Ken Cerini: Thanks a lot lauren and yeah we do have this poll up if people can take two seconds to complete the poll it's really good to understand who i'm talking to.

Okay um so we're going to throw this poll up and hopefully like I said it helps me to better understand if I can see who's part of this lauren if you can hear me if you can get the results of the poll.

just want to get a rough ideas here so most of you are 41% our CFO controllers 30% from other parts within the organization.

A couple board members so good i'm this release I know who i'm talking to, and I can kind of direct it a little bit more in terms of who i'm talking to.

So, first of all thank you lauren and thank you for JMT for having me here today to speak appreciate it and.

kind of wish this was more of an in person sort of thing i've done a lot of these things and I actually prefer the interaction with the audience much better than than doing this almost like one sided so.

let's see how it goes so if everybody kind of remembers on march 18 governor Cuomo.

Put New York state on point I know not all of you are from New York state, but I think it's the same throughout the country where you know, the world is kind of put on pause because of the coronavirus pandemic.

At that time, I think that a lot of people thought adds a couple weeks, maybe a month, you know, here we are, over a year later, and then coronavirus is still you know, one of the main.

Things that everybody's talking about and it's really continues to impact all of our lives.

The world has shifted life has shifted the way we carry on businesses shifted the way we communicate interact think they've all shifted as a result, the nonprofit sector has been forced to be innovative and dynamic.

and find ways to pivot in order to better meet the needs of the communities they serve and honestly to be remain relevant in some instances, I think this pivot um has.

moved organizations kind of outside of their core mission and that's really left organizations kind of sitting here now.

needing to rethink what they are doing and what they should be doing.

You know and that's something that we're going to be talking about a lot today in terms of kind of understanding, where the organizations are.

And what organization should be doing in addition the pandemic is forced organizations to reinvent their operational models to be more effective in meeting the needs of the individuals they serve or carrying out their mission.

For instance, Tele therapy remote learning those have all kind of stepped up so for some of these new delivery system is created and enhanced opportunities to change lives.

And for others it's been a necessary stop gap in order to function during the pandemic.

I think organizations are going to need, as we move forward to evaluate these new delivery models to see if they provide a more effective and efficient way of.

providing services to the nonprofit sector, I mean to the individuals that the sector reaches.

I don't know that there's necessarily a right answer, I think it really is going to depend on each organization to determine what's appropriate for them.

And there's going to be to be a lot of soul searching within these organizations and discussion at all levels.

And it's becoming increasingly more digital first world where nonprofits need to leverage data to inform decision making reach new audiences personalized communications.

And forecast fundraising income, in addition, you know when you look at the impact that pandemic has had on everybody I think communication is become a much more important thing.

And there's been a lot more communication that's taking place at all levels and needs to take place at all levels, so these are all things that we're going to be talking about as we move through.

today's presentation so i'm going to kind of bring this thing up.

There we go and I know the presentation was just shared on the chat so if anybody wants to follow along or print out a copy of it and.

write notes all over it feel free or print it and have it So where are we today, so if you think about it, the coronavirus, as I said before, continues to take Center stage.

You know, nobody really knows how much longer this tunnel is and their vaccines that are out but there's still uncertainty about the effectiveness of the vaccines.

Even with vaccines will people feel comfortable coming together and receiving services.

Reopening offices it's going to create new issues also I mean do organizations have organization started thinking about do we need to create vaccine policies.

What are we going to do in terms of bringing people back to work will be going to force them to come we can leave it more flexible, so there's a lot of those types of issues that that still come into play.

And there's a lot of regulatory and policy issues that continue.

The regulations, I mean I think there's been regulation overload over the last year everybody's been.

focused on information so that they can determine what it is they're actually supposed to be doing and that's been.

difficult for the organizations, not just nonprofits but everyone because information keeps changing you know and it's been extremely dynamic in terms of.

The flow of information, as I said before, and we'll talk about more ongoing communication is essential, there needs to be communication at all levels.

You know, people are feel separated they feel isolated and you need to have that communication, how are we pulling our staff back into things, how are we making sure that the people we serve are are.

connected to the organization, the way it was when we were doing things in person organizations need to remain dynamic and flexible, as I said before, rules keep changing.

And we need to be able to change with those rules, we need to make sure that we're monitoring what's supposed to happen, so that you know we can.

be somewhat proactive in the process, I mean that's one of the things I think that.

we've seen is that we've all been a little bit reactive in terms of how things have happened.

And I think we need to take our lives back and take our organizations back and try to be more proactive in the approach of what we're doing there's been a lot of federal stimulus packages that have provided relief to the sector.

There still again new regulations coming out of the stimulus packages have been.

Changing so you get rules, you get regulations you're trying to act within them, and the rules change which has made it very, very difficult for the nonprofit sector.

nonprofit sector was box out of certain things and now some of that stuff is reopened with respect to PPP loans for.

organizations that have offices in multi states or multi location offices, so that might be an option for organizations.

there's no more business as usual and less usual means completely different, you know we're talking today about the new normal, but I think, maybe it's better to call it the next normal you know what is the next normal going to look like in terms of the nonprofit sector.

um you know now I think it's time for planning I think there's, as I said before, we have to be more proactive in our approach to things I think it's time for planning for.

kind of reinventing what your organization is doing and what it's going to look like in the long term, I think that's going to be important, how is it going to be delivering services going forward, how will, how will will raise funds.

how's it going to adapt to life after Kofi you know it's not going to be the same, we are never going to go back to where we were at that's not going to happen, you know, the world has changed, and you know we have to change with it, and we need to move forward.

