Having conversations with your donors is so important when it comes to retention. But with more and more of them coming to you online it can be tricky to have the interaction you used to when it came to your inperson events and fundraisers. Daryl Hatton of Fundrazr is joining me today to talk about ways you can engage and tell stories in your online marketing.

In this episode you'll learn:

→ ways to engage with people online and why more people are donating online then ever before.
→ how to creat experiences for your donors that are used to more inperson interaction.
→ why it's important to be “social” on social media.
→ ways to make your crowdfunding campaing more successful.

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[8:15] With COVID more people have gotten used to ordering things online like groceries and clothes and getting them delivered to their house. This means that they're getting more comfortable with making online donations as well.  This means we need to up our follow-up game to keep them engaged and feeling like a valuable member of your organization.
[12:15] Don't just take what you've been doing offline and turn it online. The experience isn't the same. The reasons people attended galas isn't necessarily going to motivate them to show up at on online gala. Create new experiences that are authentic and allow you to engage and interact instead of just throwing it online and hoping for the best.
[16:56] Use social media to engage and create conversations not just to broadcast what is going on. And when peopl engage make sure you're responding to them and carrying on the conversation. It's also important to remember that some people are observing on social media and don't interact. That doesn't me they won't see what you're sharing and your authenticity as they decide where to give their donations to.
[25:31] 6 ways to make your Crowdfunding campaign more effective. 1. Say something about your campaign that everyone would agree with. 2. Describe the problem. 3. Talk about the solution. 4.Talk about the gap. 5. Make them the hero of the story. 6.Let them know how you'll keep them involved.

Resources

Online Fundraising Virtual Summit

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hey there, welcome to another episode of the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm Sami your host. And today I have a special guest, Daryl Hatton. And we are talking about why more donors are getting online, what that experience looks like, how can we engage a little bit more with donors in the online space and still make it personal. And it's a super fun, just kind of high level conversation about, you know, what that experience looks like? And you know, what organizations are kind of doing some really cool things and where you might be able to step up your game. So it's not necessarily about adding a different To Do List task. But more so just kind of thinking a little bit differently about how you put those things out there. How are you utilizing social media? How are you crafting the stories and the information that you're putting out there? How are you engaging with your audience in a way that sets you apart from other organizations that are out there?

Daryl Hatton is a CEO at connection point and at Fundrazr. He's an entrepreneur, cardiac survivor, foodie, whiskey nut, philosopher, mentor, grandfather, father, friend, fool and #kingofgastown.

We have an amazingly fun conversation. It is really just kind of refreshing to continue to talk about the work that organizations are doing in a new way. And in a way that helps you just gain more visibility and kind of reduces some stress and just kind of gives you some action items for things to do. So make sure you head on over to the show notes at thefirstclick.net/podcast, because there's some really good things that he talks about. And we'll have that all captured in the show notes. Okay.

But before we get into it, the doors are officially open on the online fundraising virtual summit. So head on over to onlinefundraisingsummit.com. And check out the amazing lineup of speakers that we have, Daryl will be one of the speakers that we are featuring during the event as well. This summit is geared towards helping nonprofits brand, a more profitable online fundraising event with less stress. And we have a combination of live panels, pre recorded sessions, live q&a, so really a great opportunity for you to engage with these speakers that are coming to the table to share their wisdom with you. And it's gonna be awesome. May 17, to the 21st. It's a five day event, you can get your free ticket right away. But guys, let me tell you, if you take advantage of the fast action VIP pass, there's over $5,000 in bonuses. There's some incredible things that are there for you and some more that are being added. So definitely check that out. You can get your VIP VIP pass for just $47 if you if you take advantage of it right away. Anyway, so online fundraising summit comm check it out, let me know which one you're most excited to hear about. And then you know, the party has already started in the Facebook group. So we'll see you in all of that. But for now, let's get to the episode.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing, and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, listeners, please join me in welcoming Daryl Hatton to the podcast. Daryl, thank you so much for joining me. I'm really excited to be here.

[DARYL HATTON] Yeah, this is gonna be a super fun conversation.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] But I want to start off just like I do with most of our guests by asking kind of how did you get into the nonprofit world? And why is this now kind of what who you love to serve and what you love to do?

