Using the Whole Whale - A Nonprofit Podcast

054: Texts that Change Climate with ACE Climate Education

The online to offline jump can be hard to make. ACE - Alliance for Climate Education has done it very effectively by engaging students in school with amazing presentations and then engaging them on SMS. Their programs focus on education and involve rigorous research and testing to make sure their trainings are having a lasting impact. Leah Qusba, the Communications Director shares how ACE evolved its programs and how tech is used to improve their organization. 

More resources from this episode

053: Awesome Automation Tools Used By The True Colors Fund

Joe Moran, the Chief Creative Officer of The True Colors Fund is a master of automating his work. His trick starts by creating a list of repetitive tasks as he comes across them and then seeing how they may be automated by tools like ITTT.com and Zapier.com. Time is a resource and by leveraging these tools, Joe is able to make the most of his. Co-founded by Cyndi Lauper, the True Colors Fund works to end homelessness among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, creating a world in which young people can be their true selves. By using these tools, their small staff is able to accomplish an incredible amount of impact. 

Find the automation resources.

053: Awesome Automation Tools Used By The True Colors Fund

052: Helping Homelessness with Hope Data

A recent UPenn study shows that just a 1 point gain on a 5 point hope scale resulted in a reduction of 32 days or 10% in homeless family shelter stay in New York. Dan Treglia PhD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice discusses his research on the impact that resilience has on family shelter stay. His research shows how we can use survey tools to really explore what works and might work when dealing with homelessness. We talk with him about how he did this research and at a broader level how other organizations can think about impact studies like these.

Learn more about this homelessness research. 

051: Making Food Stamps User-Friendly

PROPEL builds software for low-income Americans who are often overlooked by traditional tech innovation. Their current focus is food stamps, a $70 billion program that reaches 45 million Americans. We talk with Jimmy Chen the founder and his CTO Ram Mehta about how they have gone about building the app that is now helping thousands of people manage their food stamps.

050: The data behind donor retention with CauseVox

Talking with Rob Wu the CEO of CauseVox about data from the 2015 donor retention nonprofit stats. How important is keeping and retaining a donor vs hunting for new ones? Why are first year donor's so likely to not return?  We discuss the data and more importantly how nonprofits should think about keeping their donors. 

 Find full donor resources from this podcast.

049: Bit.ly and Canva Tips from TopNonprofits

Quick, easy tips for how and why to use Bit.ly and Canva from Amy Devita from Topnonrpofits.org. 

048: How to Select, Run, and Attend a Conference like a Boss

Spring is when conferences start to heat up in the nonprofit sector. Ritu Sharma, the cofounder of Social Media For Nonprofits has years of experience running, speaking and attending conferences that help the nonprofit sector. We cover what to look for in a conference, tactics to help you find a speaking role, ways to keep costs down, and the best way to focus your networking. 

047: Back to the Future of Fundraising with MJFF

How do you turn social and media attention into donors for your organization? Emily Moyer, the SVP of Marketing and Digital Strategies at the Michael J. Fox Foundation explains the process of moving friends to funders. They were able to capture the attention from Back to the Future Day in 2015 and turn it into a record breaking fundraising year around #GivingTuesday. 

This goes far beyond the luck of having a celebrity attached to the foundation and instead speaks to the methodical approach Emily's team takes to tracking and nurturing their audience. 

046: What happens when the world has internet? Avinash Kaushik

With projects like Google Loon, universal access to internet is becoming a matter of when - not if. In this brief discussion, we discuss the impact that universal connectivity will have on nonprofits and what web analytics will look like in this landscape. Avinash Kaushik, the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google, co-Founder of Market Motive Inc and author of best selling analytics books. Avinash shares his thoughts on how nonprofits will be able to move from a transient to a persistent connection with donors and how new opportunities will open up for under developed countries. 

045: Data Storytelling Time with Avinash Kaushik

Data data everywhere, but not a drop to analyze. Avinash Kaushik, the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google and author of best selling analytics books shares his thoughts on the difficult process of turning data into insights. How can we tell stories with our data and what is the role of a data analyst in a nonprofit? Avinash shares great frameworks for how to approach the MASSIVE problem of leveraging data in an organization. 

See all of the Avinash podcast show notes.