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Receipt book template for non-profit organizations

[Music] good morning or again afternoon depending on what time it is that you might be joining us for another episode of the non-profit show this week is dedicated to the non-profit power week and we have bloomering with us uh one of our amazing presenting sponsors but yet their very first Power week so we are on uh day four Thursday of this power week and we have Diana oturo with us today with Bloomerang and she's here to talk to us about non-profit tax receding but not just tax receding how it can make your life easier for those of you that are responsible for that so stay with us Diana has a lot to cover and again this entire week thank you to our partners at Bloomerang for committing each and every day Monday through Friday of this week to so many critical topics in our sector so if you missed any of them uh Julie and I were here and we have archived them and uh you can find them of course on many of our archive platforms um but we do want to thank all of our sponsors that allow us these opportunities and conversations so again huge shout out of gratitude to our friends over at Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy Staffing Boutique non-profit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University non-profit nerd and your part-time controller these partners are here and I like to say this Julia they're really not here for us they're here for our viewers and our listeners I know it's shocking but our viewers and listeners and their missions so there's so many critical missions 1.8 million registered non-profits and these companies are here to help you do more good throughout your community so again if you may missed any of our episodes or any of this power week you can go back and watch them you can also go back and share them but Roku Youtube Amazon Fire TV Vimeo and podcast form that's a mouthful but that's where you can find all of the recordings um 700 plus are archived on these platforms so uh really excited to to have that in perpetuity you know for for our sector so Julia I know we've heard numerous times that people will go on to watch episode and five episodes later you know they're still tuned in to the non-profit show so well not getting a total charge over and because I'm a geek I'm taking the the um remote to the smart TV and speaking in and then the non-profit show comes up that to me is like the best and as Jared always says we're just months away from the two of us sitting on your sofa with you in hologram format problems I think if you put the right glasses on it could happen like today but Diana you've been so patient and we are so grateful you and I met uh almost a year ago now at the AFP icon conference in Las Vegas um so Diana Otero joining us product marketing manager at Bloomerang welcome thank you so much for having me I'm so excited to be here today you know you were like the unsung heroes behind the scenes with this great brain power that makes life fabulous or miserable depending on if we know these things or when we don't and so when we were talking about getting you all together for a week and really drilling down on things they were like Julia this might not be a real sexy topic but we think it's important and I was like are you kidding me this is a great topic because it is I mean Jared you know it's like we have a lot of questions and it's it talks about the legal issues and good stewardship and so let's get into it and if you can just give us this overall arching idea is what is the role of the tax receipt it's not just to make us cranky is it I know I mean isn't this everyone's favorite topic especially I mean that's what everyone's talking about this year but this is really an important topic right because when people think about tax receding um they think oh my gosh this is going to be such a log it's going to be so much work but they're missing an opportunity here so really the role of the non-profit or the role of tax receipts is twofold one of course for the donor it gives them a record of their donations so they can take advantage of those tax deductions and they have Financial records of their contributions but oftentimes we forget that there's benefits to the non-profits for doing this as well and I think it's a great reminder because it's an opportunity to engage with the donors again show them um that you appreciate them and share what you've done so you can keep that stewardship going I think that's that's an important rule that's missing so yes it's for the donors but it's also for you for the non-profits and there's a big rule that is not being filled if you're not taking advantage of that or if you're not taking that into consideration I love this because it's a mindset yeah it's a mindset and it also really drives home the stewardship right like leaning into relationship using this opportunity to say look at the impact you and your household have made throughout this year so you have brought to the table five tips Diana and these you know I feel like I I should go ahead and tell all of our viewers and listeners if you're not driving at least bring out a pen and paper and let's capture these tips because you really are going to make our life easier and let's start off with this tip number one and I just want you to drive it home like one you know one of the five tell us this tip number one absolutely number one is if you're not doing this make sure you're segmenting again we take this the tax receiving as an opportunity to engage with your donors again so you and this is one of the things you can do ahead of time don't wait until you're in the tax receding season to do this throughout the year you can already start deciding and building what your segments are ahead of time how are you going to talk to your different segments of donors what different what different kinds of donors or donor groups do you have so a big benefit here to you also is it really forces you if you're not doing it already to get to know your donors so number one is make sure you're segmenting and everything's going to start from there because we're going to see later because you're segmenting you'll be able to personalize and really turn this very potentially very boring piece of communication into something that can Delight your donors and engage your donors even more so so I don't want to catch you in any like I gotcha but when you think segmenting and Ann Feldman talked about segmenting this week you know Josh Meyer talked about segmenting what are these segments you're talking about I'm curious if you can just get super nerdy and just like okay off the cuff what are some of the things um so we can talk about