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Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
Adapting to 2025: Nonprofit Marketing Strategies for Change and Clarity
Discover what it truly takes to thrive in the nonprofit marketing world with Meghan Speer and special guest, Stephen Pedro, the acclaimed host of the "Schmarketing" podcast. Stephen guides us through his vast experiences within the nonprofit tech space, touching on the need for clear communication strategies and how to leave outdated marketing trends behind as we head towards 2025. Promising a mix of humor and insight, we unpack the importance of adapting to change for achieving impactful results.
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Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, joined today by one of my very dearest friends, Stephen Pedro. I'm so excited. I don't know how it took us this long to dearest friends. Stephen Pedro, I'm so excited. I don't know how it took us this long to get you onto the podcast, but I am so excited that you are here today.
Speaker 3:Well, I have a hunch that the reason I haven't been on here before is because you didn't ask me before and I didn't demand to come on. That's just one theory, that's just one person's theory.
Speaker 2:You know there's something to that. That's fair Way to call me out within the first 30 seconds. I appreciate that. All right, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Finally.
Speaker 2:Yes, finally, stephen, you have a lengthy nonprofit journey, especially around nonprofit marketing, and one of the things that I am so excited for is your newest adventure, which is your podcast called Schmarketing, that everybody should absolutely go check out. But tell the audience just a little bit about yourself and your journey with the nonprofit space and about this new podcast that you've launched.
Speaker 3:Yeah, happy to talk about myself everyone's favorite activity. So I've been in the nonprofit tech space for close to 25 years and no part of my story can be told without that of my former business partner, Chris Mexner.
Speaker 3:But Chris, and I met at college and a few years after college we decided to open a web design agency. Now, both of us had been in the nonprofit space before and that's where our network was. We didn't really intend to jump into the world that I live in now, but it was the problems we knew. And so people came to us and were like hey, we're starting to hear that a lot of people are raising money online. Maybe we should try that. And so once you agree to solve that for one person and you do it, well, another person asks you to do the same thing. You start learning and you learn more and more. You know, fast forward 25 years. I've now, you know, created an online fundraising platform, sold that platform, worked for a nonprofit CRM and find myself now here in front of you.
Speaker 3:But the through line in a lot of these experiences is this concept of clarity, and clarity has become, I think, my love language, and I think part of it is that I seek the lack of clarity as kind of the root of most problems in communication.
Speaker 3:And I see, when clarity is strong, I also see better teamwork, I see better results, people feel better about their jobs, feel better about their relationships, and so I'm always kind of like trying to find that through line of clarity. So whether I'm looking at nonprofits, donation pages, building a piece of software, running a project planning meeting, I'm always thinking like what's not clear here? Because you can usually tell, because the moments where things are unclear, people's faces start kind of crinkling their nose and they're like what, or they get angry or whatever. Like you start to see these patterns. Probably your favorite TV shows are clear, your least favorite TV show, your favorite friends have clear conversations with you, the people you like talking to least they're probably always a little muddy or clear. It's this idea of clarity that has become sort of my obsession and that's what led to marketing got it well.
Speaker 2:All that to say, I'm sure that my text to you confirming today's piece did not help you at all, because I used to talk to text and, as we both know, that was remarkably unclear. So I'm glad that you have looked past your desire for clarity and still decided to join me. Well, I have extended you more than a little grace because you have done the same for me over our decade plus friendship.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay. So one of the things that, especially here, as we close out 2024 and you know, understanding that a lot of nonprofit leaders are in the throes of Q4 right now we're in the throes of year-end fundraising, but really looking ahead to 2025. Because at this point assuming, hopefully, all of your emails are already scheduled, your direct mail's already in the can, everything is pretty much set to just run and, yes, it is a busy season, but it's time to advance the plan. So one of the things that I would love to dig into with you today are, as we go into 2025, what are the marketing trends we're leaving behind? What are the buzzwords we're leaving in 2024? What are some things that you consistently see on those donation pages as you're looking at them, that are things we've got to let go of. I know I have some of my own of things that I would love for nonprofits to stop doing, but as we're planning for 2025 from a marketing perspective, let's dig in there.
