I'm Selling My iPad: A Poem

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Turn off the wireless, shut down the 3G;
Cancel the account with A T & T;
Turn off the power the last time, you see:
I’m selling my iPad.

Erase all the apps so there’s nothing to leave;
The eighteen games and the five Twitter feeds;
The twelve different apps to control my TV;
I’m selling my iPad.

Say goodbye to the virtual keys;
My fingers more clumsy than Apple believed;
Auto-corrects too incorrectly for me;
I’m selling my iPad.

Wash off the screen of the dust and debris;
Stow lint-free clothes that I no longer need;
I’ll not miss the signs of the oil I excrete;
I’m selling my iPad. 

Type up the listing for my auction plea;
Set the price with a sincere guarantee.
The dent on the side? You can’t even see!
I’m selling my iPad.

I need something more than the iPad can dare;
Something that’s stronger and better prepared. 
But please don’t mourn for my lost Apple flair —
I’m writing this on a new MacBook Air.

I’m a gadget addict. 

Getting Started with Analytics: Some Reading

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Since returning home from last week’s 2011 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference, I’ve been asked about a half-dozen times for reading suggestions for fundraisers looking to learn more about statistics, and in particular, segmentation. 

I have a couple of suggestions to get you started, but I want to say that the best way to start to learn segmentation is to export some data from your database — say, the results of your most recent initiative — open it in Excel, and just look at what you see. Sort the list by donation size. How many large gifts are there? How many small gifts? Do you notice clumping around certain numbers? Look at the addresses of the donors — are more from certain places than others? These are basic questions, but they are the first step towards viewing your donors as individuals rather than as one anonymous whole. I’ll write more on that in coming weeks, but the message is: Don’t be afraid to play with your data! You won’t break anything, I promise.

Now, as for the recommendations, I always start with two books. The first is the reassuringly titled Statistics Without Tears by Derek Rowntree. You’ll like this book immediately just by its size — unlike most statistics texts, you can carry it with one hand. It looks at you non-threateningly, as a small puppy might. It is a classic book, first published years ago, and there’s something comforting about the type and the graphs. It reminds me of cookies and tea at Grandma’s. More than the appearance, though, is the content. You may sweat a bit in places, but there will be no crying, and you’ll come out the other side knowing a bit more about the things you know you should know (what is a median, and why does it matter; what does the standard deviation measure, and why shouldn’t you be afraid of the word “deviation”) but don’t. 

The second is the much more recent but excellent Fundraising Analytics: Using Data to Guide Strategy by Joshua Birkholz. Unlike Rowntree’s book, this book was written after the secret consortium of business publishers decreed that all business books much contain a colon in their title. (Have you noticed this? The same rule applies to movie sequels.) But more importantly, this is a very recent and much-needed addition to the vast number of fundraising books on the market, most of which lack any real specificity when it comes to collecting data and understanding it, and a few of which are patently banal. Birkholz walks through a number of basic and more advanced analytics issues, including a treatment of RFM analysis and an introduction to regression. It won’t make you a statistics hero, but it will go a long ways towards improving your knowledge, particularly if you read it with an eye not only towards specific techniques, but towards how he approaches data and analysis more generally. High recommended.

Neither book is a cheap ticket, but both are worth it, and should get you started. Happy reading!

Mind the Gap

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I consider myself a fairly good parent. I love my kids, and I tell them; I make sure they eat well (McDonald’s right? just kidding); we all get lots of exercise, and we all get lots of sleep (well, I don’t, but they do). I know their birthdays, and I know their friends.

But I’d have a hard time telling you how tall they are. It’s just not something I have in my memory.

Amusement park operators clearly know this, and so at the entrance of every ride they have signs like the one at the left. They don’t expect me to know how tall my kids are, and they don’t expect me to be able to compare that height against an abstract. I just plop them next to the stick.

Think of how else an amusement park could have done this — when I enter the park they could have, for example, given me a print-out of each ride with the height and weight requirements. But what would I do with it? It would be the same data, but pretty much useless. 

This is an example of the difference between identical data that is usable (hey, my kid is too short) versus useless (what did I do with that sheet of paper?) simply because of differences in presentation. It matters how you present data, at least if you’re trying to get action out of it. And if you’re not, why present it? 

This is all a long introduction to one of my favorite tools, and favorite sites, and just favorite people: Gapminder from Hans Rosling. This incredible, ingenious tool allows you to map demographic data — say, the number of people who live in a country — against other demographic data — say, the number of people who live in poverty — and chart it out over time. This sounds very wonky to read but when you go to the site it is all very easy to understand and very intuitive. You select a couple of fields and hit play, and all of a sudden you can see pretty amazing relationships between them. Like, for instance, what is presented to you in the default graph, which is that a country’s life expectancy directly correlates to its income per person, and that the poorest countries, mainly in Africa, are fighting an uphill battle. 

