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Schnoll 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’m glad you’re with me. I come down with high potro pia, if i saw that you missed today’s show idealware new release, karen graham, executive director, would idealware announces their new publication to help you use technology smarter. She has a discount for non-profit radio listeners, you need to know this organization and it’s valuable work and this new resource antonio, take two sexual harassment in non-profits we’re sponsored by pursuing two full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers, wee bey e spelling dot com i am so pleased to have karen graham back on the show and in the studio this time she’s a sort after speaker, trainer, writer and consultant with expertise in technology, leadership and innovation non-profit software and digital strategy. As idealware sze, executive director, she leads a team of researchers, presenters and writers who create technology information resource is to help non-profit leaders put their vision into action thereon idealware dot or ge and she’s at karin t gram. Welcome guarantee, graham. Thanks, tony. That’s. A pleasure to have you in the studio this time. What’s the tea for the tea and karen tigre off. Theresa theresa now, karen teresa? Yes, we must. Yes. Ok. Last time you were on the show was from sixteen and t c the non-profit technology conference last year. And you were talking about virtual order eggs idealware is a virtual organization. And you were talking about how to manage that tell us about idealware i really think this is something that i mean we highlighted you made you idealware listener of the week a month, a couple months ago or so. And i really do that for organizations it’s, usually for people. But idealware is outstanding. Tell us i need to know more about how extending it is. Thanks. I think it’s outstanding tio it’s a great place to work and that really a privilege to lead idealware but so here’s, what we do, we are a small nonprofit organization, and we also exist to serve small non-profits actually non-profits of all sides. But i think that the smaller ones that don’t have a lot of internal resource is about technology that don’t have people on their staff can stand to benefit the most from what we dio and are we talking about something like eighty five or ninety percent of non-profits exactly, i mean, this this show is a big non-profit agent for the other ninety five percent when we know that upper five percent has these professionals that you’re talking about, but i don’t know, maybe the other may be a small percentage of the other ninety five does does also, but not very money, right? Well, and we we know, i think your listeners probably understand that technology is really important for non-profits heard rumors to that effect on the show you so hopefully i don’t have to persuade people of that, but but we also know that a lot of non-profits, especially the smaller ones, really struggle to tap into the power of technology and it’s because they’re lacking the knowledge and the skills, and the resource is to really take advantage of it, and so idealware tries to be part of the solution to that, and so the core of what we do is impartial research on technology for the nonprofit sector and i’m gonna stop you at the impartial research partner. Do you object to me saying that you’re the consumer reports of non-profit technology? Some of my colleagues might object to that a little bit, but i think that’s a great shorthand way of describing what i do bilich dahna certainly all the feature you don’t take advertising companies don’t donate their software to you. I don’t think for evaluation do they just do not donate it all right? Ah, so your objective in that respect on dure i think your reviews are my voice just cracked reviews are just as comprehensive, and we’re going to talk about that exciting. We’re gonna talk about that in the announcement. That’s coming up, but yeah, i mean, you’re impartial objective. I’ve been citing idealware reports for years before we met before, i really was familiar with what idealware was just years ago on the show, because someone mentioned one of your reports. That was it was a comparison i think of of donorsearch hannes mint software or it might have been fund-raising software, but but i went through and i read the report and i saw the chart with all the bullets of different features, and it talked about features that you might need based on the size of your organisation and it just since then it struck me as very similar to consumer and just as valuable as consumer reports. People tell me all the time that they have that kind of experience where they’ve come across one of our consumers guides and you’re talking about the consumer’s guide to low cost donorsearch zsystems which is now and it’s, maybe fourth or fifth edition. I am that’s why i’m talking, you have to tell me what i’m talking about, and i rarely know. We just released the twenty seventeen edition in partnership with an ten a few weeks back, you know? Why aren’t you called the non-profit technology network? Well, it’s where they stole it, you should be the non-profit technology network. I don’t think that you know amy amy’s on the show every month, she’s, our social media contributor. Yeah, and there should be a social technology non-profit technology network, not them. Well, they’re they’re the network because their membership organization and idealware is not some of the misconceptions that people have about us, is we’re? We’re not a membership organization. And we also don’t do one on one consulting with non-profits i guess our bottle is more like a publisher in that we’re trying teo create some economies of scale in doing research and creating publications and resource asses that can benefit lots and lots of people, and so much of your your content is free. Yes, we’re not what we’re about to announce. Although we got a discount for this into the cracked voice, we’ve got discount for non-profit radio listeners coming up teasing, but but so much of your content like that survey. But you said i was talking about for five years and consumer guide that was free. I mean, i just went on your website, someone had referred me to it, and we talked about it on the show, right? So so much of your content is free and on our website, people also find workbooks that guide them through different kinds of decision making processes. Right now, we’re working on a new work book, which will come out in another month or two about developing security and bring your own device policies so it’s not just software that idealware covers it’s also policies and best practices and so that’s maybe