The data is in. Bloomerang has just released the Giving Signals Report. And there's one stat that stopped me. Many, but this one in particular, that donors preferred specific impact language over vague appeals by 88 percentage points. 88. But yet, how much vague language is there still everywhere? My guest today is Ann Felman, Chief Marketing Officer at Bloomerang, the donor management platform built specifically for nonprofits and has spent over two decades in B2B tech marketing, including time inside a nonprofit. So she brings that dual lens really to everything she does. And I asked her about that today. She was named one of the top women leaders in SaaS back in 2018. And today she leads brands, thought leadership, and community strategy for one of the most talked about in-use platforms in the sector. So we are recording this right off the heels of GiveCon. It's Bloomerang's annual conference. So Anna is going to walk us through what she heard in the room, what the data is telling us about donor behavior. Of course, we're going to talk about monthly giving. She has two major product announcements, which is very exciting, including some predictive AI brought into fundraising. This one is packed. Ann really had a think about like the next couple months during the summer. So please welcome Anne to Missions to Movements.
SPEAKER_00Organizations have to decide for themselves like what's important for them in AI and how can that help them? We announce a number of things from an AI perspective. It's always about human in the loop because this is a relationship business, right? Fundraising, it's all about the relationship with that supporter, that donor. And so making sure that you maintain those ties from a relationship perspective and we don't lose that. So there's a great opportunity for nonprofits with staff turnover and other things where AI can help some of the knowledge of our computer to persist, as well as help us do some of the busy work. So we can spend more time on the mission, but always you got to check everything, right? So human in the loop is one of our, you know, human
as part of that component. You have to check and review everything. You can't just let that stuff go. That's one of our core principles.
SPEAKER_02Hey Ann. Hi, Zena. We are both coming off of, if you can hear it in my nasally sound, we are both coming off of events. A lot of traveling recently happening. And listener, you might be feeling that because I know this is a crazy event season that we're in. So hopefully you're taking a walk outside or a break with us today during this conversation. And you can do your own kind of debrief on your events because I want to know all about GiveCon that just happened. And I know you it literally just wrapped. So I don't know if you've had a full chance to like break down everything that happened, but are there some like top moments, some top conversations? Like, what was kind of like the vibe, the aura happening throughout the internet?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it was. I mean, I literally, I think I've been home for about an hour and 40 minutes. So you know when you like first get home. And like, I mean, my suitcase is still like sitting upstairs. We're capturing the real, real right here. Like it was like, I ran in the door, threw it on myself, ran into my office. Here we are. And I am still on the vibe of GiveCon, if you will. So what was like, yeah, the energy. You know what? We coined GiveCon as we're the best in give and gather. And you know what? It's full of joy. And there were hugs and smiles, ideas being exchanged, brainstormings happening over lunch. I was I sat with a couple of nonprofits, and we were like, okay, what could we do on social? It would be really fun. And I was like, let's do a day in the life of a water bottle at camp for your donors, right? And do funny things and put the water bottle like rolling down the beach and floating along in the lake or under the kids' bunk bed, you know. So an attendee said to me, you know why I keep coming back to GiveCon? Because these are my people. And so we have moments for celebration. We we recognize the hard work that fundraisers do and we we give out awards. So we have different awards that are giving out, you know, there's lots of education, there's ideas exchanged, and again, you're with your people because they say, when I'm back in the office, when I'm back home and I'm working with the rest of the staff of our organization, you know, like I can't have these types of conversations. And so you saw that in the joy and the smiles. And if you see pictures from GiveCon or see some of the videos that we'll be putting out over social, like, you'll get that energy enthusiasm. So like it fills my cup and it fills everybody's cup. And it was just, it was just a real blast.
SPEAKER_02Always being in person together is a magical experience. So I highly recommend if you haven't yet, if you weren't there in person and you don't have something, an in-person gathering on your calendar, I would make sure that you have that because I agree.
SPEAKER_00And get it in your budget, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So depending on what your budget cycle is, if you're a June 30th, budget end, or make sure that you plan for that for your next fiscal year, get that in there because I talked to folks who are like, I didn't have the budget, and I had to kind of wait and see and figure out if there's scholarships. So again, whatever that gathering with other fundraisers, whatever works for you, make the time to do that, or even just your local groups of nonprofits and fundraisers, you know, come together. Yes.
