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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host we’ve got a new affiliate. Kors chaos eighty nine point three fm in olympia, washington chaos radio from the capital city chaos in the capital welcome welcome chaos that makes two capitals that non-profit radio is in also km jozy fm in salem, oregon. We’re taking over the west sacramento you’re next. Welcome chaos. We have a listener of the week, stephanie zito she’s at wandering zito xero tio and she tweeted, quote, if you’re a non-profit leader, you should be listening to tony martignetti end quote she’s, a very smart woman. Congratulations, stephanie zito non-profit radios listener of the week i’ve got a bunch of turncoat friends to say hello to my networking group the b n i backstabbers meeting for lunch without me right now. Right now at the place i recommended jack’s on west forty first street. The food is very good. I hope you choke on it and that’s independently. Opie choke independent. Not a collective joke. I want the fifth person who chokes tohave to witness the first four choking before him or her unbelievable untrammeled malevolence nonetheless, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with brad east alsace if i had to digest the idea that you missed today’s show collective impact kimberly jets, he explains what collective impact is and what you need in place to assure the success of your c i network she’s chief changed architect at shifting patterns, consulting and we talked that opportunity collaboration twenty fifteen and user personas what is a persona? Why are these fictitious people important to your website? How do you build them? Deborah sharpe is digital director at manifest communications, and we talked at the twenty fourteen non-profit technology conference hosted by n ten the non-profit technology network. I’m tony steak, too sincerity trumps production value we’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising their data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuing to dot com here is kimberly jesse with collective impact welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage at the opportunity collaboration twenty fifteen i’m with kimberly jet c we are on the pacific ocean at the opportunity collaboration kimberly is chief change architect at shifting patterns consulting shifting patterns is a beak or that works with change. Makers to enhance financial and organizational sustainability she’s helped organizations in africa, asia, europe and north america. They’re at shifting hyphen patterns dot com and you’ll find her on twitter shift pat consultant can’t really welcome to the show thank you so much, tony. I appreciate you having me as a gift, i guess. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks. I love it. And we’re on the ocean. Yeah, uh, the sun is setting. Uh, well, we we got maybe an hour or so before sunset roughly. The ocean is beautiful and got nice breeze. That’s, right? This is great. I can’t think of a better location to radio anywhere. I cannot either. It doesn’t beat the new york city studio. I’m sorry, sam. This is better. We’re talking about networks for social change and collective impact. What? I see the phrase collective impact a lot. What is it? What are we talking about? So collected is an approach to developing networks. And so essentially what it’s about it’s. A more robust form of developing and network. And so what happens is a group of organizations will come together and they could be all non-profits they could be a mix of non-profits as well as businesses and government agencies, and they come together because they have a common goal that they want to achieve, and they realize they can’t do it on their own and one of the pre conditions for a successful it. A collective impact is making sure that there’s enough resource in place, there’s actual leader, but basically someone who’s a champion for the effort. Okay? And in addition to that, making sure that there’s some shared measures okay, we’ll get into the details. I just, uh i’m gonna ask you to talk a little bit louder when you when you get your next chance, okay oppcoll about it. All right? So this could be you said non-profits and for-profit and government coming together. We’re not just talking about collectives of strictly non-profit that’s correct. Although it can be non-profits as well. It depends on what’s what’s what? Why they’re coming together. Okay, what? Distinguished for me between collective impact and collaboration? Sure, there’s. A lot of what i see. The buzzword collaboration a lot. Yes. So collected is actually an approach to collaboration. It’s a much more robust approach. Where there’s a common agenda first. Of all there’s, some shared measures and there’s a champion who’s leading the effort. Okay, fair to say that it’s more formal than a collaboration. Yes, it’s more formal and there’s also a support system in place because there’s what’s called a backbone organization and so a backbone organization is an organization that provides support to all of the members of the collective impact effort. Okay, we’re gonna get there because that’s a new organization that gets form not necessarily this early, okay, we’ll get through it all right, but you typically wouldn’t buy-in. I don’t know. Maybe i shouldn’t say, but a mere collaboration. It yeah, there’s, different clothes, there’s, different kinds of collaboration, so collaboration could be a partnership. It could be a coalition. It could be a network. It could be an alliance. It could be an association there’s all different types of collaborating with him. Where does collective impact distinguish itself? Yes, a collective impact distinguishes itself because it’s not necessarily a type of collaboration. It’s a method it’s, a method for bringing it about. Okay, okay. Uh when is it appropriate for an organisation to start thinking about creating a network like the one we’re like what we’re talking about? Sure, yeah there’s certainly some conditions that need to be in place. So first of all, there has to be an interest in partnering with other organisations. So we need to get our board involved in making this decision or in exploring it or no. Yeah, i think you probably would want to consult with your board and have a conversation with them. Another factor that’s really important to take into account is the kind of issue that you’re working on. Is it an issue where it makes sense to work with other organisations? Is it a large, complex issue like, uh, like domestic violence? Sure. Poverty alleviation? Absolutely. What opportunity? Collaboration