Shopping Has Never Been More Fun and Rewarding

Obviously, everyone has enjoyed shopping in one form or another whether it is on-line or in a regular store. From the early part of this decade until last year the on-line shopping statistics were growing rapidly. They are still growing but the pace has slowed according to Forrester Research. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the recent results in the on-line shopping world is that the average transaction has dropped slightly.

I truly believe that on-line shopping will swing back into high growth mode again next year. It will hard to stop it with the large growth occurring in broad band usage as shown below.

Such stats and insights are important to know for any non-profit organization with a web site presence. (Let's hope the percentage of NPO's with web sites is now near 100%!)

The reason I say it is vital to know, is due to the key role shopping can play in increasing the bond between your constituents and your NPO. Any of your supporters who have embraced your mission are more than likely to want to display their loyalty via items with your logo or cause outlined. In addition, this can be a superb auxiliary source of revenue for your non-profit.

Earlier this year eTapestry made this potentially key part of many of our customer's web sites come to life via our new shopping cart module. This great addition to our product line provides an easy way to sell any type of product via the web site with all important data flowing directly into the eTapestry database. It also automates all transaction processing while providing appropriate receipts and follow-up emails. Appropriately it is a one-stop shop for non-profits requiring this functionality!

Make It Right Foundation

National Railroad Museum

Hopefully we can help many of you make this additional relationship building and revenue generating tool come to life!

Looking in the Rear View Mirror – Part 2

Even though I am not on vacation this week, I wanted to continue a nostalgic look into eTapestry. When one mentions marketing and advertising around our office usually Steve Rusche is not far behind. I think you enjoy his parade of our advertising. The Non-Profit world sure seemed to like many of them!

Last week John Moore gave you a glimpse of the early days of the eTapestry application. This week we look back at some or our early eTapestry ads, which helped get us the exposure needed to launch our fledgling company.

The first eTapestry ads were literally "homemade". It didn’t take us long to realize that we needed something a little different if we were going to get recognized in the very competitive fundraising software sector. So we began a relationship with a local advertising agency, Young and Laramore, to help us build our advertising.

We had a number of challenges in the early days. First, we had a radically different product for that time – a web-based database. Second, we were the new kid on the block and had to battle the skepticism some folks had of a start-up organization. So our ads needed to convey our unique product and at the same time make us look like a professional, established company.

As you can see, we took a very creative approach to our ads. We wanted them to be eye-catching, simple, different, and with a little humor. It fit our company. We were – and continue today – a group that likes to look at things a little differently and to have some fun along the way as well. Here's a sampling of some of our ads over the years.

This is one of several ads that invited folks to attend one of the first "online seminars". Today online seminars are a common tool for all types of services.

This ad series highlighted the differences between "traditional software" and our web-based, online software.

A more recent ad promoted an offer to get organizations up and running quickly.

Our most recent ads continue the eTapestry tradition of fun, different ads with a specific message. In this case, illustrating the symbiotic nature of the relationship we have with clients. Our success depends on their success.

I hope you have enjoyed a brief look at our advertising history. You can continue to expect something different from eTapestry in the future. We are already at work on something special for 2010!

Steve Rusche
Chief Operation Officer

Looking in the Rear View Mirror

After taking a "then and now" look at our eTapestry web site and the history of the name, I thought maybe we should try the same exercise for eTapestry the application. There is nobody more perfect in the world than John Moore our CTO to provide such insight. Therefore, as I take a couple of vacation days later this week, I have handed the key to this blog post to Mr. Moore. I think you will enjoy his comments and a couple of the comparison screenshots even if he manages to let a couple of buzzwords slip in...

As eTapestry passed its ten year anniversary last month, it seemed like a great opportunity to take some time to reflect on where the product was ten years ago and where it is now.

As a true startup venture, the first versions of eTapestry were functionally lean and no frills, as the priority was getting the first web-based fundraising product to market in a short period of time.

The operating landscape for eTapestry had some interesting hurdles ten years ago. One of our key design principles was to keep the amount of data and graphics on application pages low since broadband had nowhere near the level of penetration it does now.

Page design had had an intrinsic "vanilla" feel in order to sidestep browser compatibility issues since Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were engaged in the original "Browser Wars" and agreements on HTML and JavaScript standards were yet to be seen.

Client-side presentation tools and programming languages ten years ago were not mature enough to emulate the rich desktop application experience users were familiar with so the original eTapestry interface was functional but clunky.

