The Future of Fundraising with Network For Good’s Kimberly O’Donnell

August 19, 2022

When I interviewed Kimberly O’Donnell with Network for Good I thought I’d learn all about donor management software. But you know what? I learned waaaay more.

She shares inside knowledge about:

• Current fundraising trends
• How organizations can embrace text messaging to communicate with donors
• Changes in the pipe for Network for Good
• What Bonterra’s recent purchase of Network for Good means for the company
• Ways to deepen relationships with donors by meeting them where they are

You’re sure to walk away with at least a nugget or two of goodness from this interview or at least enjoy geeking out with us!

Episode Highlights

Introducing Kimberly O’Donnel and Network for Good – 0:41
Fundraising trends – 10:23
Should we text donors? – 18:36
Exploring ways to connect to encourage donations – 23:15
The importance of communicating authentically – 26:40
Finding time to do the work – 32:36
Listening to customers to improve Network for Good – 38:23
Resources available through Network for Good – 46:55
Becoming “anti-fragile” – 52:52
Where to find more about Network for Good – 54:34

Full Transcript

Monica Pitts  
Hello again. And welcome back to Nonprofit Marketing with Purpose. My name is Monica Pitts and I am your host today and I have the honor of interviewing the lovely Kimberly O’Donnell and it’s kind of exciting cuz she’s a little bit I feel like you’re a little bit of a celebrity because you’re with Network for Good. And I see your guys’s ads all over Facebook and, and my some of my clients use your system. So I’m excited to have you here today to talk about Network for Good and what you guys are up to and where you’re going, and oh, and anything nonprofit that you want to share. So to kick us off, why don’t you introduce yourself and and tell us about you and your organization?

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Thank you, Monica. Thank you for that thoughtful introduction. We at Network for Good love, love, love to support small to medium sized nonprofits. And so I am thrilled to be talking with you today about this and, and your listeners. So I am the chief fundraising officer and SVP for professional services at Network for Good.

But really, I’m a fundraiser and nonprofit person.

I’ve been in the sector, gosh, almost 30 years. And I’ve had lots of different roles where I was an executive director of a small nonprofit volunteer center, I was a chief philanthropy officer at a national association, I worked for the third largest charity in the US. And I’ve also then worked with non with tech companies that support the nonprofit sector, and have worn a lot of hats there as in marketing and sales and in thought leadership. So I just kind of bring it all together. 

And I’ve been with Network for Good for the last four years. And it’s just been an awesome ride. Because I manage our team of personal fundraising coaches, they’re working one on one across the country, with nonprofits helping them around fundraising strategy, particularly with raising money for individual gifts.

And so we really have our fingers on the pulse of what’s happening at any given time with small and medium sized nonprofits.

And so we’re able to also see what fundraising looks like today, we evangelize about what it should look like as we move into the future and, and what it is what it is forming into post COVID. And so it’s a lot of fun to be able to have the feet on the ground, and then also be able to construct the vision for where we think fundraising should be going and is evolving. 

Monica Pitts  
I’ve read and downloaded and number of your things, because I always find them interesting and useful. And I want to make sure that I understand where fundraising is going and evolving. So thank you very much for publishing all that stuff. Because it really is helpful to people like me who are like hanging out in the Midwest and don’t get to see everything all over because I feel like that things on the coasts do change a lot faster than they do around here. So it’s good to see, hey, this is where stuff is going. I can I can read about it and learn about it. So you guys are doing a great job doing it. Thank you.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Oh, thank you, you know, and what I would add about that is as you look at the landscape of the nonprofit sector in the US, there are some, you know, really big areas like New York and DC and Boston and some spots in Texas and Chicago and and Silicon Valley area, there’s so there are these hubs for nonprofits.

But you know, the thing is, is that today, we live in such a digital world, and certainly with the pandemic, things just became much more virtual. And it it created an opportunity for people who love the mission of all these nonprofits located all over our country and globe, to be able to support them in new and exciting ways.

So, you know, for the organizations that are in more rural areas, there’s still an opportunity to reach so many people, you know, from coast to coast. 

It’s interesting I was I was talking with a well, the Hudson Pride Center the other day, about their mission and what they were doing during the pandemic. And one of the things that they shared was that they had a need for more virtual services, because there were people from Australia and other parts of the globe who who found them and really liked what they were putting out and so now postponed are we post pandemic yet? I don’t know what to call ourselves but but now in this period, they’ve they’ve moved to more hybrid offerings because their, their community is bigger than they realized.

Monica Pitts  
That’s always exciting too- Well, it’s, it’s it can be exciting. And it can also be daunting, right? Because trying to serve one piece, like one set of people in one area and really understanding what they need and want from you, and then moving out to doing it in a much greater sphere is it’s imitating. But I just like any type of growth. And I feel like one of the things that I heard a lot from our nonprofits through the pandemic, especially as they received some grant funding, was that they were going to invest in technology to better manage their donors and their donor data. And I know that’s one of the things that you guys do really well, I was hoping that you could share with me a little bit about that. But then also like the other things that you guys do over it Network for Good.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Sure. So Network for Good is a really interesting organization, because we’re two different entities.

