Dana Bakich · CEO/Nonprofit Social Media Coach, Positive Equation | Funraise makes it easy for nonprofits to fundraise and donors to give—exactly what you need! (Feel free to dance in your seat a little.) If you're looking for tips and examples and Aha! moments and surprising "oh yeah!'s" all wrapped in a sparkly, friendly conversation, grab some refreshments and listen in!
Your fundraising potential is anything but confidential.
Funraise's Sales Manager, Jenny Flack, and Dana Bakich, Nonprofit Social Media Coach and CEO of Positive Equation, take an eye-opening tour through all the fresh ways Funraise's nonprofit fundraising platform makes fundraising easy, donating easier, and cultivating donors the easy-breeziest of all.
In addition to the exciting wins that Jenny and Dana discuss, you'll also get the scoop on...
The bottom line: Always be fundraising. Here's how to do it right and have a little fun at the same time!
Justin Wheeler Today, I have a very special episode of the nonstop nonprofit podcast featuring our Sales Manager, Jenny Flack, and Dana Bakich, Nonprofit Social Media Coach and CEO of Positive Equation. Jenny and Dana recently talked about how to utilize all the features that a fundraising platform like Funraise offers. They brought a bunch of great ideas that you can use right now. Yes. During this insane coronavirus pandemic. And their conversation makes the benefits of nonprofit technology really obvious. A few teasers before I hand the mic over. Fundraise saw over 100% increase in donation volume in April 2020. Jenny and Dana talk through some of the very surprising reasons behind that growth. With one of the biggest being all the features Funraise offers that make fundraising and donating so easy, those features also bring in major wins for your nonprofit. And the key is data, getting it, analyzing it, and then acting on it. Once you've listened to this, you'll probably want to hear more from Jenny. She's super knowledgeable and has tons more to say about nonprofit technology and how it can help your nonprofit organization. So if you'd like to continue the conversation, head on over to Funraise.org and put a request in for a demo. And as a bonus, we've added some really cool examples of the concepts and strategies covered in Jenny and Dana's conversation so you can see all the awesomeness in action. Check them out at funraise.org/resources.
Dana Bakich Good morning. Good morning. We are now live. Happy Wednesday. I'm just checking my feed to make sure you can hear me. So glad you guys are here. Thank you for joining. This is the second Facebook live in our new series that I'm doing today. I'm so excited to bring on Jenny Flack from Funraise to talk to us about what she's seeing at Funraise in terms of who's giving, how are they giving, what campaigns are working. We're just coming off the heels of Giving Tuesday Now on Cinco de Mayo. So hopefully you're with us and didn't have too many margaritas or beers to cheers to your hopefully really successful campaign yesterday or if you didn't participate we also want to talk about why and what makes sense for your organization. So I'm so excited that you guys are here. This is for you. Please feel free in the comments to drop any questions as we go and we'll pop in and answer them for you. Without further ado, I'm going to bring on Jenny to kind of kick off our conversation.
Jenny Flack Hello. Good morning.
Dana Bakich Good morning.
Jenny Flack How are you this morning?
Dana Bakich Good. I am so glad that you are here with us. Hey, Chris. Everybody who is watching if you can let us know what organization you work for, where you're tuning in from. I'm in sunny Los Angeles. And Jenny, where are you?
Jenny Flack Yeah, I'm in L.A. as well.
Dana Bakich Yes, it's gotten really hot the past couple days.
Jenny Flack Yeah, it's nice, though. It's supposed to kill the virus. So bring on the sunshine.
Dana Bakich That's true. Well, Jenny and I connected, gosh, a few months ago. When I was doing some research on different CRM donor platforms for campaigns, for virtual fundraising before this whole COVID-19 thing was even in our minds or a possibility. And I just fell in love with A) you, and you were so knowledgeable about the platform and overall donors and giving far beyond just the platform itself and just kind of understanding where nonprofits are at with your years of being at Funraise. So tell us a little bit about you and your role.
