719. Consistency Over Intensity: The Science of Sustainable Giving - Dr. Sanjay Bindra, GOSUMEC Foundation USA

We have over what, like 1.3 million small nonprofits in the U.S. so where are they? They're all in the community. 85% of them are hyperlocal. So these are your food banks, pet shelters, after school care, senior meal programs, helping 100, 200 individuals with need. Small nonprofits are important. They need to sustain themselves. So you need recurring giving to happen to do that. And we devised a system which small nonprofits can replic. Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. And this is the We Are for Good podcast. Let's get started. Hey Becky, whatcha know? Hey John. I know that everybody listening right now is in for a huge and tremendous treat. We have Dr. Sanjay Bendra on the podcast today. He is a board certified cardiac electrophysiologist. That's a big word. I know, right? And so he is the founder of Go. Sumac Foundation USA is a zero staff 501c3 nonprofit that built a $1 million endowment in less than four years. They were able to raise that million dollars in four years with no paid staff and no traditional fundraising. So how the heck did they do it? Then he was looking back and said, I want to know why this worked. So he ran the GIVE study, a 12 month real time study on how small volunteer run nonprofits can achieve sustainable recurring giving through trust, behavioral design and strong governance. And what he found out will change the way you think about donors, about endowments, and about traditional fundraising models. And we are so here for the modernization of this and we are excited to get into it today. Dr. Binder, welcome to the We Are For Good podcast. We are simply delighted you are here. Well, thank you very much, John and Becky, and the pleasure is all mine. And thank you for all the work that you're doing in this space, building community. It's our joy. I feel like we're doing it running beside you as you're doing it as well. And besides just this incredible intelligence that you have, you have this passion not just for generosity and philanthropy, but for humans coming together to help each other. And we're so curious about where that came from. So tell us about growing up and those formative experiences that kind of led you to do this work right now. So I was born in India, my family in 1947. When India partitioned, they became refugees. So growing up, I used to hear stories from my grandmother and mother after my father passed away on how they had everything, they lost everything, and how with community, they built everything. So I think that was the underpinning behind the strength on how Neighbors become family and how everyone wraps together. And as far as generosity is concerned, there are a few things which shaped me in a sense, what I call bananas and bread. So my grandmother used to ask me to take some bananas and bread for the homeless. And she used to say that you don't really need to have a lot to give. So that was what giving was to me. Now fast forward. I went to medical school and I met my wife there. And then I engaged with my father in law, who was an emeritus professor of history at ucla. And then he taught me on how generosity can be scaled. And I saw firsthand on how they resurrected a library with rare books by creating an endowment. So I think those were the underpinnings. So my grandmother taught me about today and give for today and my father in law taught me on how to give big. So. So I think both together became Go Sumek Foundation. How beautiful. And I, if I heard you right, I think we have a cardiologist come into the program and said that community is a stint. And I'm like, I'm so here for this terminology. It's like whole, you know, opening up things and opening up the possibilities. And it's like your story, the metaphor is so good. And I'm just here and tracking. I love your lens to like small generosity, big generosity, mobilizing people. Like, this is, this is how grassroots movements are formed. And I just want to kick it to you to share the story. I mean, you are a cardiologist. You're a practicing cardiologist. What was your decision to, to start this nonprofit? And you went from literally scratch to a million dollar endowment, like, tell us that story and connect the dots for us because we're over here in awe of what you've done. Sure. Thank you. So Gosumek foundation came about through a personal mission, actually. So both, as I said, both my wife and I, we met in medical school and we built a life together. And on some days, she's happy about being with me. And so on June 4, 2022, it was her 49th BIR. And she does something special on every birthday. And she said, you know what? Two milestones are coming next year. We both will be 50 and we'll be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. So we should do something meaningful. And she said, you know what? We met at our medical school. If it was not for the school, we would not have been together, so we should do something there. So she called one of our mentors and she suggested a project. And my wife asked me, can we Pull this off. I said it's significant resources, we could do it, but it would be like a one and done. And I wanted to do better than that. So I said that you are grateful, you want to do this, and I'm sure there are others who are grateful, so why don't we pull them all together? But there was one problem. We didn't have an alumni association in the US So we had to connect people. And I said it is possible in this day and age that we can connect with people. And then we need to start a 501c3 nonprofit. So that becomes the vehicle for us to be able to carry it out and fast forward many steps. And now actually we've raised a two and a half million dollar endowment. Oh my gosh. With me working full time as a physician with a community of about 400 households. And it's all been done through community. So. So that essentially is what I want to talk to you all about. You literally live community is everything, our eighth core value. And I think the collectivism that you have activated is just a very powerful thing. And like, I want you to get into it. How in the heck did you do this before we get into this give study? So I think the answer is because I'm a physician. Okay. Oh, yes, tell us about that. So as a physician, you learn a lot about systems. I'm an electrophysiologist, so I work in the lab and I'm organized around a team, so I know how that works. I work in the emergency room, so I understand crisis and short term. And I work in the office, so I understand in decades. So we can think both in the immediate and long term. So I think that skill set really helped a lot. And we know about trust because that is how we engage with our patients, build relationships, and importantly, we understand behavior because behavior underpins all of this. And I feel there is no scarcity in the world and people are grateful irrespective of how you think of your neighbors. Because studies have shown that people feel that they are grateful, but they doubt that somebody around them is. So I didn't believe in that myth. And I thought that if we can bring people around, build an identity around their giving. And I thought it was relatively easy for us because during my research I learned about faith based organizations because, you know, they carry out endowments very well. And I said, you know what? There is a very strong identity there for a faith based organization. Parochial schools. So now here we can have a similar identity as well. Because we are physicians, we are immigrants. We all came from a medical school. We care about education because that's how we achieved what we've achieved. And we understand how it can be difficult for some so we can build a strong identity around it. So I think that was the secret formula is thinking that there is gratitude in the world, thinking that there is enough for everyone, and thinking both for today and for the long term. So I think those elements, if I was not a physician, I think it would have been hard for me to pull it off. I think this was all natural, if I would add that. And what really helped me the most is that I like to read. So I studied what was happening in the nonprofit world. I studied the literature, and the answers were very clear to me. So I think I just went about based on data, and then listening to people like yourself and the movements you're carrying on, it inspired me as well. So, yeah, so that's a short of. I don't know whether I answered your question. You did. Not only have you been watching what's happened with your mission, but you have been studying it like the scholar that you are to understand the nuance inside of it. And you've shared that, and it's beautiful. And you put together this Give study and the science of generosity. And I want you to, like, tell us about this study. What were you trying to find out and what surprised you most about what you discovered? Give Study came out to satisfy an intellectual curiosity. So the first year, we carried out fundraising the way it is taught, and a lot of excitement, campaigns, urgencies, and pressure. And frankly, it was very stressful. And I don't get stressed easily, but I could feel the stress. And we had a few donors and like how I deal with patients, I was dealing with them as well and building relationships. And suddenly I found that individuals were giving without asking. Then I went back to literature and I said, let's look at what is happening. So the FEP data is loud and clear for decades now that the first time donor retention is less than 20%. This fourth quarter is that it's 18.9%. And when somebody gives a second time, the retention rate skyrockets to 60%. So that is 59.3. And the answer was apparent to me. I said, there is a difference between the first gift and the second gift. First gift, you can get excited. You see a friend who's given it to you, you are emotionally struck by a cause, and then the wallet comes out. Right. But the second gift is a more deliberate gift. So there is a difference between the two And I give a second gift because I really care. I know what work has been done and I'm bonded to it. So to me, the first gift is a transaction which often is not repeated again. I mean, you lose 80% of the people and the second gift is a relationship because now you're the ones who gave you the second time are giving you more often. So with that insight, I said, why don't we study just one form of giving which is sustainable giving? So we remove transactions altogether. We just go on relational building. So we won't have any campaigns, no urgency, no scarcity