Community IT Innovators. Established 1993. Serving social mission organizations with integrated technology services you can trust.

Like a lot of organizations, CITI probably talks more about practicing what we preach than actually doing it. So it was a pleasure to take action on our online strategy.  I sat down with our Online Strategist, Glennette Clark, a few months back and was the client for a change.  I’m sure it will resonate with many of you web managers when I let you know our website isn’t as perfect as we’d want it.  When you work on websites it seems you always see the stuff you need to fix and never the stuff that works right.  And a website – even a small one – can be such a huge project there is a real tendency to want to load up the content and let it be, despite knowing an integrated website is the best way to deliver content.  That is, a website where the content is not an after-thought but fully integrated in a marketing strategy that includes social media, press, and community, where all the parts reinforce the whole.

As a consulting firm, CITI knows our clients need to know what we do and how to get in touch with us, and our website has reflected that and not much more.  But as we advocate for our clients to do better at integrating their online presence with their long term community, fundraising, and mission goals, it has become clear that CITI needs to do a better job at that, ourselves.

Glennette’s consulting sessions started out with some standard questions and a questionnaire.  She briefed us on her obsession with measurements – explaining that even if you know where you want to go, if you don’t know how you are doing along the way then you’re going to end up somewhere else.  For every goal we thought of, Glennette challenged us to come up with a metric.  For several items, she helped us see that the metric that we were looking for wasn’t a web metric at all, and that we would have to delve into our internal sales database instead.  It was one of those exercises where you feel so righteous after the workout that you wonder why you put it off for so long.

I admit, one reason I delayed starting this project was nerves about everything we weren’t doing – either because I didn’t quite know what we needed, or just hadn’t ever got around to it.  Glennette was reassuring that everyone starts somewhere – the thing is to just start.  She didn’t assume I knew anything about analytics but didn’t baby talk it either. I’d been looking at our web stats online from time to time but not in any organized way.  It was a revelation to start pulling our web statistics into a usable report format we could share internally.

One interesting fact is the number of you who come to the CITI site searching for “online strategies” – welcome!  So you know you should be more organized in this discipline too.  After our initial meeting with Glennette we went off on our own for a month and worked on next steps from the action plan we’d created – immediate, short term, and longer term tasks to help organize our efforts.  We decided to focus initially on creating the monthly metrics report, and updating our keywords and metatags in the interim.  Next steps: social media strategies and converting the knowledge from our stats into content and findability.

If you’d like to catch up with Glennette yourself, she’ll be presenting on Wednesday the 19th at a webinar from 1-2pm:  The 10 Second Rule: Optimizing Your Website for Donations

Are you interested in how to better manage technology projects in your nonprofit or as a consultant to nonprofits? CITI is partnering with Aspiration to host the third Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, July 22nd and 23rd, 2009. The first two events in New York and Oakland were big successes and very well received by participants.

Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects DC will examine the tools and best practices that help nonprofits achieve successful technology solutions – whether web sites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications.

Interactive sessions and demos will allow participants to compare processes, tools, successes, and lessons learned. We will discuss areas such as team collaboration, project planning, software selection, migration, and project roll-out, and map out the software tools – from project management packages to collaborative communication to issue tracking and more – that support successful technology projects.

Aspiration’s skill in facilitating practitioner knowledge combined with CITI’s experience in managing nonprofit technology projects will contribute to an informal, collaborative, and information-rich event.

Complete details are at

http://www.aspirationtech.org/events/mntp-dc

and you can register directly at

http://tinyurl.com/lsf53z

What’s On the Agenda?

