We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

569. The Subscription Economy + Building Subscriptions for Good - Dana Snyder

• We Are For Good • Season 10

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Met Dana. She's a speaker, creator of The Monthly Giving Mastermind, and now the author of a book by the same name. We're diving into the world of recurring giving, where philanthropy and the subscription economy meet💸  Dana's sharing her tips for building a rock-solid monthly giving program. This is the playbook you’ve been waiting for. Tune in and start building your movement of change-makers! 🔥 

💡 Learn

  • About the subscription economy
  • A framework to build, grow & sustain subscriptions for good
  • Challenges + lessons learned building monthly giving programs

Today's Guest

Dana Snyder, Founder + CEO, Positive Equation

Episode Highlights

  • Dana’s story + the work she is doing today (3:50)
  • Tone setting: The Subscription Economy (8:30)
  • How nonprofits can leverage the subscription economy (13:25)
  • How to get started today: Dana’s Monthly Giving Framework (20:05)
  • Challenges and lessons learned (25:30)
  • A powerful moment of philanthropy with this work (31:30)
  • Dana’s One Good Thing: Tell your story to invite everyone to be a philanthropist. (35:10)
  • How to get The Monthly Giving Mastermind book (37:30)

For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/569.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 1:

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2:

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 1:

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 1:

So let's get started. Hey Becky, what's happening?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's probably a three-peat or a four-peat. You know we often say that we have our friend in the house, but, like our BFF is in the house today, dana Snyder, back in the hot seat at we Are For Good and y'all, I hope you are buckled up because we are talking about how to build, grow and sustain subscriptions for good. You may think, why does this apply to me? Well, if you have anyone on recurring giving, monthly giving, these are your people and we are going to be diving deeply into the subscription economy. But first, if this is your first time meeting Dana Snyder, well, lucky you, because you are about to meet one of the most fascinating, loving, brilliant humans that are in our community. We found her in season two and have just had a fast friendship between her company at Positive Equation and we Are For Good. But now she is a speaker, author and creator of the Monthly Giving Mastermind. She has got this incredible book coming out called the Monthly Gifting Mastermind, and y'all.

Speaker 2:

We live in a subscription economy and yet there are so many nonprofits that are just now beginning to unlock the transformative power of recurring donations. And let's talk about what this is going to do. Monthly giving is going to enable all these micro philanthropists to emerge. They're going to start creating a movement of charitable living and impact together, in tandem with each other, and they're looking to your mission to do that. We know you're here for it. Dana has interviewed all of these incredible organizations who have really broken through the playbook and through the noise on this, and we are so excited to give all of that playbook to you today. Dana Snyder, welcome to the. We Are For Good community. Once again, we're so glad. Hey, it's always the best to see you today. Dana Snyder, welcome to the. We Are For Good community. Once again, we're so glad.

Speaker 3:

Hey, it's always the best to see you guys. Yo, from episode 70.

Speaker 2:

Episode 70.

Speaker 3:

And we're almost at 570.

Speaker 2:

I mean literally.

Speaker 3:

Yes, that's insane. I was in our friend's basement. We did not own a house yet we didn't have a baby.

Speaker 1:

Any life changes over there? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:

Small minute life changes. Just a couple.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean you have had some really big things going on, but you have stuck your flag firmly in the ground and we didn't even mention that. Dana has Missions to Movement's podcast, which is truly one of our favorite podcasts, talking about how do you take this sort of nonprofit you have and you think of it as this sort of standalone, monolithic thing, and how do you reorient your brain to understand that it is a movement and today I feel like the monthly giving movement is a movement. You have been watching this from your purview, so fill us in on all things that you're working on right now and what's really led you to this moment to kind of want to double click on the subscription economy and monthly giving frameworks.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, for sure, I mean A thank you for calling out the podcast. I'm largely inspired by you, two individuals Launched in 2022 and it's just been so fun to see it soar. So, yeah, if you're interested in going behind the feed of marketing is what I call it for Purpose Good, check it out. So it's really interesting, actually when I think back to when we first met, because it all kind of ties into the subscription economy. So I became a monthly donor for Dressember. They're an anti-human trafficking organization. I now I just had Blythe Hill, the founder, on my podcast recently to talk about. They went through a merger and acquisition with IJM, which I think is freaking brilliant.

Speaker 2:

International justice mission for everybody else? Yes, so good.

