Beyond Monetary Gifts

Donor Engagement Strategies: Unveiling the Art of Meaningful Interactions

Discover the secrets to successful donor engagement in Christian nonprofits as RJ Caswell, COO of South America Mission, shares the importance of face-to-face interactions and building genuine relationships. But what happens when a direct ask doesn't result in a donation? Tune in to find out how RJ navigates the unpredictable world of fundraising and leaves you wondering how he overcomes disappointment and builds lasting connections.

Engaging donors is about serving them first and showing genuine interest in them, beyond their checkbook. - RJ Caswell

This is RJ Caswell's story:

RJ Caswell, the COO of South America Mission, has spent over 25 years working for Christian nonprofits, which has shaped his perspective on donor development. His journey began with Young Life, where he came to faith and became a young life leader. From there, he worked in K-12 Christian schools and started his own Christian nonprofit focused on counseling and adoption. After serving in church nonprofit for over 12 years, RJ took a one-year gig working for a startup company before joining South America Mission. Throughout his career, RJ has found that the key to successful donor development lies in building genuine relationships. He emphasizes the importance of face-to-face interactions and indirect donor development, which involves spending time with potential donors without expecting immediate financial support. By approaching donor development with a heart of service and prioritizing the individual over the gift, RJ has seen the power of building trust and fostering long-term partnerships. He also recognizes the potential of AI in certain aspects of donor engagement, but cautions against relying solely on technology for storytelling and content creation. RJ's approach to donor development is rooted in personal connection and intentional engagement, allowing nonprofits to cultivate stronger relationships and increased support from donors.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Strengthen donor relationships and increase support through the importance of building relationships in donor engagement.
• Take your donor engagement to the next level with face-to-face interactions for donor development.
• Discover powerful indirect methods for developing relationships with donors and fostering long-term support.
• Navigate the unpredictable nature of fundraising with effective strategies for maintaining donor support.
• Unlock the potential of AI in Christian nonprofits and revolutionize your donor engagement strategies.

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Building Relationships

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I have been mulling over the real crux of donor engagement, and you know what? It all comes down to fostering relationships—to truly care for your donors as individuals, not merely as ATMs. Look beyond their capacity to dole out cash, and find ways to engage them in ways that they find valuable. Remember—your donors are humans first and foremost, and everyone craves a little bit of genuine attention. Now, get this—RJ Caswell practices something really simple yet effective. Once or twice a week, he personally texts someone from his contact list, letting them know he's keeping them in his thoughts. No requests for donation, nothing. Just a simple message that has led to one-on-one meetings and other opportunities down the line. Shifting focus from the gift to the giver—that's what truly succeeds in building trust and connection.

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Using AI for Christian Tone of Voice

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Okay, picture this—a bunch of bots churning out Christian communications. Seems a bit off, no? While AI indeed holds a lot of potential, replicating the thoughtful, respectful tone that's the essence of words spoken from faith can indeed prove to be a bit of a challenge. RJ agrees too. He talks about how AI, despite being a fantastic tool, has its limitations. Especially when it comes to encapsulating that earnest, sincere tone that is so indispensible in Christian communication. It's often said that technology can't replace the human touch, and I reckon RJ’s perspective perfectly illustrates that sentiment.

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Resources for Christian Nonprofits

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So, which resources really hit the nail on the head when it comes to supporting Christian nonprofits? Reading management books, going through studies, relying on big professional networks? What really does the trick? It was fascinating to find out what RJ prefers. You see, for him, platforms like LinkedIn really deliver the goods. Real people with real experiences, sharing their knowledge in real-time—it's this live pulse of the professional world that RJ truly values. Besides, he finds immense support from a community close to his heart—Mission Charlotte. They provide free resources and training and have been a real boon for RJ. At the end of the day, it's all about sharing and growing together, isn't it?

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Engaging Donors

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While donning my thinking cap, I was musing over ways to connect better with potential donors. Now, traditional methods like, say, direct mailings or cold calls have been around forever, right? However, in this tech-saturated world we are living in, personalisation is truly the key. Getting to know your donors one-on-one, establishing connections that go beyond mere financial transactions, is genuinely the way forward. Isn't it interesting that RJ Caswell suggests something similar? He believes that donor development isn't just about shooting an ask email and hoping for the best. It’s about putting in time and effort, striking up conversations over coffees or breakfasts, and building genuine relationships. The goal isn't solely to milk out cash—it's to establish real connections that can lead to sweet long-term benefits.

