Episode notes:

• Follow Woodrow on LinkedIn

• Learn more about GivingTuesday

• Access resources and best practices for GivingTuesday 2024

• Check out New Power by Henry Timms

• Read about data standardization in the nonprofit sector

• Dig into GivingTuesday’s Data Commons

• Check out other organizations working on data for nonprofits: Candid, Impala, Charity Navigator, and Philanthropy Data Commons

• Learn more about GivingTuesday’s 990 Project

• Read GivingTuesday’s Lookback Report

• Explore GivingTuesday’s Giving Pulse hub

• Learn about GivingTuesday’s partner RKD Group and read the GivingPulse Field Guide

• Get takeaways from the recent GivingPulse Report

• Read the Generosity Commission Report

• Check out the Dollars and Change Report

• Read the full report - Civic Intent: A Deeper Dive on Civic Engagement Using the U.S. GivingPulse Survey. Read the key takeaways in GivingTuesday’s memo.

Transcript:

This transcript was automatically generated.

For a long time, accessing and utilizing data has been one of the biggest challenges impacting philanthropy.

Luckily, there are organizations working to address the challenge, not just for themselves, but for the whole sector.

GivingTuesday is one organization leading the way forward.

Welcome to Impact Audio. I'm Sam Caplan, Vice President of Social Impact at Submittable.

Joining me today is Woodrow Rosenbaum, Chief Data Officer of GivingTuesday.

He's spent the last eight years helping to guide the data strategy that's transformed a grassroots movement into a trusted global institution.

Today, he shares how GivingTuesday built their data approach, what the sector still needs, and what the future of nonprofit data might look like.

Woodrow Rosenbaum, welcome to Impact Audio. I'm super excited to have you, man. It's been a long time coming, and I'm, so glad that we were able to finally get together and have a fun conversation.

Yeah. Me too, Sam. It's I it's always a pleasure to chat with you. This is the first time we've done it recorded, but, yeah, it's always good good to connect.

That's right. So let's start a little bit. Just tell me about you and your background, your your role at Giving Tuesday, and really anything that you'd like to share about the organization that you work at.

Sure. Happy to. I think, you know, most people know of Giving Tuesday as a day of the year where people celebrate generosity and there's lots of fundraising activity happens in, more than a hundred countries in the world where we have official Giving Tuesday movement leaders.

Giving Tuesday is also more than that. It's, it's, an organization and a movement to build capacity in the social sector to both inspire more and leverage people's generosity.

And my role in that as chief data officer is to lead the team that examines all of the ways that people give and leverage their giving to make change in the world. So we look at the really kind of high fidelity trends in nonprofit fundraising and resource mobilization, but we also look at all of the ways that people give and all of the motivations for that, try to really get a holistic view of what that generosity ecosystem is like.

Yeah. Like, my my recollection of the history here is that Giving Tuesday, it felt like it had this very grassroots beginning.

And and there was this hashtag, and, you know, suddenly, everybody was making charitable donations on a certain day of the year. And now when I look at Giving Tuesday, man, it feels like this really, sort of more formal, structured, smart organization.

Can you tell me a little, like, how has things evolved at Giving Tuesday from, like, my earliest recollection of just the hashtag to where things are now?

I mean, I think part of the beauty of Giving Tuesday is how it's so much both and increasingly both. So it's you know, we, we describe it as distributed leadership.

Giving Tuesday is co created by thousands of people around the world who work on this movement and use it for outcomes that are relevant to the place that they are, every day. And that happens around the world, and we support that. We support that with a centralized organization that's a five one c three in the US and five global hubs, but we're not running it. This is not a kind of franchise model.

We're not exporting this. We're really learning from that vast network of people and organizations who are coming together. And so what we do is we observe what these best practices are and we help those various actors that network connect to each other. So it's not it's not, it does have a lot of formalized structure.

I mean, my my team at the Giving Tuesday Data Commons, like, thirty five data scientists and data engineers who are building that infrastructure to support the learning and, and support data driven interventions.

But we're, we are really co creating this, whether it's our, our collaborative research efforts or the movement more broadly.

This really is still grassroots and it is grown and created by people who are actually in those communities, not by us and and then exported to those places.

