Marketing is all about relationship-building.
From selling a $0.25 widget to landing a multi-million dollar corporate sponsor, your ability to close business is only as strong as the relationships you build. People do business with people… and it’s becoming increasingly evident that people do even MORE business with people they like. That’s why any chance to further your relationships with others and strengthen those bonds is an important part of your organization’s tactics.
And that’s what our guest today, Nick Black is all about. Nick is the Co-Founder and CEO of Good United, an organization that helps nonprofits build lasting relationships with their stakeholders at scale.
If there’s one takeaway from today’s show it’s that you need to go over to Facebook right now and make sure that you have “Facebook Giving Tools” activated for your organization. This tool enables you to start collecting donations on Facebook and Instagram immediately, improving your ability to tap into the power of these social platforms to expand your means of collecting donations from those who are interested in the good work you do.
From a relationship-building standpoint, Good United has you covered. They have developed an amazing platform that allows nonprofits to engage with their potential audiences through Facebook messaging. It’s unique, cutting edge, and something that almost every nonprofit could take advantage of.
Have a listen to this episode to expand your ability to leverage the power of social media and the opportunities for relationship-building that it provides.
Links:
GoodUnited
Ask:
Go onto Facebook and make sure that the Facebook giving tools are turned on for your organization.
Listen to the podcast here:
Nick: And what’s neat about this social space is that many organizations coming up are looking at how they’re gonna grow. Well, maybe there’s an opportunity to not necessarily skip email, but you can go directly to where people are, whether that’s in Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or wherever that might be.
It enables organizations to really have a, a fresh perspective on how to build their particular.
Stu: Are you looking for ways
Nick: to shorten your marketing, learning
Stu: curve and help your organization survive and thrive. Welcome to relish this the purpose marketing podcast. A show for purpose focused leaders who want to use
Nick: marketing techniques to fuel their
Stu: organization’s growth. If you’re a returning listener and you haven’t subscribed already, we’d love to have you also please consider leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Now here’s your host, author and marketing specialist. Stew
Nick: swine Fort.
Stu: Hey, everybody Stu here, if there’s one takeaway from today’s show it’s that you need to go over to Facebook right now and make sure that Facebook giving tools is turned on for your organization. That being said by guest today is an amazing individual named Nick black and he is the co-founder and CEO of good United.
And they have a really cool system that allows organizations, nonprofits to engage with their Potential audiences through Facebook messaging, it’s unique. It is cutting edge and it is something that almost every nonprofit could take advantage of. And so if you listen to this episode, I’m sure you’re gonna get a ton out of it.
Nick and I talked a lot about persona development and a lot about just. Facebook in general and, and, and how to make sure that your message is, is really hitting the nail on the head. And that you’re able to engage with your audiences basically where they show up good United is this amazing organization that lets you do all of those things.
I hope, really hope you enjoy the show. There’s a lot of good information here. Here we go.
Hey Nick, how are you? Well, sir, yourself, I am very well. Thanks for joining me today. I’m really excited to talk with you and learn about all the amazing things that you are doing at good United. I took a peak at your website, which is good united.io, and you just crossed a really major milestone there at good United in terms of the amount of money that you’ve held in nonprofits raise strictly through Facebook.
Is that a, is that accurate? That’s it
Nick: $1 billion, not bad.
Stu: No, that is not that at all. I think the metrics that I saw in your, in your welcome video was that one out of every $6 raised for charity on Facebook comes through your platform. Is that, is that accurate or is, is one of
Nick: yours? Yeah. That we have the honor to serve, but you know, we’re just so thankful and, and humbled to be able to work with incredible organizations that change the world every.
Stu: Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s amazing. So Facebook fundraising for nonprofits I guess maybe they’re calling themselves meta these days. Yeah. What, tell, tell us a little bit about what, what you do and how you help people in the nonprofit space raise more funds through, through their, their participation participation on that.
Nick: Yeah. So as you said, good United has helped the world’s largest nonprofits raise over a billion dollars. We’ve done that through customized, meaningful messaging mostly hopping in Facebook you know, and Stu where this came about is that actually start, I actually started a nonprofit myself in 2011 called stop soldier suicide.
