Missions to Movements
This isn't just another nonprofit podcast - it's your weekly invitation to think bigger, take bold risks, and create lasting change in an ever-evolving social impact landscape. Meet Dana Snyder, your guide through the evolving landscape of nonprofit innovation. She's on a mission to help change-makers like you push the boundaries of what's possible in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Each week, Missions to Movements serves as your personal mastermind session, delivering actionable insights and bold strategies that challenge traditional nonprofit thinking. Dive into revolutionary approaches to digital fundraising, discover how to build magnetic monthly giving programs that create lasting donor relationships, and learn to amplify your voice as a thought leader in the social good space. Whether you're reimagining your organization's impact or forging game-changing partnerships, you'll find the ideas, insights, and inspiration to take your mission further than you've ever imagined. Ready to turn your mission into a movement?
Missions to Movements
From 0 to 2,000 Monthly Donors from Grassroots Face-to-Face & Phone Fundraising with Katherine Lacefield
Katherine Lacefield is taking us behind the scenes of growing a monthly giving program from absolute zero to 2,000 committed donors in just FIVE years, all through grassroots efforts.
You’ll hear exactly how Katherine and her team used face-to-face canvassing and phone fundraising (NOT flashy ad campaigns or pricey agency consultants!) to spark long-term donor relationships. These are scrappy, creative tactics that built a high-retention recurring giving engine, all done in-house.
We also dive deep into messaging strategies (like the “3 Ps” of monthly giving: proactive, project-based, and political power), why stewardship starts on day one, and how organizations can reframe their energy around fundraising.
As the founder of Just Be Cause Consulting, Katherine has truly done it all in the fundraising world: major gifts, peer to peer campaigns, grants and my favorite topic, monthly giving. I can’t wait for you to tune in for this honest and refreshing conversation.
Resources & Links
Connect with Katherine on LinkedIn and learn more about her consultancy, Just Be Cause. Katherine also has a podcast that explores the causes that shape our world.
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Let's Connect!
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In today's episode I am joined by Catherine Lacefield, founder and head consultant of Just Because Consulting, based out of Canada. She has done it all in the fundraising world Major gifts, peer-to-peer campaigns, grants and my favorite topic, monthly giving. And here's where it gets really fun. She personally helped grow a monthly giving program from zero to 2,000 donors in five years. And we are not talking about big agency budgets here. We are talking grassroots, face-to-face canvassing fundraising phone calls, emails and she was out there canvassing in Canada herself.
Speaker 1:And every bit of this was done in-house, no third party. She hired the teams, she created the messaging. We're going to get into what messaging actually worked. Hint, it's called the three Ps, the creative ideas she tried, how she got the team inspired, the humor, the challenges. This is an honest, refreshing and packed conversation with very useful takeaways. She also shares some smart advice for navigating the shifting grant landscape, especially for organizations looking at international funding, and how she really helps shift teams' mindsets when fundraising starts to feel more draining than energizing. Oh, and there's an incredible story about a BC animal shelter, rethinking partnerships and storytelling that you don't want to miss.
Speaker 2:When you're trying to push for change, you really need to show that, like a lot of people are backing us up and support us. When you're thinking about votes, when you're thinking about decision makers wanting to push people in a certain direction or they want support from a large portion of people, we want to show that we have those people behind us, those 2,000 people that are donating every single month to our cause. That shows commitment. That shows that they care a lot more. So by joining as a member, you're giving us the political power we need to show that this is not just crazy cat ladies that are supporting this organization. It's you.
Speaker 1:Hey, catherine, hello, we are going to dive right into all the goodness here. I know you have worked across many, many, many different areas of fundraising in your career. We could talk about major gifts, we could talk about grants, we could talk about peer-to-peer, but right now, in this moment, what trends are you seeing? Right now and I know you're based in Canada, so that may be more specific to the org that you're working with there I'm curious to see how the differences are between the US and Canada. With all the shenanigans going on in the world right now it's the kindest way to put it that you think that nonprofit leaders should really be paying close attention to and again, you can be specific to what you're seeing in Canada US international.
Speaker 2:So I actually work in many different countries, while the majority of my clients are in Canada. I literally just posted something today that oh wait I saw it was eight right.
Speaker 2:Yeah eight different countries, so it's pretty international.
Speaker 2:But definitely the majority are in Canada and even if there's a lot of, as you say, shenanigans happening in the US, that does have an impact on Canadian organizations, but of course, a lot of the organizations that I work with that are on international scale.
