The biggest reason that people don't give to an organization is that they don't trust the way they use the funds. Transparency is critical in growing your base, especially as the number of donors is trending down. There are several ways you can build trust, and it also includes the additional platforms you use to raise money.

What you'll learn:

→ why its harder for nonprofits to build trust.
→ how impact builds trust.
→ power of keeping impact manageable.
→ what to think about with third-party partnerships and platforms.
→ find ways to engage with people before they're ready to give.
→ why consistency matters.

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[3:59] There are too many stories of organizations that haven't used the donations as they were intended. Even if you are fiscally transparent, these experiences still cloud donors, especially new ones. Building trust needs to happen consistently. You do this through sharing impact.
[7:01] When the goal is TOO big, people have a hard time understanding how their money will make impact. What is the problem you're solving and how will their donation help – keep it simple and clear.
[8:52] Ensure the platform can show where the money is going. Make sure the language is trusted and that you follow up with how the money is being utilized. Give people reports that share where the money went. Better yet, find a platform, like Wishes, that does it in real-time.
[19:04] Allow people to support your campaign publicy with prayers and messages of goodwill. By allowing people to show support of a campaign, even if they can't donate, you're building your network and showing more support for the cause.
[25:51] Being out on multiple platforms helps build trust through consistency. Showing up where your audience is will give them constant reminders of who you are t you are and the impact you are creating.

Resources

[quiz] Should You DIY Your Website?

Full Transcript

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] As a nonprofit organization, we know we need to build trust. But we don't always know how to go about doing that. And losing trust with donors can happen immediately while building trust takes time. So as we're gearing up for your and giving campaigns, it's important to really think about how we're building trust with our donors over time. And some of that includes the technology that we choose to use the third party platforms that we collect money and funds on, and all of the ways that we communicate our impact with our donors.

So today, I have Chase Harmer on podcast, talking about ways to think about building trust organizations sharing our impact and showing that financial transparency. Chase Harmer spent 25 plus years as a payment entrepreneur. He is a pioneer in virtual credit card technology with seven patents since 2013. Founder of profit pay acquired by pay certify in 2021. With a valuation over 500 million Chase knows how to build enterprise value and process for scale. Chase uses his experience as a lecturer and mentor at the founders Institute. Now as the founder of wishes, Inc. He and his team have built proprietary technology to revolutionize fundraising wishes delivers the resources and financial support needed quicker than any other platform in the market.

We have a great conversation about building trust, how to evaluate the tools that you're using, and how we can use them to build trust in real time, communicate, raise more money, get in front of new donors that we can nurture over time. And as we gear up for GivingTuesday, and year end campaigns, it's the perfect time to be having this conversation, which is as a brand new platform, and you're gonna love some of the features that includes, but this isn't just about wishes. This is about general fundraising, and general trust building with your donor. So I hope that you'll give it a listen and enjoy.

But before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by our quiz, should you DIY your website, we know we need to have a website that is relevant, and that is current and up to date, so that we can continue to build trust through our website so that we can communicate the things that we're doing in our impact all the time, not just when we're in a fundraising campaign. So if your website isn't quite what it needs to be, and you're thinking about redoing it, maybe in 2024, budgeting it for it in some way, shape, or form, or figuring out how you can update and refine it. Then take our quiz or free quiz at https://thefirstclick.net/quiz You'll learn if you're ready to do it yourself. Or if you might need to bring someone along to help you with parts of it or all of it is a great quiz that takes into consideration your skills and expertise, your time, your budget, all the things to give you the right tools to get your website up and running. So again, https://thefirstclick.net/quiz I hope you'll check it out and I can't wait to see what your results are. 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] Hey, everybody, please join me in welcoming Chase Harmer to the podcast Chase. Thanks for being here today.

Chase Harmer 3:31
Ya know, awesome. I'm so thankful to be here. And I'm excited to speak with you.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, well, we're talking about trust today, which I think is a huge factor in fundraising, if we don't have trust with our audience, they're not going to give us their dollars. But before we kind of jump into some of these, you know, ways we can build trust. Why do you think it's so much harder for nonprofit organizations to develop that trust? Like, why is that distrust there in general?

