[Applause]
all right just one minute I mean Greg
warmed you up so I don’t really have
much to add to that I mean I like snow
it’s not bad you got a little timer here
how many of you have done one of these
in terms of attended a TEDx event before
quick show of hands okay so good you
have expectations of me all right let’s
roll you know one of the joys of being a
new father is rediscovering books that
you may have forgotten about when you
were a kid that you read I’m a father of
three girls that’s it oh that’s that’s
them the oldest there is pepper and then
Maggie and Rosie are five months old and
one of the books that I had the pleasure
of rediscovering because of them is the
giving tree and if we remember the
giving tree the long and short of it is
it’s a wonderful book by shel
silverstein that talks about a tree and
a boy and that tree and boy had a
wonderful connection with each other
they they provided with each other the
tree would give the boy apples and shade
and a trunk to climb and branches to
swing from but as the boy got older he
wanted more things things the tree
didn’t have out right and the tree would
try to give him what he needed
he became a young man and said I need
money I need to buy things why I don’t
have money the tree says but I have
apples and you can sell the apples and
this cycle repeated itself a few times
until the tree was basically just a
stump
because it would give itself to the boy
whatever he would need it would give and
the book says the tree was happy during
all this but the tree was not happy but
the thing about it is that it ends with
the boy becoming an old man and all he
wants to do is sit down and the tree
becomes happy again because even though
it’s a stump at this point it perks up
and it reconnects with the old man in a
way that is natural and this is what I
want to talk about today my the book
really inspired me to reflect on my own
career I’ve been raising money for for
nonprofits and charities for over 10
years now millions of dollars for
various causes and there’s been a pretty
important trend that is happening in the
nonprofit space that I think is very
concerning and that is that we’re
starting to treat charities as
businesses removing a wall away from the
core essence of what they mean to be now
charities actually generate a lot of
involvement and money three hundred and
ninety billion dollars in 2016 alone
that’s two point one percent of GDP and
they employ millions of people there’s
actually over 1.5 million nonprofits of
the United States alone today so this is
big which means that if it’s not doing
things the way it should be there’s a
problem and I feel that there’s a very
big problem that we need to rewire we
need to rewire the way that we think
about making good in our communities we
need to get back to the basics so how do
we know there’s a problem well there’s a
few key indicators when it comes to that
the first is donor retention so in the
nonprofit world donor retention simply
means loyalty year over a year to an
organization if you donate this year you
are retained donor if you donate next
year etc and so forth donor retention
has been plummeting and a
to the largest database of individual
giving data in the world the fundraising
effectiveness project donor retention
actually hit a low this year of 28% 28%
people are getting fed up with how
they’re being treated but it’s not just
the people who are donating sexually the
employees at the nonprofit’s themselves
staff turnover is above industry
standards it’s actually at 19 percent
that’s a lot of people leaving their
jobs
burnout dissatisfaction low wages these
are things that are constantly being
talked about in nonprofit circles but
that can just be a few things that can
be course-corrected right if we treated
charities to the same standards that we
do businesses but we don’t in the not in
the business world success is measured
by the revenue that they generate more
revenue means that they’re successful
maybe wages go up benefits get better
that does not happen in the nonprofit
world the standard that they are held to
is if they are being very good at their
jobs serving more people providing more
meals more research and cancer things of
that nature costs go up but revenue does
not necessarily go up but the biggest
issue when we treat charities as
businesses is that it rebels against our
natural state we are born givers we are
born people who want to connect with
each other we are not born as people who
want to immediately make a transaction
with each other our natural state is to
connect and this isn’t some kumbaya drum
circle thing that I’m coming up with
here
this is science science tells us this in
2006 there was a study done on brain
waves and giving that’s what that is
that’s from the study and so what the
study demonstrated is that they gave
everybody in the study and a lot of
money and every so often during the
study they would say do you want to give
this as an anonymous donation
and decrease your allotment what do you
want to keep it an every single person
in the study wanted to give they wanted
to give every single person in fact the
average allotment that they gave away
was 40% they still kept some money let’s
be real but the most interesting thing
was this the brain activity when they
actually analyze brain activity of
people who gave it activated the rewards
pathway in our brains dopamine dopamine
was definitely released when people
received money but it was actually fired
off at a much higher rate when they gave
we are born to give and so the issue is
