A Bold Reframe for Non-Profits
A bold reframe for nonprofits: “You are not begging for money. People want to make a difference. You enable them to do that. You create value that people are willing to pay for.”
Lots of great insights from my conversation with John Mark Vanderpool of Social Impact Solutions during our Impact Stories podcast – here are a few take-aways:
• There’s two primary drivers for funders to give: the impact data that you share and the stories of transformation you tell.
• Most organizations are underrepresenting the good that they’re doing because they aren’t looking broadly enough.
• Just by changing the tone of emails to position the donors as the hero, they helped their client’s email open rates go from 9% to 60%.
• Focus on outcomes, not outputs when measuring impact data. Not just what you did, but what were the end results.
Take the quiz to see how you fare – www.FundraisingQuiz.org
Podcast Transcript
Jacob: [00:00:00] All right, I’m here with John Mark with Social Impact Solutions, and let me have you introduce yourself.
John: Jacob, thank you so much for having me. John Mark Vanderpool from Social Impact Solutions. One of the co-founders, we help organizations measure and market their social impact.
Jacob: How do you actually measure and use that to market?
There are a lot of different tools, metrics, and things out there. Explain what you mean by that.
John: There are two primary drivers for funders to give. And those are the impact data that you share. So the social impact that your organization creates as well as the stories of transformation that you share.
And so when you marry those two ideas together, not only are you proving that you’re doing real good in the world, and that’s the number one reason, right? The nonprofit space and really the social good space is heading, is being much more data-driven and caring about the actual outcomes of the programs that your nonprofit has, which is super exciting.
Jacob: Can you give me a good example of a time you helped take that data for a client or what those transformational [00:01:00] stories and the impact data combined that really made a difference?
John: I’ve got a myriad of different examples going through my brain, so I’ll grab one real quick. When you think about on its most basic level, a theory of change or a logic model, which a lot of people know, but a lot of people are not aware of what the theory of change is. And it’s the whole idea, again, using the word thesis, like this is our thesis to create the social good that our organization exists to create. And so you start off with what is that outcome that we want for the people or the cause that we serve. We want to reduce people experiencing homelessness by X percent. We want to provide housing for this many people. So you have outcomes beneath that, you have something called outputs. It’s not really where you want to end up. You want to end up really focusing on the outcomes for the people or cause that you serve. But most people see these numeric metrics like the number of people served this week or this month, or the number of water wells drilled.
The reality is that all nonprofit efforts are a remarkable amount of work, [00:02:00] but the work that matters most is really the outcomes that you create. And so when we think about it’s one thing to say we drilled a thousand water wells. It’s another thing to say we’ve provided clean water for this entire region, right? When we have clean water, a reduction in disease, there’s all sorts of remarkable followup impacts that occur when people have access to clean water.
When you start to track outcomes. What you’re able to do, and if anyone is listening to this that’s in marketing and development, this is what they’re dying for, right? Marketing development officers want to be able to tell donors the good work that they’re doing, that the donors are doing by giving to the organization. And so that really is supercharging the engine that is your development acquisition team, right? That really is the whole goal, reminding donors of the good work that they’re doing by providing them with the data that they want to see in the first place, right? They want to see the impact data and they want to hear stories of transformation. So you put that into email campaigns, social media campaigns, your impact [00:03:00] report, bring your annual report and your impact report. These are killer places to absolutely place that kind of information.
Jacob: From your experience, how often is it the case that they have the exact data that you need to help tell those stories?
John: It really depends on the organization, but what I can say with confidence is that most organizations underrepresent the value they create. That’s typically the case. And I want to say that again, most organizations are underrepresenting the good that they’re doing. And that’s for a myriad of reasons, right? They’ve been, they’re too close to it.
Number one, they’re so close to the problem. It’s hard for them to detach, sit back, and see the good work that’s done because it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to create these outcomes. When it comes to tracking the outcomes. It really is a conversation around culture and sort of digital maturity.
