Integrating two nonprofits is never easy work, but this week we completed a major step! Now you can keep up to date with our tech tips, trainings, and services over at the newly re-designed 501 Commons website.

To help you find all the great NPower content you know and love, here is a handy-dandy cheat sheet:

• Miss the NPower blog? Check out The Commons, a blog that covers nonprofit technology and other important nonprofit topics such as financial management, human resources, capacity building and more.
• Looking for our tech how-tos and presentations? Check out the Technology Knowledge Center where you can keep up to date with our latest presentations and resources.
• Want to learn more about what we can do for your nonprofit? Check out our new services page.
• Interested to meet the larger blended team? Check out the 501 Commons staff page.

Finally, feel free to connect with us through social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+

NPower Northwest is now a part of the new 501 Commons blended family!

No more tech silos!

When NPower was founded in 1999, technology was something that came in boxes or required hours of writing code. While some of this is still relevant, we are also the generation of “there’s an app for that!” More and more powerful tools are ubiquitous, easy to use, and available at a low cost. This change has also been reflected in NPower’s approach to working with nonprofits and our mission to be an organization that could serve you and all your needs.

Multiplying life by the power of two

That search led us to 501 Commons. Long respected in the sector as a leader in capacity building and the first stop for nonprofit information and referrals, 501 Commons is the lemon to our lime, the peanut butter to our chocolate. By combining forces, 501 Commons can bring in volunteer consultants from the service corps, at below market rates, to help provide your nonprofit with a strategic plan, leadership training, or board development. Once in place those strategies will help streamline and prioritize your technology decisions, which means better websites, database and IT for everyone!

So what does that mean for you?

Our end goal is to make this transition as seamless and painless for our clients, supporters and you, as possible. Last week we completed the big move as we relocated to the 501 Commons offices in Lower Queen Anne. Now we are on to the larger work of merging websites, social media, databases, etc. We'll keep you updated along the way, and thank you for joining with us in this transition.

Wanna take action?

• Check out 501 Commons’ FAQ
• Read the bios of our new blended family
• Spread the word on Twitter, Tweet #501rocksnptech

As a part of their on-site orientation the new AmeriCorps VISTA team went on an afternoon scavenger hunt to visit the downtown Seattle area. They met with a few local nonprofits and also visited a few key downtown areas. Alex Green wrote up this brief recap of their afternoon and a few things they learned.

It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon when Aimy, Jess, WA Service Corps VISTA members Liz, Rachael, and myself left the office early to embark on a scavenger hunt to familiarize ourselves with the local nonprofits in downtown Seattle. As relatively new VISTAs, some of us were still getting acquainted with the area we will be serving in. The experience proved to be fun and informative on many fronts. One stop had free cookies and milk! Each destination exemplified the variety of organizations within this community's nonprofit sector.

United Way of King County

Our first stop in Seattle brought us to Pioneer Square. We were greeted by Liahann Bannerman, the Volunteer Center Director of the organization. Liahann discussed with us the challenges of being a bigger player in the nonprofit sector. She also shared information on how to get more involved. United Way also hosts an annual event called “Day of Caring”, which is the largest day of volunteering in the state of Washington. This year there was a total of 12,122 volunteers from 138 companies completing 448 projects all over King County. Estimated volunteer labour was $1.3 million!

See the full details here: http://www.uwkc.org/ways-to-volunteer/day-of-caring/

Seattle Central Library

Our second stop was the beautifully designed Seattle Library (very close to United Way). The building was opened to the public in 2004. It is a true marvel of architecture and green energy. Even the escalators were unique! While we didn’t have time to peruse the shelves, we achieved our goal of climbing to the top and taking a picture of the lobby downstairs.

Library view from top floor

Springwire

Our third stop was a bit more difficult to find, as it was tucked away in a corner office in a building on Denny Way. But we were rewarded with its rebranded appearance, their office dog, and a fun set of employees; making this destination one of my favorites. We got to learn more about a nonprofit that focuses on one of the foundations of escaping the poverty cycle: communication.

You can learn more here : http://springwire.us/seattle/

We found it!

Peg (Deputy Director) tweeting about our visit.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

This may be the last stop on our scavenger hunt, but certainly not the least. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is focused locally on Early Learning, Family Homelessness, and Community Grants. The visitor center was a perfect example of how to make volunteering fun. The center was filled with movies, quizzes, and other interactive media that allowed us to learn how the philanthropic foundation supports its community. Definitely an uplifting way to end the work day!

For more information, visit their site: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx

Over 8 billion dollars in grants - yes, billions, with a “B” - in North America since 1999!

