As a nonprofit, it's hard to make a difference in the community when your finances are holding you back. With Maxis by Freed Maxic, you can navigate complex challenges with the right people, processes, and technology. Learn more about Maxis and schedule a complimentary consultation at MaxisbyFM.com/nonprofit. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, and joining me today, I have two guests. We've got Joel Barker, who's the founder of Dominion Strategy Group, as well as Jeff Krushenha, and I did that right, who is the founder at JMK Victory. And they also have a consulting practice together, so we're going to kind of talk to them both about that journey. Jump and welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us. You for hosting, Megan. Yeah, it's my pleasure. So, Jeff, I'm going to start with you. Tell me a little bit about JMK and introduce yourself to the audience here. Sure, so I'm Jeff Krushenha. I've spent the last 20 or so years working primarily on the Republican political unraising side of things, at a major agency before jumping ship and joining forces with Joel to form KB Partners, which is our joint venture together. The JMK Victory side caters more to the Republican political conservative advocacy world, primarily through direct mail, but we do offer peer-to-peer text, as well as digital email fundraising as well. Born and raised in New York, so out on Long Island, so my New York accent may come out here and there. But yeah, born and raised Long Island, went to college at SUNY Stony Brook, then got a job in the DC area where I stayed for the last 18 years. So, Virginia and Northern Virginians become home, and yeah, I'll let Joel tell you a little bit about himself. Yeah, Joel, welcome in. So, thank you. A very similar professional story, as a matter of fact, to Jeff's. So, we've paralleled for a while. I also have about 20 years experience in the direct response marketing industry. I worked for a small firm and got my teeth for over a decade, 12 plus years at nonprofits, missions, organizations, charitable organizations, humanitarian groups, large and small. And from there, Jeff I overlapped at a major agency in Northern Virginia. And I went from there to vice president of the founding firm in our industry, and that's when Jeff and I decided that we could do this on a different scale. And so, we jumped together about a year ago to form kidney partners. Like Jeff said, I am born and bred in the Shenandoah Valley, still live there today. You've really not, I can't imagine there's any reason I were going to eat. Well, good. If you didn't catch the thread with both of these guys being active in the political space, that's kind of the topic for today. And so, I want to kind of frame the conversation with, obviously we're headed into the 2024 political season. Well, I'm not headed in. We're here. Let's be honest, we're in it. All right. And I think that obviously that creates some challenges for folks who are in organizations that lean political, whatever the topic may be. But it also presents some challenges for just general nonprofits in how to raise funds in a political year and when to get involved and when to say something and when to not. So, I'm excited to kind of dig in and find some practical advice for folks, especially as we ramp up into the fall with all of the campaign messaging. What does that look like and what, you know, what should our response be? So, Joel, I want to start with you. If a nonprofit is political, let's start there. What should that line be between supporting an individual candidate versus supporting their cause? Where do we start with that messaging to make sure that we're raising the correct amount of funds in the right way? Well, you know, if a team feels like the other team has momentum, oftentimes you'll see on the field of record a panic, right? And that's the last thing that an organization wants to do. Oh, no, here comes an election year. We've got to pivot our message. We've got to lean into a candidate or a campaign. We've got to really align with, you know, organization A or B on the political side. I would advise against that. Instead, I would lean into the ideology that has acquired you, those donors to begin with. You know, it's not as maybe sexy or dramatic, but my advice would be to keep on keeping on, right? You know, if it makes sense to say in your messaging that this candidate or this party is right on these issues, then do it. But if that's not something that your donors are used to hearing from you anyway, that can be a red flag for them. And it can lead to mission drift, you know, chasing the new cycle. It's not something that you want to do as a nonprofit. Good. That's great. Jeff, would you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, the only thing I would add to what Joel was saying is kind of the paraphrase. The old rigging quote of the, you know, no pale pastels with bold colors of be true to, you know, your mission as an organization. Don't try to, as Joel said, chase the news is kind of the kryptonite on the direct response side of things. You're trying to be more evergreen, but definitely, you know, especially in this environment where people are very polarized, whether it's Trump or Biden or made your candidate, you know, just be true to your mission as an organization and kind of stick to it. Don't try to just go on to, you know, whatever the latest trend is. No, the caveat there for me might be you do want to be cognizant and aware of the F.E.C. schedule as far as your male calendar goes. You know, so with primary dates coming up and with F.E.C. filing deadlines