is all about you talking about big issues like this not getting a change to the local traffic law regarding pedestrians and bikes. Right? Well, that could be a large company. It’s. A bed. And you were going to see you like new york. You have that’s? Yeah. So it’s the kind of issue where there’s a lot of different stakeholders. And they are all affected by the issue. And they have a stake in action. What happens? That’s? A more appropriate issue, as you were, wouldn’t make sense would be something where it would just be a program that could sort of address that particular issue. I suppose you’ve been working on this. Your agency has been working on it for some time, and you’ve made some progress, but you don’t feel like there’s big attraction toward a goal is that appropriate, then is, like it’s a bigger problem than one organization can handle that’s? Absolutely right, yes, that’s, exactly right it’s an issue that one organization can’t handle on its own and there’s a need to work with other organisations collaboratively to come up with a solution, right? How do we figure out which other organizations those should that’s a great question. So a lot of times what happens is you’ll start off with a fairly small group and it could be within the same organization, or it could be other organizations that kind of know each other and they’ll come together and they’ll talk about it’s like, hey, we’ve got this problem, we’re all struggling to solve it. We’re coming at it from different angles. How can we address this? And then what will happen is one of the one of the first steps is to figure out doesn’t actually make sense. Does it make sense for us to work together? Are the advantages of collaborating worth the potential risks that are involved. And some of the things ovaries, qualitative stuff. You know, there’s not really gonna be a measure of this it’s. Gonna be opinions, feelings. There how you interact with the other potential stakeholders thatyou might bring in mrs all very kind of squishy stuff that’s a great that’s, a great insight, and so there are so much i have one great question, okay, two out of twelve or so badly i’m sure yes, you’re absolutely right. There is a relational aspect to it, and there is what’s called the soft side of collaboration where you’ve got to focus on the relationships. But there are there are some metrics. So for example, the collective impact forum, which is an online network of resource, is for people that are involved in collective impact, they actually have what’s called a feasibility chart, and they actually ask some questions like so, first of all, is this the problem that effects people and altum organizations that are coming at it from different angles? So it probably makes sense to look a collective impact, you know, our their resource is in place to address this particular issue. So so things of that nature, where can we find this organization? Yeah, so it’s www dot collective impact forum dot org’s and if you look under the resource is manual, you’ll see. It it’s called a feasibility tool. Okay, cool. I look, i love these resources for listening. All right? So, there’s gonna be a lot of due diligence that goes into this too? I mean, let’s say, you know, it’s, another non-profit or one of the organization’s you’re considering bringing is another about profit or four or corporation too. You gotta do your due diligence to make sure that that the organization, whichever it is, is sustainable, viable. They have a decent, strong board. They have leadership that’s committed to this that’s all you gotta do a lot of diligent that’s, absolutely right. And regardless of whether you used collective impact or any other approach, it’s really important to do your due diligence? Yes, absolutely. And so that’s kind of that kind of goes into some of the risks that are involved in collaboration. So for example, if you don’t do your due diligence up front, like you said, if you don’t check off some of the things that you mentioned, then there’s the risk that partnership won’t work. Another factor another challenge that’s involved is in power dynamics in the relationship he goes egos, even agendas, even agendas like for example. Some partners that might be large organizations that have a lot of resource is they might have a specific agenda, and it may be being an unequal partnership if they have a lot of power. So that’s another factor that used to be taken into account. They didn’t think that shooting getting ding, ding, ding ding 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 how do you how do you level the playing field? I mean, if you know that this large organisation is gonna be valuable to you, can you level the playing field so that there’s equal power across all the all the members? I certainly think it’s possible and that’s why it’s so important up front to kind of talk about how are we going to form this partnership and focus on the relationships that are involved and that’s really fundamental? And i think a lot of times what gets organizations into trouble is they’re interested in working together, and they moved too quickly into action, and they don’t pay enough attention. Teo what’s going on behind the scenes in terms of the duitz bilich dilgence due diligence factors and also in terms of the relationship dynamics. And so i think one way to do that is to have a conversation up front about what is our purpose, what turned and us for being here and also talking about whatever are one of the resource is that we’re going to commit what does some of the rules that we’re actually going to play? Because i could i see a situation where there’s a lot of excitement in the beginning. Oh, this is gonna be great. We’re going to solve the problem is so much short of time. If then if we were all working alone let’s, move ahead and you have to take a step back. That’s absolutely right, it’s so fundamental to take a step back and think about i mean it’s kind of interesting. So the process for developing collaborative relationship is really similar to kind of what we’re doing here and so opportunity, collaboration, it’s all about convene, connect and collaborate. And so the process of developing a collaborative relationship is very similar. It’s about painting it’s about bringing people together, it’s doing community mapping, finding out who is in these communities that’s affected by that particular problem and what is their role? And is there room and doesn’t make sense to include them in in in the particular collaboration? And then once you figured out, you know who the key players are who’s involved and you start bringing them together, then