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Nonprofit Radio for May 8, 2015: Consider Consulting & Top Skills For Your Board

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Opportunity Collaboration: This working meeting on poverty reduction is unlike any other event you have attended. No plenary speeches, no panels, no PowerPoints. I was there last year and I’m going this year. It will ruin you for every other conference! October 11-16, Ixtapa, Mexico.

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My Guests:

Julia Reich and Marlene OliveiraConsider Consulting

Is consulting to nonprofits for you? Do you have the personality for it? What about marketing, pricing and setting boundaries? Julia Reich is owner of Stone Soup Creative and Marlene Oliveira is principal of moflow, a communications consultancy. We talked at NTC 2015, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 

Melissa McCormack: Top Skills For Your Board

Software Advice has a report on what skills to look for as you recruit board members. Melissa McCormack is their market research manager.

 

 

 


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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’d suffer the embarrassment of giggle incontinence if it leaked out that you missed today’s show, consider consulting is consulting to non-profits for you do you have the personality for it? What about marketing, pricing and setting boundaries with clients? Julia rice is owner of stone soup creative and marlene olivera is principal of moflow, a communications consultancy, we talked at ntcdinosaur fifteen, the non-profit technology conference and top skills for your board software advice has a report on what skills to look for as you recruit board members. Melissa mccormick is their market research manager on tony’s. Take two thank you and third sector, responsive by opportunity collaboration, the working meeting on poverty reduction that will ruin you for every other conference here is considered consulting from auntie si. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of non-profit technology conference twenty fifteen we’re in austin, texas at the convention center our hosts are and ten non-profit technology network with me are julie rice she’s, the owner of stone soup, creative and marlene olivera, copywriter and communications consultant with moflow julia marlene, welcome, thanks for having us thinking it’s a pleasure to have you on a busy conference day. Thank you. You’re a very interesting topic is, uh, considering consulting to non-profits i like that a lot. We don’t do a lot of career topics on non-profit radio. So that’s why? I was very much anxious toe have you and talk to you? Um, julia let’s, start with you. What do i need to be thinking about? Generally? Because we have plenty of time together if i’m thinking about making this transition to consulting what what should be what? Some of things i should be thinking about? Well, when marlene and i were putting together the session, we identified five different main topics that we’re going to cover, and one of them is actually making the leap and what to think about when you’re first starting out? Yeah, on and so we both came up with our own tips of what we thought would be important, and so i’ll just share one of my tips and it’s going to sound really obvious, but when you’re first starting out as a consultant, i think it’s important to be professional and there’s a lot of different ways, teo exude professionalism, and one of those things is really easy to do and that’s get a professional headshot so, you know, you can use something from your iphone or whatever, but that’s the selfie is not really doing it. Yeah, yeah. And i see a lot of people do that, and i think that they’re kind of it’s kind of an injustice. I think that they could really be presenting just a better presentation of themselves if they got a a professional headshot on and there’s actually, right here in the conference in the science fair, they’re actually taking professional about two boots over, right? Flux a fail you xx our neighbors are taking taking professional hit shots so there’s, no excuse, right? If you’re here it but if you’re not, yeah, and we’re in such a visual society on the web is so visual. When people go to your about paige or your bio page, the first thing they’re gonna do is look at your picture before they start reading. So it’s your first impression and a lot of ways, right? All right, marlene, you have a tip? Yeah, for sure. I think when you’re thinking about whether or not to move into consulting, my advice is to think about two things in particular. One is your personality and whether you have an entrepreneurial type of personality, whether you’re going to be able teo, learn the skills that are outside of your specialty in order to run a business, have you also within your personality, whether you’re a warrior or not, whether you’re gonna be able teo, stay, keep an even keel when the business is slow, right? We went in cash flow. We need to know that cash flow and income fluctuations very, very much a part of having your own consultant lee totally a part of it. And so i kind of think that you should potentially not be pursuing this if you’re a real warrior. Yeah, some real introspection. Yeah. Think about your personality. And and you know whether you want to run a business because it’s a big move from having a paycheck. And then the other thing is, think about your finances. So you touched on it. I think in my in my experience, it worked well to have a good cash flow. Good reserve before launching the business. So i think, you know, save up for it if you can spend some time saving up so that once again you can weather the downtime and that you make good decisions, you won’t just take any client for any reason. So i think thinking about your finances and think about how good you are with money. You know, julie and i have talked about, you know, your good favor when the money does come in. Do you spend it all? So those are things i think you think you should think about in terms of your personality way want to avoid making an impulsive decision because all of a sudden, our job sucks. Something has really just happened that we just can’t tolerate. So i’m going off on my own. Yes. Actually, that is something that we talked about as well as your motivation. Are you? What? What you said, you know, it seems like the easiest way out of a bad situation. Or do you really want to be a business owner? Okay, julie, you want to share another tip? You said you had teo just came up with. A couple, anything else or around the motivation, any opening question tips? Well, i would just add to it, marlene said, when i first went out on my own, a lot of people would say to me, oh, i could never do that, i would just be watching television all the time or, you know, going shopping and, you know, my personality is well suited to being a consultant and being self employed because i’m just really self motivated and no, i have to, you know, i have to make a living, so i’m not gonna waste my time, you know, going shopping and watching television and so it’s, just i know that part of my personality is is motivated enough teo toe work, like on a and i guess that’s going back to being professional, you know, it’s, i’m i’m sitting in my office in front of my computer basically monday through friday, nine to five, sending that setting those hours cem or introspection, but also recognizing that the need to pay bills is quite a motivation. So you may think that you may be on the fence about whether you’re whether you’re disciplined enough, recognize that you’re gonna have bills and you are going to want to make money to pay them so that that should be some help to you, right, discipline, that way of putting it. But on the other hand, if you say you’re total slouch and, you know, for a fact, you’re not gonna do it, then then this is not the right both for you, although i can’t say i kind of learned this one the hard way a little bit where the year i launched my business was also an olympic here i watched it few too many olympic duvette your income suffer, and i mean, it was mostly during a quiet time it was during the summer, but i did realize that i could have been building my business instead and started to build that structure and that discipline in a more defined way for myself started to structure it in what year was that what you live for? Two thousand eight? And how long have you been in business? Julia? Since two thousand one. Okay, oppcoll what’s something else? Well, can i presume that marketing is one of the areas of importance? Who wants to start with marketing ideas? How? Do we get this thing launched? You go first. All right, well, i have just a few of the things that have worked for me that i think are potentially surprising to people. I mean, i think you need to do what you enjoy doing and do what overtime you figure out what works but a lot. People cringe when i say i could have obtained some of my favorite and best clients by either cold calling or sending letters. Really? Absolutely. Especially in that first year, i think, you know, nobody wants to pick up the phone and do that, and i didn’t want to either. I don’t mind as much as other people, but i just did. I just made a list. I made a certain number. People i’d call on certain days. It’s good to schedule marketing days. That’s another tip that you will spend on your marketing, your business. And yes, between those calls and those those letters overtime, i did plant the seeds, and they did take a while to grow. But i got some of the best clients my favorite work because they responded to the letter or that phone call. I wonder if. It’s, because you were very careful about who you put on the list. I definitely would have been a lot of time on research, absolutely so much, so much more than the writing and the calling. Yeah, but marlene is also a writer professionally, so i’m sure it was an extremely well written letter. Okay, okay, still that’s not what i would expect all these years and you’re consultant two thousand eight, i would have expected you say comes from referrals mostly that that’s my number to me, actually between that kind of pitching, sort of cold calling or or letter writing and referrals that’s where most of my business has come. And i think referrals, arm or account for more. But that was just a surprising one. The first one that i mentioned and i’ve kept up more with referrals then with letter writing and phone calls. But, yes, absolutely referrals. And when it comes to referrals similar, i think people should be disciplined, structured about it. You make it really targeted list. What you do is you approach your clients that you like working with and you let them know i’d like to work with more awesome clients. Like you and i’m guessing, you know, like minded people, and i think that they’re to you, you said a number how many referrals will i ask for per month to say and make it a point? Make it on your calendar asked for those referrals and pre write an email that they can forward on that your contacts conversely, ford on very, very simple, just like all our sharing tools on the web. Okay, 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 marketmesuite 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 julia let’s, come back to your marketing marketing tips. Well, i think when you’re thinking about positioning yourself, when you’re first starting out, that you want to position yourself as an expert, i mean, obviously, you have an expertise in whatever it is that you want to consult about. So i don’t think that that would actually, you know, be an issue. But, you know, you kind of want to just stake a claim and say, i am this expert with this with this specialty, and position yourself that way, go on and have the confidence to do that. All right, anything else? Marketing wise marketing is pretty big. Well, let’s say, i mean, julia, you mentioned professionalism and the professional headshot. Obviously, all your marketing materials should be professional might be worth investing in a professional writer if you’re not one designer. If you’re not one, definitely. I mean, you should be investing in your business. Yeah, and and i would say that in terms of marketing, something that i think has worked well for both of us is sort of building a network and developing a community and sharing your knowledge with that community. So whether that’s doing blawg posts or webinars or marlene does tweet chats, uh, different kinds of presentations, but sharing your expertise with the community and building it up that way. There’s a good way too, huh? Just build your clientele and your prospects. Julia, what is your consulting? What do you do? I