 Hi everybody, thanks for joining executive director's chat. We call this ED chat I hope you are ready to take notes and ask questions and again share with each other in the chat room Today our topic is going to be about grant management tools. The managing grants requires tracking your results Monitoring expenditures and preparing reports for funders, right? So in this zoom meeting I'm going to have executive director share how they use CRM their management tools and just some other tips that they use to help With bringing in donations and increasing their fundraise and goal. I am Aretha Simons I'm the webinar producer here at TechSoup. This is being recorded So you could take notes, but you'll get this recording within four to eight hours and All the contact information and other things that come along with this you'll get this recording You'll be able to watch this on YouTube as well. When you go to our YouTube channel, please hit like and I would greatly appreciate that So for those of you, this is your first time here on a TechSoup webinar or ED chat I want to show you how you can engage today. We ask that everybody please stay on mute to help with the quality of the recording If you would like to respond use the raise your hand option right at the bottom of your screen And I'll acknowledge you when you do come on if you will meet yourself Set your name your where you're from Also, if you can leave your comments and questions to about a minute or two so that everybody will have a chance to speak That would be great. I know sometimes we get passionate about this So today I am going to ask you if you hear moments Again, make sure you are if you hear of any moments. Let me meet this person. Sorry See this happens when you're doing live and just imagine yesterday there was like a thousand people there So that's the role of webinar producer. I love it wouldn't want to be anywhere else So if you hear of anything that is an aha moment today Share it and then tag us on TechSoup I would love for one of you or five of you or three of you to be a Feature speaker here on ED chat because I know you all wear multiple hats And we want to learn from your experience and also help you share your expertise Please email me at a Simons at TechSoup if you would like to be a feature speaker and it must be a topic related to something in the nonprofit sector, obviously If you're having a conference an event and you would like TechSoup to come and talk about Some of the TechSoup offers that we have because we know that not every nonprofit knows about TechSoup invite us Send an email to Steven Jackson at sjaxson at TechSoup.org or you can email me at a simons At TechSoup.org So we're going to have a survey at the end of this that pop up on your screen. Please fill out the survey I want to make one quick announcement before I turn it over to our guest speaker I mentioned before we started this that grant station is having their 99 Dollar special it happens twice a year at TechSoup And it's only two days I want you to put an alarm on your phone if you don't have access to grant station because today We're discussing grant management tools, but I want to make sure you have access to find these grants So our partner at grant station this price is normally 199 for members of TechSoup is 169 but again two days They're going to have a sale here at TechSoup where it's going to be 99 dollars For the years at annual fee. I'll put a link in there a little later So enough about all of the housekeeping and all the little information. I want to invite joe ramjohn I'm so excited that not only joe is going to share his knowledge But I know joe because we live in the same city and I've been able to glean from all the things that he has done In this city. He is the founder of Orlando welcome and a copy source Joe wears multiple hats just like a lot of you executive director president He's has over 18 years in the nonprofit technology sector working with self sales force business management And as a nonprofit consultant, that's just a few highlights about joe, but he's going to tell you more I'm going to turn it over to you. Welcome joe. I thank you for being here Thank you. Aretha. Hey everyone Good morning. Well actually good afternoon. Sorry Morning for meant for some of you. I I suspect and I just want to thank TechSoup Really for having this TechSoup has been the backbone of our organization Since inception it is it is such a unique gift to all of us. Don't matter whether you're you're now starting out or You have been a nonprofit for for decades and and as you know a technology technology advances every six months and so You we it feels at times like we can't keep up We're we're investing in systems and that system becomes outdated And so one of the strategies that I like to employ Whether you are now starting out or you have been in the industry is every Few years, whether it's three to five years You are looking at the technologies that you have And you are trying to make sure that you're scaling up that you do not get yourself into a place where You end up Outgrowing the current technology that you use and so having A tremendous platform like TechSoup where we can literally shop and see all right. Let's see what's new Let's see what is being offered so that you can continue to to scale In terms of grant writing Grant station has been A huge tool and it's great that it's being offered on sale right now I highly recommend it It's it's if you're getting into the grant writing world you're going in blind Unless you employ a tool like grant station It allows you to go in and really drill