S1E20: Fundraising & Virtual Events with Vivian Glyck
Sage Lavine
Welcome to Women Rocking Business, where we are here to help you rock yourself, rock your life, and rock the world as a woman entrepreneur, because the world needs you and the time is now. I’m Sage Lavine, CEO, trainer, unretired camp counselor, and best-selling author of the Hay House book Women Rocking Business. We had the honor of serving over a hundred thousand women entrepreneurs around the globe, just like you, who are here to do more, be more, and have more by giving your gift to the planet. I’m so honored you’re here. Let’s dive in.
Okay you guys. Welcome, welcome! Welcome to the call on how to do virtual event fundraisers and how to change the world while you work. That is where you are. You are on a training about how to combine a virtual event, any kind of a virtual event, a virtual video event, a webinar, a multi-day video series, or like a two or three-day event like you saw us do… how to combine that with a fundraiser as a way to build brand awareness and as a way to change the world while you work. One of the things that I am super proud of is that as we’ve built Women Rocking Business, and as I’ve watched Vivian build Just Like My Child, you know, we’ve been out in the world, really advocating for people, not just donating to Just Like My Child, but Women entrepreneurs aligning their brand with the humanitarian cause.
Sage Lavine
(1m 31s):
This is a game changer. It’s a game changer for your brand. It’s a game changer for your bank account. It’s a game changer for your impact. We’re still tracking how much we’ve been able to raise here at Women Rocking Business collectively with all our clients, but it’s to the tune of millions of dollars. You know, as an organization, Women Rocking Business has raised just over a million dollars in the last seven years for organizations like Pachamama, the women and the rain forest and Ecuador, organizations like Just Like My Child and Uganda organizations like Kiva, micro-lending for women, organizations like plastic bank where they’re pulling plastic out of the ocean.
Sage Lavine
(2m 11s):
So what’s really cool is this opportunity to not just partner with one organization potentially, but to over the years, align your brand with different organizations that means something to you. Women at Women Rocking Business has collectively, our clients have raised tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So this is something that our clients are working on all year long is hosting virtual events and partnering those virtual events, partnering those marketing efforts with humanitarian causes and, and giving back as a way to build their brand. So, for those of you that aren’t in our programs and you’re interested in that for sure, you know, email [email protected] so we can tell you more about how to get you supported with that
Sage Lavine
(2m 54s):
Today I really want to go through what I believe are like the three tenets, the three most important things that you’ve got to do. When you think about how to set up a fundraiser as part of a virtual event, how to let people know about your humanitarian efforts in a way that’s classy and humble and inclusive so that it can really grow your brand and not take away from your brand. Right? We’ve got to do this with sensitivity and Vivian and I were very strategic in the way we set up the fundraiser and I’m super proud to say, and the last 18 months we’ve been able to not just raise $11,000 for Just Like My Child, but we’ve been able to raise gosh, something that the tune of like almost $90,000 for Just Like My Child A year ago March, we did Vivian and I partnered to do our first live event fundraiser in a live room of 500 women and we raised $75,000 in one day.
So what you can do in a live room is very inspiring. When Vivian and I sat down to plan out the virtual event, neither of us really knew how it was going to go. I knew that we weren’t going to be in person. So I knew that we weren’t going to be able to create that same feeling of like, “Hey, I have a hundred dollars in my pocket that I got back as a refund to this event. Why don’t I just hand over this hundred dollar bill?” We had a lot of that happening at the live event because we Take, we gave people back a $100 seat deposit.
Sage Lavine
(4m 37s):
A lot of people at that live event chose to just hand their a hundred dollars over when we did the fundraiser. There were all of these different forces that went into raising that much money. I said to Vivian, “I hope we can raise five grand. Like I hope we can raise $5,000 and, you know, I’ll donate half of that, if I need to, I just want to do something.” So the fact that we were able to raise $11,000 at a virtual event with less people was amazing. It was a huge win. There were some very deliberate things that we did to set up that fundraiser that had it be as successful as it was. Vivian, I just want to say thank you for putting this call together.
Thank you for being who you are. Thank you for caring so darn much about the girls and Uganda and girls and children all over the planet. I’m going to cry. Thank you for spending your life. You know, Vivian, you could be spending your life doing anything and you’ve chosen to spend your life being a humanitarian. That just touches the deepest part of me. So thank you for your partnership and your alliance.
Vivian Glyck
(5m 44s):
Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much for your partnership and your support and to all of the amazing women who showed up for your virtual event and who chose to make a difference. And, you know, I just want to say that I think for Jenny who is on the call with us, who supports me and for all of us, you can’t even imagine what a gift it is to our courage and our commitment to keep going.
When we get the kind of feedback and input that we got from this group and from Women Rocking Business, it’s just inspiring to be seen and to get that kind of affirmation from such a group of amazing entrepreneurs. So thank you.
Sage Lavine
(6m 47s):
I also want to say thank you to every single one of you who donated. Really, truly thank you. The first thing to know about doing a virtual event fundraiser is that it’s so critical to build the fundraiser into the storyline of the event and not just have it be a fundraiser where you kind of are talking about one thing one minute, and then all of a sudden you’re doing a fundraiser the next minute. So you want to really think about that transition. You want to think about, “How do I position this fundraiser as a content piece that is part of the event?”
