Speaker 1 00:00:08 My name is Tracy . I am director of innovation here at now. It matters. And one of the two moderators for our panel today, I am going to toss it over to our CEO, Tim, to do a few more introductions and then our panelists to introduce themselves. So Tim, take it away.
Speaker 2 00:00:31 Tracy, thanks everybody for joining us. We're really excited to have you. We just want to take a moment and set the context for this discussion, and we know that there are new and transformative approach to nonprofit Sierras. And, um, we're excited about the technology and industry wide changes that are coming up before we begin, we wanted to call out a few things. So the first one is that this is the beginning conversation. This is not the last conversation to have on this. Um, and we hope that this creates space for more dialogue, between all businesses that serve the economy. Part of what we want to see is more partners coming together to talk about this. So we're planning for more opportunities for additional engagement and collaborations in the future would love to hear how you want to be involved in the future of those conversations.
Speaker 2 00:01:24 Uh, the second thing is that we selected emerging leaders from this panel that represent businesses who are creating wins in the impact economy. These wins go beyond their own brand, and we're excited about what they're doing. Uh, and today we're centering on the strategies and responsibilities of these businesses to mitigate data extra amalities through partnerships and intentional growth. Uh, they're not, these are not the only emerging leaders in the ecosystem. These are not the only voices we wanted to recognize the early pioneers that helped shape both the feasibility and delivery of software to non-profits, especially Blackbaud's Salesforce and Microsoft, Microsoft who have done so much to, uh, be starters in the, in the space. And lastly, while we sat together, thought to pull together, um, leaders acknowledge that there's more care and attention to needed to better represent leaders from under underrepresented backgrounds and experiences. We're already planning to have future round tables such as this, that reflect that care and attention. And we recognize that as an industry, there's still more ground to cover here in terms of the format for today, questions will be asked around Robin and, uh, different panelists will open each question. So the order will be Gabe then Julia, then Tim. And with that, I'd like to ask our panelists, introduce themselves, Gabe, we're going to start with you.
Speaker 3 00:02:49 Yeah, thanks so much, Tim. I appreciate it. So my name is Gabe Cooper. I am the CEO and founder of virtuous software. We are a responsive fundraising platform. That's helping nonprofits better connect personally with owners.
Speaker 4 00:03:03 Great. Hi everybody. My name's Julia Ford. I use she her pronouns. I'm the director of nonprofits at HubSpot com pretty exclusively from the nonprofit sector. Definitely just want to address right off the bat, Helen, thank you so much for that question. Um, it's definitely something that I noticed too, and I think we'll continue to amplify throughout the discussion. And as Tim mentioned in follow up conversations in panels as we move forward and for all of those, not in the chat, the question was about the whiteness of the panel, which I think is really important to acknowledge. Yes,
Speaker 5 00:03:40 Absolutely agreed. Um, my, my name is Tim Sarah Antonio. I'm a director of corporate brand at neon one and, uh, I've been working in the sector for coming up to two decades now in various roles and, uh, uh, really want to thank Helen for bringing that up explicitly out of the gate because it is something that is kind of part of why, you know, what we need to address. So looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 00:04:11 Thank you. Um, and, uh, I'm going to start with you, Dave. We invited all of you, not just you gave, because we know that you think a new definition of CRM is emerging. So our opening question is what is the new definition, definition of CRM and why does it matter to nonprofits and the impact the economy?
Speaker 3 00:04:34 Yeah, I think there's probably a couple of elements that, and extended to hear Julia and Tim speak into it as well. But, uh, for me, I think that historically a CRM has just been a place where nonprofits dumped their data, right. It's just been a big holding tank and we get our data in there. Hopefully we can get it back out, um, as opposed to sort of how we're thinking about it, which is, you know, more of an offensive weapon for generosity is the way we say it or a way to build personal connections with donors at scale. And so a CRM has to be more than just a way to hold data. It has to integrate with all the tools across your entire ecosystem. It has to remove the silos of data in your organization, in between your teams. And it has to be a proactive way to drive generosity to your organization. So I think particularly within the nonprofit space, we usually frame around those sort of key ideas.
Speaker 4 00:05:36 Great. I think Gabe, I'm going to layer on to that, um, in terms of the new definition of CRM and what that means moving forward, I think to your point, we've, we've evolved. Um, all industries have evolved and especially in the last few years, what we're recognizing is it doesn't really matter what data repository we on the backend, what matters is how we're meeting our supporters, our constituents, our communities in their moment and providing impact. And so the idea of a cohesive digital ecosystem to best serve those folks is I think where CRM is going, um, not just in the nonprofit space, but in a global all industry scale.
Speaker 5 00:06:22 I always try to view this question through the lens of the user, especially, um, I got my start as a grant writer in 2008, which means I immediately pivoted to individual donor engagement. And so, uh, it was very kind of harrowing, especially then, because we've been through a few different evolutions of even what CRM is globally, as well as in the nonprofit space in particular. And because there's kind of a few different ways that you could think about bucketing it because you have kind of horizontal players that are in different verticals. You know, I'm going to be doing a CRM for helping, uh, car manufacturers work with people, that type of stuff, um, or, uh, you know, individual businesses, small businesses, but the nonprofit space also has its own particular set of specialized needs in many ways. And so there's a lot of folks that kind of focus in and drill in, um, into that particular part of the sector.
Speaker 5 00:07:22 But, uh, it's a very interesting way to think about it, especially because even the term CRM compared to other sectors is relatively new in the broad history of, uh, the revenue generation of where we've been. You might've even heard it as donor management systems back in the day or, uh, all our other sorts of terms to get, uh, you know, to have people sign up for your marketing list when you get down to it. So, uh, this is a really pertinent, interesting conversation because also there's this sophistication that's happening that I haven't seen in a very long time as somebody who's been kind of on the ground for a lot of it,
Speaker 1 00:08:05 Those responses from where I'm sitting are producing a number of thoughts and considerations. I think there is a second question that is a up, um, you know, most explicitly that I want to toss over to Julia around what this is going to look like for everyday nonprofits staff. And what does this mean for the types of businesses you are and the types of partnerships that you're facilitating. And I know Julia, you have some explicit expertise in this through HubSpot, but all of you have said very interesting components to this notably an offensive weapon for generosity, Gabe meeting folks in the moment, Julia and Tim, you know, CRM is an evolution of these older structures. So I would love to hear all of your thinking on what this means for how you're now acting. Uh, and Julie I'll toss it to you to kick that off.
Speaker 4 00:09:05 Yeah, I think as we, as we sort of evaluate the morphing of the sector to a more de-centralized external facing system with a really powerful crafted backend system, we open up multiple doors, windows and opportunities to innovation. Um, and that comes from both our supporters and constituents in terms of how they become champions of our cause. And we deliver information to them as well as to how we do business every single day. I think to Helen's question around the whiteness of the panel, historically products made specifically for nonprofits have mirrored the philanthropic industry from the top down, which has created a massive inequity. And now what we're seeing is that innovation at scale is happening from startups and entrepreneurs. Many of whom are women, people of color, and they are leading in ways that, that our industry now needs to be responsive to. So folks like classy, for example, or I'm just trying to think overflow, which is doing crypto and stock donations online. These are examples of places where innovation is happening more quickly, either because they span a number of industries or are smaller. And our role and responsibility is to ensure that we can keep up with them. We can integrate with them. We can give our donors all of the tools that they need to be successful, and we can give our staff and our teams what they need to aggregate data report on it, all those sorts of nonprofit cycles that we're used to.
