The Strangest Secret of Volunteer Management

Few people know how nonprofits work. Dan Johnson does. Specializing in helping business owners and professionals create nonprofits that last, Dan has helped new nonprofits raise over $3 million, turned around several struggling organizations, and helped over 30 nonprofit leaders create sustainable nonprofits. Dan Johnson is a 4x nonprofit founder, former impact evaluator, and nonprofit coach. He grew his first nonprofit to 10,000 volunteers nationwide in 3 years, and has created federal and state policy change on numerous issues. Dan’s work has been featured in The Nonprofit Communications Report, CNN, The Chicago Tribune, The Examiner, Mic Magazine and organizations he’s helped have been featured in national outlets including Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and hundreds of local news stories. Dan developed the 5 Levels of Sustainability to give business owners and professionals a pathway to creating a nonprofit that lasts. He serves these leaders through 1:1 and group coaching programs. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and two sons, Alex and Leo, and is a long-suffering fan of Detroit Lions football.

If you believe volunteers are uncommitted, untrustworthy, and maybe more trouble than they are worth…tune in to this episode on volunteer management. In it, Dan Johnson will describe the strangest secret in all of volunteer management – and why some organizations have waitlists full of volunteers, volunteers that show up on time, and go the extra mile, and some of them have volunteers that rarely pick up the phone.

More information at – https://nextlevelnonprofits.us

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, Founder and President of SynerVision Leadership Foundation, where leaders create synergy with the clarity of their vision. And wow, do I have an interesting guest today, an expert on setting up and empowering nonprofit leaders to fully accomplish their mission. And we’re going to focus in on a specific area, the strangest secret of volunteer management. So my guest today is Dan Johnson, and I’m going to call on Dan to introduce himself and tell us a little bit about yourself and why you do this work.

Dan Johnson:
Thank you, Hugh, and thank you to your audience. So I started in politics because, I know everybody goes, ugh, but I started in politics because I thought that that was where the decisions were made. I thought that that was where you had to go to create systemic and ongoing change. and created my first nonprofit at 18, created my second nonprofit in the world of politics at 20, created my third at 22, and ratcheted up the upper echelons of politics as fast and as hard as I could to try to make significant change. And what I found, Hugh, was there is no Oz. You go behind the curtain, and I remember being in a room I can’t say the name of the group because it technically doesn’t exist. But I remember being in the room and you’ve got all of these incredibly powerful political people, members of Congress, et cetera, et cetera. And they’re discussing a recent proposal. This is 2016. So they’re discussing a recent proposal that candidate Trump at the time had been throwing out at his rallies. And no one in that room had ever heard of before. And most of the people in that room were against it. But it didn’t matter because it was already proposed and therefore it was going to be gospel. And everyone in the room was just trying to figure out how to get their little piece of it. And I thought I was in one of the most powerful rooms in the world. And that was the reaction that people were having. And I realized over a long career in politics, that politics is the place where things maybe get compromised, maybe there’s some consensuses that come together on things, but that’s not where the solutions are. And my dad had a self-help library. We lived in a rough neighborhood, but we had a self-help library, and he would always say that if we were ever robbed, and we were, multiple times, Whoever robbed, they wouldn’t take the self-help library. And that’s what allowed us to get the money that we had in the first place. So we would always be able to get it back. And I took that kind of leadership mindset and really looked for a way to change as much of this world as I could. And then found out the answer wasn’t in politics, but it very much was in community nonprofits.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, we do special work in communities, and it really ought not to be government work. It ought to be the communities coming together. So I applaud your choice here. And so you founded this organization. What’s it called?

Dan Johnson:
Next Level Nonprofits.

Hugh Ballou:
And who’s your customer?

Dan Johnson:
Our customer is newish nonprofit leaders or new executive directors who their organization hasn’t yet raised their first $250,000.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, how about those that aren’t established?

Dan Johnson:
Do you do those or just- Yes, we also do those that aren’t established. It’s a little bit longer to get to results. So yes, we’ll work with those who are looking to start a nonprofit, looking to kick one off and looking to kick it off right. And not for it to be a 40, 80, 100 hour a week time suck that drains your joy and your passion, but actually have the money and the people and the media attention that you need to carry forth your organization.

