Technology for Change™

A "March" through the Last Four Years of Karen's Blog

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:42:00 -0600

Before thedatabank launched the Technology for Change blog and I become a regular author, I wrote a monthly column for our enews called Karen's Blog. It's fun to look back over the past few years and see what I was writing about!

March 2011 | Technophobia

I shared a picture of myself taking the new iPad out of its box. Then I confessed to being intimidated by new technology. I have since overcome my fear and skepticism over the iPad, and I love love love it. I also love how our new 2012 Databank user interface looks and works on the touch screen.

March 2010 | Find Out What I Really Look Like

There's nothing like a face-to-face meeting to answer your questions, hear your ideas, and give you individual attention to help you make the most of your investment in the Databank. That month we were getting ready to go on the road and meet lots of clients in person. The post talked about how important that personal aspect of customer service is at thedatabank - and how much I enjoy it.

March 2009 | Adventures in Social Networking

I had just joined LinkedIn, and was amazed that 20% (ha!) of the people in our in-house database had LinkedIn profiles, according to the social data append service we had just launched. I wrote about the ways I envisioned nonprofits using social profile data: deepening relationships, prospect research, identifying uber-social supporters, and finding out which platforms are most popular among your constituents.

March 2008 | Goin' to Carolina (not just in my mind), Basin Street Blues, and Snow Day

This one used three of my favorite songs to highlight conferences and events around the US, including a visit to South Carolina - my 50th state! The spring of 2012 again includes many trips: the AFP conference in Vancouver, the NTC in San Francisco, the MCN Technology and Communication conference here in Minneapolis, a local educational event, the Georgia Nonprofit Summit in Atlanta, and the LCV State Capacity Building conference in Portland ME.

You can find an archive of all the past enews content, including Karen's Blog, on our web site. Don't forget to sign up to get monthly enews in your inbox!

6 Reasons Why Rogue Databases Happen

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:27:00 -0600

Rogue databases. We've all seen them: the spreadsheets and contact files that persist in foiling our plans for Ultimate Integration. The problem is complex, so I'll try to break it in to bite sized pieces for you. In this first post of the series, let's talk about some of the reasons why rogue databases exist.

I did an informal survey of colleagues, who have extensive experience uncovering and consolidating rogue databases for nonprofit organizations, and came up with these six reasons:

1. You don't have the right technical tools. There's no place in the database to store the information you want, or you can't get it out - at least not in the format you want.

2. You don't know how to use the technical tools you have. You haven't taken training or read the manual. There's no time for that! And, as a nonprofit employee, you're used to working with limited resources and DIY projects.

3. It's easier, at least in the short term, not to enter things in the database. You are busy. You use sticky notes, email (flags, stars), documents stored on your local computer, or paper files. You rely on your memory.

4. You don't trust the database, because you've been burned before, or you have a bad case of technophobia.

5. You are reluctant to put your list into a shared database because of territory, trust, or control issues. (What if so-and-so deletes something or messes up my categories?!)

6. You've never really thought about data management. How could database integration benefit you and your organization? What's the downside of sloppy data? When are separate databases a good choice?

We'll explore these questions, along with some practical strategies and tips, in the remainder of this blog series.

What's your experience with rogue databases? Do you have a 7th reason to add to this list?

Chime in with your comments, and stay tuned for the next post in this series: Is Integration Worth the Effort?

Valentine Brain Candy: Blogs I Love

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:15:00 -0600

Think of this post as a little box of truffles for your brain. Inside each of these links is something delectable. Savor them.

Blue Avocado - Thought provoking posts on nonprofit management issues, edited by Jan Masaoka. (Is this a good time to disclose that I have a professional crush on you Jan?) Blog | RSS feed

Future Fundraising Now - Featuring the sometimes sarcastic, always sharp-witted and inciteful, Jeff Brooks. This blog has lots of practical advice and tips on fundraising. Blog | RSS feed

The Good Counsel - Posts on nonprofit leadership and management, featuring the wisdom of Jim Toscano. Blog | RSS feed

MODG - When you're ready for a break from blogs that help you do your work better, bite into this. It's the cherry cordial that gets sticky goo all over your face. Posts range from schmaltzy to vulgar; you've been warned. Blog | RSS feed

Happy Valentine's Day, beloved readers!

What are some of your favorite blogs?

Is Your Nonprofit a Good Date? Creating a Welcome Email Series

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:00:00 -0600

Romance. It’s been a lost art for many a nonprofit, but email marketing can fan the flames of your constituent’s hearts.

How? According to The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Vendors, Q1 2012 report, 93% of survey respondents are running a welcome email series on a monthly basis. So if your nonprofit isn’t running a welcome email, here are some of the benefits and key implementation strategies to get started.

