• Fundraising Freedom Podcast with Mary Valloni

  • By: Mary Valloni
  • Podcast
Fundraising Freedom Podcast with Mary Valloni By cover art

Fundraising Freedom Podcast with Mary Valloni

By: Mary Valloni
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  • Summary

  • Fundraising Freedom is a growing community of men and women who are raising funds to support the causes they love. In each episode, fundraising coach and award-winning author, Mary Valloni, takes a deep dive into topics like volunteer recruitment, event planning, major gift fundraising, and personal development. Episodes include featured interviews with top experts in each of these areas. Mary delivers motivating and thought-provoking messages while sharing stories of fundraisers who have found success that will inspire you on your journey.
    copyright Mary Valloni © 2020. All rights reserved.
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Episodes
  • Episode 181 | What It Looks Like to Focus Your Vision

    Episode 181 | What It Looks Like to Focus Your Vision
    Dec 16 2020
    If you have been following the Fundraising Freedom Podcast, when I first started it I actually called it the Mary Valloni Show. And if you've been following for a while, you know that I follow the steps that I teach in my book, Fundraising Freedom. Those steps follow the acronym FREEDOM because what I want for you, and what I want for me, is freedom. So, I have been spending the last several weeks and really the last several months thinking through what my vision is. What does it actually look like to focus your vision? 2020 has obviously caused us to have to take a step back and really look at everything. What is your vision for your life; the passion and purpose that you have for the work that you do? If you're anything like me, you've probably had some moments where you're like, ‘what am I doing? What is happening? Where do I even fit into all of this?’ I’ve spent a lot of time journaling and walking through my vision for this podcast, my vision for my business, and trying to really pull back the layers and remind myself why I do the work that I do. In chapter one of Fundraising Freedom, I share with you that I really want to make sure that you have your mission, your vision, and your timeline in your budget. I also want to make sure that you know exactly why you're doing what you're doing. If you don't have a passion for the work that you're doing, people will see that. Usually, that means that your donations will run parallel to that. You may see that your donations declined because the people just don't follow this movement that you have created for your cause. At the top of every podcast episode, I talk about how I want to educate, encourage, and empower fundraisers to raise more funds and have more freedom. And I do believe that that is at the core of what I do. That is my mission. I want to teach you, I want to encourage you, and especially this year, I want to encourage you to keep going and to not give up. I want to empower you to know that it's possible to take that education and really step out into a new place in the work that you do so that you can speak on behalf of the people you serve. Those three core tenants are what I believe, and I spent several years really trying to nail down what that mission was. Of course, on the vision side, I've always wanted to end the lack and scarcity mindset. In the nonprofit sector, even the word nonprofit means not for profit. And so many people look at our nonprofits and say, ‘well, you can do this on less, you don't need that much.’ As nonprofit leaders, you are told that you maybe shouldn't make as much as you make or that you shouldn't be compensated well for the work that's being done and I just do not believe that I believe that you should be compensated well. I also believe that your charity should have every dollar that it needs to actually end whatever problem you are trying to solve. I would say 100% of you are trying to raise dollars for your nonprofit because whatever you're trying to fix wasn't fixed by the for-profit sector. So not only do you have to do this on limited resources, you have to follow the government guidelines and you have to do it with very minimal income. I understand the challenges that you are faced with and I get that, and I feel your pain deep within my soul. I mean, I have been doing this for 20 years, and I know that you guys sacrifice, and you do this with very minimal rewards. I just think you guys are absolutely incredible; the heart that you have for the people you serve is just off the charts. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate the ability to share with you some of the things that I've learned in the nonprofit space. Of course, we know we can always do better and that there's always more that can be done. But the thing is that you guys are showing up every single day, doing the hard work that somebody else couldn't accomplish. For that, I just want to give you the biggest high five and virtual hug and to let you know that I'm really just so grateful that I get to really do life with you guys. I’ve had to have some tough conversations with myself, and I'm sure you have been in this same boat, trying to figure out what are we going to do as we move into the new year. How are we going to stay focused on what we were actually called to do? For me, I’ve had such clarity in the last year that I was really called to help faith-based organizations. My heart is for people who are sharing the gospel and helping change lives. I've launched several programs over the last several years, mostly on one-on-one coaching and group coaching; helping people raise money in a group environment. The reason why I did those things was that that's what worked for me.  So, I wanted to create an environment for you so that you knew that you weren't alone, which was my why statement. That was the why behind everything; I do not want you to be alone. I do not want you, for one second, to feel alone in the work ...
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    22 mins
  • Episode 180 | How to Create a Personal or Organizational Budget That Actually Works for 2021

