Getting Real about Admin Work, Leadership Challenges, and Credit Cards

On this week’s episode of Let’s Get Real, Ed and Lisa welcome back Peggy Killeen to discuss more pressing topics in Canadian fundraising! Peggy kicks off the episode by discussing how administrative work can often drain an organization’s capacity to fundraise.

Later on, Lisa focuses on current challenges in leadership, and how changes in office setup and social norms leave leaders feeling like they can’t win. And do you want to know how credit cards are affecting fundraising? Ed dives into that very topic.

Interested in learning more about planned giving? PGgrowth's new membership space, PGcommons, is the place for you. Go to pggrowth.com/podcasts and click on the PGcommons button to access your 30-day free trial, or sign up for our free membership.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome. We are back with Let's Get Real: Canadian Perspectives on Fundraising. And in the chairs today are your regular co-hosts, Ed Sluga, and myself, Lisa McDonald. And we are super excited to have Peggy Colleen back with us for her repeat performance. How are you doing, Peggy?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Doing well, and thank you so much for inviting me back. It's fun.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

It um I really, I really like the female energy. I like this kind of two of us and one of Ed. I feel like it helps to keep things a little more balanced.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Very different when it was Ken Ramsey and I. That's right. Very, very good.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

So we've got some interesting things to that uh we want to get into today. And um, Peggy, I'm gonna just start by giving a little introduction to you, not to steal the thunder, but I understand that um you want to talk about kind of you know how fundraisers are managing some of the administrative burden that they're experienced and and what the impact of of this has on them. Um that sounds like you've had some first hand experience with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

For sure. And I think anybody who's worked about a month fundraising has has had some experience. They'll know about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Other duties as assigned. I mean, uh anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah. And Ed, you're gonna be talking uh something a little bit uh interesting and and a little different than your normal topics, but we're just gonna dig down a little bit into um talking about administration, but the administrative costs um to donors and or organizations in terms of uh credit card uh overhead. So looking forward to that. And uh, you know, I'm I'm gonna talk a little bit about leadership. This is you know, this is my go-to topic, which has a little different entry points, but I want to just uh discuss with you both a little bit about why leadership is feeling so hard right now and and has been for a while. And I have um a few things to kick off the conversation, and uh, but I'm looking forward to getting you to weigh in on that. So there's our three topics. Um that's a lot we have to cover. I think we uh, you know what, let's not even start with a break. We're gonna just dig right in today. Um, Peggy, tell us tell us more.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah, so you know, as I was saying, this is something that almost every fundraiser has experienced, but we may not be um naming it directly or or actually identifying it. And that's the quiet way that the administrative work that is involved with anything to do with fundraising or any job actually drains the capacity that we have to fundraise. And I'm talking about those everyday tasks that slowly eat away the time we're supposed to be spending with donors. So those would be your internal meetings, your emails, uh, your data entry, your reporting, pulling lists and preparing briefings, uh, event coordination is a huge one. It's something that people just get sucked into, even if it's not their event. And then, you know, how much admin there is needed if you're doing grant requests. Uh, I'm sure that you two could probably name some more. I'm sure that people listening could name other things. Um, because, as I said, if you've worked in fundraising, um, this has happened to you. So none of these tasks are pointless. They they exist for a reason. Accountability matters, good data matters, following up and stewardship definitely matter. But collectively, all these tasks create something of a burden on us. And that burden quietly shifts our time away from the thing that we want to that drives us as fundraisers to be successful, and that is our relationships with donors. Um, I know that last time we talked a little bit about this as well, that it's fundraising is deeply human work. It's about conversations, about listening, understanding what donors care about, helping them to make a difference in the world. But those are things that take time, and you can't build trust through a spreadsheet or discover what motivates somebody in a five-minute email. And you certainly can't cultivate a major gift or a legacy gift if your calendar is just packed with this kind of work. So, you know, I think that because we spend fundraisers end up spending such a surprising share of their work keeping the internal systems running, um, then then there's a subtle shift, and we start to be reactive instead of proactive in our relationships. We're no longer cultivating, we're just responding or last minute having um and doing an invitation or an email. And we're managing um that's because we're managing processes instead of relationships with people. And I think what happens there, um, Ed, you you probably might have some information on this, but the future pipeline of our gifts actually shrinks the more of that work that we do. And uh Lisa, this might be a complement to what you're gonna say, but if you're in a senior fundraising role, there's a whole other layer to this. Um, directors, VPs, heads of development, they carry a whole second job alongside fundraising. There's HR work, hiring, onboarding, mentoring staff, performance reviews, resolving challenges in your team, management work, so it's managing down, managing up, right? Preparing board reports, budgets, campaign plans, attending executive meetings, coordinating with other departments if you're in a big shop. And this is something I directly experienced in the last role that I had before I became a consultant, and I think it has a lot to do with the reason I became a consultant. I just wasn't seeing people. I wasn't talking to donors or you know, um having in-depth conversations with them as much as I was doing multitude of that stuff. Um, and again, this is important uh work, but the result is that uh many senior fundraisers who often have in their in their career had had the deepest kind of donor relationships, the most experience securing these kinds of gifts, their calendars are filled with this. And and their their meetings are not with donors, they're about operations. So I think I I'm always gonna do this if you're talking to me, but I will give a special shout out to planned giving fundraisers. Because if anyone understands administrative complexity, it's it's them. Um, because planned giving it's some of the most meaningful work in our profession. Uh, conversations about legacy values, impact you want to leave behind. These are not short conversations, they're and they're ongoing, stewardship also, relationships that are ongoing, because that gift has not been received. But planned giving also comes with layers of administration that other fundraising streams might actually not see. So all the documentation around bequests and legacy commitments, coordination with legal and financial advisors, and then something maybe people don't realize we often do, especially in small to medium shops, state administration. That's literally a whole administrative task. When we receive notification that someone's left a gift in their will, the work has not finished. We haven't got that gift. It's just beginning. We could spend months, and I can remember spending years working with estate trustees or executives reviewing documentation, communicating, ensuring that we ultimately receive the gift and that questions have been answered, it's all been done in a proper framework, uh, you know, questions about probate, timelines, property sales, tax filings, asset distribution.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

