Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Thanks Genevieve. And thanks a and Amy, it is so great to be here and follow in such amazing footsteps. We love that book. Uh, please do go get that book and we are all excited for the tech that comes next. Um, so thank you all for joining us. We're really excited to be here at good tech Fest today and for our first live episode of why it matters just really excited. And also it's kind of, it's kind of interesting, Tracy. I gotta see you in analog in person in Livermore just last week, and that was so great to hang out, uh, see your family. So, uh, it's really fun to, to be on with you in Woodrow. Same, uh, right after, right after I was in Livermore. You and I got a hangout in, um, in Vegas at the, uh, icon conference and I would've a selfie on that one to show everybody cuz we had such a great time. What do you like angry? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:01:04 Angry. I I'm, I just, I came from, I'd probably just come from a session that had irritated me, but I will say, I feel like there was a smile version of this same picture, but
Speaker 1 00:01:14 Well, yeah, there was, but this one was just so much more interesting. So, you know, we, we grabbed that. Um, and what I, what I found like when we were together, um, that was in Caesars and you have had a very interesting life, my friend and that showed up because you got comped this amazing suite, just because you've had so many celebrities that you've, you've brought into, uh, that, that hotel in a past life. So at some point, all of us want to hear that that is
Speaker 3 00:01:44 Some serious hotel, California stuff, right there, Woodrow stealing knives and all
Speaker 1 00:01:49 It was amazing. So, um, yeah. Okay. So we are here to talk about two reports that have come out by giving Tuesday. Uh, one is the Q4 fundraising report by the fundraising effectiveness project and the other is, uh, around informal giving and community care. So we wanna start with a Q4 20, 21 fundraising report. Woodrow, please tell us about your role at giving Tuesday. And then also tell us about this report.
Speaker 2 00:02:16 Sure. We'll have to save the, the Vegas stories for another time. Um, so my role at giving Tuesday is chief data officer. So I manage our work, uh, measuring, giving Tuesday as an intervention and its impact how the movement is, uh, evolving and driving, um, Mo uh, generosity behaviors around the world. Uh, but also more broadly. How, how do people leverage their generosity to make change in communities? And can we observe the, the way that these behaviors intersect and interact? How do we motivate more of them and how do, how do we better understand the kind of ecosystem of giving, um, around the world? So that's what I do. The fundraising effectiveness project is a, is a joint project that we do in collaboration with the AFP foundation. And this is really about benchmarking, uh, us charitable giving. So this is donations to 5 0 1 C three, uh, charitable organizations in the us. And we have been working to get much higher fidelity and more granular trends and, uh, and more timely so that we can help the sector, not just kind of look in the rear view mirror, but also to, to set strategy into understand what's going on beneath the surface of the kind of top line metrics.
Speaker 3 00:03:38 I love Woodrow, the focus on generosity and specific because it hearkens back to something that we thought about. It felt like 15, 20, 30 years ago, and that is how do nonprofits be themselves. And also how do we participate as technologists in the impact economy? And that theme of generosity connects the open source world. It connects to some degree of the web 3.0 world. I wanna start by asking you one of the things that the report actually notices is that in 2020 giving substantially increased across the board. And it it's very clear in the report that it says, this is an anomaly as compared to previous years, but we also know that 2020 was sort of the beginning of a lot of things, uh, the pandemic, and now we have the invasion of Ukraine and that has prompted even more types of giving over the past three months. Does it always take these huge global catalyst events to influence philanthropy and generosity and the report, you know, as it measures things, how can we use this data to sort of keep these catalyst moments moving forward without having to experience a global trauma?
Speaker 2 00:05:07 Yeah, so I mean the short answer is yes and no, I guess, I mean, we don't necessarily need a crisis in order to drive generosity that said giving moments are clearly a driver of participation in people's giving. So we saw this in 2020 very clearly in part because not all organizations were benefiting from the overall increase in giving. Um, and although to a degree that had to do with kind of whether you were, whether you happened to be, um, working for a cause that was, uh, that was kept proximate to the crisis in the world at the time. But it wasn't just that. So we would see, um, COVID driving generosity and response in a number of ways, and we would see racial and social justice and other issues that were in the zeitgeist that were clearly driving participation in giving, but also giving Tuesday was the single biggest driver of donor acquisition in 2020. Right? So that's, that's that doesn't take a crisis. Um, and I think one of the learnings there should be that we can create moments for people to give, and we can, we can leverage lots of opportunities, including celebratory ones. We just don't really have much of a practice of doing that.
