January 24, 2025 • 30 mins
Join us as we explore the challenges nonprofits face with overwhelming data and outdated technology with insights from Erik Tomalis and Kevin Peters! Kevin reveals the story behind Avid's inception, born from his frustrations with traditional data analytics, while Eric shares his excitement about joining a company that has the power to unify disparate data systems. They discuss how Avid's tools provide actionable insights and streamline marketing efforts, setting the stage for enhanced decision-making and strategic operations within the nonprofit world. Tune in to discover how AI tools like Avid can complement human roles, freeing up staff for impactful work and fostering more meaningful donor relationships.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Welcome back to the NonprofitHub podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear,joined today by Kevin Peters and
Eric Tomales of Avid.
So excited to have you guysespecially as Avid is really
(00:46):
just kind of ramping up andlaunching and getting the word
out there about the company.
Super excited to talk with youall today, guys, welcome to the
show.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks so much, Megan .
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Good to see you both.
So, kevin, you are ChiefTechnology Officer.
Am I correct on that one?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That is correct, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And Eric, you are the Chief Re officer and evangelist
, I would assume.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Oh, of course, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yes.
So, Eric, I know the nonprofithub audience is super familiar
with you.
You've spoken at CauseCamp abunch of times, been on the
podcast before.
Tell us a little bit about yourtransition over to Avid and why
you're so excited about it.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Oh, this is great Thanks.
Thanks so much for having meagain, megan.
I absolutely love your audience.
I love nonprofit, as I'm anonprofit nerd at heart, very
much value what you guys aredoing on a daily basis and,
honestly, like you know, I'vebeen on the nonprofit side for
so long.
Most recently, I was with theagency and in technology and one
of the things that I've knownKevin for a very long time and
when I started learning moreabout Avid, I found that there
(01:48):
is this gap in the nonprofittech space right Like we're
having so many different systems, they're not really talking to
one another.
We're trying to do more personal, different operations, but our
data is really not talking toone another, and that's where
Avid provides that missingpuzzle piece, if you will, and I
was just like man.
This is incredible.
I want to be able to help itand it's.
There's not really anythingelse out there like it in our
(02:10):
space and we're verycomplimentary with every single
technology and solution that anon-profit has but to be able to
have the ability to look atyour data in minutes in like in
reporting and operations andeverything else, to be able to
report up to your leadership orknow what the good and the bad
and what we should be likedouble downing on.
That's an opportunity and Ijust can't wait to be a part of
(02:31):
it.
Kevin is the guru, the guy thatcreated this product.
I mean, it's incredible andit's great to be back to friends
and partners again.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, and Kevin, I know LinkedIn thinks we just
became friends today, but weactually have been friends for a
very long time.
So tell the audience a littlebit about your journey.
Just kind of ping pong my wayup there and, to be blunt, avid
was created out of sheerlaziness on my part, okay, I
mean, if you think about it.
So my job leading into this Ioversaw data analytics teams, I
(03:17):
oversaw development teams, andthe things that I hated doing
were, for lack of a better term,the dumb work Okay.
All the data together.
Trying to get of a better termthe dumb work Okay.
Putting all the data together.
Trying to get it into a unifiedsource, trying to see if the
data was right.
Analysis love analyzing data,but I hate creating
presentations, which it's greatto know what the answers are,
but you've got to be able totell other people, and so I'd
(03:38):
spend half my life makingPowerPoint slides.
I joked one time that a lot ofpeople leave their kids like
great nest egg things behind.
My kids will have millions ofPowerPoint slides They'll get to
divide amongst themselves.
It's going to be great.
But over the years, we ended upbuilding out a series of tools
that helped us internally tobring data in, connect to
(04:00):
nonprofit sources Like no onewants to connect to nonprofit
sources Stitch it together in away that is useful, analyze the
data.
And so a little over a year ago, we kind of hit a point where
we're like this is actuallysomething people would use Now.
At the time it was using a userinterface that I had made, so
it was ugly as sin, but itworked, and so we brought in a
(04:21):
CEO that had been doing this forthe years.
We brought in a UX firm thatwould help us make it usable for
more than just an analyst andmyself, and over the last year
we kind of built and rolled outa product that lets us analyze
data from multiple sources, fromevery different gamut of CRM
down to email marketing, paidsocial.
It automates the insights,makes it so we can actually find
(04:43):
the answers to the questionswe're looking for.
How am I doing?
Why is this happening?
What should I do next?
And then takes it one stepfurther and actually lets people
take action.
It's nice to know that myrevenue is up or my revenue is
down.
Actually, that's not nice toknow if your revenue is down,
but it's good to know.
But the next question becomeswhy and what should I do about
(05:05):
it?
And that's Avid.
Lets us deploy the data backout and actually advertise.
Do marketing.
Do the things you need to do tomake the revenue go up, and to
the right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I love that.
So has there been, as you guyshave started this process
because I will admit I wasplaying around on the Avid
website today and kind oflooking at some of the pieces,
talk to me about some of thelike is there a real use case
that you have seen just shinethrough of like aha?
This is the moment.
This is why we did it, Becausea client was able to say, hey,
(05:39):
here's what's happening and takesome actionable steps forward.
What's been that like ahamoment for you so far?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
There are two that come to mind.
One was we were working with.
It was a small to mid-sizedorganization, around $5 million,
and we're walking them throughthe charts and there's a lot of
data and a lot of charts andgraphs and everything.
But then we showed them thisone page that says pick the
segment you care about majordonors, mid-level online,
whatever and then it exports aPowerPoint with about 40 slides
(06:10):
in it An overkill on theinformation.
But his eyes lit up.
He goes I spend two days amonth making a board
presentation.
He goes this just did it in aminute, and so the ability to
put data into a usable formatfast allowed him to do what he
does best, which is not makePowerPoint slides for his board,
(06:30):
but to actually go for him askpeople for money.
Yeah, took it to the next stepthere.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Well, and your point too, Kevin, I mean you think
about it like you mentioned.
A phrase I want to like go backto is unifying all these silos,
right.
Like nonprofit, I mean being inthat space.
I mean we had 20 differentresponsibilities for one role,
right?
How many times other duties isassigned.
I always heard you know, andit's like you have to be able to
do all these things.
So you have a board report, youhave to put out a fire because
(06:57):
you're talking to a volunteer ora staff member or something
else happened, and try to pullall these data sets that nothing
is talking to one another,putting Avid right on top of it
and being able to see thosereports and your brand, color
and your logo, all thatinformation.