do graphic design and brand strategy. Okay? And marlene, you’re a professional writer. I do copy writing in communications planning. So basically a block and a newsletter planning it’s. Not writing strategy. Not writing if it’s not writing it’s those do you think? Okay. Okay, so you’re covering it. All right. So we have writing and design. Ah, where? Should we go after after marketing? Well, they didn’t want to just say one more thing about marketing really lead to it and a lot of those efforts i know for both of us lead toward building an email list on and that’s it for me. It’s a focus now that hasn’t been a focus prior to now, but it also fits with that building a community, having people who want to hear from you and are waiting for your help and your tips and your information keeping yourself top of mind with them. So it’s ready to add that about female? Alright, excellent way wish we go after marketing. Well, we didn’t finish talking, but one thing that i love talking about a little bit of this bit working from home, one of the advantages yeah, and the productivity side for me because i think it’s both the luxury on the challenge of being self employed that you’re leaving the world of meetings if you work in a non-profit you’d probably spend forty percent of your day in meetings, and maybe maybe i’m under representing that, but you can get so much done, but you do have to be. Disciplined, so i just wanted to mention the idea about setting boundaries for yourself and for others on, and i’m very pointed about that, you know, there are certain things i won’t do while i’m writing, i won’t let an internet distractions of all that social media scheduled time for those those are put to the side until i’ve been productive enough and setting boundaries with people around you could sometimes those friends who have more flexibility in their life get excited that they can call you during the day or they can pop in, or the or the lunch thing that julia mentioned that that they think you’re available now to fit into their social calendar. So you just need to decide what you’re going to allow in if anything, during a work day and be deliberate about that boundaries. And i’ve had i’ve had an office outside of the house, and i’ve had an office inside my house, and i like them both for different reasons. Pros and cons for both. Okay, murcott how about pricing? We move, teo pricing, what base do we have around pricing? Well, i have a few tips. Sort of. I find it. Hard to give anyone advice about what they should do with pricing, but these are the things that these short, more smaller picture tips that i that i use well, the big picture point is, too. If you’re launching your business as a professional than charge professional feet, it doesn’t mean charging here here doesn’t mean charging a ton, but it doesn’t mean trying to compete with employees and related to that is to get away from hourly pricing because clients will compare you to staff and what they’re paying stuff. Oh, that’s interesting you’re recommending avoiding hourly, but i don’t think of charged hourly since since that first year since two thousand eight, when i when i realized that for me project based pricing works better clients, they like the predictability of it. They know what they’re paying, and i build in the steps that it is going to take to get there. So that’s kind of like to use the analogy, if you know you had kids say they come over your lawn for ten dollar fee or, you know, four dollars every ten minutes and you have no idea how long this kid is going to take. And i think my clients like that predictability about it other a few other tips are i think you should always give a ballpark first to see if you’re speaking the same language, maybe, you know, even in the same world and never quote in person, like always have the conversation go back and think about what that really should be and come back in writing later. Yeah, sometimes it can be sometimes hard. Teo, resist the impulse to do be thoughtful and answer the question. Well, what would this cost? You know, you always have to say step, step back, let me think about it. Let me put something in writing for you that’s usually that’s, usually sufficient to get the person toe agreed. It’s wait a few days or a week for something more. I appreciate that you’re thinking about yeah, exactly, you know, with anything that we do. We’re thinking about time, but we’re also thinking about our particular expertise, whether we’re right fit were probably building out timelines for clients. They want us to go think about what it really is and so yeah, it’s customized for them. Yeah, more, more, more tips around, pricing, anything. You wanna add julia? I wanted to add onto something marlene said about not pricing by the hour because i think it’s also a perception thing, you know, if a client is hyre is paying you by the hour, i think they’re more inclined to perceive you as a vendor, you know, like, you know, someone who most lawn and not then that’s, not really what commodity? Yeah, like that’s, not really where we are and what we do, we’re more i feel like i’m more of a valued partner with my client’s projects, and i’m really trying to understand what their goals and objectives are, and i want to help them. I want to be honestly, genuinely helpful to help them achieve their goals, and i’m helping them plan and strategize, and they’re not going to get that from an hourly rate and it sure you both of you come would come across this that you want to be helpful, so i don’t want my clients to hesitate to call me or ask me to do something because they don’t want to spend that other additional hourly fee. I want them to feel like they can talk to me. To get it right do what it takes to get it right. And then if there is a need for an additional fee, absolutely you can say, you know, i certainly can help you with that. But it’s it’s outside what we go talked about initially that’s actually is another thought about boundaries different than what we were talking about, but still that’s important about boundaries. Yeah, that’s well outside we’ve we’ve agreed, if you like, we can add that on absolutely and that, and that goes back to those careful quotes. You know, when i build a quota bill didn’t exactly what steps are included in that fie, and if it does carry on a little longer than we might talk about an additional fee? Yeah, yeah, okay, one of the topics i think you were going to discuss his establishing your niche and identifying yourself as that within that niche. How do we how do we do that with our potential clients? Julia has a great thoughts. I’ll lead over to her about the consultant versus freelance or kind of role, but for me, when your first evaluating your nation with a canadian e, i think, you know a few things to just consider again you have to find your way along the way we’ve talked about how did we each find our way? Because we can’t pin it down to any one thing, you know, but you’re you’re looking at obviously your expertise and your experience and your skills, you’re looking at what kind of non-profit you want to serve if you want to focus in on a sub sector and you probably should, unless you’re skilled that you’re offering is very specific. He wanted to think about what motivates you, how you can bring your personality into your business and how that can influence what you what you have to offer. So, yeah, that’s kind of go through my thoughts around establishing your brand in the shape of your business and of course, your marketing materials have materials need to support all that and be consistent, just like we have a consistent message within non-profits our own marketing message needs to be consistent, okay? Julia well, my answer is more sort of about the terminology that i might use to define what i d’oh on, and so now i’m using the term consultant, but i haven’t always been comfortable using that term, so i mean, when you think about graphic designers and graphic design firms, you probably don’t think of them as being consultants in the typical sense of the word, and you’re right because i do have ah, more of ah, creative agency hat and with graphic design projects, you know, and they’re and they’re, you know, project fee, and i work with a team of people, you know, like a website, for instance, and i work with developers and designers and content writers, but there is also i am also a consultant because i do brands strategy, and i work with my clients one on one, and so i am wearing that more of that consultant hat, but i also do trainings and workshops and things like that, so in that sense, i’m more of a consultant. So i guess when you’re talking about establishing your brand in your niche, you know, whether you call yourself a consultant or an agency or a freelancer or a coach on this, you’re really matters. I mean, maybe the clients don’t even really care as long as you are positioning yourself so that the client that you want to reach knows that you’re the person to call in their time of need, and that may take some tweaking, right? I’m still tweet like that been in business for fourteen, fifteen years, i’m still tweaking. You don’t always get the clients that exactly in the sweet spot that you want, right? And you might change over the years, you know, i’ve been tweaking when i started right away and interesting. Yeah, you know, i actually was focusing on not focusing i was helping with anything that fell under communications because that was my background was overall communications managing within a non-profit and in the first few months, i decided let’s focus on content because i think clients know they need it, and they don’t want to write it themselves. And then i did that for several years, and in the last couple of years i thought, you know, i can still do that, but i can help more non-profit by doing mme or things like this chat that julia mention now that’s, that’s, not for compensation. I do that for free, but i wanted to sort of change who i was, who i was in the marketplace and i offer more training and more webinars and developing a course so it’s, always evolving. I assume it will always evolve for me. That’s actually the fun part of it it’s it’s creative to be self employed to be a consultant you’re always trying to think of new ways to do things and better ways to do things many things. A twitter chat is a great example, cause it sets you up as an expert in the area, a za convener of others live in your profession as a guide and help in the niche. Yes, a resource that got all that well within the niche that you’ve selected. All very good, i think, for long term credibility. Have you ever seen anything directly business come from twitter? Chat directly? You know it’s a good question, because some of the things i do in that domain, i think, keep me top of mind, but they don’t result in a phone call. Yeah, that’s fine. So i think it’s someone who knows about the rest of it or has been to my website or his has met me through referral and then they see the other activity and that gives it. A boots that just keeps me top of mind i feel that way for the chat, but what i find with the chat specifically is also that it creates sort of a you know, my my own, even though i’m a business might maya ambassadors on social media, people who are more loyal, more willing to share what i’m providing, whether it’s block post so that kind of thing so that’s a definite benefit that i’ve had from your ambassadors on social media love that, yeah, very good in all those ways. Yeah, well, well put, well put, i’ve been doing this show for four and a half years and on lee within the past year, i’d say has it led to calls related to business? So interesting really took a good three years, i’d say before, before that started happening and and it’s it’s a love i mean, i just it’s a joint i love doing this show, but that’s just like an added benefit. A lot of marketing efforts are like that. Yeah, yeah it’s a long cycle, long term, but i do plan to giving consulting, by the way e-giving fund-raising all right, so we still have another like three minutes or so together? What? What else? What else you want to talk about? Well, one of these we’re going to be sharing in our session tomorrow is about lessons learned along the way. I don’t know if you want to keep that are julia share? So we’re going to wrap up with lessons learned along the way and when i was thinking about what i wanted to say about that it’s really more about sort of ah, something i’ve learned about myself that i’m not very good at and just acknowledging that i’m not very good at it or introspection more interest back-up introspection, asses, yeah, preneurs yeah, yeah, so one of the lessons i’ve learned about myself along the way is that i really hate to talk