Memorizing Jeopardy

Say I record an episode of Jeopardy, and memorize all the answers.

If I then watch that episode with friends, they might be impressed.

But working as a bartender based only on few memorized "Potent Potables" answers? Nobody will be impressed.

In the same way...

Memorizing a set of steps in your CRM is great for quick results the next time you're in the exact same situation.

But life is not Groundhog Day and you're not Bill Murray. You're almost never in the exact same situation twice.

All the best,
A.

Leadership is lasting

Taking action yourself is quick.

Leading others to action is lasting.

As a leader, your job is to make sure the important stuff gets done.

But it's also to make sure the work has a lasting effect, even when you're not around.

All the best,
A.

Steps vs concepts

Watching my high-school daughter study chemistry is a little window into the process of learning.

Her textbook explains the steps to solve a particular type of problem.

So the practice questions are easy.

But at the end of the chapter, there are questions for which the solution isn't obvious.

At that point, what matters is whether she's mastered the underlying concepts.

Does she really know the difference between “resonance structures” and “isomers”?

Sometimes she's curious enough to ask focused questions, and I can help.

Sometimes she's so stressed that she just stares at it in frustration. I don't blame her. This is hard stuff.

So is your CRM.

Having someone explain the steps to get a particular result is one thing. And it's useful enough, for what it's worth.

But if you don’t understand the underlying concepts, the steps are just a quick fix.

To work through the hard problems, to figure out what's going on when things don't seem to add up, you need the underlying concepts:

• What is this data?

• Where did it come from?

• Why does it appear this way in this report, but another way in that search result?

• How is all of this information connected together?

When you're stressed, you might just have to stare at it in frustration.

But when you're curious, you can ask your CiviCRM specialist or coach to help you understand what's going on.

Those conversations are a little slower, and don't always produce the immediate gratification that comes with a set of easy steps.

But they give you the understanding that will empower you at the times when you really do need answers “right now.”

All the best,
A.

Ready for changes at Gmail?

Outbound email is getting a little harder.

Starting in April 2024, Gmail and Yahoo! will enforce new requirements for what mail they’ll accept and transmit to users’ inboxes.

SendGrid and other outbound email providers are doing their best to remind folks about these changes.

Here’s a summary of some tips they sent me this week: 

• All senders: set up SPF or DKIM email authentication for your domain and verify your configuration.

• Senders of 5,000+ daily emails across any email service: set up DMARC email authentication for your sending domain; this can be set to ‘none’.

• If you don’t have this in place already (or make sure it gets done), any email you send to Gmail and Yahoo! inboxes can be temporarily deferred now, and fully rejected in April 2024.

Whether you’re on SendGrid or not, these two guides could be useful in helping you sort things out:

• SendGrid: Gmail and Yahoo’s New Requirements Guide

• SendGrid: Gmail and Yahoo’s Latest Updates FAQ

If you’re feeling a little lost or need some help, please shoot me an email, and I’ll be glad to help you get it sorted.

Either way, don’t put this off.

Your supporters do want to hear from you, and failing to meet these requirements will make that a lot harder than it should be.

All the best,
-A.

Too many contacts?

Your CiviCRM system is never going to limit the number of contacts you can have, or charge you more for adding more users.

(Some CRM providers do that.)

So there's almost never a reason to delete a contact just because you "don't need them anymore."

Duplicate contacts? Yes, merge those.

Meaningless spam contacts like "Mr. 12345"? Yes, go ahead and get rid of those.

But contacts you haven't heard from in a couple of years? Or contacts who made it into your system because of a very brief one-time interaction?

There's little expense in keeping them, and potential value in retaining them:

• If they do come around again, it will be nice to know something about your history with them.

• In the aggregate, such records contain information that could be useful in analysis of trends and common behaviors, especially if you’d like to convert more such people into active supporters. (And you would, woudn’t you?)

Yes, you might want to tag these old contacts somehow as “historical”, and you'll certainly want to maintain your mailing groups so that your mass emails are only going out to contacts who still want to hear from you.

But if you're actively segmenting your contacts, as I hope you are, then there's not much reason to completely delete their history with you just because they're not so active anymore.

