Transcription

00:00:04
            

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast. I'm your host Matt Lombardi, joined today with Seth Hinz. Seth is the director of brand and marketing for Lutheran Bible translators based in St. Louis.        

00:00:16
            

You are at least, Seth, where's Lutheran Bible translators? Like, where's home base for them? Is it St. Louis as well? So it's about 3 hours west of St.        

00:00:23
            

Louis, smack dab in the center of Missouri. Concordia, Missouri. Yes, Concordia, Missouri. Okay. Gotcha, gotcha.        

00:00:30
            

Well, thanks for joining me today, man. Really, really excited to hop in and hear a little bit more about your story and some of your experience working with ministries. Absolutely. Yeah. So I am born and raised Lutheran, came up through lutheran church, Missouri.        

00:00:43
            

Stated, my dad's a pastor, grandpa's pastor, uncles are pastors. And so I was just in it from, from the very beginning. Came up through the grade schools, the high schools, and eventually one of the universities. Um, and I've just been living and breathing it ever since. Um, pretty early on knew that I wasn't going to be one of those pastors.        

00:01:02
            

Um, but, um, you know, I recently had to think back of, like, what was one of those pivotal moments in your life? And I can only ever, like, recall, like, vivid memories of my dad being in the pulpit and just like, making eye contact with every person in the church. And I was just like, my, my dad is passionate about this and he loves people. And, you know, seeing, we've, we've sat at gas stations for an hour just because he struck up conversations with people inside. And I was like, oh, my gosh, like, seeing him, like, be up in the pulpit and then walk the talk, like, out in the community was just like, okay, something here is meaningful.        

00:01:41
            

He loves sharing Jesus, and whatever I can do to help the church, to help ministries, I'm going to do that. And so that really shaped a lot of my, my life and my career. That's awesome, man. And so how long have you been with Lutheran Bible translators? I just started last February, so a little under a year now.        

00:01:58
            

So before that you were doing some marketing stuff, right, from the LinkedIn Internet sleuthing? I did, yes. Yeah, my full cv over there. Yeah, so I was, I started as a web media director, came up doing some copy stuff for one of our lutheran universities. Ended up working for a district for lutheran church, which is like a diocese regional thing up in Michigan.        

00:02:24
            

And it was, I did eight and a half years there. And so it was during that time where we were helping about 300 plus churches up there that I realized we are totally equipped to care for people. We are under equipped to reach people and connect with people in the digital space. And it was about in that time period where I realized I really need to lean in here and I need to help churches. I need to work one on one with them.        

00:02:53
            

And the more I'm at the district, I'm existing more and more in theory. And so I really needed to get to the ground, the ground floor, the front lines. And so during that time, my wife Rachel and I, we were praying about, okay, what's next? What are we supposed to do? And I ended up, we took a call to a church down in St.        

00:03:11
            

Louis, and that's what brought us here. And so for four and a half years, I was working with one of the larger churches in the lutheran church, taking them through a name change, but then also marketing strategies and trying to reach out to the community in new ways. And so that's really what got me started down this road that eventually led me to LBT. But, yeah, I would say it was during that transition time that I also started looking for something that was more repeatable, something that made more sense to me when it came to marketing communication, and that led me to storybrand, which I know some folks have talked about on the podcast before. And so when I found that, I eventually had to keep going, and in 2019, I became a guide and then was a guide up until last year.        

00:03:59
            

And so now I'm just living and breathing it for Lutheran Bible translators. That's so cool, man. Yeah. And there's, there is that, I think, instinct for a lot of folks who are in church comps, which is awesome. But if you're anything like I was when I was doing church comm stuff, it feels like everything you create is a one off project.        

00:04:16
            

It's like, okay, cool, we created this one time and now we put that on the shelf and I'll never use that again. Right, right. Whereas when you're working with a ministry that touches a lot of other ministries, you can create something one time and, oh, well, now this becomes a repeatable rhythm. Or if you're doing, you know, working on marketing for, like, donor communications or outreach or campaigns, like when you create something, you know, okay, now I've created something that we can, this is an engine, right, like that we can keep running back over and over again as opposed to, all right, we did all that work for six weeks and now onto the next thing. And so totally, totally understand that.        

00:04:49
            

Yeah, yeah, are there. You spoke a little bit more about being able to do some of the strategy stuff, are there some strategies or whether it's specific campaigns or principles that you've taken a Lutheran Bible translators that have really helped you guys kind of take you to the next level? Yeah, I think story is the whole thing. One of the I know we're gonna talk about trends and stuff like that coming up, but lots of ministries and nonprofits I know are aware of story and the approach of story brand. A lot of them don't know how to necessarily translate that to the nonprofit space.        

00:05:25
            

And so we have at Lutheran Bible translators, 136 programs going on right now around the world. We've got 55 specifically that are actionable, that are actually happening right now. I'm going to have to say that differently. Yeah, that's fine. So we've got 136 programs going on around the world right now.        

00:05:51
            

And what's a change from maybe when we first started is we started as a missionary organization, sending, we were sending people from America over internationally to start programs, keep programs going, get the translations going and all that. What's been happening over the past ten years and plus is this transition to the local team, the local team taking ownership and driving the project forward, and Lutheran Bible translator stepping back to a consultant role. And so what's important about that when it comes to story, and really for any ministry, is we have to make sure that we're telling the story in a way that the main character of the story is not us, it's not what we're doing, it's the people that we're serving and what they want. And so if you're familiar with storybrand, you really have to spend a lot of time thinking about who your beneficiaries are and what it is that they want out of life, what it is that they're trying to accomplish, that you can support through your ministry or nonprofit. And what you need to spend time on is not framing it in a things aren't going to happen if we don't do anything.        

00:07:07
            

You really have to spend on time and say, are we affirming dignity? Are we spending time and saying, these people have full lives, they're fully capable of all these things, but we can help accelerate that and we can help come alongside and keep shape for it. Because of our experience, we've been doing this translation thing for 60 years now, so we can provide some insight. But the most ownership and the way it's going to drive and be successful is if the local team owns it. And so we you, whichever ministry you're in, whether you're in ours, or not, you have to spend time talking about their story and about what God's word is going to mean for them in their lives.        

00:07:46
            

And even having a step before that. A lot of these languages don't. They don't have a written language. They're existing in oral languages. And so a lot of them don't think they can even have a written language because how does that even work?        

00:08:01
            

And so being able to walk alongside them and start to work through that process and show them that actually your language can be preserved and put in the written form, just they see a brand new sense of empowerment. And again, that dignity of just saying, like, we matter enough to somebody across the world that they would come in and walk alongside with us in order to preserve our heritage, our traditions, who we are, and really honor the language. And so if anything, I would just say, when you're telling stories, are you affirming people's dignity that you're serving and telling their story well? And so that's what we spend a lot of time on. Yeah.        

00:08:42
            

And this is interesting to me because it's like you have your beneficiaries, but then how do you help in some ways tell the story and educate your donors? Right. The benefactors, I guess it might be on why that sort of dignity based approaches the right way to do it. Right. Like why.        

00:09:00
            

Why we do ministry in this way, why we don't just say, yeah, we'll come and do all the work for you. Can you speak a little bit more to how you educate the donors on that? Yeah, that's a really good question. So what we do is we tell their story and we, there's a certain part of the story where the donor actually comes in. We try to tell a story of they are fully capable, they can do this thing, here's why they want it.        

00:09:27
            

Here's the problems that they're facing that's keeping them from getting it. Here's where they're looking for a consultant to come in, and this is where we have experience, and here's what the process is going to look like. And once you get through that part of the story, that's when we say we can turn to the donor and say, you have an opportunity to, one, pray for these people. Two, now that you see their story, if you're, if you donate to that, if you donate to this particular project, this is the specific problem that you're going to be helping to address, and you're going to be helping them not just with an influx of money, but you're going to be helping them buy the materials that they need. They're going to help buy the computers, the printers, all the different things so that, yes, they can do it, but you're going to help accelerate that.        

00:10:18
            

Back to and out of that, they're going to have God's word. They're going to have a written language. They're going to have the power of being able to hold God's word in their own language and not have to lean on anybody else. And being able to have that access is going to give people just the sense of hope of life, and it's really going to help transform people's lives. And so when people can see that I can help that story progress without stripping anybody of their dignity, that's how we make the connection.        

00:10:52
            

That's massive. I love that, man. Well, hey there, holy donuts. Listeners, ever feel like your nonprofit's donor experience is like a jelly filled donut with no jelly? Well, don't fret.        

00:11:03
            

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00:11:28
            

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00:12:00
            

so as you look out and you see, like, your framework for storytelling that you guys have used at Lutheran Bible translators, are there trends that you see in christian nonprofit land that are concerning to you and then maybe some that are exciting to you? Yeah. So the one that maybe I'm nervous about, because maybe some of you have sent these to me. I don't know. So I really struggle, and this is me personally, I really struggle with getting a mailer near the end of year that is full color, beautiful envelope, beautiful materials in the inside.        

00:12:37
            

But then it like, is very shock value verbiage and how you're freezing things. And it's like if this person doesn't get $12, they're going to face maybe even certain, you know, like, certain death. Right. I have a whole swipe folder of them, like, file cabinet here. Yeah.        

00:12:59
            

And I'm just like, every time I receive one of those, I hold it up and I'm like, why did you send this to me? That person is, like, on the verge of death, and, like, you're sending me this material. Don't spend $3 to send me this thing. Clearly, this is an emergency. And so when I see that kind of, like, shock value and everything's an emergency, it's just.        

00:13:20
            

It's red flags for me to say, like, you're not really telling me the real story, because if that was the real story, you wouldn't be spending $3 per envelope on this thing. And so I feel like that shock value starts to wear people down, and eventually it may work for a few campaigns, but eventually people are going to get exhausted on that. And so if we all continue to do that, kind of just like, emergency, emergency, emergency, eventually the donor base across the board is going to start to say, I don't know if I can handle it anymore, it's too much. So I think that. Yeah, I was gonna say it hooks you on the donor acquisition cycle, too, right?        

00:14:00
            

Because if you're constantly churning through them, you're not retaining those people. You know, one of the things, like, one of the kind of platitudes that we like to say for our clients and for us internally is, like, how you get them is how you keep them. And so if you get them with shock value, then you inevitably have to shock them more and more into ever. Actually continuing to give was just not a long term play for donor retention. And if everyone's doing that, you can just imagine what kind of a toxic cycle that pulls.        

00:14:27
            

So 100%, like, it's got to be something that's like, that shock. I'm right there with you. I collect those files for a reason, because I want to be able to say, hey, can we not do this? Yeah. Yeah.        

00:14:39
            

And so do I. So I have, like, a pile over on my desk right here. Yeah. It's like, gosh. And it's a reminder to me, like, it's not about the emergency.        

00:14:47
            

It's the dignity, and it's the process, and we can walk along people, and make an impact. So, on the flip side, one of the positive things I see was really born out of the GoFundme and Kickstarter and all that. What I see for the next generation, I think we all see that is they want specific impact. They want to know exactly where their dollars are going. And what that is forcing us to do as fundraisers is tell very specific stories about and break things down.        

00:15:22
            

Because when you say, well, you're giving to a fund that's $400,000, people are like, great. But like, what? Like, that's a. I'm just like, throwing a penny in there, basically. So what that forces us to do is break those things down so that I.        

00:15:38
            

And we've had to do this in a few of our campaigns, but break it down from 200,000 down to, like, that 2000 to 10,000 range. And then specifically say, when you give $2,000, it gives this. And then we can like, is this computer see this person holding this computer?        

00:15:57
            

And so people really want to see the direct impact of their dollars. If you make that percentage thing on GoFundMe Kickstarter go from 75% to 77%. They want to see it move. Yeah, yeah. And so they want to see that they're making the needle move, and they can't do that if all of our campaigns are a million dollars.        

00:16:16
            

And so we have to get. Break things down and get more specific, get more personalized. And so I love that it's forcing us to be more specific. Yeah, totally. Along with that, one of the, I mean, so one of the things that we see with that a lot is agreed with you 100%.        

00:16:31
            

There are challenges, obviously, in, like, the implementation of that. Right. Like, the more campaigns you have to do, the more of that, like, the more individualized you're trying to make the donor process, the more complexity. Right. Cause I.        

00:16:43
            

If you throw everyone into a big bucket, it's easier on your marketing team. Just one email sequence. It's one direct mailer if you want to do it specific. Now, all of a sudden, we have maybe 30 different micro campaigns running, and sometimes our infrastructure isn't designed for that. So, any thoughts on how you build an infrastructure that would allow you to actually do more personalized campaigns for donors?        

00:17:07
            

Yeah, what we've done is that we, like, end of year, we have, everybody has laps. Donors, we decided to not do everybody, but to start working in different ways. So we broke down a group of thousands of people down to, okay, we're gonna try to reach these 2000 people. And so when we were able to start segmenting and down to that, we were very specific on our criteria. Within three years, they live maybe in this area.        

00:17:40
            

And we just said, okay, we're going to make it very specific. For this group, we're not going to be, we don't have the capacity to do that for everybody. But what we're going to do is we're going to try to reactivate some people who cared about this ministry at one point and may have just fallen off the radar. And so we spent time just building out, we have our large campaigns, but we built out one campaign. And so instead of shifting to fifth gear, we said, we're going to start, we're going to shift into first gear.        

00:18:09
            

And so for this lapse campaign, we got very specific on the technology that we were helping to fund. We have this one fund that equips new missionaries and translation teams with computers and pays for printers. And we had used all of our granting for 2023. We need to rebuild it for 2024. When you give this, it leads to this.        

00:18:33
            

And so we were able to be very specific. We made it specific from RN, too. So it wasn't from Lutheran Bible translators, it was from our director of development. She has a face. We tied.        

