Katherine Lacefield is taking us behind the scenes of growing a monthly giving program from absolute zero to 2,000 committed donors in just FIVE years, all through grassroots efforts.
You’ll hear exactly how Katherine and her team used face-to-face canvassing and phone fundraising (NOT flashy ad campaigns or pricey agency consultants!) to spark long-term donor relationships. These are scrappy, creative tactics that built a high-retention recurring giving engine, all done in-house.
We also dive deep into messaging strategies (like the “3 Ps” of monthly giving: proactive, project-based, and political power), why stewardship starts on day one, and how organizations can reframe their energy around fundraising.
As the founder of Just Be Cause Consulting, Katherine has truly done it all in the fundraising world: major gifts, peer to peer campaigns, grants and my favorite topic, monthly giving. I can’t wait for you to tune in for this honest and refreshing conversation.
Resources & Links
Connect with Katherine on LinkedIn and learn more about her consultancy, Just Be Cause. Katherine also has a podcast that explores the causes that shape our world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In today's episode I am joined by Catherine Lacefield
, founder and head consultant ofJust Because Consulting, based
out of Canada.
She has done it all in thefundraising world Major gifts,
peer-to-peer campaigns, grantsand my favorite topic, monthly
giving.
And here's where it gets reallyfun.
She personally helped grow amonthly giving program from zero
(00:23):
to 2,000 donors in five years.
And we are not talking aboutbig agency budgets here.
We are talking grassroots,face-to-face canvassing
fundraising phone calls, emailsand she was out there canvassing
in Canada herself.
And every bit of this was donein-house, no third party.
(00:44):
She hired the teams, shecreated the messaging.
We're going to get into whatmessaging actually worked.
Hint, it's called the three Ps,the creative ideas she tried,
how she got the team inspired,the humor, the challenges.
This is an honest, refreshingand packed conversation with
very useful takeaways.
(01:04):
She also shares some smartadvice for navigating the
shifting grant landscape,especially for organizations
looking at international funding, and how she really helps shift
teams' mindsets whenfundraising starts to feel more
draining than energizing.
Oh, and there's an incrediblestory about a BC animal shelter,
rethinking partnerships andstorytelling that you don't want
(01:27):
to miss.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
When you're trying to push for change, you really
need to show that, like a lot ofpeople are backing us up and
support us.
When you're thinking aboutvotes, when you're thinking
about decision makers wanting topush people in a certain
direction or they want supportfrom a large portion of people,
we want to show that we havethose people behind us, those
2,000 people that are donatingevery single month to our cause.
(01:51):
That shows commitment.
That shows that they care a lotmore.
So by joining as a member,you're giving us the political
power we need to show that thisis not just crazy cat ladies
that are supporting thisorganization.
It's you.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Hey, catherine, hello , we are going to dive right
into all the goodness here.
I know you have worked acrossmany, many, many different areas
of fundraising in your career.
We could talk about major gifts, we could talk about grants, we
could talk about peer-to-peer,but right now, in this moment,
what trends are you seeing?
(02:27):
Right now and I know you'rebased in Canada, so that may be
more specific to the org thatyou're working with there I'm
curious to see how thedifferences are between the US
and Canada.
With all the shenanigans goingon in the world right now it's
the kindest way to put it thatyou think that nonprofit leaders
should really be paying closeattention to and again, you can
be specific to what you'reseeing in Canada US
(02:50):
international.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So I actually work in many different countries, while
the majority of my clients arein Canada.
I literally just postedsomething today that oh wait I
saw it was eight right.
Yeah eight different countries,so it's pretty international.
But definitely the majority arein Canada and even if there's a
lot of, as you say, shenaniganshappening in the US, that does
have an impact on Canadianorganizations, but of course, a
(03:11):
lot of the organizations that Iwork with that are on
international scale.
But I do feel that the grantinglandscape generally is shifting,
of course, with what'shappening in the US.
Anything around internationalaid or government funding is
very wonky, and in Canada aswell, we're leading up to
elections next week, so thereare a lot of changes happening
(03:33):
and you can never really depend,in my opinion, on government
grants in the very long term,because as soon as there's any
political shifts, then that putsyour funding at risk.
So, generally speaking, even ifwe don't have an issue right
now, putting all of your eggs inthe same basket of government
funding is just too risky.
(03:53):
So you really need to diversifyyour revenue.
Even if it seems like it'severything's going well, you
never know what's going tohappen and suddenly budgets are
cut.
So I definitely feel thatnonprofits are having to shift
towards different forms ofrevenue and I strongly believe,
especially in certain sectors,that individual donations are
(04:13):
still going to be much morestable in the long term than any
form of grant.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I think it's really interesting that you're
bringing this up even from thecontext of, like an election
cycle, even if nothing isnecessarily like bad happening.
It's just the nature of whatcan happen in a political
landscape.
I think that's reallyinteresting.
As far as individual gifts andthe organizations that you're
working with, are you seeing anincrease?
Obviously, we're going to talkabout recurring giving, monthly
(04:40):
giving, regular giving.
How do you see that faring inthe organizations that you work
with?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So a lot of the organizations that I work with
are a lot of startups or smallorganizations that are kind of
getting into individual giving.
We haven't noticed necessarilya decrease or increase, I would
say because they're growing.
They're slowly increasingbecause they're finally getting
into doing the strategies thatwill increase their donations.
I know that on a national level, the amount of donors, so the
(05:08):
number of donors that are giving, has been decreasing year after
year, but the amount has notnecessarily decreased as much.
So it's just that there's lesspeople giving but they're giving
more.
So that's what's happening inCanada, as the last reports that
I've read.
Of course there is huge economicupheaval happening in Canada
(05:28):
and I'm sure in the States aswell, some slight changes.
So I definitely think that hasan impact and people are saying
like, oh, I just can't afford todo it as much.
And so when people think ofcutting somewhere, of course
sometimes donations are thefirst to go, not necessarily for
everyone, because there areorganizations that are growing
that are increasing.
So I just see it as you reallyneed to double down on
(05:50):
stewardship and really build astrong commitment relationship
with your donors so that thatisn't the first thing that they
want to cut out that you want tomake sure that they feel so
committed and loyal like?
No, I'm part of this as acommunity, but that is not where
I'm going to cut.
First, I'm going to cut into myweekly Starbucks, so I'm going
to cut my Netflix account, whichis probably better for my
mental health anyway, beforethey cut your donation, yes, yes
(06:14):
for sure, and you have a reallycool case study to share with
the listeners today.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
You helped an organization I would say
Canadian-based organization growa monthly giving program from
zero to 2,000 recurring donorsover the course of five years.
That is amazing and everyone'slike how, literally how.
And that is exactly what theshow is about is explaining the
how.
Can you walk us through?
I'm sure I will interject witha bazillion questions, but a few
of like I'm sure I willinterject with a bazillion
questions, but a few of like.
(06:46):
What made that growth possible?
And I want to actually startwith the mindset that the
organization had that recurringgiving was important to them,
and then we can get into somemore like the tactical.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Okay, so quick context.
This was an animal rightsgrassroots organization.
In Canada we have differentcharitable statuses, so there's
nonprofit and there's registeredcharity.
Registered charity would be theequivalent of like 501c3, where
you can get tax receipts, etcetera.
But there is another status Idon't know what the equivalent
would be in the US which is justnonprofit which is it allows
(07:17):
you to fundraise, it allows youto do everything, but you cannot
emit tax receipts and youcannot apply for grants from
foundations because you're not arecognized charitable
organization.
This was especially the caseback in the day before the law
changed that for anyadvocacy-focused organizations
you were not allowed getting the501c3 or registered charitable
status, because they didn't wantcharities that were going to be
(07:39):
against the government to getbenefits.
That was kind of the mentalityof it If you spent more than 10%
of your budget on advocacy notallowed.
So this was the context whereyou have to keep in mind that
people were not able to get taxreceipts for these gifts, which
makes it even more impressivethat we were able to grow to
2000, in my opinion.
So that was the kind of contextand advocacy is all about long
(08:03):
term.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, go ahead, although I would say with that
level.
As I'm thinking about this, Iactually don't care about tax
receipts Me neither, at thelevel monthly, because it
doesn't really do anythingunless you are contributing like
large sums that it can make.
So I don't know.
This would be like aninteresting poll.
This would be like aninteresting poll, like to
(08:25):
monthly donors, if you're givingthat like traditional range of
like $25, $50, $100, if thatreally matters to you, like the
tax benefit credit, or if you'reliterally just doing it because
you believe in the cause.
So, listener, interestingquestion.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Completely agree and from a report perspective, they
have seen, at least in Canada.
The research that I've seen isthat it's not one of the top
motivations that people say, but, on the other hand, something
in Canada, because we have thosetwo different statuses people
have this expectation thatthey'll get a tax credit receipt
, so when they don't, they getthis feeling of like are you not
(08:59):
a legit organization?
So it affects the credibility ofthe organization more than
anything legit organization soit affects the credibility of
the organization more thananything.
So that was kind of thedifficult point around tax
receipts.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay, we have the same.
We have, like I think it's a C4, which is about like more
advocacy based.
So there are kind ofsimilarities of different like
categories of organization.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, that was the context, and as an organization
that was focusing on advocacy asanyone knows, that works in
there these are long-termprojects that will require years
to see any change.
When you're lobbying againstchanging the laws to stop puppy
mills, or to lobby thegovernment to stop, or even
municipalities to stop usinghorse-drawn carriages as tourist
(09:42):
attractions, those kinds ofthings tend to take time because
you have to do the education,you have to give the awareness
and you have to build up acampaign.
