TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey everyone. Today I am recording from Galveston, Texas, which is a place that brings back a lot of memories for. Galveston Island is on the Gulf Coast. About an hour or so from Houston where I grew up. It's the place where everyone goes to the beach in the summer or does family day trips as there's lots to do here.

There's a historical city center, some really beautiful old Victorian homes. A lot of that was destroyed by a famous hurricane, well, at least Famous in Texas, I should say. The great Galveston hurricane of 1900. We all learn about it in. But the parts that still remain is the point I'm trying to make. They have been preserved and restored and it's just really charming.

I am here right now with my partner who's at a conference, and I tagged along so I could say hi to the family. I was born and raised in Houston, and I'm actually celebrating with them a bit because just last week I had. Milestone [00:01:00] birthday, shall we say, like a major milestone. So I'll let you do the math on that.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes online from everybody who sent those in. I know milestone birthdays hit differently for different people and for me. I've always been excited, whether as a kid entering double digits or entering adulthood, and then when I turned 30, I could not wait to be outta my twenties and entering such an important decade for career and all kinds of life events.

And I feel that way now too. Just really excited. Ready for what's ahead? And it feels like a really good moment with good energy. You all are a part of that, everyone who's been listening along. So again, thank you for that and for the birthday love along the way, it really means a lot. Today we are talking about fundraising and how the narrative is changing on this topic.

We know in the [00:02:00] arts that we cannot keep relying on the big donors at the top of the pyramid or over-rely. On those donors, maybe I should say, we rely on more money from fewer people, households, down dollar goals up. There are more and more organizations saying versions of this now than before, and all of that are ways the narrative is changing here.

And in some ways that sounds like a doom and gloom narrative and in some ways that's not wrong. In some ways it is doom and gloom if, if big capital, if. If we don't do anything about these trends, however, the flip side of that narrative is I am also hearing things from organizations like, we need a plan for younger donors, and I'm hearing that instead of younger people don't give, you know, that's a real switch.

Narrative is changing for sure, and accepting that is a fact. Younger people do give when it aligns with their values. Again, totally a shift. So the narrative is changing. That is step [00:03:00] one, always the vernacular. But the organizations I work with and people I come into contact with don't always know how to address those issues.

So that would be step two, what do we do about it? So we're gonna talk about all of that today with our guest, Louis Diaz, who is not only a thought leader and in my opinion in many ways, a fundraising visionary, but he also has the results to back. And we'll talk about some of those awesome wins in our conversation.

When Lewis and I recorded this conversation, I was in Italy at the time and either my connection or his gives him the boot at the very end, but I think we managed to land the plane nonetheless. Lewis knows the data. He knows the fundraising landscape on the whole. He understands content, he knows strategy, and he's delivered results inside the arts and at other nonprofits as.

Every time I talk with him, I get so filled up, I have to [00:04:00] say, so encouraged that there are ways to broaden that donor pyramid. Not only rely on our big major donors, but rather grow a full pipeline of support at all levels. Growing our most engaged super fans and a sustainable way that funds our work for years to come.

That is a changing narrative on this topic of fundraising, and I'm so. To bring it to you now. Hey everyone. I'm Aubrey Bergauer and welcome to my podcast. If we haven't met, I'm known in the arts world for being customer centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue. The arts are my vehicle to make the change I wanna see in this world.

Like creating places of belonging, pursuing gender and racial equality, developing high performing teams and leaders, and leveraging technology to elevate our work. In this season, I'm bringing new conversations with some of my favorite experts from both inside and [00:05:00] outside the arts, all to help build the vibrant future we know is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders.

You are listening to the Offstage mic.

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Novo Music. Conducting your creative vision. Find out. At Novo music.co. Today's guest is Lewis Diaz. Lewis is currently vice President of Community at Alma Base, which is a platform for higher ed advancement teams to build stronger relationships with their alumni. He also hosts the donor participation project, which convenes fundraising professionals who are concerned about the nationwide decline and donor particip.

