Tech Isn’t Coming For Your Job with Nejeed Kassam

This episode is sponsored by my friends at Keela,  a comprehensive fundraising and donor management software that will help you expand your reach, increase fundraising revenue, and foster a dedicated community of supporters.

Several of my clients are currently using Keela and have continued to be impressed with how easy it is to use, how affordable it is and most importantly, the results that they see and the impact they are able to create.

Keela is hosting a webinar, led by me, on June 6 - How to Drive Donations and Get Engagement Using Social Media. It’s totally free, and you can get all the details and sign up by clicking here.

The power and potential of smart technology and artificial intelligence (AI) for fundraisers hasn’t been more apparent, but there are many misconceptions around it. Will the bots replace the humans? How can we use this revolutionary technology for good and not evil?

My guest this week is Nejeed Kassam, CEO and Founder of Keela, a donor management and fundraising platform designed to help nonprofits raise more. 

We discuss:  

• How generative AI and other smart technology tools are changing the fundraising world - for good
• How nonprofits can make a case to leverage these tools in their organization
• What kind of data nonprofits should collect and how to use it  
• How to become a data-driven organization to create even more impact

Connect with Nejeed on LinkedIn >  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nejeed/

About Julia Campbell, the host of the Nonprofit Nation podcast:

Named as a top thought leader by Forbes and BizTech Magazine, Julia Campbell (she/hers) is an author, coach, and speaker on a mission to make the digital world a better place.

She wrote her book, Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, as a roadmap for social change agents who want to build movements using engaging digital storytelling techniques. Her second book, How to Build and Mobilize a Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit, was published in 2020 as a call-to-arms for mission-driven organizations to use the power of social media to build movements.

Julia’s online courses, webinars, and keynote talks have helped hundreds of nonprofits make the shift to digital thinking and how to do effective marketing in the digital age. 

Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts

Transcript

Julia Campbell: 0:00

`Hello This episode is sponsored by my friends at Keela, a comprehensive fundraising and donor management software that will help you expand your reach, increase your fundraising revenue, and foster a dedicated community of supporters. Now several of my clients are currently using Keela. And they continue to be impressed with how easy it is to use, how affordable it is, and most importantly, the results that they see and the impact they're able to create. Now, Keela is hosting a free webinar led by me on June 6, how to drive donations and get engagement using social media. It's totally free. And you can get all the details and sign up at www.jcsocialmarketing.com/keela that's jcsocialmarketing.com/keela See you there. Hello, and welcome to nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently Find Your Voice. Definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie, or an experienced professional, who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact than you're in the right place. Let's get started. Welcome back to nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And today the question that we're going to answer is, is tech coming for your job? What can I do to really enhance impact and make what you do more effective not just on the program side, but also on the marketing and fundraising side? And what do we need to know? And what can we ignore? So I have the perfect guest to answer these questions and help us navigate this new ever changing landscape. It's Nejeed Kassam, the CEO and founder of Keela, which is a donor management and fundraising platform dedicated to empowering all nonprofits to reach their goals. That is just one tiny piece of nejeed's bio. He's also the former chair of the Make Poverty History campaign in Montreal, MC have live in Montreal with my crush Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, founder of the nonprofit the better Canada initiative, author of a book high on life, which I think is really cool and a co producer of the documentary conversations for change. He's also a World Economic Forum, Global Shaper, and a Queen Elizabeth, the second diamond jubilee medal recipient, by 21. And as she sits on a number of nonprofit boards, and outside of work, this is my favorite part. This is my favorite. My favorite part, outside of work. He's married to the most amazing woman in the world, takes care of a rambunctious toddler. And as of this recording, child number two is due in August, July, July, and has a lifelong obsession for tennis. Yes, ranked sixth in the world as a junior, that is so cool. Hi. Hello, Nejeed. Thank you. Good to have you. I'm surprised you have time to be on podcasts.

Nejeed Kassam: 3:49

I like smart, interesting people. And I think you fall into that category.

Julia Campbell: 3:53

Oh, thank you. Well, I really appreciate you being here.

Nejeed Kassam: 3:56

Of course.

Julia Campbell: 3:57

So you also wrote in a blog post that you joke, you're a recovering lawyer. So how did you get started in nonprofit work and the work that you're doing now?

