Experience the power of the pipeline management tool for Nonprofit

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hi thank you guys so much for joining us for this talk my name is Aaron Brennan and I am here with my business partner Christy Youm we work at Brennan brand which is a creative agency and we're here to talk to you about ways that you can create tools and tips and routines and applications to best optimize your organization if you are working from home so a lot of us are used to going to the office a lot of us are starting to work remote by force or by choice and so you do end up with the question how do you do that when your kitchen table doubles as an office when you're trying to work on different time zones when you're trying to just motivate yourself to be productive and we've found that these daily routines or these applications have helped keep us on track have helped keep us communicating with team members and delivering the types of results that we would if we were in an office so if you guys have any questions go ahead and type them in the chat we're gonna go through some of our favorite applications how we use them what that looks like and how we integrate that to be productive working from home or cafes or anywhere around the world okay Christy shall we start the presentation absolutely here we go so the first thing that's the most important when you're working home from home is your communication tools because now we no longer have the ability to just walk into each other's offices or tap someone on the shoulder the next cubicle making sure that all of your team members are in one central place for communications is essential and our favorite tool for that is slack number one the reason why as of late is because it's currently free for nonprofits they do have a version that is free anyway but they do have the pro version free for nonprofits during this situation so it's a great way for you to onboard your team and keep the conversations going so slack in general is used to replace email so that you don't have to spend hours reading threads and CC's because if you already have an inbox full of threads it's just gonna double when you're working from home because you don't have the opportunity to meet and person so slack can divide your conversations up into departments so for example if you're running the fundraising department or the operations department then you can have different conversations in that and then have all of your people speak in one thread so you're not opening up multiple emails at a time further to that you can create as many channels as you want so say for example within fundraising you have a fundraising event then you have donor recognition or things like that you can create as many different channels as possible and add whoever's relevant so that everyone's messages can stay organized and we love slack because it increases in efficiency due to the way that it's organized it also fosters collaboration so for example when you're sending emails to each other sometimes you know sending an idea here or there it doesn't seem worth an email but on slack it makes it a lot easier for you to just type your ideas so everyone can kind of chime in all at once so it fosters collaboration that way and like we mentioned it's currently free for nonprofits so we're really into slack for that reason I would just add one of my favorite features about it is that you can search so let's just say you have an event one year and you want to know what did you guys do about that last year you can actually go through and search and it'll pull up past threads so just like you can search your Gmail you're able to go back and see different ideas that you've had across different departments or past years absolutely so our scheduling genius the Aaron is going to talk about our Oh actually project management project management is asana I thought we were scheduled we're still we're still an organization which is we're a project management tool you may already use this at your organization or you may use Gantt charts or different kinds of spreadsheets and things like that but because we're in a remote situation you may not have the ability again to meet in person as often as as you would normally so asana basically is a central place where you can organize all your projects and tasks you can set deadlines and assign tasks to specific people again it's really good for collaboration and then if you are the person who's leading a team tracking progress is really important because working from home and especially in the situation that we're in right now there's a lot of distractions a lot of people are getting used to working in a different environment and also just being preoccupied with all the news and things that are going on in our in our environments at the moment so tracking progress is really important to help keep our teams on task and also to make sure that all the you know T's are crossed and the I's are dotted so why we love the sauna is because you can set objectives and then that way everyone is on the same page in terms of expectations and so you can spend your days instead of worrying about whether your team is working on something or not you can just check us on it and see that it's in progress so that you know that things are kind of on their way it also just keeps keeps the priorities a little bit more streamlined and straightforward for everybody and the other reason we love it is because it's free for up to 15 team members and with nonprofit organizations we know that that can range in size from two to five to a hundred to several hundred team members so it really is going to depend on what your needs are but at least for the first 15 team members you can use asana for free and then if you need more then you can upgrade to premium and if you do currently utilize TechSoup if you're in the States or Canada or if you don't know what that is check out TechSoup for nonprofits because they actually offer software licenses for free for nonprofits and so you can actually get us on a premium level for free through them so just make sure to check that out and I would just go ahead and say with the you know at the asana one of the ways that Christy and I are able to use this to kind of cut back on emails in the back and forth you know slack is a great tool for that but also there's so many even calls that never actually need to be sent because before I even think about slain or emailing Christy the first thing I do is I go into the project management and see is there a status report