Peter's Blog

Let's All Listen! -- July 2011

2011-07-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all, sorry, I know it’s been a long time since my last blog posting….it has been an exciting and busy time for us here at RESolutionsTECH Inc over the last six months or so! Hi Rose!!!

In this edition of the blog, I’m going to talk about the listening skills one should bring to an on-line session or meeting and further thoughts on a successful training seminar.

Read more by clicking the link below...
http://www.resolutionstech.com/news/?peter-s-latest-blog-post-listen-well-81.html

2011-01-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

Peter’s Blog Post – January 2011

Welcome back Blog readers! My apologies for such a time gap between posts...But being busy is a good thing, right?

A few blog’s ago I wrote about how to get the most out of a training session and of the responsibilities faced by the presenter to ensure that the sessions are informative, interesting, engaging and worth the investment of both time and money that the participants contribute:

http://peterresolutionstech.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-most-out-of-training-session.html

In this latest installment of my blog I’ll shift gears a bit and talk about the responsibilities faced by the attendees of the session to ensure that the training they have received truly benefits them, both in the short and the long term.

The first thing to keep in mind is that much of the success of any training depends in large part on the enthusiasm and the attitude to which the attendees approach the sessions. It really is a two-way partnership between the presenter and the attendee, and a positive, willing attitude on both their parts goes a long way to ensuring the success of the training provided. Furthermore, it is very important that the participants truly have confidence that the information presented in the session will be of value to them as they go about their daily work in Raiser’s Edge. Thus, communication before, during and following the sessions is crucial.

Frequently, this notion of a “positive attitude” is contagious and must come first from the senior members of the team so that everyone truly believes in the value of the training.

Always remember, Raiser’s Edge should be considered a tool that assists you in doing your daily work, it should never be seen as a hindrance to the completion of your daily tasks. At RESolutionsTECH we can assist your organization in getting the most out of your Raiser’s Edge database system. Never let Raiser’s Edge, or any piece of technology for that matter, frustrate you or any member of your team again.

Rest assured that when you come to us for your training needs and solutions your team will be dealing directly with experienced, hands-on trainers who are dedicated to ensuring that your organization maximizes its Raiser’s Edge capabilities in every facet, from gift management to building relationships.

That being said, like anything in life, the participants will get out of the sessions what they put into the sessions. An organization can go a long way to ensuring that the training sessions are truly valuable simply by reminding the participants to:

A) Prepare for the sessions
B) Eliminate distractions during the sessions
C) Do follow-up work on their own afterwards to reinforce the concepts presented

Preparing for the sessions can be as simple as ensuring the participants have their own log-on credentials established and that they have, at the very least, opened Raiser’s Edge and “toured” some of the functionality.

More specifically, for any given session the participants should come prepared to ask relevant questions directly related to their role at the organization and their Raiser’s Edge needs. As the training sessions that RESolutionsTECH offer are dedicated to just one organization at a time, the attendees can feel comfortable and confident that they can raise any issue or question without worrying about divulging delicate or confidential information. I always like to suggest that Raiser’s Edge users keep a handy “Raiser’s Edge Notebook” at their work station, and anytime questions or confusions arise those can be documented and raised at the next session. At the end of the sessions, I always give the attendees the flexibility to ask any Raiser’s Edge question, even if it does not fall within the scope of that session’s given topic.

Secondly, eliminating distractions during the sessions may seem rather obvious, but it is easy to forget to turn off a cell phone or remind co-workers that you will be on a call. It is also important to keep in mind that the sessions generally last no more than 90 minutes, thus it is important to stay focused and on target during the presentations.

And finally, and most importantly, it is crucial that the participants do follow-up work after the sessions to reinforce the concepts presented.

The information from the session needs to be practiced and used by the attendees, both immediately after the session is completed and on an on-going basis moving forward. It is unrealistic to expect anyone to pick up where they left off if they’ve not looked at it for six months.

As an organization that has worked for many years assisting charities manage their Raiser’s Edge database, we have seen on too many occasions where someone will attend a Raiser’s Edge training session, ask all the right questions, and leave feeling confident in the knowledge gained. However, all too frequently, though they have approached the training with the best intentions, they use it for a day or two then push it aside and ignore it for several weeks or even months.

We have seen, for example, where someone will attend a session on say the Events Module in Raiser’s Edge, but then leave the session and don’t immediately use the knowledge gained. Then, down the road, they find they need to build an event in Raiser’s Edge are unable to remember what was taught or find that the training suggestions were never implemented. For example, the required data populated in drop down menus does not exist or is inadequate for their tracking needs.