Benefits: We all know that good relationships are built on trust, even those between a constituent and a nonprofit. I've referenced this report before, but according to 'Understanding Giving: Beliefs & Behaviors of Colorado's Donors', 83 % of survey respondents cite trusting an organization as a "very important" factor when donating.

Let's look at a hypothetical situation for a nonprofit without a welcome email series, Sharon signs up to receive email messages from you. Most likely Sharon doesn’t know very much about your organization but at this moment is invigorated by your organization and your mission. She’s crushing on you a little bit. So you send her an automated thank you message for signing up. Then she waits. If you only send a monthly newsletter...she waits some more. Then finally your newsletter arrives, but by then she’s lost that loving feeling and the relationship moves forward in slow motion. She can still be won over but the time of courtship is prolonged.

What if instead, you roll out the red carpet for Sharon? With a Welcome Email Series, she can get to know you. While her interest is still piqued, she can learn what you care about, what makes you tick, and if you are a good fit together. If you’re going to start going steady, she needs to know what kind of nonprofit you are. Instead of this process taking months, it can happen in weeks.

Implementation tips:

The Look: Indicate that this is a special communication from you. Having a separate email template or a special banner lets your beloved know that this is in addition to the regular email you’ll send. Additionally, it’s best to indicate that this is say, email 2 out of 4 in the Welcome Email Series.

The Content: You might have got them in the door with your looks but what about your brains? Like a good first date, what does someone need to know in order to get to know you? It’s good to talk about your nonprofit’s accomplishments - just don’t get too braggy (nobody likes a braggart). What are the types of things that you can do together? It’s always good to have shared interests.

Frequency/Duration: The general norm seems to be a series of four emails, spaced about a week apart. Feel free to play around with this though.

Following these tips, you can grow that budding interest into a deep, meaningful relationship with your supporters.

Does your nonprofit send out welcome emails? What suggestions would you add to this list?

Meet the New Web Site - and Some Lessons on Web Site Redesign

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:51:00 -0600

This week thedatabank launched an updated web site. Here are some key changes:

A Learn section with white papers, guest articles, recorded webinars, and other resources for nonprofit organizations.
A Connect section with many ways to engage, from social media to "in real life" events.
The design has been streamlined to be easier to read, and convey the friendly personality of thedatabank.

Behind these changes are strategic efforts to increase the value of a relationship with thedatabank, step up to our growing role as thought leaders in nonprofit technology, make it easier for the search engines to find us, and connect with the nonprofit community through new channels.

What We Learned

This is the third redesign since I started at thedatabank in 2003, and the smoothest so far. Some keys to success:

All of our staff pitched in to proofread, and catch problems right away.
We cloned many key pages and worked on the content in parallel with the design process, so that as soon as the final design templates were approved, we were ready to make the switch.
Before beginning, we thought strategically about the audiences for the site, how they were getting there, their objectives, and our objectives. Once we had consensus on this, it became much easier to decide which items received top billing on the home page and navigation.
We nailed down messaging and branding prior to design and copy writing. Then we shared our internal Brand & Style Guide with the designer.
We used analytics to identify problems, such as dead ends, and pages that were under-performing on conversions. For example, we found out "Contact Us" was one of the most viewed pages on our site, and a common Exit page - yet we had no lead collection device on that page.

Just for fun, here's what the web site looked like on the day I started working at thedatabank. Keep in mind, the web was only around 3 years old when we launched this beauty!

Can Metrics Make Happiness?

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:44:00 -0600

What do Star Wars, Betterness, Three Cups of Deceit, Human Capital Performance Bonds, and my personal 2012 Goal Planner have in common?

I’ve been thinking long and hard about goals, and if they can make me a better person and better at my job. I’ve blogged a few times about the need for better metrics in your Nonprofit Fundraising and Advocacy, focusing on using data driven decision making. But I’ve had an a-ha moment.

In my brain, I’ve been slowly being seduced by the dark side, slipping towards believing that those things which can be measured are the same things that are important.

For my first trick, I will relate Star Wars, Betterness, and Three Cups of Deceit. This first link is personal. Being only able to bike intermittently this winter, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the bus with my Kindle. The aforementioned titles have recently passed through my queue.

