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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
Cultivating Authentic Connections: Transforming Nonprofit Partnerships for Lasting Impact
Unlock the secrets to thriving partnerships in the nonprofit sector with Bart Lillie, Vice President of Partner Engagement at Synergy. Discover the journey that led Bart from nonprofit roles to the tech world and back to his true calling in partner engagement. Bart contrasts meaningful relationships with impersonal tactics like cold emails and LinkedIn spams, and he shares strategies for evaluating potential partners based on mutual resources and goals. Dive into the dynamics of sustainable nonprofit partnerships with Bart's expert advice on rallying around a shared mission and the art of reciprocation. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to overcome scarcity mindsets and leverage community partnerships effectively, ensuring visibility and authenticity in today’s competitive landscape!
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, and joining me today is Bart Lilly, who's the Vice President of Partner Engagement at Synergy. If you were at CauseCamp, you may have heard Bart on the main stage talking about taking yourself to camp, but we're going to switch gears a little bit today and talk about really that partnership element of the business. Bart, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, megan, it's great to be here business, bart.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show. Thank you, megan, it's great to be here. Okay, so, as you had pointed out in our little chat beforehand, my favorite question to start with is tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you end? Up in the nonprofit space, and how did it lead you to the role that you're in right now?
Speaker 2:That's a great story. When I got out of college I knew I wanted to be involved with a nonprofit and so I jumped in right into nonprofit leading teams, being part of students and doing stuff with people and involved fundraising and all kinds of things. I did that for a decade. Then decided to take a shift and jump into kind of the tech world and so I got a job at Epsilon used to be Abacus and it's a data job. So if you're in the fundraising world you might know of Abacus and Epsilon Did that for five years, got invited to join a friend at Cisco and did that for five years and that took me even deeper into like tech and engaging with analytics and reporting and storytelling with data.
Speaker 2:All of it was really good. But I think in both of those roles I got burned out. In fact I did get burned out.
Speaker 2:It was I probably stayed about two years too long in both jobs and then they decided to say we think you need to do something different and that led me to Weiland, again back in the co-op space, where I got to be involved again with data and then with storytelling, but it was also in the nonprofit space, so it took me back to my roots of being a nonprofit right out of college and so that gave me this sense of like. There's a mission involved with this data, with this storytelling, with the technology and all that and that was super empowering. I was super excited about that. I did that for about five years and RKD group invited me to join their team and that took me to a new level for me because that took me to the people engagement socially and really telling the story of how an agency can help a nonprofit and, most recently, with Synergy same idea how can we help a nonprofit tell their story? And so I love that engagement of the people side of things.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that and that's the gist of our conversation today, because partner engagement is right in the middle of your title. But I feel like sometimes partnerships can be a scary word for folks in the nonprofit space. Right, Because I think so often we've built this model of scarcity where we're fighting for donors, we're fighting for grants, we're fighting for, you know, volunteers and dollars and all of the things, and so the idea of partnering with anybody can get a little nerve-wracking when we realize that ultimately, we could do so much more together. That's a really freeing concept for everybody. So let's break down the idea of partnerships. I know you have a whole obviously this is your job, so I'll let you be the subject matter expert on partnerships but what are some things that maybe nonprofits need to consider when they are evaluating partners?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great, great question. I here's how I'm going to start this. I love the idea, when it comes to being in partnership with someone, that you start with a relationship. That is, from a from my side, for example, like I want to build a relationship with someone before I get into the fact of like, okay, now let's partner and do something, it it. It doesn't work for me to put the cart before the horse, so to speak, and say let's do this together or let's do that together. The first and the playing field should be a level of like let's get to know each other and find out who you are. I think that's important for me when I'm on the road or when I'm engaging with people in calls or one-on-one things. That is like who are you and what's been happening in your life? Because if we have a relationship with someone that builds trust and that trust helps us to have a partnership that actually will go somewhere.
Speaker 1:First of all, kudos, Because I love that as an approach so much more than I'm going to cold email you out of the blue 17 times and try to get you to work with me, or I'm going to spam, LinkedIn message you when you have no idea who I am and try and get you to like, and we all get them right. We all know that that approach. But I love the relational idea so much more. It's so important.
Speaker 2:And I'll admit that I'm not great at it. I think I'm good at it, I'm just not great. I'm like there are probably people be like, yeah, bart sends too many emails or he's whatever. That might be the case, but it is legit. I'm learning from my own story, my own experiences, and I really think that's where we start. I think once you have the relationship established, then you can move past into what are your resources, and then you can have that conversation of like oh, this is what we bring to the table, what do you bring to the table, what do you need? And then that resource question is where you can really start talking about. This is what we have to offer to each other. And that's like my two, because before you can solve each of those problems and whatnot, you've got to have that relationship of trust and then you can say this is where we're really good and what our resources and what we have to offer.
