Doing?

5Set expectations: Whether you’re asking for an email address face-to-face or online, it’s important to set expectations for the person signing up. Give people a visual so they can see what they’re signing up to receive. An easy way to accomplish this is to show supporters a recent email, either with a color printout of your newsletter or through links to your email newsletter archive.

When asking someone to join your list in person, phrase the question like this: “Would you like to sign up for our monthly newsletter for upcoming events and other information?” This sets the expectation that those signing up will receive something from you on a monthly basis.

A similar effort should be made online. Tell people when they’re signing up exactly what they will be getting and how often. This way, subscribers are not surprised when your first email arrives. I also recommend that you send a confirmation email to new subscribers joining your email list. The message should reiterate what the recipient has signed up for and include a special “thank you” for being such a loyal supporter.

6Contacts are a valuable asset: Your list isn’t going to grow magically without prodding. Make sure you engage supporters and members whenever and wherever you come in contact with them – be it in your office, at an event, on your website, in your regular email correspondence or on your Facebook Page. At every turn, you, your staff, and your digital presence should be directing supporters to join your email list. Find more list-building tips in our Learning Center.

ALEC STERN, VP STRATEGIC MARKET DEVELOPMENT, CONSTANT CONTACT, @ALECSTERN

CHANGE A Quarterly Journal for Nonprofit Leaders INSIDE THIS EDITION:

ISSUE ONE · MARCH, 2011

CASE STUDY: Board Collaboration at NPower

PAGE 19 Michigan Even a tech-savvy board will need time and training to adapt a new tool CHANGEA Quarterly Journal for Nonprofit Leaders INSIDE THIS EDITION:

ISSUE TWO · JUNE, 2011

CASE STUDY: A Multi-ChannelOnline Campaign TechSoup shares lessonslearned from their DigitalStorytelling Initiative

FEATURE STORY: BOOSTING BOARD COLLABORATION Idealware's Chris Bernard takes us through the considerations and the options for getting your board collaborating. With the right tools, the sky's the limit for the work you can do together. [ PAGE 4 ]

What 1.9 Million Donors Tell Us About Online Fundraising From Network for Good's Katya Andresen PAGE 11

CASE STUDY: End-of-Year Fundraising Campaign M+R Strategic Services shares lessons learned with Oxfam America during 2010 PAGE 23

FEATURE STORY: FACEBOOKFOR VOLUNTEERS

CHANGE A Quarterly Journal for Nonprofit Leaders ISSUE THREE · SEPTEMBER, 2011 Idealware's Chris Bernard tackles the tough questionwhether Facebook can be an effective volunteer recruitment and engagement tool. [ PAGE 5 ] of

PAGE 21 CASE STUDY: SF Public Press On measuring social media for outreach Show Me the World Make this the year youharness video for your cause, say See3’s Michael Hoffman and Danny Alpert

CASE STUDY: Facebook

Recruitment at AVP Idealware’s Chris Bernard takes us behind the scenes

INSIDE THIS EDITION:

FEATURE STORY: MEASURING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS Idealware's Andrea Berry explains what and how to measure for your mission. [PAGE 14 ]

CHANGEA Quarterly Journal for Nonprofit Leaders

Nonprofit Green IT Jennifer Woofter provides a roadmap for guiding your team to a greener office—and bottom line PAGE INSIDE THIS EDITION: 5

CASE STUDY: Measuring Engagement Idealware's Chris Bernard documents org's Facebook campaign one PAGE 25

FEATURE STORY: FROMOUTCOMES TO IMPACTPlus: A Case Study from Greenlights for Nonprofit[ PAGE 4 ] Success

ISSUE FOUR · DECEMBER, 2011

Feature: Multiple Constituent Groups, OneData Base? How To TrackEveryone Who’s Anyone to You

PAGE 12 CASE STUDY: TrackingConstituents in One Fight Colorectal System Cancer

PAGE 18 CASE STUDY: TrackingConstituents in Two Systems Sarahs... An for Women Oasis

PAGE 20

CASE STUDY: TrackingConstituents in ManySystems

Earthjustice

PAGE 22

HOW ARE WE DOING?

This journal is a new resource from NTEN for nonprofit leaders, and we want to make sure we ’ re delivering content that is relevant, helpful, and easy to access. Please take just a few minutes to tell us what you think: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NTENChange1

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR ORGANIZATION’S DATA

Decentralized data entry is efficient and is the only practical approach at some organizations. But the more people you have entering data the more problems you’ll have with quality control. If no one’s in charge of quality control, you’re going to have a database full of garbage.

It’s a tough problem. Here are a few approaches (other than locking down data entry):

1Policies. You need clear data entry standards. For instance, do you spell out “Boulevard” or abbreviate it as “Bl” or Blvd”? Do you use punctuation (N Main St or N. Main St.)? If your database has a separate “sort name, ” what are the rules (does The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation get sorted under Hewlett or Foundation or…)?

Some of those standards should be managed by your database. For example, it shouldn’t allow AA as a U.S. state code or let you make up titles for people (e.g., it should allow “Mr. ” but not “Mister”). You can find sample data entry policies online here or by doing a web search like “data entry manual” .

