So you’ve just completed implementation on a database for your organization or inherited one that your organization has used, to some extent, for decades. Now what? Well, whether you’re starting with a clean slate or trying to breathe new life back into your system, it’s time to step back and think about a vision for your database. This two-part series from our very own Abby Clavin will help you learn how you can craft that vision and support it across your organization.
Do you work at an organization that has a strong vision – one that inspires and motivates staff and stakeholders? If you’re like most non-profit professionals, the likely answer is “yes!” Now let me ask you this – do you have a vision of how you’re going to use your database? [crickets]
Back to the Mission
In the non-profit world, we live and breathe into our organizational visions and missions on a daily basis. But when it comes to our databases, a lot of us find ourselves juggling multiple responsibilities, scrambling to keep up with database management, or simply not knowing how best to leverage the tool we’ve just invested enormous amounts of time and money into developing. So, rather than it adding value and contributing to the mission, it feels like a drain on time and resources or, even worse, an anchor around your neck.
Your organization’s vision for how you’ll leverage your database should be rooted in your organization’s overall vision and mission. After all, your database ought to be a tool to monitor and enhance mission achievement, not just a tool for tracking and reporting. What does your organization hope to accomplish and how might your database support you in that endeavor? Look for ways in which you can leverage your data and your database’s capabilities to inform your decisions, plans, improvements, and strategies. How can your data and database help you raise more money, grow your volunteer base, better manage your programs, etc.? Don’t be afraid to think BIG. Your vision should be ambitious and representative of an ideal state.
Examples
Here are a few examples of database visions.
Example One: Let’s say you work for an organization that works to connect immigrant families to local resources (material goods, housing assistance, etc.) You recently adopted a database called CharityTracker to, among many things, manage your referrals to and from service partners. The vision for your database might look something like this:
CharityTracker will be a tool for our organization to connect with referral partners in real time, minimizing wait times for clients and allowing for a unified engagement experience.
This makes clear how you want to use the database to add value to your work. Let’s look at a couple more examples:
Example Two: Your organization provides rehabilitative services to children affected by war in multiple countries. As a newcomer to the organization, you’ve inherited an Apricot platform that provides critical program-level data to support your fundraising efforts. The vision for your database might be:
Apricot will be a tool for our organization to create a compelling narrative, supported by data, to raise resources to enhance our rehabilitative programs throughout the world.
Again, the vision statement describes how your organization will be stronger as a result of the ways you’ve used data and your database.
Example Three: You work for an organization that provides financial education in low-income communities. You’ve just completed a lengthy implementation process for an instance of Salesforce in which financial coaches will enter information related to clients’ personal finances and financial goals. You’re database vision might be something as simple as:
Salesforce will be a tool for our organization to track clients’ progress towards their financial goals.
Humble though it may seem, this statement tells us why we invested all this time and energy and will remind us how we want to use our data.
Keep in Mind
There are a few things to keep in mind when creating your vision statement for your database. Not surprisingly, these same rules guide the creation of organizational vision statements. First, it should be inspirational. You’ll likely encounter teammates that aren’t as thrilled to implement a new database as you are. They may not understand what it is or why it’s important. Your vision is what you’re going to rally those teammates around as you encourage them to invest their time and energy into learning and using the database. When your staff, Board, and other stakeholders read this vision, they should recognize what’s in it for them – how this database will contribute to the results they care most about. Second, your vision should be clear. Anyone that reads your vision statement should understand what your database is being used for. Finally, your vision should be concise. A wordy, nondescript summary of a database does not make for an effective rallying cry!
Setting Goals
Once your vision is in place, you can begin to set goals for how and when you’ll implement and leverage your database. These goals can be related to who utilizes the database and how and how often, which processes the database replaces or enhances, how much time is saved by using the database, how many reports are utilized in which ways, etc. Now, I won’t go into too much detail about goal setting (you can read all about it in previous posts), but remember that goals exist to help you and your team better understand how it is you’ll eventually achieve your vision. Keep in mind that your goals should be bold (again, think BIG), measurable, and have a clear finish line. A goal for the first aforementioned scenarios might be:
By the end of the fiscal year, 95% of referral agencies will be leveraging CharityTracker to manage their referrals.
By the end of 2020, 80% of fundraising messages will include recent program data to support our messages.
In 2019, coaches will review progress data with clients monthly and with supervisors quarterly.
Getting team members invested in the vision through tangible goals will help drive adoption and take your database from simply a black hole into which they enter data to a tool that team members and leadership value and rely on to make data-driven decisions.
The Bottom Line
Whether you’ve just implemented a new database or have recently been tasked with managing an existing one, setting a vision is critical to its success. Not only will a vision motivate your team to actively utilize the database on a day-to-day basis, but it will also likely result in greater return of the time, effort, and financial resources invested to implement and maintain the database.
Stayed tuned for the next post for ways to drive your vision.