Tag Archives: CRM

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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Thanks to Charles Lenchner for today’s Organizing 2.0 Conference, where I presented a session on how to evaluate and implement a donor or membership database.  Thanks also to fellow speakers (among many others) Steve Dondley, Jason Lefkowitz & Colin Delaney who spoke about content management systems (particularly Drupal) and managing online consultants.

Last week’s Nten webinar on email list management strategy offered tips such as segment on constituent behavior not on interests so you can better target your communications.   According to the Agitator, email is still an important channel, but many readers may be reading them on their phones, making it even more important that your message is concise.  Big Duck also offers 7 tips for an effective e-newlsletter.

Facebook has (again) changed how pages are presented – The Social Path and Tech Cafeteria offer a look at the latest changes, and Beth’s Blog discusses a Facebook content strategy.

Using a slide show on your home page?  Future Fundraising Now suggests it may not be effective, even though many other sites are doing this.  Also see EchoDitto’s take.

I’ve noticed on the NYC subway lately that almost everyone is on their smart phones,  not a surprise since smart phone sales now exceed PC sales.  All the more reason to make your website mobile friendly.

Nten’s 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference next month will be the biggest and best ever.  Even if you can’t attend in person, you can now participate online.

News From NTC: New Reports on Social Media, Donor Management Systems

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During this week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, two new reports have been released:

  1. Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report by Nten, Common Knowledge and The Port shows that social networking has become an integral part of nonprofits’ online strategy.  A recent Washington Post article suggested that Facebook’s popular Causes application has not been successful in fundraising in comparison with email appeals and other more traditional ways to generate donations.   But Beth Kanter points out that the value of tools like Facebook can’t be measured only in terms of money raised.  I agree – when my marketing director recently asked me for fundraising results from our Facebook page, I pointed out that generating buzz and engaging constituents in our organization is also valuable.  Beth suggests we seek a metric to measure this.
  2. Idealware and Nten‘s Consumer’s Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems suggests looking at what features you need in managing your donor relationships before reviewing specific products.  Sadly, how often do our organizations go through this type of detailed evaluation before selecting a product?  Sometimes the problem isn’t the product, it’s the processes within the nonprofit and the training (or lack of training) that is provided to staff.  Make sure your database has a way to integrate with your existing systems – see my recent post on Reporting Across Multiple Systems.

Nten has also provided a way for those of who couldn’t attend NTC this year to participate online.  Make sure you take a look at Holly’s version of Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

Random Thoughts at Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year since it encourages us to stop and think about what is already wonderful about our life.  No matter what is happening (or not happening) in your life, feeling grateful is probably the best way to bring more good things to you.  I hope this weekend has given you an opportunity to focus on what is already good, not on what you don’t currently have.  Everyone is blessed in different ways, although sometimes we are too ‘busy’ to recognize it.

Answr.net is an interesting new resource which offers best practices in nonprofit technology.  The first ‘channel of focus is email outreach – read some questions submitted so far.

As a follow up to my previous post about going forward with online communication despite the financial meltdown, Robert Weiner offers links to several articles about how nonprofits can survive the economic downturn.  Guidestar also has released a recent survey which offers comparisons between 2007 and 2008 giving levels.

Nonprofit Times offers a look at microblogging, as well as an interesting look at how to plan to utilize social networking tools.

Finally, Nten has released a Donor Management Software Satisfaction Report, which is worthwhile reading for anyone who is considering a change in CRM platform.  Some of the top rating products may be some that you’re not familar with, such as GiftWorks (which I’ve used and can recommend) and Neon CRM.

Nonprofit Marketing Tips

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Attended an Nten Webinar this week on Marketing for Non-Profits, led by Robert Rose of CrownPeak Technology, providers of content management software.

Highlights from the presentation:

  • While it is not a good idea to have a lot of ‘private content’ available only to members or subscribers, it is wise to provide premium content in exchange for site visitors providing their email address and other personal information.  Many constituents will ‘register’ in exchange for a useful study or informative enewsletter
  • If you’re going to use web 2.0 tools such as blogs and podcasts, you have to commit to a regular update schedule.  Building an audience requires quality content and takes time to build.
  • Use a variety of tactics to engage constituents;  I find, for example, that while it’s convenient to get RSS updates, I open my email daily but don’t open my RSS readers as frequently.  In addition, subscribers can signup for RSS feeds without providing any information while email newsletters require, at a minimum, email address.
  • It’s more important to analyze who is visiting your web site than how many.