Jenny Flack Yeah, sure. So Funraise is very simple, we're a nonprofit tech. Right. So basically the company was built on the belief that Nonprofits, right? The entities that are doing the most good in the world should have the best technology to do it right. And so historically what we've seen is, you know, it's very easy for nonprofits to be a decade behind, you know, when it comes to technology and really just the tools. Right. That's what it comes down to, that are empowering smart strategies to engage donors to serve your mission. So, you know, you mentioned kind of like the expertise outside of just technology and tools that comes because we were founded by a team of nonprofit fundraisers. So we like to say we're built by fundraisers for fundraisers, and that's something unique about us. So, yeah, my role there is [really important]. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest compliment we get honestly, when we, you know, show the platform is the "aha moment." Inevitably when somebody is like, you get me, you understand, you know, or like that, that's the biggest compliment. So yeah, that's kind of the background of Funraise. And my role there is I work with new organizations that are looking at their current tech stack or strategies. maybe looking to do new things and then bringing them on board to be part of our little family.
Dana Bakich I love it. Well, yesterday was a big day for nonprofits all around the world, Giving Tuesday Now. And what did you guys see at Funraise? And also maybe expand it to what have you seen really over the course of the past two months?
Jenny Flack Yeah. OK. So here we go. Yeah. I think really to me yesterday, which if you don't know, was Giving Tuesday Now. So kind of the Giving Tuesday campaign, an entity, normally does campaigns usually in November right after Thanksgiving. But you know, with current circumstances being what they are kind of rolled out, hey, we're going to do another one this year and that was yesterday. So to me, what we saw yesterday was really just a distillation of what we've seen over the last couple months. When it comes to fundraising strategies, you know, it's no secret that a lot of organizations have really had to pivot and look at, you know, adapting their strategies. And in many cases, the tools, again, that they're using, like I use those always together. Right. Because the tools just enable the strategies. But at the same time, strategies can be built off of the tools that you have. So anyway. So, yeah. What we saw yesterday was massive activity. Right. A lot of like huge increases in donations across, you know, our customer base. But the reason I tie that to the last couple of months is because what we've seen over the last couple months has, I think, been really surprising to a lot of people. As you can imagine, most of our conversations are about. What do I do now or how do I adapt? You know, we were supposed to have this scale that it brings in a million dollars like that's going to impact our mission and even, you know, our sustainability. So what do we do to make sure that we're, you know, bridging the gap? What a lot of the conversations I've been having, you know, basically since COVID-19, you know, people fall in different camps in terms of how they respond. Right. So some folks I feel like it's kind of just like a litmus test or like almost a Rorschach test I should say for like, kind of how you see what's happening. So some folks are really kind of stuck. Right. Like, what do we do? Do we just wait and see what's gonna happen? Other folks are like, we have work to do. Let's figure it out how are adjusting our asks. So what we've seen has been surprising. I think even to us, which has been an overall increase in giving. I think that's been surprising also to a lot of people that I've talked to over the past couple months. And we've seen this in March and again in April. Now we can you know, we can dig into kind of some of the specifics there about the asks. But overall, what we're seeing is there is capacity to give. Right. So even though times feel so weird right now and unemployment is super high. People are being impacted economically. But if you consider 80-85% of, you know, the nation right now is still employed. Right. And among those who are so employed, there's an increased, you know, desire, I would say, among a lot of them to do something. So we're seeing different segments emerge of nonprofits and how they're responding. Fundamentally, those who are asking and who are tailoring their asked to these unique times are seeing donations come in. Right.
Dana Bakich And I love, I just want to like tieback, I think it was so important what you just said where everyone right now is living the same world. So unique, it's a very unique situation, and I think that's so crucial for nonprofits to understand is there's a lot of sensitivities around asking. Like you said, people are A) we're at home - we're not running around doing as many things. So you have kind of a concentrated time to reach people and they're in a place where they know people are hurting more than usual. And if you are in a place to give, will give.
