19NTC Agenda

Experimentation has proven a far more effective method in discovering the ideas that really work, instead of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. The American Heart Association and Alzheimer’s Association will share their top experiments. Learn how to bolster fundraising and engagement efforts, including testing and embracing “failure” as a critical component of the experimentation process.

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It’s more important than ever for nonprofits to focus on building their email lists. Email revenue makes up 28% of all online giving! Join nonprofit digital marketing strategist Julia Campbell to learn how to attract new supporters to your email list using your website and social media platforms. Whether your nonprofit is large or small, has a huge online presence or is just starting out, there are 10 simple, strategic ways to use your website and social media channels to attract new email subscribers and bring them onto your list.

Speakers

Julia Campbell

Author, Speaker, Teacher

J Campbell Social Marketing

Julia Campbell teaches nonprofits the most effective ways to use storytelling and social media to accomplish their goals and to achieve the kind of growth that they desire and that they deserve. The author of Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits and How to Build and Mobilize A Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit in 90 Days, Julia gives keynotes all over the world. Her favorite place to be is relaxing in sweatpants with her 2 kids.

It’s challenging for any organization to stand out in our digital world. But how do you make your brand’s rich history feel relevant to new audiences? In this session, explore how the League of Women Voters, a nearly 100-year-old organization, reinvigorated their brand and voice to reach a new, primarily digital audience. You’ll learn how to reflect a new brand and voice through your website, SEO, social media, and marketing campaigns, and how to use robust analytics to track the effectiveness of these changes so you can remain digitally relevant for years to come.

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19NTC Presenting Sponsor, EveryAction, will share a short welcome before NTEN CEO, Amy Sample Ward, emcees the Ignite-style talks.

Ignite-style talks are fun, fast-paced, thought-provoking presentations. But, there’s a catch: speakers are strictly limited to five minutes, and 20 slides, which advance automatically every 15 seconds. This year’s theme is “how I used the internet to change the world.” The six presenters share both personal and professional stories that range from business failures to thriving communities.

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NTEN’s CEO, Amy Sample Ward, will open the 2019 NTC and 19NTC Presenting Sponsor, Microsoft, will share a short welcome.

See3 Communications, Gather Voices, and NTEN will announce the winners of the 2019 DoGooder Awards, honoring the best work from people and organizations that are using video to create real impact for important causes.

The 2019 NTC Keynote will be from Idalin Bobé. Idalin is founder of TechActivist.Org, a grassroot organization providing free technical training and political education workshops to working-class youth, activists, and disruptors interested in using technology for social good.

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Major giving often seems stuck in the last century, but online major gift forms are now both feasible and effective for mid-sized nonprofits. Online major gift forms offer benefits to you, your organization, and your donors: making major gifts more convenient for your donors and allowing you to convert one-time donations into recurring gifts. You can even use them at events and in-person asks to get immediate donations rather than pledges. This case study will provide ready-to-use advice on how you too can create effective web forms for major givers, promote recurring major gifts, and effectively use online forms in-person.

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Looking for a session that will introduce you to many tools and tactics that you can use as soon as you leave? This is it!

Led by experienced nonprofit staff and consultants who are constantly scouring for new and useful tools and tactics, this will be a rapid overview to benefit your fundraising, marketing, data management, and more. We will cram in as much as possible for a highly engaging and fun session—don’t miss out!

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You’re great at what you do. You’re deeply committed to making an impact in your community and leveraging technology to make the world a better place. But you struggle with how to sustain yourself and your organization while juggling daily challenges like funding, staffing, and deciding whether to adopt the latest technology trend. You know there’s a better way to sustain impact without being in crisis mode 24/7. If this sounds too familiar (whatever your role is in your organization), join this interactive session on building a culture of resilience, intentionality, and sustainable impact.

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Meico Whitlock

Trainer on Mindfulness, Work-Life Balance, and Tech Distraction

Mindful Techie

Meico Marquette Whitlock is a speaker and trainer on mindfulness, technology, and productivity. Meico is the founder and CEO of Mindful Techie, an organization that—through talks, workshops, and coaching—helps purpose-driven high achievers and organizations have an impact without burning out and being distracted by technology. Meico helps busy professionals and organizations integrate purpose, intention, and mindfulness into their day-to-day work in order to increase employee satisfaction, productivity, and work-life balance. He is the creator of the Intention Planner and has been a featured speaker on ABC News, Fox 5, and Radio One.

Transitioning to training online seems like a no-brainer, but what are the considerations when you take activities that were meant to happen in a group setting and move them into a learning management system? It’s important to select a training program to better meet the changing needs of trainers and learners. Hear about different project team’s (in multiple cities) journey to explore the proper tools to use, organize content to engage online learners, and the process to solicit feedback from current volunteers.

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Does your website create an inclusive or exclusive environment for users? Does your digital strategy incorporate web accessibility standards? Are you not sure? Let’s have a conversation and find out!

This session details how to start, develop, manage, and get buy-in for creating inclusive digital products. We’ll cover topics like:

• An introduction to web accessibility
• Inclusive design and UX principles
• Business and social cases for compliance
• Strategies and tools for incorporating web accessibility in every project phase
• Interim repairs and communication tactics

We’ll also do a comparison of how Drupal and WordPress, the two most popular open source content management systems, stack up in terms of accessibility out of the box.

This session is presented by Message Agency.

Automated testing is a key component in modern development. The benefit is that testing robots deploy the code while you sit back, satisfied that you aren’t breaking functionality. In this session, run through the basics that will help you get an automated testing program started. Meet some of our robot buddies we’ve been working with to increase testing coverage in deploying web sites, and learn how to incorporate testing into your dev ops.

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Email automation is a powerful tool for deepening engagement with your audiences, but implementing it can be challenging, especially if you feel stuck with outdated systems, or have a platform already but aren’t sure how best to use it. In this panel, hear from several nonprofits about their automation experiences, addressing critical questions such as:

• Why is automation valuable to my organization?
• What technology should I choose?
• What automations should I start with?
• How is automation going to save my life…exactly?

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Do you want to increase operational efficiencies without adding additional staff? Do you need to protect your data by reducing the number of people handling the data? Do you want a new way to plug in best-of-breed technologies to your data infrastructure? What if every night, you had robots automating thousands of data jobs? Mothership Strategies is using a Data Warehouse powered by Frakture Bots to produce client dashboards that show total money raised, best performing creative, email statistics, and more. Freeing your brain by automating your data processes give you time to do what only humans can!

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Meeting the accessibility needs of all your colleagues is easier than you may think. With the surge of apps, there is greater access to tools to improve working environments for many people with and without disabilities. Join this session to better understand how you can be a stronger advocate for assistive technology.

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Have you had that leader before that you just could NOT believe was promoted to a leadership role? Every time they called a meeting, there was a collective groan across the office? Been there. The worst part was seeing this person drain the creativity and passion from each talented person on their team, until inevitably the talent left.

In this workshop, learn how YOU can be the leader you always wished you’d had. Work on communicating effectively, setting clear expectations, motivating others, and building the right team vibe.

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How can technology fit best with volunteer initiatives? This presentation showcases an overview of current possibilities, working with distributed teams, growing and nurturing your community of volunteers, as well as encouraging you to experiment and adapt new ways of building your volunteer systems.  Get examples from across the volunteer world, join small and large group discussions, and learn more about free and low-cost tech tools to train, onboard, and reinforce volunteers’ connection to your organization.

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Session description: Our cultural definition of innovation often focuses on newness and uniqueness – e.g., the first organization to use the latest social media platform or the only one in the community with a mobile app. However, innovation for social impact that successfully ties to mission and community needs is often small, invisible to the public, and requires investment in existing systems and staff. Innovation is not a new tool but a better way to use the tools we have for better outcomes. Focusing on innovation defined by only new and exclusive things is not equitable. This session will focus on both research highlights and recommendations for dismantling white dominant culture in your organization and advancing the culture of innovation in an equitable way within your team and organization.

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Most nonprofits need to worry about phishing and brute-force attacks, but some need to worry about much more. Learn about advanced security threats facing nonprofits who have more than the run-of-the-mill adversaries. Discuss “man-in-the-middle,” “evil-maid,” “side-channel,” “rom-tampering,” and other advanced threats. With some work it’s possible to protect yourself even from government and politically-motivated attackers. This session will educate but cut through the fear-mongering and help your organization understand where to focus its efforts.

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While your organization may have crafted policies and procedures to promote diversity, have you really created an inclusive, equitable environment in which all people can bring their authentic selves into the workplace to truly thrive? An all people of color panel will highlight how organizational norms and structures limit who can or cannot bring their whole selves to work.

Have you ever found yourself getting settled into your “work self” as you head into the office? Your “work self” might be the version of you that is less controversial or easier for folks to handle. What would it look like to bring your whole self to work? The same you who goes to happy hour, hosts dinner parties or volunteers on the weekends– the real you. What if the thing that some might consider your greatest workplace liability became your greatest strength?

In this session, you will hear stories from individuals who have had to navigate the complex landscape of organizational norms and culture in order to evaluate which parts of their whole selves they can safely bring into the workplace. Hearing directly from people who have navigated these challenges can set up your organization to implement better policies and practices that address the systemic barriers that limit the ease with which people of color can bring their whole selves to work.

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Code of Support Foundation (CoSF) has built a successful peer-to-peer fundraising program by effectively recruiting its board members to engage their personal networks. In an effort to increase fundraising (and improve donor acquisition and retention), CoSF began exploring how to apply the principles of custom-modeling audiences—normally used in the direct mail world—to help their board members and fundraisers increase their personal giving network.

In this presentation, Eric Okimoto, COO of boodle.ai, and Kristy Kaufmann, CEO of Code of Support Foundation, will highlight the successes, challenges, and hard-earned lessons of this strategic fundraising initiative from the Fall 2018 event season.

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Nonprofit professionals know what it’s like to work with limited time and resources. From technology to fundraising programs to human resources, effective project management is key to meeting organizational goals while staying on time and on budget.

This session will explore how integrating project management into your organization’s culture can increase transparency, improve data collection, and ultimately lead to smarter decision-making.

You’ll learn strategies for gaining team buy-in and effectively implementing a project-focused culture, along with digital tools and templates to get started.

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As many as 51% of those 55 and older use voice-activated speakers such as Alexa; citing “it empowers me to instantly get answers and information.” These breakthrough technologies are not just for millennials and early adopters, they’re for the majority of your donor file. Just under 50 nonprofits are registered with Alexa, so far reporting varying degrees of success with the tool. But technology like this will hit a tipping point, and it will happen faster than we can predict. Will you be present to meet your donors where they are, in the moment they’re ready to support you? This session will cover how to prepare your website and content for voice technology, and some interesting ways organizations are using Alexa Skills to build relationships.

This session is presented by ThinkShout.

In partnership with a local Portland nonprofit, we’ll talk through how they utilized the open source distribution, Bene, to tell their story and effectively engage users on their site. We’ll discuss the flexible page building tools, the design process, and content migration. In addition, we’ll explore how to keep your site compelling, effective, and secure after the initial launch. This session is for growing nonprofits who need the building blocks for a solid website that evolves over time without all the complexities of a fully custom Drupal site.

This session is presented by ThinkShout.

We ask a lot of our digital teams. They hold many responsibilities and are on the frontlines of communicating with stakeholders. In organizations that lack digital leadership, teams can feel isolated even when they are high-performing. With higher salaries in the private sector and a lack of mentorship and advancement opportunities, turnover can be a massive problem.

This session will present data collected from digital teams across the social-profit sector, understanding their needs and experiences. Review mistakes organizations make in hiring for key digital roles, and hear successful strategies leaders have used to grow and nurture their teams.

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Wherever you are on your journey to digitize your mission, CRM can help you work smarter. This session will share how the Oregon Museum of Science went through a digital transformation across fundraising and programs, and share how the BOMA Project is ending extreme poverty through performance insights. Salesforce.org will also share other customer examples and recent research on what many other nonprofits are doing from best practices on undergoing this transformation, to how to get ready for Artificial Intelligence.

This session is presented by Salesforce.org.