I did that, leaving the military and realized very quickly how hard it was to fundraise. But really specifically how hard it was to build relationships with the average. As you may, and your audience may know is that, you know, nonprofits, they just don’t have the tools to reach out to the average person as such.
They, the focus on those people with the largest wallets. So my business partner and I came together and asked ourselves, what would world be like if every donor, every person could have that meaningful relationship that’s they deserve for the wealthy? So what we’ve realized is that we can start to chip away and be able to build meaningful relationships and convers.
Where people spend time and today that’s in some social networks. So we built our technology on top of conversational messaging. I think through messenger, Instagram, DMS, WhatsApp, and through the combination of human judgment data science, we’re able to empower our partners to send the right message to the right person at the right channel at the right time to drive, repeat action.
And you know, we’re, we’re really excited about where we’ve been more poorly where we.
Stu: Nice. So when you say channels, are those strictly within Facebook in terms of whether this is a DM or, or a video or a, a boosted post or, or what have you, or, or do you, you work outside of that ecosystem as well? So
Nick: today we focus about 99% on Facebook.
Cause that’s the general business case of where dollars are coming for nonprofits. And we build our technology on top of messenger. So the conversational messaging. Okay with that, you know, one to one conversations, but we’re really excited about additional channels coming online in the meta universe.
Instagrams, this hidden giant that we’ve been looking at and working with the meta team for a while to find that use case. But it it’s been wild. You know, this world kind of opened up in 2017 with the start of birthday funders and Facebook, and it’s just caught fire and assuming continues to double every.
Stu: Wow, that’s amazing. It’s really cool how you’re leveraging that technology within, within the technology. And, and really trying to, to capture you know, something that’s there. That’s very unique to Facebook and, and and. How do you do that? Do you, do you help people kind of prospect within Facebook or are you just helping them leverage the existing connections that, that they have that can use the messaging piece of that
Nick: platform?
Yeah, we think about it two ways. One is more organic, so inbound. So there are a lot of users within the Facebook or meta universe that start fundraisers on behalf of non-profits. We have our organizations to engage with thank and cultivate those supporters in channel. The second piece is more proactive.
So how can we start virtual fundraisers or activate people to get engaged with that nonprofit?
Stu: Okay. That’s really neat. Are, are these typically kind of, it sounds like there’s a couple of different options there. One might, might be more of a time based campaign and the other might be more of an ongoing campaign.
Is that, is that accurate? Did I get that right? Yeah,
Nick: absolutely. You know, it it’s been, it’s been wild to kind of see the, you know, the emergence of this, you know, we’re thinking of it as the third shift shift is not the appropriate word, but you know what we’ve seen. You know, 20 years ago, you and I go down to the local nonprofit, write a check and they’d wanna know what our home address and, and telephone number was.
Mm-hmm , that’s why I stayed in touch when internet came about. Well, you know, it was a hell of a lot easier to go to a website. And when you make a transaction through a website, you know, emails, the preferred way to communicate mm-hmm , but know, I don’t know about you. I don’t spend 45 minutes a day, but what I’ve seen is about the average American spends 45 minutes a day in social networks.
- And so really, as we think about it, St is how do we attack friction of the donor or the user experience in every step of. Yeah, and we attack friction by keeping them in channel. So as such, if you’re gonna, you know, make a donation on Facebook, then how do we engage with you in Facebook? And, you know, one of the really interesting pieces do is that, you know, we, we have the opportunity to work with incredible organizations with massive email list or house, house files.
One of the, you know, first hypothesis that, you know, we had pushed back about this new. Was, you know what you’re gonna Rob Peter to pay Paul you know, these people have already engaged with us. They’re you know, you’re just gonna take ’em from our website and put ’em into, you know, Facebook, what we found even with the world’s largest nonprofits is over 90% of the people that give our net into their house file.
So as we think about it, right, this is a whole new channel or vector of growth for organizations to get involved.
Stu: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve also experienced the challenge of moving people between channels. So right. Trying to get someone to move from your site to Facebook or from you know, Twitter to YouTube or, or, you know, whatever channel hopping You’re trying to accomplish it’s it can be really challenging just because like what you said, people who like to stay in the channel that they’re, that they’re engaged in.
