Sarah Online

I saw a post on the Internet describing the reasons administrators are afraid of social media.  I have adapted this to synagogues fear of the Internet and social media.

1. Internet technologies are new and different
2. I don’t understand these Internet technologies well enough to understand the risks and pitfalls
3. As I don’t understand the risks and pitfalls, I could make mistakes, or allow mistakes to be made
4. Mistakes could embarrass or diminish the reputation of me or my staff or my synagogue.
5. If the synagogue or the clergy are negatively impacted by use of Internet technologies in my area, I will be held responsible
6. If I am held responsible for an Internet technology mistake I will lose the respect and confidence of the synagogue board and the clergy.
7. If I lose the respect and confidence of the synagogue board and clergy, I could lose my job

Would you say this is accurate at your synagogue?

As part of helping synagogues and nonprofits with their fundraising strategies, the topic of how fundraising is impacted by family relationships often comes up for discussion.

Some nonprofits are mentally married to the idea that all money is tracked by household.  In this situation if a single person donates, the staff creates a household of one to track the donation.    If that single person later marries, then a new household is created, this time with 2 people attached.  If that couple splits up, then the process is reversed.   If all/most people are married, and stay married then such a system works out.

However, in this style system it is difficult or impossible to track a person’s long-term donation history, as some of their financial information is part of household that they are no longer connected to.

But how does this marriage mindset help or hurt general fundraising efforts over the long term?  How does this strategy of enforcing households help or hinder fund-raising goals of the organization?

Other comments that I have heard: if people are married, then we should act like its a “joint checking account” just like a bank.  There are 2 people, but only one bank statement.  No matter who signs up for a paid event, always bill the household.  Even if a teenager signs up for a paid event, put it on the household bill.

Is this the best way to achieve long-term fund-raising goals?  Should a synagogue act like a bank?

Compare the household approach to the individual approach, where each person’s payments are tracked by them individually.   As a previously single person gets married, there is no financial impact, or reporting impact on the nonprofit.

Some benefits of the individual approach:

- The reports for lifetime giving levels and giving levels by year are not impacted by that person’s changes in family status.

- Couples can get separate year-end tax letters if desired. Or it could be combined.

- Couples can get separate monthly statements if desired. Or it could be combined.

- Teenagers and/or young adults living at home can be recognized for their early fund-raising efforts.

- As people get married, divorced, or remarried, or move out of their parent’s home, their financial activity always stays with them.

- It is easy to track lifetime donation history (or by year) for big donors, regardless of their relationship changes.

- It is easy to see all donations by all individuals in a household, because the reports bring everything together again.

Which approach leads to better membership engagement and better fundraising?

Every organization, especially nonprofts, needs a “Single Source of Truth” about their people. They may call their people different names, such as congregants/community/members/volunteers/donors/supporters/partners. No matter what the label, the need for a single source of truth exists.

Without a single source of truth about their people, organizations have ZERO insight as to what is going on, what is working well, and what needs to be changed.  In order to make use of  the single source a truth, mere reports are not enough. A powerful dashboard is needed to gain insight.

A dashboard allows each person to know what is going on operationally, as well as how their strategies and goals are working out.   In  modern information tools, dashboards are all drag and drop, like “MyYahoo” . Instead of dragging sports scores and weather,   people drag charts, trending graphs, and tables of data, all of which is drill-down so the person using it can investigate why something looks the way it does.

Each person in the organization needs to have a unique dashboard, easily changed whenever needed.  Even for one person, their dashboard today may look very different than their dashboard 12 months ago.

A dashboard is only as good as the data underneath. If the “dashboard” is only has 40% of the information, its not a good or effective dashboard. Even worse, it leads to poor decision making because the information is misleading and does not give the whole picture.

There are some organizational roadblocks to achieving a single source of truth. For without a single source of truth, dashboards are useless.  Without a single source of truth ( and the dashboards on top ) Opportunity for insight is lost.

Also time/money is wasted on  maintaining redundant/overlapping systems and staff time is wasted struggling to keep all the information up to date and consistent.

Some of the key roadblocks to achieving a single source of truth are:

Key information is scattered in disparate systems

Different people use different tools within the same organization

Examples of too many tools:

• The staff uses a desktop membership/donor system ( even though most desktop products are obsolete or extinct).
• Lay leaders and volunteer organizers ( such as board members and committee chairs ) use spreadsheets and personal email address books.
• The youth department uses a spreadsheet or personal database, such as Microsoft Access.
• Families use online groups and/or a snazzy synagogue website.
• Members use a rudimentary web-based module (which is nothing more than a band-aid to an obsolete desktop product)  to make payments and/or update their details. The web-based module has virtually no relationship to the organization website. It looks and behaves differently than the rest of the website.
• Prospective members and people in the broader community use different tools to pay and interact with the synagogue than the members of  the community
• Email is generated from personal email boxes of lay leaders, sent from commercial mass mail tools for the “big” stuff, and sent from a membership system for the personalized emails, such as invoices.