Nejeed Kassam: 4:08

Great question. So I've actually I'm 37 Almost, and I've been working in the nonprofit sector for 30 something years in some form of the other. So my relationship with the sector is a very personal one. And I'm happy to share it here my family, for the last few generations has fled a few different places few different continents. Most recently, my grandparents and parents left East Africa during difficult political times and move to the UK, leaving everything you have behind moving to a new place a new home is something I've never done. So I can't obviously comment personally but looking at watching listening to the stories from my family and my parents and my grandparents. It was hard. It was mucky. It was gnarly, as we say out on the West Coast and they would not be here I would probably not be here in the way that I am being able to do the incredible work that I get a privilege to do had it not been for us Double society for nonprofits for the sector that helped lift us up our community, our religious community scholarships, support that helped my parents and my grandparents. And so, you know, my parents taught us a few things, when we were kids get a great education, it can never be taken from you and give back to your communities. And that's kind of where my obsession and passion and engagement with the sector came, I've had the privilege of holding roles in the sector, from fundraiser to executive director to board member to charity lawyer, the latter two of which I still do a lot of today. And so I just this sector is part of who I am, it's part of the journey of my family over generations. And it's, it's a privilege to, to spend my life both in terms of my time and my passion, working in and around

Julia Campbell: 5:52

I love it. And you You founded the Better nonprofit. Canada initiative at 20 years old. No,

Nejeed Kassam: 5:59

I founded and poverty now when I was 20, oh, better Canada initiative when I was 20. I was older. Yeah, so honestly grew out of that work I did with Dan poverty now campaign, I was a kid, but I saw an opportunity to help build communities in places that all around the world and instead of giving handouts and doing things, I thought, you know, I was a student of international development and politics. And, you know, our thesis as an organization was, let's help infrastructure build, let's help actually fund the infrastructure building in different communities, and so that they can lift themselves out of the challenges that are facing so we actually funded the purchase of usually capital for infrastructure. So I remember, there was a project we did in Rwanda, where we helped the community by beekeeping equipment so that widows who are marginalized could actually build small businesses generate their own income and revenue, and be able to like kind of lift themselves out of poverty and, and other challenges they faced in the community, we helped, you know, they were all capital focused, which was really different. It wasn't like we're building a well, it's like, we actually went to communities got them to propose to like they applied for capital. And then we helped the infrastructure funding. And then communities, the idea was communities were able to thrive and grow. And so that was me as a kid, I was I spent probably as many hours in college, studying as I did, working on this organization. So it was a real privilege and a pleasure to do.

Julia Campbell: 7:27

That's incredible. And I know that you founded Keela, which I think is really interesting, and definitely applies to the overall topic today of how technology can assist, and help nonprofits do their job in a more effective and efficient way. So what was sort of the hole that you saw in the industry? And why did you decide to create this technology and create this company?

Nejeed Kassam: 7:54

Good question. It was mostly an accident. It was a-

Julia Campbell: 7:58

Many great things are.

Nejeed Kassam: 8:00

I'm not a technologist. I'm not a software developer. I just see technology as a tool for capacity and change and opportunity. And I was sitting on the board of a nonprofit when I was in Toronto, I was just starting my legal career. I was frustrated with the technology offerings, which I'll talk about why in a second. But, and I said, you know those words that every stupid entrepreneur says I could build that. Exactly, I could build that better, I could build that the way I wanted to. And it kind of started as a project and then became the opportunities sort of just opened themselves up. And I took the I had the courage to leave my corporate law, my corporate litigation job, and kind of do it full time. And now it's been a few years. And you know, we're really privileged to support so many incredible fundraisers and organizations across North America in the world. Why are we different? I think there's lots of answers to that question, some of which are really relevant and the smart and the intelligence stuff we'll talk about today. But maybe most importantly, I don't think I could have said this then. But we wanted to be fundraiser, as opposed to donor organization centric, and people think, but why, you know, it's all about the donor. It is all about the donor in some ways, but the people who need that we believe, need the most support the people that need the most time back the people who can unlock the most out of communities and philanthropy and donors are actually the people doing the work. So, and I think this is what really makes Keela stand out. It's like, we are very fundraiser centric, everything we do is about what is she doing as the fundraiser What is he doing? What are they doing? Because ultimately, they're the ones using our tool. Oh, we have 10s of 1000s of people fundraisers use our technology every day, to make their jobs better, to make their lives better, and to ultimately empower the communities they work so hard to do. And so, changing our landscape, our vantage point to make it all about the people doing the work was you know, I would argue revolutionary in the sector and something that we still were one of the only people technology offerings in the entire A nonprofit sector that really is obsessed with the fundraisers, I spend time talking to them. I spend time learning from them, I spend time listening to them, I spend time pushing them trying to change their behavior, kind of change our software. It's a really symbiotic relationship. And I think that makes us truly unique. And then we can talk about all the other stuff like the technology, but that we'll get to but that I think, to me is, I think the the semiotic form that we put them on to be great is what is what I live for. So

