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[00:01:04.26] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father. We’ll just start again with this take. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite Hebdomadal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d come down with Hypo is Phoria. If I saw that you missed this week’s show, here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up this week?

[00:01:57.85] spk_1:
Hey, tony, this week it’s CRM selection. Ruben Singh returns to help you focus on what matters in CRM selection to keep you safe from a serious misstep. He also shares his thoughts on what else might be the problem besides your CRM database. Ruben is CEO of 1/10 consulting. Then what to ask before your new website, Steven Tidmore from Mighty Citizens built his first website in 1999 and hasn’t stopped. He shares the questions you need to ask up front before you embark on a new website project. These both originally aired on June 14th, 2021 on Tony’s Take two

[00:02:00.29] spk_0:
loving. The donors

[00:02:37.56] spk_1:
were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. This giving season donor box, the fast flexible and friendly fundraising platform for nonprofits donor box dot org and by Kela grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers, CRM visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Here is CRM selection.

[00:02:42.65] spk_0:
Welcome to tony-martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 21 NTC. You know what that is? It’s the 2021 nonprofit technology conference with me now is Ruben Singh CEO of 1/10 consulting Ruben. Welcome back to nonprofit radio.

[00:03:00.00] spk_2:
Hey, thanks so much, tony. Thanks

[00:03:40.48] spk_0:
for having me. My pleasure. My pleasure. Your topic this year is CRM selection. When you don’t know what you don’t know which is kind of related to what we did, uh talk about last year, which is don’t get played by the product demo that was listeners can go back to listen to that. That was uh when we talked about the uh the flash bang demo that doesn’t turn out to be so you, you can’t replicate the of which you cannot replicate the wizardry when you’re, when you’re posting sta it just doesn’t seem to fly, fly quite as fast as that product demo. So that was when we talked about last year. Um This year. What’s the trouble around CRM selection and these unknown unknowns?

[00:04:42.84] spk_2:
Yeah. Yeah. No, thanks. Tony and, and um uh yeah, this seemed like a good, good way to, to spring board off off of last year’s presentation with the demos because, uh still, you know, with all the organizations, with so many of the organizations that I work with, uh the selection process has just such a challenge. Uh And I even took the opportunity during the conference itself to ask, you know, what is it, what is it so challenging about these CRM selection processes? Is it that there’s just too many options in the market? Too few options? Is it uh you know, just uh confusion about the features they offer? Is it just, you know, if you right? No, or is it more on the internal side, you know, decision making as I suspected? II, I guess it is, it’s across the board there, there’s all kinds of reasons that people are really um struggling right now when it comes to selecting Cr MS. So, so that’s why we wanted to look at this top is, is really um try to unpack some of the reasons that make it so challenging and also give some advice on what can make the process go a little bit smoother.

[00:05:00.60] spk_0:
OK. The one thing that you ticked off that I, I imagine the problem is not, is that there’s too few Cr MS available? I don’t think that’s a problem. Is it?

[00:05:02.58] spk_2:
Uh Well, II, I think, yeah, I wouldn’t say there’s too few but then once you get into, you kind of dig in a little bit past the surface and really look at, you know, the types of functions that you need. So um you know,

[00:05:16.44] spk_0:
you might have a few options based on your specific

[00:05:25.98] spk_2:
exactly like, you know, everybody will have, you know, the the constituent management side of things and everybody will have, you know, basic activity management, donation management. So no, no shortage of solutions in the market there. But then you say, hey, you know, is there a solution out there in the market that does outbound funds management really well? OK. Well, now you’re down to like two. So, so I think so. So there is too few but yeah, there is a nuance there for sure,

[00:05:42.31] spk_0:
I understand. All right. So you know, how do you help folks? Where should we start with this? How do, how do you help folks make sense of this uh confounding landscape?

[00:07:45.53] spk_2:
Yeah, you know, there’s, there’s a few things I think that, that, that folks can do and, and the first and foremost is, is really uh when you have a selection process, uh you know, what I think you can do to make the most of it is, is first make sure that you have the right team internally. Um because uh you know, oftentimes I walk into situations like this where we do selections and, and you know, I I’m told, OK, you know, it is gonna make the decision here or leadership is gonna make the decision here and, and neither of those really work out particularly well. So I think really having a uh a cross functional team, not only in terms of where they sit in the organization, uh you know, across the organizational hierarchy, but also looking at the diversity of the team. And this is something that I, I personally feel is very important, you know, even even diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, age, you know, uh tech, technical, technical skill, capability, um ability, ee everything, you know, all those things are gonna matter, you know, even if you uh work with external constituents, uh perhaps even engage some of your uh program participants in the process, the more diverse that you can have your team, uh you’re really gonna have uh a solution in the end that that really represents what they need. So I, so I think really assembling a team, the the right team is, is a key part and often gets overlooked. Um Another thing is really just being honest with the, the expectations of the system. So, you know, I have some organizations that I work with that say, ah you know, well, we don’t have much budget and we don’t have any resources that can manage this system really ongoing. We need something that, that can, we can plug and play, it’s gonna work. So, so tell me about sales force or, or you know, tell me about razors edge and I’m like, wait, wait a second, you know, those are not the only, you know, two products in the market. There’s a lot of other tools that are out there that are more aligned for you that you can uh that is more plug and play. And then, you know, now granted you might be trading off some opportunities to, to, you know, it may not be as customizable or it may not be uh all the, the depth of functionality you need in certain areas. Um But uh going the other direction and having a highly customizable system that needs a lot of maintenance and, and when you don’t have the, the team and the resources and the budget to maintain it, it, it can really put you uh in a, in a tough spot. So, so those are kind of a couple of things I I have more but, but those are a couple of things that I think that often get overlooked is really starting in with those, those right expectations and having the right team to help make that decision.