Speaker 1:So so unpack that for me a little bit, because I think that a lot of times, as nonprofit leaders, I'll put myself in that category, running a nonprofit myself, we tend to look at people who provide services like yours, so like an agency, or even some of our tech stack, and the providers that provide those things we take from you. Right, we are using your services, and so when we talk about partnerships though, you're seeming to talk about it more as a two-way street so what's the benefit to the vendors, if you will, or the agencies and the providers in that partnership? What does that look like, outside of the fact that we're paying you for that service?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, let me back up and say that my role as partner engagement is with both maybe a nonprofit and another and another vendor, so there's a I'm having conversations with the synergy um, yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:um, I'm having conversations, um, with a variety of people and, uh, that involves, like, when I'm talking with my friends at actual non-profits, there is a yes, there is a client kind of relationship, but it is a relationship that we're like, we're getting the value of, like actually supporting and seeing the mission happen.
Speaker 2:We just had, um, an all team, all hands meeting last, last month, where we celebrated what happened with synergy around the globally, with our company, and the 40 million text messages that we delivered for nonprofits and the millions in dollars of mid-level donations that were that were given through our concierge team, our agents on behalf of nonprofits, or the inbound success that our team saw. So our excitement is built when we hear how what we're doing makes a difference for and we want to call them our partners too, because we only win when we're winning with a nonprofit. So on that side of the case, it is a. It still feels like a two-way street, but if I'm talking to, if I'm talking to any one of our tech partners and other vendors and other agencies, other groups that are doing the same kind of service, work for a nonprofit, there's a partnership that involves a mutual relationship and a give and a take and a working together and how can we?
Speaker 2:Here's where we bring the table, here's where we bring the table. That works great. And so I'm excited about all the conversations I have coming up in the next few months Some are already planned and already on the calendar for like tomorrow of really helping us work together and do good work. Because, going back to my story, I got involved in tech early in my career but I needed that mission. I needed that I'm making a difference, I'm bringing value to the world. To really get me fired up.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so we have the relationship. Yep, we understand the resources. Is there a third R coming up the list?
Speaker 2:There are two more actually. Um. So once, once you've got the relationship and you've, uh, talked about resources, then you rally. Okay, rally is where you, where you actually show up and say we're in it together and there's a sense of that's when the partnership begins. It's like we're on the same team, we're running the same race. Not meaning to use the R's again, but that's what it is.
Speaker 1:I like the alliteration. I'm here for it.
Speaker 2:Thanks, you're good. That's remarkable, and so it's one of those things where you rally, you come together and you say we're in this as on the same team, and that's really where the energy begins and the partnership really begins. And I'll just go to the last. One, too, is where you reciprocate, and that's where you become. You become like co fansfans and it's like you begin telling the story of the other person as well. It could become you could co-present something, you could be doing a podcast together. That's where you're jumping on someone else's bandwagon and saying this is you should follow, you should know, you should support, you should donate to. That's where that reciprocation really lands. So that's what partnership means to me. It's all those things, but it definitely does follow a progression to some degree that starts with the relationship and then eventually gets the idea of we're rallied together and then we're reciprocating for each other.
Speaker 1:So, in the theme of ours, I'm going to phrase the question this way let's talk red flags.
Speaker 1:Okay or they're evaluating an agency or a service provider. What are some red flags that you have seen in partnerships that you would say, hey, as you're evaluating any sort of relationship, as you're beginning that partnership? Here are some things I would stay away from. Let me be clear. It's very things, not specific companies or people. We're not here for the call outs. We're not going to call out like, hey, stay away from this guy. But are there things for me? I'll tell you. For me, as I am evaluating partners, the biggest red flag I look for, or the thing that like puts up a I don't think this is going to be a good fit for us, is somebody who is entirely driven like has that, like used car salesman approach, where all it feels, like is you want to sell me something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, which goes back to your relationship. But there's like that to me is a big like. I don't feel like you get who we are or what we do. All you're worried about is your commission check right. It has that vibe, so that to me is a big red flag.
Speaker 2:That's for sure, and I think that's an easy one. Like all of us would probably agree with that, and I see that as a very transactional kind of relationship and that is more of a what's in it for me as opposed to what's in it for you, or maybe even what's in it for us approach and that if we're asking questions, we're going to figure that out. Yeah, I feel like that happens. I had a opportunity this past year when I was in conversation. It didn't, I didn't feel like the relationship would be one that I could trust and it ended. But yet there are other relationships where I'm reaching out and I'm really saying, hey, let's, can we just stay connected? And I think LinkedIn is probably how we met initially and it's a great place to be in the marketplace, the town square, so to speak, and tell stories, have engagement kind of dialogue, discuss all these things. But it's also a place and I've learned a lot from some good people to not use that as the front foot of selling either. Use that as the front foot of selling either.
