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<p>I'm addressing several urgent things but will try to comment more
soon. Short answer is sounds like a good idea.<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wes.benedict@lp.org">wes.benedict@lp.org</a>
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lp.org/membership">http://lp.org/membership</a></pre>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/24/2017 5:25 PM, Daniel Hayes
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:b58f7987-b78b-4af3-827d-74c43c16e4ab@me.com"
type="cite">
<div>
<div id="AppleMailSignature" style="color: #000000; font-family:
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word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Wes,</div>
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</div>
<div id="AppleMailSignature" style="color: #000000; font-family:
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15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
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normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
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data-mce-style="color: #000000; font-family: SFNSText,
'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;
font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
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normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Thanks for
that email. </div>
<div id="AppleMailSignature" style="color: #000000; font-family:
SFNSText, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:
15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
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normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"
data-mce-style="color: #000000; font-family: SFNSText,
'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;
font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing:
normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.</div>
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</div>
<div id="AppleMailSignature" style="color: #000000; font-family:
SFNSText, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:
15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
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normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"
data-mce-style="color: #000000; font-family: SFNSText,
'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;
font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
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normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Daniel Hayes<br>
LNC At Large Member</div>
</div>
<div><br>
On Jan 23, 2017, at 10:20 AM, Wes Benedict
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:wes.benedict@lp.org"><wes.benedict@lp.org></a> wrote:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div class="msg-quote" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">Robert
Kraus, please forward this note to the state chairs and
state database admins. <br>
<br>
LNC Regional representatives, you may want to forward this
directly to your regions as well.<br>
<p>===================<br>
</p>
<p><b>SUMMARY</b></p>
<p>State Chairs and database admins:<br>
</p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
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. <br>
<br>
<b>MORE BACKGROUND & DETAIL</b><br>
<br>
For over ten years, the national LP has used a membership
database program called Raiser's Edge, a system provided by
the company <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.blackbaud.com/" rel="noreferrer"
data-mce-href="https://www.blackbaud.com/">Blackbaud </a><a
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.blackbaud.com/" rel="noreferrer"
data-mce-href="https://www.blackbaud.com/">https://www.blackbaud.com/</a>.
<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
We'll be upgrading to <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.blackbaud.com/fundraising-and-relationship-management/raisers-edge-nxt"
rel="noreferrer"
data-mce-href="https://www.blackbaud.com/fundraising-and-relationship-management/raisers-edge-nxt">Raiser's
Edge NXT</a>. 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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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 <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://LP.org"
data-mce-href="http://LP.org">LP.org</a>/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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has ever
given money to the national LP (donors 1971-2017).<br>
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.<br>
We don't plan to purge any records for anyone that has a
valid email address (emails 199?-2017).<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 <a
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:Robert.Kraus@lp.org"
data-mce-href="mailto:Robert.Kraus@lp.org">Robert.Kraus@lp.org</a>
with your request.<br>
<br>
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 <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:Robert.Kraus@lp.org"
data-mce-href="mailto:Robert.Kraus@lp.org">Robert.Kraus@lp.org</a>
as well.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
As we work on this, we may find the need to adjust our
plans. We'll try to keep you informed along the way.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<pre class="moz-signature">--
Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wes.benedict@lp.org" data-mce-href="mailto:wes.benedict@lp.org">wes.benedict@lp.org</a>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://facebook.com" data-mce-href="http://facebook.com">facebook.com</a>/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lp.org/membership" rel="noreferrer" data-mce-href="http://lp.org/membership">http://lp.org/membership</a></pre>
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