Thanks to the SaaS model of software delivery, an active customer base, the resources of Blackbaud and a crackerjack software development team, eTapestry evolved rapidly both in terms of interface presentation sophistication and ease of use as the technical landscape changed.

The software development tools grew up; AJAX and Dynamic HTML led to the ability to create a much better user experience. Broadband became ubiquitous and client computers became faster so application pages could show richer content without sacrificing navigational speed.

While the future will undoubtedly bring new challenges with respect to delivering a web-based fundraising application, I have no doubt that the experiences of the last ten years and the ever-increasing power of technology will serve us well in shaping tomorrow's product.

Happy anniversary, eTapestry.

John Moore
Chief Technical Officer

The eTapestry Web Site Then and Now

Earlier this week we perused a sample of the outstanding work of our very own eTapestry Web Services team. Thanks for the kind comments about their work.

During the course of writing that post it made me think of our very first eTapestry web site and the immense amount of transformation it has gone through over the years.

I can still recall the brainstorming meeting Steve Rusche and I had with the senior class students from the Herron School of Art at IUPUI they were part of the early cadre of brand new web site designers combining the technical skills with their already honed artistic skills. Any and every possible name for our new product had been tossed around. Yes, we tried every trite phrase regarding the "web" or "the midwest" or "fundraising". You should all be glad the artistic students vetoed the many dubious names John Moore, Steve and I had offered. To this day, John still laments the lack of faith those students had in our creativity...

During the brainstorming session one of the graduate students insisted on both of us describing the product's proposed functions in detail. Thankfully we did, because when one of the students stated that we were weaving together a rich "tapestry" of functionality for the charity world. Immediatey, one of us placed the infamous small "e" in front of that very vivid word of tapestry to form the now famous moniker of eTapestry! (Part of the reason for the "e" was the fact that all of the URL’s for variations of tapestry were taken, but eTapestry was wide open!) I remember looking at Steve, smiling, and saying even we can make that name well known far and wide in our beloved sector...

The rest is history as the pundits say. eTapestry did become known far and wide even with the design of our first web site below. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and perhaps that is the case here.

All of us involved with starting the company took our turn at writing a "white paper" or two. Here are a couple of those original ones here and here. They also served as a bit of a product road map for us in those very early days. I must however, give credit to Steve for so much of the text in those first web sites. As John and Scott were coding, and I was selling, Steve was writing and arranging. (I truly miss all of the early pictures of our activities that we used to fill up the space and to illustrate we were a "fun" group to associate with. If you visit eTapestry you can see some of those adorning our walls. We are the slightly younger guys with the gleam in our eyes...)

Our web site has continued to evolve and thrive just like the rest of the organization over the years and because of our alignment with Blackbaud. We just keep getting bigger and hopefully better. Below is our current web site. To say the least it is so much richer in content and depth.

The site is still under the watchful eye of Steve with the help of our Web Services leader, Josh Esslinger. (Who together, to this day, deflects many of my crazy suggestions in such a kind manner that I actually feel good about not every seeing them come to fruition.) However, instead of those insightful graduate students we have our very own web services team. They are every bit as creative and certainly much more experienced than those students were back in the late nineties. Just walking by their desks and/or offices will clue you in on that. What is there for art and inspiration is certainly not what you would find in your average office environment. Here is a shot of the team below, I will give a clue, Josh is in the back row... Perhaps they will be helping you create a magnificent Internet outreach for your organization soon!

Web Services, the “Missing Link” for Most of Our Customers

The phrase "missing link" can mean quite a few things to various people. Wikipedia defines it as:

• Any transitional fossil, especially one connected with human evolution
• The Missing Link, a novel in the Fourth World trilogy by Kate Thompson
• Missing Links, a book by Rick Reilly
• Missing Link (puzzle), a mechanical puzzle
• Dewey Robertson, a former professional wrestler who used the ring name The Missing Link

However, my favorite definition may be this one:

The Missing Links, an early rock band featuring Micky Dolenz, the year before he became a Monkee

I believe the term "Missing Link" is perfect for what our web services team brings to life for our customers. The "Links" they make come to life are truly the missing element in connecting ever expanding communication streams. A database like eTapestry or Raiser's Edge is merely an island of data with only information being added to by staff if there are not other systems linked to and from it. Over the last dozen years we have seen the use of external communication channels and sharing of information from a multitude of sources skyrocket in the non-profit world.