Speaker 3:Well, I think one of the hardest things and this is nonprofit for profit, marriage, whatever it is One of the things that's hardest to ever deal with is change. But one of the things that you need to keep in mind is that your team, your life, your company, your nonprofit it's all perfectly designed to get you the results that you're getting today, like it's just the output you're getting. Once these year end campaigns are done, you got the perfect outcome to your plan. So if you want different results, you have to change how you do things. So if you go in with that mindset, it kind of changes everything because you're going in with a certain degree of clarity. But that clarity sometimes is just the humility to say like I don't always have the right answers, I didn't always do things right. Or sometimes I did things right, changed it and messed up. Like there's this kind of cycle that you have to be open to participate in, because one of the biggest challenges for any team is the phrase. We've always done it that way. So one is the mindset. If you don't open yourself up to change one, you're probably not going to change. But two, you're also going to go into every conversation defensive. It's like ah, you're going to be defending all your decisions. You're going to go in with your guard up like a boxer, instead of holding ideas in an open hand. You can put things in my hand, you can remove things from my hand, but as a team, let's decide what's better, so that all starts with prioritization, so that all starts with prioritization. And so if there's something that I think teams in 2025 should focus on, it's collectively understanding and agreeing to their priorities. The reason that matters is because then it gives you a basis upon which to say yes or no to things. So, right now, let's say, hey, in 2025, we want to really focus on optimizing our online giving experience. Great.
Speaker 3:Well, what happens if you make that decision with your team but then the CEO rolls in on January 5th and is like hey, I've just bought 20 kiosks for in-person events that we're going to do at all of our galas and it's like what we're doing galas? Yeah, well, the problem there wasn't that the CEO had a bad idea. It's that the CEO in this story wasn't participating when you collectively agreed upon those priorities and see if we all agreed that, hey, these are our top 10 priorities and we all agree to that, then if we're going to change that, it's a team decision. It's not just someone unilaterally doing that and making that call. It's everyone agreeing to that thing. And another thing to understand about priorities that's hard is that if we say, hey, here's our top 10, it doesn't mean that number nine isn't important. It just means we've agreed that one through eight are more important. And when everyone agrees on that, it changes the way a team works. Because, guess what? You have clarity.
Speaker 2:Yes, the buzzword of the day.
Speaker 3:Yes indeed.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good framework. Yeah, for sure. So let's say, somebody has listened to this far into the podcast for the last three minutes and they've said you know, actually 2025 would be a great year for us to focus on optimizing our online giving experience. That's made the top 10. We're definitely doing that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what are some things that you look at? Because at this point, you have literally looked at thousands, if not tens of thousands, of online giving pages. So what are some things that you look at when you are taking a look at other people's giving pages, looking at those fundraising platforms? What do you look for in an online giving experience that says, yep, you have hit the nail on the head. And how do you start that evaluation process?
Speaker 3:That's a tricky question because I have a series of unprioritized answers. I need to prioritize them really quick. One of the things to keep in mind is that, according to NextAfter, 83% of people who click donate on your website. So they've clicked donate. Yep. Do not give a gift, so we see that again.
Speaker 3:83% of people who click the donate button on your website do not actually give a gift, and so part of that is like what does that tell us about our donors? So I'm going to try and weave it back to goals for 2025. When we talk about optimizing a page, you can't look at a page and know if it's optimized. It's a process that your team has to go through. So if you're committing to that as a priority, that means your team is involved in thinking about what are we doing now, because what we're doing now is giving us one result. Let's try something different and see if we get a different result, hopefully a better result. But one of the biggest problems I see when I look at donation pages is either they don't continue to tell their story, so you hit donate and you get a form instead of reinforcing the idea of why I should give the gift. The second problem is when they do have words on the page. A lot of times those words are about the organization. It's about what we are doing, how we are going to use the money, how we are giving you an opportunity to make a tax-deductible gift and in so doing, you're contributing to that 83%, because you're not inviting the donor to kind of participate in this journey. Another little piece of jargon I like to talk about is shortening the distance. It's like how are we going to use this donation page to shorten the distance between a donor and the impact their gift can make? Because when I go on Amazon to go buy a t-shirt or a pair of sneakers, they are shortening the distance between me and a new pair of Nikes. So what is happening on that donation page that is making 83% of people say nah, never mind. Well, we're not shortening that distance effectively enough, we're not inviting them into the story we're talking about we, we, we, we, we. Instead of you, you, you, you, you. Because that's what we're doing on our donation page. We're trying to get them to make a gift, but it is a series. It's not giving the gift is one yes, but it is a series of yeses that lead us to that moment where we make a gift. And so if you're going to optimize your donation page, if you're going to make prioritization a big thing in 2025, then you've got to think about all the little yeses required to get to that big yes, because the moment you hit a no, well, all it takes is that one. No for someone to be like okay, I'm part of that 83%. So I guess, if I'm going to put that in a phrase, I would say optimization is a process. It's not a button, it's not a machine, it's not a thing. It's a process that you do on your donation page, and part of that process, I think, should be telling your story, inviting people to not just give a gift so that you know Acme or can help feed the homeless, but actually tell a story.
