Episode 68: Building Out Technology for Established Nonprofits (NXUnite Panel)

Narrator: Welcome to Elevate Your Event, your favorite podcast for transforming fundraising events. Join us weekly for expert tips and creative ideas to make your next event a standout success. In this episode of Elevate Your Event, Elise Neugebauer, our client success manager at Handbid, shared insights on leveraging new technology trends to enhance fundraising endeavors in a recent NXUnite panel discussion. Stay tuned for more tips to empower your mission through innovative fundraising strategies.

Hannah: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's panel. My name is Hannah Thompson, and I will be moderating today. Our panel topic is building out technology for established nonprofits, and I'm really excited to dive into this topic with our expert panelists who are here today. Also, just really appreciate everybody coming to today's panel and appreciate the work that you all do. And without further ado, I will start our introductions. So we have Elise Neugebauer, who's the client success manager at Handbid.

Elise N: Hi.

Hannah: Over the past six years, Elise has worked as an on-site expert at over 300 fundraising events. She has also organized and managed 15 events for her kids' school and other organizations in which she's involved. Frank de Kerret is the CEO and co-founder at Zeffy.

Frank: Hi.

Hannah: And Zeffy is the only free fundraising platform for nonprofits. Zeffy is helping 15,000 nonprofits have more impact, four years after the initial launch of the project. We also have Michelle Paul, who is the VP of Growth Strategy at Back Office Thinking.

Michelle: Hi, everyone.

Hannah: Michelle has devoted her career to nonprofit technology strategy since 2005, helping organizations overcome operational challenges, increase impact, and cultivate stronger constituent relationships. And then last but not least, Sam Briggs, who is the director of sales at CallHub.

Sam: Hey.

Hannah: Sam is a political tech sales leader helping Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations make calls and send text messages to save the world. So really excited to have everybody here with us. And without further ado, we'll dive into our first question. And this is -- Elise, I'll start with you. How can established nonprofits use technology to maximize their impact in today's fast-evolving digital landscape?

Elise N: Well, I think there's so many ways. I mean, we're such a tech world now. And it seems like every day there's more software, more technology, more AI popping up. And so I think the sky is the limit. Figure out what direction you want to go, and I guarantee you there's probably something out there for you. I think just do your research. There are a lot of options available, so find the best fit for you. There's so much out there and there's a perfect fit for technology with any nonprofit.

Hannah: Awesome. Thanks, Elise. Sam, would love to hear from you. How can established nonprofits use technology to maximize their impact in our ever-changing digital landscape today?

Sam: Well, I will say all these people are very good at raising money. I'll talk more about the nitty-gritties of the calls and texts. So on my side, I'll mention this a lot here. I think omni-channel, multi-channel communications -- not getting stuck to one thing. Email was good until it wasn't. Text messaging was amazing until it isn't. Robocalls were great for a while. Things have their moment and move on, but that doesn't mean they don't still exist. You still need robocalls. You still need emails. They still need all these things. So you need to be able to expand your toolset instead of restricting down to one thing. Really thinking to the future -- WhatsApp, RCS -- what's the next thing coming around, and being prepared for that as well. And then automation. Echoing what Elise said, anything -- if you do something you hate, I bet I could find a way to use an AI or something to do that for you at this point. I have written so much SQL over the last year. I don't know any SQL. I just go to the AIs and ask it to write me SQL and it works and it has been amazing and saved money and been able to do amazing things. So lean in.

Hannah: Awesome. Thanks, Sam. Michelle, how can established nonprofits use technology to maximize impact in today's fast-evolving digital landscape?

Michelle: I think to kind of tag on to what Elise and Sam also just said, there are tools for so many different things. I love that idea of, hey, if there's something you hate doing, there's probably a tool that can help you not do it. But I also think, from my perspective on this, for most nonprofits or for most people in your day-to-day job at a nonprofit, to some degree your technology should end up becoming invisible to you. If you're spending all of your time thinking about your technology or focusing on your technology, that is an indication that maybe there's something getting in the way with it, as opposed to it just being the tool that helps you get things done. So being able to let that fade into the background and get focused on your actual mission.

