Fundraising Gold: Top Tips for Nonprofit Success with Bryce Hillhouse

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Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast. Great to have you with us today. And a huge shout out to our sponsors. We give.        

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and moving to more important things today, I'm joined by Bryce Hillhouse. He is the director of development for Favorite International. Bryce, how you doing today, man? I'm doing well. How are you?        

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I'm doing well, man. I think we're both scorching it out in, in West Texas and Tampa, respectively. It's the time of year where I just want to melt like a snowman and move somewhere like Canada. But we're going to, we're going to soldier through it today, man. Of course, of course.        

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Yeah, no, I remember the humidity in Tampa. I don't have it anymore over here, but it's still kind of hot. Yeah, yeah, it's a different beast, man. We were talking about that before we started recording it. You're originally from Tampa.        

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That's where I'm at home base here, so always great making those connections. Well, for folks who, you know, who don't know anything about favor international, could you just do us a quick favor? Give us a rundown of the ministry and then maybe talk a little bit about your story, your journey into working with favor. Yeah, no, of course. So favor was originally started by our founder, Carol Warden, who saw vision to, as she put it, you know, she wanted to be sent where no one wanted to go.        

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So she saw a need in Uganda and she went out there and she wanted to minister to the people and do what she can to develop the communities and just, you know, bring, bring new believers into the body of Christ. And since then, she's grown that mission to not even just being in Uganda, but it's eight countries in Africa. Most recently, we've started pushing into Chaddhenne and just doing what we can to connect people. But I mean, if we look on like a yearly basis, we're looking about 100,000 salvations. You know, these are building churches in each place.        

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You know, we have women empowerment programs. We have what we call our gift program, where we focus on impoverished youth that are out in the streets and we raise them up and we do what we can to put them in a right state so that they can actually flourish in their own life with Christ. That's amazing. That's so cool, man. It's just a holistic, kind of gospel centered development program.        

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It's actually a wonderful, wonderful system. There's quite a bit of different nonprofits and NGo's that you see working in Africa, but this ministry in particular has an all encompassing approach. And it doesn't just focus on any one thing. It focuses on striking at the heart of the issue and empowering people. That's amazing.        

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So how did you find your way into working with favor International? What's your story? So all the way back or just. Just favor? Hey, you can.        

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You can go all the way back, man, because we love hearing. Kind of like the journey that God's taking you on. Yes. So I originally grew up in south of Grande Port, Tampa, Florida. And then from there I actually joined the army, got stationed in Fort Bliss, and when I was attending college, getting ready to graduate, I got a job offer for a development position at a local private high school that was a christian ministry, and that's what started my initial approach into nonprofit work.        

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And so this one in particular focused on underprivileged youth on both sides of the border. And then eventually from there, I started working in a gospel based one that was focused on, it was similar to the WeGive's, but it focused on spreading the gospel of John. And that was called the pocket Testament League. And they do wonderful work all across the world. And then from there, I got reached out to by favor.        

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And it's been wonderful ever since. Yeah. And how long have you been with favor now? So I've been with favor now probably just about six months. I'm fresh with them, but it's been, it's been amazing.        

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And what was wonderful is it turned. Out that they're based over there by my home. You know, they were probably about 25 minutes from where my dad lives, and the president actually goes to the church that initially saved me, which is the river. That's amazing, man. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.        

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I know the river the right up the road from us here. I live probably 15 minutes from that church and know well, man, that's so cool. Yeah, it's so cool how God does just kind of full circle stuff like that and works things out. Yeah. So, okay, so you've got several kind of ministries that you served under your belt now kind of have a good footing of the way, you know, you like to kind of work in and helping these ministries raise funding to do really, really important ministry so for you, what are any strategies, tips, like techniques that you've kind of come across the way that you think are real game changers for ministries out there?        

