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[Music] welcome to the nonprofit show we are so glad you're here and we hope that you stay because we have an episode today that we think is going to knock your socks off um I absolutely adore our presenter from Bloomerang today Margie WHL she and I um have several ways that we've worked together in the past and so I purposely asked for Margie to join I had to talk to the uppers at Bloomerang and say can I please have her so she's bringing a topic about working smarter not harder which I think we can all use a little dose of that and she's gonna share with us tips and techniques about Automation and how you can automate certain task for your nonprofit productivity so before we hand the microphone over to Margie we want to remind you who we are if we have not met you yet hello to you Julie of course Julia catrick is here CEO of the American nonprofit Academy thanks to you I get to serve day in and day out because of your lovely invitation to serve as co-host I'm Jarett Ransom nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven group really honored to serve alongside but truly we wouldn't be here if it weren't for these amazing sponsors so shout out of gratitude to our besties over at Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy nonprofit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University 180 Management Group your part-time controller Staffing Boutique JMT Consulting nonprofit nerd and nonprofit Tech talk so these are the companies most of them have been with us with the 950 plus episode Journey we've been on and if you missed any of those 950 plus episodes you can go back and find us on these three channels so go ahead and scan that QR code stay with me Julia I know I know I'm sorry it's raining Jared I'm all messed up I scan that QR code and download the app you can also find us on streaming broadcast and podcast and you might just find yourself binge watching because we hear that quite a bit that someone goes on to watch one or listen to one episode and they stay on for several so consume at your leisure we invite you to do that okay Mar Crown it's like the crown Jared you sit down one episode and then you're there the whole day just saying I haven't done that yet so I have heard it's an amazing show um so Margie is here with us today have you seen the crown Margie I've seen some of the episodes I had to stop just because of the binging danger I really had to just kind of put it on hold for a little bit because I was I was having issues walking away just like the nonprofit show I'm just saying that's like so Margie worldl joins us today she is curriculum manager at Bloomerang and I again just want to share Margie and I have worked together in the past she's presented with our partner at fundraising Academy National University and I help to facilitate that webinar I've joined Margie on the Bloomerang webinars all kinds of fun stuff so I purposely asked and said can we get Margie and I want her specifically to talk about automation because it is the nerdiest topic that we need to be talking about so welcome thank you I'm so glad to be here and you know what Jared it's funny when you told me the topic my first thought was oh automation hm and then I started looking into it and I was like oh yeah automation this is a great topic and it's just so timely I mean we really need this for our nonprofit friends for them to be able to be successful in their missions yeah well you know it's such an intimidating topic and everybody's talking about it and so then I think as a leader of a nonprofit you're like oh my God I'm it's one more thing I'm behind the ball on one more thing I've got to catch up and so I've got to start the conversation and ask you is this really something that only the mid to large size organizations can do or if you're a startup or you're small can you should you put this on the back burner or should you move forward no I think that's a great question Julia and I'm so glad you're asking it because this is absolutely not for just one this is a one- siiz fits all right this is something every one needs basically if you still have work to do at the end of the day it's for you um you still are going to be um because here's what's happened and I don't think we can have this conversation without talking about the pandemic um since the pandemic um nonprofits have been reporting that they are seeing um jobs going unfilled they aren't able to fill these positions there's a much larger scale of work that needs to be done the need is greater in their community and the funds are less so what we're looking at for our nonprofits is uh doing more with less overall if if that's you then automations are for you and I'm going to guess that's everyone in this audience today and I'm sorry that's you I really am I wish that uh we had other ways to help but certainly automations is a great start and you know what I think there's kind of um big a automations and small a automations and we'll talk about that a little bit too yeah you know I love that you said this this is a one- siiz fits all I think the sooner you start this especially as a smaller nonprofit maybe even a startup nonprofit you stack on these habits right kind of like you stack the automation you stack the technology you stack all of the the process and systems and I don't know about the two of you and all of our viewers and listeners but I love when we can simplify right like let's find a simplistic effective and efficient process I love that you said that Jarett because I think you're right A lot of times in the nonprofit sector and even the for-profit sector we spend time making Corrections that are ultimately are basically bad habits 100% absolutely yeah for sure so Margie you're gonna talk to us really about you know how this works in our database because you are representative of Bloomerang and what I love about Bloomerang is really being a thought leader in the space so this is this is a conversation whether you use their specific database or any other database so really looking at this from you know a efficiency standpoint so talk to us about like where should we go for the most logical areas to begin our automation absolutely and I just want to say first of all um Jared I would love to call out the fact that some automations are free and some automations are low cost so I want to kind of start there and then we'll build from there so um one of the um things I love to think about is not all automations are Tech and I would like to say that um yeah I think that this is an interesting concept just blw I'm