How do you go from a transitional audience of Facebook followers to a level of deep engagement where you actually get to know them?
I always love sharing interesting tech and tools, which is why I’m excited to introduce you to Nick Black and Jeremy Berman, the founders of GoodUnited. This dynamic duo are lifting the veil on their mission to transform nonprofit fundraising in the age of social media, turning passive followers into champions of change.
Our episode opens up with a candid conversation about diversity and inclusivity, and the pivotal steps Nick and Jeremy are taking to prioritize these values across their upcoming events following a difficult wake up call.
Then, we get right into the nuts and bolts of Facebook fundraising campaigns - and how over time, Facebook has unlocked over 7 BILLION dollars in donations with their giving tools.
Don’t miss out on these massive opportunities for nonprofits, including the ability to directly connect with donors in Facebook Messenger and how you can leverage GoodUnited’s powerful messaging tools.
One messaging push resulted in 2,900 shares of a post in 18 hours!
We wrap with some fascinating case studies, dissecting campaigns from Puppy Rescue Mission and the American Heart Association's Kids Heart Challenge, and highlight the power of conversational messaging to engage and mobilize supporters.
Resources & Links
Connect with Nick on LinkedIn, and with Jeremy on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Nick and Jeremy’s book comes out March 26th! Click here to preorder One-Click to Give: Future Proof Your Fundraising with Social Media.
Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.
Don’t miss DonorPerfect’s Community Conference SPARK on June 4 & 5! It’s for any fundraiser wanting to excel in donor management, program innovation, community engagement, and organizational growth. Register for FREE! RSVP: https://bit.ly/DSSPARK
Want a donor acquisition plan tailored to you? All you need to do is answer 5 simple questions. Get your personalized growth plan: https://bit.ly/DonorGrowthQuiz
The NIO Summit is the nonprofit industry’s premier digital fundraising event! Join hundreds of fellow nonprofit professionals in Indianapolis September 18-19 and save $600 on your ticket -- the lowest price available anywhere right here: https://bit.ly/NIOSummit2024
Let's Connect!
How do you go from a transitional audience of Facebook followers to a level of deep engagement where you actually get to know them?
I always love sharing interesting tech and tools, which is why I’m excited to introduce you to Nick Black and Jeremy Berman, the founders of GoodUnited. This dynamic duo are lifting the veil on their mission to transform nonprofit fundraising in the age of social media, turning passive followers into champions of change.
Our episode opens up with a candid conversation about diversity and inclusivity, and the pivotal steps Nick and Jeremy are taking to prioritize these values across their upcoming events following a difficult wake up call.
Then, we get right into the nuts and bolts of Facebook fundraising campaigns - and how over time, Facebook has unlocked over 7 BILLION dollars in donations with their giving tools.
Don’t miss out on these massive opportunities for nonprofits, including the ability to directly connect with donors in Facebook Messenger and how you can leverage GoodUnited’s powerful messaging tools.
One messaging push resulted in 2,900 shares of a post in 18 hours!
We wrap with some fascinating case studies, dissecting campaigns from Puppy Rescue Mission and the American Heart Association's Kids Heart Challenge, and highlight the power of conversational messaging to engage and mobilize supporters.
Resources & Links
Connect with Nick on LinkedIn, and with Jeremy on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Nick and Jeremy’s book comes out March 26th! Click here to preorder One-Click to Give: Future Proof Your Fundraising with Social Media.
Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.
Don’t miss DonorPerfect’s Community Conference SPARK on June 4 & 5! It’s for any fundraiser wanting to excel in donor management, program innovation, community engagement, and organizational growth. Register for FREE! RSVP: https://bit.ly/DSSPARK
Want a donor acquisition plan tailored to you? All you need to do is answer 5 simple questions. Get your personalized growth plan: https://bit.ly/DonorGrowthQuiz
The NIO Summit is the nonprofit industry’s premier digital fundraising event! Join hundreds of fellow nonprofit professionals in Indianapolis September 18-19 and save $600 on your ticket -- the lowest price available anywhere right here: https://bit.ly/NIOSummit2024
Let's Connect!