00:00:05
Well, hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Lombardi, joined today by RJ Caswell. RJ, how you doing, man? I'm great.

00:00:15
Glad to be here, yeah. So tell them where you're joining us from. Give us a little bit of the CV background, what your role is, the organization you're serving right now, and then kind of dive in narrow to your background. Sure. Right now I'm in the greater Charlote area, actually been in the greater Charlote, North Carolina area since 2004.

00:00:33
But especially I'm with South America Mission, which is a mission organization primarily focused on South America and based in Fort Mill, which is, they would probably not like me to say a suburb of Charlote, but a suburb of Charlote, right by Carowinds. If everybody heard of Carawinds, we're really close to Carowinds. So that's where I am now and serving as the COO for South America. Awesome. And so that's a fairly new role for you though, right?

00:00:57
You've only been that, what, two months now? Yeah, a little over 60 days. Yeah, just about two months. Been sitting in this seat and it's been great. Survived.

00:01:05
Yeah. Awesome. And so give a little bit of context on South America mission, maybe a little bit of the history there, a little bit of background of that organization. I know it's got over 100 year history. Lots of, I mean, the name is self explanatory in a lot of ways, South America mission, but give a little bit more of the history and background for folks who are not familiar with it.

00:01:22
Sure, I probably won't do it justice being the new guy, but, yeah, 110 plus year history of missions work in South America, primarily historically in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru. We have some partnerships in Argentina and some other places as well. But really, for the most part supporting the work of the church. Local church. We value the local church and their role within the body.

00:01:45
And so a lot of it is helping support multiplying the church community transformation through the local church, historically through north American missionaries. That's really shifting with the tide of mission shifting to supporting and coming alongside local leaders. Local church planters work a lot with city to city in some city movements as well. So a variety of work, but all focused in South America. Awesome.

00:02:09
And so how did you get into this wonky, crazy world of Christian nonprofits? I know you've been in the space for a while. South America Mission, while it's a new job to you, is not. You're not new in the field at all. So how did you get started in this and just kind of walk us through the journey God's had you on, kind of working within Christian nonprofits?

00:02:27
Sure. I don't know if I've probably worked for Christian nonprofits almost my entire career, different types of nonprofits. So that's probably honestly 25 plus years. And really probably the taste of it came through. I came to faith through an organization.

00:02:48
Probably many on this podcast will understand young life. And so that's where I got introduced really to my faith and came a believer through young life, which Christian nonprofit, Christian ministry. Was a young life leader all through college, and so that really shaped my view of work and engagement. So soon after that, got married and got my master's in counseling, but specifically worked in Christian schools. So I worked in K through twelve Christian schools for about eight plus years.

00:03:23
Also was a licensed therapist on the side. So did a lot of work. That actually turned into my next gig or season, which was starting my own Christian nonprofit, which is a story for another day because that only happened for a year and a half, but it was focused on counseling and all things adoption. So worked with Christian adoption agencies, worked with families who were interested in adoption, worked with kids who were adopted and walking through what that meant for them. I did that for a year and a half before joining a church staff.

00:03:56
So then I was in church nonprofit, which, right, everybody knows church is the church, but it's also a nonprofit in North America. Right or wrong, good or bad, it is a nonprofit. And so worked in church nonprofit for a little over twelve years. Awesome. And then since took one year gig working for a startup company, which was outside of that.

00:04:19
So I say a majority, maybe one and a half years, not in a Christian nonprofit. That's a run. That's a run in Christian nonprofit world, that's for sure. Okay, so that's kind of how you got into this season. It sounds like you've kind of been doing it your whole life, right?

00:04:37
Kind of died in the wool work with Christian nonprofits. So what's something pull from any of these organizations you've been part of, maybe even from the one that you started? Because that's always fascinating to me as somebody who's also started my own company, is what's a strategy, what's a campaign? We're all about donor engagement, about figuring out how Christian nonprofits can better market, engage with their donors, speak their language, connect with them, build relationships. What's something from your time, the vast history that you've been working, whether it's South American commissioner all the way back that you've implemented or seen done, that's been just an awesome campaign, an awesome strategy that's really engaged donors at a high level.

