 I want to say welcome and thank you for joining us today for our 400th episode of the nonprofit show and we have one of our sponsors joining us as our guest Sasha Lewis who also is a CFRE with Moves Management Consulting and Sasha is going to talk to us today about why your data management is failing. So stay with us to hear what Sasha has as she's got four main reasons why this is failing. So we're really thrilled to have this conversation with us today. Thank you Julia Patrick for creating this wonderful platform. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and because of her we are 400 episodes strong and continue to move into our 2022 calendar already. I'm Jarrett Ransom so honored to continue to serve alongside you as the co-host. Hopefully she'll keep me for 400 more. I'm also the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group and really enjoy these conversations thanks to the continued support of our presenting sponsors. You see Moves Management there that of course is Sasha Lewis's company. Many of these companies have been with us through these you know almost now two years. We are really grateful to have their continued investment in the nonprofit sector and truly in these episodes. So without the continued support of our presenting sponsors we would not have these thought leader conversations again at 400 strong. So Sasha welcome and thanks for joining us today for this milestone episode. Always exciting to be back and even more so knowing that it is a milestone episode. Thanks for having me. It's really cool. You know Sasha we knew you were part of our tribe. I had never met you. I think Jarrett had met you and you came on the nonprofit show as sketched as it was and you made the comment hey ladies we need to make data sexy again and Jarrett and I freaked out because we thought that was one of the funniest things but we thought it was true. We thought it was true and so we loved what you've said. We loved your tenor and your approach to some of these concepts and so we thought when we would bring you back for the 400th episode maybe to talk about this issue of why management the management of your data is not working and failing if you will and so we've always thought of you as somebody who came at things with a different lens and so we thought wow maybe you're the right one to have this discussion with. So start off with number one for us so we can really get into this why is our data management failing us. This is such a great topic and it comes up so much I get inundated it feels like now daily with this topic of what do I do how do I fix this how do we do this better and you know when it starts out with the basics the number one thing for most organizations as to why their data management process is failing is just simply the lack of procedure documents. We have this mindset of well what if somebody gets hit by a bus well I have now in the last 30 days I know somebody from years before at a prior job that got hit by a bus and I just talked to another person that 20 years ago got hit by a bus so the expression has some truth to it and so we need to have these these things documented take your most basic thing which is your gift entry procedure if that is not a document that anybody can pick up at your organization I don't care if it's a volunteer all the way up to your executive director and be able to jump in and assist with gift entry during a high peak time there is an issue with your organization your data management is started with your your procedures and those most basic ones such as your gift entry constituent updates if you pull the same type of mailing list every year for an annual reporter excuse me or a direct mail what are those documented criteria so that each and every time we're not having to recreate the bar or figure out what we're doing that we have something that we can go back as our foundation and build upon. So for me the number one reason why the data management is failing in nonprofits is a lack of documentation of the current procedures that are happening even if they're not good procedures they are still your procedures so please document them so that we know what they are. So I have a quick question because I I do know or I feel recently a lot of organizations are considering moving CRMs so how does this documentation carry over into the next process and procedures first I'm assuming having them is a great start but how would you how would you recommend organizations manage the procedures from one system into another? To be honest documenting them as they were to before before the switch and then after because a lot of times they translate it's merely saying okay this step means this step in this database or this step means this in that system now what I will caution any of the audience and those that are you know on with us today is if you're considering a CRM shift and change because it's not working for you or you can't get this XYZ thing accomplished look first to make sure your database is actually configured right because it may be that it does do those things for you but your data is not in the appropriate place to make those features work so before you jump ship fix the ship first then jump ship. That is one thing you have said in a previous episode that has stuck with me and I believe it was something about you know many many organizations do jump ship because they say well this CRM doesn't have all the bells and whistles that I need and I believe you said something like uh I'm not sure you know what bells and whistles truly exist. I remember you said that early on and it was like uh for me. Yeah absolutely there's a few systems when I hear someone say oh it doesn't work I'm like yeah it's not the system it's you and you can tell because there are some systems that are truly you know what we'll