    Episode 180 | How to Create a Personal or Organizational Budget That Actually Works for 2021
    Dec 9 2020
    Today we're talking about how to create a personal or an organizational budget that actually works for you coming into 2021. I know that budgeting is something that some people love, and other people hate - there's a love-hate relationship with the budget. And for many of you, you've probably already gone through the budgeting process. Usually, that happens in the fall time as you're preparing for the next year. But you may be in a season where things are changing every single day. We never know what tomorrow is going to bring. Today's conversation is probably not going to be this brand new information that you've never heard of before. But I think that what we can do today is we can actually talk through making your budget work for you. As I work with organizations, what I find is that so many of them do not have a fundraising number that they're actually working towards. Many times, they get into this cycle where they just want more. However, it’s important that you actually have a clear number, an actual fundraising goal that you're working towards. I don't want you to randomly pick a number, that is not a great way to budget, it's not a great way to fundraise or to invite other people to be a part of your work. Here are some tips I want to share. If you look back and reflect on 2019 and consider how much you raised as well as the work you did, you’re probably going to pick up about 50% of that normal behavior, and 50% of 2020, after March, where we had to modify everything. So 2021, you're probably still going to have online events, you're probably still going to have the social distancing, and possibly doing a lot of things on Zoom, and working through major gifts, shifting that fundraising around so that you can modify your behavior to fit the season that we're in. As we move into 2021, I want you to look at where your money went. I work on my budget every single week. I know that some people don't look at their budget very often, but I am a stickler for the budget because the budget tells you where your money is going, and it tells you where it went. As you put numbers on a sheet of paper when you budget, you're just randomly putting numbers down on a sheet of paper, right? Because you're just trying to get a good 10,000-foot view of what your budget looks like. So, as you're putting those numbers down on paper, the best way to budget is to look at where did we spend the money last year. Now you may be a first-year raising these funds or bringing in these dollars and so you may not have past years to look at so the best you can do is really just take a good guess at what it's going to take. When you start assessing and you look at where the dollars went, where did we end up spending money? Maybe we didn't spend in certain categories like travel conferences or training because, in 2020, some of those things just didn't happen. So for 2021, we're going to modify that and start to add a little bit of that back probably for the second half of 2021. Hopefully, after we do get some sort of vaccine in the process, that'll allow us then to start looking at, well, maybe we can do some events in the fall of next year, but maybe not huge ones, just small things that you can start to engage people back into face-to-face communication with your organization and with your cause. Number two, look at what your priorities are, what is most important, and in the previous posts, I've talked a lot about going back to your vision of what is it that we're trying to do as an organization, what's the ultimate end result. Now if you are a fundraiser, you're not responsible for the mission side of the organization, you obviously are just given a number from the mission side, and they're telling you “Hey, this is how much it's gonna cost for us to do the work we're doing on the mission side, here's your number.” Now, that is actually an easier position to be in. That's the position I was in for many, many years, where I just was told, “Hey, go raise a quarter of a million dollars, go raise a half a million dollars, that's what your task is.” And I never had to really come up with my number, so to speak, but I was able to create those stretch goals and, and really work with my committee to come up with a goal that we wanted to do as a team. Set your priorities, what are you spending those dollars on so that you know exactly how much money you need to raise.   The budget is what allows you to feel comfortable about making the ask when you know where those dollars are going to go. You can answer your donor’s questions, you can answer your prospective donors’ questions because you know exactly how that money is going to be spent. If you are in a position where you're, if I say to you, “hey, I want to give you $10,000 to your cause.” And your immediate reaction isn't we're going to do ABCD with that money. If you are like, I don't know what we would do with that money, you have a problem. And the reason ...
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    27 mins
  • Episode 179 | The 20 Ways to Thank Your Donors in 2020