00:05:13
Man, great question. I don't know if I have a secret sauce or anything earth shattering. I do remember when I started my own nonprofit and, you know, starting your own business, you're everything, right? I was the web developer. I was the business manager.

00:05:28
I was the donor developer. I was the therapist. I was all those pieces, which I actually loved. I learned so much about organizations. And so I've never had the title of director of Development Advancement director.

00:05:41
But when you're responsible for everything, you're doing everything. And the only way I knew to approach it then and the only way I know to honestly approach it now. Dr. There isn't great strategy is people is getting out and getting in front of people. I think Zoom is great and it can be used, but if you have the opportunity in person to get coffee, lunch, breakfast, I remember when I was an executive pastor for a long time, when I would have our staff meetings, I looked at all of my direct reports, calendars, and wanted to see that their calendars reflected with what we believe, which is being out engaging with people.

00:06:21
Now, some of that's direct development and some of that's indirect. So I would just say, don't discount indirect donor development, which is really spending time with relationships with people, knowing that there may or may not be a direct benefit, but it's still the right thing to do. Man, I love that last part about there may not be a direct benefit because I think a lot of folks, they have their punch list of, okay, here's my list of people. And these are the people that I need to call every single month, or, hey, these are my quarterly contacts. And it becomes that just, like, punch list.

00:06:52
And there's almost a sense that if I meet with them and there's an ask or there's not a direct, like, oh, they decided to write a check after that meeting that, oh, well, that's disappointing, right? What would you say to that person. Kind of in that mindset, there's just an opportunity to build a relationship. You're building the relationship because you don't know what God's going to do with it. And yes, you might be disappointed they didn't write a check, but you don't really know what's going on behind that.

00:07:19
So I would say, I mean, I still do it now probably once or twice a week. I text somebody out of my contact list, who comes to mind, either through thought or prayer or jotting notes, and I shoot them a text saying, hey, you came to my mind, was praying for you this morning. Hope you're doing well. And that's it. And I would say 99% of the time, I get a response back, and I'd say about 50% of the time, we go back and forth and set up a coffee or lunch.

00:07:48
And that's why I say the indirect benefit is trust, because it's about the person and not about the gift. Of course, we all need resources to what we do, right? And so it's okay to be disappointed. You maybe didn't get the gift or the check. But I will tell you, when I started my own nonprofit, if I sat in that disappointment, you would never get up because people I thought were jerrying with me never contributed ascent.

00:08:14
And other people who I didn't really even think about, but I put them on the list, sustained the ministry for over a year. So it's really surprising, I think, in the world of fundraising, what ends up connecting and not connecting? Yeah, absolutely, man. I joke about this all the time, but I always use this quote from Jesus where he said, a prophet has no honor in his hometown. And I always use that with nonprofits, but then also with startup founders, actually, because I always say this, sometimes you expect your friends, your family, the people who are most familiar, you say, oh, for sure, that person, they know me.

00:08:53
They're going to support me 100%. And sometimes those are actually the least likely people to support you, which is the same parable from exactly what Jesus said. Just like, hey, man, Prophet has no honor in his hometown. Sometimes people outside of it who are, and you just don't know. And so if you're constantly waiting on check, this meeting has to set to this, because my plan, not God's plan, you end up setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.

00:09:16
So great advice, man. I agree. Yeah. And I think the more you realize the posture is serving others, whether it's for a gain or not. As a believer, our call is to serve others, and donor development is no different.

00:09:31
Yeah. So I'd love to go there a little bit. How do you see that? If you're doing donor development or engaging with your donors, how is that serving them? Well, one, you're showing you're interested in them outside their checkbook, right?

00:09:46
People that you care about them first and not about the wealth screening. And I'm not against wealth screening. Right. That's research. But let's face it, people of means that there's the $20 donors, which should be Just as valuable as the $20,000 donor.

00:10:03
And I would remind everybody's teams, you got to keep that in front of you because it's really easy to get that mixed up. At the same time, how you approach a $20,000 donor is different than how you approach it. Not how you thank them or how you engage them, but how you approach them. And so I would just say there needs to be thought and intention. But when it comes to engaging them as a person, that's got to be forefront.

