All right, hi everyone, we'll get started in just a few moments here, but before we get started, I just wanted to confirm with everybody that's already logged in that you can see my screen and you can hear me. So if you are able to hear me talking and see my screen, you could just let me know in the questions box of your go to webinar panel by typing yes, that would be a huge help to me. Excellent, thank you guys. All right, so just bear with me for a moment I think my co-panelists from Harbor Compliance, this is Linda from Mighty Cause, I just want to make sure that she is able to get logged in. So hang with me for just a moment here I'm sorry for the delay. All right, so I'm going to just go ahead and get started I may have to check in and make sure that my co-host is able to get logged in, but I don't want to hold everyone up anymore. Hello, welcome to our webinar on online fundraising compliance and specifically text to give this is a co-hosted webinar between Mighty Cause and Harbor Compliance. My name is Linda Gerhard and I'm from Mighty Cause and I'm hoping that Sharon Cody from Harbor Compliance will be able to join us as a panelist shortly. So here's a look at today's agenda. First, I'll be talking through text to give and the benefits of using an online fundraising platform like Mighty Cause. And then, as soon as she's able to get logged out I will be turning it over to Sharon to discuss fundraising compliance Sharon is from Harbor Compliance. So just as a bit of housekeeping, I will be doing a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. So if you think of something you would like to ask while we're presenting just type that into the questions box of your go-to webinar panel and we'll make sure to get to it at the end of the presentation. All right, before we kick things off, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about who I am, why you're listening to me talk and who Mighty Cause is for those of you who may be new to Mighty Cause who came to us from Harbor Compliance's circle. My name is Linda Gearhart and I'm the senior community engagement manager here at Mighty Cause. And I've been with the company since 2016, mostly running our blog and hosting webinars and just helping nonprofits fundraise better. That's sort of the gist of my job here. Mighty Cause is an online fundraising platform that has been around since 2006. And we used to be actually called Razoo. We're an employee-owned company based in Northern Virginia just outside of Washington DC. And we're one of the few online fundraising platforms in the market that is not backed by venture capitalists. So we are employee-owned. We offer a full nonprofit fundraising suite event and personal cause fundraising. And we also partner with giving events all over the country. And we also host our own Giving Tuesday event every year at the end of the year. And we'll be talking a little bit more about that later on. Okay, so to dig into text to give, let's talk about what it is, what it's all about, and how it works. So text to give is a fundraising technique that allows a donor to initiate a donation via text message. And there are two main ways it can work. Both of them involve texting a keyword to a shortcode, which is a series of numbers. Sometimes it's usually about six numbers. But what happens after that text message is sent is what makes these two different models of text to give different. So in traditional text to give, donors text the keyword to the shortcode. And the donation is actually made by adding that amount to the donor's phone bill. And then the companies who collect the donations send it to the charities that were that the donation was intended for. And typically donations for traditional text to give models are in smaller static amounts. So by texting a certain keyword to a shortened shortcode, you, you donate $10, $20 or whatever the amount is. Text to donate is another model where a donor texts a keyword to a shortcode, but then instead of just confirming that they intend to donate, they're taken to a mobile donation form where they enter the amount they wish to give and they fill out the form. Text to give is something that you'll see often in fundraising campaigns that need a large scale immediate response like disaster relief. And they can also be really helpful with live events, which is what I hope we'll be able to have again shortly very soon. One of the most case the famous cases of text to give and the campaign that really kickstarted it as a viable fundraising method was the American Red Crosses campaign for Hurricane Sandy relief. This campaign was in 2012, and I was working at a nonprofit organization at the time and I remember that it really just made a lot of people excited about the possibilities of text to give and wondering how they could incorporate text to give into their own fundraising. How it worked was very simple. They had a huge campaign where they asked people to text Red Cross to 90999. And they got another text message when they sent that text message, asking them to confirm that they meant to donate $10 to the Red Cross so they got affirmative consent. Yes, I intend to donate this amount to this organization. That's an important thing to note in this case because donations were all for the same amount. People could donate more than once of course, but one text to the short code was a $10 donation, which was a smaller approachable amount that opened the campaign up to a lot more people. And then that amount was tacked on to their bill, which as a side note at the time, teens and some other people didn't realize, because it seems like kind of a silly mistake to make but it was, this was pretty new at the time. And there were actually people who thought that the money was going to come from some other source, or that the Red Cross was going to somehow spend that amount of money for disaster relief if they just received text messages. As we all know, donors can get their wires crossed in all kinds of fascinating ways. And that was one of the pitfalls of this campaign that really sticks out to me. But in general, it was a really massive campaign. There was a huge publicity push, nearly every celebrity you can think of was involved in promoting it. And it was a truly viral campaign that also had a big national organization behind it with a full team of communications and public relations professionals behind it and making it gain traction. And to this day, this campaign is really the one that everyone thinks of when they think about text to give, because it was hugely successful raising around $15 million for the Red Cross's Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. Now, it's important to note that a big reason this campaign was able to be so successful, despite the smaller donation amounts, was the sheer scale of it. This campaign was inescapable in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It was all over the radio, TV station, social media, and so on. It was everywhere you couldn't turn on a TV or a radio without seeing it. So lots of people donated to this campaign, and it was just a strategy to do a complete media blitz and get as many people donating as possible, which after disasters, they're generally very motivated to do. People want to help. They want something easy that they can do that makes them feel like they're getting involved in their sending money to the right places. This particular campaign was unique in a lot of ways, but it was really the big one that started the conversation at nonprofits about text to give. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, if you were around at the time and working for nonprofits or just paying attention. You'll probably remember that there were some telephones, and there were a lot of traditional fundraising methods that were used in relief for Hurricane Katrina, and those efforts in some cases fell short. The American Red Cross campaign for the American Red Cross in 2012 was really a game changer for fundraising and the way that nonprofits responded to disasters and as well as what the public expects from nonprofits who are providing disaster relief. Now the American Red Cross campaign and text to give efforts after it revealed that there are some really big pros and kind of big cons to traditional text to give. On the plus side, text to give makes donating to a charity as easy as sending a text message, which pretty much everyone can do, which means that it opens the door to a lot of people donating to charity for the first time who may not otherwise know how to feel comfortable doing it or maybe intimidated by it. Aside from the gas of teens texting and texting and texting without really realizing that their parents would eventually end up with the bill in the American Red Cross campaign. It was simple for the public to understand. And again, the donor acquisition was just massive it activated a lot of people to give to a charity for the very first time. So it opens up philanthropy in a way that a lot of other fundraising methods haven't been as successful at. And as for the cons donations being in static amounts is a huge one with the American Red Cross campaign, there was no way to use text to give to make bigger donations. They were for $10. So if you wanted to donate $50, you either needed to find another way to do that all at once or send five text messages, which kind of made the process a little bit more convoluted for people who wanted to donate in higher amounts. And on that note, donors didn't have the option to initiate a recurring donation. The big thing was that it was a shock to a lot of organizations who were excited by the possibilities of text to give was just the cost of the shortcode. That was something that a lot of people were not prepared to foot when they learned how much it was they are not cheap. And they can range from hundreds of dollars per month to thousands of dollars per year so the math really just didn't add up for small and