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    <title>Archive</title>
    <description>News from the Blog</description>
    <link>http://www.supportingadvancement.com/community/NewsfromtheBlog/tabid/98/Default.aspx?BlogDate=2006-09-30</link>
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    <pubDate>Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:15:13 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Transforming the Advancement Environment </title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="Normal" id="dnn_ctr364_MainView_ViewEntry_lblEntry"&gt; Reconfiguring your information resources for the next century.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Change is now discontinuous and at the same time continually transformational. We’d like the world to remain steady, but the desire for continuity becomes a mirage. I.T. is now the way, in fact the primary way in which society is moving closer to working and collaborating as one global unit. Change is changing and the pace is ever faster.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Consider content management software. We can produce content at a comparatively low cost, and even include interactive elements as part of our content. And without programming on the user end. We lose independence of development by following a more generic approach, but experience great gains in efficiency.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Technology has now become our means but not our end. We are more capable than ever of transforming our organizations and our processes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Think about …&lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;Distributed learning&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;Competition&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;E-commerce models&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;Portals&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;Support&lt;/li&gt;
    &lt;li&gt;Research&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, change is not easy and there are some barriers to transformation:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Mission&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt; and Markets.&lt;/strong&gt; Not clearly defined. We need to think about unbundling services and provide a more custom approach initiated by information technology and independent of our development and advancement silos. For example a closer affinity travel program and planned giving link, since those that go on affinity trips have been discovered to have a greater propensity for planned giving.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Erosion of Historic Markets&lt;/strong&gt;. Market demographics are changing so radically, that traditional approaches to technology may no longer be effective. i.e. Old product development life cycles and software replacement no longer apply to your online community. If your community is not built from components that you can easily move in and out of pages, and customize the functionality, fields, and other elements, it’s time to re-architect the piece.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Hybrid Models.&lt;/strong&gt; Combination of online and physical presences are becoming more commonplace. For example, we need to be better at creating events on our web sites that are tangential to events in physical places. If you can’t attend one, you can participate in the other, but maybe through the simultaneous use of web cams and on-online messenger services you can do both simultaneously, and from anywhere in the world.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I.T. should be a strategic resource and applied across the board, but not necessarily in an equal fashion. I.T. managers should not make decisions in isolation, but should be part of the board or executive council that picks and decides priorities. Many of us in I.T. like to make decisions on our own, but now more than ever, there needs to be a clear partnership and a direct partnership with our most important decision makers. I.T. affects everything we do, and is now so complicated that any operational or business process decisions shouldn’t be made without I.T. involvement.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We need to be agile, mobile, and flexible. We need to develop new organizational structures to cop with the speed and pace of radical transformation. We need to be able to scale all of our technologies and the people that support it. Most of us are constantly dealing with the limitations of scale, and as the future is upon us, limitations of scope. A simple example – what’s your strategy for using text messaging as part of your solicitation strategies? In Hungary, one of the large charities partnered with one of the large cell phone providers to do a text messaging campaign to the provider’s customers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The fist text message was talking about the campaign, giving a brief case statement, a link do give. The second text message that went out to those that didn’t respond to the fist campaign, actually asked people if it would be OK for the charity to call them on their cell phones directly. The positive response was very high.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Granted, some nations are much further ahead of North America in the use of text messaging, but the strategy implications for the transformational use of I.T. in our business is …&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Transforming our environments is not only critical to our future, but to maintaining our edge in the present, and celebrating our past. The world is changing more quickly and we need to accelerate our own pace.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <link>http://www.supportingadvancement.com/community/NewsfromtheBlog/tabid/98/EntryID/176/Default.aspx</link>
      <author>services@supportingadvancement.com</author>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:04:26 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Raiser's Edge Tip of the Month</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;On the gift tab of a constituent record, you can right click anywhere in the grid and export the whole gift history to Excel, and then group by gift type, etc. We've found this extremely helpful when doing our Donor Wall updates.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