Sage Lavine
(7m 28s):
So that’s really number one and it’s super critical. It’s a big part of what’s going to have the fundraiser come off as something that is a give, a contribution to the audience and not a takeaway from what they showed up for. Okay. So first of all, you want to do some teaching first, right? You don’t want to actually just get on, you know, day four of a video training and go straight into a fundraiser, right? You want to give them something first, whatever they came to get, whether it’s relationship, advice, health, guidance, career support, you want to give them some tips, give them something first and then start to get creative about how can you transition from the content you’re teaching into your own expression of why this cause matters to you?
Sage Lavine
(8m 19s):
You know, Vivian said, we’re going to want to be really respectful. We’re going to want to really be vulnerable in terms of positioning this opportunity so that it doesn’t land in the wrong way. Vivian was just so right about that. So we thought a lot about how to transition from talking about your message and your brand to talking about a partnership with the humanitarian cause. For us, that was pretty easy, right? When you’re launching a message into the world, one of the pieces of that message can be, “What do you stand for? What are your values? How do you want to give back to the world?”
Sage Lavine
(8m 56s):
So that was our storyline. That was how our content flowed the first day of the event was all about message clarity. So it was a smooth transition for me to start talking about how growing my business hasn’t always just, it’s never just been about helping women start businesses, which is for sure the heart of my business. But another thing I’m passionate about is Women giving back. For you, you’re going to want to think about it in terms of your brand. Here’s an example. My clients, Sofiah Thom, she has a business out of Costa Rica and she helps women honor their bodies as their greatest source of wisdom.
Sage Lavine
(9m 39s):
She calls it your temple body. Well she partnered with an organization in LA that supports women who have been abused. At her last event, she raised thousands of dollars for women that have been abused by making the link between, “Hey, if we’re going to start taking care of our bodies as our temples, I’d like to take a moment to invite you to be a part of that love that we’re giving our own bodies spilling out over into other women who are also struggling with their bodies and abuse.” Another example is that my client, Robin Nielsen, who some of you met at the Women Rocking Business event, she helps women balance their hormones.
Sage Lavine
(10m 21s):
Well, she’s a stand for women’s health on the planet. At her last event, she partnered with a medical organization in India that helps women in India get the medical support they need. She was able to make that link between her stand for women’s health and standing for not just the health of the women that she was training at that event, but standing for women’s health globally and making a humble request for the women at her training to be a part of that stand with her. Right? So you can see how that transition goes. It starts with you teaching. “Here’s a few tips, right? Here’s a few tips.”
Sage Lavine
(11m 2s):
“Here’s some strategies you can use for yourself. Here’s what I stand for. Here’s what’s important to me. I’m wondering if we could take a few minutes for you to stand alongside me in making a difference in this way. So that’s kind of the storyline. One of the quotes that we brought into the event is my favorite quote. This was something that we, I think really the energy of this quote was really alive and our fundraiser, because we didn’t want, again, to be coming from a place of being a savior, right? “If you are coming to help us, don’t waste your time. But if you are coming because you realize your liberation is bound up with ours, then let’s work together.” Right?
Sage Lavine
(11m 47s):
That was a message from Pachamama a message from Lynne Twist a message from chief in indigenous territory and Ecuador. That was one of the sentiments that I brought in when I introduced Vivian. You know, I told everybody that I got a chance to bring my team to Uganda with Vivian a few months prior. What struck me the most was that when we got there, it wasn’t about Vivian. It was about the half a dozen women leaders on the ground that were Ugandan women leaders. They were the ones on the microphones. They were the ones standing up in front of hundreds of girls.
Sage Lavine
(12m 29s):
Vivian had spent her time empowering the young adults of Uganda to lead the Just Like My Child organization. That’s the cleanness that we can bring to these fundraisers so that the people who are choosing to be a part of the fundraiser with us can see the bigger picture here. And I think that cleanness it’s like a lack of codependency, it’s a lack of codependency and it’s an interdependency. That cleanness spills over into the healthy expression of being a woman entrepreneur. Because if we come from codependency as women entrepreneurs, we’re constantly seeking approval outside of ourselves, from our clients, from our colleagues.
Sage Lavine
(13m 19s):
But we have to realize that we can’t just go be independent and just do it on our own. We can’t. That’s not how it works. We have to ask for support in these businesses. We are interdependent. I wouldn’t be where I am in business without my friend Vivian. I’m guessing that there’s been some times that I’ve supported Vivian as well, just knowing our history and what our state of mind has been at times when we’ve reached out on the phone to each other, really needing someone to stand for us in that moment. Okay. So be quicker to ask for help, be quicker, to know that you’re interdependent with other leaders in this business, you’re not going to be able to do it alone.
Sage Lavine
(13m 60s):
When we come from that place as humanitarians and from a fundraising perspective, I think that it stays really clean. Vivian, do you want to add anything to that?
Vivian Glyck
(14m 9s):
I think that’s such a beautiful sentiment, Sage. In terms of, for me, of course, my whole intention and Just Like My Child Foundation’s whole intention is to empower girls to transform their own lives, to empower communities, to be able to transform their own worlds and communities. Just like as parents, we don’t want to constantly be inputting into our kids. Our whole goal is to have them the independent and self-sustaining, and, and I think, you know, just energetically for me on the planet, that’s been the beautiful output of working with Just Like My Child and empowering women to really stand up for themselves.
Vivian Glyck
(15m 1s):
We just didn’t really realize how foundational that message was going to be to not only the girls that we work with, but the communities and to the planet as a whole, you know, to really have bodily integrity, to know what our power is, to find the courage to unleash our voices. I think that for me, the most important thing in this alignment and in this partnership is the way that women use their power is very, very different from the way that men use power and what you’re teaching in terms of Women Rocking Business as finding this power within, which is really the foundation for our power as women.