is there an update have things change and so it's a way to really be able to be proactive in your own working environment so not only does it remind you when something's coming up but it also means that you don't have to bother all your co-workers by being like did you get this did you get this did you get this hey exactly now it's scheduling go ahead Aaron okay so I love online schedulers so much I'm probably overly passionate about this topic and there's a lot out there and they're all really great like calendly acuity you know they're all more or less work the same acuity is hands-down my favorite I've I use it we use it for work I put almost every client on it and the reason I love it is because it's so simple and it's so customizable so there's a free version and then there's paid versions and we actually have a blog on our website specifically about the features how to use it and what you get with pay versus free so you get a lot more customization with the paid version but like I said there is a free version and what's great about it is it syncs with your calendars and your team's calendars so that means if you are working from home and you are gonna block off taking your kids to the park or you have a big call with your board it automatically blocks off so no one can do that so the two async pinna is really helpful and like I said if that's not a unique feature like most of the calendars do that but acuity is so pretty and so easy to use and so user-friendly it just makes my heart so happy and so every time I don't use it I end up kicking myself could I end up in 20 emails back and forth going we do have haven't talked on - oh no now I can't do - what about 2:30 Thursday at 3:00 nope Monday at 1:00 and you're lost in this sea and I always end up going I don't know why I didn't use my online calendar here's a link book it online and then the paid versions also have ways that you can have them fill out questionnaires or you can send reminders so also people don't miss meetings and all kinds of great features but basically everyone should have an online calendar and if you do it should definitely be acuity and no I do not work for them yeah just to add to that - as we are all facing a new reality and so if you are working or if your organization is very people facing you're in you're used to doing check-ins face-to-face maybe you're a social services organization or something like that the fact of organizing virtual meetings is going to be a new thing and so being able to add video conferencing that link into it automatically through acuity is really helpful because sometimes we forget to add the link and still when the time comes for you to meet then then emails go back and forth you know where's the where's the meeting link and things like that so they do automate a lot of things for you just so it makes it easier for you to plan especially across time zones as well so we really love online scheduling and errands already told you why so for those meetings that you have booked through your online scheduling for video conferencing we really love zoom obviously in this great acuity for this again like there's different video conferencing platforms you can use zoom is our favorite but you can also use things like Google Hangouts and other ones as well just a little kind of side note there is zoom actually enables you to put a background in so that's really fun because they have pre pre-populated background so you could be like in space or at the beach or you know like a serious office background but now there's a lot of design firms and furniture stores that have actually made backgrounds available so that you can put a background behind you and it looks like you're in your really chic apartment and so all of us know that you know we're all working from home right now so there's no shame in having you know blinds is your background but if you just wanted to up it a little bit you can use that with zoom the great thing with zoom as well is that you can record your your meeting and you can screen share so just the same as tools like Google Hangouts and Skype you can do this same thing and video recording is going to be really important especially when we all have different priorities going on right now and we just have to realize that our schedules are going to need to be a lot more flexible and with that said sometimes we're going to miss meetings and so being able to record your video conference is going to be really important to ensure that everyone is in the loop all the time and so why we love zoom in particular is that it keeps social connection alive in a way that there's a gallery view so you can see all the people all at once which is really nice and one tip that isn't specific to nonprofits but is just a really good tip in general especially because you lose sort of office culture when you are working remotely and from home is to schedule like morning coffees or like team lunches and just ensuring that you're prioritizing that time to just keep your team give your team some time to socialize and be personal with each other and not talk about work so that everyone feels a little bit less isolated so Kristi you and I use it for working sessions so a lot of times what we'll end up doing is have documents up and we're talking to each other as if we were in a meeting or we'll be doing a screen share in a Google document we're actually going forth and doing the actual working session together so just because you're not in an official team meeting doesn't mean you can't collaborate with team members that's absolutely a great point um the other thing we'd like to suggest for remote working especially when your whole team is remote is to to ask everyone gently is still their decision but really just try to push for everyone's to put their video on obviously we're gonna be very accepting of how we all look working from home and making sure that people's videos are on it's really helpful just for social connection but also just to make sure everyone's paying attention there are a lot of distractions like we said and it's just nice to see people spaces zoom is free for everybody up to 40 minute meetings and then you can upgrade for that but it is free for now and we have a little hack especially in non-profit we know that every penny counts so if you do get kicked off a forty minute meeting just hop back on and then you're starting again so for staff time tracking there are a lot of different tools for this as well and so it really depends on what your preferences either if you're working for a