Chase Harmer 3:59
Well, I think that there's over in the past, there's been charities that raise money for specific causes, and then they, you know, come to find out later that they didn't utilize those funds on the causes they were raising money for. So I think there's a lot of that, you know, there's a lot of scams on platforms like GoFundMe, and I think it's just we get over time, we just get kind of, you know, numb to this stuff. And then we were we really want to know what's going on with with those funds. So I think that's that's part of the dilemma that a lot of nonprofits face today.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah. And it's, it's so much harder for a nonprofit to do more than a than a product based or for profit organization, we have to work a little bit harder and we're gearing up for our year end campaigns. So as we're kind of ramping up to get those out, tend to be talking to our donors to try to get repeat donations and try to get new donors in, you know, what are some ways that we might want to think about, you know, building trust a little bit more organically with our audience.

Chase Harmer 5:01
Yeah, well, I think, you know, building trust all comes from impact, right? I think 76 There's a, there was a survey out that candidate that showed like 76% of all nonprofits know, that transcript, like showing the impact is, is essential to them raising dollars, but only 26% of them actually have a way to do that. So I think most nonprofits struggle with showing the impact. And, you know, being able to show that impact will help them raise money, you know, and, and, but it's hard, right? Because when you get dollars in, you might disperse those two different things, and then you're not sure exactly what happens to that money in real time, sometimes. And so I think, you know, that's part of the issue is not being able to do that in real time and not having the tools in most nonprofits, you guys are, we're, you know, raising money, but you know, you're don't have necessarily the the big staff to to help, you know, get all these things going. And so, having tools, I think, to allow you to show impact will allow, you know, nonprofits to raise more dollars for specific things that they need, and and I think, impact and showing your donors, how you're utilizing those funds is essential to raising money today.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, well, and I want to talk about this impact piece for a second, because I think we also, this has been a conversation that's come up a couple of times on the podcast is, you know, we tend to want to show big numbers, because it makes us look like we're doing more, right? Like there's a million kids that go hungry every day, like, join us at helping support food insecurity, you know, in our community. But like, you know, do you think it's easier to show impact and build trust? If instead you say, like, Hey, your, your $20 donation feeds, three people in this community, like, you know, how do we kind of play with those numbers in a way where we can show big impact without making it seem like it's this month, like this monstrous project that we can't wrap our heads around? Right?

Chase Harmer 7:01
And I think almost all nonprofits do that. So again, like, you know, us as donors, you know, we become numb to, hey, we're going to help all these people. It's like, yeah, okay, well, but I don't actually understand that impact. And so, you know, understanding, yes, hey, these dollars are going to feed three people, but like, did it actually right. So I think that's really the problem that, you know, we were trying to solve. And I think, you know, that's so important for donors, because every single door today, you go to like grocery stores, you know, as an example, they all ask for $1. Where does that dollar go? Actually, you know, nobody actually tells you, but CVS just got a huge fine for not actually giving those dollars away. So I think it was, it was a large, fine. And it's one of those things they're taking all the credit. dollars, is this phone, they say, Hey, we gave away $1 billion to XYZ. Well, they didn't actually give that away. It's all those people that donated those dollars. But at the end of the day, they don't actually know how that dollar helped somebody else. And I think that's the most important thing is to be able to show that show that impact. And really, that's what why we built what we did you know, to help nonprofits specifically do that.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, let's talk about third party platforms, because I think there's, you've mentioned a few that have had, you know, some issues in the past with transparency, and the ability for people to run fundraisers that aren't legit. You know, we talk a lot on this podcast about making donations and having a donation page on your website, be simple and clear whether you're using a third party tool, but it's embedded on your website. So people are building that trust with you, as we're looking into some of these third party platforms, like what are some things we want to consider and think about? As we evaluate which ones we're using?

