Shanna Birky is the Vice President, Customer Experience at Classy, "a giving platform that enables nonprofits to connect supporters with the causes they care about." Classy is presenting a webinar on election-year fundraising on May 1, 2024. Shanna joins host Steve Boland talk about election year issues such as looking at specific dates this year to be aware campaign issues (primaries, debates, etc...) and timing your own events to avoid conflicts, developing a rapid response strategy, setting up specific campaigns on topics being discussed in elections, and being ready for "rage-giving" in un ..read more

Matt Nash is the executive director of the Blackbaud Giving Fund, which has "administered over $1.6 billion in donations from passionate individuals and corporations to 195,000 nonprofit organizations around the world." Matt joins host Steve Boland to talk about how small and mid-sized charities can be most open to finding and connecting with donors using tools such as donor-advised funds. Matt shares his thoughts about understanding the tools some donors may choose, asking donors to connect in supporting the work outside of contributions (such as volunteering, connecting to peers at employmen ..read more

Shaun Kulesza is the Founder and CEO of ShopRaise, which "help(s) causes engage supporters, build their brand and raise money through socially-conscious shopping." Shaun joins the podcast to talk about where shopping donation programs can fit into the nonprofit fundraising landscape, how ShopRaise works, and what charities should know about programs like this in their portfolio of approaches to raising support. Host Steve Boland shares his initial skepticism of shopping programs, and Shaun addresses some of those concerns about when and how nonprofit missions may benefit from these tools. The ..read more

Jenn Taylor is the Founder of Deep Why Design, created to "to help nonprofit organizations transform and humanize their data systems. Humanized systems are transparent, equitable, and effective." The Deep Why Design team has been assisting nonprofits with tools such as Salesforce, and Jenn joins this episode to talk about the evolution of Salesforce into something more and more useful to smaller and mid-sized nonprofits. Host Steve Boland talks to Jenn about the true cost of the "free" Salesforce.org licenses (read: free as in puppies, not free as in beer), understanding Salesforce as a hub of ..read more

Sara Lomelin is the CEO of Philanthropy Together, with a mission "to democratize and diversify philanthropy through the power of collective giving." Sara joins host Steve Boland to talk about the power of collective giving in community. Philanthropy Together offers layers of tools to support communal giving, from starting new giving circles to now a Lauchpad for Nonprofits offering to support charities in building their own donor-connected giving. Sara discusses the long-time use of circles, and also the newer tools like Grapevine to support them. She talks about expanded giving tactics which ..read more

Noelani Pearl Hernandez is the Vice President, Culture & Leadership at Charity Navigator, whose mission "is to make impactful giving easier for all ". Carly Bad Heart Bull is the Executive Director of Native Ways Federation, which "strengthen(s) the circle of giving by uniting Native organizations, supporting Native communities, and observing the highest level of ethical standards." Carly and Noelani join host Steve Boland to discuss equity in philanthropic giving. They talk about defining equity in this context, about organizations that are Native-led v. Native-serving, and what meas ..read more

Matt Stokes is the Senior Associate Director, Prospect Management and Research at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Matt joins host Steve Boland to talk about the field of prospect management, especially focusing on bringing new donors to a nonprofit mission. Matt shares his experience on thoughts on how to connect with potential donors, tools that support that work, peer-supported giving campaigns for outreach, challenges in the nonprofit sector in how people view philanthropy and much more ..read more

Rasheeda Childress is the senior editor for fundraising at the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Emily Haynes is a senior reporter at the Chronicle of Philanthropy. They recently authored a review of findings from the Giving USA 2022 report. (infographic summary here.) Emily and Rasheeda join host Steve Boland to talk about the early learnings from the 2022 Giving USA numbers. International giving is up - even in inflation-adjusted terms - but many other sectors are down both in real terms and in inflation-adjusted dollars. The value of major donors may be shifting as potential opens up ..read more

Mark Cross is the Sales Director at GoodUnited, which is "is the worldwide leader in 1:1 conversational messaging between nonprofits and their donors." Mark joins host Steve Boland to talk about the "why" of using Facebook for fundraising, including the fact it is going to happen with or without your nonprofits engagement. Mark also gets into the "how" of using Facebook tools, including a blog post from GoodUnited with information about how to get approved with Facebook to get more information about Facebook fundraising. Despite acknowledged concerns about Facebook as a platform (see the StopH ..read more

Steven Aguiar is the founder of Good Goes Further, which "empowers nonprofit leaders to understand, embrace, and wield their digital marketing powers for good." Steven joins host Steve Boland to talk about using Google Ads to drive donations to charities. The Google Ads program donates search advertising to clients (learn more in our podcast on Google Ads) but once in the system it takes strategy and testing to direct search traffic into financial support for a mission. Steven talks about using pixels to re-market to past visitors, keeping up on the quality of search click throughs, augmenting ..read more