The 6% goal

Would a 6% increase in your results be worth implementing a new feature? It depends.

One of my service organizations is looking at implementing a new automated SMS/text system to remind clients of appointments.

Their situation:

• They receive some funding for each completed appointment.

• A missed appointment has the same cost as a completed one, because the staff time simply goes unused.

They have an “appointments kept” rate of 80%.

They have a goal to get that number up to 85%.

That's an increase of just 6.25%.

Besides the obvious benefit to their mission (by serving more people), the additional funding from that increase would be far more than the cost of implementing this SMS program.

Is it guaranteed to work? Nothing is, you know.

But 6% seems very doable, and it will clearly pay for itself.

This, my friends, is how you take reasonable steps forward.

It starts, as do so many good things, with defining a goal.

What’s your next goal?

All the best,
A.

When “yes” is the wrong answer

Say your shoulder hurts after a car accident. Would you tell your doctor, "I have a broken clavicle. Please perform surgery to repair the bone," or would you just say, "I've been in an accident and my shoulder hurts. What do you recommend?"

Frankly, if a doctor agrees to perform surgery based only on your request, without performing her own assessment, you should get a new doctor. (And, you know, tell your friends to stay away from this one!)

Here's the thing:

Whether it's your shoulder in need of medical attention, or your CRM systems in need of expert help, you want someone who doesn’t always say “yes.”

If your selected “expert” isn’t willing to stand their ground and insist on a proper assessment to determine the best course of action, you might need to look for someone else.

Hopefully you can find someone you trust to listen to your situation, understand what you're trying to achieve, and then recommend a course of action that will actually get you what you want.

That's a sign that you've selected someone who is actually worthy of your trust.

All the best,
A.

"Always ready" = "always maintained"

If you were a chef with a nice collection of high-quality knives, you'd want to take care of them well.

Not just because you'd have to replace them, but because you need them to be ready when it's time to work. They’re critically important for your work.

How you use them, how you store them, how you clean them, how you keep them sharp. All of that matters.

Your own work, dear reader, is not so different. You rely on a high-quality CRM system, probably every day, to help you excel in your work and mission.

Sure it's important to know how it works. But it's just as important to make sure it's well cared for.

To make sure it's in top condition when it's time to work (which is all the time), make sure you're giving it the care it needs:

• Keeping up with new releases, for security updates and any relevant feature improvements.

• Cleaning out duplicate contact records on a regular basis.

• Testing new configurations in a wide variety of situations.

• Organizing — and documenting — user roles and permissions.

• Ensuring backups are taken frequently (and testing to ensure those backups actually work).

• Training relevant staff on usage and configuration within their area of responsibility.

• Understanding how the CRM integrates with the rest of your website (your CMS, e.g. WordPress or Drupal), and handling all the security and upgrade concerns for that system as well.

• Designating someone on your team to oversee all of this care and maintenance.

I know, it may sound like a lot. Just the way caring for a good knife can sound like “a lot” when you’re used to owning the clunkers they sell at the dollar store.

But you can do it. With a little planning, and maybe a little outside advice now and then, you can keep your system sharp and ready.

And you'll be glad you did.

Because the right time to have your CRM working well and dependably is, well, all the time.

All the best,
A.

The price is not the value

Imagine you were a professional chef. What would be the value, to you, of a small collection of high-quality knives?

A good friend might have sold them to you for $10. A bad friend might have conned you into paying $5,000. (Yeah, we all need good friends.)

But what you paid for them has nothing to do with how valuable they are in your work.

Once you've got them, what matters is not what they cost you, but how well you use them, how much you enjoy them, and how much they help you get your job done well.

Here's the thing:

If a $10 knife can be invaluable to a professional chef, a license-free CRM can be invaluable to a community-driven organization.

This has important implications for you. More on that tomorrow.

All the best,
A.

Peer fundraising

Do your donors care about your cause? Do they trust your organization to make a difference in that cause?

Obviously they do. Otherwise they wouldn't be donors.

The next question is, are they proud to be supporting you? Would they like their friends and family to know about your work? Would they actually enjoy connecting more people to your work?

That's not quite a certainty, but there's a good chance many of them do feel just that way.

With that in mind, how much thought have you giving to a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign?

I've seen it used to great effect:

• The youth drum corps (my client) that's had its participants successfully fundraising for summer tour expenses for many years.

• The national political party (my client) that's raising funds for local candidates via "help me support my candidate" pages.

• The nationwide jiu-jitsu tournament organization that allows competitors to raise funds for cancer-fighting charities (not my client, but I am a fundraising competitor).

In case you didn't know, CiviCRM has the features to support such a campaign.

Of course, a successful campaign is based on good planning and communication, not just good features.