If you’re tracking outputs, the leap to tracking outcomes is not too far. Now it’s a different kind of metric to track and it requires different [00:04:00] types of quality control, but it’s not a huge jump. Where it becomes a big jump is we’re not tracking anything and we don’t even know where to start. But the beautiful thing about the day and the age that we live in, this is so easy now, right? It’s so easy to get started. If you have access to Google Suite or Google Drive, you can get started, right? There’s just so many wonderful tools that exist. The beautiful thing with technology today is it’s cheap. It’s readily available. And you look at the ubiquity of 5G around the world, we predominantly work with organizations that are international firms that work in very austere conditions.
And so tracking impact in that world has become so much easier, where if you’re an organization that’s in the States or in Western Europe, it’s a walk in the park to really go. It still requires work, but it’s not the same kind of Herculean task that it used to be.
Jacob: You said that most organizations are underreporting the good that they’re doing, and there’s a pervasiveness of greenwashing or somewhat overrepresenting the good that you’re doing or [00:05:00] misrepresenting that you’re green when you’re not really green.
So impact washing, greenwashing. How do you respond to that?
John: That absolutely occurs. So I don’t want to just throw out there that everything’s fine and dandy. With the firms that we’ve worked with, the nonprofits that we’ve worked with, I would say nine times out of 10, they’re underrepresenting their value. And it’s because They don’t see the long-term effects of their programs.
I’ll just use an example. This is an organization that works through school systems and all they were reporting on, and they’ve been doing this for 30 years at this point. All they were reporting on an annual basis were the new schools that they had started working with. So, Hey, we started working with 500 schools this year, but the way that their program was designed, they had a three-year onboarding process, and then they kept tabs on those programs as time went by.
They sort of work themselves out of a job during that three year time period, but they still collect data, they still provide value, they still provide resources in perpetuity. And so they were saying, oh yeah, we work with [00:06:00] 500 schools every single year. And it’s not the reality, it’s 500 new schools every year for 30 years. And so it’s not like they’re just touching the lives of X amount of students. It’s massively misrepresenting the real work that they’ve been doing, like an order of magnitude difference.
How would a funder view the impact that’s being created? And funders really think more like investors. When you really boil it down. I’m going to make an X thousand-dollar investment in this organization, but instead of a financial return on investment, I want a social return on investment. They want to see that social return and oftentimes that social return far exceeds what was invested. And that’s really important to define that mix.
Jacob: So there’s the data side and then the stories of transformation. Tell me more about that.
John: I’m preaching to the choir over here with that, with you on this, Jacob, because you understand the power of stories probably better than the vast majority.
What’s [00:07:00] so fun? You can just sort of put your Shark Tank lens on when we’re talking about what is the problem that the organization solves. Right. If we can be very clear with that problem, and then really quantify that problem. What is the primary issue that your organization stands against, right? You stand for things, but you also stand against things, and then you lay out the plan that your organization has to solve that problem. And then casting that vision for what these individuals’ lives look like now versus what is the world going to look like if we’re able to raise more money and 10 X, the number of people that we’re going to work with. So it really is that story arc of problem plan solution.
But the trick, as I know you understand, is that we’ve got to really include the donor in this story, including the funder in the story. Without it, it’s just great, we did this wonderful work. Mission accomplished, but oftentimes the mission is not accomplished. These are huge problems that businesses are not really designed to solve. These are problems that [00:08:00] nonprofits are designed to solve. So we need external funding moving forward.
Jacob: You and your organization, who do you focus on?
John: That’s a great question. So we keep it about 50/50 mix between nonprofits and for profits. With the nonprofits that we work with, they’re typically in human services, environmental causes, similar to that.
In the for profit space, it can be anything from leadership development, which most people might not think about leadership development and social impact, but it’s truly remarkable what happens when you invest in leaders, as well as investing firms, right? So these are more like private equity firms that are trying to invest and create substantial change, whether that be in the States or around the world, because they’re all trying to create a difference.
And that, I think the word impact is overused and can mean a lot of things. What we’re talking about is a social impact or a social change.
Jacob: Share with me some of your success stories.
John: I’ll use two examples that are very top of mind. It’s very common for nonprofits to lose funding because they’re not tracking impact data.
