May you live in interesting times

These are certainly challenging economic times for charities, for  nonprofits; indeed for-profit as well.  Now, more than ever, at the end of each day, you must be questioning whether your internal system are fit for purpose:

• that those monthly all too critical reports are all too time consuming to produce
• that essential data is still only available on paper!
• that even timely metrics are taking too much time to produce! That you’re unable to track even the most basic of activities
• that all tasks appear to be totally dependent on a proliferation of spreadsheets, all in different folders, with nobody following a consistent naming convention …
• that the details of the last contact with that very generous donor, that’s just called you for an impromptu meeting, are in the fund managers head – and they’re off ill …

Familiar experience?

You’re not alone.  Essentially, it’s time you must consider implementing that CRM (Contact or Client Relationship Management) system you know you need; or, at the least, schedule a review of your existing CRM implementation.

Still unsure as to why you need a CRM?   Well with a CRM configured to your needs you’ll most certainly:

• be enabled to automate a variety of processes and procedures, and in doing so become more efficiently at train new staff, or enabling existing staff to adapt
• have better coordination within your organisation
• have a detailed overview of communication with all your clients, and have better connect with your constituants
• have a comprehensive overview of all contacts; have better contact sharing and management as all contact details (e-mail, phones, address, …, last contact details, …) are all stored in one single place
• be able to share personal calendars and tasks; monitor and forecast performance to focus efforts and work to produce reports: internal and external

But be warned:

It’s never straight forward implementing a CRM system – be they peaceful times, or chaotic.  But, be reassured:

• there’s no perfect CRM solution out there – and they’ll never will be one
• CRM implementations mostly fail because of lack of buy-in
• the CRM itself is often a fraction of the overall total cost (for charities some CRMs subscriptions may even be free!  See my earlier post about Salesforce.com’s philanthropic 1:1:1 model)
• don’t forget the network, and access to the web; annual ongoing support, implementation and configuring additional modules, …, conversion costs: pooling, tidying, and re-structuring all the existing data in your unsupported database and spreadsheet ready for importing …
• that CRMs are for the long-term … so expect that after several weeks, or months, to find that some operation,  functions or processes could be addressed better, and that you would like to modify your present solution …

Where to start?

The trick?  Don’t procrastinate!

• start small!
• you’ll need a team – but don’t let the techies make the decision alone
• identify needs and priorities - what are the deal breakers
• what do you really need?  The classic: Must have, Like to have, …
• ensure that the implementation partner fits your culture, staff, and budget

Require the CRM to support:

• Mass Emails & Mail Merge
• Calendar, Email & Contact Management
• Marketing and Campaign Management
• Lead Management
• Customer Service Management
• Reporting and Analytics
• Interactive Marketing
• Document and Content Management
• and,
• if it’s the current best of breed, as in Salesforce.com, an social media application like Chatter …

May you live in …

Apparently there is no Chinese language equivalent of the curse “May you live in interesting times.” The nearest authentic Chinese proverb, according to Wikipedia, is “It’s better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period.”

Cartoon: Non Sequitor © Wiley Ink INC

One of the unavoidable complications with your email marketing newsletter is that you cannot fully control the font in which it is displayed. The email reader, or the browser, that your customer uses is not guaranteed to use the font you have so diligently selected for your newsletter. This is just as true for your carefully crafted HTML email, or your web site – i.e. the font may not be available (loaded) on your customers PC. Obviously, the alternative for your newsletter is to send it as a PDF document attached to a covering email; but that’s one extra click required of your time-starved customer …

So what’s available to ensure that your extensively researched look&feel, your brand, is consistent between your website, your newsletters, your HTML emails, and your ‘paper’ publications? You could depend on the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) font-family property (see font family, or w3school.com, or for a more general introduction: sitepoint), alternatively you might consider Google Fonts!

