It’s easy to always be sure that we know what we know, right? A lot of the time, what we know actually IS true - and sometimes - we walk around with something that we “know” that isn’t true anymore, or maybe wasn’t true, ever. I remember when one of my nieces told me that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. I humored her for a bit, cornered my sister to ask what was going on at my niece’s school - and then found out later that my niece was mostly right - better science means that we get to change our mind, we get to “know” more about the dinosaurs. And it looks like warm blooded might be the better answer to know.
There are lessons here in the nonprofit world, particularly when it comes to measuring your successes and failures:
- Make the time to periodically review what you think you know, and check your assumptions.
- Who are your top donors?
- How much time do you lose when your team can’t update you website?
- What is the total cost of a new database?
- Does your e-newsletter get more hits when you send on a Wednesday or a Monday morning?
- Take a step back and ask if you’re measuring the right thing.
- Is the total number of records in your donor database tell you what you need to know?
- Perhaps you should be looking at the inactive folks in that database to determine why they are inactive.
- Is your database really as terrible as you think?
- Maybe it’s a training gap that you can fix quickly and easily.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for advice.
- We all can’t know everything, and we all make mistakes.
- Decision making by committee isn’t always a great idea - but I’ve rarely been disappointed with information gathering by committee.
- Cultivate people with a different point of view, set of experiences, belief set. You’ll learn something, and so will they.
I love to be right, don’t get me wrong. But you know what? I can change my mind to be right, and often times, that’s even better: I’ll have learned something, acquired new and better information, and will be better equipped to find “right” the next time -because I checked some assumptions, I measured the right stuff, and I asked for help!
A lot, it turns out - your designer can make choices in the design phase that can significantly reduce the ease in which search engines can find your site.
Search Engine Optimization is important -both during the design phase of your project AND after your site has launched.
During design, you’ll want your designer to understand how and when the use of tools such as Flash or AJAX may reduce the searchability of your site - and you’ll want to review those choices and measure the benefit: is it better to look great or is it better to be seen? This is a business choice that you should make before you approve your design!
AFTER the design phase - you’ll want to keep an eye on your keywords, the titles of your pages, and much more. There’s a terrific SEO Guide for Designers available at Web Designer Wall - it will take you all of 5 minutes to read - but a lot longer to implement!
PS - We implement Plone here at NPower Seattle - and I’m happy to report that Plone does a terrific job with “friendly names” and with other items mentioned in the article, such as managing your keywords!
The team at ONE/NW has done it again - a brief one page set of instructions that tell you what you need to know to prepare effective email alerts. It will take 5 minutes to read, and you should. To get you started, here’s the first rule:
Cut The Fat: Keep alerts short and think like a reporter: put the most important stuff up top. Get rid of the wordy, patronizing “happy talk” that we all tend to start articles with. See Jakob Nielsen’s article “Writing Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace” for more.
And you can read the rest here!
We’ve been implementing Plone and Salesforce for the last pair of years - and I was thinking about my early days at NPower. When I began working here 5 years ago - there weren’t a lot of software options from the open source community that we thought were a good fit. Sometimes, it was because the software wasn’t ready. Sometime it was because the software was great - but there wasn’t any documentation. And sometimes it was because there didn’t appear to be a strong enough community to support that software.
That has changed a lot - and lately, I’ve been thinking about the different way some software is described - here’s a quick primer:
- Open Source: This is software that you can acquire and install and can modify the underlying code to make it do what you want. For example, Plone is open source, and Photoshop is not.
- Open Data Model: This has more to do with the vendor than the software - but when I think of “open” software, I think of if I can access and manipulate that software and if I can integrate it with other tools. For instance, both Plone and Salesforce have an open data model - they can exchange information freely (provided someone knows how to connect them, and we do!) without breaking a licensing agreement or paying an additional fee. Blackbaud products aren’t open - if you connect without purchasing an additional license, you void your contract.
- Open Pricing: This is admittedly fuzzy. But I think that if a vendor is selling a product, they ought to commit to a pricing structure, even if they best they can do is offer a range. Some tools are free or freely available. For instance, Plone is free to use (but probably not free to configure). Salesforce will grant you 10 licenses if you are a qualifying nonprofit - but you should probably find an expert to help you configure and import your data. And many Microsoft products are available for an administrative fee.
I’m pretty excited about the combination of all three of these “open” descriptions - some items are free or freely available, some are easy to integrate, and some are transparent about their pricing model. All told - this translates to good news for the nonprofit sector!
I just started using a Firefox add in called Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - it’s terrific - it lets me manage all of my bookmarks (or Favorites, if you’re used to Internet Explorer language) and have the synchronized on multiple machines. Since I spend some time working at home - that means that I always have the same links right at hand!
And I just started using an encryption tool for my USB thumb drive, courtesy many great recommendations from the Information Systems Forum. It is open source software that has powerful tools to protect that data. The software is called TrueCrypt, and you can read and download to your heart’s content!
And I’m also using a Getting Things Done plug-in for Outlook - it lets me manage small projects, create “waiting for” tasks, manages my next step items and more. It maps nicely to the GTD methodology and it’s been a sound investment!
My team is growing - I’ve just posted two job descriptions -I’m looking for a Senior Consultant - AND a Consultant to join our CRM/Salesforce practice!
We’ve been implementing Salesforce.com for nonprofit customers for two years now - and integrating with Plone (our website tool) as well as Vertical Response (an enewsletter tool). When we marry those three tools, we can offer nonprofits an exceptionally powerful suite of tools to manage their donors, volunteers, services, and communications needs.
Our mission sets our practice apart. We’re a nonprofit, and we provide services and tools to other nonprofits to help them better meet their mission. That means that we emphasize planning, we focus on immediate needs, we contain costs and we leverage our almost 10 years of expertise in the community, particularly in areas such as donor management, volunteer management, service and client tracking and more.
Some of our solutions for customers are a small, first step - helping them gather all of their key stakeholder information into one place for effective tracking. And others are larger, including creating custom objects, integrating with Plone, Google Maps, PayPal and more.
Our work is invigorating, too - we provide education, we constantly learn more about how nonprofits are making our community better, and we create effective solutions. If that describes the work you’d like to do - make sure you send in a resume and a cover letter!
I’m just back from the Vancouver Marathon - I ran with my brother Frank. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my running watch was in the shop - and it didn’t arrive in time for me to take it to the race - so I ran the first 17 miles without a watch. My brother had been nursing an injury - and when he decided to stop, he immediately handed over his watch, and I ran that last nine miles with it - and I’m reminded:
Focusing on the important data (and knowing what data is important) is key to a successful venture!
I wasn’t wearing a heart rate strap, so I couldn’t measure my effort level with the watch - but I COULD keep track of how long it took me to run each of those nine miles - and that provided some key information:
- There wasn’t any way I’d crack a 3:30 marathon. This let me know that a steady, measured effort was in order, rather than a full on sprint to the finish.
- I was able to use that first mile time to re-evaluate my effort. I went out a tad fast for that first solo mile - and if I hadn’t had the watch - I probably would have faded in the last few miles.
- I was able to adjust to the hills because I knew that slowing some on the hills was a good idea -and without a watch - I couldn’t measure “slowing some”.
- After I passed mile 25 - I knew my pace so I knew when I’d see the finish line. That meant that I didn’t make a hasty sprint too early - or too late.
So - what is the right stuff that you should be measuring? The number of gifts you’ve solicited? Or the ones you’ve received? Maybe it’s the number of clients no longer needing your help that is the right stuff? If you can determine the important data, and use your tools to stay focused - your chances of success are great!