All the best,
A.

P.S. To be fair, some hosted CiviCRM services (for example, CiviCRM Spark) do put a limit on the as well, but I don't think many of my leaders are using such a service — or are you?

“How you can help”

Could you do me a favor and click on this button?

Thanks. (Yes, it's just an image, but thanks for playing along.)

Now, how about I ask you to click one of these? (Again, not real buttons.)

Can you feel the difference?

There's a significant increase in the amount of thinking you have to do before you can respond to my call to action.

Here's the thing:

The more choices you give your supporters about how best to help you, the more thinking they have to do before they can help.

As that number increases, more of them will put it off until later, and for many people “later” means “never.”

So make it easy for them. Give them one choice, if you can.

And if you must make it even a little harder, make sure you have a sound business case for it — know why you’re doing it and how it’s going to help your mission.

All the best,
A.

“An extra pair of hands”

Here's a question I received last week, edited slightly for brevity:

We’ve been using CiviCRM for 3 or 4 years now. Our CiviCRM instance typically needs 3 to 5 hrs of maintenance work per month. Sometimes we just need new or improved configurations. Or we need help when one of our members reports that's something isn’t working as it should.

What do you recommend for an organization that just needs an extra pair of hands now and then for adhoc CiviCRM maintenance?

Readers of this list know I’m reluctant to recommend outsourcing the day-to-day maintenance of your CiviCRM configurations.

Instead, I encourage you to assign that work to an in-house person who is familiar with your unique needs, and who will become your in-house CiviCRM expert.

Still, outsourcing might be for you, in two very specific situations:

1. You have a business case that justifies paying top dollar for an outsider to become very familiar with your policies, procedures, programs, and people. (This is essentially a decision to build a long-term relationship with an outside partner instead of making an internal hire.)

2. You literally just need someone who will check the boxes and click the buttons at your direction, with no real understanding of your goals and mission.

In my experience, not many organizations meet those criteria.

1. If you can pay top dollar, long-term, for an outside expert who's able to internalize your organization’s goals and needs, why not make an internal hire and bring those CiviCRM skills in-house?

2. No matter how simple your CRM configuration, it's very unlikely that you literally just need someone to check boxes and click buttons. You'll probably spend as much time explaining your real situation to them as you would have spent doing the configurations yourself.

That's my view of things.

But I understand not everyone thinks like me. (Just ask my kids.)

If you'd like to give this kind of outsourcing a try, head over to the CiviCRM Partner Directory. You might just find someone there who's happy to help.

All the best,
A.

CRM, and your mission

How important is your CRM in pursuing your mission?

What if you had no formal CRM at all?

Two examples:

1. Last week I attended a conference of choral directors, which hosted 1,000 singers plus a couple thousand more in staff, chaperones, and other guests.

   From all appearances, they have no centralized CRM system for this event. Virtually all the data was managed with Google forms, Google sheets, and PayPal payments.

2. This morning I met with the director of a local organization let's preparing for their annual fundraising gala, at which they regularly raise funds for a large portion hope their annual budget.

   Their entire list of past contributors is managed in a single Excel spreadsheet.

Both of these organizations seem quite content with their methods.

Could they achieve even more progress in their mission with a more centralized CRM system?

Probably.

But the time, effort, and expense of switching their system would not be trivial. I'm certainly not going to walk in and recommend it out of hand.

Here's the thing:

Building a great CRM is not your mission. Improving your CRM is not your mission.

Any change you make to your systems requires a nontrivial investment of effort and expense.

Before you dive in on such an investment, make sure you can point to the specific mission-related outcomes that you hope it will get you.

The more specific you can get in naming those outcomes, the less likely you are to be building something that you don't really need after all.

All the best,
A.

Shared user accounts?

Your CiviCRM system is never going to limit the number of users you can have, or charge you more for adding more users.

So there's almost no reason to have multiple staff members or volunteers who log in with the same username.

On the other hand, if everyone logs in with a separate username, you get substantial advantages:

• You can easily disable accounts that are no longer needed, so your system is more secure.

• You can see who made which changes in the data, so your monitoring and training is more effective.