down The different grants that are out there that will uniquely fit Your organization because we we have limited time And so to be able to drill down and look at the grants that that fit the scope of your vision And then tailor Your or target those grants and what I love with with grant station is you're able to actually put in the work for one But you're you're you're putting in the work for a few different Grant offers and so we employ a tool in-house Call monday.com Monday Actually verifies your organization through tech soup You also have a sauna, which is another one and and these tools bring your entire team together You normally would have if it's one person or a team working on grants Sometimes you might need something from accounting or you might need something from your dev director You might need something From your board and so having everyone on a platform where you're able to Collaborate and throw out tasks You're you're able to move your grants along Rather than having it bottleneck waiting on on other people to to contribute or you end up having to push the grant out Pretty maturely and that is never a good idea. I mean sometimes it works, but it really is never a good idea to do that. And so Looking at tech soup looking at the different technologies that they offer Something like a sauna for your organization in grant writing is is is going to be a huge Boost it is it is highly affordable for small organizations you can Roll that cost into Into your your budget for the year. I I highly recommend investing in systems We were able to take our small nonprofit from an initial Investment of a thousand dollars to within five years Bringing in close to 1.5 million and the reason we got to that place was was Primarily due to systems, especially when you have a team of three to five people working on many projects, so I know this time is going to be a time of um, you know asking questions and Keeping this flow dynamic and so I want to be able to answer questions as I go along Especially in regards to what? What technologies are available Out there technology is The different technologies that are out there. That's my strong suit. It's it's what I strongly believe in we we utilize sales force in house and so we Run the gamut in regards to the amount of technologies. We're using in order for us to be able to effectively Get our grant writing our grants out. Are there any questions? Okay, okay, I'm looking in the chat So the management of grant finances. I actually have a trick that we use I hire an outside bookkeeping company Called bench. We have a finance director that is Managing our finances, but we employ bench to do our bookkeeping and bench does Bookkeeping for nonprofits as well It it's roughly for us $300 a month, but what we get in turn is Um Deep accounting as as far as bench goes beyond the the bookkeeping aspect and they run all levels of Of metrics for us and so I'm able to communicate with One of our our different partners over there and they're able to our account manager And they're able to give me the metrics I need right away to be able to to put that into our grants Okay, someone asks about asana and I know asana is one of our partners But I would love to hear from one of the eds who Is using asana. Would you like to share your experience? Use the raise your hand option or you can feel free to unmute yourself And while you're getting ready to do that, um, jennifer is asking about grant reporting What kind of grant reporting do you do? I'm sure the 990, but what else jennifer? Can you unmute yourself and ask him specifically? What do you mean by grant reporting? Jennifer rayman Okay, if you're speaking you're on mute jennifer Okay, while we're waiting for jennifer to unmute herself lora ask what project management tool do you prefer the texts who have right We do have right. What was the benefit of asana over twilio? So is it is anybody using asana or twilio and joe feel free to jump in um, I we we've uh drilled down to to monday primarily because of The integrations and being able to have automations um, we looked at the different uh tools asana and twilio are brilliant platforms But what matters most is when you're looking at these systems, you have to make sure that you find one That fits your organization. We also use zappier And zappier is a technology that sits in the middle um of different systems to be able to pass data Uh between these systems and so i'm able to push um a lot. I use google sheets a lot You know to to collect my data and then through google sheets using zappier. I'm able to push it immediately into Salesforce or monday or some of the other tools that we're using in house and so You you want to be able to do your research Um, definitely connect with people if you I've done a lot of research on some of these different tools If you want to connect with me after this, I'd be more than happy to Um go over some of the different tools with you because it's important to look at what you're using currently um And and what your needs are uh for the future because you want to also be able to scale Thank you for that. Go ahead and put your information in the chat room Joel Aaron said that she used a sauna in the past right now. She's having um audio problems So she really can't join. I love that everybody's putting their crms that they use in the chat room Um jennifer, I saw you unmute yourself go ahead Yeah, i'm sorry. I couldn't get back on the screen But i'm back now and what i'm wondering is if grant station is appropriate for Gathering the data that I need for my grant reporting Or if there's a better way to do