 Welcome everyone to our nonprofit tech club Austin program. We are delighted to have Gina Gillette a square. Yes, am I pronouncing that right? Yes, yes. With us. And I wanted to just provide a little introduction to our program and to nonprofit tech club Austin. We've been going for really about 10 years off and on, started really going strong in the past couple years, especially since COVID when everybody was at home and so we got on zoom and that turns out to be a great thing that happened to us because we have had a lot of viewers and participants so here we go. We are part of a network of tech clubs across the nation and across the world in 10 nonprofit technology network, which is based in Portland but operates all over the United States is a partner and tech soup connect, which was formerly called net squared it's just gone through a name change this year. Those are two nonprofit partners and they provide support all the time, as we need it, and programs as a result of being a nonprofit project of course are free to everyone. We are entirely volunteer driven and managed, and we really aimed to help individuals and nonprofits seeking cost effective tools and techniques to help make their work easier and more effective so everybody is included. All job descriptions are included development officers executive directors it professionals and communicators in nonprofits we also we sometimes have small businesses attend our program so we really like that because we share a lot of really helpful information for them as well. And this is our slate, we actually wrote it out in a little poster format, just because we're so excited, we had such a great year, we're set up through December and looking really good, and we're in our second half now of programs we meet on the first Monday of each month at 630pm on. As I mentioned, we're all volunteer all of volunteers, you know have wide range of experience and backgrounds. They donate their time to share information on social to find speakers and to introduce speakers like I am today. Our guest speakers speak for free like Jim and so we really appreciate everybody pitching in for the greater knowledge of the nonprofit sector. And I urge everyone to support all these great people. Here are our organizers and I put their LinkedIn URLs on here because are welcome to join with them. If you have a question at any time, please reach out to any of us. And, you know, this will appear in the recording of course so if you need to follow up after the presentation tonight just get back on the recording. We also appreciate here in Austin startup hub incubator enthusiastic supporter capital factory is our local tech sponsor and they traditionally have provided in person meeting space downtown in Austin, and they do have a growing presence all over the city which is a good thing. And we've been really grateful for the space and even though with coven 19 we had to move online which turned out as I mentioned be kind of a good thing for us. They remained a sponsor and they helped promote us and we're included on the capital factory calendar monthly so you can find us on their website as well. Here are some links, you again on the recording return to this later and you can find us all over the place here and we may eventually adopt some new social media platforms but right now this is where we are present and these are partners as well. So, that's that now. Great. Introduce yourself. Yeah, love to it you know it's great so. As you mentioned my name is Jenna Dillett and I work with Square and I also am very happy about being the host of the TechSoup connect North Texas Community. I'm a sort of Dallas and broader community in North Texas and so we just started a little over a year ago and growing our community and it's been great to have Carolyn as a speaker to our club and to be part of this national international community of nonprofit groups meeting up and and getting better tools to to operate and you know try to not reinvent wheels right because there's plenty of wheels that have been invented. Well I'm really excited about this presentation today I've, I've given it a few times because I love the topic. And we're going to talk about relationships and in particular relationship advice and how you can get more from your technology partner because it's very likely that you can, whether you even have a partner yet or you've been through multiple relationships. It's something you can learn and reflection and other people's lessons can can help along the way. And so, as a reminder of who I am again, Jenna Dillett I'll be your matchmaker. So you, everyone can watch filler in the roof afterwards. I like to say about myself that I like people and I happen to work with software and I think that that's very true. And I think that's very true, especially with this topic and the experience with this topic. As Carolyn mentioned I work with Square, and we're a company based out of Dallas and serving international national community of nonprofit organization membership associations, and these are some of the software that we work in Drupal WordPress and we do an ACRM Salesforce line survey. We do hosting and maintenance, a long term support so we'd like to be ongoing partners. And I, I'm also happy to say that this has not been the first tech organization I've worked with and I think that that is part of the unique perspective and talking about this, and we'll get into a little bit about how you can do the same thing but in a lot of different ways and it's those differences that can be that perfect fit for one organization in comparison to another. And hopefully today we'll be able to kind of hone some of your skills and identifying some of those differences, so you can make a relationship or make a change in a relationship that is going to better fit and help your organization go down the road. Who are you, maybe you are completely solo and you manage everything in house and you don't have anything like a technology partner or relationship, or maybe you're in a bad relationship and you need to get out of it. That your tech partner is not meeting your needs, or you just got out of a bad relationship and you're happy to be solo again and doing everything house, or maybe you're satisfied. But you think it could even be better, even though you're satisfied or you could, you have seen it all because of all the relationships that you've had with different agencies and you should be co presenting there's. I expect that there'll be someone across all of those different points on the spectrum and how you're entering this topic today. And so why this matters is money, of course right so the hourly rates of technical consultants can typically be a lot higher than what maybe anybody is making from an hourly perspective in house. And but also people cost more than technology we know that so when you think about the people on your team, why these relationships matter. So your tech tools that you have, those are investments but more than just a money investment they also normally represent sometimes big process changes for exactly how it is that you get your work done. And that how the how you get your work done can really change your team structures, and even the culture of your organization and so there's so much that is tied into the tech tools that we use. And that's important beyond just the the dollar which is such the obvious. I also like to point out that we're live animals you know we're real people, and I know for each of us if we think about what the daily rhythm of our life is like. And I know for me I think about all those little moments, so I asked about a three and a six year old and at the end of the day we do sort of a roses and thorns right so we talk about the, the really positive parts of our day the hard parts of our day and all of those little moments and so, just like we're all live animals we're all real people, your tech consultants whoever that company is there's real people there that hopefully you're interfacing with to some degree, and all those little interactions that you have. Those each add up to make your day better to make that organization that person in that organizations day better and so that matters to right can we end each of our days feeling good about the people that we interacted with in the exchanges that we had. If there's one takeaway