• You can grant each user different permission levels, so no account has more permissions than it really needs.

I've seen a couple of organizations recently who assumed it was just easier to share user accounts.

It might seem so in the beginning, but user management is incredibly easy in all of the systems that run CiviCRM.

There's no real reason to give up the advantages of separate user accounts.

All the best,
A.

$12 problems

Yesterday I broke my razor.

I'm at a hotel in Denver, so I popped into the shop in the lobby for a replacement.

Twelve bucks. For a package containing one cheap disposable razor and some shaving cream I didn't need.

Sure, that's outrageous, but I paid gladly.

Because I knew the alternatives: go around unshaven for the rest of my trip (sorry, not an option), or walk around downtown looking for a better deal (ugh).

To put it another way: I knew what I wanted (not a razor specifically, but to be clean shaven), and I knew what it was worth to me (A few extra bucks? Yes. Waking all over town? No).

Here's the thing:

Every situation is different. Our desired outcomes and their value, our budgets, our sense of urgency, our desire for quality solutions, our tolerance for risk.

Being honest with ourselves about what we want — and what it's worth to us — puts us in a good position to make decisions we can live with.

Next time you're trying to decide between hiring outside help, putting in some extra hours yourself, or taking a chance on an untested solution, just remember:

Any of those are fine options, depending on your assessment of what you want, and what it's worth to you.

All the best,
A.

Data security and your in-house CiviCRM expert

Security-related topics have been coming up in my coaching sessions quite a lot recently.

I'm really not sure why. Has there been something in the news that I've just missed?

Regardless, here's something worth thinking about:

Have you designated one person in your organization as the primary in-house administrator for CiviCRM?

If not, how can you be sure about security concerns like the following?

• Identifying sensitive personal information that's tracked your CRM.

• Ensuring that information is only accessible to the people who really need it.

• Configuring rules and permissions as tightly as possible without limiting your staff members' ability to get their work done.

• Defining and enforcing policies for password strength, multi-factor authentication, and data sharing.

• Adhering to legal requirements such as GDPR or equivalents for your jurisdiction.

• Disabling user accounts that are no longer needed.

• Defining a standardized data breach response plan, so you know when and how to act in case of possible unauthorized data disclosure.

These are not small things, but they're not to be avoided.

They're also pretty hard to outsource. The most effective approach is for someone within your organization to be responsible for covering all these bases.

Remember, your constituents are counting on you to protect their data.

It's just one more reason to designate an in-house CiviCRM system administrator.

All the best,
A.

Checklists

It used to surprise me how often I would get essentially the same "how to" question from a single client, over and over.

That happens less now, partly because I've been able to encourage folks to take one simple step to solve this problem:

Make a checklist.

The problem was not that these clients were somehow mentally deficient, any more than I am.

Because I had this problem too, until I started using checklists to keep track of my processes. I now have several checklists that I update regularly, for tasks like:

• Starting up with a new coaching client.

• Conducting a group training.

• Speaking at a conference.

• Spinning up a new hosting server for a client.

• Migrating a site from one server to another.

• Performing security updates.

• Scheduling, recording, and releasing a podcast episode.

For everyday tasks, a checklist might be more trouble than it's worth. You're probably intimate already with the details of brushing and flossing, and driving to work.

But for tasks that come up less often, or even irregularly, a checklist is invaluable, because it helps you avoid common mistakes, like:

• Skipping over important configurations.

• Failing to follow up with other staff members, contributors, vendors.

• Struggling to remember the location of that one tricky setting.

How I do it:

You can make this as complex as you want, but complexity is not necessary (and usually best avoided).

• When I have a task that's likely to be repeated more than once, and that has more than three steps (e.g., three settings forms in the CRM, three system I need to touch, three people I need to talk to), I make a checklist for it.

• The checklist includes every step I need to take to complete the task, plus extra steps for testing to ensure it's been done correctly.

• Each checklist is just a Google Doc. I keep all of them in a checklist folder and title them with the name of the task.

• While I'm doing the task, I work through the checklist. And if I find the checklist is missing a step or an option, I updat it on the spot. This ensures my checklists are continually improving and always up to date.