Hugh Ballou:
So, I work with entrepreneurs and non-profit leaders are social entrepreneurs because we’re not working for a corporation. So, we’re not in that mold. So, we’re doing something very different. We have the same deficits as entrepreneurs. Like, we haven’t thought about all the systems that we need to run. And this is a business. It’s a for-purpose business. So, Talk a little bit about some of the stuff that you do that helps equip leaders to do this hard work. This is harder than being a regular entrepreneur.

Dan Johnson:
Oh, it is. Oh, it is. And I think the first reason that it’s harder than being a regular entrepreneur is because when you’re starting a for profit, you usually have a product or service to offer. And when you’re starting a nonprofit, you have a vision. And visions can be in the long run significantly more powerful than products or services. But so many nonprofits haven’t actually clearly defined what their impact is going to be. They don’t really have clarity on that vision. So when they’re talking to someone who wants to get involved or talking to somebody who wants to donate, They’re talking about what they do, but not where they’re going or where they’re going, but not the specific metrics they’re aiming for or the specific metrics they’re aiming for, but not by when. When they have these conversations, it leaves people a little bit confused. And I don’t remember who said it, but probably a lot of people, confused customers don’t buy. And that applies to donors. That applies to volunteers. You got to really get clear from the beginning on what is going to be your impact. on the world as an organization. Who do you serve? What problem do you have? How does it affect them? All those key things, they’re so much more important for a nonprofit to get right because that’s all you’re selling at the beginning. Now, it’s an incredible sale, it’s incredible opportunity, but you have to get really clear on it. And so actually, in the 20 to 30 organizations that we’ve worked with over the past couple of years, the number one thing, number one first thing we do is we look to understand where they’re going, and we do some work clarifying their message so that when they’re talking to people, they hear it.

Hugh Ballou:
Yes, we tend to want to tell people too much about it. You know, I like the story that Zig Ziglar used to say about the guy that asked his mom a question, and she said, why don’t you ask your dad? And the kid says, I don’t want to know that much about it. So we actually talk ourselves out of the sale. And really, We we tend to shy away. We have this word nonprofit. I want you to talk about that the myths that that creates it’s it’s puts us in the scarcity mindset, but we want to shy away from sales. We want to shy away from talking about money and then we complain. We don’t have money. So what doesn’t add up there?

Dan Johnson:
Oh, that’s absolutely true. Look, the way that most non-profits, particularly newer ones, but even some established non-profits do fundraising, you’ve heard of No Like and Trust, and probably everyone on this call has heard of No Like and Trust, is they stop at No Like and Trust. And No Like and Trust, particularly for a newer organization or an organization or a new executive director who doesn’t have a lot of connections in that space, No Like and Trust is like walking into a Walmart. And all of the products have black boxes around them. There’s no prices on the shelves. And there’s a really friendly greeter who loves you and how awesome you are and tell and ask so many questions about your business and who you are and where you came from. And then at the end of your trip through Walmart, ask if you want to buy something. That is how the vast majority of non-profit fundraising goes. And what non-profits fail to realize, because they’re calling themselves non-profits, because they have this scarcity mindset, is just how valuable of the impact that they’re delivering. And if they can package that like a product, like a regular product that a business would sell or a product or service business would sell, then they will get donors to buy in at three, five, 10 times higher amounts on the checks when they walk out of that meeting, just by saying, we offer impact, this is the specific impact of the offer, and this is your piece of it.

Hugh Ballou:
So what do you say to people that say, I don’t want to talk about money. I don’t want to be asking for money. How do you respond to that?

