County and Income
Many of you have been asking for a way to enter county and income information on the intake screen. Now you can! When you click the [ADD NEW CASE] button, or when you click the [EDIT INFO] button, you will be taken to the intake screen…

You may notice that the layout is slightly different. We’ve also We had to move things around to get the County and the Income fields to fit. On the left side of the screen you will find the name, address, county, and phone number fields…

On the right side, you will find the date of birth, social security number, income, and other ID fields….

We also moved the Add/Remove Case Details dropdown box to the right side of the dialog. You can still use your tab key for easy navigation around the intake screen.

Units of Measure
We’ve also made some changes so that assistance can be recorded in units of measure other than US dollars. This is a feature that has been asked for by many of the foodbanks, food pantries, soup kitchens, clothing ministries, and many others that provide assistance that cannot be recorded in US dollars. This could even be a way to record time that a volunteer spends working with a client or case!

To use this new feature, click the [ADD ASSISTANCE] button and enter a value…

Then in the unit dropdown box select the unit of measure…

Don’t see the unit of measure you’re looking for? No problem - just add it yourself in the [Type Unit] box. Then select the unit of measure you just added and continue on in the dialog like you always do.

If you have any questions about these changes feel free to call Ben in the middle of the night…preferably around 3am (just kidding)…shoot us an email -or- give us a call at 888.764.0633 and ask for Kyle or Greg.

Special thanks goes out to Chuck Coward at Charleston Outreach and Cathy Easley at Trident United Way!

Be sure to let us know what you think about the CharityTracker update by commenting below!

Cheers

~Larry

We are building community networks in about 180 cities now.  New networks are launching each week.  Our hope for helping communities help themselves is becoming a reality.  We are very thankful for the opportunity to do our part in bringing people together for greater outcomes.

We have so much in the works for 2009.  We will launch new features in CharityTracker that will take community-building to the next level and greatly enhance resource mobilization.  Oikos will be used by faith-based and community leaders for building capacity for community transformation in more cities.  PrayerPipeline will launch this year and empower prayer mobilization at local and global levels.

We are also building strategic relationships with faith-based and community leaders all across the country.  We are very excited about the potential for networking and effective collaboration.

2009 will be a promising new year for our company and partnered relationships.  Our desire is help community leaders reach out to their city and build an organic network of education, encouragement, and empowerment that will transform people and community life.

We realize that great things happen when people partner together in making a difference.

• Reports in .CSV Format — This allows you to export your records in a file that can be opened in Excel. In Excel, you can make whatever report you need to.
• Pre-Filled ROI Form: In the “Add New Case” dialog, fill in the case information. Before you click “Add”, press the “Release of Information Form” link to print out an ROI that is automatically filled with the case information.
• My Agency’s Cases and Assistance: New to the “My Agency” tab is the option to view a list of all the cases you’ve helped and assistance you’ve provided.
• Auto-Tabbing: Now you don’t have to use the “Tab” key when typing date of birth, social security number, phone number, etc. We will continue to improve the tabbing in CharityTracker.

Have a great idea that could improve CharityTracker? Shoot us an email letting us know your idea. We can’t guarantee that all feature requests will make it into CharityTracker because what works for you might not be beneficial for the rest of the CharityTracker community. However, we can assure you that we will thoroughly review your idea.

You can learn how organizations all over the country are working together to reduce duplication of services in their area at http://www.charitytracker.net

Here is an exerpt:

When Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, the country learned a valuable lesson about the importance of preparedness.

You can read the full article here.

Technology Update: Closing the Gap Between
the Millennial Generation and the Modern Church

By Dr. Janet L. McMullen

As a professor of communication for nearly 20 years, I have studied the effects of media on young people with great interest. We know that media technologies can determine not only how a message is presented but what can be presented and how an audience connects with it. In his classic book that discusses the affects of television on public discourse, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Neil Postman writes, “You can’t do philosophy with smoke signals.” He posits that written words offer logical, linear, and very specific concepts, whereas visual images are less specific and much more emotional. Interactive technologies such as video games and the Internet are more involving and increasingly impactful than the technologies of the past. As churches strive to build their congregations, expand community, and come together as the Body of Christ, we’re seeing that, for the younger generations, eliciting greater involvement in a way that is relevant to the current culture is the key.