And Peggy, do you think because there is this preponderance of administrative work that is part of plan giving, is that why, you know, perhaps plan giving fundraisers do it better? Because it's built in with more of a of an expectation and understanding on both sides, right, from the get-go. Because I as I'm thinking about this, uh, you know, and I'm thinking about where do we back up and and how does this get addressed? Like I think, you know, it starts at the very beginning that expectations aren't fully discussed or understood between leadership and fundraising hires about how to balance that time and and how to prioritize and when you know people aren't being taught, you know, how to learn how to balance the administrative side of things, which there is significant with the important aspects of stewardship. So so in plan giving, is that just more front and center? Is is that just part of the conversation right from the beginning, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

You know, I don't think it is. I don't know what you think it, but I think that people are often surprised at the amount of work that it does involve. So if you start off doing it because you love it and you love the idea of talking to people about their legacy, and then you realize how much work there is on that side. Um, I I thought you were gonna ask um why there are so few plan giving fundraisers, might be the reason because we don't want to be doing that um that stuff. I don't know what you think, Ed.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Well, you know, for first you made mention, uh Peggy, uh specifically on the estate and ins side of smaller charities, medium to smaller charities, uh, the plan giving person, if there is one dedicated or part-time or full-time, they get pulled away to do estate administration. But I know of, and I think you know of as well, you know, people in incredibly uh large fundraising shops, very well thought of senior plan giving professionals who were doing exactly exactly who had no time to speak to new donors because all they were doing was administration for gifts that were coming in. And and I'm gonna say it's a bit of a trap, right? There's a bit of a trap in two ways. One is it's a trap with the organization because if the organization thinks both things are happening, that new engagement is happening while the estate administration is going on. Um, and that's for lots of different reasons, metrics, we've talked about that. But I think it's a trap too for the professionals. Let's be honest about it. If you're there doing the administrative work that you know, in the uh state admin, um, it's it's a way of keeping you at your desk, keeping you with not talking to people. And and you it, you know, whether you entered in with good faith to let's I'm gonna call, I'm gonna be in front of people, I'm gonna make this happen quickly. You're at your desk, you're behind your computer screen, you're not talking to anyone, not doing stewardship, not doing engagement, and you and you're into that that momentum, away from that, that uh important. Not it's all important, but I think this is the other part of it for me as you're talking about it, Peggy, because it always reminds me of something I often tell fundraisers when they ask me about positions that are uh available, should they apply for them, or they've been offered a position and they say, Is this worthwhile? What do you think about this move? And you know, we'll have a good conversation, but at the end, I'll always jokingly say, make sure whatever contract you sign, there isn't a line anywhere that says other duties as assigned. Because you end up doing the other duties as assigned, right? Actually, in a meeting last week with uh a leader and and the person that they manage around some things, and they made the joke about other duties as assigned. And what happens is we kind of let not-for-profits and charities, and I want to say those are two different things, as we know. The self-funded charity is one thing, the not-for-profit with the charitable giving side, generally, like overall fundraising side to help augment um their services. Um they they rely on individuals to give well beyond the 37 and a half hour schedule, the 40-hour schedule, whatever their work week is. And in fact, I've seen lots of people being hired part-time because the organization can't afford or says it cannot afford, a full-time fundraiser. And that full-time fundraiser is quickly working 40 hours a week, right? And it gets the organization and leadership, and that's both board and senior leadership, again, off the hook, because what they need is more resources, and they need to go to bat for more resources, and they don't because it's getting done anyway. So, why do I need to have that hard conversation with senior leadership, whether it's the CEO or executive director talking to the board or the VP, talking to the executive director to say we need more people to make this happen? We don't have to because people are are forced into sometimes, not forced in a bad way, not coercive, it's just suddenly they're working way more than they're getting paid for. Um, and uh the papers over it.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