Dan Johnson:
I don’t ask for money. Here’s how I ask. Let’s say we’re talking about veterans and PTSD, right? It’s one of my top issues. I have PTSD personally, not from serving, but from a home invasion. So PTSD is one of my top issues. Um, so if I’m an organization who is helping veterans who have PTSD, what I’m going to tell them is, uh, let’s figure out your product. So we need to figure out what your cost per veteran that you help get half of their normal PTSD score on their psychological test is. How do you get a veteran from here to half their normal PTSD score, which enables them to have, you know, great. more peaceful conversations with their wife, which enables them to go out and do things like fireworks and stuff like that they couldn’t usually do. All the amazing things. How much money does it take to get a veteran to that point? So let’s say we decide that it’s $2,000. Great. So it’s $2,000 to take a veteran through intense therapy to get them to this point. And what I will do is I will go and I will talk with this potential donor, and I’ll ask him and I’ll make sure that we’re aligned on the vision. You know, this needs to be a win-win between both of us. But then if at the end it seems like they are, I’ll ask. I’m very big on permission-based fundraising. So I’ll ask, hey, can I tell you about the project and, you know, what you might be able to do with it? They’ll say yes. Great. uh so what i’ll do is i’ll ask them and what most fundraisers will do is they’ll go would you be willing to give any amount to this project right or a triangle or we love pyramids and triangles as fundraisers what i will do is i will ask would you be willing to put one veteran through this therapy for two thousand dollars I am not asking money. I want the money. They want the impact. So I’m going to ask if they will be willing to participate in that impact. And it’s not, you know, it’s not going to change everything, but I do find that it creates a lot more engagement from the donors when you do it that way.

Hugh Ballou:
I think it’s a misconception on the leader’s part, and I see this in business and non-profit, whether you agree or not, it’s something to think about. When we think about what our product is, we think about the programs we do and the activities we do, and really, as you just defined it, our product is the impact on that veteran.

Dan Johnson:
Absolutely.

Hugh Ballou:
That’s what the funder… Now, we generate money, either in business or in non-profit, we generate money by bringing value. Either way. So there’s a lot of similarities and we can learn from each other, except in the nonprofit world, it’s harder and we got a lot more rules than we do in a business. So it’s important to color in the lines. So repositioning our thinking, that’s a brilliant example of how we ought to… So that’s not a long conversation either, is it?

Dan Johnson:
No, not usually. For those who’ve not done a lot of fundraising, I would say that there’s five parts to building a donor, a prospect relationship into a donor. There is relationship. They got to know that you care about them as a person. If you don’t like don’t don’t do that. That’s not worth it. Number two, number two is vision. I ought to know that what that will impact we’re delivering you actually want to be a part of because otherwise I am just taking your money when you could be investing in something that would actually get you a return, right? So number two is vision. Number three is project. We have a specific thing that we’re going to be talking about doing together. It’s not just airy-fairy vision, throw me money. That works for rich people. That doesn’t work for somebody who doesn’t have a connection or a network, right? And then it’s… ask and so we’re gonna you know ask them to be involved at some level usually i will ask for money because asking for money is a sign of respect i have almost never had someone i went i went in one time i’ll tell you this so the story so i’ve only asked a billionaire for money once for a non-profit um and uh i went in uh freaking out because i was like 24 and i went in she had this like butler and everything and you’re like it’s really intense house and you sit down and i’m like shaking the papers in my hands are literally shaking as i’m sitting down to meet this woman And I give her, I don’t even allow her to talk. I’m just like, I give her my pitch, my three minute pitch, and I ask her for a million dollars. I swear to God, I walk into a woman I’ve never met before and ask her for $1 million. And she looks at me and she chuckles and she puts down the paper that I gave her and she starts asking me questions. And I use that as an example to say, I have never once asked someone for money and they were mad at me. Money is a sign of respect. It says, I believe this is serious enough that I am willing to ask you to invest in it. And so I’ve had lots of people volunteer for me because they couldn’t give me money. I’ve had lots of people connect me with someone, put me in touch with the media, all kinds of things because they couldn’t give me money. But I’ve never had anyone get mad at me for asking for money. So you usually ask for money. And then there’s impact. You have to actually show them that what they did, you actually went out and what what they invested in, you actually went out and did. And you have to give them that update. We have a terrible retention rate in the nonprofit sector. I think it’s like 60 or 70 percent of we if you’re a for profit business that has a recurring business model, which a lot of nonprofits do their annual, you know, thing. And you’re losing 60-70% of your customers every single year? you are in for a world of hurt. And we’re losing them because we’re not going back and reporting and showing them and letting them be a part of the thing that they funded, that they want to be a part of. So those are the five steps that I would usually go through. And however fast or however slow that happens, in some cases, it is, you know, we spend, I’m fine spending more time on relationship and vision and getting to the ask. I’m not a hotshot. I’m not going in there trying to burn rubber and get out. I’m going in there trying to create a relationship. If that takes two meetings where we’re doing that and then we’re doing the next meeting and talk about the project, fine. That’s great. That’s how some of the greatest fundraisers in our industry did it. If that takes one meeting, great. I just asked for permission to go to the next step. But I always follow those five steps when I’m engaging with donors because I think it shows respect. I think it shows that you’re serious and I think it builds a long-term relationship instead of going in and burning this person and then having to find somebody else.