messaging, no giving Tuesday, no 30 day push, no last minute urgency emails or emergency asks. But we will stick to a pure relational approach all year round, consistently. So we are not working in sports, but we will carry our relationship out, much like how we build relationships with our friends. It's consistent. It's not like on a Tuesday that we decide to meet each other. So the Give Study Fast Forward is the first ever real time study conducted out of a small nonprofit. Think about it. There are over 1.3 million nonprofits in the U.S. it is what I call practice based evidence, wherein you are practicing and then you see the evidence and the way medicine has evolved. Also it has been evidence based practice, which was preceded by practice based evidence means that a hospital or a physician will study something, it works, and then a larger pool of people are tested and then that forms evidence and that informs larger practice. So I thought that we have an opportunity here to do that. And for that we need to define what our goals are, define the process, the tools that we would use, define the communication, the frequency of communication, and frankly, even the type of communication. So this is all decided prehand. And I said we won't look at one time givers at all because those are transactions. We will just look at our sustaining pool. So out of all the people that we have in our community, how many of them who gave once, gave again on a recurring fashion? How many new ones get added and did we really keep the ones we had from the year before? And what is the overall proportion of these recurring givers in our community? As you know, the sector Data is about 2 to 3%. Ours was 80%. Dang. So almost all our community members are giving on a recurring basis. And this is with no urgent campaigns, no pressure, and just building an identity around the giving. So I'm not trying to suggest that all nonprofits can achieve 80%. As I said, we had certain advantages in the structure, the identity of us. But if organization which is at 2% can go to 10%, and those who are at 10% go to 30%. This will be transformative for the sector. And small nonprofits are very important for our own health and life. And let me explain to you, we have over what, like 1.3 million small nonprofits in the U.S. so where are they? They are all in the community. 85% of them are hyperlocal. So these are your food banks, these are your pet shelters, after school care, senior meal programs, helping 100, 200 individuals with need. And guess what happens when you participate in it? When you engage in any pro social activity wherein you're thinking beyond yourself, you're actually producing changes in your own health, not just psychological health, your cardiovascular, your heart attack risk go down, your stroke risk go down, your blood pressure becomes better, and people live longer. So if you look at how human beings have evolved right from the hunter gatherer days to today, we started off in small communities and small nonprofits bring you back there. And it's probably an antidote to loneliness, which is a pandemic everywhere. It's almost like smoking 15 cigarettes a day. So I think small nonprofits are important. They need to sustain themselves. So you need recurring giving to happen to do that. And we devised a system which small nonprofits can replicate. You know what's striking me out of all of this? And it's probably just working 10 years in healthcare philanthropy. But you have discovered for your patients and for your people, those that you're in a relationship with, that generosity is a way to stay healthy. It is a way to help your heart, literally and figuratively. And I'm just sitting here, deeply emotional, thinking about Dr. Bendren's like, he could have come at this medically and he has the skills to do so. But the fact that you came at it from this human angle of curiosity is what is inspiring me so much. And it turns out that the science supports it in every way. What are you thinking, John? I mean, everything you've said, plus, thank you for the way you're doing this. I love that. You know, the industry reports can say what they want to say, but this organization has the ability to chart its own path and not subscribe to the 2%, subscribe to. Like, it builds a more sustainable base and it builds identity and it gives people a chance to stay more connected. And it's not this prescriptive way that maybe is being handed down by the industry reports. So I'm just here for this. Yeah, I mean, give essentially is, as I say, is A relational journey to sustainable giving. Give is both like a verb and a noun because it describes what it actually is. Gratitude, impact, voice, and engagement. And there is a particular way that we carried this out, and I think you can even try it with a friend, and it would work too. It's a universal relationship formula, and it's not new. It's the way human beings connect. We've just expressed that. And why would philanthropy be any different? I agree. It's the love of human beings. So relationship is the answer to it. It has always been, except when we have commoditized. We brought market economics in. Yeah. The study gives so much light. I love that it's an actual lab that's actively working as this is running in your nonprofit. But you wrote about one of the shifts that nonprofits