2Security. You need to control who can make changes and what they can change. Who can change a mailing address? A phone number? An email address? (And no one should be able to modify or delete a gift after it’s been posted.) 3Training. No one gets access to change data without training on your policies. Training should be targeted to role. You don’t need a week of training to enter a contact report.

4Monitoring. Someone (or multiple someones) needs to review new and changed entries.

5Retraining. When people make mistakes, bring it to their attention. Some organizations make that person fix the mistake. If they continue to make mistakes, you need to retrain them and be prepared to take away their data entry access.

6Automation. You should at least run reports regularly to look for errors. You may be able to automate some fixes. You might also use vendors to perform cleanups like merge/purges on duplicates.

7Acceptance. Some things have to be fixed by your office or by Development Services. No one is going to fire an effective fundraiser because she’s bad at data entry (although they might get her an assistant who will handle the entry). Also, don’t forget that some things are out of your control: donors will give online and misspell their own names, or leave the caps lock on.

ROBERT WEINER, ROBERT L. WEINER CONSULTING TWITTER: @ROBERT _ WEINER

TURN DATA INTO STORIES

Data is so much more than a stack of numbers or a server filled with client outputs. It can justify the work that your organization is doing, help others understand why it is critical, and offer exciting new ways to motivate others to help solve the problems your organization is working on.

Here are 3 ways to tell your stories with data.

1Speak With Numbers: Sometimes, it’s best to just let the numbers speak for themselves. Numbers are a universal language. You can make a big impression just by presenting them clearly, and in context with your other content.

Charity Water, an organization that raises money to build wells in Africa has learned the lesson. Look how elegantly they tell the story of the need for fresh drinking water, and the difference their programs are making.

2Tell your Story, Literally! Sometimes the best way to explain your data is to do just that - explain it. Using video explanations of even simple charts and graphs can help website visitors quickly get the big picture - and arms them with an understanding of the data that lets them explore and discover more confidently on their own.

Hans Rosling, the dutch economist famous for his TED Talks that reveal the insight we can gain from data, has popularized the approach. And even better, through his collaboration with Google, he’s made his data visualization software available to everyone through GapMinder.com, and now through Google Spreadsheets Widgets.

3Reveal Change: Many of the stories we’d like people to understand are centered on revealing the real, longterm impact of a problem or a solution over time: what is the trend you want to stop, or what is the change you’re making?

The impact can become obvious when you reveal the significant change in data in a visual way, whether you are revealing conditions that are worsening, attitudes that are changing, or the improvements your organization is making.

My favorite example of this technique is the Descry Project’s Obesity Epidemic visualization. By using the simple metaphor of t-shirt size to represent a US State’s obesity rate, and making them “grow” over a two decade period—we can quickly see how America’s waistline has ballooned since 1987.

Read the expanded version of this article – with more tips and examples online here.

KURT VOELKER, CTO, FORUM ONE

chanGe

A Quarterly Journal for Nonprofit Leaders

Editor

Annaliese Hoehling

Publications Director, NTEN

Editorial Advisory Board

Debra Askanase

CEO and Engagement Strategist, Community Organizer 2.0

Chris Bernard

Senior Editor, Idealware

Britt Bravo

Big Vision Consulting Barbara Buswell

Executive Director PEAK Parent Center Gavin Clabaugh

Vice President & CIO Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Martin Dooley

IT & Operations Manager Center for Resource Solutions

Deborah Elizabeth Finn

Nonprofit Technology Strategist and Consultant

Paula Jones

Director of Technology and Administration N.C. Center for Nonprofits Designer

Philip Krayna

Neuwirth/Krayna Design

John A Kenyon

Nonprofit Technology Educator & Strategist, John A Kenyon Consulting

Kivi Leroux Miller

President, Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com

Julie Macalik

Membership & Engagement Manager, Greenlights

John Merritt

Vice President of MIS, YMCA of San Diego County

Laura Quinn

Executive Director, Idealware

Amy Sample Ward

Membership Director, NTEN

Ash Shepherd

Project Strategist, NPower Northwest

Michael Stein

Senior Account Executive, Donordigital

Advertising: Contact Holly Ross, NTEN’s Executive Director, regarding advertising in NTEN: Change Permissions & Inquiries: Please give credit to all referenced or re-published content according to the Creative Common license: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported. Example Attribution text: “First published in NTEN: Change (http://nten.org/NTENChange), SEPTEMBER 2011, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/3.0/). ” More information about the journal can be found at http://nten.org/NTENChange/Press

WHAT DOES THE CLOUD MEAN FOR NONPROFITS?

AN NTEN MINI-DOCUMENTARY

This fall NTEN held a Nonprofit Cloud Summit in San Francisco, where attendees discussed the opportunities and challenges that cloud technology solutions offer

to nonprofits. Watch this mini-documentary to hear from attendees, who came from local nonprofits.

CLICK TO PLAY

the nonprofit technoloGy leadership academy IS A 9-

WEEK ONLINE TRAINING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO HELP NONPROFIT LEADERS UNDERSTAND HOW TO MANAGE TECHNOLOGY TO BOTH MEET THEIR BASIC OPERATIONAL NEEDS AND MEET THEIR MISSIONS.

