108. SPN (Some Personal News)
My infographic of nonprofit tools. Also: AdTech and How to run a solid RFP process
A very warm welcome to all the new subscribers. I’m thrilled to have you as readers and truly appreciate your feedback and support.
Fundraise Up empowers you to push 100+ fundraising and marketing datapoints in real time to the apps in your tech stack.
And they just announced a new integration with Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Salesforce's newest tool for fundraisers.
With this integration, donation records are synced between Fundraise Up and Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud immediately after donations are made.
Game-changer? Surely that’s a resounding yes!
In this week’s SPN:
My interactive infographic on the Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising Tools landscape.
Why don’t we see ads as good as these in digital?
How to run a solid RFP process.
Jobs that took my fancy this week
Let’s dig in!
Infographic: Nonprofit Tools Landscape
I published an interactive infographic on the Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising Tools landscape. Check it out here.
While it’s felt a smidgen impossible to squeeze companies across an industry into discrete marketing and fundraising categories, it’s been fun to attempt to organize the nonprofit landscape. Massive thanks to the SPN friends who have cast their eyes over some early drafts.
Unlike the static infographics I’ve seen of the Martech industry this is a living document. You can click around and filter the categories. For now most of the logos click through to their respective websites.
In time each of these tools will have a page on my website Pledgr and I’ll publish some form of commentary/YouTube convo/product demo alongside each of them.
Who did I miss out? If you have suggestions or recommendations of other tools or categories to add please reply to this edition of SPN and let me know.
Whilst you’re on Pledgr, poke around the site and check that your Org’s details are correct in the Nonprofit Directory! And if you’re hiring let me know the details.
AdTech
An SPN friend shared these reimagined motion ads as a demonstration of AI. But to me they raise another issue.
In one an iconic 1960s era VW Beetle in the classic Volkswagen’s “Think small” ad drives into the foreground and off the page. In another, depicting Campbell’s 1962 “Soup on the rocks” ad, the soup is actually being poured into the glass.
Why don’t we see ads as good as these in digital? Each of the examples is a great idea improved by some simple animation and all would work in social or display.
Talking of which, the Meta attempt to sidestep EU privacy regulations by giving people the choice of consenting to ads or paying a subscription hasn’t been accepted by the EU who said:
The Privacy Sandbox continues to be controversial and whilst too many in the ad industry appear unconcerned, the publishers are anxious. Criteo have undertaken some interesting research - with good news and bad news.
The Bad is that publishers can expect to lose 60% of their Chrome ad revenue as and when cookies are turned off.
The Good is that Criteo have identified “quite simple” changes that Google could make to mitigate this.
This is quite different to the views of the ad industry body IAB but the Criteo research looks pretty robust. The Google response is non committal but for the sake of digital fundraisers and their data hopefully things are moving behind the scenes.
Jobs & Opps 🛠️
Alzheimer's Association: VP, Marketing & Comms ($130,000 - $150,000)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: Assistant Director, Philanthropy Marketing and Communications
World Science Festival: Associate Director, Institutional Giving ($90,000 - $120,000)
Telus: Head of Fundraising and Donor Engagement ($112,000 - $168,000)
Marie Curie (UK): Head of Mass Fundraising (£70,000 - £75,000)
Boys & Girls Clubs of America: Director, Partnership Marketing
MIND (UK): Digital Insight Manager (£44,044 - £52,836)
British Asian Trust: Chief of Staff (£55,000)
Mercy Corps: VP, Marketing & Communications ($142,000 - $180,000)
Comic Relief: Fundraising Events and Challenges Lead (£44,342 - £47,888)
More here… Pledgr Jobs
How to Run a Solid RFP process
I first tackled how to run a good RFP process in SPN #61. In it I broke down four key reasons why most RFPs fail to be the matchmaking tool they’re meant to be:
The goals of the RFP are unclear to the vendors participating.
The RFP is too broad and should be broken into several different ones to avoid compromises.
The selection criteria are wrong.
The right partner doesn’t participate in the process.
I’ve chatted recently to several Org’s who are going through RFPs in preparation for their EOY fundraising season. Their questions proved the perfect inspo for this post.
For example purposes throughout I’ve used the framing of selecting a new Direct Mail partner where relevant.
Be clear about the RFPs objective.
An “ideal” RFP process is meant to request proposals from a procured list of external vendors to fulfill a well-defined internal objective and find the vendor that does it best – fastest, cheapest, and with the most remarkable results.
However, most RFPs I’ve encountered in real nonprofit life start as one of 3 tasks:
Add a new function to the program.
Replace a vendor due to insufficient performance.
Procurement-driven procedure to push down price or conduct due diligence every X years.
An RFP isn’t an ideal answer to any of these ^
→ In option 1 if your team is adding a new function e.g. launching a Direct Mail program to active mass market donors - the capabilities to define precisely what is needed likely don’t exist in-house, and an RFP is bound to fail.
→ If the existing vendor underperforms and the RFP is focused on replacing the executor without changing the methodology, as per option 2, the requirements will be wrong – resulting in the same (bad) results, possibly for a lower cost.
→ Finally, in 3, if the Procurement Team’s focus is solely on price not only might an RFP be overkill, but it’s usually detrimental if price is weighted more importantly than results.