Yeah. To speak about that just a little bit more, like, I'm really curious. How do you incorporate people from the community into into what you're doing? Like, we both used the term now movement, and it really feels like a movement that is occurring, in charitable giving here. And I really do love that this started, you know, in a much more sort of grassroots way than many, like, large charitable organizations evolve. So tell me, like, how how do you incorporate those people and their perspectives into the work that everyone's doing at the organization?

Yeah. So I think what's one of the things that's critical to that is is this idea of hand raisers that this movement is grown by the people who show up, raise their hand to to take it on and to build some component of it.

And we don't direct that we observe it, and we, and we create connections. But if you just think about even the scale of this thing, our total staff is less than seventy people distributed across nineteen countries.

There are one hundred and five now official country movements and in each one hundreds and thousands of of individuals and organizations and our groups that are creating that, that impact. And and for some of them, it's about running a Giving Tuesday campaign. But increasingly, it's about many, many more outcomes, for from sort of, civil society resilience to, peace and reconciliation to all kinds of of outcomes or people are leveraging a generosity movement for what matters to them in that in those communities.

It's been described, by actually, Henry Timbs, who was one of the founders of Giving Tuesday along with ASHA.

You know, one of the things he said was, it's not a movement if it doesn't move without you, and that is really true. This we are we're not an organization seeking, localized, leadership. We are an organization that is there to support a growing grassroots, localized leadership network.

And hen Henry Tims is the new power guy. Right? Henry Tims. Yes. Author of new power.

That's right. Yeah. And it's absolutely one of my favorite books over the last, ten or twelve years. I don't remember exactly how long it's been out, but, I'm very much a grassroots kinda guy myself.

And so to hear Henry describe this concept of new power and how it flows like a current, and really just describing the power of movements and and the capability of people coming together to achieve great things. Like, to me, a lot of that is reflected in the work that GivingTuesday, has has done over the years. So I'm super excited that it has continued to maintain that sort of new power, grassroots movement feel even as the organization has evolved. And you mentioned that you have, like, twenty five data scientists, which is really mind blowing to me.

Let's talk a little bit about the role of of data at Giving Tuesday. So, like, why is data so important to to the work of the organization? And and really maybe just give us a little bit of background around, like, how your organization evolved over the years.

I mean, like, so much that is Giving Tuesday, we didn't set out to build this vast collaborative research institute.

We didn't set out to kinda reinvent how data was being done in the social sector.

We were trying to measure something very specific, and we ran into the, the issues with data and the nonprofit sector that it's opaque, it's siloed, it's, it's inaccessible. There's a lot of received wisdom. There was just, we were running into all of those challenges that exist.

And to just answer the questions that we had, we we had to solve some of those problems for ourselves.

Because we were having some success at that, we ended up with data assets that enabled us to answer questions beyond just what is happening on this day in the US. And so now and I will say that, you know, some of this was really about intentionally taking a different approach to solving these problems. One of the first things we did was look at how are people solving the, trying to solve these problems of data in the nonprofit sector? What, what, what attempts have been made and really identified that there are kind of three best practices that have been deployed for decades now, that were considered the right way to do it. And they just kinda always didn't work.

And so we really took a very intentionally different approach to how we were gonna build this in order. Again, initially, just to try to answer our own questions Because we had made progress, we ended up being able to broaden this this, this, investigation much more beyond just this intervention. And sir, certainly. So why is it important?

Well, one, because our goal is to empower our network to make change and to do that, we need data in order for them to make data informed decisions. We need to understand what is happening in this movement, which is not an easy thing to do because of its distributed nature. It is a lot of it is opaque to us, right? There are millions of people doing things and we don't have a direct relationship with most of those people.

So that's a, that is a measurement challenge. On the other hand, the things you have to do, the things that must be true in order to shed light on that, create an opportunity to, for a lot more learning. And so now the data commons works at three sort of main pillars of inquiry. We look at resource mobilization, largely looking at sort of the donation and funding landscape for nonprofits.

Although also more broadly than that crucially, we have built both methodology and products for measuring many more dimensions of generosity to really look at how the holistic ecosystem that is generous action. What are these behaviors? How do they intersect and interact? What motivates them and what are their impacts both to get more, but also to enable and empower the people who are coming together to give in their communities and to inform the discourse around that in the sector.