So at first they were reallykeen on building up these teams
of fundraisers that would be onthe streets, that would be
spreading awareness, gettingpeople to sign petitions and
just collecting one-time gifts.
But first of all that'sexhausting and very expensive to
(10:02):
have people out there every daycollecting cash that you
constantly have to keep on going, and especially the fact that
these were often cash donations.
They weren't necessarilyfilling out a form with their
contact, so there wasn't thatcapacity.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
There was no contact information.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
No this was 10 years ago.
Now I don't think this would beas common.
People don't generally do thatbecause of transparency issues.
It's kind of much moredifficult and it would be
frowned upon, but back then itwasn't as much of an issue.
This was actually in 2012, 2013when I started and I left in
2016, 2017.
So, anyway, so that was thecontext, and when I started
(10:44):
working there, I started havinga conversation around okay, so
that was the context.
And when I started workingthere, I started having a
conversation around okay, sowhat are we doing to really
build up our sustainability?
We wanted to get a biggeroffice, we wanted to have
full-time staff that wouldactually be able to invest in
the campaigns and like, well, wedo have monthly giving.
And I was like, how many do youhave?
Like 50.
And I was like, okay, and whatare you doing to like continue
them?
Nothing.
(11:05):
Their names were in aspreadsheet, literally.
They were not contacting them,they weren't calling them, they
weren't sending them emails,they had no email newsletter.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And as someone who, from a veryyoung age, like I, really loved
fundraising and I understoodthat we needed to build
relationships, I was like, okay,like I'm going to come in and
I'm going to change this.
(11:26):
So I started building up theirdonor management system and I
became the team leader because Iwas really good at getting
people to sign up to monthlygiving.
But I was one of the only onesthat was good.
So we started really shiftingour priorities.
That when we were talking withour street team to start really
putting an emphasis on monthlygiving and incentivizing them to
(11:46):
do monthly giving.
So this was straight team.
So if anyone's ever seen thosepeople that are like hi, do you
have two minutes to talk aboutGreenpeace?
Or like I'm an international,that was me for five years.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You were the one out there doing the canvassing.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I did canvassing for a year and a half.
I became one of their topcanvassers and then I became
team leader, so I was the onethat would do a little pep talk
in the morning.
I have tons of funny stories ofthings we would do.
It was absolutely crazy.
And then I started becomingmore of just fundraising manager
and I was just full timebuilding up the fundraising
campaigns and managing theirdonors.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Okay, wait, quick pause.
I have to ask, when you'redoing canvassing, what worked?
Was there like something thatyou would say, where it was like
a tried and true?
This got somebody to stop, thisgot somebody to give on a
recurring basis that you canremember.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yes.
So first of all, for the how toget them to stop, that was just
trying a whole bunch ofdifferent things because
everyone would be motivated bydifferent things.
I did it with humor Humoralways works because people
laugh Like I would sometimesjust do a yoga pose in the
middle of the street and be like, hey, you want to talk about
like animals?
And they're like, what are youdoing?
And then they would just, itwas just like a what?
Of course, we used a petition.
So the biggest thing to makepeople to stop at first was,
like we have a petition againstpuppy mills, against puppy mills
(13:04):
, like everyone's against puppymills.
Like you can't, unless you're apsychopath, not want puppy
mills to stop.
So that was a great way tostart a conversation and we had
these 10 steps of reallystarting to build interest in
like, so, do you have an animal?
Okay, that's amazing.
Build that in like personalconnection and then explain,
like do you know what puppymills are?
Okay, well, this is what theyare, this is what they're doing,
this is what we're trying to do.
You can sign your petition hereand then we start.
(13:25):
Just based on what theirresponses were.
I'd be able to gauge theirlevel of interest.
If they don't seem like theycare at all they're just kind of
looking away, not payingattention I can tell that I'm
either not doing a good job orthey don't really care.
And so, depending, once yougauge the interest, once you see
people that are like reallyenraptured, they're like super
into it, they start sharingstories.
(13:45):
That's when you know this is apotential for a monthly gift.
So we would always pitch monthlygiving first and really say,
like we're an animal advocacyorganization, we need people to
support and to join us on along-term basis to give us more
political power, because rightnow the government doesn't take
us seriously.
So by signing up as a monthlydonor, not only are you
(14:06):
supporting us long term througha monthly gift, but you're also
giving us that political powerto actually lobby in your name
to change these laws.
Does this make sense to you?
So, instead of saying are youinterested or like, do you want
to give?
It was like, does this makesense?
Generally, it makes sense topeople.
So like okay.
And then you go intounderstanding what are their
(14:26):
like breaks of like.
Why would they say no?
Because everyone is always likea bit like objection.
And then you can start having aconversation about finding
solutions to their objections.
Like I don't like the fact thatit's automatic and then you can
go into the well, everythingelse is like repair monthly
bills.
It makes it so much easier foryou to sustain your giving to
the organization when you don'thave to think about it month
after month.
(14:46):
The fact that it's automatic itactually lowers our fundraising
costs, which means that moredollars can go to the
organization.
So you can really, once youkind of get that initial hook in
of like yeah, it makes sense,then you kind of have
conversations around what wouldmake sense for them.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, yes, so good.
Okay, it's all about the likeslight tweaks in the language.
I love that it really, is itreally?
Is.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Simple things can make such a difference, and we
can talk about that in this,about stewardship is the same
thing when you really focus on.
We need people like you whobelieve that animals should not
be kept in cramped cages andreproduced year after year after
year.
You're bringing them in rightaway, like we know that you
share these beliefs with us, andthis is why we want you and not
that person on the side of thestreet.
How often were you doing that?
(15:32):
Every day.
So we had teams not menecessarily, but we had teams on
the streets every single day.
I think for a while we limitedit to five days where we weren't
doing Monday and Tuesday,because it was just like less
productive days, like there wasless people on the streets and
it's Monday, no one, everyone'sin a bad mood, it seems.
But yeah, so we were doing itevery day, especially in the
(15:53):
summer.
We have to understand this wasin Canada, in Montreal.
In the winter we were stilldoing it outside.
So imagine in February, no, itwas like my fingers and toes
have trauma from being outsidein the cold for eight hours.
It was not so fun.
So our team definitely shrunk alot as soon as it got cold.
But you'd be surprised howpeople are still like I still
confirmed monthly donors on thestreet.
(16:14):
What we do is we'd be like oh,let's go inside this like little
the Metro entrance or like thesubway entrance and just like
I'll give you some hot chocolateor some hot coffee if you
become a monthly donor.
That would have been awesome.
I wish I would have had a stand.
I would have loved to beholding something hot the whole
time, but yeah, it was obviouslymuch more difficult.
Yeah, so we had people on thestreets pretty much every day.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Oh my gosh.
For how long, like every day,for like over years, this five
year period.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yes, pretty much Like .
Of course, depending on thesize of our team.
If we didn't have enough peopleto fill every day, we would
usually go back down to five orfour, but generally speaking
this was like an ongoing thing.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Like I said, winter is definitely slowed down and
this is a small organization,you said.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, this is a very small organization, so let's go
into the pay structure of this.
Do you want to share that?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, I was just going to say, yes, how did you
actually?
Because I think people think intheir head like canvassing
face-to-face expensive,expensive, like there's no way.
I can afford what she's talkingabout.
Okay, so how did this work?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Okay, so full transparency.
This is a commission-basedstructure and I know and I know
and I'm gonna like everyone inAFP is gonna say that's not
ethical and I do share some ofthat, but there was so much
issues so that it made it somuch more accessible to a small
non-profit.
It was very incentivizing forthe fundraisers and we raised
lots of money for the cause thatwe wouldn't have been able to
(17:38):
had it been on a paidly hour.
And we've experimented, we'vehad to experiment with paid fix
and it just unfortunately didnot bring in the same results.
And I'm going to make a littlecaveat here of from a retention
perspective, and I've alsoworked with and seen teams that
are paid on an hourly basis.
They have the same issues withperformance when it's paid
(18:00):
hourly, because they have to beon very strict quotas and so
once you have that pressure oflike you need to get three
monthly donors a day or you'regoing to be fired.
The same, yeah, like I'm notsaying it was that extreme, but
you had to have a certainaverage of how much you were
doing and if you did not reachthose like yes, you could lose
your job.
So even if it wasn't like youget paid more based on how much
(18:23):
you're bringing in, you willlose your job.
That's that same kind of stressand pressure that you might be
putting onto donors to just belike, just sign up and if you
have to cancel in two months,just do it, just to get your
numbers up.
So I think both situationscould have their pros and cons
in that perspective around donorpressure.
So, anyways, yeah, so, becausethey were doing also one-time
(18:45):
cash gifts as well as monthlygifts and we were also we had
forms and we had POS machines toalso take, like credit card
donations, I was really pushingpeople to fill out these forms
because then we would be able todo the stewardship and
follow-up by pushing for thoseas well.
I ended up also building up aside database of one-time donors
that we can then convert.
We can talk about that later,anyways.
(19:06):
So it was commission-based, sopeople were getting a percentage
of all the donations they werecollecting, but they would get
bonuses when they were gettingmonthly gifts, because that's
what we really wanted, of course.
That's what we want because wewant to eventually not
necessarily need to have afull-time team on the street,
because that's a lot ofmanagement, the constant
interviews, recruiting, training, like it was exhausting.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Okay, so it wasn't through like a third-party
company.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
No, we were doing it all in-house, wow Okay.
