Taking a Snapshot of 2022, to Inform your 2023 with Steve Lausch and Sarah Sebastian

In today's episode of Talking Shizzle🎙️, host Taylor Shanklin and trusty side kick WillBill sit down with Steve Lausch and Sarah Sebastian from the organization OneCause. The conversation is electric⚡! The Creative Shizzle Team hits a home run ⚾ here with this snapshot of information from 2022, which can heavily lead into your 2023 planning and strategy. Introductions first though-

Steve Lausch is the Director of Product Marketing, serving as a nexus for senior Product, Marketing, and Sales leadership. In addition to his 6 years of fundraising tech experience, Steve has served in various marketing capacities in Automotive Retail CRM & Martech. And -- Sarah Sebastian is the Director of Corporate Communications at OneCause. She’s a marketer and brand geek at heart with eight years of experience in the nonprofit tech space. Outside of work, Sarah can be found reading, hiking, kayaking, and getting lost in the woods while photographing birds.

OneCause focuses on fundraising and marketing, and how they use data to help guide their planning. Steve, Sarah and Taylor talk about the importance of planning, fundraising, and marketing for the upcoming year, and provide guidance on how to use the data uncovered in the annual report to make the most informed decisions. The OneCause Annual Nonprofit Survey and Fundraising Outlook Report has been conducted for five years, and the report is being released for the third year. 900 unique nonprofit voices spoke into the survey, ranging from completely volunteer-led organizations to large national organizations. 28% of respondents were executive directors, 31% were development vice presidents, and the rest were event directors. The survey data is meaningful, as over 80% of respondents influence technology purchases for their respective nonprofits. The goal of the survey and report is to get a snapshot of the nonprofit world and provide meaningful data that can be used to help nonprofits. Find out more about the annual report adn the MOST important details to takeaway in today's chat plus way more, like;

📌 Overview of OneCause.

📌 Summary of One Cause's 2022 Nonprofit Trends Report.

📌 Analyzing the 2022 Fundraising Report to Inform Future Actions.

📌 Key Report Findings & Takeaways.

📌 The Events Space in 2023 and What it Looks Like.

📌 Benefits of Hybrid Events for Nonprofits

Get in touch with Steve and Sarah to talk about the Annual Report;
📌 TWITTER: https://twitter.com/stevelausch

📌 LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-sebastian-b3533614/

📌 LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevelausch/

📌 LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/onecause/

Or Reach Out to Steve & Sarah Professionally for Assistance;

🔗 WEBSITE: https://www.onecause.com

And Here is a Link to Download The Annual Report:

🔗 https://www.onecause.com/ebook/2023-fundraising-outlook-report/

Transcript

Taylor Shanklin  0:03  
Hey, hey, hey, talking shizzle listeners. You know, it's always been important for me to align our business with other companies and individuals who share our values, especially those who share a deep commitment to serving nonprofits and social impact. So for that reason, I'm super excited to announce our very first season to sponsor Kyla Kyla is a fundraising and donor management CRM that is built specifically for nonprofits by nonprofit professionals. These folks really get it. Their mission is to empower nonprofits to deepen relationships, retain donors, and raise more for their cause. A several of our clients and partners use Keela and have continued to be impressed by just how easy Keela is to use, how affordable it is, and most importantly, the results they see using the platform. The Keela team is also phenomenal to work with. They are super friendly guys, and they have a continuous commitment to equity and inclusion. Now, go check them out. We got a special offer for you as Season Two sponsor of the talking shows or podcasts. Keila is offering our listeners and community 40% off their first year subscription tequila 40% You guys. That is a lot of shizzle. Think about all the other shizzle you can get done by saving that money on your nonprofit CRM. Plus, if you have under 250 records, you can get access to the keyless starter program for free. So if you are interested in learning more and booking a demo, go to keelah.co/partners/creativeshizzle.com

