Transcript

[00:00:00] Multiple Voices: Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. Fundraising everywhere. , you don’t need to add me in there.

[00:00:31] Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. Your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear. Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraising everwhere.com/podcast to subscribe Now onto today’s episode, enjoy.

[00:00:59] Daryl Upsall: Welcome everybody. Great to, to see you all again. Uh, we’re here to, uh, have a global conversation and learn some lessons around the world with a, with a wonderful panel from Portugal, from Mexico, from Spain, and collectively the panel has experienced in, well, more than 50, 60 countries, I think, in terms of, uh, face-to-face fundraising and, and individual giving fundraising.

[00:01:25] Daryl Upsall: So. Let’s kick off. Let’s get going. So, Filipa, introduce yourself please.

[00:01:32] Filipa Morais: Hi everyone. Uh, it’s KU to be here today. Uh, I’m Filipa, uh, I work for Children Villages International. Uh, but I’m based in Lisbon and, uh, my role is, uh, being Global Advisor, global fundraising advisor for acquisition at this amazing organization.

[00:01:50] Daryl Upsall: Thanks, Jamal.

[00:01:52] Jamal Monteilh: Hi, I’m Jamal Monteilh. I am the owner of two, uh, face-to-face fundraising agencies, one based in New York called One Voice Fundraising and one based here in Mexico called One Voice Latino America. Excited to be here.

[00:02:07] Daryl Upsall: Thanks, Jamal and Juan.

[00:02:09] Juan Edelshein: Hi, my name is Juan Edelshein. I’m the director of International Fundraising.

[00:02:13] Juan Edelshein: I’m Mexican, but I’m in in Madrid, missing. My land where Jamal is.

[00:02:21] Daryl Upsall: Fantastic. Well, let’s just get an overview to begin with. Uh, let’s get a sense of, you know, what is the current situation of face-to-face, uh, in the countries you are operating in currently. Is there a big variation between say, the US and and Mexico?

[00:02:36] Daryl Upsall: Jamal? Sure.

[00:02:38] Jamal Monteilh: I mean, we’re seeing a lot of the same challenges and opportunities in, in those markets and, um, you know, I think the, just generally, you know, we’ve, we’ve gotten back to a really healthy space, uh, for us that was, you know, getting through Covid and getting back to these times. It’s really exciting for me, kind of being a space where I feel like face-to-face is in a good place in those markets that I’m working in.

[00:03:00] Daryl Upsall: Cool. Sounds good. Filipa, how about Portugal and the whole world more or less with SS, children’s villages?

[00:03:07] Filipa Morais: Yeah, so we are doing face-to-face in around 55 countries probably this year. 57 countries, actually. New markets, uh, we are aiming to launch face-to-face in Switzerland, but also Nigeria, Kenya, what’s one in India.

[00:03:21] Filipa Morais: So I’m super excited about these ones. Yeah. Um, and of course we have. Face a lot of challenges, but also a lot of opportunities, uh, like these new countries coming in and teach us, uh, that face-to-face is more alive than ever.

[00:03:35] Daryl Upsall: Fantastic. Great to hear. Juan, how about you? You covered several countries in your brief.

[00:03:40] Daryl Upsall: I.

[00:03:41] Juan Edelshein: Yeah, we’re in, in many countries, in Latin America and in Spain, and it’s a, it’s a catchy question because face-to-face is basically the same everywhere, but every country has its issues. Issues, as Jamal said. And every country has its characteristics, but we’re working on it and results are coming. So I think, I think everything is okay in, in every country, even though the weather is not very good in some of them.

[00:04:06] Juan Edelshein: But we’re, we’re doing fine.

[00:04:09] Daryl Upsall: Yeah, it’s interesting speaking with all of you in the past and other colleagues. Face-to-face seems to work everywhere. I, I’ve seen it in operation in China, even briefly in Russia, though sadly not anymore. So just these tweaking, it seems to work everywhere. I guess the biggest, you know, elephant in the room in the last 10 years in terms of face-to-face was certainly covid.