[00:08:09.17] spk_0:
R unfortunately, you’re stuck with me as a lack of host. II. I should have asked you initially, how do you know if you need a new CRM before you even wade into these waters? Maybe CRM, maybe your CRM is not your problem. How do you make sure it’s, it’s AC RM. That is your problem and not not your processes or your leadership or something

[00:08:29.25] spk_2:
else. That, that’s a great question, tony. And, um I wish I had asked

[00:08:33.11] spk_0:
it five minutes ago.

[00:08:56.72] spk_2:
No, no, no problem. And, you know, it’s, uh I’ve worked for, um you know, product companies in the past where, you know, we have a specific methodology, specific product to, to come and solve your problem. And I’ll be honest with you, tony, you know, over the years I’ve, I’ve implemented CRM solutions. Uh you know, on time on budget, we’re sitting there after go live, everybody’s celebrating. And I, I walked out of those clients thinking to myself, this is not gonna end well, this is not, this is, they are not set up for the success and it really has nothing to do with the CRM. And you felt

[00:09:13.69] spk_0:
that way even on your champagne high after their champagne ate their hors d’oeuvres, you still, you still walk down, feeling, feeling

[00:10:28.25] spk_2:
unsatisfied. Well, I tell you walking to my car in the, in the parking lot. I sit there in the car and I’m like, oh boy, this, I’m gonna hear from these folks in, in two months and, and I don’t know what I could have done differently, you know, and, and it’s, it’s really for the things that you said that, that I i it’s uh it’s really making sure that uh do they have the right support ongoing? Do they have the right governance structure? Do they have good decision making, you know, uh uh processes when things come up. Um Do they have the right executive buy in? Um are the processes really well aligned to help them be successful in the new system or did they bring their own sort of broken promises into the new s uh sorry, broken uh broken processes into the new system? Uh or uh even their data, you know, oftentimes these, these projects kind of run overboard and then they just say, ah, well, let’s just, we don’t need to clean the data, let’s just push it into the new system and, and we’ll figure it out later. Uh These are not, these are things that are not going to uh lead you to success and, and oftentimes things go awry. It’s like, ah, you know, we shouldn’t have gone with this CRM or we shouldn’t have gone with this. And it’s really, uh you know, and that’s one thing at 1/10 we’ve, is really one of our key principles is it’s the people process and technology. Um It’s the strategy. It’s, it’s having everything aligned in order to make your technology successful. So it, it is, it is. Yeah, it’s, it’s a little bit science, a little bit art to make that, to make sure that balance is there.

[00:11:15.11] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Are you looking to maximize your fundraising efforts and impact this giving season? Donor Box’s online donation platform is designed to help you reach your fundraising goals from customizable donation forms to far-reaching easy share, crowd funding and peer to peer options. Plus seamless in-person giving with donor box like kiosk. Donor box makes giving simple and fast for your donors and moves the needle on your mission visit donor box dot org and let donor box help you help others. Now back to CRM selection

[00:11:36.59] spk_0:
after an 18 month or maybe 24 month conversion, you know, the whole process of search and then narrowing down and you know, the thing, the things we talked about last year. Um And then, and then for it not to be the success that everybody is expecting. Um Let’s spend a little more time with this. What, what, what, where else should we look? You know, if we suspect our CRM is the problem but where else should we be looking? We, we’ve talked about processes, leadership buy in but, but be drill down a little bit, you know, you have the experience, what have you seen that? That is often the cause not the, it’s not the software.

[00:14:03.66] spk_2:
Yeah, you know, definitely the, the buy in is key. Um And that’s something that starts from the very beginning. Uh And, and I’ve see, I, you know, I, I don’t want to sound super negative here because I’ve seen, I’ve seen some organizations do this really well, you know where, you know, before they uh you know, let’s say they’ve made us, you know, they, they’re kind of getting close to a selection or they’re, they’re uh they’ve done sort of the initial vetting of solutions. Uh They really bring the leadership in uh and have them have, have a stake in the, in the, in the matter. I think that’s, that’s key, you know. So when I even talk about assembling a diverse team that also includes leadership and management, um you know, they, they’re not just, they shouldn’t just be Spectators of the process, they should be very engaged in the process. Uh Because that’s when I see things kind of fall off the rails a little bit is the moment something goes wrong and everybody just, you know, throws their hands up in the air and says, oh, well, you know, I never really, you know, subscribe to this or I, I told you you should have gone with, you know, such and such tool anyways. So that executive buy in is, is just super important and that really is, you know, it’s, it’s the project team sitting with leadership and making sure they understand what is the, the business this case for CRM in the first place? Uh What needs to make us successful. So if that means uh additional resources like we need a part time or full time administrator, uh or we need to have uh a, a tool to, you know, manage tickets and ongoing incidents. So we have a way of tracking things that we need to improve with the CRM or we need a governance process that we can make decisions uh um more effectively and, and I think tony that the governance is, is key. Um, because oftentimes like you, you go live and then sure enough as folks are using the system, uh there’s all kinds of requests, there’s, there’s bugs, there’s uh enhancement requests, there’s, you know, fundamental problems that need to be addressed. And oftentimes it’s like, ok, well, let’s just, you know, go to the person who’s, you know, you know, clamoring the loudest and, and solve their problem, but that’s not really the right way to do it. You want to be methodical and think about. Ok. Well, you know, let’s prioritize, let’s evaluate the, the urgency of the issues, the severity of the issues, let’s put together a road map. So everybody knows what’s coming when. Um, and, and so it, it sort of, you know, goes to that point that this, that CRM is not a project, it is definitely an ongoing journey. Uh And, and, and so, you know, when those kind of expectations are aligned, I see a lot more success. Uh So, so, so, yeah, the solution and that is completely solution. Agnostic.

[00:14:47.87] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you for that digression. But I, I think it’s important. I think, I think there’s a lot of orgs that, that blame their software, but they have much more inherent problems that, as you said, no application is gonna solve because that’s not the pro those aren’t the problems, that’s not the problem. All right. Um, you mentioned prioritization. I want to get to that. I wanted to get to that because you, you, you alluded to different features and, you know, but how do you decide what you really need versus what you, you could, you could use but you don’t really need it, you know, to try to winnow down your, your alternatives in this vast landscape.

