Tim Sarrantonio

Neon One

Director of Corporate Brand

I oversee our growing ecosystem of channel partners to ensure that they support the 35,000 social good organizations that Neon One services through our products and services. My focus is around finding new revenue streams, optimizing existing revenue channels, and most importantly guaranteeing that any Neon One client will be able to receive end to end support throughout their growth journey through Neon One's ecosystem.

Head of Partnerships and Business Development

I oversee our ecosystem of software, consultant, and institutional partners that can address any nonprofit need. Neon One provides best in class products with NeonCRM, Rallybound, CiviCore, Arts People, and our ecosystem ensures that over 27 product integrations and over 90 consultants are working to solve problems specific to nonprofits.

Director Of Strategic Partnerships

NeonCRM

I oversee enterprise sales and partnership management for the fastest growing nonprofit technology company in the United States.  Created a channel partnership model that is being adopted throughout the nonprofit technology industry.

Director of Business Development

Oversaw a growing sales team for the fastest growing nonprofit focused technology company in the United States. Directly initiated sales growth of 50% year over year that has lead to joining the Inc. 5000 three years in a row.

Director of Sales

Developed a sales model that lead to 50% revenue growth year over year for minimum three years in a row. Responsible for bringing in 25% of entire client base.

Nonprofit Sales Consultant

Reading With Pictures

Reading With Pictures was founded in 2009 by award-winning graphic novelist and nationally syndicated cartoonist Josh Elder in order to revolutionize the role of comics in education.

I am a board member of the organization, assisting in structural growth, fundraising, database management, and outreach.

Vice President - Board of Directors

The Neo-Futurists

The Neo-Futurists are a collective of wildly productive writer/director/performers.

I am currently the vice president and I assist in fundraising and special events management.  I'm also chair of the beer committee.

Sacred Heart Schools

I oversaw the annual fund for Sacred Heart Schools, running their Raiser's Edge database.  During this time I accumulated over 100 hours of training on Raiser's Edge and helped pilot their certification program.  

I also integrated Education Edge and Financial Edge with Raiser's Edge, which was the first time in the school's history all three major databases were directly linked.  This was done without costly consultation fees that are typically leveraged by Blackbaud.

Other tasks included direct mailings to thousands of constituents, planning of special events for major donors, research and implementation of the school's first PCI compliant donations page, research assistance in planned giving, and overseeing data collection and accuracy of the annual report.

Development Associate for Research and Records Management

Arts of Life

Arts of Life is an artistic community that provides adults with developmental disabilities an environment to experience personal growth.

Outreach Coordinator

San Lucas Workers Center

I help fund a workers center that aims to bring dignity, honor, and respect to the workplace for people who can be hired and fired the same day.

Grant Writer / Administrative Assistant

Tim Sarrantonio is an internationally renowned speaker on generosity, technology, and the trends in the social good sector. After helping various causes raise over $3 million, he then moved into providing support for thousands of nonprofits through his work at Neon One. He has spoken at AFPICON, NTC, TEDx, and holds a Certificate in Philanthropic Psychology from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy. He lives in Niskayuna with his lovely wife, three lovely daughters, and a deep love of the Adirondacks.

Do you care about improving your recurring giving programs? 

Then I have amazing news!

For the last few months, Neon One has been putting together one of the most comprehensive studies of recurring giving that the sector has ever seen. 

We wanted to understand what is happening with both the nonprofits that offer a recurring giving option to their supporters as well as the motivations and behaviors of the supporters themselves.

After reviewing 5 years of transactional history of over 2,000 nonprofits and a deep dive into the origins of over 100,000 recurring givers, we've discovered several fascinating insights: 

📈 Donor Base Growth: Recurring donor base increased by 127%
💵 Annual Donations: Each recurring donor contributed about $949.19 yearly
📅 Monthly Donation: The average monthly recurring gift was $79.10
🔝 Highest Monthly Gift: A record monthly donation of $51,593.61 was received
🔄 Donor Retention: Recurring donor retention rate stood at 78%
⏳ Donor Lifetime: The average duration for a recurring donor was over 8 years
🎁 Additional Gifts: 50% of recurring donors also made extra donations

But that's not all. 