the difference between idealware and consumer reports okay, that we’re not just doing reviews, but we’re also trying to help people get the most out of the technology that they have with policies and administrative practices things right? So you’re more you’re more robust than your consumer reports, plus that’s a policy in his administration best practices more than all right, all right. Let’s ah, that’s how we want to do this let’s go out for our break a little early when we come back we’ve got the big announcement the major announcement major announcement of the new uh, the new guide on dh then we’re gonna talk through it stay with us you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s t i g e n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website. Philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Dahna welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent guaranty graham, karen, theresa graham you have a major announcement major a love letter could say major award was not a major war, but you have a major announcement. What is the publication that is brand new that idealware has it’s the field guide to software for non-profits excellent twenty seventeen version yes isn’t even is even available now. It is now available on amazon, amazon, and i’m excited to say that this year, for the first time, it will be available as a kindle ebook as well as a paper version. Congratulations technology organisation uses smart use of technology all right, so we wanted to do that for a while. So so it is the field guide to software for non-profits, and we have a discount graciously provided by idealware if if you go for non-profit radio listeners, if you go to idealware dot org’s slash non-profit radio couldn’t be simpler. That’s a idealware dot org’s slash non-profit radio you will get the discount. The instructions are right there, and we’re going to say that multiple times throughout the show. Congratulations on the twenty seventeen field guide. Now, this is an updated version of previous work-life s we have published this book before, but it’s been a few years, and so this year we just went through every single word of it, and we checked all the research and updated a lot of thing things. And so this is significantly different than the previous version because, as you know, technology that changes so fast that a book from twenty fourteen is hardly even relevant anymore. So, almost even last year, it’s. Too early last year. Now the field guide. This reminds me of something i had in boy scouts and boy scouts. I had a field guide where it taught how to build a fire. Proper use of an axe. Ah, so it reminded me of my boy scout field guide years is there’s a little thinner? My boy scouts. Well, my boyfriend’s got field guy was more compact page size wise, but it was a it was a fatter thing. Well, and it’s it’s not unlike that kind of field guide, i think. And in two ways one, your maximum ship in there. I don’t know how to build a city teepee. Fire versus log cabin. Fire, you have that we don’t have, you don’t have that. But but we’ve got all the basics of forty some different categories of software in here, but i think the way it’s like that kind of field guide is that it’s it’s, fairly lightweight it’s ah, how many pages is this? About a hundred ninety pages? And so it’s not going to go in depth on any particular subject, just like, you know, with building a fire, you’re not goingto read about all about the history building fires and, you know, three hundred different ways to build fires in different conditions similar to that this is going to spend maybe two or three pages on each category of software, but it will give you everything you need to know on the fly. And and then, of course, if you want to dig deeper into a specific topic, there are lots of other resource is like our consumer guides that will help you do that. Okay, all right, fair enough, it’s also, i think, like like a traditional boy scout field guide or other kinds of field guides in that it’s useful for people who have a lot of experience. But also for beginners. Okay, that is important, right? So you don’t have to be ah, a tech geek, teo, to benefit from field guide, right? And likewise, in my scout longfield gotta remember, boy scouts was founded by i mean, it did have a history, but baden powell latto buy-in powers, the founder of boy scouts. I forget the year i actually even i figure this century, but, ah, lord powell. Nonetheless, um you are probably often asked what is the best software for human resource is or fund-raising management or accounting? And that that doesn’t that doesn’t sit so well. It’s not that’s not a valuable question to ask, is it? Have we talked about this before? I think we either have or i’m just very insightful, so let’s just assume the ladder i’m from the midwest, and so when people ask me questions that i think are stupid, i usually don’t say so outright, okay? I didn’t say stupid i tried to be very nice about it, but i said i’m not the most valuable or helpful question, but honestly, when people ask me what’s the best fund-raising software example inside, i’m thinking that is the wrong question, but the right question is, what is the best fund-raising software for me or for my organization? And that answer will be different for every organization s o that that’s a really key component of idealware approach is that we don’t say which software is the best, but rather we help people make that decision for themselves by understanding a lot of detail about their own requirements. What is possible to do with software and then what they’re different options are and what the strengths and weaknesses of different systems might be. And you have a whole section in the book devoted to selection, selection and implementation, and i’m going to take a little romp through the the table of contents cause i want people to see we’re going to do this. I’m going to just a couple times through the show, but i just wanted people to get an idea of the breath of what’s in this what’s in the field guide me so there’s there’s, a major section on back office and productivity and within that there’s accounting and credit card zsystems document management, email calendar, fire file, back-up recovery firewalls, hr office management, then there’s, a major section on analytics analyzing your organization’s data. Ah analyzing paper data, custom reporting tools, dashboards, maps and geographical information measuring social media, online listening program evaluation. All right, so we’re going to stop there for now, but that’s just a couple of the major sections. I mean, other section collaboration, constituent management. So i just said, we’re gonna stop there and i kept