Speaker 2:One of my one of the guys I follow in the marketing side of things has said that 80, 90% of businesses today are already have already decided that when it comes to joining or choosing a vendor, choosing someone that they want to go with, they've already made that decision before they reach out. They're super far. So what does that do for the quote unquote sales process? It really takes it and it becomes more of a closing conversation, like you've reached out to me Thank you, megan, for calling on Synergy, happy to help and you're like yeah, I know all about you, we're excited. Just confirm that this is that you are what I think you to be and it becomes a fairly quick conversation. Gone are the days of successful cold calling, and especially in the nonprofit industry. Can you, can we be very frank about that? Like, like again, it's so important to have relationships in this industry and so this idea of then sales and marketing, then from this perspective, we have to be visible from a here's what we do, here's who we are, so that others can see us, and that eliminates our need for a hard pursuit or a hard that kind of cold calling or that transactional approach. If we're visible, if we're out in the space and building relationships, that's a big win. One of my favorite things that happened over the past year was showing up at conferences and meeting people face to face for the first time yeah, the people I didn't really even know hadn't met that became like let's high five side, can't believe. I'm meeting you for now, for real, for the first, like that's a value of. There's that LinkedIn that can, that social, that being present in the space can really build a relationship, and so that's what I want to say about that.
Speaker 2:You asked about other red flags. Gosh, I think the transactional one is such a big one that it gets in the way of other things. It's true that, like in the process, if you're a vendor and you're telling your story and you've got your case studies out there, that a nonprofit can, they can do their research and they can know 70, 80% Like, yeah, this is. I think Synergy would be great, or I think Agency X would be great, or this CRM would be perfect for us, I think.
Speaker 2:Then you go into that conversation and you be curious, you ask questions, and if there's not a curiosity on both sides, then the relationship becomes one-sided. My wife is great about this and it drives me crazy, but it's also really good for me. She will be having a conversation. She'll ask me about what I said or what I did, or what happened with this person in the story, and she'll say so did you talk about yourself the whole time? And I'm like no but. But it's a great. It's a great reminder and it's a great illustration of how do we engage in in relationships with people. Are we coming at it with the other person? And that's a curiosity thing as opposed to a convincing thing. So to be curious is ask questions, to be convinced is to use statements, and I think that becomes a red flag if you're in a relationship that feels like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't mean to keep tossing R's out there, but this one came to my mind and that is the the like, referrals and references to double R. Look at me, I cannot tell you how many folks have reached out wanting to and they've built the relationship. They're not. I'm engaging with them because they're not taking that salesy, transactional approach, but they don't. It is a red flag to me If you don't want me to talk to anyone who uses your service, right, if you don't maybe have those testimonials on your website or there's not somebody I can call to say, hey, how was your experience with this? That to me rings red flag and having kind of the I don't know like the gatekeeping experience mentality of like, no, we don't want to let anyone know who we work with. And I understand not wanting your competitors to have your client list or whatever, but that's a big red flag to me If you don't have somebody that I can talk to as a reference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good point. You should always talk about your relationships, but that's the reciprocation piece, the last step of like you rallied together, you made things happen. The reciprocation is being able to talk about it with other people and it's like it's. It's definitely where it's referrals and, like you said, and references that actually comes into play in this point, because you've got a partner that you're excited about and you want to be able to tell that story. And if so, yeah, if you're not finding those kind of things and that makes me nervous then it does.
Speaker 2:It makes me nervous and it becomes it. I would say a wider stretch too. There's a like everyone can. I won't say this, this is a little bit of a generalization, but everybody can win one or two opportunities or make one. They strike lightning strikes once or twice, but can you consistently do it with a number of situations and in a number of relationships? That's when you can build the trust of like oh yeah, this. These guys say they can do X and they can back it up and they've got a wide spectrum of people that have made it work. So yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I think, too, that's one area where nonprofits can partner with each other. If you're evaluating systems or evaluating, hey, we're looking for a new marketing agency or new whatever. There are probably a hundred other nonprofits in your city, Right, Reach out to them. And I think again back to that scarcity mindset. Sometimes we're so like, oh, I don't want to ask them what they're doing because we're competing for dollars or donors or whatever. But when we can work together to get the best out of each other, I think that becomes a huge partnership opportunity for nonprofits as well. To reach out and say, hey, who do you use for this particular thing? Or what CRM are you on, or whatever platform you're looking to fulfill. I think those kind of referrals also can go a really long way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they totally can. And to touch on the scarcity piece, I can come at it from three angles. One is my own story, one is the nonprofit that I volunteer with Restoration Project, and then from the co-op perspective, when I was at Abacus and Weiland. That is a, if you understand the co-op model, it is a shared database and in that database we realized wow. We realized wow, john Smith has made a donation to 20 different nonprofits, five in the same sector. So there isn't a sense of like we're going to our donor is just our donor.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're making donations to a lot of places and the nonprofit that I volunteer with, like, I help them in their fundraising in different ways, and they've got donors who are making gifts to other organizations. I talk with them, they're my friends in some cases and I can look at my own story.