[DARYL HATTON] Um, yeah, I'm, I'm a recovering crass capitalist of the previous company we ended up taking public on NASDAQ in 1999. And I was looking, we ended up selling to another company, and I ended up looking to say, hey, what kind of new business Am I going to create? So in 2000, lead, I started to look around and saw how Facebook was, was really becoming a trend. And at that time, you know, it's hard to remember back then, but it was the thing that kids did. It was the that wasn't a serious platform. It was all about games and frivolity, and, you know, hot or nots and things like that. And so I decided to build a business around it when I saw my lacrosse team was using it for communication. And I asked them to all come out to a practice using Facebook and everybody showed up or they'd been ignoring me on email. And I saw it occurred to me can I get them to pay their fees that way? And Fundrazr was born, the idea of collecting fees and maybe some donations on using social media. And as we got going with that, the fee part of it didn't really work out but the donation part really started to take off.

So I was looking to build a business using social commerce is what we talked about at that point, you know, how can we do payment processing and, and charging for things using social media. And it didn't, we didn't really set out to do anything philanthropic we didn't, that wasn't, you know, give back to the community kind of idea there was the motivation was to do something good, but not good being not evil. But it wasn't about trying to help the philanthropic sector. And in the first year, when we, when we launched the product, we were really trying to understand what our customers were using it for. And we didn't really know I have to tell you, we didn't know at all. And to the point, we didn't know that we were taking and printing out campaigns, and posting them all around a boardroom and sitting back and trying to go what's the pattern here? Like they're people raising money for their dog, and they're raising money because their house burned down the reason why because they wanted to go back to school, the raising money because they wanted to help with poverty in their community. We didn't understand it until we had one story come through, where a woman wrote us a thank you letter to say, Thanks for helping save my daughter's life. And we were like, wow.

And she said that she was she and her husband were in the kind of off the grid in Hawaii. And they were trying to they had a young daughter and the daughter had been just diagnosed with childhood leukemia. And they didn't have health insurance because they were living off the grid. But he had apparently been new ex US military. So the military hospital in San Diego agreed to take the daughter as a patient. But they said you've got to get her here right now. Because every day counts with childhood leukemia. So they put up a campaign and fundraiser raised I think was $3,500, over the next two days, got themselves tickets to San Diego, got the daughter there. And the doctor said, If you hadn't got her here today or tomorrow, she probably would have died.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Wow.

[DARYL HATTON] And so we got to think you know, and all of a sudden we went, wait, what we're doing has a much bigger impact than we ever thought. And all of a sudden going to work wasn't working anymore.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, no, I think that's incredible. And I think so many nonprofits kind of get started accidentally. Also, because it's just just like you said, maybe one person wanting to make a small impact in their personal life that they then realize, can make bigger impact if they just put a little bit behind it. Yeah, yeah. That's so great. That's awesome.

Um, so I love that you kind of started because you saw that combination between offline and online? Like, how do we communicate with different types of people? How do I, you know, still stay connected to this audience that I'm serving, which at the time was your lacrosse team? Right. And I think also nonprofits are seeing a huge, I mean, it's been happening over time, but transitioning your donors from offline to online? Do you think that those are the same people? Or do you think that nonprofits are needing to kind of reach out and hit two different types of audiences as they're working on their giving campaigns?

[DARYL HATTON] You know, it's a big question that's going on in the industry right now, for sure. And I think, I think first of all, we have a community that, that we want to deal with. Some of them are living online, some of them are living offline, some of them prefer to be online. And it doesn't necessarily just mean that it's young people.

So with the pandemic, we've had a whole bunch of people who never were involved online before. Now, ordering groceries, or ordering products on Amazon in ways that they've never done before. They're zooming with their friends to actually communicate. So they're learning digital skills. They were reluctant, but now they've been forced to move. And now that they've got there, and they realize how easy it is to order something on Amazon and haven't dropped, shipped to the house and look at showed up the next day and then didn't have to go to the store. They're going, can I make a donation like that. They're actually asking or looking for ways to support causes that are more convenient. They've learned about the convenience of an immediacy of a digital environment. So I think even people that we may have suspected or always assumed, wouldn't be that interested or starting to become interested in interacting online. But with that comes the problem, that the expectations are now set by the online world of immediacy, and an instant feedback and transparency and seeing exactly what's happening.