Hannah: Thanks, Michelle. Okay, and then Frank, as you're thinking about today's digital landscape, what are your recommendations for established nonprofits using technology to maximize impact?

Frank: Yeah, I definitely agree with what the panelists said before. What I would add is how to choose the area, because you can't always adopt a new technology. Think about what you've been wanting to do, what you've already invested in, but also really take a step back and look at the impact for your organization. Because sometimes it can be really dependent on the nonprofit. It can be as simple as, I've been receiving a lot of donations but my conversion rate on my donation form is not high. If I implement a high-converting form, I can potentially double my overall donations. And I think it works for everything you do. If you spend a lot of time writing grants, generative AI could be a great fit for you. So really take a step back and look at where the impact is. And this way, it allows you not to get sidetracked on technology for side tasks.

Hannah: Yeah, thanks. Appreciate those answers to start us off, everyone. So as we look at our second question -- Sam, I'll ask you to take this one first. What are some best practices for selecting tech solutions? How can nonprofits align their technology investments with their missions and goals?

Sam: Well, I'd say start with your data people, because if they don't like it, it doesn't matter what you're using. If data doesn't approve, data rolls over everything. But do that in security. I mean, yes, features, but also security concerns -- know where security stands, know what your requirements are and start from there, because you might love something and then it's not SOC 2 or it's not ISO or it's not whatever you need to have, and you can't use it. So make sure you start from there. And then, the nitty-gritties, because that's where I'm at -- pricing structure. Are you cyclical? Do you do a lot of your work in two months in the fall? Well, then maybe monthly pricing isn't great. Are you doing continual work over time? Well, then maybe that would be great for you. So there are lots of different technology and different ways to pay for it. Finding the way that matches how you do your work.

Hannah: Awesome. Thanks, Sam. Elise, we'd love to hear your thoughts here on best practices for selecting tech solutions and how nonprofits can align technology investments with their mission and goals.

Elise N: Well, I 100% agree with Frank and Sam, and they hit some of the things that I have on my list. But definitely word of mouth. I feel like the nonprofit world is pretty tight-knit. So talk with your colleagues, talk with other people who maybe have the same mission, similar missions. What are they using? What are they finding effective? And I don't knock free. I know Frank is on here and I love free as well, but I also think free isn't always better. I've definitely run into some software that is free and then it's not. So do your research. And yeah, I think that's great what you said, Frank -- share that with your donors and say, this is why we want to invest in this. This is what it's going to bring back to our org, and move from there. And then just lastly, longevity. Are they a new software? Are they tried and true? Have they been supporting missions like yours for a while, or are you going to take a leap and maybe find the next best thing? So there's a lot to think about -- just do your research.

Hannah: Thanks, Elise. Okay, Michelle, we'd love to hear from you the best practices you're thinking about for selecting tech solutions and then aligning those investments with your nonprofit's mission and goals.

Michelle: Yeah. This is a thing that I could probably talk about for four hours, and I'm not going to right now. But basically, this is a lot of what I do with my work as a technology consultant for nonprofits. My biggest piece of advice that a lot of other things end up boiling down to is to solve the right problem, which usually the reason that folks are making a tech change is because there's a problem you want to solve or a step forward that you want to take. First of all, if you can't point to one of those things, don't be making the change that you're trying to make or don't adopt the thing that you want to adopt. But really doing the work up front to figure out what the problem really is. One of the examples that comes up a lot with my work is the idea of system integration. Obviously, we know that in order to be building relationships with our constituents, we want to actually have data in one place. We want that 360 view. We want to kind of know everything about people. But I see a lot of organizations get really hung up on the extremely idealistic vision of all of our systems talking to each other. We are here right now in a situation where everything is manual and nothing talks to each other. We have to make everything be in one system. And there's actually sometimes a middle ground between those things. Just being able to take a step forward -- oh, right now your manual integration is somebody literally typing words into a database from another? Maybe there's an upload of a bunch of data at once that would actually be a huge step forward for your organization and your ability to be efficient and get things done, that isn't investing thousands of dollars in some kind of custom integration bridge between these systems or switching systems to one that will actually talk to each other. So being clearer about the idea of "our systems don't talk to each other" is not a problem in itself. What's the actual impact behind that? What's the actual thing that is causing an issue in your life? And then you can get a little more specific about what problem you're going to solve there.

