How do you know what your audience wants when it comes to a monthly giving program? It can be easy to be in our own heads. Today's guest is Tiffany King and she's bringing her perspective of creating value for her business members to her Chamber of Commerce.

While a chamber membership is different than a monthly giving program, they are both rooted in retaining members once you have them by providing the value that THEY feel is most relevant to them.

What you'll learn:

→ the importance of listening.
→ her ‘peanut butter cookie theory' to adjusting to change.
→ how to determine what benefits and feature to include.
→ how to know when enough is enough.
→ coming up with new ideas.

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[11:45] Determining what your members want. You can learn a lot  by personalizing the process when you get started. Follow up with each person to find out what value they're most excited about. Then make sure you have a KPI for everything so you can continue to monitor what is working and what isn't.
[22:35] How to know when you've added enough value. It can be hard to know if you're giving enough value or if you are giving more than you need for the donations. It comes back to two things – you can't be everything to everyone and remember to track and have conversations to keep learning.
[27:28] How to come up with new ideas. Reach out to your colleagues and brain storm ideas with them. Ask them what they're doing and see how that might work in your organization.

Fulll Transcript

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Hey, welcome to our month, still going strong on monthly giving campaigns. And today I'm so excited to be joined by Tiffany King who is the Executive Director of the Excelsior Lake Minnetonka chamber, which happens to be my home chamber membership as well. Don't I was thinking about monthly giving and really wanting to walk through kind of how to create programs, how to build programs, how to make sure that your audience cares about things that you're offering. Chamber membership is a great kind of test case and thing to look at, because they have memberships that need to be renewed. They have to go after sponsors on a regular basis. They're doing all sorts of things that are going to be in line and in tandem with what you might be doing with your monthly giving campaign. So I asked her to come on today to talk with you about how she approaches the things that she offers the things that she provides, how she takes feedback, and what she does to help make the chamber successful and make it the best for her members so that there's retention and income coming into the organization on a regular basis.

Tiffany King is the executive director of the Excelsior Lake Minnetonka Chamber of Commerce. She has 16 years of experience in the chamber field, most recently at the Mount Horeb Area Chamber of Commerce and Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, where she served as executive director for the past four years. Miss King specializes in nonprofit management and was awarded the IOM graduate recognition for completing a comprehensive course of study and nonprofit management for the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Institute for organization management program in 2017. That is a mouthful of a title. One of the things she loves most about the chamber field is working with businesses to help them reach their goals as well as harnessing the collective impact of a unified voice. Tiffany truly believes that a strong business community is a product of a strong chamber. And I agree, she also enjoys the tourism aspect and opportunity to welcome guests with the events as well as economic impact that those events provide for the community as a whole. Tiffany enjoys the outdoors with your family camping, hiking, fishing, and boating and is excited to take in everything Minnesota has to offer.

I think you're gonna love this conversation because there's so much about it. That's really understanding what do people really need and what do they want a chamber offers so many different types of things. And there's core and standard things that chambers off also offer. But you can still think outside the box to figure out what's actually going to resonate with your unique audience. So I hope that you'll take a listen to this episode. And really just think about what it is that you're offering to your donors and how you can support them a little bit better.

Before we get into this episode is brought to you by our office hours or digital marketing therapy sessions. This is a one on one 30 minute session with me to talk through whatever it is that you need to go through. So you can do that at https://thefirstclick.net/officehours, book your time, we can talk through anything that you have going on with your website or in the digital marketing space. You can book one time, or you can book multiple times, whatever you need, so that you can have a consultant in your back pocket without having to pay for a consultant on retainer. So again, https://thefirstclick.net/officehours. Let's get into the episode.

[Intro] You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I'm so excited for today's guest, Tiffany, King Tiffany, thank you for being a guest today.

[Tiffany King] Yes, thanks for having me, Sami.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So you have a long history with chambers. So I would love to just start out by you know, you sharing a little bit about how you got into the world of chambers of commerce, why you love it so much. And you know, kind of what your favorite part of that whole business is?

