What Organizations Need to Know About Nonprofit Technology Presented by George Breeden September 11, 2013
Agenda Brief Introduction and Background Current State of Affairs What is a Constituent Centric Organization? Data, Data, Data Technology for Nonprofit Organizations Keys to Success 2
Introduction Background - George Breeden, MBA, CAE Over 20 years experience in the business and technology sector specifically serving not-for-profit organizations. Certified Association Executive Hartman Executive Advisors is the area s only 100% independent strategic business-technology advisory group, focused on helping mid-market corporations and organizations achieve positive outcomes from their IT investments. When we say independent, we mean it. We are strategic and business focused. Positive Outcomes 3
Current State of Affairs 4
Competition Number of Nonprofits 5 Revenue Number of Donors
Increased Transparency/ Donor Awareness 6
Business + Technology Alignment Nonprofits struggle to identify the business requirements and how they use technology. Technology companies over promise and under deliver. 7
Massive Amounts of Data 8
Data Silos Continue to Thrive 9
What is Technology s Role in Overcoming these Challenges? 10
Building A Constituent Centric Organization What is a constituent? Donor Volunteer Member Event attendee Board member Patient Anyone that has a relationship with the organization What does constituent centric really mean? 11 360 degree view of your constituents Holistic view of your constituents Sometimes called donor centric Personal, timely, relevant
Data, Data, Data You have more than you think 12 Databases Spreadsheets Email Shared drive 3 x 5 cards Your employee s brains Vendors
What Should I Be Doing With All This Data? Turn data into information and knowledge to help run the business. Use it to create a more meaningful relationship with your constituents. Use it to emotionally connect constituents to your mission. Become a constituent centric organization. 13
Healthy Data Critical to your organization s success Accurate, complete and up-to-date Saves your organization money Helps you build and maintain better relationships with your constituents Screen or append your data regularly. National Change of Address (NCOA) and deceased finder are critical. You can also append other information (gender, age, legislative district, email, wealth, etc.) 14
Key Technologies Constituent Relationship Management and Fundraising Data and Business Intelligence Collaboration and Facilitation Marketing Automation Social Media Web Content Management 15
Constituent Relationship Management Constituent relationship management (CRM) is a company-wide strategy for managing interactions with current and prospective constituents. Understand every touch point that constituents have with your organization across every channel It s about more than donations Single version of the truth Measurable benefits- Improved member retention and donor relationships; reduced embarrassment; performance management tool for staff; targeted fundraising campaign strategy 16
Constituent Relationship Management What is it? Key features When can it help organiza<ons? Measurable benefits What do they cost? What are the prerequisites? A systems that allow you to manage and record the overall rela>onships with cons>tuents and business partners. Track informa<on on individuals and companies, and rela<onships between them and your organiza<on beyond just demographics and transac<ons. When organiza<on is looking to build deeper rela<onships with cons<tuents; organiza<ons that have a variety of staff engaging with cons<tuents; beger intelligence about cons<tuent interests that can help build beger services. Improved member reten<on and donor rela<onships; reduced embarrassment; performance management tool for staff. Free to 6+ figures; strong customer service staff commitment; increased work for staff to record interac<ons. A list of cons<tuents; clear idea of what interac<ons to track; ideally a taxonomy of topics to be tracked. What op<ons are available? Premise and SaaS based offerings; numerous generic and industry specific. Caveats Alterna<ves Can be costly in $ and <me to implement; need to have strong P&Ps. Excel lists; shared e- mail contact lists; basic contact management or marke<ng applica<ons. 17
Data and Business Intelligence What is it? Key features When can it help organiza<ons? Measurable benefits What do they cost? What are the prerequisites? What op<ons are available? Caveats Alterna<ves The right informa>on, presented to the right people, at the right >me- ac>onable informa>on; A system that allow for deeper data analysis beyond transac>onal repor>ng. Ability to iden<fy trends and conduct predic<ve analy<cs; evaluate business opportuni<es beyond pure transac<onal repor<ng. When they are looking for ways to do completely new things based on predic<ve models, or iden<fy previously unknown pain. Significant opportunity for new revenue and cost reduc<ons. Can be very expensive, requires significant skills to do data analysis. Solid standardized data; systems that allow for extensive expor<ng or integra<on; good business ques<ons. Third party off- the- shelf analy<cal packages; data analysis companies. The best analy<cs in the world are only as good as the will to act and openness to new ways of looking at your organiza<on s business. Dash- boarding; advanced query tools; basic analy<cs with tools like Excel. 18