Chase Harmer 8:52
Well, I think, you know, the most important one is like out, how are you going to be able to show your donors the impact that you're making, right? So at the end of the day, like the tools need to be able to deliver, and, you know, there's no real platforms out there. They actually can show real time impact, you know, in fact, most, most of these platforms are all if they're showing impact and something like six to 12 months later, because they're they're doing the financials, and they're looking at it that way. The problem is that is like, you know, the donor doesn't necessarily know and you there's people that are given, there's just that trust that's enabled as part of that giving situation. But when all platforms when all nonprofits are specifically helping causes like, Hey, we're helping the hungry, hey, we're helping the homeless, and they're all have the same messaging. But no one can actually show the impact. You become a small pebble in a huge ocean of people that are asking for money. And I think when you're evaluating these platforms, I think it's most important, how are they going to be able to demonstrate that impact that you can actually show that back to your donors And how are they helping you with your tax deductibility forms, if that's something you're doing in house or, you know, if you're raising money from the public, obviously, there's private foundations, but you know, your private foundation, you kind of limit yourself into, you know, only being able to raise money from certain platforms. So are they helping you reach more people with, like, you know, their public charity status, things like so, I think, you know, as a donor to, the one thing that I care about the most is, where did my money go, like, what happened. And if the third party tools aren't really enabling you to do that, then you either have to solve it yourself, or find a platform that is able to do that for you, because that's the biggest problem that nonprofits have. And continuing today, still probably the biggest issue that exists in that space.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, so let's talk about wishes, which is your platform. I know that you started it based off of seeing this need because of mistrust, and, you know, transparency. So like when you started this platform, what were some of the features that you knew were like, must haves that you wanted to make sure you tackled and made clear for people that were using it and people that were giving through it? Right, so

Chase Harmer 11:19
I think the only way to really be able to show real time transparency is to be able to change this to change the way that money moves. And, you know, all most platforms are built on banking rails. And the issue with that is when it goes into a black box, then you push money out whichever way you want, but you might not be accounting for all the dollars and cents, and you might not actually be raising money for specific categories. Because all nonprofits have admin expenses, you know, there's all these different expenses that you have to cover. But the reality is, is that you are raising money for certain things like your causes representing your cancer, or, you know, melanoma, whatever the whatever that may, may be. But being able to demonstrate where those particular dollars go is the most important thing, right? Everyone knows there's admin expenses. So through our platform, you're able to raise category specific things. So you can raise money for like, let's just say that you're doing a food drive, you can you can raise money for groceries, you can raise money for, you know, people that are having, you know, that are far from from their work environment, or like looking at Maui right now is a perfect example, if people had to fly out of there, people needed to stay in a hotel room, you can actually donate to a hotel category or an airfare category fly people out. And then we actually turn that money into virtual MasterCards. So the MasterCards, which can be used instead of our shopping portal, which is connected to like hotels.com booking.com expedia.com, so in an instant card, and Kroger's and Safeway, and places like that. So you can actually raise money for your nonprofit, and actually allocate those cards to the people that need it directly. So that donors can actually understand the impact that they're making understand that. That is Ledger's that are created on both sides of the transaction. So just like when you use a credit card, you see the receipts from exactly what you spent your money. The same thing happens when you turn donations into a virtual MasterCard that can be spent by that nonprofit, or those individuals or those people in crisis. And people can know exactly what happens to that money in real time. So, you know, you're really trying to help the cause, specifically, not admin overhead, those types of things, which you're gonna raise money for. But, you know, I think people want to understand that, hey, you know, the people O'Malley that these guys need to help, we want to make sure that those dollars go to what they're supposed to go for, and not an admin expense. And that's not the right time, obviously be raising money for that type of stuff. So you know, so So ultimately, that's kind of what we built is we trend, we changed the way that money moves, right? So we turn donations into MasterCard, and allow those to be spent anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So there's a couple things about that that I really love. One is that you can really clearly message a campaign to hit the donors where their pain points are, what they feel most passionate about. But the second will and the second is related to storytelling. But as we go into our year end giving season, it's like a great way to really build and craft a campaign that is going to, you know, we want to tug at people's heartstrings we want to show impact. And so this allows us to say this is the work that we're trying to do. This is how you can support us during the end of the year. And then really quickly and easily be able to say right away, we've raised this much money this is going to go to three families. This is going to go to like three pet shelters or whatever like you can sell the nonprofit also in real time can communicate where they are with the campaign as they're trying to get more money out of that year and the whole the whole cycle