• If I need to hand this task off to someone else, I start by walking them through the checklist. If I'm assigning this task to them on a long-term basis, I give them access to edit, so they can keep it up to date.

Here's the thing:

Human memory is fallible, and you're just a human being.

So are the airline pilots, brain surgeons, and people in hundreds of other important positions who rely on checklists every day.

Your work is no less important than theirs. And your brain is no less susceptible to a lapse in memory.

Save yourself, and your organization, a lot of trouble, by adding checklists to your documentation plan.

All the best,
A.

Selling belief

As a community-driven organization, you probably don't think much in terms of selling.

But there are two important things people want when they contribute to your mission:

1. To believe that your mission is worthwhile, and

2. To trust that you're actually able to further that mission.

From this perspective, what you're selling is a belief.

They may like you and your work, but if they don't believe it's important, they'll likely choose to invest their time and effort elsewhere.

They may care deeply about your cause, but if they don't quite trust that you'll make a significant difference, they'll look for a better way.

So it's important that your communications tell both stories:

• Yes, there's a need. It is serious and pressing, and now is the time to act.

• Yes, we are making a difference. We've already done this much, and we're on our way to doing this much more.

By telling specific and personal stories of the need, and by showing the measurable impact of your work, you'll give your contributors — volunteers, donors, members, and advocates — the confidence they need in your mission and in your organization.

If you don't tell them (or even better, show them), they’ll never know.

All the best,
A.

CiviCamp Montreal: No admission at the door

CiviCamp Montreal is less than a week away — February 28!. You can still register online, but there’s no admission at the door.

So if you want to bump fists and share ideas with other CiviCRM users and experts, now’s the time to register.

Here’s what the organizers are saying:

Whether you are new to CiviCRM or a seasoned expert, presentations will appeal to anyone who is interested in CiviCRM.

Attend the Ask an Expert session where several CiviCRM partners will be happy to help and answer all your questions.

Meet other CiviCRM Users, CiviCRM Partners and CiviCRM Core Team Members, learn advanced strategies for managing your favorite CRM, ask any questions you might have, share experiences and knowledge with your peers and build connections!

If you can make it, I highly recommend you do. If you’d like to learn more about the event, check out the CiviCamp Montreal 2024 page here.

All the best,
A.

P.S. I’ve got an important commitment that will keep me elsewhere during this event, but if you’re going, please let me know! I’d love to hear about your experience there.

The unreliable CRM

Do you trust your CRM to give you accurate information every time?

A client contacted me last week because her CRM was giving her conflicting information: one report showed around 600 contacts matching certain criteria, but a search with similar criteria showed only 150.

This is a serious concern.

Just like your bank statements, the gas gauge in your car, and your business partners, CRM data that you can’t trust at the very least useless, and potentially damaging.

For this client, we found the cause: the report was based on a certain custom field, and the search used criteria for another, similarly named, custom field.

Once the difference was clear, she regained confidence that the system was working as it should.

Unreliable CRM output can be the result of a few different problems:

• Incorrect data — this includes things like duplicate records and data entry errors by staff.

• User confusion over data structures and report functionality — this was my client’s situation, mentioned above.

• A bug in the software — this is rare, but it can happen.

Whatever the cause, if you find yourself doubting the results of your reports or other CRM functionality, you need to address that soon.

Because a system you can't trust is worse than no system at all.

All the best,
A.

3 ways to make donating easier in CiviCRM

Here are three ways you can make your CiviCRM donation and sign-up forms as easy as possible to complete:

1. Disable confirmation pages

By default, CiviCRM configures your contribution pages to use a confirmation page. This means your donor will fill out the form, click Submit, and then get a second page that essentially says, "Please review your information and click Submit again" — and if they don't submit that confirmation, there's no donation.

Why would you want that?

Unless you can articulate a clear reason to make the donor think twice before giving, just turn that off.

You can find it under the “Title” tab of the contribution page configuration:

(CiviCRM won’t let you disable this for paid event registrations, but there’s an unlisted extension that purports to allow it: Skip Event Confirm Page)

2. Disable Stripe billing address fields

If you're using the Stripe payment processor, it will, by default, add a full set of billing address fields to the contribution form.