that if we start treating charities
purely as businesses to create
transactions and to create product that
moves us away from the core essence of
not only who we are but how we can
actually make good in our communities
all we have to do is look toward the
healthcare industry to see what happens
when we start treating people like
products as opposed to a basic human
right so what we need to do is get back
to the basics it’s a pretty tall order
how do we do that
well I’m gonna talk about the primary
driver that I think that we can start
with which is the money how do we
actually generate money and support for
the things that we care about the things
that change our lives because I firmly
believe that if we address the monetary
side of things that will filter out into
all the other issues that the nonprofit
industry has in terms of accountability
in terms of how people treat each other
in terms of wages in terms of overall
support if we solve the money we can
solve the rest so the way that I want to
concentrate on that is in three primary
areas of giving actually the largest
three that drive how we give today the
first is charitable foundations people
who write grants they wait a long time
they hopefully get a grant the second is
corporate giving just because we don’t
want to be treated like a business
doesn’t mean we can’t have a positive
relationship with the business community
how do we do that
and finally we need to address ourselves
how do we all give how do we relate to
charity as individuals not only from a
personal sense but two-thirds of giving
of that 390 billion that I mentioned is
because of individual giving so this is
the biggest concern let’s start with
charitable foundations I actually got my
start as a grant writer and the problem
that I found is that foundations put
large amounts of restrictions on how you
can even use a gift they basically say
well this is what you need to do we are
going to well we want to work on poverty
yeah you’re gonna do it this way yeah
but we don’t think that’s the way it
should not that’s how you’re gonna do it
if you want the money and so we put too
many strings on the organization too
many things around how they should
operate what we need to do is free it up
need to break away the restrictions and
focus in on unrestricted giving I
experienced this when I was a grant
writer I would actually change the
programs and language and narrative and
even if you’re writing it down and
saying well okay when we actually do the
program we’ll do it the way that we want
that when you write it down there’s
accountability in terms of how you have
to report on that so you can’t budge it
so if we encourage unrestricted grant
money it empowers the nonprofit to do
things the way they see fit in fact it
will make accountability more potent
that way because then you have to show
results on to justify why you receive
that money even more and there’s
precedent for this the Lilly Endowment
in Indiana actually created a 66 million
dollar endowment specific for
unrestricted Griffing giving and it’s
been fantastic
for the communities in Indiana so
there’s precedents then we have to talk
about corporate giving and I want to
talk about the most insidious piece out
there and cause marketing cause
marketing needs to die
if you’re not familiar if the idea of
cause marketing it is the idea of a
business aligning its its corporate
mission around promoting a social cause
there’s problems with this let’s talk
about a few the first one is it can go
awry pretty easily I think a good
example is this one if you’re not aware
this is real or it was it was the Susan
G Komen teaming up with KFC for buckets
for the Cure oh my god that’s right
there’s a little bit of a disconnect of
a cancer organization teaming up with a
fast food chain don’t you think so this
is a pretty egregious example but it’s
the core point of cause marketing that
is the problem there was a survey done
of marketing and executives and no
offense to any charitable work that over
it does by the way but marketing
executives were surveyed and they were
asked well what it what is cause
marketing to you and 97 percent of them
replied it is a business strategy it is
not philanthropy so from a foundation
they don’t even consider this charity
it’s something that can be pivoted very
quickly so it’s also something that the
nonprofit’s themselves typically don’t
benefit as much as they should they
could be compared to other returns on
investment prime example pun intended is
Amazon smile amazon smiles a program
where you give a referral link and if
somebody buys something through that
referral link the charity gets money
pretty cool huh
I put this out for one of the
nonprofit’s that I was involved in all
the time as the comic books and literacy
nonprofit it seemed like a great idea
here’s the reality if I generate ten
thousand dollars of business for Amazon
I get 50 bucks yeah
so where do we put our effort
corporations should be creating a
culture of philanthropy instead and they
can easily do this the idea of a
matching gift is that if a employee
donates something the corporation will
match it that’s it
unrestricted giving very simple and so
the realities are that there’s between
six billion to ten billion dollars left
unclaimed by matching gifts each year
and corporations that offer a matching
gift program the only average of people
participating is 9% imagine if we just
increase that by a few percentage points
what power could we have and it also
creates a direct tie between the people
