When most people hear “statistics,” they think of formulas, charts or maybe even a dreaded college class. For Lori Collins, Executive Vice President of RKD Group and head of our Marketing Science team, statistics became something more: a way to understand human behavior, measure impact and drive change.
In this episode of “RKD Group: Thinkers,” Lori shares how her left-brain passion for research blends seamlessly with her right-brain love of yoga and aerial arts. From her early days in pay-per-view television to more than 15 years in nonprofit fundraising, Lori has built a career on applied math, curiosity and a desire to “use your powers for good.”
She also dives into the latest giving trends, explores why fewer donors are giving more and emphasizes the importance of including all levels of generosity in research. Along the way, you’ll hear why statistics are more than numbers; they’re stories waiting to be told.
She shares:
- How yoga and aerial arts gave her a creative outlet beyond the world of analytics
- How the rigor of social science statistics sparked curiosity
- How, after starting in television and marketing agencies, she chose to apply her skills to nonprofit work
- Her thoughts on the state of giving
- Why her research always includes small-dollar donors
- The influence of colleagues on her growth as an analyst and leader
Show chapters
- 00:00 – Introduction and Lori’s dual passions for analytics and aerial arts
- 08:01 – Early career in television and the path toward research
- 14:53 – Choosing social impact over commercial marketing
- 16:52 – The RKD Barometer, and how it tracks charitable giving
- 18:45 – Mid-year benchmarks: fewer donors giving more
- 20:58 – Wealth disparity and affordability as barriers to giving
- 26:15 – Mentors, lessons and the red flags in data
Meet our guest
Transcript
Justin McCord (00:04.876)
Welcome to the RKD Group Thinkers podcast. I'm your host Justin McCord. And on the high wire with me today, as always, is Ronnie Richard. That is the first of many circusy, acrobat, gymnasticy references that you'll hear as a part of this episode. Ronnie, tell us about our guest. Thank you.
Ronnie Richard (00:31.82)
guest today is none other than Lori Collins. kind of feel like I should give her like the big circus intro, but but we'll just go with this Lori Collins. She's executive vice president at RKD Group. She's head of RKD's marketing science team. And she is driving all of our data analysis, our market research and everything we're doing there. So very much the the left brain analytical side and the thing I discovered
today that I didn't know prior to our conversation was the right side that Lori does yoga. Lori has a background in aerial arts, which I didn't even know what that was. And now I have learned about that. So this more artistic side of her, and it's just the perfect blend as you hear her talk about it.
Justin McCord
Yeah, we get into the idea of applied math. And so I think that so often, I have heard nonprofit leaders talk about we did this research, then, and then, you know, tell me, tell me about the research, and then it's a binder on the shelf. And, and it used to be a literal binder. Now it's a PDF on a, you know, on a server somewhere, but it sits.
And so Lori's passion and her expertise at bringing to life the insights and the findings from research and analysis are really unmatched. And so we get into that as a part of the episode, we get into some current day stats and the reality around those stats of making sense of what's happening in philanthropy. yeah, we spend
a fair amount of time talking about the aerial arts. a few great reasons to stick around and enjoy the rest of this conversation featuring Lori Collins of RKD Group on the Thinkers podcast.
Justin McCord (02:37.366)
Okay, Laurie.
When did your passion for yoga start?
Lori Collins
Ooh, that's a switcheroo. 1990. Is that dating myself too much? That was, um...
Justin McCord
Yes and no,
Lori Collins
watching this, we're not born.
Justin McCord
1990? 1990.
Ronnie Richard (03:04.588)
What is 1990? Yeah, what was the catalyst here?
Lori Collins
That was my first semester of college and so the college actually offered a yoga class, which was kind of cool and innovative. So I started taking it and what's not to love about it? Great way to stretch. There's a great community there. Love it.
Justin McCord
And it's been a considerable part of your life ever since.
Lori Collins
Yeah, on and off. It ebbs and flows. it of course, it's the first thing to go when you're busy. Don't you guys find that, that you know that working out is going to help everything in your life, your sleep, your health. And yet it's the first thing that we de-prioritize when things get hairy and the to-do list gets too long.
Ronnie Richard
So true.
Justin McCord (04:00.75)
Is it your primary way of navigating stress?