Yeah. So it’s, that’s really an interesting You know, it’s an interesting item that you, that you’ve tapped into as well as to, to just capitalize on and, and really try to just reinforce the behaviors that people are already, already doing within that one channel, as opposed to trying to move them around.
Nick: Yeah. You know, we, we, we think that we’re rapidly moving to a world of, you know, decentralized giving. And in, in that, do you play any video games too?
Stu: I don’t play video games too much. I did a little bit as
Nick: a kid. I did as well. It blows my mind that people watch other people video games online. Yeah.
And it blows my mind even further that people donate to watch other people video games. And some of our clients have made tens of millions of dollars by video game players, donating, watch other video game players. I’m pretty sure that those people wanna stay in the channel they’re at and not be pushed around.
Yeah. And I think that’s what we’re work going toward. In the next decade is that, you know, whether it’s web 3.0 or Instagram or TikTok or wherever these people are, well, that’s where they’re spending time. And that’s where they wanna engage with you. And the act of taking them out of channel, you know, might be a pretty massive headwind on building the relationship with that person.
So our thesis is, well, how do we start to be that central point to be able to empower organizations, to be able to send the right message at the right time and the right channel to drive action. So that’s, you know, kind of our thesis and, and you know, where, where we’re.
Stu: How do you how do you do that?
How do you know what stage of the, of the life cycle or the engagement cycle the, the person is in, you know, within that platform? Are there, are there little metrics that you’re, that you’re following? Are there little cues that people leave behind that? I’m in an
Nick: office right now? So our, our data science team, isn’t gonna throw something at me.
You know, we do all this incredible data work and technology, but the end of the day, one of the powerful pieces about conversational messaging. Is the, the velocity or the cycle that we start to learn about someone just like you and I are having a conversation and we’re collecting data in our brains and, and structuring it and figuring out what next to say.
Well, through conversational messaging, think of it like a text. We can do the same thing. Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . So as such, we have the ability to ask people. So, you know, like as simple as it is if you made a donation to stop sort of. Okay through messaging, we could ask you simply, Hey Stu, thanks so much. How do you see yourself making an impact with stop source, suicide or future, and the unstructured comments that you have?
And we have incredible stories and narratives that people share. Well, how do we take that and turn it into structured data, then, then follow up with you and give you the right message, right? That’s really this new world where we’re having immediate feedback through these, these feedback loops that allows us to, to make the technology that much more STR.
Stronger to deliver the next meaningful message or suggest a message to a nonprofit, to, you know, to help you to, to thank you, to, to get you engaged with whatever that cause. .
Stu: Yeah. And I’m sure you have a ton of data in terms of timing and, and what messaging has worked in the past and all of that good stuff as well.
So you can pretty much take that, that bulk of expertise in all of those data and, and apply them toward, you know, whatever the next campaign is to, to have a really strong starting point in terms of understanding people’s behaviors on that, on that platform. In fact, yeah, absolutely.
Nick: We’re doing some really interesting work right now with a couple partners, but really diving into.
So how do we unpack affinity and start to be able to score? How do we start to understand trust? How do we start to understand, you know, commitment to the cause? And so with that again, what’s really neat about this is that, you know, working with really smart people, what are the five pieces of information that you want to know, someone to figure out if they’re a, you know, dead rights, affinity fit or not, right.
As an example for stop soldier suicide. When we ask people how they wanna stay in touch, they’ll share these incredible, powerful stories about a family member that might have taken their. And how they want to get involved. Well, it’s our duty as a nonprofit, a stop source suicide to give them that opportunity.
And we’d never be able to understand that at scale, unless we have technology help us.
Stu: Yeah. It’s just simply impossible for us to, to monitor and digest and, and draw conclusions from such a huge amount of data. Yeah. That’s absolutely. No, that’s really cool. So what are, who’s this for? What, what size of nonprofit, what type of nonprofit is this something that, that everybody could could benefit from if they’re running a, a, a nonprofit
Nick: organization?
Yeah. You know, generally when we first started out, it was geared more towards large you know, big blue blood brands that you’re probably familiar with. Mm-hmm , but as we. Gone down this path, just like most things technology has started to, you know, proliferate towards smaller organizations. So we just signed the first social good partnership with meta earlier this year.
