488: Data Privacy Practices – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week: 

Data Privacy Practices 
Let’s have a romp through the fields of data privacy and cybersecurity, musing as we frolic on just how important the right practices and policies are to your nonprofit. My guest is Jon Dartley, Of Counsel at Perlman+Perlman law firm.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

458: Wounded Charity – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week: 

Wounded Charity
Author and consultant Doug White returns with his latest book, “Wounded Charity,” positing that the 2016 allegations against Wounded Warrior Project were mostly untrue and that the organization’s board failed. And the media. Oy. Join us for a provocative and thoughtful analysis.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

427: Flash Fundraising & DEI and Governance II – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2This week:

Flash Fundraising
Prepare. Launch. Engage. These are the essential elements for rapidly and successfully fundraising when breaking news intersects with your cause. Matt Scott from CauseMic talks us through.

DEI and Governance II
Gene Takagi and I wrap up last week’s thoughtful convo on diversity, equity and inclusion, with mechanics for your board: by-laws; recruiting; committees; decision making; oversight metrics; and more. He’s our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.”

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

334: The Agitator’s Donor Retention & Your Content Strategy – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Roger Craver, The Agitator and author of the book “Retention Fundraising.”

Also, Brett Meyer, director of strategy for Think Shout & Katie Carrus, director of online communications at Humane Society Legislative Fund.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

103: Your HR Audit & Your Social Media Audit – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Karen Bradunas, human resources consultant