Vivian Glyck
(15m 51s):
You know, when we feel good about ourselves, when we know that we’re a value, then we bring it forth. Then we seek power with, which is basically seeking the sisterhood. So everything that we’re doing here and empowering each other to step into a larger version of ourselves is what we teach girls in Uganda and all over the world. So it’s power within, power with, and then that enables women to have power, to, to have a domain over their environment, over the forces that impact them to have to be leaders, to operate in a political sphere in which we see as so essential right now.
Vivian Glyck
16m 37s):
I think this is really, you know, it’s the metaphor for girl power is all over and that it’s so important for us to step into that potential so that we can transform the future in the world
Sage Lavine
(16m 53s):
A hundred percent and that metaphor of power within, power with, and then power to is so helpful for us as entrepreneurs as well. You can see why Women Rocking Business and the Girl Power Project make a really good alliance with each other. You guys I’m sure can see that. And that’s why Girl Power Project and Women Rocking Business have gone into a deeper partnership where it wasn’t just a one-off fundraiser. Now we’re looking for ways we can support each other more long-term. As you all consider finding those organizations, I want to invite you to remember, write this down: what you stand for. Because when you are firmly rooted in what you stand for, you’re never going to have to use pushy sales tactics another day in your life.
Sage Lavine
(17m 45s):
Can you feel that?So that spills over into the humanitarian that you may bring into your work that spills over into the way you make an offer, the way you talk about your services Because when you’re clear on what you stand for, that’s in arguable. People either want to be a part of that, or they don’t, there’s no convincing. Can you feel that?
So that leads me to the next teaching point, which is that it’s about the quality of the connection people feel to the fundraiser. That goes hand in hand with what you stand for and how you’re standing with your audience.
Sage Lavine
(18m 25s):
So remember that it’s about you standing for something, and then it’s about standing with your participants, because what you’re doing is you’re unifying the group around a common goal. In a moment, we’re going to talk about the third important strategy, which has to do with really tangibilizing your goals so that the group can unite around an intention, right? Vivian and I got really clear that we wanted to push the group a little bit, to see if we could raise 10 grand. Then we wanted to come up with a really clear reason why, what would that $10,000 do?
Sage Lavine
(19m 7s):
Because we knew with a few hundred Women on the lines that we could raise $10,000. We knew that that wasn’t too much of a stretch, but we also wanted to position it so that it was a win for you and a win for us and a win for Just Like My Child. That started by us first of all, letting you off the hook, whether you donate 25 bucks or 10 bucks or a hundred bucks, that’s not what we care about. What we care about is that we can make a difference for girls in Uganda. The video that we chose to show was in arguable. There’s no woman I can think of that wouldn’t want to stand for women, having autonomy with their bodies.
Sage Lavine
(19m 50s):
So however you create that message, whether you create it with a video, if you partner with a humanitarian cause where they have a video where they can show their work through video, whether you create that through reading a quote or reading a passage from a book or through pictures… I showed some pictures of myself and Uganda. You’ve got to bring that energy of what the cause is to your participants. Then you’ve got to really stand in that quality of their connection to the cause. It’s not just about your connection to the cause. It’s about inviting them to feel whether this is something that matters to them, whether this is something they’d like to be a part of.
Sage Lavine
(20m 32s):
And it’s not about, you know, pushing them for, you know, hundreds or thousands of dollars. Vivian, do you want to add anything to that?
Vivian Glyck
(20m 39s):
What your active involvement has done… I think that, as women, we have such incredible fulfillment service and through contribution that it just enables people to step on the path with you. They can envision themselves in that role. So I think that’s a huge part. I also just want to say whatever it is that you’re committed to, or whatever you love to do, who you are being, will be communicated. So whatever your passion is, whatever your service is, when you show up with it, people want to invest.
Sage Lavine
(21m 20s):
I totally agree. A hundred percent. I love this piece of the conversation. I also want to really remind us, it’s not just about whether you’ve been to that country or not. It’s not just about whether you’ve, you know, met the people who are receiving the gift or not. We were able to raise $75,000 on a live stage before I had ever been to Uganda. The way that I brought myself into that conversation was I told the audience what it was like for me the first time I sat across the table from Vivian looking into her eyes and seeing the pictures that she was showing me of these girls and Uganda and hearing the stories.
Sage Lavine
(22m 1s):
So that was my point of connection. But write this down: you need a point of connection to the, Because you’re the facilitator of the event. You’re the leader. So don’t just hand over this moment to somebody who has a humanitarian organization and just trust them to make that transition. You have to connect yourself to it, and that’s going to be the through line. So it can be a conversation you had with somebody involved with the organization. It can be a video you saw, but when you share with your audience, “This is how that moment touched me. This is how that moment changed me.”
Sage Lavine
(22m 42s):
That’s where the audience is going to go with you. Now whoever you’re partnering with is now part of the community that you’ve created in that virtual event. They’re not an outsider. And I’ve even done a fundraiser where I did most of the presentation myself, because there was a year when Lynne Twist was not able to come and be on stage with me because of health concerns. So I pretty much put the presentation together. She had a staff member in the room, but I pretty much did it and raised $25,000 on her behalf. So I just want to say, if you’re working with an organization where there maybe is not somebody who feels really comfortable on stage, you don’t actually need that much from them, if you’re wanting to get creative on behalf of that organization
Sage Lavine
(23m 31s):
Of course you can also do something easy, like partner with an organization that has some chops in doing this kind of fundraising. That will also make easier on you.