You know, we get kind of addicted to the idea, or a lot of people get addicted. The idea that if you order something, you can see where it is on the truck on its way to you know, I'm checking in, I'm getting a notification it's going to be delivered today at around noon. That information is seductive. We want more of that.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, we order imperfect foods. So we get some groceries from them every week. And I love it because they actually deliver them like they deliver it themselves. And so I get a text message that says it's on its way. And I get a text message that says, it's been dropped at your door. So I know Yeah, exactly where it's at. And it's great, because I don't even have to think about it. And because it's groceries, I know, I can go right down and grab it right? You know, so it's not sitting out in the sun.

[DARYL HATTON] Yep, it's cool. So the basics thing that you have here is real time information. That's what's really attractive about that, right? I can prevent my groceries from spoiling and the thing I can prevent somebody, you know, in our neighborhood, some wild animal from coming in with them. That that kind of information is really, really valuable. And I think in this transition to digital donors, well, as nonprofits we have to look at is they're expecting much more information up on what's happening with their gifts, they've purchased something with you, they're buying a result, they've been emotionally motivated, or their cause or community based motivation, you know, their empathy is, is involved, but they're actually trying to get a result in communicating that result to them, is going to be of paramount importance, if we want to retain them as donors, because others who do a better job will keep them.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, then, because I agree with you, I think people tend to get more online, like you said, that hurdle has been jumped. But some of those donors that are newer to online giving are still used to the offline giving treatment, which might be a little bit more hands on or more, you know, we're gonna do little mixers, or we're going to have more in person interaction, or we're going to do phone calls and all that stuff. So how do you kind of navigate them that bridge or create that still personal experience? When you're working with with these donors online?

[DARYL HATTON] That's one of the problems that we're Yeah, as a company we're really working hard to solve. And part of it is around some of our assumptions, or our are things that we're taking from our offline world into the online world, just replicating an offline event online tends to not work, there was a huge thing this year of, Hey, can we do our gala online, and it just doesn't feel right. It's not the same thing to just now meet over zoom, to try to have the gala that we used to like getting drunk together and going dancing maybe and, you know, at least certainly socializing and maybe showing off a bit in the gala. Those kinds of things are don't replicate very well online. So we have to be cautious not to just try and replicate those things, but to say, What is it about this new environment that makes it more engaging? And one of the things that we see when we're talking to a lot of small nonprofits when they're getting started, is they think of social media as a broadcast mechanism?

Yeah, they want to use it to reach all their people through Facebook, or, or Instagram or whatever. And so they're pushing information out. And the thing that we're, we have to kind of talk to a lot of them about is that it's actually a mechanism for dialogue for to have a conversation online. And so we're wanting to share the information, but we're also wanting to listen to what they're saying, and respond to that information. And using the digital communication channels to help have those conversations. So it takes a mindset shift is to think about how do we push information out to people to keep them updated? And say, how do we talk with them about it. And that's, it seems subtle, but it's actually a big deal. Because it's hard to change, you have to first off, you got to get used to the idea that you're talking a little bit into the void. And then waiting to hear that voice back. When you hear it, you better jump on and talk with it. And you know, kind of Who is that? What do they need to know? How can I help them? What did they think about what we just said? Because that promotes that level of engagement.

So when you said you talked about having a donor who was used to being treated, especially perhaps through because of the size of their gift, or you know, the personal interaction that they're getting, we need to have more cost effective ways to do that work, because their gift is probably going to be smaller on online. But the opportunities to get them to give much more frequently. They won't give once a year, but they might give once a month, right? And if we get them, you know, somebody gives you $1,000 once a year, that's great to give you $100 a month that's better. Right?

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and we know that those monthly I mean, I talked about this all the time, but we also know that those monthly donors are more often to also give a one time gift at some point. When you're running a specific campaign during the year as well, like they're your raving fans, right?

[DARYL HATTON] But one of the things in your very true and so cultivating them with the information about the work that you're doing all the time, means that when they come to think about what would they do with a larger gift, they have a track record of a feeling of trust that they're starting to build. There's such a high level of distrust in institutions at the moment, a variety of reasons. But one, you know, nonprofit sector is probably one of its lowest levels of trust in history. And based on the surveys that I've been reading,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] No, you're not the only one that's been on this podcast that has said that same thing.

