CiviCRM security update: today

If you're running CiviCRM, you should know that the project has released a security update as of today.

I'm updating all of my clients’ sites, today.

What's your plan for keeping your systems up and running with the latest available security updates?

(BTW, if you’re already hosting with Joinery or subscribed to my Proactive Security Updates service, I’ve got you covered. You’ll be hearing from me soon when your update is complete.)

All the best,
A.

Digging holes with hammers

I've dug holes with a hammer, but it's not an exercise I would recommend to anybody. If you can, you should get the right tool for the job.

Sometimes you can't. Sometimes all you have is a claw hammer, and you need a hole right now.

It's okay to do it, but clearly it's not sustainable.

If you feel like you're fighting an uphill battle with your CRM, maybe you're trying to make it do something it wasn't designed to do.

That's where a little advice can come in handy.

Get familiar with the documentation on your tools. Find an online forum where you can ask for help. Book a call with an expert, to get a little coaching or strategic guidance.

Life is a whole lot better when you work with your tools instead of against them.

All the best,
A.

Alternatives

When you think you need some expensive help to handle custom project, ask yourself: What are the alternatives?

Could you hire an intern to throw some extra hours at it every week or every month?

Could you just live with it another 6 months or a year before deciding that you really need this?

Could you train your staff to make a little extra effort and be more careful about this thing or that thing?

Sometimes it's better to wait. But only you can decide that.

All the best,
A.

“User-friendly”

Are your systems user-friendly?

Probably yes, for some users. And probably no, for other users.

Truth is, there's no formal definition for “user-friendly.” There’s no universal standard.

It’s akin to asking whether a person is friendly or not. What passes for friendliness in New York City is not the same as in Muleshoe, Texas.

The meaning of “user-friendly” depends on a lot of factors. Who is the user? What do they want? How excited are they to learn new skills to get what they want?

What’s more, any system that’s user-friendly today could always be made more user-friendly tomorrow. How far would you like to take it?

Here's the thing:

Holding yourself to a poorly defined standard won't get you very much benefit.

Instead of asking whether your systems are “user-friendly,” try more specific questions, based on the business goals you’re aiming for:

Can your online donors complete a donation in less than 30 seconds? Can your members renew online without experiencing any error messages?

Defining specific goals, and attaching a real business value to those goals, is where winning happens.

All the best,
A.

Only thank half of them

Yesterday I mentioned reaching out personally to thank first-time donors.

It takes a little time, but it does sound like a good thing.

But I don't recommend starting out that way.

Instead, only thank half of them. Record which ones you thanked and which you didn't. And then measure the difference over the next several months in terms of metrics that matter to you:

How do they respond to other campaigns? How long until they give again? Is their second donation larger than their first?

See, here's the thing:

Thanking people individually takes time, and time is a limited resource.

How can you know it's worth your time if you're not measuring the benefit of spending that time?

If your measurements indicate it’s a big win, then you can start thanking everyone (and you can try measuring and comparing a couple of different methods: email vs. handwritten note vs. phone call, etc.).

And if they indicate just a small improvement, or none at all, you can have confidence in deciding to spend your limited time on something more effective.

All the best,
A.

Thanking first-time donors

Your members and donors probably never see your CRM, except to fill out a form now and then.

But obviously they're critical stakeholders in the system.

Could you do anything with your CRM to increase what they get out of joining or giving? (And don't fool yourself, even an anonymous donor "gets something" out of their giving.)

I've got a client who has her CRM email her every time someone new makes a donation. Then she reaches out right away to thank them personally.

It's a great idea. It recognizes the intangible value donors get out of giving (something like: the feeling of satisfaction knowing they've helped), it finds a way to augment that experience, and it relies on simple tools that already exist in her CRM.

But I don't recommend it for you. Not right away.

There's something else you should try first. Tomorrow I'll look at this again in terms of measurement.

All the best,
A.

Deciding on reasonable tolerances

Deciding on reasonable tolerances has a lot to do with the scale and nature of your operation.

If you're an eight-year-old kid running a lemonade stand on a summer weekend, you can get away with very loose tolerances on product quality, customer experience, and all the rest.

If you're running a nuclear reactor, then you probably need a little more attention to detail.