midsize organizations who are looking to incorporate text to give but really just couldn't incorporate or justify that kind of spending. And the big downside in my opinion would be the loss of donor data. A lot of those first time donors couldn't be followed up with and cultivated because a third party was processing the donations and sending the funds to the nonprofit. So as a donor cultivation tool, it really didn't work for a lot of organizations. And this is a small thing that sometimes text to give campaigns caused a delay in the funds actually being sent because the process of actually receiving the money from the donor was on a delay. They paid it as part of their phone bill and there was a lag in getting the money to the organization that it was intended for. So it took a little bit longer for that donation to end up where it was intended to go. All right, so for text to give on mighty cause we offer a text to donate model, which means that when a donor texts your keyword, which you get to choose to<PHONE_NUMBER> lots of force. They will be texted back a link to a mobile optimized donation form that form pulls in the settings that you've chosen from your checkout flow. So it's customizable. They enter their personal and payment information as they would with any other donation. And the cool thing about this being done on a phone is that if you have an iPhone or a smart phone. A lot of it that information can just be auto filled with just a fingerprint. So it's really easy and doesn't have much friction for the donor. They can also choose to make their donation monthly and they can choose to cover processing fees for your nonprofit.  It's processed immediately just like any donation. And they get batched together with your other donations that are included in your regular disbursements from mighty cause. Now, one thing I want to mention is that this is how pretty much all of the major fundraising platforms operate when it comes to text to give. It's a text to donate model, not a traditional text to give model like you saw with the American Red Cross campaign. So this is in general where this space is moving to in fundraising. So the benefits of this text to give model on mighty cause are numerous. The most important one is that your nonprofit has complete ownership and control of your donor data. It is yours. It's in your donation report. You also have a separate text to give report so that you can see what donations are coming in through your, your text to give channel. And you can collect pretty much whatever information you want. So you can follow up and start stewarding that donor. It allows for recurring donations, which are extremely important, especially right around this time. And they can give in whatever amount they choose. You have some options in your check your checkout flow to customize that and give them, you know, some suggested amounts, but they can really enter in anything they want. And that for minimum for us is $5 and there is no upper limit. So somebody wants to donate $5,000 through our text to give technology. They can do that. As I mentioned, the funds are just bundled into your regular disbursement, which you can set up to receive by direct deposit. And we pay for the shortcode. That's a really big thing. So you don't have to. There's no additional costs to your nonprofit for using text to give. So the return is hopefully going to be logging on and talking more about this soon, but we're also compliant with fundraising regulations in all 50 states. So you don't have to worry about where your donor is located, and whether you're allowed to accept or solicit donations from them. And you also get to choose your own keywords through mighty cause. So if you wanted some a general keyword and you wanted some campaign specific keywords, you are able to choose those through mighty cause. And the only caveat to that is that two organizations can't have the same, the same, the same keyword.  So that's the only caveat to being able to choose your keywords. The text to give is available to users on mighty cause that have a subscription to our advanced fundraising tools, which is just $99 per month and yes you can pay that every month or annually or however you want the choices yours. It comes with tools like custom donation forms are CRM tool and data integration. Now, all users on mighty cause can also access a free trial of advanced just to test it out and you can initiate that immediately through your organization's dashboard in your settings. And during your trial you do get one keyword that you can choose to test out text to give and see how it works. You can just test it out see how it works or you can just put it into use for a campaign if you wanted to use that one keyword during your trial. And so before we get into fundraising compliance I just wanted to quickly talk through why a fundraising platform makes fundraising easier what we're all about what how this all works and why it's a great option for small and midsize nonprofits. On mighty cause donations are processed through the mighty cause foundation, which is our donor advised fund or death. When a donor on the platform makes a donation to your organization, they are advising the mighty cause foundation that their donation is intended for your nonprofit, which is why your profile is connected to your tax exempt EIN. And then we batch your donations together and send them to your nonprofit as a re grant through the mighty cause foundation. And if this seems complicated or you're like why is this setup that way. The reason is because it makes it easier for nonprofits, especially small ones to start fundraising without as much work to get started. Because our death has all of the necessary registrations and permits, and we provide donation receipts to donors. It's basically intended to ease your administrative burden. The mighty cost foundations mission is to democratize fundraising and philanthropy. So small nonprofits and everyday philanthropists can do good with less hassle. As I mentioned, utilizing the death allows us to automate processes like sending donation receipts for your nonprofit and we hold and maintain all of the necessary registration permits so nonprofits can start fundraising sooner with less of an effort to get all of their paper work in order and focus on raising money for your cause and that infrastructure also allows you to concentrate on broadening your base of support because we use the daft to process donations. That's why we need all nonprofits to be in the IRS master file and in good standing with the IRS or sponsored by an organization that is getting started on mighty cause is very easy. You can go to mighty cause.com slash nonprofits and you fill out a quick form. You can find your nonprofit by your EIN that's the number that's assigned to you by the IRS, or the name of your nonprofit and give us just a little bit of information to gain administrative access to your nonprofits profile. And just to ease any fears we do actually have our real people on staff looking at the information just verifying that you are who you say you are and that you're able to access your nonprofits information and take control of your fundraising profile. You can just start fundraising and we do also have a process if you're fiscally sponsored. You can just click my nonprofit is not on mighty cause yet. And there's a form that's a little bit longer, but it gives our staff the information that we need to help set up your platform. Sometimes schools and churches because of their tax exempt status are not in our database automatically so that longer form may also be necessary for schools and churches, as well as people who are organizations I should say that are fiscally sponsored. There's also a way to get started on mighty cause and sign up for a fundraising event at the same time and that is by registering for our giving Tuesday event. When you go to giving Tuesday dot mighty cause calm and register for the event. You'll be given access to your organization's profile as part of that process. So two birds with one stone and giving Tuesday is a really great opportunity to take our fundraising tools for a test drive. And we also have lots of training that is totally free. That's planned leading up to giving Tuesday, which is on December 1 this year. That seems like a really long way off but given that it's one of the biggest fundraising days of the year meaning the donation volume is one of the biggest that it is all year. Now is the time to start thinking about it. So if you wanted to get started on mighty cause and take some of these tools for a test drive. We recommend getting started by signing up to register and giving Tuesday. All right, so let me just see if my co host is on yet. Give me just a moment. All right, so it looks like Sharon is not able to log on yet. I'm just sort of trying to get in touch with her. But since we have the time, I might as well just take some questions about text to give if you have any questions about text to give. I'll just answer them while we're while we're waiting. So if you have anything you want to know about text to give if you want to pick my brains about fundraising and how to incorporate text to give into your campaign. So just go right ahead and type that into the questions box of your go to webinar panel, and I'll start answering questions. And just so you all know, yeah, we are recording this webinar and we will make sure that everyone who was registered for this webinar has access to the slides and the video of the presentation so we are recording right now. And you'll have access to all of that. So how do you how do you start text to give and how much is the short code. So I hope that may have been answered in the previous slides. But if you wanted to start texting it with mighty cause it's really just as simple as either starting your trial of mighty cause advanced which is our subscription service. It is kind of an add on so you