And there's going to be increased collaboration all levels, we need to have more partnering I mean that was something that was always big even before the pandemic it but it's going to be even more important now.

To really look at how we can effectively partner with the public sector, I think there's a lot of room for improvement at the government level and I think you'll all agree to that So how do we we deal with that.

How are we going to collaborate effectively with the private sector, I think the private sector is ripe for increased partnership and collaboration we'll talk about that more as we go through this.

And then, how do we collaborate with other nonprofit organizations again that's always been a key thing in the nonprofit sector in terms of linkage agreements and developing strategies to work together with other nonprofit organizations, but you know as.

The regulations get tougher as government funding dries up a little bit I think you're also going to see a little bit more by way of consolidation happening within the nonprofit sector.

So some of the most significant changes So what are the most significant challenges that you guys are facing as an organization, so we have a little poll up here if you don't mind answering it.

So we have you know difficulty communicating at all levels inability to do things in person.

Hot increase in service demand staff engagement management lack of adequate funding difficulty in staying abreast of industry and regulatory changes us a systemic in equality diversity issues safety concerns technology issues there's a couple more than down there and other.

So people can take a minute or a couple seconds I should say to.

kind of respond to this we just kind of get an understanding of where you see the greatest challenges happening today within the sector and this way, maybe we can share a little.

Okay let's see what our answers are.

So it looks like the biggest is inability to do things in person services meetings events, followed by increase in service demand staff engagement management and lack of adequate funding.

So, again I think that's what we're seeing out there all over the place, a couple of people wrote other if people don't mind if they want to just kind of anybody put other if they want to just throw in the chat what those other issues are to make sure that if we are going to be.

Talking that we do get the chance to cover you know some of those other issues that you guys are facing.

So yeah I mean, I think you know, one of the big things that we're seeing is you know service delivery has changed, you know, we need to be able to do things on a face to face basis and that really has been difficult.

You know there's not going to be.

An end soon in terms of that, I mean I think we're still going to be in a situation where we're still going to have an inability to hold in person programs events are still going to be virtual for a while.

I think you know by the fall, maybe we can get some stuff that's in person, but are you really going to be able to get people to come to in person events.

I think you're really going to have to look for ways that you can incorporate both the virtual and the real world into things that we're doing.

People are craving social interaction, I mean that's that's clear but caution, I think, is still a big component of things and I think it's going to be for a while.

Even with the vaccines and how effective all the other vaccines that are out there, how long do they last there's a lot of questions, you know that are still going going on and people still feel somewhat uncomfortable um.

And somebody wrote that the.

Old business models are up ended, and they need to reassess and redesign and I think that's that's definitely the case again I think we're in a new world order and.

You know anybody who tries to go back and do things the way they they had done them in the past, I think they're going to be.

Sorry, because I think we are moving into a new place, how do we effectively manage remote workers and workforces I mean I think that's that's been an issue since the pandemic started.

And again, I think it's going to continue to be an issue I mean, how do you keep staff engaged.

You know I mean you have all these staff and you try to develop a firm culture or an organizational culture, and you know how do you keep the staff engage, how do you keep that organizational culture in play.

How do you create an environment where people don't feel isolated, how do you track the flow of work that people are doing and the work product and results.

How do you ensure effective policies and procedures and practices are in place for people who are working remotely What are those policies and procedures.

How do you develop appropriate boundaries between work work life balance, where people are in a situation where.

You know, maybe they're working out of their bedrooms and stuff and you know, or they have a small apartment or something, and it really there is no separation.

So, again I think that's something that organizations all businesses need to work on including the nonprofit sector needs to work on to.

You know how do we get to a point where we can really effectively manage you know what's happening out there with our workforce and our workers, how do we create sustainability and financial support.

You know you have more and more organizations that have gotten into the fundraising world where you know they're going after the same dollars so you've got a lot more organizations are going after fundraising support because they have been cutbacks and government funding the.

us the additional stimulus money that just recently came out has got to push money back down to the States and other local municipalities, which is going to be helpful.

But, again, I think you're still in a situation where sustainability of finances sports important I think everybody's still looking for those discretionary dollars.

How do you communicate with your constituents your volunteers and donors volunteerism is down I think everybody realizes that.

it's down about 47% overall because people aren't effectively utilizing their volunteers.

So we're going to need to develop systems on how we can more effectively utilize volunteers in a remote world and there's new software applications that allow for some of that tracking to take place.

But, again, I think that's going to be extremely important and even you know in dealing with consumers or constituents that you're working with.

You know how do you keep them also engaged, how do you keep them connected to your organization and clearly the same issue is with donors will spend a lot of time on on.

Donor issues and then you have achieving greater diversity and staff and leadership that has been a primary issue a lot of funders now are looking at organizations and looking at diversity within organizations.

When you're looking at things from a leadership issue you know what is your management team look like what does your board look like.

