78. Using Automation to Treat All Donors Like Major Donors - Gabe Cooper
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Overview
Meet Gabe. He's a founder on a mission since learning the nonprofit sector was facing a generosity crisis. While major donors are pouring into the industry, the rank and file mid-level and lower donors are dropping off. And now Gabe's team is punching back through some seriously innovative and brilliant tech strategy that gives our annual giving programs hope. We're talking about leveraging marketing automation to treat ALL donors like major donors whilst building some seriously rabid fans in the process.
Today’s Guest
Gabe Cooper, CEO at Virtuous Software
“To build a personal relationship with somebody, it requires that you listen first, connect with them personally, and then suggest the right thing at the right time.”
Episode Highlights
Gabe’s story (1:58)
The Generosity Crisis (3:45)
Responsive Fundraising (7:58)
Gabe’s Suggestions for Retention (12:17)
How to grow donor engagement through personalization (18:29)
Examples of easy personalization methods you could implement today (21:04)
Virtuous & their mission (23:27)
Gabe’s Favorite Philanthropic Moment (26:50)
Gabe’s One Good Thing: Create and hold onto durable relationships. (31:00)
Powerful Quotes:
“We live in a world that is hyper-personlized and community-driven.” - Gabe
“Nonprofits haven’t crossed this chasm even though giving is one of the most personal things we will ever do.” - Gabe
“If you are not in the digital space in a very prolific way, then you are missing out.” - Becky
“To build a personal relationship with somebody, it requires that you listen first, connect with them personally, and then suggest the right thing at the right time.” - Gabe
“What we under-appreciate is seeing people as more than just checkbooks and asking them for time, talent, social capital, being willing to be generous with our donors before they’re generous to us.” - Gabe
“We’ve got to think differently, we can’t just think one on one, but we want to think at scale in a personalized way.” - Jon
“76% of the time, people will give one gift and never give again.” - Gabe
“A really simple place to start with (this) is the multi-channel welcome series when someone first gives a gift.” - Gabe
“Maybe there needs to be a broad audit of what is are all of our communication channels?” - Becky
“It doesn’t remove the need for people. What it does is it helps free up the time of your staff to do more of the personal stuff you want to do.” - Gabe
“The more personal you can be with somebody, the more you’re able to build trust.” - Gabe
“That sort of building trust and feeling known is critical to scaling generosity.” - Gabe
“Figure out what they’re passionate about … acknowledge that’s the thing they care about and thank them around that.” - Gabe
“The nonprofit is not making itself the hero, they’re making the donor the hero.” - Becky
“We take our work very seriously, we don’t take ourselves very seriously.” - Gabe
“It’s not about money, it’s about being brought really close to the good you want to accomplish in the world and being crazy about how you go after it.” - Gabe
“I love irrational generosity.” - Becky
“At the heart of this, this is empathy.” - Becky
“The most important thing for me in life has been what we call ‘durable relationships.’” - Gabe
“Nobody needs to be in life alone.” - Gabe
“If you don’t have that today, go out and seek out those people and really be intentional about building durable relationships with a close-knit community around you.” - Gabe