[DARYL HATTON] So. So in order to build trust, how do we, you know, a good question to ask is how can we rebuild trust, and one of the ways is being transparent, showing what we're doing, you know, including all the words, things that don't necessarily look good, because when we're authentic humans, we tend to trust each other more. And when we talk about the results in a way that the donor can see the impact of their gift in a much more transparent way, they're much more willing to give again, because they know that their money was used properly, or at least was used towards the goals that they that they have. Yeah, I think that's Paramount right now is to, you know, kind of do what you say you'll do. Yes.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] No, I agree. And I want to go back a little bit to what you said about social media, in that I'm having conversations and you know, not just broadcasting things out there. But you know, asking questions, and really creating that content to be more conversation starter, as opposed to just here's all the amazing things we've done, right? Like that can make a big impact on on waiting for that voice to come back. And that engagement for people to communicate with you. Right?

[DARYL HATTON] It is a fine. It's the art of conversation. And, you know, we got used to being able to do it at a gala, a lot of introverts are going this pandemic is the best thing. My my team said that explicitly 25 minutes ago, and because she said, you know, she's an introvert, she'll always be an introvert, this has been a joy. So a gala was a nightmare for her would be a nightmare for her. Because it's that feeling of vulnerability in that kind of thing. But when you have, you know, if you're if you're like that, I know a lot of people who have felt uncomfortable with that, who managed to train themselves in being much more comfortable in the art of conversation. I mean, everybody who's dating right now knows that right? You have to be much better patient than ever before, made even worse by this pandemic. But we have to learn that that art of digital conversation now with our donor base, and I don't know that there's a great formula for it. I mean, listening is a really good formula. Paying attention to how someone responds to what you're saying, is a really good formula. But we just, we don't have the visual clues. We don't you know, we have to start parsing words for emotional clues in a response, and that can really lead to a lot of bad assumptions and, and hard feelings if we're not careful.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So what are some ways that, um, because we can't be face to face in events? I know, I hear a lot of pushback from organizations that are like why can't pick up the phone and call people we don't have enough time? You know, that's a great way to have listen and learn from some of your donors. But I mean, what are some other ways that you're seeing organizations kind of still create that personal experience, and even though they can't be physically together?

[DARYL HATTON] Um, one of the things about social media, and when you're running your campaigns in public and have more social media engagement with them, is that you don't have to have a conversation with everyone. You just have to have a conversation with some people. So it's kind of like when you're at the cocktail party, and there's eight of you all standing around a two people, we're having a great conversation. And the others are kind of paying attention. Because they get to see what's going on, they're getting smarter, or they're getting, you know, entertained, or they might be getting, you know, oh my god, can you believe what they're saying? But they're, you know, it's a cocktail party, after all. So if it's not a little bit of controversy, it's not probably a good party. The that conversation is in public. So there's an idea that we have to have a personalized conversation with every person. And we don't, I think we have to have a conversation with the community, represented by people along the way. And that can help make the time that you spend on it seemed more relevant, because you're going I'm investing a lot in this conversation with this one person that feels like I'm overdoing it, they only gave us $250. But what you have to remember Or is that the community is listening they'll Dolby Dolby THX thing, you know, audience listening, you've, you've got their attention in some ways. And if you treat that with respect the person you're talking with, kind of regardless of the gift size, they you're showing demonstrating your, your empathy or your hopefully excitement about working with your donor community. And they'll feel better about giving you something even though they haven't personally interacted with you.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So I think you know, what you're alluding to is, is kind of the lurkers on social media, right? You, you have the people that are always going to post comment and engage with your stuff. But you also have a whole network of people that may be, they might be reading your emails, but they're not clicking on anything, they might be looking at all your social posts and seeing the way that you treat those that are engaging with you, but not engaging themselves. But that doesn't mean that at some point, they're not going to show up.

I mean, I just had somebody called me last week that I haven't engaged with in three years. And he was like, hey, I've been reading your emails for the last three years, you've been providing me a ton of value, I hear you have this event coming up? How can I help you promote it? Because I love what you do? And like, I haven't talked to him in three years. So you never really know. Right?