going, but so i get, you know, i’m excited by this because the the number of topics you cover and the depth and then there’s a section on helping you helping choose and in and within each of the conversations, the topics you’re talking about, if you’re small organisation with under a thousand records or a certain budget, you know, this might make more sense than if you’re a larger organizations with a thousand twenty five thousand records, etcetera or larger, you know you’re breaking it down so there’s great value here i want people to understand that, alright discount idealware dot org’s slash non-profit radio okay, and don’t forget the case studies too. I think that’s an important part of this book we start right towards the beginning with three case studies and there’s a fourth one at the end in the implementation section and those what we found is that those were able to put it all together. Those hypothetical yes, hypothetical, but realistic. Yes, syria is very important. Footnote. I was trained in law school. Always read the footnotes hypothetical but realistic. I mean, put together by you by obviously, by the team that wrote this and idealware yeah, right, but they’re all of the scenarios and there are based on riel organization, but we’ve used a little bit of poetic license, i suppose. Okay, you’re out about it. I mean, not you. Well, you’d buried in footnote, but i mean it. Sze imprint, right? Its imprint. You’re right. They are hypothetical case studies, but i think that they help people. Teo, imagine themselves in that situation and think about all the different kinds of software and kinds of decisions about technology that they need to make. All right, all right. That’s going to aa detail now that we know that there is no best package in each of these areas, it depends on your organization. All right. Um, you’ve got a section on what every organization needs. I mean, there seems to be basic. Not what package or what system or whether online. Oh, our cloud based or installed is better. No, not that. But basic areas of function that it seems like every non-profit should be using technology in. Right? All right. So let’s, let’s, let’s, cover a couple. Those like you start with a back office. Productivity. What are some that just every organization ought to be using. Well, just about every organization needs. Some way to manage their files to do file back-up things like that. They also need an e mail system for internal office emails, so and calendars ofthis software for word processing, spreadsheets, things like that. So that’s that’s the type of thing that falls under this category and now, if you’re gonna have email, you’re obviously online, so you’re going to need virus protection, right? And probably should be looking at firewalls to okay, okay, um, and the reason we put that first is because if that stuff isn’t an order, it’s not really worth while to be paying attention to some of the communications and outreach tools it’s it’s like trying to paint your walls when your basement is flooded? Um, you know, there’s just kind of a hierarchy of needs that non-profit has have when it comes to technology, and so you need to take care of the back office and make sure that that stuff is is just working well, you have a solid internet connection, that sort of thing first as a foundation for everything else, let’s not go too far on the home improvement metaphors, because i’m a cz good at that, as i am at sports, which i confused the other day the field goal i thought that was baseball, so i thought that was the three pointer so let’s not go too far get agreed. I’ve tried to repair toilets, i had to replace the handle and i end up cracking the tank. I didn’t have to take it off, but when i put it back on, i tightened it too hard and the islamic cracked unaided old toilet for the for the five, ninety nine handle i was trying to replace aunt, of course a plumber to go with it, so let’s end the home improvement and metaphors and don’t start on sports. Alright, alright, but those constraints okay, so, you know, a lot of times i get the question how do we get to the next level? And some of these basic tools are that? I mean, if you’re if you if you don’t have a good file management system, if you’re working with more than one person, if your organization is more than one person, you need to be file sharing files and they’d be backing them up. So, you know, how do you get to the next level? You need to have this. I don’t want you the word foundation these basics because the foundation is the bottom of the house, so but you need to have these basics before you can get to the next level. Okay, let’s, go a little further on some basics like you talk about the analytics measuring how effective the organization is, right and that that is often the next place that organizations go because using data well is something that can have a huge impact on an organization’s ability to deliver on their mission. Once you’ve got those those fundamentals taken care of, then they’re often moving, too. Um, you know, what kind of tools do we need in place to collect data to manage data and then to report on it and use it to tell our story, but also to make decisions about the organization from day to day about, like, how do we allocate resources? How do we do future planning dahna can help with all of that, and so we cover a number of analytics tools and dahna presentation tools in here, ok, can help with that let’s move to the all important area of fund-raising donor relationship management, things like that, what is most likely needed in place for that stuff and that’s actually, the area that i probably know most about when i was a consultant, i did a lot of software selection process passes with organizations that we’re looking at donorsearch sustainers or grants management systems are or, you know, whatever the appropriate system was for their type of organization. And, you know, these days, almost no one can manage their constituent dahna and excel anymore and it’s becoming more and more risky, i think, to use a customized system, especially as a smaller organization, because the cost of that the cost of ownership for that and the limitations of it can often be really unattractive compared to cloud based systems. And so that you will find in a lot of idealware is work, including in this book, that we tend to nudge these smaller organizations toward software’s, the service and cloudgood based solutions you do especially for data management. Yeah. Okay. Why’s, that why’s our preference for those you think for the smaller or eggs. Well, it’s, there are much more robust features for security. For one thing, i mean that’s, not something. That a lot of people think about