in the community and where they’re
investing their passion and mission so
then there’s individual giving again the
biggest bucket 2/3 the problem when we
have a paradigm that businesses and
charities are the same thing is that we
enter into a transactional relationship
around our giving you end up being
treated like an ATM and so as a donor
you are not building a relationship with
the organization so what we need to do
instead is focus in on working together
around our missions when we donate that
is us being a partner in the
organization so the nonprofit needs to
view us like that and there’s a lot of
ways that you can do that there’s a lot
of ways that you can implement that but
the reality is is that retention goes up
when you have a relationship focused
approach to donor stewardship people are
happier if more money is coming in and
they stay at their jobs and success is
then tied to mission growth and it’s
natural so instead of investing or
putting our money towards charities that
have the best marketing camp
pain the most name recognition we should
actually look at what they’re doing in
their communities other fostering equity
are they fostering inclusion are they
actually listening to the people that
they are working with are they listening
to the donors and the other stakeholders
these are the items that we need to pay
attention to as individuals now I know
that seems like a daunting task where do
you even start well I feel I’ve rewired
myself for good when I turn 35 or 30
actually I’m 35 now huh when I turned 30
I threw a birthday party for charity it
was at a brew pub in Chicago I charged
$65 for access to my birthday party
I had a comedian wasn’t Greg but it was
good comedian Cameron Esposito she’s on
TV a theatre troupe and a band a live
auction food beer everything that I
loved but it was focused around my love
for four different organizations we
raised $4,600 that night thank you to my
wife for helping do the ticket booth it
made the local paper in Chicago it was
so popular that I did it again right
before we moved here we actually moved
here a few months ago and our going-away
party was a another fundraiser kid
focused this time so it this brings me
back to the giving tree itself when we
moved here and I unboxed books for my
kids I found the giving tree
and the reality is that book is kind of
a bummer it’s got a bittersweet ending
right like great he connected as an old
man after abusing this tree for years
that wasn’t a relationship it was a
transaction
I wish the book ended after like the
first six pages when they were in their
natural state were born givers we each
have a giving tree inside of us so the
question I have for you is are you ready
to plant it thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
you
all right just one minute I mean Greg
warmed you up so I don’t really have
much to add to that I mean I like snow
it’s not bad you got a little timer here
how many of you have done one of these
in terms of attended a TEDx event before
quick show of hands okay so good you
have expectations of me all right let’s
roll you know one of the joys of being a
new father is rediscovering books that
you may have forgotten about when you
were a kid that you read I’m a father of
three girls that’s it oh that’s that’s
them the oldest there is pepper and then
Maggie and Rosie are five months old and
one of the books that I had the pleasure
of rediscovering because of them is the
giving tree and if we remember the
giving tree the long and short of it is
it’s a wonderful book by shel
silverstein that talks about a tree and
a boy and that tree and boy had a
wonderful connection with each other
they they provided with each other the
tree would give the boy apples and shade
and a trunk to climb and branches to
swing from but as the boy got older he
wanted more things things the tree
didn’t have out right and the tree would
try to give him what he needed
he became a young man and said I need
money I need to buy things why I don’t
have money the tree says but I have
apples and you can sell the apples and
this cycle repeated itself a few times
until the tree was basically just a
stump
because it would give itself to the boy
whatever he would need it would give and
the book says the tree was happy during
all this but the tree was not happy but
the thing about it is that it ends with
the boy becoming an old man and all he
wants to do is sit down and the tree
becomes happy again because even though
it’s a stump at this point it perks up
and it reconnects with the old man in a
way that is natural and this is what I
want to talk about today my the book
really inspired me to reflect on my own
career I’ve been raising money for for
nonprofits and charities for over 10
years now millions of dollars for
various causes and there’s been a pretty
important trend that is happening in the
nonprofit space that I think is very
concerning and that is that we’re
starting to treat charities as
businesses removing a wall away from the
core essence of what they mean to be now
charities actually generate a lot of
involvement and money three hundred and
ninety billion dollars in 2016 alone
that’s two point one percent of GDP and
they employ millions of people there’s
actually over 1.5 million nonprofits of
the United States alone today so this is
big which means that if it’s not doing
things the way it should be there’s a
problem and I feel that there’s a very
big problem that we need to rewire we
need to rewire the way that we think
about making good in our communities we
need to get back to the basics so how do