[Tiffany King] Sure. All right. Well, um, after college, I worked in the corporate world for a long time, and then moved, you know, states from Wisconsin back to Illinois, closer to my family. And I think at that time, I just was a little burnt out and looking for something different. And an opportunity came up at my local chamber at that time, I really didn't know anything about chambers of commerce, and started as a membership director. And yeah, from there just went into, you know, leadership with the executive director and was there for several years and then at a chamber in Wisconsin for several years and now here in Minnesota, so I just fell in love with it. I love strategy. I love working with small businesses. And I really like being able to, you know, make a difference with retaining small businesses in our community.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, well, Tiffany and I met each other because she is the executive director of my local chamber, which has been super fun to get more engaged with. And we're talking monthly giving programs all month on the podcast. And so to me, like, I just thought of you and chambers in general, because we've had so many conversations about nonprofits. And I think there's just so much alignment and like, how are we talking to the audience that we are serving? So I know you've worked with a couple different chambers? So it's like, how have you kind of navigated through? Or like, how do you kind of step in and say, Okay, well, here's what I know works best? Or here's how I feel about it. But how can I best serve my members in the local community?

[Tiffany King] That is a great question. It's been interesting for me, because the first chamber that I was the director of was in my hometown, and that had a Convention and Visitor's Bureau. So they handled the tourism side and got the hotel motel lodging, had economic development, which we worked very closely with, and we're in the same building. And then also Downtown Development, which worked just with the downtown businesses and was funded partially off of a TIF district. And so there, we were just very focused on business. And so when you just have like one stakeholder, it's easier to ascertain what those pain points are, and try to offer a solution to those, but in Mount Horeb, and then most recently, here in Excelsior, I'm in a chamber where tourism is a large economic driver in the community. So although the businesses are absolutely still our stakeholders, we get pulled into that tourism and really externally that economic development a little bit as well with our partnership with the city. So it has always just been really important to me to be respectful of that emotional attachment, and that history and tradition. And rather than try to invoke change, right away, look, learn about it, understand why they do things the way they do or where that emotional attachment is, and then try to, you know, kind of merge or marry that with a strategic decision that's best for the organization, and its business and its members as a whole. So it's something I've worked very hard over the last, you know, six years to perfect, that like listening portion. And I just think that's so important to try to pull that out of people, before you just make a change that on the surface might seem like the best strategic decision?

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, I think it's so good, because a lot of times we are in our own heads, like we know what our organization does, we know the value we can provide, we know the transformation, like we can see that all in our head. But in order to get people to come along with us in order for people to continue to give to the organization to participate to renew to become monthly donors, whatever that is, we have to meet them, where they're at, not where we know they can be. So like was that thing that you learned over time? Or was that something that was taught to you because I don't think that's a skill that most people inherently get in their in their workplace training?

[Tiffany King] Yes. So I'm sure I've told you this analogy before. I'm a big analogy person. But I call it the peanut butter cookie analogy. It's one of my favorites. But absolutely, it was learned and not the easy way really through me making a decision on emotionally on a strategic basis that I knew was the best for our organization and for the businesses involved. But what I didn't realize at the time of making that decision was how to honor or what that emotional attachment was. So the peanut butter cookie theory as I call it is, you know, you're a kid and every year you go to this hotel or this resort on family vacation with your parents and grandparents or whoever. And this hotel serves these peanut butter cookies. And when you walk in it smells amazing. And they taste amazing and they're warm. And you know, every year you get that and then the hotel says we need to make a change because people have nut allergies and we can't even have them anymore all because there's cross contamination and we're going to do chocolate chip cookies, and the chocolate chip cookies are just as amazing if not better than the peanut butter cookie. But you have so much such an A motional attachment and a nostalgic, you know, remembrance of these peanut butter cookies that you're going to hate the chocolate chip cookies just out of that's just because who we are as people. So in business, you know, you can always make decisions based on emotion. And I believe strongly that it's best not to make decisions based on emotion. But you do have to take that emotion in into account and pull those peanut butter cookie lovers along with you get their feedback, get their input, you know, find out if there's something that they would like more or different or better, or tell the story of why you're doing it in a very clear and transparent way. So that, like you said, they're not just abruptly having this change happen. They're a part of the process and kind of coming along with you. biggest supporters,

