Are they even reading your emails?

How happy are you with the Open Rate and Click-Through rate on your email campaigns?

Do you monitor those numbers at all?

CiviCRM does a pretty good job of reporting on these stats for each mass mailing you send out.

And with a little care and creativity, those numbers can help you increase the number of people who not only read your emails but actually get involved in your work:

Attending events, volunteering, sharing your message to their friends, and supporting financially.

Monitoring the numbers is a start.

Every mass mailing you send through CiviCRM offers this information in the "report" link for that mailing. And CiviCRM's collection of Mailing reports will help you compare those numbers from one mailing to another.

(And by the way, that comparison is where the value lies. These numbers do not represent absolute truth, for various technical reasons. But comparing numbers between two mailings is still very useful.)

Even better: Test, measure, and adjust.

CiviCRM offers A/B testing features right out of the box.

The idea is to send two versions of your mailing to two small test groups, so you can gauge which one gets the better Open Rate or Click-Thru Rate.

You can then use that comparison to select one of them to send the rest of your email list.

Continual improvement is the big win.

With care, you can start to spot trends in successful subject lines, calls to action, image placement, and more. That’s valuable information you can use to keep improving the effectiveness of your mailings over time.

And what's the value of more effective mailings?

More engagement.

More responsiveness.

More progress toward your goals.

And more benefit to the people you care about.

All the best,
A.

Dashboard lights

Does your car have warning lights on the dashboard?

Sure it does.

When they light up, do you pay attention to them? Do you take action to fix whatever problem they're telling you about?

Sure you do.

That's what smart owners do. We pay attention to the little warning lights.

Do you ever see these little pop-up warnings on the CiviCRM homepage?

Sure you do.

Do you take the time to understand what they mean? Do you take action to address the underlying issues?

Sure you do ... right?

All the best,
A.

What you really want

Do you remember why you started in your work?

Maybe you thought you'd make a difference in the world.

Maybe you thought you could help the people you really care about.

Surely you thought at least this would be something you enjoy.

How's that going?

If it's going well, congratulations! You're either very lucky, or you've remembered to be careful about choosing goals that matter to you and plotting your own course to achieve them.

If it's not going so well, you have my sympathy.

You're in the same boat with a surprising number of leaders in community-driven organizations.

So what can you do about it?

What's one action you could take, today, to put yourself on track to start setting goals you care about, and to start making them happen?

If nothing comes to mind — if you can't think of even one thing off the top of your head — then I think you've found the one thing you can do:

Take 30 minutes today to be honest with yourself about what you really want in your work.

Just find a place to sit quietly and undistributed, turn off your phone, and contemplate honestly.

Of course, merely admitting to yourself what you really want is not enough to make it happen.

But it is a crucial first step.

All the best,
A.

Enjoying these emails?

If you enjoy these emails, and you know someone who might also enjoy them, please do me — and your dear colleague — a favor, and let them know about this mailing list.

Too many nonprofit executives and department heads are on the edge of burnout.

Or caught up in the rat race of merely completing one task after another.

Or struggling to make real progress in their mission, career, or organizational growth.

I'm on a mission to change that.

If these mailings are inspiring you to plan more effectively, think bigger, and work toward measurable goals, please help me get the word out by inviting your friends who might also benefit.

Goals matter, and I’ve got a goal to double the number of subscribers to this list in the next three months.

Because I believe it's making a difference.

I believe we’re doing something special here that empowers community organization leaders, and by extension empowers the communities they serve.

I'm certainly glad to have you along for the ride.

Thanks for all you do. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.

All the best,
A.

Tasks and goals

Every day, tasks come to me.

They seem to find me, whether I want them or not.

It's like they're chasing me, with their demands, and their deadlines, and their requirements.

I fight through them one by one, and cross each one off my list like the names of defeated enemies.

I know the next day there will be more.

Goals are more elusive.

I must seek them out. Identify them. Name them. And plot to attain them.

Goals don't chase me.

I chase them.

And when I attain them they are not defeated enemies but dear friends.

I pin them up on the wall like medals.

I rejoice in their accomplishment.

I reflect on them with pride.

Goals and tasks.

