Online Training

The right database can help you track all of your contacts and related data in a manageable, efficient way that ensures your information is current, accessible and reportable. In this recording of a seminar, we take a closer look at the most commonly used, affordable databases and what each might offer your organization.

How do you build a list of constituents truly interested in your cause? We’ll discuss a wide variety of techniques that can help, and how they all fit together.

It’s important for you to be able to edit your own site! We’ll explore affordable options for content management systems - tools that allow you to build sites where anyone can update website text and images.

How many people visit your Web site? What are they doing there?   Through demos of AWStats and Google Analytics, this recording of a seminar looks at what analytics packages can tell you about your site.

Are you wondering what it would take to integrate your various software packages to allow them to share data? In this recording of an online seminar, we talk through the high level options and key considerations, and then dive into some of the technical terms and concepts that will help you understand what would be involved in programming an automatic connection between software packages. 

Leverage the passion of your staff, volunteers, and supporters by asking them to fundraise for you! There's a class of new software tools that help your supporters setup their own fundraising page (with their own stories, pictures, and fundraising targets) and then solicit their contacts on behalf of your organization. We'll talk through some best practices for succeeding with distributed fundraising, and take a look at some of the software options available to support it.

How do you convey your great work via compelling emails, written stories, photos, blogs, videos, and podcasts? We'll cover the storytelling pricinciples and the tools that can help.

Fundraising via email requires an understanding not only how to design and write an email campaign but broadcast email tools, online donation tools, and more.  We'll walk through what you'll need to know to design your own email fundraising campaign.

 It's easier that you might think to broadcast text messages to your supporters' cell phones, to ask them a quick question, or even to ask them to donate right through their phone.  In this recording of an online seminar, we talk through the principles, software packages, and best practices that can help.  

 Are you a membership organization, grantmaker, or affiliate group?  Are you trying to figure out affordable ways to help your network use technology more effectively?  In this free half-hour long recording, Laura Quinn walks through the  types of technology support your network is most likely to need, and the methods -- from free to inexpensive to more comprehensive -- that are likely to help. 

 Are you struggling to decide whether your organization should be using Facebook, Twitter, or both?  Or perhaps neither?  This 15 minute interactive module will help you to explore how these tool can help your organization, and what other nonprofits are doing with them.

 It's never been easier to conduct surveys, with a plethora of solid and useful tools that help you create online survey instruments.  We'll talk through the lower cost and a few of the more robust online survey tools that are available, and look at a few in action.  We'll wind up with best practices on designing a solid and reputable online survey, recruiting participants, and analyzing the data.

 Through more than six months of research -- three surveys, six discussion groups, and a collection of social media stories from more than 270 organization, Idealware has gathered a huge amount data on what's working in the realm of social media and what's not.  Working from actual research statistics, they'll talk about how much time these tools take to manage, a few of the characteristics of those using them effectively, and some fascinating results on how Facebook and Twitter users use these tools to learn about and interact with nonprofits.

How do you keep track of your volunteers? Do you still use pen and paper? Should you buy a new tool for tracking volunteers, or use one that you already have?

 As a decision-maker, you are responsible for figuring out which social media your organization should use. In this recording, we’ll take the mystery out of the process and help you create your own social media strategy.

In this recorded session we dive into the concept of branding through the lens of social media. Taking a detailed look at how you can create, refine and manage your brand message and personality through social media, this class will explore how what you say and how you say it impacts people's impressions of your organization.

Which communication channels --  like email, direct mail, and websites, social networking sites, blogs, online communities, and more -- make sense to communicate what kind of messages, or to encourage action?  We'll provide a decision making structure to help you define what makes sense for you. 

People “like” you, but what is that actually doing to support your organization’s bottom line? We’ll talk critically about how you can move constituents up a ladder of engagement from a simple “like” to actually get them to do something for your organization. Sign a petition, attend an event, join a movement and yes, even donate—it’s possible to get your constituents to do all of these things as a result of social media actions, but it’s not easy.

What makes a good email message? How should you craft the subject line, header information, action text, and the whole look of the email so that your constituents will receive it, open it, and respond? And then what metrics should you look at in order to assess whether it worked? We’ll look at archetypal fundraising emails, action emails, and eNewsletters, and talk through the techniques and best practices that can take your own email communications to the next level.

You have a donor management system, but how do you get the most out of it while maintaining it for optimal efficiency? It’s important to keep your data useful and clean, but how do you do that—and how do you take advantage of all the hidden gems that are in there to make your data truly work for you? Join us to learn about donor management software best practices, including customizing  your system to your organization’s needs, cleaning data, defining data standards and coding, and the importance of training staff to enter and extract data efficiently.