Somewhere in your office there is a binder. It is at the bottom of a desk drawer, it is full of auction donation forms going back six years, and at least one item in this year's event is described only on a sticky note that has since gone missing.
On the latest episode of 501(c) Drop, Kirby Cathey, Account Manager and Event Specialist at BetterUnite, joined BetterUnite CEO & Co-Founder Leya Simmons to make the case for throwing that binder away. Kirby talks with nonprofits every day about where their hours go, and her diagnosis is consistent: the sector is not short on effort, it is short on systems. Here is what the conversation covered.
Asked what separates organizations whose automations actually move the needle from the ones who set something up and forget it, Kirby did not point to sophistication. She pointed to scope.
"The most successful organizations that I see, they actually start small."
Pick one segmented group and one goal. Lapsed donors. Volunteers. Small donors you want to convert to recurring. Build for that group, learn from it, then expand. The failure mode she sees is an organization that has never automated anything suddenly standing up a dozen workflows, and then the one person who built them leaves.
That last part matters more in this sector than most. Nonprofit turnover is high, and Kirby was direct about what happens next: "As soon as they leave or get busy, the practice will die and then we'll fall back into our old patterns." Leya's addition was the fix. Whatever small change you make, document it, so the knowledge lives in the organization rather than in one person's head.
The other obstacle is cultural, and Kirby named the dreaded sentence out loud: this is what we've always done. It is the phrase that keeps a binder in a drawer for six years.
1. Paper auction donation forms. Let donors submit virtually. They get an immediate confirmation receipt for their tax purposes, and they can add the item value, description, images, pickup details, and exactly how they want to be thanked. "I don't want to lose any more donation forms in my whole life." Leya added the committee angle: instead of chasing volunteers for the details of a gift card someone secured three weeks ago, hand them a link and let the donor fill it in.
2. Typing the same email with different names. If the body copy is identical and only the greeting changes, you do not need to copy, paste, delete, and retype. "Use a merge field. Donor dot first name in brackets. It'll save you two hours of your life."
3. Whiteboard seating charts. Sticky notes and expo markers during event week are a rite of passage, but they are also double work. Every decision made on that board has to be re-entered somewhere else for check-in to function. Make the decisions in the software the first time and keep the visual cues online.
This one has history at BetterUnite. Leya once carried a poster board covered in sticky notes to her co-founder and said, in effect, make this digital so I never have to do it again. That is how BetterUnite's table management was born.
4. Exporting from one system to import into another. Attendance records, guests, volunteers, transactional dollars, downloaded from your event tool and imported into your CRM, with a fresh opportunity for error at every step. Integrated solutions move that data with a click. Kirby's advice was disarmingly simple: ask the question. Some people do not know what they do not know. Leya's extension was to ask it in both directions. Does your CRM have an event tool that would meet your needs? Does your event tool have a CRM? And if you need to keep both, is there an integration?
5. Manually logging donor interactions. The scenario Kirby hears constantly: someone emails a presenting sponsor, forgets to log it, and a colleague emails the same sponsor the next day. The fix is automatic email tracking into the contact record, including a BCC address you can set as a rule in your personal email so every message lands in the CRM without a second thought. Your CRM is the source of truth, and in a sector with this much turnover, it is also your institutional memory.
Event and campaign communication. Your entire pre-event communication schedule can be built once and replicated year over year. Reminders, parking instructions, guest information requests, timed text messages, all segmented by ticket type or behavior, and all measurable. Send a text to people who have not bid in your silent auction. See what worked. Tune it next year.
The first gift. Trigger a welcome series off a new donor record or a first donation. Week one is mission. Week two is whatever matters most to you. The stat behind it is brutal: according to FEP Q1 2026, only 7.1% of new donors ever give again. As Leya put it, that leaves 93% worth of room to improve. She also flagged the window: the first 24 to 48 to 72 hours after a gift are critical for outreach that goes beyond the automated thank you.
Crucially, a workflow does not only talk to donors. It can assign a staff member or a board member a task, a phone call, a text. The robots exist to get you to the personal touch on time.
