Andrew Olsen · Sr. VP of Fundraising Solutions, Dickerson Bakker | We’ve got a guest here who’s going to change the way we approach relationships for the benefit of the whole changemaking sector... and he’s going to blow your mind.

Nonprofits have to answer so many questions these days: What’s the best way to invest in my nonprofit’s impact? How do I lead my team through today’s societal changes? How do I increase donor retention rates and hit fundraising goals and avoid burnout and stay on mission and still make a grocery run before dinnertime?

We’ve got a guest here who’s going to help us answer a few of these and hopefully change the way we approach relationships for the benefit of the whole changemaking sector. Andrew Olsen is Senior VP of Fundraising Solutions at Dickerson Bakker and a close friend of Funraise… and he’s going to blow your mind, listeners.

As a nonprofit consultant myself, I can relate to a lot of what Andrew is sharing, and in fact have explored that intersection of leadership, nonprofits, changemaking, and culture on his podcast.

But this conversation was different. Andrew dropped a bomb on me right at the end—a mindset shift that just turned everything upside down. I encourage you to listen as Andrew intentionally leads us down a path of long-term donor-organization relationship evolution and then changes the game with one sentence. When you’re done, listen again with that one key takeaway and prepare to unlock answers like never before.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit!

There are so many questions these days: What’s the best way to invest in my nonprofit’s impact? How do I lead my team through today’s societal changes? How do I increase donor retention rates and hit fundraising goals and avoid burnout and stay on mission and still make a grocery run before dinnertime?

We’ve got a guest here who’s going to help us answer a few of these and hopefully change the way we approach relationships for the benefit of the whole changemaking sector. Andrew Olsen is Senior VP of Fundraising Solutions at Dickerson Bakker and a close friend of Funraise… and he’s going to blow your mind, listeners.

As a nonprofit consultant myself, I can relate to a lot of what Andrew is sharing, and in fact have explored that intersection of leadership, nonprofits, changemaking, and culture on his podcast.

But this conversation was different. Andrew dropped a bomb on me right at the end—a mindset shift that just turned everything upside down. I encourage you to listen as Andrew intentionally leads us down a path of long-term donor-organization relationship evolution and then changes the game with one sentence. When you’re done, listen again with that one key takeaway and prepare to unlock answers like never before.

David Schwab Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the nonstop nonprofit podcast. This is your host, David Schwab, head of growth and marketing at Funraise. And today I have the honor of having my friend and mentor, Andrew Olson, joining us. Andrew, would you mind introducing yourself to our audience?

Andrew Olsen Hey, David. Yeah, thanks for thanks for having me. I'm super excited about this. My name is Andrew Olson. I've been a fundraiser, goodness, 23 years-ish now just makes me old. I'm the SVP of Fundraising Solutions over at Dickerson Baker. We're a fundraising consultancy that serves ministries and other nonprofits. We do everything from new donor acquisition to capital campaigns, executive search and grant services for organizations. And, you know, I personally am just focusing on helping organizations find better ways to raise money and to increase the level of generosity with their supporters.

David Schwab That's awesome. Well, Andrew, that's a real nice lead into what I wanted to talk with you about today. I know you and I have talked at length about this subject. We even had a chance. I had a chance to join you on your podcast. We'll link in the show notes will link to that episode. But we had a chance to talk and one of the conversation points that we got on was this general note of there just has to be a better way to do this. And so it's kind of what I wanted to talk about with you today and more than anything, dig into a few different aspects of what it's like to be a nonprofit leader, a fundraiser, an organization that wants to not only survive the current climate but thrive through it. And I know that got a lot of traction and conversation around it. After the podcast we did together earlier this year went up, so maybe we can just kind of sit in that a little bit. I think the first question I have is probably the broadest one for us is like as you've been sitting with nonprofit leaders and helping organizations look at the climate we're in both cultural and economic. What are some of the things that are keeping leaders up at night? What are some of the things that are like, hey, I seeing this, I don't know how to approach it. What are some of those conversations like?