We also reviewed over 13,000 donor notes that were provided during the initiation of a recurring gift to get insight into what donors were passionate about at the time of the first gift.

People weren't writing to demand things of the nonprofit or to do it out of shame or guilt. 

People gave because they felt gratitude, hope, compassion, and love. 

What gave us great confidence in putting something this big together was our insights from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project in how they put together quarterly reports (which also just came out!) as well as the guidance from Fundraising.AI on the responsible usage of artificial intelligence in the analysis of the data itself.

This is a celebratory day not just for us but also for the fight against misinformation in the nonprofit sector. We build in public because we want to hold technology vendors accountable for their role in building a more generous world. 

Reports by vendors that are designed to support anyone regardless of tech stack are unfortunately not the norm anymore. Instead, it's secret product shilling or misrepresentation of reality.

We feel that this report is a major milestone in making this the standard for how we do business in our sector. 

Attending #AFPICON? Then be on the lookout for people wearing what team members Kyle Carey and Ben Moelker have on in this post, those are our report ambassadors and they have special scratch off game cards to win prizes! 

We will also have a giveaway on our live stream show so don't feel fomo! 

Download the report here and support work like this becoming the norm, not the exception: https://lnkd.in/eh34GrsZ

So many thoughts to share on what I think has been one of the best #AFPICON experiences in my career. More in tomorrow's newsletter.

Too many people to thank, but the Neon One team really rocked it - Abigail Jarvis Katie Albanos Nolan Martin Antonio Giordano are rock stars.

Our recurring giving report ambassadors made this our biggest launch yet! Nearly 900 downloads and more great content to come!

Michael J. Buckley, CFRE Rachel D'Souza Justin McCord Josh Hirsch, MS Cherian Koshy Meghan Meyerson and of course Julia Campbell made the magic happen in ways unique to themselves.

And our launch could not have happened without the support of Kindsight Soukup Strategic Solutions, Inc. & Rustic Roots 

Speaking of which, check out this video that Matthew Reynolds put together!

If you attended, what was your favorite part?

I took exactly three pictures last night at the launch party for Neon One's recurring giving report.

1. The space we held our event surprised me with a customized welcome sign - Charlotte's Room in Toronto is amazing!
2. The hallway to the bathroom because of how cool it is
3. A picture of me and Mide Akerewusi, B.Sc., M.Sc. (Econ), CSR-P, CDEP. because I couldn't get over how tall he is

Yesterday was just the beginning of a much larger vision toward shifting away from affluence and toward affinity as the North Star for our sector.

Download the most comprehensive analysis of recurring giving here: https://lnkd.in/eJUjFieH

It isn't just you.

I took a few days off this past week to spend spring break with my family. We headed to Quebec City to enjoy the culture, the food, and of course the celebration of maple season. 

🍁 Fun fact - Quebec produces 70% of the world's maple syrup.

When I logged back in to here and my email, I was met by a deluge of communications that suggested that if people don't change everything about what they're doing to engage their community of generosity, they're screwed.

🤖 AI Adoption: Not using AI yet? Risk falling behind in innovation.
🛒 eCommerce Strategies: Haven't adapted to eCommerce tactics? You're missing out.
🎟️ #AFPICON Registration: Skipping #AFPICON? You're losing valuable networking opportunities.
💳 Digital Tools: Not investing in the latest digital payment/engagement tools? You're lagging.
🤝 Learning Communities: Haven't joined a cohort, community, or course? You're not keeping pace.

The pressure will only increase as new reports are released and new companies are launched to take advantage of a balkanized sector that insists on creating new stuff instead of fixing existing infrastructure.