Recurring giving conversion. Monthly giving accounts for 27% of online revenue, but the split is 22% at small organizations versus 37% at large ones. That 15 point gap is the opportunity. Leya also pushed back on a persistent myth: a monthly gift does not cannibalize a larger one. The data consistently shows the opposite. Monthly donors are more likely to become major donors, to give at your event, to show up on Giving Tuesday, and to consider planned giving, because they hear from you more and feel invested in what you are doing.
Lapsed donors. Think about the person who comes to your annual event once a year and nothing else, or who came two years ago and not last year. Workflows can re-engage them without leading with an ask. "It doesn't have to be dollar amounts. It doesn't have to be transactional." Donations of time and talent count too, and every engagement deepens the relationship.
Leya brought data showing that 89% of leaders say trust is harder to earn now than three years ago, with 51% responding through impact reports and 45% through proactively communicating fund usage. Her concern with that response was that it leans almost entirely on data.
"Trust is built in story."
Some donors are moved by hard numbers. Some are moved by narrative. A large group needs both, and automation is what makes serving both possible at scale: the impact reports and fund usage updates go out on schedule, which frees your team for the event floor, the coffee, the handwritten note from the executive director.
That is also how personalization scales past one person. When a donor hits a certain level or a certain tenure, the offer of coffee can come from the programs director or a board member, not only the executive director. Without automation, that many hands quickly start looking like one hand that does not know what the other is doing.
Kirby's rule of thumb is the sentence to write on the whiteboard you are no longer using for seating charts: automate the logistics, never the relationship. The parking instructions can go out eight days, three days, and one hour before the event. The heartfelt stuff comes from a human.
Everything else is just time you get back.
Transcript Recording:
Leya Simmons (00:04)
Hi everyone. Welcome to today's 501c Drop. My name is Leya Simmons, and I am the CEO and co-founder of BetterUnite, and I'm also your host of today's 501c Drop. I will be joined in just a moment by an account manager here we have at Better Unite, who is also our event specialist, Kirby Kathy. She's gonna talk to us about automations that actually work for nonprofits that help nonprofits.
To not duplicate effort, save time, save money, and have more time to be relational with their donors and volunteers and not so transactional. But first, we are going to cover the nonprofit news. So our first story is a really big one. There is a standoff brewing between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Donor-Advised Fund World.
As of this week, 121 signers have come out backing the SPLC after several DAF sponsors blocked distributions to the organization. Now, why should you care, right? Because this cuts right to the heart of the donor-advised funds. The question of whether a fund sponsor can just refuse to route a grant to a nonprofit it doesn't like. If you rely on DAF grants, and I know more and more of you do, this is really a story that we need to watch.
Number two, the US blood supply is getting a $300 million boost. Big infusion into a corner, haha, infusion, into a corner of the sector that's been frankly under strain for years. Good news and a reminder that infrastructure fundraising honestly still really moves with real money. Number three, and I think this one is a bit of a warning sign: new reporting suggests nonprofit healthcare revenue margins might have peaked.
It peaked. If your organization operates anywhere near the healthcare space, it's really a cue to stress test your financial assumptions for the second half of the year. And fourth, a story about trust. The independent sector has fascinating data showing public trust in nonprofits is holding steady. But trust in philanthropy specifically is declining.
For a minute, we need to think about this and consider it. People still believe in the organizations doing the work. It's the really big money kind of foundation, mega donor layer that is losing ground. Something that we need to keep in mind as a sector with how we talk to our funders. And finally, the number that everybody's talking about, US Giving hit $617 billion according to the 2026 Giving USA report.
And the great question underneath it, or the really big question underneath it, has the great wealth transfer actually begun? And if it has, the nonprofits that win are the ones that are building legacy and planned giving relationships now, not the ones scrambling when the wealth actually moves. What we know is that that great great wealth transfer is actually going to occur over the course of the next 20 years because wealthy people
tend to live longer and the very wealthiest ones live the longest. And then a couple of few things, just really quick hits before we go. The IRS has proposed regulations that could reshape 501c3 status for certain schools. It's still under review, no like real public text yet, but this is worth tracking. And on the leadership front, Ishana Smith is taking the helm at Strive Together.
Okay, please join me in welcoming to the stage and to the podcast and the web show my good friend, my colleague, and BetterUnites All Things event planning guru,
Kirby Cathey Hi Kirby.