[00:15:15.54] spk_2:
Yeah, that’s a really important question, tony because um you know, especially as I’ve sat through as, as perhaps you have to just sat through so many demos of systems and I think often times, uh the organizations I work with, they are very impressed with the breadth of functionality. Um But you have

[00:15:16.61] spk_0:
the, well, I haven’t sat through as many as you have, but you also have the experience of having done the, done the

[00:15:21.44] spk_2:
demo. I’ve been on both sides,

[00:15:44.30] spk_0:
thousands, I think when we talked last year, you know, you’ve done thousands of these things and you were the Whizz Bang. You were the guy flying through the, flying, the cursor through and showing everybody how easy it was, how easy it’ll be for you. It’ll be just like this to your experience is gonna be identical to mine, you know, give yourself 24 hours with the system and then you’ll be as good as me. I’m making you out to be a, a huckster. You’re not.

[00:18:32.05] spk_2:
Well, I, I’ll tell you a little story, tony and I shared, I shared this with the folks at, at the NTC. Um, you know, a couple of years ago on my last trip to India, I, I went on a shopping trip with my wife and, uh, we went to this, um, garment store, clothing store and she, she walks in there and she says, I’m looking for something specific. I want this dress that is, uh, turquoise. And the, the shop owner said, oh, ok. Yeah, no problem. And then he starts showing, um, all these different dresses and it’s just like, you know, unpacking and, and showing and demonstrating. He has 23 assistants, unpacking different garments and showing different things. You know, some of them are light blue, some of them are dark blue. Some of them are shades of green. Some of them are teal and, uh, you know, you know, about maybe 30 40 different dresses into this II, I kind of figured what was going on here. And I whispered to my wife, I said, I think he’s gonna show you everything in the store before he tells you he doesn’t have a turquoise dress and, and I feel every time I, I sit in some of these system demos, I kind of think of the same thing that, you know, the, the, the, the, the, um, and no disrespect to the, the account executives out there. They’re, they’re doing their job and, and trying to present the best elements of the products they have. Um but they are gonna show you everything. Uh They’re gonna show you everything, whether there’s breadth or depth, it doesn’t really matter that they’re going to impress you with um with, with all the features and functionality that the system offers. So what I try to uh encourage uh my client and prospective clients to do is, you know, you, you kind of take control of the demo, say, say, you know, no, I’m I’m not really interested in, you know, I know all these solutions do fundraising. I know all these solutions, you know, can, can send out an email. I know all these solutions will track activities, but here are my three or four priorities. You know, I, I need to do long term case management because we’re a human services nonprofit or uh you know, we get grants that we re grant to other smaller nonprofits. So we want to do outbound re you know, re granting or, you know, we, we focus heavily on the social listening or the volunteer management. Pick those four or five areas that mean the most to you and you want to see the, the, the real depth in those systems there because I think once you do that, you’re gonna find there, there’s fewer options than you might have thought. Uh And, and really kind of, you know, rather than just getting into this demo, uh process uh demos are nice. But what you really want is a working session to say here are my use cases. Uh And, and, you know, show me how we can solve very specific problems in these four or five areas. And, and I, and, you know, there are some uh vendors that will say, oh, you know, I don’t have time for that. You know, I, I, I’ll give you my can demo. You know, that’s the best I can do and you probably don’t want to work with those partners. Uh You really, you know, there, there, there are other vendors that say, oh thank you. Like, thank you. I don’t have to waste my time on this can demo. Uh And we can really focus on the things that matter to you. There, there’s some that really, really thrive in that situation. So, so I think it’s really um looking at what are those three or four things, those five things that really matter to you. Um That, that is not only something that you need to maybe replace in your current process, but looking 3 to 5 years down the line, uh you know, you really want to get into program management or you really want to get into more direct mail. Uh You think about what those three or five things are and really focus the sales process on that.

[00:19:19.25] spk_0:
Is that hard to do? Focus on these 3 to 5 when you’ve got 10 people from an organization clamoring for, for their, there used to be a top priority. You know, the, the the the event folks are saying, well, we need better ticketing but it doesn’t feel like ticketing is really a priority, but we do ticketing. You know, how do you, how do you manage these internal battles?

[00:20:56.00] spk_2:
There are always, there’s always gonna be that battle, there’s always gonna be that healthy debate and contention intention there. So, uh you know what, what I tried to frame up is, you know, as an organization, you definitely have to prioritize uh you, you surely have to prioritize and I know everybody expects it, but they just don’t want to be beyond the, the losing end of, of that prior organization. So, so I, I think, you know what, what I try to encourage folk is uh even though you may not get everything you want to make sure that you’re selecting a tool that does not preclude you or do not prohibit you from getting the features that you want. So maybe event management is not a priority right now. Um But let’s pick a solution that if even if it doesn’t have very strong event management capabilities, perhaps it can integrate with other tools that are out there that have very strong uh event management capabilities. So, um so, so it’s uh so you definitely want to focus on the, the key priorities you have. Um But you also want to be, make sure that you’re selecting a tool 3 to 5 years out can still support what you need. Uh So, so that’s it, it’s a little tricky and, and, you know, it kind of goes to one of my, uh you know, I, I gave a lot of suggestions and a lot of, you know, tips and tricks on, on how to really make the selection process work for folks. But, you know, one of the last points I did is, is it may take AAA trusted advisor to help in this process because, you know, the non profit I work with, they’re, they’re very busy, you know, doing good for the world and, and, and uh don’t always have time to keep in completely aware of what all the, the latest technologies and trends are. So sometimes it takes, you know, bringing in a trusted advisor, whether that’s in a pro bono capacity or a paid consultant, uh who can really, you know, help get you through some of the fluff and say, all right. Well, you know, I I know that program management is not a key priority for you right now, but it is something you want to do in the future. And here’s three or four tools that might want, you might want to consider that can get you there at a later point.