You can spend the bulk of your days managing infrastructure. OR you can focus your energies on building new features that engage your community. With Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), you have the flexibility to deploy as often as you want to–even during high-volume traffic. Join our session to hear how web development agency Oxbow Labs, identified a broad nonprofit organizational challenge and created a platform for boards of directors to help solve it. Then, find out how the Oxbow team employs the power of PaaS to quickly onboard contract developers while safeguarding sensitive client data.

This session is presented by Platform.sh.

An organization’s digital properties are the virtual doors to your office, behind which lie the content and services meant to improve outcomes and enrich the lives of your clients and constituents. But just because a door is open does not mean it’s accessible.

In this session, speakers will share how content strategists and designers at public sector organizations are championing human-centered design to make content more accessible and useful for their audiences. Brian Pagels will explain how USAID’s Office of Education is improving its approaches to crafting content for mission and nonprofit partner staff working to improve education outcomes around the world. Beverly Slabosky will explain how she is helping City of Seattle departments turn pages of information into an extension of services and create real-life conversations with constituents.

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We often talk about websites the way we talk about cars. Are you driving a flashy sports car or a stable hatchback? And is yours a lemon, no matter how pretty the paint job? And if you just got one used, what’s going on under the hood? There’s a way to address these questions about your website, and it’s called a technical audit.

The vast majority of site owners live in fear of the day their site “breaks down.” Performing a site audit can ensure you understand the current state of your site, from the back end code level to the front end performance. It can also help you see potential problems when it comes time to add features (like that sweet audio system).

People attending this session will learn the basic building blocks of performing a technical audit.

• Approaches for auditing different aspects of your Drupal site: custom code, theme and front-end functionality, back-end configuration and modules, accessibility, etc.
• Tools that can be used to run these tests
• Tips on what to watch for when managing a Drupal website over time

This session is presented by Kanopi Studios.

Without a doubt, Google Analytics does all sorts of great things, but that doesn’t mean you are getting a complete picture. To get every benefit of the data, you’ll need to activate and/or setup several key features.

Learn how to implement the following must-have GA settings in real-time:

• Activate Demographics and User Metrics
• Filter Out Your Own Visits
• Activate Search Tracking and Enhanced Link Attribution
• Adjust Session Settings and Campaign Lengths
• Set Your Primary URL

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Your donors and advocates are the best messengers for your cause. Their own stories in their own voice are authentic, emotional and will beat your corporate organizational marketing speak any day.

The demands on your team to create content are increasing. More channels, more posts, more video… how can we keep up?

Your constituents can be your best content creators. In this fast-paced session we’ll learn how to ask, how to engage and how to capture content from your constituents that moves you to mission success. We’ll see case studies from leading charities and advocacy orgs.

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Do your development and communications teams get along like cats and dogs? In this session, we’ll break the typical presentation format and host an interactive debate on common questions for nonprofits, such as “Who writes fundraising appeals?” and “Whose constituent is it?” We’ll ask for audience participation throughout and break into groups to dig into real-life situations before sharing concrete tips you can immediately put into practice.

So join us as we raise the ruff, ’cause this purrty will be off the leash! We promise to not use too many puns, though we may take the oppawtunity when it presents itself.

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Drupal 8 provides robust tools for theming that simplify the process and expand the capabilities for front-end developers as well as content authors.

In this session we’ll present an overview of enhanced features that make it easier to build pages in a modular fashion with pre-defined templates and D8 building tools. We’ll teach you how to leverage these tools to enhance design options, speed process and improve site performance. Our presentation will focus on a real-life demonstration of this modular-based approach, focusing on the strategy of building a landing page system with the help of Paragraphs module and providing plenty of time for Q&A.

This session is presented by the NTEN Drupal Community.

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This session at the Pre-Conference Day will provide opportunities for members of the nonprofit community using Drupal to share knowledge with each other. We will have small discussion groups and/or lightning talks on a variety of topics, which may include diving deeper into themes from earlier sessions (e.g., CRMs, Drupal 8 adoption) or exploring new topics (e.g., improving the content authoring experience, best practices for security, getting started with Drupal).

This session is presented by the NTEN Drupal Community.

Drupal 8 has been out for a few years, and with Drupal 7 support ending in 2021, you might be wondering—is Drupal 8 right for me? This session will cover the information you need to know as an accidental techie evaluating the next version of Drupal.

Attending this talk will teach you:

• The changes you should expect between Drupal 7 and Drupal 8
• What skills and concepts you need to learn to maintain a basic Drupal 8 site
• Example situations that may cause your upgrade path to be smooth or bumpy
• How your website strategy needs to adapt after you launch a Drupal 8 site

When you leave this session, you’ll have the information to decide whether Drupal 8 is the right platform for your nonprofit’s next website. In addition, you’ll understand how your organization needs to adapt its website strategy to take advantage of the recent developments in the Drupal ecosystem.

This session is presented by the NTEN Drupal Community.

Drupal 8 is a powerful platform, with features many nonprofits are using to deepen their impact. However, migrations to any new platform can be hard. Fortunately, Drupal 8 comes with a suite of migration tools built-in, helping organizations migrate their website from previous versions of Drupal or any other source. As of Drupal 8, Drupal has also changed its development process so that features are continually added and upgrades to future versions will no longer require migration, so this may be the last migration you need to do!

We’ll walk through what is needed to effectively prepare for a migration, touching upon the specifics for WordPress and Drupal 7. Using real world examples, we’ll then look at what migrating users, blog posts and other content looks like. The session will wrap up with important “gotchas”, a list of further resources and time for Q&A. By the end you’ll have the tools and resources needed to migrate confidently.

This session is presented by the NTEN Drupal Community.

The web removes barriers to resources and communication in the physical world. However, poor design and can exclude audiences from engaging in your nonprofit’s programs and furthering your mission. In this panel featuring representation from the National Foundation for the Blind and the American Foundation for the Blind,  we will touch on Drupal’s accessibility features and how 8 builds on 7’s standards. We’ll discuss common pitfalls in development and content creation – also touching on accessibility in social media (or lack thereof). We will demystify user testing, and automated testing. We’ll share opinions, approaches, and answer your questions too.

Whether you are a marketer, program manager, or developer, this discussion will be accessible to you.

This session is presented by the NTEN Drupal Community and made possible through the support of Message Agency.

This panel will use a case studies to explore different ways nonprofits are integrating Drupal with their Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) database. We’ll hear from Bitch Media on how their Drupal and Salesforce integration has driven dramatic growth in their membership program over the past few years. The San Francisco Zen Center will discuss how they have moved beyond just development to using Salesforce as data sharing repository. Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites will discuss how they use CiviCRM and Drupal to manage membership and events all across Georgia. We’ll also have some space for audience conversation, so bring your own experiences about integrating Drupal with other CRMs.

This session is presented by the NTEN Drupal Community and made possible through the support of Message Agency.

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Starting with version 5.0 in November 2018, WordPress will never be the same. Come get an introduction to the new “block editor” interface, hear from people in the NTEN community who are already using it, and bring your questions to ask the panel about this new world of WordPress.

This session is presented by the NTEN WordPress Community.

Bring your WordPress questions, knowledge, and laptops if you have them. We’ll all gather all together to meet members of the NTEN WordPress community, share our knowledge and expertise with those who need it, and get help with our websites!

This session is presented by the NTEN WordPress Community.

There are as many ways to contribute to WordPress as there are dishes in a feast! Hear from Andrea Middleton, a lead organizer of the global WordPress community, as she teaches us all about the amazing WordPress community and the many paths to successful contributions. There’s room for you at this table — join us!

This session is presented by the NTEN WordPress Community.

Hang onto your seats for fun and fast-paced lightning talks from members of the WordPress community. Want to do a quick presentation, share some knowledge, rant about Gutenberg, or just give a shoutout? Here’s your chance.

This session is presented by the NTEN WordPress Community.

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You’ve spent months planning for this day. From RFPs to product selection and pulling staff away from their day jobs to design and test the new system, now you’re live! It’s time to sit back and relax, right? Not quite! After hundreds of CRM implementations, one thing’s for sure, the success of your rollout heavily relies on how you prepare for post-go-live. Get tangible advice on preparing for “the day after,” from governance to training, and change management. Learn all the tools to make sure you’re still celebrating after go-live.

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Throughout the fight to protect the Affordable Care Act, The Hub Project tested and refined tactics for collecting and disseminating personal stories online to sway elected officials and our target audiences.

Learn how we piloted a new, people-first model for gathering personal stories—with an emphasis on video testimonials—combining traditional field and modern digital tactics to move the needle on health care among persuadable and conservative voters, and to convince others to share their own stories. We’ll share our tactics, optimization strategies, paid and organic promotion methods, and overall learnings to help you craft your next storytelling campaign.

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So you’ve launched a community in your area. But you’re ambitious and want to go global. Join our fireside chat where community managers working internationally share how they scaled their groups globally. Discussion topics include:

• Supporting multiple languages
• Creating flexible programs that adjust to each community’s culture and capacity
• Managing time zones
• How to move money. Bitcoin, wire transfers, legal compliance, etc.
• The threats of closing civic space – and how to avoid getting your volunteers arrested
• Working with ambassadors and super users
• Platforms and technology to help you grow, including multi-language support and reliable network connections

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Elijah van der Giessen

NetSquared Community Manager

TechSoup

Eli strives to be a connector – the interstitial tissue that holds the muscle of a community together. He’s been a volunteer manager, an event organizer and a digital campaigner. Basically he’ll take any gig that allows him to enable a group of passionate people to create things they love.

Currently he works for TechSoup as the NetSquared Community Manager. He supports a global volunteer network of 120 monthly meetups for the nonprofit technology sector. Together they hold over 800 events per year.

Organizations that successfully cultivate a data-driven culture reap a multitude of benefits, from better stakeholder understanding of decision-making application to an ongoing commitment to measuring both static and dynamic outcomes.

Nonprofits are doing a better job at collecting lots and lots of data. Analyzing it is a different story. Creating a culture where decisions move beyond gut instinct are fraught with challenges. Not the least of which is inadvertently fostering mission-oriented outcome bias. Learn to better understand tools and techniques, and how to foster a healthy transitional environment with numerous influential stakeholders.

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Customer journey mapping is a powerful exercise that—done correctly—allows you to improve your organization’s interactions with members, donors, volunteers, and others by seeing it from their perspective. AdoptUSKids used customer journey mapping to document what our audiences—families considering adoption and professionals who help them—are doing, thinking, and feeling at various milestones. Now we’re using what we learned to deliver relevant, consistent messages at every touch point. We’ll outline the steps of our journey-mapping process and show you how we’ve used it to revise our digital strategy and improve our services.

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Bring your questions and knowledge and join us for a friendly and informal discussion-based session about all things Data. This session is facilitated by the volunteer organizers and members of NTEN’s online Nonprofits & Data group. All are welcome.

How do you convince people who don’t “get” data to be part of the solution? You can lead your team (and boss) to enter data! You’ll gain strategies for finding allies and training others for a data-driven organization. You’ll learn how to translate impact and show data’s crucial role. And we’ll talk about designing communications accessible to a variety of stakeholders. We’ll start with a brief assessment before spending time in small groups that address specific challenges in your organization: how to be a data hero, building data allies, and talking data with people at varying data literacy levels.

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Janice Chan

Consultant

Shift and Scaffold

Janice Chan never was able to pick one thing to be when she grew up. While grown up status could be debated, what she currently does is consult (shiftandscaffold.com), teach data management in NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Professional Certificate Program, and co-organize NTEN’s Nonprofits and Data online community group. She is also working towards a Master of Information Management at the University of Maryland. Originally from New York, Janice arrived south of the Mason-Dixon Line via St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Post-graduation, Janice served as an AmeriCorps*VISTA before officially joining the nonprofit sector. She has worn hats in data management, volunteer management, marketing and communications, grant writing, curriculum development, program management, technical training, change management, and project management. In short, Janice has spent more than a dozen years organizing and restructuring information so that teams can work together more effectively and focus on their missions. She also enjoys editing, making playlists, and figuring out how we could do this better. You can find her on Twitter @curiositybone.

Join us for a half-day interactive workshop where experts from Microsoft and Tech Impact will walk you through the basics of Data Security, Data Privacy, and GDPR. We’ll talk through a do-it-yourself assessment of your organization’s Data Privacy and Security practices. Experts will then help you prioritize your organization’s next steps to keep your constituent, volunteer, and donor data secure. You’ll also have an opportunity to view the latest technologies to help keep your data safe on-premise and in the cloud.