Kirby Cathey (03:57)
Hey, happy to be here.
Wow, that's new.
Leya Simmons (04:01)
It's our new laugh track. I love it. It's new.
I'm so glad that you're here. You talk to nonprofits every day, all day. That's literally your entire job. And a lot of the time you're talking to them about events, but I thought we would actually start out on more of the automation front. So more of just that everyday stuff that we see our nonprofits doing. Does that sound good?
Kirby Cathey (04:23)
Yeah, sounds great.
Leya Simmons (04:24)
All right, nice. So I want to talk about automation specifically. What
separates the organizations that use automations that are actually working for them. Like not the stuff that they're setting up, forgetting about and frankly it's like maybe not even happening, but the ones that are like really seeing the automations move the needle for their organization.
Kirby Cathey (04:47)
I mean, I that's that's a big question and there's a ton to dive in here. But the
Leya Simmons (04:52)
You're right.
Kirby Cathey (04:52)
the most successful organizations that I see, they actually start small. So as soon as, you know, it is overwhelming if your organization has never done anything automated, but
Leya Simmons (05:02)
workflows where yeah.
Kirby Cathey (05:04)
work workflows or even changing your process for auction donation forms, that is a big feat sometimes because nonprofits often get stuck in the this is what we did last year. And that is we should do an entire segment on that.
though this is what we've always done. Just take take it out of
Leya Simmons (05:18)
This is what we all dreaded sentence, but I get it.
Kirby Cathey (05:23)
I get it, but let's let's switch from manual and we'll just go into the future to get some automation going. So
Leya Simmons (05:29)
There you go.
Kirby Cathey (05:30)
honestly, I mean pick one segmented group. So what's what are the goals of your, you know,
automations, whether that means my laps donors or my volunteers or I want to change a small donor into a recurring. So really like targeted targeted people, segmentations is what I see successful organizations do. So
Leya Simmons (05:53)
Okay.
Kirby Cathey (05:53)
yeah.
Leya Simmons (05:55)
So step one, figure out what it is or figure out sorry, who it is that you want to talk to, what you want them to do, and then take those small steps. I love that. Like starting small, it's always key. it's hard to kind of there's there's like a saying about eating an elephant that I really hate. So I don't know what it is, but something about like hard to tackle a really big task, it's much easier to take those small steps. How about that?
Kirby Cathey (06:20)
True. And you know, with nonprofits, gosh. And with nonprofits, they also, you know, you see high turnover. There's tons of research over on that. And so as soon as imagine a ton of workflows are in, just everything suddenly for a new, new org org that's never done, anything automated. And then that person
Leya Simmons (06:41)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (06:41)
leaves. What will happen? It's the you know, as soon as they leave or get busy, the practice will die and then we'll fall back into our old patterns. So
Anyway, even just a small change will make a holistically a huge difference, I think, personally, but
Leya Simmons (06:55)
Yeah,
maybe it's like that.
small change that you actually document in some way because like you said with the turnover rates that we have, we also know that we're not gonna, you know, always have an understanding. So something breaks and then it's just gone because whoever set it up isn't there. I do want to pause here because I totally forgot to mention at the very beginning that we do have our chat live and the chat is being monitored. So if you've got any questions or comments as well that you want to
let us know about. We would love to have you participate in the chat. You can also chat with each other. Chat's open. So sorry, Kirby. Let me jump back into this. So what is another thing? Or actually, sorry, this is my next question. What is what what are the what are a few things? Let me get let me give you the opportunity to talk to speak to a few things. What are a few things that nonprofits are doing manually that you're like
I have an automation for this, or please stop doing
Kirby Cathey (07:53)
Ha ha.
Leya Simmons (07:54)
this manually. Let's like, like you said, move into the future and automate some of this. What are give us a few examples?
Kirby Cathey (07:59)
Yeah.
You know, five things come to mind actually. the first one being something as small as or large as your auction donation form. So imagine like that, you know, that big binder that we that you can imagine with tons of pieces of paper and years of historical data of all the things that we've ever had donated and then filed somewhere, file go into the
Leya Simmons (08:21)
I I'm positive some folks listening
have have have held that binder.
