Arcadia Chamber of Commerce - The Connection to the Business Community

Meet Dan Hanley of Altrui – Interview by CanvasRebel

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dan Hanley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

When I think of my first client, I must remember all of the work I did to prepare for introducing Altrui to the world.

A lot of time and energy went into creating my name, my website, and perfect copy to describe who we are as a company and how we can make a difference for clients.

I also spent time strengthening my social media presence and having conversations with colleagues and connections about what I was working on.

Then the day came to “open”, which was sharing a blog post from my new company website and spreading the word on social media. As small as I knew we were, I wanted to create as much buzz as possible.

It worked, and one of my connections from a local chamber of commerce I’m a member of (shout out to the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce!), let a nonprofit leader know about our new company.

Within a week we were speaking, and then they asked for a contract.

Four weeks after opening, we had our first client!

While planning the opening of Altrui, I hoped to have my first client within the first three months, so this was a pleasant surprise. All of the prep work before launching paid off!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been in nonprofit fundraising for 20+ years. I came from the hotel business, and before that, the US Navy.

The move into nonprofits came when I was offered a position with an HIV/AIDS organization in Colorado. They were searching for someone to lead their fundraising efforts, and a friend of mine worked with the organization. Although I had never worked for a nonprofit before, I had a desire to be a part of an organization serving people, like the greater good. Add that to my personal experiences with HIV/AIDS and I decided to make the move.

I love working with nonprofits to strengthen their fundraising, which means strengthening their mission work. We add capacity to their relationship-building and fundraising efforts, whether it’s a campaign to grow monthly donors or be part of continuing fundraising when in between leaders of their fundraising team.

At Altrui, we firmly believe that nonprofit fundraising is all about relationships, not money.

While thinking about leaving the nonprofit world and creating a consulting company, I liked the idea of being able to work with many amazing missions rather than just one. The whole idea of Altrui came from a desire to work with nonprofits working in the mission areas that are deep in my heart: refugees, immigrants, unhoused youth, domestic violence, and animal rights.

At Altrui, we engage with nonprofits to build stronger relationships with their donors, adding to their fundraising abilities and successes. After two years of doing that, we began to add recruiting services based on the needs of our clients, working to help them add to their fundraising teams. Recruiting has been wonderful and this year we completed our first nonprofit CEO search, which was thrilling!

I’m proud that we keep working with only nonprofits whose missions I deeply connect with. It’s easy to work with anyone, and probably more profitable, but working with only these missions makes the work seem more like being of service and less like work. This is an area that sets us apart from others.

I also feel like in recruiting we go beyond what many do and keep in mind that every person applying for the position is a human being and has some interest in the mission of the nonprofit we are working with. This means they deserve better than not receiving any communication about their application. We ensure applicants are honored with transparency and communication, regardless of where they are in the process. Each candidate gets a personal communication when it has been decided that they are not moving forward. This is not common in the world of recruiting.

Because we work with nonprofits serving refugees and immigrants, we do a lot of work in Tijuana, and I office there every other month. Aside from client work, I volunteer with organizations working with asylum seekers, and Altrui has created a system of diaper deliveries to immigrant and refugee shelters serving women and babies to help ensure that every baby has access to a clean diaper. Over the years we have added donations of tampons, pads, and formula.

Since the beginning, we have donated over 40,000 diapers at the border.

Throughout our work, we also are always promoting the idea to support nonprofits. We even have a sticker we give out “Your favorite nonprofit needs you!.

On a personal level, I’m married to my awesome husband Mike, we share our home with three rescue dogs from LA County shelters, I’m vegan, love to read, and I speak Spanish (which is helpful to our clients in Tijuana and the refugee work I do).

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

As an activist, for both human rights and animal rights, I love social media. I learned right away that many social media platforms helped spread the word about atrocities along with how people could take action to make a difference.

While at my first fundraising job, I had posted on Twitter, using the organizations’ page, that we were close to a number amount, like 2,000 or something like that, and we only needed however many more connections to get there. A follower challenged me to surpass that number and getting an additional 100 connections. If we were able to do that, he would donate $500.00.

If you know me you know we received the donation later that day.

This event got me much more excited about social media. When I decided to leave that organization, I created my personal Twitter account. This plus a fledgling LinkedIn account were my professional outreaches in the world of social media.

Growing on a social media platform takes time and consistency. Many times people tell me they are “on” LinkedIn but cannot remember the last time they were active. Or their password! In my current social media life I’m active on Medium, and others have “tried” Medium but after a week and publishing one or two stories decided it didn’t work for them.

Time and consistency.

My biggest social media platform is my Altrui website and the blog there titled “Dan’s Tips”. Here is where consistency reigns as this part of my website is the most visited, and every week I get more people subscribing to the blog. Many clients come from having been a reader of the blog.

I post every Monday on the “Dan’s Tips” page.

For LinkedIn, which thrives for me and Altrui, my goal is to post at least four times Monday – Friday, to connect with a few new people every day (Monday – Friday) and to become part of conversations there.

I have also been introduced to clients on LinkedIn.

Coming back to Medium, that is a favorite right after LinkedIn. In two years of publishing stories there, I have grown connections from that page to my Altrui website, improved my writing, and connected with many communities around writing, philanthropy, service work, LGBTQ+ issues, food, and aging.

Time and consistency. Keepmgoing; never stop. Growth will happen.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Being authentic to the causes I believe in strongest and to who I am as a human has been a great strategy for Altrui. Focusing on nonprofits whose missions live in my heart and soul keeps me focused on being of service to my clients, knowing that they are each making the world a better and safer place.

It’s not easy to always do this. Saying no to potential clients whose mission is not on my list means saying no to some growth and even more revenue.

What makes it easier is sticking to our values, the work we see as most important. There are thousands of amazing nonprofits out there, and hundreds of consultants that will work with them and do good work. I keep it to these few mission points and find doing that helps in the growth, and respect, of Altrui.

Being true to myself is my most effective strategy to grow clientele.

There is a close second. Constantly letting people know what I do, how I do it, and who my potential clients are is important in growing clientele. These are ongoing actions. It’s important to be clear in my work, impact, and mission as many people tend to think of my work as simply “you do something with nonprofits”.

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