Jenny Flack Yeah. I mean, I can say anecdotally, you know, my husband and I, our giving has increased, you know, over the last couple months and particularly to organizations we may never have given to before. Because, like, think about normally activism involves getting out of your house, going out of your door, and doing something. And right now, activism looks like sitting on your couch. But that also means like, are you as a nonprofit giving people like me or, you know, my husband and all of us who want to do something, the tools actually to do that virtually right. So giving them tools to fundraise on your behalf. You know, not just donate, but, you know, get other people to donate, to, you know, sustain the work that you're doing. Those that are, are absolutely seeing the impact. And again, giving overall has increased. And those dollars and that revenue is going to people who are making an appropriate ask.
Dana Bakich Yeah, I love that. And that's a great segway. I want to talk about, so specifically over the weekend. For those of you who have followed me on social media, I signed up a couple weeks ago for Dressember's a virtual 5k. Ran my 3.1 Miles. Actually, it was 3.2 miles. And Dressember is actually who introduced me to Jenny and Dressmber is an amazing organization for those of you not familiar. They're headquartered in Los Angeles, but they work all over the country and internationally to try and end human trafficking and support survivors of human trafficking. And by Blythe Hill is a good friend of mine, the Founder. And so I signed up to run this virtual 5K and had to go through creating an advocate page through the Funraise platform that they use. And actually, while we're talking about it, I'll pull it out, because literally what you just said, you have to make it easy to donate, you have to make it easy to give. And so what I did, and while I pull this up. So this is my advocate page. And my goal was...
Jenny Flack Good job.
Dana Bakich Thanks.
Jenny Flack You totally got to your goal.
Dana Bakich And this is why. So why do they have it down here? OK. This to me is so crucial, Dressember is brilliant in that they literally outline for X amount of dollars it equals X impact. I call this a single issue ask. So you could tell by each dollar amount what it will provide. So for my goal I chose the $320. So $320 directly equals eight hours of therapy for one individual, a survivor. So I was like, that to me, it sounds like a great goal. So I set that is my goal.
Jenny Flack And I just want to comment there real quick. Like your situation is like a lot of people, especially if they're doing this for the first time and you have them sign up, hey, do peer-to-peer. They're ready and they're eager to help you. But if, you know, giving them some cues as to what should my goal be, you know, it's like these very practical things to kind of lay the groundwork. So it's not just about the technology being easy. Hey, I can sign up. There's my profile picture, that kind of thing. That's important, but also empowering, you know, your donors, your supporters, your fundraisers to understand the impact that they can have and to tie that in.
Dana Bakich Absolutely. And then, so after I set up my page, one of the first things that Funraise does is it prompted me to create a Facebook fundraiser. And for those of you that have not created it, what it does is it seamlessly takes an image - so I didn't have to put this image in here. It automatically moved over. I edited my title to be really specific again about my ask. It pulled in everything that I had drafted, this about matches this about, and I could go in again and edit it if I wanted to. But it tells my personal story of why the cause is so important to me. And then what I did for mine on Facebook before, right before we were doing our walk warm-up, I went live on Facebook and Facebook allows you to share your fundraiser with your live. While you're live there is an area at the bottom that literally is a call to action to donate. So as I was walking and I maybe went live for five minutes, like right as we walked to start our run. I explained what I was doing what I was fundraising for, that I wanted 32 people to give $10. I wasn't asking for $100. I wasn't asking for $1,000, $10. And in that five minutes, I raised over $150. So I went live then, then I did my run. Then I went live on our walk after, on our cool down.
Jenny Flack You didn't let everybody see you sweating during?
Dana Bakich Yeah, no. I needed to be able to breathe.
Jenny Flack OK. I get it.
Dana Bakich And then afterwards, you can see what was happening here. You see all these Facebook donor, Facebook donor, Facebook donor. So I had 19 donors and ended up exceeding my goal. So afterward, same thing, I went live, I'm sweating. I'm like, you guys I just finished my run. Same thing, donate below and then I shared it to my Instagram stories. And this was all within of course, the marathon took me 30 minutes. And then afterwards, I shared it to my Instagram stories and somebody was like how much more do you need to reach your goal in my DMs. And I was like $30. And she was like I got you, done. Yeah, that was it. And so within literally two hours or less, my goal, I surpassed my goal. And I think one cool thing, so A) the feature of a Facebook integration is so crucial. So crucial because the other cool thing is if I scroll...Then I did a thank you video and posted it. But as people were donating in here you can see I'm replying and saying thank you. And then for the people who donated while I was live, it shows you like "cha-ching", like somebody donated to you.
