Julie Gonzalez, Consulting Project Coordinator, Blackbaud, Inc.

Both nonprofits and for-profits are expected to provide value to their investors and donors. If a for-profit organization does not do this, the market puts it out of business. If a nonprofit does not do this, the market does not fund it. Donors today think it’s important to know how much nonprofits spend to raise money. Attend this pre-conference workshop to take a donor’s perspective and explore what ROI means for your organization. Attendees will break into discussion groups to address key questions many donors ask such as, ‘‘What was accomplished with my donation?’’ and ‘‘How much was spent on getting my money?’’.

Bill Connors, CFRE, Database Administrator and Independent Consultant, Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation

The Raiser’s Edge has dozens and dozens of reports, but no organization should run all of them, probably not even most of them.  In fact, there are so many reports, that many users get overwhelmed with all the choices and just resort to queries and exports.  But there are many terrific reports!  So which of the many reports should you run?  What reports are most commonly run by other organizations?  This session is a combined discussion of business procedures and Raiser’s  Edge report parameters.  We’ll not just talk about the reports but the business rationale and purposes of using them.  We’ll also talk about the most important and relevant parameters to the specific reports recommended—with the time afforded by this pre-conference session, we will have the opportunity to get into the report details and discuss the important nuances that make Reports so powerful.  We’ll talk about the frequency and scheduling to run them.  Just as importantly, we’ll talk about the business procedures such as data entry protocols and management decision-making necessary to make reports meaningful and accurate. Finally, we’ll discuss and give examples for creating policy and procedure documentation for reports.  Rest assured this isn’t a PowerPoint session but one focused on demonstrating and the software itself.  The session certainly invites participant suggestions, but rest assured the presenter has a full presentation of recommendations based on 14 years of use and consulting on The Raiser’s Edge.