Software for Managing Grant Making - Survey Results

I've mentioned here a couple times that we're in the midst of substantial research into software that helps grants makers manage their process, and at long last we have a hefty report to prove it!

In November 2007, we conducted an online survey of grantmaking organizations about software used for grants management. 311 staff members at United States-based foundations responded, providing information about their current software, rating both the perceived importance and the effectiveness of this software at handling a list of thirty grants management software attributes.

And the results are out! View the survey analysis report now>

Note that this is a preliminary deliverable in a larger research project, and the report is targeted to those interested in relatively raw survey results (read: it's pretty darn wonky). If you're interested in the final report - a Consumer's Guide to Grants Management Software, you can sign up to be notified when it's released.

R and Other Free Statistical Analysis Software.

A recent discussion on the Progressive Exchange listserve provided this gem of a link for those looking for affordable statistical analysis software: The Impoverished Social Scientist's Guide to Free Statistical Software and Resources

There was also a fair amount of discussion about R, which is an open source statistical programming language which mirrors the common stats language S. The consensus was that R is a powerful and useful tool for analyzing and visualizing datasets - but it's really, well, a statistical programming language, meaning that it's going to require a substantial learning curve, especially for those who don't programming and statistics experience.

New article: The True Costs of Free and Low-Cost Software

Another great article for January: The True Costs of Free and Low-Cost Software, written by the always smart and sensible Michelle Murrain. She walks through all the long-term costs associated with any piece of software, as a guide to thinking through whether that piece of software - perhaps one that's been offered pro-bono, came with your printer, or is free online for reasons that aren't quite clear to you - is a terrific deal or a black hole of staff, training, and long-term costs.

Resource Roundup 1/22

How to get your small nonprofit up on the Web, Part 1 (Confessions of a Nonprofit IT Director)
A fabulous overview of how to get yourself a domain - the www.YOURADDRESS.org web address that you can use for email addresses and your website.

Evaluating Free and Open Source Software (NTEN)
A nice overview from Michelle Murrain on the factors to consider when you're looking at free and open source software

Online Collaboration Tools Have Political Uses (ePolitics)
Colin Delaney talks through a mini-case study - from our MNTP event! - of a group of software developers who used a whole slew of collaboration tools to work together remotely

Web site monitoring tools (Beaconfire Wire)
Quick summary of tools you can use to monitor whether your website is up or not

Detailed comparison of Plone vs Drupal (Modulus)
If you're trying to make a choice between Plone vs. Drupal for a website content management system, don't miss this excellent and detailed comparison geared towards those with some content management experience. It goes into much more detail than our own article on the topic.

The ROI of Social Media (NTEN)
A summary from Beth Kanter of her (substantial) work in defining metrics with which one can judge the success of social media projects

The Lowdown on Colocation (Beaconfire Wire)
Very useful look at what colocated hosting is, and why you might want to use it for your website

Detailed comparison of Plone vs Drupal

If you're trying to make a choice between Plone vs. Drupal for a website content management system, don't miss Matt Bowen's article comparing the two systems, on the Modulus blog. It's an excellent and detailed look, geared towards those with some content management experience. It goes into much more detail than our own article on the topic.

Ask Idealware: What Online Surveying Tools are Available?

Rian asks: Do you have a perspective on the different online surveying tools out there, that a nonprofit might use to conduct a survey of constituents? How does something like SurveyMonkey compare to other options?

Simone Parrish of Innovation Network says:
We’re a nonprofit consulting firm that offers evaluation training, consulting, and tools for other nonprofits and foundations. As an evaluation firm, we do a lot of surveys. We have been using Zoomerang for about six years and have always been happy with it, but there has been quite a bit of expansion in the field since we chose it, and I have been casually looking for a new solution. Before you start comparing packages, think about:

• How many surveys you expect to do over the course of a year. This could affect your pricing.
• How many responses you expect to receive (total). This is a sneakier pricing variable; some services charge for overages.
• Whether you want to use skip logic (e.g., If I answer A to question 1, I skip to page 2; if I answer B to question 1, I skip to page 3). This is an often-requested feature, but many lower-end solutions don’t offer it.
• What kinds of analysis you want to do with your results. If you’re just looking for percentages and a list of short answers, no problem. If you want more complex statistical analysis, you’ll need to check the features.