Scott Koegler, editor of Nonprofit Technology News

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://tonymartignetti.com

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio for friday, august third, two thousand twelve big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host i sincerely hope that you were with me last week. It would hurt me deeply if i discovered that you had missed arts and culture building bust. Joanna moore uncle wits is an associate at the university of chicago’s cultural policy center and lead author of set in stone building america’s new generation of cultural facilities nineteen ninety four to two thousand eight we talked about that study of over seven hundred building projects throughout the country and its lessons. Things don’t always turn out the way boards think they will this week. Your hr audit karen bradunas is a human resources consultant. There may be things hiding in your hr closet that you need to bring out and dust off to avoid problems later on, we’ll talk about your benefits, plan, immigration, paperwork and what to do if you get audited by federal or state regulators and your social media audit. Scott koegler continues our discussion from that one hundredth show a few weeks ago on sites that help you. Assess how you’re doing in social media. Hoot suite market, me sweet, radiant six and some others. Scott is the editor of non-profit technology news and our regular tech contributor. Between the guests on tony’s, take two. If you’re going to give, you got to take time off. That was my advice from earlier this summer, but it applies now later in summer, so i’m going to remind you, if you’re taking care of others, you got to take care of yourself, too. There’s still time. Use hashtag non-profit radio to join this conversation on twitter right now, we’ll take a break and when we return, it’s your hr audit with karen bradunas, so stay with me. You didn’t think that tooting getting ding, ding, ding, ding, you’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. Dahna cubine hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community koegler are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s, create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight. Three backs to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Buy-in you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Geever schnoll dahna hi there and welcome back. Twenty martignetti non-profit radio. Very happy to have karen bradunas with me, she’s, a human resources consultant working with organizations to develop or change the people aspect of their business. She has over twenty years experience in hr and best practice knowledge of how to attract, retain and motivate staff. She’s held officer positions at gulf insurance subsidiary of travelers and bankers trust, which is now deutschebank. Her philosophy is to bring that large company expertise and those best practices to smaller organizations, including non-profits. She maintains the senior professional in human resource is designation. So she has those fancy letters. S p h r after her name. Very pleased to welcome back to the show. Karen bradunas sorry, karen. Welcome. Hi, tony. How are you? All right. Well, good to have you back. Great to be here. There’s stuff. Looking in hr offices or maybe not even offices. If there isn’t an hr director but in hr closets. That’s. Ah, that could come out. Tio bite some people. Yeah, and and right now is a great time to look at that. The department of labor has announced that in new york that they have put a lot of money in hiring compliance officers to come and to look at businesses to see where they’re out of compliance into levy fines. So if you haven’t looked at what you’re doing now would be a great time to do that. Okay, that’s so that’s for new york are new york audience there’s, more investigators in the state department of labor, right? But irrespective of which state you’re in it’s a good time to do it. At some point, everyone is looking at saving money across the nation, and new york may be leading the way for other states to do this, and i suspect that they are it’s been published for probably a year now that there’s money being put into it. I haven’t had any clients go through the audit yet, but i have attended department of labor seminars that were given free tow organizations saying we’ll help you get in compliance. Let’s do it now, ok? And even aside from the state, whichever state you’re in there’s always a chance of some kind of federal audit, we’ll talk a little about, like e t o see, for instance, right equal employment opportunity council okay. But myself in jail. E o c is equal employment opportunity commission commission. Okay, i’m out of georgia. Thank you, but h r was right. Fourth, you’re treading. You have even said it yet. But hr it’s like accounting. Very, very jorgen, look, dragon e so mary-jo i have the keys for george in jail and it’s very much top of mind for me. So watch your step. But how come this stuff doesn’t get attention? That it should from from boards from executive directors, ceos buy-in up until now, i don’t know that it’s been looked at carefully, especially non-profits in corporate environments it’s taken very seriously. Let me give an example that that’s across this the nation and that’s my nines, i nine is a form that must be completed for employees. That tells that they have to prove two things. One is they’re eligible to work in this country. And they are who they say they are. And that has to be completed within thirty six hours of someone being hired. Okay, so this is if you’re hiring, if you have, as an employee, someone who’s, a resident of a different country, and they’re here anyone zoho anyone, anyone, anyone? If you hire a temp worker that works for a week, they need to fill out an i nine form so their u s resident doesn’t matter what you have to prove it. And that form i recommend be kept separately from the other paperwork in the hr file. And the reason for that is, if you have an i nine audit, you wanna have on ly on ly show the auditor by night. Okay? We’re going to talk about what to do if you’re actually audited what it sounds like your advice is just give them what they’re looking for and just what they’re looking for, a volunteer, a lot of extra stuff, but but how come this doesn’t get the attention that it deserves in you? Said maurine non-profits you found then on the end, on the corporate side, why do you think that if i don’t think up until now? Non-profits h r has really been looked at in general hr function for smaller non-profits is handled by finance, a county people who may or may not be mostly not trained in h r and h ours really viewed as a step child, i don’t know that all non-profits especially smaller ones have made the connection that your people really are assets and really do contribute to your bottom line. I mean, that’s been an ongoing challenge ideal with with non-profits the last time you were on, we talked about attract well attracting, hiring, training, retaining and then if necessary, letting go employees. But but putting aside letting them go, you know, retaining, training, motivating we talked about that a lot, but you still don’t see that charity’s air invested in their their principal asset, their people. I think right now all employers are worried about employee engagement and for non-profit that are scrambling to keep the funds they have that’s going to be the primary focus. Understandably, you’re going to try and meet payroll, so if you have funds that’s going to be a primary source, you’re not really going to invest in training while you’re just trying to meet payroll. So i think it’s where non-profit is in terms of financial stability? Yeah, yeah. Smaller shops, of course. Yeah, but you see, on the corporate side, bigger investment in people hr is not considered, like just strictly a cost center there. No. In i’ve i’ve shared this with with individuals. In some places hr is oftentimes feared because they have a heavy hand and i don’t necessarily agree with that approach. But in some organization, hr is really an audit function, and we’ve talked about this a lot hr walks, that fine line between, you know, looking to be in management side or employees side and it’s, really an audit function. Where is what’s the right thing to do here? Yeah, and but they are treading that line between, like employees, advocate and and hr officer or office for the for the charity. Right. Okay, we’re gonna take a break. We’re here to talk about your hr audit before we get into what to do in an audit. We’ll spend some time talking about some of the things that are auditable that are on that or on karen bradunas is radar, and right now we take a break. I hope you’ll stay with us talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life will answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect, no more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. 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The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com if you have big ideas and an average budget tune into the way above average tony martin. Any non-profit radio ideo, i’m jonah helper from next-gen charity. We’re talking about your hr audit with karen bradunas on dh, by the way, her website is km bradunas dot com and that’s b r a d u n a s let’s just spend another couple moments on the this i nine so you fill out this immigration form line nine for any every employee it’s not only employees on visa or some kind of other staff, correct, okay, and temp agencies, if you are working with a temp agency to supply intermittent staff, you really should be checking with them to make sure they’re doing it and they’re keeping him on file at their location also, okay? And you said within thirty six hours of enjoyment night and then you just keep that for yourself or you send it somewhere you keep it, okay, and you keep it separate from the rest of the hr file. Okay? And the reason for this is if you were to get audited recently for client, i had department of labor call me and say, we’re investigating someone who worked at your organization, and we want to make sure that they didn’t get paid too much unemployment so we’d like you to give. Us, the following pay records. They listed it out. I said we’d also like copies of their signature. Like from an application in i nine floor. But a w two debbie for form. Okay, i didn’t give him the i nine i get. I offered them. I said, you know, the lines or separate it’s easy to give anap location before and then any of these forms direct deposit. I’m simply because if there was anything wrong in the i nine, it could then open up an investigation. Okay, even though they were only there to look at employment, they could call the person who does the i nine audits and say, hey, by the way saw place saw problem with the nine nine why don’t you come over okay, if you if you think about nationally we’re looking to gain revenue to pay for nationalized healthcare and states are having difficulty financially and you think from that standpoint and end, you understand why you’d want to just give somebody what they’re asking for you okay? I think that’s sound advice for any, any kind of audit? Just exactly give them exactly what they were asking for. But don’t be volunteering extra. Okay, not-for-profits in general, i found when an auditor asked for something and i’m talking all the way to a cfo director level if they’re a little bit inexperienced in this in corporate we’re we’re trained to do this much, much more vigorously. But if in order to says i want to audit the file, why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for? So i can make it easier for you when you come? So i’ll have all this ready for you, right? They’re happy to hear that you’re thrilled. You’re not giving them the whole file. It makes a little bit more work for you up front, but it saves in potential fees, right? Ok, if there in case they do find something right. So you often see trouble with benefit plans. I do a benefit plans let’s talk first. What is a qualified plan versus unqualified plan? A non qualified plan can be discriminatory. And let me give an example of one they used to call them. Top hat plans your ceo may have a four fifty seven plan it’s called that’s a plan that’s just for them that the board approves and is written. By an attorney that gives them x amount of dollars that thie agency pays to help for their retirement. Ah, qualified plan an example. That’s unquote that’s. An unqualified plant nonqualified on what is it? What is it that we’re qualifying for? Qualified unquote? What? Qualifying for what qualifies for tax benefits. A qualified plan like a four. One k plan you as an employee can have pre-tax money’s taken out so it qualifies you and that you’re not paying tax on some of your salary. Ok? And it gets put aside for you an investment vehicle that you aren’t paying taxes on those earnings until you take them out upon retirement. Okay, now it also means it has to cover certain number of employees the plan, and it has to be non discriminatory in design, meaning the highly comped and that’s, a very finite definition by the irs. For instance, top five percent owners. Okay, a certain amount of income family members of those high, highly comped employees. Or considered how the comp the plan hasn’t. It cannot benefit those people. Mohr than on how they come. Okay, that’s. What i mean by nondiscriminatory? Okay, so if it does these things and then it’s a qualified plan, correct. Okay, and qualified plans are comin right, but just what are one of the simplest the most common? For one case, for one there’s a money purchase plans another one defined benefit plans, which you see less of now. And a defined benefit plan is the old pension plan where an organization would put money aside for you. Based on years of service, your compensation and your age and a defined benefit plan, the agency would bear the risk of the investments because they’re guaranteeing you certain amount of money. When you retire, you don’t see many of those anymore because one people don’t stay it firms that long and to their very costly for an employer to maintain. All right, now i know listeners are on the edge of their seats, waiting for me to call you jargon call you out on jug in jail for a money purchase plan, even though you said you don’t see them too much, you said it didn’t have to defend what’s money purchase plan is a plan in which an employer puts aside a certain percentage of your pay in in in in a plan that you choose the investments for, and it can be vested over time. Ok, ok, a four o three b plan, which a lot of people have work in charities like that’s a qualified plan, some are some aren’t i had a client who had a four three b that wasn’t qualified, but it wasn’t a risa plan and they’re two separate things and okay, that’s ok, we’re going to get to we’re going. So now the four o three b is like a t i a craft is very common for three b i think a lot of people have tia cref accounts, right? But they don’t know it’s a four o three b it’s just a federal tax code