April 16, 2025 • 34 mins
If you're still manually sending thank you notes, chasing spreadsheets, or struggling to keep up with donor touch points, this episode could save you THOUSANDS of dollars.
I’m talking with Rachel Bearbower, an absolute systems wizard and the founder of Nonprofit Automation Agency, to break down how nonprofits can implement systems and automations that actually feel personal.
Rachel walks us through some compelling case studies, including a monthly giving program that used customized workflows to segment donors by gift size and deliver messages that felt like they came straight from the Executive Director’s inbox.
You’ll hear how my team used Zapier to automatically send scholarship applications from HubSpot to Google Sheets. The kicker? These automations helped scale communications to over 4,700 event registrants without sacrificing personalization!
Plus, Rachel shares her “The One Minute Thank You” trick that lands pre-written, customizable drafts in your inbox the moment a donation comes through.
Resources & Links
Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn or Instagram or book a demo. You can also learn more about Nonprofit Automation Agency on her website.
Check out Rachel’s FREE Resources: 5 Ways to Automate Your Stewardship and Create a Remarkable Donor Experience.
This show is brought to you by iDonate. Your donation page is leaking donors, and iDonate's new pop-up donation form is here to fix that. See it in action. Launch the interactive demo here and experience how a well-timed form captures donors in the moment they care most.
Let's Connect!
- Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
- My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
- Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Somebody is wasting about two hours every single day
because of inefficient systems.
Now if that person makes $25 anhour, that is $13,000 lost in
labor costs.
Or because you're uploading anddownloading spreadsheets, that
is $263,000 a year of money thatyou are losing because of donor
(00:27):
attrition, bad donor retentionand inefficient systems.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm Dana Snyder, your host of the Missions to
Movements podcast, and my pathto philanthropy has been
anything but traditional.
This show is your weeklymastermind, designed to give you
the ideas, insights and supportyou need to push the boundaries
of what's been done before innonprofit marketing and
fundraising.
Whether you're looking to builda magnetic monthly giving
(00:55):
program, elevate your personalbrand or create partnerships
that amplify your impact, thisspace is for you.
I'll bring you solo episodesand conversations with industry
leaders offering actionablestrategies and fresh
perspectives that will move youand your mission forward.
Let's turn your mission into amovement.
(01:16):
Hello, welcome back to anotherepisode of Missions to Movements
.
This one is very long overdue.
Rachel Baerbauer has beenworking with me for years on
different automations in mybusiness and is a brilliant
(01:37):
wizard.
When you just meet somebodywhose brain works differently
than yours in the most magicalway possible and you're like I
need this so much and I don'teven need you to explain to me
how it all works, because it'sjust magic when you get the end
result, that's Rachel.
She's brilliant.
You need a Rachel on your team,specifically this one, and
Rachel has been known for herwork as the founder CEO of Small
(02:01):
Shop Strategies, but morerecently, the nonprofit
automation agency.
And when I tell you she isliterally going to blow your
mind today and talking aboutautomations, the mindset behind
them, why it's so important, howmuch time it can save you, the
personalization, etc.
(02:22):
Etc.
And we're going to dive intosome specifics on how exactly
she's helped me.
If you have been someone thathas attended a recent monthly
giving summit, it will release alittle bit of the behind the
scenes of the magic of somecorrespondence you might have
received.
So with that, rachel, welcometo the show.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Oh my gosh, dana, thank you.
It's so good to be here and,yes, so overdue.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So hello, so overdue.
Will you give a brief, justintro to yourself and why the
big switch into nonprofitautomation agency?
Oh gosh great question.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, yeah, hi, I'm like everyone else.
I'm a, you know, a fundraiser,a, a founder and a farmer.
So those are kind of like mythings.
And I really started out thiswhole kind of business journey,
teaching what I knew, which washow to be an executive director,
and so I've worked withexecutive directors and I was a
(03:21):
small shop, so I really learnedhow to do everything myself and
just figure stuff out.
There wasn't always like asimple solution, but just kept
trying to figure it out.
And while I was working withsmall shops and I love that side
of things the space that wasreally bringing me a lot of joy
and I saw like such a huge needand it was kind of like the
(03:44):
thing that like people wouldjust start coming to me and be
like, hey, how do I do this orhow do I do this?
And then I started being like,well, you could do all of this.
And then they were hiring me todo like bigger think through,
bigger automation and workflowsand stuff like that, and I've
always been a big proponent of,you know, donor stewardship and
so it kind of evolved.
(04:06):
It wasn't like on purpose, Iwasn't like this is what I'm
doing, it just kind of evolved,and I mean I was laughing with
somebody.
I was like honestly, like causeI'm kind of lazy, and I was
like you know, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
You.
That adjective does notcorrelate.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It doesn't, it doesn't.
But I'm like, well, there mustbe a better way to do that.
And so then I just like thepart of figuring out like, ooh,
could I simplify this Great?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
That's how we are here and it's amazing.
I'm so glad you are Okay.
Just like break this down forsomebody who might not even
think of tasks that could beautomated for them.
What are some common things?
Things, tasks that take up alot of our time, that have the
potential to be automated.
Just like bring us into theworld of the things that you
(04:56):
work through on a day-to-daybasis.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yes.
So, as I mentioned, like donorstewardship is like the big
place where where I live, butlike automation can be.
You probably already have a lotof automation like in your
world that you don't evenrealize, but ways that we can
bring it into our organizationsare backing up Like think about
the tasks that you don't like todo or the tasks that you like
fall behind on.
(05:19):
For me, where it started wasthank you notes.
I felt this like immensepressure to send really
heartfelt, personalized thankyou notes, Good place to be.
I was like, well, I'll do thatafter I do this thing, I'll do
that later this week.
Friday mornings are going to bewhen I do this, going to be
(05:45):
when I do this.
Anyone who has been in a smallorganization or a big
organization knows that you havejust these constant fire drills
or things that come up and thenall of a sudden it's been a
month or it's been a week or amonth or six months and you
haven't written that thank younote and I was like, okay, okay,
I have to figure out a bettersystem, not because I don't care
, but because, like, because Ijust have so many other things
going.
(06:05):
Okay, so it's thinking aboutwhat are the things that you're
falling behind on, or what arethe things that are taking up a
ton of your time Uploading anddownloading spreadsheets.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Oh my gosh, I have an example literally today of this
.
