Tag Archives: collaboration

Web Applications, Benefits of Collaboration, Online Communications

While the daily newspaper may be a dying breed, I still find reasons to read the Wall Street Journal on my daily commute.  A few interesting items from yesterday’s edition:

  • Tech Giants Ramp Up Their Online Offerings – Many large technology companies have resisted the move to online applications since they are often less profitable than traditional software.  It also requires firms to incur expenses (e.g. servers) that previously were paid by customers.  Unlike installed software, revenue from online products is spread over longer time periods, but may not last if customers don’t continue to use the product.  Except for financial software (Quicken) and sometimes MS Office, I use almost all online software now, yet online software still represents a small piece of the market.  But similar to the case of online donations vs. offline contributions, the market share is increasing rapidly – online software sales are rising more than 40% annually compared with 3.4% for all software.  Ultimately, companies will have to adapt since this is what many consumers want.
  • Playing Well with Others -  While this article focuses on the relationship between marketing and R&D, its principles also relate to the benefits of collaboration which I’ve discussed previously, especially important when implementing online campaigns.  For example, does your nonprofit “make sure that everybody recognizes the value that each department brings to the process – and how one side complements the other”?  In many organizations, each department has its own goals and staff are evaluated by how well those objectives are achieved.  But the most important goals usually require many areas to collaborate, something which is still not a part of many organization environments.  It’s important to “get out of your silos” and “focus on the customer.”  In nonprofits, this can easily be translated to viewing your organization as the constituent does – as one.

Finally, are you making the most of your online communications channels?  Nten offers some useful examples of organizations that are doing it right in Online Communications That Don’t Suck. If you decide to embark on a web site redesign, Tech Soup offers Tips for Designing (or Redesigning) a Nonprofit Web Site.  My tip – even though it can be challenging to get everyone to work together (see above), make sure you include all stakeholders throughout the process.  Otherwise, you’ll end up with a site that no one is really happy with.  (And don’t forget to ask real constituents to provide input and feedback, don’t just ask others in your office.)

Coordinating Online Communications and Fundraising Strategies

Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 asked this question on the Nten elist this week: how [do] other organizations create a balance between the Communications and the Fundraising departments when it comes to online initiatives. How should Communications and Fundraising interact without having turf battles?

A fascinating discussion has resulted, which is nicely summarized by Nten.

What ideas do you have for improving collaboration between departments that have traditionally operated separately?

Building a Successful Online Team

Many nonprofits struggle with where to put responsibilities for developing online strategies within a traditional organization structure.  EchoDitto, an organization which provides a wide range of services to nonprofits, has provided  Building an Effective Online Team which highlights the five most crucial positions required for maintaining and growing your organization’s online presence.  While few organizations will choose to staff exactly in this manner, this provides a useful guide to the most important roles in developing online strategies.

In my position, I blend many of this roles, but overall the ‘Internet Director‘ is probably the best description of what I do.


Report from 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Thanks to Holly Ross and the entire Nten staff for last week’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference, held in New Orleans.  With so many worthwhile sessions taking place during the three days, the hardest part was choosing which sections to attend.  I was also fortunate to receive what was clearly the most valuable prize at the Sponsor Fair, a $1000 donation to any nonprofit of my choice, generously contributed by Jay Frank of Nice Touch Communications and Telecom for Charity.

Kudos also to Beth Kanter who organized the Day of Service to assist local nonprofits in New Orleans on the first day of the conference.  Working with Nancy Schwartz, (who writes Getting Attention to help nonprofits with marketing tips), I gave a quick ephilanthropy tutorial to Casa New Orleans.

I also participated in two conference sessions:

Tug of War or Pulling Together? Building Teamwork for Better Online Campaigns, David Hollender, Jed Cohen and I reviewed strategies for how an organization can work collaboratively instead of in silos.  Sharing information regularly can help, as well as a current intranet site and ‘lunch and learn’ where departments are invited to learn about each other’s projects.  While it is helpful to build relationships with those in other departments before you are assigned to work on a project with them, it’s also important to make sure that your own department’s goals are met.