So NetworkForGood.org, was founded in 2001, when leaders at AOL, Cisco and Yahoo came together with a mission to make it easy to give online, so that it would be as easy to donate online as it was to shop online.

And you remember, this is like right at the beginning of, of, you know, online, shopping and communicating. And so they so NetworkForGood.org, was created and offered donation pages, so that you could give online and then you know, and the checks and things would be processed and sent out to all of these charities. 

Fast forward 21 years later, and.org still exists. And, and has worked with literally hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of organizations. And they have wonderful partnerships with meta and Google and these other, you know, amazing organizations that are wanting to support our sector and channel giving through their platforms. So, so we have network for good.org. And then, in 2013, we had been noticing that there were lots of small and medium sized nonprofits who just didn’t have the technology to support their needs. And it could be on either end of the spectrum. On one side, they were using Excel spreadsheets, or just these really, in some cases, paper, you know, files and things to really catalog and track their, their donor and their fundraising. And, and you know, that’s not sustainable. And then we had, we have customers and other on the other end who were using more sophisticated platforms, and they really didn’t need them, there were small, what we would call small shops, right? Like they were small organizations, they might be volunteer led, and the software that they had was just too complicated for their actual needs. So it would take them longer to do what they needed to do. 

So we spun off a a for profit B Corporation. And if you know anything about B Corporations, they are the closest things that you could get to a nonprofit, that’s still a for profit. And so in 2013, we spun off this new for profit company, and we created network for good.com. And so we have, we’ve been serving the nonprofit sector just by by providing fundraising software that’s really simple and smart for these organizations, and things then changed in 2022, when NetworkForGood.com was acquired by Bonterra, which is a brand new company that has just brought together four nonprofit technology leaders. One is the social solutions, case management software. Another company is called Cybergrants that manages the the grant platforms for corporations, it actually has 50% of the Fortune 500 companies as customers. Every action is another fundraising software company that also has advocacy tools, and then Network for Good.

And so together, we’ve all come together to to do what we say which is we power those who power social impact.

And so if you think of it this way, they are the doers who are fueling positive impact across the world. And those are those you know, the the executive directors are the chief everything officers are the database administrators who are we who are working tirelessly at these nonprofit organizations, and we are fueling them with better technology so they can do it more effectively. And so now Bonterra is the second largest social impact company in the world. We have more than 15,000 nonprofit organizations that we’re working with 18,000 customers, and it’s really exciting times network for good.org remains its own set peppered into entity right now.

Monica Pitts  
So that means that you’re, you’ve got a really you mentioned this earlier too, but it sounds like you will probably have like a really good like eagle’s eye view of what is going on in fundraising. So are there any trends that you’re seeing? Or, like things that we should be looking out for? Like, where are we going?

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Yeah, great question. Um, so a couple of trends, I would say, have really risen to the surface. One is that fundraising is changing. It’s changing. And guess what, in my nearly 30 years, I would say it’s needed to change, I’m excited by the change, and I hope everybody else is, there are new ways to fundraise today. And, and so there’s a great opportunity to really look beyond your traditional practices, your traditional constituents, and really get creative and, and also, you know, kind of, I want to say advanced but, but get creative and get more involved in the use of technology to help drive your fundraising. So when I say that, what I mean is, you can now fundraise through virtual and hybrid events. And you can also use video and text to fundraise. People are using QR codes, QR codes been around a long time. But now because we all had to learn how to use them when we were at restaurants. Now it’s become more popular for donations. And so there are these new ways to do it. And I would advise people to, you know, get out there and just test and learn your way through it. You can also fundraise through social media through TikTok. Through gaming, online gaming has fundraising capabilities. 

And so there are, there are things that people that consumers and your supporters are doing out there in the world today. And we really need to be meeting them where they are, from a fundraising standpoint, and an engagement standpoint, if you want to engage with your and I call them supporters, because it could be your donors. It could be people who are new to your organization, it could be volunteers, it could be service recipients.

But if you truly want to engage with them, and ultimately raise funds for your organization, then we need to meet them where they are. 