So we are recording this rightoff the heels of the second
annual monthly giving summit andGiveButter was preventing a
scholarship for the next roundof the monthly giving mastermind
five $1,000 scholarships andapplications are still rolling
in past the summit, although Ihad already created a Google
(06:37):
spreadsheet.
So in HubSpot is my forms rightwhen they are populating, Google
Sheets is where the list of allof them are, so that we can
review them collectively to pickthe five winners.
So me or anybody on the team,manually going to HubSpot,
manually uploading them intoGoogle Sheets, is a time suck
(06:59):
and I was realizing, oh, I ammissing them.
This isn't a full list becausethey keep coming in.
I can see it in my email.
So I just quickly knowing,putting Rachel into my brain, I
was like I need to create a Zapand so I went into Zapier, which
we can talk a little bit moreabout what that is, and that
allowed me to say if and itconnects HubSpot if someone
(07:20):
fills out this form, then createa new row in this Google Sheet,
Ta-da, and then now they arefiring off automatically from
HubSpot into Google Sheets and Ido not have to touch it one
more time and we don't have tomiss any important applications
and data that's coming through.
So that's a real-life example.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's a perfect perfect example of something of
like this was an issue.
It was something that was likecausing confusion or you're
missing something, and it wasvery simple.
And now you don't even have tohave the like, the mental labor,
like thinking about you know,cause we have all those things
that are like running in theback of our heads.
(08:01):
Yeah, why don't we take thatoff?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yes, yes, and that's huge.
How do you think that?
So, when we realize all thesetasks that are difficult, when
do most organizations come toyou Like what realization is
happening?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, when things are a hot mess, okay.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So not like, hey, we want to build this thing.
It's usually like already inmotion so many organizations.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Like the conversation goes like hey, yes, I can help
you, but you need to promise methat you are not going to burn
down all of the platforms thatyou have going right now until I
can like help you.
Like I know you're like readyto just like throw everything
out the window, but yeah, soit's usually at a place with
(08:49):
like extreme frustration and Iget it.
Like you're dealing with a lotof tech, there's a lot of
language that you might notunderstand.
You just know that you're notable to serve the people that
you want to serve well, becauseyou are having to deal with all
of this inefficiency, and youknow it's inefficient but you
don't necessarily know how tofix it.
(09:11):
So that's usually when peopleare coming or they know they're
losing time, inefficiency withtheir systems, or they know that
automation could help them.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
But they just don't know how or what, or like where,
to start, which is again fairwhere I come from.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes, yes, okay.
So I want to give some like areal life example of how all
this breaks down and then someadvice you have on how
organizations can maybe overcomeany hesitancies to invest in
automations and putting thosethings into practice.
And I'm a very visual learnerso I hope, audibly, I can do
(09:51):
this justice For the firstmonthly giving summit.
I will just explain.
So this was last September, foreveryone listening.
I had multiple platformsinvolved.
Ringcentral was my productionplatform.
That's where the event washosted.
If you have attended, that'swhere you were chatting.
(10:11):
It was a system calledRingCentral.
That's where all the visuals,the chat, the networking, the
expo rooms, everything.
Then at that time I usedThrivecart as my actual
registration because we had aVIP ticket.
We had a free ticket and VIPand at that time I did not own
RingCentral.
(10:32):
I was working with NeonOne touse a license, so for us to have
all of the To manage thefinancials, it was easier to
have it on my owned platform.
So, ringcentral, thrivecart.
Add in Flowdesk, which is myamazing email platform, another
separate entity and then we alsoneeded to have custom
(10:53):
information coming fromThrivecart.
Like when I asked if you werethere, I asked about your
favorite pizza topics.
I asked you how many?
Pineapple and mushroom.
Thank you, yeah, I asked acouple of questions to get to
know you better.
So there was four platformsRingCentral, thrivecart,
flowdesk, google Sheets.
There's one more.
(11:14):
Oh, there was another oneLetter Labs Slack, oh yeah, and
Slack and Slack, yeah, okay, andSlack.
Letter Labs was where I sentout talking about thank you
cards.
That was our partner on sendingout automatic, not just thank
you cards, but you're welcome tothe event.
As soon as somebody registered,there was a one week out
(11:34):
correspondence that went out asdirect mail and then there was a
thank you that went out like aweek or two after.
Okay, all of those platformsneeded to talk to each other.
I'm not going to go through thecomplications of that, but all
I want to say is equal Racheland she created this magical
(11:57):
flow chart of how I basicallyexplained to her, from a
business standpoint, what Ineeded all of these things to do
, the timing of when they neededto fire, the information I
needed access to, and she's like, got you Basically and you need
that in your life becausethere's like I could not figure
(12:18):
that out, or maybe I could have,but it would have taken me
forever, something would havebroken, I would have been
frustrated and then again, isthat really the best use of my
time?
No, so I want to give that oneexample.
Then, this past year, Isimplified massively simplified
(12:38):
the platforms you did.
You did so.
Now RingCentral we have alicense too.
We did the registration inthere.
But this year we did a reallycool partnership where if you
attended in the registration,you were asked a question.
It was like bonus, I will giveyou an introduction to a
platform of mine that, if youwere looking for a better
solution for your monthly givingprogram, answer these questions
(13:01):
.
So it was either like yes, Iwould like this introduction.
And then you had a secondaryquestion which was based on your
online revenue.
Based on your answer.
Rachel had helped me craft thesecustomized emails based on the
answers of why you wereattending the summit and the
problems, challenges you were upagainst and what you wanted to
(13:23):
learn, all coming from theregistration.
And you either were introducedto GiveButter or FundraiseUp
based on your answers.
And then those emails gotdrafted into my info at inboxcom
, separated for those forGiveButter, those for
(13:44):
FundraiseUp.
And I will tell you I manuallywent through and looked at the
websites to make sure that youdid not already use that's the
one manual thing about this thatyou did not already use that
platform.
Or if you did, I was like, whydon't you like this platform
anymore?
And sent out those emails.
And there's a configuration inbetween of how that happened.
(14:04):
But it was pretty seamless andmagical and was able to be done
in a mass way, because with4,700 registrants, there was no
way I could manually goindividually through, but it was
a way utilizing data that I wasasking for was able to
customize an answer and providepersonalization.
So that's a long explanation,but if you were on the receiving
(14:28):
end of that, I hope, and ourattention was that it felt
personalized to you.