Both require my labor, my time, my careful attention.

But it's the goals that give me joy.

And if I'm not careful, the tasks will soak up all that I can give.

So I'm careful to remember that the tasks will always find me, but it's up to me to find the goals.

All the best,
A.

Your CRM is no Honda Accord

The Honda Accord is the most common car in America.

If you own one, and you need mechanical help, virtually any mechanic will do a decent job.

Of course it’s not a very interesting car, but it’s easy to maintain.

At the other end of the spectrum are cars like my friend Howard's 1942 US Army Jeep.

It’s a street-legal piece of history that turns heads wherever he takes it.

And when that thing needs work, Howard's either going to do it himself or take it to a specialist.

Still, you can bet that he isn't about to trade in his Jeep for a Honda Accord.

He knows it's harder to maintain, and he's happy to take that on, in return for the joy he gets in the bargain.

Here's the thing:

The longer you've been running your open source CRM, the more your situation is like Howard's.

What you have there is a rather unique arrangement of features, configurations, extensions, business rules, and work habits.

When it needs work, not just anybody can step in and help you with it.

This usually leads you to one of two choices: do the work yourself, or call in a specialist.

Which choice you pick will depend on your urgency, personality, skills, and available resources.

And either way is fine.

But it does take a little more time and effort than just using some mass-market subscription-based CRM tool.

Hopefully you're finding that it's worth the effort.

All the best,
A.

The “right” way

This evening I went running at the local high school track.

I have a jiu-jitsu tournament coming up in November, and I'm trying to build up my cardio. So I'm at the track running sprint intervals.

Several other people were there, too. None of them were doing what I was doing.

Some were jogging, some power-walking, some just strolling and talking to their kids.

That didn't bother me — why would it?

But it sure used to.

When I first started running years ago — and knew nothing except that I wanted to move more — it was easy to worry about what everybody else was doing and whether I should be doing it too.

I assumed they must know something I didn’t.

But now I understand there are plenty of reasons why we all are — and should be — doing completely different things.

For all the folks I might be watching out there on the track, there are at least three important differences between them and me:

• Are we at the same stage in our fitness journey?

• Do we have the same goals — in the long term, and in terms of what we want right now?

• Does either of us actually know what we're doing and have reason to believe that this activity is going to help us reach our goals?

Here's the thing:

It’s always tempting to compare obvious differences.

When you see all the wonderful (or awful) things folks are doing at other organizations, it's really worth pausing to ask whether the comparison is even useful.

• Are your organizations operating at the same level?

• Do you have the same goals?

• Are their super-cool programs even likely to help them reach their own goals?

Frankly, it would be pretty hard for you even to know those answers.

There's not much use in comparing.

And much less use in copying.

The only "right" way is to decide what your own goals are, and work out your own strategy to go from where you are now to where you want to be.

If you happen to learn from others as you go, that's great!

Just don't get the idea that someone else is holding the roadmap to your destination.

Only you have that.

All the best,
A.

Measurements you’ll actually use

Every day, your CRM is collecting tons of measurable data that you're probably ignoring.

That's expected, of course. You're probably not interested in all of it.

But what measurements would you actually like to have?

When you say, "If I knew X, then I could Y," what's that X?

If it's related to your people — donors, event participants, members, staff — there's a good chance your CRM is tracking it, or could be made to track it, or a meaningful approximation of it, while requiring little effort on your part

You just have to know what it is you want to measure, and why.

Once you have that, actually tracking it might be a lot easier than you think.

All the best,
A.

The best time to get an answer is...

The best time to get an answer is...

... when you have a question.

Something magical happens when we're curious.

There's a gap in our knowledge. We see it. And we feel the need to fill it.

In that moment, there's a little space open in the reference library of our mind — a little spot already mapped out in the structure of our learning, so we’ll be able to find it easily later on.

And it's just waiting to be filled with good information.

That's the beauty of curiosity: it's like a little signal flare that pops off at the times when your brain is most receptive to new info.

When my coaching clients reach out to me with specific real-world questions, in the moments when they need the answers, that makes for some of the most effective instructional time we could have together.