Even on your development team, you know if you're going out and you're trying to raise funds, you know what does your development team look like and what is the diversity at all levels, whether it, you know it's race or its.

Social, economic issue levels or its.

disabilities or any of those things, I mean you need to get the voice of everyone, because everyone's voice is important and making sure that all of those voices are heard and all those voices are melded into.

The organization and then we'll talk more also about the continued need to advocate to funders and policymakers you're in a situation right now, where.
You know it's been much, much more difficult to do that the lobbying that you've done as organizations in the past.

You can't really do rallies or it's harder to do rallies and those types of things, the advocates are so busy and swamp looking at other things that it's just been very, very difficult.

to connect at that level and to get organized of get the politicians and stuff to tobacco organizations and we'll talk a little bit more about where I think our where I hope the world is going to come from a from that perspective going forward.

So, as you can see here, this is from the independent sector, they did a survey and really where did they see the top concerns facing nonprofits based on the survey, they did.

Safe operations was number one at 65% followed by the growing demand for services, which again you guys pointed out also there has been an increase in demand.

For organizational services we'll talk about that a little bit more, how do we get the money that we need to pay staff, how do we create systematic.

Or how do we deal with systematic inequality about 53% of organizations, said that funding to keep doors open.

A lot of organizations have seen dramatic declines, including you know a lot of the smaller ones that rely heavily upon fundraising seen dramatic decline in the dollars that are coming into their organization so again, how do we go about making sure that the dollars are coming in.

So.

From a survey that video did 35% of nonprofits experienced an increase in demand for services.

Since the onset of the coveted pandemic and, and that makes sense because you have a lot of lifeline type services that are out there.

um so we've seen a big increase on but 75% of the organization say that.

Has negatively impacted revenues and funding, so we have an increase in demand, but we're not necessarily seeing a corresponding increase in funding coming into the organizations to meet.

The increasing demand that's there um organizations have had to reduce staff levels 37% of organizations said, they need to reduce their workforce.

A lot of them did it through furlough and stuff because obviously the funding wasn't necessarily there, and with the changing delivery model organizations had to pivot and and furlough staff, while they waited to figure out how that pivot was actually going to work.

And 24% of participants reported that they did hiring during coven 19 and a lot of those hires are probably going to end up being permanent additions which is good, I mean one of the things you know you kind of look at this.

You know many of the nonprofit organizations were boxed out of the cares act funding, especially the larger ones that had over 500 employees.

They weren't allowed to tap into it so that's I think is what's caused a lot of this decline in workforce and stuff because there wasn't always the opportunity that some of the for profit organizations had in terms of.

covert funding.

Communication communication is probably one of the key and most critical things that's that's out there there's been a tremendous level of information overload if any of you belong to trade associations.

used to be that you know we attended trade associations on a maybe a monthly basis, maybe a quarterly basis you know, once the pandemic first hit.

organizations and trade associations, where we're meeting, more often than once, once a week.

Now they're meeting either weekly or bi weekly or monthly but there's just been so many more meetings.

I think you know people have gotten zoom burnout from a lot of this meeting that just keeps happening so something that you need to be cognizant of people kind of feel like they don't have.

Even though they're not necessarily in the office they kind of feel like they're constantly being watched through you know zoom and there's meeting after meeting after meeting.

I think this comes back to what I was saying before is you know when you're in a situation where so many things are changing and we have to react to what's changing.

You know our style becomes more of a reactionary style and we're dealing with crisis management.

And I think you found a lot of nonprofit leadership kind of focused on crisis management, over the last year.

And we now need to pull ourselves away from that crisis management and kind of think more proactive and go back to a lot of that planning that that kind of got put on hold for the last year.

um there's a lot of new avenues for virtual communication there's a lot of different software applications out there, I mean there's obviously teams.

There zoom there's a goto meeting so there's a lot of different types of things and tools out there.

And again, I think a lot of those tools are going to remain intact, even after the pandemic is over, as I said before, information is key, I think a lot of people have some of the CDC websites and stuff on.

You know, permanent watch list serves if you're not already getting information push down to you from.

Government sources, I think you really need to be kind of focused on that and, again, you know if you're not if you don't belong to trade associations, I think that's important but it's a matter of gathering as much information as you possibly can so i'm really quick.

How are you keeping your virtual staff connected.

So if you take a couple seconds to answer it so whether you don't have virtual staff because everybody's back in person.

you're doing weekly team meetings and check ins periodic monthly team building events daily interactive work environments so using screen sharing through computer interaction everything else, what are you guys doing it again just.

would like to really gain an understanding of what's happening out there.

Okay, what do we got on.

So it looks like most of you are doing weekly team meetings and check ins 23% are doing daily interactive work environment which is really good I think that's really important, you know when everybody was around in the office, I think you had a lot more instances where people would.

would just kind of stopped down the hallway and just ask questions and stuff and I think, with people being a little more remote they're they're a little more reticent to ask questions so again, the more you can do that, that team sharing and keep people connected I think that's great.

Again I think there's increased internal communications that are happening at all levels, you need to have that happening at the board level, the staff level management level, and I think a lot of that's been necessary necessitated by the virtual work environment.