- Alex Green

In case you missed their first post yesterday, the new HandsOn Tech team introduced themselves with a brief FAQ. Part II covers transitions, expectations and just what each of them are hoping to learn this year...

What challenges have you faced in transitioning from college to a professional environment?

Jess - I think my biggest challenge was simply moving here to Seattle. I grew up in Massachusetts and deciding to move to a city 3000 miles away - one that I had never been to prior to starting HandsOn Tech, might I add - is quite the risk in itself. College is interesting because you have a bunch of people coming together for the common goal of graduating. I had classes with a lot of different people. We received similar educations and upon graduating, we all separated to go do different things. With the professional world, you have the opposite scenario: people from many different backgrounds and educations come together to work towards a similar goal. It's fascinating to see that change. That mostly answers the question, right?

Alex - Transitioning from college to a professional work environment has been an eye-opening experience thus far. It has been refreshing to move into an office with a group of people that all share the common goal of helping the community. Knowing this has been rewarding in itself, but it has also been great to meet everyone who works here. One thing that I have known about this nonprofit in particular is the great diversity of background and skill that exists here.

Aimy - The greatest challenge has been adjusting to a new workplace culture. When settling into an established organization, you want to learn about that organization and figure how you can fit into that structure.

What do you expect to face that is unique to a nonprofit environment?

Jess - Recognizing the value of resources, definitely. With nonprofits, any money spent on new tools is money not going towards the target audience of the nonprofit. Any time I spend with the nonprofits is time they aren't spending engaging with and helping the community. See a pattern coming up? While being wasteful is never good, being wasteful when it comes to nonprofits is especially damaging.

Alex - Being in a nonprofit that specializes in community capacity building, I expect a lot of our unique challenges to be with managing our client and volunteer relationships. What can we be training them that is relevant and will help them help the community and themselves? What strategies will we need to employ to reach out to nonprofits that don’t know about us? How can we do our best service in order to create the biggest impact on the community? I hope to be a part of some exciting changes that will continue to affect all nonprofits in Washington and more

Aimy - The process of incorporating changes within the dynamics of a nonprofit is unique. The information we will bring to these organizations call for new practices that challenge previous norms. Approaching these situations by highlighting its benefits to our nonprofits is important to ensure sustainability.

What new learning or skills do you hope to gain through your year as a VISTA?

Jess - Networking would be the big one. I'm in a new community and I want to get more involved. Learning how to reach out to people and organizations and to figure out how to keep up communication and stay in touch would be fantastic.

Alex - I am really hoping to learn more about hardware infrastructure in particular. Having had nonprofit experience from college, I have had first hand experience of how a poor technological infrastructure can affect an organization negatively. By the end of my Vista term, I hope to be more experienced in evaluating a company and how they are using technology effectively to store data, organize clients, and communicate with the rest of the community. I am also interested in researching social media as a means of community outreach.

Aimy - I hope this year will teach me about the inner workings of a nonprofit. As a technical writer, I would like to have the opportunity to practice the various promotional and instructional formats within tech writing through the context of a nonprofit environment. I hope HandsOn Tech, will develop my knowledge of technology and my understanding of nonprofit structure.

- Alex Green, Aimy Enriquez, Jess Fraser

Hi everyone! We’re Jess, Alex, and Aimy and we will be taking over where Elissa, Abby and Stephen left off as this year’s AmeriCorps VISTA HandsOn Tech crew! We’re very excited to be a part of this program and continue their great work. Since we will be regularly posting to this blog, we figured we should provide a brief introduction about ourselves and a Q&A for everyone. Enjoy!

The new VISTAs with their very own built-in captions!

Who are you?

My name’s Jess. I graduated from Boston University this past May with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and decided to spend this year volunteering in Seattle.

Hello my name is Alex. I recently graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in psychology. I decided to spend a year in service in the great Northwest state of Washington.

This is Aimy, I am a recent graduate from Western Washington University. I have focused my studies heavily on Creative Writing and Technical Communications. I am excited to learn about nonprofits in the Seattle area and use my skills to further their missions this coming year.

Why did you choose AmeriCorps? What drove you to HandsOn Tech?

Jess - When I picked my major, I knew one thing - I want to help people. I want to help create something that will actually matter and will make a real impact on people. Unfortunately, a lot of people I knew would see “biomedical engineer” and think not about the people and the potential applications, but “money.” By volunteering, I knew I would be surrounding myself with people who had similar ideals and goals to myself: people who wanted to make a difference and were willing to take the initiative to get something done. In terms of HandsOn Tech specifically, well, I did get an engineering degree. I like tech-related things and my background helped to show me all the capabilities of technology. I thought it would be great to be able to work with other nonprofits and help them utilize all of the resources that are available to them.

