Using Technology to Help Nonprofits and Donors

Yearly’s Nonprofit Crash Course: A 15-minute nonprofit crash course on fundraising and marketing best practices. Josh Kligman from Yearly was joined by Jay Love. With so many ways that technology can help nonprofits, Jay breaks down his experience on how tech can help donor engagement, annual reports and more.

You can read the discussion here:

Thanks for joining Yearly’s nonprofit crash course, I’m Josh Kligman with Yearly and we are welcomed here by Jay Love the former CEO and co-founder of Bloomerang as well as many other software companies in the tech for good space Jay. Thanks for joining today.

Oh, it’s my pleasure Josh. I’ve been looking forward to this discussion.

Yeah, great. You’re down there in sunny, Florida.

Yes, just in enjoying a life down here. But as you know, very active with numerous startups as well as still working on the board of Bloomerang. So a lot going on in the nonprofit space these days.

Well, you’ve been involved for a long time Jay in helping nonprofits engage donors and in different ways to keep the meeting the needle moving not only and helping them figure out how to tell their story but getting donors to feel connected more to to various brands, you know, tell me about that involvement in helping helping donors through tech.

Well, so many of the organizations I’ve been involved with they’re all revolved around Communications with donors and with prospective donors. And as you know with glimmering, it was focusing in on retaining those donors because most of the general public is not aware that the nonprofit space retains their supporters and their donors at about half the rate of what the commercial world does with their customers.

So we’ve got this ongoing need to keep improving that every year for most the nonprofits that are raising funds to you know, take care of their mission work.

Yeah, I guess there’s a lot of competition there with different places. You can donate your time of your money. Maybe that’s why there’s such a drop off and you have to have that constant drumbeat of communication.

Well, I I think it’s that plus I think we’re many of the nonprofits are cells and I say that myself because I’m very actively involved with a large number of nonprofits. They drop the ball of continuing to build the relationship with the donor, you know, making sure there’s more than just reaching out with a handout saying once a year support me, you know. How can we engage and involve them on a monthly or quarterly basis and many of those outreaches should be not asking for additional funding?

Yeah, I mean as someone from a nonprofit may send me an email solicitation. I’ll get a text message that distracts me my doorbell my ring. My kids might need me and then do I forget about that or am I seeing that that consistent branding where they’re keeping me up to date on what’s going on and one of the ways that nonprofits do that often is with and your reports. So it’s your Lisa a leader offering a platform for nonprofits to create their own digital reports like annual reports and you have that nice summary at the end of the year.

You’re on our board here and I’m wondering what what you’ve seen from your perspective even before yearly was was great. Yeah you report is one of the very finest communication tools.

That was what made me so excited and not only be you know, actively involved as a board member but a major investor with your organization and all too is the fact that People need to see the result of your work. You know, what is the impact that the funding is having? What are the things that you’re doing for society that’s making a difference and I don’t think any document reveals that more than the annual report and to be able to deliver it electronically and make it so that people can forward it to their friends.

You know, I’ve had many of your customers that I see their annual reports come to me electronically and I fund them to people that I think would care about that same Mission and could generously fund that mission. So it’s quite a fundraising tool as well as a communication tool for those organizations.

So let’s go back further in your career before you discover the magic of digital annual reports with yearly and everything. You did at Bloomerang. How did you first get involved in working with nonprofits Jay?

Oh that goes back gosh 41 years ago. I was a regional manager for a mini computer company and one of my customers in that environment purchase a large number of many computers from me and I was invited to attend a big ten football game and at that football game the head of the fundraising department and it was a large Hospital in Northwest, Indiana. Was talking with me and said, you know, there’s this little startup company that’s on the northeast side of Indianapolis. That’s providing the first PC based.

This is when IBM had just introduced the PC and it’s providing the first PC based database program for managing all the record keeping and communicating with your donors and they said this group needs somebody to head up their sales and their marketing and Etc. And would you mind if I introduced you and when introduce me I looked at that and I said wow.