For more information on this and other hot hot Raiser's Edge tips and tricks, please visit &lt;a title="http://reusers.server-planet.com" href="http://reusers.server-planet.com/"&gt;&lt;u title="http://reusers.server-planet.com"&gt;&lt;font title="http://reusers.server-planet.com" face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"&gt;http://reusers.server-planet.com&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" size="2"&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial Black" color="#0000ff"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Peter Gulka&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial" size="2"&gt;Database Administrator - NAIT Development Office&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <link>http://www.supportingadvancement.com/community/NewsfromtheBlog/tabid/98/EntryID/181/Default.aspx</link>
      <author>services@supportingadvancement.com</author>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:04:26 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Your Electronic Ideas and Tools for Implementing Them</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;We need to apply our ideas where they will do the most good. Be very clear on ideas that you thought might not have been great, but that could eventually lead to a practical implementation of something. Your idea may have been a little too far ahead of its time and maybe the tool just didn’t exist. The “Internet Bubble” of a few years ago is a prime example. Much money lost, but survivors capitalized R&amp;D, and for all the failures, we ended up with ideas that worked, and technology tools to support them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What tools are available, and how do we maintain what we currently have?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Select your tool set based on where you need to go vs. where you’re currently at. i.e. We all know HTML, but content management as a tool makes more sense for implementing and training staff than investing a lot of money in a new HTML editing tool.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Who makes decisions on your programs and services? For electronic services, these decisions are not always as obvious. These tend to be determined by outside advice and trends. Internal staff may not have the knowledge. The idea of electronic communications as a “program area” with a separate manager and job descriptions is uncommon. This is changing, and some organizations have now implemented “electronic divisions” at the most global level of the organization and are applying significant resources. We’re starting to see the development of job descriptions based online activities such as online revenue generation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Electronic engagement needs to be a critical part of our programs. Electronic components however, are not as distinct as something as a print piece, and need to be much more fluid in their application and how they are presented. For example, an electronic magazine, where the front page pictures randomly changes, are more specifically served to the user based on their affinity and interests.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Knowledge, experience and expertise come from both internal and external.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; Who staffs the electronic enterprise?1&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; What is the overall budget?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; How do we integrate “outside” knowledge?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; What is our confidence level in making electronic decisions?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; What common sense and ROI to you apply?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; How do you continually become aware of new tools and techniques?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; How do you build creativity into the process?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; What problems or needs do you need to fulfill, and how are these evaluated?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;img height="5" alt="square_grey.jpg" src="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Portals/0/images/square_grey.jpg" width="5" border="0" /&gt; What are some simple steps to success?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Rely on the expertise of your profession. No matter what the tools, the expertise as to what constitutes good engagement techniques and how to build relationships is a constant in all of our professions.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Familiarize yourself with the options. You don’t need to be a technical expert to understand the tools and techniques. A little professional development goes a long way to helping your understanding.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Relate the tools in your toolbox to your mission and goals. Just like everything else you do and employ, when we become disconnected from our purpose, our task becomes much more difficult.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <link>http://www.supportingadvancement.com/community/NewsfromtheBlog/tabid/98/EntryID/180/Default.aspx</link>
      <author>services@supportingadvancement.com</author>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:04:26 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Generating Loyalty on Your Site</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="dnn_ctr364_MainView_ViewEntry_lblEntry"&gt; 