And believes this can be solved by changing our fundraising practices. Totally speak in my language here, and if you're a fundraiser, I highly recommend joining@joindpp.org. Before all that, he was executive director of annual giving at Muhlenberg College, where he led the school to become monthly giving first.

If you listen to the last episode on the membership economy, this is the perfect [00:08:00] next step, perfect case study on someone prioritizing monthly giving and seeing the success that comes with that. And Lewis knows classical music. He worked at the Baltimore Symphony for two years, about 2017 to 2019 as the Director of the Annual Fund, and he is Ave List.

He played in the Knoxville Symp. So everything we are talking about, he knows the nuance of an application to the arts and culture sector. On top of all of that, before I ever even knew of his performing arts background, I was attracted to his quality posts and content online, specifically on LinkedIn. If you are not following him, run, don't.

He really is a thought leader on how to engage donors and become better, stronger, more relevant fundraisers and organizations. Welcome Lewis.

[00:08:57] Louis Diez: Oh my goodness, Aubrey, can I be a really bad [00:09:00] guest and go a little bit off topic to say how much I admire you? So I had a boss, he would show up in the office and he was kind of a, you know, a visionary, revolutionary guy. He'd show up with this article about this person, Aubrey Bergauer, who's really shaking things up.

And he would distribute it, you know, and then some people would love him, others would say, and you know, and now we're, we're here today. So I'm very honored and. So my first question 

[00:09:23] Aubrey Bergauer: for you is you created the donor participation project. I, first of all what that is, but my understanding.

A significant decline in donor participation across the entire nonprofit. Sec. What I've heard you say, what I've read on your website, 20 million Households Lost. These are donor households we're talking about between the years 2020 16. So tell us what the donor Participation project is. Tell us what you're seeing at your own institution or other places you've worked.

What the project is doing in response. [00:10:00] All of. 

[00:10:01] Louis Diez: So donor participation project really quickly, it's a fundraiser community. We're at 1100 plus now. A little bit over that. We have 10 to 20 signups every day. And um, basically what we started to do is get together every month because we were seeing what you just noted, what the people in the arts no are noticing what people in every nonprofit sector that relies on individual donors.

Seeing is that donors down, dollars up and then all of the advice. When you went out there and you tried to go on LinkedIn and find out what to do about it was we'll do another campaign. And ask your top 1% for, you know, it was like, there's a disconnect here, right? So we thought, well, nobody's gonna have the answer because if they did, then we wouldn't be here.

But at least let's start talking about it. Finding research, finding pieces of this that people solved. And we've connected with some great people, including in the arts. And we were talking about the Washington Chorus a little bit earlier in the pre-show talk and just try to learn from each other. So we get together every month.

It's free to join. Highly recommended. 

[00:10:59] Aubrey Bergauer: Okay, [00:11:00] so let's talk about. Change. One of the reasons we get along so well is cuz we both are championing change. And you talk a lot about changing fundraising practices. So what specifically is the question I have on this? What specifically needs to change? What are you seeing like that you just wanna bang your head against the wall or good things we're talking about?

The narrative is changing. Like what in your mind's not working and we need to do it Differe. 

[00:11:23] Louis Diez: That's a really good question, and I think the arts have so much going for them because some of those pieces are like built in. So for example, the fact that you typically want to have a cycle that starts with some type of invitation, some type of engagement, or showing the work, you know, Of bringing people in into kind of a more community type feeling or relationship, and then an ask.

You need all of that, right? So some people say, Lewis, you mean you just have to engage people and they'll give on their own? Well, no, you know, you still have to ask them. And honestly, I, I see almost every shop has underinvested in the engagement [00:12:00] piece. You know, when you talk about subscriptions, et cetera, that's kind of the value provide, that's what people want.

That's what they're there for. That's how you provide value to them in exchange. It's not an exchange, right. But that's why they stick. So that's a little bit of the, the big picture. You know, invest more in communicating in human, authentic, bidirectional ways. A lot of the marketing that happens in non, you know, in arts and in non arts, non-profits is very one way, you know, very like ads.

And then when you do ask them, try to get them into ways of giving that kind of ensure that they'll stick around like monthly giving subscriptions, you know, or there are other ways to do it. But that's a very popular. 

