Today's episode is pulled from a Webinar created in 2021 that is SO relevant and needed for Non-Profit Executive Directors and even Executive Pastors: The Section of the Webinar was called "Your Reports are Lying to you!"
It helps eliminate passing data up from those below to the board of directors and having important information ignored. Selling a report that was built to show success not necessarily facts. Stop having needless "Vanity Reporting" laid on your desk and wasting valuable time finding the information you really want.
In a day when data is everywhere... learn how to find... or better yet.. ask for the INFORMATION you need to find if your web efforts are bringing in RIO.
We discuss how to measure online projects and learn to make reporting decisions BEFORE the project starts.
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.
Today's episode is pulled from a Webinar created in 2021 that is SO relevant and needed for Non-Profit Executive Directors and even Executive Pastors: The Section of the Webinar was called "Your Reports are Lying to you!"
It helps eliminate passing data up from those below to the board of directors and having important information ignored. Selling a report that was built to show success not necessarily facts. Stop having needless "Vanity Reporting" laid on your desk and wasting valuable time finding the information you really want.
In a day when data is everywhere... learn how to find... or better yet.. ask for the INFORMATION you need to find if your web efforts are bringing in RIO.
We discuss how to measure online projects and learn to make reporting decisions BEFORE the project starts.
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 today's episode is pulled from a webinar i created in 2020 that's so relevant and needed for non-profit executive directors and even executive pastors the section of this webinar was called your reports are lying to you it helps eliminate passing data up from those below you to your board of directors or having important information ignored when they ask for the right thing right spell selling a report that was built to show success and not necessarily facts stop having needless vanity reporting laid on your desk and wasting valuable time finding the information you really want in a day where data is everywhere learn how to find or better yet ask for information you need and find out if your web reports are bringing in you know a return on your investment versus taking information that sort of makes your team look good or what makes projects just look good we discuss you know how to measure online projects and learn how to make reporting decisions before the project starts not finding out what data the project told us let's be honest most non-technical directors and leaders of non-profits and churches don't really know the hard questions to ask they don't even know how to read all the reports flying at them on their desk their inbox their screens you know i used to get plenty leading insight for living really was problematic because i had reports hitting my desk every single day even in the hallways and i just realized i was spending way too much time trying to see if a report was actually a good report and having to go back and say would you add this delete this what about this and hey yeah that looks pretty but and i just spent so much time trying to validate or improve the reports i was getting that i just got really really really frustrated with it and i came up with systems that my team had to follow to let me lead with confidence the dashboard i was looking at to make decisions was a good dashboard so listen in to the entire section of this webinar it's probably the whole webinar is still available online if you want to listen to the whole thing but right now here's a clip just on the section of reporting shift number four this one's a great one your reports are lying to you wow sounds mean doesn't it data is frequently built to prove something not reveal something let me say that again data reports the data is the data but the reports crossing your desk are frequently built to prove something not reveal something it's just sort of human nature have you ever had this happen before have you ever had to pass information up the ladder like you're going to your board of directors and somebody handed you a report and they just sort of cherry picked the good numbers and then you got asked by the board some tough questions sort of embarrassing right because you just weren't given all the information because they just gave you the good stuff they wanted to prove that that project was great and not really pull out the the negative or the did anybody ask this question right it's not that your staff's trying to deceive you but a lot of people hope data shows you something and it it doesn't take much to to have the numbers sort of lie and trick you because deep inside everybody wants the numbers to say wow that project was worth our while think of all the time and effort we put into that it it must be good and here's the four or five things that i found that made it sound like it was amazing here's the real issue most non-technical directors just don't know the hard questions to ask they don't know where to poke and they don't have a plan in place to ask the right questions for the right kind of projects we must know what to measure in order to find the return on investment here's a great way to look at this if it doesn't get donors or if it doesn't turn donors into frequent donors then it must it better have high ministry or mission value right like it's okay we're in the we're in the kingdom business right we're allowed to do things that are ministry some of some of the of you listening your your ministry is to other people and then donors give and other times your donors are the ones receiving the ministry right so it is okay to have high ministry value in your efforts but it's a great thing to ask about a project is does it get donors if so we'll talk about how we're going to measure that and or if it doesn't turn donors into frequent donors then we better have a good good kingdom-minded ministry mission um in doing that right so here's what here's how to look at it every project every project has to have measurable goals so we need to know are the systems in place to capture these measurable goals if not we need to put them into place and then let's know what we're going to ask before we do anything i mean i'm telling you before anybody does any project think about this talk about it because nothing's more frustrating than six months down the road to say oh i didn't know y'all wanted that we didn't build it that way oh it's one of the worst sentences i ever hear not only track new names and donors out of a project but track their lifetime value there's been times where i thought a a campaign or something that was being done was sort of a bust it just couldn't justify it couldn't just was the juice worth the squeeze but i went back and looked at the lifetime value of that group and i was like wow that group actually matured pretty fast they became higher average gifts out of that group they became monthly givers faster like you can you can you'll be surprised of how many times you look at something and say wow they didn't convert well at first but boy they sure took off later it's probably because of the messaging and why they joined um help them join in and dovetail into your organization a lot faster there's a lot to figure out there some of you give away things like a premium with your gifts you know because somebody gives you a gift you give them back and you look too on that did those groups mature or they just here for something free or was you know the lifetime value wasn't great even though it very first they may have given a lot but they've never never matured right so look at lifetime value for sure when you're tracking the success of a project and of course it you know it's even though the