The Jay Love Blog : Blackbaud

Ethics Coming to Life at Blackbaud Conference

Jay Love — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:09:00 GMT

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 New Tradition Here at eTapestry/Blackbaud

Jay Love — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:02:00 GMT

Most of you reading this and previous posts are somewhat aware of the many traditions here at eTapestry. Our culture has been special from our inception and in my opinion always strives to become better each year. Our activities and sharing with each other range from the fun activities like our annual seed spitting contest around the 4th of July or our "Family Feud" contest between departments to sporting competitions like our annual kickball or badminton tourneys to meaningful activities like our quarterly charity volunteer days to our annual awards luncheon where partners, vendors and team members are recognized. Here are a few shots of those below.

I have always compared our culture to that of a large happy family. You know the ones that always have the great holiday celebrations and family reunions. They also seem to celebrate anything and everything. The only way such a family can become better is when it is combined with another large happy family. Perhaps a past wedding or two will bring that image of combing two great families into focus for many of us.

We just completed our two year anniversary of being part of Blackbaud. You see, we had our "wedding" in late July of 2007. I can truthfully state that it has been the combination of two such great families and cultures. Sure, we might have missed a cousin’s birthday along the way during these first two years, if I may continue with this metaphor, but we sure celebrated most of them.

Yesterday we were able to adopt one of Blackbaud's traditions as one of our own here in Indy. During our monthly company meeting, which brings our entire team together, we honored those reaching three and five years of service. Thanks to Blackbaud we were able to offer some special prizes to commemorate the service as well as much deserved public recognition. This was our first time to award the Blackbaud originated keepsakes. Here are a few of the pictures from the meeting (my apologies to the team members who were out of town helping prospects and customers).

I think we have found a keeper in this new tradition. It nice to find the traditions which keep both families proud and moving forward at the rapid pace we have been. Hopefully, many of you reading this blog will have a chance to interact with a 3 year or 5 year winner pictured above in the coming months!

The Largest Gathering of Technical Folks in the Nonprofit Sector

Jay Love — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:14:00 GMT

Yes, earlier this week I was part of the WiFi/laptop festival known as NTC.

This annual event, usually in the SF Bay area, continues to grow and thrive. They have certainly found their niche with an ever increasing gathering of truly passionate folks focused on the common mission of putting technology to work for the missions of NPO's. This year the event sold out early and truly lived up to the anticipation of seeing packed rooms for every session.

I was often a speaker in the early years of NTC. However, this year I was able to function as a participant, networker and part of the anchor vendor sponsor's ground team. Each of those assignments had certain benefits in making my two days there more worthwhile.

I am going to focus in on the participant aspect with a few observations and perhaps an opinion or two. I am hoping that the opinions bring a few replies that I may share. Please let me know your thoughts by just clicking on jay.love@etapestry.com and shooting me an email.

First, it was neat to see many of the larger sessions being piped out live for people to view via the web. Facilitating such technology is what should be done by such an organization and they more than made it happen. A big :) for all of those involved!

Next, it was quite a site in the large ballroom for the keynote sessions where everyone attended. Literally every seat was taken plus virtually any floor space on the sides and at the far rear of the huge room. Even with advanced planning they ran out of IP addresses for the laptops firmly entrenched on everyone’s legs. I wonder how many real time updates were being posted during the sessions?

I attended several of the sessions, particular the ones focused upon case study results within actual non-profits. In some cases truly revolutionary breakthroughs were showcased reflecting the integration of various technologies. Unfortunately most of the breakthrough examples were not within the budget reach of most charities. Only those with budgets who could withstand six figure outlays or larger with consulting firms were the lucky recipients of such integrations. Hopefully, those can be packaged in some manner so the other 94% of the NPO’s in the sector can utilize. (Most of you know that leveling the playing field in technology for that other 94% has been my mantra for virtually all of my 25 years in the sector.)