designation, right? Would be right for one k for three b are all definitions of plans in the tax code, so those numbers really do have meaning. If you go to the tax code, you can have definition of plan, okay? And for listeners who want to do that, please, then i’ll expect a page dissertation on eggs on the comparison, in contrast, between four o three b and four a one k and don’t just say it’s the numbers and the letter in the parentheses after the number that’s not sufficient for three beast couldn’t be used by corporate. It wasn’t until recently, i’d say last ten years of four one case could be used by non-profits previously, they weren’t used by non-profits i see let’s talk about some of the problems that you see in these plans are either qualified or unqualified because this is your hr audit. Okay, so in the qualified plans, which is let’s, start with those because those are the ones that are the most common serve the most people i don’t want you seeing, i’d recommend one. If you have any plans, follow the qualified rules because then you’re covered. If you take the most stringent rules and apply them across the board, you’re safe, okay? Because legislation changes and so if you’re always taking the most stringent rules your set so here’s here’s something plant summary plan descriptions, there’s two parts to plans one is a plan document, which is written in legalese, and then a summary plan description, which is written in layman’s terms. The plane document has to be made available. If anyone ask for you must give them a copy of it. You can charge them up. Tio, i think twenty five cents a page for, but you must give them a cop. Anyone being an employee? Correct for the plan? Dahna kayman plan documents called. Okay. That’s, illegal lease document. Make sure you have one. Make sure that it’s up to date and you’re following what’s in the document. The summary plan description must be in layman’s terms. But make sure it matches. What? The plan. Document iss. Oh, one plan. They should both say the same thing. One does it in legal terms, you know? Does it in lay terms? Right? And that somewhere that somebody planned description, spd should be given to participants every year. If you make a plan change, it’s a good idea. You have, for some changes between nineteen, one hundred twenty days to do it. Try to do it within three months. The ninety day. Do what? Send out new summary plan description to every employee or everyone who’s in that plan. Every employee, every employee, every employee that’s eligible. Uh oh, eligible. Yeah. So the, you know, because they may not. There may be eligible, but they didn’t. Take it quick. Doesn’t matter, it’s everybody was eligible. And then, of course, if you made that change, you’d have to change your plan. Document also. Yeah. You start with the plan, document change, and then you do changes something planned description. Okay. And so you really need an attorney to do the plan document. You need an attorney. You know, sometimes you when you negotiate a plan, you’re working with investments. Tia cref, fidelity. They often times have a compliance unit. Can guide you on what needs to get done. Ah, lot of times things need board rails, board resolution to amend the plan. And that’s all that’s needed to submit to the company. Who’s preparing the document. Okay, don’t try to do this on your own as an agency. Don’t get someone who really knows about plan documents and someone planned descriptions to do it. Because if something were to go wrong, that the documents are bringing two quarter those documents, you really want it done by professional. And how can something go wrong? How are how are how is compliance overseen? This is a federal agency now that would do it or state agency for a risk. I’m department of labor’s managing those or is it claims? But let’s, talk about this. I’m in let’s say, for one k plan and i get paid every two weeks. I have money taken out of my paycheck every two weeks. Right there. Can you use this as a four o three b example? Absolutely. That’s amore common plan in two or three, maybe four. Three beat every two weeks. I get paid every two weeks. I have money coming out of my paycheck. The company isn’t wiring it to the investments. Timely. They’re wiring and only once a month. That’s a violation because there might not be enough money to cover. No, maybe. Just maybe that it may be easy for them. They want to do one wire month. Just the employer. Is that supposed to be holding the money? Correct. If it’s taken out every two weeks. It’s supposed to be wired every company every two weeks. Okay? And i don’t understand this if i’m if i’m invested in stock funds in two weeks, a stock price, khun, very greatly. So i want to buy in regularly. So i get the advantage of dollar cost averaging. Okay, well we get a little technical, but the point is the money supposed to go it’s not supposed to be held by the charity office right by the non-profit supposed to when it’s received from the employees supposed to go to the plan administrated the company, the investment vehicle, tia cref you supposed be wiring that money to tia cref? Because that should be invested with the same frequency and timely as it’s taken from an employee. Gotcha. Okay. And, of course, just again to remind listeners that tia craft is the four o three b that we’re that we’re using is the example kruckel one how about one more thing that you see in benefits plans? And then we’ll talk about what to do if you’re audited. All right, let’s talk about health and welfare plans. You’ve got a medical plan, a dental plan on go, go, go back these air also heiress. A plan. Okay, we just have time for one. One thing that you see in the health and welfare plans. New red new rig. You must handup summary plan descriptions of these plans and also have a plan document on file. I’ve not seen that in corporate. Or not-for-profits previously okay, with any regularity and health and wealth? Well, this health and welfare plans like a medical plan. You like your medical plan? Okay. Okay. Let’s, talk a little about what to do if you are audited. Do you even do you get advance notice or can they say we’re coming tomorrow, which is not much advance notice. I have not seen anyone i know for osha. Audits say sometimes just drop in, but i’ve generally gotten advanced notice is okay. What’s the first thing you do, it may be a state agency or a federal agency, right? Yeah, i’m mostly seen state agencies. Department of labor was used as an example there. Pretty regular with this, i try to get exactly what they’re looking for. You want to define the scope of the audit, okay, you want to understand what they’re trying to get its not, you know, it’s not an adversarial role. You may need to clean up some things, but you’re scared as hell. Now you terrible things that not adversarial, but you’re terrified, right? But that doesn’t mean that one it’s not fixable. And two you’d rather get some guidance with someone who can give you advice, okay? I had recently in autumn, although that advice may come with a fine or penalty may but i think that if you’re showing due diligence, it’s it’s better for you. So you wanted to find the scope of the audit, meaning you may want to call the auditors let’s say that that send this formal looking letter and right and same composition exactly what you’re looking for so that we can have it ready for you. I believe. It’s someone’s looking at hr files, recently hit someone from the state on dh. This was for a specific program. They were doing an audit, they said, send us the fires i said, i don’t send files, h r protects employees information and i know many agencies listening may not have an hr person, but if i’m working for you, i don’t necessarily want everybody knowing all the things about me in my file. So if they say, send the file way, don’t send files, what you have to come on. Yeah, they will bring the files to you are where you come to us or what? I don’t bring the files, i have them coming and i actually have them do it in in my space, where i’m sitting with them, i don’t even leave them. They can’t xerox from there, you know, if they need copies, i want to talk about that and you want to talk about the protection of those copies, right? Okay. And another piece which we haven’t touched on a lot is if you have anything in an employee’s file about medical conditions, i’m out sick today. I’m going to have surgery on thursday. Get that out of the employee file that has to be in a separate folder for hip hop separated out. And you don’t want the auditor seeing that, okay, even something as simple as out. First day i separate everything be ah, a mental condition or something. Some deep serious illness. Just a sick day that i said bring along elsewhere. I separate them all out because it’s easier. If you say anything to do with health is separate. It makes it easier. Okay, uh, we have a little more time left. What? What else? What else do we do now? The auditors are on site. They’ve complied with you. They said send. But you refused there. On site, we have just a minute left. What with some advice for the day of the audience? Well, i i went through one recently and i said, you know, what do you see in the files? You like my out the way i’ve set them up? What can you recommend and make it very interactive? Because one, you’ll get information of what other people are doing. You get a sense of best practices if if you don’t know already so it doesn’t have to be adversarial, it really can be, you know, what do we need to do to make it better? All right. Optimistic, great, great closing note for for the terrifying audit. Karen bradunas is human resources consultant with over twenty years experience. You’ll find her sight at km bradunas dot com. Karen, thanks very much for being guest. Thank you. Pleasure. Right now we take a break when we returned to tony’s. Take two and then scott koegler on your social media audit. So stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community oppcoll money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment to create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour. My blogged from june one of the weeks in june was if you’re going to give to others, you’ve got to take time off, and i just think it’s so timely to remind you that if you haven’t taken your time off for the summer yet, you really should you’re in a non-profit that gives to others whatever that e-giving mission is, you are a giving person and to do that efficiently and also really probably more important, or at least equally as important as efficiently is to get as much joy out of your giving as you can. I believe you need to take time for yourself, and i had suggested that in june it’s now early august, please take time for yourself and do it without a cell phone and without email. Take care of yourself so that you can get the greatest pleasure out of taking care of others. And that is on my block at tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday, august third, two thousand twelve with me now is scott koegler he is we know who. He is he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news. Of course, he’s, our regular tech contributor, the longest running contributor on this show with me from nearly the very, very beginning, very close to the very beginning. How are you, scott? I’m good, but you know, doesn’t mean that i’m getting old teo it’s like, two years you’re your youngster? Yeah, i almost i almost said, your hamster. I know what it’s, not a hamster you’re doing about that. Well, you know, that’s, right? You’re not even a gofer. No way you’re our tech contributor. And a couple of weeks ago, on the one hundredth show, you just talk briefly about what we’re going toe flush out today, which is some analytics. So why don’t you remind people what? What we’re talking about, right? One of the questions i always had about social media is, you know, aside from doing it by yourself as a kind of a leisure time activity or in order to keep up with your friends as a corporate or an organizational function, is there any return on investment? Is there a reason to actually spend the time and money in doing this stuff for a long time i was pretty much negative on social media believing that, yeah, it’s a fun thing, and it might get get your name out there, but, you know, you really don’t want to spend much time. You don’t want to actually devote a person to do that kind of work and over the last, uh, well, i guess it’s really matured over the last year that more more recently, there have become many applications and systems that that are actually helping to prove that the maybe or not depending on your situation way, turn on investment for any efforts put into social media. So that’s a long way of saying, yeah, we may be actually able to find out how much, how much we’re spending if we’re spending the right amount and where we might actually spend more time and effort. Okay, so we can audit our social media investment and determine whether it’s paying off exactly. Okay, um, and you’re right, you meant a time and money buy-in small shops, there isn’t a lot of either one of those and so every hour that someone spends maintaining the twitter feed or the facebook page or getting videos up. On youtube or blogging, obviously is an hour that could have been spent doing something else. Andi need teo. So now we can sort of do a cost benefit and figure out what the return is and whether this time and money are well invested. One of them is is hoot suite right? Right. Who this week i had always thought that that was just i always thought that was just a desktop for, like, operating a bunch of social media platforms, but not so well, it is kind of emily talk about audits all of these applications, and we’ll talk about it. Give you some kind of ability to review the results that are that you’re getting from their efforts. Okay, but the same time, they also enable you to actually perform different tasks. So that it’s kind of ah, self fulfilling you. You do the stuff through these applications. And then you checked the results, and some of them actually allow you to determine what, what you should be doing rather than just do it and find out if it worked. Okay. Well, let’s, talk a little about hoot suite. What can you expect from that in terms? Of this determining your return on investment um, first of all, the one of the things that’s been on issue for organizations because remember, social media started that as an individual activity is, how do you how do you set up an account and then not do it all by yourself? On so with hoot suite, for instance, and with others, there’s the ability to create teams? So you have, you know, one or two or twenty people actually working on the same twitter, facebook, whatever accounts at the same time, so you don’t actually have to monitor the sight all the time and then interact with every every response. So that’s that’s probably the first thing that it allows its do. Okay, okay, um beyond that, in terms of finding out what you did, you can actually go to what they call their analytics platform and you can create reports so on