you need to talk about what’s our purpose, what’s our goal. What do we want to achieve? And there needs to be a strategy behind that. And then on top of that, you also talk about the process, the process of working together, the softer side, like the due diligence, like the relationship building all of those things air fundamental. And then once you’ve gotten those two pieces in place, then you can start moving into action and then measuring the impact of the results that we get the measurement too. Yeah, shouldn’t this be all be part of a written document? Yes, absolutely. And so one of the best practices for collective impact is having what’s called a framework a strategic framework where you actually write down you, who are the key players. What one of the goals you know, what’s our mission. You what are the resource is there gonna be brought to bear on this? Who is the backbone organization? What is their role so typically a backbone organization? Yeah, so a backbone organization. They play a support role for the for the collaboration work that occurs and it’s really fundamental in a lot of times collect collaborative efforts don’t succeed because there isn’t a support mechanism in place and so phone organisation it could be an existing organisation. It could be a member of that collaborative partnership or that collaborative relationship that takes on that role, it could be forming a new entity like you mentioned so there’s a variety of different options that are there. But the main goal mean purpose is to be able to support that effort. And by that i mean being a champion for that effort, making sure that there’s progress that there’s some quick winds in place, continuing to make sure there’s mo mentum, um, establishing linkages between between members of the collaborative effort fund-raising could be absolutely make-a-wish absolutely making sure their resource is in place. Ok, so if it’s not well, yeah, if it’s not a new organization, then all the organizations have to contribute. Resource is to the to the backbone, or one of them has to contribute. Resource is maybe one again, maybe one is outside that’s, a big part of their contribution, but we have to devote resources to this. Absolutely, yeah, there has to be part time staff that’s, right funding technology. Yeah, everything that all the organs that all the partner organizations have. And if and if it’s a new organization, if the backbone is going to be something new, then i mean same thing. It’s gotta be staffed, incorporated and funded, etcetera. Exactly. Okay. Exactly right. Do you, seymour? Where? It’s. Where? There’s, a new backbone organization created vs it’s. Ah, it’s provided the backbone support is provided from one of the partner organizations. You see one more than the other that’s. A great question, andi. I think it really varies. So the ones that i’ve been involved in it’s been primarily newer new entities, but that have been formed. But i’ve certainly been aware of other cases where it’s being one organization that’s pretty well resourced in his able and willing to take on that role. It could even be a thunder that takes on that. So it really depends. Okay. Okay. That’s. Cool. Yeah. Fundez that’s committed to the to do the work you bring them, you bring the collaboration to them and see if they can provide this. Reese basically, backbone support. I mean, all this back off this stuff that we need keep the collaboration operating. That’s. Absolutely right. Okay. So let’s, talk about the measurement we gotta figure out if this thing is working two years later, we want to able to look back and say what we’ve done or not done. Yes, you’re talking about yeah, so measurement is really fundamental because just like in anything in life, how do you know what impact your having unless you’ve kind of taken a look and seen, you know, where the progress is based on where you want to go? And so with collective impact on any other, even any other kind of collaborative effort, it’s really important to make sure that there’s some sort of measurement in place so that starts with the strategy part, but defining up front what’s our goal what? Our objectives and and what are our measures gonna be? How we’re gonna measure progress toward gold, right? What were the indicators? Ok towards measuring progress? Um, i could see a place where agendas would come through in measurement, right? I mean, what you measure is goingto determine whether this is successful. And if one, organizations got an agenda, they might, you know, they might want to influence the measurement and sway it, by the way. There’s a soccer game in the background. So if you you hear cheering and kicking it’s ah, it’s soccer for football. If you’re listening in europe. Yeah. So measurement is measurement is pretty important. Yes, it is absolutely. And, teo, as you point out, you need to have indicators and agendas. Certainly is an issue that comes into play. I would say another issue to his resource is you need to make sure you have resource is in place to be able teo, to show what those outcomes are and to be able to take corrective action if it’s needed okay right, resources to support the measurement that’s, right? And yeah, okay, yeah, i could just i see a lot of potential conflict areas. That’s, right. New collaboration, right? And you also collaboration and with measurement to you also get a backbone organization that’s gonna take responsibility for making sure, like holding all the members accountable for providing the data to measure impact and for also consolidating that data, analyzing it and making sure it goes back to the members and the members. And even the backbone organization helps spread it out into the communities everyone’s aware of what’s going on is there a point where a number of organisations in the collaboration just becomes unwieldy? We can’t do this with ten organizations or age, and of course when i say organizations including government agencies, too, you said they could very well be mean, ten sounds like a sound ten sounds like too many is that? Is that wrong? Well, there really is no limit to what really matters is that you make sure that whatever issue it is that you’re working on, you’ve gotten a full representation of that particular system, so collective impact or even other collaborative efforts could be a small as two organizations that are partnering up to you hundreds of organizations that are working together. Obviously the more organizations have, the more important it is to have resource is in place, and the more critical it is to have a backbone organization there that can kind of play this fundamental role