Elaina Buzzell, NPower’s Senior Program Coordinator and enews technician, highly recommends this article by David Greiner on creating rock solid html emails. Elaina is elated to have lots of  links and how-to’s in one place to help untangle the snags she hits in doing our own NPowering monthly enewsletter, such as:

• creating the lowest common denominator product for reader compatibility
• setting up tables to display text in columns
• working with images

If you’re wondering “Why bother with an enewsletter?”, consider this:  Greiner reminds us that despite the fact that all the “cool kids” are using social media (you can find NPower on Facebook here but no guarantee that we’re cool), enewsletters are still a dependable way to reach people. He quotes a recent survey which showed that every dollar spent on email marketing this year generated more than $40 in return, more that any of the “cool” communication channels.

To learn more:

• Check out the Rock Solid HTML Emails article here
• See Elaina’s efforts in action by signing up the receive the monthly NPower Notables enewsletter here

Interested in hearing about new trainings, recent nonprofit Web site launches, opportunities to work or volunteer at NPower and the latest on our 5th Annual Nonprofit Technology event? We’d love to share the news and hear from you on Facebook.

Become a fan on our Facebook page!

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

If there was still any room for denial that winter is upon us, the recent cold spell has certainly caught our attention.  In our house, that has resurfaced fond memories of last year’s snow and the prospect of more snow days.  Unfortunately, the grown up realities of work take away much of the associated magic.  In fact, a snow day can actually turn out to be a stressful affair when there is work to be done back at the office and you cannot get there to do it.

So what can be done to help prepare for this possibility?  Borrowing from the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, an “ounce of preparation can prevent a pound of frustration.”  Below are some suggestions for readying yourself for a work from home day:

• Get Ready: Before you actually need it, make sure that you are setup for remote access to your work’s network and have the instructions for how to do so.  If you are unsure about either, check with the IT manager, network administrator, or whoever wears that proverbial hat within your organization.
• Trial Run: Once you are setup and know the process for connecting remotely, give it a try … preferably before you actually need it.  This will allow you to work out the kinks, especially if there is any assistance or support you need to get it working.
• Be Prepared: Now that you have successfully connected to your office remotely, make sure that your essential work is accessible, including email, documents, and databases.  Also, make sure that you have access to any applications required for working with your data.  If you have a laptop, make sure that you have all the accessories available, in particular a power adapter and/or extra batteries.
• Know the Policy: Before the snow arrives, make sure that you know your organization’s inclement weather policy.  How will an office closure be communicated?  What is the expectation for working if the office is closed?  What if the weather is fine at your house, but not at the office (or vice versa)?  Are there any exceptions or restrictions to the policy?
• Communicate: If your office is closed due to weather, do not necessarily assume that your customers or partners will be closed also.  So start the day by confirming or rescheduling any meetings or appointments on your calendar.  To make this easier, make sure that your contact list is readily available.  Keep in mind that everybody might not have access to email, so you might want to make a phone call instead.
• Have Fun: Despite your best effort to be productive, sometimes it’s just not in the cards.  No power at home?  Unable to connect to the office?  About to go stir crazy?  Put the keyboard down, grab your kids, spouse, partner, neighbor, and/or dog, and reacquaint yourself with the fun and promise that a snow day once held.

In which case, get out the sled, build a snowman, or enjoy a cup of cocoa in front of the fire … and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I attended a really good training this morning offered by Kivi Leroux Miller at Nonprofit Marketing Guide. I really like her stuff (and I now have a 3-month all-access pass to her webinars so be prepared to hear more from me from this source) because she offers suggestions for best practices in ways that are easy to remember.

For example, this morning’s topic was “Writing for Social Media” and one of her suggestions was to follow the 6 G’s of Social Media, which break down into 3 ways to be and 3 ways not to be:

Be:

1. genuine
2. generous
3. grateful

Don’t be:

1. grandstanding
2. greedy
3. grabby

My ears perked up when she said about the 3 Be’s, “Do these three things and you have a social media strategy.” Aha, I thought, I know we need a strategy and if I can get there by focusing on three things then I’m a happy camper.