Your name was in that emailmultiple times.
It was drafted in a veryin-my-voice way.
It was with the answers thatyou provided.
We even had the amount that youlisted in your answer.
Right, it was all designed tohelp expedite and automate a
(14:52):
process at a personal level.
And so, rachel, that Did I missanything first?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
off.
No, I'm like very impressed youexplained it so well, like that
was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Well done.
Thank you.
Those are two examples.
In an event perspective.
Do you have another one thatcan maybe lend a different view?
For, like, a nonprofit you'veworked through, maybe on a
stewardship basis or something?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, no, I think that you know what we did with
both years.
You are saying RingCentral andyou're saying ThriveCart.
Well, those are platforms that,like, you're using as a
business email to a donor basedon their gift, or like setting
them through like a journeybased on actually OK.
(15:55):
So when I work with clients, Itypically set up five workflows.
One of the workflows is askingfor a second gift, and I had an
organization that their likegift range was huge, so it was
like a $25 gift and then like a20,000 and then like a 5,000,
(16:16):
like they're pretty had donorskind of like at each of those
levels but like not a lot inbetween.
And so what we did, which Ithought was really fun, is so we
wrote our emails and then wehad a different like ending of
like okay, for the $20,000 one,it was like hey, I'd love to
schedule a call with you, causeyou're not going to ask for
(16:37):
$20,000 in an email.
Same for the 5,000.
So three different versions ofkind of the same email.
And then what I did is Isegmented the audience and this
is in their email marketingplatform.
I segmented the audience basedon their total giving and used
(17:02):
custom fields One thing to justkind of go back.
When you are doing this kind ofthing, you have to think in
like like you can't makeeverything absolutely like
customized or like it's going toturn into something that's like
unmanageable.
So you have to think of likedifferent data sets that you can
use to kind of be like okay,here are these versions you can
(17:28):
use.
To kind of be like okay, hereare these versions.
So when I say that I segmentedthem, I basically I came up with
a couple of groups of liketotal giving under $300, total
giving under between this andthis and total giving.
So there was like four or fivedifferent like segments buckets.
Yeah.
So then I took their totalgiving from their CRM, which was
(17:49):
Bloomerang, and put that as acustom field.
So then when that donor wentthrough that workflow, it then
said, oh, because of this customfield, they're going to get
this email with this offer thatmatches their specific needs,
(18:10):
and so it's things like that.
That was like, okay, I need tosolve for this organization that
has like a pretty wide range ofdonors that they want to touch
base with, and it doesn't makesense for a $20,000 donor to be
asked for $25.
So, we had to solve for that.
So I mean, that was a littlecomplicated to explain, but like
that's a very real thing thatan organization is going to have
(18:32):
to think about and in your case, we all want to make sure that
the information that we'resending an email, that we're
sending is personalized is likefeels like it comes from you,
and automation can feel like I.
Like feels like it comes fromyou and automation can feel like
I think people think sometimeslike Ooh, that's very robotic
(18:54):
and I can tell that like no, buteven like internal things.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So I'll give another example of automations that I'm
working through in my businessis automations of this podcast.
So, yeah, yes, so I am a smallteam and through HubSpot, zapier
Airtable, like I think there'smaybe four platforms that, all
in, we use for the show.
Maybe that's a lot, maybethere's five, and some of it
(19:16):
will remain a little bit manual,like me hitting obviously
record on this and right, yeah.
But the pre side of movingpeople through the process of
their guest application comes inthrough my website how that
gets moved through a flow, howthe questions doc gets created,
how they get sent a form to signoff as being all of that by
doing a quick trigger push tosay approved, pushes them
(19:39):
through a process when it's beenset up.
So what I think is so vitallyimportant, especially for small
and large teams, no matter uponyour staff, is this Setting up
automations is an investmentthat, once you can have a
foundation set up and it isrocking and rolling until you
(20:00):
need a new one.
It's investing in theinfrastructure of what you do
and allowing you to do thethings.
That you should be focused yourtime on the things that cannot
be automated, like you being outin the community, you speaking
at an event, you sharing yourstory, you going out and meeting
with a corporate partner, butall the other things most of the
(20:23):
time we can put some sort oflevel of automation on.
So sometimes you're just aboutto lean into this.
Nonprofit leaders anybody mightthink that automation is going
to feel robotic or impersonal,and I think we kind of explained
a little bit about this in myemail for the monthly giving
summit.
But how do you work withorganizations on overcoming that
thought and then the thingsthat, in practicality, that you
(20:44):
utilize to make it not feel thatway?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Okay, a couple of things.
I think it's like breaking itdown right.
So, number one, you got to keepit simple.
I mean, you can automate likeso many things.
I can hear my Roomba going upin my bedroom right now that I
schedule to go off.
Okay, that's automation.
So there's like little, littletiny things that you can
(21:08):
automate all over the place.
But what I like to like when I'mworking with organizations, I
really like to like let's keepit simple, so I focus on the
first hundred days of a donor'sjourney and by doing that, once
you have that, then you canexpand.
Like let's start small.
(21:28):
You have that, then you canexpand, like, let's start small.
So a hundred days for yourmonthly giving community.
I did a package where it's ayear of touch points for monthly
donors.
Okay.
So thinking just like, okay,what's like one problem I can
solve.
Then you break down the.
So you've got it simple.
It's going to be simple.
You're building foundation,you're figuring out your tech,
you're making sure everything'sconnected and then you're
(21:50):
thinking about, like, what'sactually going out to if you're
automating personalizedcommunication, making sure that
you're not like writing and, youknow, throwing in chat.
Gpt.
Like write me a thank you note?
No, like, how would you write athank you note?
Gpt.
Like write me a thank you note?
No, like how would you write athank you note?
Take one of the thank you notesthat you have written and where
(22:13):
you put the first name andwhere you put something else
personalized, leave those open.
You know.
Like, think about how you caninsert those data points.
But like, use your own voiceand so that's something that's
really.
It's really important to me tofeel personalized and to make
that feel authentic to theorganization.
Can you share like two examplesof the?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
things that you're talking about.
So a month, a year long oftouch points for monthly donor.
What are an example of like twoautomations and I will link, by
the way, to what she's talkingabout in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, okay.
So a couple of simple ones.
So one sometimes you just needthe reminder of, like, that's
what a donor needs.
And donors are coming into youryou know they're signing up as
monthly donors at differenttimes.
