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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
Volunteers as Voices: Turning Your Community into Nonprofit Ambassadors
In this episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast, host Meghan Speer welcomes back fan-favorite guest Becca Segovia, CEO of GCS Partners, for a deep dive into the “V” of the G.I.V.E. Framework—Volunteer—as a powerful strategy for turning supporters into ambassadors. Together, they explore how nonprofits can activate volunteers, donors, and supporters to lend not just their time or dollars, but their voices, sharing authentic stories that drive awareness, engagement, and giving. Becca unpacks practical ways to equip communities with messaging tools, embrace generational differences in advocacy, responsibly release control of the narrative, and leverage data showing the real financial impact of social sharing. The conversation offers actionable insights for nonprofits looking to grow retention, acquisition, and community impact by empowering their people to tell the story.
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Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer. Joined today by my dear friend, Becca Segovia, who is the CEO at GCS Partners. You may have seen her on a webinar or caught her at Coscamp or caught her last podcast episode with us last year. She's coming back, fan favorite here. We're really excited to have Becca back. Welcome in. Oh, thanks for having me, Megan. It's so great to be here. Thanks. Okay, so the last time you were here, we were talking kind of broadly about the give framework. Yeah. And I think that there's some really good pieces there, but we're gonna specifically look today at a piece of it. Awesome. I love it. One of my favorite pieces, I think. Yes. We're gonna specifically look that V piece around I think it stands officially stands for volunteer. It does. But it's the idea of turning your community into ambassadors. And I think sometimes, unfortunately, things tend to get a little siloed in the nonprofit world, right? And so when we talk about the people who interact with volunteers, it's the volunteer coordinator and the buck stops there, right? Maybe the people in program, but the people in marketing and fundraising never get to necessarily talk to those folks who are on the front line. And so I'm excited today to kind of frame the conversation around that and realize the power that those folks have to be ambassadors and to tell your story and to be advocates for you. So with all that being said, tell us a little bit, just kind of for those who might not have caught it, give us a quick overview of the give framework and then let's dig into that piece.
Speaker 1:All right. So give. G stands for obviously give. And so people can give of their dollars, their time, their talent, their treasure, whatever they have. I is inspire. And so how are we inspiring our audiences that are giving to our organizations or maybe our people to be ambassadors of our message? So that kind of bleeds into V volunteer. They can also give of their time we just talked about, but that time doesn't actually have to be showing up inside the organization, you know, sorting through cans or thinking through stuffing mailers, like all the different ways that people could show up and volunteer, be a docent if you're in healthcare. Like there's all the different ways that we can show up as volunteers and give of our time, but we also have something really important that we can give, and that's our voice. And so you can do it through that I of inspire. You can also do it through V of volunteering your voice. Um, and then E is engage. And so, how are we not only engaging our donors and our supporters and our volunteers, but how are we engaging them to bring their communities with them? And so when I think about that volunteer piece, I wonder if they can play a really key role in helping you build your community and not just your community of supporters, but communities of their friends that may be people that could give to you of their time, talent, or um treasure and be that kind of rallying cry, if you will, to get them to be involved.