When we created Good United 10 years ago, we founded it with the same vision that we have today, which is to empower nonprofits of all sizes to have a one-to-one relationship with every supporter, and the first five years, nick and I learned through a lot of failure what not to do. But in 2017, as Facebook rolled out their giving tools, we found this opportunity to connect nonprofits with the individuals that are giving, where they're spending time in social channels, in a way that was never possible before. And what took place on Facebook specifically between 2017 through today is unprecedented growth for unlocking revenue in a new channel.
Speaker 2:Hey there, you're listening to the Missions to Movement podcast and I'm your host, Dana Snyder, Digital Strategist for Non-Prophet and Founder and CEO of Positive Equations. This show highlights the digital strategies of organizations making a positive impact in the world. Ready to learn the latest trends, actionable tips and the real stories from behind the feed. Let's transform your mission into a movement.
Speaker 3:Hello, hello, happy Wednesday, if you were listening to this live as it is coming out, if not happy any other day. And thanks for being here and listening. As always, my name is Dana Snyder and I have the selfish pleasure of interviewing incredible guests to talk about all things marketing and social media and innovative tactics and tools for getting the word out about what you do and yourself with personal branding too, and today is none other but a great episode to have two gentlemen virtually across from me right now Nick Black and Jeremy Berman so nice to have you both on Missions to Movements.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Thanks so much for having us.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Now. You both are founders of Good United, which is a platform I found out about just recently because I've been in the weeds of figuring out how to better connect with my audience through messaging. I mean, you do some really unique work in the nonprofit space and I think I'm pretty pumped to talk about some different case studies with you guys and specifically, not just having our Facebook audience be followers, but how do we actually more deeply engage and get to know them, which is something this tool helps us do. So I always love to share listeners. You know the latest, coolest tools and tech that I research, and so, nick, we'll start with you, and then Jeremy coming in next year. Backgrounds are crazy, incredible with accomplishments, so maybe do like a quick, just intro for yourselves. Nick, let's start with you first.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dan, thanks so much for having us. That's an absolute honor. I co-founded Good United with Jeremy based on my experiences starting co-founding a nonprofit called Stop Sorter Suicide 2011. And I co-founded that organization because I served in the military and did a couple of years in Afghanistan. Thank you for your service. Oh yeah, thanks for saying that, and you know, just really, we've been at it for a while and we're just so excited to be able to roll out this fundraising software for social media. There's so many stories and so many whys behind Good United, but you know, jeremy and team have really done unbelievable work and roll this product out and we can't wait to help. You know tons of organizations.
Speaker 3:Beautiful, I love it. Jeremy, introduce yourself, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. So my name is Jeremy Berman and, as Nick said, I am the other co-founder of Good United. We got together at UNC in a really interesting way we outside of this company and our passion around the mission. We couldn't have more different backgrounds. I come from a technology background, starting out with consulting in DC before deciding to go to business school, where I met Nick.
Speaker 1:I went to business school with a very focused game plan of finding a position that intersected my passions, which are entrepreneurship, being able to give back to the nonprofit sector, as well as technology. Prior to going to business school, I had taken four months to do an international volunteer trip and got to live firsthand, the day in and day out, of what it takes to grow a nonprofit with very little funding, and one of the reasons that Nick and I work really well together is that Nick started a nonprofit and he's very intimately familiar with the experience at that level. Myself I did some work volunteering at a nonprofit, but I come at it from the lens of a donor and having really, I would say, mediocre experiences with nonprofits that I care a lot about, having given money, time, effort, only to get an email newsletter that was one size fits all, and it was through my meeting Nick, in my intersections of passions, that I was able to find a problem in a company and something that I care deeply about, to be able to solve these problems together.
Speaker 3:Bringing the brains together to make it happen. I love it. I mean that's awesome. I mean to have the perspective of Nick you ran, created, launched an organization, and then Jeremy, with the tech side. I'm sure you could also just like pick holes at what's actually gonna work. What will people actually use? That's a big thing with tech platforms, right, we buy it, then we never use it, and that's a problem and you don't want that to happen. So I think this tool is very cool and people might be thinking like Facebook. Dana said Facebook, when am I gonna use a?
Speaker 2:tool around.
Speaker 3:Facebook and.
Speaker 2:Messenger.