that When you say gathering gathering the data you need to use Um, so grant station has a list of funders where you would go and find out what their requirements are for you to apply for grants But when you say gathering the data, give me an example when I when I've received a grant I'm uh, I run a spay neuter program And so if I get for example a grant to spay and neuter feral cats I need to report how many cats we spayed and neutered how many were female how many were male how many were pregnant um And then of course the the costs for those the the financial reporting and I'm just I do it now basically using excel spreadsheets I'm just wondering if there's any more streamlined way to do it because it's very time consuming Yeah, go ahead y'all. You do have some stream streamlined options that you can use for example You want to have a system where the moment you Enter that information You know that that user is coming in and they're asking hey I need to have this cat spaded and they're putting in the data that first Entry point it should push into your other systems if you had sales force for example sales force gives uh, non-profit organizations 10 free user licenses and you can build out your um You know, you could build out an an entire app within sales force that's tailored to your organ Then you'll use that data when you're doing your 990 reporting, um, I don't know if you hire an accountant to do your 990 or if you are like many other small non-profits and use um, uh Express tax exempt for example, um in conjunction with, um of the resistance Uh, hello. Hello. Aretha Yes, you can hear me. This is Joe Serrano with Tentmakers here in Richmond, California Hi Have a question. Well, actually I want to share an experience. Uh, we're talking about tools and I just want to I just want to give you some props with uh tech soup because I I didn't know the full potential I was missing out on all for all this whole time. I had been Aware of tech soup and just recently As a result of a grant that we receive Tech soup was really the game changer for us just because when it came time for reporting our grant results And doing all the accounting and the bookkeeping. Well, I'm not an accountant not a bookkeeper But I just I know enough to have to hire somebody to help me Figure that stuff out. So, uh, as a result of tech soup, I was able to subscribe to QuickBooks online for a very very reasonable price and I was able to connect with a bookkeeper who Really was outstanding in helping me to understand Going from desktop quick books pro desktop to online because it's kind of two different things But my bookkeeper who I connected with Worked with me very closely. We had zoom meetings We were able to I was able to send accountants copy from the desktop pro version of our Bookkeeping and she was able to help me unscramble everything that I had scrambled including the bacon And and she also Was able to put me in touch with a cpa So, you know as a result of our grant and and this is something that I would like to share also With new nonprofits Who are trying to get grants and trying to establish their capacity for grant administration? And that would be to hook up with other organizations that are looking for fiscal sponsors Right, uh, that'll get you your your wheels greased It'll get you acclimated to the actual accounting and bookkeeping functions of a nonprofit And by the way our nonprofit is a community housing development corporation And we help load them out of income households with housing So bottom line is that tech soup is a great resource for finding tools like Quickbooks online and lots of other tools that will help you to manage your grants And to report on your grants especially when it comes to filing taxes and having great financial statements So that you can start building your financial capacity That's great. Thank you so much for that joe, and I hope you guys picked up a lot of little tips he he put out there um, joe, I want to go back up to the comment that Laura made because not everybody understands what a crm customer relationship managed relations management system Is for she wants to know is there a difference between customer relations management and project management? Uh, yeah, it's a there's a huge difference. Um, and that's why you need uh different systems With our we in-house for examples with our with our donors. We use donor perfect Right, all of our donors and fundraising goes through donor perfect, which is offered through tech soup And it's a phenomenal platform Um, that that has streamlined a lot of things for us And that allows our fundraising department to focus on our donors that are giving um, whether it is, um You have fundraisers that you can do auctions in the whole nine yards within donor perfect Um, but then for those that we serve the constituents that we care for We're using a crm that is separate because it's a totally different department And that um, that is where we use sales force And within that we can care for them And it said it was snowing, but I don't see any snow. Okay, Sandra And then separately, um from sales force, uh for our Um in-house all of our departments just talking together Bringing together our programs departments Uh with our operations with fundraising and our board We're using Monday and that is our project management And so all of the projects that we're working on that we're able I'm able to see what we're working towards for the whole year What we're planning the vision dinner that we have for next year When you employ a project management system, it transforms your organization Uh prior to