Speaker 2:I love that. So I think, and it maybe we'll start here, right? So when we talk about we want folks to be advocates for us, we want them to be ambassadors for us. I can imagine that there are some marketing managers, maybe some development officers who are going, I only want them to say what's on my message, right? Can I tell them exactly what to say to go be an ambassador? I there's probably a little bit of trepidation of releasing the reins a little bit. So start there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So deep breaths, everyone. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. There's a few different ways that you can approach that. So the ways that I might think about it, if I were working alongside you and saying, like, how do I activate this really core group that is coming alongside me and giving their time to be a voice of my organization to their friends and family and community? And the first thing when you want to have a little bit more of that control is put together a kit. Hey, here are the ways that we talk about our organization. Here's what our case for support is. And we've talked, I think, in the past on our case for support versus my or their case for support. And so it is okay for you to give them the framing of like, this is how we talk about what we do. But one of the things that's really important is to listen to your friends or community that you're talking to and really understand what their case for support is and then connect the dots for them. And so you may want to give them some materials to do that. And it could be as simple as a couple of paragraphs on who we are, what we do, and what we see and why people give to us. And so people give to us for these five or six reasons. You may also want to have some sort of social media kit where if they're sharing your um mission with their friends and family and inviting them to give, that you are giving them the tools to be able to do that. And so if you're already doing that on your own social, let's figure out like how do I productize that, if you will, and make it downloadable for your volunteers to leverage and then share with their communities? You may also want to give them some prompts. So, you know, like think we just came off of Giving Tuesday and the end of year giving season. And so, as I think about that, like could we have said these are the three or four talking points that we have for this year? Would you consider um sharing our mission with your community and inviting them to give and then giving them the tools to do that? And what's really interesting, the research that we did um that GoFundMe and Classy did a couple of years ago, not a couple of years ago, last year, the social state of giving, one of the things that they learned is when you activate your community to just share, not to give, to just share about your organization that can often yield $100 back to the organization. So imagine if you had, you know, 500 people that were sharing just about your organization to their community, the return on what that share could do for you. And so it's a different way not only to unlock revenue potentially for your nonprofit, but also awareness so other people could give. Again, if they don't have dollars to give, they could lend their voice by just hitting the reshare button. Or they can find different ways to come in and volunteer for your organization, be an advocate, be an ambassador, be a time giver. So there's lots of different ways and that you can engage that audience to a share the message of the thing that you need, whether it's one of those that I just outlined, and then engage back with you. The other thing that I would think about is having a landing page when you are sharing out like that for that, for them to come back to you and have something that mirrors what has been going out so that you know these people came from Megan and Becca and Charles and John, and you're knowing that it's that volunteer network that is using their voice to drive towards that page. And that way you can track that engagement and the dollars that you've been able to gain lift off of from that simple engagement, just asking them to, hey, here's the tools that you need, and now leverage your voice and invite your community to give. The other quick piece of advice I would give there is encourage those ambassadors to tell their why. So we all have a why to how we show up in the world and give to the organizations that we give. And Megan, if I were to ask you that question, like, tell me about an organization that you give to and why. I imagine that I might find a connection point and say, like, hey, that's really interesting. I want to learn more about that organization, and then I may just do some digging around, or I may actually decide to give dollars once I understand Megan's why because I know Megan, I trust Megan, and I want to support Megan and the things that she cares about.
Speaker 2:That's so good. So I'm curious in the data, is it generational? Is this a like uh under 30, under 35? What like who are we looking for to be these advocates? Yeah. And like, what's the kind of age breakdown within all of that? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So uh yes, there are different ages that will share more. Um, but I would think of it this way. So as I think about um Gen Z and Gen Alpha, those are the groups that have the ability to share. They may have dollars to give. And what we know is that they will give consistently, usually at smaller amounts, but more in a recurring giving manner. But that's not the only thing they want to do. They are activists, and so they are willing to share their voice and lend it to your cause if they have connection to you. They're also willing to bring and build community. And so I would encourage you to think about what it looks like for you to build community in that group and empower those in that group to do that. And so that's another way that they can volunteer their time as well as their voice, is helping kind of bring community together around what you're doing. When you kind of shift up into um the millennial age group, they will still volunteer and lend their voice. It just looks different. Um, they play between a couple of different platforms, and then when I think about boomers, I'm not skipping over Gen X.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say, don't skip Gen X.