Speaker 2:But I do feel that the granting landscape generally is shifting, of course, with what's happening in the US. Anything around international aid or government funding is very wonky, and in Canada as well, we're leading up to elections next week, so there are a lot of changes happening and you can never really depend, in my opinion, on government grants in the very long term, because as soon as there's any political shifts, then that puts your funding at risk. So, generally speaking, even if we don't have an issue right now, putting all of your eggs in the same basket of government funding is just too risky. So you really need to diversify your revenue. Even if it seems like it's everything's going well, you never know what's going to happen and suddenly budgets are cut. So I definitely feel that nonprofits are having to shift towards different forms of revenue and I strongly believe, especially in certain sectors, that individual donations are still going to be much more stable in the long term than any form of grant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's really interesting that you're bringing this up even from the context of, like an election cycle, even if nothing is necessarily like bad happening. It's just the nature of what can happen in a political landscape. I think that's really interesting. As far as individual gifts and the organizations that you're working with, are you seeing an increase? Obviously, we're going to talk about recurring giving, monthly giving, regular giving. How do you see that faring in the organizations that you work with?
Speaker 2:So a lot of the organizations that I work with are a lot of startups or small organizations that are kind of getting into individual giving. We haven't noticed necessarily a decrease or increase, I would say because they're growing. They're slowly increasing because they're finally getting into doing the strategies that will increase their donations. I know that on a national level, the amount of donors, so the number of donors that are giving, has been decreasing year after year, but the amount has not necessarily decreased as much. So it's just that there's less people giving but they're giving more. So that's what's happening in Canada, as the last reports that I've read.
Speaker 2:Of course there is huge economic upheaval happening in Canada and I'm sure in the States as well, some slight changes. So I definitely think that has an impact and people are saying like, oh, I just can't afford to do it as much. And so when people think of cutting somewhere, of course sometimes donations are the first to go, not necessarily for everyone, because there are organizations that are growing that are increasing. So I just see it as you really need to double down on stewardship and really build a strong commitment relationship with your donors so that that isn't the first thing that they want to cut out that you want to make sure that they feel so committed and loyal like? No, I'm part of this as a community, but that is not where I'm going to cut. First, I'm going to cut into my weekly Starbucks, so I'm going to cut my Netflix account, which is probably better for my mental health anyway, before they cut your donation, yes, yes for sure, and you have a really cool case study to share with the listeners today.
Speaker 1:You helped an organization I would say Canadian-based organization grow a monthly giving program from zero to 2,000 recurring donors over the course of five years. That is amazing and everyone's like how, literally how. And that is exactly what the show is about is explaining the how. Can you walk us through? I'm sure I will interject with a bazillion questions, but a few of like I'm sure I will interject with a bazillion questions, but a few of like. What made that growth possible? And I want to actually start with the mindset that the organization had that recurring giving was important to them, and then we can get into some more like the tactical.
Speaker 2:Okay, so quick context. This was an animal rights grassroots organization. In Canada we have different charitable statuses, so there's nonprofit and there's registered charity. Registered charity would be the equivalent of like 501c3, where you can get tax receipts, et cetera.
Speaker 2:But there is another status I don't know what the equivalent would be in the US which is just nonprofit which is it allows you to fundraise, it allows you to do everything, but you cannot emit tax receipts and you cannot apply for grants from foundations because you're not a recognized charitable organization. This was especially the case back in the day before the law changed that for any advocacy-focused organizations you were not allowed getting the 501c3 or registered charitable status, because they didn't want charities that were going to be against the government to get benefits. That was kind of the mentality of it If you spent more than 10% of your budget on advocacy not allowed. So this was the context where you have to keep in mind that people were not able to get tax receipts for these gifts, which makes it even more impressive that we were able to grow to 2000, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:So that was the kind of context and advocacy is all about long term.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead, although I would say with that level. As I'm thinking about this, I actually don't care about tax receipts Me neither, at the level monthly, because it doesn't really do anything unless you are contributing like large sums that it can make. So I don't know. This would be like an interesting poll. This would be like an interesting poll, like to monthly donors, if you're giving that like traditional range of like $25, $50, $100, if that really matters to you, like the tax benefit credit, or if you're literally just doing it because you believe in the cause. So, listener, interesting question.