Another example of a modern approach to fundraising is something that we call subscription giving. And so subscription giving is concept of our living in a subscription based economy with Netflix and Blue Apron and Stitch Fix, fix, and all these tools, all these subscriptions that you can get. People are very used to the concept of subscriptions. And so why don’t we call recurring giving programs, subscription programs, but there’s a twist to it. And we tested a new methodology. In a two year pilot that we did, that were for good partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And in 2020, we rolled out this pilot test with 50, small and medium sized nonprofits across the country. And the focus of it was to go out and see if this subscription giving methodology worked. And so what we did was we asked our pilot participants to segment their donors by non donors, one time or ad hoc donors, and then you know, the monthly donors and begin to talk to them in different ways. And then second piece of it was to change on their donation page. Change it from a one time gift default to a monthly gift default, so and then anytime they went out and they made a pitch for a gift, they would ask for a monthly subscription or a subscription instead, rather than one time gifts, because what’s the harm in that? The person just could say no, and say, Oh, no, I’d rather not do a subscription gift right now. But I’ll give you a one time gift. There’s no loss there. The only thing that that really stands in for in front of you is a gain, because guess what, some people will say yes. And if you’re not doing it, you’re missing an opportunity to actually raise more sustainable funds. And so that was a piece of it. Another piece was to begin to engage your subscribers in curated content, meaning they would get some unique things and they don’t have to be time consuming could be a short little email or text message saying, Hey, we hit this milestone today. Or, you know, here’s a really interesting story from one of our one of our service recipients and we were so touched by it, we thought that you might want to hear it, but all of the unique content that we are sharing with them is focused on impact, because what we know is that donors want to make a difference through your charity, they want to see the impact that’s made. And I think sometimes where we fall short, and, you know, Monica, you know, this, you know, being on the marketing and the website in the website design space, is being able to effectively communicate the great good that is being done by organizations and the true impact that’s being made. And so when you are engaging your subscribers, you’re, you’re sharing that impact with them on a regular basis through different channels. So that was the other piece. And then the fourth piece was to use subscription based metrics to evaluate your success. So there are SAS subscription as a service companies, they’re called SAS companies, they have some different metrics beyond, you know, the the cost to raise $1, right. And instead, we also looked at the lifetime value of the donor, how much is this donor worth to us over time, because what we know is that it is easier to retain a donor than it is to acquire a new donor. 

So with a focus on subscriptions, and on donor retention, we’re actually able to raise the recurring revenue in an organization.

And in the nonprofit sector, the average retention rate is 44%. And in with subscription companies, it’s actually 70%. and higher. So what we thought was if we could raise the bar for these charities and actually generate a higher level of subscription and retention, then it could be not only transformational for them, but for, but for the sector as well. And so when we did this pilot, it went so well, the first year that we actually, you know, continued it for a second year. And here are just a couple of the outcomes. One, the subscription giving participants actually had two and a half times the number of subscription donors compared to our control group, they retain those donors at a rate that was 33%, higher than the control group, their revenue retention was 30 percentage points, higher 30 percentage points higher than that of the control group. And the lifetime value of their subscription gifts, the dollars that was that were coming in was actually six times higher than the control group. So we saw some really incredible results. And the bottom line is that when you just step in, and you try and test and learn new fundraising approaches, you just give it a whirl, things can happen. And guess what if what happens is you learn something that’s also really important for an organization. I talked to another organization recently, and they’ve been they’ve been doing tiktoks lately, and they’re like, we’re growing our engagement, you know, we’re middle aged ladies. And we had no idea what we’re doing. But we all just decided we’re gonna go for it. And we had our kids help us out, and boom, we did it. And we have, we have great following and people are having a lot of fun with it. So I encourage all of your listeners to to stop. And this is I’m, I’m a coach myself, I’m a certified executive coach. So So I put my coaching hat on. And I love asking people, What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose?

Monica Pitts  
And like, that’s one of the interesting, I was going to ask you a little bit about, like, texting. So phone numbers are one of the things that we’ve been getting permission to contact people through with CoMoGives for the last few years. Because I was like, I just know that this is going to be something that’s going to be great for our campaign. But we do get and I say our campaign so I have to always take a step back and say CoMoGives is our community’s year-end month-long giving campaign is powered by the Community Foundation of Central Missouri and MayeCreate is honored to be the digital media sponsor and web guru tech support arm of the campaign. Right. So we’re always thinking of new ways to get the message out there. And so we’ve been conducting these phone numbers, but I got pushed back from, you know, the end John, the executive director, usually he is like down for anything, but he’s a little he’s very forward thinking and he’s a little uncomfortable with the idea of texting. He feels like it an invasion of people’s privacy. He gave me permission to text twice this year, throughout the month, so I’m like, Okay, well, I got permission to do to anything, how do you feel about that? Is it is it a well used part of your service or is it something that It is not being adopted as quickly as you would hope.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
That’s a great question. It is an option. It is part of our fundraising software. So it’s available. And an organization can opt to use it or not use it, the way that I look at it and advise organizations is, if we don’t give people the opportunity to give to us and to make their own decisions, then we’re like a big brother. We’re actually the ones who are going, Oh, you don’t Are you supporter? I know what’s best for you. You don’t know what’s best for yourself. And so I always encourage people to ask folks to opt in, ask them if they want to opt in and provide their mobile number.

These people care about your mission.

And guess what, not everybody reads emails, I want you guys all to pause for a minute. And think about how many unread emails you have in your email box. Now, if you say zero, then you are super amazing. Awesome. And you are a beautiful rare being. But if you’re like me, you probably have hundreds of unread emails that you have sort of like scrolled through, or, and, and they’re there and you don’t always catch them. But how many unread text messages do you have? At this moment in time?