Jenny Flack And then you run faster?
Dana Bakich Yeah! And then you can write to them! Jane, thank you so much! Sarah, that's awesome. So I'm having this live interaction and they were just, I got messages afterwards like this was so cool. So it was awesome to have that, It's not in person, but kind of, like you feel like we're actually in a conversation with somebody. So that was the one part. The second thing I really like and I'd love you to kind of talk through the psychology of this, is you guys do you see that there is no long donate form on here? There's no like let me scroll, scroll. You click, donate. OK, tell me all about this buying because I'm like obsessed with this form.
Jenny Flack Yeah. So the first thing you'll notice here, you know, like you said, it's not what we call a vertical form. Right, where you're scrolling, scrolling that just creates a barrier for donors. You know, if you're like me you're just like too much, forget it. You know? So, yeah. The quick pop up, your profile picture is brought in here. So it really personalizes that donation. Right. Like if even if I don't know what Dressember is, I feel like I'm giving to Dana or on behalf of Dana. And then as you click that amount, you've already exceeded your goal. So you won't actually see the bar change here. But, you know, if you were, say, at 50% of your goal, somebody clicks one of those amounts. It's actually in real-time going to fill, it still will show the number. So like click on $150. So you can see actually how your gift is in impact that person's goal. Right. So, you know, maybe you were gonna give $50, but you're like, let's make it a nice round like 75%. I can give you a little more. And then this is what we call a horizontal form. So, you know, once you've kind of filled out this section, you go on and customize your donation using the button there at the bottom. So it's moving you through horizontally. So you're not going to overwhelm with the information you have to put in. I will also note, you know, a few things to making this really seamless and easy Apple Pay. Right. So if you were on a Safari browser or your iPhone, it would actually default to Apple Pay. Best, easiest way to give online literally a click. I love that. And then here, Dressember has actually configured and customized these fields here. So, you know, our users can remove these. They can add them in, the two I highly recommend are the 3%. Right. So can you as a donor recover, you know, the credit card fees and you can change that. We actually see the sweet spot is between about 5-7% there because the people who are opting in at 3%, by and large are opting in at like 5-7% as well. If you go as high as 10%, you start to see a drop off.
Dana Bakich If it's $4. Like, I would be like, if I'm going to give $150, I'll give $154
Jenny Flack Exactly. Yeah. And then, that's like, that's real revenue. Right. For Dressember who's raising millions of dollars every campaign. You know, even 1% of 1Mi, that's $10,000. Right. Multiply that by multiple millions and multiple percent, you can see where that's like tens of thousands of dollars in that case. Yeah. And then this company match, too, I like to point out, because this is just like the easiest way to double your impact. If your company has a match policy, you simply search, see if they do, if they do the name on pop up and then you just submit your donation. You don't have to do anything else. And then the organization also doesn't have to do anything else. It pings basically, the company, says, hey, Dana just donated this much per your policy, you know, and then kind of activates the process of getting that match so very easy when you need to significantly increase revenue.
Dana Bakich Yeah. And then it just continues to go. Well, I'd have to. Well, I'm not doing a company match. And then you just go over and add in your info. The other thing I really liked about this is for the billing address. It's not like address, city, state, zip it literally if I start to type in an address, It'll start to populate.