Hey, hey, how are you lovely people out there. You've got a lot going on in your day with big dreams and big goals for your world. Are you ready to talk some shizzle and learn some shizzle from leading entrepreneurs, changemakers coaches and overall interesting people who like to shake things up. I'm your host Taylor Shanklin, CEO and founder of creative shizzle and I am stoked to bring you a fresh episode of talking shizzle today, this show is all about helping you think differently so that you can grow. Talking chisel is brought to you by our team at Creative shizzle where we help businesses, entrepreneurs, and social good innovators make amazing marketing shizzle happen. Check us out on the web at Creative shizzle.com Now, let's talk some shizzle Hello, hello and welcome everybody to a new episode of talking shizzle where we get into the real stuff, the real deal. And today we're here with Steve Lausch and Sarah Sebastian. Some very, very good friends of ours from one cause. What's up, guys?

Steve Lausch  3:19  
Hey, 

Sarah Sebastian  3:20  
thanks for having us.

Steve Lausch  3:22  
Great to be here.

Taylor Shanklin  3:23  
It's good to see you. Side Kick Will, Bill's on the line. We got sidekick. Will, what's up? Will,

Will Novelli  3:29  
Not much. Not much is 2023 years looking great so far.

Taylor Shanklin  3:34  
Yeah, I don't know what's going on 2023. But I feel like here's what happened. We had Christmas. And then we had new years. And then like one week happened. And I feel like we're already two months down the road. You know, like, I'm like, wait a second. Where's the holiday spirit where I'd be like, this thing?

Sarah Sebastian  3:55  
I still have my Christmas tree app if that helps. Yeah, totally do.

Taylor Shanklin  4:01  
That does help. Thank you. I'm glad you shared that with us.

Steve Lausch  4:06  
100% candor here, you know?

Taylor Shanklin  4:11  
Because I'm just like, Whoa, are

we in March already? Or something? Like I don't know where? Where the year has gone. But I'm excited to talk to you guys today about outlooks. Where are we going? Right, we're at the beginning of 2023. You guys at one cause just put out your annual report, where you're gonna give us a lot more juice on like what you found in your data, what's coming. So we're gonna talk about that and give people some guidance on what they should be thinking about in regards to planning and fundraising and marketing by digging into the data with you all so let's get started with give us a quick rundown on who you are. What's what cars about and let's start with Steve.

Steve Lausch  4:55  
Well, I can give you a quick overview. I got into the nonprofit world not quite six years ago, and it's been an awesome journey. Prior to that entered technology at the age of, I don't know, 25, something like that. I got into this world of automotive retail technology. Now doesn't that sound boring, but basically everything that a dealership needs operate website, marketing, CRM, all that good stuff. Yeah, I don't want cars have the privilege of serving as the Director of Product Marketing here. And part of my opportunity there is to geek out on data. And we'll talk about the angel nonprofit survey that that feels this report that is the subject of our time today. So, Sara,

Sarah Sebastian  5:41  
thank you. I'll give you a bit of background on myself. And I'll tell you some about one cause I am the Director of Corporate Communications at one cause I joined the company in April of last year. Prior to that I worked for another fundraising tech provider in the industry for about seven and a half years, I have a background as a teacher, a technical writer. And then I moved into marketing as a technical writer for fundraising software, so kind of a weird little journey to get where I am. And then just quickly telling everybody about one cause we are a software as a service company that provides digital fundraising solutions for nonprofits to improve the giving experience, help them raise more money for their missions. We build technology that optimizes everyday generosity and makes it easier for nonprofits to fundraise and for their supporters to give. We've been around since 2008. In a former life, the company was known as bid pal. So if you're familiar with that name, that's us. And that kind of came around our origin story. We were one of the first to market in the US with Mobile Bidding tools. And we've helped more than 10,000 nonprofits raise about $5 million for their missions. And we work with folks of all sizes, from small shops to large organizations like Human Rights Campaign JDRF, national orcs like March of Dimes, and Arthritis Foundation. So all sizes are welcome. We scale with everybody.

Taylor Shanklin  6:58  
as awesome as Steve, I remember you and I first met right after like you were pretty new in your job at one cause.