So two themes here, I guess: One, if you are presenting data, think about the recipient’s frame of mind and present it in a way that will create an impact; and two, if you are looking to learn more about the world, the challenges we face, and why your part matters, take a look at Gapminder. 

 

Zeitoun

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Yesterday I traveled home from a fairly long trip to Washington, DC for the 2011 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference. The conference itself was three days, but we added on several days of team meetings and so when it was all said and done, it made for a six-day trip. That’s a long time to be gone in any person’s book, or at least, a long time to be gone for a trip that doesn’t involve a beach. 

In any case, the conference was fantastic, but by Saturday night the Event 360 folks and I were feeling a bit punchy and spent the better part of the evening shuffling around Dupont Circle. There are far worse places to spend a Saturday evening, particularly an evening involving a Supermoon, and we had a lot of fun stopping in various places around the neighborhood and trying to decide if the moon was larger after all. 

One highlight was the fabulous Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe & Grill, which I’d heard about but never set foot in. It took all of ten minutes for me to be juggling a pile of six books — I’m not so much a reader as a book acquirer; I seem to have far more books than time to read, and since my recent disavowal of the Kindle (a post for another time), I’m piling up pages quickly. Luckily one of my Event 360 Voices of Reason talked me down to three books, one of which was Zeiton by Dave Eggers. 

For years I’ve had a copy of  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which has been recommended to me by so many people that a while ago I began actively resisting suggestions to read it. Not that I don’t trust all the recommendations; I suppose I just have enough of an anti-establishment streak that the more I hear the less I want to go along. (Or am I just stubborn?) Plus, I understand the theme involves the death of parents, and I’ve had enough of that for the last several years, thank you very much.

In any case, I know of Eggers and the book looked interesting. A true story, it involves two of my many hot buttons: Hurricaine Katrina and civil liberties, or the lack thereof; and more broadly, the reason you might want to adopt a healthy anti-establishment streak yourself. So yesterday afternoon, tired from the week and with thoughts of nonprofits, technology, and making a difference mulling around my head, I boarded my plane home and turned to page one.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Harrowing, haunting, and ultimately hopeful, the book in simple but heroic, subtle but compelling turns tells a vast story on a small canvas, like a faded postcard from a distant trip you might frame and hang in your guest bedroom, a tiny reminder of a much larger experience you can’t fully explain. You will find yourself wondering how and why this could happen here, in America, only a few years ago, and then — if there’s any hope for us — find yourself angry and troubled that you haven’t heard more about it. 

The absurdity of bureaucracy, the mechanized degradation of personality, and the progressive devaluation of individuality are all important themes in the story. But unlike me, Eggers is a powerful writer, and doesn’t need to specifically call out those themes at all. They tap themselves on the head and step forward for you. 

It is a story of vast consequence told with almost no pretense. It will leave you with many questions, and yet also with a reminder of the power we each carry within us. Worth reading. 

2011 NTC

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Well, I’m sitting in Reagan National waiting to return home from the 2011 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference and am just reflecting on what a long, energizing, and content-rich week it was. With all of the thought and momentum I’ve been putting to our client engagements and Event 360 blog, I’ve definitely let this one slip. In fact, I’ve let most of my social presence atrophy. NTC was a reminder of the power of not only institutional ideas, but of personal ones as well.

Over the next couple of weeks I’m taking some time off, and hoping to do some thinking about this blog and how I can use it to communicate some of the great things we’re learning about fundraising, analytics, mission, and how they work together. I’m excited to crank up the volume. 

Sing, sing a new song

Some of you know that for months and months and years and years I’ve been trying to find the time, inspiration, and fortitude to get back into writing and recording music. For the last decade it seemed that every time I sat down to write or play, a voice would go off in my head that said “You don’t do that anymore…” Well, the thing about voices is if you hear them long enough, you believe what they say.

Fast forward to last November and the death of my dad — all of a sudden the thoughts piling up in my laundry basket of a brain started falling onto the floor. First a sock here, a t-shirt there, but more and more as time passed.

About a month ago I was fiddling around on the keyboard and came up with a very simple riff and decided “I will finish this, regardless of where it leads.” No censoring, no judgment, just finishing something.