[00:21:11.22] spk_0:
There’s also the importance of leadership that, that you stressed, you know, it’s, it’s incumbent on the CEO to decide what the priorities of the organization are.

[00:22:09.41] spk_2:
A absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, uh you know, when I was sort of working more on the vendor side and, you know, with specific products, I, I wasn’t, you didn’t really have the flexibility to have these discussions. But, you know, now, uh you know, running our own practice, we have the ability to, to kind of start start selection processes with very different questions. So, you know, the questions I’ll ask is OK. Well, let’s talk about your fundraising strategy. Well, you know, let’s talk about, you know, your organizational goals. Uh Let’s talk about where, where you are now and where you want to be 3 to 5 years from now. Um You know, what’s, what’s the, the, you know, what are the kind of decisions, let’s say, you know, to speaking to the executive director or the leadership team, you know, when you walk into work Monday morning and you, you turn your, uh you turn your computer on, you log into your CRM. What do you want to see on your dashboard? What, what is it, what are those key decisions or, or key insights that you need to help you make decisions for that day, for that week? Uh Let’s start there and then from there, we, we start figuring out um what are the right tools, what are the right solutions and all that? But, but, but really, you’re absolutely right. It starts with the strategy and it starts, starts from the top.

[00:22:33.70] spk_0:
You have some tools and, and resources to help folks make better decisions.

[00:23:36.63] spk_2:
Yeah, absolutely. Um You know, making better decisions just means uh means a lot to us at 1/10 you know, whether you work with us or not, we, we, we feel it’s, it’s best for the non profit sector and, and, and best for the non profit tech sector um to, for, for everyone to really have, be making informed decisions when they go for a solution. So, um on our website on uh uh uh 1 10 dot consulting, you will be able to see. Um you know, we have webinars, we have um uh blog post all to really help you uh in that process. Um Also on our social media, we do have um uh from time to time, we are either posting articles, sharing articles, other content that we think is are, is really gonna help people make good decisions. So I would, I would suggest and all our, our web um all our webinars all are, are all on demand free. Uh So we, we encourage folks to, to take a look at our website and, and really um take advantage of all the, the content that’s out there, you know, uh combined with, with uh myself and others that we work with. I mean, it’s many, many years of experience, good, the good, the bad, the ugly. So we, we try to put as much as we can in that content on our website to make it available to everyone.

[00:24:00.17] spk_0:
It’s 1/10 dot Consulting. That’s correct. All spelled out 1/10 dot Consulting. Ok. That’s right. Are you familiar with the, the Tech Impact reports? The, the, the surveys that they do across different systems, you know, they, they agnostically survey and, and study different, different elements of, of lots of different, uh, program uh, applications that can be valuable too. Right. That tech impact the survey.

[00:25:12.42] spk_2:
Absolutely. I think tech impact does a great job on that. And that’s one of the things that we, we often share around on our social media when, when it becomes available or new, new uh visions of that is posted. Uh I’m a big fan of their work. Um There’s just so much out there, like I said, and you really don’t, uh I don’t expect any of the nonprofits I work with to be knowledgeable about everything. That’s, that’s, that’s out there. So, so I really do like what temp tech impact puts out and it really gives you like a baseline of what are the different tools out there? What are the key, um you know, from, from a pricing perspective and, and all that. So, uh you know, strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons. So I think that’s like always a good place to start. Um And, and then, you know, sometimes when you need to get uh where it gets a little bit more complicated and is when you are like, so, so for example, if you are thinking about CRM or it’s, this is like a first step for you and you know, you want to move off of spreadsheets, you know, the tech impact, I might be all you need to, to kind of make a first decision. Um What gets more complicated oftentimes is if you’re switching from system A to system B uh and, and you want to kind of know how, what that migration might look like. That’s where the guide may not help you as much. And, and you might need to look at other resources that are, that are available.

[00:25:24.42] spk_0:
OK. OK. We say we leave it there, Ruben. Does that sound like we’ve hit this? Anything that we’ve omitted that you think is important?

[00:25:30.34] spk_2:
No, no, that, that sounds great. I think I enjoyed the, I enjoyed the conversation very much. Always appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, tony and uh have a chance to engage with the audience. So thank you so much for the time.

[00:25:40.60] spk_0:
My pleasure, Ruben Singh CEO at 1/10 consulting again, 1/10 dot consulting. And thanks so much for being with tony-martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 21 NTC.

[00:26:40.34] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Keyla increased donations and foster collaborative teamwork with Kela. The fundraisers. CRM maximize your team’s productivity and spend more time building strong connections with donors through features that were built specifically for fundraisers. A fundraiser CRM goes beyond a data management platform. It’s designed with the unique needs of fundraisers in mind and aims to unify fundraising, communications and donor management tools into one single source of truth visit. Kila dot co to sign up for a coming group demo and explore how to exceed your fundraising goals. Like never before. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:29:42.12] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate. I just had 10 days of donor meetings. I was in New York City, met with lots of donors and potential donors to a client there. And it, it just reminds me how much I love doing the donor meetings. Just the face to face. Some are in people’s homes, some are over lunches or coffee. Not too many breakfasts and dinners, uh, in, in planned giving the, the older folks, eighties and nineties. They don’t really wanna get out early in the morning for breakfast and they don’t really want to have dinner out either, especially in the winter and in the summer, summer time, you know, longer nights you might get more dinners, but, uh, not, not so many this time of year, not any actually for me. So lunches and coffees and meeting in people’s homes. But it’s just, it’s, it’s such a pleasure, you know, getting to know folks listening to their stories about, uh, their, well, in most cases it was their husbands who have died, uh, their Children, grandchildren. And of course, why they love the work of the non profit that I was representing while I was there. Uh It’s, you know, it’s, it’s moving. They’re, they’re just, they’re fun. The donor meetings are fun. You know, that’s the, that’s the beauty of fundraising is the meetings with the, with, with donors and potential donors. So thankfully, as a consultant, I don’t get bogged down in a lot of administration, there are not a lot of meetings, people want me to go to clients occasional but not so often. So I hope for you that you can or you have, you know, freed yourself from a lot of the administrative work that is not anywhere near as stimulating as the, the meetings, the face to face meetings with, with folks. I, I hope you can unburden yourself from administration and, and get to the heart of fundraising which around major giving or of course planned giving is meeting folks, meeting them and, and talking to them, getting to know their stories. I, I have a natural curiosity about people. Uh So I find these meetings just delightful and, and fun and fun. So I hope you can enjoy that part of fundraising, whether you’re a full time fundraiser or maybe you’re a CEO perhaps you’re on a board. I urge you to uh embrace that really fun part of fundraising that is Tony’s take two, associate producer, Kate.