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] right, right, because that leads to retention anyway. And like when we think about a monthly giving program, we think about membership renewal for a chamber, like you spend a lot of time and energy acquiring new people into your program. So if you're not retaining a large number of those people, then your organization is not going to have a healthy, you know, healthy membership base or a healthy giving campaign. And so, like, pulling those people along, I think is important. How do you like, you know, as you're brainstorming new ideas, and you're testing new ideas, and you're like, Okay, this is going to be great. I've listened to my members, these are the things that they want, as you implement things, some things work, some things don't like how do you kind of navigate through determining what features and benefits then you continue to add or take away to make sure that your time is being respected and the members are getting the value that they need? Yes,

[Tiffany King] I love that question. Kind of two ways. I personalize or at least try to personalize memberships. So I take the onboarding process very seriously. I have a pre meeting to make sure that people understand what a chamber is I and that's when I asked them, What are you hoping to get out of membership, because if they want something that we can't offer, I don't want them to sign up for membership, because they're gonna have a bad experience. And then they're not going to renew. And they're going to spread the word of like, I didn't get anything out of it. Not that they didn't, but they didn't get out what they wanted, because what they wanted wasn't something that we provide, but nobody told them that. So that's kind of my first step. And then after they sign up, I have an onboarding meeting where we really go through all of the benefits of membership, how to utilize the resources, and all of that to make sure that they have a really good understanding. And then from there, I really, I'm a big data junkie not. So I attach KPIs to everything that I do. And that's really how I dictate if something moves forward, whether that's an event, or value added service, whatever it is, is looking at those key performance indicators. And then making sure that whatever we're doing does have metrics for measurement of success. So whether that's attendance, whether that's, you know, survey results, whether that's, like for an event, I look at how many members the weekend of an event of a tourism event, how many members posted a hot deal, how many members posted on the event, Facebook page of things that they had going on, you know, I look at different things like that. So I just try as hard as I can to attach metrics for determination of success moving forward,

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] when I want to call something out here, because, um, I think a lot of times when we think of monthly giving programs, a lot of nonprofits are like, well, we don't need to, we can't spend time and effort on some of these people, because they're giving at lower dollar amounts or whatever. But your onboarding process is the same whether it's the individual sole proprietor or the large corporation that is like so regardless of their membership fee, you're giving them the same treatment? And is that for retention? Is that because you never like? How do you kind of validate that in your head as far as time spent? Yeah,

[Tiffany King] that's a great question. I would say, yes, if your members or donors aren't engaged, the industry standard says in the first 90 days, then your chances of renewal goes down drastically. But I really look at for me, it helps me create data for retention or for other giving opportunities. Now, everything I do, I tried to attach an ROI to but if I know that corporation A is joining only because they want me to sign certificates of origin for them, then they're not They don't care about our member networking series or our marketing of that, you know, they don't care about those things. But if business, you know, B is really like, I need to get people through my door, then I can say to them, like, here's three or four things that you can do, that are going to directly correlate to what your goal is of membership, and hopefully lead you to get people in your door. And so that could be a sponsorship opportunity that maybe they wouldn't take advantage of, if it was just a cookie cutter, like no personalization or explanation of like how to help them best reach their goals. So when you transfer that into like, the nonprofit world, when someone's giving, that's a gift. So whether that gift is $5, or 500, or 5000, I think allowing people an opportunity to give a gift is, it's just important. And you never know when that gift could increase, because of the work that you put in 100%. I love that even an endowment.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Right? Yeah, cuz a lot of people just want to test the waters with a smaller gift and see how they're treated. And I think like, if you're treating everybody the same as far as their value, and what value you'd never know who they know, who they could connect you to, or what their capacity is forgiving. And so I want to touch on something you kind of touched on as well, which is like we know monthly givers tend to give on top of their, you know, monthly subscription that they have. And in a chamber it's the same right like you are you are hitting up your your members, because they're your biggest fans for other sponsorships and partnerships and things like that. So how do you approach those conversations? Or how do you identify people for those things, so that you don't feel like you're always just nagging and saying, Okay, well, can you give us more money for this? Can you give us more money for this? Like there's a strategy and a kind of psychology around that? Mm hmm.