like what do you mean I thought I sensed mine's blowing I wasn't sure that it was your to do it but I could yeah okay that I want to hear more about this yeah so here's one here's an example um I used to work at United Way and my job was immersive learning and I did simulations and these simulations had kits and we took the kits in and people would write on these whiteboards and I would give them a wipe and instruct them to clean the Whiteboard before putting it away and put everything back as they found it and of course not everyone did that um so I would I would bring the kids back and I would sit for an afternoon scrubbing off whiteboards putting everything back um and that was something I was doing instead of interacting with donors instead of working in the areas where I could develop better IM Mar of learning technology I had to sit and take that time right so think about this can an automation be utilizing volunteers or interns to do work for your organization and there's a side benefit to this um we had an intern who came in and took on that task she was at a local College where she needed service hours so she benefited from getting her service hours we benefited from having her come in and do this work and also she developed an affinity for our organization maybe she became a future donor who knows we also had a retiree who came in and she loved the work that we did and so she would do this for us as well and after they got in people started to say hey wait a minute you have an intern you have a volunteer I have this over here that I need to so automation can actually be a human thing as well I love this yeah and I would have never thought of that you know and and as nonprofits we think of the workforce that comes to us by way of volunteer engagement uh interns what a wonderful opportunity I love that this can really be applied in you know all areas and we just need to think a little a little further on that yeah absolutely and you know there A lot of times we're looking for ways to engage our donors and if they're wanting to help why not utilize that so I'm going to start with that also think about free and inexpensive um technologies that you can incorporate the most recent one Jarett you're actually going to love this because this has to do with you um in my work I have partners that I have to um make appointments with outside of the company I can't see their calendars I have no visibility into that and the the way I used to do this was I would open up my calendar I would open up my email I'd have to look for available times right many of youve probably been through this send those over like type all those into an email send those over to the partner wait to hear back when they were available right then I'd have to go to my calendar schedule the time send that off to the partner I don't know about you but I'm tired just listening to me talk about this I me you I'm glad you said something yeah right it's just too much um I I discovered kendly yeah you can have a free calendly so I now just send that off people schedule time it's done um can I say too I think that the pandemic uh normalized cenly yes I feel like earlier let's say 18 19 early 20 anytime I would see someone send me a link that says oh schedule here on my calendar I thought they're a little pompous right or lazy I did that too oh yeah yeah and now it's like efficiency automation it's what you do and it's almost like if you don't have one people even ask for it they'll say send me your schedule link absolutely right it's almost anticipated that you have that yeah yeah I think so one of the things that I love is the automation within blooming and again this can be done with many crms I have been on another uh conver iation with you Margie where you shared some of this around task and reports and setting up you know okay every Friday at this time talk to us about those options absolutely happy to do so I'm always happy to talk about the um automation that Bloomerang has we're constantly looking for new ways to help automate systems so that nonprofit customers are able to really focus on their mission because that's what really counts at the end of the day um so one of the um experiences I've also o had working at a nonprofit was that our fundraisers needed reports weekly on their interactions so that they could see who they have and have not touched within their portfolios and we had admins who were going in and doing these reports right sending them every week there's no need for that inside Bloomerang we have the ability for you to make Dynamic date filters and to just make it so that it automatically sends so you can have a report going out weekly to the same people and it will rotate date for you so that it's keeping up with um time right moving forward in time so it's rolling um and it will communicate that information without you touching it um another great example that that uh Jared just referred to is tasks um sometimes it's really hard to keep track of tasks um and also um to know what others are doing as well I don't know if anyone else has ever suffered from you know duplicate effort uh we we used to see a lot of that in some of the nonprofit I worked at one of the features on your dashboard in Bloomerang so as soon as you log into Bloomerang you see your tasks but not just your tasks everyone else's tasks in the database as well so you are able to see who is doing what and you're able to track that information it also sends you reminders if you make a task for someone else it sends thema email reminders it moves a a task up as the date becomes closer so um if you have some sort of automation around tasks like that I encourage you to use it it is so easy to lose track and I I tell you the Post-it notes system um doesn't work very well I've seen Post-it notes on the bottom of shoes before and you don't know about that task if it's in the bottom of your shoe so I you know Marie I love this because I think a lot of times it's I know for me I get very very hung up on the task and I feel like I'm the only one rowing in that direction and then I get frustrated with everyone around me because I'm like come on you guys you're not doing what we're doing and it's like but wait a minute everybody doesn't know what you're doing so this dashboard piece um and I've seen it other software it's it's it's a game changer because I think it elevates everybody's activity as well it builds accountability absolutely and it also helps you to know for example if I'm talking to a donor about um volunteer work and the fundraiser is talking to the donor about something else and someone