Andrew Olsen Yeah, So earlier today I was I did a webinar for the Syndicate network, which is the network of Rescue missions and other organizations that are primarily sort of homeless and communities and folks who are in some level of addiction or addiction recovery. And one of the first questions that was asked by the 70 or so leaders that were on the call was how do we find good talent? How do we retain fundraisers and what do we need to do differently? Because it seems like we've got a revolving door of fundraisers in our organizations. And so that's one of the biggest ones that we're seeing right now. And we see it in our executive search practice, but we also see it across everything else that we do, whether it's, you know, a grant writer or a major fundraiser or somebody who runs, you know, digital and direct marketing, the landscape for hiring right now, it's crazy. And, you know, so many organizations need great talent. And because of what's going on, whether it's pandemic or the economy, I don't even know, you know, all the different layers. There's just such a migration right now happening on the talent side. In fact, I posted last week a job rack. Actually, our team did for my staff, for, you know, a fairly junior level coordinator type role. And we got over 300 applications. So imagine the competition at any organization and imagine, you know that with that there's really two categories, right? There's great fundraisers and then there's everybody else. And so the great fundraisers make up such a small percentage of that audience. Right. And they're probably not looking for work right now, or at least they're not active searchers. Right? They have the benefit of recruiters and other people coming to them, trying to poach them. So what we talk a lot about is, you know, it comes down to culture, Right? And so we did a study a year ago. I'll make sure that you get it for the link in the show notes. But we asked fundraisers particularly were curious about this retention issue and about the whole narrative of like, Oh yeah, fundraisers turn over every 12 to 18 months, right? What was interesting is we found that largely that's not true. The ten year for a typical fundraiser is actually over five years. However, there's a very small cohort of fundraisers who jump every 6 to 12 months and they throw the average because of the fact that they just like they're so migratory. But anyway, the big point in that study was that fundraisers said the number one thing that would help keep them in an organization is a CEO who lean fully into fundraising. And they weren't saying like the CEO needs to be the chief asker. That wasn't the objective, right? What they were saying is we want a culture where the CEO doesn't say things like, Oh, I don't ask for money. That's why I hired those people. Right? And they want a CEO or executive director or whatever the title is. Who understands the value and the importance of philanthropy. Who helps to create a culture of philanthropy where organization and the people in the organization value engaging with donors and inviting them to give to support the mission of the organization and where the team feels well-resourced. Right. So that's everything from Do I have budgets to do the things that we need? Do we have? If you're asking me to do raise an extra $2 million, have you given me an extra 200,000 to spend to get there. Right. Or whatever that might be. Are we investing in the technology that's not just good for donor experience, but easy for us to use so we don't head against the wall all day trying to make something sort of fit in a box that it was never intended to fit in. Or do we have stuff that's really good? So it's those kind of things, right? And what they're what the overwhelming response from fundraisers was, is if the CEO leans in at that level, we're happy to stay as long as we can. Right. So so I think that's the number one thing in my mind. And then the other is just this idea and the data point that follows it, that we continue to see individual giving decline. The participation rate from individual donors just keeps falling. Association of Fundraising Professionals released something in October of last year showing that the number of active givers who give less than $500 a year had fallen. We've seen the same thing in our own data. We've seen the same thing from a number of different research initiatives over the last couple of years. And what that tells me, it doesn't tell me that, like we're out of donors, right? There's no lack of money in the world at this point. Inflation being what it is, that certainly the value of dollar decline. But it's that there's a lack of engagement. Right. And that donors don't feel like the organizations they support give a rip about them. And I think we're going to see this even more with, you know, as Gen Xers, as millennials, you know, as those cohorts sort of age up and have access to the capital necessary to be charitable, we're going to see that increase because the demands that they've grown up with and the ability to create preference and tell corporate entities, this is how I want you to engage me, is going to create behaviors that I think many nonprofits are prepared for. But those are the kind of things that if we don't prepare now and start working in that direction, we're going to get left behind. Because I don't think these younger audiences of donors are going to tolerate an old model for too long. I think we're about to start seeing organizations really lose ground if they don't start to think about how they can better engage their supporters.

David Schwab I think there is just so much to unpack in all of what you just said. I think where I want to start, though, it's really interesting when you're in a room full of nonprofit leaders who are all saying, hey, we have a problem and we're facing crazy headwinds. Their first answer is talent. Right. Like from the outside perspective, I'd be like, hey, you know, we need to raise more money. We need to grow our recurring revenue base. So we have reliable revenue. We need to go tap into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whatever that is. Right. To make ourselves more financially stable. But I think it's interesting that, and maybe a little bit reassuring that, leaders are recognizing here we have a talent problem first, which also probably means they're recognizing we might have a culture problem. One of the things that we lean into at Funraise over the last few months is helping with this. Are you being part of the conversation about the nonprofit Talent Network Talent Pool? We just finished and published our job board a few weeks ago, and we've been seeing tremendous engagement there, people looking for jobs in the nonprofit sector, people looking for a community of support to find jobs in the nonprofit sector, but also people looking to talk about what it's actually like to work in the nonprofit sector. So I'm curious, what are some of the things that you've you've been inspired by or seen done really well by organizations or leaders to either retain their staff? Like you talked about being a leader that leans into fundraising and supporting your staff, but or what are some things you've seen organizations do to take steps forward to attract the next generation of talent or retain the next generation of talent?