Steve Lausch  7:06  
It was at AFP. I remember, I remember jumping into this whole new beautiful world of nonprofits, and specifically nonprofit fundraising. And you were like one of the first celebrities I met, giving your big session and AFP and then we connected afterward. Yeah, it's been it's been great.

Taylor Shanklin  7:26  
Well, it's been cool to see you, over the years, continue to like, evolve and learn more, because I remember Yeah, you told me about like what you were in, in the automotive industry before I was like, there's nothing like this. start drinking from a firehose and you have it like, it's been really cool to watch you and see you at conferences and just catch up from time to time and see that progression.

Steve Lausch  7:49  
Thank you. It's been a it's been a wonderful ride. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's such a fulfilling place to be. And you know, there's nothing wrong with helping sell one more car, I suppose. But you know, the things we get to do, and our efforts go and get multiplied by amazing nonprofits that feed and educate, protect and grow and just make the world a better place it makes for Yeah, it's been a good ride. So alright, well, let's

Taylor Shanklin  8:15  
learn a little bit more about this outlook report. Give us the who the what the wind, the why the history, what can we learn from this new and latest report?

Steve Lausch  8:29  
Yeah, so a little background, and then we can dive into the fun meat of the data. But we've been serving the nonprofit world at one cause, really, for years. But this is the fifth day, our fifth year rather, fifth year of developing it into its current size. And as as I mentioned a little earlier, this is our annual nonprofit survey, that we execute it one cause. And that's what fuels the fundraising outlook report, which is what we're talking about today. And this is the third year releasing that data. We put the survey in market, we start it and launch it at our annual raise conference. That's usually roughly in market for about a month. So mid September to mid October is when nonprofits are interacting with this survey. And maybe just a quick snapshot would be helpful for your listeners, we have roughly 900 unique nonprofit voices that have spoken into this survey this year. So all shapes, all sizes, different segments. We have some that are completely volunteer led, we have some that roll all the way up to the national and large organizations are various annual operating revenues, we track to understand trends at different levels of the nonprofit world. So some other fun stats that I might throw out there is that we track or we're intentional about tracking who is answering so we have 20% that are executive directors. We have 31% that are dev directors or development, vice presidents. And then we get smattering of event directors and so we get the right people and they have the right role in technology so that this is actually meaningful and helpful data for nonprofits. Right? So the large majority over 80% influence at some level technology purchases for their nonprofit. So it really is a great snapshot of where the nonprofit world is, and meaningful but all that's the what I would say the why behind the survey, and the fundraising outlook report is really equally as meaningful. Maybe just to sum that up in two quick words, I think if, if your listeners are listening today, and they're saying, Why should I download, download this report, it's helpful to inform us and to encourage us what I mean by that, it informs us of what is going on in a snapshot of today. 2022, this is when this the survey was taken and the research came out. But then the trends year over year, so helpful to longitudinal studies of 21 and 2020. And even before those crazy years, 2019 and even beyond, but I would say Secondly, Taylor, the encouragement is the reminder that I'm part of this universe of nonprofit thinkers and professionals and fundraisers. And so it's just encouraging to see what others are doing. The alternative is you would have to have a lot of coffee, virtual coffees, with people to get this kind of insight. And just think of this as kind of a cheat sheet that we pulled together here at one cause to share with nonprofits and kind of take that top down look at what they're challenged by and whether they're prioritizing in 2023. So, sir, anything to add to that?

Sarah Sebastian  11:46  
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. In addition to the information, the encouragement for folks, I just wanted to kind of give a sneak preview, one of the topics that we will be chatting about is that there's a lot of data out there, and we know it can be overwhelming. And one of the goals of the report was to really gather all of the relevant data, put it into a digestible format that's conducive to easily forming insights, because we know that can be a challenge. It's hard to take a bunch of data from a lot of different sources and actually do something with it. So we've taken the step to make that easy, and included some suggestions on how to actually use the data to help with planning with fundraising strategy as well.