Chances are your organization is somewhere in between.

If you're spotting flaws in your systems, ask yourself how much of that kind of problem you're willing to accept. It's probably more than 0% and less than 100%.

If you can measure, or even estimate, the frequency and the impact of those flaws, then you're in a good position to start taking action.

There's nothing wrong with just going by feel. But measuring and monitoring can make it a lot easier to take specific corrective action when you want to.

All the best,
A.

Tolerances

By now you probably know that no software system is going to be perfect. You're going to have errors.

User errors, system errors, duplicate contacts, failed transactions, bounced emails. At one time or another some of these things are bound to happen.

So what's your limit? What's an acceptable percentage?

There is no universal standard for an acceptable set of tolerances. It's up to you to decide.

But here's the thing:

To make an informed decision on acceptable tolerances, and then to stay within those tolerances, you'll have to measure.

How are you measuring, in order to set reasonable goals, and then to ensure you're meeting those goals?

All the best,
A.

Staying ahead

When a user reaches out to you to report a problem, they're doing you a huge favor.

Most users won't bother:

• Oh, the membership renewal form is too complicated? Guess i won't renew.

• Weird layout problems in the membership directory? Oh well.

Wouldn't it be nice to learn about problems before someone decides to tell you?

What systems do you have in place to let your know when everything is not running smoothly?

Do you check in with your staff? Do you have daily reports or dashboards that you review regularly, for the metrics you care about? How would you notice if there were a problem?

Here's the thing:

Handling issues proactively is far easier and less stressful than scrambling when someone complains.

Thorough testing and regular monitoring can help make that happen.

Whatever metrics you care about, if you're finding ways to measure them, then you can probably measure them proactively too.

All the best,
A.

Mental stress is a cost

Does your CRM system give you a headache? That's a cost of ownership.

Would your staff feel extra stress while changing to a new system? That's a cost of acquisition.

Have you been living with problems in your CRM that make you worry about accuracy, security, or usability? That's a cost of inaction.

Here's the thing:

Mental stress is a real cost. Sometimes you can live with it, because you've decided that it's worth it.

If you're not intentionally addressing that mental stress in one way or another, then it's a cost you haven’t accounted for. But it’s there.

You don’t have to remove all mental stress; but it can help to acknowledge where it’s coming from, and to consciously decide whether or not to fix the causes, now or later.

All the best,
A.

Deciding to be less efficient

Efficiency is always good - right?

Maybe.

The real question is: Is it always worth it?

Say I've got a task that takes 5 hours, and an idea to optimize it down to 1 hour.

Should I put aside everything else for a week to make that happen?

Well, if that task only comes up once a year, investing a week of 8 hour days means I'll recoup my investment in 10 years.

So is it worth the time and effort to automate this process?

Here's the thing:

Real efficiency means comparing the overall value to my investment of time, money, and mental stress.

Labor-intensive tasks that come up often are good candidates for optimization. Those that only come up rarely are usually not.

For that kind of thing, the really efficiency is often simply to decide to be less efficient.

All the best,
A.

While you’re waiting

Here's one more thing you can do when you're faced with the temporary reality of a dwindling annual budget:

While you're putting in the extra effort and time to make it through this rough patch, take a moment to make note of the tasks and processes they give you the biggest headache.

Even when budgets are flush, you'll still have to choose which improvements to make based on some system of priority.

Hard times can be a good chance to think about what really matters to the bottom line, which is this: how your systems can make the best use of limited resources (and they will always be limited) to make the most difference in carrying out your mission.

All the best,
A.

Operating on a shoestring

At one time or another most organizations, or departments, will find themselves operating on a very tight "shoestring" budget.

For whatever reason, you might find yourself operating under very tight budgetary constraints, and you just have to find a way to make it through.

Or maybe or maybe that's just a way of life in your organization.

If that’s your situation, or if it becomes your situation, you still have options. Here are some ideas to help get you through:

• Find the online documentation for your systems, and make it your best friend. For CiviCRM that's here: https://docs.civicrm.org/.

• Find the online community for your systems, and start asking questions. For CiviCRM that's https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/, and https://chat.civicrm.org/.

