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Twitter Makes Relationships Work -
Right Now
By Chad Norman
Social networking connects us
like never before. We find each other, exchange information, and
develop expanding networks as easily as we send email. This
helps individuals, nonprofits, businesses, and governmental
agencies form new kinds of relationships. That’s great,
but now what? How do we put these relationships to work?
Sometimes participation in social
networks can feel passive, because everyone is focused content.
Friend requests, photo galleries, comments, application
installations -- it’s exhausting. It’s like
we’re spending all of our time creating and consuming each
other’s content, instead of actually doing something.
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Make Techies The
Decision-Makers
Information technology has a
growing role in how nonprofits effectively do business. But the
nonprofit techies -- whether you are the chief information
officer or the only person that understands email -- need to be
included in an organization’s decisions so technology
effectively grows with the mission.
If you are the resident nonprofit
techie, focus on these five areas of technology leadership
developed by NPower Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia-based regional
affiliate of the national NPower, which helps nonprofits use
technology strategically:
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Implement strategic technology
planning. A strategic plan can help your organization budget and
set technology goals that make decision making easier.
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Develop a vision. Make sure
that the organization’s goals and the technology work
together to improve the missions. Look at each goal and
determine whether technology can help the overall organization.
Build a team. You can’t do it on your own. Don’t
just fix a problem – take time to teach people solutions
so that they can handle it the next time. You may be the expert,
but you shouldn’t be called every time a computer needs to
be restarted. Try to enlist technology savvy volunteers to help
whenever possible.
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Communicate. Insist that all
team members attend meetings. Bridge the gap between staff and
the technology team by keeping everyone updated about what
efforts you are making. Document when you try a new technology
or change systems to track what’s working for the
organization.
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Role models. Reach out to other
nonprofits and share information to benefit your organization by
learning through others. Try to join a nonprofit technology
network so you stay up-to-date on the newest
practices.
New Stuff: Convio Teams With
Salesforce on New Database
Platform
The buzz about a
new database program built by Convio on a salesforce platform
was unveiled. Codenamed Aikido, it’s an open, Web-based
constituent relationship management (CRM) system for tracking
all constituent interactions across all channels, online and
offline.
Built on
salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, the product offers an
on-demand solution that integrates with other open systems to
provide tools that help nonprofits focus on their mission,
fundraising, advocacy and communications results instead of
managing and maintaining software and technology. Currently
deployed by selected nonprofit organizations, the product is
expected to be generally available in the second half of 2008.
Convio declined to discuss pricing for the
According to Gene
Austin, CEO of Convio, the program provides:
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Feature rich
donor management and gift tracking capabilities, as well as
advocacy and volunteer management features;
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A single view
of constituents and better management of all interactions be
they online or offline;
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A system built
on an open technology platform, Force.com, for greater
flexibility and more highly customizable
features:
There is access
to numerous third-party applications available from the
salesforce.com AppExchange marketplace, salesforce.com partners
and Convio Fusion partners who provide a wide range of
consulting, implementation and other services. There currently
is not an accounting function but the application can be adapts
via custom programming.
Aikido is built
on salesforce.com’s Force.com platform. Salesforce.com is
the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) with more than 43,600
customers. Aikido capitalizes on the enthusiastic reception to
the Salesforce.com Foundation’s version of the Salesforce
CRM application for nonprofits, which has been deployed by more
than 3,500 organizations, according to Austin.
“Using the
Force.com Platform, Convio has developed a cost-effective and
full-featured solution tailored to the specific needs of
nonprofits,” said Clarence So, chief marketing officer at
salesforce.com. “Convio’s Aikido Charter Program is
testament to the power of the Force.com Platform in enabling
Software-as-a-Service pioneers to quickly build and deploy
next-generation solutions to their customers.”
For more
information visit: www.convio.com/crm
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