I remember, some years back, an old boss of mine encouraged me to set up a user group for the database.

“No, no,” I said, “we don’t need one of those.” How wrong I was.Continue reading→

So, you need a database. Everyone tells you, you do. You think you do and, in truth, if you are maintaining a number of contacts as part of a fundraising or communications programme, you probably do.

So, it’s easy eh? Continue reading→

Given how much investment is made in technology, including CRM systems, it is amazing how many times I have heard, during my working life, senior management propose ditching ‘apparently’ troubled solutions without ever considering the facts.

It is astonishing, especially considering the current climate, to hear this sort of reasoning bandied around at senior levels. Continue reading→

You do. Spreadsheets are great for sorting data, analyzing, formulas etc, but as a source of storing re-usable data they are very limited. This gets magnified if you take the rest of the organisation into account.

If you work for an organisation with more than one employee and one of the key requirements is to contact people, whether it be for marketing, fundraising, events, campaigns and so on, then keeping contacts, or information on contacts, to yourself benefits no-one.Continue reading→