do need the subscription to access text to give through mighty cause. So you can start your free trial if you're already on mighty cause you can just do that through your dashboard. Just go to settings and then plan management and you can activate your free trial to sort of get your bearings and understand how text to give works. In terms of starting a larger text to give campaign. That's a much I'm not too familiar with that process the first step would be purchasing your short code. So this can be a little cost prohibitive. It varies based on you know where you purchase your code, but they can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars per month to, you know, even more than that I've seen them as much as like $1800. So they are a little bit on the pricey side so if you're interested in starting one sort of similar to the American Red Cross that would be your first step is purchasing that short code. So that's about how much they tend to cost, but it's much more cost effective to use mighty cause in my opinion, and I like the text to text to donate model that we use better because people can just auto fill their payment information and it's just as simple and easy with the the smartphone technology that we have now so that they complete their donation, really as quickly as they would if they sent a text message and then verified the amount they wanted to donate. So did the phone company get a cut for handling the donations. I actually don't know that I believe, and this is interesting because in my research I didn't really find a straight answer to that. But I didn't. I wasn't entirely sure about that. But I believe they were also handled through donor advised funds, but because they were, you know, there were so many of them it's I'm not really quite sure because it was covered by a lot of there were a lot of phone carriers involved in that campaign. So I wasn't able to find the answer to that in my research but if you come across that information I would be interested to know. So text or email me at Linda at mighty cost.com because I would love to know the answer to that question as well. Let's see. On mighty cost text to give does donor pay a processing fee. The answer is yes, it's, it's just our standard fees so it depends on your plan and what you what you have going at your nonprofit. Generally speaking, our costs are lower than PayPal. I mean you just have to opt into our, our pricing guarantee and that will that will bring the cost down to no more than 2.2% plus 29 cents per donation and that includes everything. So take a look at our pricing guarantee you can activate that through your, your profile in your dashboard. So just make sure that you opt into that because we're cheaper than PayPal. If you don't have that opted in or you're participating in something else like a giving event, which has its own fee structure. Then those fees would apply but as I mentioned the donor does have the option to cover those fees for you. They will see the amount that that costs when they are checking out. So it's typically not very much it's usually a few dollars from the average donor who's giving you know somewhere in the, the $10 to $50 range so they're able to see that and go okay that's just this is a little bit of extra money. And it'll help the nonprofit get the full amount. So I believe around a third of donors on our platform opt to cover fees. So just make sure that you're opted into our pricing guarantee and it will be cheaper than using a PayPal button to use text to give. And then obviously you have the cost of paying for an advanced subscription as well. So there are some costs involved just because the technology you know we have to maintain it. We have to make sure it's in good working order and you know we have to manage all of the keywords that people choose through the platform. So there are some fees involved but they are definitely not as exorbitant as purchasing your own shortcode for instance. Alright, is there a minimum amount of time you need to subscribe. Great question. For example, can you just use this system for a month for a particular event. Yeah, I mean there's really you're not locked in you can choose when you check out if you would like to pay for a year of advanced or whether you would like to just pay per month. And you're not you're not roped into it if you want to cancel your plan you can cancel your plan so if you just have an event coming up where you want to utilize advanced tools, then you can certainly, you know, subscribe for a shorter period of time or however long it's useful for you. If it's it's slightly cheaper. If you do purchase the full year that way you're charged once and you have it through for the whole year. And I'm not sure offhand what the threshold is for fundraising, but in the process of fundraising throughout the year. A lot of nonprofits kind of balance that out and they more than pay for the costs and what they bring in and donations. So yeah, you can you can use it for just a big campaign if you wanted to subscribe for a little while, or you can pay annually if you wanted to do that. Or you can just sort of slide up and see how it goes but there's no contract that's locking you in to mighty cause advanced. So that there's a couple of questions about fees I hope that they're the I answered those.  You can see all of this broken down with all of the fine print, but we're cheaper than PayPal to use. So if you have a PayPal button on your site, you can get a lot more just by signing up for mighty cause. And if you pay the $99 per month for advance you get access to text to give, and you get access to a CRM tool so you can, you know, sort of up the ante with your donor management. We also have some integrations available like integrations with sales force. That's all done through Zapier that can allow you to do some really cool things that allow you to automate processes. But go to mighty cause comm slash pricing. If you want like the full rundown of fees but we're 2.2% plus 29 cents if you are opted into our pricing guarantee. So that's cheaper than a PayPal button. And there's no hidden fees or anything tacked on to that so but it is a little bit you know there's some fine print there in terms of how that pricing guarantee works. We're not pulling the wool over your eyes. It's all right there for you to see, but it's more than I can recall, just stuff that's off the top of my head so just check that out if you really wanted to dive into how our pricing works. But there's nothing on top of that, the standard processing fees, and then the $99 per month subscription. Oh, is the nonprofit responsible for marketing the text to give and promoting Giving Tuesday. So yeah, you're responsible for promoting your own keyword and telling your donors how to give to you and also promoting your Giving Tuesday campaign. And we typically have, you know, thousands of nonprofits who are participating in Giving Tuesday. So typically what happens, most of the traffic is from direct links. So that means a donor received an email or saw a social media post from your nonprofit, or saw somebody in their social network sharing a link to your Giving Tuesday campaign. And then they made, they clicked on that and went to your page and made a donation. And that's where most of our donations come from on Giving Tuesday is the nonprofit proactively promoting their campaign. And we do have some information we have a whole toolkit that's available that kind of breaks down how to market your campaign. It's usually just an integrated strategy of using social media channels, email marketing, and whatever works for your nonprofit for any other type of campaign. So yeah, I mean, you're responsible for marketing it because our search is going to have thousands, there's a, you know, definitely filters people can use so somebody goes to our Giving Tuesday site and they want to find animal nonprofits in the state of Maryland or whatever their interest may be, they can certainly find nonprofits that way, but most donors give just in general and nonprofits fundraising as a whole, they give because somebody directly asks them to. We don't market for you we don't provide marketing services but we do, you know, provide everything everything you need as well as a toolkit templates and a timeline just so you are able to structure your campaign without a lot of extra extra lift it's really very simple and people are going to be giving on Giving Tuesday so it's just important to make sure that your nonprofit's name is in the mix and people are motivated to give to you. All right. So more questions about fees if you guys have any questions like about fees if you're you want to let me know what your situation is or you want some links. Feel free to email me my email address is Linda at mighty cause calm. So you can feel free to email me if you have like some some questions or you're not quite understanding the fee structure the pricing page mighty cause calm slash pricing really spells it all out for you so that's the best place to go if you're curious about pricing. The keywords are held by mighty cause we cannot create our own. So yes and no so they are owned by mighty cause because it's through our platform so, for instance, if two people want to do two nonprofits want to do the keyword give that creates a conflict in our system. So you are able to create your own keyword like I want to make that perfectly clear. You can use a keyword that you choose it just can't be a duplicate so that usually means that you just sort of need to customize it in some way so like if I worked for this is not a real animal shelter as far as I'm aware but I'm in Virginia so if I worked for the Virginia humane society if I worked for that animal shelter and I wanted to create my keyword. Instead of using like humane society or animals or whatever keyword I was looking to use. I would instead probably choose the a humane society that's easy to remember, but it also makes