The idea with Rise is really to engage folks in giving a dollar a day and demonstrating to them, with a monthly update, what their dollar a day did that previous month. How do we get people engaged, how do we show them the impact of their dollar and how do we build the sense of community by communicating with them, by including them in special gatherings. We have so many ideas because it did just launch last month during Earth Month on what we want to do to continue to grow and build that sense of community with RISE.
Speaker 2:Hey, there, you're listening to the Missions to Movements podcast and I'm your host, dana Snyder, digital strategist for nonprofits 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 everyone, welcome back to another episode of Missions to Movements. I am here with a good friend, helen Quinn. Helen and I worked together all the way back starting in 2011. My very first job out of college at Take Stock and Children, I was in the Sarasota County office it's how I started my nonprofit career and Helen was working at the state level office down in Miami. She is now the head director of development with the Clio Institute and I have just recently worked with Helen and her team at Clio a couple different times on an amazing peer-to-peer campaign from last fall and then just recently on the build of their monthly giving program Rise. Helen, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thank you, so excited to be here. Who would have imagined how many years later, over a decade later, I know.
Speaker 3:I think I actually went back to speak which is also so crazy at a conference for Take Stock, like your statewide conference, and it had been a decade plus later. And then that's where we reconnected back in person and then did some work again. It was just so amazing going from being like a regional, local nonprofit working with you at the state office and then coming back over a decade later as now a consultant in the space and getting to consult with the state office, and then full circle now a decade later as now a consultant in the space and getting to consult with the state office, and then full circle now working with you at Clio. It's always fun how it's truly in such a relational sector.
Speaker 1:It absolutely is, and you never know when that cycle is going to come back. It could be a year, it could be 10 years, but maintaining those relationships are really important.
Speaker 3:Yes, and this just speaks to I. Was reading your bio and obviously we've known each other for a while, but 18 years in fundraising, yo, that's some clout and testament to how amazing you are. I was curious. We're going to be talking about recurring giving today, monthly giving. Was recurring giving always part of the conversation, like 18 years ago as it is now, or has that changed?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So going back in time, let's get in the time machine with me. I was doing fundraising at Take Stock in Children in the Jacksonville office and it really wasn't part of the conversation. Really, the ask was you know you went for the big ask? The ask was you know you went for the big ask? And I think what was missing from that was you weren't building a steady pipeline to feed into those bigger asks, you were really just focused on. It felt sort of transactional, like that one time hey, can you give us 50k to put 10 kids through college? Versus trying to really have authentic conversations with people, engage them. The technology was different back then.
Speaker 1:We didn't have all these cool things we can do now so engaging them with customized communications and storytelling and things that you tend to do in a monthly giving program weren't really the norm back then. So it really was more about those bigger asks and we were kind of missing the base of that development pyramid, which is those consistent grassroots level dollars that really help sustain movement.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I think that was key. A lot of conversation now is about the transformational gift instead of the transactional gift. Within I mean being a fundraiser. What have been the biggest shifts for you personally, like in your work? What have you seen over the past decade plus?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so much. I mean the most recent obviously being COVID times. That just changed things tremendously. I was working in major gifts at the time and you know, in major gifts it really is about meeting people in person, meeting them where they are having deeper conversations about the transformational impact they want to have with the transformational dollars that they're giving. You know, and that was really hard to do over mediums like this, over video, over phone conversations, and I saw that people were still giving like they still cared, they still saw that there was a need. The $10,000 donor was still giving, just like, you know, the $10 a month donor was still giving. But it was definitely a big shift in how development professionals operated, because we were so used to the value of in-person and there were a lot of adjustments that had to be made. We had to get creative, Galas were gone. Annual celebrations were gone.
Speaker 1:We started doing online auctions for experiences. I was working for the Audubon Society at the time so we could auction things off, like buggy rides and in the swamp, swamp walks and tours of Florida Bay with a scientist to talk about birds, so we could do those types of things. But we had to take a huge pivot and shift and pause and be like, oh my God, what do we do now? The world has stopped. The mission still needs to move forward. There are so many other variables going on now. How do we adapt to this? And so that was a big change. Most recently.