And I would say they're not bringing in enough money because they are doing all those other things. So I think where where it comes to is to say there's a cost involved with this. Absolutely. And in fact, if you pay somebody to manage, you know, there's a number of roles that you can put in, like a gift administration person, that's what they do. It takes a certain personality, they're not necessarily the same kind of people who want to have relationships with donors. There's that too. It takes detail, it takes, you know, why should be the same person? So if you were to have a gift administration um admin uh for estates or a stewardship person who's managing stuff like that, and leaving that time free for relationship building, which will build your revenue more. You won't be reactive if you have somebody who's even managing your scheduling correspondence logistics internally. And I think that's kind of the argument. It's a little bit like the argument we make for gift planning. You know, well, you don't see these gifts now, but they will come in the future. Um, unless you allow people to do what they're supposed to do and not be distracted or burdened, uh your your pipeline is is is dropping.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

And Peggy, I think um there's a there's an impact here too when you're considering a sector that is predominantly made up of women.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

This type of um, you know working arrangement. Uh just in our last couple minutes, any any thoughts on that from you as well?

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Definitely. Um we I think we know that there's evidence that women often carry a disproportionate share of the administrative work. And add to that that fundraising is a female-dominated profession. Um, we are our workforce is is mostly women, especially in frontline and mid-level roles, but senior leadership roles and higher compensation uh levels skewed towards men. So I think women are more likely to be expected to take on that kind of admin. And I'm gonna say things like note-taking in a meeting, even preparing you know, documents and report, organizing events, uh onboarding staff, maintaining processes. So I it is a double load that that people that women are carrying in particular, I think.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah. Ed, any closing thoughts and then we'll move on.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah, and I I think Peggy said it really, really well. I I suppose if people are listening, what they'll be asking us right now or asking themselves is what's the answer? And um, you know, I I want to say a couple of things about that. And and the first one is to um, you know, understand what your role ought to be and what you're doing, uh uh, and and have good conversations with leadership about this because um I think more and more there are lots of very thoughtful, and I I say that because maybe 30 years ago there weren't that many thoughtful people in leadership in charities. There are more and more, more and more women in leadership roles right now that has changed dramatically in 30 years. More to do for sure, but more of it, and they will understand once you provide them with um a thought process around this. This is what I've been asked to do. Here's how I spend my day. And I'll I'll tell you, I do it all the time. Uh, we'll hear uh organizations say, Well, you have a full-time fundraiser in plan giving, for example, or major gifts, or and they'll say, Well, how many you know, visits should they do? I get that conversation all the time, which kind of reveals something. Management doesn't know what they should be doing, but they have somebody to manage to do. Well, anyway, and I'll say, Well, they've got 85% of their time to visit, and they'll say, What do you mean? They're full time. It's like, well, yeah, but you're gonna ask them to do this and this and this, and that'll be at least 15% of their time. And it's for the first time. I mean, they understand that intuitively when it's presented, but until it's presented, they don't think about it, they think that the administrative or this important admin work is something that's added on to everybody, they should still carry a full portfolio. That's not the case, uh, you know. So that's the first thing. I think the other thing is in tongue in cheek, I said earlier, other duties as a sign, but I remember uh talking to again someone transitioning into the not-for-profit sector on a part-time job. Uh, it was supposed to be 20 hours a week. And I said, whatever, you know, make sure that if what you want is 20 hours a week, stop at 20 hours. Yeah, it will force them into understanding this, and it did. And and we have to be self-advocates a little bit. Let's make sure that we understand people are driven by passion in our business, passion for the cause, passion to make the world a better place, the programs the best they can be. Um, and that passion can get the better of you, and you can start asking people, not out of maliciousness, but out of just let's get this done because it's so important. And before you know it, you're pulled in.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

So have that not barrier, but awareness to do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