having a project management system, for example Our vision dinners we were we were barely breaking even on our on our annual Vision dinners and since employing a project management system where we're Seeing who we're talking to and how we're managing our corporate sponsors We have already exceeded our goal For our upcoming dinner in march and we've raised past it and we still have people saying hey as a matter of fact We've had to turn off our selling seats because if the entire thing is is Is paid for Including our annual fundraising goal and that is 100 percent Attributed to bringing in a project management system where all departments Are able to talk together and share internally whereas so that's an internal system Where whereas the program the crm is outward facing that is who we're helping And how we're we're maintaining um those relationships with those that we're serving That was a great thing to share in that Um, I would like to ask if you there's a lot of questions in the chat room If you would use the raise your hand option that way we know who's coming up next But michael since you're on muted you can go ahead and speak but again Please keep your microphones on mute because you pop up on the screen in front of the speakers. Thank you so much Go ahead michael And they were nice to meet you and I'm enjoying the conversation I'm michael craig the seed rep sick kids foundation in atlanta georgia We provide funds for family with sick kids who have exhausted insurance and other financial resources and basically just can't meet the cost of Autopocket expenses or any expenses or non covered medical care it's interesting that You're not getting The information you need from donor perfect to see if you're breaking even We use network for good And we do have sales force also. We are highly technical organization But we're able to See from our fundraising platform network for good, which is internal For fundraising volunteer and so forth To see if we can break even so you made that statement and it's it if you could see me I kind of look swiftly at you because I You know, you're using four tools monday sales for donor perfect Three tools and it kind of like um, why aren't you not getting that information from donor perfect any insights? Yeah, and I think you you you misunderstood me or I misspoke We're donor perfect. We are getting all the Numbers that we need what I was referring to in regards to explaining what a project management system is Is that a project management system allows people to talk internally? your different departments and to create every project that we have for example, I have my grant um my grant writers They all have their projects within that and they're they're following up on their tasks. They're able to Have all of that data in one place. It's told two totally different worlds with our fundraising with our Our donors the metrics within donor perfect. Those are those are completely Different systems, but the reason why we have different systems is it's just different departments If you look at it in the context of your irs 990 you have um, I'm not going to have my Uh operations using a system that's geared for our finance department. It's a totally different system they use quickbooks and that is the system that they use so for each department area, they have their own system That does not cross in with others that they run and they manage Um, and that allows them to work effectively and more efficiently Then trying to employ one system that will try to do everything for everyone We tried that and it just does not work trying to create a machine like that So in other words, there's levels to this. Yeah So alexandria alexandrina. I hope I set that name right go ahead and I'll meet yourself please Can you hear me? Yes I'm driving. So it's a little bit difficult. Um My organization, um, we've been around a long time. We've used TechSoup for a long time It's Chico a while the african dance arts and culture Um, i'm a volunteer have been for the 20 years that we've been in existence It's my give back to the community all of the different tools that you've mentioned since I've come on um It seems like a lot because I'm the main person that does everything So does it make sense to have all of these different systems? Um, I donor perfect and was it workforce? I mean, it seems like an awful lot If you're one person, I agree with you I definitely agree with you. Like I said, you have to be able to scale and each organization is completely different And so if you are a small Organization and you're able to do everything within one system That's what you invest in otherwise. You're you're all over the place. Um, and so as you that's why every Organization needs to look at the systems. They're using every two to three years To be able to to make sure that You're not going to end up with a bottleneck. Um, when it comes to the system that you have and you could effectively plan Um, I often go into tech soup to see what's new to see what is being What is now available what it can do and and if at the end of the day There is something that is being offered that will take, you know, break bridge to two systems together than that that that's a great thing to work to what But you never want to to to have too many systems if you're just one person Great. Thank you so much. Great question. And thank you for the answer. Joel Samantha. Go ahead and unmute yourself. Please Hello, thank you. This is uh, Samantha from the spca pancock county and uh, thank you guys so much for this And so question going back about the monday.com Just some clarification. So