A Chat With The Interns

For the second month in a row, this month's podcast interview is with two people at the same time. This month I got a chance to speak with two college interns that are working at Blackbaud Austin in the Engineering Department. Ashley Doub and Christopher Hitte are both working with the Luminate CRM team this summer to help improve some of the solutions that we deliver to clients while getting hands on experience in a professional environment. Both of them are students from the University of Texas. I was super impressed with their energy and insight. They also shared some tips on what nonprofits can do to better recruit young talent to their organizations. Well worth the listen if you have open positions at your org.

Connection Cafe Podcast 10

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Blackbaud and Convio: Stronger Together

Not even a whole summer on the Blackbaud team, and we are knocking things out left and right. Last month we shared our “quick wins” and today we’re ready to share our “stronger together” initiatives. 

Our “stronger together” initiatives are key areas where we knew we could plan better solutions once we put our minds together.  Jana Eggers, Sr. VP of Products and Marketing, says it best.

In summary,

1. We’re improving duplicate management for Blackbaud CRM by using the Luminate name database.
2. We are adding a complimentary Wealth Audit for Luminate CRM and Common Ground in August.
3. In November we will launch integration between the Financial Edge and Common Ground to enable a seamless post between the two systems and reduce reconciliation time.

For more information on our integration or any of the Blackbaud products, be sure to read the KnowHow product blog. If you’d like to provide feedback (and we hope you will), please do so in the comments below or on our Product Discovery page which now includes the Luminate and Common Ground suites.

Your Evolution to Multi-channel

Multi-channel! Multi-channel! Multi-channel!  It's all the rage but do you know where how close your organization is to achieving it?  We've taken a look at what that journey looks like for an organization and have broken it down into 4 major stages: early, traditional, coordinated and optimized - I know, we deserve bonus points for our naming creativity but hopefully they are at least clear!

I’ll go into a high-level view of each of these stages but if you take a quick little quiz to find out where you’re at, you’ll get some really cool action plans for how to get to the next level!

Early Stage: Integration may be a goal but identifying how to get there can be a challenge.

• Minimal online marketing
• Calendar-based campaigning
• Not financially committed to a second channel

Traditional: You’ve moved some efforts online but they may not be coordinated with larger fundraising and communication strategies.

• Separate team and metrics for online marketing
• No calendar and/or campaign coordination
• Second channel constitutes 5-20% direct response revenue
• Separate databases for online/offline

Coordinated: You’ve conquered the structural challenges and are seeing results but can’t track cause and effect as well as you need to.

• Thematically integrated, some consolidation of data across channels
• Shared metrics 
• Limited sensitivity to solicitation frequency
• Decisioning beyond RFM modeling

Optimized: You’re pushing the envelope but are always looking for ways to increase engagement with your supporters.

• Unified strategy and real-time data integration
• Measure success across channels, not by channel
• Donors’ behaviors and interests drives communication stream
• Shared budget and resources

And just remember, small changes can equal BIG IMPACT!  

Take the multi-channel quiz here!

The Real Power of the Purse

As a grown up Girl Scout who also served as a camp counselor, assistant troop leader and staff person, I’m a certified geek for all things girl power.

Imagine my excitement when I read “Women exert new influence on philanthropy” on MSNBC last week. You should read the full article but I’ll share some of my favorite gems here:

• “…female-headed households are more likely to give to charity than male-headed households; and that in nearly all income groups women give more than men.”
• “’We raised over $6 million in 30 seconds,' said Melanie Sabelhaus…”
• “A $34.7 million Red Cross text campaign to aid victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake was put together by a team of women…”
• “But the real surge in woman's philanthropy may be yet to come.”

Holy guacamole. Look at the first three points and then think about the fourth. Women are doing all that and the real surge isn’t even here yet? Wow.

If you aren’t already purposefully targeting women, it’s probably a good time to start.

I wish the next part of this post was “5 things you can do to woo women donors” but alas, I don’t have a fail-proof plan. Like any segment that is half the population, there’s a lot of variance. However, I can happily offer you more resources for learning. So, here you go:

• The 2011 Study of High Net Worth Women's Philanthropy
• Marketing to Women Quick Facts
• What do Women Want in a Laptop? (a what-not-to-do story)

Mobile Content Strategy

I recently attended an excellent webinar with Karen McGrane about Mobile Content Strategy. The funny thing is that there is actually no such thing! Karen’s talk encouraged us to think about content in a more holistic way. So, instead of content for desktop computers, mobile devices or iPads, what about creating a single content structure that will allow you to show the SAME content on any device?!

C.O.P.E. = Create Once, Publish Everywhere. This is the acronym Karen uses to describe this approach and I think it’s brilliant. The beauty of C.O.P.E. is that it not only allows your organization to adapt to the burgeoning world of mobile devices but it will also set you up for success with any devices introduced in the future that we may not have even thought of! Browsing the web on a 42” television anyone?

So what does this look like? Karen used NPR as an example so I pulled some screenshots of my own. Check out this Elton John story on the NPR website:
 

And in their Media Player:

And on their mobile website:

And in their NPR Music app:

The magic here is that an NPR web administrator only had to create this content item one time. As they created it, they specified a series of different length headlines and descriptions and different-sized photos (a.k.a. meta data) and then their CMS determines which pieces to display for each device.

What do you think about the C.O.P.E. approach? Does it make sense for your organization? Do you have a CMS that makes this a viable option or does it seem like something that’s out of your reach? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Meanwhile, I’ll be singing “Daniel” in my head all day thanks to that story :)