The Executive Director and Pastor Guide to Sowing and Reaping Online Givers
What does Ethical Digital Fundraising and Executive Directors and Pastors have in common? A whole lot.
Technology is moving at break neck speeds. So is data collection and thus... access to this information.
Your Web Team and vendors have access to more data than you may can even imagine.
Listen in to learn about choses you may need to make about data available to you and how that effects the way you fundraise.
Leaders at Christian organizations and churches wear many hats and let's face it, they all don't fit perfectly. While focusing on mission, staff, vendors, fundraising, and goals... there is the matter of Digital Strategies. Technology and trends move at breakneck speeds and managing your Christian organization's online efforts can seem like a full-time job.
Todd Turner has been in your shoes... He spent his life helping Faith Based organizations build solid, ethical, online fundraising strategies that work. Listen in and subscribe to grow your knowledge, increase your ability to lead your digital efforts, and be encouraged as you navigate your organization in the Digital World of ministry and fundraising.
The Executive Director and Pastor Guide to Sowing and Reaping Online Givers
What does Ethical Digital Fundraising and Executive Directors and Pastors have in common? A whole lot.
Technology is moving at break neck speeds. So is data collection and thus... access to this information.
Your Web Team and vendors have access to more data than you may can even imagine.
Listen in to learn about choses you may need to make about data available to you and how that effects the way you fundraise.
Leaders at Christian organizations and churches wear many hats and let's face it, they all don't fit perfectly. While focusing on mission, staff, vendors, fundraising, and goals... there is the matter of Digital Strategies. Technology and trends move at breakneck speeds and managing your Christian organization's online efforts can seem like a full-time job.
Todd Turner has been in your shoes... He spent his life helping Faith Based organizations build solid, ethical, online fundraising strategies that work. Listen in and subscribe to grow your knowledge, increase your ability to lead your digital efforts, and be encouraged as you navigate your organization in the Digital World of ministry and fundraising.
welcome to the this is his story podcast the executive director and pastor guide to sewing and reaping online givers pastors and leaders at christian organizations wear many hats and let's face it they all don't fit perfectly while focusing on mission staff vendors finances and goals there's the matter of digital strategies technology and trends move at breakneck speeds and managing your christian organization's online efforts can seem like a full-time job todd turner has been in your shoes he spent his life helping faith-based organizations build solid ethical online fundraising strategies that work listen in and subscribe to grow your knowledge increase your ability to lead your digital efforts and be encouraged as you navigate your organization in the digital world of ministry and fundraising okay now what does that term mean well obviously the first things we think about is you know doing something with integrity like i tell people do what you say say what you do as long as you're honest with those things if you ask for a hundred dollars to do something you're going to do something with that hundred dollars exactly what you said that's being ethical in your true sense of urgency and true needs and then using the funds exactly the way you say you're going to don't make up a false crisis don't make up a false sense of urgency don't make up false numbers right those are all the things we think of when we think of ethical digital fundraising it's just being real and honest but i want to talk about another level of ethical digital fundraising maybe something that you haven't fully thought of first of all let's talk a little bit about big data one thing that i feel like a lot of executive directors and certainly pastors don't know is that some of the vendors that they work with or the technology that is available to them may be beyond their comprehension or their need to know but big data is a big thing we sometimes think of facebook instagram and some of the apps we keep in our pocket and their ability to sort of know what we're doing and know what we're up to and it's very interesting what what they collect on us and what how they use what they collect on us even things we let in our home like google and alexa and you know what what they're listening into what they're listening for and what people do with that data but i'm here to tell you that if if i'm scared of anything i'm scared of cell phone companies cell phone companies know a lot more information about us than we realize and not here to try to scare you i'm here to make you think facebook if they are tracking me at all they're sometimes they track where i tell them i am meaning i'm checking into this football game or i'm checking into this event the cell phone company literally knows your path and if i go to the grocery store they know which way i walked they know which owl i went down in what order they know where i stop they know a lot you want well nobody would want this but you know who could cause the most amount of divorces literally in 48 hours all heck would break loose if the cell phone companies release their data where they track on us they literally would know huh this cell phone and this phone meet every thursday between one and two o'clock at this hotel they know they know this person sleeps here but during the day they go over to this person's house they have all that