Chase Harmer 15:01
Right, and then they can instantly show that impact. And so that's, that's the biggest differential is that you can show impact in real time when it matters most. And that actually allows you to get more donations because people believe like what you're doing and how you're raising money. And the impact that it's making in our thesis is, and why we built this really is we believe that when people understand the impact, they'll give more and more often, and and I think that's the biggest thing that's missing inside of the charitable giving space. Today, you know, is that that's, that is a missing piece. And even the nonprofits that can show impact, don't do it? Well.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, well, I like that you're giving them an easy way to do that. And I think there's definitely a time in place for designated funds. And there's a time in place for, you know, general operating expenses. And so I think those two in tandem can be really interesting, and just gives you more opportunity to reach your donors where they are and how they want to support because I think what you're doing with wishes, also is great for bringing in newer people, right. So it's a great way to say okay, if you've never given to us, we haven't built trust with you yet, you don't know if our money where our mouth is. So here's a way where you can be hyper specific. And then once you've nurtured them, and you've worked them through the welcome sequence, and you've done all the things that you should be doing for donor management, then you can ask them for more unrestricted gifts, that will help the organization as a whole,

Chase Harmer 16:23
correct. And you know, because of the fact that wishes, kind of two pronged we were a FinTech, that obviously moves money. But on the front side, we're a public 501 C three, charity. So if you're a private foundation, and this allows you to raise money from the public through our, our donor portal, and so all those donations go through that public charity, and you can actually open up your your giving base, to people that you never talked to before, because of the fact that you can only raise money from certain companies or individuals or when you're a private, when your private foundation. So, you know, for those private foundations, this, like churches, things like that, too, it opens up a huge new base of opportunity. And also, you know, all the people on our platform, so the millions people that will be on our platform, will now have access to see your stories and and give T directly to your platform. And because our whole entire platform is based upon a trust in establishing that trust. You know, we take that super serious, and I think that will build credence and you know, it'll allow nonprofits to raise money easier for whatever causes they're trying to support.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah. So it were there other features that were important for you when you were building building this platform that you kind of saw missing on some of the other kind of third party crowd funding tools? Yeah, sure. So

Chase Harmer 17:46
I mean, we also reward the donors as well. So one of the things that we did is our public charity owns nine LLCs. Because it's category specific. Most people get bonuses when they support airfare, or hotel or groceries or rideshare. Those are all bonus categories in your credit card. So those are all those LLCs are all specifically categorized for wishes gas, which is groceries wishes hotel, so when you donate, you're actually giving back your your donors, their own cashback and rewards on their card when they utilize it. Plus, they're getting their tax incentives that we utilize it like a fleet card, one of the other cool things and that's pretty cool feature my mind because I'm like, you know, arbitrage ER with credit card rewards. So like, you know, giving back and getting rewarded for it is not something that exists today. You know, because charity is really not a category that most credit card companies will bonus you for. So when you do category specific you through our platform to getting tax deductions and cashback rewards. Our ambassador program allows any donors to get an additional 1% cashback on any donation they make. Plus, they're able to we have at the scene, a scene of a like a crisis, like a Maori people can actually volunteer, we can issue virtual cards to them on the scene so they can go buy water and supplies and things like that if they want to get involved in which we thought was a pretty cool feature. Well, another really cool feature that we have is when you can send prayers and messages to people. So you don't necessarily have to donate to get involved with a cause if someone's struggling, or they're raising money for something or crisis. And you can actually send goodwill to them and messages to them and not necessarily have to donate every time. And I think that is pretty cool because it gets people involved that might have not been involved before and the likelihood of them being able to donate in the future is pretty high because they're already in the matrix, you know. So that's part of our strategy is to get people involved, no matter how small or in sending messages is a great way for people to do that.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love them. We I literally was on a training call yesterday. And we were training on like providing value to like a membership based organization or like a membership giving campaign and why One of the things that really stuck out is, you know, one of my colleagues said, you know, we treat all of our members like their lifetime members. So even if they have to step away for a minute, we don't look at it as they've, you know, not renewed, we look at it as they're taking a break. And that's how we treat the donor or the the member like it's totally get it, you need to step away for a bit here some great ways you can still stay engaged with us so that we can continue to have a conversation. So when you're ready to come back in whatever capacity you can come back. And I think that psychologically, that's such a different message, because people, if they've given to you before, and they can't, you know, either A, you've lost their trust or be their circumstances in their life that have changed, treat them in that way to say, here's a way you can still support our organization with love, and prayers and thoughts, like, awesome and super unique.