SPEAKER_02I may be asking this too early, but did you all announce a 2027 date?
SPEAKER_00We did. We did. So we are going to Atlanta for GiveCon 2027. Yeah. I didn't know. Well, we just announced it. So it's gonna be May, May 3rd to the 6th, 2027. May 3rd to the 6th, 2027.
SPEAKER_02Wow, amazing. I get to arrive there. Yeah, you you can. It's gonna be
so exciting. I'm so glad you guys picked Atlanta. Okay, well, we definitely gotta shout this from the rooftops. Everyone come, we should host a party.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's plenty of places and things and times that we have parties. We do a we do a welcome appreciation party where we do our awards, we do the fundraiser awards for different, you know, campaigns, game changing campaigns for the Good Neighbor Award, volunteer type awards, a partner working with their nonprofit award. So, like a fundraising consultant partner with the nonprofit, and what did they do from a campaign perspective? So they're called the Give You Awards. We kick off with pre-conference, we kick off with this welcome party. And I mean, we had a DJ and people were dancing and they were just letting steam up. And it's time to come together to recognize the hard work and celebrate. And then we do a lot of learning and education throughout.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. Well, make sure it's for sure in your calendars for next year because I want to see all of you. And it's gonna be right before Monthly Giving Awareness Week again. So it's perfect timing to get all the ideas ready to roll out for the couple weeks that follow for Monthly Giving Awareness Week. So I did have to ask, what were the common challenges or like tensions or things that people were like really wanting to learn and touch on this year?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I think there are two central themes, I would say, is obviously AI is everywhere. And that is an element that just keeps coming up in conversation. And so organizations have to decide for themselves like what's important to for them in AI and how can that help them? So that was a definite theme. And we announced a number of things from an AI perspective in terms of we talked about our principles as an organization, and then we talked about, you know, a number of capabilities that we're doing, but it's always about human in the loop because this is a relationship business, right? Fundraising, it's all about the relationship with that supporter, that donor. And so making sure that you maintain those ties from a relationship perspective and we don't lose that. So for us, those principles. So making sure, you know, getting comfortable around AI and understanding the innovations. And it there's a great opportunity for nonprofits with staff turnover and other things where AI can help some of the knowledge of the organization persist, as well as help us do some of the busy work so we can spend more time on the mission. That's right. But always you got to check everything, right? So human in the loop is one of our, you know, human as part of that component. You have to check and review everything. You can't just let that stuff go. That's one of our core principles. So, you know, that was a theme. Another theme was to your point, monthly giving, monthly giving, monthly giving, monthly giving, right? And actually, as you think about relationships with donors, monthly giving is one of those things that that is a strong relationship builder technique.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because there's a connection there, and that's really, really important. So it's still a lot of people are so busy. So, how do we free up time? Maybe there's some AI technologies that can help us free up time so we can put the energy and the effort, get those plans together, and just start going when it comes to monthly giving. So that was a theme. And then I would say email, email, email, right? Email more than you should. So donors still want we came out with a study called the Giving Signals.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I wanted to ask you about this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, in that, again, there's the surprise of like, hey, we're doing everything. The nonprofit is doing a lot more of communication with donors and their supporter community through social, but the donors are and the supporter community saying, I want more, I want the email. So, and then it was a theme in terms of a lot of different sessions of like you probably you need the email more than you realize. Look at what consumer Oh my gosh, yeah, right? Because nobody wakes up every day thinking about our nonprofit, right? Or nobody wakes up every day thinking about Bloomerang. I tell the team. I was like, so you actually it's gonna feel kind of a little bit like too much, but it's because they probably won't see the 10 other messages that you put in front of them. So we have to we have to keep going and get that message out there. So that was more than you think is needed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was just having a conversation, somebody at my monthly giving retreat about this, where I said, even somebody just seeing that you sent the email, that is triggering a top of mind, keeping you top of mind reaction,
even if they don't necessarily open it, but they saw your name. Therefore, it comes up in thought and conversation. So, to your point, I talk about this a lot around Giving Tuesday because it's following obviously Black Friday and the insane amount of Black Friday emails that a single brand will send. I always talk about an espresso, and they will send like 15 emails over like two days. However, because life's so busy, it took me like the 14th one before I actually did something about it. And I purchased the product. Like it didn't annoy me, it made me just remember. So, literally, to your point, yeah, agreed.