coming up, the political side of things, candidates, campaigns, packs are going to be more present surrounding those dates in, in mailboxes than in inboxes. And so you don't want to get drowned out. So, you know, messaging, state of course, timing, be aware of those political dates. Okay, so help me as a non-politically fundraising individual help me understand what that means because I could very much see, at least for me personally, I am already getting inundated with emails and things in my mailbox and text messages from all sorts of different political groups. What are those deadlines? What do we have to look for so that our messaging isn't getting lost and buried in the shuffle? So, I would kind of liken it to on the nonprofit side where you've got your big end of your push and or Christmas. So, there's a lot more of them, a lot quicker in succession. So, yeah, we're filming this right before there's being primaries happening in West Virginia and Maryland. So, if you turn on your TV or watch anything on YouTube, you're going to be inundated with ads or all the local candidates. All that to say, you know, as a nonprofit, you really want to be speaking to the right audiences that are, you know, disproportionately going to know that it's political season. When a political season, we're in a presidential cycle. So, every organization feels like they have to take a political stance when that's not necessarily the case, certainly for your ideological nonprofits. That's kind of baked in, but, you know, they kind of speak to some of the things Joel had touched on another, you know, famous political quote is all politics is local. So, especially when you're talking about nonprofits that serve local communities. That's really kind of the bread butter of where donors want to feel like they're making impact in their neighborhood, their school district, whether it's giving to their local church, Catholic parish, what have you. So, just be cognizant of all those things kind of, especially in a year like this. And specifically to address your question, the specific dates that I have in mind are quarterly filing dates. So, you're going to get more political messaging around now is the time to increase your gift because we've got a filing deadline of April 1 or March 30, whatever. So, in the March, end of June, and so on, in the quarterly cycles, obviously, you know, end of October is going to be a big hit for political mail amid end of October. And then your, your primaries, if you're a state based, you know, nonprofit organization and you have some high profile Senate primaries or whatnot, you're going to be cognizant of those states as well. So, let's talk specifically about that end of June 1, because I know so many of our organizations, nonprofit in general, run on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year and see a huge push in the nonprofit space around that June 30 fiscal year and, you know, push campaigns that way. So, if all of those orgs are up against the quarterly filings on the election cycle as well. Right. What we make our messaging stand out. How do, like, how do we make sure that we're not getting buried when those two dates are going to line up together? I would, they're not identically aligned. I would say, I would answer that in two ways. First, you know, if your typical push for end of year, fiscal year giving is May 15. I would say maybe push that mail back to mail date back to May 30th or April 1st. So you hit the beginning of the next FBC cycle and you're not so inundated political meal. And the other advice I would give is might be a good time to test your formats. You know, my, my first response was to lean into your messaging that's gotten you there and stick with that. But if you have a higher cost or a higher profile, a higher touch format that's going to distinguish you from that political mail now might be the time to use it. Typically, political mail is going to be your standard number 10, carry around below number nine, return envelope. And it's good on look. A lot of those political mailings for candidates and campaigns and packs are going to look very similar. They're low cost high volume mailings. So if just to get into the nuts and bolts, if you want to put your letter that you typically send down at the end of your fiscal year in a number 10, if you choose to put that in a number 12 or a six by nine, or even a more personalized a six, a seven type of format, as far as carrier envelope. Just think about it, you know, tactively, if you're going through your, your mail that you've just gotten out of your inbox, you can flip through all of that, you know, and ignore it until you get to that. Differently sold or differently colored envelope and stands out a little more. So now might be the time to stick with your messaging, lean into your ideology and your mission, test the little format. Yeah, I mean, just to dovetail a little bit on what Joel was saying, you know, well, what we primarily do and, and nonprofit in general, it's all kind of mass marketed. However, you know, we're trying to mimic it and make it look as though it's a one to one. Like you're writing to your grandma feel so whether that's using, as you all mentioned, the carrier envelope that looks like, you know, there's a birthday card or anniversary card or something in there. There's all sorts of technology now and you've interviewed some folks as far as using that kind of real pen technology to mimic, you know, that it's coming from a real human being and not a mass mailing. Just again, try to stand out in the mailbox. That's really the first challenge on the mail