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Social media platforms can be enjoyable, but are not always beneficial for building diverse communities, as younger generations are often not actively engaged with the content nonprofits are putting out. Younger generations seem to want to be generous, but don’t often use social platforms for that kind of connection. Is it due to the fraudulent past of some organizations? Is it because older organizations have more credibility than younger ones? In this episode, host Meghan Speer chats with John Del Bello about his proposal to build the first-ever Social Philanthropic platform, which will help foster donations from younger givers and emphasize openness, transparency, and user-friendly technology.
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If you're looking to maximize your fundraising efforts donor boxes online donation platform is designed to help you reach your fundraising goals with ease Discover the world of simplified seamless fundraising at donorbox.org donor box helping you help others Welcome back to the nonprofit hub podcast I'm your host Megan spear and I'm joined today by John Del Bello who's the founder and CEO of begiving So we're gonna dig into be giving and what it brings to the sector very exciting to talk about that and also taking a look at what John calls uncovering the truths philanthropies hidden challenges and overlooked data So I'm very curious to see what those are and how we can help nonprofits in that regard to John. Welcome to the show Thank you so much Megan appreciate it Absolutely So tell the audience a little bit about yourself in terms of your background in the nonprofit sector And then also an overview of be giving and what you guys do sure So to make a quick recap I've been engaged in the industry in the sector in general for over three decades and I originally started with two very prominent organizations in New York City where I was living at the time right after college and Just got exposed to the nature of what it means to do good and be generous and actually be active and participate So not only was I doing activities in these orgs as a volunteer, but I served on junior boards I actually interacted with executives and participant fundraising events and they really truly formed the foundation for me to consider that this is such an important part of life is that you give back and serve others and So it carried forward. I was in one of those orgs the Tony Dukes Foundation for five years But I was in the inner city scholarship fund, which is the Catholic Diocese Foundation for all of the five boroughs They have 88 inner city schools and they were graduating 97 percent to universities when public schools in the same Communities were graduating 42 percent. So it was a major shift in helping those alleviate them out of that situation into education that was Meaningful and so I was involved with them for about 15 years Then I've moved here at in Austin for 15 years, and I've probably helped more than a dozen different orgs in all different ways, and so one of the things that was interesting to me was that I Understood that there was a movement of social platforms but really not There weren't meaningful in terms of serving community there were in essence creating social dilemmas for individuals and communities and We look at Facebook and now it's meta and all the things they've done in tiktok It's yeah, they can make us laugh and they can make us have certain people we like to follow What are we doing meaningfully with this technology of interacting and connecting people? and then we looked at all the research and I'm over 2,500 hours in research of all the plaguing issues of the nonprofit sector throughout the world and The data is really clear. I mean there's hundreds of research that shows like Storytelling is always an issue fundraising is always an issue reaching younger generations is an issue being transparent is an issue In a lot of ways they're taxed we help the community base So it's like the ones that file a 992 100,000 minimum up to two and a half million roughly And that's because after two and a half million most of those orgs are getting 90% of the donations any given year So they really don't need us but the other ones do and it's because they're also taxed on staff and budgets and time right and then on the other side when we started to look a Lot of the data proves really sadly the truth is that the younger generations are on the platforms But they're not engaged in philanthropy and it's because the again the philanthropic side is failing them They're not able to engage them or story tell or do things that are meaningful to engage this under 45 age group and The thing is the under 45 age group wants change. They want to change the world now They hate the infrastructure that exists that's brought us to this point and we see this Divisively throughout communities and politics and economics and everything and so we said well, why don't we create? the first actual social philanthropic impact Platform that unites both sides and so that's what we've created and we're really excited to get it to market Yeah, that's awesome. So first of its kind Not being done. I love stories like that of the brand new in the sector. That's awesome It's a big vision and I think the way to look at it is what exists and has existed for a decade or so are Charitably giving platforms like the GoFundMe's and the roundups and things like that and then you have a lot of the service Companies that are basically offering SaaS products. Can they consider enterprise sales to nonprofits? but nobody's thought to why can't we just let them