So it's coming up.
What does a year look like as amonthly donor?
So month one they get an emailfrom the executive director
welcoming.
(23:20):
That's automated.
It's a draft email sent to theexecutive director's inbox.
The next one is a phone callfrom a board member.
Okay, well, board member needsto know that that's.
We love our board members, butlike they're not that proactive
all the time, so we send anautomated email that says, hey,
(23:43):
dana has been a monthly giverfor two months.
An email that says, hey, danahas been a monthly giver for two
months.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Can you give her a?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
call.
Here's her number Automaticallysent.
Great, then, month three iswe're going to send them a
handwritten thank you note.
Well, there's some reallyawesome platforms that you can
send handwritten notes.
They're actually handwritten.
Send that out.
So it's really determining,okay, what are these touch
points that you want?
And then sometimes it'sreminders, but it's reminders
(24:10):
with the exact information tothe board member to do that, so
it makes it frictionless foreveryone involved.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
So those are just a couple of examples I mean you
can get as creative as you want,but it's basically like setting
up that trigger cycle so thatyou're not having to constantly
be the one thinking about it allthe time we're coming to like
the end of our conversation.
What would be an idea right nowif a nonprofit could automate
one process to free up theirtime?
(24:40):
What would it be today and why?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Oh my gosh, okay, well, okay, I made a math
problem and I know we are likethis is like a very like
detailed thing, but do we havetime to share it?
I'll go fast, go for it.
Okay, I did.
I even wrote it down because Iwas like I don't want to mess
this up anyway.
Okay, so we both know that, likedonor, retention is a thing
(25:06):
that organizations arestruggling with, and so I want
to give this example that justexemplifies, like, why
automation can be so powerful.
So, if you are an organizationthat raises $500,000 a year now
I'm going to use incorrectinformation because I'm trying
to make the math easy here soyou raise $500,000 fundraising,
(25:29):
okay, you have a retention rateof 50%.
That means you keep 250,000 ayear approximately and you lose
$250,000 a year because of donorattrition.
Right Now, let's talk aboutyour staff real quick.
So you, on average, somebody iswasting about two hours every
(25:52):
single day because ofinefficient systems.
Okay, that means that that'slike 520 hours a year on
inefficiencies.
Okay, now if that person makes$25 an hour, that is $13,000
lost in labor costs or becauseyou're uploading and downloading
(26:13):
spreadsheets.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That is $263,000 a year of money that you are
losing.
Here's where it hurts my heart.
It is $22,000 every singlemonth because of donor attrition
, bad donor retention andinefficient systems.
(26:36):
And so by investing $30,000,$50,000, whatever it is,
sometimes it's a lot of money toinvest in your systems.
It's sometimes it's a lot ofmoney to invest in your systems,
but for every dollar thatyou're investing if it's 50,000,
like it's you're getting back$5.
So I don't know about you, butwhen I was a small nonprofit
(26:57):
like, I didn't have $22,000 tolose.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Like that is so much money, yeah, but it sneaks up on
you because it's not automaticlike that and not looking at it
in like a full picture contextlike that usually, until maybe
you get around to like the endof the year budget.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And you're like oh my gosh, where did like?
Why aren't we raising as much?
Because you have all thesedonors that didn't give again.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And so, in answer to your question of like what's
like the one automation, I'lljust give my favorite automation
, which is called the one minuteThank you.
I dubbed it the one minuteThank you and it's basically
taking the.
You know, whatever your onlinefundraising platform is, or your
CRM, and you connect a zap thatsends a draft email to your
(27:40):
inbox to executive director,development director, with a
very personal email.
So copy that email that youwould write to a donor that just
says thank you so much and itlands as a draft in your inbox
and so you can change it to bepersonalized, whatever, but it
quickly gets something out tothe donors so that they know
(28:02):
that their gift was received,that you're doing what you said
you're going to do, and justlike making them feel good, like
, oh my gosh, I just got anemail from a real person, like
it's coming straight from yourinbox.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And what I would say is like your inbox, as in your
Outlook, your Gmail.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And you know that's a very techie thing, but like it
can make a difference.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And Zapier, just for those of you who are like wait,
what are you guys talking about?
It's a connector tool thatessentially most platforms out
there connect with these days.
I would say it's rare if theydon't.
I'm not going to get into thecomplexities of if it doesn't.
There are ways to work aroundthat too.
The Zapier is probably the mostcommon.
It's really reasonable.
(28:46):
They start with a free plan andthen it's based on how many
Zaps you send, so you can go upor down.
I scale mine so for the summitit's obviously going to go up,
go way higher, and then now Ijust like bumped it back down
again so it can ebb and flowwith you too, as you have like
certain campaigns or momentsgoing.
I would say highly, highly,highly recommend schedule a call
with Rachel Like explain whatit is that you're currently
(29:11):
doing, where you think time islost, where missed opportunities
are happening.
It could be in places that youdon't even see right now.
I just cannot overexpress thevalue of something like this,
because the other side feels it,the amount of response.
I got a personal card sent tome last year because of my
(29:33):
outreach to a nonprofit that Ihad never met A card back I
received.
Anytime I've jumped on callswith organizations.
They still have the physicalcard that I sent them, that was
sent through the automation.
They're like I love this.
Or it's the emails that aresent out that they're so
grateful of, and it's becausethere is thought and intention
(29:56):
behind the automation.
You're just making it easierfor yourself for it to all be
possible so that thethoughtfulness is expressed.
And here's my thing it's betterfor the thoughtfulness to
happen in an automation than notat all.
I completely agree, because it'syour intention and your heart
behind it, and the automationscan have your branding and your
(30:18):
personality and all of thatimpact into it.
So anyways, I digress, rachel,is there any resource that you
want to direct them to and howcan they get in contact with you
directly?
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I mean, if you are like an automation newbie
and you're like, oh my gosh,this call sounded cool but like
wow, this kind of went over myhead, I have two things.
I have an ebook that you candownload.
It's on my website and I'llmake sure Dana has it for the
show notes.
And then I also turned thatebook into an email course.
(30:50):
It's kind of fun.
I help you create like somelittle emails and stuff that you
can use.
I go through those fiveautomations that I use.
So it's free, go grab it, gohave fun, schedule a demo with
me.
But if you can't work with me,but go have fun, schedule a demo
with me, but if you can't workwith me, I get it and I don't
want you to feel stuck.
