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Community TechKnowledge’s Apricot, ” Otey said.

“We’re in the process of getting those up and running now, so we aren’t far enough along to determine the pros and cons. ”

Staff use eTapestry for donor relations and communication management—basically, tracking all contacts, relationships and gifts, and sending electronic newsletters. Apricot serves as a “resident management system” she said—basically, a case management database.

“It’s not completely set up yet, ” Otey said. “The big benefit is that it’s totally customizable, but it takes so much staff time to create all the user-defined fields. With a handful of staff, it’s tough to get that up and running. ”

The two systems aren’t integrated at all, and there’s no need for them to be.

“The only need I would see for that is, when a resident who is being tracked in Apricot moves out, then she would be put into the eTapestry, ” she said. Former residents are still valuable to the organization in many ways, and receive emails and newsletters and sometimes act as volunteers or donors. However, with just 29 residents living at Sarah’s at any one time, it’s not difficult to enter the appropriate information manually.

“I’m sure our tracking will become more complex, and our reporting will become more sophisticated as I become more comfortable. ”

until recently, STAFF TRACKED EVERYTHING IN EXCEL. OR AT LEAST, THEY TRIED TO. s ? h i t W h a t ’ s

theory of chanGe

What is a “Theory of Change”? It’s a road map that articulates the perception an organization has around what the required building blocks are to reach a complex goal. While we approach every goal with a theory of change, the complexity of the goal is what determines the need to formalize it or not. There is no need to document a theory of change for sending out that newsletter, but more complex missionoriented goals such as alleviating poverty or healthcare for underserved communities can benefit from it.

A theory of change includes ideal outcomes, an assessment of current reality, and the elements needed to bridge the gap between the two. More importantly, it makes explicit the values and assumptions that shape the understanding an organization has for the theory. A lack of clarity of the values and assumptions behind an informal theory of change increases the potential for differing “understandings” to impact an organization’s ability to cohesively implement the actions of a more tactical document such as a strategic plan. Explicit values and assumptions also make it easier to communicate with partners and stakeholders around your work.

Find more information and examples online here.

While he likes the idea of a single database that tracks so many different groups comfortably, Earthjustice currently uses separate systems.

“We use disjointed systems to track them, ” he said. “On the fundraising and advocacy side, we use Blackbaud and Convio, but they’re not well-integrated. Blackbaud’s ECRM product doesn’t support the advocacy functions that we require. On the legal side, we use an archaic legal case-management system that was designed to support commercial litigation, not our less-structured mix of clients and cases. We end up tracking the contacts that aren’t in our donor/ECRM databases in Outlook Exchange. ”

One of his previous employers, a Goodwill, used Salesforce as a single database for all constituents, but the company model there supported it. “At Goodwill, we tried to see people holistically, as a vendor could also be an employer, or a customer could also be a donor, ” he said.

“At Earthjustice, there’s less natural crossover among our constituents, so the holistic view is desirable, but not as compelling. ” “Blackbaud CRM and Convio don’t integrate seamlessly, ” Campbell said. “Right now, we have to do a lot of manual synching. “We put the most effort into tracking donors, and I think that’s for a couple of reasons. “One is that there are good systems for tracking donors, and it’s expected that an organization of our size, which depends on donations, will use them. Litigation is more of a document-management challenge, so prioritizing CRM on the program side has been, historically, of lower importance, ” he said.

Campbell is hopeful that Earthjustice will evolve in the area of data management. “Our current strategic planning process is highlighting the need for more production of metrics and better data management, ” he said. “There are cases to be made for CRM to play a larger role in our legal work, as, when you boil it down, all of our work is peoplecentric. But we have a lot of work to do before we tackle the dream of doing it all in one database. ”

He said he feels his organization faces many of the same issues as other mid-sized nonprofits. “There are a lot of smaller organizations struggling more than us because we have sufficient budget and staff to address the problem, ” Campbell said. “We recognize that we have to be datacentric, and we’re developing the plan to get there.

trackinG constituents in many systems

Peter Campbell, IT Director for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, said his organization sees both clients and donors as key constituencies among many, including list subscribers, advocates, legal contacts, vendors, trustees and other groups.

at-a-Glance: earthjustice O Budget: about $25 million O 200 staff, 10 offices