This is uh this is just a great topic because it is just, I mean, there's so many little things that have been said in the course of the last 15 or 17 minutes about the nature of our sector. And um and and it is something that has just been uh been an ongoing challenge of of how to manage, you know, limited resources, passion, people, you know, people direction leadership. Um so again, complicated, but I feel like we had a good little um snapshot of of what's happening and and perhaps some solutions in that. And something you said, Peggy, really resonated with me. And I'm gonna use that as the stepping off point for our next segment. And that is um that fundraising is deeply human work. And uh, I'm gonna use that as the starting point for a bit of a leadership discussion right after this break. So um we'll take five and uh stick around. We'll be right back. It was uh just a short break, and we're here with Peggy Colleen, Ed Sluga, myself, Lisa McDonald, and this is Let's Get Real Canadian Perspectives on Fundraising. And uh in the first segment, we had just a great discussion about the capacity of fundraisers and and the impact of administration against um the actual people-to-people work that comes with fundraising. And I want to talk a little bit about um what it's like to be a leader right now in our sector. And uh in the last few years, there's been a lot more dialogue, particularly in Hillborn Charity e News, around I'll use the word burdens again, but if if that feels too strong, just about how leadership is feeling heavier for a lot of people. Um and it's perhaps not what they were expected, you know, expecting when they went into philanthropic work. And a lot of these people, a lot of women, a lot of passionate people about the organizations they work for, they're feeling like they're failing some kind of test that everyone else has passed. They're feeling that maybe they're less capable or weaker about what's going on. And some just feel like they're working harder than they ever have, but they're still falling behind. And, you know, why is this? Like what is going on that is making fundraisers, leaders in our sector feel like they just can't win? And I have a few things I'd like to just kind of propose forward to you guys. Tell me what you think as we work through a bit of this discussion. So, you know, I think that that first of all, um that this feeling that leadership has, this feeling of being overwhelmed, you know, it definitely didn't come out of nowhere. Uh things have been changing. And, you know, there used to be kind of a relatively stable set of rules about uh leadership or that applied. You know, first of all, like people worked in offices. Um work happened in visible, tangible ways. There was like a paper flow, right? Um authority flowed clearly through a hierarchy of reporting and and functions. Performance seemed to be easier to observe, and we had like tighter feedback loops. Like there was a lot of things that were just kind of standardized, but slowly, and some in the case of COVID and and what happened around there, a lot of those rules shifted. So remote and hybrid work changed how we connect internally, leaders with staff, our technology that continues to evolve all the time is accelerating at a speed that people A can't necessarily keep up with, and B is forcing us to change processes regularly, which is challenging. Um, the information that both we are being fed and we're expecting to return is becoming more instantaneous. And again, that feeling of overwhelm because there's just so much information all the time. So, how do you how do you wrangle all that? And then our social norms um have been evolving, and trust is a lot more fragile between donors and the organizations, between co-workers, um, between organizations. So definitely there has just been it's not so much that the leaders have changed or leadership has changed. It's just um there's fragmentation and and I don't think we can assume things the way we used to. And to top it all off, uh leaders have not been retrained for this. There's no there's been no retraining because there is no time. Um so that's kind of where I'd like to start, is just that you know, there are these circumstances going on and and the impact. And I don't know, what do you think, Ed? Does that resonate with what you're seeing, feeling, some discussions you're having?