• Make sure you’re documenting what you learn in a place that's accessible to you and your team members. Google Docs is a good option, but it's not the only one.

• See what you can get in the way of coaching or training. When money is tight, time becomes precious, and a little bit of quality training can go a long way towards getting more value out of your own time. CiviTeacher, for example, offers a pretty economical subscription for a large library of video tutorials on CiviCRM.

• Change your human processes to fit the software. Yes, software customization can provide a huge value in time saving, but when you've got more time than money, the winning solution is to let yourself spend a little more time doing it the software's way.

None of these are necessarily fun or sexy.

But they can help you make it through a tight squeeze, until you've got the resources to build something that's actually more efficient and pleasant to use.

And that's a whole lot better than feeling permanently hamstrung by your financial reality.

All the best,
A.

What is an hour?

What does it mean to pay for an hour of work?

When I take my car to the shop, the mechanic usually gives me an estimate based on parts and hours of labor.

It's an easy way for him to think about it, but for myself, I don't really care how many hours it takes him.

I care about two things, maybe three: What's it going to cost me? When will it be ready? And is it going to be fixed right?

Whether it takes him 1 hour or 10 makes no difference to me.

When you're looking for expert help with your systems, what do you really care about?

I'm going to guess it's probably about the same as those three things.

And maybe one more: Is the help I'm getting likely to achieve the development goal that I need to see in my organization?

Hourly rates, estimated number of hours, choice of technology —does any of that really matter?

When you're deciding how to get help with your systems, it's good to remember what really matters to you, and find the help that will allow you to get what you’re after.

All the best,
Allen

Measuring intangible value

Intangible value is a real thing, and finding proxies to measure it can remove a lot of the mystery.

There's a family in my neighborhood who comes around every year with Christmas cookies. Homemade. Delicious.

They've got three daughters who apparently love to bake. Actually I think only one of them really loves to bake, and the others go along. Happily, as far as I can tell.

They must put in hours of work. All the neighbors get a little box with handwritten notes on the cutest little hand-painted cards I ever saw.

Besides the investment of time and care and creativity, there’s got to be some financial cost involved too. The boxes, ingredients, quality paints and papers.

Why do they do it?

They're obviously not promoting a business or trying to sell anything. They're not fundraising for their school, or trying to get their dad elected to city council.

What are they getting out of this?

You could say they're not getting anything out of it.

But can that really be true? Would they put in all this time and creative effort and even money, if they really weren't getting something out of it?

Somewhere, in the deep complexity of their human existence, they think it's worth it.

Here's the thing:

Not every value is financial. We all make decisions all the time to invest in things that bring us an intangible value.

The same goes for your members, your donors, your staff, your board, even yourself.

Putting a name on those intangibles can help to highlight their value.

Security, pride, peace of mind, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, knowing that you're making the world a better place.

All of them count.

And to one degree or another, in fact to some measurable degree, they're all worth investing in.

The magic lies and figuring out what they’re worth to you, and then finding a way to make that investment, and to reap that very real value.

All the best,
A.

Funding the mission

There's a lot of pressure any organization to stay solvent.

All of your event fees, your membership dues, your donor contributions, your incoming grants. Somebody has to make sure all of that adds up to more than the cost of doing business.

Don't forget, in the face of all that pressure: You're doing all this for a very good reason.

It's because you — as an organization, and hopefully as an individual within that organization — believe that you're helping people.

Who are you helping? How are you helping them? That's the mission.

Funding the mission is important, but don't forget, all that work is only valuable because it actually funds the mission of helping people.

As you go about your day, I hope you can take some pride and satisfaction in knowing that you're helping real people who really want your help.

All the best,
A.

ASAE article on measuring engagement

The ASAE just posted a great article about the measurement of value. You can read it here: Four Keys to Meaningfully Measure Community Engagement

It turns out it's not exactly about measuring. Well, almost none of it is about measuring anything.

But, they do make a couple of good points about setting priorities and working from goals.

Here's a good example, from the article:

“Sometimes leadership stakeholders are thinking, ‘Yeah, we want to make money back on this expensive platform that we bought,’” Mbugua explained. “But it’s not really about the platform. It’s really about your members and your community.”