But if the features are there, and if you think your donors could be motivated, a well executed campaign could be a big win for you.

Surely it's worth considering.

All the best,
A.

Even better

Here in north Texas, at the local non-profit where I serve on the board, we wrapped up our big annual fundraiser, weekend before last.

Imagine my pleasure to get this email from our executive office this morning:

Congratulations on another successful Starfish Benefit! We've received many positive reviews from attendees.

We would appreciate your feedback on the event. Please share your thoughts with me so I can compile them for our next board meeting ...

Well! Someone here understands the value of a post-operation review!

Sure, there's the question of whether we’ve met our fundraising goals for the event (final numbers are still pending, but we're at least very close). That's always important.

But I see something that's potentially even more valuable:

Capturing lessons learned from the entire event — from planning to execution to follow-up — to make it even more likely that we'll hit our goals on future events.

That's part of the value of aiming for measurable goals, whether it’s fundraising or anything else: not just measuring whether you've met the goal, but learning what you did right, what you did wrong, and (right or wrong) what you could do even better.

All the best,
A.

Constraints vs. preferences

Every project or program you undertake will, naturally face some contraints.

Time and money are the big ones, though they’re not the only ones.

But not every limitation is a constraint. Many of them are just preferences.

What's the difference?

A constraint is non-negotiable. It's a deal-breaker. If it can't be accommodated, the project is not worth doing.

Everything else is a preference. Everything.

That’s not to say you should disregard your preferences. On the contrary, it’s wise to recognize them, call them what they are, and assign some value (or priority) to them.

You don’t have to ignore your hopes for the project merely because they’re “just preferences.”

But distinguishing them from real constraints will save you some agony when it’s time to make hard decisions — and that time is sure to arrive, sooner or later.

All the best,
A.

Who’s tracking the tracker?

So you've got this awesome CRM that’s fantastic at keeping track of your people.

Yay for that!

But what's keeping track of your CRM?

I mean, your people are changing all the time. Getting more involved. Making donations. Attending events. All of that.

And it's great to have a system that keeps that all straight for you, right?

But your CRM is changing all the time too. New configurations. New features. New custom fields. New permissions and rules and users.

Who's keeping track of that?

Well, hopefully you are. That's where your internal documentation comes in. That's where your in-house expert comes in.

Because as things change, keeping track is important.

You're doing it for your constituent data. Isn’t it worth doing for your CRM configs as well?

All the best,
A.

Who makes CiviCRM great?

Who makes CiviCRM great?

Well, you do.

Every time you tell a colleague about it, or share how you're using it with others, or even when you complain about it to someone who can help you (you know, me!)

And who else?

Lots of people. They contribute their time and skills to make the whole product better, create extensions, conduct trainings, write documentation, and more.

This list shows some of those contributors, but even that list only includes those who've a) opted-in to be listed (like me, who finally just decided to do that today), and b) contributed specific code improvements or documentation.

It doesn't include what folks have contributed by supporting others in MatterMost or StackExchange, or at live events, or in many other ways.

We're all out here helping each other.

I'm glad you're part of that, whether your name is on a list somewhere or not!

All the best,
A.

Paper wins again

As much as we love our fancy streamlined CRM systems, I've yet to see anything that beats good ol’ pen and paper for speed and flexibility.

I was on staff during the Starfish Benefit for the Child & Family Guidance Center of Texoma this past Saturday.

Besides the live auction that gets most of the attention, a fun part of the event is the “Heads or Tails” game. I won't bore you with the details, but the gist is that you must donate to play, and you must play to win, and winning is fun.

Thing is, many people weren't able to sign up for the game because of some issues with the mobile app for the event.

No problem, says the emcee. Before we start, I'll ask everyone who wants to play to raise their bid paddles, we'll note their bidder numbers, and then we'll just add that game donation to their auction totals.

Sure, fine idea.

But. Imagine you're trying to record a series of specific three-digit numbers as the emcee reads them from the crowd as quickly as he can. You know, 30 or 40 of them in a 60-second burst.

Are you going to type that into your notes app on your phone? Are you going to look them up one by one in the auction software?

The board member in charge of the Heads or Tails game tried that. It doesn't work so well.

Fortunately, somebody was ready with the right tools: one ballpoint pen, and one sheet of paper.

Problem solved.

Here's the thing:

It's really wonderful when you can do live data entry on the spot. The data goes right into your system, and your staff can see it right away. And once your live event is done, your data is there.

But someone needs to be ready with a fallback that is bone-simple and absolutely reliable. Just in case a surprise comes up.

Because in a live event, surprises will come up. Count on it.

All the best,
A.

Reality is imperfect

Last Saturday the Child and Family Guidance Center of Texoma hosted its annual Starfish Benefit.