internet's been around now for decades you still see shifting from offline to online so i'm very careful to say you know welcome to our online ministry versus welcome my ministry because you have people who may be faithful donors who have yet to still give up your website or for mobile so just always look for that sometimes you are fooled into thinking somebody's a new donor when they're really not and then of course views likes and comments don't really mean a lot it's all about traffic and conversions sort of like saying you know let's go build a shop in the middle of the desert and then uh you ask your your manager like hey how did things go oh man we had five people walk by and wave at us today well what is the weight the wave doesn't open the cash register you know i mean a like to comment like we have you know 100 000 followers great are any of those donors are they potential donors are they coming in like i just i'm still of the mindset that though there is exposure value to a lot of social media without a plan of what you're doing with that traffic a lot of us just playing social media game it is there are really good ways to convert and even pay per clicks believe it or not really doing well um you know that's another topic for another day but just general clicks and our likes and comments and views really just don't mean much here's something to really look at i asked all my clients day one what is your donation page abandonment rate and how much time do people spend on your website and normally get a raised eyebrow or a little confused look by some people because they're thinking i'm going to ask a hundred other questions than that i like to see time on site always improving it means you're doing a better job of pulling people in especially when you're doing ministry on your own website but even if you're just telling your donor story if people are hanging out that means they're interested or that means they're enjoying the content that they see so i love time on site i like capturing it and then looking at it over and over and over i mean not monthly but you know quarterly at least every year at the very least and donation page abandonment you would be shocked what your abandonment rate is and there's this mindset that if people hit the donate button they're going to donate and it is so not true the abandonment rates will scare you and it speaks to why your donation page is so important because you need to if you're doing a good job those abandonment rates are going to go down and down and down okay here's here's a great example you like to look goldfish with a shark uh face yeah this is this describes this perfectly had a client i did a big global facebook event we had celebrities we had people from all around the world and experts from all around the world everyone's in on this project and i was i was already in with this client when all this was happening and i was trying to point everybody to the correct lighthouse of how to divine success because everybody sort of had their own expert area of expertise and their own opinions of what success was in this big campaign if you will right i mean a lot of players everybody if you pull them in a room and ask them what success was would have given you a different story well when the project was over we had our you know the the call the final call everybody get on and boy everybody was just talking about how great things were look at the numbers look how many waves we got in the desert and uh how many comments and whatever i mean people were just bragging and i'm waiting for my turn and i'm of course trying to think i'm not going to be negative nelly here but there are there's something called truth we spent so many man power hours on this so much money was spent on this i mean six figures and at the end of the day after all people were bragging about what a great event look how wonderful everything was you know how much this organization raised two thousand seven hundred dollars made me sick to my stomach but it was because everyone didn't define what success was though i begged the client now it was one of these tough lessons they have a much easier time listening to the key and indicators of success in any additional initiatives now because they were just hoping and guessing and certainly with all these experts in the room certainly with all the money and the time we're putting into this this thing's going to be great we're going to get tons of new donors right no they're not going to hope any longer when funding projects you don't hope for success they trust me now and here's what makes makes me sad is i know for a fact that we would have brought well over the six figures spent if the target was defined and and there was a lighthouse that everyone was rolling to at the exact same time it was a great it was it was a great moment for them and it just failed because they just didn't have a lighthouse that everyone was rowing towards everybody was rowing towards their own version of success here's another big big thing to think about people say one thing and do another and i'm not i know that just sounds like a normal trait of human beings right the sinful nature of us all but we normally defend best practices and goals but the data frequently points into different directions donors will sometimes tell us what they want or think but their actions are often different so i'm going to give you an example it's sort of like saying in a church i think we can all relate to this we need to start you know an 8 a.m toddler class you know because you know the the praise and worship teams coming in with their toddlers and they don't they're running around the church and we just need to have a nursery for them and you know that would help everybody out we need to do that so okay let's do it when you do it and you know you find hard time to get volunteers and then you find that the ten people you thought were going to use it didn't use it they you're like well my husband watches them up here or no actually um my kid likes to sleep in like there was a plan but the data would have shown that they didn't really need it like frequently this happens with websites and with with with projects is like this this happened one time as well um a board a board one powerful board member came in and he said we need an app everybody's got an app and you know my son-in-law he builds apps and we need an app and apps are great and apps and apps apps so they this organization spent a lot of money on an app well i just because i knew i a year later i went around to every board member at the dinner and just hey download the app are you using the app not one board member was even using the app they all approved it they all said we needed one and they're all donors of the organization and they don't even use the app and guess what no one else did either they thought we needed an app they wanted an app because they read somewhere apps were great but let data tell you what you need not opinions your donors will tell you what they like by how they act let the data tell you oh this page works better or this case for support works better not oh you should y'all should do this that the other and then they don't even follow their own advice right if best practices work if apps worked then all organizations be flooded with resources and money right let your data drive the decisions not preconceived notions and hopes and dreams trust what your donors do not what they tell you okay if this reporting topic wet your appetites list to the entire webinar it's online for free it's called five simple shifts to gain dedicated donors with your digital strategy and you can find it at creativedigitalguy.com all right guys thank you very much for listening to episode one see you soon 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 dating donors and telling stories that convert to new names and donations find your god 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