of making sure that everyone’s being held accountable for what they’re doing, members are communicating with each other, work is getting done, we have measurements for results and information is flowing and only within the within the within the collaboration, but also out into the community. All right, i think, it’s time you share an example, i’m talking a lot of abstract, yes, share an example. Sure. So one example i have is is a network that i’m currently working with, and they are face-to-face organization that promotes immigration reform. And so i’m working with the head of this particular organization or the head organization of this particular network. Yeah, with back-up they are the back booker, that’s, absolutely right. And so i’m working with the backbone. Teo, help them grow and diversify their funding so that they can better support their members. And so their members are actually independent. Non-profits there’s about because the back bone’s connected to the hip, bone, hip bone’s connected to the knee bone. Yes, i know. But there are other member organizations, right? Right. And so it’s all about helping them it’s helping head of backbone organization get the resources they need so that they could better serve their members. Okay, and how’s it going? Yeah, yeah. So this organization, um uh, i’m happy to mention them international justice for our neighbors. So national justice for our neighborhood neighbor. Yeah, and so they were formed, um, a few years ago. And so what they do to their home mission is to serve as a ministry of hospitality or low income immigrants throughout the united states that are in need of legal immigration services and can’t afford them. Who are the members? So the members are actually non-profits and they’re called justice for our neighbors, and so they’re located throughout the entire us, and essentially, what they do is they hyre full time attorney job. It is to provide these legal immigration services to low income immigrants who often have no place else to turn. And so my role is, as i said before it’s, to help the backbone organization, the national justice for our neighbors, growing diversify their sources of funding and at the same time, i’m also working with some of the justice for our neighbors members. Teo also helps them develop their fund-raising skills, and teo also help them out with developing stronger and effective boards. How does this national see? I’m a small time thinker? I was thinking, like local community, maybe statewide, but do you think that a national coalition? Hyre how did they court? I mean, how does this work coordinate? Do they meet? They meet once a year or something. Or what? How do we coordinate this thing? That’s? Absolutely right. They do meet once a year, and so they have what’s called a roundtable. And so representatives from all the different members and all of the headquarter staff, they all come together in a particular area. And what they do is they meet. They share best practices. They have, they meet with each other, they learn about what each other’s doing. Then they talk about their progress overall as a network. How many clients are they serving? What are some of the opportunities they have? What are some of the challenges that they need to continue to work on? Anything you can share around here? The problems that arose that hopefully got overcome? Uh, you probably want talk about problems. They didn’t get it, but anything you can share that way, you know? Well, so i think one of the biggest challenges is that when you’ve got a network that spread geographically, it’s really hard to have relationships it’s really hard to develop it, maintain those relationships and so the round table is a great example, it’s a great opportunity for people to cut for members of that particular network to come and meet face-to-face and to develop those one on one face to face relationships. And a lot of times it’s been so valuable because when they go back home, they can then continue to maintain those relationships, and they can call upon each other, especially if they’re in areas where there not so geographically far from each other. So for example, there are a number of non-profits that air in texas, and so this’ll obviously, immigrants kayman immigration, immigration assistance, obviously critical in texas? Absolutely, yeah, into because there’s a least a few of them that are in texas. And so this was a great opportunity for them to meet each other face to face and talk about. Okay, well, how we work together because, you know, we are kind of spread throughout texas, but the same time we’re not so so hugely, far apart from each other. And so how can we coordinate on things like, you know, strategic planning? How can we coordinate on maybe joint fund-raising the relationships are important because there’s gotta be trust among partners. Otherwise, problems are gonna become insurmountable, even if they’re not big ones. If, if i mean it, the partners arnold trusting each other based on these relationships, i don’t think it’s got much likelihood of success. That’s absolutely right. How many partners air in this so it’s, a national network, about fifteen organizations. Okay, all right, so i was way off when i said ten, my att least fifty percent larger. All right, all right. Any other, just before we leave our little case study, any of you like a little lesson learned from the from this from this example that you can share maybe something you weren’t thinking of in the beginning or something. You learn new in this in this organization? Yeah, i would say probably one of the key things that i learned that relationships are so fundamental, they’re so important. Yeah, and i love the fact that the national organization, they’re so focused on their mission, which is providing great service to their members, and they are extremely well focused on that, and they’ve got a strong team in place and i think that’s so important, so oppcoll for long term success, the relationship is obviously touch that what else do you think is key for from long term success? This type of collaboration, i think it’s really important to have a strategy in place and knowing where you’re gonna go and how you’re gonna get there. That’s that’s also fundamental. Okay, so that thinking that upfront? Yeah, that upfront thinking yes, and then certainly having a backbone organization, there needs to be some sort of sport and a lot of collaborative efforts failed because there is no support. Places. People come together and they’re like, hey, wei, need to take action. We need to do something, but then it’s, like, okay, well, if nobody’s