Speaker 3 00:06:33 That was actually my follow up. And that is talk a little bit about how to create those moments. And I think celebratory is absolutely one of them mission delivery. All of the ways that nonprofits in explicit can actually not rely on a crisis for giving would be, I think something incredibly useful.
Speaker 2 00:06:53 I mean, one of the things that that crises gives us is a, a sense of urgency. And that reason to act now is absolutely critical in getting people to respond, but with their dollars or otherwise, but the urgency doesn't have to mean an emergency. I think that's one of the reasons why giving days are compelling. It's one of the reasons why giving Tuesday the day is compelling. We know that the majority of donors on giving Tuesdays say that they did it because they wanted to be part of a bigger group of people doing good. And so, um, that urgency comes from, if you wanna be part of the fund, you gotta give now, um, we've seen research, that's shown actually that nonprofits in the us and Canada are pretty poor at leveraging that sense of urgency. And, and I, I think that sometimes there's a reticence that we fundraisers and, and activists are worried that if they say you have to act now, what they're gonna do is sort of shut people out who might act later.
Speaker 2 00:07:56 Um, but the reality is the, that's what these giving moments drive is this reason that you're going to not wait. And that's really critical. So thinking about how you can inject that into your engagement is important. And then thinking beyond the transaction is really critical and also not, not really well understood or, or action, right? So on giving Tuesday, we know that the majority of of people are taking more than one type of action, but it's not just on that day, um, are, are in, um, our, our informal giving report, which I know we'll get to in a minute, showed this as well, is that people give in lots of ways, and that is their preferred meth mode of engagement. Um, but most traditional organizations engage only around, uh, monetary transaction. So if we are, if we think more holistically about our giver, we think more about our relationship with them and give them a compelling reason to act today. Uh, we can create those moments. Um, and then the last thing I'll say is just collaboration, right? Like one of the, one of the things we see is that when you drop this idea that you're in competition with other causes or other modes of giving, it opens up a lot of possibility. So dropping the scarcity mentality gives us that opportunity to work together and be creative.
Speaker 3 00:09:15 I, I, I just wanna double underscore something that you said Woodrow, that I think is so important, and that is creating a moment now doesn't preclude or preclude a moment later, you know, and I think that is a huge takeaway because away, because just because you've asked for me for any kind of participation in your organization now doesn't mean when there is an actual crisis, I'm gonna say, oh, well, golly, I, I don't know. I spent a day licking envelopes, so I'm not really interested in supporting doctors without borders now. Right? Like that is not the logic. And I really just wanna double underscore that for folks to understand.
Speaker 2 00:09:54 Yeah. And I think that, you know, if you look at the fundraising effectiveness project, Q4 report, if you look at the top line metrics, and I think it might reinforce some myths because we had, um, we had this influx of new givers in 20, 21st time in years that we saw a reverse of the kind of consolidation of giving into fewer and fewer hands. And in 2021, what we see is that, that, that, that wasn't sustained. And so year over year, we saw, uh, a drop in givers over overall, uh, where bay overall, um, we're basically back to 2019 levels. And I think a lot of people will assume that's because, oh, well it was just spontaneous giving in 2020. And those donors didn't stick around, but that's not actually what happened. Those donors who were acquired in 2020 were actually more likely to stick around than we've ever seen before. So it's not as simple as that kind of flash in the pan re reactive giving. We, right. We have an opportunity here. Um, that was that this turmoil, which has been very challenging for the sector to navigate actually delivers some chance to, to have a broader base of support for the sector.
Speaker 1 00:11:06 I, I suspect if, uh, Tim San Antonio is in the room, he is very antsy to, to, uh, get up. And I know that he is up next. And, um, you know, I, I heard you talk Woodrow, um, a little bit when we were in, in, um, Las Vegas about that as well. And, um, it's so important to underline the, the behavior of the nonprofits leads also to the behavior of donors. And I think that that is, that is, uh, something that I keep learning. Um, so I, I think that's really helpful. We do wanna get to what you mentioned, the second report here, um, which is the informal giving community care. I, this report really engaging, partly because of the triangle analytics at the bottom that you can click in and out of. And I just kept trying to pattern match around that and found that really interesting. So first of all, excellent work on creating an interactive way to engage with, uh, the, the data. But then also I think that these reports make the case for expanding the definition of giving. And so what are the new data points that you're working towards in order to better capture this expanded definition?