straight off, but i do because i want everybody’s data to be secure and well backed up, and so when you’re using a cloud based system, the the level of back-up insecurity is usually much more than any non-profit could afford on its own if they were doing that in house. And so i mean, really, if you are hit by hurricane and you like your office floods, i don’t know you lose electricity, whatever, you can’t access anything there, then if you have a cloud based system, you can go to another location and log in and immediately you have access to everything again. So that’s just one example. Not that people are facing hurricanes very often. Well, the midwest girl tornadoes, it can happen. It could just be a power outage in your local areas are in your office, but your home is okay. Or you can get to somewhere else. Someone else’s home and operate from there. Or you can use your battery and still work. Or maybe your computer just crashes and then you lose a bunch of stuff. If it’s not well backed up, you know. So it was just nice to have all that taking care of it’s also, i think at the then he just for a small organization, teo, just try to take advantage of tools that have been developed based on the most common needs of non-profits like yours and people have a tendency to think that they’re they’re really special, and they are they’re all special, but but sometimes there needs as non-profits or not as unique as we believe they are, and ultimately it can be more effective to just adjust your business processes and your expectations a little bit in order to take advantage of inexpensive, easy to use tools that exist that probably addressed ninety percent of your needs and the rest, you have to question whether those air true needs or if they’re just preferences, ok, you are right, and whether people processes might be able to just adapt right a bit. Now i know that there’s ah, a lot of hesitation to adapt people to the technology. The feeling is that the technology should be assisting us in the way we work. But, you know, if you have to compromise and ten percent of what you what the way you worked to get ninety percent of what you need. It seems like that would be a fair. There’ll be a fair trade off. Yeah, and i hold those two things intention all the time, you know, like, while i’m saying, just compromise and sort of go with with what everybody else is doing at the same time out of the other side of my mouth, i’m saying, like, no, you need to be innovative and on don’t just accept what everybody else is doing, do something different. So it’s, i don’t know some somewhere in between those two extremes is probably the right way. Okay, okay, um, and we’ve had we’ve had guests on actually from talking about subjects like what if your what if technology isn’t your problem? That was a good panel. I think that was from think that was from twenty fifteen. You know, where you’re blaming technology, but really it’s people, attitudes and culture that are your issue. And it was a bunch of software consultants, some of them two of them were our consultants for sales force. You know, help organizations implement sales force in their in their offices, and they were suggesting that, you know, technology can’t solve problems that are people based, i would say amen to that some of their speaking yes, yeah, that that’s part of the reason that in this book, we include the section about defining your needs and making comparisons and managing an implementation process, because there are so many people issues that can easily be overlooked there. And so here’s one example, i talked with an organization that had gotten new software maybe a year ago, and they were the executive director was so frustrated because nobody was using this new software, and i started to ask him questions about their process and, you know, like, who was involved in selecting the software who had input into this? And she said, well, it was it was a boardmember who just sort of did this as a project for us, and so they researched options, and they recommended a package, and then we just went with that, and so the staff who were the end users of the tool had no input into the process at all, and they felt that it was being imposed on them on dh, so of course they’re going to kind. Of dig in their heels and and not go along with that and because, first of all, they didn’t feel included, and secondly, it didn’t meet their needs the and they hadn’t had a chance to express those needs. And so there are a lot of things that you because they weren’t included, right? Yeah, there are a lot of things that you could do early on in a process like that that paved the way for user adoption down the road and that’s important because you could spend easily, like forty, fifty thousand dollars on a case management system, which is one of the categories that’s covered in the field guide just in the first year, and if people aren’t using it, that is a lot of money that’s being wasted and that’s a huge opportunity cost as well, because if you’re not using the software for what it’s intended to do, then you know, maybe you’re not serving people as well. Maybe you’re not getting good data about the impact of your work, and that inhibits your ability to raise money in the future. And, you know, there’s just like a lot of consequences to a bad software. Decision and a badly run implementation process if you want to find that that show that i was talking about the panel which deals with the issues that karen is just mentioning, i don’t know what we called it for sure, but i remember two of the guests that were on it, and i think one is an idealware adviser robert winer. Yes, right. He’s a good friend of ours. So you could go to tony martignetti dot com search. His last name, whiner w e i n e r and also tracy kronzak was on that panel. So k r o n t z a k. So if you searching through their names, you’ll find that that particular show um okay, let’s, let’s start to go into a little detail about your expertise, which is in the constituent relationship management and donor management system area, right of the of the book. Um, what’s ah, where should we? Where should we start when we’re talking about constituent relationship management? Well, probably idealware is most popular. Resource is air about donorsearch zsystems so that’s that’s maybe a good place to start because every non-profit organization, i think, has donors and so reserved about them to manage you won’t be an anarchist than all right, we’ll do it your way. Uh, is the donor management is a subset of considering management because they’re they’re wanting some of your donors and the others are vendors and employees and volunteers, right? All right, so you don’t know management