Jenny Flack So we call this autocomplete. This is, you know, the same thing if you're calling an Uber or Lyft, you know, you kind of start to type in the numbers and it's like kind of narrows down. Hey, here's what you're talking about. The advantage of this for the donor is, like you said, it's just super easy. But I would say even more significantly, the advantage for the organization is the data. Right? Cleanliness. Cleanliness of data. So you don't have four different ways that people are writing California. And then, you know, you have duplicates and things based on that. So it's really just streamlining that. So that's the form. And then to talk a little, to dig a little bit more into the advantages of Facebook integration like you showed here through the integration basically, your campaign page is mirrored as a fundraiser. On the organization's side, though, you know, there's like, again, the way the tools are built here, it's by fundraisers for fundraisers. So it's got the donor in mind making it as easy and seamless as possible. It's also got the organization in mind, of course. Right. So the significant thing here is the data. Right now, you know, if you don't have a Facebook integration or anything like that, people can give to you through Facebook, like they can just go rogue and create a Facebook fundraiser, which is awesome. If you are on typically the finance team at an organization, you're like good and bad, you know, because the data is so limited that you get, so people cannot tell - they get a name, that's usually it and an amount, so they cannot tell who did this person give on behalf of. You know, like how do I contact them just to thank them. Like nothing else. Like those things become impossible so long term it's great for revenue for one time giving. But what you're really missing is data that allows you to strategically engage that donor and have a relationship with them and provide them further opportunities to have impact, you know, as a donor or a supporter in other ways through our Facebook integration, you get more of that data. Right. So not only can you see, of course, like who somebody gave on behalf of, that fundraiser actually can see that data, too. And then, you know, because it's like on their page. But then also, you know, you're getting more information like physical address. Right. So if you want to be able to follow up, also, if people want to provide their email, they can opt into that. And we have early access to Facebook API so that we can actually provide more of that data. So it makes a huge difference outside of just that one gift, really to be able to nurture that donor. So I would say like the bigger significance really of Facebook outside of just like a one time experience.
Dana Bakich Yeah, absolutely. And I think we've been talking a lot about in this case, obviously, they're comfortable and going forward with a virtual event and asking. There's a lot of organizations that are unsure about making an ask or how to make an ask or what to ask for. Especially if they're not an organization that's technically on the front lines and a cause that is a necessity, kind-of need. What are you seeing with that? As far as organizations who are or what would you say really to an organization that's teetering on or unsure if now is OK time to make an ask?
Jenny Flack Yeah, it's a great question. Bottom line ask because you like your mission depends on it. Right. Like how long can you survive much less like provide your programing if you don't? Like, that's kind of the first question, then it becomes a matter of how. Like, so don't get me wrong, like there are wrong ways to ask right now, right. Our friends over at NextAfter they do like they're a fundraising research lab and do consulting and things like that. Yeah. So they did. like COVID-19 related research. Just saying like what, what are organizations doing right now and how are donors responding? What they found is if you are an organization that is directly, you know, it doesn't even have any frontlines, but maybe like second line, like directly impacted or dealing with, you know, COVID-19 related things. Mentioning COVID-19 increased overall donations. This is like March and April. Basically, like since this started. If you are in no way related and you're making an ask that you would be making otherwise. So, for example, like a membership drive or something that's like basically unrelated mentioning COVID-19 actually had a negative impact on donations. The way they said it was like they really saw it was kind of like stuffing, stuffing relevance into the communications. So they kind of had these three buckets, right. One where it's like natural, like you naturally are related in some way. Talk about that. We saw an increase there. Then we saw like kind of the unnatural ask cause a decrease. And then there's kind of a neutral bucket where it's like, you know, maybe it's not that related, but you're just saying, hey, now more than ever. Or, you know, in these times, like just kind of a vague reference, maybe mentioning it, but not trying to be like, you know, really specifically talk about COVID-19. And that, like basically there was no change one way or the other. So again, the mega trend here that I would want to communicate more than anything else is people are giving. People are giving more, actually, than this time last year than previous months before, you know, March and April. But one like, you know, make sure your ask is relevant. And then two, again, I'm going to say it comes back to your tools, so Dressembers a great example like the 5K that they had was supposed to be an in-person 5K. But they pivot and said you know what? We're still doing this. It's a virtual 5k. Rather than saying, if you remember it in school, like getting a zero on a test was like way worse than even getting an F, but 50% right to like your overall rate. Yeah, that parallel exists here. Like maybe you take a hit, right. Like maybe you know, I don't know necessarily in their case, but like what their goal might have been versus what they did. I don't know if it was higher or lower or the same. Even if you take a hit, though, like maybe you take a 20% hit, even a 50% hit allows you to do a lot more than canceling.