Julia Campbell: 10:30

I think that is incredibly refreshing to hear. You know, we have a symbiotic relationship. We can't exist without them. They can they absolutely, they're caught the clients exist better and thrive because of us. And I think that's just such a great perspective to have. So when we talk about smart technology, AI, generative AI people, a lot of people have heard of chatGPT, I know that I just went to two conferences in the sector. I went to the Nonprofit Technology Conference spoke there, Denver and the AFP icon, the International fundraising conference in New Orleans. And certainly the topic on everyone's mind is generative AI and language learning models and Bard, chatGPT, all of that. So I think there are two well, there's many different perspectives. One is we're scared because if we're copywriters, maybe we're scared that ChatGPT is going to write all of our fundraising appeals. And then other people are more excited about using it as a tool. So what are you seeing and what are some of the hysteria versus some of the actual reality?

Nejeed Kassam: 11:44

This is my perspective, as newsy as the person who is a student of technology, who is a student of, of society, ultimately, right, I studied politics for my undergrad for graduate work. And there are trends you can see I'm a I'm a lawyer, all I do is recognize patterns. I'm not that smart, right? And I think every time something changes, a big kind of leap, right? There's going to be groups of people who are early adopters, overly excited ahead of the curve. And then there's going to be kind of a large group of not detractors. But the thing before detractors, skeptics, it's a good term, yeah. And then there's the long tail, people who are going to come. But first, some leaps, no matter what you do, or what you say, people are going to have to come. And instead of using an example, like the car, or something stupid like that, I'm actually going to use online donation forms, because it's really relevant. So you know, the rise of online donation forms really started in the early 2000s, with the early adopters, kind of by like, Oh, 60708, depending on when you talk, depending on you know, kind of who you ask, there was a lot of fundraisers, I was not one of them, thankfully. But there were a lot of fundraisers who said this is going to be a fab, that donations are never going to be made online. I mean, there's op eds, there's conference speeches, we were there. We were around, it happened. And if you don't, it's 20 3040, sometimes 50% of organizations, sources of giving is online, depending on the organization, right? The average in the sector is, you know, kind of between 15 and 25. Can you imagine if the people who who are still holding out to saying that there's no donation forms online, like it doesn't it's not it's irrational, we, it's hard for us to conceive. And so to me, I use that as a leap moment in our in our sector, that generative AI are the use of predictive analytics and intelligence as a whole, in my opinion, is going to be one of those things, it's going to be less obvious than those. But I do think it's going to be a leap that in 10 years, we're gonna laugh and say, How could you have not done that? Now, just like donation forms where early donation forms and today's donation forms are magnanimously different, right? How they work, how we use them, how we interact, all of that is totally different. I think the next five to 10 years is going to see some really big jumps. And maybe it's two years or one year or I don't know that period of time. But I think we're very early in the journey of generative AI and even intelligence and predictive analytics as a whole in our sector. And so the skeptics, the critics, the folks who are fearful, it's natural, it's probably good. There's a little bit of reluctance that's probably healthy. And I think as information is proliferated, as people get a chance to learn as people get a chance to build really strong use cases and unlock opportunity, it's going to be like a donation form, which is a tool. You know, my belief is it's, you know, there's this stupid quote, AI is not going to take your job someone using AI is going to take a job. And but I actually believe that I think that fundraisers especially and I put fundraisers traditionally and then fundraising marketers in kind of One bucket in this in just in this conversation. You look at the data, they're irate higher rates of alcoholism, you look at toxicity, exhaustion, stress burnout. I mean, I can keep naming these terrible things. If we can get a tool that even helps that with one to five 15%. There's something to say about that there's value to create, you know, ultimately, it is my belief that the wave of it, it's going to be adopted more and more, instead of being fearful of it, people are going to look up to the sky and say, How did I live without this, right? And fundraisers and fundraising, marketers are going to be very grateful for these kinds of advances in technology that ultimately make their jobs easier, and make them be able to focus on the things they care most about, which is building and creating community, and engaging with the people who are giving because no technology can ever take that away from the process of giving. I don't know if that answers your question. But