Speaker 1:Everyone always likes to skip us, and I don't like it. I am Gen X. I'm gonna I'm gonna do us last. Okay. Um when I think about boomers, think about where they are hanging out. They spend a lot of time on that thing called Facebook and they build groups. And one thing that I've seen be successful with some of the clients that I have worked with in the past is creating Facebook community and Facebook community that is actually managed and led by volunteers that you trust. Because when you have your your community and specific people inside that community owning what that looks like, um that can be really magical where you can come in and maybe make sure that everything is following the guardrails that you've set, but you've empowered people to kind of take that on for you, which it reduces burden on your team. What I know about that group is that they will become really strong recurring givers when they feel that connection to your organization. And those are your kind of mid-level major and potential playing gifts, depending on how that group is managed and what the outcome of that group is. Is it to like just get to know each other and be donors and support the organization? Is it to be advocates for the organization? Like you you may want to help define what you want that Facebook community to do. And then, and you don't just have to have one if you have volunteers that are managing it. You can have different interests, different groups. Now I'm coming back to Gen X and they kind of sit between the two. Some of them, I am one of them. I am a member of Facebook communities, I'm happy to admit it, for the things that I care about. But I also spend time on Instagram and can live in that community as well. And then I obviously have other social media platforms that I'm on and things that I'm curious about. But we kind of Gen X lives between the two. We're in that sandwich generation where we have behaviors that look like both. And so we are generous. Um, we are in a place where we can do that. We're probably you're a mid and major donors. We're also at the age where we are thinking about our estates and planned gifts. And so I just plug for like, hey, make sure you're looking at that demographic inside your file right now. But then also we have potentially time to give, depending on where we are in the sandwich of the generation. Um can volunteer. And if we can't come up, can't, if we can't show up for you physically, we are often willing to lend our voice to the organization and talk about what we like about the organization with our friends, with our community. And also we're not afraid to ask. And so we're willing to ask and invite others to join us, whether it's to sign a petition or to go and help me, you know, pack backpacks down at the wherever I'm going to do that. Or hey, we're at Giving Tuesday, we're at year end, we're coming up on a campaign of some sort. Would you consider giving $50 to this organization or $100 or whatever the ask is in partnership with me so that we can make X happen. And so don't forget, don't forget about Gen X. We are in that place where we can kind of live in both worlds, if you will. Um, whereas you've got that younger generation on every platform known to man, from YouTube to TikTok to all of them. And so they're out there sharing in a very different way. And so again, as you're thinking about those generations and the way that they are giving and the way that you're empowering, you may want to make sure that you've got a few different landing pages, like simple cut and replay cut and paste, but that they are targeted so that you can track, you know, I sent this out and it was, you know, this campaign that was shared by this group of people in this potential area, and then you're able to track that data back and say, okay, awesome. We now have insights that can help us better customize to the different generations, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I actually think it's an easy way to think about, right? I've talked to so many folks who uh whether they're the marketing or the fundraising person, they are their plate is so full. Oh my gosh, yeah. So full, and they get even just thinking about like having to take on another social media platform, right? Yeah. Maybe you have the board who's saying, Hey, you we need to get on TikTok, right? Maybe you do. Maybe you do. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna confirm or deny. But at the same time, they're going, but we're already on all these other things, and I've got a newsletter and I've got email and I've got all these things that I have to do. When we can find partners like this, that is the way to lessen that workload on your team. Right? It doesn't have to be everything coming from your team for you to have a presence there. But I do think, and this is a hill that I will repeatedly die on, and I have been preaching it for probably 15 years now. And that is that if you're gonna be somewhere, whether on what whatever platform you pick, it social is still social and it has to have a two-way mechanism, right? So I'd love to know what you think, right? So if we have folks that are creating content, it's easy enough to say, I'm gonna put this on Facebook and I'm going to respond to comments as they come in. That's a playbook that we've all been doing for years now, and we understand it. When we talk about maybe the listen, like the social listening side, to be able to know what people are saying and respond to that. Do you have some thoughts on what the rules are? Like, how do we make sure that we're still engaging two-way and letting social be social without totally ignoring what's happening and and kind of, yep, that's TikTok. I don't do it, some other guy does it. I'm not, I'm not worried about what's happening over there.