Speaker 5 00:10:40 I, I think that's an amazing point because when we ever, we have this conversation, especially as we move into 2022, there's been such an acceleration that I've been thrilled with about kind of understanding the underpinnings of power, understanding the underpinnings of, of the money in the sector. Um, and, and you're seeing this through philanthropic critiques, like community centric, fundraising, or, um, kind of some of the, um, amazing work about kind of indigenous analysis of where money is coming from. But then you also do have to pattern that on the business side, that's happening in kind of technology itself, because you we've seen numerous numerous accounts of large companies like Google that struggle with this question in terms of hiring and also elevating to the executive suite. Right? So this is very fascinating as these two sides intersect because they're asking the same question, but from different lenses, right.
Speaker 5 00:11:53 And that also extends out into, and I don't want to jump ahead, Tracy, in terms of different things that we might be discussing, but even as we think about the very basis of what the systems that we're using to generate revenue mean well screening, well screening is a perfect example. Something that a lot of organizations rely on, and yet there are very interesting underpinning questions that might come up if you actually start to truly unpack well, what does that actually mean? What does it mean when we're doing zip code analysis on where we're going to be doing segmentation? What does it mean when we're building artificial intelligence structure about requested giving amounts and things of this nature? What's the model behind that? So there's so many different questions that really underpin this. Um, it doesn't excuse the panel itself because that's why we need to work on that more.
Speaker 5 00:12:50 But I think that we're all so very, very, very much excited about the conversation and thinking about it so much more. And we have to do much more to elevate these other partners to, to Julia's point companies like overflow. Um, sometimes they might struggle with getting these newer tech companies with getting access, to talking to large players, to getting access to API APIs, even in order to connect into these larger client bases, let alone, let's not even talk about the money to even fund the operations itself. So, um, we're in a really positive direction now, I think because of the openness that we're now seeing with companies like virtuous, HubSpot and neon one, and others being able to talk to each other, have these conversations, share candidates for job positions too. So
Speaker 1 00:13:41 I'm jumping Tim really quick and gave, get your thoughts on this as well. Uh, but then I also have a follow-up related to things that both of you have said, and you're on mute by the way.
Speaker 3 00:13:56 Um, yeah, I think for me, uh, nonprofit teams are doing their best to shorten the distance between donors and the impact they're trying to create a world. And so for that to happen, like for nonprofit staff, nonprofit staffs are usually stretched to the max, like a little bit underfunded, a little bit understaffed. And so I think that the tools of the future will increase visibility. So nonprofit staff need to see data, not just one person that works in accounting, but everybody at the organization needs to see full insights. They need to increase collaboration across teams. So it's sort of breakdown, team silos and then, uh, integrate really well and easily, right? So there's amazing like overflows, but, and a couple of times there's amazing tools out there. They need to integrate quickly and easily because it's going to be unrealistic for most nonprofits to sort of hire a fully, a full engineering staff, the cobbled together, eight different tools, right? And so it's like easy to use, easy to integrate, creates more collaboration and creates team visibility. And I think if we do that, well, we really do equip teams without adding staff to be able to reach more donors and shorten that distance to impact.
Speaker 1 00:15:09 You've all alluded to that and gave and Julianne explicit. I want to call out a couple of things cause Julia, you brought up even utilizing crypto, which is a decentralized approach to owning components of transparency, essentially. So does that then therefore mean that we're moving to a future that is not put everything in a central CRM and hope for the best, but we are moving towards that decentralized future of we are now finding new strategies with newly emerging tools and technologies to make CRM happen, regardless of where you consider your central data repository.
Speaker 4 00:15:53 I, I would personally say, I think it's happening at both ends of the spectrum. We see some large acquisitions in the space right now that are talking about aggregate software under one umbrella. And then we see conversations like this one and software companies like the three of ours who were saying, how do we integrate with as much as possible? How do we get out there and make it so that we have these open APIs? So that folks on the nonprofit side, on the organizing side can do what they want when they want, but have one central place to do reporting and manage their internal activities as well as their end supporter experience, right? Because we are needing to compete necessarily with best in class brands, again at every end of the sector and spectrum far outside of non-profits. So that's sort of a non-answer Tracy is the like, choose your own adventure. But I think CRM and especially the way that many folks are approaching it, feel this, this necessary responsibility again, to meet the moment and say, this is the reality of digital that we're in. How do we create open accessible systems for as many folks as possible and give them choice and transparency
Speaker 3 00:17:09 Just to add onto what Julia said. I think it is important that we think about providing nonprofits with options. They should be able to choose best in breed and easily plug in stuff. And it's sort of a dis-aggregated way at the same time. I think it's important to understand that that sometimes it is nice to have a coherent user experience across a broad set of function. So, you know, to plug Julius company, we use HubSpot here at virtuous to manage our sales team. And part of the reason we do it is it like it can manage sales and marketing together in one place because we don't want to have to take together four different tools. And so we in thinking about it, this aggregated reality, we have to respect that sometimes for some nonprofits, it's just actually easier to do a few different things under one roof, without figuring out the eight tools they use to pull it off.
Speaker 5 00:18:03 I mean, the, the, the market data is clear and there's been a few studies on this, but, but even recent reports that I've seen show that the average organization across revenue size, it should be noted. Um, you know, under 250,000, all the way up to $5 million plus, which is which, you know, we can get into the market numbers, but most people are using three to five different data sources to even just talk to a donor. We could be constant contact it be, it could be QuickBooks. You could be using Salesforce and Intacct for financial reconciliation, a new part on top of that. You can be using HubSpot alongside fundraise up. So the reality is, is that data transfer in flow no matter what need to be open for very, very long time. What I experienced, I worked for Blackbaud's 11th client, right? And if I wanted to go process it online donation and Julia and Gabe know where I'm going with this one, cause I told this story before, but for folks who weren't there, I'd have to walk over to another building in the middle of Chicago, winter, mind you, and take a piece of paper that I had printed out with a credit card number, go over to a banking interface at another building, walk up three flights of stairs, then plug that in.
Speaker 5 00:19:17 I'm under 40, by the way, okay. This is not an old man story. This is like how recent the tech has evolved quick because now built in payment processing payments is some of the quickest growing elements. And that's just even base credit cards. We've seen about a 10% a year over year, increase in check usage by across generations with what we've seen. So, so payments, even though I'm, I'm the guy who still loves direct mail and things like that, integrated payments, integrated communications. A lot of that really came through companies like HubSpot. And a lot of that really started getting innovated by companies like, like virtuous there. And so they'll companies that aren't taking those holistic donor engagement cycles into account are the ones that are going to get left behind. And the, the nonprofits are going to be the ones left holding the bag because suddenly, you know, it's going to be another gift work situation. And you're like, you're on the street. Sorry, your system's getting shut down or we're going to Jack up prices. That's the last thing that we want. That's the last thing that we want, especially for the smaller organizations,
Speaker 2 00:20:27 Something that I'm curious as we're talking about, this is, uh, you know, and this, this gets at the acquisition of network for good. That is very recent, but do business structures matter outside of like, I mean, we think about this all the time because we're in this business. So we think about it, but for non-profits, you know, their users, the data user experience, et cetera, do these business structures actually play a role in a, you know, win or loss for the industry at large. And, um, can I start do it? Can you start that? And
Speaker 4 00:21:07 I was really looking forward to Tim as kicking that one off I'm I'm happy to take a stab.