Okay. I want to talk a little bit about the third key here, because the third key to having this kind of a fundraiser go well. So the third key to really doing this well is to create tangible goals and social proof a way that people can let you know they are donating.
Sage Lavine
(24m 10s):
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Sage Lavine
(25m 26s):
Let’s talk about the tangible goals first. So when Vivian and I determined that we really wanted to go for at least a $10,000 fundraise, I asked Vivian, “What can we do with with $10,000? How many girls can we make a difference for with $10,000?” She went and she crunched some numbers and she came back and she said to me, “We can put 200 girls through our financial empowerment training with $10,000.” Right? That’s 200 girls that get to learn how to save money, make money, how to be a smart business woman, and how to protect themselve f a man comes at them on the way to the borehole on the way to go fetch water, they know what to do. They have the skills, they have the tools to stop that action that’s being taken.
So I got really excited, 200 girls. That’s a lot of girls. I got excited and that excitement was important to the fundraiser because if I’m excited, you all can feel my excitement. The audience can feel my excitement. Do you want to say a little bit more about this piece, Vivian?
Vivian Glyck
(26m 44s):
I think that again, throughout my history of fundraising here, the ability to be really tangible about an outcome is hugely beneficial. So if we know it’s going to cost $50 a girl to put her through X number of hours of training, or if you know that a hundred dollars, we’ll put her through two years of training and this will be the outcome and here’s the proof… That is super, super important. At some point I’d like to get a little bit of feedback about what was it that sort of trip triggered your heart opening and commitment.
Sage Lavine
(27m 22s):
Okay. So it’s not just about what we can do with $10,000. It’s also about what can you give your audience if they donate at different levels, right? This is a level of thinking through ahead of time, it’s a level of sophistication. You don’t need a fancy website. Having something that your participants get when they donate is really powerful. So both of those things were strategized. How much money we were hoping to raise and what we wanted to be able to do for those of you that donate it.
Vivian Glyck
(27m 56s):
I just want to say that being able to create this website is something that we internally took on as a project. We’ve created an infrastructure through our platform that makes this super, super easy to do like, and, and way preferable to things like Facebook fundraising, et cetera.
Sage Lavine
(28m 23s):
Yes. So you guys can see that I’m at the $25 level. You got a chance to take advantage of. Vivian’s amazing book, How to Change the World While You Work. For those of you that might be listening to this, you guys can go buy Vivian’s book on Amazon. I highly recommend it. It’s called How to Change the World While You Work by Vivian Glyck. If you donated $50, you got the chance to be a part of this incredible training. If you donated a hundred dollars Vivian’s team put a gorgeous strand of authentic Ugandan beads, a beautiful necklace in the mail, and you got to receive that in the mail.
Sage Lavine
(29m 3s):
So those were some wonderful little gifts and “thank yous” that we were able to give you on behalf of those donations. Some of those gifts didn’t actually cost us a lot of extra money over here. It cost us some of our time, right? But we were able to serve all of you with this training. It was a way to give to the girls, right? You see musicians gathered together and do a concert as a fundraiser for a wonderful cause. They’re just giving their time, they’re showing up and playing music. So you can all be thinking along these lines of how do you give back to your donors? It’s pretty cool what can happen because then you can push toward a goal like $2,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 or $50,000 with a lot more confidence that you can actually create that.
Vivian Glyck
(29m 56s):
First of all, I’d really like to emphasize this point. What’s happened with me on a couple of occasions where people are concerned. The speaker is concerned that if they fundraise that they’ll be pulling more money out of the audience, then they can end up when they get to their sales or to their offer. I would like to say, I have been on stages where, you know, I’ve spoken in front of 5,000 people and it is exactly the opposite. The ability, and the sales, and the offer always do better if people’s hearts are opened.
I also just want to mention my husband, who’s been extremely supportive in fundraising and it took a while for him to make this leap to offering or fundraising for Just Like My Child during one of his live events and yes, they did better in terms of the sales and in terms of the offer. But the thing that was really distinct was as he started to do this more, the demographics of his audience started to change. It became broader.
Vivian Glyck
(31m 28s):
It was more multicultural. There were far more women. He increased the attractiveness of his product because people trust people who have open hearts. It’s all part of the cause-related marketing that you see, and it’s the right thing to do. I think that’s the same thing about what Sage said, you know, people just see who are being, and they will trust you more. If they feel as though your number one is contribution and service, as opposed to getting something from them.
Sage Lavine
(32m 8s):
A hundred percent. I couldn’t agree more. it’s counter-intuitive. When you’re first starting out, making these offers, it can feel really risky. But I promise you if you sandwich content on either side of the fundraiser, and if you stay in your lane and don’t spend way too much time going off on a tangent about this fundraiser, but you keep it concise 10 or 15 minutes, and then you bring it back and then you teach them one more thing before the training is up.
You’re going to have a group of people that is much more likely to invest in your offer they otherwise would have been. So it’s super inspiring, I think, because it’s like we get to do the right thing for the planet and we get rewarded in the process.
Jennifer, are you, are you still there?
Jennfier
Hey, question for you, something that I noticed with the 3 day event that you put on, you didn’t mention Vivian’s organization as like a part of getting people to come. It just happened so naturally and flowed. I’m wondering, is that something that was, you know, purposeful to like, kind of keep it behind the curtain and then like reveal it as like, “Look how you can change the world.”
