The 3-5 Word Secret to Capturing Donor Attention with Mark MacDonald

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

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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.

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