[00:04:31] Daryl Upsall: The pandemic really threw everything out and everything up in the air. Post Covid or during Covid, did that lead you as your teams, your companies, to adopt new technologies? Was there something more that helped you integrate across other channels like digital or telephone? Tell me sort of some ideas about what you did and what you think we’ve learned from Covid.

[00:04:56] Daryl Upsall: Starting with you, Juan.

[00:04:58] Juan Edelshein: So it, it changed a lot of things internally for us. So most of the, of the trainings and the meetings are now held on, on digital platforms, so we don’t see each other internally so much. That help us because we can manage more countries and more territory from, from a single location.

[00:05:19] Juan Edelshein: However, externally it hasn’t changed that much because in the end it’s face-to-face and the name defines it. So you can’t, if you do something else, something digital, something telephone, then it’s not face-to-face. You’re doing something else. So externally, it hasn’t changed us a lot. We’re, we’re learning from the new technologies.

[00:05:42] Juan Edelshein: We’re learning for new, from new things, but it’s face to face. Yeah.

[00:05:48] Daryl Upsall: I agree. Jamal, how about you?

[00:05:51] Jamal Monteilh: I think the, the two biggest things, one obviously completely agree with Juan, um, is, uh, like having that conversation with our fundraisers pretty much on a regular basis. That hey, this is some promise. You know, we get to go out and talk to people, but you know, the world shut down before, and if someone had told me pre covid, Hey, there’s gonna come a day where you might not be able to go out and do this.

[00:06:10] Jamal Monteilh: How would you have, you know, how would I have approached that day? So I think that’s something that informs our fundraisers. Like this is really a special opportunity to go out and speak to people face to face. And as Juan said, uh, forcing me an analog guy living in this digital world, uh, to get in and be more accessible, to use the technology that kind of came into our, our sphere.

[00:06:29] Jamal Monteilh: And so now I’m more accessible to my teams in New York or in Mexico than I ever have been before, which I think is great.

[00:06:37] Daryl Upsall: Fantastic. Thanks Jamal. Filipa.

[00:06:40] Filipa Morais: So for us, it’s more or less the same and actually the, even after Covid, yes, there was like a lot of new things that we changed, but then after some months we back to the, to the basic.

[00:06:51] Filipa Morais: Um, but of course the now we are using more technology and, uh, having more trainings on digital online platforms. So everything more connected, I’ll say, and more people connected with each other. Um, but uh, face to face. Remains the same. So, you know, don’t need to change a lot of things, uh, to keep having good results.

[00:07:11] Filipa Morais: Definitely.

[00:07:13] Daryl Upsall: I get the impression the biggest changes were the invisible changes, the back of office, the technologies, the processing, all of that. But face, two face, and I’m really, really. Strong on using face-to-face, not street. Not door to door. I’ve never seen a door talk to another door. Maybe somebody has doors generally don’t talk.

[00:07:33] Daryl Upsall: They’re like, listen. Um, so I’m really pleased You’re both emphasizing. It’s all about being face to face. It’s a conversation. It’s a dialogue. Um, but continuing on that, that change, are there any kind of longer term structural changes that you are making now or thinking of making? To secure the long term of face-to-face.

[00:07:56] Daryl Upsall: Um, yeah, again, Juan, give me your thoughts on that. What are you gonna change in the future?

[00:08:04] Juan Edelshein: We’ve tried to professionalize, if that’s a word, that’s the problem of speaking a second language. The, the position, the face-to-face position. Because for many years it was like a, like a passage, like a, like a lifesaver, no, nothing to, to be continuous in time.

[00:08:27] Juan Edelshein: Now we, we have professionalized that position and we’re. Having facers, specifically Facers, not team leaders, not managers, just people on the street, uh, trying to make donors that have been with us for over 10 years. So we’re paying higher salaries. We’re looking for people of, of all ages. We have a, a team in Barcelona that averages, uh, 48 years I think.