Andrew Olsen Yeah. So, you know, I've sat with a lot of CEOs and a lot of boards to have this conversation. And I think the things that I see that make me go, okay, yeah, these, these people get it right. It's things like, first of all, does everyone in the organization know what the goal actually is? Right? I mean, as simple and rudimentary as that sounds, there are so. Many organizations where that conversation is not had fully across the organization. And so being really clear about the mission and not just the, you know, sort of capital M mission that we're all about. Right. But even the hey, this is the mission for the month, right? Or this is the mission for the week. And really communicating that well, open lines of communication up down in across the organization are essential. One of the other things that that I see all the time, I actually just working with an organization over the last couple of weeks around this is when you see toxic behavior that you're quick to address it and root it out and make clear that poor behavior is not acceptable no matter what results the person gets. Because the minute you start to accept bad behavior, because someone delivers great results, whether they're a fundraiser or a program side or whatever, you immediately set a new bar for bad behavior. And you say, I as the leader, accept this as long as you deliver other outcomes. Right. And that grows in an organization like a cancer. So rooting that out quickly is important. I think leaders who are willing to be authentic and vulnerable really stand to win the day here. And that doesn't mean that you show up every day and you cry and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Right. But it does mean that you and when you're wrong, that you admit you don't know everything and that you invite others to own space in the organization and that you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You know, when those things are not true, that's the quickest way to get your best people to leave. Right. So I think those are the kind of things that I would say if you do nothing else today but start to take action on those kind of efforts as a leader, you will see such a significant impact in the next 90 days by being intentional about those things. It's just so.

David Schwab So if I'm distilling that and parroting it back, it's as a leader, it's taking intentional steps to be authentic with your people. Getting real practical. What are a few other things you've seen make a difference for organizations, whether it's from the way they post jobs, where they post jobs, how they talk about themselves, how they speak internally versus externally. I know Dickerson Baker has a lot of exposure to executive-level talent in the nonprofit sector and what is attractive to candidates. So maybe from that perspective, is there anything you're seeing that catches the high-value talent in the sectors? I more than another.

Andrew Olsen Yeah. You know, so I think some of that does start you right with sort of the like before you're even in the door. Right. So if you, you know, a very clear and concise job description I saw this morning on LinkedIn. So someone else mentioned that, you know, if your job description is five pages, there's probably a problem here. Right. And I think that's true. And unfortunately, seeing something like that, maybe not five, but even three seems excessive, you know? So how simple and clear can you make things right? The same thing would go for your interview process. Right. So I, I remember early on in my career, I interviewed with a major Christian university for a development job, and there were eight interviews. And I remember by the fifth thinking, my goodness, what else could I tell you at this point will make any difference in this conversation, Right? So I think that we owe it to candidates to be as efficient with their time as possible and to not put the burden on them to navigate around our schedules. So if you want 12 people to participate in the interview process, get them all in the room. Right. Or schedule a single day, a couple of hours where you can have a series of brief interviews where a candidate would engage with three or four people per and get the opinions that way rather than dragging something out over time. I talked to somebody yesterday who shared with me that she had a five or seven-month process to to get her current job. And I just thought like, man, I don't have the patience for that. I want to check out it like month two. Right. And so particularly when the economy is as challenged as it is, how can we as leaders assume that, hey, let's just string people along for months while we take our time to decide? We owe it to people to be much more efficient than that. And I always tell people like, look, the way you experience an organization in the interview process is going to be the way you experience them as an employee. So if you get indicators like that in the interview process, the worst thing you can do is assume, Oh, it'll probably be different once I'm there. Right. So I think that's a big one. I think being really clear about compensation, about benefits, about time off in today's world, about location, and, you know, whether it's a fully remote or a hybrid or do I my expected to be in an office. I mean, all those things matter a lot more today than they did two years ago. And I think the other thing is organizations that do really well at this talk boldly about their culture and those that don't. Probably don't because they probably aren't proud.

David Schwab Right. So these are all really meaty subjects that I think we could spend the rest of the time we have together digging into. But I do want to, I think, change direction a little bit and talk, unpack maybe a little bit more about the second half of your original answer there being around the generosity crisis. Right. It's a term that's being thrown around a lot in the sector. In fact, I think there is even a book. I've yet to read it myself, but there is a book with that title. Right. That was published right around the end of last year. Beginning of this year, right?

