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Ask any economist, and you'll likely hear the same response: as markets mature, consolidation tends to occur. So, while it's big news, it's not necessarily surprising to hear today's announcement that Blackbaud is purchasing Convio. These two publicly traded corporations have been in the non-profit technology space for a long time, and I congratulate their boards on coming to such an important agreement. Now, let's get to the real business at hand: what can be done now to ensure technology service prices go down, not up, in an era of mega consolidation? Our answer: a fresh approach with a dose of healthy competition.
And then you look at the price tags being charged to leverage all of this fancy, powerful stuff. It can be staggering. It isn't uncommon for us to attend conferences and sit in rooms with panel discussions showing off a nonprofit's custom-built solution to integrate their website, constituent relationship management system, email marketing platform, and other communication channels. The screenshots are slick. The crowd is wowed. The mind races with the possibilities for one's own organization. Until the price tag is quoted. It's usually toward the end of the presentation. It's often mentioned almost as an afterthought. "We paid $100,000 to a web development firm just for the front end web interface. The CRM setup was separate." Or, "we raised $200,000 for this implementation." Staggering. And everyone leaves the room feeling as if they live in a two-room shack and just watched an episode of Cribs that highlighted what they can never have. It's all great and impressive and inspiring - but the real question rolling around in everyone's head as they hit the hallway to go to the next session is: "Damn! How in the world could they raise six figures for a web project?!?" Bay Area non-profit techies, mark January 18th on your calendars! Our friends at Aspiration have partnered with Community Technology Network to hold a no cost nonprofit technology training at the Google campus in Mountain View, CA on January 18th. This Nonprofit Technology Teach-In aims to help you learn new techniques and best practices to take advantage of online tools for your work. Aspiration events are famously hands-on, highly interactive and follow a question-driven format. Together you’ll tackle the following questions:
Yesterday we launched the new and improved Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS) site. CUCS has been our client since 2008 and has found a new home just in time for the holidays on Soapbox 2.x. With this migration from Soapbox 1.x they are going to be able to take advantage of all of the great features that are now available, including:
Paul Howard, CUCS's Associate Director of Training and Consulting Services worked closely with us on this project. He says: "The thing I am looking forward to the most about our new site is the ability to add slideshows to our website and use customized templates to help set CUCS apart."
With the new year approaching, you may be considering a fresh start for your organization’s website. Updating your design can be a great way to reinvigorate your site and attract more attention to your cause. PICnet client Drops Fill Buckets (DFB) recently undertook a redesign to kick off their next organizational growth spurt … and the result is stunning! As an organization committed to “empowering individuals to raise money for tangible local and international needs that they personally care about,” their website is a critical piece in the puzzle for their mission. DFB’s site serves as a hub for team fundraising by enabling their organizers to plan events, leverage sponsors, and motivate friends and family to support projects.
It always warms our hearts to see our organizations get the support they deserve. Earlier today, a new link appeared on the Google.com homepage. "'Tis the season. Google supports organizations that are changing the world."