Speaker 1:Like I'm making donations to a number of organizations and not just one, and so, yeah, the episode that aired right before yours, so last week, josie Garfield, who was also at CauseCamp, was talking about how sometimes we forget to treat donors Like we forget that they're humans and that they behave like we do. But to your point, I give to four different organizations, yeah, so why would I assume then that somebody else is only giving to mine? We just yeah, so that's always a good call out. So, bart, we've referenced Synergy a couple of different times in your obviously your title, but also your journey. Tell us a little bit about Synergy itself and the work that you guys do in the nonprofit space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, Thank you. So we are an engagement company and we want to help nonprofits engage with their donors better. We do that in a few different motions. There's an outbound and motion and it involves text messages. It involves ringless voicemail and some other donor calls. It's where the nonprofit is reaching out to their donors. We also do inbound. So if there's a, if your nonprofit has an 800 phone number where, like there's a, them reaching to you as a nonprofit, that will go through a call center and Synergy can manage that process for the nonprofit and give some really great perspective and eliminate some of the black box that comes with that process. And then the last one is a mid-level engagement. It's this idea of some organizations they don't have a mid-level person on their team and Synergy has a fractional solution for that where we work with the nonprofit to hire someone on their behalf. All of these engage donors primarily through. Where's my phone here? It is this, yes, the phone.
Speaker 1:The one that we all have right in our hands.
Speaker 2:We all have it. We all have it and there's other ways that like might lend itself in the way we use other technologies. But the phone is primary and in my opinion I could take you down to my mailbox down the street. It's so far away Like I have to. I don't drive to it, but I'm walking my dog past it and I open it like once every three weeks, maybe two weeks, if my mom says I mailed you a letter or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Full of stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm not kidding you when I tell you so I live in an apartment building here in Pittsburgh and so there's obviously we have like the wall of mailboxes inside the doorway and the nice people at our little front desk concierge had to call me maybe two weeks ago, right before year end. To call me maybe two weeks ago right before year end and be like, hey, the the postman would like to you to clear out your mailbox Cause he can't put any more things in it. I was like, oh yeah, it's probably been a month. I definitely should do that.
Speaker 1:I do not pay attention to that mailbox and I walk by it every day and I still don't bother to go over and look at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not, it has value. I open mail, I do look at it so, and everyone is different, so that that's. Yeah, let's just go with that too, but for me that's not important. If I go to my inbox a couple of different email inboxes how many emails do we all have nowadays? The one that I actually give out has about 50,000 unread messages, and it's just an atomic bomb waiting to happen. I'll just nuke it all and I'll start fresh, probably sometime this year. But if you look at my phone, there are no unread text messages.
Speaker 1:Same. I hate the little red bubble.
Speaker 2:I look at them and clear them all the time.
Speaker 2:There are no unread voicemails. These are the mediums, in a sense, that I pay attention to. Yeah, and if you want to engage with me, that's one of the best. Send me a text. It is the best way to engage with me, and so the nonprofit that's going to send me a text is going to be at the front of the line to get my engagement, and that's what Synergy does. We want to help a nonprofit engage with their donors in ways that are meaningful and, from a text message perspective, we can partner with your mail house or your email provider and we can coordinate that process, so you're getting a text message in addition to the email, in addition to the direct mail piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we've seen a great lift in response. That's awesome Because of that. So those are just a couple of the ways that Synergy does some great work for nonprofits. I'm super excited to be aligned with these guys and I love what we do and I'm happy to have that conversation with anyone who's interested.
Speaker 1:And if someone is interested, how do they find you? What's the best way to connect? Outside of giving out your cell phone number, Cause we don't need. We don't want to like publish your cell phone number to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Text me at LinkedIn is a great. It's a great place to to start and, again, that is a place where I hope to build a relationship with people, and let's just leave it at that. So I will say that, bart Lilly, my name B-A-R-T. Is just Bart, and there's very few Barts out there in the world, and so when it comes to digital real estate, like I like struck gold, because I, I can get my name at whatever I want. Yes, whatever it is, it's just Bart Gold. So find me on LinkedIn and happy to connect.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, bart, thank you so much for this conversation. Really appreciate all of the R's that you had to share when it comes to partnerships, and we will definitely have a link to Bart's LinkedIn as well in the show notes so everyone can go connect with him. Bart, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:I'm grateful to have had a chance. Thanks, Megan.
Speaker 1:This has been another episode in the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.