call catalogs they have amazing donor database tools they have amazing front end tools for engagement and then there's some that are very basic so there's a wide spectrum but going back to that number one part having the documentation for whatever they are will help you make an assessment that's informed versus reactive reactive and you can sit there and say okay we've documented these procedures it's not hitting our needs for these parts let's now look for one that will accomplish and help us accomplish those needs. Okay so that's an overall framework that I love now reason number two does it get any better? I think it gets better but that's definitely in my lens um for me number two is actually not having a plan so your data management needs a plan a plan is everything related to how the organization is going to function and fundraise and operate in the year to come so let's take our annual fundraising plan for example we're all getting ready for 2022 we know we're going to have direct emails we know we're going to have those combination email direct mail you know strategies what data plan and data management plan have you put into place to make sure your website's up and running that your gift forms are collecting the correct data that you thought through the strategy so that your your data team your IT team isn't at the end of the year going well you're trying to institute a new like giving platform and it's two weeks towards the end of the you know main campaign and you're wanting me to do entire build up and development it happens so much to these IT uh our delta excuse me data management professionals as we get asked to do things that should take months of deployment and planning to do in two to three week times because there's a new strategy that we're doing right now and so we really need to pause and say what's this organization doing in the next year again for our development for our programs for our volunteers and does our technology resources at this time match up and if not let's make a plan to start saying okay during our slower times we're going to address this infrastructure build out you know maybe it's changing uh how your volunteers are interacting with the organization so we have better data in our donor database so when we're doing those management and fundraising we've got better information but again it's that thoughtful intentional planning ahead versus just expecting your IT and data management team to just respond to whatever new idea uh came up um that last week so not only create a plan but be proactive in your planning so you can forecast okay where do we need our system to be what reports what filters um so that we can be proactive in planning for the next quarter because I can imagine right now Sasha and I'm curious if you can tell us you know there's a lot happening in Q4 but we should have maybe uh been preparing Q2 for Q4 right and then now looking at okay not only are we wrapping up our biggest fundraising season of every year it are always it is always in these final months of each and every year but we also need to start preparing for Q1 and Q2 is that correct like being proactive into what do we need to do now for for Q1 and 2? Absolutely and part of it is when you start building in and I'm slightly jumping out of the the list here but when you build in a good data plan and specifically thinking to the fundraising plan your appeals your segments your strategies those should already be in your system based off of this year's engagement every donation should have a strategy associated with it so in theory you should be able to export or get a list of all of those strategies check off the ones that should because most of them happen year over year and then kind of already know your plan and then you can look ahead and say okay we're thinking about end of year 2022 we want to do a new campaign are my ducks in a row because I will tell you right now as much as I've been trying to work with you know the clients that I work with on let's get ahead of the game I can feel it already happening that oh yeah we need to do this for the end of the year we need to do this for the end of the year and it's not the it's not the best plan because what we then produce for our donors in our audience is not as good a quality as it could have been it works but it could have been better and so for me it also makes it easier for fundraising because we're not already dealing with that panic it's an it's an intention it's something we're choosing to do versus having to find the time for and so yes if you're not thinking about what your organization's slower season is and how you can capitalize on that time to get ready for the next busy season it's something I very much encourage you to think about right now I love that you said that I think that's just a you know that's just overall good thinking okay so then why is your data management failing reason number three so this one to talk about it now this one makes me feel like a bit of a broken record because I bring it up every single time we have this conversation and I'm going to continue to bring it up it is the lack of human capital we do not have enough people in our industry for this position we're all now recognizing that we do data managers data managers are much more than your data entry professionals your data entry professionals are incredibly important they're the individuals that are making sure procedures are being followed to a tee that everything's getting documented that the transactions are moving forward that workload is very different than a data manager a data manager is anticipating the needs of the organization they're looking for places to optimize how do we make something more efficient how do I take this need or this new tech tool that's out on the market that you know the