Hannah: Thanks, Michelle. I'm going to dive in with a question for Frank. How can nonprofits utilize technology to improve donor engagement and retention, ensuring long-term sustainability?

Frank: Yeah, thank you. And I think it's an important question for a lot of nonprofits. So I tried to think about it in advance. And I think here it's really about saving time and being able to do the work, because there are millions of best practices. We know there is the RFM framework -- recency, frequency, money per donor. But in practice, the key -- it's not rocket science -- is being able to find the time to actually do it regularly every week, every month. So the key here in picking the technology, I think, would be how simple it is. Or if you have more advanced needs, making sure you have the staff and the team to handle the complexity and those advanced features. So really here, simplicity would be the key, I think.

Hannah: Thanks, Frank. Michelle, I'd love to hear from you on this one. How can nonprofits utilize technology to improve donor engagement and retention, ensuring long-term sustainability?

Michelle: Yeah, I really loved Frank's answer there. And I'm actually going to plagiarize myself a little bit because I think one of my answers from before works pretty well here too, which is, in an ideal world, for most people at a nonprofit, your actual use of technology should blend into the background for you. It should become kind of invisible because it should be the thing that is supporting you in the job that you're doing, in executing those best practices, in following all those things that you know you should be doing, rather than having to fight with your technology about it or having to really pay a lot of attention and learn details of systems so that you can use the technology to improve donor engagement. Relying on tech as the kind of foundation of the work that you're doing, having something that just works and that actually eliminates obstacles rather than making things more difficult for folks. I think that's the main thing to keep in mind.

Hannah: Thanks, Michelle. Sam, how can nonprofits utilize technology to focus on improving donor engagement and retention to get to those goals of long-term sustainability?

Sam: So continuing with my trend, I'm going to go very deep, very specific on this one. I said before, multi-channel communications -- making sure you don't burn a list just sending more and more of the same thing to people who don't respond. Being able to use things like text messages to re-engage people who've unsubscribed from email lists. You can't email them, but you can text. Maybe they unsubscribed for a different reason. And so just being able to make these channels work together, but also so you don't burn your lists. Some people would not appreciate 15 text messages. So maybe try something else after four or five. Meeting people where they're at -- they are real people. They're not just numbers, and they have their own communication preferences that you should try to follow if you can. And then the other thing I'll say is deliverability -- just making sure you actually get through. Maybe your stats aren't as bad. Maybe people just aren't getting your calls and texts. Spam labeling is a real issue. You see spam labels on calls, and it messes up your contact rate. A lot of these apps like YouMail, which is the biggest one here in the US, send a fake out-of-service message to remove you from the spammer's list. That means if we're calling people on labeled numbers, some of the disconnects you're getting back are good numbers. So you're literally chopping off your own members on good numbers that could be contactable, that you'll never contact them again because now it looks like a disconnected number in your system. And then maybe you pay good money later on to append that number when you had a good number to start with. So it's multiplier effects going down the line. Making sure deliverability is good, you're not getting labeled -- make sure you're actually engaging with the people you want to engage with. And then thinking about how you're engaging with them so you don't burn them and you actually reach them where they want to be contacted.

Hannah: Thanks, Sam. Okay, Elise, continuing on with this focus on donor engagement and retention, how would you recommend nonprofits utilize technology for long-term sustainability?

Elise N: Well, I think the biggest thing, and I know that both Sam and Michelle touched on this in past questions, so maybe not everyone heard, but your data is so important. You want either software or technology where you can collect the data, grow the data, and have accurate data. And so that's going to help you raise more money in the future, which is what all nonprofits want. So utilize whatever software you're using, whatever technology you're using to do that. And then the other thing is, we all want to be fun and different and engage our donors. So find something unique. Find something that's going to set you apart from other nonprofits. And if it's a little fun and crazy, maybe that's not the worst thing. So I think there's technology out there that makes you fun and unique, and it will continue to grow your donor base.

