Brief

Wordy instructions and appeals
can seem effective when you write them.

But reading them
is hard.

Why use lot word when
few word do trick?

Few word do trick.

- A.

Be ready, March 18: CiviCRM Security Update

CiviCRM has announced a security update to be released on the evening of March 18.

Security updates are important. You don’t want to let this slide.

If you’ll be handling this update yourself, now would be a good time to prepare:

• Review the official documentation on upgrades, including the specifics for your CMS (Drupal, WordPress, Backdrop, etc), and make sure you understand it.

• Ensure you understand how to perform a full site backup — and how to restore your site from a backup if needed.

• If this is your first time, block out a couple of hours for the actual upgrade.

If you’re a subscriber to Joinery’s Operational Assurance plan for ongoing support, and/or a Joinery hosting subscriber, we’ll be handling this upgrade for you, including full pre-upgrade backups and post-upgrade verification.

If you need help preparing for or conducting the upgrade, consider booking a coaching call so we can discuss your particular situation and ensure you have a good plan in place.

Whatever you do, don’t put this off.

• A security release is a great fix for issues you probably don’t even know you have.

• But just as importantly, it’s an announcement to the world that all un-upgraded sites have a specific set of security vulnerabilities. You don’t want to be one of those.

All the best,
A.

It’s not a cliff jump

A client of mine is moving from Authorize.net to Stripe.

They have good reasons -- fees, flaky support, confusing web interfaces.

But the interesting story here isn't why they're doing it.
It's that they are doing it.

Because this decision didn't come without some concerns.

They have live recurring subscriptions.
And those are stored in Authorize.net's ARB profiles.
It's a big chunk of their income.
Real donors.
Real money.

At first, the idea itself felt indimidating and risky.

"What about the stored cards?"
"What if recurring gifts fail?"
"What if donors get billed twice?"
"What if we lose donors?"

This is how vendor lock-in happens.
Not technologically.
Psychologically.

The system feels permanent.

But of course, it isn't.

Tokens can be migrated.
Subscriptions can be retained.
The transition can happen without the donors even thinking about it.

Like any change, it's a project -- not a cliff jump.

And projects are manageable.

Here's the thing:

Sometimes calm doesn't come just from the improvements you make.
Sometimes it comes just from realizing you can.

All the best,
A.

Tell me their first names

When a coaching client told me last week,

"I think about 20 people aren’t receiving our emails,"

that got my attention.

Twenty is scary.
Twenty feels systemic.

But a one-sentence summary is not a diagnosis.

So I said, "Let's make a list. Tell me their first names."

She searched her notes, and we wrote them down.

Twelve names.
Not twenty. Twelve.

Already the problem is 40% smaller.

Then we made a grid.

One row per person.
One column per type of issue.

Kayla missed two newsletters -- because she wasn't subscribed.
Howard missed one special subscription email -- because his membership had expired.
Four people weren't reporting email problems at all -- we'd just mentally grouped them there.

By the end, we had three people with a real, unresolved issue.

Three is manageable. Three we can analyze with clear intent.

Here's the thing:

Vague problems stay big and scary.
Named problems shrink.

When you feel overwhelmed, the best question isn't: "What's wrong with our CRM?"

It's: "Who exactly? Which exactly? How many exactly?"

Naming the specifics brings clarity.

And clarity gives you space to move forward.

All the best,
A.

“Something big must be broken”

Last week a client told me she was overwhelmed,
with reports from members saying they weren't receiving emails.

Obviously, if you can't trust your CRM to deliver email, that's existential.
That's not a "small bug."
That's a system-level crisis.

And once two or three people say it, the story in your head becomes:
"Something big is broken."

It’s a very human response, and we do it for all kinds of things.

Your engine car makes funny a noise.
The left front tire keeps going low.
The seat belt doesn't retract smoothly.

Surely there's a single, mysterious, expensive root cause.
Will I just have to buy a new car?
Will I just have to live with this "broken" CRM?

But here’s the thing:

Often the mystery feels big and scary precisely because the story is wrong,
because it all feels connected but isn’t.