on the phone like i’m think i’m phobic like i will talk on the phone, you know, if a client wants to talk on the phone or one of my strategic partners wants to talk on the phone, i will do it, but i won’t almost never pick up the phone and initiate a car, so you’re definitely not doing the cold calling marketing i’m doing carlene store. Right? I’m doing cold emailing. Okay, uh, but i would rather clean out my refrigerator, then pick up the phone. Okay? And i think that’s really held me back. You know, i don’t think it’s a good thing, all right, but just you’ve identified it right way you’re not going to force yourself to do cold call marketing, right? Alright, alright. Lessons learned, marlene for me, the big one is learn to say no, you know, say no if if it’s not in your budget, if it’s not according to your fees and wait for the client that will pay your fees. Say no if it’s if it doesn’t feel right, or if it’s not the right fit for me, i say no when it’s not a non-profit because other people hear about me and they asked me small businesses and i really my passion is focusing on working with non-profit so that’s where i keep it and it’s not to say not to be leased a little flexible on work outside your comfort zone and try new things, but just understand it’s okay to say no when it doesn’t feel good so that the more you say no the more you’re actually building the business you want instead of the business that is just kind of coming around. Yes, letting it involve organically. Based on what comes in. Did you have you said yes? Unwisely? Oh, yes, definitely. And so this is a big lesson learned along the way, and i don’t know why, you know, i think it’s just a coincidence. But every time i took a large corporate client, a large corporate client, it didn’t go well out of money. A lot of money in those. Yeah, actually that’s not always true. I was surprised to hear the medical, nickel and dime with me more than a non-profit might, but just just think, it’s the common thread that whenever i took a large corporate client, like once a year for the first couple of years, something would go wrong. It would either be about a relationship or they wouldn’t pay on time, so i just took it as a sign, you know, there are they paid by not on time. I mean, like, four months later. But i took it as a sign that i’ve got to start saying no, because even when it came in someone metoo copyright a boat, nickel mining or i don’t know the subject. I don’t know the people i should’ve said no, i didn’t say yes, we’re gonna leave it there, ok, thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Oh, my pleasure. Julia rice is the owner of stone soup. Creative and marlene olivera is copywriter and communications consultant moflow m o f l o w ladies. Thank you again. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fifteen the non-profit technology conference. Thanks so much for being with us. Julia rice has a very spotless refrigerator. Sounds like live listener love let’s start domestic right here, philadelphia p a the city of brotherly love live listener loved to philadelphia, lexington, kentucky. Langhorne, piela toronto in canada. San francisco, california. Marquette, michigan live listener loved toe all the live listeners going abroad italy haven’t had you? I don’t think before or it’s been a long time. Bongiorno i wish we could see the city but we cannot see your city. I’m sorry. Reservoir australia, tokyo, japan. Konnichiwa, seoul, south korea. Multiple, always, always. Seoul, south korea checking in. Thank you on youre haserot buenos aires in argentina. And none jing in china ni hao podcast pleasantries to everybody listening in the time shift whatever device that might be, whatever day time, whatever month you may even be listening to this may podcast pleasantries to you and the affiliate affections. Of course, we love our affiliates throughout the country. Affections to each affiliate listener tony take two and top skills for your border coming up. First opportunity collaboration it’s a week long unconference in nick stop of mexico around poverty alleviation. It’s for non-profits also impact investors, social entrepreneurs grantmaker sze researchers, academics and corporations. It’s in october, as of today, it is seventy six percent sold out. I in fact, i gotta get my registration in amy sample ward is going to be there also, if your work is related to poverty reduction anywhere in the world, check it out. Opportunity collaboration, dot net i thank you very much for loving non-profit radio your love keeps me going on cold, snowy nights when i have no heat or electricity. It’s a tough city here in new york, but your support gets me through. Um, actually, i’ve actually play of heat and hot water sometimes have to crack. The windows open it’s money that i could use you can send money because the love is no good if i don’t have the money. So what the hell is that? So i can’t go out for nice dinners can go on trips love is not going to be enough. Um, i can’t be golden corral and applebee’s. I can’t do those all the time. Although golden corral does actually have good salchow ices. I appreciate those, but you get the message now. But actually, i am very, very grateful for the love that you show for non-profit radio weekend week out really it’s almost it’s. Almost five full years were coming up. And my video this week is a thanks for recent prays that i’ve gotten from listeners you can hear. I got some got some quotes there and the video is that tony martignetti dot com and i do thank you very much. Third sector today at third sector today dot com amy davita runs it and she has lots of contributors. Not like my sight. She actually welcomes other opinions. Ah, third sector today. Blog’s tips, insights. Best practices for the community. They have a podcast, maria. Simple has been on the podcast and amy davita, stop stealing my guests. Don’t even try to get maria. Simple is a regular it’s not gonna happen. She’s she’s exclusive non-profit radio anyway, third sector today dot com a valuable resource curated with an open mind. I hate that. And that is tony’s. Take two for friday, eighth of may eighteenth show of the year. I’m feeling well feisty this afternoon. I know why that is. I mean, i don’t know, but i’m not going to take it out on melissa mccormick. She is a market research manager at software advice. She establishes and enforces standards and best practices for research and analysis. She oversees the regular publication of original primary research on the role of software and technology across many industries. Her research has been sighted in court’s information week, elektronik ce weekly ceo, dot com and other outlets. Software advice is a resource for software buyers. They provide detailed reviews and research on thousands of software applications there at software advice dot com and at n p o soft advice. Listen, mccormick, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks, tony. Good to be here. It’s. A pleasure to have a researcher. And rarely do i get in someone’s bio that they are an enforcer. What is that you do smack knuckles with rulers? Or is it like, stockades or or waterboarding? Which way? Now i’m really not at liberty to say i could tell you, but you have killing these air company secrets of pride. I kind of helped establish and make sure folks are following our guidelines for conducting research and analysis. Now, our researchers typically ah, like a group of anarchists. They’ll do whatever they whatever they please. Unless there’s an enforcer, not my researchers. Now you’re well oh, yeah, but because there is an enforcer. So researchers, they the they get a little loose handed if they’re not reined in. Is this is this ah, true among the research community, you know, not so much that it’s just there are lots of methods and method oppcoll method illogical approaches. So keeping everybody on the same page so that were consistent. Okay. All right. So we know the the research coming out of software advices ous high quality. It is enforced. Yeah. Okay. That’s your responsibility. All right, so how about this survey on board skills? Why? Was this ah focus area? Sure. So, you know, through other research that we’ve conducted and just talking to folks at non-profits that are looking for software solution, we’ve kind of observed that non-profits air a little bit slower to adopt new technology. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, you know, budget, obviously being a big one, maybe just lack of prior experience with software and technology, but it’s sort of a kurd twist that boardmember zahra and kind of a unique position to help guide perhaps the exploration of tech options. So having tech savvy board members could in turn, help non-profits improve their operations in the way they interact with software and technology. So that was kind of our hypothesis on land of reason. Is that your is that called that h one? We still use that terminology. H one hypothesis. You know, i actually don’t use that term, and i don’t see it’s, uh, played well. Sure. Let’s. Call it a one. No, no, no. I took statistics in nineteen eighty two. So each one is probably outdated. Now, it’s probably something else. I don’t know. Okay, we used to call it a tch one h two. And then you try to prove these and there’s something called confidence intervals. I’m sorry. Ok, ok. Is that that still exist? Count your confidence. Interval still exist? Yeah, they do. Ok. Alright, im sorry. Little digression trying to show off that i know something. Go ahead. Okay, so you had your your hat? Your hypothesis. You want to call it a tch one. You had this hypothesis about technology adoption being, i guess, a little quicker for for non-profits if they had sabat your board members. Is that is that basically it? Yeah, that was just it occurred to us that would be one entry point. So one kind of way that change could be an after would be through, um, kind of a technology progressive board. So we wanted to explore that idea and just kind of the broader impact that aboard could have. And how non-profits go about recruiting board members and how they should go about recruiting. Board members so kind of morphed into a bigger topic than purely the software and technology that that’s that’s, kind of where it started on and turned into you just to look at, um, you know from a non-profits perspective, what should you be looking for in a boardmember and on the other side of that coin from a boardmember perspective, which what should you be looking at in a potential board to join? Yeah. So you write. You looked at it, right? You said both sides. So what are people looking for? Yeah, out of board service. And we’ll get a good chance to talk about that and and how khun boards used that information to promote board service. I’m sorry. Not welcome. Non-profits use that to promote board service. Exactly. All right. On dh. What was the which method? A logical choice. Did you choose among the wide array open to professional researchers? Yeah. So we conducted an online survey of a little over fifteen hundred people. So that’s, kind of the quantitative approach. We also i did some expert interviews. So, you know, quantitative is great, especially with a big sample size. You can kind of get a degree of certainty about the results, but we really wanted teo get a little color to those results. So we also did some qualitative interviews with, uh, what i call subject matter experts, folks. In the nonprofit world who have been dealing with boardmember zoho topics related to boards and technology in general for a long time, so interesting and then how do you ah, as a researcher, how do you i don’t know what xero score those those interviews you call, they’re obviously qualitative said yeah, and using that term a little bit loosely report that we published drew most heavily on the quantitative results that were a lot of charts and graphs on dh then really used thie commentary from the interviews we conducted as just kind of quotes within the report on dhe means of almost kind of get checking our own analysis that we’ve done as well, okay, and i see those quotes are in the report. Um, yeah, a lot of mar yeah, so we kind of tied together the broad themes from the discussions we had with those folks into thank you take away that we had already identified from the survey results. I was i was not interviewed. As i recall, i that was obviously an oversight on the part of god there go. I did not coach her to say that i didn’t coach i implicitly. Begged her, too, but i didn’t say it. I didn’t say explicitly. Okay, next time. Okay. There’ll be other opportunities. All right. So what do we find? What? What? Let’s? Look at it from the non-profit perspective. What? What should non-profits b promoting as as board