[00:08:55] Juan Edelshein: So we’re, we’re trying to, to do that and, and to make it a, a, a very professional profession, if I can say that, uh, for, for the future. So people look up to, to be a facer, not just something to go by.

[00:09:12] Daryl Upsall: Interesting. Jamal, how about you?

[00:09:15] Jamal Monteilh: So, uh, I think most importantly for us is, you know, the quality of the product that we are, we’re returning to our charity partners.

[00:09:22] Jamal Monteilh: So we just continue to focus on how we can better have those conversations so that we’re retaining donors at the highest possible level for our charities. And I think continuing to learn from our colleagues around the world, uh, things that they’re doing, that they’re innovating, that they’re trying, uh, to make sure that we’re getting that return.

[00:09:38] Jamal Monteilh: ’cause I feel like that’s the long-term health. Face to face is we can continue to improve retention of those donors. Organizations will continue to be excited to partner with us. So for me, that’s the most important thing in terms of long-term structural change, is continuing to keep our focus really simply in that space.

[00:09:56] Jamal Monteilh: And that for me, it keeps, it’ll, there will always be opportunity in that space for us as an organization.

[00:10:03] Daryl Upsall: Thanks a.

[00:10:05] Filipa Morais: Yeah, so, uh, I couldn’t agree more, but, uh, for us it’s, um, we have now a big focus on the retention parts, even for the in-house teams because yes, face-to-face keeps the biggest channels, uh, channel for us in terms of volume, but we cannot, uh, something that covid show us.

[00:10:21] Filipa Morais: It’s, that’s, uh, we need to work more as a team. So we have a lot of teams right now in different office that, um, work closely, uh, in terms of face-to-face, in terms of digital, in terms of loyalty. And this, uh, it’s very interesting because, uh, even in Portugal that I’m, I’m here right now, it is, uh, this office.

[00:10:39] Filipa Morais: And I’m thinking that now we, you have the digital team working with the loyalty and the face-to-face team, uh, to get the best. Uh, donor journey hover that they are building, you know? So, um, now what I can see is that, uh, the teams are more open to have this close work and that you can have better retention and better results if you work together.

[00:10:59] Filipa Morais: So yes, uh, some structural changes in terms of mindset and in terms of teams also,

[00:11:05] Daryl Upsall: but makes complete sense what you’re all saying. I mean, I recall 10 years ago, or even perhaps earlier saying. It shouldn’t be about volume. And I have to say, everybody was obsessed with volume. We gotta get more through the door.

[00:11:18] Daryl Upsall: Even the language was what’s your spend? What? What? You know, what can you get out there? And it should be focused. And I hear nowadays all the time, it’s about quality. It’s the quality of the recruiter, the quality of the recruitment, and the quality of the ongoing conversation. I guess because it’s a conversation.

[00:11:36] Daryl Upsall: And, and to that end, and this is a conference that involves telephone and. Face to, to what degree does the continued conversation via the telephone, uh, play a role in, in your face-to-face programs? Philip?

[00:11:53] Filipa Morais: So, uh, what, um, telephone is very important actually. And after Covid we did a lot of change during Covid and after Covid, and we have a lot of, uh, faces, uh, starting to be telemarketers.

[00:12:06] Filipa Morais: For instance, we started, uh, a lot of in-house that we keep having them. Uh, growing with amazing campaigns and they work very close right now, like the Facers and the telemarketers work very close with the same trainings, also with the loyalty team, uh, with trainings, uh, from loyalty team. And we have a concept that, um, I think it was, uh, SOS Childrens Village.

[00:12:27] Filipa Morais: Croatia that create this concept that we are having in multiple countries that we had called, um, global Facer Concept is a facer that can work on face-to-face, street, face-to-face, door to door. It can be telemarketer. So we are ready, uh, to, and we are prepared to have this. People, they are very keen to, to work for SOS, um, not only in the streets, but also on telemarketing.