Now of course we understand, these days more than ever, workloads are increasing as charities look to cut expenses and there is very little time in our daily work lives simply to go into Raiser’s Edge and “play” or experiment, or even work at reinforcing materials presented in a training session.

But when you are working with Raiser’s Edge, you really do get out of it what you put into it.

An analogy might be learning to ski. All the PowerPoint presentations in the world can talk about balance and dexterity and coordination, but in reality, the way you learn how to ski is by strapping them on and giving it a whirl! Raiser’s Edge is exactly the same thing. All the training sessions in the world are meaningless unless the participant takes the knowledge in hand and uses it effectively.

Organizations that invest the valuable resources of both time and money in the training of their employees need to be commended. Given that, it is only right that those far-sighted organizations feel confident that the training is valuable, worth the time and expense, and in the long run not only necessary, but appreciated by the participants.

For the organization that is investing both time and money in the training process, there are ten keys things to remind your employees as they prepare for the training sessions:

1) Prepare for the sessions in advance by:
--Knowing the topic
--Familiarizing themselves with that particular area of Raiser’s Edge

2) Arrive for the on-line session 10 minutes early. Frequently attendees experience slight difficulties connecting, especially the first time. Dial in early to avoid distractions and interruptions once the session has begun.

3) Eliminate all distractions during the scheduled time of the session.

4) Participate fully in the sessions. Speak up, ask questions, and engage the presenter.

5) Don’t leave the session with any question unanswered.

6) Use and re-use and use yet again the knowledge provided in the session and encompass it as part of your daily Raiser’s Edge work.

7) Never get frustrated! Always think of RESolutionsTECH as your Raiser’s Edge resource to answer any question or offer any kind of follow-up session. Schedule future sessions to:
--provide new information
--reinforce previous instructions
--review database set-ups and “best practices”
--keep existing skills fine-tuned

8) Always be thinking about what you know, what you don’t know and what you’d like to know.

9) Have RESolutionsTECH do an independent audit of your Raiser’s Edge usage and practices to assist in evaluating the success rate of the training sessions and in developing future ones. Note those Raiser’s Edge users who may need additional instructions or reinforcement.

10) Give your employees the tools and knowledge to not only do their own jobs effectively, but also raise the bar to take your organization to the next level of success.

Organizational Challanges

2010-08-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

This edition of my blog will outline some of the challenges and responsibilities faced by organizations that use Raiser’s Edge in multiple and often distant offices.

Recently we have been asked for advice by a couple of our clients that find themselves in a rather unique situation when managing their Raiser’s Edge database: that is, to help them identify and find solutions to the challenges faced by organizations that use the same Raiser’s Edge database in multiple office locations spread across the country.

As we know, the importance of maintaining consistency and continuity throughout the database is absolutely essential, as the quality of the statistical, demographical and financial information generated out of Raiser’s Edge is dependent on how the database is populated and maintained. Thus it is crucial that all data entry personnel follow pre-described policies and protocols whenever data is entered into Raiser’s Edge. Though frequently these protocols are very organizationally specific, the internal consistency, accuracy and continuity within that organization must be maintained.

For most organizations that use Raiser’s Edge, all of the users are in one centralized location, indeed if not in the same office. For these organizations it is a relatively easy and straightforward task to keep all of the Raiser’s Edge users working together in a consistent and cohesive manner. Yet even for these organizations, inconsistent data entry can be a serious issue and it is essential for any organization, regardless of how their staff is situated, to pay attention to how their database is being populated.

That being said, organizations that have users spread out across a wide geographic area face all kinds of additional challenges in keeping their database consistent. Frequently the needs and priorities of regional and local personnel can usurp the needs and priorities of the national organization as a whole.

For example, these organizations often struggle with the most appropriate means of populating the menus in Raiser’s Edge, as they try to take into account both the regional tracking needs and the national needs. Thus, by trying to please all, dropdown menus can become convoluted and unmanageable if each region has its own unique options populated. Furthermore, it is that much more difficult to see the national picture if, for example, prospects or volunteers are segmented according to province. This challenge of deciding what should be “national” vs. what should be “regional” can be very difficult, especially concerning fundraising analytics, such as a national appeal vs. a regional appeal.

Another challenge that these organizations may face is in dealing with a limited number of available user licenses with a handful of users across the country that all need access to Raiser’s Edge throughout the day. It is obviously much easier to see if the person sitting beside you is logged on at the moment than someone a thousand kilometers away. This also raises the issue of the staff being somewhat unfamiliar with each other and an individual may not always feel comfortable relaying a Raiser’s Edge question, issue or problem to someone in a distant office that they have never met.