service values? Tio, you recruit? Sure, sure. So, um, one of the biggest, i guess, kind of most decisive findings was that people join boards for personal fulfillment on dh that’s, perhaps not really terribly surprising. You know, obviously, these folks they’re giving of their time and their money. So they want to care about the cause that they’re giving to, but personal fulfillment was number one on the tops of folks list. Okay, okay, let me get a question about that. Now, do we have to be concerned about self reporting bias that people would say the choose the altruistic fulfillment choice over networking opportunities or, you know, something more? More self serving? Sure. Yeah, that that definitely comes into play. You know, it was far in a way, the number one pick. So i think we still have a degree of certainty there. But but yeah, it’s probably safe to assume that. Consciously or unconsciously, folks are kind of elevating their their altruistic nature, as you said, but, you know, i think it also makes sense, um, kind of was validated by the folks we spoke with that, you know, this is a commitment people want two really care about what the non-profits stands for, they’re going to be dedicating so much of themselves to it. Okay, now, it’s clear why i’m not i’m on no boards, but to your point about, you know, networking. We did get folks saying acquiring new skills was important to them honing leadership skills, networking and meeting new people. Those were all other sighted benefits commonly cited benefits, okay, back to the top one, personal fulfillment? What is it? Is it those elements that they’re looking for is that is that satisfying the personal fulfillment that they’re they’re seeking? So i think there are a lot of components to that and that’s something our survey didn’t actually explore very deeply. So, um, potential for future research opportunities exposed, but, yeah, i think it’s not personal fulfillment in the sense that, you know, i am acquiring new skills or meeting new people, but also in the sense that i’m contributing to the greater good. Um so, you know, other survey results included that people really want to see the impact of what they’re doing in the non-profit and the impact that the non-profit is having on its community. So i think that certainly ties in the personal fulfillment as well focused on to feel like they’re contributing to an organization that is contributing to community. I also saw a reliability and accountability mentioned, yeah, so i think those terms specifically came up in the context of, you know, what skills should you look for in potential board way? Kind of explored to different avenues with that one being more kind of professional experience and even almost personality based skills on another being technology based skills? So when it comes to just professional experience and personal skillsets accountability, reliability, those blanked on the west, okay, um, we have just about ah minute and a half or so before we take take a break, melissa okay, why don’t you? Ah, why don’t we go into a little bit about some of the some of the tech skills that are that are sought after what we’re looking for? Sure so um, a little over half of the folks we surveyed mentioned a specific type of software in some capacity or another. So fund-raising software obviously a big one, some kind of experience with systems for doner management. But the number one that came up across the board that everyone said was important was basic computer skills again, not super surprising, but that would include stuff like email aah! Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Okay. That’s got to be there, right? Yeah, exactly. So something really foundational? Tio the the way non-profits conduct business, email documents, spreadsheets. Yeah, yeah, general kind of office productivity tools. You know, like you’re your microsoft word and excel. Not sort of saying calendar tools. Um, dahna obviously critical, but what was kind of interesting and i think what was reflected and the professional skills that we saw being requested was just the diversity of the types of tech skills folks are looking for. So you invented fund-raising and ensured time we’re going way. We’ll take a break, but hold that thought because it’s critical diversity is critical, obviously to ah, two, two boards and we’ll get to that diversity of skills and and continue right after this. 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 neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech 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 guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Yeah. All right, melissa let’s, keep talking about diversity, but what more can we say about that? Sure, yes. I’m probably going to throw that word around the whole lot. Ah, diversity it’s kind of a theme that came up a couple across a couple different topic areas that we covered. So i mentioned with respect to technology skills and software skills. You know, folks on boards were telling us, but the most important stuff was really a lot of stuff. So cr m donorsearch management kind of tools, tools for managing your website. Fundez counting obviously a big one and fund-raising tools in general, i mentioned already on dh that was kind of echoed when we looked at so not the technology side, but the professional skills that were most support. That was really interesting because it was almost an even mix when we asked people for the single most important we’ve got a pie chart with a bunch of pieces of pie that are very similar in size. Um, the number one that kind of had a little edge over the next few was fund-raising so experience fund-raising but others included, you know, just past experience with a similar type of non-profit so relevant volunteer experience. Um, professional services kind of experience. So stuff like legal and accounting skills. Project management provoc management, i think. It’s very grand marketing also. Yep. Marketing. Exactly. Good. You’re going to say something about project management, please? Yeah. That was one that was really echoed by the experts that we spoke with on dh. It makes sense to me that you would want someone who can, you know, manage lots of people working on tasks and keep things moving, keep things organized, keep lots of balls in the air at a time. So that’s a great one that came up in both our survey results in on our interviews, um, and then human resource, those skills, so just kind of oh, your management, which i think has tied to project management, but a little more on the, you know, actual people side. What do you think was meant by project management? What? Did you flush that out at all? Um, you know, i’m looking to see if we gave any examples. We didn’t flush it out much and mean kwan keita’s. But when we spoke to our experts, you know, they talked about the importance of this is where the reliability and the accountability came up. I think in the context of project management to the importance of, um, having the ability to hold others accountable. Tio get people to do great work without stepping on toes. And i think, you know, for non-profits, especially it’s, important to be really efficient. Anytime you’ve got a big group of people responsible for a single task. It’s, easy for, um, everyone to kind of go in different directions or, you know, lots of talking and not a lot of doing to happen. So folks with project management skills, i think, can really cut through that and keep things on track and keep everybody focused on moving in the same direction. Transparent communications was was thought as what? Where it was sought by by people aspiring to board service. Yes, what’s under that was i ah, that was very important. People want to know what the expected involvement is. So what exactly will they be doing? What will they be expected to do? Um and that includes you. You know, what kind of work will be doing but also e-giving requirements. So what will they be expected to give personally? What would what will day be expected to raise? Um, all of these things, people are looking for clarity. Um, and this was kind of echoed by some of the folks we spoke with us. Well, who said you know, non-profits tend to think that board members just understand what they’re getting in four or maybe don’t care about the specifics of what they’re getting in for, but it’s very important to have some layer of transparency and on the part of non-profits that requires maybe sametz tre thought into what the role will entail. So, you know, one thing that one of the experts we spoke to recommended was just actually writing up kind of a little job description to share with board members, you know, communicating really clearly what the expectations are in terms of, you know, frequency of getting together may be setting a schedule of meetings, like an annual schedule that you could share in advance. Um, and then kind of relating back to what i talked about earlier, the personal fulfillment thing. It’s important for non-profits to communicate the impact that they’re having and bringing things full circle. I think that’s kind of a role that technology can play, you know, helping track and also helping non-profits disseminate information about the impact that they’re having. That’s. All that’s, obviously very big topic in the community, especially now that charity navigator is looking for a new ceo. And what is that? What kind of priority priorities is that person going to bring to that to that organization? But yes, for interesting. And now, the way it ties back to technology. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, absolutely. What, whether what other questions are out there? We just have a minute and half or so left what the questions are out there that you’d like to answer. Software advice is going to answer? Sure. So, you know, i mentioned earlier i think one further area for exploration could be digging into that personal fulfillment question a little. We got the results back and saw oh, everybody’s looking for personal fulfillment and kind of went well, duh, of course. That’s what people are looking for and of course, that’s what they are going to say they’re looking for. But what does that mean? It probably means different things to different people. See? I asked. I asked that question also. So that makes me a subject matter. Exactly. You should be a researcher. Well, i’d rather just be interviewed, but i’m not a good influence. Our goal the line. All right, thank you very much. Just another minute. God, what else is out there? Um so so that was one thing another thing that i’m kind of interested in exploring, not necessarily in a quantitative way, necessarily, but just this idea of the diversity of skillsets you know what? What is the balance that you should look for? And how did these different folks with these different backgrounds worked together in the most effective ways? Um, and are there specific types of software and technology that can be leveraged by people with specific skillsets so, you know, should someone with accounting skills be advocating for accounting software for their non-profit that kind of thing? Just kind of the harmonies between the different topics that we’ve already dug started to dig into a little bit here, okay, actually, your urine unenviable position cause you can ask all these questions and then go research and find the actual answer based on quantitative analysis and not just based on best practices or tradition or anything else. I admire that, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. It’s a pretty exciting place to be cool. My voice is cracked. Melissa mccormack, market research manager it’s software advice. They are at software advice. Dot com and at n p o soft advice. Thank you very much, melissa. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. And at n p o soft advice. Thank you very much for doing some live tweeting today. Next week, another informative and tcs interview coming to the show, and amy sample ward returns. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it at tony martignetti dot com no singing this week. Opportunity, collaboration, the world convenes for poverty reduction. I’m warning you, it will ruin you for every other conference opportunity. Collaboration. Dot net. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shoretz social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our 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. 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 their 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 talked 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 people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it 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 per se.