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Yeah, I mean, I like to focus on more of like a putting together, like a multi channel campaign that focuses on storytelling because if you just focus on just, you know, just particularly data driven insights, it'll get a little bit dry. But if you keep storytelling at the core, I think it really connects and resonates with people at a higher level because, you know, when you center on that, you focus on the communities that are positively impacted and then you tell those stories, you can do it through various formats, like video, written, testimonial, photo essays. But if you ensure that each story is personalized and, and it'll resonate different segments of the donor base, I think it's really important if you focus on that. Yeah, no, that's huge. How, in terms of, like, your donor base and maybe some of the ministries you serve, what channels do you like to get those stories out there?        

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Right. It's one thing to tell a great story. You can totally dive in on that, too, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. But, like, what channels you use for distribution that you found are most effective. Yeah.        

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So, I mean, I, I would say for older crowds, you want to focus on direct mail. Right. I think that's a better approach. But, you know, the younger donors, I'd say social media is pretty, pretty huge in terms of the way it can impact. And then email is always quite effective across the board.        

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As long as you just maintain the consistent messaging and branding across each platform, you're going to ensure that you have like, a unified, cohesive campaign, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So, okay, let's talk storytelling. How do you all come up with stories that are obviously God's doing the work? So you probably have a ton of them.        

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So maybe it's more of curation. Like how do you figure out, okay, this is the right story to tell and are you thinking through the donor in that or are you thinking through just. No, no, this is just a great story. Can you just walk us through a little bit more of you all storytelling process and how you get to those. Stories for us, we actually have a wonderful system where we get daily field updates of what's going on out there and this is coming in from multiple countries.        

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And then we curate the stories to make sure we relay the story to the right donor because some people are going to be focused more on the youth, whereas others are going to focus more on women empowerment. And some are going to focus on community development. So you got to know, you know, the right story to tell that will actually resonate with the donor. Well, hey there. Holy donuts.        

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and so every day you're getting field updates. Is that just a form like your field staff is filling out? Is that an email they send? What's kind of the nuts and bolts mechanism? Like, how do they actually do that?        

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Yeah, I mean, it comes in with a photograph or video, depending on the actual story itself. And then there's the context block that tells you the actual story that's going on there. Whether it's just, if it's just an image, then you definitely need that part, whereas a video, you can pull it together from that. But I mean, if we talked about the delivery, what we found is quite effective and efficient is actually WhatsApp, which is, you know, you wouldn't even assume that right off. Yeah, but no, WhatsApp, it makes sense though.        

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Yeah. And you can all sorts of stuff on there. Yeah. It's such a lightweight tool for, I mean, that's, at the end of the day, that's the best tool or tool your team's going to use. So if WhatsApp has all the functionality, it's like, of course, just drop them in there.        

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You have one kind of thread or multiple threads depending on different programs or different missionaries or, you know, they all have their own kind of channel and just drop everything in there. That's the simplicity of it is. What's genius about it? It just works, right? Yes.        

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Yeah. Yeah. So when you look across kind of nonprofit landscape, are there trends that have you really excited and maybe some that have you concerned? Yeah, I'd say so. Right now, what's exciting for me at least, is probably one that others are going to find concerning, and I would say integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning programs into the marketing.        

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And I like to use it as sort of like a proofread. Right. I put together a certain campaign design and then I run it through that and then it'll add suggestions and I find that quite effective because as people, we're going to make, you know, some mistakes here and there, whereas, you know, incorporating artificial intelligence, it's going to, it's going to focus more on the logic of it. Yeah. It's just a good backstop for your work.        

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Right. It's not, you don't start with it, but it's good to have that extra set of eyes on it. Yeah. That's why, I mean, I said I use it like a proofread. Yeah, that's great.        

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That's great. And then for something that's maybe a little less exciting, maybe a little more concerning, anything out there you're seeing from ministries, you're saying, don't love where that's headed for us. I would say, you know, you see it a lot lately. There's seems to be like an over reliance on digital channels and almost to the expense of personal connections. Right.        