00:18:46
            

She was the one that ended up sending all the emails from her. So we accompanied that. We had a video shot with her specifically making the plea out to those people. And so not only are you connecting with a specific cause where you can see where the dollars are going, but you have a real face to it, too, so you're not. We're trying to strip away all kind of the, it's just this large, unknown organization where a bunch of people work.        

00:19:13
            

We're trying to make it very specific. Yeah. And then at the same time we had a donor come along and say, we'll do a matching gift on that. And so when all those things combined, we were able to shift into first gear and say, if we were to do this, what is it going to look like? Yeah.        

00:19:29
            

And so I think what scares me a lot, and probably what scares some other folks is like, how do we get to this big point where everything's personalized? And I think the key for us really is just starting with one. If we did this, what would it look like? And so that's what we're doing. We're starting real slow and scale from there.        

00:19:49
            

I love it. I love it. Yeah. You just start recant, right? Yep.        

00:19:52
            

Hey, let's get started. Let's not use the, the bigness of it as an excuse to not take action. Just start with a place where we can start and we'll move from there and, I mean, we'll figure out the problems as they come up. Right. Like, that's all you can do is just keep taking a step forward.        

00:20:05
            

So what, are there any resources out there that you love to recommend to other people in kind of nonprofit land, in the marketing roles, donor engagement roles? Yes, absolutely. So, of course, story brand, that's what I've been talking about this whole way through. There's two other ones. So we're in a series or a season, I should say, of system building at our organization.        

00:20:29
            

And one of the system approaches that I love is duct tape marketing. They have a seven step small business approach, and it really easily translates over to what we're doing in the nonprofit world. And so I'll rattle those off real quick. Website number one website that builds trust, content platform blogging, podcasts, all that good stuff. SEO, search engine optimization, social media, reputation management, email marketing, and then your pay per click advertising, your digital marketing.        

00:21:04
            

And so if you're looking to say, like, what systems do I need to have in place? These are really the systems that you need to be working on. And reputation management has recently been impactful for us. And so that's going on to candid or guide star, however they want to be referred to right now and making sure that your profiles as up to date as possible. Having a recent video we had somebody go through who was recently looking for, I want to donate to Bible translation, but I don't necessarily know which one.        

00:21:36
            

So we had been, we had been working on repetition management, and they were able to make a decision based on some of the stuff that we had put up there. And so we had a donor who is not on our radar kind of take a step because we had our reputation management taking steps forward. So duct tape marketing, look at those seven systems. If you're unsure where to start, it's a place to start. That's awesome.        

00:21:58
            

Those are great resources. And so if folks want to connect with you, if they want to reach out, learn more about Lutheran Bible translators. What's the best way to do that? Are you active on social, email? What's the best way?        

00:22:08
            

Yeah, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Seth. And then you could connect with me on Facebook. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. So I'm on all the platforms, but LinkedIn is probably the best way right now. Awesome, man.        

00:22:20
            

Seth, thank you so much for joining me today. I learned a ton. I know everyone listening as well, and really, really excited to see the ways that people are able to take what you talked about and implement this with their nonprofit. So thanks for joining me. Yeah, thanks.        

00:22:31
            

Thanks so much. Mandez.        

‍

‍Transcription

00:00:04
            

Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast. I'm your host, Matt Lombardi, and thanks so much for joining us today. And on our program today, we've got a very special guest, Nathan Mayo from trucherity. He is their vp of programs.        

00:00:18
            

And we're going to try to take a little bit of different spin. So usually we talk a lot about marketing and donor engagement. And so today I'm excited to talk to Nathan. I got a chance to meet him in Nashville a few months ago at an event put on by mission increase and Scott Harris, our mutual friend. And I was just really excited to hear more about the ways that they help nonprofits to really, especially in the poverty alleviation space, help them to better run their programs.        

00:00:42
            

And I think programs are often overlooked part of marketing. I do think they go hand in hand. So we'll talk a little bit more about that, but to get started. Nathan, thanks so much for joining me for one. And second, if you could just get us started by talking a little bit about your background, your history, how you got to work with trucharity, and then a little bit of true charity's history as well, that would be so helpful for the audience.        

00:01:04
            

Yeah. Well, thanks for having me here. Happy to share. So, I grew up originally in Alabama. I went to West Point, got a degree in economics.        

00:01:14
            

So then I was in the army for five years after that, mostly stationed in Germany. And I'm kind of a numbers guy, an analytical guy, and just started thinking from a kingdom perspective about what I could do. I realized that the army was kind of set up so that nobody can break it, which also means no one can change it. So it's not the best place for change agent oriented kind of people. So then I had a little kind of personal crisis trying to figure out where to go from there because I had a lot of interests, and I just felt like I could serve God a lot of different capacities.        

00:01:49
            

So ended up deciding on the nonprofit space, a focus on poverty alleviation, just because I figured, you know, the people who self select into poverty alleviation in particular tend to be people with great hearts. You know, they love to serve people in need, their pastors, their doctors, their social workers. The people with the analytical and strategy skills don't tend to gravitate towards that space. So I'm betting there's going to be a short supply of those skills, and I can probably do some good work there. So that was my hypothesis.        

00:02:21
            

My hypothesis was correct, as I've seen it. Yeah. So from there, my wife and I explored an opportunity to do some missions overseas. We explored an opportunity in Uganda and South Sudan that ended up not being a great fit, but allowed us to work in Haiti for a couple of years. So, showed up at a haitian american run small ministry, been around for 20 years, and I just learned about the nonprofit struggle bus and the degree to which ministries are under equipped and ministry workers are wearing too many hats and just trying to figure out so many things.        

00:03:00
            

I remember, you know, showed up expecting to be taught a lot. I was, in many ways, but I also tried to do my homework. So, you know, I read a book about fundraising and quickly realized that I was the subject matter expert in this organization on fundraising, because I read a book, you know, nobody else had ever had the time to do that. So I also just really realized that I had a heart to minister to ministers, right, to serve servants, people who are the overhead and the donors are like, I don't know why we really have to give you any money or resources, and they're just trying to make things work for God's kingdom. So that was my story.        

00:03:47
            

I had my eye out for opportunities to equip ministry leaders more broadly that intersected with true charity. So true charity grew out of the practical experience of a gospel rescue mission in Joplin, Missouri, where I now live. When they started almost 25 years ago, our founder, James Switford, and his wife said they had a heart for the poor, but not a mind for. So they gave a lot of things away. They saw a lot of the things they gave away end up in pawn shops the next day, and they just didn't see the life transformation that they got in the ministry to facilitate.        

00:04:26
            

So they did some reading and came across toxic charity, started to rethink their model, and they shifted to a work oriented earn it model, where they started asking people to do a little work to be a part of their own solutions. From day one, it's not too uncommon to have a social enterprise in a rescue mission, but usually that's like phase three of a work readiness program, and this was day one in exchange for basic needs. And when they did that, two things happened in pretty short order. Number one, not everybody was interested. So there are a lot of people that said, oh, I'm desperate.        

00:04:59
            

I'm in a crisis. I'll do anything. Well, can you. Can you work for 30 minutes? No, I'm not that desperate.        

00:05:05
            

My crisis isn't that bad. But on the positive side, they saw better outcomes, and not only in percent terms, but actually, in absolute terms, they saw more people coming to Christ, getting out of homelessness, reconnecting with family, connecting with churches, all the things that matter in the long run. They saw more of that as they were able to serve fewer people, slow down, and really shift from perpetual crisis relief to long term development. Yeah. And so talking to ministry leaders around the country, I just see people get the theory.        

00:05:41
            

There's a very. There's a very high level of agreement. We want to teach a man to fish. We want to give a hand up, not a handout. We read when helping hurts, we don't want to do that.        

00:05:51
            

But there's a big gap between theory and practice. And so when I ask ministry leaders, okay, so what fraction of your clients do you think just need short term crisis assistance? And then they're going to be good. And what fraction really needs some sort of long term development? I'll usually get an answer around 90 ten in favor of development.        

00:06:11
            

Yeah. And then you ask about programs, and usually the program structure is about 90 ten in the opposite direction. And people will say, I'll ask questions like, oh, so 20 years from now, what do you think will be different in the lives of the people you're serving? And I've had ministry leaders tell me, well, honestly, I think we're going to be feeding their kids. And that's about the only difference.        

00:06:35
            

So that's what true charity exists to help with the transformation that water gardens rescue mission went through. True charity exists to equip churches and nonprofits to implement effective, privately funded, kingdom driven charity in their context, where we're shifting to match our practice to our slogans. Right. We have a tremendous amount of resources for doing that. We have a national network of churches and nonprofits.        

00:07:04
            

We launched it when I joined the team back in 2020. So just a little over three years ago now. And we've got, at this point, 178 churches and nonprofits in 30 states. So there's a lot of hunger for practical tools, step by step guides for innovative models, as well as toolkits to help with broader challenges like fundraising and outcomes measurement and mental illness and case management and things that affect a lot of different programs. Yeah.        

00:07:31
            

So that's the backstory on what we do. That's amazing and super inspiring that there are organizations out there that are ministering to ministers. They're saying, hey, we want to help you get to a healthy spot, because I'm sure as people are listening to that, every person in the audience is going to resonate with the ministry struggle bus. Right. And then also that.        

00:07:52
            

Yep, it's always a crisis. It seems like it's always, well, we need that yesterday. And I think what you're pointing to is something really I've not thought of before, to be honest, is that we're serving so many people in crisis mode oftentimes, and we're not doing long term development. So, of course, the pace at which everything is needed from, whether it's a marketing team or development team, also pairs of that same urgency. Right.        

00:08:16
            

If your programs are all crisis urgency mode, then sure enough, the rest of your organization is going to kind of be that way as well. So as you all at true charity come into organizations or give them resources, have there been any kind of themes of like, hey, this is how, you know, your organizations may be ready for a transition? Cause everyone's gonna say, yes, we want that. You know, we want, we want to teach man to fish. Yeah, like, exactly.        

00:08:39
            

Like you said, all the, all the little, you know, platitudes that they get thrown around. Are there other indicators that you've seen with organizations of, like, okay, when this is happening or when this is happening internally with your team, this is an indication that you're actually ready to make the shift into this different kind of a model? Well, so one of the things we emphasize with our network is we don't have a sort of line in the sand mentality where, well, these are the organizations on the good side of the line and these are the organizations who are bad. It's really about a North Star, which for us, we talk about three pillars of effective charity. We think the best programs are gonna be privately funded, people given up their own time and money to help people in need.        

00:09:20
            

We think the best programs are going to be challenge oriented, challenging people to be part of their own solutions through development, relationship and accountability. And then we think the best programs are going to be outcome driven. So we're measuring our results and not just the quantity of stuff we give away. So that's our North Star. Everybody in our network says, you know, we may not be there, but we all want to move in that direction.        

00:09:42
            

So I really don't know of a single organization that isn't in a position to move in that direction. You might be, you know, you've got a 20 year backstory of handing stuff out and the whole staff and donor base has bought in on it. Okay, so your first step might be, maybe you need to do some reading. Maybe you need to visit some other places that are doing things more developmentally. So their first step is much more gradual.        

00:10:09
            

Whereas somebody who's already gotten a little bit of internal buy in, the leader gets they need to make a shift. Well, at that point, if they're in the true charity network, we have step by step guides for how to run a food co op as an alternative to a traditional food pantry, how to run an affordable Christmas market as an alternative to a Christmas gift giveaway, how to build transitional housing programs, residential life transformation programs, you name it. So we have step by step guides. So you've got to get the buy in first and then you can go to shifting a couple of your programs. A lot of times people are just shifting one or two of their programs and then they're leaving.        

00:10:48
            

Some. They have some transformational programs now, and they also have some kind of transactional programs that maybe they're not as happy about, but it's harder to wean themselves off of them. But it's just a process. And even organizations that have shifted all their programs are transformational. They did it.        

00:11:03
            

They shifted ten years ago. They can still continue to improve on that and make those programs more effective and generate better outcomes. So I think everyone is ready to move. That's so helpful. Yeah, there's always the next step someone can take to become more transformational and less transactional, no matter where they are.        

00:11:21
            

And like you said, it may even just be reading. Or it may be, hey, you and your small little window of the organization, you can take these small steps for what you're in charge of and then be an inspiration to the rest of your organization of how it could be done different. Well, hey there. Holy donuts. Listeners, ever feel like your nonprofit's donor experience is like a jelly filled donut with no jelly.        

00:11:43
            

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00:11:48
            

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00:12:10
            

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00:12:41
            

As you work with a ton of nonprofits and your team at true charity does, what are some of the best strategies you've seen for. Obviously, some of these may just be straight playbooks or things from true charity, but some of the best strategies for not only moving these programs to more of a transformational model, but really communicating that to donors, I think, because that's something our audience cares a lot about, is how do you communicate that sort of change to donors. So any strategies around how you do that? Well, yeah. So I think the main thing that the development marketing folks are going to need to key in on is outcomes measurement.        

00:13:18
            

So your programs team is usually going to do the outcomes measurement, but marketing and development can generate some positive pressure to push them to do that well. So as ministries shift from being more relief oriented to being more development oriented, the trend that I mentioned at our founding rescue mission, water gardens, it happens over and over. You end up serving fewer people and seeing better results. And that's a little bit of a mindset shift, because a lot of times your donor, your marketing team is going to be in the habit of broadcasting just how many people you're serving. What we would call outputs, big numbers, right?        

00:14:00
            

Right. So we fed so many people meals, we gave away so many boxes of food, so many shelter nights, whatever the case is. So now you have to shift from measuring and broadcasting outputs to measuring and broadcasting outcomes. So a transitional housing ministry that we've worked with over the years, they have a little card, they have their kind of outputs on one side, they have their outcomes on another. On their outputs, they're just talking about how many housing units they have, how many people they have in housing, but on their outcomes, they're talking about personal stability.        