we know there’s a problem well there’s a
few key indicators when it comes to that
the first is donor retention so in the
nonprofit world donor retention simply
means loyalty year over a year to an
organization if you donate this year you
are retained donor if you donate next
year etc and so forth donor retention
has been plummeting and a
to the largest database of individual
giving data in the world the fundraising
effectiveness project donor retention
actually hit a low this year of 28% 28%
people are getting fed up with how
they’re being treated but it’s not just
the people who are donating sexually the
employees at the nonprofit’s themselves
staff turnover is above industry
standards it’s actually at 19 percent
that’s a lot of people leaving their
jobs
burnout dissatisfaction low wages these
are things that are constantly being
talked about in nonprofit circles but
that can just be a few things that can
be course-corrected right if we treated
charities to the same standards that we
do businesses but we don’t in the not in
the business world success is measured
by the revenue that they generate more
revenue means that they’re successful
maybe wages go up benefits get better
that does not happen in the nonprofit
world the standard that they are held to
is if they are being very good at their
jobs serving more people providing more
meals more research and cancer things of
that nature costs go up but revenue does
not necessarily go up but the biggest
issue when we treat charities as
businesses is that it rebels against our
natural state we are born givers we are
born people who want to connect with
each other we are not born as people who
want to immediately make a transaction
with each other our natural state is to
connect and this isn’t some kumbaya drum
circle thing that I’m coming up with
here
this is science science tells us this in
2006 there was a study done on brain
waves and giving that’s what that is
that’s from the study and so what the
study demonstrated is that they gave
everybody in the study and a lot of
money and every so often during the
study they would say do you want to give
this as an anonymous donation
and decrease your allotment what do you
want to keep it an every single person
in the study wanted to give they wanted
to give every single person in fact the
average allotment that they gave away
was 40% they still kept some money let’s
be real but the most interesting thing
was this the brain activity when they
actually analyze brain activity of
people who gave it activated the rewards
pathway in our brains dopamine dopamine
was definitely released when people
received money but it was actually fired
off at a much higher rate when they gave
we are born to give and so the issue is
that if we start treating charities
purely as businesses to create
transactions and to create product that
moves us away from the core essence of
not only who we are but how we can
actually make good in our communities
all we have to do is look toward the
healthcare industry to see what happens
when we start treating people like
products as opposed to a basic human
right so what we need to do is get back
to the basics it’s a pretty tall order
how do we do that
well I’m gonna talk about the primary
driver that I think that we can start
with which is the money how do we
actually generate money and support for
the things that we care about the things
that change our lives because I firmly
believe that if we address the monetary
side of things that will filter out into
all the other issues that the nonprofit
industry has in terms of accountability
in terms of how people treat each other
in terms of wages in terms of overall
support if we solve the money we can
solve the rest so the way that I want to
concentrate on that is in three primary
areas of giving actually the largest
three that drive how we give today the
first is charitable foundations people
who write grants they wait a long time
they hopefully get a grant the second is
corporate giving just because we don’t
want to be treated like a business
doesn’t mean we can’t have a positive
relationship with the business community
how do we do that
and finally we need to address ourselves
how do we all give how do we relate to
charity as individuals not only from a
personal sense but two-thirds of giving
of that 390 billion that I mentioned is
because of individual giving so this is
the biggest concern let’s start with
charitable foundations I actually got my
start as a grant writer and the problem
that I found is that foundations put
large amounts of restrictions on how you
can even use a gift they basically say
well this is what you need to do we are
going to well we want to work on poverty
yeah you’re gonna do it this way yeah
but we don’t think that’s the way it
should not that’s how you’re gonna do it
if you want the money and so we put too
many strings on the organization too
many things around how they should
operate what we need to do is free it up
need to break away the restrictions and
focus in on unrestricted giving I
experienced this when I was a grant
writer I would actually change the
programs and language and narrative and
even if you’re writing it down and
saying well okay when we actually do the
program we’ll do it the way that we want
that when you write it down there’s
accountability in terms of how you have
to report on that so you can’t budge it
so if we encourage unrestricted grant
money it empowers the nonprofit to do
things the way they see fit in fact it
will make accountability more potent