Do you suggest to also, or rather when would you suggest, to kind of put it in the front is like, for instance, for a summit…proceeds will be donated to this organization and we’ll have a talk about the organization, things like that. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Sage Lavine
Yeah. So here’s the thing about digital marketing. We have to work really hard to get people to come and listen to us. We just do. It all becomes easier when we surrender to the fact that getting people to come and hear what we have to say is going to be work. You know, like don’t forget to reserve enough of your own energy to get them there.
Sage Lavine
(34m 15s):
Because as soon as they’re there, then they’re in your world and you get to take them where you want to go, of course they can hang up the line. But I say that because Vivian was mentioned in the promo for the event, but you had to look, she was on the website listed as the speaker, how to make money while your work. She was in at least two of the promo emails that went out. But in terms of the top marketing for the event, the top marketing for the event was based on, “I’m going to help you find your clients online.” That’s how we got over 400 women there. I can confidently say we would not have had over 400 women there if I had diluted the message too much, right?
Sage Lavine
(34m 57s):
It was clear from the beginning that this was a women’s event. This was not just going to be pushy sales, that there was going to be a three-day experience, find your clients online. You know, there’s going to be some pieces around, you know, feminine empowerment. It wasn’t like Vivian was coming out of, you know, total different, you know, left, left..what’s the expression. It’s not like she was a major curve ball, right? I want to invite you guys to consider keeping the top marketing for your eventsfocused on the outcome, because people are not coming to your event…Think about it. If you were signing up for an event to help you build your business or help you improve your health or help you and your marriage or your relationship, you know, would it really help you want to spend your time or money that way? If somebody was like, “Yeah, and I’m going to bring in this cool fundraiser.” You’d be like, “Okay, well I want to save my marriage.” Righ?. So that’s, you know, that’s just something to think about. Does that answer your question? [Yeah.] Thank you so much. Welcome kiss for Jennifer. Good question. Really good question. What about you, Lauren?
Lauren
(36m 19s):
Hi Sage. Thank you so much, you and Vivian. for doing this. This is wonderful. My question is: Would you ever somehow overlap the fundraising event with the offer for your program? Because as it is right now, it seems like it’s, they’re separate, right? There’s content that say you let the fundraiser go on for like a few days and so like the offer was made for your program and then say, “Well, if you donate, you know, to this organization, I’ll give you I’ll cut off 25% off the down payment or something. I don’t know, something to entice them. Would it ever be like a discount or is it always like an added gift? Does it always need to be separate?
Sage Lavine
(37m 1s):
It doesn’t necessarily need to be separate. You can, you know, I think the cleaner way to do that would be, you know, for everybody that jumps into the program, we’re going to donate, you know, 5% of your tuition to such and such cause, but I don’t believe it’s as powerful. Here’s why. There’s a couple of reasons. Number one, doing the fundraising offer before the offer actually opens people’s hearts in a way that is tangible. I can literally feel the difference in my participants, whether it’s virtual, I’ve done this dozens of times. You guys I’ve done this so many times.
Sage Lavine
(37m 44s):
I usually go in, I’ll be honest. I usually go in with a little bit of nervousness around the fundraiser. I’m like, “Is it going to work? Are we going to raise money? Is it going to affect my offer? How’s it gonna affect my offer?” Sometimes I call Vivian and have her remind me that every fricking time they both work. Right? So it’s like, you know, you’ve got to know that you’re going to be walking through some resistance, no matter what you decide to do, whether it’s a masterclass or a Facebook challenge or whatever. You’re going to walk through resistance because you’re creating something from nothing. You’re giving birth. Right? To add a fundraiser is a whole nother little layer of complexity. Let’s be honest, especially when you’re getting started.
Sage Lavine
(38m 27s):
I actually believe the fundraiser sets up the offer and your offer is going to go better. Right? So to try to make an offer and then tell people that 5% is going to go to this thing. Can you guys feel how it dilutes the offer? Because now you’re trying to describe what the 5% is going to go too. And it dilutes the fundraiser. It doesn’t actually give proper attention to the fundraiser. There really is an art, you know, I’m by far not the only one who does this model, where three-day event on day one, there’s a fundraiser on day two there’s an offer.
Sage Lavine
(39m 16s):
We’re reminding people about the fundraiser all the way through and on day three, there’s a last chance you got to jump in to the offer now, or you’re not going to get the special discount, or you’re not going to get this special bonus. There is a science to this. Vivian’s husband Mike Koenigs does this. Gosh, I’ve seen Tony Robbins do a version of this. Lisa Sasevich does this, right? It’s like, there is a science to it. It works. I would encourage you guys to try this method for yourself so you can see it work for you. Because like anything else, you kind of have to suspend your disbelief and be willing to walk through the resistance and try it out.
But Lauren, yeah, I think you’re, I think you’ll have better results if you think about it that way. Vivian, do you have anything you want to add?
Vivian Glyck
(40m 7s):
Two things I’d like to mention to you. First of all, Lauren, I think that there’s a big distinction. If you were to do something like that, like give somebody a discount or, you know, tell them that a portion of the proceeds would go to their purchase. Number one is all of you now are donors to Just Like My Child directly. So you are, you have given to the organization, it isn’t as though Sage is the only donor because she collected the funds and now she gave to us. I think that just energetically that’s extremely different.