Taylor Shanklin  12:25  
I'm looking at it right now, while we're talking about it. And what's good about it, when I'll say a couple of things. I mean, we as an agency often get questions from our clients. What's the industry doing? How do we stack up because we're looking at their data with them, but in this very myopic? Well, this is your data. But you know, organizations we work with are constantly wanting to understand like how do we stack up in terms of like industry benchmarks. So it's great to have people like you who will like you've got the resources to pull all the data together, and then give us information. What I think is insightful about this report is it covers so many different areas of fundraising from online giving to events, to tickets to peer to peer to golf outings, people ask me sometimes a golf outing still working, I don't know, this report might tell you virtual peer to peer memorials dance Athan, so like yellow, really covering a very wide range of types of giving. And I think that's one thing that's great about it, and then also really pointing out what kinds of giving are showing themselves to be rather successful, and what showing themselves to not be as successful right now. So I like I'm looking at this one page, page eight, you know, 2022 fundraising success. And you've got this bar chart that's showing, you know, the success rate of different types of fundraising. And that can help guide people like what you said, you know, Steve, like, how do I take data and then use it to actually implement? So maybe let's get there? How do you really pull the story out of a report like this to inform and take action on what to do, you know, as we look out into the future of 2023,

Steve Lausch  14:12  
perhaps the best way to do that is just work through some of these key findings and the report is written in such a friendly way. It is not deep and heavy. And as you're alluding to Taylor, it's it's very visual, and it helps to pull a story in just a handful of key findings. That's the way the report is set up and started a brilliant job publishing it that writing and publishing it that way. But if that works, we could dive into those even today.

Taylor Shanklin  14:40  
Yeah, what were like any specific findings that really stood out for you Sarah, as you put in this, you know, digesting all the information yourself and then figuring out how can I put this into a meaningful format? What were some things that really stuck out at you

Sarah Sebastian  14:55  
probably just start and this is going to sound like a well yeah, no doubt. But there's Some data when we dug into looking at nonprofits by size, so stay with me, obviously, event and online fundraising revenue are remaining incredibly vital to nonprofit success. And in 2022, we took a look at the stats and about 95% of folks held at least one online campaign that's still strong compared to last year. And then 93% had at least one event in 2022. So ultimately, folks, we're not thrown by events of the past three years, things are coming back strong people are getting back to in person, about half of the nonprofits that we did, survey said that they raise 21% or more of their annual operating revenue from online and event fundraising. And when we did dig a little bit deeper there, we saw that a quarter of nonprofits were raising 41% or more of their annual operating revenue from event and online fundraising. And you touched on all of those different types of events, we did ask what types of events people held, and the most popular in 2022? At a high level were events with auctions, and then registration or those donation only events without auctions. So this is kind of the like, yes, we know revenues. This is what drives revenue, it makes up a chunk of folks budgets. But it was interesting to look and see exactly how much was made up. And then within the report, you'll see that we did dive in and look at folks, success rates and their budget rates broken down by their revenue bands. So there's a lot of data in there to look at to kind of benchmark yourself against. For the second key finding we want to touch on Steve, you want to talk about maybe the next one a

Steve Lausch  16:32  
little Yeah, absolutely. I love this one. So the second key finding is that in person events we're making in 2022, a strong showing and they will make even stronger showing in 2023. And the additional side to that key finding is that nonprofits are remaining mindful of donor preferences by keeping hybrid concept to their event, remembering that virtual audience. So let me kind of back up a little bit and look at 2022, for context. So we asked how nonprofits built their event, how supporters participated in those events in 2022. And we found that 1/3 of all events were only in person, only in person, which I pause there a little bit. Because if we look back in the rearview mirror, not too far behind us, there were years where we weren't right, there were months at least where we weren't even conceiving of an in person event. And so for 1/3 of nonprofits to say, hey, we do an only in person events, that's huge. Now 9% Did virtual only 4% actually said, Hey, we are still holding off on events. There are various reasons for that. And frankly, some perhaps good reasons for that. The here's the number that I love Taylor 56%, or hybrid events. So again, leading to that key finding that in person components are coming back in a big way in person events coming back in a big way. But they're not doing so forgetting that virtual audience, which is going to be absolutely critical. Again, comparing back to what the donor says is important to them. The nonprofits are listening. And so for 2023 Here's the other big, big stat. And, sir, I know this gets this one particularly is of interest to you. But how many of the following fundraising events do you plan to hold in 2023 83% of nonprofits said that they plan to hold at least one in person event. Now, this data was captured in middle of September of last year. And they were that confident that they could say, hey, we will hold at least one in person event next year, 83% of them had that level of confidence. So I know this is this is something that you've brought out in our conversations, there