Lori Collins
No, it's not. It's more of a outlet that has kind of led to other areas that I prefer more, the aerial arts, if you will. And that's something that has truly left the path just because of time. But that's like the ultimate stress reliever plus like something that really helps you develop other sides and aspects of yourself because you can only do so much left brain things. You really, I think it's important to have balance and in the left brain, right brain spheres. And that's something that I think lends itself more to more of that artsy side, which is not something that I do a lot.
Ronnie Richard
What are aerial arts? I just have to ask. I don't know what that
Lori Collins
The Cirque du Soleil. So back in the day, I took up aerial silks, which is a phenomenal way to get in shape. Lots of times people take their first class Ronnie and they say, you know what, I'm going to come back to this when I'm in better shape. But it's actually the opposite. You get in better shape by doing it. And the first time you maybe can take two steps up climbing two steps on the aerial fabric and you get really defeated. And then the next week you're like, I came to the top of a 20 foot ceiling and it felt so good. And so you do it again. And before you know it, you're in great shape and you're learning all these new artistic ways of movement, which again, it's not something that's not a muscle that I flex literally and figuratively.
Justin McCord
Where does one go to find this fabric? are there, is it a studio? Is it just like a warehouse? Are you going to Montreal?
Ronnie Richard
I go to Michael's.
Justin McCord
Okay. in your garage, you've got a 20 foot ceiling and you think like where where does one go?
Lori Collins (06:07.598)
Literally all of the above. Literally all of the above. There's official aerial studios. A lot of them tend to be in warehouses because you need really, really tall ceilings, right? And I've been to New York City and checked out their aerial studios, which have terrifyingly high, I think it was like a 40 foot ceiling. And it's just, you you've got this mat that let's be real, it's not going to do a thing if you were to have an accident. so, and then there's, it's a whole underground community as well. So once you're in it, you kind of like, hey, so and so has an aerial rig. And at my last place, I actually had the architect put in an aerial rig in my loft. And so it wasn't overly high, but you could practice the strength moves and the conditioning and all of that. So. Four years ago, I lost that when I moved and haven't been back, which is a bummer.
Justin McCord
Okay, so that is the right brain side, right? Like the yoga, the aerial arts, the creativity coming out there. Your career has been on paper largely left brain around statistics and analysis and research. Not that there's not a balance in all of those things, but. Take us back to what led you to working at DirecTV. Did you use aerial arts to install dishes or?
Lori Collins (08:01.601)
So my back in the day, my career path looked like this. It was a bulletin board in the college in the the Department of Statistics and someone had posted a internship for a research intern. And this was at a company called Request Television. They were a pay-per-view provider, and they were offering the high, high price. This was, you know, back in the 90s. So this is this is good money back then. It was seven dollars an hour for this research intern, which, you know, sometimes research internships back then were unpaid. So this one was paid. I absolutely loved the people. I, in fact, made some lifelong friends there and I'm actually married to one now. So that was the best part of that, that I met Steve there, even though we ironically had gone to the same high school at the same time, our paths never crossed because I was older than he was and I never would have cavorted with a little freshman as a senior. So we became really good friends there at Request Television.
And that kind of led to being in the cable and satellite space until I went to my first agency, a database marketing agency, and then they had a acquisition of, it was Merkle and Merkle Domain. And so they acquired a fundraising agency. And then that led me onto this path. Chip Guzzard reached out to me and he was like, hey, we're looking for this lead of analytics. Might you know of anyone in the Atlanta area? And not willing to move to Atlanta, but it kind of started this trajectory of this path that I've been on to use your powers for good, right? You can apply statistics to frogs, pharmaceuticals or sports marketing, or actually social impact and social good arenas. So why not do the latter? And so that's what I've been doing for the last 15 or so years.
Ronnie Richard (10:15.914)
I want to go back a little bit before Direct TV and ask about when you sort of realized that statistics and research was a passion of yours. It seems like it was very early on and I'm always impressed. I've said before on the show, I'm always impressed with people who see their path and follow their path early. And it seems like, I mean, you graduated a degree in psychology with an emphasis on statistics and research design. you knew what you wanted to do where other people, it takes them a little bit to find their path. Were you taking notes of stats as a kid and when did you first discover that?