Julia Campbell: 15:58

no, that's, that's great. And I completely agree. I think that it's natural to be skeptical, like you said something that first of all, is getting so much hype, and so many headlines, and people are just kind of frothing at the mouth and being crazy over. But I also think it's here. And it's sort of like saying, I don't like the internet. I mean, okay, you don't like the internet, but it's here. And it's not good or bad, necessarily. It's how you interpret it. And it's how you use it.

Nejeed Kassam: 16:30

It's also how we teach it. And I think this is what's really important.

Julia Campbell: 16:33

Talk more about

Nejeed Kassam: 16:34

I am scared of things. I don't understand that I'm a human, my kids, I don't understand them. I'm scared of them, right. But anything new is inherently like, fear may be too strong a word, but certainly there's a element of feeling without getting used to it getting comfortable with it. Yeah, I think as folks like yourself, Julia, I'm gonna throw this to you, I have a responsibility to help proliferate the right kind of information to help teach how we can use it to see to talk about the opportunities and the dangers to talk about the benefits. And the drawbacks, just like the internet or driving or anything has positives and negatives. It's up to those of us who have voices in the space to say, don't open yourself up to this without understanding, right. So definitely take the time to learn, go to webinars somewhat, there's going to be books that come out about it, you know, listen to what people are saying, mitigate the risks. And I think if we can do that, effectively, as a sector, this is going to be game changing potential.

Julia Campbell: 17:39

I agree. And I do think that and thank you for saying that. I remember when Facebook fundraising tools came out, and people were all up in arms about it, because you don't get the data, you don't get the emails, you don't get this, it's not perfect. And the way that I tried to frame it was, well, there's never going to be a perfect tool. And you cannot put all of your eggs in this basket in like, you shouldn't put all of your eggs in the direct mail basket, nor should you put it on the social media fundraising basket, or the email basket, like there's a lot of baskets that we need to diversify our revenue through. So I think what you said is really important. But we also need to make that kind of assessment for our own organization, whether we are ready to do this or not. So what I like to do with the new technology, I like to just experiment with it and look at it and see how other people are using it. First, I'm thinking of Instagram Stories, specifically when it came out. And I thought, Oh, this is really cool. But I don't want to look like an idiot. So I'm just gonna watch what everyone else does, and see how they use it. And then see how I can get more comfortable with it. I didn't just kind of jump right in. I wanted to really observe and kind of take notes. So as you see it, what are some of the biggest opportunities for AI and smart tech tools for the sector?

Nejeed Kassam: 19:03

You know, and I'm going to go beyond just generative AI for this, because I'm sure it will absolutely question right, you know, and I think it'd be anything, the power of data is one thing that is truly transformative, I think, and, and our organizations, even if you're a small organization that does$190,000 a year in total donations, or if you're a big one doing $180 million a year in total donations. The sheer amount of data that you collect, you may not even know is remarkable, right? You send an email, someone's clicking on it, someone's opening it, someone's responding to it. Somebody's on a website, somebody's replying to direct mail, someone's making a donation somewhere in all of those things. There are multiple pieces of data. And it's amazing. It's also terrifying. racquetball

Julia Campbell: 19:49

was not like a billboard. People are like, let me buy a billboard and I said, Well, what kind of data are you collecting from that unless you have a specific phone number or a specific website which no one ever does?