What does it mean to be genuine?
This is the one that grabbed my attention because often when I try to be genuine I’m pretty sure I don’t sound genuine at all.

• Kivi suggests starting by asking who you want to “friend” you so you can consider your audience regarding content, tone, or frequency of tweets/status updates.
• Next, be upfront about who’s writing this thing. Add personal details to build rapport. Give a sense of who you are as an organization and/or person.
• She also suggests picking three words that represent ways you’d like to be perceived (examples offered by the group today included friendly, knowledgeable, approachable) and writing consistently with those in mind.

Ask yourself - what’s the goal?
One other main point from today’s training is to be intentional about your goals when using Facebook, Twitter or other social media tools. Be clear about what you want people to do with the information you’re providing: Do something, Think something or Feel something. And aim for a mix of these three types of posts to best engage people, which is, after all, the main benefit of social media.

Interested in learning more? Check out these resources:

• To hear more from Kivi at Nonprofit Marketing Guide.Com, follow her on Twitter @kivilm, check out the Facebook page, or see the Web site.
• NPower Seattle will be offering a new class on Social Networking for Building Community starting in February, 2010 (exact date to be announced soon). Keep an eye on our training calendar for details, or sign up for our newsletter for updates.

Wishing you Happy “Be”ing and much success with social media!

Join TechSoup on Thursday, December 10th for their webinar on assistive technology:

Assistive Technology for Public Computers
Thursday, December 10, 11 a.m. Pacific time

Are you concerned about creating computer access for everyone? If so, you may want to consider using assistive technology. Not sure what that is or how it’s applicable to a public computer setting? This is the webinar for you! Kami Griffiths from TechSoup will interview Jane Vincent from the Center for Accessible Technology. We will discuss hardware and software solutions, their costs, and what it takes to get started.

This webinar is ideal for anyone who manages or volunteers in a public computer center in a library, housing development, or social service agency, but it’s also applicable to IT managers looking to better address staff needs.

Register now!

Oh dear, somebody gave the database folks access to the blog site…

Recently, I’ve had an opportunity to teach our Salesforce Foundation course here at NPower Seattle. We cover a lot of basics on the platform, including basic contacts, accounts, opportunities, and, time permitting, campaigns. During the course of these Foundation’s courses, I’ll often touch upon a subject that causes one of two reactions: “mild interest” (low murmur) or “total revelation” (blank stares). Either one of those reactions will usually drive me to the white-board for a further explanation. One of the pieces that always causes a white-board session is the notion of hierarchy in accounts and campaigns. It’s usually pretty easy to explain the parent account for the account object, our own NPower structure is a good example:

There’s more than three NPower’s out there (12 total), but you get the idea. You have one account record for NPower Seattle, one for NPower NY, and one for NPower Pennsylvania. You also have one for NPower National. The parent account for each of your (non-national) NPower’s is NPower National.

A school district is another great example of this. Seattle Public Schools might be your parent account for Garfield High School, etc. Or, UW Bothell campus might have a parent account of University of Washington. I’m sure you can think of some of your own examples as well…

So how does this relate to the campaign? Campaigns also have the possibility of a hierarchy. A campaign can have a parent campaign, which can also have a parent campaign, etc. (this can go on up to 6 levels deep.) Since we all know campaigns are about measuring the effectiveness of your outreach efforts (we all know this, right?), now we can measure the effectiveness of a group of outreach efforts, or a type of outreach effort, or even an entire funding drive, no matter how we’re reaching out!!!

