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Welcome to The Responsive Lab, presented by Virtuous. In this podcast, we're exploring how nonprofits leverage technology to deepen donor engagement. Join us in the lab as we mix innovation with impact, tackling challenges and discovering new possibilities for the nonprofit sector.
Dominika McLean (00:00.044)
even recognizing like the smallest amounts, like we talked about a penny or a dollar, it shows the donors that their ongoing commitment is valued and it truly does make an impact. And that's exactly why we created Loyalty Herd is to celebrate those donors who give consecutively over time, not the size of their gift.
Scott (00:23.98)
This is The Responsive Lab, a podcast that talks about fundraising, technology, and nonprofit leadership for modern nonprofits.
Carly (00:31.086)
We have conversations with practitioners, teachers, and experts so you and your organization can leave behind outdated tactics and embrace responsive fundraising. Welcome to the Responsive Lab.
Scott (00:43.982)
Well, welcome to the responsive lab. We're glad to have you for another episode, regardless of where you're joining us from, whether you are in your car, on your treadmill, on a walk, wherever. We are glad to be with you and glad to bring you another incredible conversation. And we're stoked to have with us today, Dominica and Carly from the University of South Florida. Welcome. We're glad that you're here. And I am going to toss it to you first, Dominica, just as we get going.
We'll have both of you answer this, but if you could just share a little bit of your background, some of your fundraising journey, the current role you're in, just give us a little bit of it over.
Dominika McLean (01:20.91)
Hi, yes, thank you so much for having us today. Well, if you hear an accent, it's because I grew up in Poland and sometimes it comes out more when I'm nervous. a little bit about me, I earned my bachelor's degree in international relations. And since I can remember, service was always a big part of my personal and professional journey. And even since my time at college, I've always worked in the nonprofit worlds. I don't know anything aside from that.
From serving in AmeriCorps to working with Holocaust survivors and working in a museum field. I think all of those jobs helped me build knowledge of different aspects of how nonprofits operate, whether that would be on the development side or a face-to-face engagement or admin work.
And then about five years ago, I moved to Florida and I joined the USF Donor Relations Team, initially focusing on acknowledgments and pledge reminders. And then over time, my role evolved and now I focus more on personalized stewardship initiatives and recognition programs, as well as donor engagement events.
Scott (02:31.062)
Love it. Karlie, can we toss it to you?
Carly Plate (02:33.964)
Yeah, thank you both for having us so much. I'm Carly. I am the Director of Donor Relations and Stewardship at USF. And if you hear an accent come out on my end, it's because I grew up in New Jersey. So not as nice as Dominika's Polish accent, but that is where I'm from. I had gone to school for marketing in Rhode Island.
And my dad actually worked for a children's hospital in New Jersey and he was there for many years. So when I would come home from college, I would work in different departments there. And I eventually got an internship in their marketing department, which was also in the foundation part of kind of donor relations. They were doing it all really. So that was kind of my first taste of, OK, this is how you can communicate and we can talk about impact and.
I got to spend a lot of time with the patients there, the donors there, and they would kind of take me along when they would interview donors, and I would get to walk down on the floors, and I was close with a lot of the patients. So it was kind of my first exposure to donor relations, and then from there just started my career journey, and I worked for another hospital before I moved from New Jersey to Florida, and I've been at USF for
almost 13 years. So Florida and USF are hand in hand for me. I've been there my entire time and hired Dominica in around COVID. So yeah, about five years ago, a little over five years ago. So we've been working together ever since.
Scott (04:08.938)
Amazing. Well, Carly and I are both from the Midwest. And so we have our Midwest accents that'll come out. I feel like we're all in the same boat here and people are going to have a nice little mix as they listen to the episode today.
Carly Plate (04:24.526)
We love that. And we have a couple new hires on our larger team that are from the Midwest. So we're all just a little melting pot in Florida.