And one of the pilots working with them is actually, how do we empower smaller organizations? So to your points to, I would say any organization that has a, a consumer focused brand, that’s interested, engaging with the average supporter and getting ’em to. We’d be interested in what we’re doing with good United, not just as a one off expense that might happen today, but how do you invest in the future and partner with us to be able to meet people wherever they.
Stu: Yeah, it’s, that’s great that you are available for for, for some of the smaller nonprofits out there. There’s so many kind of roadblocks in the nonprofit world for, you know, up and coming or startup nonprofits that absolutely don’t yet have a mailing list or don’t yet have even have, you know, a big, strong donor list.
And it’s like, well, you know, we we’d love to work with you, but you need to have, you know, a, a 10,000. Email list or something like that to get started. And a lot of these, a lot of these guys just don’t have that yet. So it’s really cool to hear that you’re able to help people kind of across the spectrum.
Are there things that people that you know, leaders in nonprofit organizations might want to take you know, You know, take off their list or, or have available before engaging with good United.
Nick: Yeah. And the first thing that you want to do is turn on to giving tools within Facebook. They’re called Facebook giving tools.
You can search it and turn those on you’re missing out on free revenue. And I’d also encourage you to, you know, do that on Instagram. The second piece is, you know, I encourage all nonprofits, really take a hard look at their strategy and how they view that they’re gonna meet. Wherever they are, if you’re really good at direct mail.
Awesome. That’s a great business line, if you’re good at email. Great. But for organizations, I’ll tell you stop sort of suicide’s use case you know, cuz I can, but you know, we start off with zero emails and you know, the thought, you know, of aggregating a hundred thousand and be able to get the metrics that we needed with open and click through.
Right. Just, just wasn’t you know, amen. One of the stories I tell is that, you know, I actually grew up in Africa. So I spent nine years in Africa, in eighties and nineties. What I tell people is that, you know, in Africa, I never heard a phone ring. We had no house phones. And the reason being is that the countries that I lived in didn’t have the, the, the balance sheet to be able to invest in the heavy infrastructure cost set telephone poles.
Right. Well, if it’s moved forward to today, everyone’s on a cell phone, right? So what start off as a hindrance of not having that heavy infrastructure. Turned into a blessing is that technology enabled them to skip that whole generation and that heavily costly investment. Yeah. And what neat about this social space is that many organizations coming up are looking at how they’re gonna grow.
Well, maybe there’s an opportunity to not necessarily skip email, but you can go directly to where people are, whether that’s in Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or wherever that might be. It enables organizations to really have a, a fresh perspective on how to build their particular cost.
Stu: Yeah. That’s, that’s fascinating.
So essentially make sure you have a good understanding of your audience and, and where those people might prefer to engage with your, your brand or your organization. And yeah, and then just turn on the tools that are already available to you. Sounds like the, the good advice that you’re giving right there.
So that’s
Nick: amazing. The other piece too, is I think a lot of times nonprofits view their donors is we’re gonna tell them how we want them to give to. I think that’s dead wall in that I’ve been consistently amazed about all of the strange, the seemly strange and bizarre ways that people wanna play a role in philanthropy.
And I think that the opportunity and the challenge set is how do we let people give on their terms? And I think that’s, what’s really powerful about social giving. Is that whether you wanna do a Hulu hoop dance on TikTok, or you want to be able to do a pushup challenge or whatever it is that engages that user, let’s meet them where they’re at and allow them to participate on their terms and not ours.
I think the days of, you know, like you will show up at the rubber chicken dinner, you will show up and do the auction. Yes. That’s still a thing. However, there’s a whole wide world of people that care about what you. And it might be in really, you know, interesting and, and new channels and new ways of how people want to get involved.
Stu: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s amazing and, and wonderful that we do have so many opportunities and ability or means to, to help out at any given organization. I mean, most of the nonprofits that we work with here at relish studio, as well as You know, as well as many of the ones that I’ve engaged with personally are, you know, they have, they have multiple stakeholders, so they have big, they have big donors, they have individual donors.
They have. One time corporate sponsors and all of these people have a variety of different ways that they might like to give. In fact, just this week, I donated a motorcycle to to a, a Colorado bicycle organization. It was a, a motorcycle that I bought 20. Years ago now, I guess I can’t remember exactly when no.