[DARYL HATTON] Perfect example. Yeah. Right, you but you built like, that person feels like they have a relationship with you. Talk with them three years. Yeah. But if you've been consistent in your messaging, you've been consistent in, you know, the goodwill that you're putting out there paying attention to it. And when the opportunity presents, hey, you know, we just ran into some money, because, you know, we have an estate clear out in our family, can I give you a bigger check. That kind of thing is, is priming the pump, if you will, all the way along.

But so I guess, you know, to summarize, a lot of that is that we have to start finding ways to have a digital conversation. And, but remembering that there's a lot more leverage in that than we might have thought. And the thing that people sometimes miss in at least we're finding that this is hard idea for people to get their their head around is that some of these social platforms, your donor is actually more of an advocate than you might ever thought.

We just had a campaign run recently for a thing, that they were helping young children who were suffering from the pandemic, they were giving them a worry monster doll.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Oh, that's so cool

[DARYL HATTON] They use them in the therapy. And, you know, so the doll cost $30. And they ended up funding a whole bunch of these for kids that are really struggling right now. They you know, the idea that they've lost their way that we're going to die, the world their parents are going to die. You can't see everybody to see all the angst around them. They having trouble getting to school, everybody's wearing masks, you know, there's a lot of anxiety and kids. And these these worry monsters were there. And they were telling the stories of of the worry monster, in helping the donor community understand that, that they're really every time they they give 30 bucks, they're helping one kid sleep better at night. And they they use the example stories of one girl got her worry monster and slept in her own bed for the first time for six nights straight. Your parents around the world are going Yes.  Absolutely. why that's so important. For $30 contribution. So there was a little video clip of her getting the doll and then the follow up story that came with it. The thing that that the causes promised to share with us is they said they were really surprised at how many new donors came to that campaign, because they were referred by social media sharing of people who loved the stories.

So like a donor becomes potentially when you're having a conversation with them and you give them shareable content, they become a way to acquire new donors for you That is, we couldn't do in the offline world. Or as easily Yeah, say hey, you know, when you plan to give this your I gave you here you should give here. But if they are talking about the stories of what the work you're doing together, and that's a big fundamental shift, that's not I'm paying you to go do this is we're doing this together, when not messaging can change. They bring you new donors, that messaging is incredible, too, because it immediately resonates with me as a person, right?

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Like if I have kids, or if I have babysat kids, or if I have parent like friends that have like that's a cot like that's something that everybody can resonate with. So I think that's brilliant, just to figure out a way to come up with who your ideal donors are, and how can you really make that messaging about them because that's what's going to compel them to share it as opposed to just being like, Hey, we did this cool stuff. You should think we're awesome.

[DARYL HATTON] Yeah, it's one of the things we have to coach a lot of nonprofits on when they get started with a crowdfunding campaign is one of the first things they want to do is they say, you know, we were founded in 1970. And there, it's all about their history. And we've actually, we're just trying to finalize it right now. But it'll be a work in progress forever. But we have six points on the way you tell a crowdfunding story? Do you want to spend a minute and run through this?

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Absolutely.

[DARYL HATTON] So one of the first things to do in telling your crowdfunding story is to say something about your cause that everyone would agree with? And people are great wired. And but what you're trying to do is have the reader go, Oh, yeah, of course. Because what happens is the mental switch goes off of Oh, I agree with you. So less resistant to the next idea, you propose, you're already in agreement on something.

So one of the things that the worry monster group said, for example, is that during this pandemic, all of us are suffering mental health challenges that, you know, it's been hard on us from a mental health point of view. And most people go Yep, for sure. So the first points state, something like that, that you can agree on, that's in the problem space.

The second thing is, then describe the problem, don't get into who you are, don't get into all the basic things, in one short paragraph, say what the problem is. So what they said is, in this example, the kids or I should pull up the campaign, so I remember it completely. But the kids are really suffering, you know, they are seeing all this pressure around them. And they are having higher anxiety, they're worried parents are going to die, they're worried that they're, they're not going to be safe themselves. And in essence, the what we learned from this particular client, is they summarize, they said, in essence, kids are just been knocked off balance, a great summary of a problem, they said.

Then the next thing is to talk about the solution. Fortunately, the solution is here. And then they went into how they worry monsters in the therapy that they're doing can help alleviate the stress, it's on the kids because they can take their worries, write them down, zip them into the mouth of the worry, monster. And then when they meet with a therapist, they pull them out, they talk about them. And they they said, basically, the story of here's what the solution is.