need to make. And I want to get this right, because this is so well spoken. But I want you to break it down that we need to make a shift from dopamine driven fundraising to oxytocin driven relationships. Break that down for me, my friend. What does that mean in practice? Dopamine is a happy chemical which is released in the moment. And nonprofits have mastered it. They've mastered the art of excitement, of you pulling out your dollar. And you know when you do that, the donor also gets a dopamine rush and what we call the giver's high. But like any spark, it goes away. So what I call is that dopamine is a spark, and the spark is the first gift. Helping people is a journey. It's a community, it's a relationship. What I call it the bond, there is a bond between the donor and the recipient, the benefactor and the beneficiary. So oxytocin is released when warmth and recognition after a giving, it converts it into a bond with the organization. So it's much like a mother bonding with the baby when oxytocin is released. So one is transactional, which works. The other is relational, which is consistent. And bonding spark versus a bond. Dopamine rush versus an oxytocin second gift, third gift, sustainable gifts. So we wanted to play the oxytocin game, not the dopamine. Leave it to a doc. I get it. I feel like you two together are the one, two punch. Becky brings this emotional arc, and Dr. Binger brings the science. It's good for the soul. So good. I also want to point out that you're doing this not just for your community. You're helping the nonprofit sector by sharing all your learnings. So what do you Say to a tiny nonprofit who is just starting out, maybe they're starting out with a non profit may or an endowment, or maybe it's for a specific campaign or a building. What would you say to them to get started, to find their people? Like where is the biggest play that they could play right now? To get started, I think go to your existing donors, those who have given you during that campaign rush, build a relationship with them and follow a relational arc. So it should not be a constant ask, that is when I hear from you. And we've coined the term arc before ask, wherein you build a relationship and the money comes. So you have to be grateful. And grateful is not just saying thank you and here you can give more. It is making the donor feel genuinely seen. It's how the donor feels that is gratitude. It is not what you give, it is how it is received that's important. Impact is not numbers, data reports and statistics. It is how the human brain perceives it. It needs to be done in a storytelling fashion because we feel first and then we think. So you got to balance both. You got to share the real human stories to show the difficulty, show the resilience and show the improvement. And this is most important, VA's voice. You need to bring people in. You need to build with the community and not from or for the community. Listen to them, give them an opportunity, invite them. Because when somebody is felt genuinely heard, they will shape the organization for you. So, and E is engagement where it all comes together. Because relationships don't form over emails. We need to meet each other. And you look at all the studies coming out, including in the for profit sector. I was looking at a study coming out from Canada where over 500 or 700 for profit individuals met and 95% of them believe that in person engagement is important. So that's how we connect. It can be a zoom too. We are connecting over zoom. We've dropped a few LinkedIn messages, but we don't have that connection. And now we see each other. It's different. And when you meet each other and it's not a fundraising event, it is the relationship which comes before it. So sustainable giving is just an expression of a relationship which has been built consistently with care. And that's what we set out to do and that's what we have shown and it works. So I think the best world is to do both. Right? You need to bring a donor in first and that could be a campaign or urgency pressure, but then it doesn't end at the checkout counter. That's where the relationship actually starts and you build intentionally a week of gratitude and do it in the way where how is it being perceived? Share impact, what the work is achieving. People want to know have they made a difference? Show a human outcome wherein they can relate their giving to a result. We all want that and invite people in and engage with them and sustainable giving will continue to happen. So I think you got to satisfy the heart, the emotions, the feeling and you got to satisfy the cognition, the thinking. Once you do that, we as human beings will relate with each other. Masterclass of fundraising right here. It's beautiful that you come in adjacent, led by your heart, led by the love of your wife as well. You know, stepping into this little passion project and that you see a through line that takes people sometimes careers to figure out like you have lifted it in such a succinct, beautiful way that, that it's recentering that gets to the heart of why we can do this and like what's actually going to build and grow and be sustainable. So we want you, if you're listening, we want you to get dig into this report. We're going to drop the link in the show notes and just hear for this. Thank you my