[Lnc-business] upgrade to membership database & record reduction
Wes Benedict
wes.benedict at lp.org
Wed Jan 25 17:02:10 EST 2017
I'm addressing several urgent things but will try to comment more soon.
Short answer is sounds like a good idea.
Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
On 1/24/2017 5:25 PM, Daniel Hayes wrote:
> Wes,
>
> Thanks for that email.
> As you know I am pushing, if technically feasible for our state
> affiliates to be given relevant access and use of Raisers Edge NXT.
> Andy Burns, our Affiliate Development specialist believes that the
> the best way he can help affiliates is to give those that are willing
> integrated, appropriate access to the national data and an integrated
> CRM. RE NXT is what we have available to us and I know he wants to
> work with it to see if it would indeed be of use to our affiliates.
>
> I know that Andy would like to assist with getting RE NXT up and
> running. If affiliates get access at some point it's going to be Andy
> that is assisting them if not outright implementing it for them.
> Wouldn't it make sense for him to help with getting RE up and running
> for the National Party? I would assume that you would understand his
> frustration as he feels that he can help and at the same time gain a
> greater understanding of how to set up RE and how to use it for if and
> when we roll it out to various states.
>
> It was just a short time ago that you were not allowed to be involved
> with getting the National website up and running. I am sure your
> input would have been valuable in it being done better and more
> efficiently. I would think it might be the same with letting Andy
> help with getting RE up and running especially with regards to
> deploying it in the future for affiliates. Of course as a contractor
> he sets his tasks and schedule in order to achieve the end goal but I
> am pretty certain that he considers this needed to reach his objective
> of developing affiliates.
>
> As chairman of the affiliate support committee I feel comfortable
> saying that data and the ability and knowledge of how to use it is the
> most universal need expressed by our affiliates.
>
> It's possible and likely that RE won't be able to meet all the data
> needs for all the affiliates but it will help to provide an donation
> management solution that is integrated between affiliates and national
> for those willing to participate. It MIGHT however prove to be able
> to do everything needed. The only way to know is to try and let our
> Affiliate Development specialist assist in getting it up and running.
>
> Daniel Hayes
> LNC At Large Member
>
> On Jan 23, 2017, at 10:20 AM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:
>
>> Robert Kraus, please forward this note to the state chairs and state
>> database admins.
>>
>> LNC Regional representatives, you may want to forward this directly
>> to your regions as well.
>>
>> ===================
>>
>> *SUMMARY*
>>
>> State Chairs and database admins:
>>
>> We're planning a minor upgrade to the LNC's Raiser's Edge database
>> system over the next couple of months and as part of that expect to
>> prune around 200,000 of the lowest quality records from our 500,000+
>> record database.
>>
>> No action is required from you on this, and at least in the short run
>> you should not notice any changes in how we use and share data beyond
>> the fact that the spreadsheets we email to you will be shorter.
>>
>> *MORE BACKGROUND & DETAIL*
>>
>> For over ten years, the national LP has used a membership database
>> program called Raiser's Edge, a system provided by the company
>> Blackbaud <https://www.blackbaud.com/>https://www.blackbaud.com/.
>>
>> For most of those ten years we've used one of the most stripped down
>> entry-level versions of the software. The program is installed and
>> run on servers at our headquarters office. Among all of staff's other
>> various duties, those servers are maintained, backed up,
>> troubleshooted, etc., by staff. New versions of the software are
>> downloaded and installed by staff. Occasionally, when the servers
>> keep crashing or what have you, and staff can't get things working
>> with the help of hardware and Blackbaud or Microsoft tech support, we
>> bring in other experts and pay them by the hour to troubleshoot them
>> for us. The two servers we use today I believe were bought in 2010,
>> back when I was frustrated over how slow our program ran. Those new
>> servers made a huge difference, but are getting old again.
>>
>> We'll be upgrading to Raiser's Edge NXT
>> <https://www.blackbaud.com/fundraising-and-relationship-management/raisers-edge-nxt>.
>> The program will be hosted (or installed) on servers run by
>> Blackbaud. Raiser's Edge will be "on the cloud" on servers run and
>> maintained by Blackbaud, instead of on servers in our basement that
>> are run and maintained by my overworked and under-specialized staff.
>>
>> We've recently hired a couple of people to help with fundraising. By
>> having Raisers Edge hosted on the cloud, we'll have an easier time
>> giving access to people outside of the LPHQ office, and those offsite
>> users will experience a better user interface than what we can do for
>> them today with the program in our basement.
>>
>> It is possible that we will be able to offer access to state leaders
>> to their portions of the membership database, and also possible that
>> we'll choose to add additional features in the future, but I don't
>> want to promise any of that at this time. I've seen too many projects
>> and programs over promise and under-deliver, and I don't want to do
>> that right off the bat.