dedicated to making sure another beating happens, if no one’s contributing resource is to make sure things get done, well, then it’s really hard to move forward together. Yeah. What happened? We talked about yourself another two minutes or so to get ashore. I think one thing i’d also like to talk about is, um, what it’s like to kind of form a new network because that’s also a challenge. So we have about two minutes or so short. So i think there’s been one challenge that we talked about is like maintaining an existing network. And i think there’s another one which kind of plays into which is about forming a new network. And this whole idea, you know, how do we bring people together and how we make sure we have the right people in the room and making sure that we thought through our process for working together, finding a backbone organization, making sure that we’ve got a resource is in place. Those air all big challenges when you, when you start to form a new collaborative effort. All right, i guess you would believe that a consultant can be helpful in this. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, i am too. I like consultant. Yeah, well, certainly. I think you might need one. You know, if it’s a new, if it’s a new collaborative effort. And if you don’t have someone already in place that has a lot of resource is if there’s, not one organization that has a lot of resource, is or has experience with this kind of thing and can help take on a leadership role. It might be useful to have a consultant. What is it that you love about your work? So what i love about my work is being able to work with organizations that are making a positive difference in the world and helping them reach a point where they can be effective and helping them to reach a point where i’m no longer needed. And it’s it’s so rewarding to be able to do that. You don’t mind making yourself up? No, not at all. All right, kimberly jetson, chief change architect. That shifting patterns consulting you’ll find them at shifting hyphen patterns. Dot com and again on twitter. She’s at shit. Pat consultant kimberly, thanks so much. Thank you, tony. Real pleasure. Durney martignetti non-profit radio coverage of, uh, opportunity collaboration twenty fifteen in x top of mexico. Thanks so much for being with us. That was cool. Being on the beach with kimberly. Tony, take two and unity. Is our user personas are coming up first pursuant they’re online tools help you raise more money it’s that simple? I can’t make it any simpler. Nothing about these tools is an experiment. They’re tried and they’re proven like velocity there tool for fund-raising management is proven by the fund-raising consultants at pursuant, they use it to manage their clients fund-raising and it works so well that they released it to non-profit so now it’s available directly to you, basically, they cut out their own consultant. You don’t need them. You can if you want, but you don’t need him. It will help you be more efficient and you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com my video this week explains how sincerity trumps production values what’s important in your communications is the genuineness of your words, whether it’s, video or print or email whatever i share an example from a hotel in mexico where i got a very sincere note written in bad english, but the sincerity came through the video. Is that tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday, sixth of november forty second show of the year here is user personas with deborah sharpe welcome. To tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc non-profit technology conference two thousand fourteen use that hashtag it’s fourteen and tc with me now is is debra sharpe she’s digital director, manifest communications and her workshop topic is user personas it’s not about you it’s about them. Welcome to the show thanks, tony. Pleasure to have you bond just come a little closer to the mike, would you please so that everybody can hear you? Thank you, user personas i know very little about them, so i’m not gonna even try why don’t you explain what they are and why they’re so critical? Sure well, there are they are really essential part of web development and you’re only going to get as good a website is thie kind of strategy and thinking that you put into it at the fun and and part of that fun end is creating these user personas, which are really fictitious people there people you make up, but they’re based on very real segments there’s supposed to be able to help you understand who were the users coming to your website and what do they need? What their motivations, what their goals when they get there because what’s really deadly, especially working with with non-profits but it happens with all kinds of organizations and companies is that you get website development by committee from the people who work inside an organization was all about what they want to say to people, what they have, what they think is important, what they want to put out there, and often what happens is they just don’t have a good understanding of who’s actually going to come to the website and why they’re coming and what’s most important to those users. So that’s, what user personas will help you do? So we need to be thinking about who the people are that’s come that air coming versus what we want to say and put out as sort of a bulletin board for them all to read right and be able tio create a hierarchy, even of information and of users as well, because there’s a lot that goes into thinking about what what a user is, and when they come to your site, you might think that let’s take a non-profit you might think you’ve got your your clients with people, use the services of the organization, you may have volunteers. You may have donors and all of those may then segment into teo different groups themselves and what happened sometimes i’m sure everybody’s been to a website like this, where you have no idea where what you’re looking for is it’s like, how do i get there? And i’m clicking and i’m going here and i’m going there and about three or four kliks later, i’m still getting frustrated and guess what? I’m out there leaving, you know, and not all of those users may be of the same priority of the importance, for example, just give you an example that we worked on. We’re going so many, but one of the things i shared yesterday was a thiss was a consortium of healthcare organizations who came to us, and they wanted to get a very public conversation started about the expected tsunami that’s coming and health care with our aging population, something like in twenty years was goingto be something