friend. I mean we couldn't not ask you about a story of philanthropy and we love storytelling here. I think you in kind of how you talk about this. So much of our identity is built in these organizations that we value align with, that we get to partner with through meaningful action. So I want to ask you about a moment in your life that you've seen generosity show up that's just stuck with you. It could be really small or it could be really big. What's one that you think back on and you're like, ah, that one really mattered? No, I think it was the principles, as I mentioned, how my grandmother instilled in me that you don't need to be a philanthropist. You can just come out with a banana and a bread and at that time that is enough. Or later on my father in law showing me that how it needs to be collective, how you need to think big, you need to think of the future. So I think I look at both the parts, think for today because somebody needs today, but also prepare for tomorrow and the day after and the day after. And these two extremes have stuck with me and that's how I've approached everything and that finds expression in what we do. So the other thing I wanted to mention is that we have no financial relationship with any of the platforms that we worked with there are no courses, there are no consulting funnels and no monetization of this. Everything about the Gibbs studies in the public domain and I've written a lot of articles, they are in the public domain. So there is nothing which is out there which is behind a paywall. So it's all there for the taking. Thank you for this. We're winding down the conversation, but we can't stop without a one good thing. So curious what your one good thing and takeaway would be to our audience today. Dr. Bendra, this could be a quote, something you live by. What would you leave with the audience today? I think it's very simple. Consistency over intensity. I think small, consistent actions can make huge changes. So is relationships or relationships compound before they become visible. And when you combine gratitude with consistency, you bring about generosity. And the ultimate expression of generosity is identity, because this is who I am and this is my mission. So when you achieve that, and there is a simple path to do that, but it is not with intensity, it is with consistency. All year round I have been doodling this whole time with not only just quotes of yours, but but I just keep seeing this like wavelength of consistency. And it's like how you describe the relationship building and I think it's like the way I think these things that, that are lightning strike moments get so much of the attention when it's really down to just like the small things, the consistent things. And whether we're talking about health since you're a doctor here in the room, or if we're talking about building a movement, it comes down to like what do we do regularly that just stacks up over time. So thank you for coming into this house, my friend. I want to get more involved. I know people listening want to get more involved. Like tell us about how people can one connect with you, but also get involved with Go Sumac Foundation. Where do y' all hang out online? What are your needs? And just kind of connect us with all the things. I'm on LinkedIn a lot and you can connect with me there. And the give study is on gosumec.org givestudy and what I want to share is that human health and human giving is not any different. And as doctors, we were working for decades together trying to change the patient. You know, you got to eat healthier, exercise more. And we realized is that there are something called social determinants of health wherein where you live, the environment around you, education around you actually influences your health more. Yeah, similarly in giving do not work on the donor, but work on the conditions around the donor. And that is what the give arc does. So if anybody is inspired, please go and give it to your local nonprofit. It all comes generative ask. Of course, he wasn't like, start your monthly gift, But I hope someone listening today is like, start your monthly gift. Yeah, that's what I was expecting. But it's like, let's change population, health around this thing around generosity. Like, that's how a movement is so much bigger and more lasting. How beautiful. And actually, you're helping your own self by giving. The biggest beneficiary is the giver. I agree. Kindness begets kindness. Generosity begets generosity. And so you are exactly why we created this podcast. We wanted to meet people like you and understand your heart and what you have unlocked. And this has been a complete joy, my friend. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Becky. Thank you, John. You're a trust. And thank you, Julie as well. Keep going. Thank you. Hey, friend. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you find yourself looking for a place to stay connected and keep learning between episodes, I hope you'll come and join us inside the We Are for Good community. Yeah, it is free. It's full of incredible nonprofit leaders like yourself and. And it's now an app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. So you can take this community with you wherever you go. Head over to we are for good community.com to find us. We cannot wait to see you inside.