[00:12:51] Filipa Morais: And you have people doing welcome calls and a close relationship even for the donor journey as I I, as I said before. So we are more connected and it’s very important to have this connection, to have the better, uh, retention, uh, possible.

[00:13:08] Daryl Upsall: That makes me really happy. ’cause I remember training your colleagues in Ava must have been 15 years ago about integrating telephone and face to face.

[00:13:17] Daryl Upsall: So the fact that the Croatian team is coming up with that model makes me super happy. Jamal, how about you? Yeah. First of all, I

[00:13:25] Jamal Monteilh: wanna say I love everything that you just said, Felipa. Just, you know, you’ve said in the last two questions, like how you continuing to break down those silos and get people cross working together to get a better result.

[00:13:34] Jamal Monteilh: I think that’s amazing. Telephone doesn’t play a huge role in our, in our current operations. Um, but it is something that I’m grateful for in terms of how our partners use it, because we get that feedback so fast that we can give that feedback to the fundraisers so fast, and that helps to inform their decisions as they work in, in the face-to-face basis.

[00:13:53] Jamal Monteilh: Uh, so I think that’s, you know, that’s pretty much our, our space with, with telephone at this point.

[00:13:58] Daryl Upsall: Cool. Well, Juan, you, you work right next to the call center that’s talking to the donors recruited in Spain. So tell us how it integrates in, in, in Spain and May and in the rest of the world. It may be different in Latin America,

[00:14:11] Juan Edelshein: in, in all our work in, in all the countries we’re working in, we make the welcome call.

[00:14:15] Juan Edelshein: So we are integrated with, with telephone. We haven’t been able to do what Philippa says. That that’s the ideal to, to have someone go from, from one technique to the other. We, we haven’t been able to do that. We did it during covid. We sent fundraisers to their house to, well face-to-face fundraisers to their house, to be tele marketeers, and it was successful.

[00:14:39] Juan Edelshein: Now everybody’s doing their own job. The, the people on the phone is on the phone. The people on the street is on the street, but. Uh, sadly, we, we kept, uh, not, not sadly because we kept, uh, a team on the phone in Spain, but we kept it because we’re, we’re still scared about covid, so we we’re trying to have a window open in case a door closes in the future.

[00:15:04] Juan Edelshein: So. We are still having people doing face to that used to be face-to-face people doing telephone. So in case we need to, to move someone in the future, we, we can do it as Philipp is explaining. That’s, that’s the ideal.

[00:15:21] Daryl Upsall: That’s, that’s an interesting concept. You know, we, thankfully we see Covid as behind us, but if it’s taught as a lesson collectively, I think it’s.

[00:15:30] Daryl Upsall: Be prepared. You know, I have to have this Boy scout, uh, image from Be Powell, which motto is, be prepared. We need to be prepared and ready to pirouette, twist, flip, change rapidly. So I guess that’s one of the lessons we’ve taken from last Covid, who knows what the next challenge may be. The challenge that’s really current and faces you all absolutely is the challenge of recruiting.

[00:15:56] Daryl Upsall: Fundraisers, recruiting staff to do face to face. How are you addressing that? What, how are you overcoming, and perhaps if you wanna describe the challenge you have, how about you, Jamal?

[00:16:08] Jamal Monteilh: Sure. I mean, for us it’s, it’s, honestly, it’s constantly a moving target. I. And we’re constantly looking to tweak parts of our processes.

[00:16:15] Jamal Monteilh: We’re looking for breaks in the chain, small tweaks that we can make along the way, uh, from, you know, the quality of the, the call, the first call that we make, the applicants that we’re getting in the break points, that people showing up to those interviews, uh, how those interviews are conducted. So we just look at every single part of the chain along the way and look for every opportunity to improvement, to improve it.

[00:16:39] Daryl Upsall: Interesting. It’s funny how the phrase no show used to talk about, refer to donors. Now no show is often used when people don’t show up for interview.

[00:16:50] Daryl Upsall: How about you, Felipe? How are you getting to deal with those challenges? And we know from other conversations it’s a huge challenge.