Andrew Olsen Yeah, it's a fantastic read. So it's written by two brilliant dudes, Nathan Chapelle, over a donor search. And my good friend Brian Crimmins, who's the CEO of Changing Our World Facts. I'll make sure you get a link because I interviewed them on my podcast. So you can link that as well. But it's really sort of frightening. I mean, their perspective and their point of view is if you look at the declines in individual donor participation over the last 20 or so years and you extrapolate that out for the next 50 years-ish, if nothing changes in the rate of participation decline over that time period. Philanthropy, as we know it ceases to exist in like 49 years. Hmm. And, you know, do I think it'll go away entirely? No. But do I think it's going to become a heck of a lot harder for organizations to raise meaningful revenue if they don't change the way that they engage with donors? Absolutely. And, you know, no widget, no ice bucket challenge. I mean, none of these things are going to move the needle. Right. It all comes down to how do we build authentic relationships with other human beings and invite them into to be part of a solution versus just saying, stay over here away from me until I need your money and then let me ring the cash register and get a few bucks and go about my way. Right. So if we don't change the way that we behave because we're in control of that conversation, we can't expect to do any better in the future.

David Schwab So I want to unpack this a little bit more. I think the first thing we need to address is like, okay, let's take on the mindset of the nonprofit leader going, Is this actually a problem for me? I mean, did the general blanket answer is yes, this is a problem for the industry. But like, let's look at my organization. My revenue has been consistent. In fact, it's up a little year over year. Obviously, we had the pandemic. We had a big boom that year. We're down a little bit from that. But we've still seen we've seen revenue growth. We're getting more donors in our bottom lines. Fine. Is this really a problem we need to pay attention to? So that's the mindset we're in. How do I peel back the layers as a leader to see if this is affecting me?

Andrew Olsen Yeah. So I think the first thing that I'd suggest is that you start to look at your churn rate. Right. So you're right, revenue is flat to slightly up Now when you factor in inflation and what it is today, most organizations are actually down from a real dollars perspective. Right. But when you look at the churn and what we're seeing is that with retention and participation rates, what you see is that lower level donors, which make up the bulk of most donor files, there's actually a much steeper decline in those audiences. And for most organizations, the top 2 to 5% of their donors are carrying and covering them. So from a pure cash flow perspective, you're not wrong. Right. However, it takes one or two donors to pass away or to become frustrated with your organization or simply to move. And immediately you have a cash issue. Right. Because like I was looking at a donor file a couple days ago, 80% of their revenue comes from 54 giving units on their phone. When one of those donors has a life event that alters their giving. All of a sudden, that creates a seven-figure haul for this organization. Right. And no amount of extra acquisition in a given year is going to fix that. Right. So I think this means that organizations have to stop looking at top-line metrics and they have to stop looking at upfront trends, response rates, average gifts, gross revenue. You've got to throw those metrics out the window and you've got to look at things like, what's my net long-term value? What's my value per donor annually and what are my retention rates by lifecycle so that I can understand, you know, if I've just gotten a bunch of new donors in, that might skew my retention rate and might make it actually look like I've got more donors than I do, when if you isolate the multi-year donors, which typically tend to be the most valuable, you might have a retention problem there. And a lot of organizations are seeing that right now. So I would say dig deeper. Like, the worst thing we can do is take information at face value and not ask questions about it, because if you do that. You're going to set yourself up for failure in the next 12, 18, 24 months. And then, you know, I think the other big challenge around this is thinking that all donors are equal. You know, I sat in a room once with one of the world's top five charities, and they said to me, we have no desire to treat high-wealth donors or high-capacity donors any different than anyone else. We want to treat everyone like a major donor. And I said, great, we can fully get behind that. However, at some point that that model has to be riled up a little bit because you can't afford to put a gift officer in a room with a person who gives you $5 a quarter when you have someone else who gives you $500,000 a quarter. But like the trade off cannot be equal. Right. So, yes, do things to build relationship and to create engagement with every donor and treat them well. But at some point, you have to say from a pure investment perspective, I've got to focus on this handful typically of donors who can move the needle the most for us. And, you know, I want to be really clear. I'm not suggesting that you bend over backwards and you only focus on those people and you let them run your organization. There's a sort of a growing narrative around the risk of that, and I fully get that. But at the same time, you know, when someone can make such a meaningful impact, you have to spend some extra investment there. It's just a matter of how that works.

David Schwab Right? I think it's so important for it's almost. Organizations and leaders need to do the hard work right now to go deeper than they've ever had to go to uncover like, hey, where is the leak in my system? Because everything may look okay, but if we just let okay be okay for another two or three years, we may not be able to right the ship anymore.

Andrew Olsen Yeah, I agree.