Speaker 2 00:12:23 We have a few objectives of this initial work. Uh, one was, we were, we were establishing a kind of new taxonomy for looking at people's generosity. Um, we wanted to not use labels, um, because when we're asking people about their giving, sometimes they don't recognize themselves in those labels. Um, and we wanted to have establish a kind of baseline for measuring the ways that they'll give and the things that they're giving. So we essentially, we looked at giving money time, uh, things and advocacy. And we looked at whether people were doing that through registered organizations through structured, but unincorporated networks or, or groups, or just ad hoc to individuals kind of, uh, person to person giving. Um, and our goal here is to get a little bit of a baseline to compare country, to country and set up some, some new research tools that we've since launched that will actually, that are actually measuring people's behavior on a weekly basis.
Speaker 2 00:13:25 So we can get essentially real time data on how people are responding to, to strengthen their communities. And, and it was really interesting. I mean, some of it is, is certainly, um, uh, correlates with what others have seen. Um, and that was, that was encouraging. Um, but I think at the same time, it's, it, it clearly shows that there's a lot of giving going on that we are just not counting. And I think even if all you care about is the, the resilience and the health of the registered 5 0 1 C three nonprofit industrial complex. And I don't think that is all you should care about. I think you should care about more than that, but even if that's all you care about, we need to understand this better. We need to understand our marketplace. We need to understand givers and what motivates them. If we're going to really be able to get good results. And beyond that, it's, this is not a disconnected thing, right? If people are taking care of their community, then they need the food bank less that's, this is not some sort of satellite. Nice to know. And then when you look at who's doing this giving, um, I think by, by virtue of that behavior, not being measured, not being counted, not being considered, we are robbing those givers of agency over how we support the support communities, what causes get attention and why
Speaker 3 00:15:01 Woodrow, a lot of what you're talking about also kind of bolts into a discussion we had last year on why it matters with Marni Webb, from tech soup. And that is if we're looking at expanding the definition and, and making frankly the definition of giving much more inclusive, then we also need to do the same to the definition of nonprofit. And, you know, her argument that came through loud and clear was nonprofit in the United States in explicit is just the tax designation status. We're all aware of that. But if you look at the behavior of people around what it means to be generous, why aren't we looking at fiscally sponsored organizations? Why aren't we looking at informal networks? Why aren't we looking at collaborations of the ad hoc and non-permanent nature as ways that generosity can be captured and then put forward again. And I'm wondering, how do you see these two things bolting together in your own words?
Speaker 2 00:16:03 Well, I, I think, uh, partly the, the answer to your rhetorical question is,
Speaker 3 00:16:09 Is that I do that
Speaker 2 00:16:11 <laugh>, I think partly the answer there is, is this scarcity mentality, this idea that, you know, it's, this self-fulfilling prophecy, uh, donations to nonprofits has been largely flat for decades. And that's because that is the cap. It's like the speed of light. You can't do anything more with that, that the data do not support that understanding, right? The, the reality is people's generosity is much more elastic, including their financial giving. And so is, so we need to drop that idea that we are in competition with various causes or various mechanisms of giving the data. Just aren't don't line up with that, with that belief. So for example, we know that people who are taking part in these, what we call mutual aid behaviors are, are very likely to say that they prefer to give directly to people in need rather than to registered organizations, but their behavior is doesn't bear that out. In fact, they are more likely to be giving to nonprofits than others, right? These are just generous people and that's the customer, if you will. So I think that the, that largely the, the answer to the know why aren't we embracing these collaborations and opportunities is because we're worried that, that these behaviors are somehow cannibalistic, but as soon as you drop that, it opens up a world of possibility. I, I would love to hear. Um, and thank you for that. And thank you also for
Speaker 1 00:17:48 Catching a rhetorical question. I I'm impressed. I love that it was great. Um, I think we call that leading the witness.
Speaker 2 00:17:55 <laugh> no objection here.
Speaker 1 00:17:59 There are, there were some really surpri to me, it was surprising. Um, what came out in this report about where givers are, and is one thing that seems clear to me, and you should confirm this or not, is that there's a lot of generous people that don't care about measuring their own generosity. Um, and you know, that shows up in that they don't need a tax reason to give. Um, and so I, I, I would love for you to just talk through some of the high, the key takeaways on the report, in terms of what it found on, where you were finding really generous people.