else is talking to the donor about sponsor we can all see who's having conversations with this donor so that we aren't trampling the donor so that we're being respectful of the donor so it gives you visibility in that way too so that you the right hand knows what the left hand's doing if you're a larger um you know nonprofit where maybe not everybody talks every day and we know that happens like I've got stories of that I know so many others have stories of that let's move into the investment that's needed and my top question when it comes to Investments needed to automate Margie is around time because I feel like the end goal is efficiency however we might need to spend a little extra time investing in getting this set up talk to us about this yeah actually a recent report said that 77% 77% of organizations said that they have software and tools that they think could do more for them than what they're using it for right and so there's always this there is a need to invest time and I highly encourage that if you do um bring in any kind of software for automation that you do spend time with their support team with their help articles wherever you can find that knowledge that you can gain so that you're really utilizing it too to its full potential because es especially if you're investing in it um if you're investing money in it you need to be investing time as well that's the other side of that coin otherwise you're probably leaving some automations on the table that would be super useful to implement with your organization may I add to that I I love your suggestions you know take some time get your coaching hours in whatever they offer do the help articles I love to also find group forums and Community chats that maybe aren't led by that company to see what other people are doing and how they're utilizing that thing whatever it is that we're really looking looking into I find valuable insights into these groups and it's like oh I would have never thought of that great absolutely yeah and and um part of what I do at Bloomerang is we offer free education it's um called Bloomerang Academy and one of the things I love Dara is when I see people in the chat communicating with each other about the best ways yeah to use the software and how they' found this and they found oh I never knew that before and it gets really just so exciting to me to see that so that kind of ties in with those forums right where they you can educate one another on ways that you're utilizing it because truthfully our nonprofits are the boots on the ground they're the ones using it and they're finding amazing ways to automate systems within within Bloomerang and other crms as well I'm sure right that peer-to-peer uh transference of knowledge is so valuable it's Priceless truly what about the cost and I'm I would like to stick really to that CRM space I know a lot of crms and even this data you said 77% of you know users say they're they're maybe not using it to the full capacity there are you know as you as you had mentioned no cost low cost probably a little higher cost but can we talk about like financial investments what does that look like yeah I think that um well one of the things that I really like it and especially as you're looking at a CRM is look to see what is included right as far as automations are concerned places to look for that are like reports do they have the automation around reports do they have automations around emails and donations the task automations we talked about right um and another thing to really think about is if it's not an automation is there an integration that can help automate other pieces of software for example we um have Integrations that are native to Bloomerang like um Qbo like QuickBooks Online like MailChimp right however we also have zapier that can help um now some of those are going to be add-on costs right right but many of these things come native with your basic subscription to Bloomerang so when you're looking at a CRM first of all be thinking about that because it's it's a very key part of having a CRM that truly truly will work for you and automate and help make your staff more productive and here's another thought it also helps your staff uh not feel so much burnout if you are automating your staff is going to be able to have that comfort right of knowing that they these automations are doing the things that might have made them burn out at some point if they were being loaded with an oversized workload yeah you know I think a lot of times Margie the the first thing is you look at that price and you're like what's the cheapest price and it's just you know you go on every website and they have these like little boxes and it's like this per month and you know if you want to bump up a little and I think that that is just such an easy trap to fall into that oh this is the lowest cost per month so that's going to be the best choice versus to your point what is it going to actually do for you and what are your additional Investments because I think that's just a brilliant thing to that we don't look at those added on situations we're like wow yeah we need these reports we need these zaps we need to get these other things and then before we know it we're getting mistrustful of that CRM because we keep adding on expense costs that we didn't expect exactly yeah and and I love that perspective I think it's really important before you go looking for a CRM because because you're right we start looking at the price right before you're looking start thinking about what automations are going to be important to you and then start looking and seeing is this going to be included is this going to be extra and the other part the other piece of any automation that you're considering is think about staff time versus the cost of this automation because a lot of Staff time goes into um some of the work that these automations can lift off of your staff I just love the task or I forget which it was it was the report and like if that's something that you know you need to send to your supervisor or the CEO or whomever maybe a committee chair you can automate that so even if you're on vacation right or you're on a lunch meeting and that that can go through uh without you having to be there to physically you know manually hit that button we don't have much time and we knew this time was going to fly by but let's talk about how we know when our automation is effective when do we say yes this was home run or when do we say you know what we need to rework that one right exactly and I love this question I think it is a great question so I think the way