My job is to pay attention to all of this and I feel overwhelmed. The reality is that I still see so much that leaves out the typical lived experience of nonprofit leaders in our space. The awards and the case studies and the conferences and the products being pitched - they all seem so out of reach for people that I'm talking to. 

So let's take a collective breath and remember that someone else's urgency is not your emergency.

Your inner strength is just waiting to be tapped. There will never be an ideal state where all of this is figured out, so take it one step at a time and prioritize what matters to you and your work.

I got into Toronto yesterday and had a lovely dinner with Michael J. Buckley, CFRE  after he helped drop off the items that are part of our special recurring giving report launch party that we're holding around #AFPICON. 

I dumped all of that in my hotel room, but there was one thing that I was looking forward to playing around with that I brought with me on the train from Quebec City.

I made an impulse buy right before the trip, take a look at how I'm going to try to drum up some excitement for the report when I'm walking around the exhibit hall on Sunday.

🍦 It's my birthday this weekend and I want to send you ice cream!

It's another year around the sun for me, and I'm excited to partner with Eric Ressler of Cosmic to take your recurring giving and brand strategy to new heights!

In honor of this, I will give away a fantastic set of prizes this month. To kick that off, for anyone who registers for our upcoming April 29 workshop, I will give one lucky winner a Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams set of their new galactic flavors.

RSVP in the comments below and let's jump on this rocket ship known as recurring giving!

How does one summarize the blur that is #AFPICON in a way that resonates with people who didn't attend?

By celebrating the power of community. Enjoy a special supersized edition of my newsletter this week and please give Meghan Meyerson some love in the comments.

Tim Sarrantonio on LinkedIn • 10 min read

Issue 14: Beyond Toronto

In our webinar yesterday, Abigail Jarvis and I dove into some of the research insights we uncovered when creating The Recurring Giving Report. 

Something that we're consistently hearing is that research is nice but actionable practice WITH research is better.

Many attendees asked if they could use the data to cite when speaking with their leadership to help justify focus into recurring giving.

Um... YES PLEASE! 

Comparing what recurring givers typically donate versus what non-recurring givers donate is an important way of rearticulating what value actually means. 

That's why I appreciated when Abby took the time to put the slide shown below together. 

It got me thinking - how do you pitch ideas to your leadership and what have you found is an effective way to build buy-in for the vision you have?

Coming down from the intensity of #AFPICON, there's always an urgency of action that conferences tend to make people feel. 

Yet, the reality is that change takes time. That's why I love focusing on "long game" metrics like lifetime value and retention rates. 

Here are a few of the key "long game" findings from Neon One's new #RecurringGivingReport:

📈 Donor Base Growth: Recurring donor base increased by 127%.
💰 Annual Contribution: Each recurring donor gave approximately $949.19 yearly.
🗓️ Monthly Donation Average: The average monthly recurring donation was $79.10.
🏆 Highest Monthly Donation: A staggering $51,593.61 as the top monthly gift.
🔄 Donor Retention Rate: Average retention at 78% for recurring donors.
⌛ Donor Lifetime: On average, a recurring donor stays just over 8 years.
🎁 Extra Donations: Half of the recurring donors also made additional gifts.

Download the full report from Neon One at www.neonone.com/rgreport , and join the Neon One team for 'An Insider's Look at the Recurring Giving Report' on April 17: https://lnkd.in/ek-nwdYf

I've had the pleasure of working with Paul Keogan and the BackOffice Thinking team for nearly a decade.

There's a ton of consultants out there (and more snake oil than good advice lately) but partners like BOT give me hope, energy, and guidance toward what technology can do to accelerate the trust people have with the nonprofit sector as a whole.

GO JETS!

It was a lot of fun going over volunteer management and touching on the new Generosity Indicator feature with the folks over at the Connect Center.

Thanks to Ben Williams for snapping this photo! He has such a great team and it was great to meet some of the new folks there too.