Speaker 3:

So I started giving to them in 2021. And, at the same time, I joined a mastermind for my business because, like so many of others, 2021 was pretty rough right, we were still very much in the thick of the pandemic and I am a solopreneur and I was questioning a lot of decisions. Business was rocky and I just wasn't sure where I was going to go next. So, fast forward, I invested in a mastermind. It was five figures. It was a big investment for me at the time. It was like very scary and I absolutely loved it. Like I was surrounded by peers. I was surrounded by people who were much further along in their business and really like I just idolized and was so excited to be in the room with them. And for a year, we grew together and so, as I'm in this mastermind, every single month we had calls. Every single month. I'm getting an email from just December about my impact and this mastermind concept I kept thinking about with the nonprofits that I was working for, because at the time, I was working very much one-on-one with people and I was like gosh, if only like they could see what so-and-so is doing and they knew what this person was saying and this person could partner with this person, yes, and community, yes.

Speaker 3:

And so the mastermind idea, still to this day, is I do a ton of webinars and I always lead with do you know what a mastermind is? And most organizations say, no, they've never heard of what a mastermind is. And so it's this peer-to-peer collection of people coming together Usually it's in a smaller group to share ideas, to support each other, to share life experiences right, and usually pay for them to be a part of them from a business perspective. And so I just like had this idea and this like brings us to where we are of like, creating a mastermind, but for monthly giving, because I loved my experience as a monthly donor and, to your point about micro philanthropists, I felt like I could finally feel like a philanthropist, because all the years, even when I worked for a non-profit, we never talked about monthly giving. Back in 2011, really, it wasn't talked about same with us?

Speaker 3:

yeah, it was never. We always tried to get people to like give the same gift again a year later. Right, but definitely not like a monthly cadence.

Speaker 2:

Spent $2.40 per piece to get that direct mail back out there. Why yeah?

Speaker 3:

seriously or an event.

Speaker 2:

Or let's call it an event or an event.

Speaker 3:

Right, which that's sustainable. So I was like anti-human trafficking felt like such a huge it is a huge problem and I was like how will a one-time $50, $25 gift do anything is what I felt. And so I was like, but ooh, they launched a monthly giving program and so I was like if my gift is then multiplied by hundreds of people, then yeah, that can actually do something. And so I'm still a monthly donor to Dressumber, which I think is like the coolest thing. I'm a data point on the retention.

Speaker 2:

Subject line move up.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, yes, yes all the things so like fast forward. I have been running the Monthly Giving Mastermind for the past two years and now that I've had so many different organizations through it and then I interviewed a bunch of organizations for the book and the book, the reason I'm calling it is the Monthly Giving Mastermind is I want to invite people into this mastermind to be part of this bigger community learning from each other. So, in subscriptions, the reason why I think this is all working now culturally and we can talk about the subscription economy a little bit more in the nitty gritty the culture of subscriptions is everywhere, like it's very common. The technology of the nonprofit space has significantly changed to make it possible for occurring giving to be front and center. And then also there's just natural like human behavior of, like our habits, how we express ourselves, personal brand is way more popular now than it used to be. I think it's basically this culmination of those three things that make it like this is the moment of why now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean okay. This is why I jokingly, but very seriously, call you Dana visionary Snyder, because you always like see things before others, and I love how you've brought these kinds of big ideas and you've started a bigger conversation just about this and so many nonprofits that overlap in our community too. So thank you for like waving the torch about this. You're kind of leading us into here with about the subscription economy.

Speaker 1:

I mean, let's talk about what could be unlocked, and I love that you're so intentional to call it a subscription program, you know, because I think even the language matters here. Why are you calling it that and what's possible as nonprofits, you know, move in this direction.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So subscription is? It's a literal revenue stream, right? So for you organizations, it's a new revenue stream, it's a predictable and it's a sustainable revenue stream. It creates a super fan community, very similar to subscriptions that we are all a part of. It allows you to create a diverse donor base of supporters of all different price points right, can come into that. It also allows you the opportunity to find your next major donors in that community because they are in it for the long haul, which I think is a point that's not talked about as much, and we bring this up a lot in the book.

Speaker 3:

And then subscriptions for good. If you really think about it is the reason that we subscribe to things is we all, most of the time, want to do good, but heck, we are busier than ever before, like in the world, and so it's honestly easy Set it and forget it. We want to hear from the impact, but it's we want to feel good about ourselves and giving. So instead of like having to go out and find something, let's just subscribe to it so that it's constantly a part of our lives and who we are.