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Well, yeah, and I think what you're what you're highlighting here um is something that um there's a gap. There's a gap between what the perception of leadership is and what leadership actually is, and ultimately leadership is tough, right? It's a hard job. That's the first thing. And lots of people think it's easy. Lots of people, and we all know this, and we probably were here at one moment, if we're very honest with ourselves. We probably worked in a in a place and felt like if I had the leadership job, I could do a better job than this person. We all felt it, it's a human thing to feel, and and there is human frailty when you get into that role, and then suddenly you realize it it is maybe the job is bigger than your abilities, and that makes it really difficult, but it's a hard thing to face up to, and there's always you know this notion that I believe is true that leadership is different than management, and there are lots of very good managers who make really bad leaders, and by the way, lots of really great leaders who are horrible managers, right? But great at leading organizations. So, but I wanted to pick up on one thing that you did say and and alluded to, Lisa, which I think is absolutely true. And I've had this direct conversation with individuals who are leaders. Sorry, let me rephrase that. They have a leadership role. Whether they're leaders or not, that's a different thing. Uh, but it's the change in the way that work is done right now. That line of sight, intuitive leadership, which was really line of sight intuitive management, not leadership, because you can lead from anywhere. A leader can be anywhere and do that, right? It's that line of sight, uh and you know, feeling like stuff's getting done rather than being able to truly measure that things are being done. And, you know, the the and you know, I've seen this in lots of different organizations where um, and I hate to use the word metrics because you know it just gets a bad name when you use it, but I've talked to a lot of organizations where suddenly they've have forced upon them a hybrid workforce, partly at home, partly working um in the office, and and the leaders are unable to provide any kind of movement forward because they're thinking like managers, because they they how do I know these people are doing their job? Well, that's the manager's job, it's a different function, right? And so you get bogged down, like there's and just one other thing. You get sorry, you get bogged down in the difference between those things, what your job as a leader is, um, and what allow the managers to do, and then the education part of it, Lisa, absolutely. We're in a different world, it requires different skills. You still have to be human, you still have to have a connection. That connection can be fostered, absolutely, but you've got to work differently. Yeah, no doubt about it. And just one last piece on this is you know, the reality is that this change is going to continue, right? It's not gonna get, we're not all going back into the office. That's not gonna happen anytime soon. So we have to think differently, engage differently, train differently, function differently in the next little while. Some leaders, quote unquote leaders, are just not in a place. And if you combine that with the overburdening of people in our sector that Peggy went through in a really wonderful way, um in our first segment, um, they're feeling the pinch too, I would suggest. And this is all coming to play out in that feeling of negativity around with within leadership right now.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Great. And I um Peggy, I'm gonna jump to you because I'm really interested in your perspective on this as well. But I I did want to just um loop back because right before the break, I had uh used Peggy's statement about fundraising being deeply human work. And what I wanted to say about leading into this discussion is that, you know, in our sector in particular, you know, our leadership, you know, we are trying to lead humans and not just hit metrics, you know. And and I think that is something that is is also creating a bit of the pressure cooker.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