And the third component is looking at our own movement under trying to learn from this movement. What is working? How does information flow through this network and, and some related topics like how do.

How do dynamic networks of people form around crisis and conflict in order to both mitigate and recover from those, from those moments and trying to inform things like international aid distribution with much better data about the ways in which people are solving problems in their own communities. So those are sort of three pillars of research, and we work with thousands of collaborators, in the US and around the world to help answer questions that will directly inform the practice of nonprofit and social sector practitioners.

It's pretty incredible. And I'm glad that you're focused on on those three pillars and and methodology and thinking about the right metrics and measures and really how you, like, translate all of that into describing outcomes.

It feels like in the nonprofit sector to the to the point you made earlier, like, data has been, in my estimation, the biggest single challenge that we have faced, as a sector. And I come from the funder side of the house. And when I look at so many grant making organizations and so many of them are collecting different types of data and using it in different ways, they're describing progress in different ways. They ask their nonprofit partners to often adhere to their bespoke data methodologies.

And it's a little disheartening because it feels so difficult to ever be able to, like, take a look at the big picture. So when we have fifty funders or five hundred funders who are all working in the same cause area, when we really wanna understand what sort of progress is being made, it's it's difficult if oftentimes not impossible because they all have different metrics, measures, methodologies, processes.

Do you feel that the work that you're doing at GivingTuesday can be extrapolated out to help many of the organizations, whether they're funders or nonprofits, begin to standardize or create, you know, think about data in similar ways?

So, I mean, the short answer is yes. It is a little bit more complex than that. I think, you know so one of the things that we observe one of the three ways that we saw these efforts fail in the past was, when when the solution that is brought to the table is standardization.

So standards and standardization are helpful, and having compatible data is essential.

The challenge is that, you know, so many times in the sector and it's not, it's not confined to the nonprofit sector. But there are reasons why it's particularly challenging in the nonprofit sector.

The approach was, well, if we create a data standard and everybody adheres to it, then we'll have great data. And we see time and time again, that they're usually, and there are exceptions, but there usually is not enough incentive to get everybody to convert to a standard. And so then you're at, you end up with building some sort of technical infrastructure that isn't getting used.

So, yeah, we need to standardize data. We need to make it compatible and data standards and models are tools to assist with that. But our approach was, was kind of twofold first relationship first. Like we really focus on what is the value proposition for participating with us and ensuring that we have a path to deliver on that.

And it's not the same as shared outcomes. It means individual benefit for our collaborators, whether they're for profit organizations or nonprofits that it's mission mission, and, and, an outcome forward. Right? Like what are they getting by participating?

And then secondly, we try to do the hard work of standardization and normalization on our end. And that's had a couple of benefits. One is it lowers the barrier to entry, right? Like the organize it, we're not. You don't have to change anything, give it to us. However, you've got it. We will figure it out.

Now, ostensibly, that kind of limits what you can do because the first time you get a bunch of stuff that's incompatible garbage, it's very limited what you can do.

But it is so often the difference between being able to do something and not being able to do anything. Right.

Interestingly, two other outcomes, evolve from that one is standards start to emerge.

And because you're taking a lowest barrier iterative approach, people can actually start to, this is really something we've seen. They start to adapt.

And secondly, we've developed some really outstanding in house expertise on how to deal with that data problem, which in itself is useful, replicable methodology that we can both deploy and, and, and fork for others to use as well as, we have repeatedly worked with other organizations or research groups who have that problem, and we can help solve that problem for them because we've encountered it so often. So it built capacity and understanding.

So I think, yes, a hundred percent like that. That's a goal, but that's not the same thing as trying to start from that place.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I love the relationship first approach there. Like, if I were a funder or, you know, a non a nonprofit developing interventions to try to solve some social challenges, I would very much want to partner with an organization equipped with data scientists and methodology and process that has been thinking about this and has the capability of helping me tell my story and see my impact in the bigger picture.

Like, that sounds like such a huge win compared to just going it alone. So I completely agree that the the relationship first approach makes total sense. I'm also wondering, like, you mentioned the the, Giving Tuesday data commons. Tell me a little bit more, like, what that's all about.

Yeah. So, I mean, this this really started as our mechanism for collaborating on research in the sector.