Any charity who is not utilizing a vibrant and engaging web site, as well as a variety of social media outposts like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and others is not fully engaging and communicating with all of its constituents. On top of these, you can add such basic inputs and outputs as email, direct mail caging, accounting systems, ticketing systems, personal fundraising pages, and special event sites. You can quickly see that any database which is going to reflect the vast array of key information is no longer going to be a standalone island.

Thankfully, our top notch web services team, as well as our product development teams, has made several new and exciting products and services, which link large amounts of data to the database, come to fruition.

I wanted to focus on one of the most exciting of those new services with a couple of examples from our customers. Our new "Personal Fundraising" module allows any organization using eTapestry to tap into the passion and personal contacts of their supporters and event participants. Here is a link to a product brief.

The use of this module can truly provide a springboard to your enhance your fundraising results. Many of our customers have stated that "Personal Fundraising" revitalized special events and added a new dimension to their outreach. A neat side benefit is new donors coming from such a passionate outreach tend to be easier to renew and keep as long time donors! As a board member with several charities I love the sound of that.

Here are the few examples I mentioned earlier. I think you will agree our web services team allowed the look and feel of the NPO's web site to stay true to form. Try all of them out and let me know what you think by sending an email to jay.love@etapestry.com.

Examples:

Ron Clark Academy
RAI Ministries

and a brand new one, but a new favorite of mine for saving the great apes...

Center for Great Apes

Such “Missing Links” can perhaps make a difference for your organization in the future. Let us know if you would like to take a closer look...

They are the Greatest Underutilized Resource in the World

I hope the title catches your attention because I do not think the mere brute force numbers are doing just that. What I am referring to is the immense multitude of recently retired, soon to be retired and partially retired adults. These individuals who are truly in the prime of their life, (spoken profoundly by a person who just turned 55), with a wealth of experience are being ignored by so many of us in the non-profit world.

Let’s explore a few basic facts here:

1. They have extra time to give
2. Connecting to NPO’s brings so much more meaning to their lives
3. They have honed so many skills which should apply
4. They have disposable income
5. They are doing or updating their estate planning
6. They are communicating profusely with their peers
7. They are a joy to be with as the stories pour out
8. As everyone lives longer, their numbers become huge

The article by Chris Woolston on "Seniors and Volunteering: A Whole New Life" explores this subject extremely well. I love the many stories he shares. Here is my favorite:

For many seniors, volunteering is something they can hardly imagine themselves not doing. Among them is Leon Gurny, who finds his volunteer time as an English tutor to adult professionals profoundly gratifying. The 73-year-old Chicago resident has taught his students, who hail from China, Poland, Bulgaria, and many other countries, to work crossword puzzles ("they love it and it's great for their vocabulary"). He also keeps them busy with reading and Henny Youngman joke books. "Sometimes when I go on vacation, I feel guilty and start having withdrawal pains," Gurny says. "I get juiced up to go to class; it keeps my mind alert."

His article also lists some excellent resources in order to make such stories come to life...

• Administration on Aging: (202) 619-0724/(202) 619-0724. The AoA enlists 500,000 volunteers nationwide, many of them senior citizens, to help older people in need. (Studies have found that senior citizen volunteers are especially effective at aiding the elderly.) Volunteer activities include delivering meals to the homebound, escorting frail seniors to needed services, repairing homes of low-income and frail seniors, assisting at senior centers, and counseling older people on health, nutrition, and finances.
• Volunteers of America: (800) 899-0089/(800) 899-0089. A non-profit founded in 1896, the VOA is a national, faith-based organization that provides services to millions of Americans in need.
• Senior Corps: (202) 606-5000/(202) 606-5000. This branch of the federally funded Corporation for National and Community Service helps people 55 and over find volunteering opportunities in their community. The corps runs a foster grandparent program that helps children with special needs; a senior companion program that helps at-risk seniors live independently; and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) that provides many different services. Senior Companions and Foster Grandparents must be 60 or over and willing to work at least 15 hours each week.

One of my greatest hopes is that many of the recently retired adults who have never touched or have been touched by the non-profit world will find new life there. No matter what your skill set is there is so much that can be done to make this world a better place. Please share the resources above with any folks you know in this group. They will thank you down the road!

As a follow-up to last week's post about boards, Fund Raising Success had a good article regarding Board Development: 10 Questions to Help Nonprofits Address Strengths and Challenges for Better Board Development by Abny Santicola.