Scott (04:35.938)
Well, I do want to dive into specifically the recognition program that you all run. But before we kind of jump into questions about that, can you give people an overview of the loyalty herd? What inspired the idea? How'd you bring it from concept to launch? We'd love to just start there.
Carly Plate (04:56.536)
Sure, yeah, so Loyalty Herd, it's in its third year now. So we have other recognition programs at USF. We've always stewarded our lifetime giving levels, our plan giving donors, and then we also had a category four annual giving, but it was at a monetary threshold. And we just, there was a gap in those donors who were giving those lower dollar amounts, but giving every single year consecutively.
and so we, we really wanted to do that for a long time, but the data wasn't really there. and we ended up working closely with our data management team and found a way that pulling the data would work for them and work for our purposes. So it was many years probably in the works. and actually we had a student who turned employee who really helped to build this program when she was with us. and I know every time we talk about loyalty heard, she.
gives us a shout out now she's at in law school. But it really was just trying to think of what would be meaningful to people who are giving every single year who haven't missed a year. And we benchmarked with a lot of institutions, a lot of other universities. And that was so helpful because it gave us a really good look at what works, what isn't working for them. So we kind of knew, okay, let's steer clear of that.
And really just kind of pulling that together, working with our communications team and just seeing what would make the most sense for us to kind of start with. And we didn't really want to segment anybody out. So we even worked with our public broadcasting team. We have WSF here and they have, I mean, over 20,000 donors just giving to that area.
So we kind of found a way to steward them that would be meaningful to them, but wouldn't be as heavy as a lift for us as far as resources go to steward that many donors. So altogether it was a lot of work building up to that, but it's been really great and we've loved having it and our donors have given a lot of positive feedback. So it's been working really well.
Scott (07:13.603)
Yeah.
Carly (07:14.926)
I'm interested before we move on for a second, I worked in fundraising for 10 years and had never heard the word consecutive giving program. So can you talk a little bit about what that is before we dive into it? I've heard of recurring giving. So is that the same or different for those in the nonprofit space?
Carly Plate (07:32.43)
Sure, so for us consecutive giving, Loyalty Herd will recognize donors who have given three or more consecutive fiscal years. So they wouldn't have missed a year essentially. And as long as you get to three, then you are part of Loyalty Herd and we steward you at different milestones. So we have three years, five, 10, 25 and 30 or more. And then 30 or...
30 and more obviously is our top giving program, but we do actually have a good amount of donors at that level. So it's based on fiscal year giving. And we do our annual giving team does send some solicitations throughout the year, just, you you're coming up on your one year of giving or your anniversary of this so that we, they do try to solicit that and make sure that donors know that they're giving May Laps. But on our end, we're doing the stewardship. We're keeping them engaged.
But for us, it's three or more. I know some institutions do two or more years. It's a little bit different, but three was like that sweet spot for USF.
Carly (08:36.366)
And is like, can you give a penny or like what's the minimum threshold?
Carly Plate (08:40.69)
Any dollar amount, yes. Yes. So that's really been great for us because it's again that gap and we're not worried about the monetary amount. That's not the focus of it. It doesn't matter how much you're giving. It matters that you're a part of this and you're giving back every year. So yes, any dollar amount and then for three or more years and you're part of Loyalty Herd.
Carly (09:03.736)
Sorry, I just have so many questions from my own personal fundraising experience. Because you can do any amount, I'm curious, what's the average gift amount that you see? Do you usually guide them to a certain amount or do you do it based on their past giving history or how does that work?
Carly Plate (09:20.846)
So we, yeah, we're not as involved with the solicitations, but they will pull, it'll say on their solicitation, this was your last gift. Do you want to give again to that fund, a different fund? So they'll typically pull on what they've given in the past, but honestly, we have some donors that have given 50 or more years and it's maybe $500 a year. We have some that have given $100 a year and are at 30 or more. it really does, it really runs the gamut. Of course we have,
donors who have given also in the millions but give annually as well, which is great because we love to see that they're still giving back to those other projects and initiatives outside of their major giving. But it's all over the board. I would say we have a lot of donors probably in the $25 range too. So it's just really about the behavior and being a part of it every single year and not focused on the amount for us.
