The answer to THAT question, is nuanced - no easy answers! However, since many nonprofits are selecting Salesforce as their tool to track donors, volunteers, events, customers, and services, (to name just a few), I wanted to provide some broad estimates about how you can “size up” a potential Salesforce Project.

In general, when we help an agency implement and customize Salesforce, there are six major steps:

Understanding your business requirements. This can be as short as 4-8 hours of work if you just need help tracking donors, or can be quite lengthy if you are asking Salesforce to manage outcomes, measure the present day value of rental property, integrate with your website, or “talk” with another database.

Understanding and Moving your data. If you have existing data, we need to understand how it is organized, if it is normal, and create an import strategy to get that information into Salesforce. This can be as brief as 8-16 hours - or a lot longer if you have multiple data sources, or if you need to tidy up a lot of data.

Understanding your reporting requirements. Some reports are obvious - how many donations this month, and how many grant dollars have we applied for, for example. But you might also need reports about other demographics, about classes, students, languages, appreciated value of stock gifts and more. This can be as brief as 8 hours, or much more time intensive.

Understanding your roles and permissions structure. You might want to make sure that your volunteer coordinator doesn’t get to see the donor details! Managing security permissions isn’t challenging in Salesforce - but we do have to clarify your needs and then implement. Unless everyone is allowed to view and modify everything in the database, think 4-12 hours.

Configuring the essential template. There are some things that we think you should have, no matter what:

• A way to manage households and the relationships that exist between those in a household, the places where they work, and other contacts
• A way to easily run a report total with just one click
• A way to import and de-duplicate an external list and so on.
• A way to track campaigns or special events and the donations that result from them

Basic configuration takes about 8 hours -and then we do more work as needed.

Ensuring that you have accurate written documentation and training. This also varies based on the complexity of your implementation - but we like to deliver a solid written document and at least 4 hours of in person training.

So - for a very broad estimate of what a Salesforce implementation might cost - you should consider a basic donor management implementation will be in the 45-55 hour range, and a larger one can be double, triple, or quadruple that!

Special thanks to NPower Senior Consultant Evan Callahan for his technical review and edits!

Google announced that they’ve introduced a program to help nonprofits use the Google Earth mapping tool - with the hope being that nonprofits will be able to more effectively tell their story, announce their mission, and advocate for their work.

I’m delighted. Microsoft, SalesForce, Symantec, Adobe and many other vendors seem to be fully on board with providing their tools to nonprofits for a reduced (or sometimes free) fee - and that means that nonprofit agencies can put those tools to work in the service of their mission.

You can read more about the possiblitilies at the Google Earth Outreach site. And don’t miss the part about the Google Earth Pro software being made available for free via a grant application!

There’s that old adage that goes something like this: “it takes a computer to make a really big mistake”.  I think this is true - if you’ve ever accidentally sent a newsletter to the wrong distribution list, hit the enter button too fast, or simply lost all of your data - you know that the speed and power of the Information Age can work for you - or against you!

In the last few years, many nonprofits have had to figure out how to comply with HMIS requirements, HIPAA requirements, Charitable Solicitation requirements for nonprofits, and much more.

NPower is pleased to be partnering with  the experts at Seitel Leeds and Associates to present a two hour mini workshop on Information Security for Nonprofits. You’ll learn how to defend your data against many threats, and how to take next steps regarding your information security.

Just in from the folks at CMS Watch - Plone earns high marks, particularly in the areas of standards, access control, internationalization, aggregation, user generated content, micro applications, active user groups, and good value.

NPower Seattle has been using Plone for creating easy to manage websites for Puget Sound area nonprofits - and we’re pleased with both the tool and with the findings from CMS Watch.

You should read the entire article - and make sure you read to the very bottom, where the author encourages  what we would characterize as requirements gathering, as well as making sure you’ve selected the right vendor!

Last week, I wrote about “normal” data - and how it can be a challenge making sure that your data is normal!

Fixing non-normal data is one of the challenges we face when helping customers migrate their database into a new tool - but other pain point for many customers is what we call “dirty data” - and - there aren’t a lot of tools available to help automate cleaning up dirty data - here’s why:

Dirty Data stems from inaccurate, incomplete, or redundant data, rather than data that is in the wrong format.