When problems cluster in time, it's easy to assume common causation.
Our brains are built for pattern recognition.
Correlation feels like proof.
And new problems are easily filed under "The Big Mysterious Problem”,
instead of being addressed one-by-one.

Before you give up on your car (or your CRM) --

Pause and ask:
Are these actually all the same problem?
Or are we just filing them in the same mental folder?

Often you'll find there are distinct, curable causes for each situation.

That's how it goes:
Most chaos shrinks when you separate it.

All the best,
A.

14,000 reasons

This morning I noticed that CiviCRM just crossed 14,000 active installs.

That's a historic high.

Now -- big numbers by themselves don't change your day.

But this one should reassure you.

It means more organizations are investing in the same platform you are:

More bugs getting fixed.
More extensions being built.
More developers improving features.
More organizations like yours having success with the platform.

In other words: momentum.

If you've ever worried, "Are we building on something stable?” -- this is your answer.

But here's the thing:

The real risk isn't that your CRM community is too small.

The real risk is never fully using the one you already have. That’s the place to focus.

And at 14,000 installs, you’re not alone.

All the best,
A.

Translating for the board

Your people -- board, executives, devlopment team -- think in stories:

• "Are we growing?"

• "Are renewals strong?"

• "Is engagement improving?"

Your CRM thinks in criteria.

• Status = "Current".

• Join date is "between X and Y".

• Activity type = "Renewal Reminder".

Stories and criteria are two different languages.

When reports feel hard to build, the challenge usually lies in the translation between story and criteria.

That translation work is leadership, and it's real.

Once you define the story precisely enough that the CRM can understand it, the reporting becomes easy.

But don't skip the translation.

That's where clarity lives.

All the best,
A.

When “new” isn’t

Ask three staff members what "new member" means.

You may get three answers -- or more.

Was a member 10 years ago, lapsed 2 years, and came back?
Upgraded membership level?
Renewed this year as they always do?
Changed from individual to organizational?

Words feel stable.

But they're not.
The truth is, definitions drift quietly over time.

Staff changes.
Boards change.
Assumptions pile up.

Here’s the thing:

Your CRM will faithfully enforce whatever criteria you set.
But it cannot protect you from vague language.

If you want stable reporting, you need stable definitions.

Clarity first. Configuration second.

Always in that order.

All the best,
A.

The most dangerous report

Being unable to pull solid reports from your CRM can be a real pain.

But the worst reporting outcome isn't, "we don't have that report."

It's this:

You have a beautiful, automated report.
Clean numbers.
Nice chart.

And it's quietly, obediently, answering the wrong question.

Maybe "new members" includes reinstatements -- or does it?
Maybe "renewal rate" ignores membership level changes -- but should it?
Maybe "non-renewed" quietly includes people who've died -- is that the intent?

No one bothers to ask. It's easier to assume.

For three years.

Here's the thing:

Bad numbers don't just waste time.

They shape decisions.

A missing report creates discomfort.
A misleading one creates false confidence.

The moral?

Be more wary of the wrong answer than of no answer at all.

All the best,
A.

What a coaching call looks like

Yesterday I had a great call with a coaching client. It started with a simple technical question, but moved pretty quickly into the more important underlying strategic concerns.

---

The technical question we opened with was:

“Is there a way to run three reports at once so I don’t have to click them individually to get them into a single spreadsheet?”

A practical, technical-efficiency question.

We unpacked the real workflow behind it:

• Multiple reports

• CSV exports

• Import into Google Sheets

• Downstream formatting automation

Then we evaluated:

• Is this minor friction?

• Or is this custom development?

• Is automation worth the build cost?

• Would no-code tools meaningfully reduce effort — or just relocate it?

Conclusion: possible, but not worth the engineering overhead.

That alone is valuable — knowing when not to build.

But that converstation surfaced a deeper concern:
Real-life events that could take the client away from this work for a long time.

Now the question wasn’t: “How do I click less?”
It became: “What happens if I’m not here?”

That led to:

• Identifying single-point-of-failure tasks.

• Recognizing recurring annual processes that only one person understands.

• Distinguishing evergreen workflows from time-relative info like “who’s on the board."

• Exploring lightweight documentation: short videos, structured folders, task-based training.

• Noticing which responsibilities already have partial delegation.