Excited about our recurring giving report but need a bit of a TLDR on the data within it? 

I make a quick video explainer about some of the key highlights and why they matter if you care about community-led growth:

🔄 Donor Retention: 78% of recurring donors are retained.
⏳ Donor Lifetime: Average duration over 8 years for recurring donors.
📈 Donor Base Growth: Recurring donor base grew by 127%.
💳 Monthly Donation: 91% of recurring donations are made by credit card.
💰 Annual Donations: Each recurring donor contributes about $949.19 annually.

Download the full report from Neon One at www.neonone.com/rgreport , and join the Neon One team for 'An Insider's Look at the Recurring Giving Report' on April 17: https://lnkd.in/ek-nwdYf

If you approach recurring giving in the right way for your community of generosity, it can represent a lifetime of support.

This week, I dive into the possibilities that recurring giving can represent as well as some practical tips on things like soft credits.

Special shoutout to Eric Ressler, who will be our guest on this month's upcoming episode of Generosity Experience Live.

Tim Sarrantonio on LinkedIn • 6 min read

Issue 15: Lifetimes

It's release day for Neon One! We have a few cool things that came out, but a low-level exciting one is the beginning of a much bigger vision for communications within our ecosystem.

Unifying communications within the CRM and across our entire product ecosystem will accelerate our ability to serve nonprofits much faster. Why have product development teams juggle support on multiple communications tools, especially if clients leverage different parts simultaneously?

So we've begun that process and optimized the creation flow, added drag-and-drop content blocks, and added the ability to apply previously made themes against consistently used templates to create cohesively designed communications faster (say that three times fast).

The designer also now extends into sending emails from accounts, volunteers, and automated workflows. We will be rolling out the automated transactional emails and letters later in the year (plus some other new stuff), but this was an important release toward a much bigger vision of connected and native integrations driving the pace of innovation. 

I'll drop the release notes in the comments, and if you're a Neon CRM user, I would love to know what you're looking forward to in this one.

🎮 Choose your own adventure 

When I was growing up, I was obsessed with the Dungeons and Dragons role playing / fighting arcade game because it allowed you to play with friends, had a compelling story, and gave options for how you can make it feel like you're driving the narrative.

It's got me thinking again about a long simmering passion project of mine. I've long dreamed of a nonprofit specific video game

If our sector had its own video game, what type of game would it be? 

PS: Get ready for some retro content in May.

What will 2032 look like for your organization? 

When we started to look at recurring donors and review their average term of support, we were thrilled to see that the average recurring donor is expected to support the organization for 8 years. 

Midsize nonprofits (e.g. between $1 - $5 million in annual revenue) saw on average a decade of support from their recurring donors! 

This is a critical reformulation of what support can look like for nonprofits - where people have dedicated long periods of time, but not necessarily large amounts upfront, to the cause. 

Knowing how long people tend to support nonprofits when designating a recurring gift means we can start to make a few other assumptions about future behavior as well.

What can nonprofits do with this information? 

📈 Long-Term Goal Setting: Define strategic, mission-aligned objectives for the next ten years.
💻 Tech-Enhanced Operations: Incorporate advanced technology to improve operational maturity and efficiency.
🌱 Sustainability Focus: Develop sustainable practices in finance and operations to ensure long-term impact.

If you are having trouble articulating a vision, use this information to validate that support can absolutely exist beyond the news cycle fundraising that we are currently prioritizing. 

Frame the strategic point of your recurring giving program as laying the groundwork for the future. People will be ready for it.

There's a lot of different data points in our recent report on recurring giving. I want to hear from y'all what are the most intriguing to dive further, especially if we can start to slice things by the revenue size of the nonprofit since the metrics below are the average across the entire data set.

Or is there something else you're wondering about? Even if you didn't read the report yet (I'll put it in the comments), what data about recurring giving do you want to hear more about?

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