Technology Platform Discussion
10/4/2016
Presents
Technology Platform Discussion Candid conservations from adopters of Blackbaud, Bormelkamp, FIMS and Stellar solutions for community foundations
Moderator Dick Myers President Foundation Information Systems
Matt Lewis
Mark Montoya
Our Presenters
Beth Bull
Karen Morabito
1
10/4/2016
Foundation Information Systems (fisys.org) Vendor to community foundations 1985-2000 Consultant to community foundations since 1985 Co-founder of FIMS User Group in 2001 and Blackbaud User Forum 2009 Member of Technology Affinity Group 10+ years Member of FAOG Technology Committee 10+ years
Fiscal And Administrative Offices 2015 Vendor Service Survey (136 community foundations)
Q70 Has your foundation considered replacing your current back office software system with a system from another vendor?
5 years ago 34% 3 years ago 27% Last year 17%
Q71 Would your foundation recommend adoption of your foundation's current back office software to another community foundation?
Yes Maybe No
50% 39% 11%
Q72 Would your foundation be an active participant in non-vendor community foundation user groups?
Yes No
70% 30%
2
10/4/2016
Transitioned from Custom to Blackbaud’s Raisers Edge, Financial Edge, Net Community and Fusion Labs’ GrantedGE
Beth Bull CFO
Exemplary Service
Trusted Partnership
Wise Stewardship of Resources
3
10/4/2016
CONSTITUENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Product By: Blackbaud CFT Utilization: • Constituent/Organization Records Management • Gift Receipt and Processing • Action Tracking • Event Registrations Summary Stats: 237K Constituents 377K Gifts 20K Actions 300 Events w/38K Participants
• • • •
ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING Product By: Blackbaud CFT Utilization: • General Ledger, Balance Sheet, Journal Entries, Allocation Management • Advanced Budget Management (add-on module) • Grants Management and Payment (when integrated with GE) • Fund Management (as projects) • Check Batching and Printing (for AP) • Invoicing (for AR) Summary Stats: • 1616 Projects (i.e. funds) • 7700 Accounts • 3 Million Transactions
GRANTS MANAGEMENT Product By: Fusion Labs CFT Utilization: • Grants Processing/Online Grants Processing • Workflow Tracking • “Complete Integration with Blackbaud” • Integration with Microsoft Reporting Services and Crystal Reports • Multiple Grant Types Available (DAFs, Recurring, Commitments, & Scholarships) Summary Stats: • 65K Grants • 41K Online Grant Requests • 15K Recipients
4
10/4/2016
MULTICHANNEL DIGITAL MARKETING Product By: Blackbaud CFT Utilization: • Website Content Management • Online Account Views for Staff, Board, Committee Members, and Fund Holders • Specialized Community Foundation Parts • Integration with either RE or GE • Fund Information Online for Donors • Gift History (annual or FY) • Grant History (annual or FY) • Fund Statement Online Delivery • Email Campaigns (merged with RE or Excel)
MULTICHANNEL DIGITAL MARKETING Summary Stats: • 1,185 unique visitors in average daily web traffic • 250+ webpages on www.cftexas.org • Highest traffic pages: The Giving Guide • 29% open rate for BBNC e-mails (industry average 25%)
Conclusion: The Grass is Always Greener
5
10/4/2016
Conclusion: The Best Bet, but…
Benefits
Challenges
Questions?
6
10/4/2016
Mark Montoya Vice President of Operations Transitioned from Stellar to Bromelkamp Pearl
Foundation size: asset, # of funds, # of pools, # of donors affiliates, supporting orgs, size of staff, etc? Assets: $130 Million 9 Supporting Organizations 2 Geographic Affiliates Historical systems and lessons learned FIMS Stellar
How did you analyze and compare what the vendors had to offer? Assessment of the Current System and Accounting Processes Staff, Board and Committee involvement Develop Functional Specification for New System Needs Conduct Deep Dive Reviews of Each Prospective System Onsite Assessments conducted. Internal User Feedback Collected Recommendation Made Was there a trusted source that you went to for information? Surveyed Vendor References and Other Community Foundations
7
10/4/2016
What were your motivations for considering a change? We wanted: Ability to expand as CFSA grows Ability to customize based on the needs of CFSA Transparency of our data Quality of vendor’s customer service Staff training Ease of Use
What was your process for evaluating a change? Staff, Board and Committee involvement Assessment of the Current System and Accounting Processes Develop Functional Specification for New System Needs Conduct Deep Dive Reviews of Each Prospective System Onsite Assessments conducted. Internal User Feedback Collected Recommendation Made
How did you analyze and compare what the vendors had to offer? Considered Blackbaud, Bromelkamp, MicroEdge and Stellar Was there a trusted source that you referred to for information? Surveyed Vendor References and Other Community Foundations
How long did the transition take? 5-6 Months selection process Signed contract with Bromelkamp in January 2012 Launched system in April 2012, fully converted by September 2013 How did you get staff on-board and up to speed? How did they feel about change?