Young people today, beginning with the Millennial Generation (born from 1981 to 2000), expect to use new technologies. They approach communication very differently than those of us born before 1981; they don’t recall a time before video games, the Internet, e-mail, instant messaging, or cell phone text messaging. Those of us who remember when the VCR and cell phones were “new” technologies may struggle with this landscape where technology is at the center of everyday life. We may use our cell phones, but have no idea how to use its ‘extra’ features.

Those ‘extras’ may seem like unnecessary frills, and perhaps something else to complicate our lives, but the younger generations not only know how to use these “frills,” they rely on them completely. Whether text messaging, downloading music and podcasts, or taking part in online social communities, this group relies on multiple forms of technology for their everyday connections to the people they care most about—and can’t imaging a world without immediate information and 24/7 connectivity.

Those in leadership positions within the Church must recognize the basic differences in communication styles and expectations of younger generations in order to adequately reach them. Although the human tendency is to keep doing what works well now, if churches do not begin to include and adapt to these new technologies, they will not be prepared for the younger generations, and therefore will not be able to impact and retain the attention of these groups into the future.

Young people see technology as a primary means of communication; they want to connect when they want to connect. They want to make that connection from where ever they happen to be. To them, it’s not necessary to go somewhere, be face-to-face, or even hear someone speak in order to have meaningful conversations. They do it all the time, any time, anywhere—thanks to technology.

Recent events at Virginia Tech demonstrated this reality. Immediately after the shootings that took the lives of 32 people, students were blogging. They were creating and posting messages on Facebook, MySpace, personal websites, and university websites; through these mediums of communication, they were distributing information, sharing their hearts, and working through their grief—not in-person, but online. When they could not physically be in the same place at the same time, the Internet provided a means to connect with others in an important and very personal way.

The modern Church must recognize the need for such connectivity in the Body of Christ; without it, our programs, our structures, and our way of doing “church” itself will seem antiquated and irrelevant to young adults, adolescents, and children who need Jesus in this post-modern world. If the Church is to continue to reach new souls for Christ and minister to the needs of its people, we must recognize that communications systems change; while core communication needs remain the same, the methods with which to achieve the same results are constantly changing. The Church must recognize this and adapt to these changes or its communication methods will continue to grow increasingly stale and irrelevant.

Recent research from the Barna Group (www.barna.org) on the Millennial Generation has indicated that these young people are hungry for truth. They have seen that the “rules,” the “freedom,” and the “stuff” don’t provide lasting happiness or fulfillment. They have grown up with the films Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Spiderman. They love to play fantasy video games where they fight dragons and stand for what is right and good, and they realize that treating others as they wish to be treated is one of the keys to a happy life.

This generation wants someone to tell them that there is more than the ambiguity this postmodern world, where they have grown up without any sense of absolute truth or standard of right and wrong. But despite this desire, they don’t want to hear it in a lecture, they want to hear stories—the stories of people they know, people they care about, and people who in tern care about them.

The true tales of others speak truth and have credibility; knowledge matters because it is empirical, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. In addition, the knowledge gained is valued because it is sealed by relationships that count.

Many modern churches encourage relationship building through small groups, or cell groups, which can be very effective, but are not enough on their own. This generation craves more. To be expected to go to a physical location every time they have a need or a question, or simply want to share something from their heart just isn’t practical. They don’t have time to call everyone in the group, and even e-mail lacks immediacy and seems flat. But if given the ability and tools to post a message online in a place where everyone can see it, or go online and find out who is on their computer to instant message or chat immediately, or even text message from their cell phone—they will get a response from the people they care about because the methods for connectivity are present and available whenever needed.

The bottom line is that the Church must embrace new technologies that allow believers to connect in more authentic and progressive ways. The church market is adapting and new technologies are being created to assist churches in reaching the younger generations and beyond. Oikos (www.oikosHQ.com), by Simon Solutions, is one example of how the Millennial Generation is motivated to come up with ways to reach beyond the current status quo.

Oikos, which is also the Greek word for household or family, is an online community-building platform with which congregations, ministries, schools, and cell groups can connect, share, and communicate online. It combines communication tools such as small groups communities, media sharing, 24/7 prayer requests, calendars, forums, and chat—all tools these generations crave. But unlike some of the other social networking sites out there, Oikos provides security that enables the Church to oversee, provide insight, and monitor in a way that is conducive to the Body of Christ.

Online tools such as the Oikos Community Console provide the ability to enhance and deepen relationships, increase influence, reach a wider audience, and connect your community in powerful ways. It allows the present-future Church to meet needs, pray, educate, and encourage in real-time while protecting and respecting its members.