Speaker 4 00:21:15 I think business structures do matter. They might not matter in terms of how we're interacting with the software day to day or how great the marketing is and appealing the initial offer is, but they matter in terms of long-term growth and scale and innovation and business structures for SAS companies matter because ultimately they impact the culture of the folks that work there and the product that's being put out, which the nonprofit is the consumer, right. Or you could argue that our donors are the ultimate consumers, they are the ones that get the downstream impact of that business structure. So yes, I do think it matters. Um, I think it's a conversation that we don't have enough. Uh, and so I appreciate the question.
Speaker 1 00:22:00 I think that companies that serve non-profits Julia, just as a, follow-up honestly have a responsibility to, to more deeply engage with those kinds of structures between each other and also how it solves inefficiencies for the ecosystem at large than they would, if they were just serving, say, for example, rope manufacturing, or, or rote oil drilling or, or rope distribution,
Speaker 4 00:22:27 Um, recognizing that we're going to assign a value prop here. I think the safe answer here is that what we would hope is that every company who exists to serve customers really considers the way that they treat their teams, structure, their products, look at innovation as, as in service to their primary target audiences and demographics. We know that that reality doesn't happen all of the time for nonprofits and something that, you know, we're continuously asking ourselves at HubSpot. It's like, why are we here? What do we think that we have to offer? Why is this important to be showing up in this moment in space? And I think that working for a company that's constantly interrogating that is kind of a breath of fresh air. Like when do you lean in versus not? And so, yeah, like we should all be considering it. And I do think because the nonprofit space, the social impact space, the for good space has this very direct value prop assigned to it. The onus on the companies to show up much more intentionally is, is higher. For sure.
Speaker 3 00:23:40 I think something Julia alluded to earlier is really the difference between corporate structuring corporate culture and sometimes structured dictates culture a little bit. But I would say that, um, with any company, no matter how they're capitalized, if their primary goal is to squeeze every last bit of profitability out of a quarter and just spreadsheet the business to death, that's not going to serve nonprofits well, if your goal is to focus on product and customers, relentlessly and care deeply about what they do and know that growth and profitability come as a result of loving nonprofits, then that's great, right? But you can, businesses can be capitalized differently and get to that same result if you're really focused on culture along the way
Speaker 5 00:24:31 I, to try to hone in my thoughts on this.
Speaker 5 00:24:35 I know, I know. Um, so there's a few different threads here. First. I want to start with standards because if we go back historically, the reason that companies even in very capital intensive industries and very competitive industry, such as back in the day, the railroad industry, the reason that they needed to work together is because it would be more inefficient to their bottom line, even to not, well, I'm going to use this size of a nail versus that size of a nail. If we go back into the, you know, back in the day of when railroads were being built across the United States, but that even it still extends into all the different other types of sectors that we see through manufacturing and, and Peck, even a good one that we could use as a current example for a B to C cause ultimately I think all the types of marketing out there is human human.
Speaker 5 00:25:37 But if you look at the liquor industry, all the different people coordinate because there's a primary aggregate database that tells you sales data, that if I'm Diageo, I can go in and see how the Chicago market is transitioning. And that justifies me opening a Guinness brew pub, which they are doing in the area. But that's because everybody's feeding into this, the nonprofit sector does not have this. We have a few things such as the fundraising effectiveness project or coordination through things like the giving Institute. But the reality is is that we don't have that primary aggregate database. Other than the best thing that we have is that one day of the year giving Tuesday where hundreds of providers are putting their data in, but there is pushes fundraising effectiveness project. I'm going to always beat the drum around that one. And it's where multiple providers are putting their data into one depository, talk to Gabe about it.
Speaker 5 00:26:41 Gabe is a fan. We just got to work out the mechanics, of course. But the reality is, is that providers putting their differences aside is really big, important thing because then it understands proper trends in the sector. And if you want to know how impactful that type of data can be McKenzie Scott sited fed data in one of her recent items in terms of the growth of under 5,000 donors talking about the growth of charitable giving individual giving in the United States. So this type of, of understanding of where we're going as a sector is really key for our companies to work together because otherwise we're getting economic decisions made by nonprofits on potentially just market-driven data survey, data or gut. And the final point, going back to the original question on business structure is just look at the payment processing freemium model. I'm not talking about Salesforce.
Speaker 5 00:27:41 Salesforce has a grant program of licenses. That's a completely different thing I'm talking about. Hi, make your donors pay for the system. And there's a few companies that are starting to rise up. I actually posed this question on Twitter this morning, got some really interesting responses from thought leaders out there. And it wasn't a, uh, it was a gray area because we're all like, does that push the overhead problem onto the donor? Do we make them deal with the fact that we are not getting proper investments into the infrastructure into the sector and other people were like, but it's the donors agency to cover it. It's an opt-in in some ways. So there are really big questions when it comes to even the basis of am I charging a monthly fee or not? What am I getting for that? So I'm going to zip it.
Speaker 2 00:28:35 That is, that is actually a feed into the next question, which is how, and I think that you answered some of this already. Um, so feel free to answer the rest of this specifically. Um, you know, but how has your company building towards this future? What are the strategy and technology components on this? And this is, this is really, and I just want to say this out loud. This is a great chance for each of you to say, here is what our company is doing differently and do a little brand advocacy.
Speaker 5 00:29:08 Oh, this is the pitch question. It's the pitch question
Speaker 2 00:29:12 That it's not just that, so yeah. And Tim, please do start us off with that.
Speaker 5 00:29:17 Yeah. I'll keep it tight. I think that, you know, I've been working at neon for, for 10 years now. Last November was my 10th year anniversary. And the thing that I've always loved is out of the gate when I used it and even used it for my small nonprofit email was built in peer to peer fundraising. Was there, um, events was there an online store was there. So a lot of the revenue generation items were there, but then also checking ourselves at the door and going, we are not an accounting system. 70% of the small nonprofit market is using QuickBooks. Why don't we just do a good QuickBooks integration? And so, um, that ethos has continued to evolve. We have a new events and ticketing tool. Um, and so that's coming out, there's things around communications that we've upgraded in forms, but, um, I've always said that there's a third way, you know, back five years, you know, it's either a closed ecosystem or fully open ecosystem and you're on your own. And I feel like there's a guided, curated approach and that's, that's, I think all of us would generally greed. That's kind of where we should be heading as a sector. So that's, that's kind of what we kind of think about and we have the payment processing connect and all that type of stuff done.
Speaker 2 00:30:35 Steph Gabe, we'd love to hear that for you. How has your company building towards this teacher?
Speaker 3 00:30:40 Yeah, so, uh, we're kind of a single issue company. We only care about growing global generosity. And, um, we think that one of the big hurdles that historically has been, um, donor retention, donor acquisition, particularly for everyday donors. Right. And, um, we think the reason for that is because most of the tactics and software out there has been designed to sort of give spray and pray broadcast on messaging where every donor in your database gets exact same message. At the same time, we think the world has changed in the last 15 years and people now expect a personal connection to the causes they care about. So we call that responsive fundraising. We want nonprofits to be able to treat every donor like a major donor. So we build our entire system around this idea of how do you build personal relationships with donors at scale, by listening to donors really well at scale, figuring out who they truly are and what they care about by connecting to them and personal, meaningful ways using things like automation, because it's really hard to do that at scale. And then by suggesting the right next step at the right time. So everything in our system is sort of built around that or idea of how do I be more responsive to my donors to grow generosity.
