Nonprofit fundraising transparency with Pooya Pourak

In episode 93 of Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton and Pooya Pourak discuss the importance of transparent, impact-centric fundraising, the use of technology for efficiency, and the necessity of fair compensation for nonprofit employees. They delve into the nuances of donor engagement, exploring how to shift from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance and collaboration. They also discuss the potential of AI in the sector, while maintaining the human element that is essential to nonprofit work.

Episode Highlights:
09:40 - Donor Engagement and Trust:
Pooya presents statistics on donor engagement and trust, highlighting the disconnect between nonprofits and donors, and the strategies to improve transparency and communication.

12:00 Language and Fundraising:
The conversation shifts to the language used in fundraising and how it affects donor relationships. They discuss the importance of genuine, mission-aligned connections over transactional interactions.

14:00 Shifting Status Quo Assumptions:
Carol and Pooya discuss how nonprofits can break free from counterproductive practices and adopt strategies that promote long-term sustainability and diversified fundraising sources.

16:30 Nonprofit Ecosystem Complexity:
Pooya reflects on the complexity of the nonprofit ecosystem, including the roles of various stakeholders, from other nonprofits to donors, foundations, and policy.

22:00 Testing Hypotheses in Fundraising:
Pooya details the testing of two hypotheses aimed at increasing generosity and online giving, including the influence of unrestricted donations and the effectiveness of matching gifts.

31:00 The Future of the Nonprofit Sector:
Looking ahead, Pooya anticipates the growing role of AI in the sector and emphasizes the need to balance technological advances with maintaining the sector's human-centered approach.

34:00  Fair Compensation
The interview concludes with Pooya advocating for fair compensation in the nonprofit sector and encouraging a shift from competition to collaboration to enhance collective impact.

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Guest Bio:
Pooya Pourak
Pooya is co-founder and CEO of MatchNice, a social impact tech startup on a mission to connect the nonprofit ecosystem and maximize social impact. His team is working on a new kind of impact-centric fundraising platform to increase transparency, engagement and accountability in digital fundraising. Pooya brings 15+ years of experience leading digital transformation across business, government, and now the nonprofit sector. He is the Host and Producer of The Nonprofit Lab, a podcast dedicated to the journey of discovery in the nonprofit sector with an aim to uncover and shake up the status quo. Pooya runs his own consulting practice where he helps our government listen to the needs of diverse stakeholders and put their feedback into action to inform large-scale systems delivery. Pooya holds a Bachelor of Science from Georgia Institute of Technology in Industrial & Systems Engineering and is also a certified yoga instructor.

Important Links and Resources:
https://www.matchnice.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pooyapourak/

Charity Vest https://www.charityvest.org/

Google for Nonprofits https://www.google.com/nonprofits/

Click "Read More" to view a transcript of the interview.