these reports get pretty sophisticated, they can tell you, uh, who did what? How many responses did you get from which social media area, in other words, is twitter performing that in the facebook or google plus doing better for you? Or maybe four square if you’re in the business of being different places or if your location that wants people to visit you and the reports khun get very sophisticated looking one here, yeah, that allows you to pull in google analytics. And of course, google analytics is reporting function by itself. But you can combine all these pieces together and, uh, and find out how you doing? Okay, so what kind of, by the way, whose suite is h o t s u e dot com. Right. Ok, like, like who’d suit. But with with the at the end dot com. Eso what kinds of numbers can you see in determining these results at what you looking at there? Uh, let me get back to here. I just kind of went away from it. Oh, yeah. That’s. Terrible profile summary. For instance, who did what? What media are you connected to? In other words, i’m looking of mine here, and i’ve got, um i’ve got a twitter account. I got a facebook account. Uh, this one here, i do not have a four square or a google, plus the kinds of things you can add to it. Um, you can you can see how many? Retweets you’ve got in other words, on a daily basis, i got, you know, twelve, retweets or two thousand tweets, and that really is a kind of a quick indicator of the messages that i’m sending out popular. Are they getting traction to people like him and want to tell their friends that i said whatever said right? Because that’s that’s what a tweet is right? They found it so interesting they want people following them to see it, right and that’s really that’s a good indicator that if you get a lot of retweets, you’re doing a good job, okay? Reaching more people, what else is on that hood? Sweet report mentions by influencers, in other words, um, and we’ll talk about influence influencers here in a bit, okay, but essentially influences influencers are people that our red or recognized by other people, and they mentioned your name so it’s like, for instance, it’s like tony martignetti who is a tremendous influence. Scotty, are another hundred shows for you, okay? And then you’re cut off. All right, all right. Oh, that no, that makes sense. So and there’s there’s influencers in every area. So in non-profit. Obviously, that would be one, but in social media, you know, we’re talking about i don’t know who but other people that would mention you that have a great following and and so people pay attention to them on duitz sweet tells you who the influencers are in the in the keywords that you’re following is that that works, it tells you if they if they have mentioned you, right, what does it tells you who the influencers are, it will not say, hey, this is an influencer and you’ve got to go talk to him, but it does look at yes, if tony martignetti tweeted about scott koegler and tony martignetti is a is an influencer, then it was tony would show up on this list. Okay, okay won’t necessarily tell me that tony is an influencer and that i had to talk to him, okay, aside from having mentioned you, which i hope i do often, i’m not i’m probably on influencer. I’m chronically under connected so a nice guy, but i ain’t got no connections and the other at another trick here is key words so if you have a key word, you know what are your key words? What? Are they? What are they? And are they gaining traction? And this gives you a kind of a time or graphic about you know what? What came up and how but what i’m looking at here is justin bieber, which is probably not one that i would become my gosh, allright, let’s, throw that out. So what? How does it too fine key words? They’re the words that you use often or you have to add the two o you add you tell them what key words you want to be monitor you want who’s weak to monitor? Okay, okay, now that’s that’s just twitter so we can also look at the same things on facebook and google analytics. Maybe, you know, there are different things. For instance, in facebook there’s regions so you can say geographical, you know, before you doing is you need to keep track of by a particular area by language, by number of daily posts, very post sabat pre-tax tweets so, you know, did it catch on? It wasn’t like buy a bunch of people in this kind of thing, okay, so in facebook, the like, i guess is comparable to the retweet and twitter. And it’s a measure of somebody liking your content and whose sweet will measure that it’ll tell you what, what content was liked more often than than the rest? That’s exactly what that does is it allows you to not only know if you’re doing well, but in what areas are more popular. So if you’re if you’re tweeting a posting on a variety of topics, you can say, you know, topic a fifty percent more popular and gets recognized and retweeted and liked much more frequently than topic be well, you know, you want to talk more about top of games and stop being so that allows you to kind of hone your message and concentrate on what people like yes, i want to do excellent. You could figure out yes, right. You could test different different content, right? Yes. Okay, so now i see. All right. Now get to the true audit. You could do like a bee tests, you know, one versus the other. And then and then refine your test even further. Things like that. Excellent. Excellent about placing whose suite is free, but it’s it’s one of those freemium kind of things, you know, free. Versus premium. Yeah, and so you could get in and you can use it for no cost of all. But if you actually want to add additional folks to your group, you know other people making tweets or four actually monitoring the activity that you do need to upgrade to what they called the enterprise version and that that costs no. Okay, but if it’s one user, they can also get the analytics in the in the free version. Yes, they get some analysts can’t, for instance, skip um, google analytics incorporated in that without paying something. Okay, but everything we’ve talked about you and i’ve talked about that’s all included in the free that’s, right? If you just have one user, right? But the shot is this it’s uh, uh duitz sweet fifteen hundred dollars a month for the enterprise version. So, whoa, fifteen hundred per month per month? Yes, master that’s crazy. Oh, my gosh. All right, that’s. A significant yeah. Significant investment. Oh, my gosh. All right. Not probably outside the reach of most of our listeners, but the free version is great. Just one. If it’s just one user. Um, you know what? Good one more. Twenty wanted make before break uh, no, because next we’re gonna talk about a couple of yeah, okay, i was going to say we have to take a break in about a minute, little less tonight. So why don’t you just introduce us to one briefly and then we’ll come back since we talked about price let’s, let’s, do let’s just talk about price from second market me sweet market me sweet dot com is another freemium kind of application, and it has some other meat features will talk about and the third one is radiant. Six, which is, i would say, you know, the premier analytics and application for monitoring and affecting and discovering social media. Okay, and while it can get really expensive, you could get into it for six hundred dollars a month, which is a relative bargain. Okay, we got to take a break, and when we come back, we’ll talk more about market me sweet and a little bit about radiant. Six stay with me and scott. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. How’s your game. I want to improve your performance, focus and motivation than you need. Aspire, athletic consulting, stop second guessing yourself. Move your game to the next level, bring back the fun of the sport, help your child build confidence and self esteem through sports. Contact dale it aspire, athletic consulting for a free fifteen minute power session to get unstuck. Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Talking. Welcome back, and i’m with scott koegler, our regular tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, which you will find at n p tech news. Dot com let’s, talk a little about market me sweet scott what? What? What does that offer murcott me? Sweet is a little bit, uh, similar to hoot suite. We talked about price. I’m just going to kind of mention that and get it out of the way. Okay? It’s free. And they have actually one, two, three, four levels of pain participation. And it goes from nine dollars a month to ninety nine dollars and, uh, significantly less. Van theun who tweet. Okay, yeah, yeah. And it actually, it allows you to say all of those include team members and analytics, different numbers of social profile. So, really, for ten dollars a month, you can add team members on dh, actually for free. You can have two members on dad multiple profiles, which is pretty good, actually, i i’m a fan of marketing. Sweet. Yeah, well, okay, um, have you got something that is different about market lee sweet. Although it handles different networks like twitter, facebook linked, then there’s nothing. One. Thing you could do that that’s really helpful is to find out who you should be talking to and create leads from them. So francis, i could go into, um, into the lead section, and i could say, ok, and twitter, look for anybody who mentioned the word non-profits and it will scan my twitter feeds for the last day or so, and it will actually come back immediately with the with the tweets that mentioned non-profit okay, i cannot read those tweets looked for people and then add those to what i call the lead box and then i can make contact i can message them or direct message if i can add them to my to my twitter list. Uh, and i could do the same thing with facebook so beyond analytics and kind of you know what happened to what i did, it allows you to say, who should i talk to, which is really, really important. So when you’re scanning these these words that you query for its looking not only at your current followers but it’s o r people you’re following it’s looking at the whole twitter universe or what i’m looking for the whole twitter you okay? So right, so then it helps you find new people that you should be following. You might decide to follow, right? So right now, i just i have a search set up for him newsletter, so i just click that and right now i’ve got gosh, i don’t know, maybe fifty or so tweets that were done within the last day, right? Just past day, right? And i can say, you know, i could look at one and said, do you know african coaching support to help you reach your goals? Ok, so some of these are, you know, not really things that i would want to go, but i could say, for instance, this guy just, uh, i said, just sign up for newsletter my unsubscribes from days day, we lose newsletter how do i figure out howto howto re subscribe? So let’s just say i wanted to, i could click on that, i can add it to my to my leads, and i could tweet out to that person okay, okay. So it’s really effective in-kind of understanding we’re we’re in whom you should be talking with all right? Anything. I’m sorry, anything else that you like in market me sweet. Maybe some of the reports or anything. Yeah, there’s. Some reports in here, but what i really like is the ability to be proactive so there’s front you could be automatic follow backs you could do delayed posting. So not everybody’s online all the time. So you might want to people say, you know, post this message at three o’clock, right? Okay. And and market me sweet does have the analytics some analytics for doing your auditing in the free version. In the free version, you conception goals. You can sit up team reports. You know who did what and how effective were they and you can talk about you know how it has account doing overall. So, yes. Okay. You’re good analytics. Okay, we have just a little over a minute and a half left. You want to talk a little about radiant six, right r a d i n and the number six and radiant six takes what i talked about in market me sweet in terms of funny, who you should talk to and about what? And it kind of blows it out. And it’s, extremely powerful, actually. System monitors about one hundred thousand different blog’s social media and also just websites where comments you made. So not only are you looking at social media is also looking at comments that were posted on, say, you see not and protect that news yeah, and protect used dot com. You mean there you go. Thank. Okay. Scott’s own sight. Okay. That’s, why i’m here to help scott, i can i can do cementing for you too, if you need that later on this week. Okay. If tony commented on an article there on the keyword that i’m interested in showed up in tony’s comment, um, radiant six will find that and tell me about it. So you didn’t have to actually participate in facebook. You just participated in my website or a website? Yes, and i know about it. And then i can contact you very deep. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And just a couple seconds on radiant six. It costs right? Or that it has a free version. It’s. Six hundred dollars a month for the basic level goes up. I would say that if anyone really wants to dig in to who to contact what to say how to do it. And how did you do, you know, that’s that’s serious way have to leave it there? Scott koegler our regular tech contributor you’ll find non-profit technology news at n p tech news dot com scott, thanks very much. Thanks, tony, take care my thanks. Also, of course, to karen bradunas for being in the studio today next week, working with your small organization board from fund-raising day twenty twelve what’s special about working with small shop boards and maria simple, the prospect finder, the show’s regular prospect research contributor will be on with smart and no cost or low cost advice for your prospect research. I’m not sure exactly what she’s going to talk about, but doesn’t matter, because she’s always smart and she always has no cost. A low cost advice for your prospect research so what does it? What difference does it make? What the topic is? Be there next week? Listen to her, you know we’re all over social media. You’re going to smack your head sparkle a testa, you’re going to smack your head into tony martignetti non-profit radio with each click through your non-profit three year social media networks facebook i’m on four square you know we have a linked in group joined the linked in group comment. Tell me what you think of the show, i’m listening on linkedin, um, there’s, always, of course, my blogged, and you can always find us on itunes. Through non-profit radio dot net on twitter, follow me, use the show’s hashtag non-profit radio. Use that with impunity. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting shows. Social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday. That would be august tenth. One, two two p, m eastern at talking alternative dot com. Dahna i didn’t think the shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get you thinking. Good. Cubine hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Schnoll