And, to your example, if youwant 40 slides but you really
only need 10, it's better todelete it than to have and have
too many than too little, and soit just makes their job a whole
(07:19):
lot easier in real time versusthat report I just pulled last
week.
That is old, you know, it'sjust fascinating, and so I think
it's like one of the bestemployees you can ever have
without having an FTE on yourstaff.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I love that so good.
So what systems would someoneplug into Avid?
Or where is it getting its datafrom?
I guess?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We usually start with the CRM.
People view CRMs as this is.
It's kind of a nebulous.
Whatever it can do, let's useit for that.
But the reality is a CRM ismeant to be a filing cabinet.
It's meant just to hold thedata and then make it useful for
other tools to do somethingwith.
For a major donor to analyze itand find their major donors,
for an email system to find theindividual donors and send them
(08:09):
contact information.
And so it starts with the CRMand it for lack of better terms
makes it useful.
It overlays the ability to getinsights out of it and then to
send that data out to the toolsthat are actually using.
And that's where we also connectin email platforms.
We connect in form submissiontools.
We connect in web analytics,paid social advertising because
(08:30):
it lets us create a goldenrecord so that we not only know
Megan and everything about Meganher name, her email, her phone
number.
That's easy.
You get them to see her and weknow Megan's giving history.
We also know what emails Meganopens, what websites she visits
and what that information does,because that allows us to
actually make smart segments,help understand what motivates
(08:52):
Megan, not just what did shegive to last, and let's talk
about that again.
Even if they could do that,most can't, let's talk about
that again.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Even if they could do that, most can't.
Yeah, I think that's the kicker.
So often we have all of thisdata living in there, but
there's no real way tounderstand it.
And I myself and I'm going toput myself in that boat I have
all of the data available to meand I find it so overwhelming to
try and sort through and combthrough that I just like forget
(09:20):
it.
I don't care, I'm just going tokeep doing what I've always
been doing, because that'seasier, because everything else
feels too overwhelming.
So it seems like Avidem wouldbe a great kind of intermediary
to make me feel not quite sooverwhelmed by all the data.
Exactly, am I understanding itcorrectly?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
The goal is that it can simplify the data.
Now you can go as deep as youwant.
We have 500 reports, but whenyou log in, I'm a firm believer
that there's not one mostimportant metric, it's not just
revenue.
There's 100 metrics that matter.
There's maybe two or three thatmatter today.
And so when you log in, what itdoes is it surfaces three to
(09:59):
five insights that say here'sthings you should know, based
upon what's changed since lastyear, since last month, what's
the scale of the change andwhat's most important to you.
You, as the fundraiser, get tosay I care about major donors,
not necessarily broad base, soshow me more information about
that, and it surfaces morerelevant details.
That lets you, as you said,take action and just keep the
(10:22):
ball rolling forward one foot ata time.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What's neat about that is, like what he just said
was the idea of having thedifferent staff members at a
nonprofit organization can befocused on.
Whatever the job description isthey're a major gift officer.
They can focus their portfolio.
Look at the reporting.
That direction or directresponse all different areas.
They can focus their portfolio.
Look at the reporting.
That direction or directresponse all different areas.
Or if you're a smallerorganization and you don't know
(10:46):
what you actually need, it givesyou that broad based
opportunity.
So find out, hey, what is themagic bullet to be able to grow
generosity within ourorganization, rather than just
shopping around and saying, hey,that looks really cool.
I should go that direction,like actually having data
informed decisions to help growour organization in an efficient
manner matters.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So okay, I'm going to .
I'm going to open a can ofworms, and I know that this is a
soapbox.
Eric could get on, and I'm sureEric or I'm sure Kevin has
opinions.
So there's a part of me whenKevin lays out this, like we
would know Megan, not just forwhat her name and address are,
but here's all the things.
We know what motivates her, weknow where she's going, we know
(11:26):
all these things.
There's a part of me as I sithere as the executive director
of a small nonprofit, I'm like,oh my gosh, that's awesome, that
would be so cool.
And then there's part of methat sits here as Megan and goes
(11:47):
, yeah, but like I don't know ifI want someone to know me quite
that much, or I don't know howdo I know that they're doing the
right things with that data.
So not that I want to open thewhole can of worms around the
ethics and AI and understandingall of those things.
But, what does it look like foran organization to use that
responsibly and what does itlook like to make sure that
(12:10):
somebody has a good policy inplace to use AI?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
data.
That way I got you.
So I'll give some context.
Me as an individual who ChiefTechnology Officer.
I work at a company where theword AI is in the name of it.
I don't trust AI any furtherthan I could throw.
As a result, we incorporatemachine learning AI into Avid,
(12:32):
but we do it in an anonymizedfashion, so no donor data is
ever sent to a model.
What AI does best.
Actually fun fact, AI isterrible at math.
Most people don't know that,but if you asked AI what's three
plus three, it will write you aPython function to solve that.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
What AI is great at is making things sound human
Super weird.
But we now rely on artificialintelligence to sound more human
.
That's interesting.
So, with Avid, the way we'reutilizing AI is summarizations
and simplification of what thecharts say.
If I see a line chart that hasa bunch of dots and graphs, like
(13:10):
, what does that mean?
And it will give you a.
Here's a two-sentence summaryof what you're seeing right here
.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Now going back to what you're talking about, of
knowing a lot about the peopleRight.
This is not taking it beyond a,and I get the creepiness factor
of that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I mean it's everywhere, so it's not an avid
specific problem.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's an expectation that our donors have.
Yeah, if you log into Amazon,I'm surfaced with things that
I'm probably going to buybecause it knows me well enough
to know my Facebook algorithm,my Instagram algorithm other
people's Instagram algorithmsare probably very relevant
simply because it knows enoughabout you and surfaces what
(13:51):
makes it interesting.
That's why you come back.
So if a nonprofit knows enoughabout you to be relevant, then
the donor is going to keepcoming back.
It's not to be creepy, it's notto have the big brother data.
It's to present people and helpthem connect with the mission.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
The thing that we believe, too, here at Avid is
it's connection overtransactions.
Donors aren't just the numbersand the data and everything else
to that nature, whereas at thecore of it all, to me, ai is it
enhances everyone's jobdescription.
It's the great equalizer, it'sthe small.