from all of this that I hope that you can have is that there's always another tool and that there's always another provider and so don't ever settle. And so if you're feeling dissatisfied, you can do something about it and hopefully. The talk today will give some of those tools and a checklist of sorts for you to know what you can do about it and how to approach it. I like to talk about my sister and this so she is a nurse that's her and my youngest son, and she told me about what one of her college professors said when she was studying nursing. And her college professor just encouraged all of the students in the class to never settle that there's so many different types of nursing. And that if you're dissatisfied or you don't feel connected to the type of nursing that you're doing, there's a different type of nursing. And so my sister has been an ER nurse. Pretty much her whole career and loves emergency care, which is a very different kind of care than other types of nursing and so that has really, that has really stuck with me. Or just like having an expertise in say thinking from a technology standpoint having an expertise in websites doesn't mean I know how to set up a sound system in a gymnasium right those are completely different technologies or you don't hire your roofer to be your plumber. And so there's there's a lot of the same things of the way we think about our technology partners of there's software differences, for example, so maybe you have an open source system so a system that isn't owned by any sort of institution you don't pay a licensing fee for it, and that there's a worldwide base of developers and supporters who are contributing to it versus a proprietary system that does have a subscription services and has a very different kind of update model. And so depending on what kind of system you even have that can be sort of the who's doing your roofing job the roofer or the plumber. So the way that you can even complete work in certain types of software is just different and so never settling but also understanding understanding what you have, and then because of that who is the best person to talk to because of what you have. I'd like to start with knowing what's what and who's who. And so let's pretend like you're just starting out and you don't even have a relationship yet with a technology provider and maybe you're in need of one or you do have one, but you recently took over the management of what it is that that partner is over and so I think it's a really good practice. To be healthfully paranoid, right so know where your contracts are, or at least make sure your boss knows where contracts are you can ask helpful encouraging questions right even if it's not in your job description to really care about or be over. So where are the contracts what are do you have copies of the current agreements are the agreements up to date have they expired is there any confusing language. Is there anything covered that you don't think you're getting so that's where that's where the writing matters and that's where you can ask follow up questions. Thinking about people in position so who are the main main points of contact, and what are their expertise. We're all trying to make other people happy, right and that can impact an individual's motivation. So, so if you have hired an agency. So that you're getting the benefit of an actual agency and not just one person and so the thing that I like to think about as kind of a trigger that I use is how often is our we statements used like let me talk to my team and how much of a team does that person have and it's I want to make sure and communicate that it's not at all a negative to have a individual consultant right so you don't need to have a full agency but also if you have hired an agency, are you able to have the benefit of an agency and the example of that is what happens if your main point person at the agency that you've hired, if they end up, end up leaving so there's a one, one thing that I encourage both the, all the organizations of course that I would be talking about what my role is at square as a software agency is what we are trying to do in house to make sure that we have a cross training plan, for example. So, let's say for the example, the example that someone takes a leave of absence or decides they really don't want to work with us anymore and so we lose a project manager need to hire another project manager and I mean, all the clients we work with would not suffer from that right they wouldn't then have a system that no one knows how to support but that's on us on the technology side being the technology agency to make sure that we're doing something internally with our own time that is making sure that everybody on our team is understanding how to support each of our clients and so there's not this, all of the experience and knowledge and strategy of your organization is put in your main point of contact, because that makes the investment that you have that much more risky, if that one main point of contact were to leave and so thinking about a question to a potential consultant or potential agency could be what does cross training look like internally or how do you make sure that if if the main point of contact I have leaves that then I'm not having to completely start over with somebody else on your team and that secures your investment. So that's the breakup clause so how easy is it to end the relationship so that's why having a copy of your current agreements matters so is it a yearly contract is it a certain days or months notice that's required is there some sort of refund that's on because of a deposit that you'll get back once the relationship is ended. Is there anything in the in the contract about who owns the data or who owns the software. And a lot of just knowing some of that landscape is a way to avoid a nasty breakup right to a nasty breakup can include a surprise invoice that you did not know was going to be part of trying to end services or needing to have a longer order to end services than what you were expecting so potentially having to sort of double pay for services if you're transitioning to another technology provider, but still have say three months that you're having to pay on your current relationship. So that's a lot of what's in that in that breakup clause of how can you in the relationship because what is the term of it, when do you have to give notice what sort of deposit do you potentially have on file. For communication norms, it's really good just like it is good to know who your main point of contacts is. It's also good to know how to communicate with that main point of contact or with the team that you're going to be working with so for example, do they have a project management system, or is email the best way or is there a phone number. Who does that phone number reach is that a generic person or is that your main point of contact. So just knowing what those communication channels is very valuable. A lot of these tips can also be kind of flipped back as a mirror on on your own organization in your own structure, you know what contracts or agreements do you have in place who are the main points of contact for the individual functions that relate to technology. How do you communicate together so there's a lot that is valuable externally when starting a relationship with a technology agency or maybe resetting a relationship with the technology agency that you're already working with. So there's also a lot that can be used internally to make everybody's time more efficient and effective. The final point on this one is just knowing about the emergency response so let's say you have a significant and very time sensitive concern do you have a means to escalate that to get that 30 minute to an hour notice is that part of an agreement that you have with them. If it's not part of an agreement, what would it look like to have that in place, or what would be examples of how the partner that you're working with, how they have been able to respond to other clients when emergencies have come up and I think part of this is also to hopefully get rid of any sort of fear or discomfort or that it's inappropriate for you to ask. I think that's one of the biggest questions to the technology agency because none of this is personal right this is all the paperwork these are all the checks and