The Novus Show: Recent Episodes
Francisco Garcia, Zach Busekrus
The Novus Show explores the trends, technology, strategies, and organizations reshaping the fundraising landscape. You’re invited to journey with us as we discover how to attract, engage, and inspire the next generations of advocates. This podcast is for the innovators and envelop-pushers in the nonprofit space — for those dedicated to thinking big and wrestling with hard questions around how to grow their brands, programs, and constituencies. Let’s grow well, together — and have a bit of fun while doing so. Want to keep the party going? Drop us a note at novusagency.org
Which nonprofit would you donate to:
"Imaginary Nonprofit #1" — They are incredibly successful in their mission
"Imaginary Nonprofit #2" — They waste their donations and burn money
The answer is probably Nonprofit #1.
But how can you actually evaluate a nonprofit? Sure, you could look at their expense ratio and other accounting information, but how can you really know if a nonprofit is delivering on their stated goals?
This information gap ultimately affects the lives of the poor and suffering because they are the ones that are in need of the help.
What's the solution? Meet Elijah Goldberg from Charity Navigator.
He and his team are currently transforming the nonprofit space by 1) helping donors understand the impact of the nonprofits they support and 2) empowering the best nonprofits to become even better at what they do.
At 17, Elijah co-founded Walimu, a nonprofit that reduces preventable deaths in Ugandan hospitals by enabling faster, better health care.
At 22, he co-founded ImpactMatters, a nonprofit rating agency that helps donors find high-impact nonprofits.
What is he doing now? This year, his startup was acquired by Charity Navigator, which launched its first nonprofit impact rating.
Join us on today's episode as we talk with Elijah and explore how his team first started evaluating nonprofits at a small scale and eventually joined America's largest nonprofit ratings agency.
The children were swallowing coins...
At 5 years old, Michael remembers seeing passengers throw coins off the ship.
They were docking into Haiti and children were swimming below trying to swallow coins and bring the money ashore.
As he peered over the edge and witnessed children desperate to survive, something about this moment has stuck with him to this day.
Fast forward a few years—Michael Thatcher currently leads the largest charity evaluator in the United States as the CEO at Charity Navigator. From our conversation today, one thing is clear. Michael is still motivated more than ever to help make the world a better place. In today's episode, we dive into the intersection of passion, meaning, and doing good as we explore Michael Thatcher's story of leading a career centered on helping others and transforming the nonprofit space.
From his time as Microsoft's CTO to growing Charity Navigator's role in impact reporting—you're going to hear a lot of wisdom in this interview.
People are hungry for unity and reminders of goodness—and as a nonprofit professional, it is your job to feed them this. As charity:water's creative director (Tyler Riewer) would put it, “For millions of Americans, there is an incredible feeling of powerlessness. What we can provide is an opportunity to take control and be a force for good during these times." You have an opportunity to invite people to be this force for good by inviting people to partner with your nonprofit organization. The way you run your fundraising campaigns, emails, social media posts, etc—all should be done from this lens. Stepping into this role and honoring it, requires tremendous amounts of creativity and grit as you continue to push for growth...yet it is totally worth it if means building up the world for both our donors and beneficiaries. Today’s episode is a mix of Zach and I reflecting on what it means to position ourselves for growth and a brainstorm session on coming up with creative and tactical ideas that nonprofit professionals can leverage for their #GivingTuesday and EOY fundraising campaigns.
We believe that technology utilized correctly can change the world...
...and our first guest needed to be someone who lives & breathes this.
Introducing the one and only—Stephen Rockwell.
He is the Chief Ratings Technology Officer at Charity Navigator and the brain behind the new Encompass Rating System—a new way to evaluate nonprofits.
This isn't just another way to look at fundraising efficiencies and program expenses. It is about a gaining a 360 view of a nonprofit, empowering donors, and partnering with the nonprofits being evaluated.
This new rating system is changing the nonprofit landscape—and we wanted to learn from the expert who is designing it.
Today's podcast episode also highlights the various complex problems that Stephen has solved using technology through his career.
Towards the end of the episode, Stephen reveals what he thinks today's nonprofits need to do to be on the cutting edge and be a top-rated nonprofit.
We hope that you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed speaking with him.
At 10 years old, Zach couldn't understand why his grandmother received so many free gifts in the mail.
There were so many different colored envelopes, prayer cards, and dream catchers.
He didn't know it at the time, but this was his first introduction into the world of nonprofit donor acquisition.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Zach was surprised...
He was from a different generation and wasn't used to that style of communication—nor did he prefer it.
Yet, what is even more surprising, is that by and large, the way in which nonprofits communicate with him and his grandmother, hardly differ—despite their generational gap.
For today's episode, Zach and Frankie discuss 4 Copywriting Lessons that Nonprofit Marketing Professionals can use to reach a millennial audience.
Last week, I called up my friend (let's call him Luis Miguel) and we had a challenging conversation.
We were good friends and both worked in ministry together for a number of years—but I realized there was an underlying issue in our relationship that needed to be addressed.