[00:29:44.92] spk_1:
Well, it sounds like you had a very fun week and I’m sure the people that you met up with were having fun as well, you know, getting out, doing something, not being stuck in the home. So, it’s very sweet to, you know, go grab a cup of coffee with the old people, you know.

[00:30:14.79] spk_0:
Well, it’s ok. Yeah. So it’s a little more, a little more than grab a cup of coffee with old people. But, uh, II, I got you. Yes, it, it is. Some of them do like getting out. Um And I, I believe they enjoy our meetings too. At least, at least that’s what they say. We’ll, we’ll leave it at that. That’s what they all say.

[00:30:27.30] spk_1:
We’ve got buku but loads more time here is what to ask before your new website.

[00:30:34.87] spk_0:
Welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit radio coverage of 21 NTC, the 2021 nonprofit technology conference. My guest now is Steven Tidmore. He is VP of Technology at Mighty Citizen. Steven. Welcome to Nonprofit

[00:30:50.83] spk_3:
radio. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:31:01.44] spk_0:
Pleasure, pleasure. Your session topic is eight questions to ask before you start a new website, correct? And you, you, um you describe yourself as a technical savant.

[00:31:07.75] spk_3:
I don’t know if I describe myself as that. But um oh,

[00:31:11.71] spk_0:
that was that. It’s in your bio. That’s

[00:31:13.83] spk_3:
not our, our marketing folks may. That’s the

[00:31:17.12] spk_0:
marketing marketing phrase. OK. All right. I won’t ask you to define the technical.

[00:31:24.46] spk_3:
I would just say I’ve been involved in technology websites for um a long time, probably about 20 a little, well, over 20 years now of, um, experience building websites and for various size organizations.

[00:31:34.38] spk_0:
Yeah, indeed. Uh, that, that same market marketing team written bio says you built your first one in 1999?

[00:31:41.49] spk_3:
That’s cool. What

[00:31:42.46] spk_0:
did, what did websites look like in 1999? What, what did, what did it mean to build a website in 1999 or, or 2000? Oh,

[00:32:41.81] spk_3:
that’s, that’s a good question, I guess in some ways it was a lot simpler. Um Depending on the type of website you were building small websites. You know, you didn’t have to worry about all the um extra learning that comes these days from trying to figure out if you’re gonna build a single page application or if you’re gonna use this javascript framework or that javascript framework or, you know, really complex hosting setups. Um So that was simpler, but to do more complex things at times were a bit harder. Um I started at Dell um back in 1999 and I remember I kind of got into the web world because they were transitioning to the Dell dot com to a new technology. Um Well, not a new technology but a new build process using XML. And so coding back then was writing this whole custom XML um code that they had come up with that. Then Knightly would go through a big spider and spit out html and everything else. And so that was more complicated, I guess, in some ways then at least we have standards now and can do, uh, more dynamic things in a standards compliant way. Um, back then a lot of it was all custom

[00:32:58.63] spk_0:
was, that was, that was 1999 remind me, was that the, the, was that the years of, uh, dial up service where we hear that crackling

[00:33:23.49] spk_3:
it still existed? Um, but probably was a little more popular before that, you know, in the, in the late, in the, you know, a little bit earlier in the late nineties. Um but dial up still existed. I remember I still had dial up in 99 but a lot of people had already moved on to DS L or? That’s

[00:33:35.82] spk_0:
right. That was the follow on. Yes. Ok. Digital subscriber line, Ds L? Oh, that’s interesting. Ok. So you got eight questions to ask before you start a new website. Um Are these, are these internal questions that you should be asking before you go to maybe an outside provider? Because our, our listeners are small and mid size shops. So the likelihood of them having a development team, you know, uh I is small. So, so let’s assume that you use outside help for this. Are these internal questions you’re asking or you’re asking of the provider outside

[00:35:10.63] spk_3:
too either or so. So the goal really of the, the eight questions presentation was to just to get people thinking about some of these questions that we ask typically on a web project. So we’ve been doing lots of projects, you know, for a long time. And so we’ve gotten better about identifying these questions. We need to ask upfront on the technical side to avoid some pitfalls that we’ve seen on a lot of projects over the years. Um And so these questions are questions that you may have to go to, you know, if you have an it firm you work with or if you have uh you know, developers, either in house or partner, you know, partner agency like ourselves or other developers, you work with contract developers, you may have to talk to them about it. But some of the, the questions aren’t really that technical at all. Um Just, you know, a lot of the things that seem technical at 1st may be organizational questions around content. Um whether you’re gonna migrate content, who’s going to be in charge of publishing content. And um some of those could have a technical answer. But oftentimes we found that there may be organizational um processes in place that are causing some of the barriers more so than the technology itself. People tend to blame the C MS for, you know, it’s really hard to get content published on our website. And while the C MS could make that easier, most likely, um uh you know, turning to a new C MS immediately to solve that problem probably isn’t the first step. You need to figure out organizationally what you need to do in order to publish content and then find Ac MS that fits, you know, that need as opposed to trying to fit your process into something that C MS is gonna force you into.