segmenting for hours but we don't have that long but yeah we won't do that um and I mean each non-profit is unique right so the first question and I'll give you some samples but the first question is what are the donor groups that you ask yourself what are the donor groups that make up your supporters so this could be new donors you want to treat those differently how segment out your new donors recurring donors um it's also a great opportunity here that I think is missed is um people or as a donor I myself you know I know how much I give monthly but I might attend an event or someone might do a pure peer peer campaign or giving Tuesday comes around I lose sight of my cumulative giving and this the tax receiving is a great way to call back to that of like oh yeah you know you've already done this much it's not just your 5 10 15 a month or however it is this is what it amounts to um if you have kind of sponsors or members how are you treating those differently loyalty you know if you have donors that have been giving to you for five years 10 years 20 years what are you going to do differently for those segments of donors that you have oh I love okay Jared I'm gonna go on record and I'm gonna say I'm gonna push back out to Boomerang uh and for the next segment that they're on let's just talk about this because already you know Diana you brought up some things that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of and so I think we need to explore this because that to me unlocks a lot of how this is going to navigate I mean are you saying you want to segment on segmentation oh my God that rocks I don't know exactly it okay so tip number one really is the segmentation and I love that and and here where I am in my community Arizona we have tax credit in many states you know also have tax credit and I could see that that is part of of the segmentation um and so really you're talking about all five of these tips and we're going to move into number two is to plan ahead before you know it it really is tax receding time so what is tip number two if tip number one was to segment absolutely that's a great Point too again we're kind of starting with the things that we're not even in tax season yet right so leading up to it number two is use a template um I know I might get some pushback from this because some people feel like oh doesn't that isn't that going to make it less personal and I would push back and say you know it gives you actually a little bit more freedom you know you draw the Box you form your template and you have you can be creative within that and when I say template you know think about okay what do I need in this letter what am I sending out in this what are the requirements um are there you know specific requirements to my state if you're in Canada um specific exceptions things like that but also thinking back to the rule is not just the tax receipts themselves how can I use this as an engagement piece are there other stories that we want to put in there so it's kind of templating out what do I want to say and when it comes down that when it comes time to sit down and write it you can be like okay I I know I'm gonna I know I'm gonna want a story to include in there and throughout the year I can be thinking about oh this is a great story that I'm going to include in the year end letter once we send it out so because you've put together that template you can start thinking about it already and it you know you can put it in when it comes time you are a brilliant mind because I see how often honestly this is you know a final to do on our list one of many you know uh to mention but really looking at this ahead of time and I'm thinking my brain is is overloaded already Julia because I'm thinking of even like you know uh other stories that you can pull in uh throughout the year that you can tie into successes things like that and you could just kind of you know build onto that so uh using that template I see is really you know a benefit so what are you gonna pull out of your you know tricks for tip number three well before that too and you see how this all flows together so when you create those templates make sure you're creating those templates for each segment so again you can tie in that story to each of the segments and the impact to each of that segments now when we get to number three this is really your time saving what can you automate most crms that are out there if you're using a CRM they have some kind of automated system that automatically generates these tax receipts for you or even if you don't have a CRM use a mail merge in word use a mail merge in Excel I was recently helping a non-profit send out their tax receipts in January they were just about ready to sit down and manually plug in each Purge each person's donation amount and I was like hold up let's take a step back there's an easier way to do this your time is much more valuable than manually updating each and every single thing plus it's going to be more prone to error and you're gonna your eyes are gonna get cross-checking that just to make sure everything's right so if you have the tools available for you how can you automate yeah and I love that you say this because again that human error factor is huge and even if you're at a point where um you're not doing this this needs to be on your technology strategic plan I mean this this is like a must because I don't know how you can grow your your point is so well taken about what else could you be doing with that time right right you know you could be bringing in more money to pay for the CRM licensing fees I mean you know needed yeah absolutely you know and I see that all too often as well Diana you know organizations of all different sizes and just because maybe they're an established mature organization you know as we talked about with other previous Bloomerang Representatives good data and good data out and so it's the trust that we put into ourselves and into our own system so I can definitely appreciate that and automation I know we'll we'll just simplify yes absolutely Michael is just talking yesterday about making sure your data is clean and once you trust that the data is clean you know you're going to save so much time and think of the cost benefit to uh you know if you can pay for if you can pay to get this automated I bet you that's still gonna cost less than if you were manually having to do it that's right yeah and I'm so glad you mentioned Micah because you know as as you think of a topic cleaning your database might not sound sexy to most but she really has a knack and I shared so many amazing tips and techniques again similarly to you to make our life easier um so it's just it's so important to you know really dive into these