Yeah, and I was doing everythingI was doing the interviews, the
trainings we had trainingsevery week, plus the performance
reviews and blah, blah blah andjust keeping them motivated.
It was absolutely exhausting,which is why I'm saying I don't
necessarily recommend this modelfrom that perspective.
There's so many other ways youcan acquire people, but what was
(19:55):
awesome is that once we builtup a strong database, we had to
have less people on the streetsand we shifted towards phone
fundraising, which is a loteasier to manage and control,
especially in Canadian winters.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yes, for sure.
I do think that this is areally interesting idea.
I'm not sure all the laws orlogistics in the United States
and there's lots of third-partycompanies that do this, but this
more like grassroots idea.
Actually, I have two questionsfor you, but one is a thought.
Something that I teach aroundrecurring giving is to have
tentpole campaign moments aroundasking for recurring giving.
(20:30):
And then there's the evergreen,which it should be always all
the time, but that there's liketentpole campaigns like main
focus, maybe two to three timesa year where literally you're
just asking for a recurring giftfor a specific reason.
This is a great idea to havethis element during that
tentpole moment, especially ifit's around a cultural moment.
(20:51):
So we're recording this comingup on Mother's Day.
So if you happen to be anorganization that has something
to do around moms or families orbabies or something that could
do with or dog moms, literallyyou could do the animal side too
Anything and you're outcanvassing around Mother's Day.
It doesn't have to be for afull year, maybe it's just for
(21:12):
literally a month around somecultural moment.
That I could actually seeworking really well, because
people are already in themindset of possibly giving a
gift for their mom, to theirgrandma, to their wife, to their
whoever their daughter that Icould see working.
My second question was arounddid you switch up your locations
or were you kind of tried andtrue in one spot that worked
(21:36):
really well, like one grocerystore, and how did that work?
When you're not a registeredthird party entity, you guys had
to like, obviously, researchwhere you were allowed to do
this right.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So two answers Number one to your first part.
The difficulty I would see withthat is getting staff to do it
just for short periods and thetraining for them, and because
it takes time to learn and to begood at canvassing.
So it might make sense to dothat if you do end up hiring
people that are already trained,and that might be a great way
(22:07):
of acquiring for a short periodof time, but it's much more
expensive to do it that way it'slike a naive question Could you
just have volunteers do it?
You could, will it be effective?
We had some people that werelike, yeah, it's a very
stressful and demanding job andoften volunteers are not going
to have the necessary motivationand, in my opinion,
(22:27):
incentivization to do itproperly and push, unless
they're crazy people like methat love doing fundraising and
that have the sales experience.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Like I actually think it would be kind of maybe I'm
weird and I think it'd be fun.
Like, if I'm a monthly donor ofthe organization, be like I'm
one.
Like I'm a monthly donor andI'm out here because I want to
find more people to join thiscommunity, this amazing
community that I'm a part of.
Like I think that would be anangle that could work.
It's like if you're everlooking for opportunities for
your monthly donors and they'relocal to where you are.
(22:57):
I don't know, maybe I'm justweird.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I where you are.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just weird.
I mean, I think, because weknow how fundraising works and I
feel we're comfortable with it,it changes the game.
But how many people that areeven fundraisers, that are like
oh, I'm uncomfortable askingpeople for money.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Many, many listeners.
I'm sure many of you arefeeling this way.
That would be like totallyoutside of your comfort zone,
totally.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Exactly, I would go for people that have experience
in sales, because they're usedto having that outgoing
approaching people to bring inmoney.
And getting told no many timesand being told no or ignored,
Not even a no ignored I'vegotten spat on Dana like spat on
, and said how dare you be outhere defending animals when
there are children dying inSyria because of the war?
(23:38):
And I was like what, I don'tnot care.
And it was yeah.
So it's a very demanding job,which is why I'm saying like it
could work, like in an event.
Let's say, if you're having aspecific event like we had World
Tofu Day at one point where wedid this giant vegan barbecue in
downtown Montreal, havingvolunteers that are out there
what I would use volunteers foris not to ask them directly to
(23:59):
become monthly donors, but toget the contact information to
then build an acquisition listthat you can then transform by
phone fundraising, with a verysmall team of dedicated trained
staff that can then convert them.
So that's what I would haveshifted more for a strategy of
like let's just either have apetition, have some form of lead
magnet that you can say likehey, sign up for this here, or
(24:21):
we have a survey and then youuse those contact information to
then have a dedicated team thatwill do the follow-up and
fundraising.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Let's talk a little bit about like growth, if you
remember so, roughly zero tolike 2000.
Yeah, were there certain yearsor certain time periods where
you really saw growth and wasall of that from?
What was the split on, like theface-to-face versus the phone
fundraising, if you know that?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, I don't have the exact numbers, but I do know
the generalities because I wasthe one that was managing the
database.
So I started more activelydoing the fundraising.
It was in 2013.
And when they saw that I wasamazing.
The summer of 2013, I became ateam leader, and this is not to
like yeah, girl, pack your bag.
People loved working with mebecause I was encouraging,
(25:10):
inspiring.
We had fun.
I'll give you a little tidbitof like what we would do
sometimes on the streets.
We would buy these funny littlehats from the dollar store that
were like made out of felt, andthose like a, b, a pig one like
ridiculous, and we made theselittle like game competitions
where two or three people wouldbe like selected as the first
people to have to wear thesehats and then the only way to
get the hat off was to get adonation.
(25:33):
So we would be joking withpeople in the street like,
listen, I look absolutelyridiculous with this pig hat on.
Like, can you help me out whileyou're also helping animals?
It was hilarious and you'd belike okay, so who should we give
it to next?
Like, what about that guy?
Yeah, it was so much fun, so Istarted implementing these kinds
of games.
But whoever got the mostdonations before lunch, like,
would get, like a Starbucks cardor something.
(25:53):
So we would have a lot of thesefun games and incentives.
I brought that to the team oflike, really making it fun.
People respected me because Iwas also doing the work and
getting good results.
So I really shifted the focusto monthly donors.
So that year 2013, 2014, we gota lot of monthly donors because
I was pushing for it, becauseyou were making the ask, I was
(26:16):
making the ask and I wasteaching them how and just it
became more of the culture ofthe team.
I was teaching them how andjust it became more of the
culture of the team.
And we changed the incentiveson pushing really.
Like, if you get more monthlydonors and less one-time gifts,
you'd still be getting moreoverall.
So there would be extra bonusesif you got three monthly donors
(26:36):
in a day and I was like itdoesn't matter if they're for
$10 or $30.
Like, I want more monthlydonors.
The amount is not as important,because I'd rather have a
thousand small monthly donorsthan a hundred big ones, cause
if one of them leaves, itdoesn't impact us as much.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
We're not as dependent.
Yeah, and then you always havethe opportunity to ask them to
upgrade or to increase laterdown the line, but at least
they're in.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Exactly that was the most important part.
So that was, I would say, theinitial like really big growth.
And then when I started goingmore in the offices doing
stewardship, doing phonefundraising, the team like
monthly donors definitely wentdown but we had like more of a
stability that it was integratedinto it.
The biggest thing that helpedwas when I started doing more of
the follow-up calls andstewardship, from a retention
(27:21):
perspective but from a growthperspective.
So I was taking all of theforms because this was all
handwritten forms.
It was amazing and I wasactually following up with
people that were making thesegifts to be like, hey, thank you
so much for signing, like this,and that's what started
building up also.
So I would say the phonefundraising, with pretty much me
alone, I would say I convertedat least 500 donors to join them
(27:43):
monthly over those couple ofyears, or getting them back on,
or if when they filled it in thestreet, they switched numbers
by accident because you didn'thave any verification processes
on the street.
So I was just making sure thatanyone who gave their
information the majority of themwere- actually becoming monthly
donors.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Amazing, oh my gosh, this is huge.
And so what?
On a phone call when you wereon the street I know you shared
a little bit about the languagewhat messaging really worked for
organizations that arelistening and they're like, okay
, maybe I can't do theface-to-face, but I could
definitely do the phone, Like wehave a good, solid list of
people.
What was that quick way ofcapturing people's attention and
(28:22):
not having them hang up, ofcapturing people's attention and
not having them hang up?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, first of all, you always go into the personal
first, like to get them to justhave a conversation.
It would be like thank you somuch for signing our petition.
Like I want to let you know,like, how many signatures we're
at and what we've been doing.
Most people are interestedbecause we're not asking them
for anything.
We're sharing information.
And then we start talking aboutcampaigns, end up having
conversations about like, so endup having conversations about
like, so what motivated you tosign the petition?
(28:47):
And I'll show you a funny storyabout Roger.
So this is just like anindividual story where I called
him and I was like hey, and he'slike yeah, my wife forced me to
sign.
I was like oh, my God, I loveyour wife.
Like, should I talk to her?
Instead?
He's like no, no, she's nothere.
I'm like okay, well, thank youso much for having an amazing
wife.
And we started talking and itled to a 30-minute conversation
around the dairy industry.
(29:07):
Because he worked in the dairyindustry.
He's like oh, but you guys arelike a vegan organization.
Like I can't, really I don'tfeel comfortable supporting you
because I work in it.
I was like everyone is on thespectrum.
Like you care about animalwelfare that works as well.
We invite everyone to join themovement.
And we ended up having justlike an ethical discussion.
He was like you're right, likethe ethical discussion.
(29:31):
He was like you're right, likethe way they're treated.