For organizations that want to maintain their relevance in the ever-changing technology landscape, new options must be considered in order for the modern Church to be the connected family that God intends.

Dr. Janet L. McMullen is the Associate Professor of Radio-Television-Film in the Department of Communication and Theatre at the University of North Alabama. She is especially interested in how modern media transmits and validates the important values and ideas of our society. Active in her local church, she is passionate about the use of new technologies to enhance the Church’s influence and impact on all people

We’ve made a page to help you make sure your computer is optimized for Oikos or CharityTracker use.

You can view the page here.

So, as a CharityTracker user, here’s what you can expect. You no longer have to register to get help. Just click on the [Help / Feedback] Button in CharityTracker and you will be automatically logged into the private system. You will be taken right to the Forum page where you can post your questions, or give feedback. We are notified by email every time you make a post, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. (Usually the same day.)

First off, we add you to a group in the new system. The group contains everyone who is a part of your local CharityTracker Network. If you need to communicate on a deeper level than just Bulletins, Notes, and Alerts, this is the place to do it. You have access to:

• a group Forum (separate from the main Forum)
• a Community Calendar (with email notifications)
• a Media page for sharing pictures and video
• a Blog to share ideas and keep everyone up to date
• a Member Directory

Another feature to take advantage of: personal profiles. You can customize your profile, receive messages, share pictures and video, and there’s even a private calendar if you’d like.

All that aside, what could be one of the most exciting prospects of the new customer service portal is the opportunity for interaction with other CharityTracker Networks across the country. You can can venture off to join other groups according to your agency type or interests. You can belong to as many groups as you like.

You have the chance to ask others “how did you do that?” You can share your success stories and encourage others as they serve those in need.

We created this system to be easy to use and private. Although this system is secure, we ask that you not discuss case details here. No names, social security numbers, birthdays, or anything that might reveal someone’s identity should be discussed here. Other than that – have fun!

The last feature I’d like to tell you about is the instant messenger that is built into the system. The instant messenger will give you real time access to our customer service department. You may see Kyle, Greg, Larry available to answer questions, and to point you to training materials. You folks can also use this instant messenger to keep in contact with anyone in the system.

If you’d like an overview of the new system, you can go to www.oikosHQ.com/tour.html (Just to be clear, even though this link takes you to our service website, the CharityTracker Customer Service Portal is offered at no charge.)

We’re going to be consolidating all of our blogs into this blog. There aren’t enough hours in the day for us to post to one blog, then go to another blog to post a blog to visit our other blog. Hehe, confusing eh?

We hope it will be easier to keep up with what’s going on with Simon Solutions, if all our information is in one place.

Cheers

One of the new features in Oikos is the What’s New window. It’s the place to catch up on everything that has happened since you last logged in. You can view a list of what your friends have been up to, or you can view a list of activity in the groups you belong to.

The new Oikos makes full use of your computer screen, it expands to completely fill your browser window. The bigger your screen, the more you can see.

The Wall is the most exciting new feature of Oikos V2. There are widgets for uploading photos, videos, audio and text. You can place these widgets anywhere on your wall. You can also set a background color, or upload a background image.

Check out the new Oikos and sign up for a free account!

Oikos Provides Online Tools to Connect Small Groups and Enhance Community Outreach

FLORENCE, AL, May 29, 2008 - The Internet is fast becoming one of the best ways to strengthen the Body of Christ by keeping people connected in a safe online environment. Oikos (http://www.tryoikos.com) is one way for small groups to connect, share, and build one another up as well as enhance outreach into the community and beyond. Oikos beta has been available since September 2007, and today’s release marks the fully-enhanced version with many new features.

“People desire deeper personal connections with one another, and are constantly looking for ways to accomplish this within their busy lifestyles,” says Mike Simon, President of Simon Solutions Inc., developer of Oikos. “The Internet is becoming the number one method of Christians to stay connected to their small groups, encourage and support Christian relationships, and draw others to Christ.”

More and more people have begun using social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and there are now a myriad of different Christian networks out there to connect people; however, these networks are open to outsiders and paid for by advertisers and do not provide a secure way to communicate privately. Oikos is like having your very own private social network just for your church’s community.

“We are excited about having greater customization, more intuitive interface, and the ability to interact with Oikos from cell phone SMS and group chat,” says Luke Thomas, youth pastor for The Father’s House (http://www.tfhny.org) in Rochester, NY. “However, it will be the enhanced customization that will really appeal to the youth. The ability to embed YouTube files and HTML will also help keep interest high. In today’s world we are competing against MySpace, Aim, and YouTube and the church needs to be able to offer our youth the same type of technology tools.”