Why Don’t Board Members Do What They Are Supposed To Do?

Being a longtime board member and former board chair at numerous local/national nonprofits and several community related organizations caused the title of Hardy Smith’s article to jump out at me. Here is the link. I know many of you have been in a board role asking the very same provocative question.

It does not seem to matter whether the subject is strategic planning, financial forecasting, mission development or fundraising. In all cases, there are board members sitting around that board table or on that board conference call wondering just what a few of the other members were possibly thinking with their comments or lack of action.

For example, the always-stimulating discussion about the need to have 100% participation by the board in the annual campaign fundraising is my favorite. In my opinion, this should not even have to be discussed in a regular board meeting. If someone is being recruited for a multi-year term why not handle before the first meeting? For example, if it is a three-year term then have them sign a three-year pledge card as part of the recruiting process. (The pledge can always be adjusted upwards if you are worried about the initial pledge amount...) If it is a requirement of being able to serve on the board then just take care of it before they attend the regular board meetings. The most outstanding part of taking such action is that the need to pledge is never discussed in any board meetings and you can focus on strategic issues!

The survey results from Hardy's article will probably not surprise most of you reading this post and his article.

My two favorites are:

Question Three: What advice would you offer to organizations who ask this question: Why don’t board members do what they are supposed to do?

1. Lack of direction. Roles/duties/responsibilities not clearly defined when asked to serve.
2. Board members are not held accountable.
3. Individuals are on board for wrong reasons.
4. Right people are not being recruited.
5. Better screening/evaluating of prospective board members.
6. Soft sell approach when recruiting.
7. Not having buy-in from board members. Not feeling involved.
8. Not being specific with task requests.
9. Poor communications.
10. Being asked to do too much.
11. No follow-up.
12. No orientation or training.

Question Five: How can organizations be more effective in utilizing their board members?

1. Clearly define what is being requested.
2. Listen to their opinions.
3. Have good effective communications.
4. Get buy-in. Create ownership.
5. Limit tasks they are asked to do.
6. Know your board members and play to their strengths.
7. Recognize their accomplishments.
8. Don’t take them for granted.
9. Make sure your board members know each other.
10. Have fun.
11. Have accountability measures in place.

Please allow me to highlight what truly made sense to me as an active board member. The neat part about the highlights I will mention is that they are so easy to correct!

Here are my top five:

1. Clearly define the board role in writing -- in fact, have signature blocks on the document for all to sign
2. Have fun! (There is no law against this and your attendance levels will soar!)
3. Listen to their opinions (this means having strategic discussions not merely OK’ing staff or operations reports).
4. Create ownership. Does this ever hurt in any endeavor?
5. Better screening, evaluating of potential board members (if the board manages the CEO or Executive Director should we not be as careful in choosing them as we did the CEO/ED?).

Hardy, thanks for conducting your research and sharing it with us. Perhaps your efforts and my few thoughts might impact numerous board meetings in a positive way in the future. If so, maybe your probing question about board members doing what they are supposed to may never need to asked again...

Ethics Coming to Life at Blackbaud Conference

One of my recent posts referred to the AFP Ethics Committee and the vital guidelines they keep updated and enforced. Please allow me to say thanks to those of you who commented so positively about those guidelines and the role AFP places in our sector.

At our recent meeting we viewed an on-line ethics survey that anyone in the business or non-profit world would find interesting to take. Here is a brief overview:

eInsight Ethics Quiz

eQuiz is designed for executives wanting ideas on how to incorporate a culture of business ethics and corporate social responsibility. eQuiz takes approximately 20 minutes to complete and scores are compared against industry peers. Action steps are provided to help improve future scores.

How did you score? I am pleased to say I felt good about my score!

I also mentioned the upcoming ethics session at the Blackbaud Conference for Non-Profits.

Our session is one of many outstanding ones being offered this year.

To provide an even better overview Joy Simpson and I created a podcast with the help of our moderator Sarita Myers. You can enjoy this preview via this link. You will not want to miss the point/counterpoint approach we are taking to the case studies being highlighted.

We hope to see many of you there in November!

A Hidden Gem

The Free Dictionary defines "Gem" as either a. Something that is valued for its beauty or perfection or b. A beloved or highly prized person

After listening to a cadre of successful Indiana businessman and women, who comprise the Philanthropy Council of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy located here in Indianapolis, rave about this institution, I fully believe both definitions apply. Here is the link in order to fully appreciate the scope of the Center’s endeavors. It is a true gem for Indiana and the non-profit world.

