Discover the transformative role of mission communities in enhancing donor trust, retention, and acquisition. Dive deep into the psychology of donors and understand the crucial connection between community engagement and their trust-building process.
Join our esteemed panel of nonprofit experts: Courtney Bugler, President & CEO of ZERO Prostate Cancer; Katrina VanHuss, Chair & Founder of Turnkey; Otis Fulton, VP Psychological Strategy at Turnkey; Meghan Dankovich, CEO of Charity Dynamics, as they provide invaluable insights on how your nonprofit can effectively leverage the power of communities to foster trust, motivate action, and ensure long-term supporter retention as well as add insight to:
The essential relationship between community engagement and the establishment of trust.
Insights into the self-validation feedback loop and its impact on donor behavior.
Strategies for leveraging communities to drive donor retention and acquisition.
Why the CEO must make the “Community” decision.
Nonprofit supporters seek more than just a cause; they seek a reflection of their identity. In a community, they find individuals who resonate with this shared identity, leading to powerful community engagement. This engagement acts as a flywheel. With each rotation, it intensifies, building trust in the environment, the idea, and most importantly, among its people. Trust is the cornerstone that inspires behavior, whether it’s donating, volunteering, or fundraising. As long as one remains within this validating cycle, retention is assured. And today, communities absolutely require an online element.
Join us for this enlightening session and learn how your nonprofit can effectively harness the power of communities to cultivate trust, inspire action, and retain supporters for the long haul.
The CEO is the Only One Who Can Build Your Nonprofit Community
1. Webinar
THE CEO IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN
BUILD YOUR NONPROFIT COMMUNITY.
FIND OUT WHY.
October 3, 2023
2. 01 Why "Community" at all?
02 How does Community work?
03 How does Community create revenue
04 Real life stories
Agenda
Presentation
Why Community must be nurtured from the C-Suite
05
How do we “Community" today
06
12. When donors are friends with
other donors:
• Increased Lifetime value (as much as
4X – 5X)
• Resilient during economic
uncertainty
*Credit Joshua Birkholz, CEO, BWF
15. Courtney Stories – YS, Atlanta Humane,
or Komen
• Pre-covid we’d put a new team and old team together.
• Family team committee
• Piedmont Park – man’d deve and marketing & volunteering, started
calling them Keepers. To give them asense of ownership to “keeper of
the park”
• Keeper events purposefully
• “keep” it beautiful and safe where they would work on a garden together. Got
their hands dirty, meeting each other.
16.
17. Organizational Communication
Types, in order of time spent (most
to least):
• Organization to member (marketing)
• Member to organization (reply)
• Member to outsider (e.g. P2P)
• Member to member (community)
18. Organizational Communication Types,
in order of Impact on Identity (most to
least):
1. Member to member (community / hard to
do)
2. Member to outsider (e.g., P2P)
3. Member to organization (reply)
4. Organization to member (marketing)
20. Why hasn’t this happened?
• Protect silos for personal
performance metrics.
• Segmentation – outbound
communication required.
• Have to give them freedom in how
we have them do it.
Katrina stage setting: It’s apocalyptic.
Small donor in decline
Perception of high ROI at top end
Societal distrust & dissatisfaction
Nonprofit “front door” not as open
Many nonprofits limited by revenue in meeting their missions
Katrina ju jits story – reinforces her identity as ___________.
Courtney: when an old lady goes and competes in jui jitsu, what does that remind you of? Correct answer: $10,000 volunteer fundraiser.
And we all have these communities that get us to do things that other people might see as "out there." Courtney too.
Courtney's story on becoming involved in ballroom dancing and competing nationally.
Courtney Ballroom Dancing Picture & Story about that community
Otis
The relationship between community and identity is important for you to understand in order to build your community.
People seek out groups of others who share their values, interests, or ideas. What groups we choose to be a part of is a big component of how we see ourselves.
So, we engage with people in the community. If the group is a good “fit” for us, these interactions reinforce our identity. It’s what’s called a “social validation feedback loop.” The more we engage, the more our identity is reinforced. And being validated by others is VERY rewarding.
These positive interactions further strengthen my identity, making me more likely to engage—and the wheel goes round and round. And now it feels perfectly normal for Katrina to compete in a Ju jitsu competition at 60 years old and Courtney to be a nationally ranked ballroom dancer.
Whenever members of your community validate your identity, it tells you, “These people are like me. What I am doing is good.” So, these interactions with members of the community that build trust. And that trust extends to the idea that you share – in Katrina’s case, that staying strong is important, and in Courtney’s that the art of dancing is important.
Building trust requires the opportunity to engage with community members. That’s why nonprofit communities need to be more than just a collection of people with some common idea or belief (e.g., animal rights, constitutionalism). They also must have the ability to communicate with each other. “With each other” are the most important words. Katrina could have watched MMA a LOT and never competed, just as Courtney could have watched ballroom dancing a lot and never competed.
Research shows that people are likelier to behave positively toward people they trust (and like). In other words, trust in the community is actionable; it makes me more likely to behave in a way that supports the community and its goals. So, when a community member (maybe someone you've never met) asks you to do something, you're much more likely to comply and say yes. In the best-case scenario, it’s not the organization that drives the mission but the people in the community.
Otis: Two kinds are built: 1. in community, 2. in the idea
Otis: little more on impact of community on individuals
Katrina: Research by Joshua Birkholz, Chief Executive Officer | BWF (a consultancy) These are the results of a donor survey for multiple clients. Here is some of what Josh and BWF heard:
"it's actually kind of lonely." Who fills that gap? Other donors.