Now what we want people to do next, is to talk about the gap. So here's the problem, we've got enough money to fund you know, 50 of these for the kids, but there's 150 kids who need them. So you're highlighting the gap, where the in the donor starting to go, Okay, I get how I'm going to play a role here.

The next job is to help them understand how they can be the hero of the story. And people go, Oh, that's awful. It's like No, it's not. Yeah, donor wants to know, they made an impact. So you say when you can help one more child sleep better at night, all we need to do is help get them more of these worry monsters, and we take care of getting it there. People go, No, I can see how I can help.

The last part we say in the storytelling is some quid pro quo, or you know, Latin for I'll do for you if you'll do for me. And the idea at the end is to say, you know, if you help us solve this problem together, we'll keep you updated on all of the work we're doing. To help these kids feel better during the pandemic.

The whole message takes couple minutes at most. And yet at the end of it, the donor is very clear, and how they can help very clear on the impact they're going to have, and, and hopefully bought into the idea, they're part of a movement now, to keep these kids healthy. It's not a one time gift.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, then it goes back to what we started the conversation with, then with the consistency of then continuing to show up. So they see how they're going to be controlled, how they're going to be contributed, how they're going to be treated. And that consistency there so that they can continue to be, you know, repeat donors and hopefully turn into some sort of monthly contribution.

[DARYL HATTON] Well, and even one of the things that we're trying to work on is the difference between a recurring contribution and a repeated contribution. Millennials are particularly reluctant to make a commitment to a recurring contribution. There's some that are doing it for sure. But the you know, with everything uncertain for now, they don't want to be on the hook to see whether or not the, you know, what happens if I lose my job or I'm having a hard time I can't make that payment this month. The I'm on the board of PayPal Giving Fund. And one of the numbers that came through is that one of the reasons most people won't make a recurring contribution is they feel is too hard to get out of it when they need to stop. So they they feel like it's too hard to quit because in some cases, causes have taken the recurring donation and disappear so that they don't want to remind people so that you'll just ignore the fact that comes into your account every month. Yeah, as opposed to saying, Hey, here's what we did with your money this month. You don't want to want to draw attention to it in case you want to cancel

But the thing that this group did first off, just to give some idea of scope, they started off with a goal of $6,500 for this worry monsters, they blew through that in 24 hours is the first crowdfunding campaign they'd ever run, wow, they they up, the goal is that well, we'll just stretch it a bit to 8,500 that blew through that in two days. And then they upped it to 10 grand, it took them I think, a week or two to get there. And then they called it, they said, Well, actually, that's the number of monsters we can get right now. And our therapists will be fully, fully outfitted with these for the next little while. So they stopped the campaign. But the from the ad from the 6500, to the 8500 level, they shared one of the stories, one of the kids getting the worry monster, and that's when a whole bunch of the new donors started show up.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] New meaning like outside of their existing network.

[DARYL HATTON] Yeah, they've never seen them before.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, that's I mean, that really is the power of messaging and storytelling and making people feel connected to your cause in a personal level, versus maybe just on a intellectual level?

[DARYL HATTON] Well, there's a lot of researches coming out that we have to engage on both levels, we have to engage on an emotional level. Because that's what's going to motivate us if we're completely cognitive, irrational, we go, yep, that's a big problem, I just can't handle that right now, I'm not able to handle there's too many problems in the world. But when we can start with an emotional place to start, and then back it up with the rational side, we trigger empathy. Because now we can start to imagine ourselves in that scenario, or imagine how those people would be feeling in that scenario. And that will motivate us to give. And then it's not a flash in the pan, you know, the, the the Ice Bucket Challenge, and a lot of things like that were kind of trendy, but they didn't retain donors at all. They use social media, they got the message, I was a big way, but it didn't help to keep them. But when we can get that more that deeper kind of cognitive background, the empathetic background to the emotional response, they tend to stay, and you have a much better opportunity to work with them over time.

So the difference between recurring and repeated is that if we can keep telling them the stories of the work we're doing, they'll keep wanting to give. But they it's not. It's not necessarily recurring. So a lot of people are very excited about trying to add a recurring gift program because they know how good that can be. But it's actually hard to do it unless we change the way we go about it. Right? The things that that we talked about is, how do you tell your story of your cause? In a way that would give you this opportunity for recurring and repeated together? Because they're similar?