[00:12:40] Aubrey Bergauer: Communication has been this recurring theme, no matter the topic, like customer-centric communication, in this case, donor-centric communication.

It's funny, I'm known for marketing communications, but I don't know, it's just really been an interesting through line of like, wow, it's so critical in everything we do to communicate this well, which you're saying is part of this engagement piece, and I totally agree, [00:13:00] so love it. Actually. Funny enough, my next question is continuing on this line of communication.

So we generally do a poor job of communicating with our donors and. My question here is why though? Why is this happening? If we're hearing more and more this matters and, and we've gotta center these people and not just treat them like a piggy bank, but actually engage. And by communication, just so everybody hears me, it's not just the next annual fund appeal.

That is a communication, but that's not engagement. 

[00:13:27] Louis Diez: You know, that's not 

[00:13:28] Aubrey Bergauer: cutting it. Say more. Why are we so bad at communicating? Is it because we have lean teams? That's a real reason. We gotta talk about how to combat that. Mm-hmm. Are there other reasons? I mean, I'm really curious, what's your take on this?

[00:13:39] Louis Diez: I would say under investment. So a lot of kind of the ethos also of the donor participation project was that lots of the advice were, you know, you're a bad fundraiser, you're, you know, you should be on the phone all day. And it's like people are, they're using 23 hours out of the day. They can't like possibly do more.

So under investment, second, thinking of marketing as using [00:14:00] paradigms that used to work. So focusing on the institution, focusing a lot on marketing ad spend, making that the primary. We had a fantastic thought leader in marketing at a donor participation project session last week called Mark Schaffer.

And he said the marketing funnel is dead. He has a book, uh, marketing Rebellion. And what he essentially is saying is what we're seeing all the time is that that personal people want to connect with people on LinkedIn. So it's in a way, um, Aubrey, it's almost like all those things that fundraisers always knew are starting, like to bleed into marketing.

You know, it's like more personal, it's more one-on-one. You have to find ways to scale it. Of course. A little bit of that is we're not doing enough. So part of it is also the volume of content. How many of us have not heard, oh my goodness, we're going to bother people, or we're over communicating that doesn't exist anymore.

And there's a question of how do we break through the hype? Well, one of the things to do is to share stories that are authentic, that are relatable, that have some type of. Call to action, and sir, just a lot of them put [00:15:00] them out there. The algorithms will take care of them. If people like them, they will share them.

It's a new world, and the nonprofit is not the one that's determining what is news and what isn't anymore. So before it used to be that, I don't know where Symphony would say, this is what's happened and we're gonna send magazine. And this is the reality. Now your donors are connecting in a group chat.

They're have a WhatsApp channel, they're on Facebook, and they're actually saying, this isn't true. You know, this happened and I heard from the concert master that you guys are horrible and yada y. 

[00:15:33] Aubrey Bergauer: What's so great about everything you're saying is, I mean, again, we're so aligned on so many things, but um, I frequently say marketing and development are not that different.

And that's what you're saying, like development is marketing and in the scale is different. Yes, but especially when we're talking about something like annual fund that is much more similar to marketing cuz it is more mass communication as we're moving toward, this is my take, at least as we're moving toward major donors, then it's more one-on-one.

As we're moving toward those bigger [00:16:00] and bigger gifts. But this idea, I say all the time, marketing is education and more and more I'm saying marketing is also for, fundraising is marketing. Marketing is education. That gets into the storytelling. That gets into the content. Let's talk about millennial donors.

So I said it at the top. I'll say it again. The conversation used to be they don't give, we know now that is not correct. You know, it's so funny. I mean, I'm technically a millennial. I'm like the oldest millennial out there, but this is an age range. You can't say they don't give. We now have proof that that's not true.

So what have you learned though? What have you learned about millennial donors? What have you learned about how arts organizations can better fundraise from this group? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. 

[00:16:37] Louis Diez: So when I was at a symphony, a lot of the annual fund and we had a big confusion and conversations about membership and annual fund and you know, all of that.