A couple of the sessions showcased the use of integrated solutions based upon so called "free or open" solutions such as Salesforce.com or Plone or Vertical Response and various others. As I watched the consulting firms involved talk about how they had assisted in making the integration of these tools happen for mere $15,000 to $30,000 investments, I could not help but wonder if most of the audience had any idea that such integration of CRM/Database tools with web tools/e-commerce pages and powerful email engines are standard offerings for many solutions from vendors like Blackbaud/eTapestry. We even have a new partnership with PayPal that is providing web site creation/hosting plus e-commerce/on-line donations plus CRM/donor database plus mass email functions within a single product that has no upfront or subscription fees for the small non-profit called BlackbaudNow.

More importantly, such solutions from well known vendors carry a few advantages that I just have to post here in my blog. Yes, I know it is a bit self serving, but they are so vital that I must state them or I am not being true to my mantra! Below are a few of the key advantages of dealing with a known vendor for such integrated solutions. They are:

You do not have to bear the development costs, which many times are NOT fixed fees
The solutions are backed by top notch ONGOING support at a reasonable price
The worry of new updates/versions to portion of the applications used breaking the integration and requiring more development costs goes away!
The solutions are upgraded and enhanced annually by the vendor based upon combined suggestions of the end user community
The vendor is obligated to fix any bugs that are found, usually for free
Proper training in a wide variety of formats is provided
Other NPO’s are using the solution and may be part of a user group community
The solution is kept upgraded and thereby functioning on new versions of operating systems, web browsers, MS Office and other backbone related systems
Many vendors scale the solutions and pricing so that the other 94% of market can actually afford to purchase and use on an ongoing basis
Additional add-on functions will be made available over the life of the solution

There you go ten quite important advantages in my opinion. These have been formed from all sides of the issue over the last 25 years. Please let me know if you agree or disagree.

I look forward to next year as the nonprofit world, via the NTEN Conference, will again showcase technology and the people behind the technology making it happen for all of us involved in some manner for charities large and small. Long live the geeks, CTO's, DBA's, CIO's and IT staffs who truly care and support the missions that matter to so many of us!

When You Wish Upon a Star

Jay Love — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:29:00 GMT

Just a few days ago we celebrated our one year anniversary of being part of Blackbaud. I can truly use the term celebrate because it has been a superb year. My next post will outline a few milestones which will outline several of the reasons for celebration. It is neat when something in one’s life exceeds expectations. Our partnership with Blackbaud has done just that!

To kickoff the second year, I thought it would be appropriate to pull out an earlier internal blog post about an early combined meeting with our new partner which occurred shortly after the companies were combined. I hope you enjoy . . .

When You Wish Upon a Star

When becoming part of a larger organization like Blackbaud, one is always delighted when pleasant surprises are part of the integration. Last week was one of the best surprises so far!

Our leadership team participated in Blackbaud’s Leadership Assessment process. My thoughts during the two days drifted at times to the famous lyrics from our old buddy Jiminy Cricket when he sings “When You Wish Upon a Star” in the Disney classic. Yes, I know that is a bit of a reach, but please bear with me as I explain.

When becoming part of a larger organization like Blackbaud, one is always delighted when pleasant surprises are part of the integration. Last week was one of the best surprises so far!

During the session, which was moderated delightfully by LeAnn Logue from Blackbaud HR, we were able to explore all of the hopes and dreams for future careers submitted by virtually every eTapestry employee. To say the least, I was truly moved by all of the talent, achievements and desires of our team. The future ideas and plans for most were exciting and in some cases bold. What else would you expect from some of the very best talent in the tech world, who also just happen to come wired with a burning passion to help the non-profit world!

The unfolding of our first year within the Blackbaud organization will now be even more meaningful. Through the help of our new partner, we have provided a remarkable means for each employee to showcase their talents, ambitions and yes, even their long term dreams. Combine this with the immense number of opportunities a company the size of Blackbaud can provide, and perhaps each and every person will have a career filled with a strong sense of achievement and pride. Why, even Jiminy Cricket would be bursting with anticipation of what the future will bring!