Hopefully, when that little light goes on for you, you've got someone you can reach out to and get your questions answered.

All the best,
A.

What’s shaping your strategy?

Here's a quick list of three different reasons my clients sometimes give for selecting a particular plan of action:

1. “Because this is how we did it last year.”

2. “Because our CRM is built this way.”

3. “Because doing it this way allows us to achieve this specific goal that we've targeted.”

Which one of those do you think is the most valuable?

I'd say none of them are downright useless. Each has its value in the right situation.

But one of them is so much more useful than the others.

“This is how we did it last year”

This really makes me wonder if the directors have put any time at all into assessing whether last year's plan is actually worth repeating.

Was last year's project successful? Then why not go for something better?

Do you know whether the last year's program was smash hit or a complete flop? Do you know what made it so?

Just repeating last year's plan leaves you open to repeating its failures missing out on significantly better results.

“Our CRM is built this way.”

Okay, that's a pragmatic approach. Kudos for working with your tools instead of against them. But I wonder what you're leaving on the table by just going with the flow.

Working with your software instead of against it is one thing. Letting its features define your strategy is quite something else.

“Doing it doing it this way will help us reach our goals”

This sounds like the winner to me.

It starts with the goal and uses it to motivate and inform the strategy.

It looks to the future and starts now preparing for it.

It remembers that there is a purpose for every action, and that action without purpose is wasted.

Whatever campaign you have coming up on the horizon, I hope you can take time to think about the goals you want to achieve.

And then shape a strategy around those goals with an eye on the future.

All the best,
A.

Progress

Do you feel more confident about your CRM strategy, skill-sets, and systems than you did 6 months ago? A year ago? Two years ago?

Are you actually getting more value out of your CRM than you did then?

If you are, congratulations. That means you're making real progress in your ability to put your CRM to work for your mission.

If you're not, it might be worth asking why.

As with so many things — career development, nutrition and health, hobbies and lifestyle — these changes don't happen overnight.

They’re the result of consistent incremental effort over time.

If you'd like to look back in 6 months or a year and know that you’ve increased your ability to leverage your CRM in accomplishing your goals, a good time to start making those incremental improvements might be … right now.

All the best,
A.

3 criteria for good measurements

You can't improve what you don't measure.

(Or at least, if you don't measure it, you can't know if you've improved it.)

But how do you decide what to measure?

Outcomes, outputs, leading indicators, trailing indicators, expenditures — you could measure any of that, and more.

Except, of course, you can't measure everything.

Because even measuring requires an expenditure of time, effort, even money.

Here's a set of three criteria you can use in picking the measurements that will be most valuable to your work.

I recommend taking each of these in order. Start with the first criteria before moving on to the second and third.

1. Is it meaningful?

There's no point measuring something that doesn't matter to you. So to use this criteria, you have to think about what really matters to you.

Of course mission outcomes matter. They're the reason you're doing your work in the first place. So they would pass this criteria.

But other things are meaningful too. Leading indicators of success. Expenditures that might reveal an opportunity for, or the achievement of, increased efficiency.

When you hear yourself saying, "If I knew _________, then I could ...", that blank is something meaningful. Maybe it's worth measuring.

2. Is it measurable?

There are lots of things we'd like to know that are just hard to measure. For example, the actual impact you make in the world can be very hard to measure.

But often there are proxies that can be measured.

If you have access to solid research indicating that students who complete high school are less likely to get caught up in the criminal justice system, then the number of kids you've helped to complete high school is a proxy measurement for how many you've helped avoid jail time.

And for the things that you really can't find a way to measure, either directly or by proxy, the only honest answer is that you can't measure them right now.

And if something's not actually measurable, even by some approximation, isn’t it a little silly to say that you intend to measure it?

3. Is it manageable?

Finally, keep in mind that these measurements will require some level of diligence, attention to detail, and consistency.

And that level is a variable you can control.

Not every valid measurement has to be a randomized double-blind peer-reviewed study fit for publication in a national journal.

But for whatever level of detail you decide to measure, your effort has to be manageable, so that you can do it consistently over time, and so that your measurement will be more than a mere guess.