Monica Pitts  
I’m terrible about it. No, but like, I totally understand what you’re saying. I should actually look and see, I think I have Stacey always freaks out. I have 125 unread text messages right now. Whoa. 

Kimberly O’Donnell  
A rare bird too, you are a rare, rare rare person

Monica Pitts  
When the notification pops up, I read like the snippet at the beginning. I find if I need to click on it. I do. And if I don’t, I don’t. But I do feel like you just gave me the fodder that I need to go back and be like, we should send more text messages because the people did opt in. We asked for their permission. The box is not automatically checked. We said do you want to receive text messages? They said yes. So we would actually be doing them a disservice by not sending them a text message about what’s going on. Because they asked for it right. So now that we’re just, we’re doing a disservice by not doing it, I’m gonna go back and say, well, let’s see if it works.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
It’s true. And good luck with that. I mean, the other piece is, we all get text messages from our banks. I mean, I get it from city cheetah, like, once every two days. And I can delete it. But it’s very rare that I go back and I say Do not text me ever again. So it’s all in how you look at it, and how you manage it.

But there are so many people who would rather get a text message from you, that is nice, short and sweet than some email newsletter that they are never ever, ever going to read. 

So let’s start thinking about how people communicate today. In today’s world, newsletters are just not as popular anymore. You know, and so let’s think about how to communicate, it might be that you have shorter snippets that you send out weekly, instead of that big, long monthly email. Because we know that this information is being digested in different ways. And, and so you know, Multi Channel Communications approach is how you can reach your supporters. And so you’re not just going to text right, like you are going to probably send out an email, you may even send out a snail mail direct mail piece, you’re probably communicating through social media. Text is just one more piece. And so is video what we found. And it’s incredible, is that when, when a gift is given, and typically, you know that acknowledgement letter will go out immediately but but a thank you letter, you know, should go out within say 48 hours. But there are a lot of organizations that are now sending personalized videos, and it takes about a minute or less to do you just grab your cell phone, or you hop on your computer and you’re going to you know, just record a video and you can use the Network for Good software to send it out. And people are blown away with that personalization. And, and you don’t have to be perfectly you know, just put together I we have this one customer who who loves to do it. She’s like, I’m walking out of the gym, all sweaty and she goes and so I’m recording and I’m saying hey, you know, Bruce, I just got out of the gym. I’m a mess. But I want you to know that I saw your donation come through and it means so much to us right now. And I didn’t want to take another second. You know without thanking you and just letting you know what an impact you’re making. On our organization. Now, how do you think that video is going over with that person versus some canned, you know, print letter that they get two weeks later. So what happens is people get that they’re like, oh, wow, this organization cares about me one, two, there, their advanced, they’re using modern technology to communicate with me. And you know, what I’m gonna give again.

So some more get, some people actually give larger gifts within the next six months.

Monica Pitts  
That’s exciting. And I think it speaks a lot to the topic that we talk about so much at the end of the year, which is like done is better than perfect. And sometimes, it’s so much better than perfect, because we’re not perfect people. No one is we’re all real, the more real that you can be, the better off you are, I feel like and I’m always trying to explain, especially to small organizations who tend to not just small organizations, small businesses, people in general, they get like this analysis, or paralysis by analysis, oh, my God, I got to do all these things. It’s got to be all right. It has to it’s got to be perfect before I do it, and I’m like, you’re just holding yourself back at this point, like you start where you are, it’s not going to be perfect. When you start, you’re going to learn your lessons along the way. But if you never do it the first time, then you can’t learn the next lesson. Like the thing that makes us who we are, are not necessarily our successes. It’s what we do with our failures. So that helped me move on to the next spot. Right? And so that’s such a great example of that. 

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Yeah, well, and you know, being authentic, and present is an important piece of it. It can be difficult for some long established organizations to put themselves out there in a vulnerable way, right, we’re trying this thing, we don’t really know if it’s gonna work or not, but we’re gonna try to fake it until we make it. And that happens, and that’s okay. But I think as we have gone through the pandemic, and really looked inward, and we’re looking at, you know, just some of the real challenges in the world today with mental health, with, you know, the social justice movement with it with a desire to really address dei be initiatives. It’s okay to step into things and go, we may not have all the answers, but we’re trying right now. And our efforts are genuine. And, and so that cut also rolls into fundraising, too. 

And what I encourage your listeners to think about is, who your donors are today, I talked to, I’ve talked to many small organizations, midsize organizations over the years, and they’re always like, we know who our donors are. We know our major donors. So well, we know everything about them. Again, we’re not giving ourselves and our donors the opportunity to share what’s important with them. So you know, when was the last time your organization actually surveyed your supporters? And ask them what communication channels they preferred? And ask them what initiatives they’re really focused on right now. And ask them what they care about. Ask them what they like about your organization. And then begin to then take that and really absorb it. And think about whether or not your gala is touching the right people still, yeah, no does it does it tie to your mission, because galas are a lot, or work, special events, or a lot of work, or your special events in sync with your donors for the future?

We have a lot of people who want a younger pool of donors, but they rarely do anything to attract the younger pool of donors.

So going back to texting, you know, you’ve got a lot of millennials and folks, you know, in their 20s, who would love to be part of your organization? Are you communicating with them? And the ways in which they like to be communicated with? Are you hosting events that really touch them? You know, maybe there’s a gaming event that you want to do or just something? Maybe there? Maybe you want to bring more diversity to your donor base? What do your events look like? Yeah, they’re all same, you know, ethnicity or race. They’re what do you do in? How are you? Are you fostering a more open environment? So there are lots of things that can be done, but it takes, you know, we should not be figuring it out on our own as the chief everything officer or the board or, you know, the employees. We have to go outside and we have to talk to people and we have to talk to our supporters. and not just the ones who’ve been with us for a long time, but these new folks, and then also people who are not donors, but they’re the they’re like the folks that we want to recruit to become part of our organization, five years down the road, 10 years down the road, because you can start to put some practices in place today that will help you recruit the donors that you want for the future.

Monica Pitts  
I agree by I love it. I think you’re 100%, right. And whenever I pose those questions to people, I get the same answers. And then there are people that I challenge. Every time I’ve talked to him, I’m like, Well, what about this? And they’re like, well, it’s just and I’m like, I don’t know, because they have a limited bandwidth within their organizations to do things. And when you’re spending half your time putting on this event, that might not actually be the right thing for you anymore. That’s doing a disservice to yourself. And to the other people that could be getting involved. It’s but it is hard. I know the change is hard. But baby steps, right. And I watched some organizations in our community that are they’re doing a great job, and they’re trying stuff, and sometimes they’re doing good. Sometimes they’re not. But once again, you can’t know unless you try, right. And so I do, I love it. And I love that you suggested just reaching out to them. 

I feel like a lot of the times people just want to do all that. Especially if you’re a younger human being even like myself, sometimes you’re like, I don’t know if I want to pick up the phone. But there’s just something different about having a conversation and hearing something in the tone of someone’s voice to know what really is going on and asking them the questions you call complete strangers. If they’re within your target market, listen to what they have to say, because they’re not afraid of hurting your feelings. They don’t even know you. But that was one beautiful thing about the pandemic, I could like call anybody and and ask them questions about what we were thinking about doing as a company, and they would sit down and talk to me. So like, I’m just sitting in my basement. And I’m like, This is so awesome, like captive audience. But I I love that idea. And I think it’s the, like, the best suggestion for people who are concerned about getting future ready and not sure what to say even in their marketing, like all those ideas come from the people that you serve, and the people that help you serve those people. So your donors, and your constituents or whatever you call the people that you serve, right.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Yeah, yep. One thing to add to that, if you don’t mind, is, I am very aware of the time factor and how hard it is to build these types of things in. And so discipline comes into play there, scheduling time, every Friday, half an hour to make five calls to either donors that you want to think, or prospects that you want to touch, or someone that you want to just learn more about. But just putting yourself out there and doing those five calls and challenging yourself to five calls. And then 10 calls or whatever. And having that be part of the discipline. A lot of people are doing what we call reactive fundraising, you’re sending the thank you notes, you’re you’re doing these things that you always have to do. But then there’s proactive fundraising, which is getting outside the box and beginning to do new initiatives for your organization.

Maybe this is a new initiative to just make those calls. 

You can also do you know Network for Good we have we form capabilities. So you can email a survey out or send a survey, you can ask a couple more survey questions on your donation form if you want. This doesn’t have to be a big project, you just can begin to build it into the fundraising that you’re doing. You could even ask the question, hey, why don’t you give what what motivated you? We really appreciate the gift. We’re just we’re polling some people we just wanted to hear your story. Well, that’ll open things up. You also don’t have to do it. Just by yourself. You got a whole board and you got some volunteers I bet. And if you put together a script and you shared with them what the goal is and you know there was a timeframe and all you have to do is give the name and the you know email and the phone number and you can have them as this is a major donor This is a mid level donor This is a prospect you don’t even have to give the dollar amount because we want to be you know, private in that. Your volunteers can help you make some of those calls and do some of that discovery and guess what, they love it. They love it and this is a great time to do it. 

As you head into your giving season. It’s a wonderful time to start doing those thank you calls and those nice personal touches because what you’re trying to do is is prime the pump a little bit you know, warm people up to your organization again, at And then you’re going to, you know, appeal to them for gifts. And they’re gonna be like, oh, yeah, I just had that call and they were awesome. So it’s an it’s a nice tactic to employ and to leverage your board and volunteers to help do. It doesn’t have to be all of your donors. But certainly a nice little chunk, and great way to step into giving season.