Carly (10:17.122)
Yeah, a little bit of FOMO. feel like I want to give a penny every year so I can be part of the loyalty herd.
Carly Plate (10:23.362)
You sure you do?
Scott (10:24.91)
Let's go a little higher than a penny though. Okay. I'll pitch it at least we'll get up to 50 cents. Maybe a dollar at least
Carly Plate (10:32.152)
Perfect. Perfect.
Carly (10:34.286)
Probably those listeners who work in higher ed are like, hey, Carly, we all know what consecutive giving programs are. But for us, not in higher ed. I'm curious what lessons or principles from this type of giving do you think could apply to nonprofits just with long-term loyalty, kind building that long-term value?
Dominika McLean (10:55.692)
Yeah, I'm going to jump in. think whether you work in higher education or any other nonprofit sector, acknowledging consecutive support is truly essential to build a strong donor base. And honestly, most importantly for us is to improve our donor retention rate. It is already high based on what we see in the donor relations field. Our current retention rate is at 69%.
we think the average is between 30 and 45 percent. So we're super happy with our numbers. But again, we do this for the behavior, not the monetary amount. loyalty programs we think are very common in the for-profit world. We see them all the time from like
the airlines and hotels to your favorite coffee shop. So like, why not adopt the same type of a recognition model for nonprofits? Because even recognizing like the smallest amounts, like we talked about a penny or a dollar, it shows the donors that their ongoing commitment is valued and it truly does make an impact. And that's exactly why we created Loyalty Herd is to celebrate those donors who give consecutively over time, not the size of their gift.
I think this approach also elevates smaller and mid-level donors and it is inclusive of all donors, not just the top donors. So we want them to feel included and belong to, feel like they belong to USF. Another key lesson I think that could be taken away from this is to keep recognition simple. We want it to be of course, sincere but also personalized.
We use different tools to personalize our stewardship for those donors. Even when it's at scale, when you're sending it to a large amount of donors, we still like to keep it personalized. But bottom line is that you don't need to use any complex systems. You just need genuine gratitude and clear communication about how their giving is making an impact at your organization.
Dominika McLean (13:12.15)
And then with that, by recognizing continued generosity, you deepen their emotional connection to your organization and also create a multi-year engagement pathway for development officers to engage with them.
Carly (13:27.918)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I really love this idea. You you mentioned there's not complexity in thanking them, but I'm thinking, especially if there's no bottom threshold there, there must be a lot of these donors. I'm guessing it's not like a hundred. There's probably a lot more. So that could sound pretty complex to make sure you're recognizing them and cultivating them. So what systems or processes or maybe even technology has your team used to help?
Keep it still personal, but at scale as you continue to grow the number of donors in this program.
Carly Plate (14:01.166)
Yeah, so right now our loyalty herd program is at a little over 20,000 donors. So it is quite large. I will say probably the first year we launched was our biggest lift. And just because when we launched, we wanted to make sure that we sent a welcome to every single person at the time saying you're a part of loyalty herd. But then we also wanted to send them those milestone touch points as well.
That was the year that we budgeted probably the most for it. And then every year after, it's just donors who are crossing over to that next threshold. So we're still sending an impact email every year, but if you're at four years, you're not necessarily going to get your milestone touch point that year. You'll get the annual email. And then when you hit five years, you'll get that next touch point as part of our system. But that first year, we wanted to make sure we stewarded everybody at once.