I'm on the board there, and preliminary numbers indicate that we hit well above our fundraising goal. (Yay!)

Surprisingly, a few of our board members — and some of our guests — noticed a small problem during the event:

Some fundraising opportunities, which should have been available on our mobile app, were strangely inaccessible on some phones.

Naturally I checked on this with the representative for our fundraising partner, who manages the app. But since it wasn't a problem for everyone — and of course, it worked fine on their phones — they weren't able to resolve it immediately.

Fortunately, we found other ways to help any guests who mentioned it to us, so for those guests it was not much of a problem.

But I can't help wondering how many people tried to give, found it difficult, and simply moved on to enjoy the evening regardless.

From this I see a few lessons worth noting:

1. Test, test, and test again. During or after your live event is the worst time to learn that something's not working. Budget time for testing your systems, and test them in a wide variety of situations.

2. Remember that no system is really flawless. The real world is imperfect. When fortune smiles on us, things will go smoothly. But fortune is fickle.

3. Ensure your staff are well trained on alternative methods. If a problem comes up, a good contingency plan, though not ideal, can save you from a lot of pain (and missed opportunities).

All the best,
A.

Constraints

Highway construction on my way to work has recently made a big impact on my morning commute. I don’t like it, but it’s beyond my control.

What is within my control is how I deal with it. I can scout an alternate route. I can use the drive time to soak up that audiobook I’ve been wanting to get through.

Here’s the thing:

Whatever your mission or current goals, you’ll find that there are always constraints that are beyond your control.

• Time

• Money

• Manpower

• Regulations and compliance

• Security concerns

• Stakeholder demands

• Cash flow

• Impending calendar dates

• Uncertainty and lack of information

It’s tempting to be discouraged by these constraints, or merely to wave them off because “there are always constraints.”

On the other hand, because they always exist, you can get a lot out of identifying them, quantifying them, adjusting priorities for them — even turning them into opportunities.

Long commute? Why not an informative podcast or audiobook, to enrich your mind along the way?

Tough regulations and compliance requirements? Why not tout your excellent compliance to your donors, to demonstrate your commitment and inspire their support?

There will always be constraints. And there will always be a way to deal with them.

All the best,
A.

Preview CiviCRM’s upgrade alerts

Here’s a nice tool that will help you get ready for your next CiviCRM upgrade: CiviCRM Upgrade Message Previewer.

How does this make upgrades easier?

Upgrades in CiviCRM will sometimes present you with alert messages that need a little extra thought — and sometimes need a little extra action.

Normally, the first time you encounter these messages is while you’re in the middle of an upgrade. That is, after you’ve already loaded the newest CiviCRM code files on your site.

Considering that some of these messages call for additional action on your part, it can help a lot to know what to expect ahead of time, so you can be ready.

How does it work?

Just tell it your current CiviCRM version, the version you’ll be upgrading to, and your CMS (Drupal, WordPress, etc.), and click the button.

You’ll get a full list of the pre-upgrade and post-upgrade messages you can expect to see in that upgrade, including helpful descriptions and links to additional documentation when it’s relevant.

Shouldn’t I see these messages when I upgrade my sandbox site?

Yes! If you’re making the extra effort to upgrade a sandbox copy of your live site first — as a test before actually upgrading you’re live site — that’s great! It’s the recommended practice.

And when you do that, you’ll see these same messages. Since the site is just a sandbox copy and not your actual live site, you’ll have time to react to those messages.

But for folks who still have a hard time building a sandbox copy of their site, that kind of prevew workflow is not an easy option.

All the best,
A.

How accurate are mailing statistics?

This (paraphrased) question came in today from a client:

CiviMail is reporting that over 50 recipients clicked the link to register for our event, but this seems very unlikely. How reliable are these numbers?

It’s a smart question. Truth is, the "Click-through" numbers can be artificially high, for reasons beyond your (or your CRM’s) control.

How could this be?

One reason is that the company that hosts your recipients’ email accounts may do things that make it look like the recipient clicked one or more links in the email.

This is true regardless of what system you might use to send the email — CiviCRM, your own gmail account, some other newsletter software, whatever.

Why would they do that?

The usual rationale here is that the email hosting company wants to block email messages that contain links to known fraud or otherwise malicious content.

So, they'll actually open every single link in the email message, before it even gets to the recipient's in-box.

(For example, several of my clients’ recipients appear to have clicked on all 11 links in a given mailing, but we agree that’s just unlikely.)

Can’t CiviCRM figure that out and adjust the statistics?

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to know if the link was "opened" by the actual human recipient or by the email company's scanning software.

This has the effect of artificially inflating the click tracking in your mailing reports.

FWIW, there are some ideas floating around out there "on the web" about how to deal with this kind of problem, but these ideas don't have a lot of traction yet.