Here it is — aptly named “Something Simple,” a short song about songwriting, relationships, and how the two may or may not be the same thing. The mix is shrill and the compression irritating, but you know what? It’s a start. Check it out.

Your Part Matters

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Hello friends, I hope this finds you well.

Will you make a donation to support me in the fight against cancer?

Wait! Before you leave the page, or put off a decision until later, allow me to take two minutes of your time to tell you what I’m doing, and why.

I’m walking this October in the San Francisco Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. It is a three day, sixty mile walk through the rather significant hills of the Bay Area. I’m doing it with thousands of others to help raise millions of dollars for the fight against cancer. I’ve started my training and I’m walking daily hoping that the dunes of Michiana are at least a decent representation of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

You probably know that the fight against cancer has been both a personal and professional passion of mine for years. In 1999, my mother died of cancer. It was a pivotal event in my life, there’s no doubt about it. Her death left my family with lots of questions and a drive to help find a cure. 

For over ten years I’ve dedicated my business and my life to achieving that goal. My company has helped produced dozens and dozens of events that have raised hundreds millions of dollars for the fight against cancer.

But this past fall, the fight became intimate for me again when my father was unexpectedly killed. His untimely death brought back all of the questions, the anger, and the uncertainty I felt over a decade ago. None of us think we need a reminder about the fragility of life. And yet, when I received such a reminder, I realized how naïve I had grown. 

We live in a world that increasingly feels to move without regard to our actions. We are told the economy is beyond us; that conflict will continue regardless of our motives; that in our future is an emptying world. It is easy to simply stay put, to let the world revolve and take us with it, to decide that our part doesn’t matter.

My father’s death was a reminder that our part DOES matter. Perhaps if enough of us just realized that our efforts make a difference, we’d see a difference being made. Perhaps if enough of us started moving the right way, we’d be able to take the world in the direction we want it to go.

My participation in the Komen 3-Day for the Cure is one way of getting myself moving. The event raises critical funds in the fight against breast cancer funds that are used not only for care of the sick, but for research that is absolutely needed to prevent more men and women from losing their lives to cancer. 

It is simply not acceptable to me that my children think of my mother as an abstract concept. They have no memories of hugs, or smells of oatmeal cookies, of the scent of her perfume. It is neither acceptable to me that my four-year-old daughter, nearly every night, says as I put her to sleep, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were no heaven, so no one would leave us?” These are not the thoughts my parents would have wanted for their grandchildren. 

My hope is that my participation in this event will also impact my children’s memories of their grandparents. My hope is that my children will someday say, “my grandparents inspired my dad to make a difference.”

I hope you will support me by clicking the link at the top left and donating an amount commensurate to the journey I’m making. I promise I’ll keep you updated on every mile, every dollar, and every blister that brings us closer to the world we all want to create.

In any case, thank you. I know it is not easy to read these fundraising letters. I know we all get too many of them and that makes them hard for me to write, too. 

But I’ve learned that it is easier to write a fundraising letter than it is to write a eulogy. 

Thank you. Your part matters.

Best wishes,

Jeff

Analyze this: The whitepaper!

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Tomorrow at the 2010 Run Walk Ride Fundraising Conference in Dallas I’ll be delivering the keynote presentation about moving beyond traditional event fundraising metrics and towards a broader set of measures to create deeper insights about event fundraising programs. As part of the conference work, Event 360 has just released a new whitepaper, in partnership with Convio, on the same subject. This is obviously a deep topic — too deep to cover in any one short document — but I’m pleased with the depth we were able to offer. You can download an advance copy of the paper from the Resources section of Event 360’s website.

The 18-page guide is designed to help event fundraisers move beyond only reporting the past and start using analytics to predict the future. A case study featuring the Komen Global Race for the Cure highlights how we used analytics to help transform their highly attended event into a strong fundraising event.

Get the guide for free here. Thanks for reading!

Homer Simpson for Nonprofits

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I’m pleased to pass on that Event 360 has partnered with Network for Good and Sea Change Strategies to sponsor a new eBook, Homer Simpson for Nonprofits: The Truth about How People Really Think and What It Means for Promoting Your Cause.

This guide covers the basics of behavioral economics and how you can use these principles to craft more effective messages that will win the hearts and minds of your audience.

Some of the ideas:

  • Small, not big - The bigger the scale of what you’re communicating, the smaller the impact on your audience
  • Hopeful, not hopeless - People tend to act on what they believe they can change—If your problem seems intractable, enormous and endless, people won’t be motivated to help
  • Peer pressure still works (Nope, it doesn’t end after high school) - People are more likely to do something if they know other people like them are doing it. 

You can download the eBook here.