New Project

So, I have a new project to work on and I think I am going to try and post on the progress fairly frequently.  This will help me to coalesce my thoughts a bit and may also provide some thoughts for some of you. 

Our department has traditionally been divided into two parts – donor care, and development.  The development side has been responsible for the planned giving primarily and all of the unusual activity such as the eBay/MissionFish, third-party fundraising, gift-in-kind, matching gifts, etc.  The donor care department has been our in-house response center, dedicated to providing answers about particular ministry projects, responses to questions raised by press reports, special handling of honor and/or memorial cards, etc.  As often as not, our donor care folks have had opportunity to interact with donors and engage in some more traditional fundraising.

Two weeks ago, our VP announced that we are going to merge the two parts into one and look for ways to gain efficiencies and to see where we can realign some staff.  The desire is to streamline some of our activity and look for where margin might be created, allowing us to broaden our reach.  He has already put in place a new interim organizational chart which has realigned some direct reports.  However, in doing so we are trying hard to not change any person’s responsibilities.  This is going to be a challenge to keep all the lines of communication open.

My part is to undertake the analysis work with all of the staff and come up with recommendations about how we might accomplish all of this in the most efficient manor possible.  This should be about a 3 to 4 month project (as I have to keep doing my regular work at the same time) before any recommendations are made.  Here is my initial outline of how the project is going to move forward:

1. Collection of job descriptions of all existing staff
2. Implementation of written questionnaire.
3. Personal interviews.
4. Summary of findings
5. Recommendations
6. New job duties and functions outlined
7. New job descriptions created
8. New org chart designed.

So, we shall see how this whole thing goes.  My launch date is this week so it is time to get things rolling pretty good.  The hard part is going to be navigating the minefields of expectations.  Some managers have already had their direct reports realigned and that came with some gnashing of teeth.  However, it is a move made by our VP to mitigate some issues that he was aware of.

Here’s hoping for a smooth process!

The Smartest Orgs List

NetSquared, GetActive and Squidoo have come up with a list of what they call the 59 Smartest Orgs Online.  As you consider various online activity, it is worth taking a look at what these organizations do and how they do it.  Then evaluate whether it makes sense for your organization to do something similar.

The list can be found here.

 For other ideas and considerations, check out the NPTechBestPractices wiki by clicking on the widget to the right, or by clicking here.

Enhancing the Donor Experience

I had the privilege last week of presenting with my good friend Foster Chase of MinistryLinq at the annual Christian Stewardship Association conference in Dallas, TX.  The title of our presentation was e-Relationships: Using Internet Technology to Enhance Constituent Relationships.  Our audience was made up of primarily development professionals looking for new ideas on web based development.  (At least that is what we hoped the audience was made up of.) 

A Donor Centered Culture

I am preparing for a presentation I will be giving next week at the annual Christian Stewardship Association conference and have been thinking through some of the questions I am likely to get.  One of the questions will likely deal with “Who’s responsible for our website?”  Now there is a loaded question with no easy answer!