Hannah: Thanks, Elise. I will turn this next question to Michelle. Michelle, do you have any tips for managing resistance from stakeholders during the exploration or implementation of new technology?

Michelle: Absolutely. I was once in a meeting with a client. So, Back Office Thinking does technology consulting for nonprofits. We do implementing systems and design and integration, but we also just do strategy assessments and help nonprofit organizations figure out what systems they should be using. So I was leading discovery on a project. I had a whole bunch of stakeholders from the organization in a room. We were going around -- I can't remember exactly the topic that we were talking about, but it was basically about, hey, what are your biggest pain points right now? What are you really hoping for with the new system? And one person in the meeting began her presentation, began her little speech to the group with, "As someone who is afraid of change, I want you to know that I'm coming into this feeling very hesitant about this." I almost fell out of my chair because that is a really extraordinarily self-aware thing to say. Most people are not able to self-identify as being someone who's afraid of change. I don't think that she actually was, either, in the end. But when you say resistance, that's the first thing that comes to mind. It comes up as looking like people being afraid of change a lot of the time. And I actually think that is one of the biggest traps that you can fall into, because there's a difference between resistance that's coming from staff who are self-identifying as being afraid of change versus people who are raising, in some cases, really valid objections. So being able to pick apart what the actual resistance is -- it does not only take one form. There's the person who is pointing out something about the way that they do their job that nobody knows. If you're the only person in that role and you've been using a system to do that job, if someone else from the organization is the one making this proclamation about change, they might not know that detail about how actually everything hinges on this one feature being really important. And so sometimes those objections are valid. Other times, the objections are valid in their own way because not everyone in the organization can see the big picture. And so painting the picture of why we're making this change, why we're adopting this new technology, what is the high-level strategy that we are trying to enact here -- therefore, yes, your job might change, or therefore, yes, you might need to do this thing differently. Really helping people understand that. So differentiating between where this resistance is coming from, what form is this actually taking -- that's the most important thing about this idea of getting a whole team on board for adoption.

Hannah: Awesome. Thanks, Michelle. That's a really powerful story to go along with that as we're discussing this question, which Elise, I'll pose to you next. What would you recommend for how to manage resistance from folks as nonprofits are exploring or implementing new technology?

Elise N: Well, I'm coming from a mobile bidding software background and also other fundraising. And one of the proven benefits of mobile bidding is that it tends to increase revenue by 30% or more. I mean, it's tried and true. And I've seen it myself -- my kids' school back in elementary school, we were on paper bidding, and the next year we just exceeded our goal by so much. And I really think it was because of the software. People are willing to adapt and adopt. And so when you're trying to present this to your stakeholders, be prepared and be ready to share some of the data. And the other thing is, we are all on technology all day, every day, whether it's for our job, social media, entertainment apps, Netflix, things like that, or even just playing a game on your phone. I think you can make a comparison to that. If you can say, hey, how many times a day do you look at Instagram or Facebook or whatever you choose to look at? And if you can turn that into what your donors are going to do, I think that's very powerful as well.

Hannah: Thanks, Elise. Frank, I'll send this one to you next as well. I would love to hear your tips for managing resistance from stakeholders during the exploration or implementation of new technology.

Frank: Yeah, and I think I'd love to share a real-life example at Zeffy from our head of talent, because we decided to implement an ATS (applicant tracking system) -- it's like a CRM for recruiting -- because we were planning a lot of hiring in the next years. And she did two things really well. She managed to get the people who would be using it later on board early, and she managed to get them to agree to test it. And I think those two things are really key. So the first thing -- she had all six hiring managers at Zeffy in a room, sharing their concerns, their needs, what they liked about the current way of doing things, their roadblocks, and so on. And the second thing, once we decided on the tool -- it's Greenhouse, by the way, if you have a lot of recruitment to do -- was getting people to agree to test it, because it's easy to be opposed to something in theory. You can find things you think are weak or that it doesn't necessarily work the same way. But getting people to agree to do a full recruitment cycle on the new software was really effective, because it's easy to commit to a test for a limited period of time. And it shows the value to everybody. This was really textbook change management, and I really recommend this approach. For the nonprofits listening, consider evaluating the tool by doing a full fundraiser with it and seeing the results firsthand, rather than resisting change in the abstract.

