What I've learned in 2022 to help unlock magical generosity experiences

My last newsletter of 2022! I will keep this brief since I'm trying to unplug properly for the holidays while I am here at my in-laws for the New Year. I'll use this to recap what a year of building out content for insights into donor behavior, fundraiser enablement, and technology looks like and to outline the changes I'll be making in focus for next year.

I've spent the last year trying to figure out some core identity issues for my company and myself. It has been a year of great reflection, growth, and understanding. Like everyone, there have been high points and low points.

So let's unpack some of the key moments in crafting that identity and what is now my primary focus - learning what unlocks magical generosity experiences for nonprofits.

Future Proof Planning

Early in 2022, I remember talking with Jon McCoy , about the book The Infinite Game, which ultimately is a book about having conviction in your vision for the future. Those who don't have that conviction feel that things are zero / sum and that relationships and transactional with winners and losers. Those that embrace the infinite game know that many upfront struggles are temporary if you continue to build toward that concrete vision for the future.

That's why I feel my post on futurist thinking that Amy Webb outlines in her work was my most popular post of the year. It is also interesting since it was in a group instead of my organic feed.

2023 Takeaway - plan for the future. What would it say if you were to write an obituary for your brand?

Connected Technology

The promise of CRM has failed the nonprofit sector.

I want to be clear that I believe in the importance of what a constituent relationship management system represents for a nonprofit. It is a core investment that a nonprofit should make.

But I've started to see marketing from vendors that prioritize things like saving nonprofits time, making more money, and helping with retention. These are table stakes on what a CRM should be doing, and with donor retention continuing to drop year over year, we have not fulfilled our end of the bargain sector-wide.

We commissioned a market study early in 2022 that validated what we have long known - that the average nonprofit relies on three to five different data sources to manage revenue operations. Yet, we continue to focus as a sector on flashy digital technologies or payments instead of making things operationally easy for nonprofits.

CRM alone is a promise for the 3% of nonprofits who can handle it as a standalone thing and invest the resources to cobble together a tech stack that "works" through imports and custom API connections.

The 97% of nonprofits making less than $5 million are asked to do 100 things when they only have 10? It is time to give them something different, and a nonprofit platform is where our core investments need to focus on.

Neon One isn't alone in this category - Bloomerang and Virtuous have made acquisitions to round out into a larger platform. Still, the real key will be how this drives a people-centric approach to revenue generation.

2023 Takeaway - sophisticated does not mean it has to be hard. Vendors need to balance the difficulty of using software with the scale needed to connect with constituents at every step of the generosity experience.

Community is strength

We can no longer design support systems that focus on the organization itself. With entry-level fundraisers continuing to churn out of jobs after 18 months while the more experienced fundraisers continue to settle into tactics that may no longer be effective in an ever-changing communications environment, the need to build a more extensive community is where the future of growth and success for our sector lies.

No more was this personally evident than my struggle with alcohol. After attending a big sector event in Las Vegas, I realized I had a much deeper problem and that my personal and professional lives would never be sustainable or healthy if I didn't make a change.

My wife is a lovely lady, but she knew I'd need a larger community to support me and encouraged that. Many folks have been fantastic in my sobriety journey and it made me realize how powerful true community can be.

This extends to the work that companies and nonprofits do in the good social sector as well. The ways we design generosity experiences can either be inclusive or exclusive in their execution.

2023 Takeaways - by designing in a people-centric way, we can actually unlock generosity by being more inclusive in how we put things out in the world.

Consultant Influencers

There's a lot to say about consultants, but here are some known truths that I think we all need to understand:

• All nonprofits ultimately use an outside consultant in their work
• The types of nonprofit consultants is varied and diverse
• Many of those consultants don't care about technology itself but are aligned with values
• Many nonprofits rely on the opinion of their consultants, especially if their worries align with the consultant's specialization

So for me, I will be re-envisioning what our partner program means for consultants in particular. While the feedback in our recent survey to partners was overall very positive, there are things that we can do better. We know this will be an important investment to ensure we are building a strong community of support.

I learn so much from our consultant partners in particular, so this is going to be a fun project!

2023 Takeaway - brands ultimately sell to people, so focus on building networks of values-aligned micro-communities that are building toward your bigger vision for the world

What's Next

I'm going to take some time and outline an exciting new direction for this newsletter next year. I'm still going to focus on all things connected to donors, fundraisers, and technology. Yet, I'll be getting hyperfocused on what generosity experience design truly is. For me, it's about using technology to unlock uniquely magical moments for supporters. But there's so much more to unpack if we're truly building something unique that helps combine all these significant trends.

Happy New Year, and here's to an exciting and transformative 2023!