Speaker 3:Social media. Yeah, what is this? So I wanna dive into it. I also wanna quickly, before we do that, take the time to give you both time to speak to. There was a previous February event that was going to be hosted. Can you just talk through? I was a speaker for that event and the negative is we realized through a LinkedIn post that all of us, as speakers, were white and there wasn't a whole lot of diversity and inclusivity in the lineup, and we talked about a little bit this beforehand. I've talked to a lot of the other speakers beforehand. I personally have an inclusivity clause in my contract speaking to the fact that I'm supposed to want to bring up. Is this event going to be diverse? Are there going to be other faces and what is the room like? And I didn't do that on my end, just in the busyness of life and I know I had a failure on my part and you guys ended up stopping the event, taking a step back. Can you speak to? What are your plans? What happened in that moment for yourself?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing that. I failed, so I mean there's a pretty big failure here. So we have a Supercharger social fundraising event. It's a free event that we wanted to put on for our nonprofit friends, for them to really share what's working, what's not working. As we put this lineup together, I was drawing our attention that we weren't inclusive, and that is right. We had 10 different speakers, we did not have the backgrounds that we aim for. We took a step back, realized our incredible failure and had pushed back the event to March 14th at 1pm Eastern.
Speaker 4:We are actively trying to build a bigger event that bring more voices, more expertise, more knowledge to the table. We have taken a hard look internally. Why is it that we're able to throw this out there and not catch it? We're going through training.
Speaker 4:Our goal, and what we challenge our team with, is saying listen, let's not talk about this, be about it. So let's execute right. I think we've heard through this dialogue we had some great conversations that the nonprofit tech ecosystem doesn't have a great reputation for being inclusive, and so for me, that's a challenge, and so let's set the standard, let's lead the way. So our goal is not only throw the greatest event possible for nonprofits to learn about social fundraising, but also to set the standard for other companies to follow, so that this isn't a thing in the future. And with your help and I think your exclusivity clause is great let's figure it out, let's solve it right. That's what we're going for. We pushed the date back to March 14th it's tomorrow, 1 pm Eastern so we're really excited about the opportunity to share, to learn and to get better.
Speaker 3:Awesome, I love that. Yeah, Jeremy, anything else that you wanted to add to that?
Speaker 1:It was a very difficult wake up call. That, as Nick pointed out, is 100% our failure. Internally at Good United, we have a leadership principle called Pay Plus Reflection Equals Progress. What we have found over time is that our company has been able to get better in so many different ways through failure. This is a failure that is very personal to us. Everybody here has positive intent, wanting to throw the best event possible, and what we are doing internally, as Nick shared, is embodying this leadership principle, where we are going into really think through how did we end up at this place? What can we do today to start to be on a path where we can set the standard for our internal employees in every single event, for us and others, going forward through this opportunity, this painful opportunity?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and look, this isn't just your team, right? This isn't something that is a silo experience. It happened to be something that we are collectively a part of and I wanted to raise it to the attention. I think for listeners, it's a great moment to do some internal work, myself included, and to be able to look at not even events, but who's on our boards. What does our donor base look like? It's not just the things that are always going to be so public facing. What does our staff look like? This is a way bigger picture than just what could be a public event, and I think it's something that we all can take a beat and to be able to look at.
Speaker 4:Well, I appreciate the opportunity to have a dialogue about it, Dana. That's really meaningful to us.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Thank you for the change and the reflection and the work that you guys are doing internally. One of my questions right before we had this podcast was I wanted to bring this up and to talk about it and both of you and the whole team was like, yes, we want to do it. If you would have been like no, I've been like do they care what's?
Speaker 3:going on over there so thank you for wanting to talk about it and wanting to lead the way, and I'm sure afterwards can share resources and maybe even what was done internally. So thank you both for coming on and being open to being able to talk about it. I would appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Now we're going to be about it. We're going to try to lead the way. So thank you for the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 3:Awesome, you got it. So let's switch gears. Let's talk about some Facebook and Instagram. Let's do it Some Meta products. Ok, they can also get a really bad rap for changing algorithms and many orgs.
Speaker 4:Really See low. Yeah, oh, that's so surprising. We never hear that.
Speaker 3:That's, that's not a good vibe all the time. Many orgs see really low organic engagement on the platform. But I want to know, like you when you were creating the tool, what have you seen actually working on these platforms for organizations these days?