How often do many of the people of a community never visit, understand or help communicate about a wonderful key landmark or historic institution right under their nose. Just think of the number of times you may have journeyed to visit a distant site, which seemed so special to you and your family, only to have nobody in a local restaurant be able to guide you there or even tell you what to expect.

My favorite example of such lackadaisical approach is a conversation with a former high school basketball teammate of mine. For most of the years of our youth, we focused on the game we loved so much. A few years back I asked him if he had visited the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, which is located less than 45 miles from his home. He had not, but he did mention during a recent family vacation to Texas they had visited Prairie Dog Town in Lubbock. Maybe I am off base, but I think a true gem was missed no matter how great the prairie dogs were...

Anyway, let’s return to the Center on Philanthropy. As a new board member, who happens to live in this region, I was an invited guest to the council's strategic planning meeting. When I glimpsed at the list of attendees and who the chairman was I immediately cleared my schedule for the two and a half hour early evening gathering.

I have always found strategic planning sessions to be fascinating, if not exciting, on many levels. This one was no exception. Debating strategic issues and possible solutions among a distinguished group of very successful people is a joy to watch and participate in. The experiences and insights jumped out in rapid fire order, especially under the watchful and experienced eye of our leader Frank Walker. By the way, he is a gem too!

This experience made me wonder why more NPOs and for profit businesses do not establish some sort of council to supplement and enhance their board. How about a council comprised of bright folks under the age of 35? Believe me their insights on many subjects will be different and brilliant! How about a council of retired individuals with a passion for your business or cause? How about a customer or partner council? Any and all of the above when organized properly are just as powerful as the going to the audience to answer any question such as they do in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"

By the way the success rate for Ask the Audience on the show is 91% or higher! Just think if you had a council who supplied strategic answers at a 90% or higher success rate what that would mean! Maybe we have uncovered another hidden gem .

Ethics Never Takes a Back Seat at AFP

Last week one of the regularly scheduled meetings of the AFP Ethics Committee took place. I came away energized and impressed with the extreme care and diligence that goes into the care and feeding of the AFP Ethical Guidelines. In fact, the ethics section is one of the most widely used areas of the newly designed AFP web site. I strongly encourage anyone involved with non-profits in just about any manner to peruse.

Directly related is the Donor Bill of Rights developed in conjunction with AHP, CASE and the Giving Institute. These rights have stood the test of time since their release and are such a must read I have them listed below.

The Donor Bill of Rights

Philanthropy is based on voluntary action for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To ensure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the nonprofit organizations and causes they are asked to support, we declare that all donors have these rights:

I. To be informed of the organization's mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes.

II. To be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization's governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities.

III. To have access to the organization's most recent financial statements.

IV. To be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.

V. To receive appropriate acknowledgment and recognition.

VI. To be assured that information about their donation is handled with respect and with confidentiality to the extent provided by law.

VII. To expect that all relationships with individuals representing organizations of interest to the donor will be professional in nature.

VIII. To be informed whether those seeking donations are volunteers, employees of the organization or hired solicitors.

IX. To have the opportunity for their names to be deleted from mailing lists that an organization may intend to share.

X. To feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.

I am proud to part of the organizations responsible for the creation of such a critical set of rights to be followed by those in our sector. It is hard to believe with so many of the ethical guidelines being based on common sense and honesty that they could ever be violated. However, just like the laws which govern any country they are violated from time to time. It is also reassuring to know that AFP has complete and proper hearing procedures in place to address such breaches. Being part of the hearings has been some of the most eye opening experiences I have had in this sector. It is also been some of my most wisely invested volunteer time!

If you have a chance to explore these ethical guidelines at any upcoming educational conferences I urge you to do so. Discussing them is quite fascinating and often revealing. For those of you attending the upcoming Blackbaud Conference for Non-Profits please note that just such a session will be offered with an interesting pairing of an AFP Ethics committee member in myself, a truly respected fundraiser in Joy Simpson and a journalist from NPT in Paul Clolery.