It is also much more difficult for the national office to feel confident that all Raiser’s Edge users, regardless of location, have consistently received the same level of Raiser’s Edge training and that everyone is populating Raiser’s Edge in a consistent manner. The national managers often fail to convince all users of the national significance of the data, and therefore it is hard to keep all users working together and consistently – “on the same page”.

Even something as banal as time zone issues and the inconvenience of getting Raiser’s Edge users together for meetings, discussions and tutorials can lead to long term problems.

For these organizations, it is important to regularly bring together those Raiser’s Edge users in an on-line, real-time environment for instruction, conversation and the reinforcement of consistent data entry practices. It can also be extremely valuable to engage the services of a Raiser’s Edge consulting team, such as RESolutionsTECH, who can go a long way to ensuring that all users have up to date training and that system wide policies and procedures are well documented and follow up is done to ensure they are adhered to.

Once an organization loses the consistency and continuity in their Raiser’s Edge database, it is very difficult to have confidence in the information generated in queries, reports and the Dashboard feature. It can also be a tremendous amount of work, time and expense to rectify those data inconsistencies that have accumulated over time.

Thus, these organizations have additional responsibilities that they must be prepared to face in order to ensure the accuracy of their data. At the same time, the highest onus resides with each and every Raiser’s Edge user. In any organization that relies on its database for information, there is no single more important person in that organization than the individual doing the data entry. For if the information is not entered into Raiser’s Edge in a consistent, accurate and meaningful manner, then any information generated out of Raiser’s Edge will be worse than meaningless; it will be wrong.

These users need to go above and beyond the average user’s responsibilities and work in sync with the people in the disparate locations to ensure that accuracy and consistency is maintained.

Regional managers need to ensure that they are taking into account the needs of the entire organization, and not just their own specific region or area.

And the importance of that national consistency must be reinforced to all users. Frequently someone may think to themselves, “Well, here I am in Calgary and really I am only ever interested in looking at data that is relevant to me and to my region. It makes no difference how the office in Halifax manages their Constituents or how they populate their regional information”. The problem with this rather short-sighted view, however, is that this particular user is not taking into account the needs of the national office, and simply because somebody in Calgary may only be interested in seeing Alberta numbers does not mean that those national figures are not important, and for the national numbers to be accurate, it is essential that those users in those distant offices are tracking information in Raiser’s Edge in a consistent manner.

To assist your organization in managing your Raiser’s Edge users, here are 10 “take-aways” to keep in mind:

• Different users entering data consistently across the board is always a challenge, whether those users are located together or spread apart in multiple locations.

• The organization’s Human Resources department should establish a required Raiser’s Edge training program with regularly scheduled tutorials that all users must attend in order to learn more Raiser’s Edge skills and to reinforce “best practices” and data entry policies.

• There should be a central base of knowledge established through which users can contact a resource that is well versed in the organization’s overall set-up and procedures.

• One senior Raiser’s Edge user should be assigned the regular task of evaluating the data entry done over a given time period through the use of queries and reports.

• Saved queries should be used as a reconciliation tool and as a means of ensuring consistency of data pulled. This can be accomplished, for example, through the use of the “Ask” feature, whereby the basic criteria in the query remains unchanged over time, yet specifics in the query can be determined at run time.

• Saved queries should also be used as pre-built merge queries, for example standard query exclusions and suppressions.

• The Batch feature should be used for all gift entry, unless volume dictates entry via import. This ensures that every gift in the batch, as well as across batches, is entered consistently and that all applicable gift entry fields are populated appropriately.

• A system should be set up where there is a monthly reconciliation of all the data entered.

• The Solicitor feature in Raiser’s Edge should be utilized whereby individuals and offices can be assigned as leads on Constituents.

• If the number of user licenses is an issue and users have difficulty logging on to Raiser’s Edge, then an organizational schedule should be outlined based on need and flexibility. Also, automated export and reports can be created and accessed from a centralized location to ease the strain on the user licenses.

At RESolutionsTECH we are Raiser’s Edge experts and our training team is ready to assist everyone in your organization use Raiser’s Edge to its fullest. Whether you are in the same location, or spread out among distant offices, we will work with you to reach that level of consistency and continuity, and then provide the expertise and on-going support to ensure that the consistency is maintained as your organization moves forward.

A Few Random Questions

2010-05-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the arrival of spring and much finer weather!