Lori Collins
Great question, Ronnie. In freshman year of college, I took a lot of statistics classes and I took them through the math department as well as psychology. And something that I was rather shocked about was that stats classes through the social sciences such as psych are much, much more stringent. So my professor for stats in psychology was you need to not only memorize the formulas, speak to the formulas, use your calculator for this, like the old fashioned calculator, not even on a computer, and tell me why these formulas work and what they're doing to the data transformations. And so as a part of those Statistics 101 classes, the textbook would always have these case studies.
So here's the test design of treating 100 people with migraines. And this test group A took this behavioral therapy plus this pill. Test group B had a placebo only and set up the statistics in support of understanding whether or not there was a statistically significant difference. And sometimes it would stop right there. And my curiosity was piqued, like what happened?
Lori Collins (12:20.696)
What happened to those folks in the placebo-only control group? What happened? And so that kind of put me on a path of the why behind the numbers and the application of them. And that's the beauty of statistics, right? It's applied math. Truth be told, I hate theoretical math. I'm not good at theoretical math. But put it in the realm of statistics and applied math.
And then that's a game changer because it has so many applications to the modern world, understanding the modern world, impacting the modern world, and then measuring what happened as a result.
Justin McCord
love that idea of applied math and its importance of things all around us. I had one statistics course in grad school. I think I may have had two math courses in both my undergrad and graduate.
Lori Collins
Did you call it statistics?
Justin McCord
absolutely. But it was more of just I'm going to lean in with the Mark Twain quote of you know, their lies, dandilize and then their statistics, right?
Lori Collins (13:32.414)
actually former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli that said that, not Mark Twain? Yeah.
Justin McCord
No! Don't you take away my Twain quotes!
Lori Collins
Just properly source it and you're all good because there can be, you know, three kinds of lies. If you massage the data long enough, you can get it to say anything you want. Right. And that's what through transparency and the right statistics at the right time, it's almost like the marketing message. We want to give the right message to the right person at the right time. You want to do the same thing with statistics.
Justin McCord
and with research in general, right? Understanding the context around it. So you go down this road of like you happen into social impact, right? Through your time at agencies and then it kind of snowballs and you go deeper and deeper and deeper. At what point in that snowball did you decide this? This is where as you... as you have said, this is where I want to use my superpowers. Was there a moment, was there a season, was there a project? At what point did you find yourself realizing this is the lean in that I want in life?
Lori Collins (14:53.974)
Yeah. So when Chip Grazard recruited me and I was interviewing with the legendary Perry Moore, Chip Grazard, and all of those folks, it just quickly became a familial environment. It's just... There's something about it. And maybe it was the juxtaposition. One of the last verticals I supported in my database marketing days for the commercial side was Big Pharma, and I got a taste of it and I was just like, ick, you know? They do a lot. It's without controversy that they do so much good in the world, but just the environment of working with the farmer culture, it can be very cutthroat, very demoralizing. And here in this space, we're making an impact in our own little ways of making the world a better place.
Like, why wouldn't you want to do that?
Justin McCord
Right. And it was also like that switch came about in 2010, 2011. And so you would have been also as people are getting a little back on their feet from the impact of the Great Recession. And just before you had some transformative work in email in particular that like came about like a new sort of digital surge came about in 2012. And so there's this kind of window where you came into into that space full time that is a great moment to look back and say, yes, it was like right in this, this threshold. So, yeah. You've also then taken in those 15 years in the last 15 years, and you've taken that a step further in that.
Justin McCord (16:52.846)
You have some regular pulses on giving that you have maintained.
Lori Collins
Yeah, exactly. And brought over the marketing science, RKD barometer, which we do quarterly. And I really like the terminology of barometer just because I think it's a little egotistical to think that we could project what charitable giving is going to do in a year or two. To me, that's where the crystal ball territory comes in. And it's probably just as accurate as a crystal ball when we try and project out simply because we have so many unknowns not only volatility within the economy we've got things that we are beyond our control pandemics disasters and we know that all of them. Incent provide incentives for giving and charitable giving and they impacted in very different ways so.
2020, 2021 were record years for charitable giving. And you wouldn't have thought that they would have been because look at how many people were impacted employment-wise during the pandemic. So those that could give did and gave at very high levels. And that's sometimes a little hard to predict, especially without any precedent on it.
Ronnie Richard
As we're recording this today, our mid-year benchmark reports are being sent out to clients and to across the industry. Talk us through a little bit about what are you seeing right now? What did the benchmarks tell us? And combined with the barometer, what's sort of the state of giving? Because we're coming up on Q4 in year end. People want to know.