is that a You said it was a partner organization So would that be part of a 99 dollar membership with tech soup? And if not, um, what would that price point add and like what kind of features do that offer very intrigued by that? The 99 dollar, um, sale that's going to be february 15th 16th. That's for a grant station. That's for the Having access to the grant database. I'm going to look for the link. Um, in a moment gill might get to before I do For monday.com so you can see what? that is all about Yeah, and monday.com, uh, just like asana does have, um, a deep discount for Uh, nonprofits that have a secular designation and that's important to know Because we may have on here religious nonprofits that Do not qualify and so one of the things that you can look to is if you do have a religious nonprofit That does work within the Um, that whose main focus really is like my nonprofit We help everyone and anyone and so we have a secular designation and you would need a separate e in For that and that will allow you to qualify for, um, that discount. There are a few programs within texu that, um That you will need to have something like that in order to to qualify for Awesome gene you feel free to unmute yourself Yes, but I especially want to thank you for recording it because I teach school and We are frozen right now. We have no water. So that's why I can call in so I always usually listen to them afterwards and it's nice to be part of the discussion. We are a small Native nonprofit in northern Alaska started a youth founded youth directed youth run And My question is well and this goes out to other small nonprofits We are very small, but we've actually taken in more money in the past couple of years We never were over 50,000 at the master which has been over 200,000 We have some absolutely fantastic funders that really we have a good relationship with but right now We're doing an executive director search. We're searching for one more board member The city gave us a 10 year one dollar for 10 years lease on a building which we are We've got some funding for Yeah, we've been roaming around this little town forever for since 2014 without a home So we got some funding for The renovation we we are looking for more But um, I guess my question is and we don't have a CRM. I I did Learn about that. We access taproot. Oh my goodness it we were able to get quick books also through tech soup and connect with a taproot Accountant to set it all up for us and we're still in contact because I never used it before Um But I don't know what we should what we need first. I know that I am totally overwhelmed. It's basically myself I volunteered up until september and then the board started paying me um and Uh, I don't know what to do next. I I'm good with grants, but um We we apply to a na and if you're familiar with them, those are overwhelming grants But good grants, um, so I guess my question is what's the priority? We do have grant station, but I'm waiting to renew next week Really appreciate that You know and and I get confused because I hear about CRM and I we do use network for good We get for fundraisers on facebook. We get checks from them There's so many out there and I it's very confusing. I agree with the speaker that just said that so Um, I'm glad to see there's someone on here from homer um and That's my question. I guess is it so hard to know What's the priority that we need for a system and? You know, what's the hierarchy Yeah, this is this is a problem that many nonprofits have being able to understand um The technology that's out there and understand your needs and just like in anything If you're meeting with a grant writer if you're meeting with an accountant a lot of times, you're going to ask you questions about your organization and about Who you serve and wear your head and so I strongly recommend um Reaching out to someone in the technology sector to actually just sit with them Um, if you need help you could always message be able to be more than happy You know after this to to help um To help just you know guide you in in in where you're at just privately Um, but this is something that I feel like We need more people in this space, you know with like with tech soup. It's it's phenomenal having the technology But then understanding what do I need Is is usually the the the other question because there's so many choices out there Thank you, um adrian feel free to unmute yourself and ask your question, please I don't have a question that's to say but I just wanted to add because I'm a small nonprofit in the mental health space of uh, A leader of one So I just want to help and saying That you really want to make sure when you're talking about technology things like I'm a I have a technology background so I was like ahead of the game but uh, you really want to make sure that You have the capacity of the bandwidth to take on So many CRMs or tools that you're going to be using So for example, if you don't have the person like say sales force who can help you manage that or admin that That's going to be very difficult unless you have volunteers It's just going to help you and that kind of stuff You want to make sure that you have the tools that you're going to be using That you also understand what the tools are And that you have the capacity or the assets to help you manage them those are key Yeah, just want to give you a little tip on that. Yeah, great advice. Great advice. Go ahead Joel Yeah, that that is that is absolutely right on, you know, for my organization The reason why I have so many Is because I have a staff that you know a large enough staff where