Rather than letting it fester, I decided to bring it up directly. I named what I thought was not being addressed, and then spent time listening to Luis Miguel's thoughts.
This conversation was bold. A little risky. And required me to be vulnerable.
By the end of the conversation, the issue was resolved, our friendship was deeper, and we both left the call with a renewed determination to advance the mission of our ministry.
The lesson? Bold and vulnerable conversations done well lead to growth.
Zach and I have been spending a lot of time thinking about bold and honest conversations...especially in the context of Novus, nonprofit marketing, and fundraising.
In the spirit of transparency, Zach and I wanted to have an honest conversation on what it's like to work with an agency (from our perspective as a nonprofit marketing tech agency) discussing:
The Market for Marketing Agencies in 2020 When to Partner with an Agency How to Review an Agency (🌶) How to Successfully Work with an Agency This episode isn't meant to sell you our services—although it would be fun to partner with you (lol)—but it's meant to give you some real tools to help you partner with the right agency and to stop the agency burn and churn.
Let's advance your mission—to the heights.
Last week was a week of anniversaries...
I turned a year older and Zach celebrated his 7th year in nonprofit marketing.
Collectively, we have both worked 12 years in the nonprofit & marketing technology space and while we don't have any gray hair (yet)—we have learned a lot from our diverse experiences and want to share them with you.
In honor of the 10th Novus Show episode, we decided to record the 10 lessons learned from our 12 years in nonprofit marketing—and how you can apply them to your nonprofit.
Here are 3 spicy lessons from today's episode:
Lesson #4 — Create SEO Optimized Evergreen Digital Content Instead of Relying on Direct Mail Lesson #5 — Stop Emphasizing Omni-Channel Marketing Lesson #8 — Don't Underestimate the Power of Product & the Importance of Brand
Whether you have been in the nonprofit space for 30 years or are just getting started, we think there is something here for you...
You know that one nonprofit that always appears on your news feed? I'm talking about the one with those amazing Facebook ads that you wish you could pull off.
If this sounds familiar and you want a sustainable digital ad strategy, but don't know where to start...This episode was designed for you.
Today, we walk through how to reverse-engineer what great nonprofits are doing on Facebook and Google ads and how to use this technique to inform your own digital strategies and tactics.
Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or just rolling out of bed, we packed this episode with several tactics that you can start before 5 p.m. today, so that you can see results before the weekend.
There are 3 main ways you can drive traffic to your website:
- Pay-per-click 👉 Ex: Google Ads
- Social Media / PR 👉 Ex: Organic Facebook Posts
- Content + SEO 👉 Ex: Your Nonprofit's Blog
However, each category drives results differently...
I could pay Google to drive traffic to my website almost instantly.
In the short-term, I get results...But once the money stops, the traffic stops.
Long-term, the best strategy focuses on building and optimizing website content.
In today's episode, Zach and I dive into how you can start optimizing and transforming your nonprofit's current content into a winning, Google-worthy strategy.
Still not enough goodness for your ears?
In the last portion of our episode, we did a live brainstorm for Maasai Girls Education Fund—a nonprofit that we found minutes before recording.
In 5 minutes, we designed a winning content strategy that you might be able replicate for your nonprofit.
They got free (uninvited) consulting and we had a good time.
Let us know what you think!
This week's episode explores how digital brands are now being held accountable to a higher standard of quality and transparency and how your nonprofit might start to feel the side effects of this. Join Zach and Frankie as they dive into how Charity Navigator's new rating system could impact your nonprofit, how digital brands are responding to the call for transparency, and why we think automated emails are dying....spoiler alert: Youtube's eliminated some of their's. Yep—it's another spicy episode on The Novus Show.
On this week's episode of The Novus Show, Zach Busekrus and Frankie Garcia share their stories of how they became passionate about the nonprofit fundraising and social impact space. Tune in for a riveting conversation on near-death experiences in Guatemala, starting a nonprofit organization as an eighth-grader, and Frankie's journey to and from the seminary.
Tune into Episode 4 of The Novus Show to hear how more than half of the world is now on social media, how Pandora's new voice-activated ads are changing digital advertising, and how Google's delay in mobile-first indexing might be a blessing for your nonprofit (at least for now).
On this week’s episode of the podcast, Zach and Frankie discuss Google’s latest update to its algorithms (and what this means for nonprofit websites), riff on some of the amazing things Noora Health is doing to train patients and their families with high-impact health skills to improve outcomes and save lives, chat about how to use Drift’s new, free VideoBot to engage donors, and share insights garnered after emailing 20 different nonprofit organizations asking them how they’d use our stimulus checks if we donate the cash to them!
The Novus Show explores the trends, technology, strategies, and organizations reshaping the fundraising landscape. You're invited to journey with us as we discover how to attract, engage, and inspire the next generations of advocates. This podcast is for the innovators and envelop-pushers in the nonprofit space — for those dedicated to thinking big and wrestling with hard questions around how to grow their brands, programs, and constituencies.
Let's grow well, together — and have a bit of fun while doing so.