The Joy of CMS: Implementing Sustainable Content Management Systems (The Painless Way to Keep Your Web Site Current): I moderated a panel of three CMS experts: Andrew Cohen, Nathan Gasser and Jeff Herron.  Instead of focusing on available products (of which there are many), we discussed how the idea of content management can be successfully deployed.  Having a current web site is easier when the responsibilities are shared throughout the organization, and when management accepts this as part of everyone’s job.  We also discussed work flow – how web pages are reviewed and released, and how to insure that web content is consistent with other communication vehicles.

I also want to commend Laura Quinn and Dahna Goldstein who moderated two sessions on data integration which I attended.  Since most of us have data in many locations, it is always challenging to share information between multiple products.  Memorable takeaways: when evaluating products, data integration must be on the list of requirements, and it may be best to consider vendors who have been ‘open’ from the start rather than those who have changed mostly due to market demands  Let’s keep this discussion going on Nten’s Data Standards & Integration affinity group!

It was also wonderful to return to New Orleans, which clearly is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.  My wife and I were serenaded one night by a couple who lost their home and were struggling to make ends meet.

Will You Be at Nonprofit Technology Conference?

If you’re planning to attend, please consider participating in the two sessions I’ll be participating in:

  1. The Joy of CMS: Implementing Sustainable Content Management Systems (The Painless Way to Keep Your Web Site Current). I will ask three experts in building web sites how nonprofit organizations can build a culture which supports up to date online content.
  2. Tug of War or Pulling Together? Building Teamwork for Better Online Campaigns. We will discuss how departments can work together within a nonprofit organization to develop and implement online strategies.

Nten’s Annual Nonprofit Technology Conference, expected to attract over 1,000 nonprofit staff members, consultants and vendors from across the United States, will take place in New Orleans, LA from Wed, Mar. 19 – Fri, Mar. 21.  It is always a wonderful event.,  Hope to see you there.

In addition, here is a useful resource on creating online donation pages and forms

Collaboration and Management in Cross-Departmental Web Projects

At today’s Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects conference, I facilitated a session on Collaboration and Management in Cross-Departmental Web Projects.  We focused on techniques to implement successful projects which involve staff from multiple areas within an organization, most who don’t directly report to the project manager.

Some major points:

  • Although many projects involve web sites or other technology implementations, project management is more about ‘soft’ skills in winning cooperation from team members who are often assigned to a project while having to manage their already overburdened task list
  • Nonprofit organizations rarely embrace project management principles as set forth by the Project Management Institute, nor do they develop internal structures such as a project management office.
  • Assigning a team or task force across department lines can be utilized as a way to give team members an identity separate from their usual work responsibilities.
  • The basic definition of project management should include an informal toolkit of ‘soft’ tools such as finding evangelists to help drive project progress, ways to win stakeholder cooperation and addressing organizational culture challenges.

More details on this session and other discussions held at the conference can be found at this wiki.  Thanks to Allen Gunn of Aspiration and Laura Quinn of Idealware for organizing this event.

Bridging Divide between Fundraising and Marketing

As I’ve become more involved in development issues, I joined the Association of Fundraising Professionals this year.  I recently received their Advancing Philanthropy bimonthly magazine which featured an article on how fundraising and marketing staff can work together.  Quoting a recent study which examined the relationship of marketing to other NPO departments, not working together can “lead to conflicts that substantially affect a nonprofit’s performance.”  Yet when constituents interact with a nonprofit, “they’re dealing with the organization as a whole.”

Instead, it is suggested that brand can act as a common thread that unites separate departments.  “Brand is everything you do, everything you are, everything you say.  Making sure that they are all consistent across different functions is essential.”  While I’ve never seen marketing and fundraising merged into a separate department, it does seem to make sense since “the roles that marketing and fundraising play in crafting a distinctive brand is complimentary,” according to Network for Good‘s CEO Bill Strahmann.

Brand is also critical in differentiating your organization from others that represent the same cause.  Jo Sullivan, who manages both development and communications at the ASPCA, has done especially well in this area.  The ASPCA is also represented on Facebook and MySpace.  (Some organizations are still debating whether or not to devote resources to social networking sites.)

How do you get NPO departments to work together and not in different directions?  At my current organization, we’ve occasionally had lunch meeting where one department will highlight projects it is working on;  judging by comments from other attendees, it’s clear that not everyone is on the same page.  Understanding the complementary objectives of fundraising and marketing is a vital step towards establishing a consistent image to our constituents.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving.  Let’s be grateful for what we have every day of our lives.