Speaker 2:

I just think you put that so simply and it is of the moment and we all can relate. I mean, I'm literally going through the Rolodex of my head of okay, I've got my Netflix, I've got Spotify, I've got Starbucks, I have my Patreon with humans of New York that just comes out and it's like $3 a month. And I think what I valued so much is you didn't just go out and write a book. You literally sat down with all of these nonprofits like International Justice Mission, Miri's List, Tim Tebow Foundation, like Daily Giving Charity Water, like all ones that we know and we're watching right now, and they got on this I would say like this train really early on and they're yielding the fruit of that.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and no.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay, dispel that myth, go for it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah yeah, I will say like part of what I wanted to do is I have not been working for a nonprofit in one for a very long time. Right, I know we've all been outside of working in a nonprofit for a while. So I wanted to bring all of those voices into the conversation of yes, I've been teaching this framework based upon all the experiences I've had over the years, from the marketing agency side to storytelling on a national stage with Idol and all these things. Right, american Idol for those that missed, it.

Speaker 2:

That's a great one. Go back to that. You'll hear more about that.

Speaker 3:

So there's been lots of experiences that have built and I am a donor myself, right. So then it's entering that but I wanted to have the voices of organizations that you may have heard of and might not have heard of, so the small ones that I know. You're going to be interviewing Gloria, which I'm, like, so excited for from the Hope Booth Hope.

Speaker 3:

Booth yes, she just started their monthly giving, so I think at the time of our conversation they maybe had 20-something monthly donors all the way to, yes, the IJMs the charity waters of the world that have thousands and thousands of them. Ijms the Charity Waters of the world that have thousands and thousands of them All perspectives and all different types of causes to be shared. What comes up with? A lot of them, surprisingly, Charity Water was actually around, for I think it was seven or eight years before or was it 10? Somewhere in there, seven to 10 years before they launched the spring.

Speaker 3:

Most of these organizations did not launch with a monthly giving program for a lot of the reasons I talked about. Like tech wasn't there, they had to. Charity Water had to build a lot of tech themselves to be as innovative as they were at the time, which now they say is way easier to do because these things now exist. They never would have built things from scratch. So, yes and no. So some orgs started, as daily giving is an example of that. They only ask for recurring donations. It's actually pretty hard to find the opportunity to give one time on their website, but that's their why. Yeah. So yes and no to what you said, so I share all different ones you might know about, ones you might not know about, and small to enterprise.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for dispelling that, because you might be a really tiny nonprofit listening to this right now thinking like I cannot get my monthly giving up to the level of charity water with 70,000 members or whatever they're at right now.

Speaker 3:

Nor should that be your tentpole of success for you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes. So let's get into that, let's dig into the psychology of this. How can nonprofits really leverage that mindset to really get behind subscription services and increase that retention and engagement through these monthly giving programs? Totally.

Speaker 3:

Well, first of all, a little bit of just like thought behind. You mentioned some of your subscriptions. The subscription economy has grown 435% in nine years and is on target to be a $1.5 trillion industry next year. So there's a reason why we've seen this boom in the past 10 years. And so, if you really think about it, it started from like SaaS products like Adobe, salesforce, canva, so many of us use as a subscription. I had the head of subscriptions, rich Fleming. He's amazing in Australia be part of the monthly giving summit. He built monthly giving programs before he came to Canva, which is just like super cool that they hired him for that. Food delivery services, clothing rentals, stitch Fix, nuuly, of course, to entertainment. And so 15 years ago, the term subscription economy was actually coined by Tan Zhao, and we now, as consumers, crave and favor access over ownership of something.

Speaker 2:

Newly is an example of this.

Speaker 3:

I have an affinity I love anthropology clothes. My wallet does not. So therefore, if I subscribe to Nuuly as a clothing rental, I can rent Anthropologie clothes and other brands that I cannot technically afford. Turo, I am renting a Love Turo. No, I'm renting an Audi to go to Nashville for a speaker conference. I cannot afford an Audi. However, I get to rent it for the trip, actually at a cheaper price than like enterprise was going to charge me for a Honda. So a good subscription. The psychology behind what you need that we buy into all the time with our wallets for subscriptions is a clear value prop. Clear value proposition. What are you providing? What is the audacious, big mission vision that you're sharing? How do you get people on board? Two seamless onboarding process this is in the book. I call it make it easy. So each of these kind of float with the chapters, you need to have a recurring payment system that's easy to also manage for people.