People need to feel like they're connected, and I think right now I think a lot of them aren't and the more you can keep people connected them.

The more you're going to find that people stay with an organization, I think, once you get to a point where people don't feel like they're connected to the organization anymore.

You know, then it becomes tough, so you really want to make sure if you're going to manage your staff effectively that you're keeping your staff connected to the organization.

constituent sermon crisis, I mean that the people that you serve they're in crisis, you know and they're.

The service delivery that you guys are providing as a critical lifeline for them, you know, and you know even things like um you know, looking at, if you are an organization, that is.

provides services for let's say.

Individuals who get.

Living services and stuff like that, like you're funded through the office of people with developmental disabilities and stuff like that, where you've got.

Your some of your constituents who are completely isolated and separated for their from their families, some of the things that's going to be very, very important is to make sure that you've got an adequate.

level of bandwidth for them to be able to get on.

The Internet and be able to communicate with their families, because for some of them that might be the only communication, they have with the outside world, or with their families.

So again, some of that stuff is going to be very, very important to make sure that there's there's updates there um.

Again, as I said before, advocacy has gotten harder.

But it's still important it's it's still one of the key building blocks that nonprofits need to kind of focus on is making sure that political advocacy is happening.

And that that communication stays open however we're going to keep that communication open and donors need to make.

You need to make them feel like they're connected to your organization and again we'll talk about that a lot more.

Especially since a lot of organizations in the past have used events as a way of kind of keeping donors connected, we now have to find other ways to keep the donors connected if we can't do events and we can't be having conversations with them through that through at events.

So, from a fundraising perspective, how will coven 19 impact charitable giving.

25% of donors in a study done by fidelity 25% of donors said they were going to increase their donations.

In 2021 and 54% said they were going to maintain their gifting levels, so we do expect that there is going to be some level of uptake in.

How much people contribute the thing to keep in mind is, if you look at where this increase is going to happen i'm 46% of millennials said that they are going to be increasing their donation.

About 25% of gen X said that they'd be increasing their their donations at about 14% of baby boomers.

So overall you're getting that 25% increase, but the thing to keep in mind is that it's at the younger level of individuals it's the millennials.

That are really going to be leading the charge, and one thing to keep in mind is when you're dealing with the younger generation they haven't necessarily.

developed the relationships yet with the nonprofits there that they're going to be supporting for the rest of their lives.

So this is a really good opportunity for nonprofit organizations to really start to develop relationships with.

You know the next generation of donors and making sure that that next generation of donors is connected to your organization, so that.

As wealth transference takes place, and you know they start to to have disposable income that they remember you and that you're connected they're connected to your organization.

One of the key things from a fundraising perspective that the nonprofit sector needs to kind of focus on is retention.

14.2% of the first time donors in gave a second donation to organizations in 2020 that's not a high percentage and and part of it is that we don't have that um.

or we're not creating as nonprofit organizations we're not creating that connection with our donors.

We don't have that good open lines of communication we don't we're not showing them necessarily the impact of their gift there's no connectivity to the organization tell you a little story about something that happened last year, so last year last December.

I gave 10 donations to nonprofit organizations around the holidays, they were all smaller nonprofit organizations, the gifts one big there were $500 each.

And I sent out the donations and I waited to see what came back three of the organizations, the Executive Director of the organization sent me a personal thank you six of the organization's I got a canned you know standard letter.

signed by either board member or executive director, but it wasn't even a hand signature, it was kind of a printed signature.

And then one I got no response from at all, so this was back in December, here we are now in April about four months later.

And I can tell you have the 10 organizations, I gave money to, not a single one of them has followed up with me.

In response to my donation no communication no engagement no indication on how the funds are going to be used, who helped the impact it made.

So you kind of look at that and it's like well what's the likelihood that i'm going to make a second donation to these organizations, because I don't even know how they use my money I don't know.

I don't feel connected to these organizations and you know, maybe i'm going to be looking for other organizations to contribute to next year, you want to kind of create that connectivity.

On the reverse side a couple years ago we started.

Funding an organization called book various, which is a small organization here on the island that puts books in the hands of children and adults who don't have access to books.

And right after I donated to them, I got that personal thank you from the executive director and then I started to receive messages from children that they helped little videos saying thank you.

And we gave it from our firm, so thank you Sabrina and associates for contributing and making a difference or getting me a book or whatever we've got messages from staff we got messages from.

Teachers thanking us, for the work that we're doing i've continued to fund that organization and they become a primary.

source of primary organization that we support as a firm.

On a go forward basis we actually even entered into a partnership with them where we actually put a book in the hands of a child, for every hour billable service we have and it's because of that interaction and the way they connected to us.

So, again I think it's something that organizations need to think about, especially since people, as I said before, are very isolated and they're craving that.

social interaction and stuff and the more that we can kind of provide.

That type of interaction and show them slice of life and everything in terms of how their funds are being used and kind of give them kind of a little sneak peek into what's happening within the organization I think that's important.

I think you need to personalize your messaging one size doesn't fit all there have been studies done that you know if you personalize your message donors and 40% more likely to give.

So you want to be in a situation where you know that messaging is really connected to what that donor is interested in and there's a lot of.

CRM software out there that kind of looks at.