Yeah. About that. Bought it in 95. And and I tried to sell it for a little while and just couldn’t find anyone who was interested in a, in a bike of that of that age range. And so I said, well, why don’t I just donate it? And someone came over yesterday and picked it up and, and you know, and as soon as they sell it at auction, they’ll donate that money to the, to the charity.
So or they’ll facilitate. Donation to, to go to that charity. So you know, there are so many new ways of, of giving as well in terms of crypto and, and, and things of that nature. So it’s it’s, it’s really cool to see to see you be also helping that out. So that’s great. Yeah.
Nick: You know, another piece to is, you know, I think oftentimes nonprofits.
they confuse their audience by maybe their name or how they’re positioned the dumbest and smartest thing. The co-founders and I did at stop sort of suicide is called stop sort of suicide to make our logo and American flag mm-hmm you know, it’s pretty idiot proof. So, you know, with that are your social channels obvious.
Is your background super obvious about what you do and the impact that you make? I, I, I’m consistently amazed by organizations that have a cryptic name that you don’t know what they do, and you have to go at three levels deep to really get to the. And I think that in a social word, it’s all about storytelling.
And so, you know, be simple, be to the point and tell compelling stories.
Stu: Yeah, for sure. Storytelling is such a huge component of it. And, and yeah, I think we, we talk a lot about the kind of the continuum or the, the on, on either end of the spectrum. You have, you have clever and you have clear. And a lot of times people go, you know, they try to get very marketingy and they end up way over here and clever.
and I like that. And there’s no clarity. There’s no understanding of what it is that, that they do. If you’re a large organization like Nike, for example, everyone knows who Nike is. They’ve been around for nearly 50 years at this point, or maybe 50 years on, on the dot actually. But. You can say, just do it, which doesn’t mean anything.
So you can, you can really fall away over here in, into, into clever or cute because you don’t have to have that clarity, but when you’re a startup nonprofit or a smaller entity or, you know, someone trying to, to really get, get their foothold in You know, in a crowded marketplace, you need to make sure that that you’re being clear first.
And then if you can get to, to both clear and, and clever and get some overlap in that particular Venn diagram, then, you know, then you’ve nailed it. But in the, in the absence of cl in the, in, in the combination of those two, you’ve definitely want to err on the side of, of clarity.
Nick: Yeah, I agree. I, I love that clever to clear.
That’s a beautiful way
Stu: to think about it. Yeah, it seems, it seems to be something people can, can wrap their arms around, you know, it goes not just for branding and not just for, for naming, but also You know, for your, your core message. I mean, we, we see a lot of really pithy you know, very clever very cute kind of you know, we do it all for you or, or whatever it’s like, well, okay.
That’s great. But it’s not clear enough. We don’t, we don’t. Have the opportunity here to answer the questions. What is this? Who is it for and how does it make their life better? And, and those, those three questions need to be answered right off the bat. And you know, if you can do that in when you’re, when you’re creating your name that’s even better.
So I, I love that you guys just cut right to the chase there with your organization.
Nick: Yeah, I appreciate it. It’s been a hard road, but I think that’s, that’s always helping
Stu: super clear. So what are some of the, what are some of the things that you’ve seen work really well? What are, are there, is there messaging cadence?
Are there any you know, any things that, that really surprised you in, in the way that people have started to engage there in the meta universe?
Nick: Well I think the fact that people are new to house files is the most surprising. You know, the second piece is you know, how much people are willing to share or engage in these new channels. The stories that people share about why they’re engaged with the cause how they’re willing to participate and to, you know, to, to take action is powerful as well.
And I think that gets to that, that maybe in the past, you know, I can speak for stop source suicide again, but we don’t have the technology or the scale or the, the employees to be able to reach out to every person give ’em that option to do. And so, you know, with the technology for the first time, we can give them a, you know, somewhat meaningful experience and say, here’s the action you can take next, or what do you wanna do next and give them that, that fall through.
So that’s been amazing that the average person really does want to engage and wants to do you know, to help out with,
Stu: yeah. Yeah. Yes, I’m just trying to, trying to wrap my head around all of the, all of the amazing questions and, and more detail that I’d love to get to understand exactly how you guys are doing this.