This edition of my blog is a little more “ad hoc” than previous postings, as I will answer a few random questions sent to me from a couple of Blog readers. If ever you have a Raiser’s Edge or technology related question that you would like to see addressed in a future blog, please feel free to contact me directly at plucas@resolutionstech.com

Thanks to Gary in England and Sherry in Winnipeg for submitting the questions:
1) What is the purpose and appropriate use of the Relationship/Reciprocal drop down menus when establishing a relationship between Constituents?
2) How does sharing and copying a preferred address from one Constituent to another work?
3) What is the best way to handle and eliminate duplicate records from displaying in the output of a query?

1) Whenever you are establishing a relationship between Constituents in your Raiser’s Edge – whether that be a Relationship between two Individuals or a Relationship between an Individual and an Organization – it is important to accurately identify and track the type of Relationship that exists between the two Constituents. The Relationship and Reciprocal fields are used to describe this relationship.
In some instances, the Relationship and the Reciprocal fields may be identical. Many organizations choose to identify married couples as “Spouse” rather than “Husband” and “Wife” in the Relationship and Reciprocal fields. In this scenario, both the Relationship field and the Reciprocal field will have “Spouse” selected from the drop down menu on both records.
More commonly, however, these two entries will not be identical and will in fact be opposite to each other. For example, if you are establishing an employee—employer relationship between an Individual Constituent (the employee) and an Organizational Constituent (the employer) on each of those two records the Relationship and Reciprocal fields will be opposite. Thus, on the employer record, the Relationship field is marked as “Employee” and the Reciprocal is marked as “Employer” and on the employee record, the Relationship field is marked as “Employer” and the Reciprocal is marked as “Employee”.
Similarly, when establishing a relationship between, for example, a parent and child in your Raiser’s Edge, on the parent’s relationship record the Relationship field will be marked as “Child” and the Reciprocal field will be marked as “Parent”; on the child’s relationship record, those two field entries will be reversed.
Whenever you are establishing relationships between your Raiser’s Edge Constituents, it is important to track the type of Relationship using the Relationship and Reciprocal fields to easily identify how Constituents in your data base are related to one another. Keep in mind that you can create virtually any type of relationship between Constituents in your database, and while the most common relationship that you draw is likely to be a spousal relationship, any kind of relationship – from Friend to Golf Partner to Business Associate – can be established. Simply remember that in the Relationship drop down menu, select the individual’s relationship to the Constituent, such as “Mother” and in the Reciprocal field, select the Constituent’s relationship to the individual, such as “Son”.

2) Frequently when you have established Relationships between your Constituents, you will note that two Constituents may share the same preferred address, for example in the case of a married couple or a parent and a child that live at the same location. These addresses and corresponding phone types can be marked as “shared”, thus indicating that the same address is tracked on more than one record in your database. By clicking “Constituent” from the menu bar of an open Constituent record, you will note the option to Copy and Share the current Constituent’s address to another Constituent. Thus, address updates and changes made on one record can automatically be applied to the linked record.

3) For anyone who runs queries in Raiser’s Edge, without question one of the most frustrating aspects of the whole query process is having duplicate records displayed on the query output screen. Why does Raiser’s Edge produce multiple listings of the same Constituent when that Constituent is only in the database once? There are essentially two reasons why the same Constituent may appear multiple times in your query results:
A) The Constituent qualifies for the criteria you indicated multiple times. For example, if part of the query criteria is something like “Gift amount greater than $100.00”, and the Constituent has 5 gifts each greater than $100.00, then that Constituent will appear on your query results 5 times if you have chosen a query output of, say First and Last Name.
B) Another scenario that may cause the same Constituent to appear multiple times in the output is the fields chosen in the output screen. For example, if you choose to have phone number in the output, each phone number that a person has will appear on a separate row in your output, thus the same Constituent may appear multiple times.

There are two things you can do in Raiser’s Edge to limit the occurrence of duplicates:
i) Use the “Suppress Duplicate Rows” feature found as a checkbox within the query under the menu item “Tools”, then “Query Options” then “Record Processing”. This will help alleviate the issue, though it often will not completely solve the problem.
ii) The single best method of eliminating duplicates from appearing in your query output is to not have any output whatsoever. If the output tab is left completely blank, clicking on the Results tab will provide you with the number of Constituents that qualify for the criteria you have chosen. This number will NOT contain any duplicates. To verify this, compare this number without any output to the number of returns when output such as First Name and Last Name is indicated and you may notice a difference in the number of returns generated. The difference between these two numbers is the duplicates being displayed when output is chosen. Thus, having no output whatsoever will eliminate these instances of duplication. The query can then be saved with no output and the user can utilize the Raiser’s Edge Export feature found along the main blue menu bar to export the results of the query to, for example, an Excel spreadsheet without having the duplicated records displayed.