What I love about this is that she calls out a pretty common error in thinking among boards and organizations, which is to first make a purchase of technology or tools, and then to try and figure out how you can squeeze value out of it.

After all, isn't the secret to success to acquire the fanciest tools you can get?

Yeah, no. Actually it's not.

To counter this misconception, she offers a different line of thinking:

Mbugua recommended starting at a more fundamental level when trying to get at what you’re measuring and building, asking these three questions:

Why does this community exist?

What are the business goals?

What are our shared values between members, and what do we want to achieve as a business?

Boom, there goes the dynamite.

Before you even think about trying to get value out of an expensive tool set, it is imperative to remember what your goals are, why you exist as an organization, why you're even undertaking this project.

By starting with clear goals, you can understand what it is you should be measuring. I couldn't find much in the article about actually measuring anything, but the reminder to get back to basics and set priorities based on your actual goals, makes this article a winner in my book.

All the best,
A.

Doing it yourself

This morning I dropped my truck off at the mechanic.

It's been having some electrical issues, and I've lived with that strangeness for long enough. Sometimes the dome light works, sometimes it doesn't. Same with the stereo, same with the dashboard lights. Not a deal breaker, but not fun.

These guys will fix it up, and I'll have it back in a couple of days.

In theory, I could have done that myself. But it would take me a long time to figure that out, and frankly I just don't enjoy that kind of work.

This past summer, on the other hand, I spent most weekends in the backyard replacing the foundation on a 12’x20’ workshop. Jacked the whole thing up on blocks. Dug and set new footings by hand. Replaced all the beams and joists and floor decking with treated lumber. Then carefully lowered the shed back into place, and anchored the whole thing for proper wind resistance.

In theory, I could have hired a couple of guys to do that in a weekend for not very much money. But I knew already that I love this kind of work. And every time I go into that shed I get a reminder of that good feeling.

Sometimes it's okay to take on a big task yourself.

The real question is: Do you love doing it?

All the best,
A.

What are you going to do with all those measurements?

Okay let's say you really go in and measure all the stuff you can measure. How's that going to help you?

It won't, unless you look at the results of your measurements and pick out the areas that are right for improvement.

Did you measure how long it take staff to complete certain tasks, and which of those tasks are the most frequent? There's a good chance you can save a ton of staff hours every week or every month by cutting in half the time it takes to complete some of those most frequent tasks.

Did you measure the frequency with which users are opening but then failing to complete your various intake forms? You could probably get a whole lot more of those forms actually submitted — and therefore increase your contributions, membership renewals, and event registrations — if you could make time to figure out why they're giving up on those forms. And then improve the forms.

But without measuring, and without examining the results of your measurements, any improvements you make are not much better than a shot in the dark.

If you don't measure it, you can't improve it.

Or more precisely: If you don’t measure it, how can you even know if you’ve improved it?

All the best,
A.

Easy things to measure

Here's a list of things you can measure if you're looking for objective numbers as a proxy the things that you want to improve but are hard to measure:

• The time it takes to complete an event registration form.

• The percentage of users who open a form and fail to complete it.

• The number of fields in forms that do or do not have a high rate of completion.

• The time it takes for staff to complete a particular task, and how frequently that task is performed.

• Email open rates on various subject lines.

• Average lifetime value of a contact.

• An individual contact’s tendency to open an email, register for events, no show for events, click on email links, or donate to campaigns.

• The percentage of members who renewed in any given year — and of course, anything about what might have gone into that decision on their part.

• The popularity of payment options —check versus credit card — on any or all of your forms.

• The number of errors triggered by any given CiviCRM extension.

• How often your users struggle with required fields on any of your forms.

• The relative popularity of mobile versus desktop browsers among your site visitors.

• The frequency of new email list subscribers month-over-month or year-over-year.

• The number of interactions before a contact will actually make a donation, sign up for an event, or become a member.

• The frequency of user complaints, trouble reports, or requests for help month-over-month or year-over-year.

• The most popular channels through which new contacts learn about your organization.

• The interconnectedness of any of these metrics.

Do you have other things that you're measuring or want to measure? I'd love to add to this list.

If you've got something to add, please take 10 seconds to hit reply; I'd love to hear from you.

All the best,
A.