Hugh Ballou:
So let’s go to the title. This is great information, by the way. If you’re watching this and you want to find this episode, it’s the, T-H-E, nonprofitexchange.org, thenonprofitexchange.org. You can find this episode. And if you miss some of those tidbits, there’ll be a full transcript on that page. So you haven’t missed it. You can go back and read it. So our title today is The Strangest Secret of volunteer management. So come on, bring it on.

Dan Johnson:
I told you I read self-help books growing up. So the strangest secret of volunteer management. So our company’s entire philosophy is that if nonprofits get really serious about the impact that they actually create, then the money and the team and everything works. If they don’t get really serious about it, then it doesn’t. So we started on impact and I really like that we started there. And that’s necessary for volunteers too. Volunteers will join your organization because they like you, but volunteers will not stay in your organization because they like you. Volunteers will stay in your organization because A, they believe in your vision and where you’re going, and B, they see the specific part of that vision that they are a part of, that they actually can own themselves. So the strangest secret of volunteer management is something that I found out the hard way. So in 2012, I was a college student, I was a freshman, and we, I was looking at something on the internet, and I was using a tool called StumbleUpon. Anybody my age knows what StumbleUpon is. It sends you to random places on the internet when you were bored and avoiding homework, and man was I bored and avoiding homework. And I came across a video that talked about the Japanese-American detention in 1942 and a new piece of legislation that had come up and was being signed by the president at the time that instituted the same kind of powers. And I got, you know, pretty upset about that and I started researching it. Researched it for about three months and kicked off my non-profit. And when I started my nonprofit organization to take that on, we were PANDA, or People Against the NDAA, which is also an acronym. So it’s like an acronym inside an acronym inside an acronym. But when I started this organization, I had in mind a very militaristic-like structure. So we were gonna have chapters and teams, and people were gonna report to each other, and all that jazz. And we had 35 chapters out of the gate. So I’m running this from my dorm room in Bowling Green, Ohio. And we have 35 chapters start up around the country within the first year. And I learned very quickly that when you’re dealing with volunteers, and I didn’t have the luxury of having people near me, these are all remote. This is before Zoom, so it’s all conference calls. And when you’re trying to manage volunteers from a distance, you have to get really good at managing volunteers. And the first wave of my militaristic approach did not work. And most of those chapters folded by the end of that first year. And I really dug deep into how on earth can I run a volunteer organization really well? And what I ended up learning was that volunteers get paid too. That it’s not just your employees, it’s not just your staff, but the volunteers are not just there because they’re happy-go-lucky and believe in what you’re doing and it’s all cool. But volunteers get paid too. And discovering the three different volunteer paychecks was the strangest secret of volunteer management that I learned and transformed my organization from 35 odd chapters that eventually fell apart to 10,000 volunteers operating in almost 50 states around the country with several of our quote unquote chapters. We ended up calling them teams because I’m a big fan of renaming things when I don’t like the name. We had several of those teams Outlast the the life of the national organization and continue doing that work in their states and in their cities. So it just it taught me a lot about and learning learning that secret and those three paychecks taught me a lot about managing volunteers.

Hugh Ballou:
Love it, love it, love it. Well, you know, this time has just gone whoosh. So before we end this wonderful interview, I want you to talk about your website and its next, tell them what the link is.