This session runs from 9:45AM – 12:00PM.

This session is presented by Microsoft.

In the business world, companies review and utilize data quickly to keep innovating and disrupting their industry. In the nonprofit universe, we are still having a hard time getting the right data into the hands of decision makers.

On the one hand, we know outcomes data is the currency nonprofits need to articulate their impact and make program improvements to better serve their clients. On the other hand, we know data can be the hey to hold institutions accountable and help in the fight for justice and equity.

During this session, we will share examples of accessing and using different types of data and discuss steps we can take towards transparency, to ensure we don’t lose trust from the communities we serve.

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How data-driven strategies can help your organization connect in more meaningful ways and drive donor loyalty. We all want more loyal supporters — the kind that keeps coming back year after year. Here’s the thing: Your donors are just like you. Emotions drive most of their decision making. Understanding what makes your supporters “tick” and creating your strategy based on those insights can help you deepen relationships and drive loyalty to your cause.

The more clearly you understand what motivates a donor to give, the more you can tailor your marketing and fundraising communications.

In this session, we’ll take you through a process for developing an insights-focused donor journey.

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Having challenges winning funding and approval for your technology needs? This session will equip you to get a “yes” on funding for the technology investments you need. In this session, performance measurement consultants Karen Cramer and Sean Williams will demonstrate TechBridge’s methodology for calculating project ROI and present lessons learned from nonprofit case studies. You’ll have an opportunity to estimate current and future costs to determine the ROI for one of your upcoming IT Projects.

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This session will provide an introductory overview of what is Internet Governance and why should Individuals and Non-Profits care about Internet Governance issues? The session will review some early history of Internet Governance and talk about the importance of ensuring a healthy and vibrant ecosystem. You will learn what organizations are in this ecosystem, the roles they play and how your organization can play an effective role within this ecosystem.

Internet Governance is a wide area that also covers, data security, data protection, and data privacy. Each of these issues has a significant impact both on Internet Governance and on the day to day work of non-profits in a tech-focused world. Other sessions at NTEN have covered the EU’s GDPR Act and Cybersecurity and these sessions form a good complement to this session as data security and privacy go hand in hand.

This session hopes to provide answers to the following questions:

• What does effective Internet Governance look like in 2019?
• How might the Internet Governance ecosystem evolve to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow?
• What organizations are involved? What role do they play? How are roles and responsibilities determined
• What are existing and emerging legal frameworks for privacy protection?
• What Government Agency or Agencies can consumers or small businesses turn to for help? What services do they offer?
• Why is digital data security important for consumers and non-profits? What steps can Non-Profits take to ensure that they keep their customer data secure? What incentives exist to ensure data security and are they the right incentives?
• Where should non-profits concentrate their data security efforts? Or perhaps, Consumers should be responsible for securing their own data security? Or is another approach preferred?

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In real life, we recognize the diversity of human experience, but we often forget key differences and make sweeping assumptions when designing digital experiences or communications strategies.

User personas can help you empathize with the people visiting your website or interacting with your collateral and understand what motivates them. They also serve to counteract a natural bias we all have in assuming that “the user” is a person essentially the same as us. And personas not only work to optimize a web experience—they can help you improve how you brand your organization and even deliver your services.

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With its stature as the world’s most-popular CMS, WordPress attracts attention from editors and developers. It can also draw interest from cybercriminals seeking easy targets. Server configuration and deployment practices can play a key role in keeping WordPress sites safe.

Join our session to learn:

• How deployment practices affect security
• Why connecting version control to deployment can make your site safer
• Techniques for limiting the possible scope of rogue changes
• Which storage strategies provide recovery options in the event of a breach

This session is presented by Platform.sh.

Nobody loves writing or responding to request for proposals (RFPs) but it is often a necessary process. In this session, we will discuss the steps it takes to write a good website RFP, but also how to attract the right vendors to bid and what to do to make this process an educational and meaningful experience.

In this tactical session you will learn:

• How to get accurate requirements
• How to navigate stakeholder needs/voice/wants
• How to organize your budget
• How to attract the right respondents
• How to choose/evaluate proposals
• What reference questions to ask
• How to create clarity in the contract

This session is presented by Kanopi Studios.

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Delivering programs to enhance basic digital literacy skills is a stepping stone toward larger outcomes such as staving off isolation and connecting to friends and family, applying for employment opportunities, furthering educational goals through online learning, communicating with their children’s school and more. Human service agencies that work with low-income communities know this need well and staff members are often asked to help their clients with tasks such as searching for information, applying for jobs or housing. In some cities, people who seek to improve their computer skills can sign up for classes at their local library or adult education program, but this service is not widely available.

In this session, you will learn how different types of social service agencies address the digital divide for their communities.

Speakers

Bring your questions and knowledge and join us for a friendly and informal discussion-based session about all things Digital Advertising. This session is facilitated by the volunteer organizers and members of NTEN’s online Digital Advertising group. All are welcome. Collaborative Notes found here.

Bring your questions and knowledge and join us for a friendly and informal discussion-based session about all things Digital Community. This session is facilitated by the volunteer organizers and members of NTEN’s online Digital Communications group. All are welcome.

Bring your questions and knowledge and join us for a friendly and informal discussion-based session about all things Digital Inclusion. This session is facilitated by the volunteer organizers and members of NTEN’s online Digital Inclusion group. All are welcome.

Your donor just bought a house on a smartphone, and you want them to mail you a check? People are doing everything on their phones—this is not news to us, yet the nonprofit sector hasn’t figured out how to appeal to donors on their phones. Donations made on mobile devices are increasing at an exponential rate each year. In this session we will explore emerging mobile technologies like digital wallets and streamlined donation forms, and how nonprofits can take advantage of these to elevate donor experience, appeal to younger donors, and increase online donations.

Speakers

Poor data hygiene can have a massive impact on every aspect of your organization—from not being able to accurately report on your donors and advocates, to missing the chance to connect with them in an efficient and effective way. Join the Alzheimer’s Association to discuss the challenges that bad data creates and how you can use tools and best practices to overcome them in your organization.

Speakers

How does unconscious bias affect the work we do and the brand we are building? How do these biases play out both in how we see ourselves and how others view us? How does bias influence our selection of photos we use for publications, how we choose to tell stories, and decisions about who should represent us on panels?

For this session, take a dive into unconscious bias, how to break it down and recognize how it affects our choices, and how to choose a different course so that our brands represents who we want to become.

Speakers

Minal Bopaiah

Founder & Principal

Brevity & Wit

Minal Bopaiah is a strategic consultant with nearly 20 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include human-centered design, behavior change psychology, and the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion as they relate to media and marketing.

As the Founder and Principal Consultant of Brevity & Wit, Minal is an expert in using psychological principles to create brand identities and communications that win both hearts and minds. Her work includes helping Cook Ross, a diversity and inclusion consulting firm, increase its website traffic by 1450%, its social media impressions by 120%, and its event revenue by 50% in less than a year. Her clients include PBS Kids, Amnesty International, and the International Center for Research on Women.

Minal’s previous work includes being an educational content specialist for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street and its international co-productions, and a press intern for Doctors Without Borders. Her media experience includes being a freelance reporter, the International and Features Editor for Boston Metro, and the Executive Editor of Subscription Insider, an online business publication for which she single-handedly generated $200,000 in annual revenues.

Minal’s thought leadership has been published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and she has been a guest on several podcasts and radio shows, including The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU/NPR, and an invited speaker at many conferences, including the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference hosted by Greater Public.

Minal has a B.A. in English from Bowdoin College, a Master’s degree in clinical psychology from Fordham University, and was formally trained in organizational development and change leadership at Georgetown University. In 2016, she was selected as a Digital Production Fellow by Organizing for Action, the nonprofit advocacy group started by President Barack Obama. She currently serves on the Board of Lifestock International, a non-governmental organization dedicated to improving the livelihoods of livestock holders around the world, and on the Advisory Board for Bring Change to Mind, a nonprofit seeking to end mental health stigma. She is currently under contract to write two books on diversity, equity, and inclusion, due out in 2021.

Should your organization invest in email acquisition? Grow direct mail acquisition? Advertising? All of the above? How (and when) do you know if your online acquisition program is paying off?

Come talk about the best ways to track Acquisition ROI across channels. We’ll share a case study of Sempervirens Fund’s omni-channel acquisition program, covering all the factors to consider when assessing (and justifying!) your investment in email acquisition. We’ll also highlight organizations with small and large acquisition budgets. And we’ll show you how to set up a system to track and report on these numbers yourself!

Speakers

Bring your questions and knowledge and join us for a friendly and informal discussion-based session about all things Drupal. This session is facilitated by the volunteer organizers and members of NTEN’s online Drupal group. All are welcome.

Not every nonprofit has a five-figure budget to spend on social media advertising. So how do you rise above the noise and reach the audiences that matter most to your organization? Looking at several case studies that have shown high results on small investments, learn how to identify the advertising platforms that give you the largest ROI for your organization and plan a campaign—from targeting to messaging to measuring—that can be run on $100 a month. You’ll also learn the next steps to take to start #winning at paid social.

Speakers

Alison Glazer

Advertising Manager

Whole Whale

Ali leads Whole Whale’s Advertising and Analytics teams, helping nonprofits build, measure, and learn from campaigns towards the digital metrics that matter to most to their missions.

In her time at Whole Whale, Ali has spent over $1 million in ad dollars to drive impact through resource distribution, volunteer recruitment, and online community growth via digital advertising campaigns. Client work has included Greater Than AIDS, , Crisis Text Line, PJ Library, and World Animal Protection.

Certified in Google Analytics and Google Ads (Search, Display, and Video) Ali and has managed over $5 million of Google Ad Grant dollars, helping nonprofits reach and engage core audiences. She has successfully managed the Ad Grant and increased on and offline conversions for over a dozen nonprofits — in one instance increasing volunteer registrations by over 250% in just 3 months. She also trains clients and the nonprofit community on all things digital advertising and has presented at the Nonprofit Technology Conference and lectured at Columbia University.

Beyond client services, Ali is interested in team management and dynamics as well as the workplace conditions that make humans happiest and most effective and manages our internal project tracking and sprint recap system. She co-authored Whole Whale’s ebook on internship management for nonprofits in an effort to get even more smart people into awesome organizations.

After making three different online donations to 115 nonprofits and capturing the experience in The Nonprofit Recurring Giving Benchmark Study, we found eight main ways organizations could improve their online giving experience and recruit more recurring donors.

In this session, learn those 8 ideas and see examples and experiments that you can borrow, copy, and steal to test for yourself and grow your own recurring giving program. And, if you’re brave enough, submit your donation page/recurring giving program to be optimized live in the session.

Speakers

Are you maximizing your email campaigns to drive open rates, engagement, and conversions? Learn best practices that can lead to more engagement and ensures clickthroughs and conversions. Explore email automation functionality that will revolutionize the way you think about and deploy your email campaigns.

In this session, we will cover:

-Design best practices
-List segmentation
-Automation
-Behavior-based sending

Speakers

Chatbots are rising up everywhere you look, from retail stores to healthcare sites. Adored by users for their instant response times and 24-hour accessibility, their success has left many companies scrambling to latch on to this skyrocketing trend. In this session, we’ll explore how nonprofit organizations can harness chatbot technology to improve engagement with their audiences, and boost their fundraising events’ registration and revenue numbers.

Speakers

This highly participatory and interactive forum will help you look at existing and the next wave of technologies (artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more) to formulate a vision for being a digital-first nonprofit. Assess your organization’s approach to incorporating digital, and learn from peers and experts in the room on digital transformation for service delivery, governance, marketing, fundraising, and other areas. Gain insights on the needed mindsets, tool sets, and skill sets to achieve your mission and have a greater impact in your programs.

Speakers

Julia Campbell

Author, Speaker, Teacher

J Campbell Social Marketing

Julia Campbell teaches nonprofits the most effective ways to use storytelling and social media to accomplish their goals and to achieve the kind of growth that they desire and that they deserve. The author of Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits and How to Build and Mobilize A Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit in 90 Days, Julia gives keynotes all over the world. Her favorite place to be is relaxing in sweatpants with her 2 kids.