I love not only the startup environment but working with nonprofits and my wife and I had already been transferred and our first child had come and I said, you know, maybe sticking around Indianapolis and having a home base with the home office of a company would also be a good thing and I never looked back. I never been involved with anything else, but the nonprofit world since that time then So you’ve got this great deep understanding of nonprofit tech and and software and I mean to me I think you’re a bit of a futurist and thinking of what they want next.

So, you know, there’s a lot of a lot of investments that you make why Yearly what’s interesting to you about maybe the future of annual reports for well, if you think about any investment in the tech world that’s been exciting and very worthwhile. It’s usually some sort of a breakthrough technology or breakthrough idea and with Yearly the concept of making it easy to generate the annual report to avoid a lot of additional cost of publishing it there and making it much easier for people to receive it people are used to receiving things electronically.

Now, it can become a very vital part of you their website. Now the downloads are there but more importantly as I mentioned.

Earlier people that are currently board members and funders and supporters can forward that to their Network. So it’s got this magnifying effect and explosive effect of geometrically increasing the number of people that get to see what is the net results of this works in this mission of this organization.

And that’s still relatively new technology. So I think it’ll take time for adoption for nonprofits of of all sizes, especially small medium nonprofits to realize that Josh, you know, I was back in 1999 and 2000 trying to convince nonprofits to put all of their donor record-keeping data out on the internet.

You talk about breakthrough people looked at me. Like I had four or five eyeballs when I would tell them that that’s worth it where they should put their data and where we will do a much better job of protecting it for them people. Thought I was crazy. So it’s only a matter of time. I mean think about it now everybody puts all of their data out on the internet. I mean look at where all the data from your phone is being stored and all the data from all the databases. It’s all up in the cloud.

Yeah, if you think about search results, why not make it easier for your potential donors partners and volunteers to find your your content very much. So and I and I think you know as I briefly mentioned too being able to put that content up on their website too. So that it’s a it’s a very vital part that I think every organization’s most recent in several past annual report should be very easy for everyone to access on the website.

Yes, so I guess there’s some some barriers there mostly just staff time and trying something new when you’re thinking about digital annual reports and impact reports and and moving away from the the old way of doing things.

Right which may be creating a PDF or similar document printing it using a mailing house to get it out. Do you think that the barriers around technology that you saw several years ago when you started your earlier companies and anything you see today have some similarities.

Well, you know you think of the old three-legged stool of you can get something faster. You can get something that’s better. You can get something that’s cheaper.

Well, yours is the one of the rare occurrences that it fulfills all three of the legs. It can be much more economical to use Yearly. It can be faster to get the report out and it’s better because it can be shared in so many other ways and also it’s it can bring the report to life. You know, it’s a living breathing entity.

Then that that people can interact with so particularly as more and more of your customers perhaps in bed donation links and things of that nature within the report itself, you know, you can be reading about a particular project and right then and there donate to that project or invite your friends to donate to it. So it’s that’s that is revolutionary and breakthrough and so it won’t take long for people to catch on that. There is a new and better way of doing something.

Yeah, I would imagine that all the other technologies that you hear about in this in this industry. That’s helping nonprofits. Fine. Really accessible software is why you like to be on boards and and maybe while you’re on the Yearly board introduce ideas like that and and share those experiences.

Oh very much so I you know, one of my goals is to help more more nonprofits be able to sustain their funding to further their missions for that and a big part of that is, you know, doing things and much more like the commercial World there really isn’t a reason that the commercial world should be 10 years ahead of the nonprofit world with use of any technology maybe a year or two, but not 10 years ahead.

Yeah, I mean there’s so many new not tech for good companies out there that are that are bringing. I think they’re experiences from the for-profit world into this Arena that it’s going to happen faster and faster and we’ve seen a lot of those types of companies pop up just in the last few years.

Oh, yeah, and what’s fun is and you guys will keep finding that out at Yearly is you’ll find organizations that have board members that are much more progressive and realize that this can be a breakthrough for their organization and maybe allow them to expand their mission in that direction or this direction and do a better job at fulfilling that mission.