00:14:37
            

So they have a like a ten point composite index based on surveys they go through, case managers, they have recovery history. So how, you know, how many months or years of sobriety do the people have on average? What about their community and spiritual involvement? So how many people do you feel like you could call in the event of an emergency? Well, when you showed up, you said one.        

00:15:01
            

Now that you've been in our intentional community for a year, now you've got eight people that you feel like you could call. So that's a measure of social capital, something very intangible, but which you can put numbers on and numbers that are intuitive to people. Finances are relatively easy to measure. You can look at credit score, you can look at debt, you can use it. Look at whether you're using a written budget, yes or no, employment, length of employment.        

00:15:28
            

So there are a lot of measurables around financial stability. Those are the kinds of things that we would call outcomes because they speak to long term change in somebody's life that you have to measure and then you have to educate your donors and say, yeah, we used to tell you just how many meals we've served, but now we're realizing that the quantity of free stuff you give away is not necessarily a measure of need. Right. So the main, well, I'll give you, for instance, so when the COVID happened and the USDA was given away boxes and boxes and boxes of food, I got a fair number of boxes of those food, not because I wanted them, but because I lived in kind of a lower middle income neighborhood and there were people that were just dropping them off on doorsteps. I didn't need that.        

00:16:22
            

That was an extreme example. And I don't, I've got a social barrier. I'm not going to stand in line to get something free if I don't need it. There are other people who aren't as ethical and they might not need something and they might stand in line to get it anyways because it's free. So a lot of the urgency we create in our programs, it's self driven in terms of just a quantity of stuff we give out.        

00:16:50
            

But yeah, that's the best strategy. I think as your programs become better, you measure your outcomes instead of your outputs and that makes big difference to donors. Yeah. And I love that you're highlighting, you have to educate your donors on this because they may be giving, you know, I think of it this way, like they may be giving to, you know, a dozen other ministries or five or ten and if those are still all outputs based, right. It's almost, I think of it like vanity metrics and marketing terms, right?        

00:17:19
            

Like, you know, if Facebook tells you, oh, you had, you know, 25,000 impressions, it's like, well, what does that even mean? Yeah, it's like, it looks good to say 25,000. Oh, it's a little dopamine hit, but it doesn't actually mean anything. What you actually care about is, well, how many actual comments did you get? How many people actually are engaged with the content?        

00:17:38
            

And it's the same thing, you know, if a donor is getting all these different kind of outputs, communication, that's like vanity metrics for them, right? It's like, wow, we saw 5000 students show up to this rally or we hand out this many tens of thousands of boxes of food and it's like, well, that's great, but like, how many people were actually rescued, right? How many people actually saw life change? And so there's going to be a tremendous amount, I would think, of donor communication around that and explain the why to donors of here's why we're moving to this, this way of thinking and this cultural transformation because we actually care about what we do with your money. We don't want to just stroke your ego anymore.        

00:18:17
            

But that's, I think donors are savvy enough that you have to actually tell them, here's why we're doing it and here's why it's better for every dollar you put in. And I think if you do that, they'll meet that with really a high degree of respect and trust for your organization. So as, yeah, I think, I think you're right on. And I would add, I think donors are much more receptive to it than people are afraid they will be. You'll also find there are a lot of donors who are, they already know it and they don't know if you know it or not.        

00:18:49
            

And they're potential donors. They're not giving or they're giving in very small quantities because you work in their community, but they're not giving you a lot because they don't trust you that much because they just see your measuring outputs. Major donors, people who write, you know, five figure checks, those people are particularly attuned to the significance of outcomes because they are a lot of times successful in business, and that's where you have to care about outcomes. So I think, yeah, I think people are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. So you have to do a little re education, but they catch on to it very quickly.        

00:19:21
            

Talk to a lot of ministries that have made a shift and they'll have, let's say, a big education event. Bring in all their volunteers. Hey, we're changing our soup kitchen. We're doing something different. And the volunteers say it's about time.        

00:19:34
            

Yeah. And they're like, oh, we were not expecting that. Everyone, it's the change everyone's been waiting for. They just never would speak up and give language to it. So, Nathan, as we kind of look at the broader.        

00:19:48
            

Right, so you guys worked a lot of individual charities and ministries. What's maybe a trend that you're seeing in general nonprofit space that has you a little bit concerned? And then on the other side, what's one that's got you pretty excited. So on the excited side, the trend that is a little, it's different from outcomes measurement, but it's connected is the trend towards devaluing overhead as a metric that people care about. So there's some good books that have come out about that.        

00:20:20
            

I think even a film recently about the problems with looking at just your percentage of dollars to fundraising and to administration as a measure of how much good you do. That is also connected, of course, to the nonprofit starvation cycle, which is just the idea that nonprofits are under pressure to cut out the irrelevant people, like all the members of your audience who are in donor development and marketing, all those overhead people, which is, of course, terrible for the ministry or the organization to under equip and under resource and underhire in all of those departments. So I think a lot of people are realizing, okay, overhead's not a great measure anymore, never really was. But that's not to say we can't measure anything of significance. And that's where I think outcomes come in as the measurement we were looking for all along that nonprofits didn't offer.        

00:21:17
            

So I think if you put your outcomes front and center on your website, your overhead rate can be buried pretty deep, if it's on there at all, because people are going to be less interested in searching for that once they see, oh, this is the impact per dollar, this is the number of lives transformed by this ministry. Absolutely, absolutely. And then on the concerning side, what's the trend that's got you a little bit concerned? Yeah. So I think in the outcome space, as well as in effective popular alleviation, there are a lot of people who've read the books, they've captured the language, but they haven't changed the practice.        

00:21:58
            

And so that's both an opportunity, but it's, it's also a threat. It's an opportunity if they continue down the path and they continue to change, but it's a threat if they just keep the slogans they even. I've seen lots of ministries that have gotten better about using the word outcomes, but now they're just talking about the number of meals they give away as their outcomes. Well, you've missed the concept. So those terms, you know, development, effective charity outcomes, those can all be devalued if people just shift their language and don't actually shift their practice to match.        

00:22:39
            

And I think there is a fair deal of that that goes on. Yeah, it's as if someone can be, I think of it like a vaccine almost inoculated to it, right, where they get a little bit of it, just enough to keep them from actually getting the full blown version of it. Right. And so it's almost like this inoculation. We see the same thing in marketing with, you know, as organizations say, everyone wants to be data driven, right?        

00:23:01
            

And so if they can use the buzzword enough or say, oh, yeah, we really care about the data on this, or, you know, what that really means sometimes, like, well, we just set up our Google Analytics and, you know, every few months we check it, and now all of a sudden data driven, where it's like, no, that wasn't really what that meant. And I wish you just wouldn't have done it at all, because now you act like you are so totally understand that what are some resources that you love to give away? Could be something that your charity has? Could be something that you just love to give away to nonprofits. Yeah.        

00:23:32
            

So the main resource that we have around outcomes is our outcomes toolkit. So a toolkit is, for us, a step by step guide of how to work through a process. With the true charity network, everything is included with memberships, $240 a year flat rate for an entire church or nonprofit. That gives you access to ten individuals on our members portal. That includes all the model action plans.        

00:23:56
            

I talked about, step by step guides for innovative models. That includes also our toolkits. So the outcomes toolkit, in particular what we've done with it, is build you a process for how to think through your outcome domains, how to break those down into specific outcomes, how to find indicators. And there's just, there's a fair number of books out there that are pretty dry and technical about outcomes measurement, but they don't leave you with a process. And the other thing we wanted to leave people with, in addition to a process, and this is just what we love to do, is really practical copy paste kind of solutions.        

00:24:35
            

So rather than just tell you, here's what you could measure and give you a handful of examples like I did earlier with the transitional housing organization, we just give you everything we know of anyone measuring anywhere that's worth anything. And we give you a client survey that has 26 questions. Please don't use all 26 questions. You pick the five to eight that are relevant to your context. So we just try to make things easy for people because you've got too much urgent stuff going on to sit down and reinvent every important thing that you need.        

00:25:08
            

So that's what we do. So love to share that with folks. And then if any of your audience is going to be at the CLA conference in Jacksonville, I'm going to be there with the booth and would love to connect people there. You know, for us, I talk about outcomes. I don't just want to preach it, we also want to practice it as an organization.        

00:25:28
            

It's a little tricky because we're not client facing in the sense that we don't directly serve people in poverty. But the outcome that we care about at true charity is not just do people join our network, do they use our stuff, but does it actually change their practice? So we do our own annual outcome survey and we call all of our members, we survey them, we get answers and we find out what fraction of them have actually used our resources to fundamentally change a program. And we just did our annual outcome survey. It's 56% of our members have made a transition in a program that they attribute to our tools and training.        

00:26:08
            

So it's so awesome to see the hunger is there, the hunger is legitimate. What was missing is the path, the resource to take you to the next step, to measure outcomes, to improve your programs, what have you. And it's just a blessing to be able to see that that is coming to fruition. Absolutely. So folks want to connect with either you personally, but maybe more likely if there are poverty alleviation ministry out there they want connected to true charity.        

00:26:37
            

Access some of these tools, resources. What's the best place just tactically to go and kind of find out more about true charity? Get plugged into everything you guys are doing. Yeah. So trucharity us, that's our website.        

00:26:50
            

You can go to trucharity us join. That gives you all the information about membership. You can navigate through the website and find that as well. I'm Nathan at Trucharity us. Anybody is free to reach out to me as well.        

00:27:02
            

We're really passionate, like I said, about ministering to ministers and making it easy for nonprofit folks to do this important stuff. Well, yeah. Well, Nathan, thank you so much for joining me today. Like probably everyone else is listening, I learned a ton. Going to be a lot that I'm able to kind of think on.        

00:27:21
            

Take to ministries that we work with and just say, hey, have you guys thought about maybe measuring outcomes instead of just these outputs? So thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Appreciate it. My pleasure.        

Linkedin Article

From Handouts to Hand-Ups: Nonprofit Leader's Journey to Sustainable Charity

What if we could transform charity programs to create lasting solutions for those in need rather than just temporary relief? In this exclusive interview, Nathan Mayo shares his journey to becoming a nonprofit leader focused on equipping ministries with practical tools for delivering true, life-changing impact.

"We want to teach a man to fish. We want to give a hand up, not a handout," Nathan quotes, encapsulating the vision he discovered at a Missouri rescue mission. By asking people to contribute sweat equity in exchange for assistance, the mission saw greater life transformation despite serving fewer individuals. "The best programs are going to be privately funded, challenge oriented, and outcome driven," Nathan explains regarding the three pillars of effective charity he seeks to propagate.

From his career as an army officer to working abroad in Haiti, Nathan's analytical skills and heart to serve have led him to focus on poverty alleviation. He noticed a gap: Ministries understand the theory of developmental, personalized care over mere crisis relief, but their programs remained 90% transactional handouts. True Charity exists to bridge this gap through equipping churches to shift to sustainable models that facilitate growth.

The key, Nathan notes, is measurable outcomes, not just outputs. Tracking metrics like financial stability or social connections conveys impact better than meals provided. "Donors are much more receptive to it than people are afraid they will be," he encourages. Quantifying life change helps fundraising teams motivate supporters around a compelling vision of lasting solutions.

Toolkits, step-by-step guides for launching transitional housing or work-readiness initiatives, and a customizable outcomes measurement process facilitate this program transformation. Already, 56% of their 178-member network has implemented impactful changes thanks to True Charity's resources. Join the movement at trucharity.us or reach out to Nathan directly. The hunger for practical ways to shape lives is real; now ministries have a path to walk it out.

What outcomes would you like to see nonprofit programs in your community achieve? How can we come around these groups and help equip them for meaningful, measurable impact?

[MYSTYLE]:

This tone of voice is laid-back, casual, informal and personable. Like how you'd talk to a friend, keeping them in a positive mood without being overly bubbly 

[MYREAD]:

1. Target a 9th-grade readability level - strive for clear communication over complexity. 

2. Use an active voice in your writing.

3. Include transition words to guide readers through your post.  

4. Keep sentences concise and easy to understand - avoid overly long constructions. 

5. Break up your text into short, digestible paragraphs to maintain reader interest and clearly convey your main points. Avoid excessively long paragraphs.  

6. Do not refer explicitly to the target audience as this may alienate some readers. Make everyone feel included.

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00:00:03
            

Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast. Today I am joined by the one and only Chris Whitney, founder and CEO of one generation away, an awesome ministry based out of Franklin, Tennessee, Nashville area. If you're familiar with Tennessee, that does great work with helping people who are in circumstances where they are hungry, are lacking in food resources. So, Chris, man, thanks so much for taking the time to join today.        

00:00:29
            

I wish you could be here in person in Tampa, but alas, you're in Nashville. I know it's really cold here, so I'd really like to be there with you right now. That would definitely sunny in 75. Man, it's the best year. That's why we live here this time.        

00:00:43
            

That is so wrong off the bat. Sorry to rub that. That's okay, though. No, I would expect nothing less. That's good.        

00:00:50
            

Why don't we just start with a little bit of your story. Similar to me, this is one of the reasons I think we vibe so well. Both of us used to be in ministry. Like pastors, right? Like working in a local church setting.        

00:00:59
            

Give the audience, I know a little bit of your story, but give the audience a little bit of your background and how you got to one generation away and then also a little bit more about the ministry and kind of what your journey has been like there. Yeah. So Elaine and I have been married, just celebrated 37 years of marriage. So that's pretty cool. Three grown daughters, six grandkids, and we've been in Franklin now just over 19 years.        

00:01:21
            

It was 19 years in July, so almost 19 and a half years now. We were in St. Louis, Missouri, Elaine's from Greenville, Mississippi. We got saved right after we got married. So we got married in December, got saved right after Easter of that next year.        

00:01:36
            

So we're coming up on 37 years of being, walking with God and committing our lives to Christ. And then we've probably been in ministry for 36 of those 37 years. And so we were unpaid youth pastors at a very large church in St. Louis, led mission trips overseas with kids, preached once or twice a week, ran a business, an insurance business. Not normal, not healthy.        