But it was very transactional, right? And that is working less and less, and especially not working among those younger demographics. So a couple of thoughts here. We had a session with the donor participation project. With a researcher from Harvard [00:17:00] Di Venice School, and she's now at a company called Sacred Design Lab, and she did well study with, um, analyzing organizations that were doing really well with millennials.

And it was not only nonprofits, it was like CrossFit and the dinner table. And the big takeaways that people come for something for a workout, for food, for painting, that they stick around for the community. Okay. And then that got me on a really long exploration of what community is, and I try to distill that down into a definition that's communities, when people get together in ways that are purposeful, participatory, recurring, and identify leaders.

[00:17:38] Aubrey Bergauer: Say that again. This, I feel like we have to be taking notes. Say it again. Oh my 

[00:17:42] Louis Diez: goodness. So communities with people get together obviously. So you need people and they need to get together in ways that are participatory. So it's a two-way thing. And you can do social media in a way that's participatory or not really.

So it, the medium doesn't really matter, it's how you use it. So it has to be a convers. It has to be [00:18:00] purposeful. If you have a group of symphony volunteers and all they do is get around to pardon my friends, but complain, you know about how bad the champagne is, you know, that's not purposeful. So there has to be a clear purpose.

And then you can also have fun, right? It has to be recurring so you don't build community if it's one-off things. And we, I see that a lot in kind of schools where we do this great event. It's amazing and it just happened. Things like the donor participation project, we meet every month. You know, it's built into the design and then you identify leaders.

So since staff can't do it all at the beginning, staff can kind of be the leaders, but you want to develop volunteers who can kind of take that. And you've seen that Aubrey, like with, I know some symphonies do like supporter dinners where you kind of develop a package and you train the volunteers and then they go and they do it.

Those models work. So that community piece seems to be critical. And so kind of what the market seems to be demanding for millennials and others, honestly. 

[00:18:54] Aubrey Bergauer: Yes, exactly. There is no age range to people who want community by that definition. I believe that [00:19:00] wholeheartedly. Is it worth noting when talking about millennials, that most arts organizations don't accept Venmo or PayPal?

I would love to hear your thoughts. I get very hyper about our website and our, like these like technologies. Yeah. I've 

[00:19:11] Louis Diez: read all your work. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I'm gonna share. Ideas that are against each other, so they're contrary. One is, yes, you need to diminish friction as much as possible.

Venmo does that. PayPal does it. There are platforms that integrate and lots of people do trust PayPal a whole lot. Every org I've worked with and you know, I've helped put PayPal on their giving site. They were surprised. So it is just like it always happens. I don't know why. So number one. Number two, you are trying to build a community of supporters.

So not every donor that you acquire, Is as good as the other. So I say this like, not our new donors are created equal, right? So you want people who are gonna stick around with you and things like giving days, giving Tuesday, that type of mentality that you attract is not the type that sticks around with you.[00:20:00] 

So for instance, monthly gifts. So that's not Venmo. You might you, I think you can do it on PayPal. Less people convert. But what you get over time, it adds up and it builds a much more sustainable organization. I did a study for a really large public research university and the cutoff point where you could really see how those major gifts.

Started to increase was after people were giving for three years in a row. So that's the amount of time it takes. If you have the capacity and inclination all of that on average, you know, you need to be around an organization that long. 

[00:20:33] Aubrey Bergauer: Great intel. Okay. I wanna talk about monthly giving a little bit. So we've touched on it a couple times already, and last week on the subscription economy, we talked about how most subscription brands outside of the arts make the customer opt out of the subscription.

We all know if we don't want Netflix anymore, we have to cancel that ourself. Whereas in the arts, and especially this is true with season subscriptions, this is true with annual fund. Often we opt out for the donor and say, would you like to [00:21:00] give? Would you like to opt back in? Whereas monthly giving, I know the pros are like, what happens when their credit card changes and we gotta chase that down and you know, it's maybe administratively feels like a burden.

I don't know. I've heard the pros and cons, but I'm very curious. You're in it, you do the work on a day-to-day basis, monthly giving good, bad, 

[00:21:18] Louis Diez: what are your thoughts? Like a rocket ship? So, but I don't wanna be flippant about this. We did a ton of research. My school I think is the only one or one of the very few.

