The ENGAGE Podcast Blackbaud, Inc.

When is the last time you took a bird’s eye view of your engagement strategy? From how many solicitations to send a year to maintaining your donor database and keeping your message aligned across teams, engagement can quickly become stale or ineffective without a tested strategy. In today’s episode, Kate Averett Anderson of the Blackbaud Institute sits down with fundraising experts Lawrence Henze and Nathalie Highland to discuss best practices for engagement and tools you can use to communicate with your supporters more efficiently. After the conversation, check out the free Development Planning Toolkit from the Blackbaud Institute to fill out your own Engagement Strategy framework and put what you’ve learned into practice!
This episode of the ENGAGE podcast features excerpts from the webinar Development Planning: Your Three-Step Guide to Engaging Supporters. Catch the full discussion, on demand, now.
Topics covered in this episode include:
The pitfalls of an unexamined engagement strategy Breaking down silos for more effective engagement The benefits of reduced solicitations to supporters Tips for testing new approaches and conducting donor surveys  Resources:
Development Planning: Your Three-Step Guide to Engaging Supporters
 Quotes:
“Through those direct and personal interactions with our staff and our experts, donors were given the opportunity to understand not just what we do, but how and why we do it. And so that has been a real benefit and jumpstarted our major gift program and has helped to spur our growth over time.” – Nathalie Highland
“I've always asked my clients to put me on their mailing list, and I would typically make a donation to them to see how they communicated with me as a donor. And I spent eight years tracking those communications. What I found was that there were some organizations that sent me at least at least 36 direct mail pieces per year!” – Lawrence Henze

As women wield greater economic power and harness their influence to lead change, their generosity is rapidly transforming the philanthropic landscape. What is possible when women are active participants in philanthropic work, engaging all the levers available to advance the public good?
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI), part of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI, increases understanding of women’s philanthropy through rigorous research and education with the vision of empowering women to use their wealth and power to uplift others. Following WPI's sixth national symposium All In, All Rise, WPI Associate Director Jacquie Ackerman sat down with three symposium participants to discuss how women’s involvement in philanthropy influences and strengthens communities, encourages greater strategic giving and builds a more diverse community of engaged citizens.

This is an excerpt of a conversation that was part of the Blackbaud Grantmaking 2023 Thought Leadership Webinar series. For the entire thought-provoking discussion, please watch the full webinar.

Guests: 
Moderator: Jacquie Ackerman, Associate Director, Women’s Philanthropy Institute Dr. Monique Couvson, President and CEO, Grantmakers for Girls of Color Natanja Craig-Oquendo, Executive Director, Boston Women’s Fund Marsha Morgan, Board Advisory Member, Community Investment Network and Black Women Give Back honoree
Resources: 
Woman’s Philanthropy Insitute Grantmakers for Girls of Color Community Investment Network Boston Women’s Fund Blog Post: The All-In Woman Philanthropist Full Webinar

How much impact does volunteerism have on our wellbeing? 
Hear from Jude O'Reilley, CEO of VolunteerMatch, as he talks with Blackbaud's social responsiblity manager Melissa Furr about how volunteerism is closely tied to personal health and wellbeing. Jude and Melissa share how you can incorporate volunteering in the workplace and acheive the feeling of being connected to something larger than oneself.
Topics covered in this episode:
What is VolunteerMatch? A longing for community The four pillars of wellbeing Best practices Employee Input Physical, Financial, Emotional, Social, and Intellectual wellness VolunteerMatch's new campaign Get that Grin Resources:
Get that Grin
VolunteerMatch
Edelman Trust Barometer
Quotes:
"One best practice is to think beyond the volunteer day."
"We shouldn't underestimate employees themselves being the key motivator for other employees."
"Most people rely on colleagures and their employer for information that they trust the most."

As part of our series on the Future of Nonprofit Finance, Blackbaud’s Sarah Curry sat down with George Werbacher, the Senior Manager for Information Security at Blackbaud, to discuss how nonprofit organizations can prioritize cyber security in 2023. George talks through how organizations can see data security as an investment and highlights how implementing controls helps the organization do more to drive impact. He explains how organizations can do a “threat model” to start an open dialog about where the risks are, including who is using data and how that’s being used.
Resources:
Full Webinar: Speed-Round: Preparing for the Future of Nonprofit Accounting – Don't Get Left Behind! Compliance Risk Management for the Empowered Nonprofit  Internal Controls Toolkit

As part of the series Future of Nonprofit Finance, Blackbaud’s Sarah Curry sits down with Alex Wilson, the Co-Founder of The Giving Block to discuss why the conversation around cryptocurrency matters for nonprofit finance teams. They touch on some of the cryptocurrency trends and why organizations should think about owners of cryptocurrency as a donor demographic as well as a way to diversify revenue streams. 
Topics covered:
Is cryptocurrency safe? How does it work? How is it tracked? How do taxes work? Resources:
Infographic: What Technological Era Is Your Nonprofit Finance Office In?

In this excerpt of a conversation with Satonya Fair, President and CEO of PEAK Grantmaking, she encourages grantmaking organizations to rethink their relationship with risk. Instead of focusing on being responsible for the foundation, she recommends looking to how organizations build deeper relationships with applicants and grantees and be poised to be responsive to the needs of the community.
Resources: PEAK Grantmaking The Myth of Risk: Fear Not the Dragons, Funder Full Webinar