Speaker 1:You do have to pay attention to what's being said. And so hopefully you've been able to set up the ability to listen to all of the different platforms and be able to go in and comment. What I want to say here is I want to differentiate two things. One, there are platforms that you as the nonprofit will own and police. You've got the brand, you've got the message, you have the way that you want to show up. You may be thinking about, just as I kind of went through the different generations, you may be thinking about my focus on Facebook is to create community and groups. My focus on Instagram is to raise awareness and bring new people. My focus on TikTok or whatever you choose to use may be, you know, those short snippets of being able to get my brand or my message or my call to action across really quickly and maybe in a very human and fun way. So those are things that the organization owns. When you turn, this is gonna be hard, guys. When you turn some control over to your influencers, and I would call them like impact creators or social influencers, i.e., your community, you can equip them with some messages, but they are gonna tell their own experiences. And that can be really beautiful if they've had really great experiences. And they, let's be honest, they probably have to have really good experiences with you in order to say, yes, I want to be an advocate or a voice or an influencer for you. And so they're telling their story about your organization their way. And um, what do we know about that? Well, we know that it's their human connection, connecting with their commun community in a human way. Think about the people that you follow. You've connected to them in some way, and you're following them because you appreciate the content and what you're learning from them. And then you may like take their next action. So I think about it from you know, clothes or products or what have you. Like, I will follow somebody for a long time, potentially before I actually click through and buy the thing. And yes, I know they're gonna get some dollars off of that, but they're in control of like think about all the brands that they may represent. And so they're they're in control of their message. The brand is not in control of that message, if that makes sense. And so you have to be okay with relinquishing some of that control as you let your volunteers, your advocates, your influencers, impact creators tell your message. Um, and that's if you're doing it like you're not paying them to do that. There is another side that you could explore where you are working directly with influencers that you may want to have some investment dollars so they're helping raise awareness for your organization. And if you're doing that, then you do have a little bit more control of your message. Um, so this really all comes down to like, are you willing to trust your audience? Have you equipped them well with messages? Have you created really good experiences that they want to share? Um, and if so, then there's a lot of good or upside on the other side of it if you're willing to let them take your message forward.
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Speaker 2:So when we're looking for those people, I'm curious about your thoughts for how we go find them. Am I looking am I asking folks that they should go look, you know, find their top ten volunteers and just go talk to them? Are we looking at people's follower accounts and to say, like, do they actually have a platform? What's the what's the criteria that we're looking for here? Or is it just anybody who wants to share their story and that's great?
Speaker 1:I think that they're probably like depending on what you're trying to achieve, there's a couple of different things that you can do. So if you're going to like find that paid influencer, if you will, then you're gonna have criteria that meet your own organization's goals and ethos and values, right? Um, when you are trying to find like who in my file might Might be someone that's willing to share my message. You may want to look at people that are highly engaged. And so, and what I mean by that is they're donating, they could be monthly donors, they could like your messages, they could be opening your emails, they could be showing up and doing volunteer work, they could be signing, you know, petitions if you do advocacy work. Like you want to look at all of that engagement. And if I were sitting in your shoes, I would pull that data together and then I would craft a message after you've thought about internally what you want your strategy to be and invite them into like, hey, I have noticed how engaged you've been with our organization, and we are so incredibly grateful for you. We are wanting to get our message out to more people. Would you consider just sharing? And this is how you can control the message, by the way. Would you consider sharing this end-of-year campaign out with your group? What we have learned is that not only are your gifts so important, but your voice and your advocacy is as well. Would you consider just not only giving, but also sharing the message? And if you don't have dollars to give at this time, but you are willing to share, we would be really grateful for that. And that's a way to kind of ease your way into it, have some control over the message and invite people to you know just become those ambassadors. And then when you see those that do, then those are people that you can follow up and build relationships with to say, okay, what could this look like? Like, is this something that you would want to continue to do for us over time? And so it's just another way for them to volunteer their time. It just happens to be volunteering their time in a digital way and also volunteering their voice. And so again, you want to look for super highly engaged people to invite into that. Doesn't mean that there aren't people out there that wouldn't um do it that aren't highly engaged, but if I'm like really trying to narrow down where to start first, that's what I would do if I were sitting in your shoes.