But Peggy, what um well, what struck me, I mean, it's it links to what what Ed was saying about, you know, things have changed, um, and you know, we've got to get used to it, and and our leadership has to get used to it even more than anybody else, because they're the ones who are holding things together. Harder to hold things together when when you're not all in the same place. Um, but you talked about uh retraining uh in so many ways, you know, things of are just AI, for example, or not that leadership has to do that, but they have to figure out how do we use this? What's our strategy? Are we gonna do this? How many organizations have we seen, Ed, who have had like major changes in their um their CRMs or their their systems, and and everybody just has to drop everything to change everything. Um and I think when you talk about leaders, they generally are gonna be more senior people, which means they've had a long time in the world, a longer time than than than their staff. And it I think gets harder to learn. I think we don't we don't learn as easily as we as we get older. Um so that retraining uh maybe you're just gonna lose it. It's not people are gonna go, no, I actually I'm too tired. I think I'm gonna retire. And I don't know how many times I've heard that um in the last couple of years. You know what, maybe this is the moment that I should take. Because yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Can I just can I just jump in on one thing that you've said there, Peggy? Sorry, Lisa, for for jumping in, but I just wanted to catch on something. And and Peggy mentioned CRMs and changes in CRMs. And it's actually in, I just had a conversation on another podcast with somebody that does a lot of data work. And we talked about CRMs and um you know the the usefulness of databases and and engagement uh platforms of that kind, and how a lot of times when they're not useful, uh organizations will actually say, Well, this CRM isn't useful. I don't know how to manage people to get them to onto it. So let's pick a whole other CRM and bring that in. As though that's going, that's not gonna solve your management problem, right? You're still you're gonna have people not adhering to simple management around data in the other CRM as well. It's kind of a writ large moment with a with a high cost, not only to the staffing that you mentioned, Peggy. We're all supposed to draw up everything and learn something new now, which is not gonna necessarily be any better. But there's a staff, there's a non-staff cost. This is gonna cost us money to convert into this new platform. We may lose donors. There's a risk to it that's incredible, and that's I think, and even in this other conversation, it came up, leadership needs to understand what they're doing at this moment, and I think it's it's in response, Lisa, to some of the things you're talking about, so hard. It's hard to get people to do this. There's a negativity around it, and so I'm going to take what uh you know, calculated digital or software solution where that's not really our problem here.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah, and I um I think I mean I would love to just keep talking about this because this could go in a lot of different directions, but I think in the interest of time, I'll I'll wrap it up. But you know, that whole idea of leadership versus management that you raise, Ed, really resonates to me. And, you know, when uh leaders are looking to anchor to something when everything around us is shifting all the time, I think that what we don't need is more tactics, because I think tactics become a management function. I think what we do need is to entrench in our principles and our values, and that that guides us through as leaders to all of the factors that are going on around us. So um maybe what I'll do is I'll leave a little bit of a cliffhanger and say, next podcast, my follow-up will be to talk a little bit about what those values and principles look like. Um, so as opposed to throwing out the CRM tactically and bringing in something new, let's discuss what the values and principles are between good foundational leadership and how that can carry you through when everything else seems a bit upside down. Let's take a break and then we will come back and we're gonna talk credit cards as a vehicle to making your donation. Right back with Ed Sluga. Thank you for coming back and listening to Let's Get Real, Canadian Perspectives on Fundraising. Uh, it's a great chat today. I'm really enjoying this. Uh it's a little bit of a rainy, dismal day. So I'd much rather be inside chatting with you, Peggy Colleen, and you, Ed Sluga, about all things fundraising than really anything else I can imagine right now. So um, Ed, the uh the floor is yours. And let's get into this idea about credit cards and um the impact that this may be having as a fundraising tool.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Thanks for that. And uh yeah, um, and Lisa, it's always great to be here with you as well. And uh so this this came up because as uh the three of us are all not only working in this sector, but volunteering in this sector. As part of my volunteer job, um, I've had a moment to be get more and more uh involved in uh very smaller charities. And because I like smaller charities, I like working, I enjoy working with large charities as well. Look for every opportunity to do that. But working with smaller charities is great because you have a chance to to see granularly how we do this work and how we build these things. One of the things you see is, and and that's been right in front of me over the last uh few years, is how people are making donations today and the effects of those donations when they're made through credit cards. And one of the things I wanted to point out is right now, you know, um Canadians make about 12 plus billion dollars a year in donations uh to charities. About 50% of those gifts are being made online, as an estimate. In the last year of full uh reportable statistics is 2024. About 50% are online. We knew this was happening, it was going to happen. Some of our uh the reasons are, you know, of course, people prefer to do that. Uh, you don't need people are writing fewer and fewer checks and providing gifts in a different way. Credit cards are being used for one reason, even though there are other ways to electronically transfer funds, is you get points. You get there's some incentive to use our credit cards. Um, and what that we all know and we've all seen is credit card fees. And as merchants, they see it, it's too tends to be around 2.9 percent, something like that, maybe a little less, the higher the volumes. Um, and the reality is that that comes off the sale price for$100 from a merchant, uh,$2.90 will go to credit card fees. But by the way, if you bought something for$10,000, it would be$290 going to credit card fees. That's one thing if you're a merchant, it's another if you're a charity asking for donations. So it's estimated that um of that again, that amount of money that goes to a charity, half of it being made. There's a total of about 371 um 100 million dollars of credit card fees going out each year um out of charity pockets. But let's be conservative about it because the stats are not great in terms of the clarity of them. Let's I just decided to take half of that. Let's just say it's really half of what I calculated. That's 185 million dollars of credit card fees coming out of donations that people wish to make to charity. So, what what I'm what I also know is that's a lot of money, particularly for small and medium-sized charities. It's one thing for the larger charities and larger not-for-profits like universities, having these fees come down or off a donation, but it's different for those smaller charities. Um, the fact is that a and I haven't seen any evidence to support this is not the case. The fact is that a hundred dollar donation, the electronic transfer of funds through the system is the same as a ten thousand dollar donation or a fifty thousand dollar donation. So, why is the fee so much higher? Uh, as a proportion, I'm not saying for a moment that credit card companies should not get, and banks that are associated with them, should not get some sort of fee for the transaction. But here is my thought for the day. Shouldn't they see uh sorry, I want to add one more thing. So the total, the total fees that can be estimated because there is no central reporting structure around this, but in 2024, the total estimated fees for credit card charges is between 18 to 23 billion dollars. That's just what the credit card companies are taking and the associated banks to electronically move funds around for these transactions. Um, you'd think that the 185 million dollars that go to charities could be something that could not be fully waived, but why not a flat fee for charitable credit card donations? A flat fee, and we could base it on the hundred dollar limit. It's two dollars and ninety cents for any credit card donation across the spectrum, and that means that places like Canada Helps does not will not have to ask for those additional donations, means that we don't have to ask it as a charity. The fact of the matter is that we have this way of giving back into the sector, let's call it another 150 million dollars. Now, that doesn't seem like a lot on 12 billion dollars of donations, but for those small and medium-sized charities, it can be the difference between staying uh afloat and not staying afloat to do the important work in their communities. So, you know, I don't want, I don't want to, you know, me, Lisa, and Peggy, I don't mind beating up on the banks, I don't mind beating up on some of our financial institutions, but I'm not doing that here today. I get it, you deserve a fee for this, but there's probably a really philanthropic thing that can be done or should be done to offset these credit card charges uh and the way that they're distributed through charities. So that's my feeling for today. It's it's a call to action a little bit. Uh, maybe there's something that uh we as a sector can be doing to reach out to um, reach out to the vendors first, but I do know there's a way to reach out to the various committees of the federal government as a secondary option to say, hey, here's something that would make you look really good. It would help small to medium-sized charities, which are helping small to medium-sized communities out there, uh, and and in fact, in the end, make it very clear-cut. I give the charity a certain amount of money, and I know this really tiny amount is going to go for this fee. So that's what I had to say today. Um, and I don't know what your thoughts about that are, but uh it's something that I think I'm gonna pursue over the course of the coming months and years.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Yeah, super, super interesting. I'll I'll let Peggy uh weigh in and see what she would add to that.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