Kirby Cathey (08:26)
Yeah. I want you to get rid of that binder out of your bottom of your desk because I can tell you personally
Leya Simmons (08:31)
I'll be done.
Kirby Cathey (08:31)
that I have had I've had stacks just they're the the big ones that you you just mm mm I want
Leya Simmons (08:38)
Yeah, no.
Kirby Cathey (08:38)
you to have your donor submit that virtually and they get an immediate to you know receipt of confirmation they can use for their tax purposes for that value and they can also add in images description
Leya Simmons (08:54)
Yeah. The whole thing.
Kirby Cathey (08:54)
all that good stuff, the name that they
want the the name that they want to have on, you know, be thanked as, whether it's your company or
Leya Simmons (09:00)
Provided by yep, yep.
Kirby Cathey (09:02)
exactly. And get rid of that piece of paper. You know, I don't want to lose any more donation forms in my whole life because they're physical. Everything online. Number two,
Leya Simmons (09:13)
I actually would add to that, Kirby, too. Having worked with
as many committees as I've worked with, I've was always like herding cats, trying to get peop well, first of you're just trying to get them to go out and solicit these auction items. But then once they actually do, they're like, Okay, I know we're gonna get a gift card from whatever Jimmy John's over here. And then
Kirby Cathey (09:30)
Mm-hmm.
Leya Simmons (09:31)
they can't find it. They don't remember who they talked to. They don't I mean, how much easier would it have been for them to just provide a
a link, a URL to that person and said, great, whatever you're going to give us, just fill that out and we are happy and good to go. I mean that's like so easy, so much easier. And so that committee work, like anytime you can relieve me of committee work, I'm I'm in. I'm in. I'm here for it.
Kirby Cathey (09:55)
I love that. yeah. And even on those you could have pickup details and other stuff where people people lose stuff in their email going, I don't know, what when were
Leya Simmons (10:05)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (10:05)
you gonna get the Jimmy Johns gift card? I don't know. so so having everything in one spot is amazing. Number two
Leya Simmons (10:10)
Yeah, totally.
Kirby Cathey (10:12)
probably would be the writing merge fields. So I have seen personally, people will they're sending the same message copy, the body's the same, but they want to personalize
Leya Simmons (10:21)
Mm-hmm.
Kirby Cathey (10:22)
it and that's awesome.
But I don't want you to write hi so-and-so and then copy, paste, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete name, and then enter in name. Use a merge field. Use a merge field. Donor dot first name in brackets. It'll save you two hours of your life.
Leya Simmons (10:40)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (10:41)
so that's probably one. Three, mm.
Leya, did you ever sit around in a conference room and you had a whiteboard and it was event week and the the tension was high and you maybe had sticky notes or expo markers on where so-and-so can sit next to so-and-so? You you ever do that that kind of stressful time?
Leya Simmons (11:03)
more than once.
Kirby Cathey (11:05)
Well, I I although that's I think a fun piece on event week.
I really want to urge people to not do double work. So you're making those decisions on the whiteboard, but what do have to go do now? You have to go enter it in somewhere else because to check in,
Leya Simmons (11:20)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (11:20)
you know, how am I gonna know what that whiteboard said? I don't know. You have to type it in, right? And so you can make all those decisions in on your computer, you know, at the same time. So those vis visual cues can still be online. number four, huh.
Leya Simmons (11:36)
Kirby, a fun story is about
that. I actually brought to our dev team, which you know at the time was really
Kirby Cathey (11:43)
Mm-hmm.
Leya Simmons (11:44)
my co-founder, one of those boards. I was like, here's the poster board with the sticky notes, and I was like
Make this better. Like put put this make this digital. Don't don't don't make me do this ever again. And that's how Better Unites table management was born. Now it's, you know, changed and and improved and vastly like very it's impress but I mean the first pass was honestly pretty good, I have to say. And and and I never looked back. Like we never ever had to touch one of those poster boards again.
Kirby Cathey (12:15)
I love that.
Leya Simmons (12:16)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (12:16)
I know. Anyway, I I could I was about to go into a war story. I'm not gonna go there. what number am I on? I did one, two, three. I'm on four. Probably,
Leya Simmons (12:24)
No, sir. Yeah, four no.