Nonprofit Radio for June 27, 2014: Successful Software Selection Strategy & Storify and Quora

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Don Fornes: Successful Software Selection Strategy

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Don Fornes, CEO of Software Advice, leads us through the software selection process for nonprofits.  (originally aired 6/14/13)df

 

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Amy Sample Ward: Storify & Quora

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Our social media contributor and the CEO of Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), has strategies and advice about the value of Storify and Quora for your nonprofit.  (originally aired 6/14/13) 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I am not your aptly named host. I’m sam liebowitz non-profit radios line producer tony. Is that fund-raising day today, getting lots of informative interviews for the show. There is no show next week. It’s the fourth of july, enjoy the fireworks. Tony will be back on july eleventh and on july eighteenth, it’s, the two hundredth show of non-profit radio, will have giveaways, live music by scott stein and all of the contributors together. This week’s show is, ah re broadcast from june fourteenth, two thousand thirteen. Enjoy. No. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. I’d stuff. I’d suffer stick a myth eah, if i heard that you had missed maria’s faa cues maria simple, the prospect finder and our monthly prospect research contributor there’s a lot of speaking and training, we talked about what she’s frequently asked, and artists sally west and keith, right? We’re with me from australia to tell us about the love is campaign this week successful software selection strategy don fornes, ceo of software advice, leads us through the software selection process for non-profit fitz, how do you know when yours isn’t working quite right? Also, storify and cora, our social media contributor amy sample ward i got a promotion at the non-profit technology network in ten. After that, we’ll talk about the value of storify and cora to lesser known social networks for your non-profit between the guests on tony’s take to my block this week is a charity did what charities do? Beth israel medical centers fund-raising became public in the new york times is there anything? They should be ashamed of my great pleasure now to welcome don forged to the show. He started software advice in two thousand five after ten year career in the software industry, he held positions at an investment firm and as a corporate development executive at a pioneering c r m software company, he likes to observe the evolution of software markets, including the impact of innovation. Don fornes, pleasure to welcome you to the show. Thanks, tony. Glad to be here. Thank you, don. What are some symptoms that, eh, small and midsize non-profits current system, whether it’s software based or however it’s based aren’t isn’t working very well, and a lot of the non profit organizations that we speak to our on the smaller end of the scale and they’re managing things through excel spreadsheets. Maybe they have a website that was coded by, you know, employer volunteers with a few they’re using microsoft outlook and trying to find emails and information in there. There isn’t a professional infrastructure for managing their operations, and that can lead to what errors in in data, what other kinds of problem altum certainly errors data, but difficulty finding the information that they need, um, inability to could manage an effective workflow and know what’s going on and making sure things are getting done, having insight into you know who are their, what, not just who is donating, but what what segment of constituent is donating and being able to discover things about their their organization if you’re using excel spreadsheets than there might be different versions of that floating around your office? Yeah, that’s, that’s one of the big issues with spreadsheets now next cell is an outstanding tool and that’s why so many organizations use it, but you do have that version control issue, and you have just a lot of opportunity for errors in your formulas and things like that. So you get to a certain scale when spreadsheets won’t cut it anymore. Also in pulling out like donorsearch formacion you alluded to this, you know, you want to be ableto to segment, right? So that you can target people with a specific a specific approach. Sure, you’ve got you’ve got constituents who are big donors, small donors, everything in between, you’ve got constituents or e-giving for different reasons, so you really do it want to develop a marketing? Strategy that that identifies your various segments and and you want to work with them in a each, each segment in a unique way that appeals to you to their motivations and just expect forces, right? Thank you, and just extracting data. I mean, you should be ableto query your your database system in lots of different with lots of different variables. Yeah, there’s so many the exciting things going on in terms of analytics these days that the ability to not just automate the transactions, that is, you know, that the donations or tracking contact information or interactions, but then to be able to go back and do discovery on that information or quickly generated report, that type of analysis is so valuable and it’s getting easier. But it’s not as easy if you don’t have a good infrastructure in place, capturing that data in the first place. Yeah, you can’t really be. You can’t be very sophisticated. Um, what are the different types of software that might be out there that we’re gonna be talking about helping people select? Well, you know what? The court, the nonprofit organization needs to account financially differently than a for-profit organization. So now there is fundez counting, which is a critical infrastructure, but then in terms of really growing out business, getting beyond the administration, too, more strategic, how you’re going to raise money and activate your constituents, you’ve got a range of different applications, and so you’ve got donorsearch which will help you track who are your best donors or who could be your best donors, or maybe a more high volume campaign of how do you get a lot of small donations from a very broad set of targets? And then if it’s a membership based organization, you’ve got member management, not seeming, you’re providing some kind of value to that membership and trying to track who they are and who’s paid their dues and what you could do for them and what their interests are. You have case management where you have tell your client based organization where you have clients, that you’re taking care of our helping, you’ve got volunteermatch management where you’re you’ve got a large force of volunteers and you want to keep them organized, get the most out of that enthusiasm, those are those are four examples of very specific applications, and of course, the structure of the nonprofit organization will determine what they need. In that case, there are larger, broader, more sophisticated systems that integrate these capabilities. But whether or not you go to that level of technology investment, that’s, that’s a really important question an organization needs to ask itself. What about event planning? Sure, event planning is another application i didn’t name, but if you do a lot of events, you need to track registration, you need to track payments for those events and and all the tasks that come along with putting on a great event so that’s, another application that could be part of ah abroad integrated sweet or could be purchased on a standalone basis on dh then, of course, for non-profits that get a lot of their revenue, or even maybe just some of their revenue from from grants, there’s always grant administration and management too. There is on both sides of that relationship for the foundation organization of might be giving that grant as well as the non-profit that’s receiving that grant. So there’s there’s software to automate that as well. I think it’s, you know, moving to another topic, which is, you know what you actually need. Thie organization needs, too, sit down and think about what our real pain points why’re we where we falling short, so not just not just thinking in terms of gee, that technology is very shiny and cool. I’d love to use that, but where are we? Syrian sing. The most pain right now is keeping track of who are donors are who might be a donor. Or is it really organizing our volunteers to get the most out of them? More, you know, is that we have a difficult time organizing and managing the current process. If you have an outstanding grantwriting, and you’re only applying for a few grantspace year, maybe you don’t need to automate that. And as we’re on we, i know you have five different tips that we’re going to talk through. But and your got into one of them. Thank you. As you’re identifying what your real problem is, is it? Is it possible to? I would think it is. But i want to make sure to get a software solution that’s going to solve that problem, but then also have add on sort of modules that would do other things as the organization’s needs change. Sure, so there’s, there are a range of solutions starting from what we refer to his best of breed, so let’s say, an application that just does donorsearch monisha and they do that very well, and they have a lot of features for doner management. They go deep into that functionality, and then they’re on the other end of the scale are integrated systems that do donorsearch management, member management, case management, event management, the whole range of applications we call that an integrated suite and, you know, in theory, maybe there are broader than they are deep, although in some cases they’re both broad and deep and so you you have to figure out where you want to fall on that scale. Obviously the the best of breed solution khun target a specific pain point you’re having it can typically be implemented more quickly. You have fewer people using in europe, people involved in the implementation and you just go and you tackle that problem with that specific, best to breed solution. When you’re talking about integrated system, you’re getting the whole organization mobilized. Teo moved to this new system you’re thinking about how do your various departments work? Together that the folks that are working with donors, the folks that are working with volunteers, folks, they’re working with clients, and they’re all moving to this new system. It can be somewhat of a big bang approach and requires a lot more change management, and there may be benefits down the road to have him, everyone working off one seamless infrastructure sharing data and processes. But getting there is a big investment and the big challenge for the organization. We have to take a break for a couple minutes done, and when we come back, we’ll keep talking a little about the what we’re on now. There’s, different the implementation, and also your tips for identifying what the what the right solution should be. So i hope everybody stays with us, bring anything good ending you’re listening to the talking alternative network to get you thinking. Things. Cubine this’s, the cook, said about bush senior wear hosting part of my french new york city. Guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back french is that common language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it common desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them. Share this story. Join us. Pardon my french new york city every monday from one to two p, m. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent talking to don fornes he’s, ceo of software advice, which you’ll find at software advice. Dot com done so well, i’m talking about this implementation. It is possible than tio by these things in modules just just what you need immediately. And then there are systems where you can add additional modules. Is that true? I would say that that can be true. The modularity of the system really depends on how it was architected buy the software company. So there are some companies that do a very good job of designing their software into modules that can be turned on or off so that you could say, deploy four of ten modules and then turn more on as ugo. But you can’t take for granted that every system is going to be architected in such a way that makes that easy. Some learn some art and that’s something really begin to as you evaluate the software. Okay, all right. So let’s, let’s, get into your five tips. You’ve really started with one. You introduced one the type of problem that you’re trying to solve. And your advice. There really sounds like is to start with the problem, not the cool technology. You know. I like to say, don’t be romanced by the technology, especially now that we’re into this cloud era and there’s a lot of advances being made and user interface, and and how it looks, who feels this software is just really attractive and great stuff. But make sure you’ve got a need for it. Don’t just go buying technology because it looks full, or because one one person in the organization, maybe tech savvy. There may be an early adopter, but then the rest of the team are, you know, luddite, and we’ll find in the same way that person did. You can. You can get yourself in some trouble where you’ve invested in great technology, but you’re not using it. And i think related to that is that you want to get what’s practical for your office. Sure. So there are there are systems that are fairly lightweight and do just the basics. And sometimes that’s all you need sometimes you don’t need toe over altum e and other times you have a larger, more sophisticated organization. Or one particular department is fairly sophisticated. And you really want some advanced technologies. He’s got to think about what is what is right for your organization and your your department. How do you avoid being romanced? Are seduced by the bells and whistles. That really cool? Um oh, this one. You know, this one does that to we could we could use that to and o it has this other thing. We could use that also. How do you keep your feet on the ground? I think it starts with staying. Ok. We’re talking about a technology purchase here, but let’s, put technology aside for a while. Let’s. Sit down and say, what are our biggest challenges? Where are we? At least efficient. Where do we spend the most amount of time creating the least amount of value? Is it that we have? Everyone has their own set of contacts, you know, maybe each pitch person who’s working with. Donors has their own list of of contacts. It’s not shared. And someone leaves in those contacts. Go with, um for example. Okay, now you want to look for some kind of a donor management system that will unify all those contacts to be shared even if they are assigned to different individuals. So do you. You want to think about where your biggest pain points are and prioritize what problems you want to solve in what order? I like to say start small, think big, grow quickly. So, you know, start small. Okay? What? What problems are we going to try himself keeping it in the context of thinking big? Eventually we want to solve almost all of these problems and then moved from there you have success. So i think, really just having a business discussion about the processes and workflows and what’s working and what’s not, and then once you say, ok, this is what we’re going to stall them. This is how we’re going to solve it. Then you go out and you start evaluating the technology and you stay in control of that sales process rather than letting a sales person from the software company. Show off bells and whistles that make them most attractive. You know, you say that’s, great that’s, interesting will take that into consideration, but you always come backto. What are the core problems you’re trying to solve? And how does that technology solve those problems? You talked about fundacao n’t ing software earlier. What air cem? Some basics around around fundez counting. And what sort of problems might an organization have if if they’re not doing their accounting efficiently? Sure, i think with with accounting it’s it’s important to get the right infrastructure and processes and controls in place, i said, you need to be automating a process that is it’s. That accounting process is mission critical and has to have very strict controls. You don’t want to ever get into a situation where funds are being misappropriated are or you’re not sure how much cash flow you have going through the organization, so that is an area where you’ve got to get the right system in place. And yet, at the same time, it can be very constraining, because in accounting system has to be rigid and enforced controls. You need to make sure that this software that you’re buying handles the process is the way you want to handle them, or that you are willing to adapt to how that software handles those processes. S so we may have to adapt to what the software requires us to do. Yeah, so some software is more flexible than others in accounting often it’s a little more rigid compared to, say, a constituent relationship management system. Because, you know, we do have, you know, accounting principles that are standardized. That we have two follow-up so you may have to. You have to do things the way that software is built to do it. I see in ah, a lot of small shops, it seems like very routine things, like maybe checks being received or accounts payable, being ah, being received or sorry, paid always seem to seem, even though their routine, they seem like each time it’s the first time it’s ever been done. I hope that’s, not the case, for, for all organised thames, i think some are more efficient than others. I think it comes down to you know, what is the attitude around payables receivables on dh? How quickly are you going to do it and who’s doing it? So i think that getting the right software in places key there, there are so many great technologies right now, such as a ch payments, you bring a payable ilsen receivables in our own organization. We’re doing more and more a ch, which is essentially a wire transfer, but no more scent paper checks, but actually just sending the money elektronik, lee and the more modern systems are built to be able to do those kind of transactions. And i’m glad i’m glad you explained what a ch is. Because on this show, i have jargon jail. But you kept yourself out. You kept yourself out of george in jail by quickly saying, basically a ch iso wire transfer. I think it stands for automated clearing house. Do you know? Is that right? That sounds good. Okay, so we’ll take that. Okay? Yeah, now. And i just meant that, uh, all right. Guess i was going back to symptomology a little bit. You know, when i said routine things seemed to i get treated as if there is the first time every time, even though it’s it’s done, you know, it doesn’t times a month or something, it always seems. To be a difficult task. So, andi, i see that. Sorry. Go ahead, you’ve got organizations for maybe you have a volunteer bookkeeper, who’s coming in once a week or twice a month or something, and maybe they’re using an application that isn’t designed for fund accounting on dh. Maybe that particular person is, ah fine bookkeeper, but not very tech savvy and so that’s, where you can get into those situations where things were just very slow moving and and no one could really tell whether the check has been cut or not received or not. And i think that is symptomatic of the level of sophistication of the organization or they thought, function in the organization. Let’s, go back to your to your tips for, for finding navigating your way through the right software. What, what what’s. Next on that you recommend. Well, we’ve talked about not being romanced by the technology we’ve talked about some of the different applications, and identifying the problem first and then matching the technology is the solution. I think another interesting thing is its funding technology it’s an interesting area, because there are plenty of people out there who who love technology, who loved sponsoring technology but who love rolling up their sleeves. Of course, there are plenty who don’t, but organizations can identify those constituents who can be very useful as a technology resource. So in technology, there are plenty of people who been very successful financially, so you may find donors who have a background in technology who get excited about funding some kind of technology, purchase and implementation, and at the same time, they can roll up their sleeves and help with advising on selecting that technology, implementing that technology. Then there are folks who fit that description that maybe don’t have the financial resources to contribute, but could contribute their time and skills. So technology is is an area where well, let’s, let’s, go back to that bookkeeper. You know, there may be bookkeepers who could volunteer to do your accounting, but that probably isn’t the same level of passion relative to technology, where there’s. Some people that are very passionate about what technology can accomplish and would really be motivated to come in and help you, either financially or by rolling up their sleeves. So i think you can be really creative as you think about technology. Maybe not. Just another thing that comes out of the operating budget. But could you do a special campaign around raising money to fund a technology project or forgetting time donated by folks that are tech savvy? Okay, excellent, yeah. And and as you touch on this, another, another issue and that’s important, and a tip that you have is around the implementation and the training. Sure, so this is along the same theme i’ve been hitting on throughout this conversation, which is they’re really needs to be a process behind the technology, whether that process is something you seek to automate with the technology or process you switched to because that’s the process that technology automates by default, and so the people that are gonna adopt this technology and use it are really critical to its success and can also lead to its failure. So if you by technology and you don’t use it, we refer to that in the industry as sh elsewhere go that as we do surveys of technology users and buyers almost every time what floats to the top is one of the biggest challenges is adoption. How do you get everyone to start using it if you have your development folks using a donor management system, but they don’t like filling out all the fields, you know, maybe they need the email in the phone number. I just don’t want to take the time to put in that physical address. Ah, that may serve their needs, fine, but it’s not going to help the marketing group when they want to. Do that next direct mail campaign, right? Right. You can get a lot of dirty data, and there you need to get those folks thought in early to get the right data in the system and clean data in the system. If they’ve always been more of a relationship person, they don’t want to use technology, maybe they do their work over our lunches or in events. You can have this whole system you’ve invested in, people are using it. So i’m i make a suggestion that may seem counterintuitive, which is get those people involved in leading the technology selection and implementation effort. Maybe they’re not the lead on the project, but they’re involved from the start so that they have a sense of ownership and buy-in and really get exposure to what the technology can do from the start. Well, they were probably gonna put one of your more tech savvy people in charge of the project. But you need to get those those late adopters, our new tights into the process early so that they really you have an epiphany then come to believe in technology. We also need the leadership. It’s it’s gotta be it’s. Gotta be used properly at the senior levels. And it’s got to be encouraged and sort of enforced from the senior