Alex - I chose AmeriCorps because I wanted to be working in an environment that had the shared goal of social change. I found it necessary to make a switch from something involved in just making money for its own sake. AmeriCorps was also an excellent opportunity to relocate to a whole new city, something which I have hoped to do since I started college. Paired with a degree in psychology and a tech background, I am hoping to make a real impact as a capacity builder that will be able to help improve technology in the non-profit sector of the northwest.

Aimy - I learned about AmeriCorps through an info session at my college. The experience inspired me to think seriously about the program. I knew I wanted to use my degree towards meaningful work but wasn’t sure how I would approach it. AmeriCorps seemed to be the most natural step for me as a college grad to gain experience while serving in my community. I feel HandsOn Tech is the best fit in regards to my interest and professional goals.

- Alex Green, Aimy Enriquez, Jess Fraser

Check back tomorrow for the second part of this FAQ, where the new team talks about challenges, expectations and what they are most excited to learn about!

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we would like to believe that summer will stretch on for many more months, there is no denying that fall is rapidly approaching. For some that means buying crisp new folders and #2 pencils, for others it means putting up new posters in their classrooms and still others that means filling up Facebook feeds with adorable photos of kids all dressed up for their first day of kindergarten. But as nonprofit professionals, we don’t have to miss out on all the fun. We too, can get our back-to-school fun on with some of the many free & low-cost tech trainings happening this fall.

Photo Source: Flickr user laffy4k

September Nonprofit Training Line-up

Public Relations Workshop - How to Get Noticed - Everyone loves free publicity right? Well who better to tell us how it’s done than Brown Paper Tickets, a local online event and ticketing company. From press releases to pitches that actually work, check out this local workshop [9/11] chock full of good advice. Cost: FREE

Quickbooks Made Easy (for Nonprofits) - With one day in Portland [9/11] and one in Seattle [9/12], this all-day workshop will sharpen your accounting skills and help you get the most out of this popular software for Nonprofits. Don’t want to stay the whole day? No worries, the workshop will be divided into an Essentials level morning session and a more Advanced level afternoon session. Cost: $99 for the whole day (Lunch included!) or $65 for part I and $45 for part II

Social Fundraising and Online Donations: Myths & Realities - NTEN is at it again with a great lineup of free webinars including this one by the whip smart (and hilarious!) Claire Kerr. Despite your Facebook page’s inability to instantly double your online donations, social media still plays a vital role in online fundraising. Register for this webinar [9/20] to learn about the tools & techniques that will help your nonprofit in the coming months. Cost: FREE

Fundraising: Getting Started the Right Way for Charities & Nonprofits - With over 30 years of experience as a fundraising consultant, Dr. Stuart Grover will cover topics ranging from why philanthropy tops transactions, why donor loyalty is so important and more. Beyond just a how-to approach, this workshop [9/24] will dive into issues of ethics and responsibilities. Cost: $10 (goes to defray the cost of lunch)

Dot Your i’s, Cross Your t’s: Editorial Style, Stylesheets, and Documentation for Grantwriters - Were you confused by all the complicating formatting of your last grant? The Puget Sound Grantwriters Association is here to help! This workshop [9/28] will take a comprehensive look at different styles and help you come up with a personalized style sheet and template for your organization’s next funding proposal. Cost: $75 for members, $95 for non-members

Can’t make it to any of those events?

Check out the plethora of presentations, webinar recordings and more in our Knowledge Center. From Google Analytics to Content Curation, we cover a range of tech topics and of course it’s all available from any location and for the low low cost of $0 dollars!

- Abby Nafziger

This is a guest post from Matt Fikejs, Information & Referral Program Manager at 501 Commons. Matt writes periodically writes for the NPower Northwest blog to share updates from the Statewide Nonprofit Resource Directory.

Whether we work in the nonprofit sector or serve it (as a consultant, bookkeeper, etc.), we’re a “driven” lot. That’s not to suggest that those exclusively in the private sector don’t have aspirations.  But working toward a mission and a sustainable bottom line – versus just the latter – does something to inspire the desire to succeed. Simply put, there’s a “passion” for the cause.

So where does a nonprofit professional or service provider go for learning and networking opportunities – key ingredients for success? Well, if you’re like most people, you could search your “in” and “junk mail” boxes for the endless stream of promos for seminars, conferences, social events, and the like.  Some of these are from groups you know. But others leave you wondering, “Is this a reputable org., one with a record of quality and real understanding of nonprofits?”

Check out all the exciting events coming up this fall!