Speaker 4:I love the answer to that. Now, jeremy, maybe be helpful. Dan is to tell you like, why we're doing this. Yeah, cool, so maybe it's like the various concussions I've had from the military or football, but when we start building stops or suicide, we talk with the team. We would never send our website traffic in the social to make a gift. Have you ever met anyone that does that?
Speaker 3:Have you ever sent your websites?
Speaker 4:Website traffic, so people got a website. You redirect them to social. Yeah, no.
Speaker 4:So why is it OK that we keep spending all this time, money and posting and building community and social, that we pay to send them to our website and the answer I got was well, because we don't know who these people are, we don't know how to acquire them, we don't know how to ask them to give, we have no control, and so that's what we're doing. So we're building this software solution for social media to be able to do all the things you expect in your website and social, but be able to feed with new people, new revenue, and I think it's such a wonderful time to be able to be optimistic and hope and grow, because so many organizations have been building these vibrant communities where people are, and now we're trying to allow you to unveil, to meet these people. So what's been happening historically with getting a social really started? In 2017, with birthday fundraising, a lot of big organizations were able to see significant revenue, including South Suri Suicide.
Speaker 4:I remember we would get direct deposits of like 10,000, like wow, I'm right, came to Jeremy. Like Jeremy, 30,000, 50,000. Is this a mistake? And I was like, well, don't tell them, right? Well, it's just like something happening. We're getting money, but that's, you know, had an interesting course, Jeremy. What have you seen? Kind of like that trend of what people are at today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when we created Good United 10 years ago it's crazy to say that loud almost 10 years we founded it with the same vision that we have today, which is to empower nonprofits of all sizes to have a one-to-one relationship with every supporter, and the first five years, nick and I learned through a lot of failure what not to do. But in 2017, as Facebook rolled out their giving tools, we found this opportunity to connect nonprofits with the individuals that are giving where they're spending time in social channels, in a way that was never possible before. And what took place on Facebook specifically between 2017 through today is unprecedented growth for unlocking revenue in a new channel. So I think the fastest channel to get to a billion dollars today it's well over seven, and we often lose sight in terms of how fast that channel grew because all of the other challenges that you have to work through to build out a sustainable revenue path in that channel.
Speaker 3:Right, quick history here for everybody that remembers the Ice Bucket Challenge. That was the infamous reason for why Facebook created these fundraising tools. The fundraising tools ironically did not exist during Ice Bucket Challenge and I think Facebook was like whoa, let's wake up here. And that's what created these tools. So sorry. Yes, fast forward to now. Seven billion plus dollars are around. Are Facebook birthday fundraisers or fundraisers in general? Do you still see them working?
Speaker 1:Yes, let's just talk for a second. Why is the channel so powerful? So, unlike every other channel, there is a built-in network effect the virality of creating a fundraiser that doesn't exist anywhere else. And what that actually means is that when a user creates a fundraiser on Facebook, facebook automatically promotes that fundraiser on all of that individual's friends and family's news feeds, and the impact is that donations often start coming in with little to no effort from the fundraiser creator themselves. But the challenge for nonprofits was that they didn't get all of the data that they were used to in other channels, like digital, and they had no way to give a great first experience to that fundraiser, to help them hit their goal and then keep them engaged over time to give again.
Speaker 1:We found that we can solve for those problems following a specific playbook and by building technology to support it. So when we say, or when we think about the question you just asked, are Facebook birthday fundraisers still successful, I would tell you yes. However, I think the definition of success has changed over time. When Facebook first launched these giving tools, nonprofits were beholden to Facebook's algorithm to promote their nonprofit, for individuals to check the box to launch the fundraiser for that organization. So it was totally out of control out of the control of the nonprofit to create new fundraisers.
