Transforming Nonprofits

Conversation and advice from Build Consulting's David Deal and Community IT Innovators' CEO Johan Hammerstrom. Learn how to grow leadership potential and manage IT without being pigeonholed into leadership OR tech - our nonprofit community needs leaders who can do both.

Between them, Johan and David have decades of experience both in being executive leaders and in interacting with IT leaders at nonprofit clients, from large to small, with a variety of IT needs.

In this webinar on leadership in IT at nonprofits, David and Johan took questions and shared practical advice and tips for developing leadership skills around IT management, whether or not you are "the IT person."

Part 1 includes a discussion and advice on how to grow your career as a leader if you start out in IT, including resources from the experts, which we share in the transcript. Part 2 covers how to align your IT strategy and your organizational strategy as a nonprofit leader. Johan and David also touch on how to nurture three essential leadership traits in the second part of this podcast.

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Build and Community IT are passionately vendor-agnostic. This conversation delves into the career paths and resources to become a leader in IT and create tech opportunities for your nonprofit.

Some of the best conversations are inspired by sitting around the fire and thinking of possibilities and visions – large and small.

Guest Justin Melnik has a rich experience working with major brands like QVC. He also is a professor at Temple University where he teaches branding and marketing strategy. For any nonprofit that's thinking about doing a brand refresh, has recently completed one, or is thinking about how to invest in branding, read on for a deep discussion on what branding has to do for nonprofits.

• Investing in new technology systems only to find that your colleagues have not adopted them?
• Making changes to your systems or processes only to find that people revert to their old ways?
• Hearing about "change management" but feel unclear on what it is or how to perform it?

Most technology projects have non-technological goals: raise more money, reach more supporters, serve more program participants, or become more efficient. To reach those goals, not only must the technology improve, but the habits and behaviors of system users must change – sometimes significantly.

In this video, we share a framework on how to manage the challenges of aligning organizational change with technology projects. Learn how to examine the impacts of a technology change and identify the steps required for an organization to manage the change. Peter Gross and Johan Hammerstrom also answer questions from the audience on specific change management issues such as communication, the role of leadership, and how to address siloed departments with organization-wide technology change. Download the free framework here: https://buildconsulting.com/learning/resource-change-management-template-free/

What are the Six Steps to Becoming a Data Management Ninja?

This episode discusses the skills, many of which are non-technical, that any nonprofit staff member can use to improve their role in data management and help their organization tell their stories better.

1. Learn the nonprofit landscape
2. Understand the relationships
3. Learn your technology
4. Become a data quality nerd
5. Become a great communicator
6. Become a super sleuth

In ways both large and small, every person working at a non-profit shares some data management responsibility whether you're in development, programs, finance, HR, IT, the executive office or any other department, you've got to manage data effectively.

Managing data could be entering data and keeping it up to date or running imports, exports or reports but it could also mean just conducting the kind of operations that create the environment for good data management. From building an organization's culture to hiring the right people, designing and managing a program or a campaign or simply properly executing a process that leads to a good outcome. So, like it or not, we are all data managers and we all have skills that we need to develop to go along with that.

The better the data we have, the better we can tell the story of our nonprofit's mission and work - to donors, board members, the public at large, volunteers, clients, and employees.

• Investing in new technology systems only to find that your colleagues have not adopted them?
• Making changes to your systems or processes only to find that people revert to their old ways?
• Hearing about "change management" but feel unclear on what it is or how to perform it?

Most technology projects have non-technological goals: raise more money, reach more supporters, serve more program participants, or become more efficient. To reach those goals, not only must the technology improve, but the habits and behaviors of system users must change – sometimes significantly. In this podcast presentation, former founding Partner Peter Gross defines nonprofit change maangement and walks through a brief case study. He then answered audience questions from nonprofit practitioners. This presentation was originally hosted by Data Analysts for Good. Download the Build Consulting Change Management template.

Organizations often have years of donor data that doesn't inform action. Information about donors and prospects contained in CRM for nonprofits—when properly managed and analyzed—can have a dramatic impact! Luckily, there are techniques to transform data into information—improving donor data to drive outcomes.

In this episode, we share a story of how one nonprofit organization improved their donor data. This story is organized into three parts:

• Decreasing the "noise" in the database
• Getting to know the constituents
• Learning about best practices and engagement/giving trends
• Developing a plan and building consensus

• Reducing friction in the subscription and donation processes
• Improving handling of potentially fraudulent transactions
• Pushing the right Call to Action
• Improving donor data analysis and segmentation
• Increasing integration and process automation
• Applying greater discipline in constituent data management

• Increased revenue
• Increased "sustainer" monthly giving; smoothed out cash flow
• Increased donor and organizational happiness

This story includes key lessons that can be leveraged by any nonprofit to increase organizational knowledge of its constituents while turning that information into outcomes. You'll learn a variety of helpful strategies and tactics to create better donor data. You can apply these lessons to improve your own donor data and create your own success story!

Being an expert in user experience doesn't mean that you're an expert designer or programmer. User experience is about how constituents experience your nonprofit organization. Learn five user experience "hacks" that come before technology—and how to create a "user-centric" experience of your organization.

In pt 2 of this webinar hosted by Community IT Innovators' Johan Hammerstrom, Kyle Haines, Co-Founding Partner of Build Consulting, answers registrant and attendee questions to dig a little deeper into the concepts and how they can transform your thinking about your tech projects.

The Five Hacks

1. Agree that user experience is important
2. Focus on staff experience
3. Evaluate your physical environment
4. Map your constituent journeys
5. Collect and act on feedback

Being an expert in user experience doesn't mean that you're an expert designer or programmer. User experience is about how constituents experience your nonprofit organization. Learn five user experience "hacks" that come before technology—and how to create a "user-centric" experience of your organization.

In pt 1 of this webinar hosted by Community IT Innovators' Johan Hammerstrom, Kyle Haines, Co-Founding Partner of Build Consulting, walks us through a novel process for thinking about delivering nonprofit technology projects. In pt 2 Johan and Kyle answer registrant and attendee questions to dig a little deeper into the concepts and how they can transform your thinking about your tech projects.

The Five Hacks

1. Agree that user experience is important
2. Focus on staff experience
3. Evaluate your physical environment
4. Map your constituent journeys
5. Collect and act on feedback

In part 2, moderated by former Partner Peter Mirus, three of Build's experts lead a discussion about the challenges facing modern development/fundraising operations. We answer questions from the audience about development operations and technology challenges, and share insights and experience from our combined decades of experience in nonprofit strategy and constituent relationship management (CRM).

The Questions

1. I'm starting an individual giving program from the ground up. What should be my major focus points?

2. What are the potential pitfalls in selecting a new CRM system for my organization?

3. Our CRM seemed perfect during the sales pitch in but reality, there are a lot of workarounds that are taking up a lot of my time.

4. What's the role of leadership and supporting good constituent relationship management practices?

In this episode, moderated by former Partner Peter Mirus, three of Build's experts lead a discussion about the challenges facing modern development/fundraising operations. We answer questions from the audience about development operations and technology challenges, and share insights and experience from our combined decades of experience in nonprofit strategy and constituent relationship management (CRM).

The Questions

We shared our thoughts in answer to the following questions:

1. What have been the major fundraising development, technology trends and evolutions over the past three to four years?

2. It seems that Salesforce has dominated the market. Do you think, Microsoft or any other company has a chance to be competitive?

3. What should non-profit fundraising and development look for in the future evolution of CRM technology? What are the kinds of improvements or enhancements that we should expect to see maybe over the next year or two or even longer than that?

4. Do you think there are more advancements that can be made with data visualization or have those peaks been reached?