like love two times as many people over the age of eighty and four times as many people over the age of sixteen that’s going to be quite a dent in how we care for people. And many of them with chronic health care conditions. So this consorting with all kinds of health care organizations really wanted to be able to put some african scene policy conversations that there they thought they came to us and they said, okay, we have to reach those people, those people who are going to be over sixty. We did our research, we did some homework, we started put looking at user personas, who were the people involved in this conversation, and we did what was really revealing with some social media listening we did and what we found out and this and social media listen, i’m a great advocate of that because it’s very, very natural setting in which to be able to get information surveys are great focus groups could be helpful, but they are artificially set up context so that people are very aware of what they’re hyre answering their very where, what they’re saying, where in social media you’re actually being able to judge in, evaluate what people are saying when they’re not being observed, when they’re just commenting on blog’s and when they’re talking to each other and what they’re sharing, what their concerns are. And what their challenges are, what they’re pissed off about and what we found out about out with that is that it wasn’t the direct users, it wasn’t these people over sixty was their children, so we’re talking people in their forties, so the other ones who were talking people in their fifties, those are the people who are worried about what’s happening. So when we created the website that’s who we had in mind, okay dahna we are we’re going tow pause for second america’s the is the the team here to do a demo? Okay? We’re going to pause for a second. These user personas then are really quite critical. How do we get started in the process of creating one? Well, and we’re going to create many right all representative of constituents, different groups, exactly so there’s its research and in a number of different ways. First thing to look at his historical data. So you want to be able to look at your your website analytics and everybody should have google analytics it’s free it’s one of the best ways to be able to measure what’s happening on your website who’s coming what they’re doing there. And that’s, what you really want to dig down into sea? What are people doing right now on the website that’s? One of the biggest ways that you have to learn the second thing you want, teo does that? Does that include knowing where they’re coming from, where the good referral sites are? Sure, okay, i mean, it might just be from google itself or i mean, now the referral traffic isn’t necessarily gonna help you in determining how you’re developing your website. I mean, that’s more about marketing and how you’re reaching people. You’re driving traffic to the website, but all of that is going to be helpful. A cz you plan to make any kind of a redesign start any webb’s not start a new one? Obviously because you won’t have accepted in the redesign, then you’re gonna wanna survey people. That’s, always helpful to have an existing website, put a survey up asked people questions about what they’re finding about the website right now, what’s most important to them what the information they’re looking for. Are they able to find what they’re looking for? You just ask the more full denture things about, uh, that’s going to give you information and understanding how they’re approaching your website right now. Then you’re gonna want to talk to you, major stake lifters. And you’re gonna want to do one on one interviews and that’s gonna be really that’s to me the most helpful in some ways because you’re really then starting to say, ok, let’s, get some donors to this organizations that want to talk about what’s important let’s. Get the people who used the services and talk to them about what’s important etcetera, etcetera and even internal stakeholders. You want to talk to people within the organization? Start getting a sense of what’s working what’s not and even blue sky. What if anything that you would like to see here could there be here? But then, once you start doing that, then you have to get the information on who these people are and how they interact with the web and that’s. One difference that’s. Very important. We worked with some amazing clients, and most of them have truckloads of audience research. They know where their audiences are, but the kind of research that you have, a kind of data you have on people in the offline world. Doesn’t necessarily translate to online, and by that, i mean, so tony, if i were to talk to you and i’m trying to figure out what kind of an online user aren’t you? Are you a two point? Oh, user, do you like to share things? Do you like to talk with people? You like to have a community? Do you like to be able to know? Read stories about somebody else and what’s happening in your life? Are you a lean and hurling back person? What i mean by that is way called someone a lean in experience and more of an immersive experience. So you’re somebody if you’re all lean in person, you want to have your hand on the mouse, you want to be doing stuff and clicking stuff, using tools, getting it, being able to make your way around something in a much more sort of game like immersive way or you lean back where you want clinton served up and you want a video to watch you want cem really compelling copy to be able to read that packages things really nice. So if i don’t know what kind of used ru ru, time strapped. Even are you the kind of person who okay, i need to read three headlines here scan and if i don’t get it, i’m out of here. Are you that kind of a person? So for example, if we’re talking to potential major donors, most of them are times trapped, so you need to be able to know if that’s a really major consideration a limitation for them. How did you build your user experience? So you’re gonna satisfy their needs and expectations, so if i don’t know that stuff about you and i let’s say, i think that because i have so much important information to say, i’m going to put it all up here, i’m not gonna prioritize that i’m not gonna make a hierarchy. Meanwhile, you have about forty five seconds to teo give to my website, i’ve lost, yeah, yeah, i’m not gonna find what i’m there for. I had a goal when i arrived and i have not met it and i gave you a minute before, whatever the i mean, the stats were probably even shorter than that on i’m departing and i only looked at i wasn’t deep it