Kirby Cathey (12:26)
probably when you're tracking and uploading. well, not tracking. You're maybe you're using three arms, you know. so you have your CRM over here, your email marketing over here, and your accounting software over here.
Wait, wait we didn't even talk about events. If
Leya Simmons (12:46)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (12:46)
you I've I've seen people, they are in awe when I show them, but people will download their event data. Awesome. They're getting their attendance records, guests, volunteers, transactional dollars, whatever that means to me, and they're gonna go import it into their CRM. So
Leya Simmons (13:04)
Mm-hmm.
Kirby Cathey (13:05)
along with that, you know, it's downloading potential for error, what what report are we working in?
There is a solution that is integrated. An integrated solution. Click of a button, you can send that. Send that information over to your CRM. Send that information over to whatever you're working in. So just ask the question is the hardest part. Some people don't know what they don't know and ask. That's that's my advice there.
Leya Simmons (13:28)
Yeah, even I mean,
it's i interesting you say that because we as you with Better Unite, it's a we're a holistic solution. So it's all of those things live in a single place. Yet you can also peel off the different modules and use them separately with a different CRM, a different and but but the way that we do that is we have these really deep integrations. So, you know, of course, while
Like I think the holistic solution is a really good answer. If that's not an option for you right now, and like sometimes migrating data is not the option when you just need the event tool, finding out that there is an integration with your software to the other software is I I love that you said that, just to ask the question. And then the other question to ask is, well.
is the solution that I'm working in with my CRM or CRM. Does it have an event tool that I could use that would fill my needs fulfill my needs? Or does my event tool have a CRM? You know? So like I I I really like that guidance of just just like wherever you are, ask the questions first and see what's there.
Kirby Cathey (14:26)
And number five, I would say when you are, I see people they track their donor interactions. So they'll send emails and then they'll track it in their CRM. But oftentimes I'll hear about it. not maybe I won't be seeing it firsthand, but I'll hear that, shoot, I forgot to track the that I emailed so and so our presenting sponsor and asked them for their XYZ. And then my coworker, my
partner, maybe there's a miscommunication line because she saw that wasn't done in their CRM in the call notes or there's no notes, right? And so they
Leya Simmons (15:02)
Right.
Kirby Cathey (15:04)
or maybe it's an email and they will over overwork each other or get on step on each other's toes because the solution is if I send an email, I can have it automatically tracked and have it in
In their contact record, have the notes, have whatever whatever email I sent to the donor. And so that everybody knows everything at all times. Your source of truth is your CRM. So there are even opportunities where you can have a BCC specific email domain. What is the word for that? It's there's just like a targeted tracking BCC address,
Leya Simmons (15:39)
Yes, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Kirby Cathey (15:41)
right? receiving address. And so you can have a rule set up in your email, personal email, where you have that BCC.
automatically show and so that you do it once and you can put your hands up in the air and continue on your email journey and so everyone knows what you're doing.
Leya Simmons (15:57)
I mean,
and that's a huge tip and and a tip to the executives listening as well, like that can be a part, a standard process that you set up for everybody that's working with your organization. So we make sure that that like because you were talking about Kirby, the you know, turnover is so high, our a real challenge for nonprofit organizations is just continuity and knowing what got said to what donors. So it you know, you just don't sound like you don't know what you're talking about the next time you reach out to a major donor.
if your, you know, their contact at the organization has moved on. You know, now if we've got a log of all of those interactions, now we can know.
Kirby Cathey (16:35)
Mm-hmm, absolutely. I love that.
Leya Simmons (16:37)
Love it. Okay,
so what are some let's let's start like let's try and kind of build out an automations playbook
Kirby Cathey (16:44)
Mm.
Leya Simmons (16:45)
for the people that are listening today. What are a few of our kind of go-to, everybody should maybe have this automations that people can set up. And we can maybe let's
Kirby Cathey (16:59)
Well, the first thing comes
Leya Simmons (17:00)
think about them together.
Kirby Cathey (17:02)
sure, yeah. Well, the first thing comes in mind are events.
events and campaign communication.
Leya Simmons (17:05)
Yeah, sure. Go. Mm-hmm.