I'm on a board here inPittsburgh, the Children's
(14:29):
Advocacy Center of Butler County.
It's less than a $500,000contribution revenue, but it's
going to have them workcollaboratively against St Jude,
who's raising $2 billion a year.
It's the great equalizer in ourspace if done ethically and
responsibly.
But also focus on the personalconnections, right, like, as
Kevin you just said.
(14:50):
Like Amazon's doing it, netflixis doing it, all these
algorithms are doing it incorporate America, but we should
be doing it from donors because, at the end of the day, donors
are inherently you're giving,because it's personal to their
organization, and I think they'drather hear from a children's
advocacy center rather than theNetflix or the Amazons of this
world, right?
So I think this is this isgoing to make our fundraising
(15:10):
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Is it able to be segmented?
(16:10):
So, like, if I am a major giftsofficer, that's what I'm going
to care about, and when I log inI don't really care to look at
the email stats, right?
So is it segmented by user towhat you care about it?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
it is.
You get pick the stats, thesegments that you care most
about Interesting, with onecaveat.
I purposely made it so youcan't.
It's a slider.
I care more about this thanthis 100%.
You can't go to zero If adigital fundraiser doesn't care
about major donors, but a majordonor gives you $50 million, so
(16:39):
that's something everyone shouldknow.
If your email open rate goesfrom 30% to zero one day, that's
something you should probablyknow, because you expected
something to happen.
And so it's not that it totallyremoves the data, it just makes
sure you're only presented withthe major shifts If you've said
you really don't care aboutthat major shifts if you've said
(17:01):
you really don't care aboutthat Interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
So tell me a little bit about what spawned the
desire for Avid Kevin.
You've had a great career intechnology for a very large
agency, so what really, outsideof your claim to laziness?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Laziness yes.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Outside of your claim to laziness, or maybe what are
you most excited about that isgoing on at Avid.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The reason I really want to invest in this actually
goes back to COVID, because whatAvid produces is scale.
Like Eric, I'm on a board of alocal nonprofit, a three to $5
million organization.
They do family services, theyrun the local food pantry,
(17:52):
things like that.
During COVID I got as a boardmember, I got more heavily
involved and I kind of took overtheir fundraising.
So I wrote their emails, I didtheir segmentation, I handled
all the website stuff.
It's like the nitty grittystuff.
The reality is this nonprofitcould never afford my former
employer next after they cannever afford an agency outside
their ability, and so they'reconstantly stuck at this one
level.
Now I was able to volunteer andI was able to help.
(18:15):
I obviously bring some industryexperience, but COVID helped a
lot.
But we tripled online giving.
When you have someone dedicatedand knows what they're doing
and has done this for years, thepotential is huge.
And so if we can bringautomation, we can bring the
goal is not just to do dataanalysis and deployment.
Ultimately, we want to just bethat fundraising all in one Be
(18:38):
able to draft the emails, deploythem out to your constant
contact, your mail champ and beable to help them get better,
and so if we can scale it beyondthe 50 clients an agency works
with to 5,000 that could affordthis kind of product, then the
industry gets better.
The midsize and even the smallcan take monumental leaps that
(19:01):
they otherwise wouldn't be ableto do.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
That's great.
And, eric, what excites youmost about the work?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I mean everything Kevin just shared.
I mean it matters for all.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You can't take my answer.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm taking your answer because it's perfect,
because, at the end of the day,I mean, what I'm excited about
is, like the dashboards it'sgreat.
A lot of organizations can dodashboarding and be doing it,
but not many can do it in realtime.
But then exactly what Kevinshared being able to share the
results because of the work thatwas created in the background
(19:33):
of 7,000 experiments.
So seeing the best practices ofwhat nonprofits are doing, good
and bad and being able to say,hey, this is a strategy that you
should employ and then actuallyusing, like Kevin said, machine
learning and opportunity and AIto be able to actually deploy
it for them, like those twocatalytic moments not many
organizations have the abilityto do.
(19:55):
Put couple all them together.
This is that opportunity fornonprofits to do it at scale.
Do it at a reasonable levelbecause you know, 92% of
nonprofits are under that $2million threshold for
contribution revenue.
That, to Kevin's point, can'tafford an agency.
But they can employ technologyand enhance it and embrace what
they're doing to the next level.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I love that.
So one of the things that Ithink, because it's Kevin's
answer.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I took it just to you know.
Yeah, it was, we all heard it.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
He said it better, it was a fantastic rephrasing of
Kevin's answer.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Good job.
So I think one of the thingsthat, as I talk to nonprofits,
especially some of the smallerones, one of the things that
really tends to be a hang up orlike a get in the way, if you
will, is the tech stack ingeneral.
(20:48):
Right, because we have so manydifferent.
Yeah, so many different things.
Yeah, I talked to somebody theother day and everyone on this
little Zoom right here has beenin the industry long enough that
they're going to laugh at thisanswer.
I talked to somebody the otherday who is getting off of
they're in the process ofgetting off of MPX.
I didn't even know there werestill people on MPX.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
The old orange leap Yep yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I mean like still on-prem server, like the old
school MPX, and that's likemaybe the most outdated of the
options, but there are so manyold school mentalities around
systems.
If somebody is maybe you know,this all sounds great, right,
(21:39):
but we just still have an Excelspreadsheet that we're trying to
work with.
Are there pieces that yousuggest like, okay, if you're
going to get into understandingyour data, here are some like
the first steps you need to take.
You know, is there some?
Is it?
Or maybe I guess I could say itthis way Is there anyone who
(21:59):
where it's too soon in theirjourney for them to look?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
at.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Avid, or as they're kind of making those evaluations
.
When does it make sense forsomebody to connect with you all
?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I'd put the framing around.
You want the ROI to be worth it, and when I say ROI, I don't
necessarily mean the cost, Imean the time it's going to take
.
They're still operating out ofan Excel spreadsheet.
I mean time it's going to take.
If you're still operating outof an Excel spreadsheet, avid's
probably.
I mean there's a way to uploadthat, that's great, we can
handle that, but Avid's notgoing to produce insights.
If you know every one of yourdonors' names, okay.
So we generally say somewherearound, if you have over 500
(22:33):
donors, there's certain chartsand graphs and value that you
can get out of it.
But don't spend time on tryingto employ big fancy systems when
, if your goal is to just get alittle bit incrementally better
this way, yeah.