[Tiffany King] So I like I said before, I a little unique, I think with the Chamber rather than a charitable donation, but similar I'm sure is I really tried to attach a return on investment to what people are doing. So I'll be quite honest, I had a new member, they were interested in event sponsorships. And one of the ones that they were interested in, I was like, No, absolutely not like it will not like you're not going to get out of it, what you're hoping to get out of it. And then you're just gonna walk away and maybe pull your other sponsorships or, you know, whatever. Like, no, let's look at what your demographic is that you're trying to reach what your budget looks like, what your you know, key deliverables are that are important to you. But I also just, I take sponsorship recognition, and and thank you is very, uh, people want to be recognized, and maybe not even publicly, but they want it, they're doing something because, you know, like with a nonprofit donation, they do it because maybe it's a memory of someone that they lost that is with the cause that they're giving to and or, you know, it's it's near and dear to their heart, or they just feel good about doing it. We do handwritten thank you notes for all of our sponsors for each event, you know, and and we write those ahead of time as the sponsorships come in. And then we're, we just mail them out, like the day after. Yeah, so there's ways that you can small ways, but getting a handwritten thank you note in the mail, it means something to people. So yeah, I just think that, you know, being aware of things like that is important. Well, I

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] think there's some key things that you've touched on throughout this whole podcast is really taking the time to listen and get to know people at the beginning. So that you know how to engage in work with them, you know, who to reach out to, for what sponsors because you know, what they care about? And I think I love like this abundant mindset that you're weaving into all of this, because, you know, it's okay to say no to somebody, Hey, that might be a better fit here, because you're setting yourself up for success in the long run versus just taking the cash now in order to like, this moment, which which hurts you in the long run. Yeah, and I think so have you always kind of approached things from an abundant mindset? Or was that a skill set that you think you you had to learn? Because I think in the nonprofit space, like scarcity runs rampant? Yeah, I

[Tiffany King] think that I think I've naturally always approached things in that way. One of my key strengths is that I'm futuristic so I can and that's one of my top strings on my Strength Finders, I can really look into the future and like put those puzzle pieces together and like imagine what things would be like and I can tell that story really well to bring people along On with me. So I'm always looking at the next step or a year in the future six months down the road, I've always just been able to look at things from a really high level. But that can be a weakness of mine as well or an opportunity for improvement. Sometimes I get so excited, and I have all of these ideas, but then when I have to funnel it down to like the details of execution, that's where I struggle a little bit, but I just always surrounded myself with really good people that can help do that.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] No, I think it's so smart. And I think you can utilize your board and your team to like really help kind of find those balances in whatever ways you are. But I, I do feel like that abundant mindset is something that is essential and crucial, I think, when you're in this space, because it's so hard to say, you know, maybe you're not the right fit for this because you worry about where the next thing is gonna come from. But I'm sure in your experience, you've noticed that then the right people come to you that are just like so much more of a natural fit, and then everybody's happier, the work is lighter, the work is easier. And it just feels good.