everyone is in their own departments using That if that if I'm the only one or it's a you know, it's three of us It would be overwhelming to have that many systems I am a sales force developer and so I've developed You know sales force and and our app Personally for our organization now sales force has a phenomenal network of of volunteers That you can actually reach out to sales force and and share about your organization and they encourage their developers their technicians to to Donate their time to help organizations with Getting set up So once you get your app built and set up You really don't need any develop future development on it other than how to use it Until you've reached a place where okay If you you've scaled up so much that now it's not doing enough for you and you may need future development Then you could reach out again to have Someone step in to help you with it Yeah, thank you Joel and I want you guys to keep in mind that Joel started small just like some of you so keep that in mind Shiretta, how are you? You can go ahead and unmute yourself. Shiretta Hello, hi. I'm doing well. How are you? Good Great great great. So my question is for a Well a small nonprofit a team of one two maybe three All part time and I know he said it's not a cookie cutter situation But are there is there a program that you would suggest for like I'm just starting out We're all part time, but we need a space to be able to kind of collaborate or share Information on different various projects If you're just starting out, I would immediately just recommend Utilizing google or microsoft Microsoft teams for example is is free Through if you get set up through tech soup teams is very powerful And you're able to have All of the different groups where you can collaborate share data It is actually a great low-cost project management tool That you could use to manage projects all within the teams platform That is something that if you'd like a demo of I could always give a demo to you just reach out to me, but Teams is a great free Low-cost solution and then you get the benefit of having Microsoft work office You know as part of your platform as well Awesome. Thank you so much Um, I know I get I got a couple of direct emails or in the chat Please email me at a simons at tech soup or because I would love to talk with you separately Thank you. She read it for your question page. How are you? Go ahead and unmute yourself Hey, Aritha. Thank you. Uh, yeah, so my question is about how to find contractors and help without being completely overwhelmed with You know like these international Whatever More focused I'm not I mean, I'm I'm not a an employer. I don't know how to do background checks or Interviews or any of that business and I just I need like good people to come and and do contract jobs Like immediately I need somebody to write press releases for example They could potentially lead into other work in communications Um This is a a little secret Um side tip that I'm going to give you but Never ever ever feel ashamed to use a service like fiber Uh, it is on tech soup. Uh, they have um, uh a discounted program But many times I need something on the fly. I need um, whether it's Um a document or it is a quick artwork that that needs to be done quickly and low cost And my team is just bottleneck but work I I go straight on fiber And I get a lot of small projects done through it. Um, it is it is a an amazing tool And low cost assets I have and and many of them are But they do phenomenal work. Um, and so Uh, you you can look at who is doing the work What if it fits the scope of your project and you can hire them right there and have it within 24 to 48 hours Well, I I just want to say I I did try fiber when I was first starting out for my um My logo and that sort of thing and I was very disappointed and I I'm willing to pay somebody good money I have the money available to pay them. So I that's what I'm kind of getting at is I want I want to narrow down the quality field That's what I'm trying to say Um, in in that case, I would recommend looking into an internship program. Um, That's that's usually a great opportunity reach out to some of the local art colleges And let them know who you are share your go and meet with with um With their admissions or guidance department and let introduce yourself and that you are looking to have some internships for students That are graduating and and need some experience and that would bring them in-house and can potentially we have one intern That actually transitioned to becoming out the executive assistant for for our organization And so you'd be surprised. Um, the level of talent that you can get through just setting up internships Awesome. That was a good one. Hi, mr. Waters. Go ahead and meet yourself So first of all Joel, how are you how are you doing? Um, I want to hear you back a little bit So let's go back to it was just three people in your organization. I know that's been like light years ago for you But three years, you know, when it was just you Yourself and maybe your shadow How did you What did you start from the very beginning? What were the core systems that you put in place because what I've heard you talk about is CRM I'm in the technology space data scientists very familiar with where you are the challenge isn't the systems the challenge is Growing the organization understanding the mission vision and values outlaying that to potential sponsors And then bringing all that information back and having to make sense for folks who are joining you What did you start with? And how did you grow it? so one of the key things