So I mean, the ebook is a lotof good information because go
(31:13):
figure it out.
And if you are nervous, likeGoogle, that shit, I've learned
so much from Google and YouTubeand it's possible.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
It's possible.
Rachel, thank you so much forbeing here.
Thank you so much foreverything you do.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Rooting you on girl, I appreciate it, thank you for
everything you're doing andwe're so lucky to be in this
community and do the work thatwe do.
So, yeah, we are.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah.
Thank you Agreed?
Thanks, rach.
Thank you so much for tuninginto 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
(31:57):
stories and strategies to theshow.
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button, too, so you'll
never miss an episode, anduntil next time, keep turning
your mission into a movement.
Somebody is wasting about two hours every single day
because of inefficient systems.
Now if that person makes $25 anhour, that is $13,000 lost in
labor costs.
Or because you're uploading anddownloading spreadsheets, that
is $263,000 a year of money thatyou are losing because of donor
(00:27):
attrition, bad donor retentionand inefficient systems.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm Dana Snyder, your host of the Missions to
Movements podcast, and my pathto philanthropy has been
anything but traditional.
This show is your weeklymastermind, designed to give you
the ideas, insights and supportyou need to push the boundaries
of what's been done before innonprofit marketing and
fundraising.
Whether you're looking to builda magnetic monthly giving
(00:55):
program, elevate your personalbrand or create partnerships
that amplify your impact, thisspace is for you.
I'll bring you solo episodesand conversations with industry
leaders offering actionablestrategies and fresh
perspectives that will move youand your mission forward.
Let's turn your mission into amovement.
(01:16):
Hello, welcome back to anotherepisode of Missions to Movements
.
This one is very long overdue.
Rachel Baerbauer has beenworking with me for years on
different automations in mybusiness and is a brilliant
(01:37):
wizard.
When you just meet somebodywhose brain works differently
than yours in the most magicalway possible and you're like I
need this so much and I don'teven need you to explain to me
how it all works, because it'sjust magic when you get the end
result, that's Rachel.
She's brilliant.
You need a Rachel on your team,specifically this one, and
Rachel has been known for herwork as the founder CEO of Small
(02:01):
Shop Strategies, but morerecently, the nonprofit
automation agency.
And when I tell you she isliterally going to blow your
mind today and talking aboutautomations, the mindset behind
them, why it's so important, howmuch time it can save you, the
personalization, etc.
(02:22):
Etc.
And we're going to dive intosome specifics on how exactly
she's helped me.
If you have been someone thathas attended a recent monthly
giving summit, it will release alittle bit of the behind the
scenes of the magic of somecorrespondence you might have
received.
So with that, rachel, welcometo the show.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Oh my gosh, dana, thank you.
It's so good to be here and,yes, so overdue.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So hello, so overdue.
Will you give a brief, justintro to yourself and why the
big switch into nonprofitautomation agency?
Oh gosh great question.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, yeah, hi, I'm like everyone else.
I'm a, you know, a fundraiser,a, a founder and a farmer.
So those are kind of like mythings.
And I really started out thiswhole kind of business journey,
teaching what I knew, which washow to be an executive director,
and so I've worked withexecutive directors and I was a
(03:21):
small shop, so I really learnedhow to do everything myself and
just figure stuff out.
There wasn't always like asimple solution, but just kept
trying to figure it out.
And while I was working withsmall shops and I love that side
of things the space that wasreally bringing me a lot of joy
and I saw like such a huge needand it was kind of like the
(03:44):
thing that like people wouldjust start coming to me and be
like, hey, how do I do this orhow do I do this?
And then I started being like,well, you could do all of this.
And then they were hiring me todo like bigger think through,
bigger automation and workflowsand stuff like that, and I've
always been a big proponent of,you know, donor stewardship and
so it kind of evolved.
(04:06):
It wasn't like on purpose, Iwasn't like this is what I'm
doing, it just kind of evolved,and I mean I was laughing with
somebody.
I was like honestly, like causeI'm kind of lazy, and I was
like you know, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
You.
That adjective does notcorrelate.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It doesn't, it doesn't.
But I'm like, well, there mustbe a better way to do that.
And so then I just like thepart of figuring out like, ooh,
could I simplify this Great?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
That's how we are here and it's amazing.
I'm so glad you are Okay.
Just like break this down forsomebody who might not even
think of tasks that could beautomated for them.
What are some common things?
Things, tasks that take up alot of our time, that have the
potential to be automated.
Just like bring us into theworld of the things that you
(04:56):
work through on a day-to-daybasis.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yes.
So, as I mentioned, like donorstewardship is like the big
place where where I live, butlike automation can be.
You probably already have a lotof automation like in your
world that you don't evenrealize, but ways that we can
bring it into our organizationsare backing up Like think about
the tasks that you don't like todo or the tasks that you like
fall behind on.
(05:19):
For me, where it started wasthank you notes.
I felt this like immensepressure to send really
heartfelt, personalized thankyou notes, Good place to be.
I was like, well, I'll do thatafter I do this thing, I'll do
that later this week.
Friday mornings are going to bewhen I do this, going to be
(05:45):
when I do this.
Anyone who has been in a smallorganization or a big
organization knows that you havejust these constant fire drills
or things that come up and thenall of a sudden it's been a
month or it's been a week or amonth or six months and you
haven't written that thank younote and I was like, okay, okay,
I have to figure out a bettersystem, not because I don't care
, but because, like, because Ijust have so many other things
going.
(06:05):
Okay, so it's thinking aboutwhat are the things that you're
falling behind on, or what arethe things that are taking up a
ton of your time Uploading anddownloading spreadsheets.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Oh my gosh, I have an example literally today of this
.
So we are recording this rightoff the heels of the second
annual monthly giving summit andGiveButter was preventing a
scholarship for the next roundof the monthly giving mastermind
five $1,000 scholarships andapplications are still rolling
in past the summit, although Ihad already created a Google
(06:37):
spreadsheet.
So in HubSpot is my forms rightwhen they are populating, Google
Sheets is where the list of allof them are, so that we can
review them collectively to pickthe five winners.
So me or anybody on the team,manually going to HubSpot,
manually uploading them intoGoogle Sheets, is a time suck
(06:59):
and I was realizing, oh, I ammissing them.
This isn't a full list becausethey keep coming in.
I can see it in my email.