Hannah: Thanks, Frank. Sam, you've got the last word on this question. What are your tips for managing resistance from stakeholders throughout this new tech implementation and exploration process?

Sam: I mean, I'll again get real specific. I'm big in sales. I do a lot of sales. And I use a personality AI -- Humantic AI is one of them, but there are others out there. Basically put in somebody's LinkedIn profile, writing samples, and it'll give you DISC profiles back. Because some people like bullet points. Some people like stories. Some people want use cases. Some people want GIFs. Some people want you to be friendly and talk about, hey buddy, I got this thing for you. And others want the serious, proper presentation. And it's all types. Even within -- you may think you know your steering committee and the people on your board, but do you also know how they present themselves externally? They may not actually be what you think. So do a little research into them, make a plan to approach people in the way that they should be approached, the way they'll be better received. One size does not fit all if you want to get it through. Treat people, especially on whatever the steering committee is, as the individuals they are, and try to reach them in the way that's going to bring them on board.

Michelle: Can I add one more thing, actually? So, not letting Sam have the last word, I guess. Just building off what Elise was saying and then kind of what was throughout this -- the idea that everyone is using tech all of the time for all of the things. Everyone is using tech all of the time for all of the things. And I still have to have conversations with our clients who have an imaginary 65-year-old that lives in their head, somebody who has never touched a computer before. And it's really kind of wild because I think it's just a matter of perspective and a matter of people not thinking about the linear nature of time. I used to do, in my former job in my former life, we worked with lots of arts and culture nonprofits. And we did a survey every single year that we called the online arts patron survey, where we basically just surveyed people about their email habits and their online habits. And it was incredible because this was 10 years ago now, we had been doing the survey for 10 years. And what we had found at that time is that the behavior of people in that survey who were 75 years old in 2014 exactly mimicked the behavior of the people who were 35 years old in 2005. So think about this -- someone who is 35 in 2005 is 55 years old now. And all of those people -- technology gets easier. Phones are in our hands all the time. It becomes this native thing in the world. Back Office Thinking does a lot of work with land trust and land conservation organizations. They've got a lot of volunteers in the fields, actually going out and monitoring their properties and stuff. Yes, they can do it on their phone. It's not a generational thing. There are people who really love pen and paper for doing stuff. But don't get trapped in thinking that it's a generational thing because that is not necessarily the case.

Hannah: Thanks for that, Michelle. Frank, we'll start with you. What mistakes or challenges have you seen established nonprofits make when it comes to tech adoption? And how can these be avoided?

Frank: I'm really happy to start with this one because it's one I especially like, and I've seen a lot of mistakes. A lot of people focus on features and bells and whistles that they often don't actually end up using, and they forget ease of use, quality of support, and pricing -- and they don't actually forget pricing, but they forget the hidden fees. What we see at Zeffy is that some nonprofits sometimes choose a competitor initially and then they come back and say, okay, there were hidden fees. So it's really important to go in depth on pricing, ease of use, and support. And the good thing -- people don't do it because it's more difficult. Evaluating ease of use in a demo is super difficult. But the good thing is that you have tools like G2 and Capterra, which specifically specialize in evaluating software on specific criteria. So you can actually see what platform is ranking high on ease of use, support, features, and more. And this is a great way to avoid mistakes, I think.

Hannah: Thanks, Frank. Michelle, turning to you, what mistakes or challenges have you seen established nonprofits make when it comes to tech adoption, and how can these be avoided?