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Success in the electronic world is becoming more dependent on the idea that interactions on a web site are a two way street. Expectations for robust interactivity are increasing.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Online behavior, especially a constituent’s willingness to invest in an organization can be positively correlated with some aspects of online behavior such as visiting and logging into a web site. Here are some ideas to help motivate visitors:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Giving up Control of your Site.&lt;/strong&gt; Let your visitors decide what content they want on THEIR site. Talk to your audience, feature what they want as subjects and then track the traffic on these features. A feature list that comes up as you login that can ask you for, or to rate your preferences can help to activate, and subsequently cultivate these processes so visitors get used to asking. Content is then served based on login and preferences.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Make Options for Giving Clear.&lt;/strong&gt; Visitors should be able to control their giving. We all know that unrestricted money, while being the most useful is also the most difficult to raise. Give choices for designations. Designations can also be served to a form based on past giving history or interests. You search engine results for giving inquiries can also be tailored to specific funds or projects. Check MIT’s giving site for the idea of wish lists and how these can be customized for visitors.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design Communications Specifically for your Web Site.&lt;/strong&gt; Investigating online magazines and other content for the site. A PDF of a magazine or other publication may not work as well as a “magazine” specifically designed for the web, that in addition to content has various ways of interacting with an individual. MSNBC’s site recommends articles that you might be interested in reading based on ones that you’ve previously viewed.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Connect Blogs or other Interactive Features to Extend your Static Content. &lt;/strong&gt;Referenced in a magazine to a blog based on the subject of an article. Tie a blog on a travel program to specific trips so visitors can self report their travel experiences and post photographs. Reinforce interactive features through content reinforced by your e-newsletter.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Live Class Notes on the Site. &lt;/strong&gt;Don’t make people wait for a print piece. In addition to submitting a class note, make them available immediately. Balance between freedom of speech and some kind of an audit and approval process is necessary, but self reporting of information by users, especially when they want to make it visible is extremely desirable. Search and serve the notes for users that login based on affinity and content. Not on the print pieces that class notes were submitted online, and have a link on the print piece that reinforces the idea to submit these on the web site.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Think Beyond Class Notes.&lt;/strong&gt; Blogs for alumni to keep in touch with other alumni. Link to alumni groups – i.e. A window into past graduates and other content areas related to graduation years or other affinity areas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Write for the Web.&lt;/strong&gt; Not always an obvious skill. In fact, write for the web first, and then develop the same writing for print. Small point form copy blocks. Take a course and learn how to do this well.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Encourage Interactivity.&lt;/strong&gt; Check the Carleton University Café for a good example and combination of encouraging interactivity, and good marketing.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Offer a Variety of Newsletters.&lt;/strong&gt; Focus on a variety of topics targeted towards individual activities and affinity. Tie variable content into the newsletters, and develop RSS feeds to tie to users who wish to receive their news in different ways. Have archives of all e-newsletters on the site.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Connect to Alumni Websites.&lt;/strong&gt; Allow your constituents to add links to alumni web sites to your pages. Same audit and review process needs to apply as with other self entry and reporting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Respond Quickly to Bad News.&lt;/strong&gt; Up front in-depth explanation of any serious issues helps improve your credibility in the face of adversity and people are now used to going to the web as the first source of information when they’ve heard something they want to find out more about.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Embrace and Deploy Active Communication.&lt;/strong&gt; Instant messaging, individual photo galleries, web pages, blogs and other features that are targeted down from overall site, to groups, to individuals, and a matrix combination of all or any of the above. RSS feeds in and out of all pages help to leverage content.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Keep an Eye on Popular Web Sites that Create Capability Expectations.&lt;/strong&gt; Too often we just look and review higher ed web sites to evaluate our own. We really need to look at leaders in the field and use this knowledge to try and create similar features for our own users. These are the benchmarks we need to try and emulate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Ideas summarized from a session given by Bob Johnston.&lt;br /&gt;
For more ideas: &lt;a href="http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/"&gt;http://bobjohnsonconsulting.com/blog1/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:04:26 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Do More With Less on the Web Every Day</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="dnn_ctr364_MainView_ViewEntry_lblEntry"&gt; 