side is to, you know, get that donor to put that aside and actually open it and read it instead of trashing in with the rest of, you know, their marketing Yes, studies are shown that you've got about three seconds in front of that donor in front of that person who receives that envelope. So getting inside is 90% of the battle. And so you've done about three seconds to do that. Wow. That seems so short. But I guess not thinking about if I'm looking if I'm flipping through my mail, I decide pretty quickly what's opening, what's getting open and what's going in the trash. So yeah. Oh, man, it's funny how often we do this as folks in the industry, right? Because as a creator of those types of things, as somebody who's handling that drug mail, if somebody's designing those pieces, we absolutely believe that everyone's going to pay attention to every piece we send them. It's going to have, you know, this is going to be the one that grabs all of their attention and we didn't want to ignore the way that we actually behave. Yeah, so I absolutely recommend that you hand your sample to a non direct mail person, you know, if you're doing direct mail and you have concept, you know, bring it out for the best you can and then say, how would you interact with this. Yeah, I mean, be in this space for so long. It's easy for me to be like, okay, well, I know, based on what postage is being used if this is actually something personal or. Professional, whether it's a nonprofit in Disha or a nonprofit stand person, full source class and I'm like, all right, that's me being a direct mail nerd and knowing all these things, whether it's a real handwritten letter versus, you know, something printed on based on, you know, the bleed of the ink. And things like that, you know, so, so Joel's point is extremely valuable and we've, we've definitely done that with, you know, family members of what do you think of this hidden in a pile of there's my utility bill. You're the credit card bill. Here's your HOA dues. And here's a direct mail piece. See if it makes it through that kind of gauntlet of, oh, this is something I want to, you know, open and read more about. Maxis by Freed Maxic is an innovative financial advisory solution for nonprofits. Backed by over 60 full time professionals dedicated to serving nonprofits. Maxis helps you address short term talent needs and achieve long term financial stability by letting you outsource and automate accounting tasks so that your team can focus more attention on mission driven growth. Learn more about Maxis and schedule a complimentary consultation at Maxis by FM.com/nonprofit. When it comes to, obviously, the volume of mail over the course of the next six to nine months, we know it's going to increase, right? We know that all of our book physical mail inboxes as well as digital email inboxes are going to be more inundated than they have. It's just a natural scene of an election of a presidential election year. So for the majority of nonprofits, is it time to double down where, you know, if you normally send one milk PC a month, is it time to go to so that you are increasing the likelihood? Or is it time to pull back and maybe take a break off of direct mail for a couple of months and focus somewhere else because you know you're going to get. There's so much of it's hard to stand out. What does that line look like? Definitely not pull back, you know, that I hardly ever recommend that to an organization. I mean, you know, and Jeff and I were talking about this before we went on, which is, you know, if you're a Maxwell house buyer and you go in every month to buy that can of Maxwell house from the supermarket, and you go in, it's not there, but you're out of coffee, right? You're going to pick Folgers or another brand, you're going to buy the coffee. So in your mailbox, if you have donors who are looking for your mail, and it doesn't show up. Even if they're not aware that they're looking for it, you know, but they're used to seeing your mail in their mailbox and it doesn't show up that they have three other worthy causes in front of them who didn't pull back in this cycle. They're going to give, right, and you're going to miss that donation. That is a great analogy. I would say, instead of pull back, I would say maybe lean into multi-channel. And Jeff and I are direct mail guys, but Jeff alluded to earlier, you know, we're full service. So, you know, their consumers, donors are going to be more responsive, more used to seeing more emails, more text during the political cycle. And so you're not going to be an anomaly to them. If you move into multi-channel fundraising, now's a good time to do that. And if you're all digital, now's a good time to move into direct mail as well. Yeah. And I mean, just to kind of, again, dovetail off what Joel was saying there is, you know, with the inundation of all the political mail, whether it's packs or candidates specifically asking for money, that's also kind of rising tireless off chips of that's conditioning people to realize that, you know, it's a season of, you know, asking for a gift. So, you know, while folks may be turned off giving politically, like that doesn't mean that, you know, your nonprofit should stop and pull back either. You know, maybe they, instead of giving that $25 gift to some political organization, they decide, you know, okay, well, I want to give to my local crisis pregnancy center or, you know, food kitchen or help the homeless veteran local charity or folks that are doing good in their local community. So just, yeah, conditioning folks to be generous. It's kind of how I frame it. I'd like to