Michelle: I cannot agree more with what you just said, Frank. Your point about it being difficult to evaluate ease of use in a demo -- arguably, it is impossible to evaluate ease of use in a demo. One of the biggest red flags that I see is when organizations treat demos or multiple demos in a sales process like they are training sessions. I can spot that right away at this point. If you're digging into the "okay, but literally how -- I need to see exactly every single process, I need to see exactly how this will work, I need to believe it, I need to see that ease of use" -- that's just not reality. That's not what happens. You learn systems. You get trained later. You learn things by using them. And so expecting that first encounter to be the moment where you can tell it's easy to use, where you can already use it -- for certain kinds of systems, that's not feasible. Relying on reviews and references and actually being able to focus more on results than on process is the biggest thing that I recommend people keep in mind when they're evaluating a system from that perspective.

Hannah: Thanks, Michelle. Sam, as you're thinking about this, what common mistakes or challenges have you seen established nonprofits make for tech adoption? And how can those be avoided?

Sam: I mean, I've seen both ends, and I don't know if one of you talked about this, so apologies for duplicating. But either jumping on every new thing -- every shiny object coming down the line. AI is AI for everything. Some of it is just useless these days. But also the opposite side. I talk to people who have been in the same tool for 15 years. And they're like, oh, we know it works. And it's like, but you are leaving so much on the table because things have changed in that time. Or they think they want things very specifically. And so when it comes time to change, it is quite the thing to turn, because they have never even evaluated other stuff. They've just been like, yep, it works, I'm stuck here. So at least on a multi-year cadence, put it in there to check new things and not get stuck. And then lastly, if you're a large organization, not having enough time to actually do onboarding -- the training, like what Michelle said. The trainings will be multiple and many. You want people to review things after your first week and then come back through and do that. Most places should have established customer success that does this. But if not, it's still something you're going to have to do. So just be prepared -- this won't always be something you can launch overnight. It's going to take some time. Don't pick the tool the day before you need to launch the program.

Hannah: Thanks, Sam. Okay, Elise, when we're thinking about this new tech adoption for established nonprofits, what are the challenges that you've seen and how can we avoid those?

Elise N: First of all, I just have to say, as I'm sitting here listening to everyone and going last, I'm thinking we must all work in technology because I think you are all so right. And I have a whole list of these things. I think we could all do a panel just on this. But really the biggest thing that everyone has brought up is there's going to be a learning curve. You cannot put on an event tomorrow and start some kind of software today. Plan for that and plan for the training you need. And also look at the support. I love G2, and I love that Frank put that up there, because you can look up Handbid on G2 and see that our support team, which I'm on, is very strong. So just go into it thinking that you need some time to learn. And if you put in the time in the beginning, you'll be successful. And then just, in the demo, dig into the details because there are a lot of bells and whistles. And like Frank said, you don't need all of them probably, but make sure you're looking at software that does have what you need.

Hannah: Thanks, Elise. Okay, well, with that, we've kind of finished our first round of questions. And we'll dive into questions from our audience. So keep sending those in.

Frank: Do you mind if I add one thing? I just thought about -- it's also the things you don't need that are super important. And I think asking your peers is also a great way to avoid those mistakes. I would just say, as a clarification, of course my platform is super easy. You can get going in like five minutes. If you want to do something, you'll be an expert tomorrow. Expert training. But for the other platforms, it may take more time.

Hannah: Awesome. Thanks, everyone. I think I'll start with one of our audience questions, and Sam, I'll send this to you. We had a question: Are online email deliverability tests accurate in your opinion? We've used MailTester.com and it said we were fine, but I don't know if that's a true test of our spamminess.

Sam: I would push that on to some of these fine folks, because I do calls and texts and some transactional email, but I'm not blasting like I'm sure the rest of these people are. My inbox says that the fundraising experts are going to have a much better insight into email.

Hannah: Oh, thanks, Sam. Does anyone want to take this?

Michelle: I used to know a lot about this and I am definitely not up on the current state. If you asked me this question about 2008, I've got you, but I don't think I'm up on the current state of the world when it comes to email deliverability.