Speaker 2:Completely agree and from a report perspective, they have seen, at least in Canada. The research that I've seen is that it's not one of the top motivations that people say, but, on the other hand, something in Canada, because we have those two different statuses people have this expectation that they'll get a tax credit receipt, so when they don't, they get this feeling of like are you not a legit organization?
Speaker 2:So it affects the credibility of the organization more than anything legit organization so it affects the credibility of the organization more than anything. So that was kind of the difficult point around tax receipts.
Speaker 1:Okay, we have the same. We have, like I think it's a C4, which is about like more advocacy based. So there are kind of similarities of different like categories of organization. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the context, and as an organization that was focusing on advocacy as anyone knows, that works in there these are long-term projects that will require years to see any change. When you're lobbying against changing the laws to stop puppy mills, or to lobby the government to stop, or even municipalities to stop using horse-drawn carriages as tourist attractions, those kinds of things tend to take time because you have to do the education, you have to give the awareness and you have to build up a campaign. So at first they were really keen on building up these teams of fundraisers that would be on the streets, that would be spreading awareness, getting people to sign petitions and just collecting one-time gifts. But first of all that's exhausting and very expensive to have people out there every day collecting cash that you constantly have to keep on going, and especially the fact that these were often cash donations. They weren't necessarily filling out a form with their contact, so there wasn't that capacity.
Speaker 1:There was no contact information.
Speaker 2:No this was 10 years ago. Now I don't think this would be as common. People don't generally do that because of transparency issues. It's kind of much more difficult and it would be frowned upon, but back then it wasn't as much of an issue. This was actually in 2012, 2013 when I started and I left in 2016, 2017.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, so that was the context, and when I started working there, I started having a conversation around okay, so that was the context. And when I started working there, I started having a conversation around okay, so what are we doing to really build up our sustainability? We wanted to get a bigger office, we wanted to have full-time staff that would actually be able to invest in the campaigns and like, well, we do have monthly giving. And I was like, how many do you have? Like 50. And I was like, okay, and what are you doing to like continue them? Nothing. Their names were in a spreadsheet, literally. They were not contacting them, they weren't calling them, they weren't sending them emails, they had no email newsletter. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Speaker 2:And as someone who, from a very young age, like I, really loved fundraising and I understood that we needed to build relationships, I was like, okay, like I'm going to come in and I'm going to change this. So I started building up their donor management system and I became the team leader because I was really good at getting people to sign up to monthly giving. But I was one of the only ones that was good. So we started really shifting our priorities. That when we were talking with our street team to start really putting an emphasis on monthly giving and incentivizing them to do monthly giving. So this was straight team. So if anyone's ever seen those people that are like hi, do you have two minutes to talk about Greenpeace? Or like I'm an international, that was me for five years.
Speaker 1:You were the one out there doing the canvassing.
Speaker 2:I did canvassing for a year and a half. I became one of their top canvassers and then I became team leader, so I was the one that would do a little pep talk in the morning. I have tons of funny stories of things we would do. It was absolutely crazy. And then I started becoming more of just fundraising manager and I was just full time building up the fundraising campaigns and managing their donors.
Speaker 1:Okay, wait, quick pause. I have to ask, when you're doing canvassing, what worked? Was there like something that you would say, where it was like a tried and true? This got somebody to stop, this got somebody to give on a recurring basis that you can remember.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 2:So first of all, for the how to get them to stop, that was just trying a whole bunch of different things because everyone would be motivated by different things. I did it with humor Humor always works because people laugh Like I would sometimes just do a yoga pose in the middle of the street and be like, hey, you want to talk about like animals? And they're like, what are you doing? And then they would just, it was just like a what? Of course, we used a petition. So the biggest thing to make people to stop at first was, like we have a petition against puppy mills, against puppy mills, like everyone's against puppy mills. Like you can't, unless you're a psychopath, not want puppy mills to stop. So that was a great way to start a conversation and we had these 10 steps of really starting to build interest in like, so, do you have an animal? Okay, that's amazing. Build that in like personal connection and then explain, like do you know what puppy mills are? Okay, well, this is what they are, this is what they're doing, this is what we're trying to do. You can sign your petition here and then we start. Just based on what their responses were. I'd be able to gauge their level of interest. If they don't seem like they care at all they're just kind of looking away, not paying attention I can tell that I'm either not doing a good job or they don't really care. And so, depending, once you gauge the interest, once you see people that are like really enraptured, they're like super into it, they start sharing stories. That's when you know this is a potential for a monthly gift.