True story: At a synagogue I know, the youth director could not use the desktop membership system that the rest of the staff used  because teenagers often came to events where he does not know who the parents are. The desktop membership system only allows kids to be entered AFTER their household/parents are in the system.   This also meant kids could not donate money, sign up for events, or update their email address in the  ”Web Module” promoted by the vendor of the desktop-based membership system     Social fundraising was out of the question, as there was no way to record the information from “outsiders” donating, or letting teenagers have a personal fundraising page that they could promote to their friends on various social networks.

Another symptom of lacking a single source of truth:

Is “Joseph Cohen” who signed up for an event on the website the same person as “Joe Cohen” who signed up for a newsletter and the same person “Joey Cohen” who the shul sent a college student passover kit to 5 years ago, and was also active in the youth activities as a high school student.

Now the synagogue loses the insight comes from knowing that the “college passover basket” program from a few years ago paid off when that person returned to their hometown after college and started participating in the shul as a young adult.

Another true story:  a synagogue wanted to start emailing invoices. A roadblock was many members refused to give the shul their email addresses because they knew they would get a deluge of email from each committee chair, and other well-meaning volunteers trying to promote events and activities.  Part of a good communication strategy means respecting when people do not want to be communicated with.

I am sure there are many more stories in the non-profit world about the problems that follow from a missing Single Source of Truth. I would love to hear more stories.

The last week has been very busy as I participated in the first ever CiviCRM conference, officially called the first International CiviCon, located in San Francisco, followed by a drive to the Lake Tahoe area to participate in the CiviCRM book sprint.

At the CiviCon I was a speaker in my first ignite-style presentation. I presented a case study on how I have implemented and customized CiviCRM for use in a synagogue. An ignite presentation means that there are a bunch of presenters, each of whom have 5 -10 minutes, can share 20 slides, and the slides are automated to advance every 15 seconds.  I got good feedback from the audience later on, even though my timing of voice-to-slide was a bit off. You can judge the video for yourself . Here are my slides from the presentation. The rest of the Ignite videos can be viewed at: All CiviCon Ignite videos

A book sprint is a collaborative process with a bunch of people locked in a house for several days with the outcome being a book.  We used the fantastic free open source tools at Floss Manuals  ( http://www.flossmanuals.net ) and were mentored and guided in the process by Adam Hyde, the founder of Floss Manuals.  View or edit the book online or order a hard-copy Its printed on demand, so you always have the latest.

I really learned a lot about CiviCRM and its community from the process of working on the book and meeting with the core team and other hard-core fans and members of the community. What is amazing is how many different ways people can use it. I never would have guessed that it is being used to track the members of the Grammys or to collect information door-to-door with a custom iPhone app.

Initially during the book sprint, I was getting off-track with ideas to improve CiviCRM. Eventually, I wrote everything down instead of disrupting the other sprinters.  Here are the ideas in no particular order:

• Template is a loaded word:  CMS templates OR .tpl files OR templates for email messages/PDF letters OR event templates. If writing on the CiviCRM forums/wiki/book/blogs/jira/etc always be clear about which template you mean.
• Relationship is a loaded term: general purpose term OR relationship between nested groups/tags/menus OR CiviCRM relationship between contacts
• What is a Dashboard: the Home dashboard has configurable dashlets, none of the other dashboards have this.
• In book sandbox, which is the dev version of 3.2: The left side button “New” does not give any hint that there are choices under it. ( such as a down arrow or a select list style. Do not use … )
• In the “Advanced Search” screen, give each custom field group its own grey bar. ( Instead of nesting under the “Custom Fields” bar ).
• Be able to mark or tag  JIRA issues if they impact user documentation/experience. Then the people who like documenting things can create a filter of the JIRA to see what they should focus on.
• When is a member a contact? When is a participant a contact?   What is confusing is the search action list for “Find Members” is inconsistent. Displays some contact-type actions ( such as send email ) , but not others, like generate PDF letter.
• Combine contact search actions “Create PDF Letter” and “Generate Mailing Labels” into a single action.
• Store address label “addressee” info seperate from the postal address. ( For different address labels, I may choose a different top line for the same person/household. Such as Mr. John Doe v.s. The Doe family. )
• CiviEvent and CiviContribution Idea: Allow anyone to “tell a friend” from the event/contribution description page. Use recaptcha to prevent spambot abuse.
• Usability idea: When in a contact record, click on the event tab then click the “register for event” button.  The select list for chooosing an event has a link below it to control the amount of information in the list.  This seems like a nice way to control potentially unwieldly list.
• Usability: Clarify menu items “Delete Participants” and “Delete Members” vs “Delete Contacts”  . Perhaps “Remove Memberships” “Remove Participation” would be better labels.