Speaker 2:And if you're if we're sitting there, right, in in our shoes, so to say, going, yeah, that that sounds really great. I don't know that I have time for it. Is it even worth it? I saw a stat, and I think actually it was on your LinkedIn post, that each share on average brings is worth $100. Is this that comes out of that social state of giving report?
Speaker 1:It is on GifMe's website. You can, I'm sure you can link to it in the show notes if you would like. But that's where the data comes from that says yes, a share is worth $100 back to the organization. And so that's what you know stopped me in my tracks and was like, we have got to start to solve for this. And there's a couple of other things that I would encourage you to do. Uh, there's like, yes, I'm willing to give my time, but it is very easy to hit the share button. And so let's give the dollars, let's give our time, but let's also be willing to share and invite other people to do the same. And I wonder, I have come in contact with some tools that make this really easy. And one that I have thought of allows you to, and this would be a great way for nonprofits to get involved with being able to collect these stories and actually have some of that control, is to be able to say, like, I found that list of people or not found that list of people, like however you want to go mining through your database. But I found this group of people that fits either the age demographic that I'm looking for that might be on these platforms or the engagement factor. Those would be the two things that I would be looking at. Um, and if I'm hitting that engagement factor, then I want to invite them to just share their why. So remember, we were talking about that at the very beginning. So what is my support? What is my why? And being able to just send, imagine if you could send a link out to those people and say, hey, could you just answer this question? Whether you answer it in typed form or you answer it in like, I'm gonna pull up my phone here, do it in, we can't see it because of the background, but do it in the you know, self-recorded video form of like the reason that I give to this organization is because it has um, you know, helped my children grow in their academia and in their understanding of the world and you know, whatever the thing is, and it has made our life so much better. Like I totally made that up on the fly. Um, but like if you get 10, 15, 20 of those just videos from sitting out to that group, imagine what your social is gonna look like. You have your donors telling your story to your community and then just inviting them to reshare that. And so there are tools out there that allow you to be able to take those stories and be able to multiply their impact. If you're typing that in, so again, you don't if some people may be camera shy, and so they can just type in what their story is, and then imagine what it looks like to have a bank of those stories to put in your emails, your direct mail letters on your website. Then I would encourage you to imagine like a social media campaign that has those stories, donors telling your stories about why they give to your organization or volunteer or what it means to them or how it's helped their families or people that they know, their community. Like imagine that being the story that's being told. It's not you telling it, it's other people telling it. And that gives social proof and influence and credit. And imagine just those stories being show shared. Not just, hey, I gave, but hey, here's what Becca said about this organization and why it means so much to her, that $100 coming back in just because you told a story and you shared it. So that's pretty incredible. And I think it's a missed opportunity. We're not, it's not that we're not doing it, but to your point, um, there's so many things that we can be doing as organizations. And so, like, we need to get the tried and true done. But I always encourage organizations to have like a 10 or 15% margin if you can build that in. And it doesn't have to be dollar margin, it can be time margin, which I know is also hard, but to think about different ways to engage our community and test and try ways to raise money or raise awareness or raise volunteerism or advocacy differently. And and this kind of fits in that bucket of like, let's test this, let's test creating a Facebook community for boomers around a thing. Sorry, it's not all boomers, it's everybody, but you get it in there. Or let's test what it looks like to send out a request for storytelling and having it come back through written form andor a video form. And let's see if that actually starts to move the needle for the organization. What I can tell you is I'll use the Facebook group community because I was picking on it just a minute ago. I have an organization I've worked with that did that, and they it is all self-policed by volunteers, and it has become the recurring giving group. Like anybody that's a recurring giver comes into this community. And not only do they talk about uh why they love this organization so much, uh, they also just have become friends and they ask each other questions, they solve each other problems around the organization's kind of case for support. And what they've seen in that group is that not only