balances for how, how agencies run a business. And I know I personally really like the kind of competitive nature of software. So in the earlier slide, looking at I know the platforms that we work in for example, there's a ton of shops that specialize in WordPress and Drupal and Instagram so there's nothing unique about the software, for example at square that we work in, but it's how we work in it right that we like to think of as a differentiator. And so whatever systems you have, even if you've never heard of these, you have completely different systems it's very likely that there are multiple agencies that could be supporting you and that that's a good thing right because that should apply some healthy pressure to then on the agency side for us to make sure we have our act together and constantly modifying what it is that we're doing so we can better support our clients and so any any of these questions I would encourage you to be bold and asking them, and they're not personal you're collecting information in order to set a solid foundation in order to hopefully build a relationship that's going to be mutually beneficial. So next thinking about the pricing structure so the past was a lot about the different communication norms, the contacts with the languages. When we think about the pricing structure just like I mentioned that there's many many other Drupal shops out there squares a Drupal shop there's lots of other Drupal shops, we can all deliver work within the same platform, but in completely different ways right and a lot of those completely different ways can come down to how we're communicating differently or what our communication tools or practices are, but also what our fee structure looks like and so it's completely normal and likely expected that if you have, say a project that you want to implement a new donor database within your organization, and you start to collect bids from organizations from agencies to potentially partner with you to build that out. It'll probably be an apples and oranges experience because you may see very different pricing structures that can make it hard to compare and so if you kind of use a list of looking for. Okay, are there any kind of one time initiation fees which would be different than say a deposit. So a fee that you are paying to the agency that you are not going to get back because that's just sort of a one time set up fee for example, versus a subscription fee that you get maybe a set amount of services. And you play pay a flat rate for every single month, even if you're using say more services in one month fewer services the next month. And that's a little bit similar to kind of having a retainers or a deposit on file that then you can kind of pull against of the services that you use and then the way that that time or those services can be tracked against money that you already have on deposit or on file with the agency. So another big difference in how agencies can work is whether they work under fixed price or time and materials. So for example, at Square, we do not do a fixed price projects we do time and materials so I like to think of that on working time and materials, that it means that we talk about money a lot more, but it gives you a different kind of control over your money. So a fixed price project would be that. Okay, you name this new website for $5,000 you get to have this new website. That's the, that's the full amount that you're going to pay so whether or not for that agency, that agency ends up able to deliver that website to you and the cost for them of only $3,000. So maybe that's their $2,000 profit or it was a, it was a poor estimate and it actually takes them $15,000 of their costs, you still only pay 10. So in comparison to time and materials, it would be how much it takes and so you'd still get an estimate and it would likely look more like a range. And so maybe it would be eight to $12,000. And then if it comes in at five, you pay five if it comes in at 15,000 you pay 15, but so the communication and the checkpoints are likely going to look and feel a little bit different between something that is a fixed price proposal versus a time and materials proposal. So if you're talking with agencies, it's really good to understand, especially if you're getting bids from multiple and they work in different ways. It's very good to understand, especially those communication norms and check ins and how much control you have and visibility into the time that's being spent and what is delivered, because those two models are very, very different. And from the technology perspective, I've, I've worked in both models and so even from the implementation side I know the differences that exist and there can be a better fit for some organizations within one of those models and other and it really just depends on what you need, which is why there are so many different business models out there supporting the exact same software. There's a lot of pricing structures that can also have a variety of add ons. So let's say this is our base package of services and if you also want, say SMS messaging text messaging or if you also want to use outbound mail services or have some sort of marketing campaign support maybe those are fixed add ons that could be paid on at a subscription base so maybe monthly or maybe it's a one time and so the pricing structure is what can make two agencies that work in the exact same software look completely different where this is an apple and this is an orange. And so knowing, knowing what your organization is, and what kind of communication and involvement, say your boss or your board of directors, what they are expecting can help inform which of those fits is going to be better, because there's nothing inherently good or bad in terms of making one of those better than the other. That's why both models exist or all these options exist. So understanding the differences and how they best relate to your organization is, is what, what will make you able to make the best decision. So one example I like to think about is the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. And I know in the past they used to have some language and their contract and they use software that is all open source meaning that there's no one that owns the software. And they had some language in a previous contract that it was a kind of a guarantee language that their system should work as it was intended or built. And so that ended up being very tricky language because when the, the technology partner who's serving this organization and their technology partner in implementing new functionality or training them on functionality. They're doing that within software that they don't own as the technology agency, they're developing within it. And then something happens to break within the software maybe there was a new update but it's supported by kind of a worldwide base of developers and there's kind of a core team of developers that are fixing it, but it's not in that wheelhouse of, of that agency to actually fix that that's where kind of the software type that you have can make a big difference. It's something like a patch. So basically something that fixes the issue that could be sort of applied within the system. Sometimes that patch that would be needed hasn't been developed yet. And so organizations will sometimes either have to wait or finance for that to be developed in comparison to if it's a proprietary system, kind of putting the onus back on that one entity that has the kind of the controlling power of most things about the software. And so, from a, from a language perspective, that was poor language in a contract that didn't really fit the model of what the way open source software actually works. And so, so there needed to be some reeducation and a change in model on the, on the side to make sure that it's clear really what is billable versus really tricky guarantee language that from a technical agency standpoint that doesn't back up and then that means probably spending too much time for free, which then puts a relationship at risk right because everybody needs to be able to pay their team. That's a that's another reason why knowing your contracts knowing the kind of system that you're using and just asking questions when you don't understand no reason to ever apologize, just get clarity and if the answer