Normally the phrase the “digital divide” refers to technology haves and have-nots. The haves are typically described middle-class folks with their own personal computer and access to the Internet. The have-nots are typically described as low-income folks who do not have a computer, or if they do lack Internet access.

I would like to redefine the digital divide as follows: The haves are folks who possess a basic understanding of how to use the web, email and various modern gadgets such as an iPod or digital camera. This is without needing any specialized training or a well-meaning family member to show them how to use a new website or new device.    The have-nots own or have access to a computer with Internet access, but can barely do anything without extensive training or help.  If they get a new gadget, it will be unusable until a friend or family member visits to “set it up.”  The friend does the following invaluable service:  turns it on and answering 2 -5 questions, including such mysteries as what is your zip code.    For the have-nots creating an account or login on a new web site is an insurmountable challenge.  If they have a web-based email account such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail, it is only because a friend opened the account for them, then sat next to them and patiently explained how to read and respond to messages.

Some examples I have experienced first hand:

A relative has a digital camera complete with a One-click button to transfer pictures to their PC.  The software on the PC was loaded by a relative( me) who made absolutely sure no helpful messages such as “Tip of the day” or reminders to register would show up.    In spite of all this, the owner of the camera still takes the entire camera to the local drug store where a helpful employee helps him use the kiosk to make prints. He makes extra prints and sends them via snail mail to anyone who wants copies of the pictures.

Another example: While visiting a relative, I was planning to use their PC ( with high speed Internet) to check my web-based email account.  I was told “The Internet is down. The only thing that works is my email.”  This defies logic in my mind as their email is a web-based Gmail account. ( And no, they do not have Google Gears).  Translation:  One website they had visited had a message or warning they did not understand.

And my favorite example: A relative buys a stand-alone GPS mapping system. It has built-in voice turn-by-turn directions, can be used on a car trip or even for walking around a unfamiliar city. It is one of the top 2 stand-alone portable GPS systems on the market.  A friend visited them to “set it up” which included identifying their home state, etc.     They no longer even bother to take it on out-of-town trips because they do not know how to change the state preference. So they can only get directions in their home state, where they almost always know the route on their own.

to the idea that PHP has become one of the most important languages to support.  According to the IBM web page at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/software/php/index.html IBM is now including PHP as part of the operating system distribution. No more need for someone to order it separately from IBM.  This is huge! The last language to get such an honor was Java.  IBM is not the sort of place to throw new languages on the system willy-nilly. Plus once its part of the OS distribution, its nearly impossible to withdraw. ( after all, IBM still allows folks to compile RPG II on modern systems. )

Some of the reasons that I think PHP is so popular is that there is a growing library of robust open source products written in PHP. By “products” I mean something that can be installed and used immediatly without any programming or container knowledge.  Some examples include Drupal, Joomla, CiviCRM, SugarCRM, Zen Cart,  and many others.  Most of the open source Java falls into the category of frameworks, APIs, tool sets and containters.   As much as I like Java, I can’t effectively use JSF or Tiles for a 2 week project for a small office of 5 people that uses a $8 per month web host.

It seems like JavaScript is being used heavily on many websites, in many products and frameworks. Yet most of them do not mention the word “JavaScript”.   It is usually referred to by its new new name “Ajax.”  This is replacing the other new name of DHTML. ( Dynamic HTML).   You may say AJAX is different! It is Asynchronous JavaScript and XML!   But most Ajax frameworks do not use XML for communication. XML’s only purpose in many frameworks is the configuration. Well most Java frameworks use XML for config  ( such as Struts, Spring, Taglibs, etc. ) yet I do not see the X in the title.  Many Java tools are  capable of asynchronous communication, such as JMS. Also some Ajax frameworks are getting into synchronous communcations. So should we call them SJAX?

I have a wild suggestion: Lets call all the Ajax stuff “javascript”.   This would be less confusing for all the folks who know a bit of JavaScript, and wonder how much training they will need to get up to speed with Ajax.  It seems like this is another example of a new word being introduced to describe something folks have been doing all along.  

I have been wondering why so many open-source projects are registered as non profits, as in a US 501 (c) organization. First let me explain how I see non-profits, traditional open source, and commercial open source.