[00:16:56] Filipa Morais: Yes. I think it’s like the biggest one and it’s for SUS. So, um, and for me, and uh, for me being creative is the key. Because there is no solution, like the perfect solution, and people are, are always like looking at the perfect solution to have more people to work on face-to-face.

[00:17:14] Filipa Morais: There is no perfect solution. But the teams that I see, they are more creative, more open to hear new ideas, um, change from the plan A to plan B very quickly. Again, even on this. Part of the face recruitment, face-to-face fundraising, recruitment are the best ones. Uh, to have the best people and to have more people.

[00:17:33] Filipa Morais: And you need to be very resilient. And, um, we have already test a lot of things. I think, uh, we have older faces in some countries they are hiring new. Um, but it’s difficult in some other markets. But one thing that we are testing, uh, at SOS, um, Spain. One of our biggest, uh, the biggest in-house teams with amazing energy, uh, and super innovative.

[00:17:57] Filipa Morais: They, they have this energy. They are testing to do the face-to-face fundraising interviews in the streets near an amazing face-to-face team. So I’m going, I, I, I, I’m looking forward to hearing more about this. Uh, but I think it’s incredible just to be, to have this open mind to new ideas that could be completely crazy, but at the end of the day, there could be a.

[00:18:18] Filipa Morais: A good solution for, for, for these challenge that we have right now. So yeah, being creative and have an open mind, uh, I think is at least, uh, uh, the two points that, uh, to have a, a good recruitment process,

[00:18:32] Daryl Upsall: it’s never business as usual, is it’s

[00:18:35] Filipa Morais: no solution.

[00:18:37] Daryl Upsall: One you mentioned earlier about remuneration and benefits or.

[00:18:40] Daryl Upsall: Yeah, improving for the face-to-face fundraisers and also the, the different generation teams. Can you tell us a little bit how that’s actually working and what impact it’s having?

[00:18:51] Juan Edelshein: It’s, it’s working very well. Obviously depends on the country. There are countries that are more difficult. Mexico is really difficult to recruit.

[00:18:59] Juan Edelshein: Other countries are much easier, but I think it’s. It’s like Felipa says, and, and like the movie says everything everywhere, all at once. So you need to do influencers, social networks, uh, I don’t know, classical websites. Do interviews on the street, do interviews on the, on the office, do online interviews.

[00:19:22] Juan Edelshein: You need to try everything and then, and then try to be flexible and let every team leader, every manager work as, as it suits them best. Some people like to be in the office sitting quietly with, with another person. I have people that, that make the interviews online with Zoom, with maybe five or six, uh, people at the time, and they get results.

[00:19:46] Juan Edelshein: So we let them try anything and then supervise and see the results and then afterwards, uh, help them take the the best path.

[00:19:57] Daryl Upsall: It’s interesting hearing, hearing you all describe this. It’s, there is definitely no one size fits all and it seems to vary country, organization, age, band, and I think that’s one of the joys I’m seeing from face to face having been involved from the beginning is I.

[00:20:14] Daryl Upsall: This constant change is probably the most tested fundraising tool out there other than maybe digital. So you can tweak quickly, but what, yeah, testing and trying, it’s really creative. I’m, I’m really enjoying it. And, and I guess just adding onto that, you mentioned earlier, Juan, something about, um, people who’ve been with the organization 10, 12 years or whatever.

[00:20:37] Daryl Upsall: Uh, I throw it to you back to start with you, Jamal, is there anything that probably in your New York teams that you’ve done to kind of retain and create career paths? Because if I look at everybody on the screen here, myself included, we’ve all done face-to-face, we’ve been on the street, and yet I look around the fundraising world and I say, my God, that fundraising director’s an ex face to facer.

[00:21:00] Daryl Upsall: How are you going about creating career paths Maybe. Start with you, Jamal, I think.

