Blue Paper: Managing Your Contacts: The Business of Personal Relationships
Editor's note: We asked Batchbook customer Katy Killilea, who uses Batchbook to help organize contacts for her congregation, to help write this paper since we have so many different faith-based organizations using Batchbook. We hope you find it useful -- please feel free to share it with others!
Like the members of a faith community, contact management requires care and nurturing. The information we need is in continuous flux and our tools should make dealing with that flux simpler. With a system that fits your group’s needs, managing the flow of information will not be arduous but instead liberating. When the information you need is updated and easy to find, your mind is less cluttered, mistakes are less likely, and you can grow with confidence.
Abstract
Community building is a top priority for any healthy, thriving congregation. A church, mosque, synagogue—any house of worship—must nourish connections and manage relationships gracefully. Today’s lively congregation is likely to change and grow more rapidly than its already spread-thin staff. Easy-to-use tools are a necessity. The right tools make communications and community building simpler, and help Church 2.0 flourish.
Who should read this
Administrators, development officers, ministers, rabbis, membership coordinators, and anyone else interested in helping their congregation grow and thrive.
More Than a Mailing List
You’re not alone. Many growing non-profits rely on old school databases or Excel spreadsheets to track addresses, member involvement, and donor history. A new level of contact management allows you to organize all of this information and nurture relationships as well. Whether your contacts are congregants, violinists, paper towel vendors, or staff members, a good system makes it easy to track people, their needs, their skills, as well as their addresses.
What will help your congregation thrive? When you’re selecting a contact management system, you will notice there are many systems available, and they offer a mind-boggling variety of features. Before making your choice, it will be helpful to list your group’s specific needs.
Think big! The new generation of contact management can take you way beyond printing stickers for your newsletter. Some things you might wish your contact management system would do:
- Organize contact information in one place
- Make information accessible to multiple staff people
- Allow for temporary sharing of selected information with volunteers
- Access information from a smartphone
- Track communications between your office and your congregants
- Send e-mail newsletters or direct mail
- Create call lists for committees and volunteers
- Create customized lists and reports related to fundraising goals
Choosing a System
Every organization has different priorities and needs. This list of considerations can help you determine what’s most important in yours.
- Usability
When choosing a new system, stop to ask, “How difficult will this change be?” Be frank. However appealing the graphics, bells, and buttons are, if a system isn’t easy, it won’t last. It’s unlikely you’ll have time for lengthy and frequent consultations with an owner’s manual or Dummies guide. The best way to determine usability is to dig in and try it. Is it intuitive? Is the format clear and are the features you need easy to find?
Batchbook is set up so you can jump right in. Play around with a Batchbook account free for 30 Days. See what you can do just by fiddling around. Want instruction? Take a look at online instructions or view a webinar. Think you’ll need more guidance after you sign up? New customers are offered one-on-one consultation with a Batchbook specialist whose chief desire is to get you up to speed. We love our non-profit customers and as such, are happy to provide them with a free upgrade on all paid plans.
- Customization
The data you collect, how you use it, and how you like your screen to look are unique to your congregation’s situation. Freedom to customize can include adding your own colors and graphics to the system, rearranging the layout of a page, or changing the label of a field (for example, a church might choose to name a field “annual pledge” where a salesperson would prefer “contract value.”)
You might also need to customize who can see what. Work in many churches is carried out by an always-changing array of committee volunteers. Customization could allow a volunteer to have temporary access to administrator-controlled information or for a new hire to get the phone numbers she needs without asking someone else to look them up.
Batchbook makes customization easy. SuperTags, our system for adding customized fields, makes it simple. An additional feat of flexibility: Batchbook allows administrators to grant (and take away!) access to specified records while keeping other records private.
- Security of information
Security issues may arise whether you store information on the hard drive of your computer (desktop application) or use an online service product (software as service.) Your personal comfort level with these options should determine what system you choose. Each of these is described below:
Local application: pay once, get it in a box (or download to your desktop from the Internet) and install on your computer. If you use this kind of software, keep your anti-virus software current, back up your data frequently and keep the back-ups somewhere other than on your computer (especially if you’re using a laptop, a high risk for loss or theft.) If data is not backed up regularly and in more than one place, another real risk is total information loss. Examples of this software include ACT, Excel, Outlook, and Access.
Software as a Service: pay a subscription fee, access and use it over the Internet. It is available at any time from any computer that has access to the Internet and is operated by a person with permissions and a password. The company hosting the product is responsible for the security of your data. If you choose this kind of software, check up on the host company’s security policies: is it reputable? How often do they back up data? How quickly can they retrieve a back-up if needed?
Batchbook runs a multiple server environment, ensuring your data is always backed up. Our servers are hosted and managed by RackSpace, a recognized leader in the industry. RackSpace has a 0-downtime network and data center. Batchbook runs real time backups of your data to minimize any loss of data. All interactions with your data are over a secure connection, and you have complete control over who can access your data.
- Mobility
In terms of mobility, online systems have a considerable advantage. They can be used from any computer with Internet access. Many can also be accessed via iPhone, Blackberry and other mobile devices. If you’re using local application software, make sure it can sync with your mobile device, either directly or through an application like Outlook. If you’re using an online system, see if it has a mobile-ready version that will be easy for you to use.
Batchbook offers a version designed for the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and iPhone. This version is optimized for your mobile device, so it’s easy to use and intelligently designed. We also offer a free, fully-featured iPhone app you can download from the iTunes App Store.
- Communication Records
Simple things can matter so much, especially in times of great stress or celebration: who said what to whom and when? As you may have experienced, leak-proof memories and/or good records can make or break our relationships. Questions to consider: How will communications with my contacts be stored? How much of this can be done automatically?
Batchbook stores the email messages you send to each of your contacts, and their replies, in an easy to find format attached to that contact’s record. Phone calls and in-person conversations are easy to log as well, and the screen’s layout encourages you to note the times and contents of your communications.
This introduction to contact management is just the beginning. As you become more familiar with what contact management can do for your congregation, we hope you’ll explore Batchbook’s features. Designed for the world’s fastest growing small businesses, Batchbook’s forward-looking features can benefit your growing church or house of worship just as well. May these tips serve as a guide to take you to new relationship management heights!