I’ve seen a few complimentary services out there that are similar to Yearly in the idea that they’re helping nonprofits move faster and get more donations quicker many of whom that you know we’re partnering with have you seen any really interesting technologies that have popped up very recently that you think if you were to tell sit down with a nonprofit marketing and communications or even fundraising leader right? Now you say you better go check out this website.

Oh, yeah, I can ten to fifteen come to mind that are bringing breakthrough activities to it whether you know the concept of by now pay later. Well, they now got a few companies that are doing give now and pay later or that, you know companies like gives you have people that are revolutionizing searching for grants like Instrumental you have other companies that are bringing artificial intelligence to the marketplace, there are so many of them out there that are making a difference and folks, you know.

They’ll get there early adopters first and then it will become mainstream and then all of a sudden a few years down the road we’re going to say, well, you know, you’re you’re still publishing an annual report in a printed form, you know, do you do we really need to be doing that?

You know, there’s going to be someone sitting around the board table that says, you know, why are we not doing it? Like everybody else in town is doing it.

Artificial intelligence is really interesting one to me.

I’m glad you mentioned that you know, at Yearly we’re looking for ways that we can use AI to help nonprofits make the reports even even faster too. Because yeah, well you can you can assist the you know, the human being that’s creating the report with suggestions and ideas and best practices and all for that.

You know, I I remember with Bloomerang we suggested a couple AI functions as in the crafting of emails for communications in the crafting of letters just counting, you know, or asking the the person to be realized what grade level they were writing it at that was bringing a little bit of artificial intelligence in there and telling people that something written at the seventh or 8th grade level was going to communicate better and have a bigger response than something written at the level of the 12th grade level.

And those were breakthrough items that many people had not Seen before and it was just introducing a little bit of artificial intelligence that at creation process.

Yeah, it’s a nice complement to that creation process. It’s like templates on steroids. So, you know, we have a templates that you can create your your annual reports with for nonprofits then within that what if you could take your letter from your executive director and have ai assistant writing that I’ve been testing that on the side and it’s looking it’s looking really good just as good as the regular letters and then you can always go and tweak and edit from there if you need but it’s it’s taking a process that could take hours of writing and simplifying it, you know.

Oh, yeah, exactly, especially if it’s doing nothing more than creating that first draft or that rough draft that you can then finalize from there. But it’s it’s ensuring that all those best practices are going into place initially. So that’s that’s what it’s all about. And that’s where technology makes life easier for that and I’m just delighted that we both get a chance to help nonprofits bring those technology ideas.

Life and to better serve all of their constituents. Yeah, I love seeing it on unfold as we talked to our customers at Yearly and we see and hear about their needs when they’re starting the project and then they make this report and they’re promoting it out there and I see it on on LinkedIn and Facebook and watching their donors and volunteers comment on it and and praise it. You know, it’s a more digestible format.

They can read it faster and and then move on to the next project a lot quicker well, and I would be remiss to you ask me earlier about you know, the involvement with the other companies from Bloomerang and others that I currently get the pleasure at working with. Yeah, the the one thing that I always love is that the founders like yourself Josh and Jeff all of them have this burning passion to help the nonprofit world and that is such a difference and oftentimes.

In fact most the time that permeates down to every brand new hire that they bring in. Every single person that’s working at these companies has this desire to help the nonprofit world and it’s such a differentiator of bringing super high quality people into the fold to serve the customers that yearly has and all these other companies have.

Gosh, I can’t think of any better combination than that desire to help the nonprofit world and actually serving it on profit world. It’s a difference maker especially when it comes down to helping customers solve unique problems, you know, I worked as a nonprofit marketer at 4-H for over 10 years and had a great experience there and worked on all types of reports including annual reports and a lot of a lot of brand brand management and strategy work too and digital partnerships.

So when it comes down to including all that stuff and presenting what your brand is in various types of reports. I love it when I can get on the phone with with nonprofit customers and and walk them through maybe different experiences that I had that help solve. And we had this one organization in New Orleans and another one a foundation in Las Vegas that were worried about jumping into digital reports because it was so far away from what they they were used to doing.

