Shared Memory June 21, 2007

There is a tragic waste of talent, time and resources in many nonprofits. It results from the lack of distributed knowledge tools. Your donor-constituent-friend database should be immediately accessible by more than the gifts entry staffer or the development director.

For our users, the solution lies in putting GiftWorks on the desks of other development staff, the CEO, the community outreach liason, and your volunteer coordinator.

The cost is fully justifiable. Lets start at the simple end of this equation: More stations mean less paper and time wasted. For example, the time a CEO spends writing down and emailing a simple address change means he or she could have just as easily entered it into GiftWorks, saving notepaper and all the staffer time on that task. Similarly, it occurs every time a CEO requests a donation report or SmartList.  Of course, don't discount the time lag that interupts the CEO's thought process because the data is not yet in hand.

I am not picking on CEO's. I've seen some who didn't want to be anywhere near that database...and others who insisted on having their own log-in to a system that was easy to use. But I can observe that, invariably, the advancement effort was more productive in the latter camp. That better performance, by the way, has nothing to do with the increased time and paper-use efficiency. It resided in shared memory.

When your nonprofit has a constituent database that is actively shared across the leadership spectrum, good things can happen more easily. For starters, the data grow richer faster...there is more detail in donor records, more complete contact records, more complete mailing records. more opportunity for the creation of shared SmartLists that function as interactive work management tools.

Because the data is "at hand" donors will get better responses from you on the phone and you'll have that detailed rich data to help you knowledgeably plan cultivation and solicitation strategies for your major donors. Just as important, you will have a place to record what that plan is so that information gets out of someone's head and into a place where it can be shared...and improved! Intelligently shared information gets improved.

One of our Consultant Partners, Ruthellen Rubin, recently remarked that this "shared intelligence" was absolutely necessary for building a sustainable nonprofit. Well said! Help your organization build a legncy of information.

Comments

I totally agree with the diffusion of knowledge. I feel strongly, however, based on years of using such databases, that the ability to add and edit should be limited to one or two people. Jotting a note to be added takes less time than sorting out bad info in a data base. It also avoids doing harm. I would allow the addition of free from note - just keep the CEO, marketer, etc., out of the data fields

Thanks, Mac, for that point of view. I've had that experience too. You point about the free-form notes (I'd include follow-up tasks, SmartList creation and report generation in GiftWorks) is very well placed.
But we could argue that with the general increase in technological expertise we'd be better off to replace limitations with appropriate training or the creation of porcess/style manuals. I base this conclusion on the premise that if we really want to maximize the use and utility of infomation systems we must empower the people who need the information to feed the information.
Your thoughts?