That was probably the most complex, but again, our data management team will pull all the numbers after the fiscal year closes. This way we have a snapshot and they'll kind of get us numbers a few months before he can give us an estimate. And this way it kind of helps us to budget, buy any materials we need to buy, but it's a rough estimate of how many donors will likely be in next fiscal year. And then from there,
We've kind of just come up with a system of milestone touch points that are just manageable. So we do send a couple emails and we've created those videos with our communications and marketing team. And we've just really partnered and leveraged what we already have and the resources we do have. And at three years, you'll receive a welcome packet. So we always make sure we order enough of those. But then we are sending a five year
email and a 10-year email and those are two different videos. And then at 25 years you'll receive a photo book that we created in-house. We designed it, again our student at the time who was working with us just completely designed it in InDesign. And then we had our marketing team edit and look at it but that was all in-house work. And then at 30 years something really special for us we have a graphic studio part of our Contemporary Art Museum on campus.
Carly Plate (16:26.254)
And we actually went over there and we just said, we really wanna gift something to donors that has a tie back to USF and the Tampa Bay area. And we worked with them for four different posters, art posters that they had either in stock or could sell us at a lower cost. And it's really exciting because it's artwork that's really unique, but it's poster size, we roll it up and we mail it to the donors in a tube.
And so that was, and we're able to, you know, leverage our graphic studio on campus. So everything we've kind of done for this group has been, you know, low resource, low risk, high reward. And I think that's what's made it the most manageable for us. And there's like, there's times of the year when we pull those numbers and it takes a staff person a lot of time to mail out, email out all of these touch points. But I think if you can come up with
ideas that are not breaking the bank, that are not really hard. You're not mailing 20,000 of something every single year, which is kind of how we were able to segment it out and what's working for us.
Carly (17:36.002)
Yeah, I'm curious because of 20,000 people. you, like, where do you slot in any actual, like, assigned major gift officers? Do they get to a level where there's a person actually talking to them? Or is it all kind of like video milestones and stuff like that?
Carly Plate (17:54.836)
They I mean, we work very closely with all of our fundraisers and our development team, so they are well aware of the communications that we're sending to this group. But I will say a lot of these donors, again, are falling into other categories. There there are a lot of major giving donors, so they still can be a part of our other giving programs and they're still prospects or in cultivation stages with our development officers as well. So this is kind of.
in addition to what maybe their DOs should be doing for them as well, what we're doing centrally. So I would say at any point they could still be talking to someone and getting that recognition, but this is just like the bare minimum you're gonna get at USF and it's still a lot and it's still very impactful. But I would say a lot of these donors are also alumni. They're also long time giving donors and friends of the university. So they're definitely coming to events.
And that's what's nice about USF is we're a younger school. So our donors, our alumni base, they're so connected still. And I think it's just, the numbers speak for themselves. We have 20,000 donors because they're interested in giving at USF. They're interested in being a part of something. They feel that affinity to the university. So yes, I would say a lot of these donors are definitely having FaceTime with either their development officer, sometimes leadership.
Lots of different levels of stewardship, would say, for sure.
Scott (19:27.628)
Yeah, I'm curious because like kind of camping out on that a bit, like recognition programs will often focus on larger gifts, larger donors. Why was it important for you all to include every donor who gives consistently, even at smaller amounts?
Carly Plate (19:45.41)
For us, it's really helped with retention. mean, just making sure that our lower level and our lower tiers are still feeling just as valued and seen as those major giving donors who are giving multimillion dollars. Not everybody can relate to that. Not everybody can give that amount in their lifetime. And I think it's just as important to give for 20 years.
consecutively than it is to give $20 million because those are the donors who could eventually make a planned gift, who could increase their giving. don't know, they could be prospects and have a capacity to give a lot more than they are, but they need to see that stewardship, they need to see that relationship grow. So that's always just been really important at USF for us. We also have a first time donor program, so we kind of touch on a lot of different giving.
It's just important for us and our team and we're definitely a small team, but we're doing a lot of this type of stewardship because it's what we've seen the biggest ROI on and it's what we've heard from donors is meaningful to them.
Dominika McLean (20:52.174)
At the end of the day, every gift truly matters. It doesn't matter the size, whether that's like Carly said, $25 or $25,000. And I think that when people see that their loyalty is being rewarded and celebrated, they feel connected to something bigger than themselves. And don't we all want to be a part of that?