So I said, why don’t why don’t you mail a jumbo postcard to all of your donors saying our report is now on our website and you give them a QR code and the url spelled out so they can go and access it really easily and train them over the years that that’s where your reports are now going to live. So you’re spending a lot less on printing the postcard then the whole each report, right?

You still getting the message out there that are with constituents that are used to holding something in their hand, but they’re learning over time, you know about that transition and I think that it goes beyond in your reports though. There’s a lot of other reports you mentioned quarterly updates earlier. I know about organizations making impact reports event recaps and board updates.

You know, I’d like to go a little deeper in your your interest in all types of nonprofit reports, you know, in terms of other major benefits of organizations showing off their impact throughout the year in other ways than an annual report like, you know, you know, what why keep that donor or that potential donor so up to date on various programs going on first just one quick report that saves you a lot of time then you don’t do anything else the rest of the year.

Well, it’s all about engagement. That’s the key word is think about why do people post a lot of things often about their family on social media because they’re in great engaged and they know what’s happening this week or next week or this month or that month and the more engagement you can get with each of your supporters from the board members on down to a prospective donor or someone.

That just one of those very important volunteers, the more engaged they are and they know what’s happening at your nonprofit and what various projects you’re involved in what successes you’re having what difficulties you’re facing that engagement leads to involvement which leads to financial support which leads to volunteering all those things. And so anything that enhances that engagement is a game changer, they they really need to be embracing that and doing that and that’s why you know someone that’s a major donor or supported your organization there interfacing with your organization at the minimum at least once a month in some way.

There’s some touch point that’s happening and this facilitates those touch points we we talked earlier about a transition towards digital and I know it’s hard for nonprofits to transition away from old habits, especially with all these types of reports that will continue that engagement like you’re talking about with donors. So if you think about annual report the most common type of report and nonprofits going to make they either hire a graphic designer like a freelancer or an advertising agency.

They may do an in-house but that’s spent a lot of time on that the outsource the printing they use a mail house. You have to pay for stamps. Even if it’s a nonprofit rate. There’s a cost. So when it when non profits are thinking about transitioning away from old habits, like why is that and are there other areas of technology that are are hard habits that that needs to transition that are out.

Well, it’s it’s not just technology any habits hard to change and thing and you know ways of doing stuff gets get entrenched and also, you know, like I said, it goes back to the old three-legged stool, you know, they will be willing to change if it’s more economical if it’s faster and if it provides a better outcome or better result, so those things come in and very seldom. Do you have a situation where you get all three?

And so those breakthrough functions that nonprofits can embrace and use that fulfill all three can really make a difference. You know, I think back to the CRM world where we offered people to pay for the CRM on a monthly or quarterly basis rather than paying it all up front and one lump sum and people said I can get the same functionality and I don’t have to spend 10 or 20 hours up front that was a game changer for them because and many people didn’t believe that at first and so I just give it time Josh and I think they will all start to see that particularly, as you know individuals that want to break habits become part of the decision making process become part of the board structures, you know, those those habits who will all get broken before it’s all said and done especially if it answers those those three key criteria.

Well, it’s fun watching it happen in real time. I think of nonprofits I talked to last year that may have not been quite ready yet and I stay in touch with them and right try to consult when I can and then watch them use yearly this year and create beautiful digital reports that that are impressing their stakeholders.

So yeah, he keep at it. It’s exciting to watch out and every time I receive one of your annual reports from one of your customers, I go.

Yes, we have another convert that’s doing things and and an exceptional manner. So it’s it’s a joy to watch it Josh.

And it’s across all Industries, too. A lot in education including higher ed and and religious and healthcare, animal shelters, food banks you name it?

So I’ll keep sharing  them as we get them, and I want to thank you for joining us here today. We have Jay Love, former CEO and co-founder Bloomerang as I mentioned many other not for profit tech companies, and thanks for joining us on Nonprofit Crash Course, Jay. Hey, it’s a pleasure.

Let’s do it again sometime Josh.

All right. Thanks. Take care.

Bye.