Speaker 1:What we have found is that by giving the fundraiser and nonprofit an opportunity to connect a no-transcript you can build a one-to-one relationship and give them opportunities to launch birthday fundraisers or give in other ways over time. And as we think about our birthday fundraisers successful, I think about one are nonprofits in control to get them to launch birthday fundraisers today and are they raising money in a meaningful way? And I would answer yes to both of those questions. And nonprofits that invest into this channel to build those relationships at scale and to take back the control are seeing a really positive momentum shift for revenue that they can generate in social stemming from birthdays and other calls to action.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I want to say I also want to do an asterisk. It doesn't have to be just a birthday fundraiser. It could be around a day that you have a cultural moment that's happening, that you can create these fundraisers. So I want to talk about can you break down this idea of messaging, and what do you mean by the organization being able to help launch them or give the person the idea? Because normally, right, we're used to on our own Facebook page. Facebook, let's say it is around a birthday. Facebook's going to like, say, like, your birthday is coming up. Would you like to create a fundraiser on behalf of an organization and you have to go through the steps of filling it out. What's this messenger approach that you're talking about?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think the best way to explain it would be a proxy of website. So if you think about your website, you have functionality and you have software that allows you to acquire individuals or prompt them to give or start a fundraiser. What we're capturing is that email that allows us to turn this unnamed group of people that we see Google Analytics and to named individuals that we can understand how much they give and why they gave. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yes. But so talking about like, how would we like start the conversations? Say, I have a Facebook page as an organization, I have 10,000 Facebook followers. How could I start to engage them, to get to know them better through Messenger, to then hopefully start a fundraiser for me?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so there you go. So, just how you would, on your website, call to action to join email list, now, through Good United, you call to action to become a Messenger subscriber in channel. So opportunity attached to post ads, whatever it may be. But essentially we're just taking that same functionality, that CTA hey, join us in person. Right, You're looking at us, you're engaging with our content. Take the next step and let us know who you are. But now we can do that in channel and that's where the messaging acquisition comes in. I'll let Jeremy speak to that once they're in Messenger. It's this really neat channel, which is actually pretty strange. Dana, the biggest challenge and opportunity is one the same People open what you send them. So there's 90% open rate, 45% click the rate, and then Jeremy can speak to the power of what that messaging is.
Speaker 3:Wait, just repeat that real quick. What was the open rate? 90. 90.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so this is like the new world, right. And people are like, oh, individugiven is going down. No, just, you're not asking them where they are right. So like I'm in LinkedIn right now, I got 10 asked for a sales call. I've never had one nonprofit send me a note in LinkedIn Ever, ever right. So like, okay, what a neat opportunity. People open what you send them. So therefore it has to be good. So like, this is really neat to have clear communication.
Speaker 3:Great question Through the tool, can I message people in Facebook and Instagram?
Speaker 1:Soon. So one of the powerful opportunities within the meta ecosystem is that they've aligned the back ends of Messenger, instagram and WhatsApp, so by integrating with Messenger, it's a lower lift to get to the other two. I want to go back for a second, dana, and hit on your acquisition question, and what we talk a lot about internally is how do we help nonprofits turn their anonymous page followers into name subscribers in Messenger to be able to connect one-on-one. And there's a few different features that Facebook has rolled out that have fundamentally changed the opportunity for nonprofits in this channel. One of the main ones is that anytime a fundraiser or donor makes a fundraiser, makes a donation in the Facebook platform, facebook gives them an opportunity to connect in Facebook Messenger, and what we're finding is that over 50% of these individuals are choosing to give that nonprofit permission to connect in this channel.
Speaker 3:And, if I remember it used to be, this was like a last year change. The opt-in opt-out used to be unselected. Now they are pre-selected, checked off. That's a huge, and then people have to uncheck.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah. And the other big foundational change that meta made is that, just like an email and SMS, that permission to connect in Messenger lives in perpetuity until the individual chooses to unsubscribe. So they give them permission at the end of the fundraiser or the donation. And now the nonprofit has unlocked a one-to-one communication channel with their most valuable supporters, the individuals that have already taken the revenue-generated actions that they want people to take. And the crazy thing, dana, is that most nonprofits literally don't know this is happening.
Speaker 3:Right, I know I would wonder on anybody listening, have you sent messages out on Instagram or Facebook Messenger to people? Probably not, Jeremy. Where can they?
Speaker 1:find that Within meta, there is a set of features called nonprofit manager. Within nonprofit manager, they have a supporters tab where you can see here's all the people that have given me permission to connect in Messenger Awesome. So there are some basic ways to be able to reach individuals and groups, and what we've created at Good United is a way to amplify that impact through journey building, just like with email, where you want to send journeys over time, whether it's to coach your fundraisers or to give them the opportunities to give again. We've recreated that all within the context of the channel where the transaction was made, and that's the big opportunity for nonprofits.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the big opportunity as well is that the first pushback that we get from nonprofit executives is all you're doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and I said what does that mean?