Speaker 2:So we would always pitch monthly giving first and really say, like we're an animal advocacy organization, we need people to support and to join us on a long-term basis to give us more political power, because right now the government doesn't take us seriously. So by signing up as a monthly donor, not only are you supporting us long term through a monthly gift, but you're also giving us that political power to actually lobby in your name to change these laws. Does this make sense to you? So, instead of saying are you interested or like, do you want to give? It was like, does this make sense? Generally, it makes sense to people. So like okay.
Speaker 2:And then you go into understanding what are their like breaks of like. Why would they say no? Because everyone is always like a bit like objection. And then you can start having a conversation about finding solutions to their objections. Like I don't like the fact that it's automatic and then you can go into the well, everything else is like repair monthly bills. It makes it so much easier for you to sustain your giving to the organization when you don't have to think about it month after month. The fact that it's automatic it actually lowers our fundraising costs, which means that more dollars can go to the organization. So you can really, once you kind of get that initial hook in of like yeah, it makes sense, then you kind of have conversations around what would make sense for them.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so good. Okay, it's all about the like slight tweaks in the language. I love that it really, is it really? Is.
Speaker 2:Simple things can make such a difference, and we can talk about that in this, about stewardship is the same thing when you really focus on. We need people like you who believe that animals should not be kept in cramped cages and reproduced year after year after year. You're bringing them in right away, like we know that you share these beliefs with us, and this is why we want you and not that person on the side of the street. How often were you doing that?
Speaker 2:Every day. So we had teams not me necessarily, but we had teams on the streets every single day. I think for a while we limited it to five days where we weren't doing Monday and Tuesday, because it was just like less productive days, like there was less people on the streets and it's Monday, no one, everyone's in a bad mood, it seems. But yeah, so we were doing it every day, especially in the summer. We have to understand this was in Canada, in Montreal. In the winter we were still doing it outside. So imagine in February, no, it was like my fingers and toes have trauma from being outside in the cold for eight hours. It was not so fun. So our team definitely shrunk a lot as soon as it got cold. But you'd be surprised how people are still like I still confirmed monthly donors on the street. What we do is we'd be like oh, let's go inside this like little the Metro entrance or like the subway entrance and just like I'll give you some hot chocolate or some hot coffee if you become a monthly donor.
Speaker 2:That would have been awesome. I wish I would have had a stand. I would have loved to be holding something hot the whole time, but yeah, it was obviously much more difficult. Yeah, so we had people on the streets pretty much every day.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. For how long, like every day, for like over years, this five year period.
Speaker 2:Yes, pretty much Like. Of course, depending on the size of our team. If we didn't have enough people to fill every day, we would usually go back down to five or four, but generally speaking this was like an ongoing thing.
Speaker 1:Like I said, winter is definitely slowed down and this is a small organization, you said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a very small organization, so let's go into the pay structure of this. Do you want to share that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just going to say, yes, how did you actually? Because I think people think in their head like canvassing face-to-face expensive, expensive, like there's no way. I can afford what she's talking about. Okay, so how did this work?
Speaker 2:Okay, so full transparency. This is a commission-based structure and I know and I know and I'm gonna like everyone in AFP is gonna say that's not ethical and I do share some of that, but there was so much issues so that it made it so much more accessible to a small non-profit. It was very incentivizing for the fundraisers and we raised lots of money for the cause that we wouldn't have been able to had it been on a paidly hour. And we've experimented, we've had to experiment with paid fix and it just unfortunately did not bring in the same results. And I'm going to make a little caveat here of from a retention perspective, and I've also worked with and seen teams that are paid on an hourly basis. They have the same issues with performance when it's paid hourly, because they have to be on very strict quotas and so once you have that pressure of like you need to get three monthly donors a day or you're going to be fired. The same, yeah, like I'm not saying it was that extreme, but you had to have a certain average of how much you were doing and if you did not reach those like yes, you could lose your job. So even if it wasn't like you get paid more based on how much you're bringing in, you will lose your job. That's that same kind of stress and pressure that you might be putting onto donors to just be like, just sign up and if you have to cancel in two months, just do it, just to get your numbers up. So I think both situations could have their pros and cons in that perspective around donor pressure.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, yeah, so, because they were doing also one-time cash gifts as well as monthly gifts and we were also we had forms and we had POS machines to also take, like credit card donations, I was really pushing people to fill out these forms because then we would be able to do the stewardship and follow-up by pushing for those as well. I ended up also building up a side database of one-time donors that we can then convert. We can talk about that later, anyways. So it was commission-based, so people were getting a percentage of all the donations they were collecting, but they would get bonuses when they were getting monthly gifts, because that's what we really wanted, of course. That's what we want because we want to eventually not necessarily need to have a full-time team on the street, because that's a lot of management, the constant interviews, recruiting, training, like it was exhausting.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it wasn't through like a third-party company.