Speaker 3:Hey, this is John. John used to live on the streets of Dallas, texas. John is one of the people that your gift can help. There's lots of Johns out in this world that need your money because it's the only thing that's going to help them get out of this opportunity. By giving your gift today, you can help John take a dramatic step forward in his life. That is like an invitation that shows me the impact. It also builds trust, because I have been clear, I've leveraged. Clarity about this is how we use the money that you give, and all of that was told through the lens of impact and shortening the distance and delivers a user-friendly experience for your supporters.
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Speaker 2:If there was a trend that I could get rid of for 2025, it is the fact that nonprofits still, as a whole, tend to make it all about them. Right, we do use a lot of language talking about ourselves and what we're going to do instead of inviting that donor along on the journey. Wholeheartedly agree. I guess I wonder why it's so hard to break that mindset. Do you know what I mean? Because I feel like as kind of the vendors in the community and some of the consultants that we know and some of the people that I've heard speak at major conferences everybody, for years at least the last five or six has been talking about making your messaging donor first right, making it about them and inviting them on that journey, and I feel like we've been talking about it so often and I'm not seeing it necessarily reflected. So why is it such a hard habit to break and why has that not necessarily been the trend yet?
Speaker 3:Well, it's the same reason that I bought a Peloton five years ago and it sits mostly unused in my living room Like it's. Getting the idea and understanding something is different than doing something and implementing it, because it's where we started from.
Speaker 3:Change is hard. It's hard to do things differently. It's nice for me to say your team is perfectly designed for the results you're getting today. If you want to get different results, it's time to change how you do things. Oh, that feels good, like even saying. Sometimes I get a little chill in my spine. But what does that really mean? Because it's a lot harder to go in and tell your team hey, this year we're going to focus on doing things a little differently. Here's what I'm thinking we should do. What do you think about that Like?
Speaker 3:However you broach that conversation, there is a degree of courage required, because you, in some ways, are saying I want to do things differently because I don't think we've been doing them as well. You know that you might be stepping on other people's toes, or you might be stepping on your own, but either way, there is a degree of humility, of humility of courage that is required to do things differently. Another thing is already nonprofits are understaffed. You already know it. All the listeners out there fill the rest of that sentence up in your mind. You know where I'm going. We're all busy. We have more work than we can handle. So now you're asking me to change. Like I just got this going, I just want to reuse last year's email. Come on Right.
Speaker 2:Half my donors are new donors anyway, because we don't retain more than half of our donors.
Speaker 3:I can just use the same thing, and who's going to remember what email they got last year, of course? So yeah, again, you're perfectly designed for those results. But there is a different feeling that washes over you when you experience clarity. You know when I give to a gift and let's just use the story I just told you when I think about helping John, a homeless man that lives in the streets of Dallas, texas, or, hopefully, formerly homeless man that lived in the streets of Dallas, texas when I think about that, that is something much different than if I think about giving to the North Texas Food Bank, because every week 600 volunteers pack.
Speaker 3:Those are interesting stories too, but it's just different. It's just a different thing. And even worse, what if I was just giving a tax deductible gift because it was going to help me quote unquote maximize my impact?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know I hate this phrase. If there was one thing I could leave in 2024, it would be the idea of everybody using the maximize your gift, maximize your impact.
