Ned's posterous

Orgnition is closing down.

It's with a mixture of disappointment and relief that we close down Orgnition for good today.

Disappointment in that we failed to achieve our original aim of making a significant difference to non-profit organisations like Rotary International but also relief that this difficult chapter is finally over.

There are many reasons why Orgnition did not get off the ground in a meaningful way and I feel that a big part of this was a lack of single-minded dedication to the cause on the part of us, the founding team. Sure there were legal threats and artificial barriers but I think almost all of these could have been overcome with persistence and hard work.

I still believe that there are better ways for non-profit organisations to operate through the use of more intelligent organisational management systems but I also acknowledge that we are not the time to make that change. 

Josh and I will now go our separate ways working on different projects but I hope to one day return to the problem, perhaps when I am a little older, a little wiser and with something more to give.

Existing customers will continue to be serviced for the next couple of months or until they can make other arrangements.

If you wish to get in touch with us about anything feel free to drop us a line at hello@orgnition.com or you can find out what we're working on next at our personal websites: Ned's here and Josh's here.

Ned + Josh.

Orgnition custom web development.

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Orgnition is going through a slight change in direction. We are now focusing our energies on custom web development for the not-for-profit sector.

The change might appear subtle but for us it's a significant shift. 

When we started Orgnition we wanted to make a difference for not-for-profit organisations, initially focusing on Rotary International Clubs and Districts. We could see some of the communication and organisational challenges faced by these groups like Rotary and other not-for-profits and felt that we had something to offer to the community.

We developed a custom organisation management system and while we experienced some initial success we were also restricted by the platform that we had built. Speaking to clients we couldn't always offer the best solution available on the market but rather the best solution we could develop on our platform at the time.

Moving forward Orgnition will be technologically agnostic, working hard to identify the best solutions for the challenges of the not-for-profit sector. We want to select the best tools for the task at hand rather than be tied to a particular range of products or platforms.

We feel that by applying our knowledge of a broad range of web-based applications to the not-for-profit industry we can make a difference to how these organisations function, ultimately making them better able to serve their communities and operate efficiently.

We now rise to the new challenge for Orgnition: building stronger not-for-profit organisations.

Ned+Josh
Orgnition

*image courtesy of AussieGall

Video tutorials

I've just created four new video tutorials that will guide you through the process of setting up your free Orgnition website through to editing content, adding members and inviting them to an event.

We think video tutorials are a great way to quickly demonstrate some of the features of Orgnition but they also give me a chance to put on my radio voice. 

Setup your free club or association website We'll show you how to setup a website for your club or association in less than 2 minutes.
Customising your websites front page Now that you've setup your free website let's start to customise it. In this short tutorial we will show you how to update the front page of your new website including uploading a video and writing a welcome message for visitors.
Adding members to your club database Now that your site is setup and starting to look great let's start to add your clubs members to the database. Once they're added you will be able to send them messages and newsletters, invite them to club events and print out a directory of your club.
Creating events and inviting guests In this tutorial we show you how to create an event for your club. In our case it's a Christmas BBQ. We then invite some of your members to attend and we can then see who is attending, who isn't attending and who is yet to RSVP.

We appreciate any and all feedback on these videos or if there is something you would like to know how to do with Orgnition drop us a line at hello@orgnition.com and we'll get right onto it.

Ned+Josh

Competition

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There are a range of different competitors providing organisation management tools to non-profit organisations or even just service organisations - we're not the first people to tread upon this ground. We entered this market not only because we care about the world that we live in and believe in the work of the organisations we work with but also because we don't think there is enough competition.

"Competition creates better products, alliances create better companies" 
- Brian Graham

Competition drives innovation, it drives companies to work harder to provide better service and better products for all involved. Competition can drive down prices and increase quality - which is exactly what this market place needs right now. 

We welcome competition because it means that we have to work harder to get and retain customers, we have to listen to their needs and address them. We need to find the right solution for their problems before someone else does.

My belief in competition can sometimes cause me great frustration. Frustration at barriers that are thrown up to retain the status quo, to drive down competition. These barriers will only benefit the incumbents who have been able to get by without innovating in their products or service for too long.

Stifling competition leads to poor quality products, bad service and inadequate solutions. 

We're here to change that.

Our advice for non-profit organisations:
1. Seek multiple tenders for your I.T. infrastructure needs. Even if you've selected a supplier already it's always good to get some outside opinions, firstly for reasons of corporate governance and secondly to make sure you're getting the best value for money.

2. Create ways for a range of providers to interact with your organisation. This could be by allowing different providers to securely access your data (with an API for instance) or by creating comparison charts to help your members make their decisions by.