It's some of the tools that aregoing to let you get up there.
I mean, if you have out ofExcel, get into a CRM.
(22:54):
There's plenty that work atthat size.
If you're still sending emailsout of your Outlook, maybe
consider MailChimp.
Definitely not constant contact, but maybe MailChimp or
something like that.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
And the other thing I would suggest, too, is, if
you're a small organization andyou're in that situation, there
are consultants out there thatprimarily focus on how to build
an appropriate tech stack.
Who should be your home base?
Who should be the add-ons?
Honestly, megan, when youstarted this question, I thought
you were going to go adifferent route of talking about
budget.
You know, like, hey, we don'twant to spend money to.
You know, to grow right, likethose kinds of mindsets.
(23:27):
That's right.
But I think we, as nonprofitleaders, need to invest in our
systems, invest in our tech,invest in our people, invest in
our projects.
Look at a three and a five yearplan.
Be able to see where we cangrow, what works, what's working
and what isn't.
You know, and to Kevin's point,if you've got a great giving
(23:48):
page but you're putting it allin Excel, that's not a great
opportunity because you're notbuilding off of that.
You're not doing the automationand the workflows and the
response and the sequences andeverything else beyond that.
So yeah, having someconsultants and having some
growth there, but not beingbashful about investing in your
business and treating the not.
It's just the phrase.
Nonprofit status is just abusiness term.
It's not a way of doingbusiness and we need to be
(24:10):
operating like for profits.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Preach that line again, yikes.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Actually, I was talking to someone last week and
one of their objections was wehave a person whose jobs do what
Avid does.
Now, I don't know theirsalaries, but I know what Avid's
cost is and I definitely knowit's less than a salary.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Especially for them.
And so you've got to startasking the questions of is there
something they could be doingthat would be better?
Right, this is not meant toreplace someone's job although I
mean it can do what a lot ofthat work is but it should free
up somebody to do bigger andbetter.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Your CDO shouldn't.
They shouldn't have to searchthrough a CRM to find the next
opportunity.
They should be given theopportunity.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
They're the only ones that can call that donor With a
donor or a volunteer and takingthem to that next level, or
just writing thank you cards.
All those different thingsmatter.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All of those personal touchesgo at great lengths for sure,
and they take a person.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So like automate the dumb work.
Let the personal touches be theemphasis of the fundraising
operations.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I think that's a fantastic point.
To back to what we were talkingabout before.
Right, it's like AI is isfantastic at certain things.
I think that's a fantasticpoint to back to what we were
talking about before.
Right, it's like AI isfantastic at certain things.
Ai is not who you want.
You don't want to send the chatbot to go talk to your major
donor.
However, at these types ofthings, I think that's a great
(25:42):
use case to be able to freeyourself up to do what you're
actually there to do.
And I mean, I think that that'sa problem that every nonprofit
faces is that we get so tied upin the busy work that we don't
have time for the things thatmatter.
Speaking from experience onthat one, everyone on the phone
vigorously nodding their heads.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yes, yes.
Everyone on the phonevigorously nodding their heads.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yes, absolutely so.
If somebody wanted to learnmore, if they wanted to connect
with one of you or learn moreabout what Avid's doing or check
it out, how do we find thoseresources?
How do we do that?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Please come to our website.
We're getting a revampedwebsite.
We have a new rebranding, sowe're super excited about that.
So stay tuned for all of thatnews.
Our website's wwwavidaicom.
There's a whole host ofdifferent opportunities you can
see.
You can book a demo to see oursystem.
There's a benchmark report thatwe can connect your CRM so you
can start looking at otherorganizations and how you stack
(26:31):
rank against them.
There's a whole host ofresources there.
We're here as a service to helpsupport you guys, and so we'd
love to be able to help.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
As a note, that benchmark is free.
It's free, forever free forlife.
The idea being, if youunderstand where you stand
compared to similars, it tellsyou at least where you should
focus your time and effort toimprove.
Where are you doing well, wherearen't you?
From there, it's a good jumpingoff point, great resource.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, eric, talk a little bit more about that.
How would somebody go aboutdoing that part?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
So if you go to avidaicom, there's a place there
right on our main homepage tosay you know, sign up for the
benchmark report and, exactlylike Kevin said, you can connect
your CRM to Avid and be able tosee in real time how you look
in dashboard mindset to otherorganizations that are also too,
and, like he said, it's free.
So if you say, hey, I don'twant to do this anymore, you can
(27:21):
turn it on and off as youplease.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I've always had an issue, going back years, of
benchmark reports, for two mainreasons.
One, the moment they'republished they're out of date.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I mean it's.
I don't want to name names andbenchmarks but the next 2024
benchmark will come out in March, maybe April.
At that point I don't reallycare.
The other is it's self-reporteddata.
They're saying I made this muchmoney, I had this much of a
conversion rate.
Avid uses real live feeds fromCRMs.
(27:52):
We had our year-end benchmarkthat those 80, 90 organizations
that were a part of thebenchmark could understand where
they stood as of yesterday.
Where do I need to move theneedle?
Where am I not getting my majordonor conversions?
Where am I not getting myaverage gift for recurring
upgrades?
There's 50 plus splits thatexist in this benchmark that
give you an understanding ofwhere to start.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And selfishly.
We at Avid want to do betterfor nonprofits.
We want to empower ournonprofit organizations to do
more.
So we want this as a freeservice.
We want as many nonprofits toparticipate in it so that they
can get beyond just the 90.
We want thousands oforganizations attached to it so
that we can actually have betterdata to be able to see how our
organizations stack rank againsteach other.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I love that and I love the idea that it gives you
a place to focus.
That's a really key element.
That's awesome.
Well, great guys.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I'm excited for both of youabout what Avid is doing and
what you all are doing to impactthe nonprofit space at in this
season, where we we all havespent the last decade, two
(28:59):
decades, gathering the data andnow we get to actually do
something with it, and I thinkthat's so exciting.
So I personally, as your friend, I'm excited for both of you as
this goes through, but I'mexcited about what it does for
the space and what it has theability to do for the nonprofits
that we all serve.
I think that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
And Megan, we feel the same about you.
You are doing some great workfor Nonprofit Hub and our
community.
Continue the great work.
We huge supporters of you andthe work you're doing and we're
just we're raving fans.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'm glad to be your.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
LinkedIn friend.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yep, and now you guys are LinkedIn friends.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
We're LinkedIn friends, finally.