[00:21:05] Jamal Monteilh: No, that’s a great question. Thank you, Daryl. So I think for, for us, especially in New York, ’cause that’s our, that’s our oldest program is the, the core basics. A face-to-face fundraiser comes into this job is they really wanna make a difference and they really want to grow, whether that’s into a new role or just they want to grow into new abilities and new knowledge.

[00:21:24] Jamal Monteilh: So we just continue to foster that on a day, daily basis and create that culture where there’s an excitement to learn and excitement to grow. And I think that really helps us to retain people. I think most importantly is also to give ownership, to give them opportunities to take something and make it their own.

[00:21:41] Jamal Monteilh: So we constantly look at like, how can we better do that? How can we, you know, maybe foster that in some other new ways? And I think that does a great service. You know, we have staff that’s been with us since day one, uh, that are still with us today, which is, you know, for me, I feel very grateful for.

[00:21:56] Filipa Morais: Yeah.

[00:21:57] Daryl Upsall: How about you?

[00:21:58] Filipa Morais: Yes, I think it’s so, it’s super difficult to retain facers in, in a lot of, uh, countries in a lot of markets. But, uh, I think it was now we have more countries, uh, uh, thinking ways of retaining these, uh, these facers and be used to have a lot of, uh, examples like, uh, again, I’m, I’m going for Portugal ’cause I’m here and it’s easier.

[00:22:17] Filipa Morais: But, uh, we used to have a niche training of face-to-face if it’s online or not. Uh, we always have the example from different people on the team that started on face-to-face. So you can, you can have like a career here, so they know they can study as a face and then be, then become a team leader. And then maybe they can go and join the loyalty team, or maybe they can be a director of fundraising team or a global advisor.

[00:22:43] Filipa Morais: So we have this, uh, this, uh, sharing of experience, uh, to, to, to feel, uh, them like, you can grow here and this is a career. So yeah, we, we are having more of that nowadays in more countries.

[00:22:56] Daryl Upsall: Sounds great. Definitely. Well, I recall with your teams a few years ago, we have videos that we, we saw across the organizations that we’re involved with just face-to-face saying, we like this, we enjoy our jobs.

[00:23:09] Daryl Upsall: We have a career here. And I recall we did that as well at the Vienna conference, the virtual conference. You know, the faces themselves, making messages, anything like that still going on in Spain or in Mexico or other countries quite that face-to-face is motivating face-to-face, as it were.

[00:23:25] Juan Edelshein: Yeah. It, it helps a lot and we, we make a lot of integration between the countries we’re working in because sharing experiences and.

[00:23:34] Juan Edelshein: And knowing that there’s another person 10,000 kilometers away, having the same problems that you have, gives you some, some perspective and helps you to work. And in addition to, to what filippa and Jamal were saying, we’re also trying to, to adapt to. A new, new profile of people that doesn’t want to grow that much in the organization and doesn’t want to have so much money.

[00:24:00] Juan Edelshein: But what they want is flexibility with their life and to have enough money to to live and to do what they like. So. We’re now doing stuff like if you reach your goal, maybe you don’t work a couple of days next week, instead of giving you money or instead of paying a trip, it’s free time and we’re paying with free time.

[00:24:20] Juan Edelshein: And a lot of people value that and that help us retain people in, in different countries very, very well.

[00:24:28] Daryl Upsall: Very, yeah. That’s interesting. Sounds very Gen Z. You know, where people are looking for the balance rather than just, it’s a bit more muddy in my pocket. Um, cool. I mean, going back on the generation thing as well, what’s the current typical profile of the donors that are being recruited in terms of age, gender, or whatever?

[00:24:46] Daryl Upsall: Um, is there a particular profile you’re looking for? Does it vary country to country or even location or? What are you looking for typically start with you Philippa.

[00:24:57] Filipa Morais: So it’s, um, of course it depends on the marketing region. We have different, uh, uh, different donors, I would say, but usually our donors used to be, and typically, uh, in, in general way, uh, used to be more women than men.