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Look for things that make you productive so you can find time for other tasks. It sounds simple. For example, standardize your events invitations so that they work simultaneously in print and media. Encourage all of your institutional staff to send information updates to you via a web form rather than a paper one. If people phone in database changes, help train and direct them to the web form.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Efficiency is also about removing items from your site that may be extraneous or not particularly useful. Rearrange content according to statistics move lower traffic items from the main pages. This reduces maintenance.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Simple things – re-arrange the items on a form. Many web forms use a drop down box for country to drive the format of a postal code. Yet, with most forms users need to select the country and then tab back to edit the postal code. Some fields in an address form may no longer be of much use. How often do we really use a fax number any more?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Registrations and business processes that involve the collection and deployment of data should be driven by the database directly. You should no longer have to update an HTML list of lost alumni to display on your site. If a user logs in, form fields where you have information int eh database should be pre-populated for your users.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Viral marketing goes a long way to promote your messages. Send this page to a friend, forward to a friend, friends asking friends. Saves you having to ask.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Use content management software. In this day and age it is irresponsible to manage a site without it. Use templates, style sheets and component based architecture for maximum efficiency.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Stand time management techniques - record where you’re investing your time in and look for “holes in the bucket.” Task inventories help us understand where we can improve.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Measure your activities. How much time to you take to authenticate and manage users and passwords? Is there any manual intervention required? Can some of this be automated? Address common customer services issues though carefully designed FAQ pages. Make administrative chores easier such as the availability of a form on your site for submission of an alumni branch report.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Running total of frequently asked questions and build a database to provide answers to users and visitors. Use this to re-jig the site to put information up front that may be buried and hard to find.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Re-synching your database. What portions of this can be automated? Create data integrity reports, automated response emails and postcard marketing that allow direct updating of the database by users and visitors. With the right controls and audit trail, this works.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Multi-purpose your information. Example - use reunion photographs to create a specifically targeted flash piece to send out as part of your reunion invitations or follow up questionnaire. Builds loyalty through association and maximizes use of your photographs.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Distribute work. Volunteers may be able to update a chapter web site if you delegate authority.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Learn how to work with influence. Politics play a role in all of this and you need to know how to manage and sell up if you need to get more resources. Understand who butters your bread and build the appropriate alliances. (There are many books on the subject.)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Reinforce good decisions. You don’t necessarily do an ROI, but talk up successful projects such as increases in online registrations with decision makers.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Budget. Your electronic program areas should have separate and distinct line items rather than being just part of some nebulous or undefined pool. You online presence is no longer “experimental”. Evaluate program budget areas and remove amounts to cover online services since these typically cut across all budget areas.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Most important - think creatively and you’ll easily come up with many more.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:04:26 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Responses and Observations on Email Solicitations</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Responses and Observations on Email Solicitations&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;Response by Jim Moore from CommUlinks of Colorado (&lt;a href="http://www.commulinks.com/"&gt;www.commulinks.com&lt;/a&gt;) to a question on the appropriateness of sending out a solicitation to people for whom you have their email addresses, when you have not informed them in advance that you will be using these for solicitation purposes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;1.&lt;/strong&gt; I can't speak from the perspective of alumni, but I do have experience with memberships.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
2. Permission &amp; Respect&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;a. Your organization's contacts expect you to communicate with them.&lt;br /&gt;
b. They have a relationship with your organization.&lt;br /&gt;
c. When they share contact information with you, they are not granting explicit permission for you to exploit it to the fullest, but only the most naive individual would expect that you would not exploit it to some degree.&lt;br /&gt;
d. I believe "Opt-In" appeals are self-defeating. People are far less likely to invite what amounts to commercial appeals than they are to passively accept them as part of the relationship with a nonprofit organization. If I send you a letter that asks, "Can I pester you for money every so often?  Check yes or no. "What would you choose?&lt;br /&gt;
e. "Opt-Out" options are far more useful. They demonstrate respect without making it too tempting for a person to shut the door on you. Be sure to use an email tool that fully automates this process and prevents re-adding the email address. Make sure you can impeccably honor opt-out requests.&lt;br /&gt;