I know it's very exciting, sogood.
All right, well again.
Kevin Peters, eric Smollis fromAvid AI.
Thank you guys both for beinghere.
We appreciate that.
This has been another episodeof the Nonprofit Hub Podcast and
we'll see you next time.
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nonprofithub.
Welcome back to the NonprofitHub podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear,joined today by Kevin Peters and
Eric Tomales of Avid.
So excited to have you guysespecially as Avid is really
(00:46):
just kind of ramping up andlaunching and getting the word
out there about the company.
Super excited to talk with youall today, guys, welcome to the
show.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks so much, Megan .
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Good to see you both.
So, kevin, you are ChiefTechnology Officer.
Am I correct on that one?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That is correct, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And Eric, you are the Chief Re officer and evangelist
, I would assume.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Oh, of course, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yes.
So, Eric, I know the nonprofithub audience is super familiar
with you.
You've spoken at CauseCamp abunch of times, been on the
podcast before.
Tell us a little bit about yourtransition over to Avid and why
you're so excited about it.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Oh, this is great Thanks.
Thanks so much for having meagain, megan.
I absolutely love your audience.
I love nonprofit, as I'm anonprofit nerd at heart, very
much value what you guys aredoing on a daily basis and,
honestly, like you know, I'vebeen on the nonprofit side for
so long.
Most recently, I was with theagency and in technology and one
of the things that I've knownKevin for a very long time and
when I started learning moreabout Avid, I found that there
(01:48):
is this gap in the nonprofittech space right Like we're
having so many different systems, they're not really talking to
one another.
We're trying to do more personal, different operations, but our
data is really not talking toone another, and that's where
Avid provides that missingpuzzle piece, if you will, and I
was just like man.
This is incredible.
I want to be able to help itand it's.
There's not really anythingelse out there like it in our
(02:10):
space and we're verycomplimentary with every single
technology and solution that anon-profit has but to be able to
have the ability to look atyour data in minutes in like in
reporting and operations andeverything else, to be able to
report up to your leadership orknow what the good and the bad
and what we should be likedouble downing on.
That's an opportunity and Ijust can't wait to be a part of
(02:31):
it.
Kevin is the guru, the guy thatcreated this product.
I mean, it's incredible andit's great to be back to friends
and partners again.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, and Kevin, I know LinkedIn thinks we just
became friends today, but weactually have been friends for a
very long time.
So tell the audience a littlebit about your journey.
Just kind of ping pong my wayup there and, to be blunt, avid
was created out of sheerlaziness on my part, okay, I
mean, if you think about it.
So my job leading into this Ioversaw data analytics teams, I
(03:17):
oversaw development teams, andthe things that I hated doing
were, for lack of a better term,the dumb work Okay.
All the data together.
Trying to get of a better termthe dumb work Okay.
Putting all the data together.
Trying to get it into a unifiedsource, trying to see if the
data was right.
Analysis love analyzing data,but I hate creating
presentations, which it's greatto know what the answers are,
but you've got to be able totell other people, and so I'd
(03:38):
spend half my life makingPowerPoint slides.
I joked one time that a lot ofpeople leave their kids like
great nest egg things behind.
My kids will have millions ofPowerPoint slides They'll get to
divide amongst themselves.
It's going to be great.
But over the years, we ended upbuilding out a series of tools
that helped us internally tobring data in, connect to
(04:00):
nonprofit sources Like no onewants to connect to nonprofit
sources Stitch it together in away that is useful, analyze the
data.
And so a little over a year ago, we kind of hit a point where
we're like this is actuallysomething people would use Now.
At the time it was using a userinterface that I had made, so
it was ugly as sin, but itworked, and so we brought in a
(04:21):
CEO that had been doing this forthe years.
We brought in a UX firm thatwould help us make it usable for
more than just an analyst andmyself, and over the last year
we kind of built and rolled outa product that lets us analyze
data from multiple sources, fromevery different gamut of CRM
down to email marketing, paidsocial.
It automates the insights,makes it so we can actually find
(04:43):
the answers to the questionswe're looking for.
How am I doing?
Why is this happening?
What should I do next?
And then takes it one stepfurther and actually lets people
take action.
It's nice to know that myrevenue is up or my revenue is
down.
Actually, that's not nice toknow if your revenue is down,
but it's good to know.
But the next question becomeswhy and what should I do about
(05:05):
it?
And that's Avid.
Lets us deploy the data backout and actually advertise.
Do marketing.
Do the things you need to do tomake the revenue go up, and to
the right.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I love that.
So has there been, as you guyshave started this process
because I will admit I wasplaying around on the Avid
website today and kind oflooking at some of the pieces,
talk to me about some of thelike is there a real use case
that you have seen just shinethrough of like aha?
This is the moment.
This is why we did it, Becausea client was able to say, hey,
(05:39):
here's what's happening and takesome actionable steps forward.
What's been that like ahamoment for you so far?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
There are two that come to mind.
One was we were working with.
It was a small to mid-sizedorganization, around $5 million,
and we're walking them throughthe charts and there's a lot of
data and a lot of charts andgraphs and everything.
But then we showed them thisone page that says pick the
segment you care about majordonors, mid-level online,
whatever and then it exports aPowerPoint with about 40 slides
(06:10):
in it An overkill on theinformation.
But his eyes lit up.
He goes I spend two days amonth making a board
presentation.
He goes this just did it in aminute, and so the ability to
put data into a usable formatfast allowed him to do what he
does best, which is not makePowerPoint slides for his board,
(06:30):
but to actually go for him askpeople for money.
Yeah, took it to the next stepthere.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Well, and your point too, Kevin, I mean you think
about it like you mentioned.
A phrase I want to like go backto is unifying all these silos,
right.
Like nonprofit, I mean being inthat space.
I mean we had 20 differentresponsibilities for one role,
right?
How many times other duties isassigned.
I always heard you know, andit's like you have to be able to
do all these things.
So you have a board report, youhave to put out a fire because
(06:57):
you're talking to a volunteer ora staff member or something
else happened, and try to pullall these data sets that nothing
is talking to one another,putting Avid right on top of it
and being able to see thosereports and your brand, color
and your logo, all thatinformation.
And, to your example, if youwant 40 slides but you really
only need 10, it's better todelete it than to have and have
too many than too little, and soit just makes their job a whole
(07:19):
lot easier in real time versusthat report I just pulled last
week.