[00:25:13] Filipa Morais: Nowadays, I think in some countries, I think now I, I, I’m sure that in some countries it’s changing, uh, and we have more or less the same, uh, percentage of men and women coming to, uh, as a donor through face-to-face. So this is very interesting. And of course we have some exceptions, like I was thinking about like Al for instance, where we have more men donating than women.

[00:25:34] Filipa Morais: So there is a lot of different things going on. Um, but I would say like typically more women or. Nowadays more equal, I would say. Okay. Uh, and in terms of age, um. In Asia. In Asia, we are not super strong on face. Face. We don’t have a lot of markets doing, but step by step we are going there and we have big teams there also, but we have a lot of donors under 30 and we are dealing with some attrition, uh, problems.

[00:26:03] Filipa Morais: Mm-hmm. Um, but for most of the countries, most of our donors are more than 30 years old, so yes, it’s, and it’s our target. That’s ones that, yeah. Have it definitely more than 30 years old, not because I remember,

[00:26:18] Daryl Upsall: I remember when we first set up face to face in Vienna many years ago, my boss said, Greenpeace is becoming like gray piece.

[00:26:25] Daryl Upsall: We need to get younger donors. The trouble was we were too young. We were recruited to you. So they came in. They came out because they didn’t have the, the financial means to carry on. So, you know, and an interesting view, Jamal, yeah. You are recruiting, for example, in New York and you’re recruited in Mexico.

[00:26:42] Daryl Upsall: You must be seeing. Profile donors that you’re even looking for? Or is there more similar? Yeah,

[00:26:48] Jamal Monteilh: no, absolutely. So, I mean, obviously, you know, one of the most important things we talk about in all of our pitches across, um, you know, all the, the markets is time. So we are, we’re constantly talking with donors like, Hey, we’re making a case for, you know, this long term gift.

[00:27:02] Jamal Monteilh: So we speak about that within our pitch and that kind of narrows down. For us donors that can really afford to do this, like they’re having that conversation in the pitch before we get to objection response or before we get to sign up. So that kind of narrows us down to donors that are over 30 across all markets.

[00:27:17] Jamal Monteilh: But, uh, what’s interesting in Mexico is the challenges that sometimes our, our fundraisers face in spaces where they need to speak English. Which is, you know, pretty interesting for this market. And so, you know, they’re like, alright, I, I’ve memorized this pitch, I hope I’m saying the right thing, but signing up.

[00:27:38] Jamal Monteilh: And it’s just, it’s an interesting challenge I think for them to face. Some of them have been doing this a long time, but the market has changed. You know, since Covid in a way where there’s a lot of expats, you know, a lot of people moving to Mexico for three or four months, uh, at a time, and they come in and what’s amazing is the information that people have access to today is I find donors really informed, you know, especially if you ask the right questions, they really know what’s going on.

[00:28:03] Jamal Monteilh: So they could be in Mexico for three or four months and they, they know about the campaigns. That we’re talking about, uh, which I think is really amazing. So we’re not engaging them in like educating them about the issues they know, and we’re just kind of making a, a case for supporting, you know, these local, you know, international local organizations and Mexico.

[00:28:22] Jamal Monteilh: And so, you know, for us that’s been awesome. But it’s definitely a bit of a challenge for our staff in terms of a language barrier here in Mexico, which I think is very interesting.

[00:28:31] Daryl Upsall: That is fascinating. I mean, one you space in some of the markets like Panama or you know, we’re working how, what, what’s the kind of profiles you are looking for in, say, Spain or Panama or Columbia or.

[00:28:45] Juan Edelshein: It’s very similar to what Philippa and Jamal are saying, and we’re, we’re very narrowed by the, the quality of the donor. So we know, like you said, this is the most tested technique, so we know what a good donor is. So we’re looking for that and we’re profiling, so we’re getting an average of maybe 40 years, 40, 48 years old donor.