Dana Bakich And what's interesting too, with a lot of events that I've been talking to nonprofits about. Is anybody who had a golf tournament or a gala or even if it is a 5k? There are event costs that you are no longer paying for. There was one organization where because they didn't have to pay for their event costs their fundraising amount was lower. I think it made it a little lower at par but it was 418% increase. Net. Because they didn't have any of those event costs besides just kind of staff and a few tech things.
Jenny Flack I love that you brought that up. It's so true, events are notoriously just very expensive to put on. So to your point, the net fundraise dollars impacts that significantly, might be 50%.
Dana Bakich The goal doesn't have to be as high anymore because you're not spending $X on the actual execution of it.
Jenny Flack Exactly. Yeah. And again, like there's appetite among donors and supporters right now. Like they get it. We're all in this situation. It's not unique to you as an organization. You know, it's not something you have to explain to anybody. People wonder exactly why you're adapting and are ready to do that. So we've had a lot of, you know, organizations that we're supposed to have galas or runs or golf tournaments, and they're translating those into peer-to-peer events. They're focusing on recurring giving, basically going digital. And you're exactly right that's really, I think we're going to see actually a permanent impact in kind of the fundraising mix because of this, because of exactly what you said, the efficiency of the fundraising efforts. You know, we'll see galas again and all that. But like, I think these layers, you know, people, maybe things people always kind of thought they should be doing or sort of knew. They've kind of been forced to do it and been like, oh, this is really efficient, you know? Yeah, that's my hope.
Dana Bakich Agreed. Well, you shared some examples with me before the call, and I think it's important. I'm a visual learner. So I would love to pull these up. Is there on you want me to start with first?
Jenny Flack You can start with any. I'll just roll it.
Dana Bakich OK. But we're going with the hard hat and black-tie gala.
Jenny Flack Yeah. Perfect. So these are just a few examples. You know, we're talking big picture about hey fundraising is still happening. You still should ask. Just tailor that ask. So I just wanted to provide a few examples of folks that are doing that really well. So Habitat for Humanity is another example. They were supposed to have a gala last week, actually, and they're pivoting that into a peer-to-peer fundraiser. Right. So if you scroll down, I think they have, you know, a section this is, by the way, using one of our campaign sites. We have a number of different templates. You don't have to be a website designer. The whole idea here is anybody can spin up a really great looking microsite for an event, you know, peer-to-peer campaign, whatever. And that's how this was built. So you can see they're highlighting, hey, here's the impact. And then those different tabs are feeds. So they've activated the recent donor and the top donor feed. So you can kind of see what the activities like. And then, you know, this peer-to-peer campaign layout would mirror what you already saw in Dressember because it's actually using the same template. But you can see how each one has really tailored it and branded it. So the whole point here, is it looks and feels proprietary as if you know, built the website yourself. So they're a great example. I also wanted to highlight Green Dot. The reason I wanted to highlight them is this is a great example of like, you know, not necessarily front lines, meaning like medical or, you know, providing food, but like education is right there as we all know. They have done a great job with this top and center, just saying here is what we're raising for. Right, their ask is very specific. Here is a dollar amount and here's why. And then actually, if you scroll down a little bit, you can see they're using what we call our impact tracking. So they're just below the progress bar. You see over a thousand students equipped with devices. Right. So that when they built the site, they just enter our costs per project. So you can you know, what does $200,000 mean to us? Kind of arbitrary. But if we can see, hey, listen, we've so far equipped a 1,000 students. Let's keep going. Right.
Dana Bakich Yes. That's awesome. I live a really, really, really like that.