That is old, you know, it'sjust fascinating, and so I think
it's like one of the bestemployees you can ever have
without having an FTE on yourstaff.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I love that so good.
So what systems would someoneplug into Avid?
Or where is it getting its datafrom?
I guess?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We usually start with the CRM.
People view CRMs as this is.
It's kind of a nebulous.
Whatever it can do, let's useit for that.
But the reality is a CRM ismeant to be a filing cabinet.
It's meant just to hold thedata and then make it useful for
other tools to do somethingwith.
For a major donor to analyze itand find their major donors,
for an email system to find theindividual donors and send them
(08:09):
contact information.
And so it starts with the CRMand it for lack of better terms
makes it useful.
It overlays the ability to getinsights out of it and then to
send that data out to the toolsthat are actually using.
And that's where we also connectin email platforms.
We connect in form submissiontools.
We connect in web analytics,paid social advertising because
(08:30):
it lets us create a goldenrecord so that we not only know
Megan and everything about Meganher name, her email, her phone
number.
That's easy.
You get them to see her and weknow Megan's giving history.
We also know what emails Meganopens, what websites she visits
and what that information does,because that allows us to
actually make smart segments,help understand what motivates
(08:52):
Megan, not just what did shegive to last, and let's talk
about that again.
Even if they could do that,most can't, let's talk about
that again.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Even if they could do that, most can't.
Yeah, I think that's the kicker.
So often we have all of thisdata living in there, but
there's no real way tounderstand it.
And I myself and I'm going toput myself in that boat I have
all of the data available to meand I find it so overwhelming to
try and sort through and combthrough that I just like forget
(09:20):
it.
I don't care, I'm just going tokeep doing what I've always
been doing, because that'seasier, because everything else
feels too overwhelming.
So it seems like Avidem wouldbe a great kind of intermediary
to make me feel not quite sooverwhelmed by all the data.
Exactly, am I understanding itcorrectly?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
The goal is that it can simplify the data.
Now you can go as deep as youwant.
We have 500 reports, but whenyou log in, I'm a firm believer
that there's not one mostimportant metric, it's not just
revenue.
There's 100 metrics that matter.
There's maybe two or three thatmatter today.
And so when you log in, what itdoes is it surfaces three to
(09:59):
five insights that say here'sthings you should know, based
upon what's changed since lastyear, since last month, what's
the scale of the change andwhat's most important to you.
You, as the fundraiser, get tosay I care about major donors,
not necessarily broad base, soshow me more information about
that, and it surfaces morerelevant details.
That lets you, as you said,take action and just keep the
(10:22):
ball rolling forward one foot ata time.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What's neat about that is, like what he just said
was the idea of having thedifferent staff members at a
nonprofit organization can befocused on.
Whatever the job description isthey're a major gift officer.
They can focus their portfolio.
Look at the reporting.
That direction or directresponse all different areas.
They can focus their portfolio.
Look at the reporting.
That direction or directresponse all different areas.
Or if you're a smallerorganization and you don't know
(10:46):
what you actually need, it givesyou that broad based
opportunity.
So find out, hey, what is themagic bullet to be able to grow
generosity within ourorganization, rather than just
shopping around and saying, hey,that looks really cool.
I should go that direction,like actually having data
informed decisions to help growour organization in an efficient
manner matters.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So okay, I'm going to .
I'm going to open a can ofworms, and I know that this is a
soapbox.
Eric could get on, and I'm sureEric or I'm sure Kevin has
opinions.
So there's a part of me whenKevin lays out this, like we
would know Megan, not just forwhat her name and address are,
but here's all the things.
We know what motivates her, weknow where she's going, we know
(11:26):
all these things.
There's a part of me as I sithere as the executive director
of a small nonprofit, I'm like,oh my gosh, that's awesome, that
would be so cool.
And then there's part of methat sits here as Megan and goes
(11:47):
, yeah, but like I don't know ifI want someone to know me quite
that much, or I don't know howdo I know that they're doing the
right things with that data.
So not that I want to open thewhole can of worms around the
ethics and AI and understandingall of those things.
But, what does it look like foran organization to use that
responsibly and what does itlook like to make sure that
(12:10):
somebody has a good policy inplace to use AI?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
data.
That way I got you.
So I'll give some context.
Me as an individual who ChiefTechnology Officer.
I work at a company where theword AI is in the name of it.
I don't trust AI any furtherthan I could throw.
As a result, we incorporatemachine learning AI into Avid,
(12:32):
but we do it in an anonymizedfashion, so no donor data is
ever sent to a model.
What AI does best.
Actually fun fact, AI isterrible at math.
Most people don't know that,but if you asked AI what's three
plus three, it will write you aPython function to solve that.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
What AI is great at is making things sound human
Super weird.
But we now rely on artificialintelligence to sound more human
.
That's interesting.
So, with Avid, the way we'reutilizing AI is summarizations
and simplification of what thecharts say.
If I see a line chart that hasa bunch of dots and graphs, like
(13:10):
, what does that mean?
And it will give you a.
Here's a two-sentence summaryof what you're seeing right here
.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Now going back to what you're talking about, of
knowing a lot about the peopleRight.
This is not taking it beyond a,and I get the creepiness factor
of that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I mean it's everywhere, so it's not an avid
specific problem.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's an expectation that our donors have.
Yeah, if you log into Amazon,I'm surfaced with things that
I'm probably going to buybecause it knows me well enough
to know my Facebook algorithm,my Instagram algorithm other
people's Instagram algorithmsare probably very relevant
simply because it knows enoughabout you and surfaces what
(13:51):
makes it interesting.
That's why you come back.
So if a nonprofit knows enoughabout you to be relevant, then
the donor is going to keepcoming back.
It's not to be creepy, it's notto have the big brother data.
It's to present people and helpthem connect with the mission.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
The thing that we believe, too, here at Avid is
it's connection overtransactions.
Donors aren't just the numbersand the data and everything else
to that nature, whereas at thecore of it all, to me, ai is it
enhances everyone's jobdescription.
It's the great equalizer, it'sthe small.
I'm on a board here inPittsburgh, the Children's
(14:29):
Advocacy Center of Butler County.
It's less than a $500,000contribution revenue, but it's
going to have them workcollaboratively against St Jude,
who's raising $2 billion a year.
It's the great equalizer in ourspace if done ethically and
responsibly.