Frank: Same here. I used to use NeverBounce to check deliverability, but it was a while ago when we were doing more mass emailing, and now we don't do it anymore. So I'm not sure I have the greatest tips on this.

Elise N: And I also don't know a lot because the majority of our donors, they opt into getting information from our software. So most of the time they get our emails.

Hannah: Well, thanks everyone for providing a little bit of insight there. Adam, sorry that we weren't able to tackle this question head on. We'll follow up and see if there are any other resources that we can send your way for that one, because I think that's a really interesting question. I think one thing that we've hit on here -- Sam, you mentioned in the last question about sometimes people see all the new trends and try to dive in immediately and adopt everything. And that can be a little bit like whiplash. But what's a good balance and approach for nonprofit professionals to make sure that they're up on the trends, evaluating them, and making sure they know what's happening in technology? So if anyone has any recommendations for staying in the loop with tech trends without necessarily being pulled in any direction immediately -- Sam?

Sam: Well, of course, it'd be doing NXUnite marketing webinars, the way you do it. But I mean, I think Frank said it somewhere -- if you can make a better form or get double the donations, wouldn't you want to make a better form? Have a point to what you're doing.

Hannah: Thanks, Sam. Anybody else want to jump in on this one?

Michelle: I have less of a directly tactical answer. But the main thing that I was thinking about regarding this question is, technology is business strategy at this point. And if at your organization, this is an executive-level thing. People have to care about this. Your technology strategy as an organization can't just live in your IT department because it touches everything. And so really working this into -- get other folks involved and listen to people and really look for those places where things could be optimized or changed. I think it's less important for nonprofits to stay ahead of the curve, again, with the kind of hottest, newest, buzzwordiest thing. Because my experience is that most of the nonprofits that we work with are still somewhere kind of behind the last curve. And so trying to really focus on what's going to make a difference in your organization to catch up with the curve is the most important aspect.

Hannah: Awesome. And I want to make sure -- there was another question that came in the chat. Frank or Elise, if you guys want to jump in on this one. Claudia's question: What is the best way to find out which AI system works best with fundraising software?

Elise N: Well, I don't exactly know, so I was looking forward to hearing some of the other answers. I do know that we utilize certain AI at certain times, but honestly, I don't use it a lot on my side of things. So if anyone has any great ideas, I would love to learn about them.

Frank: Yeah, maybe. So just to be sure, you said, which AI works best with fundraising software? And I think to answer that, you really have to think about the use cases, because there are so many. So there's writing content -- and here you don't necessarily need integration. You can just use ChatGPT and copy-paste. And integration might save you a bit of time. Same with pictures, generating videos -- it's okay not to be integrated. And then think of the use cases that are more complex. Some AI tools can help target donors at the right moments, and that needs to be integrated because otherwise extracting all that data would be too complicated. It really depends on the use case. And probably, asking questions, that connects to the CRM part. And here, if I can connect what Michelle said, the key is having the data in one place where it speaks to your other sources of data. So it's not more about which AI technology fits, but maybe looking at which one is already integrated into your use case. If not, it will be a nightmare to use it.

Hannah: That's super helpful. Sam or Michelle, either of you want to jump in with this one too?

Michelle: Yeah, I think just to say really clearly that the word, the term AI is being used for about 100,000 different things right now because it's the term of the moment. Literally everything is AI now. And so digging through that to know what you actually mean -- the examples that Frank gave, there's the AI for generative, actually creating text, versus the analytics engines. Those are wildly different things. And so the answer is going to be different depending on what you're looking to do.

Sam: In most cases, we have an AI that does sentiment for calls. So if you have outbound calls -- do you have trolls? Do people need training? That's a totally different system than something that would write an email or send it out. So it's really about what is the thing that you need the most help with. But for most stuff, you don't necessarily need integration. If you're just doing content writing or even summarization, the amount of time you'd save versus cutting and pasting it in and out -- the amount of time it would take to set up integration is probably not worth it, because they're going to change their APIs next week anyway. These companies are quick with those API changes. So even integration is not going to be around for who knows how long.