Betterness, written by economist Umair Haque, proposes in an unrelentingly optimistic style to reach beyond GDP as the driver of our economy and instead focus on ‘betterness’. An oft repeated metaphor that explains his thinking is to imagine a car with a tachometer, but no speedometer. The car may be revving, but there is no way to tell if it is going anywhere.
Star Wars books have been a constant in my life for the past four years, and an outcome based approach of ‘betterness’ is clearly aligned with Jedi values.
Contrast this with Jon Krakauer’s expose on Greg Mortenson (founder of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute): Three Cups of Deceit. Krakauer’s claims clearly make Mortenson out to be more interested in his own personal gain at this point than the stated mission of his nonprofit. Sounds like Sith (dark side) behavior to me.

The Nonprofit Sector is leading a paradigmatic shift towards betterness. This is in part due to the brilliance of a Mission Statement (and if you have them, Ends Statements) that don't require green washing, brown washing, or astro turfing. Nonprofits are already great creators of wealth in the world (environmental, social, health, etc.), it's just not always tallied in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Because of that, most Nonprofits find themselves in a financial pinch - no dollar amount has been placed on the wealth they create.

This leads us to Human Capital Performance Bonds, known in a different form and more commonly, as Social Impact Bonds. The two most immediately appealing facets of which are opening up an untapped investor market and acknowledging economically those goods that Nonprofits create.

Which brings us back to measurement. Economics requires tangible numbers to guide us towards optimizing our results. As an example, we live in a world currently optimized for the most GDP. While this has improved our lives in a fundamental way, it's clearly not the best measurement of human happiness. So, as the goods that the Nonprofit Sector creates are commodified, we must remain prescient as to how those metrics we use to measure our performance influence our behavior, and whether they are creating the types of wealth that we truly want.

As for me, I recently looked at my 2012 goals and realized that pageviews and the amount of content I can produce aren't what I want to give to the world. I need to refocus how I measure the goods that I create, and reframing my goals is the first step.

We must all be wary of feeding numbers to our egos and forgetting those goods we seek in life.

“What truly differentiates the Sith from the Jedi is our philosophy - and our way of understanding the Force.”
-Darth Talon

You Are What You Buy - From Caveat Emptor to Value Based Buying

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:10:00 -0600

Buyer Beware

Back in the “goode olde” days of snake oil sales and shady sales people (thank goodness we’ve cleaned that up), there were no consumer protection laws. The onus on making a good purchasing decision was on the consumer. If they made a bad decision, there was no one to blame but themselves.

At some point within the last 50 years, states, and eventually the U.S. Federal Government, came to the aid of consumers. Laws were enacted protecting consumers from defective products, unscrupulous business practices, and a variety of other undesirable things that a company might do to make a sale. Recently, The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was enacted in response to the unethical financial practices that resulted in the Great Recession.

It’s been said that consumer protection laws only come into play after someone has been wronged, and then only if the wronged party pursues legal action. So even with laws in place, the burden still falls to the consumer when making buying decisions.The Internet has given consumers unprecedented access to information. Today there is easy access to product information, customer reviews, pricing and much more about anything a person or organization wants to buy.

Consumer Beware

Google and Facebook have built virtual empires selling freely given consumer data to advertisers who want to micro-target their sales pitch to the most likely buyers. Google and Facebook users, knowingly or not, are buying into the bargain that these companies can take whatever information they collect about their users and sell it for profit. And profit they do. Facebook is worth $100 Billion dollars, really?

Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t use Google or Facebook. Between my Chrome browser, my tablet and phone running Android, and my company’s switch to Google Apps, I suspect Google knows everything I do from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a bedside clock/media device running on Android, so they might invade that time as well.

Value Based Buying

When we began thedatabank back in 1998, we made a decision to operate as a Value Based company. What that means is we make business decisions, such as what to buy and who to buy from, based on a range of metrics beyond price. The practice of Values Based Buying is growing as consumers are becoming more aware of the companies they buy from, and the power they have in shaping those company's business practices.

The recent resurfacing of manufacturing issues at the world’s most loved and highest valued technology company, Apple, has again placed its business practices in contrast with its public image. Some people see no conflict between the two, but for many others it causes concern. The immediate result of this concern (whether real or perceived) has been increased efforts by Apple to improve working conditions and more transparency at various manufacturing plants. The slightest hint that consumers would move away from buying Apple products caused them to immediately react.

That’s the power of the consumer. And that’s why we should take our role as consumers seriously. We can each help shape the emerging economy by making informed purchasing decisions. What we buy says a lot about what we believe, and in today’s data tracking world your beliefs are being sold to the highest bidder. Now if I could just figure out how to buy some Facebook stock!

Caveat Emptor-

Chris Hanson
The Fortunate Technologist and CEO of thedatabank, inc.

re: spam

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:20:00 -0600

Email deliverability is a big concern for my nonprofit software clients. Recently, I read a new article from Idealware on deliverability, which did a nice job of clearing the fog around this topic.