Buzz and Flattery Will Get You Everywhere

"Buzz" as it applies to Advertising and Public Relations is defined by Wikipedia as the following:

Marketing buzz or simply buzz is a term used in word-of-mouth marketing. The interaction of consumers and users of a product or service serve to amplify the original marketing message. Some describe buzz as a form of hype among consumers, a vague but positive association, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service. Positive "buzz" is often a goal of viral marketing, public relations, and of advertising on Web 2.0 media. The term refers both to the execution of the marketing technique, and the resulting goodwill that is created. Examples of products with strong marketing buzz upon introduction were Harry Potter, the Volkswagen New Beetle, Pokémon, Beanie Babies, and the Blair Witch Project.

It is possible for firms to track the marketing buzz of their products online using buzz monitoring. For some companies it is important to understand the buzz surrounding a product before committing to the market.

Those of us who have the chance and/or the responsibility to create or approve marketing and PR campaigns for any organization are always striving for such "Buzz". This is especially true in the new Internet marketing age where a comment, mentions, re-Tweets and "posts" can be tracked to the extreme degree. We might be close to achieving such buzz with our latest eTapestry marketing campaign. Here is a recent blog post about campaign pictured below from Donald Temper.

Here is an excerpt from his post:

There are all sorts of rules for marketing, whether by direct mail or e-mail. There should be a guarantee. ("Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.") There should be urgency. ("This offer expires in 48 hours.") And so on.

Sometimes the marketing can include a suggestion of exclusivity. ("This offer isn't for everyone–just those who want the best." Or "We're only making this offer to a select few.") One thing I haven’t seen–and I’m an avid reader of marketing advice from Glazer-Kennedy and a slew of others–is: Don't deliberately insult the recipient. Nor have I seen: Don't cast the product you’re marketing in a bad light.

Maybe we can learn something from the folks at eTapestry.com. That company's latest e-mail promo compares its potential customers to dung beetles. But, hey, that's not the end of it. It compares its own product to skunk cabbage.

Mutualism. It's what they call it when two things benefit each other. And just like the dung beetle and skunk cabbage help each other out, so too do eTapestry’s fundraising software and your cause.

Donald we appreciate your flattery and the mention out on the web. I personally think your comments have true merit. Yours is just one of so many comments, emails and notes we have received about the campaign. More importantly our prospective customers have really noticed too! In the economy of 2009 this has been a real blessing for our sales teams.

Please allow me to give credit where credit is due. The campaign was the brainchild of our advertising firm Young and Laramore and Steve Rusche on our team. When they presented it I immediately loved the concept and the offer associated with it. Like the originators of the idea, I had a hunch that our market, consisting of non-profit executives, was smart and witty enough to truly appreciate it and respond. Happily, that has been the case. Boy, I am glad that I am not marketing to attorneys as I was 30 years ago. They picked over every marketing piece and seldom had a sense of humor...

Steve, now what do you suggest for next year?

Just For Fun

You have heard me comment on the various events that help make up the special culture at our eTapestry Division of Blackbaud. Please allow me to describe our twist on the classic company golf outing. There may not be another one like ours anywhere.

We start out by inviting and in fact, encouraging as many non-golfers to attend this Thursday early evening event. Next we find the closest, most unique and economical par three golf course near our office. How does $5 per person for an economical company golf outing in 2009? The Heartland Resort can best be experienced by their web site. Where else can you play within the confines of RV hook-ups, a good ole swimming hole and a neat little miniature golf course. The map below provides some insight into the wide variety of nearby activities!

Those of you who follow professional golf are familiar with the Ryder Cup. We borrowed a few ideas from this great event. We match up each non-golfer with a golfer for a two person team. (One qualifies as a golfer at eTapestry if you either played at least once before or own a set of golf clubs or have a significant other with a set of golf clubs!) This two person team plays alternate shot golf until the ball is in the hole or a score of 8 is achieved. (It does happen even on a par three course...) We offer various prizes to add to the fun. My favorite part is that the entire course is so compact that you can virtually talk or at least yell over to everyone else while the round is going on. The action is fast paced and is never without a dull moment with this format. We had a three way tie this year for first place. As I left to go babysit my granddaughter they were deciding on whether to:

1. Have a one hole playoff
2. Pick a hole to find the lowest score on that hole
3. Flip a coin/play paper/rock/scissors
4. Play 3 holes on the miniature golf course

I have played in quite a few charity golf outings and even in a PGA Pro Am, but I can truly say for minute by minute fun and fellowship the eTap outing takes the blue ribbon. I personally love chatting with many of our employees during such away from the office gatherings. Here are a few pictures to provide additional color:

The event was so popular this year we had several other Blackbaud employees from various other locations join us. I am betting that they will arrange their schedules to join us next September like so many of us do for the fun!