00:02:01
            

Just a lot of. And came out of the word of faith movement, which has some great stuff, but also has some not totally biblically accurate stuff, too. So, experienced a lot as far as the ministry side, but I think I've always had a heart to serve. I mean, I was a volunteer youth pastor, basically, and ushered, and I mean, a lot of stories about. So I just really enjoyed serving.        

00:02:25
            

Did some disaster relief work. We had a big flood in our church right after we opened our building, and we served our community, became citizens of the. Just. Just a lot of cool stuff. I watched what just being the hands and feet of Jesus could do to change how your church is viewed in your community.        

00:02:44
            

Literally, we saw that. So I think that was part of what motivated me. We wanted to start a church. So just for some strange reasons, which we don't need to get into now, I want to be a five hour radius of St. Louis.        

00:02:56
            

So it ended up being Nashville. We'd never been to Nashville, either one of us. We bought a laminated map and we saw a town called Antioch, which is part of Nashville. And anybody from here laughs at you, especially 19 years ago. So we just moved here.        

00:03:10
            

Literally, we didn't know a soul. We had no financial support, and we moved here and planted a church with nothing. And we joke and say, not the brightest move, but we were obedient. And I think if I'd say to anything to anybody is obedience is the key to your walk with God. And it is the easiest and the hardest thing to do all in the same.        

00:03:31
            

And you know what I'm saying? And I think anybody out there would, if you've done anything for God, you've had to make that decision. And then we say, out of God's sense of humor, he had to start a food ministry with nothing as well. So we started literally with nothing, out of the back of a Hyundai Santa Fe. And one of the funny things is it was right just before the flood hit Nashville in 2010, back in that time and ten or eleven, whatever it was now.        

00:03:57
            

So it was interesting coming from the flood in St. Louis and then here, and I ended up leading flood relief, and I was commuting back and forth to St. Louis to run my insurance business, to pay to eat and live, and planting a church and starting a food ministry. And then in that journey, which is really wild, I just thought about it. In a couple of weeks, it'll be ten years ago, December 31, I was diagnosed with stage three throat cancer.        

00:04:22
            

We signed our first warehouse lease in November for a space, and a month later, I was diagnosed with state street throat cancer. So that was a little bit of hiccup in the journey, right? And obedience isn't always easy, but it was never meant to be easy. It was meant to be impactful for the kingdom, right? But from then on now, we became our own 501 for one gen in June of 2013.        

00:04:50
            

So we just celebrated in June of this year, our ten year anniversary. We deviate under our church for a couple of years to see if it was going to make it or not, advice of an attorney, which I'm glad I took. So, yeah, man, that's been our journey. And our kids, we moved our kids. We're going into sophomore in high school, a freshman in high school, and into, I'm sorry, 10th grade, eigth grade, and 6th grade.        

00:05:14
            

And so they lived in this bubble. They were born into this massive church, and that's everything they knew. We totally ruined their lives and moved them here. But it's all good now. Everything's good.        

00:05:27
            

It had its challenges. We can share more about the story, whatever you want to hear, but, I mean, I think people can contact me and hear more about it, whatever, but I think the story is much deeper than that. Out of it. I wrote a book called the Dirty Church, which was kind of the story of how one gen started and a story of my life and as a believer and the things that early on about my hubris and God's grace to correct my arrogance, you know what I mean? I was passionate, but not really stewarding the gift in me very well, you know what I mean?        

00:05:57
            

And God humbled me and taught me how to serve. And now service has become the passion of my life and the driving of my heart. And we just do it through food, man. I love it. I love it.        

00:06:09
            

So one of the things that stands out. So we've gotten a chance to hang out in person before, and you have a tremendous, superhuman amount of energy. So it would seem. Right. And so I know for some of our audience members listening that they are in roles where they're pulled in a million different directions, where they're constantly feeling like they're drowning, where they feel like, oh, my gosh, if my team adds another product to my plate, I don't know what I'm going to do.        

00:06:35
            

I don't know how I'm going to do this. And I'm hearing your story and own an insurance business, commuting back and forth to Antioch. Right. 5 hours running a food ministry, pastoring at a church, being a dad, being a husband. Could you just speak to it for a minute?        

00:06:48
            

And this is off script, but this is why you meet people, right? These sort of conversations. How did the lord get you through that season of. There's probably. I probably took on too much at once, right.        

00:07:00
            

I think most leaders out there would say, if we're honest, usually it's not that someone forces us to do stuff. We just take on too much. If we're actually being honest, we didn't set the filters hard enough. How would you advise someone who's kind of in a season right now where they feel exhausted and they don't know how they're going to get through it and they've got four or five, six responsibilities on their plate? How'd you get through that?        

00:07:20
            

How'd the lord get you through that? And then maybe some kind of wisdom for how to help leaders get through that. Yeah, the cancer was a big deal, man. I mean, obviously cancer is always a big deal, but I speak for a living, and I was pastoring a church and I'm running a nonprofit, and so I speak. I'm in front of people.        

00:07:37
            

So when your throat gets attacked, that's a big deal, right? It really rattles you. I mean, I was 42 years old or 52 years old when I got hit with cancer. And I was with a pastor friend of mine in Gulf shores on vacation. And we sat on the back of a deck and he looked at me.        

00:07:57
            

He'd been friend for over 30 years now, and we're both crying. He looks at me, he said, I don't want you to die. That's a crazy conversation. And when I moved to Nashville, one of the things I wrote about in my book is.        

00:08:13
            

Hard. Not to get emotional sometimes, but. I. Did a horrible job of being a husband to an amazing woman that gave her life. I drug her.        

00:08:25
            

She followed and never kicked and screamed. I would never drag her. I'd think, this is not Caveman church. You don't drag your wife by the hair and say, we're going to go do this. She believed it was God.        

00:08:38
            

But in the midst of that, I'm pulled in all these directions. So I'm failing at my two primary responsibilities as a husband and a dad. I'm really good at going and selling insurance, and I'm good at starting kind of, right? I mean, I'm pulled in so many.        

00:08:56
            

God was my buddy, in a way, looked at me and said, you're a great pastor. I love your heart. But he goes, God's hands on one. Jen, I really feel like you need to figure out what you're going to do. But my hubris was, well, I could do both.        

00:09:08
            

I see these megachurch pastors and they're doing all this stuff, but I'm not behind the curtain with them either. I'm behind my curtain, dude. I'm in my kitchen, right? And now my budy's in my kitchen, and he's speaking truth to me. So they left, and Elaine and I are in the Gulf of Mexico standing in the water, and I walk out and she's crying and we're praying.        

00:09:30
            

It's where she goes. God's just challenging me. When are we going to trust him? We were not trusting him to the level that he asked us to trust him. So I would encourage those that are struggling right now.        

00:09:45
            

The reason you're struggling is you're controlling too much and not trusting him with everything. So I looked at Elaine. We had a five year lease with a five year option on our church. We were eight years in, and I said, I know what we're going to do. We're going to go back to Nashville.        

00:09:59
            

We're going to go back to Franklin, we're going to merge the church. We're going to finish out the lease. So we honor that commitment. That's God's. I'd put a black eye on God if I don't do that, and I would never do that.        

00:10:10
            

And then we're going to step aside and we're going to run one gen full time. And so that's what we did. We came back, I made a call to somebody, a pastor I knew, and he had already merged his church with somebody else. We actually merged three churches together, but ultimately it all played out correctly. And I had pastors that thought I'd lost my mind when I merged the church.        

00:10:35
            

And then two years later, when I just stepped away from the church, they really thought I'd lost my mind. And I know you know what I'm saying right now. Totally. How could you leave the ministry? Well, that's just one form of ministry, right?        

00:10:47
            

Yeah. And you and I had this conversation. I pastor more people now in parking lots than I would ever do in a building. Absolutely. We have people that go to churches, but they'll tell you, my church is on Saturday morning with one gen.        

00:11:00
            

It's amazing. And I'm not knocking the church. We've created names for the church. We call other ministries that aren't a building on Sunday parachurches. When I'm like, in their church, in the Old Testament, I mean, in the New Testament, those were just churches.        

00:11:15
            

They weren't parachurches. They were just churches. But the people that are struggling with that, I think. And so God really convicted me, and I wrote this story in my book. My wife went to work outside the home for the first time in 1718 years.        

00:11:28
            

She wanted to be a stay at home mom. So we did everything we could to make that happen. When we moved to Franklin, she had to go to work, and she would work at Embassy Suites Hotel. She'd have to be there at 630 in the morning. And God literally spoke to me.        

00:11:42

He said, I want you to get up every morning and cook your wife breakfast before she goes to work. And that's what I did. That's amazing. That's amazing. And I learned that.        

00:11:52
            

And I wrote this in my book as well. I don't mean to keep, but it's just. That's great. This is who I am. And I tell people all the time, if you're not serving your spouse, you're not serving anybody else.        

00:12:04
            

Well, you're kidding yourself. And that's what God spoke to me, that I am not serving her. So anything else I am doing is fruitless until I learn to do. Yeah. And we had a great marriage, and now we have an amazing marriage.        

00:12:18
            

But it's because, not because my wife, I mean, she's from Mississippi, man. I remember the first time we had dinner there. I'm like sitting watching a football game. The women are know, and then she walks in with this plate of food and hands it to me and I'm like, what is this? A light from heaven shined down?        

00:12:36
            

And she's like, well, this is your plate of food. And I'm like, I could get used to this. This is awesome. But that was her heart. She was a servant, man.        

00:12:49
            

In my thick head, though, I just received it, but never reciprocated. And so God really taught me some things about it took some time, but he really taught me about honing what we do. So as a ministry, we've honed what we do. We do three things within our ministry. But, dude, I'm like, squirrel, you know what I mean?        

00:13:12
            

If you call me and got an idea, I'm like, well, let's go do this, man. I can do this. And my boards really helped me with that. But now I've gotten where I'm dialed in. I won't take on something that's not for me.        

00:13:25
            

It doesn't mean I won't help somebody or I coach or whatever, but I'm not going to take it on and I'm not going to own it. And I don't take anything on without my team speaking into it. That's awesome. Does that make sense? Oh, 100%, yeah.        

00:13:39
            

It just gives you that opportunity to say, hey, listen, there are a million great things we could do, but ultimately, as an entrepreneur and as someone who's trying to juggle everything, we can't do everything right. The more you can strip away. Strip away. Simplify, simplify it. Sounds like that's kind of what God did for you guys.        

00:13:53
            

It gave you that clarity on the beach there, right? To say he did. He did and he will. You're seeking him. Yeah.        

00:13:58
            

The one thing, that book, the one thing, it's a great book to read and finding your one thing. And you know this, in ministry, we tell people all the time, it's like this is as a pastor, man, you've just said this a million times, as I did. God, spouse, kids, right? Yes. Job, church, man, you want to talk about bass ackwards, man, I've got it all screwed up, dude.        

00:14:21
            

I'm so out of whack. But I'm preaching to people and telling them to do it, and I'm not listening myself. Anybody listening to this? I'm not trying to beat you up. I am not, man.        

00:14:32
            

I want to help you get set free from drowning. God doesn't want you to drown, but he needs you to trust him. Absolutely. And I think the thing you feel like if I let this go, it will fail. Well, if it does, then it wasn't meant to exist to begin with because you're not meant to do everything and you can't.        

00:14:52
            

And I struggled for years with delegation how to delegate, because if you're an entrepreneur, you're a control freak. I'm just admit it. I had to admit, dude, it's control freak. Anonymous I am a control freak. So I've had to learn.        

00:15:10
            

I don't have to be in control of everything. Totally. I need to know everything that's going on, but that's different than being in control of it 100%. Yeah. Right.        

00:15:20
            

And so I think that's what I'd want to help you with is find that difference between controlling it and knowing what needs to go on. What's happening. There's a difference. And if you're controlling too much, you're never going to be able to get the right people around you to do what they need to do because you'll never let them do what they're gifted to do, which is a systemic problem in the nonprofit world, especially with churches, churches being a nonprofit. It's a systemic problem that we don't allow people to flow in their gifting to the ability that they have because we want to control too much.        

00:15:54
            

And part of that is we're fearful that they'll take our job. And I'm not worried about that anymore. I've offered, man, you can have the key. My job, please take it. And jokingly, but sometimes seriously, but I've realized that if you can learn to let other people step into their gift, they don't want your job.        

00:16:15
            

They just want to do what they do really well. And if you let them do that, it'll free your life up. Yeah, man. One of the things that stands out that I always think about is as entrepreneurial leader, which you obviously are. Right.        

00:16:26
            

Like, all this energy, just, like, it can go off the rails where priorities, like you're talking about, completely get shifted. And we've got too much stuff on our plate because in a lot of ways, we probably have more capacity than a lot of people do. And so we can actually keep a lot of this plate spinning better than the average bear. But eventually, they do fall. Right.        

00:16:45
            

But that same energy that allows you to do that or make that mistake is also the same energy, I think, specifically has allowed you to, when you've dialed it in and focused it at one gentle way and have dialed in on being able to delegate and lead well, had allowed you guys to unlock some incredible growth. And that entrepreneurial spirit has really, I think, just been the thing that's driven you guys to grow at a pace that's not normal, I would say, for nonprofits at all, like, very abnormal. So can you maybe speak to a little bit of how that kind of mindset of entrepreneurship and even just that energy has. How has that made one generational weight different? How does that help spurn your growth?        

00:17:27
            

Are there any principles or kind of practices you guys do internally that kind of help make sure that you're constantly in that mindset as opposed to drifting into complacency? That's like seven questions in one, but I figured I'd just tee you up. No, they're great questions. So thanks for asking. So let me tell you how we approach donors, how we approach people we work with.        