levels. Yes, and that would be a challenge if you’re senior management are the late adopters. Yeah, okay, not need a champion at the most senior levels of the organization. Who could say, hey, this is something we’re going to do the time has come and everybody’s going to get on board and we’re going to get the right amount of funding. We’re not goingto, you know, we’re not going to be too cheap about this. We’re going to get the right stuff in place, and we’re going to make the changes in how we do things around here so that we’re really using this software and and automating are our process is the right way. Don’t we have just about a minute left or so i want to ask you, what is it that you love about the work that you’re doing? You know, i it’s, uh, a little bit nerdy, but i love efficiency. I love getting doing things better and faster and in my own organization, it’s reflected by developing our own technology way rarely even by third party technology. We have a team of developers who build everything from scratch to do exactly what we wanted it’s led to great efficiency and i think, whether your advanced enough to build your own or whether you’re buying software off the shelf there’s a great sense of momentum and pride that comes from getting better at what you do in getting more efficient and that’s what i love. Don fornes, ceo of software advice. You’ll find them at software advice. Dot com don, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. Thanks for having me telling you, it’s been my pleasure right now. We go away for a couple of minutes when we returned tony’s, take two, and then amy sample ward is with me talking about storify and cora. Stay with us, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m lost in a role, and i’m sloan. Wainwright were the hosts of the new thursday morning show, the music power hour, eleven a m we’re gonna have fun shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. I’m the aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent fund-raising board relations, social media, my guests and i cover everything that small and midsize shops struggle with. If you have big dreams and a small budget, you have a home at tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s wanto to eastern talking alternative dot com. Hi, this is joanna quotes at the woman’s playbook on talking alternative dot com. Join us every thursday twelve noon to one p m. We’re talking about the rising she economy and about women, entrepreneurs and their growth, their triumphs and the businesses they run, which is different than the way men run businesses every thursday. Twelve to one pm on talking alternative dot com. It will help you start, run and grow your business. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. I’m chuck longfield of blackbaud, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. That was chuck longfield, chief researcher research scientist, actually at blackbaud from last year’s bb con conference and i will be there this year in october. Also, thes blackbaud people are very modest, it’s hard to get them to say their titles. Janna eggers, senior vice president i think of marketing in products just, said jenna eggers from black board, i have to get them to be a little more ah more forward about their titles and we have something to say about titles, titles that have changed very shortly, but first i can’t send live listener love this week. I’m sorry i’m not live where pre recorded this week, however konnichi wa ni hao anya haserot you know i send live listener love also, california always checks in texas, north carolina, oregon from time to time north i said oregon, not oregon there’s no e at the end of that, i learned that. Who else checks it? New york. New york has been lately so live. Listen love to all of you and everybody else. Who’s listening live. I will be back in the studio next friday. Tony, stick to my block. This week is a charity. Did what? Charities do the fund-raising at beth israel medical center here in new york city became public because of a will contest, and it’s fund-raising methods were the subject of a new york times story, which is probably something that we would all rather avoid, and i don’t think anybody wants their internal office processes splashed internationally on the new york times, but i saw very little that beth israel should be embarrassed about, um, i think they’re fundraisers, including their ceo, who, of course, we know should be a fundraiser. I did what they were supposed to be doing did what charities do they is the story of a woman who was living in the hospital, literally living in the hospital for twenty years. She was a resident of the hospital for twenty years, and the question is, were there was the hospital’s fund-raising tactics inappropriate? And i don’t think they were. I think they had a great prospect living among them, and they would have been, i think, careless if they hadn’t cultivated and solicited this woman for charitable gift. There were some emails and some notes to the between members are between employees that i think we’re a little carelessly, unprofessionally worded, but there’s nothing unethical, certainly nothing illegal, nothing fraudulent. So i don’t really think beth israel had that much to worry about when they’re fund-raising became public in the new york times, and i say more about that on my block, the post is a charity did what charities do on my block? Is that tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday fourteenth of june twenty fourth of the year. Oh, i’m very glad that amy sample ward is with me now. She got a promotion at the non-profit technology network and ten and her most recent co authored book is social change, anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement, her blog’s, amy, sample, ward, dot or ge, and on twitter she’s at amy r s ward, i guess i don’t know, i guess i’ll say it because it’s it’s easier for me to say then for amy to say congratulations on being promoted to ceo of inten. Thank you. When was your promotion? Effective. Ah, effective june first. So we are in day eleven. All right? Yes. Today’s tuesday the eleventh. Um how’s it going, it’s going really well, i mean, you know there’s there’s not a lot of time spent trying to figure out who are these people that i work with because i already got to work with them for the last over two years, so it feels like, you know, you could just jump in and we can start moving forward on all kinds of projects are already deep in the weeds of the next ntcdinosaur will be in march in d c, so lots of lots of action, lots of good stuff happening and t c, of course, is the non-profit technology conference? Yep, right, followers of intend may not know that. So what, you’re jargon jail? All right? No, no mass resignations since your appointment as ceo. Well, not yet. Knock on wood. I i don’t think that that’s the case. I think we’re all really excited to dive into work together. I think you know, any organization that’s gone through a transition, you you kind of let yourself feel like, well, maybe, you know, maybe we’ll go in a new direction. Maybe we won’t what’s gonna happen. And so once everything’s kind of decided, well, now we can just move forward on all those great ideas. That we’ve been having and conversations that staff have together it’s, like one day. Maybe we’ll do this. So now we can really start putting some of that into motion on. You were supposed to be in the studio with me today, but you had to be by phone because you have something going on in your apartment, right? Yes. Since we since i’m now the ceo and ten, we will be relocating back to portland, where the antenna main office is. And as such as manhattan real estate, as soon as our landlord know that we were moving out well, he wanted to start fixing it up for the new people. So some repairman is coming. Tio, work on the bathroom. Okay, lets you get a swelled head. As ceo. You still have to being still to be in your apartment to let the let the contractors in. Exactly right on dh. Do you know when you’ll be moving? Sorry. Very sorry to see you’re going. You won’t be live in the studio with me anymore. Or maybe you will one more time when you mean portlanders again in july. July. Okay, we’ll see whether we get you in. The studio one more time or or not, i guess depending on when your move is in july. But very happy for your congratulations on your appointment. Thank you. I appreciate it. This seems like a good time to let listeners know. Remind listeners what what? And ten is about what? What what kind of help can small and midsize non-profits get from non-profit technology network? Sure so and ten is a non-profit ourselves. So we definitely understand what everyone else going through and where. The membership organization for anyone looking to use technology to meet your mission. So there’s no organizational size requirement there’s no budget requirement. There’s no mission specific or caused specific focus that we have it’s really, truly for everyone that’s trying to use technology to be a little bit more effective and more efficient and meeting your mission. So we have the ntc like we mentioned before the non-profit technology conference, which is our annual conference in this coming year in d c we’re expecting over two thousand non-profit staffers, so it’ll be a big, really great conference. But then, outside of that conference, we have about a hundred webinars a year that air on all different topics um, tailored to all different kinds of staff in an organization because, you know, for example, if you’re thinking about online fund-raising well, there’s some pieces of that that your staff are interested in, you know what air the pieces we need to have in place? And then there are pieces of online fund-raising thatyou’re development team want to know, like, how do we make the ask successfully online? Um, so we try and make sure that there’s something for all those different sides of everyone in organization and we have depending on the year between five to eight research reports on those air free to download for and ten members, and then, you know, outside of all of that, really a community so there’s over eleven thousand and ten members sixty thousand, largely in the community that aren’t necessarily paid level but attend webinars or have come to the conference. So there’s the probability of sets that there’s no way that there’s someone who hasn’t gone through what you’re going through at your organization and it’s a great place to come find those piers, ask some questions, see how they’ve navigated that website redesign or that our processor, whatever it may be, and you make the point very well that this is not on ly for technologists duitz who understand technology but it’s for everybody in the organization. Exactly. I mean, it’s twenty thirteen, right? We’re all using technology. It doesn’t mean that we’re all directors, but we all need to use these tools to do our job. And so it’s a place where you can go regardless of what area in the organization you work in to find resource is that help you with your job, whether you’re in communications or you’re on the program team what whatever it may be, you’ll find antenna at and t e e n dot or ge cool. Thank you very much, amy. Think well, hopefully we’ll get you some new members on dh attendees at ntcdinosaur and viewers of your webinars and readers of your research reports, because i think it’s very valuable what in ten does? And it is a it’s, a it’s, a morass in a black box for a lot of people and that it need not be right. Let’s talk about storify and cora let’s do it. Okay, storify, um, what’s. Ah, i see. It described as content curation. What is this? Yeah, but kind. I mean, if you’re going to jargon jail me for ntc jargon jail you for content curation because that sounds wonky. Well, i asked you to. I asked you to explain it e i would know that wouldn’t be the way i actually think storify is really cool tool really cool platform because it is so directly the definition of social media it