Speaker 2 00:18:33 Well, I mean, uh, partly we can see that in the us, there's, there's a contingent of people who recognize that they are participating in mutual aid behavior and, um, and they are that they tend to be women. They tend to be in, in the us south. They tend to be people of color. These are slight skews, it's not dramatic, but, but it's, it's, they're, they're giving less money, but the, but the driver there is really economic reality for those givers rather than generosity. Um, we're seeing that in some communities around the world, it was interesting to see that kind of giving and generosity is much more just baked into everyday life. Um, and, and, and it takes some different mechanisms to kind of understand that well, because they're not necessarily people who are going to kinda recognize their behavior as extra, whereas in some cultures, that generosity is kind of more personally, like when I do something I'm more I'm, I have more of a recognition that I'm taking some kind of action, uh, beyond my, my responsibility or just normal day daily life.
Speaker 2 00:19:45 Um, so we saw very high incidences of giving in India, for example, and, and in Kenya, um, and, and, and also lots of different ways. And I think, you know, one of the things I really want people to take away from this is that it's very unusual to find people who only give one way or one thing. Um, and so we, I think it's incumbent on, on us, if we want to be technologists, driving generosity and leveraging people's propensity to give, to make change, we need to recognize that that is multifaceted for the vast majority of people. And, and in fact, I think that GI, you know, when you think about how much of, of our action for good in the global north is mediated by technology or, or just the organized actions by incorporated entities. I think that in fact, what we, what you may, what we may see that if as we open up our definitions and are more inclusive, we're gonna find that this is even more true, right?
Speaker 2 00:20:51 I mean, you look at giving Tuesday as an example, we've known for a long time that most people on giving Tuesday are taking more than one action in the us. The most common behavior is donating money, but only donating money is the least common behavior. So that's really interesting, but particularly in light of the fact that most of the campaigns are fundraising campaigns, most of the campaigns were just asking people for money, and yet that's not how people are responding. So what would happen if we broadened our definitions, if our practice was more inclusive and more holistic, I think we would see that even more of a reality.
Speaker 3 00:21:29 Can I ask a follow up regarding the technology of generosity at large Woodrow in explicit? I think if, if someone like Sheila Warren were here, for example, what she would say is that web 3.0 is an incredibly untapped organizing and movement building resource for nonprofits, both in the United States and internationally, and because so much of the focus of that word generosity, which I've heard for years as part of the open source community, you know, what do you see as the role of things like open source, like DAOs, uh, and web 3.0, and like all of the new web three technologies coming online in expanding generosity participation.
Speaker 2 00:22:19 I mean, certainly I see the promise. Um, I think one of the things that, that we need to be really cognizant of is that the technology really depends on who's using it, right? So when we look at web three and these other emergent technologies, the, the promise there is that the, those technologies and their, and the way that they're managed can be more democratized, more in the hands of the actual givers. That depends on a lot of infrastructure and, and systems being developed in order to enable that. Um, and we were hearing similar things about crowdfunding, and it's not that it's not true. It's just that the technology is not the main driver of the behavior, right? So just as you, I think it was a mistake for organizations 10 years ago, 15 years ago to be like, wow, we just, we need to do our, we just need some social media and then it'll all be
Speaker 3 00:23:14 Right. I was just thinking about social media.
Speaker 2 00:23:15 Everyone's gonna be fundraising for us. Um, technologies can reduce barriers. Technologies can reduce friction. All of that is good, but the technology doesn't drive the behavior. Right. And, and, um, and we, it, what I think is most interesting is to observe how unincorporated organizations of giver org, uh, structured networks of givers are co-opting technology for their own purposes. And that is, that is interesting to, to observe. And I think that the nonprofit sector should be looking at what is happening there and not try to co-op it, but collaborate with it. Right. And collaborating with those networks that emerge people use lots of means, right? They'll set up a Facebook group, they'll share a Google doc, they'll do all kinds of things. Um, so I think that there's, there's lots of, there's lots of interesting new technologies and observing how people choose to co-op. Those for, for good can lead us to some success. But I don't think that we can kind of say, all right, well, we are, we're just going to adopt that for the nonprofit industrial complex. I think the question is how can organizations meaningful meaningfully collaborate with those networks? And that isn't about the technology that's about the relationships it's
Speaker 3 00:24:41 Not behavior,
Speaker 2 00:24:43 Right?