Monica Pitts  
Right? I want to piggyback on that and say it doesn’t just prime externally it also primes internally. Because when you are the person making those phone calls, it does like the not the survey phone calls, or the thank you phone calls. But when you’re having to do the outreach, when you’re the person who has to write all those letters in those emails and stuff, all those envelopes. It used to feel sometimes like a used car salesperson, you’re like, I know that I’m behind a great cause. But I am so tired of asking people for money. But when you can start with these wonderful things that people are saying and how much they appreciate what you’re doing and why they believe in your cause. It makes it so much easier to get excited about making the next step because you just heard on repeat that they are happy to give to you that you gave them an opportunity to make an impact, not that you’re just asking for money. So I always feel like that makes a huge difference. 

And I always with CoMoGives make sure that I read through all the things that our donor survey said like the donors tell us why they love the campaign.

And I always read through it and I get like chills, and I’m like, This is why I do this. This is why I do it every year. This is why I work overtime for three months leading up to December, right. And it’s because of this right here this outcome.

And it makes me feel great now as make sure I’m like sharing it with the organizations and my staff. And even with our donors. Like that’s part of the thing that goes into our, our ask emails that are part of that campaign at the end of the year in our in our social media as well are all those wonderful things that our donor said, because they make us okay with that. So I do agree. And it’s not just an external effort. It’s an internal effort. Everybody has to be okay. Get everybody on the Okay, scale. So I wanted to ask you, because we haven’t talked too much about your software. I didn’t ask you. Because I mean, you can go to the website and learn all about it. And we did interview

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Billy Billy, yeah.

Monica Pitts  
With the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, and his episode is out there too. And he tells us all about how they use it. And and they use it in a really smart way. I was like, impressed with how they use all the different features. But anyway, so speaking of different features, are there like any things that you’ve heard about that your users are requesting that you’re working on right now. So we just bought this new online marketing and automation, like CRM software for our company. And I’m like, ah, the email builder is so dumb. And then in a month, they like after I said that they like they were like, here’s a new user interface. And it loads way faster. And I was like, thank you so much. It’s like you heard me yelling at my computer. Dear, are you guys doing any stuff like that, I’d love to hear about it.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
I love to hear that that company listened, right? Listen to you. We listen to our customers as well. We capture feedback from them through multiple channels. And everyone in our company has access to what we call the voice of the customer. So customers stories and, you know, things that they write in surveys are shared with every single person in the company so that we can see and hear directly from our customers. No matter what we’re doing for designing product, we’re working sales, we’re customer support, we’re coaches. So it is really important. And the great thing about you know, companies like the one that you mentioned, and what I feel Network for Good is like as well is that we are always working to optimize our solutions. 

And you know, Network for Good was designed to be a simple and smart fundraising software platform for small and medium sized nonprofits.

And what that means is just like your iPhone, it’s meant to be very intuitive. We, you know, there, there’s sophistication built behind it. But it’s not meant to be clunky for you. And certainly there gonna be some clunky features like we get it. But we’re we built ourselves specifically for those needs of the small nonprofits. And then our mission is to build better fundraisers by making the product simple and really provide guidance that builds into confidence, confidence so that when you’re using it, you’re like, I feel good. I know I’m doing this right I know I’m using the best practices, you know, and it’s happening. And because we have these personal fundraising coaches that can work one on one, with nonprofits, they’re able to help them with strategy. So it’s not just, Okay, well, how do I send this email in? And now I have this new software and I can send out this email or I could do this video, your personal fundraising coach can actually go, Well, what are you going to say in that email? And what’s the cadence going to be? And what’s your long term strategy? And who are you focusing on? Are you focusing on donor acquisition or lapsed donors or your recurring donors like, what what is all this that you want to accomplish and do and so those are things that really make us unique differentiators. 

But in terms of what’s new, and what’s coming, when the pandemic hit, we knew that people had to pivot very quickly to a virtual world. And so we released software for events and auctions. And so that’s been something that we’ve been focused on for the last two years. And it’s been amazing just how popular the software has become. So that was, that was just cool, right? Like we there were, nonprofits didn’t have a platform online where they could do virtual events, and there was a donation button right there to do it, and they had a chat, you know, and they could link to their online auction that was happening at the same time. Now there is that and you can, you know, set a goal, and everybody can see how you’re tracking against your goals. So there’s awesome fundraising features that are built into your virtual and hybrid events. And it has that great online auction side of things. So we continue to optimize that and roll out other features that are super user friendly. 

But where we are focused right now is a company is having been acquired, and now part of Bonterra, this new company, what we’re doing is we’re looking across all those four companies to see where some of these other product features can plug in to our offering. So it’s really exciting. I mean, I just have to say, It’s so thrilling to know that there are more features. And guess what more product developers more minds more people thinking about how do we make this software amazingly simple and useful to our customers. And that starts if the goal is an end to end solution, right? Like where a nonprofit can then use all of these tools that they need, like case management, or advocacy, right, or even just having a simple grants management capability to have that, but not just them, the community, you know, so that we can begin to see the impact that we’re making. Because when you have software that is serving these different parts of the nonprofit organization, then you can actually see the bigger impact that the organization is making. You know, you’re able to take data from the case management platform that shows the incredible outcomes that are occurring because of the services that they’re providing. And then that data can feed into well, how does your fundraising look? And how are you using that data from your services to go out and fundraise for more and to really highlight your incredible work? So you can see that? 