David Schwab One of the things you've been talking about has reminded me of conversations I've had with a few different guests on our podcast, Erica Carley and David Bowden, both leaders at their respective organizations, but both shared a commitment to and it's something you've been talking about, is treating your donors like people. David talked a little bit about changing the perspective. He doesn't they don't call donors, donors at their organization. They call them partners. And that's not just a name for a sustainer, right? That's everyone who makes a gift to the organization as a partner because they are invested in their movement. And Erica had instilled a culture, her organization, to prioritize personal touchpoints with their donors at any at any caliber of donor. But also, like you were talking about, not going so far that you lose track of your overall mission or your overall objective by doing these things. But what are some of the ways as leaders in organizations, we could start moving, making the shift in our culture from a traditional perspective where, you know, yes, donors are valuable, yes, donors are important saying that, but to actually believe in who these donors are people. Right. What I heard when we talked with David Bowden, one of the things that I thought was so interesting is they were facing this seemingly insurmountable challenge. They had an incredible opportunity to accelerate the growth of their organization tenfold in a few months because of a partnership that was presented to them. But they did not have the infrastructure to support that. So first of all, I was I was impressed with the fact that he recognizes, hey, I don't have the infrastructure to support this. I'm going to go address it. But a lot of it was their back-end technology for their website and their like and how they distribute content. And he's like, I need a seven-figure investment to fix my cybersecurity issue. I don't have one now, but if I go here, I will. And he knew exactly which donor on file to call to say, Hey, I have a cybersecurity issue and I need an investment to fix it. And I know you actually care about cybersecurity. He knows his donors so well, his partners so well. He's like, not only do I, can I go to my partners and ask for help with this thing, but I. I know which donor cares about cybersecurity of the hundreds of thousands of people who are partners with us. I thought that was really cool. So just with that context, like that framework, [00:24:48]how can a leader start to take practical steps forward to shift the culture of their organization, to treat donors, treat partners as people? [8.8s]

Andrew Olsen [00:24:59]Yeah. So I think an interesting data point that underpins this thinking for us is last summer I think the Barna Group did some research around generosity and giving. And when they asked donors why they gave, you know, you have the traditional assumptions I gave because someone asked me, I gave because I saw a need I gave because of all these various different reasons. The single largest motivator and reason that people gave for why they are charitable is because it aligned with their identity, right. So they saw themselves as charitable people and generous people. And because of that, they did give. So I think the first thing that we can do to do this right is to think about what it means to actually see your donors, right. So in the example that you gave, you know, David was able to call that donor because he first took the time to see that donor, right. And to understand what motivates them, what excites them, why they give, and how that aligns with what he's up to. So if an organization is, you know, and we see this a lot, particularly with large organizations that run really robust and kind of massive direct marketing programs, right. At some point the donor is just a an ID in the CRM. Right. Unless they're the top hundred donors, right. And then you might know their names. But if you can get past that and start to actually learn about those supporters, and one of the best ways to do that is through donor surveys, you know, and not just a survey to increase response to an appeal. There's plenty of that kind of stuff that happens that never actually makes it back to any kind of actionable intelligence that a gift officer or development team can work from. But actually asking donors what motivates them. What part of your mission is most exciting to them? Why they first gave? If there's anybody in their life who's encouraged them to be generous. A number of different, really important questions. And then you actually capture that data and you do something with it. Like that's almost at this point, table stakes for development. And then I think the other one is listening to the, what might otherwise be considered random noise. So if I send out 30 solicitations a year and, you know a donor, a particular set of donors only responded to and those two happened to be about the same topic, then gosh, maybe I should apply a flag in the CRM that says David really likes this program. When we serve up solicitations, let's not send him this other crap and let's focus on the program that he invests in, right? And things like that where we're actually building a data set and some intelligence and then turning around and using it so that the donor feels seen and feels heard and feels like they're more than just a transaction ID or an ATM. Because that's where you start to create opportunities that really work well, not just to serve your mission, but to serve your donor. You know, the other thing I think about is if we're honest with ourselves, asking a donor to give from their credit card or their checkbook is is the worst thing for most donors because it does not benefit them from a financial perspective at all. Right. It actually harms them and particularly the higher net worth. And that the higher the larger the gift, the [184.3s] worse it is for a donor to give cash or credit card. So, you know, one other area where we can really lean in with donors to show them that they matter is to start talking to them about how they can give from their wealth and assets and why that's beneficial, too. That certainly is beneficial to us. Right. All all the data supports the idea that it's good for a charity to get asset based gifts, but it's actually really good for the donor to give that way as well, because then they can fulfill their charitable purpose, but they can also receive a personal benefit. And most donors don't do it to get the personal benefit. But if we're talking about building deep relationships, like why wouldn't I try to do something that also benefits you? It's just silly not to.

David Schwab Right? Well, it's almost the same mindset of like when I go to make a gift, I'm not going, I'm not going to get my wallet out and give the little bit of cash that I actually carry. I'm going to get my phone out and make a gift online because I can provide, I can put my email in and I know I'm going to be able to get my tax receipt at the end of the year. The motivation for me to give is not because of the tax benefit, but the tax benefit is something that I have in mind when I give to make sure that that's accounted for. And like even more so when you're you're giving six, seven, sometimes eight figure asset based gifts, there's a huge implication to to a donors at that point. A donors portfolio.