That's eight additional fields on your form, most of them required.

That potentially doubles the effort of completing the form. And the thing is, Stripe does not need this information to process the payment.

Fortunately, you can turn that off. It's a checkbox under the Stripe Settings (Administer > CiviContribute > Stripe Settings):

3. Move all optional information requests to the thank-you page.

Newsletter sign up options, questions about their interests or their demographics — all of that is nice to have.

But are you willing to demand that they think about that before they donate?

Instead, you can create a separate Profile for those questions, and add a link to that form in the contribution thank-you page.

Let them donate first. Then ask them for more information if you wish.

Here's the thing:

When a site visitor donates, something happens that's more important than the donation itself: they give you their name and their email address and express interest in your work.

That's the beginning of your relationship with them.

In the long run, your best bet is to make it as easy as possible for them to begin that relationship, by making your donation forms as short and simple as possible.

After all, if they give up on your contribution page, you'll never even know that they exist. And where’s your relationship then?

All the best,
A.

Zero steps to donate?

Think about someone who’s trying to donate to your organization right now.

In an ideal magical world, how difficult would you want to make it for them? How many steps should it take?

The answer is: zero. We want giving to require zero steps.

They could say, “I’m going to give these people $5000 right now,” and the funds would be immediately sent.

Of course that’s not quite possible yet.

But look at your online contribution pages (and membership signups, and event registration forms).

How many steps are you requiring?

Count carefully, because everything is a step. From the time they open the page to the moment they finalize payment, every question, every decision, every click, every scroll is a step they have to take in order to give.

• Every field on that form — required or not — is a question they have to think about, to decide whether they’ll answer it.

• Every word on the page is information they have to process, or at least decide whether to read.

• Every page in the process is a step. This includes confirmation pages and “one more thing” add-ons.

Take a look at your forms with a fresh eye, and get rid of as many of those obstacles as possible.

Here’s the thing:

By the time someone reaches your online contribution form, they’ve already decided they want to give.

Your form’s one and only job is to get out of the way and let them give.

You probably can’t whittle it down to zero steps, but you can get pretty close.

All the best,
-A.

I wanted to donate, but…

I love your work and I want to give you $1,000. So I visit your website and hunt around for the donation form.

How many required fields do I have to fill out, before I can give you my money?

How many options and questions do I have to scroll past and think about, before I can give you my money?

How many times do I have to say, “Yes I'm really sure,” before I can give you my money?

If it's more than a few, I might start to forget how much I love your work.

So here's the real question:

Are you making it as easy as possible?

If not, you can bet there are people who want to help but are giving up because it was just a little too hard.

And you'll never even know that they stopped by and tried.

All the best,
-A.

The tech is not the mission

When someone is drowning and you throw them a rope,

do they care if it’s a $1200 climbing rope,

or just that it’s strong enough to pull them to shore?

If a $10 rope is more than strong enough,

that’s $1190 you can put to other good uses.

(Hint: It’s not always a rope; sometimes it’s your CRM.)

All the best,
A.

If it's not in the right place, does it even exist?

Scenario 1. You're expecting a package, and you get an email saying it's been delivered. But it's not in the mailbox, and it's not on the front porch.

Where could it be? Oh, the delivery driver put it on the back porch, where nobody ever goes.

Scenario 2. Your teenager borrowed your favorite sweater. She says she put it back in the closet, but it's obviously not there.

Where could it be? Oh, she put it in the coat closet in the hallway, which you almost never use.

Scenario 3. Your team says they spoke with 23 potential donors last week who want to start receiving email updates on your work. But there are no new names in your subscriber list.

Where could they be? Oh, they're scribbled in paper notes on someone's desk and entered into an Excel sheet on someone else's laptop. Where no one will ever find them.

Here's the thing:

If the package is not visible, or the sweater is not in the right closet, or the constituent data is not in the CRM, does it really exist at all?

Maybe in some technical sense it does. A philosopher or a physicist might argue that way.

But in real life, if you can't find it, it's worthless to you.

In practical terms, if constituent data is not in your CRM, it may as well not exist.

All the best,
A.