Florida didn’t pan out how Tim hoped it would. In less than a year the founder tragically passed away from a heart attack, and they went from $36 million per year to $18million.

They had an agency partner who specifically helped nonprofit clients. And as the sunset on Florida for Tim, it rose on a new opportunity in Dallas with the agency.

It was there that he realized the worlds of social impact and advertising marketing weren’t mutually exclusive. Tim began helping nonprofits how to articulate their value proposition through digital means.

His work began to lay the foundation for breakthrough studies that would one day be conducted at NextAfter’s fundraising research lab. One of these future tests, for example, was inspired by his agency work on value proposition.

He asked 127 different nonprofits: “Why should I give to your organization?”, and the results showed four key dimensions nonprofits to an effective value proposition:

1. Appeal: It has to be something people like and something they want.

2. Exclusivity: Your work must offer something different than the others diluting the marketplace.

3. Credibility: People need to believe that you are the one who will make change happen.

4. Communication: You have to clearly articulate what you’re doing.

Though, before he founded NextAfter, Tim would first start his own nonprofit: The Human Coalition. His goal was to help women in crisis pregnancy situations connect with resources when they needed them most.

“When somebody is faced with [crisis pregnancy], the first place they turn is the internet. They’re going to Google a solution, and the neat thing about that is you can reach people at their point of need and connect…[we needed] to be there.”

This brought about yet another light bulb moment for Tim: more nonprofits needed to understand these types of insights, not just his own. In a perfect union of his multiple career passions, Tim would go on to found NextAfter to help understand social impact from the donor’s point of view.

NextAfter’s goal was thus established: their work would seek to unleash the most generous generation in the history of the world. Tim and his team do this by erring on the side of generosity at all times themselves. It’s why all the studies and insights from NextAfter are easily accessible to all.

“I'd hate to think that erring on the side of generosity is going to come and bite you in the ass…I never look at people as competitors, they’re industry allies. We’re all working together for the same cause, so why would I not share with somebody else?”

And what he can offer the world is testing and data validation with real-world application. It enables organizations to mitigate risk, try something new, and prove it with data. Testing even has the power to optimize the entire culture of an organization and the way they operate.  

“Every single test opens up new opportunities for breakthroughs down the road…Start trying to take smaller risks. And then those will lead to greater opportunities to make some fundamental shifts in how you approach your work.”

When Tim graduated college, he didn’t know his passion for advertising and marketing would be matched with a voracious hunger to help people through social impact organizations. And her certainly didn’t know he would find a way to unite these all under one roof.

You could say that the culmination of his life’s work is to experience the miracle of generosity. And he’s doing this by decoding, at least partially, what inspires humans to give through data collection, expert analysis, and artful application. If you haven’t already seen how he’s doing at NextAfter, we highly recommend stopping by for a look.

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