I think smaller, consistent gifts are actually like the heartbeat of philanthropy because they keep our university moving forward. That's how we keep on the lights, you know, in our offices. And when we recognize all donors, we're sending a message that loyalty is just as important as the gift size.
Scott (21:33.346)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that when you're talking about what it looks like to build that trust and build like a long-term relationship rather than kind of interact for a transaction, that's where I think that power really comes in. Because like you said, capacity grows, life changes, you move into a different season of life and giving capacity looks different and all of that. But as you're consistently building that trust that just has to have such
positive effects on that long term loyalty.
Carly (22:05.89)
Yeah, you you talked a lot about making sure that, you know, you're stewarding these donors and thanking them and all of that. And sometimes as fundraisers, we're like, you know, stewardship is just numbers and making sure we're sending the milestones out. But really it's kind of the combination of both like art and data together. So I'm curious, since you're doing this among 20,000 donors, you have a lot of experience here. What practical advice would you give to other
fundraising donor relations teams that are looking to strengthen their kind of appreciation programs for their donors, but maybe don't have, you know, the number of staff that it would take to do that personally or specific tools or whatever.
Carly Plate (22:45.814)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for us, because we don't have a ton of staff and we don't always have the resource, but I think it's just start with something like start small, come up with an idea that would be sustainable for two years that you could definitely make sure you're able to order what you need for collateral and then you can sustain that. But I think just starting somewhere, I wish we had done this sooner. I think we always felt like
well, the data is not perfect or, you we, just, you always come up with reasons or there's other projects that take precedence, but I think starting with something and that could be, you know, utilize the tools you already have. We talked about that. You know, Dominique is really great with Canva. We have a couple of people on the team and they're just Canva whizzes and can create really beautiful invitations, beautiful communications, things like that. So,
We, you know, use what you have and if your team is creative graphically and you have some, if you have Thank You like we do, we use Thank You all the time and even just to create videos and then not, you know, sometimes we don't send them through Thank You but we're creating that content there too. And I think just start with something. It doesn't have to be a perfect process. But have those conversations with.
the key stakeholders, that'll be your communications team, your data team. Talk to them before you come up with an idea and make sure that it works for them too, that they can pull what you need so you're not getting to a point where it's frustrating because you don't have the data, but you're ready to go on your end. So talk to them ahead of time. Something else that I think helped us,
when we talked to our peer institutions before launching this program, we had heard a lot about buybacks and steer clear of doing a buyback program. And honestly, I think that was really helpful. Our data team completely agreed because they were nervous when I mentioned buybacks. I think it's really a nightmare to manage in the CRM to keep up with that. And at the end of the day, I think if you're if you're thinking, well, I can miss three years of giving because I'll just buy back into that.
Carly Plate (25:00.588)
The whole idea behind it is to be loyal and to kind of have that mentality of, I don't want to miss a year. I don't want to miss being part of this group. It kind of deters from what the purpose of loyalty herd is. So for us, it's worked that we did not do that. We didn't do a buyback program. And it's just you have to give every year in order to stay into it. And that was really helpful advice. But I would say just...
start small, start with what you, with the resources you do have. You don't have to have a big budget to do something like this. We don't, and we only have four staff people on my team, including myself. So it's just whatever you can really manage, but make it meaningful for the donor, make it genuine. It does not have to be a big lift as long as it really has, just it's really heartfelt.
And we've seen great results from that.
Scott (25:59.394)
Now you shared a couple of things there that you got advice from others who are like, hey, don't maybe make the same mistake that we did. And so I'd love for you to pass that on. You already did. But for any other organizations considering launching a loyalty program or something similar to what we've been talking about, what's one thing maybe that you would tell them, hey, watch out for this, or another way to think about it, one thing maybe you'd wish you'd before starting.