That means there's no need to get in over your head. You can pick a simple measurement scheme — which will provide a lot more value than no measurement at all — without it becoming a massive burden in your work.

Here's the thing:

Good measurements will provide valuable insights into your work and its effectiveness — and into ways that you can improve that work within your means.

Even the simplest measurement scheme, if it's meaningful to your work, measurable in some quantifiable way, and manageably consistent, really will get you some of those valuable insights.

All the best,
A.

Outcomes vs outputs

Your donors, funders, and other supporters want to believe that you are impacting the world in ways that matter to them.

So you're regularly in a position to tell them the story of what you're accomplishing.

How are you telling that story?

Are you telling them about real-world outcomes that matter to real people? Or are you just telling them about your outputs?

Outputs are the things that you do:

Events held. Patrons served. Volunteer hours generated. Trainings conducted.

All the things that are the “how” of your organization's work are outputs.

Yes they matter, and yes they're probably worth measuring.

But outcomes are where the real value lies.

Outcomes are the transformations you accomplish in people's lives:

Training recipients placed in sustainable jobs. Students matched to scholarships and accepted to college. Homebound seniors comforted by hours of volunteer care.

All the things that are the “why” of your organization's work are outcomes.

These matter most of all.

You can tell because if you got all of the outcomes and none of the outputs, nobody would miss your outputs at all. But if you only did the outputs and got none of the outcomes, everyone would ask, “Why are you even doing this?”

So among all the things you could be measuring and reporting on, remember to measure and report on your outcomes.

They are, after all, why you do what you do.

All the best,
A.

Making data imports easier

CiviCRM's import tools are pretty good.

But have you ever been in a situation like one of these?

• You have a load of data to import as contributions or activities (etc.) to import but because this came from an external source it doesn't have CiviCRM Contact IDs in it.

• You have data to import to contacts but it's a bit of a mess and may result in duplicates, even despite your expertise in using CiviCRM's dedupe rules.

• You have data to import but the name field is just one field instead of first and last names.

There's a newly approved CiviCRM extension that does a pretty good job solving those problems.

It's called CSV Import Helper, and it has some pretty cool features to solve those problems:

You feed it a CSV file, and it helps you identify the contacts for each row, or specify that a new contact should be created.

It starts by suggesting matches for each row, based on name and email — and even makes suggestions based on names that are similar if not identical.

It also only shows distinct sets of names and emails, so if your data has multiple rows for Wilma Flintstone, you'll only have to locate Wilma once.

Once we the contacts are matched up, you can download the CSV file again, in a file that’s the same as your original CSV, but with an extra "Internal ID" column showing the actual CiviCRM Contact ID for each row.

Then you can use that in CiviCRM's native import feature for contacts, activities, contributions.

Now that this extension has passed community review, it's available for easy installation from your city CRM manage extensions page.

You can install it and give it a try, or read more about it here.

All the best,
A.

Working “in” vs “on” your organization

Ever think about the difference between working in your organization versus working on your organization?

Are you delegating tasks to people who have been well trained in standard procedures and workflows?

Or do you spend much of your time doing those tasks yourself?

What if you could make time to build up and clarify the systems that will make your organization run smoothly, and to train your staff or volunteers to use those systems efficiently?

Would that make your life, and your staff's lives, less hectic and more productive?

If you wish you could do more to work on you organization, what prevents you?

And if you did have a little time to do more work on your organization, how would you use that time?

All the best,
A.

Learning to ride a bike

You can't learn to ride a bike by reading a book. Or learn to dance, or play piano, or even bake a soufflé.

For those, you need real-life practice.

Sure, you can learn a lot of facts and ideas from reading.

But even topics that are mostly fact-based require a lot of practice to master.

Like biological chemistry.

Or a foreign language.

Or your CRM system.

Yes, you'll get a lot out of reading. The CiviCRM online documentation is a great resource, for example.

But to really master your systems, you'll need to practice.

And spend time.

And make mistakes.

And ask questions.

That's how you learn to move efficiently, and apply all those facts and ideas to your real-life situation.

I can't rush it. You just have to start where you are, have clear goals in mind, and keep improving.

That’s something you can do, and must, if you want to see the results.