• Seeing where ownership exists — and where it doesn’t.

Then deeper:

• Why do team members stall when learning something new?

• Why do volunteers hit a block and go silent?

• Why does panic kill learning?

• How do you assign responsibility before someone feels ready?

• How do you build confidence instead of dependency?

The focus moved from software to human reality.

From “doing tasks” to:

• Domain ownership

• Clear assignment

• Feedback loops

• Personal recognition and validation

• Creating safety to ask for help

• Increasing the “bus number” (“How many people have to get hit by a bus before this breaks?” — Hint: “1” is not a great answer.)

By the end, the original technical question barely mattered.

The real outcome was this shift:

From: “I need to get this done.”
To: “How do I build a system that runs without me?”

Because coaching isn’t mere tutoring about which button to click.

It’s:

• Evaluating effort vs payoff.

• Reframing problems.

• Surfacing hidden risks.

• Placing strategy before tactics.

• Turning anxiety into a plan.

• Turning a technician into a leader.

And often, it starts with something as small as:
“Can I run three reports at once?”

All the best,
A.

Manual reporting

Sometimes the most advanced reporting move is ... Excel.

Export the list.
Sort it how you wish.
Scroll line by line.
Ask, "Does this person belong here? Why, or why not?"

It feels primitive.
Inefficient, even.

But it's not.

That tedious manual review is where you discover the outliers:

The lapsed-but-returned member.
The free trial.
The deceased contact who happened to meet the other criteria.

That manual review is not busywork.
It's definition work.

And until you've wrestled with those edge cases manually, you don't actually know what report you're trying to build.

Here's the thing:

The spreadsheet phase isn't a failure of your CRM -- or of your skills.

It's a critical step in clarifying what you actually want.

All the best,
A.

Automating confusion

Everyone wants the automated report.

Click once.
Board-ready PDF.
Done.

But here's the uncomfortable truth:

You can't automate what you haven't defined.

If "new member" means three different things depending on who's in the room, your CRM can't save you.
It will happily calculate the wrong thing forever.

Automation doesn't create clarity.
It amplifies whatever clarity -- or confusion -- already exists.

Imagine printing out that report and reviewing it line-by-line.

How would you know if each contact (or contribution, or membership) really belongs?

Once you can explain that cleanly to a human being, then you earn the automation in the CRM.

Otherwise you're just speeding up the chaos.

- A.

When it all feels urgent

I've been managing CRM systems in and for nonprofits for over 20 years.

Which means I've seen this pattern more times than I can count:

At some point, the pressure spikes.

The board wants numbers.
A funder wants a report.
Membership renewals are lagging.
Someone just discovered that "the system" isn't doing what they assumed it was doing.

And suddenly it all feels urgent.

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

When everything feels urgent, you don't have a performance problem.
You have a capacity problem.

Demands have exceeded the container.

And once that happens, no amount of personal heroics will fix it.

So what do you do?

First, admit reality: not all of this is getting done right now.

That's not failure. That's math.

Second, choose one thing.

Not the loudest thing.
Not the thing that flatters your competence.
The thing that actually reduces risk or restores stability.

Then focus on it fully.

The fastest way to stay stuck is to half-do six things at once.

Finally, decide what doesn't require you.

Some tasks need your judgment.
Some need outside help.
Some just need to be "good enough" so the organization can breathe again.

Perfection is a luxury good. Stability is not.

Here's the thing:

Chaos spreads when no one chooses.
It shrinks the moment someone does.

All the best,
A.

Will this age well?

"How to group your contacts" can sound like a tooling question.

Should you use Groups?
or Tags?
Or maybe Relationships?

But there's a more important concern:

How well will these markers age?

I mean, a year from now:

• Will your "Major Donors" group have the same definition of "major"?

• Will everyone know what that "Partner" relationship type means?

• Will that tag you created today have been kept up to date?

If not, your short-term solution can create long-term confusion.

Because meanings change over time, and meaningless data erodes trust.

Here's the thing:

Next time you create a new marker for your contacts (group, tag, relationship type, whatever), ask yourself:

Can you define it clearly enough that every staff member will apply it the same way for all contacts over the next few years?