Oikos provides an enhanced and user-friendly look, lighter and faster functionality, highly customizable personal profile pages for each member called “walls” that are easy to work with and set up, and a “What’s New” section that gives users a way to keep track of friends and news feeds while you’re logged off. In addition, it also provides small groups management, online calendars to help people keep up-to-date on events and activities within your organization, multimedia tools such as image and video sharing, improved photo commenting, an online chat with quickly updated information, forums, and online prayer.

About Simon Solutions
Simon Solutions desires to empower people through technology by building innovative and interactive online connection tools. With an aspiration to help organizations translate their visions into action, the company has developed three core solutions that they hope will stretch the boundaries of how churches, ministries, and nonprofits share community: Oikos, a revolutionary private online community platform; CharityTracker, a collaborative network to track charitable assistance; and PrayerPipeline.net, a transformative 24/7 online prayer network.

We added a new member to our staff. His name is Aaron Stedman. He will help us keep up with growing demands in our research and development department. We’ve got plenty of work cut out for us.

We’ve added new components to our marketing and customer service strategies. This will enable us to better connect with our customers and handle their needs.

We’ve also establishing many new CharityTracker networks all across the country. This up coming week Larry and Greg are traveling to Portland, Oregon to be at a United Way of America conference. We were invited to show CharityTracker to UW attendees from all across the country.

And we are talking with community transformation leaders in Florida, California, and Texas about using Oikos to bring their entire communities together in making a difference in people’s life. This is something that I have wished to happen for many years. Now we have the community-building tools for making this happen.

I will keep you posted as more stuff happens.

Mike

They contacted her and wanted to do a story on how CharityTracker was impacting communities all across the U.S.

Larry did a great job on the interview. This was a great opportunity for us to share how CharityTracker is helping to bring communities together.

It seems that CharityTracker is becoming newsworthy. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were featured on the evening news in Huntsville, Alabama.

CharityTracker is good news for any community in America. I hope we get to tell more people.

On Friday night, a week ago, I received a phone call from Larry, who was pretty excited. He said, “Mike, guess what just happened? We were on the evening news!” He went on to say that the local NBC affiliate in Huntsville, AL aired a special report on CharityTracker.

Needless to say, I got very excited too. Larry told me to go to the TV station’s website and see the report online. I read the report, and even found they had video of the segment posted on the website.

Featured in the report were our good friends Tina Scott, Executive Director of the United Way of Northwest Alabama, and Ashley Butler, 211 Information and Referral Specialist. Both women shared how CharityTracker was fighting the problem of scammers.

“We have been able to identify a lot of people who were scamming the system; people who were going to different agencies to get the same bill paid.”

- Tina Scott

They also shared how the network was bringing people together and building relationships with other service providers.

“The best thing is the networking and relationships we now have with agencies and churches in Colbert and Lauderdale Counties, that we didn’t have before [CharityTracker] was made.”

- Ashley Butler

I had a chance to talk with Tina the other day. She said that calls are coming in from all across the country. People are hearing about CharityTracker and calling to see if it is “for real.” After hearing Tina’s story of the success of CharityTracker in our community, these callers are filled with hope.

My hope is that this simple tool, which is now becoming a community-builder, will find its way into communities all across America and help make a difference.

- Mike

And don’t forget, we’re giving an Introduction to Oikos V2 at the Oikos blog.

The Shoals community is located in Northwest Alabama. We have four cities that make up the Shoals– Florence, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia, and Sheffield. All of these cities have a rich heritage and lots of wonderful residents. Many people have great passion for community-building. They truly care about our people, our possibilities, and our potential.

The Loving the Shoals campaign is about people partnering together to make a difference in our community. It is a chance for Shoals residents to celebrate the things that unite us - a chance to come together on common ground. We believe this starts with a willing heart and a helping hand. As each of us does our part in reaching out and caring for people in our everyday lives, wonderful things begin to happen. As our caring power grows and multiplies, it impacts everyone and everything in its path.

Working together, we will breathe new life into the heart of the Shoals.

This 3-year community awareness campaign will connect people with like-minds for community-building in strategic partnerships, built on trust, authenticity, and common purpose. Once mobilized, the full potential of our community’s caring power will be unleashed throughout the entire Shoals area.

We hope the story of our endeavors will inspire other communities throughout Alabama and beyond. I will keep you posted as our campaign progresses.