Speaker 3:Do you feel like people are creating those in-person things now more, or do some people prefer now the digital conversation?
Speaker 1:It's funny. You should say that this was a month ago. I had a meeting with someone who reached out to us, to the Clio Institute. They wanted more information about something that was happening with a park in their neighborhood and the impact on the environment, and so we met with her a couple of times and in one of the conversations I told her I said you know, it can be kind of tough to get meetings with you know someone like you and she's like you know what A lot of us we don't want to meet. We know what you want, Okay, cool, so you know what I want. We're on the same page.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it was just very funny because I feel like it's still this mixed bag of some people have gotten used to not having to leave their home and go meet with someone for coffee and some people are very much still interested in that in-person opportunity to sit down with another human being across the table and have a conversation opportunity to sit down with another human being across the table and have a conversation. And I don't know what the percentage is on that, but what I'm seeing personally in my fundraising is that a lot more people than not don't want to meet in person. They're totally fine with me picking up the phone or sending a personal video or emailing or sending a proposal, versus meeting in person. But I think South Florida in particular, and maybe Florida in general, because we have so many snowbirds, if you recall that a lot of people leave and it makes it easier for them if it's just this way, if it's virtual, if it's a phone call, if it's a video, if it's an email, versus trying to schedule around their comings and going.
Speaker 3:So I wonder if part of it, too, is like they've already in their mind decided this is something that I want to support, yeah Right, and I just send me the information that I need. In my mind, that decision, my intent, is already there. It's not like I need you to prove something to me, maybe to be invited to events which we are going to talk about. You're doing some really creative things in building community specifically around what you're doing, so I think that's really interesting. When it comes to Clio and please give us a little bit of a background before we dive into the introduction of your monthly giving program what is Clio focused on specifically?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the Clio Institute marries my two loves education and the environment and the goal of Clio is to build climate literacy and advocate for climate change solutions that are going to be beneficial to everyone in our community. We're going to be seeing a lot of changes due to climate change. You're going to be seeing a lot of adaptation, you're going to be seeing communities being displaced and unfortunately, it's going to happen in years in my lifetime, dana, here in Florida in particular. So we want to make sure that the most vulnerable communities especially know about the impacts of climate change and are prepared, and so that they can also voice their concern, so they can go to their local commissioners, so they can go to their state representatives, so that they can speak to what they need in their community to be more resilient in the face of climate change, love it and I loved working with you guys because I think it's something that is maybe a almost weirdly taboo topic in Florida sometimes but it's like so readily like in your face when we worked on.
Speaker 3:So they named their monthly giving program Rise. We just went through the monthly giving mastermind, which I love. The whole reason behind Rise, which you can talk about, and one of the things that I always ask an organization is why do you need a monthly giving program? And not just why, but then what's the appropriate structure specific for your program, can you speak to, and I think part of your next-gen work is perfect for this but why? Instilling an actual branded community for monthly donors was so important to Clio.
Speaker 1:When we think about the mission of Clio and we think about climate change, it seems like this nebulous thing, not very tangible in terms of you give us $10 and you're going to see this direct impact it's going to get 10 degrees cooler.
Speaker 1:Purpose behind Rise was really to show that this is a long-term problem that requires long-term solution and sustained solution, and so when we thought about the name of it, we really thought Rise was so fitting. Because temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising. We're trying to build a youth movement that is rising to the occasion and speaking truth to power and telling them what they want to see for their future and for the future resilience of their communities, and so rise just seemed so fitting. And I'll I'll never forget there was a lot of back and forth, both with the mastermind group and internally, and it was like oh, there are like five other things called rise and and I was just so adamant I was like this is it, this is the name, we have to rise together. And I just found myself practicing, pitching it, even internally, like no, no, no, this is the name.