Just like our account hierarchy above, we build a campaign hierarchy. However, instead of just connecting campaigns together, we can take data and “roll it up” the hierarchy. Let’s take a simple example. We have a new donor drive where we reach out to folks in our database who have never given to our organization. We want to reach out to them in two ways, one via direct mail, the other via email. To do this, we create THREE new campaigns: New Donor Drive Email, New Donor Drive Direct Mail, and then connect them both to the New Donor Drive parent campaign.

Now, we’re setup to measure not only the email and the direct mail effectiveness, but ALSO the overall New Donor Drive initiative!

So now, let’s suppose we’ve completed our Email Blast and our Direct Mail campaign, and let’s look at the results:

Direct Mail:

Email Blast:

And now finally, the results as they are displayed in our parent campaign:

So, as you can see, the opportunity statistics (as well as any other Sent/Responded stats you have) are auto-magically “rolled up” to the parent account, so you can measure the effectiveness of not only your individual efforts (each email blast, etc.), but ALSO the combined effect of ALL of your efforts! If we had multiple email campaigns as part of this effort, we could add another layer into the hierarchy to measure the effectiveness of JUST the email campaigns, like so:

Try it out in your own organization if you’re not already using this feature, you’ll be amazed at the information in your database you didn’t even know you had. Some quick things to remember: You’ll need to be a ‘Marketing User’ (the checkbox on the user record) to use Campaigns. You’ll also need to add the Hierarchy fields to the page layout of any campaign you’re using as a parent (if they’re not already visible), as well as the ‘Parent Campaign’ field on any child campaigns. Check out the ‘Help & Training’ link and search for ‘Campaign Hierarchies’ for more information on how to do this.

(P.S. Salesforce User? Nonprofit? Live in or near Seattle? Looking for some free coffee? Try the Seattle Salesforce Nonprofit Users Group. We meet once a month at NPower Seattle’s offices. Our next meeting is Wednesday, December 16th @ 8am.)

This article is also available via the Seattle Salesforce Nonprofit Users Group site.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving leftovers, it’s time for the monthly review of the top posts from the NPowering: Nonprofit Technology blog (based on page views):

• Choosing a Future of Rejuvenation: Takeaways from Paul Light’s presentation at October’s Nonprofit Governance Conference in Tacoma.
• The Path to End of Year Fundraising Success: Resources and advice for improving the message and strategy of your end-of-year appeal.
• Windows 7: Discussion on evaluating and planning for the upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.
• 7 Ways to Change the World Video Contest: Announcement of Microsoft’s Windows 7 video contest.  The contest has ended, but you can read more about the winners in this updated blog post.
• Windows 7 Evaluation & Upgrade Resources: Online nonprofit resources for evaluating and planning a Windows 7 upgrade for your organization.  Includes guides from TechSoup, TechFlash, and Lifehacker.

Happy Holidays!

Your help matters

We kicked off our end-of-year appeal today and we’re getting the word out about the opportunity to donate to NPower Seattle as you plan your year-end giving for 2009. If you’d like to play a role in supporting nonprofits, giving to NPower Seattle is a great way to leverage your donation to reach the 400+ nonprofits we serve every year. Please consider renewing or initiating your support for NPower Seattle. You can donate online or mail a check to us at NPower Seattle, 403 23rd Ave S, Seattle WA 98144.

For some examples of why your help matters, take a look at our “Who Changes the World?” video and peruse our library of Tech Impact profiles.

Why does technology matter even more now?

According to the 2009 Nonprofit Sector Economic Impact Report recently released by the Executive Alliance, more than 47 percent of Washington nonprofits reported that resources have decreased relative to the demand for their services or programs. Now more than ever nonprofits are seeking paths to more efficient and effective operations, and technology plays a key role in reaching that goal. Thanks to your support of NPower Seattle, Washington state’s nonprofits will be better equipped to respond to challenges and take advantage of new opportunities in 2010.

If you have any questions, or would like to schedule a time to see our work in action, please do not hesitate to contact Peg Giffels, Interim Director of Development, at 206-957-7726 or pegg@npowerseattle.org.

Thank you!