Hannah: Thanks, Sam. Well, appreciate everybody sending in these questions. If you've got any more questions for our panelists, we are going to be dropping a survey in the chat where you can send those in. We will make sure that you can get those to the panelists and get an answer. I think we're going to do one final rapid-fire question before we wrap up, and I really appreciate everybody being here today. Our final question that I will start with you, Elise: What emerging tech trends or innovations are you excited about, and do you think will make the most impact over the next five years? How can nonprofits stay ahead of the curve?

Elise N: I think that's hard because I feel like everything is changing so quickly. And as a nonprofit, we're always doing our best to stay ahead of the curve and be on the forefront in our field. But I think just continuing to see where everything's going -- and going back to AI, we're going to see a lot more of that. Actually, my husband said something to me the other day about jobs eventually being replaced, but then knowing that on the service team, there's that area where it won't be replaced for everything. So I think just having people who are wanting to move ahead and looking at what's next all the time, and being open to change and growth, and even though it is a little scary, it's okay to move into the future.

Hannah: Thanks, Elise. Michelle?

Michelle: Five years is a long time. So I hesitate to answer this question in a predictive way because I think there is so much to still catch up on and to believe that people are ready to be caught up on. Pay attention to what's going on in the world, see what other organizations or companies that you like are doing, and figure out, okay, is there an element of that that would make sense for us to adopt? And not to be afraid of change, basically.

Hannah: Thanks, Michelle. Frank?

Frank: Yeah, I think it's an excellent question. I think the two things that will continue -- that have already happened in the last five years -- are digitalization and the need for more transparency. The need for transparency has come with pressure from donors. They really want to know what you're doing with their money, how impact is being achieved. And I think if I were working at a nonprofit, the one thing I would focus on is ensuring that your community, your donors, really understand how you're spending their money for more impact. And that's really why we started Zeffy, so that $100 given is $100 for impact. And we've seen impressive results not only in fundraising but in communication. Those nonprofits who can say, look, really, we're using a minimal amount wisely and investing it, so that at the end you have the most impact possible with your money. A lot of things will happen -- AI, video with TikTok coming up. But the need for transparency and really demonstrating super clearly the impact -- that would be key, I think.

Hannah: Thanks, Frank. Sam.

Sam: I'll say one more time -- not being locked down to one channel. SMS, 10 DLC regulations -- who knows what T-Mobile will end up doing. But also, if you're working in immigrant communities, maybe more WhatsApp. You're working in European communities, maybe Telegram. There are different places to go. Knowing your audience and being prepared to reach out to them in alternate ways if you're deep in SMS or deep in email. As we see, Google can make a change and upend everyone's email programs. So not being super wedded to a single channel or single provider, being able to be nimble, and going exactly where your audience is rather than expecting that one channel will be perfect for every audience.

Michelle: I actually do have something then, because one of the things that I think we are seeing, related to what Sam was just saying, is -- what is the role of social media in the world? And as a tool for nonprofits to engage with folks. It's really different than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And I think a lot of what we're seeing actually is the kind of platform that this panel is on right now -- Circle. These kind of more cultivated, curated community experiences, rather than just Facebook, everybody come on in. That's probably the trend that I am most interested in right now -- the Discords of the world and the Circles of the world, and that way of building a community and engaging with folks rather than what social media has now become, which is mass market the way that mass market used to be. I think that's an interesting element.

Hannah: Yeah, thanks, Michelle. Well, thanks everybody. We've reached the end of our panel. I just want to say thank you to Frank and Michelle and Sam and Elise for coming and sharing their expertise, also under some technology difficulties. So thanks everybody for hanging with us. I appreciate everybody coming to the panel. We've got more panels coming up over the next few months. So be sure to check those out on the community platform. And looking forward to seeing everybody there. I hope everybody has a great rest of your day. And we'll talk again soon.

Narrator: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Elevate Your Event. A special thank you to NXUnite and Nexus for having us join them on their panel. If you enjoyed our show, please take a moment to leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe for more great content. And if you're a fan of video, check us out on YouTube. Until next time, happy fundraising.