Speaker 2:

Yes, make generosity frictionless.

Speaker 3:

That was one of our trends this year.

Speaker 2:

Please keep going, that's right.

Speaker 3:

Relationships over transactions is huge. The psychology behind subscriptions and what's making the really good ones sore is personalization. So knowing who they are talking to them, how they want to be communicated with, with their gifts every month and then five, is really exceptional customer service, and I think this is so funny. Actually, Today I am a member of Orange Theory, my local Orange Theory.

Speaker 2:

Oh, so is Julie.

Speaker 3:

Yep, there you go, and I got a phone call and today and they said, hey, we haven't seen you in a month. Tells you about my workout habits lately Been a little busy.

Speaker 2:

Red Mill Orange Theory back off.

Speaker 3:

Luckily it's been nice outside so I have been running. However, they called me to say we haven't seen you in a month, Wanted to check in on how you're doing, Can't wait to see you in an upcoming class. Now from the business side, I know they're thinking if, in our data, if she doesn't attend a class, what's the percentage likely she's going to cancel on us? Yeah, so they want me to come back and have a good experience. However, they are also obviously looking at their CRM and they're making notes and I mentioned to them I had an injury like a few weeks ago, so I bet you they're making a note. And she said well, we'll check up on you in a couple of weeks and see how you're feeling. That level of exceptional customer service, personalization, goes unmatched and you're doing that at scale. Something to that obviously is they have a person to do that.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I think it's like bridging, because I was very much in the annual giving lane and now it does seem funny to talk about. We only wanted a gift once a year.

Speaker 1:

It's like when you could have a gift and this cadence and this rhythm of like all the time giving but, we always talked about trying to bridge, Like it makes sense for major gifts officers to have these relationships when you start to have a portfolio of a thousand recurring donors. You know you got to lean into some of these systems to be able to do that, but it is possible now with tech that wouldn't have been possible just a few years back, which is really exciting.

Speaker 3:

And I love what you said about like you had a role for that for annual giving, it's very common, major gifts very common. I'm hoping what we're going to start to see are sustainer roles, like somebody specifically hired to manage monthly recurring gifts to be able to do some of these things as your program scales and grows.

Speaker 2:

And just engagement. Somebody that's watching engagement, because I think you preach this so often and so I probably have you in my head, but it's like if you're going to have a movement Sorry about that.

Speaker 2:

No, I need your voice in my head all the time. It saves me from my own voice. But it's like you need something that's cataloging movement and action and I mean we have had that drilled into us as fundraisers like put the action in a contact report. Well, actually, rather than writing a long thing, I'm not going to like dog on contact reports, even though we all know that I was awful at them and I own that. But it's also like somebody needs to be watching this journey, this engagement journey. Where are they stopping? Where are they pausing along the way? Where are they opening that email? When are they showing up? When are they clicking on something? And even looking at that data is going to inform a very unique journey. And you're right, john, to your point. You can't do that for thousands of people, but your tech can certainly get some flags in there for things that are very interesting, that may deserve a hand touch, and that is all the difference.

Speaker 3:

Your CRMs like dependent upon, obviously, which one you use have the power and the ability to give you this. It's being able to understand the insights and then figure out what to do with them. I think that also like to the very beginning of your question of like, why am I doing this work now? I think it intersects that, like kooky, I love data tech side of me with the heart of giving, and monthly giving is literally at that intersect of allowing everyone to become a philanthropist because of the cool tech that we now have and in finding those journeys and nuances.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you've started to walk us through your framework, so good. Where, would you say, someone starts? You know, if you're listening today and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel like 12 years behind hearing y'all talk today Like what's a good starting place to just kind of get yourself out there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so if you're writing notes, um, there's just or at least, talking about tech, somebody shared with me that they use a notes. There's like an app that you can download to get notes of a podcast. I don't know if you guys have heard of this. It like pulls notes on the last like 30 seconds and you can. Yeah Anyways.

Speaker 3:

But if you don't have that fancy thing like I don't either the framework that's in the book and then I promise I will answer your question on how to get started is create the product is number one, and I say product because I believe a monthly giving program should have a name. It needs a budget, it has a brand, it needs to have staffing behind it. Like it is a product, it is an additional revenue stream for your organization. Two is make it easy, which is the tech, and make it easy with a landing page for itself. Three is calling the believers. All about the super fans, all about your copy, your values, aligned partnerships. Four. Then you actually find that getting around to like making the ask and that's calling people in to give. And how do you do that and market it. And then five is share constant joy and gratitude. So good A monthly giving program is only as good as the retention. So you mentioned the Tim Tebow Foundation and they. I know you've also had Kyle on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hi, kyle, so he's amazing, yeah, and that program's fantastic.

