Transforming Nonprofits

In Pt 2, Kyle and Steve dig further into listener questions and talk about those 1000+ unedited photos from the 2011 Gala you want to migrate and store in your new online SharePoint, and how to manage a migration in general. Do you have questions about file sharing and collaboration at your nonprofit?

Do you use Microsoft 365? If you use Teams to share files with colleagues, you use SharePoint.

Have you been confused about SharePoint in the past? Sometimes SharePoint training can be overwhelming. SharePoint can also be over-built and overly complicated for the basic user.

In this webinar, we answer your most common questions and walk you through the ways SharePoint makes sharing files easier.

Kyle Haines, Partner at Build Consulting, and Steve Longenecker, Director of IT Consulting at Community IT, have an expert discussion on SharePoint for Nonprofits.

Between them the panelists have a breadth of knowledge on nonprofit use of SharePoint. They cover the advantages and challenges of this tool; migrations, training, and change management; and how to set up file architecture to match your organization's style. SharePoint is a powerful tool for many applications; in this webinar we focus on using it for file sharing. We got so many questions on moving from a "sites" model for SharePoint (if you implemented SharePoint a few years ago) to using folders and accessing files through Teams that we plan another webinar specific to those questions for the future.

SharePoint is the tool within the Microsoft Office 365 online suite that provides a platform for storing, sharing and collaborating on documents. If you have Microsoft 365, you have SharePoint. If you are not using it to collaborate with your colleagues, or if you are finding it frustrating or hard to use, this webinar gives some tips and answers to your questions!

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Build and Community IT are passionately vendor-agnostic.

Do you have questions about file sharing and collaboration at your nonprofit?

Do you use Microsoft 365? If you use Teams to share files with colleagues, you use SharePoint.

Have you been confused about SharePoint in the past? Sometimes SharePoint training can be overwhelming. SharePoint can also be over-built and overly complicated for the basic user.

In this webinar, we answer your most common questions and walk you through the ways SharePoint makes sharing files easier.

Kyle Haines, Partner at Build Consulting, and Steve Longenecker, Director of IT Consulting at Community IT, have an expert discussion on SharePoint for Nonprofits.

Between them the panelists have a breadth of knowledge on nonprofit use of SharePoint. They cover the advantages and challenges of this tool; migrations, training, and change management; and how to set up file architecture to match your organization's style. SharePoint is a powerful tool for many applications; in this webinar we focus on using it for file sharing. We got so many questions on moving from a "sites" model for SharePoint (if you implemented SharePoint a few years ago) to using folders and accessing files through Teams that we plan another webinar specific to those questions for the future.

SharePoint is the tool within the Microsoft Office 365 online suite that provides a platform for storing, sharing and collaborating on documents. If you have Microsoft 365, you have SharePoint. If you are not using it to collaborate with your colleagues, or if you are finding it frustrating or hard to use, this webinar gives some tips and answers to your questions!

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience. Build and Community IT are passionately vendor-agnostic.

Nonprofit organizations often enter and manage key financial data in places other than their accounting system—and require that the data flow into the general ledger.

But getting the data from those systems—for managing fundraising, membership, grants, or services—into the accounting system is rarely as straightforward as we would like it to be.

In this episode part 2, three of Build's experts lead a discussion on how nonprofit development and accounting teams can better work together in managing financial data.

The Questions

We shared our thoughts in answer to the following questions:

1. What are some of the key problems with how nonprofits manage gift records that make life hard for Accounting? 1.a Our donation/membership/grants are first recorded in the Financial Edge in our accounting office, then given to development to record in Raiser's Edge. Is this process being done backwards?
2. What should we be thinking about when planning a CRM to ERP integration to help make sure the data flows properly?
3. We're thinking about changing our CRM and/or ERP system to help solve our financial data flow problems. How should we approach this process? And what systems should we consider? 3.a Have you ever had two nonprofits who needed essentially the same application share the development cost? 3.b What items in the new FASB financial reporting rules have the biggest impact on nonprofit GL structures and GL feeds from the CRM system?

Nonprofit organizations often enter and manage key financial data in places other than their accounting system—and require that the data flow into the general ledger.

But getting the data from those systems—for managing fundraising, membership, grants, or services—into the accounting system is rarely as straightforward as we would like it to be.

In this episode part 1, three of Build's experts lead a discussion on how nonprofit development and accounting teams can better work together in managing financial data.

The Questions

We shared our thoughts in answer to the following questions:

1. What are the differing viewpoints or priorities of Development and Accounting when it comes to managing financial data?
2. How can we resolve misunderstanding between Development and Accounting about how to categorize gift records?
3. Our chart of accounts is currently very complex and confusing, which makes it very difficult to map gift records to the GL for integration. Is there a solution?

