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Nonprofit Radio for January 10, 2022: Nonprofit Software Vulnerability With log4j

My Guest:

Joshua Peskay: Nonprofit Software Vulnerability With log4j

Happy New Year! There’s a software risk gaining attention and there’s a good chance you’ll need help diagnosing and repairing it. You don’t need to horde gas, cash and toilet paper. Just be aware and do the repair. Joshua Peskay, from RoundTable Technology, sorts it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[00:00:10.04] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:01:11.84] spk_1:
Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with Producto Sigmoid itis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, non profit software vulnerability with log four J Happy New Year. There’s a software risk gaining attention and there’s a good chance you’ll need help diagnosing and repairing it. You don’t need to hoard gas, cash and toilet paper, just be aware and do the repair Joshua pesky from roundtable technology, sorts it out And Tony’s take two. Thank you jean and Amy sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o.

[00:01:45.14] spk_2:
It’s a pleasure to welcome back Joshua pesky eh he has spent nearly three decades leading technology change for over 1000 nonprofits. It’s especially dedicated to improving cybersecurity in the nonprofit sector and works regularly with at risk organizations to address digital security challenges. He regularly presents and teachers on topics including technology strategy, cybersecurity project and Change management. You’ll find him at Joshua pesky a and the company is roundtable technology, Joshua. Welcome back to nonprofit

[00:01:54.14] spk_3:
radio It is an absolute pleasure to be here. tony Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:01:58.17] spk_2:
Oh, it’s it’s my pleasure to and it’s been the three years or some since, since 18. NTCC

[00:02:05.47] spk_3:
when you were Yeah, which was that the no that was the second to last in person in TC they did the 2019 1 and then it’s been virtual since Yeah,

[00:02:14.24] spk_2:
2nd the last yes

[00:02:16.74] spk_3:
and Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well. Happy holidays to you and all your listeners as well.

[00:02:26.24] spk_2:
They’re our listeners today. Not my listen, they’re ours share and share. That’s fair. Our listeners.

[00:02:30.24] spk_1:
Um all right.

[00:02:42.74] spk_2:
Log four J potential security vulnerability that uh, well it is a security vulnerability that nonprofits potentially have give us the, the the 30,000 ft view before we dive in. What, what is this log for? J?

[00:05:43.74] spk_3:
Yeah. So log four J. First of all, on a technical level is a java based, that means the programming language that it’s written in his java and it’s a logging utility that is used predominantly on servers on what are known as Apache servers which run just a huge amount of the things that run on the internet. And this logging utility um, is a little bit of code that developers used to log things that happen on the server and then generate reports or create actions to help them identify bugs or other things that would go on. So that’s what log four J is and it’s very, very widely used. Um, and unfortunately it was disclosed, I think around December 10 was when it became public knowledge that there’s a pretty rough vulnerability in it that allows an attacker to essentially take control of a server that is running log for J in an incredibly simple way. And the organizations like the center for Information security um and the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency or cisa um they use this um terminology called si ves which is common vulnerabilities and exposures I think um I always forget what that stands for. Um yeah, common vulnerabilities and exposures are cbe, they have ratings of like 0 to 10 for how bad it is. So zero is like that’s not too bad. 10 is this is Armageddon and this is a 10 and the reason it’s a 10 okay, is twofold in the most simple way. One is that it’s a actually, I’ll say three. Okay, there’s three reasons. One is that it the vulnerability is the most, the worst thing possible that the exploit of the vulnerability allows complete takeover of the system that is exploited. So if your server is running this log four J utility and I can send it a single packet of data, I can take it over and now do anything I want on that system. So it’s really bad. Second is that at a rough estimate, uh this is running on something on the order of three billion devices um that are connected to the internet in some way. So it’s running on everything. And the third thing is that doing the exploit is incredibly easy. So a 12 year old can go download a little bit of code off the Internet and automate it and go out and find servers that are running along for J and take them over. So incredibly easy to exploit. And the combination of those three things is why all the security experts around the world started freaking out To varying degrees around December 10.

[00:05:55.54] spk_2:
Okay. And and sister calls it a 10 out of 10. Yeah, this is all very interesting. I just saw the movie. Don’t look up with Leonardo Dicaprio jennifer Adams, Meryl Streep.

[00:06:00.49] spk_3:
Someone was just telling you about this movie. I have not seen it yet, but mixed things about it. But yeah,

[00:07:24.24] spk_2:
a comment is coming to earth. Uh, they this comment is categorized as a planet killer. Uh, and the President Meryl Streep is uh, not initially focused, you know, and she, in the first meeting with the two folks who have identified this comment and its trajectory right toward Earth. You know, she decides to sit tight and assess and, and their estimate is that the comment is gonna hit Earth within six months. And it’s a it’s a planet killer. It’ll it’ll make us extinct. But she takes a sit sit tight and assess approach. Yeah. Right. So, so I’m I’m tempted. Um, No, but I don’t wanna I don’t wanna be that like physical about it. Um, but I want to keep things in perspective too. So, but 10 out of 10, you know, from sister. That’s that’s significant that obviously. So. All right. And thank you for explaining why it’s called log four J and what a logging application is. I’ve I’ve sometimes looked at logs and it’s just thousands of lines of activity that could be incremental, like every every couple of seconds or something depending on what the, what the, what the, what the activity is that the log is logging. Um it mean it means nothing to me but

[00:08:14.94] spk_3:
to write essentially a bit of code that runs on servers. Um there’s a really funny XK C D cartoon. I can, I can send you if you want to include in the show notes. Um XK C D is a cartoon by a cartoonist named Randall munroe. And he created this cartoon like two years ago. That’s like uh you know, the entire internet infrastructure. And it’s like this giant kind of house of cards thing, you know that everything is on top of. And then at the very bottom there’s like this one thing that’s holding the whole thing up and it’s like, this is a bit of code written for free and maintained for free by some developer in a small town in Nebraska. And this was like two or three years ago that he wrote this because he’s kind of like noting how so much of the critical infrastructure of the internet are just open source free projects that people maintain in their free time. And this is, this is almost literally that like this is just a utility that someone made a long time ago that no one pays for that’s free to use that was useful and everybody used it. And then it was like, oh, this has a vulnerability. We we now have to fix it and it’s everywhere.

[00:08:29.53] spk_2:
Send me a link to that that drawing because I know the one you’re talking. Another one you’re talking about. I think I saw it on your linkedin.

[00:08:35.54] spk_3:
Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:08:37.35] spk_2:
But I want to include it. I’m gonna put it next

[00:08:39.11] spk_3:
to your headshot show in our show notes. Yes.

[00:09:35.04] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications Your 2022 communications plan, lots of projects on their, lots of writing. You can take the biggest projects off your plate and outsource them. Free up staff time to devote to the work. It’s not feasible to outsource the annual report does not need to be done in house just because it always has been, doesn’t mean it has to be. How about research reports, white papers, this stuff can be outsourced. Do you need help with your writing projects in 2022? Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to nonprofit software vulnerability with Log four J and Joshua Pesky EH

[00:09:44.04] spk_2:
And you also said it’s on three billion devices now, potentially. So it’s not just server level. Right? This could be an

[00:12:36.74] spk_3:
individual works problem. Yeah. And so, so here’s where everybody’s gonna start panicking, right? Which is, they’re like, well, if there’s three billion devices go ahead. Yeah well we don’t wanna panic. Right. Right so so people are thinking oh gosh I must have one of those devices or or more more of them in my home. And so the first thing is just you know calm down take a breath. Um But it it’s the most critical things are you know from a prioritization standpoint are things that accept input from the internet. Now this might be something that non technical people would would have difficulty understanding. But the average computer that you’re using or the printer in your home most likely is not accepting input from the internet meaning someone from the internet can’t just go and communicate with your printer or your coffee maker or your amazon Alexa. Right? Because it’s not accepting input from the internet. The way most devices on most networks and in most homes work is it’s a kind of one way invitation traffic rule. So your computer can get data from the internet and in that respect accepts input because the data comes in. But the only way data comes in is when you request it. So when you type google dot com in your web browser your computer is essentially making a request out to the internet and saying I’d like this information sent to me and then the internet sends it. But the internet can’t on its own. No one out of the internet on their own can send data to your computer without you requesting it. Okay that’s most cases, most people wouldn’t know whether their network or their devices are set up to receive input from the internet or not. But mostly they wouldn’t be they would have to have done something specifically to put themselves in a state where their home devices would be accepting data from the internet. But if you have a server that you’re using for any reason in your organization that accepts input from the internet then that server is if that server has this vulnerability on it by the time you’re hearing this podcast, it’s probably compromised already. And the term that cisa and C. I. S. And other security agencies uses assume compromise and that’s the stance they’ve had for several weeks. Now we’re recording this in december 28th. If you’re listening to this, let’s say january 15th. You know you’re and you have a server or more servers that are X. That are accepting input from the internet that have this vulnerability and you’ve done nothing about it at this point. You would assume compromise and that means um you need help. You need someone who knows how to go look at your server and look for indications of compromise and remediate them meaning fix them and undo them so that your server is not compromised. Um You’ll need help at that point. Okay

[00:13:04.94] spk_2:
let’s start with the first of all, thank you for being a calm voice and and explaining things. So you keep yourself out of jargon jail, which I appreciate our listeners appreciate. I I hate to slap you into jargon jail so

[00:13:09.83] spk_3:
but keep me keep me honest on it, tony If I, if I say stuff that’s like, you know, if I’m either being condescending or you know, you know, saying things that you are not, you know, the folks aren’t gonna understand. Call me out all the time. I

[00:13:53.94] spk_2:
will well condescending, I’ll just shut off your mic and we’ll just end perfect. I don’t I don’t tolerate condescension but jargon that’s recoverable. So let’s start with the case. Uh, you know, our listeners are small and midsize nonprofits. Let’s start with the nonprofit that does not have a person devoted to I. T. Let alone a team or you know, doesn’t have a devoted consultant. Do they need a consultant? Can they what what what should the non I. T. Affiliated nonprofit?

[00:17:13.64] spk_3:
Sure. So let’s say you’re you know f 5 to 50 person nonprofit. Maybe even up to 100 staff. Okay. And you have no dedicated I. T. Person, maybe you have an accidental Tuckey maybe of like a you know joe or jane laptop that helps you out with stuff, you know, as a consultant or maybe you work with a small managed service provider. Um someone who helps you with your technical, but let’s say you don’t have any dedicated resource. Okay. Whether you’ll need help or not, depends on whether the directions that I’m going to give you now are something you could do or you have someone in your organization who could do this. So what you would need to do okay is I’m gonna use two big words and then I’ll explain them. Enumerate and remediate. Okay. These are the two most important things to do in order. Enumerate. All right. Or enumeration is the act of figuring out what are all the things we have that may be vulnerable to this exploit. Okay. So I’ll give you just a simple example. We know uh and there’s a link will give you in the resource because again, C I s has a resource of all of the software applications, products, devices that are known to have a log for j vulnerability in that. So let’s say for example, I’m a typical nonprofit and we’re we have out of our 10 staff. We have five of them that use tableau desktop because we purchased it from tech soup and we used Tableau to do some data visualizations. That’s a really common application that lots of nonprofits would have running on their desktop. They probably aren’t updating it that regularly. Could be an older version Tableau which is now owned by Salesforce. So it shows up under Salesforce is listed in this directory of all the vulnerable applications. So you need to if you know that I have Tableau, I need to go to this list I need to search for Tableau and then I need to follow the links to see if the versions of Tableau that I have are in fact vulnerable and if so what I’m supposed to do about that, which is usually going to be to run some patch that updates it. So you need to do that for everything that you have. So the enumeration part is figuring out what’s all the software and devices that we have. Our firewalls are wireless access points are the operating systems that run on our computers, the software that runs in our computers and for many organizations, you’re already saying we have no idea about any of those things. We don’t have that written down anywhere. We don’t and that’s a real problem. And that that problem, you know, when, when you go to best practices about how to govern technology, they’ll say have an inventory, have it current, you know, having automated, so you can just go look online and right, this is why this is one of the reasons why that’s really important. If you don’t have that, this job at this time becomes extremely difficult for you. But if you don’t do it, You have no idea what vulnerabilities you have. It’s like not going in to get a physical in your doctor’s office for 20 years. You know, when you finally do go in, you’re probably gonna find a bunch of things that you maybe would have wished you found out earlier.

[00:17:20.14] spk_2:
Alright. So even before we get to remediation. Enumeration sounds overwhelming.

[00:17:47.04] spk_3:
If that sounds overwhelming then you need help. If there’s some if you have your accidental tech in your organization, you play them that part of this interview and you asked them could you do that? Apologize for sirens coming by? I don’t know how my Yeah, sorry about that. But if that person listens to it and says yes, I can do that. Give me a day or two. I’m pretty sure I can do that. Hey then you can do it if you have them listen to that and they’re like, I absolutely can’t do that. That sounds totally. Then you need help.

[00:18:01.14] spk_2:
Okay, let’s go to remediation then. So once you found out where your potential vulnerabilities are,

[00:18:07.04] spk_3:
yes, we do this

[00:18:08.04] spk_2:
patching. It sounds like in

[00:19:46.94] spk_3:
most cases exactly. So we’re saying okay, we’ve got five people running Tableau desktop, this is the remediation that we need. This is the software that needs to be updated. This is the setting that needs to be changed. I just whatever the instruction says, I need to go do it and check it off my list. So let’s say we have a sonic wall firewall that’s in our office network and that’s still running and we still have people coming to the office. So we need that to work. I need to go to the C. I. S for the enumeration piece um go see if the model of Sonic wall and the software version that we have on it. That’s our firewall. Is that listed here? If it’s not? Yeah. See we’re good. I can check that off the list if it is listed now. I need to follow the link through and see what is the remediation that I’m supposed to do to fix the vulnerability. Right. The enumeration part is I now know it’s vulnerable because it showed up on the list and then I verified it’s and it’s part of why this is hard for non technical people is you know, sonic wall has I don’t know 100 different firewalls that are out there in the world. Maybe more than that. And they’re at all different software versions. Right? And firmware versions. Firmware is like software that sits on a hardware device so it’s typically called firmware. Alright? But it’s just like software, you update it just like any other software and so I need to both see what model of sonic while I have the software or form firmware version that I’m running on it verify whether that sonic wall and that software version are vulnerable. And if so what I need to do to remediated and I need to do that for everything that I have. All right.

[00:19:56.94] spk_2:
Let’s just let’s let’s just get help. You’re just gonna have to if you don’t have someone devoted who can do this like like Joshua said play it back for them. It sounds it sounds as far into them as it does to me. You need you need you need help. You need help. Alright.

[00:21:38.64] spk_3:
And the urgency is like if if you have again public internet facing stuff, if you have if you know or think you have a server that accepts input from the internet, right? Again, if you don’t understand how to even know that, then you need help. If you have no organization that can help you understand that. But if you do know that that is by far your top priority and again, by the time you’re listening to this, if you haven’t done it, assume compromise. It’s it’s probably it’s not that it’s too late but it’s but you’ve probably been compromised already. And so the question is what do we do from that point? Um and what you’d like to do is learn about it before you learn about it from a ransomware demand. Right? Because what’s what you’re worried about is that that compromise will eventually be exploited by what what Attackers are doing is exploiting systems and then putting in persistence meaning a way for them to stay connected to the environment. Once this vulnerability is patched. So if they’ve done that, once you patch the vulnerability, it doesn’t matter because their persistence is already there on the system. Right? So the next thing they do is exploit you by doing a ransomware attack or installing crypto miner software on your server or doing any of a dozen other things to leverage the resource that they have taken over and what you’d like to do is find out that they’re there and remove them before they notify you by sending you a ransom or notice.