I don't know if I'd add to it because I'm curious about um, you know, you've done obviously done some a little bit of research on this, Ed. I'm just curious about that. Has it ever been an issue that that nonprofits have brought up? Has it been some kind of movement to do anything, or have we just taken it?

SPEAKER_02 43:26

I think, Peggy, and you know this from the work that you do with the CAGP, but some of the main charitable activities that the government has brought in legislation to make better for donors and for charities have been driven really by the financial sector or the or the for profit sector. Liz securities gifts are a really great example. That was not driven by um uh by charities. They benefited from it. There's no doubt about it, but it wasn't driven by that. You know that. Um, and I don't think that, but there was an incentive to drive that forward. I don't, I'm not sure there's an incentive by the same players to drive that forward. So I have not found any evidence of this discussion coming up. And you know, you and I both know, and this comes from the segments before, a lot of times we're relying on overburdened, somewhat um what sort of disheartened, if I might call what Lisa was talking about, leadership to lead the charge. That's a problem uh when they're already doing so much. And here's the other problem where um people in the actual working within charities and not-for-profits are very, very diplomatic about issues of this kind. You're actually, in a way, questioning a funder or a conduit for funding, and that's problematic when some of the biggest corporations in this country are the people that you're saying, hey, maybe you should do this for us. Yeah, and and that that can be cutting off, well, seemingly cutting off your nose despite your face. Because what if we want a big donation from one of the banks or one of the credit card companies? And they oh, aren't you the one leading the charge on that?

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

I'm not I'm not sure that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

I think, I think, sorry, um Lisa, that's what what it's what's Ed's answer has made me think is that um I think we're talking about smaller donors here because when I think of the charities that I've worked with, um we are asking when a big donation is coming in, we wouldn't definitely say, please do not pay by credit card. Um, this is not something we'd want to happen, or even through an institution that charges fees, bigger fees. So we're asking for other ways of giving to us through, and they can do that because they have the means to do that if it's a big gift. So it's really the ordinary people making ordinary donations, the monthly donations that are ongoing every month. We're making a donation.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

And I would say one other thing though, Peggy, around that, which is you're right. So someone again, somebody wants to make a$25,000 donation to your charity. That's not a small amount. Yeah, that's a and what we would say to them is I know if you gave it as through your credit card, you'd get a whole bunch of points and you can pay for your trip to wherever next year by simply doing that, right? But don't do that because there'll be a fee taken off of it. So, what we're doing is what charities tend to do is work arounds. We're in this moment, so how do we work around it? Because uh we feel as though if we went to the what I think is a logical thing, which is you know, just just have a flat fee for every credit credit card transaction, no matter the size, we wouldn't have to do that workaround. We could say pay in any way you'd like. And if you want to get a bunch of points, um you know, there's there's a way for you to do that. Now, look, I don't want to get into how points are calculated. Uh you're actually, you know, my kids will often talk about um how when you pay a fee and a premium fee for something, you get all of these things for free. That's what you're paying for free when credit cards are being paid for by the fees we're paying to credit card companies. Now, do I I don't haven't done the research on that, but it just seems logical.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Okay, I think we just had a little bit of technical difficulties there, but um, I think that um I think we had kind of worked our way through the discussion as far as we could take it today. And I'm gonna leave it on the note that um I like that idea of a call to action, I like that idea of food for thought. Um, and I think that yes, despite uh all the things that are on the plate that we're thinking about, it it would be worth to have the conversation with your vendors and and with your certainly with your major donors, it's probably already happening, but maybe even consider starting some communication with your monthly donors and your other individual donors about how they're giving and the impact that that can have. So, some very good food for thought and um and could be the subject of more discussion in in times to come. That brings us to the end of our podcast. We are gonna wrap it all up with a few let's be charitable shout-outs uh when we come back after this final break. Or any other experience that we've had that just kind of stand out to us as being noteworthy and something good about the sector that we're happy and proud of to be a part of. I will leave things off today. Um I just wanted to give a bit of a let's be charitable shout out to Carleton University's Masters of Philanthropy program. They have announced the recipients of their award for Black Emerging Fundraising Professionals and for the Simone Joyeux Memorial Award. And um, I just think that this program at a time when we're looking for more training opportunities and leadership opportunities for people interested in coming into this sector and furthering the sector, the work of this master's program is um is exciting. And I love to see them supporting students who are working their way through and um trying to find their way. So that is my uh tip of the hat or the nod uh for this week. Peggy.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Great, and I just wanted to talk about the um exciting uh next month happening of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners Conference, which the three of us will um will be able to meet each other in person there. Um it is on the 14th, it starts on the 14th of April, and it starts with something called an advanced summit. There are um, I'm not sure how much room there is. I know that we're selling out pretty quickly on this conference, but the advanced summit is really talking about some of the complex things that sometimes Ed Um and I are talking about. And and then um there's also a gift planning fundamentals for people who just want to get a um 101 on what gift planning is, and then the conference itself begins on the 15th and it brings together, it's always a lovely people, you know, uh just getting together, lots of lots of emotional moments, I think. Ed, lots of people, you know, that haven't seen each other in a while. And this year it's in Winnipeg. Um and yeah, the conference name is From the Heart for the Future. So there we go.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