all i looked at. One maybe two pages or something, and i can’t find the beginning of what i’m looking for. Okay, so we need to know all these different constituents so well, because we’re going to start to build a fictitious person, right persona. Exactly. Okay, wait there yet can we start with that process yet? Or is there more to do yet? Well, you have tio no, then you start to give you want to understand who they are, their cycle graphics and what their relationship to the issue is. You want to be able to them, not about what they’re what their needs are on the website, with their expectations or what they’re coming there with, and then what their goals are. What is it that they actually want to get out of the website? And once you start to do that, you start to get a blueprint of these individual users and what they’re going to one of the things thie examples i shared in the work dahna wass klein, it’s actually also health related. This was for a client in the area of cancer screening. And if you go into a google search right now, i i challenge you. Just put in cancer screening in google and you’ll see what comes up with a top ranking websites and their deadly i think it’s just an avalanche of coffee and information on text to make your way through, i think of the average site web md or or even cancer dot org’s yeah, there’s just there’s, so they have millions of pages. It seems like and it’s all very text intensive, and i’m not sure how well it’s uh, how well it’s organized 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 debra and i have been interrupted twice, now way. We’re doing our best. We were when you’re non-profit radio and you’re not bloomberg or cnn sometimes have to share the stage on dh that’s what’s happening at ntcdinosaur, wearing stage with the one of the generous sponsors of ntc bm they have the stage now, so deborah and i are behind the stage and that’s what happened the first time, and now it’s happened a second time because i had to help the help response to start their program, but we’re unrelenting, debra or not, we’re not. We’re not giving up it all that’s. Why it sounds a lot different, but the substance is still here. Thank you for your patients, deborah way. Will person twice thank you very much. So where we were at stage, where i’m getting lost in millions of pages, seemingly millions of pages of cancer data from my search, andi, i’m frustrated and leaving, right? So of our client came to us with a problem, and that was, uh it was actually a particular province and candidate was alberta health services, the agency that’s responsible for delivering health care there, and cancer rates were going down, and they wanted us to put up a website about screening so that people could understand what they have to do and why it’s important all the details and how do you prepare for it and all of the questions sametz all these other sites, so we started to dig in a little bit more about who were the users who were the people who are going to come and use this site, and something started to really emerge for us and that especially in that age category of women between forty and sixty and these are the people, especially when you’re talking about breast cancer were really, really confused. I don’t know what it’s like in america, exactly, but in canada there are different guidelines depending where you live. So the provinces have their own individual guidelines for wednesday. Appropriate time to get screened for various things nice. And then there are national guidelines. And, uh, the national guidelines changed about a year and a half two years ago, and this kind of created a lot of confusion and and there’s a lot of information being put out a lot of media reports and it’s just normal human behavior when you have a lot more information on a lot of confusion, what do you do? You don’t you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You throw your hands up in frustration and hope for the best right? How people stop getting screened in the same numbers. So that was the problem. So recognizing that was the problem. Sort of talking to women like this understanding who they were. Thiss forty. And this became our bull’s eye it’s woman forty to sixty and who? She wass how she interacted online, what she needed. They did not want a lot of information. They just wanted simple, clear answers. Please, will someone tell us what to do? Does it? Forty? I get screened is a fifty. I get screen, we don’t know. So we set out to make a website that really fulfilled those needs and the website welcome to go. Get to it. It’s screening for life dot c a and it’s. Very simple. Four is the number four no it’s not spelled out fo r. Okay, so what we did is we created a little tool that greets me when you arrive at the website there’s there’s. Just a big question that says not sure if you need to be screened for cancer and it asked you just click on the right figure and find out and there’s uh, two silhouettes of a man and a woman there. And you picked the right one for you. Oh, and as soon as you click on it, you get this slider where you can just now slide your age. And as the slider changes, the silhouettes changed shape. So it looks if you go down for anyone who’s going to look like a twenty one year old little bulge in the weight get into the fifties. Exactly. So it kind of is a little neat. We gave some buddies people something to interact with right away. So it gets you engage gets you a little bit closer the website, but right away, as soon as you say okay, female slide fifty four boom. You have your answer, and then it gives you just very, very basic information about what you need to know. And if you go no further than that on the website and that visit, we’re totally happy we don’t need you to go anywhere else. We know that you have the very basic information if you want to keep going, there’s a lot of information, if you want to figure out howto prepare for oscar, you can do that way need to relate this back to use their personas, right? But because we had done our homework way up front in terms of figuring out this was the problem there a bunch of users, for example, that cervical affects young women from the wallet text women for the time in the sexually active colorectal cancer affects both men and women. But we understood from doing we did personas for all of those people. We even did persona because the client wanted us to for the boyfriend of the the young one. Excellent. So because of that, how hiv affects that, but what i’m saying is because we did all these personas. And we understood what the problem was. We understood that the most important