it unique so that it's specific to my organization. So a lot of the really popular keywords that people want to use like give donate help those sorts of things that we just don't have them available so you can create your own keyword. It's just sort of like a URL on mighty cause you need to make it unique because we can't have the same thing going in multiple different directions. So they're through our platform so we we sort of, you know, it's our technology. It's your keyword though you just need to make sure that it's a unique keyword so that we can make sure that the donations get to the correct place. Let's see some more subscription questions. So there's a question about is it a monthly subscription or is it a year you can and can you cancel anytime. It's whatever you want if you want an annual subscription, you can have one if you want a monthly subscription, you can have one of those, and you can cancel at any time we're not going to give you any penalties and we're not going to tell you know at the very moment so I just ask you hey, is there anything that you know wasn't up to your liking. And you'll be assigned to count an account manager as well when you sign up for advanced. So you'll have a contact at mighty cause who will probably reach out to you and you know, talk to you about what your needs are and if you want you know just a campaign. And we'll know that upfront or you will just might just email you if we see that you cancel and go hey, is everything okay so that's there's no guilt. There's no contract that we're going to lock you into it's we just you know want people to take advantage of these tools. And the subscription model is how we are best able to provide them to you. Let's see. A lot of questions. If you don't use text to give. What are the other ways you can use mighty cause to accept donations. So, yeah, we have a widget. We have, you can, you know, you put that on your website and collect donations there. We have teams and event fundraising. If you wanted to do a peer to peer campaign you could use that you could, you know, start peer to peer fundraising and collect donations through those pages as well. You know, we have giving events that people participate in giving Tuesday as one but we have them all over the country we partner with usually community foundations. And that is the giving event model so there's a lot of different things that you can do to collect donations. It really is a great way to make your fundraising strategy more robust. Let's see. We use mighty cost now I believe under the free option. Do we need to pay for a subscription and then pay the additional $99 per month for the advanced option. Oh, so just to clarify advanced is the $99 per month subscription fee so there's nothing beyond that $99 per month. So it's just the one thing it's either free or it's $99 per month. And yeah, so for clarity donors will be able to choose how much they want to give with one text. No, so what they do is they text their keyword, and then we send them a link where they completed donation form and they can tell us how much they want to give. So it takes you to our mobile optimized donation form and they can just tell us how much they want to give. You could have some preloaded options there so you know if you wanted to do $25 $50 $75 and 100 and 100 is your for suggested donation as they can choose from those, or they can, you know, make a custom amount. But it takes them to a donation page where they make some of those decisions, as well as being able to decide whether or not they want to make their donation recurring. Can you talk more about recurring donations how does that work for the donor do they get a text every month before they're charged. I would actually recommend we have a new resource center. It's mighty cause comm slash guide and there is a webinar library in there and we actually just did some. We did a whole webinar about recurring donations, but how recurring donation works is that it recurs every month on the same day they can also alter that so they need to change up the day or change up their card. They are more than welcome to do that through the mighty cause platform, and they do get an email before their donation process is letting them know this donation is coming up. They will also get emailed if like their, you know, their card is declined or it's expired, we will alert them to that so that they can go in and make the necessary changes. But yeah, we try our best to keep them in the loop about what's happening with their donation and let them know in process it happens on the same day, but they can, they can switch that up if they need to change the day for whatever reason. And yeah, so it's a it's pretty, it's like it's not really that much different than your Netflix subscription they you know are notified when it's in process it hits their account, they can cancel anytime and they can also change it up, which you can't do with a lot of subscription services so it's really easy for them to manage through mighty cause. How long do disbursements take. So if you have direct deposit or EFT setup you will get a disbursement twice per month on the first, I'm sorry, on the 15th and the 31st I believe so you'll get direct deposit into your nonprofits bank account twice per month. So you'll start getting those as soon as you have donations stored up we sort of batch them together twice a month and we send them straight to your nonprofit. If you're getting them by check, they are sent once per month so they are sent on the 10th and then they, you know, they're in the mail so they will get to you shortly thereafter, but we definitely recommend disbursement as EFT disbursements just so it's easier for you to manage that. How long are the short codes good for once purchased. I'm actually not sure I think as long as you pay for them. It's yours. So if you lay out the money for your own short code outside of mighty cause. I believe they're good for as long as you would like to continue paying for them. As far as keywords on mighty cause I believe they are good for as you know as long as you have the subscription. Eventually if you you know how you get rid of advance and you don't want to use text to give any more, we would probably free up those keywords if they're not being utilized by use just so somebody else can have access to them. Let's see. I just wanted to confirm that the owner does not need to have their own DAF to donate. Great question, absolutely not the mighty cause foundation is the DAF so the DAF is sort of the middle person between you and the donor donor makes a donation, it goes through the DAF and then is re-granted to your nonprofit. Donors can definitely set up their own DAFs but that is a much higher level of donor than we usually have on mighty cause so they don't need their own DAF. The mighty cause foundation is the DAF. So you don't need to set up anything the donor doesn't need to set up anything.  Is there a limit to the number of text messages and org can send it one time. That's a great question because there's actually another thing that organizations ask us for when it comes to text to give. And that is can we send push notifications. That's actually a completely different kind of service so we don't offer that text to give is that you have a short code or the number that we provide for you. You have a keyword and you publicize it to your donors and then they text the keyword to the number and that's the service push notifications are a little bit different. So that's a completely different service that we do not offer SMS or push notifications are what you would want to Google if you want more information about that. At this point we don't offer that service just because it's a, you know, it's it we don't have we can only be so many things that once more or less. But that is something that is available SMS or push don't notifications or what you would like to Google there if you want to learn more about that. I assume that the text to donate donations are differentiated in some manner in the disbursement reports. They absolutely are.  So this is the text to donate donor receive their gift tax substantiation language. That's a great question we email them a receipt so as part of the process of making their donation. They will give us their email address and we'll send them a receipt so they it's all taken care of you don't have to do any extra thing we email them immediately. Let's see oh and we have Sharon here Sharon hi can you hear me. Yeah hi how are you. Thanks. So sorry, we missed you I was just answering some questions about text to give. But I'll go ahead and I'll turn the turn everything turn the presentation over to you are you good. Yeah that's great if you want to let me. manage a screen from my end we can start. All right, I'm making you the presenter and I will put myself on mute. Thank you. Okay everybody sorry for hopping on a little late I had some technical difficulties but I'm glad to be joining you now. My name Sharon Cody and I'm the nonprofit partnership manager at Harbor compliance and at Harbor compliance we partner with organizations in every state and over two dozen countries to help them with their challenging compliance problems. In this state we've helped more than 25,000 clients manage government licensing and here you'll see some of our nonprofit partners that we've helped keep compliant. Okay, so on my end here's what we're going to learn about we're going to learn where fundraising is regulated, which traditional and online activities fundraising activities trigger registration requirements, how to use fundraising compliance to build trust and funds and then how to navigate and manage fundraising registration and reporting on an ongoing basis. Okay, so let's take a look at this quote here from the IRS. The first charitable solicitation compliance in its simplest terms charitable solicitation is fundraising and the IRS is the regulator of nonprofit status, but