Kirby Cathey (17:08)
just because I I work so heavily with orgs and events and even just automating your event reminder communic all your communication schedule can be automated. So you can
Leya Simmons (17:19)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (17:20)
replicate that year over year, you know, tweak it based on what was successful. Cause you can look at your, you know, ROI of I sent a
automated not automated a pre-scheduled text message targeting this specific group that wasn't didn't have a high return. Let's maybe talk to this ticket type or this people who haven't bid in my silent auction. You know, there's so many different segmentation options for a communication schedule that you can set pre-event and you put your hands up in the air. This whole
This whole conversation, I want you to be like, I did all the work and my hands are in the air and I have s you know you could be doing so many other things to to you know, further your your event or donor journey or whatever that means to you. So
Leya Simmons (18:04)
Yeah.
Well, and I think here, this is like what you just said is honestly the meat of why this is such an important conversation, because with all of the flood of data and information and and everything that's constantly coming at our eyeballs and our brains all day long, from every, you know, from every click on our phone to every sign that we see to every, you know, piece of even actual mail that we receive, it it's just too much. Like with the world that we live in, there's so there's there's so much information.
So when we can as nonprofit leaders and and organizers, when we can automate some of that stuff that that we just need to get to them, you know, the the transactions, like you said, the reminders, the give us your guest information, all of those things, that leaves us much more time for putting our hands up. But in that hands up time, we then can become relational.
with our actual donors. So we can ha make phone calls, we can organize get-togethers, we can do all of these other things that bring humans together as a collective, as opposed to spending all of our time, like you said, you know, delete, delete, delete, manually, manually doing
Kirby Cathey (19:11)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Leya Simmons (19:13)
anything like this. So I love this.
Kirby Cathey (19:16)
Mm-hmm. another one I thought of was maybe the first gift. So
Leya Simmons (19:23)
yeah.
Kirby Cathey (19:23)
I've seen I've seen users do this successfully where the trigger is based upon upon either they're a new donor in your CRM or they are you know, they've donated for the first time and so it kicks off a series of intentional emails that will target them for certain things, you know, maybe
week one, it's about mission. Week two, it's you know, whatever that means to you. But what do you think about that one?
Leya Simmons (19:53)
I love it. And I think also in that you can include things that are not necessarily digital, right? Like you can because within a workflow, you can send a reminder to a staff member, a board member to make a phone call, send a text message. Like I love that one. And then those things are highly personal, but we
We kind of use the robots to get us to that personal touch. So we we needed the reminders. That way people aren't falling through the cracks. So especially after our first gift, because what does it say? Seven point only seven point one percent of new donors ever give again. And that's according to our FEP Q1 2026, so this year. Only 7.1%.
I mean, that means we have 93% of improvement that we can make on this. And I do also think that the first twenty-four, forty-eight, seventy-two hours after a donation are really critical for a donor of any level to have some form of outreach beyond the automated thank you, because I mean everybody gets that.
Kirby Cathey (20:56)
Absolutely. so I really like that one. Then another one that I I found interesting. Well, sorry, you did bring up the point of you're not only talking to your donor, so the workflow is kicking off those things that you kinda you want to get those touch points, but also internal. So the the staff member that needs to do the task or the you know, w do the thing. So I really liked that. And all and everything we're talking about today, it's similar in that nature where you can talk to in internal notifications, tagging, segmentation. but
Remember, let's chunk it down. So let's start small. Don't don't try to get everything, you know, everything. Perfect. the second one probably is recurring, maybe that recurring giving conversion. So Leya, you you and I were speaking about this earlier today, where we I mean the recurring wait to say the point that you said that recurring donors have a yeah, say it, I know, I know you have it.
Leya Simmons (21:51)
Okay, I've got I've
got some data here. So monthly giving equals 27% of online revenue, but 22% at small orgs versus 37% at big ones. So actually that's not what I said to you earlier, Kirby, but that's also a really good point. That there's 15 point gap. There's a 15 point gap between what a large organization is doing to to get monthly giving.
versus the 22% that the smaller organizations are getting. So I think that is a really big opportunity for those donors. So my point that I was making to Kirby, I'm remembering now, is that and I'm I'm gonna have to look at, I don't know if it was pulse of the donor or maybe the full giving USA report. So I can I'll have to tell you later which report it was, but
It's and it but this has been said over and over again and it's been proven out by the data over and over again that we kind of we kind of have this or have had this idea that if we have a monthly donor, that that monthly donation that they are making is going to cannibalize any larger donation that they might make at an event.