The agenda will be designed specifically to ensure participants interact with and learn from each other, while also providing a solid grounding in essential topics. Some of the sessions will include:

• Anatomy of a Well-Managed Technology Project: Drawing from case studies good, bad and ugly, this session will focus on key aspects of successful project management.
• What Should a Web Site Cost? Using anecdotal data and participant input, we will explore costing for different types of web sites, from simple “brochure-ware” sites to custom, database-backed applications and points in between.
• Using Wikis for Effective Collaboration: This session will map out best practices and techniques for successfully utilizing wiki technology ((see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) for project collaboration. Also discussed will be when not to use wikis, and when more structured information sharing tools are advisable.
• Managing Consultants and Dealing with Vendors: This peer sharing workshop will invite participants to compare their processes and tactics for managing critical project relationships that fall outside of organizational boundaries.
• Software Share: Basecamp, MS Project, DreamTeam and more – Nonpprofit practitioners will provide a variety of 10-15 minute software demos to allow participants to see the packages in real-life situations and compare the strengths and weaknesses.

See the full description of the event at

http://www.aspirationtech.org/events/mntp-dc

for more sessions. Or let us know what you’d like to talk about – the agenda will be designed collaboratively up to and during the event.

Who Should Come?

This event will focus on growing the community of nonprofit technology project managers by providing support to those currently practicing as project managers, recruiting and offering support to those new to (or bewildered by) this craft, and creating a space for the “accidental project managers” to share their stories, discover their allies, and grow into more “intentional” project managers. A significant part of the event will be built around mentoring relationships; experienced individuals with knowledge and stories to share will collaborate with participants who want to learn more.

What Are They Saying?

The feedback from the first two MNTP events was quite enthusiastic. Just a few of the comments included:

• “The event was very energizing, and renewed my enthusiasm for tackling some complex issues”
• “This gathering will inform everything I do in IT from here on.”
• “I used to be super intimidated – now I feel more empowered about what I do know and how to find answers to what I don’t”
• “It was a fun, casual, open, responsive learning environment for non-techies”
• “I learned that I’m not alone, and I can learn from a rich community of people facing similar challenges”
• “I was impressed with all that happened – it was amazing”

How Do I Get Involved?

Interested in hearing more? View the full description of the event online at http://www.aspirationtech.org/events/mntp-dc.

Ready to register? The 2-day event is $195 for those from organizations with budgets under $5,000,000, $295 for those from organizations with budgets over $5,000,000. We have a limited number sliding scale and scholarship seats available as well.

You can Register Online via check or credit card at http://tinyurl.com/lsf53z

Questions? Comments? Want to be added to a low-volume email list for event reminders and key dates? Have a burning desire to be there but just can’t afford it? Contact Aspiration at mntp@aspirationtech.org.

Expanding…

Community IT Innovators will be donating 10 hours of strategy consulting to PowerMundo, the winning team in the William James Foundation’s Socially Responsible Business Plan competition. On Friday, March 20, the William James Foundation hosted a finalist competition and awards ceremony, where the top three finalists competed. The final three teams each selected from a pool of prizes in order of finish.  We are happy to be one of the top choices of the top finisher, and one of more than 20 socially responsible businesses helping the foundation grow the next generation of social entrepreneurs.  We are excited to work with PowerMundo to provide technology and online strategy consulting to help them reach more communities.

PowerMundo grabbed the crowd’s attention and impressed the judges with their business plan to market and distribute affordable, sustainable gadgets to bring solar-powered light, radio communications, and other modern conveniences to poor communities in Peru, with the products distributed and sold by members of the communities they serve.  The business will make available clean technologies to replace kerosene lamps and indoor cooking fires, improving the quality of life for people in developing areas and reducing pollution. They will work with micro-finance institutions to create economic opportunities for individuals interested in selling the goods. Michael Callahan, principal, did a great job of telling their story, personalizing their business idea with the story of Maria, a vendor in a community in Peru where they tested their business plan, and showing a variety of the solar-powered lights and other tools that they make available.

Two other finalists, Black Oak Venture Capitalists, who plan to conserve agricultural land as a financial investment opportunity, and First Earth, who plan to support indigenous communities and sustainable agriculture, presented their plans as well. Seeing the finalists, panel discussions on social entrepreneurship, and talking with other socially responsible business leaders made for an inspiring and enjoyable occasion.