f. RESPECT: as with any communication medium, you must be willing to accommodate the (typically rare) demands of a few constituents for "special handling." Just as you would respect a donor's appeal to "Send just one appeal per year," or "No calls," or "I like to donate in June," you must accommodate similar caveats regarding email. VERY few donors will be so angered by the first contact that they abandon you on the first attempt. Just be ready to accommodate those for whom email is a bad fit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;3. Ensuring Loyalty:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;a. Communication should take several forms-not just appeals for money. Multiple types of messaging will ensure that your constituents don't feel as if all you want is money.  If only one in four or five contacts is an appeal, your mail will be opened far more often:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
i. Education&lt;br /&gt;
ii. Advocacy&lt;br /&gt;
iii. Grass-roots organization and involvement&lt;br /&gt;
iv. Propaganda&lt;br /&gt;
v. News&lt;br /&gt;
vi. Marketing--fundraising&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
4. Media&lt;/strong&gt;-if a constituent shares a means of communication-mailing address, phone number, email, fax, other?-there is some recognition that you will use it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
i. I believe a case can be made that email is the least intrusive and most readily shielded form. To be on the safe side, junk snail-mail must be opened and examined lest something of value be discarded - Ever notice the envelopes Ticketmaster uses to deliver tickets? Recipients must pay to have the trash hauled away, pay for the bags and handle the trash-perhaps shredding items containing anything remotely resembling personal info.&lt;br /&gt;
ii. Phone calls can be very intrusive - that's why we have do-not-call lists.&lt;br /&gt;
iii. Faxes are intrusive, and they cost the recipient in paper and ink. In the world of nonprofits, this is the only medium that may require explicit permission from recipients-even members and donors. This may vary by jurisdiction.&lt;br /&gt;
iv. Email is the least expensive, easiest to filter against SPAM, and easiest to delete unread. I contend that it is the least intrusive medium for contact.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;5. Efficacy:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;a. In my experience, response rates to email are significantly lower than to snail-mail. There are many reasons why this may be true:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
i. Instant delete -- The very nature of email makes it easy to ignore.&lt;br /&gt;
ii. It doesn't sit on the counter, nagging recipients to respond-even if it's not deleted, after another 8 or 10 emails hit the inbox, it's off-screen and may never be seen again until the "big purge."&lt;br /&gt;
iii. It has no reply envelope - on-line transactions may be easy, but for many people, nothing beats a check for making a gift.&lt;br /&gt;
iv.  Two words: SPAM FILTERS&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Recommendations:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;1. Use email;&lt;br /&gt;
2. Start gently with quality information and high-value content;&lt;br /&gt;
3. Embed a very discrete opt-out in every communication;&lt;br /&gt;
4. When a donor asks for TLC, give it to him or her. It's really not much of a burden, and very few will demand it;&lt;br /&gt;
5. Don't expect too much. Email is just another piece of the communications puzzle. It supplements, but it does not replace other media.&lt;br /&gt;
6. While you're at it, get a couple of Blogs going. Well known organizations should be able to entertain constituents on dozens of topics, from sports, to research, to awards, to scholarships, and so on. "What do you think?" questions are very engaging.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That's more that 2 cents worth, but I've had quite a bit of experience and success with email. A great model for how to use email effectively is (forget the politics of this please) Planned Parenthood. Their email campaign comes at constituents on many fronts-just one of which is fundraising.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Jim Moore&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
CommUlinks of Colorado&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.commulinks.com/"&gt;www.commulinks.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:59:00 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Redesign or Redevelopment? Be Clear What Your Site Needs Before You Start Work.</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Redesign or Redevelopment? Be Clear What Your Site Needs Before You Start Work.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
By Michael Stoner&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Last week, Karine Joly from CollegeWebEditor &lt;&lt;a href="http://www.collegewebeditor.com/"&gt;http://www.collegewebeditor.com&lt;/a&gt;&gt; asked us to identify the top five mistakes that college and university staff make when redesigning their websites. I'm not going to steal Joly's idea or share my top thoughts (I identified more than five mistakes!)Ñuntil after her article appears in University Business Magazine &lt;&lt;a href="http://www.universitybusiness.com/"&gt;http://www.universitybusiness.com&lt;/a&gt;&gt; in Dec 2006. But I will share with you my thoughts about the top mistake I think internal staff make when approaching their own websites, as well as their institution's web presence.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
It is: thinking of your project as a redesign project when it's really about *redeveloping* your site. So what's the difference?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In our lexicon, "redesign" involves creating a new look and feel for a website. And sometimes that's exactly what you need to do-make your website look better, fresher, more au courant. Rethink the background color, adjust your logo, add some new images, and you're all set.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But far (far!) more often, institutions need to rethink fundamental aspects of their web presence. This is "redevelopment." And it's hard to do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I see an institution's web presence-its Internet presence-as a collection of individual websites, like admissions, student affairs, the physics department, and many others. Some people enter your web presence through the front door, but many don't. So looking at your web presence as a whole is a necessary first step before looking at the individual pieces.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