And that's just not true. The data tells us exactly the opposite. If somebody is giving monthly to your organization, they are far more likely to become or be a major donor at your event, at Giving Tuesday, even make you know planned giving later on. Be and I and I think, I mean, I guess I don't know this to be 100% for true, but that that the idea is that they feel invested in the organization when they're giving monthly.
They're hearing from you more often. They are they they just they feel a part of whatever it is that you're doing, much more so than somebody that gives you, you know, five thousand dollars one time.
Kirby Cathey (23:46)
Yeah, so that's a great one. the I think
Leya Simmons (23:47)
Yeah. So we need those automations
to like nudge people in that direction, more and more of them, and for smaller organizations too.
Kirby Cathey (23:56)
Mm. And I think the other one that I've seen, is your laps donor. So having, you know, someone hasn't we see this a lot where maybe I don't contribute to your organization, but I come to your event once a year. And so really the although, you know, the last one was a recurring donor, maybe talk more about that. But the lapse donor where it's been a year, maybe now I'm
I they I didn't come last year's event, but I came the year before. And I'm still interested in coming to your annual event. But how do we keep them engaged where I I want to turn you from a one timer into a maybe once a quarter? You want what do you want to hear about? Do you want to be involved? Maybe volunteer to develop that relationship in that way.
Leya Simmons (24:36)
Right.
Kirby Cathey (24:37)
So sending out, you know, just getting them re-engaged and we can build workflows in order to do that. And it doesn't have to be
Leya Simmons (24:44)
Yeah.
Kirby Cathey (24:44)
dollar amounts. It doesn't have to transactional. So
That that can be another opportunity.
Leya Simmons (24:49)
I think you
were making that point earlier, Kirby, that like, you know, what do you consider a donation? Is it is it me ca because we can donate our time, we can donate our treasure, we can donate our talent. So you know
Because they gave, maybe they have now volunteered or you know, and we we need to consider all of those pieces and parts when we're thinking about it. And every time somebody engages with the organization, they they deepen their relationship. And that's the whole goal of automations is to really lean into the relational side of what we do as a sector.
Kirby Cathey (25:26)
That's that's a great yeah. I was gonna say I can keep going, but
Leya Simmons (25:26)
Okay. I know, right? I'm like, here, here, I
gotta like let me see. Okay, so I've got another question for you. Let me let's let's jump into another question.
Kirby Cathey (25:34)
Okay.
Leya Simmons (25:36)
donors will say that, and this is actually pointed to in my news segment at the beginning, donors will say that trust is everything. It's the whole game. So how do you automate trust without sounding like a robot? I say this all the time that
Trust is my is I I move at the speed of trust. I move at the speed of trust
Kirby Cathey (25:58)
Mm.
Leya Simmons (25:59)
and time is my currency. So like I have to trust you first and then once I trust you, please don't waste my time because it's my most
Kirby Cathey (26:06)
Yeah.
Leya Simmons (26:07)
valuable asset. So so I think these automations actually really help to lean into that actually as well.
Kirby Cathey (26:14)
Yeah, definitely. I I think the good rule of thumb is you can automate we've been saying the same thing going in circles, but we c automate those logistics, those things that you know aren't relationship, not so automate the logistics, never the relationship. That's the takeaway from this conversation. So that like you know, event reminder email that I need to get in front of you. Here's a parking instructions, I need I need to get you that. I want I can schedule that at s
eight days and ten days, three days, one hour before the event. But a handwritten note from your executive director, it goes a long way with that human touch, that relationship. And so although, you know, we want both as a donor, but but the the heartfelt stuff come from a human they c they come from a human, right, Leya? So
Leya Simmons (27:05)
That's
right. And we can also like scale that b once we start looking at like, okay, you know, we when you do donate at a certain level or you've been engaged for a certain number of years or whatever that is, then then you get the offer for coffee. And it doesn't just have to be the executive director. It can also be your programs director. It can be just a board member, you know, it doesn't have to even be the board president. So we can really begin to scale that when when you ha when you do
disseminate the effort among multiple people. And it's impossible to make that effort happen among more than just one person if there is not some sort of automation, because it will just quickly get to like one hand doesn't sound like it knows what the other hand is doing. I do have a stat here, so about trust. 89% of leaders say trust is harder to earn
Now than three years ago. And what they are doing about this is we've got 51% that are leaning on impact reports and 45% that are proactively communicating fund usage and then a kind of unknown quantity for the rest. So you know, I I my my problem with that answer to the trust question and problem.