Speaker 4 00:32:00 That's a perfect like Baton handoff. I think in that same fashion of meeting folks where they're at and providing a really great user experience and also just leveraging innovation that's coming from the communities that we're in and serving, uh, HubSpot as an entity is, is very committed to integrating with as many folks as possible. We've got over a thousand natively built integrations for our platform and our marketplace. And we're super excited to grow that specifically for the nonprofit sector in the coming years. And so that's how we're kind of approaching this future view of CRM is choice, um, but also quality of product at the same time, right? Not just growing for growing sake,
Speaker 1 00:32:47 By the way, there's also a commonality Julia, to exactly that point in everything that you just said, and that is, I've heard different flavors from each of you about how you are leading with values. And I think something that is really important to the nonprofit ecosystem is meeting value with value in a mission driven world. So I do want to say all of you are expressing some facet of not, uh, you're welcome to challenge me on that, but I think, you know, this is a new way of doing business that you're identifying.
Speaker 5 00:33:26 I think so. And I think it's also through the education that we do, you know, even in the lead up of discussions for just the panel itself, flagging it should, we should be having live captions, come through for instance, on this. Uh, you should be seeing that. So accessibility is important. Um, the way that people learn and educate, you know, compensation for speakers, things like that, those are, those are happening in the, in, in the industry. Um, and just overall the conversations and, and not doing performative, oh, hi, look, here's a list of all the nonprofits that we serve that it's black history month, right? Like that type of stuff. We're, we're all being very intentional about this. At least the companies that I like to align myself with. And that's why I'm really happy to be on this panel today. So yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 00:34:13 I'm going to use that actually as a segue for the next question that I had for, I'm going to toss this one over to Gabe, because I know this is something that's near and dear to your heart, but, um, we talk a lot about customer success and we also talk a lot about failure, uh, and the greater ecosystem around us. Doesn't always do that. But what I'm curious to hear you kick off on is what does success look like now? What does failure look like now? And, and, and frankly, how do we prevent unnecessary technology implements implementations for the ecosystem at large to keep that greater efficiency moving forward?
Speaker 3 00:35:02 Yeah, that's a good question. We always talk about, you want a happy and successful customers. Those are two very different things. And I would say Tim and Julia probably know what I'm talking about, but, um, it's one thing if you're happy and I want you to be happy, but I want you to increase your impact. Like I, we deeply care about, we want you to grow generosity, increase your impact, right? And so I think for that to happen, realistically, in a modern world, from any technology vendor, you have to expect what we talk about as a product playbook and people, all three, software's not going to solve any problem for you by itself. If you're doing all the wrong things. So you need a playbook, you need education, you need to know what plays to run to really, um, meaningfully grow generosity. And you actually need a team of people to surround you, to give you the advice and help and consulting you need. So it can be from folks like you guys, um, Tracy and Tim who can come alongside and provide that. But often even from the vendors, you should have a team of people that cares deeply about your results and is able to support you in that. So I think to be successful now, that has to be the expectation that there's not just a product that it's product playbook and people all three to be successful.
Speaker 4 00:36:19 I love that answer. And I, I would just add on, I think customer success also looks like arming nonprofits with the right kind of data to learn from the folks that they're trying to reach. So it's not coming only from SAS leaders, consultants, it's really coming from the people that are at the forefront of the social change that we want to see. And so how do we leverage these software systems to collect real data in a, just in transparent way to then better serve up our missions, our stories back to the same audience that we're learning and growing alongside.
Speaker 5 00:36:58 And I think it's also a kind of walking through the importance of which data points, because you don't want vanity data, driving decisions, like number of likes on your Facebook page does not translate into revenue. And so, um, I'm actually reading, never lose a customer again by Joey Coleman, really good book. And that one starts by saying the moment that somebody like the moment, somebody signs a contract, for instance, with any of our companies, for, for some sort of service, either as a consultant service provider or sauce software, the moment money is exchanged. Two things are happening. I'm excited and I'm scared shitless. And those two things happen exactly in parallel. If you think about anytime that you make a decision, especially a big decision you're at the same time, this is, it doesn't matter. It's our art, it's not just our industry. This is across the board in any type of transaction.
Speaker 5 00:37:57 If you make a purchase, you're assuming the thing's going to help you. And if it's not very clear immediately the next step on how it's going to help you and how you can begin that journey, you start to freak out. And that doesn't mean that you're on the wrong path. It's just that that's just how people react to things. So I also feel that on top of that, and I've seen more, I'm so thankful seeing more and more of this, it's also building that peer community because it's getting more fractured, right? In terms of, you know, you can't just necessarily rely on, on the local AFP association to answer all of your needs and to create that affinity for you. So we're seeing more community building and more pure building of people being able to come together and also collaborate with each other. And, and, and you're seeing this also through different initiatives, like giving days, giving circles, mutual aid, lots of different stuff, where people are saying, I think the structures that we've had in place aren't really going to work anymore. We need a different way. The phrase it's always been done that way just as not matter anymore
Speaker 1 00:39:10 Is, you know, one follow-up and I'll do it in the same order, you know, it gave Julia Tim one follow up that you're making me think about is what are the sort of, you know, gotchas for lack of a better word. What are the new gotchas that any particular technologist at a non-profit needs to be aware about, uh, when it comes to how you're defining success and failure and customer engagement now, like what's changed? Like what comes top of mind there?
Speaker 3 00:39:45 Well, I mean, I think, um, it, a lot of it comes down to just the self-awareness of your own capabilities as an organization, because you do have so many choices out there and there's, there's some amazing choices out there without naming names. Some of the choices provide infinite flexibility. Um, but then some nonprofits aren't equipped to sort of build things from scratch or integrate four or five things together. And so I think one of the gotchas is, is getting stars in your eyes and not being self-aware enough to know what your own capabilities are as an organization. And then just get paralyzed in this never ending technology, chase of spending more money and trying to get to this perfect one system that rules them all. And, um, I've just seen so many nonprofits flush really good donor money down the toilet over the course of years of chasing that dream.
Speaker 3 00:40:40 And so, um, I think that's a bigger, gotcha than it was 10, 15 years ago, just because there are so many great options available. And I think the other one is, is, um, sort of going and trying to solve technology before, you know, what metrics that really matter to you. Right? And so it's not coming into it going, Hey, I want to buy a hammer, which I don't even know what my nail is yet. It's instead going like, no, we, we know we want to increase donor retention. We know we want to get our community more involved. Here's the metrics that matter around that. And then, then how are we bringing technology to bear to solve those specific problems and starting with those key performance indicators first
Speaker 5 00:41:22 Here, here. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:41:24 I just realized that some people will only be listening. So can't see my emphatic nodding.
Speaker 1 00:41:30 I'm going to move to the next question. Thanks for
Speaker 2 00:41:32 That. Um, so we know technology moves very quickly and there's an assumption that all innovation is positive and that it creates trickle down innovation if you will. So we want to know what is the impact of emerging global technology innovation for nonprofits and how can, how connected is global and corporate innovation trends to spur nonprofit innovation trends. What's the link between those two. And then lastly, this one question, what roles and actions should nonprofit takes now to own the innovation of the technology that's designed for them?
