that people have, being curious to understand the impact that we're having, to measure the success of our programs and to know that we're making a difference in the work that we're doing. And then asking if we can tell their story. And I mean I sent him the clip of the email and I said, guy, I've thought of you. You know, september 9th was that game and I've thought of him every day since. Whenever I we have some lucky events, like shirts we sell in our store and things, I sent him and his wife the shirt. I thought of him every day when I see our luckiest branding. Yeah, it's so important, it's so powerful. So I think, making the story telling, telling personal, being curious about our audience and they want to help he and when I wrote him the email and copied and pasted the section of it that I was asking permission to quote, he was like anything for you guys, you're doing incredible work, happy to be part of it. So that's right. It's an honor for him to be part of it.

Christina 32:18

It's an honor for you to have him part of it. It's reciprocal, absolutely. One of the things that you said really well in those three storytelling examples is a through line for a lot of organizations who are dealing with something that is it's heartbreaking Like sad isn't the word, I don't know, it's heavy, right? Yeah, you just told three stories in a way that were inspirational, warm and emotional. You just told three stories in a way that were inspirational, warm, uplifting, had joy in them.

 I think our eyes both walled up. They're sad too, they're both, and it's a really important look at and reminder that you can tell air quotes, serious stories in a way that don't make you feel worse after reading them. Right, we don't have to tell stories in a way that, like the six o'clock news, tell stories in a way for people to like guilt give. Right, we can tell stories that are still that still have the reality that we haven't figured out a cure yet, right, and it's still underscore that reality. And this is what we're working on and this is the success we've had, and, and I think that that is a balance that isn't easy, but you've really done well in those three examples and those are the stories. No wonder your open rate is so high. We want to read those stories, you know.

Wendy 33:37

Yeah, and again, with more people power to tell the stories better and to have someone who's like we need to interview them and we need to ask permission. We need to feature that on our blog and in a social media post. I mean it's exciting to see. I'm going to struggle to set that open rate next year goal, so I might need some of your wisdom on that, but it's the storytelling piece of the work that we do in nonprofit is powerful. That's right.

 And in this disease, hope is hard. Hope is a four letter word in ALS. Right, to quote Brooke E B, there are no survivors in ALS and there's hope in the research and the promising scientists that we are funding. There's hope in the time that we can give families to spend together without worrying about landscaping and, you know, pulling weeds and putting mulch down or hanging holiday lights. We can take care of that. We can give the hope of the time that you have is quality time with your family, and so I think that that's really powerful in how we focus our work and how this disease is brutal. We had, so we have, more than 500 ALS families that have registered with us since we started and we realized that there were quite a few, especially pre-having the database and things like that. We didn't know if they were opening our emails, receiving them, all of that kind of stuff. We have that tracking information now, but we did do some research for about a month and within three weeks we had 65 people that we found obituaries for that had passed away of this disease. Because that's how this disease works.

35:15

And so there are days that are really tough, especially oh my gosh, kathy Jones in Maryland. She passed away a couple of months ago. We gave a home improvement grant to her. I had exchanged personal emails with her many, many times. Laura, my program instructor that you met was also incredible. Laura had connected with her about the home improvement grant process. She passed away. Those days when we find that out, when we get the memorial gift of in memory of Kathy Jones, it's just like it's a gut punch for sure, but it's powerful to know that the Kathy Jones of this world. We made a difference for her and this disease and for her family. And now I had to call with her husband last week and just incredible things coming as a result of those relationships. So it sucks, but we find the bright moments that we are offering something that's really powerful.

Christina 36:07

You're creating a community through those moments. I think that that diagnosis is like these have an isolation, and part of what you're doing just with the awareness piece is creating a community. It's part of what I'm thinking of. Her handle Brooke that we were talking about. It's like everybody needs to go. I mean, she has created such an awareness and such a humor and it's not all rainbows and daisies, but she's created a community and that's part of what you're talking about.