development team is wanting to deploy how do I bring that in implement it and make it work I mean it's just an incredible a lot to consider and right now we barely have enough data entry professionals and when I'm looking at just the community in which I work I can think of 10 open positions right now and just the organizations that I know that are your data entry data manager roles and again we're lacking human capital so what I'll go back to say is if you have someone in your organization that is demonstrating any kind of capacity in this area hold on to them and start treating them really well because your colleagues and your peers at the other organizations if they find out they're going to come take them from you it's that oh it is it's it's and it's an I would say it's intense is the best way to describe it right now from my viewpoint because I see it from so many organizations everybody knows that this is the gatekeeper which is your data manager your data entry team to making things easier for the organization and they all want to do a COVID made that very clear you have to have these systems in place and so you know moving forward it's it's the people part of it and so again if your organization is not thinking about or does not have plans to hire this role start thinking now because even if you're posting a position now it's going to take you six nine 12 months just to find someone and you're probably going to have to look outside of your area in order to get a qualified candidate hate to be a bit of a bearer bad news but when we talk about what's really impacting the industry this human capital need is critical Sasha where do we find data managers so what I love that you just said is these aren't just your data data entry you know professionals are individuals these are truly managers like they have the the fortitude to consider you know the future and where do we find these individuals well that's kind of the challenge right now that I've been struggling with and I think part of it is is it would be wonderful if we had these data managers that had a development or fundraising background specifically in most cases because you need to understand the why why does this matter to the frontline fundraising team that we have salutations correct and we're not using dear friend and this letter why does it matter that all of the transactions at this donor donor gave are accurate so when we end the annual statement it makes sense so there's there's there's more than just data in its true sense of being data and so where we're looking at where I see you know industry looking is outside the nonprofit sector we're starting to look at for-profit data analytics individuals and for-profit data individuals in those roles I think that's where we're going to be looking and it's an opportunity then to train up and recognize that their skills are going to take some time to shift let's say for example you take a true data analytics person that is just focusing on data analytics their job is not to design how to do something better their job is to look at what they see in front of them and find us and interpret the data and tell you a story about it and so if you're hiring a data analytics person to jump into your data management role they're not necessarily going to have that skill set they've got a great technology and data background but you're going to have to take that time to help train them up into shifting what they're looking at which is all of my data is here for me to then think about to how do I design the data so that I then can evaluate it different skill sets but again you know we're going to have to start working and really intentionally focusing on these roles within our industry to help train up those that are trying to fill in the roles from other related industries let me ask you this question is that somebody that could be a part-time like a consulting type of entity or do you see that management piece of being somebody that's going to have to be close if not full-time so what I've always said to my clients it's always an honor to be there but hopefully one day you won't need me because you'll have a full-time person in-house the difference of a full-time person in-house doing these things is night and day your revenue generation is incredibly different because rather than spending all of this time trying to make up or your leadership team trying to pull a board report or make something you know that should be very quick takes weeks to accomplish somebody in this role cannot only save the organization tens of thousands of dollars they can create revenue streams for tens of thousands of dollars and so to me one of the most important roles that you can plan for in your organization is this role because it's not just about pulling a query or running a report you're truly thinking through how do I create engagement opportunities so that as donors are connecting with us whether it's the website or at an event that we have a data plan in place to work with them in today's world because you know when I started 20 years ago we didn't do all of this via email and phone calls now majority of it is done that way because that's how our donors engage that's how they connect and so we have to have these tools in place so I hope that answered the question and I didn't get too far up to answer no it's good because it helps me kind of put in alignment what what this person would be doing and I think that leads us to you know number four which is a pretty big concept and I want to spend a little bit more time on it because what do you see as one of the main reasons why our data management is failing so this is a one that I like to be very candid about and be very direct on you know for the most part I'm more typically speaking to the nonprofit fundraising team I think in a