Sarah Sebastian  18:53  
was a big change in confidence levels, we did measure that and checked out what the change was nonprofits who said they were undecided about holding in person events dropped to 8%. This year, compared to 20%. And last year survey, so big change, people are feeling a lot better about getting back out there and getting in person with their events. And I do think it's important to highlight that 56% of folks who held hybrid events and 2020 to 32% holding those in person events. And then there's that continuation 2023 45%. So that said they'll be having those hybrid events. Again, our spring research study that we do the giving experience. 56% of event donors said they wanted virtual options. They are telling nonprofits, that's what they would like to see, whatever the reason may be, and it's just really nice to see that nonprofits are listening to what donors are saying about how they want to engage with these nonprofits through a fence. Yeah, I'm curious

Taylor Shanklin  19:49  
to lean into that hybrid thing a little bit more one, a couple of thoughts and takeaways on what you guys are sharing. I think people are just finally at a space where they're like, We need human interaction, we're ready to actually engage in that way again, and we're comfortable with it. And we're just in this mode of like, life as we know it now. So we're gonna do it, which I think is good, too. But we're gonna give people options. So I'm curious about that option. And donors are asking for and nonprofits are listening. And that's fantastic. What are some of the experiences that you are seeing now with hybrid events that are working? Well, I know this goes a little bit outside of the data in the report, but you'll do so much of that work at one cause I'm curious to hear like, what's working in the world of a hybrid, because I think that's going to be a continued conversation in this 2023 outlook as well.

Sarah Sebastian  20:46  
I think something that can be daunting and will help as people are planning to realize these can be successful without going all in with over the top media production to make your virtual audiences, you know, think this is a razzle dazzle experience, it doesn't mean you have to put in so much extra work to provide a virtual option and make an event hybrid, if you are clear and upfront about you know what your virtual option does entail if it's just as simple Hey, we're gonna livestream this so you don't miss out, if you don't want to make the three hour drive, or you have something preventing you from being able to leave the house. That's kind of an important piece. Like, it doesn't have to be big, big production, you can just say, yep, we're gonna livestream this so you have access to it. And that's a big piece of hybrid, that is working well as promoting it as something that is providing accessibility for people, and including audiences that may have been excluded from these experiences before. And we found a lot of that in our research as well. So if you want to get complex, great, you're having a huge Gala, and you want to make it a production. Wonderful. But there's I think there's a misconception that it has to be difficult when you're producing a hybrid event. It doesn't have to be but we do understand that that can be difficult. We had our conference last year raise and it was hybrid. We know there's a lot of work that goes into it. So

Steve Lausch  22:05  
well. And Sarah, if I may, that's a great example. Because raise was not necessarily hybrid start to finish. And so to your point, hybrid has taken on so many different colors and variations. And, and so Taylor, it's probably, I'm glad this has actually surfaced in our conversation today. Because we didn't define what hybrid meant. We actually asked this question in terms of partial in person, audience, partial virtual audience, so that the word hybrid, which has so many different iterations to it, and variations to it, it didn't trip up the response from nonprofits. But that's the beauty of it. If you want to throw your your live auction, or your appeal, you know, into a virtual audience great do that. It doesn't mean you have to start the camera from the time that the ballroom doors open.