Well, before we had a robust growing team of data scientists and data engineers, We wanted to understand we wanted to learn some stuff, and we needed people to give us data. And we didn't approach it by asking them for data. We asked them for their needs. What what if you could add, what question can you not answer today? That would be helpful for your mission and then use that as the, as our jumping off point to kind of try to work at the intersection between our mission and theirs.

And so that sort of evolved into these eight or nine working groups that we have deployed and the various products that ended up getting developed as a result of the, of that work. And what we've tried to do, not just sort of deploy one off research projects, but use projects that are, that have a specific research outcome to build a little piece of ongoing infrastructure.

So we'll do something we'll experiment. We'll try to get some report out. We just did something with candid, and that's where the out, the immediate outputs are useful and interesting, but more importantly, they create a mechanism for ongoing collection, normalizations, standardization, trend, trend tracking that we're building this little pieces of interconnected infrastructure that enable us to.

Actually go beyond just the report to the products that we need in order to have an ongoing look at what our environment is. So those projects and the working groups have expanded and expanded. We now have a couple of thousand partners we're working around the world. Our hubs are launching their own microcosms of this.

And these are organized against those three research pillars where and then the working groups and the products kind of fall out from from there.

You mentioned Candid. And in addition to Candid, there's Impala, there is Charity Navigator, there's the philanthropy, data commons. There are dozens of other organizations that I'm not not referencing, but all kind of tackling various data related challenges for the nonprofit sector. Like, is this helpful from a Giving Tuesday perspective, or or are we at risk of there being too many organizations kind of focused on different parts of the data equation? And and potentially, like, are we at risk that we're all asking different things of the same nonprofits and and consuming a lot of their, their resource and trying to provide the the right input, the right relationship, the right data to, like, each of these organizations who are who who have a slightly different focus.

I mean, this is something that that this sector has been really cognizant of lately. Right? There's there is And it's, I've been really encouraged by the conversation. Actually, it went from, we just asked for everything in case we might need it right to, let's only ask for the things that, that are gonna be helpful to us, that we're actually gonna be using.

And now we're seeing that transition to let's ask for the things that are going to be helpful to those organizations. Right. And, and then we'll try to get value out of that as well. But most importantly, if we're asking somebody for their data, again, this is very similar to our approach.

Now we don't work directly with organizations to get their data, which makes it extensively a little bit easier for us. We're working with aggregators and payment processors, and we're collecting our own data in the field.

But that has been, I think, an encouraging transition from the, in the sector, particularly when thinking about like grant data and grant reporting.

I mean, the other component, I think of what you're, you're getting at is like how we have all these silos.

And although I think the data environment has improved a lot since we got into this, we're seeing a lot of positive change.

There is a need and an opportunity for more interconnected data. And that's, I think our experiment with candid again, was we were looking at some specific areas. I think the report is pretty interesting, but more important more importantly, we were figuring out how can our data talk to each other. And that is a much more lasting outcome that has a potential for increasing the value and reducing the the sort of the technical burden on the sector because those data are being interconnected and used for more purposes.

And we we need more than that, but, more of that connection happening, and they're a great place to start deploying things like data standards and data models, because you have this opportunity to do that on the backend, which will help, I think, to, increase the value and decrease the silo ization at the same time. I think we have too few solutions right now. What we really need is a much more robust ecosystem of solutions and a backbone that will support lots of people trying lots of things where it's not about ten different people collecting data or a thousand different people collecting data, but a thousand or ten thousand different solutions on top of a data infrastructure.

And moving more toward that model, I think, is how we have to really modernize this tech stack for the nonprofit sector.

Yeah. I I think you've totally hit the nail on the head, like, an infrastructure that multiple organizations can use for modeling, for developing data products, for discovering insights.

But the real trick is like finding what that sort of infrastructure is that everybody else builds on top of. Right.

Yeah. And I think again, our approach and, and we're, we're, we are seeing a lot of traction in this is not like so someone has to build that, but rather we have all of these things. We actually don't need a lot of, of interconnecting infrastructure in order to make those things talk to each other and make them compatible. And that's where we should be focusing our efforts is that, and then you could, we, we can see a proliferation of solutions being, and a good example of that is our nine ninety project where we have essentially all of the players who are involved in that work, collaborating to create one publicly accessible, cleaned and normalized up to date dataset of the nine ninety data with things like API connections and a data warehouse and a whole roadmap of technical, technical roadmap for how the feature set is going to be developed.

