To have what you want to have …

... you must usually do something you don't want to do.

Sure, sometimes we get lucky, and everything is easy.

But usually...

• If you want to be well rested tomorrow, you have to put down the TV remote and go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight.

• If you want to be fit and healthy, you have to eat wisely and exercise regularly.

• If you want good clean data, you have to spend time deduping your contacts.

• If you want systems that run smoothly, you have to dig in and figure out what's causing the friction.

What's cool about this is that sometimes ...

just sometimes ...

we can actually spot the actions that will get us what we want ...

just by noticing what it is that we don't want to do.

All the best,
A.

“Busy”

When I ask a friend, or a client, how they're doing, the most common response by far is, “Busy.”

It's a safe answer: most people can probably relate to it, and it doesn't reveal much personal detail — good or bad.

But I always hope, quietly to myself, but this isn't really the way they think about how they're doing.

Because it's only half the story. And the least important half, I believe.

Here's the thing:

The amount of time and effort you spend staying busy is not nearly as important as the actual results you're getting.

Staying busy is fine.

But reaching the goals you care about, for the people you care about, that's what matters.

How are you doing, with that?

All the best,
A.

BS detector: Is it measurable?

He's a quick test of your bullsh*t detector.

Which of these sounds more like BS than the other?

"The finish line is closer than ever."
"The finish line is finally in sight."

...

...

...

I’m picking the first one.

What’s the difference?

• “Closer than ever” could mean anything. It only means that you haven't moved backward, but it says nothing about how close you are.

• “Finally in sight” actually describes something specific about the distance remaining.

Okay, here’s one that's even less meaningful:

“We’ve come so far!”

This describes only how far you’ve come. It says nothing about what remains to the finish. Heck, there may not even be a finish line.

Here’s the thing:

Getting close to a goal is a powerful motivator. Nobody wants to give up when they’re close.

But that implies a few important elements:

• There is a specific goal to be reached.

• You know what that goal looks like.

• You know why that goal is important.

Of course, there will always be another goal to reach. Many of us are working on a mission that, for all we know, will never truly be fulfilled.

But having a specific and recognizable goal, even if we know it’s not the Completion Of All Good Things, gives us something to strive for.

That’s true for me, and for you, and for the people you’re aiming to motivate.

I hope you never tire of working hard to "make things better." That’s a good thing.

And while you’re doing that, I hope you remember the value of defining, and naming, measurable goals that you and your people can strive for.

All the best,
A.

Best possible outcomes

Today, someone somewhere will hear of your organization for the first time.

What, do you hope, will be the ultimate best possible outcome from that first awareness?

• That they'll bequeath a large gift to your mission in their will?

• That they'll become a lifelong supporter and a vigorous advocate for your work?

• That they'll take full advantage of all your services and therby better themselves and their community?

Not every person is a candidate for all of these.

But for each person, there is an ideal outcome that you can lead them toward...

... if you put in the time and effort to envision it.

... if you can plan out a pathway to guide them there.

... if you make a continual practice of leading them to the next step in that journey.

There is a path to enrichment for every single contact in your network.

Defining it, designing it, and nurturing it ... that's up to you.

All the best,
A.

The adventure of routine

Routines: boring, predictable, efficient.

Adventures: dynamic, exciting, messy.

The worst of both worlds: Treating routine tasks as adventures; then never having time or energy for dynamic adventures that really matter.

The best of both worlds: Making an adventure out of developing routines for tedious repetitive tasks; then putting them on autopilot while you focus on new adventures that actually deserve your creative energy.

Here's the thing:

Adventure is exciting, but not everything should be an adventure.

Creating routines for the tedious tasks — automating, delegating, systematizing — can be its own adventure.

And then … you've got time and creative energy for the adventures you really care about.

All the best,
A.

“Why can’t this user do that thing?”

Focusing on creative relationship-building is not so easy if your systems aren’t working as expected. So sometimes my work involves handling very specific technical questions from my clients.

One of the more frustrating — and surprisingly common — questions goes like this:

“Hey Allen, one of my users says they can't find this feature (or open this page, or whatever). What's going on?”

And one of the more frustrating — and surprisingly common — causes is this:

Somebody — or something — has changed the permissions for this user's role.

And, somehow, nobody can remember when or why that was done.