I started with was To be honest having a board of three And not a large board where you can't get anything done We we literally started with a board of three like-minded people that owned the vision and and as a sales force developer I was able to immediately develop an app for what I was doing And that helped to have all of my data in one place to be able if I'm meeting with a new Sponsor or a new corporate donor I was able to pull up that information on my smartphone. I'm horrible with names And so I'm walking into that meeting and I have their data. I have their picture right on my smartphone and so Um, and then employing. Um, we used Microsoft back then to be able to To to manage all of our documents And and so you do not need to have major systems in place at all What you need to do is scale right Do not go over your head. Just get the systems that you need that But have a five-year plan of the systems you want to grow to and so a lot of times you're meeting with people They're telling you about great systems You begin to write that down and you keep that information and that research Because you know that in year two year three or four you may be able to scale into that and so At year one. I was already thinking about year five Of where I'm going and where I want to be I'm already thinking year 10 Even though we're at year seven Where I want to be and where I want to go and so by having a proper vision And looking at the technologies That are out there That's what you want to share a lot of times you run into a donor that says give me a project I don't want to give money at all to your salaries I don't want to give money to so you create a wish list Of all of the technologies that you want to have especially when you're writing grants Having a wish list so that when you are writing a grant You're actually looking at your wish list saying Here are some of the systems In your grant you're really sharing the vision of where you want to be and why you need that grant and so That is what I put into my grants and that is what I put in to I have on my on my desk Where I want to be and what are the systems so when I have a donor that says give me a project I literally tell him this is a system that we needed to help us scale We're already bottlenecking. This is the cost of it and I do not have to Pay for that system that donor writes the check To cover the cost of that system Thank you. I think that's a whole another workshop all in itself. That was a great question That was an excellent question. Thank you so much. Um, mr. Elbs. How are you? Go ahead and unmute yourself, please Good morning, everyone. Um, I'm excited And and I think this goes a little bit to mr. Warder's question also Uh, because I've been in technology as long as there's been technology really About 50 years now and one of the things that I would say well to start is And I know everybody in this room is very busy But one of the things you have to do is make time to think about this And one of the things that I think if we look at Joel He's taken time and he's planned out something Most of us we're kind of in react mode Yeah, so I really encourage each of you to like set aside an hour every week To really just play with your your toys I think one of the problems is We may have the tool we need But we only know how to use it one way. We haven't taken time To explore all of the potential of the technology that we even have Much less it's start to look at new technologies you want. So I really and I hope everybody hears this You just you have to take some time To to enjoy what you're doing to to think about What those tools are and then my second piece of advice was just The be willing to take a course And learn more about CRM or whatever And if you can't take a course just go to youtube And spend part of that hour just looking at videos that people have put up about it Again, it's just the more you know the the better this whole thing will go And and I just think sometimes We don't invest that extra time in our own development And and so especially as Joel knows technology changes so fast There's new tools. There's new, you know, what is agile and why do I need that help? What's going on in microsoft project? I thought For 19 years I taught technology At ucr extension at extension college And and I got to say Most of the people come in They know maybe 10 or 20 percent of the capability of the tools that they have They just don't even know that things are there. I was watching somebody Copy and paste something the other day while I was on a zoom meeting with them That was like, you know, you could just like a shortcut through control see right and They were like, no, I never knew that so i'm going for five steps To do what I could do with one keystroke and so Taking time to really not, you know, because these are great tools But if you're not using them properly, it's like everything is is a nail and you got a hammer Then you're not going to get the most out of them and then the last piece I think Is really feel free to ask others what they're doing I think one of the great things about this forum and the reason I keep plugging into this forum Is you got like 165 people on right now that you could ask for help So invite somebody to coffee, you know, just just like this and take like 15 minutes 20 minutes and say I'm working on something. What do you do when you hit this? You might get a answer that will really help you and I think we don't take enough advantage of The strength of the skills and and experience that we have In in a forum like this. So I just want to support Yeah, I think