Kicking off the new eTap Seminar in the Big Apple

They say if it flies with a New York crowd then it will fly anywhere. If that is the case, then we are in for a great run with our new seminar format throughout the rest of 2009. By the way, here is a link to register if we are coming to a city near you. There is a good chance you may have a short commute to see what I am talking about. (See the list at the bottom of this post)

I am almost ashamed to say that all I did was present, which in my opinion is the fun part, especially when you get to spend a holiday weekend in such an outstanding city as New York.

The heaving lifting was done by three members of our new account sales team in their spare time. You see, they still were achieving their sales quota as they assembled the myriad of details, facts and examples for such a large presentation. Therefore, I salute Katie Rucker, Mike Kierce and Cate Schafer on a job well done. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting any of the three, I have included a few pictures.

So much for our producers, let's return to the packed room on 8th Avenue in New York last Tuesday. We had quite the variety of non-profits. Present were large National NPO's, start-up NPOs, NPOs from various vertical niches, NPO consultants and someone wanting a Microsoft Vista training session! (Just joking about the last one...)

My favorite part is that this group was brimming with questions and numerous actual day to day stories regarding the various key technology tools we discussed. Their real life case studies truly added as much or more to the presentation as I did.

Here are a few key slides which should provide an overview/preview for anyone reading this post. Perhaps you will want to see and hear more after glancing at these...

I can guarantee anyone coming will leave with at least 3-4 new ideas which could have an immediate impact on your communications and fundraising success. Feel free to send me a note at jay.love@etapestry.com to let me know if you came away with at least three.

Here are the upcoming cities below, sort of the eTapestry rock and roll fall tour! I hope we see you there...

Sept 15 - Baltimore
Sept 15 - Boston
Sept 16 - Charlotte
Sept 16 - Dallas
Sept 16 - Cleveland
Sept 16 - Atlanta
Sept 16 - Seattle
Sept 17 - Portland
Sept 17 - Houston
Sept 21 - Chicago
Sept 23 - Milwaukee
Oct 5 - Tulsa
Oct 6 - Oklahoma City
Oct 6 - Cincinnati
Oct 6 - Jacksonville, FL
Oct 6 - Detroit
Oct 8 - Phoenix
Oct 8 - Minneapolis
Oct 13 - San Diego
Oct 13 - Richmond
Oct 13 - Memphis
Oct 14 - Tampa
Oct 14 - Newark, NJ
Oct 14 - Los Angeles
Oct 14 - Kansas City
Oct 15 - Madison
Oct 21 - Birmingham
Oct 22 - Charleston
Oct 28 - Denver
Nov 4 - Louisville

Philanthropy Gathering in Music City USA

I had the distinct pleasure of presenting to the combined gathering three different philanthropy organizations in Nashville, TN this week. The groups were AFP Nashville, the Partnership for Philanthropy Planning of Nashville and the CNM CEO Network.

What a fantastic idea of joining the groups together for NPO thought leadership in the community. The venue was even special with the use of a superb meeting facility at the Inman Center at Belmont University.

I have always found that anytime you bring together 70-80 top notch development professionals, and allow them to network, magical ideas start sprouting up. Such was the case here in Nashville with the conversations buzzing around me. My main task was to take my time to sprinkle a few more seeds about and see what germinated.

My two main topics to discuss with speeches to such development professionals are ethics and the use of technology in our sector. In Nashville I focused on the latter.

In particular, my presentation centered around the revolution we are in the midst of regarding communications with prospects, members and donors. I focused on three areas that have changed drastically in the last 24 months. There were:

1. The NPO Web Site
2. The Use of Email
3. The Use of Social Media

Here is a slide to provide a bit of an overview of each. First, the NPO Web Site...

Moving into the new realm of being open and willing to share the ability to add content on the web site is scary for many NPO's. (Especially those with no one younger than 60 on the board of directors...) By the way, the goal I am referring to in the slide is to obtain permission to communicate on a regular basis! This is certainly needed for email these days and can also equate for "friending" in Facebook or "following" in Twitter.

Secondly, we explored the use of email...

You will notice a circular communications cycle. Each "trip" around builds a stronger relationship. It also allows you to garner more details in the database. I emphasized, and a few stand up testimonials from the audience verified, such details in the database allow proper segmentation and personalization of the email. You can be every bit as sophisticated with email as you can with direct mail. You can even report back who opened and read the email, which would be a dream come true for those relying strongly on the direct mail world!