Needs assessment and reviewed internal processes. Was it a slow transition or did you move quickly?
8
10/4/2016
What were some surprises (good or bad) with the software? Some of the major vendors did not provide adequate information and did not fare well during presentations to board and staff. If you could have done the transition differently, what would that have looked like?
Evaluate staff structure of the vendor and ensure that it is capable of achieving all that is promised. We have found that the support team at Bromelkamp well helpful is very dependent on the Founder to make modifications to the product. Because of time constraints changes to the database can take time. If you could time-travel back in time and give your former self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Ensure that you have your board and staff involved through the entire process.
Benefits Ability to expand as CFSA grows Ability to customize based on the needs of CFSA Transparency of our data Ease of Use Quality of vendor’s customer service Staff training Challenges Not sure if the employee efficiencies will be realized
Questions?
9
10/4/2016
Karen Morabito Director of Information Management On FIMS for ?? years
Fund Statements Gifts & Grants Recommendations
Donor Portal DonorFirst
Letter of Intent Application Reviewer Awards Communications
Grants {g}Grants Academic Works
Accounting FIMS
FIMS CRM Salesforce
Accounting Fund Management + fee allocation Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable
Board Portal BoardMax
Board of Directors Board Committees Affiliate Advisory Boards Supporting Organizations
Moves Management Pipeline Donor and PA engagement
30
10
10/4/2016
Modules General Ledger Allocation management Budget management Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable Gifts and Grants Scholarships Constituent management
31
Portal Use Monthly Fund Statement Gift and grant history Grant recommendations Status Sync to FIMS
32
Portal Use College and STO Eligibility Applications Reviewer Panels Awards Export to FIMS
33
11
10/4/2016
Portal Use Moves Management Pipeline Donor and Professional Advisor Engagement Sync to and from FIMS
34
Portal Use ACF Board of Directors Board Committees Affiliate Advisory Boards Supporting Organizations
Stand alone system
35
Benefits
Continued Challenges
12
10/4/2016
Questions?
Matt Lewis President and CEO
Transitioned from FIMS to Stellar
Foundation size: asset, # of funds, # of pools, # of donors affiliates, supporting orgs, size of staff, etc? $115million, 300 funds, 2 investment pools, staff=6 On FIMS since foundation started in 2002 How did you analyze and compare what they had to offer? Compared to other systems used by peers as well as functionality of separate systems (e-commerce, scholarships and grants) Was there a trusted source that you went to for information? Extensive discussion and interviews with peers and vendor events
13
10/4/2016
What were your motivations for considering a change? • We were dissatisfied with: Archaic sign-on procedures for fund holders and back office login limited to number of users Lack of full integration of FIMS CRM functionality Unfriendly grant and scholarship IGAM product E-commerce solution that must be outsourced and manually integrated Donor Central system that was not fully integrated Donor portal login issues Billing based on concurrent users, # of statements stored Hosted FIMS cost user based and more expensive Lack of clear presentation of product roadmap timing and costs
What were your motivations for considering a change? We wanted: Increased efficiencies – fewer points of manual integration Enhance services to donors and nonprofits Establish a platform for growth Fairer pricing
What was your process for evaluating a change? Considered three providers (Blackbaud, Bromelkamp, iPhi) How did you analyze and compare what they had to offer? Internal analysis of future direction of FIMS compared to other products and pricing Was there a trusted source that you referred to for information? Extensive discussion and interviews with peers and vendor events
14
10/4/2016
The future with FIMS would have been a conversion at some point So …………………. “why not bite the bullet and convert to a new system today?