I asked Robert whether it’s still a practical goal to create custom web content for segments of your audience, as I’ve heard many vendors preach.  The reality – it’s usually enough of a challenge for a nonprofit to keep its content up to date for everyone than to develop targeted content for specific groups.  There are some good reasons to integrate CMS with your CRM database (e.g. so subscribers can access their past donation history online and print receipts) but the ability to customize web content isn’t one of them.

Robert also suggested that it is rarely necessary to build custom software, no matter how ‘specific’ your requirements may seem.  I agree. With so many strong CMS packages available, I don’t think there’s any excuse for any nonprofit not to have an updated web site as the foundation of its communications strategy.

Report from Boston Technology Conference

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On June 5, 2007, I participated in a panel at the Boston Technology Conference which discussed how CRM and CMS tools can be effectively used by nonprofit organizations.  Below are some major points:

CRM: A set of processes and supporting technologies used to acquire, retain, and enhance the relationships with all different constituent groups who interact with an organization.

CMS: Software tools that allow non-technical users to update a website without having to be a website designer.

Chris Atwood of SalesForce discussed how a CRM is used for marketing, sales and customer service.  He also mentioned the importance of identifying constituent groups (e.g. donors, volunteers etc.), outlining processes and workflow and the role of nonprofit staff in managing, analyzing and reporting donor data.  While Chris’ presentation was clearly not product specific, he pointed out that all nonprofits may receive 10 donated licenses to use SalesForce through Sales Force Foundation.

I then presented on how content management tools can be used to quickly add / edit / remove web content, and described types of CMS products (e.g. locally installed, hosted, open source vs. proprietary) available.  I also outlined several variables to consider when selecting a CMS:

  • Staff expertise
  • Frequency of site update
  • Approval levels needed
  • Type of site content
  • Budget
  • Stability of vendor
  • Integration with other systems
  • Availability of support

I also discussed the issue of whether to integrate CMS and CRM tools.  Integration provides the advantage of being able to easily send out segmented emails and web site content oriented towards specific groups of constituents.  Joomla, an open source CMS products which was presented briefly by Pradeep Suthram of PicNet, is especially strong in this area,   PicNet’s Nonprofit Soapbox, a hosted CMS tool based on Joomla, was also mentioned.

We ended our presentation with a recommendation of various resources:

Thanks to Tech Foundation for sponsoring this conference and to Chris & Pradeep for sharing their expertise.

Should nonprofits use hosted software?

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I participated in an interesting discussion recently on NTen‘s discussion group about how much nonprofit organizations should take advantage of hosted software applications.  I’ve been a proponent of ASPs / on demand software for quite a while now;  the only major application I haven’t switched over is email, which I continue to download to my local PC using Thunderbird.  But my main CRM (SalesForce) and calendar (Google) is web based;  I still can’t understand why my wife (and many others) insist on relying on Outlook where this information is stored locally where it is subject to computer / backup failure AND can only be accessed from that one location (or through remote access).

Nonprofits usually have limited technical resources, if any at all.  Using hosted applications reduces the need for a home grown networking infrastructure;  the main concern becomes having a reliable Internet connection.  But this doesnot mean that no tech savvy staff are needed.  The technical skills to support online applications are different from what is required to maintain local applications since it puts a heavier reliance on choosing stable vendors and maintaining these relationships.

As is the case with local software, choosing packages that play well with other vendors is important, so it’s helpful to investigate APIs and whether or not the vendors have previously developed links to other systems.

Nonprofits can of course get discounted (mostly local) software through services such as Tech Soup,  but in the long run hosted applications will win out.  It’s also fascinating that some nonprofits still insist on custom applications when there are so many web based programs that can do so much ‘out of the box.’

Nten’s annual conference kicks off next week, so I’m sure this topic will be debated anew.