>>
>> Another key feature we'll gain is we'll be able to embed donation
>> forms directly into our websites. Many donations will be processed
>> directly by the new software, rather than having to import them from
>> our website, or type them in manually.
>>
>> Some of our renewal processes can be streamlined. To send renewal
>> emails, our current process is to download a list from Raisers Edge,
>> modify the columns of data, then upload that list into our email
>> blast service, iContact, send the renewal email to those contacts,
>> and the recipients then donate at LP.org <http://LP.org>/membership.
>> We then have to manually link those donations to the members record
>> in Raisers Edge, which is easy for unique names like Nicholas
>> Sarwark, but more difficult for the 65 John Smith's in our database,
>> and the people like Robert Benedict and Wes Benedict who sometimes
>> use their middle names. Additionally, it's particularly hard when one
>> of those Smiths moves to a new address and we don't always know if
>> they are new person, or an old member renewing at a new address. With
>> Raisers Edge NXT, we'll be able to email people from directly within
>> Raisers Edge NXT with links to donate that match the donation exactly
>> with the existing record. We'll save time, increase accuracy, and
>> cut down on the number of customer service complaints.
>>
>> Our old (current) version of Rasiers Edge costs us a flat fee per
>> year. The new version will be based on how many records we have in
>> the database. For that reason, we've taken a close look at our
>> records to see what we could purge to keep our costs in check.
>>
>> Our practice for decades has been to never delete a record. That
>> means if someone went to our website in 1996 to request information,
>> but never donated and never left a valid email address or phone
>> number, that record could still be in our database. If someone added
>> a contact as part of a joke in 1997, that contact is probably still
>> in there.
>>
>> We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has ever given
>> money to the national LP (donors 1971-2017).
>> We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has ever "signed
>> the pledge" and is therefore at least a non-dues-paying member of the
>> party (members 1971-2017), unless they are deceased or have requested
>> to be dropped from our membership database.
>> We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has a valid email
>> address (emails 199?-2017).
>>
>> We do plan to purge people that were added on or before 12/31/2007,
>> yet have never donated, have never "signed the membership pledge",
>> have no valid email address, and have no valid phone number (around
>> 200,000 contacts).
>>
>> Purging these low-value contacts would probably be worth doing
>> whether were upgrading our database or not, simply to cut out the
>> clutter, both for the national LP's benefit, and for the state and
>> local affiliates that use our data. Removing these contacts will save
>> national and state leaders time and money by not wasting resources
>> contacting them.
>>
>> Our plan is to purge those 200,000 records and save them in a
>> spreadsheet. We'll have the option to re-import them later if we
>> change our minds. Additionally, we'll break up the 200,000 records
>> into batches that we'll forward on to the respective states.
>>
>> I think it's possible that if a handful of states prefer to retain
>> the low-value obsolete data in Raiser's Edge, we can probably
>> accommodate that. If you want to retain your old contacts in Raisers
>> Edge, please send a note to Robert.Kraus at lp.org with your request.
>>
>> If it has been a long time since you have sent the records from your
>> state's database that aren't already in the national database for
>> integration into the national LP database, please send that to
>> Robert.Kraus at lp.org as well.
>>
>> Some people may be interested in whether or not we should be sticking
>> with Raiser's Edge, or should we move to SalesForce, NationBuilder,
>> CiviCRM, or something else. My thoughts are that most major
>> membership databases would be fine with me. At the risk of pointing
>> the finger at myself, our staff, and the LNC, I don't think the data
>> and information challenges we have faced over the years are due to
>> the brand of software we use. I can use most any major brand of
>> software. Our challenges are that we haven't done as much as we could
>> to maintain our data, share our data, learn how to use our systems,
>> train our affiliates where applicable, and add features to whatever
>> software packages we use.
>>
>> Upgrading Raisers Edge is easier than switching to a different
>> vendor. I'm afraid that if we simply switched to a different vendor,
>> we'd be too busy with the conversion to focus on upgrading our actual
>> procedures and practices. Garbage-in, garbage-out, garbage moved next
>> door, or whatever.
>>
>> Upgrading Raiser's Edge today won't preclude us from moving to
>> something else in the future. Upgrading successfully and adding some
>> features today, might make it more clear in the future that something
>> else is better for us.
>>
>> As we work on this, we may find the need to adjust our plans. We'll
>> try to keep you informed along the way.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> --
>> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
>> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
>> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
>> (202) 333-0008 ext. 232,wes.benedict at lp.org
>> facebook.com <http://facebook.com>/libertarians @LPNational
>> Join the Libertarian Party at:http://lp.org/membership
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