SPEAKER_00You're spot on. That's exactly why they do that. It's an impression that you can make, right? Even in that subject line, you know, we all kind of scan. Maybe you scan through your emails a little bit to kind of see, or you go back and look because you know you always get an email from you know, XYZ organization, and there it is, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep. And I would say just go back to look at your unsubscribes. Like I'm proof of this. So I send out a weekly newsletter, the Mastermind Memo, and I'll send out other ones occasionally when things just peak of mind. And everything's below, far below 1% unsubscribe. And if you believe then, okay, bye. You didn't want the right and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's okay if people unsubscribe. It means it's it actually is better for you knowing that because it's maybe somebody you don't want to spend time on when we think about time is precious, right? And where should I, who should I pick up the phone and call? Yep. Well, there you go. You know, it just helps you keep, you know, the people that care are still there.
SPEAKER_02Yep. I was wanting to ask you in the report you mentioned, because it's out now, what has been a finding that maybe surprised your team the most or that challenged like a common assumption, maybe outside of email?
SPEAKER_00Well, we talked about like recurring donors too. You know, so we're just talking about so this monthly giving or recurring donors that they give more, and they're just fundamentally like the data shows in the report that they're fundamentally more connected. That's an element.
SPEAKER_02And something that's like really important, and I've been talking about this one-on-one with a lot of people, and I haven't said it on the podcast yet, but is really thinking about your recurring donors from the standpoint of their LTV, the lifetime value. A lot of times we think about monthly donors as just the $25 a month gift or $5 a month or $10 or whatever that is. And that's how we visualize them as a 10, 15. However, the retention rates, the years, like the average monthly donor sticks around for eight years. I was just doing projections for an organization I'm working with right now, and that would be an LTV of over $3,200. That's a mid-level donor right there. That is also the possibility of being a that's also giving one-time gifts on top of that. So that LTV is actually that's incorrect because that's not including the one-time gifts they would give on top of that. But if we presented that number, then that person looks a lot more attractive to an organization to spend time on and consider. And when we think about, I also get asked, and you as a CMO look at this all the time, is like cost per acquisition, right? Yeah. And if I get asked, well, what's the cost gonna be? And they're looking for like $2, $3, and like, no, you can spend
hundreds to acquire this person because if you like do the due diligence, that's right. And but that's not how it's viewed a lot right now, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. It's that one time or that initial, and that's an okay number to look at and understand. But then you have to look at the picture holistically to say, well, yeah, that may be what did I spend to get somebody in the door? But that's not your return on investment.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. And that happens over, you know, year, years, many years, right? And then what happens with the monthly giver if they really believe in the cause and they start volunteering and they start doing other things, right? Now all of a sudden you're getting into they really are into it. Is there a plan giving that is like uh that's right, you know, all the things that, you know, or where are they at in their life? Is there generational wealth transfer happening? And so that's another thing in the report, too, is identity for donors, right? Especially the younger generations of a strong sense of identity with the nonprofit. Yeah. So really understanding, you know, surveying your donors, understanding what they care about. So donor identity from that perspective. So you can, I don't mean make an appeal, but appeal to them, right? You can connect, you resonate with them. Really, really important.
SPEAKER_02I was just reading, and I'm curious from your perspective in marketing. I was just reading about coaches' marketing strategy for Gen Z has changed dramatically. I don't know if you've been following this, but they've had substantial growth, specifically repositioning their brand for the Gen Z demo. It is about brand. They are being featured looking at like book clubs or doing college campus partnerships. Like it is a complete reversal of everything that they've really done in the past and infiltrating at the brand level, at the culture level and being in it, not trying to create. And the other thing that their CMO said that I thought was really profound, she's like, I don't just look at insights and reports, I talk to them one-on-one. And she said at the beginning, like our CEO thought this would be such a waste of my time until I came back with such concrete examples of what they were looking for, that inspired product that and it had they've seen the search. I mean, it's fascinating. I don't know if you've read their case study, but I'm gonna try and get her on the body.