let’s go there, let’s, go there. What do you want to know? Where, um i wanna take a break, and then we’ll compose our thoughts about dahna management systems and count and i will will continue very shortly. First, i need to talk about pursuant. They have their fund-raising camp coming up and this is a one day intensive on site. It will challenge the way you think about identifying major gift prospects and managing a portfolio and managing and managing a relationship pond leading up to your your solicitation you’re asked. I know you need to raise more money. I hear that all the time. And if you want to take your fund-raising to the next level, aside from software, obviously what we’re talking about all day today. But in addition to that, there are processes that you need and relationship management methods and that’s. What this boot camp will help you with and space is limited. They aren’t keeping it to a small group. It’s the fund-raising boot camp you go to pursuing dot com click resource is and then training we be spelling spelling bees for millennial fundraisers fund-raising it’s a night out to raise money for your organization this is not a night that is benefiting half a dozen organizations. These are custom made for you in your location and it’s not your seventh grade spelling bee with dance and stand up comedy and live music, et cetera. It’s all gets set up, it’ll get set up for you it’s your organization’s fund-raising night check out the video is that we be e spelling dot com and they get in touch with ceo alex career and you could find out more it’s all that we be e spelling now. Tony steak, too sexual harassment in the non-profit workplace i’m interested in what your experiences it’s, timely it’s in the news and i but i don’t see anybody talking about it with respect to non-profits, but pretty confident it’s there i blogged this not this exact topic in two thousand eleven, i blogged about sexism in the non-profit workplace not identical, i know that, but that’s the closest i’ve come to this topic before now, and this the stories were rampant. It was my most commented post that was back when i used to write block post now, of course, it’s all video, but it was the most commented post, so since it’s in the news, i’d like to bring it home to non-profits and i’m interested in aa hearing from victims hr professionals, attorneys richness is to something inappropriate. Anybody with an opinion about sexual harassment in the non-profit workplace let’s, talk about it. You can comment anonymously on the video i disabled the requirement for email address so you can do it anonymously, and the video is at tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two. Karen graham is the executive director of idealware idealware dot or ge she’s at karin t gram and i need to take my another romp through the contents of the field guide on section five collaboration board support software elearning file sharing internets and portals learning management systems online chat section six constituent management, which we’re about to talk about. Well, i was going to talk about it broadly, but karen anarchist so would do it her way. But there is a section on constituent relationship management, advocacy oriented cr, ems all in one case management donorsearch panitch mint systems volunteermatch judgment zsystems um fund-raising and events a major, major what’s their crowd funding a peer-to-peer fund-raising systems event, an auction management event registration foundation grants research, online auctions, online donations amazing. I’m just reading through the table of contents you’ve got to get this thing is the field guide two non-profit to software for non-profits and of course, your discount is at idealware dot or ge slash non-profit radio get the get the get the darn thing. Get the discount. You gotta have this thing. It’s an amazon forgot. Take him and that’s it. That doesn’t say anything, but you gotta have this lots of things on amazon that are worthless, but this is not among them. All right, thank you for indulging my romp through the contents, etcetera. Okay, so if we’re gonna talk about dahna management way, dont have to dive into that, you know, we’re not going back now. Now we’re not flip flopping. No use committed me. All right. Um, we need to use the book says for most of the ability to handle both gifts and pledges, including recurring gift that sounds pretty basic. We need to handle these things, right? Right, ok, where do we go? How do we decide or what should we be thinking about in determining what’s, our what’s, the best dahna management system for us? Well, some of the things that i think differentiate different fund-raising programs are how much they emphasize pledges and recurring gifts, although more and more, almost every non-profit is doing that these days. There also are some differences in these systems in terms of how they handle relationships, and i don’t know if that’s actually i don’t i don’t really see that highlighted here, but that’s something that i have personally found varies a little bit from one system to the next. So just to get a little more more specific on that let’s say that my husband and i are both involved in an organization we give jointly as a household, but i’m on the board of directors and he is not he volunteers for another particular activity, but i don’t, you know, so we each have our own individual relationship in preference is related to this organization. So it’s a rocky marriage, it’s not table, is not stable marriage it’s a great marriage, you know, but but partly because we sometimes do our own thing. And so organizations need constituent relationship management system that can honor people as individuals, but that can also treat them in some cases as a household. So that’s that’s a feature that i think it’s important to look at and see if that seems user friendly to you, you and and sort of meets your needs there. Another thing that might be a priority for some organizations and not for others is whether the system is is available not just available, but really functional on a mobile device so that’s essential. I mean, don’t we know, like something like seventy five or eighty five percent of emails or something are opened on mobile devices now and websites needs? I mean, if your website is not mobile response of your donation pages, not mobile responsive. I think you’re way behind the curve that’s his standard at this point, but i know that’s just elearning but let’s say, you know, i’m a development. Director, do i want to be able to look up a donor right before i’m going to meet with them while i’m on the train and just read a little bit about their history or after my meeting? Do i want to be able to