Morning Session (11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.)
"Storytelling: The Secret Sauce of Fundraising Success"
Presentation Summary:
Nonprofit organizations have amazing stories to share – stories of perseverance, fortitude, profound impact, and generosity. Stories are at the core of why nonprofit organizations exist. Scientific research confirms good storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to communicate, to engage stakeholders, and to influence behavior. It’s especially important for effective fundraising.
But what makes a good story? With the right recipe, storytelling can be the secret sauce of your fundraising success. What ingredients engage the audience and have an impact? Some ingredients are essential. You just can’t make a good sauce (or gravy as some call it) without tomatoes. In this interactive session based on Lynn’s recently published book on Storytelling: The Secret Sauce of Fundraising Success, you’ll hear about what it takes to become a storytelling gourmet and refine your own storytelling recipes.
Speaker:
Lynn Malzone Ierardi, JD
Lynn Malzone Ierardi, JD has been in the estate and gift planning field for more than 30 years. She is a leader in the charitable planning community, currently serving as Board Chair of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners (CGP). She’s also served as a leader for the local CGP councils in New Jersey and Greater Philadelphia for more than two decades.
Lynn’s recently published book, Storytelling: The Secret Sauce of Fundraising Success (CharityChannel Press), includes a foreword written by esteemed colleague Professor Russell James. As a dynamic and highly rated speaker, Lynn has presented at conferences, meetings, and webinars throughout the country on a variety of charitable planning topics – including storytelling. She is passionate about helping nonprofit organizations to secure significant gifts using the right assets, and the right structures.
She has served as Director of Gift Planning for the University of Pennsylvania since 2005 and as an independent gift planning consultant (GiftPlanningAdvisor) since 2002. Her experience includes gift planning positions in health and higher education, as Vice President with the Merrill Lynch Center for Philanthropy, and the practice of estate planning and real estate law. Lynn is a graduate of Lycoming College and Fordham University School of Law, and a two-time Proud Penn Parent.
Luncheon Session (12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.)
"The Top 10 Planned Giving Experiments of 2019 (Plus, How to Run a Great Experiment)"
Want to know which photos can increase responses to your planned giving newsletter by 30%? Or exactly how effective a legacy challenge campaign is?
Want to learn what email a major nonprofit found to be 3 times as effective? Or the most effective language to inspire qualifying charitable distributions?
Come see results from the most interesting experiments run across hundreds of nonprofit organizations and more than $500 million in planned gifts.
We'll review top experiments and test your judgment on a range of tests -- then share how to implement these learnings to make a meaningful impact in your work.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
1. Learn the results of ten game-changing experiments from many of the top planned giving teams in the country
2. Get easy-to-implement improvements to your marketing outreach and messaging in order to increase planned gifts and current gifts from retirement accounts
3. Learn how to run a great experiment (even with few resources and a small audience
Presentation Summary:
1. Background
a. Why run experiments? What’s the value of curiosity?
2. Part 1: First five experiments
a. Single themed messaging vs. Planned giving as one of several options
b. Effects of photos on giving rates
c. The effect of social proof on giving rates
d. Most effective messaging for Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs e. How effective is a follow-on ask after a normal donation?
3. Part 2: How to run a great experiment
a. In this section, we’ll review the principles of statistically sound experimentation, and share tips on how to run experiments with limited time and resources. Then, audience members will design their own experiments to run when they return, and share with the group.
4. Part 3: Five more experiments
a. How campaigns with matches compare to non-match campaigns in terms of participation
b. How campaigns with matches compare to non-match campaigns in terms of gift size
c. What day of the week offers the highest response rate on planned giving emails
d. What are the most effective Facebook outreach techniques
e. What messages are most effective with volunteers?
5. Q&A
Speaker:
Patrick Schmitt, Co-CEO, FreeWill
Patrick Schmitt is a leading innovator in the field of fundraising and social impact.
From 2009-2010, Patrick ran email fundraising for President Obama, where his team invented many of the existing best practices in digital fundraising. He served as Head of Innovation at Change.org, helping to grow that organization to 200 million members in just four years.
Patrick is the co-founder of FreeWill, a social venture which helps organizations raise more than $2 million per day in new planned gifts and qualified charitable distributions.
Patrick received his Bachelors of Science from Georgetown University and an MBA from Stanford University
Deadline for reservations: September 11, 2019
No refunds after September 11, 2019. No-shows will be billed.