Lori Collins (18:45.332)
Exactly, I love it. So there's a lot of continuation of the theme, of course, of fewer donors giving more. I recall pre-pandemic talking about this, broaching the topic that it's not about donor replacement, it's about revenue replacement and replenishment, right? So we kind of had this shift pre-pandemic.
And then we pushed pause on the fewer donors giving more. And all of a sudden acquisition was actually making money in its first year, remember? And it was like, what a change. And slowly the pendulum is coming back. We are certainly looking at fewer donors giving more. However, I think that those opportunities still exist to lean into those higher ROI, higher LTV or long-term value channels so that we can really ensure that the long-term viability and sustainability of programs are driven by, of course, major, relational, mid-level, sustaining, digital, et cetera. These are all tactics that have higher LTV, higher ROI. And I think that we have to lean into the trends. We can fight them all we want, but at the end of the day, there is a growing wealth disparity in the US.
It actually started back in the 80s and it is continued. And I think that it's got a two speed of growth. I've heard it said in terms of the wealthiest demographics are getting wealthier and to a lesser extent, some of the poorer households are losing some of the ground that they had received in the last few years post pandemic.
So you've certainly got this return to the fewer donors giving more, but what is the why behind it? When we look at donor sentiment research and donor check-ins, I know that the biggest barrier to charitable giving is actually the affordability bit. Those that don't give, and about half of US adults, don't give charitably.
Lori Collins (20:58.19)
And that's because they believe that they or they truly cannot afford it. And that makes a lot of sense because when you look at that 50 percent, 50 percentile, we know that about 95, I think it's 97.5 % of the wealth is in the top 50%. So where does that leave the bottom 50 %? It's only at about 2.5%.
which of course they're struggling with being able to give charitably. So when we look at the why behind that, it kind of gives more context to this adage that we throw around a lot, which is fewer donors giving more, let's lean in to where we can and where the money is and fish where the fish are basically.
Justin McCord
I, golly, there's so many different places to go with this conversation. one, Ronnie, do know what a barometer does?
Ronnie Richard
Measures pressure, right?
Justin McCord
Look at you! It does.
Ronnie Richard (22:04.501)
studying weather a little bit.
Lori Collins
It's imminent. The reason I like it is because a barometer, it tells us what's around the corner. It doesn't tell us what's beyond the next hill, right?
Justin McCord
And so I appreciate that as an analogy, because I do think that even as you talk about growing wealth disparity, et cetera, that is a, there's a version of like understanding the pressure within philanthropy, not pressure as in the pressure that individual fundraisers and, and CDOs feel, et cetera, but the pressure in and around giving and in and around wealth and in and around societal trends that are reflected in charitable contribution.
So I have that kind of cloud that's rolling in for me mentally. And then I also have this, don't know if it's altruistic aspirational side, Lori, that makes me think about the parable of the two coins of like, how good it is to give no matter what the amount is. And for us as fundraisers and like the tension that we have in fundraising around focusing on those with the higher wealth, but then we know there's the psychological benefit of giving anything. And so how are we also creating avenues to normalize, you know, a dollar a month?
Justin McCord (23:41.102)
or $2 a month or whatever it is.
Lori Collins
the register. And the charitable behaviors such as volunteering, social advocacy, those are you're absolutely right. And I'm so glad you brought that up, Justin, because this is a difference between my research over the last 15 years doing tracking studies of charitable giving. It was kind of interesting. I just recently found out the reason why my research wasn't matching
Lori Collins (24:13.494)
some other very venerable, well-sourced research out there, such as the Lilly School of Philanthropy, because their research excludes the lower end giving, right? I've always included that. I don't care if you give a dollar to charity. That to me is a reflection of your heart, not your finances, right? How generous are you?
So for a long time, I saw for about the period of 12 years, up until the last three years, that the proportion of US adults giving charitably was incredibly consistent. It was 54 % plus or minus two percentage points over this 12 year period. That's incredible. And meanwhile, we saw the Lilly School of Philanthropy was like, no, charitable giving is going down. Well, the at issue, there were two differences there.
They're tracking charitable giving $25 and up, which is a low but sizable statistic when you look at the proportion, how Americans give and what they give. A good portion of them do give $25 or lower in an average year because they can, that's what they can afford. However, there was also this implication of religious giving. So I exclude giving to churches, houses of worship and political campaigns.