Speaker 2:No, we were doing it all in-house, wow Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was doing everything I was doing the interviews, the trainings we had trainings every week, plus the performance reviews and blah, blah blah and just keeping them motivated. It was absolutely exhausting, which is why I'm saying I don't necessarily recommend this model from that perspective. There's so many other ways you can acquire people, but what was awesome is that once we built up a strong database, we had to have less people on the streets and we shifted towards phone fundraising, which is a lot easier to manage and control, especially in Canadian winters.
Speaker 1:Yes, for sure. I do think that this is a really interesting idea. I'm not sure all the laws or logistics in the United States and there's lots of third-party companies that do this, but this more like grassroots idea. Actually, I have two questions for you, but one is a thought. Something that I teach around recurring giving is to have tentpole campaign moments around asking for recurring giving. And then there's the evergreen, which it should be always all the time, but that there's like tentpole campaigns like main focus, maybe two to three times a year where literally you're just asking for a recurring gift for a specific reason. This is a great idea to have this element during that tentpole moment, especially if it's around a cultural moment.
Speaker 1:So we're recording this coming up on Mother's Day. So if you happen to be an organization that has something to do around moms or families or babies or something that could do with or dog moms, literally you could do the animal side too Anything and you're out canvassing around Mother's Day. It doesn't have to be for a full year, maybe it's just for literally a month around some cultural moment. That I could actually see working really well, because people are already in the mindset of possibly giving a gift for their mom, to their grandma, to their wife, to their whoever their daughter that I could see working. My second question was around did you switch up your locations or were you kind of tried and true in one spot that worked really well, like one grocery store, and how did that work? When you're not a registered third party entity, you guys had to like, obviously, research where you were allowed to do this right.
Speaker 2:So two answers Number one to your first part. The difficulty I would see with that is getting staff to do it just for short periods and the training for them, and because it takes time to learn and to be good at canvassing. So it might make sense to do that if you do end up hiring people that are already trained, and that might be a great way of acquiring for a short period of time, but it's much more expensive to do it that way it's like a naive question Could you just have volunteers do it?
Speaker 2:You could, will it be effective? We had some people that were like, yeah, it's a very stressful and demanding job and often volunteers are not going to have the necessary motivation and, in my opinion, incentivization to do it properly and push, unless they're crazy people like me that love doing fundraising and that have the sales experience.
Speaker 1:Like I actually think it would be kind of maybe I'm weird and I think it'd be fun. Like, if I'm a monthly donor of the organization, be like I'm one. Like I'm a monthly donor and I'm out here because I want to find more people to join this community, this amazing community that I'm a part of. Like I think that would be an angle that could work. It's like if you're ever looking for opportunities for your monthly donors and they're local to where you are. I don't know, maybe I'm just weird.
Speaker 2:I where you are. I don't know. Maybe I'm just weird. I mean, I think, because we know how fundraising works and I feel we're comfortable with it, it changes the game. But how many people that are even fundraisers, that are like oh, I'm uncomfortable asking people for money.
Speaker 1:Many, many listeners. I'm sure many of you are feeling this way. That would be like totally outside of your comfort zone, totally.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I would go for people that have experience in sales, because they're used to having that outgoing approaching people to bring in money.
Speaker 2:And getting told no many times and being told no or ignored, Not even a no ignored I've gotten spat on Dana like spat on, and said how dare you be out here defending animals when there are children dying in Syria because of the war? And I was like what, I don't not care. And it was yeah. So it's a very demanding job, which is why I'm saying like it could work, like in an event.
Speaker 2:Let's say, if you're having a specific event like we had World Tofu Day at one point where we did this giant vegan barbecue in downtown Montreal, having volunteers that are out there what I would use volunteers for is not to ask them directly to become monthly donors, but to get the contact information to then build an acquisition list that you can then transform by phone fundraising, with a very small team of dedicated trained staff that can then convert them. So that's what I would have shifted more for a strategy of like let's just either have a petition, have some form of lead magnet that you can say like hey, sign up for this here, or we have a survey and then you use those contact information to then have a dedicated team that will do the follow-up and fundraising. Okay.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a little bit about like growth, if you remember so, roughly zero to like 2000. Yeah, were there certain years or certain time periods where you really saw growth and was all of that from? What was the split on, like the face-to-face versus the phone fundraising, if you know that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't have the exact numbers, but I do know the generalities because I was the one that was managing the database. So I started more actively doing the fundraising. It was in 2013. And when they saw that I was amazing. The summer of 2013, I became a team leader, and this is not to like yeah, girl, pack your bag. People loved working with me because I was encouraging, inspiring.
Speaker 2:We had fun. I'll give you a little tidbit of like what we would do sometimes on the streets. We would buy these funny little hats from the dollar store that were like made out of felt, and those like a, b, a pig one like ridiculous, and we made these little like game competitions where two or three people would be like selected as the first people to have to wear these hats and then the only way to get the hat off was to get a donation. So we would be joking with people in the street like, listen, I look absolutely ridiculous with this pig hat on. Like, can you help me out while you're also helping animals? It was hilarious and you'd be like okay, so who should we give it to next? Like, what about that guy? Yeah, it was so much fun, so I started implementing these kinds of games. But whoever got the most donations before lunch, like, would get, like a Starbucks card or something. So we would have a lot of these fun games and incentives.
Speaker 2:I brought that to the team of like, really making it fun. People respected me because I was also doing the work and getting good results. So I really shifted the focus to monthly donors. So that year 2013, 2014, we got a lot of monthly donors because I was pushing for it, because you were making the ask, I was making the ask and I was teaching them how and just it became more of the culture of the team. I was teaching them how and just it became more of the culture of the team. And we changed the incentives on pushing really. Like, if you get more monthly donors and less one-time gifts, you'd still be getting more overall. So there would be extra bonuses if you got three monthly donors in a day and I was like it doesn't matter if they're for $10 or $30. Like, I want more monthly donors. The amount is not as important, because I'd rather have a thousand small monthly donors than a hundred big ones, cause if one of them leaves, it doesn't impact us as much.
Speaker 1:We're not as dependent. Yeah, and then you always have the opportunity to ask them to upgrade or to increase later down the line, but at least they're in.
Speaker 2:Exactly that was the most important part.
Speaker 2:So that was, I would say, the initial like really big growth.
Speaker 2:And then when I started going more in the offices doing stewardship, doing phone fundraising, the team like monthly donors definitely went down but we had like more of a stability that it was integrated into it. The biggest thing that helped was when I started doing more of the follow-up calls and stewardship, from a retention perspective but from a growth perspective. So I was taking all of the forms because this was all handwritten forms. It was amazing and I was actually following up with people that were making these gifts to be like, hey, thank you so much for signing, like this, and that's what started building up also. So I would say the phone fundraising, with pretty much me alone, I would say I converted at least 500 donors to join them monthly over those couple of years, or getting them back on, or if when they filled it in the street, they switched numbers by accident because you didn't have any verification processes on the street. So I was just making sure that anyone who gave their information the majority of them were- actually becoming monthly donors.
Speaker 1:Amazing, oh my gosh, this is huge. And so what? On a phone call when you were on the street I know you shared a little bit about the language what messaging really worked for organizations that are listening and they're like, okay, maybe I can't do the face-to-face, but I could definitely do the phone, Like we have a good, solid list of people. What was that quick way of capturing people's attention and not having them hang up, of capturing people's attention and not having them hang up?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, you always go into the personal first, like to get them to just have a conversation. It would be like thank you so much for signing our petition. Like I want to let you know, like, how many signatures we're at and what we've been doing. Most people are interested because we're not asking them for anything. We're sharing information. And then we start talking about campaigns, end up having conversations about like, so end up having conversations about like, so what motivated you to sign the petition? And I'll show you a funny story about Roger. So this is just like an individual story where I called him and I was like hey, and he's like yeah, my wife forced me to sign. I was like oh, my God, I love your wife. Like, should I talk to her? Instead? He's like no, no, she's not here. I'm like okay, well, thank you so much for having an amazing wife.
Speaker 2:And we started talking and it led to a 30-minute conversation around the dairy industry. Because he worked in the dairy industry. He's like oh, but you guys are like a vegan organization. Like I can't, really I don't feel comfortable supporting you because I work in it. I was like everyone is on the spectrum. Like you care about animal welfare that works as well. We invite everyone to join the movement. And we ended up having just like an ethical discussion. He was like you're right, like the ethical discussion. He was like you're right, like the way they're treated. I'm like, yeah, but there's a lot of social pressure to like increase production. So really we ended up having a discussion before we talked about anything. And so this guy, roger, like it took him three calls to become a monthly donor, but every time you would make a $50 gift. He's like I love this conversation, like let's do this. And three calls later he did convert to a monthly donor for I don't know how much, but that's not the point.
Speaker 2:So having this personal connection, and he wasn't even the one that signed and every call I'd be like so how's your wife? She's still forcing you to sign petitions. He's like, oh, all the time. So we got to know each other and that was useful of having one person in control or of the list. Is that I would have my little side notes, like Roger, wife signs positions. I would be able to continue the conversation. So, yes, it took time but we were building the relationship building, the trust building the confidence.
Speaker 2:So that was what was really helping, I would say, in the second half of those five years, where it was mostly about retention and converting all of those one-time donors, or even petition signers, into monthly gifts, specifically for messaging, for monthly giving. We call this the three Ps of becoming a monthly donor. So it's number one. It was around becoming proactive.
Speaker 2:So let's be honest, liking a post on Facebook, signing a petition, is very passive in the sense of it doesn't have a very big impact. It gives you a feeling like, yeah, I'm supporting it, but realistically that's not a very proactive action to push the cause forward. So by becoming a member, you're actually becoming proactive in your beliefs of wanting to change the situation for animals. So really putting people of like you care because you've signed this petition, like you should become proactive much more than just signing a petition. So those are the number one. Number two was long-term projects, especially for advocacy-focused organizations. It's long-term. We're not measuring it in months, we're measuring it in years. And I always tell people imagine if your job only paid you sometimes when they felt like it, when it worked, how would you be able to invest in buying a house or any of your own long-term projects? You wouldn't.
Speaker 1:Same thing goes for nonprofits.
Speaker 2:So monthly giving allows us that safety and security to invest in these long-term projects.
Speaker 1:Love that. I'm a monthly donor to an organization right now Chamber of Mothers that focuses on bills and it takes time, but it's necessary, right, but it takes multiple visits. It takes trips to DC or to wherever the local bill is happening. It takes writing letters of testimony like the non-sexy exciting things often but it's what it takes to get done. Paying for lawyers like that's expensive, that takes a long time. So again, I love that. Okay, so sorry.
Speaker 2:Third P the third P is actually two P's. It's political power, so it's actually technically the four P's. So, as an organization, what I would really focus on is imagine if I go up to a legislative power or decision maker and say we have five members, that doesn't make us feel legit or that the public supports us. When you're trying to push for change, you really need to show that, like a lot of people are backing us up and support us. When you're thinking about votes, when you're thinking about decision makers wanting to push people in a certain direction, or they want support from a large portion of people, we want to show that we have those people behind us.
Speaker 2:When I say we have 2000 people and every member, we have to understand it's like those negative and positive reviews that one positive review is worth I would say five to 10 negative comments, because it's so easy to complain. It's a lot harder for most people, like they won't take the energy or the time to go out of their way to leave a positive review. Yes, so I believe that they're worth a lot more. So those 2,000 people that are donating every single month to our cause, that shows commitment, that shows that they care a lot more. So by joining as a member, you're giving us the political power we need to show that this is not just crazy cat ladies that are supporting this organization. It's you. It's you, peter, who works for the dairy industry. It's you, jeanette. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was one of the kind of the messaging that I use that it pushed people to feel like I should take action, because, it's true, I do believe this needs to change. I do understand that this takes years, and I do want to give my voice to the movement, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love all of that and I'm sure in the on the days when it was hard and there was no monthly gifts happening, and I'm sure there were times where it was really exciting when things were happening. But through that process I'm sure it felt really draining and I think in the current state of the world lots of things can feel really draining and not as energizing and full of momentum. But that energy is, I think, what makes the biggest difference in successful fundraising and advocacy in the work that you're doing now. What are your recommendations for the listeners right now who are like this all sounds great, but I am feeling so depleted. How do I get myself re-energized to get my team re-energized, then get donors re-energized in fundraising for us? Do you have any suggestions?