Carly Plate (26:28.962)
Yeah, I would say buybacks for sure, but also think about those other areas that are outside, you know, may have a different receding process. like, for instance, for us, like I mentioned, we have a public broadcasting station. We also have athletics, which is a different entity. But how can you still make it meaningful for those pockets of donors without saying, okay, let's just segment them out or we can't do it because they make our numbers too high?
So I think try and think ahead of all of those. And for us, know, public broadcasting tends to come up as a conversation because sometimes those donors don't see it as the university. They see it as NPR or I'm just giving to the station. It has nothing to do with students, but it is tied back to the university. So we try with our messaging to that group to be very specific on, you know, your giving towards programs.
different things that maybe it's not necessarily student success, but you're ultimately still impacting the university community. So we try to be very strategic about that so that when those donors get that, they say, what's loyalty heard? But they'll know it because their DOs would have talked to them about it. They would recognize that, okay, this is part of the university community. So I would say to just kind of try and think ahead of all the...
the problems that could happen or all of these scenarios that might be a challenge for you. What does your institution look like? And kind of just try to come up with those solutions before they happen. And this way maybe you can make the program just work for your organization and what your donors look like and are giving to.
Scott (28:16.462)
That's great and we so appreciate you all sharing and kind of opening up that advice and helps everyone kind of get stronger and better. Last question I'm to throw your way and this is a shorter question, maybe not simple, but one we'll just ask your thoughts on. And we'd love for both of you to answer this, but what's the most relevant fundraising advice that you can give someone?
Carly Plate (28:43.278)
I mean, I would say I think that's what so many of our peers have been talking about is giving behaviors and not focusing as much on the amount. And I think we've seen that in so many different areas and a lot of the peers that we look up to in the donor relations industry, that is always a topic. And there's a lot of institutions that still have not gotten there yet. They're still maybe focusing on those top tier giving levels, monetary amounts.
And again, we've only started this three years ago, so we were in the same boat, but I would say it's just so important to build that community of givers who are coming back year after year and saying, this is important to me. And it just doesn't matter the size of their gift, it just matters that they feel important and they feel that they're really valued whether they're at that top tier or not. So I just think that's a lot of what we're hearing lately.
And I'm glad that we're doing that and we can always evolve and get better at USF in our program as well. So we're always listening to that advice, but it took us a while to get there too. So I think that's just, you know, part of what we're talking about right now, but look at your giving behaviors. Look at, you know, how often donors are giving to your institution versus how high their giving amount might be. But those are the people who
could turn into major donors or could turn into, like I said, plan giving donors, they have that affinity. So tap into that.
Dominika McLean (30:21.398)
Yeah, I 100 % agree. I would also say don't be afraid to be innovative. We are so lucky here at USF, at the foundation specifically, I think with our leadership who pushes us to be innovative in so many different ways. It doesn't matter if you have a small idea or a big idea that can impact all of our donors or it can impact your daily work or it can impact just like
advancement in general. Every idea is a good idea. And it's important to share it and not be afraid that someone might judge you or, I don't know, just be confident in yourself and that someone can pick up on your ideas and also build from them. then with AI and with everything happening currently in the world, I feel like it's important for
nonprofits to move quickly with the same pace that everyone else is moving at. So if you can be innovative, I think you'll go a long way and be successful in your job.
Scott (31:35.052)
Yeah. Well, thank you again, both of you for being here, for opening up about the loyalty program and what you all have done, but also really, I think, helping inspire people for what they can do and how they can apply this. We super appreciate it and really grateful for your time today.
Dominika McLean (31:56.706)
Thank you so much. you for having us.
Carly (32:00.846)
The Responsive Lab is brought to you by Virtuous. We believe nonprofits deserve technology built to engage donors with the same personal connections and experiences they receive from today's leading brands.
Scott (32:12.482)
Virtuous is an enterprise fundraising platform that unifies CRM, marketing, giving, and insights with AI to help build deeper donor relationships, automate manual work, and grow giving. Learn more at virtuous.org.