I'm like, yeah, but there's alot of social pressure to like
increase production.
So really we ended up having adiscussion before we talked
about anything.
And so this guy, roger, like ittook him three calls to become
a monthly donor, but every timeyou would make a $50 gift.
He's like I love thisconversation, like let's do this
.
And three calls later he didconvert to a monthly donor for I
don't know how much, but that'snot the point.
So having this personalconnection, and he wasn't even
(29:53):
the one that signed and everycall I'd be like so how's your
wife?
She's still forcing you to signpetitions.
He's like, oh, all the time.
So we got to know each otherand that was useful of having
one person in control or of thelist.
Is that I would have my littleside notes, like Roger, wife
signs positions.
I would be able to continue theconversation.
(30:14):
So, yes, it took time but wewere building the relationship
building, the trust building theconfidence.
So that was what was reallyhelping, I would say, in the
second half of those five years,where it was mostly about
retention and converting all ofthose one-time donors, or even
petition signers, into monthlygifts, specifically for
messaging, for monthly giving.
(30:34):
We call this the three Ps ofbecoming a monthly donor.
So it's number one.
It was around becomingproactive.
So let's be honest, liking apost on Facebook, signing a
petition, is very passive in thesense of it doesn't have a very
big impact.
It gives you a feeling like,yeah, I'm supporting it, but
(30:56):
realistically that's not a veryproactive action to push the
cause forward.
So by becoming a member, you'reactually becoming proactive in
your beliefs of wanting tochange the situation for animals
.
So really putting people oflike you care because you've
signed this petition, like youshould become proactive much
more than just signing apetition.
So those are the number one.
Number two was long-termprojects, especially for
(31:18):
advocacy-focused organizations.
It's long-term.
We're not measuring it inmonths, we're measuring it in
years.
And I always tell peopleimagine if your job only paid
you sometimes when they feltlike it, when it worked, how
would you be able to invest inbuying a house or any of your
own long-term projects?
You wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Same thing goes for nonprofits.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So monthly giving allows us that safety and
security to invest in theselong-term projects.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Love that.
I'm a monthly donor to anorganization right now Chamber
of Mothers that focuses on billsand it takes time, but it's
necessary, right, but it takesmultiple visits.
It takes trips to DC or towherever the local bill is
happening.
It takes writing letters oftestimony like the non-sexy
exciting things often but it'swhat it takes to get done.
(32:06):
Paying for lawyers like that'sexpensive, that takes a long
time.
So again, I love that.
Okay, so sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Third P the third P is actually two P's.
It's political power, so it'sactually technically the four
P's.
So, as an organization, what Iwould really focus on is imagine
if I go up to a legislativepower or decision maker and say
we have five members, thatdoesn't make us feel legit or
that the public supports us.
When you're trying to push forchange, you really need to show
(32:34):
that, like a lot of people arebacking us up and support us.
When you're thinking aboutvotes, when you're thinking
about decision makers wanting topush people in a certain
direction, or they want supportfrom a large portion of people,
we want to show that we havethose people behind us.
When I say we have 2000 peopleand every member, we have to
understand it's like thosenegative and positive reviews
(32:56):
that one positive review isworth I would say five to 10
negative comments, because it'sso easy to complain.
It's a lot harder for mostpeople, like they won't take the
energy or the time to go out oftheir way to leave a positive
review.
Yes, so I believe that they'reworth a lot more.
So those 2,000 people that aredonating every single month to
(33:16):
our cause, that shows commitment, that shows that they care a
lot more.
So by joining as a member,you're giving us the political
power we need to show that thisis not just crazy cat ladies
that are supporting thisorganization.
It's you.
It's you, peter, who works forthe dairy industry.
It's you, jeanette.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
So that was one of the kind of the messaging that I
use that it pushed people tofeel like I should take action,
because, it's true, I do believethis needs to change.
I do understand that this takesyears, and I do want to give my
voice to the movement, oh mygosh.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Okay, I love all of that and I'm sure in the on the
days when it was hard and therewas no monthly gifts happening,
and I'm sure there were timeswhere it was really exciting
when things were happening.
But through that process I'msure it felt really draining and
I think in the current state ofthe world lots of things can
feel really draining and not asenergizing and full of momentum.
(34:12):
But that energy is, I think,what makes the biggest
difference in successfulfundraising and advocacy in the
work that you're doing now.
What are your recommendationsfor the listeners right now who
are like this all sounds great,but I am feeling so depleted.
How do I get myselfre-energized to get my team
(34:32):
re-energized, then get donorsre-energized in fundraising for
us?
Do you have any suggestions?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Many, but number one is, for me, fundraising is not
about the money.
Of course it is.
We understand rationally thatit is about fundraising, but the
way I try to see it is that I'mgetting people to invest in the
future that they want to see.
Instead of focusing on, you'reinvesting in us doing things.
(35:00):
It's no.
We're giving you theopportunity to actually take
action towards a world you wantto see.
Especially when we feelsometimes that we don't make a
difference, that as individuals,what we do doesn't matter, that
we feel powerless.
Shifting it to, we are allowingpeople to make a step towards
(35:20):
the world they would like to see.
I feel that's so empowering andit allows people to feel like
okay, I can do something.
So when we start shifting themindset towards, it's an
opportunity that I'm offeringthese people, instead of like
they're doing me a favor, Ithink it really allows us to
change into like a begging formoney towards a like.
(35:42):
I'm empowering our communitiesto see something different
around them, and I think that'sa very important shift that we
need to have.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yes, I also like your earlier example of just like
having fun with it.
Yeah, having fun with it andcelebrating the wins in your
teams, like acknowledging, likeyou might say, three monthly
donors in a day, and to somepeople that's like nothing and
to some that's like that'severything, like if they've hit
a plateau and it's a really bigdeal and it's like I think
sometimes it's so easy to justbe like, oh, a monthly donor
(36:11):
transaction, like those arethree individuals that made a
decision of a significantcommitment in their life and
building, like you said, thatrelationship with them, and so I
love that.
I want to also, as we wrap upthis conversation, you also have
a podcast.
We were talking about this alittle bit before we started
recording the Just Becausepodcast, which I think is so
(36:34):
clever.
Has there been one story I justwant to leave us on like a
positive, uplifting note, onestory that you've interviewed of
somebody recently on your showthat's really stuck with you,
that listeners can learn from?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, it doesn't have anything to do with monthly
donors, but it's such aninspiring story.
One of my favorite, the JustBecause podcast, is really
focused on how all of thesecauses are interconnected,
Because I hear some people beinglike, yeah, well, our cause is
less sexy, or like people don'twant us but they want to support
children and we work with.
You know, previouslyincarcerated people like no one
likes our cause and I'm like,first of all, stop saying that.
(37:07):
There are definitely yourpeople, you just need to find
your people.
But what I loved about what?
So this is with Kathy Pallisonof Paws for Hope.
She's in BC, in Canada.
What she built is she reallystarted working with other
organizations to buildpartnerships.
So she's a animal rescue, butthat doesn't have a physical
location.
She just focuses on fostercares, foster families, and what
(37:30):
she's done is create thesepartnerships with women's
shelters, recovery centers,rehab centers.
So a lot of abandonments are notbecause people don't care about
their animals.
It's because of externalcircumstances that make it so
that they can't take care oftheir animals and generally it's
for a specific amount of time.
But there's no option for themexcept for paying a babysitter
(37:51):
and I have to go to Canada and Ihave to get my dog babysat for
10 days and it's costing meclose to $500, like for 10 days.
Imagine if we're talking aboutthree weeks a month, two months
like.
Most people cannot afford that.
So their only option is eitherto not go to recovery, not sign
into rehab, stay with theirabusive husband because they're
(38:12):
scared of their animal.
People have a huge bond withtheir animals.
It's so much important than wecan even imagine.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
So what she did is, instead of just having these
animals be abandoned, is herfoster families, are temporary
homes for these people that aregoing through difficult times,
so it lowers abandonment.
Amazing, and what's even moreamazing is from a fundraising
perspective.
Now she can say not only are wehelping these animals, we're
(38:41):
also helping these women goingthrough domestic abuse.
So I love the conversationbecause it really also kind of
removed the crazy cat ladymentality from animal rescues as
like we don't care about humansand involving.
No, we do care about families,including animals, not just
animals, not just people.
So it's more of an and questioninstead of an or so around
(39:04):
partnerships.
That was really important, Ithink everyone.
If you want to talk about howcan you really gain more people
to be attracted to your cause,make connections with other
causes as well.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Such a cool story and I will say we have a
five-year-old Labradoodle, malo,and he is a huge part of our
family.
I can't imagine life withouthim around and so love all the
animal organizations out theredoing things.
Catherine, this has beenincredible.
Oh, she just lifted up herlittle doggy for listeners, mr
Pickles, mr Pickles, mr Pickles.
(39:36):
I love it.
Catherine, where can peoplefind you?
Where can they reach out to you?
Where can they work with you?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
LinkedIn.
I know you're a huge fan ofLinkedIn, as am I.
It has changed everything abouthow I interact with people
around the world, so I'm veryactive on LinkedIn.
The easiest way to connect withme is to message me on LinkedIn
.
I'm much more likely to respondthan an email, if not my
website.
So it's justbecauseconsulting,very simple, and the podcast.
You can also find it atjustbecauseconsultingpodcast or
(40:04):
just search it on Spotify orwhatever to find the Just
Because podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Amazing.
Thank you for being here andfor sharing all of this and for
doing all of that hard work forso long and being out there.