Carol: So welcome Pooya, welcome to Mission Impact. It's great to have you here.
Pooya: It's great to be here. I love missions and I love impact, so thank you.
Carol: Yes. I love those two things too. And when they go together and, and there is truly an impact, it's a wonderful thing. So tell me what drew you to the work that you're currently doing? what would you say motivates you and what would you describe as your why?
Pooya: great. I I love that question. My personal why has been connecting with and helping others for, I. really since after high school. So it's been something that's been core to the way I try to, to operate. My professional background is diverse. I started out working for Fortune 500, Delta Airlines.
Saw how philanthropy worked in a massive organization like that. And throughout my whole career, I've been working to listen to the needs of, uh. People who are working to serve others, whether that customer. Is an airline passenger or someone who needs shelter and other assistance. so my other, part-time focus is actually consulting and health and human services.
So really looking at the most underserved communities. In the United States and identifying ways to improve service and care for everyone involved. so I've been naturally moving towards the direction of social impact throughout my whole career. And really when I got more involved as a volunteer and saw them.
A little, a glimpse of the inside out of a nonprofit organization that I, things just clicked. I got really excited about the amount of opportunities that there are to scale and improve, impact and serve others. And, so I started this journey in the nonprofit sector in 2018, and I don't see that journey of discovery ever stopping.
Carol: Yeah. One of the things that I did, I went back and listened to your first episode of, your podcast, the nonprofit lab, and you were talking about how you, and maybe, I'm not sure, your co co-founders of Match Nice. Are relatively new to the sector. So 2018, that's a little while now, but still, I, I probably have that, um. The curse of knowledge of having been in the sector since the early nineties. And so I'm really curious about coming as an outsider into the sector. What are some of the things that you've observed about the sector? I
Pooya: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for asking that. And, um. Folks like you who have that extensive institutional knowledge of the sector are so important to the opportunities that we've learned about and heard about as part of. The nonprofit lab. So the focus of the nonprofit lab has always been to try to uncover status quo practices that may not be, in the best interest of nonprofit organizations, the people who work at nonprofits as well as donors and the communities that they serve.
So to pull some data into this.
Nonprofits mention donor engagement, donor acquisition, and donor retention as their top three organizational challenges or points of focus. On the other hand, we have donors. Where only 52% of donors say that they trust a nonprofit organization. 68% say that understanding the work that nonprofits do increases their trust naturally.
and we're looking at this equation and saying, if our goal at Match NICE is to help nonprofits. Raise more money online. How do we look at the biggest challenges that both nonprofits and donors are facing today? And start from that point of listening, as outsiders and, five years. It's not 20 years, but we're lucky to have a team of great advisors.
shout out to Laura Otten from LaSalle University who's on our advisory board. She's got 50 years of experience in the sector, so we're learning every day and happy to go into a lot more of that.
Carol: Things that you said kind of jumped out at me. One was we were looking for status quo practices that aren't actually helpful. And then the second thing, as you were talking about from the nonprofit's point of view and then from the donor's point of view, actually I'm gonna pause for one second.
It says that your app is not focused. Do you have a lot of tabs open?
Pooya: Not for, not on this window. I have. This tab and then another window open. That's it.
Carol: That's weird. 'cause it's usually when you have lots of tabs open, but, oh wow. Oh, it went away. So I don't,
Pooya: Can you see me and hear me clearly?
Carol: There's just a little notification that pops up in the upper left hand.
Pooya: I disappeared.
Carol: Okay. Excellent. Um. So I'll start again. Yeah. So two things that you mentioned as you were talking about the work that you do with Match Nice.
jumped out at me was the status quo practices that really aren't helpful to the sector and then some of the language that I think nonprofits use about donors. And the one that really struck me was donor acquisition. And I'm thinking as a donor, I don't really know what I wanna be. Acquired, it feels very dehumanizing. And we use, I think we use a lot of, language inherited maybe from, well from our entire society that we live in, that is very market focused and, and, ends up treating people like machines. But that was just one that just jumped out at me as you were, as you were talking.
Pooya: That's, I love that you pointed that out because the language that's used around fundraising in particular is. Is certainly one of the status quo areas for growth, right? I think what I've seen is a really positive wave of change happening in fundraising discussions where I. Donors aren't treated as just walking checkbooks and we're, it's a lot more focused on building and cultivating mission aligned relationships that are genuine and, longer term it's less transactional.
Carol: So what are some of the things that you're seeing, or that, that, you know. To help people shift out of those status quo assumptions of how we have to do this work in order to raise money that are actually getting in the way. What are some, what are some of those, what are some of those practices and then what's the, might you think differently about them?