Speaker 1:You cannot change the name. This is the one. So the idea with Rise is really to engage folks in giving a dollar a day and demonstrating to them, with a monthly update, what their dollar a day did that previous month. So we're really hoping that that is going to help build community around Rise by showing them the impact of their dollar. It might not be that it's 10 degrees cooler, but it might be that we were able to provide 10 heat trainings on extreme heat throughout the state of Florida, which is a huge concern right now, especially down here in South Florida, where we face extreme heat season from may through october, and when I say extreme heat, I mean you go outside and it feels like is 115 degrees crazy it's not hotter than a hot tub, it's.
Speaker 1:You know. You could probably toast a pop tart outside. It is not hot, if anyone still eats those. It's that hot. So really, the idea behind rise was like how do we get people engaged, how do we show them the impact of their dollar and how do we build the sense of community by communicating with them, by including them in special gatherings. We have so many ideas, because it did just launch last month during earth month, on what we want to do to continue to grow and build that sense of community with Rise.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God, there's so many things I want to dive into with this. I love the branding, I love everything about it. Okay, the first half that I just want to comment on, which I think is also so smart. Two things One, the dollar a day, because it can be this big, nebulous thing, like you said, to be able to say I'm not going to go one day without supporting climate change.
Speaker 3:The other thing is you have a big youth movement that you're leading in Florida and I think what a monthly giving program does is a dollar a day is like it's very attainable even for a college student to say, yes, I can give $31 a month and then I can obviously scale my impact as I grow into my professional career. So it's really creating this inclusive and diverse opportunity for monthly giving when maybe I can't be a mid-level or a major donor just yet, but I want to feel like I'm doing my part. So I love that, because that's such a really big impact and a really big part of just what Clio is all about. I did want to ask so before Rise what existed for monthly giving.
Speaker 1:There was no formal structure to monthly giving. We had quite literally a handful of monthly donors, me being one of them, because I feel strongly that if I'm working for a mission and I'm out there asking other, people to invest.
Speaker 1:I need to invest as well, and monthly is my preference because I can make a bigger impact over the course of a year with my dollars. So we really had nothing. We tried to run campaigns during end of year, like giving Tuesday and end of year asks, inviting people to become monthly donors, but there wasn't this like sense of okay, I'm a monthly donor, this is great, this is what not what I'm going to get in return, but like I'm going to feel like I'm making an impact. It was just an ask, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:It was just an ask to be a monthly donor and ask without anything to steward is not going to get you very far.
Speaker 3:And I think the one thing I remember is every action is the main donation form on the page and there was a checkbox to give monthly right, but that was the only thing so you could switch that checkbox back and forth, but there wasn't a dedicated monthly giving page, there wasn't a dedicated monthly giving communication.
Speaker 1:There was no segmentation of that special group of people that's helping to build sustainability, sustainable funding over time. That really was the difference. There was nothing around it to support it. A thing separate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they the form was pretty long before too, and I know we ended up switching during the peer-to-peer campaign, which is they have a local miami giving day in november right november, yep november every year I can't remember, it was october, november.
Speaker 3:They ended up usingButter for that and then ended up continuing to use it to build out the Rise landing page, which I will link to in the show notes. Why did you end up choosing, I guess, givebutter A for the peer-to-peer or not for the peer-to-peer, for the monthly giving campaign, after we had a landing page that we were directing people to for monthly giving originally after the peer-to-peer? That's what I'm thinking of. But then the difference now that's on the Rise page is the buttons and the forms and the elements, which is not an actual full GiveButter page. What was the reason of using that platform?
Speaker 1:So it was two-pronged, I think, the first being the interface for the donor on the actual website. It is much more streamlined, it's more donor centric, it helps you get through your donation. You don't want to have to click 20 greens or five times, you know, just want to put your information in and make it happen. At least that's how I feel when I make donations. And the second thing? So first, the interface with the donor. The second thing is the ability for the donor to then go back in through the GiveButter platform to access their giving, so at any time they can see where they're, at how much they've given.
Speaker 1:You know we typically you get your monthly donation gift receipt through Give Better platform. At Clio. We send like a cumulative receipt at the beginning of a calendar year so that you can use that obviously for tax purposes if need be. But in this case you can go in at any time and you can see exactly how much you've given. You can print receipts and you can see exactly how much you've given. You can print receipts.