That was incredible.
I'm sure people are going towant to pick your brains.
And thank you again for beingon Missions to Movements.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Thank you for having me.
It was really awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of
Missions to Movements.
If you enjoyed our conversationand found it helpful, I would
love for you to take a moment toleave a review.
Wherever you're listening, yourfeedback helps us reach more
changemakers like you andcontinue bringing impactful
stories and strategies to theshow.
(40:43):
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button too, so you'll
never miss an episode, and untilnext time, keep turning your
mission into a movement.
In today's episode I am joined by Catherine Lacefield
, founder and head consultant ofJust Because Consulting, based
out of Canada.
She has done it all in thefundraising world Major gifts,
peer-to-peer campaigns, grantsand my favorite topic, monthly
giving.
And here's where it gets reallyfun.
She personally helped grow amonthly giving program from zero
(00:23):
to 2,000 donors in five years.
And we are not talking aboutbig agency budgets here.
We are talking grassroots,face-to-face canvassing
fundraising phone calls, emailsand she was out there canvassing
in Canada herself.
And every bit of this was donein-house, no third party.
(00:44):
She hired the teams, shecreated the messaging.
We're going to get into whatmessaging actually worked.
Hint, it's called the three Ps,the creative ideas she tried,
how she got the team inspired,the humor, the challenges.
This is an honest, refreshingand packed conversation with
very useful takeaways.
(01:04):
She also shares some smartadvice for navigating the
shifting grant landscape,especially for organizations
looking at international funding, and how she really helps shift
teams' mindsets whenfundraising starts to feel more
draining than energizing.
Oh, and there's an incrediblestory about a BC animal shelter,
rethinking partnerships andstorytelling that you don't want
(01:27):
to miss.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
When you're trying to push for change, you really
need to show that, like a lot ofpeople are backing us up and
support us.
When you're thinking aboutvotes, when you're thinking
about decision makers wanting topush people in a certain
direction or they want supportfrom a large portion of people,
we want to show that we havethose people behind us, those
2,000 people that are donatingevery single month to our cause.
(01:51):
That shows commitment.
That shows that they care a lotmore.
So by joining as a member,you're giving us the political
power we need to show that thisis not just crazy cat ladies
that are supporting thisorganization.
It's you.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Hey, catherine, hello , we are going to dive right
into all the goodness here.
I know you have worked acrossmany, many, many different areas
of fundraising in your career.
We could talk about major gifts, we could talk about grants, we
could talk about peer-to-peer,but right now, in this moment,
what trends are you seeing?
(02:27):
Right now and I know you'rebased in Canada, so that may be
more specific to the org thatyou're working with there I'm
curious to see how thedifferences are between the US
and Canada.
With all the shenanigans goingon in the world right now it's
the kindest way to put it thatyou think that nonprofit leaders
should really be paying closeattention to and again, you can
be specific to what you'reseeing in Canada US
(02:50):
international.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So I actually work in many different countries, while
the majority of my clients arein Canada.
I literally just postedsomething today that oh wait I
saw it was eight right.
Yeah eight different countries,so it's pretty international.
But definitely the majority arein Canada and even if there's a
lot of, as you say, shenaniganshappening in the US, that does
have an impact on Canadianorganizations, but of course, a
(03:11):
lot of the organizations that Iwork with that are on
international scale.
But I do feel that the grantinglandscape generally is shifting,
of course, with what'shappening in the US.
Anything around internationalaid or government funding is
very wonky, and in Canada aswell, we're leading up to
elections next week, so thereare a lot of changes happening
(03:33):
and you can never really depend,in my opinion, on government
grants in the very long term,because as soon as there's any
political shifts, then that putsyour funding at risk.
So, generally speaking, even ifwe don't have an issue right
now, putting all of your eggs inthe same basket of government
funding is just too risky.
(03:53):
So you really need to diversifyyour revenue.
Even if it seems like it'severything's going well, you
never know what's going tohappen and suddenly budgets are
cut.
So I definitely feel thatnonprofits are having to shift
towards different forms ofrevenue and I strongly believe,
especially in certain sectors,that individual donations are
(04:13):
still going to be much morestable in the long term than any
form of grant.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, I think it's really interesting that you're
bringing this up even from thecontext of, like an election
cycle, even if nothing isnecessarily like bad happening.
It's just the nature of whatcan happen in a political
landscape.
I think that's reallyinteresting.
As far as individual gifts andthe organizations that you're
working with, are you seeing anincrease?
Obviously, we're going to talkabout recurring giving, monthly
(04:40):
giving, regular giving.
How do you see that faring inthe organizations that you work
with?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So a lot of the organizations that I work with
are a lot of startups or smallorganizations that are kind of
getting into individual giving.
We haven't noticed necessarilya decrease or increase, I would
say because they're growing.
They're slowly increasingbecause they're finally getting
into doing the strategies thatwill increase their donations.
I know that on a national level, the amount of donors, so the
(05:08):
number of donors that are giving, has been decreasing year after
year, but the amount has notnecessarily decreased as much.
So it's just that there's lesspeople giving but they're giving
more.
So that's what's happening inCanada, as the last reports that
I've read.
Of course there is huge economicupheaval happening in Canada
(05:28):
and I'm sure in the States aswell, some slight changes.
So I definitely think that hasan impact and people are saying
like, oh, I just can't afford todo it as much.
And so when people think ofcutting somewhere, of course
sometimes donations are thefirst to go, not necessarily for
everyone, because there areorganizations that are growing
that are increasing.
So I just see it as you reallyneed to double down on
(05:50):
stewardship and really build astrong commitment relationship
with your donors so that thatisn't the first thing that they
want to cut out that you want tomake sure that they feel so
committed and loyal like?
No, I'm part of this as acommunity, but that is not where
I'm going to cut.
First, I'm going to cut into myweekly Starbucks, so I'm going
to cut my Netflix account, whichis probably better for my
mental health anyway, beforethey cut your donation, yes, yes
(06:14):
for sure, and you have a reallycool case study to share with
the listeners today.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
You helped an organization I would say
Canadian-based organization growa monthly giving program from
zero to 2,000 recurring donorsover the course of five years.
That is amazing and everyone'slike how, literally how.
And that is exactly what theshow is about is explaining the
how.
Can you walk us through?
I'm sure I will interject witha bazillion questions, but a few
of like I'm sure I willinterject with a bazillion
questions, but a few of like.
(06:46):
What made that growth possible?
And I want to actually startwith the mindset that the
organization had that recurringgiving was important to them,
and then we can get into somemore like the tactical.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Okay, so quick context.
This was an animal rightsgrassroots organization.
In Canada we have differentcharitable statuses, so there's
nonprofit and there's registeredcharity.
Registered charity would be theequivalent of like 501c3, where
you can get tax receipts, etcetera.
But there is another status Idon't know what the equivalent
would be in the US which is justnonprofit which is it allows
(07:17):
you to fundraise, it allows youto do everything, but you cannot
emit tax receipts and youcannot apply for grants from
foundations because you're not arecognized charitable
organization.
This was especially the caseback in the day before the law
changed that for anyadvocacy-focused organizations
you were not allowed getting the501c3 or registered charitable
status, because they didn't wantcharities that were going to be
(07:39):
against the government to getbenefits.
That was kind of the mentalityof it If you spent more than 10%
of your budget on advocacy notallowed.
So this was the context whereyou have to keep in mind that
people were not able to get taxreceipts for these gifts, which
makes it even more impressivethat we were able to grow to
2000, in my opinion.
So that was the kind of contextand advocacy is all about long
(08:03):
term.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, go ahead, although I would say with that
level.
As I'm thinking about this, Iactually don't care about tax
receipts Me neither, at thelevel monthly, because it
doesn't really do anythingunless you are contributing like
large sums that it can make.
So I don't know.
This would be like aninteresting poll.
This would be like aninteresting poll, like to
(08:25):
monthly donors, if you're givingthat like traditional range of
like $25, $50, $100, if thatreally matters to you, like the
tax benefit credit, or if you'reliterally just doing it because
you believe in the cause.
So, listener, interestingquestion.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Completely agree and from a report perspective, they
have seen, at least in Canada.
The research that I've seen isthat it's not one of the top
motivations that people say, but, on the other hand, something
in Canada, because we have thosetwo different statuses people
have this expectation thatthey'll get a tax credit receipt
, so when they don't, they getthis feeling of like are you not
(08:59):
a legit organization?
So it affects the credibility ofthe organization more than
anything legit organization soit affects the credibility of
the organization more thananything.
So that was kind of thedifficult point around tax
receipts.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay, we have the same.
We have, like I think it's a C4, which is about like more
advocacy based.
So there are kind ofsimilarities of different like
categories of organization.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, that was the context, and as an organization
that was focusing on advocacy asanyone knows, that works in
there these are long-termprojects that will require years
to see any change.
When you're lobbying againstchanging the laws to stop puppy
mills, or to lobby thegovernment to stop, or even
municipalities to stop usinghorse-drawn carriages as tourist
(09:42):
attractions, those kinds ofthings tend to take time because
you have to do the education,you have to give the awareness
and you have to build up acampaign.
So at first they were reallykeen on building up these teams
of fundraisers that would be onthe streets, that would be
spreading awareness, gettingpeople to sign petitions and
just collecting one-time gifts.
But first of all that'sexhausting and very expensive to
(10:02):
have people out there every daycollecting cash that you
constantly have to keep on going, and especially the fact that
these were often cash donations.