You know where you can take your information in put it in and really dice and slice up the information all different ways, so that it really is more meaningful in terms of being able to get your personalized message out.

What difference your organization, how do you tell your story.

Remember what I said before, everybody is out there now and everybody's online they're not even out there in person they're out there in line and they're all trying to get their messaging out there.

You know it's kind of like that Horton hears a who you know you need to to get that final.

You know voice out there that kind of gets you above everybody else.

it's an ongoing engagement and you know how do you how do you ensure that you're constantly communicating you know, even if.

it's once a month or once a quarter where you're sending out something to these individuals that's a little more.

to your donors, a little more personal showing them how the funds are being used are showing you the impact that you're having or.

Providing a little message or a little drawing by a kid if they're if you're a child organization all those things, help and they help you know make people feel connected.

If any of you watch any of the reality TVs or any of the.

You know the.

The voice, or any of those I mean some of the things they do there is they constantly.

interview the contestants and give you a little insight into the contestants the reason they do, that is, they want you to feel connected to those contestants.

How do you do the same thing with your donors, how do you get your donors to feel connected to the people that they're supporting, how do you get them to feel connected to your organization.

um consider things like backstage tours in essence so make it personal less transactional let them see who you're helping let them see what's going on.

Let them, you know kind of feel what's happening within the organization and then I think it's also important.

To kind of create that linkage between the donation and the impact, so you know people want to see things that are tangible if I give you $25.

What are you going to do with it so for $25 I can feed a family for week for $500 I can find shelter for family for a month, so you know what is it, how do you kind of create that direct correlation because I think.

donors can kind of see that direct correlation and it makes it a little bit easier for them to donate.

Those want to know how you pivoted during the pandemic and have you remained impactful and relevant there's a small organization again here on the island called Eastern food Institute.

And when the pandemic hit what they did is they went out, then there, there are an organization that works with you know, putting food in the hands of people who need it so when they went out and they hired some of the restaurant employees that got laid off, they.

got in contact with the wineries and the.

Farmers and the fishermen on the island.

pull some of the product brought in, like I said restaurant workers to cook and.

prepare meals and everything and they distributed that food to local food pantries as a way of supplementing the food pantries who.

weren't able to get the level of food they needed due to the breakdown in the food supply chain and increase need.

So this is a small organization that was very creative in terms of how it pivoted during the pandemic and you know that's something that i'm told the story for someone like me it resonated and again they've become an organization that i've supported.

i'm giving what's up in 2020 again donors have said they're going to give more in 2021 but we'll have to say I mean the market has been down the market, the stock market was very, very strong during the 2020 but in 2021 so far it's cooled off a bit.

People are still there's a lot of trepidation about what the economy is going to look like on a go forward basis.

there's going to be new rules and regulations coming out at some point in time, with respect to new tax laws and everything else, I think a lot of people are sitting in a wait and see sort of mode here.

And they're trying to figure out what's going to happen, and they want to know before they they kind of open up their their wallets heavily again.

But, again, there are good signs and there are positives giving Tuesday, which happened on December 2 there were two of them, last year, but the second one on December second.

We saw 25% increase in dollars and a 29% increase in donors, so those are positives and hopefully those pauses will carry through into this year.

But again, as long as that economic uncertainty exists donors are going to be a little cautious in terms of of what they're going to do.

um The other thing to keep in mind is donors have very short attention spans.

So you need to show the social impacts distinctly I think you know things like infographics or videos those are going to be very, very important on a go forward basis in terms of.

How you interact with your donors remember you know what I said before, the the younger generation is the generation that's going to be more likely to be expanding their donations on a go forward basis and the younger generation they're there they move at a much faster pace.

than I do so again, I think there it's a matter of making sure that you know it's it's quick and you're getting your point across and again, as I said before, consider racial and social equity, as it relates to mission.

I think there's a lot more corporate responsibility foundations are very interested in it, I was talking to an organization, the other day, and they said they're opening up a new fund and that fund is going to be for organizations that have.

Leadership who is diverse has diverse leadership.

racially diverse leadership, and again I think that you're going to see more and more of that, so the more that you can kind of.

consider that in what you're doing how it relates to your mission how you're dealing with social and racial.

inequity in your organization, I think, are all going to be very helpful because those are going to be, you know buzzwords that donors and foundations and corporations are going to be looking at in the near term.

social media is going to take a much more active role as we move forward and again if you're going to get into social media, then you need to understand how.

The different segments of the population are kind of dealing with social media, you know tick tock has become the number one downloaded social media platform during 2020 and a tick tock is introduced a new good.

tick tock for good, which is a Community focused component of it instagram has added a component to it, where you can do or link your instagram photos to a fundraiser.

Facebook is still the most widely used platform and Facebook also has fundraiser you got linkedin you got Twitter you got twitch you've got snapchat.

you've got YouTube so you've got all of these different platforms that are out there, and you have to kind of decide which is the right platforms, because.

Unless you've got unlimited amount of money and resources it's going to be hard for you to stay on top of each one of these social media outlets, if you think about where or who's on these social media outlets and we'll get to that little chart on the bottom here in a second on YouTube.