099: Automated Accounting & Online Engagement To Action – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Aaron Schmid, chief product officer at Bill Highway

Jay Frost, CEO of FundraisingInfo.com

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://tonymartignetti.com

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Hello and welcome to the show, it’s tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I very much hope that you were with me last week. It would cause me pain if i learned that you had missed your more effective board. Gail gifford is the author of how to make your board dramatically more effective. Starting today, she helped you make sure your charities mission is relevant. Your ceo is supported and your board is strong. Also, a conversation with paul clolery he’s, the editor in chief of non-profit times he and i talked about a trend that he sees happening in events that they’re ramping up and what he’s concerned about in the future for charities this week. Automated accounting. Aaron schmidt is chief product officer at billhighway and he thinks a lot about accounting, so you don’t have to we’ll talk about increasing visibility, improving, reporting, standardizing if you have more than one office automate and increasing sorry and integrating with your bank and automate that’s re automating the gerund form that should be automating. I need i need an intern, so i have somebody to blame. For these mistakes, automating will be part of our discussion. Also, online engagement toe action from fund-raising day two thousand twelve. Jake frost, ceo of fund-raising info dot com, talks with me about moving people from engagement online to giving online how to convert your social media friends into donors. On tony’s, take two between the guests non-profit radios. One hundredth show it’s next week. Use non-profit radio that’s, our hashtag on twitter, use that hashtag to join the conversation there. Right now, we take a break and when we return, it’s automated accounting with aaron schmid, stay with me duitz thing getting dink, dink, dink dink. You’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Don’t. You could. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent arika schmidt is with me now. He’s, the chief product officer for billhighway and he leads the product and technical development of that financial technology platform. He’s a c p a. Aaron was previously a management consultant for deloitte consulting. Where’s clients included american express, bear stearns and borgwarner and i’m very pleased to have his expertise on the show. Aaron schmid welcome. Good morning. Thanks, tony. What’s wrong in accounting in small and midsize charities, you know, there there’s quite a bit of a few come to mind, you know immediately. And you know, one is just the lack of standardization across organisations and it really doesn’t matter if if your organization consists of one entity o r one hundred fifty different ways of doing the same thing. It’s just really not a healthy way to run a business, and it caused several problems related to, you know, operational inefficiencies. It could be very hard to educate and enforce again when you have fifty different ways of doing things, and it becomes even harder to get any type of consistent or meaningful reporting. So, organizations, you really need to focus on creating consistency. You know, both with prophecies and tools. You need one financial system of record one process to find. Oh, and that’s going to increase the level of visibility and accountability across the organization. Okay, these processes were talking about this is all around your money, money coming in money coming out. Absolutely no money coming in and out specifically around reporting, you know, i see. Ah, latto inconsistency. You know, just recently, way had a simple example where volunteers were running. Ah, client organization of ours. And those volunteers were were using different versions of the organization chart of account. And when you looked at it, i’m sorry. Different versions of the organization’s what chart of accounts? Chart of accounts. Okay, but it’s really what? What? To find your financial statements. It was really obvious when you look across the reports that were produced in the organization that the counter being misused and they were being duplicated and again, it was just really, really made it difficult to accurately report from a budget standpoint and then tracking actually to that. And we really just went in and did a very simple review of that chart of accounts and ended up finding one version of the truth. I did a little education, you know, on the volunteers, you know how to use that and just that simple change. You really just changed the meaningfulness of the reported that the report there were being generated. Tony martignetti non-profit radio has drug in jail. You you’re really been talking for less than two minutes, you’re already skirting very close. Of course, i’m the warden of jargon jail, so the probation early probation is a possibility a chart of accounts is that something that every charity is supposed to have? What, first of all, what are these accounts? What is on this chart? Absolutely every organization non-profit for-profit goingto have a chart of accounts and it’s really a very simple concept, nothing more than a list of reporting buckets of how you’re going to track your information, you know, over the course of the year, and that information is going to allow you to make better, better business decisions and really, in the end, that’s all a financial statement is kind of a running total to find on that list of reporting bucket that you’ve defined is meaningful to your organization again to be able teo, accumulate that information at the end of the year and make again better business. What are some examples of these reporting buckets that we on this chart of reports that sort of accounts, revenues and expensive? So you would think of you your piano again? However, your cash is coming into your organization, you’re gonna break that down to whatever’s meaningful. So you know, one example would be to break down reports they don product lines. You know, if you know that one hundred thousand dollars came in over the course of the year that’s important, but if you know that that hundred thousand dollars was ninety thousand dollars came from product number one and ten thousand came from product number two, that lower level granularity again is good, it is meaningful and it’s going to allow you to make decisions based on it, as opposed to just having that one lump sum amount of one hundred thousand dollars. So defining those reporting buckets, that chart of accounts is critical to understanding the health of your organization, okay, those are examples of revenues that may be coming in. So one might be fund-raising and one might be fees for services, and maybe one is you have a little thrift shop or something like that or a little sale of product or something. What are some examples? Okay, what are some examples of money going out these reporting buckets? That would be in this chart of accounts, you need to think of your expense structure and how your money is flowing out of the organization. So, again, whatever it is meaningful to you could be a simple, as, you know, the rent in the space that that that you’re releasing it could be a symbol of the utilities or again, anything that makes sense to your organization, and we need to be accounting for these items all separately. This is the point, right? That’s the point exactly that that lower level of granularity is so critical and you got it achieve a balance because there’s effort into creating that, you know, amount of detail and you don’t want to get excessive where it’s taking too much time to, you know, separate all those things out, but you definitely want to spend enough time, tio, where you’re getting enough meaningful. Information tio r mu to be able to make make those good business decisions. All right? And now, in just a minute, we have left before a break. What is the the value of tracking these this’s this flow of money in and out in the same way each time for small and midsize charities that that probably don’t even have a cfo? Yeah, that that consistent is so critical because without it, you know, it’s really hard to enforce accountability across the organization, because if things are track inconsistently, you just you don’t know what’s going on and if you don’t know what’s going on again, it’s hard to hold people accountable throughout your organization latto finding that that one version of truth and then using it in a very assistant manner is going to be critical free to be able to execute you’re on your wayto financial health. I’m thinking of a small organization that may get one hundred, checks a year or so or something like that, and maybe different people are accounting for those checks each time they come in, not out and about a hundred different people, but maybe two or three different people are doing it two or three different ways. That’s, your point right, that’s, my point, that’s all it takes again that you don’t need to be a thousand entity organization like you mentioned one. Any organization with no more than two people can do things in consistently, and that can create all kinds of wasted time, time and energy where you can get that consistent, whether you’re two people or one hundred again, what’s coming out on the back end in the financial statements are gonna be so much more meaningful. If that khun assistance, he was fine from the beginning and then executed well throughout the process, we have to take a break. You’ll stay with me, of course, and we’ll continue talking about automated accounting. Everybody else stays with us, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. How’s your game. Want to improve your performance, focus and motivation? Then you need a spire athletic consulting stop second guessing yourself. Move your game to the next level. Bring back the fun of the sport, help your child build confidence and self esteem through sports. Contact dale it aspire athletic consulting for a free fifteen minute power session to get unstuck today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality. In fact, its ideology over intellect no more it’s time for action. Join me. 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As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment to create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business, why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com hello and welcome back. Aaron let’s, talk about the value of this reporting. What now? Our report is going to be more specific when we know that we’re having consistent processes each time check comes in or some money goes out. But what we’re going to do with these now maur clear reports. Well, now we can use them, right? And before, when things are not consistent. You spent so much time in the accident knows of finance that it’s very hard to work in any proactive manner, and now that you have this consistency, you can start using it to become better and use financial statements, you know, again for what they’re there for teo again, increase the financial health of your organization aboard would certainly be interested in clearer, more precise reporting, right? Your your board, your finance committee or the office or the school board and it’s a huge problem right now and a lot of organization. That’s one of the core purpose is generating these financial statements for the different types of groups, and you can lose sight of and why you exist is an organization and again that’s for your constituents and that’s for your mission and you don’t exist is an organization. Teo, keep up and keep your head above water from a finance back-up okay, so we can automate thes tasks. Is that right? That’s that’s a key part of this key part of it? I mean, key part of it really centers around, you know, trying to work smarter and not harder on dh a great way to to work smarter, not harder, harder is to use technology as in the neighbor enabler and, you know, you want to reduce manual task, you want to get rid of duplicates. Dafs and as i just mentioned, you want try to free up resources from those accident o’s of financial management every day and get back to focusing on your constituent, thinking about recruitment, thinking about retention and obviously, you know, ultimately your mission, yeah, i think the you call him the x’s and o’s mean thiss numerical accounting and and just everything around the numbers is pretty daunting to a lot of small and midsize shops. They’re not really sure how to do it. They’re passionate about their work, obviously, because they wouldn’t be there, but then the business side, the financial management side is kind of, you