Speaker 3:Well, part of the reason that is less effective and I'm not saying it's completely ineffective until someone to maximize their impact. It's better than saying nothing. However, it's because it's vague, right, and one of the things that is key to clarity, key to kind of building these moments where we connect with people, is specificity. You know, it's kind of like you tell someone 98% of your gifts go towards making an impact. Okay, I get what you're trying to tell me then, sure, but it's also like that's the cherry on top. That's not where we lead with the story, because, also, that doesn't tell me how you're using the 98% really, it just tells me it's going towards the impact or the mission work or whatever it is.
Speaker 3:I need more specificity to really feel connected to the cause, because, as we see just through the numbers alone, it's not an impossible task to have someone give a gift one time to your organization, but it is increasingly difficult to get them to that second gift. And if we can get them to that second gift and even the third, that is a completely different relationship you have with that donor. But really, even that is a little bit of jargon that person, that person who was involved in your mission, who really cares about your cause, because they want to make a difference and if you're not going to provide them the opportunity to make that impact, there are other organizations they can give to and often that happens to build those relationships because we're vague and we just want to close a deal like we were selling the Nikes on Amazon, versus this intangible internal feeling that they will get when they make a gift. And I know that sounds weird, but no, I guess it doesn't sound weird to nonprofit audience.
Speaker 2:In this particular context, I think you're spot on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's exactly what we are going for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so let me just double back for one second. Do you have an opinion based on what you've seen? Or maybe there's data out there that I haven't seen around the idea of, because you just corrected yourself and stopped calling them donors and called them people who are connecting to our cause? But I've seen a lot of debate lately, especially in the LinkedIn circles, around donor versus supporter versus partner versus fill in the blank. Do you have an opinion on that, or have you seen one be more powerful than the other in terms of how we refer to those?
Speaker 3:folks. No, I haven't seen anything when it comes to what we call the people who support or donate or give their time or give their money. I don't know what is the resolution to that conversation. All right, we all agree that the donor won 32% of the popular vote, so we're going to go with donors. It's just like nothing is resolved if you pick one or the other. What is important is why are people fighting about that? Yeah, there's probably some genuine thought and insights that can be kind of gleaned from like why do you have a problem calling them donors? Well, I want to call them supporters because not all people can afford to give their money. Sometimes people want to give their time. Sure, oh, that's great. That's a great insight, Even if I continue to call them donors. Having that insight is maybe going to change the way I think, and, on the same token, it's not impossible to be thinking about people who only give of their time, who could one day become financial supporters too.
Speaker 3:The point isn't to settle on which word is best. The point is to improve and grow, and that comes in whatever form, and every organization is different. I've seen A-B split tests work incredibly well for one organization and fail for the other. Why is that? Is it because that people are different? Yeah, I think so. I think because people are different. And so if I'm talking to someone and people are different yeah, I think so. I think because people are different. And so if I'm talking to someone and they say you know, I'm really not comfortable with you calling me a donor, which would be a weird conversation to have. But if they did, it's like well, what do you want to be called? I want to be called Joe Supporter. It's like okay, I'll call you Joe Supporter if it's that important to you. But also, it's just not the area that I think we should burn calories. I like the outcomes of learning, but I don't want to crown a winner. I guess is what I'm saying, because I just don't think it matters that much.
Speaker 2:Okay, so shifting gears just a tiny bit when it comes to nonprofit marketing as a whole, because we do have a lot of folks in the podcast audience who are maybe this is their first job in nonprofit marketing, right? The podcast audience who are maybe this is their first job in nonprofit marketing, right? So they're listening, they're using nonprofit hub resources because they really want to learn and they're setting themselves up. If you could give one piece of advice to somebody in that seat who's starting out in a nonprofit marketing career like this this is the thing, here's what you need to understand, or here's what you need to remember or one piece of advice that you would give them, what would that look like?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to come at this from nonprofit tech.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Technology is not the solution to your problems. That's not where we start. That's not where we start solving problems. Now, technology is the tool that is going to help your organization scale. There is no other practical way to scale other than just hiring infinite people or getting perfectly trained volunteers and leaders. It's going to be technology. But technology is not the solution. It starts with understanding the problem. What's the problem we're solving? What are the barriers, what are the obstacles? Problem what's the problem we're solving? What are the barriers, what are the obstacles? And so it's not going to go. I'm not going to go spend $50 a month or $50,000 a year on a piece of software that is going to solve that problem.