It's funny, because a lot of causes go when we don't, we don't have an emotional story like that we work on some really ugly stuff, you know. And it's interesting that when we walk them through a strategy session, how many times everyone who said Oh, that's not possible, discovers that they have the story in there, they just have to reframe how they think about their work. They don't change. Yeah, they just reframe it, or they look at it. And all of a sudden, it's now quite fundamental, in this kind of model.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I think, too, that, you know, there are a lot of nonprofits that deal with some really heavy things. And when you're, when you're dealing with that stuff on a day to day basis, it can be hard to pull yourself up out of the weeds to see it from, you know, the everyday person lens.

And I think a great thing. I don't know how you work with nonprofits on this, but like, you know, really encouraging organizations to talk to their donors, and figure out what are the things that they want to hear about? And what are the things that connected them? Like, just to bring it back to that basic level? And what are the ways that you can educate people and kind of take 10 steps back from where you are now and engage with people kind of at the beginning part of the source of the problem is very much there.

[DARYL HATTON] One of the most interesting conversations that a lot of nonprofits can have is to ask their donors. So what is it you think that we really do? Frequently surprised and how disconnected it is from the reality. And some organizations are pretty good at keeping people up to date, but they get a portion of the picture, but they don't always know kind of the like, give me some ideas of how you could see that happening day to day in the world what the difference we're making. And it's good for organizations to get into that as well to start to figure out because the I think they get reattached or reinvigorated on their purpose, because they can see the game and it makes it easier to put go through all the trials and tribulations in this industry when you are really clear why you do it.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And why do you think organizations don't do it? Do you think part of it is that you'd like you said, if they get a comment back from a donor that's completely different than what they really are trying at the core of that thought that donor will go away? Or like what, you know, what do you think is the fear there?

[DARYL HATTON] I think that's one of them that, you know, if we really told them what we do, they would never support us. And, because it, it can sometimes feel like it, the I think we they get fatigued as a group, about the empathetic issue of what they're dealing with. So they assume everyone else's.

You know, when you're overwhelmed with poverty, you're overwhelmed with mental health, you're overwhelmed with a bad sickness, these things can feel impossible, just, I mean, it's never ending, right. And so we get really fatigued with it, we get tired of it. And we're assuming the donors get tired of it too. But if we're talking more about the solution, and how we're fixing things, and how we're improving things, and less about this magnitude of the problem, I mean, if you know, you have to eat a whole elephant, you really get feeling queasy right off at the beginning. But if you can think about getting your way in, you know, easing your way into it, it makes it a lot easier. And that's one of the mechanisms that we have.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I love that.

[DARYL HATTON] That there's a big challenge with the skills in this kind of digital storytelling and digital marketing. You know, I, we haven't really talked about that so far here. But one of the challenges with with the move to digital is it's no longer your local community. It's your global community, that you're you're competing against others who are doing similar work than you, as you are in different parts of the globe. In in, we now have to become much more proficient at digital marketing in order to reach the donors that we care about that that care about us. You know, if you're running a pet rescue, it used to be that you were the ones in the spot. But now you're competing with national organizations, international organizations, international pet rescues, you know, all this great for their attention. And we can't just assume that we have the advantage of locale anymore.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, I think that goes back to what you started with, with transparency, and consistency and engagement and being social on social. So it's not necessarily changing everything that you're doing, or everything you've done or making more work, but it's just kind of reframing how you go about doing the work that you're probably already doing, or how you know, how you reframe the way that you talk about what you do.

[DARYL HATTON] If someone's been in a cause for a long time, they get blind to it. And one of the things that we found is kind of fun is when you get a little secret here, go find a journalism student who is just graduated, they need they need cannon fodder, they need to stuff to talk about, get them to write about you, as as you know, get them to do some of your posts for you. Pay them a little bit. But the thing is, you might learn a whole lot about yourself, because you've had somebody look at you as journalists. And they know how to tell a story. And they tell it more factually, because they're there, you know, that's part of the training is that they need to have some some distance, I guess from the topic. But in doing that, they can also kind of shine a light on the things that you may not have thought about in the way you do it. You get that going on. And if they're passionate about what you're doing, or they become passionate about what you're doing, the quality of the of the work can really surprise people at the way you talk about the business. Yeah, business being the nonprofit.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, no, I think that's a great tip. Well, I feel like Daryl, we could probably talk about this stuff all day long.