[Tiffany King] Yeah, yeah. And with that member in particular, I'm not using real dollars, but for instance, I believe then at the end, they signed up, let's say for three sponsorships at $500. apiece. $1,500. However, my fear is, is if they would have done that first initial initial sponsorship for 500 and not gotten the outcome of what they wanted, or had a good experience that other 1000 then would have never happened. So yeah, I think absolutely just using some strategy. And really, that personalization is really important.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Now, I didn't prep you on this question, but I want to ask you, because I think we both have this in us is that wanting to over deliver and provide more value than we really maybe need to in some cases? So same with like, you know, we think we need to create a monthly giving program that like gives everybody everything and that's when we maybe get overwhelmed with like, well, we can't do this because we can't possibly do that. So how have you maybe reined yourself in for some things? Or like said, You know what, no, we are going to provide this extra value, like how do you find that balance between what you know, you would love to do versus setting the expectation for what maybe businesses actually need or want.

[Tiffany King] So I had a mentor, Joe Veski. It's just adore him. He was on my board years and years ago, and was a board chair for a year. And he was like my Yoda, like he would just he was so wise and so caring and calm. But he'd always I stop before he spoke. And you could see that he was thinking and then whatever he delivered was just like, this nugget of wisdom. And he, he told me, you know, the easiest way to fail is to try to be everything to everyone. So, you know, early on, I just always remembered that and everything that we implement, I try to make sure that answers back to our mission that fits within the guidelines of our strategic direction, our strategic plan and the vision that we have for the chamber. And I also really look at I'm constantly looking at things to say, are we over delivering? Are we under delivering? Do we need to add more, and especially in this chamber, there's so much opportunity to build on? Because COVID was tough on them that I had someone at our business after hours that you came to on Tuesday night said, Oh, why don't you do this? And you have to say like, well, that might be something that I could do in the future. But right now, like this is strategically what we're working on, and we're doing a good job at it. So I think also just being smart about when you're trying to cram everything in, it dilutes everything, it takes the value from what you're doing. So doing what you're doing at a very high level and in a strategic way, I think is invaluable for moving forward. Yeah. And

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] so when you're thinking about what value do you want to add? I agree with everything you're saying, like bringing everything back to your goals. And then I love that you've talked a lot about data because I think that also then backs you up because now it's not just, Hey, um, you know, so and so who's a prominent person in the community, I'm not saying this person that you talk to us, but like, let's just say you feel the pressure of this strong board member or prominent person in the community and they're coming at you with this idea and you feel the pressure be like, okay, knowing that it's going to not be the right opportunity or that it's going to Create staff time that you don't have. And, and so having that data to back you up as well can be really critical at making it not a personal response, but more just a well, this is where this is where we're at, we'll put that in the idea folder for 2024.

[Tiffany King] That's what I do I say, in the idea folder, or I say, you know, I really liked that idea, why don't you start to spearhead that, and then come back to me with more information. Because a lot of times, they're going to come to the same conclusion that you did. But they're coming to it on their own, you're not just like, kind of, you know, putting out their fire of someone who's excited and engaged, like, that's the last thing I want to do with a volunteer or a member. But a lot of times, they're going to come back and say, Yeah, this just isn't doable because of this. And you already know that, but you don't tell them that you already write that. I also think that's why it's so so so important for nonprofits to have a strategic plan, as well as a program of work for the year. Because your board approves that and they're engaged in, they're creating that and have buy in on it. So that is your golden ticket to tell when you have four board members coming up and saying, let's do a cage in fest, let's, you know, do free certain videos for every member, you know, let's do and you can very easily say like that doesn't fit into our plan of work for the year. However, that could be something that we look into for the future. But I think like that gives you kind of that golden ticket. So you don't feel like you're going up against a board member who's essentially a boss of yours. Quoting exactly,

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] no, that's a great tip. That's a great tip. Okay, so the last question I kind of want to ask you is, as you're thinking about these value added elements, or things that you want to bring in, like where besides, you know, just listening in the conversations and things that you take in from your new members, like, where else do you go to kind of draw inspiration and new ideas? Because I think a chamber is like a very institutional organ, like everybody has their own opinion, or idea of what a chamber looks like, and the common things that are there. But like, you know, we're all growing and getting bigger. And if you want to attract younger audiences, you have to younger business owners, like things are kind of starting to flip a little. So how do you come up with new ideas for what you might want to bring in to your membership?