How long did the transition take? Started the conversation with Stellar in summer of 2015 Signed contract in November 2015 Began conversion process and training December 2016 Went live on iPhi 7-1-2016 Still converting other functionality Donor View and e-commerce on 9-1-2016 Online grants to be live by 1-1-2017
How did you get staff on-board and up to speed? How did they feel about change? Web-based training working with an assigned account manager New system and change are always challenging, staff not initially pleased with new system…. At first…. Was it a slow transition or did you move quickly? Moved quickly. In hindsight, might have been better to move more slowly.
15
10/4/2016
What were some surprises (good or bad) with the software? Conversion required greater resources than anticipated Reconciliation and documentation of processes more cumbersome and time consuming than FIMS Should have pushed the vendor for more conversion support and we should have been more willing to pay for more on-site conversion support
If you could have done the transition differently, what would that have looked like? Could has hired a consultant to assist in the vetting process Should have dedicated more resources for conversion Should have sent employees for more face to face training If you could time-travel back in time and give your former self one piece of advice, what would that be? Much of the work comes after initial launch!
Benefits Donor interface is better E-Commerce interface is better Enhanced services to donors and nonprofits Hosted and backed-up solution Substantiation letters, statements, check writing, much better Assigned account manager, quick response Responsive user group input for future enhancements Better Pricing structure (not cheaper!, but fairer)
16
10/4/2016
Continued Challenges Continued implementation of added functionality New Scholarship process will be different than old system Documentation of processes Not sure if the employee efficiencies will be realized
Questions?
Surprise!
51
17
10/4/2016
Engage a neutral third party Build a set of requirements for change: internal, external, business processes, budget and timeline Talk with other foundations who have made a change Create vendor analysis criteria document from requirements for change Select & invite vendors with written RFP Interview and score vendors based on RFP and ability to meet requirements for change Engage a conversation with at least three foundations who have adopted your vendor of choice
Plan
PLAN
PLAN!
Your feedback is important – our quick online evaluation can be completed in 3 minutes or less! Please help us provide the best possible educational programs and services by sharing your feedback with us today by completing the session evaluation.
18
10/4/2016
THANK YOU STAY IN TOUCH WITH PSW
19
Presents
Technology Platform Discussion Candid conservations from adopters of Blackbaud, Bormelkamp, FIMS and Stellar solutions for community foundations
Moderator Dick Myers President Foundation Information Systems
Matt Lewis
Mark Montoya
Our Presenters
Beth Bull
Karen Morabito
1
10/4/2016
Foundation Information Systems (fisys.org) Vendor to community foundations 1985-2000 Consultant to community foundations since 1985 Co-founder of FIMS User Group in 2001 and Blackbaud User Forum 2009 Member of Technology Affinity Group 10+ years Member of FAOG Technology Committee 10+ years
Fiscal And Administrative Offices 2015 Vendor Service Survey (136 community foundations)
Q70 Has your foundation considered replacing your current back office software system with a system from another vendor?
5 years ago 34% 3 years ago 27% Last year 17%
Q71 Would your foundation recommend adoption of your foundation's current back office software to another community foundation?
Yes Maybe No
50% 39% 11%
Q72 Would your foundation be an active participant in non-vendor community foundation user groups?