13 to 17 year olds 85% of 13 to 17 year olds in United States are on YouTube 91% of 18 to 29 year olds 87% of 30 to 49 year olds and 70% of 50 to 64 year olds so YouTube again is a very, very.

Widespread everyone's using it and it's heavily used linkedin, which is a business platform which everybody.

kind of is big on linkedin is really the 30 to 49 year old population and it's about 37% that's the biggest target market of this and only 9% of all US users actually visit linkedin more than once a day.

So, if you think about it, you don't really have to post a link in linkedin all the time, you know if you post to it once a day once every couple days you're probably good because again it's not a.

it's a very big from a business perspective and you want to be on linkedin but again understanding the target market is is important.

instagram is a younger crowd 13 to 17 year olds 72% 18 to 29 year old 67% those your biggest areas within linkedin and then snapchat is also a younger crowd.

69% of 13 to 17 year olds and 62% of 18 to 29 year olds so when you're looking at what it is, and you know which platforms, you want to use.

Again, I think you need to look at your target market, so, if you look at social media users by age, you know 18 to 29 year olds 90% of them are using social media, to take stock twits the snapchat the instagram.

82% of 30 to 49 year olds that's your linkedin your YouTube your Facebook.

50 to 64 year olds 69% of using them and 65 plus about 40% and that's again your YouTube and Facebook, those are the ones who are using those tools so again if you're marketing, you can target your marketing to the.

Age demographics, you know if you understand who's utilizing the different forms of social media.

videos are going to make up 82% of online traffic next year, according to Cisco.

So that's going to be something that's that's very, very important mobile video consumption is increasing by 100% per year, so those individuals who are viewing videos on their cell phone devices.

So keep in mind that if you're going to be creating videos and you're going to be posting videos you want to make sure that those videos are going to be.

easily viewed on a mobile device, because more and more people are moving away from computers and moving more and more towards mobile devices.

Some of the things that you should be thinking about from a video perspective and these don't have to be professionally developed videos these could be done on cell phones or whatever.

But things to think about you want to share snippets of your story, you want to show pro your programs in action.

You want to tap into celebrities and influencers there's a lot of when you get to that social media that we talked about there's a lot of influences out there, think about live streaming campaigns.

Again, this is all ways that you can allow your donors to be connected tell them the story, you know take them on a tour let them meet your staff and people you serve let them see the.

The difficulties and tender moments behind you know what's happening within your organization, I think you know that makes it real that makes it human.

You know, and I think emotions like anything else, are very powerful show your impact and where the money is going and don't forget when you're doing these videos keep them short and make your ask, so there should always be an ask at the end of it.

A couple other things on the fundraising front in terms of you know where we're going.

On there has been an increased level of social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs is really the blurring of the lines between the nonprofit and for profit sectors.

Where you got nonprofits thinking more like businesses and starting up businesses and for profits thinking more like social enterprises where they're really focused on.

Social justice and everything else, and I think you know from a nonprofit perspective you're seeing a lot more nonprofits you know jumping on to things like square or shopify and creating little nonprofit stores where they're selling.

organizational branded materials and other things there's a lot more avenues for nonprofits now with these online platforms are getting bigger to to do.

Auctions and those types of things and we're seeing more and more of that.

happening.

So I think you're seeing more and more of the nonprofit sector looking to develop more.

Businesses and trying to develop strategic partnerships with the nonprofit sector and I mentioned before, that we have a strategic relationship with book fairies.

I think, to you know, to go to a organization a corporation say I want you to to sponsor my golf outing I need 5000 or $10,000 to sponsor my golf outing.

I think if you can make it a little more flexible and go to a corporate sponsor and say look, I want to sit down with you and I want to design something that's meaningful to you.

How can we design a relationship that's going to be useful for both of us and provide you know, a two way street here, where you know we promote you you promote us.

And you know there's money involved, but I think you know, the more that you can stop trying to shove, a square peg in a round hole and and you start to really design.

Campaigns that are really focused on businesses, I think you're going to be much better off and then and think about in a second I mean you know from a business perspective it's in businesses best interest to show that they're connected and giving back to the Community.

because consumers are demanding it consumers want to know that if they're going to be buying from a company that there's alignment between the company and their core values.

So they want to see that they want to see that their social responsibility within the organization, especially the millennials and gen gen Z.

And it also helps for businesses to keep their employees connected employees, want to feel like they're working for a company that cares.

So, again try to find ways that you can strategically partner with business owners, I think that's going to be important, on a go forward.

basis to kind of find creative ways of virtual events are here to stay i'm Sorry, I know, everybody wants to go back to in person, I think that will always be.

Or that you need to go back to have some level of in person stuff but you need to also consider the fact that you need to have some level of virtual events on a go forward basis.

We don't know if we're going to end up being back in this situation, hopefully, never but who knows.

And even think that you know the events on a go forward basis, I think what you're going to find is events are going to be kind of hybrid.

Where they'll be an in person component and maybe some live streaming so you get that virtual piece of it also, so I think you know, in the down the road you're going to actually see.

kind of a mix of everything you know in person virtual and um you know annex.

One of the things I mean virtual events can be very effective 56% of virtual event organizers said they met their goal during 2020.

And I think part of it is you know you need to find a virtual event that's going to work for your organization I mentioned book fairies earlier.

