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The course is finished, and the conference notes are full. Then year-end fundraising takes over, and the best idea never leaves the folder.

Jena Lynch sits down with Daniel Francavilla, founder of The Good Growth Company and a Donorbox Ambassador, to talk about making nonprofit training stick.
Daniel shares a simple four-step loop that moves learning out of one person’s notes and into the whole team’s habits. He also makes the case for a 20-minute meeting you can hold with your team this week.

A practical listen for any team planning 2027 while Giving Season is in full swing.

What You’ll Learn

• How to decide which training deserves your team’s time
• Daniel’s simple filter for what to learn now and what can wait
• Why teams don’t know what they don’t know, and how to find the gaps anyway
• Why conference takeaways stall at the leadership level and how to break the bottleneck
• Daniel’s four-step loop for sharing what one person learns with the whole team
• How a year-end campaign debrief can set your 2027 training priorities
• The 20-minute meeting to book with your team this week

More About Daniel

Daniel Francavilla founded The Good Growth Company in 2023 to help nonprofits train their teams and grow their mission. He teaches advertising and design at the post-secondary level and convenes sector leaders through the Together for Impact Summit in Toronto today! He is also a Donorbox Ambassador.

Resources and Links

• The Good Growth Company
• Together for Impact Summit
• Daniel Francavilla's Website
• Daniel Francavilla on LinkedIn

Jena Lynch, Head of Community Engagement at Donorbox, specializes in donor stewardship and retention, including peer-to-peer fundraising. She works closely with nonprofit teams to strengthen donor relationships and build practical systems for long-term growth. As anchor of The Nonprofit Podcast, she keeps strategy clear and practical.

Chapters:
00:00 - The Training Trap During Busy Seasons

01:33 - Filtering Learning Priorities

03:49 - The Capacity Triage: Immediate Needs vs. Long-Term Planning

06:09 - How to Identify Real Organizational Skill Gaps

12:27 - Why Training Stalls - Bottleneck Busters

17:08 - The 4-Step Knowledge Loop

19:14 - Debriefing Campaigns and Setting 2027 Priorities

21:08 - Bridging the Responsible AI Training Gap

23:10 - The 20-Minute Implementation Meeting

25:11 - Sector Collaboration at the Together for Impact Summit

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About Donorbox

Donorbox is a trusted fundraising platform used by 100,000-plus organizations to raise more than $4 billion worldwide. Let us help you do more good!

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The information provided in this series is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor for specific guidance.

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Your year-end campaign’s biggest barrier might not be the appeal letter. It might be your checkout. Jena Lynch and fundraising coach Britt Stockert run a 15-minute friction audit to protect donor conversion and stop supporters from walking away mid-gift.

Run the full audit with your team. Download the free field guide here.

Your turn to coach the show. Two quick taps, totally anonymous, here, so we can bring you more of what you need to know.

In this episode:
In Part 2 of the Science of Giving series, Jena and Britt walk through a 4-stage friction audit based on our field guide, Donorbox’s 10 Principles of Donor Conversion and Retention: The Science of Giving.
Every December, donors land on giving pages ready to give, then hit a slow, cluttered form and walk away. Small, zero-cost tweaks to attention flow, mobile accessibility, form fields, and receipt timing can stop that drop-off before the busiest fundraising weeks arrive.

Friction is what stops a donor who already wanted to give. It is the easiest and cheapest thing to fix, and the most commonly ignored.

What You’ll Learn:

• The mailer mistake: why long printed URLs quietly cost gifts, and the simple fix
• The “kitchen sink” trap: how extra links and buttons pull attention away from the donate button
• The 3-second speed test: how many mobile visitors a slow form loses before they read a word
• The mobile checkout killers: why forced passwords and manual card entry lead to abandoned gifts
• The “costume jewelry” rule: which fields to strip, and how many preset gift amounts to offer
• The recurring sweet spot: why the confirmation screen is the best moment to secure a monthly donor
• The 15-minute phone audit: how to test a giving flow on cell data before campaign traffic hits

Chapters:
00:00 - Why Are Donors Leaving Your Donation Page Without Giving?

04:17 - Stage 1 (Attention): Why Are Long Links and Clutter Costing You Gifts?

09:50 - Stage 2 (Accessibility): How Do You Protect In-Person and Mobile Donations?

14:35 - Stage 3 (Checkout Friction): Why Do Extra Form Fields Feel Like Homework to Donors?

21:10 - Stage 4 (Retention): How Do Fast Receipts and Monthly Asks Win Donors Back?

26:15 - Action Step: How Do You Run a 15-Minute Friction Audit Before December?

Jena Lynch is the Head of Community Engagement at Donorbox and host of The Nonprofit Podcast. She regularly coaches nonprofit leaders on donor stewardship and digital fundraising.

Britt Stockert, CFRE, is a Fundraiser Coach at Donorbox with more than 20 years of experience in the nonprofit and public sectors, specializing in donor retention and board engagement.

Donorbox is a trusted fundraising platform helping more than 100,000 organizations raise over $4 billion worldwide. Learn more at donorbox.org.

Enjoying the show? Subscribe for more practical fundraising strategies, leadership insights, and tools to help your nonprofit grow sustainably.

This episode is for educational purposes only and is not legal or financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor for guidance specific to your organization.

Support the show