The first and second options are more complex – but the key is to separate strategy from execution upfront.
Electing an experienced team member as Project Lead or seeking a third party Advisor type person makes a ton of sense - first to build a business plan of sorts (scenario 1) or assess existing strategy (scenario 2) - then go through a non-competitive pitch process with 2-3 potential vendors to learn the general lay of the land - and only then run an RFP.
In option 3, if your Procurement Team is game call on some friendly Org’s to gauge the prices they pay for the same service before going to market to collect offers. It can be a much less resource-intensive process that way.
If an RFP is inevitable, the First Round should focus solely on obtaining financial quotes for the current budget and tasks. If the price from any vendor is significantly lower than the current one, host a Second Round focused more on technical capabilities and results.
A good RFP document should include the following:
Relevant background (what was done, what worked, and what didn’t – as well as, if relevant, sample reports)
Objectives (under the “Strategy” section – what are the guardrails; under “Execution” – what are the measurable outcomes?)
The scope of work should be tightly defined for the Execution section but left more open in the Strategy section.
Examples of deliverables (under “Strategy” – put an example of a business plan, or at least, an outline; for “Execution” – what are the non-negotiable requirements for reports or, in the case of Direct Mail, examples of assets previously mailed?)
Timelines
Budget (both pass-through costs and cost of services)
Procurement teams are frequently reluctant to share the exact budget of the program, instead forcing vendors to provide pricing scenarios in tiers that would accommodate all budget scenarios. This approach isn’t helpful.
Transparency helps everyone. If vendors can’t work with those budgets, the sooner they can opt out, the better for all involved – and for the results.
Consider running an RFP for the pilot first.
Regardless of how well an RFP is written or how many presentation rounds are built in, or how many references are checked, none of these show the actual results a vendor will deliver. It’s safer to opt for a shorter RFP process and only award a “pilot” at first.
In the Direct Mail example, this would mean splitting the budget - and the mailing file - 50/50 between the existing vendor and the newly selected one for three months post-RFP, either awarding the business to a new vendor or remaining with the existing one afterwards.
Of course, this should be clearly marked in the RFP file itself. Running a pilot is also a respectful way to validate a vendors’ claims about being performance-first and delivering better results.
The “right” partners will appreciate less time spent on unpaid RFP work, instead applying their resources to showcase their work.
The same can be done with an RFP to add new capabilities: select two winners and compare them head-to-head for the first three months.
Aim for diversity of experience and expertise in your line-up.
Consider bringing onboard a third party firm to help support and run the entire RFP process.
Direct Mail management is a crowded field, as is CRM implementation, donor analytics, or paid media management. One benefit to outsourcing the process is a third party can help create a well-balanced list of possible tools/agencies/platforms, including:
Boutique vendors working only with nonprofit Org’s.
Large vendors working only with nonprofits and adjacent verticals (politics, education).
Boutique vendors working with for- and not-for-profits, specializing in the exact objectives your Org is looking to achieve.
Large, one-size-fits-all holding companies.
Treat the process as a 2-way street.
Several Org’s mentioned to me that they’ve had vendors opt out of RFP processes upfront, midway, and shortly after being awarded the contract.
Vendors opting out can be a good thing - they weren’t the right match - but in each case shared with me it was the result of a flawed RFP process – leaving the Org without potential winners. So here are some final thoughts to help both sides win
Appoint a single person to run the RFP as they would run the partnership.
This person should be available to all the participating vendors to ask questions and work with them, as they would work with the selected partner. The goal of the RFP isn’t to select a company that can do the best job with the least amount of information possible. Working with vendors during the RFP process will help them put their best foot forward in achieving your results and will show your team what it’d be like working with them better than any chemistry meetings or presentations.
Make timelines reasonable.
Don’t schedule in-person presentations with a one-week notice or ask vendors to return for a second negotiation round. Instead, outline the timeline of the RFP process in the initial document – and if a decision can’t be made as a result, opt for the paid pilot instead of extending the RFP.
Minimize the amount of unnecessary bureaucratic clutter.
Require submissions in sealed physical envelopes. Ask to negotiate legal terms before confirming the award of the contract. And require a detailed project plan for the entire project before committing to the final budget.
An RFP is a matchmaking process - focus it on mimicking what working together would look like to achieve results, followed by checking the procurement boxes - not vice versa.
That’s all for today!
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And huge thanks to this Quarter’s sponsor Fundraise Up for creating a new standard for online giving.
Now onto the interesting stuff!
Reads From My Week
The Brand New Rules of Advertising (Fast Company)
Ad Spend Growth Slows While Some Usage Stalls: TikTok Stats Since the Ban Threat (AdWeek)
Apple Watch Is Becoming Doctors’ Favorite Medical Device (WSJ)
QR codes comeback - replacing barcodes (Digiphy)
Meta are talking up their next gen AR Glasses expected to be revealed at an event in September (XR Today)
Tony Blair: My Advice to Keir Starmer (The Times)
Gradually, then suddenly - Small improvements can lead to big changes (One Useful Thing)
OpenAI wants the New York Times to show how original its copyrighted articles are (Torrent Freak)
How Apple Intelligence stacks up against Android’s hybrid approach (Wired)