Obviously this is a huge problem.

Changes to user permissions should be made with great care.

Otherwise, things start getting very weird, very quickly.

So what to do?

Here's the answer:

1. Document. Create clear documentation for your team that explains, in very simple human friendly language, the name and purpose of each user role, and generally what users with those rules should be able to do (or not do). Google Docs is fine for this. Just make it clear and simple, so that everyone can understand it and be on the same page.

2. Lock down. Limit, to as few as possible, the number of users who can modify user accounts and permissions. Just like you would severely limit the number of people who have a master key to all the doors in your office building.

3. Log. Implement an automated logging system that records important information about any changes to user permissions. For WordPress, I created Capabilities Logger, a simple plug-in that does this nicely. This week I'll be installing it on all of the WordPress sites joinery manages, so we can always see, retroactively, a clear record of when, how, and by whom any changes were made.

Here's the thing:

Poorly planned or unexpected changes to your user permissions can create a ton of headaches for you, your staff, and your constituents.

You can avoid that — by creating and documenting a clear plan, limiting the number of people who can make those changes, and logging all those changes in a way that alleviates the mystery later on.

That way, you can spend less time dealing with silly technical problems, and more time building relationships with your people.

All the best,
A.

Keys to retention

When one of your constituents takes the next step that you've been hoping they'll take, what comes after that?

Whether it's volunteering, or sharing your message with folks in their own network, or advancing themselves in your curriculum or service programs ... Whatever it is, you can probably envision some further "next step" you'd like them to take.

If there isn't, then of course you can forget about them completely.

But I doubt that's really true. Instead, you really would like them to keep moving forward with you.

A few days ago I was approached by a stranger asking for some personal help, and our conversation led me to believe I really could make a difference in his life.

So I agreed to help: We exchanged numbers and a couple of text messages, and later that day we were to meet up, and I was to help him with the transportation he needed.

What surprised me was that, in the end, he didn't show for that meeting. Nor even contact me about it again.

To be fair, his situation is not the same as most of ours. He's got a lot on his plate and is just trying to get by.

You and I, on the other hand, are in the business of regularity looking for ways to build relationships with our constituency.

We're practiced at helping our people take that next step. We know that's critical to our mission.

That's why I hope that we're not forgetting the importance of following up with everyone who does take a step in their journey with us:

• Acknowledging the good deed they've done.

• Pointing out how it benefits our work (or theirs).

• Making good use of their contribution, and then letting them know about it.

• And, perhaps most difficult, if it turns out that the help they've offered is not needed, explaining that kindly, and thanking them sincerely.

These are keys to retention — to maintaining and building good relationships based on appreciation, common cause, good communication, and accountability.

All the best,
A.

The direct appeal

This morning I was approached by a man on a beat-up bicycle, as I walked back to my truck after stopping for coffee.

I figured he was going to ask me for money, and I'm pretty well practiced at saying no. (He’s well within his rights to ask me for it, but usually I get the feeling that it wouldn't be the best use of my limited funds.)

But this guy got my attention. Turns out he wasn't asking for money, but he did want help, and I readily agreed.

Here's why:

1. He was neither apolgetic nor needy. He established, convincingly, that he's not in the habit of asking strangers for help, but his situation requires him to.

2. He explained his situation. His living quarters put him close to people who are trying to rob him, and he needs to get out of there.

3. He demonstrated urgency. They tried to rob him last night, and he was able to avoid it, but he expects it will happen again.

4. He outlined clear and achievable goals. He intends to move out today, put his belongings in storage, and take up residence in a shelter.

5. He showed that he's putting in the work already. He's reported the robbery attempt to the police and arranged a police escort to help him collect his belongings today. He's also contacted a local church whose elders have agreed to help him with the move and with storage expenses.

6. He made a specific, and even unusual, ask of me. He said, "I'm looking for someone with a truck who can help carry my things from [this address] to the storage unit at 1:30 today. I expect that with the presence we'll have there, these guys won't make trouble."

These are all important elements of a well-crafted direct appeal.

And all of those together made it pretty easy for me to decide to help him if I could.

So we exchanged numbers, and I expect today I’ll go and help him with the move.

Of course, it was also lucky for him that I was a good person to ask:

• I enjoy helping people when I believe it will make a positive difference for them.