Nejeed Kassam: 20:01

Well, I think it's more than just tracking the data. It's actually like, I think we saw, I don't know, if I read something a week at a study, it's like, hundreds of 1000s, or millions of data points for even small on aggregate. And what I, what I will say is no human, I'm not that smart, I have a lot of really smart people that work with me, even they can't understand that much data, it's not possible. And so, smart technology will take millions of data points and make them a little bit understandable for you, they'll help you to process them, they'll help you to model around them to help you predict on them to help you give you visibility into something that's like, you know, I saw the stupid commercial where someone was picking the sesame seeds off the burger bun, you can't do that with data like that. It was it really struck me I was like, that's what organizations try to do with their data. Sometimes they do. And it's exhausting. And it's unfair to ask them to be data driven, and then not to use this kind of technology. So to me, it gives you eyes where you can't see as a human being, it builds models so that you don't have to, and it's not biblical, it's not saying this is what you should do, it's giving you guidance, it's giving you direction, it's giving you a first draft, if we're talking about generative AI, it's not doing the work for you, it's simply giving you a little bit of a step stool to stand on, so that you can do your work most effectively. And I think by changing the lens as this is going to take my job, or I don't trust it to, I'm still a smart thinking human being. Let me see what it suggests or presents or how it slices and dices or whatever. And then actually think about it is really where the opportunities lie. And I'm not saying and I'm a big believer in automation, but you can craft that automation, you can make sure that it's doing what you as the fundraiser wants it to do. And so smart technology, predictive analytics, genuine AI, to me, it's just taking all this stuff that you've got, and helping you understand it better. So you can do your job

Julia Campbell: 22:06

as a better experience for your donors.

Nejeed Kassam: 22:09

Absolutely. But But I think for us at Keela, it's actually making the experience of being a fundraiser. That's true. Because of all those things we just talked about. Yep.

Julia Campbell: 22:19

I think constantly about how we live our consumer life. And then somehow, the way we operate or nonprofits is completely separate from that. If you think about your purchasing something on Amazon, you think it's not going to remember the last 9000 Things you've purchased, your size, the colors you like the brands you like, think about Netflix, think about Amazon Prime, think about Hulu, Disney plus, it remembers things about you, because it has those data points. And if you have online donors or any kind of donor or recurring donor, any donor, you have those data points. So the fact that we don't remember things about our donors, or I'm thinking about an email that I received several emails last December, saying, oh, you know, if you haven't had a chance to make your donation this year, and I'm thinking you should know 100% Oh, that and why don't you know that and it just frustrates me that we have these data points, but we don't use them.

Nejeed Kassam: 23:20

I think for so long technology has made it prohibitively difficult for fundraisers who are uncomfortable, like most of us, myself included, are not technologists, we're not native to, you know, yeah, we have an iPhone fine, or whatever, you know, but inherent comfort with that technology, it is on the people building the technology to make it digestible and accessible for the people using it. And that's why that fundraiser Centricity that I was talking about is so important, because if you do that, then it becomes less intimidating, because you give them insight into how it was done or why it might be like that, you can say, this is why it could be wrong. Like there's, you know, if you give more visibility into how these things are being how the sausage is being made, so to speak, in this case, it can actually help fundraisers, increase their trust and increase their understanding of how and what to do with it, instead of looking for a silver bullet all the time. Because in life, one thing I've learned is there's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's nothing nothing's going to come easy. And so we shouldn't be looking to predictive analytics or AI as a way to like, make things easy, they can make things easier. And there's a really important distinction between those two things.

Julia Campbell: 24:29

I totally agree and people that are looking at something just like a language model like chat GPT and saying, Oh, this is gonna write all the blog posts for the future. I really hope that's not true. Because what's going to happen is that there's going to be a lot of really crappy, you know, generic content online, like there is now it's gonna get worse, but I feel like it's an opportunity for nonprofits to kind of put their fingerprints on their content. Man make it more unique and make it stand out. So using tools, I'm thinking like I used to use the Soros in college, you know, it's a tool. It didn't write my paper for me. And there was no way that I, you know, there was no way that I would ever think that it would. But using these kinds of technologies as tools, to better do what you're doing. So in terms of being data driven, how can fundraisers be more data driven? Like what kind of data do you think is very important for us to look at?