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And I think that that is where a lot of nonprofits are going to make the mistake of not having that personal connection with the individual and keeping them, because we saw a lot with what happened with COVID and I think people got too reliant on that medium. Yeah. So what, what are some things, if someone's saying, yeah, you know, we're, we are pretty reliant on the digital channels. What are some ways that they can work into that? Because, you know, we have to have the digital.        

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It's not going to go away. What are some ways they can make their, their fundraising more relational and more personal? Even if they say, yeah, we do a lot of digital. Any touch points that you all have with donors that you think would be helpful? Honestly, like the most simple, you know, go back to the basics.        

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A personalized letter sent to you, I think it adds a, an amazing touch. And outside of just an email, because sometimes, you know, you might get a thousand emails a day, you're not going to read it, but you get that actual personal letter in the mail. You're going to open it up and you're going to see what it actually says. Yeah, it's a big difference. Getting that in real life kind of communication channel is still.        

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Still such a huge win, even though it's underrated now because everything's. Oh, that's so, you know, early. Two thousands of you. Right. But it's like, no, people still appreciate that.        

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I know. I mean, unless it's something that's clearly junk mail. If it looks like it's personal to me, I open everything I get. So I'm going to guess it's a little better open rate than my email inbox. Yeah.        

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I mean, I can guarantee we both have tons of email we haven't even looked at and they're sitting there on the red. Yep, yep. Now that you remind me, I need to get to that after conversation. Cool, man. Well, okay.        

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Any resources, books, magazines, podcasts that you love that you know, as you're kind of a leader and you're always kind of trying to grow, what are some of those resources you look to that you like to recommend to others as well? Do you mean like books or programs? Yeah, could be books, could be online courses, anything that kind of helps you grow and your fundraising knowledge, spiritual growth, leadership, any of that kind of stuff. I mean, realistic. I can recommend some books like the art of nonprofit fundraising.        

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It's by Doug White. I think that's a pretty solid one. Yeah. You know, because it focuses on principles of effective fundraising. It focuses on ethics, donor relationships, practical strategies that can be applied across various types of nonprofits.        

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I think that's a solid one. But in terms of just growing as a. As a donor, donor relations manager or director of development, you know, anything in that field, I think the most important thing is going to be experience. You know, just actually going out there in the field talking work. Yeah, because you can read a book, you know, you can watch a course, but it's not always going to work out the way that it's designed in the book or the course.        

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You know, the human aspect changes that whole thing. So it's important you're talking to. Yeah. And every ministry is different. Right.        

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So what works in a book or a podcast or some article you read for another ministry may just not work for your ministry because of where you are in the kind of growth life cycle or how your donors respond or the organizational culture. So I love that answer, man. It's just like, hey, the best thing to learn, go eat your hands dirty. Go do the work, right? Go get out there and get punched in the face a little bit and learn from it.        

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I mean, because if you just focus on what you saw here, it's bit too rigid, you know, it's too structured, and you're gonna. You're gonna look like a robot out there, and they're not gonna relate to you, you know? Yeah. Because you're not. You're not trying to make a personal connection if you do that.        

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I love it. Very cool, man. Okay, so if people want to connect with you, if they want to find more about favorite international, this is your shameless plug. Like, how can people get in contact with you if they have questions about what you guys are doing? How can they contact the ministry?        

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Let people know how they can connect? I mean, if they want to reach out to me, I'd say the best form is probably by email, and that's going to be my name. B r y c eternat favorintl.org. that would be the best way to reach out to me. Awesome.        

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And then for the ministry, favor, dot in tl, favorintl.org. is that the website? Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.        

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Well, man, perfect. Thank you so much for dropping the knowledge bombs today. Thanks for taking the time just to pour your heart out about. Hey, this is where God's got the ministry and kind of where you guys are going and what you guys are seeing for nonprofits out there. I really appreciate the time, Bryce.        

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Yeah, no, of course. No, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to be able to come on here, especially with someone in my hometown. Absolutely, man. All right, be well, Bryce.        

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Thank you.        

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