• I happen to have a fairly flexible schedule today.

• This seems like a contribution that’s easily within my means.

Here’s the thing:

When it’s time to ask for help, a well-crafted appeal can help you nudge the right people into action that they’re happy to take in support of your mission.

And fortunately for you, you don’t have to rely on luck to find people who are likely to help. You’ve got a lot of good information in your CRM software to help with that.

All the best,
A.

“As easy as profitable”

I came across a blog post today, from a CRM-for-nonprofits provider, who makes this assertion:

Because nonprofits exist to make the world a better place, you must have [CRM] software that makes that as easy as possible.

That, my friend, is empty marketing hogwash.

Wow. Why so serious, Allen?

Because “as easy as possible” is unmeasurable and unattainable. No matter how easy you make something, there's probably some way to make it even easier — if you put in enough effort and money to make it so, up to and including everything you have.

And an unmeasurable, unreachable goal is not a goal at all.

What he should have said is, this:

Because nonprofits exist to make the world a better place, and because resources are always limited, and because results matter, you must have [CRM] software that makes that as easy as profitable.

Profitable. Greatest net benefit for a given investment of your limited resources.

Always count the benefit, and always count the cost.

All the best,
A.

Constituent journeys

You're probably tracking thousands of constituents in your CRM software.

Tell me if you agree with these points:

• Each one of those individuals needs help to reach the next step in their relationship with your mission.

• Such a path forward is surely not the same for all of them.

• There's simply no way you can manage a fully individualized pathway for each of them.

It's all true. Your mission success depends on nurturing these relationships, but there are too many to nurture individually.

So what can you do?

You can create a plan to help them at scale.

Sure, sometimes you'll need to serve them in small groups, or even individually.

But you cannot manage thousands of unique relationship-building pathways forward.

Therefore:

You need to define a clear ideal pathway for each of the major types of contacts in your world.

Volunteers, staff, members, donors, industry partners, service recipients, alumni ... That list of categories is unique to your organization, and so are the ideal pathways on which you want to guide them.

If you've heard of "donor journeys," you'll be familiar with this concept.

But it's not just donors. You can — and should — have a journey in mind for everyone who helps, or is helped by, your mission.

Creating such a plan is hard, creative work. And guiding people through that plan, and improving the plan as you learn and grow, is more of the same.

But considering the limitations of time and space, what alternative do you have?

Just hope that things get better?

All the best,
A.

Removing distractions

Part 1: The “smart typewriter”

Say you're a writer — a blogger, a journalist, a novelist.

Your current laptop can do everything you need and more.

So why would you — or anybody — pay $1000 for a device with a keyboard and screen that only lets you type, edit, and save text? That would be the Hemingwrite “smart typewriter” from Astrohaus.

No browser, no email, just text editing. That's it.

If you've never seen it, it's ... well ... weird.

But they've been selling to happy customers since their Kickstarter project in 2014.

Part 2: The “dumb phone”

How about a cell phone that only does voice calls and text messages (and a couple of other basics) that retails for $300? That would be the Light Phone II from The Light Phone, Inc.

No browser, no email, no apps, no video, no news updates, no Candy Crush Saga. Just SMS and voice. That's it.

LIke the Hemingwrite, on first look it's ... just ... weird. But they've been selling to happy customers since their Kickstarter project in 2015.

What gives?

What gives — or rather, what takes, without giving much in return — is distraction.

Folks who buy and love these devices are doing it for a complex set of reasons, to be sure. People are complicated, after all.

But what they say they love about it is that it removes a metric, er, boatload of distractions from their daily lives, or at least from their focused work periods.

Now, I'm not telling you to rush out and buy one of these. (Although I've got a Light Phone II on order myself — so excited, two more weeks to ship!)

But I am suggesting that there are steps anyone can take to remove distractions when it's time to focus on creative, forward-thinking, active development of relationships with your constituents.

For example:

• Take a walk. Get away from your desk, put your phone on silent, and transport your mind by transporting your body out of the office.

• Head to a cafe (preferably one where you don't know the regulars) with paper and pencil.

• Dedicate a regular time period — one hour a week, one hour a day, even one day a week — to ignoring your email, silencing your phone, and sitting with your CRM data and your creative mind, to look for patterns, ideas, possibilities, opportunities.