interact naturally socially in a community, right create authentic community and Connects people that are already in the same environment, right? So yeah, that's the way we looked at it And we basically studied all the important factors to do that one of the things that we came up with which was really important is transparency There's constantly fraud in philanthropy. I'm a survivor of 9/11 There was three billion in fraud from fake charities in 2001 2002, right in COVID There was over 800 million in fraud from COVID, right? So the trust levels low and so Transparency is a way to engage and actually authenticate What can be activated in the younger generation? So if the nonprofits recognize hey, I can tell a good impact story and I share my financials and I let them see You know what we're about I think that's most important and the thing is when we've now looked at this the data that says It's amazing, but like 48% of impact videos convert to a donation between a hundred and eighty and five hundred and twenty percent convert from text To donation if that text is again really concise specific Transparent about what they're asking so we know these are the ways to reach the over generations And that's why we're bringing these types of tools and features to the marketplace. I Love it. So let's talk a little bit about that specifically though because I think that when we talk about like some of the challenges that These charities and nonprofits are facing you hit the nail on the head that one of them is staff One of them is resources. I just don't have the people to do all of the things right and so I do think there's a tendency to discount younger generations Because they're not viewed as maybe having the same discretionary spending abilities yet They're not able to give maybe some of those larger gifts that we're looking for and so we tend to focus a lot of organizations tend to focus older Because it's more bang for the buck with the resources that they have and it's like what you're saying is we're missing the boat there so talk to me a little bit about that the importance of Having this new strategy towards younger generation. Sure. So first statistic I'll show I'll share is It's only growing and the global population is now 54% of those under 40 So when you look at the demographics of wealth Which we all have to look at this because this is a large part of philanthropy 85 trillion We'll transfer to younger generations meaning baby boomers to millennials and my generation to Gen Z's in the next 15 years and trillion Yeah, 85 trillion trillion and the crazy port about it, and that's mostly us. There's a little bit outside the US, but that's mostly us and so If we're not cultivating and fostering relationships with the younger generations Then why would they want to give to us later in life? And so I take it from my personal experience. I Was engaged because my sister was nice enough to say hey, you're out of college I think you'd like this org and pass the torch now. That's the way it was in 1990 This is not the way it is now and so There's a lot of small orgs that are existing in doing really good work and to your point They're two or three people they're taxed. They don't have a lot of time They don't have a lot of talent either and these are not marketing people. These are not tech people so the way we designed the nonprofit side of the platform was to be So accessible that a 14 year old could use it, right? That's the way we looked at it if a 14 year old can do it Anybody can do it. So we designed everything to be One click in the features to be simple They want to share a video. We're creating an AI tool that actually will because we have all the data on 66,000 community orgs Megan. So we have the data set from the IRS. We have their websites their socials So it will literally scan Take the key points take their mission statement take an impact and create a story for them So they don't have to do this They can actually just basically they're gonna have choices of like male voice female voice what type of perspective right images because again we can take images from that they already have existing saves them an enormous amount of time energy and Let's them still focus on their mission and still gets this out to the other side They can also again announce fundraisers through the app. They can announce volunteer ops through the app They can also invite all their own donors Yeah, the most important thing about all of this for both sides is that we're tracking Everything and giving insights to both sides. So if you were a nonprofit and you invite your 400 donors to get on the app Everything they do for you is going to be visible to that nonprofit Did you share the fundraiser? Did you share the our volunteer opportunity? Did you get people to the fundraiser, right? If you're having an event So one of the things we looked at as well a lot of works have an event, right? Maybe one a year because that's all they can afford but the thing is they can never have all their supporters there We know this the affordability factor alone. Like you have a big event. It's a very large amount of money So we looked at it said how can we benefit them greater by not having them use Their own capital to do fundraising but use technology for fundraising. So imagine this example Imagine you're a nonprofit you're in the community. You have 200 to 400 donors say some are large obviously love Lark donors are only represent an average 2.7 percent of your donor base. So you announce the fundraiser on the app You record the key highlights that the speaker talks to maybe it's three or four minutes After the event you can again have that shared to