So I just quickly knowing,putting Rachel into my brain, I
was like I need to create a Zapand so I went into Zapier, which
we can talk a little bit moreabout what that is, and that
allowed me to say if and itconnects HubSpot if someone
(07:20):
fills out this form, then createa new row in this Google Sheet,
Ta-da, and then now they arefiring off automatically from
HubSpot into Google Sheets and Ido not have to touch it one
more time and we don't have tomiss any important applications
and data that's coming through.
So that's a real-life example.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's a perfect perfect example of something of
like this was an issue.
It was something that was likecausing confusion or you're
missing something, and it wasvery simple.
And now you don't even have tohave the like, the mental labor,
like thinking about you know,cause we have all those things
that are like running in theback of our heads.
(08:01):
Yeah, why don't we take thatoff?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yes, yes, and that's huge.
How do you think that?
So, when we realize all thesetasks that are difficult, when
do most organizations come toyou Like what realization is
happening?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, when things are a hot mess, okay.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So not like, hey, we want to build this thing.
It's usually like already inmotion so many organizations.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Like the conversation goes like hey, yes, I can help
you, but you need to promise methat you are not going to burn
down all of the platforms thatyou have going right now until I
can like help you.
Like I know you're like readyto just like throw everything
out the window, but yeah, soit's usually at a place with
(08:49):
like extreme frustration and Iget it.
Like you're dealing with a lotof tech, there's a lot of
language that you might notunderstand.
You just know that you're notable to serve the people that
you want to serve well, becauseyou are having to deal with all
of this inefficiency, and youknow it's inefficient but you
don't necessarily know how tofix it.
(09:11):
So that's usually when peopleare coming or they know they're
losing time, inefficiency withtheir systems, or they know that
automation could help them.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
But they just don't know how or what, or like where,
to start, which is again fairwhere I come from.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes, yes, okay.
So I want to give some like areal life example of how all
this breaks down and then someadvice you have on how
organizations can maybe overcomeany hesitancies to invest in
automations and putting thosethings into practice.
And I'm a very visual learnerso I hope, audibly, I can do
(09:51):
this justice For the firstmonthly giving summit.
I will just explain.
So this was last September, foreveryone listening.
I had multiple platformsinvolved.
Ringcentral was my productionplatform.
That's where the event washosted.
If you have attended, that'swhere you were chatting.
(10:11):
It was a system calledRingCentral.
That's where all the visuals,the chat, the networking, the
expo rooms, everything.
Then at that time I usedThrivecart as my actual
registration because we had aVIP ticket.
We had a free ticket and VIPand at that time I did not own
RingCentral.
(10:32):
I was working with NeonOne touse a license, so for us to have
all of the To manage thefinancials, it was easier to
have it on my owned platform.
So, ringcentral, thrivecart.
Add in Flowdesk, which is myamazing email platform, another
separate entity and then we alsoneeded to have custom
(10:53):
information coming fromThrivecart.
Like when I asked if you werethere, I asked about your
favorite pizza topics.
I asked you how many?
Pineapple and mushroom.
Thank you, yeah, I asked acouple of questions to get to
know you better.
So there was four platformsRingCentral, thrivecart,
flowdesk, google Sheets.
There's one more.
(11:14):
Oh, there was another oneLetter Labs Slack, oh yeah, and
Slack and Slack, yeah, okay, andSlack.
Letter Labs was where I sentout talking about thank you
cards.
That was our partner on sendingout automatic, not just thank
you cards, but you're welcome tothe event.
As soon as somebody registered,there was a one week out
(11:34):
correspondence that went out asdirect mail and then there was a
thank you that went out like aweek or two after.
Okay, all of those platformsneeded to talk to each other.
I'm not going to go through thecomplications of that, but all
I want to say is equal Racheland she created this magical
(11:57):
flow chart of how I basicallyexplained to her, from a
business standpoint, what Ineeded all of these things to do
, the timing of when they neededto fire, the information I
needed access to, and she's like, got you Basically and you need
that in your life becausethere's like I could not figure
(12:18):
that out, or maybe I could have,but it would have taken me
forever, something would havebroken, I would have been
frustrated and then again, isthat really the best use of my
time?
No, so I want to give that oneexample.
Then, this past year, Isimplified massively simplified
(12:38):
the platforms you did.
You did so.
Now RingCentral we have alicense too.
We did the registration inthere.
But this year we did a reallycool partnership where if you
attended in the registration,you were asked a question.
It was like bonus, I will giveyou an introduction to a
platform of mine that, if youwere looking for a better
solution for your monthly givingprogram, answer these questions
(13:01):
.
So it was either like yes, Iwould like this introduction.
And then you had a secondaryquestion which was based on your
online revenue.
Based on your answer.
Rachel had helped me craft thesecustomized emails based on the
answers of why you wereattending the summit and the
problems, challenges you were upagainst and what you wanted to
(13:23):
learn, all coming from theregistration.
And you either were introducedto GiveButter or FundraiseUp
based on your answers.
And then those emails gotdrafted into my info at inboxcom
, separated for those forGiveButter, those for
(13:44):
FundraiseUp.
And I will tell you I manuallywent through and looked at the
websites to make sure that youdid not already use that's the
one manual thing about this thatyou did not already use that
platform.
Or if you did, I was like, whydon't you like this platform
anymore?
And sent out those emails.
And there's a configuration inbetween of how that happened.
(14:04):
But it was pretty seamless andmagical and was able to be done
in a mass way, because with4,700 registrants, there was no
way I could manually goindividually through, but it was
a way utilizing data that I wasasking for was able to
customize an answer and providepersonalization.
So that's a long explanation,but if you were on the receiving
(14:28):
end of that, I hope, and ourattention was that it felt
personalized to you.
Your name was in that emailmultiple times.
It was drafted in a veryin-my-voice way.
It was with the answers thatyou provided.
We even had the amount that youlisted in your answer.
Right, it was all designed tohelp expedite and automate a
(14:52):
process at a personal level.
And so, rachel, that Did I missanything first?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
off.
No, I'm like very impressed youexplained it so well, like that
was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Well done.
Thank you.
Those are two examples.
In an event perspective.
Do you have another one thatcan maybe lend a different view?
For, like, a nonprofit you'veworked through, maybe on a
stewardship basis or something?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, no, I think that you know what we did with
both years.
You are saying RingCentral andyou're saying ThriveCart.
