Enjoying the Fruits of Your Labour!

Both In NetCommunity™ and the Garden

Hello, friends and fellow blog-readers! It’s been another gorgeous weekend here in Kingston. Once again, my wife and I spent a large part of it out in our garden. While the toil of garden work seems to be never-ending, my family is constantly provided with tremendous happiness as well. We reaped our rewards, as we were able to pick and enjoy our first delicious tomato crop of the year. These scrumptious tomatoes reminded me of some of my recent discussions regarding the creation of a website with Blackbaud’s® NetCommunity™.   Our partnership with SJ Consulting LLC has produced the following information every non-profit should be aware of when creating a website with NetCommunity™.

Start With Clean-Up

Gardening is a lot like building a website with NetCommunity™. It is a good idea to always begin the process with a little clean-up of the web space and the data from your Raiser’s Edge® database, decide what you hope to achieve from your website, and become knowledgeable of the tools you will be using to create the site.

What are the most common mistakes made while using NetCommunity™?

• If you needed help with planting some cedar trees in your backyard, it wouldn’t make sense to call up a rose or tulip specialist. The same scenario is applicable to NetCommunity™. When you acquire designs/layouts from outside designers who have no knowledge or familiarity of NetCommunity™ (BBNC), or you hire developers to build your website who have only worked in Drupal or Convio, you are not making the best choice. The design setup may conflict with system functionality, and incorrect parts may be implemented. This will be of severe detriment to your entire website and your online mission to fundraise.

• All gardens, no matter the size, are unique in their own way. Every garden has distinctive features that make it special. When creating an organization’s website(s) with BBNC, it should look completely one-of-a-kind. BBNC doesn’t utilize a “standard” design and it is not templated like other content management systems. Blackbaud® NetCommunity™ allows total design customization and the incorporation of 60+ functional website elements.

• No one likes weeds, pests, or dead growth in their gardens. Yanking out dandelions or trimming back out-of-control grape vines can make a world of difference. Just like gardens need to be weeded on a regular basis, content and images in BBNC need to be kept fresh and up-to-date. Organizations and their developers are drastically underutilizing the ability to use scheduled parts, RSS feeds, discussion boards, Facebook Connect, personal pages, community sites, etc. to keep their website dynamic. This needs to be changed!

• Some people might use grape vines to create privacy in their gardens, while others use grape vines to produce delicious grapes. The same applies to BBNC, using the philosophy of, “One size does not fit all!” One organization might use a donation form for an entirely different purpose than another. For both organizations, the initial donation form is the same, but BBNC’s design flexibility, field displays, sections, multi-payment options, and more allow the form to be tailored to fit each organization’s custom requirements.

• Visiting greenhouses and garden centres, talking to nature enthusiasts, checking out other people’s gardens, browsing the Internet, and reading blogs like this one can increase your knowledge and awareness of the wonderful world of gardening. Broadening your horizons will provide you with insight and ideas beyond your wildest dreams! RESolutionsTECH has noticed that a lot of organizations only utilize about 5% of the 60+ functional elements that are available in BBNC. This is similar to planting simple geraniums every year and never daring to explore the vast assortment of other flowers and plants that are out there!

• Bees are buzzing around the garden to pollinate your flowering plants. Your nieces are frolicking and singing their favourite songs joyously in the glowing summer sun. The neighbours have come over for a visit, too, and are gushing about how gorgeous your garden looks this year. All in all, there are several different types of communication that tend to go on in your garden. Knowledge is power, and the more understanding you possess, the better prepared you will be when havoc breaks loose (and a new breed of insect starts eating your hostas). With NetCommunity™, organizations have the ability to use E-mail Campaigns, which allow for cross-section analysis of various e-mail appeals and assorted methods of communication, targeted content to customize messaging on the website, and discussion boards to encourage communication with and between constituents.  Tracking all types of communication will let you better understand what is working and what is not so you can shape future emails and website strategy.

What can a charity can do with NetCommunity™ to make its website rock?

• Garden parties and summer BBQs are always fun ways to share the fruits of your gardening labours with your friends and loved ones. This can be accomplished in NetCommunity™ websites by incorporating social media networking.

• Discuss your garden with those around you to learn more and help others do the same. A NetCommunity™ website engages users with surveys, discussion forums, polls, and personal pages.

• Many factors need to be taken into consideration when deciding what to plant in your garden. How much sun will the area receive? What is the soil like? Who will be able to view the garden? Is it on public display, or is it private and only for family and friends? A NetCommunity™ website has many similar aspects to your beloved garden. There are options to customize your content - whole sections of websites, single pages, or small segments of pages – to site users who are logged in. Targeted content can be based on any segment of constituents in Raiser’s Edge® and categorized by geographic region, donor level, interests, event participation, chapter engagement, etc.

• It’s often a good idea to keep it simple in the garden. Introducing several new species at once, or planting too many things in a congested area, is not the best way to get plants to thrive. Plants can get choked out, die, or simply never live up to their full growth potential. The same applies to users who visit a NetCommunity™ website. With multi-payment processing, users can make a donation, register for an event, and update their membership with a one-time payment of total amount. This is far more efficient, effective, and less stressful than restricting constituents to paying for multiple items individually.

• Maintaining a consistent, well-planned theme in your garden enables better flow and a much more desirable appearance.  It is the same with NetCommunity™.  Tie the design of your e-mails into the overall website design so recipients become aware of the brand and the organization's cause, and respond by taking action, making a donation, registering for an event, and more!

End With Clean-Up

Whether in NetCommunity™ or Raiser’s Edge®, or washing the fresh cucumbers you have just harvested from your garden, it is always ideal to finish off with a bit of tidying up.

Reaping What You Sow

My wife and I have yielded much wealth from our garden this year. We picked cherries from our backyard and turned them into a mouth-watering sour cherry pie. More recently, we added some of our own juicy tomatoes to a fantastic Caprese salad. Being able to enjoy our fresh, organic produce that we nurtured from start to finish is incredibly rewarding. Hard work pays off, and good things come to those who wait. With NetCommunity™, you can reap what you sow too! Your website should increase donation and event revenues and you can experience, first-hand, the level of engagement between your cause and your supporters. The more thought you put into your BBNC website, the more your supporters will pay attention.

Parallel Universe

Not every charity has the resources to purchase or lease one of the NetCommunity™ products (i.e. Sphere, Spark, etc.).  In this case, just as in gardening, there is always another option.  We recommend looking at some of the open source solutions such as WordPress, Joomla and CiviCRM. Amazingly enough, they are totally free!   Similarly, when my wife and I decided to delve into the world of gardening, many of our friends gave us plants from their own gardens. We nurtured them year after year, and now our garden is flourishing more than ever before!

Let your website flourish like our delicious cherry tomatoes. Contact us at sales@resolutionstech.com or (866) 776-5414 to begin reaping your rewards!

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