Nejeed Kassam: 25:33

So being data driven is like thing is such a blanket term? Right? Like, yeah, so which is great. I think it's something that should be part of our lexicon. But I think we got to be more specific. It's, you know, it's, it's how are we using data to inform our decisions? How are we using it to support our assumptions or counteract those assumptions? How are we using it to inform our instincts? This is really interesting, because there is a really strong relationship between data and instinct. Give you an example. And nobody says that, like, I'm sure smarter people than I'd say that by the way, but I don't hear that instincts. Because your instincts are how you react process, respond to something that to a situation or something you see or learn. But that doesn't come without a whole bunch of data points. When you walk into a room, you okay, like the door is there, there are three people standing by the table, those are all data points that are going to inform how you respond to react, we don't think of them as data points, but they are right. And so the same thing with a fundraiser, you know, looking at someone's donation history, for example, or their cumulative giving in the past, or their donation patterns, or how they've interacted with different marketing or email marketing campaigns. Those are all things, data points that can help you as a fundraiser, think about how to most effectively engage that donor, for example. So it's a dead instinct, I think Julia is going to respond to this. Why do you think that oh, I've known Julia for 40 years, fine. But there, there's actually another layer, I know that he looked at two emails last week, that she's, she attended more events this year than she ever has before. You know, that hurt, I don't know, she moved to a new zip code that has a higher median income, there are all these data points that can inform what you choose to do your instinct on how to best engage a donor, you in this case, can be informed by all those data, that's a data driven decision. It's not saying the data is telling me to do this, the data is informing me to engage Julia in potentially a certain way. And that sounds a lot less definitive. But I think that's how I want it. That's how I make decisions with data. And that's how I believe that fundraisers should be making decisions with data because it's not going to say, do this, it's gonna say, here's a bunch of stuff you should consider and then make your decision as a, whether it's instinct, or reason or whatever you want to call it. So digging

Julia Campbell: 28:03

deeper, you know, and Beth Kanter has a wonderful blog post that she posted several years ago, called say, so what to your data three times. And she was specifically talking about social media, but I think it really is applicable. So she was saying, okay, so you have a viral video on YouTube. So what? Oh, okay, well, it got more hits to our website. Okay. So what? Okay, well, it resulted in more people signing up for email newsletter, like you have to dig deeper. And

Nejeed Kassam: 28:36

that goes back to it not being a self, it's not a silver bullet, it's not going to do exactly, it's going to give you it's going to inform information inform same route, right? It's going to inform you about how you can act or react or respond in a in a more where there's a higher probability of being successful. And I'm using all these words that I like, oh, but is that really that valuable? It absolutely is just not going to do it's not going to make your lunch for you. And I think that's just the reality of it. But you asked a really good question your lunch.

Julia Campbell: 29:06

I want that AI that's gonna make my lunch for me. I want some like the microwave, I guess. Yeah.

Nejeed Kassam: 29:12

Microwave or when our kids are old enough. Oh, it's

Julia Campbell: 29:15

DoorDash. Sorry, forgot. Yeah.

Nejeed Kassam: 29:19

I think we spent too much money in this house on going back, but that's okay.

Julia Campbell: 29:23

But making your life easier.

Nejeed Kassam: 29:25

100%. And what you asked for a really good question, what can fundraisers do? I think might start start learning the language, start getting comfortable with the lexicon, start getting comfortable with just seeing and interpreting those things every day in your work. So I got to work on this really cool project a couple years ago now called the certified data driven fundraiser. So cbdfx It's like, the website is data driven fundraiser.com. And what we said is like every fundraiser should be data driven. So we worked with a bunch of experts in the space you know, Michael Buckley, Regina Hall has Send me a das Tim lock. I mean, I could I don't know them all, but like, and they all built courses where you can watch them and get CFRD credits to. And it's like foundations of data literacy, prospect research and development, donor segmentation, you know, all these, like, what do I need to be thinking about when I'm looking at data? What does even data look like? Where do I find it? How do I understand, you know, basic, I don't mean basic in a bad way, but foundational stuff that I believe that every fundraiser in every fundraising marketer should be thinking about. And so we made this course online, it's on demand, it's, it's a, it's a, it was all done as part of a project that was, you know, helping the sector become more fluent in data. And so whether it's that kind of work, or, you know, when you go into conferences, making sure you're like sitting there and being like, go into the sessions on what is the all the foundational stuff, because I think fundraisers need to embrace the baselines and train themselves or go to people like yourself, jeulia to get that training, so that they can then look critically at their data and make it a part of their lives. Because ultimately, it's a habit, it's habitual, the more you do it, the more you're going to be comfortable, the more comfortable you are, the more value you're gonna, the more value ultimately, the more dollars, you're gonna raise, if you really want to be kind of mercenary about it. That's

Julia Campbell: 31:21

the truth. It's very true, when I know that there's going to be some pushback from people that say, well, everything I do should be building relationships. But, but those are going to help in

Nejeed Kassam: 31:34

100%. And those are not mutually exclusive, mutually exclusive. And that's kind of my whole point, it's a tool, just like you pull it up, it's like, you know, you pull out a pen from your pencil case, or your pen, your, you know, your, your briefcase, that's a tool to and you just know how to use it now. And we learned that when we were five, this is another kind of tool that we can use to be more effective in our work, and they will make our relationship stronger. Whether we like it or not, that's the truth. And it's about embracing that reality. And I'm not saying let it replace relationships. In fact, I'm saying, Let it give you more time to spend on relationships. And that's my whole mo about about this topic.