Speaker 3:

Fire. They're on fire, right and so. But they were having some like retention hiccups and so I met with them and we worked through a plan and we talked about how can we because you don't want to keep growing a program if there's like crux and like something happening in the retention wheel but for how to get started today, I would literally, if you do not have a program, start talking about it. Either that's with yourself, with your leadership, with your team get the buy-in for it. I joke in my book about saying that you need to be like the chief monthly giving officer at your organization, to like make sure that it's important to the cause and then figure out why you want a monthly giving program and what's the structure for your program. And I list a couple of questions in the book on how to walk through that and how to configure it. But for instance, two organizations that I've brought up just as examples Dressember was around for years as a peer-to-peer campaign, so all of their funding basically came in playing off.

Speaker 3:

Dressember December came in between October through January and then they were like trying to get people to remember them all year to then give again at the end of the year. So they realized we need a monthly giving program for this impact to happen all year round. So that's their why, that was their structure, that's why they needed it. Daily Giving right. On another hand sure, that's why they needed it Daily Giving right. On another hand, they launched with Recurring Giving in 2021, I believe, and they have like 16,000 recurring donors right now and they decided we only are going to have Recurring Giving because we want to basically serve our members. Our purpose is, yes, the impact of where their gift is going, but that's second. The actual intent is that we are providing the opportunity for our members to give back every single day and do good, which I think is so cool and so different.

Speaker 3:

So that's their why and their structure is very different. So I would think about today what is that for you?

Speaker 2:

Such a good starting place and actually it's very serendipitous that we're having this conversation on the day that we publicly launched our membership for the Impact Uprising and it really does have our wheels spinning because it's about value. Back to what you were saying about it's about belonging, it's about identity and giving is identity and this concept of micro philanthropy is such a brilliant idea and it's having such a season right now. And I thank you for talking about the brand. I know you knew I was going to say something about the marketing because I'll bring up an example. You know I belong to. She's the First Monthly Giving and the brand for their monthly giving is called the Front Row.

Speaker 2:

They want their members to feel like they are on the front row of girls' education issues around the world, and I get these incredible monthly updates about-.

Speaker 3:

And doesn't that make you feel like some sort of way?

Speaker 2:

My gosh. I'm telling you. They have DM'd me, they have asked me would I run the New York City Marathon on their behalf, which is they know that that is like a life goal for me and it's like man. I feel really seen in this organization and I've been a member for years. But I just think that having identity wrapped around, that, having intentional plans, makes people feel that they're a part of something bigger.

Speaker 2:

It's not like my Netflix, where I set it and forget it. I want to be delighted by that joy that you're a part of something bigger. It's not like my Netflix, where I set it and forget it. I want to be delighted by that joy that you're talking about those moments of inspiration, the moment of oh crap, what is happening in Ghana and how do I get involved in this right now? So surely, in all of this research that you've been doing, you've kind of found some challenges that people have and maybe some lessons learned, and so can you kind of unveil those for us, like what kind of challenges do nonprofits commonly face, Like when they're starting to build and sustain their monthly giving programs, and how have you found that they could better overcome them?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean such a good question. The first one is getting over that initial hurdle of buy-in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Literally just making the decision to have it. I think this is an interesting question, that I literally received this question what if our one-time donations go down for launching a monthly giving program? And I said Clutch pearls.

Speaker 1:

Well okay.

Speaker 3:

Well, that would be a I'm not quite sure the negative there. That would be exceptional if people turned to regular giving instead. I've heard concerns about losing major donors, and how I always position it is in. Cubby Graham from Charity Water literally talks about this for them, that it's not only a pool, but also, let's just say I was to go and ask you for $500, john and I said would you donate $500? And you'd be like, oh no, it's really a lot. Right now. You know what? We have a monthly giving program. What if we broke that out into 12 payments over the year? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that seems way doable. I'm down for that Right. And then now it's not just a one-time 500. Now you're giving that individual broken up over, hopefully, multiple years to come, so it gives you the opportunity to find new major donors in that pool. An organization I'm working right now in our mastermind program said he had two monthly donors that ended up giving endowments to their nonprofit that he had like no idea. Yeah, it's the ultimate right. So buy-in is really important.