A non-profit has 2 definitions. One is legal. The other is my view. The legal definition is laid out by U.S. tax law and determines all the rules for qualifying as a 501 (c) organization. My view is that a non-profit can in good faith ask folks to donate stuff to help the organization achieve their mission. Donations are not payments for goods or services. Donations can be money, volunteer time, professional services, products, and services.

traditional open source organization – A group of people who are interested in creating a solid, usable piece of software for anyone on the planet to use without cost. The source code for the software is made publicly available for all to use and enhance. The people who work on the software are mostly volunteers, consultants, or end-users who fix a bug that affects them.

commercial open source organization – A group of people or corporations who are interested in profiting from the success of a software product, which happens to have its source code publicly available. For an excellent article that covers this type of organization in depth, see http://www.galatea.com/economics.html

What I have observed is that many, many open source organizations are registered as non-profits. I am a capitalist and have nothing against folks making a profit. But lets be open about the desire to make a profit! Do not register as a non-profit and attempt to convince people that you are trying to make the world a better place, if the only reason for being a non-profit is favorable tax treatment and free stuff coming in. Some benefits to being a non-profit:

Free or practically free software from most software companies. Here are a few examples: Salesforce.com is free for non-religious non-profits; Google Business Apps is free for all non-profits; Microsoft has VERY generous non-profit licensing. Adobe has generous discounts; All Atlassian products are free for non-profits.

Organizations who are wary of traditional commercial software vendors often use open-source products instead. So the market penetration for a open source product can be greater than for a commercial product.

Employees can make above market wages as a means of not showing a profit

Projects that are someone’s “pet” project can be done as a means of not showing a profit.

Since I am not a lawyer nor a CPA, I am unaware of all the other benefits that are available.

What I would like is for commercial open source projects to not insult my intelligence by holding themselves up as non-profits. I would no more donate my time and services to them as I would donate to Microsoft, RedHat, or Oracle.

In the world of freelance web developers / web consultants, there seems to be no clear definition of this role and what the person’s professional background and knowledge base should include. To help clarify roles, I will describe the types of roles that I have encountered and will humbly suggest a name for the role. I am not trying to put down any role, and on any project there is an overlap of who can work on a task.

web developer A) A person with NO professional programming background in any compiled languages such as C/C++, Java, Cobol, RPG, Visual Basic, etc. This person has never worked as a full time programmer. This type of person started building static personal websites for themselves, friends and family. After a period of doing purely static websites, they wanted fill-out forms and some dynamic pages. So they picked up a book and taught themselves Perl, PHP, CSS, and Java Script. After a period of time, they managed to build up a client base of non-family members.

web developer B) A person with a professional background in graphic design and/or multimedia design. Typically this type of person worked full time on traditional media projects, such as an ad campaign that included a catalog, brochures, a video, and flyers. At some point the projects would include websites as well as the traditional media elements. So the initial focus would be making sure everything has a consistent look and feel, layout, brand image, fonts and graphics. After a period of doing purely static websites, their clients wanted fill-out forms and some dynamic pages. So they bought some books and attended training on PHP, CSS, Java Script and Flash.

web developer C) A person with a professional background in a compiled programming language, such as C/C++, Java, Cobol, RPG, Visual Basic, etc. This person worked full time as a programmer/analyst, and worked on projects where they wrote the business requirements, technical requirements, coded an application and created the database objects ( tables, views, indexes, etc) to support the application. At some point the projects would include a web user interface as part of the client requirements. So their initial focus was on maintaining the integrity of the whole application and the database, and not having to write duplicate code. After a period of creating highly robust and functional web applications, their clients wanted more beautiful and easy to use web applications. So this person would buy books and teach themselves CSS, Java Script, Image editing software.

I would suggest the following role names:

web developer A ==> web consultant

web developer B ==> web designer

web developer C ==> web developer

Some things that none of these roles should do: Never manage or change the infrastructure. This is best handled by an infrastructure dept of medium to large companies, or a reliable ISP for smaller companies. All three roles should be able to deliver a product ( a functioning website) to the client, ready to use. They should provide a list of technical requirements at the very beginning of a project to the infrastructure team, or select an ISP that provides it. Such a list may include: Linux, Apache required, JDBC access to a database. Another list may include: Windows, IIS, .NET, ODBC access to a database.

Hopefully most people know their professional limits, and bring in appropriate expertise as needed. Some horror stories show this is not always the case:

Background: A freelance web consultant was hired to build a website that was mostly static, less than 10 fill-out forms each with a script and database table, shopping cart with less than 15 items, and a chat area. The prototype was graphically beautiful, and very easy to use. The client was pleased and gave to go ahead to use the new website to replace the old website. The client already had a well-advertised domain name and wanted to continue using it. The client also had an established and reilable ISP, as well as an internal IT staff.

Outcome:
After the prototype was made live, email stopped working entirely ( inbound and outbound) for the entire organization for about 3 days. The website and DNS were hosted on a new ISP, under an account in the name of the consultant. So the client’s IT staff was not allowed to talk to the help desk, or make any changes at the new ISP, because the ISP account was not in their name. The account was also used to host the consultants other customers. The consultant also bought a new domain name, similar to “clientname-test.com”. The legal owner of this new domain was the consultant.