To help nonprofit professionals find events they can trust, 501 Commons launched the Featured Events calendar last fall. The calendar and its events are:

• Affiliated with individuals and orgs. in 501 Commons' Statewide Nonprofit Resource Directory, so you know there’s a history of successful sector experience and know-how
• Well-organized and quickly skimmable
• Current and updated many times a week
• Numerous and diverse by nature (e.g., social media & computer trainings, fundraising workshops, award events, and more)
• Sometimes free, although they can cost a fee
• From all over the State…and a few beyond Washington’s borders

Google Analytics tells us that this webpage is a very popular one. Find out why and start looking for your next professional development engagement. Then, bookmark the calendar and check back often.  After all, isn’t it time to grow yourself, your network, and your nonprofit?

- Matt Fikejs, Information & Referral Program Manager, 501 Commons

This week marks the end of our team’s time at NPower Northwest, and what a year it’s been. From our first meetings at Pre-Service Orientation in Florida through the trials, tribulations and joys of adjusting to our new home in Seattle, this team has been through a lot during the past year. Initially created as a way to bring tech services to small anti-poverty nonprofits, the HandsOn Tech team experienced a range of successes and struggles during this pilot program. From the struggles of bringing together the expectations and goals of many different partners to the success of training over 150 unique nonprofits, we have experienced a year full of change, challenge and in the end a lot of team bonding. In this blog post we thought we would share a few of the numbers from various parts of this past year.

Nonprofit Tech Trainings

• Facilitated 37 different tech trainings with community partners such as Google, Microsoft, Volunteer Administrators Network, Help Attack, Knowledge as Power and many more.
• Trained 224 individuals representing 170 unique nonprofits from the Seattle area on a range of nonprofit tech topics.
• Created 18 Slideshare presentations that were viewed 4,397 times and downloaded 20 times during the past 8 months. Our 3 most popular topics were Choosing a Database [705 views], Social Media Content Curation [575 views] and Free & Low Cost Tools for Nonprofits [499 views]

Tech Assessments & Strategy Maps

• Worked one-on-one with 13 nonprofits in our cohort model to provide technology assessment and strategy maps.
• Provided 3 hands-on trainings on Social Media, Google programs for nonprofits and Websites for nonprofits, with 36 total attendees.

Figuring out the future

Can you guess which one is from 2011 and which one is from 2012?*

As our team transitions into new things, we thought we would each share a bit about what’s coming up:

Abby - This year ended up being not only a chance to improve my tech training skills, but a crash course in online communications & social media, event planning support and much more. I am excited to be taking those skills on with me to a job at 501 Commons where I will join their Community Engagement team and help shepherd next year’s HandsOn Tech VISTAs in year 2 of this project.

Elissa - My work at HandsOn Tech allowed me to strengthen my training and research skills and reinforced my interest in data management. I am thankful for the opportunities I had to talk with the NPower Northwest consultants, attend classes and webinars on nonprofit technology topics, and connect with the Seattle Salesforce Nonprofit Users Group. I am thrilled to report that I just accepted a job with the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at UW as a data indexer!

Stephen - This year has been a great opportunity to become acquainted with Seattle, learn and work with the nonprofit sector, and teach myself new skills. I’m currently looking at software development positions and perhaps one or two computer science courses at the University of Washington.

Thank you to all the many folks in the nonprofit tech community who have attended our trainings, helped us learn, signed up for our cohort and generally helped us figure out this crazy nonprofit world. We are sure we will see many of you around town in the coming months.

- Abby Nafziger, Elissa Thomas & Stephen Eggers

*Top photo is from our very first day at NPower back in August of 2011 and the bottom was taken just this afternoon (Aug 2012)when we decided to re-create that fateful day

This is a follow-up to our more general re-cap yesterday of NTEN’s Nonprofits + Data Summit last week in Seattle. Elissa attended a morning session entitled, “Taming the Data Monster,” presented by Nam-ho Park, Regional Director for West Coast Operations at Forum One. Here is her recap of what she learned...

Data is playing an ever-increasing importance in how nonprofits tell their stories, demonstrate successes, and provide context for the problems they are solving. Large and complicated data sets can be bulky and unwieldy, however, and many people are apprehensive about approaching them -- especially if they don’t have a technical background -- despite the potential benefit for their organizations.

Nam-ho Park gave a flawless presentation on how to think about data and how beginners can learn to communicate statistics and research findings to create a clear and compelling narrative.

6 ways to tell your story with data:

• Speak with numbers
• Reveal change
• Focus on the story
• Provide context
• Let users explore, discover, and control
• Let users tell your story

charity: water is a nonprofit that is highly effective at telling their story through publishing statistics. Lots of nonprofits are now paying more attention to numbers and highlighting them on their front page to demonstrate a measurable impact of their work. You can see the numbers change over time, too, which can be encouraging for donors who want to see progress.