Speaker 4 00:42:12 I think they really set us up for this though. Um, the reality is that innovation is going to happen regardless of whether or not the sector keeps up. And we also have to acknowledge that the sector is broad, vast contains multitudes. There are many different types of organizations who are playing in this space. Um, and so I just want to acknowledge that nonprofit is not nonprofit is not nonprofit all the time, but generally I think you got to get to ground with your team, with your organization again, within your community. What are you trying to do? How are you doing it? How are you going to talk about your success? This idea of equitable evaluation. We're not just out there for more funding dollars moving forward. We want to see impact. And what that means is really up to organizations to determine and decide and harness.
Speaker 4 00:43:02 And then you start to evaluate, okay, what is the information that we need to be successful? What are the channels of communication that we need to be successful? How do we fund this moving forward? And I think there's an opportunity for nonprofits, not in a five-year strategic plan, but on a quarterly basis to be reevaluating the answers to these questions and consistently innovating alongside technology, and then determining what they want to proactively bring in as opposed to being reactive to a market that as much as we wish it was always benevolent, might not always be out to serve their best interest. So I that's, what I would say here is that there is certainly a responsibility for big tech to think about the ways in which particularly those of us that have statements around social impact and being the change that we want to see in the world.
Speaker 4 00:43:54 Like we have a responsibility to make sure that we're doing things in a manner that is transparent, that gives nonprofit nonprofits that choice. And we have to recognize that in my mind, like mutual aid groups, they're the future of this sector and we're going to be taking from them versus the other way around in the future. So they put their stake in the ground and say, this is what we need and want. Here's the technology that's working for us. Here's the technology that isn't all of a sudden we become the responsive ones instead of the other way around.
Speaker 2 00:44:27 Thanks, Julia CMS.
Speaker 5 00:44:32 I mean, this is a big question in so many different ways, and it's also about agency at the end of the day. Um, because if you look at kind of, kind of some of the larger trends, especially how, uh, I love Amy Webb's book, the big nine on kind of the direction of AI and it is bleak like two out of the three scenarios that she's a futurist. And she starts talking about, look, we have these large companies in China, in the United States. And typically this is how decisions the United States on AI are made, which is it's not great. And so one, I feel like we can continue to push toward larger conversations where, where, uh, diversity equity and inclusion baseline drives the decisions themselves. But, but furthermore, non-profits have agency to not be used by corporations trying to, if you go into the cancer side, uh, the term pink washing for instance, oh, we're, we're just gonna, um, you know, slap some pink ribbons on stuff.
Speaker 5 00:45:44 And today it's cancer awareness. And so we've come a long way in terms of that critique, but we still have a long way to go, especially when it comes to corporate social responsibility, because elements of that could be hijacked by corporations to do performative actions as opposed to actually creating infrastructure for support. Um, there's really great, great examples of, of, um, of, uh, like Patagonia is like legit, right? Like that's a great example of a corporation. That's like, no, we live this, but we have to be on guard for that. And we have to actually step back as a sector and go, okay. And, and one of the other things is also, we have to, to stop the cycle of the shiny thing that the board members suggests to. All right, just because Reese Witherspoon and I pulled this up earlier, cause it was like she tweeted this yesterday in the near future.
Speaker 5 00:46:42 Every person will have a parallel digital identity, avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this? I don't know like elements. Yes. But I think that there's still pieces of web 3.0, for instance, that we need to see bear out in some ways before we all jump on the bandwagon and say, this is the thing. Now I am a fan of cryptocurrency for instance, but I have concerns and questions about some of the ways that the equity market is evolving for instance, when it relates to nonprofits and valuations. So, um, same when it comes to things like donor advise funds too, we have to be on guard to not just go wow, money. That's the only thing that we need to continue to, to say, Hey, just because there's an immediate bump, is this a sustainable long-term growth plan? So that's why things like what Gabe is talking about for donor retention, long-term donor retention. Those things are going to come through, not the short term dopamine burst, but the longterm plan that creates an authentic transformational relationship, not a transactional relationship. And that's the power of CRM. I tied it together.
Speaker 1 00:47:58 Yeah. And we're thinking about cryptos super. Like, I, I so want to just
Speaker 5 00:48:03 Like
Speaker 1 00:48:06 Gabe, I would love to hear your thoughts on
Speaker 3 00:48:09 Yeah. I mean, I don't think innovations intrinsically good or bad. I think it could be used for good or bad. I mean, I'm right. I'm grateful that we have electric light bulbs and vaccines and Carson. I think the, I think for the non-profit space to move ahead, they have to be able to move fast and keep up with innovation. You can't bury your head in the sand, but I think from a really pragmatic level, I think it's important that nonprofits, um, figure out ways to move faster. I think a lot of nonprofits have sort of been on this a year cycle, right. And so they do one three-year planning and everything's on eight year cycle and in techs kind of moving faster than that. And you have to be able to move faster than that. So the thing I'd like to see is nonprofits be a little bit more willing to test in even two week sprints. Right. Sort of, you know, go and read about a Google sprint and just roll out something quickly, see the impact it makes, um, measure if it's effective measure, if it's hurting or helping folks and then be willing to pull the plug and stop it. And so I think it's, it's probably more of acknowledging that innovation can be good, but we have to be willing to test and move quickly as nonprofits to validate that, uh, for ourselves and not sort of get caught up in a 30,000 foot view and become paralyzed.
Speaker 1 00:49:34 Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to innovate for its own sake and then become enamored of one's own name, navel gazing. Uh, you know, that, that happens a lot. I want to, uh, two things. One is just to remind our listeners, we have a 90 minute slot for this, so we have a couple more panel questions. And then if you want to chat in questions along the way, we'll take mark of them and begin answering them for all of you. Uh, and you know, we will commit to answering as authentically as we possibly can. Uh, as you chat things in
Speaker 5 00:50:13 Jeff, we knew we've seen your Canada question. I think we're just trying to figure out when the best I'd see Julia, I think you're typing in. So yeah, we love our friends to the great white north.
Speaker 1 00:50:23 So looking forward, I think one of the themes that gave you and Tim S both have touched on is important for the question I want to ask you next. And that is, I'll just say here, why it matters. We just interviewed Ryan Ozbek from pic net about nonprofit data as a public good. And being in that public, a good model, folks like Woodrow at giving Tuesday are obviously driving huge industry benchmarking initiatives. But one of the things that keeps coming up repeatedly about nonprofits beyond just integration is ownership, privacy and portability of data because we know data migrations themselves are a beast for many organizations. I want your thoughts. And Tim S I'll kick it off with you on how do we make sure there is genuine ownership and portability of nonprofit data in our work as businesses serving nonprofits.
Speaker 5 00:51:35 The simple answer here to a very difficult question, when you actually start to truly unpack this is if we look at the individual aggregate level, let's just keep it simple. If you are a business and your terms of service as a CRM or data provider for nonprofits, allow you to kidnap and hold on to data of the organization. If all contractual obligations have been met, that is unethical. If you make it hard to export things into a simple file, like CSV out of your system, that is unethical. And so the core basics are in design. Don't base your business model on the fact that you're going to hold people hostage. And I think that's a good starting point to make sure that others can take the Baton from me.
Speaker 1 00:52:40 Okay. If I see you nodding vigorously, jump in, please.