nonprofit organization or any organization or you're a leading one so you can always use a timer on your phone or whatever that is but we really like harvest because again just like the project management tools and and slack it keeps everything really organized and so again we'll just have to fix this slide sorry about that again with harvest essentially what it's used for is to help stay your team stay productive and that's not to say that it's a way to keep tabs on everyone and that every minute you know you're making sure that someone's working on something and and moving the wheels forward because again like our new reality it just doesn't allow for that so it does keep teams accountable though by way of productivity so you can actually organize your time trackers by projects and by tasks and then assign people to different things so say for example you have a grant proposal do but you you know instead of sending emails or slack messages that can force a check in every every you know half an hour or hour to see how things are going you can basically set a budget of time in harvest or you can leave it open for particular tasks and projects so that your team can be communicating with you without needing to communicate with you that they're on it but they're working on it and why we love harvest in particular is because it is really easy to use and there's a browser extension as well so on the top kind of right when you have that extension in there when you're starting to work on something you can just click it and there's a very easy little timer that you can use just click what project you're working on and then click go and then you're kind of you're set for that then you can just focus on working and you don't have to worry about finding that window to track your time again there's also going to app in case you forget but timer's been left on you've shut off your computer already so you can just hop on your phone and edit from there and there is also reporting available so you can as a leader of your team you can see kind of how people are doing and I would just add that you know one of the one of the pieces of working from home that can be really difficult and challenging is when you're working versus when you're home right you get up to make lunch oh let me just flip the laundry really quickly oh you know empty the dishwasher things that aren't really a temptation when you're at the office so when you're at the office there's there's a little bit more accountability and structure built into to work in your schedule so one of the things that I like to do is time blocking where I can set aside time to work on something and that's great but I don't always have the time to do that or I'm juggling a lot of things that day and so I feel like I've done a lot of work and then I turn around I don't know why my products aren't ready and so time tracking helps me keep myself accountable to know oh wow I thought he was working for five hours but I really only got three hours of work done what was I doing and so it's just also another great way to keep yourself on track absolutely oh okay so those are really the tools that we use and so by communicating with each other and keeping ourselves on track and you know communicating with our team those are some of the ways that we stay productive and on track while we are working from home and so one of questions is who are we and so we are a creative brand firm and so we're working with nonprofits small businesses helping them launch their projects grow their and cover their impact so we're always juggling a lot of different projects at the same time and so we hope that this has been really helpful for you guys but we've also put together a work from home guide that kind of goes into these tools a little bit more so weather yeah so we these are the types of things we work on from marketing to identity to strategy and all of that and so what we're also offering for anyone that comes to the conference is a free 30-minute consult so we have a landing page built for you guys that you can go and download the ebook which goes into more detail about how we structure time blocking and working from home and other apps that we love both paid and free and again also offering three free 30-minute strategy sessions to talk through your ideas your obstacles whether it be working from home or launching new projects yep so thank you so much for having us we've got just three minutes left here so if there's someone who has a really quick question we can app squeeze then yeah any questions or anything like that all right um okay so since we have a couple of minutes I will go can I give my five quick work-from-home tips that I have more do with my routine and then Chris you want a name absolutely so my my first tip is that you want to make sure that you carve out some time for yourself so for me that's my morning walk and lunch those are my times to call my friends those are my times to you know fold the laundry and do all of that and so even though sometimes I'm tempted to kind of get my personal stuff done I know that I have those blocks of time for myself I also like to make sure that I've kind of pre-made food for example today I have not had lunch because I didn't have anything that was easy and ready to grab so I didn't have time to actually get up and go do some cooking so having that food prep and lunch ready is key I also think that being in a comfortable working space like having a place that's dedicated so for example I never worked for my bedroom because I want that bedroom to be free of any work so when your home is somewhere you work and live you want to make sure that you kind of have dedicated spaces so that your brain knows how to kind of turn off there's only one more minute left so I'm going to push it to you Christie for your three tips oh great for my three tips I would say oh we share a lot of the same tips actually this one is just to be kind to yourself to be kind to the people that you're working for and understand that the circumstances that we're facing right now are challenging and we're all new to this well Erin and iron but many of you are new to working from home so just forgive yourself if you know you it's it's difficult these times are hard and so being compassionate and and kind to each other is going to be really important during these times and for us to stay you know strong together so again we're open for anybody who has questions or wants to chat with us our information is on that slide thank you so much for having us and good luck with everything