Bloomerang

MARCH 22, 2024

Today’s question comes from a nonprofit employee who wants advice on whether they should hire a development consultant: Dear Charity Clairity, I’m a one-person development shop, wondering if I should hire a consultant to help with some of the work that’s not getting done. When not to hire a consultant To do regularly performed work.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 19, 2007

I decided several weeks ago, for a variety of reasons, to retire my independent consultant hat. Being an independent consultant was, for me, a way to feel like I was using my skills for the greater good. 3 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Michele 03.19.07 And, I think I did that. at 5:25 pm Good luck, Michelle.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 1, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Open Source Database solutions part I January 1, 2007 I’m throwing up my hands. Y’all will just have to live with overlapping series. I have too many ideas be sequential. I promise (!)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 1, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Open Source Database solutions part I January 1, 2007 I’m throwing up my hands. Y’all will just have to live with overlapping series. I have too many ideas be sequential. I promise (!)

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3rd Sector Labs

APRIL 28, 2014

Keep in mind, however, that all CRMs and donor databases are different – each has its own database structure, definitions of key terms, and attributes for handling certain data types. Data governance represents ‘rules of the road’ for your donor database. As a general rule of thumb, though, use the importers.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 15, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants: Better Late than Never May 15, 2007 This carnival is a day late, unfortunately. Getting construction work done on your house will make life difficult sometimes.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 8, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology NTC Summary, and Nonprofit Technology Consulting 2.0 I wrote thousands of lines of code and designed more databases than I can count. Looking forward to more comments and posts in this vein.

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TechImpact

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Image courtesy of Etiquette Consulting Inc. Smaller nonprofits might use nothing more than an Excel document to track their contributors, however, when you start hitting the double, triple, quadruple, and beyond digits, it’s time to invest in some database management software. Public recognition.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 3, 2009

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Drupal security, and other CMS Report comments April 3, 2009 Now that the Idealware CMS report is out, I get to have my say about it. Here’s the first post, there might be more to come. 7 admin 04.07.09

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 11, 2008

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology I’m hosting the carnival next week April 11, 2008 (Photo by frankienose ) I’m hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants here, next week. So send in your best of the week! {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

The description: “ Talk with Michelle about internal software systems – document and knowledge management, CRM, client management databases, intranets, etc.&# So, come join me. Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Amy Sample Ward

DECEMBER 9, 2010

You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying. The Database, together with the fully-updated 2011 Nonprofit Tagline Report, are key tools in in crafting taglines, organization names and other messages that connect and motivate action. Which are easiest to use?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 17, 2008

It has the kind of functionality you’d expect from a donor database. Leverage the power of the open platform of Salesforce.com, and do the work that nonprofits (and consultants) have been having to do to bang Salesforce.com into shape as a donor database. It seems in a business sense, to be a brilliant move.

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3rd Sector Labs

AUGUST 22, 2014

Database / tech staff = 27%. We call a consultant = 2%. A few comments about the poll results. QUESTION: Do you also help clients evaluate database management systems to determine a best fit for a client? About the same = 27%. 1-2 = 61%. 3-5 = 35%. Marketing / fundraising staff = 61%. Not sure = 11%.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 17, 2008

I’m also holding the consultant spot on the panel “ Changing your CEO from barrier to partner &# with Marnie Webb, David Geilhufe, and Steve Heye. (And I’m looking forward to it. I’m on the Evaluating Open Source panel, with Laura Quinn and Catherine Lane, which should be great. And I hope to bring home a penguin!)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 10, 2008

My theory of practice is different than my consulting philosophy. The role I play most often currently is providing a clear and understandable avenue between the client and a technology vendor (such as web or database development shop). 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Michele Martin 07.11.08 Intermediation.

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Amy Sample Ward

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Participants on the call come from many backgrounds and situations and are now embarking on new businesses, services and consulting. Use the comments below to share your additional resources or recommendations as well. Today I had the pleasure of presenting a webinar to clients of the Washington Access Fund. Anything else?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 15, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Speaking too soon April 15, 2007 I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I wrote my post, a few weeks ago , saying I was done with technology consulting. I stumbled a fair bit along the way.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 7, 2007

March 7, 2007 Next Monday, I’m hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants. Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Carnival Hosting Again! So, submit those posts by Sunday evening!