Book fairies they created a virtual event last year in 2020 where they they set up a read of fun and they brought in celebrity readers and they brought in.

authors and the authors read from their books and they stuck around and answered questions and they were able to raise and again, this is a small organization that maybe raises about $350,000 a year.

And they were weren't sure what they were going to do, because they couldn't do there in person events.

Last year there that book read a thon raise $60,000 this year they're doing it again and they're projecting over $100,000 they already have over $40,000 in on the event so.

If you get the right event and you make it interactive and creative I think a lot of that stuff can be done virtually and done effectively virtually.

And, as I said before, you need to continue to find ways to engage your volunteers that's one of the biggest.

Issues that organizations nonprofit organizations are having right now is they're having a tough time finding ways to engage their volunteer so as I mentioned earlier volunteerism this down by 47%.

Their new volunteer management systems and one of the things to think about we were talking a little bit earlier about social media.

There might be ways that you can tap into gen Z and millennial volunteers to help you, with your social media campaigns for the videos the graphic design all of those things.

they're they're very strong and that that might be a way that you can kind of tap into a pool of volunteers and again start to connect those individuals to your organization.

Remote workforce um so when we're looking at things from a remote workforce perspective.

I think this is an air an avenue that we're going to see is going to continue long past the pandemic, I think the pandemic has shown that people don't necessarily have to be in the building in order to be effective and to work.

You know, there are different pros and cons to having a remote workforce a remote workforce is it provides flexibility to workers can provide them with a better work life balance, they can spend more time with their young children.

You can expand your talent pool because you're no longer limited to who lives around your office, but you can pull people from anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world at that matter.

Again harder for co workers to connect you need to find and put in place systems and processes and everything else, increased isolationism and lack of socialization you got to find ways to.

bring people back into your organization in terms of that.

social aspect of things, there is that blurring of the work life boundaries harder connect with organization and hard to develop strong organizational culture.

i'm not sure what organizations are going to be doing going forward so we have a little cold here if people don't mind popping in so you're going to continue to work.

Allow staff to work remotely when the pandemic is over, are you going to be looking for everyone to come back to the office or you're going to maintain some sort of hybrid work environment where maybe they work, some days in the office and some days off from home.

No matter what I think people answer here, I think, flexibility is going to be the new norm going forward, and I think everybody needs to have some level of flexibility with their workforce going forward so what's our answer here on.

So, again I I say and that's what I kind of expected that that 75% of you are going to.

maintain some level of hybrid work environment which I think is kind of the right answer and I think that's where things are going to go, and I think you know what you're going to find is that.

you're not going to need as much brick and mortar space going forward, and I think you're going to see that there's going to be a trade off between brick and mortar and technology is organizations invest more in technology and maybe a little less than the brick and mortar stuff.

From a operations perspective.

As I said earlier, 2021 is a year to regroup.

During this year, you really you need to be focused on your mission.

Have you have you had mission creep where maybe you know you took money or started doing things because there was a need within the Community.

That maybe you're outside of your core mission, or maybe they need now need to be part of your core mission.

Because there is that need in the Community, I think everybody needs to really look at their mission now and see you know what is it we're doing, how does what we're doing align with our mission is our mission really the right mission for us anymore, or should things be be changing.

And then you know, whatever you do I think there needs to be that communication with stakeholders.

You need to be proactive and I said this before and again we've been forced by the pandemic to be very reactive, you know there's we're reacting to regulations were acting to um would go out on the.

funding sources and everything else you know now we need to kind of take back the nonprofit organization, we need to do, strategic planning, we need to figure out where we're going to be as an organization, I think a lot of management.

thought process and a lot of management time has been focused on just trying to understand what's going on trying to react and and set up new systems so that we can work in a.

pandemic environment, and I think now again, I think we need to kind of look at what our next normal is figure out what we learned from the pandemic what we're going to take from the pandemic forward and kind of build that into our new systems build that into.

Our strategic plan and everything else.

And that also means that we're going to need to go back and look at our organizing documents to make sure that our organizing documents are aligned with what we're doing now, we need to look at our bylaws and all that other stuff.

Consider changes in the service brought about by the by the pandemic, how is that service changed and.

How has that been effective or ineffective and what are we going to do on a go forward in terms of what our service model is going to look like.

Many nonprofits be looking to streamline operations, you know they're going to be looking to maybe not do things the way they've traditionally done it there's a lot more that can be done with technology today.

A lot of back office functions can be streamlined through technology, so I think the pandemic has kind of allowed us to see a couple things it's allowed us to see.

Which of our employees are effective and which of our employees, maybe aren't effective with having the furlough certain employees, maybe we don't need all of those employees back.

Maybe we can work on a much more streamlined basis, what can we do in terms of again using technology, in place of people and then this goes back to what I said before, brick and mortar verse virtual environment, do we want to.

keep some sort of back office function in place, or do we look to start outsourcing some of that stuff should we be outsourcing some of the.

HR accounting and that type of stuff do we want to remain a local organization, are we looking to pull staffer or resources from anywhere in the country.

And should we be increasing the amount of investment, we made in we make in technology.

I think one of the things that the pandemic has definitely done is it's quite the nonprofit sector up in terms of where they were they were always.

well behind the for profit sector in terms of technology spending and technology, ability and I think what what's happened is.