But also focus on the personalconnections, right, like, as
Kevin you just said.
(14:50):
Like Amazon's doing it, netflixis doing it, all these
algorithms are doing it incorporate America, but we should
be doing it from donors because, at the end of the day, donors
are inherently you're giving,because it's personal to their
organization, and I think they'drather hear from a children's
advocacy center rather than theNetflix or the Amazons of this
world, right?
So I think this is this isgoing to make our fundraising
(15:10):
jobs a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
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(15:42):
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Is it able to be segmented?
(16:10):
So, like, if I am a major giftsofficer, that's what I'm going
to care about, and when I log inI don't really care to look at
the email stats, right?
So is it segmented by user towhat you care about it?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
it is.
You get pick the stats, thesegments that you care most
about Interesting, with onecaveat.
I purposely made it so youcan't.
It's a slider.
I care more about this thanthis 100%.
You can't go to zero If adigital fundraiser doesn't care
about major donors, but a majordonor gives you $50 million, so
(16:39):
that's something everyone shouldknow.
If your email open rate goesfrom 30% to zero one day, that's
something you should probablyknow, because you expected
something to happen.
And so it's not that it totallyremoves the data, it just makes
sure you're only presented withthe major shifts If you've said
you really don't care aboutthat major shifts if you've said
(17:01):
you really don't care aboutthat Interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
So tell me a little bit about what spawned the
desire for Avid Kevin.
You've had a great career intechnology for a very large
agency, so what really, outsideof your claim to laziness?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Laziness yes.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Outside of your claim to laziness, or maybe what are
you most excited about that isgoing on at Avid.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The reason I really want to invest in this actually
goes back to COVID, because whatAvid produces is scale.
Like Eric, I'm on a board of alocal nonprofit, a three to $5
million organization.
They do family services, theyrun the local food pantry,
(17:52):
things like that.
During COVID I got as a boardmember, I got more heavily
involved and I kind of took overtheir fundraising.
So I wrote their emails, I didtheir segmentation, I handled
all the website stuff.
It's like the nitty grittystuff.
The reality is this nonprofitcould never afford my former
employer next after they cannever afford an agency outside
their ability, and so they'reconstantly stuck at this one
level.
Now I was able to volunteer andI was able to help.
(18:15):
I obviously bring some industryexperience, but COVID helped a
lot.
But we tripled online giving.
When you have someone dedicatedand knows what they're doing
and has done this for years, thepotential is huge.
And so if we can bringautomation, we can bring the
goal is not just to do dataanalysis and deployment.
Ultimately, we want to just bethat fundraising all in one Be
(18:38):
able to draft the emails, deploythem out to your constant
contact, your mail champ and beable to help them get better,
and so if we can scale it beyondthe 50 clients an agency works
with to 5,000 that could affordthis kind of product, then the
industry gets better.
The midsize and even the smallcan take monumental leaps that
(19:01):
they otherwise wouldn't be ableto do.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
That's great.
And, eric, what excites youmost about the work?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I mean everything Kevin just shared.
I mean it matters for all.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You can't take my answer.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm taking your answer because it's perfect,
because, at the end of the day,I mean, what I'm excited about
is, like the dashboards it'sgreat.
A lot of organizations can dodashboarding and be doing it,
but not many can do it in realtime.
But then exactly what Kevinshared being able to share the
results because of the work thatwas created in the background
(19:33):
of 7,000 experiments.
So seeing the best practices ofwhat nonprofits are doing, good
and bad and being able to say,hey, this is a strategy that you
should employ and then actuallyusing, like Kevin said, machine
learning and opportunity and AIto be able to actually deploy
it for them, like those twocatalytic moments not many
organizations have the abilityto do.
(19:55):
Put couple all them together.
This is that opportunity fornonprofits to do it at scale.
Do it at a reasonable levelbecause you know, 92% of
nonprofits are under that $2million threshold for
contribution revenue.
That, to Kevin's point, can'tafford an agency.
But they can employ technologyand enhance it and embrace what
they're doing to the next level.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I love that.
So one of the things that Ithink, because it's Kevin's
answer.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I took it just to you know.
Yeah, it was, we all heard it.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
He said it better, it was a fantastic rephrasing of
Kevin's answer.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Good job.
So I think one of the thingsthat, as I talk to nonprofits,
especially some of the smallerones, one of the things that
really tends to be a hang up orlike a get in the way, if you
will, is the tech stack ingeneral.
(20:48):
Right, because we have so manydifferent.
Yeah, so many different things.
Yeah, I talked to somebody theother day and everyone on this
little Zoom right here has beenin the industry long enough that
they're going to laugh at thisanswer.
I talked to somebody the otherday who is getting off of
they're in the process ofgetting off of MPX.
I didn't even know there werestill people on MPX.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
The old orange leap Yep yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I mean like still on-prem server, like the old
school MPX, and that's likemaybe the most outdated of the
options, but there are so manyold school mentalities around
systems.
If somebody is maybe you know,this all sounds great, right,
(21:39):
but we just still have an Excelspreadsheet that we're trying to
work with.
Are there pieces that yousuggest like, okay, if you're
going to get into understandingyour data, here are some like
the first steps you need to take.
You know, is there some?
Is it?
Or maybe I guess I could say itthis way Is there anyone who
(21:59):
where it's too soon in theirjourney for them to look?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
at.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Avid, or as they're kind of making those evaluations
.
When does it make sense forsomebody to connect with you all
?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I'd put the framing around.
You want the ROI to be worth it, and when I say ROI, I don't
necessarily mean the cost, Imean the time it's going to take
.
They're still operating out ofan Excel spreadsheet.
I mean time it's going to take.
If you're still operating outof an Excel spreadsheet, avid's
probably.
I mean there's a way to uploadthat, that's great, we can
handle that, but Avid's notgoing to produce insights.
If you know every one of yourdonors' names, okay.
So we generally say somewherearound, if you have over 500
(22:33):
donors, there's certain chartsand graphs and value that you
can get out of it.
But don't spend time on tryingto employ big fancy systems when
, if your goal is to just get alittle bit incrementally better
this way, yeah.
It's some of the tools that aregoing to let you get up there.
I mean, if you have out ofExcel, get into a CRM.
(22:54):
There's plenty that work atthat size.
If you're still sending emailsout of your Outlook, maybe
consider MailChimp.