Andrew Olsen Yep.

David Schwab That you as an organization, you're no longer just a gift receiver, you are an investment partner and you are like you. You then can become part of not just part of their philanthropic strategy, but their overall investment strategy, which completely changes the mindset of how they think about you, how they invest with you, how they partner with you, probably even how they network with you, because then you're probably talking about opening the door to many more opportunities for introductions to people. Just like them.

Andrew Olsen Absolutely. Yeah. And in fact, once you're at that level, what we see time and again in the capital campaign work is a major gift. The work that we do is that one of the best ways to retain a high net worth donor is to ask them to refer you to other people like them. Right? Because once they endorse you like that, the likelihood that they're going to walk away is pretty slim.

David Schwab Right. So I think there continues to be so much here to dig into and unpack. But as I as we think about what's what I want, I want to talk about next is kind of a little bit of a a pivot, but also maybe the right pivot here. So and bringing us back to the overall topic of our conversation here, there just has to be a better way. So we talked about like how do we approach the talent issues that are impacting the generosity crisis? How do we become a culture that prioritizes fundraising and investing in our people? Then how do we think differently and take steps forward? But let's talk really just on the head. There has to be a better way to do this. Like we see so often, organizations are siloed and, you know, fundraise. We we are talking with fundraising leaders and organizational leaders all the time. And we typically, like we have a very specific piece of software that serves a very specific department at an organization. And so usually the line item to cover our software comes out of a very specific line item in a very specific budget and an organization be like, I just don't have it in the budget this year. And we're like, but there's so much more potential right to to tap into. And one of our one of my colleagues, Jenny Flack, gave a great talk at the nonprofit Marketing Summit earlier this year where she talked about opportunity cost, right. Where sure, you may not have the exact dollar in Senate budget to cover this, but what are you leaving on the table by not doing the thing? And I'm using fundraisers as an example. I'm not saying that has to be the first thing anyone does. There's got to be a better way. But what are some of those those things that organizational leaders and even people within an organization can do to to start to recognize? I guess the first thing probably are the opportunity cost, the things they're leaving on the table by just continuing to operate the way they've always operated, how can they start to recognize silos that prevent them from thinking as a holistic organization moving in the same direction versus, okay, here's my digital team, they're responsible for this, here's my direct direct marketing team. They're responsible for this. Here's my major gift team. They're responsible for this. And everyone has their own budget, Everyone has their own expense account, Everyone has their own as their own goal and revenue line item tied to it. And one team maybe having a pizza party at the end of the quarter and the other team may be kicking the can, right? Yeah. And so how, how have you helped organizations or mentor leaders to start thinking differently, acting differently and moving their organizations into, you know, this quote unquote better way, Right.

Andrew Olsen Yeah. So I think, you know, the one of the most recent examples of this and I didn't really have anything to do with that. I was along for the ride and provided some strategy support. But Dan Karp and Lindsay Maurer over at Covenant House International, they think this way already, right? And so when I got involved with them a year or so ago, one of the things that was most exciting to me is they said, look, we have, you know, four or five, six different like disparate teams that they had inherited when they joined the organization and they were working to tie them all together. And one of the first things they said was like, we're not going to have separate budgets now. We're definitely going to do, you know, bottom up budgeting so that we know what everything costs and what the potential returns are. But we want to maintain a flexible enough nature that, hey, if this channel is working really well, we're just going to shift money over there, right? If that program is delivering twice what we expected, then we're going to take budget from something that's not delivering and we're going to push it there. And the same thing around, like how they think about talent and deploying resources internally. And I mean, like that's the kind of mindset that I think leaders need to really do this well as to say, look, we might have people who have expertise in certain areas like, do I need somebody who's an email expert? Probably, maybe, you know, depending on what you're doing. Do I need someone who's a major gift, you know, who's got major gift expertise? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. You need someone who can build those relationships and make those tasks. But at the end of the day, you've got to be flexible. And the worst thing we can do is to say, no, we're going to do it this way, because we said 12 months ago, we're going to do it this way. Like the world as we as we've seen over the last three years, the world can change much more quickly than that. And if we are set up to to be nimble and responsive to that, we're going to have some serious problems. I think some of the other examples that I've seen recently are things like creating shared KPIs, right? So one of the bigger challenges I was I was working with an organization a couple of years ago and they were trying to raise an incremental additional million dollars in like a four month period. Right? And so we said, okay, well, you. One of the fastest ways to do that is let's do an asset ask campaign where we literally are going out. And we're saying to donors, if you've never given to us through your donor advice fund before or through your IRA account or through your stock portfolio, we would you know, there's a match opportunity and there's this, you know, we're raising money for the specific objective. Would you please consider giving from one of those three ways? Because we know that as soon as somebody does that, they're going to give a bigger gift in the world of cash, an otherwise a really smart and savvy team said, well, those gifts are credited to a different department. So we're not going to do that because and we believe that that it would work, but we're not going to do it because we won't get credit. So we won't even hit the million dollar goal that we're that we need to meet. And that was one where I just sat back and I thought, wow, talk about getting in your own way. Right? Right. If the mission needs an extra million dollars, who gives a rip what bucket it ends up in, right? Like like we shouldn't care. And if I drive revenue but falls in your PNL because of the way the fund codes map in the CRM in the finance software, like neither of us should get penalized for that. We ought to have a collaborative set of KPIs that say, you know, there were drivers and there were converters, and we worked together to, to build the the biggest pie possible. Right? But when organizations think from a finance first perspective and from an operations first perspective rather than from a donor first perspective, you get that kind of artificial framework that keeps people from doing their best work. And so I think, you know, at a minimum, if we started to break down those barriers, I think organizations would raise a ton more money because those disincentives for behaviors that we want would be removed.