Most mass-mailing solutions (including CiviCRM) will need work before they're able to implement such ideas to help get more accurate numbers in the face of this kind of "pre-scanning" activity.

So these numbers are just useless?

Not entirely. Because not all email hosting services are doing this kind of thing, the click-through rates on your emails are still good as relative indicators:

• if one of your mailings shows a click-through rate that’s relatively lower or higher than your other mailings, that probably indicates that more or fewer real people clicked those links.

• But as an absolute indicator of “who clicked what”, yes, these numbers are less useful than you might have thought.

To sum up:

It's a problem that lots of other people are talking about (not just in CiviCRM) but no one has a solid solution yet.

As a result, meanwhile, you should assume that the click-through numbers are artificially inflated.

To quote one blogger on this topic, "Having misleading statistics is just something we have to deal with as a marketer."

More info:

For reference, here's a (rather long) blog post from civicrm.org that tries to explain all of this. It might be interesting if you have the time.

All the best,
A.

“Ought to”?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

Here’s the thing:

No one can tell you which way you ought to go. It depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

All the best,
A.

Plan ahead for good reporting

Now and then a client will ask for help reporting on some metrics from their historical data.

Problem is, it can be difficult to get that data because it was not well tracked at the time.

For example, say you need to report accurate numbers on the question, "In each of our training events in the past 2 years, how many attendees were school district employees at the time?"

It's not a bad question, if you have a goal to get school district employees into your trainings.

But it's almost impossible to determine retroactively.

Here's the thing:

If your strategic plan calls for hitting certain metrics in the next year, or 3 years, now is the time to think about how you will report on those numbers.

With a little forethought, you can be well placed for good reporting.

Without it, you might just never know.

All the best,
A.

Good uses for a hammer

Imagine picking up a hammer and asking yourself, "How can I use this hammer around the house?"

You could, after all, use it to open a locked door; or plant tulip bulbs in your garden; or remove a screw.

But why start with the hammer?

Why not ask, "What's the best way to open this locked door? Or plant these tulip bulbs? Or remove this screw?"

You'll probably get better results that way.

All the best,
A.

Start with the problem, not the solution

This morning a client asked me about using tags in CiviCRM.

Essentially the question was, "How could we use tags to track metrics related to our strategic plan?"

It's a fair question, so we discussed it, but soon we decided to zoom out a little and look at things a different way.

I suggested: What if we start by looking at the metrics you'll need to report on? Depending on how those are measured, we can find the best way to track the data, whether it's with tags or something else.

And with that small shift in perspective, we started to home in on the tracking mechanisms that would actually meet her needs.

Spoiler: It's starting to look like tags won't be a big part of her solution.

Here's the thing:

Starting with the tool, or the solution, is one way to go.

But you'll usually get better results by starting with the actual problem, and then selecting the solution that will best solve that problem.

All the best,
A.

Worth the risk?

Witnessed this morning on my way to work:

A truck driver parked his big old semi in the middle of the street, blocking an entire lane, while he walked across the street to Jack In The Box, got his to-go breakfast, and walked back again to drive away.

This was on a major thoroughfare here in town.

Parking ticket? Hassle from the cops? Getting written up by his manager? Having his truck damaged by some driver who was on their phone? Getting yelled at or maybe even pushed around by some hot-head with a penchant for road rage?

These are all concerns he had to weigh, against the value of a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee.

Who's to say whether that prize is worth all of those risks?

Only him.

Here's the thing:

We all take chances, everyday, one way or another.

In your personal life, and in your work.

Nothing is guaranteed.

Who gets to decide whether the potential upside is worth the potential risk?

Only you.

All the best,
A.

I’m so fancy

As I write this, I'm sitting in the outdoor lounge at my co-working space.

Down the sidewalk comes a man pulling a hand cart containing one push mower, one weed-eater, and several gas cans. He has a t-shirt that says “Bill's Yard Work.”

While he is still walking by, he’s passed by a large pickup truck hauling a trailer with two zero-turn mowers and a wide assortment of other equipment. The truck is wrapped in a custom paint job reading, “Garcia's Outdoor Services.”

The truck is quickly out of sight. The man just keeps walking.

Observation: These are two businesses in the same line of work, and I have no idea which one is “more successful.”

The Garcia crew looks fancy, but Bill, with his hand cart, seems happy enough.

• Which of them is making a greater profit?

• Which of them takes greater joy in their work?

• Where will either of them be, in terms of what matters to them, in a year, or two?

Here's the thing:

Unless your mission is "looking fancy" — and I’m guessing it’s not — what matters is not how slick your tools look, but how well they help you reach the goals that matter to you.

All the best,
A.