Sometimes, dirty data masquerades as non-normal data - for instance, if you don’t have strong coding or strong policies in place, you’ll end up with inaccurate or redundant data, like this:

FName    LName    Street                 City       State    Zip
Patrick    Shaw     403 23rd Ave S   Seattle  WA       98144
Pat         Shaw     403 23rd Ave S   Seattle  WA       98144
             Shaw      403 23rd Ave S    Seattle  WA       98144

In this example - it can be challenging figuring out if each of those contact records is the same person - and over time - it gets worse. Perhaps I have two bank accounts, and one has a PO Box and the other my street address. Then you end up with the same first and last name - but a different address. You can see that this gets complicated - especially if I make a donation to your agency! But this is redundant, or non-normal data - and dirty data is different. Here are some examples of dirty data:

• A date field that has various information in it:
  • 03/31/2007
  • March
  • 2nd Quarter
  • Not sure
• Number fields that contain a combination of numbers and text:
  • 3
  • At least three
  • Not sure
• Variations and misspellings of names:
  • WA
  • Wash.
  • Washington
• Phone fields that contain more than one phone number or text:
  • (206) 286-8880 and (206) 957-8880
  • (206) 286-8880-Home
• Addresses that aren’t split into consistent fields for Street, City, State, Zip

You can see the challenges posed by dirty data - and how it can be hard to automate a fix - it usually involved Excel, auto filtering, search and replace, and so on.

Here are some tips for preventing dirty data:

• Make sure that you look up names in your database BEFORE creating a new record!
• Make sure that you can have an “alias” or a “nickname” field, so you can keep track of both a legal or official name as well as a nickname.
• Use Data Validation in your database. For instance, you can make both first and last name required fields - so that you won’t end up with a record without both.
• Create a “Quick Tips” guide for using your database, and spell out how you’d like people to enter data.

(Special thanks to the database experts at NPower Seattle for their help with this post, particularly Evan Callahan and V. Waters).

Laptops are ubiquitous - they are affordable (mostly!) small, easy to carry around, and can let you work at home, at work, in a coffee shop, or (here in Seattle) anywhere in Colombia City, where there is City sponsored wireless access!

So - what should you get?

The Winston Salem Journal has a terrific write up on many of the moving pieces, and I recommend that article as a great starting spot. It has lots of great information that will help you understand hardware needs.

In addition - here are some things that I would add:

• If it is a personal laptop that you will use for work - make sure you get an operating system and a productivity suite that matches what you have at the office - but only if you don’t have to go backwards in software! For instance - I have Outlook 2007 at home and at work - and that means that I only have to get used to one interface for reviewing and sending mail.
• Back up your new laptop a lot! Perhaps daily! You are more at risk for data loss for the reasons I mentioned in the first paragraph!
• Buy from a name brand vendor with a national presence. You’ll pay a bit more than if you get a “white box” from a local agency that puts the box together in their shop - but you’ll know that you can return your laptop for service.
• Consider a strong warranty. My current laptop at work has traveled back to a name brand vendor twice - all on their dime!

Good luck - and enjoy!

The Seattle nonprofit community has bragging rights to both Steve Andersen (at ONE/NW) and Evan Callahan (here at NPower Seattle) - two top notch database experts. In addition to their database skills, they both bring a huge commitment to the nonprofit sector, and their individual and collective work to help nonprofits use Salesforce for their data tracking needs is making an impact on the sector.

Steve and Evan recently attended a conference hosted by the Salesforce Foundation - the goal of the conference was to find out how the Foundation could continue to help nonprofits adopt Salesforce. Steve has a terrific write up from the event, which I’d recommend to anyone considering using Salesforce. Here’s a quick excerpt from Steve’s write up:

“Just the fact that the Foundation put on a gathering with the explicit goal of asking us how they can serve nonprofits better is very telling.”