And I know that that’s part of your algorithm and your secret sauce. When, when people embark on this, are they you know, what, what is the, what’s the investment that they need to make? How, how do they engage with your, with your organiz?
Nick: Well, we work with each to make sure that we’re fit. So we have the good United platform which is a monthly fee.
And then if needed, we have all the professional services to make everything turnkey. So generally what we see is people coming to us, wanting to start a virtual challenge, a Facebook challenge and then have the platform to deal with their organic fundraisers, to be able to do that as. So if you go to good united.io you know, sign up for, you know, talk with our team and, you know, we’ll be happy to see if, if we could be a
Stu: service or not.
Nice. Nice. Do you do, how do you see, have you, or have you seen any backlash around, around Facebook in the last couple years? I know that, you know, they had this, this really great, you know, rocket ship sort of rise and then you know, had some kind of. Interesting squeakiness that, that occurred with the platform itself.
Yeah. Have you, have you seen backlash there or have you seen any any fall off on, on giving on the platform? You
Nick: know, we have not giving, I think started in 2017 and has, you know, seemingly doubled the amount of time it takes away is a billion has, has been cut down by half. And you know, just from the wall street, quarterly reports, I think the.
Quarter ever was Q1 where I think that went down in, in average users, but it seemly still goes up into the right and the Instagram’s coming on strong. So we haven’t seen any backlash, but you know, the other piece here is not, not everyone’s on Facebook and that’s okay. But we need to meet people that are, you know, there’s, I think it’s two thirds of the country, so
Stu: that’s a good place to, yeah, it’s really funny when you look at demographics and you know, and certainly those change as platforms, age, and And, and it’s also really interesting to, to kind of hear what people say about them, but, but yeah, like what you just said, two thirds of the, of, of the country is on Facebook.
So even though it may not be the place that has the most teenagers or 20 somethings, there’s certainly plenty of plenty of those, those, or plenty of people within those demographics that are, that are using that platform. And so. You know, I think that, that as a space to start playing it, it’s certainly, you know, one of the bigger, one of the bigger playgrounds for sure.
And as they continue to, to, you know, engage with other other platforms. So for example, buying Instagram that just, you know, creates a whole new demographic and a whole new channel that people enjoy in a different way. For people to play in. And you mentioned early on that that Facebook and Instagram were going to just have more and more integration.
Is that something that people will have to manage on, on those two platforms or does your system enable people to kind of have a, a portal to get to, to those, those two platforms? At one place.
Nick: Yeah, we see that being a huge problem to the future. So we’re actively working today to ensure that we can uniquely identify, you know, each individual to ensure that we can meet Stu wherever he wants to be, whether that’s in Facebook or in, in Instagram or wherever you
Stu: okay.
So you’re adjusting the platform to be people-centric as opposed as opposed to, to platform centric. That sounds really cool.
Nick: Yeah, people centric for each organization. So, you know, I, we have such a, you know, huge mission set for stop source suicide, which I put a lot of things for them and our clients.
But you know, it’s, it’s about how do we increase the lifetime value of each individual person and, you know, doing that. We need to build a authentic relationship. We need to show. Recognition of all the great stuff that that person’s doing. And then we need to meet people where they’re most likely to engage.
Stu: Right? So you’re really leveraging the platform as a two way, two way street, which is another challenge that I think people have with social media. They tend to get on it and, and just. Kind of use it as a soapbox, as opposed to really developing those relationships or, or trying to create those, those back and forth.
Do you have advice for, for clients or for, for nonprofits who are struggling with that?
Nick: I think, you know, today it’s, it’s. We’re at the very infancy stages, I think, in this new world. So I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I think that, you know, engage with the people that you have get ’em linked into your CRM and try to follow up with them an email, but you know, and just reach out to good United and see if we can help you.
You know, we don’t have all the answers we’re starting off. In this space as well, but we got a clear mission vision, and, you know, we’re held onto, oh, that’s great.
Stu: Who are, who are some of the, the test cases that, that you’ve worked with, that, that have, have really seen the Facebook meta. Kind of engagement work really well for them.