00:10:28
It can't be engaging them as a dollar sign or because of the wealth screening. So I'm not saying don't do the wealth screening, but don't use that as your only judgment for meeting somebody because they'll know it, they'll see through. Absolutely. Great advice. Great advice.

00:10:42
So what's a trend right now that you're seeing? Because you got a lot of experience, you're, I'm sure, keeping an eye on everything going on in the world as your missions organization is kind of shifting things, kind of adjusting the times. What are some trends that you're seeing for Christian nonprofits out there that are really exciting for you? And on the backside, what are some that you're seeing that maybe are a little bit, maybe got you a little bit concerned on the other side? I read this question earlier, and it's probably right, the throwaway answer, and I don't mean it to be because of what's going right now, but I think I have the same answer for both, and it's AI.

00:11:16
How do we escape answering AI's? For me, I'm not an AI expert. I know there's camps where totally scared and resistant other ones who are all in over the spectrum. But I think approaching AI like we should approach so many things with wisdom and discernment and embracing that tension, that AI can be super helpful and AI can be really dangerous. And literally, I was talking with one of our international leaders over this past week.

00:11:44
He grabbed me, and as you know, I probably post less now, but for a season I was posting every day on LinkedIn. I've really enjoyed LinkedIn. I've learned a lot, and hopefully I've contributed something to that community. But I posted a lot. And he was just like, I want to engage LinkedIn, but I don't really know how in time and how do you do it?

00:12:06
And so we sat down, I pulled up my check GTP account and said, jorge, I want you to take something you've already written something that is yours. We're not using it to create a post for Take because he's an amazing writer and writes some long form newsletters, long form blog posts. I said, let's use your existing content and see what can happen. And so we did a prompt that I taught him how to use the prompt. He copy and pasted.

00:12:36
And the prompt was, you're a nonprofit expert. Nonprofit LinkedIn expert. Take this long form post and make three LinkedIn posts. Yeah. And then we refined it, and it was his words.

00:12:49
Right? So we're not asking AI to invent a post for him. We're actually helping him leverage stuff he has already written. And it wrote three posts. He was blown away.

00:13:02
He could copy it and paste it and tweak it because he said, they're not perfect. I said, they're not going to be perfect. Oh, yeah. Don't copy and paste without reading it because you might read and go, did a really bad job, but has so much content already, and he wants to engage a new audience. So I was like, don't recreate everything.

00:13:20
See if you can use AI to help you with stuff you've already written. So that's just an example that I just walked through this week. Yeah, and we see this a lot, too. AI really struggles to get a thoughtful, non cheesy Christian tone of voice. That's something that noticed a lot.

00:13:37
Like, it really struggles. It'll be like, oh, holy friends, it says the weirdest things, trying to be like, is this how Christians talk? Which should just tell us something about the weird Christian that Christians have. Anyway, the AI is like, yeah, we don't even understand this. This is weird, but it does struggle with that.

00:13:53
But no, that's a great point of ways that you can use AI for benefit, right? Like taking what you already have, not trying to create something from scRatch, but just saying, hey, can I work smarter with this instead of harder and be more effective with the time on the other side, what are some concerns that you have with AI for Christian nonprofits besides the general Terminator Skynet sort of a thing, right? I would say another use too. On the positive side that I use it in my operation for all as COO is templates using aid. I go, hey, can you give me a template for succession planning for organization?

00:14:26
Can you give me a template again, it's a template. It's not a document we would use outside the organization, and it's one that I probably would, 20% to 30% would change, but it's given me a framework, so I'm not just creating it from scratch. That's been super helpful. I think on the dangerous side, right, is using AI as your method of engagement, as your content. I'm not saying you can't generate it for ideas, but if you're using AI solely as your storytelling and original content creation, I think there's a danger from integrity.

00:14:58
Right. You talked a little bit about voice. Is that the voice you want? I think it's. Being lazy is probably not a fair term, but there's a lack of integrity, I think, in how you're going to approach things.

00:15:11
So I think it can be really healthy, really helpful, but it can't be everything in what you're doing. Yeah. And on the voice side, that's a great point because there's so much of work that you do on messaging your storytelling. That stuff actually is sometimes, as you probably know, that's almost more important for what that gives you internally than it does what it actually produces. Right.