Chase Harmer 20:47
Right? So yeah, and I think that was a pretty cool way that we can get people into the matrix, and you know, whether they're donating or not, it gets them involved. And it feels like they're making a difference in one way or another. And a lot of times, you know, people and causes, they just need that support level support to you know, it's like, you know, they're going through a rough time. And, you know, they need that help, and, you know, every message matters.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So, yeah, that's so cool. And I love the cashback piece, and I'm, you know, interested to hear how, like, you know, if people are getting cashback, do you see people giving that reimbursement back to the organizations as well or, or have you not kind of, so

Chase Harmer 21:30
we give that as an option. So, essentially, they can, you know, it's up to the donor, you know, they can actually, they can keep that cash back, it's up to them what they want to do with it, or they can push it out to another campaign, we really like to, we're really, you know, most people aren't making a zillion dollar transactions. So you know, 1% cashback at something but like, you know, if you're making a $10, here, $20 there, you're not going to make like a bazillion dollars. So a lot of times, you know, we're we're giving them options to push it back out into campaigns, you know, hey, you got some cash back, hey, these guys meet your criteria, you guys donated to two campaigns supporting these types of things before. So you know, these migrate be a great way for you to participate. And they can push that cash back out without actually having to come up with more, more money.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So that's another perk then of the platform. And another perk people might want to consider with other platforms is it's not just about you sending out a campaign to your your people, that the platform itself is also serving you up to new people that could potentially be a great fit. And you never know if you do the right work in your domain. Like donor stewardship is like a huge deal. People I hope, like donor retention is awful. And we talk a lot about that. But this is a great way to bring new people into your world with like a really easy frictionless donation that you can then nurture and turn into who knows what,

Chase Harmer 22:51
right. And one of the ways that we're doing that is we're building a centralized hub where donors can keep all of their tax incentives like into our platform. So essentially, whether it's our platform or another platform, obviously, if we're connected to a charity, we already have that in the dashboard, if they're donating there. But if it's an outside place, they can pull that data and so that way, they have it all in one centralized place, they could get to their CPA at the end of the year, too.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love that. Okay. So when it comes to donor management, donor nurturing. One other thing that I think is critically important to assess in tools is our access to the people that are giving through that platform, every platform has a different variety of how much information they give you if you get the donor information or not. So that we can do follow up, what does that look like for you all? Yeah, I mean, we're an

Chase Harmer 23:42
open platform. So you know, we don't try to hold our nonprofits hostage. And I think that's also a big reason why a lot of its third party tools, that's one of the things that should have said earlier is that a lot of these third party tools will hold you hostage in some way. And you don't realize it until later, for instance, you know, I know that there's, there's tools like payment processors as an example, that will hold the reoccurring payments hostage, and they won't let you move those and they won't actually give you all the data for those users. That's obviously a huge problem, especially for any subscription based nonprofit, to not have that data, it really kind of made, it really does hold you hostage to those platforms. And unfortunately, there are a lot of platforms out there like that. And so I think, you know, we don't hold the data hostage. Of course, we are, you know, we give you free access to do with the data that you want. Obviously, it's stored on our platform, and our secure servers, but you ultimately have the ability to run campaigns do what you want with that. And you can also send out SMS campaigns directly through our platform, stuff like that. So you don't necessarily have to have all the brick and mortar tools that you need to run a gigantic startup, you can plug right into our system and utilize all the tools that we built and Yeah, you know, start raising money successfully and nurturing those clients the right way.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Okay, so let's go back to, like trust building factors, I think we talked a little bit about some of the ways that we can lose that trust really quickly. And, you know, I think we, sharing impact is kind of a buzzword, but kind of what other ways might we, you know, show up, like, when we think about running campaigns, like best practices around like, you know, if you only reach out to people once a year, like, and people don't hear from you, or like, we don't show up consistently on social media until all of a sudden, we need something, and then now we're posting everywhere all the time, or we're all just emailing everywhere all the time. Like, how much do you think that consistency piece, pay plays into that trust factor?