Nonprofits are adopting Salesforce to manage donors, volunteers, grants, programs, people, enewsletter delivery and more. There are a lot of ways to find out more about if this is the right solution for your nonprofit - and the experts on the NPower Seattle team have added to that list! You can review the slides from our NPower Seattle Introduction to Salesforce Workshop AND you can review some data from the team at Network For Good regarding Network for Good Salesforce Nonprofit User Survey, and why!

Salesforce is an interesting blend of what we call “off the shelf” software and custom software development. If your data model is a good match for Salesforce, then you get to start with a tool that is established and well tested and well supported, rather than having someone build those features from scratch. And since it is customizable - it’s likely that it can be modified to suit the particular needs of your nonprofit - your workflow, your set of dropdown lists, your reports and more.

We’re still helping customers use Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro effectively - those tools aren’t going away. But if we can leverage a rock solid application, at the right price point, and still meet your needs - we think that your total costs will be lower and your satisfaction will be higher!

Ouch - that sounds so, well, judgmental! Who wants to be told that their data isn’t normal (which makes it abnormal, right?) However - if you’re getting ready to move from a tired database, a list in Excel, or a table in Word - keep reading. your data probably could use some cleaning - and you’ll save time and money by doing that on your own!

So - what IS normal data? You can read all about it at Wikipedia and other places if you wish - but at its simplest, I think normal data has these characteristics:

1. You only have ONE kind of data in a field.
2. You enter all of the data in the field using the same criteria - for instance - all phone numbers must include an area code, or all zip codes must have a ZIP plus4.
3. You arrange your data (this can be hard to figure out) by function. For instance, all contact information belongs in the same table - but donations belong in a table all of their own.

Suppose you are keeping track of individual donors - you might have a record that looks like this:

FName LName Street City State Zip

Patrick Shaw 403 23rd Ave S Seattle WA 98144

You can tell that I have a field for my First name, my Last Name, my Street Address, my City, State, and Zip. This is normal data!

But what happens if you find out that I’m sharing a house with my twin brother? Then you might be inclined to do this:

FName LName Street City State Zip

Patrick and Paul Shaw 403 23rd Ave S Seattle WA 98144

Well - that doesn’t seem so bad at first glance - but what that really means is that now you can’t send a letter to just me - everything will have to be addressed to Patrick and Paul - you won’t be able to send just ME a thank you note. This is “non-normal” data.

You can solve this by creating a new record for my twin:

FName LName Street City State Zip

Patrick Shaw 403 23rd Ave S Seattle WA 98144
Paul Shaw 403 23rd Ave S Seattle WA 98144

But we have the same address - so you might end up sending us TWO invitations to your next event, making us think that you aren’t careful with saving your paper. You can solve this using the concept of a Household - where a household is a “parent” or associated record, and Paul and I both belong to that Household. Then - you can send print mailings and other sorts of correspondence to the Household (just one copy!) and can also keep track of our individual contact information, donor records and so on.

So - what’s the takeaway? If you are considering a migration to a new tool, or if you have the ability to edit your existing tool, you can start “normalizing” your data. That might mean you have to create new records, adjust your naming conventions and so on -but it will help in the long run!

I attended the 2nd annual NetSquared conference in San Jose last week - it was great. Net Squared narrowed a list of 150 or so nonprofit tech innovation projects to 21 - and we spent two days interviewing and working with each of those 21 finalists, and voted at the very end to select recipients of cash grants.

It was a terrific mixture of nonprofits, technologists, vendors, and those from the philanthropy community. The list of winners deserves a read- but here’s a short recap:

Maplight.org - A Light on Money and Politics
MAPLight.org illuminates the connection between money and politics. We connect campaign contributions and votes for U.S. Congress, providing groundbreaking transparency so that bloggers, journalists, and citizens can hold legislators accountable.

Miro, Open Source, Open Standards video
We are to Google, AOL and YouTube what public television is to the big networks. We are a nonprofit, fully open source and open standards, dedicated to creating

The Freecycle Network
By empowering globally local social networking, we have created a gift economy/community. The magic: it’s easier to give something away than throw it away & keeps it out of landfills; a cyber-curbside; a digital segue from commodity to community.”