doesn't make sense, ask again in a different way and make, make people spend the time to answer your questions, because again that's another way to build a solid foundation. So now let's think about your organizational structure so you, you've had all these agencies you've looked at this, this fruit basket your bananas your apples your oranges they're all different. And then what, what is your organizational structure I like I like this graphic of the real organizational structure of kind of, you know how we all blur and work together. So, kind of the next step, and whatever your role is in this process so if you're seeing say your boss or a co worker, leading this process, or you're leading it or you've experienced it in the past, or you have a staff member who's leading of get buy in and see where buying is happening. So like I mentioned in the beginning technology this conversation matters because it's money on the table but it's also because these are the systems that allow you in many ways to do your work to show the relationships that you've built and record those for the next generation of staff that will be working for your organization there's no need to try to download somebody's brain, because hopefully with a good theorem system or good note taking a lot of that history and context and relationships has been stored somewhere. And so understanding who is impacted by the technology you are working on. And then the consultant that you are hiring so making sure that you're getting folks at the table that are going to be impacted. And how are you going to be working together. And so I like to think about the rules, for example, we work with a lot of organizations in supporting their CRM system so whether it's for event management or membership management or donor management, having the internal structures and rules for when we create a new group. This is how we name that group that that kind of process that's very distinct for one organization is going to look completely different for another organization. They're naming structure for how they name groups should be different because of the way, maybe for them they have sort of three distinct teams working in the CRM system for another organization. Maybe it's five distinct teams or maybe it's one person who's doing all of it. And so all of that does need to be different and should match your work and getting those voices at the table as early as possible. Can help set everybody's expectations and just have a greater buy in so the delivery is something that people are expecting. And then the that management of change can also be easier to then ideally expect more from your software right that I it can likely do more than it is now. And that just takes some elbow grease and reading documentation some being bold to ask questions and seek out help, and you probably have a lot of the, a lot of the tools that your fingertips with the systems that you already have with that additional digging and buying an excitement from your broader team. This is another example of an organization we work with, where they have very distinct teams that do very different things as a lot of organizations do but of course they're using the same systems. And so one of the ways that they have handled that internally is having a kind of a scope of work or SOW structure that defines the work that needs to be done, and having an estimated hours approved for that. But then those conversations and those SOWs being organized in such a way that the teams are coming together. So when we meet with this organization, for example, we're not meeting with just one team, like they have the marketing team and a survey team. We're just meeting with the marketing team. The survey team also needs to understand and know what it is that we're doing with them because it's within the same system. And then that can also help with prioritizing what what matters and what needs to be done first, especially when there's going to be an overlap of functional use in the system. And so. I really like that example of the your technology partner. You can also use them as an excuse to have your teams communicate in a different kind of way, just because that's also a way to save time, right. If you're doing more of your own project management internally, in terms of how you're going to use the systems, why you need them to function in a specific way. Those are just going to be more questions that your technology partner is not going to have to ask because you're coming to them with this is what we need. This is how this other team is likely going to use it. And here are some times that we'd all like to meet with you to understand any questions you have. That's much more organized than starting from scratch and having the technology partner wonder is everybody at the table that needs to be at the table. Because that is hard on the technology side to the technology partner side to have. We don't want to feel disappointment right we don't want our clients to be disappointed or or for us to discover that an entire team was left out that we didn't even know existed at an organization. And so there's a lot of questions that a good. The project manager at a technology partner should be asking to help make sure you're getting everybody at the table, especially at these initial and key decision points. So expectations can be managed because the happier everyone is at launch. The better it is right then you have a showcase and an ability of a case study or to help with the sales process for the technology agencies so they can maintain a strong and stable business model to serve you and other organizations. So you've signed the contract you found the right partner you've got a bunch of buy-in everybody's excited at the table. And so now what so I think of this as interaction tips. And the first thing is getting it and writing thinking back to that that healthy paranoia right I think of it I tell my team I want it time stamped and what they know what I mean by that is you set it on the phone but did you follow up and also say it in an email. I like to be able to reference back to decisions that were made, and especially when, as is often the case, you have multiple things happening at once, and when you have say a larger technology project. It often doesn't get to be your full time job, you still have your full time job that you're doing and you have this kind of this one time five month project that you're also working on at the same time that you're having to fit in. That's a lot of things to remember and especially if you leave or your role at the organization changes, or you decide that you want to spin off and make someone else internally more responsible for pieces of it than what they have been before. If you get it and writing, that's going to be a lot easier to transition and communicate this is what the plan is this is where we are within the deliverables, and also hold your technology agency accountable and make them earn whatever that rate is right because like I said in the beginning, a consulting rate for from a technology agency is likely going to be higher and for good reasons than what someone maybe if you're if you're in a sense pain someone internally that's that rate full time right that would be there'd be a very different kind of rate for what an internal recess should be. The other thing is is looping in others. This helps to share responsibilities and ensures engagement. And so that can make sure that you're giving your boss or you're giving your coworkers or other team leads and update on the project. They don't even need to ask for that right you can you can do that in advance and have that as part of a standing full team meeting that happens weekly or monthly or whatever your internal communication rhythm is looping and others communicates the value that you're of the systems that you're working on I think because of COVID we all know and appreciate the value of what our technology does for us in a different kind of way in terms of communication because of the remote nature of how everyone can still thrive because whether I'm not in three dimensional or on a camera my brain still functions right I don't need to be in person for my brain to not function for my brain to function correctly. So looping in others ensures that that they're engaged. Also thinking about the