What I'm suggesting is that distraction-free creative focus is within your reach.

… and that doing it regularly is one of the most valuable things you can do for your mission, long-term.

All the best,
A.

“Hard work” vs “valuable work”

Last week I mentioned a few things that can sap your creative relationship-building efforts.

Things like “the puzzle trap,” insisting on certainly, and interruptions from colleagues.

Of course, I can hear the push-back:

“But Allen, those are things I have to do! I can't just decide never to tackle a tough technical problem, or to live with constant uncertainty, or to ignore incoming questions!”

Of course you can't.

Working hard at those things is a valuable use of someone's time, and that someone will be you, at least some of the time.

But ask yourself...

• Does it always have to be you?

• Is it the most valuable thing you can be doing?

• Is it worth all of your time?

The answer to all of those is ... (wanna guess?) ... "No."

You can divide the work.
You can prioritize long-term creative effort.
You can set aside time for work that's more valuable.

It won't be easy at first.

But you can.

And if you care about really helping your people to progress to the next step, you must.

If you don't, you'll always be “working hard” at tasks that don't really advance your mission. Treading water. Swimming upstream.

Wouldn't it be better to work hard on creative efforts that actually better your relationships, move your people forward, and improve your mission effectiveness?

All the best,
A.

"The puzzle trap" and 2 other things that sap creative thinking

Building vibrant relationships with the people in your network — folks you probably don't know very well personally — is going to take some significant creative effort.

Not only do you have to develop a sense of who they are and what they care about; you also have to figure out where that overlaps with something you care about: your mission. You have to formulate a pathway toward the place where those two overlap.

This is much more than simply asking, "Who are the people who came to my last training even?" or, "Whose membership is about to expire?".

It's more along the lines of, "Who's most ready to give $500 this month?" or "What's the best way to help our program graduates to stay involved?"

Problem is, most of us have plenty of obstacles in our daily lives that work against our efforts to think creatively about such things.

For example, I'm betting that at least one or two of these sound familiar to you:

1. The puzzle trap

Some puzzles are fun and leave us feeling energized.

But when your brain is stuck on solving a problem that should be solvable, and needs to be solved soon, and is indeed almost solved, but is stubbornly refusing to be solved, that's neither fun nor energizing.

Even after you finally solve it (if you do), good luck turning from that frustrating experience to more open-ended questions like, "How can I reach the people who'd love to volunteer for our next service project?"

That mental switch will probably require some time and a change of environment.

But who has time for making that switch? It's much easier to just look for another puzzle to solve, because the mind is already in that mode.

And that's when the puzzles become a trap.

Don't fall for it.

There will always be problems to solve. You'll never solve them all perfectly.

And meanwhile, you're missing significant opportunities in your constituent relationships by forgetting to put in the creative effort.

2. Interruptions

An email from a colleague, celebrity "news" alerts from your phone, those random "just curious" questions that your brain constantly asks ("Wait, does that film have the same director as this other film? Gee, what would it cost to upgrade this office chair? Ooh, Billie Eilish dropped a new single?").

Between living in a hyperactive world and carrying a hyperactive brain, there's a lot of distraction going around.

And it's sapping our creativity.

I suspect this is why folks get some of their best revelations in the shower, where (hopefully, so far) even their cell phones can't interrupt them.

3. The need for certainty

Creative planning and strategizing are going to uncover a lot of ideas that don't work. Most of the ideas won't work.

Creative thinking is risky. You often won't know whether something will actually work until you've tried it.

And by 'trying it," I don't mean sending a blast email to every contact in your CRM.

I just mean spending time to validate an idea. To flesh it out, see if the pattern holds, test whether the data supports the hypothesis.

That's an investment of time and energy. Sometimes you'll go back to the drawing board; sometimes you'll find a real winner.

And to find those winners, you'll have to chance some losses.

And the more you do it, the more practiced you'll be at sniffing out the potential winners sooner and more accurately.

Here's the thing:

Building healthy and productive relationships with your constituents is not like solving a puzzle. It takes more than a few minutes of uninterrupted creativity. And it will involve some trial-and-error.

Embrace the uncertainty.

Escape the interuptions.

Leave the frustrating puzzles for later.

You — and your constituents — wil be glad you did.

All the best,
A.

