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For leaders and ops team members at small to midsize nonprofits to get guidance, uplifting, and resources for philanthropy data, database, and operations.
Ops Insights #065 - Learn and Gain Confidence 3x Faster
I believe confidence comes with practice and it’s the type of practice you get that allows you to get confident faster. For example, early on in my career I took the long route. I dove into online documentation, courses, and tutorials all on my own for days before I attempted to do something. I read, studied, and then read and studied more before attempting to do database set-up, configuration, imports, or list pulls. For some reason I thought I had to know every little detail before diving in.
Ops Insights #064 - Always Become Very Curious
Become very curious as this is how you'll learn, grow, and evolve. If you need encouragement, take a look back at how far we've come or talk with those who have been in the profession for a long time. You'll hear all about paper files and those Rolodexes that kept contact information. And don't get me started on the evolution of online donations. Keep on learning as we need you to keep the profession thriving. Learn by taking action.
Ops Insights #063 - Save 3x Hours by Finding Unique Identifiers
This edition is for my operations peeps. I’m going to walk you through an example of how I took a process that was taking 18 hours down to 6 hours. Why? Because I want you to think of ways to save yourself hours of manual work and redirect that time to that long list of to-dos you have piling up on you. I’ll give you the background, the pause moment, how we did it and why we did it. Let’s dive in.
Ops Insights #062 - Philanthropy Operations 8 Buckets
Philanthropy Operations is an essential functional area that takes ownership of the data, CRM database, and operational processes and effectively partners cross-functionally to propel an organization's fundraising forward. Watch this 2-minute video to see if you have the 8 buckets in philanthropy operations covered to maximize your fundraising results.
Ops Insights #061 - If Your Nonprofit Was an Album
A great way to become more comfortable with all the chatter around ChatGPT is to start using it yourself. Pay attention to how others are using it and the prompts they share. The best part of this AI era is that those of us embracing it are learning openly, sharing our experiences, and helping others who may not feel as confident yet.
Here’s a quick idea you can run with: Go to ChatGPT and enter this prompt “if my nonprofit were an existing album, what would it be and why.” Let me walk you through the details.
Ops Insights #060 - CEO & CDO’s Strategy for Dev Services Leader
As a CEO or CDO, you don’t want your 3 am thoughts to be about your concerns with the quality of your data or database. Nor do you have to stress about your staff not getting what they need to be effective or broken operational processes slowing things down. The data, database, and operational processes should not be a pain point. You want data that is right. You want a database that is clean. You want operational processes that allows you to be a proactive leader.
You want a smooth, well-run area where you and your team can have trust and confidence in what you are investing in, seeing, and using every day. To get here, the key is understanding the area and making sure you have the right person in place to lead the area. This area is called Development Services, also known as Philanthropy Operations or Advancement Services. Let’s dive in.
Ops Insights #059 - Fundraiser Fast Start Initiative (Part 3 of 3)
Building off our prior two editions we were ready. It was time to launch and get moving. We ran team check-ins to look at progress and I offered additional opportunities to support with 1:1 sessions. We would have liked to run bi-weekly check-ins, but in reality we could only fit in monthly team check-ins. Which we were okay with as the CDO has her check-ins with the fundraisers on strategy and I did 1:1s to help with tracking activity in the database. You see, I was invested. I wanted them to hit the 100% goal and it’s not always intuitive to a fundraiser to make sure to mark all the details on the action to ensure it’s pulling in as completed on the report. Let’s dive in.
Ops Insights #058 - Fundraiser Fast Start Initiative (Part 2 of 2)
Building off our prior edition, we are going to walk through how we cleansed portfolios and filled gaps in portfolios to lock and load them. We held three 1.5-hour sessions over a 4-week period. The objective of the first prospect review session was to go through all the existing prospects and portfolios and ask the questions: Are these viable prospects that you currently carry? So viable that you will be able to have a meaningful interaction with them in the next 90 days? Let’s dive in on the details.
Ops Insights #057 - Fundraiser Fast Start Initiative (Part 1 of 3)
The CDO came to me and said the board and her created a Fast Start initiative and we need reports to hold the team accountable and show progress. I thought this was really cool and immediately my brain went into action mode – how can I set up the tracking and reporting for her to be able to report out, but also how can I support the fundraisers to hit 100% of the goal? Let’s dive in.
Ops Insights #056 - Let’s Move You Forward
Sharing some of my comments on LinkedIn from 2024 in hopes these words will guide, motivate, or move you forward in 2025. Plus my one big recommendation for you to take action is Community - Find Your Community. You’ve Got This!