learning curve so. So part of keeping others engaged and sharing responsibility is that we're not always good at explaining the value of what some things are that we bring to the that technology brings to the table. And so understanding the end result of why you're wanting that project or why you're wanting that new functionality in the first place connecting the why for for the work that's being done can help everyone think critically down the road for what could come next and also make sure that you're spending money in a way that it really is bringing value to your organization it's not just something that you happen to see some sort of article on that looks like the cool new tech thing. Well if it doesn't have any relevance for your organization that's probably a poor investment for your organization and ideally, a really good technology partner would ask some of those critical questions to, because they don't want to just burn money because at the end of the day, some executive director some somebody is probably going to notice why are we spending so much on technology. We're not getting any difference or value in the work that we're doing. So that's where there's a, I think of that as the healthy tension that ideally would exist between an organization and the technology partner that they have that both are asking hard honest good questions of each other, and none of that needs to be thought of as offensive or too personal or you're just trying to have the best and most honest relationship and hold each other accountable to the work that you're doing together. The point of doing that is troubleshooting and I'm going to get in a little bit to the weeds of troubleshooting better which relates to the kinds of communications you can have with your technology partner. But first I wanted to also share about in the so they're the international mountain bicycling association. And what I like about them is, and it relates to looping and others is that at a regular interval they have two board members that are actually part of the calls that they have with us. And I know that that only that would only work when in some organizations right in other organizations that level of involvement would be sort of inappropriate or beyond, beyond what is appropriate for that organization and what the is, but for in the that has worked really well and what what that is allowed is having two of their board members jump into the weeds of these calls where we're talking about the specific things in the system that we're troubleshooting, or the new functionality that we're implementing. All of that has significant value because they're getting to know a little bit about the team, right which is different than the executive director they're seeing some of the team that their executive director is managing in action. They're seeing how we, the technology partner are communicating back how we're prioritizing, they're able to ask questions in real time about the system, and kind of push the edge of what's possible and have a voice in that space as well, but also they don't have any of that decision making role right it's a very defined role that they have on that call. But the ability that has especially in a remote space for board members to be up to date, and spend valuable time and contribute their skill set to the organization and for the staff to feel really supported, and that their board really understands and knows and cares about technology. That's a significant relationship investment of how people are spending time and so, whether that is other members of your team and it's not a board or it's an external advisory group so maybe they don't even need to be more members maybe you have kind of a tech council that is supporting your organization. Some of those folks can be such a great way to have new volunteers that bring a lot of value to your team. And it also helps spread that awareness about the value of the work that you're doing and also the stability of the relationship that you're working within. So now, now to jump in the weeds of troubleshooting. And this is just because I fielded a lot of emails with very confusing questions in them over the years and so I wanted to just remind some of that troubleshooting on and and some of this is starting from an assumption that you're thinking about some issue in your website, or your CRM is acting funny. So the software this these are software issues. So describing your problem, what were you doing specifically when this happened, and what did you do to get to the place that now is gone awry, you know what were you clicking on to get there and then what happened. So is there a specific message. Can you take a screenshot of it. What made the thing that happened unexpected. The example that we would often get is that the donate pages broken period right period send. Well what does broken mean if I go to it the page loads. I could press a donate what what about it is looking broken. I know sometimes that means that language is off right sometimes someone is sending that to me and really they just want to change the language on the donate form, or they want to change the donation options. So the next things that you can do is testing your access so does it look the same even if you're in the same browser so maybe you're in Chrome, or Safari, or, or Firefox, is it functioning the same within those, within those spaces, or is if your website is broken access your website can you access it from your phone. So is there something that's actually happening with your internet connection that your phone being on satellite isn't having, and that sort of the internal troubleshooting is there anything happening for first. So timing trends is this does this always happen at 3pm, no matter what like is there some sort of weird thing that this happens every single day that's good to know about. How long did the issue that you experience lasted was it sort of just one little hiccup, like one little blip, or is every time you press reload on a page is that same issue, popping up and so the things that you can share are taking screenshots, copying pasting the URL that you were at doing the quick 123 steps of first I went to this page then I went to this page, then I did this thing and this this weird thing happened, kind of laying out those steps of what it is that you were doing and what you were expecting, and all of this, what it does is it saves time so depending on what your support relationship is right so maybe, no matter how much lack of detail or detail you add, maybe it doesn't affect what you're going to pay because of that different business model and pricing structure, but in other circumstances, if your technology partner isn't having to hunt a lot of this down themselves and making guesses at what might be wrong. Then that increases your ability to communicate right and likely the problem is going to be solved much quicker because it's understood much quicker. And so there's a lot that an agency they need to ask that healthy tension right the accountability back but there's also a lot that you can bring to the table. When you're wanting something to function different than it is or something to be fixed or resolved or modified to be different than how it is now and the details for how we communicate about that. Right, so now, now that we know how to troubleshoot and we have these great relationships. How do you figure out what you need. So, I think of this as the defining your functional requirements and I put functional requirements and parentheses because I know I've experienced often, there is, there can be an expectation that a nonprofit main contact who's going to be the main with the technology agency has the answers already of how the thing needs to work, and that is not your role. It is not your job to define the technical requirements of how the thing is implemented. If you want, if you want a blue toothbrush, it is the toothbrush manufacturers job to figure out how to make that thing blue right you don't need to tell them how to make it blue it just is important that it's understood. So that's what success looks like, and what the end results should be and so a good example of this is user stories. And so user stories are just a really nice plain language of when I, I am someone who's navigating, I'm on my phone, and I want to be able to make