Friends of the Children (Friends) is a national non-profit founded in Portland OR whose mission is to break the cycle of generational poverty by giving the most vulnerable children the ability to create a new story. Friends work with children ages 4-6 from high-poverty schools and the foster care system, pairing them with a salaried, professional mentor (a Friend) who stays with them from kindergarten through graduation – 12 ½ years, no matter what.

In the last five years, Friends has expanded significantly growing from five to fifteen sites (66%) nationally. CEO, Terri Sorensen, and Director of Research and Strategic Impact, Susan Walsh, will share how program evaluation was instilled in the DNA of the Friends organization from its inception 26 years ago and has been the catalytic driver of strategic plans to scale. From launching a rigorous randomized control trial study of the program’s impact on youth to developing strong internal data-driven performance management systems, Friends tracks the information necessary to maximize scaling decision-making.

Terri and Susan will facilitate a robust discussion about how creating systems to assess data at the national and local level provides a road map to scale informing how to strengthen the impact of the program model, how to innovate in new ways to improve outcomes for more people, and how to ensure that each chapter is sustainable for the long-term.

Speakers

Data, data, data! Everyone is all about data these days. Funders want reports on it, evaluation staff members are constantly engrossed in it, and technology teams are knee-deep in it. But is anyone paying attention to what is going on behind the scenes? Who decides what new data points get added to the CRM? Does anyone remember what exactly we’re using Field16 for? Learn the how-to’s of data governance, from data dictionaries to defining data stakeholders, and governance frameworks.

Speakers

Dar Veverka

Director of Information Technology

Urban Teachers

Dar is the Director of Information Systems & Technology for Urban Teachers, a Baltimore-based nonprofit whose mission is to improve educational and life outcomes of children in urban schools by preparing culturally competent, effective career teachers. Dar has worked in technology for over 20 years and has had to deal with inherited tech messes and orgs stuck in startup mode on more than one occasion, both as head of technology departments and as a consultant to nonprofits.

We know nonprofit tech has not always been a shining example of diversity and inclusiveness and that we must do better. But what if the very hiring practices we’re hoping will lead to more organizational diversity are in fact working against us? Unconscious bias can be pretty insidious and hard to uncover, which means we have to evaluate our practices at every level. Join this discussion about some common practices in the nonprofit tech world that make it harder to reach a more diverse audience and send unintentional messages to some that they are unlikely to fit in.

Speakers

Donor retention rates across the industry are tragically low. You’ve spent time and money acquiring each and every donor, but are you taking the necessary steps to keep them?

While retention rates are generally lower for donors who give online, the digital space offers many tools to help you retain your donors. But are you taking full advantage of these opportunities to develop lifelong relationships with your donors?

This session will delve into the art of donor retention and explore common errors that result in donor attrition. You’ll walk away with tangible steps and ideas that you can take to improve your own retention rates.

Speakers

Finding the right CMS for your website feels like the classic “needle in a haystack” problem. Websites are expensive in both money and resources. Thoughtful platform selection is critical to your online success over the long term. Learn how to sort through the field of tools available to find the best fit for your organization’s needs in the long term.

Speakers

Ever wonder how your email, web, social media, and digital advertising results stack up? Come get the baselines you need to drive your organization’s strategies, and get straight answers to your burning questions from some of the industry’s leading experts. The 2019 M+R Benchmarks Study officially launches in late April, but you can get a sneak peek at our annual review of what’s working, what’s trending, and what’s changing for online fundraising, advocacy, and marketing.

This year (our 13th!), we have more details and data than ever from hundreds of nonprofits to help you reach the front of the pack.

Speakers

You worked hard to get your new website launched and your data or fundraising tools up and running. Now it’s time to make sure they’re working together. Firefly Partners’ expert team will explain how your new systems can put constituents first with a seamless supporter experience, and capture the data you need to do your job better. Review examples from WordPress, Salesforce, Luminate Online, and Charity Engine to get the big picture on integration. No matter what tool you use, you’ll learn the benefits and possibilities for a system that makes your staff and constituents alike smile.

Speakers

According to Bersin by Deloitte, only 33% of millennials believe their organizations are using their skills well, and 42% say they are likely to leave because they are not learning fast enough. Developing new knowledge, new skills, and new abilities is critical to future-proofing your nonprofit’s evolving talent needs. Additionally, assessing the abilities of your talent is essential to understanding the profiles of your employees and ensuring the right role is filled with the right ability.

Whether employees need development or have mastered success, understanding the skill profile of your talent is critical to future-proof organizational growth and innovation.

Speakers

You’ve heard the hype, now come find out what it’s really all about. In this introductory workshop we will share with you the basics on what data science and machine learning are and how you can use them in the nonprofit space. After an overview we will talk about data collection, do a bit of data cleaning and then a bit of reporting. Afterwards we’ll talk about some of the algorithms used in predictive analytics.

This session runs from 1PM – 3:15PM.

This session is presented by Microsoft.

Speakers

Drupal and WordPress are powerful tools on their own, but when they are integrated with a contact relationship management (CRM) system like Salesforce, it can have an exponential impact on how you track users, transactions, and interaction.

Integration doesn’t always have to be a complicated or expensive endeavor, either, and no one approach is the right solution for everyone or every case. There are a number of ways you can benefit and a range of strategies—from self-service web-to-lead forms, to plug-ins and modules, to web services, to third-party platforms. This session will help you make sense of what’s available and which option makes sense for your needs.

In this session, we’ll explore:

• Why you might want to integrate
• Examples of ways you can leverage these tools
• The methods available for each CMS
• How to evaluate what you can do on your own vs. with the help of a developer

This session is presented by Message Agency.

Grit is mission-critical for women in tech. Without it, it’s nearly impossible to work your way upward in a male-dominated industry. But what does grit mean? What steps should you take to bolster a successful career over the long-run? Our panel will include four women in leadership roles in the nonprofit technology ecosystem. There’s no easy solution, but these authentic, gritty, and unique perspectives will share successes and failures, and encourage dialogue to inspire all.

Speakers

Make-A-Wish is a major nonprofit with 62 independent domestic chapters. Making change that sticks across this complex organization isn’t easy.

In this session, walk through a three-year branding and storytelling change process undertaken at Make-A-Wish. Learn what worked, where the challenges are, and how to get things to stick in a world with organizational silos, staff turnover, and strong personalities.

Review principles of change management that can be applied to any organization and learn from the attendees as we workshop key organizational challenges.

Speakers

Privacy and GDPR Resources. The Global Data Protection Regulation, a European Union regulation that allows EU residents greater control over their data and how it is used. Discuss why, a non-EU organization, would consider leveraging the investments made by service providers to comply with GDPR. Review how a fictitious nonprofit, contoso.org, leverages GDPR tools to protect privacy answering the following questions:

• Where is the best place to locate GDPR-specific information for Microsoft’s Cloud Services
• Where can I get information on Data Protection Impact Assessments?
• In the event of a data breach, how will Microsoft respond and notify me as a data controller?
• How can I manage Data Subject Requests?
• How is data returned to the user?

Speakers

Ready to take the plunge and move to a new CRM or update your website? Starting with a careful assessment can make or break your project, but many don’t know where to begin. Come learn how to determine what kind of assessment makes sense for your project, who should be involved in the assessment process and at what level, and how getting the right voices at the table at the right time can help.

Using nonprofit examples, we will explore how to ensure that the time and effort you put into the assessment process pays off with organizational buy-in and increased user adoption of your new systems.

Speakers

Jeb Ory, CEO of Phone2Action, will provide a vendor-neutral dive into issue advocacy and how nonprofits can leverage the latest social media, AI, and digital tools to further the reach of their campaigns. Learn how consumer/member behavior is shifting (e.g. 64% of email opens are now on a mobile device) and how nonprofits looking to engage their members can adjust, and receive best practices for digital advocacy campaigns.

Speakers

Online charitable giving is more important than ever as people around the country look for an easy way to make an impact in these tumultuous times. This means nonprofits need to be prioritizing strong digital fundraising programs. Not only do online donations make it easier for donors to support your cause, but they can help you spread out your fundraising over the year and build a more sustainable organization. We’ll show you how anyone can use ActBlue’s simple but powerful online fundraising platform to build beautiful contribution forms, increase your monthly donors, and make data-driven decisions.

This session is presented by ActBlue.

Online charitable giving is more important than ever as people around the country look for an easy way to make an impact in these tumultuous times. This means nonprofits need to be prioritizing strong digital fundraising programs. Not only do online donations make it easier for donors to support your cause, but they can help you spread out your fundraising over the year and build a more sustainable organization. We’ll show you how anyone can use ActBlue’s simple but powerful online fundraising platform to build beautiful contribution forms, increase your monthly donors, and make data-driven decisions.

This session is presented by ActBlue.

Want to share stories with your audience but don’t know where to start? Have you seen another organization’s creative content and want to do something similar, but don’t have an in-house creative team or the resources to hire a contractor? In this panel, explore the various ways that we share stories, whether through video, photography, articles, or multiple formats, to advance advocacy goals. Explore ways you can harness the power of your existing team and affordable (and free) resources on and offline to plan, capture, and publish powerful stories that educate and engage your audience.

Speakers

There’s a bias in marketing, and even the most well-intentioned nonprofits can fall victim to it. From the photos we choose to the language we use, our marketing messages often don’t feel like they’re intended for everyone. Learn how PRIDEnet and the National Sexual and Gender Minority Engagement Network used digital ads to reach and engage under-represented individuals within the LGBTQ community in health research. From getting community feedback to testing creative that resonated with target audiences, learn how to develop inclusive ads that speak to diverse audiences for stellar results.

Speakers

You’re competing for your audience’s attention in a highly visual world. Great photographs can make or break the success of every tweet, brochure, or blog post. But what can you do when you’re not—or can’t afford—a professional photographer to capture all those poignant moments and special events that really tell your organization’s story? Learn the top tips and tricks for getting the best results from your smartphone for photography, whether you’re using photographs to create your own projects or providing them to a professional designer.

Speakers

This workshop will help you gain an understanding of what incident response is, and why a plan for it should be a key component of your organization’s policies & procedures.

While the focus will be on the technical side of things, this session will show why an incident response plan can be much broader and cover areas that impact all aspects of your organization’s work.

Speakers

Colin Boyle

IT Director

Step Up Suncoast

Colin is the IT Director for Step Up Suncoast, and anti-poverty organization in Manatee County, Florida.

He is a Navy veteran and holds a Bachelor of Arts from New College of Florida.

He’s on his 25th gap year before grad school.

Inclusivity is at the heart of an effective content strategy. Accessible code may be imperative for inclusion, but all the code in the world doesn’t do any good if the content is not meaningful to our readers. Studies have shown that job postings can be unintentionally exclusive depending on how they are written.

In this session, we’ll go over what we can do as content authors to ensure our readers feel that we are speaking with them, not at them. We’ll look beyond the semantic markup and structured content to see the strategic value of inclusive, well written content.

Discussion points will include:

• What makes content inclusive? Including: definitions, clarifications, and real-life examples
• Why is inclusive language important?
• How we can embrace accessibility for those with every sort of ability
• Why awareness and acceptance isn’t enough — how to shift to being more process oriented

This session is presented by Kanopi Studios.

Nearly one in five people have a disability in the U.S. That means your inaccessible website may be excluding 56.7 million people! Organizations are prioritizing accessibility now more than ever because inclusive design benefits everyone (bonus: it’s great for SEO). During this session, you’ll hear how the MacArthur Foundation rebuilt their website to maximize access for people with disabilities and created an accessibility guide for grantees. Join a conversation with an accessibility expert, designer, and project manager to get deep insights on what accessibility is, how it shapes design, and how you can begin addressing accessibility on your website.

Speakers

James Kinser

Senior Associate, Digital Communications

MacArthur Foundation

While studying Interdisciplinary Art in graduate school, James happened into the nerdy world of data management and communications. (Never since has he underestimated the power of curiosity and synchronicity.) Since 2011, he has managed MacArthur’s website and email communications. He recently served as lead project manager for the redesign of the Foundation’s website, user testing, upgrades to address accessibility, and manages ongoing development of the website. He has presented at conferences on accessibility as well as integrated communications systems and strategies.