know, burdensome and scary. Absolutely. All right, organizations really get caught up a lot. Just how things have always been done. And regardless of how painful it is, you can get caught keeping your head down and not not thinking about taking a step back and thinking, you know, how can we do this better? How can we do this? Smarter on dh that’s where, you know, technology could come in to get rid of a lot of that waste of time and energy and get you back focused on what makes? All right, we’ve talked on this show a few times about software as a service which is synonymous with cloud computing. That’s where a lot of the help exists right in the cloud? Absolutely, absolutely. And they make a lot of sense, you know, in today’s, day and age, especially for smaller groups. The leverage of the cloud. You know, in my opinion, it’s just it’s very difficult today to be good at everything and technology. It’s just it’s changing at an ever increasing pace and, you know, to be great at it, you need to focus on it. And you need to focus really exclusively on it? Um, not not profit organizations, they’re not technology companies again. They exist for their missions for their purpose. Um, and again, in my opinion, you think you need to let the experts focused on technology. Um, security security of your constituent data, it’s just it’s, paramount, and you really need to make sure that you do your homework and select a provider that understands that on that protects that again so you can leverage the power of the club duitz you talk about the pace of change, of technology and how hard it is for for people to keep up, so if they’re using a cloud computing solution, then they don’t have to keep up right? The company that manages that software, they’re the ones who are upgrading their product all the time, exactly and that’s, the real benefit is you have companies that are focused exclusively on it, that they do it very well, you know, they’re they’re constantly thinking about, you know, back-up systems, disaster recovery plans, you know, they’re building their facilities and earthquake proof fireproof, you know, places they’re they’re constantly focussed on data encryption. These are skills that they’re not. Simple on and they’re only getting harder and, you know, there’s so many times where, you know, i’ll go into a client and you see the server that sitting in a closet on air conditioned, right cem cem closet where there may be water bottles over it or something like that? Absolutely, you know, and all it takes is a simple air conditioning malfunction and, you know, you could be out of business because there’s pipes and risers in there, a pipe bomb accident literally walked into, you know, a server rooms where there’s water dripping and, you know, they put the makeshift things up, directing water. We are men and that’s just the risk is just too high and there’s really help. Ten years ago, fifteen years ago, you didn’t have that choice. He kind of had to live with that risk, but in today’s, day and age, you don’t have to live with that risk again. You can leverage software, the service cloud computing for what? It’s good at on dh. Just vastly different than just a few years ago. Those those closets, server rooms, that’s when people get creative with plastic sheets and duct tape. Yeah, have seen it all year and you’re hyping, maybe like a hose or rubber number. A garden hose cut from somebody’s home and that’s it. You got it. You got it. And that’s the problem with one simple thing. And you can have ah, catastrophes. So you can sleep a lot easier at night, knowing that organizations are going to the level they are to protect what’s so important to your organization again, back to that constituent data and the related financial data. Right. Okay, so all this important data now you. You you mentioned security, but let’s spend a couple of minutes with it. How do we know that the off site storage of our precious data, the stuff you just mentioned is is safer than being on our computers that we can see that i can control and have physical, physical security over the great question. And that’s where i mentioned early really need toe do your homework when when you’re looking at organizations you want to look for under organizations that really, truly understand, you know what they’re doing, you know, some of the industry standards out there that you want to look at you? Have they done? Enough the sixteen hold on jargon jail twice in ten minutes, six homes for seventy and it’s just really about, you know, i mean, auditing. Obviously, most folks are familiar with financial audit on dh these audits were created for the purpose of systems and making sure that the day to day operation of those systems are in line with best practices. All right, so now, what is what is seventeen at the end of a sixteen again? Just that it’s a set of rules, basically that organizations need to follow and you have it have an independent auditor come in and look at the controls are are in place and actually test those controls to make sure that again, you’re back-up there are happening regularly that you have a disaster recovery plan that you’ve actually executed that disaster recovery plan. They’re going to spend a lot of time in your databases and make sure that your data’s encrypted and make sure there’s no sensitive credit card information or different things, you know that that are in there that regular folks within your organization should not have access to. All right, so these are a set of audit standards. You got it? I got it. Okay, look at that. If they’re dealing again with any payment related information, you want to make sure i’m gonna get in trouble with the jargon police here, but that their pc i compliant and again that’s the exact same concept. It’s just centers around credit card information. What argast that of standards that the different networks out there, like visa and mastercard have outlined to make sure that anybody that is processing credit card payments are following the standards and make sure that everyone’s data is protected. Okay, this is all critical. Mean credit card processing. So your executive director has a credit card for the for the organization. You may very well get credit card gift either online or by paper when people fill out replied devices. This is all part of that level of that needed security, right? And now what’s pc i what is pc? I stand for payments, compliance industry. And i forget the actually what the acronym it means, but again, it’s all about that that set of standards that you need to comply by ifyou’re goingto all be involved in credit card transactions. Okay, which are pretty common. I think absolutely all right, so if we’re going to move to ah cloud solution, how do we then make the transfer that from or the conversion from our manual system or whatever we’re using to something that’s off site in cloud based sure, you want to focus on that during implementation, and you want to talk about that plan that you know, with your new private provider front from the beginning? Um, most things today can be automated and, you know, just with the web itself just integration of systems there’s just so much easier than it is today. So in most instances, you’ll look to some sort of programmatic way to get your key data from your legacy systems into your new systems, you know, having toe rechy that information, you know it most times you don’t need teo, but again, if the data set a small enough, you know, sometimes that doesn’t make sense. And because it’s just a one time transfer of information, there are times where from a budget standpoint where that makes the most sense you mean manual manual king makes the most sense, exactly, exactly for the kids to think about it from the beginning of the process, you don’t want to get too far down the path and then start bringing up the topic and then realize that there is going to be some investment in terms of some programmatic interchange. So, you know, having those discussions upfront, understanding the implications and then being able to make the best decision based on what makes sense for your organization is aaron schmidt is chief product officer at billhighway, which you’ll find it billhighway dot com, how are these services typically paid for what? How are the fees work? That’s one of the great things about cloudy as well as, you know, in the past, he typically installing, you know, large systems on your different client server based systems ten again, twenty years ago with a significant capital investment upfront and then ongoing maintenance and licensing xero and the cloud, you know, move to a much more subscription based, you know, pricing model, and you really don’t have to make those significant capital investments up front and it’s more of ah, pay as you go model, which can be very attractive to smaller organizations that, you know, just historically haven’t had the funding the ability to make those up from capital investments for the large systems there? What do you really just kind of changes the playing field and allows any organization tio have the power of ah, very what do you paying for as you go? Is it per transaction or it’s a monthly retainer based female? How does pay as you go work it’s all different? You know, some organizations will charge you more of ah, per user fee. Some organizations, we’ll charge you more of a transactional based model, especially if they’re involved at all in the processing of online payments or donations. So it’s really gonna depend on on the provider and what the specific functionality is, you know, that they’re providing, but the beauty is that pay as you go model, getting rid of that that up front investment what’s interesting about cloudgood puting is it’s it’s, analogous to where we were thirty years ago twenty five, thirty years, roughly in computing, where it was mainframes and people had, you know, dumb terminals and you had to go to a terminal room, of course, because he asked, and it wasn’t just tom it’s exactly how to think of it. Is all you need is that dumb, you know, internet browser and another one of the beauties you could be anywhere in the world longs you have that intercut internet connection, you know, tying back to again that that mainframe like environment you got, everything you need is a great difference is being, of course, now it’s all desktop, you don’t go to terminal room, and your organization doesn’t maintain that mainframe. You’re just paying for access to it up in the cloud exactly. And in the sharing of that, that cost across all the organizations customers is what’s so critical where before an organization had to absorb that completely by themselves, you know, again in an industry that they’re not experts in and spreading that cost out across all of ah, cloud providers, clients, you know, just really benefits everybody way have just a couple of minutes before we have to wrap up. Erin, we’ve been talking about your internal processes accounting, but this can be these processes can be integrated with the external your bank. How does that work? Absolutely. And today again, we talk about the differences the back in the client server days, you know, into the true, you know, web based world and it isn’t general systems have been they’ve gotten better and better at integration, and you need to look for solutions that embrace integration, you know, as part of our culture, a lot of systems today that kind of claim to be good at everything and that’s just not the case, you know billhighway for example, a great financial management tool, but we’re not a great cms toole were not a great here, and you’ll see a memory with hold on hold on crn when i was customer relationship management, what cms concept management comes and think about your front end if a lot of your revenue comes in from from donations, you think about the the website that your donors are used to going teo make those donations, we have just like forty five seconds before i have to wrap up, so my charity has a relationship with td bank can you’re saying that i can integrate my accounting system using cloud computing and be integrated with my account or accounts at td bank after the limit? The counting systems are get embracing this integration and you see examples really across the board where payment processing and online banking are becoming more and more fully integrated with your accounting system and that’s really kind of were billhighway hang a hat is we’ve actually built in accounting system that sits on top of banking platforms from the beginning of tiny that your bank over here and you’re counting system over here. And and it was it was a batch process to put the two of them together every night or something batch process, and yet people involved reconcile ing those things, and really one of the reasons accounting systems in-kind departments exist is making sure that those two things they’re in synch and you’re expending a lot of time and money making sure that that’s happening and organizations like billhighway have asked the question you do, these things need to be separate, and we believe, you know, very strongly that they don’t, and we believe in, you know, five, ten years, you’re not gonna have ah system doing payment processing and in online bank to log into and then in accounting system, log into your have one user interface to log into that is allowing you to execute all three of those and then be able to leverage the operational efficiency that that that could create. All right, erin, we have to leave it there. Chief product officer at billhighway, which you’ll find a billhighway dot com arika schmidt, thank you very much for being on the show. Great. Thank you. Doing my pleasure. Right now, we take a break, and when we returned to tony’s, take two bonem talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough. Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy. Share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. To create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation. Fridays, twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com buy-in. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com lively conversation. Top trends, sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio and i’m samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union. Time now for tony’s, take two my one hundredth show is next week, friday, july thirteenth. Amy sample ward is going to be my guest she’s, a blogger for stanford social innovation review, and she’s, an officer at men and ten the non-profit technology network. I’m opening this one hundred show up to you because i’m so grateful that you listen and support the show, the question’s going to be yours she’s ready to take on your social media questions? You can send them to us to me. Use the linked in group comment on my blog’s use facebook used twitter. Send your questions in advance for amy sample ward anything around social media any of those platforms i just mentioned or any of the other social networks if you’re struggling or if you’re not struggling, but you just have ah, little question to try to get you to the next level, send it and amy sample ward will take it on next friday on the one hundred show, we also have some and ten books and swag teo giveaway for both live and archive listeners were not forgetting the archive listeners in the contests ah, plus all the regular contributors is going to be there, maria and scott and jean and emily all four talking about social media is social networking, and you’ll find all this my blogged at tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, july sixth, twenty seventh show of the year and my ninety ninth show. Right now, i have for you a pre recorded interview with j frost from fund-raising day two thousand twelve, he and i talked about moving people from online engagement to online donor on here is that interview. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve were hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals, the greater new york city chapter, and we’re in midtown manhattan at the marriott marquis. My guest right now is jay frost. He is ceo of fund-raising info dot com, and his seminar topic is a little provocative, not too provocative, curious, popping the question moving from engagement to action online. J frost welcome, thank you very much. Nice to be here, it’s a pleasure to have you on and to meet. Finally, we’ve we’ve been connected through social social networks through for quite some time, a long time a couple of years, i think, but now meeting face to face. And i’m really not too impressed. So you look better than i imagine. He’s gracious, and i’m obnoxious. Um, let’s. See? Okay, so we wanna engage. People are already engaged with our non-profit but with our charity. But we want to move them into giving online. Oh, yeah, we’re gonna have some time, but generally, what is our process for doing that? Asking, asking them to give go to the next level and okay, so when we talk about engagement, what level are they engaged? Hypothetical? Well, that does really range, right? Okay, organizations are our messaging all the time. They’re out there talking to people about the good that they do, and they do that in different ways. According to this scope and scale and their marketing plan, sometimes it’s is really a nice, rigorous plan. And sometimes it’s haphazard, but fundamentally were engaging with organizations because we we find something that they do appealing here’s, thie even stronger than appealing. I mean, they they move it, they move us. We love their work for some reason. Well, yes, i mean, hopefully radio and and we’re right, especially in social media. Be talking about that kind of passion all the time, so i’m all for passion. But at some point we’ve got to be like the session title implies at some point we got to be willing to say okay, well, i love you too. But now it’s time to get together and compare notes and work on something together. So it’s about asking people to make a commitment. Okay, how do we begin? Teo asked, how do we approach them? Well, i think it’s not dissimilar from all the other things we do in fund-raising it’s just that a lot of social has been about marketing rather than sales. And so it’s a matter of merging those two pieces instead of building a wall between them that i work with the number of organizations where they will build very large followings of people, and talk about a lot of really important things that work, that they do every day, or they share scriptural quotes. Or they will go in and look at a specific program in detail, share images from it all these things are great. They really engage people. Then they failed to just take that one additional step and say, come on over to thiss page here’s a link, and then you can support this next year, next month tomorrow, so what’s the reluctance why aren’t we doing it more? Well, i think part of it is because we’ve been given ah the wrong message for the last couple years about what social media’s should be and how far it can go, right? And in fact, there have been a lot of people that i like to call the gurus and ninjas because they often refer to themselves as good, wasn’t it? Who will say you really have to build that passion? First, we have to build the passion first, and i understand the emotion behind that here’s here’s, the fundamental challenge if we began every organization like that, none with survive every every organization needs to have today’s equivalent of the sustaining gift of the major grant of the the money given at the door of some kind of purchase. If we failed to do that, we lose the ability to sustain our mission, and social is really no different from anything else in that regard, except that the audience is far larger and the acquisition cost is far lower, right? Right. Okay, so we say thie advices asked, but we’re accustomed to doing very different work related but leading up to but were afraid to make the ask right to convert someone into a donor that’s who we’re talking about, right, even and even a modest donor, maybe a fifty dollars, a year donor. What’s what’s your advice? I mean, well, let me ask you this way, does your advice vary based on whether we’re asking through facebook or we’re asking our twitter followers? Well, i don’t know that would vary that much by the channel. Specifically, it might be by the kind of content we’re sharing or the event itself or the ask itself. I guess what i’m saying is that we need to be willing to marry the different parts of the program so instead of them operating in silos, we gotta find a way to, for example, have the e mail campaign fed by social. So a part of this is organizational structure. It’s absolutely, or you don’t want marketing communications not to not be talking to development and institutional advance, right? Absolutely. And in fact, i think a lot of times we we’ve given the social aspect to people in it because we saw two somehow alien and complicated, or we’ve given it to the marketing department because we saw it as a channel for broadcasting. And while those the people in those in those skill areas are terrific, they have terrific skillsets great contributions, they make two organizations, we need to have somebody who’s willing to actually say, okay, glad you love us now would you be willing to support this activity? They need to be involved in all the messaging, all those components, okay, so who should be saying it? Well, in that case, what we really need to do is have a social media department, which is made up of people were fund-raising including fund-raising all right, so we need to break down the organizational silos and also the conceptual silos about what social networks are for and how far we can go with them. And and i’ve seen this pretty consistently. I went to a conference last year where it was a room full of people going to a session on social media that i was conducting, and we did it kind of. A show of hands afterwards, how many people had a fundraiser in the team that was responsible for a social media messaging and it was less than ten percent? And i saw something happened just recently it another conference in very similar result. So i think that we we have to we have to find a way to marry these concepts very early in the program, and then we will use that technologies as the bridges between them so that if, for example, we won’t go to facebook and to say, will you give today? We would say there there’s here’s, the program that we’ve been talking about? It’s really important, we need your support for it where you click this link and come over here and do so so that’s it. Then we’re going to use another platform to collect the information, to collect the donation in the same way that we do now through email or our website. So it’s a process of moving from one place to another using the correct messaging within that context of that channel. Okay, so let’s talk a little more, even in more detail, so that people can start to activate themselves. Two break down their own pre conceptions. Misconceptions about this limitation around around social media. What? What is what is a preferred method of doing that let’s say on with your with twitter followers? How might we start to get them? We’re putting out bursts, they’re very engaged. We’ve got a good number, let’s say we’ve got a couple of thousand followers, but that’s as far as we’ve gone and we don’t really know much about them other than that they’re following us on twitter way don’t know, we don’t know who they are beyond that, right? How do we start to message while they’re there? There are a whole bunch of elements there there, really interesting. Okay, one is the task, interesting questions all the time i had to, but they’re running on you to get in there. Open ended. So interesting answers. Where do i start? Which apple do i pick first? Well, one part is about knowing who the donors are. Okay, let’s, focus on how do we get more information about who are two thousand? Twitter followers aren’t right exactly. Well, there were a couple ends to that one is, of course, when we go in, we when we have an existing following, we could start researching those people by simply looking their profiles and then connecting that to other kinds of profiles for example, their web pages there, they’re linked in pages and that we’re gonna learn quite a good deal about them. A bigger challenge right now is finding information on people already in our file who are on these social channels, but we don’t know that they are there, and there are some tools now to do that there. Is there a couple of companies unfortunate don’t think they’re in the hall here today, but they’re a couple of company named them it’s. Ok, well, i know one is small act, for example, small act small act, which what they do is they will take a file of email addresses, and they will then upend the social handles so instead of wonderful. So instead of just trying to figure out who might be on facebook and then say, well, you post something for us, you find out the people who had the greatest influence and then you reach out to them directly. Now can we give listeners another another company that does that just to give them a choice? Don’t i want? Or i would, but i’m forgetting. The name right now and there are only two. But if i’m happy to tell anybody if they contact me after, ok, if it occurs to you in the next fifteen minutes so shattered i mean, i shout out random phones right time i’ll do that. So you’re invited to do that as well. Listeners know that it’s mostly randomized. Okay. What? What other advice? I mean, you see now, it’s? Not really channel specific. But you