5 simple questions

Try this little exercise when you get a chance:

Open up any random contact record in your CRM software. You want one that's still living, and not known to you personally, so try again until you find one.

Ask yourself 5 simple questions about this contact:

1. Why are they in my CRM software? This is not, "How did they get there?" Rather it's, "Why does my organization want to maintain a relationship with this contact?"

2. What’s a reasonable goal for our relationship with this contact?

3. Where are they now in relation to that goal?

4. What are one or two reasonable pathways to reach that goal?

5. What measurable next step could I take (or could they take) to move them forward on that path?

This should only take a couple of minutes.

If you can't answer those questions for the first contact, try again until you can. (And note how many tries it takes.)

…

So, how’d you do?

Were you able to answer those questions, just based on what’s visible in a given contact record?

Do you have a good sense of the goals you’re moving people toward, and how to get them there?

Was it easy to see the next steps for them (or you) to take?

Here's the thing:

The real value in maintaining your CRM data is not just as a record of addresses, phone numbers, giving history, and membership dates.

It's in having the information you need so you can rally people forward in the cause of your mission.

That takes active planning, creative thinking, and an understanding of the goals you have for each person in your expanding circle of influence.

All of that together is your relationship management system.

And it makes your CRM tracking software much more valuable in your mission than a mere address book.

All the best,
A.

Your “CRM system”

If I asked you about your CRM system, how would you describe it?

Is it a piece of software?

Is it CiviCRM?

That's the usual answer, but I'm growing less and less satisfied with it.

Not with the software. CiviCRM is great, for many organizations, and for many reasons.

But I’m starting to see it's a mistake to say that your CRM system consists solely of your CRM software.

True, CiviCRM, like Salesforce and others, is a fine CRM tool. And mastering its use is important and valuable.

But such tools will only help you to the extent that you have your own CRM process, that is, your organization's unique process for managing relationships with your constituents.

That CRM process, together with your tools, is your CRM system.

What this means is:

If your primary concern, when it comes to Constituent Relationship Management, is about your CRM software, you're probably missing out on a lot of relationship opportunities.

Those are opportunities that you won't even notice until you make a regular practice of looking for them.

And regular practice is what it takes. Frequent, creative, goal-driven effort to:

• identify the journey you have in mind for your constituents,

• understand where each of them are in that journey,

• define the next step they need to take, and

• lead them, kindly but effectively, to take those next steps.

Here's the thing:

Your CRM software can help, but no software can really do this for you.

It's a process that you, together with your staff and your advisors, have to work out on your own.

It's simple to say, hard to do, and oh so worth the effort.

All the best,
A.

The next steps

In the world of your mission, you have roughly two kinds of people: Those whom you help, and those who help you.

But from another perspective, maybe they’re all people whom you help.

Sure, we hope our service recipients and members are receiving something wonderful through our work.

But even our donors, volunteers, advocates and staff members — if we’re doing our jobs right, those people receiving something they truly value by participating in our work.

So here’s a question:

Do you believe these folks are made happy by participating in your work?

And if you could guide them, gently but effectively, to participate in that work even more, do you think they’d be even happier?

I do. If they can feel connected, and see how your work matters to them, I believe they’ll feel proud and fulfilled by participating.

But here’s a harder question:

What’s the best way to move them in that direction?

• They’ve applied for services but aren’t showing up for appointments; do you just tell them not to forget next time?

• They’ve signed up for your mailing list; do you just tell them how happy they’d feel to give $5000?

• They’ve attended a training; do you just tell them “it would be awesome” if they became a lifetime member?

Of course, it’s not that easy. If it were, you’d be overwhelmed with resources and opportunities.

Helping someone to get from where they are now to where you want them to be is not always a simple matter.

There are any number of steps between here and there, and it’s not always obvious — to you or to them — which is the next best step to take.

Our job is helping people to the next step.

Whatever you call them, whatever you do for them — or they for you — you have (don't you?) some direction you want them to go. Some goal you’d like them to reach.

But we can't just tell them to go there and call us if they need help.

They don't see the goal as well as we do.

They don't know the path to get there.

They won’t take all the steps on their own.

But what we can do is help them to take the next step.

A little at a time.

Starting from where they are now.

And here's the thing:

To guide them to the next step, we have to understand where they are now.