Vivian Glyck
(40m 52s):
Right? I also, while I think some, and I love the bonuses that we gave here, because they are inexpensive to the organization, they’re educational, et cetera. I would watch between – and I’ve learned this over the years – to not become very transactional with your, “If you donate this, I’ll give you this and exchange,” because that’s really shopping. It’s not a donation. So you get some trinkets, you get a little something to acknowledge that you gave and you served, but it’s not this decision where you make in your mind. “Oh, well, if I give $5,000, I’m going to get this yacht trip on this, whatever. Now I’ve got my vacations covered and all of that.” People like to do that. I think it takes away from the energetics of the giving. I hope that that’s helpful.
Lauren
(41m 51s):
Yeah, it is. Thank you. Thank you both for that.
Sage Lavine
Awesome. Kiss for Lauren. How about you, Demi?
Demi
Can you hear me now? Yes, this is so awesome. Thank you, Sage. It’s just been such a delight in your programs. So my question here is: I wonder if you could please give us some tips on the best way to actually approach an organization. So I stand for mental health and I really want to get the whole education thing so that we can teach kids to live well, rather than have to deal with depression when it’s too late. It’s already happened. Let’s have people living with the first place. So I’m one of the groups that I’m really into is the YMCA because they do a lot with helping these kids that otherwise would be in that real dire mess.
I have kind of approached them but obviously I’m quite small level at the moment. I don’t do big groups or anything. So what would be the best way to be able to approach them and come across as really credible and so this is going to be something really worthwhile then being associated with?
Sage Lavine
Absolutely. When I was just starting out, I approached Pachamama and Lynn Twist’s organization by emailing them and saying, “Hey, I have an event coming up. We’re going to hopefully have 40 or 50 people there. Is there somebody that’s a part of your organization that could pop on and help me do a quick fundraiser?” Lynne Twist wasn’t available when I had 40 or 50 people, but she had somebody in her organization that was available to hop on and help me with that.
Sage Lavine
(43m 22s):
So I met with that woman, her name’s Sara Vetter, we’ve become very good friends. And Lynn has watched my business grow over the years. As soon as she saw that I was raising $10,000, $5,000, any amount of money, guess what she now knew who I was. AWhen I had an event where I had several hundred women coming, then she was ready to come herself and be on my stage and not only come, but promote my event, right? I’m going to put her in front of several hundred women. She was happy to get some emails out, promoting the event.
So you absolutely can start small just by letting people know, “Hey, I have an event coming up. There’s going to be, you know, I’m hoping to have this many people there. Is there somebody from your organization that could help me create a little fundraiser for you guys, because you know, here’s what I love about your organization.
Sage Lavine
(44m 3s):
That can actually be the beginning of a really long and fruitful partnership. It’s exciting. I’m proud of you for doing that.
Demi
Fabulous. Thank you. That’s really helpful. Thanks so much Sage. It’s an honor to actually speaking here. Thank you so much.
Sage Lavine
Thank you, Demi. Kiss for Demi. So good. What about you, Jennifer? Is your still hand up or was it up for before? Yeah.
Jennifer
Awesome. So just to clarify, with actually setting up the container, let’s say for a three-day summit… So maybe not necessarily like the first talk being this, but you would suggest talking about the organization on the first day, is that correct? Not the second day?
Sage Lavine
So for a three-day event, it works really well if you spend the morning teaching, just content, do the fundraisers sometime between lunch and dinner, or sometime in the second half of the day on day one, weave it into the day. Do not let the fundraiser take up more than maybe 15 to 20% of the day, because you want to make sure you’re delivering on the promises that you made to your participants.
Sage Lavine
(45m 29s):
So day one teach all morning, do the fundraiser sometime in the afternoon. A fundraiser doesn’t take up more than 15% of the day. Day two, you come back, do more teaching, make your offer after lunch on day two. Then on day three, come back and do more teaching, have a last chance offer before lunch. Then after lunch on day three, we do more teaching so that people don’t feel like they just came to this event to get sold to. Right? That’s not your intention anyway. Right? So you’re teaching all the way through. The other thing that we did was that we were reminding people each day of the fundraiser and how much we had raised.
Sage Lavine
(46m 9s):
I had one instance where we got really close to our goal. We were like $150 short of our goal. This was a couple of years ago and I just decided to put in $150 myself because I wanted to reach the goal. Do you know what I mean? So you guys can, and I also have had this situation where we got really close and it made sense for me to come back to the audience and say, “Hey, you guys, you know, we raised $9,000 and we’re a thousand dollars short. I’m curious if anybody here either hasn’t donated yet or would want to be a part of helping us tip over the edge of that goal. I’m going to throw in another a hundred bucks and a quick show of hands.” Right? To just kind of see what we can do as a group.
Sage Lavine
(46m 52s):
Then I also like to talk about how much money we’ve raised somewhere as part of the offer. As I mentioning the offer, I like to mention like, “Hey, as a group, here’s what we just did. This is pretty amazing. For those of you that would like to take this one step further and be a part of more transformation for yourself, there’s an opportunity to do that by jumping into our year long program.” Right? So you can bring in that feeling of accomplishment, we just did something. This is about you changing your life. We just changed these children’s lives, or we just changed these women’s lives. Because you guys that’s what really is the very best sales on the planet is when you can unhook yourself from thinking you need to convince anybody or thinking they need to invest in order for you to win.