a donation that I can make every single month auto renewal and I want to make sure that I get a receipt at the end. Well that defines kind of a functional experience for what that user should see, when they take out their phone, and they go to a donate to make a, an auto renewing donation and they should get a receipt so I can think of from a technical perspective, the different pieces that would need to be involved to achieve that workflow. And so defining your understanding who your target audiences are so who is your website serving for example, or your event management system, what are the different audiences that are coming to that system. What should the user experience be what should that story be that kind of narrative of that person using the site. What are those expectations and then sharing that with your technology partner, then they can fill in the technical specs this the technical requirements in order to achieve that user story that need to be the other, the other way around. It's also a good practice to share what you don't want, right, and an example of that so I often like to collect examples of websites or systems, or online experiences that an organization really likes so show me other people's websites that are an inspiration to you. Also show me systems that you really don't like, or that made you feel confused. And then it's can be my job to figure out okay I'm seeing some of these differences because for you to understand. This is why I didn't like that that can be a little bit harder to tease out sometimes but if you share enough examples. Then the technology partner will hopefully have enough experience to be able to understand and see, and a quick glance or with visuals, why something is better than the other and that can really inform and really help the final delivery that's given to then your team. So this is a is a really great example of this so we did a pretty big project that took over a year to implement where we kind of threw in a sense like kind of everything up in the air right so they had these proprietary systems that we were replacing with standard open source tools. So management and ongoing maintenance could also be standard and done by multiple people. So because of the kind of the unique and custom nature of their previous systems. It was just one or two people that were ever able to complete an update or new kind of the backstory of how the system really worked. And that was starting to get really costly. So this is the sort of thing where that person really never gets to go on a vacation and they definitely can't retire. And so by having a system that then more standard, then more people can hold the responsibility. More people can share, share the load of, of updates. And so what I like to think about with that organization, what I told them in the beginning was kind of thinking about different banners that we that I would mentally implement on the wall when we were going through the functional requirements and what those user stories are. And so some of those banners were trying to make things as self service as possible. So making it easier for that that chess player in their home on their iPad to do more things themselves, instead of calling the office for maybe this list of things that they used to do. So in a lot of ways this changes like I mentioned that the tools that you use can also inform and really modify the way that your team is even working together to deliver your mission. And then all of a sudden that can change your culture too. So for the nature of us chess this the new system that was built using standard open source tools to replace the custom built system that they had had for decades. So as an organization the membership staff that used to do much more manual entry of data and manual adjustment to data, all of a sudden became tech support. So when you have a banner hanging in the wall of self service. That means people in their own homes on their iPads they can take many more actions on their own and they don't need help from an office they don't need to call a number. The reason I do call it's because something is confusing it's because they hit a screen and they don't know what to do next or they hit a screen and they clicked a button and it didn't do what they thought it would do so thinking back even to troubleshooting. There's a lot that as your systems get a little more complicated or if you start having more self service elements of your system where your users can do more of the things that they need to themselves and they don't need that guidance when they do need guidance. So as I said you're the one who's helping them troubleshoot to try to understand the issue that maybe you can solve on your own, maybe you escalate to the technology partner you're working with. And so having those kind of banners in mind when you're thinking about whatever the scale of project is that you have, and then knowing a little bit about how, depending on what that banner is how it may change the nature of what your team is doing. That doesn't mean that it's eliminating jobs, but it could be changing job descriptions. Going from that kind of the example of US chess, a lot of people doing much more manual data entry to all the sudden fielding member questions who don't remember and don't know how to reset their password. It's no longer the, the individual staff members job to create the passwords it's guiding that user through the process on the site and so that's a very different way of spending time that inevitably can have a big impact on the culture of an organization. So having all of those things on the table when you're implementing software like I thought it was just a donor database and now our organization is completely different. Well, that's a little bit of why because the way we spend our time and communicate together, then impacts the way those minutes moments every day goes by in our team. So, looking a little bit at warning signs you'll see a few of these before, and hopefully a few of you get the fantastic Star Trek reference. So before those we statements when there's really not a we, and it's maybe just a, an eye, but you are paying for an agency. So I want to make sure and clarify again I don't think one is better than the other it's more about making sure that you're getting the value of what it is that you're paying for. And so being aware of we statements and who is who is delivering work, and if you're getting the full kind of delivering attention of a team. So a lot of that is getting things and writing documenting when there was agreed to dates agreed to deliverables, which I think of as kind of having a time stamped right, and then follow me up and asking questions like Oh, I see Friday has passed and I was supposed to have this thing on Friday. What's what's the timeframe on when I'm going to get that that that is absolutely your role. If that is your role, but that's absolutely somebody's role within your team to ask those kinds of questions and expect accountability. Thinking about who's the guinea pig. So this is an example of this is just understanding if the thing that you're wanting your technology partner to do. Have they done that before. And you know what, it's okay if they haven't, but it's more helpful for you to know if they haven't, and that can also help reveal if there's going to be any, any surprises, any roadblocks that neither one of you were expecting or were in experimentation. And that's where having that relationship ability to be honest, critical ask questions of each other. You can hopefully get a sense of that, of if this is the first time that your partner has done that. Attention to responsiveness, are people replying to your emails, are you getting your phone calls back. And if you're not, it's okay to complain and do something about that. And it's okay to also look elsewhere. Depending on your system, like I said, it's very likely that there's a lot of other agencies that could provide you services. So don't sit and feel, feel abandoned for too long before really doing something about it, especially depending on what that pricing structure is. If you're still paying that, say monthly retainer out the door at a fixed amount, but you're not getting your emails responded to take action. Businesses naturally understand that they need to be competitive against each other