[Tiffany King] I call you No. I was not. No, you do definitely have people that become valuable resources, too. I'm also very fortunate to, we have a really large network of Chamber of Commerce professionals on Facebook, I think over 7000 chamber thresholds, Frank, Kenny is is a leader in the chamber industry. And he started that page. And one thing I love about this industry is everybody's willing to share everything, like they'll give you templates they'll give you, you know, it's like don't recreate the wheel. We all know what it's like, Here, take it. And so that's been a good resource for me. And then honestly, like, I look at tick tock, I look at Instagram, I look at Facebook, I try to follow trends. So I'm not afraid to change or try new things. And that data piece is important too. So like, what are the like, if I'm trying to target 22 to 28 year olds? Like, what are the hashtags that they're attracted to? Like? What are they looking for? What type of experience do they want? You know, how do I market to them? So also looking at that data piece of like, who are we trying to attract? And how do we market to that demographic to attract those people? So yeah, I think it's just a lot of like listening, being open, talking to people. You know, social media is a great tool to different ways,

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] whether you're starting with the audience, first, you're starting with who are we trying to talk to before you start out with the How are and what are we going to offer them? I think that's brilliant. And I think it's also like, just like testing with saying, like, hey, this could fall flat on its face, and then we just don't do it again, like, but it's okay. But we won't know unless we, unless we give it a try. And then the last piece to that is like, you know, do you also look outside industry because I think a lot of times we actually find more inspiration when we're not looking in our own little circle, but looking more kind of what's happening in the periphery.

[Tiffany King] Yeah, absolutely. I think there's just never an end to information out there. And I think as long as it's, again, fitting in with your mission and your strategic vision, that you know, that can be a little dangerous because it's kind of like the whole back to like, don't try to be everything to Everyone. Yeah. So I use this example for a board member who is a chiropractor. And he's fantastic. But like everyone, sometimes it's like, oh, but I like this because of this. So I said, you know, if you bought this business, and they serve muffins on Tuesday, like everybody might really like those muffins on Tuesday, but it does have anything to do with your mission or what you're trying to do. So you know, the only thing with looking outside your industry is making sure that it's still fitting in your mission, that you're not just doing something to do it.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yep, I think that's a great piece of advice. And I think you've given a lot of great pieces of advice today, Tiffany, so take a listen. Make sure you're evaluating you know, use all this to evaluate your existing program and think about what things you might want to do. But Tiffany, any last pieces of advice, otherwise, how can people connect with you or just learn more about what you and the Excelsior chamber are up to? Yeah,

[Tiffany King] I mean, I don't think I have any last pieces of advice. But I also really love feedback and brainstorming and talking. And so if anybody ever wants to pick my brain, or let me pick, there's the easiest way to email is Tiffany at e lmcc.org. Our website is e lmcc.org. Contact us both of those ways. And yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, well, thank you so much for being a guest. And we will have all of those links and resources up at the first click dotnet slash 199. But thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for taking time to listen. And thank you again to Tiffany King for joining me today. I hope that you got some great ideas for how you want to listen, have conversations with your donors. We've been talking a lot about listening on episodes of this podcast, and really just taking in what your audience needs and wants. You might be surprised by some of the ideas that come out from them and ways that you can create a dynamic and really strong monthly giving campaign.

I hope you're enjoying the topic of monthly giving this month we have two more great episodes for you this month that I'm excited to share with you. But for now, make sure you subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on our episodes. They come out every Tuesday. And you can check us out for the video versions of these episodes at https://thefirstclick.net/youtube Finally, if you need access to the shownotes transcripts, or any of the resources mentioned in this episode, you can do that at https://thefirstclick.net/199 I appreciate you taking time to listen to this episode. I know you have a lots of choices when it comes to nonprofit marketing podcast so thank you for choosing ours. I would love it if you would share it with a friend if you think that you learned something here that would be valuable for them. I cannot wait to see you in the next one.