Jenny Flack Yeah. And then also, if you scroll up and click on their fundraisers tab, top-right. One thing I wanted to point out here is all different ages and demographics can participate. It is really, very user-friendly, right, to create, like you did Dana, create your page. Get that up and running. That's an objection we get a lot, you know, OK. Some millennials will get it, but like we have an older donor base, but you can see, you know, way to go, Brad. Like I would say, he's probably not a millennial. Look at him, he's like their second top fundraiser.
Dana Bakich He's a millennial at heart.
Jenny Flack Exactly. Yeah. So I just do want to point out, like the way these tools are built, it's like, the boomer demographic actually is the most active on Facebook. And if you can use Facebook, you can create a peer-to-peer page.
Dana Bakich Yeah, I love the teams too.
Jenny Flack So they're doing a great job, too. The next one is just an example of like a really direct, you know, more directly related ask, again using our templates. But they've branded this really to, you know, their organization, their ask just really seeing a lot of traction there. So they're doing a great job. Also contextualizing, you know, putting the about so people really kind of understand whether they came because they're already a supporter of yours or maybe this link was shared with them or, you know, they got communications from you. It's really helping provide the context for the goal that you've set. Absolutely. And then the last two are just a couple examples for Giving Tuesday Now, which was yesterday. So really easy to even for a single giving day, spin up a giving page or a campaign site, whichever. And you know, the Innocence Project is awesome. But, you know, just a very simple ask here and just saying, hey, be part of our work. Here's where you give and then you have that same form that we walked through before. And then the last one. Just another example of a Giving Tuesday Now campaign. In this case, a peer-to-peer campaign. Right. So you can have just like a giving page or a peer-to-peer like microcampaign. Sorry, microsite. Lots of different templates that you can choose from, but the point being it's as easy as it can be to make it look good and be easy for your donors but also to really convey your ask and how that's contributing.
Dana Bakich I love it and actually one thing that we didn't have pulled up here before. But I want to see if we can pull it up. Do you have handy the Live, the video pages? So what I'm talking about right now, while Jenny looks for that is. So a lot of you are now doing a live event where you're actually streaming something, you're doing a mini-production, whether it's something small and everybody's remote or some of them are people that are kind of like socially distance are getting together. And what I really love is that Funraise has built a page where you can literally embed your video and then you can integrate all these different features on your page so that it's a completely branded experience and it kind of serves as a home base. So if somebody maybe isn't, maybe they're not on Facebook, maybe they are not comfortable with utilizing social media, having just a website, a URL that they can go to that shares that experience there was great. That's also branded. And I know you had sent it to me.
Jenny Flack Yeah, I just sent it to you actually on our chat. So as you're pulling that up, basically what this is, it's actually using you'll kind of recognize the layout here because it's using one of our templates. The beauty of this is you can just pull in a livestream. Right. So this is just like just an example of what that might look like. Again, this is our template. So you see there at the top, it's really generic. It's just like event name. And donate, you know all this stuff you would customize to be your own? And then this, of course, would be your stream. So you can pull in, you know, whether it's you're using YouTube or Facebook Live, like you and I are now. However, you're hosting your event, pretty much like you'll be able to pull that in and host that. But the important thing here is, you know, you can, like as you did with your run last weekend, anybody can go live at any time. What this does is makes that look actionable. Right. So puts it in a context where you can monetize it. And, you know, as you're making your ask or whatever the case may be, you'll just point down, there's the give button, you know, make your donation. Yeah. And it gives you the almost like a stage. Right. To make that actionable.
Dana Bakich Yeah. I think what I love about it is you can get your recent donors, your top donor or some people love seeing their names. Right. So it gives you that opportunity and then you can have somebody who's if they're producing it. They can say, wow, check out this latest donation from. And it keeps you kind of engaged in real-time, but it still gives you a branded experience. If somebody wants to learn more about you, you don't really get that necessarily on a live. Scroll down, but still be like actively engaged with this page.