user was this forty to sixty year old women that’s, who was coming that’s, who were those that’s who was seeking the information most that’s, whose expectations we needed to fill right away. And we knew that we had to do it in a very simple way, without having to make them dig, because they didn’t want all that information. They wanted a simple, clear answer. And we didn’t have to make them. Process of the persona you had said earlier. They get to the point. They even have they have names, wey? No, because we don’t. Our research, we know their online behavior gets to the point of we know what? What sites? They get their news from regular. That sites they go to regularly. What kind of detail in these fictitious people? Okay, that’s. A little bit more of the media profile when you talk about how they consume good times. That’s it important for these particular women? What we what we drill down into were things like where they lived professionally, what their relationship was, for example, way have different personas when we’ve got to our primary one. So we had one where she was kind of a professional woman in that she’s familiar with, uh, online et cetera her motivations to start taking better care of herself. She’s had a friend. Who’s died from breast cancer. We fill in all these these things and her motivations because she has had a wake up call. And she wants us to start taking better care of herself and that’s. How she’s going to come to be investigating cancer screening way had another persona, she’s more of a rural person who lives in alberta, not really taking care of herself very much kind of is like that stop broke don’t fix it sort of thing. I don’t run to the doctor and everything, but her children are the ones who have been after her. They’ve been reminding seen the news they’ve been watching it so the influences in life so this sixty year old person lives on a farm and who’s who’s like this, stoick, the staunch stoic who really doesn’t have a lot of, you know time for doctors, but it’s at the urge of her daughters, who are making her pay a little bit more attention and start to take care of herself and get scream. So those that that’s the kind of information, then once we have that what air there needs online, what did they do? How does that? What is this woman? He’s? Very two different people knowed how do they interact in the online world? Oh, and again, that comes into the speed at which we want to serve up information the tool which we wanted to do not make people read a lot, because we had our rural women in mind, i didn’t want to give it that sort of very text, you know, dense copy information. So those air, how those pieces start to unfold and then the goals, of course, what do they want out of it? That may be a little bit different as you go in, like our professional woman, she may want a little bit more deeper information for those of the kinds of things, okay, sense, yeah, yeah, and the that i mean, clearly that the time is considerable for doing the research to create these goes into creating the personas dahna but i you know, i think that if you really want people to achieve their goals on your site and achieved their goals, not your goals for the for them, but achieve their goals on the site, it seems it seems very clear. Yeah, i ask helen yeah, takes time, but in terms of time, how long is your site going to be up? No, that would be the ants and don’t you want people to be successful on it every single day? Not just occasionally, when someone has more time to spend than the average. So if you spend three weeks creating these personas three to four weeks doing that up front, my my suggestion is that it’s a really worth investment of time when you’re gonna have a site that’s up for two to three years, who who creates the personas and we want to avoid website by committee when you mentioned earlier who’s actually sitting down and creating the people in willing up my world because i work at an agency, we provide that service and we do it though, in a collaborative way with clients. So we will talk to them about what we’re going to be doing will inform them of what kind of research tools will employ. We might be talking to them are usually almost always talking to them and talking to some key stakeholders within their organizations in addition to outside users. And then once we have started to get a handle on, it will have a meeting will sit down with them and review the research, review the findings with them and then the final personas they have to approve everybody’s got to be in on it. But we do provide that service. Okay, but non-profits khun do with themselves you can. There are ways to do it. We left in our workshop we had actually a worksheet that we handed out. We actually asked everybody okay, pick a website that’s near and dear to your heart. Pick one user and now fill this out and we gave them all the areas to fill out. And then we had a couple volunteers come up and norvig breathing after bring up their website, then walk us through the use. Of ok, so it can’t be done internally, but with time, commitment, but obvious value benefit at the at the end of the process, user personas, percent. Okay, something could be a lot of fun, too. It can be actually mean they’re used, they become your little family. Yeah, yeah, you get to know them very well. Ugo. Alright, thank you very much. Well, thank you, my pleasure. Deborah sharpe is digital director at manifest communications in where we’re in a hurry in ontario, in toronto. Thank you. Alright, excellent, thank you very much. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of anti season non-profit technology conference, and i want to thank debra for being a good sport and two interruptions. Now we’re in the back alley, almost of the of the science fair, but the substance is still valuable, so thank you very much, debra. Next week, you’re engaged board with michael davidson. If you missed any part of today’s show finding on twenty martignetti dot com, where in the world else would you go pursuant, you’ll raise envelopes more money. I’m not talking those number ten’s with your logo on them that is, sitting in your office, waiting to be stuffed by volunteers. I’m talking about those fourteen by twenty inch padded numbers filled with money, pursuing dot com our creative producers. Claire miree off sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows 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. Kayman like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked, and 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. 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