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 14, 2006

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Things that make me feel better December 14, 2006 As someone who has developed web database applications for clients, I always hate when they get errors. Things like this make me feel so much better.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 25, 2008

Is this a bad thing? Myspace is going with OpenID ! Not waiting for Android vaporware (my research suggested it was probably a long time coming, and would not be on my carrier, AT&T,) I decided to succumb, and buy an iPhone 3G. More on that in a later post. { More on that in a later post. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MAY 1, 2007

May 1, 2007 Jon Stahl quotes a comment by Ethan Zuckerman about “shiny&# – the over attention to cool and groovy web 2.0 Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Too much “shiny&# ? functionality. Not always, but often.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JULY 27, 2007

It’s not just consulting work, but other varied happenings in my life as well. I’ve been re-reading a book that I read early in the decision-making process about becoming a consultant way back in 1996. It’s called The Consultant’s Calling , and it’s really a book about consulting as a calling, a vocation.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 20, 2007

I wish all a holiday season full of fun, quality time with family (chosen or otherwise), and joy. { 1 trackback } Free and open source tool #1: Thunderbird » Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology 01.03.08 Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

OCTOBER 9, 2007

(Photo by rob_pym ) I’m hosting this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants ! There weren’t many takers on this one, but there are some real troopers out there in the nonprofit consultant blogosphere, so there’s some great stuff to talk about. Sorry it’s a day late.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

APRIL 3, 2008

It’s still mighty small (still around 2%), but Linux Desktop market share grew from 40-60% (depending on who you ask) from last year. Adobe (yeah, Adobe ) joined the Linux Foundation , and released a Linux alpha of Air , their new application platform. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

NOVEMBER 6, 2007

That was one of the big reasons I had been looking for good web conferencing a while back (I’m still looking…) I’m starting my foray into this territory by giving a free course in the database management system, PostgreSQL. The course is a 12 week course, starting on November 19th (with time off for the holidaze.)

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

DECEMBER 10, 2007

I expect that this will enhance the appeal of LinkedIn for nonprofit executives, staff, and consultants for our own networking needs. It all sounds like LinkedIn wants to pull all of those people who have been migrating to Facebook back into their fold, with the idea that LinkedIn is serious about business. It’s an interesting strategy.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

FEBRUARY 26, 2008

It’s cross-platform (available on all platforms) and works really well (the old player was a bit buggy, but those have been really smoothed out, of late.) It is, I imagine, what the future of television will be. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 3, 2008

I’m giving a talk on the panel on Open Sourced Advocacy , where I’ll be speaking with my colleagues Ryan Ozimek (of PICnet ) and Jo Lee (of CitizenSpeak ), as well as Michael Haggerty, of Trellon , and Alan Rosenblatt , of the Center for American Progress.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

MARCH 13, 2008

1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 adam nicholson 03.13.08 The process of governments in Europe starting to shift to open source software, and software that used open standards, rapidly increased the use of FOSS in Europe. It could happen here. { at 8:48 pm Wow…that’s amazing. What does this mean for us?

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 11, 2007

I think part of the answer has to be to provide the resources for people to become better providers – whether it be to help budding accidental techies get off the ground to become great IT staff or independent consultants, or helping individual and small consulting firms learn what makes really good nonprofit support.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 10, 2007

1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Sue Bennett 09.11.07 He even asks “What would Jesus do?&# O’Rielly has a new online series about Women in Technology , with some really great articles. Worth a read! AgencyByte has a great article on how to prevent scope creep. I’d love to chat sometime.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

I’m still watching the fallout on this one. It’s going to be interesting. Under my hat is a blog post about open source and SaaS. It might be interesting. { Freelance Switch Gavin’s Digital Diner Idealware Jon Stahl’s Journal Lifehacker LinuxChix – Be Polite. It might be interesting. {

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JANUARY 15, 2008

Dokuwiki is different in a number of ways, most primarily in that it is one of the wiki systems that stores things in files, not databases. 2 comments… read them below or add one } 1 Andreas Gohr 01.21.08 I’ve always liked wikis, and I have used MediaWiki a lot in the past, and I do like it.

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

AUGUST 11, 2008

It still requires the hardware and operating systems, and databases that more traditional applications that are inside your network require, but, generally, you hand off that responsibility to the folks that host your application, and access the application through the internet. at 5:17 am TechSoup Blog 09.16.09

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Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

SEPTEMBER 25, 2007

at 6:09 pm { 1 comment… read it below or add one } 1 Robin 09.25.07 But I might write an entry or two on my personal blog , if you’re interested. { 1 trackback } Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change 09.29.07 at 1:17 pm Happy writing!

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