Speaker 3:Understanding what the problem is, prioritizing your team with clarity around how we're going to attack that problem and being flexible and humble enough to adapt to that plan when needed that's what happens, and so that happens with strong leadership. That happens with teams who don't just listen but participate. You know I have this disdain for jargon and buzzwords because, in theory, jargon and buzzwords are meant to help solve the problems that they often create. Hey, we have a shared language. The problem is when I say something like hey, we got to save some dry powder so we can juice up our ROAS later. It's like the lack of response in that moment is part of the problem.
Speaker 3:As listeners, as team members, whether I'm just starting in a nonprofit or I'm the CEO of the organization, it is a two-way street. If I hear things that I don't understand, I need to ask it. So if we're in a prioritization meeting and someone is talking about, hey, optimizing the donation, online giving experience, is one of our top three priorities this year, we'll figure out which one of the three, but it's up there. If I am sitting in that meeting and I don't have any clue what it means to optimize the online giving experience, silence is your enemy, not only for you, but there may be other people in that room who don't have a clear grip. And so by simply saying like hey, can you help me understand what you mean when you say that the whole room, it's like the air is like fresh again? Somebody opened a door and light came into where there was darkness. Because that conversation, that moment of clarity, is wonderful for the team, it's wonderful for the leader, who may have just said that phrase and realized I don't know what the hell that means either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got nothing.
Speaker 3:So those moments like that is the advice I would give Prioritize clarity in your meetings, be bold, be courageous, as Simon Sinek says, be willing to be the idiot in your meetings. Be bold, be courageous, as Simon Sinek says, be willing to be the idiot in the room. And if you find that you are mocked or looked down upon as like how dare you ask that question, then maybe you picked the wrong place to work. So, like, these are important things. You can be the shift in culture. You can be the person who brings clarity by simply saying I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is this phrase you just used? Yeah, I love it. Okay, so, as we kind of wrap up our time, tell us about the podcast. What made you want to start it, where do we find it and what can people expect on it?
Speaker 3:Oh great, I think you asked me that at the beginning. I didn't answer it.
Speaker 2:Correct, I'm going to try again.
Speaker 3:So the podcast is called Shmarketing and I call it a jargon detox for marketers. Okay, but really it is a podcast about prioritization, the value of prioritization and the value of teamwork and how teams can work better together. But I am looking at it through the lens of buzzwords and jargon that exist in the marketing world I've created and continued to create. Over the past year or so. I've just become obsessed with this topic. I have a glossary on my website, which you can find at jargondetoxcom, and it has about a thousand terms. Some of them are like heavy-handed jargon, like funny phrases like let's don't boil the ocean. Some of it are just marketing terms like ROI, kpis, like just these things.
Speaker 3:Yes, all the acronyms. And so the glossary takes the term, it defines it in business terms, and then there's a human translation. That's every term, and so the premise of every episode is that I start by picking a term, I define it, I give the translation and then I do a little bit of storytelling to kind of unpack the idea. So it does start with like a little fake narrative, like the opening episode is a guy who's at the Synergy Summit and he meets a digital prophet named Jonah and they have a conversation and then from there I give some tips about like kind of what we did today how can your team like focus on that? So the first few episodes are going to be all about defining my own jargon. So schmark really is about helping people be willing to prioritize clarity in their day-to-day business lives, because I think it makes all the difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I love that idea. I have always appreciated your sense of humor when it comes to these types of situations and bringing clarity to a discussion, so I'm excited for the rest of the world to get to experience that as well.
Speaker 3:And yes, it is a little silly sometimes.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's fine, I love it, and is it, I assume, on all podcast platforms?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube. But if you go to jargondetoxcom, you can subscribe to it there as well.
Speaker 2:I love it. All right, Stephen, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation. I appreciate the clarity that you have brought to helping to define marketing as we head into 2025 and as folks kind of figure out what their priorities are. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Megan. We're all a work in progress.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, this has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.