Julia Campbell: 32:13

And also because of the high turnover in the sector. I know, for instance, just giving, you know, Keela as an example, because I've seen the back end, and I've seen the demo, there's so much information on the donor. So I remember when I was a development director, I'd have a phone call, I'd have to like be scrambling through notes, or like some Excel spreadsheet that I had, and figuring out the last conversation I had, or where their kids were going to college or what the last donation was. Nightmare. Well, I still didn't know you could just look at the dashboard and say, Here's are the last five events they went to here's what they're interested in. Here's the last conversation. They had a board member,

Nejeed Kassam: 32:53

here's the last day they clicked on opening something in your marketing letter here. Yeah, here's how long after that they made a gift, like it's all there. But that doesn't change the relationship or

Julia Campbell: 33:03

No, but you're just better informed when you talk to them on the phone or meet them in person or send them an email, like,

Nejeed Kassam: 33:10

like you said, they should know, at the end of the year, whether I've made a donation or not, oh my gosh, like it's really not that difficult.

Julia Campbell: 33:17

No. And this was, by the way, an organization I was a monthly donor to but that's fine.

Nejeed Kassam: 33:22

By the way, I want to be clear, I don't know what your audience is. But if it's large or small or medium sized nonprofits, this is not something that I've learned comes with an organization size, there are organizations that I sit on the board of an org, that raises a lot, I'm talking hundreds plus million dollars a year, and they still do some of this stuff. And it's incredible, right? And you're like, I work with some small organizations that are so incredibly data driven. So don't think that the size of your organization is determinant of whether you can do this or not. It's about learning open mindedness and discipline.

Julia Campbell: 33:57

And it's about starting somewhere. Absolutely. If you have an Excel spreadsheet, great, just you've got to move over to something a little more advanced, but it's baby steps and do what works for you. But the key here is making your life easier when you get on that phone with that donor or say that donor calls you. And you can just pull something up really quickly and immediately get the landscape because you contest right? Absolutely, yeah, you can't keep all of that in your head. And the other thing is what I love about and I know we weren't going to turn this into a killer commercial. But I want to say one thing that I particularly love is that you can customize each email, but it's scalable. So you can say Hi, Julia, thank you so much for your $50 donation to Giving Tuesday. And here's your donor history receipt for all of GivingTuesday Would you consider making another gift this year? So really, it pulls it and I don't have to completely customize each email to each donor or even say had meant them, my, what they gave, I can just pull in those fields. So it's scalable, but also that just makes people feel really heard and listened to and cared about getting this wrong or like,

Nejeed Kassam: 35:13

Okay, so let's dig into that for just one second. Let's say you get it wrong,

Julia Campbell: 35:17

let's say what's the worst that can happen? Nothing,

Nejeed Kassam: 35:19

I promise you nothing. If there's 2000 donors on your list, and you do this, and you get it more, right for a hunt 1950, let's say you screw up 50 of them. Firstly, nobody's going to actually care what state made a mistake, and then that's not going to change whether they make the gift or not. But even if it does, the value you're going to create from all those other folks that are like, Oh, these people actually take notice, because by the way, we do take notice, but it's not scalable to say, what is the average, you're supposed to say thank you six to seven times for every gift you make, you can't do all of those personally, maybe you can do one or two of them can't do seven. So let technology kind of fill in a little bit of that gap. Because it does, like the data shows it makes a difference when donors feel like they're heard, and they are heard they're gonna be more engaged. And ultimately, that's what this is about. Right?

Julia Campbell: 36:06

So I want to ask you, what are your favorite chat GPT prompts? Or how have you? How have you used it in the past few months, so have my you don't use it, maybe

Nejeed Kassam: 36:18

I do use it a little, I do use it a little. My team is obsessed with it. They love it. I like the rewrites. I think it's really cool for rewrite. So like, I actually people use it as a first draft. I think it's interesting as a second draft, sometimes I have used it to write bios on people.

Julia Campbell: 36:38

Yep, that makes sense.