Do you ever get the feeling that your development metrics aren’t helping you make smarter decisions? Is your board insisting on looking at the same numbers they have since the Stone Age? Ready for an epic adventure behind the numbers? In this session, take a fresh look at fundraising metrics. Learn what they’re really telling us, and discuss their flaws, fallacies, vulnerabilities, and strengths. Our journey will take us from what we use, discovering what we really want to know, and exploring how to get that information and take appropriate data-driven action on that next large campaign.

Speakers

Kirk Schmidt

Director, Foundation Analytics, Systems, and Operations

STARS

It might seem strange that a half-elf monk committed to the tradition of the Way of the Shadow would be at a nonprofit conference, and yet here he is.

Kirk has been in the non-profit sector for over a decade, wearing many different hats from IT to fundraiser to data wrangler. However, long before he was in the nonprofit sector, he was a fantasy roleplayer, sitting around with friends spinning stories and creating a vast, imaginary world. How appropriate that the nonprofit sector relies on storytelling.

Whether from nonprofit battlegrounds or nerdy roots, Kirk hopes to bring his experiences to NTC again this year.

Gather around the panel table for an interactive conversation on what it takes to successfully get your nonprofit—and most importantly your donors—engaged in peer-to-peer fundraising. Join leaders from Well Aware, United Way, and Hill Country Ride for AIDS to hear the nitty-gritty about how these organizations achieved success. They’ll share best practices and lessons learned from these experiences:

• Re-energizing a long-standing annual ride event
• Growing a signature virtual peer-to-peer campaign
• Launching a brand-new community scavenger hunt fundraiser

Speakers

Does your organization’s name still represent who you are? Overwhelmed by the pros and cons of exploring a new name? Not sure where to start? In this session, learn how to assess if you should change your name, outline the steps in the process, including how to build buy-in, and apply to digital channels, and explore the issues that are critical to doing it successfully. This interactive panel discussion will feature three case studies from nonprofits who have recently changed their names.

Speakers

Data security that is too difficult to use is no data security at all. Poorly implemented disaster recovery plans give false security. Tangible losses due to data breaches and system failures can be dwarfed by damages to reputation, good will, and trust. Learn some clear and simple best practices to secure your nonprofit organization:

• Understand the three components of data security.
• Learn how to quantify your risk, and the immediate actions and plans that you can take to mitigate the risks.
• Build Disaster Recovery and Business Resumption into your standard operating procedures.
• Review Authentication and Identity Management to keep your data safe.

Speakers

Adam Rosenzweig

Nonprofit Success Program Manager

Okta

Adam Rosenzweig is an advocate for nonprofits within Okta and an evangelist for Okta in nonprofit communities around the world. Prior to Okta, Adam spent ten years in the public & social sectors. He’s a graduate of Pitzer College, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the UC Berkeley-Haas Graduate School of Business.

Do I have enough IT staff?

Should I be outsourcing my IT?

Should I outsource some of it or all of it?

How do I figure out what to keep in-house and what to work to send out?

These are all huge questions that anyone managing IT faces. Sadly, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but hopefully you can get closer to the answer that fits your organization.

Speakers

Colin Boyle

IT Director

Step Up Suncoast

Colin is the IT Director for Step Up Suncoast, and anti-poverty organization in Manatee County, Florida.

He is a Navy veteran and holds a Bachelor of Arts from New College of Florida.

He’s on his 25th gap year before grad school.

Start your final day at 19NTC with a delicious brunch and the Jacqueline Tabor Jazz Band.

NTEN’s CEO, Amy Sample Ward, will briefly announce three annual awards, thanks to this year’s award sponsor, Box.org.

NTEN Award recipients move NTEN’s mission forward from within the community
Rob Stuart Memorial Award honors communities that use technology to disrupt the status quo
Lifetime Achievement Award recipients have been instrumental in shaping the field of nonprofit technology

The Tides Foundation will present the Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest to one individual who has created or led an effort to create an open source software product of significant value to the nonprofit sector and movements for social change. The Pizzigati Prize honors the brief life of Tony Pizzigati, an early advocate of open source computing.

Any nonprofit digital property needs a healthy amount of upkeep, and the larger the site, the more deliberate and managed that upkeep needs to be. In this session, Fíonta and its national nonprofit client will share real-life examples of processes and tactics that have helped them succeed in its digital strategy. From setting up release cycles to managing team structures and dealing with competing organizational priorities, they’ll cover it all – and share some cautionary tales, too.

Speakers

Once an organization thought they needed to create a video to promote their cause. But upon further conversation, it was discovered that their overall mission and vision was confusing, that they struggled to articulate their programs, and they were inconsistent with their messaging. They didn’t need a video and were not ready to loop in stakeholders or vendors. No. They needed a plan.

If they’d utilized the same confusing messaging they’d been using to try to talk about their mission thus far, the video would have fallen flat or, worse, done more harm than good in trying to rally support from their community. And, they would have wasted time and money on creating it.

In this session, we’ll share tips, strategies, and process you can use to help avoid this common pitfall of projects and how to develop a clear action plan for better project success.

Speakers

Technology is regularly perceived as an easy fix for marketing or management issues, but frequently ends up being complicated, confusing, and more work than expected. This is often caused by choosing a solution before doing the necessary due diligence to establish a clear strategy. This session provides a practical framework for working through hard questions upfront that will save pain later, help make the right technology decisions, and assess the ongoing commitment to success and growth. Review examples from Cascade Bicycle Club’s recent digital strategy to engage e-bicyclists.

Speakers

Google Analytics can be a game-changer when it comes to understanding your audience. Once you’ve dialed in the right data, how do you use it to see improved results? Whether you are a digital marketer or development director, get the best practices and tips that you need! Join Firefly Partners for strategies and tactics to becoming a data-driven organization. You’ll gain an understanding of Google Analytics terminology, explore configuration options, and learn best practices for common use cases. Plus, get an overview of how to use Google Optimize to test your website.

Speakers

Monthly giving is more important to nonprofits than ever before — especially for online fundraising programs. Learn how to grow your sustainer program with these strategies for recruitment, retention, stewardship, and upgrades.

Speakers

We’re all on the hunt for new donors – but do you have strategies in place to make sure they stick around once they are on the file? You wouldn’t invite guests over without getting the house in order first, would you?

In this session, learn and workshop ideas on how to increase new donor retention and maximize performance by setting up supporter journeys that acknowledge their impact, engage, steward, and bond them to your mission for long haul.

Speakers

Podcasts are booming. With the ability to capture listeners week after week, they are a great way to build a loyal following, and offer a unique format for telling your story and creating a digital presence on platforms like iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. They can be created from your own office without a huge investment, and are downloaded over and over. Learn the tools you need to record in person or with call-in interviewees, and discover how to manage and market without the project taking over your schedule.

Speakers

Rather than looking at systems such as your website and CRM as silos, wouldn’t it be better to understand how all of your tools fit together? In this session, walk through how to map your digital ecosystem, and how to use that insight to create a roadmap for improvements which could include automated integrations, select custom functionality, and new tools to replace legacy systems. When the journey is complete, your team will be more efficient, you will gain a holistic view of how your constituents engage with your organization, and you can create more personalized, compelling digital experiences for your users.

Speakers

It’s not enough to reach constituents with our communications or brand; we must also cultivate relationships and engage them in our work, from utilizing resources or services to becoming volunteers, advocacy takers, or even donors.

GLSEN, the leading organization working to create safe and inclusive K-12 schools for LGBTQ youth, will share how to develop winning campaigns that get attention, engage audiences, and cultivate more meaningful actions that further your mission.

Go behind the scenes of successful campaigns to learn easy-to-implement tactics, and receive worksheets to begin planning your next campaign.

Speakers

We have long been looking for ways to have direct 1:1 conversations with our supporters and donors. As it is becoming increasingly difficult to connect with your audience, we return back to the power of messaging. Will our donors of the future be answering the phone? Responding to email? Opening direct mail? How do we stay relevant and cut through the noise? Whether it’s renewal campaigns, year-end giving, or reactivating lapsed donors, text messaging allows your entire database to be treated like a major donor. Come learn and see the data on how to have personalized conversations, at scale!

Speakers

We all have great technology plans, but how do we actually move them forward? In this session we’ll discuss how a basic technology committee can help leaders and technology professionals keep their organization focused. Committees sound boring but that doesn’t mean they’re useless. Learn practical steps for assembling and managing your committee, and discuss how a technology committee can help you nurture a culture where everyone sees technology and data as critical to furthering your mission.

Speakers

We’ve heard it all. From dirty rumors about insecurity to warnings of lack of support, WordPress faces a litany of accusations. And for good reason. WordPress is so popular, it’s no wonder there are so many rumors floating around about it. We’re here to set the record straight. Come get the facts from WordPress experts. We’ll talk about which rumors are true, which are not, and how you can run the most effective WordPress site on the internet.

This session is presented by Cornershop Creative.

Care2 , hjc and NTEN are excited to release the 2019 Digital Outlook Report, which captures the digital strategy landscape in nonprofit organizations, as well as strategies in 2019 for staffing, tactics, tools, and more.

In keeping with the theme of the 2019 Digital Outlook Report, “Navigating the Unknown,” we’ll first help you launch your ship from the shores of some basic fundraising technology that we should all be using better. We look at P2P, Facebook, and Google Ad Grants to fill in those knowledge gaps that are keeping your ROI ashore.

We then steer our way to the ocean of uncertainty surrounding cross-team communication. It’s a topic we’ve approached in the past, but this year we’ve got some quick tips to cross-skill your team that requires no budget, little time, and will keep your crew happy.

Don’t have a ship? We’ll teach you to build your own. Too often, nonprofits have to make do with corporate software and solutions that don’t fit their particular needs. In the final section, we’ll show you how organizations can adapt technologies to fit their purpose, create their own solutions, and think outside the #nptech box.

We hope these strategies will help you navigate your way to smoother waters.

Speakers

Data visualization is quite the buzzword, but how can you use it to grow your audience, tell your story, and further your organization’s mission? You don’t have to be a coding expert to use data viz. This session will introduce you to ways of using research and data to tell impactful stories that drive people to act, and how to integrate data visualization into your organization’s content strategy. You’ll also learn about the multitude of free tools available, when to use each one, and how to start learning to use them.

Everyone knows someone with bad password habits, from reusing the same password on multiple systems to writing down passwords on Post-it notes. Creating strong passwords can be daunting, especially when they have to be changed frequently. Implementing a password manager offers solutions to these problems by generating strong passwords and storing them securely. Learn about the different password managers available, tips for choosing the right one for your organization, recommended practices for implementation, approaches for user training to lay the foundation for success, and ways to extend beyond simply storing passwords.

Speakers

Nonprofits face a challenge when publishing research, project outcomes, policy analysis, and similar documents: how to present a substantial body of content in a coherent way, to an audience accustomed to 250-word blog posts and 140-character tweets.

For years the answer was to stick PDFs on your website and tell people to download them. But modern readers expect interactive data, video, mobile optimization, personalization, and more; and PDFs are failing to engage readers and achieve results.

Learn the tools and techniques that several successful nonprofits used to move their content (and their teams) beyond the PDF into interactive, engaging content strategies.

Speakers

Genie Gratto

Salesforce, Simply360, CiviCRM, Blackbaud: you know the benefits of using a constituent relationship management (CRM) system to track and communicate with donors and prospects. But these systems can be just as powerful for running the day-to-day program operations of your organization. Explore examples from small, medium, and large human services, youth, LGBTQ+, conservation, membership, and advocacy organizations where CRM is widely adopted. Learn how program staff track client relationships and outcomes, run trainings, manage certifications, organize transportation, provide member services, enable online registration, and more. The session will also cover gaining full adoption, reporting and dashboards, and integration with external systems.