They weren't necessarilyfilling out a form with their
contact, so there wasn't thatcapacity.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
There was no contact information.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
No this was 10 years ago.
Now I don't think this would beas common.
People don't generally do thatbecause of transparency issues.
It's kind of much moredifficult and it would be
frowned upon, but back then itwasn't as much of an issue.
This was actually in 2012, 2013when I started and I left in
2016, 2017.
So, anyway, so that was thecontext, and when I started
(10:44):
working there, I started havinga conversation around okay, so
that was the context.
And when I started workingthere, I started having a
conversation around okay, sowhat are we doing to really
build up our sustainability?
We wanted to get a biggeroffice, we wanted to have
full-time staff that wouldactually be able to invest in
the campaigns and like, well, wedo have monthly giving.
And I was like, how many do youhave?
Like 50.
And I was like, okay, and whatare you doing to like continue
them?
Nothing.
(11:05):
Their names were in aspreadsheet, literally.
They were not contacting them,they weren't calling them, they
weren't sending them emails,they had no email newsletter.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And as someone who, from a veryyoung age, like I, really loved
fundraising and I understoodthat we needed to build
relationships, I was like, okay,like I'm going to come in and
I'm going to change this.
(11:26):
So I started building up theirdonor management system and I
became the team leader because Iwas really good at getting
people to sign up to monthlygiving.
But I was one of the only onesthat was good.
So we started really shiftingour priorities.
That when we were talking withour street team to start really
putting an emphasis on monthlygiving and incentivizing them to
(11:46):
do monthly giving.
So this was straight team.
So if anyone's ever seen thosepeople that are like hi, do you
have two minutes to talk aboutGreenpeace?
Or like I'm an international,that was me for five years.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You were the one out there doing the canvassing.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I did canvassing for a year and a half.
I became one of their topcanvassers and then I became
team leader, so I was the onethat would do a little pep talk
in the morning.
I have tons of funny stories ofthings we would do.
It was absolutely crazy.
And then I started becomingmore of just fundraising manager
and I was just full timebuilding up the fundraising
campaigns and managing theirdonors.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Okay, wait, quick pause.
I have to ask, when you'redoing canvassing, what worked?
Was there like something thatyou would say, where it was like
a tried and true?
This got somebody to stop, thisgot somebody to give on a
recurring basis that you canremember.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yes.
So first of all, for the how toget them to stop, that was just
trying a whole bunch ofdifferent things because
everyone would be motivated bydifferent things.
I did it with humor Humoralways works because people
laugh Like I would sometimesjust do a yoga pose in the
middle of the street and be like, hey, you want to talk about
like animals?
And they're like, what are youdoing?
And then they would just, itwas just like a what?
Of course, we used a petition.
So the biggest thing to makepeople to stop at first was,
like we have a petition againstpuppy mills, against puppy mills
(13:04):
, like everyone's against puppymills.
Like you can't, unless you're apsychopath, not want puppy
mills to stop.
So that was a great way tostart a conversation and we had
these 10 steps of reallystarting to build interest in
like, so, do you have an animal?
Okay, that's amazing.
Build that in like personalconnection and then explain,
like do you know what puppymills are?
Okay, well, this is what theyare, this is what they're doing,
this is what we're trying to do.
You can sign your petition hereand then we start.
(13:25):
Just based on what theirresponses were.
I'd be able to gauge theirlevel of interest.
If they don't seem like theycare at all they're just kind of
looking away, not payingattention I can tell that I'm
either not doing a good job orthey don't really care.
And so, depending, once yougauge the interest, once you see
people that are like reallyenraptured, they're like super
into it, they start sharingstories.
(13:45):
That's when you know this is apotential for a monthly gift.
So we would always pitch monthlygiving first and really say,
like we're an animal advocacyorganization, we need people to
support and to join us on along-term basis to give us more
political power, because rightnow the government doesn't take
us seriously.
So by signing up as a monthlydonor, not only are you
(14:06):
supporting us long term througha monthly gift, but you're also
giving us that political powerto actually lobby in your name
to change these laws.
Does this make sense to you?
So, instead of saying are youinterested or like, do you want
to give?
It was like, does this makesense?
Generally, it makes sense topeople.
So like okay.
And then you go intounderstanding what are their
(14:26):
like breaks of like.
Why would they say no?
Because everyone is always likea bit like objection.
And then you can start having aconversation about finding
solutions to their objections.
Like I don't like the fact thatit's automatic and then you can
go into the well, everythingelse is like repair monthly
bills.
It makes it so much easier foryou to sustain your giving to
the organization when you don'thave to think about it month
after month.
(14:46):
The fact that it's automatic itactually lowers our fundraising
costs, which means that moredollars can go to the
organization.
So you can really, once youkind of get that initial hook in
of like yeah, it makes sense,then you kind of have
conversations around what wouldmake sense for them.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, yes, so good.
Okay, it's all about the likeslight tweaks in the language.
I love that it really, is itreally?
Is.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Simple things can make such a difference, and we
can talk about that in this,about stewardship is the same
thing when you really focus on.
We need people like you whobelieve that animals should not
be kept in cramped cages andreproduced year after year after
year.
You're bringing them in rightaway, like we know that you
share these beliefs with us, andthis is why we want you and not
that person on the side of thestreet.
How often were you doing that?
(15:32):
Every day.
So we had teams not menecessarily, but we had teams on
the streets every single day.
I think for a while we limitedit to five days where we weren't
doing Monday and Tuesday,because it was just like less
productive days, like there wasless people on the streets and
it's Monday, no one, everyone'sin a bad mood, it seems.
But yeah, so we were doing itevery day, especially in the
(15:53):
summer.
We have to understand this wasin Canada, in Montreal.
In the winter we were stilldoing it outside.
So imagine in February, no, itwas like my fingers and toes
have trauma from being outsidein the cold for eight hours.
It was not so fun.
So our team definitely shrunk alot as soon as it got cold.
But you'd be surprised howpeople are still like I still
confirmed monthly donors on thestreet.
(16:14):
What we do is we'd be like oh,let's go inside this like little
the Metro entrance or like thesubway entrance and just like
I'll give you some hot chocolateor some hot coffee if you
become a monthly donor.
That would have been awesome.
I wish I would have had a stand.
I would have loved to beholding something hot the whole
time, but yeah, it was obviouslymuch more difficult.
Yeah, so we had people on thestreets pretty much every day.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Oh my gosh.
For how long, like every day,for like over years, this five
year period.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yes, pretty much Like .
Of course, depending on thesize of our team.
If we didn't have enough peopleto fill every day, we would
usually go back down to five orfour, but generally speaking
this was like an ongoing thing.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Like I said, winter is definitely slowed down and
this is a small organization,you said.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, this is a very small organization, so let's go
into the pay structure of this.
Do you want to share that?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, I was just going to say, yes, how did you
actually?
Because I think people think intheir head like canvassing
face-to-face expensive,expensive, like there's no way.
I can afford what she's talkingabout.
Okay, so how did this work?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Okay, so full transparency.
This is a commission-basedstructure and I know and I know
and I'm gonna like everyone inAFP is gonna say that's not
ethical and I do share some ofthat, but there was so much
issues so that it made it somuch more accessible to a small
non-profit.
It was very incentivizing forthe fundraisers and we raised
lots of money for the cause thatwe wouldn't have been able to
(17:38):
had it been on a paidly hour.
And we've experimented, we'vehad to experiment with paid fix
and it just unfortunately didnot bring in the same results.
And I'm going to make a littlecaveat here of from a retention
perspective, and I've alsoworked with and seen teams that
are paid on an hourly basis.
They have the same issues withperformance when it's paid
(18:00):
hourly, because they have to beon very strict quotas and so
once you have that pressure oflike you need to get three
monthly donors a day or you'regoing to be fired.
The same, yeah, like I'm notsaying it was that extreme, but
you had to have a certainaverage of how much you were
doing and if you did not reachthose like yes, you could lose
your job.
So even if it wasn't like youget paid more based on how much
(18:23):
you're bringing in, you willlose your job.
That's that same kind of stressand pressure that you might be
putting onto donors to just belike, just sign up and if you
have to cancel in two months,just do it, just to get your
numbers up.
So I think both situationscould have their pros and cons
in that perspective around donorpressure.
So, anyways, yeah, so, becausethey were doing also one-time
(18:45):
cash gifts as well as monthlygifts and we were also we had
forms and we had POS machines toalso take, like credit card
donations, I was really pushingpeople to fill out these forms
because then we would be able todo the stewardship and
follow-up by pushing for thoseas well.
I ended up also building up aside database of one-time donors
that we can then convert.
We can talk about that later,anyways.
(19:06):
So it was commission-based, sopeople were getting a percentage
of all the donations they werecollecting, but they would get
bonuses when they were gettingmonthly gifts, because that's
what we really wanted, of course.
That's what we want because wewant to eventually not
necessarily need to have afull-time team on the street,
because that's a lot ofmanagement, the constant
interviews, recruiting, training, like it was exhausting.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Okay, so it wasn't through like a third-party
company.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
No, we were doing it all in-house, wow Okay.
Yeah, and I was doing everythingI was doing the interviews, the
trainings we had trainingsevery week, plus the performance
reviews and blah, blah blah andjust keeping them motivated.
It was absolutely exhausting,which is why I'm saying I don't
necessarily recommend this modelfrom that perspective.
There's so many other ways youcan acquire people, but what was
(19:55):
awesome is that once we builtup a strong database, we had to
have less people on the streetsand we shifted towards phone
fundraising, which is a loteasier to manage and control,
especially in Canadian winters.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yes, for sure.