Definitely not constant contact, but maybe MailChimp or
something like that.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
And the other thing I would suggest, too, is, if
you're a small organization andyou're in that situation, there
are consultants out there thatprimarily focus on how to build
an appropriate tech stack.
Who should be your home base?
Who should be the add-ons?
Honestly, megan, when youstarted this question, I thought
you were going to go adifferent route of talking about
budget.
You know, like, hey, we don'twant to spend money to.
You know, to grow right, likethose kinds of mindsets.
(23:27):
That's right.
But I think we, as nonprofitleaders, need to invest in our
systems, invest in our tech,invest in our people, invest in
our projects.
Look at a three and a five yearplan.
Be able to see where we cangrow, what works, what's working
and what isn't.
You know, and to Kevin's point,if you've got a great giving
(23:48):
page but you're putting it allin Excel, that's not a great
opportunity because you're notbuilding off of that.
You're not doing the automationand the workflows and the
response and the sequences andeverything else beyond that.
So yeah, having someconsultants and having some
growth there, but not beingbashful about investing in your
business and treating the not.
It's just the phrase.
Nonprofit status is just abusiness term.
It's not a way of doingbusiness and we need to be
(24:10):
operating like for profits.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Preach that line again, yikes.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Actually, I was talking to someone last week and
one of their objections was wehave a person whose jobs do what
Avid does.
Now, I don't know theirsalaries, but I know what Avid's
cost is and I definitely knowit's less than a salary.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Especially for them.
And so you've got to startasking the questions of is there
something they could be doingthat would be better?
Right, this is not meant toreplace someone's job although I
mean it can do what a lot ofthat work is but it should free
up somebody to do bigger andbetter.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Your CDO shouldn't.
They shouldn't have to searchthrough a CRM to find the next
opportunity.
They should be given theopportunity.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
They're the only ones that can call that donor With a
donor or a volunteer and takingthem to that next level, or
just writing thank you cards.
All those different thingsmatter.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All of those personal touchesgo at great lengths for sure,
and they take a person.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So like automate the dumb work.
Let the personal touches be theemphasis of the fundraising
operations.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I think that's a fantastic point.
To back to what we were talkingabout before.
Right, it's like AI is isfantastic at certain things.
I think that's a fantasticpoint to back to what we were
talking about before.
Right, it's like AI isfantastic at certain things.
Ai is not who you want.
You don't want to send the chatbot to go talk to your major
donor.
However, at these types ofthings, I think that's a great
(25:42):
use case to be able to freeyourself up to do what you're
actually there to do.
And I mean, I think that that'sa problem that every nonprofit
faces is that we get so tied upin the busy work that we don't
have time for the things thatmatter.
Speaking from experience onthat one, everyone on the phone
vigorously nodding their heads.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yes, yes.
Everyone on the phonevigorously nodding their heads.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yes, absolutely so.
If somebody wanted to learnmore, if they wanted to connect
with one of you or learn moreabout what Avid's doing or check
it out, how do we find thoseresources?
How do we do that?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Please come to our website.
We're getting a revampedwebsite.
We have a new rebranding, sowe're super excited about that.
So stay tuned for all of thatnews.
Our website's wwwavidaicom.
There's a whole host ofdifferent opportunities you can
see.
You can book a demo to see oursystem.
There's a benchmark report thatwe can connect your CRM so you
can start looking at otherorganizations and how you stack
(26:31):
rank against them.
There's a whole host ofresources there.
We're here as a service to helpsupport you guys, and so we'd
love to be able to help.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
As a note, that benchmark is free.
It's free, forever free forlife.
The idea being, if youunderstand where you stand
compared to similars, it tellsyou at least where you should
focus your time and effort toimprove.
Where are you doing well, wherearen't you?
From there, it's a good jumpingoff point, great resource.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, eric, talk a little bit more about that.
How would somebody go aboutdoing that part?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
So if you go to avidaicom, there's a place there
right on our main homepage tosay you know, sign up for the
benchmark report and, exactlylike Kevin said, you can connect
your CRM to Avid and be able tosee in real time how you look
in dashboard mindset to otherorganizations that are also too,
and, like he said, it's free.
So if you say, hey, I don'twant to do this anymore, you can
(27:21):
turn it on and off as youplease.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I've always had an issue, going back years, of
benchmark reports, for two mainreasons.
One, the moment they'republished they're out of date.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I mean it's.
I don't want to name names andbenchmarks but the next 2024
benchmark will come out in March, maybe April.
At that point I don't reallycare.
The other is it's self-reporteddata.
They're saying I made this muchmoney, I had this much of a
conversion rate.
Avid uses real live feeds fromCRMs.
(27:52):
We had our year-end benchmarkthat those 80, 90 organizations
that were a part of thebenchmark could understand where
they stood as of yesterday.
Where do I need to move theneedle?
Where am I not getting my majordonor conversions?
Where am I not getting myaverage gift for recurring
upgrades?
There's 50 plus splits thatexist in this benchmark that
give you an understanding ofwhere to start.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And selfishly.
We at Avid want to do betterfor nonprofits.
We want to empower ournonprofit organizations to do
more.
So we want this as a freeservice.
We want as many nonprofits toparticipate in it so that they
can get beyond just the 90.
We want thousands oforganizations attached to it so
that we can actually have betterdata to be able to see how our
organizations stack rank againsteach other.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I love that and I love the idea that it gives you
a place to focus.
That's a really key element.
That's awesome.
Well, great guys.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I'm excited for both of youabout what Avid is doing and
what you all are doing to impactthe nonprofit space at in this
season, where we we all havespent the last decade, two
(28:59):
decades, gathering the data andnow we get to actually do
something with it, and I thinkthat's so exciting.
So I personally, as your friend, I'm excited for both of you as
this goes through, but I'mexcited about what it does for
the space and what it has theability to do for the nonprofits
that we all serve.
I think that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
And Megan, we feel the same about you.
You are doing some great workfor Nonprofit Hub and our
community.
Continue the great work.
We huge supporters of you andthe work you're doing and we're
just we're raving fans.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'm glad to be your.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
LinkedIn friend.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yep, and now you guys are LinkedIn friends.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
We're LinkedIn friends, finally.
I know it's very exciting, sogood.
All right, well again.
Kevin Peters, eric Smollis fromAvid AI.
Thank you guys both for beinghere.
We appreciate that.
This has been another episodeof the Nonprofit Hub Podcast and
we'll see you next time.
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