Chase Harmer 25:51
It plays into it a lot, obviously. So like, even though people aren't maybe liking all your posts, and doing all this stuff, it's still important for you to do that. And I think, you know, especially if you're a new nonprofit trying to build that trust, it's it is consistency. So you know, one of the ways that you can do that, obviously, because you're running around and trying to do all the things that you need to do as a one person show or a few people show it is to hire a virtual assistant who can help post that stuff, or even help you create the content. But consistency is key. I mean, most people are giving on platforms like Facebook Instagrams, and Reddit, things like that. So you need to be on all the platforms and omni channel presence. And, you know, those donors inside of matrix, you know, you need to communicate with them, you know, at least on a monthly basis, whether that's, you know, hey, here's to on our newsletter, or, Hey, here's some of the initiatives that we're doing or, Hey, thank you, for your donation, we super appreciated type of thing. And, you know, we're running this new campaign, you know, if you're always saying in visible, interesting and interesting, visible, you know, then, you know, they see you, right, so they see you, they might not react to what you're doing, but they know that you're there, and then you know, and the more that you build that trust over time, even though people aren't necessarily liking the photos or sharing the photos, they know that you're still around, right, and you're a real thing. And, you know, and I think that's super important, because there's like, you know, close to 2 million charities in the United States, and most of them, you know, don't do much, you know, so they can, then there's a lot that, you know, there's a lot that do, certainly so nobody knows, and it goes back to the trust and the transparency and like when you get the money, like what are you doing with it, right. So you know, consistency, and that's one of the cool thing about being able to show impact is that you can actually still run those on your social media campaigns, like, when you give away groceries, or you do things like that on your app, you can actually do it, I think about it, you know, show quick show video, like shows a video of the person getting groceries, like I feel like, people are emotionally connected to those types of things, you know, when you're talking about, hey, we're helping a million people. Okay, you know, everyone's saying that, right? But when you're, when you're actually showing it, people are like, okay, you know, like, this is real, right. And I think showing that real, real life stuff is is important, because that actually is what builds those emotional connections and makes it real to other people.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] And that goes back to what you said, kind of at the beginning, where it's like, you understand that as a smaller shop, it might be hard to be like tracking all that data in real time to be able to show it immediately in the moment. So having a tool like what you have, that does that for you. And then also then creating that those Real Time Stories is so much easier, like, that's easy. And then people see themselves in those videos, and they act and say, Oh, that could be my neighbor down the street, or that could be my nephew, or, you know,

Chase Harmer 28:45
right. And then we'll repost it for you as well. So people will see and it'd be like your logos and branding and all that stuff. So we'll post it all over our channels as well. So, you know, you just kind of like a double, you know, good thing. So you'll be able to do it on our own channels, but then we'll repost it, because, you know, we're, you know, you get those dollars. So,

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] that's so great. Collaboration. Oh, yeah. One last question. Um, because there's already so much goodness in what you've shared. But you know, if we're new or nonprofit or you know, I know a lot of the people that listen to podcasts or small medium sized so they have small staff like what is the power in you know, like you mentioned the Facebook fundraisers and things like that, like having other people in our community share and raise funds on our behalf during things like giving Tuesday and your end campaigns. Like, you know, that's a pretty great way to build trust with new people. Also, right because they already trust the person that that is sharing that information.

