March 2008

Back from New Orleans, and overstimulated from NTC, as usual. Some of the highlights for me:

• It’s always terrific to see people that I’ve worked a lot with, but never met in person before. It’s strange – I often immediately think “No, you can’t be X”, like they’re some sort of impostor, because they don’t match my mental image.

• We had our first Science Fair booth, which was overflowing with people. Between people who wanted to say hi, people who wanted to know more, Idealware contributors who helped out at the table – many thanks to Stephen Backman, Peter Campbell, Heather Gardner-Madras, John Kenyon, and Robert Weiner – and all the people who wanted to say hi to the contributes, we drew quite a crowd.

• We did some strategic planning for Idealware, with the Idealware board. The board is just a great group of people – Jeff Herron, Michael Stein, Allen Gunn, Jen Frazier – and we had a really useful discussion about how to take Idealware to the next level. A special shout out to Stephen Backman of Database Design Associates, who brilliantly planned and facilitated the session.

• My favorite session of the conference was an overview of how nonprofits are using Salesforce, with Sonny Cloward and Marc Baizman (3/26: and Anthia Zito - sorry for the oversight). Just a really useful and inspirational session. I was also really excited for Madeline Stanionis’s “They’re Just Not Into Session” (with her typical brilliant titling and blurb writing), but it was filled beyond capacity and into the hall by the time I got there (late). Ah well.

• I experienced New Orleans through breakfast – had three great breakfasts out while I was there. I don’t think my dinner spots were quite the right ones for a true New Orleans sense – but I can vouch for breakfast.

• It was great to see all of you that I managed to see, and I apologize if I missed you. I have to admit…. I work from home, and I spoke to more people in three days than I usually speak to in three weeks. So I don’t think I was too weird, but if so, please don’t hold it against me!

And now on with grants management systems reviews, and more grants management system reviews… our report is in that phase in which I’m dreaming about grants management interfaces.

It's been a busy few days in Idealware-land - we have two new articles up, and the launch of a new live event!

First up, we have an introduction to search engine optimization - 10 Steps to Being Found on Search Engines . This article is geared towards folks who don't know much about the topic, but is fairly meaty, so anyone who's not an expert may learn a thing or two.

And we have a great article on Using Wikis for Internal Documentation from Jeremy Wallace. Okay, I know it's not the world's sexiest topic, but it's really useful stuff - there's a lot of possibilities there. This article is the first to come out of the knowledge shared at our Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects events - in addition to being great in-person events, we're committed to writing up some of the best learnings in article form.

And speaking of the Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects event, the last one was so popular that we're doing it again, this time in Oakland, CA on May 20 - 21st - still in collaboration with Apsiration, of course. This discussion based, collaborative event was really an amazing thing - in all honesty, I've never seen such glowing end-of-event evaluations for anything. Join us on the West Coast! Read more or register on the Aspiration site.

The great folks over at BoardSource are putting together an article about online board facilitation tools (like BoardVantage, BoardBooks, BoardEffect), and asked me for some thoughts. I don't know a ton about this realm of software, but from what I've seen it's an interesting area, with a lot of promise - but I think it's important to think carefully about your own goals and your own board.

These software packages are, at heart, online collaboration platforms. They allow the collaboration basics like document sharing and discussions and often add on extras that are geared specifically towards typical board needs - like voting tools, and the easy viewing of board books (big packets of information, like financial information or project summaries, that often provide information behind things to be voted on). Like most collaboration platforms, they sound great in theory - stop trying to make decisions via email! Stop mailing or emailing big packets of documents around! have an audit trail online! have real conversations online!

But in practice, it's hard to get people to use online collaboration tools. People are used to other methods - like email or mail. Often, they don't like to view information online, and it's often hard to find the options to print. Many feel that online platforms are impersonal, and prefer a meeting or conference call. These kinds of platforms can work well for tech-savvy groups, particularly remote groups, who are really motivated to share information... but that doesn't sound like most nonprofit boards that I know.

If you're thinking about leading your board in a foray into online collaboration, I'd suggest thinking carefully through your goals, and trying to find a free or inexpensive software option to try out an online strategy. For instance, if realtime collaboration is a goal, there are a number of online presentation tools (like WebEx, ReadyTalk, or GoToMeeting) that can help you discuss, view information online, and vote. If you're looking to store documents, discussions, and task lists online, an inexpensive project management platform like Basecamp could be an interesting fit. Something like Google Docs might be an easy-to-use way to share financial spreadsheets or other documents.

And if you have success with these inexpensive methods, then by all means, take a look at the more robust board collaboration tools. They do offer some very interesting functionality - but if no one will use the package, it doesn't matter what fancy features it has.

Robert Weiner, fundraising technology guru, and I exchanged a few emails yesterday on whether Google Checkouts makes sense for nonprofits. It's a completely free (including no transaction fees) way to take online payments - but how well does it work?

Robert was kind enough to let me publish his very useful thoughts on how it would work as a replacement for something like PayPal or Network for Good for online donations. Here's what he had to say:

1. The donor has to register for a Google account.
2. The donor has to add a credit card number to the Google account, rather than entering the card for a single transaction. The process doesn't take any longer, but I'm not happy about having my credit card number stored. It's like setting up a PayPal account in this way -- the transaction is set up so I become a Google customer, rather than a donor to a nonprofit.
3. The service uses a shopping "metaphor." After you enter the donation and credit card info it says it's calculating shipping and tax (it actually hung at this point and I had to click Refresh). But then it recognizes that this is a donation and says "Click to process your donation."
4. The receipt is a hybrid between a sale and donation. It lists a quantity of items (e.g., 1 donation) but has the right text for a tax receipt.
5. The receipt only displays a limited amount of text. Mine said "This donation to the Z Space Studio and its programs (Word for Word, Youth Arts, Z Plays) is tax-deductible to the fullest..." Yes, it ended with ...
6. I don't see a way to enter a comment, direct my gift, make a tribute gift, or set up a recurring donation.

As Robert concluded, and I agree, it's hard to beat the price, but the service has some problems. If you get less donations because the process is weirder, how much does that 3% savings (because there's no transaction costs) actually buy you?