All the best,
A.

Likely CiviCRM event in Montreal, Feb 28 - March 1, 2024

According to this thread in the CiviCRM MatterMost chat, planning is now in the works for a CiviCRM event in Montreal next February/March:

... it's been a long time since we've had a face-to-face event in North-America! @cividesk and Symbiotic are considering organizing a 3-days event in Montreal with tentative dates of Wed, Feb 28th to Fri, March 1st. The first day would be aimed at end-users and feature presentations and workshops. The next 2 days would be aimed at developers and system administrators with a Sprint and workshops/discussions. ...

The event has not been officially announced yet, but responses in the thread have been very enthusiastic.

If you're anywhere close to Montreal, I recommend you save the date.

I'm planning to be there.

I hope you are too.

All the best,
A.

Security: Every user account is a doorway

I've been studying medieval European history with my kids.

The historical development of castle design is a fascinating thing.

Most castles had only two entrances: the wide drawbridge-and-portcullis affair at the front for whatever public access might be granted, and a tiny "postern gate" at the rear for low-key access by trusted staff.

Maintaining such a fortification wasn't very convenient, but it was the best way to defend against potential attackers.

Now imagine if they had decided that one postern door wasn't enough.

The kitchen staff want one near the kitchen. Groundskeepers want one near the garden. We'll just add a whole bunch of little doors all around the castle wall.

What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah, not a good idea.

Here's the thing:

If you're giving members a login to manage their own profile and access members-only benefits on your site, that has real business value.

That's your big public entrance, and it's well fortified. Folks who come through that door are very limited in what they can do anyway.

And your staff? They come in through the back door and have much more access to your valuable inner workings. That has real business value, too.

But what about password accounts for staff who no longer work for you?

Those have no business value.

But they're still a means of access — waiting to be abused by miscreants who aim to misuse your data and your resources.

Every one of them is like an unattended door in your castle wall.

For goodness' sake, brick those things up.

All the best,
A.

CRM projects I’ll say no to

I just got off the phone with a prospective client who was looking for help making CiviCRM do something really neat.

Like, “a CRM really should be able to do this stuff” kind of neat.

I talked him out of it.

He seemed pretty happy about that. I was too.

Why?

There are certain types of projects I just don't want to take.

At the top of that list are the ones in which the client does not have a sound business case for the work.

And that was the situation on today’s phone call.

We discussed the total value of what he was hoping to achieve — time and money savings for his organization, stress savings for himself and his volunteer staff, convenience for his constituents.

And we discussed alternative solutions that could get him a large chunk of that value for a fraction of the cost of his original proposal to me.

We happily agreed that those alternatives were likely to bring him far more value than creating an expensive project with me.

He was happy. I was happy. And there it ended.

Here's the thing:

For any project, large or small, the client is going to incur expenses:

• My fees.

• Their own time and effort working with me.

• The time and effort to train their staff, users, or others who will be affected by the change.

• The ongoing burden of maintaining whatever customizations are created through our work together.

Whatever units you might use, all of that adds up to some measurable investment.

I don't want to take anybody down that road if that investment is going to be larger than:

• the value they can expect to get from it, or

• the cost of some reasonable alternative.

That's why I’m always going on about — and asking about — business goals, strategy, and alternative solutions.

I hope you're asking yourself those questions as well, anytime you get a great new idea.

Great new ideas are always fun, but the real question is:

Is it worth it?

All the best,
A.

Your CRM strategy

How would you describe your CRM strategy?

Have you written it down?

Could you summarize it in a sentence or two?

If you can't articulate it, are you sure it exists?

Here are some things that a strong CRM strategy will identify:

• The audience you want to reach.

• The specific reasons you want to reach them.

• The progression through which you plan to take them, from first contact to the highest level of engagement.

• Your organization’s short-term and long-term goals, and how reaching your audience will help you achieve those goals.

• How your outreach plan will play to your organization's strengths and bolster your weaknesses.

Here’s the thing:

You'll notice I didn't say anything about software, events, mass mailings, or websites.

Those are just tools.

And CRM is not about tools.

It's about relationships.

All the best,
A.