Taylor Shanklin  22:56  
Yeah, I love that hybrid can be what you want it to be. I like that you didn't, nobody has really defined it clearly. And I think that's because it can be so many different things. It is what I would consider an agile and flexible experience. And you as an organization or a company can determine how our based on our audience and what we're trying to do with our event like what's the goal of the event in general? And then how do we build the hybrid event experience around that and around the audience. And so I think it could be different for different organizations and companies.

Sarah Sebastian  23:37  
Yeah, you talking about building it around the audience, I have seen examples of like gaming events where folks will meet up and some folks will be gaming in person. And then there will be digital versions where people are collaborating online if they couldn't make it to meet up in person, so that it's still qualifies as a hybrid event. There's an in person and an online element, but it's not necessarily what you would typically think of as a hybrid event. So I love that.

Taylor Shanklin  24:00  
We just had our first in person, company event here in the mountains will and we had like an account management team retreat. And I guess you could say, well, it was hybrid, because we were sending like videos to other people on the team.

Will Novelli  24:18  
Yeah, I mean, shout out the team. It was a great time, it was a great retreat. Definitely was a hybrid of that. Send them videos. We should have went live more though, now that we're talking about it.

Taylor Shanklin  24:29  
I know, right? Yeah, exactly. Like we got the people on the East Coast together who could easily get together from a travel perspective. And then other people on our team had a retreat earlier in the year. And then they sent us a bunch of videos and things like that. So we felt like we were there. So even when we think about hybrid events within the context of internal events for your nonprofit, you know, you can think about how do we pull people together? Who are not going To be able to be there in the office or in person, I think there's a lot of different ways for organizations and executive directors and leadership to be thinking about how do we think about hybrid, not just in the context of events and fundraising, but also in the context of internal marketing, internal development, you know, that sort of a thing. So that's a different topic. Too far. Too far off course, sometimes

I do that people will like, stay with us, Taylor,

come on. All right. Did anything stay the same? You guys have been doing this report now for a while? Is there anything that's just trending on a line of sameness right now?

Steve Lausch  25:40  
That is a great question. I think that takes us into the land of challenges. And we've asked nonprofits to rate various challenges, I believe we've tried to keep somewhere around 12 to 13, similar challenges. That would be rated year over year, so we can track this trend. And, sir, maybe we can dive into that a little bit more. But I'll give this one kind of overarching theme. If you take the average of the relative rating of those who say, a particular challenge is critical problem that I need to solve, or it is definitely a concern. And you look at that rating across all challenges in a given year, every year is getting tougher. And I guess there's some ways Taylor or I would have thought or hoped that it would be getting easier after 2020. But it is the reality of the data that's coming in. And again, we're talking hundreds of nonprofits speaking into this. And so things like donor fatigue and donor engagement and recurring giving all the way to board dynamics and staff turnover. So I think we had 13 different challenges that were rated this year. So again, that year over year, relative level of intensity is getting stronger. But the good news is that the heart of the nonprofit beat strong. And we've always worked through it. But Sarah, there's probably some things we you want to you want to highlight in terms of those challenges, because that's a great year over year study that that work same year over year for us.

Sarah Sebastian  27:18  
Yeah, I think the thinking about what stayed the same, yes, the pandemic is still affecting organizations, I mean, still going on, we're in the dead of winter right now. And people are seeing these case numbers going back up again, it feels like it's never gonna go away. But we did see a change there. challenges related to planning around the pandemic saw a very big drop in this year's report. Don't get me wrong, we're not saying it's not a challenge. So 71% of folks reported that it still is. But it did drop from number one, all the way down to number 10 In the list of those 13 challenges. So at least there's some relief that's being seen in the data here. So that was a good thing. We saw some of those donor related challenges that Steve just mentioned those rows up to the top of the list. So donor engagement, donor fatigue, donor retention, were all in the top four, recurring giving was also a top challenge there for organizations. And then for this, I think Steve already touched on when we looked at this view of challenges, we looked at folks who rated it as critical, definitely a concern, somewhat a problem, and lump those together to get that rating. And there's a nice chart in the report, we can kind of see all of that read it out.