Speakers

Jake Grinsted

Founder

Simply360 & The Creators Social

Jake Grinsted first started with The Fresh Air Fund in college, but a summer adventure soon became a full-time job in NYC. After inheriting old program management tools built with MS Access, Excel, Oracle, and paper filing cabinets, he soon began a quest for a more useful program management CRM system. Not satisfied with the tools on the market, Jake headed a small team who built a new in-house CRM that now manages over a million people… helping staff with program relationships, registration and attendance, transportation, geographical mapping, and of course outcome reporting. Before long, The Fresh Air Fund’s partners were asking to use this CRM too, and what began in-house inspired a new stand-alone platform called Simply360. Jake now works with nonprofits to implement their program management CRM, and also runs a community organization for fellow creators called The Creators Social.

We must ensure that diversity is not simply a passing trend in the nonprofit sector but an enduring value that helps make our sector more sustainable. Today, 30 percent of the U.S. population is Black and/or Latino. Yet, only 10% of nonprofits are led by Black or Latino individuals, and only three of the top 50 charities in the nation have leaders of color. Our calling as a sector and as individuals responsible for conceiving a vision for our sector’s future is to change and challenge this reality.

Speakers

You might love this new crowdsourcing trend for the money it brings in without you lifting a finger. But you might also be wondering if you’re leaving money on the table by not proactively participating in the strategic process. In this session, you’ll learn from experts at Anne Lewis Strategies and Sandy Hook Promise about how some of the most successful nonprofits are seizing this opportunity to maximize results: running ads, targeting emails, and providing your audience with the tools they need for a successful fundraiser online.

Speakers

Today, your supporters are hyper-connected, live inside personal feeds, support causes over institutions, and prioritize recommendations from friends when choosing organizations to support.

These shifts make your job as a fundraiser tough. However, nonprofits of all sizes and a diverse range of causes have leaned into these shifts and are using peer-to-peer to enhance their fundraising efforts.

In this session, you’ll learn proven tactics we uncovered from analyzing thousands of peer-to-peer fundraising efforts—including events, giving days, annual funds, and corporate partnerships—and through interviews with the fundraisers leading these efforts.

You’ll see how peer-to-peer is evolving. What works. And, what doesn’t.

Speakers

NTEN’s CEO, Amy Sample Ward, will open the 19NTC pre-conference with a warm welcome.

The 2019 NTC Pre-Conference Keynote speaker is Justin Yuen. Justin is CEO of Grouptrail (formerly FMYI), a visual database for goal tracking software company with a focus on school districts and nonprofits working with youth and families.

Speakers

Picture it: you’re standing in your office with a coworker who’s telling you that you’ve lost your donor database. Everything. One of your most valuable assets has just up and vanished. What do you do now? You have three options: panic and cry, get to work pulling together your last database backup, or try to piece together what remains from other systems. Or, you could those scenarios by planning ahead and putting together a strategy that makes disaster recovery look like a piece of cake.

Speakers

This session defines basic privacy and security obligations and how they apply to nonprofits. Learn what privacy actually means, why security matters for you and your supporters, and what you can do to proactively improve your data handling online.

We’ll also discuss the need to map potential threats to your online infrastructure and your online supporters, how to assess your org’s privacy and security policies, and review our open source, a free tool that breaks down complex privacy rules and regulations into actionable, curated guidance that can be implemented in less than five minutes.

Speakers

Here’s some #NotFakeNews: Your hashtags aren’t enough to track storytelling effectiveness. In this session, we’ll look at how Lung Cancer Foundation of America went from an April Fool’s idea, #CatsAgainstLungCancer, to a digital engagement campaign with clear and measurable results to show for it.

Participants will learn how to identify concrete actions for users to take in a campaign and how those align with key performance indicators of moving their mission forward. We’ll also look beyond April 1 to see how the unexpected bright spots of LCFA’s website can still drive meaningful action — and help lung cancer research.

Speakers

Ann Nguyen

Technical Creative Director

Whole Whale

Ann joined Whole Whale in 2013 and has been making splashes since then in the areas of design, development, and A/B testing.

She keeps the New York team afloat and works directly with clients on using design and tech to scale their impact. During her time at Whole Whale, Ann has overseen site builds that include DREAM, the LAMP, and Donate Life America. Beyond website development, Ann has led the charge on work with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the One Love Foundation, Charitybuzz, Prizeo, and United Way ALICE. Ann is also the product manager behind Lighthouse by Whole Whale and is currently working with Power Poetry on their Poetry Genome, a tool that uses machine learning to generate a percentage comparison to various writers based on the theme, style, and content of any poem on the site. Both classic and contemporary writers are represented in different sections of our Genome (shoutout to Shakespeare and Kendrick).

Ann is a regular speaker and lecturer on nonprofit tech topics. She’s presented on machine learning for good and A/B testing for organ donations at the 2018 Strata Data Conference in San José, and spoke at the 2018 Strata Data Conference in New York on “How to Be Aggressively Tone-Deaf Using Data (or, We Should all Be For-Benefits).” 2018 also saw Ann copresent on A/B testing with the Wikimedia Foundation at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans. Ann has guest lectured at NYU, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College. She also frequently joins design discussions at various panels from the Lowline to the White House.

Before joining Whole Whale, Ann worked with a wide range of organizations, including the Ford Foundation, SumAll Foundation, and Bitly.

Do you use location data to advance your mission? You don’t have to be a data geek to use mapping and spatial analysis to target your beneficiaries, measure your impact, or engage your stakeholders. In this session, you will learn about opportunities to apply Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to your work; the learning resources and relevant solutions to help you get started today.

We will show you the technology in action, share real-world success stories, and lay out a roadmap for how you can get started.

Speakers

Emily Swenson

The Nonprofit Technology Conference is a space to talk about tools, strategies, and new ideas for the way nonprofit staff make a change and meet their mission. Those conversations require we also talk about the way we work with each other, the systems [of oppression] that influence our ability to do our work, and the conditions of our sector and world in which our missions make an impact.

As in all of our decisions, we are guided by our values and our commitment to equity, as well as by the feedback of our community. To that end, we are including this racial affinity space at the 19NTC.

What is Racial Affinity Space

The intention of these spaces is for attendees (including speakers, exhibitors, sponsors, and general attendees) of color at the NTC to have places to gather and connect that do not include white attendees. Racial affinity spaces allow attendees of color to center and prioritize their specific needs, voices, and experiences in a room, without introducing the potential of harm or trauma from well-intentioned white allies.

The desire by white attendees to learn, grow, and serve as allies is important; however, those goals are best reached in other avenues (including other sessions on the agenda linked below) and not by participating in gatherings intended only for attendees of color.

You can learn more about the Racial Affinity Space at NTC here.

Facilitators, Not Speakers

Please be aware this space will not have prepared content. This space will have a facilitator team (listed below under the “Speakers” header) in the room to support the direction that the group wants to take it. There is no pre-set expectation for how many people come, who those people are (except that they are not allies), what they may want to discuss, or how they may want to discuss it.

Speakers

The Nonprofit Technology Conference is a space to talk about tools, strategies, and new ideas for the way nonprofit staff make a change and meet their mission. Those conversations require we also talk about the way we work with each other, the systems [of oppression] that influence our ability to do our work, and the conditions of our sector and world in which our missions make an impact.

As in all of our decisions, we are guided by our values and our commitment to equity, as well as by the feedback of our community. To that end, we are including this racial affinity space at the 19NTC.

What is Racial Affinity Space

The intention of these spaces is for attendees (including speakers, exhibitors, sponsors, and general attendees) of color at the NTC to have places to gather and connect that do not include white attendees. Racial affinity spaces allow attendees of color to center and prioritize their specific needs, voices, and experiences in a room, without introducing the potential of harm or trauma from well-intentioned white allies.

The desire by white attendees to learn, grow, and serve as allies is important; however, those goals are best reached in other avenues (including other sessions on the agenda linked below) and not by participating in gatherings intended only for attendees of color.

You can learn more about the Racial Affinity Space at NTC here.

Facilitators, Not Speakers

Please be aware this space will not have prepared content. This space will have a facilitator team (listed below under the “Speakers” header) in the room to support the direction that the group wants to take it. There is no pre-set expectation for how many people come, who those people are (except that they are not allies), what they may want to discuss, or how they may want to discuss it.

Speakers

Supporter actions and other data can tell you the best time to ask a donor to upgrade to become a monthly giver, join a mid-level program, or just make the next gift.  When this is combined with automation, you can raise more money with less effort. 

This session will use case studies to show how data, careful segmentation, and automation combine to deliver the right message, to the right supporter, at the right time.  And how this results in greater revenue for the organization.

Speakers

Studies put the average donor “drop-off” or “abandonment” rate for online donations at somewhere between 50% and 70%. More than half of the donors who start the donation process won’t finish it—so where is it going wrong? We studied the best strategies implemented by top e-commerce retailers to improve the donation checkout flow to reduce donor abandonment. We will present common challenges that lead to donor drop off and strategies to reduce it.

Speakers

Who wants to sit through another presentation or demo? Not us! In the past year, NGO Source and Oracle NetSuite Social Impact have designed programs and events with co-learning objectives and multi-directional learning activities. These nonprofit events, webinars, and programs became more interactive, livelier, and productive once we realized we all have the answers; believing each participant embodies part of the solution.  Join this workshop that promises to push your idea of who is the educator, what your event or program can be, and create at least one amazing collaborative learning opportunity in your world.

Speakers

As site owners, it’s impossible for us to serve our users better without knowing a little bit about them — what’s working for them, and what isn’t. There are a number of high-impact but unobtrusive ways to learn more about how users interact with your site and your brand. In fact, you might be surprised at the information you can learn about your users with nothing more than Google Analytics.

This talk will expose some touchpoints that can help you learn about your users and how they interact with your site. We’ll discuss tools that move beyond just your analytics platform to help you gain access to these insights, and we’ll walk through some core features of Google Analytics that you may not be aware of.

Leaving this session, you’ll have a better understanding of the types of tracking tools, the information you can glean from them, and how to ensure your data tracking is responsible, transparent, and accessible.

This session is presented by Kanopi Studios.

Get Involved. Take Action. Action Center. Does your website have one of these? Is it basically a dumping ground listing all the ways people can engage with you? You’re not alone!

But if the primary purpose of a nonprofit website is to get people involved, then why do most of us relegate it to one section, presenting our most important content in a long, overwhelming list?

Learn how two nonprofits really got to know their audiences, and are creating a clear, streamlined visitor-centric experience to help people engage — paving the way for more money, more volunteers, more advocates, and more impact.

Speakers

Sketchnotes can keep your notebooks tidy, create new ways to organize your thoughts in real time, and create a compelling record of your experiences. For nonprofit professionals, sketchnotes are great for visualizing projects, documenting processes, bringing what you’ve learned at conferences to your colleagues back at the office, and more. In this session, NTC sketchnote veterans will introduce basic concepts of visual note-taking, and share their  colorful, narrative styles.

You’ll learn:

• Why sketchnotes?
• How to get started
• Tools!
• Strategies for fast-paced environments

The entire session will be hands-on, developing a visual language approach you can start using right away.

Speakers

Adrienne Figus

Project Manager

Smith College

Project manager, digital fundraiser, artist, and proud holder of an NTEN Nonprofit Technology Professional Certificate.

A MICA graduate excited to be back in Baltimore, Adrienne’s main interests right now are watercolor painting and digital collections collaboration across GLAMs institutions. Find her sketching notes at your lecture, getting cranky on Twitter, or swiftly hand-coloring and assembling a few hundred buttons in support of a local ballot initiative (possibly all at the same time!)

Genie Gratto

In the age of automation, why NOT set and forget? Global Fund for Women shares how, by testing small tweaks to welcome and re-engagement series performance, modest changes could drive substantial upticks in clicks—and thus future giving and engagement. From content tweaks, sender tests, branching logic, and retargeting on social media, learn the results and ideas for tracking your series systematically and testing creatively­—without a huge investment in your time.

Speakers

With so much digital misinformation online and the increased ability for cyber trolls to both attack an NGO’s work, and mission messengers it’s easier than ever for one bad actor to throw the work of even the largest nonprofit into chaos. As part of this year’s NTC agenda, the NTEN community has organized a special featured session exploring how NGOs can develop strategies and tools that allow them to stand up for their values and protect their messengers without sacrificing their own values.

Cyberbullies might multiply by the hour, but we don’t have to let them win the day. Join us for a discussion and group exercise on how to flip the script, protect your values and effectively engage in an era filled with divisiveness, fake news, and cyberattacks.