say, you know, panic is the enemy in any situation and there's this perception that presidential cycles impact charitable giving negatively and it's just, it doesn't bear out. You know, we've been doing this, like Jeff said, for 20 years each, and there is a lot of intuition and experience involved, but we're data driven. And in now I'm out of the last 10 presidential political cycles, charitable giving has actually increased in those years. And so, I lean into it, you know, stick to your ideology and messaging that donors are used to seeing. And don't pull back on donor acquisition even, especially now. Yeah, so I want to piggyback off of that Joel and ask this. So, I feel like the tendency would be all the time, but especially in an election cycle. If you are a group, actually like Jeff was just talking about, let's use the local food pantry, right, the food pantry in the town, food kitchen, homeless kitchen, whatever, something along those lines. There's very little political about that, right, because homeless people need fed, regardless of the election year, regardless of who's in power, et cetera, et cetera. But I feel, I wonder if there's a pressure that organizations are feeling to take a side, right? And if there's any wisdom to that, or does it alienate too many people? If you start to get that political messaging in there. For an organization like that, and I've worked with those groups, and I wouldn't take a side, that wouldn't be my recommendation, but I would touch on the issues, you know, and you could message it to the degree that you're comfortable by saying, you know, you're seeing this issue on the news. You know, you're reading about this issue in the paper. I mean, you want to remain relevant and be current and be talking about the things that people are thinking about in the news cycle. But for a strictly humanitarian organization, like a rescue machine or a food bank, I think there's a risk in that. And again, my term for that would be mission drift, right? I mean, it's not worth that risk to name names, but it is worth it to lean into the conversation. Yeah, I mean, so to use that example, as far as a food pantry, you know, hitting on, you know, the prices of groceries are higher, inflation is hurting everyone, the price of the pump is higher. So imagine if you're a homeless veteran, like how much harder it is to survive, and the great work that your organization is doing to provide those meals. And I mean, from a fundraising background, yes, then your costs to operate that food kitchen is higher because the cost of goods is higher, so then there's a need for more donations. So it's always trying to frame it in a, hey, it normally costs us say $10,000 a month to operate. Now it costs us 15,000. So we need to make up that shortfall of that $5,000 somehow. So, you know, asking for that $25 gift maybe becomes asking for that $35 gift. And generally speaking, the folks that we're primarily talking about speaking to are the 70, 75 year and older, retired folks that are kind of in that life cycle of giving where they're trying to, you know, leave a legacy and, you know, just being in that kind of mind frame of giving. Yeah, and you can lean into the extent that you can say things like, you know, I know your mailbox is full of candidates asking for money. You know, I know that your inbox is full of rhetoric right now, you know, those sorts of terms just to connect and say, hey, we're still here. We still have needs, you know, maybe instead of $50 to a candidate, you give 30 and save that 20 that you usually get to us. Yeah, I mean, because, and I've used this or a version of this line and copy through the years like this isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an American issue, like where we need to help either help our wounded warriors or, you know, insert your cause. Because it's true like these, especially at the local level that, you know, where, again, using the food pantry example, like this is actually helping your neighborhood and filling a need that exists that politicians of both parties maybe are not addressing You know, that's coming from our point of view, the kind of free market nonprofit organizations kind of filling the needs that exists and folks definitely want to make an impact in their local community regardless of right versus left. I want to circle back to something that you had mentioned in terms of diversifying right so I know you guys are the direct male guys, and a lot of organizations that are traditionally direct male heavy may not have a strategy around text giving or text campaigns yet is an election year, the time to start that. Or are people getting so annoyed by the amount of text message the text messages that they're already getting that now is maybe not the time to start a text campaign if it's not something your audience is used to. So now start a text campaign and just test it knowing that maybe your testing analysis might be a little skewed, you know, as you go forward, but I would say people are jaded with text, yes, but there's a comfort level right when you're getting so many. And I think now sometimes to put your toe in the water if you haven't yet. Yeah, I mean, we always, you know, whenever approached by a new potential client, no matter if it's a nonprofit or political. You know, and they ask like when's the best time to start it's always the sooner the better because thinking of it in the terms of a long game. And sort of something Joel had mentioned earlier in this conversation was kind of the building upon the lifetime of that donor, the sooner you can get them in that soon you can