Well, those are platforms that,like, you're using as a
business email to a donor basedon their gift, or like setting
them through like a journeybased on actually OK.
(15:55):
So when I work with clients, Itypically set up five workflows.
One of the workflows is askingfor a second gift, and I had an
organization that their likegift range was huge, so it was
like a $25 gift and then like a20,000 and then like a 5,000,
(16:16):
like they're pretty had donorskind of like at each of those
levels but like not a lot inbetween.
And so what we did, which Ithought was really fun, is so we
wrote our emails and then wehad a different like ending of
like okay, for the $20,000 one,it was like hey, I'd love to
schedule a call with you, causeyou're not going to ask for
(16:37):
$20,000 in an email.
Same for the 5,000.
So three different versions ofkind of the same email.
And then what I did is Isegmented the audience and this
is in their email marketingplatform.
I segmented the audience basedon their total giving and used
(17:02):
custom fields One thing to justkind of go back.
When you are doing this kind ofthing, you have to think in
like like you can't makeeverything absolutely like
customized or like it's going toturn into something that's like
unmanageable.
So you have to think of likedifferent data sets that you can
use to kind of be like okay,here are these versions you can
(17:28):
use.
To kind of be like okay, hereare these versions.
So when I say that I segmentedthem, I basically I came up with
a couple of groups of liketotal giving under $300, total
giving under between this andthis and total giving.
So there was like four or fivedifferent like segments buckets.
Yeah.
So then I took their totalgiving from their CRM, which was
(17:49):
Bloomerang, and put that as acustom field.
So then when that donor wentthrough that workflow, it then
said, oh, because of this customfield, they're going to get
this email with this offer thatmatches their specific needs,
(18:10):
and so it's things like that.
That was like, okay, I need tosolve for this organization that
has like a pretty wide range ofdonors that they want to touch
base with, and it doesn't makesense for a $20,000 donor to be
asked for $25.
So, we had to solve for that.
So I mean, that was a littlecomplicated to explain, but like
that's a very real thing thatan organization is going to have
(18:32):
to think about and in your case, we all want to make sure that
the information that we'resending an email, that we're
sending is personalized is likefeels like it comes from you,
and automation can feel like I.
Like feels like it comes fromyou and automation can feel like
I think people think sometimeslike Ooh, that's very robotic
(18:54):
and I can tell that like no, buteven like internal things.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
So I'll give another example of automations that I'm
working through in my businessis automations of this podcast.
So, yeah, yes, so I am a smallteam and through HubSpot, zapier
Airtable, like I think there'smaybe four platforms that, all
in, we use for the show.
Maybe that's a lot, maybethere's five, and some of it
(19:16):
will remain a little bit manual,like me hitting obviously
record on this and right, yeah.
But the pre side of movingpeople through the process of
their guest application comes inthrough my website how that
gets moved through a flow, howthe questions doc gets created,
how they get sent a form to signoff as being all of that by
doing a quick trigger push tosay approved, pushes them
(19:39):
through a process when it's beenset up.
So what I think is so vitallyimportant, especially for small
and large teams, no matter uponyour staff, is this Setting up
automations is an investmentthat, once you can have a
foundation set up and it isrocking and rolling until you
(20:00):
need a new one.
It's investing in theinfrastructure of what you do
and allowing you to do thethings.
That you should be focused yourtime on the things that cannot
be automated, like you being outin the community, you speaking
at an event, you sharing yourstory, you going out and meeting
with a corporate partner, butall the other things most of the
(20:23):
time we can put some sort oflevel of automation on.
So sometimes you're just aboutto lean into this.
Nonprofit leaders anybody mightthink that automation is going
to feel robotic or impersonal,and I think we kind of explained
a little bit about this in myemail for the monthly giving
summit.
But how do you work withorganizations on overcoming that
thought and then the thingsthat, in practicality, that you
(20:44):
utilize to make it not feel thatway?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Okay, a couple of things.
I think it's like breaking itdown right.
So, number one, you got to keepit simple.
I mean, you can automate likeso many things.
I can hear my Roomba going upin my bedroom right now that I
schedule to go off.
Okay, that's automation.
So there's like little, littletiny things that you can
(21:08):
automate all over the place.
But what I like to like when I'mworking with organizations, I
really like to like let's keepit simple, so I focus on the
first hundred days of a donor'sjourney and by doing that, once
you have that, then you canexpand.
Like let's start small.
(21:28):
You have that, then you canexpand, like, let's start small.
So a hundred days for yourmonthly giving community.
I did a package where it's ayear of touch points for monthly
donors.
Okay.
So thinking just like, okay,what's like one problem I can
solve.
Then you break down the.
So you've got it simple.
It's going to be simple.
You're building foundation,you're figuring out your tech,
you're making sure everything'sconnected and then you're
(21:50):
thinking about, like, what'sactually going out to if you're
automating personalizedcommunication, making sure that
you're not like writing and, youknow, throwing in chat.
Gpt.
Like write me a thank you note?
No, like, how would you write athank you note?
Gpt.
Like write me a thank you note?
No, like how would you write athank you note?
Take one of the thank you notesthat you have written and where
(22:13):
you put the first name andwhere you put something else
personalized, leave those open.
You know.
Like, think about how you caninsert those data points.
But like, use your own voiceand so that's something that's
really.
It's really important to me tofeel personalized and to make
that feel authentic to theorganization.
Can you share like two examplesof the?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
things that you're talking about.
So a month, a year long oftouch points for monthly donor.
What are an example of like twoautomations and I will link, by
the way, to what she's talkingabout in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, okay.
So a couple of simple ones.
So one sometimes you just needthe reminder of, like, that's
what a donor needs.
And donors are coming into youryou know they're signing up as
monthly donors at differenttimes.
So it's coming up.
What does a year look like as amonthly donor?
So month one they get an emailfrom the executive director
welcoming.
(23:20):
That's automated.
It's a draft email sent to theexecutive director's inbox.
The next one is a phone callfrom a board member.
Okay, well, board member needsto know that that's.
We love our board members, butlike they're not that proactive
all the time, so we send anautomated email that says, hey,
(23:43):
dana has been a monthly giverfor two months.
An email that says, hey, danahas been a monthly giver for two
months.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Can you give her a?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
call.
Here's her number Automaticallysent.
Great, then, month three iswe're going to send them a
handwritten thank you note.
Well, there's some reallyawesome platforms that you can
send handwritten notes.