So I want to call out a couple key things, and then kind of let you if there's anything else you want to add, but really, for me, I love having these conversations and the key takeaways that I'm getting from you. I really, and I'll put these in the show notes. So you guys can go back to the show notes and recap the six, the six elements of a great crowdfunding campaign, but make sure you're really storytelling and and talking about the problem.  And then making sure that you're showing up consistently and engaging and paying attention and understanding that even though your efforts might feel like nobody's paying attention, there are people on the periphery that are still kind of involved and engaged and participating.

[DARYL HATTON] Yeah. So don't get too frustrated. Just keep doing it. Yeah, sometimes just, it may not. It's like a new habit. It takes a while to get it settled, you know, trying to walk by the refrigerator without open it has been a real challenge for the last year.  But you know, eventually becomes a habit. And then it starts to work a whole lot better. We have to develop some new digital habits.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yep. I love it. Anything else that you want to share any other nuggets of wisdom around, you know, communicating in this online space?

[DARYL HATTON] Um, I don't know that we can ever say strongly enough about authenticity and transparency. Yeah. I will. I'm a social media guy, I live my life out loud. If you go to my social media properties, you get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I can be comfortable with that. Because I know that it builds trust. And it builds. I've had some surprising things happen. You know, I ended up having a heart attack. And I blogged about it from the hospital. Wow, what, but I had a lot of people following that story very intensely. And they said at the end, thank you for being so kind of straightforward about what was going on. We learned a lot, we worried less. And we have a much better appreciation for how to, to, you know if this happens to a relative how to pay attention to it. Yeah, that was valuable. And but I had pictures of me in the hospital. You know, that didn't look great, because I was, you know, intubated, and just coming in with surgery, things like that. And, and so I guess maybe that was one of the things where I really learned that this is really valuable in building that relationship with people.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] No, that's a that's a really good Yeah. authenticity and transparency, I think are I agree with you? 100%.

Well, Daryl, if people want to find out more about you and Fundrazr and all the things that you have going on in your world, how do they do that?

[DARYL HATTON] A couple of different ways they can fundrazr.com which is F U N D R A  R, or Zed R, if you're Canadian dot com is where you know, we hang out and talk about what our product does, and how we do some of the digital marketing. In particular, we have a blog on there where we have articles about this stuff. And, you know, if you want to check out more about our crazy thoughts on it, my name darylhatton.com is my speaker site, and where we have some of the videos and webinars that we've done and things like that, like my TEDx talk on philanthropies, entertainment, and how you know, when we're doing storytelling like this, we can get a recurring stream of income coming out of it.  So that's, that's one way to do it. But also just to reach out, you know, hit me up on LinkedIn, or hit me up through the fundrazr site, or daryl@fundrazr.com, and we can have a conversation.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Awesome. Yeah, we will get all of those linked up in the show notes. So it's easy for you guys to grab that at thefirstclick.net/podcast. Daryl, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. It was a great conversation.

[DARYL HATTON] Well, thanks for having me. I really love this kind of conversation. I think it's so important the work you're doing to help bring these these conversations out to the community because, you know, we're in a challenging time in many ways. And the more guidance and the more kind of people can get some inspiration from this. I think the better off we'll be.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Very well said very well said. Thank you.

[DARYL HATTON] Talk soon.

[CLOSING] Big, big, big thank you to Daryl Hatton, again for joining me on this episode. Such good stuff. Again, head on over to thefistclick.net/podcast to get the show notes. And check out more about his company Fundrazr and kind of see how you can, you know, engage with with them and maybe learn a new tool that you can integrate into your fundraising platform.

I really hope that you'll subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on a single episode. And if you love what you're hearing, head on over to Apple podcasts and leave us a little review so that more people can find us and learn from us. And then finally, I look forward to seeing you in the online fundraising summit kicks off may 17. This free five day event is going to be incredible and jam packed and full of great information. So head on over to onlinefundraisingsummit.com. I'll see you there. And I will see you in the next episode.