cultivate them to give that second, third, fourth gift and upgrade them over time. So it's having the long view, you know, not just, okay, what am I going to do in the next six months because we're in the heat of a clinical season. And so, I think the natural inclination of a lot of folks is, you know, bury their head in the sand and wait until after the political season is done and then like, you know, shocking all after. And in the meantime, the charities that have kind of bucked the trend and gone all in are now in the driver's seat because folks are now used to hearing their name seeing their logo, whether it's on email or postal mail like we're, we're talking about. So to the point on email and I guess I'll ask the same question that I did with direct mail is now the time to ramp up email. If you've typically been doing one a week, is it the time to go to again with the understanding that inboxes are so overflowing is more better when it comes to email. So the answer to that for me is that the donors will let you know, right. So the great thing with text and email is that you can get that analysis pretty quickly. But the same holds for direct mail, as long as you're on message, on ideology, there's no mission drift, you're not panicked in your conversations with your donors, you're remaining true to who you are as an organization. Then frequency is something absolutely I think you should test across all channels really. And if it's too much, donors will tell you that, you know, you'll see a dip in response, you'll see an increase in feedback, just make sure that you're applying that response to how you're communicating with them and it's a relationship, right. So if you're, if your ex is texting you too much, you're going to say, stop texting me, right. So listen to them. Yeah, and you know, all our mutual friends are right next after do 1000 and 1000s and tests and so taking a data driven approach is smart and I'm sure without quoting the actual study I'm sure next after is probably published a study on timing of, you know, messaging, whether it's on the peer peer tech side email or direct mail side to their, their great resource just in general for nonprofits across the board. Agreed shot out next after love those guys. All right, so as we wrap up today, I want to ask both of you for your last minute to sense, if you are speaking to let's say the executive director or the development director or a nonprofit. What is your one takeaway that they need to make sure they're keeping in mind as we enter the next kind of six to eight months of political overload. Joel, we'll start with you. Yeah, I think I said it in a couple of different ways, but just stay on message, you know, don't panic, be cognitive mission drift, right. And we need to formatting, you know, go back to packages that have worked before, but maybe tweak the formatting a bit to stand out a bit more. And one point that I think is sailing into this conversation is I would recommend keep your power drive. So there's this phenomenon called rage giving. You've probably heard of it where after a presidential election, the ideology, not the candidate or the campaign, obviously, but the ideology of them losing party has a massive bump year over year in fundraising to the tune of about 57% over the previous year. So, you know, if Trump wins, you know, you might see a lot of donations to an parenthood or Greenpeace or those types of organizations. You know, if Biden wins, you might see a lot of gun owners from America donations or white meaning ideology gifts that have a bump. So you want to be, you know, you don't want to spend it all thinking I've got to push this mail out in a panic-driven messaging approach before the election. Keep you some of your powder dry and plan for Q4, end of Q4. Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing I'd add to that really is kind of keeping the long view in mind. It is an investment to do any sort of direct response fundraising, whether it's through mail or digitally over email and now text. So, thinking in terms of the value of bringing in donors right now, like what that will mean in the summer fall into kind of the end of the year giving where, you know, Q4 is generally where nonprofits thrive in that end of the year giving mode, again, folks are conditioned to give at that time of year. So, yeah, play the long game would be my kind of key takeaway from the conversation. That's great. Thank you both so much. I really appreciate those perspectives. If somebody had some questions or wanted to follow up or, you know, wanted to touch base with you, how would they find you? Jeff, let's start with you. Sure. So we're on all of the social medias, so LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Our website is KBPartners.org, so you can find both JMK Victory on the clinical side and Dominion Strategy on the nonprofit side. Excellent. Well, good. Guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thanks for being with us. This has been another episode of the nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, and we'll see you next time. [Music] (gentle music)
Send us a text As presidential elections grow nearer, how much should your organization change your marketing strategy and how much should you keep the same? How can you make your attempts to connect with new and old donors stand out among the rush of emails, text messages, and direct mail that comes with election season? Learn about how to navigate through an election year and how to avoid common mistakes that nonprofit organizations make during this time. On this episode, host Meghan Speer ...