David Schwab Right? So I don't think you and I have ever talked about this before, but I have a working theory that a lot of the issues nonprofit leaders are facing today are inherited because of the broader nonprofit industry culture. And I've spent many years as a as a consultant in the nonprofit sector. And one of the things that I saw as a consultant is most consultants in the sector know what works really well for exactly what they're doing. Most consultants in the sector are involved in in fundraising. Typically, direct marketing are you know, that's probably the biggest sector of consulting. Yes, there are is there's, you know, talent consulting and leadership consulting and things like that. But I would say the biggest the biggest network of consulting is specifically to help organizations raise more funds. So you have consultants who are paid a lot, who everyone listens to because they're supposed to be the expert in the room telling organizations, you need to fundraise this way, you need to direct marketing this way. And my theory here is that the combination of a more traditional mindset of, you know, finance first process first with the voice of the consultant leaning into, okay, here, now here's how we succeed in that model has created an expectation that, you know, if we're going to if we're going to invest in fundraising, we're going to invest in this very specific thing first, because that's how we know how to succeed. And then everything else is kind of nice to have, right? So I'm going to turn the tables and ask you to unpack that a little bit. So if you see get your take on it, but also ask you a pointed questions like if an organization is listening, listening like, Hey, I need to change the way I do things, the way I'm doing it, it's not sustainable anymore. And I don't know that I know where to go to find help to do that. Where could someone go?

Andrew Olsen So I largely agree with your premise, and I think we we need to look no further than the nonprofit conference circuit to see all of the various quote unquote best practice seminars that arguably are more along the lines of average practices and largely the practices that you can get to the lowest common denominator of organizations to adopt. Right. And doesn't make them best. That just makes the most frequent. Right. And you know, when you particularly when we start talking about marketing agencies that serve nonprofits and we're we're doing a lot at Dickerson Baker to kind of upend this model. But I think I firmly believe that one of the biggest impediments to real net revenue growth for organizations is that when they when they choose an agency partner, when they go through an RFP process, they're not asking the right questions. And so I've been in the agency world for decades, but I've also been on the nonprofit side. I was a buyer of those services when I ran development at the Children's Hospital. And what I learned and what I've learned over the decades is your consulting partners business model matters a heck of a lot more than you realize. Mm hmm. So, case in point. If I am incentivized as a consultant to sell you more print because I have printing presses and. And in order for me. To be profitable, those have to run all day, right? Then every problem starts to look like a problem for which the solution is print more. Right. Whereas if my value to you as a consultant is in helping you think strategically and helping you spend your investment dollars in the wisest and most profitable ways possible. And maybe that's print. Maybe it's head count for major gift staff. Maybe it's a new grant strategy. It could be any number of things. Right. But that business model is really important. And if you don't understand how your agency partner makes money, you are susceptible to a lot of risky behavior because you just don't have as much information as needed. So the first place I would start is I would say, do your due diligence and don't just ask somebody for a price comparison. Don't just say, How is your creative different from the next guys? Ask questions that actually get at things that matter. Like in this relationship, I understand how I make money. How do you make money? Right. And the biggest red flag you're going to get is when an agency says, well, we don't talk about that because that and I've been in that situation where I've heard that response that tells me everything I need to know, to know that I should run for the hills. Right. And, you know, I'm not anti-capitalist. I'm not anti profit. I think absolutely organizations and consultants should be able to make a healthy profit. That's one of the best ways to continue to equip the nonprofit industry is to have great consulting partners. Right. But we should never set up a scenario where where the consultant and the agency make significantly more money than their charitable partners, because at that point, our incentives are misaligned. Right. So I think that's a big one. And then I think also understanding, you know, how we collaborate together to build meaningful change into a program. So one of the most insightful questions that I've seen anybody ask recently and actually to Victoria Montoya is on my team. She's you and I have both worked with her in a couple of different shops. She had this question that she asked of an organization recently where she said, you know, in 12 months, if we've worked well together, how will my business and my organization be meaningfully different because of your strategic investment in our work? And that's not just I'm going to mail more and get you more dollars. Right. It really is a question about like, how are our philosophies aligned and how do you see value creation and the transfer of that value creation between our two organizations? So I think, you know, for me in that entire equation, a lot of it has to do with I just don't think we're asking the right questions of our partners. And I don't I think we are you know, I don't know about you when I get an RFP, usually it's last minute and usually I'm lucky if I've got 30 days to respond. And the questions tend to be so basic that I look at it and I think how this could go any one of 19 different ways, depending on like how the wind blows versus one that's really strategic and insightful and asks questions that actually get at differentiation. Mm hmm. Versus just putting on a pricing practice where someone can say, well, I compared seven different companies prices and this one was the cheapest, Right? And if that's the goal, you're fine. It's not a relationship I want to get into. But, you know, I think if we if we're really intentional about asking better questions to get at the things that actually matter, that will drive value for us as a consumer, as a buyer of those services. That's where I think you can really make some meaningful change and start to completely flip the script for organizations.