[00:21:47.94] spk_2:
Okay, we need help.

[00:22:04.04] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you. Gene Takagi and Amy sample Ward our contributors, you know them, I barely I don’t even have to say it right. You know, I have to honor them

[00:22:05.94] spk_2:
to give them tribute,

[00:22:20.34] spk_1:
but you don’t really need me to introduce them. You know that Jean is our legal contributor and that AMY is our technology and social media contributor, you know this and longstanding to boot

[00:22:22.64] spk_2:
jean.

[00:22:36.94] spk_1:
Gene has been with nonprofit radio and me Since the first several shows, it was 2010 kicked off the show in July 2010. And jean was on very soon

[00:22:40.44] spk_2:
after the very first show

[00:24:03.14] spk_1:
early, early early days, AMy sample ward joined at the 100th show. So that would have been July of 2012 50 shows a year. Mhm I’m grateful. You know, they take time each time they’re coming on. You know, they come up with the topics we we exchange messages about them talk a little bit sometimes, but you know, they’re doing the lion’s share of the work and then of course, you know, thinking about how best to explain it and then spending the time to explain it all valuable for you all great value for you. So I am grateful to them for so many years of contributing to nonprofit radio and helping you listeners. Our listeners thank you jean thank you amy That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got barely a butt load more time for nonprofit software vulnerability with Log four J. This week is short less time to get aware, more time to do the repair. And I’m gonna I’m gonna keep pushing this rhyme until I can’t stand to hear it anymore. Let’s continue.

[00:24:15.94] spk_2:
If you have an I. T. Devoted team, then certainly by the time that I’m playing this that that team must know that otherwise you need to fire your team and and get a new

[00:24:30.94] spk_3:
team if you have a if you have a cybersecurity, if you have someone who purports to be a professional information technology provider, right? Whether they are your own staff or whether they are an outsourced provider And they haven’t talked to you about log 4J. And what they’re doing about it then. I don’t believe that they’re serving you very well. I think that’s fair to say,

[00:24:40.54] spk_2:
okay, well we’ll leave it at that. Well let the ceo and executive directors deal with their C.

[00:24:47.85] spk_3:
IOS and

[00:25:13.64] spk_2:
uh I. T. I. T. Managers. Okay now I looked at the uh the cisa cisa again as the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. Um just for context. That’s that that’s the agency that Christopher Krebs came out of in the trump administration and said that 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in the nation’s history. That’s that’s

[00:25:16.31] spk_3:
system the cyber summarily fired but that’s a separate

[00:25:20.66] spk_2:
Yes, he was he was fired but he said yes,

[00:25:24.22] spk_1:
I’m trying to stay away from

[00:25:25.78] spk_3:
I’m a huge fan of So this is

[00:25:29.20] spk_2:
offered not for political purpose. This is offered for context.

[00:25:32.74] spk_3:
Yeah, for context. That is that is set to and there there I believe part of homeland security.

[00:26:13.94] spk_2:
Yes, they are part of the homeland Security agency. Yes. And they, you know, they’re the ones who said 10 out of 10. And in at a press release they said quote, this vulnerability poses a severe risk. They called it a severe risk, end quote. So you can go there, you can go to assistant dot gov and they have a page called Apache log four J vulnerability guidance. You can search that system dot gov. Apache log four J vulnerability guidance. Without me giving you full U R. L. Of the page. Just just search that and they have a couple of valuable links as

[00:26:16.37] spk_3:
well. And and we have links to all that from our website. So if you want to start at round table, just go to our website, search log four J. You’ll find our our blog which we update as we have updates and that has all the links in it as well

[00:26:34.34] spk_2:
and that is roundtable technology dot com if you want to follow Joshua, Joshua pes K.

[00:27:00.44] spk_3:
A. Y. Yeah. Although you’re better off following at round table I. T. I’m I’m not on social as a rule like a little thing but I really don’t touch twitter or facebook really. Ever so twitter or roundtables, twitter is at round table I. T. Um And that’s a better place to follow. That’s where you’ll that’s where you’ll get updates of things. You won’t get anything from following me because I don’t post to twitter hardly hell with Joshua pesky.

[00:27:03.63] spk_2:
Don’t follow at Joshua follow at round table I. T. If you’re following Joshua pesky unfollowed, you’re wasting your you’re hurting your follower,

[00:27:13.44] spk_3:
It’s a follower following it. And uh and I don’t I don’t even know if I get notifications if you try to dm me like that, you know if you want to contact me. It’s Joshua roundtable technology dot com. It’s very easy to find me that way.

[00:27:25.94] spk_2:
Alright. Don’t use twitter, you’re hurting your ratios unfollowed

[00:27:29.49] spk_3:
him. If you ever our apologies to all you social folks, I’m just not a social guy in that regard

[00:27:35.44] spk_2:
now you sound very sociable otherwise just

[00:27:37.52] spk_3:
not really. Yeah. In person on zoom over the phone incredibly social online. Unfortunately not so much.

[00:27:44.57] spk_2:
Okay. And humble as well,

[00:27:46.94] spk_1:
let’s go to

[00:27:52.64] spk_2:
Something that you have on January 27. You have a training coming up, tell us about

[00:30:09.64] spk_3:
that. Oh my gosh we have, it’s a mouthful. So I’ll spit it out the sixth, annual, best free one hour cyber security awareness training ever. My colleague Destiny Bowers, who is an absolute delight and also brilliant and who have worked with for a long time. She and I six years ago started doing awareness trainings with the goal of giving nonprofit organizations and small businesses an opportunity to get all of their staff cyber security awareness training at least once a year for free in a way that would be easily accessible for them, would be fun and would give them some incentives to for their staff to attend. So not only is the training free for literally your entire organization to attend, But we offer prizes over the course of our one hour training, so people have an opportunity to win up to $100. We give out typically $100 gift card, $50 gift card, $25 gift card and then we’ll give out other gift cards or, or prizes throughout the training. But at the end we do a quiz that is competitive. And so if you win the quiz, you have an opportunity to win $100. Uh and an amazon gift card is what we typically give out. And so you can tell your staff your, if you’re a nonprofit leader, hey everybody sign up for this, it’s gonna be a fun training Joshua and Destiny will try to make an entertaining, brisk and enjoyable and you have an opportunity to win prizes. And if you sign up with your organizational email, you know, uh, tony at my nonprofit dot org, then roundtable will actually send the organization a list of everybody that attended the training from their organization. So if you have a regulatory requirement that says, we have to train our staff, you know, with awareness training once a year, this can actually satisfy that regulatory requirement. If you’re in new york, new york shield law requires that you provide awareness training to your staff. So you can literally satisfy this regulatory requirement by having all of your staff attend this training, which again, is free and not only free, but you can tell your staff, hey, you can even win prizes by attending

[00:30:14.94] spk_2:
right. Win big prizes, free, epic, best ever training. More, more humility

[00:30:25.64] spk_3:
from Joshua, pesky. Yeah, again, the humility best ever. Yeah. And we say that every year because of course every year is is just a little bit better than the previous year. So it continues to be the best ever training until someone comes to us and says, you know, actually the training you guys did in 2019 was better than this one. So I don’t think this was the best ever, but no one you would, you

[00:30:47.74] spk_2:
would have the best you, they would be saying that you were one upped by yourself, there wouldn’t be any other,

[00:31:00.14] spk_3:
I I can’t conceive that there could possibly be any other training other than ourselves. I really feel like Myspace of best free one hour cyber security awareness training, I feel like we are really are our only competition. I

[00:31:12.04] spk_2:
hope you know what the word means. There’s a nod to, there’s a nod to Princess Bride inconceivable that there could be another another entity offering, offer anything offering anything comparable in cybersecurity. Alright, so where do we go for this damn thing?

[00:31:20.10] spk_3:
It is, I couldn’t make it any easier for you.

[00:31:22.87] spk_2:
It’s very simple.

[00:31:54.44] spk_3:
Go ahead. Best dot r t t as in roundtable technology dot N.Y.C. as in new york city doesn’t mean you have to be in new york city to attend anywhere in the world you can attend? So best dot r t t dot N.Y.C. If you go to that, you are l you’ll go right to our registration page and send it to all your staff again, have all of them sign up and you can all compete together and compete for prizes, have a good time getting awareness training and we, I love doing it, it’s sort of our gift to the nonprofit community to try to provide this training and make it fun and accessible for everybody and we’ve had so much fun, we keep doing it year after year.

[00:32:07.24] spk_2:
Is there a video, If folks cannot attend

[00:32:23.84] spk_3:
On January 27, sign up as with all things, then a recording will be sent to you the day after and you can take that recording and you can add it to your learning management system. If you have one too you know onboard your new staff whatever you want to do but of course you can’t win the prizes unless you attend the live strengthen

[00:32:28.84] spk_2:
you have to be like you have you must be must be present to

[00:32:32.14] spk_3:
win. Yeah

[00:32:32.67] spk_2:
win the big prizes in the in the epic best ever cyber security training. You’ll have to be present on january 27th 2022. At what time

[00:33:04.54] spk_3:
is one p.m. Eastern time? That’ll be 10 AM pacific time. That’ll be noon Central time if there is anyone out there on mountain time I don’t know where you’re at in regards to daylight savings. I forget if you’re on pacific time or Central time now so you figure that one out. If you’re on Mountain time, I’m sorry I wish I knew people

[00:33:12.74] spk_2:
will know people will be able to extrapolate hopefully from the Eastern time disclosure of of one p.m. eastern

[00:33:54.04] spk_3:
and we’ve even had organizations who we know nothing about you know who aren’t clients of ours reach out to us and say you know they found it on Youtube or whatever and they said can we you know use this recording for our on boarding package for our own staff or do we need to pay you or do you have rights or anything and then I’ll answer that question now for all of your listeners tony go ahead. Free take it, it’s yours. So if you sign up, you don’t attend live, you grab the recording, you chop it up and use it to onboard your new staff for the next year. That makes us super happy. Do it with our blessing. Don’t even have to tell us. Thank you. Okay,

[00:34:22.94] spk_2:
we’ve now spent as much time talking about the january 27th training as we have the subject of the podcast and the video, which is the log four j vulnerability for nonprofits. He’s Joshua pesky. They don’t follow him so I’m not going to repeat his, his twitter handle but follow roundtable at round table i. T. The company is at roundtable technology dot com. He’s Joshua pesky eh, thank you very much,

[00:34:23.61] spk_3:
Joshua tony thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure,

[00:34:26.81] spk_2:
my pleasure as well. Thanks so much.

[00:34:54.64] spk_1:
Next week Legal Outlook for 2022 with our Gene Takagi. If you’re not aware, you cannot repair if you missed any part of this week’s show. I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. That’s the end of the aware repair rhyme scheme. It’s now ended

[00:35:31.84] spk_0:
our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that information scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.
Picture of Don Fornes

Nonprofit Radio for June 14, 2013: Successful Software Selection Strategy & Storify and Quora

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Picture of Don Fornes
Don Fornes
Don Fornes: Successful Software Selection Strategy

Don Fornes, CEO of Software Advice, leads us through the software selection process for nonprofits.

 

 

 

Picture of Amy Sample Ward
Amy Sample Ward
Amy Sample Ward: Storify and Quora

Our social media contributor, Amy Sample Ward, got a promotion at Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). Then we’ll talk about the value of Storify and Quora, two lesser-known social networks, for your nonprofit.

 
 
 