Speaker 3:

Tech is a challenge. You really need to ask your existing platforms what their functionality is. Regarding recurring, the biggest struggle I see is you want to have an automated, at least email series that says thank you, over the course of a month, hopefully, then every single month, that at least an initial welcome series of four-ish emails to get you started. And a lot of times because this just happened with multiple organizations in my mastermind they'll pick a tech tool and then forget that this email tool needs to connect to that thing Yep, and either they're not natively integrated or then you have to connect using Zapier.

Speaker 3:

So basically, not picking the right tech for a seamless experience. There are many that exist that do talk to each other. You just want to make sure that you're making it easy on yourself, especially to scale. And then, lastly, is airtime. They don't a lot of challenges is the marketing. They don't want to give the monthly giving program enough airtime for it to actually grow and do something it's like. Well, I sent out an email keyword, one email, and hopefully everybody opens it and sees it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, you got to like blast that thing. You talk about it at every single event. Make it the ass, talk about it on Giving Tuesday, talk about it in your snail mail. Literally, you cannot talk about things enough because of how busy we all are. Do not take it as a personal and this is so hard to do because I do the same thing, like why is nobody answering? Why are they not joining Impact Uprising? Why are they not clicking the button? And it's because my daughter Kennedy, decided to toke on me, like beforehand, or I had to go right. Real life things just happen, and so do not feel bad by constantly telling people about what it is, because it might take them seven, eight, nine times before they actually, or cultural moment might happen. That is like, ah yes, I feel passionate about that. Therefore, I'm going to run to this organization that's doing something about it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, okay, this is stirring up a lot of things, but, as our friend Seth Godin would encourage us to, like, create the tension. Casual, our friend, I feel like he's. I've been reading his books so long. We're trying to start. We think like him, but it's like to create the tension, the FOMO of like look at what this community's done like you want to be part of this thing and totally what interviewed scott harrison, so I'm sure he and cubby are very like, connected on this.

Speaker 1:

But he really positioned it too is like this is the gateway to some bigger activations of major donors. Because if you have a community that's thriving and tens of thousands of members, how much more confidently can you walk into a major gift investor-minded human to say maybe we have 20,000 people? That are making this type of monthly gift that are in sync with us, and so it's like the barbell effect, I think is what he called it.

Speaker 1:

So I love this, dana. I love that you're like becoming a champion of this, because it just makes so much sense and it's a path to more sustainability and growth and community and all the things that we love.

Speaker 3:

Honestly, like the coolest thing so far that I've done that's new as of this year is I created a sustainer Slack channel and there's about 80 nonprofits in there right now and the whole premise of the Slack channel is for peer-to-peer monthly giving. They have monthly giving programs. We're looking to grow them. They share ideas and brainstorms. We do like live Q&A chats every month and it's been so cool Like the things that people are sharing and the questions and then how the community I mean I'm sure you see this in yours too the support that just like bubbles up into the threads. There's advice, that people. It's amazing and I'm just like this is so cool and it's all recurring giving specific. So that's been like talking about a mastermind. I've been trying to, in all different ways, cultivate that experience.

Speaker 2:

Again, you're creating community for community, for people to come into community and feel seen, community is the answer. I just think that monthly giving is one of the most untapped areas of our work. It's having such a moment Now is the time You've hosted this monthly giving summit, you've doubled down into the book. I just want to know, in all this research, what is the story that stayed with you, what is something that really had you thinking, yes, this is the way, oh gosh.

Speaker 3:

Well I think it's all kind of come full circle when I think about attended an event. Actually, I was part of a community called Yellow Co and it was when I lived in Los Angeles. I was just starting Positive Equation, my company, seven years ago and it was a conference. And Vera Leung do you know her? She used to work at IJM.

Speaker 2:

No, okay.

Speaker 3:

She was like the creative director I think she now is with another organization, but she was a speaker. She went on stage. I was not yet a recurring donor, I don't think I knew. I think I maybe briefly knew about Dress Embrace, but this is just how weird how this all unravels together. So she went on stage.