Speaker 4:Well, you're taking the people that would have given through a website and now they're giving through social. The message that we're trying to deliver is the vast majority, most organizations over 95% of these people are net new to their house file. They're new Right, and especially for the world's largest organizations that we have the honor to serve. Well, if for one of the largest over I think it was like 88% were new, they have tens of millions of email addresses and my favorite question is what does that mean? To me, it means we have so many people that we're not being able to capture and engage with because they're not spending time where we think they should be. They're in these social channels, they're engaging with their content. They're not leaving to go to another place. So, wow, let's open up this opportunity and that here's a new way that we can grow. They're new people that want to engage with us and that, to me, is a really exciting part about how we can supercharge social fundraising.
Speaker 3:So let's just say great. I have my Facebook page. I've looked in my nonprofit manager. I see their supporters in there. I can contact them. What are the main use cases of why I would utilize a tool like yours?
Speaker 1:One of the big opportunities to build a recurring and sustainable revenue stream in social is to play offense, is to proactively build out experiences to keep your people engaged and then to provide calls to action that are organic to the platform itself. Calls to action could be make a donation, create a fundraiser, share a post. So by having a tool or a solution to manage that, you can, one, take action to acquire more subscribers. Two, seamlessly build out the journeys for individuals based on who they are and what they care about. And then, three, provide calls to action to get them to give again or stay engaged in other ways, like sharing content in that channel.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I am seeing and I just did a demo recently because I like to know what I'm talking about when I talk to platforms Something that's very cool when I was talking to your team member was you can set up challenges, so getting people into groups, and then, through like a link that you have, they can fill out more information and that's where you get that email data, more personalized information, that you normally wouldn't get.
Speaker 3:People can one click set up a fundraiser, which is awesome, and the other thing is the dashboard itself is showing you amount of money raised through the fundraisers. You can see if somebody has been a multi-time donator or created a Facebook fundraiser for you, which you can't see in someone, just like the native platform field. So it's giving you a lot more insights. And I think the one thing that I think is really cool about the tool and I want to make sure that people understand is Facebook followers that you have right now that have never been asked to probably do anything other than you just sharing posts with them and you hope that they see them, and that doesn't happen all the time. Do you have to have a large Facebook following for someone to use your platform?
Speaker 4:No, we think that we can serve anyone with the Facebook page. I think the organizations that get the most out of it are those that have a meaningful social community to them, that are actively posting and they want to know who these people are. So if that's you, then we want to be a circus. Awesome, okay, cool.
Speaker 3:Okay, let's just say somebody's like yes, I want to do this, I want to be running like messenger journey campaigns, reach out to people in this way. How do you like prime or prep your social audience to prepare for this ass to happen? Is there a way to do that? Or you just like start?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, they're all neat parts. They're already doing it, so they're already. You know the social. I mean it's crazy, right. I sit on the board meetings for nonprofits and my own stops for suicide. We do all this work to come up with content, counters, to talk at people, and now we're giving the opportunity to talk with them. My dialogue, so the neat part is, is that, you know, most organizations have already done the hard work.
Speaker 1:Now we just need to allow you the opportunity to convert on it and, like that's the really cool part, is that you've already been doing it and what's most meaningful to me and I think what really you know, wow, some of the supporters that engage with nonprofits through the technology is that conversational messaging Facebook Messenger is unlike any other channel where you can have legitimate conversations at scale to make people feel like they are being heard and listened to and giving opportunities to give based on what is meaningful to them. One of the questions that we ask. We ask two main questions to every single supporter that a nonprofit connects with in Messenger. The first is please share your story for why you fundraised, why you donated, why you connected with us to begin with, and the information that people share blows me away. Day in and day out, they are sharing their most heartfelt stories about why the mission of the organization is so personal to them, and what we can do is start to take this quote, unquote, unstructured data and structure it in a way so that nonprofits can act on it. If I know that you created a fundraiser for Stop Soldier Suicide because you were in the army and for whatever other reason, we can use that information to create more personalized experiences.