Wendy 36:38

So yeah, yeah, one of our. We have four new board members joining us January 1st 2024, really excited about the impact that they're going to bring to us. One of them, younger, lost her mom, sandy Morris, to ALS about a year and a half ago. Kylan is our new board members name and she was saying my goal is to get live likely on TikTok. I was like I don't know about, you know, gen X, like I don't know about the tick book. I do. I scrolled TikTok way too much. I'm not going to pass my husband, but you know, for me it was like that moment of what would live likely is roll beyond TikTok. Okay, I see the videos of the guys receiving a wheelchair on the Philadelphia Phillies field before a game and you know just, there are some really great moments and video that we could absolutely tap into, yep, to tell our story differently and better. And I think Brooke has done that so powerfully and just again, with humor and like she's personalizing this.

 Yes, she's part of an organization called ALS Story. It's all women living with ALS diagnosed before the age of 35. Live likely will be funding them with a grant this year or next year, in 2024. Oh my gosh.

Christina 37:49

Beautiful.

Wendy 37:50

Incredible organization. When you see 50 women, many of whom are in their wheelchairs, get traveling together for their ALS Worker weekend, you get to know what ALS is really quickly. You get curious for what this is and who are you and why are you here and what does this mean. And it's powerful.

Christina 38:09

We love as the best part of social media is the looking glass we get in. And she was just in New York and she was doing like follow me through and she was in her wheelchair and it was just amazing. She's like I was. She was nervous about one thing. She got stuck between her wheelchair, got stuck between the two beds in her hotel room, finding the humor in it but also just showing us like that happens and when you're stuck between it, you're stuck between the two beds or plowing through the streets as fast as she could, you know, through the New York City streets and finding the humor in it and just like. But she's giving me so much understanding of what she's going through, where she's like. Okay, six months ago I could kind of feel this leg a little bit, or I had some use of this leg. I do not anymore. This is what it's looking like and that piece is it's going to have it already. Is having it just just an insane impact, particularly for younger generations, bringing them up right? Yeah.

Wendy 39:14

Well in her video just a couple of weeks ago ironically it was the night before we were touring our friends at the Permobile Foundation. We were touring their location in Lebanon, tennessee, with our board and staff. We had a board meeting at the beginning of the month the night before she posted about getting her big kid chair. Yes, that, when you move into that power wheelchair it's like that moment. Okay, I like. This has all the the bells and whistles on it. It was really powerful to me.

 I don't know this disease. I don't pretend to think that I know everything about this disease in any way, shape or form, but watching her video I learned I had no idea. So ALS begins either lumbar onset, meaning hands, legs, feet and arms, or oh my gosh, my brain just totally lumbar onset. Or bull bar onset affecting speaking, breathing and swapping. Okay, no matter how it starts, it ends the same. But so Brooke has lumbar onset. It's affecting only her legs at this point that she's completely paralyzed on the waist down. But she was talking about in her big kid wheelchair that it has the little devices that move your legs together, that like the padding that supports the coming things outside that she talked about. Yeah, I'm paralyzed from the waist down. If I sit in a regular wheelchair, my legs play open.

Christina 40:27

Yes, providing dignity right, but that was such an aha for me.

Wendy 40:32

I've always wondered what those are, for you have no control.

Christina 40:35

I saw this week. So she's at the holiday party and she had her wheelchair and it lifts you up and she was narrating her video and she was like and that was really nice because I got to talk to my coworkers basically like face to face, eyeball, eyeball. I'm like dignity, dignity, dignity, Also again helping me understand holy crap, right Of just all of it, all of it. And so that is on my best day, why I love social media so much. And then, ultimately, how I'm like let's get everybody on social over to your email list, because that's where the true nurturing happens.

Wendy 41:09

But yeah, she's and we're now the unofficial Brooke EB podcast, or fan club, I know.