I’m currently mentoring a charity that require a non-standard layout for their new information newsletter. We’ve reviewed Litmus: Email client market share, and have compromised, for their first issue, on a standard font. They are non-profit Salesforce user, using Vertical Response as their email marketing App. (incidentally you don’t need to be a Salesforce user to use Vertical Response, you can use it as a standalone application … this is well worth considering if you’re a charity). However, for subsequent newsletters we’ll be using Google Fonts.

So what are Google Fonts? Google Fonts are “… high-quality web fonts that you can include in your pages …” With simple code (the Google Fonts API) in the HTML of your newsletter you’ll have significantly more control over the fonts your customer will view your newsletter in. Essentially, Google Fonts are downloaded from the Google Font Server when the newsletter is first read (technically: the fonts are saved in the email/browser cache so subsequent newsletters will be quicker … ).

Some example Google Fonts and their effects (Yes! Google Fonts work in WordPress!):

This is Cardo!

This is Tangerine!

This is Tangerine, with shadow!

To preview the currently available Google Fonts try here … So, no excuse now; move your Fonts to the Cloud!

Need more information? Do contact me.

This has been a title for a post since well before January – I’ll now delete the draft!  Enjoy …

Charityhowto.com have further video training guides for nonprofits on YouTube (here)

Gartner Group top 10 trends for 2010

Last month the Gartner Group analysts highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends for 2010. Number one is Cloud Computing – up from third position last year.

So for a small to medium sized charities what are the benefits of Cloud Computing?

Firstly, there is an acronyms you’ve most likely heard in connection with Cloud Computing: SAAS.

SAAS (Software-as-a-Service) is where a service provider gives access to their software via the Internet. All you need is a PC, a browser, and Internet access. All the back end hardware and software is managed for you.  So let us consider the SaaS aspect of Cloud Computing – what are the opportunities of SaaS for small to medium sized charities:

• No support costs – though there may be an annual license
• No need for in-house IT support staff – all installations, upgrades, back-ups, and on-going maintenance are handled for you
• No server – so no purchase, maintenance, or support issues. You don’t need to worry about installing the latest patch, replacing ailing hard-drives, the replacement funding strategy.  They’ll be no annual license, or support contract
• Access: staff, and volunteers, can access your application from almost anywhere. Just a PC, web browser, and Internet access
• No urgency to upgrade in-house computers – less powerful PCs will do fine

But there are risks:

• You are dependent on Internet access – but you could always access the system from home, a library, or even the local coffee shop …
• The up time and response time – see for example the System Status page at trust.salesforce.com
• Backups – you still must take back-up copies of your data!
• And maybe, depending on the size and nature of your charity, Security and Regulatory compliance issues

Garner Group Hype Cycle 2008

In the Gartner Group’s Hype Cycle special report of 2008 Cloud Computing was highlighted as “the latest super-hyped concept in IT”, with 2 to 5 years before main steam adoption.  It’s already main stream!

For small to medium sized charities, then, with limited capital, limited space, limited access to technical staff, do consider choosing SaaS and reduce your dependence on hardware.

Salesforce.com is the poster child of SaaS. It can be used for SFA (Sales Force Automation), or as a CRM (Contact Relationship Management) tool.

Consider fund raising as an example.  Salesforce.com has created a special configuration of it’s SaaS for non-profit organisations, and charities.  This Non-profit edition of Salesforce.com provides:

• Tighter communication with your donors
• Stratification of donors
• Collaboration between staff – fully manageable by Salesforce.com.  Merge all those disparate spreadsheets, databases, and notes into one easily accessible system …
• Creating and managing a donor development pipe line
• Manage contacts, accounts, and communication sequence: you can also richly manage the relationships between contacts and accounts such as affiliation, board member, reporting relationship, …
• And, with Salesforce.com you can always add new screens, adjust the layouts, add extra fields, include relationships between records, install new applications from AppExchange (“… the complete marketplace for cloud computing“, many of which are free for non-profit/charities) – essentially fully adapt their software to your organisational needs

Obviously, much of this can be handled by a custom built database – but the long-run costs of developing and maintaining such an application can become prohibitive.  Using a SaaS CRM like Salesforce.com to deploy a streamlined application is almost always going to be faster, and more flexible.