[00:35:39.77] spk_0:
I’ve had other guests say the exact same thing uh as recently as earlier today. Oh, really? You know, uh software is often blamed for uh lackluster readership, poor processes. You know, people not understanding what the, what the limitations of the software are. So they look for something else that’s gonna have similar limitations, but they, they think it’s gonna be, you know, the grass is always greener and it’s gonna solve all their problems. And uh so it sounds like your, your eight questions. Let’s get into your questions because it sounds like some of them are gonna probe whether software, whether a new website is really gonna solve the problems that you’ve

[00:36:31.59] spk_3:
got. Yeah, I think just uh before you jump into mosaic questions, we um technology certainly can play a part and, and is to blame for a lot of issues I think in organizations. But um the way the way we look at it is, we, we try to, you know, figure out your organizational goals, publishing goals, um you know, technology goals, all that kind of all that kind of thing first and then find a technology solution that meets that. Um As opposed to just choosing a technology and trying to force your entire organization to use it when it, you know, you could build, like you said, a new website on a new content management system and still have the exact same problems if you haven’t figured out what your goals are first for your organization and, and um your, your visitors and you know, your members or whatever else it is.

[00:36:58.22] spk_0:
So, should we get into our, our questions knowing we just have a couple of minutes to spend on each one? Where, where do you like to start?

[00:37:07.03] spk_3:
What’s, what’s our first? Uh The first question we had in the presentation was do we need to migrate content? And if so what content, why

[00:37:14.10] spk_0:
is this important to know

[00:39:03.22] spk_3:
upfront? Well, so uh I’ve seen this come up on a lot of projects is that people automatically assume oftentimes that all of their content is going to move 1 to 1 into a new website. They may say, OK, we want a new website, we want it to look different and perform different, but we want to just move all of our content over. So you don’t have to rewrite anything. Um And that often case that that doesn’t happen most of the time there may not be, you know, a 1 to 1 fit. So during our, we go through a fairly robust information architecture and discovery phase and we don’t want our information architects to be held back from architecting a page or an experience that um meets your goals simply because they know they have this content that has to fit into the new architecture. And so you may end up with um you know, an events calendar that has new content on it, that you have to go in and add, you may have to add categories or something like that. So we can do fancy filtering and javascript filtering um or um you know, the content may not need to exist anymore. Uh So there is, you know, we see cases a lot where the it does make sense to migrate content, particularly with content that’s already structured. Well, like press releases or blog posts, that kind of thing, usually we’ll have more or less a 1 to 1 fit. Um But there’s lots of content that maybe it’s just in one big Wizz wig field, you know, which is what you see is what you get. I’m, I’m sure you’re familiar with that term, but it’s just basically like a word document or formatting inside a content management system. But now on a new site, there’s a bunch of structured content for a team page that has like your title and your um the department you work under and your phone number and your email address. And so you know, that content can’t migrate easily. So it’s something that we, we talked about way at the beginning and try to figure out does it even make sense to migrate content or do we really need to kind of take a fresh look and, and intercon, um, like

[00:39:05.23] spk_0:
this is like moving your home, you know, changing. Exactly. You need to bring everything with you, you know, maybe, maybe you don’t

[00:40:51.16] spk_3:
or you, yeah, you had three living rooms in your old house. So you have three sofas in your new house. You only have one. So, what, what do we do with those? You’re gonna try to shove them into the, the same one living room or are you gonna get rid of what’s next? Uh The next question is about hosting, just where will the site be hosted? Um So there’s some technical things you have to look at and our recommendation was if you don’t know the answer to questions about just some, you know, basic questions about your, your analytics hard drive space on your current web host ra MC PU bandwidth um that you need to talk to either your web host or your it vendor or someone to figure out those questions. Um But the, the important thing with hosting is that you want to make sure you don’t take into account just your regular activity, you need to look for any traffic spikes. So maybe your organization once or twice a year puts out a controversial press release or something happens that just causes the traffic to jump up. Um You wanna choose a web host that’s robust enough to handle that traffic. But ideally, you don’t want to pay for all the resources to handle that traffic throughout the entire year. Um So, you know, you wanna look for something that’s scalable, ideally where the resources can scale up and the resources you can think about it, just like your computer, you know, you add more ra M or you add more hard drive space. You know, there’s, there’s web hosting setups where they can kind of automatically add those resources whenever the traffic increases and that’s a great solution. Um So you’re not paying for that all the time. Um And then just make sure you’re finding a, a host that supports the technology you’re working with um you know, some hosts specialize in one type of technology versus another. So don’t want to get stuck with a host that doesn’t know your technology. And then if you are working with a, a web um vendor, maybe someone who’s building your website, then you need to make sure you have um an agreement between that web vendor and your host about who’s supporting which pieces of the website in the web hosting environment. You don’t want to get into a situation where the site goes down and the web host says, talk to your website vendor and the website vendor says talk to the web host and everyone looks,

[00:41:10.16] spk_0:
yeah, the finger, the finger pointing.

[00:41:12.30] spk_3:
Yeah. So you wanna, you wanna work that out in advance. It’s very

[00:41:15.18] spk_0:
frustrating for the person

[00:41:17.11] spk_3:
in the middle, for sure. Yeah, it’s not their fault, you

[00:41:19.08] spk_0:
know, who’s lying and who’s telling the truth or both? Half. Right. You know. All right. Um What else?