And that was really interesting because when we brought these parties together to collaborate, what we found was each of these parties who had been kind of working with this data, and we were one of them, on their own had encountered some of the same problems and solved them in different ways, and each of those parties had discovered some problems in that data that others had not. And now what we have is the benefit of all that collective work, but none of the duplication of effort.

I love that. It it feels to me like that ought to really be the way that people come together in the sector to contribute towards, you know, a data commons or or whatever we wanna call it. But, like, you know, we let's get the data together. Let's get tons of smart people all looking at it, identifying the various challenges, thinking through the different ways to address those challenges, collectively improving the data.

Right? And then let's, like, build some interesting stuff on top of that infrastructure. So, look, I wanna talk a little bit to, Woodrow about some pretty cool products that GivingTuesday develops from its data commons. So I know that, you have, like, this annual, is it the lookback report, and then quarterly pulse reports.

Tell tell me a little bit about how you're actually using this data to, discover, like, insights and and produce some pretty interesting reports for the sector. I'd love to.

So, our look back report is our our annual sort of review of the stuff we've been looking at.

And increasingly that's our opportunity to showcase some of the work that is being done out of our global hubs and by some of our global partners and contextualize some of the trends that we're seeing and provide hopefully, more more views and opportunities to kind of think about how we might address various issues in the social sector.

And that a big part of that is built on these other ongoing products. So, you mentioned GivingPulse.

I think that is one of the one of the products that is sort of most are one of our larger contributions, I think, to the to the understanding and discourse in the sector because it really fit this missing piece. It's very timely.

We are it's a survey mechanism. We're surveying Americans every week about their previous week's giving behavior.

And we get an enormous amount of information about awareness and concern of crisis and response to solicitation and solicitation rates and, and the ways in which people are showing up. We're looking at well beyond just giving money to nonprofits. We look at all of the mechanisms people are using, how they come together in communities, giving to individuals, acts of generosity, political spectrum. Like it is really, really deep insights and very, very timely.

And it for us, that was about bridging this gap. Right? We have kind of episodic research into the ways people are giving, trying to kinda to get a slice of it one at a time, which is useful, but it's not as actionable, particularly because often those things were just not repeated.

And then we have things that are that are really good ongoing longitudinal efforts like Lily's, giving panel, which gives a really good, deep understanding of behaviors related to the nonprofit sector. And so this enabled us to cut because we had those mechanisms, we could build something else. And, and this has been really rich and it's already demonstrating some really important things that the nonprofit sector needs to understand if we're going to reverse some of the negative trends.

I think we were already seeing that.

I think a lot of people in the sector kind of look at the trends in fundraising and they think of it as like, this is what happened to us.

And we've been seeing for a long time that we, there is really a need to look at this more in terms of this is what we accomplished, that we have a lot more agency as an industry over our outcomes, but there are practices and exigent circumstances that are suppressing some of the potential opportunity. What GivingPulse gives us is an opportunity to actually see that opportunity and quantify it and see what are the things that might help us get there.

And we're building some some very deliberate tools on top of that in order to make it actionable. So one, we use this for experimentation that we're doing.

So we use the methodology to identify some potential opportunities. We deploy experiments in field to say, alright, so we think there's an opportunity here. What might move the needle there on realizing that opportunity? And then we can feed that back into the sector as well into, as well as into our own research. And then secondly, we've partnered with our KD group, which has been really valuable because every quarter they create a field guide on top of the giving pulse report that really outlines for nonprofits. Okay.

This is the this is what's been discovered. These are the trends that we're seeing. What do you do about it? How can you actually take action in your organization to leverage what we're seeing?

So that's, I mean, I think when we think about this as being, we have this missing understanding of the whole of the holistic environment that we're working in, giving pulse really aims to to fill that gap. And we're working now on expanding that around the world.