Speaker 1:Second question so the whole thing to us is how do we get to know who people are and what they care about. We ask them directly what's your story? The second question sounds very obvious. But we say how would you like to stay involved with the nonprofit going forward? And they are saying I want to donate, I want to be a recurring giver, I want to volunteer, I want to donate my birthday again, and then it just becomes well, how might you use a platform like Good United to give them the experience that they told you they already want? And it's those two pieces of information, dana, that unlock so much opportunity.
Speaker 4:One of the really neat things I'm proud of is that with Stop Soldier Suicide, there was a really important post we wanted to share, and so we just asked people one-to-one through Messenger and we went from five shares to, 18 hours later, had 2,900 shares.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 4:And so it's just a click of a button. Hey, this is really important. Would you like to share it? Click, yes, it goes to their audience. And so it's a really neat opportunity to engage people in this channel where opening what you send them and we're trying to make this meaningful as possible and what Jeremy spoke about from the veteran piece. I'm so proud of our team because we're able to go a full cycle right. We can have a post on it. We have 730,000 people on our Facebook page. We sent a post called Action is Join and Learn More. Someone goes into that. This shares what branch of service they were in. We're in the Marines, the Navy, the Army, right, what were you? And that gives us at the very limited opportunity that, through Good United, stop Soldier Suicide can create a segment of people that said they were in the Marine Corps. Send them a message a week before the Marine Corps birthday Congratulations. I'm going to thank them and ask them if they would like to participate to raise money for Marines.
Speaker 1:Super cool.
Speaker 4:And that's what we're trying to bring we're really excited about, because I've been at Stop Soldier Suicide now since 2011. We built this massive audience. Our team does an incredible job and now we can actually turn it into something that's huge.
Speaker 3:The personalization was awesome. That was a great example. Can you give me another organization that you've worked with as an example of something like a recent campaign that they've done?
Speaker 4:Yeah, one of them is a brand new client. I'm probably the worst executive on the planet because I just hop into sales calls when I see organizations that mean a lot to me. One's called Puppy Rescue Mission and they work with puppies from around the globe and get them, especially with the military, and they get them to the states. They use some of our functionality on their main page. So just put a call to action of fundraise on that about section. If you go to their page they raise $1,000, I think in the first two weeks for people just clicking and starting a fundraiser and then those people then going to messenger and saying why they did it, and so for them it was like being able to just take the veil off right Like your Wizard of Oz. Like the curtain goes down, you're like oh wow, look at these people. They have names, we know who they are, they do care right, and like what a neat opportunity. There's so many stories like that. But yeah, that was one that just happened, you know, the other week.
Speaker 3:Amazing, Awesome. I know there's countless more case studies on your website. That's awesome. I want to jump into a section called Ask and Receive, One which is perfect, and this might be just something that one of your clients you can tout. But who is like rocking marketing right now, or what brand has recently launched a great campaign that you think should be highlighted on the show?
Speaker 1:One of the ones that impresses me is American Heart Association, but specifically their kids heart challenge. I have two girls One is four, one is seven. The seven year old is in elementary school and she was so excited the other day to participate in the kids heart challenge. And what they are doing to empower these kids to understand that one they're making an impact that matters, and two, like giving them the information they need to go home and sell the parents on fundraising is really impressive. And that is just a great example of, I think, how marketing doesn't always need to be like digital. It's how did you get the information in front of the right people in the right way to drive the message and call to action that you want, and I think they're doing a really great job of that.
Speaker 3:Oh, cool. Okay, I want to check that one out. Second, what is one thing maybe? This is we're going to the event. I mean it's happening tomorrow, but future things. What's one thing that you'd like to ask for help or support on Nick, I'll go to you first.
Speaker 4:I mean a million things, you know. The first off is what we're doing. Resonating is a meaningful I mean. We're not here to just build software for no one to use. We believe that people want to turn their social networks into donor networks, and we also know that we don't have all the answers. We have very few answers. So the opportunity to work with nonprofits to give us feedback on how they're thinking about the Facebook channel, what do they think about Instagram, what are the pluses, of minuses, what do we think about all these different pieces so just being able to get in a dialogue with anyone that's interested in what we're doing, to join the event tomorrow, to learn, to point out where we're stumbling, where we can get better, I mean that feedback is priceless.