[00:09:00] Typically from larger family foundations or any type of granting organization. If you’re not producing impact data, don’t be surprised if your funders leave. That’s just, that’s their world that we’re living in now, and this particular client had lost substantial funders that everyone would be familiar with simply because they weren’t tracking the data.
We started working with their team. We put their impact initiative underway. They returned to some of these funders, said, Hey, this is what we’re doing. They promised a very significant sum of money, but not only did that money come in, the funders got together and they doubled the amount of investment that they had previously chosen to do because they knew there was impact to be measured.
So people want to enable this type of work, people are like, oh man, no one cares about impact data. It’s what your funders are looking for. It’s what millennials are looking for. Gen Z is looking for it. Corporate partners. Absolutely. Corporate partners and granting organizations together. And then when we just talk about from a marketing standpoint, if you just want to talk about email open rates. Just by changing the tone to [00:10:00] positioning the donors as the heroes of the story and reminding the donors the good work that they are doing by funding the organization.
We had one client whose open rate was hovering around 9%, so ghastly low, really low. And over the course of 9 to 12 months open rates climbed up to 60% simply by using stories of transformation and impact data. But also it’s worth reiterating, making the donor the hero of the story. And it’s not that your constituents are not the hero of the story. I want to be very clear. These are different conversations that need to work in parallel, but we do need to remind our funders how important and integral they are to this story and that’s what’s really important to take away.
We really do need to look at whether it’s a nonprofit or whether it’s a business that we’re working with. You are being seen like an investment. You are being evaluated like an investment, not from, Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, exactly. But not too far off. And so people want to see the difference that they are making.
Let’s just use a [00:11:00] nonprofit example. If you’re asking for $10,000, $500, whatever amount from a donor, you’ve got to go above and beyond and tell them why that’s worthwhile. No longer can we get away with it, because it’s the right thing to do, right? We can’t do that anymore. Or because you’re going to hear more happy little stories like this that you’ve used in the past. Just talk about the social change that you’re creating. Talk about the difference that you’re creating in these people’s lives or in advancing the cause.
Jacob: List for me, the services you provide.
John: Absolutely, so we do impact strategy sessions where we really do camp out on the impact that your organization already creates or hopes to create. You don’t already have to have impact data and everything like that. We can help you start from scratch. And so we start off with impact strategy, but we also do growth strategy, right? And the important thing to take away is. You should be rewarded for doing the extra work for measuring your impact, right? There should be a reward for it. It’s not just compliance. This is really important. So we do marry the two [00:12:00] impact strategy and growth strategy.
And then we just help you develop your theory of change, develop your marketing efforts, improve your email copywriting websites, more of the digital marketing agency side, but with a bend towards helping you raise money, right? We help you measure your impact and market your impact for the purpose of raising more money.
You have something that people need. You being a nonprofit, you have the ability for people to make an impact. We are value creating organizations, just like businesses are. We can go out and create substantial good, you have something really powerful that other people want to fund. It just needs to be positioned the right way and presented to the right audience appropriately. You’re not begging for money. People want to make a difference. You enable them to do that, and that’s really exciting.
Jacob: If people want to learn more about impact data and stories of transformation, what resources can you point them to?
John: Absolutely. So we have a fundraising quiz so it’s fundraisingquiz.org for our nonprofit [00:13:00] folks, it’s a two and a half minute quiz won’t take you very long. Ask you about 12, 15 different questions about your impact measurement, about your marketing, about how clearly you’re communicating, as well as some other fundraising capabilities baked in there that gives you a score, but then it also just gives you a free report on how to improve those things. And then we’ve added in a free course that goes along with it as well. That will also lead you to our newsletter. It’s the nonprofit post where organizations can just, again, take free content and raise more money with it. We take it very seriously and our goal is just to give away as much value driven content as we possibly can to do that.
We also have a blog that socialimpactsolutions.com where we write a lot of, a lot more in depth articles on, how to take these ideas and use them for yourself.
Jacob: Thanks for all that you do and keep up the good work.
John: Jacob, thank you. And definitely appreciate being here and all the good work that you’re doing as well. I appreciate it a lot.
Learn more about ISSIMO Story Agency Here