Yes No
70% 30%
2
10/4/2016
Transitioned from Custom to Blackbaud’s Raisers Edge, Financial Edge, Net Community and Fusion Labs’ GrantedGE
Beth Bull CFO
Exemplary Service
Trusted Partnership
Wise Stewardship of Resources
3
10/4/2016
CONSTITUENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Product By: Blackbaud CFT Utilization: • Constituent/Organization Records Management • Gift Receipt and Processing • Action Tracking • Event Registrations Summary Stats: 237K Constituents 377K Gifts 20K Actions 300 Events w/38K Participants
• • • •
ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING Product By: Blackbaud CFT Utilization: • General Ledger, Balance Sheet, Journal Entries, Allocation Management • Advanced Budget Management (add-on module) • Grants Management and Payment (when integrated with GE) • Fund Management (as projects) • Check Batching and Printing (for AP) • Invoicing (for AR) Summary Stats: • 1616 Projects (i.e. funds) • 7700 Accounts • 3 Million Transactions
GRANTS MANAGEMENT Product By: Fusion Labs CFT Utilization: • Grants Processing/Online Grants Processing • Workflow Tracking • “Complete Integration with Blackbaud” • Integration with Microsoft Reporting Services and Crystal Reports • Multiple Grant Types Available (DAFs, Recurring, Commitments, & Scholarships) Summary Stats: • 65K Grants • 41K Online Grant Requests • 15K Recipients
4
10/4/2016
MULTICHANNEL DIGITAL MARKETING Product By: Blackbaud CFT Utilization: • Website Content Management • Online Account Views for Staff, Board, Committee Members, and Fund Holders • Specialized Community Foundation Parts • Integration with either RE or GE • Fund Information Online for Donors • Gift History (annual or FY) • Grant History (annual or FY) • Fund Statement Online Delivery • Email Campaigns (merged with RE or Excel)
MULTICHANNEL DIGITAL MARKETING Summary Stats: • 1,185 unique visitors in average daily web traffic • 250+ webpages on www.cftexas.org • Highest traffic pages: The Giving Guide • 29% open rate for BBNC e-mails (industry average 25%)
Conclusion: The Grass is Always Greener
5
10/4/2016
Conclusion: The Best Bet, but…
Benefits
Challenges
Questions?
6
10/4/2016
Mark Montoya Vice President of Operations Transitioned from Stellar to Bromelkamp Pearl
Foundation size: asset, # of funds, # of pools, # of donors affiliates, supporting orgs, size of staff, etc? Assets: $130 Million 9 Supporting Organizations 2 Geographic Affiliates Historical systems and lessons learned FIMS Stellar
How did you analyze and compare what the vendors had to offer? Assessment of the Current System and Accounting Processes Staff, Board and Committee involvement Develop Functional Specification for New System Needs Conduct Deep Dive Reviews of Each Prospective System Onsite Assessments conducted. Internal User Feedback Collected Recommendation Made Was there a trusted source that you went to for information? Surveyed Vendor References and Other Community Foundations
7
10/4/2016
What were your motivations for considering a change? We wanted: Ability to expand as CFSA grows Ability to customize based on the needs of CFSA Transparency of our data Quality of vendor’s customer service Staff training Ease of Use
What was your process for evaluating a change? Staff, Board and Committee involvement Assessment of the Current System and Accounting Processes Develop Functional Specification for New System Needs Conduct Deep Dive Reviews of Each Prospective System Onsite Assessments conducted. Internal User Feedback Collected Recommendation Made
How did you analyze and compare what the vendors had to offer? Considered Blackbaud, Bromelkamp, MicroEdge and Stellar Was there a trusted source that you referred to for information? Surveyed Vendor References and Other Community Foundations
How long did the transition take? 5-6 Months selection process Signed contract with Bromelkamp in January 2012 Launched system in April 2012, fully converted by September 2013 How did you get staff on-board and up to speed? How did they feel about change?
Needs assessment and reviewed internal processes. Was it a slow transition or did you move quickly?
8
10/4/2016
What were some surprises (good or bad) with the software? Some of the major vendors did not provide adequate information and did not fare well during presentations to board and staff. If you could have done the transition differently, what would that have looked like?
Evaluate staff structure of the vendor and ensure that it is capable of achieving all that is promised. We have found that the support team at Bromelkamp well helpful is very dependent on the Founder to make modifications to the product. Because of time constraints changes to the database can take time. If you could time-travel back in time and give your former self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Ensure that you have your board and staff involved through the entire process.
Benefits Ability to expand as CFSA grows Ability to customize based on the needs of CFSA Transparency of our data Ease of Use Quality of vendor’s customer service Staff training Challenges Not sure if the employee efficiencies will be realized
Questions?
9
10/4/2016
Karen Morabito Director of Information Management On FIMS for ?? years
Fund Statements Gifts & Grants Recommendations
Donor Portal DonorFirst
Letter of Intent Application Reviewer Awards Communications
Grants {g}Grants Academic Works
Accounting FIMS
FIMS CRM Salesforce
Accounting Fund Management + fee allocation Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable
Board Portal BoardMax
Board of Directors Board Committees Affiliate Advisory Boards Supporting Organizations
Moves Management Pipeline Donor and PA engagement
30
10
10/4/2016
Modules General Ledger Allocation management Budget management Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable Gifts and Grants Scholarships Constituent management
31
Portal Use Monthly Fund Statement Gift and grant history Grant recommendations Status Sync to FIMS
32
Portal Use College and STO Eligibility Applications Reviewer Panels Awards Export to FIMS
33
11
10/4/2016
Portal Use Moves Management Pipeline Donor and Professional Advisor Engagement Sync to and from FIMS
34
Portal Use ACF Board of Directors Board Committees Affiliate Advisory Boards Supporting Organizations
Stand alone system
35
Benefits
Continued Challenges
12
10/4/2016
Questions?