and stay on top of their game in order to deliver services. And so you're helping push an organization, push an agency to make some of those changes that they need to make in order to get back to the level of responsiveness that they need to have. And in general, if you see any new alerts in your system, right, like warning security update required security updates are supposed to be done in your system. Well, there's another check that you can see, and say hey screenshot I saw this in the system is there anything I need to know about, and that can be the quick way for the agency to say oh yeah we're scheduling that for Wednesday thanks for pointing it out there's nothing you need to do something like that but there's to to don't be afraid to ask, I guess. So, so you know the summary of you have opinions share them. You can also develop by example so thinking about all of these organizations. They each came to square where they really like there was this other system that was inspiring to them. And how could they have that right it's like these, these wheels that we can just constantly reuse reuse reuse, and that we don't need to invent on the that there's a lot that could be possible with your system with some additional training, and that's where joining groups like this, where you can get to know other nonprofit leaders get to know other folks who are working within your same role in other organizations and how they've solved problems is such a great way to take advantage of the tools and the resources that you have within your own organization. And in conclusion, how do you get more out of your technology partner just don't be afraid to ask questions and have greater expectations of what your software can do for you and make people earn their money, you know and everyone at the end of the day, your relationships are going to be richer. They're, they're going to feel like valued colleagues and not someone that you're dreading to contact. If you're dreading to contact them. Well, shoot, Google some other Google some other providers and it to have your needs met and and your dollars spent in a better way for your organization. And so just, just don't be afraid to ask questions is the biggest and to put things in writing and so I love this topic. And I would love if there's any kind of follow up questions, or how to troubleshoot things because it's very likely that any, any partner that you're working with now. That relationship if it's, if it's struggling in any way, having that kind of direct conversation where you ask some of these pointed questions could likely turn that relationship around. And maybe you don't need to go shopping at all but if, if they don't know that you're dissatisfied in some way, but you are not letting that build and addressing that earlier to reset that expectation is just going to mean that you can probably do more with your system have more focus on the relationships on the work that you're doing to have the impact that your organization is having. So it's been a pleasure to be here. I'm really thankful Carol and that you invited Thanks, look forward to yeah to hearing from anybody who has follow up questions and if not hopefully it means that everybody is kind of straightening up the relationships they have or has a better tool set for evaluating technology partners that they may work with in the future. Yeah, and anyone watching the recording of the program tonight, you can email Gina didn't have to be right this minute in the comment field. You can just email her later but I have a some experiences that really bear out what you said I should do a lot of troubleshooting major gifts and will traditionally go in for several months or a year or a couple years or something like that and run campaigns but always run up against a WordPress website or you know the constituent management system so one example is I was working with us really promising startup not afraid of all at all of technology and they engaged and got a grant actually create a new website. And so really kind of expensive company I have to say, and so fine we were in the midst of that and we had an emergency happen, actually, and I had to change some data right away on that website, like right away, and we didn't have any kind of emergency. You know, claws or anything like that, who thought of it we never thought of that and we should have because the kickback email we got was, I'm on vacation and can come and I'll be back in days. And so I kind of reach out to other people. Nobody at that firm could help us you know, and I was so angry that I actually make WordPress websites myself for some nonprofits you know. And I got online and created a new website and I gave it to the executive director that the next week and I said look, I made this in two hours. And she goes, I actually like the way that looks. Yes, we were paying $50,000 over the course of the year for a website, a database, you know it was more complicated there were many features but basically, the clauses really important. Then, another place I went, I was trying this was like an incredibly braining arts group okay very aesthetic and smart and smart when it comes to art, but not technology so anyway, they had like, literally data all in a bunch of little pieces, you know, in files and different places in the building and in people's minds so my greatest accomplishment probably for them, one of them anyway was getting it out of people's heads and onto a charge. I said let's consider this constituent management system so I helped implement it and you know the direction I talk is like finds great in the chairman of the board actually approved it. Okay, so when it came time for the person who managed tours and the other person who managed direct mail and mailing lists and other things. They didn't want to learn how to use it, and you know you have to learn it to use it and their functions. Oh, a gift shop manager. Okay. It could do it could, it could launch rockets. I mean, it was really a great platform, and they just, it didn't matter that the chairman of the board and the executive director and I running the major gifts for a year. Wanted it and spoke highly of it and we're really encouraging and trying to get everybody on board. So the buy in thing, the whole buy in no matter what you're doing when you're getting into a new technology. We need to go beyond those people to make sure that you have buy in and we actually another group I worked with the board member actually research donor constituent management platforms and came up with one which was great. And when it had been sitting there a year when I came on board to work on major gifts so I get in there and they were mailing. They had about a 3500 person list in there, including the donors all mixed in. And I would say two thirds were all out of date, the emails were going to space. So I literally tore it apart and put it back together. I just, I reinvigorated the whole thing so it's really start working but basically the board member was for it. But the executive director is like, Yeah, I just don't want to do it and the program people who needed to put in input who was volunteers who are working with projects are working on that. Again, the buy in all the way kind of from the top to the bottom because it doesn't matter what level of the organization you're in. You can have a lower level of employee just really cause a lot of problems because if they're not going to use it if they're not going to take time they never have time or they somehow don't have time they should have the time. But sometimes they, I've actually had some of them say well, this data is so important and I don't want it being in this database because other people will see it. Which then there's always options for that too. That's not every system has that but that's a question that I ask is about permission control so I remember I was working with one organization that they really did have like true celebrity donors you know people like I know that name I think I saw that movie with that person, and it was important that they hide the contact information of some of those folks to only specific members of the team. So while it may not be possible in every CRM system, it is very possible in some and that's where asking those questions, getting the training we didn't talk about training very often but