The Tech Savvy Nonprofit Gretchen DeVault

Did you know that your nonprofit organization could get a Google Ad Grant that provides $10,000 every month of in-kind advertising from Google Ads? Imagine the impact! In this episode, we are joined by Google Ads expert and consultant Kristina Cutura. Kristina shares how nonprofits can use Google Ads to further their mission, how to apply for a Google Ad Grant, challenges and successes she's seen with clients that have received the grant and navigating the recent Google Ad Grant policy changes.
Kristina worked at Google in 2002 when AdWords was still in its infancy.  She was part of Google’s first optimization team formed to help clients understand how to manage and optimize their accounts. Kristina left Google in 2009. During her last few years with the company, she worked mainly in training, teaching internal Googlers and agencies and resellers about AdWords.
An Overview of Google Ads Google Ads (previously known as Google Adwords) is a way to promote your product or services on Google and other websites that are part of Google’s network. Google allows you to advertise your website on google.com, Google properties such as Google Maps and YouTube, and on its search and display partners. The Google Ads network reaches more than 90% of internet users.
The key benefits of Google Ads marketing are reach, relevance and ROI. You can track every aspect of your Google Ads marketing campaign, from the number of ad impressions to the number of clicks and signups, donations, newsletter subscriptions, and more. This level of accountability makes it especially attractive to businesses who have limited marketing budgets.
How Can Nonprofit Use Google Ads? When users search for your organization or an organization like yours, do you show up in the search results? When people realize they want or need something, they turn to search. Each search represents an opportunity for nonprofits looking to influence the customer journey. 
Nonprofits can use Google Ads to:
raise awareness about their organization promote their content and engage users nurture relationships increase their donations Google Ads allows you to control your message and offer. In addition to asking for donations, many nonprofits have tons of great content they can market through Google. For example, you could promote your free eBook, courses, or other online educational materials to build a relationship. Many nonprofits I work with will offer free content in exchange for email signups, and obtaining that email address give you the chance to start nurturing a lead that could later turn into support or a donation.
Google Ad Grants for Nonprofits Google grants $10,000/month in free Google Ads to qualifying nonprofits.
The grants allow nonprofits to show ads on google.com. They can not be used to run display campaigns, but many nonprofits set-up a separate account when they are interested in testing outside of the grant limitations.
There are five steps to submitting your Google Ad Grants application:
See if you’re eligible (based in a country where Google Ad Grants is available and that you hold a valid charity status) Apply for a Google for Nonprofits account Enroll in Google Ad Grants Create a Google Ads account Submit your account for review Common Issues with Google Ad Grants Kristina commonly sees nonprofits experience one of three main issues:
The nonprofit spends only a small fraction of its allotted $10,000/month The nonprofit has issues keeping its accounts compliant. Many are so busy they don’t even notice when an account has been suspended. The nonprofit doesn't know how to properly roll out strategy to maximize traffic and fundraising. A Google Ad Grant Success Kristina recently started working with a nonprofit with an existing Google Ads Grants account. They were spending less than a $1,000/month out of the $10,000 grant and had $0 in donations. In the first month after they started working together, the nonprofit's click through rate jum

In this episode, we talk with Brian Rosenbaum, Engagement Manager at United Way of Greater Los Angeles about leveraging technology to engage volunteers. Brian is also Board Chair of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network Los Angeles. 
Brian began his career in social work. During grad school, Brian realized his "strengths and passions are in building and improving roads, rather than repairing individual cars." So, he shifted to the nonprofit sector where he focuses on volunteer management and community engagement. With the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Brian oversees a year-round calendar of signature volunteer opportunities and coordinates custom volunteer opportunities for corporate partners.
How the United Way of Greater Los Angeles is Leveraging Technology to Engage Volunteers Volunteer Portal A microsite, built using HandsOnConnect software Integrates with Salesforce Custom landing pages (co-branded, secure pages) Matches volunteers to opportunities Elevates United Way as a philanthropic concierge for corporate partners DIY Donation Drive Toolkits Created toolkits for food and college supplies drives for first-time college students Volunteers can access and execute drives themselves Toolkits include step-by-step processes: how to prepare, recruit, deliver donations and recap Registration tracks interest in the program Outreach resources in toolkits include email templates, social media images, flyers, etc. Post-event summary tracks the impact of the program Plan to build additional toolkits in the future  Why Use Technology? People are hungry to make a difference, but they don’t know how People are busy People can make a tangible difference where ever they are By putting resources online, people can access them anytime and anywhere and know they're connecting with opportunities that have been vetted by the United Way Development department can pitch these resources as products Take an upfront initial investment, but then almost runs itself How Did the United Way Build Its Online Toolkits? Follow the example of other organizations who are using toolkits Think through what you would personally need to promote the volunteer opportunity Where do you get storage boxes? How long should a drive last? How will you recruit volunteers? Once developed, beta test internally. What did you miss? About Brian Rosenbaum, MSW, CVA Brian Rosenbaum, MSW, CVA, is a California native with more than a decade of nonprofit experience. He earned his BA in Psychology and Spanish at UCLA and his MSW at Columbia University, with an emphasis on program development and community organizing. As Engagement Manager for United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Brian oversees United Way’s year-round calendar of volunteer and engagement opportunities, as well as coordinating corporate volunteer engagement events. He also serves as Board President for Young Nonprofit Professionals Network Los Angeles, leading an all-volunteer board that works to support, connect, and empower emerging mission-driven professionals in LA. In his spare time, Brian can be found running, cooking, or gardening.
You can find Brian online at: www.unitedwayla.org
Resources http://volunteer.unitedwayla.org
https://www.unitedwayla.org/en/get-involved/volunteer/customized-volunteering-opportunities
https://www.unitedwayla.org/en/get-involved/volunteer/diy-canned-food-drive/
https://www.unitedwayla.org/en/get-involved/volunteer/diy-college-survival-drive/
HandsOnConnect
HomeWalk—May 18