3. Create a clear process for selecting I.T. providers for your organisation. Make these publicly available - transparency leads to better solutions and, again, better corporate governance.

Ned

*image courtesy of Flickr user foto43

Orgnition for Clubs and Districts is live!

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We're proud to say that Orgnition.com has now gone live!

It's been a long time in the making but we now have our solution for Rotary and Lions Clubs and Districts available for public consumption. 

We hope you enjoy using the product and that it can help your Club or District with some of the prolems that you've been facing. We also appreciate your feedback and feature requests, drop us a line and we'll get back to you.

This brings us one step closer to our longer term goal to build stronger non-profit organisations through web-based applications. Thanks for reading and let us know what you think at Orgnition.com.

Cheers,

Ned + Josh
Founders
Orgnition.com - Building stronger non-profits.
p: +61 3 9016 0554

The Four Way Test

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Josh and I had a meeting yesterday with a business woman to get some feedback on our launch plans for Orgnition. She gave us some great angles to work on, is setting up a couple of follow-up meetings and helped us to answer a tricky problem we've been dealing with. But instead of telling us what to do she recited to us the Four Way Test.

Now I'd come across the Four Way Test a long time ago. It's a part of Rotary's guiding principles and is meant to help the organisation and the people within it to make the right decisions - or to at least question the decisions that you're making.

The Four Way Test is:

1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
3. Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

I think it's a good thought process to go through when making tough decisions. For us the last line was what helped us make up our minds, we're pressing forward with something that passes the four way test and feeling better about the decision.

In the meantime we're still waiting to hear back from Rotary International themselves to resolve this trademark issue...

Ned

*image courtesy of Flickr user "23045224@N04"

Orgnition screencast

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We're getting closer and closer to launching the next version of Orgnition. While we ramp up we've taken down our website at Orgnition.com and put in a signup form. In the meantime however we're still out there talking to as many potential customers as possible, particularly larger groups who we would like to see as partners in the future. The problem for us has been how to demonstrate the product over distance before our demonstration version is ready - this is where the screencast comes in.

<p>Demonstration from Ned Dwyer on Vimeo.</p>

I created this screencast over the course of most of Friday. I think it does the job in getting across what we're doing at Orgnition in less than 5 minutes for early stage customers and potential partners. It was also a great learning experience for me so that we can have an A quality screencast when we launch on our front page as well as tutorials for getting the most out of Orgnition.

So how did we do it?

The first thing I did was take myself through a tour of the product. I talked myself through what the front page looked like then each of the features of the admin section. As I went I noticed little things I needed to add to this demonstration version like more content on the front page, a great looking picture or events in the calendar so I added these in.

Then I wrote out a script to try to get as much information into the screencast in a short amount of time. The plan was to record the script first and then do the actions in time to it while I recorded the screen. This worked really well and is how I'll do it in the future.

To record the audio I used the free program <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/tutorials">Audacity</a>. It's really easy to use and available for both Windows and Mac computers. I borrowed a really basic microphone off of a friend as well though next time I think I'll use a headset that I plan to buy for use with Skype.

Getting the video was a little trickier and I played around with a few different programs before I settled on Screenium. It's not free but it's really easy to use. I could have recorded in a lot higher quality than I did and will do that next time but the whole process was really painless, especially compared to other programs that I tried along the way. Unfortunately it's only available for the Mac. If you've got a Windows machine I hear great things about Camtasia.

OK so now you've got your audio track which you've edited and it sounds really great. You've also got a video track which isn't in perfect synch with your audio yet but it's a pretty good start. For me this was where I jumped into my video editing application, on the Mac this was iMovie - again, it's just so easy to use. I imported the audio file and then overlaid the video file. As I went along and noticed the video was a little out of synch I either extended certain sections by creating extended "stills" images or cut out pieces that were not relevant.

Watch the movie again. You'll notice at certain points the cursor moves across the screen instantly, that's where I've done a quick edit. At the end of the day it let me get a demonstration to a partner within about 12 hours of being asked and now I've got one to show to other people.

<p>Demonstration from Ned Dwyer on Vimeo.</p>

The final step was to upload the file to Vimeo. This is one of the best video sites around for professional quality video sharing. It's free, looks great and is easy to use. I also created a new page on our site for people to look at the video and enter in their contact details so we can continue to build our database.

If you follow these instructions and make your own video I'd love to see it in the comments, please post away!