Thanks again for reading my Blog and please contact us at sales@resolutionstech.com if we can assist you in managing your Raiser’s Edge database more effectively.

We offer personalized on-line training sessions through which we can explore in much more detail those three questions in today’s blog or any other specific question or challenge that faces you and your staff while working in Raiser’s Edge. It is a powerful, comprehensive database system, but can only be truly effective if the users and data entry people are properly trained and acclimated to the nuances within the system. It is these details within Raiser's Edge that have a tremendous impact on your organization’s ability to track and maintain essential data on your donors, alumni, board members, event attendees, suppliers and any other businesses or individuals that you have a point of contact with.

Managing Relationships In Raiser's Edge

2010-04-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

What are Relationships in Raiser’s Edge and how are they managed?

The Relationships Tab on the Constituent record in Raiser’s Edge allows you to link records throughout your database in order to identify and track those Constituents that possess special affiliations and associations. Through this Relationships Tab, there are up to 6 different kinds of Relationships that you can track for a given Constituent:

Individuals
Organizations
Banks & Financial Institutions
Education & Schools
Assigned Solicitors
Funds

What is the purpose of drawing these relationships and how does doing so benefit your organization?

By being able to identify such things as married Constituents or Constituents that are employed by a given organization, you are much better able to fine tune mailing processes and Appeal segmentations.
In this way, your organization is better equipped to organize your fundraising efforts and maximize your returns.

In identifying and establishing these relationships among your Constituents you are building the “Relationship Tree”, through which you can see a real-time break-down of all of the relationships of the Constituent.

The most frequent kind of relationship that is likely to exist for an average Constituent is an Individual Relationship. It should be noted that Individual Relationships are not restricted to merely spouses. You can create virtually any kind of relationship that two human beings may possess, from parent – child to business partners to friends, etc. These Constituents, regardless of the relationship, will be linked via the Relationships Tab and will each appear as a Relationship for the other. Be sure to indicate both the “Relationship” and the “Reciprocal” fields to keep the Relationships in order across both linked records.

Another type of relationship that you are likely to frequently draw between your Constituents is an Organizational Relationship. This may be the place of business in which the Constituent is employed, for example. However, just as you are not limited to only having a spouse as an Individual Relationship, you are likewise not limited to only having an employer as an Organizational Relationship. An Organizational Relationship can be any organization that the Constituent has any kind of affiliation with. Perhaps they serve on the board of directors of the local hospital, or are a member of a club or museum. These, too, are relationships that should be identified and tracked via the Relationships Tab.

You can also draw a relationship between a Constituent and a specific bank or financial institution. This is likely to be done much less frequently than establishing Individual and Organizational Relationships. Often this type of Relationship will only exist in Raiser’s Edge if you require the Constituent’s banking information in order to process their giving transactions. For example, if the Constituent chooses to donate through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), certain specific banking information needs to be tracked and maintained.

A fourth type of Relationship that you can draw in Raiser’s Edge is an Educational Relationship. In drawing Relationships between your Constituents and their places of education, you are able to track such things as year of graduation, grade point average, major/minor, etc. This feature is used most often by Colleges and Universities that utilize Raiser’s Edge to maintain all of their Alumni information.

Assigned Solicitors is another type of Relationship that can exist between your Constituents. Assigned Solicitors are those Constituents who have a specific role, or function within your organization to raise monies from other Constituents. These solicitors are frequently made up of senior members of your organization, members of your Board of Directors, etc. Once a given Constituent has been assigned a solicitor, that solicitor relationship will be displayed on the Relationships Tab.

The sixth and final type of Relationship that you can draw within Raiser’s Edge is a Fund Relationship. It should be noted that a Constituent can have a relationship with more than just one Fund. Essentially, these are Funds with which the Constituent has a special affiliation. An example may be if a Constituent sets up a Fund in the memory of a deceased family member. In this instance, you would draw the Relationship between the Constituent and that specific Fund in order to quickly and easily identify both through whom the Fund was started and which Funds a Constituent feels are especially important to them. This too will assist you in segmenting your Appeals, as you can direct given Appeals to specific Constituents based on where the monies from those Appeals will be directed, ie. the Fund.