00:15:36
Those conversations actually force a lot of great internal dialogue on, okay, really, who are we in this? And if you outsource that all of a sudden to AI and it's just crafting that up for you, you don't have the internal buy in from your team, and so all of a sudden you're telling your story in a way, or your in such a way isn't actually reflective of the way your programs are doing work, maybe on the ground or it's not reflective of the way your leadership actually feels about things, and all of a sudden you get this wonky thing where it's like, well, publicly we're saying this, but then we're not actually able to deliver on that because that's not actually how we do things on the ground. And so, yeah, anytime you rely on AI to create things from the ground up that are not reflective of really who you are at your core, you got to do still the hard work on the back end to make it a really effective tool. So no great thoughts on that. What about resources?

00:16:23
What are some resources you love for Christian nonprofits? Whether it's donor engagement, marketing, you're in COO role now. So maybe you're reading different books than you used to. Right. What are some books, some blogs, some resources that you love that have really driven a lot of meaningful impact for you.

00:16:36
So it's going to be something I've already said. You probably won't be too surprised. I do think there's probably great resources out there. I would say the more I've been in just general leadership, from executive pastor to COO, which are pretty similar roles. Probably a couple of things.

00:16:53
One is I really do probably value LinkedIn connections and content more than I value reading books right now. And I might sound a little crazy, but there's some just great Christian nonprofit consultants and leaders who write pretty consistently that I've gained a lot of insight from guys like Andrew Olson, and there's a lot of others. So I do think I probably lean more on that right now in this. In this. I think there's so many different seasons in this season.

00:17:26
And then from a resource perspective, I'm part of a group here in Charlote helping start an organization called Mission Charlote. It's based out of an organization called Mission Triangle in the Triangle of North Carolina. People could look that up. We're Missionclt.org, but it's really helping support Christian nonprofits in our city. And there's different city movements around, but we provide free training and resources to other Christian nonprofits in the Charlote area through six core competencies, which is free.

00:17:58
And so it's a great community and it's great resources. So I'm really leaning on Mission Charlote, which I'm helping, but I'm also learning. Then, you know, honestly, LinkedIn. Yeah. No, you're the first person to say LinkedIn, and I love it because I'm obviously a nut for LinkedIn.

00:18:16
It literally has changed the way that we've built our business, just because the connections, the people we've gotten to know, it is the only social media that I actually use because people actually create valuable content there. And I think what you're talking about reading folks on LinkedIn instead of books, I think that's so insightful because the people you're reading are on the ground, right? And they're giving you real time feedback on what they're seeing, what their hands instant. Whereas, hey, there have been some great books that we get recommended all the time that are wonderful. But if you just think of how long it takes someone to write a book, and by the time it's actually through publishing, a lot of what they're saying is over a year old.

00:18:52
Right? Yeah. Whereas in LinkedIn, you're going to talk to some of those people who are just as thoughtful, just as insightful, who are doing work with maybe other organizations that you're like, wow, I wish I could learn from them, and they're pulling all that stuff and giving you real time feedback. And, yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is one of the best places I know of to grow professionally. If you curate your feed well and you don't have a bunch of junk and you can deal with, you have.

00:19:13
To spend some time with it. Yeah, you have to spend some time with it. Connect with the right people, follow the right people. But I had a meeting this morning with a CRM consultant. We were looking for some help.

00:19:24
And she's local. She's a believer. I met her through LinkedIn. I would have never done that. And I've known her now for two years.

00:19:31
And I went, oh my gosh, I know somebody. Yeah. And I wouldn't have had that contact otherwiSe. It's the best. Very cool resource for sure.

00:19:40
Awesome. Well, RJ, if folks want to connect with you, if they want to learn more about South American mission, donate, maybe get on board with what you guys are doing or disconnect with you. What's the best way to connect with you? Yeah, sure. Email is easy.

00:19:52
RJ Caswell@southampricamission.org you could also obviously head to South America Mission.org altogether and find me on LinkedIn. I don't post every day like I used to, but I'm pretty active a couple of times a week. Posting, but also interacting probably every single day. So yeah, head over to South America, Mission.org, head over to LinkedIn, and if you're in Charlote, buy you a cup of coffee. And if you're not, let's jump on a phone call.

00:20:18
Awesome. Well, RJ, thank you so much for the time today, man. So enjoyed talking about building relationships, serving people, man. Such great content coming out of this. Really appreciate you taking the time.

00:20:27
I loved it. Thanks so much.