Ned

*image courtesy of flickr user "pagedooley"

Orgnition in one sentence

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I've been trying to come up with a succinct way to explain Orgnition, a tagline that conveys what it is we're trying to achieve, which cuts through our copy to the core of our business. I'm almost happy with the elevator pitch but finding that one line is a fair bit harder. 

The elevator pitch goes a little like this:

"Orgnition makes not-for-profit organisations more efficient. We've built a web-application which makes it easier for them to organise and communicate with their staff, members and donors. Orgnition helps these organisations to manage and motivate these groups whilst measuring engagement. We do this through a range of tools including content management systems, customer relationship management, project management and collaboration."

I had been using the line "Making not-for-profits more efficient" but looking at it now I'm just not happy with it. It seems to suggest that these organisations are inefficient which, while true for some, is not generally the case. 

I was also a fan of "Bringing not-for-profits together". It comes with two separate readings:
1. We want to bring together large member based organisations, help with their internal systems.
2. We want to bring these organisations together, become an intra-connector.

Unfortunately I think it's duplicity rules it out, it could be confusing. We're also not going to be the best at connecting different not-for-profit organisations together when we launch, that's going to take time.

Finally I liked "Building stronger not-for-profits". It's bold whilst also being nice and succinct and I think it captures our overall vision for Orgnition.

Talking about Orgnition face to face with people is one thing, getting the message across in a single line, a logo and a few key points on a website is another story entirely. It's not easy to distill our message down to a few key words that can be taken at face value.

If you've got some ideas or input it would be much appreciated. Either post a comment below or drop me a line via email at ned@orgnition.com

Ned
Orgnition.com

*image courtesy of Flickr user "generated"

Measuring Not-For-Profit Efficiency

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I've been researching methods of measuring not-for-profit efficiency lately. Essentially I want to know if it's possible to determine how effective an organisation in effecting change. How do you work out which is the best organisation to donate to; how do you know your money will get through to the people you're trying to help?

In doing this I've identified two large organisations with two different approaches.

Firstly Charity Navigator. This US based company evaluate not-for-profit organisations based on their financial metrics. 

They evaluate the current position of the company, how effective they are at raising and distributing donations and what percentage of their revenue is spent on administration. They also look at the organisations capacity for growth, how the organisation might deal with additional revenue.

The benefit of Charity Navigator's approach is that the organisations involved do not incur any additional reporting or administration burdens in order to participate: the ratings are based on information gathered from standard federal tax filings. The down side is that the financial tables only show a part of the picture for these organisations and these have the potential to be manipulated through the use of creative accounting practices.

GiveWell on the other hand focus not only on financial metrics of not-for-profits but also look at the real world outcomes of their programs. It's not sufficient to simply have a strong revenue to administrative costs ratio, these organisations need to show that they are the best at delivering these programs and that they effect real change. They pose the question of "how much more will my donation do?" rather than "how much of my donation gets through?".

The main problem with GiveWell is that to get this data they research not-for-profit organisations around the world one by one, requesting detailed information about program effiencies. This data is important but it also places a large administrative burden on already struggling organisations. If the not-for-profit fails to respond to their requests for proof of their efficacy then they automatically receive a zero-star rating, effectively branding them as inefficient and not worthy of further donations.

I think there are better ways to measure the benefits of not-for-profit organisations, highlight the ones who are doing amazing work and out those who are operating badly. The current systems aren't working but they're certainly better than nothing. It's about striking a balance between accurate, standardised reporting and prohibitively expensive reporting requirements.

We're hoping that Orgnition will play a role in this in the not too distant future. Watch this space.

Ned 

Orgnition.com

*image courtesy of Flickr user "29233640@N07"

Rotary International Trademark Licensing

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In my last past I mentioned the takedown notice that we received from Rotary International about our use of their trademarks "Rotary" and the "Rotary Emblem" at Orgnition.com, which we consider fair use. Shortly afterwards I received an email back from Rotary International asking me to describe in further detail what "product or service" Orgnition provides as well as giving me some insight into their licensing terms and conditions.

Their request for more information about what Orgnition suggests that this is a standard reply to all infringers and that they haven't looked at our site in detail. The corresponding information about their licensing terms and conditions seemed to relate more to people selling hats and pins with their trademark on it than to a software as a service company like ours. 

This highlights our need for a close working relationship with Rotary International and all of the companies that we intend to work with to ensure that we're working together rather than against each others interests. From here we hope to continue the conversation, letting them in on some of our more ambitious plans and hopefully gain their support. 

We really think we can make a difference for Rotary International and not for profit organisations like it, these are just the first steps in a long process.

Ned & Josh
Orgnition.com

*image courtesy of Flickr user "Spigoo"