A good question to ask, especially if your organization’s programs are not so cut-and-dry: “What is the tweetable version of your story?” Park pointed to an example of one of his clients who conducted research on a school system in an under-resourced, rural district of Appalachia. The 30-page report was not very accessible to the public, but the information was important and needed to be understood and communicated. Summing up the results in one sentence and creating infographics that capture the meaning behind the data is a great help in promoting the research. Numbers can be difficult to understand when not presented in context without other visuals to aid in comprehension.

caption: which is easier to understand?

3 simple ways to get started

• Get your staff excited
• Find your story
• Put the players together

For inspiration:

• Information is Beautiful
• Flowing Data

Some tools to check out:

• Pentaho
• IBM Many Eyes
• Tableau

The presentation slides are not yet posted on NTEN’s website, but a similar version can be found on slideshare.

- Elissa Thomas

This was the resounding theme of last week’s NTEN Nonprofit + Data Summit right here in Seattle. This one day event was held in-person but live-streamed out to a wider audience. Our NPower team was in high attendance and thoroughly enjoyed the various panels, the delicious lunch and the chance to meet up with many of our nonprofit friends from across Seattle. Here is my brief re-cap of several of the sessions.

10 Rules of Engagement - Karen Uffleman, Groundwire

Karen spoke eloquently about the process of building engagement and outlined her 10 rules as follows:

1. Understand your theory of change
2. Identify your key audiences
3. Know what you want them to do
4. Know what they want from you
5. Have a plan for what’s next
6. Use an engagement framework
7. Use an engagement platform
8. Don’t forget the middle of your pyramid
9. Love your data
10. Constituents = friends

One highlight from Karen’s talk (in addition to her brilliant Star Trek reference) was her reminder to know what your audience values and would be willing to pay for, even if you currently provide it for free. This can be a helpful reminder in the world of online communications.  For example, if your donor newsletter is only getting a 3% open rate, it is probably not considered valuable by those on the receiving end and most likely needs a re-evaluation. Karen’s session provided an excellent foundation for the following sessions and some keen insights into ways to base engagement decisions on good data.

Making the Case for Going Open Data - Tobias Eigen, Kabissa

The next session was split into a leadership and technical track.  I attended Tobias’s talk about how Kabissa, a nonprofit network in Africa that connects people & organizations for peer-learning and information sharing, went open data. “Open data” is defined as data that “anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it -- subject only, at most, to the requirements to attribute and share-alike.. The benefits to nonprofits are three-fold and include:

• Increased transparency: Supporters often like to know what is going on inside an organization. Allowing access to one’s data helps increase access and build the common good.
• Improved data tools: Others will be able to take your data to places that don’t occur to you or that you can’t afford
• Added scrutiny - More feedback from more people leads to better and more useful data

Tobias also included these 4 steps to opening up data

1. Choose datasets
2. Apply an open license
3. Make data available
4. Make your data discoverable

Donor + Mission Management Data - Cat Monaghan, Idealist Consulting

Cat gave an excellent overview of the process that needs to occur when selecting and implementing a data management system. She also reminded us that there are options beyond just super fancy CRM database or 50 excel spreadsheets. Here were 4 examples she gave of other unified system options:

1. CRM with apps that pull data into the system: donations, volunteer signup, etc. CRM = brain, other systems equal limbs
2. CRM not connected to outside data -- data moved manually into CRM
3. CRM with integrations created for data exchange with other freestanding systems (donor management, accounting, etc.)
4. Dashboard tools connected to freestanding systems that consolidate data into an at-a-glance, visual format.

User Adoption: Building a Culture that embraces Technology - Nicholas Merriam, Building Changes

Nicholas used his experience helping his organization, Building Changes, implement Salesforce with the adoption challenge that many organizations face when trying something new. He reminded us that adoption can’t be thought of in a vacuum but needs to coordinate with all levels of strategy. Here are a few of Nicholas’ adoption philosophies:

• If you build it, they won’t necessarily come
• Consultants help, but they can’t do the internal work for you
• People support what they help create
• Technology is only as good as the process it supports
• Leadership matters, but so does everyone else

Overall, the day was jam-packed with useful information and a great chance to share the joys and tribulations of nonprofit data with peers from the field. Thanks to NTEN for sponsoring this event, John Kenyon for his skillful moderation and all the awesome presenters! Also, coming up tomorrow will be Elissa's recap of her favorite session of the day!

For your added enjoyment, here are some of our favorites from all the live-tweeting that happened during the day:

- Abby Nafziger