I haven't seen any. That actually transformed the entire operation to be monthly giving 

[00:21:33] Aubrey Bergauer: first, Hey, tell us everything. I did not know that about you, so go ahead. Okay, 

[00:21:37] Louis Diez: so if you go to give dot muhlenberg edu and I'll let you guess how you spell Linberg, you'll see that all the forms default to monthly. We started to do this work at the Baltimore Symphony two.

Why? So we had a another session at the donor participation project with a public radio. Her name is Nicole Stern and she was amazing. What she shared was that monthly giving is not an add-on, it's a [00:22:00] change in model, and you hear that too when you read interviews with the founder of Charity Water, who was talking with all his kind of Silicon Valley connections and they were saying if you're gonna be a subscription company, like you have to be a subscription company, you can't do it Halfway 

[00:22:13] Aubrey Bergauer: Charity Water is like my go-to case study for Successful Monthly Giving.

I think they've done an exceptional. 

[00:22:19] Louis Diez: Well, there's always lots of opinions and every time I put a statistic out there, there are like five people who have a different one, but we're all kind of fumbling our way around trying to tease out what the future is and what the path is that we want to create for ourselves.

If you look at how many donors have stopped giving just to nonprofits probably since you know oh eight. Another statistic from the School of Philanthropy at Indiana. Two thirds of US households giving every year 10 years ago. Now that's down to half. So it's equivalent to what you shared earlier, Aubrey.

So if you look at organizations that have increased their number of donors, okay. And I've, I've, I've, I've looked, you know, everywhere I could, you find some reach [00:23:00] from Blackboard in public media. They're hanging onto their number and it's growing, so you know how amazing is that when everybody else is on the decline, right?

Yeah. And then Charity Water, of course, is going through the roof. I heard from somebody who's closely involved with them that they're at 70,000 monthly donors. Their goal for this year is a hundred thousand. I don't know what the way forward is. You know, nobody has all the answers, but that seems like a pretty good bet.

[00:23:21] Aubrey Bergauer: Yeah, we're having a conversation about how the narrative is changing and everything I do is how, talking about what needs to change and if we know, if the old way's not working, then let's try something different. So I just, oh my gosh. I'm like totally drinking this up. This is awesome. Lewis really is awesome.

I said this at the top, but I'll say it again. I've been so attracted to his work and his thought leadership, and even just the glimpse we got today into that. I think he's very just balanced in how he approaches the pros, the cons, what he's seeing as trends, what he's hearing from others, and just really sort of reconciling all of that.

So please give him a follow if you're not following him already. I think I just really respect him and [00:24:00] his. I'm gonna say goodnight. Like I said, I'm here in Italy, so I will see you all next week and we've got another great topic coming your way. So chow, bye. One of the top things I hear from individuals all over, something people are increasingly wanting is people who say, I want more connection with like-minded colleagues.

If that resonates, I created a new community and you're invited to. It's an online gathering place for arts and culture professionals wanting a different, stronger paradigm for the industry. It's a place for those not satisfied with the status quo for arts and culture who believe there is a better way forward, and that the future of the field doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

It's a place of people trying to navigate the ins and outs of careers in the arts and want smart growth mindset type people alongside. It's a place called the changing the narrative community. I'm so excited by the folks who've already joined, and no matter your artistic discipline, geographic location, role, or [00:25:00] years in the field, you are welcome and invited as well.

Visit aubrey Bergauer dot com slash community. The narrative is changing, and I hope to see you there soon. That's all for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening and keep up with more content like this by following me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Aubrey Bergauer. Definitely hit that follow button to subscribe to this podcast, and if you like what you heard here, will you consider leaving a review or rating?

I'd be so grateful for your help and support in. Thanks again. See you next time on the Offstage Mic. The Offstage Mic was produced by me, Aubrey Bergauer and edited by Novo Music, a studio of all women, audio engineers and musicians. The narrative is changing for arts and culture, and I'm so glad you're here to be a part of it.

This is a production of changing the [00:26:00] narrative.