These pieces should be related to each other, and related to the whole. Visitors need to be able to get around within your web presence. They need to find what they came to find: a faculty member, the application, an academic department website. And to do that, they need navigation and a lot of other visual cues. They need to be reassured that they're at the same institution when they move from department site to department site. They may need services of one kind or another (i.e. apply or give). So within the best web presence, individual websites should connect to each other and to the whole.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What makes you different?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Take it to the next level by thinking about what visitors learn about your institution when they visit websites within your domain. Can they quickly (it's the web, so they're scanning) learn what makes you better than your competitors? Can they learn about the distinctions of faculty when they visit a department website? This is a complicated thing to do, and you don't do it without thinking about the wholeÑand the sum of the parts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In this scenario, you don't think of presentationÑlook and feel-as a first-order issue. Instead, you have to start by asking the question of what your visitors need, and then explore how your site is serving their needs. This is about themÑnot about your institution. To do this well, you have to look at some pretty messy stuff, like how staff could be better organized to create a better web presence for visitors. This involves clear thinking about institutional culture and politics and, to make a difference, you need to look at how your overall web presence, as well as individual websites within it, are managed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In most of the redevelopment projects we do, we address significant issues of how information is organized on the web; how content that is relevant to visitors is developed and managed; and how technology is deployed to make content mananagement more efficient and to help create a better experience for visitors to the site. Only at this point do we address look and feel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Most often, this is what a site needs. Why? Because most college and university web presences exhibit organic sprawl, reflecting the way they were built. But this is no longer good enough. Today, a university or college web presence needs to be visitor-centric, ensuring that visitors can find what they need and accomplish the tasks that are important to them, while allowing them to move freely across the websites that make up the institution's web presence. This only happens if a team undertaking a project understands that their role is not just to make a website look nice, but to make an institution's web presence welcoming to visitors.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:59:00 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Changing Demographics and the Impact on Philanthropy </title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="dnn_ctr364_MainView_ViewEntry_lblEntry"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Much of what we realize in our philanthropic efforts has to do with the changing demographics of population. How often to we think about or deal with this on a conscious or proactive basis?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Birthdates and your place within time to a large extent determine your attitudes and inclinations. For example, those people born during the great depression have a much different attitude as a group towards saving and purchasing than someone born even as little as 15 years later.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;If baby boomers are defined as a group born between 1945 and 1965, with the peak in 1955, the ways in which we approach target groups within the broader population should be quite different if we are to be effective.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;Those at the late end are in a position where mortgages are beginning to be paid down and children have finished college. This group is much more able to consider their philanthropy than those in the early end, who are still paying mortgages, and applying much of the rest of the fruits of their labor to the education of their children.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;The baby boomers create mega trends as a whole, but this on an average as opposed to distinct populations within the group. The example of a mega trends would be the borrowing of money to buy homes in the suburbs to raise families, large cars, and other family startup costs. This has significant implications for rates of return on investments, what will be done with these returns and for philanthropy.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;All of this speaks to the need for us to be much more effective targeting our constituents based on age demographics. The competition for dollars has increased greatly, and almost all organizations are now doing, or are planning major gift fundraising. This is also a pronounced international trend, with many organizations outside North America now running or planning large campaigns.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;It also speaks to the need for split testing, and the use of techniques of variable content in all of our media interactions with our target markets. Data mining will continue to play an ever expanding role in managing demographic interactions in the future, and in the last 5 years or so, we have witnessed an explosion of the use of these techniques in our operations. We’ve started to see many more job postings in the last 2 years for these skills, and these jobs are paying large premiums for skilled practitioners. We’ve moved much more towards data driven decisions.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;There’s lots of literature, web sites, and other information on these and other trends. If you haven’t already, you need to begin to learn and understand how to utilize them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Judith Nichols includes a number of these trends and discussions in Modern Donor&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.moderndonor.com/"&gt;http://www.moderndonor.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;More about population demographics including Canadian Population Pyramids:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.davidfoot.com/pyramids.html"&gt;http://www.davidfoot.com/pyramids.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description>