your, your comment about spinning up a WordPress website so quickly and not being able to get any help from this professional agency that's supposed to provide these services. That's where I try to be really aware and upfront with our clients about kind of pulling back the curtain, the Wizard of Oz curtain and like this is not complex and then making it a choice that it's completely fine if, if an organization doesn't want to understand how to update the language on this specific page. But what is not fine is for us on the technology agency side for us to innocence keep that as this very technically complex thing as if Oh, well, yes, we must do that for you. Instead, we can do that. Here is how we're going to do that we. If you want instead we provide a 15 minute training for you and a recording of the screencast so in the future you can do this yourself. That's something that I know that gets more of kind of to a values and much more how I personally work but this idea of that's not the kind of money that on the technology side. I'm not interested in making those kinds of dollars I know at the end of the day doing that kind of work could in a sense result in more billable time. But frankly that's boring if we're just changing text on websites or that and that should be the easiest thing for an organization to be trained on there's all kinds of different levels of what can be done within your system. And I'm sure that there are things in everybody system that there really would need to be a developer but that's a very specific type of change. And otherwise there's a lot of training that could be provided to probably meet a lot of those needs that exist within their intermediary. So that kind of pulling back that curtain is so important that way you can know for sure that you're actively choosing to have and pay the money for your partner to do that work that you could do in house and that's completely fine. But it's less fine if it's sort of conveyed in a sense that they are the only ones who you can who can uniquely do that thing. Because if you can be provided training on that and that training can be stored for you or for any member of the team that also is going to be a longer life and a better use of those dollars by the by the partner you're working with. So my, I actually did get them to train to let me get in the back end to be able to make those really relatively modest text and uptake up the dates of events or changes. So they did eventually do that. So I guess I would say it eventually worked out but I think that is something for firms to know from the other side. The thing is they didn't realize I was really a good hacker. So I was actually able to kind of get in there and deal with it. You know what I mean. Yeah, I could have used something up that they had beautiful thing that they created of course but the other thing I think though is where I really think so many nonprofits that I ran into that I because I meet so many and I help untangle things, but they, they have gotten so excited about new technologies and they just like piece them all together. And they have all this, this horrible COVID looking like disease framework. I mean it looks like a ball with stuff sticking up. Yeah, probably someone there for two years and came in the past I mean that's where paying attention. So at least time and investment that they spend in trying to clean up and better understand the system that already exists instead of bringing in a new system is such a gift to all future team members because I don't remember now, what the, what the rate over is now is it two or three years two to four years for turnover, which I know it's for for development officers it's like 14 months or something it's terrible. Yeah, but those investments, those notes you know in one system that's such a gift to the future people who will hold your job. I mean it's just you, there needs to this is like, if you have your own, you know you have your menu of things that square provides but I would say, I assume you might have one that is, help me figure out what systems actually do go together I like MailChimp a lot. Does that go with Z to neon, or. Yes, I think that gets in so much to the strategy consultation side because what we often see is that especially if an organization really does have multiple software multiple systems. It could be that there are components of software that they have that's duplicative so, for example, if I can go to the settings of a software and kind of enable a new component that is already part of the software that it just hasn't that checkbox hasn't been checked for that to be enabled, and enabling that doesn't change your pricing fee. There's no reason to then unless functionally somehow it's so different. There's no reason to then pay for that system within another space and so that's what will often do as kind of a functional audit functional system on it so what are the things that you need done and then what tools do you have that are doing those things and sometimes there's going to be things on that list that these are the things we need done and sometimes there's no system that's meeting that need. Other times, we see this is a system that's meeting that need, but this system that you have could also meet that need. So then it's a comparison of, do you then stick with the system that you're already using that's meeting that need or do you just enable that component within this that could consolidate and then maybe you can get rid of that subscription that monthly $29 or whatever it is that you're paying for. I've seen that over and over again and that's one great thing to kind of close on with like to see if I mentioned this in a prior program I think but basically there's so many great tech discounts. Yes. And the other thing is, I often do see this. I'll get on the budget and see that a group is paying the full rate for a commercial QuickBooks. And I ran into and they just felt they wanted to be so professional they were really well meaning, but basically a tech soup it was something like $80 a year versus. And it's a free membership to right and to get it you know just sign up on the platform. So I guess I would say, you know, it's good that you are helping the tech clubs and the tech suits because there's so much if, if you kind of didn't audit, you know, of all these sometimes incompatible systems and kind of came up with well maybe you want to look at it this way and get rid of that one and put this one in put constant contact in instead of or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I think that would be incredibly helpful that's just me going in and having to untangle it myself and I'm like, this does not work it's just that I'm tech set tech inclined and I have no fear of technology so And you're not afraid to ask those questions, you know, but I really need professionals to do that not somebody who's a heck, you know. Yeah, that's a that's a really, that's a really valuable important point and I think that's where starting from what you have an understanding that better is going to end up being better than trying to start from scratch. Because then you can better know exactly why you're dissatisfied with your current system if you still end up being dissatisfied with whatever tool it is that you're using. It's good to know why, because a good technology partner is going to want to know why. So then it's not a churn and then you don't end up dissatisfied with them to because nobody wants that right. So that's not going to be stable for either either partner. So yeah, well thanks Gina that was so helpful man. I think every nonprofit, but you get, you know, you apply to have a nonprofit, get the legal designation, and they say on that form from the federal government this is what I want to say. So you need to have a technology audit and decide what it's what you what is going to make your operation work best for you and all the systems that will integrate because I can tell you it's wasted time. If you are not, you know, options galore. Yes. Yeah, there are so many choices and sometimes you just really kind of need a few. But you have to have somebody smart to look at the right partner. Yep, getting more out of your relationship. Okay, well thank you. Yeah. And we'll post this recording soon. So you will see it on there online on Facebook. Thanks. Bye.