And then the other piece is that then communities can look at, well, how do we equip our community with the same fundraising, fundraising, and then also just nonprofit tools and services? So that we can, as a community, really see what our scorecard is, in terms of true social impact? 

So Bonterra, as a company, was created to do social good. And all of our executives and we have an impact scorecard that we are measured against on a regular basis, our board is looking at what kind of impact we’re making, because what we say is that profit follows purpose when you have a purpose, and it’s big and meaningful than profit will follow. So our first focus is how, what kind of what kind of impact are we making? How big is it because we want to make a big impact. And so all of our executive team are compensated based on the impact that we’re making. That’s part of their income. So we as a company are just motivated to power those, you know, people who are doing good we power the doers.

Monica Pitts  
I always say that. A good business has the heart of a nonprofit and a good nonprofit runs like a business.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Right? That’s a great way to put it. I love that I love it,

Monica Pitts  
What you just said makes perfect sense. Because if you put the people that you serve at the forefront of everything that you do, and you have a purpose, and you’re always looking to do better by them, then you will go nowhere, but up in your company, but you also have to run like a company. And the same with a nonprofit, you have to run like a company. 

Kimberly O’Donnell  
So it’s a it’s an ecosystem, right? Like you’re in sync, because then you know, you’re you as a as a company, right? Your nonprofit customers, plus, the folks that they’re serving are all in this ecosystem together. And we’re all in it together, right?

Because our purpose is to make a better world.

Like every mission that is funneled up. That’s the purpose. And guess what our software, we’re trying to help you do it. So we’re interwoven.

Monica Pitts  
A lot of the people that have been on this podcast will absolutely say, Don’t be afraid of the technology, because the technology is your friend. And if you can embrace something that makes you better, faster, stronger, but still hold on to your core values, what makes you good, then you can deliver things even better for the people that you serve. And so it’s, it’s something that we’re all we’re all working our way into right now, you know, like one baby step at a time. 

I know that you guys offer a lot of free resources. So I think as we’re wrapping up, I would love for you to share, like, where people can go find some of those reports and free resources, especially to help them out as we like, roll into the end of the year as everybody’s starting to do their urine getting planning, where can they go find that stuff? And what what in particular, would you suggest that they look at?

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Great question. So Network for Good has long been known for our content. We have a ton of webinars, white papers, guides, templates, we’ve a blog, I actually host a podcast, it’s called The Accidental Fundraiser, radical stories, radically authentic stories from the trenches. So we are, you know, talking with and sharing stories from those individuals who, and it’s pretty much all of us who have fallen into fundraising, and we never thought we’d be doing it. So I encourage everybody to go check that out. You could find it wherever you listen to your podcast. 

But let’s talk about you know, the other resources that are available, you would go to NetworkForGood.com, to our website, and then you would just click on Resources, and you’ll be able to see what webinars are coming up, which ones have been recorded. There are some really awesome tools that we’ve put out around year end giving over the past few years, we have an E guide, and that E guide has advice from our coaches. It has a methodology. Behind it, we have a calendar, a very comprehensive calendar for you know when to start your campaign, what it looks like how many touches you might want to make. 

If you’re a Network for Good customer, we actually build templates into our software, it’s kind of like Mad Libs style, so that you don’t have to read, you don’t have to invent the wheel, right? Like you just go in and you start putting in your name. And you start putting in your organization name and, and you know, some stories and some pictures. But like half the work is already done, maybe three quarters of it. And you can pick and choose which things you want. And it’s beyond the emails, it’s a direct mail, it’s scripts for phone calls, it’s scripts for social media posts, and videos and text messages that you might send. So it’s a it’s a great tool as you begin to plan out your year end, the E guide, the year end II guides are free. So you can just download that straight from our website. And we always have webinars around year end giving and planning for it and GivingTuesday, just because so many organizations participate. 

We also worked with Meta, you know the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. And we partnered with them last year to write a bunch of help guides and just information. We do webinars and E guides and things around leveraging digital tools, particularly Facebook and Instagram, and for fundraising and engagement practices. So you can actually go into Meta and Facebook and search for that they’ve got a great partner portal for nonprofits. So that’s available to you as well. Lots and lots and lots there. 

You know, I also just want to share one thing. It really can be overwhelming to try new things to gear up and feel refreshed and ready for whatever your next fundraising initiative is. I encourage organizations to think about building it in regularly and just letting it be part of your your day to day activities, right, like building that fundraising discipline and where you do schedule time, so that you can be creative, you can try new things, you can get the stories that you need, you can do the Data Dive that you may need to do to really analyze who is giving to you and why planning for next year. Put that time on your calendar. All of your listeners are here today for a reason.