the states are the regulators of fundraising. The most important word in this quote from the IRS is the word before. Generally charities are required to register before they begin soliciting California is an exception you have 30 days. From receipt of a gift to register but in almost every other state, you need to be registered to solicit before you begin fundraising. This is because charitable solicitations or requirements are based on the act of solicitation, not on the receipt of donations. It doesn't matter whether you receive a gift in response to your fundraising. What matters is that you are fundraising and it is fundraising that triggers your obligation to register. So, do these requirements apply to you and apply to text to get so solicitation. The definition vary slightly from state to state, but generally charitable solicitation requirements apply. You're asking for donations by traditional or online methods. So, whether you're asking in person with direct mail, making a phone call and email text to give. You have a website donate button. You're asking during a giving day or a virtual event. All of these methods of fundraising are solicitation, regardless of the methods you use to ask for funds. Here we go. There's some additional methods of regulated fundraising that states also have requirements. Cost marketing or commercial co ventures done with corporate partners. And also, if you're working with a fundraise and council or professional fundraiser. They have obligations to register in many states and also file your fundraise and contract with them with the state as well as follow up reports. And as many of you know, auctions and games of chance also have licensing requirements often on the municipal level rather than the state level. Okay. I was just hearing about text to give and text to donate, and it makes so much sense because people, their devices are mobile and so wash and fundraising be too. But it's important to understand that solicitations occur where they are received by the prospective donors. That's correct. It's the location of the potential donor that determines in which state your solicitation occurs. That shows the states that regulate fundraising. The 41 states shaded in dark blue or orange require charities to register to solicit, nearly all before solicitation occurs, as we just discussed. Those states in orange require charities to not only register but also require charities to include disclosure statements on their solicitations and other donor correspondence. Those two states in light blue do not require fundraising registration, but do require fundraising disclosures. The states in dark blue require charities to register to solicit but do not require disclosure statements. And then the states in white, the handful of states in white do not regulate fundraising at present, though it's always good to keep an eye on that because states do decide to regulate fundraising and also to stop regulate fundraising. Okay, so text to give and text to donate. Most state laws do not address registration requirements for text to give or online fundraising methods because state laws were generally written before the advent of the internet. It's simple enough for you to know where your solicitation is received when you send a letter submit a grant, but when you're soliciting online, it can be more complicated because as we talked about your donors are mobile, and they have their devices with them as they travel. And when you're online, you're not sure all the time where your prospective donors are located. So that's the appeal really of online fundraising and text to give. You can reach donors everywhere in every state, but does this mean you need to register nationwide. The answer varies, but it may be yes for many, but not all of you. Nonprofit fundraising nonprofits who are fundraising online really need to research the rules in each state. Generally, you will need to register a file and exemption in each one of the 41 states that regulate fundraising. Exemptions are not automatic in most states, and they are given to certain narrow category of nonprofits based largely on the type of nonprofit, its solicitation methods and its total annual revenue. For example, very small nonprofits, those that raise less than 10 or $15,000 a year total, not in a state, but from any state often exempted from fundraising registration. Houses of worship, schools and hospitals are exempt in some states, but not in other states. Exemptions from registration have to be applied for in most states. And it's important to know that once your nonprofit is registered or granted an exemption, you will need to submit a Secretary of State annual report each year, usually detailing your fundraising activities so the state can keep track of you. Now, there's another reason besides your legal obligation to register to fundraise. Consumers, donors. Consumers are told to research before they donate. Here's two examples. The Federal Trade Commission talking about advising donors to research before giving to a charity. And then here's another quote, the same quote appears on both Arizona Attorney General's website and the Colorado Secretary of State's website. If you receive an email or text message asking for donation, confirm the request is from the charity, not an imposter by contacting the charity or visiting its website. The other way consumers research online before donating is to go to the state's own database. Most states maintain a database where any nonprofits that were at any point registered with the state are indexed there. And information appears as to whether that nonprofit is currently registered and in good standing in the state, whether it is not registered in the state or whether it was once registered in the state and now is no longer in good standing. So with a click of a button, consumers can find that information. So compliance is the law and a governance best practice, and it's essential to protecting your leaders, your staff, your branch, your reputation, but it's also essential to donor trust. Give.org's 2019 State of Trust in the Charitable Sector study found that only 19% of respondents reported highly trusting charities. That's sad, only 19%. And the study also found that nearly 70% of respondents rated the importance of trusting a charity as essential or nearly essential to making a gift. Another study by Fidelity Charitable on overcoming barriers to giving from the number one concern of donors is making sure nonprofits were credible and trustworthy. Every fundraiser knows that trust is key to donor giving. Sadly, copycat nonprofits with look-alike websites often emerge during challenging times like those we're currently facing. And the public receives messages from the state attorney generals or secretary of states, the consumer bureaus of different states and organizations like the AARP and Better Business Bureau, reminding them to research online before donating. And the public heats these messages. 25 states require charities to include specific disclosure language and their solicitations. It's a pretty common way to regulate fundraising by states. It helps donors make informed decisions about their giving. These disclosure statements are mandated on donor correspondence, including all solicitations and donor correspondence and receipt. But a lot of nonprofits fail to include state mandated disclosures or bury them in the most inconspicuous place they can find in tiny, tiny font. And it's no wonder, here's Pennsylvania's disclosure statement. Dry? Yes. But despite this, I'm going to urge you not to hide those mandated state fundraisers and disclosures because they are the perfect opportunity to let the public know your nonprofit is appropriately registered with the state and legally permitted to fundraise. That kind of message shouldn't be hidden, but should be broadcast to your current and prospective supporters. Studies show that charities that include their state mandated disclosure statements and solicitations get a better rate of return because donors gained reassurance from the fact that the nonprofit they're giving to is accountable, transparent, compliant with laws and best practices. So take advantage of the opportunity to do the right thing. And comply with your legal obligation to put the fundraising disclosure statements on your website and solicitations and use it to win trust and boost donations. A study from next after found that discipline reinforcement of a donor's decision to give resulted in a 31.3% increase in donations.  