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Durney hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. I’d stuff. I’d suffer stick a myth eah, if i heard that you had missed maria’s faa cues maria simple, the prospect finder and our monthly prospect research contributor there’s a lot of speaking and training, we talked about what she’s frequently asked, and artists sally west and keith, right? We’re with me from australia tell us about the love is campaign this week successful software selection strategy don fornes, ceo of software advice, leads us through the software selection process for non-profits how do you know when yours isn’t working quite right? Also, storify and cora, our social media contributor amy sample ward i got a promotion at the non-profit technology network in ten. After that, we’ll talk about the value of storify and cora to lesser known social networks for your non-profit between the guests on tony’s take to my block this week is a charity did what charities do? Beth israel medical centers fund-raising became public in the new york times. Is there anything they should? Be ashamed of my great pleasure now to welcome don forged to the show, he started software advice in two thousand five. After ten year career in the software industry, he held positions at an investment firm and as a corporate development executive at a pioneering c r m software company. He likes to observe the evolution of software markets, including the impact of innovation. Don fornes, pleasure to welcome you to the show. Thanks, tony, glad to be here. Thank you, don. What are some symptoms that, eh, small and midsize non-profits current system, whether it’s software based or however it’s based aren’t, isn’t working very well. And a lot of the non profit organizations that we speak to our on the smaller end of the scale, and they’re managing things through excel spreadsheets, maybe they have ah, ah website that was coded by, you know, employer volunteers with few they’re using microsoft outlook and trying to find emails and information in there. There isn’t a professional infrastructure for managing their operations, and that can lead to what errors in in data, what other kinds of problems certainly errors on data but difficulty finding the information that they need inability to could manage an effective workflow and no what’s going on and making sure things are getting done, having insight into you know who are their, what, not just who is donating, but what what segment of constituent is donating and being able to discover things about their their organization if you’re using excel spreadsheets than there might be different versions of that floating around your office? Yeah, that’s, that’s one of the big issues with spreadsheets now excel is an outstanding tool and that’s why so many organizations use it but you do have that version control issue, and you have just a lot of opportunity. For errors in your formulas and things like that. So you get to a certain scale when spreadsheets won’t cut it anymore. Also in pulling out like donorsearch formacion you alluded to this, you know, you want to be ableto segment, right? So that you can target people with a specific a specific approach. Sure, you’ve got you’ve got constituents who are big donors, small donors, everything in between, you’ve got constituents or e-giving for different reasons. So you really do it want to develop a marketing strategy that that identifies your various segments, and and you want to work with them in each, each segment in a unique way that appeals to you to their motivations and just expect forces, right? Thank you, and just extracting data. I mean, you should be ableto query your your database system in lots of different, with lots of different variables. Yeah, there’s so many exciting things going on in terms of analytics these days that the ability to not just automate the transactions, that is, you know, that the donations or tracking contact information or interactions, but then to be able to go back and do discovery on that information or quickly. Generated report. That type of analysis is so valuable and it’s getting easier. But it’s not as easy if you don’t have a good infrastructure in place, capturing that data in the first place. Yeah, you can’t really be. You can’t be very sophisticated. Um, what are the different types of software that might be out there that we’re gonna be talking about helping people select? Well, you know what? The court, the nonprofit organization needs to account financially differently than a for-profit organization. So now there is fundez counting, which is critical infrastructure, but then in terms of really growing out business, getting beyond the administration, too, more strategic, how you’re going to raise money and activate your constituents, you’ve got a range of different applications, and so you’ve got donorsearch which will help you track who are your best donors or who could be your best donors, or maybe a more high volume campaign of how do you get a lot of small donations from a very broad set of targets? And then if it’s a membership based organization, you’ve got member management, not your providing some kind of value to that membership and trying to track who they are and who’s paid their dues and what you can do for them and what their interests are. You have case management where you have, um, let’s say you’re a client based organization where you have clients that you’re taking care of our helping, you’ve got volunteermatch management where you’re, you’ve got a large force of volunteers and you want to keep them organized, get the most out of that enthusiasm those are those are four examples of very specific applications. And, of course, the structure of the nonprofit organization will determine what they need. In that case, there are larger, broader, more sophisticated systems that integrate these capabilities. But whether or not you go to that level of technology investment, that’s, that’s. A really important question on organization, needs to ask itself. What about event planning? Sure, event planning is another application i didn’t name, but if you do a lot of events, you need to track registration, you need to track payments for those events and and all the tasks that come along with putting on a great event. So that’s, another application that could be part of ah abroad integrated sweet or could be purchased on a standalone basis on dh. Then, of course, for non-profits that get a lot of their revenue, or even just some of their revenue from from grants, there’s always grant administration and management too. There is on both sides of that relationship for the foundation organization that might be giving that grant, as well as the non-profit that’s receiving that grant so there’s there’s software to automate that as well, i think it’s, you know, moving to another topic, which is you know what you actually need thie organization needs too sit down and think about what are our real pain points why’re we where we falling short, so not just not just thinking in terms of ji that technology is very shiny and cool? I’d love to use that, but where are we experiencing the most pain? Right now is keeping track of who are. Donors are who might be a donor. Or is it really organizing our volunteers to get the most out of them? More, you know, is that we have a difficult time organizing and managing big prevent process. If you have an outstanding grand writer, and you’re only applying for a few grantspace year, maybe you don’t need to automate that. And as we’re on we, i know you have five different tips that we’re going to talk through. But and your got into one of them. Thank you. As you’re identifying what your real problem is, is it? Is it possible to? I would think it is. But i want to make sure to get a software solution that’s going to solve that problem, but then also have add on sort of modules that would do other things, as the organization’s needs. Strange. Sure, so there’s, there are a range of solutions starting from what we refer to his best of breed, so let’s say an application that just does donorsearch midge mint and they do that very well, and they have a lot of features for doner management. They go deep into that functionality, and then they’re on the other end of the scale are integrated systems that do donorsearch management, member management, case management, event management, the whole range of applications we call that an integrated suite and, you know, in theory, maybe there are broader than they are deep, although in some cases they’re both broad and deep. Um so you you have to figure out where you want to fall on that scale. Obviously the the best of breed solution khun target a specific pain point you’re having it can typically be implemented mohr quickly you have fewer people using it, fewer people involved in the implementation and you just go and you tackle that problem with that specific, best to breed solution. When you’re talking about integrated system, you’re getting the whole organization mobilized. Teo moved to this new system you’re thinking about how do your various departments work together. The folks that are working with donors, the folks that are working with volunteers, folks, they’re working with clients, and they’re all moving to this new system. It can be somewhat of a big bang approach and requires a lot more change management, and there may be benefits down the road to have him, everyone working off one seamless infrastructure sharing data and prostheses. But getting there is a big investment and the big challenge for the organization. We have to take a break for a couple minutes done, and when we come back, we’ll keep talking a little about the what we’re on now. There’s, different the implementation, and also your tips for identifying what the what the right solution should be. So i hope everybody stays with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth? Seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our culture and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe. Right, groat. For your business, call us at nine. One seven eight three, three, four, eight, six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com oppcoll are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s, time for the truth. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to go what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage. Tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio. Dot com for details. That’s. Ivory tower radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? In interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent talking to don fornes he’s, ceo of software advice, which you’ll find at software advice. Dot com done so well, i’m talking about this implementation. It is possible than tio by these things in modules. Just just what you need immediately. And then there are systems where you can add additional modules. Is that true? I would say that that can’t be true. The modularity of the system really depends on how it was architected buy the software company. So there are some companies that do a very good job of designing their software into modules that can be turned on or off. So that you could say, deploy four of ten modules and then turn more on as ugo. But you can’t take for granted that every system is going to be architected in such a way that makes that easy. Some learn some art and that’s something really begin to is you evaluate the software. Okay. All right. So let’s, let’s, get into your five tips. You you really started with one. You introduced one the type of problem that you’re trying to solve and your advice there really sounds like is to start with the problem, not the cool technology. You know. I like to say, don’t be romanced by the technology, especially now that we’re into this cloud era and there’s a lot of advances being made and user interface, and and how it looks, who feels this software is just really attractive and great stuff. But make sure you’ve got a need for it. Don’t just go buying technology because it looks full, or because one one person in the organization, maybe tech savvy. There may be an early adopter, but then the rest of the team are, you know, luddite, and we’ll find in the same way that person did. You can. You can get yourself in some trouble where you’ve invested in great technology, but you’re not using it. And i think related to that is that you want to get what’s practical for your office. Sure. So there are there are systems that are fairly lightweight and do just the basics and sometimes that’s all you need sometimes you don’t need toe over altum e and other times you have a larger, more sophisticated organization, or one particular department is fairly sophisticated. And you really want some advanced technologies. He’s got to think about what is what is right for your organization and your your department. How do you avoid being romanced? Are seduced by the bells and whistles. That really cool? Um oh, this one. You know, this one does that to we could we could use that to and o it has this other thing. We could use that also. How do you keep your feet on the ground? I think it starts. We’re staying ok. We’re talking about a technology purchase here, but let’s, put technology aside for a while. Let’s. Sit down and say, what are our biggest challenges? Where are we? At least efficient. Where do we spend the most amount of time creating the least amount of value? Is it that we have? Everyone has their own set of contacts, you know, maybe each pitch person who’s working with. Donors has their own list of of contacts. It’s not shared. And someone leaves in those contacts. Go with, um for example. Okay, now you want to look for some kind of a donor management system that will unify all those contact to be shared even if they are assigned to different individuals. So you you want to think about where your biggest pain points are and prioritize what problems you want to solve in what order i like to say start small, think big, grow quickly. So, you know, start small. Okay? What? What problems are we going to try himself keeping it in the context of thinking big? Eventually we want to solve almost all of these problems and then moved from their issue. You have success. So i think, really just having a business discussion about the processes and workflows and what’s working and what’s not, and then once you say, ok, this is what we’re going to stall them. This is how we’re going to solve it. Then you go out and you start evaluating the technology and you stay in control of that sales process rather than letting a sales person from the software company. Show off bells and whistles that make them most attractive. You know, you say that’s, great that’s, interesting will take that into consideration, but you always come backto. What are the core problems we’re trying to solve? And how does that technology solve those problems? You talked about fundacao n’t ing software earlier. What air cem? Some basics around around fundez counting. And what sort of problems might an organization have if if they’re not doing their accounting efficiently? Sure, i think with with the counting it’s it’s important to get the right infrastructure and processes and controls in place, i said, you need to be automating a process that is it’s. That accounting process is mission critical and has to have very strict controls. You don’t want to ever get into a situation where funds are being misappropriated are or you’re not sure how much cash flow you have going through the organization, so that is an area where you’ve got to get the right system in place. And yet, at the same time, it can be very constraining, because in accounting system has to be rigid and enforced controls. You need to make sure that this software that you’re buying handles the process is the way you want to handle them, or that you are willing to adapt to how that software handles those processes. S so we may have to adapt to what the software requires us to do. Yeah, so some software is more flexible than others in accounting, often it’s a little more rigid compared to, say, a constituent relationship management system. Because, you know, we do have, you know, accounting principles that are standardized that we have to follow, so you may have to. You have to do things the way that software is built to do it. I see in ah, a lot of small shops. It seems like very routine things, like maybe checks being received or accounts payable, being ah, being received or sorry, paid always seem to seem, even though their routine, they seem like each time it’s the first time it’s ever been done. I hope that’s, not the case, for, for all organised. I think some are more efficient than others. I think it comes down to you know, what is the attitude around payables receivables? And how quickly are you going to do it and who’s doing it? So i think that getting the right software in places key there, there are so many great duitz technologies right now, such as a ch payments, you bring a payables receivables in our own organization, we’re doing more and more th which is essentially a wire transfer, but no more sent paper checks, but actually just sending the money elektronik, lee and the more modern systems are built to be able to do those kind of transactions. And i’m glad i’m glad you explained what a ch is. Because on this show, i have jargon jail, but you kept yourself out. You kept yourself out of george in jail by quickly saying, basically a ch iso wire transfer. I think it stands for automated clearing house. Do you know? Is that right? That sounds good. Okay, so we’ll take that. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. And i just meant that, uh, i guess i was going back to symptomology a little bit. You know, when i said routine things seemed to i get treated as if there is the first time every time, even though it’s it’s done, you know, it doesn’t times a month or something it always seems to be a difficult task. So andi, i see. Sorry, go ahead, you’ve got organizations for maybe you have a volunteer bookkeeper, who’s coming in once a week or twice a month or something, and maybe they’re using an application that isn’t designed for fund accounting on dh. Maybe that particular person is, ah fine bookkeeper, but not very tech savvy and so that’s, where you can get into those situations where things are just very slow moving and and no one can really tell whether the check has been cut or not, or received or not. And i think that is symptomatic of the level of sophistication of the organization or they thought, function in the organization. Let’s, go back to your to your tips for, for finding navigating your way through the right software. What, what what’s. Next on that you recommend. Well, we’ve talked about not being romanced by the technology we’ve talked about some of the different applications, and identifying the problem first and then matching the technology is the solution. I think another interesting thing is its funding technology it’s an interesting area, because there are plenty of people out there who who loved technology, who loved sponsoring technology who love rolling up their sleeves. Of course, there are plenty who don’t, but organizations can identify those constituents who can be very useful as a technology resource. So in technology, there are plenty of people who been very successful financially, so you may find donors who have a background in technology who get excited about funding some kind of technology, purchase and implementation, and at the same time, they can roll up their sleeves and help with advising on selecting that technology, implementing that technology. Then there are folks who fit that description that maybe don’t have the financial resources to contribute, but could contribute their time and skills. So technology is is an area where well, let’s, let’s, go back to that bookkeeper, you know, there may be bookkeepers who could volunteer toe do your accounting, but that probably isn’t the same level of passion relative to technology, where there’s some people that are very passionate about what technology can accomplish and would really the motivated to come in and help you either financially or by rolling up their sleeves. Uh, so i think you can be really creative as you think about technology. Maybe not just another thing that comes out of the operating budget. But could you do a special campaign around raising money to fund a technology project or forgetting time donated by folks that are tech savvy? Okay, excellent, yeah, and and as you two shut on this. Another. Another issue and that’s important, and a tip that you have is around the implementation and the training. Sure, so this is along the same theme i’ve been hitting on throughout this conversation, which is they’re really needs to be a process behind the technology, whether that process is something you seek to automate with the technology or process you switch to because that’s the process that technology automates by default, and so the people that are gonna adopt this technology and use it are really critical to its success and can also lead to its failure. So if you by technology and you don’t use it, we refer to that in the industry as sh elsewhere go that as we do surveys of technology users and buyers almost every time what floats to the top is one of the biggest challenges is adoption. How do you get everyone to start using it if you have your development folks using a donor management system, but they don’t like filling out all the fields, you know, maybe they need the email in the phone number. I just don’t want to take the time to put in that physical address. Ah, that may serve their needs, fine, but it’s not going to help the marketing group when they want to. Do that next direct mail campaign, right? Right. You can get a lot of dirty data and there you need to get those folks bought in early to get the right data and the system and clean data in the system. If they’ve always been more of a relationship person, they don’t want to use technology, maybe they do their work over in lunches or in events. You can have this whole system you’ve invested in, people are using it. So i’m i make a suggestion that may seem counterintuitive, which is get those people involved in leading the technology selection and implementation effort. Maybe they’re not the lead on the project, but they’re involved from the start so that they have a sense of ownership and buy-in and really get exposure to what the technology can do from the start. Well, they were probably gonna put one of your more tech savvy people in charge of the project. But you need to get those. Those late adopters are nanites into the process early so that they really you have an epiphany then come to believe in technology. We also need the leadership. It’s it’s gotta be it’s. Gotta be. Used properly at the senior levels. And it’s got to be encouraged and sort of enforced from the senior levels. Yes, and that would be a challenge if you’re senior management are the late adopters. Yeah, okay, not needed a champion at the most senior levels of the organization. You can say, hey, this is something we’re going to do. The time has come and everybody is going to get on board, and we’re going to get the right imam, the funding. We’re not goingto, you know, we’re not going to be too cheap about this. We’re going to get the right stuff in place, and we’re going to make the changes in how we do things around here, so that we’re really using this software and automating are our process is the right way. Don’t we have just about a minute left, or so i want to ask you, what is it that you love about the work that you’re doing? You know, i it’s, uh, a little bit nerdy, but i love efficiency. I love getting doing things better and faster. And in my own organization, it’s reflected by developing our own technology. We we rarely even by third party technology. We have a team of developers who build everything from scratch to do exactly what we want, its lead, the great efficiency and i think, whether your advanced enough to build your own or whether you’re buying software off the shelf there’s a great sense of momentum and pride that comes from getting better at what you do in getting more efficient and that’s what i love don fornes, ceo of software advice. You’ll find them at software advice. Dot com don thank you so much for sharing your expertise. Thanks for having me telling you, it’s been my pleasure right now we go away for a couple of minutes when we returned tony’s take two and then amy sample ward is with me talking about storify and cora stay with us. You couldn’t even think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternative network get in! Nothing. Cubine are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. I’m chuck longfield of blackbaud. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Dahna that was chuck longfield, chief researcher research scientist, actually at blackbaud from last year’s bb con conference and i will be there this year in october. Also, thes blackbaud people are very modest, it’s hard to get them to say their titles. Janna eggers, senior vice president i think of marketing in products just, said jenna eggers from blackbaud i have to get them to be a little more ah more forward about their titles and we have something to say about titles, titles that have changed very shortly. But first i can’t send live listener love this week. I’m sorry i’m not live where pre recorded this week, however konnichi wa ni hao anya haserot you know i send live listener love also, california always checks in texas, north carolina, oregon from time to time north i said oregon, not oregon there’s no e at the end of that, i learned that dahna who else checks in new york? New york has been lately so live. Listen love to all of you and everybody else. Who’s listening live. I will be back in the studio next friday. Tony, stick to my block. This week is a charity. Did what? Charities do the ah, fund-raising we at beth israel medical center here in new york city became public because of a will contest and ah, it’s fund-raising methods were the subject of a new york times story, which is probably something that we would all rather avoid, and i don’t think anybody wants their internal office processes splashed internationally on the new york times, but i saw very little that beth israel should be embarrassed about. I think they’re fundraisers, including their ceo, who, of course, we know should be a fundraiser. I did what they were supposed to be doing did what charities do they is the story of a woman who was living in the hospital, literally living in the hospital for twenty years. She was a resident of the hospital for twenty years, and the question is, were there was the hospital’s fund-raising tactics inappropriate? And i don’t think they were. I think they had a great prospect living among them, and they would have been, i think, careless if they hadn’t cultivated and solicited this woman for charitable gift. There were some emails and some notes to the between members are between employees that i think we’re a little carelessly, unprofessionally worded, but there’s nothing unethical, certainly nothing illegal, nothing fraudulent. So i don’t really think beth israel had that much to worry about when they’re fund-raising became public in the new york times, and i say more about that on my block, the post is a charity did what charities do on my block? Is that tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday fourteenth of june twenty fourth of the year. Oh, i’m very glad that amy sample ward is with me now. She got a promotion at the non-profit technology network and ten and her most recent co authored book is social change, anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement her block is amy sample, war dot org’s and on twitter she’s at amy r s ward, i guess i don’t know, i guess i’ll say it because it’s it’s easier for me to say then for amy to say congratulations on being promoted to ceo of inten. Thank you. When was your promotion? Effective? Ah, effective june first. So we are in day eleven. All right? Yes. Today’s tuesday the eleventh. Um how’s it going, it’s going really well, i mean, you know, there’s there’s, not a lot of time spent trying to figure out who are these people that i work with because i already got to work with them for the last over two years, so it feels like, you know, you could just jump in and we can start moving forward on all kinds of projects are already deep in the weeds of the next ntcdinosaur will be in march in d c, so lots of lots of action, lots of good stuff happening and t c, of course, is the non-profit technology conference? Yep, right, followers of intend may not know that. So what, you’re jargon jail? All right? No, no mass resignations since your appointment as ceo. Well, not yet. Knock on wood. I i don’t think that that’s the case. I think we’re all really excited to dive into work together. I think you know, any organization that’s gone through a transition, you you kind of let yourself feel like, well, maybe, you know, maybe we’ll go in a new direction. Maybe we won’t what’s goingto happen. And so once everything’s kind of decided, well, now we can just move forward on all those. Great ideas that we’ve been having and conversations that staff have together. It’s, like one day. Maybe we’ll do this. So now we can really start putting some of that into motion on. You were supposed to be in the studio with me today, but you had to be by phone because you have something going on in your apartment, right? Yes. Since we since i’m now the ceo and ten, we will be relocating back to portland, where the antenna main office is. And as such as manhattan real estate, as soon as our landlord know that we were moving out well, he wanted to start fixing it up for the new people. So some repairman is coming. Tio, work on the bathroom. Okay, lets you get a swelled head. As ceo. You still have to be still to be in your apartment to let the let the contractors in. Exactly right on dh. Do you know when you’ll be moving? Sorry. Very sorry to see you going. You won’t be live in the studio with me anymore. Or maybe you will one more time when you mean portlanders again in july. July. Okay, we’ll see whether we get you in the studio one more time or or not, i guess depending on when your move is in july. But very happy for your congratulations on your appointment. Thank you. I appreciate it. This seems like a good time to let listeners know. Remind listeners what? What? And ten is about what? What? What kind of help can small and midsize non-profits get from non-profit technology network? Sure so and ten is a non-profit ourselves. So we definitely understand what everyone else is going through. And where? The membership organization for anyone looking to use technology to meet your mission. So there’s no organizational size requirement there’s no budget requirement there’s no missions specific or cause specific focus that we have it’s really, truly for everyone that’s trying to use technology. Teo, be a little bit more effective and more efficient and meeting your mission. So we have the ntc like we mentioned before the non-profit technology conference, which is our annual conference in this coming year in d c we’re expecting over two thousand non-profit staffers, so it’ll be a big, really great conference at but then outside of that conference, we have about one hundred webinars a year that air on all different topic hoexter tailored to all different kinds of staff in an organization because, you know, for example, if you’re thinking about online fund-raising well, there’s some pieces of that that your staff are interested in, you know what air the pieces we need to have in place? And then there are pieces of online fund-raising thatyou’re development team want to know, like, how do we make the ask successfully online? So we try and make sure that there’s something for all those different sides of everyone in organization, and we have depending on the year between five to eight research reports on those air free to download for and ten members, and then, you know, outside of all of that, really a community so there’s over eleven thousand and ten members sixty thousand, largely in the community that aren’t necessarily paid level but attend webinars or have come to the conference. So there’s the probability of sets that there’s no way that there’s someone who hasn’t gone through what you’re going through at your organization and it’s a great place to come find those piers assam questions see how they’ve navigated that website redesign or that our processor, whatever it may be, and you make the point very well that this is not on ly for technologists who understand technology, but it’s for everybody in the organization. Exactly. I mean, it’s twenty thirteen, right? We’re all using technology. It doesn’t mean that we’re all directors, but we all need to use these tools to do our job. And so it’s a place where you can go regardless of what area in the organization you work in to find resource is that help you with your job, whether you’re in communications or you’re on the program team what whatever it may be, you’ll find antenna at and t e e n dot org’s cool. Thank you very much, amy. Think well, hopefully we’ll get you some new members on dh, actually attendees at ntc and viewers of your webinars and readers of your research reports because i think it’s very valuable what and ten does, and it is a it’s, a it’s, a morass in a black box for a lot of people and that it need not be right. Let’s, talk about storify and cora let’s do it. Okay. Storify what’s. Ah, i see. It described as content curation. What is this? Yeah, but kind. I mean, if you’re going to jargon jail me for ntc jargon jail you for contents curation because that sounds wonky. Well, i asked you to. I asked you to explain it e would know that wouldn’t be the way i actually think storify is really cool tool really cool platform because it is so directly the definition of social media it’s multidirectional, its share a ball, it’s public all of those pieces that we associate with you know what? These social tools online are that storify. So essentially you could go to storify you say i wantto i want to create a story. Um, and i want it to be about, uh non-profit radio looks put in the hashtag non-profit radio that’s what you wanted to do your store storify about today after you listen to the podcast and it will pull in all the media that it finds it’ll pull in the tweets if there are photos of tony’s taking photos in the studio and posting them, if there are videos posted, whatever kind of video that it confined with that hash tag non-profit radio and what’s great is that it doesn’t just pull it in and say, here you go, it shows you these air all the available pieces of content, you know we found and you get to very simply you don’t need to be a technologist to do this, but you can just drag and drop them into your post. You khun ad your own tax so you could say here’s a great quote from one of our live listeners and then pull that tweet over. Oh, are you know whatever those kind of like annotations would be, and then when you are finished compiling it, you can either embed the whole thing in your website or in your blog’s, or you can just share it out on twitter or facebook wherever you want to share it and have it stay on the storify website. You know where however you want to move it around and it’s? Great, because then people can go back and kind of see that recap of the conversation i think it’s used really well. Bye. Uh, newspapers, new york times used store fight all the time. Tio, pull in. You know what they’ve seen on a breaking news story. Kind of in real time, things like that. I see. And on all those examples that you gave by the way of non-profit radio, which is an outstanding example to use. Thank you. They all do exist. Wei have just a minute before a break. Do you have to start your storify with a hashtag or could you just use the phrase? I guess in quotes tony martignetti non-profit radio can you start that way? Yeah, you could try it that way. It’s it’s easier with hashtags only because you know that it’s a dedicated tag that people have been using. Whereas if you were trying to just search for you know any instance of someone saying non-profit technology, for example, there was it would just be too big and nebulous. Tohave a clean, you know, conversation captured. Okay. Non-profit radio is what you meant. Yep. Non-profit technology i understand. Just flows out. No, no, no. I meant non-profit technology. If you did that generally at the phrase versus for example, the hashtag and p tech. I see. Ok, ok. But you can edit out things that are extremely us right? Yet for sure. Okay. All right, let’s, take a break and amy will return. And we’ll keep talking about storify and also kwara. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi there and welcome back, amy, this sounds like something that could be good for non-profit don’t have a social media team or director at all because you’re pulling in content that’s you’ve already created or that others have already created. Yeah, especially if you’re on organization where you’re having on event or you’re having, you know, you put out new report or you launched a new program or, you know, you’ve done something that’s gotten your community talking online about what you’re doing so so it’s about something specific, it doesn’t just generally, you know, i like and ten well, that’s terrific, and i would love tweets that say i like and ten, you know, it’s, not necessarily something to capture a story, so any time you’re doing something that is a little bit more time bounder or topic lee specific it’s it’s really easy because you now you have all this content and so you, khun, just like you said, even if you don’t have a social media are big communications department, you could just go pull it all together fairly quickly, but be it also means that now all those community members that got highlighted in your store if i get to feel like, oh my gosh, you know, my my tweet about the event or the photo that i took of, you know, the ballroom at the event got to be featured in the organization’s recap and that’s really cool for them as a member of the community who maybe i hadn’t ever really felt highlighted or, you know, called out by the organization before and now they’re kind of, you know, they get to shine as part of the recap, and that makes it more likely that they will share it with their communities exactly. Now, storify, when you said that it gives you the chance to either in bed or share, i guess or both the people that including the people that it shares with include the people who contributed to everything that got drawn in right duitz yes, exactly. It has a lot of built and sharing features on dh you can you can tell it not to do those things, but it try it wants to encourage you to send out a tweet, for example, tow any dahna any tweet that you included in your storify to send a reply to those people saying, hey, i highlighted you in my store if i and give them a link and then they, you know, it links back to the store if i so you can have, you know, when you have your storify account in your building, these specific stories they’ll stay on the story by account, you have a you know, profile there people can just follow your storify account if they want teo, but you could also embedded on your blogged on your website, maybe you maybe you created a storify for a specific offline event that you held and, you know, lots of people tweeted and shared photos and you create a storify well, that’s really great to go back to the event page and added there so now it’s like an archived, you know, event captured page and not just an old registration page, you can keep all that content there, so you’re extending the life of your content. Exactly. I get a tweet like that whenever i participate in a in a twitter chat called fundchat hashtag fund, and at the end of the chat, i got a tweet that says you’re included in my storify for the fir fundchat today here? No, okay, i think it’s a really great tool for twitter, chat because it’s, when you are participating in the chat, i think it’s fairly easy to follow along, but if you aren’t participating in that moment in the chat and you want to go back and look at the hash tag later, it just doesn’t make any sense. You know, you need that storify where the organizer can move people’s replies to fit underneath the question, you know, instead of in-kind of the ad hoc free sabelo that they may have actually come in that move them out of the time stamped order of when they were sent. But which question is this person answering and that kind of thing, right? Put them into a logical order. Yeah, yeah. Interesting, though, that they do come with the time stamp too. I like that. It pulls in all the all the original features of the of the piece of content. Okay, let’s, let’s. Give some time to quarrel. Qu qu o r a i won’t try to describe it since i got admonished with the store. If i so, how would you, amy sample ward to? Find describe quarrel for listeners. Sure, so cora is essentially a q and a site, so you or others could submit a question, and then you or others could submit an answer and, unlike certain other question and answer websites that you may have seen or if you have ever, like, done an internet search just for a question, and then you see all of these, like different kinds of forums and q and i websites come up where someone else’s asked that question, cora tries to keep it really limited so that there’s there’s not just like a forever stream of answers, but that there are really, you know, prominent answers to that question on which is, you know, something that kind of plays up a positive feature. So you’re not sifting through and wondering which of these answers is the real answer and it’s a place where both organizations and, uh, you know, individuals of all different backgrounds have have really established some of their energy online as a thought leader. A resource to whatever kind of niche field there in so it’s not just about tax analogy about everything under the sun and people are there you know, some people ask a question and then answer at themselves because they want teo share information about that topic, but others see questions that others have posted and go in and provide an answer. I’ve answered a question on what’s the best way to get a taxi cab in new york city, huh? So i don’t know that an expert, but i had a couple of suggestions. I see too many people standing on the curb, you’re gonna be out there, you could be in the middle of the street practically. We’ve gotta want that. You gotta be at least twenty five percent of the way into the street if you’re not. If you’re not in danger of getting run over, then you’re not going. You’re not an effective cab camp. Hell, that’s, how you’re stopping the taxi is by preventing them from driving further down the street. All right, so we just have a minute or so left. How could non-profits use quorra? Sounds like credibility is very good. How else? What? Why else? Well, i think there are lots of ways whether you want to talk about your you know, the field in which your organization works. And provide answers say, you work in public education and you want to go, you know, maybe someone has posted a question that says, what does a charter school mean you if you work in public education, you probably know, and you want to provide a on answer, i think the thing to keep in mind is that it is a very individual driven platform. And so if you have, you know, your executive director, maybe of a policy director you have, you know, whoever it may be in your organization think about having more than one person with an account and providing those answers as that credible individual that represents the organization, so that you created a little bit of space between that answer and your organization and have also said, well, of course our policy director is answering this question because it’s about public policy and we have an expert on this, you know, and that’s why we’re such a credible organization qu o r a dot com. Maybe we have to leave it there. Amy sample ward, ceo of non-profit technology network congratulations on that again. Thank you. She will remain our monthly social media contributor. You’ll find her at amy. Sample ward, dot or ge? Always a pleasure. Safe move. I hope i get to see you before you go. Yes, thank you. Bye. Amy buy-in next week. Well, before i do next week, i want you to know that i badly misused a word today. I’ll even give you him. It was in the first half. If you are, it was completely out of context. And if you are the first person to tell me what what it was and what the word means, then i will send you a social media roadmap, which is courtesy of amy sample ward. Next week, a conversation with adam grant he’s, the youngest, tenured and most highly rated professor at the wharton school of business at the university of pennsylvania. His book is give and take in march. His work was the subject of a new york times magazine cover story. Does generosity and your relationships leave you behind or get you ahead? That’s what we’ll talk about without him. Grant, insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen tomorrow to tony it’s, not just martignetti non-profit radio tony. Martignetti non-profit radio each week, if you’d like to talk about sponsoring the show, contact me on my block. Our creative producer was clear. Meyerhoff. Janice taylor is usually the assistant producer, but she’s, not here today. Sam liebowitz is line producer. Our show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Oh, i hope you’ll be with me next week. Talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. Duitz good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get a drink. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur? Ready to break through? Join us at sixty body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday, said noon eastern time to learn tips and juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and defying your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Soul. Every thursday ad, men in new york times on talking alternative dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Com. Hyre