Steve Lausch  28:24  
Yeah, there's a lot of data in this section. And so that chart is going to be helpful. So Taylor, for your listeners, I'm imagining, like throwing out the the data points, which there are a lot of them in this section may be a little overwhelming to capture via audio, but downloading the report will be really helpful to seeing it laid out. And I think nonprofits will be able to look at that particular page and feel like Hey, I dial into this, like this makes sense. To me. This is where we are,

Taylor Shanklin  28:51  
yeah, all of these things are common challenges that we hear to and look to help solve with strategy, you know, based on what what we're seeing in these data challenges. So all very familiar things, nothing that's like surprising here and in regards to that, left to wrap it up with a bow by saying, Okay, we've talked about some of the, you know, high level insights that the report gave us. We've talked about some trends, we've talked about some data challenges, what do we do with it? Let's talk about priorities for 2023. And in there, let's give people something to take away and say okay, I just listened to this. I downloaded the report. What do I do next?

Steve Lausch  29:38  
Yeah, I love it. We try to be very actionable when we go from section to section in the report as to what we do with this but I would say for 2023. The clearest signal that this data is pointing us to is that we are seeing this return to in person events at some level. Okay, we touched on this in key finding number two But some level of impersonal event whether that's completely in person, whether that's hybrid, but market wide, this seems to be where the donors are wanting to be engaged. Now, again, there's that hybrid component, where some are gonna say, hey, don't forget me, for one reason or another, I need to or prefer to be at home. But that's what donors are saying. But likewise, across the nonprofit world, this is what fundraising strategy and the supporting technology that nonprofit organizations are there one reporting the greatest number of success, if you look at the success, key finding that we're also seeing that that nonprofits are hitting their fundraising goals, or meeting or excuse me, or exceeding their fundraising goals, when an in person component is present in their event. So the takeaway here is, if you are holding back if you're of that smaller group, that is, hey, we want to we want to live in the virtual world, if there is any possible way, certainly considering health, certainly considering strategy, certainly considering the unique qualities of your donor base. But if you can get back in person at some level and 2023, if perhaps you weren't able, in 2022. That's where nonprofits, nonprofits are seeing this the greatest success.

Taylor Shanklin  31:25  
So would you add anything else to that? Sure. Yeah.

Sarah Sebastian  31:28  
One thing that we didn't touch on yet, we did ask a question for the first time this year about access to data and the ability to form actionable insights. And this was kind of one of those surprise, but not surprise moments, again, until you actually see the numbers, that's when your jaw kind of drops. So when we did ask folks, if they had access to data, and if they could form actionable insights with it, only 18% of our respondents said that they had access to all of the data that they need, and that they use it to make decisions. We knew this, but then we saw the 18%, we were like, man, that that is a low number. And smaller nonprofits reported having even less access to that data. Again, not surprising, but you don't like to hear it.

Taylor Shanklin  32:09  
So that means let's pause on that for a second. That means 82% of people of the 900 Plus organizations you surveyed, 82% said, we don't have access to data.

Steve Lausch  32:23  
Sarah, that sounds like us when we first saw that. Oh, my God,

Taylor Shanklin  32:29  
like I know it's a problem. But good gravy.

Sarah Sebastian  32:33  
There's a breakdown there that I know Steve has the numbers for because it's not everyone doesn't have the access, it's that they don't know what to do with it.

Steve Lausch  32:40  
Yeah, a lot of them have some data or frankly, even have a lot of data. But 26% said they just don't have time to stop informed the insights. And like another one out of five said, I don't know where to start. I don't I don't know how to form an actionable insight that's gonna, you know, even if I have the time, I'm not sure quite sure where to start. So there is something here for I love that this topic came up, Sarah, thank you for bringing it up. Because Taylor as from strategists standpoint, and from us, certainly from a technology provider standpoint, there's some work that we need to do to help nonprofits not have to work so hard to arrive at those insights. And whether that's companies working with companies and integration, solution providers working to provide stronger integration. But it goes beyond that. Because it's not just connecting and then throwing out data, it's serving that up in a meaningful way. So we're finding at one cause that going from just reporting, I say that in air quotes, to real time, analytics and insights that then have a connected action is going to be most helpful to getting more of the 82% who say I don't have what I need into growing that 18% who believe that they have what they need to draw an actionable insight, and then do something about it.

Taylor Shanklin  34:06  
And I agree to clarify, I'm glad y'all brought this up, too. It's not necessarily that the data doesn't exist for them, it's that it's such a huge hot mess to understand. So like from an excessive when we even say the word use the word access in this context. It's about having access to time, having access to looking at the information in a meaningful way, having access to be able to actually understand it, and then figure out what to do with it. And that's the big thing. And what's what's been encouraging is there's a lot more of our you know, software partners in the space that are doing more with that right now. So I think nonprofits are starting to get more solutions to that where like, you guys are taking in the transactions helping to facilitate a lot of the transaction at the front end, right. And then now there's more partners in our The industry that are helping to say, what do you do with it? And then that's good for strategy firms like me that are like, cool. Now we'll go implement the marketing campaign that answers those, you know, that we can run based on those answers to that question and the data. But, you know, it takes time for people to progress in this field.

Sarah Sebastian  35:20  
Yeah, the like, what can you do you talked about, there's so much of it out there. My viewpoint, obviously, nonprofits are doing big jobs. And it can be tempting to say, I need to do something huge with this data that I have in front of me right now. There's too much, you've got to start small and focus in on one piece. And I know that can be a challenge. That's a challenge for me, sometimes I want to do the big thing. But I have to narrow my focus, pick one thing that I can change related to my goal. I've used an example of recurring giving that was effective with me, I had an organization reach out to me because I had given I think, like four or five times during the year, and they had gone through their database and looked for people that were giving four or five times a year, and they were targeting for recurring conversion. They gave me a call asked me if I wanted to become a recurring donor after going over my past giving history thanking me. And I was like, Yeah, sure, why not? I just never really thought about it. Because I would go on and give it an emotional moment or in response to something. So it was really effective. And they started with a small piece of data, and then use that to convert and boost their revenue. So start small.

Taylor Shanklin  36:27  
I love what a great tangible example. That is. All right, we've, we've talked about a lot here today. How do people go find you? How did they get the report? How did they show up at raise, hopefully, to see all of us there, and, you know, move things forward in their day to day kind of one baby step, right? What's the baby step to go find this report?

Sarah Sebastian  36:48  
Sure, just head to our website, one cause.com. And then forward slash research. And you will find this year's report along with reports from the past, if you wanted to compare data through the years Feel free. We do have a webinar on demand that Steve and I did together as well, that should be available on that page. podcasts, videos, infographics are available there as well. And then speaking of raise, registration is open. I think there's an early bird rate right now, which I can't pull out of the air, and I feel really bad about it. But it does end January 31. And our speaking submissions are also open until March 1. If anyone out there in the audience listening is interested in becoming a speaker at res, we would love to see your submission come through.

Steve Lausch  37:31  
And you can find all that at res dot one. cars.com.

Taylor Shanklin  37:35  
Awesome. Well, Steve, Sarah, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for your time today. Well, you got a Dad Joke to Close us out with.

Will Novelli  37:43  
Well I mean You guys. Were talking about data. You guys know why mommies are so good at protecting their data, right? 

Because it's encrypted!

Taylor Shanklin  37:59  
And that brings us to a wrap with a another episode of talking shizzle where we talk all sorts of shizzle so that you can go sizzle and move your business forward. We hope to see you next time folks. Have a great day. Well, hey there. That was fun. I love how much mind blowing and mind opening shizzle our guests bring to us with every episode. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. Make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast player so that you don't miss a beat of the talking shizzle podcast. And if you're listening on Apple, be sure to let us know what you thought and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from our listeners so that we can bring you all the good juicy Business Growth shizzle that you would like to hear about. Get in touch with us and follow along at Creative shizzle.com or email us at podcast at Creative shizzle.com Until next time, keep making your shizzle happen