log some notes and created follow-up task about that donor on my phone? Those are things that some systems support really well, and others really don’t, and you’re probably not going to find great support on a mobile device for complex reporting analytics assembling a mail merge, you know, that sort of thing is what you would rip out your desk, right? But but some of those things related to meetings and interactions with donors are some systems support that really well on mobile devices, and and others haven’t really made that a priority yet, i would say they’re probably all moving more in that direction. Okay, okay, um, credit cards, we gotta talk about credit card processing and often that is handled by a third party. So for example, i actually try not to name specific technology vendors very much when i when i talked like this because i don’t want to give the impression that idealware favors one over any of the others. But i will say the book has reviews, it does it doesn’t kayman number saying and think, yeah, yeah, also for credit card prices processing, i can tell you idealware has an account with authorized dot net as our payment processor and and that integrates with our donor management system and so that’s a very common way of doing it. You’ll have a payment gateway that actually handles the credit card processing. But then the data is shared with your donor zsystems and that’s, where all the records of the gifts and donors and histories live. Okay, i don’t want you holding out on non-profit radio listeners. I mean, the discount is very nice, but we gotta go beyond that’s. Just the money we get value. Okay, you’re not holding back. I won’t let you. Um, yeah. And the book actually is very clear about naming. Like i said, different different vendor’s alternatives. Pricing. What might be appropriate for your size organization, etcetera. Consumer reports, plus reports. Plus just report. Yes. Um, can we talk a little bit more in general about serum? Do you mind if we could just get me off! You took me off. Well, we’re just we’re lifting off. You know, we’re in the helicopter were just going up higher and metaphors flying. I don’t know what a pilot either. All right? Yeah. Let’s talk about you because i think you feel strongly about it. You tried before and i said no. And now you’re back to it a third time. Okay? I’m just going to keep pushing. We would like to say i i think it’s important to look at it. We could wrap latto out. Let’s, move to fund-raising. Go ahead. What do you want, it’s important to look at? The whole landscape of different kinds of serum. And one one choice that people have to make is do they have it all in one constituent relationship management system? Or do they have specialized tools for different purposes? So think about it non-profits constituents, their donors, clients or service recipients. You know, whatever that might mean for your organization patrons, maybe, maybe its members, volunteers. And there are a number of different kinds of constituents that non-profit is interacting with. And what about vendors? I mentioned vendors could be included in here. Definitely. Okay. Trustees mean there are higher level of volunteer, right? That’s. What? I think that’s should be treated as a separate constituency. Okay, so lots of i mean, there are probably thirty or forty different kinds of constituents that the car brainstorm if you took the time. So so one way to do it is to choose one tool like one. Great to rule them all. You know, one one tool that sort of does everything. And in the book, we describe that as the swiss army knife approach. So if you think about a swiss army knife it’s, a great multipurpose tool that you can put in your pocket. It’s, inexpensive, lightweight. If you need to build a house, you’re probably not gonna use a swiss army knife, right? Yeah. That’s. My problem about specialized tool when i try home improvement that’s my toolbox. Yeah, on the tweezers. I didn’t find very valuable for the toilet repair. Well, so if your needs are pretty simple and if simplicity is important and if a low cost is is really essential assed. Well, then that’s what’s army knife approach might actually be really great. I mean, it doesn’t have a phillips and a flathead screwdriver way. Really versatile. Gotta fish. Official remover. I mean it’s de scaler. I mean, my swiss army knife is quite robust. Probably got eighteen or twenty things on there, so we have some exam glass screwdriver. Thie i glad the way the eyeglass screwdriver weaves into the corkscrew. It’s. Amazing. Have you seen that the corkscrew hold the eyeglass screwdriver because it has a little groove and it rolls into the corkscrew. He’s. Brilliant. Brilliant. So don’t don’t diss my my swiss army knife. All right, well, i’m not s o those those all in one kind of tools. They could be great. They work, they can work. All right. That’s, one way of doing it. But there are also choices for first specialized tools. And so there are a set of software applications for case management, which is that’s, where you would keep track of your client’s service recipients. There are some very specialized tools that are made for arts organizations that handle data about patrons. Ticketing not sort of thing. There that’s that’s a whole other events event ticketing, event processing, payment, processing, sponsorship. Okay, that’s a digression. Goods are their specialized tools for membership. Organizations or for association management, clearly, for doner management, we’ve we’ve probably talked about that enough your expertise there are all sorts of lt tools in this this space as well, and s so if you’re using maybe three different things one to keep track of your client’s one for donors, one for volunteers, then you likely need some way to tie that all together. And so that might mean an a p i that might mean just a process of wei have jargon jail on non-profit radio a p i that you know, i’m not even going to say what that stands for, ok, what is because it doesn’t matter what it means. Is it’s just a way for different databases to talk to each other? The way for them to exchange data? I’ve heard the phrase a p i call it’s a calling data from another system or table or something like that, right? All right, sharing data. Watch your step non-profit radio jargon jail. So there are more and more ways that air developing now to share data between systems, i think that’s becoming more important as organizations become more sophisticated and start to use more of these specialized tools, but then they think, well, wait a minute. What if we want to know how many of our donors are also volunteers? We need to get those system to talk to each other. Okay? And that’s tables, tables all