Nonprofit Radio for November 5, 2010: Pass the Cup to Corporations & Fund Accounting Software Review

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Compliance. Board relations. Fundraising. Technology. Volunteer management. Accounting. Finance. Marketing. Social media. Investments.

Every nonprofit faces these issues and big nonprofits have experts in each. Small and medium size nonprofits have Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts throughout the country join Tony to take on the tough issues facing your organization.

Episode 16 of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio for November 5, 2010

Tony’s Guests:

John W. Hicks, CFRE, President and C.E.O. of J.C. Geever, Inc. Mr. Hicks shares techniques to develop your corporate sponsorship strategy and build relationships so you can ask for corporate support with credibility and confidence

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Scott Koegler, editor, Nonprofit Technology News. Scott, our regular tech contributor, returns with product reviews for this back-office necessity. Those in the know recognize that proper accounting is critical to keeping your board, IRS and others looking over your shoulder, satisfied. He’ll review packages like FUND E-Z, AccuFund, Quickbooks and others.

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Here is the link to the podcast: 017: Pass The Cup To Corporations & Fund Accounting Software

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Friday, 1-2pm Eastern.

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choosing.

Sign-up for show alerts!

“Like” the show’s Facebook page.

Here is a link to the podcast: 043: Pass the Cup to Corporations and Fund Accounting Software Review.
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No. Durney welcome tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host tony martignetti welcome to the show today little shout to ah, larry bloom, who just left the studio. If you have never listened to the divorce our with larry bloom, you should he proceeds this show every week, and if you want to see pictures of larry brew bloom, you can go to the facebook page for my show. Actually, larry is too humble to have pictures of his own eyes that his own facebook page to have his own ah pictures up. But you could see pictures of larry on this show’s facebook page and give the address for that later on. She’ll shout teo! Larry bloom last week it was i’m looking, i’m looking feature savvy strategies for your search. We had our job seeker and resident recruiter paula marks helping the job seeker leonora leonora, who is going to come back on the show, helping her make the move from for-profit to non-profit career. And then after that, it was how to cripple your career in five easy steps you’ll remember that was my pre recorded interview with robert sharpe from the national conference on philanthropic planning we were all about career last week this week, pass the cup to corporations, techniques to develop your corporate sponsorship strategy and build relationships so you can ask for corporate sponsorship support with credibility and confidence. My guest is going to be john hicks. John is the president and ceo of j c geever and after john joins us, then we’re going to talk about fund accounting software. Our tech expert scott koegler, editor of non-profit technology news, returns to the show, and he has product reviews for this backoffice necessity. Those of you who are in the know know, recognize is that proper accounting is critical to keeping your board, the irs and others who may be looking over your shoulder. Satisfied and scott will have reviews of several of the popular and recent fund accounting software packages between the guests at tony’s. Take two, i’ll have news from your irs, the internal revenue service, the nice people at irs that’s, not the news, but they are nice people, and i’ll have some news from them and also more about the next-gen charity conference, which i’ll be speaking at this. Month in new york city. That’s on tony’s, take two. All of that is on this show this week. I’m very glad you’re joining us. We are live this week. Stay with me for this ninety second break. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call us ed to one, two, nine, six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom, too. One, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Hyre durney. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Dahna welcome back to the show, i’m tony martignetti, the host of tony martignetti non-profit radio we’re talking now about corporate sponsorships past the cup to corporations. My guest is john hicks he’s, the president and ceo of j c geever you’ll find jason geever at j c geever dot com and geever spelled g e e v e r. The company was founded in nineteen seventy five and provides cost effective and creative guidance and support designed to help non-profit institutions assess and master fund-raising challenges, the firm provides consulting, management and training services all in support of organizations of every size. Again, the web addresses jacey geever dot com john hicks is president and ceo of the firm, and i’m very glad that his work brings him back to the show. John, welcome back. Thank you. Pleasure to have you back. We’re talking about corporate sponsorships, but before we get into the sponsorships let’s talk about corporation fund-raising generally sort of broad view had his corporation fund-raising breakdown well, corporate philanthropy generally falls into two categories. There’s is the general corporate giving programs that you’ll come across and that’s basically were a corporation sets aside money and a budget. And they give it away, and then you have corporate foundations were, or corporation may incorporate its own separate foundation, and they give money through that foundation. So there’s, usually a couple of channels of funding you can access, and we’re talking about the former today, the more the sponsorship type. Oh, absolutely wartime, my sponsorship. We’re talking about corporate contributions budgets, and when a non-profit is, well, actually, you’re first let me remind people that we’re live today and let me give the number to call if you’d like to call in and talk to. John asked a question for him. Our number is eight, seven seven for eight xero, for one, two, zero, eight, seven, seven for eight xero for one to xero sorry about that interruption, john. A non-profit looking to get some sponsorship dollars. What do they really offer the corporation? Have they figure that out? I think the any non-profit that’s, doing a good job of securing corporate sponsorships is first and foremost thinking about where the non-profit has visibility, where has reach of what good it does in the community, these air, all three aspects, if you will, of corporate sponsorship that you have to think like a corporate e-giving officers thinking, okay, if i’m a corporate giving officer, first of all, i have to justify our contributions to our shareholders, so one way i can do that pretty easily is to say that we’re investing dollars with charities that have reached two constituencies where maybe we want to enhance or increase our visibility, and the answer brand could very well be local ahs wells national can be local, it can be national eso first of organizations need to think entrepreneurially about this, they also have to think about doing good. I mean corporations, by and large one investor dollars where the dollars were goingto a complice, some good for end user. So you’re thinking about who are the end users and how are they benefitting from our work and therefore the corporation can have an association with our good results. And then i think the other thing that charity needs to think about is what other kinds of opportunities they may have to involve the corporation in tony, if i had to pick one hot topic for everyone to think about is, how can you involve corporate employees as volunteers? This’s something you’re seeing across the board in corporate philanthropy, companies are looking for opportunities to get their employees involved with charities. So the organization really needs to be thinking about how the employees can get involved in the event that that they’re asking for the sponsorship of somehow what could be an event. You can create a something pretty simple where you could have employees come in and mentor kids get involved with families. I mean, some some charities, like habitat for humanity, they have a great belt in mechanism because you can re employees and then build house houses or things like that. Ah, some charities have to think a little more out of the box, if you will. You know, how might we bring employees in, for example, for a day and have them work with our constituents it’s given the employees of valuable experience but it’s also really great for your constituents, showing that there are people who really care and in just a minute we have left you’re seeing more companies focus on this, a zoo condition of sponsorship. Well, it’s it’s increased over the years. I think it was a few years back, mckenzie and company did a survey of the corporate sector in the us, and they found that companies that had volunteer employees volunteer programs had a hyre hyre ants retention rate in companies that didn’t so it’s certainly something that’s really coming to vote in the last two years in corporate america, we’re going to take a break, and my guest is john hicks, president ceo of j c geever we’re talking past the cup to corporations all about sponsorships, corporate sponsorship, we’re live today calling number is eight seven seven for eight xero for one to xero please stay with us co-branding dick dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternate network get in! Nothing. Cubine hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo. I will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 at aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m, we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectures on job strategies and networking. Come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelve at aqueduct racetrack for a Job fair. Intending empty 3 pm. For more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one, bonem. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness can help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join joshua margolis, fitness expert two one two eight sixty five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w died mind over matter. N y c dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio with john hicks. We’re talking about corporate sponsorships, and during that break, we we gotta call. So let’s, uh, let’s. Start with that call. We have. Abigail, are you there? Abigail? Yes. Thanks for joining us. Where you calling from and what’s your organization like i’m calling from indiana. And i have a small non-profit dance company. And i’m developing a program to try to bring workshops, dance workshops into world schools, and i i want it to be free to the school. I want to fully fund it and offer it to the school systems as an after school program. My question is ahead. White research, the appropriate corporations to target both nationally and locally. I think both arts and education are hot topic and especially toe bring it to rural areas. But i’m just not sure where to start in terms of finding the appropriate corporations. Yes, sir. John. How does abigail find the right places to approach? Well, i’m gonna go with two. Resource is, for starters, abigail, you can simply use the foundation directory online, which you can probably get toe a cooperating collection, which is a public library. In your community that would have access to the foundation center’s database as part of that data base, they have information, i believe it’s on fifty five hundred corporate giving programs. And you can even research those corporate programs by types of products that they produce, where they have operations. So you can think about the communities where you want to take your program and find companies that have a geographic interest. So that’s one area or one type of reason should also be able to search by arts and education. John, you can search by arts and education. This’s what we have to remember when it comes to research is that a lot of companies have very diverse interests. So you might have a company that is really excited about partnering with a dance program. That’s going into rural in the in the end is that correct on dh? They may have an interest in getting their logo on their visibility out there. So for example, it could be you could go toe. Aah! Major utilities company. I mean, for example, here in the metropolitan area in the york city, you’ll see dance companies that have sponsorship for community. Programming for places like con ed, a son and verizon they’re not necessarily in the business of the arts, but they certainly reach a lot of consumers. So using the foundation directory online is a great place to start because the information’s already there it’s segment that and you’ll have a library in whose trained to help you. So go to the foundation center website, foundation center dot org’s, and from there you can find a cooperating collection near you that has access to that database, and you can use it at that library free of charge. And you said there was a second resource. Also, there is a second resource, and you confined this and a lot of public library’s, not everyone, so you’ll have to look around for it. But there’s there’s, a database that’s called corporate affiliations who who owns whom, and this is where you can literally put in zip codes where you’re doing business, and it will show you companies and subsidiaries the companies that are located in those communities. One way i use this, for example, is, if i’m say interested in going toe a bank and i want to get a bank to do a sponsorship with a client organization. I go into that database and i simply want to find out where do they have branch offices. And you can put in zip codes and find out where they have the branch offices. So a couple of good database tools for you to use. Okay, abigail, does that help you out? Yes. That’s. Very helpful. Thank you very much. Very welcome. Thanks for calling. Okay, thank you. Bye bye. And, john, while we were answering abigail’s questioned you alluded to something that i think is a distinction may be that we want to make. I asked you, you know, can you specifically search for arts and education? But this is not like corporate foundation philanthropy where there’s a specific there could be more specific targeted purposes, probably around the company’s interests. Then there are around. Then we’re going to find around sponsorship activities. Is that right? The foundation’s going team or the corporate foundation e-giving more focused than the the corporate sponsorship philanthropy typically that’s the case. Tony it’s. A safe assumption. Okay, thank you. What types of events or or don’t even have to be events, but what types of programs? Things might non-profits find that are viable for for sponsorship opportunities. Well, you mentioned the first well, the first one you mentioned, which is his events, and you’ll see that a number of non-profits use special events is an opportunity for sponsorship and that’s a great gately activity. Why? Because first of all, you’re guaranteed to bring people together where the company’s gonna have some visibility. It’s a great social event, it’s a great way to network and have give corporate employees a hands on flavor of the institution, so special events are always, you know, probably top of mind for most charities, but certainly volunteer activities. You know, if you can have ah, get a company to sponsor a day at your charity where they bring in an employee team and maybe they’re going to help you spruce up your your your space or, you know, do some hands on work with kids and families that’s a great way of introducing yourself to a corporation, and you’re giving them some value as well and terrific visibility and terrific absolute kind of value that they’re looking for. How do you know how much to ask for and there’s a bit? Of an art to that, um, with most corporations, if you think about the company is being i think of of cos tony’s is being basically three layers at the bottom layer, you have sales and service, and these are field representatives and employees who are goingto have high touch in the community, and a lot of times those employees are given an opportunity to make small contributions to a charity. It might be a few hundred dollars. It might be a thousand or two thousand dollars. Typically, this is where you’re selling someone a table or tickets one event. The next layer up would be the supervisor’s for sales and service might be vice president level folks inside a company and they may have sign off on contributions. May be up to a level of five to ten thousand, and then if you go one level above that the office dafs of the ceo, executive, vice president plus and then you could get in the much larger contributions it’s a little bit like a board game. Versatile. It depends. Were can you access the company? I mean, you know, where is your contact? Wth the court if the ceo of the company is your next door neighbor. You can go borrow a cup of sugar and answer twenty five thousand dollars, i suppose. But ah, latto shoretz with people living in scarsdale or greenwich, i’m not family with other wealthy. Well, san francisco, you know certain neighbourhoods in san francisco, and i’m sure there are lots of neighborhoods like that in the midwest. I’mjust not personally acquainted with them, but you have to be living in one of those places to have a neighbor like that. Well, they have a neighbor, but she may have access to yoon seo’s. We all come from somewhere. So yeah, that’s the way i look at it, but but realistically, a lot of charity start with a small contribution that’s a gateway gift, as i call it, and that can then lead to larger opportunities down the road. Because you mentioned earlier that using the directory that you recommended for our caller, that you’ll look maybe to see where the local where the where the national bank has local offices, so the local branch office might be the person’s only only point of contact by necessity there, starting at that point, banks are pretty easy, because you can go into a branch and you can talk to a branch manager and that’s a great place to start the contribution. You can also look at retailers. Um, you take any of your major retailers, and if they have a presence in the local community, you can talk to a store manager a lot of times. Tony, when we’re using a directory like director of corporate affiliations, it’s where you may have this mysterious widget factory on the outskirts of your town, and you’re wondering while g, what do they do? And they don’t get very much money, but if you get a director of corporate affiliations and you look up that company, you might find out hey there, subsidiary of dupont and all of sudden there’s a big parent company there that can make a much larger contribution even if you don’t have an access suppose you don’t know anybody inside that widget company or inside the bank, even at the local branch level, you know, i presume you still should give it a shot, right? Absolutely. I mean, you know, it’s like wing gretzky said you missed one hundred percent of the shots. You don’t take i think the question is, who do you who do you contact and best companies have someone who’s in charge of community affairs or public relations, and these are good people to start with because they’re thinking about visibility, and they’re thinking about touch with the community and that’s what they’re there for. So think of it is you’re bringing them an opportunity, and when you’re talking to them, you want your you’re asking mt to be appropriate with what it is you can offer them in return. Typically you want teo have an ask amount that is appropriate, given your relationship. This is why a good strategy is having several opportunities walking in and saying we can do this for a thousand dollars what we could do this for twenty five thousand very similar to individual fund-raising right? If if you’re asked, you typically ask for at different levels for different opportunities that you know, appeal to an individual donor sze obviously it’s parallel for for this kind of sponsorship philanthropy, exactly, you’re going to present them with a menu, and maybe you helped him select what would be the most appropriate place for them to start i’m with john hicks he’s, the president and ceo of j c geever, which you’ll find at j c geever dot com. We’re talking about corporate sponsorship on tony martignetti non-profit radio, the number to call if you’d like to call into John is 8:7 74 eight xero for one to zero john after this relationship has been has gotten far enough along and the company has said yes what should the non-profit be expecting from this relationship well there’s going to be expectations in both directions i mean you certainly are within your right isn’t non-profit have expectations beyond the cheque in terms of the company is going to be supportive of your work and maybe they can help provide you with visibility but of course they’re going to have expectations of you and this is where you find of saying with any kind of a contribution before you cashed the check always read the letter make sure that you’re going to be able to meet their conditions and meet their expectations when it comes to visibility you know what sort of things are typical that you see and it’s typically they wantto they wantto have approval in press releases they will want it specified or want to specify how their logo should be displayed. You know, things like that are pretty straightforward. Are there some things that you might have to think twice about? Sure, i’ve seen corporations you know, come in and say, for example, they may want access to a mailing list where they may are exactly are they? You know, they may want to have an opportunity to speak at an event and, you know, does this’s why? As in my experience, certain charities i’ve worked with as they raise more, more money from corporations began to do things like developed gift acceptance policies. What kind of companies will we accept contributions from water, the conditions of acceptance? So in the beginning, you’re probably playing a little more by year, but once you become a popular charity, you need to really think about, you know, number one, how do you want that corporate in premature placed on the work that you d’oh? And also you have to be mindful that you may be balancing a lot of different relationships and you want to make sure that you’re meeting the needs of all of your donors? If you promise something, the one that you’re not promising to something, someone else can create problems, or there needs to be a very good reason why it was. It was sponsorship at a different level or something like that, right? And you draw another very interesting parallel between this type of fund-raising and individual fund-raising, and that is the gift acceptance policy. I’ve said. I’m not familiar with it on the corporate sponsorship side, but it makes perfect sense if you’re going to make this a routine activity. What what other types of, um, parameters, maybe even approval levels should be in the the, uh, the acceptance policy approval levels. I mean, some some charities, you know, fundamentally have regulations were its own board of directors have to sign off on a corporate sponsorship at a certain level. I’ve seen that. And after the fact let’s say it is an event because that sounds like that’s the most, most common the event has happened, everyone seems very happy. How do you appropriately to say thank you to the to the to the company? Well, you know, beyond simply saying thank you, which you’d be surprised a lot of us kind of forget to do that in the very risky in the heat of the battle. Altum i think it’s a question of ongoing communication yet treat, treat the corporate sponsors a stakeholder, you know, once they put money on the table and there’s mean, they’re there to support the work that you do, so make him part of it. It means that you may want to visit with them a couple of times over the course of the year following and just keep them in the loop as you would with any other dahna as you would with an individual and yeah, you don’t wantto treat the people as, i guess, sort of, you know, just cogsa at the corporation mean, treat the treat the people who we’re at your event and who approved your sponsorship like people, as you would with individuals, what would you do so you can invite them to events? May be that the company’s not sponsoring your your messages, you want to keep them close? Absolutely let’s turn a little bit. Tio corporate foundation philanthropy. Last time you were on the show was it was july thirtieth for anybody wants toe. Look back to that. We talked a lot about private foundation giving, um, aren’t there sort of parallels, but also maybe some contrasts between corporate foundation philanthropy and private foundation philanthropy and really, in just a minute and a half, we have left. You want to close that loop a little bit? Sure, corporate foundations will operate very much the same way as a private foundation, you’ll still have to send the proposal. The proposal will end up being voted on by a board where it’s different is they’ll, you know, it’s not gonna surprise your corporate foundation is usually interested or has and the mission statement work that’s very aligned with the core mission of the creating corporations. So if you get a pharmaceutical foundation, they’re going to be supporting health care. So it’s for seoul making sure that you know you have the right kind of program that matches up with their interests. Some have the corporate foundation will want some visibility, even though it’s a separate entity from from a corporation. Is that right? Yeah, but by and large, it’s goingto work just about the same way as a private foundation. All right, thank you, john. And again, john was on july thirtieth and talked a lot about private foundation philanthropy, and we have to leave it there. My guest has been john hicks, president ceo of j c geever. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. After this break, we’ll be joined by the show’s tech expert scott koegler, editor at non-profit technology news, and we’re going to be talking about fund-raising software. Stay with me. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. E-giving cubine are you feeling overwhelmed and the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact durney at monte m o nt. Y at r l j media. Dot com i really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two eight six five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w dot mind over matter. Y si dot com. Cerini talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo. I will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 at aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m, we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectures on job strategies and networking. So come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelfth, at aqueduct racetrack for a Job fair, contending enter 3 pm. For more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one bonem. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio, where we’re always talking big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent in a moment, i’ll be joined by our tech expert, scott koegler want to take a few moments for tony’s? Take two this week. News from your i r s the people at internal revenue service love you and they host free one day seminars throughout the country that are for small and midsize non-profits tto learn how to, and this is a quote, keep their tax exempt status and comply with tax obligations and, quote, and the next one of these is coming up in phoenix, arizona, on december seventh and also on december eighth. But it’s a one day forum ondas i said they’re free and i have information about that on my block. Ggot m p g a d v dot com also there you can see a draft of the new form nine ninety if you don’t know what the form nine ninety is you. Ah, you need to do sametz occassion and you can start at the blogged, but you probably do and if you want to see this year’s new nine, ninety in draft form i have a link to that there, and also you can sign up for what the irs calls they’re exempt organization updates, i get them and sometimes i passed that information on to you, but you can have those email directly to you. Cut out the middleman don’t stop listening to the show, but just lower the volume when i talk about the next news from your irs, you can get those e mail directly to you and again there’s a link to that on my block mpg a dv dot com also want to share with you that i’m speaking at the next-gen charity conference on november eighteenth, the conferences november eighteenth and nineteenth. Um, i’m doing podcast interviews for this show on the eighteenth on the nineteenth, i’m hosting a workshop from eleven to one pg and so me planned giving and social media and i can get you twenty percent off the whole conference both days because your listener to this show again, go to my blogged, or go to the facebook page for the show and you get information on that twenty percent discount the facebook pages at facebook dot com forward slash tony martignetti non-profit radio and that is tony’s take two for friday, november fifth. I’m joined now by our tech guru expert scott koegler scott’s, the editor of non-profit technology news, which you’ll find it and p tech news, dot com there’s also a link to that site on the show’s facebook page, because scott is a regular contributor and very welcome, very glad to have having back. Scott, welcome back. Well, thanks, tony. Good to be here. Thank you for joining us. And this week we’re talking about fundez accounting software. What? What is fund-raising scott? Good. Good question. I have fund accounting is something it’s very specific to non-profits mostly because non-profits generally have to account for some of the some of their money in terms of the funds or the designated accounting categories. So if they, uh, if a donor or a particular the event is is organized to put together a fun to handle the particular need, those going a little buckets before big buckets, i guess. And all those individual buckets need to be accounted for in terms of right income. That’s been earned on dh expenses. Disbursements that have been made at that fund level, right? And you know, if those are designated funds that were given by a particular contributor, that contributor probably wants some kind of accounting to say, okay, i gave you i gave you this amount of money, what did you do with it? Where did they go? Yes, what i gave you one hundred thousand dollars are for fifty thousand dollars in perpetuity or first set number of years and exactly is your point is they want to see the management of that money and it’s benefit to the people that your organization supports, right? So we need to be able to account for this for all these different funds as donors designate them, and you’re your review eyes the review out now or it’s coming out soon. Wait, just posting it today on newsletter goes out on tuesday, but the reviewers up online so, folks one look at that that’s n p tech news dot com alright on dh how timely we are. We’re getting a quick little pre announcement, but from the editor of non-profit technology news, the information goes up full and live later today. And scott, your review breaks down the different software packages, which we’ll get. To you very shortly by their appropriateness for small medium on dh, larger organizations. How do you how do you define those? Or do you are? Do you let people decide on their own which category they fit in? It’s a fluid categorization, if you will. Most of the way that we define them is by talking with the vendors of the software so they know what their capabilities are, what the sizes of their databases can handle and to some extent it’s the price. It also. Okay. Let’s, let’s. Jump in and talk about some of the features of these let’s. Start with the ones for smaller organizations. What’s the what’s. The first one you’d like to talk about. Well, the first one on our list is fundez easy accounting. And you may you may remember from our previous discussion that we talked about donorsearch management fundez he was one of the companies that also provides fund-raising software on. So the two probably work well together, i presume, right? They kind of funnel all of the information into the similar accounting package. Okay, that just for listeners, that show was on september seventeenth. Scott was on previously talking about fund-raising management software. Go ahead, scout. So tell us about the accounting function of fundez easy, right? The this is general accounting as well. A specific accounting for fund management. So, you know, the right up says that it has a an intuitive interface. You know, you would hope at this point that pretty much all of the applications that we use anymore have intuited grantspace the fact that our reviewer look at this and said, yeah, this is one of those is probably significant. This is relatively low price that starts for single user around seven hundred dollars, in addition to the fund specific functions, and also includes accounts payable receivables and general ledger. Okay, so there’s those general accounting functions correct? Is that typical? Do the i’m sorry, did they did they all or most of them include the general accounting functions as well as the fund accounting or not right in general, to be redundant, they used. They include general led to do yes. Okay, i wasn’t sure that was just for fun, deasy. Or generally, all of them. Okay, generally do because the buckets that these funds were put into our general ledger accounting categories, so if our listeners are familiar with general ledger accounting, you know, there’s there’s one thing it’s accounts payable there’s money received and then there’s money allocated for a particular song in this case. Okay, so these thes air able to import and export information from and two other applications, uh, one of the nice things about this. And i think this is fairly fairly generic to most of these again, the purpose is that your funders want to know what happened with the money. S o it’s one thing to look into the fund and say, okay, well, we have a hundred thousand dollars in their fund. The next question is, well, what’s it being used for in here this fundez easy accounting a cz. Well, some of the others have a function called drill down and that’s kind of ah kind of a ticking word for i click on the number and it shows me more detail about okay. Scott scott is acquainted with show he was worked very hard to avoid jorgen jail at that moment cause he defined this drill down function for us, so no need to invoke jargon jail. I know the listeners we’re thinking of it, but no need. The keys are still in my pocket. You know, you’re no need. Yes. Okay, well, sentences of generally short, you’d have been out, but but you avoided it all cost let’s go to another one for small organizations and i’m sure they share a lot of these functions. A cz you’ve mentioned what’s. Another one for small non-profits. Well, the next one i have on my list here, simon. See why am a not for profit accounting software? See? See why m a right. So it sounds like c y a, but it’s not does. It probably does some of the cover your ass ski. Eso is that this’s not cover. You’re asking accounting you would hope so. It actually it does. It does handle fund accounting as well. Simon is one of those companies has been around for quite a number of years in the general accounting and also in vertical environments where they address, you know specific in-kind company okay and again so i don’t confuse the listeners. It’s simon see y m a. I was being a funny boy with c y es. But ask you, by the way, i don’t know. If people know that, but that’s the american standard code for information interchange no, i didn’t know that it’s common knowledge, but i don’t want to put myself in jargon jail okay, enough let’s talk about cyma what not-for-profits accounting software, please it’s specifically have some of the same functionality as as do all of these in terms of fund accounting, what you’ll find is the ability to designate a fund, add funds to it, allocate funds out to specific purposes such as payroll, for instance, you may wanna dedicate designate ten percent of a fund to payroll where, as you know, it doesn’t cover the entire table, but it helps you may want to designate a portion of the fund for purchase of a new photocopier or to the phone bill, something like that so pretty much all of these alliance to do that? Yes, and that is important because there, because when people are given gift and there’s often an administrative costs, which is what, exactly what you’re describing, their administrative costs around administering that gift or that program, and they look and non-profits look for portions of donations to offset the cost of or portions of a cost of the administrative overhead and that’s exactly what you’re talking about. Right? Right, exactly. Half assed again. Do some of these others provide for a function called inter fund transfers on it is. He does what? You what it sounds like it does. It allows you to transfer funds from from one fund to another. This one is a little bit more expensive at twelve hundred dollars for the nonce for-profit accounting software and that that’s the general ledger side. And it also allows you to add additional modules for around six hundred dollars apiece, depending on the module. So those would be a payroll accounts payable. So we begin to see a difference here between fundez. Easy. For instance, an assignment in that fundez easy contains additional modules that are extra costs. With simon. Yes, scott. One of the times you were on, i think it was two times ago way talked about software as a service eyes a cloud computing. Is that the’s that type of packages or these software that you install locally? These are pretty much all locally installed applications. Okay, it’s, uh, accounting software is one of those that most organizations feel proprietary about. They want to keep it within the four walls well, okay, but we did talk about security, um, safeguards that can be made around that cloud computing. But i guess this is just so sensitive that companies don’t bother toe make it that way. You know, that’s one of those things that every company evaluates for themselves. My personal opinion is that security of cloud environments and sass environments is is just fine, but my opinion is not always good enough for the city. So, uh, trend is that about about twenty percent of corporations now you some form of cloud or sas services, but that’s still twenty percent that’s pretty far from everybody and not in this accounting arena. I’m with scott koegler he’s, the editor at non-profit technology news he’s, our regular tech contributor. We’re going to take a break, and when we come back, we’ll look at some packages in this arena for midsize organizations. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo. I will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 and aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m, we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectured on jobs, try to jeez and networking. So come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelfth, at aqueduct racetrack. For a Job fair from 10 a m to three p m. For more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com no. Welcome back to the show i’m with our tech contributor expert scott koegler, the editor at non-profit technology news. Scott um, why don’t we talk some about some of the packages that are intended for slightly larger organization? Sort of mid size? I know quickbooks has as an entry here, right? Quickbooks is obviously an accounting application, and they have one version that they’ve put out, which is called intel into its quickbooks premier non-profit for two thousand eleven it’s obviously a couple of months ahead of time, but it incorporates a lot of the features, but probably many of our listeners are accustomed to and quickbooks being the premiere version it’s got latto interchange has the advanced functionality. It can produce financial statements, sales and sales tax reports and all those available on screen as well as to print, of course. Um, it’s it’s, inexpensive frankly it’s four hundred dollars, which is very well, well, twice for quickbooks premiere of any kind of quickbooks premiere, i believe, for general purposes is right around there for five hundred dollars. Um, but for for people that are used to using quickbooks, this is a natural migration for them to use it. To the non-profit okay, the interface it looks the same is identical. It has just the additional funds accounting portions, you know, give it a way we haven’t talked much about reporting. You alluded to it that reports are important, especially for the donor, but also maybe for auditors come tax time. What’s what’s the robustness of the reporting with this with this with into its quickbooks premiere well into its quickbooks reporting is one of the most flexible than i’ve ever seen and it’s really accessible to people who are not accountants. That’s been one of into its strength is ability, tio provided i don’t know something. I don’t know exactly how many reports they have pre built into the system, but i’m guessing that it’s probably a hundred or so every one of those could be modified and saved as a new report. So it’s really easy to generate reports they’re specific to your needs. Pacific two requests anybody on staff? Yes, directors, donors, whatever and how about support another another where we haven’t talked about yet? What typically is the level of support that user gets? Is itjust online, or is there a call call center? How? Does this generally work support? It varies from one provider to the next to go come anything to female support to online support in person and one of the things you’ll find that differentiates these applications from very small, very large. I’m just going to skip down to some of the larger ones just for reference here koegler mountain, open zsystems and blackbaud are some of the better known applications in non-profit world, and those generally have either onsite training and support or telephone support. So what you’re paying for that their annual support can sometimes amount to nearly as much as the cost of the application, so but the application is twelve hundred dollars twelve hundred dollars for years, probably more than what it really would cost, but probably five to six hundred dollars a year for personal support. But in some cases, you’re getting on sight, you said, right? Right, and those there generally more in terms of installation of training rather than day today question. Okay, but certainly support is something listeners wantto consider when they’re deciding which package is right for them because based on their expertise or lack of in accounting, absolutely you definitely want to have something it’s easy to use and familiar and that’s one of the things that the lower priced applications do provide. Okay, all right, so the quickbooks sounds like something that could be very good for people who are familiar with quickbooks. What’s another one for small and sorry midsize organizations for mid size will see we’ve got the open systems which this’s the open systems traverse and f p i guess an s p s we’re not for-profit i think you’re right now. This one, this one integrates with microsoft office, which makes a really nice you could export into excel directly. Scott, have you gotto have you got an office assistant who’s hungry there or he needs to go out, and i wish i could get way. Just have a minute and a half left. So he or she will be out very soon. Okay, go ahead. Tell us about open system’s. Broken systems. A little bit more expensive. Goes it around two thousand dollars. But it does include quite a few portions to a general ledger accounts payable and payroll dahna peril and it’s. Okay, right. So an organization that has a good sized staff particularly that needs paid her all that that works well for that kind of organization and what’s the numbers on the open systems travers and f p how much does that cost to get in? That starts in two thousand dollars and that’s for single user license. Okay, we’ll play zoho into a multi user. Which, again, for a larger organization, you definitely want to be able to add additional seats. Yeah, and it sounds like all or most of these are scalable. You’ve said a few times, right? Generally, the initial price is for a single user, and additional users are additional cost. Ok, let’s, go. We have to leave it there. And this fund accounting software round up. Thank you very much for joining us. We’ll have you back. Of course. Thanks a lot, tony. Have a great day. My pleasure. Thank you. That’s. Scott koegler are non-profit sorry. R are a software and technology contributor and expert. And he’s. The editor of non-profit technology news, which is at n p tech news. Dot com you want? Thanks, scott. Of course. And also want to thank john hicks, president ceo of j c geever for joining me today. Next week we’re going to talk about board fund-raising fire up your board fund-raising we will be joined by author and authority gail perry and gale is going to reveal proven techniques to motivate your board to step up to a very critical responsibility of theirs. Fund-raising gail is the author of fired-up fund-raising and you’re crazy if you miss that frankly, well, but you’re crazy if you miss today’s show too, but well, you wouldn’t know it because you wouldn’t be listening, so you wouldn’t have me telling you, um, unless maybe, you know from an outside source aside from me, but you’re crazy if you miss that show, i think or any of these, you could get inside or alerts about the show and see where my live appearances are going to be at our facebook page, which is facebook dot com forward slash tony martignetti non-profit radio and also my blawg has information about the show, m p g a d v dot com, the creative producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is clear meyerhoff line producer and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting, sam liebowitz and our social media is by regina walton of organic social media. If you like our fan page, please click the like button so that regina will know that she’s doing a good job on the facebook page. But she manages our social media generally. This is tony martignetti, the host of tony martignetti non-profit radio, always big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Join me next friday, my guest will be gayle perry that’s, one to two p m eastern here on talking alternative dot com. Being a good ending, you’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get me thinking. E-giving. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two eight six five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w died mind over matter. N y c dot com durney this is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo i will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 and aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectures on jobs. Try to jeez and networking. So come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelve at aqueduct racetrack for a Job fair 10AM2 three p m for more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one. Sametz are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Bonem you’re listening to the talking alternative network.