Speaker 3 00:52:43 Yeah. I, a hundred percent agree with Tim. I mean, we're just stewards and protectors of the data from the nonprofits we serve. And so we have to have, um, a huge security mindset where we know it's not ours. We're just stewarding that for a time. And it's our, our primary function is to protect it well and to make sure our nonprofit customers have full control. Um, yeah, but to Tim's point, like, I mean, prac practically, if, if somebody doesn't like your system or want to use you, they should be free to go wherever they want, like, and their stuff out whenever they want. And it's weird how our vertical in general has not embraced this idea. I don't know why you would want to keep a customer if they want to take their data somewhere else and put it somewhere else. It's like, it's, it doesn't serve the space well to have that mentality. And so some of the basic stuff that Tim addressed, like if we really care about collaborating across our space, if we really care about increasing generosity, we have to be very open-handed and know that we don't own it. It's not ours and we can't hold it hostage. And our job is just to protect it or nonprofits can use it for their benefit. That's it.
Speaker 1 00:54:06 Julia, any thoughts?
Speaker 4 00:54:09 Um, I think again, really well stated the idea of data privacy is completely separate from lockdown systems and just making sure that we're clear about that distinction as we move forward,
Speaker 5 00:54:24 I do want to add one other quick thing and it comes to communication elements because that's going to evolve very quickly when it comes to donor ownership of data. Um, because think about folks just in the audience, how many CRMs for, for nonprofits do you think you're personally, and I know I'm in a lot. Right. And so,
Speaker 5 00:54:48 Yeah, exactly same. Right. And so that's, that's the reality is that we have the Reese Witherspoon, digital avatar and in a very, very primitive way, all over the place. And one, our responsibility is to, to Gabes point to Julia's point, invest in security, invest in ensuring that very sensitive data is not shared when it shouldn't be. But beyond that, um, I think we're going to start to see an interesting movement about the ability for donors to drive their own ability to manage communications. What they're receiving, what they're not receiving. SMS laws are very strict when it comes to this. For instance, it might not seem like it by the way, when it comes to all the robo calls. But the reality is, is that it's very difficult for providers like us to just say, go buy a list of phone numbers and not have like somebody like Twilio, just like rip our license apart and go you're out of here. Right? And so, um, I think that's going to continue to evolve and the more savvy companies that pay attention to donor agency, as well as non-profit agency, that's, that's the ones that we need to support.
Speaker 1 00:56:04 I think there there's one in possibly two follow-ups. I want to call out Julia, your, your, your, uh, your qualification is an important one. And that is even in this perfect world that we're imagining. We still have to consider things like baseline privacy and baseline ownership of information that I as an independent person have in your systems. And that is a different line of thinking, but it does also imbue another layer of conversations to Tim S's point between businesses collaborating to serve nonprofits, right? Because it's no longer, Hey, I'm going to send a fully intelligible blind XML file across the internet and open email format with your information in it. That those that was 1994, you know, that is not where we are in 2022 for a myriad of very good reasons. My actual followup for all of you is do your perspective change. If I add the qualifier, how do we ensure data portability in an easy to move manner for nonprofits to Tim, your point about, you know, the baseline here should be a CSV, which still imbues a great deal of work on the implementation side of the house.
Speaker 4 00:57:28 I mean, I want to make it clear. I was making a distinction, but they're, they're very interconnected, right? So portability, I think portability is insured through partnership. And again, through this understanding of what the new world of CRM is and how we're going to move and building things that are accessible both from other software companies, as well as from our end users. So that's the first answer. And then the second is making sure that if we are introducing any level of data Portage, that that is communicated to the folks whose data is included in that Portage and none of us, well, I wouldn't say none of us, I would say most of us just accept, you know, we, we click the box. Yes. You can do this with my dad. I, yes. I would like to sign up here. Yes. I understand this. But to the extent that we can make that language, not rope and super clear, and also put forward, this goes back to the structural question that Tim L asked, like the reason why, um, we're, we're hoping for that portability and asking for folks to be okay with it, I think is it's compelling and powerful.
Speaker 4 00:58:38 So it is, here's the, how you do it. Here's the why you do it. Do you consent to us doing it?
Speaker 5 00:58:47 And the final item I want to add on to that helps address Kate's question that just came up, um, which, uh, let's see Tim. Okay. Great question. Well, Tim, I'm going to try to answer it actually, and, and tie it to this one, which is, it's not just getting the data out. It's not just transferring the data. It's once the data's in the system, we're moving into the database, moving into the house that you know, how to lock the doors, turn the, for the faucet on paint it correctly. So, you know, it looks good, right? It's on the vendor for small nonprofits to large nonprofits to make things easy. That is our job, a clear truly client-centered company companies like HubSpot companies like virtuous companies, like mine will make it easy for the organization, especially smaller nonprofits. That's where I lived and breathed my first job, $90,000 total for the entire operation.
Speaker 5 00:59:52 That was me and another staff member and all the overhead. That was my very first job. I was paid $28,000, 2008 inflation. Hasn't been that much crappy. Right? And so the reality is that the small nonprofits, which make up 70% of the market, they deserve to have the investments also made to them to not get left behind too. And I feel that as a sector, what we're doing is at the top level, what you don't see is coordination like this coordination on data analysis for benchmarking. And then that is helping influence the individual product roadmaps that we're all discussing and making, because then it's like, okay, good. I'm better informed about donor trends. I understand the market size that pertains to my business. We are now going to start to invest in making things much easier. That's my thought,
Speaker 2 01:00:54 But thanks, Tim. Um, and one, one thing to just say there is, at some point, this becomes bigger than brands, right? Like what we're talking about here extends beyond just the brand, which is why we wanted to invite your brands here, because you've demonstrated a willingness to participate in the, uh, in the impact economy that way. Um, and so, uh, I want to move to the last question before I do. I want to answer Helen's question about why the panels are white Helen, thank you for asking that, um, it made it, it was a hard choice, what we decided when we set this panel up and Tracy and I had a conversation about that in particular, what we said is for this conversation, we are, we are looking at three very specific CRM solutions that we think are, are doing something different. And we want the perspective of those, um, of those brands in this conversation for this conversation.
Speaker 2 01:02:04 That's why we're saying this isn't the last one is really important that this is not the last one. Um, and, and so we, when we approached, um, these brands, uh, that this is the panel that we approached. Um, and so I want to just say a CEO of now matters too, was looking at this panel and, and, and saying, here's what we're going to start this discussion a lot of that was my call, Tracy. And I did that in partnership. And so I just want to thank you for asking that question and give you my, uh, you know, as honest as I can ask her about that. Um, and, and faith that was from, from the beginning, a, a consideration that we were thinking about, and that brings us to our last question, which is how do we elevate people of color and women owned businesses that are emerging and looking for business partners and opportunities, um, and TMS. Um, we're going to ask you to kick off this question.
Speaker 5 01:03:00 Well, and it's interesting because I've been in the sector for a very long time and seeing the evolution of who owns the companies. I would go to AFP icon. I would go to N 10. And what was very, very evident in the kind of second phase of the evolution of CRM. The first phase, going back to maybe I would argue 1980s with Blackbaud being established by putting out an ad in a paper for a private school. And then you get into the different types of companies that start to shift into the cloud. There were people who were in. So I remember going to a conference and somebody handing me, I said, well, what's your, how, how do we get to see your donor management system? And it was a CD, right? But then you got the second evolution of, of CRM shifting into the cloud in the early two thousands.