Building on our previous conversation about CRM with Ashley Faison, in this episode we're talking about data leadership with Tracy Van Solkema. Tracy is the Research and Data Services Specialist at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. When it comes to the topic of using data to advance the work of your organization, you'd be hard-pressed to find a person more passionate about this topic than Tracy. 
Why is a CRM or donor database important for a nonprofit or foundation? Shared institutional knowledge – ensures the documentation of important data and knowledge from long-time employees Less fear of organizational change – allows for easier staff transitions and keeps the work moving forward in someone's absence, addressing the old 'what happens if you're hit by a bus?' scenario Access to information – provides all staff access to the same information even if they are off-site or at a different office Workflow improvements – reminders and more can lead to more efficient processes Strengthens relationships – the data helps facilitate relationships and gives insights on how to engage donors and prospects. It's the starting point to effectively creating a strategy for both fundraising and marketing Tracy emphasizes CRM (Customer or Constituent Relationship Management technology) is a key differentiator. An Excel spreadsheet can work as a database just storing data. However, what it can't do is manage relationships well. CRM goes to the next level, allowing an organization to manage relationships, analyze and report on data, and create data-driven insights.
Defining data and common data points to track   In this context, Tracy defines data the information you store about your donors, prospects, volunteers, and the data related to how they interact with your organization.
Common Data Points: Biographical information – name, address, phone number, email address, gender, etc. How is the person connected to your organization? Gift history Less Common Data Points: How was a gift solicited? Was a gift in response to a specific appeal? How was the gift made (mailed check or online)? Has the donor attended recent events? Interactions with staff and the qualitative content of those interactions. Every donor has a story! How does an organization decide what data to track? Tracy recommends ensuring your basic biographical data is tracked consistently as a starting point. This means ensuring you have data entry processes and procedures in place for what needs be entered and how it is entered in your CRM.
When it comes to tracking additional data, Tracy starts with the end in mind. She asks, how will we use this data? Will it inform our fundraising or marketing strategy? If not, maybe it's not necessary. She also suggests not wasting time tracking a data point you can get from other data (e.g. tracking current donor when this information is obvious by their gift history).
Tracy lives by a quote hanging above her desk: "One key component to fundraising success is to know that information is power and that power resides in your database!"

An example of using the power of your database is using your data to segmenting appeals. Use your data to create appeals with messaging specific to the audience. Segmenting may be based on past gift history, relationship to the organization (i.e. volunteer, board member, etc.), philanthropic interest, or age. On the topic of age, Tracy provides great examples and shares how to access this important information.
A relationship endowment—Tracy's philosophy about database management Tracy thinks of the database as an endowment. As data is added to the database, the information and the depth of information grow in perpetuity, and through this growth, relationships can flourish for the organization now and into the future.
When you think of your database as your "relationship endowment," you can see the value of maintaining it and monitoring it with high standards, just as you w

