Salesforce.com Affinity Group at NTC

Last Updated on Monday, 20 March 2006 11:48 Written by Steve Monday, 20 March 2006 11:48

Just a reminder that I’ll be hosting an informal gathering of Salesforce.com users/implementers at 1 PM on Wednesday at the NTC that I mentioned earlier. Whether you’re a Salesforce.com user, or just interested in what all the buzz is about, come on over and join the conversation.

The meeting is scheduled for 1-3 PM. Check your conference program for the room location. I hope to see you there!

ebase migration to Salesforce.com

Last Updated on Wednesday, 4 March 2009 05:38 Written by Steve Friday, 17 March 2006 10:09

ebase is a desktop database for tracking members and supporters of a nonprofit. It was built back in the day in Filemaker, a database application akin to Microsoft Access. I’ve had the pleasure of doing two ebase migrations to Salesforce.com, and what follows is a quick list of my thoughts on the matter. If you have ebase (1.x), and want to move to Salesforce.com, hopefully this will be helpful:

I first set up an Access database, as I find it pretty easy/quick to work with.

Ebase has a table called names. Each row in the table is a household of up to two people. Contact information is on this row. There are lots of fields in the table (200+) just find the ones you care about.

Export the names table to excel, and import it to access. You now have a table with one row per household. Grab all the fields and export it to excel, then import it to salesforce.com with the Sforce Data Loader, mapping only the household fields to the household object in salesforce.com. This next step is importnatReimport the

Use the names table id field as a unique identifier for the household. When you migrate, you’ll have to break the two contacts on the one record in the names table into two. Make sure each of them has the household id (you’ll want that to associate them with the household later) and give them each a unique contact id.

Ebase has a table called payments. This is a list of all membership payments and gift payments related to the member/donor in the

Membership migration

Find all the eligible membership payments
* query for all membership record type
* drop out anything weird, like monthly payments

Get the last membership payment for each Contact
* run a contact role opp report, only show primary roles, get opp id, contact id, account id
* drop out previous payments

Create new membership opps 1 year out from Last Opp
* new name with new year
* set stage to some form of open
* set record type correctly

Create contact roles
* use result from import

Wild Salmon

Last Updated on Friday, 17 March 2006 09:53 Written by Steve Friday, 17 March 2006 09:52

Tonight, during dinner, I was thinking about the panel discussion I’m going to be a part of the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Seattle on Thursday. I had the pleasure tonight of broiling one and a half pounds of line caught Columbia river King salmon, and serving it with sauteed kale and cannelini beans, seasoned with bacon. If you haven’t had fresh, wild, Pacific salmon, you don’t know what you’re missing. Native North Americans in this area supplied a great percentage of their daily calories with salmon–fresh, smoked, dried. I have to assume that made them pretty content. At least until we got here.

What does salmon have to do with my panel discussion?

I’m currently building a CRM system with Friends of Wild Salmon up on the Skena river in northern British Columbia. We’re using Salesforce.com to help them in their efforts to keep open pen farming of Atlantic salmon out of their rivers. Open pen farming has been shown to lead to the destruction of native fish populations. If the pens come in, the salmon and steelhead will die out. It’s pretty much that simple.

I love salmon, but the fish aren’t the most interesting part of this project. the people who oppose these fish farms aren’t environmentalists. Well, some are. And others are sports fishermen who fly in from the US, Japan, and elsewhere. Others are commercial fishermen who make a living off the salmon catch. Some are Native North Americans, who believe that the salmon and their epic life journey is worth saving because it is nature, and nature is sacred. Others are fishing guides and lodge owners who get hired by fishing tourists. The diversity of support is fascinating, and makes Friends of Wild Salmon the broadest-based advocacy group I’ve had the pleasure to work with.

But it also makes it hard. When they talk to their supporters, they have to be careful. If you talk to a commercial fisherman about the sacred nature of the fish, you might not get very far. If you talk to a sport angler about the importance of the fish to the local economy, it may not resonate. If you talk to Native North Americans about the pleasure of a fly fishing expedition, you’ll likely not connect.

So we’ve worked with them in great depth on identifying the “audiences” their supporters fall into and honing the message for each audience. We’ve helped them implement a beautiful website and email newsletter tool that speaks to these audiences. And now I’m building them a database that allows them to keep track of their donors and supporters by the audience they are a part of. It’s very exciting as we’re helping them embed their communications strategy all the way through the tools they will use to implement it.

In my presentation at the panel discussion, I’ll be talking about this project and how strategy and technology come together to help Friends of Wild Salmon build relationships with it’s diverse supporters, all with the goal of keeping these amazing fish around for another millennium or two.