If not, just throw some contacts into a temporary group and be done with it.

Short-term needs deserve short-term solutions.
Long-term sanity demands forethought.

All the best,
A.

Clarity beats cleverness

Most CRM problems aren’t caused by bad tools.

They’re caused by unclear expectations.

When people don’t know what a system is for, every report looks wrong and every change feels risky.

Clarity first.
Then configuration.

- A.

Simple constraints

A client of mine is setting up their CRM for outbound text messaging.

Not because it's trendy.
They just realized email and paper mail don't work for a lot of people with disabilities -- their core audience.

Once that was clear, the rest was easy.
The tool choice.
The configuration.
Even the learning curve.

Here's the thing:

Good strategy often looks like a clever solution.
But it usually starts as a simple constraint:

"This has to work for the people we serve."

Everything else is secondary.

- A.

P.S. Thanks to list reader Kim for the discussion that led to today’s email!

A little validation

Years ago:

I was the CRM director for a nonprofit that produced a lot of large events, often on short notice.

At our evening event meetings, each department head would report on their areas, including important details like how many hotel rooms we had used, how many airport pickups we expected tomorrow, no-show counts, banquet seating, and more.

At one of my first meetings, the event director turned to me after all the reports and said, "Okay Allen. Validation?"

I said, "Well, I really think you're doing a great job, Frank."

That got a laugh.

But what Frank wanted was just a sanity check -- do the numbers line up with what we have in our systems? Is anything wildly out of kilter?

Frank understood that in a fast-moving operation we couldn't expect 100% accurate numbers at every moment. But we needed to have a general impression that we were reasonably on target.

Today:

A client of mine said to me, essentially,

I probably can't identify everyone who's interested in our upcoming program.
But I think there's good reason to believe that this group over here clicked through to read our announcement about it.
How can I easily identify most of those people so I can highlight it again to them in an upcoming mailing?

She had already done some data validation of her own -- knowing that 100% certainty was neither possible nor required.

Now she was looking to leverage that information into increased attention on the program.

Perfect.

Imperfectly, uncertainly, perfect.

Because a little validation goes a long way.

All the best,
A.

The “right way”

Imagine you hated Windows (as I do)
and weren't really a fan of Apple (as I'm not)
and were something of Linux zealot (as I am)

and you needed to buy your kid a cheap but reliable laptop for school (as I did).

What's the "right thing" to do?

• Fight the good fight, and send her off with a laptop that fulfills your platonic ideals of purity?

• Or get her one that "just works" for everything she actually needs?

Yeah, get her Windows (as I did).

Here's the thing:

The "right way" can mean a lot of things.

The one that matters most is:
"The way that gets the job done. The way your people can understand."

Lose sight of that, and you don't have a solution.
You have a hobby.

- A.

Security is boring

Talking about website security is boring.

Getting hacked is exciting!
Just not especially enjoyable.

There is a simple way to shut down some of the most common tricks scammers and spammers are using:

Turn on two-factor authentication for staff users.

If you’re on WordPress, the WordFence plugin makes this easy -- and it’s free.

Once it’s installed, the only real work is asking your staff to start using it.

But let's make that easy too:

Here’s a 5-minute video I recorded for a client last week, showing just how simple it really is (for them and for you).

Please give it a thought, and if you’re still not sure, shoot me a reply about what’s holding you back.

All the best,
A.

Sanity needs predictability

On a coaching call today, a client and I explored changing how CiviCRM auto-creates contribution soft-credits based on contact relationships.

It made sense -- to her and to me. But we paused, and she asked a very smart question:

"Should we just do this now, or should I check with my team lead first?"

That's gold, right there. And here's why:

This isn't a change to one or two records. It's a change to configuration -- one that could generate hundreds of new soft-credits in a short time, when nobody's looking.

Meanwhile, other staff are already relying on soft-credit data to make important decisions.

So we agreed on a quick sanity check: run it by one or two teammates first.

Here's the thing:

Even if you've got the best idea in the world, having it show up as a surprise for others is almost guaranteed to cause stress and confusion.

Staff sanity depends on predictable systems.

Changes that affect large swaths of system behavior -- or appear to -- need warning, context, and consent.

All the best,
A.