Dan Johnson:
Well, you can’t have an episode that doesn’t actually give out the three. So I’ll give it real quick. The three paychecks of volunteers are purpose, ownership, and mastery. Volunteers are there because they believe in the mission of the organization, the purpose. Volunteers need to actually be able to make the final decision. on parts of what you do, so they need to own it, they need to be able to take credit for that at the end of the day, and volunteers are there to get better at a particular skillset. If you are constantly learning which one of those paychecks your volunteers buy, and you’re constantly learning how to deliver those paychecks well, you will have volunteers stick around in your organization.

Hugh Ballou:
And the volunteers are a valuable resource, and we don’t invest in volunteers. We really take them for granted. Oh, they’re going to do it because they have a passion. Well, they’re going to do something else if we don’t take care of them. That’s brilliant. That’s absolutely brilliant. So those three will be listed in the chat, the transcript of today’s really good stuff. You’ve given us a lot of really helpful information. So tell us about your website.

Dan Johnson:
Absolutely. So, uh, if you go to nextlevelnonprofits.us, uh, that’s my website, you’ll see a smiling face of the one professional shot that somebody managed to get out of me. And, uh, uh, you go through that website. We’ve got, uh, both on that website and on our YouTube channel, which is Next Level Nonprofits. I’m constantly putting out videos on how to create a sustainable nonprofit. And to me, that is $250,000, uh, in revenue, hired the executive director and running one program well. What I primarily do is help organizations fundraise in a way that lasts. A lot of organizations get lucky, they find this one donor or they get excited about this one foundation or grant or whatever, but because they haven’t gotten the fundamentals in place, they are not creating an organization that’s going to last and they’re really going to struggle. We go through those. You can download the Nonprofit Startup Checklist, which has a roadmap on it. It goes through the five levels of sustainability. And reach out. If what you’re challenged with is getting to your first $250K, reach out. We know that the first dollars are the hardest because it’s all about clarifying your message. It’s all about getting the right team around you. And it’s all about getting those donors to buy in. So those, you can reach out to me at nextlevelnonprofits.us and I’m always open for a chat.

Hugh Ballou:
There’s a, if you’re listening to this on a podcast, there’s a square on that homepage where you can get that checklist. And, um, if people don’t want to be on your list, they can unsubscribe, right?

Dan Johnson:
No, we don’t allow people to unsubscribe. It’s, it’s actually impossible. And it comes into your email. It actually shows up right on your phone every morning at 6 AM. Just, just to make sure that you get the content.

Hugh Ballou:
Okay. I don’t want to abuse people. Come on. Um, so this has been really helpful. Dan, uh, Dan called me, uh, last week said, how do I get on your show? I said, it’s going to take six months. So I had a cancellation. So thank you for coming in today. Um, this is. timeless information. People may be listening to this or watching it a year or so from now. But this is stuff that you’ve worked a long time, even, you know, your wisdom greatly surpasses your linear years in life. So you’ve learned an awful lot of stuff. And thank you for sharing it with us. So go to his, go to his website. Again, the link is next level nonprofits.us, next level, nonprofits.us. And you’ll find a lot of helpful things there, and you can get this checklist. Really, he’s helped us rethink about, we’re in this for the long haul. If we’re not able to build something that’s sustainable, how are we gonna wanna help? That’s why we’re here, we wanna help people. And if we can’t sustain our own organization, we’re limited in helping people. So Dan, what do you wanna leave people with today?

Dan Johnson:
I think the message that I want to give people today is if you are looking to build a sustainable organization, you’ve got to take good care of your volunteers. And those volunteers, they are investing in something, and they need to see the return. And you need to make sure that you’re giving them that return so that your organization, I mean, we weren’t able to get to 10K volunteers overnight. But the reason why your volunteers decide that they’re going to go to a spaghetti dinner or decide that they’re going to volunteer for another organization or decide they’re going to play with their kids and do something else with their time is because you haven’t made that valuable enough to be with you. And if you do that, your volunteer program will take off.

Hugh Ballou:
Dan Johnson has been refreshing and informative having you here today. Thanks for energizing our show with your presence and your knowledge.