In Part 2 of this presentation, Build's newest Partner Debbie Cameron presents Change Management: Practical Solutions, Not Just Buzzwords virtually at the 202 Good Tech Fest conference. This accessible explanation of her consulting passion is a timeless exploration of practical steps your organization can implement right now.

"Change management" is a discipline with rigorous methodologies but applying it to your organization or technology project is an art. Debbie helps demystify the discipline and walks through practical and innovative tools to help you apply change management principles to your unique situation. Part 2 covers the steps and tools of change management planning in more depth.

Build's newest Partner Debbie Cameron presents Change Management: Practical Solutions, Not Just Buzzwords virtually at the 202 Good Tech Fest conference. This accessible explanation of her consulting passion is a timeless exploration of practical steps your organization can implement right now.

"Change management" is a discipline with rigorous methodologies but applying it to your organization or technology project is an art. Debbie helps demystify the discipline and walks through practical and innovative tools to help you apply change management principles to your unique situation.

In part 2 of this webinar, our experts will lead a discussion of why, to be successful with new software at your organization, technology must come last.

In this "Ask the Experts" webinar, we answer your questions on ways to create a sound process for software selection, before considering the specific technologies available to meet your organizational needs.

The Questions

1. How do we define the requirements for the software we need?
2. When is an RFP (Request for Proposal) or RFI (Request for Information) appropriate in a software selection?
3. System demos: (1) When should we let the vendors demo? (2) How do we ensure vendors show us what we need to see—not what they want to show us?
4. How can we make sure a vendor is giving us a realistic project estimate?
5. Any change involves a cost to the institution. How do you weigh the benefits vs cost? (E.g., retraining all users.)

The experts: David Deal, Kyle Haines, and Peter Mirus, co-founders of Build Consulting.

Guest Debbie Cameron, Build Consultant's newest Partner, and Build Consulting's Kyle Haines had an informal discussion on what the upcoming few years will probably bring to the nonprofit IT ecosystem, changes to expect and the value of change management in nonprofit IT projects. Their conversation also touches on the importance of planning for 3-5 years out instead of trying to plan for 10 years out when making a software selection, how best-of-breed models allow greater flexibility to pivot but require greater emphasis on keeping clean export-able data, and observes that being the planner and cheerleader for nonprofit tech projects complements being the planner and cheerleader of an active family.

Debbie led the development of Build Consulting's change management practice before joining the leadership team. Prior to joining Build Consulting, Debbie led the multi-year constituent relationship management transformation at the World Wildlife Fund that brought together diverse stakeholders ranging from data scientists to relationship managers. Debbie began her career at Anderson Consulting in the Enterprise Technology practice and then worked for Bearingpoint as an Engagement Manager in the State, Local and Education practice. She is a graduate of Virginia Tech.

Our Fireside Chats are designed for audiences with varied experiences with technology. In this Fireside Chat learn more about the value of change management in nonprofit IT tech projects and the leadership role Debbie Cameron will take on as she joins the team of Partners at Build Consulting.

In this webinar, our experts will lead a discussion of why, to be successful with new software at your organization, technology must come last.

In this "Ask the Experts" webinar, we answer your questions on ways to create a sound process for software selection, before considering the specific technologies available to meet your organizational needs.

The Questions

1. We are about to select a new CRM. What are the top two or three things we can do to make the selection successful?
2. My executive director wants to go with [Shiny Solution X], but I'm not sure it is right for us. How can I pump the brakes on that?
3. The last time we implemented a CRM it failed miserably. How can we prevent that in the future?
4. Who needs to be involved in the selection process?
5. We want to select new software for [Challenge X] but I feel like our managers don't know what business processes they want to follow. How important is that to doing a selection?

The experts: David Deal, Kyle Haines, and Peter Mirus, co-founders of Build Consulting.

Part 2: Nonprofit organizations collect a lot of donor data in their CRM systems. But what is the quality of that data? And what insights are nonprofits getting from that data to help increase donations?

Listen to Build Consulting's development/fundraising operations and CRM experts, who offer ideas and answer your questions about how to take your donor data management to the next level, originally recorded in 2019.

Our experts have served hundreds of nonprofit organizations, assessing their needs for donor relationship management, selecting and implementing CRM systems, and providing hands-on data management and reporting support.

Registrants submitted dozens of questions and we chose nine to answer, reflecting a range of issues important to the participants. Thank you to all our participants for helping shape our discussion to include real-life scenarios.

The Questions

5. We are getting ready to do a wealth screening. Is there a vendor that you guys like?

6. We just lost our database administrator, what should we be looking for in hiring a new one?

7. Before our database administrator left, she left a huge list of things that needed to be cleaned up, I have no idea where to start and had no idea that our database was so messy.

8. I'm never able to get the reports that I need from my fundraising team. Is it how our database is structured or am I asking the wrong questions?

9. Sometimes I just want to start from scratch, with a blank database. We can't do that, but where do we start?