Jenny Flack Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And then I should mention, too, you know, this is a pretty simple example, which to be frank like most organizations probably would just need this kind of simple version right now, particularly if they've never done a live event, you know, like a livestream event before. But, you know, for anybody who's doing who's working with gamers like doing a Twitch, we have a Twitch integration. Right. So if somebody is fundraising for you by, you know, gaming. We can integrate that. We also integrate with StreamLabs. So, you know, if you're doing kind of a more sophisticated like, you know, having pop-ups, you know, when donations come in. You mentioned people love seeing their name. That's the whole name of the game when it comes to people who really like streaming and seeing like their comment and their name pop up actually up there on the screen with little widgets. Where, you know, we can activate that with the campaign signs as well if that's something people are doing.
Dana Bakich I love it. I mean, everything that I've seen, even like you said and I've been doing donating is people are open to giving. It's just being very specific about the ask and what the impact is going to be. And I think if you have, if you're an organization that has multiple programs, start with one, start with a priority ask, get that one down and then move on to the next one would be my advice. And then to not be afraid to innovate. I know it's a lot of people are intimidated by digital or social or there's a risk factor. And I always say, I don't know you guys have seen on your side, but just ask your key stakeholders, ask your sponsors what matters to them more than ever. Now, they probably have the time to talk to you more intimately and have a longer conversation. Anything that I haven't asked you about that you think is important that they should understand or anything that I might be missing from the platform that we should discuss?
Jenny Flack Not really. I mean, we dipped our toe in the water as far as the platform goes. So there's certainly a lot more there. But I think, yeah, the biggest things I would underscore, which we've already talked about are, make the ask, make sure it's an appropriate ask and I'm available. If anybody watching this wants to do an audit of, you know, your tools, your strategies, your ask, right now, just email me. I'm Jenny@funraise.org. So I and my team are happy to just kind of do the audit, like look at what your setup is and if there are places you could be maximizing that. So that's the biggest thing. First, like ask, people are responding to the ask. And I think that and the conversations I've had over the last couple months has been the biggest thing. Just like the reassurance that it's not tone-deaf, it's not inappropriate. It's like, people get it. And there's a lot of people who still have capacity right now. And with that, like the people who are seeing giving increase are those who are adapting, right? So it is taking things digital. It is like, again, replacing if you had an in-person event. Like, yeah. Maybe delay it. But also in the meantime, could you also do a peer-to-peer or other virtual fundraising campaign? You know, just because you're postponing doesn't mean you can't do both.
Dana Bakich Absolutely. And I think what's so great about peer-to-peer and I just experienced this with the 5K is, yes, people want to support a good organization, but more than that, they want to back me. That's what makes peer-to-peer such a great opportunity to expand awareness. And that's been happening, too, that I've seen as people say, we had, somebody said we had over 200 new donors because we did something virtual and expanded the people, like now the 19 people who gave to my small campaign now know about Dressember, where before they might of had no idea that it existed.
Jenny Flack Right. And I'll again say that's where the data comes in too. Right. So Dressember actually then can follow up if they want and say like, hey, listen, you gave one time. Thank you so much. Here's the impact your gift had. And, you know, eventually, like once there's been some nurture there, won't you consider expanding that impact by becoming a monthly donor? Yeah. And now the lifetime value of that donor in terms of revenue and impact for Dressember has increased, you know, at least, you know, 10 to 20 fold depending on how long that goes. So, yeah, it's certainly a huge opportunity. And that's why I say I think a lot of folks who are kind of dipping their toe in the water now by necessity will find that, you know, these are really core strategies, actually, and mission critical strategies.
Dana Bakich Well Jenny, this has been such a valuable conversation. And everyone plea her up on this audit opportunity. Jenny, thank you so much.
Jenny Flack Absolutely. My pleasure. Yeah. Thanks so much for inviting me.
Dana Bakich Absolutely. Have a good rest Wednesday.
Justin Wheeler Hey, thanks for listening. We hope you found Jenny and Dana's conversation and ideas inspiring and useful for your organization. If you'd like to talk strategy with Jenny head on over to funraise.org and request a demo and strategy session on the calendar. I guarantee she'll be thrilled to hear from you. And don't forget, take a look at the examples we've included to really bring to life and show off the concepts you just heard about. You can find this at funraise.org/resources.
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