Most nonprofits we have worked with have fairly basic survey and reporting needs, which would be served by any of the below (the links go to the feature comparison pages):

• New player Survey Gizmo offers a free version that allows for 250 responses per month and a “personal” version for $19/month. These omit some desirable features, like skip logic. For their more fully-featured offerings (“Pro” and “Enterprise”), they offer a 10% discount for an annual contract and a 40% discount for nonprofits—so you could get the Pro package for $25 a month if you’re willing to commit for a year. The support forums are lively, with most questions answered within a day or two. I haven’t used it myself, but it’s getting great reviews.
• Survey Monkey is inexpensive ($19.95/month for up to 1,000 responses) and highly capable. There are some rumblings in the blogosphere about support being somewhat lacking, but it’s a solid solution with a lot of fans.
• QuestionPro offers a lot of features, including skip logic, in its free-to-nonprofits “Web Professional” version (normally $15/month) in exchange for a reciprocal link on your website’s home page. (Only you know whether having someone else’s logo on your home page is worth saving $5 per month.) QuestionPro looks less committed to ease-of-use than the other solutions.
• Zoomerang is a bit more expensive ($99 for three months or $350/year for nonprofits and educational institutions). It offers robust templating and sample surveys, which can be a big help if you’re not sure what kinds of questions to ask.

In short: If you think you’ll need to do a lot of surveys with complex reporting needs or statistical analysis over the next couple of years, check out Zoomerang and Survey Gizmo. For a twice-a-year customer satisfaction survey, look at Survey Monkey and QuestionPro.

The Ask Idealware posts take on some of the questions that you send us at ask@idealware.org. Have a great option to suggest for this question? Hate our responses? Help us out by entering your own answer as a comment below.

Should Your Organization Use Social Networking Sites?

We have a new article up, and this one's close to my heart: Should Your Organization Use Social Networking Sites?

Not only is long-time Idealware friend Brett Bonfield back after a hiatus to write this article, he provides some really useful, hype-free advice in an area that sometimes seems to be full of nothing but hype. He gives the expected run-down of reasons why social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook might be useful for your organization, but also provides a more unusual set of guidelines: six signs that social networking isn't for you.

A Nonprofit Tech Project Manager Community of Practice!

Well, our first live event – Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects – was at the end of last week, and it went great. Truthfully, it was pretty amazing to get together a whole group of people – 60 of them – who were interested in nonprofit project management. I’m not the only one!

It was a discussion-based event, and the level of discussion was phenomenal. There were a ton of very experienced folks in the room, and almost everyone was, well, managerial – willing to both speak up and to listen to others.

There was far too much good stuff to summarize, but here are some of the most interesting takeaways for me:

• There was a lot of discussion about both the benefits of an iterative approach that prioritizes a quick, raw, early launch (we were calling it a “sushi” launch), and the benefits of careful scoping. And then the inevitable tension between those two approaches. As this is something I’m struggling with myself, I got some interesting pointers about how to balance the approaches.

• We had a great session on mapping collaboration needs to collaboration software tools, where we shared thoughts on everything from intranets to wikis to group chat to Second Life. It was a really useful framework for thought – and hopefully there will be an article forthcoming from us based on the session.

• We did a “software bazaar” – practitioners demoed software for each other, and the participants were free to wander to whatever demos they wanted – and there was a lot of interest for the different packages across the board. I was surprised at the interest in even what I had been considering basic tools – stuff like MS Project and Basecamp – which was a good reminder for me of how difficult it can be for individual nonprofit folks to know what others are using and consider whether it’s right for them.

• I saw a quick demo of FreeMind – a free, open source clone of MindMap – which is pretty nifty for diagramming. I had heard of these tools, but I hadn’t actually tried them out. Seems pretty useful.
  

If you’re interested in seeing more – including all the notes from all the sessions – check out the event wiki

And stay tuned for more events – Project Management and otherwise. This format was a great success that we look forward to bringing to other cities and topics!

What I’m Doing Instead of Blogging

Okay, I’m a little overwhelmed these days. And that overwhelmed-ness has not contributed to the number of blog posts I’ve been able to write. But I’m working on good stuff, to be able to get you even more great resources - and blog posts - down the road:

• We're about halfway through our Grants Management research, on software packages for grant making organizations. We conducted a very interesting survey about software needs and satisfaction – these results should be out soon. We’re just finishing up more than 25 interviews in the area, and should have the results of those out in about a month. And the grand finale – A Consumer’s Guide to Grants Management Software, with detailed reviews of about ten different software packages – should be out about the end of March.

• Our first event – Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects – is coming up this week, in New York City. I’m really excited for the event… but it doesn’t do good things for my available time. (By the way, this event is sold out. Thrilling - thanks, everyone!)

• By my count, we currently have seven different articles in active development. Yikes. We’re working on everything from an article about the “True Costs of Low Cost Software”, to two in a series on Search Engine Optimization, to articles on file sharing, CRM case studies, and social networking.

• And I appear to be leading six different seminars and workshops in the next week and a half. Ack!
  

• And should that not be enough, we're working on a large project to create a platform to aggregate a huge volume of nonprofit software information – and even create some new stuff ourselves - and showcase it through editorially controlled “channels.” I can't say much about it yet, but it's an exciting project that should really help nonprofits understand software options and best practices better.
  

So at least I’m working on something, even if it’s not this blog!