all your donors through the app Activate the link to them to donate and now you can have those 200 people that attended Actually share it to their networks that couldn't attend as well as the other 200 that couldn't attend that can activate their network So now all of a sudden you have the capability to reach 1,200 1,200 people for an event that only sat 200 and That's a huge shift. That's a huge difference for nonprofits of this nature and the thing is again because we give them the insights they can see Hey, only a hundred of our donors actually shared this and they go out and they go Why didn't you share that you know what I mean engage them? We need to be holding people accountable That's why the things are not happening as positively as they should be the other thing on the participant side is now imagine you're In your community and you want to get your tribe behind the nonprofit that means a lot to you, right? That's these are a couple of ways you could do so you can number one share In invite others we give both nonprofits and participants a shareable link that traces everything through like a tree So everything a nonprofit shares with donors is traceable back and they can see just like a participant can share and invite 20 friends and see What they're doing so you might only get five out of your 20 friends who invite to help that one org But the others might go and find another org to support right you can see that you'll physically see your other friends helping other orgs and What's powerful about that is that becomes this? Shift in how generosity and giving occurs, right? It engages people to find what they feel attracted to support because we know I Think everybody understands this but philanthropy comes from your own heart. What do you connect it to? What do you feel attached to? What do you feel supportive of? But the interesting stat which nobody ever talks about is the average active philanthropy person meaning Anybody whether your volunteer donor fundraiser you support four to six orgs a year Right, so some words you're going to volunteer to some you're going to donate to some you're going to activate in the fundraiser You're there's just different things So we have to get away from this mindset that like nonprofits always feel competitive instead of just sharing their genuine impact Don't worry about other nonprofits. They're going to get who they're going to get just like you're going to get who you're going to get But more importantly on the participants side we want to create that value of a curated experience So if you got on the app, you're going to be able to say I want to play fundraiser for this one This is a meaningful one to you I'd help them fundraise when they do their event this one. I'll do a donation maybe occurring every quarter I'll give them ten bucks, but the two or three you might go, you know what? I like that environmental or animal or I'll volunteer right half a day on a Saturday twice a year So we then let you have this curated experience because you're choosing how you want to have your impact And nobody's thought about it that way either But that's really the way it works naturally organically right people figure out the causes Figure out what they want to do and then they activate so that's what we're trying to do and just stand back and let it happen naturally Elevate your fundraising strategy effortlessly with Donorbox the online fundraising platform that streamlines your operations Amplifies donations and delivers a user-friendly experience for your supporters Design captivating donation forms except digital wallet payments seamlessly monitor donations and automate receipt generation Joining is a breeze with no setup or monthly fees from customizable donation forms and four times faster ultra swift checkout to seamless in person Giving with Donorbox live kiosk donorbox makes giving simple and fast for your donors visit donorbox.org and unlock your full fundraising potential today We've had a number of folks on the podcast so far this season who are talking about kind of the rising tide lifts all ships right of Generosity and philanthropy in general and how I think your point is valid right? It's not a competition Just because somebody gives to you and another organization We're still raising the cost a raising the cause of generosity and raising the cause of philanthropy But I wanted to pull back to something that you had mentioned and I've heard the theme twice now and that is the idea of transparency right we're Up front you were talking about the importance of making sure that those things are out there and that orgs are being Honest about things like finances and what they're doing with their money and those kind of pieces and then again here I want people to be able to see what we're doing Yep clear as day. Yeah, why do you think transparency is so hard? For organizations and what are some things that we can do in general to switch that? How do we get orgs to embrace this idea of transparency? Sure? so if I can be Acting in a vulnerable way for the nonprofit right if I put myself in the shoes of a nonprofit because I've worked with many of them Yeah, what do most of them feel like when they don't accomplish goals? That's gonna hurt them when they go ask for money or that's gonna hurt them when they try to reach new donors Or it's gonna hurt them when they go to their board and say we're not accomplishing this task we set ourselves so in all honesty from my perspective you have to be full of integrity you have to meet that with so we failed let's Learn from it and grow and get better Great if we can do that and be honest and transparent about it people respect that