SPEAKER_00I haven't, but I have done a lot of that type of groundwork. And even an organization this week that won an award for their game-changing campaign, they changed their annual like peer-to-peer fundraising campaign from something that they'd been doing for 15 years, and they were like, oh, we can't really do that anymore. It doesn't really, you know, it's not working, right? And it's related to like clean water, right, in parts of the world. And they used to do a program called Shower Strike, and then they switched. But what they did to your point is they talked to the all the different kind of personas
of their supporter community that was involved in peer-to-peer. So they had influencers and celebrities, they had school kids would get really involved. They had, you know, so classes, right? They get really excited about, you know, so they understand kind of their supporter spectrum, but they did the research. They had the conversations to your point. We are human beings, we're emotional, and we're driven emotionally. And so we have to remember that in the, you know, how we put together our campaigns, how we engage and connect. Yeah. Really, really, really important.
SPEAKER_02I like how you've been at the very beginning, you talked about the water bottle, like humor. We don't have a lot of like humor immersed in campaigns, but that is a huge way to break through and to get people to watch.
SPEAKER_00Especially if it's a hard topic, too. You know, I was talking to someone else, and they're like, well, our topic is one, it's a hard one to see, and it's a bit uncomfortable, you know? And and so now, you know, you have to kind of decide what's right for you, but there are things that we can do a day in the life, or how do we create tangible moments of representations of hard topics like fetal alcohol syndrome? How do you message that as a birth defect to somebody without like, you know, how do you do that in an effective way? And it was like, yeah, even one little drop can be a problem, you know. So it was like we were brainstorming on ideas of how can we make that tangible and real for people so they can make a connection, an emotional connection from a human perspective?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, looking ahead, like so we're at the end of May. Coming out of an event like GiveCon, what the report is sharing data about, if you were in marketing or fundraising at an organization right now, what would you be spending like June, July working on to really get ahead and prepare for end of year?
SPEAKER_00Well, what we've just been talking about, reach out to your donors, just do story collection. Or, you know, you understand your donors, get some interesting stories and figure out how you can make those connections from uh as you're getting to your end of your campaign and planning, is do the groundwork, right? You don't have to talk to 500 people, but you know, talk to a handful of folks to help you craft that story in a way that's gonna resonate or even bounce the story in front of some of your supporters that you think you're gonna go out with. Test like I always have a handful of people from a marketing perspective, like a marketing message or a campaign where I put it into my, you know, in front of my friendlies or I schedule a call and I say, Hey, would this land for you? Like, is there anything that you would do you'd suggest that would make it better? So that's one thing to do. What not to do is just listen. So I was talking to someone this week. They're like, Yeah, I wrote the appeal and then my executive director rewrote it and it was really bad.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_00And I didn't want to do that, and the executive director wanted to do that, you know, like go out with that. And so it was like also what not to do is don't let your executive director rewrite and kind of sanitize or corporate everything, you know. Like, again, it matters what your organization is and does, but there's a line, or test it, right? A B test it if you can. Your executive, you know, somebody that does a rewrite of your work versus you know what's gonna work and land from an emotional storytelling perspective for your organization.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_00Use the data to prove out the point and that's right.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That will give you the direct answer, and then you can go back with them and be like, here you go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that's why I'm not gonna let you rewrite this anymore. But thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, I love that advice because it's usually
a slower time, so it's a perfect opportunity to reach out and be able to take the time to do some of that. Yeah. Also, I give kind of there was a big partnership announcement. Can you share a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're really excited about this. So, as a fundraiser, right? And depending on what your systems you have, like, but for Bloomerang, right? They have all the data, they have all this insight on their donors, right? But the problem is the data doesn't necessarily talk to them or surface it up. You have to go dig and figure out how to do the reports and understand. And so we announced a partnership with Daytero and they're predictive donor intelligence. And so what they can do is it's a native integration. So they can serve up right within Bloomerang. We're gonna come out with kind of six key elements of hey, there's a set of donors here that are at risk of lapsing. These donors are ready for the next gift ask. We'd recommend that you, you know, make this ask. So as we talk about like who do I want to move into monthly giving? Who should I ask for another gift? Who do I need to thank? Right, you know, what do I need to do? So again, getting back to that action of what should I do next? Where should I spend my time today?