multidirectional its share a ball, it’s public all of those pieces that we associate with you know what? These social tools online are that storify. So essentially you could go to storify you say i wantto i want to create a story, and i want it to be about, uh non-profit radio looks put in the hashtag non-profit radio that’s what you wanted to do your store storify about today after you listen to the podcast and it will pull in all the media that it finds it’ll pull in the tweets if there are photos of tony’s taking photos in the studio and posting them. If there are videos posted, whatever kind of video that it confined with that hashtag non-profit radio and what’s great! Is that it doesn’t just pull it in and say, here you go, it shows you these air, all the available pieces of content, you know we found and you get to very simply you don’t need to be a technologist to do this, but you can just drag and drop them into your post. You can add your own tax so you could say here’s a great quote from one of our live listeners and then pull that tweet over. Oh, are you know whatever those kind of like annotations would be, and then when you are finished compiling it, you can either embed the whole thing in your website or in your blog’s, or you can just share it out on twitter or facebook wherever you want to share it and have it stay on the storify website. You know where however you want to move it around and it’s? Great, because then people can go back and kind of see that recap of the conversation i think it’s used really well. Bye. Uh, newspapers new york times used storify all the time. Tio pull in. You know what they’ve seen on a breaking news story? Kind of in real time, things like that i see. And on all those examples that you gave by the way of non-profit radio, which is an outstanding example to use. Thank you. They all do exist. Wei have just a minute before a break. Do you have to start your storify with a hashtag or could you just use the phrase? I guess in quotes tony martignetti non-profit radio can you start that way? Yeah, you could try it that way. It’s it’s easier with hashtags only because you know that it’s a dedicated tag that people have been using. Whereas if you were trying to just search for you know any instance of someone saying non-profit technology, for example, there was it would just be too big and nebulous. Tohave a clean, you know, conversation captured. Okay. Non-profit radio is what you meant. Yep. Non-profit technology i understand. Just flows out. No, no, no. I meant non-profit technology. If you did that generally as a phrase versus for example, the hashtag and p tech. I see. Ok, ok. But you can edit out things that are extremely us, right? Yes, for sure. Okay. All right, let’s, take a break and amy will return, and we’ll keep talking about storify and also kwara. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi there and welcome back, amy, this sounds like something that could be good for non-profit don’t have a social media team or director at all because you’re pulling in content that’s you’ve already created or that others have already created. Yeah, especially if you’re on organization where you’re having an event or you’re having, you know, you put out new report or you launched a new program or, you know, you’ve done something that’s gotten your community talking online about what you’re doing so so it’s about something specific, it doesn’t just generally, you know, i like and ten well, that’s terrific, and i would love tweets that say i like and ten, you know, it’s, not necessarily something to capture a story, so any time you’re doing something that is a little bit more time bounder or topic lee specific it’s it’s really easy because you now you have all this content and so you, khun, just like you said, even if you don’t have a social media are big communications department, you could just go pull it all together fairly quickly, but be it also means that now all those community members that got highlighted in your store if i get to feel like, oh my gosh, you know my my tweet about the event or the photo that i took of, you know, the ballroom at the event got to be featured in the organization’s recap and that’s really cool for them as a member of the community who maybe hadn’t ever really felt highlighted or, you know, called out by the organization before and now they’re kind of, you know, they get to shine as part of the recap, and that makes it more likely that they will share it with their communities exactly. Now it’s and storify, when you said that it gives you the chance to either in bed or share, i guess or both the people that including the people that it shares with include the people who contributed to everything that got drawn in, right? Yes, exactly. It has a lot of built and sharing features on dh you can you can tell it not to do those things, but it try it wants to encourage you to send out a tweet for example, tow any, uh, any tweet that you included in your storify to send a reply to those people saying, hey, i highlighted you in my store if i and give them a link and then they, you know, it links back to the store if i so you can have, you know, when you have your storify account in your building, these specific stories they’ll stay on the story by account, you have a you know, profile there people can just follow your storify account if they want teo, but you could also embedded on your blogged on your website, maybe you maybe you created a storify for a specific offline event that you held and, you know, lots of people tweeted and shared photos and you create a storify well, that’s really great to go back to the event page and added there so now it’s like an archive you know, event captured page and not just an old registration page, you can keep all that content there, so you’re extending the life of your content. Exactly. I get a tweet like that whenever i participate in a in a twitter chat called fundchat hashtag fund chat and at the end of the chat i got a tweet that says you’re included in my storify for the fir fundchat today here? No. Okay, i think it’s a really great tool for twitter. Chat because it’s, when you are participating in the chat, i think it’s fairly easy to follow along. But if you aren’t participating in that moment in the chat and you want to go back and look at the hash tag later, it just doesn’t make any sense. You know, you need that storify where the organizer can move people’s replies to fit underneath the question, you know, instead of in-kind of the ad hoc free flow that they may have actually come in, so move them out of the time stamped order of when they were sent. But which question is this person answering and that kind of thing, right? Put them into a logical order. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting, though, that they do come with the time stamp too. I like that. It pulls in all the all the original features of the of the piece of content. Okay, let’s, let’s. Give some time to quarrel. Qu qu o r a i won’t try to describe it since i got admonished the with the store. If i so how would you amy sample? Ward defy, describe quarrel for listeners. Sure, so cora is essentially a q and a site, so you or others could submit a question, and then you or others could submit an answer and, unlike certain other question and answer websites that you may have seen or if you have ever, like, done an internet search just for a question, and then you see all of these, like different kinds of forums and q and i websites come up where someone else’s asked that question, cora tries to keep it really limited so that there’s there’s not just like a forever stream of answers, but that there are really, you know, prominent answers to that question on which is, you know, something that kind of plays up a positive feature. So you’re not sifting through and wondering which of these answers is the real answer and it’s a place where bulls organizations and, you know, individuals of all different backgrounds have have really established some of their energy online as a thought leader, a resource to whatever kind of niche field there in so it’s not just about technology about everything under the sun and people are there, you know? Some people ask a question and then answer at themselves because they want teo share information about that topic, but others see questions that others have posted and go in and provide an answer. I’ve answered a question on what’s the best way to get a taxi cab in new york city, huh? So i don’t know that an expert, but i had a couple of suggestions. I see too many people standing on the curb, you’re gonna be out there, you could be in the middle of the street practically gotta want that you got at least twenty five percent of the way into the street. If you’re not, if you’re not in danger of getting run over, then you’re not going. You’re not an effective cab campaign that’s how you’re stopping the taxi is by preventing them from driving further down. All right, so we just have a minute or so left. How could non-profits use quorra? Sounds like credibility is very good. How else? What? Why else? Well, i think there are lots of ways whether you want to talk about your you know, the field in which your organization works and provide answers. Say you work. In public education and you want to go? You know, maybe someone has posted a question that says, what does a charter school mean you if you work in public education, you probably know, and you want to provide a on answer, um, i think the thing keep in mind is that it is a very individual driven platform, and so if you have, you know, your executive director, maybe of a policy director you have, you know, whoever it may be in your organization think about having more than one person with an account and providing those answers as that credible individual that represents the organization, so that you created a little bit of space between that answer and your organization and have also said, well, of course our policy director is answering this question because it’s about public policy and we have an expert on this, you know, and that’s why we’re such a credible organization q u o r a dot com. Maybe we have to leave it there. Amy sample ward, ceo of non-profit technology network. Congratulations on that again. Thank you. She will remain our monthly social media contributor. You’ll find her at amy sample. Ward, dot or ge, always a pleasure safe move. I hope i get to see you before you go. Yes, thank you, bye. Amy buy-in insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen tomorrow to tony it’s, not just martignetti non-profit radio, tony martignetti non-profit radio each week. If you’d like to talk about sponsoring the show, contact me on my block. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is usually the assistant producer, but she’s, not here today. Sam liebowitz is line producer. Our show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Oh, i hope you’ll be with me next week, talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. I think the dude getting ding, ding, ding ding. 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Nonprofit Radio for March 14, 2014: Successful Software Selection Strategy & Storify and Quora

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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My Guests:

Don Fornes: Successful Software Selection Strategy

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Don Fornes

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

 

 

 

 

Amy Sample Ward: Storify and Quora

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Amy Sample Ward

Our social media contributor, Amy Sample Ward, is CEO of Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). We’ll talk about the value of Storify and Quora, two lesser-known social networks, for your nonprofit. 

This is an archive show from June 14, 2013, while I’m at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) getting great interviews.

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