00:17:50
            

Our first question is, what's your story? So that's how we lead in everything we do. How can we serve you? What's your story, and how can we serve you? That's how we lead everything.        

00:18:04
            

Now, you have to be intentional, and you have to be believable. So if you're watching me right now, you understand when I say that I'm not kidding. I want to know, how can I serve you? And once I ask that question, the people on the other side have never been asked that question, probably before or very seldom. And it kind of takes them aback a little bit.        

00:18:27
            

And I tell my team, I said, because if the relationship is supposed to happen, there will be another meeting, and then they're going to ask you. I didn't hear about you. And I know I need to raise money and I need to do all these things. I think that's one of the things that makes us unique. The entrepreneur side is I run our nonprofit like a for profit business now.        

00:18:50
            

I also run it like a ministry on the other side. So when we're giving food away, it's all ministry but the nuts and bolts of the day to day operation. I run it p l balance sheet. Like, if you can read A-P-L that's great, but you need to learn how to read a balance sheet because you can be bleeding to death and a PNL won't show it. So profit and loss for those that don't know what that means, but your balance sheet shows exactly what's going on.        

00:19:15
            

And so you need to be able to read both. So get some education financially on how to read a balance sheet and know the difference between A-P-L and a balance sheet. We've done those things. I view all that through the lens of stewardship. So God's allowed.        

00:19:27
            

So I hold my hands like this, so flat up, because the visual is one gen, rests in our hands. I'm the entrepreneur, founder, CEO, all those things. But this is God's baby. And the growth you talked about has been incredible. So God gets all that credit.        

00:19:45
            

No man can take credit for this. No woman can take credit for this. And we know that we have 14 employees, but we have thousands of volunteers. We're a volunteer led organization. To me, the other thing that makes us successful is that our volunteers get to see two things.        

00:20:01
            

They get to work with the end user, the person that's receiving food, right. People they would never come in contact with, because we live in the 7th wealthiest county, 10th wealthiest county in the United States of America. I mean, most people don't know that, but Franklin Williamson county is extremely wealthy. And then the other thing is, kids, our events are kid friendly, so you can bring your whole family to the event. It's huge.        

00:20:24
            

Now, that's not fair for everybody, right? There's some things people out there are doing that's never going to happen. I get that. But that is a draw for us. And it's a big deal because their kids get to see people they'll never come in contact with as well.        

00:20:37
            

You know what I mean? So they see the side of the tracks that they normally would. Was that an intentional decision from the start, or was that something that you guys just kind of through, kind of like people bringing their kids? You're like, oh, yeah, maybe we should do this. This is really helpful.        

00:20:50
            

No, that was that. Nothing seemed to be very. When I say that, I say that was all sincerity. The only thing I knew about food was I like to eat it. I never built a company like this.        

00:21:00
            

I'm not a logistics major, but God just gave me the ability to be logistic, to figure out the logistics of all this. And he put really good people around me once again, that just knew how to do things, and I just yielded to them. Hey, man, you do this for a living. How should we do this? Just having the courage to say that.        

00:21:21

‍

You don't need to have all the answers, man. All you need to do is surround yourself with really good people and then listen. And you have to lead. You have to have vision. I think the key to me is, as an entrepreneur, you need to be a visionary for lack of prophetic vision.        

00:21:38
            

My people perish, man. Vision, vision, vision. That's my job. Cast. Vision, vision, vision.        

00:21:46
            

And here we are, ten years in. We've done hundreds and hundreds of mobile food pantries. And I say the same thing today that I said ten years ago. And there's people that volunteer with us 35 Saturdays a year. I mean, they're there all the time.        

00:22:04
            

They've heard me say it over and they laugh every time. Like, people laugh at every joke you tell the same time, the same one. But, Matt, every time we do a distribution, there's 50% of the people have never been at one before. And I'm like, where have you all been? I mean, I can't believe that you haven't been here.        

00:22:21
            

But the thing is that consistency of message is critical for sustainability and growth. Right? So they know, man. One thing about us, we have not changed in our. We've changed operationally, some here and there.        

00:22:38
            

We tweak that all the time. But like I say, we protect the why with our lives. Yeah, that's good, man. The how, when and where is etched in jello. At best, it can change afloat.        

00:22:50
            

I really don't care. I use the phrase etched in jello a lot, but the why I guard with every fiber of my being, and that's the thing I drive, is the why. Our team knows the why. They know hope, honor and dignity shared through food. That's our why, man.        

00:23:05
            

We are here to love people well, to serve them well. And that energy and that passion is contagious. So that, I think, is why God's given us as entrepreneurs and leaders. Energy is so that it can overwhelm some people. But most people feed off that energy, right?        

00:23:22
            

They need that, and it feeds me to have that energy. Now, if you catch me at 07:00 at night at home, man, I am not this talkative or this much energy. And my wife would tell you, but, I mean, I give it out during the day, but I've learned those rhythms of life, too, that it's okay to have downtime. And I want to encourage people that do this that are drowning. You have got to learn how to unplug.        

00:23:50
            

You've got to learn how to turn it off. Like, whether it's 06:00 at night, I'm not checking my phone, whatever it is, you got to learn how to turn off. And when you go on vacation, you got to learn how to turn off, because if you don't, you are not an energizer bunny. There is no recharge. There is no plug into the wall.        

00:24:09
            

You know what I mean? Your recharge is downtime, and it has to be. And this is a guy that didn't do it very well, trust me. And I'm much better at it now than I ever was. And so I kind of tell people I appear very extroverted, but I am more introverted now than I am extroverted.        

00:24:26
            

But when I'm out, I understand this is going to sound crass, but when I walk out my door, I understand I have to be on all the time. Totally. It makes sense. No? I mean, if you are going to be the leader of an organization like you guys are, you got to have something, especially if that's your strength.        

00:24:44
            

And your gifting to not lead from that place is doing a disservice to everyone else around you. Right. Because that is the way God's gifted you. And so, yeah, if I'm being fully transparent, I feel the exact same way most of the time, which is like, all right, it's my job to have the energy that other people around me may not have, and they need me to give that. And if I'm not giving it on a day, then they kind of feel like, well, what's going on?        

00:25:05
            

Is everything okay? Are we all good here? And so it's me bringing that kind of energy as security for a team, for the people we work with. They just kind of expect that to show up. And so that's the responsibility, I think, of us as leaders to bring that kind of an energy.        

00:25:20
            

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00:25:32
            

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00:26:03
            

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00:26:26
            

So I know you do some coaching with leaders, but just more broadly, when you look at the kind of ministry, nonprofit space, are there any trends that have you really excited for what you're seeing out there? And also some trends that maybe have you a little bit concerned? Yeah, there is the ying and yang. So the trend that I'm seeing is that I'm really excited about is collaboration. I'm a firm believer that a rising tide raises all ships and we focus on things we're all fearful of money.        

00:26:54
            

How do we raise enough money? But if we could all figure out the fact that if we would all play together, that the real money that's out there will come in because people are looking, how do I stretch my dollars? So if we, as a food ministry, can partner with a medical ministry or with a homeless ministry, you know what I mean? And we all partner together, I believe big donor dollars will start to come to all of us. So I'm excited about that.        

00:27:18
            

I'm starting to see more and more cities and places where I'm hearing about collaboration. So the antithesis of that is the thing that concerns me the most is the silo factor of the church, of the nonprofit world. And I've said this for years, you will appreciate this just because of your journey. And we got to know each other. And it was like just instant connection, which I love is I said, if I ever spoke at a pastor's conference, I know exactly what I would preach about.        

00:27:46
            

And it would be corinthians when he talks. When Paul says, we're all the body of Christ, you're a hand. You're an elbow. I don't believe he was talking about a church. I believe he was talking about the church.        

00:27:58
            

Like, your church should be an elbow. The church down the street ought to be an ankle. The church across the street ought to be a wrist. So all the churches in a community would need each other totally to meet the need of the community. And I believe that's what we got to come to in the nonprofit world is I've got a function, and I say we're a one trick pony, but we ride that horse really well.        

00:28:19
            

So we're really good at what we do. But, man, if you want to do medical, you don't want me taking your blood pressure. You don't want me building a homeless, doing tents for the homeless. I don't know anything about it. You know what I mean?        

00:28:32
            

So it's like God wants us to need each other. That's how you build community. Yeah, absolutely, man. Those are the two things that has me excited, but the antithesis of that thing has me greatly concerned. If we don't ever figure that out and get out of a scarcity mentality, then we're never going to be as impactful as God wants us to be.        

00:28:58
            

Yeah. Had this conversation with Scott Harris friend from mission increase, who's also there in kind of Nashville area, and we were talking about the kind of big c church, right? Like the catholic little know, the universal church, right. And this idea that local churches, by design, almost by God's plan, have built in planned inefficiencies. Right.        

00:29:22
            

In order for a local church to do all the things a local church has to do, right. It has to, by nature, be inefficient. I think of it like, honestly, my children, right. One of the most beautiful gifts God's ever given me is my kids, but they are wildly inefficient. Right?        

00:29:38
            

And I think I read that one of John Mark Comer's books, and he talked about this, right. I was like, oh, my gosh, they are. They're the most inefficient thing in the world. And they drive me nuts because I'm the person who's like, let's go, come on. We got place to be.        

00:29:48
            

We got to be on a schedule here. Let's make it happen. And they take 35 minutes to pick out shoes and clothes, but yet they're beautiful, and I love them. And that's kind of the local church by design. It's wildly inefficient because it has to be.        

00:30:02
            

But in God's infinite wisdom and providence, right. He's also given us the big c church that include things like one generation away and feeding ministries and homeless shelters and a million other international aid organizations and trafficking ministries. All these great things that are actually not inefficient at all, but are wildly efficient at doing one thing. Yeah. Doing the one thing.        

00:30:23
            

And we all need each other. We just don't realize it yet. Yeah, that's probably more of an american thing, I think, than sometimes in other countries I've been in. You see more. They need each other because they just all have need, right?        

00:30:37
            

Absolutely. And this is weird for two entrepreneurs to say this, isn't it? Because here we are. Let's go do it, man. We're just pioneering this thing.        

00:30:45
            

We've also learned that we pioneering. We are just created for people to have opportunity to use their gifts. That's really why God created entrepreneurs, if we do it correctly. Right. So that's probably my biggest message.        

00:30:57
            

My message is really just to serve, man. I heard a great quote today about, I'm going to look at it here because I heard it on a podcast today, but it was just really know. We talk about discipleship and discipleship. Giving and serving are a byproduct of discipleship, not the other way around. If you're not giving and serving, you're not a discipleship of Jesus Christ.        

00:31:22
            

Right. And I mean, giving of your money, your time, your energy and your resources. So if you're a disciple of Jesus, you ought to be giving your money and serving somewhere. And so this 20% of the people doing all the work in a church means only 20% of the people in a church are discipled disciples. I mean, that's craft, but it's true.        

00:31:43
            

It's just truth. Right. And we've got to quit skirting around the truth. I believe, too, as leaders of ministries and nonprofits, we just have to in love speak the truth, man. I believe we are sitting on the greatest opportunity the church has ever seen in a generation of people, young people that are passionate about serving.        

00:32:09
            

And if I know the church as I've known the church for the last 35 years, we'll miss it like every other opportunity we've done. But if we would just give them opportunity to serve, they'll engage our church and our church will flourish. It won't flourish like we want it to look like to flourish. Totally. They're not anti Sunday morning, but they're just more passionate about, I want to do something.        

00:32:31
            

I want to go serve somebody that has a need, and I want God to use me to help someone.        

00:32:39
            

That excites me more than anything is the other thing that excites me is we have a generation coming, dude, that, whoa. If we can harness that, we could really expand the kingdom of God in a big way. In a big way, man. Well, what are some resources? Because you do talk to a lot of leaders.        

00:32:58
            

Are there resources that you guys have at one gen? There? Are there books, podcasts, articles, things that you love to just share with other ministry leaders that you think are really helpful? I love the Kerry Newhoff podcast. I think it's fantastic.        

00:33:11
            

He has great guests, and you can learn a lot on there. He talks about church, nonprofits, things in the world, great statistics. Craig Rochelle. I love Craig Rochelle's leadership. Know, those are two home runs for me.        

00:33:24
            

John Mark Comer's books are, you know, ruthless elimination of hurry will just wreck your world in a good way. John Mark's done a fantastic job. So those are the kinds of things I read. Those are the podcasts I'm listening to. I feel like those are.        

00:33:37
            

And then if you're going to start something and you're going to build a nonprofit, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. As a friend of mine used to say, man. So we're working on probably the last phase of Onegen now, marketing. You and I have had this conversation. I've built different silos inside of Onegen.        

00:33:54
            

I think we try to build everything at once. It's just not possible. Learn, build some things. Marketing happens to be our last. It probably shouldn't have been last.    

00:34:02
            

I don't know. We've done okay. But now we're really honing in on that. We have our donation side, our operations side. But your operations need to be first and foremost, man.        

00:34:11
            

You need to operate smoothly. Right. And then your funding. So those one and two have to be those. So, to me, if you're in something, get your operations down.        

00:34:24
            

That'll help your funding, because people want to be involved. If you want volunteers, they want to work the minute they show up. One of the things we do really well, we do a lot of things really well, but this is one that volunteers will tell you. They show up, they work, and they work till they're done. And understand that a day in today's world is 4 hours at the most.        

00:34:47
            

It's not eight. My generation a day was 8 hours, 10 hours. Modern day day is 4 hours, preferably three at the most. So that's all you got, right? And I'm going to give you one thing that we do that is so counterintuitive.        

00:35:03
            

And people are going to cringe when I say this. We don't sign up volunteers. We don't have any idea how many people are going to show up. Wow. Okay.        

00:35:14
            

Tell us a little bit more about that. Because the moment you sign up and don't show up, you'll never come again. Because you feel guilt. Yes. How many Bible studies have you not done your homework?        