SPEAKER_02Who should I spend, you know, playing some predictive fundraising instead of just being all reactionary?
SPEAKER_00Right, all reactionary, and like hopefully you have the time to dig and do the re create the report on all those things. So there's signals on every donor record, right? Of what you should do next, who's at risk, who's ready to give, where are the upgrade opportunities? Right. So all that with the partnership of being able to surface that and that intelligence to just help you focus your time better. And so that's it's it's really exciting. That's launching July.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So we used it and it's gonna be available in July.
SPEAKER_02Ah, I love that. I love that. Okay, so there's that element, and then there's also the conversational reporting, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so we launched that, announced that uh, let's see, uh the end of April, actually. And so conversational reporting, I don't know if you love pulling reports and or exclude, you know, all those things. You're either like a report brain or you're not, right? And it's like, you know what? I'm always like, don't make me think. Why can't we just ask a question like, hey, can you show me all my laps donors for the laptop, you know, show me my lapse donor list for this year or all kinds of things. Just ask a regular question, like you were talking to that data analyst to say, I just want a list that, you know, show me a report that does this. So you literally just type that into the chext box and it builds a report for you. And then you're like, oh, but I want to add phone number. Okay. Then just you say, just will you add the phone number? No.
SPEAKER_02It's how we're starting to do everything, right? Like, I think about I ask, I can't say G-O-O-G-L-E because there is a one
right behind me. So it'll start to come to life. But like every morning I ask about the weather. It's how we talk to our different chat, like our LLMs that we use. It's how I integrate completely now with Google Analytics. I use their AI tool inside to ask it about the reporting because that tool to me is still really intimidating. And so it removes the intimidation factor if you can just talk in conversational text and ask what you're looking for, which will hopefully therefore make the data far more actionable and insightful and usable to be and accessible too with other folks.
SPEAKER_00So maybe you're one of the people in the organization that knows how to make a report. How many times do you get inundated with an executive director or somebody else asking? Well, they'll be able to do it themselves too. Which is in that moment, the executive director could pull a donor report without waiting for that one person. The major gift saucer could ask, you know, who's given more than a thousand dollars in the last three years and have that answer like that. That's that unlock of the data's there, but do we know how to surface it so I can act on it?
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Oh my gosh, so many exciting announcements. And this is fabulous. So excited. Everyone, just go to the website. You can read everything in the blogs and everything that you guys have put out, download the report. If as we kind of wrap here, coming out of the event, and there's so many conversations, I'm sure, that you had. If there was one like mindset shift that you wish that you could send to every nonprofit leader, maybe who wasn't in that room with you, a way to think differently leading into end of year, what would be your recommendation?
SPEAKER_00Every interaction you take with the donor is a decision that you have to make. We talked about the vision at the conference around the nonprofit of 2030 and how the unlock, right? We were just talking about conversational reporting, like that unlock. You just have to start deciding to take some actions with those donors. So hopefully you've got a system that allows you to do that. But we talk about that distance to 2030 or that, you know, we were talking about how I just talk to some of my technologies, like that is coming. That is pretty much here. Yeah, bloomering. And so it's really about the decisions you make. You just have to start making those decisions and start making those steps forward. That's a brave ones. It's a brave one, right? So decide to make a step of don't keep doing what you've always been doing. Try a slightly different technique as you're interacting and looking at your technology because again, back to the relationship. It's like pick up the phone, do the basics really, really well, make sure you've got that buttoned up. But you know, decide who you want to be in relationship
and start taking those actions, start making those steps.
SPEAKER_02So good. So good. We could talk forever, but I also want you to get your rest and everything else that's coming up. And thank you so much. Thank you for hosting GiveCon and just continuously bringing exciting tools out to the nonprofit space. So appreciate everything that you're working on.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you, Dana. It's a real gift and a real opportunity to help give back to the nonprofit community. And for Bloomerang, GiveCon is one of the ways that we do that.
SPEAKER_02So amazing. Onward to 2027. I'll see you in Atlanta. Yeah. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movement. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.