Nonprofit Radio for September 17, 2010: The Attention Factor & Fundraising Software Ideas

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Alice Aspen March, author of The Attention Factor!® Discovery Book. She shares tips to give attention–and be present in all senses–when talking to your donors,co-workers, board and volunteers. How can you achieve full attention and non-distraction in your professional relationships?

Scott Koegler, Editor, Nonprofit Technology News. Scott and I will talk about what you need to know about fundraising software. Whether your budget and donor list are several hundred or many thousands, there is software suited to your size and bottom line.

Here is a link to the podcast: 007: Your Attention and Nonprofit Software

This Friday from 1-2pm this week and every week!


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

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Hyre hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m your aptly named host tony martignetti we’re talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We’re live today, we’re going to be taking your calls shortly for alice march and scott koegler alice is going to alice aspen march is going to be joining me. We’re going to be talking about attention being present and scott koegler is the editor of non-profit technology news he’s, the show’s tech expert, and we’re going to be talking about fund-raising software you might remember last week, we had tips to save you money and time on your printing and direct mail that was last week this week were paying attention to people and technology. After the break, i’ll be joined by alice aspen march talking about attention before that, i’d like to spend just a moment talking to you about your plan to giving program and keeping that ahead of the curve surfing your planned giving to stay ahead of the cresting wave. I say more about that on my block, which is m p g a d v dot com, where there are some tips for keeping your plan giving. Program ahead of the curve, with lots of prospects. Bye, doing things like avoiding excuses and having a nice big prospect pipeline and how to do that, and you’ll find more on my blogged m p g a d v dot com. And around the middle of the hour, i’ll have some thoughts about openly sharing your shortcomings and failures in your non-profits work. It’s becoming a little more popular, and i’ll say little about that in the middle of the hour. Today, we have some excellent guests, and i’ll be joined by the first of those. After this break, please stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future. You dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight. Three backs to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce a lot? I’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Buy-in treyz. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dafs welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent in a moment, i’ll be joined by alice aspen march, and we’re gonna be talking about paying attention, giving attention to your donor’s, your coworkers, board members and volunteers and later in the show, i’ll be joined by scott koegler, the show’s tech expert he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news, and he returns to the show with the latest reviews of fund-raising software. Whether your budget and donor list are several hundred or you have many thousands, there is software that is suited to your size and your bottom line, and scott will join us later in the show. Right now, i’m joined by alice aspen march, the founder of the attention factor, you’ll find that at the attention factor dot com alice is has appeared on many television and radio shows and has been extensively quoted in print and online outlets talking about attention. Alice aspen, march welcome to the show. Thank you, tony alice, there aren’t many people talking about paying attention and giving attention to others. What first do you mean when you’re talking about attention? Well, first of all, you’re right, nobody is talking about it like i am paying attention is the most important part of our lives because attention is with us twenty four seven and people know today when you’re not paying attention, especially when you’re on your cell phone or you’re texting or you’ve got your earphones on or you’re looking at your computer or your answering a phone, and people feel that what i mean by paying attention or being present is when you are listening to somebody when you are looking at them, when you’re in their energetic field and when you’re not people can feel invisible or not respected or not included are angry and they they withdraw, they act out the roots of your work are pretty personal. Yes, they are because i have three adult sons, and one day i discovered that my youngest one, who had been a television addict nobody was talking about that at all at that time had gone on to abuse drugs, and i was really terrified, tony, that i could lose him. And so i went looking for the role i played in his dysfunctional behavior and att first i changed my life, selby. But i didn’t know what i was looking for. It was very frustrating until i had an epiphany in a u c l a extension class. I lived in los angeles at the time i had an epiphany over the word attention, and i knew that was a clue. So then i went looking for everywhere i could find anything about it, and strangely enough, the on ly place i found it was attached to a d h d and a d day, and that wasn’t really what i was looking for, so i went further into the subject and i have a generalist mind, and pretty soon i realized i was reading about attention, but they never used the word. So in about a year, i had a body of work, which i took to a spot that i’d spoken at years before, and i realized that my subject matter resonated with everybody because attention is everybody’s primary need my guest is alice aspen march, founder of the attention factor, and we’re taking your calls today. The number to call for alice is eight seven seven for eight xero forty one twenty eight, seven, seven for eight xero for one to zero for calls to alice aspen, march alice it sounds like with greater attention we can increase our own and maybe and probably other people’s productivity efficiency as well as well being. Tony, you’ve just said the magic words yes, the deprivation of attention leads to it can lead to disease, it can lead to violence it can lead to stealing in in corporate the corporate world, people need attention and when they don’t get it, they’ve got to act out. So when they do get the kind they need, of course, productivity goes up. Morale in a corporate world goes up, people’s relationships change and our positive i’ve had people who have heard me on a ship or in europe or new zealand and say to me afterwards, i don’t believe this. Why haven’t we heard this before? You basically just change. You saved my daughter’s life or i’m going home and treat my employees differently, or i’ve got to do something about my wife or now i know what’s been wrong and my marriage for forty three years yes, is this is obviously pervasive work that you’re doing affecting personal and professional relationships and to bring it home for our listeners, i’m thinking about relationships with boardmember sze volunteers, co workers, co workers may be working for you or you’re working for them or against you when you mentioned violence, that makes me think a little bit of that phrase going postal violence, that’s not the only place the postal service is not the only place where people where we’ve seen violence in the workplace, certainly, but it can rise to that level. And is your sense that a lot of that violence stems from people not being respected and getting attention in words of one syllable, yes, and, you know, of course, that expression going postal came out of the post office, you see, an exit interview is vital for people that you’re letting go because it’s a closure for them, and if they don’t get that when they don’t get that they feel invisible. And he certainly went back to the workplace and made himself visible by taking out a lot of people, you know? And even more recently, there was something in in binghamton, new york, yes, on alison and just the minute we have left before the break, alice really back of course after the break may be there just one one way you can give us one or two of listening better. How can we be better at giving attention? Well, first of all, you could turn off all your tech stuff. Okay, so she’s vital, vital tony? Yes, that’s ah that’s first and foremost is my cell phone on vibrate? I think, yes, i did do it for the show. But yes, you’re right know where we have we have kottler way have become immersed in a culture that does not listen does not listen to each other and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and people are feeling out there talking about that more that he doesn’t listen to me or they don’t listen to me or she doesn’t listen to me. We’re going to take a break. Alice, my guest is alice has been march, founder of the attention factor. Please stay with us. You didn’t even think that shooting getting dink dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternative network get in. Cubine hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo. I will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 and aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m, we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectures on jobs, try to jeez and networking. So come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelve at aqueduct racetrack for a Job fair 10AM2 three p m. For more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two, eight sixty five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w died mind over matter and y si dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back. My guest is alice aspen march. The founder of the attention factor at the attention factor. Dot com alice. Right before the break, we started to talk about ways that we can give attention in in much better ways and pay attention. Mohr and you mentioned turning off our tech gadgets. What? What else? How else should we be bestowing the attention that is so much needed by the people we work with and live with? Well, certainly one way and a unique way. That’s not very usual is to ask them. Ask somebody what kind of attention would you like from me? And i could bet that they don’t even know. So the next sentence that you would share with them would be. You may not know right now what kind of attention you want from me. But when you figure it out, please call me. Please let me know. So i can either give it to you. Are we can talk about it? Are it would make good conversation. So you think in a professional relationship that’s ah, that’s a fair question to ask now, this is let’s say boss and employee and the employees i guess asking the boss what what kind of attention do you need from me? Absolutely. Yes. First of all, it makes the employees feel visible that the boss really cares about her or him, and it opens up a whole world of communication. Absolutely. Alice, we have a caller. Barbara, welcome to the show. Barbara. Thank you, what’s use your question for alice barbara that i want. I know that i’ve turned a with my computers so that i’m giving her one hundred percent of my attention. Thank you. Also, i grieve with what you’re saying, and i tried to do that. That has to keep paying attention to someone when you’re when you’re talking to someone who just talks in circles, who never gets to the point. And it just gets so frustrating. And so i find that when that happens, my mind i just i go where had all focus those difficult, sort of, maybe frustrating, even moments when someone isn’t getting to the point. Alice so what do we do, what we do in that situation? First of all, how do you feel when that happens? Barber to you, that’s important to realize how do you know? When i’m not getting to the point. Yeah, well, you’re feeling frustrated, right? Okay, well, probably one thing you could certainly say to the person is i don’t think you’ve heard what i said because i’m feeling very frustrated about something right now. That’s a direct communication. Okay, are you going to say that? Well, i’m sorry to hear that. I know they would have had to see that that’s a good thing to say, oh, good are i need you to repeat back what i’ve just said to you so that i know that you got it because it’s really important, alice is clearly all about open communication that sounds like the advice that you’re giving not to be afraid to sort of, i guess, obviously politely but firmly asked for more ask for the attention you’re seeking. And in the case of barbra’s question, i asked for affirmation of what it is that you’re looking for are acknowledging tony closed. Communication doesn’t work, so you have to have open communication, but you have to know really what you need and if you need somebody to stop talking in circles, which is so really normal, you need that you have to you have to let them know that they’re really not getting you, and as i said, the way to get the way to alert them to that is to get to never repeat back what you’ve said, barber, does that help you? Thank you. All right, thank you very much for calling barbara. The number to call if you’d like to talk to alice is eight seven, seven for eight xero forty one twenty my guest is alice aspen march the founder of the attention factor, alice let’s focus more on how we can be better at giving attention be more attentive. Eso you’ve mentioned turning off electronic devices? I mean, those air obviously distracting and your point is people feel that distraction asking for attention, asking what type of attention is is being sought. Are there other ways that we can be better at this? Well, once you ask somebody what kind of attention they need and you start a conversation, you’re going to get lots of information. They’re going to tell you what they need and how to give it to them and and and miracles happen. First of all, you’ve got to know that way. Our three different kinds of people, some of us need attention visually, some of us needed auditory lee. Is that a word? Yeah, auditory and another. Some of us need a kinesthetic lee. And when you established in aesthetics is movement correct? Like i’m flailing my arms right now as i’m talking to you, right? Well, you can hear it in people speech. They will either say, you know, i really see what you’re talking about. I hear what you’ve said, i really don’t feel that well, that’s a big clue that comes from really listening when you get that clue, you could address that need in that person and put it in put your conversation in visual terms or auditory terms or kinesthetic terms. You know i’d like to talk about retention that’s a new popular issue right now, it’s not only an issue in in your area, but it’s in the issue that i’m working with now college kids, you know, it usedto only belong in the corporate world. They would talk about retention because people leave. There was a tremendous turnover. Well, college kids are now leaving and trustees air now leaving and i believe firmly cause i hear this from enough people that they leave when they don’t get their needs met and their primary need is for attention. We’ve had a show actually about retaining the good employees that you work so hard to recruit way look to recruit the best not only employees, but also boardmember zand volunteers and it’s difficult for the organisation when there’s a lot of turnover. Um, your point is you think some of the this turnover could be reduced if people would just be more open about what they’re needs are around attention and fulfilling those needs. Toni, i’ve got lots of research in my files showing that employee turnover khun b reduced when employees start to get the kind of attention they are they need, and i’ve worked with a group. The bottom line personal publication corporation had a fight, fabulous experience. It was an experiment. It was called i power. Yes, tell us and they were losing a publication and they had tremendous turnover and stress in their workplace. And they developed this experience where they got their employees to tell them how they felt they could do their job better. There was a process involved in this, but not on ly did employ turnover cease the bottom line went up and and the hundreds of dollars were saved in tiny ways because employees know about waist and they really don’t want to waste their time, nor their owners resource is that it was a miracle. I took that course twice to see if they were doing what i wanted them to do, and they were fabulous story. Fabulous. This reminds me two of something that was in the is in the news very recently, there’s ah ah, university, harrisburg university of science and technology they’ve decided that for one week they were going to turn off access to all social media to the students, so there would be no text messaging, no facebook access um, no twitter access for a solid week and these air all the sorts of distracters that you’re talking about and what happened? No, they haven’t done it yet, it’s coming and i do it. I would like to know what they’re going to do. I mean, how it turns out, you know, there was a president of santa monica college when i lived there, who decreed that for one hour just one hour. Ah, weak. His staff and his service. People would do nothing but read that’s. What he proclaimed and the whole campus changed. People were starting to talk to each other again. The gardeners were talking to the only students because everybody want to know what the other person was reading. The point is, we need that in our lives. We need a turnoff. We need to start looking at people and paying attention. You know, i just moved to new york from los angeles, where i spent my life in a car isolated the difference. And living here is so overwhelming because i take the bus is i take the subways and i look at people and i talked to people. People are people. People are people all over, and they want to be talked to. They want to be looked at. They want to get directions if they look like they’re lost. I stopped. I stopped a couple of the other day in grand central station because the man was taking a photograph of his wife and i said to him, how would you like me to take a picture of both of you and this guy? Smiled from air to hear he couldn’t believe it. A small gesture you and i met on the subway. We met on the atria. We did did that’s how we met on the time we got to know each other. If someone has a difficult relationship with let’s, say a boardmember because that’s those can be sometimes the most the most excruciating. Ah, they where should they really start to try toe engage the person mohr or teo sort of hell the relationship. Well, i think if you really know that the relationship is out or not working, you ask him out for lunch and you say, you know, i’d like to talk to you about a few things and that’s when you could say, you know, i get that there’s not a lot of attention around here. What kind would you like? Are we are we scheduling meetings at the wrong time? Are you being harassed by my staff? Are you getting too many e mails? But, you know, over food, some wonderful things happen, and generally a person when you’re eating with them will be more comfortable and feels safer. Ah, and you can ask him, of course. If this is a good time to talk about what’s going on that the non-profit you’ve gotta enroll, people, enroll in and engage in roland, engage us, ask permission permission for what i ask permission to talk to him about what’s going on at the non-profit that is attention. I happen to like your idea of sharing a meal with someone it’s, it’s, it’s, a physical, sharing your sharing a physical space, the table. I also like that meals in a restaurant are timed. We know the flow exactly. They’re also aren’t going to be the office interruptions because you’re out of the office and adhering to your advice, you’ve turned off your cell phone. You want to be attentive to this person? So you have you’ve eliminated distractions, hopefully, and then there’s the physical level, the physical but the sharing of a meal and be sure you pick up the bill don’t let him i want to give you another example that occurred in one of my workshops. Ah woman’s boss would call her in for a meeting, and either he was on the phone or on his computer or texting or something, and the meetings were generally disasters. Because he would give her moments. And she said, what could i do? And i said, next time you see him in the hall say, could i have seven minutes of your time with no interruption? You know, if somebody hears is a beginning in the end, they can handle that. And so they set aside a seven minute time and went in, and they had the meeting with no interruptions. And he was the one at the end of the meeting. Who said, you know, this has been the best meeting we’ve ever had in just a brief period. Yes, and she was she was elated because when she walked out of his office before she felt deflated, depressed, un respected and a review nails particularly invisible, which is a terrible place to be and they were able to turn it around in just a seven minute meeting. That’s, right without interruption. You doing a five minute meeting? Alison? Just a minute. We have left. This also gets me thinking about two types of people. Are you actually think of the movie pulp fiction? The scene with uma thurman and and john travolta? Are you the kind of person? Who listens or either kind of person who waits to talk good question. There are both in our land and i’ve been guilty of both. So i am particularly joining the first group where i listen until the people are really done. And you know, tony, i’ve had people say to me, you know, you’re really a good lister, so i know that it’s happening for them. Well, john travolta would admire you because he answers that he’s the kind of person who waits to talk, but he says he’s working on it, alice, we have to leave it there. My guest has been alice aspen march, the founder of the attention factor, you confined alice thehe tension factor dot com and i want to thank her very much for joining us in the studio. After this break. We’ll be joined by scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news, our tech expert for the show and he’s goingto a share with us reviews of fund-raising software. Stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo. I will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 and aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectures on jobs, try to jeez and networking. So come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelfth at aqueduct racetrack for a Job fair 10AM2 three p m. For more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one. Hyre are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications? Then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way look forward to serving you. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dafs welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio, i’m tony martignetti we’re talking big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent in a moment, i’ll be joined by scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. Just for a moment, i’d like to spend a little time thinking about sharing, sharing your miss misfortunes, shortcomings failures. I’m seeing mohr of this among non-profits for a long, long time that has just been taboo, no donor wanted to be affiliated with a project or a program that wasn’t a smashing success, so everything that fell short of that we just kept silent about you may remember a couple of weeks ago i had stephanie strong, the national non-profit reporter for the new york times on, and we talked about her her coverage of failure fair, which was something sponsored by the world bank, no less, and she and i talked about how this longstanding pattern of not talking about shortcomings is slowly changing, and they were sort of seeing examples. And since that show, i’ve seen a couple of examples a pretty well regarded charity in terms of accountability and openness. Charity water shared a video where they we’re very open. The ceo was very open about a water drilling failure in in south african republic. And that was no less than their fourth anniversary. Video was the fourth anniversary of the charity, and they were sharing, ah, shortcoming, a project that did not go so well. And also, very recently, the ceo of the case foundation blogged about projects that don’t go aswell, as the business plan would often like. So i’m starting to see some examples of this. I blogged about it at m p, g a d v dot com, a very recent block post. But i’m just encouraging you to think about how. Failures and shortcomings don’t have to be abject failures, but can be turned around and shared with donors in a way that is productive not only for your non-profit but also for the non-profit community generally and importantly, is then accompanied by a very sensible plan for what to do next, and that actually has brought out in that in that case, foundation blogged post, and you’ll find links to all those on my blogged at mpg geever dot com. I’m joined now by scott koegler scott is the show’s technology expert and he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news. Scott, welcome back. Hi, tony. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me it. Nice to be here. Pleasure to have you back. We’re going to talk about fund-raising software. You’ve done some very recent reviews. Tell us what’s current in fund-raising software. Um, when we did recently, i think it was two weeks ago we put up a a list of different, uh, software products that are available specifically for fund-raising. And i think, uh, i think i’d like to start out with how do you go about making a selection? Yeah. How does an organization decide? What’s right for them, right? Because the reviews that we put up go from the very smallest, almost a single user organization up to multi use yourself, there’s a lot of variation in styles, types and costs, of course, and i kind of suggested three different criteria. When you go to look for software, the first one really is budget. You need to have some kind of money pretty much every one of these applications costs something a lot of them have three trials, but they really won’t get you very far. They need to find what kind of the budget you have that you might be able to spend on on a local application like this for a smaller organizations got that includes even if your budget is just in the several hundreds or even low thousands, you still can. You still can get some traction with this software. Certainly i there’s some that’s starting on the two hundred dollars, so they’re accessible teo, almost any size organization, but i still recommend starting with a budget for any size organization, even if you’re huge and what after budget, the second one would be help. That kind of the the makeup of the organization is everyone in the same place you’d be working in office is everybody coming to the same location? Or do you have people that work remotely? And that will kind of define a type of software that you’re looking for? Last time i was on, we talked a lot about haserot service, yes, and just to remind people that was the july sixteenth show. If you want to listen to got night, talking about software is a service. Sorry, scott, please go ahead. And so if you’re if you’re in one office, you’ve got some got all kinds of options there because you khun install the software on a pcr on a server in the office, and generally all of these applications can be used by multiple people, same time as long as there’s a network involved. But if there are people that are remotely located or working home, or even work with a smartphone, they get maximum ex accessibility through applications were there installed online. We’re sas suffers the service or hosted kinds of applications, which can be applied for people that all work in the same office just as easily. The only requirement there is that it that somehow you have an internet connection. So that that’s really the criteria? The stand alone? If you’re in one office, you definitely want to be ableto know that you can net workflows and it’s not just a single user application. Unless you’re very, very small with a one person staff and and scott, could you just distinguish for us? Ah, a couple of different installation methodologies, i guess there’s, the local network multi user and the sas local you described is that’s just installed on a pc what’s the difference between network and multi user, uh, good point and it’s also a very fine point. Networking implies the use of the server. So there’s, generally a server installed somewhere in the office. Servers generally run server operating systems like microsoft server or some kind of winnicks server. And soccer is installed there, and it is connected over the network to individual pc water stations. Multi user is just a bit different and it gets confusing and sometimes the definitions overlap. But multi user means that multiple people can use the same application doesn’t necessarily imply that that application’s installed on their server. It could just be installed on a pc that is connected to other pieces. Through a network in the office, i see and then you don’t have the the security concerns and even the physical cooling concerns that you have around server. I wouldn’t say that there are no security concerns because anytime anything is shared, their their security concerns, ok? And i think it’s pretty much a given anymore that any office is going to have internet access, and as soon as you open up that connection to the internet, then you have security concerns. But most applications today do a pretty good job off keeping the data safe, and there are plenty of security applications that air either low cost or no cost that could be installed on individual work stations or servers that will keep the bad guys away or at least make it very difficult for him to get in. I’m talking to scott koegler, the show’s technology expert scott’s, the editor of non-profit technology news, which you’ll find at n p tech news. Dot com scott let’s dive in and talk about some of the individual products that you’ve reviewed recently at non-profit technology news? Sure, and i’ll just say also that the products that i’m going to talk about here are written up in a article on the site, so if people want more detail on that, you can certainly go there. I’ll talk about the kind of start with the lower end there’s one called fundraiser basic software and again for the lynx, and this should go to the site, get the links. Uh, this is a single database system. It’s good for the fifty thousand donors, and that may be a lot that may not be enough for you, but that’s kind of a maximum for this type of application. It is multi user. But as i said, multiuse er means that it’s installed on a single on a single workstation and accessed over a network. Those who make it bad or good. It just means that it’s, not a server based installation. One of the things that fund-raising basic has is a pretty good mailing capability. So you can take your the donor list and they’ve made it out into different segments and then send me now out from there. And that’s, certainly one of the most basic and sometimes most important things that fund-raising organization could do. And you said we were starting at the low end? What are the startup costs for getting into fundraiser? Basic. The cost for the product is about two hundred dollars. Oh, my gosh, yeah, so that puts it within reach of i wouldn’t say anybody that certainly a lot of folks, so for two hundred dollars on organization can have ah, good features for up to fifty thousand donors, right? And its multi user, which is i mean, you could have i don’t know exactly what the limitations in terms of numbers of users, but i would say, you know, if it could go to ten that’s, probably more than most small organizations were made, and are there ongoing costs after the two hundred dollars initial purchase? With any of these applications, there typically annual subscription fees for maintenance and updates the in general, those he’s run about ten percent of the original purchase cost? I have to tell you that i don’t really know what the specific costs for fund-raising basic is in terms of ongoing costs, but if it’s twenty dollars, a year or even one hundred dollars a year that’s probably a bargain. No kidding. And does that fee typically include support if there are questions? Or is that usually just found online? I had a support work. I believe they offer female support rather than phone support than the support options there. I believe that they do have additional support options, but those with the extra cost. Okay? And that product again is called fundraiser basic. Is that right? That’s? Correct. All right. And what was another one you’d like to share with us? There’s one called a raise. A r a fast fund? No, the whole raise fast. Fund-raising non-profit fund-raising software. A long name. Okay, but they’ll find the link on your website. It and p tech news. Dot com. Right? Correct. Okay. When? When we just call it a raise on rachel is a good name for thank you. What do you want to tell us about a raise? Well, it’s it’s a little bit more expensive than fund-raising basic it’s. Three hundred dollars. But i would call that still in the bargain basement? Yes. No, it allows you to do batch entry of data. So if you have your list of donors already available, you can upload that into the system rather than enter them one at a time. And that that’s important to you. You know, if you’re coming from you have any kind of history at all. It gets pretty tedious. Tryingto enter name. Do you know? Would that include batch entry from an excel spreadsheet? Do you know? I believe it excel spreadsheets or asking files another. And you, khun generally export in asking spreadsheet as a text file. Okay, what? What is what is asking jargon jail when we have a jogging jail time? Probably that’s. Okay, i’ll catch you on the ward in the jordan job. Now that the warden what’s the jailer. A warden? Yeah, the warden in charge in jail. What’s, the asking me and scott asking is, um, i’m not going to even give you the the acronyms. Title letters, it’s, text basically something that you can read and as a text document rather than excel, which if you if you have xl that’s great. You can open your file on x. L see it. You don’t have xl. What you have is a file that is in some kind of computer language that is easily readable. Okay, so ah, word file is an asking file and no it’s, not it. Is in a sense. Yes. Okay, but it’s, what? You see when you open a word document text. Okay? And the point is you khun batch upload these files to a raise. That’s correct. Okay, so if you’re working on something that’s not dedicated to fund-raising at all like an excel spreadsheet you can you can upload easily waiting. Just a minute. We have left before the break. What do you what? What other features of ray’s should our listeners know about? It has a has a large capacity database. I think it goes even above the fifty thousand that we were talking about. So if if you if you’re small and you have a user base that is greater than fifty thousand, they want to look at the rays rather than fund-raising basic. But i will say that it’s still in that arena? Yeah, the sound ideal perfectly suited for small and midsize non-profits e-giving just one more before the break. It’s called scott i’ve gotta hold you off. We don’t have time but we do have time after the break. Scott’s going tto be with us after this break. I’m talking to scott koegler, the show’s technology expert. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news. Stay with us. They didn’t think dick tooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get in. Nothing. Good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people, better business people. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call us ed to one, two, nine, six, four three, five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back. I’m joined by our tech expert scott koegler scott, before the break. You had wanted to say something. Was it something more about a raise? Sure. Actually, what i’d like to do is talk about filosa exceed, which is kind of the next step up. Okay? Please, just say that. Say the name of the product again. Well, it’s still osa teo s a. Excuse me. All right, thanks. Please. What? What do you want to share? It’s basic fund-raising and donor management. It’s? Uh, it’s actually a smaller version of what telos a produces on a larger scale. So what? Just saying that what that means is that if you’re a growing organization tolosa exceed get you in at the basics. And again, basics is about five hundred dollars. So it’s a little bit it’s another step up from the fundraiser basic and from the res, but we’re still so much we’re so far below a thousand dollars even. Absolutely, sir. Three great products for the most expensive of the three is five hundred dollars. Okay, i’m sorry. I’m excited. No that’s. Good that i and i think that there are some things to be excited about. Here for organizations that have been struggling with excel spreadsheets and word documents and trying to manage email emerges using outlook and word. These things really offer a great way to get past that. One of the things that exceed does is it provides drill down reports and reports are pretty interesting. You know what you want to know, obviously is how is my fund-raising effort going? Who’s donating what what are the demographics of the people that are donating most? And how can i reach them better? So you want to be able to run reports that that show you in some kind of order, you can sort them in the however you like, but let’s say from most donation to least yeah, a drill down function allows you to take a look at an item that says donations of one thousand dollars, for instance, and you click that item and then it it opens up another window that shows you will hear all the donors that donated a one thousand dollar level, and from there you can draw farther. And so it gives you greater detail every time you drill into a particular item. So it sounds like the reporting is more robust on tele succeed than ah, a raise or fundraiser. Basic right. And i think that’s, a product of the fact that this is again a scaled down version of their big product. Most big products will have these kind of capabilities. And so the littlest has decided that they’ll include this advanced capability in their basic products. And is there go ahead, please? Another thing that they have with this is i just talked about the email function and urging they haven’t advanced email management capability allows you to to emerge pretty much the description, and i just said, take a lister segment of your donor’s based on their contribution level and send on ly them a specific level, a specific letter with specific information in it, and send a different email to a different set of donors, and this is all managed from within the within the program all within the program, right? Yeah, outstanding. Is there another one that you want to share with us? Sure, i just make one more point about told police that is, if you’re if you’re doing reporting, which becomes no more important, as as you’re not proper clothes, tell osa also has a data export to quickbooks, so that gives you a direct connection without having to do manual entry. Yes, and your finance, your financial officer will appreciate that very much right, and the board of directors to and theorem whatever that comes to bear the next one here does actually hit the one thousand dollar level on that is fun. Easy, that’s sweaters, fund-raising software, it’s, right in two thousand dollar mark. It has multiple modules, so this one is really available on a modular level, so you can actually define your own pricing based on the number of modules that you you take or that you need. And you know, not every organization needs every module, so you can customize it, and it also allows you to grow your capabilities as your needs grow. Scott, we have to leave it there. Just say the name of that last product again, please. Fundez easy, fundez easy, that is scott koegler he’s, the show’s technology expert, and he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news. Scott, thanks very much for joining us. We’ll see you will talk to you again in a few weeks. Thanks, johnny. And i want to thank both my guests today. It’s always good to have scott back and, of course, also alice aspen marched founder of the attention factor very glad that she could join us in the studio next week. My guest is going to be chris mcgurn of pnc bank and he’s going to share with us techniques toe hyre the right financial partner for your non-profit and to have a good working relationship with your bank owe our other financial partner that you might have, and also we’re gonna introduce a new feature next week. I’m looking, we’re looking an individual who’s in a job search and a non-profit that has a job opening. Each of those is going to be paired in a different segment, the individual be with a recruiter and the non-profit with the opening will be within hr consultant. We’re going to work to help both of them one of the individual side and one of the non-profit side marketing that job. If you want to participate in a future looking, we’re looking segment you khun goto our facebook page and contact does there? Yes, we have a facebook page. You can go there. For email alerts on the show, and you can also go there to see what my live appearance calendar is. You can also go there to talk to me about having me appear live for you. I want to thank our creative producer, claire meyerhoff, our line producer and owner of talking alternative broadcasting, sam liebowitz and our social media, as always, is done by regina walton. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re listening on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. Join us next week. My guests will be chris mcgurn of pnc bank on those financial partners, and the new feature i’m looking. We’re looking. That show will be next friday, one p m eastern, right here, as always, on talking alternative dot com. E-giving ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network waiting to get a drink. E-giving cubine i really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join joshua margolis, fitness expert, at two one two eight sixty five nine to nine xero, or visit w w w died mind over matter. N y c dot com oppcoll this is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting hi, i’m new york state senator joe a dabo i will be hosting a Job fair on friday, november 12 at aqueduct racetrack in queens, contending into three p m we will have over one hundred companies looking for qualified workers. They’re all to be lectures on job strategies and networking. So come and bring plenty of resumes and join me on friday, november twelfth. Adequate grayce for a Job fair from 10 a m to three p m for more information, please call pete in my district office at seven one eight seven three eight one one one one. Are you stuck in your business or career? Trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall. This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping huntress people be better business people. Buy-in you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Snusz