Pooya: Yeah. As I said, there's a lot of opportunities when we've, when we try to make sense of everything we've heard over the last five plus years and learned about, you can almost tie. Every opportunity Back to the scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset. I know that's brought up a lot and it's oftentimes just used as a blanket statement that doesn't have the substance of, what does that actually mean?
Mean, but it shows up in different ways. looking at partnerships with other nonprofits as potentially competitive versus collaborative. Um. In terms of measurement, right? Impact, we talked about mission and we talked about impact and being able to actually track the measure, track and measure, the work that you're doing, and to be able to look in the mirror and say, are we improving or do we need to make a change?
diversifying fundraising sources not being super dependent on just one major gift giver. Looking at different ways to raise money. Um. Sustainability, right. Thinking about programming that can generate revenue for your organization. One of the biggest misconceptions is that nonprofits aren't like businesses.
and if you've ever worked or seen a nonprofit in action, it absolutely operates very similarly with, of course, a very high focus on impact Um Speaking organizational focus. Impact centric. I think it's really easy to get caught up in what we need to do , what we wanna do, but really focus on cultivating what you are doing really well.
And nonprofits are one of the, some of the scrappiest organizations I've seen, very similar to startups in many cases. you know. I could go on. Those are some of the, the, the big ones. We talked about the importance of relationships, personalization. There's a big conversation around digital maturity for nonprofits that we could talk about as well.
But I will stop there.
Carol: We started out with, the, the, the, the statement that is often made about that scarcity mindset that nonprofits are stuck in. And I feel like that ends up being a little bit of a. A thing to hammer at people, like, you're doing it wrong, it's an accusation, and, and when the reality is, well, bare, our reality is scarcity.
Like, we're barely making our budget and we have three generation old computers and, and all those tropes. And being stuck in it obviously isn't, isn't super helpful. So, without kind of. I don't know, making folks feel even worse about where they are. How do you, how do you help them step into, being able to feel more abundant about what they're doing?
Pooya: Yes. That's such a great PO point. Like how, how are we talking about this in terms of opportunities? And as I mentioned earlier, there's a really positive wave of change that we're seeing around. Everything that we're discussing in those status quo, practices that I mentioned. Of course, these things don't like change overnight in terms of the one and a half million plus nonprofits in the United States alone.
but we're, I, I feel like the sector is moving in a really positive direction and it's cool to be a part of that.
Carol: Yeah. Yeah. Um. What surprised you, coming into the sector again, back to 2018 and, the last five years or so, surprised you in terms of what you've, what you've learned and through talking to all the folks that you've talked to, to ground yourself in the context.
Pooya: Yeah, I, I think just. Trying to wrap my head around the nonprofit ecosystem as a whole, and just seeing how many different stakeholders are required to provide the holistic care that nonprofits aim to provide to the people. Oftentimes, the people that they, and causes that they serve. So, starting at the view of just the nonprofit and oh, how are they partnering with other nonprofits?
How do they fit into their community? Are they complementary or competitive in terms of the programming they're doing? How do donors play into that equation? Feedback from the communities that are being served, foundations, corporations, the rise of donor advised funds, legislation, policy, it.
Carol: A lot.
Pooya: That's a lot.
It's one of those things where if you pull the thread, like you're gonna keep pulling for a while. so looking at the goal of trying to connect that ecosystem and maximize social impact is the mission at Match Nice. And what we're focused on, and we're starting with just fundraising as a stepping stone towards this much bigger effort that's a movement that we're seeing in the sector.
Carol: And you talked, quite a few, about quite a few opportunities that you see, and you listed a whole bunch. But if you were to say, okay, the top one, one to three in my estimation are these, which, which would, which would you name?
Pooya: Thanks. Sorry, I just heard a Microsoft Teams ding.
Carol: It's not mine.
Pooya: Not sure. Okay. Apologies for that. I can answer though. So I would say the top two things that we're focused on are two hypotheses that we've tested around generosity and online giving. So I mentioned that there's this statistic that says.
52% of donors say they trust nonprofits, and that 68% say their understanding of the work would increase that trust. So with our online fundraising approach, we're focused on increasing transparency and communicating. The actual work that's being done and the potential impact of a dollar and the support of a donor, whether that's one time or on a, ideally on a sustainable recurring type basis.
So, we've learned a lot about testing that. One thing that's surprising about that is. When we gave donors the option to designate their donation across different programs and initiatives, including overhead expenses, only one out of 10 donors actually made that decision to designate that donation.
We thought that was interesting. And Some of the thoughts we had around the behavior for that is maybe may. Most donors don't feel like they have the full knowledge to say where the money needs to be used and what the greatest need is. So unrestricted donations seem to be the preferred. Path. The second thing that we're testing is the power of a gift or matching donation.