00:35:26
            

And you quit going to the Bible study? Totally. Yes. So let's remove the guilt. I never knew you were coming.        

00:35:35
            

Yeah. So if you didn't show up, it's totally fine. So they don't feel like they let me down because they didn't tell me they were coming. I didn't ask them to sign up. And it's a trust God factor.        

00:35:44
            

And I know some people, it will just grate them like no other. And there's people that look at me and people on my team that looked at me and said, that is wrong. And I'm like, no, it's right. There's a beauty to it. And you have children, so guess what's going to happen when you have children.        

00:36:01
            

You will fail some commitments. Why? Because you have the most inefficient humans on earth living with you. Right. What you said.        

00:36:11
            

And so I think therein lies the. That's just one of the things I think is beautiful that we do and we've done, and we have thousands of volunteers, and it was hard early, man. Don't misunderstand me, because there'd be, sometimes we wouldn't have nearly enough volunteers, but we hung with it, we stayed with it, and now we very seldom ever now, if we have a bad turnout, it was like our greatest turnout eight years ago. We still don't sign people up. I think that's the beauty of it.        

00:36:38
            

So you just got to think about the side. Always think about the size of your end user. We serve people suffering, food insecurity, and then I serve volunteers. So I serve two demographics of people, and they both deserve the same respect, dignity, honor, and expectation. Right?        

00:36:57
            

I love it. That's so cool, man. I've learned a ton. One, I learned more about you, which is always a good thing, but I've learned a ton just about your mindset. The way that you guys run lunging away.        

00:37:07
            

I know people watching are going to just take a ton out of this episode, hopefully be spiritually encouraged, and just actually feel like, man, okay. I got a game plan for how I can get out of the overwhelm, but then also understand how to lead well within their ministry context and always grateful for that, man. If people want to reach out to you, Chris, what's the best way to contact you to learn more about one gen away? Email is really great. Chris at Onegen away.        

00:37:31
            

Just spell it out. Onegenaway.com Chris is C-H-R-I-S. That's probably the easiest I'll get the email and I will respond normally. You'll get a response within 24 hours for sure, probably shorter, but you'll definitely get a respond within a day. Check out our website, onegenoway.com.        

00:37:49
            

You can email through there too, but if you want me directly, it'll get to me either way. But that's probably the best way. I don't do a lot on social media. If I do, it's through one gen. I don't do a lot of personal I'm going to up that a little more know starting to coach and speak more.        

00:38:02
            

If you email me, it works, don't I? Don't get sucked in the vortex of social media too much. I know I need to do better at that. Matt's cringing, right? No, good call on that front.        

00:38:12
            

You're saving yourself a lot of time and headache, trust me. I hear the comments can be full of lots of vitriol these days. Yeah, that's what I've heard too, man. That's why I avoided just, I've not avoided it in the past. And I realized even if I just post something I thought was very innocuous, that somebody somehow feels a way.        

00:38:29
            

Know the last one I did a few years ago, two dudes I know, one of the guy that led me to the Lord and another guy here in Franklin were f bombing each other on a post I made that was just so. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, so I'm just like, I'm done. I just don't. You know what I mean?        

00:38:43
            

It's like I just don't want to. We don't need to do that. I love it. So just email me. Let's go old school.        

00:38:50
            

Email Chris at one jet away. Well, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time. Join me today. Everyone, thank you so much for watching. If you haven't liked or subscribed to the show, please do.        

00:39:00
            

It helps more people find the podcast. Until next time, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, man. Appreciate it, brother. 

‍

00:00:04

Well, hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts

podcast. I am pumped, because today I'm joined by one of my great friends,

Mark MacDonaldDonald, founder and president, I would say, of the be known for

something agency where they help churches and nonprofits clarify their

messaging, find their thread. Mark will talk a little bit more about what that means

exactly. And just an all around great guy who I love to death, one of my best

friends in the whole world, and always love getting just to talk.

00:00:29

All things nonprofit Marketing, donor engagement with them. So, Mark, thanks for

taking the time to join, man. Good to see you. Hey, good to see you. And, you

know, for some reason, I expected to have, I don't know, a dozen donuts, like,

just, like, delivered to me or something.

00:00:44

I should have. I should have, man. Okay, so we don't usually start this way, but I

would love to know, like, do you have a favorite donut? You're canadian, so if you

want to say it's Tim Hortons, that's fine. Is there a specific donut, though, that

you're like, this is my.

00:00:55

This is the only doughnut I eat, or are you equal parts like, hey, any doughnut is

a good donut. Oh, my goodness. So, I am a Tim Hortons fan. So anytime that I'm

anywhere as close to Canada, I always make sure I'm mad at Tim Hortons. But,

you know, my all time favorite is a really good apple fritter.

00:01:13

Okay. I need to reevaluate our friendship, because apple Fritter is the only one

that I just. Absolutely no, go on all the donuts. But that's amazing. My wife is a

big Apple fritter person.

00:01:23

I am. Personally, I'm so basic. I'm classic. The chocolate cake doughnut, that's

just, like, glazed chocolate cake, right? That's all it takes for me.

00:01:31

And I'm good to go. That's my one. Yeah. And I like the double chocolate, like,

with the chocolate glaze on top of the chocolate. Okay, so let's just dive right in,

man.

00:01:41

Tell. Tell the audience a little bit about your history, your background. You have

such a cool background of how you got into serving nonprofits in the Marketing

and donor engagement space. So just give us a little bit of your background and

kind of how you got into serving churches and ministries. Well, what we just

talked about, I was born in Canada, but now I'm an american.

00:01:58

I've been american now for almost three years. And, you know, it's interesting

because God opened doors, and he closed doors, and he got me where I'm at, I

can't believe I get to do what I get to do. I'm from New Brunswick, Canada, and I

was senior creative director for one of Eastern Canada's largest ad agencies. Got

to work with some really, really cool large organizations and companies. And the

entire time that I was working in that space, I kept thinking, so why doesn't the

church and nonprofits, like, why don't they know this information?

00:02:40

And interestingly enough, at the big agency, pretty much all the nonprofits that

came through landed on my desk. And I just kept thinking, okay, so there's got to

be a way that we can help them full time. And so my wife and I started praying

about it. We ended up in Winston Salem, North Carolina. And it was interesting

because when we made the trip into the United States, all the canadian thoughts

doesn't, they don't always pan out the exact same way.

00:03:17

I was hoping to work almost entirely with churches, ended up working with some

large nonprofit organizations that help churches. But interestingly enough, so

they asked me to start speaking at conferences. Then they started asking me to

write articles for magazines. I just had my, I think it's 830th magazine article

published. And out of all of that, I had the great opportunity to write this book

called be known for something and then started working with a nonprofit called

Florida Baptist Convention.

00:03:58

And the Florida Baptist Convention, which is part of the Southern Baptist

convention here in Jacksonville, Florida, asked me to move to Jacksonville.

That's where I'm at now. And I, at the same time, the center for Church

Communication asked me to be the executive director. They have like 10,000

churches across the country in all denominations. Florida Baptists had 3000

churches here.

00:04:22

Baptist churches in, in Florida. Started working with them a couple years later. I

thought, you know what? I need to work this as more of an agency rather than

working directly with Florida Baptist. So ended up doing this, still speak across

the country, still write a ton.

00:04:41

And I just love helping nonprofits and churches. That's awesome. So little

Sidebar here. What do you like about the shift from working internal in

organization to kind of the more of the agency model? You said at some point

when you're at Florida Baptist convention that kind of hit you like, ooh, maybe I

should move this more agency model.

00:04:58

And I know there are folks out there who, you know, nonprofit land, lots of folks,

career trajectory, go to an organization and to an agency and back and forth. And

there's a lot of kind of cross pollination between those. So just maybe speak to a

little bit of like what you enjoy about the agency kind of life as opposed to working

in an organization. Both are great, but what you prefer about this one now. So I

started in the agency world back in Canada, and then ended up like, and started

to focus, did my own agency, and then really focused on one nonprofit.

00:05:34

Now I'm back. I think that if you're entrepreneurial minded, you'll end up wanting

to help many people and many organizations. Where I find, when I was working

entirely for the Florida Baptist Convention, I love working for the Florida Baptist

Convention. I loved all the people that I worked with there. The only thing is that I

found that I'm trying to, I'm trying to use my words properly here.

00:06:07

I guess I want to make sure that I'm honing a greater message where I

oftentimes got too specific. And so at a certain point, it's the same message over

and over and over again. And in the agency world, helping, depending on who

you're talking to at the time, you're kind of honing your message that way. And so

you end up coming up with broader principles, principles, rather than really

specific strategies. Now, that's so great.

00:06:36

And I found the same thing. I mean, it's been the same thing for me, which is, it's

great serving in an organization. And there are definitely times, if you're. Like me,

that, like, you're like, oh. I wish I could just serve one organization again.

00:06:45

But you do get, you get to flex a lot more of the problem solving, creativity,

learning. Every organization is a little bit different. So how, how are these

principles going to apply here? That's just a lot of fun. And so I, I've experienced

the same thing.

00:06:59

So. Okay. And I also, I also enjoy understanding the greater pain rather than

specific pains. And when you're, when you're working internally, it's always the

same thing. Like, you're always going back to the same thing where I love, you

know, really what we'll probably end up talking about today is how do you figure

out what the, you know, how you become a solution to a need that's out there?

00:07:25

And I like not understanding one particular lane of the need. It's more the broader

need that exists in virtually every organization. Yeah. And that's something

you're, in my opinion, one of the best people in the country at doing, probably in

the planet, because there's not a lot of people doing as much for nonprofits

globally, as much there in the United States here, which is helping ministries

clarify their messaging, which is so critical. And I can't tell you how many times

we're part of campaigns or different strategies that, hey, this is great, but if we

don't start with the basics, which is really good messaging, understanding how

we communicate with the need is for this nonprofit, a lot of effort can be spent, a

lot of money spent running in the wrong direction.

00:08:11

So I love to hear a little bit more from you. We usually like to ask guests, like,

hey, what's a strategy that you've seen that's really effective for nonprofits? I just

want to tee you up with that. Like, I have a feeling you're going to talk about

messaging. So tell us a little bit more about why maybe you think messaging and

getting that right is so critically important for nonprofits.

00:08:32

Well, instantly, I know the people who are listening to me right now, you're all

trying to get your message out. And so I'm all about making sure that churches

and nonprofits are actually heard. Over all of the Marketing noise. Every person

that exists has something that they want to say and be heard. When it gets into

the nonprofit world, there's just an awful lot of noise that's out there.

00:09:01

And that noise, we've got to figure out a way to break through, and if not, you'll

just be ignored. And then I guess that, you know, coming alongside in tandem

with that, there's none, there's not only just a lot of noise, but there's very, very

short attention spans. Yeah. And so, so the big two issues that we have to

overcome some way is how do we break through and, like, rise above the noise,

and then how do you make sure that you say it as quickly as possible so that you

actually overcome this huge hurdle, which is the short attention spans. Yeah.

00:09:40

And so how do you do that? Like, that's the question. Right. Is, like, are there any

principles or things that you've come up with that help nonprofits do that really

well? Yeah.

00:09:49

So the big issue here is that we have to make sure that in order to rise above the

noise and to also say it as quickly as possible, we've got to figure out what we

call here the thread. So if you don't know what your thread is, you know, and

back in the day, you know, I've been doing this for, I don't know, 30, whoa, I

haven't even thought of that 30 years now. And so we used to be that you had

the elevator pitch. You had to make sure that that elevator pitch broke through.

So the average ride in an elevator was about 30 seconds.

00:10:32

That's what they, that's what they told us. So in 30 seconds, if you meet

somebody in an elevator, you've got to make sure you tell them in within 30

seconds enough so that somebody says, oh, wow, tell me a little bit more. Do

you have a business card? And like, that was the win. Well, today, I mean,

interestingly enough, we have about 30 seconds on a website to be able to say

something so that somebody received it, because most people want about 30

seconds when they enter a website and then leave a website.

00:11:06

It's about a 32nd rule. But the problem is, is that we only have about three pages

that people are going to on your website. So in the three, like, we wish we could

get them to go to more, but most people will only click about three times. And

because of that, we have to divide our 30 seconds into three pages. So we get

about 10 seconds.

00:11:29

So in 10 seconds, we not only have to capture their attention, but we also have to

be able to give them a little bit of a solution so that they say, hmm, tell me a little

bit more. Where most nonprofits, most churches today are saying too much stuff

and people are saying, yeah, yeah, tell me a little less. Yeah, no, it's so true. I

mean, like, we see this all the time. Rarely is there an instance where an

organization is, like, just lacking for content.

00:11:56

Like, they've all just swimming in content. And it's like, we want to tell them this

program that we do, but we also do this and this and this. Okay, that's all great,

but I don't understand it. I've been consulting with you for three months now, and

so your donor is absolutely not going to understand it. So I think that's critical that

they're able to quickly say, okay, here's the thread, and trace it across this first

three pages of the website, or the 30 seconds or whatever that is.

00:12:22

With some of the implementation of that, Mark, how would you advise nonprofits

out there to make sure that that message is unified across the team? Right.

Because every person or every instance online that someone comes into contact

with is going to be their first, maybe. And so how do you make sure that the

person on the team, who is a secretary, who's at a dinner party, and, hey, maybe

there's a potential high net worth donor there that they just ran into that they're

giving the message out the same way that your website is, where maybe you

give a lot of the meat and potatoes time to. Any thoughts on, like, how you make

sure that kind of gets across the entire organization?

00:13:00

You muzzle everybody. You just put muzzle the problem is exactly what you're

saying. So as soon as somebody says one message about your organization,

there's a potential that it breaks through, you know, communicating in unison

rather than harmony. So oftentimes we have so many messages that kind of

work together with each other, but people will only remember one thing like that.

The communicating in harmony is really appreciated when you're up close.