Speaker 3 00:24:43 Yep. And that was the same thing that we said about social media years ago. And that was, if you build it, they won't come it's about the behavior you're driving, utilizing that.
Speaker 2 00:24:53 That's right.
Speaker 1 00:24:54 Woodrow. What's the one thing you wanna make sure all of us leave here knowing
Speaker 2 00:25:01 One thing. Can I, I'm gonna do
Speaker 3 00:25:03 Two, can that be an itemized list? Yes. Yeah, it's fine. We'll, you know, you can lead the witness. We'll
Speaker 1 00:25:08 Allow it to it's. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:25:09 <laugh> um, so here are my two. So I think when we look at donations, two nonprofits, um, as we're tracking the fundraising effectiveness project, I think, um, we have, we have a, we still have an opportunity to take advantage of the growth that we saw in 2020. What I want fundraisers to understand in particular is that it is incumbent on us to do that. There was there, I heard a lot in Vegas of fundraisers talking about generosity as though, uh, we are kind of at the, uh, at the mercy of the whim of the, the donor. And that's not the way it operates. We are, we motivate the behavior. So we need to be, we need to take that responsibility and opportunity. Um, and then, and then the other part of this, and I think one of the ways to do that is really, um, demonstrated by our initial look here at how people are giving. And these informal networks lose the scarcity mentality, think about givers as whole people and, and invite them into an engagement with your cause as opposed to some kind of transactional relationship. And that's, that's kind of the way to get that done the way to be more inclusive, to way to ensure that we're, we're, uh, that all givers have the kind of agency to make change.
Speaker 3 00:26:39 Woodrow, I can't thank you enough for this, by the way, this is the part, the why it matters episode where Tracy finds out something new and chokes themself up about it. Because if you take this up to like a hundred thousand feet, you know, what you are really talking about is tapping into that core motivation of me as another human being, seeing another human being in need. And I think there's a reason why the word generosity has persisted all of these years. It's because I don't give, because I expect something in return. Matter of fact, some folks give without ever understanding where that gift went. That's like sort of the core of mitzvah giving. And I think the thing that I would invite you, you know, to comment on is as we have become at least here in the United States, more of a polarized world than we've ever lived in before any suggestions on how we can keep folks really refocused on that sort of instinct of generosity and, and hope, honestly, because it's easy to give up hope in polarization.
Speaker 2 00:27:47 There is an enormous amount of generosity in giving in the us and around the world. And, and I think that, um, we need to celebrate that because first of all, um, you might, it's just too depressing, not to <laugh> and secondly, generosity is generative, right? And, and when we see the people that, that we're, that we're trying to be allied with to make change, and we start dropping, um, the kind of, uh, duality of giver receiver, um, transactional mindset that, that like, tho that action, that behavior, that inclusive, um, approach that, that will tend to propagate. And so just the OB the, the recognition and the celebration of it will tend to make it grow
Speaker 3 00:28:44 Like attracts, like, thank you so much for your time today and, and for your generosity, this was incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:28:54 One thing that it, it inspires me to think about is that generosity is who people are, and we're quick to turn it into what people do, and we're missing a huge piece when we do that. And, um, so I, I would actually like to thank you and Tim San Antonio, to people who continue to, uh, just lead me into thinking about this in a different way. And as an economist, I'm always a little suspicious of giving you guys have really helped me get there with data in a way that I'm excited about. And that's the perfect segue into introducing Tim San Antonio, who is up next.
Speaker 2 00:29:31 Actually, Tim, we got one more speaker
Speaker 1 00:29:32 Before 10 S I'm so sorry. I did not
Speaker 3 00:29:35 Good. This is what happens when you try to run the conference, too.
Speaker 1 00:29:38 There you go.
Speaker 2 00:29:39 It's
Speaker 4 00:29:40 Kinda happened, Tim Tracy, Woodrow, thank you all so much. Um, be sure to check out their podcast that they have. Uh, now it matters. Uh, now
Speaker 3 00:29:49 Why it matters do XYZ is gonna be our new domain and we can be subscribed to on Spotify, apple, Amazon, and all the usual places we call it a truthful tech talk.
Speaker 4 00:30:00 Love it. Thanks Tracy. You sure to check that out? Thank you. Woodrow. Tracy, Tim, for joining us.
Speaker 3 00:30:07 This is Tracy KZA
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