Make their decision to give to you as easy as possible and reassure them that their investment in you and your mission driven work is a good one. Take those boring state disclosure statements and add a headline to provide some context like our commitment to good stewardship or fully registered and compliant. And add a few sentences saying that your nonprofit is committed to responsible governance, financial transparency and maintaining good standing. It differentiates your nonprofits from others. For texts to give solicitations, you can easily include a link to a page on your website where you provide all of your state required disclosure statements and other information to like your nonprofit status and EIN number. Maybe your current annual community report. Okay, so we talked about why compliance should be a priority for nonprofits. Besides being a legal obligation it safeguards and strengthens reputations and broadcast your commitment to best practices. It distinguishes yourself in a crowded playing field builds your donor trust and loyalty. It facilitates new partnerships with funders and sponsors and has the potential to increase revenue and therefore impact embracing fundraising compliance as a badge of honor really can strengthen your nonprofit in so many ways. Okay. Two practical approaches to online fundraising registration right when you're when you're engaging in text to give and other methods of online fundraising and you're not sure where your message is going and you're asking donors in many states. What do you do. There are two options, you can register or file an exemption from registration if you're one of those nonprofits that doesn't need to register in a particular state. All of the 41 states when I say 41 states it's really 40 states in the district of Columbia but for purposes of today we're going to call it 41 states or your nonprofit can not accept donations in states in which you're not registered. Obviously not all nonprofits have the financial ability to register in every state. But just carry constraints are a common challenge, especially for smaller charities and newer charities for these organizations a second approach might be better. The organization really needs to weigh the opportunity cost of registering in a state and not being able to accept donations there. To determine which of these states, they're going to go ahead and register it. What about their registration process itself. We talked a lot about what's required, but how to do it. Really, you can think of it as four basic basis research apply monitor renew. It's important to learn not only what the laws are in a state and whether you're obligated to register there or your an exemption is appropriate and you can apply for that. But you also need to understand if you're currently registered or if your nonprofit was once registered and fell out of compliance. Your turnover is a problem. I know I spent much of my life working for nonprofits and sometimes nonprofits aren't always aware of where they're currently registered or where they were once registered and stopped filing your annual report. So you need to do your research. Once you've done that research, it's time to apply. You often need to include additional documentation with your application such as your vital on C3 status letter and a recent 990 along with a unique state application. Once your applications are submitted, you have to monitor to see them through to approval. Sometimes it takes a few weeks other times it's months. You have to resubmit in a state if your application is rejected and that does happen. Fundraising compliance is an ongoing obligation. So even once your applications have been accepted, states require you to renew the registrations usually every year and file an annual secretary of state report in most states. So making the renewal dates which vary from state to state and making sure your reports are filed on time is extremely important to avoid fines and late fees. With this in mind, let's talk about managing compliance on an ongoing basis. So you should expect to spend a great deal of time preparing and tracking your renewals and filing reports each year with all the different states where you're registered. And you should also plan to spend some time staying abreast of any legislative changes and monitoring what the reporting requirements and due dates are because those changes well. You need an accurate filing system, a calendar system, time to prepare and update disclosure statements and annual reports, and time to make sure you research all these legislative changes. There's a particularly important piece of legislation pending in California now that Harbor Compliance is monitoring because it's going to subject many more nonprofits to register in the state if it passes. I'm sure this is a question on all of your minds. What does it cost state fees to register for nonprofits come to somewhere between $1400 and $5,000 for most organizations and that is the total to register at all 41 states that require registration. Nonprofits with less than $100,000 in total gross annual revenue will fall on the low end of the range. Nonprofits with more than a million in total annual gross revenue will pay total state registration fees at that high end of the range. And nonprofits with gross revenue of $500,000 are going to fall somewhere in the middle. Okay, so we talked about how to manage fundraising compliance yourself, but there's another option. If you're not, your charity is not interested in putting in the hundreds of hours of work to both initially and ongoing, it's required to manage this process. If you're not staffed to do that, you can outsource management of charitable solicitation registration. It's an efficient and effective solution. Harbor Compliance's alternative is to fully manage every step of the process. We do the research, we prepare the applications, we cut the checks to the states, we compile all the documents, mail or email the application and renewal packages, follow up with the states, monitor approvals, and then load all of the information into tracking software and just send you registration approvals. We really do reduce every possible bit of administrative work for all the nonprofits we work with. We have software that provides total visibility into registration, state fees and renewal dates. It offers multiple levels of access and various permission levels, so colleagues within your organization can stay updated on your registration status in every state. Accountants, other consultants, board members can be given permission to view your current compliance status state by state. Our portal allows you to add as many users as you'd like without any additional fees. Okay, so here's the key takeaways when you're talking about fundraising compliance for online and text to give. Online fundraising, text to give fundraising may require nationwide fundraising registration for some nonprofits, but not all. You need to go state by state to make that determination. Next takeaway is to communicate your fundraising compliance to build trust and raise funds to build out a page on your website that provides all your disclosure and other information about you for donors that are looking. The third takeaway is that you need to track and review state fundraising registration reporting obligations and changes to legislation. And then the final takeaway is this is a complicated process and managing it yourself is resource intensive. So for many of you outsourcing compliance to service provider like Harbor compliance can be an efficient alternative that lets your staff go back to what they do best mission driven work. Okay, does anybody have any questions for me. I'm not sure I can see the questions I think I have to wait for Linda. Oh, sorry about that. There are definitely questions for you. I'm so sorry about the confusion I think you were go to webinar was hiding you under the attendees and so I was like waiting for you under staff and didn't see you so apology apologies for the confusion but so glad that you were able to get logged on so that I could see you. So there are some questions for you somebody asked if you could repeat the part about what constitutes where the fundraising is taking place. Right, so two important things to understand are that states require registration to be before you begin fundraising in a state. So before your fundraising campaign begins in a state. Nearly every state requires you to first be registered there. And then the second part that's important to understand is that fundraising occurs, the solicitation occurs, not in your location, but in the location of the donor. So, with something like text to give or other online fundraising methods, where is the solicitation occurring it's recurring wherever these many donors are located. And because donors are mobile and their devices are mobile, that can be in many, many states. And that's the beauty of it that you can reach people where they are and communicate with them where they are, and make it easy for them to give to you where they are. But you don't always know necessarily where they are. And so you really need to keep track of that. And then you need to take a look at all those states regulations and laws to determine. Are you one of the nonprofits that is allowed to file for an exemption in that state, or is your fundraising subject to regulation in that state. Some states do specifically say how much money you need to raise in a state or how many donors you need to interact with in this state to before you're required to register there. But it's complicated because for most states, the laws in each state were written before the advent of the internet. So you're really taking a look at general language and law and trying to figure out how it applies to online fundraising and text to give. The answer is if you are interacting with, you know, a number of donors in this state, asking them to give to you through text to give or text to donate and then following up with them and sending in newsletters and email solicitations. In most of those states you will be required to register unless you're in a category that's subject to exemption. There's lots of questions Sharon. So just to give you a heads up we have lots of questions. The next one is do you have to register in a state if your fundraising is to a foundation legally domiciled in a state, but that makes grants in many states. Yeah, so grant applications are a form of solicitation. So if you are soliciting under in a state, you should first be registered in that state. Yes. Awesome. The next question is does a 501c3 indicate that you are registered. So getting your 501c3 status from the federal government from the IRS allows you to give tax deductions to your donors and being granted nonprofit status by the federal government is completely different from being registered to fundraise in a particular state. You could go for example to engineering school architecture school or hairdresser school and receive your license to be an architect and engineer or hairdresser. But to do those things in a particular state you need to get a license and it's no different with fundraising. Before you can engage in fundraising in a state you need a license you need to register to fundraise. And unfortunately that's how the US is where we have a federalist system and each state