00:13:36

But if you're communicating in unison, it gets, the sound just travels so much

farther and it breaks through to so many more people. And it needs to be that

thread which we just, to really sum that up is it needs to be simple, about three to

five words. Because if you say three to five words, you'll capture everybody's

attention, even if it's the shortest attention span. And if it's connected directly to a

need, concern, or a goal in your Persona's life. The people who you need to hear

this message, they will typically say, whoa, that's interesting.

00:14:18

Tell me a little bit more. And that's, that's what we're always driving towards, is

that's the goal, is just to get them to say a little bit more. Oftentimes people say,

well, the thread, it's only three to five words. Like, I need to tell them a little bit

more. Well, no, let them ask you for a little bit more, and you'll make sure that

you have their attention through it all.

00:14:38

That's so good, man. So good. Well, hey there. Holy donuts. Listeners, ever feel

like your nonprofit's donor experience is like a jelly filled donut with no jelly?

00:14:48

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software tool is like the cream filling turacle, or should I say the glitter glaze to

your donut. With we give, you're not just taking a donation, you're rolling out a

red carpet for every person who gives to your organization.

00:15:06

And with we give, you get an incredible donor portal, events, pledges, surveys,

segmentation, on and on. We could go on. The features and those checkouts,

though, smoother than my attempt to make homemade donuts, which, let's just

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innovative engagement tools, your donors won't just feel the love, they'll be

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00:15:36

So if you want to sprinkle some extra special magic on your donor relationships,

check out we give.com.

00:15:46

so you talk and work with a lot of nonprofits and ministries out there. So I wanted

to ask you about some trends you're seeing out in the space. What's one that

maybe has you a little bit concerned? And then on the other side, let's go

positive. Let's finish positive.

00:16:01

What's one that's got you really excited for the christian nonprofit space? Okay.

And it's interesting, as you ask me questions, I start processing. It's like, oh,

yeah, I didn't really answer that last question. So let me just finish by saying,

answer that last little bit.

00:16:18

Let's go. What you need to do with every person who has an exterior voice that

you know is actually talking externally, outside of your organization, you need to

be using that thread so much internally so that it just comes naturally. So, so if

somebody, no matter what, what question is asked about your organization, they

know I've got to weave that thread through my answer. And I know that that

thread will drive them towards saying, so just tell me a little bit more. Now.

00:16:52

That's great. Pivoting towards things that drive me crazy. So along the way,

some organizations started talking about vision, mission, and values, and it

seemed like that became a bandwagon that everybody wanted to jump on. We

need to know what our vision is. We need to know what our mission is.

00:17:16

We need to know what our values are. And I think every CEO, every executive

director, every person who's in charge goes, oh, yeah, let's talk about why I do

this. And it became a very internalized message. And the problem is that it

captures every leader's attention because they love to explain why they like to do

all of this stuff. But the problem is that we can't say vision, mission, and values,

which is important internally, but we can't say it externally and expect them to be

interested.

00:17:55

And that's what we need to make sure that we get a message. So you convert

your mission, vision, and values into a thread, which is just converting it into an

external message so that they are interested about it. Most people outside of

your organization will not be interested at all in your vision, mission of values.

Yeah, no, that's so good. I think of this all the time, and I told our team internally

about this as we were talking through mission vision values for us at share.

00:18:25

And I said, my favorite one of these ever actually comes from Phil Knight at Nike,

where it's just his little memo that it's actually seven just statements about, like,

their ethos as a company, and that guides everything. But it's also stuff that

people externally can connect with and truly represent their brand. So like one of

them is we always play offense, not defense. Right. And like, yes, that's a value

for Nike, but it's also like something that their customer can resonate with and

that totally fits their brand.

00:18:58

Right. And so, yeah, like I 100% with you, mission, vision, values. Thank you

Jack Welch and all the people, John Maxwell in the nineties who said that that

was the way you ran organization. But I do think in 2023, the biggest struggle

with that is that it never seems to translate to what our customers, donors

actually need to hear from us. So.

00:19:22

Great. Well, and I think especially, you know, when this is being recorded, it's the

beginning of the year, everyone's talking about resolutions. So I've seen a lot on

LinkedIn and other social media that is we over me, which is really great, except I

would say it's them over us. So it needs to become more about your audience

and their needs, concerns and goals or else you will totally lose them. And

anyone who's trying to do donor retention or even donor acquisition, I mean, if

you make this all about what we do with your money, eventually they're going to

lose interest in that.

00:20:08

Instead it needs to be what do you feel? How are we solving something in your

life so that you'll want to give money to us? Yeah, you can look deeper and see

how we spend your money, but it's really about how you're going to feel about

this. That's so good, man. So then on the opposite side, something more

positive.

00:20:28

What's something that's got you really excited for the kind of ministry space out

there? Oh my goodness. So along the way, I mean, this is our 23rd year running

the agency with be known for something. Interestingly enough, back in the day,

we kept talking about stories and telling stories and making sure that stories. And

I think it was Donald Miller with his storybrand book that came along that really

got us interested in telling stories.

00:20:56

And in the donor space, in the nonprofit space, you have got to tell stories like

that. And every time that I hear anybody go down the line of why we need to tell

stories, I'm just applauding. The only thing is, what I would put the caveat on is

those stories can't live by themselves or even in a harmonious way. It needs to

live in a unified way underneath the umbrella of a thread. If somebody hears two

or three stories from you, all they need to come away with one message, not two

or three messages, or else you will just totally lose your donor.

00:21:40

So. Good. Well, and that's so easy to do for, especially larger nonprofits if they've

got tons of different programs. Like, it's almost like the bigger you get, the more

important that thread is, because, hey, you know, I'm thinking of a few clients you

work with that have over a dozen different programs that they run, right? Like

field staff with each one.

00:21:57

And they all serve kind of different needs in the communities that they serve, but

they're all unified under one ministry. And so if you don't have a thread across all

those, all of a sudden you're just dissonant with your donors on. So are we

organization that does youth camps or do we do crisis relief or do we do feeding

programs? You know, like, pretty quickly can become, oh, well, I don't even know

what they do, because they're just a big brand that I guess does a lot of good in

the world. But you've got to have that thread that unifies it all.

00:22:26

Oh, for sure. And that thread has got to connect to needs, concerns, and goals.

So you become a solution to the needs or concerns or a path to the goals so that

you're walking hand in hand. And, you know, I mentioned Donald Miller, so I

might as well bring up the whole story brand. The whole story brand idea is that

the, the client, the, the person you're trying to, to target what we call the Persona,

they become the hero of the story.

00:22:55

And so you need to tell stories so that they quickly see, oh, I am just like that

person. And all you're doing is guiding them. So you're coming alongside of them

as a guide, and you're just helping them find the solution to the needs and

concerns that are out there. And then I, you also maybe might introduce a path to

some goals so that they say, you know, what if I gave to this organization? That

would help me accomplish something.

00:23:24

And so if you can figure out who your Persona is and then know what their

needs, concerns, and goals are, then you can easily, well, I shouldn't say easily.

We've built an agency over it. I mean, you, you will probably come up with what

we call the categories that you can, you can say, okay, our thread needs to be in

these categories and then be able to limit them and come down to one thread so

you become known for it. Yeah. Is there a.

00:23:52

I know you meet with a lot of leaders on a regular basis. Is there a resource of

book articles, websites that you recommend a ton for nonprofit and ministry

leaders who are really interested in diving deeper, who are learning more and

kind of trying to discover how do we do this messaging thing, right? How do we

do, how do we find our threat? How do we figure out, like, what it is that we want

to be known for so that donors know, okay, this is what we do. Any, any

resources you love to give away.

00:24:18

Okay, so this is going to sound a little self serving. I would love them all to

contact me and spend thousands and thousands of dollars to hire me. And I

could probably help them, help them discover their thread. However, a cheaper

way. Yeah.

00:24:34

Would be my book, being home for something, became an Amazon bestseller.

Just go to Amazon. You can pick this book up. I don't even know it's under $20.

Like, you should be able to afford it.

00:24:46

And what it does is it walks you through in a workbook fashion. But you know

what I mean? Knowing that I was coming on today, I thought, what if I got my

team, go through the book, figure this out, and do this as a one pager? And I

want to give that to every person that's listening. So all you have to do to get this,

which just walks you through all the steps of the complete guide so you can

become known for something, so you can figure out who, what your thread is.

00:25:17

And all you have to do is go to beknownforsomething.com, subscribe, and then

under conference, choose podcast, and you'll get an email and get this PDF for

free. I'm gonna go under, like, we're gonna have to close our doors because you

all are gonna get this for free. I love it, man. Very cool. Well, that'll be, I think, a

really helpful resource for a lot of people, especially start of the year.

00:25:41

Just trying to figure out, okay, where do we even go in 2024? Like, what are the

things we want to do? Getting that messaging right from the start is going to be

critically important for so many nonprofits. So, Mark.

00:25:52

Well, just to sum it up, I mean, we all have to figure out how to say less so that

they'll listen more. Absolutely. Absolutely. So if folks want to contact you, if they

do want to spend thousands of dollars, the best thousands of dollars they'll ever

spend, I think, how can they reach out to you? What's the best way to get a

contact with you?

00:26:11

Sure. Beknownforsomething.com is probably the best way to start, or you can

pretty much find me on all the social media and either look for Mark

MacDonaldDonald Mac. Mark MacDonaldDonald or Mark MacDonald 1023.

Awesome. Awesome.

00:26:30

Well, Mark MacDonaldDonald, thank you so much, man, for coming on today. It's

been a lot of fun. I always learned something. I hope the audience did too. I'm

sure they did.

00:26:37

So thank you so much for coming on the Holy Donuts podcast, and thank you for

listening. Remember, if you haven't subscribed, hit the subscribe button. Like this

episode, share with a friend. Do whatever you have to do to let more people

know what we're doing would be so grateful. Mark MacDonaldDonald have a

wonderful day and a very happy new year.

‍

00:00:04

Well, hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast. I'm your host, Matt Lombardi, and I am joined today by someone who's a good friend, kind of special podcast. Not someone who's a guest from a nonprofit organization, per se, but my good friend Jonathan Beck, founder at WeGive, who is, full disclaimer, sponsor of this podcast. Get that out of the way in advance.

‍

00:00:27

No nefarious intent here or anything like that, but Jonathan, man, thanks so much for joining me today. How's it treating you out in sunny Southern California? Good. Yeah. Not super sunny right now, but it has been pretty good.

‍

00:00:39

Yeah. These are the months where you remind yourself, that's why you deal with what you deal with to live here. Absolutely. Cool. Well, thanks for being on the show.

‍

00:00:49

So why don't you start a little bit this way? Probably some people out there who, when they hear like, oh, yeah, you founded we give, like, a tech payments company for nonprofits. How does one even get into that world knowing your backstory, like, dad was a preacher. How do you even find yourself in that space? There's probably a lot of people who don't really get to see inside that world much.

‍

00:01:12

So just share with a little bit folks. How do you get to the point where you are and we give. Feel free to give the 30,000 foot view. Just share a little bit of your history. how you got to.

‍

00:01:20

Yeah, 30, not ten. Yeah, 30. Real high up. I don't want you going too long. Yeah.

‍

00:01:28

I mean, dad was a pastor, but grew up in the Silicon Valley, so got into tech real easily. Basically just everyone gets jobs with their friends or family, friends or connections that they have. And those up there happen to usually be tech companies. Yeah, I got into tech and I think I went to Pepperdine for college.

‍

00:01:55

They pushed that pretty heavily, know, give back kind of thing. So I don't know, kind of just grew up in that world with my dad being a preacher and was always into that space, so got some experience in payments in fintech and decided to move over here. Yeah. And so what year did you find? WeGive started.

‍

00:02:23

We give in what was originally called give list. Cool. Yeah, started that in 2018 legally. So, legally speaking, before it was 2018, it was originally a mobile app. There are a bunch of these apps that came out around kind of that same time.

‍

00:02:48

Google had one that failed. Called one today. There were a couple of others. And, yeah, it was basically trying to sort of do what's happened in investing, which is things have moved into, like, robo advisor. It's been really democratized.

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00:03:03

Anyone can kind of come in and invest a portfolio style giving which is sort of reserved for foundations, big private foundations, and I guess sort of donor advised funds as well. And so it's kind of a democratized donor advised fund. Find nonprofits you care about, be able to give to them easily and then be able to see what's going on with those donations. Turns out no one cared. People acted like they cared if they'd fund their donor advice fund, but couldn't get nonprofits to post or send any information back into the application.

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00:03:38

When they did, though, the engagement skyrocketed. People were really into seeing some groceries that their church bought for a family, some content that they probably might not get shared. Those small little, kind of raw moments might not get shared on a Sunday, right. Or on social media. It's kind of maybe not appropriate for an Instagram post or something, but privately, with a community of people giving to fund activities like that, that is something that is appropriate.

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00:04:13

And so people would really take to those. And my background being in payments, me and somebody started a large payments company back in 2012 ish. And so I had some experience there and was like, well, I think we should spin this out to nonprofits and churches specifically to be able to put this on their site instead of trying to drive people into an app. That's kind of the story. We went 10,000ft, though.

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00:04:43

I tried to keep it at 30. No, it gets a little more. Yeah. So one of the things I know, because we obviously get a chance to work with, we give on a regular basis and clients on that. One of the heartbeats behind WeGive is helping nonprofits communicate impact to their donors, like actually seeing where their giving is going.

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00:05:05

So with that in mind, one of the questions I usually ask guests who are in the nonprofit space is what's a strategy, what's a tactic, what's a tool that has been really effective for you in your nonprofit career? I'd like to say a little bit and say for you, why is the impact, communicating impact such a big deal for we give and for you personally? And what are some kind of best practices around that, that you'd recommend to nonprofits? Yeah, I really teed myself up there.

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00:05:39

I think it's a really important question because a lot of nonprofits aren't asking that.