Speaker 3:

She shared a video from IJM of like cyber trafficking of a young child, and I remember afterwards she made an ask on stage for our room of maybe I think there was maybe like 150 women there to become a freedom partner, which is IJM's monthly giving program, and hands just rose everywhere and they had a partnership with I don't know if it was giving keys, maybe where, if you gave in that moment of if it was 40 or $50 a month, you would receive like a necklace that had like the freedom partner on it. And I just remember looking around and being like this is so I deeply moved by the video in which you talked about, but then this is so cool to see also like this female entrepreneurship community that I'm a part of that also has values of giving back and being on purpose and like just to feel like you were like okay, I'm in the right room, right now and then now In the room where it happened In the room where it happened.

Speaker 3:

That's right. And then so to see I don't know if she gained 50 monthly donors in that moment. And then fast forward seven years now, IJM acquiring Dressumber, that I am a monthly donor of, and I didn't stop giving. Instead, I'm like Blythe, this is awesome. Like, instead of closing the doors because you were struggling with resources and bandwidth and all the hurdles that we're up against, you went with a global partner that can just like completely blow up the scale of what you're doing. And so when she sent out the message to 200,000 of us that Dress Emperor had worked with, I was hands down like oh yeah, I'm in, all over again.

Speaker 2:

Like how crazy is that Like renewed your love that is so full circle. Way to go. Dressumber, that was a really cool merger.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and so I think way more organizations need to think about doing that. Because she didn't care about, she took away her founder's hat right, and the ego and that can come with that, and pride and all that and sadness. I'm sure we talk about it, but she said it was more important for her to do what it set out to do, which is to change the lives of all these women.

Speaker 2:

So super cool, I mean I want to join women, so super cool. I mean I want to join.

Speaker 1:

You chose the word call in the believers which we you know we love. This is like baked into the values here, but I'm like this is what we're leaving on the table, like, if you can't get there, that you don't think it's enough financial change in the first two months when you launch your program. It's like this is a way to activate and just gather your greatest believers, that they get to be part of this and it is going to grow into something and snowball into something like. What a beautiful story. I got lots of emotions stirring up over here but, my friend, we're starting to wind down. You know, we're going to ask you for a one good thing. What's on your mind that you'd want to share with our community? Could be a mantra, be a new Dana visionary Snyder hack that you want to share with giving the magic little secret.

Speaker 3:

So really, surely I would say it's tell your story, listener, like your unique personal story, to invite everyone to be a philanthropist and make sure that you set your needle of success to be with you and what you're doing, and not the organization who's been doing this for 10 years and then feel defeat, like set it where you are at. I think I have to consciously really do that all the time, but like know that your success is your success and like dignified in that if it's one donor cool, amazing that's one individual that you're changing for the world. So tell your story, invite everybody in, set the right success metrics for you.

Speaker 3:

That's like three good things.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing good things. Please do all those things and do them in sequential order, because I think the last thing that's going to come to you is you're going to find your people. You're going to find your people who saw themselves in your story, who also feel the same passion about the thing that you're talking about as you do, and, like a little synapse, like you guys, are brought together and those are the type of people we want to be surrounded with. Those are the people we want to have allies in this life. And so, dana, you just helped everybody find their people, live their truth, and y'all you can do it in a monthly giving mastermind. You can do it with literally anything. So people are going to want to know how to get their hands on this book. They're going to want to know how they can get connected to you. Spill all the tea. Do you remember when Dana live in a coaching, had to tell us what spill the tea was?

Speaker 2:

Because, we didn't know. Do you guys remember that?

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh so old.

Speaker 3:

I know we're so not cool.

Speaker 2:

And she said Zapier or something, and I'm like are we hicks?

Speaker 3:

We call it Zapier.

Speaker 2:

So we are so unbranded.

Speaker 3:

No, it is definitely Zapier. You're right, bring us back.

Speaker 2:

Bring us back, help people find this book, tell us about this Just positiveequationcom forward slash book.

Speaker 3:

If you go to positiveequationcom, you can also just find it Book at the top. It's on Amazon, it's on Barnes, noble Search, wherever you go to buy your book. I know so strange.

Speaker 2:

I've already pre-ordered it. I cannot wait. I want you to sign it for me. I do think that this is going to be one of those books for the sector that is, a book for the ages. I think it's going to shift so many things. If you have someone who is in that engagement space, that annual giving space, that recurring giving, that innovator, buy them this book. Buy them this book for Christmas, for their birthday. It will be a gift that gives on. My friend, we love you and adore you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for adding this to the sector and being just exactly the person you are.

Speaker 3:

Grateful for you guys. Appreciate it.