Speaker 3:You can do a lot of things that, if every action does, I have not found Easily. It's a big part. Also, I will say as much as the importance of what you're talking about on the front end for the donor and the trust built with having access. It's the usability for you. It's the usability for you, Like, I'm sure, in your 18 years. There has been a slew of platforms that are not the most intuitive.
Speaker 1:I can name 10 of them right now, but I won't. That's not what this is about.
Speaker 3:Yes. So the use? I mean that's a great point that I don't think a lot of people actually talk about. It's like cool. Yes, we want it to be easy to use, seamless, but also, if you yourself can't figure it out and don't know how to use the platform back end, then what's?
Speaker 1:How can I expect a donor who's not in this every?
Speaker 3:single day. I love that you're talking about that. That is so true, and I'm sure you and we're going to just talk about all the events that you did during Earth Week, but you don't have time also to be messing around with the back end of a complicated platform.
Speaker 1:No, I don't. I wish I could pull more time from you know wherever time comes from, but I can't. So, yeah, it's all about efficiency. We're a small but mighty team and you really need systems and platforms that are going to lend themselves to your own efficiency as an organization and give butter really just. It does that for us, for this particular purpose.
Speaker 3:Awesome, I love it. Can you speak to? I want to jump into some of the growth strategies that you've been working on recently, because this is so fresh, so we literally launched rise as you were going into. Probably I don't want to say it's the crazy, maybe it's crazier than end of year for you. It's crazier, it's crazier. Okay, break down for us Earth Week. And how did you pepper in the monthly giving asks?
Speaker 1:Yes. So Earth Week takes place for us at the start of the week. That contain Earth Day Makes sense, right. So we got super ambitious this year and we were like you know what we really want to claim this space. Like we Clio Institute is the only nonprofit in Florida that is solely dedicated to climate change Like this is ours, we're taking it, we're going to make it our own and we decided to do three events in one week. That's a whole other session.
Speaker 1:With how many people on the team In our Miami office. I think there are about 12 of us. I'm a development team of one and an amazing intern. There's also the communications team which jumped in to help, like you know, our executive director, like everybody, just all hands on deck, yeah.
Speaker 1:But we did an Earth Day 5k which we really wanted to use to launch Rise. So when we did the monthly giving mastermind, our end goal was like we have to have this ready by the Earth Day 5k, because this is it. We're throwing it out there to the world. And so we did a couple of things. During the registration process we used Eventbrite and what we did was use Zapier to put folks who registered through Eventbrite into a workflow in Flowdesk so that they would receive a welcome email that kind of gave them a little bit more information about Clio and kind of why they're running this 5k. And then two follow up emails that had asked to join rise in them. So even before they got to the 5k they were seeing the name whether they clicked on it or not whether they clicked on it or not, they were seeing it.
Speaker 1:Whether they clicked on it or not, they were seeing it. When we did the 5k we got bumper stickers printed. You know seems old school, but everybody loves the sticker, you know.
Speaker 2:Maybe you don't put it on your bumper.
Speaker 1:You put it on your water bottle. People love that. And we got cards with qr codes printed on them and I had the honor of like announcing rise to the event participants, yeah during our programming after the race. So it was multi-pronged like trying to hit them before they even got there so they saw kind of what it was, and then getting them when they were there with the ask to join rise and I got to share, like I'm a member of of Rise, you know I'm a member of Rise every day and I want you to join me, so it was really cool experience to do that.
Speaker 1:We also ran an email campaign in the background as well, with different segmented lists, and we're also using it throughout the summer as our summer campaign, so we have a series of emails going out throughout the summer as our summer campaign. So we have a series of emails going out throughout the summer and Rise will be our ask for the vast majority of those emails.
Speaker 3:Cool. What is the end of summer goal as far as? Do you have a number that you're striving to hit for monthly donors?
Speaker 1:I would love to see a hundred monthly donors by the end of summer. If that happened, I'm you know we can fix this. We can solve this problem.
Speaker 2:Okay, totally make it happen Okay.
Speaker 3:And I'm always a numbers person, so total number of okay, so the 5k was one event and that was. You said it was 400 people.