Lastly, we zeroed in on the newest communications tool that is growing rapidly by the day. Of course I am referring to social media...

The slides are referring to my last story I shared about charity: water. They have embraced the social media method of communications in a huge way. Here is a video with the full story. Notice how many folks they are communicating with daily! Check them out on Twitter.

In case you are wondering how to move into this exciting new world, I have two suggestions to jump start your quest.

1. Sign up for Beth Kantor's blog, her ideas are super.
2. 2. See if your NPO's name has already been used on the most popular social media sites via this handy tool.

I wish all of you reading this post only the greatest of success in harnessing these wonderful new communication tools. Perhaps you will be like some of our eTapestry customers who are able via such tools to DOUBLE their Donor database each year!

Referring back to my last blog post "We’ve Come a Long Way Baby" I mentioned my first car was a 1967 Camaro. Ironically, the founder of Papa John's Pizza, John Schnatter was also pretty fond of his vintage Camaro. He recently found and repurchased his early car he obviously loved. Sometimes two different minds do think alike!

I think his Camaro would take my old robin egg blue six cylinder one at the nearest drag strip, but I did purchase mine for a mere $1,600 in hard earned $3.50 per hour cash, which is a bit less than John just shelled out...

We’ve Come a Long Way Baby

Looking back ten years I fondly remember our first set of large computers we purchased for our initial hosting center for eTapestry the application. We chose to go a fully managed route with a large well known nation vendor. I will keep them nameless in order to protect the guilty...

Let me explain why. In 1999 the entire SaaS (Software as a Service) model was truly in its infancy. Being a lean and mean operation in this new frontier, we thought it would be prudent to link up with a "big brother" to protect us and our newly acquired forward thinking customers. We loved this particular vendor's vivid presentation and proposal to us about meeting our every need in this new hosted world. Little did we know that they working up to a full run from a walk themselves. They did not seem to fully understand what 24 X 7 meant when it came to achieving 100% up time.

Even among our first 25 customers we found people using the system at 5 AM in the morning on the East coast of the United States to people working at midnight on the West coast. The Charity World truly never falls fully asleep. When our first partner made it difficult from time to time to keep every single one of our customers happy we knew it was time to move on to bigger and better hosting centers.

I have to compare our changes over the years to what I have done in cars starting with my first used 1967 Chevy Camaro to my Camry hybrid now. Even though my robin egg blue Camaro had a nifty little 6 cylinder engine it cannot hold a candle to the technology and efficiency of the Camry hybrid. (I love averaging 40+ MPG during my short commute to work) The differences are almost as amazing as what has occurred with our hosting center operations and sophistication!

We quickly moved from a single hosting center to multiple hosting centers. Each year we added more computers, much more redundancy and infinitely more peace of mind for all of our customers.

One of our fun additions was the purchase of a used full size stoplight to hang in our office.

This unique purchase more or less came when we were upgrading our extensive network monitoring tools. For a metaphor, think of all of the equipment used in ICU area of a top notch hospital. We decided we needed a constant visual reminder of what 100% 24 X 7 uptime truly means. This is especially true for those folks processing on-line donations and event registrations in the various time zones associated with North/South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Part of our "geek" squad, (I use the term lovingly) synched the monitoring tools with the old fashion stoplight to reflect such ongoing events like achieving a record number of users to a computer being taken off-line for servicing. (By the way, in case you were wondering those new records never happen on a Monday or a Friday nor during August...)

Our superb team of system professionals achieved another milestone this year. It was not in buying a larger number of new computers to keep up with our growing demand, but in achieving PCI certification. My pride in our tech team and in the tech teams from Blackbaud multiplied as I watched them attack and complete the numerous requirements for this top level certification. I sure would not want to attempt such an achievement with our 1999 budget, manpower and knowledge. This is quite a significant factor for our customers and their peace of mind as it relates to electronic transactions and the data associated with that ever more important part of fundraising. For those of you desiring an in depth look here you go. (There is even a video that I can safely say will not go viral!)

I could go on and on with the myriad of changes, improvements and achievements of our tech teams as it relates to our hosting centers. I think the greatest compliment I can pay them is the pure and simple fact that over 6,000 customers take what they have built for granted daily! (I mean that in the nicest manner because just like electricity we only notice when it is NOT there for us.)

Please join me in giving each and every one of them an electronic pat on the back and a huge thank you!