Is that it's relying exclusively on on data. And I think that's really important. But I also believe that trust is built in story. I don't know, Kirby, how do you feel about that?
Kirby Cathey (28:28)
No, that's I loved where we were going. Trust builds in story. Because, you know, I I feel like do I believe in what this organization does and how they do it? So do the whole thing about trust where it's like, well, I don't know, they didn't really they don't really care about me. I'm just getting this
Leya Simmons (28:45)
Right.
Kirby Cathey (28:46)
blanket thing and whatever. But how do we build these automations where the robots are doing the work,
Leya Simmons (28:53)
So the problem is as well, is that this is not just a nonprofit exclusive problem. Erosion in trust.
in all of our institutions is just something that we have experienced as a society over the course of the last 20, but particularly the last 10 years. And it's a, you know, this is something that we in America are seeing, but it is also a global phenomenon. So so I think, you know, I do also think that this is something I learned in when I learned about teaching yoga, is that there are just different ways that there are different languages that people can hear.
In yoga, it's like, do they hear from movement? Do they hear from like you saying the words out out loud of what you're doing? Or do are they moved by the music? But with this, it's there are some people that are very moved by your data. They they they need to harden facts, they need to like see the numbers. But then there are also a lot of people who are much more
motivated and moved by story and you'll build their trust through story. And then there's also the folks that need both. And that's probably a bro a broad swath. So but that is again, I think, where automations can come in, where you're you're emailing and you're sending your impact reports and your fund usage and everything else. But you're you're talking to them at your event, is another really good, you know,
ad for why you should have events because we get to like bring everybody together and we can talk about what we're doing and they see the real humans doing it as opposed to just, you know, reading about it in some report. So I I think the the answer is, you know, both and.
Kirby Cathey (30:30)
Mm-hmm. I love that.
Leya Simmons (30:32)
Yeah. okay. Well, Kirby, this was really fascinating. I love talking about this. The automations is huge. We we talk all the time about our events and how, you know, your event is just the beginning and we need to have, you know, all of that follow-up planned for after the event. But I love that we were talking about the automations that can happen prior to the event.
those that can happen through the event, as you were discussing, the timed texts, the just-in-time text messages. And frankly, then also talking about all of the other workflows, automations, moves managements that you can create around different efforts that we are kind of constantly trying to get our donors, volunteers, and everybody else involved in. So Kirby, thank you for joining me today on the 501c drop. You're kind of becoming a regular.
Kirby Cathey (31:18)
Hey, thanks. Happy to be here.
Leya Simmons (31:21)
I
love it. All right, everybody.
Kirby Cathey (31:26)
Wow.
Leya Simmons (31:29)
Thank you for joining us today on the 501c drop. I hope very much that we will see you next Tuesday. And we are going to put this on our podcast on Spotify. You can also watch clips or the entire thing on YouTube. You can always find it on betterunite.com under webinars and our forward-looking scheduler. So you can sign up for webinars that are coming in the future. We would love to
Answer any questions that you have. If you have those questions and we haven't gotten to something you'd like to talk to and you didn't get a response in the chat or you're listening offline, please email those questions to support at betterunite.com. Either Kirby or I or one of our team members will get back to you. If you don't know what Better Unite is and you're like, I don't know who these people are, please go check it out. betterUnite.com is where you can find out information, schedule a demo, take a look. We'd love to talk talk to you about any and everything that you want.
if you've got suggestions for future episodes, we always love hearing that too. Thank you so much for joining us today. I so appreciate your time. Thanks again, Kirby, everybody. Let's go do some good. Bye-bye.