Nejeed Kassam: 36:40

Hopefully not mentioning any world rankings. But other than that, I'm very much in favor of it. I have used it to summarize, I'm a lawyer. And I think this is like another area where it's going to be incredibly transformative is is taking decisions from courts legislation, opinions, and summarizing them. And as you know, this is not a legal tech podcast, but I think as a lawyer who spent 1000s of hours reading case law, rereading case law, reading case law that was related to case law, I think you're gonna see, like that ability to summarize something. And the more they the algorithms do it, the better they're gonna get at it. I think it'll transform litigation. And so for me that that those are some of the examples of what's really fun, and really exciting and a little bit scary.

Julia Campbell: 37:30

I like to use it to write podcast show notes. Oh, cool. And just to have sort of a draft, like if you have a blank page, and you're thinking, Oh, here's the questions I asked, here's the bio, here's the topic. And it does a really great job of kind of synthesizing it all together. I don't think that it did a really good job writing fundraising appeal letters, because that was the first thing I used it for. I was like, we tried it for sure. We tried it. One day, I wanted to know what would happen. And it was all very generic. And but sometimes,

Nejeed Kassam: 38:01

sometimes it's, I always find it's easier to edit than to write. So sometimes the very fact that it's there, unless you're like this is terrible. But I can rewrite it so much faster than the blank page so that even in fundraising appeals there's value.

Julia Campbell: 38:14

Right? Exactly.

Nejeed Kassam: 38:16

It can also recognize and summarize tone, which is really cool. And like there's some really cool stuff. So we're just like, We're dipping our pinky toe in this. There's so much exciting stuff to come.

Julia Campbell: 38:28

Right. No people. I know that. I have spoken to other content creators who are saying, Oh, I'm going to use it to write my blog. And I thought, but then where's the fun in that I love writing my blog. I love doing my podcast. I think the blank page syndrome is where it's really going to be valuable. And also I love that about the rewriting. I know Seth Godin imported all of his blogs, okay, single one of his, you know, 10 billion blogs into chat GPT and just had it like synthesize themes. And I'm just really interesting, but that goes to data in there. Right?

Nejeed Kassam: 39:09

Exactly. Like it can see stuff because it can synthesize and it can, yeah, there's so much you can do to compress that. And that's something that I'm not smart enough to do that maybe maybe there are people that

Julia Campbell: 39:19

it's really interesting. Well, where can people find more out about you connect with you and kind of follow along? Where do you want us to connect? I

Nejeed Kassam: 39:28

mean, LinkedIn is the best place for me, I'm the only energy in the world so it's really easy spelt my way my parents changed the spelling of my name. So it's like nej Ed. And if you look it up on LinkedIn, you will find me on and if you want to learn more about tealights ke la.com. And there's obviously my contact information there. And this is a journey in the sector. I think our sector is undergoing a phenomenal transformation where the stuff we're talking about today is going to become table stakes for for organizations, but more importantly for fundraisers and so Hearing from fundraisers hearing from folks in the space, their fears, their excitements, their ideas are really one of the things that keeps me going. So please, please do reach out, folks.

Julia Campbell: 40:10

And I should give a little plug for the webinar that I am doing with Keila. On June 6, it's totally free. Even learn more about that at JC social marketing.com, forward slash Keela, K E L. A. And I'm really excited about that. It's going to be all about converting social media using your social media data to create even more impact and more engaged communities. So I'm just thrilled to have this partnership and good luck with the little one.

Nejeed Kassam: 40:43

Thank you. I'm very excited. It's the most important startup I have right my kids so very excited, a little bit nervous. Like we were joking before the show, moving from zone defense to man to man defense, with my wife and I to kids 10 times the work, but it'll be I'm incredibly excited and just praying that the remaining few months this pregnancy are healthy, and my wife's not too grumpy.

Julia Campbell: 41:06

Oh, me too. And you know, give her a break. I had a summer pregnancy. It was terrible.

Nejeed Kassam: 41:12

Real pleasure to be on here. Thanks so much for having me.

Julia Campbell: 41:14

Okay, my pleasure, everyone. Thanks so much for listening. And you can follow me on LinkedIn. Keela ke e l a.com. And, you know, check out my webinar. Thanks, everyone for listening. And we'll see you next time. Thanks again, Nejeed.

Nejeed Kassam: 41:30

Thanks Julia

Julia Campbell: 41:39

Well, hey there, I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show, and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app, and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at juliacampbell77. Keep changing the world you nonprofit unicorn