David Schwab So ask better questions, be intentional with, and almost comes back to what we were talking about earlier, where we see, you know, asked better questions of your donors, get to know your donors as people get to know your partners, as people get to know the people who are literally in it day in and day out with you and making sure that they're walking not only in the same direction but at the same pace. I think that's probably the biggest difference is we both may want to see you succeed, but and this is this is something, you know, being on the the client side now that, you know, being in the the brand side, when I ask my partners and when I ask people who consult for us, a fundraise, I go, you know, I don't just want you to want me to succeed. I want you to want to succeed with me at the same pace that I want to succeed. And if if you can't or you won't or you don't, then this probably isn't a relationship that's going to be fruitful for either of us, because I'm going to expect more from you than you want to give me. And I'm going to be consistently frustrated because I'm going to feel like I'm undervalued or unimportant. Yeah. So I think that's a critical piece.

Andrew Olsen That's a really good point. I mean, so I had this conversation recently with a partner that that we're. Just launching a relationship with. And one of the differentiators I share with them was, look, we're a growth focused organization, so if you only want to maintain and you want to grow, you know, a comfortable 2 to 3% a year. There's plenty of companies that can help you with that. That's not right. And I'm always going to want to push you to grow more, not just for the sake of having a bigger budget, but because it's really important to me to be able to actually make impact in the world and everybody on our team and we're all wired the same way, like we get out of bed and come to work excited about the idea that, hey, we can help reduce the number of people living in poverty, or that the number of people who are suffering from addiction or whatever the cause might be, and maintaining the status quo does not move the needle one bit.

David Schwab Mm hmm. A lot of that's something we talk a lot about at fundraisers, too, is we're not the partner for the status quo. I think we're going to continue to build and iterate and innovate because we want to help you grow. Right? Your mission, your impact. The reason your organization exists is far too important to just keep doing what you're already doing like you need. You need to grow in every aspect, grow your reach, grow your impact, grow your people, but also grow your revenue, because that's the catalyst to all the other growth.

Andrew Olsen So I've said something recently that I think might it might cause some friction in the industry and some people might take offense at it, but I mean no personal harm around it. But my perspective is, if your comfort is more important than your mission impact, you're in the wrong job.

David Schwab Right. Wow. That one is is heavy and going to stick. That may be the slogan for this session on our promos. If your comfort is more important than your mission impact, then you might be in the wrong place. Wow. All right. Well, Andrew, this has been an awesome conversation. I'm excited to get this episode out and share it with our audience. But before we close, any final thoughts or if people listening or you I really want to dig deeper. I want to you know, I have questions about what Andrew was saying about this or that. Is there a good way for someone to reach out to you, to connect with you, to learn more about, you know, you or Dickerson Baker or anything like that?

Andrew Olsen Yeah, I'd love that. Welcome to the conversation. So I'm on LinkedIn all the time. That's the easiest place for people to hit me up. But if you want to come to me directly, my cell is 612-201-1967. Call or text anything? Well, within reason. Not at 2am.

David Schwab Although you might be up with the cows on the right night.

Andrew Olsen Cows or kids. Either one.

David Schwab All right, Andrew, well, thank you for your time. This has been an awesome conversation and I hope you have a great rest your day.

Andrew Olsen Thanks, David. Always appreciate.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit! This podcast is brought to you by your friends at Funraise - Nonprofit fundraising software, built for nonprofit people by nonprofit people. If you’d like to continue the conversation, find me on LinkedIn or text me at 714-717-2474. 

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