Speaker 3:Awesome, Great Jeremy. How about you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hit on the mission and vision of the company earlier on, but for Nick and I, like, everything connects back to why we set out 10 years ago to create this company. Empowering nonprofits of all sizes to build relationships with all of their donors is something that we care very deeply about. Historically at Good United, we've been really effective at empowering the large organizations to drive revenue in social and to create these relationships in meaningful ways. But that has never been the goal of only empowering large organizations. Nick and I are not going to stop until we empower organizations of all sizes to have that same opportunity, and there's two things that we have done and are doing to help all nonprofits. The first is that Nick and I wrote this book that's coming out at the end of March. It's called One Click to Give.
Speaker 3:Oh, congrats.
Speaker 1:And in the book we give the answer to the test. It is a playbook for exactly what we have done for large nonprofits and how little and smaller organizations can do the same thing themselves in order to drive recurring revenue in social by creating personalized relationships at scale. The book is the best starting point for nonprofits of all sizes to get a sense of why it matters, what it is and how to actually do it. And the next thing outside the book is the virtual summit itself. So the virtual summit, as Nick shared, is bringing together a wealth of individuals with deep experience in the social fundraising space to help other organizations learn how to have an impact with their supporters and raise revenue. And what we have tried to create is taking the playbook in the book and bringing it to life in other ways for other nonprofits to ingest.
Speaker 1:Not everyone has time to read a book and we get it, but we thought that if we can carve out a few hours in the day and we can teach you some of the key things that you can do to get started, to start building revenue in this channel, we're one step closer to accomplishing the vision of the company. That is the reason why we started this in the first place. Get the book, come to the summit. It is 100% not a sales pitch for Good United. You're not going to hear us sell the product. What we're going to do is talk through tactically what organizations can do to start to connect with supporters in social and drive revenue in that platform in ways that are meaningful to them.
Speaker 3:Awesome and I look I haven't done like a social media presentation in a while, but something I always used to share is social media was meant to be a two-way conversation. It was never meant to be something that we just push, push, push, push, talk at, talk at, talk at. That is not why it was created and I think what the reason that Facebook or meta, I should say and all of its channels are focusing so much on new features within their messaging platforms is because that's where people are spending their time. I always look at where are these big businesses spending time on highlighting their products, and it's more and more and more in Messenger Even. I do a lot on the ad side, even with ads. Now you're able to do lead generation ads through Messenger. That didn't used to exist, and it's because they know where people are spending time. So check out the event We'll have the link in the show notes and I want to ask both of you where can listeners connect with you individually, nick? I'll go to you first.
Speaker 4:Thanks again for having us on, dana, it's been wonderful. Linkedin, so you just search Nick Black and I'd love to chat and love to learn Cool Jeremy how about yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and LinkedIn. I guess my handle is just Jeremy Berman J-E-R-E-M-Y-B-E-R-M-A-N, and I'm putting more effort into building out some content on Instagram as well. My handle there is Jeremy Berman, b-e-r-m. So those are the two best places to keep engaged with Nick and I as we continue to double down on our mission to help nonprofits, build relationships and drive revenue in social Awesome.
Speaker 3:And then what is the link for the event?
Speaker 4:Supercharge your social fundraise. You type that in. If you get there, you can also get it from our website at goodunitedio. You can also go to eventsgoodunitedio. Perfect, but goodnightio You'll get there.
Speaker 3:Okay, sweet, awesome. Thank you both so much for your time today, what you're doing to work in the nonprofit and tech sector and create something cool and allow people to really connect more personally on the channels that sometimes we just take for granted, that are there. And I think I also want to say one more thing. I think a lot of times we are like, oh, like social channels and we have, like this, like again, negative connotation. But I think this gives us like a new energy around it, hopefully, and these channels are free for us. I think we forget that, like they're free to use, and then how can we just utilize them really in the ways that they were meant to be used in the first place? So, thank you for building a platform that's helping to do this at scale, because that's often the hardest time, especially when people have very limited resources and time. Let's be real. But yes, thank you all so much for your time today and can't wait to check out the event. Thank, you.
Speaker 4:We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 2:Can you tell I love talking all things digital to make this show better. I'd be so grateful for your feedback. Leave a review, take a screenshot of this episode, share it on Instagram stories and tag positive equation with one e so I can reshare and connect with you.