Each participating organization is represented by the Executive Director (or non-technical Leadership staff) and one technology-responsible staff person. In this section we hear from Academy participants in their own words.

QUESTION: How has your organization dealt with change in the past? What challenges or stumbling blocks did you encounter? What are things you think you can do in the future to help staff adopt technology change?

our organization has dealt with change in a few different ways in the past. Some of the challenges that are faced are finding the expertise to guide some of the changes and trusting vendors to set realistic goals and follow through.

In the future, things we can do to help staff adapt technology change include doing small pilot projects (if it fails, it fails small, if it succeeds, do a full deployment), keeping it as simple as possible, and clearly communicating how the technology change will help us achieve our organizational and personal goals. jason shim, director of the Board

Waterloo film Group

When I came to our organization five years ago, I believed that folks were in tune with what was needed in using technology for a variety of tasks. I made a big mistake in thinking that if the organization provided the time for training and offered professional training that staff would be excited

about the opportunity. Only one staff member took advantage of the training in word processing, spreadsheets and email. The rest plodded along using the computer as a glorified typewriter.

Fast forward to today . . . we made knowing how to use technology an integral part of our application and hiring process. The addition of new staff members willing to utilize the tools gave others the freedom to take risks as well.

The most important thing that I have learned is that you work with employees where they are and move them along the continuum in using technology. Training is just in time and in the manner the employee determines works for them. elaine roberts, executive director south dakota parent connection, inc.

it’s hard to comment from a historical perspective, since I’ve only been here at the WCBA since January. I can tell you that “Change” has probably been the key marker of my time here, and the staff has been incredible with accepting it.

I think the most important parts about change are: • Getting excited about it: remember what the end result is going to be, not the process to get there • Compiling input from various sources: experts, member/volunteers, and the staff who will be utilizing the change on a daily basis. Make sure that all stakeholders have a chance to think, consider and offer feedback • Be ready for a few hiccups or failures along the way, and don’t let them define the entire project.

Whitney von haam, executive director

Wake county Bar association We are moving our database functions to a custom webbased application, which will be very different for our entire organization. We are trying several techniques to minimize the stress caused by this change and increase buy-in: 1)involving the staff in the process by meeting with them multiple times to gather their input 2) providing gift cards to staff that offer written feedback (either positive or negative) about the project 3) providing t-shirts to staff as their department “adopts” the new application 4) asking staff to complete a post-implementation survey as new modules are rolled out 5) reporting progress in periodic emails to all staff 6) reporting progress in monthly staff meetings dayna delavergne, director of it foundations for laity renewal

We are a very small organization so our changes have been pretty smooth. While it depends on the particular people involved and their resistance to change, in general, I think smaller organizations have the flexibility to adapt more quickly or easily. Either way, communication is critical: ensuring everyone’s feedback is heard and considered, taking time to plan implementation and providing support along the way. hilary otey, associate director sarah’s . . . an oasis for Women

over the past few years, we have been through a tremendous amount of change—from a complete board

transition in 2008 to having to lay off 68% of staff in 2009 (due to recession). I took on this position right after the layoffs happened. Staff were a little shaky after all of that because they felt extremely vulnerable. I have had to really work with them to ensure they are constantly getting information and feel they have a full and transparent picture of what is going on. It has not been easy but we have slowly gotten back on our feet and are strong again as an organization. We have a great board and a strong team of staff. Key to helping them embrace change is really communicating relevant and timely information to them and involving them in discussions.

With regards to technology change, it is similar. The key is working with them to understand the change, how it impacts their work and our mission, and helping to alleviate any fears or concerns they have. As with any change, some people really step up and help lead it, some take a while longer, and a few may never fully embrace it. marisia Geraci, executive director heifer international – south africa

We try to be as proactive as possible when change is coming. That means sending out advance notice

staff need emails, holding staff meetings to talk about it, and going through training when appropriate. The biggest stumbling TO SEE THAT blocks are when people don’t buy-in to a new system. Change IT’S NOT JUST is always difficult new system, they sin are ce it’s different. Until constantly fighting it. people accept t The best thing is he to BETTER FOR THE promote the benefits of the new technology. People need to see that it’s not just better for our organization, but it’s better ORGANIZATION, for the individual user. IT’S BETTER FOR adam pomeran tration, WinGs tz, direc for kids tor of finance and adminis-

THEM. the biggest technology change that the Foundation had since I’ve been here was implementing a completely revamped website. In the process of developing the project, all program staff were asked how we see our website becoming more effective. I thought this was a very good way to deal with change. However, this process was only conducted individually with each staff. I think it could have been even more beneficial if there was also an open dialogue between everybody to bounce some ideas around and get feedback from each other. Right now, we are in the middle of deciding on a new grant management system. This time, we asked everyone individually what they expect and think about the project but also involved all staff, along with the executive director and president, in one conversation about how we foresee the different uses of the system as a team. phuong pham, communications coordinator the vilcek foundation