So there's another stat that says 84% of donors, unsurprisingly, say they're more likely to donate when there is a matching gift involved. So actually this month we've been testing this. Stat by offering five nonprofits, a $500 online donation matching grant, through charity vest. Shout out to Charity Vest for making that possible.
And next month we're gonna test that again in, in the new year, but focused instead of on just one time. Donations on. Recurring donations, right? Like, hey, if you get 10 donors to sign up for 20 bucks a month, there's this $500 grant just waiting for you. So we're really interested in this equation of like, how do you inspire more giving in a giving climate right now that is.
The lowest it's been in 40 years. annual giving in from individuals has decreased by 13%, adjusted for inflation. And there's only three other times in, over the last 40 years where there's been such a huge drop in individual giving. So we're really interested in how to help flip that equation.
Carol: Well, one of the things you said, you talked about. How, and I, I wanna make sure that I understood what you were saying. You were saying when you gave people the option to, either designate to a specific thing or designate, did I hear you right in you, you saying that nine out of 10 people chose not to, to give it to a specific thing.
Pooya: Yeah, and we loved seeing that because one thing we've heard from nonprofits around fundraising is that it's unrestricted.
Carol: grail.
Pooya: Yeah, that, and we wanna promote that, that allows nonprofits to test new things, be more innovative, step outside of that, like doing, um,
Carol: Just,
Pooya: dependent on all these resources. Just, it, it, it really helps embrace this growth mindset around all that, which is great.
Carol: And then the other thing you said was for the other part, um. Around matching and um. that inspires more giving and what you, I think what you were saying is you were looking at whether it could also inspire more, someone signing up for a recurring gift, which is another kind of, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a fundraising expert, but just having been around long enough, I, I know a few things. So like, I think that's another one that people are definitely always trying to move people towards. and so yeah, it's been interesting, it's interesting to hear those. Those two pieces that have so many different tactics or whatnot are trying to move people towards that. Can you give me an example of what you mean by or how you're seeing it be helpful to help people? The donors understand the work better and help them. I guess I would guess my assumption would be part of it is also helping the nonprofit actually move out of that expert. Curse of knowledge and be able to tell their story in some effective way. So I'm curious if you can gimme some examples around that.
Pooya: Yeah. Carol, I'm sorry. I just like, I was trying to keep up, but I Could you reframe the question again? I'm sorry.
Carol: I'm basically just looking for some examples to make this concrete. Of, that what you're doing with, those things that you're
Pooya: The.
Carol: you're testing at this level, but then when you're working with individual nonprofits, how are they putting that into action?
What's, what's making it work for them? And an example.
Pooya: Yeah. Yeah, so one, one of the most important things we've learned about all the various testing that we've done with making the online donation experience easy, informative, communicative, communicative of impact and transparency, and, um. All of that has been really great, providing the context around giving, but we've learned it's all for n if you don't have a communication and fundraising drumbeat as an organization.
That's what draws people to want to give. It's interacting with your, your organization at an event or in person or seeing the impact that you're creating. It's a very people to people, type of, in, relationship obviously. And what we're thinking with the matching that we're really excited about is.
It just inspires more giving. Carol, if I say, Hey, I'll put a hundred dollars in. If you put a hundred in, or, hey, if you donate a hundred dollars, your donation is gonna be matched a hundred percent. Like I I, I think we can double the amount of giving through this approach for nonprofits and also inspire.
More donors to come together, to increase and maximize the potential impact of our donations.
Carol: And, I'm wondering if you might gimme an example of kind of, for a specific organization, what might that look like? And obviously not naming names or, or, we'll, we'll keep the, the innocent and the guilty, anonymous, but just kind of. organization you've worked with, that where you've seen some success with all of this.
Pooya: And I should say that we're currently focused on grassroots nonprofit organizations with budgets of less
so 90.
Carol: Yes.
Pooya: Out there, there, and each nonprofit is unique. Each nonprofit has different sets of, board engagement, to technology activation, to fundraising knowledge, and web presence and program definition. You can't really treat any one nonprofit the same. You could offer the same tools, but every, every one of our customers has had different types of needs.
to, to compliment what I was saying before about a donation experience doesn't really work if you're not, you're not engaging donors in a meaningful way. We have helped with integrating the communication to like, drive people to the donation page. We've helped with donor segmentation and different strategies for.
How you communicate with your casual donor versus a major gift, giver. We've looked at the role of technology and how we can support nonprofits there, so we're surprised to see, most nonprofits aren't taking advantage of things like Google for nonprofits for the workspace.