lot of cases we get a few other audience members but the development team the fundraising team I feel like at this point in time recognizes the value of data clearly it's understood it's in need where I am finding extreme conflict and I will call it extreme conflict is the leadership at the top if they're not a development or fundraising based leader they don't understand the value of this data and so it's not important it's the least valued thing to be working on in the organization and that's the problem because then you're expecting your development team to raise millions of dollars and increase their goals five ten twenty percent year over year and yet you're not evaluating the tools that are going to be their gatekeeper to success and then as leadership team you get frustrated when the dollars aren't coming in the door and I'm sitting there going well you're still working on an archaic system from you know years ago that you've not invested in an upgrade in two years well what did you expect and so what it really is at this point is helping to find a way to break that barrier in the nonprofit industry with our leadership team that donor data technology data all of these data pieces aren't something that we can just throw aside and think about at the end of the year when we need to pull an annual report that these are things that are important to the critical or critically important to your organization's success today most certainly tomorrow and into the future and so for me what I see the biggest challenge as to why data management is filling in the nonprofit sector it's because of the lack of understanding and the lack of value from the top up where are those organizations value data it is transformative what happens to the everybody team members start working together internal conflicts go away and it is truly a night and day experience when we have leadership support from the top versus what I call transactional support well yeah keep doing what you're doing but we don't really care that's different like that leader that's in it that's driving and saying everybody use the data let's work together I mean they do it's amazing sorry it's fun those are the fun organizations to work with because they're working for challenges and when they come up with a data challenge it's not something that stops everybody from moving it's oh all right what are we doing how do we fix this and what tool can we you know uncover now that's going to give us something even greater to work with and that's the opportunity at hand yes I do acknowledge that that's an overwhelming amount of work to get these going but when you get past that part it is really really fun and really cool what happens from a data perspective from what you can do from a donor engagement standpoint the reports that come out I mean one of the coolest things I love you know through the work that I do is when we can turn on like a board report metrics report that's on demand and nobody has to work for it and at like seconds they can go in and there's your board report and you don't even have to ever run your numbers and because you've audited them they're matching up and like people start to love their job again you know this is a very challenging role and we do a lot for sometimes not a lot of recognition and so if we can take away this angst that is truly surrounded in our our data and make the data sexy in the sense that it's something that we value and it's fun and we're excited to use it you can transform your organization in so many ways and the revenue dollars are it is a clear indicator of you can impact your your dollars by changing your data structure and putting a focus in on data management I have seen organizations truly go from good to great because of of them really knowing their data and using their data I see all too often Sasha where you know I might be doing a development assessment and I'll say well give me the last three years of numbers for x y and z reports and they're like well we don't have that so clearly they're not using their data they're not there it's no manager and one of your previous episodes you also said you know and it comes back to your number three the lack of human capital is that oftentimes we place this role on someone and we just say here you go here's the manual from the company have at it and we don't invest in that training and the the true you know knowledge that this individual needs because perhaps number four it's not valued at that leadership level it's not valued at the top and therefore there's no investment of training and knowledge to truly truly utilize utilize this I wanted to ask you if we are experiencing this lack of human capital and that's the truth across the nation right now with almost any industry in any sector is this data management role I know we said you know a consultant could absolutely come in is this something that we could really bring someone on board in a remote position so they could be with us full-time but they don't necessarily have to be in our local community is that an option right now as we consider you know utilizing those professionals that truly are data managers is that possible absolutely honestly if they're not doing your straight gift entry or you're able to work through you know the the deposit process that data manager is a high-level thinker they can join meetings via zoom in fact that's what I do quite a bit with my clients is I serve as their data manager I'm there to sit in on interviews with other you know when they're trying to fill these positions I sit in leadership team meetings to talk about strategy and so the answer is yes I will still always say eventually fire your consultant hire somebody full-time because that is still 99% of the time the best option but no having someone remote having you know a leader