Sage Lavine
(47m 52s):
That’s not sales, right? Conscious sales is “I’m standing for you to have a transformation.” You know, I’m standing for every single one of you to have such a bold and audacious business transformation that you grow your business and your brand and your ability to give back to the point where you never have to worry about money again. You can be as much of a humanitarian as you ever want to be. Right? That’s what, that’s what my life has started to look like. I have many clients who have achieved that in their lives. I get to stand in that. Can you feel, each and every one of you, can you feel how your job is not to convince anybody to buy your thing?
Sage Lavine
(48m 37s):
Your job is to stand so firmly in what you would, what you are standing for your audience to have if they want it. That gives them the space to choose to invest in themselves. I believe that’s the best, the most incredible conscious salespeople on the planet, you know, the skill of sales is just one little fraction of who they are. You know, who we are as leaders is leaders who inspire people to change. We inspire people to become the greatest version of themselves. In the process, we get to make a difference for people because we have a program that makes a difference for them, right?
Sage Lavine
(49m 19s):
That’s why I think this fundraising model is so cool, because we can do all of those things at once. I believe the work I do and the work my clients do to get rooted in our hearts in order to do a fundraiser as part of an event like this, that personal work I do to get rooted in my heart of…Yes, this is about me. It’s about Women Rocking Business. It’s about Uganda. Its about the world. Its about the fact that we’re living in a broken world, it’s about me trusting the universe, trusting God, trusting the goddess, whatever word for, you know, divine source support or universal support, whatever word resonates with you.
Sage Lavine
(50m 6s):
When you get firmly rooted in that consciousness, your whole event is going to be cleaner and better anyway. Because at the end of the day, if people don’t buy my stuff, I better go do something else. You know? I would so much rather be out there with my heart on the line, just standing for what I believe than trying to convince anybody of anything.
Jennifer
(50m 31s):
Just to clarify, when we were talking about the billboard, as you called it before, the sign on the door, is, are you suggesting to basically like when people are buying tickets to not have a portion of the proceeds go towards a certain organization and actually just do it as like a fundraising topic in the event.
Sage Lavine
I just don’t think you need to do both. Here’s the thing with marketing. Every single thing you do takes a lot of energy. You guys know it’s not, it’s no joke to fill these events.There’s all this complexity and you know, if you’re going to do a fundraiser, then that’s plenty. Do you know what I mean? So you don’t necessarily need to do that on the front end because the truth is…. How do I say this? Most of us at the end of the day are undercharging. Let’s just be honest. Right?
Most of you really do need more money in your pockets. So I would rather you guys do your humanitarian work in a really simple and clean way, so you can also keep as much money in your pocket as possible. Because the more money that’s in your pocket, the more you’re going to like.. you guys I’m at the point in Women Rocking Business where I have a whole team of people helping me with this collaboration with Vivian. It’s not just me. Leonard was behind it. Leonard had the slide show. My event coordinator Velina was coordinating with Vivian’s assistant Jenny and they were coordinating back and forth on the timing and the website and the Zoom link and making sure all of you guys found your way to this call today.
Sage Lavine
(52m 19s):
Most of you guys don’t have teams like that. Do you know what I mean? In the beginning and I was right where you are when I did my very first fundraiser with Pachamama, they didn’t know who I was. I had 40 people on the line. I was hoping to raise $3,000 for them. I was right where you are. So when I was there, I kept it as simple as possible so that I could just get that next result and then that next result. So I just want to make sure, I don’t know about you guys, but I get this thing called “dream jam” where all my dreams are coming through and I’m a visionary and I can’t possibly do it all at once. Can anybody relate to this?
Sage Lavine
(52m 59s):
If you TO get diagnosed with “dream jam,” the cure is simplicity. The saving grace is simplicity. Now that being said, there’s been a few times in the course of Women Rocking Business, that I let people know a percentage of our profits are going to a certain cause – 10% or something, Because it’s a time in my life where that cause is just really important to me. I’m just going to give 10% and it just feels good to do it. What I’m also aware of is people aren’t necessarily going to sign up because of that, but it’s going to be a little stroke of goodwill in the funnel.
Sage Lavine
(53m 44s):
It’s not that I say, “Don’t do that.” It’s just that I want to make sure you guys are being really wise about how you’re prioritizing your time and keeping things simple. So you can really get to the front side of your money. Awesome. One more kiss for Jennifer. What about Alice?
Alice
Hi Sage. As a Business, I’m working on green environment around schools, as you know, on small events for raising awareness. That’s what I’ve done in the last years. To make things possible in a better way or in an easier way, I was trying to put on my own foundation, you can have your own foundation because it’s easier to get money to do your good work, but it’s another way to have a business and tO lets the money come through your business and do your work in a good way after this. So it’s sort of confusing for me and I sort of struggle with what’s the best way? It’s both maybe, but I don’t know.
Sage Lavine
(54m 55s):
Yeah. I think this is probably a question for Vivian, right? It’s like, yeah, you can have your own foundation and then you can have your business that has a message to it. How do you decide what you want to put your life force energy into, right?
Vivian Glyck
(55m 11s):
Yeah. I would, you know, when people ask this question about, oh I want to start and I, and what I assume you’re asking is: Should I put a lot of energy into building a foundation? What I say is the name of this organization is Just Like My Child Foundation comma, Inc. It takes an enormous amount of energy to run this foundation on the business side. So, you know, I’m not sure what country you’re in, but what we have to go through in terms of filing in terms of employment, in terms of technology, in terms of platform. If you want to do it well, is a full-time thing.