I'm looking forward to seeing you out there, Peggy. That's gonna be too. Yep. And hopefully, Ed, you make it as well.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

So uh I should be there, yes. And and um on a on a sadder note for let's get uh let's be charitable today. I wanted to mention uh a good friend uh who passed away recently, uh Ken Mayhew. For some uh who work, uh I think if you work in the hospital sector, if you're a fundraiser in general, you probably have heard of Ken Mayhew in Canada. He did a lot of work with the uh AHP uh AFP Foundation in Canada. He was definitely a leader in the fundraising world, held senior management uh roles at uh the MS Society of Canada, and also was the CEO, CEO of William Osler Healthcare Foundation. I think he was way more than just a fundraiser, though. He was uh one of those leaders that we were talking about um uh that were exemplified uh the that moral ability to to lead a staff, to to bring people along, but at the same time was a great manager at the same time. People who knew Ken, you know, just thought the world of him, and rightly so. He was really fantastic, wonderful family, a wife and two two daughters, um, who we I also knew personally. Um, just to tell you how I met Ken, um, it was actually my wife and his wife were were friends, but we didn't know that. But I was working with this guy uh who was the lead at the MS Society of Canada. And in fact, I had a picture of him on my desk, and my wife and I were going out for dinner to meet a friend of hers and her husband, and it happened to be Ken Mayhew, and we he was barbecuing and we were talking about well, what do you do and what do I do? And one thing led to another, and it's like, oh my god, you're Ken Mayhew. And he said, Oh my god, you're Ed Sluga. And that was a long time ago, before kids, before career and lifestyle changes and movement of houses, and before I moved from Toronto out to Guelph where I am now, but we stayed in touch the whole time. Our kids knew his kids, and vice versa. So a big loss for all of us, not just in the sector, but Ken was a great human. And we'd mentioned the word human here a bunch of times, and that's what we're gonna miss. An example of a really great human who also had all of the other skills we wanted, and um, you know, the the sector is diminished a bit because of his loss. We're all diminished a bit because of his loss, and I just want to send out heartfelt feelings and and thoughts to everyone who knew him, everyone who had time to work for him and be with him. So all the best to Ken and his family.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Thank you, Ed. Um, and I will just add on there is that I met Ken. We worked at the MS Society at the same time together. So I also have known Ken for many, many years. And um yes, I agree. I don't think there's many Canadian fundraisers, certainly, who wouldn't be familiar with the name Ken Mayhew. And we did do um a tribute to Ken written by uh Lisa Davy, who worked with Ken at AFP, and Paula Atfield, who's known him for a long time this week. So the um the memories, the accolades, the reminiscence, and the sadness and grief over his loss certainly has been um really felt throughout the sector uh in these last couple of weeks. So a fitting way to end um our discussion. This has been the Let's Get Real podcast. Thank you to Peggy Kaleen for joining us and um being a part of the discussion. Uh Ed Sluga, always a pleasure. And um I'm always happy to uh to be a part of these talks uh in real life instead of just on you know through through written word like we do in charity e News. So I'm Lisa McDonald. Until next time, uh looking forward to continuing the discussion. Bye for now.