And we have to think of ways to make it easy for them to progress.

If we're not doing that, we not leading them to something better.

We’re just hoping they figure it out.

And they won’t.

But…

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a way to keep track of where people are on their journey, to discern the challenges they may be facing, in order to more easily guide them along the way?

It turns out that you do. At least, you have the tools for it, in your CRM.

Of course, defining the journey, knowing the steps, spotting the roadblocks, and guiding them along — that’s up to you. No software will do it for you.

But wouldn’t it be nice if you could do it.

I wonder what that would take …

All the best,
A.

CiviCRM security release

CiviCRM has released a security update, in version 5.74.4. See the release announcement here.

If you’re on Joinery hosting, my team has you covered. We’re rolling out those upgrades today and tommorow.

If you’re handling your own upgrades, don’t wait. Make sure you apply that upgrade as soon as you can.

If you need help upgrading, reach out to your CiviCRM specialist (or reach out to me for some coaching on that process).

This is not something you want to put off.

All the best,
A.

Don’t forget the R

If you're running a CRM for your organization, we can pretty safely assume you want it to help you Manage Relationships with your Constituents.

Managing a relationship is a real and specific thing.

And it's not exactly equivalent to...

• Collecting names and addresses,

• Receiving donations,

• Accepting event registration,

• Running reports,

• or any of that stuff.

Sure, of that can help you, but managing a relationship means...

• Thinking of another person's interests and well-being.

• Checking in on them to see how they're doing.

• Letting them know that you care about them.

• Trying to understand what they aspire to.

• Communicating what you aspire to and inviting them to come along.

• And all of that stuff.

Here's the thing:

You've got this great CRM tool at your disposal.

If you're not using it to actually build relationships with your constituents ... then your CRM is not of much use to you.

How are you nurturing relationships with your constituents?

All the best,
A.

Introducing CiviAcademy

You’re probably pretty familiar with the basics of CiviCRM already.

But when you’re bringing on new people to your team, you still need to get them up to speed — quickly, but effectively.

To help with that, you might want to consider CiviAcademy, which was just announced to a limited audience today.

Here’s the announcement from CiviCRM:

We’re excited to introduce a new initiative that should be coming online around the 1st of July: CiviAcademy. Long time partner CiviTeacher and the Core Team have joined forces to produce and maintain a series of videos focused on introducing the in's and out's of CiviCRM to new users.

CiviAcademy will focus on out-of-the-box functionality of CiviCRM, providing instruction and example use cases for much of the most important and sometimes complex features, such as price sets, memberships, mailings, payment processing, and more. The purpose of this video library is to assist new users and to help them gain proficiency and confidence while using CiviCRM.

Access to CiviAcademy will involve a single lifetime subscription available at https://civicrm.com. It will be a free resource for CiviCRM members. A more formal announcement is forthcoming.

Sounds fantastic to me!

I’ll update you here when it goes live, and I hope you’ll keep it in mind for building up the effectiveness of your team!

All the best,
A.

Branding your receipts is getting easier

With last week's upgrades to CiviCRM, I noticed a pretty strong trend:

Most organizations are modifying CiviCRM’s message templates simply to include their logo at the top of receipts and other auto-generated emails.

Up to now, this modification has made upgrades a little more troublesome than they need to be.

Here's why:

When a CiviCRM upgrade makes changes to the original content of that message template, the upgrade is smart enough not to wipe out your own customizations.

But it's not smart enough to apply those changes into your customized message template content. (That would actually be pretty hard for any software to do well.)

So instead you have two choices, neither of them very satisfactory:

1. For every message template you've customized, manually review the differences between your modified template content and the new template content. Then try to merge your customizations with whatever changes to CiviCRM is calling for, into a hybrid of the latest content customized for your branding. This can be very tedious and painful.

2. Ignore the latest changes from CiviCRM, and just leave your customized message template in its older form. This might be fine, but it might actually break those message templates so they don't work properly at all. So, not great.

Starting in version 5.76, CiviCRM will make this whole process easier, by letting you define a sitewide setting for your logo or other branding. You can change that one setting whenever you want, and it will be reflected in all your message templates.

That means you probably won't need to customize your message templates at all.

Which of course makes the entire upgrade process easier, and saves you all the pain of updating message templates every time you upgrade.

All the best,
A.