has the group grown, it has driven stickiness to the organization to where the retention of the people that are in that group is north of 80%. And it's a recurring giving group. Wow. And so it's all because they've built like really incredible community. And so that is an example of what it looks like to volunteer your time to drive engagement and to inspire others to not only give to your organization the first G, but to stay and stick and be a part. And on the flip side of that, um, so that's like what it looks like to build it in Facebook, and then on the flip side of it, you know, what does it look like to collect those stories and and use channels of engagement? I'll use text in this example. So a friend of mine was running a text campaign, and what they saw in texting just the community that had completed a form on the website, which wasn't a give form, it was just an engagement question of some sort. They came back to that group and they asked, like, in this case it was a faith-based group, and so like they just texted back, like, how can I pray for you? And the response was overwhelming. They had like, I can't remember off the top of my head, like 1500 people of 7,500 people respond. Like it was a huge response rate. And and what they saw as a correlation was that dollar giving from that group went up without even an ask because they felt seen and heard and cared for. And so that engagement is so very important, regardless of what that looks like for your organization. So now imagine being one of those text recipients and I've given dollars. If you were to come back to me and just ask me, you know, what do I think about the organization? Why did I give? Imagine what those stories are gonna look like. I felt seen, I felt heard, I yeah. I so good. Yeah. And so what would it look like for them to share and then bring people in? And so those are just a couple of examples that I would use as anchor points as you think about like what is the right next strategy for me to test as I think about expanding my, I don't even want to call it donors, I want to call it supporters engagement, which encompasses all the things so that they can help me as a small, mid, large size nonprofit, grow not only um dollars and time and volunteerism in the door, but also that brand awareness and engagement, which keeps people staying longer. So higher retention and potentially higher gifts.
Speaker 2:There's nobody out there that doesn't like the sound of that. There's you just sold us on this whole idea.
Speaker 1:Now the question is like, that's a lot. So like what's the you know, what's the right next step? And it's it's what you've already said, Megan. It's let's find one group. Yeah, we've already talked about what that group is, and let's let's find that merge into test and say, I'm gonna pick one thing and I'm gonna watch it all the way through and see what it does to drive you know engagement, volunteerism, advocacy, and dollars in the door, and then pay it pay attention to retention year over year. Look at it quarter over quarter and see if they're retaining longer. And then are you seeing that average gift go up? And then are you seeing them recruit new people in? So good. Acquisition, I think, is one of the biggest challenges, and it's so expensive. And so why not activate your community to help acquire net new names onto the file that you can then steward in a very intentional way?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So good. Okay. If somebody wanted to learn more about the give framework, about GCS partners and the work that you do around all of these things, how would they find you? What's the best way to connect?
Speaker 1:All right. So the best way to connect is on LinkedIn. And so it's Rebecca Gregory Segovia on LinkedIn, and you can also find GCS partners on LinkedIn, or you can check out the website www.gcspartners.co. There's no M, it's .co. I know I'm one of those weirdos. Or you can email me at Becca at GCSPartners.co.
Speaker 2:Perfect. We will definitely link that in the show notes as well. Becca, thank you so much. I think this is a really good, especially as we're kind of kicking off a new year here. I think it's a really good to start a new year with some new fresh ideas. Yeah. So I think is a really great way to kick it off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do too. So if you're thinking about it and you're like, how do I get started? Don't hesitate to reach out. I would love to help you think through what is the one thing that I want to test this year that is gonna help drive not only greater giving through the great give framework, but also like tapping into this community that could be a voice for me and um help me raise more dollars and drive more stickiness inside the organization. I'd love to be a partner for you.
Speaker 2:So good. Again, our guest today has been Becca Gregory Segovia, who's the CEO at GCS Partners. Becca, thank you so much. We really appreciate all of the wisdom that you had to share today. I think it's gonna be super helpful as folks look at dreaming big for this new year. Awesome.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Megan. Appreciate you for the network.
Speaker 2:This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, and we'll see you next time.