What we’re reading, week of 9/22

From 1cent Thoughts on NPTech…
Evolution of an accidental techie
1cent revisits the nuances and complications of being an IT staffer for a nonprofit, and the frequent lack of strategic thinking around that role. “Each day we learn more about our jobs, we develop new skills and refine old ones. We improve the way our org works, we get new tools and our jobs mature. But do we ever take the time to make sure our org will be able to support itself when you leave?”

From Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology…
SaaS vs. Open Source
Michelle Murrain discusses the sometimes conflicting nature of the relationship between SaaS vendors and the open platforms upon which their offerings are built. “SaaS vendors are taking good advantage of open source software, and, in many situations, not giving a whole lot back.”

From onLine…
Mobility is Moving In
Matt Blasi writes about the potential for mobile technology in advocacy and fundraising. This is something we’ve discussed before as an upcoming trend, but we’re wondering – exactly how prevalent is mobile tech in organizations’ current tech strategy?

What we’re reading, week of 6/16

More on the openness issue…
A “Cascade” of Integration News by Tate Hausman. Tate responds and refers to Allen’s post.
Convio is building CRM for the rest of us by Judi Sohn. Judi touches upon an issue we mentioned earlier today – “Guess what, not every nonprofit has a developer down the hall. Even organizations twice our size (which are still pretty small) glaze over in fear when you start talking about custom development. They just want to save the world, they don’t want to program it.”

From A Small Change…
Growing your Existing Donor Base
jason Dick offers up seven solid ideas for building a bigger donor base. particularly interesting in the second suggestion, “Ask your faithful donors if they could introduce you to some of their friends.” This is, of course, where social networking comes in. Philip King of Artez has a great presentation on the effect of social “sneezers” that has recently been discussed in greater depth on GenerationYGive. Check it out!

From PNN Online…
Recession Proof Fundraising
This piece is a few months old, but still an excellent read. Marc Pitman outlines the three worst things fundraisers can do in a recession (spend less on fundraising, become pessimistic, apologize when they’re asking), and offers some suggestions for avoiding those pitfalls. One thing to consider: does charitable giving operate under the same principles as consumer spending in the first place? Is a recession as big a threat to fundraising as everyone’s worried about?

Un-”lock”ing vendor relationships

Allen Benamer has a great post up right now about open platforms, APIs, and free fundraising software – and how all of the above are changing the relationships vendors have with the organizations they serve. Allen was thoughtful enough to include a note from an iMIS user expressing confusion over the big deal about MPower. “Why re-invent the wheel when sophisticated software already is in use?” asks our user. Allen remarks:

We don’t accept vendor lock-in in many aspects of our daily life and we shouldn’t accept it at the very heart of nonprofit line of business applications, fundraising tools. It’s a fundamental obligation on the part of IT directors to constantly push for openness of architecture in both hardware and software purchases. This doesn’t necessarily mean you stop buying Microsoft. Instead, you help foster a marketplace where Microsoft feels COMPELLED to compete with open source vendors to provide you with the best bang for your buck. Notice the quick number of revisions to Internet Explorer the minute Firefox hit 15% of browser market share. And in the same way, this doesn’t mean you move from iMIS or Blackbaud or Convio tomorrow. Hey, over 70% of computers still use IE to browse the Web. However, it’s clear that the changing marketplace and concerted action by nonprofits have engendered a new environment where there is now more choice than ever before. And our choices shouldn’t be dictated to us by vendors who say that their application can’t do what we want it to do.

Indeed, no organization should continue working with a vendor who insists that a product “can’t do what we want it to do.” And certainly, the trend toward open development must be largely responsibile for this shift in mentality among those making buying decisions. ASI, for one, has always worked with a network of solution providers to develop specialized applications that integrate with iMIS – and has always offered their customers a software development kit for building upon iMIS’ capabilities themselves. The surge in open platform and open source offerings for the nonprofit community have made this flexibility a requirement, rather than a differentiating factor. This can only be to the entire community’s benefit, and should be applauded.

It is important, however, not to confuse software’s degree of ”openness” with how well it actually accomplishes the objectives of the organization using it. Allen’s observations about the way the landscape is changing are spot on. What is exciting to consider is how nonprofits and vendors will relate to each other once being “open” is just par for the course. Organizations will consider: What does a mature API look like? Do we have the infrastructure and IT resources in place to wrangle raw code? What are our objectives at this moment, and how does working with an open API get us significantly closer to achieving those? Realistic answers to those questions will be key to making technology decisions long after the spectre of vendor lock-in has disappeared.