Is it, is it kind of everybody, or does it take, does it take a lot of, of adjustment and, and, and fine tuning to get your, your program up and running once, once you engage either on that platform or with good United
Nick: it, it depends. I think a lot of organizations, we have to find, you know, product market fit for lack of a paraphrase for them.
So as such as we think about virtual challenge, We charge per fundraiser created. I ensure that we ski in the game. So that’s why, you know, truly a partnership where, you know, we believe in that cause, and see, you know, how we can find fit with this new audience and this new channel. You know, some organizations that we publish with as Susan G.
Coleman American Ken society, we’ve also done some interesting stuff with American Indian college fund. So I think it’s organizations of all sizes and scope that if you have a cause that resonates with an. Joe an average American, and I think there’s an opportunity to meet them in this
Stu: new. That’s great.
That’s encouraging for, for all of the, all the nonprofits out there who are, who are struggling to to figure out where they should be playing to, to get more donations and drive, drive their ability to, to serve more, more people or, or serve their cause more effectively. So that that’s encouraging that it.
That it’s something that can work for, for everybody. And I know you touched on, on the size piece a little bit ago, but it’s just, it’s just fun to, to hear how you know, how there’s this opportunity out there for, for people. How did you, how did you guys come about this? This idea. What, what was it that, that spawned your thinking here?
Was it, was it frustration with your own organization and trying to figure that out or, or was there something else?
Nick: Yeah, it sure was. It was, you know, in the early days a stop sort of suicide, we did a, a wine tasting event in Northern Virginia that overlooked the DC mall and Arlington Virginia, and my family, you know, reached out to their entire network and, you know, were trying to hustle local businesses for, you know, donations for the auction and you know, all of that.
I think we made $40,000 and the thing costs 20 to put on. And you know, with that, I got an email from one of my soldiers who asked me if I got his $50 gift and, you know, I was told ’em, I’m like, you know, thanks, man. I really appreciate it. I, I don’t know. You know, and they’re talking with my business partner, you know, I, I, I only had the capacity to focus on those that wrote the biggest checks and that made me feel awful.
And that was really the catalyst take look into this. And saying, what would it be like if we could give, you know, that soldier meaningful experience, be able to thank him, to recognize him and to meet him where he’s at no matter how large his wall
Stu: was. Yeah. And I’m, I’m guessing that you’ve seen a real uptick in, in repeat donations and, you know, we, we talk a lot about, about relationship building and how marketing is really just, just relationship building.
And, and if you. Create a positive experience and a, a, you know, a positive relationship with, with an individual, the, the likelihood that they’re going to continue to not only come back and, and, you know, support you again, but also tell everybody else about you is, is a lot higher. And so it sounds like this, you know, this platform that you’ve created is, is really an effective way to just continue to nurture those relationships in a.
Authentic way. Yeah,
Nick: we’re working on it too. You know, it’s still early days. There’s a ton of technology that we need to build, but we’ve got the, the initial starting building blocks to do powerful things, to get, you know, to collect the data and the stories and why people are doing that. And then you know, I’m really excited about this.
I’m excited about the opportunity of for staff source suicide. I think we have over 400,000 people engage with us in Facebook, me. what would it be like if we can get each, each one of those people where they’re at, you know, what’s the value in that? And I think it’s gonna be, you know, immense.
Stu: Right.
And how, how automated is, is your, are your systems, I guess if you know, if you have 400,000 people then, and you’re trying to engage with, with as many of those as possible you know, clearly that that becomes an automation concern. And so essentially it’s the timing piece. It’s, it’s looking at their, at their responses to, to, I’m assuming fairly automated questions that are, you know, are authentic that then determine the cadence and the messaging for, for the next follow up.
Is that, is that accurate?
Nick: yeah, that’s that’s about right. And you know, that second piece of the cultivation is really what we’re rolling out in the second half of this year and the next year. And for the last four years we’ve been focusing. The pinpoint experiences, whether they’re a week long birthday fundraiser or a two month long peer-to-peer fundraiser.
And then now that we’re getting these people and starting to build, you know, the capacity and equity in this channel, how do we continue to
Stu: engage with them? Gotcha. Now I’m just, my, my brain is just spinning with with ideas and opportunities and options. I know that that we have a couple of. Partners that do some really fascinating work in terms of, of sweepstakes and things like that in the nonprofit space and just enabling them to, to take what.