The reason? The Google Foundation announced a $40 million grant allocation to non-profit organizations, including our Soapbox client, Polaris Project, to help tackle important challenges around the world. One of their key areas of focus, "fighting human trafficking and modern-day slavery," is the cornerstone of the work done by our friends at the Polaris Project. Google just released some major upgrades to Google Analytics that make it extremely valuable for anyone managing a website. So, if you haven’t logged into your account for a while, or if perhaps you never got around to signing up for one, now is the time to immerse yourself in Google Analytics. Here are a few things that have changed:
As a B Corp, PICnet puts an emphasis on people, environment, and then profits. We have higher legal standards and must meet comprehensive social and environmental standards. For many businesses, this school of thinking might be backward, but for B Corps, it’s a part of our vision and goals. There are more than 450 B Corporations in 60 various industries across the United States and Europe. PICnet was proud to become a B Corp in April of 2010. So it makes perfect sense that as a B Corp, we support other B Corporations whose similarly-minded business models fit in so perfectly with ours. When I learned about Give Something Back, a fellow B Corporation that offers office supplies at a cheaper rate than the average office supply chain, I jumped at the chance to purchase and help support a fellow B Corp. What I found is that the products were not only much cheaper, but I also received free shipping AND had them delivered next day. Sounds great so far, right? Here's the kicker: Give Something Back donates 75% of their profits to their community; that is 75x the national corporate giving average! They've been changing the game since 1991 and were one of the founding B Corps. From time to time, non-profits come to us wondering what they can do to improve their search engine standings. We recently came across a great video straight from the horse's mouth, specifically Matt Cutts of Google, that serves as a great reminder of what is really the secret behind good search results—good websites! Watch this video to see what we mean, but here are a few spoilers: Not feeling inspired to add new content to your website? Don’t let a difficult platform get in your way! Our Non-Profit Soapbox CMS was designed for accidental techies like you so that you can leave your troubles behind and focus on what’s important—adding fresh, engaging content for your audience! Be it that funders view the essential equation of nonprofit life thusly:
And said funders usually hold to the principle that:
Ergo: We shared this week and last about tools in Soapbox Engage that allow you to display data from your Salesforce account. You can share all sorts of information you've got socked away in all sorts of compelling ways - either on one site or across an entire network of sites. With Soapbox Engage, Salesforce isn't just your data repository, it's your megaphone. And oh, what a megaphone it is! But you're not interested in simply droning on and on and on to your visitors, incessantly talking and never listening. You want to hear from them. You want them to contact you or sign petitions or submit job applications or apply for grants or do hundreds of other things that require communication back to your organization. On Friday, we enlisted Fozzie Bear to paint a picture of all the great ways you can display your Salesforce data within a website. What if you don't have one website but two? Or twelve? Or two hundred and twelve? What if you're the national headquarters of an affiliate network with fifty affiliates all over the country? Or an international headquarters with affiliates in every major city, borough, hamlet, and village in every country across this fair planet of ours? Tell me: what good is including all that good Salesforce data you've got in one measly, little old site going to do for you? How amazing would it be if you could push all of that data you're looking to share from just one Salesforce instance to not just one website but to every single one of your affiliate sites? Honestly, good gentles, 'tis child's play for Soapbox Engage! Read on! Read on! You’ve got data. It’s nice data. It’s data about people and places and things. It’s members and donors and clients and locations and dues and grants and lions and tigers and bears (oh my!). And all of that lovely data is safely and securely stored in your Salesforce.com account. But you’re a giving, sharing kind of person. You’re not a greedy and selfish and man-sized-safe-in-your-office secretive kind of person. You want to share that data. Not everything, mind you! That would be just self-absorbed foolishness. But you want to share important bits and pieces that will be valuable to your website visitors and beneficial in achieving your mission. The Salesforce.com adoption rate within the non-profit sector continues to grow. To be specific, more than 11,000 organization! With this growth comes a new community of Salesforce consultants focused on helping organizations use these tools effectively. We've sat down with many of these consultants, and listened to their hopes, concerns, and ideas. How can we help organizations use these to their highest benefit? What are ways we can help organizations be more efficient with their data processing? For example, right now it can be time-consuming and sometimes difficult to importing data into Salesforce, especially in real-time from external Web resources. Think donation pages, event registration pages, petitions, etc. In tough economic times, organizations are also feeling a budget pinch, and they're not in a position to invest in custom Web development to connect to their Salesforce instance. Well, have we got a little pain relief for everyone. With our recent release of Soapbox Engage, Salesforce consultants can bolt on ready-to-deploy donation pages, event registration pages, web forms, and even searchable directories...all of which talk to Salesforce in real-time. Even better, consultants are able to keep clients' CFOs happy with extremely affordable services. What makes Soapbox Engage such a good fit for Salesforce consultants? |
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