more everybody understands Nobody's perfect and everybody understands. There's gonna be challenges and obstacles that are gonna Keep us from achieving the goals. Maybe we achieve 80% or 90% not 100 But the fact is you got to be transparent about that because the more you accept those Things and take it to task to learn and grow from them That will attract more people right and that's number one number two is that? We do this in a way that is really easy because for nonprofits Anything filing a 990 formal document has eight pages of a lot of information and we take the critical ones We show every donor so every org has what we call an org card profile card And that's what orgs see up with each other when they do to collaborate we built like ways that they can filter and collaborate with others Even messaging and all this stuff, but more importantly on the donor side. They see that exact card too So they see the founding their expenses their revenue We call up at contributions their grants and we pull this right off the 990s And so basically you get a snapshot and we give up to three years for each org So you can see where they are are they growing are they challenged? Are they right and one of the reasons? We wanted to do that is to really place an Element in this space that is Lex get real so nonprofits Let's say you were in Atlanta and you're a mental health org and you can again using our data set You can go find other orgs doing the exact same thing let's say you find one in Phoenix and they're at 800 grand and you're at 300 grand Reach out. How did you guys grow? How did you get to this point? How did you write? Here's another great one? Let's say you were humanitarian one so let's say you're a food shelter or a homeless shelter and you're like I want to do a whole nationwide thing of fundraising before Christmas right because we know it's the hardest point of the time winter comes a lot of people are struggling so you could literally be on our app and Get all of the orgs in that space and say let's do Warking campaign and they could actually then use our tool to create one story to use Individually in their communities to drive action These are the things we're creating to make it really simple for them to use technology instead of taking time and Instead of having to have a professional on your staff You just use our platform that that's the way we're thinking about this is give them the capabilities. They just don't have Yeah, and is that something that you see I Guess I'm curious about the kind of the generational take on that right because I I do think Maybe some of the older generations were much More willing to get I trust you here you go and they're not quite as yeah I don't know if it's savvy is the right. I'm not sure what the word. I want is Trusting yeah, maybe more trusting. There was a lot less fraud 30 years ago. Yeah, and definitely not 11 I think the 9/11 fraud actually Engaged more people to do fraud than it had before then because that 3 billion dollar fraud that had never occurred anywhere near the philanthropy space until 9/11 And that that's really sad to say but that's what happens is the more like it's like crypto The more frauds that happen the more occur because they think they can get away with it. So But and that's why we're trying to keep it to the community level Because we find out at that level filing 9/90s. It's very hard for them to be not transparent They have to file 9/90s when they're over 200,000 and they have their again that shows their expenses It shows everything their board members. So this is really critical most of the ones that are fraudulent Like the ones that happen after covid they all did it in their first year before they would need to file a 9/90 So we wouldn't have any of those works on our platform because we expect minimum three years of 9/90s. Yeah I'm curious I'm gonna go back kind of Circle to the beginning if you will. So obviously transparency. I would say is one of those maybe hidden challenges What are some of the pieces that you would categorize as overlooked data? What are the things that nonprofits have at their disposal that maybe they're not taking full advantage of? Either from a transparency sake or just in general. What are some of those things that we need to make sure we're paying attention to? Sure. I actually think Instead of looking at it from the data they do have because I don't know how much data these community orgs would really have besides like the donor management tools they use they might have a SaaS product giving donor management tools, but the important data that we find to be much more useful and credible for growing their base and expanding their reach and reaching broader audiences has to do with Insights from what they're doing. So one of the things we did is when they go share a story Right, so they basically say I'm gonna use your tool create a one-minute video Share it and it could be even just a text to people who've already shown interest in their org, right? The pens and then participants by the way they get notified if you say you're in mental health and humanitarian and education You're gonna get notifications based on those orgs or those causes So you find out when the new video occurs you find out when there's a fundraiser you find out when there's one through ops so now imagine they do that send that story out and it's a Tuesday and By Friday they can look at their dashboard and see how many people viewed it how many people shared it? How many people had a response to it like basically gave? So that's not out there. Nobody's doing this. That's huge data set we're talking about to be able to see Say this video