Speakers

The landscape of CRM and communications technologies is confusing and constantly changing. In this session, intended for development, marketing, and communications professionals, learn how all these different technologies fit together, and how they contribute to your fundraising and communication success.

Learn what CRMs do and why it’s valuable to integrate these systems. Consider specific systems, including Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge, and describe common integrations and constellations of systems. You’ll emerge with a practical understanding of the opportunities for integrating your CRM, website, and email.

Speakers

Not all ideas are created equal. Organizations often struggle with creating and implementing better ideas. This session, originally presented at Harvard University’s Digital Innovation Academy, will walk you through how to generate strong everyday and breakthrough ideas, choose and implement the best ones, and shift internal cultures from ad-hoc brainstorming to strategic planning.This hands-on session will include a guided value-mapping activity and lesson in idea pitching.

Speakers

If you want your donors to give more than once, you have to turn them into investors in—and not merely supporters of—your mission. Donors want to feel the impact of their gift. They want to see the concrete outcomes of their dollars. And they crave evidence that your organization is using their gift to make the world a better, fairer, safer, and happier place. Storytelling compels your donors to stay engaged—and to donate again. Learn how to tell a story that cuts through the noise, and to transform data into real, specific, human stories.

Speakers

The demand for storytelling has never been greater, but behind the glamor of your “powerful video” or “impact story” lie the challenges of finding a good story and agreeing how to tell it.

What if your smartest expert is your weakest storyteller? How do you make sure that communities can tell their stories on their own terms? What if your donor demands results, but all you can show is progress?

Drawing on interviews with dozens of nonprofit and foundation staff, this session will help communicators, fundraisers, and funders tell better stories by making storytelling a more cooperative, inclusive process.

Speakers

Mention “Knowledge Management” and you’ll usually hear something like, “Oh yeah, we moved stuff to Sharepoint last year.” But document management is only one piece. Knowledge Management is an organization-wide endeavor that encompasses business process and workflows, taxonomies and frameworks, getting buy-in, and managing stakeholders. For your organization to make the most of its knowledge, you’ll need to go beyond document management and beyond the mindset of a one-time implementation. To be effective, you can’t set it and forget it — learn how to approach Knowledge Management strategically as part of your operations.

Speakers

Dar Veverka

Director of Information Technology

Urban Teachers

Dar is the Director of Information Systems & Technology for Urban Teachers, a Baltimore-based nonprofit whose mission is to improve educational and life outcomes of children in urban schools by preparing culturally competent, effective career teachers. Dar has worked in technology for over 20 years and has had to deal with inherited tech messes and orgs stuck in startup mode on more than one occasion, both as head of technology departments and as a consultant to nonprofits.

Janice Chan

Consultant

Shift and Scaffold

Janice Chan never was able to pick one thing to be when she grew up. While grown up status could be debated, what she currently does is consult (shiftandscaffold.com), teach data management in NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Professional Certificate Program, and co-organize NTEN’s Nonprofits and Data online community group. She is also working towards a Master of Information Management at the University of Maryland. Originally from New York, Janice arrived south of the Mason-Dixon Line via St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Post-graduation, Janice served as an AmeriCorps*VISTA before officially joining the nonprofit sector. She has worn hats in data management, volunteer management, marketing and communications, grant writing, curriculum development, program management, technical training, change management, and project management. In short, Janice has spent more than a dozen years organizing and restructuring information so that teams can work together more effectively and focus on their missions. She also enjoys editing, making playlists, and figuring out how we could do this better. You can find her on Twitter @curiositybone.

There is much an organization can do to support remote employees, but that is only half of the equation for remote work to be successful. Being a “good fit,” staying connected, and making your best contributions don’t just happen by accident. In this session, hear from a remote nonprofit team member (and tips from others) with multiple years of experience working as part of mixed teams (remote and in-office).

Whether you currently work remotely, have a flexible workplace policy, or are considering making the leap, this fast-paced session will provide tips, tools, and strategies to set you up for greater success.

Speakers

If you’ve heard the term “customer experience,” we’ve got good news for you: it’s not just for big-budget corporations anymore.

The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Brennan Center for Justice will share their long-term paths to creating customer journeys that put supporters first. WCS has moved far beyond the automated welcome series to implement an entire engagement program built around supporters’ unique experiences and goals. The Brennan Center is expanding its digital fundraising and advocacy program to target new public audiences, gearing up for the 2020 election with a series of journey-based campaigns.

Speakers

Strong retention AND consistent revenue – everyone wants it! But how do you get it? In this session, learn how organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), have utilized all digital channels to implement a sustainer-first membership model. In HRC’s case, this led to more than a third of donors to give monthly. You’ll go home with best practices to improve your strategy, targeting, and content that will work for organizations of all sizes. Learn how to use segmentation to improve sustainer conversion, and get tips on how to improve sustainer retention.

Speakers

David Ballinger

Online Fundraising & Advocacy Manager

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

David has managed email marketing programs, fundraising and advocacy campaigns, and digital CRMs for 10 years, primarily with non-profit organizations.

At the Physicians Committee, David spearheaded the selection and deployment of a new digital CRM and is excited to discuss the results, impact, and lessons learned.

Outside of work, you can find David trying to build up his cat’s Instragram brand, exploring NYC, playing bike polo, and searching for the world’s best veggie burger.

Boards aren’t always thrilled about approving investments in technology, yet nonprofit organizations are required to report on a multitude of topics, with little staff capacity. Board and committee meetings leave executive directors, finance, and development teams scrambling to find the resources for reporting out and managing programs. Art in Action, Oracle NetSuite Social Impact, and the Taproot Foundation will explore how to introduce innovative technology to your Board of Directors. Learn how to bring technology to your Board so they become more savvy experts and more energized about tech decisions.

Speakers

Organizations initiate technology projects to achieve specific goals like improved tracking of client outcomes or better donor engagement. And they want to do so within a reasonable budget. Both of these aims can be achieved by focusing in on project commitment, alignment, and building lean. Learn real-world tips and examples to achieve project success while keeping costs and risks in check.

Takeaways include:

• How to choose and prioritize the highest value features
• Steps to foster organizational alignment
• The importance of staff time commitment
• Tips for managing change and embracing new ways of working

Speakers

As Facebook messenger chatbots have emerged as a conversion powerhouse for nonprofits, see how two nonprofits are launching and optimizing their own Messenger engagement, and get insights on whether this channel might be right for you. Learn how Food and Water Watch and Sierra Club respectively piloted new chatbot programs, and get their insights on how they maximized staff time, embraced emerging technology in a cost-effective way, and got their internal team to embrace this exploration. Learn which chatbot strategies worked best for boosted engagement, acquisition, and fundraising – as well as technology strategies to allow data to flow into your CRM in a way that’s actionable in other channels.

Speakers

Direct action organizing relies on building individual relationships to create change. While those relationships are extremely effective, they can be time-consuming and expensive to build. One of the most effective ways to organize your supporters is to have authentic conversations where they already talk to family and friends—in a text message! Learn how to leverage this personal, relational medium to drive advocacy calls, recruit action takers, and mobilize volunteers.

Speakers

For years, nonprofits have discussed the dream of a single CRM: one database offering the elusive, 360-degree view of each supporter. Orgs want to consolidate data siloes, minimize manual staff work, get rid of brittle integrations — and have greater insight, technical freedom, and the ability to offer personalized supporter journeys.

The single-CRM model is both possible and worthwhile! Two pioneering organizations, the ACLU and Wildlife Conservation Society, will share their words of wisdom, their enthusiasm, and their sometimes road-weary stories of what they learned in search of their own single-CRM solutions.

Speakers

TechSoup and Julia Campbell bring more than a decade of experience to designing engaging online trainings in a wide variety of accessible formats. They’ll lead this highly participatory and activity-driven workshop to help you evaluate online training delivery methods and build effective training for your nonprofit staff or external constituencies. Assess different LMS (learning management systems) and learn from your peers and experts in the room on how to use online learning tools to accomplish your organizational goals. Gain insights on the needed mindsets and skill sets to achieve your mission and have a greater impact in your programs.

Speakers

Julia Campbell

Author, Speaker, Teacher

J Campbell Social Marketing

Julia Campbell teaches nonprofits the most effective ways to use storytelling and social media to accomplish their goals and to achieve the kind of growth that they desire and that they deserve. The author of Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits and How to Build and Mobilize A Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit in 90 Days, Julia gives keynotes all over the world. Her favorite place to be is relaxing in sweatpants with her 2 kids.

The potential of technology to enable organizational success is well documented. Today, reaping the fiscal and operational benefits of a well-executed technology strategy is a goal of most businesses. Attempting to unleash this potential amid an increasingly complex and ever-changing digital landscape, however, can present significant challenges. Fortunately, success leaves footprints and we are not required to reinvent the wheel.  In this session you’ll learn the role belief plays in successful IT outcomes, using clarity of purpose to reduce complexity and simplify decision making, how success and failure can be predicted, why change is the key to improvement, and more.

Speakers

How will the future of work trends impact nonprofit internal tech operations and the digital expression of each mission? When considering the evolution of Digital Ethics & Privacy, the Gig Economy, and Augmented Analytics – how might these change the speed and method by which board pitches occur or the means by which donors are engaged? With this session, we’ll don three trendy sets of specs – some with the bifocal of speed to explore the future of work.

Speakers

What will hiring a C-suite marketing or communications leader do to advance your organization’s mission? This panel discussion will explore the best way to grow a team that adds depth, diversity, and strategy to your organization’s communications.

Moderator: Sarah Durham, CEO, Big Duck

Panelists:

• Chandra Hayslett, Communications Director, The Center for Constitutional Rights, NY
• Suzanne Shaw, Communications Director, Union of Concerned Scientists, Boston
• Ambar Mentor-Truppa, Vice President of Communications at Sargeant Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Chicago

Speakers

Chandra Hayslett

How do you excite people about learning how to input data? Keep them enthused when you need to chat about data accuracy? Document the process in a way that can stay fluid but accurate? And do all of this when working the jobs of three people? Sound familiar? Here are some tips and tricks about getting colleagues on board with learning about technology, keeping them engaged, and creating SOPs to ensure ease during transitions.

Speakers

Small-dollar donors are having a huge impact on everything from hurricane cleanup to national advocacy work. Increasingly, donors are choosing to give $10, $25, or $100 online when an issue or cause is in the news as a way to take direct action. Here’s the key: organizations that have a clear strategy to engage, respect, and build relationships with these donors are the ones achieving the most success. We’ll team up with an organization that is getting it right and cover the basics of digital fundraising, as well as help you make a game plan for engaging new donors.

Speakers

Google Ad Grants give eligible nonprofits up to $120,000 a year to spend on the world’s largest advertising platform, putting your website content prominently in Google’s search results. New policies make compliance challenging, requiring significantly more careful account management; but also open up new opportunities that make nonprofits’ advertising more competitive. What are the new Ad Grant rules, and how can you maintain compliance and build effective ad campaigns? Learn how your website, Google Analytics, and Google Ads can work together to meet your nonprofit’s real life goals and conversions.

Speakers

Jason King

Ad Grants Certified Professional

Jason King

Jason is a Google Ad Grants Certified Professional. He’s also a Platinum Product Expert on the Google community forum, and a Google Partner. And a community co-organizer for NTEN’s digital advertising forum.

Trained as a librarian, he’s worked in nonprofit information and technology for over 25 years. He’s a freelance consultant helping nonprofits succeed at digital advertising.

Originally from England, Jason decamped to France a few years ago in order to remain European.

Leaders are frustrated. The nonprofit CRM should increase organizational effectiveness, decision making, prospecting, donor management, and more.  However, nonprofits are dealing with inefficient systems that consume time and effort and produce little value. This is no longer acceptable.

Over the past decade, the advances in nonprofit CRM have been tremendous. Your CRM should be the core of all your departments. Paul Keogan will lead a discussion to help you understand what’s changing, why, and how you can prepare your organization to make this important shift.