Um, you know, I've been on both sides. I've worked in a giant deep, you know Back when it was called data processing center And so for those of you who remember the words data processing But also it's me now, you know, I am the operations department for my company And I'm using Salesforce control and I'm going crazy, but I'm I'm determined. I'm going to beat it But on the other side of the world um I got to put time into it and and I think I don't want us to leave these meetings Thinking is just going to happen. It's going to have to be intentional investment of time And of you know, reaching out and take advantage of this network. So that's all I wanted to say today. Sorry Oh, no, that was a not drop moment Yes Look, look say thank you to john because he just gave you some keys. Go ahead Joel You know, john, I it's funny because I have a note here that I wrote down for today And I think you you really um segwayed into that Every many of us here might be sitting where in our organization. There's just a lot of chaos And we're trying to just manage chaos over and over and over and and and you know chaos happens when are when the complexity of our organizations outpace our competency And and and that's not a knock on on on us, you know, just things it are when our organization begins to grow And it becomes more complex And you're still with the same people and you're like man It is is now the complexity of that organization Has outpaced the competency that you have you bring it in all of these new systems And it's overwhelming one of the things I I did for my staff Is I invested in every staff they all have linked in learning learning as as just part of Of of one of the things we offer to them Because I want my staff to stay on top of the systems that we're using And to even branch out and to look for new things. So they have full access that we cover Just to a tremendous tool like linked in learning and I and I want to Advise you guys if you can get with your boards and say hey guys We need some more money to invest in our staff and to invest in our competency level With these new technologies at I find myself Even though I like like john Technology is my background. That's my backbone from the time I was In in middle school. I was coding games and you know Quite a long time ago to where I am today I am still learning and I still feel like I have to keep up So Do not get to the place where you're like, man, we are good We do not need you know to to invest in competency at all that that is where you would begin to sink You have to stay on top of the curve And I love that tech soup offers a lot of different services to help To help get you trained up in whether it's quick books or You know reaching out to tech soup to say hey, we need to learn some of these systems that you're offering Can you set up? You know one of these meetings that that we can have one of those partners get on To to to walk us through that platform It is it is something that I highly highly highly recommend As you're scaling Keep that that that line in sight as you scale from year to year or every five years or every decade What is that line? That you can see where chaos is going to happen and a lot of organizations when they hit chaos That's when you start losing good people and you don't want to lose good people because They they they get overwhelmed they get burnt out and and so you have to invest in them and and investing into their competency Thank you so much Joel. Please put your contact information in the chat room again Um, I want to thank everybody for being here. I especially want to thank Joel for taking out his time I'm telling you I live in the same city as Joel and this man is extremely busy The things that he does I'm telling you Just amazing and so I really appreciate you volunteering your time to share your knowledge your expertise your passion with everybody Gail Carpenter the chief business development officer here at TechSoup was on this zoom with us And you all were conversating with her. Where else do you get this? I mean gail? Thank you so much I love it when you're here is the bell. I see your hand raised I'm going to give you a 60 seconds to make your comment or act your question Again, you guys are putting thank yous in the chat room a gail put her contact in the chat room I put my contact in the chat room joe put his contact in the chat room You put your contact in the chat room. Go ahead isabel Hi, um, I'm currently a junior at christian burrows university. Um, yeah, and I'm very, um excited I just started in my internship with a company here in Memphis, Tennessee Um, I just want to know like what is the best way that I can give myself like The passion to enjoy this internship and become like the help that they need Uh, that that's awesome. I You know, because we both have things to go ahead Yeah, if you want to be uh, uh, if you want to really be a blessing in that internship Continue to learn Continue to ask questions continue to you know, the best interns are the ones that take initiative Are the ones that don't wait to be told to do but are the ones that are actually Contributing to solutions You know find areas within that organization that you can see man This can be better And contribute speak up a lot of times you you know interns feel like like you have nothing to contribute or you feel overwhelmed just Just go for it because our interns transform our organization Awesome. Thank you for that joe Listen everybody as you're taking care of the world make sure you take time to take care of yourself And I'll see you on the next webinar. Bye. Bye everybody