WNY Executive Director’s Network: No Break for Idealware Seminar this Spring

Idealware: Helping Nonprofits Make Smart Software Decisions

March 2014

Upcoming Idealware Training

Students around the country are counting the days until spring break--and summer vacation--but not us. At Idealware, we're ramping up our training calendar. Spring break is too crowded and noisy, summer still a long way off. Leave the tropics to the college students, crank up the heat at your office, and join one of our upcoming seminars. (If you truly can't stand this stubborn winter and have already fled south to wait it out, remember that you can participate in our online seminars from anywhere with an internet connection.)

In March, we’re offering all sorts of different training models to match your needs. Mastering Your Mix: A Practical Approach to Integrated Communications is a five-week course designed to make your communications mix powerful and effective, and The Private Foundation’s Grants Management Toolkit will save your foundation time and energy in the system-selection process.

Have a little less time to work with? We’re also offering a 90-minute session on email fundraising, and a two-part course on getting your office infrastructure into shape.

Remember, we always offer recorded seminars atidealware.org/online-training, and all of our live sessions are also recorded, so you can listen to them at your own convenience. Read a little more about what we have to offer below, and make this spring break your most educational yet.

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New Course: Mastering Your Mix: A Practical Approach to Integrated Communications

March 19 to April 16Between more traditional channels of communications like direct mail, email, and newsletters, and all the new channels you’ve adopted—like social media, multimedia, and blogs—there’s a lot to think about when it comes to your organization’s messaging. How do you create and maintain a consistent voice across so many channels? How do you coordinate your various communications to work in tandem rather than competing, engaging constituents and inspiring them to take action rather than confusing, overwhelming, or annoying them?

This brand new course is the perfect complement to our popular publication, A Practical Guide to Integrated Communications: A Workbook for Nonprofits. Over five weeks, we will help you to understand your communications. We'llexplore their roles in your messaging, and assess your current state of effectiveness before walking you through the planning, scheduling, and implementation stages of creating a communications plan. Along the way, you’ll learn to measure the response you’re getting to adapt your techniques for better results, and ultimately learn to holistically integrate your communications.
Five Wednesdays, 1:00 - 2:30 PM EST, $200.
Read More or Register>>>

New Course: The Private Foundation's Grants Management Toolkit

April 10 to May 8As a grantmaker, you work most efficiently when you have a comprehensive overview of your applications, reviewers, requirements, and payments. The right grants management system can save you time by pulling all of this tracking together in a single place, but the marketplace has never been more varied and complex.

Researching all of the options, scheduling demos, and identifying your needs can take months. The Private Foundation’s Grants Management Toolkit can expedite the core elements of the process to a few short weeks. In this brand new series, Idealware’s grants management software experts will explore the available options for accepting and reviewing applications and tracking grants throughout their life cycles, take a look at what grants management systems do, and compare the strengths and weakness of the packages available for United States-based foundations. Then we’ll recommend packages that might work for your foundation based on our highly regarded research.
Classes April 10 and May 8 from 1:00 – 2:30 PM EST, and nine system demos on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays fromApril 15 to May 1 at 1:00 – 2:00 EST, $400.
Read More or Register>>>

Single Seminars

Thursday, March 20 - Getting Started with Email FundraisingFundraising via email requires an understanding of a number of different elements--designing an email campaign, writing an email, avoiding spam filters, broadcast email tools, online donation tools, and more. We'll walk through what you'll need to know to design your own email fundraising campaign.
1:00 - 2:30 PM EST, $40.00.
Read More or Register>>>

Thursdays, March 27 & April 3 - Covering Your Bases: Two Part Infrastructure CourseIn this two-part seminar, we'll cover the important pieces that keep your office up and running (and no, we don't mean coffee). In the first session, we'll look at how you can make the most of your hardware infrastructure, including computers, printers, phones, networking, and more. In the second, we'll go through what software you need the most to support your organization, including productivity software, email, scheduling, and collaboration tools. Throughout, we'll discuss how you can keep all this infrastructure secure, share and backup files, and save money and time.
Two Thursdays, 1:00 - 2:30 PM EST, $65.00.
Read More or Register>>>

Thursday, April 17 - Measuring Your Mission: Using Data to Track Organizational Health and SuccessAs a leader of your organization, you'd probably like to see clear metrics to track your programs, outreach efforts, and the financial health of your organization. It can be daunting to define the right measures though -- where do you even start? Based on NTEN's and Idealware's research into what's actually working for nonprofits, we'll talk through what you should think about to define your own data-based metrics strategy, and hear from organizations who have successfully implemented their own strategies.
1:00 - 2:30 PM EST, $40.00.
Read More or Register>>>

Check out our website for even more great online training:www.idealware.org/online-training

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