In this episode, we talk with Ashley Faison about getting buy-in and implementing a CRM or donor database. Ashley is the Chief Development Officer with New Heights Youth in NYC and is a dynamic and tech-savvy nonprofit leader, organizational strategist and professional fundraiser with over $60M raised to her credit. 
Ashley is a big believer in the power of a donor database or CRM. She's worked in Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge and Salesforce and has been through the implementation of these systems with several nonprofits.
What is a CRM? A CRM, or customer relationship management is a platform and approach to manage your organization's interactions with current and prospective donors to strengthen relationships, improve retention and ultimately increase donations.
Why should a nonprofit or foundation use a CRM? For Ashley, it's all about the dashboards and access to information in real time. She loves being able to see her goals and her progress towards those goals at any time. She can easily and quickly share this information with other staff and board members, as well.
Moreover, without a CRM, there isn't a central place to record interactions with donors and prospects, and share that information throughout the organization. Having these types of records are especially beneficial during times of staff transition. A CRM provides a place to store data, easily access it, and develop insights into the data. Armed with this information, Ashley and her team can prioritize their work based on real data and the analysis of it, not just their intuition (now that's strategic!).  
How do you get buy-in for investing in CRM? To make the case, Ashley points out that to be effective and efficient, the organization must look at systems and how staff members are investing their time and energy. To do the job well, it's important to document all of the information about a donor that exists in a staff member or board member's head. This allows you to make strategic decisions about the information. Building trust is a huge factor of buy-in.  
Once you have buy-in, how do you implement a CRM? Ashley recommends:
1) Find your tribe.
Who are the people on staff or on your board who embrace and love tech? Get their buy-in on the CRM and recruit them to be part of your implementation team.
2) Create a change management plan.
It will answer questions like: What data will you move over? How far back in the data do you want to go? How will it be moved? When will you implement the CRM? How will you gain buy-in from all staff?
3) Be realistic about your timeline.
This will not happen overnight even though you’ll want it to. Most implementations take 6 months to a year from start to finish.
Lessons learned along the way The technology is constantly evolving and improving. It is important to look at what is working and what isn't, and monitor improvements and upgrades as they become available. Ashley shares her experience developing customizations and workarounds, only to have the CRM role out a better, more integrated solution later. As a team, you have to decide how to manage this.
Ashley also recommends looking for creative ways to fund the implementation of a CRM. She's found pro bono support for staff training and more (resources listed below).
Resources: www.taprootplus.org www.salesforce.org www.blackbaud.com/solutions www.techsoup.org About Ashely Faison Ashley Faison, LCSW is a seasoned non-profit leader, organizational strategist and professional fundraiser with over 18 years of experience and demonstrated success. Driven by creativity and compassion, she has helped management teams solve complex systemic challenges, built strategic partnerships from the ground up, raised millions of dollars to sustain charitable organizations, and inspired employees across a wide range of industries to become their best professional and personal selves.
Ashley has made a lasting impact as a start-up member of many successful organizations,

In this episode we talk about finding and optimizing images for your website. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words... but photography is often an afterthought when it comes to nonprofit and foundation websites. Capacity, cost, sensitive topics, protecting clients, etc. are all factors in an organization's approach to photography. We also discuss how photos impact a website's load time. 
If at all possible budget for photography. To make the most of your photo shoot, spend some time planning your photo shoot. Here are some things you can do:
Consider what kinds of images you would like. What emotion will they evoke? Will they be action shots? What is your brand vibe? Create a Pinterest board to collect images you like and that you think will be compelling. You can share this with your photographer so they understand what you are going for. Create a shot list and organize it to maximize the photoshoot time. Photography unique to your organization
Maximize the use of your photography
If you don't have the budget for photography, figure out how to best use stock photography. Consider using a filter to give the photography a branded feel.
Resources:
Unsplash Pexels Burst Adobe Stock Shutterstock Optimize your images for the web. Balancing quality with size of image. Try to stick to files sizes under 100k. Image size can impact website load time. Resources:
WPSmush https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/imagecompressor/ (Special thanks to listener Karen Rudenstine for sharing this resource with us!) Adobe Photoshop Examples of sites with great photography: Pinellas Community Foundation Missouri Foundation for Health San Luis Obispo County  

In this episode, we're talking with Zane DeVault, lead developer at co-founder of Tiny Blue Sky about updating WordPress plugins. Zane explains why plugins need to be updated regularly on WordPress websites, what to do if something goes wrong during the update, the importance of backing up your website and some overall website maintenance best practices.
What is a WordPress plugin? If you currently have a WordPress site, you might know that some of its functionality is made possible by plugins. A plugin is a bit of software that can be added to your site to do a thing that your site couldn't do before. For instance, let's say you want to have an online store but your current site doesn't include ecommerce. A plugin can be added to your site, and voila, you're in business.
How to choose a plugin? There are currently 54,737 plugins available to extend your website experience. And that number is growing all the time. So how do you know which one to chose?
Zane recommends starting within your current site. On your WordPress Dashboard, hover over Plugins and select Add New. The plugins here have been vetted by WordPress. From there, look for Plugins that have been installed on lots of other sites and check for high ratings.
Updating plugins: when, why and how Like most software, plugins require updates from time-to-time to keep them secure and working as they were intended. You should update your plugins—it's a good thing.
Before you update, back up your site and your database. Not sure how? Check with your host (Zane recommends WPEngine and Flywheel. At Tiny Blue Sky, we use WPEngine and love that it automatically backs up our site daily). If your host doesn't make backing up easy for you, there are plugins that can help. Zane references Backup Buddy, Updraft, VaultPress and Duplicator.
Once your site is backed up, update the plugins and then give your site a quick once over to ensure everything is in working order. If for some reason something isn't working properly, pat yourself on the back for having a back up. Contact your host or developer and ask them to help you restore your site.
Zane recommends updating your plugins every week. This ensures you won't miss a security update, unintentionally making your site vulnerable to an attack. 
What happens if you don’t update your plugins? There's a chance that nothing will happen. That said, you're also leaving your site open to the possibility of an attack. If you're hacked you're site could go down or become associated spam activity, which will negatively impact your Google search results.
Have something to ask Zane? If you have a question for Zane. let us know. We may use it in a future episode of the Tech Savvy Nonprofit Podcast. Send your question to zane@tinybluesky.com.