Speaker 2:Many, but number one is, for me, fundraising is not about the money. Of course it is. We understand rationally that it is about fundraising, but the way I try to see it is that I'm getting people to invest in the future that they want to see. Instead of focusing on, you're investing in us doing things. It's no. We're giving you the opportunity to actually take action towards a world you want to see. Especially when we feel sometimes that we don't make a difference, that as individuals, what we do doesn't matter, that we feel powerless. Shifting it to, we are allowing people to make a step towards the world they would like to see. I feel that's so empowering and it allows people to feel like okay, I can do something. So when we start shifting the mindset towards, it's an opportunity that I'm offering these people, instead of like they're doing me a favor, I think it really allows us to change into like a begging for money towards a like. I'm empowering our communities to see something different around them, and I think that's a very important shift that we need to have.
Speaker 1:Yes, I also like your earlier example of just like having fun with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having fun with it and celebrating the wins in your teams, like acknowledging, like you might say, three monthly donors in a day, and to some people that's like nothing and to some that's like that's everything, like if they've hit a plateau and it's a really big deal and it's like I think sometimes it's so easy to just be like, oh, a monthly donor transaction, like those are three individuals that made a decision of a significant commitment in their life and building, like you said, that relationship with them, and so I love that. I want to also, as we wrap up this conversation, you also have a podcast. We were talking about this a little bit before we started recording the Just Because podcast, which I think is so clever. Has there been one story I just want to leave us on like a positive, uplifting note, one story that you've interviewed of somebody recently on your show that's really stuck with you, that listeners can learn from?
Speaker 2:Yes, it doesn't have anything to do with monthly donors, but it's such an inspiring story. One of my favorite, the Just Because podcast, is really focused on how all of these causes are interconnected, Because I hear some people being like, yeah, well, our cause is less sexy, or like people don't want us but they want to support children and we work with. You know, previously incarcerated people like no one likes our cause and I'm like, first of all, stop saying that. There are definitely your people, you just need to find your people. But what I loved about what? So this is with Kathy Pallison of Paws for Hope. She's in BC, in Canada. What she built is she really started working with other organizations to build partnerships. So she's a animal rescue, but that doesn't have a physical location. She just focuses on foster cares, foster families, and what she's done is create these partnerships with women's shelters, recovery centers, rehab centers.
Speaker 2:So a lot of abandonments are not because people don't care about their animals. It's because of external circumstances that make it so that they can't take care of their animals and generally it's for a specific amount of time. But there's no option for them except for paying a babysitter and I have to go to Canada and I have to get my dog babysat for 10 days and it's costing me close to $500, like for 10 days. Imagine if we're talking about three weeks a month, two months like. Most people cannot afford that. So their only option is either to not go to recovery, not sign into rehab, stay with their abusive husband because they're scared of their animal. People have a huge bond with their animals. It's so much important than we can even imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:So what she did is, instead of just having these animals be abandoned, is her foster families, are temporary homes for these people that are going through difficult times, so it lowers abandonment. Amazing, and what's even more amazing is from a fundraising perspective. Now she can say not only are we helping these animals, we're also helping these women going through domestic abuse. So I love the conversation because it really also kind of removed the crazy cat lady mentality from animal rescues as like we don't care about humans and involving. No, we do care about families, including animals, not just animals, not just people. So it's more of an and question instead of an or so around partnerships. That was really important, I think everyone. If you want to talk about how can you really gain more people to be attracted to your cause, make connections with other causes as well.
Speaker 1:Such a cool story and I will say we have a five-year-old Labradoodle, malo, and he is a huge part of our family. I can't imagine life without him around and so love all the animal organizations out there doing things. Catherine, this has been incredible. Oh, she just lifted up her little doggy for listeners, mr Pickles, mr Pickles, mr Pickles. I love it. Catherine, where can people find you? Where can they reach out to you? Where can they work with you?
Speaker 2:LinkedIn. I know you're a huge fan of LinkedIn, as am I. It has changed everything about how I interact with people around the world, so I'm very active on LinkedIn. The easiest way to connect with me is to message me on LinkedIn. I'm much more likely to respond than an email, if not my website. So it's justbecauseconsulting, very simple, and the podcast. You can also find it at justbecauseconsultingpodcast or just search it on Spotify or whatever to find the Just Because podcast.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Thank you for being here and for sharing all of this and for doing all of that hard work for so long and being out there. That was incredible. I'm sure people are going to want to pick your brains. And thank you again for being on Missions to Movements.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. It was really awesome.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movements. 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 changemakers 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.