information and it's there it's not like it doesn't come and go it's captured i mean i can only imagine what their privacy policies policies are but that data is there you can literally know who's hanging where who hangs out with who where they stay what room they probably stay in i guess it in a high-rise they wouldn't know which floor you're on necessarily but you get my point is there's a lot of data out here and i actually know some people in the industry that are really crunching these big data numbers one of them just for an example of what he was doing he was working with cell phones not social media companies the cell phone companies because he was trying to find potential customers certain level customers that were sports fans so he could see not only who was attending every alabama game but where they sat are they season ticket holders well he doesn't have to go to alabama to find that information i'm not sure they would tell him but the cell phone data people know they know where you sit they know did you stop by the pro shop or not and so he was looking at what they call like geo tagging to find out who spends time where and does anybody go to multiple arenas or multiple stadiums and do they travel a lot and what kind of sports fan are they and where do they sit all that's all that's available and it's out there and who has access and how much i don't know all the answers to that but i just want you to know that that data is available and as time moves on i promise you that access to that data is going to be more and more available and you as executive directors or even pastors will have access to data which you can then choose how to use that right you can either want it and ask for something in particular or you can gather data and then think what can i do with this data but those days are coming and if you're not into that yet you know putting your head in the sand and acting like it doesn't happen it's available to you and one of them right now are wealth reports and for those of you pastors listening you're probably unless you've had a big capital campaign in your church you probably aren't even thinking about wealth reports but if you've hired an organization to help you um like i used to work for an organization out of uh atlanta and that's what they help they help churches raise lots of commas in their to build a building or something you know something major they'll offer you a wealth report and then churches have to decide do i even want to do this nonprofits it's a lot easier in the normal business practice to use wealth reporting so what i say this i say this people all the time everybody does wealth reports it's just what level are you gonna do because here's the reality when someone walks up to you you can tell by the way they dress do they have money what kind of car do they drive do they talk about skiing every year what about that watch on their arm that's not a twenty dollar watch so we're always doing wealth reporting one way or the other it's just are we going to pay for it and what kind of information do we feel like is too far but wealth reporting works on zip codes it works on multiple houses have you financing boats what kind of cars i'm not sure what kind of tax records they have but you know depending on what boards are they on multiple board of directors there's a lot of bullet points i'm not here to get into all that but just for you to know that there that data is out there it can be purchased on your database and you can do information with that i tell people all the time that people that are capable of putting commas in their checks for your organization they don't like to be bothered with 25 gifts or if you only ask them for 25 that's all they're gonna give you there are people who are literally capable of writing you a hundred thousand dollar check and you've only asked them for 25 and so guess what they've given you 25 and you think wow i wonder why i can't get any big givers well because they're not asking the big big givers to give you big gifts because you know maybe you don't know who they are they only look like email addresses in your in your database at your church you're like well our big givers you know you're only looking at people who are active and you're not looking at the people who may have potential to give but they're just not giving your church they may be giving literally hundreds of thousand dollars to other organizations but not your church and one of my webinars i talk about i tell organizations to take a risk without being risky so you know i run into two mindsets a lot with my organizations i work with there are people who use quote unquote best practices for fundraising and then there's organizations who just think well we're so unique you know we're we just do kingdom work and the lord will provide and i guess they're waiting for him to blow a lottery check against the window because sometimes the lord doesn't provide by just blowing an anonymous hundred thousand dollars against your window right i mean you know we live in the world and we're allowed to ask and so so certain organizations just don't feel comfortable with that and they don't and they're you know not necessarily um funding the their mission well either but you know our ministries can look at the worldly playbook and best practices but the reality is we do have a little curveball with how we operate i mean it should be a blend between best practices and the holy spirit laying it on someone's heart but also they got to know where their money's going and what it's going to be doing right i say this in my webinar that you know my favorite verse for fundraising is proverbs 21 31 a horse is prepared for the day of battle but victory comes from the lord there's a balance between