The Relationships Tab is one of the most important features on the Constituent record in Raiser’s Edge, and the importance of drawing these relationships amongst your Constituents should not be understated. It is key that these relationships be identified and tracked in order to maintain integrity and accuracy across your database. Relationships are also fundamental to reaching your fundraising goals. For example, if you have an Organizational Constituent that is willing to match the donations of their employees – a Matching Gift Company – then the employee/employer Relationship MUST be established via the Relationships Tab in order to create a matching gift pledge on the Organization’s Constituent record.

So remember to identify and track those relationships that exist throughout your database and build the Relationship Tree! You will be building your infrastructure for improved fundraising.

Get The Most Out Of A Training Session

2009-12-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

Hello Blog Reader!

Well, the holiday season is upon us, and first and foremost let me offer peace, love and best wishes to you and yours! Stay safe and have fun!

Let’s talk about training and instructional sessions. Have you ever sat in on a training session and then left the room saying to yourself, “Well, there’s 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back….What a waste of time!” Yes, we all have.

What makes for an interesting, informative and comprehensive training session? Here at RESolutionsTECH, we do a lot of training, both in-person, and on-line and our goal is always straightforward and simple: to provide customized, specific training sessions tailored to meet the needs of the individual client.

Unlike some Raiser’s Edge training offered by other organizations where the information presented is very general and generic sample data is utilized, here at RESolutionsTECH we use examples from the client’s actual live database, thus providing relevant and real time examples in the sessions.

Here are my top ten suggestions for a successful training experience for you and your staff:

1) Use data examples that the participants recognize and are relevant and meaningful to them.
To this end, whenever feasible, we remotely connect directly to the client’s Raiser’s Edge and present from there, thus showing them their actual data and the information in their specific drop down menus.

2) Encourage conversation, questions and feedback.
By working with just one specific client at a time, we are able to customize each training session to ensure the client’s specific priorities are being met. We also send out a survey before the training to gauge their needs and a second, follow-up survey once the training is completed to ensure the information presented was meaningful and relevant.

3) Ensure the participants can see how the information presented will make the tasks that they need to perform on a daily basis easier and more efficient.
The goal of the training is always to give the participants a deeper appreciation for the capabilities of Raiser’s Edge and to ease their apprehensions regarding the complexity of the database.

4) Divide diverse topics into separate sessions.
Whether the desire is to learn about Mailings, Queries, Security, Record management, or any of the optional Raiser’s Edge modules, we create individualized sessions that focus on the clients’ needs.

5) Keep the sessions manageable and not too lengthy.
Generally, the sessions we offer run no longer than 90 minutes, so the information is parsed in such a way that people have plenty of opportunity for discussions and questions without feeling overwhelmed with too much information.

6) Offer follow-up sessions and encourage open communication to counter any difficulties the client may face moving forward.
Here at RESolutionsTECH we are always accessible and available to directly answer one-on-one questions or concerns your staff may have following the training sessions.

7) Appreciate that different people have different learning needs and not everyone is a computer wizard.
Never assume the participants have an in-depth working knowledge of Windows or related software, such as Excel. Keep the training sessions simple and easy to follow and offer real-world examples whenever possible.

8) Know the participants’ role in their organization.
In this way, the sessions are prioritized and the participants are gaining access to information that is specifically relevant to their daily work needs.

9) Keep the sessions light and stress-free.
People can sometimes be a little nervous if they’re being asked to openly participate in the session and are sometimes afraid to admit what they don’t know. By encouraging active questions and asking for specific examples of where they’ve run into trouble or confusion, the participants feel more comfortable engaging with the presenter and the session will be more interactive.

10) Have fun!
Enthusiasm is contagious!

Thanks for reading my latest blog and have a great holiday season!

Solicit Codes

2009-10-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog Reader!

Welcome to October! Kids back to school and settled into their daily routines, Canadian Thanksgiving behind us, but when’s the next long weekend??

For those of our clients that live in more temperate zones than us -- Philadelphia, New Jersey, and our newest client in California – YES! California! – trust me when I say these dank, cold, wet October days in Canada are enough to make one yearn for warmer climes! The mornings are dark and cold, and May seems a long time away!
Its also the time of year when germs seem to be at their most virulent, and my daughter and I are taking turns sneezing on each other….

And it’s a busy time of year for all….we’ve got Halloween just around the corner, and then end of the year celebrations rushing towards at supersonic speed….But for now, let’s take a bit of a break, breathe a deep sigh, grab a coffee and spend the next 10 or 15 minutes discussing the most appropriate use of Solicit Codes in Raiser’s Edge.