[00:29:09] Juan Edelshein: So that’s the average. And, uh, mostly women. Were mostly, uh, uh, an extra women, maybe 55, 60% are women and in Latin America to, to add something different because what they said, uh, some, a lot in Latin America, it’s really important, the payment method. So you need to, to have donors that have a credit card that shows that they have a, a higher income and they are, for them, it’s easier to give maybe 15, 20 US dollars a month to, to a charity.

[00:29:42] Juan Edelshein: So that’s our profile. Older people, credit card, and more women than men.

[00:29:49] Daryl Upsall: Okay. Well, we’re coming to the end of our, our session now, and thank you. Fantastic for all you’ve said so far and shared with us. Just one by one briefly, how do you see the future of face-to-face? I’ll start with you, Philipp. Is it positive?

[00:30:03] Filipa Morais: I am super positive. I’m, I’m a super positive person. I’m super pro solution and, and I really think that it’s, uh, it’s very important to have this mindset to, to work on face-to-face this energy. You know, like, let’s do this and starting the day dancing, you know, and, uh, uh, it’s important. Even in our global webinars, we start with a yoga session or some dancing or whatever, just to start with the right energy.

[00:30:28] Filipa Morais: We have a lot of challenges. Definitely, yes. We know we talk about recruitment process, about agency costs. Sometimes it’s, uh, it’s also a, a, a challenge, uh, donor quality sometimes. But still, despite all this challenge, I’m very, very positive because, um, you don’t have any channel that is giving you so much volume as face to face.

[00:30:49] Filipa Morais: This is one of the, the main reason I still, I keep being very positive. Also, you have this human side of face-to-face that you don’t have in another channel. And we like as human beings, after Covid, we were afraid to go into the streets and it was the opposite. It, people were missing this contact. You know, it’s completely, completely different.

[00:31:08] Filipa Morais: Um, and, um. And there is a lot of opportunities, new markets, uh, you have business to business face-to-face that we have in Latin America, and it’s amazing. And maybe we can have that on other markets and maybe also growing face-to-face in-house. I’m a big fan, so, uh, let’s see. Let’s see. I can wait.

[00:31:26] Filipa Morais: Fantastic.

[00:31:27] Daryl Upsall: As positive as ever. You always are. Well.

[00:31:34] Jamal Monteilh: I’m very optimistic about the future of face-to-face as well. Uh, when I hear Felipe speak about the markets that you’re excited to open this year, I think that’s amazing. I think that’s so exciting. I do think that, like, as Juan said before, you know, this is, there’s something powerful about speaking to face to face, I don’t know, another channel where you can actually listen to a donor’s stories before they become a donor where you can share your story stories where organization can say.

[00:32:00] Jamal Monteilh: You’re amazing. You’re awesome. I love what you just said and how you responded to just this one part of our pitch. There’s no other space for that, and that’s such an important human connection I don’t think can be replaced. So as we move into new markets in Nigeria and some of the places you spoke about, I’m just really excited for the future of face-to-face.

[00:32:18] Juan Edelshein: Fantastic final words. You, Juan? I couldn’t agree more. And, and yeah, just to add something up, I think that many people are afraid of new technologies coming and new changes, uh, coming to face-to-face and to everything in the world. And I think that we need, what we need to do is to learn how to use them, how to better ourselves with them, how to improve our teams with them, and.

[00:32:45] Juan Edelshein: Nothing, nothing, nothing can, can replace a, a nice human conversation, talking to someone, explaining them carefully about a beautiful cause and that’s it. Nothing, nothing can replace that. No AI can do that, at least in this.

[00:33:04] Daryl Upsall: Well, on that note, thank you very much. You’ve been fantastic. Thank you for sharing.

[00:33:08] Daryl Upsall: Thank you for your energy, and thank you very much for all the positivity you bring to this channel. Until this event. So thank you and well done. Thank you.

[00:33:17] Juan Edelshein: Thank you all.

[00:33:18] Daryl Upsall: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you everyone.

[00:35:26] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you would like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps more fundraisers like you find us.

[00:35:39] Alex Aggidis: Thank you so much. See you next time.

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