Speaker 1:It was about 400 people that participated both in person, and then we had a handful virtually throughout the state.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then the second event was the second event was our annual celebration, so we had about 120 folks that registered for that and that really is a little bit of a different event but definitely an opportunity to engage folks where they are with our mission, whether it's with monthly giving or mid-level giving or major giving. And then we also had, in partnership with our local NBC station, a documentary film screening of Climate in Crisis the day after the annual celebration. So it was 5K Sunday, annual celebration Wednesday, documentary film screening Thursday, and then we all like to have this.
Speaker 3:How many people attended the documentary?
Speaker 1:The documentary had a little over 40 folks so it was a smaller group. So we're looking at math like 600 people.
Speaker 3:I feel like 560. Okay, and was there probably some overlap For?
Speaker 1:sure there were definitely folks that went to both. Nobody went to all three.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to say call it like minus 100. So let's just say roughly there's 460 people and I'm just going to go. I don't know if we could get 15% of those people to convert that. 69 people, that's so close we're so close to that 100.
Speaker 1:That's so close.
Speaker 3:And then it's the whole rest of the summer and people that you can bring in. So I think it's working on. What's the strategy to continue this touch point? Because there's such, during moments of an Earth Week, earth Day, there's such a not pun intended rise in attention when it comes to the topic, and so anytime there's an event, there's always excitement built up and then people leave and they go about their normal day. So it's like, how do we keep this conversation prevalent? And, as you said at the beginning, you're about to go into heat wave central and so I think, more than ever it's probably going to be top of mind as soon as people walk out of their homes or get out of their cars and are hit smack with the lovely Florida humidity that happens. As a local Sarasota Floridian I used to live there for 20 years of her life I remember it fondly, as I say sarcastically.
Speaker 1:Good for the skin, not the hair. Real good for the skin.
Speaker 3:And then the ocean wasn't even refreshing because it felt like a bath. It was bathtub water, it was bathtub water, it was bathtub water. Okay, so we have these events, we're going into summer campaign, and then I love this idea that you are leading in Orlando a Jeffersonian dinner. Now, the only reason I know about Jeffersonian dinners is because I watched it in the show Billions. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I didn't even see that.
Speaker 3:Okay, there's a whole episode about this Jeffersonian dinner. For anybody who's also a fan of Billions, forget it back. Can you explain to me because I think this is so cool the premise for those that might not know about a Jeffersonian dinner what it is and how you are putting yours together?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So a Jeffersonian dinner essentially follows the model of Thomas Jefferson. He used to bring together the greatest minds of his time to Monticello to have civil discourse around different topics that were affecting society back in the day, and so the idea is the same you want to bring together people from different walks of life right To come around a topic that is affecting society and have a civil discourse about it, have a discussion about it, but from a very personal place. So the idea here is you don't want to have any more than 16 or so people 12 seems to be the sweet spot and you give people a question beforehand. So, depending on what your nonprofit is, the question could be different.
Speaker 1:For us, obviously, it will be around climate change and what they're seeing personally due to climate change, and then there's no moderator really personally due to climate change, and then there's no moderator. Really it is a free-form conversation and every single person at the table has to answer the question. They have to participate, they have to engage. Even the introvert, which I know can be uncomfortable, have to engage in the conversation and really that's the programming. It's really building community around an issue by having those deeply personal conversations about how it's affecting you, or how it's affecting people you love, or how it's affecting people you serve or people in your community, and they're really not supposed to be fundraising events. They're really supposed to build that sense of community around the cause. And then what happens after is typically the magic, where you continue conversation.
Speaker 1:You ask people at the dinner to take actions, whether it's signing up for your organization's newsletter or offering to host a similar gathering with people in their network or investing in the mission, so you're not hitting them with like, hey, don't you want to give us money?