So I'm better isolating that research that can help our client partners with how to grow and what it looks like for giving. So that's the reason why my barometer was more steady up until the last couple years, in which case we have seen a decreasing proportion of those giving charitably. And it's because it's a difference of looking at the giving holistically at all levels and kind of also isolating that non-church giving.
Ronnie Richard (26:15.342)
Lori, as you look back at your career path and some of the things we've talked about today, who would you say are some people who influenced you along the way or people you learned from that got you to where you are today?
Lori Collins
It's a great question. So my favorite co-pilot that has taught me so much of what I know is actually the amazing Alexa Langford. And she and I worked together for a dozen years. And when I came to Grizzard back in the day, my first leadership experience in the fundraising agency realm, I knew very little. I had worked on some charitable accounts on the domain side at Merkle, but I really didn't know the details and the nuances of analytics for fundraising. And it's distinctly different. There's kind of, I like to say there's some metrics that are false positives. If you just look at revenue per active donor and if you get double digit increases there, you can say, yay, those fewer donors are giving a lot more, not just more.
But that's a false indicator. Anytime I get double digit increases in revenue per active donor, that's a red flag for me. That means that you are whittling your base down so much that you are really reflecting those loyal multi-year donors, right? So Alexa really helped me understand the nuances of analytics applied to charitable giving. She's one of the smartest analysts in the space and I was lucky enough to partner with her for about a dozen years and she's now doing fantastically on her own, leading strategy and analytics in her own right. So it's kind of a, I look at it as a growth success story for both of us.
Justin McCord (28:09.976)
say a bit of a trapeze partner, right?
Lori Collins
Exactly. Swim There's a place in LA, Justin, that does the Partners Trapeze for beginners. And I'm so tempted to do it, but it's also terrifying, right? You've got a net, but we all know that you can hurt yourself.
Justin McCord
Yes, I will happily come watch.
Lori Collins
not participate.
Ronnie Richard
thought you were about to volunteer.
Lori Collins (28:43.246)
I think it would kind of be the ultimate trust-building exercise because social psychologists say that the higher up you are, the more you've got that high energy that really cements emotion and feeling. And so back in college, I remember reading a story of social psychologists actually making pairings on a high suspension bridge. So it was a first meet and greet with potential suitors.
and they actually paired at higher rates because this elevation really heightened everything and you felt everything at a higher level. So all I'm suggesting here is not love matches in the agency. However, maybe we do some trust building exercises with trapeze.
Ronnie Richard
Trapeze team building. There you go.
Lori Collins
I love it.
Justin McCord
Listen, I am decently quick on my feet. I'm definitely more quick witted. you know, there is, yeah, there is, I have a love for gravity and being, you know, on the earth. And so
Lori Collins (29:56.782)
You don't like heights at all?
Justin McCord
Nah.
Lori Collins
Ronnie, how about you?
Ronnie Richard
I've gone skydiving and bungee jumping, so I'm okay. It scares me, but it's fun.
Justin McCord
So here's how this can work is y'all do the trapeze thing. I will be your promoter and sell the tickets to watch.
Lori Collins (30:14.658)
Yeah.
Lori Collins (30:18.03)
No tickets, please.
Ronnie Richard
You'll do the high flying puns.
Lori Collins
CERT, do RKD.
I like it. Yeah, I like it. And I prefer being the introvert I am. I prefer Ariel with no audience. Like everyone is like, you want to perform? I'm like, no, look over there. Okay, I'm gonna do this thing. But I don't want any eyes on me. And yeah.
Justin McCord
Well, Lori, we appreciate you hanging out with us today. Hanging out with us today. Swinging by. Climbing.
Lori Collins (30:53.518)
climbing to greater heights elevating our conversation
Ronnie Richard
A conversation without a net, too.
Justin McCord
Conversation with no net. You thought it was just a couple of clowns.
Lori Collins (31:09.72)
Thank you for confirming that.
Justin McCord
All right, friend, we will catch you again soon.
Lori Collins
Sounds great. Great catching up with you guys.
Group Thinkers is a production of RKD Group. For more information, including how you can partner with RKD to accelerate growth for your fundraising and nonprofit marketing needs, visit rkdgroup.com.
.png?width=2000&height=2000&name=image%20(30).png "image (30)")
Leave a comment: