Don't Scare me With Donor Data

In today's episode, I sat down with Kate Bahen, Managing Director of Charity Intelligence Canada.  Charity Intelligence exists to carry out deep research profiles on Canadian charities to help donors make better decisions with their donation dollars.  To that end, part of what they do is release lists of Canadian charities, ranked based on 5 separate dimensions.  Kate and her organization have been fairly controversial in the non-profit industry here in Canada, so I figured it might be beneficial for people to get a deeper perspective on what they do. For more information on Charity Intelligence, feel free to visit www.charityintelligence.ca.

In this episode I sat down to chat with Theresa Lee, Principal Consultant at Responsive Fundraising.  I wanted to get a sense from her as to what she's noticed about how COVID has changed the game for the organizations that she serves and what has perhaps stayed the same.  Among other things, we spoke about social media scraping and event vs. relationship-based fundraising.  Most importantly, we had some good laughs and I hope you'll agree that the conversation was educational. To learn more about what she does as part of Responsive Fundraising, visit https://responsivefundraising.com/.

In this episode I sat down for a nice chat with Michael Lowery, the Co-Owner and Manager of Operations at LMR Market Research.  We discussed the ins and outs of advanced survey research.  What it is, how it can how it's used, and how it can benefit non-profits.  To read more about what they do, feel free to visit their website here: https://www.lmrmarketresearch.com/.

In this episode I'm joined by Allen Davidov, the VP of Business Development at Environics Analytics.  We have a geeky old time talking about the role that 3rd party appends can play in non-profit fundraising campaign success, and especially how it can help during the COVID-19 era.  Have a listen and if you want to learn any more about Environics, feel free to visit them at environicsanalytics.ca.

I sat down to speak with Ryan Woroniecki, VP of Strategic Partnerships at DonorSearch.  We spoke about the considerable fundraising value of getting 3rd party prospect research data appended to an organization's donor records.  I've used DonorSearch in the past to help US clients of mine, and was definitely impressed with how useful it's been, not only based on the info it provides, but with the opportunities that it opens up for data science products I've been able to build with it. If you've ever been curious to learn more about what it means to incorporate 3rd party prospect research data into your fundraising, have a listen!  Once you're done, feel free to learn more about Donorsearch by clicking here.

In this episode, I spoke with Celeste Bannon Waterman, Partner/Lead of Research & Analytics at KCI.  The topic was a document she sent me that details the 4 stages a non-profit can go through as it becomes more and more sophisticated in terms of data infrastructure, analytics, and data science.  I found the conversation to be very philosophical, interesting, and enlightening.  Then again, I'm probably biased because she was my old boss when I worked at KCI! Have a look below for a link to the document, called the "Data Platform". https://kciphilanthropy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/The-Ask-Additional-Content-Episode-7-Data-platform-visual.pdf

I spoke with Ben Miller, Chief Analytic Officer @ EveryAction's DonorTrends.  He told me about his analysis of fundraising during the Great Recession of 2008, using the world's largest dataset on charitable giving, called the "Growth in Giving" dataset.  Ben had some very practical suggestions that non-profits could follow to help them weather the economic downturn. See the below links for some additional info he wanted me to include: https://www.everyaction.com/blog www.afpfep.org

I spoke with Claire Kerr, Canadian Director of Care2, to learn more about her organization.  Care2 is a progressive social enterprise that helps individuals and non-profits across the continent reach their awareness and advocacy goals by connecting them to people who passionately care about their cause.  For more information on Care2 and what they do, please visit https://www.care2.com/aboutus/ and http://www.care2services.com/.

In this episode I had the honour of speaking with my friend Dave Saraiva, of Lifeline Design, about the CRM his company created.  It's an illuminating look at the inner workings of non-profits, and how they can be vastly improved, or adversely affected depending on their experience with this very key software that manages their own donor data. If you're interested in learning more about his CRM, DonorEngine, see here.

In this episode, I spoke with Kirk Schmidt, Director of Fundraising Analytics and Systems at STARS Air Ambulance.  We spoke about the power and promise of analytics both simple and complex, and at times it was like speaking with someone who gets me on a deep level.  Listen in and I hope you enjoy!