Speaker 5 01:03:53 But throughout that process, very white dominated leadership. It was just folks who were, who were founding the companies, what we're starting to see, because there's more focus, more capital, more support, more infrastructure, more overall societal support of this as well is more, uh, women owned companies, companies, um, like Millie. Millie's a great example of kind of the more, uh, I wouldn't call it outright mutual aid, uh, um, items, but some really great investment for that woman owned business. There's overflow, uh, owned by, uh, BIP, BIP, IOC owners out in San Francisco, Vance, uh, and Kyle awesome people to work with. Um, and so especially some of the supporting technology infrastructures were innovations in thinking how to even approach revenue generation or impact analysis, because they have such a different perspective. That's, what's really cool because it's also pushing us to go, did we get it wrong?
Speaker 5 01:05:04 Like is the core foundation of what we're doing like off. And, and even if we think back to some of the old ways that CRMs are structured, there's no gender fields in some of the systems out there, even something base like that, uh, and custom fields don't count in some ways when you get down to it. And so, uh, it's having a lot of really interesting conversations that are not evident when you look at Twitter and you look at the official newsletters coming out and things like that that are absolutely happening. And I feel like it's such an exciting time, but the real onus and every single company, the reason I know about overflow as a certified integration partner for neon is because of virtuous. I got that tip off from them, right. I was like, wow. If virtuous is like working with this company, then I need to pay attention. And so it's that type of innovation that really drives it. And the same with some of the amazing, equitable work that HubSpot's been putting out. Um, uh, you know, I love that trends report by the way, Julia, it's really people should pick it up. So, um, that's what I got. Dave, what do you, what do you think though?
Speaker 3 01:06:19 Um, yeah, I mean, there's the obvious of being very intentional about how we hire and promote within each of our companies to make sure that we're not only diverse, but we're providing opportunity for people to have a seat at the table and belong. And so that's part of it, but to Tim's point, I think for, especially for vendors, like the folks here on the call, it's both looking back down the supply chain. And so Tim mentioned some great up and coming leaders and, and making sure we're providing opportunity and at bats for people that look different than us. Right. And so then, um, you know, sort of not just sort of racial and gender diversity, but diversity of thought, we want new voices in the space. And so how we think about our supply chain and who we're using and interacting with is really important.
Speaker 3 01:07:08 And then the stories that we're elevating within the nonprofits that we serve as well. Right. And so we all have a choice in the sort of voices that we amplify among the customers that we serve. And so I think that's part of it too, just so we can sort of give more space and air time, um, to a more diverse set of leaders. Um, particularly nonprofits, um, led by women of color and people of color right now. I think it's really important to establish that as like normative and, and honestly it is becoming far more normative in the non-profit space. I see. Good progress. And so, um, but we were the three of us on this collar in a unique position where we're amplifying the voices of a lot of our customers. And so I think it's incumbent upon us to, to, to normalize that and amplify those voices in informed ways. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 01:08:02 And I'll just jump in and say, I, I think that I can't wait for this conversation to change. I can't wait for it to change from how do we make space at a set table to how do we start to recognize we are? And I mean, we, as white folks, the global minority and the global majority is already demanding something that many of us are not going to be able to keep pace with. So this is not like, oh, it's the right thing to do. It's like, no, no, no. Like we're, we will be invited into spaces that are driving all of the tech innovation in the future. Um, and so that's not to diminish the points that are made. I, I wholeheartedly agree in terms of where power and resources are held currently today within, especially within the nonprofit sector, but as we look towards direct giving, as we look towards community organizing and mutual aid, as a model for true change, tech is going to have to get on board. And I think the companies that are centering diversity, inclusion and belonging in their work are, again, it's not just that it's the right thing to do. It is truly the only path forward as our world changes and our environment changes. So I can't wait for what this conversation looks like next year. I can't wait for what it looks like next month, but I just want to acknowledge, I think like the, the stakes are, they're not just high. They are, they're fundamental to how the world is moving.
Speaker 1 01:09:31 Yeah. Thank you. We are intentional about giving folks who have attended time for Q and a. So if you haven't already chatted in your Q and a, we will do so, uh, this, you know, or please do so. It is what I meant to say. Uh, and in the meantime, there's a number of questions queued up or to pick through. And I think maybe we had started digging into Catherine's. Maybe we should dig into that one first and then keep pivoting to the ones that are available.
Speaker 2 01:10:08 Tracy, can I, can I, can, I know I'm a moderator. I, I feel like I really want to say two things about Catherine's question. So I'm just going to, um, first of all, Catherine, thank you for pointing that out. Um, now it matters over the last few years has been trying to answer that question as an implementation partner, rather than a tech company. And one of the things that has led us to is thinking about a human stack and a tech stack as two separate entities that need very different implementation methodologies. So if your tech stack, you need to use waterfall or agile, there's nothing for how you implement the human stack around technology for the for-profit business, the, the actual business conditions just you can't get hired if you don't have those skills, but non-profit ecosystem is different in that chronic, under funding and underinvestment from philanthropy around skills development for decades now has really not built those skills.
Speaker 2 01:11:21 And so our work centers around that, that exact question, and those are some of the causes for that part of what I'm saying, there is, there is no like you can't make things, uh, so simple, like there's only so much a tech company can do on making things simple. If an organization is unable to use that technology, any technology well together. And so the industry, I think, needs to begin to have conversations about how do we implement and evolve the humans using tech, not just the tech for humans. So thanks for letting me answer, um, moderator. I know exactly if you would like to,
Speaker 4 01:12:07 I want to make sure nobody can unmute themselves, right. So we're just, we're chat focused here. We're
Speaker 2 01:12:14 Yeah. It's just easier to keep track of what's been going on.
Speaker 4 01:12:18 So for Katherine and anonymous attendee, I want to make sure that we're, we're hitting at the heart of your question here, because I, I wholeheartedly agree with Tim and we recognize the reality of the small nonprofit sector. I would say most of us have lived in, played in that space to Tim's point walking two miles in the snow shoe, lifts a carry, a check,
Speaker 4 01:12:43 All that to say, I don't want to discount this very real need in the industry. Right. And I think one of the things that I would push back on in terms of that mindset of we are small, we don't have the right staff is to play on what Tim foot forward, which is where are you making investments. And what does that mean for the world that we're in today in the same way that company culture or structure is important in tech? It's important in nonprofits too. And oftentimes from my experience, doing everything from like federal grant management to on the ground case management, direct service provision, the technology is an afterthought and it actually creates so much more work for the people on the team versus saying, again, going back to, I think a point that gave made a long time ago, but like, instead of determining what our hammer is, let's look at the nails that we have and what holes they need to go into and then think about technology.
Speaker 4 01:13:39 And instead of it being this big, reactive, scary, onerous thing, how do we use it to make our lives easier? And look at the value of investment in our tech stack, as more than three to 5% of our overall annual operating budget. Um, and I think that same question has been, had a lot in the D I and B space and nonprofits. Do we invest in external agencies to come in and take a look at change management for us, these things that are oftentimes a sub-line in a budget in my mind are becoming top-line items. And so that would be my answer to the question is not to discount that today. It's really, how do we think about tomorrow and support nonprofits and moving their methodology and their thinking and doing that change management internally to support staff who are doing great work and just might not know that their work could be even more efficient with the right tools in house
Speaker 3 01:14:37 A hundred percent agree. I think, I mean, I kind of said it before, but you shouldn't just buy a product. You should buy a playbook and people like you should think about who's going to help. And so you need somebody often from the outside that can provide coaching and training and come alongside your team to ensure they're successful. So you can't just buy a product. Um, and then, yeah, I mean, not to push back too much, but to be honest, I've seen big non-profits that can get out of their way in terms of innovation and then friends with a bunch of folks at little nonprofits that just crush it with innovation. Right. But those are the ones that have prioritized innovation and how they think about solving particular problems and how they think about staffing. And so I know it is possible and sometimes it's related to size, but, but not always. So I guess don't lose heart. It is possible to be a small nonprofit and be incredibly innovative with the right kind of partners.