Vivian Glyck
(56m 9s):
You know, I think sometimes that people confuse the desire to serve with, “I have to have a foundation.” I think that given what I’ve experienced over 15 years running this organization, if you want to do it really well, do it full time. You know, if you want to have something that you give to that fills your heart, then find the philanthropy that’s doing it well, that you know, is having the impact. Because at the end of the day, you really want to have the legacy of the impact. I think that’s what causes, what certainly is what caused me to do it. Right?
Sage Lavine
(56m 52s):
That’s the thing, right? I’ve had to tell Vivian several times, “Do not let me abandon Women Rocking Business to just come work for you.” Because there are days when I would. Are you guys picking up what I’m laying down? But the truth is that I’m making the difference that I’m supposed to make. See? Through Women Rocking Business. It’s so much easier for me to partner with Vivian and raise tens of thousands of dollars for her per year. As you guys grow your businesses and you’re making a hundred thousand dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, you guys can actually make, in some ways, even a bigger difference for an organization, then you might be able to make, if you were to try to start up that foundation on your own. You know, Lynn Twist has both, she has the Pachamama nonprofit, and she has a training company called Soul of Money.
Sage Lavine
(57m 47s):
But guess what? Her husband runs the nonprofit, Bill Twist. There’s a little thing that Lynn Twist has called Bill Twist. So I just want to make sure that Vivian and I are coming through clear that there’s nobody out there that I know that has successfully on their own, really done both really successfully until they get their business at a certain point. Get your business to seven figures and then, yeah, I could start a foundation now because I have a team that can help me. I’d much rather you guys set yourself up for financial freedom so you can be the light of the world. Get yourself financially set, and then from there you can create whatever you want.
Sage Lavine
(58m 29s):
But in the interim, I believe it’s a much more strategic decision to part partner with organizations and the way that Vivian and I have partnered, where Vivian has all the infrastructure for fundraising, collecting that money, and getting that money where it will do the most good. That’s her job. My job is to bring my message and help, you know, reallocating that money. So I just want to make sure none of you fall into some kind of story that going off and starting a nonprofit is going to be any easier because it’s not. Vivian and I, honestly, I think you’d probably agree with me, Vivian and I spend probably 80 or 90% of our time doing very similar stuff.
Sage Lavine
(59m 19s):
We’re thinking about marketing, we’re managing people, we’re leading people, we’re dealing with technology, we’re figuring out paperwork and taxes. You’re going to have to do all that stuff, whether you have a non-profit or a for-profit. I think a lot of people would argue that it’s easier to make money in a for-profit business and then reallocate some of that money where it needs to go.
Vivian Glyck
(59m 46s):
I would also say, because I feel this for me personally, volunteer because you’re trying to get the juice out of knowing that you’re making that connection. That comes from volunteering, not from running the organization, right? What is filling my heart is what we give to the girls. I mean, being with all of you fills my heart and what delights me is what’s going to change the world. So I think that’s really a big question is, you know, “What delights you? As women, we really need to look for that place where we get lit up.
What really is that, you know, is it running a foundation or is it being in connection with what we’re contributing? Does that make sense?
Sage Lavine
(1h 0m 41s):
Good answer. Mike drop. Great question. Yeah. Yeah.
Ttrust me when I say I have to argue with myself all the time. So for those of you guys that like… one day you’re starting a business and the next day, you’re wondering if you should have started the business, and the day after that, you’re thinking you should go start a nonprofit instead. That doesn’t go away just because you make a billion dollars. So I just want to invite all of us to really listen to Vivian’s words. When Vivian said, “Decide on something that you’re willing to make your full-time thing and go all in on it.”
Sage Lavine
(1h 1m 22s):
You know, because the fulfillment and the joy and who I’ve become actually growing Women, Rocking Business to the point where it stands out in the marketplace.Women Rocking Business is not just a little Business anymore. It’s standing out, it’s making a difference and it’s doing something on the planet that’s good and bigger than just our clients. I go to sleep almost every night, knowing that this could be it. If you want that feeling for yourself, you get to have it, you go get it, you go and claim it. It’s not always going to be easy. It’s not always going to feel natural, but going all in on something…It’s a freaking incredible choice.
It will give back to you in ways you can’t even imagine. Just one day at a time. You know, most of my clients say, “I’m going to commit to this business for a year.” That’s how they do it. “The first year I’m going to commit one day at a time for one year and see where I can get in one year.
Sage Lavine
(1h 2m 20s):
It’s exciting. You guys have, you have an incredible opportunity right now, especially because everybody’s online. So take advantage of this moment, go out there, bring your gift. Do the videos. Bring people together. Connect with your potential clients. For those of you who are curious about Women Rocking Business programs, please email [email protected].
Sage Lavine
(1h 2m 56s):
Big wahoo, everyone. You got this, your clients are waiting.
You’ve been listening to Women Rocking Business. I’m Sage Lavine. The next step is to join our private Facebook group. The Women Rocking Business Sisterhood and introduce yourself over there for the real and vulnerable conversation of what it really takes to launch and scale a business you love in that Sisterhood group. We have each other’s backs, each other’s sides and each other’s fronts. This is true collaboration. So go grab a seat in the Sisterhood because we can go so much further when we go together, you’ll find a link to the private Sisterhood group and do our upcoming events in the show notes.
And if you have a woman in your life, who’s growing a business or starting a business, please share this podcast with her so she can create her big dreams and take a moment to subscribe and rate and review the podcast, which helps us get our message into the hands of women who need it. I’ll see you on the next show and don’t forget, your clients are waiting. They’re not just waiting for someone like you. They’re actually waiting for you.