that way because then you have to show
results on to justify why you receive
that money even more and there’s
precedent for this the Lilly Endowment
in Indiana actually created a 66 million
dollar endowment specific for
unrestricted Griffing giving and it’s
been fantastic
for the communities in Indiana so
there’s precedents then we have to talk
about corporate giving and I want to
talk about the most insidious piece out
there and cause marketing cause
marketing needs to die
if you’re not familiar if the idea of
cause marketing it is the idea of a
business aligning its its corporate
mission around promoting a social cause
there’s problems with this let’s talk
about a few the first one is it can go
awry pretty easily I think a good
example is this one if you’re not aware
this is real or it was it was the Susan
G Komen teaming up with KFC for buckets
for the Cure oh my god that’s right
there’s a little bit of a disconnect of
a cancer organization teaming up with a
fast food chain don’t you think so this
is a pretty egregious example but it’s
the core point of cause marketing that
is the problem there was a survey done
of marketing and executives and no
offense to any charitable work that over
it does by the way but marketing
executives were surveyed and they were
asked well what it what is cause
marketing to you and 97 percent of them
replied it is a business strategy it is
not philanthropy so from a foundation
they don’t even consider this charity
it’s something that can be pivoted very
quickly so it’s also something that the
nonprofit’s themselves typically don’t
benefit as much as they should they
could be compared to other returns on
investment prime example pun intended is
Amazon smile amazon smiles a program
where you give a referral link and if
somebody buys something through that
referral link the charity gets money
pretty cool huh
I put this out for one of the
nonprofit’s that I was involved in all
the time as the comic books and literacy
nonprofit it seemed like a great idea
here’s the reality if I generate ten
thousand dollars of business for Amazon
I get 50 bucks yeah
so where do we put our effort
corporations should be creating a
culture of philanthropy instead and they
can easily do this the idea of a
matching gift is that if a employee
donates something the corporation will
match it that’s it
unrestricted giving very simple and so
the realities are that there’s between
six billion to ten billion dollars left
unclaimed by matching gifts each year
and corporations that offer a matching
gift program the only average of people
participating is 9% imagine if we just
increase that by a few percentage points
what power could we have and it also
creates a direct tie between the people
in the community and where they’re
investing their passion and mission so
then there’s individual giving again the
biggest bucket 2/3 the problem when we
have a paradigm that businesses and
charities are the same thing is that we
enter into a transactional relationship
around our giving you end up being
treated like an ATM and so as a donor
you are not building a relationship with
the organization so what we need to do
instead is focus in on working together
around our missions when we donate that
is us being a partner in the
organization so the nonprofit needs to
view us like that and there’s a lot of
ways that you can do that there’s a lot
of ways that you can implement that but
the reality is is that retention goes up
when you have a relationship focused
approach to donor stewardship people are
happier if more money is coming in and
they stay at their jobs and success is
then tied to mission growth and it’s
natural so instead of investing or
putting our money towards charities that
have the best marketing camp
pain the most name recognition we should
actually look at what they’re doing in
their communities other fostering equity
are they fostering inclusion are they
actually listening to the people that
they are working with are they listening
to the donors and the other stakeholders
these are the items that we need to pay
attention to as individuals now I know
that seems like a daunting task where do
you even start well I feel I’ve rewired
myself for good when I turn 35 or 30
actually I’m 35 now huh when I turned 30
I threw a birthday party for charity it
was at a brew pub in Chicago I charged
$65 for access to my birthday party
I had a comedian wasn’t Greg but it was
good comedian Cameron Esposito she’s on
TV a theatre troupe and a band a live
auction food beer everything that I
loved but it was focused around my love
for four different organizations we
raised $4,600 that night thank you to my
wife for helping do the ticket booth it
made the local paper in Chicago it was
so popular that I did it again right
before we moved here we actually moved
here a few months ago and our going-away
party was a another fundraiser kid
focused this time so it this brings me
back to the giving tree itself when we
moved here and I unboxed books for my
kids I found the giving tree
and the reality is that book is kind of
a bummer it’s got a bittersweet ending
right like great he connected as an old
man after abusing this tree for years
that wasn’t a relationship it was a
transaction
I wish the book ended after like the
first six pages when they were in their
natural state were born givers we each
have a giving tree inside of us so the
question I have for you is are you ready
to plant it thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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