talk to each other in the background, right? The tables are all talking to each other. It’s gonna be okay? Yeah. All right, all right. That’s, that’s. I have a degree in information system, so i know about tables and all right? We don’t have a prize when i was in college, though. All right now there’s some gold here when you start to get into actual talking about particular system donorsearch panitch mint systems. Um, let’s say, you say among the best values for organizations starting out or that have a small list fewer than a thousand records is little green light. I hope you don’t mind me saying this that’s missing that’s in the book it’s in the guy uh uh, which offers a basic package at four hundred twenty five dollars, plus discounts for new users via text soup. All right, so i mean that’s, the kind that’s. A level of detail that thing gets the guy gets it. I mean, it actually starts talking about now. Let’s, talk a little about tech suit, but some people may not be acquainted with with what that is and how it can help there. Technology work pre-tax soup is wonderful. There, there. Ah, good front of idealware as well along with and ten and texas does many different things, but one thing that’s really relevant here is that they are a distributor of discounts on software and hardware tools for nonprofit organizations. So so, for example, if you want to get adobe products at a deep discount, then you khun sign up for tech soup. You can register with them, and then you’re able to do that. I got my headset, which i used in my home office. I’ve a wireless had said at about an eighty percent discount, and the box came packed with tootsie rolls. Uh, and i got that through text soup. So cubine ended the cookie rolls. Well, it wasn’t actually. Valium sets dot com, i think, but they distribute their non-profit discounts through text soup. So eh? So if you’re looking for any of the software that is covered in the field guide or really any kind of technology tools for your non-profit i think it’s it’s good to at least check tech suit to see if they have a discount and not just not just software. I didn’t realize that i thought it was i i just always thought it was software, but you got you got headsets. So any technology product you’re looking for, right, look for tech soup. What’s their site was its text soup, dr dot or ge. And i should spell that since we’re on the radio because the other day i was talking to somebody about it and they said, oh, so what’s the website for duck soup. Duck soup, right? Marx brothers? Yeah. So it’s th s o u p dot org’s. Okay, okay. Or should i say e at the end, it doesn’t have any at the end of soup right now. The french tc h s o u p dot or ge? Yes. Okay. Okay. Texas dahna excellent hardware, too. All right. Um, you know, you talk about donorsearch prophetic. You talk about the bloomerang zsystems you’re going to blackbaud i mean, this is to me this is just gold. Um, all right. Let’s, take a break. And when we come back, i may get into a lot more of this gold because we should. We should share some of this with listeners. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked. And naomi levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, e-giving and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m gonna continue my jump through the table of contents there. Section eight is communications, email, broadcast, email, email, discussion lists, graphics and multimedia mobile under mobile has broadcast texting mobile, aps, mobile friendly websites, social media, of course, facebook, linkedin, twitter, web’s under websites, content management systems, landing pages and micro sites online advertising search engine optimization. All this in the table of contents for the field guide, section nine choosing an implementing software. And karen and i are going to talk about that no in a fair amount of detail, so you get the guide for god’s sake, what else can i say? Idealware dot org’s slash non-profit radio field guide two software for non-profits don’t go to amazon directly go teo idealware dot org’s slash non-profit radio get your discount and then you’ll you’ll end up in the amazon, but get the discount the insider discount for listeners. Okay, karen let’s, talk a little about some detail or so i read about about little green light. You recommend you like that, one would say, you know it’s, not like you say, you know, best buy or something, but it says among the best values for organizations with fewer than a thousand records. Little green light people should look at that, right? A little green light and all of the suffer companies that were mentioned here were well rated in our consumer guide. Okay, we’re goingto fair now, right? We’re going to talk about more. So still talking in that up to a thousand records section dahna perfect. You like them? Well, sure, they were also very well rated. And don’t think that that is it’s a system that has some more robust features that might be useful to a slightly larger organization. Now, how do you how do you know this? All right. So i read that sentence before. Among the best values for organizations. I have a small list. A few thousand record, little green light, and now we’re saying don’t perfect. And also bloomerang is another one. How do you know what? What? Going testing. Is he’s gone through? Well, i’ll tell you about our research process. How did what’s behind this sentence that says, among the best values, how do we know that i should say that in every single one of these categories we have done some level of research in the constituent? Relationship management category. We’ve done a great deal of in depth research to compare these tools. So this is this is one of the most well research sections of the you’ve done, the research idealware itself has done the reese right and it’s not that we have used every single one of these systems, but we have we’ve talked teo a number of people who have expertise in the field and gotten their ideas about what are the important features and what are the important products to look at. And then we have looked at thirty some products and conducted demonstrations. We’ve surveyed them to get their answers to a long, long list of questions about features and capabilities and pricing and on and the company itself, you know, is it a stable company, that sort of thing? So so we’ve conducted quite a bit of research there, and then we’ve also for our consumers guide too low cost bonem management systems, we’ve done in depth demonstrations of a number of thes systems that go beyond the initial demonstrations and there, you know, maybe two additional hours of looking through every detail of what the software khun d’oh. Okay, excellent. That’s another great