Speaker 1:I know it's our first date and you just have this deeply personal conversation with us about why this matters to you. No, it's really about creating entry points for people to the cause and to the mission and to building authentic relationships from there. That may lead to a donation, may lead to a partnership, may lead to further conversation. Really, like the choose your own adventure of a Jeffersonian dinner can go anywhere, and that's what I love about them, because you just you never know where it's going to take you. But we're really hoping that this will serve as a vehicle not only for our mid-level giving program but also for our a vehicle not only for our mid-level giving program, but also for our RISE monthly donor program, because our mid-level giving program starts at about $1,200 a year which we were just saying, it's $100 a month, totally doable.
Speaker 1:Totally doable with RISE.
Speaker 3:I love this. Can I ask you a couple of logistical questions? Yes, okay. So first is, who does the invites? Who? Who creates the guest list?
Speaker 1:So we do that in collaboration with a local host and a local partner. So our headquarters are based in Miami, but we have offices in Tampa, orlando, tallahassee and Gainesville, and so this one in particular will be happening in the Orlando area, and so we're working with a local host and our local boots on the ground staff to identify who the right people to have at the table are, through the lens of we don't want an echo chamber sitting there.
Speaker 3:You're right, you're right.
Speaker 1:You're not solving problems. Doing that, you know you're not bridging gaps, you're not bringing new people to the table when you're in an echo chamber. So through that lens, we created like a really strategic list of people that we thought, you know, radical transparency here could eventually make a significant contribution or could potentially introduce us to more folks to bring to the table or that we have been working with in partnership and coalition on specific issues that impact community members, and so we want them to have a seat at the table too, so that we can work on those intersections of climate change and other issues like health. It took a lot of time and effort to build that list, yeah.
Speaker 1:And out of that list, dana, we probably could have done three more Jeffersonian dinners, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it'd be cool to eventually see this in all of the cities.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's the goal. This is our pilot. I'm still under a year with Clio, so we're like trying to get these prospects.
Speaker 3:You've only launched a monthly giving program, helped run a 5K, a documentary, a celebratory event.
Speaker 1:I don't think you're doing enough, Helen. No, I think I could do more. I think if I give up sleep, then totally Definitely do more.
Speaker 3:Okay, wait. And then another question, because we're thinking about the timeframe how long is a Jeffersonian dinner usually?
Speaker 1:You're looking at from start to finish. You want to be there about two hours, two and a half hours.
Speaker 1:You do not want to be there for four hours Like think about you know, I don't know, you're going to dinner, you're having a conversation, it's just on a weeknight. If it was a Saturday I'd be like, yeah, let's go all night, let's do that. But in this case we're doing it on a weeknight. We want to be mindful of people's schedule, so we're trying to keep it to that two, two and a half hour timeframe so that people can still have meaningful interaction, unstructured interaction before, with some mixing and mingling, but not feel like they're giving up their entire evening and getting home at midnight on a school night, which I don't know about you, but you know.
Speaker 3:This mom doesn't die by like 9.30 most nights. Let's be honest, this is so exciting. When is this happening?
Speaker 1:So this is happening May 29th in Winter Park.
Speaker 3:Florida yeah, it's coming up next week.
Speaker 1:It's one of my favorite towns in Florida, so I'm very excited.
Speaker 3:Awesome, okay, so I definitely want you to report back and share how this is going. We just have to do like a whole deep dive on this on another podcast episode. Amazing, there are so many different growth strategies that your team is working on. I was so happy to be a part of seeing Rise come to fruition and then now it's like growing and spreading its wings which is so exciting.
Speaker 3:Helen, thank you so much for everything that you are doing, that the Clio Institute is doing and is all about. I do want to ask you, of course, where can listeners connect with you and where can they find out more about Rise?
Speaker 1:listeners connect with you and where can they find out more about rise? To find out more about rise, go to cleo instituteorg. Backslash rise r-i-s e. I would love to hear your feedback on it too, as it just launched, and so follow me I'm on linkedin under helen quinn, instagram helen melon 83, and through email. Like. Seriously, shoot me an email. Hquinn at cleoinstituteorg. I'm super happy to connect and thought partner brainstorm. You know, share my knowledge and learn from you too, so reach out, I'm here.
Speaker 3:Amazing. Helen's the best you guys like. Take her up on it. That's an amazing offer. Helen, thank you again for being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Dana.
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.