There's a $10,000 a month Google Ads grant that's out there, and we actually went through the process of trying to set those things up for a couple of our customers, and I can see why nonprofits aren't using this as much. It is, it's not as simple as you think it is. There's tons of verification back and forth.
issues that could come up. So, but there's, all of these different pieces should follow a fundraising strategy, right? And I think one of the missing pieces that can happen, especially in grassroots nonprofit organizations, is to have many different activities going on, like fundraising and programming and serving, but not really looking at what this looks like?
How do we sustain this for the next year, three years, five years? So hopefully that gives some examples.
Carol: And that goes back to that scarcity or, when you're, when you're being that scrappy organization, it's all about, just you're constantly on that treadmill of what's next, what's next? And it's hard to be, it's hard to, to think long term, when you're stuck in that, that frenzy. but I, thing you talked about was, um. this po more positive direction that you see, in terms of the the future of the sector, what are, what are some of the big opportunities that you see as we, as we move forward? I
Pooya: Yeah, times are moving fast right now with the advent of AI and it's being applied to so many different things, accelerating things that would take hours to do into seconds, and I think there's a massive opportunity for. The sector to leverage ai and there are so many different impossible use cases for that.
I think the important thing to consider with the introduction of artificial intelligence, generative ai, all of that, is to not lose the humanity of what nonprofits bring. one out of 10. People in the United States approximately work for a nonprofit, and there's, millennials are the next generation of.
nonprofit executive directors and board members. So, with that generational shift, there's also going to be some shifts that happen in the sector that we're really interested to see and understand and, also thinking about how Gen Z is going to be giving, right? So every generation has their own.
preferences of communication and styles of, wanting, seeking information, connecting, volunteering, and, I think as we move forward into the next year, all these things are gonna become more and more prominent and important as we look to the next five plus years.
Carol: I feel like. Just in the last couple weeks, every new app I open I use on a regular basis, I now see something that's saying, AI assistant's gonna help you do X or Y or Z. And so, the many technologies that we rely on are integrating it and, and have been integrating it in ways that maybe we didn't even realize for a while. but I also appreciate the point around, I think. Maybe what can differentiate the sector that if, if we. If we stay on mission if we, really are focused on impact, is staying really human centered and, and people first. And that's not always true for every organization, whatever their mission is, in terms of, how they, how they treat their employees and all of that.
And that's really what got me started in terms of trying to work with organizations on their effectiveness and, and that organization development. But I think it can be real. Special part of the sector if we pay attention.
Pooya: Absolutely. And you just mentioned pay, and one of the things I wanna just be another voice for is the, um. The difference in the private sector versus the nonprofit sector and the amount of work that's happening between the two sectors, in my opinion, from what I've seen, merits a pay increase for everyone working at a nonprofit and the status quo of donors.
Fixating on overhead ratios has to change. It needs to be more focused on mission delivery and the respect that people who are delivering that mission are not just critical for all that to happen, but deserve to be compensated fairly. That's gonna take a while, and I hope to be a part of that change in the sector in the future as well.
Carol: Well, that's awesome. And that leads me to my final question. So on every episode I ask guests, what permission slip would they give nonprofit leaders or. What would they invite them to consider to avoid being a martyr to the cause and as they work towards cultivating a healthier organizational culture?
So I know that's a mouthful, and then I've got a train going by. so it's a permission slip or an invitation to nonprofit leaders on basically how not to be a martyr to the cause.
Pooya: Yeah, what a great question. My message would be, you don't have to solve all of the world's problems, and we're. I think it can be really hard to work in a space where there's a never ending need for the services that nonprofits provide our communities, our states, our nation, but to keep the perspective of the collective impact, that part.
Efforts are super important and valuable and in many ways, like a core part of the healing for our nation. And just to not get lost in the global picture. It's the focus on what's right in front of us, the local impacts, state level impact, federal, national impact. Will change, will change, the world.
Carol: Yeah. And I really appreciate that. 'cause I've talked to lots of people about shifting from that mindset of I'm in competition with all these organizations to how can we be collaborative, how can we focus on how we can be complimentary versus, competitive and, and partner partnerships and all of those kinds of things.
But it starts with even just mapping what is the ecosystem that you're in and being aware of, that you're not. it alone, even though it can feel like that. For sure.
Pooya: Yeah. How can we connect more dots
Carol: Yes.
Pooya: nonprofits and everyone else to make a bigger impact? Yeah.
Carol: Well, thank you so much. It's been a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate it.
Pooya: For hosting. Carol, you're an incredible host by the way. Appreciated all of your questions. definitely a big fan podcast.
Pooya: Thank you for having me.