these topics okay let's move from Automation and then let me just recap so tip number one and this is all under the the umbrella support I should say of planning ahead so number one is to segment number two is to use a template number three is to automate so what's number four for us number four give yourself a deadline okay okay now I wouldn't have expected that one yeah you know I mean deadline for filing taxes of course isn't until April but give try to give yourself a deadline send out the letters by January 31st and I know that seems kind of like a weird tip but here's why the more that you think about it the more stress you're going to be just give yourself a deadline get it done and you'll be done you'll think of this as don't think of it as oh this is a looming thing that's coming think of it as it's a very freeing thing you're after that time you're going to be free right um it also you know it's good benefits for the donors because if they need to get there um or if they want to get to file their taxes earlier they already have it um you don't have to deal with folks having to ask don't wait for them to ask be proactive so that leaves a good impression to the donors as well and if it gives you a little more wiggle room in case you need to change something in your process or you know mistakes will happen a mistake happens you still have time to correct it so give yourself a deadline and don't be scared of it think of it as after that date you'll be you'll be all good yeah and to your point you know looking at this as another touch point and another opportunity of stewardship sometimes we we grapple with how do we how do we reach back out with something meaningful this is it so I think you can turn it into a positive and a win and again it's a mindset ship mindset shift I just love that I think it's so important I think too when it comes to the stewardship and I'm curious Diana if you're seeing this you know a lot of offices have reopened and they're really inviting constituents at of all of all maturity levels you know new donors um Legacy donors to come back in and see the programs right take a tour of the facilities um come to that Arts and Cultural kind of event can you integrate that piece in perhaps an invitation in the letter I love that absolutely and again this is you know think about going back to the template like what are those things you know what we've set our calendar for hopefully you've already set your calendar for the year by this time so you you know what's coming up and you know what those next steps and next cultivation points you want to invite the donors to come to absolutely that's wonderful and even to follow you along Jared even volunteer events where you can be like we're going to be doing this or we're going to be doing that um why not get that on the radar really cool okay wow so so far so really good new ideas what is our next big idea now number five document you've already done all this great work you don't want to go through the same stress again next year or you don't want to put someone else um through that same stress so if you've already found what works for you document it I'm a big fan of this people often forget um a big part of the stress is I don't know what I'm gonna do I don't know what I'm gonna write when are we going to send this what are our segments document everything it's going to even save you it's going to save you even more time next year okay how thorough should this documentation be are we talking like high level bullet points are we talking like you know full on sentences of where when how good point great question yeah um people are always intimidated when I tell them to document start small start simple um if points Works start with that um and again documentation isn't a one-time thing document as you go along right so so it's not such a big task you know if something comes up this year that you're like oh hey that's a good idea we can we should incorporate that go ahead and add that in now and so you can build that as you're going along yeah you know Julia that makes me think of Micah again so another shout out shout out to Micah from yesterday she was phenomenal in her one of her tips was if it's going to take less than two minutes do it now yeah I loved that that I mean that's just like a good piece of advice for Life absolutely yeah I thought that was smart um in the Green Room chatter these these points have been so um or spot on for me I can see how they work I can see how they make things efficient they reduce the stress and the fear talk to us about the um the the receipt that we get when we drop off Goods that maybe our favorite thrift store um things of that nature that we all find ourselves when we're in that process dealing with what does that look like that's very interesting that's a very interesting point right and it goes to when we go back to our going back to our templates right so different kinds of donations there's different requirements for each so typically for cash donations you have to declare the value for in-kind donations it's really the donor's responsibility to declare the value so as a non-profit really what you're wanting to provide is the date that they gave as well as a description of what the items the in-kind donations were and it's really up to the donor to declare that value so being aware of what those different require requirements are is key as well there's a lot of IRS resources out there and that's one of those things that when you document you don't have to itemize all of that but link to the appropriate documentation because hey it could change so make it easy yeah so make it easy for the person as well link them to the source so you don't have to update the documentation every time yeah I think it's a really valid point to ask about that in kind as well because you know in my mind I'm always thinking cash you know like how are we acknowledging our cash donors but the in-kind donor often is just as equally you know kind of at that level for many organizations um but I'm really curious should every single constituent every single supporter receive a tax receipt or is there like an IRS level where you know you don't have to do it for everyone or should we that's a great point so that's where we go back to as well what what's your donor makeup like are you going to use this as a stewardship piece right because there's technically requirements it's 250 enough for the IRS but again um I've seen I'm seeing a lot of organizations send send this out to everyone even the five dollar donors because they are using that as an extra cultivation piece um and there's different ways you can do it too I know sending out postage well sending out mail will cost money as