Workshop One: Bridging the Gap Between Technology and Marketing

This workshop is led by Allen Nance, president of the Mansell Group.

To start:

• The Internet is as 'hot' as it was ten years ago. In fact, it's 'red hot.'
• Marketing and technology people don't get along.
• In the nonprofit world, people handle both.

Nonprofits need a comprehensive strategy that encompasses technology, fundraising, personnel, and marketing. Often times, nonprofits try to retrofit technology to make it do something it wasn't supposed to do in order to cut costs. But, this can be detrimental. So, how can nonprofits make the most of their technology budgets, however small or large they may be?

Lots of times, technology people spend money on technology that will be used by people not even in the room when the decision was made. That conversation needs to be expanded to include end users, whether they be employees or volunteers. If this doesn't happened and the end users hate the new technology, negative results will ensue. The solution lies in cross-functional teams that make all technology decisions.

The next phase of this whole thing (technology and marketing) will be all about prediction models. What will happen if we send this mailer out? What will happen if we sent 1,000 more emails? What will happen if we targeted these people?