    Episode 179 | The 20 Ways to Thank Your Donors in 2020
    Nov 25 2020
    Today, we are jumping into the topic of thankfulness. As we gear up for our Thanksgiving holiday this week, I wanted to be sure that we talked about how we can thank our donors. So, we're going to talk about the top 20 ways to thank your donors in 2020. As you know, this is such an unusual year. In the seventh step of my Fundraising Freedom process, Make Your Difference, it’s all about thanking people and getting people engaged in the work that's being done so that they keep coming back year after year. In that chapter of my book, I discuss the five love languages. Many of you are familiar with Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages, but if you're not, those five love languages are words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. Those five areas are really the areas that we're looking for as we're thanking our donors and inviting them to continue to give year after year. A study that came out from Merci Chocolates shows the fact that we actually say “thank you” over 2000 times in the course of a year. This means that most of us are saying thank you at least five times a day. But the deal is, that based on their study, over half of the people said that they were insincere when they actually said those things to us. So, when you say thank you nearly five times a day, up to three of those times that you said thank you actually didn't mean much of anything. Sometimes we say thank you, but we don't always get it across. I would love for the study to be able to actually address how many times a nonprofit or ministry leader actually said thank you because I would say that we are probably in the 10s of thousands, if not more because we're always saying thank you to our volunteers and donors. That's where I want to kind of shake those things out for our conversation today. How can we make saying thank you a little bit more sincere so that our donors really do feel like they mean something to them? In that final chapter of my book, I specifically tell a story where a lady had donated something to an auction that we were we were doing, and she saw that I showed an interest in a ring that she had donated. I made a comment about potentially bidding on that item at the auction. Of course, I worked for the organization and was obviously not able to bid on it. She came back a few days later and gave me another ring that looked just like the other one. And she was very kind to do that. As an organization, we aren't allowed to receive gifts like that and so I actually took the item and donated it back to the organization. But later on, I saw her at an event where we had a booth set up. She approached me and was really upset with me because I hadn't sent her a handwritten thank you specifically for that item that she had given to me. Now she had received a thank you in the past, we had thanked her for her donation of the ring, she just was locked into the fact that I personally did not send her a handwritten thank you showing my appreciation. And at that moment, she gave me a what for; she got on my case, as I was trapped behind a booth space. She told me that she was going to make this a teachable moment for me. But in return, she actually made me feel really hurt because a volunteer of mine had invited this lady in and so I was more concerned about another volunteer’s feelings around this situation and that I had upset this potential donor who was a friend of hers. I immediately left the space and went and called my volunteer that I really did have a relationship with, and I told her I was so sorry that this had happened. And of course, it was a teachable moment. I'm still sharing it today and it’s a moment that I really reflect on quite a bit. But the thing is that it comes back to how people like to be shown appreciation, how they like to be thanked. As I talk about the five love languages, it's really apparent that some people really like and really need those words of affirmation, they really need that gift of some tangible item that's in their hands to show that you cared. When I tell people about how to thank donors, I always reflect back on this, but then I also just highlight the fact that those five love languages are important for us to do across the board. I will say some people do not want recognition, that would really upset some people. This is where you, as the leader of your organization, have to pay attention to your donors, you can't just cookie-cutter, throw them all in a box and say, “Hey, one size fits all,” because that is not how this works. Here are the 20 go-to great ways to thank your donors in 2020. I'm not going to say do every single one of these but look through some of these that maybe you're missing or haven't incorporated in the past and create a thank you plan. The first one is a handwritten thank you. This is a very standard go to thank you that you can do either from the executive director or the leader of the organization, or a ...
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    38 mins
Management Economics
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