Solicit Codes are populated on the BIO1 Tab of the Constituent record and are essential in maintaining a healthy relationship with all of your Constituents, most notably your key donors. Solicit Codes are used to identify and track rules of contact that exist between that specific Constituent and your organization. For example, if a Constituent has indicated to you that they do not wish to receive mail, you would populate their Constituent Record with a Solicit Code of “Do Not Mail”.

Like most fields in Raiser’s Edge, Solicit Codes are very powerful, in that the drop down menu is customizable, and thus, unique to your organization. While several Solicit Codes are common across most of the organizations that we work with – for example, “Do Not Mail”, “Do Not Phone” – your organization can customize Solicit Codes for your own unique needs. For example, say your organization is running a weekend-long phonathon, you will want to have a very specific Solicit Code populated that indicates, “Do Not Phone On Weekends”.

Thus, your organization can create very specific and tailored Solicit Codes to meet your Constituents’ needs.

Solicit Codes are very convenient in that they are extremely easy to query upon. What I mean by that is when the time comes to generate lists of Constituents out of Raiser’s Edge, for example, a specific group of Constituents that you have identified to send an Appeal to, it is very easy to identify, through query, those Constituents who have a Solicit Code of “Do Not Mail” or "Do Not Solicit" populated on their record.

The key points to remember about Solicit Codes are:
1) Ensure you are populating your Constituents' contact preferences through the use of Solicit Codes.
2) Ensure you keep the Solicit Codes up to date for each Constituent, as frequently their contact wishes will change over time.
3) Ensure to query on your Solicit Codes before you ever contact a group of Constituents to be certain that you are eliminating from that contact list any Constituent that has requested not be contacted.

Furthermore, make sure that the query is specific enough to not only exclude those with a specific Solicit Code, such as “Do Not Solicit”, but that it also excludes those that have a very specific Solicit Code populated that may be related to the means by which you are contacting this group, such as “Do Not Phone On Weekends”.

One thing to note about Solicit Codes….you will see there is a check-box on the BIO1 Tab that indicates “Do Not Email”. Many organizations choose to use BOTH this check box and a Solicit Code of “Do Not Email”. If your organization chooses to track this in both places, ensure you are being consistent across EVERY record that has the check-box checked off.

Solicit Codes are not the same as the Do Not Contact option available to you for specific phone numbers. Solicit Codes are intended to be slightly more general than that…ie, if the Constituent does not want any phone calls at all, you would use a Solicit Code of “Do Not Phone”. If, on the other hand, a Constituent has several different phone numbers populated on their record – eg, Home, Business, Parent -- and has requested not to be contacted via one specific phone you would use the Do Not Contact feature for that specific phone number only, not an overall Solicit Code.

As discussed, you can create and customize a limitless number of Solicit Codes to identify all possible rules of contact. It is important, however, that Solicit Codes are not duplicated and that you are not tracking the same information by more than one Solicit Code phrased slightly differently. For example, in your Solicit Code drop down menu, you would NOT want to have one Solicit Code that says “Do Not Phone” and another Solicit Code that says “No Phone Calls”. Ensure that any information you are tracking is only tracked in one location. This will ensure your query results are accurate when the time comes to retrieve the information from Raiser’s Edge.

It is also essential that the names given to Solicit Codes are as self-explanatory as possible so as to prevent confusion as to what is actually being tracked.

Two “take aways” to remember about Solicit Codes:
1) They are a short two or three word phrase that specifically describes contact rules between your organization and the given Constituent.
2) They are very easy to query upon, and thus are extremely beneficial to you in maintaining healthy relationships with your Constituents.

If you ever have any questions about Solicit Codes, or any other Raiser’s Edge question or technology issue, please email me at plucas@resolutionstech.com and perhaps your question will become my next Blog!

Thanks for reading my blog, and don’t forget to tour the website and check out Robin’s Blog too!

Peter's 2nd Blog -- Constituent Codes

2009-07-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Peter’s 2nd Blog!

Today we’ll be talking about Constituent Codes in the Raiser’s Edge® database system.

It is common for organizations that use Raiser’s Edge® to misuse several of the tables / data entry fields throughout the Constituent Record, and we will discuss more of those in future blogs.

It is crucial, when tracking information in your database, that you follow two simple and fundamental policies:
1) Always track specific information in the pre-specified fields within Raiser’s Edge®
2) Never track the same information in more than one location

This is important, as when it comes time to both query and report on the data, you will pull specific information from specific fields.

Constituent Codes are one of those tables in Raiser’s Edge® that are frequently misunderstood and misused. Also, an organization may also have far too many Constituent Codes populated in the table.

First off, what is a Constituent Code?