I do think that this is areally interesting idea.
I'm not sure all the laws orlogistics in the United States
and there's lots of third-partycompanies that do this, but this
more like grassroots idea.
Actually, I have two questionsfor you, but one is a thought.
Something that I teach aroundrecurring giving is to have
tentpole campaign moments aroundasking for recurring giving.
(20:30):
And then there's the evergreen,which it should be always all
the time, but that there's liketentpole campaigns like main
focus, maybe two to three timesa year where literally you're
just asking for a recurring giftfor a specific reason.
This is a great idea to havethis element during that
tentpole moment, especially ifit's around a cultural moment.
(20:51):
So we're recording this comingup on Mother's Day.
So if you happen to be anorganization that has something
to do around moms or families orbabies or something that could
do with or dog moms, literallyyou could do the animal side too
Anything and you're outcanvassing around Mother's Day.
It doesn't have to be for afull year, maybe it's just for
(21:12):
literally a month around somecultural moment.
That I could actually seeworking really well, because
people are already in themindset of possibly giving a
gift for their mom, to theirgrandma, to their wife, to their
whoever their daughter that Icould see working.
My second question was arounddid you switch up your locations
or were you kind of tried andtrue in one spot that worked
(21:36):
really well, like one grocerystore, and how did that work?
When you're not a registeredthird party entity, you guys had
to like, obviously, researchwhere you were allowed to do
this right.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So two answers Number one to your first part.
The difficulty I would see withthat is getting staff to do it
just for short periods and thetraining for them, and because
it takes time to learn and to begood at canvassing.
So it might make sense to dothat if you do end up hiring
people that are already trained,and that might be a great way
(22:07):
of acquiring for a short periodof time, but it's much more
expensive to do it that way it'slike a naive question Could you
just have volunteers do it?
You could, will it be effective?
We had some people that werelike, yeah, it's a very
stressful and demanding job andoften volunteers are not going
to have the necessary motivationand, in my opinion,
(22:27):
incentivization to do itproperly and push, unless
they're crazy people like methat love doing fundraising and
that have the sales experience.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Like I actually think it would be kind of maybe I'm
weird and I think it'd be fun.
Like, if I'm a monthly donor ofthe organization, be like I'm
one.
Like I'm a monthly donor andI'm out here because I want to
find more people to join thiscommunity, this amazing
community that I'm a part of.
Like I think that would be anangle that could work.
It's like if you're everlooking for opportunities for
your monthly donors and they'relocal to where you are.
(22:57):
I don't know, maybe I'm justweird.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I where you are.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just weird.
I mean, I think, because weknow how fundraising works and I
feel we're comfortable with it,it changes the game.
But how many people that areeven fundraisers, that are like
oh, I'm uncomfortable askingpeople for money.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Many, many listeners.
I'm sure many of you arefeeling this way.
That would be like totallyoutside of your comfort zone,
totally.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Exactly, I would go for people that have experience
in sales, because they're usedto having that outgoing
approaching people to bring inmoney.
And getting told no many timesand being told no or ignored,
Not even a no ignored I'vegotten spat on Dana like spat on
, and said how dare you be outhere defending animals when
there are children dying inSyria because of the war?
(23:38):
And I was like what, I don'tnot care.
And it was yeah.
So it's a very demanding job,which is why I'm saying like it
could work, like in an event.
Let's say, if you're having aspecific event like we had World
Tofu Day at one point where wedid this giant vegan barbecue in
downtown Montreal, havingvolunteers that are out there
what I would use volunteers foris not to ask them directly to
(23:59):
become monthly donors, but toget the contact information to
then build an acquisition listthat you can then transform by
phone fundraising, with a verysmall team of dedicated trained
staff that can then convert them.
So that's what I would haveshifted more for a strategy of
like let's just either have apetition, have some form of lead
magnet that you can say likehey, sign up for this here, or
(24:21):
we have a survey and then youuse those contact information to
then have a dedicated team thatwill do the follow-up and
fundraising.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Let's talk a little bit about like growth, if you
remember so, roughly zero tolike 2000.
Yeah, were there certain yearsor certain time periods where
you really saw growth and wasall of that from?
What was the split on, like theface-to-face versus the phone
fundraising, if you know that?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, I don't have the exact numbers, but I do know
the generalities because I wasthe one that was managing the
database.
So I started more activelydoing the fundraising.
It was in 2013.
And when they saw that I wasamazing.
The summer of 2013, I became ateam leader, and this is not to
like yeah, girl, pack your bag.
People loved working with mebecause I was encouraging,
(25:10):
inspiring.
We had fun.
I'll give you a little tidbitof like what we would do
sometimes on the streets.
We would buy these funny littlehats from the dollar store that
were like made out of felt, andthose like a, b, a pig one like
ridiculous, and we made theselittle like game competitions
where two or three people wouldbe like selected as the first
people to have to wear thesehats and then the only way to
get the hat off was to get adonation.
(25:33):
So we would be joking withpeople in the street like,
listen, I look absolutelyridiculous with this pig hat on.
Like, can you help me out whileyou're also helping animals?
It was hilarious and you'd belike okay, so who should we give
it to next?
Like, what about that guy?
Yeah, it was so much fun, so Istarted implementing these kinds
of games.
But whoever got the mostdonations before lunch, like,
would get, like a Starbucks cardor something.
(25:53):
So we would have a lot of thesefun games and incentives.
I brought that to the team oflike, really making it fun.
People respected me because Iwas also doing the work and
getting good results.
So I really shifted the focusto monthly donors.
So that year 2013, 2014, we gota lot of monthly donors because
I was pushing for it, becauseyou were making the ask, I was
(26:16):
making the ask and I wasteaching them how and just it
became more of the culture ofthe team.
I was teaching them how andjust it became more of the
culture of the team.
And we changed the incentiveson pushing really.
Like, if you get more monthlydonors and less one-time gifts,
you'd still be getting moreoverall.
So there would be extra bonusesif you got three monthly donors
(26:36):
in a day and I was like itdoesn't matter if they're for
$10 or $30.
Like, I want more monthlydonors.
The amount is not as important,because I'd rather have a
thousand small monthly donorsthan a hundred big ones, cause
if one of them leaves, itdoesn't impact us as much.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
We're not as dependent.
Yeah, and then you always havethe opportunity to ask them to
upgrade or to increase laterdown the line, but at least
they're in.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Exactly that was the most important part.
So that was, I would say, theinitial like really big growth.
And then when I started goingmore in the offices doing
stewardship, doing phonefundraising, the team like
monthly donors definitely wentdown but we had like more of a
stability that it was integratedinto it.
The biggest thing that helpedwas when I started doing more of
the follow-up calls andstewardship, from a retention
(27:21):
perspective but from a growthperspective.
So I was taking all of theforms because this was all
handwritten forms.
It was amazing and I wasactually following up with
people that were making thesegifts to be like, hey, thank you
so much for signing, like this,and that's what started
building up also.
So I would say the phonefundraising, with pretty much me
alone, I would say I convertedat least 500 donors to join them
(27:43):
monthly over those couple ofyears, or getting them back on,
or if when they filled it in thestreet, they switched numbers
by accident because you didn'thave any verification processes
on the street.
So I was just making sure thatanyone who gave their
information the majority of themwere- actually becoming monthly
donors.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Amazing, oh my gosh, this is huge.
And so what?
On a phone call when you wereon the street I know you shared
a little bit about the languagewhat messaging really worked for
organizations that arelistening and they're like, okay
, maybe I can't do theface-to-face, but I could
definitely do the phone, Like wehave a good, solid list of
people.
What was that quick way ofcapturing people's attention and
(28:22):
not having them hang up, ofcapturing people's attention and
not having them hang up?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, first of all, you always go into the personal
first, like to get them to justhave a conversation.
It would be like thank you somuch for signing our petition.
Like I want to let you know,like, how many signatures we're
at and what we've been doing.
Most people are interestedbecause we're not asking them
for anything.
We're sharing information.
And then we start talking aboutcampaigns, end up having
conversations about like, so endup having conversations about
like, so what motivated you tosign the petition?
(28:47):
And I'll show you a funny storyabout Roger.
So this is just like anindividual story where I called
him and I was like hey, and he'slike yeah, my wife forced me to
sign.
I was like oh, my God, I loveyour wife.
Like, should I talk to her?
Instead?
He's like no, no, she's nothere.
I'm like okay, well, thank youso much for having an amazing
wife.
And we started talking and itled to a 30-minute conversation
around the dairy industry.
(29:07):
Because he worked in the dairyindustry.
He's like oh, but you guys arelike a vegan organization.
Like I can't, really I don'tfeel comfortable supporting you
because I work in it.
I was like everyone is on thespectrum.
Like you care about animalwelfare that works as well.
We invite everyone to join themovement.
And we ended up having justlike an ethical discussion.
He was like you're right, likethe ethical discussion.
(29:31):
He was like you're right, likethe way they're treated.
I'm like, yeah, but there's alot of social pressure to like
increase production.
So really we ended up having adiscussion before we talked
about anything.
And so this guy, roger, like ittook him three calls to become
a monthly donor, but every timeyou would make a $50 gift.
He's like I love thisconversation, like let's do this
.
And three calls later he didconvert to a monthly donor for I
don't know how much, but that'snot the point.
So having this personalconnection, and he wasn't even
(29:53):
the one that signed and everycall I'd be like so how's your
wife?
She's still forcing you to signpetitions.