both views the the battle is the lord and their are instances in the old testament where he literally won a battle without the israelites doing anything and there's other times it was relatively prepared for work for battle they actually went into battle the lord the lord controlled it but they did fight right i mean we have something that trumps every best practice the holy spirit and a guy that moves people to do his work what god wants he funds but we must prepare the horse for battle we must do the things we should do we must tell our stories well so that people want to give to it we operate within this tension and balance and then we'll find success there this is why i do what i do i could probably make a good living working with nonprofits i know enough best practices that i could work with general nonprofits and probably double or triple my income but i stay in the lane of faith-based christian organization digital giving it's my bull's-eye it's a way smaller niche but it's the niche i like being in because i don't really believe that there's best practices for everything i want us to to prepare my clients i want them to prepare their horse for battle their horse may not be shaped like other horses it may not be as fast it's a unique horse i want to do the best with each horse prepare each horse for battle not just say here's what a perfect horse looks like everybody gets there use these practices and everything's going to be you know hunky-dory okay i don't believe in that but there's one best practice i insist on it's integrity no gimmicks no creating fake needs no playing on emotions of gilbert ethical storytelling and fundraising one of my largest clients has made a commitment to be an ethical storyteller so much so they don't even touch up or edit photos they're real and raw with a commitment not to play on an owner's emotion just think about those spca dog you know shivering and then the snow commercials right i mean that is playing on a donor's emotion for sure but yet they have a truly life-transforming story to tell um they help people with no hope and they help them come out of horrible situations so i had to work with them and invent ways to present our transformational stories on our website email print social media to be authentic but not make people give out a guilt and sure enough we've had twenty percent growth year after year after year for about three plus years now and now this ministry is able to further their reach save more lives and get you know more much more needed employees to help them grow you know all ministries are unique and and they all we all need the blocking and tackling and have the the basic standards of best practices that are essential for our kingdom-minded organization to use tried-and-true tactics but the strategy should honor the identity culture and foundation of each organization fundraising using authentic and ethical tactics is essential and we can sleep at night knowing right that people are giving for the right reasons so as you consider the options you have to know how to tackle your house file how to grow your house file i mean just know that there are a lot of opportunities out there to gain data and to learn more about your organization you're gonna have to make a decision what you feel comfortable with i think a lot of people have their lines and their lives need to be challenged a little bit because it sounds easy to say oh no no we're not going to do that we would never do that but once again if you start really looking you realize you're already doing it anyway i mean you already are talking to people different and you should be you should be you should not treat a 25 year old giver who 25 is about the most they're gonna give and somebody could write you a hundred thousand dollar check it those aren't the same conversations they're not offline why would they be online like why ask somebody that's capable of giving more only for 25 dollars it just doesn't make sense and if you don't know enough about your house file how are you going to talk to people different just think think through the you know where your ethics are just you ever work with me just know that i am i'm super big on being honest i i've only had a couple people that i refuse to work with it's few but i do have my line so just i don't like the tactics i i want to sleep at night i'm i am in the fundraising game i do i want to do it for the right reasons i want to sleep well and i want don't i want to know that every dollar that i help somebody ask for is going to go to what we said man if we do that we all sleep well at night right that's the only way to live so okay blessing hope this made you think a little bit and um yeah talk to you next time thank you for listening to today's episode of this is his story podcast overwhelmed at all the technical terms trends options cost invoice signings for your organization's digital strategies join other leaders of christian organizations as we join hands in our closed facebook group go to creativedigitalguy.com facebook to register and apply for access i'm only allowing executives of christian organizations in no vendors no high pressure sales no gimmicks into this closed facebook group sign up today and be encouraged and informed as you lead your christian organization looking for a free resource to help your organization move the needle on new names and donors watch the five simple shifts to gain dedicated donors with your digital strategies webinar go to creativedigitalguy.com to register for this on-demand resource built exclusively for executive directors creativedigitalguy.com for more information of gaining donors and telling stories that convert to new names and donations find 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