Could be, you know, a fairly standard kind of campaign and, and leverage the opportunities that you at that, that you provide to really get that out to not only potentially a larger audience, but but a really more engaged audience or get. Get that audience even more engaged, even, even in the planning phases of, of those campaigns.
I could see this being just a huge benefit. And, and, and, and data tool for for nonprofits that really of, of almost, almost any size, it sounds like.
Nick: Yeah. You know, it, it’s definitely worth taking a look. And if you’ve invested, if you have Facebook giving tools turned on, if you’ve invested in the building community and you’re telling stories and you’re, you know, part of.
Your strategy is to build community and monetize that community. You should definitely take a look to see at good United and see if we can be a service.
Stu: Yeah, that sounds amazing. Is there, is there any other advice or any other experience that you’d like to share with with, with the audience today in terms of, of things that they should, that they should think about when they’re, when they’re trying to expand their their.
Nick: I, I think it gets back to just doing discovery with your donors and, you know, taking the time to get on the phone, meet ’em in person, not just one type of person, but as as many different, you know, type of people that you can get to and really unpack how they spend time and where they are and what are their hobbies, what do they do?
Because then I think you’ll find new opportunities. You won’t be banging your head against the wall and you might find something really neat. You might find a, a niche that your organization has particular fit. And I found, you know, finding a niche, finding a starting point allows you to start getting momentum.
The momentum can build but until you have that first start you know, life’s pretty.
Stu: Yeah, we do a lot of we, you know, persona work or, or avatar work where we’re really trying to help clients and, and our partners figure out exactly who they wanna go after. And, and what that person’s motivations are, what that person’s Preferences are where they go to get information.
So it sounds like doing that work up front is, is what you’re absolutely recommending in order to, to be able to launch a successful a successful campaign and, and also be able to more effectively nurture nurture those people. One of the things that we do see is that clients and, and our partners, they, they tend to wanna have.
You know, everybody figured out, so they’ll, they’ll develop, you know, half dozen or, or more personas that they need to, to try to, or they want to try to reach cuz they don’t want to exclude anybody. But what I’m, what I’m hearing from you is if you could just narrow that down to one or two and focus on, on those first that that’s how you can, you can gain the most momentum.
Yeah, I think
Nick: so. I think that’s the, you know, that’s, that’s the best path, at least that’s what that’s worked.
Stu: great. Well, I appreci. You’re taking the time to chat with me today about all of this it’s fascinating stuff. I’m, I’m really excited to see how people in, in the community here can get on board with this because it, it feels like such a, a fantastic opportunity for people to. You know, to be able to, to not only reach out, but, but nurture those relationships that they’re already building just through all the good work that you guys are doing, how can people find out more about what website, what you’re up to good
Nick: united.io or full of free to, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn Nick black and, you know, I’d be happy to answer any questions that I can and, and see if, you know, we could be a service or our team would be happy to talk with
Stu: you.
That’s great. I love having these conversations and, and talking with people who have just these fascinating and, and really valuable You know, platforms and, and resources, but I also really want people to take action and you’ve given us a few things that people should, should do right away. But if there was one action that you’d like people to take, who’ve listened to the show today.
After, after hearing our conversation, what would
Nick: you have them do? Should I’d have ’em reach out to good United to see if we could be a service, but unselfishly, I tell them to ask their. Or take a look at their Facebook page and see if Facebook giving tools are turned on. You’ll know if they’re turned on.
If, if you see a ability for people to donate or for people to start a fundraiser on your behalf, if they’re not on, you should turn ’em on it’s as close to free money as you’re ever gonna find.
Stu: Fantastic. I love those ideas. I’ll be sure to share those in the show notes, Nick, it was really great talking with you today.
I really appreciate you taking the time and And I’m gonna go tell everybody to go, go check out Facebook giving and thanks so much for being on the show. And there you have it. Another great episode of relish this. Thanks again for listening, you can find past episodes of the show@relishthis.org.
And remember if you liked what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information on purpose market. Grab your free copy of my book. Mission uncomfortable. How nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. Get your copy now@missionuncomfortablebook.com.
Thanks again for listening. Come back next week. Won’t you.