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      <title>To All Advancement and Development Services Professionals</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;For many months, over 2 dozen of your colleagues in the field of advancement and development services have been working diligently to form a new professional association that specifically focuses on who we are and what we do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
A mission statement has been drafted as well as an outline of goals. Several committees have been working on bylaws, marketing and branding, and various other issues. We've had initial discussions with existing professional organizations and have already approached CASE which yielded a very positive response. A second meeting with CASE leadership is scheduled for this October in Washington, DC. Some working committee members are involved with APRA and, in addition, we recently had a preliminary conversation with a member of ADRP.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But our efforts are just beginning and we now need your help.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
A survey has been developed that we hope will tell us if we're on the right track and can continue to lay the groundwork for the road ahead.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
It is a major step towards finalizing the creation of an organization and your input and feedback are critically important. Please take a few minutes to &lt;a href="http://www.supportingadvancement.net/community/Surveys/ServicesandSupport/tabid/159/Default.aspx"&gt;complete this survey and share your thoughts and ideas&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Thanks in advance for your help and assistance and we look forward to your ideas.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
From the working committee members:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lynne Becker&lt;br /&gt;
Joseph Calger&lt;br /&gt;
Mark A. DeFilippis&lt;br /&gt;
Brian Dowling&lt;br /&gt;
Scott Fendley&lt;br /&gt;
Gail Ferris&lt;br /&gt;
Wendy L. Gasparri&lt;br /&gt;
Bill Green&lt;br /&gt;
Alan Hejnal&lt;br /&gt;
April Hopkins&lt;br /&gt;
Charlie Hunsaker&lt;br /&gt;
Ann Kaplan&lt;br /&gt;
Liz Landry&lt;br /&gt;
Anita Lawson&lt;br /&gt;
Jonathan Lindsey&lt;br /&gt;
Erin Moran&lt;br /&gt;
Amy Phillips&lt;br /&gt;
Christina Pulawski&lt;br /&gt;
Mike Reopell&lt;br /&gt;
Pam Rollins&lt;br /&gt;
Jeff Shy&lt;br /&gt;
John Taylor&lt;br /&gt;
Scott Taylor&lt;br /&gt;
Stephanie Taylor&lt;br /&gt;
Jon Thorsen&lt;br /&gt;
Jennifer Warwick&lt;br /&gt;
Robert Weiner&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:54:19 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Using Student Workers for Data Entry Tasks</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;To a large part, the use of students for all sorts of data entry tasks can be substantially driven by budgetary resources and to some extent the political realities of an organization's budget process.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Many of us have worked/work in environments where there are simply not have enough staff to enter gifts and we are not able to increase the number of full time positions. Using students may be the only way we can manage. Alternatives might be to distribute bio and gift entry all over campus which would be more difficult to control.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
With the proper training, student employees can easily achieve the same levels of accuracy as full time staff. You can also split the levels of donations into tiers and have stronger and compensating control mechanisms for major gifts or special donors. The same can be said for managing volunteers for these types of tasks, but volunteer management often takes more time in terms of recruitment and training.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
When we ignore the idea of the marginal cost of processing our transactions, we create systemic inefficiency in the stewardship of major donors, through negative economic necessity. I would rather have a blended or hybrid data entry model that takes advantage of lower cost transaction processing (when appropriate), so full time staff can concentrate on the 2-5% of donors that we get over 90% of our donations from.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Telemarketing students see all measures of donor information, enter pledges, process credit cards and other sensitive information.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The key is that the issues of privacy, confidentiality, and accuracy extend to all staff. With the right training program, orientation, and front and back end compensating controls, it can all be managed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
For many of us, graduating class sizes are increasing at a faster rate than our ability to process and maintain our databases. Many of us are well under capacity in terms of managing our second tier prospect pools and freeing up full time staff can make a big difference in our ability to service our donors. When we free up full time staff from repetitive data entry we give them more time to use their experience and institutional knowledge for more complex tasks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
There are many other examples of potential exposure that have even possibly broader consequences than distributing gift entry. For example, how many of us have Excel spreadsheets with thousands of rows of data for mail merges stored on our shared network drives - which are often accessible by fairly large groups.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
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