Collaboration and Facilitation What is it? Key features When can it help organiza<ons? Measurable benefits What do they cost? What are the prerequisites? What op<ons are available? Caveats Alterna<ves Systems that allow people to work together on projects. Document sharing and discussion groups; ability to manage who can contribute, and overall visibility; document versioning. Organiza<ons that have projects where there should be visibility into what is happening; need for a history of what has changed and who contributed. Accelera<on of projects; iden<fying key contributors. Low $ cost; some staff experience with seyng up forms based directories and appropriate permissions; discussion groups may need to be moderated. Strong commitment to group collabora<on; fairly tech savvy users. Many hosted low cost solu<ons. If the system is not easy to use, some staff may balk at using a structured system; any disagreements are public to the work group. E- mail; conference calls and web conferencing; built in tools to MS Office and other pla[orms. 19
Marketing Automation What is it? Key features When can it help organiza<ons? Measurable benefits What do they cost? What are the prerequisites? What op<ons are available? Caveats Alterna<ves Systems that provide the ability to create mul>- touch marke>ng or cul>va>on campaigns and variable workflows. Ability to segment marke<ng lists, and send different messages in one campaign; ability to have automated follow- up messages, or move someone to other campaigns; advanced analy<cs re: responses and open ac<ons by a variety of factors; messages can be across a variety of media, such as direct mail, email, calls and social media. Improve conversions for significant engagements; ability to capture different types of touch points and responses. Able to iden<fy which cons<tuents respond to which types or channels of messages. Improved revenue and reduced cost of acquisi<on. Generally charged by number of cons<tuents; ranges from very low to very expensive. Skills and familiarity with developing marke<ng campaigns; good knowledge of cons<tuents in database. Variety of off- the- shelf solu<ons. Requires some thought and planning; no point in doing advanced segmenta<on if you then just shot- gun market to everyone; need commitment for trus<ng the process. E- mail marke<ng campaigns; service bureaus. 20
Social Media What is it? Key features When can it help organiza<ons? Measurable benefits What do they cost? What are the prerequisites? What op<ons are available? Caveats Alterna<ves Online and oien unstructured networking among cons>tuents or people with similar interests. Ability to share informa<on where others can respond to or re- share the informa<on freely; strong support for viral marke<ng; can be public or private; support for rich media and crowd sourcing. Organiza<ons that want to build community or awareness around their cause or purpose; ability to find and cul<vate volunteers and contributors; excellent for fundraising. Iden<fy new cons<tuents; increased engagement; dissemina<on of messaging. Staff <me to maintain and free to low cost in dollars; private pla[orms can be pricy. Social media strategy; openness to not being able to control the message in all cases. Ever growing array of public pla[orms, some general, others specialized. Private label Social Media pla[orms including write- once, publish- many tools. You need a social media policy (now); results require work & planning. If you don t build it, one or more of your compe<tors will (or has); broadcast tools are not silver bullets can lose impact of each pla[orm s benefits; automa<on can be dangerous. Web forums; e- mail lists. 21
Web Content Management What is it? A system that allows publishing content online through a structured process. Key features When can it help organiza<ons? Measurable benefits What do they cost? Standard look and feel; ability to tag content with various categories; distribu<ng authoring and approvals; ability to auto- expire/auto- publish content based on <me; integra<ons with wide range of tools and systems; cons<tuent only content. When organiza<on needs to publish a high volume of content, have mul<ple authors and/ or structure the informa<on conveyed for beger usability and visibility. Increased engagement, iden<fy new cons<tuents, increase revenue, reduced costs to disseminate informa<on. Staff commitment and training; no to moderate costs for the systems, but free systems could have costs related to template development, or limits in what can be customized. What are the prerequisites? What op<ons are available? Caveats Alterna<ves Clear idea of content publishing needs and taxonomy; cull old informa<on. Numerous off- the- shelf solu<ons including a number of nonprofit focused systems; hosted web sites; some CRM and fundraising solu<ons have integrated CMS. LiGle point in implemen<ng a CMS if there isn t staff support in pos<ng content. Web publishing tools such as Microsoe Expression Web or Dream Weaver; Blogging tools like Word Press; outsourced web masters. 22
Keys to Success Costs are not just measured in money - staff time and change management are often bigger investments. Organizational culture is key you need to be sure your staff are ready for these changes. Constituent readiness is even more important they need to be open some of these technologies. There are rarely silver bullets these need to be considered investments that are fully staffed, planned for and managed. Integration with your organization s strategic plan is key don t implement something because it sounds cool or other organizations are doing it. 23
Keys to Success Just because it s hosted or a service bureau doesn t mean you shouldn t be concerned about backups and security. 24 Think of these as tools without the right skills, they can be useless if not dangerous. Most of these systems require organizational commitment and participation; these are not IT initiatives, but need top-down commitment. You also generally need someone to champion them and become domain experts in these areas. All of these systems should have clear and measurable business goals and drivers.
Q+A George Breeden, CAE, MBA Hartman Executive Advisors gbreeden@hartmanadvisors.com 301-200-3100 www.hartmanadvisors.com 25