He's like, oh, all the time.
So we got to know each otherand that was useful of having
one person in control or of thelist.
Is that I would have my littleside notes, like Roger, wife
signs positions.
I would be able to continue theconversation.
(30:14):
So, yes, it took time but wewere building the relationship
building, the trust building theconfidence.
So that was what was reallyhelping, I would say, in the
second half of those five years,where it was mostly about
retention and converting all ofthose one-time donors, or even
petition signers, into monthlygifts, specifically for
messaging, for monthly giving.
(30:34):
We call this the three Ps ofbecoming a monthly donor.
So it's number one.
It was around becomingproactive.
So let's be honest, liking apost on Facebook, signing a
petition, is very passive in thesense of it doesn't have a very
big impact.
It gives you a feeling like,yeah, I'm supporting it, but
(30:56):
realistically that's not a veryproactive action to push the
cause forward.
So by becoming a member, you'reactually becoming proactive in
your beliefs of wanting tochange the situation for animals
.
So really putting people oflike you care because you've
signed this petition, like youshould become proactive much
more than just signing apetition.
So those are the number one.
Number two was long-termprojects, especially for
(31:18):
advocacy-focused organizations.
It's long-term.
We're not measuring it inmonths, we're measuring it in
years.
And I always tell peopleimagine if your job only paid
you sometimes when they feltlike it, when it worked, how
would you be able to invest inbuying a house or any of your
own long-term projects?
You wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Same thing goes for nonprofits.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So monthly giving allows us that safety and
security to invest in theselong-term projects.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Love that.
I'm a monthly donor to anorganization right now Chamber
of Mothers that focuses on billsand it takes time, but it's
necessary, right, but it takesmultiple visits.
It takes trips to DC or towherever the local bill is
happening.
It takes writing letters oftestimony like the non-sexy
exciting things often but it'swhat it takes to get done.
(32:06):
Paying for lawyers like that'sexpensive, that takes a long
time.
So again, I love that.
Okay, so sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Third P the third P is actually two P's.
It's political power, so it'sactually technically the four
P's.
So, as an organization, what Iwould really focus on is imagine
if I go up to a legislativepower or decision maker and say
we have five members, thatdoesn't make us feel legit or
that the public supports us.
When you're trying to push forchange, you really need to show
(32:34):
that, like a lot of people arebacking us up and support us.
When you're thinking aboutvotes, when you're thinking
about decision makers wanting topush people in a certain
direction, or they want supportfrom a large portion of people,
we want to show that we havethose people behind us.
When I say we have 2000 peopleand every member, we have to
understand it's like thosenegative and positive reviews
(32:56):
that one positive review isworth I would say five to 10
negative comments, because it'sso easy to complain.
It's a lot harder for mostpeople, like they won't take the
energy or the time to go out oftheir way to leave a positive
review.
Yes, so I believe that they'reworth a lot more.
So those 2,000 people that aredonating every single month to
(33:16):
our cause, that shows commitment, that shows that they care a
lot more.
So by joining as a member,you're giving us the political
power we need to show that thisis not just crazy cat ladies
that are supporting thisorganization.
It's you.
It's you, peter, who works forthe dairy industry.
It's you, jeanette.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
So that was one of the kind of the messaging that I
use that it pushed people tofeel like I should take action,
because, it's true, I do believethis needs to change.
I do understand that this takesyears, and I do want to give my
voice to the movement, oh mygosh.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Okay, I love all of that and I'm sure in the on the
days when it was hard and therewas no monthly gifts happening,
and I'm sure there were timeswhere it was really exciting
when things were happening.
But through that process I'msure it felt really draining and
I think in the current state ofthe world lots of things can
feel really draining and not asenergizing and full of momentum.
(34:12):
But that energy is, I think,what makes the biggest
difference in successfulfundraising and advocacy in the
work that you're doing now.
What are your recommendationsfor the listeners right now who
are like this all sounds great,but I am feeling so depleted.
How do I get myselfre-energized to get my team
(34:32):
re-energized, then get donorsre-energized in fundraising for
us?
Do you have any suggestions?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Many, but number one is, for me, fundraising is not
about the money.
Of course it is.
We understand rationally thatit is about fundraising, but the
way I try to see it is that I'mgetting people to invest in the
future that they want to see.
Instead of focusing on, you'reinvesting in us doing things.
(35:00):
It's no.
We're giving you theopportunity to actually take
action towards a world you wantto see.
Especially when we feelsometimes that we don't make a
difference, that as individuals,what we do doesn't matter, that
we feel powerless.
Shifting it to, we are allowingpeople to make a step towards
(35:20):
the world they would like to see.
I feel that's so empowering andit allows people to feel like
okay, I can do something.
So when we start shifting themindset towards, it's an
opportunity that I'm offeringthese people, instead of like
they're doing me a favor, Ithink it really allows us to
change into like a begging formoney towards a like.
(35:42):
I'm empowering our communitiesto see something different
around them, and I think that'sa very important shift that we
need to have.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yes, I also like your earlier example of just like
having fun with it.
Yeah, having fun with it andcelebrating the wins in your
teams, like acknowledging, likeyou might say, three monthly
donors in a day, and to somepeople that's like nothing and
to some that's like that'severything, like if they've hit
a plateau and it's a really bigdeal and it's like I think
sometimes it's so easy to justbe like, oh, a monthly donor
(36:11):
transaction, like those arethree individuals that made a
decision of a significantcommitment in their life and
building, like you said, thatrelationship with them, and so I
love that.
I want to also, as we wrap upthis conversation, you also have
a podcast.
We were talking about this alittle bit before we started
recording the Just Becausepodcast, which I think is so
(36:34):
clever.
Has there been one story I justwant to leave us on like a
positive, uplifting note, onestory that you've interviewed of
somebody recently on your showthat's really stuck with you,
that listeners can learn from?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, it doesn't have anything to do with monthly
donors, but it's such aninspiring story.
One of my favorite, the JustBecause podcast, is really
focused on how all of thesecauses are interconnected,
Because I hear some people beinglike, yeah, well, our cause is
less sexy, or like people don'twant us but they want to support
children and we work with.
You know, previouslyincarcerated people like no one
likes our cause and I'm like,first of all, stop saying that.
(37:07):
There are definitely yourpeople, you just need to find
your people.
But what I loved about what?
So this is with Kathy Pallisonof Paws for Hope.
She's in BC, in Canada.
What she built is she reallystarted working with other
organizations to buildpartnerships.
So she's a animal rescue, butthat doesn't have a physical
location.
She just focuses on fostercares, foster families, and what
(37:30):
she's done is create thesepartnerships with women's
shelters, recovery centers,rehab centers.
So a lot of abandonments are notbecause people don't care about
their animals.
It's because of externalcircumstances that make it so
that they can't take care oftheir animals and generally it's
for a specific amount of time.
But there's no option for themexcept for paying a babysitter
(37:51):
and I have to go to Canada and Ihave to get my dog babysat for
10 days and it's costing meclose to $500, like for 10 days.
Imagine if we're talking aboutthree weeks a month, two months
like.
Most people cannot afford that.
So their only option is eitherto not go to recovery, not sign
into rehab, stay with theirabusive husband because they're
(38:12):
scared of their animal.
People have a huge bond withtheir animals.
It's so much important than wecan even imagine.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
So what she did is, instead of just having these
animals be abandoned, is herfoster families, are temporary
homes for these people that aregoing through difficult times,
so it lowers abandonment.
Amazing, and what's even moreamazing is from a fundraising
perspective.
Now she can say not only are wehelping these animals, we're
(38:41):
also helping these women goingthrough domestic abuse.
So I love the conversationbecause it really also kind of
removed the crazy cat ladymentality from animal rescues as
like we don't care about humansand involving.
No, we do care about families,including animals, not just
animals, not just people.
So it's more of an and questioninstead of an or so around
(39:04):
partnerships.
That was really important, Ithink everyone.
If you want to talk about howcan you really gain more people
to be attracted to your cause,make connections with other
causes as well.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Such a cool story and I will say we have a
five-year-old Labradoodle, malo,and he is a huge part of our
family.
I can't imagine life withouthim around and so love all the
animal organizations out theredoing things.
Catherine, this has beenincredible.
Oh, she just lifted up herlittle doggy for listeners, mr
Pickles, mr Pickles, mr Pickles.
(39:36):
I love it.
Catherine, where can peoplefind you?
Where can they reach out to you?
Where can they work with you?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
LinkedIn.
I know you're a huge fan ofLinkedIn, as am I.
It has changed everything abouthow I interact with people
around the world, so I'm veryactive on LinkedIn.
The easiest way to connect withme is to message me on LinkedIn
.
I'm much more likely to respondthan an email, if not my
website.
So it's justbecauseconsulting,very simple, and the podcast.
You can also find it atjustbecauseconsultingpodcast or
(40:04):
just search it on Spotify orwhatever to find the Just
Because podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Amazing.
Thank you for being here andfor sharing all of this and for
doing all of that hard work forso long and being out there.
That was incredible.
I'm sure people are going towant to pick your brains.
And thank you again for beingon Missions to Movements.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Thank you for having me.
It was really awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of
Missions to Movements.
If you enjoyed our conversationand found it helpful, I would
love for you to take a moment toleave a review.
Wherever you're listening, yourfeedback helps us reach more
changemakers like you andcontinue bringing impactful
stories and strategies to theshow.
(40:43):
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button too, so you'll
never miss an episode, and untilnext time, keep turning your
mission into a movement.
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