[00:41:26.88] spk_3:
Um So the third question and I could do, I could go in deeper into hosting, but I’ll pro I’ll just, we’ll go to the rest. We don’t, we,

[00:41:34.99] spk_0:
we, we need, yeah, we only have a couple of minutes to spend on each one. So

[00:43:30.23] spk_3:
OK, the third question is how does content get published? Um And this is one kind of like what I was talking about earlier where you really first wanna consider your organizational goals and your existing procedures for publishing that content. First. Um One thing we recommend is just, just ask is your content up to date and relevant now and if it’s not, then why is it, is it really a limitation in the content management system or your technology or is it an organizational issue that is causing that? Um So that’s the first question and oftentimes it is an organizational issue or content governance issue. Um And then we recommend you think pretty strongly about an approval work flow built into your content management system. What I mean by that is you want to force people to um have to log into the C MS and then post content and then, but they can’t actually publish it that goes to someone else to approve it, maybe it goes to someone else after that to approve it and then it gets published. Do you want to build that process into your C MS or do you want to leave that outside of the C MS? We have um built sites before where it was a requirement to have an approval work flow built in the C MS. But then, you know, we find out halfway through the project that the person who’s actually going to prove the content doesn’t want to do it in the C MS, they want someone to email them and they want uh they don’t want to have to log in and manage that. So, you know, you don’t want to get stuck paying for something or building in something that you don’t need. Um as well as oftentimes, you know, non profit organizations and a lot of organizations, other organizations may have time sensitive content that, that needs to get out there. And if you have a forced approval work flow and one person is the bottleneck and you have to post this content immediately and that person is out of the office, then that can cause issues where you’ve kind of roped yourself into not being able to, to uh publish timely content. And so those are just considerations that we start talking about at the beginning of a project. OK. Um We also talk about along with content. Um you know, you want to talk about the few at the beginning, if you’re ever gonna need Multilingual content in the future because you don’t want to get stuck with a platform that makes that hard. Um So is your, is your website going to need to be translated into multiple languages? And if so choose a platform now that makes that uh pretty similar. Uh I mean, sorry, pretty simple.

[00:43:53.99] spk_0:
Move us, move us to number four, get us halfway home.

[00:45:11.94] spk_3:
What third party systems you need to integrate with. And so this is a big technical question. Um Your website is most likely not an island. It is a um part of an ecosystem that involves lots of other third party tools. Um And this, these can be things like, you know, an event management system, a membership management system, a donor management system, a um mailing list, you know, product, um whatever that is, there’s tons and all those have to be taken into account. And um the first step really is just to sit down and make a list of every third party system or tool that is going to interact with your website. Um And you know, just think about how you handle lead forms and tracking code and social feeds and newsletter, sign ups and events and payments and all that kind of thing and just make a list. And then after you have that list, look at each of those and think about what type of integration do you need. And again, this may need a little bit of technical help um from either someone outside or someone on your team. But there’s, you know, sometimes people think it’s gonna be a complex integration where oh, we have to integrate this third party donor management system with our website. But really all you need is a link or you need some piece of embed code that they give you, you know, for a donation form and you just block that embed code on. That’s a pretty simple integration and then it can start to get more and more complex. Where do you actually need to send data back and forth through PD systems? Do you need to hire a developer to, you know, program, how that’s gonna happen? Does your event system need to send data into your website? So you can publish that in a different way? Um So third party systems are a big part of our technology discoveries we do now, they

[00:45:41.61] spk_0:
are right. There’s a lot, I mean, all the things you ticked off finance and events and uh uh yeah, petitions and things. All right. All

[00:46:40.59] spk_3:
right. Yeah, it can be a big list. What’s next? And then the fifth question is related is if you do have third party systems, um do any of those have websites that your visitors are going to interact with that need to be skinned and by skinned? Um What I mean is that, you know, you can often customize a third party site with design elements like logos or colors or graphics um to make them match your brand and, and we call that process skinning. And so you want to think about all the third party websites that exist that someone, you know your visitors, your website, visitors are going to need to interact with. And if they can interact with those, you want to see can you skin that to make it match your, either your new or current website? Um And if so great, uh you wanna, you wanna try to do that? Um But you want to figure out what the limits are. Some third party sites may just allow you to change the color. Some may allow you just to add a logo. Some may give you full control over fonts and um you know, a bunch of a bunch of styles. Um And if you can do that, then you need to figure out the responsibility. Uh Is that something that third party provider is gonna handle? Is that something you have to handle? And when does that need to happen in your project process? So we start talking about talking about that at the beginning because you don’t want to get to the end of a project and realize, oh, there’s this major third party website and now it doesn’t look anything like our new website, we’re gonna hold up launch so we can take the time to, to make that match.

[00:47:07.31] spk_0:
Um we’re five races of the way through and before we get to, uh, three quarters, uh, I wanna ask you about your six year journey around the world.

[00:47:16.23] spk_3:
Yeah. What

[00:47:17.22] spk_0:
was that? You told me? You bought a one way ticket to somewhere? Was it Portugal? Spain?

[00:47:21.80] spk_3:
Uh It was Spain. Yes. All right.

[00:47:28.00] spk_0:
And so how, how does, uh, how does AAA technologist benefit from seeing other countries for

[00:49:24.51] spk_3:
six years? That’s a great question, I think. Um, so I spent my last semester in college on this program called semester at sea where I had the amazing opportunity of traveling around on a big ship around the world. And um after that immediately, I started working at Dell here in Austin, Texas um on Round Rock technically, but Austin and um ended up working there for three years and um really got a lot out of experience, but I was kind of craving that, that travel. Uh Again, I got the travel bug and um I was young and didn’t have a whole lot of, you know, responsibility and things tying me here. So I bought a one way ticket to Spain and quit my job and had saved up just a little bit of money. And um that led to six years of kind of working my way around the world and various jobs, um lived in Spain for a while. Um lived in the British Virgin Islands, lived in Belize and Nicaragua worked on some native American reservations up in, up in Montana. Um and, uh, you know, bounced around Costa Rica a bunch and had an amazing time. I think, you know, the thing that it gave me, if, if we’re kind of applying it to technology and, um, more of a traditional working world, I think it’s just perspective um on, you know, how technology fits into the, the broader world. Um, there, I think it’s really easy to get stuck or hung up on. Um something that maybe, you know, maybe isn’t super important in the grand scheme of things that maybe seems really important for a week or a day or two. And so I think I have a little bit better perspective on just um the world as a whole and the importance of tasks that we um end up working on. Um And I think uh just the opportunity to live in other cultures. Um I’d recommend it for anyone because it does give, uh well, it gave me, I’ll say, um just insight into how other people live and what’s important to them. And, um you know, I think I, I got a small taste of that. I wouldn’t claim at all, but I’m an expert in all those cultures that I lived in by any means. Um But just a small taste of how people around the world are, are different and um ultimately how they’re all similar and have the same needs.