Understanding and Improving Email Deliverability

Neither “snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” might stay the U.S. Post Office’s couriers from delivering the mail entrusted to them, but it’s a cold fact of the digital world that email has no such steadfast guardians. Some electronic mail will simply never reach its destination—it might go to a bad address, get caught in a spam filter, or routed to a “junk” folder where it’s deleted or overlooked. This can be frustrating for nonprofits who work hard to nurture a list of email addresses.

There are ways to increase your delivery rates when sending out mass mailings, however...(full article)

Key Take-Aways

1. Don't send spam. Send valuable content, and follow good opt-in and subscription management practices.

2. Choose a reliable bulk email tool with a good reputation.

3. Optimize your messages by using friendly templates, testing, and avoiding spam trigger words.

More Resources

Tips to Avoid Spam Filters (For Your Opt-In Messages) - more detail on how automatic spam filters work and how to avoid their hungry maws.

Creating a PowerMail Template - see how easy and flexible email templates are in the Databank, in this how-to article on our Support Center.

Cloud Nine

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:27:00 -0600

Last month, thedatabank signed a new three-year agreement with SunGard Availability Services to use their Enterprise Cloud Services platform to deliver our products. Instead of buying servers and installing them in our Saint Paul data center, a process that typically takes three to four months from purchase to production, thedatabank will run on virtualized equipment that is provisioned on an as-needed basis, which will allow us to scale our platform easily as our client base grows.

This is an evolutionary step in our long-term relationship with SunGard, who have been managing and monitoring our servers and internet bandwidth for several years now. We plan to test our own system on this new platform for the next couple of months before rolling it out to our customers.

While this change is not likely to be noticeable to our typical users, it is a major change behind the scenes. Some salient points:

High Availability: The Enterprise Cloud comes with a 99.95% uptime service level agreement (SLA) covering the hardware and networking.
Security: the cloud infrastructure conforms to security best practices and keeps all data private and within the US.
Rapid scalability: when we need new server resources, they can be brought online in hours or days, not weeks or months.
Stability: SunGard Enterprise Cloud is based on Vblock hardware produced by a joint venture of Cisco, EMC and VMware, giants in the networking, storage and virtualization worlds. The Vblock platform brings together best-of-breed hardware in a well-supported, integrated platform.
Small environmental footprint: (as a tree-hugger, this is my favorite point!) Our new servers will take up 85% less space and use 85% less power from operation and cooling than our traditional servers.

Our products have always been about "cloud computing", ever since we formed thedatabank in 1998 to deliver software-as-a-service. Now our server infrastructure itself is moving to the cloud. It's easy to imagine "the cloud" as a place that doesn't exist in the real world, but in this case "the cloud" is in Philadelphia, at one of SunGard's two Enterprise Cloud data centers. It really is just physical machines running software, like it always has been, but the term "cloud" seems to have some trendy magic to it. During the coming months we will find out how magical it is.

Using Donors' Beliefs to Fuel Fundraising

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:02:00 -0600

Many nonprofit fundraisers are looking for effective ways to segment their current and potential donors. However, segmentation alone does not make for a magical appeal.

Fundraising relies on researching your potential and current donors, along with answering some very substantive, but subjective, questions for them. While your organization may not have the resources to implement a broad survey of the populace regarding nonprofit fundraising, with a bit of research you should be able to find some great data which will help you answer some of those subjective questions.

One such study was done by the Colorado Generosity Project and the Colorado Nonprofit Association, titled Beliefs and Behaviors of Colorado’s Donors. This report is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their nonprofit’s communications and appeals. While the report is specific to Colorado (if you are Denver nonprofit or Colorado nonprofit, lucky you), much of the information could be extrapolated to a larger context. What’s most appealing about this fundraising data are the types of questions asked. Many organizations take for granted some of the most basic questions about their organization and overlook the fact that they need to communicate some very basic information to donors.

Three statements that almost all donors believe from the above report:

1. “Charitable organizations play a major role in making our communities better places to live”.
2. They donate, “Because you believe it is the right thing to do”.
3. An important factor when choosing an organization to support: “The organization is one that you trust”.

How much do you know about donors' beliefs: their reasons for giving and their view of the role of charities?

Does this change based on demographic factors?

While the above Beliefs and Behaviors Report of Colorado's Donors report can give you some greate ideas to start segmenting your appeals and more effectively targeting your communications, the true test is your success. This is where you have to go beyond what is in a report and use your nonprofit's or charity's software to take a look at how successful one appeal was compared with another.

If you know of any other reports on state level nonprofit fundraising beliefs, or if you would like to share some insights, please share them in the comments.