we shot that you mention that before the consumer guide, right? Yeah. All right, um, and we also fact check all that data with their all that information with the vendors as well. So before we publish anything they will sign buy-in off that what we’re publishing is factually accurate about their product. You mentioned bloomerang also has an availability for up to a thousand records, right? So that’s, another one to look at and that’s kind of a newcomer to the market that did not appear in the previous edition of the field guide. Not that they’re brand new. They’ve been around for several years now and are pretty well established. But that is an example of one that’s a little bit newer is j love bloomerang is that j dellaccio he’s been on the show years ago? First rodeo what’s, not his first round. I don’t know if he was with bloomerang then, but he’s been on the show also mentioned su mac offers a free basic cr m for up to five hundred records and charges just two hundred forty dollars a year for five hundred two thousand records. Right? Semak when that’s just one example of a number of these tools that are very affordable, even for tiny organizations. So we’re finding that even like some volunteer run organizations that have a budget, maybe even under one hundred thousand dollars a year are still finding that it’s valuable to them to invest in dahna management software and if they can get it for, you know, thirty, forty dollars a month, then that’s affordable? Fair enough. I agree, all right? And then, uh, there’s blackbaud i mean, they’re they’re in the small market, too. Um, blackbaud offers e tapestry the field guide says, yeah, okay, that’s, another option to look at. And i mean, in my opinion, where blackbaud really shines is with mohr enterprise applications and larger organizations, but they do have a product that was well reviewed for smaller organizations as well. Ok, that’s z tapestry, you tapestry, right? All right, we’re going to switch. We’re going, toto, how to choose what is best for your organization choosing implementing, um, number one. You want us to define our needs? You mentioned this before. We’ll say we’re more about this, right? Well, and actually, i would back-up from that, i think the static the first step is to determine whether you really need new software or not. Okay, so back to the story i told before where there was a softer package that was chosen without a lot of input from the staff there there wanting to change to new software, you know, they just want to start over, but is that the best thing for them? Maybe maybe your existing system can be modified added on to so let’s, talk to our vendors for the existing system and see if that can be scaled uppers or modified someone write about this already. I know. Yes, that zoho storming through the third cat. Why go through the tremendous effort and expense and frankly, a drain on morale, sometimes of making a software change? If you don’t really need tio drink, sometimes it’s better to improve what you have and and make sure that you’re not changing. Make sure that you’re not thinking that it’s a feature problem when really it’s a user adoption problem. People get confused about those things, the way people are using it versus what it might be able to do, right? That’s the distinction you’re making okay and that morale problem comes about because it’s, you know, if you’re if you’re doing a significant stuff where change learning a new system is a big deal it’s a big change in an organization it isthe alright, your says i can take up a lot of people’s energy and it can also productivity khun suffer for a while. It’ll probably bounced back up to a higher level than previously once you’ve gone through that, but productivity khun suffer during a change for sure, all right, after we know what our needs are, we go to a short list right a couple times, but i just have like a minute and a half left for this topic, i would suggest looking in depth that no more than four and take control of the demos. That’s my best advice for people who are shopping for software don’t just listen to the vendors jogging will fly through screen sharing and they’ll fly through for forty five minutes, but but but but you don’t even know if they want to impress you and show you all the bells and whistles and, you know, that’s great! I used to sell software i know i know how. That is, but but you want to make sure that you’re seeing the things that are most applicable to your situation and seeing the same thing would say, you look at three different vendors. You want them all to show? Like, how do you enter a pledge, or or whatever it is that you decide is an important business case for our use case for you. You want them all to show the same thing so that you could make a fair comparison. We just have to wrap up with the idea that you might need a consultant. You might consider getting a consultant to help you with this software selection, right? And having been a consultant, i can say that if you do some homework before you work with the consultant, that will be a much valuable, more valuable engagement for you. And it actually will be probably more enjoyable for the consultant as well. If they have a well educated client who knows the right questions to ask and has thought through their needs a bit before they start working with you. But it is sometimes very valuable. Tohave a consultant walk side by side with you and help you with this process it’s the idealware field guide to software for non-profits non-profit radio listeners get the insider discount goto idealware dot org’s slash non-profit radio karen graham you want to follow her on twitter? She’s at karin t graham t for theresa and the organisation with all its outstanding resource is is that idealware dot or ge? You gotta check this organization out and the field guy just get the darn thing. How many times have i said it? Karen, thank you so much. Thank you, tony. Real pleasure. Next week, it’s risk management day healthcare funding and data breaches and don’t glaze over because we’re gonna make this fine and interesting. If you missed any part of today’s show, i’d be seat. You find it on tony martignetti dot com responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers we b e spelling dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Betty mcardle is our am and fm outreach director shows social media is by sea soon chavez and this cool music is by scott. Stein, be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Hey! Buy-in what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge. Somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze you know, tell you make you feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.