Speakers

Managing finances for a nonprofit organization means getting visibility into how your organization is achieving its mission. But how can you be sure every decision maker is equipped with the right tools to gain insight on data? Everyone from managers to board members need insight into different aspects of financial data to make the right decisions. Learn why nonprofit financial managers need dashboards and how you can set up the right one for the right audience. When everyone has the right data, they get visibility into the financial health of the organization to see if you’re meeting your mission.

Speakers

Everyone working at a nonprofit know all too well the feeling of being absolutely overtaken by your to-do list or running out of day (and night) well before you’ve done everything you’d hoped to do. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to balance all you do, as you work to achieve your nonprofit mission including your fundraising or donor management tasks and objectives, you know it’s time to rethink time management. This session will address leveraging technology and other secrets to successfully doing more with no extra time. Join us for this fun, interactive session and you’ll walk away with practical strategies and maybe even a few time management superpowers to help you do good, better.

Speakers

Vendors, are you accidentally alienating potential clients, or not representing yourself in the best light? Nonprofit professionals, are you presenting as a bad or difficult client? This session is an attempt to surface some bad habits we may have fallen into and to have an opportunity to observe ourselves through the mirror of our external partners. Vendors and Nonprofit professionals, you’re invited to an open, honest, and constructive conversation about how to connect better, how to make the sales and RFP process healthier, and how to align communications, expectations and service delivery.

Speakers

Have you ever found yourself in this situation? You just need a simple form on your website. But then you start thinking about how that form should look, exactly what data it should collect, and what kinds of notification emails should be sent… and then someone asks how you’re going to get the data into your CRM, and the next thing you know, your head has exploded from all the open questions and options.

This very inFORMative session will put your head back together, equip you with a fresh perspective on planning and developing your form creation strategy, and give you easy tactics and tools to make sure everything works just as you need it to. You may have only FORMative knowledge of forms, but you’ll leave this session with FORMidable knowledge.

This session is presented by Cornershop Creative.

We live in a world of modern conveniences. Automation has made our lives easier and more efficient. Jobs that used to take days to accomplish can now be completed in minutes. Valuable time is gifted back to your staff members, simply by incorporating technology into your daily jobs. Learn how to leverage technology to increase transparency, quickly respond in today’s 24/7 world, and most significantly, to automate the step-by-step aspects of fundraising and put a personal touch on your donor engagement.

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Your organization relies on data and systems to provide your services. With the increase in cyber attacks, no organization is immune from being a target, no matter how big or how small the organization is. In this session, discuss recent data breaches and successful hacks, identify how perpetrators compromised the security controls, and receive a roadmap to reduce your organization’s risk of cybersecurity attacks. Come prepared to share experiences and learn from others.

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You have a great video idea for social content, but you can’t spend thousands of dollars on an editor or fancy animation. You may not even have nice-looking b-roll or good photos. This session will focus on how to create video content using free, relatively easy-to-use tools. You’ll walk away knowing how to create simple videos that help drive toward your digital goals.

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“Team of one.” “Winging it.” If you’ve ever described yourself with these phrases, we get you. Your time is split between a million high-priority tasks, some you’ve never even done before! We’ve been there, too.

Enter the Ultimate Communications Toolkit! [*jazz hands*] This comprehensive guide offers practical information in virtually every area of communications,  from how to develop a communications plan to what tools you need to raise awareness and funds. You’ll receive templates, checklists, and case studies that will help newbies and veterans alike tackle a variety of communications conundrums.

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Unified databases (or worse: Data Warehouses) are expensive and complex options for any nonprofit. For most, they are no longer necessary. This session will provide a framework for deciding when you need integrated systems and when you need integrated reporting. For those integrated reporting challenges, we’ll provide guidance of live-data model approaches available with modern data visualization and reporting tools. These tools can provide lightweight solutions for combining multiple data sources and providing real-time or close to real-time data exploration. This session will provide an overview of vendors and approaches and help you select the best one for your needs.

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Nonprofits often pride themselves on being closely connected to the people and communities they serve. Yet even in nonprofits, conducting formal user research and user testing can help uncover assumptions and reveal new insights about your clients, their stories, and their behaviors. Over the past year, Mission Asset Fund has ramped up its user research capacity and learned some lessons along the way. Join them and learn how to bring or refine these tools for your organization.

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Partner networks are often the foundation of an organization, and constant communication and collaboration are essential to their health. Join this interactive session to learn about and discuss how online communities—designed with and for intended users—can help nonprofits overcome their most pressing challenges.

Learn how Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service launched an online community for knowledge sharing and learning among its national refugee resettlement partners, and, in partnership with the Hilton Foundation, how Stellenbosch University is bringing together grantees in five African countries in an online community to advance their work supporting children affected with HIV and AIDS.

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Just what do your volunteers do that improves the lives of your clients and advances the mission?  That’s the question to answer when developing strategic measures of volunteer impact. This kind of data is needed to impress funders, educate Board members, and advocate for volunteer programs. But as you create these metrics, you need to ensure that the data will actually be collected and tracked. In this interactive session, learn how to create relevant impact measures and devise data collection tools that can be readily implemented in your workplace. Ensure that what gets measured gets done.

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You have a strong fundraising program using mail, email, and phone. Why bother with new technology?  Those extra bells and whistles may never pay off and take a lot of legwork to get off the ground. Sound familiar?

Come hear how the Human Rights Campaign has tested and adapted new technology into their program. Learn how critical an organization’s culture is to weaving new digital tools into the fundraising program. From SMS to Facebook Messenger to video advocacy tools, digital advertising, and Hustle … HRC has tried it all. And they’re ready to tell you what worked, and what didn’t.

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Both Ceres and NetSquared manage online communities. Ceres manages a network of investors engaging corporations on issues from environmental practices to social justice. NetSquared is a global network of volunteer-led meetups dedicated to building the digital capacity of nonprofits. They use different online community tools for different outcomes, but both online communities are central to how they achieve their missions.

Learn about the methods both organizations are using to power supporter collaboration. Find out what has made both communities successful, lessons learned along the way, and how to judge what tools your online community needs.

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Elijah van der Giessen

NetSquared Community Manager

TechSoup

Eli strives to be a connector – the interstitial tissue that holds the muscle of a community together. He’s been a volunteer manager, an event organizer and a digital campaigner. Basically he’ll take any gig that allows him to enable a group of passionate people to create things they love.

Currently he works for TechSoup as the NetSquared Community Manager. He supports a global volunteer network of 120 monthly meetups for the nonprofit technology sector. Together they hold over 800 events per year.

Your organization, board, volunteers, and funders represent a wide diversity of generations at work together. This engaging session uses the backdrop of Generational Understanding and Predictable Triggers to re-frame communication across differences. Attracting talent, legitimizing your leadership bench, handling conflict, leading culture change, raising money, building a diverse workforce, and working competently across cultures – all of these happen within a multi-generational context. Leading in today’s workplace means that we must improve at attracting, motivating, retaining, and refereeing across differences. This session will include practical tips, a sense of humor, and some serious ideas.

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Two-thirds of crowdfunding campaigns fail (surprised? neither are we) and every time a crowdfunding campaign works, it seems to be…accidental. But it doesn’t have to be that way! (Really!) There are common denominators to failed campaigns, and a formula organizations can tap into for crowdfunding success. Explore both, with real-world examples and an assessment for your own organization, to ensure your nonprofit’s crowdfunding campaign meets—and exceeds—your goals.

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With Google Analytics, we know the who, what, when, where, and how of actions on your website. But do we know WHY those actions are happening? We can, thanks to the psychology of how we see. Even if you’re a non-designer, you’ll learn why certain layouts are scientifically proven to be more effective than others (and why you should never trust your gut).

We’ll look at how these designs play out in action against Cancer Research Institute’s donation goals. We’ll also leave you with 5 ideas for design elements you can test on your site today.

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Ann Nguyen

Technical Creative Director

Whole Whale

Ann joined Whole Whale in 2013 and has been making splashes since then in the areas of design, development, and A/B testing.

She keeps the New York team afloat and works directly with clients on using design and tech to scale their impact. During her time at Whole Whale, Ann has overseen site builds that include DREAM, the LAMP, and Donate Life America. Beyond website development, Ann has led the charge on work with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the One Love Foundation, Charitybuzz, Prizeo, and United Way ALICE. Ann is also the product manager behind Lighthouse by Whole Whale and is currently working with Power Poetry on their Poetry Genome, a tool that uses machine learning to generate a percentage comparison to various writers based on the theme, style, and content of any poem on the site. Both classic and contemporary writers are represented in different sections of our Genome (shoutout to Shakespeare and Kendrick).

Ann is a regular speaker and lecturer on nonprofit tech topics. She’s presented on machine learning for good and A/B testing for organ donations at the 2018 Strata Data Conference in San José, and spoke at the 2018 Strata Data Conference in New York on “How to Be Aggressively Tone-Deaf Using Data (or, We Should all Be For-Benefits).” 2018 also saw Ann copresent on A/B testing with the Wikimedia Foundation at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans. Ann has guest lectured at NYU, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College. She also frequently joins design discussions at various panels from the Lowline to the White House.

Before joining Whole Whale, Ann worked with a wide range of organizations, including the Ford Foundation, SumAll Foundation, and Bitly.

Accurately assessing and documenting system requirements is one of the most critical parts of any system implementation, but it’s easy to be distracted by a shiny new platform. Before thinking about what a new system could do, it’s important that nonprofits document what the system must do. This session will introduce you to winning ways you can easily identify and prioritize what you need before talking to vendors. You’ll walk away with tips and tools to get started right away, ensuring your next system implementation is a win.

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Bring your questions and knowledge and join us for a friendly and informal discussion-based session about all things WordPress. This session is facilitated by the volunteer organizers and members of NTEN’s online WordPress group. All are welcome.

Remote work can take a variety of forms. Do you struggle to attract and retain the best candidates regardless of their geography? Do you want to create an equitable and inclusive work environment while limiting the cost of your physical footprint? How can you support a remote team with diverse cultures, perspectives, and generations?

Use the remote workplace to build diversity and increase collaboration across your organization, while maintaining accountability. Learn how to adjust your strategy to accommodate different varieties of remote teams and see how it can work with your existing budget.

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Migrating to a new CRM is daunting for many, but it’s even more so if you have years and years of data to contend with!

Learn practical tips for simplifying a massive data migration project into manageable, realistic steps that will help you and your team keep your cool and keep your project organized and on track.

From managing project stakeholders and team communications to wrestling with data maps and development scripts, you’ll learn from organizations like the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Friends of the Earth.

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Getting stakeholders to buy-in on your fresh ideas can take real nerve. Learn how strengthening your voice, as individuals and organizations, can result in better ideas, stronger missions, empowered employees, and agile strategies. Examine examples from nonprofits that took leaps of faith outside the norm that resulted in success and failure, and what was learned from both. Discuss why taking risks is a good thing and how to encourage it in all aspects of the organization, from employees to CEOs to board members, and how to get buy-in for big ideas.

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Bias exists in data in more ways than we may realize. It exists unconsciously in the people who make decisions on how data is collected and used. It also exists in the analytics practices that rely on publicly available data and API sources that historically keep underrepresented populations invisible.

In this session, we will explore the history of data bias and its commonplace existence in the modern day NPO. We will also discuss solutions and tactics for identifying and rooting out unconscious biases in marketing campaigns, advocacy programs, constituent data collection, and analytics tools.

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Are you curious to incorporate youth in leadership and in the decision-making process in your organization? Hear from an advisory council’s high school and college students about their experience facilitating focus groups and a Design Thinking meetup for youth. This event aimed to brainstorm and prototype apps and websites to further connect San Francisco Bay Area young people of color ages 14-26 to Golden Gate National Park opportunities and resources. Youth presenters will lead a sample Design Thinking activity you can bring back and apply these techniques to creatively solve problems. Attend and get inspired!

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The decision to go bilingual opens up a new set of engagement opportunities, challenges, and questions for nonprofit marketing professionals. Discover how one nonprofit arts venue become Los Angeles’s first fully bilingual outdoor performance venue—from its website, social media, and signage to swag and beyond. This session will be highly relevant for attendees working in communities where demographics continue to shift. Developing strategies that tap into new potential audiences, supporters, and stakeholders—especially first- and second-generation Latino immigrants (the principal driver of demographic growth)—will be crucial for the organizational sustainability of nonprofits.

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