You want ideas, you want inspiration, you want to do a better job, create the discipline in yourself and your organization to do it. 

And by the way, again, it doesn’t always have to fall on your shoulders, right, like so think about who can help you brainstorm and how you can better celebrate some of the winds that you have. And maybe it is that you, if you have a staff meeting each week, you have a little fundraising report, that’s part of it. Or you put a thermometer up on, you know, some wall or something in your offices or within your communication channels. And everybody together is following that urine campaign. So it isn’t as isolating. And it really begins to show that fundraising is an important part of an organization sustainability. And everyone has a role in it in one way or another. And we all need to celebrate it together. And we all can keep it part and parcel of our day to day activities. With just a little discipline.

Monica Pitts  
I agree we keep a we have a spreadsheet where we like and I know, I know, I can run the reports, because I run the reports to get the data. But we have a spreadsheet that makes these lovely graphs, that as soon as the campaign opens for CoMoGives, we’ll literally like fight over who gets to go put the number in for the day, because every day, we’re gonna report back to the rest of the team, like where we’re at and what we did. And then we also do, like check ins with the marketing data as well, where I’m gonna report back to the nonprofits and say, here’s what’s working, here’s what’s not working, you know, like, keep it up. And then and then if they actually come to the marketing check ins, I’m like, do you want me to check your specific data for your campaign on the website, because I think, and that’s like, their, like, kickback right for actually showing up for the because I mean, metrics are so cool, you can learn so much from them. And I really do think that it keeps you motivated. To go around, like now, I wish we managed to get a thermometer this year, we don’t have a thermometer, we’ve got a spreadsheet, but it builds the thermometer.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
It builds it builds, builds, it feels so good to you know, as we talk about the pandemic, one of the terms that I really love to use. So everybody talks about how resilient we’ve been through the pandemic. I like to use the term and it’s a business term, but it’s anti-fragile. And what it means is that an organization, company, a team, however you want to look at it will continue, a person will continue to grow and become better based on the shocks and stressors that are put on them. So you know, when hard times comes, you’re not necessarily being resilient, resilient means like, you’re the rubber band, you’re going to go back to the same shape of the rubber band when it’s when it’s not being pulled anymore.

Anti-fragile means you’re going to evolve, you’re going to shape and morph into this new thing. And that’s where we are right now. That’s where we are as people. It’s where we are as organizations, it’s where we are with fundraising. And with each of your events that you do and the knowledge and learnings that grow you become more and more anti-fragile, and it feels so good. It feels so good to know that that growth is taking place.

Monica Pitts  
I love that word. I wrote it down. Anti-fragile. I’m no longer resilient. I’m just anti-fragile.

Kimberly O’Donnell  
Not that there’s anything wrong with uh, you know, saying resilient, I really be but I do. I like the evolution.

Monica Pitts  
I like the way you explained it to you back to the rubber band that that’s, that’s awesome. Okay, so I’m wrapping up here. Where can people find you get a hold of you. You talked about your podcast, you said The Accidental Fundraiser. 

Kimberly O’Donnell  
That’s what it’s called. That’s what it’s called. So yes, check out Accidental Fundraiser. Please visit NetworkForGood.com and learn more about our awesome fundraising solutions and then go check out Bonterra it’s BonterraTech.com. And it’s it’s just an exciting company that’s being built. And if you are interested in any of those other solutions, case management, grants management, or more sophisticated fundraising solutions and advocacy solutions, volunteer management, we’ve got it. So reach out to us. You can find me on LinkedIn, please reach out to me look for Kimberly O’Donnell. And it’s been such a pleasure being here today. And I just want to wish everybody who is listening, a happy, happy giving season. Our CEO at NFG, Bill Strassman, used to say it was the most glorious time of the year. And it truly is, it’s, it’s amazing and awesome. And just an incredible groundswell of giving that occurs and generosity and it, it really ripples. And, you know, we want to we want to be doing things throughout the year so that it really ripples in a in a strong manner year end, but it is such a fun time really is.

Monica Pitts  
Yep, each campaign builds on the next one. So do all the things now. So that way you can reap all the benefits later. So thank you so much for all your time today. I feel like we’ve covered like, you know, maybe a full semester’s worth of content for college class right now. Hopefully, our listeners had that like aha moment of like, goodness that you get in a great conversation where you’re like, I should be writing that down. But I’m driving the car. And so now what, so don’t, don’t write it down while you’re driving the car. Just Just pause us. We’ll have the transcript up on the website. So you can go out to MayeCreate.com and click on our Nonprofit Mareketing with Purpose podcast. And there you go, then then you can see the transcript so that way, you don’t have to write down all the awesomeness that Kimberly just shared with us. So thank you so much for your time today. And until next time, go forth and market with purpose.

Related Resources

NFG Resource Page

Bonterra Website

Subscription Giving White Paper

2021 Year End eGuide

Contact Kimberly O’Donnell

Chief Fundraising Officer and SVP of Professional Services

kimberly.odonnell@networkforgood.com | 202-627-1616