that you know it's working at least from my perspective is if you're spending less time in your database and finding more value out of it you're probably on the right track because you are not having to touch things as often but you're getting extreme amounts of value from your CRM a CRM should not be just a data collection receptacle a CRM should be a breef functioning piece of of data um it's uh I'm trying to think of a word that it's expanding your thank you thank you thank you Julia words um I I think it should be expanding your data sharing your data it should be part of your data strategy and it and I love that yes it needs to go out and it needs to not just take in the data but be sharing it out so if you're seeing that you're not having to spend as much time in there and you're still getting a great deal of value the other thing I think is if you are able to spend time on that mission critical work The Human Side of Things the parts and pieces that you sincerely cannot and would not automate if you are able to spend time and more time on those things you are being successful of course you can set metrics around this you can establish metrics to measure things but I think really um at the end of the day a lot of it is just going to be uh demonstrated in how you're doing your work yeah I was going to share one of the tools that I love within Bloomerang and I am a user right like they're they're wonderful loyal sponsor here of the show and I've used them with so many different organizations that I've had the privilege to work with is when I send an email to a constituent to a supporter and I do the BCC at email address it automatically puts that email into their donor record so that I don't have to copy it paste it you know like that in and of itself is an additional four or five maybe six steps yeah one email address in the same email I send and it's there and and if it's not there because the donor record hasn't been created yet it will prompt you that there is no donor record and therefore you just create it and now you've got that set up it's kind of like set it and forget it you know it's completely like set it and forget it and that's one of the things I love is all of that Vital Information that you need to be able to really stay in touch in a very meaningful and intentional way with your donors all of that's being put into your um database without your thought without your extra effort I love that I do too you know as as we wrap up today's conversation I would love Margie if you would share because you do webinars often in fact I don't know if you know this but I was in on yesterday's webinar about modern donor acquis or retention I think is what it was so you are constantly providing resources and tools and education to our community what does that look like and how do we find out more so that we can you know just learn more in ARA absolutely yeah I thank you for the call out and um I didn't know you were on yesterday Jared that was a fun session you know who else was moderating Julia was one of our other favorites uh Diana Otero and so she moderating the conversations and I just wanted to say hi ladies she's great yeah no she's yeah we we've learned a lot from her and continue to so Diana is amazing and I always shout her out when I can because I just think she is a remarkable lady but if if you're interested in finding out more about our webinars please come to our website Bloom rang. comom and if you go to our uh webinars and events you're going to find all kinds of of interesting nonprofit success and thought leadership webinars that you'll be able to attend they're going to really help you be able to do the work that you're doing in your community in ways that um just are going to help you and and make you more successful and we do have Bloomerang Academy too for anyone who is a Bloomerang user or interested in just seeing a little bit about how Bloomerang Works um if you go to our Bloomerang Academy you can sign up for our classes our sessions there and um just see how our database works for you we're always interested in um sharing that information thank you it's it's great you know I think the thing about you and your team um you're always very quick to talk about the sector as a whole and not just you know um Pitch your own product but you you always seem to really support the health and the knowledge and the um exploration of Excellence across our sector and so we appreciate that we really really do um because it's um it's a rare thing to find somebody that will come on and to all of your team members they seem to do this it's it's a cultural thing I I think um and so Margie worldl um curriculum manager Bloomerang the website is Bloomer rang. comom and you can go on there and then from there you will see just a tremendous amount of information white papers videos The Academy all different things that will help you to be more effective no matter what you're you know the tools that you're using I think that's the brilliant piece of this site is that it's just a generally Strong place to get good current information and so um definitely check out uh Margie and her amazing team because this is something that um is a changing time and Margie you said something really interesting and that was you know so many of these things uh have been propelled by the pandemic we wouldn't be having a lot of these conversations if we hadn't have been just like you know jerked so quickly and then had to kind of come up with new ways to do things and uh Jared and I see that every day that's something that's very evident but um with you and your team kind of really leaning into that I think it's been amazing so thank you thank you thank you for for being with us again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself Jared R Ransom CEO of the Raven group again we are here 90 950 shows past that actually I'm strong and um really because we have this amazing support and it comes from Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy nonprofit thought Leader Staffing Boutique your part-time controller 180 Management Group fundraising Academy at National University JMT Consulting again the nonprofit nerd herself and nonprofit Tech talk these are the folks that really stand behind us day in and day out as we March towards our 100,000th show not easy to say huh J it's not easy to say no but it's exciting to say it is it's crazy it's crazy to say well as we end every episode we want to remind ourselves our viewers our wonderful guests today um to stay well so you can do well we'll see you back here tomorrow everyone thank you [Music] ladies