Matt Lewis President and CEO
Transitioned from FIMS to Stellar
Foundation size: asset, # of funds, # of pools, # of donors affiliates, supporting orgs, size of staff, etc? $115million, 300 funds, 2 investment pools, staff=6 On FIMS since foundation started in 2002 How did you analyze and compare what they had to offer? Compared to other systems used by peers as well as functionality of separate systems (e-commerce, scholarships and grants) Was there a trusted source that you went to for information? Extensive discussion and interviews with peers and vendor events
13
10/4/2016
What were your motivations for considering a change? • We were dissatisfied with: Archaic sign-on procedures for fund holders and back office login limited to number of users Lack of full integration of FIMS CRM functionality Unfriendly grant and scholarship IGAM product E-commerce solution that must be outsourced and manually integrated Donor Central system that was not fully integrated Donor portal login issues Billing based on concurrent users, # of statements stored Hosted FIMS cost user based and more expensive Lack of clear presentation of product roadmap timing and costs
What were your motivations for considering a change? We wanted: Increased efficiencies – fewer points of manual integration Enhance services to donors and nonprofits Establish a platform for growth Fairer pricing
What was your process for evaluating a change? Considered three providers (Blackbaud, Bromelkamp, iPhi) How did you analyze and compare what they had to offer? Internal analysis of future direction of FIMS compared to other products and pricing Was there a trusted source that you referred to for information? Extensive discussion and interviews with peers and vendor events
14
10/4/2016
The future with FIMS would have been a conversion at some point So …………………. “why not bite the bullet and convert to a new system today?
How long did the transition take? Started the conversation with Stellar in summer of 2015 Signed contract in November 2015 Began conversion process and training December 2016 Went live on iPhi 7-1-2016 Still converting other functionality Donor View and e-commerce on 9-1-2016 Online grants to be live by 1-1-2017
How did you get staff on-board and up to speed? How did they feel about change? Web-based training working with an assigned account manager New system and change are always challenging, staff not initially pleased with new system…. At first…. Was it a slow transition or did you move quickly? Moved quickly. In hindsight, might have been better to move more slowly.
15
10/4/2016
What were some surprises (good or bad) with the software? Conversion required greater resources than anticipated Reconciliation and documentation of processes more cumbersome and time consuming than FIMS Should have pushed the vendor for more conversion support and we should have been more willing to pay for more on-site conversion support
If you could have done the transition differently, what would that have looked like? Could has hired a consultant to assist in the vetting process Should have dedicated more resources for conversion Should have sent employees for more face to face training If you could time-travel back in time and give your former self one piece of advice, what would that be? Much of the work comes after initial launch!
Benefits Donor interface is better E-Commerce interface is better Enhanced services to donors and nonprofits Hosted and backed-up solution Substantiation letters, statements, check writing, much better Assigned account manager, quick response Responsive user group input for future enhancements Better Pricing structure (not cheaper!, but fairer)
16
10/4/2016
Continued Challenges Continued implementation of added functionality New Scholarship process will be different than old system Documentation of processes Not sure if the employee efficiencies will be realized
Questions?
Surprise!
51
17
10/4/2016
Engage a neutral third party Build a set of requirements for change: internal, external, business processes, budget and timeline Talk with other foundations who have made a change Create vendor analysis criteria document from requirements for change Select & invite vendors with written RFP Interview and score vendors based on RFP and ability to meet requirements for change Engage a conversation with at least three foundations who have adopted your vendor of choice
Plan
PLAN
PLAN!
Your feedback is important – our quick online evaluation can be completed in 3 minutes or less! Please help us provide the best possible educational programs and services by sharing your feedback with us today by completing the session evaluation.
18
10/4/2016
THANK YOU STAY IN TOUCH WITH PSW
19