With the need to move towards a remote environment, I think a lot of organizations have invested heavily in technology and they've they've.

Somewhat caught up, but we still have a lot of concerns with cyber security with specially with people working remotely there's been a lot more issues with cyber security issues, and then you also have you know.

A large increase in cloud based solutions that are out there for organizations, a lot of companies have invested a lot of money and converting a lot of their um you know.

off the shelf packages into more cloud based solutions to to kind of give organizations, a much better product and then again, as I said before, increase collaboration in the sector, shared services joint programming consolidation.

So that's going to be important from a policy and advocacy perspective.

um you know areas that the Federal Government can help so again, this is another one of those surveys by the independent sector 67% of respondents said that the Federal Government needs to incentivize giving you know, we have the.

For those who those individuals who do do not itemize deductions, the only part of charitable contributions that are deductible is $300.

For an individual $600 for a married couple, which is not large I mean that's been extended through 1231 21 but you know, the more that the government can incentivize giving through.

tax deductibility I think that's going to be helpful for the sector more direct relief to individuals.

To take some of the pressure off the nonprofit sector, because we are looking at a situation like I said earlier, where need has grown.

We need to streamline government grants and contracts and streamline the payment cycle and everything else that's that's been horrible over the last year we're seeing a lot of our clients, the receivables have completely aged out.

More forgivable loans and more support for the nonprofit sector expanded broadband access for both consumers and nonprofit organizations.

Deeper coverage of unemployment, and you know the Federal Government has been contributing 50% towards those organizations that have gone self insured for.

State unemployment that's going to be increased for a short period of time to 75% from for 121 296 21 so so there will be some additional coverage and support there and then more payroll tax relief for nonprofit organizations.

A couple other really quick significant.

Obviously there's been a lot of cares act funding that's that's come out and when that cares that funding came out.

nonprofits are at a disadvantage when it comes to care zach funding because nonprofits get a lot of funding from government sources and the question is.

You know, are we in a situation situation where we're double dipping where we're getting funding from a governmental source and then we're also getting the Kazakh funding.

If you want there's a link there to a webinar where there's a lot of discussion about.

The interaction of the different funding sources and how that all works in the nonprofit sector and something that if you are.

Getting multiple streams are kind of i'm just trying to understand how all that works, you might want to watch.

The American rescue plan came out in the beginning of March, with another $3.1 trillion, and it provided significant support to not just New York state of the various states and municipalities.

In New York state, we had 20% holdbacks that was.

Cutbacks on those things have been restored, so I think you're going to see that in a lot of different states, the thing to keep in mind is this cares act funding or this American rescue plan.

With the money is going down to the various states and stuff that's a one year benefit, so we might be back to where we were a year from now, so just keep in mind that.

You know if you have the ability, store some of the money because you might need it in future years again expanded PPP eligibility for larger nonprofits.

I talked about the unemployment relief increase paid leave credit X and.

expanded coverage to include obtaining vaccinations there now talking about maybe creating a credit for organizations that allow their staff to go out and get vaccinated and then.

It provided a lot of additional support and money coming down for the nonprofit sector, a lot of that stuff hasn't been nailed down in terms of what it's going to look like so that'll be coming down coming out, hopefully, in the near term.

The Covid pandemic and the corresponding government relief packages and made it clear that nonprofit organizations need more advocates and allies in Washington and one of the things, as I said earlier, is that the PPP funds.

were really designed more for businesses, they weren't designed for nonprofits if you think about it a second.

You know the second round PPP said that you can get the the PPP funding if you had a 25% decline in revenue in any quarter of the prior year any quarter of 2020.

We just said that many nonprofit organizations who are an uptake in demand for services so we're delivering more services, we may have gotten more revenue to be able to deliver those services but we're still.

in dire need of additional funding, but the PPP won't give it to us because we're in a situation where we have an uptick in revenue, or we haven't met that 25% decline.

So it really wasn't focused on the nonprofit sector, and I think really what the nonprofit sector needs is, they need a cabinet level position that really understands and considers the nonprofit sector in Washington, who you know when.

These types of things are being developed in policy is being developed nonprofits have a voice at the table and that's something that that really hasn't happened.

I know I kind of sped through that and I know I throw a lot of material out there, I do thank you for spending time with me today i'm a little overview and I want to thank again jm T for allowing us to speak today, I appreciate it.

I don't see any questions in the Q&Adoes anybody have any questions that they want me to go over.

JMT Consulting: not seeing any either, but since we are a little bit over on time, we also will send out your information can be your contact information, along with the recording and slides within 24 hours and if anyone does have any questions feel free.

To email can or email us here, we would be happy to help.

And so Thank you everyone for attending today if you aren't familiar with JMT consulting team, and we are a provider of Iraqi and financial management solutions for nonprofits in the US.

and feel free to join us at JMTconsulting.com and we also have more free educational resources at jmtdev.wpengine.com/resources.

Ken Cerini: If I can just make one last statement.

Anybody who's not using JMT you're not doing your organization service.

JMT Consulting: We appreciate that.

Ken Cerini: They can take care of you.

Thank you for your time.

JMT Consulting: bye everyone.