has its own different regulations. Architects and engineers with large multi-state organizations require many licenses and it's the same thing with nonprofits. You may require licenses 41 different licenses, many nonprofits do. What about donors giving internationally? Well it depends. Are you talking about you soliciting donors internationally or donors from international finding you and making donations? You know you accepting gifts from a country where you have not been soliciting. I can't really speak to that. But I can tell you that many many countries have similar registration requirements to the states in the United States as far as fundraising registration. I was at a National Association of State Charity Official annual conference earlier this year. And there at the conference we had the charity officials from three different countries talking to us about their regulation. So it's pretty common for other countries to have similar fundraising registration requirements. So if you are actively soliciting donors in other countries you may need to file registration in those other countries as well. As far as international nonprofits who want to fundraise in the United States they need registration, fundraising registration in each individual state. And they also need to set up a US nonprofit of friends of organization to do that fundraising. So that can get a little complicated. Yeah and that's actually one of the situations where on Mighty Cause we see international organizations if they don't have a friends of organization that is you know operating in the United States. They sometimes will work with a fiscal sponsor to you know who has a similar mission in order to be able to fundraise tax exempt in the United States. And that's one of the circumstances under which fiscal sponsorship can come into play on Mighty Cause. And that's wonderful and if you have suggestions for fiscal sponsors to help them find you know there's an internet search. There's a lot of organizations that are willing to do fiscal sponsorship if they share a mission with you. That's definitely another option. Yeah, definitely. So this one is actually an interesting question I'd love to know the answer to do social media posts count as a form of solicitation that may require a disclosure statement. If so, does the language like learn more at XYZ.org with a link that leads to a web page with the disclosure disclosure statement count. Yeah, so most states have not really addressed whether a link to a web page is adequate, but I know no state that has said it is inadequate, if that makes sense. Because as I said, most state laws are so old they were put in place for traditional fundraising methods. You really sort of have to extrapolate out how the law would apply to online methods like text to give and social media. But solicitation is a solicitation is a solicitation. Almost every state's definition is the same. It's basically asking for funds for a charitable purpose, no matter how you do it. And if you nonprofit are the one doing the soliciting, then you need to include those state mandated disclosures. And I think a link is probably an appropriate way to go about doing that. And I urge you just to think of that linked page. Not as an obligation, but really as a marketing opportunity to share more information about your nonprofit and your good work and also your commitment to accountability and transparency. And one thing I did want to just add about disclosure statements is that you have area on your mighty cause profile if you are using it for fundraising. We have a lot of small nonprofits who don't actually have their own web page. So some of the information is baked in to the profile people are able to easily see your EIN, your legal address, the legal name of your organization. And then you also have an area where if you have some state specific disclosure statements that you want to include, you can just put that text into the story on your organization's page in your profile. So that way it's easy for users to access that. So that's another option if you wanted to utilize your mighty cause profile for that specific purpose. So the next question is, is there a donation minimum that triggers reporting or is it any amount of donation? So there are a handful of states where there is some guidance on how much money or how many donors you have to raise from a state. But really the question is it's sort of a legal issue. It's whether the state has jurisdiction over your nonprofit. And to figure out whether a state has jurisdiction over your nonprofit, it looks at whether you've had sufficient contact with the state. And to determine that, generally the states look at how many people within the state you're interacting with and if you're doing it in a repeated and ongoing way. So if you have a dozen, two dozen donors in the state and you are interacting with them and not just asking, not just accepting one gift from them, but sending them a thank you. And in the thank you you're putting a fundraising envelope and you're asking them for more money a month or two or three or four down the road. And my goodness, I hope that you are. That's the whole point of fundraising right to raise funds. Most states are going to view you as having sufficient contact with that state for them to have jurisdiction over you and your fundraising and require you to be registered there. If you receive a one time gift out of the blue and you don't follow up with that donor and ask them for more money. And I would say in that unusual instance, perhaps you are not having enough contacts with the state for them to regulate your fundraising.  Right, because that's the whole point of doing things like text to given text to donate is to keep broadening your circle of supporters. Absolutely. So this next question is sort of a joint question I'll try to answer it because it's about mighty cause and then Sharon if you have any, anything to add to that please feel free to pipe in. So does mighty cause take care of all fundraising compliance management for its users.  The donor tells us by making the donation through our site to your specific page connected to your EIN that it is advised for your nonprofit and then we send it as a re grant that's technically what your disbursements are. So we do have the necessary permits and registrations and all 50 states to serve that purpose, however, I will say it doesn't hurt to check in with your your nonprofits lawyer, just to make sure that you are covering all of your bases, and to make sure that their your state doesn't have anything extra that you need to be aware of as a nonprofit so that is how we operate as a platform we work with our national donor advised fund, and we do have we have solicitation permit permits and the necessary registrations and all 50 states, but it's always a good idea just to check in with your nonprofits lawyer if you have any questions, just to make sure that you are doing your due diligence. So, Sharon, if you have anything to add to that please, please pipe in. Yeah, sure. So, you know, I am an attorney but I don't have enough specific information about anybody in the audience to be giving you legal advice but I will tell you this. As we review during my presentation, it is the act of asking that triggers the need to register. So you nonprofit are asking, even though the method you're using to ask is the wonderful mighty cause platform, you are the one soliciting funds. And because you are soliciting funds, you are obligated to register or seek exemption in all states where you're asking. This isn't a way out to use a fundraising platform. You are the solicitor of funds. So you are obligated and there are a number of states that have very specific information about nonprofits using platforms that explains that. So you need to take a look at your own registration status and where your current donors are located, where your prospective donors, the donors you're soliciting are located because remember it's not where you're receiving funds from. It doesn't matter if you get a donation or not. The registration requirement, the state registration requirement is the act of asking, not the act of receiving donations for the most part with the exception of California. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not a lawyer. So my standard response is if you have any questions, ask your lawyer because I'm not able to advise you. Yep, and the same here, you know, without knowing the specifics of each individual nonprofit and where they're currently registered and if they're entitled to an exemption and all that information. I absolutely couldn't provide you with more information, but I want everybody to understand that it's the asking that triggers the need to register in a state. So if you are asking in a state, all the states, all those 41 jurisdictions with exception of California, you generally need to register before you begin asking for money. And it doesn't matter whether you get a gift in a response that solicitation. Great. So there's a lot of questions I know at this point we've gone over. And part of that was me babbling about text to give with questions I'm just going to try to pick through the remaining questions and just sort of pick out the ones that I think would be really great to answer. And then if there are any more questions you can always send them to me. Linda, if you have a question about text to give specifically or mighty cause, and then Sharon's address is up there on the slide as well if you'd like to reach out to her individually to talk about, you know, what your question is. But we'll just try to find the most interesting questions that might be enlightening to everybody else here. So this one I think is interesting. Do you know if there are penalties traditionally involved if a nonprofit has been fundraising for years, but has not registered as a charitable organization with the state. So harbor compliance are collective