Pros and Cons of VPNs for File Sharing

We're working on an article about Remote File Sharing, and for awhile it included coverage of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). We decided eventually that it didn't make sense to include a lot of detail in this article... but hey, we got it all written up, so here it is: the pros and cons of VPNs, with a focus on the need to share files with remote users.

If you have a group that needs to share files over a long period of time, and the group members aren’t changing much, it makes sense to make a larger initial investment for a filesharing method that will be easier to use and maintain in the long-term. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is the most commonly used method in this circumstance. A VPN allows remote users to securely connect to an internal network. For instance, if an employee is working from home, she can click a VPN icon on a computer desktop, enter a login and password, and then be able to use gain access to a central file server, email server, or applications just as they would on an office computer.

A VPN provides much more than just file sharing, but can be an interesting option for allowing remote staff members to access a shared network drive which is used to store files. Because VPNs are typically slower than direct access to the network, and depend on a centralized network structure, they are most effective in situations where most employees are in a central location, and only a few require remote access.

It’s best to hire a skilled network administrator to setup a VPN, as a poor configuration can cause substantial network security and stability problems. Set up also requires network router (a piece of hardware that controls the networking of your computers) to facilitate the VPN. If your organization already has a router, it may already be able to support a VPN; if not, you will need to upgrade your hardware. The total cost to set up a VPN is likely to be approximately $1500 to $2500, including hardware and consulting costs.

Unlike many other file-sharing solutions, a VPN will require little maintenance or financial investment after the initial setup. You’ll need to install the VPN connection software on any new computers that need to connect to the network, but beyond that, it requires little IT time or specialized skills. And because files are stored on your central file servers, they are automatically synchronized and backed up (if, of course, you’re backing up your file servers) .

Ask Idealware: Who's Using Salesforce?

Don asks: Who is successfully using Salesforce as a CRM and communication tool? What features do they make most use of? What do they wish it could do that it won't? What modules do they utilize? How much is it costing? Is there a community of developers or programmers out there to help customize?

Paul Hagen with Hagen 20/20, a consultancy that focus on nonprofit CRM projects, including substantial work with Salesforce, says:
Like any piece of software, some use Salesforce well and others use it poorly. Those who use it well: 1) spend the bulk of their time up front defining their processes and then choose software that matches those processes; 2) spend the necessary time after implementation managing the cultural change within the organization (incentives, reporting, training, executive use).

There is an incredibly broad range of things that one can do with Salesforce. Why? It’s a platform on which you can build pretty much anything you want. Most nonprofits are using the basic contact management, reporting, and web forms creation for things like email newsletter sign-ups and registrations. A significant portion are tying in one of the many 3rd party bulk emailers that integrate into Salesforce. Most have customized it or use the nonprofit template to manage donations, fundraise from foundations and major donors, and manage volunteers. Because it’s a platform (rather than a packaged application like Convio, Kintera, or Democracy In Action), nonprofits can (and are) doing an incredibly wide range of things.

Organizations like Little Kids Rock are managing a wide range of constituents that include teachers, donors, volunteers, and business partners. VolunteerMatch is using Salesforce to manage interactions with donors, volunteers, businesses who buy its services, and Google’s Adwords program. Family Services Agency created a case management system which manages client data, treatment notes, and billing information. Salesforce has a great collection of case studies, as do many of their implementation partners, to give you an idea of how nonprofits are using the application.

Regarding costs…it really depends on what you build. I’ve said this a few times already, but I’ll say it again. Salesforce is a platform, not a packaged application. Think Filemaker Pro, but on mega steroids (forget whatever baggage you’ve got about Filemaker – this is the enterprise class, Web 2.0 version that’s far more powerful and easy to build on). Salesforce comes with some pretty powerful built-in functionality for basic contact management, but you’re doing the Lego thing plugging in 3rd party applications and customizing the platform to your needs. If you’re an organization with very few constituent types and are doing very simple contact management, you can probably get by with little or no customization or Groundspring’s donor management version for under $3-5K. If you’ve got a wider range of non-standard constituents, you may need some heavier customization, application development, and integration into other key systems like Raiser’s Edge, a content management system, and/or a custom legacy application that could get you into the 6 figures. The best way to approach this is to go back to what I stated earlier – spend time defining your processes and putting those down on paper. Send that out to implementation partners to get quotes and understand the cost drivers. This will also help you to determine if other applications like Democracy In Action, Convio, or Donor Perfect can handle your requirements.

There is a growing community of developers helping nonprofits to customize and get started with Salesforce. Some are nonprofits themselves, like OneNorthwest, NPower, and Groundspring/NetworkForGood. There are also a growing number of certified Salesforce partners that are focused heavily on the nonprofit sector. Search for “nonprofit salesforce” on Google and you’ll find some of the many support communities of nonprofits and providers that are burgeoning.

The Ask Idealware posts take on some of the questions that you send us at ask@idealware.org. Have a great option to suggest for this question? Hate our responses? Help us out by entering your own answer as a comment below.