Christina 41:14

I mean we're linking to her so everybody can go follow her because she's wonderful, perfect. Okay, before we wrap up and I ask you our final question, is there anything else that you would like to share that I haven't gone through today? I feel like we ran the gamut. So thank you for this deep dive into email and I'm still just very excited about all of it, all of it that your revenue is up, that your open rates are up, your frequency has tripled and I would imagine it may just writing appeals in general a little bit easier, because you're just when you have great stories to tell. The process gets easier of telling them Absolutely.

Wendy 41:50

Awesome. Yeah, no, I think we hit on all the-.

Christina 41:52

I think we hit it.

Wendy 41:53

Again, like I just so highly not to you know wax poetic, but I so highly recommend going through your emails for impact was so beneficial for us, great way to start the year and just really set our intentions of frequency, understanding the importance of it and stepping out and trying new things. That really paid off. So I'm really grateful. You set up a really great foundation for us at the beginning of the year.

Christina 42:17

Amazing Music to my ears, Thank you. So we asked everybody that comes on the podcast what is one thought that you like to think on purpose, so it can be an affirmation, Amantra, just anything that you feel like is just guiding post, a guiding kind of beacon for you, a light. Would you share that with us?

Wendy 42:34

Absolutely, and it definitely relates to this work. I mentioned that I have worked out at Orange Theory for a number of years. One of my not one of my my favorite Orange Theory coach, connie, in those hard moments of doing a hit workout when you're in your 40s and the last thing you need to be doing is running your face off and rowing and lifting heavier weights and you've ever lifted in your entire life she says we get to do this and I think there's such power in that that my body is capable to do hard things right now, and so, because of that, I'm going to devote that to myself. I get to do it and we're bringing it full circle to live like Lou.

 Just over a year ago, we got connected with someone who was a FIDELT alum and he was doing Hunter Mile Bike Ride in honor of his friend, laura Roselle, living with ALS and raising money for another ALS organization, and we contacted FIDELT headquarters and said, hey, I'm doing this fundraiser. And we said, well, hey, did you know that we've got live like Lou? And so we started talking. Ironically, I live five miles away from this family affected by ALS and his name, this gentleman's name, is John. We started exchanging some phone calls and emails and have definitely become friends. But he was training for his bike ride a year ago, october, and there was hurricane in Florida, the weather was crummy, he was hurting right Hunter Mile is a big deal and I had a phone call and I shared the sentiment that my favorite coach says so often that we get to do this, and he texted me a picture when we hung up.

44:01

It's the first text that I have that we ever exchanged. He printed out we get to do this and paste it on his wall. So I think about that in the work of people living with ALS, they don't get to do orange theory. They don't get to stay in jobs that they love because their body fails and they're not in a position to be able to do that, or the financial burden, or the treatment burden, or because they're lost away. We get to do this work. It's my absolute honor and privilege and I think just knowing, as long as I am able, I can do hard things and I can push myself, we get to do this.

Christina 44:34

We get to do this. That was a beautiful one. Thank you so much. I couldn't. The beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us. We will link to everything in the show notes, but just to give us a quick, where can everybody connect with you?

Wendy 44:47

Yeah, definitely on LinkedIn. Wendy Faust, f-a-u-s-t, and I would love to connect on there and at Live Like Blue or Live Like Blue 4, depending on the platform. So Live Like Blue 4 on the Instagram and Twitter or X, and Live Like Blue Foundation on Facebook and LinkedIn. Amazing, thank you so much.

Christina 45:06

Absolutely. Thank you, christina. You know how they say you should enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Have you ever wondered how do I crack the code to do that? I can help you do that. I can help you not only achieve your biggest, most daring goals, but the journey to get there. No more overwhelm, no more self-doubt. I wanna invite you to book a call with me. Go to splendidatlcom forward slash book.

You Get To Have Purpose And Profit. I’ll Show You How.

 
 
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PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, social impact, mindset, productivity1 Comment