Yeah. So having having that agency to influence your own outcomes is the real magic of having all of this data and the insights that it provides. And if I look back several years, into the past when we were mainly tracking just inputs and outputs in terms of our own data, like, we could see that maybe giving is declining year over a year. But I think we didn't have the real data to help us answer the question as to why and then even go beyond that and and determine what can we do to reverse this trend. And I think that's the real beauty of a lot of the data products that I see coming out of GivingTuesday is that they not only show that the year over year trends, but they provide this incredible insight as to how we practitioners across the sector can actually influence our own outcomes.

Well, you know, the good news is we can, right. And, and it's not just theoretical, like we, when we see it in action, it works.

So we know that.

So the good news is we have agency.

What is maybe a little bit more challenging for some, not necessarily bad news, quote unquote, but if you have agency, then you have accountability, right? If you are in a position where you can influence your outcomes, then while then now it's up to us to to do something about it. And, you know, I get asked this you probably do too. Right? Like, predict what's going to happen.

And again, it's like people are thinking of me and and and many of our colleagues as, like, meteorologists.

Like, you're asking me to break the weather as if you don't have any agency. I can tell you what's going to happen. It's what you it's what you inspire. So what are you going to do? Because that's what's going to determine your outcome more than anything else.

Do you sense that more and more organizations are willing to take action to, to influence those outcomes? Or were are people still sort of stuck in this mindset that they were ten years ago? Like, well, we can we see the writing on the wall, but we don't really believe that there's anything we can do to, you know, to change that writing.

Yes. I think that there is more of an understanding and willingness to to step up in that respect.

I think there is, there's still a lack of incentive in our industry and the way it is structured to effectively, confront that truth and change practice.

And we need to address all of that. We have systemic challenges in this sector that that need to change if we're really going to take command of our own destiny.

You know, when I talk about this at conferences and stuff, it'll be really interesting because you'll you'll I'll hear a lot of talk about all of the reasons why some negative trend exists that are all exigent.

On the other hand, when I say, hey, look, here's here's the data that suggests and the and the, and the examples that confirm that we actually can change this trend, mostly what I get is a positive reaction.

People are prepared to they're they're encouraged mostly.

And I think for us, we just try to focus on those that are going to be encouraged by that and and try to do something about it.

Not everybody is I mean, it is it's it's easier to well, I'm reminded of when my brother was employed as a fishing guide one summer, and he'd never fished in his life. And, so the guy who hired him said it's really easy. All you have to do is make up reasons why the fish are not biting.

And I've I think that there's there is an incentive to kind of look at, well, what's working against me? I wanna make sure people know how hard it is, and it is hard. Right? But we we really need to, we need to recognize that, yeah, it's a difficult environment, but it's up to us to make the best of it. And what we have seen from the data is there is untapped opportunity. We are not in a scarcity environment.

There is abundance.

And one of the most insidious things that that we could easily drop is that scarcity mentality leads us to counterproductive efforts.

So we act as if we're in a scarce environment, and that creates a scarcity outcome.

And changing that perspective is the absolute number one thing we can do.

A amen, brother. Truer words, never spoken on this podcast.

I I wanna sort of address the the elephant in the room, and that is that, you know, if I look at the q two pulse report, one of the the big headline there, I think, is, like, giving is declining. And we've seen this, reflected in the generosity commission report that just came out, in the dollars and change report that you collaborated, with Candid, on. Like so now we know that giving is declining. Like, what sort of insights do you have from the data that help organizations reverse that trend?

Yeah. So a couple of, a couple of things that contextualize this, which is again, really helpful to have ongoing and timely data to giving pulse is that yes, we see a slump.

We've seen those before. And I think that understanding that overall, what we see as generosity is pretty robust when we look at it really holistically, in terms of an ongoing decline trend of the macro trend, we're really only seeing that macro decline in nonprofit donation participation and not across the board.

The other really important thing to recognize is that there is a direct correlation between engagement and solicitation and rates of giving. And so what we see is at times when people are being less engaged and fewer people are being invited to give well, guess what fewer people give. And, that inaction is the major, major factor here. So partly the answer to your question is just get out there and talk to your supporters more.

You know, I'm reading online today about organizations concerned about, oh, it's going to be bad because it's an election year. Well, the data don't support that. Right? But we saw this in COVID.

We saw organizations pulling back in twenty twenty out of an anticipation that people would be less generous.