went out and we had 1,000 views in the first week that tells you you touched someone you touched this You're just right telling touch someone's heart and a lot of people's heart so These are the things we need to empower them with because when you give them tools and access to that type of insight and data and analytics They start to realize what we just did Matt made a difference We got to do that more if they do a bad video It doesn't really come across as the impact they were trying to Share well, they'll see that right and then we go. Okay. We're gonna remove that video and we'll do another one Because immediately you'll know this immediately So these are the things that are making them more capable of again connecting the other side Engaging broader audiences and again having that actual impact Shared into a network that they never had access to because the interesting thing about it is just like social networks be look at Instagram and I'll give you a perfect example So I cook so I follow a couple of people that cook so I know that when I get one recipe of a certain nature I share it till three or four my friends because I know we're all cooks. We all like certain things That's just inherent in the way you act as in your friendship groups and things like that and it's the same with philanthropy If you had a meaningful impact video and you saw it you were like oh my god I do love what these guys do. I really want to help them You're gonna go to your friends that you think you're gonna they're gonna lend support right and I know we look at this It's funny. We look at Facebook and stuff and we see your birthday fundraiser, right? And I hate to tell you most people I see they never achieved their goal But they get some of it done right which is fine This is the point is to activate people and so we look at it and go Why should just be a birthday like once a year thing just a giving Tuesdays once a year, right? It's we need to cultivate this mindset that it's always happening. It's always active. There's always need and The other thing I want to get across is that one of the things we've made possible is that as a participant you don't need to be like we avoid the word donor We want to think of you as a participant because you can choose how you want to activate but more importantly we're trying to cultivate a mindset of You give time talent or treasures why we called it be giving but those are different for different people right? So some might call time Volunteer where some might say time is board member right become a board member of a nonprofit Some people might say treasure is a quarterly recurring where some people might find treasure is I'm gonna give you 20 grand for your fundraiser Right? So so we're just trying to cultivate this mindset around get active But and the way you want to be active So if you just want to be a volunteer if you're 22 and just want to be a volunteer for a couple orgs for a year Just to see where your vibe is great. If you're 30 and you're looking to be a fundraiser for major orgs So you're you know, you like you lost your brother leukemia, right? Something to this nature Well, you either have that relationship with the org where you want to help other orgs doing similar work like maybe there's orgs That help family with people that have cancer right? So there's a calling that is available, but we want to make it easy and accessible to people and then Let them choose how they want to participate. That's the most fundamental part is let them choose how they want to activate That's great well again My guest today has been john del bello has the founder and ceo of be giving Super interesting platform. I really appreciate all you've had to share on here john If somebody was interested wanted to connect with you wanted to learn more about be giving And what you guys are doing wanted to check it out. How do they find you? What's the best way to First I want to just share that be giving is the letter B and the word giving Yes Right. So that's important for people to know and it's dot one because we felt one is one humanity one consciousness One sort of planet we're all on this thing together and then we have a forward slash non-profit hub as the link So any of your audiences can visit us there. The last thing I just wanted to share Which I didn't get the touch upon but I think is really important Megan is that We actually just researched some heavy-duty neuroscience behind giving and generosity And the fascinating thing that came out for us was that our app Will actually be beneficial to people on the app Mental brain and heart coherence releasing certain hormones that are positive for the body These are all the things neuroscience is proving that when you go in act In giving in generous ways. This is what happens physically and mentally to your body So I think that's another shift is that we have these platforms out there that are not good for our mental health Not good for our psychological psychological health and even community health. Sometimes it's divisive And we want to be the exact opposite. We want to promote this positive physical mental and Activation of heart into community Yeah, that's great. Give us the website one more time Sure, so it's be and then the word giving dot one forward slash non-profit hub Awesome. Thank you so much. John. I really appreciate you sharing all of that with us today Again, the guest has been john del bello who's the founder and CEO of be giving My name is Megan spear. I'm your host and we'll see you next time on the non-profit hub podcast Thank you so much. Appreciate your time timing You (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music)