[00:49:50.92] spk_0:
Thanks perspective and it’s a big world out there.

[00:49:53.87] spk_3:
It is a big world.

[00:49:55.16] spk_0:
We’re not the center of the universe. I like to say that I am the center of the universe personally. But, but our nation is not the center of the universe, the

[00:50:01.56] spk_3:
universe.

[00:50:14.36] spk_0:
I could say it that way. Well, no, but I like to say the universe, I get carried away with some narcissism. Um, let’s, we just have a couple of minutes left. So let’s um, but do me a favor, le let’s do it this way. Just read off. Uh just uh questions 67 and eight and then we’ll come back, go into a little more

[00:50:38.53] spk_3:
detail, but we can do it pretty quick. So I think question six is, um, are you going to need single sign on question seven is how are you going to handle site, search? So, searching inside your website and then question eight is what standards are you required to follow? Um So I can hit this pretty quickly. The single sign on question is just basically, yeah. Yeah, we do. We have time to do this. Why,

[00:50:46.77] spk_0:
why do we need to know this in advance?

[00:52:40.96] spk_3:
Yeah. So the single sign on question is, is a big one. So do you have, um do you already have a system that holds records for, you know, members or visitors or whatever they are that people currently sign into in order to manage their account or do something else? And if So do people also need to sign in to your, your either current website or new, new website in order to do to do something. Um Most of the time that will be something like gated content where content on your site is only available to members. Um And so if you have that, you have to have those member accounts that allow you to access that content. And if so you need to know where those member accounts are stored. And so single sign on basically is a configuration that can allow someone to sign on to multiple different websites or web applications without having to have different accounts for all of them. Um And there’s some standard technologies that you can use that make that fairly easy. But um you just, you just need to start by asking if you need it. And if so do those member accounts exist anywhere now that you can hook into um to, to allow your website to um let people sign in to them using the same accounts. OK. Site search could do, we could talk for a long time about site search. But um you know, the the search on your website is super important. Um And you want to start by asking, you know, where does the data live? Is it in multiple systems? Do you need the site search engine to pull data from a third party site as well as from your website? Do you need a a search engine that’s going to search through the content of files like PDF files. Um Do you need to have a search engine that indexes content that’s only available to logged in users or members? Um And if so, you know, you want to start thinking about search solutions, there’s a lot of great third party search solutions out there. Um That can do a lot of advanced things while at the same time giving non technical users the ability to configure the search. You know, if someone types in a certain search term, these a lot of these third party solutions have a a dashboard where non technical people can say, OK, with this search term, I want this result to appear at the top no matter what. And then the rest of them are ranked by uh relevance. Um Some of the third party search solutions we’ve used that are great. Um Funnel back Pluto a search and swift type are just a few I’d recommend looking into. Um They do have a cost but they offer a fantastic solution.

[00:53:02.92] spk_0:
All right. So search is important. And then our last question

[00:55:03.44] spk_3:
standards, what standards are you required to follow? Um This is something you just want to find out upfront. You may not have specific standards in your organization, especially if you’re a smaller nonprofit. Um But you want to find out things like what browsers does your website need to be compatible with. You’ll have to look at historical data to see, you know, are people still coming to your website using old browsers like internet explorer 11 or can you ditch that and, and move on to more modern coding standards? Do you have any specific security requirements or policies in place? You know, maybe you, you do work with federal government and you have to, um, to adhere to their security standards. You want to know that upfront and then privacy laws are, are pretty big. Um now as they should be. Um things like H IP A which is the um health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or GDPR, which applies to um eu citizens. Maybe you do some business with EU citizens or the newer one here in the States is called the C CPA, the California Consumer Privacy Act. I’m not a lawyer. I won’t get into the details of all of those. Um But you know, you want to find out upfront if you need to um do anything different on your website to meet those standards. And then you want to think about accessibility from the get go. So what accessibility standards do you need to follow? Um most likely um you need to follow wick a AA. And what that means is um basically, if you’re not familiar uh which I’m sure you probably are, but basic accessibility is making websites, tools and technologies that um people with disabilities can use so anyone can use them regardless of their disability. And WC A is a set of very accepted guidelines um that define how you can make technology accessible. Um more or less at a high level. And there’s a, a level in there called WC AA that the federal government points to now and most other organizations point to. And so you want to be thinking about that from the beginning of your project because if you wait till the end to just run an automated scan, um It’s gonna take a lot to get your website um to be uh compatible with those guidelines. If you’re not thinking about it from the beginning,

[00:55:07.78] spk_0:
we have at least one session from NTC on accessibility.

[00:55:12.24] spk_3:
Yeah. Yeah, there were a number of them, which is great. I mean, the guidelines. Yeah. Yeah. Um And you cannot, you cannot say that your website meets with a AA standards just by running an automated stand. It’s impossible. It, it won’t, it’s impossible for it to check all the guidelines. And so it, it requires manual testing. So you want to plan for that?

[00:55:29.88] spk_0:
All right, we’re gonna leave it there. Great. All right, Steven. Thank you very much, Steve Steven Tidmore, Vice President of Technology at Mighty Citizen. Thank you, Steven.

[00:55:39.93] spk_3:
Thanks for your time. I appreciate

[00:55:41.04] spk_0:
it. All right, my pleasure. Thank you for being with nonprofit radio coverage of 21 NTC.

[00:55:52.68] spk_1:
Next week, tony is working on

[00:55:54.53] spk_0:
it. That’s true. I am. I swear

[00:55:59.13] spk_1:
if you missed any part of this week’s show,

[00:56:02.18] spk_0:
I beseech you to find it at tony-martignetti dot com

[00:56:41.86] spk_1:
or sponsored by donor box outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. This giving season donor box, the fast flexible and friendly fundraising platform for nonprofits donor box dot org and buy Kila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers CRM visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:57:09.71] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.