Beth Saunders
Founder, Strategic Consultant at Beth Saunders Associates
Nonprofit Organization Management
Education: Lafayette College - Temple University
Arlington, MA, USA
Biography
Beth Saunders is a consultant coach who speaks to social mission leaders about making their missions happen by increasing supporter engagement and strategically leveraging technology.
Beth is the Founder and Chief Strategist at Beth Saunders Associates, a team of active listeners, strategic thinkers, and practical experts guiding social mission organizations through a process that moves them from being task-oriented and events driven to goals-oriented and mission-driven.
Beth believes meaningful human connection is the key to achieving positive change in the world. She has helped nonprofit and other social mission leaders design a strategic framework that strengthens relationships with their supporters - donors, volunteers, members, advocates - and thereby become more effective in achieving their organization’s vision.
Beth speaks regularly about her signature approach to supporter engagement strategy, Map-Move-Measure (™). Map your goals, Move your supporters, Measure their engagement and your results! She also speaks about mindset A-B-C’s for achieving personal and professional goals: abolish All-or-Nothing thinking, be your own Best Friend, kick self-sabotage with Counter-thoughts. She is conversational, aptly uses levity to break the ice, and delivers complex concepts in consumable bites. Beth speaks at regional nonprofit conferences for leadership, volunteerism and technology; she shares her journey with women and allies at She’s Local Conferences for Women; and she has presented to cooperative leaders at the national Consumer Cooperative Management Association conference.
Passion
Listening and identifying the unspoken intention in what people say or ask so that they can achieve their goals and create positive change in the world. (That's my 'WHY'!) Moving teams from being “heads down” getting work done to looking up and connecting their work to goals and the organization’s mission.
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
Everything is negotiable
Topics
Best Story
While my work is grounded in supporter engagement strategy and technology for nonprofits, my approach is through mindset. I am determined to change the way people think about their work and how they ask questions. My goal is eliminating "Can we..." and replacing it with "We are trying to achieve ... How can this technology support us in that?". The best story is when a customer says to me "I was channeling 'Beth' in our team meeting" or "I was thinking 'What would Beth say' as we were working on this issue." It is then that I know I have made a positive impact.
Origin Story
I grew up with aspirations of "going into business". (clearly, there wasn't a lot of direction in that idea.) After 10 years in banking - retail branch management then corporate cash management - I decided to look for work that would bring more meaning in my life. I needed to feel that my work "mattered". Fast forward through a few years working in nonprofits I began working independently. My background of solving business problems with technology was very useful in helping nonprofits make the most of their fundraising and CRM systems. Now I apply my experience and expertise to tap into that of my customers in order to design strategies that help them focus on their vision and mission while creating engaging opportunities for their supporters. All of this is tracked and measured in their CRM (usually Salesforce). Partnering with my customers to help them achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively is my passion.
Example talks
Volunteer journeys that enrich their experience and increase your impact.
You have a volunteer program. You have volunteers. Do you have volunteer journeys?
You already know that not everyone wants to participate in the same ways, has the same amount of time, or offers the same skills and knowledge. Knowing this, are you offering a wide range of volunteer opportunities that tap into the uniqueness of your volunteers? If you are, is there room to do more? Data is the key to unlocking creativity and more personal volunteer engagement. Yes, data. You surely have some. You may even have a lot!
In this session we will work through a template that uses data to reveal at what level you are engaging your volunteers (we use an engagement pyramid). You may be surprised to find that many nonprofits offer low-engagement and high-engagement opportunities with a wide gap in the middle. This means that volunteers can easily jump in giving very little of themselves or they are asked to invest lots of time and energy in demanding tasks. You may even find that your staff is spending as much if not more time on volunteer programs than the volunteers themselves.
Capturing data about people, their interactions with your organization, and their specific interests will inform your volunteer programming in a strategic way. Remember - volunteers are people. They are people with time, skills, knowledge, and connections that they can offer to many organizations. They have chosen yours. Let’s make sure the relationship is meaningful, mutually beneficial, and long-lasting.
Come with the desire to enrich the volunteer experience and increase your impact. Join the conversation about leveraging the data you have to create volunteer journeys. Leave with tools to design engaging journeys at your organization.
Reality check: Are you truly working within your mission?
Vision statement? check!
Mission statement? check!
Team of smart people? check!
Good work being done? check!
All work clearly ties to a goal? say what?!
At your organization, how are decisions made about what programs to offer, what type of events to run, and what communications to send out? Do you host a golf tournament? an annual fundraising gala? a peer-to-peer race event? Do you design programs to meet grant funding requirements?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above you may be victim to the adage “If you don’t know where you’re going any road will get you there!” Join the conversation about Vision and Mission. We’ll talk about goals maps and how your team can create one. Head out with a plan to ensure your work is truly tied to mission.
Using Data to Understand Your Audience
Join us to demystify audience segments and persona attributes. If that sounds like something only the Development director should care about, think again! With a few easy tweaks to how we ask questions and how we store the responses in Salesforce we can learn a lot about our constituents. Turning data into information and insights is key to increasing engagement. Increasing engagement is key to achieving your goals. Salesforce is designed to help you do just that, if you track the right data! This meeting will be a lively conversation paired with a look at Salesforce and you'll leave with a template for getting started with building personas.
Get Net.working! Here’s the “Why” and “How”
No matter whether you are outgoing or timid, job hunting or happily working your dream job, or just curious what networking is all about, you will benefit from this workshop. Along with your dynamic presenter, attendees will share their strategies for building and maintaining their professional network.
Why Network?
It is a path that can lead to professional peer-peer learning, new donors for your organization, and even new approaches to solving challenges within your field. Together we will dispel several myths about networking. It is not all job hunting; it is not only about referring new business; and it is definitely not about having more “friends” or “connections” than anyone else.
How to Network?
Networking is not defined by location. We can network at home, while traveling, and even virtually. There are different approaches for different types of people and situations. Come talk with us about
* Networking for introverts
* Networking for extroverts
* Strategies for one-one, conferences, and everything in between
* Virtual networking
Before the session is over everyone will have at least 1 new connection - come find out who that might be!
P.S. It’s a conference and it’s a networking session - make sure you have your business card!