if you're able to find a consultant that's able to support you absolutely because even that difference of just a few hours a month of a thought partner in this field can have dramatic differences on your organization to go back briefly and I know we're running out of time we talked about that value of the data plan and what we're doing I also go back to that value of leadership and recognizing the need for a plan and what their data is because we also need to reevaluate are the procedures that we've inherited accurate I think I've shared before I worked with a client we're within the first setting down time of working together we identified a procedure that took them four business days a month to accomplish this was inherited by them it was something that they've been doing for I think six years prior to that it was done for many years because that was the inherited procedure and knowing the system that we are using I was able to very quickly realize and say well there's actually a built-in tool for that and now it's like a 20 minute process a month so we went from four business days to 20 minutes in a month that's a cost savings and can you imagine how much more money we could save and now what this individual is able to do with those three out you know three extra business days a month each you know all year long so your data management is a lot about saving money just as much as it is about making money for your nonprofit wow amazing we have a guest coming on in a couple of weeks and he is from a large a national cpa firm and he uh he says he said julia one of my things I think is we need to start looking at ourselves in the nonprofit sector as technology businesses you know and if we can start to think that way we will change the way we serve our clients the way we communicate with our donors the way we work with our our staff because that is where we are going it's where we have been on that trajectory so it's really kind of an interesting mind shift for so many of us that have been using the same standards absolutely I do think it's going to change our industry quite a bit in the years to come yes what a shake up you know if I had a crystal ball and maybe I did because I did say you know we have been do a shake up and I'm seeing this uh you know so many people are thinking with their disruptive hat on and I say that as a compliment because to me disruption is not a negative right disruption is thinking of instead of this three or four day process to pull this report or do this whatever you know process that needs to be done how might we do this differently and to have someone that brings that knowledge and that you know ability to think outside the previous process that's been inherited because I think we all know that the nonprofit sector has um constantly you know subscribe to the that's how we've always done it motto and it's time to like just let's let's sunset that right that's what we also say let's just sunset that motto so thank you fasha this has been phenomenal um you always come to us with such great insight and expertise I know that I will be visiting uh this particular episode again because you've dropped so many um just sage items that are critical critical to each and every of our quarters throughout the year right now we're in q4 uh again really really hectic season of fundraising and we really need our data management to do what we need it to do so thank you Sasha it's been my pleasure hey here's Sasha's information Sasha's one of those guests that we always get a lot of comments when she's on and I just want to acknowledge just before we um move on today chris writes great points about a data manager role thank you Sasha thanks chris that's awesome hey Sasha has been with us from day one we're so excited to be able to share her information as brilliant as she is she only has so many hours in the day imagine that so um she kind of witnessed to us in the beginning that um her time is pretty well booked up but I want to make sure that you know where she is and how to get a hold of her because she truly is a gem in our sector she knows the nonprofit sector and she knows the data management sector and putting those two together magical things happen so if you want her for next year be proactive and reach out to her now good idea be proactive it's true be thinking forward hey I'm Julia Patrick I've been joined by my nonprofit nerd Jarrett Ransom the nonprofit nerd um we are so delighted that you have been with us we want to share with you quickly before we go we are conducting our second annual nonprofit show viewer survey this really will take it should take no more than three minutes it helps us to figure out what type of information is valuable to you with a show again 400 episodes we have so many more topics to cover and we're already booking into the new year of 2022 but we do want to hear from you so check us out you can get to us get this report through our social media through our daily emails that we send our viewers who've registered for that you can connect with us on social media and then use this bitly link the nonprofit show survey 2021 we definitely need to know what you're thinking so that we can be at our best again we are at our best because of our sponsors thank you so much to all of them we've been here for 400 episodes strong which is really an amazing thing yeah thank you so much it's been it's been such a wonderful journey uh Sasha thank you for joining us you know monthly not only as a sponsor but as a guest and again to all of our sponsors and all of our viewers so 400 episodes strong today here we are middle is it middle of October we're leaning towards the end already almost end so thank you as we do with every show we like to remind you to stay well so you can do well join us back tomorrow it'll be the 401st episode