Chase Harmer 29:47
Sure. I ever said I mean, you know, this is inside of our platform, you know, instead of our ambassador program like there's we have a Ruby Sapphire and diamond level and really how you get to certain levels and badges is because people that donate like to You know, they're they like to know that they're like a good, you know, they're affiliate with that good level, the high level stuff is taking actions, right referring sharing, and all those types of things, why that's important is because you're getting in front of people that you don't necessarily are talking to, right. So now they're sharing your story, they're referring your story, they're pushing new doors, potentially into your platform. And that's all free word of mouth. And you can do that by gamifying your solution and making it you know, interesting to want to do that stuff, right? So when you're saying, hey, share this story, or it's like, you know, unless it's a unless this is a story that they're emotionally connected with, like chances of them sharing it, not very likely, right? So but if they're motivated by other factors, as well, like being a certain level inside of your platform, things like that, people are more likely to take those actions. So that way, they can kind of earn those badges inside of your platform. So I think, doing some sort of gamification inside of your platform, you know, we're talking to the new generation, everyone's playing video games, everyone's used to these video games, and I'm not a big gamer, myself, but I know that it's important. And you know, most people, whether you're buying experience or not, you know, you don't even realize sometimes that you're going through this matrix of the game, you know, my game exactly, but it's game like, you know, yeah, you know, I think that's what kind of draws us in and get us involved. You know,

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] now my 12 year old did his math homework, only because he wanted to be the first person to get to the next level of the math homework. So he knows all through system. So he was tracking it every day, he knew how many things he had to do before going to be the first one, he announced a class that he completed at first. I think that gamification

Chase Harmer 31:43
worked for everybody. But yeah, it might, it might not work for everybody. But listen, you have that one guy. Now he's like doing the stuff, right. And he's sharing the things. And so like, not everyone's motivated by the same things. However, you do have people that are motivated by those things. And they want to play those games, and they want to get those badges. And so just like your son, like he wanted to be the first guy. So like, people want to do that you never know who you're talking to. And when you're trying to scale and talk to the masses, I think it's important to just because you wouldn't do something like I wouldn't play a game, well, no one's going to do this. Well, that's wrong. You know, there are people, there are people that want to do that stuff. And they want to be first they want to do things. And so you just got to remember that stuff and take a bigger prong approach, you cast a wider net.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, and I love a good board board member competition. And this would be a way to be able to do that. Having to necessarily manually track it yourself.

Chase Harmer 32:40
Exactly, exactly. So and part of that is the reason why nonprofits don't do it is the tracking, how are you going to do this? Oh, my God, I gotta get a developer, what through our platform, you can utilize a lot of these tools and also benefit from that, too. So that's so fun.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] And I think it also goes back to something you mentioned earlier, where now it also gives people an opportunity to impact your organization in a larger way without having to increase the size of their gift. So I think all in all, like a win win win for everyone.

Chase Harmer 33:05
Exactly. Exactly. And that's that's the entire point. You know, we just want to build that trust, so people give more freely and trust the process, you know? Yeah.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So good. Okay, well, if people chase want to learn more about wishes, learn more about you, how can they do that?

Chase Harmer 33:24
You can go to wishes, dot IMC. And if you're a donor wisher or a nonprofit, you can go to any one of those three, there's three personas on the homepage, just pick which one applies, you register, and then you can download it on your on your iPhone or

Sami Bedell-Mulhern 33:39
Google Android. I love that so much. And we'll have everything linked up in the show notes at the first click.net/ 229. So you can go there to snag all those links as well. Chase, this was fantastic. And I think just a really great reminder as we go into a crazy time of year. That trust is something that needs to be built over time and could go away real fast. So always keep it top of mind. Sure, absolutely.

Chase Harmer 34:14
Thank you so much for having me.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern 34:16
Thank you. Thank you again to chase for joining me today on this episode. It was a fantastic conversation. So excited for you to jump in and refine some of your processes and your strategies so that you're continuing to build trust with your donors every single day of the year will help your year end giving campaigns go off without a hitch. As you reach new people use your existing audience to help get in front of new people and get those repeat donors or repeat donations from donors that have given either this year or in previous years. Building trust is critical. And so I'm glad you took the time to listen to this episode and put some of these tools and tips into action. Thank you so much for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed. Wherever you listen, don't forget, we have two bonus episodes that come out every month and the way that you're gonna hear about them first is simply by subscribing wherever you listen to your, your podcast episodes, or on YouTube. So thank you again, I appreciate you and I'll see you in the next one.