"I only hear from them when they want something." Who DOES talk to them? Other donors.
"I'm not sure my gifts matter compared to big gifts." Who makes one small gift matter? Other donors.
Katrina: This is powerful. Now, what's our role in making this happen?
Katrina: I don’t wanna be annoying, but…
Katrina: We thought community was primarily for fundraising. Many nonprofits call their fundraising initiatives ”community” and I would say some accomplished that to some degree. But thinking back to what Otis said, “a community shares an idea” (check) and ”community members can talk to each other.” Have we done that? Nope. We have never facilitated that in a big way. And often we even try to preclude community members from talking to each other. Do we systematically put ANYONE who cares deeply about our mission in the same room, or do we always make sure they are segmented typically by revenue?
And, tell me, does a community shut down between events? If my family is my community, do we only ever talk to each other at the yearly family reunion, or do we talk regularly at other types of events and in other ways.
Let’s look at examples of communities that have gotten it right.
Courtney – yep, this is a view in Piedmont Park.
Comment on success around the role of community. What you said earlier…
Pre-covid we’d put a new team and old team together.
Family team committee
Piedmont Park – man’d deve and marketing & volunteering, started calling them Keepers. To give them asense of ownership to “keeper of the park”
Keeper events purposefully
“keep” it beautiful and safe where they would work on a garden together. Got their hands dirty, meeting each other.
Story: how to make them feel like taking care of park was about ownership – called them keepers. Important: people make friends and have community and are giving in like-minded ways, more likely to stay connected. Connected Keepers to all activities. Giving them ownership & comm with eachother, they share numbers and drinks later.
Otis: these are the ways community messaging happens. Now, What do we spend the most time and money doing? The first, organization to member. When they reply we celebrate, right?
And, we spend a LOT of time in social fundraising getting them to reach out, right?
If you accept the premise that a strong identity is vital to a constituents’ continued interaction with us for multiple purposes, where should we spend our time? What kind of communications will give us the strongest identity building?
That’s right. The one we spend the least time on.
Otis:
”people on list” = not a community. Three types of communication do little to impact my identity, they lack power. But #4, member to member communications, that is powerful.
Maintaining discipline to #4 is hard, because muscle memory by nonprofits is built on 1-3.
You can shape social norms in a community – support, advocate for each other, fundraise, donate
Courtney –
* Young Survival Coalition story on message board
YSC some of most engaged, member to member >> fundraising in p2p”
YSC message board, small but highly engaged, 50% ppts were survivors who lived on that message board
Katrina – And guess what, Turnkey was making that mistake too.
We created Convenings and Alongsides – explain them.
But what we didn't do is connect the people in a way that they could "talk amongst themselves." We didn't set up a forum for that to happen. Why? For a little while I could use the excuse that I wasn't able to. But that excuse has gone away. What we have realized we have to do now is provide a situation that includes both in real life interaction and online interaction with each other.
I described what I did wrong to Meghan Dankovich, around a fire like this one, and she said, "I'm working on it."
Meghan – what went through your head as I was complaining?
Transition
Covid
Meet people where they are / convenient / safe / private / intimate / exclusive
Katrina –
OK, Meghan is working on it, I’m on fire because I don’t have it. But, why hasn’t it happened before? Why didn’t we build community, real community, before now? Ladies, thoughts?
Meghan –
Courtney -
Transition to Engage
Meghan, how does Engage facilitate what Otis is describing?
Caregivers
Vol
Int in certain parts of mission – support group leaders, speakers bureau,
Meghan, how does Engage facilitate what Otis is describing?
KV interviews Meghan and Courtney:
Meghan – tell me about trying to sell community? Who owns it? Silo's
Courtney – tell me about trying to install this idea, beyond the software, as a p2p practioner. Now, you're a CEO. Is it different?
Exp at zero – must meet them where they are. EX: champions, but it’s messy. One of the things is create a way for opt in that is better, more listening less talking & educating, two different systems.
CEO chair priorities are different. I’ve been a mission first fundraiser, but now mission first CEO. Fundraising is not the mission, it’s how we make the mission happen. Allows us to see constituents as fac for success. We need them to have tools to be more embedded and see the impact. Something like this where someone can organically tell a story; way more powerful than any email with a perfect photo. This is interdepartmental. Will cross everybody.
It’s about retention and lifetime value.
Meghan: hard to sell / software vs. org value change / need to think differently about constituents (cB: digital folks not expert in community) the tool is just a tool; need csuite to buy into community. / strategic plan > org wide initiative. Must be set from top down.
CB: “clamor for connection” inperson declining / cause and community goes beyond the p2p adage / people give bec they are asked / they are asked because they are part of a community.
“piedmont park” = facilitating experience
Meghan: Sense of urgency – Jeremy – MGM breach – used emails to get in – making it harder to comm with email. Email is going down because of landscape.
Courtney: 2011 failure. How could we get them to connect with each other? It failed? We had a robust message board then. We didn’t do change management well. Botched implementation. WE didn’t get enough buyin. We thought we knew better
Platform
fully thought out
Fully built out
resources in place
Community Manager in place & trained
Initial invite group helps you build it as advisors
Initial invite group is small and passionate (not “walk people”)
Online community activities dovetail with offline community activities: “Online is one place the community meets”
Refine constantly
HOW DO YOU GET YOUR TEAM ON BOARD
Wrap slide:
Katrina in juijitsu; Courtney in ballroom; high level fundraiser