Talking Technology: Conversation Starters to Help Strategic Planners Break the Ice With Tech Pros

Author: Jim Grohman on 27 January 2012 | 0 Comments

Tags: Jim’s Tools of the Trade, technology

Know this: Your typical technology professional has spent his or her entire career trying to be perfect. Why? Because when tech solutions do what they’re supposed to do, no one seems to notice – but when they don’t, all hell breaks loose. The result? Technologists are loath to make assumptions or even recommend approaches. They tend to wait for instructions and then execute as best they can.

On the other side of the (ill-advised) fence, folks making business decisions are reticent to foolishly make those decisions around what, to them, is often cryptic and even baffling technology. Their creative strategic thinking is thus limited due to a lack of familiarity with tools that are out there that can help them achieve goals and objectives. This leads to slow, inefficient, non-optimal decision making – a scenario that can cripple any organization, regardless how noble its purpose might be.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The solution is including technologists early on in the business process, when you’re actually developing and setting desired results. This is critical: don’t force (or allow) your technologists to sit back wait for clarity or for requirements; you want them to help plan and make suggestions for possible solutions.

Make this the year you include your technology pros in your core decision-making process. To get the conversation going, here are a few strategic technology concepts that we are reminding our clients to keep in mind in 2012.

General thoughts to up your game…

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Everyone has custom technology requirements. But it’s much better to do a little custom development of available technology than to start from scratch. With or without good pre-built interface between systems, it’s almost always better (read: efficient and cost-effective) to only develop what you must.

Test the Waters: Regardless of your organization’s size, lean on technology for “A/B” testing (comparing and contrasting responses of targeted constituent groups). Whether you are using advanced technology to support or not, it’s one of the cheapest ways to challenge and advance your knowledge about event fundraising. Also, if you have time, use technology to build in control groups to check the viability of new initiatives.

Site Sense…

Have Your Own Look and Feel: Off-the-shelf event-fundraising solutions (including CRM technology) come with their own default styles.  As much as possible, customize those with your organization’s look and feel so that your brand is supported and site users know where they’re at, at all times. People are hyper-aware these days about scams and other online abuses. Don’t make them wonder if you’re part of the problem.

Don’t Let Your Technology Scare Your Audience:  Have a clear and heavily promoted privacy statement so that your site visitors don’t have to go hunting for it. Your audience will be entering email addresses for their friends and family into your site. Let them know that you don’t retain that information or market those addresses.

Manage Your Modules!: Event Fundraising CRM/management “modules” are a great way to raise funds. But the more people you have registered and sending out fundraising emails on behalf of your event, the more customer service time you will need to provide support. Skimp in this area at your own risk; you will either get disruptive constituents or, worse yet, people who are dissatisfied and disengaged. Also, modules often come within a larger suite of offerings. While they can stand on their own, consider purchasing more modules (such as Email, eCards, eCommerce, Calendar, or CMS) for additional integration and to offer a better experience to the site user.

Simple things you should be doing.

Help Those Who are Helping You: Emails sent by participants to potential donors mean more donations. Make it easy for participants by offering them templates for fundraising appeals and communications – and then remind them to put a little of themselves and their style into the effort.

Know How to Use Your Tech for Effective Asks: Consider associating your donation values with outcomes. So X amount will result in Y result. This means values should not always be round figures as items are seldom priced that way.

"Jim’s Tools of the Trade" blog posts will be featured monthly. Vice President, Operations Jim Grohman provides our project teams and managers, as well as our IT group and analytics specialists, leadership and guidance to ensure flawless delivery. A former Major with the United States Marine Corps, Jim is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and is certified as a PMI Project Management Professional.