In fact, the marketplace reacted in exactly the opposite way And the organizations that showed up got a great result and the ones that were pessimistic didn't get in on that action. And it was not just COVID response that was driving that. So we ended up with more donors, but I think we still left engagement on the table. Giving pulse not only allows us to identify what the uninvited group looks like.

We are now able to estimate the value of the people who are being left out. So we looked at, in the previous report, this year we looked at the people who, according to their profile, we would expect to be responsive to a solicitation who were not asked. And we think we would have seen at least a seven percent more respondents responding to solicitation if they'd been asked. This hyper focus on large donor donor stewardship is, is leaving a lot of people out.

So again, to answer your question, that decline, we don't, we think is mostly of, fluctuation.

We're talking about a slump rather than a macro trend. And the number one thing we can do about that is show up and invite people and give them an opportunity to give.

Yeah. I think that's a really brilliant insight that, you know, if I were a fundraiser and I see that the trend over the last few years is that more dollars are coming from high net worth individuals and from the largest grantmakers out there. I'm probably gonna shape my strategy around approaching those types of people and organizations, and I'm going to leave out all of the individuals who may be more inclined to give but would make smaller donations. Right?

And now with the data that you have from from the data commons and in your repositories, you're able to actually say, look. This is not the right approach or strategy. If you're a fundraiser, here's a better one. And I think that's just extremely valuable.

And it's not either or. Right? We're not suggesting abandoned large donor stewardship. I think part of the part of the insidious part of this is in twenty twenty one, we started warning that there was this risk that this over reliance on large donors was going to start showing up in, in reduced dollars. And that's exactly what happened in twenty two and twenty three. Those large donors started pulling back.

Now, the irony of that is when large donors start pulling back the instinct to compete more for those donors that we've been over relying on just increases. And then we just exacerbate the problem. And we know those large donors are more responsive to economic uncertainty. We know that a diversified donor base is key to resilience of organizations. We got to start doing more different types of engagement.

Nevermind just the equity issue or the question of like, who gets to decide how problems are solved if we're down to five donors in the world.

You know, we are, we are, we are the ones that need to decide if we want to change that system. The system is getting the outcome for which it was designed.

And and let me end on one question. Since you mentioned the upcoming election, I would love to hear your thoughts, Woodrow. How do you think, the the election and politics is going to influence giving over the next four years?

Over the next four years. Wow. Well, let me take a slightly less, shorter time frame. So, again, I think, organizations should not assume that in the current environment that there's less opportunity for them to fundraise.

I don't think that that I don't think the data support that concern, particularly with younger donors who see less of a distinction between giving to a political campaign and giving to a, charity. I think that nonprofits tend to think of that as as a risk when they should be seeing the opportunity side of that. And I think it's a perfectly reasonable position to take, how am I going to deploy resources in order to make the change I want to see, but we do not see indications of competition between different forms of giving, despite all of the concerns about that, all of the concerns about that, whether it's individual crowdfunding or donations to charities or to, campaigns, we do not see a competitive situation.

So think about getting out there don't retreat. And I think that's actually the biggest risk is organizations retreating because they're anticipating a result being poor.

There's a lot of civic interest right now from a lot of different constituents, and that should be a good time to be going out there and giving people some opportunity to make change, whether it's because they're angry about something or worried about something or upset about something or excited or motivated about something, that's a great time to be talking to them about that something.

So I it's difficult to predict because what we're really predicting is whether this industry is going to be active or not. But I can tell you people are primed to give and we are not inviting everybody.

Man, this has been a fantastic conversation, Monroe. You have, answered so many of my questions around the role of data and and insights and how that all impacts giving and philanthropy. I can't thank you enough for joining me for this episode of Impact Audio, and I really look forward to getting to hang out with you at the bar at a upcoming conference, in twenty twenty five.

I'm sure it will be early in the year too. And, yeah, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, Sam. Thanks very much.

I can't wait to see what comes next for Giving Tuesday and how their work reshapes access to and insights from data for every nonprofit.

For anyone preparing a Giving Tuesday campaign this year, we have an on demand webinar with Ben Sampson on how to go beyond financial donations to create a more holistic strategy.

The link for that is in the episode notes if you're interested.

Thanks for tuning in to Impact Audio, produced by your friends at Submittable. Until next time.