Speaker 5 01:15:34 Yeah, I would, I would just want to add on this one. Um, cause I think there's structural things that we're starting to see, even in how the technology works together that are baking in elements, such as a lot of the, uh, the folks out there might be putting the payment processing either through a white labeled Stripe application or their own tech stack right into the platform itself. Um, and so that's one good way to cut down on multiple contracts, multiple accounts. I worked with universities and would just pound my head against the wall because it's like, well, we need this explicit processor. And it's like, okay, like we don't do that. Right. But that, that the, that was seven years ago, things have changed when it comes to that. Um, I also think that, that we're going to see from business standpoint more, either consolidated roll-ups with larger amounts of technology under one roof, or we're going to see innovations from technologies that focus in and say, okay, what are the core elements such as I need to extend crowdfunding to want to Jeff's questions, um, into working with my CRM, some companies are gonna focus on really tight, easy integrations that are single sign on one click, very secure.
Speaker 5 01:16:53 Other companies are going to focus on, I'm going to have this within my product suite with one set of contracts or very easy management for billing. It kind of depends. You're going to get a lot of different flavors depending on what you want. Um, so we have a lot of options yet at the same time, those options are going to consolidate as the market matures as well.
Speaker 1 01:17:20 Yeah. I will just pull a Tim Lockie and say personally, having worked for both large and small software developers and platforms for nonprofits to, to the point of the question, um, managing multiple contracts, pricing structures, support, and service teams, duplicative features and functionality, permissions, and so forth. There's actually no guarantee that working with a single large vendor will make that any less difficult or time consuming. Uh, and it's largely because at larger places, the, the people doing those actual tasks become so niche defied that they frequently don't understand other parts of their own platforms. So it's, it's, I would offer that it's less about thinking of it from a vendor quantity perspective and more about thinking about it as, as others have suggested, look at the problem you're trying to solve and then view the vendors through the lens of their best solutions for that problem, uh, because you can spend it a very equivalent amount of time doing the same thing with a single vendor. Um, and I have done that
Speaker 5 01:18:39 And let's even get to some of the questions that popped up for Jeff, which is, is I've been seeing a few things on crowdfunding, single unified platform, Canada, hosted data. You do not have a lot of options. And when we start adding more requirements, when it comes to that, um, it's, it's a very different market also than the U S tech market as well. And so I, I'm seeing, um, a lot of different, interesting things happening when it comes to the value proposition, but Tracy, to your point, start with what's most important to you. What is the most important thing there? And that starts to kind of Winnie the, the, the focus that you need to have as well.
Speaker 4 01:19:25 I just don't want to lose games point in this, that sometimes the smallest nonprofits are the most powerful in the way that they use technology. And I think when you look at an all-in-one tech stack, you can get lost in all of the crazy functionality versus again, going back to that idea of like, what are the nuts and bolts? I can't tell you how many times I've been in some sort of community meeting around a single issue, whether it's people experiencing homelessness or protest culture or whatever else. And I am just like blown away by these 20 and early 30 year olds who are using free levels of software to organize hundreds of people. It's pretty
Speaker 5 01:20:04 Cool. And, and on the revenue side to some of the most innovative campaigns in peer-to-peer that I've seen are coming from very, very, very small organizations because they had to be scrappy it's it's, it's kind of like, um, if anybody's a John Carpenter fan who made, you know, the thing and you know, the salt and precinct 13 and stuff like that, uh, the escape from New York, he does very well when he doesn't have a lot of money because he has to step back and go, how can I maximize the most that I have? And we need to also break the scarcity mindset. It's kind of like what Boulay talks about. You are not like, do not be proud of your crappy chair. If your budget is a moral document, invest in your people, invest in your infrastructure, but at the same time, just because you're small, you don't have to throw your hands up and go, we're screwed. Like that's, that's not the reality. There's a lot of opportunity out there. Canva alone for nonprofits being free can be transformative for your marketing.
Speaker 4 01:21:11 How many Instagram templates do they have took me a long time. It was like two summers ago that I realized all of this amazing social content was coming from these free templates. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:21:22 I think we've hit on all the Q and a from the audience. And if there are more, no, that we're super intentional about using this as a kickoff to a further series of events. So we're incredibly excited for where things are going to go here at why it matters. And now it matters. I do want to take one second and say, thank you so much. You know, Tim, Julia, Gabe, your expertise and perspective, the way that you and your businesses think about these things, will I believe help transform where nonprofits need to go in the next 10 years and explicit. And I want to just say thank you from all of us to all of you for your time and dedication and making this an extraordinary conversation. And I will turn it over to Tim for final wrap and words, Tim walkie on our side. And thank you all.
Speaker 2 01:22:27 Yeah. Um, we also wanted to thank pond who partnered with us on registrations and, um, pond is offering a $50 park to anyone who is on the session today and has not signed up for Pando already and wants to sign up now. So if you haven't and you are here, please do go sign up for pond. Um, great service really love what Mitch Stein and company are doing over there. So
Speaker 1 01:22:56 Join.com.
Speaker 2 01:22:58 Thank you very much. Join ponds.com. Um, and then starting, uh, with Tim ass, we want to give you one minute each to do your call to action on what you think is next from this conversation
Speaker 5 01:23:14 One minute each. Okay. Uh, first the led hat.com is where you can find that. I know that Julia put it in there. I am using valuable time for that. Um, neon one.com. We have a major donor report coming out on individual giving that's coming up. Um, I put my LinkedIn as well. If you want to directly connect with me, it's in the chat, not the Q and a and a neon, one.com, um, slash w whatever. I'll find the thing and put it in the chat for the specific one that makes sure you can get into it. That's it for me? I'll put it in the chat.
Speaker 2 01:23:53 Thanks.
Speaker 3 01:23:55 Um, yeah, I guess I'm just excited about what the future holds this collaboration across vendors in our space is incredibly refreshing for me and very, very exciting. So we're glad to be a part of the conversation. If you want to learn more about what we do specifically, you can go to virtuous.org, um, or you can Google, uh, our book responsive fundraising. That's on Amazon, our website to learn a little bit more about how we think about the world of responsive fundraising.
Speaker 5 01:24:24 Good. It's good. I have it on demand whenever Gabe talks
Speaker 4 01:24:30 The screen. So good. Um, I, I'm excited for all of the conversations to come after this one and to be present in the audience for some of the panels and features that I know you all will have. So thank you for hosting us today and thanks for continuing the conversation past today. Um, for anybody looking to find out more information about the nonprofit
[email protected] slash nonprofits, please find me on LinkedIn. If you go to that hubspot.com/nonprofits page, and you scroll to the bottom, there's a newsletter signup, and I cannot plug it enough. We aggregate. So you'll hear from virtuous, you'll hear from neon one, you'll hear from other leaders in the space, but we like to keep non-profits on a monthly basis, apprised of what's happening for them in the sector. That's what I got.
Speaker 2 01:25:18 Thank you very much for being on our panel. Thank you to those of you who joined for today. And also, um, one of our silent partners, John Carlo, who has been working tirelessly behind the scene to put all this together really grateful for, um, all, all of the work that's gone into this, and we're excited about this conversation moving forward and what that will look like. So thank you everyone.