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00:05:46

And it's really, this is what I always say when we're presenting the tool. I always say when people donate, they're purchasing something, actually, and they're purchasing meaning for themselves by giving and knowing that you're an agent of action behind some kind of positive thing that's going to happen in the world. You're purchasing a feeling that you're making a difference and that your life matters. And not all of us are called to be in the field doing things that are awesome all day long. And so we get to share in that by purchasing some of that meaning through donating.

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00:06:37

And that product's not delivered via Ups or the postal service. That product's delivered through communication.

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00:06:47

And it's the organizations that communicate the stories. Right. It's really what it is, a story that I can attach to my identity that, hey, this kid had a cleft palate and his father didn't want to have a relationship with them. And then they fix his cleft palate and now all the kids play with them in the village and everyone starts crying and pulling their checkbooks out. It's like, okay, well, but that's a true story and it matters, right?

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00:07:15

And people want to be a part of that. And so that's okay to share those stories of impact and it's actually what you should be doing to steward those donations. Well, so that's kind of the whole concept was emotionally sort of how we feel about the space. But then if you look at the numbers, the numbers back it up dramatically. Right.

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00:07:36

I think it's the number one reason people give by far. If you look across the different studies, and this wasn't my idea originally, I mean, this has sort of been pulled together by captains of industry, if you will, as we've sort of really focused on doing this from a product standpoint. The number one reason by far is people give to feel like they are making a difference. And the number one reason people stop giving is because they don't feel like they were communicated with about how their gift made a difference. And we're talking like really significant numbers.

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00:08:16

And when you look at it, I'm a big key performance indicator, OKR numbers guy coming from kind of VC and startup world. When you look at nonprofit as an industry compared to other industries, the retention rates for nonprofit are horrific. Really bad. Compared to other business models and first time donors, average retention rates float around 20% typically. Right.

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00:08:49

You go into a church's database, they'll have 15, 20,000 people in their database, in their CRMs, and they'll have 2000 givers.

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00:09:03

Exactly what's going on and think it comes down to that. So, yeah, for us, I think that's why it's a big deal. And the second part of your question was kind of tactics and tools around doing those practices. Yeah. Well, I think it's communication ultimately.

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00:09:37

And I think communication in ways that people are used to getting communicated with and in ways that give people station and are persistent. Right. So when my church shares a story about we partner with a refugee camp in Tijuana because we're in San Diego, it's right there. And so we'll do a toy drive or something like that, or we'll send people down there that volunteer for certain things every other week. And some really cool things happen when there happens to be time for the pastor to share something about that.

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00:10:19

Usually there's no media created. If you happen to be there and he happens to have time, people happen to hear that story. Great. But it's not persistent, then that falls off the back. Right.

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00:10:35

Versus having a specific portal where I have station. Right. I have identity, I can log in, and there's a place where stories like that can live persistently on my profile and my account that I can go back to.

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00:10:59

I guess I would call that a donor portal, but I think it comes down to communication the way people are used to it. Right. People communicate now with text. They go on websites. Asynchronous communication, synchronous communication.

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00:11:13

Email in person is, of course, always the best as far as in the moment. But I think taking those and creating persistent communications specifically, I think the donor portal is fantastic. I think text is great. Right? Texas at 90 something percent open rate.

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00:11:29

People vary on the studies there, whereas a lot of nonprofits are just sending email newsletters. Got a 20, 30% open rate. Right. Even when you do open it, the engagement is really low. It's like 2% click rate.

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00:11:40

Whereas if you send everyone a text, hey, Jonathan, thanks so much for giving. Here's an impact update from our refugee camp in Tijuana. I know you care about that. You've been donating to it. Let me know if you have any questions.

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00:11:54

Right. That's going to have a hundred percent open rate and a really high click rate. So I think people that treat the ways to engage and these channels realistically and well, which is sort of what you see in the for profit world as well. Right. The companies that are killing it with their marketing and communications are the ones that are using the new tools, but using them well, correctly.

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00:12:22

Yeah, no, I think one of the things that we've seen, even working with we give is the more you can have consistency, I'd say even like behavior based personal communications. Right. The more likely your donors are going to feel right because it's personal behavior based. I like that. Behavior based.

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00:12:41

So it's oh well, I just had an unsuccessful payment and now I get what feels like a personal email saying, hey, looks like your card sale. We'd love to help you out with this. Or maybe it's on the positive side. Hey, you just gave this special giving Tuesday thing above and beyond your typical monthly recurring gift. We know that's a stretch for you.

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00:12:57

Thank you so much. Those sort of behavior based personalized communications. Personalization. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's another way, I guess, for me to say it.

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00:13:07

That's more than 30,000 and not 5ft, which is personalized, meaningful, personalized communication consistently instead of big video productions. And everyone gets to see it once on Sunday, a quick email check in and a ten second video. Hey, how's it going? Here we are, blah, blah, blah. Thank you so much.

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00:13:28

Boom. Those perform better than even the really produced stuff. And it's personalized, it's not spammy, it feels real. And so you're able to make an emotional connection. Yeah.

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00:13:42

Well, hey there. Holy donuts. Listeners, ever feel like your nonprofit's donor experience is like a jelly filled donut with no jelly? Well, don't fret. We found the jelly.

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00:13:52

To your donut dilemma. Enter WeGive, the software tool that's like the cream filling to your eclair. Or should I say the glaze to your donut. With WeGive, you're not just taking a donation, you're rolling out a red carpet for every person who gives to your organization. And with WeGive you get an incredible donor.

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00:14:11

Portal, events, pledges, surveys, segmentation on and on. We could go on. The features and those checkouts though, smoother than my attempt to make homemade donuts, which let's just say, didn't quite rise to the occasion. See what I did there? With we give's innovative engagement tools, your donors won't just feel the love, they'll be coming back for second because nothing says thanks for your dough better than a world class experience.

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00:14:37

So if you want to sprinkle some extra special magic on your donor relationships, check out WeGive.com.

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00:14:48

So let's look at it. I would love to hear some of your perspectives. You have a unique voice speaking into. You talk to a lot of nonprofits on a regular basis, right? You talk to a lot of customers, a lot of potential customers, logged network kind of contacts in the industry. What are you seeing as a trend that's got you a little bit concerned about nonprofits for the future.

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00:15:06

And what's a trend on the other side that has you really excited for ministries and nonprofits out there? Yeah, I think that trend wise for nonprofits and ministries specifically, I think some of the, I guess the decision making I'm seeing, motivation wise and the tools that organizations will choose has me concerned. I haven't been working nonprofit for 30 years, but seeing some of the decision making being really fear driven and really, like, archaic. Right. I mean, it's, it's, it's, I mean, you hear it from all the, all the consultants in the industry sort of say the same thing as well.

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00:16:14

Right? Where it's like, yeah, no, they decided not to go with that. Sandy is just going to do the typical mailer campaign that she does every year that worked that one time and brought in 130k. Woohoo. Versus really investing.

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00:16:31

It's sort of like a government job where the only way to succeed is by not messing up is the way a lot of people sort of think. But then you meet some people that don't think that way. And those organizations, you really see that you actually can look at the growth rates because you can compare. The 990s are like. Whereas the other organizations that are just not rising to the cultural tide seem to be dying off a little bit.

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00:16:58

Right?

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00:17:00

I don't know. Because really what you're competing for donors by, why should I donate to you? Versus international justice mission or something like that, right. When I can feel like I saved a girl from sex trafficking. That's going to make.

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00:17:17

Versus getting a mailer, that is fear threatening me about something. I was going to die. Provide this food tomorrow. Yeah. Right.

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00:17:29

So I don't know, I think some of the decision making surprised me, really. Risk based, fear based.

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00:17:40

The more nonprofit leaders can also understand that in some ways, if we take a higher level theological view, like, listen, it's all God's money. There's plenty, right? There's plenty of opportunity for every single nonprofits. We're not in competition with each other, but we are in competition for the attention of donors. But then also of even, I would say, not just against other nonprofits.

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00:18:02

And we talk about this with sales. Stuff all the time. Your competition is not your competitor. Your competition is every other priority that person has in their life that would put them above meeting with you. Right.

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00:18:13

And it's the same thing for potential donors. You're not just competing for their attention against what else they could give for. You're also competing for their attention against every other thing they could purchase and listen, if it comes down to nonprofits, messaging is not compelling. You know what is compelling? A trip to Tahoe.

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00:18:33

Right. I can spend my money there. Yeah, that's really compelling. I know what that's going to buy me in terms of happiness, joy, emotion. If you're not cutting through the noise, you're not just competing against, oh, well, this one emotional message from another nonprofit, or they're communicating, or they're actually spending the thoughtful time to think through their ad campaign this way or that.

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00:18:56

You're also competing against everything that your donor could invest in besides your mission. Right. Which is why we're pivoting to a travel agency for Tahoe. Yeah, I love it. But if every travel company out there is using all the digital tools at their disposal to communicate why your donor should spend on their trip, you should probably be doing the same thing, because you're going to need to.

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00:19:26

To counteract it. Yeah, I agree. So what's been a positive trend that you are actually excited about outside of maybe some of the fear based decision making? I'm seeing a generation of basically some guys in our generation, right, that are in their mid, late thirties and early 40s, people coming in from the corporate world and just killing it and just thinking about things the right way. Thinking about things, actually knowing what their donor retention rate is, actually knowing what their lifetime value per donor is, actually knowing what drives KPIs, what inputs create, what outputs.

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00:20:11

Like actually holistically thinking about the business that way.

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00:20:17

One guy that comes to mind is like Brady Josephson, who I think you had on two, three weeks ago or something. Like he's. He thinks about things in a really wise way. That reminds me of someone coming from a tech company, which he has, and he's working for an organization that sort of has led the way, to a degree, in thinking that way, right? So I see some really positive thinking.

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00:20:46

I'm seeing that as well in the church, which is exciting. I'm seeing some organizations that are starting to kind of be like, well, why are we paying $6,000 a month for just a checkout on our site? So I'm seeing some good questions being asked as people are like, oh, there's other things out there that could do better. So some of that. I like that.

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00:21:18

Love it. Yeah. Very cool. So what's a resource? What's something that I know you're a reader.

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00:21:25

I know that we were just talking nerd down history podcast stuff before we even started recording. What's a resource that you like to put in people's hands? If maybe they're not familiar with what kind of a modern donor experience should look like, or maybe just if they're thinking through a different way to think of nonprofit work or ministry or operations, are there any resources, tools you like to kind of put in people's hands on a regular basis that you've really enjoyed? Yeah. Well, I guess let me answer that two ways.

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00:21:57

One is I think if I was a nonprofit, I would be looking at and trying to learn what's possible. One, and two, what other kinds of digital experiences my customers, clients, donors, supporters, constituents are receiving elsewhere, right? Yeah.

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00:22:33

For the top performing organizations out there that are just killing it with hundreds of millions in recurring donations, people that are retained sticking around. Why? What's the donor experience like over there? Right? Do they have a portal?

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00:22:52

Are they sharing stories of impact? Are those stories of impact really produced? Are they raw? Are they texting their donors saying thank you? Is it personalized communications?

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00:23:04

I think go to some of the great nonprofits out there and go check out their donor experience. Go give $5 and see what the donor experience is like. Because I do that a lot. A lot of times how I anchor our demos is like this. Look how terrible your experience is.

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00:23:22

Look how great it could be. And then I work as an advisor for, a growth advisor for one of the premier venture firms in Southern California called Mucker Capital. And I do weekly or bi weekly calls with founders where they basically report to me on their growth. And I try to give them advice, basically, which is hysterical. I don't know how they have me in that role.

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00:24:03

It's always some form of the same conversation, and I've been doing it for like four years now, or three years.

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00:24:13

And for myself as well, I have found that some of the blogs for the growth industry, there's a bunch of them, and if you just Google best blogs for growth hacking or best blogs for finding product market fit, which are kind of like the two buzzwords where most of the good contents around you can find some just remarkable, not just guides, but just ways of thinking, how to measure and how to test and how to actually real frameworks around that whole growth framework, I think would be really useful in nonprofit, which I think Brady was highlighting the last time he was here. I'm sorry to bring him up again, but it's reminding me that he said that I think a lot of those frameworks are ways of thinking that can be tremendously helpful. Right? Absolutely. Yeah, I know.

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00:25:16

Quick little book somewhere on the bookshelf back there. I'm not sure if it's hacking growth or growth hacking by Ryan Holiday. Really quick, easy read, right? If you're just interested, like, I don't even know what this is like, heard about it. It's a great little first primer to it.

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00:25:32

Right? It's not going to tell you everything you need to know, but it's going to give you a pretty good base intro of like, oh, okay, cool. And then give you a good resource that you can go explore more kind of online and do the deep dive down the Google rabbit. So. Okay, Jonathan, this has been super helpful.

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00:25:46

Thank you so much for taking the time. Come on. Love all the stuff you have to say, obviously. But if people want to get in contact with you, if they want to either schedule a demo with you or they're like, hey, questions about something you said. This kind of teed up something in my mind.

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00:26:00

I need to talk to a team about what's the best way to reach out to you? What's the best way to connect with you? Email. Yeah, email is great. Yeah.

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00:26:06

Jonathanbeck@WeGive.com awesome. Very cool. Are you active on social media at all? Anywhere they can connect with you there? No, it has to be email.

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00:26:16

I very purposely don't have any social media accounts. I do have a LinkedIn. Awesome. Mostly because I don't even consider that social media. It's like saying cool.

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00:26:30

Email or carrier pigeon are the way to get in touch with you. Carrier Pigeon would be sick. Yeah. If you want to send me a carrier pigeon, I would appreciate that a lot. Yeah, it really would cut through the noise.

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00:26:40

Yeah, well, man, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. And if you're watching, make sure you like, subscribe to the channel so you can stay up to date with all the most recent episodes. Until next time, thanks for joining us.

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