They're actually handwritten.
Send that out.
So it's really determining,okay, what are these touch
points that you want?
And then sometimes it'sreminders, but it's reminders
(24:10):
with the exact information tothe board member to do that, so
it makes it frictionless foreveryone involved.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
So those are just a couple of examples I mean you
can get as creative as you want,but it's basically like setting
up that trigger cycle so thatyou're not having to constantly
be the one thinking about it allthe time we're coming to like
the end of our conversation.
What would be an idea right nowif a nonprofit could automate
one process to free up theirtime?
(24:40):
What would it be today and why?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Oh my gosh, okay, well, okay, I made a math
problem and I know we are likethis is like a very like
detailed thing, but do we havetime to share it?
I'll go fast, go for it.
Okay, I did.
I even wrote it down because Iwas like I don't want to mess
this up anyway.
Okay, so we both know that, likedonor, retention is a thing
(25:06):
that organizations arestruggling with, and so I want
to give this example that justexemplifies, like, why
automation can be so powerful.
So, if you are an organizationthat raises $500,000 a year now
I'm going to use incorrectinformation because I'm trying
to make the math easy here soyou raise $500,000 fundraising,
(25:29):
okay, you have a retention rateof 50%.
That means you keep 250,000 ayear approximately and you lose
$250,000 a year because of donorattrition.
Right Now, let's talk aboutyour staff real quick.
So you, on average, somebody iswasting about two hours every
(25:52):
single day because ofinefficient systems.
Okay, that means that that'slike 520 hours a year on
inefficiencies.
Okay, now if that person makes$25 an hour, that is $13,000
lost in labor costs or becauseyou're uploading and downloading
(26:13):
spreadsheets.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That is $263,000 a year of money that you are
losing.
Here's where it hurts my heart.
It is $22,000 every singlemonth because of donor attrition
, bad donor retention andinefficient systems.
(26:36):
And so by investing $30,000,$50,000, whatever it is,
sometimes it's a lot of money toinvest in your systems.
It's sometimes it's a lot ofmoney to invest in your systems,
but for every dollar thatyou're investing if it's 50,000,
like it's you're getting back$5.
So I don't know about you, butwhen I was a small nonprofit
(26:57):
like, I didn't have $22,000 tolose.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Like that is so much money, yeah, but it sneaks up on
you because it's not automaticlike that and not looking at it
in like a full picture contextlike that usually, until maybe
you get around to like the endof the year budget.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And you're like oh my gosh, where did like?
Why aren't we raising as much?
Because you have all thesedonors that didn't give again.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And so, in answer to your question of like what's
like the one automation, I'lljust give my favorite automation
, which is called the one minuteThank you.
I dubbed it the one minuteThank you and it's basically
taking the.
You know, whatever your onlinefundraising platform is, or your
CRM, and you connect a zap thatsends a draft email to your
(27:40):
inbox to executive director,development director, with a
very personal email.
So copy that email that youwould write to a donor that just
says thank you so much and itlands as a draft in your inbox
and so you can change it to bepersonalized, whatever, but it
quickly gets something out tothe donors so that they know
(28:02):
that their gift was received,that you're doing what you said
you're going to do, and justlike making them feel good, like
, oh my gosh, I just got anemail from a real person, like
it's coming straight from yourinbox.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And what I would say is like your inbox, as in your
Outlook, your Gmail.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And you know that's a very techie thing, but like it
can make a difference.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And Zapier, just for those of you who are like wait,
what are you guys talking about?
It's a connector tool thatessentially most platforms out
there connect with these days.
I would say it's rare if theydon't.
I'm not going to get into thecomplexities of if it doesn't.
There are ways to work aroundthat too.
The Zapier is probably the mostcommon.
It's really reasonable.
(28:46):
They start with a free plan andthen it's based on how many
Zaps you send, so you can go upor down.
I scale mine so for the summitit's obviously going to go up,
go way higher, and then now Ijust like bumped it back down
again so it can ebb and flowwith you too, as you have like
certain campaigns or momentsgoing.
I would say highly, highly,highly recommend schedule a call
with Rachel Like explain whatit is that you're currently
(29:11):
doing, where you think time islost, where missed opportunities
are happening.
It could be in places that youdon't even see right now.
I just cannot overexpress thevalue of something like this,
because the other side feels it,the amount of response.
I got a personal card sent tome last year because of my
(29:33):
outreach to a nonprofit that Ihad never met A card back I
received.
Anytime I've jumped on callswith organizations.
They still have the physicalcard that I sent them, that was
sent through the automation.
They're like I love this.
Or it's the emails that aresent out that they're so
grateful of, and it's becausethere is thought and intention
(29:56):
behind the automation.
You're just making it easierfor yourself for it to all be
possible so that thethoughtfulness is expressed.
And here's my thing it's betterfor the thoughtfulness to
happen in an automation than notat all.
I completely agree, because it'syour intention and your heart
behind it, and the automationscan have your branding and your
(30:18):
personality and all of thatimpact into it.
So anyways, I digress, rachel,is there any resource that you
want to direct them to and howcan they get in contact with you
directly?
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I mean, if you are like an automation newbie
and you're like, oh my gosh,this call sounded cool but like
wow, this kind of went over myhead, I have two things.
I have an ebook that you candownload.
It's on my website and I'llmake sure Dana has it for the
show notes.
And then I also turned thatebook into an email course.
(30:50):
It's kind of fun.
I help you create like somelittle emails and stuff that you
can use.
I go through those fiveautomations that I use.
So it's free, go grab it, gohave fun, schedule a demo with
me.
But if you can't work with me,but go have fun, schedule a demo
with me, but if you can't workwith me, I get it and I don't
want you to feel stuck.
So I mean, the ebook is a lotof good information because go
(31:13):
figure it out.
And if you are nervous, likeGoogle, that shit, I've learned
so much from Google and YouTubeand it's possible.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
It's possible.
Rachel, thank you so much forbeing here.
Thank you so much foreverything you do.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Rooting you on girl, I appreciate it, thank you for
everything you're doing andwe're so lucky to be in this
community and do the work thatwe do.
So, yeah, we are.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah.
Thank you Agreed?
Thanks, rach.
Thank you so much for tuninginto 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
(31:57):
stories and strategies to theshow.
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button, too, so you'll
never miss an episode, anduntil next time, keep turning
your mission into a movement.
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