experience we have 16 employees and we've been around for eight years now is that we have not had any of our clients face fines or penalties if they are proactive and go to the state and say, What's we just now realize we should have been registered and we weren't, we'd like to now be registered and work it out with the state we have not our experience has been we have not had a client face fines and penalties. But yes, in many of the states. There is a possibility of those things being imposed. But our experiences that if you're the one that goes to the state and talks to them. As a legitimate charity doing good work in their state. They are happy to work with you to try to work through that. I'm cool so there there's a couple of questions about this topic. So, how is donate donor location determined. Is it residents where their cell phone is how do you determine where a donor is actually located. It's, it's usually where they with the state where they're located. So, people, many donors have multiple homes and the rules over whether that state is there to protect the people that are there as temporary residents or visitors or permanent residents really needs to be looked at state by state by state. Okay, that definitely makes sense to me. So, this is an interesting question that came up a couple of times does a state incorporation qualify for the state record registration. No, your incorporation in a state isn't the same as your registration. So, if I start a nonprofit in the state of Pennsylvania, I still have to register with our bureau of charity officials and file annual reports, even though I am a Pennsylvania Corporation, your corporate status isn't the same as your licensing to fundraise your fundraising registration. Awesome. Okay, one last question. And then we'll wrap things up we'll send out the recording in the slides to everyone so if you need to refer back to any of this information, you'll have that recording. But the last question I'll take is or send to Sharon I should say, if somebody finds our website and decides to donate, but we did not actively solicit donations in their state. Do we have to be registered in the donors state to accept that donation in. I believe every state but California you can certainly accept that donation since it wasn't in response to solicitation. However, if you follow up with that donor by sending a thank you letter and putting a envelope in it to get them to solicit if they get added to your mailing list and your solicitation list and get on going request from you, then you may need to be registered in the state. So you can see the danger in that of trying to exclude, you know, certain donors in certain states from accepting, you know, from your follow up with them. And that sounds like a great argument in favor of making sure that you are managing your donor list, you know, know, know where your donors are coming from where they're located. And stay on top of that, you know, don't just dump everybody into one follow up journey in your email marketing program like pay attention if you need to exclude people from receiving the follow up or put a delay in there. You know, make sure that you're taking those precautions so that they're not just dumped into a big list of all of your donors you can use email marketing programs like constant contact and mail champ and autopilot and campaign monitor. I'm a marketer so those are there's ways that you can, if you have automated processes in place which are fantastic. Make sure that you're managing what you do with the email addresses that you get the addresses that you get from donors and that you're managing your list. And on one final plug we do have a CRM tool for that with mighty cause advanced that can help you sort of figure out where everybody's coming from and keep better track of, you know, where your donors are located who they are, where they live and so on so cool so thank you Sharon. I'm glad we were able to get you on and get our technical issues smoothed over. I will go ahead and once this is uploaded to YouTube I'll send everybody a recording. And Sharon will also have a recording in the slides to send out as well. So, yeah, everybody will have access to all of it. Thank all of this. Thank you guys so much for everything today. I know you stayed. There's a lot of people who are still on and it's been an hour and a half so thank you for your patience and Sharon thank you so so much for all of your wisdom and all of your helpful advice. Oh, thank you for having Harper compliance present with you it's a pleasure to be here and talk to your folks. Absolutely I will take care of everyone happy fundraising.


We have a total of 38 acres, 20-some thousand trees, Leyland Cypress, we have Green Giant, Arizona Cypress, Virginia Pine, Eastern White Pine, Southwestern White Pine, Austrian Pine, Hybrid Loblolly Pitch, Norway Spruce, we have Blue Spruce, Concolor Fur, there's a few of those. There's some Canaan Fur, Grand Fur from the Northern Idaho-Montana area, I don't know how it survived here but there are a few and there's probably a few varieties that I just can't think of right now. I feel like a forest-gump movie where the guy's naming all the shrimp. When they're cut, they're probably six years old. When you get a little bit slower varieties, you can go seven, eight, ten, twelve years. I've got some 12-year-old Turkish fur and I just want to sell them before I die. We do grow some of our trees from seed, actually some people don't know this, like your pine tree seeds, a lot of those take two to three years up on a tree before they're viable. So that seeds are already two to three years old. To get it to grow right, they have to go through what they call stratification. That's where you get them wet, soak them, let them absorb a little moisture, then you put them in the refrigerator for a month or two and they think it's winter and then you can plant them and then they're happy, they go, hey, we've gone through winter, they'll start growing. I do buy seedlings, some are four, six, eight, twelve inches. The next step is to plant them and you want to make sure there's adequate moisture in the soil because if you plant a tree and there's no moisture in the soil, it's probably not going to do real good, it might not make it. Once you're in the ground and they've grown some, I start trimming even the first year because if I don't, they won't set the buds right to keep growing. Every time you trim a tree, instead of being a natural shoot, you stop the growth and the tree says, I don't like that. I want to make sure I have enough branches so it puts out more buds than it would naturally put out on each world. And that's how you get a real thick tree.  There's a whole lot to take care of a tree and get it up to sell because you don't know how many Christmas tree farmers they just go, this is too much work. I'll put in probably seventy to eighty hours every week. We have a gift shop, she's got a lot of goodies in there. She works hard to pick out stuff you can't get anywhere else. But we open up the weekend before Thanksgiving, we call that our early bird weekend. Last year we sold out, we were open seven days, twenty-five hundred trees, twenty. My wife would know the count, but I think it might even be thirty-two hundred. But it's seeing families come out, seeing kids go out and just having a blast picking out their tree. It's busy, it's kind of hectic, but it's nice to see everybody's having fun.


Hey guys, this is Rich from Rich TV Live. You can see here. We are on Cabaret Day Beach, the kite surfing capital of the world It is a beautiful sunny day here Look at all the kites. It's actually quite windy today. So it's a perfect day for kite surfing We're gonna walk right up to the water Get you some nice views See the sights and sounds Look at all those kites. Wow This is Cabaret Day Beach January 2019 look at all the kite surfers This is one of the kite surfing capitals of the world Cabaret Day Beach. I love this beach lots of people beautiful water beautiful sand Beautiful sights beautiful sounds beautiful shops lots of nice restaurants and most importantly beautiful people Let's do a little tour Let's walk boys I'm good. How are you man? What's up, man? Very good. Very good. Very good. Very nice. Very nice. Oh, what's going on with this guy? Some type of torture Hello, we're doing a YouTube video how you guys doing enjoying yourselves nice nice Rich TV live, I got about 20,000 subscribers rich TV live rich TV live Yeah, I got about 20,000 subscribers. Yeah, write it down. You girls will be famous Well, let me go. Oh, I think I see some girls. I need to interview right there.  Switzerland I'm a youtuber. I'm making some videos of tourists on the beach today You girls ever been on YouTube? You want to be on YouTube? I Got about 20,000 subscribers on YouTube and I make YouTube videos about the Dominican Republic. It's called rich TV live Rich TV live, I make YouTube videos about the domain. Yes. I make YouTube videos about the Dominican Republic I don't have my phone on me. I only have my camera But if you have a phone you can search it on YouTube rich TV live That's the problem. There's no Wi-Fi. I'm just looking for interesting people to interview


A poem titled, The Trees Sway. As the winds blow in and the tide begins to rise, my heart begins to ache as the tears fall from my eyes. I can hear the wind in agony howling in the breeze. I remember Yahhusein when you fell upon your knees. Surrounded by the gusts of wind, the trees begin to sway. Crying as they move, we remember Yahhusein. The birds soar on in silence until they hear the wailing cries. They fall down onto their earth. In grief, they cannot fly. The sun comes up, but it's like dims low, crying as it rises. My grief, my Lord, does only know. My grief sees no horizon. When finally the sun does set, the moon now takes its place. Crying out onto the earth, this pain is not erased. Salah ala Muhammad wa ala Muhammad.