well but you know there's also a question on do you want to send email do you want to send letters and technically from the IRS it doesn't matter as long as you provide written acknowledgment so in order to save money maybe and this can be part of your segmentation strategy you know if it's at this level and up they get a letter they have they get a handwritten note for for these amounts they get an email um so you can think of it that way as well going back to that segmentation right like from our tax receiving letters of this segmentation who might receive that email who might receive that you know uh the USPS and then my brain goes into so many other different uh areas too because I'm thinking well who should send it you know is this the development director is this you know maybe if they're in a portfolio the the manager kind of like of that of that uh relationship and I'm just sure there's so many different things to think about this and oh my gosh my brain's spinning now here's another thing for you we've been talking about tax receding and you know when we're talking about tax receding um of course we're talking about donations but that's not the only way that donors give when you think about your don't your segments can you do something for your volunteers instead of a summary of donations do you want to send out a summary of volunteer hours um totally not required but again with that thinking of that's kind of the time of year how can I use this as a stewardship piece what's the Opera where's the opportunity here wow you've really shifted my mindset yeah because I really have always seen it as it's that thing we have to do it's not always fun it sure as heck is not sexy um but really looking at the template and I love this right and that was uh tip tip two is to using that template is really looking at okay within this template how best do we want to communicate with our audience and there's so many ways in which we can do that so I want to recap uh for those of you watching and listening right so for the tax receiving overall Diana says and and recommends greatly to plan ahead right this is not that end of year now's the time that we have to do it so all of these five tips is under the guise of planning ahead so number one is segmentation and Julia has requested a segment fully on segmentation yeah use a template to really uh really creating that template three is automation four is deadline and I heard you say January 31 so is that your recommended okay so January 31 I'm gonna add that to my coaching and then number five is the document document document document the process amazing this has been great again um you took a something as Jared just witnessed you know it it lands in the drudgery file or pile like oh I have to do this but I loved the whole mind uh mindset shift from the get-go and if you do that then all these things uh fall into place they all relate they all support one another it was really magical thinking so thank you Diana Otero product marketing manager from Bloomerang she's coming to us from just what did you say a half mile away from the new corporate headquarters of limerang in Indiana so we are so delighted that we were able to um have you back with us we're going to see you again in the not too distant future right sure April New Orleans I'm so excited to see you there yes because uh we met uh as I mentioned earlier in the episode at the AFP conference last year and this year we're coming up again and so excited to have you um there at the conference and I will be there and Julia will be there um in this in this box again unless you change your mind Julian come with me for some Beignets and Jazz I know I know that that in itself I might just have to book myself hey everybody again I'm Julia Patrick been joined by the non-profit nerd herself Jarrett Ransom this has been an amazing week and there's a lot of content um and it all weaves together in such interesting ways that it wouldn't be necessarily apparent so we've talked about learning from non-profit giving Trends and that's how we started the week riveting riveting information that was somewhat shocking but yet Josh Meyer gave us some really good ideas we talked about the first time donor Journey five tips to getting the second gift and that's a really interesting thing again tagged on to Josh's information with Ann Meyer really really cool spring cleaning your donor base what does that look like why should we do it how do we do it and then today of course we talked about the tax receiving which was super interesting now tomorrow we're going to end the week a little differently it is our Friday ask and answer episode but we're going to be talking um with one of the bloom ring experts about if you're going to be getting a new CRM or changing what are the questions that you should be asking whether you're going to look at Bloomerang or not is not the issue it's like what are the questions that we need to be asking in order to be good um decision makers really don't you think Jared it's going to be like I'm excited sorry Julia but I'm taking that one tomorrow with Jacob I was so excited to have that conversation I've been um honored and privileged to work inside of bloomerang's crms uh for many of my clients and I really enjoy the system so excited to have this conversation tomorrow for our Friday episode and we wouldn't be able to do any of this including our power week if it weren't for our amazing presenting sponsors so again another shout out of gratitude to our besties at Bloomerang thank you Diana for joining us today you are phenomenal yeah also want to say thank you to American nonprofit Academy Staffing Boutique non-profit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University non-profit nerd as well as your part-time controller these companies are here to elevate your critical mission in around throughout your community so thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors amazing hey this has been a lot of fun um again I I learned something new every day on the show but the non-profit power week is really exciting to me because it just pulls all these different thoughts and elements together and I don't know about you Jared but it seems like it makes it more manageable when we understand how we can link things together and it eliminates some of that stress management and fun and fun yeah and and purposeful yes yes Diana thank you it was a huge pleasure thank you so much for having me this is so fun all right well you're a rock star and you know we gotta treat our rock stars well and so Diana I want you to listen to our sign off because we say every day to stay well so you can do well we'll see you back here tomorrow everyone Diana thank you [Music] [Music]