said i might question opened up a whole bunch of interesting topics are now we know more about who the people are, right? What else? What else was interesting? Well, another piece of that is how our people actually raising money. I mean, are they raising money by direct if they are raising money at all? Are they doing it by direct, ask or by empowering people to ask on their behalf? Clearly, the answer is number two. Eso an example. That’s very easy now is charity water charity water has been very successful in having people donate their birthdays where a person will say i would like tio instead giving me birthday presents this year will you go to my form, make a gift for charity water to bring potable water to people who don’t have any. And that’s that’s been very successful, they’ve raised. I understand over forty five million dollars to date there are now embarking a one billion dollar campaign. So i think fundamentally, what they’re doing right, and it’s been done by other organizations, is by empowering their donors to use some tools off line and use the social environment to go out and spread that message with those links to their pages. Charity water also happens to be very good about showing impact. Yes, absolutely. I think that’s a big that’s. A big piece, obviously on the programmatic side, they’re showing that your dollars could make a direct impact. Its but even when it’s not quite as tangible, i think organizations have done very well in these ways. Another example that i used today is something like humane society, the humane society, united states. What are they doing? That’s right in this context, they again have causes page, you know, so people can make a donation that way. They have their own contribution pages, etcetera. So they’re driving traffic to these places so people could make a donation. But really, what they’re doing is they’re fostering that relationship and empowering the donor. And one really basic level is to go and react and respond and engage with every single person who posts something. So if you were to go right now and send a tweet to somebody, the commission society, you’re going to get a response, you know? And i don’t know of any other charity in america that does that. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? 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And for small and midsize shops, that could be very challenging, but i just don’t have the do they. Well, let me push back on that we’ve had that conversation for a long time in fund-raising about the thank you call and ah lot of us know jerry panis, who talks about this stuff, and i’ve done some sessions with him at the institute for charitable giving this last year, a lot of fun because he has so much history and so much experience with different organizations, and he often tells the story listeners who don’t know his last name is spelled p a n a s yes, and you’ll see it either is jerry are usually jerrold with a j that’s, right? Yeah. Okay, please. Lots of books to his to his credit center, etcetera. But he talks about these organizations that that decide to thank their donors by phone. And this is a long before social media. So just one levels you pick up the phone and just say thank you. And so he was talking with a few organizations about this and the importance of making i think he said ah, thank you. Phone call to everybody who gives that leased a thousand dollars and one person said while we do it for everybody who gives one hundred, and he thought that was great, of course, s o he said, well, how how do you do it? And that’s that’s terrific. And and they said, well, actually, we do. And i think they said about fifty six thousand like this a year fifty six thousand phone calling organization it’s a big organization, but here’s the question, why are they big? I would argue that the reason why they’re large is because they built that level of engagement because they thank everyone because there because the most important thing is the person had told jerry and the rest of group, what is there that’s more important than saying thank you? And but and the reason i mention this in social media context is because in social media that’s, exactly the currency if you say something great, i retweet it, and that means that i think it has value and i care and you probably care that i that i’ve done that, but institutionally, we have failed at that we will often broadcast really good content that we think it’s in the interest of our of our constituents, but we haven’t been very good about saying, wow, thank you for sharing this content or that was a really great thing that you said we really appreciate your carrying our baton it’s very easy to dio i’ve been mystery shopping at non-profits on twitter, okay, couple years, yes, we’re all going all post content about them, oftentimes with their handle to see what they’ll say, and this is various things they have a job opening at a gift that’s been made to them there posted some terrific content, and then i’ll wait to see what they say. Now i’ve done this organizations i know nothing about. I don’t know anyone there, i’ve done it with organizations i know but haven’t given teo and i’ve done it with organizations where i give including a couple, whether in my will and they know it, and i would have to say that at least ninety nine percent that time there is xero response to anything that i posted about them and and really that’s just like the thank you. What? Why? Why not decide to make a mental shift and simply say that while we don’t have all day to subic, sit around, say thank you, we can take ten percent of our day on social to say we’re going to talk with people in a way that tells them that we care and that’s that’s actually an outstanding example, including especially, i think, the ones that you have in your will and they know it, but there isn’t a closer relationship, and they’re not monitoring their social networks. Two see that you’re you’re commenting on the relationship, and they should be commenting back. And part of that, of course, is is roger that the person who’s working on that social account is now pushing housing and pushing and and not looking and you know it’s not their fault. It’s their job to create content, but not to monitor what what’s coming back or to monitor the relationships with donors because their job is all about the content. It’s not about the dahna relationships, but no donors, you know, no bucks, no buck rogers, yeah, that’s my philosophy on fund-raising all right, ah, look, i’m just going to open up the sort of generally mean other advice the charity’s khun can execute. For me, that’s a that’s a pretty simple one monitor your channel, monitor your name across all the networks that you’re on that’s right and respond when the name is someone that’s should be recognizable to me, so cross check what other simple advice like that? Well, you can use the same philosophy to try and gather new donors knew or at least knew constituents, knew interested parties, so it goes beyond the kind of follow the followers or follow the followers followers thing to looking for people. We’re talking about the things that matter to you. So in the case of the kind things that way, there is our currency, maybe it’s philanthropy or if i’m in a cancer organization to look att at, people were mentioning cancer, and then to reach up into the to them directly and talk about what is of interest to them. Tio applaud the kinds of things they’re posting and that’s going to drive traffic back to you. I mean, i think it has a direct economic effect, but it also has a has a way of showing them that were really authentic and what we’re doing, we’re not just selling something, which i think should be appealing to the people right now who are monitoring our channels, that the folks who are largely managing our social media right now have their heart in the right place, which is to say they care that that we’re having an honest and authentic conversation. The problem is that there aren’t necessarily in a position to have it with the people who are the most invested with our causes, so if we can improve that, that and then e-giving some incentive direction, encouragement to go out and try to find more people who care about the same things, we could really broaden our audience. Another piece that’s of great interest to me is about global amglobal fund-raising organizations, the united states have been largely focused on domestic fund-raising forever and that’s been in for very practical reasons. If you live in new york, there’s a lot of opportunity in new york, so maybe you’d go outside to the tri state area. If you live in california, you have a national charity. Maybe you’ll reach out to new york and perhaps texas in chicago and d c in a couple places florida, but you’re going to stop. In the places that, you know, we have a critical mass of donors, and a lot of that is driven by where you can travel and who you have addresses for here’s. The thing about global social media is that if i post something now, not a person in beirut could read is easily a za person in boston or tokyo as well as texas. So if we start trying to send messages out in a way that says, we’re welcoming not just the people here who care about this stuff, but we’re really welcoming everyone. We have the opportunity to completely expand our audience for our work and because that we aren’t inhibited by those addresses because the mail weii there’s really nothing, nothing inhibiting us from continuing to stuart these donors once we activate them, empower them and that’s again. Why we need to have stewardship and solicitation is always a piece of this fabric because otherwise we’ll never have the opportunity to say great glad you liked us. Can you come over here and support us? And the same thing is true. Domestically, we for a long time been focused on donors who kind of looked like our boards, the past and that’s been a pretty homogeneous place. But today, because the nature of social media and its audience it’s so widely diverse, especially the audiences that are going to become more mohr, the biggest part of the american fabric in the next few years that we have an opportunity to talk to them right now in a way that we never could’ve with our list. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have had the access right right here, we have to leave it there. Great j frost, a pleasure. He is ceo of fund-raising info dot com pleasure to have you as a guest. It’s, great speaker. Thanks, tony. Martignetti oh, my pleasure. Thank you, tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the fund-raising day conference two thousand twelve in new york city. Our host is the association of fund-raising professionals create a new york city chapter that interview from fund-raising day just a few weeks ago. My thanks to aaron schmid and also, of course, to j frost and the organizer’s of fund-raising day twenty twelve. Next week, as i said, the one hundred show. Get your social media questions in for amy sample ward. Use any of the networks that that i’m on linked in the blogged facebook twitter plus scott koegler maria simple jean takagi and emily chan will also be with us all talking about social media all next week. We’re all over social media. You can’t make a click without smacking your head into tony martignetti non-profit radio you know all the places we are, you know you can listen live or archive on itunes itunes that non-profit radio dot net on twitter you can follow me, use the show’s hashtag which is non-profit radio i’m also on four square if you want, if you’re there let’s connect on foursquare, our creative producer is claire miree off sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, who doesn’t have standing job and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I very much hope that you will be with me next week for the one hundredth tony martignetti non-profit radio that’s. Next friday one to two p m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting, which is always at talking alternative dot com i didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get into anything. Hyre cubine hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one two to eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Dahna hyre

013: Back Office Blunders & Your 5-Minute Program – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Jeff Marston, president of Resource Centers for Management
Claire Meyerhoff, marketing specialist for nonprofits

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com

007: Failures & Accounting & Board Security – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Stephanie Strom, reporter for The New York Times

Ken Cerini, managing partner at Cerini & Associates

Gene Takagi, partner at the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com