Finally, keeping the theme of fund raising, using Salesforce.com is about gaining and retaining donors; not about “managing” them – it’s more about managing the increasingly rich information you gather about them.  But ultimately it’s not about “donor” strategy, process, or the technology.  It’s people – and this includes your staff.

Steve Anderson has provided an excellent, and very accessible YouTube video guide to upgrading the nonprofit salesforce edition:

See my earlier post on this upgrade here

On Friday 11th September a new release of the Salesforce.com nonprofit starter pack was made available. Steve Andersen, a Solutions Architect at the Salesforce.com Foundation, who helps nonprofits organisations use Salesforce.com, recommends that “everybody upgrades“.  The full article can be read on the NPSP Announce (a Google Group) – the article has many links including how to install the nonprofit pack, and release notes.  For administrators of the nonprofit pack this Google Group is well worth you joining.

The full release notes for Salesforce.com Winter ’10 can be found here (a pdf document) (note there’s no explicit reference to “nonprofit” in these release notes).

If you haven’t already found it there is a very thorough introduction to the Nonprofit Starter Pack on Salesforce’s Developerforce wiki.  In this wiki you will find details on the purpose for the nonprofit pack, some links to descriptions on its functionality, a list of the packs Strength and Weaknesses, some notes on how to deal with Individuals, some notes on installation issues, and a link to Feature Requests and Wishlists.  In particular there’s a link to Nonprofit Starter Pack Upgrade Best Practices.

In the first instance you should find out which version of the Nonprofit Starter Pack you already have.  There’s an excellent short video by Steve on YouTube just for this.

The developerforce link has the following advise for when you are considering upgrading your version:

1. Always back up your data before upgrading packages
2. Burn a sandbox of your production database and upgrade the sandbox first, checking for any errors
3. Upgrade Contacts and Organizations package first, then Households, then the others
4. Spend extra time testing if you have written any Apex code or have Workflow rules to make sure they don’t conflict with package features
5. Carefully follow any special instructions provided on the individual package install pages

Now, item 1. should be a given.  Your Administrator should be doing at least a Weekly, or Monthly (if you have a very low data volatility), backup.  To access this function follow this menu chain:

Setup | Administration Setup | Data Management | Data Export | Export Now or Schedule Export

(Do remember to have, and follow, some well documented good practice for naming, storing, and verifying your backups!)

If you’ve never used a Sandbox (item 2.) they’re well worth exploring – not the least for testing new Applications, for training, and for checking upgrades.

To create a Sandbox follow this menu chain:

Setup | Administration Setup | Data Management | Sandbox | and click New Sandbox

Click on the link and read the Help for this page!  Do give your Sandbox some appropriate short name – as Salesforce automatically appends the sandbox name to usernames and email addresses … So if you name your sandbox upgrade, and your login username is user@company.domain, then your login for the upgrade sandbox is user@company.domain.upgrade (but use the same password).  You will see a reminder, like Force.com Sandbox: Upgrade, near the top right of your page so that you know your you’re in your Sandbox.

The generation of the Sandbox can take some time – so don’t leave it until the last minute on Friday afternoon to explore Sandboxes!  You’ll receive an email from Salesforce advising you of its availability.  Do note there is no direct way to replicate any modifications you make in your sandbox in your “live” instance – you’ll have to re-install the App’s, adds those customised fields, redo the workflows, …

Finally, the NPSP – Nonprofit Starter Pack on Google is another valuable site to bookmark.  Here you can find a community, supported by Steve, for airing your problems with your instance of the nonprofit pack.

I hope something in the above is of some help to you.