A Constituent Code defines the relationship a given Constituent has with your specific organization.
In other words, a Constituent Code tells you why the Constituent is in your database in the first place and how their relationship with your organization has changed over time.

The Constituent Code should be a one or two word, very specific, self-explanatory description of how this particular individual or organization is related to your organization.

Examples of Constituent Codes may include Alumni, Board Member, Donor, Employee, Friend, Prospect, Supplier, & Volunteer.
It is important to note that Constituent Codes are very organization / industry specific and differ depending on the type of organization and the type of Constituents.
For example, a university or college may have a Constituent Code of Alumni or Student, whereas neither one of these would be appropriate for, say, a Hospital Foundation.

The number of Constituent Codes that you have populated in the Constituent Code drop down menu can vary however in most circumstances they should not exceed 20.

With the additional optional Raiser’s Edge® modules that your organization may have installed, it is very easy to track the information you need to without having an abundance of Constituent Codes. For example, you can have one, rather generic Constituent Code of “Prospect” and then further define the type of prospect via the optional Prospect Tab.
In a similar way, you can have a single Constituent Code of “Volunteer” and further define the type of Volunteer and their tasks via the optional Volunteer Tab.

Each Constituent record in your database should have at least one Constituent Code listed, while some may have several. For example, if you have a Constituent that is both a Volunteer and a Donor, then that Constituent should have two codes populated.
It is also important to note that the Date To and Date From fields should be utilized along with the Constituent Code, thus making it very easy to see the transition that your Constituents make with their relationship to your organization over time. For example, if a Constituent becomes a volunteer, you would populate their record with a Constituent Code of Volunteer, use the Date From field to indicate the date they first volunteered and then, if/when they cease their volunteering activities with your organization, you can use the Date To field to indicate the date they ceased being a Volunteer.
Using the Date To field provides the additional benefit of not needing additional Constituent Codes to indicate former relationships, eg Ex-Board Member, Ex-Employee, Ex-Volunteer. These can be identified simply by having the Date To field populated.

It is essential that the names given to Constituent Codes are as self-explanatory as possible so as to prevent confusion as to what is actually being tracked.

A tremendous benefit of Constituent Codes is that they are extremely easy to query upon. For example if you want a very easy way to count or to list, for example, all of your donors who are also volunteers, this becomes a very simple query to run if you are using Constituent Codes to track that information.

Note that the Constituent Code is populated via the BIO2 tab of the Constituent record, and the code that you select for a given Constituent is displayed in red at the bottom on the BIO1 Tab.

Two “take aways” to remember about Constituent Codes:
1) They are a one or two word, very specific explanation of how the Constituent relates to YOUR organization.
2) Every Constituent should have at least 1, some Constituents may have several.

If you ever have any questions about Constituent Codes, or any other technology issue, please email me at plucas@resolutionstech.com and perhaps your question will become my next Blog!

Thanks for reading my 2nd Blog, and don’t forget to tour the website and check out Robin’s Blog too!

Peter's 1st Blog

2009-07-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog Reader!

Welcome to Peter’s first blog! There’s a good chance you’ve either met me in person or spoken to me on the phone at one time or another if you are a client of Resolutionstech…if you’re not, you should be! If you take a look on the “Company” page on the website, you’ll see a goofy picture of me --- of all of us here, actually --- Trust me, I’m not nearly as bald as I appear!

So what’s this blog all about? Plenty of excitement, a little humour, hopefully impart some wisdom here and there….There will be regular postings on a wide range of subjects, though I imagine I will focus primarily on questions, issues, and commentaries related to Donor Database Management and on-line fundraising tools. As we go forward, please email me any questions, comments or suggestions and I could turn your question into my next blog: PLucas@RESolutionstech.com

So, since this is my blog after all, a little bit about me…My name is Peter Lucas and my role here at RESolutionstech is a varied one. As some of you will know, I work a lot one-on-one with our clients to assist them in using both Raiser’s Edge and the Artez on-line system more effectively and comprehensively. We all wear many hats around here, and that is what makes each day both challenging and rewarding.

In my next blog I shall be talking about Constituent Codes in Raiser’s Edge….what are they and how are they best used? Future blogs will look at things such as how to best use User Defined Fields in Artez and why posting gifts by batch in Raiser’s Edge is a better method than inputting them manually.

Any issue or problem or question that you think others could benefit from and would make a good blog, well, I want to hear from YOU!

Thanks for taking the time to read my first blog and watch this space for more to come soon.

Tour the website, and don’t forget to check out Robin’s blog too!